Just Jumpin’ the Shark

Tags

GOP, insanity, teabaggers

We all know the term Jumping the Shark.

It is used to refer to a TV show that has stuck around for one season too many and has run out of original ideas. It becomes predictable and well, just silly.

The same can be said for the GOP.

Or perhaps black hole analogies are more to the point.

The current Grand Old Party (Grey Old Poops) seem trapped at the event horizon, being sucked inexorably downward into the abyss of extinction.  To the observer, the descent is slow and seemingly forever.

As they tried to find their footing after the debacle (for them) of the 2012 election, they find themselves on the wrong side of just about everything that the mainstream in this country find right and good. They cannot get it through their skulls, dulled by apparent years of playing football with each other without helmets, that MOST Americans think it right and proper that the rich pay more taxes since their percentage of the pie has reached obscene levels.

Don’t get us wrong. We believe in wealth. We believe in getting wealthy. We just don’t believe that money should be wasted on people who have so much of it that they can’t recall how many homes they have, install elevators for their cars, cover everything in 14 carat gold, and have his and her yachts. We reject people who regularly go to restaurants where the tab for two is in excess of a thousand bucks. We think it’s unnecessary for people to have four thousand dollar shoes when too much of the world is shoeless.

We are even more offended when some jerk with a MBA thinks that he is worth multiple millions just to do a fairly simple job (it ain’t brain surgery or nuclear physics), and  we are even more offended when other people agree to pay it. This will threatening to “close the plant” if workers don’t agree to pay cuts and benefit cuts to make that profit to pay that salary.

But the GOP in part can’t wrap its IQ-less brain around these facts. The faction known as the Tea Party, peopled largely with unwitting dupes of corporate America who are fine with wherever the anger of said TeaPeople is directed as long as not in their direction, the Tea Party is against raising taxes on their masters. I guess they fear them. They certainly aren’t going to be them, no matter what their delusions.

I have spent some considerable time listening to these inarticulate grunters and find for the most part that they can’t explain themselves. They seem to rely almost totally upon the likes Rush and Sean and Breitbart and Blaze and so forth for their “news” which is not news at all but merely the subject matter released for the day to direct their ire. The TeaPeople then spew these few “phrases of the day” in a litany of rant that seldom addresses the real issues nor makes any attempt to answer serious opinions to the contrary.

They end up just ejecting ad hominem garbage and give themselves high-fives for the effort.

Then of course we come to the tragedy at Newtown and once again, we find them on the wrong end of the spectrum.

What was eerie was their willingness to hem and haw as they awaited the puppet master’s press conference last Friday. They would not commit to any discussion that possibly GUNS might be the problem. Instead they nodded sympathetically and suggested more safe rationales such as the ever popular, “get crazy people off the street” scenarios. Except that if one assumes that America has no more “crazies” (and I’m willing to be educated that they do by the way) than the next country, then you can’t explain why violence in this country is a hundred million times more prevalent here than anywhere else.

After Wayne La  PeePee (as the Contrarian likes to refer to him), spoke, then the flood gates were opened and then parroted the phrases again and again, “I’m not sure banning guns is the answer.”

This in the face of an overwhelming response from the public that sees the sense in banning assault rifles and high-capacity clips from sale to the public. THEY recognize that the only people who really want this crap are those whose minds are a bit loose anyway and like the first victim of Newtown, was arming for  the coming collapse.

While all this has been going on, those sneaky little shits have been busy in the various states, (all blue ones by the by), in trying to push through various pieces of legislation directed as screwing unions some more and figuring out new ways to win elections by securing less than half the vote.

I ran across this little report from Think Progress which was funny as hell, unless you realize that you as the taxpayer are paying for this kind of Mr Rodgers meets Mr. Greenjeans in Ms. Piggy’s bedroom kinda silliness.

1. Republicans in Washington state tried to ban the use of the dollar, placing the US on a pure gold and silver standard. Remember how old departed Beck loved to hawk gold on his Foxy Show? Yeah, well some of them bought it, boys and girls.
2. Virginian GOP sillies voted to remove words like climate change and sea level from the dictionaries in their state, because words have power and if you eliminate the word, you eliminate the problem, of which there never was one to begin with since my crazy interpretation of the bible said so.
3. Meanwhile in North Carolina, the GOP decided to just not ready any report that didn’t say what they wanted it to.
4. In Kansas and Florida, the busy bees in the Tea-infused legislatures, passed anti-Sharia laws because you know, the Hispanics and the Africa-Americans are gonna get together to support the relatively tiny Muslim community and their even tinier right-wing element of same who wants religious based decisions from our almost lily-white jurists.
5. In Arizona, it appears that the sun-soaked GOP wishes there to be no abortions for any woman who is 20 weeks pregnant, and they have decided that you decide that by counting from her last period. So I guess women will have to register their period dates with the state now, just in case, ya know.
6. In Indiana, Republicans, in their gun-lovingness, make it legal for you to shoot a cop if you THINK he is trying to enter your property illegally. Given that it’s Republicans and all, I am sure they waived the “reasonable belief” standard that applies to normal people.

There is more, but hey, you have a life.

I Never Heard of Them!

Tags

GOP, insanity, Mark Sanford, Sarah Palin

Most everyone knows the story of how Jesus predicted that Peter would deny him three times before the cock crowed.  And sure enough, Peter, when asked if he knew Jesus, shook his head and exclaimed, “I did not know the man.”

Something akin to that is happening in GOP land these days. People are furiously removing bumper stickers and old yard signs from their property, lest they find crowds of people standing around and pointing, and of course laughing hysterically.

I guarantee if you go up to that co-worker tomorrow, the one who used to try to convince you to vote for McCain last fall, and ask him what he thinks “his” party is doing? Well, he will deny, deny, deny, claim he is an independent, just playing devil’s advocate, and is “certainly not a Republican.” How could you ever have gotten that idea?

Republicans are an endangered species, and there is even a medical condition now that seems to be attacking only Republican Governors across the land. The NEJM has the symptoms. You may want to take a look if you have any intention of even being close to one, since we don’t know at this point how it’s transmitted.

How this all got started is anyone’s guess. But things have definitely gone into bizarro land. No more the usual infidelities and money scandals we’ve become accustomed to. Naw, too tame in this new century. Now they add to their indiscretions, of whatever type, by losing the ability to speak coherently.

Things started to get noticeable with Governor Sanford who went off to Argentina for an “assignation” with his lady love, all the while letting the rest of the world think he was a hiking in the woods.

The Governor, caught dead in his lie, called the proverbial press conference and fessed up, in a rambling sort of way. He then proceeded to apologize to everyone, again, and again, and again. Word has it he even waited for the the cleaning crew to arrive at the office to apologize to them.

Of course, he apologized to his wife. But then he called more press conferences and went on at length as to how he couldn’t get his honey out of his head.  He then talked about all the extra times he had seen her, and finally how it was no ordinary fling, but rather the “real” deal, them being soul mates and all.

Michael Jackson conveniently died, pushing him off the top news spot, and he CONTINUED to belabor his teenage angst. Which all seems to cut against the possibility that his marriage can at this point be “fixed.” Finally Jon Stewart screamed! “ENOUGH.”

And then, of course, Sanford gets another chance to SHUT UP, when dear Sarah, the Moosey hunter and sometime Governor, decides it’s time to really out do the meanderings of said Sanford and go one better with her own press conference of stream of conscience remarks.

You no doubt have read and heard all this already so I won’t bore you with the details. She’s a metaphor girl, our Sarah, and she dished out plenty of them on Friday.  I like the fish one best myself.

The last couple of days have been filled with ideas, plots, and scenarios that somehow explain this fluff ball of a intellect. My favorite is Bill Kristol, who no doubt thinks he discovered her, and pushed her on McCain. He hasn’t a clue why she did it, but she’s “sly like a fox” and somehow this is all designed to win the Presidency in 2012.

Plenty of others suggest that a scandal is about to explode, but we can’t talk about that, cuz Moose mama claims she’s gonna sue bloggers who infer she’s well, scandalous. She claims her entire family was in favor of this abdication of responsibility. Why they would be, who could tell, but part of the family apparently was unaware.  Todd called his daddy and asked him to be there, but never told him why. Dad couldn’t make it and was stunned to learn that  Sarah was throwin’ in the towel.

Anyway, the Contrarian just loves Sarah now. She shoved Jacko off the pedestal, and finally put Foxy Noise and the other cable channels back onto the scent of more interesting prey. So I gotta thank her for that. The Contrarian was gettin’ a tad pissy if you get my drift. He’s back to being a happy camper and life in the meadow is once again blissful. 

Still if I ever run into the Northern Princess of Dumb, I’ll probably forget to thank her for that. Just continue to marvel that it can walk and talk at the same time. It surely can, and I still am not sure why.