Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Mormons Necro-Dunk Obama’s Mama

Old news, no matter how old, sometimes carries new meaning - especially in an election year. Here is an old Huffington post originally reported on June 6, 2009 and updated May 25, 2011:
Mormons Baptized Obama's Mother: CONFIRMED 
ABC News has confirmed reports that Mormons posthumously baptized President Obama's mother five months before the election. 
(…) 
Last June 4 -- the day after then-Sen. Obama secured enough delegates to win the Democratic presidential nominee -- someone had the president's mother Stanley Ann Dunham, who died in 1995 of cancer, baptized. 
The baptism was first reported by AMERICAblog's John Aravosis, who found an ordinance record on the Mormon genealogical Web site, FamilySearch.org.
To an atheist, a posthumous baptism may seem silly, inconsequential and harmless. However, the concept is downright disrespectful and offensive to practitioners of another faith – especially to the families of Jewish Holocaust victims. You don’t necessarily need to be a religious Jew to understand the seriousness of the offense. If your ancestors lived as Jews, were persecuted as Jews, and died as Jews, you want your ancestors to be remembered as Jews – not as posthumous Mormons. It defiles the meaning of the Holocaust.

Regardless, this post is not about Jews or Mormons or posthumous baptisms but about annoying and cloying manifestations of exceptionalism. What gives anyone the right to assert the superiority of his or her religion, political affiliation, ethnicity, custom, or nationality over mine, or over anyone else for that matter.

No, America is NOT the greatest nation in the world. It depends on what you call "great." For food, I prefer France. For food and clothing, I prefer Italy. For beer and bratwurst, I prefer Germany. For a stiff upper lip, go to England.  Want to save my immortal Seoul?  Go to Korea.

Those people

You're going to hear a lot about it today and I have to admit, there's a smile on my face this morning.  It's not because I put a lot of store in some stupid remark that may or may not be a window into the true mind of Mitt, but because I've been hoping all along that the sheer arrogance evidenced by the ballooning buffoonery of the Swaggering Right would be their downfall.  After all, it's damned hard to step carefully when you're goose-stepping. Looks like Mitt has done just that -- stepped right in it.

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that   they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them. Who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing."

 Said Willard M. Romney, thinking he was still in an age when you could say things and the words would just fade away.

Romney was, of course flattering his audience as politicians always do; flattering people who like to think of themselves as special because they make or have or have inherited a good deal of money - or people who certainly would be rich if it weren't for all those freeloaders and Democrats. Build up their self-esteem,and a  good way to keep up that head of steam is to look down on others. And so Mitt reminded them that his job is not to worry about those people, which is a sideways way to say his job as president would be to worry about these people, his wealthy constituents. Remind them that Obama supporters are just looking for an excuse to pick their pockets.

And should any be troubled by Marley's chains rattling in the background, Mitt is there to remind them that those people don't rate sympathy because they all think of themselves as victims, because they depend on the largesse of the large-assed assembled patricians.  Don't worry about those people. His concern is with the 5% the 10% who are thoughtful, not the ignorant under $250K a year rabble with all their cooties.

Those 47% of course don't really live tax free of course.  28% do pay payroll taxes and we're not talking about Social Security and Medicare -- and nearly everyone pays real estate taxes directly or indirectly and we all pay sales taxes. About 17% just don't make enough money or are elderly and dependent -- those whose jobs went to India perhaps or those devastated by huge medical bills, but although there are millions of different stories, it's good to know that Mitt thinks the President's job is not to worry about them.  Let them worry about themselves.  The real problem for a president according to people like Mitt is that he and his audience have to pay taxes.  America is about us.  The business of their president is asset retention and Mitt is here to tell them he's their man -- one of these people.


Monday, September 17, 2012

Off to the see the Liz

The Wonderful Magical Apology tour Is waiting to take you away over at Fox News.

"I will not and I will never apologize for America. I don't apologize for America, because I believe in America."
-  Mitt Romney -

"You know, after he went over there and apologized to them, I can't vote for that guy"
-heard everywhere and every day- 


Associated Press Fact Check would beg to differ and the Washington Post agrees that this Wagnerian cycle of Obama's Apology Tour, like Ryan's 'under three hour' marathon time -- a lie.

With the November Elections close at hand, one might expect to be hearing some concrete plans about what the Republicans might actually do about the economy and since we are not hearing some concrete plans about what to do that differ from the deed that got us into this mess, we might rightly expect that, as with Nixon's infamous "secret plan to win the war" the plan consists of  clinging white knuckled to the same course that ran us off the cliff and swept the GOP out of power.  The plan is to keep the lies coming, keep them consistent enough, outrageous enough and nasty enough to satisfy the Josef Goebbels system requirements.  Hey, it works and it got Tricky Dick re-elected.

Yes, indeed -- we all know the debt is enormous and we're told all day and all night that it's all because of  Obama's  never specified 'Policies.'  You know, those policies that have more people on welfare than ever, according to the river of e-mail I get every morning and  which isn't any more true than that he eliminated the  Democratic 'work for welfare' program or tried to keep military voters out of the polls or that "he went over there and apologized to them."  Yes, yes, "the government keeps printing money."  They keep saying it, but then the bills need to be paid and there's no new money coming in thanks to the cuts.  But remember -- for the most part those bills were run up by the President Who Never Existed: George W. Bush who actually told us the bills would pay themselves - by magic. Now why is it you haven't heard Bush quoted or mentioned for quite some time now?  Haven't heard him speechifying for Mitt, now have you?  Bush who?

The most expensive war in American history, the GWB prescription drug plan, the biggest, most expensive agency we've ever had and the large cuts to revenue which for 30 years have been promised as the magic fertilizer from which prosperity grows, haven't grown anything but the noxious Kudzu of debt and never actually were supposed to, since as Co-President Dick Cheney smilingly said "Debt Doesn't Matter."  No, it's true, no new private sector jobs were created during the Bush frat party years, the government ballooned in size and expense and so did the debt and we didn't hear a God damned peep out of Chicken Little who's clucking himself half to death at the moment.  We heard a lot of Liberal bashing though, didn't we?  And the Liberals were right though, weren't they? 

But we're not hearing it, we're hearing about birth certificates, death panels, radical Socialism and magical, mystical apology tours to 'over there' where he apologized to them.  And of course the US has never done anything it needs to apologize for, being the magically mystically greatest country since God created the Earth 5773 years ago today. The Slave auctions to Wounded knee to My Lai, we've always been angels and heroes in our own hermetic consciousness.

You're not hearing that the facts make liars out of the Fox and its friends, that 90% marginal tax rates once presided over prosperity and full employment and diminishing debt, that slashing the top bracket funnels money into the market and real estate and hedge funds and inflated bubbles which bring on busts and recessions. You're not hearing that we're paying less taxes than ever and still after decades it hasn't showed a hint of paying off.

Hell, you're not hearing anything but lies or breathing any thing but the smoke of desperation.  That Colored boy - now he's gone and abandoned Czechoslovakia, that empty suit, Commie tyrant Muslim from Africa! whines Fox News.  That smell? It's the smoke and the stink of desperation. The collapse, the bailouts -- all that began under Bush and the current candidates loved it -- and Czechoslovakia went out of existence 10 years ago before you ever heard of Mr. Obama and his apology tour over there.

So keep believing, as Liz the Wiz Cheney tells us on Fox, how he went over there and apologized to them even though he didn't, because it's all you've got if you're a Romney supporter. It's all you've got. Keep joking about how he's not an American like fancy pants Willard because the smoke would be blown away if you had any memory and were willing to use it. The curtain of slander would be torn asunder and all you'd see is the few dozen wizards burning up millions and millions  trying to make themselves very, very much richer at the expense of your future.

" The president himself has got a terrible record on national security, and it’s clearly something that Gov. Romney ought rightly to be pushing” 

Continued the Liz, as the Fox folk danced down the yellow brick road away from the fact that Al Qaeda is in tatters and the 9/11 planners including Osama are dead and there have been no more attacks on our soil.  Yes, and I'm sure he will be pushing it while bashing the health care plan he wrote and extolling all those empty shibboleths like smaller government and all that religious claptrap about morals and birth control.  What the hell else can these people do when the facts, if facts be remembered, would cast them all into the pit?

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Late from his crate, Seamus gives it to Mitt straight


Obama killed Jesus -- and a whole lotta other stuff

Scientists plead for urgent action to tackle the growing dementia crisis

 reads the headline in The Observer. Have they been listening to the 2012 Presidential campaign or watching Fox News?

Brit Hume of the paralyzed face; has the Botox affected his brain or has he been surgically altered so as not to grimace when he dutifully reveals what his corporate masters want you to think: that President Obama sympathizes with the people who  killed a US ambassador and some of his staff.

He loved it, Obama did. He loved it like he loved 9/11, like he'd love to grab your guns, raise your taxes and steal your chickens. He hates America and everything you hold dear and he pisses on the Bible and shits on the flag every morning before breakfast and uses them new smart meters the power company installed to sneak through the wires and  have phone sex with your wife at night.  You know, he does things -- things like the way he 'went over there and apologized to them' and other things, other policies, other histories that only happened in the Budweiser soaked minds of America's demented underclass, straining for some excuse to make it appear that they're not ignorant, demented bigots.

Yessir, Romney was right, just like Mister Brit said -- but Ol' Rom  just didn't say it right so's them libby rills would be satisfied, but hell, ya'll know that boy ain't a real Amerkin. And never you mind that ol' preacher Terry Jones  who went from roastin' weenies over Koran fires to makin' films showing us how all them other prophets like to lick Satan's privates and Jesus hates 'em all.  Just because them pagan ragheads got all exited don't make it his fault or our fault for promotin' him and stirrin' up the good Amerkun Tea Paytry-its in the name 'a righteousness.




Logic 101

Let's say it's because the truth hurts, but I really hate to be taken for stupid by people who don't know me from Adam. I would at least prefer to be given the opportunity to say or do something to prove it.

So they tried to take me for a fool last night. When my Caller ID screen flashed "Opinion Poll"  I was suspicious.  It didn't say something like Zogby or any name I would recognize, so I paused the TV and picked it up hoping to have an opportunity to express my displeasure at the illegally late hour.  I soon detected that "David" from the "polling company" was actually a computer. Didn't take any Holmesian deduction really.  If the Voice on the phone does not stumble or pause at my assertions as to his oedipal relationships it's likely that old Dave is a new Dell.

But I went along, hoping to have my shot, answering that yes, I was going to vote, yes I was certain I was going to vote, am a registered Democrat and no I wasn't going to risk divine retribution by voting for some tin horn torturer  like Allen "deport the commies" West,  but noticing that the questions all compared the Republican Party with the "Democrat" Party, I began to lose patience.

You probably aren't old enough to remember how easy it was to determine political polarity by noting how the speaker pronounced Vietnam. It rhymed with Pete Ham if you were for the glorious crusade to protect American freedom.  Curiously, the same dialect discrimination obtained with our invasion of Iraq.  If it was Eye-wrack, you were for it.  But these chuckleheads can't bring themselves to acknowledge the Democratic Party by saying it right and they're too smugly stupid to notice that I might notice. They always and steadfastly and in the face of cannon fire, call it the 'Democrat' Party. 

But I digress. One might expect a careless listener of some intelligence to miss this point, but when Digital Dave asked whether my preference might lie with the Republican plan to create jobs, build prosperity and bring on a new dawn of American world domination in Jesus' name amen, by getting rid of crippling business regulation and those unnecessarily Marxist corporate taxes --- or whether I might somehow, perhaps accidentally, make the thoughtless mistake of  destroying the fabric of the space-time continuum by letting the top bracket rise to the point where Ronald Reagan shocked us by lowering it -- and voting for the Democrat agenda?

So would you vote for peace and prosperity or for disaster?

Somewhere in a primary school class where they teach basic reasoning skills; ( they do do that, don't they?) or somewhere in the beginning pages of Logic for Dummies, there must be mention of forced choice questions. No, I don't have advanced degrees and my Greek doesn't exist. My first grade teacher thought I was not first grade material and I only had three years of calculus in College, but really.  If this reeks of stupid even to me, is this the best these bozos can do?

 Somewhere in Hell, just south of the place reserved for cannibals and mass murderers there's a parking spot with a nice tin sign that reads:  THIS SPOT RESERVED FOR THE TREASONOUS BASTARDS AT ELKHURST COMMUNICATIONS.

PS:

 I posted this to Human Voices last week and although I sent an extremely and obnoxiously aggressive e-mail and a complaint to the FCC, they keep calling me and calling me and of course they'll keep doing it and no government agency will ever do anything to stop the lies or the intrusion. The bastards. 

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Why Does The GOP Love Mitt Romney?

I've been trying to figure out why the Republican party nominated Mitt Romney as their candidate for president. They spent 2004 castigating John Kerry as a "flip-flopper," but now they want to elect someone who has literally reversed himself on every single issue.



But then it hit me. There's no way that they couldn't love Mittens. He's one of them.

The right wing has spent years trying to claim how much they dislike the "liberal elite," so it's somewhat ironic that their 2012 presidential candidate is a Harvard lawyer and multi-millionaire with four houses and a freaking elevator for his cars. But it's understandable, because, just like Mitt, the GOP has managed to reverse themselves on almost every policy they ever supported.

Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves; admittedly, he left the Republican party (like any reasonable person would), but he did it. In fact, the party was founded six years before the Civil War by anti-slavery activists and "modernists." Despite having that history to act as guide and beacon for their moral compass, the GOP has opened their arms and embraced every bigoted pinhead out there.

Those of us who wander the dark side of the Internet are treated to a daily flood of images of Obama as a monkey or an African witchdoctor, watermelons grown on the White House lawn, variations on "can we still call it the White House?" and every other racist stereotype they can dredge up.

Do you want to see how ugly it can get out there? Turn Safesearch off and google "Obama nigger." (But trust me, that's not a nice place to spend any amount of time.)

Have you heard the Republican position on unions lately? With all their assaults on collective bargain and worker's rights, it's sometimes hard to recall that the GOP once embraced unionization as an important step towards strengthening the middle class.

Back in the day when the Republican party still supported the ideals of the "common man" over the aspirations of the super-rich, they knew that only by organizing and acting in groups, could the poor gain any influence in negotiations with the wealthy.

Admittedly, they still know that: they just don't think it's a good idea any more.

As Reagan put it, "where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost." What, you don't believe me? Honest, he said it!


Despite their current efforts to do away with environmental protection and their mantra of "Drill, baby, drill!", the Republican Party used to consist of ardent conservationists like President Teddy Roosevelt, whose policies led to the creation of the National Park Service. And though they don't like to talk about him, Richard Nixon was a Republican, and he created the Environmental Protection Agency.

They've always been a little bit prudish. On October 28, 1919, a Republican-controlled Congress overrode the veto of President Woodrow Wilson (of the Progressive Party), and passed the Volstead Act, banning alcohol and bringing us Prohibition. Also, it was Edwin Meese, Attorney General for Ronald Reagan who created the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, which succeeded in getting magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse removed from convenience store shelves.

Yet despite this continuing drumbeat of "family values," it's the traditionally "red" states that consume the most pornography; at their national conventions, strippers prefer Republicans, who outspend Democrats three to one. Republican Congressmen hold a solid lead over Democrats in number of sex scandals, as well.

The GOP likes to claim that they support the concept of smaller government, but if that's so, why does every Republican president increase the number of government employees, while every Democratic president reduces them?

This is not the Republican Party of your father. (Nor of mine, although he's most likely going to vote for them.) But overall, on issue after issue, the GOP shows why they support a hypocritical, lying gasbag who can't keep a consistent position as their candidate. He's what they aspire to be.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Cursing God

Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place.
Job 27:23


I was going to begin this with "Only in a Godless universe could Chuck Norris thrive" but of course that's not true.  Perhaps there is a God like YHWH who has made another cynical bet with one of his drinking buddies that a nation claiming to be Godly and "under God" and to be possessed of divine virtue and guidance and "values" would reject evil counsel.  If so, my money is on the Paraclete and not on that Religious-Right parrot Norris.

In a  video released this weekend, Chucky Cheesus, with his wig on his head and his wife by his side and looking like a talking armpit, told those foolish enough to watch him that:

 “If we look to history, our great country and freedom are under attack . We’re at a tipping point and, quite possibly, our country as we know it may be lost forever if we don’t change the course in which our country is headed.”

Yes, things like taking care of the old and infirm and helpless children will certainly do that or daring to tax people like Prince Romulus and his Court Jester Ryan as much as we tax my gardener.  If we   dare not to reject the African/Indonesian born Antichrist and his evil plan to salvage Democracy from God's own Ecclesiastical Christian Feudalism.  Indeed, as the nitwit Norris claims:  the only reason the Evil Obama was elected is that God's own martial artists stayed home, doubtless rolling and gibbering on the floor licking rattlesnakes instead of  following the Idiot's Crusade down to their holy polling place to elect a hypocrite whore of a candidate who couldn't remember his own address but was able to parrot anything the Billionaire Electors and pious pimps of God told him to do to gain high office and like Pilatus, serve the needs of Empire.

Yes sir, if the vicious Roman occupation of Judea had had state managed health insurance, Mary would have aborted Jesus for sure said the martial arts messiah, his capped teeth clapping together through his crotch-like facial hair. But not, of course if the Romans had used the nearly identical Romney version.   If this makes your head spin, you must be some kind of heretic who has forgotten the mysterious ways of God. Have you forgotten that the more something stinks of bullshit and deceit, the more redolent is it of  sanctity?

Yes sir, we're in for "a thousand years of darkness" says Norris' familiar, Gena, quoting the Great Buffoonicator St. Ronnie the Reagan, praised be his name -- even though Reagan, blessed be his memory, raised the evil taxes most high and may have cut a deal with the Ayatollah and facilitated the rape and murder of nuns and other innocents.  A thousand years, even though Obama the Unclean hath not done these things nor banned he any sacred guns as did Bush the Elder.  It's not the facts that Damn the evil Obama, it's the "policies" we tell you about in our moronic maledictions but never mention specifically, lest truth intrude.

A thousand years of darkness, perhaps much like the darkness pre-Enlightenment Christian world enjoyed in Europe under the domination of the Church and all its pomps. 

A thousand years of darkness after those Democrats "enshrine Islamic moral codes into US law"  and turn the Boy Scouts gay.

Sure, there could be a God.  He could be hardening the hearts and forcing the stupidity of these pusillanimous Pharaonic pretenders in order to destroy them, but I suggest that  we don't wait for waters to part or for manna from heaven nor should we wait for 40 years to get to the polls. By all means let's not wait for that Thousand year Reich Norris dreams of.  These people are evil and if you don't like such crapulous, worn and loaded usage, lets just call them dishonest, deluded and  demonstrably dumb. When you hear them talk about God, know they're talking about a different entity than you might expect and that the praise of God, in their mouths, is a curse.


Your name, so long the last word of the Savant, the sanction of the judge, the force of the prince, the hope of the poor, the refuge of the repentant sinner,  -- this incommunicable name I say, henceforth an object of contempt and curses, shall be a hissing among men.

-Pierre-Joseph Proudhon-




Monday, September 3, 2012

Romney/Ryan. Two of a kind.

The RNC Clown College has gavelled itself back into their usual unscripted incoherence again, and, to the surprise of nobody anywhere, Romney and Ryan are the nominees for God Emperor and Fisher King, and the Tampa strippers now go back to making subsistence wages.

There are actually many reasons why Mitt Romney would choose Paul Ryan for the VP spot, and only one of them involves the fact that Ryan's tax plan would have Romney paying less than one percent in taxes.

Ryan is like Mitt in many ways - he is also in the habit of making huge, sweeping statements about what he'll do, without giving any details about how he'll do them. For example, his vaunted plan to balance the budget? Well, what few details have been released have been described as "ludicrous and cruel."

But more than that, the details he isn't releasing are important. Forbes magazine, one of the most staunchly conservative of publications, point out that it isn't a plan, calling it "vacuously vague" and "all candy and no vegetables."

But he's very protective of that plan: back in April, when the president pointed out some flaws in it, Ryan went on the attack in a speech later that evening, saying "I seem to remember him saying that he was going to be a uniter, not a divider. Frankly this is one and the worst of his broken promises. We do not need a campaigner-in-chief, we need a commander-in-chief."

(Isn't that cute? "The president shouldn't attack me! Democrats can't fight back!" And then he gives a Bush quote but attributes it to Obama. And then he attacks Obama. You have to admire that level of hypocrisy.)

And in keeping with the Romney strategy, he doesn't just avoid criticism by never giving any detailed policies, he's more than happy to lie his ass off, just like Romney. His big speech at the RNC kept fact-checkers busy for days.

But remember, avoiding lies isn't a major priority of this campaign. It was Romney's advisor Neil Newhouse who said "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers."

Two men, defined only by their complete inability to tell the truth. They're made for each other.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Tampa and the will to power

As I've been saying since Richard "you sure as hell are a crook" Nixon departed the White house and the Republican War on Truth began, if the Republicans accuse their opponents of something, you can be sure not only that it isn't quite true, but that the accusation is an attempt to distract from their own guilt.  So when the war criminal Allen West disgusts us with the accusation that the Democrats are "the most racist party I've ever seen in my life" we know the opposite is true.

And why doth West protest? Why because the press isn't showing him the respect his hypertrophied ego demands and why would anyone detest the torturer of innocent civilians; despise the accusations that Democrats are Nazis and Communists (at the same time no less?)  It could only be that he's got dark skin, of course. 

And then, there's Paul Ryan, the delight of Tea Perverts everywhere who enlightens us with lies like:

 "And the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly. ... So they just took it all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama" 

when it isn't actually true -- the cuts are in payments to hospitals, not in coverage to individuals. The cuts are savings  while Ryan's plan would actually deprive Medicare recipients of coverage.  Paul Ryan is a liar, but what did you expect?  The truth would ride out of town with him on a rail and covered with feathers.

And then There's Paul Ryan howling like a damned soul about the "corporate welfare" that was the stimulus package. Welfare and Communism and all that, even though the Republicans asked for a much bigger package and with no requirement to tell us who was getting what - even though Ryan stomped his feet and whined and begged for even more money for Wisconsin companies.  Paul Ryan is a lying, duplicitous, forked tongued son of a bitch, but I repeat myself.  I already said he is a Republican candidate.

And then there's Paul Ryan, the con man, the liar, the swindler, the bearer of false witness -- there's Paul Ryan blaming Obama for the closure of a Janesville Wisconsin plant that was shut down before Obama became president. Ryan, following in the tradition of accusing FDR of  causing an economic crash that started three years before he was elected. And there's Ryan condemning from the platform in Tampa that Obama disregarded the advice of a bipartisan debt committee that Ryan himself condemned. Did I mention that Ryan is a Republican?  Lying is what they do, whether it's lying to start wars, lying about how top bracket tax cuts don't cause recessions when they do and raising them prevents growth when the opposite is true.  That's what history says, but hey, you can't believe history -- history is Liberal. Hell you can't even hear History, it speaks in timorous whispers while the Right Wing roars and threatens and rages from every screen, from every radio speaker and every corporate owned newspaper.

But why lay the lies on Ryan alone? They're all liars and pickpockets and Romney has to take responsibility for it all.  He has to explain why taking the $716 billion in Medicare savings achieved by Obama and spending it will reduce spending and why reducing revenue will pay off the debt. He has to give us more than vague generalities and slogans and promises that are negated by other promises, but he can't because what he says is designed to "energize" people who know nothing and prefer to remain angry at their chosen scapegoats.  

But of course the truth would lose the election for him and of course the New Right isn't about fixing the country anyway, it's about power.  It's not about you or your life, your liberty or your pursuit of happiness; it's about power, power and more power and such such concentrated power that answers only to money -- power over a country that is more and more irrelevant, increasingly deluded and ignorant, ever more bellicose and yet has the power to destroy the world.