Category Archives: Media

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The Chronically Stupid Aways Find an Obtuse Angle

JohnWayneSo much stupid, so little time to expose it all.

First there is the Daily Caller. The Daily Caller is a piece of stupid run by Tucker Carlson, from Fox Noise. The Daily Collection of Stupid leaves no stone unturned in its attempt to be irrelevant, stupidly funny, and masterful in its invention of new ways to be stupid every day.

You no doubt have always known that the Reactionary Right, of which the Daily Curd attempts to be the voice for, is a huge supporter of gay rights? You’re not aware of that? Well, slap yourself silly dumb person and listen up.

pink gunYou see, it’s a crying shame, that compromise bill worked out by Senators Manchin and Toomey. Those darn Democrats, always seeking to betray and abuse their gay brothers and sisters.

The bill, Daily Crap points out, will discriminate against gay gun owners. See if you can figure out why?

Figured it out yet?

Well, you see, in states that don’t recognize gay marriage, said gay gun owner will be forced to submit his or her partner to a background check before selling them or giving them a gun for Christmas. That’s because the “family exception” to the proposed new law would not be recognized in non-same-sex marriage recognizing states.

Yes, indeed. I kid you not as they say.

I guess they forgot the provision about neighbor-to-neighbor transfers. I mean what can be more neighborly than actually living in the same house? Seems about as friendly as neighbors can get doncha think?

I gave you the link, lest you think I was pulling your leg, or attempting a frontal lobotomy with a rusty butter knife.

Next on our hit parade of stupid is the ever growing legend of another of those Texas wonders, Steve Stockman.

babybumperYou remember Steve right? The Texan Representative who decided it was a great idea to invite Ted Nugent, aging rocker with like two old hits over 30 years old, who loves guns more than he loves his kids, and all around crazy conspiracy-laden anti-Obama screamer, to the State of the Union speech? THAT Steve Stockman?

Well this is his new way of attracting the marvelous people who contribute to his campaign to continue being a public nuisance.

This is his newly designed bumper sticker which you can attach to the bumper of your car, horse, or forehead, proclaiming you too are stupid as hell.

Is there anything left to say here? Stockman is offensive on just about all of Dante’s levels of hell.

But my favorite this week? Oh that was easy. You probably heard about the kerfuffle about Melissa Harris Perry’s promo for her show on MSNBC? Where she talks about the education of our children and suggests that children just don’t belong to their parents, but in fact belong to the entire community?

The Really Really Ridiculous Right started fainting and running for smelling salts on that one. One heard the immediate refrain, “COMMUNISM” expounded by the likes of Rush, the Drudge, Daily Caller, and Newsbusters.

Newsbusters said this: “. . .the notion of collective responsibility for children was a philosophy that undergirded the Cultural Revolution in Communist China under Chairman Mao. I bring that up because, as you may recall, another Harris-Perry “Lean Forward” spot contains a reference to a “great leap forward,” which calls to mind the disastrous agricultural reform plan which starved millions of Chinese to death in the 1950s.”

Sarah, “HEY, remember me?” Palin tweeted: Apparently MSNBC doesn’t think your children belong to you. Unflippingbelievable.

Rush ME MORE DRUGS Limbaugh said: So how does this manifest itself? So you need your yard mowed, what do you do?” he continued. “You go knock on the door down the street — your kid that you don’t own. I do today. For the next hour, your kid is going to mow my yard. And then after that, my trash needs taking out and after that I need somebody to go to the grocery store for me and my kid’s tied up, so I’m claiming your kid. How does this work?”

From the Lonely Conservative (who decries a new promo declaring that people have basic human rights to education, food, housing and so forth): Maybe in her next promo she can just come out and quote directly from the Communist Manifesto.

Okay folks, settle down. Let’s recall a few things. There is a rather famous saying, “it takes a village to raise a child.” That is in fact the title of one of Hillary Clinton’s books. Let’s not forget that we all pay property taxes wherever we live, and part of that money goes directly to support local school systems. Guess what? Those who are not parents pay them as well, on the theory that EVERYONE  has a stake in children being educated.

Has everyone on the Right forgotten the “good old days”? You remember when extended families lived together and everyone thought that all children were so much better off having more people busy raising them? Remember the Waltons? Remember when we were children and the teacher as “loco parentis” was considered “always right” if we were disciplined? Remember when any neighbor had a perfect right to correct your behavior if not physically, at least verbally?

Do we not all have a stake in the future of our next generation of teachers, lawyers, doctors, soldiers, and seamstresses? These are the folks who will govern the country when we are using our walkers in the hallways of senior facilities.

I mean how stupid can you be to see something sinister in what Ms Harris-Perry said? How much must you twist and distort it to make it look dangerous and “otherly”?

Do you not see that it is exactly this utterly over-the-top reaction to something so innocent and benign and TRUE, that makes even the fairly non-interested middle of America think the far Right has more than a few screws loose? The GOP and it’s cadre of stupid are swirling into the sinkhole of oblivion and pretty much nobody cares.

Next: RED Jello is a Commie plot with nanobots invading your body and indoctrination in each red sugary gelatin grain.

monkey play

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Just Hit That Woman With a Stupid Stick Or Honoring Fools on April Fools Day

interracial-marriage-cartoon1Their back!!! Actually they never left.

The extremists in the GOP just can’t stop blabbering about all things sexual. In their expertise, we learn so much, so much it makes you want to run to the nearest cliff and throw yourself off.

The Chair of the Georgia GOP has some thoughts about legalizing marriage between same-sex persons. Seems, in the ranging meanderings of her tiny pimple of a brain, she’s come up with the REAL reason it should be forbidden–not all that religious stuff (although she points out, it is surely “unnatural” to be sure), but on good old Republican principles: FRAUD.

Yes that which strikes at the very heart of any Republican (the pocketbook) is why we should prevent this awful thing from happening.

Her reasoning? Well let me give you her version:

You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow,” Everhart said. “Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you’re gay, and y’all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits? I just see so much abuse in this it’s unreal. I believe a husband and a wife should be a man and a woman, the benefits should be for a man and a woman. There is no way that this is about equality. To me, it’s all about a free ride.”

Ya see the logic there? Sure you do.

I betcha Ms. Sue Everhart first got that notion from hearing about men and women doing the same darn thing to get those benefits. I bet she did. No gay person ever married a straight person for that reason. Nope, logically? Nope.

HIT THAT WOMAN WITH A STUPID STICK

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Yes it’s another Republican. Funny how all these stories end up being about the whacked Right.

North Carolina seems well on the way of figuring out how to support marriage. You are asking for the answer right?

The answer seems obvious when you think about it. Just outlaw divorce. State Senator Austin Allran (R) wants to amend the Healthy Marriage Act to make divorce even more difficult to obtain, raising the wait time from one year to two. AND couples must attend classes hoping to ‘splain to the  parties how to communicate better. And you can’t live together during that time, and apparently it would change current law that says that isolated incidents of “doing the nasty” don’t toll the waiting time.

Austin who is never to be confused with Austin Powers and well powers of mental acuity, doesn’t have a good answer for spouses seeking divorce from abusive spouses. He apparently hasn’t thought through the possible up tick in spousal homicide either.

HIT THAT MAN WITH A STUPID STICK

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Chris Brown is 23 years old.

Chris Brown had 52 weeks of counseling.

Chris Brown now assures us that he FINALLY learned it was absolutely wrong to beat women.

HIT THAT MAN WITH A STUPID STICK (TWICE JUST TO BE SURE)

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Remember our dear friends (NOT) Todd Akins (women who are legitimately raped?) and Allen West (I shoulda been court martialed)? Remember among all their nonsense, they were always railing about government waste, and those terrible spending Democrats? Remember them?

Well, lawdy lawdy, we don’t always do as we say others should now do we? The two who were always for cutting funding to every program that had to do with helping the poor–what did they get caught doing?

Just giving huge bonuses (at taxpayer expense of course) to their staffs as a parting goodbye when both LOST their election bids. Of the top 10 most gifting of congress persons, 9 were Republican and of the top 20, 14 were among those ousted by the electorate.

Let’s all get together and ask them to spell H Y P O C R I T E shall we?

HIT BOTH THOSE MEN WITH A STUPID STICK–IN FACT LEAVE IT EMBEDDED IN THEIR BACKSIDES

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The Outraged Right, is often willfully ignorant. Now I know a thing or two about that, since I have FB “friends” who are determined to be just that, and they think I’m calling them stupid, which is proof enough eh?

Well, if you noticed, Google on its search engine did its usual holiday google doodle and instead of honoring the risen Lord, they chose to honor Cesar Chavez whose 86th birthday it would have been and for which March 31 is set aside to honor him.

Well, the Right went mad indeed, claiming that this was all intentional and of course “organized by the White House” who hates Christians if ya were not already aware.

Well, to gum it up, Michelle Malkin, thought Cesar was Hugo and well, that really really pissed them off.

Even when people said, hey Michelle, you confused Cesar with Hugo, well it made them no difference. It was still awful. And they are all moving to Bing, which showed Easter eggs on its search engine, which as everyone knows is properly reminiscent of Jesus (they had deviled eggs at the last supper I’m told with a hint of horseradish).

Well, as you can see, it signals the demise of Christianity in America. Google has tipped the boulder, and it is now careening down the slippery slope into Muslim/Atheism/Secular/Fascism/JimmineyCricketspantsareonfire/hellanddamnation.

HIT THE ENTIRE RIGHTWING RELIGIOSITY IN NAME NOT IN GAME GROUP WITH THE STUPID STICK.

And all of you have a blessed, or cursed April Fools Day.

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Huckabee: It’s All Greek to Me!

MHuckMike Huckabee makes me scratch my head. Which is saying something good frankly, since many Republicans make me want to scratch their heads for them.

I remember back when Mikey was trying to be a serious candidate. He was the quintessential compassionate conservative. He was fun, told self-deprecating stories and seemed for all the world like a compromise-willing  gentleman. Heck even Jon Stewart liked him.

Somewhere along the line Mikey traded whatever passes for integrity in his world for filthy lucre. Or perhaps I’m being generous. Plenty would argue that he never had any integrity to begin with and was only playing along in order to get along. The GOP is really good at saying one thing and planning to do something quite different if given the chance.

However you wish to cast it, Huckster decided that running for office wasn’t his cup of milk, so he went the way of most of his kind, and drifted into a job at Foxy Noise where he could be the “expert” opinion” on whatever moved his rather pedestrian mind.

I’m not sure Mikey is all that enamored in his heart of hearts with the right-wing teabagging evangelicals that he now “speaks” for. But he has chosen to harness his cart to them. He apparently has no desire to be part of the “Old Guard” which is the tattered and rundown house that encompasses the John McCains, John Boehners, Lindsey Grahams, and the ever poppin’ Karl Rove, along with turtlish McConnell. They are otherwise known now as RINOS.

The tea-sippin’ group is getting mightily teed off these days. While the Old Guard is trying desperately to make itself relevant, the Waterlogged bibbers are screeching that anybody who deviates from the wagon train of bizarre, will be drawn and quartered and left for dead in the desert of political outliers.

They are having no part of this new “immigration” talk. Ship those brownies back to MEXICO or wherever they come from. (Tea Baggers mostly are unaware of any other country than Mexico, all else being “down there”). They are having no part of this new “compassion for gays”, such being an abomination in the eyes of the self-serving God they have created out of a collection of writings by people who died two millennia ago, and were last seen trying to make sense of stumbling around in a desert for forty years when the walk to “Israel” was at most a six weeks jaunt.

They are having no part of any of that fuzzy liberal crap in other words, and any Republican who does? They are dead to them. Dead, dead, dead and anathema to boot. May there be a pox on all their house and, and may fire and brimstone fall upon their backyard pools.

Chuckerbee has shown his true colors. I guess we should have realized it full-blown when he shlepped the anti-Obamacare as legislation cooked up in “back rooms and shoved down the throats of the American people.” Actually it was passed as are all normal pieces of legislation–by garnering the required number of yeas by senators and representatives and then being signed by a President into law.

Today he warns that should the GOP take that awful walk to the dark side and endorse marriage equality, the evangelicals in this country are going to desert them. Woohoo, now that’s a threat. The Old Guard pretty much wants that to happen. Barry Goldwater warned that trouble would ensue if the GOP made a pact with the right-wing religious, and boy was he right. They have pushed the party to the brink of annihilation. I read a little ditty the other day that is actually quite true:

The tea party came along to destroy a president. They ended up destroying a party–the GOP.

Nothing could be truer, and Huckster is free to lead that band of misbegots all he wants. Speaking with self-avowed tea Party “patriots” (for they all claim that moniker), is like entering the hall of mirrors at the circus. Random bits of flotsam, float as sound bites from their latest “deep” think watching Fox. Nay, this is no longer enough and they are boycotting that station for not being flamingly whacked enough. Tea suckers have no coherent ideology, often hold views on separate subjects that are in conflict philosophically and logically, and spout a different “issue” as you progress from one to the other. And the joy for them is that they are so ignorant as to not realize how truly stupid they sound.

Huck of course is no stranger to idiocy himself, having claimed that the tragedy at Newtown was the result of “taking God from the classroom”. First that belies the fact that God is everywhere, and does not take direction from silly humans. Secondly, it trivializes the real tragedy there, and of course makes the Huckster another in a long line of Christianists who create some gun-happy imprimatur in the good book itself.

So I take Mikey’s warning for all the value it deserves. Exactly none. I fervently hope that the GOP disinfects itself from the scourge it has encountered. When you teach people that it’s all about number one, don’t be surprised if they come up with some fine examples of their own of looking out for themselves. Since there is nothing Christian nor human about that kind of standard, don’t be surprised if a majority of citizens cast a dark eye on your selfish betrayal of both God and the rest of America.

 

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Whee It’s the Weekend!

YesItsTheWeekendNow that is something a decent retired person should not have to say, yet I find myself doing it. It’s been a busy week and today is the first day that I have not had some errand, or several to run. I’m fairly ecstatic.

The Contrarian is off to buy potting stuff, I bought a bunch of flowers and plants yesterday. I also got most of my herbs. Hopefully I can get them in later today. I’m waiting for the lemon curd to get cold and stiffen up before I finish the lemon cake. I’m not busy as you can see.

Diego continues to astound. He takes his job as paper boy very seriously, now waking us at 5:00 am should he hear a car go by. He is still having trouble differentiating the delivery man from the casual driver out for a spin before dawn.

He races eagerly out to the drive, looks around, finds nothing, then heads for the neighbors to see if there is a paper there. Finding none, he returns home, only to insist upon going through this scenario about every fifteen minutes.

Today, a new breakthrough occurred. After his first two trips were unsuccessful, it being Saturday and all, he had the fortuitous luck to meet the delivery guy on his third trip. As the guy pulled up to stop and extended his arm to through the paper, Diego bounded forth and took it from his hand. The guy thought this enormously fun, and waved and chuckled as he drove off.

Diego, of course will now want to sit out from about 4 am  waiting his delivery. It is still unclear whether the Contrarian shares his eagerness to await the grand arrival.

Paul Ryan BudgetThere is nothing “new” about the New Ryan Budget. Just more of the same.

Seriously repeal Obamacare?

Seriously?

Yet Boehner the Orange will claim that it’s another “passed” budget out of the  House.

We can pass one that says unicorns are now free to buy property too, and that stands as likely a chance of getting passed in the Senate.

They keep running the mantra that the “American people” wouldn’t have elected a majority of Republicans to the House if they didn’t believe in Republican fiscal principles.

No, franking the word gerrymandering comes to mind when I look for an explanation of why the GOP retained the House.

bloombergBloomberg’s attempt to reduce the size of sugary drinks in NYC, didn’t fare too well before the courts.

Sarah of course appeared at CPAC carrying and sucking on her Big Gulp, all to show victory over stupid liberals and their attempts to control what we stuff in our mouths.

It wasn’t that many decades ago when getting fit was a national event, and nobody suggested that the government shouldn’t play a part.

Now it’s some conspiracy.

The Right thrive on conspiracies. I’m sure some bright Republican entrepreneur will soon open a shop for selling conspiracies. “We will design the conspiracy that’s right for you!” “Everything you don’t like can be explained by a conspiracy. Get your’s now!”

rebranding Meanwhile (god I love that segue), Republicans are busy rebranding themselves.

Trouble is, they are still caught up in the shall we drink tea or return to good scotch?

CPAC was a perfect example of speaker after speaker coming forth and starting with “Forget what he/she said, what we really need to do is. . . .”

I think it’s best if the scotch drinkers just lock the doors and refuse admittance to the tea boat folks. After all, they are none too smart, and surely cold turkey is best doncha think? (NO not wild turkey!)

activistjudgesRepublicans have yet to learn the lesson that judges appointed for life, tend to have a mind of their own.

Your concerns are theirs about as long as it takes to confirm them. Then, well they have other concerns.

Sometimes those concerns don’t involve your petty social bigotries.

It’s funny to hear the Right lament their “conservative” judicial appointments as now activitists.

Some are so angry and so utterly devoid of constitutional knowledge that they suggest that the SCOTUS, after all is just an “opinion”, and one they need not follow.

Yeah, like evolution is just a “theory”.

immigrationThe GOP can’t seem to find its way on immigration either. The Tea People want them all deported.

The GOP wants to win an election someday that is larger than a state.

Never the twain shall meet.

The compromise is permanent residence status, or as South Africa calls it, “the good old days.”

On a side note, I hear tell, (have no confirmed, but heck it’s too good not to be true) that Michelle Malkin is an anchor baby herself, born in this country to ” immigrants” who were then allowed to apply for citizenship because their daughter was a natural citizen.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Right-Wing pundits. Malkin is known for her rabid hatred of immigrants who have children and then apply for citizenship through the child. She opposed citizenship for anyone simply by being born in this country. Doncha just love it?

finalfourOh please, even the GOP can do better than this.

Santorum ain’t done yet. And perhaps we can get Sarah to make a run.

Please this can’t be all they can come up with.

They are just salivating for Hillary.

Funny thing, is so are we.

She beats every one of them in head to head polling.

Maybe an Allen West will stick his black heart in (and I do no black not Black). Oh please God, do have a sense of humor once more.

ObamaisraelThe far right thought the Obama trip to Israel would go badly. If you don’t believe me, fast backward to the crazy sites in anticipation of the trip and read the comments.

It’s a bit like Bill Clinton. The right was chewing towels when Clinton escaped the “trap” laid by the GOP and his popularity soared.

The reactionary Right continues to predict disaster in Obama’s relationship with Israel, except that by all accounts he wowed them as usual.

It must make them mad. I bet they spend the evening loading rounds in the basement and checking once again if they have enough spam to withstand the “insurrection” that is coming any day now.

otter

 

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Putting “Bob” in a Search Engine

Robert Melendez 1You know, everybody says they “don’t believe everything” they hear. Everybody likes to think of themselves as discerning individuals who eyes can’t be covered with wool. But the truth is, most people aren’t educated, or have not taken the time to really work at what can only be termed a skill set.

Being a critical reader doesn’t come naturally. A Facebook friend of mine is busy trying to educate a few people about how to tell the questionable from the reliable. He makes a good point. You might want to ignore a source that gives you salacious or wild headlines without a corresponding story. In other words, if the headlines don’t turn out to match the actual verifiable facts in the story, well, you might want to look elsewhere.

A case in point was a recent Rachel Maddow show wherein Ms. Maddow referred to the town hall meeting that John McCain had. A woman referred to her son as having been the victim of gun violence. She wanted to know about what laws Congress might pass. McCain first expressed his condolences for the loss of the woman’s son, and then remarked that “Congress was not going to ban assault weapons.”

Now Rachel indicated that the tape of this had been edited by a local news operation, and that “it might unfairly portray Senator McCain as lacking in compassion. (the tape omitted the sentence regarding McCain’s sympathies). The tape was offered for the news that McCain was saying that the GOP was not going for any ban on assault weapons and this was before there had even been any hearings on Feinstein’s bill.

Yet, the headline from a right-wing shrill machine was something like “Rachel Maddow gleefully admits she edited tape to make GOP look bad.”

I assume you get the point.

The Daily Caller has been pushing the Melendez story. You have obviously heard about it. Melendez is accused of cavorting with paid prostitutes at a friend’s home in the Dominican Republic. The story was apparently “leaked” by GOP operatives and offered to ABC news. They declined.

The right-wingers would say, “see, the MSM is in the pocket of the Democrats. They don’t report on misconduct of one of their own.” Is that what happened? No. Not at all.

The fact is that ABC interviewed one of the “prostitutes”. When asked how she knew that the man she had only known as “Bob” was a US senator, she replied that “I put his name in a search engine and Melendez’ picture came up.”

Why, I invite you to try that and see what you get.

ABC news declined the offer as “unreliable”, which of course The Daily Caller jumped all over it. Which one do you want to use as a source of information? (And I’m not pushing ABC news since I don’t find them all that good either.)

Which brings me full circle, since yesterday I unfairly maligned a nurse quite possibly, for failing to render CPR assistance to an elderly assisted-living woman. Apparently the woman had signed a DNR and I can presume that the nurse was aware of it. Or I would expect that was possible. In any case, I admittedly relied on only what I heard on news broadcasts from MSM and failed to delve any deeper into better sources. Mea Culpa. Live and learn. Hoisted on my own petard. (please insert any another euphemism that seems appropriate)

†

I’m inclined at this point to urge the government to just put a big ole fence around the state of Texas. Now granted, they are a big state, and they have a big population, but for Jimminy Cricket’s sake, they can’t have THAT many idiots can they?

Louis the Loon Gohmert is wasting your tax dollars once again with his amendment rider to a budget bill that would prevent any “federal funds” being used to transport the President to any golf outing until “White House tours are resumed”. Louis woke up from a drug-induced dream and thought he was in Lilliputian land again. The White House suspended tours to save money ala the sequester. Louis takes up space on the planet. I vote to suspend him from a hot air balloon, attached to the capital dome.

Another dim bulb in the state Senate wants to suspend operations like Planned Parenthood from submitted sex education materials to schools that teach sex education. Although all such materials are already subject to public availability and parental veto, Ken Paxton thinks (I know, a crazy word to apply to many in Texas), that present law doesn’t go far enough.

Places like PPH should not be allowed to offer health care information because of course they have a “conflict” of interests. Being that they provide abortions, they most surely would be promoting sex by unmarried teens as a way to, you know, keep business up.  While no example of any information that does that was offered as proof, insiders believe that if you put the brochures in water with a teaspoon of sugar, the words “HAVE SEX NOW!” will appear across the top of each page.

Okay, I added that last part.

And people talk about the misuse of taxes.

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Time Flies When Gravity Hibernates

badfeetBe a blogger! You too can make up inane titles that will confuse and confound. Everyone races to see what the hell she’s talking about today!

Oh, hi there.

Just reporting briefly on the home front.

The Contrarian has met the oral surgery and he has lived to tell tales of wonder and astonishment. Actually he’s doing well, slurping down plenty of protein drinks and spacing out on percocet, which is a form of oxycodone, and sleeping sweetly.

My feet are doing vastly better. Turns out I don’t have bone spurs, but rather plantar fasciites. That is the inflammation of the tendon that runs from heel to ball and supports the arch. There is a marvelous product out there that is a heel support you put in your shoes. It almost immediately relieved the intense pain. While I still feel it, its hugely better and hopefully now healing. I’m also popping an Advil every eight hours or so.

The broken toe is more in the vicinity of “sore” rather than painful. I’m back into my tennis shoes, and have bought some hiking shoes that with the inserts should prove supportive. I still have my broken toe taped to its new best friend, the middle toe, and they are fast buds now. The bruising has spread to nearly my main man toe, but the area is barely tender at all now. I should be walking Diego by Monday or so.

Speaking of which, the poor boy is utterly freaked by the changes in his daily grind. No walks, and well the Contrarian ain’t the ball of fun he usually is–not throwin’ the ball and wrestling the boy. All of which makes him anxious, and when he is anxious he worries about I guess being abandoned. So he’s been going through a twelve-inch rawhide bone in about a day and a half, chewing himself silly. He’s a needy little guy, all the more endearing for his anxiety. I’m going to walk him a short way today and hope he doesn’t know the difference.

So. Now that you are thoroughly bored, let’s see what the cartoon world has to say today.

The gun safety “discussions” go on. NRA

With some 90+ percent of the population favoring strong background checks, one wonders how long the reactionary right can hold out with its series of lies and fear-based tropes.

The survivalists will continue to listen as Wayne La Pee Pee Pierre threatens that to give an inch will be to give up the 2nd Amendment all together, for as he warns, Sandy Hook is what the President has been waiting for to do what he has always wanted: take away your guns.

The fact that not one single piece of legislation, nor rhetoric in over four years has suggested any such thing, is well, beside the point.

To a nut case, the very failure of predictions to come true, is why you should worry. It’s just a matter of time.

And the sun will one day devour and incinerate the earth. It too is just a matter of time.

Path-to-Citizenship-PoliticsA band of Dems and GOP’er’s are trying to fashion some sort of immigration policy.

The fascinating thing is this:

When Republicans are polled, something like 64% or so favor it. When the President’s name is attached to immigration reform, (with the same general details), favor-ability falls to 31%.

Tell me once again, that GOP opposition to the President is about policy and not about race. Do tell me again.

I continue to hear the same tired arguments: our borders are porous. Well the number of persons trying to enter the southern border without benefit of papers, has fallen dramatically since 2004. More entering illegally are sent back than ever before. In some studies there is now a negative effect, with more returning to their country of origin that coming here because they can’t find work.

Is the system fool-proof? No. But it’s hardly the sieve the reactionary Right portrays either.

The-DumbphoneIt truly is impossible to gain any modicum of truth if you don’t know how to judge what you are watching and reading.

But this seems lost on those who have drunk of the kool-aid and found it “mmmm-mmmm good.” You see folks, when you have belief, and somebody out there is more than happy to tell you that you are right, you tend to be reinforced that your are right.

More so when you are told that even though you barely graduated from high school, and never liked to read, you are right anyway, well, whoa, what a rush!

Now add some “don’t listen to them other folks, they are all liars and just want to brainwash you”.

And then for good measure, use a logo “Fair and Balanced.”

Now you got ‘em. And your robots will recite free of charge–

Hey you libtards, stop being sheeple and think for yourself, like we do!

That is a mind, tiny as can be, that has been trashed. I’m not sure it can be resurrected.

rubioWell, it was funny after all.

Say what you want, he was a nervous wreck.

And his message was rather pedestrian.

I mean, talk about how student loans enabled you to go to college, and then trash the idea that the government can help you succeed?

Talk about living in a working class neighborhood and then offer your house up for sale at $675,000 bucks, (with a pool)?

Claim that the “government can’t control the weather” as you answer to climate change?

 

And as always, may your day be brightened by a sweet face:

Don't hate me cuz I'm beautiful. . . .

Don’t hate me cuz I’m beautiful. . . .

 

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I Do Too Like A Republican or Two

TRoosevelt A fool that I am forced to endure on Facebook, said that the reason he feels compelled to use ad hominem attacks upon all Democrats  is that “we spent eight years always complaining about George Bush and Dick Cheney, so he is going to damn well complain until Obama and Biden leave office,” for as he puts it, “I hate all democrats because democrats hate all Republicans.”

Of course that is nonsense. Normal people don’t dump everyone into a bowl and call them “ALL” anything. Normal people don’t hate all of anybody, because they recognize that there are many shades of gray (what is all the hoopla about that movie anyhow? I don’t stay in the entertainment loop much I admit), and that people are fairly unique.

People who like to deal in those absolutes are what we call bigots.

I have nothing but the highest admiration for Colin Powell. I USED to have a fairly real admiration for John McCain, but that was well before 2008. Same for Lindsey Graham who used to make a decent point from time to time, until he started walking around all day with a dump in his pants because the Tea People and their threat of primarying him scared him shitless.

There have been others and it’s not important to point them out here. History Channel, which can be a most uneven channel in terms of valuable information, has a series on the Presidents. Not a history of each of them, but more on their impact on the Presidency itself. It’s been both informative and fascinating. And so far at least Teddy Roosevelt stands out as one of the very best.

I confess that I’ve often wondered why he deserved being on Mt. Rushmore with the likes of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln. Why not the other Roosevelt for instance? But I know now that he utterly deserves his placement there.

Everyone knows that Teddy broke up the monopolies and created the federal park systems. Few realize just how much of it he did on his own. While there is much huffing and puffing about the usurpation of power by the Obama Administration and its use of executive orders, (forgetting of course that Bush used lots of them himself), Teddy issued more than a thousand, as opposed to three for Washington.

Everyone knows the dangers of monopolies. They fix prices and snuff out competition, forcing consumers to pay as much as industry wants for products that become more and more shoddy as there is no other alternative. Certainly not what capitalism is supposed to be about. The monied business interests hated Teddy. With good reason. He broke the trusts up and allowed the fresh air of competition to once more reign.

Do you realize that back in Teddy’s day, fully one half of a years wages (which were kept at the utterly low average of $700 a year) was spent on food alone? By restoring competition (basically controlled by Carnegie and Rockefeller alone), the quality of goods improved, prices came down, and a new class of Americans was born–the Middle Class. Yes, literally there had really never been such a group before; there had been the wealthy and the poor and working poor.

Teddy was a Republican. Of course he would not recognize his party today, in fact he would be vilified and driven from it.

Of course the Democrats are different as well. The old Dixie Crats have left the party, and joined the every conservative growing Republicans. There are undoubtedly Democrats of the past who would not recognize their party today, but I struggle to find that they would find no home here.

Yet, you can go down a list of Republicans of old–Lincoln certainly, Eisenhower, and even the sainted Reagan would find themselves hard pressed to identify with this new Republican party that wanders in confusion of what it has become and what it will be.

As members try to signal that this crazy Tea People is killing the party, they are uniformly branded as the new flavor of odd-man out–a RINO, Republican in Name Only. Mention a Chris Christie today, or a moderate Republican pundit, and you are usually met with a dismissive, “he’s a RINO you know,” which means it doesn’t matter what they have to say, they are not REAL Republicans anyway.

Yet even the ultra-conservative Red State publicly bans commenters who want to raise the “birther” flag. They are smart enough to realize that if they ever want to win another national election, they have to cut loose the flotsam that can’t get off the scream, “but there’s a N***** in the White House!”

The fringe is a collection of fanatics who are itching to put on the camouflage and load the AK-15 and go to war in some dystopian vision of a government gone mad. They like their bible in King James Version and will tell you what it means which always substantiates their personal views, which means God is on their side and not yours. They mostly work at jobs that require hard work and anybody who doesn’t work hard enough is either an elitist or lazy. In either case they don’t want to pay taxes to support you or to fund your crazy research. They have no truck with evolution or any science which they can’t understand but vaguely feel suggests their built-in beliefs might not be quite right. They are all of these and some of these, but always some combination of these.

They compartmentalize disparate ideas that conflict, but never let those thoughts come together to resolve the difference. They have been told that all the media, save “theirs” is lying and can’t be trusted, and they believe it because basically they don’t use their heads for deep thinking in the first place.

The Republican Party has a heck of a mess on its hands.

But it’s not like they weren’t warned.

They were.

It’s great fun to watch, a bit frightening, and more than a little sad.

Poor Teddy, as they say, must be rolling in his grave.

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