It’s The Racism, Stupid

It is.

It’s the racism.

It’s the sexism.

It’s the homophobia.

It’s the fear of the other. It’s bigotry and bias in a dozen forms and whatever label you want to slap on it. 

Let’s just stop pretending that it’s anything else.

You know, I’d have more respect for these people, not a lot more respect but perhaps some anyway, if they’d just come right out and say it. Get it out in the light where we can look at it. Instead they pretend to righteous indignation – what? How dare you call me a racist! How dare you call me a sexist! Or a bigot! Or a homophobe. Why, I’m insulted, I’m offended that you would say such a thing. In fact, you’re the bigot because you won’t tolerate my bigotry! Yes, yes, that’s it. Bigot? I know you are, but what am I? 

And then we have to listen to their nonsense, their fear and hatred and endless bile, and we’re all supposed to act like we’re so damned stupid that we don’t all really know what we’re talking about here.

And what we’re talking about is the bigotry.

When you dig down to the bottom of it, when you cut away all the euphemistic hedging and code words, when you look at what these people are really saying, well, it’s bigotry pure and simple. It’s racism and sexism and hate and fear. You can pretty it up however you like, you can deny it all you want, you can throw in a little Jesus and the tired bit about patriotism, yes you can pretend otherwise, but that’s exactly what it is.  And don’t try to tell me that it’s not.  I’m white. I’m male. I’m straight. I hear what other white straight males say when there are only white straight males in the room and I know it when I step in it.

So let’s just cut the bullshit, shall we?

Take a look at the comments under any Yahoo! News article. Any article.  Take a look at the comments under nearly any Wall Street Journal article on politics or the economy.  Take a look at the comments on any TEA Party forum. Any forum. Look at what any conservative pundit says every single day. Any conservative pundit. Look at the statements by outspoken conservative politicians and party leaders, every single day. Go on, look.

These are all verbatim quotes from the above sites. You can find plenty more for yourself with exactly zero effort.

- The citizens who share the belief that the Constitution, Bill of Rights and our Declaration of Independence should remain as the foundation of this nation, are outnumbered today.

- he got elected because of minorities voting for him in extraordinary numbers. He had the worst economic record of any incumbent president and due to the racial bias in his favor and the character assassination of Romney, as well as the media blackout of Benghazi, he slithered like a snake into another term. Short lived perhaps - he's being busted by for his before, during and after screw ups that led to deaths of an ambassador and three others

- Romney won among the core of America, the ones who pay the taxes and drive the economic engine.

- You are the ones who call us white trash and trailer trash.... You don't like anything that is right !! As opposed to wrong. Homophobia? That implies I am afraid of homos, I ma not!! Class warfare started with Obama and him being against the rich although he is rich too. There are way too many people in this country on assistance. But there are no jobs, we can't keep doing that .Keep the illegals out, Seal our borders and no more anchor babies, wherever or whenever their parents got here. I don't care, the country has had enough!!!So have the American people!!!.

- I had a hard time looking at and listening to Obama for just four years. He doesn't look like America. Jindal would be even worse... Ugly people!!! I don't want no Indian in the White house. That black man has been bad enough!!! Clinton won't go away, he thinks like Obama, doesn't matter what you do, He thinks he's a rockstar!! NOT!!! WE will take America back!!! It is our country!!!

- Obama didn't win, the unions, the lazy, the illegal aliens and the commies and socialists won. You don't know it yet but AMERICANS lost.

That’s right. Americans. 

And who are Americans? Well let’s see, they’re not in a union, they’re not lazy (Lazy, we know what that means, don’t we? No Protestant work ethic for those people. Wink wink), they’re not Latino or Asian or gay or any of those people. You know, those people. You know the ones. They’re scheming to take away our country. Ours. Us real Americans.  You can tell an American, because he looks like an American, right?  And Americans aren’t elected by minorities, now are they?

If it wasn't for the 47% on welfare, barry sure as hell wouldn’t have won. You can see we are become a 3rd world country. Wait for the muslim brotherhood to take over.

Oh no, not the Muslim Brotherhood! Not that!

Welfare.  The forty-seven percent. Gee, where have we heard those dog whistles before?

How many times have you seen this meme since the election?

The population of the US is around three hundred and twelve million.  So, one hundred and fifty million, that’s about how many people forty-seven percent of the American population is, give or take.  Seventy-two percent of America is white, that leaves about ninety million people of color, of which about seventy million are defined as “black” or African American. Now  according to the US Department of Health and Human services, the Commerce Department, and the CATO institute’s own figures, a little over four million Americans actually live on welfare as of 2012.  Four million. Not one hundred and fifty million. Four million. About sixty million receive some kind of assistance, some kind of help, but they’re not living on it.  Four million, that’s the number of people on welfare. That’s about one percent of the total population (1.2% percent if you want to get precise). 

One percent and some change. Not forty-seven percent. One percent.

Of which, about two million are actually white.

Want to do the math yourself?

No?

Okay, what all this means is that of the non-white population, ninety-nine percent aren’t living on welfare. 

But what’s the statement here? Half the population is on welfare. And who are the folks on welfare? What color does popular perception paint their skin? About half of them are white, but that’s not really the color you think of when somebody mentions “welfare,” is it? Most of the white people on welfare live in the poor rural South and are hardline conservatives, but that’s not really the location or the party that comes to mind when people say “welfare,” is it? 

Be honest, what do you think of when you hear “welfare?” 

What you should be hearing is a dog whistle.

And while we’re at it, what color is the Third World?

What are we really afraid of here? Go on, you can say it – but then again you really don’t have to, do you?

Forty-seven percent, it’s complete bullshit, just another manufactured bogeyman.  But there it is, ingrained in the public mind and no amount of math will ever dislodge it. 

Why?

Because that’s what a different forty-seven percent of the population wants to believe.

We’ll come back to this meme in a bit.

Oh, hell, let’s come back to it right now.

This is too good to pass up. So here’s a quick “Caption This Post” of our favorite moocher with a big ol’ bufforilla ass…

That’s the lead-in to a fun little contest on the Angry White Dude blog.  Who was the mad little white dude talking about? “Moochelle” Obama, of course. Isn’t that clever? Moochelle.  You can thank Rush Limbaugh for that one. There’s a whole internet meme that makes Moochelle demotivational posters.  Moochelle, do a search on that name, see what you get. Because, apparently, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, someone who has worked her entire life, first as a lawyer, then as the highly successful executive director of a large non-profit, then an Associate Dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago and then Vice President of Community and Student Affairs, not to mention a member of the board of TreeHouse Foods, and whose salary placed her well into the upper 1% of American income and who pays more in taxes than most Americans gross in a year and has long before she ever became First Lady, is a “mooch.” 

She’s also a “Silver back gorilla” and has a “big ol’ bufforilla ass.”

Gorilla. 

Again, you want to do the math or shall I?

No matter that by any definition Michelle Obama is an educated eloquent successful accomplished professional  – who, I might add, put her own career on hold and took a subservient role to her husband’s goals, a position hard line conservatives think is the proper place for a woman – as an African American, well, she’s still just a gorilla, a monkey, a mooch. One of the “Forty Seven Percent” sponging off real Americans. 

You know, it’s funny, the same people who call the First Lady a mooch are the same people who bitch about how lazy other folks are, who mock others for their weight and tell them to get off their asses and exercise – and yet when Michelle Obama busts her own ass day in and day out to eat right and exercise and set a decent example for our overweight youth, she’s a still a mooch and gorilla. 

You know what the single largest search on my website is?

“Michelle Obama posture.” 

Gorilla. Bufforilla. Go on, tell me it’s not racism. Show me the same comments about Barbara Bush’s tush. Nancy Reagan’s work ethic. Or Pat Nixon’s posture. Go on. I’ll wait.

Google Sasha and Malia and see what you find.  Don’t eat anything first, unless you like being sick.

Then go right on and tell me it’s not racism. Go ahead, make me laugh.

Tea Party Nation blogger Judson Phillips came up with an idea: he wants conservatives, i.e. Real Americans, in the Electoral College to go on strike. That’s right. Do what they’ve been doing in Congress for the last four years, obstruct. 

See, the idea is to prevent validation of the election results, both the popular vote that conservatives are so big on and the Electoral College vote, both of which they lost decisively.  Phillips’ idea is that if he can get enough conservatives to hold up the final electoral vote validation, then the Electoral College deadlocks.

Then the House of Representatives gets to decide who the next president will be by Fiat.

And the House is controlled by Republicans.

Isn’t that beautiful?

The Tea Party, the folks who claim to love democracy and The Republic oh so very much, who lay claim to being patriots and the only real Americans, who are overwhelmingly white to a degree that makes any other race utterly insignificant in their make-up, want to override that self-same democracy and install their own President directly. 

Why?

Royce Latham, one of Phillips’ readers explains:

Sexual perversions and drug use of the Obamas…forged birth certificate…voter fraud of biblical proportions. Why are we talking secession instead of removing the New York Times and supporting citizens' Grand Jury indictments [sic] against this unbelievable treason, felonies and usurpations raining down on us on a daily basis?

Sexual perversions? Jesus Haploid Christ, I’ll bet money that Royce has Birth of a Nation on Blu-Ray.

And then there’s all the rest of it, like a song you just can’t get out of your head, birth certificate, voter fraud, treason, usurper, oh woeho, do wop do wop, raining down on me.

Everybody, sing along, you know the words.

Again, don’t think it’s really racism?

Think I’m exaggerating?

Take a look at the comments regarding this idea on the President Mitt Romney 2012 Facebook page.  Also, take a look at how many “Americans” really, really like the idea of aborting democracy and just taking over when they don’t get their way.  Facebook commenters come with pictures, note the demographics. 

Hey, I’m just saying that if there’s that much white sauce in the fondue, you’re probably going to find a stack of crackers nearby, that’s all.

Look at this. Really look at it.  Those angry pinch-faced TEA party loons aren’t claiming voter fraud, not really. Hell even Allen West has finally conceded. They’re not calling for new elections, not really. They admit, finally, that Mitt Romney lost and that Obama won.  In fact, the entire idea of locking up the Electoral College tacitly acknowledges the validity of the election, that a majority of voters wanted Barack Obama to have another four years.  So they’ve hit upon an idea to bypass democracy and the Republic, disenfranchise those voters, and install their own genuine Old White Guy.

Honestly, the only way you get to this point, is if you see half the country, and especially people of color, as not real Americans. 

Note: the deadlock idea is about as valid as creationism by the way. Doesn’t work. The electoral college was designed to keep soreheads from taking over America not help them.

Funny thing, when these people claim to love the Constitution, they literally mean the Constitution as originally written – the one that left three quarters of the population, women, blacks, and the poor, as non-enfranchised chattel.

And that’s the world they want to return to.

Which makes this last week all the more ironic.

A while back, Rick Santorum told conservatives they were stupid, and they cheered him.

Last Monday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told Republicans to "stop being the stupid party."

Jindal admonished the GOP to make a concerted effort to reach a broader swath of voters with an inclusive message. 

It is no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments -- enough of that. It's not going to be the last time anyone says something stupid within our party, but it can't be tolerated within our party. We've also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism. We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.

I’m not exactly sure how you insult the intelligence of voters who think “bufforilla” is an acceptable label for anybody, let alone the First Lady, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

"If we want people to like us, we have to like them first," Jindal said on Fox News Sunday. What a concept, eh? It warms my heart to know that Bobby Jindal likes me, and just in time for Christmas too! Why it’s like a Doctor Seuss story – and Bobby’s heart grew two sizes that day!

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney apparently didn’t get the memo, he’s going around telling these same conservatives that the only reason Barack Obama won is because he gives free stuff to lazy minorities who don’t work and aren’t real Americans. Boy, that’ll get ‘em to like you.

Mitt’s not only still losing this election, he seems hell bent on losing the next one too.

In the weeks since the election, Republicans have come to the conclusion that “The White Vote” isn’t the automatic win it used to be.   The GOP has come to the sudden and unpleasant realization that by the next election cycle – or the one after that at the latest – the United States will be using the word “minority” to describe an entirely different demographic. 

The glum and frightened look on conservative faces isn’t that they lost per se, rather it’s the same look an alcoholic gets when he realizes there’s only a swallow left in the bottle.  

If they want to have any say in how this country is run in the future, they’re going to have to change the Republican party to reflect a representative cross-section of America. 

It’s really that simple.

Because, see, it’s the bigotry, Stupid.

It’s not just the Dick Mourdocks and the Todd Akins and the Michele Bachmanns, it’s not just the Rush Limbaughs and the Glenn Becks and the Ann Coulters, it’s not just Bill O’Reilly and RedState and Tea Party Nation – it’s the whole damned constituency.

It’s the overall racism and sexism and misogyny and religious extremism.

I’ll tell you exactly what it is, it’s the people who can look at an accomplished well spoken wealthy black woman, the First Lady, and see only a welfare dependent moocher, a monkey, a gorilla, a nigger.

It’s the racism, Stupid.

It’s the racism and all the rest of it. It’s the sexism. It’s the homophobia. It’s the gibbering fear and the paranoia.

It’s the goddamned bigotry.

It’s the bigotry and it’s in everything.

Utah Republican Governor Gary Herbert warned conservatives that the country was going "center-left" on issues like gay marriage.  When he was asked what Republicans could do to survive the shift without violating their principles, he said:

If you must discuss it, stand by your beliefs, but please, for the good of the party, try not to sound like a jerk.

For the good of the party.

Not for the good of the nation.  Not for the good of the people you’re trying to attract.  For the good of the party. 

What Herbert doesn’t seem to understand is that those beliefs make you a jerk, no matter how nice you phrase it. When your position is that of denying others their piece of the American dream because you just plain don’t like them, you are a jerk. It’s really just that damned simple.

You. Are. A. Bigot.

At the same Las Vegas meeting, former Reagan adviser Bill Bennett told the gathering:

You can articulate your opposition for example to same-sex marriage, but you can do it in a dignified way, in the right language, in a forceful way that shows you're not a bigot or intolerant.

You know, you can only make the facepalm so many times before you end up with a headache.

Again, what Bennett just doesn’t seem to get is this: no matter how “dignified,” no matter the “language,” you’re still an intolerant bigot.

You. Are. A. Bigot.

Not one of these conservative leaders stood in front of their party and said, “Enough! We can no longer tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, the hate and the fear in our ranks. We must change. We must honestly acknowledge that America has changed and we must change with it. We must discard the past and move forward and become the party for all Americans. We must lead. We must stop referring to our fellows as communists and Nazis and Bufforillos. We must become a movement that is truly worthy of the title The Party of Lincoln!”

Oh, sure, maybe it sounded a little like that, but that’s not really what they said, is it?

No, not really.

Of course not.  No GOP leader could say that, because, well, then he’d sound like a liberal, wouldn’t he?

Instead, they’ve decided to fake it.

Because, when it comes right down to it, well, it’s the bigotry isn’t it?

We’ll just pretty it up. Put some lipstick and new dress on it – because, hey, the lazy welfare dependent Forty-Seven percent is too damned stupid to notice anyway.  They’re just gorillas after all, monkeys, right? Poor and stupid and easily duped. Hell, they don’t even speak English, most of them.  If Obama can fake them out, heck, how hard can it be. Right?

We haven’t heard “separate but equal yet,” but then we really don’t have to, do we?

What’s the Jean Giraudoux quote? 

The secret to success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

Republicans are going to have to do more than fake it. 

They’re actually going to have to change. 

They’re going to have to do something about it for real.  They’re going to have to stop being the last refuge for racism, sexism, homophobia, religious extremism, and all the rest of it. 

And if they don’t?

Well then in less than a decade they are going to find out exactly what it’s like to be a minority in America.

The Weakest Link

 

Remember Calvin & Hobbes?

What am I saying? Of course you do.

It was only the best comic-strip ever drawn. Like ever.

My favorite installment, besides Spaceman Spiff of course, was at the end of the first “Transmogrifier” story arc.

The Transmogrifier, for those of you not familiar with the astounding brilliance of Calvin & Hobbes, is a fantastical machine invented by the strip’s main character, Calvin. It is based on the infinite malleability of cardboard box technology and is powered by imaginarium. It bears a striking, if inverted, resemblance to Calvin’s time machine and the spacecraft he and Hobbes used to become the first six year old and tiger, respectively, to reach Mars. The Transmogrifier’s primary function is to transform boys into other lifeforms, such as  eels, slugs, bugs, and small dinosaurs. 

In this particular installment, Calvin and Hobbes are standing in their yard next to the machine discussing their recent groundbreaking experiments with lifeform transmogrification.

Hobbes: Your machines works amazingly well.
Calvin: It’s my own design.
Hobbes: What will you do with it now?
Calvin: Good question… (About this time, Susie Derkins, the slimy girl next door, happens by. Calvin raises his voice) …although I suppose we could turn Susie into a BOWL OF CHOWDER, if we could just get her in the machine!
Suzy doesn’t break stride and snarls over her shoulder, “Leave me out of your life’s plans, you little weirdo.”

 

God, I miss Calvin and Hobbes, and most especially the biting sarcasm of Susie Derkins, a girl after my own heart and who bears an unnerving resemblance to my own wife, especially the biting and the sarcasm part. 

 

What brings this up?

We the people.

Lately, these last four years anyway, I’ve been hearing We The People a lot.

I mean, like a lot.

Now, sure “We the people…” sounds pretty damned awesome when you put it in front of an entire Constitution, but I’m pretty sure Thomas Jefferson used the phrase only once, maybe twice, in conversation before George Washington called him out on it. What’s this “we” shit, Tom? You got worms or something?

Lately, every time, every single time, I hear the phrase, “we the people…” it’s almost always followed by some cockamamie demand or nonsensical scheme for “fixing” the United States of America.

We the people.

Oh, please.

Google “we the people” and see what you get. Go on, it’s fun. Like hitting your thumb with a hammer is fun.

We the people demand an end to war.

We the people demand the truth about the alien spaceship recovered from Roswell, New Mexico.

We the people demand to know the truth about fluoride.

We the people demand disclosure of bigfoot!

Remember that joke with the Lone Ranger and Tonto surrounded by hostile Indians? What you mean “we,” white man?

Like that. Exactly like that.

What do you mean “We?”

We the people? We? We, as in all of us? Who, exactly, appointed these lunkheads to speak for all of us? I don’t remember voting on this, because I’m pretty sure I would have voted them right off the island instead of electing them spokesman. Not even if I’d been drinking, because, seriously, I’ve never been that drunk. Never.

We the people. You’re kidding right?

I’m going to be honest with you, it seems to me that a lot of the people lately are, well, idiots. And by idiots I mean the drooling hairy palmed kind who are fascinated by their own bellybuttons. I’m sorry to be the one to point this out, but there it is. Idiots. The people are idiots. And I really don’t want to be included in any “we” that also includes them.

Leave me out of your life’s plans, you little weirdoes.

In states with concealed carry permits, when confronted by the police you are typically required to inform the officer immediately if you’re packing heat. I think we need something similar for idiots. I think they should be required to begin all conversations with “We the People” proclaimed with ponderous gravity and their arm raised like Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address. See, that way the rest of us will know right away. Oh, you’re an idiot. Excellent. Now I don’t have to waste time listening to the rest of your silly jabber. Well, goodbye then and remember, first pants, then shoes.

Typically, these idiots are the ones screaming the loudest about having a voice in government.

Which is probably why the Founding Fathers specifically decided to form a Republic instead of a straight up democracy. 

Now granted, the First Amendment does give all American citizens the right to petition their government, even if they are idiots.

But up until recently, it’s been a huge pain to petition the government.  Which, upon reflection, was probably on purpose because it cut down, somewhat, on the idiots.

Theoretically you could talk directly to your congressional representative or senator – if you were the CEO of Exxon, say, or like really, really hot and not particular about banging creepy old men who smell of bourbon and dollar bills. Or what you could do is create a petition and then hang out in front of shopping malls pestering the hell out of random people for their signatures. See, that’s where the checks and balances part comes in, you’ve got to really want something if you’re willing to put up with the abuse of the general public in person, because, as I’ve mentioned, most of them are idiots. Once you’ve convinced, oh, say, like bizallion people to sign your piece of paper, you can either mail it in to the government or simply shred it yourself at the nearest Office Max.

However, when Barack Obama was sworn in, he brought a charming optimism to the Oval Office and he ordered the creation of a new White House website where citizens could directly petition the president and actually get answers. If twenty-five thousand people are willing to put their name on a petition, the President has promised to provide a response.

Because, really, what could go wrong with that? Right? Hello?

So far, eighty-two petitions have been answered by the President – including a detailed response to The People’s Freedom of Information demand for full disclosure of Obama’s beer recipe. The People had a right to know if there were any Muslims hiding in there, among the hops.

The White House calls it We The People and it ushered in a new era of closeness between The Idiots People and their elected leaders.  The website provides guidance for creating your own petition on behalf of the rest of us. Petitions should follow a specific format and should be on subjects that are of concern to all Americans.

Here’s an actual example from the website:

WE THE PEOPLE of the United States of America, pursuant to the Bill of Rights, Amendment One, declare that we are grieved over the presence of "CHEMTRAILS" in the airspace over the U.S.A. and hereby petition the United States government to take immediate action to cease all Geo-Engineering, HAARP & "CHEMTRAIL" activity in the airspace over the United States of America. WE, the People, further DEMAND an immediate, thorough and honest investigation into Geo-Engineering, HAARP, & what the substance called "CHEMTRAILS" actually consists of and discover the true purpose of spraying America (and its people) with harmful substances. THEREFORE, it is concluded that Americans are, and have been, under attack and have become the victims of BIOCHEMICAL WARFARE. We deserve answers to these charges.

Now that you know what this is all about, let’s see what The People have done with their First Amendment rights besides requesting more government issued tinfoil for their Magic Negro Ray Cranial Protection Cap and bun warmer.

Yes, let’s just take a look, shall we?

Let us just.

As I write this, there are one hundred and ninety-six petitions on the website.

At least one third have something to do with secession from the United States of America.

Texas leads the way with over a hundred and ten thousand signatures – most of which are from people in the other forty-nine states. Ouch.

Oregon wants to secede but remain an “ally” of the United States. Or in other words Oregonians would like all the benefits of being Americans, but without having a stinky black guy in charge.

Fourteen thousand people have signed a petition asking that all fifty states be allowed to secede, and then form their own nation together. Apparently they want to call it “The United States” to distinguish it from the nation they’re planning to secede from.

There’s a petition to require all seceding states to pay off their portion of the national debt before they secede. 

Now, I got to thinking about that. If we coupled this petition to the previous one, we might actually have a workable plan. Step 1) Pay off your part of the debt. Step 2) secede. Step 3) Once all fifty states have seceded, reform the Union debt free. 

Or, and here’s an idea, we all secede from Texas!  Sure.  See, we all  sneak out one by one without paying and then secretly reform the United States – leaving Texas stuck with a $16 Trillion tab. Hilarity ensues. 

Alternatively, if Texas stops acting like a dick, we could take them with us … and stiff Guam and Puerto Rico!

What?

Oh, right. I’m goofy.

Have you seen the actual budget plan?

Exactly.

Fine. Just think about it. That’s all I’m asking.

A number of cities within the seceding states have started petitions to secede from the seceding states and rejoin the United States – I recommend we call that the “West Berlin” option and I’m waiting for the petition from the seceding states requesting that the United States pay for a wall around the cities that succeeded in seceding from the seceding states.

Then there are petitions demanding that the secessionists self-secede or be unceremoniously stripped of their citizenship and deported to the country of their ancestors. I think this is a bit unworkable and it will probably end up costing us more than it’s worth, so I’m starting my own petition demanding that Obama issue an executive order making it legal for any loyal citizen to give any secessionist an atomic wedgie – alternatively you may key their Hummer.

Now not every petition on We The People comes from crazy secessionists.

We request that Barack Obama be impeached for the following reasons.
1. He proclaimed war in libya without getting congress approval first. Article I, Section 8- Only congress can approve to start war.
2. Obamacare is unconstitutional. Forcing US citizens to get health insurance whether they want it or not.
3. Obama disrespects our Constitution calling it flawed and trying to change it even after taking this oath: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the united States."
4. Appointing agency “czars” without Senate approval.
5. He’s black! Oh my God! He’s so black! There’s a black man in the WHITE House! (Ok, I just added number five in myself. But it seemed to fit)

There’s another one that petitions Barack Obama to allow the public examination of his birth certificate and school records.  I’m onboard with this, but only if Donald Trump is also required to admit his hair is really the malignant offspring of a unholy mating between biochemical warfare created from “CHEMTRAILS” and John Boehner’s self tanning lotion. Also, there should be some Nazis in there somewhere.

There’s a petition that demands the United States Government finally admit that Israel was responsible for the 9-11 terrorist attacks. I’d like to add an amendment to this petition making Ghana responsible for the sinking of RMS Titanic and designating Denmark as the scapegoat for Disney’s John Carter disaster.  Also, while we’re at it, let’s pin the blame for Windows Vista on Rhode Island.

In the “be careful what you wish for” category, there’s a petition to make President Obama implement a policy for declassifying discoveries by NSA Mathematicians (I swear I’m not making this up).  I used to work for NSA, I know a few of those “mathematicians.” I’ve had to sit in briefings while these socially awkward Wizards of Warcraft fumbled through a hundred Power Point slides filled with indecipherable gibberish. I’m not sure what the petitioner is expecting, but if you need a powerful sleep aid that will drop an ox, this would be it.

Then there’s the petition demanding that we “Stop destruction of our U-233 for more NASA space exploration, new cancer treatments, and thorium based energy abundance.”  Ah, yes, the Free Thorium Brigade.  They’ll be up to 25,000 signatures in no time.

My personal favorite is the petition that wants the White House to “Outlaw offending prophets of major religions.” I’m hip. Let’s outlaw offending prophets.  I’ve got a list of prophets who offend me, where do I sign? Also can we add in preachers, pastors, priests, rabbis, mullahs, shamans, witch doctors, and Ted Nugent?

Now it would appear that the entire site is filled with secessionists and conspiracy nuts and Obama haters.

And it is.

Because, really, didn’t see that one coming, right?

However, there are some, a few, petitions that are well reasoned proposals and I think the president should consider these seriously. Such as:

Nationalize the Twinkie Industry (America cannot afford to lose the sweet spongy goodness).

Build a statue of Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 on the lawn of the White House (because he’s done so much for us!).

Establish a new legal system of motorcycle riding "Judges" who serve as police, Judge, jury, and executioner all in one. (I AM DA LAAAAW!).

Have the president attend a Fark.com party, if scheduling doesn't permit at least have a beer with Drew Curtis. (I admit, this would be seriously cool).

This is what We The People have done with their First Amendment rights to free speech and to petition the government.

We the people. I hate to be this way, but how about you weirdoes leave me right out of your life’s plans, Okay?

 

But, hey, I’m sure they’ll totally do better with their Second Amendment rights.

There’s probably no need to worry.

But I digress.

Lost Horizons

He was the numbers guy, but in the end his numbers were all wrong!

Sounds like the tagline from a forgettable SyFy Channel movie involving a Hollywood supercollider made from Christmas tree lights and low budget GCI, a physicist played by C. Thomas Howell, a buxom lab assistant with a pair of silicon enhanced God particles, and a portal to an evil alternate dimension of evil, doesn’t it?

Actually, it’s the tickler for John Dickerson’s excellent article on Slate today: Why Romney Never Saw It Coming.

Which, come to think of it would also make a good title for a movie starring C. Thomas Howell.  But I digress.

Dickerson begins:

Mitt Romney says he is a numbers guy, but in the end he got the numbers wrong. His campaign was adamant that public polls in the swing states were mistaken. They claimed the pollsters were over-estimating the number of Democrats who would turn out on Election Day. Romney’s campaign was certain that minorities would not show up for Obama in 2012 the way they did in 2008.

The Romney campaign, along with conservative leaders and the usual frothy red-faced pundits, reported a steady increase in Romney’s popularity beginning when they declared Mitt the “winner” of his first debate with President Obama.  By the day of the election they’d gone from mere optimism to rapturous predictions of certain victory personally endorsed by Jesus himself.

Meanwhile, polls not affiliated with either the Romney Campaign nor Rupert Murdock’s media empire continued to show Obama with a narrow, but measurable and decisive, lead. Those polls indicated that minorities would turn out in record numbers, and that they would vote overwhelmingly for Obama – along with a lot of white people.

We don’t believe the numbers, we don’t believe  your data, conservatives sneered dismissively.

We don’t believe those lazy shiftless minorities will get off their welfare dependent asses and actually vote. Mitt doesn’t need to worry about them, they don’t matter. What matters are real Americans. Real Americans like us. And we’re coming to take back our country!

We don’t believe the liberal media!

Which is too bad really, because it turns out the “liberal” media was right.  It was the conservative media that was padding the numbers – along with quite a few other things as it turns out, but we’ll come back to that.

So convinced were Republicans of their victory, that the Romney Campaign had already bought and paid for a huge fireworks display with which they intended to kick off their victory celebration.

Romney himself penned only a victory speech – never believing that he might have to concede. 

Sadly, the speech he ended up giving in his final moments as a presidential candidate was quite likely the first and only time during the entire campaign that we actually saw the real Mitt Romney, sincere and likeable, finally free of his party, a little humble, no longer pretending to be an extremist, no longer pandering to hardline conservative voters and TV personalities who really didn’t like him anyway, no longer the clockwork golem jerking to the bony clenched fist of the GOP. That man, that Mitt Romney who gave that off the cuff concession speech, that was a man who could have been president – if only he’d shown up during the primaries.  I honestly felt sympathy for him in that moment. Just as I did, briefly (very briefly) for John McCain four years before, when his mask finally crumpled and a tired beaten old man who had once been a hero stared out of our TV sets.  Unfortunately, McCain almost immediately returned to pretending at extremism in a pathetic attempt to remain relevant while the actual extremist monster he’d unwittingly unleashed continues to blunder randomly around the countryside roaring incoherently and attacking the villagers.  It remains to be seen if Romney will follow the same pattern, or if he will actually live up to his concession speech. I see his little hunchbacked assistant has already returned to the lab.

Conservatives were dumbfounded by Obama’s victory.

They just couldn’t believe it.

They still don’t.

 

As I’ve said elsewhere, gravity is a bitch.

 

It should have been no surprise at all. 

Of course, since the election, the pundits and the politicians and the political strategists and the prognosticators and the money people have, one and all, been scrambling to show why, in fact, they weren’t actually wrong.  It was the size of Obama’s war chest they say. It was rigged ballots. It was the hurricane. It was Satan.  It was some kind of mind bending Negro Mojo or Project HAARP. It was women and Hispanics and especially African Americans who didn’t stay home like they were supposed to.  It was ORCA. It was the forty-seven percent.  It was this and it was that and maybe it was C. Thomas Howell and his evil army of evil from beyond the portal of evil.

But you know what? The simple truth of the matter is this: conservatives have nobody to blame but themselves. 

They shouldn’t be asking themselves why they lost, they should be asking themselves what else have they got wrong?

When you base your strategy on what you want the intelligence to be instead of what it actually is, you end up with a flawed strategy.  Always.

And then you lose.

That’s how the universe works.

Gravity will kill you, whether you believe in it or not because the universe just doesn’t care what you believe.

If Romney’s advisors didn’t believe the polls, then they should have hired a non-partisan outside agency to validate the data one way or the other.  And if the results showed that they were behind, instead of denying it they should have adjusted their ground game accordingly. 

Instead, Romney had people blow smoke up his ass until his colon resembled beef jerky.

Hiring people who only tell you what you want to hear is a bad, bad, bad habit to get into.

It’s bad for business – because it leads directly to bankruptcy and the collapse of financial systems.

It’s bad for the average Joe – because it leads to signing an interest-only mortgage for nearly a million dollars on a house that is worth maybe a quarter of that.

It’s bad for a candidate and bad for the Republic – because it makes for ignorant frightened hysterical citizens.

And it’s bad, very bad, for national leaders – because, among other things, you could end up invading other countries on faulty pretexts and having to stand before seven thousand cold steel boxes at Dover Air Force base as a result.

You might get away with it for a while, you can maybe believe what you like for a time without consequence, but sooner or later reality tends to come roaring ashore and drown your whole damned city. It doesn’t matter if you believe in climate change or not, hurricanes don’t care what you believe.

Pilots call it spatial disorientation.

Sometimes spatial disorientation happens from damage to the inner ear, or from disease, or drugs, or a lack of oxygen. 

But more often it happens when you lose the horizon.  

It happens when you lose your reference points and your perception doesn’t agree with reality. You become disorientated, your inner ear spins, and you suddenly stop being able to tell up from down or if you’re diving or climbing.

A pilot can regain control – by trusting the instruments and disregarding scrambled human perception.

But it takes training.

Nearly half of all aviation accidents can be attributed in some manner to spatial disorientation, because many pilots aren’t instrument rated and they fly beyond their capability to recover. 

It takes training and practice to recover from spatial disorientation. It takes a deliberate effort.

Just as it takes training and practice and discipline to accept military intelligence, even when it contradicts the commander’s preconceived understanding of the battlespace.

Just as it takes training and practice and discipline and maturity of thought to accept emerging scientific evidence, to accept political reality, to accept changing demographics and changing attitudes and sampling data, especially when that information contradicts long held religious and/or political beliefs. Especially when it contradicts what we want to hear.

That’s why our public schools are so important, that’s why education itself is so very important – it’s not that we teach the next generation what to think, it’s that we teach them how.

If they know how to think, they’ll figure out the what on their own (of course, that’s really the rub, isn’t it? And why so many people fear education. And that’s really a whole other essay).

Now to be clear, a little healthy skepticism leads to better thinking.  Of course we shouldn’t always trust our instruments, not without cross checking and calibration and proper understanding of the data presented, that’s why pilots (and scientists, and engineers, and military commanders) perform preflight checks before they pull the wheel chocks. It’s a process, and it takes training to know if your instruments are operating properly, just as it take training to develop proper thinking habits and a healthy skepticism.

Automatic reflexive denial is not healthy skepticism.

And reflexive denial, this spatial disorientation, has became a habit with a significant portion of our nation, this refusal to face unpleasant truths because we don’t want to hear what the universe is actually telling us. I saw it over and over again when I worked in military Intelligence. I saw it in the business world. I saw it in the mortgage bubble and the economic collapse.  And I see it all around me now, in the recent election, in the public perception, this spatial disorientation, this denial of what our instruments are really telling us.

The dumbfounded state of the republican party today is a symptom of a much greater disorientation.

For the last two decades conservatives have increasingly indulged themselves in willful spatial disorientation, denying the reality of nearly every aspect of our world from evolution to climate change to the changing demographics of the United States. In the last four years it has reached a fever pitch of denial.

You can find a chart and a detailed list of Obama conspiracy theories here, it’s mind boggling.  Everything from the stock Oh Noes! Obama is a Mooooslim, to He wasn’t born here it’s twue! to Obama is gay, to Obama is really a space alien.  Go on, follow the link, it’s safe and it’s worth a couple minutes of your time.  Note who is saying this stuff, those are the people who shape today’s GOP, those people right there – and don’t pretend that they don’t because if you read the comments in forums where conservatives hang out, you’ll hear this stuff repeated almost verbatim.  Romney himself repeated some of it, and so did prominent members of his campaign, party, and financial supporters.

Ridiculous, isn’t it?

Of course Obama couldn’t be all of those things. 

No ordinary human being could.

Exactly, that just proves he’s the superhuman demonic Anti-Christ!

Yeah.

This kind of nonsense, this faulty reasoning and hysterical panic, this kind of spatial disorientation, has very real consequences. It impacts our entire country, from education to the budget to those people who want to secede from the union right on down to the man in Florida who killed himself because Barack Obama won a second term.

It’s spatial disorientation.

Conservatives have lost their horizon.

When your perception becomes disconnected from reality, doubling down on the spin only gets you killed.

The way to save yourself is to ignore your inner ear, take a deep breath, look down, find your horizon, trust in your instruments, and calmly take corrective action. 

Reality, no matter how painful, no matter how disorientating, trumps illusion every time.

In the end, it wasn’t that the numbers were wrong, it’s that conservatives didn’t want to believe reality.

So they didn’t.

And that’s why they never saw it coming.

With Friends Like These…

You’ve seen the movie right?

Thelma & Louise, I mean.

Yeah, you’ve seen it.

People called it the “Chick buddy movie.” I don’t know about that, seems to me that if you’ve got buddies like either Thelma or Louise maybe you should take a moment and reflect on why your life keeps biting you in the ass.

But I digress.

Anyway, to review: A waitress and housewife despair of their crappy lives. One night, rather than confronting their problems directly and doing something to actually improve their lot, they decide to hit the road. Bad choices and antisocial behavior ensue, one thing leads to another and eventually Louise kills a guy to prevent an assault on Thelma. Now, granted, in the context of the story, the guy probably needed some serious maiming, but killing? Of course, that’s what happens when you solve your problems with guns, things often get out of hand. Predictably, yet again instead of facing their problems directly and taking responsibility for their actions, the protagonists give into paranoia and panic and they just keep making things worse. Deliberately so. They blame everybody else for the situation and drive around the country getting even with every stereotype that they imagine ever did them wrong and leaving a trail of wreckage in their wake, never once taking responsibility for the consequences of their own actions.

Eventually it all catches up with them and in the film’s final iconic moment they hold hands and drive right off the edge of a cliff into oblivion.

Now, there are people, of course, who cheer that final moment as some kind of triumph, who see Thelma and Louise, unrepentant, as some kind of heroes who held tight to some nebulous undefined higher truth even as they roared headlong over the edge of the precipice and plunged grinning to their deaths while shouting Yeeeehaah! at the top of their lungs.

Screw you, World, that will show you.

The entire movie is a ninety minute self absorbed masturbation fantasy ala “Look what you made me do! I’ll kill myself, then you’ll be sorry, yes you will!”

Looking around today, I wonder if we’re not living our own Thelma & Louise.

In a case of raging Obama Derangement Syndrome on steroids, a woman in Arizona tried to kill her husband yesterday by running him over with a Jeep – because he apparently forgot to vote. Holly Solomon blamed her husband for the President’s reelection, an argument followed, the husband got out of the car and Solomon chased him around the parking before crushing him between the fender and a light pole.

She says she just wanted to scare him.

I suspect she succeeded, I know I would be scared shitless of that murderous psycho.

She apparently missed the fact that it would have taken an additional two hundred thousand non-voting Arizonians to flop Arizona’s eleven electoral votes from Romney to Obama. Solomon is in jail on attempted murder charges and her husband is in intensive care. According to people who know her, Solomon “really” hates President Obama and is convinced that his reelection will put an additional financial burden on the family – what impact attempted murder, aggravated assault, an extended hospital stay, and (I assume) divorce will have on the family finances I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader.

For what it’s worth, Solomon is pregnant – but the good news is that she won’t have to worry about the medical costs associated with delivery while in prison.

But I digress. Again.

Since last week’s re-election of President Obama there’s been a run on guns.

In some places, particularly in large areas of the Southwest and here in my own very, very red state of Alaska, gun sales have increased by over five hundred percent – despite the fact that there is no, repeat no, legislation currently pending to change federal gun laws in any way. Despite the fact that conservatives still hold the majority in the House and, along with a number of moderates and even a few liberals, would be very, very, very unlikely to pass any legislation restricting gun ownership. And despite the fact that even in the wake of the mass shootings in Arizona and Colorado, President Obama has repeatedly said that he has no intention whatsoever of taking up gun restrictions or Second Amendments rights.

Despite all of this, people who claim that they have no money, who are worried that Obama is going to come take what money they do have, are somehow managing to find enough money to buy guns and ammunition like Thelma and Louise spending what little they had on booze and cigarettes instead of getting out of their shitty relationships and fixing their lives.

And speaking of lousy relationships, once again Texas wants a divorce.

The logic apparently being that if at first you don’t secede, try and try again.

Texans have been trying to secede since the day they joined the Union. Or some of them anyway. There are about twenty-five million pointy-toed shitkickers who call Texas home, about twenty-five thousand of them have signed a petition on the White House We The People website asking President Obama to allow them to leave the United States and strike out on their own.

Now, Twenty-five thousand sounds like a lot, but in reality that’s one tenth of one percent of the state’s population who think they want to opt out of America.

The petition for secession goes like this:

The U.S. continues to suffer economic difficulties stemming from the federal government's neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending. The citizens of the U.S. suffer from blatant abuses of their rights such as the NDAA, the TSA, etc. Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect its citizens' standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.

Heh.

It would be almost amusing to let these people have their way – just to see if they could maintain that “balanced budget” and that standard of living without money from Washington while at the same time having to assume their own national defense including a standing army, air force, and navy along with highway construction and maintenance, education, research, scientific advancement at levels necessary to remain competitive in a global economy, weather prediction and communications (including satellite based systems), energy and water infrastructures, and so on right up to disaster relief (no small thing in a state prone to hurricanes and drought).

I can’t wait to see their faces when they realize that we’re taking the Navy ships and the Air Force jets and Army tanks with us, along with all the classified military systems and equipment, not to mention the intelligence and information infrastructure – see, we don’t share that stuff with enemy nations, though they can sometimes buy the lesser export versions. I suppose, if we were generous, we could let them keep the Texas National Guard’s equipment even though the federal government paid for almost all of it. Of course, there’s a catch – we’ll come back to that in a minute.

The petition specifically calls out the TSA, so I guess we’re free to take all that airport security with us too – along with federal funding for the runways and terminals and GCA systems and radars and computers and parking lots.

Speaking of airports, it’s going to be damned thin at George H. W. Bush International Airport when Continental and United Airlines pull out, they are after all American companies, and since Texas will no longer comply with TSA regulations, neither airline, nor any other American one for that matter, will be able to operate from the foreign soil of the Republic of Texas.

Maybe Texicans can park their horses in the space where the jets used to be, I dunno, I’m sure they’ll think of something.

It would be interesting to watch the Republic of Texas come to the realization that they are downstream, literally, from the United States: downstream for water, electricity, commerce, produce, animal feed, manufactured goods and etcetera – not to mention that the majority of the oil and gas feeding Texan refineries comes from the north, along with the money that finances it all.

The majority of goods flowing through Texas ports would dry to a trickle, because, see, while twenty-five million sounds like a lot, population wise it’s nothing in a global economy. 

Also, you’ve got wonder where they’ll get the gold to back their brand new Texas Sawbucks, maybe Glenn Beck will loan it to them.

I want to be there on the day that Texicans suddenly realize they are a non-voting member of the United Nations, assuming that Texas joins the UN in the first place, and that they can no longer face the rest of the world with the might of the United States of America at their backs. I want to see the expression on Texas’ face when they realize that they have no more say in global affairs and international matters than Bumfuckistan.

I wonder if they’ll still be as eager as they are now to declare war on Iran.

The cornerstones of Texas’ economy, shipping and commerce, NASA and aerospace, energy, military, federally funded higher education, will all suddenly disappear along with federal infrastructure jobs. And manufactured goods, along with water, oil, natural gas, electricity, grain, food, and all the rest of it will suddenly become much more expensive in the Republic of Texas, unless, of course, Austin decides to become a signatory to NAFTA and all those other free trade agreements.

I wonder what they’ll do when all the communications, long distance and international phones, cable TV, internet, banking Telex to name a few things, shuts down? After all, those are American communication satellites up there. Wonder what it costs to develop your own space program? Since Texicans are opposed to anything resembling a free handout, I wonder if the DOD could disable GPS over the new Republic? Just a thought.

I have to wonder if they’ll continue to buy spare parts for their castoff National Guard F-16s and M1A1 Abrams tanks from us, or if they’ll find it cheaper to buy their military hardware from Russia like other Third World countries. Of course, I suppose they could import all the raw materials they need for a modern military and build their own equipment including the space-based components – be interesting to see them tool up and do that without borrowing money from China. Personally, if it was up to me, I’d impose a tariff on every single product headed south, including water and all that fracking gas, until Texas paid back every dime ever spent there in federal money – but then I’m a vindictive bastard, I am.

I want to be there when Texas realizes what the phrase buffer state means.

See, when Texicans finally secure their southern border against illegal immigration from Central and South America, from terrorists and drug smugglers, they also by simple fact of geography end up protecting the forty-nine remaining United States (and Canada) from the same – at no charge to us. And everything they need to close that border, guns and barbed wire and chain link fence and high-tech detection gear, patrol trucks, and everything else, they’d have to buy from us, or China, or India.

Yes, that’s right, The Republic of Texas would have to pay out of their own pockets to defend a country that they despise.

That would almost be worth the price of admission right there.

Here’s a thought, is it in our best interest – the United States I mean – to allow the Lone Star Country to become a nuclear power?

I really don’t think it is.

After all, you never know what those crazy religious extremists might do if they got their hands on a bomb. And they already hate us, right? By definition.

But I digress yet again.

Texas, of course isn’t the only state suddenly interested in secession. Citizens from Alaska, Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, Tennessee, Michigan, Colorado, Oregon, New Jersey, North Dakota, Montana, Indiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, North Carolina, Alabama and New York have all filed their own petitions for secession.

They’re all ready to give up on the United States, because Obama got reelected to the office of President.

They have so little faith in the country they profess to love that they’re willing to abandon it straightaway rather than help us fix it.

Because they think we’re about to drive off a cliff.

It’s ironic. These states, these people, these patriots, these Americans, share equally in blame for the current situation, for our economy, for our government, for the debt, for the partisan divide and the extremism that pulls us apart, and while they yammer on about “responsibility” their answer to the situation is to run away. Literally, just run away. They want to take all the good stuff and leave the rest of us holding the bag. 

They actually visualize secession like a divorce where they get the house and the car and the kids, and their former spouse gets stuck with alimony and the credit card bills and the mortgage.  That’s exactly what they intend for us.  As if they have no responsibility for their part of this mess at all.

Just like Thelma and Louise, their solution isn’t to face the problem squarely and do what is necessary to fix it.

Instead they’re trying to talk the rest of us into a road trip.

And, you know what? It’s entirely possible – we could end up like Thelma and Louise, we could shoot a guy and rob a store and  generally behave like louts, we could drive right off the looming cliff and plunge to our deaths screaming all the way.

Yes, we could do that.

We could engage in a mutual murder-suicide pact.

 

Or, and here’s an idea, we could choose to not to.

 

It’s really just that simple.

Here’s what we could do instead, we could take responsibility for the state of our nation and demand that our elected representative stop screwing around and get to the work we pay them for.

The so-called Fiscal Cliff is a bullshit made up crisis.

That’s right, it’s made up.

It’s a mutual murder-suicide pact entered into by a handful of angry petulant children masquerading as Senators and Representatives who are hell-bent on taking the rest of us down with them because they didn’t get their way in the last few elections.

This crisis exists solely because Congress has so far refused to take responsibility for their own selfish juvenile actions and for no other reason.

The congressmen perpetuating this hoax are little different, mentally, from Thelma and Louise, or those two assholes who shot up Columbine High School – they’ve got a list of imagined grievances a mile long and it’s not enough that they do themselves in, they intend to take down as many of their fellows as they can.

Look what you made me do! I’ll show you, I’ll drive us right off the cliff and kill us all and then you’ll be sorry.

And it’s not just the Fiscal Cliff, it’s all the rest of it too.

This congress, specifically the House, has stalled for the last two years in an attempt to blackmail Americans into giving them the Senate and the White House.

They picked a bad strategy and it cost them. They lost. The message from the citizenry couldn’t be more clear.

Now is not the time for a road trip, now is the time when adults need to put away childish things and get to work.

Look here, neither side is entirely wrong.

And neither side is entirely right.

The election is over, both sides need to put aside their selfish personal bullshit, both sides need to immediately marginalize their extremists, and both sides need to sit down as adults and start getting shit done.

First, call off the crises.

Just that, call it off.

Tell America, tell the world, hey, you know what? This is fucking nuts. We’re not going to drive off this cliff. We’re not. So stop worrying about it, we’ll fix it.

And it’s easy to do, reach an interim budget deal or extend the deadline for sequestration.

If you have to, extend the current tax levels for one year.

If you have to, delay implementation of certain provisions of Obamacare for one year.

And so on. It’s so easy a lame duck session of congress could have it on the President’s desk by Thanksgiving.

It’s really just that simple.

It can be done with the stroke of a pen.

This is will immediately stabilize the stock market and the economy. Everybody immediately benefits. Rich people, poor people, Christmas retailers, everybody.

Should we have to do this? No, of course not, not if congress had been doing their jobs all along, but that’s water under the bridge. Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda. We have to play it as it lies now.

Carve out some breathing space and get down to business – with the actual intention of fixing the problems and not making things worse by doing stupid shit over and over.

Anybody not intent on fixing the problems, marginalize. Period. Leaders of all parties need to lead. They need to send the following message: You’re either part of the solution or you don’t get a vote, decide which one you want to be.

Now for the real work:

The debt must be brought under control. The left thinks so, the right thinks so, the middle thinks so. We’re all agreed at the start.  It doesn’t matter who thinks so more.  If we go over the cliff, we all die. The solution isn’t one size fits all, unless we want to end up like Greece, and both sides need to face reality.

We keep saying we’re worried about the mess we’re leaving our kids. Fine, then don’t do it.

If you’re truly worried about our future, truly, then let’s do what is necessary to fix it.

How do we fix it?

Well it won’t be easy. We have to start with taxes.

Everybody, left and right, agrees that the tax code is a mess. Congress doesn’t want to raise taxes on the rich. Why? Because most of them are rich, a lot of them are millionaires, and the rest make well above $250K a year, that’s why.  It’s a conflict of interest.

Tough shit, time for Grover Norquist to be run out of Washington lashed to a rail. He’s not doing any of us any favors at all.

Norquist gets one vote, just like all the rest of us – it’s time for conservatives to remember that.

If we’re really serious about fixing the debt, then we should let the Bush Era tax cuts expire, all of them.

Now it doesn’t have to be all Bush Era Tax Cuts or no Bush Era Tax Cuts.

We could compromise and split the difference with a progressive tax increase, but everybody needs to pay more. And a lot more folks need to start paying, Mitt Romney was right in some regards, the loopholes need to be closed (Ironic, coming from a millionaire who didn’t pay taxes for a number of years, but I digress).

And maybe we do need to cut the corporate tax rate, maybe by five or ten percent instead of Romney’s suggested twenty percent.  But, and here’s the thing, we should get something for it. I.e we cut the corporate tax rate with the caveat “We cut taxes on your business, you hire people here at home in return and pay for their healthcare without whining. Period. No excuses. You don’t hire people within a year, we raise your taxes to make up the difference.” Exactly how many you hire, and how much less your taxes, are simply details that need to be worked out. And again, one size doesn’t fit all, big business and small business could have different thresholds.

I like Romney’s idea of a fixed limit on deductions. Tax experts, both left and right, like it too. Let’s do it.

I also agree with conservatives that we need to eliminate outdated and excessive regulations that cost us money to enforce and that restrict the growth of business. The best part about this is that most federal regulatory enforcement comes from the Executive Branch, which means the president can suspend or eliminate onerous regulation via Executive Order right away without waiting on legislation. Hell, ask Romney if he wants the job of identifying which regulations need attention, after all, he’s looking for a job and he’s supposed to be the expert.  If he really wants to help the country like he says he does, then he’ll work with the rest of us to get it done.

Entitlement Programs do need overhaul – including Obamacare.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA, all need revision. And there are freeloaders who are abusing the system and should be cut the hell off.

Entitlement Programs need review by adults, without hysteria and fearmongering and threats.

There’s plenty of room for savings and plenty of ways to make sure everybody is taken care of without leaving future generations out in the cold.

The government does need to be cut back.

Starting with the Department of Defense.  Yes, that’s correct. We need to significantly reduce the defense budget, maybe by as much as one third. We spend more than the next fourteen nations combined on our military at the expense of everything thing else. That’s crazy.  We need to dump expensive systems that will never, ever, pay for themselves along with excessive bases and pork barrel programs – and I’ll cover some of those things in a future essay, perhaps later this week. 

Every single division of the federal government can be made more efficient, smaller, leaner, and cheaper. Conservatives are absolutely right about that and liberals know it. That doesn’t mean we should chop off our nose to spite our faces, or drive off a cliff to spite everybody else, but there’s plenty of room for improvement.

We just have to get to it. Now, while we still can.

I’ve heard a number pundits and politicians opinion that the fiscal cliff is a good thing. That sequestration will force us to cut spending across the board and will force us to raise taxes – both of which will make us finally do something concrete about the national debt.

This is a true statement, just as it’s true to say that the Titanic disaster was a good thing because it forced us to adopt more stringent maritime safety regulations and develop better survival equipment, navigation, collision avoidance sensors, and iceberg detection. However, the good things are small damned comfort to the people who went into the water that night.

It’s true in the same sense as saying Columbine forced us to adopt better safety procedures to protect our children.

It’s true, but the cost is very, very high.

And there are better ways of improving the future.

We can’t fix what’s wrong by running people over in the parking lot or by stocking up on guns or by running away from the problem to form our own little countries.

Sure, we can solve the problem the same way Thelma and Louise did, but there turns out to be unpleasant side effects.

 

The simple truth of the matter is this: the crisis we face, the crisis we are being told we face, is false. 

There is no crisis.

Unless we make it so.

Veterans Day 2012

Veterans Day is always a day of reflection for me.

Note that I’m not a particularly reflective kind of guy and I don’t spend a hell of a lot of time dwelling on the past.

For me, as a veteran, every day is a day to remember those I served with, those who trained me and led me, and those I trained and led myself.  Those men and women – the good and the bad, the faithful and the faithless, the leaders and the followers, those who came before me and those who followed after, those that still live and serve and fight, those who like me who have hung up their swords, and always, always, those who have given the last full measure – I remember them, each and every one, every day. 

I don’t dwell on it, but they are always with me.

They are the people who made me what I am.

And on this day, I raise a glass to them.  Here’s to you, you magnificent bastards, one and all.  Here’s to us and all we shared.

 

If you’re an American, you owe your freedom to those who risked all in your name.

You don’t need to kiss our asses, you’re not required to shed tears, you don’t need to hunt down a veteran and prostrate yourself.

This day is not a wake. It’s a celebration.

In our country, in a free society, the warrior is no more revered than any other citizen – and that’s a good thing.

But do take a moment on this day to remember us, if only briefly. 

Raise a glass and remember those who served their country in peace and in war, those who came when called and those who came of their own free will to stand between home and war’s desolation. There is always more you could do, of course, but that is your choice. Yours and yours alone.

And then, go on about your lives. Live, be free, revel in it – because that, ultimately, is why they do what they do.

 

To all of my brothers and sisters in arms, those of you who have stood the watch, those of you who walked point into the unknown, and those of you who are even now out there in the dark and dangerous corners of the world, my message to you remains ever the same:

Respect is earned, each and every day, by every word, by every action. It can’t be bought, it can’t be bargained for. It can be lost with a single deed, a single careless gesture, a single failure to act. Men and women will lay down their lives at your command, but they won’t do it for freedom or democracy or because you’re bigger or tougher or the meanest son of bitch who ever lived or because you’re smarter or better educated or because they love you or because they hate you, they do it because they respect you. Respect is why Americans remember you today – or not.

Respect is the only authority you have, guard it well.

Be proud of who you are and the uniform you wear.

You are more than a simple Soldier, Sailor, Marine, Airman, or Guardsman, you are the very symbol of this nation and its people – for good or bad – and the first bulwark against the night.  When you put on that uniform, you are the United States of America, you represent us all. Never forget that, not for one single moment.

Hold your head high, hold your honor dear, be always true to your oath. 

Stand steadfast by your duty even when there is no one to see.

Follow those who lead and lead those who will follow.

Leave no one behind.

And remember the fallen. Always.

 

To all of you who have worn the uniform, thank you for your service and your sacrifice on this day, and every other.

//Jim Wright, Chief Warrant Officer, United States Navy (Retired).

Hemlock With A Small Side Of Schadenfreude

I didn’t think it would be this way.

I was expecting more.

 

I got up this morning, looked out the window and … it was a beautiful day.

I didn’t see that coming.

Winter is setting in, here in Alaska.  Beautiful days are few and far between and I just didn’t expect today, of all days, to be one of them.

I, well, to be honest, I just thought the end of the world would be, I dunno … different.

I’m not sure what I was expecting exactly, maybe a wine dark sky lit around the horizon with a hellish orange glow, blood soaked moon ten times its usual size filling the sky, sooty clouds of gritty choking ash, erupting volcanoes and shaking earth, agonized woeful shrieks of bereft men filling the air, rising seas and burning mountains, the smell of bitter acrid smoke and sulfurous brimstone. Vast undead hordes risen from their graves, shuffling across the countryside dripping gelatinous ichor and clods of wormy stinking soil, feasting ravenous upon the quaking flesh of the hopeless. Demons loose as a plague upon the blighted land, gleeful in savage mirth, horned and leathery, skins black as sin, wielding crackling fiery lashes in their flinty hands like brands made of hellfire and lightning as they drive the doomed and the remorseful damned down to their eternal torment in the bowels of the malignant Earth.

Also, Nazis.

You know, like that.

Instead, well, it’s a beautiful day here in the Alaskan Matsu.

Today it’s as only Alaska can be.  Diamond clear air, cold and invigorating beneath a cloudless cerulean sky.  The sun is a brilliant yellow fire upon the pristine white peaks of the Chugach. The still crisp air smells of winter and wood smoke, the wings of bald eagles slice through it without a sound as they soar and wheel majestic over the winter landscape. 

It’s a fantastic day to be alive.

There’s nary a Nazi horde in sight.

The sky is empty of invading Communist paratroopers.

The dead remain still and safely entombed within the frozen ground.

The landscape is absent any hint of biblical plague, there are no poison frogs falling from the sky, no foul cloud of biting flies, the seas are cold and blue instead of warm and red as blood.

Not a single shriek rends the still, peaceful air and I haven’t spotted a single shambling zombie or damned soul, even though I kept a careful lookout for impending Rapture on my way into Anchorage this morning and again on my way home.  And, heck, even the traffic was light today, making the commute painless and relatively free of myopic demons reeking of naturally produced, pesticide free organic hemp and blocking the fast lane with their Satanic hybrid electric cars of Hell.

As I said, I expected the end of the world, the end of America, to be different somehow. More biblical, I guess.

Frankly I’m a little disappointed.

I mean, that’s what today is, right?

The end of the world, the end of America, the beginning of the End Times, Rapture, Armageddon, Ragnarok, the Blue Light Special at the end of the universe. We’re in some real pretty shit now, aren’t we? Game over, Man, Game over!

That’s what they told us, isn’t it? 

If Barack Hussein Obama wins reelection, it’s lights out for America. Jesus will weep, God will rage, poison arrows will fall from the sky, the ground will shake, Nazis, demons, Communists, panic on the switchboard and industrial disease, immorality, sparkly gay atheist fascists running free in the streets.

I mean, come on, all those TV preachers couldn’t be wrong, could they? All of them? Why it’s like they were just making stuff up, scaring people for their own personal agenda – you know, instead of really speaking for God.

Karl Rove, one-eyed king in the land of blinders, now he couldn’t have been wrong last night, could he? Romney won Ohio after all, tell me he did. How could it be? How could it be that Karl Rove was wrong? Romney didn’t win the popular vote in a landslide? Romney didn’t win the electoral college? But, but, but, that would mean Karl Rove wasn’t any more accurate than those aforementioned TV preachers!

Ted Nugent, shocker, rocker, and draft dodger – he couldn’t have been wrong, could he? My God, no, not The Nuge! I mean, he’s always been so reliable. Monday before the election he tweeted, “Dear God in heaven America vote Mitt Romney Paul Ryan Republican and save America!” Last night, after the election results could no longer be denied, despite Karl Rove’s frantic last minute Hail Mary to Almighty God for divine intervention, the Motor City Madman announced the end of America: “Goodluk America, u just voted for economic & spiritual suicide. Soulless fools!”  and  then he said “I cry tears of blood for The Last Best Place & the warriors who died for this tragedy.” 

And yet – and yet –  here on this gloriously cold beautiful Wednesday, it appears as if America is still standing. 

Probably Ted can’t see it, what with his eyes full of bloody tears and all – and seriously, tears of blood? You’re crying tears of blood? Dude, that's not right. Visit a doctor. Vision is totally covered under Obamacare and now it looks like Michigan will have to implement it after all. Thanks to Obama, you’re covered, Ted, I’m just saying.

What?

Oh yes, that.  Warriors. Right. Ted Nugent, craven draft dodger, lamenting the dead warriors who died for our sins. Yeah. I’m just going to let that one go right on by.  I’m feeling good. The world didn’t end and the Rapture didn’t come and Angry Bearded Jesus didn’t call us all home and there’s a black man in the White House. I know you’re disappointed, Ted, that the rest of us didn’t get cornholed by Satan.  You ought to get a little something. So, as somebody who didn’t shit their pants in front of the entire country when called to arms under the American Flag, I’ll just let it go. Consider it a consolation prize. Speaking as a veteran who answered the call: you’re welcome, you gutless chicken-shit coward, you’re welcome. 

Ted Nugent wasn’t the only one to soil himself on Twitter last night, Donald Trump suffered a full on Britney Spears style social media meltdown.  By this morning, after the world didn’t, in fact, end after all, The Donald’s lawyers had deleted his sullen tweets calling America to treason and sedition.  Too bad one of his tech savvy apprentices didn’t tell him that on the internet nothing is ever really deleted. I have a complete list of Trump’s tweets right here.  Let’s review: "We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!"  Yes! That’s it, that’s freedom, that’s true America right there, override the Constitution with riot and violence and then install a leader handpicked by Real Estate moguls.  Wasn’t it Thomas Jefferson who insisted on the armed revolution clause in the Constitution? Trump continued to blurt out increasingly demented tweets like the social media version of Tourette's Syndrome, “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.” Jeez, really? I wonder why the Framers put it in the Constitution then, they must have hated America.   

At the end of the night Trump proclaimed, “He [Obama] lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!"  

Later that tweet, like the others, was deleted. 

Interesting thing that, don’t you think?

I mean, it turns out that President Obama actually did win the popular vote by a comfortable margin and the electoral college by a landslide – winning every swing state but one. Yet, Trump initially claimed Obama lost the popular vote “by a lot.” Trump implied electoral chicanery on a scale large enough to warrant armed insurrection against the United States government. But, then, hours later he issued what is essentially a retraction by deleting the post.  Could this be an abject example of how information can be garbled and unreliable in the first moments of a big event? Could it be an example of how people can get things wrong because they don’t yet have all the facts, all the information, because the numbers aren’t yet crunched and the interviews aren’t complete and because there is chaos on the ground? Could Trump’s incorrect reporting of fact and a call for armed action be an example of why, maybe, you shouldn’t depend in the first moments on rumor and confused media reports and the fog of war because you’re likely to have it wrong?

You know, like the initial reports regarding the attack on our embassy in Benghazi, Libya?

But I digress.

Former Saturday Night Live cast member, professional bimbo, and rabid rightwing Uber Christian, Victoria Jackson, also managed to spectacularly lose her shit in public.  “I can't stop crying" she tweeted over and over. This morning she roused from her dirty tear-stained sheets to proclaim, "America died last night.”  She didn’t blame Obama for the demise of America though, instead she pointed her staggering intellect  elsewhere, "Thanks a lot Christians, for not showing up. You disgust me.”  Yeah, disgust, that’s the word I was looking for. Disgust.

Another of Hollywood’s D-List, Stephen Baldwin, the last and least of the Baldwin brothers, he of woodenly acted bit parts and of low-budget SyFy and Lifetime Channel movies, didn’t get called up to heaven by Jesus.  So like crashing an Oscar party held by actual actors he raptured himself: "2nite Gods Spirit lifted within me&joy came over me, I will serve the Lord, my hope is in Jesus not Obama, Gods wrath is upon US. 2Thes2:11.” Funny, maybe it’s just me, but God’s wrath looks like a pretty fine day here in Alaska.  I understand things aren’t so bright on the East Coast at the moment, but God’s Wrath?  Really?  Where is this guy tweeting from? The 14^th Century?

Sarah Palin boggled that “Americans would support the president’s policies.” Boggled. Apparently her last minute appeal to America didn’t pay off as big as she expected.  “It’s a perplexing time for many of us right now,” she said.  Perplexed. I don’t often agree with Sarah Palin, but hey, she’s perplexed. I’m hip. 

You know, these people and their wealthy masters literally spent billions of dollars, billions, to defeat Obama.

All those dollars are now wasted.

They’ll never get anything back. Karl Rove basically took their money, bushels and bushels of it, and lit it on fire.  If this was anything but politics (or religion), Rove would be in jail next to Bernie Madoff for running a bogus investment scheme, he lost just about as much money.

The ironic part is that these folks are the ones who are screaming the loudest about having to pay a couple bucks more in taxes, hell they gave double that to Rove and other SuperPACs and got nothing back.  They could have saved themselves a shitload of money, garnered themselves a big fat tax break, saved thousands of small businesses, and kick started the economy right out from under President Obama by giving every out of work blue collar conservative a year’s wage – say $35K – to spend at the businesses of their choice.  And they would have created a self-sustaining cycle that would have eventually paid back the investment with interest.  Instead they poured their money down Karl Rove’s rat-hole. Savvy businessmen, my ass. 

But, again, I digress.

Conservatives lost.

And they lost big.

It was a landmark night for gay rights.  Same sex marriage will now be legal in a number of states, Maryland, Maine, and Washington.  Legal by popular vote for the first time in our history.  Staunchly conservative Wisconsin, Paul Ryan’s home state, not only fell to Obama, they elected themselves the first openly gay Senator, Tammy Baldwin. Talk about kicking Ryan in the balls.

The Tea Party whimpered, clutched at its wrinkled gray sternum, and went into cardiac arrest.  It’s not dead quite yet, but it needs to fill out a living will and start thinking about where it wants its ashes scattered.  Democrats didn’t win back the House, but Allen West and Joe Walsh are out of a job – and that’s a major victory for sanity in America.  Michele Bachmann, damn the luck, held onto her seat by the skin of her flabby white ass, but her fangs have been pulled and her power base is dust and her state went to President Obama just like Paul Ryan’s did.  Just like Mitt Romney’s did.

Over in Washington State and up in Colorado, people are out today buying munchies.  Recreational pot is legal there, no more bullshit about “medicinal use.”  Legal, at least at the state level, the feds aren’t happy about it but again, just like gay marriage, the writing is on the wall.  

Everybody better just get used to Obamacare, because last night it became permanent.  Americans want universal coverage and they’re going to get it. States can now quit dragging their feet like petulant children and get busy seeing that all of their citizens have access to healthcare. Period.  The argument is now over – not that conservatives will stop arguing over it. Even if they take the White House in 2016, the ACA is now the law of the land. Better get onboard, fix the things that need fixing, and get used to the idea that even poor people are entitled to healthcare in America.

Latinos and African Americans sent an unequivocal message to the Old White Guy Party last night – if you want our vote, you’d better do some serious remodeling. You’d better get rid of the racists and the bigots and the xenophobes in your party. You’d better wake the hell up and realize that America is a multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-cultural nation and it always has been – the difference is that now minorities have real power at last. Either get onboard with this idea, or join the Whigs in the dustbin of history.  Women likewise slapped the GOP right upside the head.  The message was crystal clear, you want our votes? Then you need to dump the misogynists and the legitimate rapists and the Neanderthal religious lunatics.  Women are fifty-one percent of the population, why would you kowtow to those who keep trying to disenfranchise them? Are you stupid?  “Minorities” aren’t so minor any more, they’re as American as you are, they’re motivated, they believe in this country just like your ancestors did, and they want somebody in government who represents their interests.  You’re either that party, or you’re not. 

The problem is simply this:

Once upon a time the faces of the Republican Party were Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, and, hell, Ronald Reagan. 

Today the public face of the GOP is Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, the Koch Brothers, Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, and a silly old man shouting at an empty chair. 

Once upon a time, the Republican Party stood for freedom, the end of slavery, the extension of rights to all Americans, the reasonable  regulation of business and monopolies and the protection of the little man from the same.  The first president to call for pluralism, i.e. multiculturalism, was a Republican, William McKinley.  The republican who followed, one of the greatest presidents this country has ever seen, Teddy Roosevelt, believed in science, in reason, in the conservation of nature and the husbanding of our natural resources, the protection of our lands, in equality for all, and in peace. Republicans once upon a time believed In freedom of religion and freedom from religion.

Today the GOP would make businesses into citizens and make citizens into property. They squint suspiciously at any non-Christian and seem hell bent on denying others their just and due rights as Americans based on those self-same religious beliefs. Science, natural resources, and the environment seem to share equal contempt among conservatives nowadays. They are the party of drill, Baby, drill and legitimate rape. They’ve got abortion on the brain and are obsessively concerned with what other people might be doing in the privacy of their own bedrooms. The GOP has become the very military-industrial complex  another great Republican once warned us about. The GOP has given up science and become the party of Birthers and creationists and conspiracy nuts – and rather than distance themselves from such crazies, the modern Republican Party embraced them. One has only to look at the 2012 GOP Platform to see just how far they’ve drifted from the once great party of Lincoln.

Once upon a time, there was room in the Republican party. Room for competing ideas, room for reasoned debate and differences of opinion, room for all Americans.

Today, the Republican Party has grown very small – small in mind, small in ideas, small in tolerance.  They’ve become the party of loyalty oaths, purity balls, and secret handshakes.

Once upon a time, the Grand Old Party faced the world with the courage of Roosevelt, of Eisenhower, of Lincoln.

Today, this morning, these last four years, the Republican Party is shrouded in the rank stench of hysteria and fear. They face the future with the false bravado of the coward and the blustering shallow patriotism epitomized by the likes of Ted Nugent.  They cower under their beds, clutching their guns and their bibles, deathly afraid of the future.

And that, more than anything is why Mitt Romney lost last night.

Sarah Palin was correct this morning. Perplexed is exactly the right word. 

The GOP is dying a slow death, poisoned by their own bitter tea. They are now firmly on the wrong side of history and unless something changes, they’ll wear that confused expression into oblivion without ever understanding why.

 

It was a beautiful day, here in Alaska.

You’d hardly know it was the end of the world and all.

There’s a long cold winter ahead, but that just makes spring all the sweeter.

2012 Election Night Open Thread

I hope all of you Americans went out and voted today.

If you haven’t, I hope you intend to do so while there’s still time (assuming there is still time in your state).

As citizens, voting is the only real power you have, miniscule as it may be.

It matters, for many reasons more than simple election results.

 

Polls are now closed in nine states and it’s still way too early to call this election one way or the other.  I’ll update this post as the night progresses, in the meantime you may consider this an open thread to discuss election day and election issues.  Please stick to election related subjects.

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Discussion Point:  Voter ID’s, I’m not ideologically opposed to making voters show photo identification at the polls per se, so long as the required ID is easily available to all and cannot be used to disenfranchise groups of people. I’m not opposed to using taxpayer dollars to ensure everybody gets an ID.  How about you? Vehemently opposed to ID requirements, enthusiastically for, or just Meh?

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Update: 17:30 Alaskan Time: Went to the store to get supplies for dinner. Random women stopped me and asked: Did you vote? First time that’s ever happened to me.

Election night dinner: Hot pastrami on toasted sourdough with melted Swiss and stoneground mustard. Au jus. Steak fries. Kosher Dills. And a New Castle Werewolf Blood Red Ale.

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Discussion Point: Electoral College vs Popular Vote. Time for a change, or do the Framers’ original concerns about the states and the electorate still hold water?

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Update: 18:30 Alaskan Time:  Looks like Grover Norquist will keep control of the House. No real surprises there.

On the other hand: I bet Mitt Romney could totally pay off his campaign debt by selling his binders full of women to Newt Gingrich on the low low.

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Discussion Point: I used to be foursquare against Congressional term limitations, reasoning that voters were the ultimate term limiter and that we’d end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater – i.e. good congressmen would be dumped right along with the bad ones.  Over the years I’ve come ‘round 180 degrees.  Nobody is that good. I’m of the opinion that voters are largely self-centered idiots who tend to keep a congressman or a Senator long after they should have been sent packing. Voters are all about getting rid of somebody else’s congresscritter, but tend to keep their own due to “Seniority”  even if the guy is senile or crooked as a West Virginia road.  Alaska’s own Don Young is a case in point.  I think a case can be made that the Republic would be improved by term limitations. We term limit the president, why not congress?

On a side note, I’d allow time served as representative, senator, and president to count towards a government retirement, but you’d still need twenty years to qualify for a pension. I.e. 4 years in the military, 8 years as representative or senator, 8 at the post office, you get 40% of your highest paid year’s salary. Seems fair to me. 

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Update: 18:45 Alaskan Time: Sucks to be Michele Bachmann, Minnesota just went to Obama. 

Looks like Ohio is his too.  And Maybe Florida. And Wisconsin.  It’s going to be a tight race no matter what, I predict this one ends up in court no matter how they call it tonight.

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Update: 18:50 Alaskan Time: Sucks to be Todd Akin.  Seriously, republican or democrat, nobody should be sorry to see this idiot go.

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Update: 19:00 Alaskan Time: They just called Colorado for Obama.  Things are getting interesting.

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Discussion Point: No line tonight at my polling place (the MatSu Valley College on Trunk, Sarah Palin’s alma mater). How were the lines where you’re at?  Any problems? Signs of chicanery? How about you people in the Sandy footprint? Were you able to vote with reasonable access, considering?

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Update: 19:15 Alaskan Time:  FUCKING A! It’s all over.  Barak Obama just won Ohio and 174 Electoral Votes!  He’s won a second term.

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Update: 19:30 Alaskan Time: Republicans claim Ohio isn’t won. Karl Rove is on Fox disputing Fox’s election call and crying like a spoiled little brat who just discovered that he isn’t going to get his way after all.

Of course, it’s not official but it sure looks like despite the republican state of denial that Obama has won a second term and that Democrats hold the Senate.  Sequestration, here we come.

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Update: 19:40 Alaskan Time: Donald Trumps calls election a “sham.”   I figure the first lawsuits disputing the election results will be filed tomorrow.

 

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Update: 20:20 Alaskan Time:  So to recap, it looks like Obama won both Romney’s birth state of Michigan and Massachusetts, the state where Romney was governor.  Also, Obama won Wisconsin, Paul Ryan’s home state.  Ouch. That’s got to smart.

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Update: 21:00 Alaskan Time: And that’s it. Romney conceded. He took the high road in his concession speech. He made a hell of a concession speech. I mean that sincerely. Too bad for him he didn’t take the high road six months ago, he’d be president tonight.  He obviously learned nothing from McCain – a guy who also gave a terrific concession speech.  Republicans need to do some serious soul searching after tonight, or they’d better get used to giving really good concession speeches.

 

Thanks for tuning in tonight.  Congratulations, President Obama. Congratulations, America.  Good night.

Glory Days and The Ghost of Tom Joad

Glory days, well they’ll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl’s eye
Glory days, glory days

Nothing like waiting until the last minute, eh?

We’ve got, what? Less than twenty-four hours, right?

It’s near 10PM as I write this, by this time tomorrow, we ought to have a pretty good idea of who the next president is going to be.

Naturally, it’s now that Sarah Palin decides to weigh in.

It’s only fair, I guess.

After all Bruce Springsteen waited until the last minute to throw his considerable weight behind President Obama, and Palin is at least as big a rock star as is Springsteen these days – or as big of has-been anyway. Both of them are far past their sell-by date but still rolling along on inertia and the glory of fading stardom.

What?

Oh stop it, you know it’s true. Look, I love the man, but Springsteen hasn’t been the gritty, Jersey working man’s troubadour since the 90’s. He’s as long in the tooth as Madonna even if he is better preserved. His voice these days sounds like a gravel truck in sexual congress with a cement mixer after an all nighter gargling kerosene and razor blades. Which is not to say that he doesn’t put on a hell of a show, or that back in the day he wasn’t The Boss, because he most certainly was, or that I wouldn’t drop everything and go see him should he be in town.  The guy rocks.

But I couldn’t help but think how ironic it was that Springsteen decided to jump into Obama’s campaign right about the same time Palin decided to endorse Romney – apparently, here in the harsh cold light of November 5^th, she’s finally come to the realization that Newt Gingrich isn’t going to be either President or the first Governor of Moonbase Reagan.  Both Springsteen and Palin are celebrities, for different reasons certainly and only time will tell which one leaves a greater impact on history (personally, I don’t think it’s much of a contest, but hey, what do I know?), however you’ve really got to wonder what it says about the state of our republic when a) there are still significant numbers of undecided voters less than twenty-four hours before the election, and b) it is implied in any serious fashion that they can be swayed one way or the other by either a sort of has-been rocker or a sure as hell has-been politician.

You know, on second thought, maybe ironic isn’t the right word, maybe a better word is appropriate. Yes, that’s it. Appropriate. It’s appropriate that The Boss and The Pit Bull should be on opposite sides of this contest.

Since Springsteen has ventured into politics, I suppose it’s completely appropriate for Palin to cut a Greatest Hits album.

Now I think I'm going down to the well tonight
and I'm going to drink till I get my fill
And I hope when I get old I don't sit around thinking about it
but I probably will
Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
a little of the glory of, well time slips away
and leaves you with nothing mister but
boring stories of glory days

And did I say endorse?  No, that’s wrong too. Endorse is the wrong word. This morning on Facebook, Palin didn’t actually endorse Mitt Romney, she just implied that in her opinion Romney doesn’t suck nearly as bad as Obama.  You’d think on the eve of the election, she’d come up with something new, instead in her Facebook screed, Palin – like the protagonist of Springsteen’s Glory Days – rehashes all the tired and debunked Fox News talking points:

This Tuesday our country’s future is in our hands.

I’m going to take the high road here and not start out with a joke about Palin jerking us off.

What’s past is prologue. We know what we will get from a second Obama term because we’ve all endured his first term. We know how well he kept his 2008 campaign promises. Do we really believe he’ll keep his 2012 promises?

We’ve all endured Obama’s first term? Endured. Like it was some arduous journey fraught with great peril and hardship and full of giant rats and hungry cannibals. This from a woman who quit her job during the height of the economic crisis, became a multimillionaire while doing pretty much nothing, and is now getting paid for basically being famous.  Great work if you can get it, I guess.

Somebody remind me again what exactly this women has had to “endure?” Seriously, what’s Sarah Palin got to bitch about? Because from where I sit, Barack Obama is the best damned thing that ever happened to Sarah Palin. She should be campaigning for him.

Do we believe the word of a man who promised he wouldn’t raise taxes on the middle class, but then slammed the middle class with a massive tax hike in the form of Obamacare (and don’t forget that his own lawyers argued before the Supreme Court that the individual mandate is a tax)?

Um. No. Actually, administration lawyers argued that the ACA wasn’t a tax. In fact, what they said was that the ACA, specifically the Individual Mandate, was authorized under the Interstate Commerce Clause.  It was the Supreme Court who decided that it was, in fact, a tax and thereby perfectly legal. The deciding vote, if you recall, was the bench’s bestest conservative.

As to the “raising taxes on the Middle Class,” I guess Palin missed the whole debate over the expiring Bush Era Tax Cuts and who was on each side. But I digress.

Do we really believe he won’t raise taxes even more on every American in order to pay for his wasteful spending and his crony capitalism?

Palin and her goofy followers believe a lot of things, many of which bear only a vague semblance of reality.  I don’t suppose this is any different.

Also, word of advice, when an Alaskan politician bemoans cronyism, well, you know it’s time to put your boots on.

Do we believe that the same president who increased the debt in his first term by more than all the first 41 presidents combined will suddenly decide to cut the deficit in his second term?

More than the first forty-one presidents combined? Now there’s some creative, and misleading, math.  Using the same logic and disregard for things like, oh, inflation over two hundred years, you could say that Mitt Romney has more money in the bank than the Gross Domestic Product of the entire United States under George Washington.  It’s true, but what relevance it has to the current situation is beyond me.

Do we believe that the president whose reckless spending led us to the first credit rating downgrade in our nation’s history will suddenly become a responsible fiscal manager if we reelect him?

Except, of course, that Standard & Poor’s cited partisan extremism in Congress as the primary reason for the downgrade, and specifically Congress’ use of the debt ceiling limit as a means of political blackmail.  As to “the president whose reckless spending” led us to the downgrade, Palin deftly manages to avoid mentioning who it was helming the House Budget committee at the time and why she thinks that guy will suddenly become a “responsible fiscal manager” if we make him Vice President.

Do we really believe that a president who promised us that job creation was his number one priority despite month after month of dismal job numbers now has a credible “plan” for the job growth that eluded him for the past four years?

I’m sorry, who was it again who torpedoed every jobs bill that’s come up for discussion over the last four years. Who was that again? 

Now, in spite of congressional obstructionism, the jobless rate has fallen steadily for the last four years. Imagine what Obama could have accomplished if Congress actually cooperated and did their jobs. But, again, I digress.

Do we believe that the same president who shut down the Keystone Pipeline and blocks domestic oil and natural gas development at every turn is somehow going to reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil and lead us to energy independence?

Reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil.

Foreign oil.

Heh heh.

Say, here’s a funny question for you: If we build the Keystone Pipeline, where does the oil come from to fill it?

Last time I checked, Canada was a foreign country even if Palin can see it from her house. 

Also, here’s an annoying little fact: domestic oil and natural gas development is at an all time high.  So high in fact that Alaska’s vast supply of natural gas is virtually worthless at the moment.

Do we really believe that our country’s national security is safe in the hands of a president whose administration denied security and assistance to our consulate under attack on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on America, and then blamed that consulate attack and the death of our ambassador on a “spontaneous” protest over an obscure YouTube video despite all the real time evidence to the contrary?

Yes, I do believe that our country’s national security is safe in Obama’s hands.

After all, he’s the guy that has authorized the killing of more terrorists and pirates than the first forty-one presidents combined – including the mastermind of the worst terrorist attack on America in US history. You know, the one that happened on the last conservative’s watch.

Do we believe that a president who was caught on a hot mic telling the Russian president that he would have “more flexibility” after his reelection is being honest about his plans for a second term?

I don’t think you really want to bring up the subject of hot mics.

Palin goes on for a few more paragraphs and surprisingly avoids mention of either birth certificates or Islam, eventually she fetches up here:

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have offered a credible alternative to Barack Obama’s failed policies. Governor Romney understands how the free market works. His pro-growth economic policies will benefit all Americans. He has promised to move us toward energy independence, deficit reduction, and responsible entitlement reform that honors our commitment to our seniors and keeps faith with future generations. Governor Romney deserves a chance to lead. President Obama had his chance. He’s failed, and we can’t afford to go backwards.

We can’t afford to go backwards?  Unless, of course, you support a candidate who promises a return to the very policies that got us into this mess in the first place. Romney certainly understands how the free market works, he’s spent his entire life using it to his benefit at the expense of many others – and that’s one promise I’d fully expect him to keep. 

The really enlightening part of Palin’s entire post was this: Governor Romney deserves a chance to lead.

Deserves.

Not Romney has earned a chance, no, see, Mitt deserves a chance.

Deserves.

That’s how people like Palin see the world, as their divine right. That’s why when the media and the polls don’t report what they want, well Sir, then it’s the media who must be lying.  When the weather makes the current incumbent look good, the super-storm must be sent by Satan.

That’s why they talk about talking back their country come tomorrow. Not our country, all of us together, no, theirs.

They don’t mind if the game is rigged, just so long as it’s rigged in their favor.

Palin’s recapping of her glory days is the perfect summation of everything that’s wrong with the GOP. 

Palin is right about one thing though, tomorrow the country’s future is in your hands.

Use the power wisely.

 

 

 

Now Tom said "Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I'll be there
Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me."