Archive for the ‘Obama’ Category

Today the House passed H. Res. 593, a resolution “recognizing and celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the entry of Hawaii into the Union as the 50th State,” contains this provision: “Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii”.  -Think Progress

Our first Hawaiian President.  Pineapple pizza for everyone.  I favor this particular fruit on pizza as in contrasts so well in both flavor and texture with ham and cheese.  Ever grilled it?  A little teriyaki, A nice dry rose’ and Bob’s your uncle.

Although it’s true that resolutions are for all intents and purposes toothless, the symbolism and import of this one is pretty obvious.  Interesting that CNN has no mention of it on its website.  The network itself is experiencing a very specific malaise by the name of Lou Dobbs.  A border line bigot (pun intended) who’s recently colored outside the lines by lending credence to the elaborate falsehood propagated by the “Birthers”.  A collective of flat earthers who’s entire impetus is the spurious contention that Barack Obama is not a citizen of the United States.  Dickheads, who make the swiftboaters appear sane in comparison.

So egregious, racist, irresponsible and desperate are these Birthers, that they have become a boat anchor for the GOP as it claws and scratches for relevance.  A party that pines for the days when the cacophony of derisive laughter didn’t disturb the waking hours and interrupt the sleeping ones.  As little as twelve months ago they would have embraced these dickheads and fomented their baseless nonsense in the interest of business as usual in context of slash and burn politics.

Today, 158 Republicans voted aye, not a single nay vote and Bill O’Reilly debunked it saying “It was easy, the State of Hawaii sent us a copy.”

Not without a whimper do they go however.  I give you Michele “crazy eyes” Bachmann (R-MN):  “BACHMANN: Mr. Speaker? I object to the vote on the grounds that a quorum is not present and make a point of order that a quorum is not present. […]”  -Think Progress

Michele ““We’re Running Out Of Rich People In This Country” Bachmann is one stupid bitch.   “I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter…….” -Huffington Post

Except it actually occurred under Ford.  She’s sure carbon dioxide isn’t harmful because it’s a “natural gas” and from “nature”.  I adore her.  Vicious little cupcake without a clue.

Together, Bachmann, Dobbs and Palin represent the best case right wing Christians have for their argument against evolution.  Despite gravity even, they demonstrate an uncanny ability for failing upward.

It speaks volumes about American zeitgeist that we even allow such poison to pollute our sociopolitical discourse, that these clowns are elevated to a platform where they are listened to by anyone.  A special kind of sickness, unique to Americans.  The same kind that allows us to tolerate the impeachment of a President for sexual indiscretion.  The very same that makes us reluctant to investigate and prosecute a former President and his Vice for war crimes.  An insidious brand of false entitlement and judgmental narcissism that allows some of us to believe we have every right to estimate the worth of another without regard for facts and before we’ve walked any distance in their shoes.

It works both ways.

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright, was more right than wrong when he said “Goddamn America”.

Here’s my new thing.  When dining Mexican, I’ve always felt a bit guilty when the customarily ubiquitous tortilla chips arrive.  I never eat them.  I’m not big on the free salsa.  Lately I’ve been taking a lime from the salsa bar, squeezing it over the chips and sprinkling a little salt on them.

You’ve just paid five dollars for a five seventy five show.

Drinks for my friends.

I’m not gonna look this up because it’s stuck in my head.  Some 75% of Americans want health care reform anon.

This is about as popular an issue gets in America, as at least a quarter of us are retarded, misguided, rich or willfully ignorant.  They kill horses don’t they?

I love that phrase.  Willfully ignorant.  I made it up for my own self but it’s a likely coupling so I’m sure I’d read it somewhere, then one day I summoned and it became mine.  Non exclusive of course.

Yet congress and their convoluted committees scramble, and media is so complicit it’s pissing kerosene onto the politics thereof as opposed to shining the spot on the humanity of it.  How important it is for the individual as well as the whole.  An equitable system in the world’s richest country and the only one without it.  The promise of helping the economy and by giving the middle class a little more discretionary cash by simply reducing what it costs to protect a family.

Now that’s a tax cut.

Taxing the rich.  Yep, they that had largess heaped upon by the last administration might now be called upon to put a little paper in the pot instead of nickels and slugs.  Oh my God it’s socialism!  You people are killing me.  Teabaggers and racists.  Stupid is as stupid does.

Big important stuff that is nothing more than a goddamn pinata on the nightly news.  They are creating a degree of drama that is understandable given the short attention span proscenium beneath which they are forced to enact and pontificate, but this shit is important and their looseness with the football is inexcusable.

What the fuck is going on here?  Ratings and revenue.  Our own damn fault at the end of the day.

It never stops being about our own stupidity.

I can’t believe what I’m seeing.  The tremendous pressure brought to bear on already spineless elected bureaucrats behind virtually the same proscenium.  Again, the asshats in Congress playing inexcusably loose with the ball.

Four lobbyists for every elected member of the legislative branch.  Three quarters of the people wanting what they don’t understand will be a bloody beatdown on industries from insurance to pharmaceutical.  The big boys besides energy and military industrial.  The Democrats pissing themselves.  A signpost ahead.  No Walking In The Park.

I need to wade in and study the minutiae further but we don’t really have a bill yet.  I was hoping to read a bill.  Maybe it’ll be less substantial than an Elmore Leonard novel.  Hoping for a thickish pamphlet.

This is huge and so are Obama’s balls.  He’s pushing a big pile out there after just sitting down.  They make him work for it.  I confess I have yet to see tonight’s press conference.  Didn’t pay the cable bill.

This Clintons saw their clocks cleaned over just such calumny decades ago and the beast has gained muscle and influence ever since.  The gravity of this specific issue is almost immune to underestimation for anyone who pays attention.  If Obama manages to prevail here, his wizardry will be all but unavoidable.  At his command will be the attention and affection of America’s heart along with her best and brightest.

Should he be bested and lose this contest, the path for him to accomplish any other important thing will be much steeper and traction much harder to come by.  I worry because so much is out of his hands.

This is bigger than you know.  Support your President.  He is showing you courage and fortitude.  Just because you voted for him is no reason for you to think your job is done.  Civic duty and patriotism are an American imperative.

“Walk right out into a brand new day
Insane and rising in my own wierd way”
-Art Alexakis from Everclear’s “Santa Monica”

Drinks for my friends.

Birthers.

For those of who haven’t heard this nomenclature of dolts, it refers to a small but vociferous group of nutbags who insist, despite all legitimate evidence to the contrary, that Barack Obama is not an American citizen by virtue of not having been born in the United States.  Gotta give to them.  Sounds big.

Eh.  Gimme a break.  Like McCain Palin or Hillrod wouldn’t have beat this like a baby seal.

I’ve been aware of them for nearly a year and rightly assumed they were a brand of conspiracy theorists who’s inevitability was matched by  inconsequence.  Now, regrettably, it seems the media has afforded them some attention.  Regrettable for a handful of reasons, the most important could be the silly but vulgar stain the movement visits on an already gore festooned Republican party.

Swinging for the fences.

So there’s a bill in the house, authored by a Republican and sponsored by ten other Republicans seeking to mandate Presidential candidates prove citizenship before being inaugurated.  Redundant methinks.  This bill will end up in someone’s ass long before it sees the floor.

It is raw, desperate and willfully ignorant racism.  Stupid, unfounded, crazy eyed hate.

“The conservative talk show host Michael Medved recently referred to the movement’s leaders as “crazy, nutburger, demagogue, money-hungry, exploitative, irresponsible, filthy conservative imposters” who are “the worst enemy of the conservative movement.”  “It makes us look weird. It makes us look crazy. It makes us look demented. It makes us look sick, troubled, and not suitable for civilized company,” he mourned.” -Politico

Interesting that journeyman nutbags have issue with these particular nutbags.

On the other hand, world class dipshit Alan Keyes called it, “the greatest crisis this nation has ever seen” and warned of “chaos, confusion and civil war.” -Politico

Sheezus.

What concerns me here, and what may be the salient reason this whole thing is so unfortunate, is the insidious and desperate rage it lays bare.  I’m compelled to draw some frightening but obvious parallels.  I’m neither predicting nor endorsing what I’m about to say so excuse my caveat.  It’s just that these kinds of shrill and intellectually bereft movements provide fertile ground for the gun loving, God fearing wing nut, who sooner or later opts to take matters into his own hands.  These people are around whether we like it or not.  Often the best we can do is not stir them up.

By the way, if there was no religion and they couldn’t be addicted to God,  maybe these people would come to worship the clarinet.  In a few thousand years, the oboe.  Eventually the saxophone.  Sounds nice doesn’t it?

Guns don’t kill people, people do.

Unless there’s an accident.

Give them a really dumb reason and they morph from plain nuts to domestic terrorist in a week or two of  24 hour news cycles.  Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P which stands for personality disorder at the very least.  Already angry and just waiting for a reason.  Probably off the meds because of no supervision or no money.

Tick.  Tick.  Tick.

I’m watching Liz Cheney and The Ragin Cajun, James Carville, go at it on Larry King.  Tonight’s topic comes up and I’ll bet Liz is about to stick her foot in her mouth.  Let’s watch!  She’s all supercilious as she says ‘one of the reasons people are so concerned, is they are uncomfortable with having for the first time ever, a President who’s so reluctant to defend us overseas……….fundamentally uncomfortable with a President who seems to be afraid to defend America.’  -Larry King Live

What the fuck?  Are you kidding me?  Instead of calling it what it is, retarded and paranoid, she chooses to offer rationale.  A rationale of fear for our national security.  Pathetic.  The GOP insists on puking down it’s frilly conservative blouse.  Cut to the sins of the father.

Please let this ridiculously stupid cunt run for office.  Please.  She could honor tradition and be Palin’s running mate.  Oh my stars the grandiose buffoonery.  Palin McCain.  I’m so on board.

Given that I’m a bleeding heart, progressive goddamn liberal, I have real reservations about our role in Afghanistan.  The escalation and troop infusions.  Military might can’t ever be long term infrastructure and anchor for a foreign people’s societal and political constructs in their own land.  We are perfectly capable of kicking their asses but what then?  Iraq again with darker facets of Vietnam.

Afghanistan is a far bigger and more lethal power vacuum than was Iraq.  Iraq was stable.  This, the part of the equation Dumbya’s sock puppets ignored.  This, the part of this equation no one is really talking about now.  In fact, no one seems to be talking about that war very much at all.  You know we’re losing lives over there.  You know we’re mowing them down.

It is a movie far worse than you can imagine.  Just watching the movie would change you forever.

These “birthers” do us all a bad service for polluting the national dialog with their baseless and recklessly incendiary crap.  Swift Boaters still wearing paper masks of patriotism.  Traitors.  I wonder what would happen if we tried them.  Bet we’d figure out they’re breathtakingly despisable.

Drinks for my friends.

My problem is with the shape of Norm Coleman’s head.  That and his giant teeth.  A thin lipped rictus framing nightmare white tombstones.  I’m so hoping that despite what Franken said yesterday, he’ll wade in and stir shit up.  Please.  He is painfully bright, a math jock at Harvard and very funny.  The long standing rivalries between him, Bill O’Reilly and the Human Shitsmear Limbaugh, are enough for me to sponsor him for Crew Chief of all he would survey.  His colon is clean.  He is not full of shit.

Word to Obama and the all the pantywaste Democrats.  You are out of excuses.  You now have a filibuster  proof majority.  If we don’t get health care, the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the lobbies of AIPAC, insurance, the military industrial complex, energy and financial put in their respective places………..well then we’ll know for sure that the only difference between Democrats and Republicans is balls and spine.

Get something done.  Get anything done.  Or you suck and don’t deserve the opportunity we the the people afforded you.

The elephant = evil + balls and some vertebrae.  The donkey = a few good intentions – any vertebrae and any sack whatsoever.

The math is that simple.  The swirl of rhetoric around Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is disgusting.  Man up.  Show us a little something.  Make it so number one.  This is litmus 101.  If you can’t do this, given solid public support, we will doubt you.  Break hard to the left and run the damn ball, I for one am tired of waiting.  Show me goddamn it.

Time to come to Jesus, you so far worthless candy asses.  I am not impressed.

Is it complacency on the the part of liberals because there is no longer a a Cheney or Bush in the room with knife in hand?  I doubt it.  It’s mitigating but there is a preposterous malaise on Democrats that can can only be described as vaginaness.  Fucking pussies.  I really hate this about Democrats.  They’re all about it until it’s time to accomplish.  There is always a thousand reasons not to do something and then there is the single right reason to do it.

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin claws at relevance like a woman scorned.  Just lately she sorta challenged Obama to a foot race.  I’m sure by now you’re aware of the conflagration between her and Letterman.  Methinks she did protest too much and in so doing,  audaciously yanked her daughters into the harsh light of scrutiny she so immodestly decried.

A degree of charisma, otherwise stupid and bereft of common sense as well as humility.  Can’t completely blame her, she was a snowball’s chance in a foundry by the notion she might warm the leather in that elliptical of all offices one day.  Yeah right.  Like installing Dumbya’s retarded sister.  See how I loathe?  She’s paper thin.  She disappears at ninety degrees off axis.  The epitome of grandiose insincerity.  What bothers me is how dumb she is.  Forgive me but she is a stupid cunt.

Big bag full of mashed up jack ass right there.  -Keith O.

“I remember as it were a meal ago”

“Said Tommy the Cat as he reeled back to clear whatever foreign
matter may have nestled its way into His mighty throat.
Many a fat alley rat had met its demise while staring point
blank down the cavernous barrel of this awesome prowling machine.
Truly a wonder of nature this urban predator.
Tommy the cat had many a story to tell,
but it was a rare occasion such as this that he did.

“She came slidin’ down the alleyway like butter drippin’ off a hot biscuit.
The aroma, the mean scent, was enough to arouse suspicion in
even the oldest of Tigers that hung around the hot spot in those days.
The sight was beyond belief. Many a head snapped for double
even triple, takes as this vivacious feline made her her way into the
delta of the alleyway where the most virile of the young tabbys were
known to hang out. They hung in droves. Such a multitude of
masculinity could only be found in One place… and that was
O’malley’s Alley. The air was thick with cat calls (no pun intended)
but not even a muscle in her neck did twitch as she sauntered up into
the heart of the alley. She knew what she wanted. She was lookin’
for that stud bull, the he cat. And that was me.
Tommy the Cat is my name and I say unto thee…

Say baby do you wanna lay down by me”  -Primus

Drinks for my friends.

The salient point I’m about to serve up is not original.  It is not mine, I just happen to enthusiastically agree.

Names have not been changed to protect a single asshole.

Off we go.

If I hear another Republican dipshit criticize Obama’s reaction to the the Iranian election clusterfuck, when they all know as well as anyone else, for us to intervene or interfere anymore than we have is counter to foreign policy 101, with a country like Iran who’s history we’ve meddled in disastrously, I’ll projectile puke.

Shut up you idiots.  Our Man’s course of action is obvious, informed and reasonable.  What would you have him do?

Ridiculous and absurd.  Their own people asking us not to wade into their affairs again.  They are grateful for our support.  Yet they understand better than the royal “we”, that any influence perceived as American fuel in this struggle will dilute it and ultimately disease it.

Duh.

Iranians and Americans cannot afford for American government to be a component of this struggle.  It would ruin it.  It’s that simple.

The douchebags that persist in shouting that crap from the roof tops aren’t doing favors for anyone.  McCain, Bill Bennett, Lindsey Graham and Newt.  A message that only falls on the ears of the great unwashed.  The lowest common denominator.  The deaf.  The stupid.  The under informed.  The arrogant jingo assholes who think it’s our duty to force our bullshit on every other camper.

Work with me, it was this exact thinking that got us into the trouble we’re in now.

I’m here to tell you that terrorists will not be killing you in your bed.  They really are the least of our worries and even that’s an accident.  If you’re on a list as a suspected terrorist, your biggest problem will be boarding a commercial airliner.  The least of your inconveniences are buying guns or explosives.  If you are an evil doer (love those two words), your best bet is some destruction at home as opposed to interstate travel.  Our advice to you is to shit where you eat.  The current terrorist watch list of more than a million members, does not prevent anyone from purchasing guns or even explosives, interstate travel however, is far more difficult.

You bet.  Yeah baby we’re on it.  Fear not, the NRA has your back.

It’s a goddamn joke and we are pigs.

God has not even dick to do with it.

An election was stolen from the Iranian people.  They are indignant and I understand.  I think they just might be an example to us.  C’mon.  Their bravery is awesome.  We have been giant vaginas.  Forgive the gender aspect.  I’m just saying.

We should stay out of it for obvious reasons and let them show us how it’s done.

I’m getting tired of American hubris.  Who the fuck do we think we are?

Drinks for my friends.

More than a little pensive.

The citizens of Iran have a profoundly legitimate beef.  One of the best kind.  Noble and justified.  An obviously rigged election.  Blatant.  Ridiculous.  The turn out was over 120%.  Bullshit is the given.

Tomorrow may inform us of eventual fate.  The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,  deigned to wade in today on the Sabbath, by vehicle of his scheduled sermon.  Just another day of worship.  He was clear:  Those who “take wrong measures which are harmful, they will be held accountable for all violence.” He called President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “the absolute victor” in last week’s election…..”  -CNN.com

This sucks.

I’m spooked.  The difference between these human events and Tiananmen Square for example, is that despite the Iranian government’s game face and perseverant campaign to control information, this revolution just may be televised.  Forgive my trite.  I’m not here to obviate something so big and ripe.  I fear what happens next.  Both sides are more than aware that the entire world watches.

The chances of a fistfight are always multiplied by an audience.  Always.

The Ayatollah didn’t merely draw a line in the sand.  He came out with serious lumber.  He tells the people of Iran that they are welcome to test his bat.  He tells them it will be ugly.  I’m really afraid of that.  I think it’s quite likely.  Man, I hope not.  Did you know that Iran is arguably the most pro-American country in the entire region?  These people are in trouble and I doubt they will walk away.  There will be blood.  There already has been.

Iranians are not pussies.

Our Man’s facility with it all has been pitch perfect.  He understands that any movement in Iran perceived as being fomented or even endorsed by the US government is a guarantee it will sink under that weight.  The asshat Republicans shouting jingoistic bullshit from the rooftops are posturing with lamentable irresponsibility.  Man I hate these pricks.  No compassion, zero sensibility, reckless abandon in pursuit of grandeur.  Shut the fuck up.

Iran is a modern society.  It has a vibrant and youthful population, progressive by regional standards.  Amazingly, a huge chunk of them don’t hate us.  Really.

My fear is that the Iranian people will suffer for whatever they do tomorrow.  For years.

It is the covert option that most media fails to talk about.  I’m afraid they will be picked off at random, regardless of participation, until, you know, morale improves.  I don’t see tanks but I do see terror.  For years.  They know full well, both sides get it.  Tomorrow is going to be interesting.

See, we’re all just citizens of the world.  After the sun impregnates the horizon and the stars come out, the day is done and we are all the same.  We really are all the same.  I live in a big city so ethnic diversity is but a part of my coat of many colors.  Whether your thing is prayer or the power of positive thinking, it’s time to do a little dance.

Wisdom, safety and support to the people of Iran.

And, um, fuck the Ayatollah.

Drinks for my friends.

Today I learned of the existence of baconnaise.

This brought courtesy of The Daily Show.

I’m broke as fuck but I’m headed to Ralph’s first thing to get me some.  I’ve still got quarters.  Sounds like the world’s ultimate condiment to me.  Oh my.  The possibilities boggle.  With french fries or on a sandwich.  Combined with sour cream and chives for dipping.  Inside a doughnut.  Fish & chips?  With a squirt of lemon?  This shit is huge.  Could be the best thing since Bob’s Bleu Cheese Dressing.

Nevermind I said that.  Blasphemy.

Sheezus, I’m ashamed.

So you know, I’m pretty sure the Bob’s gave me the crapanacious the other night when I combined it with generic Doritos.  We’re talking volume and velocity.  I was impressed.  Prodigious thrust.

Baconnaise.  Fuck me.  Gonna be a really big show.

More important was a segment that succeeded in contrasting the reality of the Iranian people with what we’ve been sold and bought under Dumbya.  Most of us were already aware of this despicable gulf between a dictated perception and actual opinions of the people and the events on the ground in Iran.

Don’t forget the great unwashed.

McCain infamously sang the bomb, bomb, bomb……bomb bomb Iran song while campaigning for President just last year.  The Bush administration had an embarrassingly obvious hard on for Iran for at least it’s last four years.  The same kind your Black Lab or Irish Setter wags in front of everybody at every gathering you ever  host.

I like girl cats.

This is why they fear Obama.  It’s hope.  And fear.  And no more of that other shit.  With dignity and wisdom he stays out of it almost entirely.  Has the State Department ask Twitter to reschedule some maintenance hours.  He’s on it and staying out of it.  Nice.

The net effect really does reflect the quality of cheese in hand.  Smooth.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Then a successful communication because of a complex humiliation.  The previous administration is really hoping we don’t remember glimpsing their lipstick penises at picnics.  Iran is not a monster.  They want the same things we do.  To live long and prosper.  In peace.

The unwashed loathe Obama because he’s seen their penises and they haven’t seen his.  They would have him be the Bull in the China shop in Iran.  They pretend to not understand how stupid that is.  To not remember the chaos that was wrought from their ludicrous lockstep loyalty to the biggest collection of assholes in history.

Refuse to remember how we were on the verge of war with yet another nation the represented no threat at all to us.

Goddamn these guys are stupid.

All this illumination for the masses from Comedy Central.  As opposed to any news network.  That really is my point here.  So much energy spent to dehumanize these people and they show us in a flash that they may just be more courageous and sincere than we can boast of being.

We are far from real.  Not even close.  The Iranian people show us.  Hundreds of thousands marching silently.  When the guns of the government appear, they sit where they stood, in silence.   Tens of thousands.  Hundreds of thousands.  Awesome.

The disparity between  Mirhossein Mousavi and Ahmadinejad is far narrower than between  Obama and McCain.  Forgive me, at least on the surface.

The most compelling aspects are not on the evening news.  Most of US don’t even know.  A whole row of teeth that will be given away here.  Twenty million people will chew wrong if they don’t play this game exactly right.

One way or another.

Courage be to you people.

I am impressed.

Drinks for my friends.

Today the DOJ, in support of the DOMA  (Defense Of Marriage Act), issued a brief using language invoking pedophilia and incest, eerily reminiscent of the vituperation vomited by the religious right ad nauseum since the dawn of the cerebral cortex.

Puns intended.

So much for change.

I don’t care if Obama was aware of this or not.  The only acceptable action here is swift, unambiguous refutation.  Obama and his administration need to get in front of this crap like yesterday.  It’s not just bullshit, it’s madness.  Best case scenario is Obama talking about this before I get out of bed.  The time difference alone gives him a hell of a head start.  Time to show me something Mr. Fierce Defender.

Enough.

Let this pass at your peril.  Hope will turn to doubt.

While we’re on the subject of Our Man, I was none too thrilled by the glaring omissions in his remarks in front of the AMA today.  It was a good speech, but no substantive reckoning that big pharma and big insurance are hopelessly infected by avarice and therefore ground zero for reform and regulation.  No mention of what an inefficient, bureaucratic clusterfuck the FDA is.  These items are at the very root of the problem and no reform has a chance at efficacy without force being brought to bear on them.

Blowing up balloons with holes in them.

The sad truth lies in the why.  Along with the AMA, pharmaceutical and insurance companies are championed by some of the biggest and most influential lobbying cabals in Washington.  If there were stars on K street or Pennsylvania Avenue like Hollywood Boulevard, two thirds of them would be dedicated to these filthy bastards.  For all you sniveling morons who live in such fear of communism, here is a bonafide  Red Menace for you.

Welcome to the plutocracy.  This thing is way bigger than just stubborn Republicans.

Along with energy, campaign finance reform and the military industrial complex, these are the windmills I expect Our Man to be tipping.  That’s why I voted for him.

We loves us some Bill Maher.  Maher said the other night in his New Rules segment:  “…..I’m glad that Obama is president, but the “Audacity of Hope” part is over. Right now, I’m hoping for a little more audacity”.

Me, I’m looking for those balls of zirconia  I thought I glimpsed on the campaign trail.  Dude, please don’t Jimmy Carter us.

Remember how I was pissing and moaning about pumps on lotion and soap bottles not long ago?  Well, for the record, adding water to any of the soap dispensing ones is pretty viable.

Sometimes I think all Americans are either corrupt or stupid.  Often both, but rarely neither.

Drinks for my friends.

If I don’t close a few deals tomorrow, we all may be killed.

Gotta pay the rent and peanut butter by way of index finger is getting old.

Meanwhile the asstards of the GOP have decided that Sotomayor is so very experienced, possesses such an elaborate history of jurisprudence, that her confirmation must be delayed until after the end of the Mayan calendar, as they need to study her every move.  They prefer her confirmation hearings begin sometime after the world ends in 2012.

What exactly do these men of lust, greed and glory hope to accomplish here?  Don’t know about you, but they look like dickheads to me.  She’s gonna be confirmed you assholes of the flat earth society.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, another right wing, homophobe, bigot loses his shit and goes off on innocents with a gun.  This guy’s done time just like the last uniquely American tumor.  You know by now DHS distributed a report a few months back warning against this specific conflagration.  The Republicans piled on and forced an apology out of Janet Napolitano.

How rigoddamndiculous does that dance look today?  Looks like under Obama, DHS might have a chance at efficacy.  Might just be the most prescient and important thing they’ve ever done, you know, that report that predicted all of this.

Fucking Republicans. Can’t figure out why they’re not embarrassed.

The frontline of the GOP is the Human Shitsmear, Sarah Palin and some human salamander named Newt.  The bench is Guy Smiley (Romney), McCain and John Voight.  Can’t figure out why they’re not embarrassed.  Rounding out Republican leadership is Michele Bachman and John Boehner.  Mr. Everglow and Mrs. Dipshit.  I understand now why Republicans pretend to stay right with God.  Hypocrisy is in their blood and they are not then, easily embarrassed.

Still can’t figure out why they aren’t embarrassed.   They have become parodies of themselves.  Not a single original thought, plan, strategy or policy.  Nothing but anti.  Nothing but no.  They just don’t get it.  The weight of circumstances and the gravity of right now is barely in their periphery.  They wander through fields and ditches without any concept of consequence.  Not a single Republican is thinking about anything beyond itself.

Rome is dry.  Rome is a tinderbox.  Rome is about to burn and you assholes can barely be bothered to get off the phone.

Wake the fuck up you Republican moderates.  You think you got no place to go other than Independent?  A lot of us will be inclined to join with you or at least work with you if you can behave.  We’ll hold it against you but we won’t throw it in your face.

Let’s get on with it.

Drinks for my friends.

So Newt Gingrich declares he’s not a citizen of the world to applause by the most prominent collection of misfit toys ever to gather on an annual schedule.  John Voight, the same whackjob who melted down on public airwaves a few years back over his superstar daughter Angelina Jolie’s estrangement, called Obama a false prophet and told us America is weaker.

Newt also told them the brand new economic plan has already failed.  This, despite news today that ten banks are set to repay almost ninety billion in stimulus money.  This,  despite it being way too early to tell.

This blog is for you Lo.  I understand that Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear.  The big picture is far more convoluted than most of us know.  It is far greater than the sum of it’s parts.  Both sides have bodies buried and there’s no innocence in Washington; I am not a Nuclear Playboy.

It’s just that people like Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich, whom I adore, have no real chance at influencing seminal policy, much less posturing for the highest office in the land.

You see this administration as a glass half empty.  I’m not ready to go there yet.

When was the last time a President of the United States told Israel in front of the world, in an Arabic Muslim nation, that her actions were intolerable?

You graciously offered an article on the similarities between Bush and Obama for this particular context: http://www.internationalpoliticalwill.com/2009/06/heard-it-all-before/

Ironically, it’s context that Will is ignoring.  Just about every speech by Bush that Will cites took place inside our own borders.  I commend him for his research acumen, as he’s painstakingly culled all these examples of congruence from over six years of lexicon, far more muted and less specific than that of Obama’s single speech in a Muslim country delivered to Arabs.

It’s a manufactured duck and weave befitting a high school research paper.  No score here Lo.  Your man Will has written a fluff piece.  I’ve taken it upon myself to post an edited version of this critique on his blog.

You know I hope, that I have immense respect for you.  Thanks be that you’re far better informed than most.  I wonder if you haven’t taken the wrong fork on your philosophical/ideological path.  You’re energy and intelligence is lost on wanna be demagogues  like Ralph Nader who only run for office out of hubris and the obstreperous notion they may upset a close election.  If Ralph Nader truly wanted to make a difference he would position himself politically to do so.  Perhaps an earnest and sincere attempt at a cabinet position or a prominent non-profit.

Ralph Nader may be as full of shit as the next guy.

And you my dear, would be better served by getting on board with a society and an ethic that is changing.  Just because I support Obama, doesn’t mean I can’t bitch at him.  It gives greater license to do just that.  See last night’s blog.

I’m not, by any means, hook, line and sinker.  He’s not perfect, I own that.  But in a few short months he’s managed to fundamentally change the way the rest of the world looks at us.  Take the recent elections in Lebanon as an example.  The amount of influence he brought to bear is debatable but there’s no denying he brought some.  This is big stuff.  He’s the best thing we’ve had in a very long time.  Work with me here.

Don’t look away, there’s plenty to see.

Drinks for my friends.

I gotta tell ya, Obama’s absence on all issues gay, specifically Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, is pretty disappointing.  He was unmistakably upfront about being a fierce defender.  He’s dropping this ball.  A civil rights ball that he needs to account for.  This is big picture stuff.  Us heathens deserve to know.  No free pass here, dude.

The sand dollar is underneath the stairs.  The blue juice is in the pantry.

So this is how it happened.  I gather they wanted Palin first and her staff gave the nod.  The fundraising dinner for the Senate and House Republican campaign committees.  The premier GOP money event of the season.  I don’t know if they have another name for it or not.  Anyway, they then discover somehow that Palin was never made aware of the invitation.  Um, yeah, allright, so then, they can’t get a confirmation from Palin.  So they ask Newt.  He jumps on it.  Newt goes on to immediately stick his own ass in his mouth by calling Sotomayor a racist.  They walk it back a little but can’t get word from Palin.  Newt walks it back too by saying he shouldn’t have called her that because he doesn’t know her.

So, Newt’s back in because Palin is being a cocktease, so Newt goes on television and says that Sotomayor might not be a racist but says racist things over and over.  Then he says she’s a “racialist”.

They work out some deal where they both will speak.  Then, Palin delivers some speech that was blatantly plagiarized.  Sheezus.  The GOP announces finally that Newt will be Mr. Keynote and Sarah will hopefully be in attendance.  They went on to acknowledge that Palin could maybe eclipse Gingrich in a popularity contest.

I got a degree in cartography.

Sarah shows up and commands copious limelight.  Steals the show by all accounts.  By the way, the speech she plagiarized?

Wait for it……

She lifted it from an article co-authored by Newt Gingrich in ’04.

Fuck me running, not even I could write this shit.

These are the stars of the Republican Party.  Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich.  The new Arsonists Laureate.  Their best and brightest.  The party of Lincoln.  That’s sick.  These two are empty.  Shallow, callow and retarded.  They have no idea what Americans want or need.  They don’t care.  That they haven’t bothered to figure it out is evidence enough.  That this is the best they have is outrageous to me.  Newt and Sarah are a low budget slasher flick that isn’t even funny on any level.

The good news is that more people label themselves Independent these days than Republican.  I got no problem there, at least until we see what they  become.  It could go either way.  From not so judgmental libertarian to deranged, fascist, Lutheran Nazis.  The great unwashed are migrating and that is cause for concern.  We must track them.  No need to shadow them in their own habitat.  No tranquilizer darts or tags with chips.  The science and technology of demography is now at our fingertips.  No chance we’ll lose sight of them.

This country’s bowels are percolating.  We may be on the verge of giving a shit.  I’m more than inclined to applaud the demise of the Grand Old Party but they will show up somewhere.  There’s that and the truth that chaos covets a power vacuum.

These are interesting times.  Better pay attention.

Drinks for my friends.

“And I’m also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: Assalaamu alaykum.” -Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States of America.

Awesome.

Honestly, I teared up.

I am so very proud of my President and my country.  Our Man was amazing today.  He said things no American President has ever said.  And they were all true.  I was transfixed.  Enchanted.  Slack jawed.  I’m grateful I was alone, just in case I drooled.

It’s worth pointing out that in light of the elaborate smear effort to paint him as some sort of extremist Muslim conducted during the Presidential  campaign, his speech in Cairo today was goddamn courageous.  Beyond that, it was an overt in your face to his neoconservative right wing Christian critics. You know, the ones that so desperately want you to believe that we’re in the middle of some war that is ultimately about our God being able to beat up their God.  The ones for whom ridiculous dogma and apocryphal ideology trump compassion, reality and common sense.

“More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.”

“So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. And this cycle of suspicion and discord must end.”

Oh man.  That’s the shit right there.

“As the Holy Quran tells us, “Be conscious of God and speak always the truth.  That is what I will try to do today — to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.”

There it is.  We are all just people.  Humans first and foremost.  How breathtakingly refreshing.  How important and authentic.

Obama quoted John Adams: “The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.”

This notion, so widely held, that America is at war with a religion or an ethnicity or even a geographic region is so very wrongheaded, so perspicaciously misguided, that most Americans, along with too much of the world, have no realistic understanding of just exactly what is happening and why.

It’s understandable, given the litany of lies we’ve been force fed, and our own failure in laziness and apathy to not even bother to investigate for our own edification, the absolute crap the media has foisted upon us so irresponsibly, so relentlessly and for so long.  The failure of journalism in America is mirrored by the doppelganger of breakdown by Americans ourselves, to question what we’re told, to challenge what we are led to believe.  Exactly why we are in this mess.

Willful ignorance.

“The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism — it is an important part of promoting peace.”

As an agnostic,  I am moved  to say Amen.

“Let me also address the issue of Iraq. Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world……….Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said: “I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power, the greater it will be.”

Sheezus.  Wow.  In Cairo, Egypt.  An incredibly bold admission about the abject failure of American policy.  I can’t tell you how impressed I am at this honest confession by Our Man on the world stage.  It’s true, America fucked up by invading Iraq.  We screwed the pooch.  Shame on us.

“And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter or forget our principles. Nine-eleven was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.”

Of course I was aware of these steps by Our Man, but his restating of them beneath and behind the proscenium of a stage in front of the entire world is nothing less than golden.  And again, the admission of just how far this once great country has strayed, is so brave and nakedly honest, that I am at a loss for words.

He recounts these events, these egregious mistakes, because his intention is to put them behind us by reconstructing our integrity and pride with honesty and transparency, whenever and wherever possible.

Then, he swung the mother of all haymakers:

“On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years they’ve endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations — large and small — that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own.”

“It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That’s not how moral authority is claimed; that’s how it is surrendered.”

“The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.  This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.”

Unbelievable.  Finally.  A sitting American calls Israel on it’s shit.

This is change.  I can’t speak for you, but this is why this man earned my vote.  It is why I didn’t hesitate to hope.  I believed him then.  I believe him now.  I believe in him.  As I write this, I am inspired and awfully proud.

This speech will no doubt be read, remarked upon and lauded for decades.

This guy is so fucking cool.

Drinks for my friends.

I hope you’re not yet tired of me railing against all things Dick Cheney.  I know I’m not.  History will will estimate him to be nothing more than a misanthropic war criminal.  Besides that, I admit again that it’s morbidly cathartic.  What began as an effort on his part to rewrite history and burnish his legacy, has morphed into a risible rhythmless boogie of dodging bullets fired at his feet by truth empowered gunslingers.

Today he tells us that there was never any evidence of a connection between 911 and Iraq.  Um, no shit.  This despite his persistent insistence that there was ample evidence, long after it was thoroughly discredited. He said:  “pretty well confirmed” that a 9/11 hijacker met with Iraqi intelligence officials before 9/11. -thinkprogress.org

Understand how deliberate this dog and pony show was.  In the ’04 Presidential election, over 70% of people who voted for Bush/Cheney believed that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the attacks on 911.  One could rightfully argue that these two assholes were re-elected by and large because Americans believed their lies and the spell of fear they so successfully instilled.

You gotta love the great unwashed.

He also tells us that those memos he wants declassified don’t necessarily prove, as he claimed just days ago, that torture saved thousands, if not hundreds of thousand of lives, but rather the entirety of the interrogation program did.  What the hell does that mean?  Olbermann wondered if he was referring to instances like the fact that we gave sugar free cookies to a diabetic terrorist.

Then, he has the audacity to blame his lies on George Tenet.  That’s right, the infamous dickhead in charge of the CIA at the time, who said that making a case for invading Iraq to the American people and the world was a “slam dunk”.  As if to say, it wasn’t his fault because that’s what Tenet told him.

After months of pressure and obtuse harangue by Dick truly and his mob.

For his part, Tenet received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

It’s gets better.  He now claims we missed 911 because of former terrorist czar Richard Clarke.  I suggest you read Clarke’s book on the matter.  One of the very first insiders to be overtly critical of the reckless and ideologically driven Dick-in-Bush administration and the Keystone Cops approach they took to every single circumstance after that fateful day.  If Clarke is to be believed, and I believe him, he had been ringing the bell since day one.  The book is titled “Against All Enemies” and it’s a page turning indictment of the whole crew, from Condoleezza Rice, on up.

While you’re at it, pick up of former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill’s book, “The Price of Loyalty”.  An astounding glimpse into the pre-911 days and the Bush administration’s determination, even then, to to invade Iraq.

What baffles me is how so many talking heads, Dan Rather included, seem wont to purchase that at the very least, Cheney is sincere, that he believes what he says.  No sale here.  He’s a charlatan and should be tried and convicted for war crimes.  Every prediction has been wrong.  Every “fact” he’s ever foisted has been a lie.  The idea that this prick is able to command a single American’s attention on any public airwave, makes me want to puke in technicolor.

Here’s where we are.  No WMD.  There never was and there remains no credible reason to tell Americans it was…..was.  No connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.  No connection whatsoever between Saddam Hussien and the events of 911.  Again, never was and no credible reason to tell Americans there was.  Nothing, no symbiosis between a secular dictatorship and an extreme religious movement.

No was.  None.

Here we are.  Not a single fucking reason for invading a sovereign country that posed no threat to us or even it’s neighbors in the foreseeable future.  No reason for killing hundreds of thousands if not more than a million innocent people.  No reason for displacing millions of innocents.  No reason for the deaths of thousands of proud American men and women.  No reason for the incalculable grief visited on millions and millions of fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers across the entire planet.  No goddamn reason at all for any of it.

No was and no is.

I usually endeavor to bring a little humor to you the reader, while drawing your attention to the horrible events that surround us all in this world.  Forgive me, this just isn’t funny.  There’s nothing funny about it.  It’s all tragedy kids.  A long slow, brutal and still developing nightmare that will disturb the world’s sleep for decades because Richard Bruce Cheney was somehow allowed to have far too much influence on the course of human events.

More than any other human, Richard Bruce Cheney is responsible for a consummately unjust war with Iraq.  More than any other human, Richard Bruce Cheney is responsible for the abject and utterly reprehensible torture America visited with malice and viciousness on America’s “enemies”.  More than any other human, Richard Bruce Cheney is culpable for America’s woefully reduced standing in the world.  More, than any single other human fucking being, Richard Bruce Cheney is responsible for the hole that we are now at the bottom of.

One of the prevailing messages of the Obama administration is to look forward and therefore not dwell too zealously on our recent past.  It is ever more apparent to me that however wholesome and well intentioned such sentiments are, they are naive and for lack of a better adjective, simple, in an increasingly complex world.

Richard Bruce Cheney shits where he eats.

Hold Dick Cheney responsible.  Show the world that accountability is still a respected idea in America.  Prosecute this prick.  In so doing, we will demonstrate the best we have to offer as a first step, to ourselves and the rest of the planet.

Fuck this guy.

Drinks for my friends.

Fuck that shit.  CHRISTIAN TERRORISM.

Timothy McVeigh was a domestic terrorist.

Whackjobs like Scott Roeder, who assassinated Dr. George Tiller yesterday in his own goddamn church, what should be a sanctuary, do so in the the name of their Christian God.  No surprise here that Roeder was a homophobe as well.  Christian Terrorist, nothing less.

Thank God I’m agnostic.  I crack me up.

“A man named Scott Roeder was convicted in 1996 of criminal use of explosives and sentenced to 24 months probation….” -CNN

Imagine this man was Muslim and he was known to stalk and then kill a Rabbi or a politician.  Think about it.  Really.

Like it or not, George Tiller was engaging in a legally protected activity.  Do these assholes really think these women simply wake up, watch an episode of Maury Povich and decide to seek a late term abortion as a matter of convenience?  I’m not even going to look it up, I’m confident that’s not the case.  Shut up, I will not entertain the issue.

Enter the glowering spectre of egregiously irresponsible “journalists” like Bill O’Reilly.  How much blood on his hands?

“Tiller, O’Reilly likes to say, “destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000.” He’s guilty of “Nazi stuff,” said O’Reilly on June 8, 2005; a moral equivalent to NAMBLA and al-Qaida, he suggested on March 15, 2006. “This is the kind of stuff happened in Mao’s China, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union,” said O’Reilly on Nov. 9, 2006″ -salon.com

As of today, no apologies from O’Reilly.  In it’s stead, Bill the pinhead offers that: “The far left is exploiting the death of [sic] Dr. Tiller to stifle any criticism of abortion.”  Note the euphemism “death of” in the the place of what should rightfully be “assassination”.  As though, “Tiller the Killer” some how expired or succumbed to natural causes.

There is no doubt in my mind that O’Reilly and his ilk are responsible in some degree for so recklessly fomenting the hate and fear for which such tragedies are an inevitable conclusion.  Inevitable, you douchebag.  Time to man up, you penisless reptile.  Do you imagine your useless vitriol to be without consequence?

To quote Snoop: “Fuck Bill O’Reilly.”

Man I hate these guys.

In other news, I’m thinking Sonia Sotomayor has benefitted  from the magic of rhinoplasty.  Good decision methinks.  She used to have a honker like a potato.  Seriously, she’s hot, smart and exotic, at least to me, self confessed trailer trash.  I’m saying that under the right circumstances, I’d hit that.

For the record, my current significant other is very smart and way hotter.

I gotta tell ya, I think Barack taking Michelle out for dinner and a show in New York is unbelievably cool.  He loves his wife and so do I.  Class and glamor.  A little Camelot for us all.  I am only able to muster a mere modicum of amusement at the FOX news talking heads invective over the cost of the outing.  Vainglorious and vituperatively disingenuous valor on part of their talking heads pretending to give a mad fuck over the expense to you, dear reader.  Did they complain, on your behalf, about Dumbya’s record amounts of vacation time to clear brush in Crawford?  I think not.

Assholes.

Man I hate these guys.

Drinks for my friends.

http://www.truthout.org/052209R

Cut & paste.  It’s unbelievable.  It scares me.

Darth Cheney.

I cannot countenance who we are.  I can’t stand what we’ve allowed ourselves to become.  I can’t stomach those who would defend these bastards and the actions they so relentlessly try to sell us as performed on our behalf.  For our safety, they tell us.

This is bullshit.  These are egregious crimes.  These people are lying.  The media pads around it with careful feet on deep pile Berber, giving them their say.  People died in custody of the United States government.  The sickest aspect?  They probably expired whilst we pursued our efforts to extract reason for a war that Darth fucking Cheney knew was complete crap.

Bullshit.

Despite all this, we still have to suffer through the airtime the mainstream media affords this lying, disgusting evil jackass who spent his eight years in office doing his damndest  to pervert, distort and destroy all things that allowed Americans to be proud.

I bet this guy is hung like a gnat.  Had a giant safe in his office.  Kinda the bureaucratic equivalent of a big stupid truck in the ‘burbs.  See what I’m saying?

Look, I’m not naive.  Any American who’s lived with eyes wide open for the past handful of years, understands all too well what the Dick-in-Bush regime has done in our name.  What chaps my ass with such profound cheese grating efficacy, is that this pinhead Cheney, is allowed for a single second to utilize public airwaves in an attempt to mitigate, in such an obvious fashion of puerile necropsy,  policies and actions that have indelibly stained us all. 

Actions and policies, for which he should clearly be behind goddamn bars.

It’s crap.  Elaborate falsehoods.  Complete shite.

The neocons and this dickhead Cheney in particular, are attempting to rewrite history as we let them into our living rooms every evening for such dubious ends.  Man, I hate these guys.  In the words of Reverend  Jeremiah Wright, “Goddamn America”.  Any asshole who even attempts to change the elaborate and true path of human events past, should be muzzled and pelted with rocks and garbage.

“They pelted me with rocks and garbage”.

History is sacred and Cheney will do his best, but his legacy will ooze a vile, stinking sewage.  Not even gulls will go near it.  The EPA will get involved.

Write your local network affiliate, tell them you don’t want to see the vulgar and vile visage of this man or any of his lackeys on your television anymore.  Lying to you and impugning the efforts of the man we elected by an unprecedented majority to right the wrongs his administration and office so recklessly and relentlessly pursued and wrought.

I’m all for free speech.  But not if what you say on our air is an incendiary lie.  It is crying fire in a crowded theater.  At the very least the crawl underneath should go bold and all caps when he lies.  Cheny’s kinda soft spoken so it would be like someone yelling from underneath.  I’ll call Rupert.

We, America, tortured.  We killed people in our charge.  Worse, we killed hundreds of thousands and visited life altering suffering on millions for no good goddamn reason.  I’m ashamed of my country and you should be too.

Who are we?  What have we allowed ourselves to become?

This tumor is us.

This parading of a simple dog and a forlorn pony is contemptible and absurd.  Stand up.  Be an American.  Do not tolerate this man man and his lies.

We are so much better than this.

Tell Rush Limbaugh he can blow me.

I’m trying to tell you something and you should listen.

Drinks for my friends.

Hello,

Fuck this guy.  Cheney is a vacuum of credibility.  A black hole.  He is a liar and a thief.  He and his cronies profited immensely from the war in Iraq by engaging in fraud perpetrated on our own troops and we the people as often as not.  Haliburton and KBR.  You think this guy gives a mad fuck about you?

Yet he deigns to flatter us with his opinions by the hour, or so it seems.  Who exactly does he think he is?  What new arrogance is this?  Dude, you were the Vice President and most of us agree you sucked.  Go away.

The CIA isn’t exactly a pillar of truth, justice and the American way these days.  They, both the CIA and Darth, deliberately “fixed the facts to fit the policy” that led us into one of the most unjust wars in history.  Can you say Downing Street Memos?  Nonexistent yellowcake uranium or mobile bio weapons labs that turned out to be balloon trucks?  The Keystone Cops in color.

This guy gets on TV.

They tortured in fact, to gain and supply reason and rationale for that very war.  With every fiber of my being and every ounce of conviction I can summon, I say fuck these guys.  Furthermore,  I invite Dick Cheney, with zero respect due, to shut the fuck up and go away.

Or, we get to waterboard the prick bastard.  I’ll settle for either and sleep soundly.

Dear Dick, You suck.  Please vanish.  Go gentle into that hot cave.

Fear, fear fear.  This is a mess created by our former arsonist laureate, the Dick-in-Bush administration.  “…if we continue to make decisions within a climate of fear, we will make more mistakes…..” -President Barack Obama.  Cheney calls Our Man’s policies, “recklessness cloaked in righteousness”.  I can’t help but wonder just what Darth Cheney knows about righteousness.

The past administration swore up and down that we did not torture.  Upon that lie of extraordinary magnitude becoming as common as the knowledge that one should avoid using motorized garden shears for personal grooming, they try to convince us that torture kept us safe, was justified and wasn’t really torture but “enhanced interrogation techniques”.  My guess is Cheney’s next career will be in real estate.  You know, bridges, swampland, timeshares in Baghdad, that sort of thing.

Or maybe the latest incarnation of Swamp Thing.

I am in awe that this douchebag Cheney is able to command any attention at all.  Why is anyone even listening to such a notoriously full of shit, black hearted blowhard?  Why?  He’s been wrong about everything, caught in more lies than Baron Munchhausen and he should be in goddamn Leavenworth.

It’s all smoke and mirrors.  It’s all they’ve got.  Fear wrapped in the worn gauze of  some obsolete notion of security.  That’s it kids.  There’s nothing more to see here.  It is exactly as it appears.  Move along please.  Please.

Understand, this man, our President, has more on his plate than you can possibly imagine.  The tasks he faces every morning require superhuman effort, attention and acumen.  Most of what our man struggles with in the shower, the great unwashed are willfully ignorant of.

This guy is inside a cat 4 tornado and he doesn’t need Dick Cheney’s irrelevant shit right now.  If Darth were an actual patriot, he would pull a fade starting now.  Cheney, of all people is intimate with the toxic pile he and that little monkey left behind.

This subject of torture has become far too convoluted.  Too nuanced even.  It’s simple.

Torture is immoral because it is cruel and inhumane.  At the very least it pollutes the soul of anyone who orders it and any who would administer it.    We must understand that these people, these candidates for and of torture, are human beings.  Right or wrong, these people believe what they believe just as fiercely as we do.  Under the last administration, anyone who believed differently than you or Sean Hannity, could literally be tortured for disagreeing, whether they knew shit or not.

Surveilled.  Wire tapped which means computer tapped.  ……..anything you say, can and will be used against you in a court of law……..

Torture is unethical because the result is at best dubious.  With resolute men, the decision about what they are willing to disclose, even when faced with death, has already been made. Count on such men to spew crap when tortured.  It’s useless.  Even the economy of the concept is bankrupt. They think it’s a game of Stratego.

Drinks for my friends.

Republicans are a hot mess.

This poor bastard, Sgt Russel, and the five brothers in arms he felled. All the families too. A big bag of tragedy for no good reason. Not that all involved weren’t brave committed men who’d sacrificed for America more than we can comprehend. All the more sad.

It’s just that it didn’t have to happen. A man on his third tour of hell lost his shit. It seems so random but it’s not. He was in treatment for “stress”. These guys are fucking tough. They are crackerfuckingjack. They tipped Iraq over in weeks. Lots of things are very wrong with this story.

A badass soldier whom I presume was sane before he arrived, killed his own, not just his own, but his fellow soldiers. The antithesis of anything like heroic bravery. Almost as curious as it is tragic. PTSD. A political potato of some heat. Inconsistent to nebulous in terms of definition or perception. Through the roof nonetheless. Our veterans are struggling on a scale we’re not even aware of.

This is a gift from the Bush administration that will keep on giving for years to come.

Just like Vietnam!

The dude does not abide and neither do I. This is insane. See what I’m saying?

I really need for you dear reader, to concentrate here. I’m going to cut and paste a news item from today below, and I want you to compare and contrast the news I’ve written about above with this actual piece that appears below inside quotes. All I will say is that I think the two issues at hand are symbiotically entwined:

“In an interview on Fox News, the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney sharply criticized the new administration for agreeing to release photographs depicting alleged abuses at U.S. prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush administration.

“I think it is really appalling that the administration is taking this step,” she said in the interview. “Clearly what they are doing is releasing images that show American military men and woman in a very negative light.”

“I have heard from families of service members from families of 9/11 victims this question about when did it become so fashionable for us to side, really, with the terrorists,” she continued. “You know, President Obama has a lot of rhetoric about support for American military families, support for our men and women who are fighting for us overseas. But if he really cares about them, then he wouldn’t be making such an effort to release photos that show them in a negative light.” -CNN

Ok, I can’t help it. Liz Cheney you stupid fucking cunt. What about this whole egregious clusterfuck do you not understand? You actually seek with all gallows composure to spin this tragedy into some lame evidence that the Obama administration attempts “….to side, really, with the terrorists”?

In a war started by your father without reason?

Look up her name and insult her personally. Liz, you ignorant slut. You have betrayed your country and if Olberman or Stewart did the same schtick I swear I just turned on the glass teat.

Time for a fireside interlude. Picture me with a blanket over my legs in a wheelchair beside a crackling hearth:

A tale related by an excellent friend.

This story is about a man named Donald.

Donald farts in the car, back on a sweltering day. Turns out to be a withering expulsion, weakening the senses of the propagator. He’s impressed by his own ability to generate an odor that would be a captain of any industry. So inspirational that he wonders about his own health.

He then ventures into a video emporium of the strip mall variety. He feels the build. Pressure in his lower abdomen. And it’s hot. It’s temperature is like heat from a crack in the Earth. As though his bowels are about to volcano.

The gastrointestinal expulsion is nuclear but not cacophonous.

He’s grateful he’s not shat himself.

Get my drift? More or less silent but indisputably toxic.

He understands the affront he’s just committed. He flees to the right, past the first few letters of the alphabet. He works his way quickly to the D’s and F’s. Doctor Detroit to Fargo.

A fresh couple enter the emporium. They immediately ventiure into a cloud of Donald’s anal vapor in the A through C sectiion. They are apalled and disturbed. Their faces are an ugly mask of assault and disgust.

This is Donald’s story.

Drinks for my friends.

So Jessica Simpson lost weight and now her head looks too big. I thought she was kinda hot when she was thicker. Another disproportionate pop star.

I really hate any kinda bottle with a pump dispenser at the top. You have to tip the bottle upside down to get all the useable product out. Who does that? It would take forever.

See, the architecture of a pump dispensered bottle doesn’t allow for easy upside down storage. Whether it’s a lotion or a soap or hair conditioner, it’s stupid. The smartest design is those bottles that have a fat top with a simply attached stopper, flush with the lid when closed and they rest easily upside down or were actually designed be stable with an ever lowering center of gravity until you’ve gotten every last snotty barf of product out of the fucker.

Nobody walks in LA.

Far be it from me to overlook the most practical packaging ever for any consumer consumable no matter it’s viscosity. The toothpaste tube. Squeeze from the bottom, be methodical and there’s no fisherman would cut her open once she goes dry.

I know something pissed me off today and I’ll remember it soon.

So I’ve got this buddy Matt. Owner operator of The Arb Pizza Cafe, 11946 Ventura Blvd, Studio City 91604 (Btwn Carpenter & Radford Ave). Actually, he’s a client. He sells salads and paninis etc. I mean to try them. I bet they rock.

I go there, for his pepperoni by the slice. It’s flawless. The grease from the meat and the cheese pools ever so naturally into the small craters created by the expansion of the crust and bubbling cheese going from solid to liquid to less than aqueous. Chewey. Not too much. Very flavorful little slicks of lube from the sauce and cheese.

The architecture of pizza is brilliant. Still it’s not hard to fuck up. I’ve made a few pizzas and fucked them up all too often by neglecting texture.

Sprinkle it liberally with garlic powder and parmesan, then use your index finger with force to start a crease, and since you’re a primate with opposable thumbs, fold the triangle in two before you tear off the biggest bite you can manage without offending your own poetic correctness.

Any eaterie’s first arbiter is the pizza. Just go get two slices of pepperoni and a soda. Give them a ten dollar bill. It’s less than that but you’ll leave feeling cheap otherwise.

Two things. Napkins and a soft drink. Free refills. I prefer diet sodas myself, but what’s pivotal is the carbonation. It’s texture relief from the hot saucy garment you’ve just clothed your tongue and mouth with. Beer is good. Champagne is the answer to most things. This pizza would be excellent with a nice Veuve Clicquot.

At the same time it makes me think of New York. It is better than Manhattan street pizza but the ethic is way intact.

Come to think of it, Matt has an awesome white pizza that would be a force to be reckoned with were you to have a few jars of caviar laying around. You think I’m kidding. They deliver. Chill some bubbles. (818) 358-2233

Matt’s dad is named Andy. They call him “Deluxe”. Walk in and ask for a free soda. Tell them a guy named “Deluxe” sent you. Order two slices of pepperoni pizza and pay for them.

Do it. Tell me you liked it.

Let’s do some headlines from CNN.

“Same-sex marriage gets OK in N.H., Maine”:
All I can say about this is FUCKING A!! The right coast is leading by example. Lookit them school us on civil rights.

“Colin Powell comment angers Limbaugh”:
Who fucking cares? Not me. Powell’s reputation may be scarred by severe blemishes to the face but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt when it involves The Human Shitsmear. Limbaugh rushed again to claim Powell’s endorsement of Obama was explicitly racial. I would, if given the chance, I’d drop that fuck with a haymaker.

Cracks me up that people pay attention to this asstard.

Powell reffered to Limbaugh appropriately as an entertainer and said “I think what Rush does as an entertainer diminishes the party and intrudes or inserts into our public life a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without,” Powell said. -CNN

I believe Powell was as polite as as possible by saying that Limbaugh should fuck right the fuck off. More power to him. Limbaugh is rapidly becoming irrelevant. Limbaugh is the epitome and distillation of the growing canker, the cancer indeed that has the GOP on it’s knees. Archaic and obsolete ideology that I’m fascinted to watch them cling to. It’s not unlike watching a reptile slither towards a dark flat rock.

The new racism is homophobia. Send Rush the memo. He sits way back in the back.

Fans of Limbaugh suck relentlessly. They are the worst America has to offer. He said he would like for our President, a man we elected with a sincere hope for success at changing our country, it’s culture of fear above all else, he said he would like for him to fail. Were I a right wing dickhead, I’d accuse the Shitsmear of treason and scream for his head. We liberals are not as anxious as our counterparts to malign and impugn those who’ve not committed an actual crime. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t hesitate to invite him, to his face, to lick my taint.

Cancer indeed.

If you like, admire, worship or even follow this clown, let’s talk. I’m right here. I will blow up in your face and make you cry in front of your friends. Let’s go.

Drinks for my friends.

It would be nice if we could simply choose our own channels. If I don’t pay my bill, Direct TV shuts me down in a heartbeat. I call them on the phone, arrange payment and within thirty seconds, access to like three hundred channels is restored. I don’t believe for a second that making individual choice available to customers isn’t possible.

I’d do the networks, they should be free and I’m a news junkie, including FOX, CNN,and MSNBC. Part of my addiction is to monitor the mainstream. Comedy Central, HBO and Showtime for movies, excellent series’ and boxing. One local affiliate. They all suck but I need access to at least one local news outlet. Maybe some nature channels, IFC and that other one……..

I need to step off this topic for awhile. You who read me regularly understand I am wont to do.

I am moved by this President. He takes complex questions and answers them with intelligence and nuance. He talks to us and explains himself with an earnestness and sincerity that make plain his need for us to understand. He does want to include and engage the lowest common denominator. I believe I’d be remiss were I not to point out the glaring contrast between Mr. Obama and our previous President, who catered to and exploited the lowest common denominator almost exclusively.

Our man was asked this evening, what about his first one hundred days suprised, enchanted, humbled and troubled him the most, on live television. He answered adroitly, compassionately and honestly. This is the kind of question that would never even be allowed under the Dumbya regime. Were such a question somehow allowed to slip through, trust that Dumbya would have stuttered, paused and visited abuse of malapropisms to hitherto unseen depths of national embarrassment.

He’s a primate at best.

His eyes are too close together.

I couldn’t help but remember Clinton. He would appear on television in the middle of our dark years and answer any question by framing it’s context, explaining the variables and then recommending a course of action so expertly that you knew he’d wrestled with it until he understood the issue thoroughly and had arrived at a solution that he grasped completely and had no reservations about endorsing. The man was flawed but he was whip fucking smart and he gave a shit. He was a lighthouse in the dense fog of Dick-in-Bush.

First 100 days? I’ll give Obama a B+. Not bad for his first semester midterm. About what I expected and I’m pleased. My biggest concern is the financial swamp thing. I can’t really pretend to understand it. It goes without saying I don’t have an opinion worth sharing. I will tell you that the more I learn and understand, the more I wonder about moving somewhere I can have a garden.

Those fuckers left us hanging. Cheney won’t shut the fuck up and neither will Rove but have ya heard from Dumbya? The barn door was banging at the start of the storm when those three bastards ran out. Man they were bad news.

Say our man gets us to 911 of this year without a domestic terror attack of similiar scale. Will you then shut the fuck up about your keeping America safe audacity? Allow me to date myself by saying you people sound like a broken goddamn record.

Some advice. The sky has been falling for some time now. You just looked up. You just noticed it could really crack you hard. By the way, if you did just notice all this, part of this is your fault. So anyway, settle down.

What we really need is for you mouthbreathers to be calm. Don’t stir shit up. Try not to shoot fellow humans. Stop turning out like zombies for corporate lobby funded tax protests when you’ll all do better under what you’re marching against. Have some dignity. Pull your pants up.

More of my advice to you is to wade back in. Forego ideology and sincerely look at what progressives are attempting to do here. Find fault with the policy or find flaw with the process. Stop dropping the ‘socialist’ bomb and find a way to participate. Start rolling up your sleeves and stop crapping your pants.

Hannity and Limbaugh are the clown princes of the conservative stagnation and they will be your demise.

Drinks for my friends.

Cable is out. Chose not to pay the bill.

What people fail to understand is that Obama cannot afford to even address this issue of guns, to do so would ignite an already hot pile of insanity. These fucks, these crazy zealots, are lying in a puddle of their own excrement waiting for Obama to utter the words “gun control”. It will be an excuse for them to snap.

Patient but dumb.

Wouldn’t be prudent.

Most of you are just stupid enough to not understand how dangerous you are. It really bugs me.

Sorry boys and girls. The issue of guns will see no play this season. Understandably so methinks.

Unless assholes keep shooting shit up. Give it a rest already. I refuse to to fear this.

I got comic books on the brain. I bought a thousand bags & boards and five long boxes the other day. For the last three days I’ve bagged and boarded. Surreal. Amazing nostalgia. I adore comic book art. My collection is perfectly preserved. Exactly the way I left it. Beat up books are still beat up books, but pristine ones are still pristine.

Crazy. I touch each one as I place it on a board and manuever it into a bag and I remember reading them, almost everyone of them stirs something in my head and there’s over a thousand. Damn. They were gathered with care as well as abandon. As I rember them, I understand they have informed me as much as they are going to.

They are everywhere in my apartment now. Leaning or stacked, grouped by title. Huge swaths of Ironman, Spiderman, The X-Men, Daredevil, Avengers, Fantastic Four……The Flash, Superman, Batman, The Justice League……….Star Trek, Adam 12, Richey Rich, Zoro and Archie……Boris Karloff, Ripley’s……….Swamp Thing, an assload of MAD magazines, Heavy Metal, Conan and Epic.

An amazing historical capsule. Late sixties to early eighties. The breadth and diversity of my collection affords me permission to brag and be proud because I was a child when I assembled it.

My folks are heros for packing them, storing them and delivering them to me when I bought my first house.

The way they smell and the way they look and my absolute romance with them when I barely had opinion about anything. I began to obsess when I was twelve. I was twelve.

John Byrne, Jim Starlin, Chris Claremont, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Bernie Wrightson, Barry Windsor Smith, Frank Miller…… Jack Kirby

Life is so sticky I feel the need for a bath about every hour. Sign of the gypsy queen. As thick as an old Supertramp record.

Everything I ever did you could hear the fucking kick drum.

The kick drum is lichen on a boulder.

When I was a kid there was lichen on boulders.

Primus grooves way hard.

My sincere advice to you is to Sail the Seas of Cheese and clean your house.

A little Tommy The Cat will cure whatever ails ya. I’m also a spokesperson for Alka Seltzer and fragrant pinecones.

Anyway, today Michele “We’re Running Out Of Rich People In This Country” Bachman (R-MN), by far the biggest assclown in the US House of Represenatives, gracelessly attempted to infer that flu epidemics somehow only occur under Democratic administrations. See if you can follow her logic:

“I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter…….” -Huffington Post

The Human Shitsmear had this to say:
“[E]verywhere Obama is spreading Obamaism, there is a deadly disease taking place, either in the TARP community or in the newspaper business … Obama goes to Mexico — they have an earthquake. Obama goes to Mexico — get pig flu,” -wowwowwow.com

Awesome. Do the math. You’ve got an evil humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize winning philanthropist, and our current President, a nefarious community organizer and two, count ’em two, outbreaks of flu related to pigs of all things. Oh, and, they’re both Democrats. I bet they used the same lab. It’s probably deep in the basement of some Red Cross shelter or maybe a Salvation Army thrift store.

Sheezus! That’s iron clad. A slam goddamn dunk! But wait. The original swine flu epidemic occured under Ford. I feel dizzy. I think I smell yellowcake uranium……my vision is clouded by pockmarks not unlike those littering the visage of George Tenet.

In late March 1976, President Gerald Ford emerged from a meeting with 27 health advisers with an ambitious request: “I am asking every man, woman and child in the country to get an inoculation this fall.” -dumpbachman.blogspot.com

It’s fair to say I love to loathe this woman. I adore her stupidity. I covet her retardation.

Why, just the other day she deigned to lecture Congress about Carbon Dioxide. She posited over and over that it’s a natural gas. She’s right about that but then so is the methane in my flatulence. What’s the point? She’s sure it can’t be bad for us because it’s from “nature”. She goes on to inform the esteemed deliberative body that there exists not a singly study proving this natural gas is harmful to humans. Five syllables Michele, asphyxiation.

She gives truth to the concept of failing upward:

In response to a question from host Chris Matthews, Bachmann said on the Oct. 17 show that she was “very concerned” that Obama “may have anti-American views” and that the news media should investigate the views of members of Congress. -Miami Herald

Hello McCarthy.

Then there’s Arlen Spector. Booya! I’ve always thought this guy to be inconsistent but obviously of his own mind. He confuses though not predictably. Maybe he actually has his own mind. Just can’t tell with these damn white collar tweekers.

Franken will get to sit and Spector makes sixty. A nice number. The Democrats, should they choose to act in concert, will have a majority immune to fillibuster. It’s something they rarely do regardless of whether they’re formidable or not. I’m not about a lockstep majority in the Senate but we need to be able to swing haymakers and roundhouses. Change won’t take unless we land some.

Homogeny is not a given among the jackasses.

Whatever. What these two stories point to is serious structural damage in the GOP. Take Mehgan McCain’s remarks:
“Karl Rove follows me on Twitter. That’s creepy, and ” Later, she wrote: “I can’t shake the fact that Karl Rove is following me-it can be creepy. So watch out.” and “Call it savvy marketing, but I find it disingenuous,” she said. “And it’s a bit weird to think his people-not even Rove himself-are following me.” -CNN

This thing will heat up. It will be a battle of the titans. Not so much between Democrats and Republicans but a contest between progressive and ignorant. Between smart and stupid if you will. Pro peace, pro choice, not fooled by creationism or abstinence, unafraid of gay people, tired of organized religion in our face rational humanists, versus desperately afraid war pigs that believe shit like Democrats are responsible for the fucking flu.

Guess who wins.

Drinks for my friends.

I felt compelled to share this. It really is remarkable.

Steve Schmidt, former campaign manager for John McCain while speaking to Log Cabin Republicans today, had this to say:

“There is a sound conservative argument to be made for same-sex marriage,” Schmidt, who was McCain’s campaign manager, told the group. “I believe conservatives, more than liberals, insist that rights come with responsibilities. No other exercise of one’s liberty comes with greater responsibilities than marriage. In a marriage, two people are completely responsible to and for each other.”

He added: “If you are not willing to accept and faithfully discharge those responsibilities, you shouldn’t enter the state of matrimony, and it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference if you’re straight or gay. It is a responsibility like no other, which can and should make marriage an association between two human beings more fulfilling than any other.” -CNN

Gorgeous. Eloquent, fluent and beautiful.

This kind of thinking and honesty is precisely what the Republican party owes America.

Yep, I said “owes”. Given the damage the Republicans have wrought the last three decades and particularly the last eight years, well, I feel they are beholdin’ to the rest of us.

Mr. Schmidt also had this to say:

“If you put public policy issues to a religious test, you risk becoming a religious party,” Schmidt declared. “And in a free country, a political party cannot be viable in the long term if it is seen as a sectarian party.” -Huffington Post

Hallelujah! Pun intended. Wow. This is one man who understands what the future of the GOP will look like if it has one. I am impressed. Social issues such as these, as opposed to those of policy, are our biggest divide. To table such concerns, might could be an envelope for allowing vibrant philosophical debate to once again rise to the watermark of legitimate. Without such violent and vigorous clouding and muddying of what is actually an important and vital set of issues, this country stands a real chance of moving forward and so then, does the rest of the planet.

America was never intended to be the world’s police anymore than it was to be the world’s moral arbiter. We’ve become mired and lost in that as a nation and have as consequence, lost our way on the world stage. It is exactly because of this that we are estimated by every other State to be anything from silly to hypocritical to lethally wreckless.

Guilty as charged. We are all of those things.

Far too long we’ve neglected tragedies that demand our attention and devoted it instead to situations that were barely our business. A lumbering giant, recklessly careening, who’s size and stature shrinks by the day.

A modicum of humility is therefore in order.

But wait, there’s more:

Hugo Chavez said to Obama today, “Eight years ago I greeted President Bush with this same hand. I’d like to be your friend.” -Fox News

Let the record show it was an interlocking opposable thumb shake. A ‘bro’ shake. I like this guy Chavez, he called Dumbya “The Devil”.

On Cuba, Obama said:

“decades of mistrust” must be overcome, but noted that he has already loosened restrictions that limited Americans from traveling to visit relatives in Cuba and from sending money to them.

Obama lifted all restrictions Monday on the ability of individuals to visit relatives in Cuba, as well as to send them remittances.

That may be just the beginning. “I am prepared to have my administration engage with the Cuban government on a wide range of issues — from human rights, free speech and democratic reform to drugs, migration and economic issues,” -CNN

This comes a day after Cuban President Raul Castro said he was prepared to discuss “everything, everything, everything” with the United States. -CNN

The neocons will no doubt bristle over this. I anticipate high comedy for my witness. Yet, this is the change we voted for. The one we Americans turned out in overwhelming numbers to endorse. We are beginning to understand that saber rattling is far from our only option. It’s stupid to assume that’s all we have to offer countries in our own hemisphere who pose no military threat to us whatsoever.

We could probably kick Venezuela’s and Cuba’s ass on any Thursday afternoon. That’s not the point.

The same way our opinions about our own citizens must change, so does our thinking about the rest of the world. Our bigotry and bias has led us to this precarious point in human history. America has within her reach, the potential to allow itself and the rest of humanity to progress beyond and above where we find ourselves now. If we can only learn to accept and tolerate a little more ourselves and then, the rest of the world.

See, I’m not here to endorse torture, terror, fascism, dictatorship or anything resembling. I’m trying to tell you that we’ve been going at this assbackwards. Archaic and absurd.

All good change comes from inside. We are all people, humans. We all bleed and suffer. It’s time to abandon the notion that to prevail, other humans must suffer and bleed.

Mr. Steve Schmidt has said and done a wonderful, cognizant thing.

Drinks for my friends.

A trifecta of issues have been chapping my ass of late.

ITEM ONE:

Is there a more appropriate term for the completely contrived “protest” by whackjob flat-earthers other than “teabagging”?

Methinks not.

“the insertion of one man’s sack into another person’s mouth. Used a practical joke or prank, when performed on someone who is asleep, or as a sexual act.” -UrbanDictionary.com

I love this shit.

In effect, they will protest the single largest tax cut on America’s middle class, working poor and impoverished in our history. They will actively lament an increased tax burden on America’s wealthiest five percent that still ends up being less than what their sacred small government charlatan Ronald Reagan imposed.

These people are idiots.

Not only does it pervert and vulgarize the original defiance by colonists who orchestrated and participated in The Boston Tea Party, it’s a knock kneed, anti-intellctual parody of genuine patriotism. I’m here to tell you these fuckers heads are as round as the average potato. Think pineal.

The lockstep conservatives have chosen the wrong week to quit sniffing glue. They are retarded and unable to wipe their own snot bubbling noses and drool weeping, recessed chins. Pathetic.

No one but Fox News seems to notice. Can you say ‘marginalized’?

ITEM TWO:

Looks like the GOP is resolute in blocking the release of actual legal opinions produced by the Bush administration’s OLC (Office of Legal Council), regarding torture. There are in fact three such memos issued by the OLC, one of the highest legal offices in the land, permitting and allowing for, under the auspices of American legal authority, the sadistic treatment and physical violence upon captured individuals in violation of Geneva Conventions as well as human decency and longstanding American ideals related to the treatment of prisoners of war.

Actual legal opinions proffered by the Bush administration that are apparently so profound and disgusting that Senate Republicans are willing to engage in blackmail to prevent their being released to media and the public.

“A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward…” -Scott Horton, The Daily Beast

Fuck me running.

They all stood right in front of us and swore up and down that America does not torture. That we don’t kidnap and “render” to countries that attach electrodes to the genitals or nearly drown “detainees”. That we don’t beat and humiliate or emasculate. They are fucking liars. And now, sitting members of the Senate, the world’s ‘greatest deliberative body’, openly engage in foul and despicable brinksmanship designed to keep the official sanctioning of that truth from our citizens.

Fuck you John Yoo. Fuck you Alberto Gonzales. Fuck you Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. There is nothing and no things any of you could possibly do to right this wrong you all so willingly and zealously fomented and encouraged. The stain you leave will be visible for centuries and the damage you have wrought will be your legacy long after worms have consumed your rotting corpses and shat them into soil.

ITEM THREE:

Al Franken.

Hey Norm Coleman. Shut the fuck up and start looking for a job. Al Franken didn’t clean your clock but he won. Have some dignity or maybe some vanity. Sheezus. You lost. Everyone agrees. Have you no shame? A whip smart comedian bested you in a public contest. Ten out of ten dentists agree, time to look for a job. Maybe you could be Michele Bachmann’s pool boy.

This shit is ridiculous.

Drinks for my friends.

We are not Gods. We are ants.

Every few seasons there occurs one of the most baffling and almost exclusively American phenomena. Some furious, disaffected asshole goes on a rampage with a gun(s) and kills a grip of unsuspecting and otherwise faultless saps for no reason other than a self perpetuating hate and a far too loose access to lethal weaponry.

The answer lies in preventing the asshole from acquiring firearms.

Invariably they are oppressed, fundamentalist, disenfranchised, extreme right wing idealogues that are sometimes racist, white supremacist or religious zealots. Heads up as to why the the problem is so uniquely American.

They come in clusters, these incidents of horror. Monkey see, monkey do. Whackjobs being more impressionable and susceptible and all that.

The answer lies in preventing assholes from acquiring firearms.

We are but spectacular fools. I tell you this because there’s an ethic that allows this sort of chaos and it’s the same one that the far right enjoys thoroughly as a catalyst for instilling fear and hate among the great unwashed.

Unbelievably stupid.

I’m a liberal for serious lack of a better definition. I don’t want to take your goddamn guns away and neither does Obama so shut the fuck up. The second amendment is just as solid and safe as it’s ever been. It’s only the brazen fomenting on the right that elevates it into an issue at all. It’s methodology 101 for whipping the ignorant into a “from my cold dead hands” frenzy.

It makes me sick.

A curriculum that includes a ‘pro life’ agenda, a God and country syllabus and a ridiculous culture of fear and loathing featuring communism, socialism, fags getting married and an inevitable social decay so profound that men and women will cease to marry or reproduce, thus bringing about America’s eventual surrender to all things evil like gooks and/or the French.

They encourage you to shoot people because you may soon no longer be able to.

It’s a distraction. How does it feel to have your strings pulled?

If you’re feeling that tug from the puppet master, you’re a dickhead.

The answer lies in keeping the human cartoons from getting their hands on AK47s.

There is however, an even dirtier bottom to this. Almost always it’s the social retard, the guy who keeps to himself. That guy that can’t seem to hang. He was quiet they say, or he kept to himself. When pressed they tell you he was a little odd. There’s a myriad of reasons these people exist in this unique American society.

Could it be be we are cruel, judgemental, superficial and far too materialistic? Racist, biased and unsympathetic? Rubbed raw but simultaneously lacking any capacity for compassion?

Could it be we just can’t stop being afraid? Could it be that there is nothing to fear but fear itself?

My fellow Americans, it is a distraction. Feel free to move about the room.

Thought I’d check in to see what condition our condition is in.

Drinks for my friends.

Did you catch Joe The Plumber on Realtime? I’m still in awe. For the sake of posterity at the very least, his name is not Joe and he’s not a plumber. Sam Wurzelbacher is a douchebag. He said things like it’s a “mute” point and Obama is a socialist. He then demonstrated that he, like all the rest of the great unwashed, don’t understand what socialism is. Morals and values he says.

Sheezus.

He’s a cartoon.

I don’t give a mad fuck what the pundits say, Obama acquitted himself with aplomb in Europe this last week and Michelle was the epitome of grace and class. As an American, I am grateful we are no longer suffering the palpable embarrassment of being represented by the Beverly Hillbillies.

Sam Donaldson declared nuclear power safe on Bill Maher tonight. This particular issue doesn’t take a rocket scientist to dissect. The process itself may very well be safe but until we figure out what to do with the goddamn waste, the entire idea is tragically flawed. It’s just that simple. We can’t just bury it in the desert. Fuck me, why doesn’t that come up?

I like the idea of my brain being inserted into a robot vessel until such time as an actual flesh and blood one comes along. I hope that someday soon, twisted but excellent brains like mine can be preserved for the benefit off all living creatures except certain kinds of bugs and religious zealots. I picture it like a VCR slot in the head of a robot. Just get somebody too slide your gooey brain through the little horizontal door……..

Celebrity apprentice update. Joan loses it and The Black Hat is is, um, fascinating. I’m not sure how smart he is but I suspect he’s in possession of some modicum of mental agility. It’s his composure that impresses me. I’m not sure how it happened but now he’s on the chicks team.

So yeah, the dudes ended up with the poker chick and Joan’s daughter. Something like that anyway. Oh wait. The teams are mixed now. The chopper guy is the only one here who’s conducted himself without shame so far. Football guy is less than articulate, naive, but maybe not stupid.

The drama kicks into high gear. Joan is pissed, and The Black Hat is a bit of a prick. Chopper guy and his team seem to be very happy with their effort. They show both projects and they both suck. But, wait. An inspired twist. Perez Hilton is consulted. Let’s watch!

This guy’s hair is ridiculous. His clothes are a nightmare. Some sort of powder blue jacket over a cobalt shirt and tie of the exact same color. And it’s a button down collar. Very high gayness.

I guess owe it to finish this.

Joan loathes Black Hat and so does her ridiculous daughter. They both lose because corporate hates both presentations. The Donald intructs Black Hat and Creep Melissa to bring two people each as he’s going to fire two. Let’s watch!

Trump blows it. What a tool. He fires the woman who volunteers to risk her head on the block for her team because she believes they have all kicked ass. You don’t fire that woman. You keep her. She’s all about team. He then fires another woman over some bullshit moral imperative that has zero to do with the premise of the show.

We’re done. I’ve been played. Cheated by the glass teat. Crap is crap and that was crap.

In other news, boys will be boys, we should all take stock and one man’s something is another man’s something or other.

Drinks for my friends.

So I’m sitting here today in my monkey suit, getting ready to go to the bank to bang out a proposal with the Evil Lance. I’ve been chasing this merchant for months. It’s a comic book shop. His name is Cat.

I was in the middle of reading truthout.org and and the place went quiet. Everything blinked off. The bastards at DWP had cut off my power.

My girlfriend walks out of the bathroom to say “You paid the power bill?”

I break a sweat. This has never happened before.

It’s really ok. I have the money. I was just being stupid frugal and retarded reluctant to pay a bill. Being poor makes you brave. Still, it’s more than a little discomfitting. My first thought is about what a dick I am because I made mad cash this month.

I go to the bank and make a big deposit. Call up DWP and pay the bastards. Call the other department of DWP and give them the confirmation number and they say by five p.m., power restored.

Get me a a couple chili cheese dogs with mayonnaise, mustard and onions. This is why poor folks are fat. I blame society. I cut a check for my rent and drop it off. The manager is this cool guy named Antonio. He smiles and shakes my hand. First time I’ve paid rent on time in months.

I go to my bank, the Evil Lance and his wife, mother in law and daughter are there, along with my significant other, the new guy we will refer to as GQ Todd, the Lovely Linda and the hot new receptionist. Ken, the head fromage is nowhere. The Evil Lance has done my homework for me. I get a folder with the proposal, the original statement and a printout of the ACH statement for money I’m being paid on a previous deal that will hit my account on Monday.

It’s a sweet chunk of change.

I threaten the daughter of the Evil Lance with cannibalism. I tell her to bring me butter and pepper. I demand a giant fork and tell her that her ankles will be chewey. She is gorgeous and I am charmed.

I come home and there’s an ominous yellow notice on the door. Mine heart doth sink. I’ve just figured out how to buy enough gin for the weekend and I felt like I may have fooled the world once again.

I walk into a dark silent apartment. I go on the balcony for a smoke and to read the ominous yellow tag. Turns out I just need to go get my security gaurd buddy to open up the meter room so we can flip the switch. After all, I’m paid up. I, we, do that. He’s the same guy who gives me the stink eye through the peephole when my shit is way too loud.

So yeah, today worked out well.

Then the news from the State Supreme Court of Iowa.

What a swell little gem. In Iowa of all places, we get a State Supreme Court stocked with Republicans to pretty much vociferously defend marriage between anybody who really wants to. The decision respected and actually honored the the concept and spirit of civil rights.

Watershed.

Iowa. The one state in the union where you dare not sell a bong. Wow.

We are changing.

Just look at the world stage today. Barack Hussein Obama and First Lady Michelle. Europe sees Jackie and Jack. They are abroad doing the absolute best they can to represent the rest of us. They are proud because we are or should be. They are humble because Americans have walked face first into humility.

Although I worry, I’m sure the ratio of smart Americans vs. stupid is in our favor. If you had to repeat that sentence to yourself, you’re not one of us.

They begin to repair the damage. The Obama’s show up in front of the people who need and want to see them. They show up at every chance they are afforded to distill themselves and what America is instead of what Europe has seen for the last eight years. Our knuckles don’t drag.

Bill Maher scores an interview with Joe The Plumber. Oh me oh my. See what I’m saying?

Drinks for my friends.