Meet Steve Shepard

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to meet a great artist.
His name is Steve Shepard, and he's from New Orleans.
I met him at the Slotin Folk Art Fesival in Atlanta.

Here are a few examples of his work:






































In these small examples, it's hard to see how detailed these pictures are, but as you can see, Steve Shepard has a political bent to a lot of his work and a great sense of humor.
And he loves Elvis!














You can see more, and purchase some of his work at: Shepart.net

Please do go to his website. Or you can see him in person at the Kentuck Festival of the Arts in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on October 17 and 18. (link)

Stece Shepard is the Official Folk Artist of the Daily Irritant. When you go to his site, tell him the perfesser sent ya!

Being Subversive

From Politicusa.com:

Liberal Subversion: How to Use the Freedom Works Website to Tell Blue Dog Democrats to Support Health Care Reform

Freedom Works has set up a page where concerned Americans can tell Blue Dog Democrats to vote no to President Obama’s heath care plan. The problem is that the message is completely customizable, so with a few minor changes, you and your friends can use Freedom Works to tell the Blue Dogs to support health care reform. Here is how to do it.

Step one is to go to the Action Alert for the Blue Dog Democrats page, which is here. Once on the page the first thing you will notice is the subject line which is editable so change that to read “Vote YES on Obamacare” do not change the word Obamacare as it may be rejected.

Next the editable text box that contains the body of the email remember that only little changes are needed. I changed the following words “dropping” to “increasing” and in the same paragraph “your opposition” to “public approval”.

In the next paragraph the following needs changes,”resistance to a government takeover of healthcare” to for example, “acceptance of positive healthcare change by the government.” The biggest change will happen in the last paragraph “new taxes that would be required to pay for Obamacare. Given the growing size of our deficits and debt, neither can the taxpayers. Please do not support a government plan that would put a bureaucrat between me and my doctor, nor the trillions of dollars in tax hikes on small businesses that would be used to pay for it” to something like the “ increase of insurance rates that would be required to pay for today’s health care polices.

Given the growing size of rates of insurance policies, neither can the taxpayers. Please support a government plan that would remove the insurance bureaucrat between me and my doctor, nor the trillions of dollars in insurance rate hikes on small businesses that happen every year.

With these few minor changes, Blue Dog Democrats will emails from Freedom Works telling them to vote FOR healthcare reform. Have fun with this. Customize your message to reflect your beliefs. Send it to your friends and family. Let’s show Freedom Works what a real non corporate grassroots effort looks like. One you have sent your email, leave us a comment, and tell us about it.

UPDATE:

I just tried this, and it seems to work. You will get e-mails from freedomworks, though so fair warning.

This Doesn't End Well

"Leaded Tea Party" organizer wants to be able to fire weapons

Combining an orgy of misdirected impotent rage (tea party) with loaded guns? Is there any way anything good can come of this?
(Oh, I just noticed, how many times do you see "orgy" and "impotent" in the same sentence?)

Several days after plans were announced for a Labor Day celebration where people could fire their guns at a shooting range on a Nocatee business’s property, St. Johns County code enforcement officers this week ordered the range closed down by Tuesday.

In response, “Leaded Tea Party” organizer Richard Willich, president of MDI Holdings and the new Florida chairman of Americans for Prosperity, said he has banned all government officials without warrants from the MDI property, west of Ponte Vedra Beach.

Oh, here we go.

“I’m going ahead with my picnic and that’s that,” Willich said. “It has always been my understanding that we have the right to assemble. We have the right of free speech, the right to carry guns. I don’t know when or how the local county code person can say I don’t have those rights. I don’t like it at all.”

Oh God!

The event is planned to include a live band, free food, horse rides for children

Oh, Jeez, there's going to be kids there?

horse rides for children and use of the shooting range for free target practice. The dirt pile has shooting range-type targets set up.

A dirt pile?

Willich said the enforcement officers were “very arrogant and aggressive”
“I think the code enforcement guys are breaking the law; we should arrest them. Yesterday, all government people were welcomed here; today they’re not.”

Shit, this has Ruby Ridge written all over it.

Who is this Richard Willich?
According to this press release, he's the chairman of the Florida Advisory Board for Americans For Prosperity.

What is Americans for Prosperity?
According to Source Watch:

Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a section 501(c)(4) organization, and Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFP Foundation) , a section 501(c)(3) organization -- are "committed to educating citizens about economic policy and a return of the federal government to its Constitutional limits."^[1]

AFP was one of the lead organizations behind the Tax Day Tea Party protests April 15, 2009.

Oh, my God, Teabaggers! Teabaggers with guns. Teabaggers with guns who believe that they ought to be arresting local government officials.

This does not end well.

Five out of Six men Agree

Five out of Six Men Agree:

The Daily Irritant should be read while fully clothed,

You really Gotta Feel For Doug Manchester

All he ever wanted to do was love his wife and have a successful marriage. His marriage was so important to him, that he spent $125,000 of his own money to get Proposition 8 on the California ballot just so he could keep the gay people from destroying the sanctity of his hetero marriage.

And proposition 8 passed, and all the same-sex marriages in California were dissolved.

So you'd think this would be the happily ever after part of the story, right?

WRONG!

It turns out the gay people are more resourceful than Doug had suspected. Even with their marriages annulled, they were still able to continue being gay! And being gay, they naturally went about figuring out new ways to undermine the institution of boy-girl marriage.

Even post-Prop 8, dykes continue to be on bikes!

So no one knows for sure what the gay people did to the Manchester's marriage, but they obviously did something, because:

Manchester's wife files for divorce after 43-year marriage

Somehow, the gays got to them.

Damn it, gay people! Why must you ruin our marriages? What did we ever do to your. . Oh, yeah! Right! Touche', gay people. Well played.