Ragin’ Rick is Ahead by a Nose. . . .

Tags

bigotry, Citizens United, contraception, Election 2012, Fox, Humor, Koch Brothers, Mitch McDonnell, Obama, Whitney Houston, women's rights

At least some of the latest polling have Rick with a narrow lead. Even later polling suggests he’s pulling ahead in Michigan, long thought to be a Willard surety.

As you know, Newty is being bankrolled by one guy. And so is Rick. And Romney is beholden to a handful of very rich.

It looks for all the world as if a few oldish white dudes are having themselves a dog race. You can hear them at the fence, yelling for their dog to “get there”.

Grayhounds wear muzzles to keep them from biting. I’m sure the Sugar Pops have their dogs muzzled as well.

Which in some sense, makes it all the more a circus I guess. But this Citizens United has some really bad consequences. When it comes to local races, a single man can pretty much put into office, be it mayor, councilperson, state senator, or representative, anyone they choose, simply by pooring tens of thousands into campaigns that are usually waged for a few grand.

Over time, you build a majority. We saw the religious right do this on the issue of creationism by stacking school boards with hidden creationists. We have seen it in state legislatures who upturned states into Republican majorities and now are pushing anti-union, anti-voter, and more social legislation that could never been passed in statewide referendums.

Citizens United is a much more dangerous thing than most believe. We really must get behind a constitutional amendment to declare corporations “non-citizens” as it relates to campaign contributions. We must insist on full transparency of donors, and we must enforce strict limits on individual campaign contributions and eliminate “super pacs” and other such creative organizations whose sole purpose is to destroy fair elections.

*stepping off the soap box

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I’m guessing that turtles don’t have the most passionate and exciting sex lives in the world. I’m guessin’ that they must be pretty lousy in fact. I know that because Mitch McConnell, has decided that it makes a lot of sense to back a bill in Congress that allow any employer the right to refuse to cover birth control in the health care packages they offer to employees.

And Mitch? Women don’t like you either.

And apparently Mitch, probably because of the shell and all, can’t see the end run going around behind his back. Hehe. Poor turtle.

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You might have heard that Ricky is being largely held aloft by a dude by the name of Foster Friesse. You might want to take a look at who he is. (You can assume he’s nutty as a fruit cake, cuz he is.) Islamophobe, Liberals are satan, and a founding donor of Daily Caller.

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Christine, *I am not a witch* O’Donnell has indicated that she might be willing to serve in a Romney administration, if she can find the time.

I’m wondering do they have an opening for chief caldron stirrer? Or would she just entertain at parties?

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Whitney Houston was a singer that stood at the top of her profession. Her abilities cannot be overstated. She was also a deeply troubled woman who, like so many, found some solace in drugs. And in the end, it may turn out that the drugs took her life. I am sorry to learn of her death.

I have never pulled any punches here as to what I think about Fox News. They are a slick, wily organization who set out to capture an audience that they thought had no voice. While touting their “fair and balanced”, they have been anything but. They have used every code word, every nuance to suggest that the racists among their followers, were in some sense justified in their bigotry. They have sought to embrace, explain, excuse, and ignore the real demographic of hate that embraces their version of “journalism”.

Little Green Footballs reports that they were inundated with over 5000 comments on their report that Houston had died. They were among the most ugly I have ever read, and I read Blaze comments regularly.  Perhaps Fox has closed the thread, because I could not locate it on their report. Perhaps you need to register on their site in order to see them. But in any case, this is shameful. It is beyond shameful and yet, of course, you see nothing from Fox commenting on the hate that floods their site. It is instructive.

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There is a new book out called The Obama Hate Machine. There is a review of it over at Politicususa. You might want to take a look. Never have a small group of men done so much to destroy one man. And they started from the moment he took office.

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Was it just after his win in Carolina that Newtster told Santorum that he ought to withdraw from the race so that Newt could solidify his “inevitable” nomination? One wonders if Newt will now take his own advice and withdraw in favor of Santorum who is starting to pull out in front of Willard?

Some how, I’m thinkin’ he won’t.

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Remember when Chris Christie made all that stupid talk about how if the LGBT crowd was so sure of itself, they should just put it up for a referendum in the state? Well, there was a reason. The marriage equality bill is about to pass in the New Jersey Legislature, and old Christie will be forced to veto it. He’d rather not, so he could stay out of the issue.

Now go try to have an hypocrisy-free day, if ya can. It’s always a struggle.

**excuse any typos, I’ve been having a war with the spellcheck on WordPress for a week. Mostly it won’t work.

Is That His BUTT?????

Tags

Barack Obama, economy, Fox, laughter, Michelle Obama

So screamed the Contrarian last night, pulling an afghan over his head. “Tell me when it’s over!”

“No, no, it’s not his butt, it’s his thigh. You can look now.”

Meanwhile I began to wail with laughter, and run off looking for pen and paper to write this down, sure that it would make a fine lead in to today’s post, no matter the rest of the content.

Now, we were after all watching Dancing with the Stars, and one of the worst contestants of  the season, in Steven Wozniak,  Apple wiz, but an appalling atrocious dancer.  It seems, on top of being blessed with two left feet, and wearing black dress socks with shorts to rehearse in, Woz had suffered a pulled hamstring and was being taped up.

The Contrarian saw the gaping wall of flesh and nearly lost his lunch. This all seems rather odd to me, since the same man loves to critique the relative merits of the various cheerleading squads as we watch the NCAA basketball games. The athletic types have sacrificed real boob size, and he would prefer the rah rah types rather than those that flip around. The rah rahs are more heavily or heavenly endowed, as you please.

The point is that laughter is a daily occurance around our house, and usually several times per day. And I mean, not just a grin and mild giggle. We engage in the loud, hold your sides, guffawing that gets to that point where you fear you can’t stop, and are gasping for breath.

And somehow, that all seems bad, if you check around the blogosphere, and TV. At least in a few places, its down right unAmerican it seems. Plenty of “conservative” (read nut cases) are just all in a tither that Obama was actually laughing on Jay Leno and later on 60 Minutes.

Seems that that is, well, unseemly, in our economic gloom. So we understand from that bastion of fair and balanced, Foxy land. Why, according to the Contrarian, they sagely kept up the rhetoric nearly all day, that Obama was shockingly unfeeling as he laughed, while for goodness sakes, people are suffering from all manner of economic cruelty.The fact that most of this has been caused by the very people they have upheld for years as those hallmarks of business elan, well no matter.

No matter indeed. Fox forgets that not all that long ago, they were defending Bush as he and Barney traversed the White House environs exclaiming in glee, “No WMD’s here, none, here.” All this while actual PEOPLE died. They said the president, why he was in need of letting off a little steam what with the fate of the entire planet on his shoulders. It was wrong for the “liberal” media to criticize such a fine man, who was so compassionate and so on and on and on. Makes ya want to puke don’t it?

Everyone knows that during the “Great Depression” the Feds actually asked Hollywood to produce comedies and send that little girl, Shirley something or other around, to help keep the country’s spirits up. Today, we find that movie theaters are doing a booming business, better than they have in years.

Psychologists tell us that laughter helps blood pressure, depression, and makes surgery and chemo therapy more effective. It cuts down on pain medication needs. People with chronic pain say it helps them forget the constant agony they feel 24/7.

There is a new thing going around called the “happy dance.” It’s like a chicken dance. Anybody can do it, and it makes people laugh, those doing it, and those watching.

We’ve become addicted to watching the last segment of the evening news where they show a story of people helping people. While not technically laughing, we at least smile a good bit, and see the world as a nicer kinder place than we would otherwise from the usual stories of gloom and doom.

I predict that comedies will do better than serious drama this year. Television and movies. I predict that all manner of fun cheap stuff will have a resurgence. Families will play Twister, and yard croquet, and badmitton. We’ll return to picnics in the park. Cartoons will be produced in greater numbers and more adults will be watching.

Okay, so I’m probably wrong on some of that. But dang, when things are so grim, people actively look for cheap thrills, they want to laugh, forget their troubles and be happy. Plenty will find that there is more happiness in a family dinner of hotdogs around the grill and roasting marshmallows over the charcoal than there is in a four star restaurant complete with prettily plated teaspoons of food.

Meanwhile Michelle Obama is slammed for digging up a few yards of precious White House lawn for a vegetable garden. How freaking unAmerican can she get? Everyone knows its far more flag waving to buy Mangos from Costa Rica, and out of season to boot. That’s real America, not growing food for your self and neighbors to improve health and maybe save a few bucks.

Been there, done that, in ummm, the Great Depression, and during WWII. Everyone knows that that was a failure, and soooooooo not the way of the good old US of A.

So laugh damnit, big belly laughing, and don’t stop. It’s good for you and good for everyone!