And Now For More of the Same

Tags

Diego, fiscal cliff, GOP, Humor, life in the foothills, marijuana, Politics, Romney, teabaggers

Diego here. Just a moment of your time. Momsie wants to show you cartoons which may be interesting to humans, I don’t know, but I am so excited I just had to interrupt (which she says I do too much, but gosh I can’t help it) to tell you this!

I’s taught my human momsie a new trick!

As you know, I takes my momsie on a walk every morning. Well, she has a tendency to wander off and get herself lost in the desert. So, I’s taught her to whistle!

You know how to whistle doncha? Just put your lips together and blow? HAHA, I learned that from a movie my popsie was watching one day.

So when my momsie gets herself all lost, she whistles, and I come a runnin’ to find her and gets her back on track. Pretty nifty huh? So if any of you doggies are readin’, e-mail me at “whistlin’inthedark.doggiechannel and I’ll give ya the spifics so your momsie or popsie won’t get lost too. Okay?

Diego signing off.

Are you gettin’ ‘er done? The shopping that is?

Are you spending a fortune to impress everyone with your largess?

Nobody in Washington seems very interesting in impressing us with their brains.

I guess when you don’t have many of those it’s pretty hard to fake it.

DeMint is leaving the Senate. I’m not sure anyone will notice. Stupid seems a rampant disease in the Capital.

Forget it and go buy me a present. I like largess expressly meant for me.

This seems to be the sticking point.

Why is beyond me.

Ever notice that the business types are the one’s screaming? It’s the teabaggers who are but the working class. They ain’t ever gonna be rich, so I don’t know why they want to protect those who are.

I guess they believe that the could be.

If it weren’t for all us moochers.

I guess their grandma on social security and medicare ain’t a moocher though. Moocher is a very vague kinda word and is hard to define precisely. Everybody has their own definition that avoids their “earned” benefits and only relates to the freebies your lazy ass sits back and enjoys. Funny word huh?

Doncha just wish you coulda been there?

Oh I bet it was priceless.

I bet little Willard just sweat bullets.

I bet it was his first time ever in that room.

I know it will be his last.

I hear Ann cries in her room every day. Before she gets on her jodhpurs and saddles up Rafalca and goes riding around in the air-conditioned ring at the snooty-patootie riding club for the disgustingly wealthy. It almost makes you want to feel sorry for her. . . .almost I said.

Meanwhile a couple of states in the union were pretty darn happy.

The election results seem to energize them.

Everybody is happy.

Except the rightie-tighties.

They never are happy unless everyone is as miserable as they are. Then they are happy.

And then they repent and look for more things to dislike that feel good, taste good, or look good.  Did they forget that when God created the world he said, “IT WAS GOOD!” ?

It’s all in how you interpret. Ya know what I mean?

Nothing much changes in the great dizzy land of teabagging.

After all, rationality is not a word then subscribe too. It’s too bourgeois.

The conundrum. What to do, what to do.

You ask them: What exactly has this President done that is so awful?

The answer: “he’s a Democrat, ‘enuf said.”

Is that enough?

Ted Nugent says people on assistance shouldn’t be allowed to vote. I say people without brains shouldn’t be allowed to vote. I doubt we are talking about the same people.

Really got to feel sorry for the GOP.

Just a little.

I mean it must be tough standing there in front of microphones and acting like you are important brokers of the common good.

When you are pretty much laughingstocks. Mere shells of political might.

I mean look at Lindsay Graham. Can you listen to him without laughing?

I mean really, can you?

And McCain? Don’t you want to just offer him a diaper change?

And Mitch? A chin? And Boehner the Orange: you know he goes home and cries his eyes out. Heading up a bunch of clown college rejects.

This was just plain unconscionable.

Santorum was delighted.

Santorum is one of those who ain’t happy unless everyone else is miserable.

How can you explain this?

You cannot.

No one can.

Except to say that the GOP is still so afraid of the crazies that they will risk public humiliation again and again rather than lance the boil. Disgusting is too good a word for them.

It’s nice to get along

When Truth Becomes Truthiness and Worse

Tags

abortion rights, editorial, Election 2012, Romney, truth, truthiness

I’m not sure I know what truth is any more.

Truth: the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality.

Fact: a piece of information presented as having objective reality.

Reality: the quality or state of being real.

Real: having objective independent existence.

Got all that? Know what it means now?

Nah, neither to do I.

Worse yet, fully 50% of all that is TRUE NOW, won’t be true in the future. Just think of that. fifty percent of what you believe to be true today will be proven to actually be false sooner or later.

We are awash in a political election cycle that is mired in falsity. Each side claims the other is fraudulently stating the “facts” about X, Y and Z. “Independent” think tanks of various persuasions either corroborate A’s version as portraying reality accurately or expose it as a lie. A growing number of fact-checkers can’t seem to agree and admit that their subjective beliefs interfere with their conclusions.

Truth becomes what is believable because it “sounds” good. A potential voter who has admittedly paid zero attention to the political scene and thus is tabula rasa, claims that she will probably vote for Romney because “he seemed to sound like he knew what he was talking about.”

Truth becomes what is recalled from months and months of repetition heard as one prepared the dinner, sorted the laundry, gathered the trash to put out for pick up. “They keep saying that Obama wants to tax me to pay for deadbeats.”

Truth becomes what we synthesize from our years of social interaction, what seems logical, what jives with our worldview, what agrees with that which would subjectively make our lives better. It is fed by our prejudices, known and hidden behind years of denial. Convenience is the mother of truth. It is more convenient to believe what I think will give me a leg up. It’s easier to disbelieve that which pokes me in my conscience, telling me that I have failed to take care of those less fortunate.

Truth is what absolves me of responsibility for all the things I don’t have time to be responsible for. I have enough trouble being responsible for paying the bills and feeding the dog. I don’t want to have to worry about your health care. That’s your problem.

See how easy it is?

Truth is damn relevant. It’s damn relevant to whatever I need it to be.

But I hold onto it. I caress it, and polish it, and put it up on a pedestal and claim for all the world to know that I support the TRUTH. And if you have a different one on your pedestal then, well by damn and damnation, yours is false and you know it is. You’re mendacious, I’m just a good citizen with patriotism oozing from my pores.

Now I’m not really being relative. Truth is objective to a big extent, and if EVERYONE PAID ATTENTION TO THE SAME DEGREE, AND LISTENED WITH AN OPEN MIND, MOST OF US WOULD AGREE ON WHAT WAS TRUTH. Most of us. But most of us aren’t paying attention.

It is scary as all heck that Willard M. Romney, lied through his teeth (objectively speaking) and won a debate because he “sounded” good. Worse, a bunch of these “sound” good people will probably decide this election, and it depends on what that last impression is before they wander to the polling booth. Right or wrong, it doesn’t matter. It will just be the last “sounding good” thing they remember.

And I know what Churchill meant when he said that Democracy was the worst form of government except for all the rest. And I know what Plato meant when he said that One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

And it makes me feel depressed.

By the by, William Saletan has a very complete and comprehensive article on the devolution evolution of Willard’s stance on abortion and women’s health issues. Every woman should be fully aware of exactly what they can expect from him. He sure won’t tell you the truth. You have to figure it out.

And by the by, I ran into a great little site with some fun and enjoyable poetry that you might take a look at. It’s called:Poems and Ponderings.

Have a good one, and keep your head down.

Related articles

• Cognitive researchers find truth in Colbert’s ‘truthiness’ (rawstory.com)
• Sophia A. McClennen: Truthiness Is Not a Joke: Lying and Loving It at the NRC (huffingtonpost.com)

 

Elegantly Said

Tags

47%, cartoons, Election 2012, Humor, Romney, satire

 

 

Willard held a press conference, but only to make an announcement.

Pity. It would have been such fun to ask: “okay, so elegantly now describe what you were intending to mean when you said that 47% of the American people were never going to take responsibility for their lives.”

You know he wouldn’t have answered the question, because he learned in Karl Rove “Politics 101” to deflect, ignore, and obfuscate any question that would be embarrassing to answer.

Hint: all questions of any substance are embarrassing for Willard to answer.

According to Herm Cain, we can infer that Willard has no “depth” of understanding on anything other than the depth of his bank accounts in the Cayman Islands.

All of which has come to mean, that everyone, including the ranking members of the “Chattering Class” (so-called by ever-lovin’ stand-by-your-man-Ann Romney) have enjoyed the week taking pot shots at pin the tail on the donkey. The donkey is Willard.

It’s not like he’s not familiar with a horse’s ass after all.

His wife owns at least one. And I guess he makes two.

I wonder what Willard plans to do after November?

Perhaps he can go to Switzerland and run naked through a room full of his money. You know the stuff he doesn’t pay taxes on because unlike the 47% who don’t pay taxes, the 1% REALLY don’t pay taxes. It’s no tax taken to a “whole, ‘nother level.”

Meanwhile, Willard has not been doing a lot of campaigning.

It’s because he’s become addicted to puzzles.

I’m not sure that there is a solution to his puzzle however.

All the polling seems to suggest that his “path to the White House” is becoming too narrow for even the best tightrope walker to try.

And it seems that no election is local this year. The loudest refrain heard across the land by Republicans running for office this year, is “Romney? I never knew the man.”

Paulie just scratches his head, and wishes Ayn was still alive to counsel with. She would know what to do with all this collectivist shit.

The House of Lies.

The campaign of lies.

The year of lies.

The GOP has lived by the lie, and it seems now to be dying by the lie.

Karl Rove is a genius they say.

I think it’s more like he by fluke, got very lucky in 2000.

See, people didn’t understand that lying stuff. Now they do. They now ASSUME it’s a lie. Karma is like that Karlie the Dough boy. It comes back to roar in your face like the most distasteful and foul-smelling dragons. Do you like the breath of the dragon Karl? It’s withering Willard and Paulie. Spin that on Foxy Karl.

Though shall not speak up on foreign policy in the midst of a crisis.

It’s the seldom stated 13th commandment.

Though shall not speak up on foreign policy in the midst of a crisis without all the facts.

That’s the 14th commandment.

Though shall not speak up on foreign policy in the midst of a crisis and say nasty things about the Commander-in-chief, especially when you are in violation of the 14th commandment.

It’s called a Mittfire.

Which all led to redistribution.

Willard continues to think that only the 1% know words longer than eight letters.

So he thought he could make up this drama about Obama being a socialist again.

Except that everyone knows that we have been redistributing wealth in this country since the revolution. How does Willard think the roads were built in this country? How do you think that that John Adams got from Boston to Philadelphia?

It was taxing the landowners Willard, and using that to benefit EVERYBODY by building a ROAD. Dumb Willard. And do put on clothes. You are not getting a vote that way either!

I wonder what Willard thinks we are made of?

I think he thinks we want to be him. Ann whispers in his ear all night, “they are just jealous honey, because you are so successful. They know they can never be like you, because they don’t have the drive and brains, so they want to see you laid low.”

I bet that’s what she says.

She’s rather bitter don’t you think?

I mean did she just want to ride in a bitter private jet?

But really, I can’t imagine wanting to be like Willard. His life seems rather boring and dull. Being rich and stupid is highly overrated.

 

Take your pick.

He’s been all of these and more.

Do you think he is like this at home?

He likes pancakes one week, and hates them the next?

He likes Downton Abbey one week, and hates it the next?

He likes one of his boys better than the other, and then another the next?

Is the whole family in a secret therapy session being filmed for an episode of Jersey Shore? Has Snookie lost weight. (confession: never watched even one episode. It’s like wrestling–not the sane of mind.)

Well, do the best you can to have a good weekend. I may Crab Rangoon and Pork Egg Rolls this morning. They’re freezing up in the freezer now. Aren’t you even a tiny bit impressed?

 

Related articles

• Is Karl Rove Abandoning Romney? (alan.com)
• Karl Rove says Mitt Romney must ‘be careful’ with 47 percent (theblaze.com)
• Ann Romney Tells Critics ‘Stop It,’ Slams ‘Chattering Class’ (crooksandliars.com)

 

Well, I Been Busy

Tags

global warming, GOP, Health care, Humor, Koch Brothers, Las Cruces, lifestyle, Mitt, moving, rich folk, Romney, satire, taxes, tea party

Ya think you are done?

Yeah, I bet you did.

Done with me talking about moving in? Sure, I’m done.

Almost.

It seemed that Thursday and Friday got filled up with doing stuff.  The Contrarian had his first VA appointment, mostly because he needed his meds renewed. That went peachy as they say.

So then we headed off to Home Depot to order window “treatments”. A mix-match of drapery (Martha Stewart panels for the patio door–the sliding bamboo panels we wanted were outrageously expensive at nearly $1000), wooden blinds and a hot little ditty called “faux stained-glass film.”

This last we decided to use in the two odd windows on either side of the front door, which are 14 inches wide and probably five feet or more in length. We liked the idea of letting the morning sun in but still providing privacy. I located a perfectly matching metal wall hanging at Pier 1 Imports yesterday, and so together the entrance looks quite nice.

All that stuff takes a lot of time to put up, so like I said, we have been busy. Pier 1 was my major stop yesterday to get pillows for the chairs and sofa. And like I said, I found the wall hanging. And where I could have spent another $3-400 bucks easily with all the neat stuff I saw. I’m dangerous in a place like that. The prices are enticing and well, I guess I just like their style.

So, here it is Saturday and I am just about done with my work day but for dinner which is made mostly but for the cooking. Marinated steaks for the grill, corn salsa, left-over Mexican rice with green chile salsa, and some left over baked beans. The Contrarian takes care of the grilling.

I have about six recipes to post on the other blog. I’m reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, and I have the Excel spreadsheet ready to go to start cataloging the books. I have a hair cut appointment on Monday, the Contrarian has to stop at the VA again to see a technician about his ear, and then we need to hit the bank, Verizon, and eventually Wal-Mart before the end of the week. Not so much, lol. Oh and I forgot, the Contrarian is spending his time searching Craig’s list for a truck.

Just your typically over-whelmed (almost) American retired couple. We are managing to find time to enjoy ourselves along the way.

Meanwhile, the beat goes on.

The GOP is really really sure it hates the AHCA, and it’s really sure that it will do all kinds of utterly dastardly things to all of us. Beyond that. . . .

It comes down to “reduce costs” (somehow).

That’s pretty much all they have to say.

Course, they say that while partaking in all the benefits of the new law themselves, or, indulging in the nice health care package that they enjoy as members of the government.

Willard promises us many things. None of them are actually details, just grandiose grand statements of how much better we will be off with him. He can’t go into the details of exactly how he will do that stuff–that would be giving the opposition a heads-up and we can’t have that. It all comes down to trust.

Don’t it always?

While that is going on, Willard is subjected to much inquiry about his money.

Really rich folks are notorious for not liking to get into the particulars of how they manage their money.

They know the tax code like nobody else on earth, and we would be shocked to discover how they can secrete away so much of their gains without paying taxes.

Willard says he pays every dime he’s required to and not a nickel more. Direct quote.

I guess that is an example of patriotism.

As Rinsed Penis said, “it’s the American way to avoid paying taxes.”

Is that something Willard will be teaching us if elected?

Plenty of the country has more things to worry about, as its been mighty hot.

Everyone here in Las Cruces keeps telling us “it’s not usually this hot here”. It’s been over 100 a whole lot, and I guess it’s not usually quite that hot.

I know it’s been really hot just about everywhere.

George Will tells me to get over it, “it’s summer after all.”

But if 10 of the hottest years on record have occurred in the past 12 years, and 20 of the hottest have occurred in the past 30 years, I figure there is a problem.

Mr. Inhofe, idiot Senator from OK claims global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. He says, it’s outrageous to imagine that human beings can interfere with what God created. I’m pretty sure Satan has interfered with the connections in Mr. Inhofe’s brain. As I said, he’s an idiot. Don’t believe me? Go look up idiot in the dictionary.  You’ll find his face there. I’m sure.

Willard went a visiting to the NAACP.

He told them how much he liked their music.

He told them that he liked ’em all just fine, and he would like them to visit him in the WH now and then and give him their “sense of things”.

He said some unkind things about the President.

For that he was booed.

But he smiled, and said, “take a look, I’m your real friend.”

Which reminds me that somebody once said, “with friends like that. . . .”

The Tea Party folks over at Americans for Prosperity seem not to know that they are a part of a front organization funded and run by the Koch brothers.

Prosperity is right. But it ain’t you’re prosperity they are lookin’ out for.

Wanna guess whose?

Oh come on.

Give it a try.

Guess.

While you’re at it, look up the word “duped” in the dictionary.

Don’t be surprised if you find your own picture there.

Just sayin’.

Mitt-Wit’s Bain Problem

Tags

Bain, economics, Election 2012, Politics, Romney

Although our boy Willard avoids Mormon faith like the bubonic plague, I’m pretty sure that lying is still a sin in the “Mormon bible. And by every account I’ve come across, Mitty takes his faith seriously.

But apparently he doesn’t take it THAT seriously. Just serious enough to attempt to placate the religious masses with things like claiming that the US Constitution was “probably inspired,” and other self-serving chatter like that.

Willard has a case of the lying when it comes to just about anything that he thinks will  work to get him elected president of these here United States  of Merika. And what he lies most about is how he’s this wonderfully brilliant economic business genius.

And then he assures us that once at helm of the ship of state, he will fix all our financial woes. Of course President Obama doesn’t believe in free enterprise at all according to  Mitt-Wit, he hates it in fact. On the other hand, Bain CEO the Mitt-meister, knows that business is just a case of strong-willed smart men willing to bet their fortunes on business schemes that, should they fail, will leave them paupers. That’s the difference between them and us–guts. We prefer to stay attached to our safe and boring little pencil-pushin’, lathe-operatin’ jobs for that “steady” paycheck, while brave souls like Mitty risk it all on their business acumen.

Naw, not really.

Actually they have scammed the game of free enterprise so that it never goes tilt.

Bain doesn’t go into a failing business, pour tons of cash in, restructure and so for and then sit and hope for the best. Far from it.

Basically what Bain does it access the money on hand of the company in question, take half of it, assess another quarter of the remainder for “professional expenses” and then restructure what is left and “hope for the best.” If it works, well that is nice. If it doesn’t, well, Bain has it’s profit, and the company is sold off in bits and pieces, Bain taking the bulk no doubt for its expenses, and paying off creditors if  there is anything left.

This is what, in my opinion the Obama team is missing. They keep attacking Bain as if it is careless of the companies it takes on to “fix”, and even callous about the workers there. It is not. It’s just that they rig the game to win regardless. That’s not capitalism. That’s a scam, that it seems to me, leaves the crippled company in greater danger of going under than it would have if it had simply hired a new team to run things,  and paid them the normal salary.

In today’s game of high-stakes venture capitalism, true capitalism is not being played. The playing field is anything but level. The rich have structured it so that succeed or fail, the rich get paid no matter what. It’s the way the CEO business is played these days–you don’t have to show a profit as CEO–your golden parachute is there cushion your fall regardless.

This is what Mitt-face is promoting–a corporatocracy where the “right” people control the wealth , establish what you “need” in salary, and maintain a stable workforce, one that has little or no recourse, except another job which is basically the same.

The Obama team needs to attack the very premise that what Romney and company do, remotely resembles free enterprise.

Related articles

• As Obama Team Releases New Bain Attack, Cory Booker Walks Back ‘Nauseating’ Critique: VIDEO (towleroad.com)
• The Reason Why Bain is important. (3chicspolitico.com)
• Obama Campaign Ad: The Story of Bain Capital and Ampad (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital took $20 profit for every dollar invested in Ampad. Creditors got {title}.002. (dailykos.com)

Well, It’s Not as if They Want Those Votes!

Tags

Election 2012, Gingrich, Jr., Martin L. King, Obama, racism, right-wing insane, Romney, Santorum, Sports

They have lots of time on their hands in Myrtle Beach I guess. Just so you know, from L-R, it’s Romney, Newt, Huntsman, Perry, Santorum and Paul.

While we were busy doing other things (getting totally immersed in the new show Alcatraz), the clown show was doing its level best to wow ’em in South Carolina. True to form, when we miss a rare debate, we miss the best of them.

Juan Williams had the unmitigated (it’s always unmitigated by the by) gall to question Newtster as to whether his “little black boys becoming janitors” might be a bit, ya know, talking down to darker folks. For this he was roundly booed by the good citizens of drawl.

Similarly, we understand that Mr. Mittens made some remark about his Mexican heritage  and for that he was also booed. That story is another of those, “you cannot make this stuff up” moments. When Mormons were being persecuted in the US, Mittens grandpa took the family down to Mexico, and they stayed there for some time, and Mittens papa was born down there. When the Mexican revolution broke out he moved the family back to the US–get this–as illegal aliens. Sooo, I’m thinkin, Mittens needs to go back to Mexico and get at the back of the line. Fair is fair after all.

While Mittens may be inevitable at this point, the right-wingers are intent on making it clearly known that they don’t want no Black and Hispanics muddying up their white GOP waters. I rather think their desire will be accommodated come next November. But, as the Rightie-Tightie’s are quick to point out, there ain’t no bleepin’ racism in Merika no more!

It used to be that the GOP could always make an issue out of crime. Crime being down everywhere, they have pretty much lost that issue, but both Frothy Mix and Mittens assured everyone that no dirty ex-felon would ever pull a lever in a voting booth if they had their druthers. So there.

¶

Andrew Sullivan, who writes for the Daily Beast, has by all accounts a great article on the Obama Administration accomplishments to date in Newsweek. Given what he has had to work with, it’s actually pretty amazing. And remember that it was Obama that pushed the stimulus, which contrary to all GOP rhetoric has been successful. It has been Europe who refused his suggestions and opted for austerity, that finds itself in deeper and deeper trouble. While our economy is certainly not robust, it has been making a steady climb upward for more than ten straight months.

¶

Now this is no gossip column, I want that to be perfectly clear. But good grief, how can one pass up juicy stuff like this:

It seems that Santorum’s wife, Karen, who is now a rabid anti-abortion crusader, used not to be well, so inclined.

It seems Karen, before she met the Rickster, was the “live-in” love for many years of one Tom Allen, a Pittsburg obstetrician, abortionist, and t0-this-day outspoken advocate of a woman’s reproductive freedom. He knows Karen quite well, having delivered her himself. Karen was into older men at the time. Karen was 22 when she remet Allen, then 63. Their affair lasted six years.

You cannot make this stuff up.

So, if you wonder how Frothy Mix gets all those perverted notions in his little noggin, well, . . .just sayin’.

This ranks high on the scale of Newtzpah!

¶

 I re-heard part of Martin Luther King, Jr’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail last night. I have to go read the entire thing. It is powerful stuff. MLK was an extraordinary and eloquent writer. You can go read it here.

¶

Call me crazy, but I find articles like this intriguing. Do Sports Build Character or Damage It? The Chronicle of Higher Education weighs in, and makes for an entertaining and thoughtful piece. The comments are good too.  This all from a professorial perspective. How else would Plato, Hector and Lawrence Taylor end up in the same place?

¶

Betty White turns 90 today, and is busy, healthy, and funnier than hell. She gives me hope.

¶

You guys probably don’t read the Blaze much. I don’t “read” it either, but I do check out the headlines and read the comments of one’s that I am sure will be “hot”. One of the most dangerous and compelling tools in the Blaze readership arsenal, is their willingness to “boycott” all those bad folks they find. Mostly they are Hollywood types and of course whole broadcasting networks, most of them in fact. They have boycotted so many people I can’t keep track. People like Morgan Freeman, and Spielberg, and Ron Howard, and George Clooney, and so forth.

The boycotts are because they are black and are “playing the racist” cards (code for reminding us of our damn bigotry), or they are supporting that racist/socialist/communist/fascist/Muslim jihadist/half-black/Merika-hatin’ Obummer dude.

I always feel sorta bad for ’em. They got nothing to watch, nothin’ to read, nothin’ to do except fume. They are down to Rush and Glenn and WorldNewsDaily. Gotta be rough.

And I can tell that all those Hollywood types are sweating out these boycotts. I mean the must be losing pennies a month. Rough.

¶

What’s on the Stove? Something called Smashed Tacos. And today’s posting will be an awesome Autumn Squash soup.

Extraordinary Words: Musings on the state and ethical behavior (suitably vague huh?)

Related articles

• Before Karen Met Rick (politicalwire.com)
• Political Predictions (hidinginurcloset.wordpress.com)
• Romney Shrugs Off Attacks (thedailybeast.com)
• Video: Gingrich vs. Juan Williams on the “food-stamp president” (hotair.com)

What a Difference a Day, errr, Month? Makes?

Tags

AFA, astrology, Bryan Fischer, DADT, dinosaurs, evolution, gay rights, Glenn Beck, GOP, homophobia, Huckabee, Media, Obama, Palin, polling, right wing extremists, Romney, science, Tim Pawlenty, voters

Well, slap me with a wet noodle. You remember me? Mad woman. Not literally mad, as in certifiable, but angry mad, ready to dump a sitting president and turn the page? Yes, you do remember.

Well, it’s hard to admit that at 60 years old, I’m still an idiot a lot of the time. Moreover, I spent some under grad years studying the fine art of politics as well as living through lots of political times. You’d think I would know better.

It appears that the brilliance of Barack Obama once more is most apparent to most of the people. This has not happened over night, and certainly isn’t a result only of the speech of a life-time in Tucson. The polls were edging upward before then.

But, things have changed, and one can but cast a bemused look upon Republicans who are looking at empty hands and wondering, “has it indeed slipped from our grasp once again?” Riding high in November, the GOP is beginning to mutter. To be sure, nothing is set in concrete yet, and given the fickleness of the public, it would be unwise to assume that “it’s in the bag” for 2012. Not at all.

Still, one has to be amazed at the resilience of the President. Today, he beats Romney and Huckabee in mock match-ups and slaughters the grifter, Palin. The big switch is the Independents who have moved to the Obama column. This poll straddled the Tucson tragedy, and has some impact but doesn’t include the speech given by Obama. There is only a 6 point differential between those who think we are on the right track-wrong track, down from a 24 point differential a couple of months ago. Obama’s approval rating has moved up to 53%.

We shall see what the future holds. But clearly most of us who were ready to move on were simply wrong. Obama has played his poor hand extremely well, and has accomplished much in the lame duck session.

The GOP will have a tough time selling a “NO” or repeal everything scenario I suspect with voters. The polls, dang ’em, just keep getting in the way of the agenda.

***

Speaking of agenda, the Extremist Right didn’t take civility on as a mantra for long. Once they realized that nobody except them viewed the President’s speech as a chastisement of the Left, they went back to their usual ranting. One, I”m told, said, “but the President must have been pointing to the Left, there is nobody on the Right who needs such a chastisement!”  Delusion lives on it seems in the rock heads of the Extremist Right.

***

Proof that nothing changes, Tim Pawlenty, who on Jon Stewart, the other night, refused to agree that there is something new in the vilification of Obama that has not been present in American politics before. Stewart suggested that painting the President as  Hitler, as a Socialist, as not an American, and as not a Christian didn’t reflect true beliefs but were being used as political ploys by certain GOP members and sympathizers. Pawlenty continually feigned ignorance of Stewart’s true meaning and kept pointing out that there was vitriol on both sides.

Now Pawlenty has appeared with Bryan Fischer, of American Family Association fame, and claimed that he would re-institute DADT if president. It’s not so much that he said this, bad and deluded as that is, but that he appeared with hate-monger Fischer at all. Fischer is a virulent homophobe, one who decries giving the Medal of Honor to a “defensive” action instead of a killing hero. As to DADT, Fischer has vowed to over turn it and has claimed that McCain would lead their forces. McCain has repudiated any such notion.

Pawlenty, who for a moment, suggested he would not have acted as Palin, seems unwilling to stand up for any real principles, but again, simply plays to the lowest common denominator of the Republican base. His chances of being the nominee are nil.

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Efforts are underway to induce Fox Noise to fire Glenn Beck. Jewish Funds for Justice submitted a 10,000 name petition to the News Corp, calling on them to end their association with the hate-mongering extremist. I admit that we try to watch Beck from time to time, just to see, but frankly, after ten minutes, it’s so awful you just can’t. He parades a slew of pseudo-scientists, historians, economists, etc., to “prove” his wacky mean and dangerous conclusions, all to a live audience of nodding automatons. It’s surreal.

The petition included some of the more egregious accusations of Beck, which makes references to Hitler some 400 times in eighteen months. His comments are widely regarded as anti-semitic and a distorter of the Gospel. For instance he claims that social justice issues are a perversion of the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.

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Don’t know if you heard this, but the darn earth moves. Okay, so you probably knew that. But it moves in relations to the stars, and THAT is a damnable thing. If you are into astrology. Which I’m not, but still. I’m an Aries, and so is the Contrarian. At least we were. I don’t know what he is, being an April 8. But me? I’m a April 15, and that now makes me a Taurus. I don’t like it. I am trying to figure out who to complain to. Is nothing sacred?

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Warning: the following may be hazardous to the mental health of closed minds. Others read on. A new dinosaur has been found! A small guy, but pretty darn mean. Read all about Dawn Runner, who hails from Argentina, at PBS’s Rundown Blog. He’s most primitive.

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