On the 50th anniversary of the “Free Speech Movement”, when Mario Savio jumped onto the car and…

… hm… ignited Ronald Reagan’s bid for the California governorship by poo-pooing the “Filthy Speech Movement”.

Ah, the contradictions of the 1960s.  It was either very political or very apolitical.

And all ended up in the suburbs in the 1970s anyways.  Actually it’s curious to see, but I note that people younger than I are now referring to what used to be considered the 1960s… as the 1970s.  As in overheard about growing up in Humbolt County as home of “Hippies, actual hippies… not people dressing as hippies, but the hippies of the 1970s”….

All very contradictory.  Incidentally, the review for the latest book by Naomi Klein, found in the Portland Mercury, that all she’s asking is to return to energy consumption levels of the 1970s, and hey … those were great times.

Tell that to Jimmy Carter.

In early first term dark musings about how the President would be “conveniently assassinated” if he stepped out of line…

Security Breaches with right wing Security Detail stepping aside.

Yeah, well.  The problem is I’m hard pressed to know what Obama is doing that’s terribly Kennedy-esque.

Simpsons.  Family Guy.  Team Up.
The Simpsons Jumps the Shark.  Again.  Then again, when a Fox cable network showed a marathon of all the Simpsons episodes with Memorial weekend, lists came out from different media sources of key episodes and when they were on.  The lists pretty well stop half way through the run.
When The Critic came over and was on The Simpsons, Matt Groening had his name torn off the program.  To be sure, it was a reasonably good episode.  In following years, the X-Files were on, and 24… the latter you’d think Matt Groening would have political objections to the thing, what with him being a big contributor to In These Times and the like.
The thing depresses me.  Is a South Park team up inevitable?

Wait.

Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s leading Republican opponent says she shouldn’t have helped a Louisiana State University football fan drink upside-down from a beer keg at a recent tailgate party.
Republican Senate candidate Bill Cassidy said people shouldn’t applaud the widely circulated photo of Landrieu holding a spigot to pour beer into a man’s mouth.
Citing his work as a doctor and his role as a parent, the GOP congressman said Wednesday that “keg stands” and other binge-drinking activities should be discouraged and are not “something to celebrate.”
Landrieu, in a tight race for a fourth term, has shrugged off criticism that’s resulted mostly on social media, saying people “need to get a sense of humor.” Tailgating and keg stands, she said, are “just the way we roll” in Louisiana.

Never trust anyone who says “That’s just the way we roll”, particularly when it’s followed by “in geographic designation.”

In Oregon, Monica Wehby’s campaign has cribbed from their benefactor of Karl Rove’s group some campaign material, mostly just demonstrating where the politician’s voting will be.

I was wondering what the “Don’t make the illegal trek northward” jingle that the government is promoting below the border would sound like.  Now I know.

Launched by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as part of the multi-million dollar “Dangers Awareness Campaign,” the agency arranged for a Spanish song to air discouraging families, particularly from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, from sending undocumented children to the U.S. through Mexico.

The “Dangers Awareness Campaign” is the CBP’s “aggressive” outreach effort to “save and protect lives of migrant children.” According to CBP Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske, the families in the Central American countries need to understand the “treacherous” journey to the U.S.

The big song…

The Daily Beast revealed one media campaign is a song titled “La Bestia,” or “The Beast.” Touted to be a “major hit” in Central America, “La Bestia” includes the troubles people might encounter if they migrate to the U.S. from Mexico including kidnapping, murder, rape and robbery.

Lyrics of the song, translated in English, include: “Migrants from everywhere, entrenched along the rail ties. Far away from where they come, further away from where they go. They call her the Beast from the South, this wretched train of death. With the devil in the boiler, whistles, roars, twists and turns.”

The Spanish-language song is reportedly sung by Eddie Ganz featuring a Caribbean beat. The song also features a female voiceover stating how the immigration process is not easy, how children are the future and encouraging families to protect them. The idea behind the song, however, has been credited to Rodolfo Hernandez, creative director of advertising agency Elevation.

According to VICE News, three regional-music stations in El Salvador and Honduras stated they have not heard of the song.

Sounds catchy?

Interesting argument being made for Kansas Democrats, who have dropped their nominee to back the Independent.  The Republicans say they need a replacement.

Kobach argued Thursday that state law required Democrats to provide a new candidate. He gave them a week to come up with a replacement and suggested the ballots might be delayed.
On Friday, Kobach appeared to change course, telling election clerks to mail their overseas ballots now to meet a federal deadline.
Kobach hasn’t dropped his argument that Democrats need a nominee. Instead, he told local election officials to include a notice outlining the ballot dispute and suggesting a different ballot may eventually be necessary.
“You may vote using the ballot accompanying this letter as soon as you receive it, or you may wait to vote until you’ve received further notification from us,” the notice tells overseas voters.
Election officials said they would comply with Kobach’s instructions.
“I redid my ballot to remove Chad Taylor’s name,” said Leavenworth County Clerk Janet Klasinski. “This county election office is mailing its ballots.”
Taylor, a Democrat, withdrew from the race Sept. 3, but Kobach ruled the withdrawal was not properly submitted. The state’s Supreme Court disagreed.

For the sake of siphoning off Republican votes, why not run with Ronald Reagan?

Trying to gauge the exciting Mississippi race pitting Thad Cochran — the surreal favorite of black Democrats — Travis Childers, trying to woo white Republicans…

and the ghost of Chris McDaniels, who… is arguing some precedent that I can’t make heads or tails of to reopen his case.

In a legal brief filed late Thursday, McDaniel noted that Gunn waited 34 days to challenge a 2003 Republican primary loss to incumbent state Rep. Jep Barbour. Gunn won the court challenge and the election, and he became speaker of the 122-member House in early 2012.
However, in McDaniel’s case, a judge said the candidate failed to meet a 20-day deadline to challenge the loss in a multi-county primary. McDaniel started his challenge 41 days after the primary. Judge Hollis McGehee dismissed McDaniel’s lawsuit.
Cochran’s attorneys said in Jones County Circuit Court last month that the Gunn challenge is not relevant to McDaniel’s case because the timing of Gunn’s filing was not argued as an issue in the court case that became known as Barbour v. Gunn.
McDaniel attorneys Mitch Tyner and Steve Thornton wrote Thursday that if the state Supreme Court was wrong in the way it handled Barbour v. Gunn, “then Speaker Gunn could be removed from his office, since this court’s ruling in that case would be void. … Therefore, the Republican Party’s State Executive Committee’s certification of Jep Barbour as the winner would stand.”

You figure that Cochran knows what he’s doing by denying all requests to debates from Childers… which demands for debates aplenty are the last desperate act of the challenger for these things.

One more wild card… the third party… Reform Party (???) Candidate Shawn O’Hara.  Whatever the Reform Party is at this point in time.

Or… Watergate like conspiracy could tip the race?  (Sure.  Watergate.  Though… that case hasn’t much to do with anything.)

Is the world of Major League Soccer so small that the San Jose club feels able to put up a billboard about their team’s new stadium being 665 miles away right next to where the Timbers play?

The strange easy to skip over ritual of politics, and how they get discussed.

Already dogged by an image as an out-of-touch, wealthy insider, her appearance at a field 20 miles outside Des Moines was an effort to reposition her for the coming campaign.