One-Trick Pony
(Original Photo: Jim Young / Reuters)
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Showing posts with label Give Them Guns And Jesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Give Them Guns And Jesus. Show all posts
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
They Became What They Beheld
A Reprint, Kind Of
So, it looks like we're on track to a Mitzy and Paulie kind of America -- you know, where Mitzy calls you into his office and says, in a very matter-of-fact tone, that your service has been appreciated, and it's very very very hard to tell you this -- but America has to let you go.
It isn't that you did anything wrong -- necessarily; we're just moving in a new direction and have to reallocate; we have to lower our expectations today so we can aim for the stars later (not literally, or course; we can't pay for NASA any more). But we just can't keep you on. Sorry.
Well, there's food stamps, Mitzy says; and Little Paulie grins that lopsided grin of his and says Nope. Oh Yeah Right, Mitzy says; we cut that program. And there's no unemployment insurance, either, Paulie adds helpfully. We cut that, too.
And it's nothing personal, Mitzy says; just the Business Of America. He glances at his watch; mumbles something about "having a meeting in here in a few minutes", and with the envelope that contains your final check, Mitzy offers you a handshake. Because he's compassionate. He says Bye-bye, and adds, "I know you're going to be okay" -- but what he really means is Don't make a scene. Don't spoil my day.
And Little Paulie is the one who takes your badge and company phone and your desk keys -- before walking you to the elevator, where he gives you that soulful, Doe-eyed Altar-Boy look when he says good-bye... and just as the elevator doors start to close, you see the beginnings of that creepy smile creasing his face. The doors close; you're fired.
Welcome to Mitzy and Paulie's America.
Here's a reprint of a post from August of 2010, which sketches the kind of Volk that are waiting for Mitzy's election, the kind of person who will be ascendent in the Mitzy's New America.
You already know them. They were riding high while we lived under eight years of Lil' Boots, their know-nothing, proud-of-his-ignorance, stuff rolled-up socks in his crotch wartimey leader. The kind of person who tried to play a guitar, and ate a birthday cake, while bodies floated face-down in the flooded streets of New Orleans, and his mother chuckled about how well things had worked out for the peasantry.
A place where the extremely wealthy, hidden behind smoked glass in limos and gated estates, run things through political surrogates and lobbyists, while the peasantry are manipulated through the miracle of Little Rupert's NewsCorp and the caperings of jesters like Lard Boy or Little Glenn Beck.
It will be a place of Austerity, where unemployment maintains a pool of desperate contract workers, ready to do anything to be able to eat. It will be an America of shabby cities which can't afford road repair or clean streets -- and plenty of poor and homeless, because State governments will be responsible for allocating what assistance there is. Republican Governors like Little Scottie Walker will make sure onlycrony conservatives and non-union shops deserving.programs receive funding
PBS may still be around -- in a reduced form, and with more programs funded by individual donors -- like Little David Koch, who will want to see less of Big Bird or shows about FDR, and more ten-hour documentaries about Ayn Rand by Dinesh D'Souza. And The News Hour (never very balanced to begin with) will more resemble Fox and Friends.
It will be an America where Roe v. Wade may as well have never existed, and a place where textbooks, part of education "modules" created by a News Corp subsidiary, tell children the sun revolves around the earth, which is only 6,000 years old, and teach them about heroic conservatives in our wonderful country's fabled past. And there will be prayer; lots of prayer. And lots of money for the Megachurch pastors, too; but that's just a sign of god's favor.
That's the America waiting for you. And the people in the post below are the kinds who will run it -- not lead, but manage -- because Mitzy's America will be handled more like a business, and not like a nation.
And the most interesting thing about these leaders in waiting is that they don't just hate the different lifestyles, or politics, or opinions which other people have. They hate the people who have those differences.
It isn't just about differing ideas. They hate the people ... you should think about that.
Red Land
August, 2010
Dinner With Bill, Sean, Mikey, Glenn, And Zeppo
A very mildly liberal christian friend, who had spent most of her formative years in Texas, just returned to California after a visit there, feeling bewildered and a little frightened.
At a restaurant dinner with the family of a close childhood friend, people around the table began questioning her about living in "that California": Wasn't there a lot of crime? Wasn't all that gay marriage stuff just terrible? So against god? What about "your illegals"; didn't she think we should do something about that?
Most of the people around the table had known my friend for at least a decade as she grew up in Texas and went to college. They lived in the same neighborhood. Their daughter and my friend have remained close over the twenty-plus years since; my friend is not a stranger to these people, and they're aware she's a christian.
My friend has also been unemployed for more than a year, raising three teenagers as a single parent, slowly spending her savings. She had nervously spent money to travel with her eldest son to see him ready to attend college this Fall (which he could do only because he had received a scholarship). Everyone at the table knew all of this, too.
She was a little nonplussed by their questions about California, and tried to answer noncommittally -- but it seemed that asking her these questions was just the family's way of introducing topics to monologue over:
My friend has a number of health issues, and takes several medications (currently paid for through an expensive COBRA plan, which she will lose as it's too expensive), and one side effect is a decreased appetite. The father in the family paid for everyone's meal; when handing the bill and a credit card to the waiter, he turned to my friend and said, "S'that why you didn't order any food? 'cause you don't have any money?" And, he was in no way kind when he said it.
What dismayed and frightened my friend was how angry her friend's family seemed. "I'm not all that liberal, but the more they talked, the angrier they got -- I was from California, so to them I had to be some kind of hippie radical.
"What was really frightening was their ignorance," my friend told me. "They weren't thinking for themselves; they didn't want to listen to anything except the kind of right-wing radio junk they were regurgitating."
Remember: Most of the family around the table had known my friend for at least a decade as she grew up and went to college. Their daughter and my friend have remained close in the twenty-plus years since; my friend is not a stranger -- but these people went out of their way to demean and insult her over perceived and assumed matters of ideology.
They thought she was a "California liberal", and treated her according to their own code of conduct. My friend, committed to her faith, did not protest. That would not have been my choice of response.
As she recounted what she'd heard said around the table in a public restaurant, my friend also remembered these people kept repeating phrases like, if we don't do something... somebody needs to do something... we'd better do something.
I have a very, very bad feeling about the future.
(NOTE: This post was edited on August 20, 8:07AM PDST)
So, it looks like we're on track to a Mitzy and Paulie kind of America -- you know, where Mitzy calls you into his office and says, in a very matter-of-fact tone, that your service has been appreciated, and it's very very very hard to tell you this -- but America has to let you go.
It isn't that you did anything wrong -- necessarily; we're just moving in a new direction and have to reallocate; we have to lower our expectations today so we can aim for the stars later (not literally, or course; we can't pay for NASA any more). But we just can't keep you on. Sorry.
Well, there's food stamps, Mitzy says; and Little Paulie grins that lopsided grin of his and says Nope. Oh Yeah Right, Mitzy says; we cut that program. And there's no unemployment insurance, either, Paulie adds helpfully. We cut that, too.
And it's nothing personal, Mitzy says; just the Business Of America. He glances at his watch; mumbles something about "having a meeting in here in a few minutes", and with the envelope that contains your final check, Mitzy offers you a handshake. Because he's compassionate. He says Bye-bye, and adds, "I know you're going to be okay" -- but what he really means is Don't make a scene. Don't spoil my day.
And Little Paulie is the one who takes your badge and company phone and your desk keys -- before walking you to the elevator, where he gives you that soulful, Doe-eyed Altar-Boy look when he says good-bye... and just as the elevator doors start to close, you see the beginnings of that creepy smile creasing his face. The doors close; you're fired.
Welcome to Mitzy and Paulie's America.
_________________________________________________________________________
Here's a reprint of a post from August of 2010, which sketches the kind of Volk that are waiting for Mitzy's election, the kind of person who will be ascendent in the Mitzy's New America.
You already know them. They were riding high while we lived under eight years of Lil' Boots, their know-nothing, proud-of-his-ignorance, stuff rolled-up socks in his crotch wartimey leader. The kind of person who tried to play a guitar, and ate a birthday cake, while bodies floated face-down in the flooded streets of New Orleans, and his mother chuckled about how well things had worked out for the peasantry.
A place where the extremely wealthy, hidden behind smoked glass in limos and gated estates, run things through political surrogates and lobbyists, while the peasantry are manipulated through the miracle of Little Rupert's NewsCorp and the caperings of jesters like Lard Boy or Little Glenn Beck.
It will be a place of Austerity, where unemployment maintains a pool of desperate contract workers, ready to do anything to be able to eat. It will be an America of shabby cities which can't afford road repair or clean streets -- and plenty of poor and homeless, because State governments will be responsible for allocating what assistance there is. Republican Governors like Little Scottie Walker will make sure only
PBS may still be around -- in a reduced form, and with more programs funded by individual donors -- like Little David Koch, who will want to see less of Big Bird or shows about FDR, and more ten-hour documentaries about Ayn Rand by Dinesh D'Souza. And The News Hour (never very balanced to begin with) will more resemble Fox and Friends.
It will be an America where Roe v. Wade may as well have never existed, and a place where textbooks, part of education "modules" created by a News Corp subsidiary, tell children the sun revolves around the earth, which is only 6,000 years old, and teach them about heroic conservatives in our wonderful country's fabled past. And there will be prayer; lots of prayer. And lots of money for the Megachurch pastors, too; but that's just a sign of god's favor.
That's the America waiting for you. And the people in the post below are the kinds who will run it -- not lead, but manage -- because Mitzy's America will be handled more like a business, and not like a nation.
And the most interesting thing about these leaders in waiting is that they don't just hate the different lifestyles, or politics, or opinions which other people have. They hate the people who have those differences.
It isn't just about differing ideas. They hate the people ... you should think about that.
_________________________________________________________________________
Red Land
August, 2010
Dinner With Bill, Sean, Mikey, Glenn, And Zeppo
A very mildly liberal christian friend, who had spent most of her formative years in Texas, just returned to California after a visit there, feeling bewildered and a little frightened.
At a restaurant dinner with the family of a close childhood friend, people around the table began questioning her about living in "that California": Wasn't there a lot of crime? Wasn't all that gay marriage stuff just terrible? So against god? What about "your illegals"; didn't she think we should do something about that?
Most of the people around the table had known my friend for at least a decade as she grew up in Texas and went to college. They lived in the same neighborhood. Their daughter and my friend have remained close over the twenty-plus years since; my friend is not a stranger to these people, and they're aware she's a christian.
My friend has also been unemployed for more than a year, raising three teenagers as a single parent, slowly spending her savings. She had nervously spent money to travel with her eldest son to see him ready to attend college this Fall (which he could do only because he had received a scholarship). Everyone at the table knew all of this, too.
She was a little nonplussed by their questions about California, and tried to answer noncommittally -- but it seemed that asking her these questions was just the family's way of introducing topics to monologue over:
>> Obama is "turning the country socialist", and "wants to build that mosque"; "Somebody should do something."My friend had sat uncomfortably at the table, and said little in response. Finally, the grandmother in the family stood up, looked archly at my friend and said (as if it were a rebuke), "Yesterday I went to my first Tea Party meeting" -- then abruptly walked out of the room.
>> Obama "is Muslim";
>> Many people on long-term unemployment are "lazy", and any extensions of benefits are just "coddling" them;
>> One of the women around the table told my friend Europe will be overrun by hordes of Islamists while the rest of the world stands by, paralyzed by liberal softness: The woman had been reading America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It, a book by Rightist author Mark Steyn published in 2006. (Little Rupert's Fox hearts Steyn and his book.). In all seriousness, the woman told my friend, "He [Steyn] is the finest writer I've ever read";
(My friend [who had married a man from Jakarta, Indonesia, and has lived and worked abroad] asked the people around the table if they had traveled in Europe; the father in the family replied, "I've never been outside the United States".)
>> The threat of illegal immigrants is very real -- "They think Texas and the Southwest is still their land, and they'll try taking it back if we don't do something," a man said.
My friend has a number of health issues, and takes several medications (currently paid for through an expensive COBRA plan, which she will lose as it's too expensive), and one side effect is a decreased appetite. The father in the family paid for everyone's meal; when handing the bill and a credit card to the waiter, he turned to my friend and said, "S'that why you didn't order any food? 'cause you don't have any money?" And, he was in no way kind when he said it.
What dismayed and frightened my friend was how angry her friend's family seemed. "I'm not all that liberal, but the more they talked, the angrier they got -- I was from California, so to them I had to be some kind of hippie radical.
"What was really frightening was their ignorance," my friend told me. "They weren't thinking for themselves; they didn't want to listen to anything except the kind of right-wing radio junk they were regurgitating."
Remember: Most of the family around the table had known my friend for at least a decade as she grew up and went to college. Their daughter and my friend have remained close in the twenty-plus years since; my friend is not a stranger -- but these people went out of their way to demean and insult her over perceived and assumed matters of ideology.
They thought she was a "California liberal", and treated her according to their own code of conduct. My friend, committed to her faith, did not protest. That would not have been my choice of response.
As she recounted what she'd heard said around the table in a public restaurant, my friend also remembered these people kept repeating phrases like, if we don't do something... somebody needs to do something... we'd better do something.
I have a very, very bad feeling about the future.
(NOTE: This post was edited on August 20, 8:07AM PDST)
Saturday, July 21, 2012
The Return Of Crazy Lady
Somewhere, Joe McCarthy Is Drunk And Smiling
In A Different Job Life, A Conversation With Crazy Lady
Would Begin With I Need You To Step Out Of Your Vehicle
And Move Directly To A Field Sobriety Test
After running a campaign
To the extent that Crazy Lady can focus on anything, since returning to her anti-environment bunker in a remote deforested area of her consciousness, Grand Turtlebear Bachmann has focused on the Islamic threat -- and recently contacted federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, asking for an investigation of infiltration of the U.S. government by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Bachmann’s accusation came in a handful of letters to intelligence and national security agencies raising questions about the Muslim Brotherhood. The letters [were] also signed by four other Republicans...The other four
Most prominently, Bachmann focused on an accusation that Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was influenced by the Brotherhood. Abedin, she said, had three family members (her deceased father, her mother, and her brother) "connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations." Abedin's position with Clinton's staff "affords her routine access to the secretary [sic] and policy-making."
She also cast similar aspersions on a Democratic colleague in the House, Keith Ellison, who is Muslim. Ellison wrote to Little Michele on July 12th and asked for details supporting her allegations, and Crazy Lady responded almost immediately -- in fact, her response came the next day.
Beginning, "Dear Representative Ellison" it went on for 16 pages and 59 footnotes. Nowhere did it mention her suspicions about Ellison's alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood...One can imagine Crazy Lady sitting up all night to type that 16-pager, thinking I'm speaking for white America and for Jesus; praise god, yes I am...
In her... letter to Ellison, Bachmann cited as evidence reports in Arab-language media, including Al-Jazeera. She also cited a 2002 law review article that referenced Abedin's father, who died two decades ago, as a founder of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs in Saudi Arabia. That group allegedly had "quiet" but unspecified support of the then-general secretary of the Muslim World League, a group with "a longtime history of being closely aligned" with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Her letter closed politely by thanking Ellison and offering to "revisit" the issue once she got the answers to all her questions. "It is my intention to wait for the investigations to be completed to comment further," Bachmann wrote.
Grand Turtlebear Bachmann Channeling Norma Desmond
(Photo: MNProgressive Project)
Almost a week later on July 19th, she appeared on the radio show of Little Glenn Beck, four years old, and repeated her accusations. She also took pains to share with Glenny that Congressman Ellison had "a long record of being associated with CAIR [the Council on American-Islamic Relations] and with the Muslim Brotherhood."
"All we're doing is asking questions," Crazy Lady told Glenny -- a nod, I suppose, to Beck's similar, signature line (After delivering an incendiary tirade of accusations against 'The Left', Beck has asked if what he's just said is true, adding, "I don't know; I'm just asking the question").
The leadership of her own Rethug party responded as if she were a leper out of the Dark ages, wandering into their little Potomac village wrapped in rags with a bell hung around her neck, and ran as far away from Crazy Lady as they could. It's an election year.
Though the Republicans are the party of gutter-crawling Poll Tax racism and violent intolerance, its leaders in Congress had to be seen publicly repudiating Grand Turtlebear Bachmann. Senator John McCain (who already had his own experience with the deranged Moose Lady) appeared on the floor of the Senate and all but declared Little Michele a public Loon.
"When anyone, not least a member of Congress, launches specious and degrading attacks against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are and ignorance of what they stand for, it defames the spirit of our nation," McCain said...
Behind the scenes, [Congressional Rethug] leadership aides said they were shaken by the comments from someone as prominent as Bachmann.
Senator Guy Says Grand Turtlebear Should Only Say Specious
And Degrading Things About Obama
A 'prominent' Republican claims, in the spirit of long-dead-and-thank-god Tail Gunner Joe McCarthy, that our government is riddled with
In a season when the GOP's sorry excuse for a presidential candidate is an überrich empty suit with an expensive haircut, Crazy Lady is a reminder that the GOP is the party of Batshit Crazy. She's an unwelcome spectacle -- like a deranged aunt (whom they keep locked upstairs when company comes visiting) suddenly bounding into the living room, demanding that god purify the world of sin and cheese, while she urinates on the carpet.
In response to the avalanche of criticism about her remarks, Grand Turtlebear Bachmann said only that her letters were being "distorted" by the media.
I'd like to say this is an election year, and so, the 'Silly Season'... but Crazy Lady's pathetic attempt to grab the spotlight for another few minutes by pandering to hate and fear (so typical for persons like her), trying to divide Americans instead of finding ways to unify us around something other than consumerism... is frightening, despicable, and wrong.
MEHR: An earlier version of this article noted that also, too, Grand Turtlebear Bachmann had accused the wife of former Representative Anthony Wiener of New York as being influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood.
What I was too stupid to know at the time is, Huma Abedin, Secretary of State Clinton's deputy chief of staff, is Anthony Wiener's wife.
Police and federal officials have placed security around ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, after a New Jersey man threatened her, law-enforcement sources said.But, the Grand Turtlebear can't be bothered with such little details. She has a country to save!
An individual, described as a Muslim man, made the unspecified threat after Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) last week claimed Abedin’s family had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and asked for a probe to see if she is helping the Islamist organization.
The man was questioned by the NYPD and the State Department and has not been charged, sources said.
People like Crazy Lady are never held accountable for what they set in motion. Never.
Noch Einmal, Mit Schwein: Frank Bruni in the New York Times Opinion section, reminds us of the wonders of The Grand Turtlebear:
What I find most fascinating about Michele Bachmann — and there are many, many more where she came from — is that she presents herself as a godly woman, humbly devoted to her Christian faith...
Does [Bachmann's faith] call for smearing people on the basis of flimsy conspiracy theories? That’s what Bachmann just did to Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, by essentially suggesting she might be a mole for the Muslim Brotherhood.
Does it endorse scaring young women away from immunizations that could spare them serious illness? Bachmann did that during her memorable presidential campaign, when she blithely drew an unsubstantiated link between a vaccine for the human papillomavirus and mental retardation.
Does it encourage gratuitously divisive condemnations of Barack Obama as “anti-American”...? And does it compel a war against homosexuality waged with the language and illogic she uses?
She has said that gay men and lesbians are dysfunctional products of abuse and agents of “sexual anarchy”... when the singer and songwriter Melissa Etheridge was battling breast cancer years ago, Bachmann helpfully chimed in:“This may be an opportunity for her now to be open to some spiritual things, now that she is suffering with that physical disease. She is a lesbian.”
Bachmann’s concept of Christian love brims with hate, and she has a deep satchel of stones to throw. From what kind of messiah did she learn that?
...Most of us distinguish, rightly, between Muslim extremists and other followers of Islam. Perhaps we should start noting the difference between Christians of real compassion and those of exclusionary spite.
Bachmann’s on to something: dangerous fundamentalists have indeed set up camp deep inside the capital. She can find one in her office. She need only look in the mirror.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Little Michele Bows Out
Crazy Lady Says Buh-Bye
The national press speaks of GrandTurtlebear Bachmann of the Church Of Crazy Lady™ as if they just aren't sure how someone who scored so well in the Ames straw poll in the spring could have ended their presidential aspirations by Augering In at the Iowa Caucus this week.
Pundits scratch their heads, talk about 'missed opportunities' or hint at misjudgements made by her advisers. But that's not the reason she's out.
The pundits are being very, very polite -- or very, very stupid: It's because she's a Loon. She's an obviously crazy person.
That, even now, anyone ever took her seriously as a candidate for the presidential nomination says a great deal about both the Republican party and the state of politics in America. None of it is good.
Auf Nicht Wiedersehen, Michele, you nutter. Over and Out.
The national press speaks of GrandTurtlebear Bachmann of the Church Of Crazy Lady™ as if they just aren't sure how someone who scored so well in the Ames straw poll in the spring could have ended their presidential aspirations by Augering In at the Iowa Caucus this week.
Pundits scratch their heads, talk about 'missed opportunities' or hint at misjudgements made by her advisers. But that's not the reason she's out.
The pundits are being very, very polite -- or very, very stupid: It's because she's a Loon. She's an obviously crazy person.
That, even now, anyone ever took her seriously as a candidate for the presidential nomination says a great deal about both the Republican party and the state of politics in America. None of it is good.
Auf Nicht Wiedersehen, Michele, you nutter. Over and Out.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Boxing Your Ears Day
Yes, They Are
When anyone says to you, "Oh, the Tea Partei Republicans aren't crazy," hand them this letter from current Big Iowa Favorite™ Ron Paul (via his campaign for the Rethug presidential candidacy), soliciting donations:mutant freakshow nutjob libertarian on your post-ExMass list.
(NOTE: Sudden increases in weight have been reporter with conservatism. An uncontrollable desire to beat children for their own good, and to tell complete strangers about a world-wide conspiracy involving reptilian aliens, black helicopters, the United Nations or the Tri-Bilderburg Commission, non-caucasians, and [eventually; always] Jews, have been observed. If you experience headaches, sensitivity to light and a desire to consume the flesh of the living, try and communicate this to your doctor, or simply attack and eat them. The ability to support views that have no basis whatsoever in scientific fact or common sense, spontaneous diarrhea and hair loss, speckles, and Bonzeiger's Syndrome are common side affects with conservatism. Just so you know.)
When anyone says to you, "Oh, the Tea Partei Republicans aren't crazy," hand them this letter from current Big Iowa Favorite™ Ron Paul (via his campaign for the Rethug presidential candidacy), soliciting donations:
I have unmasked the plot for world government, world money, and world central banking... officials... wholly owned subsidiaries of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations. The FEMA plan to suspend the Constitution...Astronomical professionals are discovering new planets circling distant stars every day; can we give these loons a planet of their own? There may not be as much air as there is on Earth, but the first forty million dollars is tax-free. Sure to please the
I’ve been told not to talk, but these stooges don’t scare me. Threats or no threats, I’ve laid bare the coming race war in big cities. The federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS ... The Bohemian Grove — perverted, pagan playground of the powerful. Skull & Bones: the demonic fraternity that includes George Bush and leftist Senator John Kerry, Congress’s Mr. New Honey. The Israeli lobby, which plays Congress like a cheap harmonica. And the Soviet-style “smartcard” the Justice Department has in mind for you..
... That’s why I must send you Surviving the New Money, the Ron Paul Investment Letter, and the Ron Paul Political Report... What’s a middle-class American to do? Gold? Silver? Platinum? Rare coins? Real estate? Gemstones? ... Some investments will protect you. Others are like walking into the IRS and saying, “Take me; I’m yours."
I fear there will be welfare riots in the big cities. Massive unemployment. The destruction of wealth. The erosion of personal liberties. Vicious economic controls. The exaltation of envy. The suppression of privacy. Authoritarian clamp-downs. Bank and S&L closings on a massive scale. A world dollar crisis...
Trouble is coming, and you must be prepared. Surviving the New Money, the Ron Paul Investment Letter and the Ron Paul Political Report will be your survival kit, and if you act now, you can get this $224 value for just $99 — 55% off!… For just $99, get all this wealth-saving intelligence...
(NOTE: Sudden increases in weight have been reporter with conservatism. An uncontrollable desire to beat children for their own good, and to tell complete strangers about a world-wide conspiracy involving reptilian aliens, black helicopters, the United Nations or the Tri-Bilderburg Commission, non-caucasians, and [eventually; always] Jews, have been observed. If you experience headaches, sensitivity to light and a desire to consume the flesh of the living, try and communicate this to your doctor, or simply attack and eat them. The ability to support views that have no basis whatsoever in scientific fact or common sense, spontaneous diarrhea and hair loss, speckles, and Bonzeiger's Syndrome are common side affects with conservatism. Just so you know.)
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Michele Bachmann Weiterhin Die Berufung Des Cthulhu Hören
Michele Bachmann Continues To Hear The Call Of Chtulu
TPM:
Do people like this even live in the same country we do? Ich Denke Es War nicht so..
TPM:
In an interview with ABC News, Rep. Michele Bachmann was asked for her thoughts on who should be the fifth president on Mount Rushmore. After giving the obligatory nod to Reagan, the Minnesota Congresswoman went off into somewhat more unusual territory.
First, she began angling up to answer James Garfield, apparently on the grounds that he was the last president to move to the oval office from the House of Representatives. However, just before concluding there, she switched horses to Calvin Coolidge on the grounds that “he got the country’s budget back on track.”
“He was a taking-care-of-business kind of guy,” she concluded.
Do people like this even live in the same country we do? Ich Denke Es War nicht so..
Friday, October 7, 2011
Alabammy Whammy
They Lovin' Them Some Freedom Down Theah
Via The Great Curmudgeon:
It's not very American and tolerant and fair-play and all, but if these crazy weasels want to secede from the United States, let them.
Yes, I know: These Klan-lovin' Mitwissers aren't supposed to be representative of what were once the Old Confederate states -- but, too, also, the people living in these areas who don't support this kind of thing should raise their voices in opposition. Strongly.
I'm tired of having to cater in any way to this racist, misogynistic, homophobic, You Better Get Raht Wit' Gunz-n-Jezus, Antebellum vision of Reality. It needs to be rebuked and rejected as any kind of vision for America... and if that's truly what the majorities want in these areas, let them go their own way in their own country.
You addled bunch of peacocks want to rebuild the 'Old South'? Want to put back the drinking fountains and bathrooms and separate seating in buses and theaters and at lunch counters for "Coloreds"? Want to restrict hiring and home ownership and college admission to Whites / The Right Kind O' Christian / Native-Born Only?
Then go ahead, you Troglodyte genetically-damaged inbred throwbacks -- here's your own little aryan nation; leave the rest of us alone. We have adult work to do. And when we restrict your coming back to the United States Of America, as 'tourists' or 'immigrants' or 'foreign guest workers', you can complain then, too.
Not to put too fine a point on it or anything.
Via The Great Curmudgeon:
Friday, October 07, 2011
Crazy And Evil
Welcome to Alabama.The Montgomery Water Works and Sanitary Sewer Board began enforcing a section of the new law on Sept. 1 by requiring new applicants for service to first prove they are legally in the United States, according to the filing. The water board suspended the policy after being notified that Blackburn had temporarily suspended implementation of the state law.
Allgood Water Works also posted a sign on its office that "to be compliant with new laws concerning immigration, you must have an Alabama driver's license or an Alabama picture ID card on file at this office before Sept. 29 or you may lose water service."
Freedom. Smell it.
by Atrios at 10:44
It's not very American and tolerant and fair-play and all, but if these crazy weasels want to secede from the United States, let them.
Yes, I know: These Klan-lovin' Mitwissers aren't supposed to be representative of what were once the Old Confederate states -- but, too, also, the people living in these areas who don't support this kind of thing should raise their voices in opposition. Strongly.
I'm tired of having to cater in any way to this racist, misogynistic, homophobic, You Better Get Raht Wit' Gunz-n-Jezus, Antebellum vision of Reality. It needs to be rebuked and rejected as any kind of vision for America... and if that's truly what the majorities want in these areas, let them go their own way in their own country.
You addled bunch of peacocks want to rebuild the 'Old South'? Want to put back the drinking fountains and bathrooms and separate seating in buses and theaters and at lunch counters for "Coloreds"? Want to restrict hiring and home ownership and college admission to Whites / The Right Kind O' Christian / Native-Born Only?
Then go ahead, you Troglodyte genetically-damaged inbred throwbacks -- here's your own little aryan nation; leave the rest of us alone. We have adult work to do. And when we restrict your coming back to the United States Of America, as 'tourists' or 'immigrants' or 'foreign guest workers', you can complain then, too.
Not to put too fine a point on it or anything.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Idiot Wind
They Got Nothin'
Crazy Lady Sings Hymns; Promises $2 Gas; Death To Unbelievers
Monsieur Le Gouverneur Placard: "He Just Looks Like A Leader"
Even if Crazy Lady or Mssr. Le Gouverneur Placard lost the race, the GOP would be forced to face the Taliban on their terms: You used us to 'get Out The Vote' for the GOP for years; you said you'd institute the social agenda we want, but you lied. Now we're gonna run things. Get right with Jesus or join the fags and liberals in the camps when we finally take back this country for our god, you blasphemin' Northern types.
It will no longer be a party run by the Old Boys In Washington, as it has been since the turn of the last century. It will be run by Old Southern Boys from their megachurches.
Anyway, until That Great Day comes, we can watch the antics of Crazy Lady and Mssr. Le Gouverneur Placard, and despair: Every nation gets the leaders it deserves. I wouldn't feel this way, except we don't seem to have much by way of leadership at present; no one on the Left seems willing to stand up to these Lumpenhunde; the MSM is either dominated by Little Rupert, or frightened of its own shadow.
An example is Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times, appearing on Friday, August 19th, on PBS News Hour's spinoff, 'Washington Week'. Zeleny noted that Le Governour Perry had made his comments about Bernanke (and the next day, Zeleny claimed, "stayed on script" and took no press questions at all), but that voters in South Carolina (presumably, Republicans) "were saying, '[Perry] looks like a leader'. " And, Zeleny simply let the remark he reported hang there.
Zeleny didn't contrast his reported view of Perry as 'looking like a leader', against Perry's remarks about Global Warming, or his clear cheap shot at Obama's patriotism.
No one in the alleged Mainstream Media wants to criticize the Right for fear of appearing 'too partisan'. Fox/News Corp, and Right Wing Hate Radio, pump out lies and misinformation, 24 X 7; it's been documented and reported by those dirty hippie bloggers -- but no one in the MSM will recognize it... for fear of being labelled "partisan"?
So the obvious manipulations of the Right are allowed to go unchallenged, repeated again and again by the Wingnut Echo Chamber, and finally become accepted as 'fact'. Way to go, Jeffy.
All of this, taken together, might be a place to begin a discussion whether the Democrats and the Rethugs, and the Mainstream Media, are simply different parts of a machine that really serves a thin crust of wealth ... but, that's not a conversation anyone considers seriously in America. More's the Pity for that.
Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Rant
The responses to much of this were relatively swift. Fat Karl Rove, proud owner of a new, fourth chin, called Mssr. Le Governour Perry's remarkes about Fed Chair Bernanke "un-presidential". Ronald Reagan's former domestic policy adviser , Bruce Bartlett, (Saint Ronald The Dim! Everyone Genuflect!) said to CNN, Rick Perry's an idiot, and I don't think anyone would disagree with that.
At the same time, Bartlett remarked -- accurately -- about Obama that "He has had open seats on the Fed [since 2009, which are to be filled by Presidential appointment], and I think that this sends a signal that he just doesn't care very much about what the Fed does".
Given how Herr Obama has Fluffed the Banksters since taking office, it's little surprise that he hasn't made any appointments to the Federal Reserve board; and, any such appointments would meet with Rethug opposition in Congress, which would drain political resources and "detract" attention from the President's true agenda -- only, he'd have to have an actual agenda first, wouldn't he?
The media have duly reported all this, and my Dog nose tells me that as the Party Of Jesus continues its parade through America, there will be huge piles of something left in its wake. We can smell it already.
Idiot windIt's been quite a week for the Dominionist christian wannabe-candidates, who (if chosen to run against Herr Obama) will complete the transformation of America's Republican Party into an organization dominated by Taliban evangelicals.
Blowing like a circle around my skull;
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol.
Idiot wind; blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot, babe;
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe
Bob Dylan, "Idiot Wind" (Blood On The Tracks, 1975)
Even if Crazy Lady or Mssr. Le Gouverneur Placard lost the race, the GOP would be forced to face the Taliban on their terms: You used us to 'get Out The Vote' for the GOP for years; you said you'd institute the social agenda we want, but you lied. Now we're gonna run things. Get right with Jesus or join the fags and liberals in the camps when we finally take back this country for our god, you blasphemin' Northern types.
It will no longer be a party run by the Old Boys In Washington, as it has been since the turn of the last century. It will be run by Old Southern Boys from their megachurches.
Anyway, until That Great Day comes, we can watch the antics of Crazy Lady and Mssr. Le Gouverneur Placard, and despair: Every nation gets the leaders it deserves. I wouldn't feel this way, except we don't seem to have much by way of leadership at present; no one on the Left seems willing to stand up to these Lumpenhunde; the MSM is either dominated by Little Rupert, or frightened of its own shadow.
An example is Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times, appearing on Friday, August 19th, on PBS News Hour's spinoff, 'Washington Week'. Zeleny noted that Le Governour Perry had made his comments about Bernanke (and the next day, Zeleny claimed, "stayed on script" and took no press questions at all), but that voters in South Carolina (presumably, Republicans) "were saying, '[Perry] looks like a leader'. " And, Zeleny simply let the remark he reported hang there.
Zeleny didn't contrast his reported view of Perry as 'looking like a leader', against Perry's remarks about Global Warming, or his clear cheap shot at Obama's patriotism.
No one in the alleged Mainstream Media wants to criticize the Right for fear of appearing 'too partisan'. Fox/News Corp, and Right Wing Hate Radio, pump out lies and misinformation, 24 X 7; it's been documented and reported by those dirty hippie bloggers -- but no one in the MSM will recognize it... for fear of being labelled "partisan"?
So the obvious manipulations of the Right are allowed to go unchallenged, repeated again and again by the Wingnut Echo Chamber, and finally become accepted as 'fact'. Way to go, Jeffy.
All of this, taken together, might be a place to begin a discussion whether the Democrats and the Rethugs, and the Mainstream Media, are simply different parts of a machine that really serves a thin crust of wealth ... but, that's not a conversation anyone considers seriously in America. More's the Pity for that.
- On Tuesday, August 16, Crazy Lady told a crowd in Spartanburg, S.C.:
Before we get started, let's all say 'Happy Birthday' to Elvis Presley today. We played you a little bit of 'Promised Land' when we pulled up. You can't do better than Elvis Presley and we thought we would celebrate his birthday as we get started to celebrating [the] 'Take Our Country Back' tour.
As every true American knows, The King died on August 16th. Perhaps Crazy Lady is a foreign-type, and ain't our kind; but this is the same person who celebrated John Wayne Gacy rather than John Wayne, and continually treats facts as inconvenient -- 'Oh, everyone knew what I meant to say'. And you want this witless [redacted] as a Presidential candidate? Seriously? - On Sunday, August 14, Mssr. Le Gouverneur Placard said to a crowd in response to a question about the economy:
If this guy [i.e. Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke] prints more money between now and the election, I don't know what y'all would do to him in Iowa -- we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. I mean, printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous -- uh, treasonous; in my opinion.
- A Bit Later, Le Gouverneur Placard walked away from another public appearance and was asked if President Obama 'loved his country'. "You'd have to ask him," said Mssr. Le Gouverneur with a smile.
- On Wedensday, August 17, Le Gouverneur Placard was asked at yet another public appearance about assertions in his book, Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America From Washington, that deal with Global Warming, and responded:
I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized. I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. I think we're seeing it almost weekly or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.
- On Wednesday, August 17, Crazy Lady told another crowd in South Carolina:
"What people recognize is that there's a fear that the United States is in an unstoppable decline. They see the rise of China, the rise of India, the rise of the Soviet Union and our loss militarily going forward.
- On Thursday, August 18, Crazy Lady told yet another crowd in South Carolina that "President Bachmann" would deliver gasoline at "2 dollars a gallon... It's going to happen."
While gasoline was at a national average of $1.79 a gallon when Obama took office in January, 2009, Crazy Lady's remark would be nearly impossible to acheive. The world's shrinking petroleum reserves; even all the Drill, Baby, Drill that Senator Old Man and Crazy Moose Lady wanted to do couldn't keep pace with America's demand for oil; and, even if U.S. oil production soared, OPEC would cut back their own production and intervene in the markets to keep oil prices at the level they want to see. 'President' Crazy Lady would have little power to influence that. - On Thursday, August 18, Le Gouverneur Placard was speaking about job creation and the economy at a 'Politics and Eggs' breakfast in New Hampshire; after, Perry was approached by James Mahoney, Director of Public Policy for BankAmerica Corporation, who could be seen on a C-SPAN video offering Le Gouvernor his hand, saying, "Bank of America. We'll help you out".
Bank of America spokesperson Lawrence Di Rita (formerly the press spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld) later issued this statement:
Bank of America does not endorse Presidential candidates. The reference was about following up on the substance of the speech about job creation and economic growth. Discussing policy issues that affect our company and our customers is something we do with policymakers of both parties routinely at the local, state, and Federal levels.
Right.
The responses to much of this were relatively swift. Fat Karl Rove, proud owner of a new, fourth chin, called Mssr. Le Governour Perry's remarkes about Fed Chair Bernanke "un-presidential". Ronald Reagan's former domestic policy adviser , Bruce Bartlett, (Saint Ronald The Dim! Everyone Genuflect!) said to CNN, Rick Perry's an idiot, and I don't think anyone would disagree with that.
At the same time, Bartlett remarked -- accurately -- about Obama that "He has had open seats on the Fed [since 2009, which are to be filled by Presidential appointment], and I think that this sends a signal that he just doesn't care very much about what the Fed does".
Given how Herr Obama has Fluffed the Banksters since taking office, it's little surprise that he hasn't made any appointments to the Federal Reserve board; and, any such appointments would meet with Rethug opposition in Congress, which would drain political resources and "detract" attention from the President's true agenda -- only, he'd have to have an actual agenda first, wouldn't he?
The media have duly reported all this, and my Dog nose tells me that as the Party Of Jesus continues its parade through America, there will be huge piles of something left in its wake. We can smell it already.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Monsieur Le Governor Rick Perry Is A Liar
Lordy, It's A Miracle
Click To Expand Embarrassing Graphic. It's Easy And Fun!
Monsieur Le Governor Perry, the spittin', swearin',all man red-meat gun-totin', Sesesh-promotin', lovin'-him-some-'o-that-Tea-Partei guy who will Save America For Jesus, claims he is responsible for the "Texas Miracle" -- biblical, que no? -- that employment in Texas somehow defied the Great Recession under his wise, wise stewardship. And that this is proof he can do the same for 'Murrka.
Other reports have already deconstructed part of Mssr. Le Governor's argument, by showing that employment in Texas remained high after 2007 due to employment in the government, not the private, sector.
In other words, Monsieur Le Governor Perry is a liar.
However, thinking Dogs know that employment is only one yardstick of the quality of life in a nation-state like Texas. Dogs also know enough to get in out of the sun before your brain boils. Mssr. Le Governor apparently doesn't know as much as any Dog.
Invictus, one of the few allowed to post articles at Barry Ritzholt's site, The Big Picture, did what good analysts do -- he looked at the data.
other more civilized nations -- doing poorly, for the most part. However, one can't expect so much from an independent country a place which claims the Cockroach is its 'State Bird', even as a joke.
I have difficulty recalling what, aside from Oil, Texas has given to the world. Murder of a President? "Lil' Boots" Bush? Big hats, no cattle? The most executions of convicted prisoners? Of whom even some were guilty? (Mssr. Le Governor would know about executing the innocent, personally.)
To be fair, Mssr. Le Governor did inherit a state already pushed towards insolvency and badly mismanaged by "Lil' Boots", and many of the Quality Of Life indicators listed above were already low when he took office.
However, he's had years to address the issues, and apparently hasn't done a goddamned thing. Texas under the Le Governor looks more like a badly-run agricultural amusement park than a part of the United States:
Is this a place you and your family, children, the elderly, should live?
As my friend El Rog The Magnificent likes to point out, for a number of years now, Texas is regularly thrown out on the meteorological grill to bake up pretty good -- the place averages nearly one hundred days a year with temperatures of 100 degrees Fahrenheit or more. And Le Governor insists that Global Warming and Climate Change is just a con job promoted by some 'o them librul-type eggyhead scientists.
The entire Southwest region is suffering under a drought of biblical proportions (pun intended). Mssr. Le Governor hosted a Prayvaganza to call upon god to change the weather and bring rain to Texas. It wasn't well attended, and plainly didn't work.
One can only hope that Monsieur Le Governor Perry will continue to show all 'Murrka just what he's done for Texas, what he's made of, and what is in his tiny little black heart.
Monsieur Le Governor Perry, the spittin', swearin',
Other reports have already deconstructed part of Mssr. Le Governor's argument, by showing that employment in Texas remained high after 2007 due to employment in the government, not the private, sector.
In other words, Monsieur Le Governor Perry is a liar.
However, thinking Dogs know that employment is only one yardstick of the quality of life in a nation-state like Texas. Dogs also know enough to get in out of the sun before your brain boils. Mssr. Le Governor apparently doesn't know as much as any Dog.
Invictus, one of the few allowed to post articles at Barry Ritzholt's site, The Big Picture, did what good analysts do -- he looked at the data.
So, putting employment aside, I thought I’d examine some other metrics by which states are measured. Using the excellent database at the Council of State Governments (which I’ve written about previously), I took a look at a dozen “quality of life” metrics to see how Texas ranks relative to its peers.The image opening this post shows where the country of Texas is relative to
In each case, I ranked the 50 states in a manner where “1″ is the best score achievable and “50″ the worst (e.g., the highest high school graduation rate would garner a “1,” the lowest incidence of STD’s would also garner a “1.” In other words, if you’re a governor — a state’s CEO, as it were — you always want to be #1 and, conversely, nowhere near #50.).
I have difficulty recalling what, aside from Oil, Texas has given to the world. Murder of a President? "Lil' Boots" Bush? Big hats, no cattle? The most executions of convicted prisoners? Of whom even some were guilty? (Mssr. Le Governor would know about executing the innocent, personally.)
To be fair, Mssr. Le Governor did inherit a state already pushed towards insolvency and badly mismanaged by "Lil' Boots", and many of the Quality Of Life indicators listed above were already low when he took office.
However, he's had years to address the issues, and apparently hasn't done a goddamned thing. Texas under the Le Governor looks more like a badly-run agricultural amusement park than a part of the United States:
- Seventh from the bottom in people over 65 living in poverty?
- At the very bottom, No. 50, in persons over 25 graduating high school?
- Almost at the very bottom, No. 49, in people not having enough food?
- Nearly at the top in violent crime and homicide?
Is this a place you and your family, children, the elderly, should live?
As my friend El Rog The Magnificent likes to point out, for a number of years now, Texas is regularly thrown out on the meteorological grill to bake up pretty good -- the place averages nearly one hundred days a year with temperatures of 100 degrees Fahrenheit or more. And Le Governor insists that Global Warming and Climate Change is just a con job promoted by some 'o them librul-type eggyhead scientists.
The entire Southwest region is suffering under a drought of biblical proportions (pun intended). Mssr. Le Governor hosted a Prayvaganza to call upon god to change the weather and bring rain to Texas. It wasn't well attended, and plainly didn't work.
One can only hope that Monsieur Le Governor Perry will continue to show all 'Murrka just what he's done for Texas, what he's made of, and what is in his tiny little black heart.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Crazy Lady Wins Ames, Iowa Straw Poll
Grand TurtleBear Michele: Queen Of America
Will Persecution By Xtian Dominionists Be This Funny? No.
Will Persecution By Xtian Dominionists Be This Funny? No.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Ecce Homo
Yet Another Candidate From A Failed State
(Photo: Mark Almond, Birmingham News; New York Times, via AP)
Pastor Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, has declared himself in the running as a candidate for the Republican party's nomination for President.
His eventual nomination will complete the transformation of the GOP from a secular political party to a Megachurch congregation, demanding the nation be more godly, or go away, or else.
Perry has a large number of very wealthy backers, and can outspend just about every other GOP candidate, except Mittens -- and Perry can claim he is too a really true christian, whereas Romney is a Mormon (and Perry can make a few sly asides to remind his Xtian followers that Mormons aren't really true christians like you and me).
However, there have been persistent rumors since around 2004 that my use of the term Ecce Homo with the Governor may be an intended pun.
Let's be clear: I don't care if the person who is President is LGBT or not. I don't consider their sexuality when I review their stand on job creation, Federal Reserve policy, or who they want to nominate for the Supreme Court.
Evangelicals and social conservatives, on the other hand, would care if Perry were to be Outed during a Presidential campaign, even if Foxy Truthy Ol' Digger Newsy Corp gave him free cable teevee time, twenty-four hours a day.
Well; we'll see. Perry reminds me of someone whom Foxy-Truthy gave lots of teevee time to, a while ago. Same swagger and twang as Perry; same evangelical buzz-words and gobbledegook.
I just can't remember. Probably blocking it.
Mehr: Perry promised he would make the actions of government in The Village On The Potomac "inconsequential" to the lives of Americans.
A commenter at TPM noted that This guy makes W look like a rocket scientist. I mean it; he's dumber than a bag of hammers.
Well; then, he's a perfectcarnival barker front man for the Right and those interests the Right in America serves... just as "Lil' Boots" was.
His eventual nomination will complete the transformation of the GOP from a secular political party to a Megachurch congregation, demanding the nation be more godly, or go away, or else.
Perry has a large number of very wealthy backers, and can outspend just about every other GOP candidate, except Mittens -- and Perry can claim he is too a really true christian, whereas Romney is a Mormon (and Perry can make a few sly asides to remind his Xtian followers that Mormons aren't really true christians like you and me).
However, there have been persistent rumors since around 2004 that my use of the term Ecce Homo with the Governor may be an intended pun.
They spread for two months, were posted on various websites and were vetted by many national outlets, all of which turned up nothing. But Team Perry, asked about how it's prepared to handle them when they emerge if he runs, said it remains "false and misleading."
"As you may know, Rick and Anita Perry first met in grade school, went on their first date together in 1966, have been lovingly married since 1982 and are parents to two grown children," said top Perry strategist Dave Carney. "This kind of nameless, faceless smear campaign is run against the Perry family in seemingly every campaign, with no basis, truth or success."
"Texas politics is a full contact support, live hand grenades and all; unfortunately there are always going to be some people who feel the need to spread false and misleading rumors to advance their own political agenda," he said.
Let's be clear: I don't care if the person who is President is LGBT or not. I don't consider their sexuality when I review their stand on job creation, Federal Reserve policy, or who they want to nominate for the Supreme Court.
Evangelicals and social conservatives, on the other hand, would care if Perry were to be Outed during a Presidential campaign, even if Foxy Truthy Ol' Digger Newsy Corp gave him free cable teevee time, twenty-four hours a day.
Well; we'll see. Perry reminds me of someone whom Foxy-Truthy gave lots of teevee time to, a while ago. Same swagger and twang as Perry; same evangelical buzz-words and gobbledegook.
I just can't remember. Probably blocking it.
Mehr: Perry promised he would make the actions of government in The Village On The Potomac "inconsequential" to the lives of Americans.
A commenter at TPM noted that This guy makes W look like a rocket scientist. I mean it; he's dumber than a bag of hammers.
Well; then, he's a perfect
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