Poor Tracy Morgan. Many working class people in America have already been figuratively run over by the predatory practices of big corporations like Walmart, that ever since the go-go 1980s have been driving down their wages and offshoring good paying jobs even while conning them with "low prices" they have had to pay for in so many ways they are unable to see. Morgan, however, had the misfortune of getting literally run over by a Walmart, specifically by an 18-wheeler piloted by a company driver who'd apparently been no-dosing it for about 24 hours.
Given that Morgan is a popular entertainer with a large fan base, you'd have thought that the smart thing for Walmart to do would be to quietly settle the civil suit filed by Morgan and the family of his companion who was killed in the crash. Well, you thought wrong, Natch:
Walmart's attorneys said yesterday in a court filing that it doesn't owe Morgan and his fellow passengers anything because they should have protected themselves by buckling up. The company further denied any responsibility for how long the truck driver, who Morgan's lawyers claim was sleep-deprived at the time of the accident, had been awake.
Understandably outraged, as any right-thinking person should be, Morgan responded:
"After I heard what Walmart said in court, I felt I had to speak out. I can't believe Walmart is blaming me for an accident that they caused. My friends and I were doing nothing wrong. I want to thank my fans for sticking with me during this difficult time."
Morgan didn't call for his fans to boycott Walmart, but it's probably just as well that he didn't. CitizensConsumers Idiots in this country have become so inured to corporate malfeasance that even having one of their favorite entertainers struck down like road kill likely wouldn't be enough to get them to change their shopping habits. Then you have the morons who, every time someone calls for a boycott in a situation like this, immediately rally to the company's side and call for an anti-boycott.
There was a time not all that long ago when America had a fairly aggressive Fourth Estate which investigated corporate malfeasance, and when caught the companies in question instantly scrambled to do everything they could to at least give the appearance that they were setting things right. In recent years, of course, the so-called "free press" has been taken over by a few giant conglomerates, so it takes some really spectacular fuckups like poisoning half the Gulf of Mexico or having a speed-addicted truck driver crush a teevee star under his wheels to get the media to pay any attention at all.
And yet...British Petroleum continues to do business in the United States as if nothing ever happened off the coast of Louisiana, and Walmart continues to rake in massive profits despite suffering one public relations black eye after another. Truly, we have reached the point where there is no longer any real incentive for big corporations--who have had their so-called "personhood" etched in stone by the Supreme Court--to act as "good citizens."
The Ayn Rand-following, knucklehead libertarians have expended so much energy convincing their fellow citizensconsumers idiots that big government is a threat to them. It isn't until they end up like Tracy Morgan, roadkill splattered all over the pavement, that they begin to realize that big business is every bit as responsible for creating our onrushing 21st century dystopia as any NSA spook.
I've taken my shots at dipshit Atlantic Wire blogger Jen Doll before, but she really outdid herself in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. This morning, as New York City was awakened to the grim spectacle of severe damage from the storm, including flooded subways, collapsed building facades, crippled construction cranes, an evacuated hospital, exploded transmitters, a spectacular waterfront fire and at least a dozen casualties, Ms. Doll decided to focus on what was really important: New Yorkers who won't be denied their Starbucks under any circumstances:
Before the store closed Monday afternoon, there was a "daylong stream of customers that packed the store, standing shoulder to shoulder and waiting at least 10 minutes to order." One self-described Starbucks fanatic walked 20 blocks to find an open store. Another had her driver bring her to the shop. The threat of all of the Starbucks closing was, to some, more terrifying than the threat of Sandy:
“I didn’t know they were all going to close. I started panicking,” Hernandez said with a chuckle.
“It was scary not having Starbucks,” said Owings, who orders tea, not coffee.
Said another: “I’m really happy these guys are open. I can’t get a pumpkin spice latte anywhere else."
Some people really need to, um, buy a coffeemaker.
But wait, if you think that was bad, consider Ms. Doll's snarky last sentence in light of her long post last Thursday mocking Hurricane Sandy preparations called, I shit you not, "How to Feel About Snoreastercane." This is just a snippet of the sheer stupidity:
Batten down the hatches, have you heard? There's a weather situation a'brewing, one with the best of all possible weather situation names. (Disclaimer: Should Snor'eastercane Sandy actually hurt people, which we really hope she doesn't, we will disavow any and everything in this post. Her name is Sandy! She's a snor'eastercane. What could she have to hate about?) But what's a snor'eastercane, you ask? Allow us to tell you everything we know about Snor'eastercane Sandy, including how you should feel about her possible presence in the East Coast just in time for Halloween. Remember how much fun Snowtober Saul was? (I'm still holding a grudge that we didn't go with Snoctober.)
Snor'eastercane Sandy, so dubbed by the Wall Street Journal ("Sandy," of course, comes from those folks who name storms) is an "unlikely meteorological scenario: a hurricane blending with an inland snowstorm just in time for Halloween." Hurricane Sandy, a hurricane not yet a snor'easter, is currently approaching the Bahamas. Don't worry, weather in New York City and the East Coast will be pretty great for the rest of the week. "For next week, however, it’s starting to seem like not a question of if but where this giant 'snor’eastercane' might strike," writes Eric Holthaus. "Regardless of the exact landfall location on the East Coast, impacts will be felt from Florida to Maine." He gives "two-out-of-three odds that Greater New York experiences significant impacts from this storm"—by that he means primarily "storm surge, wind and heavy rains" (and maybe snow). She could cost billions. Keep a watch on her here; via the AP's Seth Borenstein, scientists predict a 70 percent chance she'll hit the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic (otherwise, she might just snor'eastercane herself out at sea). There will also be a full moon, meaning TIDES and WEREWOLVES. Keep an eye out.
There are as many feelings about Sandy and her snor'easterncane status as one might have about various types of pie, mincemeat (gross) to pumpkin (yes, please) to pecan (good, but so bad for you) to meat (terrifying, maybe delicious?). In hopes of heightening your sense of preparedness for his weather situation, we have analyzed the various types of ways in which you may prepare, mentally, physically, emotionally, and otherwise for this upcoming gambit with Ole Man/Lady Weather.
And I'm sorry, but her lame disclaimer doesn't get her off the hook. And what's up with using the first person plural "we" to describer herself, anyway? Doesn't she know that Any Rand wrote an entire novel (Anthem) in which the characters all referred to themselves in the plural in order to mock collectivism?
There's a longstanding cliche in this country that people hate the so-called "New York Media" because it's so liberal. Personally, I think it is more because a lot of people who work in the media capital of the world are fucking blithering idiots.
Bonus: Dedicated to Atlantic Wire blogger Jen Doll
Sorry I didn’t post at all this past week, but I’ve been having a very difficult time coming up with anything new to say and I didn’t really start this blog just so I could repeat myself endlessly ad naseum. I did start to write a couple of posts, but ended up discarding them in frustration. The whole world, and the American political landscape in particular, seems stuck in an unfunny version of the movie, Groundhog Day, and we observers from the reality based community are like Bill Murray, forced to wake up each morning to the same cheesy classic pop song knowing that this day will be exactly the same as countless days before it. In other words, our civilization remains completely fucked but absolutely everyone in a position to do anything about it will continue to not only foil the consideration of any possible solutions, but will continue to refuse to acknowledge that the problem even exists.
Anyway, I got inspired to write this post by a couple of articles that Dave Cohen linked to over at Decline of the Empire yesterday fretting over the possibility that we might see a replay of Election 2000, which wasn’t decided by the Supreme Court in favor of Chimpy Bush until almost Christmastime that year. Here is the money quote that actually comes from New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd:
While I was watching Mitt Romney make up fantasy positions in the foreign policy debate, I had a fantasy of my own. And given the electoral isthmus the two men are wrestling on, it doesn't seem like such a wild one. There is growing buzz that the dead heat could slide into a deadlock.
If Mr. Romney does suspend voter disbelief enough to tie President Barack Obama, with each getting 269 Electoral College votes, the Republican-controlled House would determine the president — and give it to Mitt. And the (presumably) Democratic-controlled Senate would determine the vice president — and give it to Joe Biden.
Personally, I think it is more likely that we’d see a “too close to call” scenario play out in Ohio and possibly other states and a resulting replay of the excruciating Florida recount fiasco from 12 years ago. And all I can say about that possibility is I sure as fuck HOPE so.
Consider what this nation’s “leaders” are facing between Election Day and the end of the year even if the presidential race is decided cleanly. I’m talking of course about the so called fiscal cliff, which just to recap includes:
1). The need raise the federal government’s debt ceiling yet again.
2). Sequestration, which is an automatic 10% cut in most federal programs, unless Congress and the President agree to an alternative deficit reduction plan.
3). The (long overdue) expiration of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
4). The expiration of Obama’s insane payroll tax holiday that is gutting the finances of Social Security.
Even in “normal” times, any one of these four issues would tie official Washington up in knots for weeks if not months. Instead, it will all play out in about seven weeks with a lame duck Congress and a possibly lame duck president, or if we are really lucky, ON TOP of the same post-election chaos involving the presidency that we saw back in 2000.
Get your popcorn, folks, because this is going to be the most entertaining spectacle to hit DC since “the bitch” set up former Mayor Marion Barry. Oh, and if we are all REALLY, REALLY lucky, it will take place amidst a region struggling to overcome a devastating blow to its infrastructure from Hurricane Sandy.
If I seem a little glib about all of this, it’s because after so many years of watching our "leaders" get crazier and more detached from reality, while the citizens of the country sit around passively with their thumbs up their asses in a teevee benumbed stupor, I’ve decided that what this Spoiled Rotten Nation really needs is a two-by-four smashed across the forehead. Sadly, even that will likely not wake most of the idiots up, but maybe if the economy takes a big enough hit there might start to be some dawning realization that business as usual, circa 2007, is dead as a doornail and is never coming back. If as a result, for example, even one high school senior decides NOT to mortgage his or her future getting an entirely worthless college education, it will have been worth it.
One of the reasons I cut back my posting here at TDS is that I got so tired of wallowing in such a relentless heap of bad news. Everywhere I looked, the good guys and little folk were getting their asses kicked while the big boys and the greedy scumbags were continuing to prosper. So it is with very great pleasure that I link to following Bloomberg story about the notorious federal student loan-subsidized scam artists, The University Phoenix, finding themselves in deep financial trouble:
Apollo Group Inc. said Tuesday that its fiscal fourth-quarter net income tumbled 60 percent, hurt by higher costs and declining enrollment at the University of Phoenix. To cope, the for-profit education company plans to close 115 of the university's mostly smaller locations, a move that will affect 13,000 students.
Shares in the Phoenix-based company tumbled nearly 9 percent in after-hours trading.
The closings include 25 main campuses and 90 smaller satellite learning centers. At least one location in 30 states is slated to be shuttered.
The roughly 4 percent of Apollo students affected by the closures will be given the option of transferring to online programs or moving their course work to other sites, said University of Phoenix President Bill Pepicello.
If no other center is nearby, the company will continue courses at other space near the closed facility until students complete their degrees, he added.
The university is in the process of notifying students.
University of Phoenix currently has about 328,000 students, down from a peak of more than 400,000. Following the closures, it will be left with 112 locations in 36 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
The announcement comes as enrollments overall in the for-profit sector are declining after years of rapid growth, even as enrollment in other sectors of higher education rises. Recent federal figures showed enrollment in for-profits fell 2.9 percent in 2011. The sector has faced tighter regulations and more pressure to enroll students who have a better chance of graduating.
Not to mention the possibility that maybe, just maybe, the students are finally catching on that the diplomas they have been saddling themselves with massive amounts of non-dischargeable student loan debt to obtain aren't fit to use as toilet paper. In this economy, with even law school graduates from reputable universities having a very difficult time securing decent employment, what chance does someone with a sheepskin from one of these scummy diploma mills going to have?
So yes, finally one of my many prayers have been answered and the big hand of fate has clenched into a fist to smite one of the countless predators preying upon the downtrodden and the desperate. Heck, if this keeps up I might just have to reevaluate this whole atheist thing I've had going.
Bonus: "By the time my head gets to Phoenix, you'll be on your way to school"
In a momentous (though not totally unforeseen) development, Newsweek editor Tina Brown announced this morning that the magazine will move to an all-digital format and shutter the print edition just shy of its 80th birthday. In a post on the magazine's website—which Brown folded into TheDailyBeast.com in 2010—she unveiled the new online-only plan for an once-iconic magazine that first began publishing in February of 1933. The magazine will be renamed Newsweek Global, focus on paid subscriptions, and ramp up the importance of e-reader and tablet editions. The last paper issue will be published on December 31.
Brown's post was a modified version of an internal email that also warns employees about anticipated layoffs and restructuring.
The eventual fate of the Newsweek brand appeared inevitable after the merger with The Daily Beast in 2010, which even included the loss of its URL. The entire concept of weekly news magazines has become outdated, as has the economics of print media in general. IAC chairman Barry Diller (who owns half the company) even hinted that this might happen the summer, though he quickly backpedaled on the idea that the print side would shut down completely. However, Brown's strategy seemed to continually push the Newsweek half of Newsweek/Daily Beast to the back burner—when she wasn't cooking up desperate, attention-seeking covers. It was becoming harder and harder to imagine a world in which the magazine might thrive again, but perhaps few expected the end to come soon or so abruptly. Brown writes that she's looking ahead to the "the 80th anniversary of Newsweek next year," but now that day will be more like a funeral.
Notice how the article above tries to write this off as inevitable “progress” when in fact it is anything but. It isn’t just that Newsweek will no longer offer a dead tree edition, but that one of America’s most trusted news sources had already been virtually destroyed as a reliable source of information through the efforts of the utterly vacuous Tina Brown. First she dumbed down the content in pursuit of the lowest common denominator, and then she further degraded the brand with those “desperate, attention-seeking covers.” Perhaps that was not the wisest strategy at a time when virtually every other news media outlet was essentially doing the same thing. Why would any reader plunk down the cash for a copy of Newsweek just so they can read the same sort of shallow coverage and frivolous celebrity worship they can get anywhere else?
The merging of Newsweek into The Daily Beast is particularly regrettable. That website is one of the very worst on the Internet for the way it mixes stories of real importance with the utterly inane and presents it all with ads and pictures of celebrities splattered across every page. While writing this story, I did a quick check of The Daily Beast’s front page, and just by a selection of the posted headlines you can tell how horrible it is:
Sex Lies and Videotape? Meet the Zumba Madame
Deja Hair: Russian Pols Gnarly 80s Style
9 Craziest Bits from Hogan’s Sex Scandal
Campaign Likes Mitt Aggressive
“Tattoo Guy’ Brought Down Lance
Tagg Romney Wanted to Punch Obama
Ashton’s Relationship Frustrates Demi
Will Mitt Sell Mormon Underwear?
Angelina Jolie: We Are All Malala
11 Biggest Celeb Memoir Flops
Can Single Ladies Save Obama?
All of the above garbage was mixed in almost at random with stories about Syria, the attempted bombing of the Federal Reserve and some more substantive stuff on the presidential campaign. This manner of presenting the news could not be more insidious, for it implies to the reader that all of that sheer fluff is of at least equal importance to the genuine news stories. This same phenomenon is happening all over the Internet, of course. Just the other day, I was reading a crime report on local news website. Halfway down the page, the text was interrupted by a big picture of actress Megan Fox showing off her shoulder tattoo with the headline “Celebrity Ink” and a link to a story that I would assume was of zero news value (obviously, I didn’t click on the link). It’s as if every news source has become the National Enquirer. No wonder hardly anybody in this stupid country has any attention span left anymore.
So while I won’t particularly miss Newsweek, at least not the hollow shell of a real news outlet that Newsweek had become in recent years, I do very much lament the relentless ongoing trend of our national media becoming ever more superficial and content free. That is the real importance of this story, not whether a few trees are saved next year when it ceases publication.
Bonus: "Kick 'em when they're up...kick 'em when they're down"
Remember back in 2009 when Obama was awarded his "Affirmative Action Nobel Peace Prize" in the hopes that he would reduce America's warlike belligerance around the world, only to have President Hopey-Changey wipe his ass on the medal before ordering the Afghanistan surge and stepping up drone missile bombings of innocent civilians? Well, that hideously misguided decision looks like the paragon of wisdom next to this year's choice:
The European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, a choice that celebrates Europe’s post-World War II economic and political integration but comes as the 27-nation body confronts widespread criticism over its handling of a massive debt crisis that is by far the biggest challenge of its existence.
The award honored the struggle in Europe to not only hold the union together in the wake of the debt crisis, but also to deepen integration across a vast swath of the region stretching from the isles of Greece to the Scottish Highlands, from the ports of Portugal to northern Finland.
To say this was a less than popular move is a bit of an understatement:
The choice elicited audible gasps from a roomful of journalists who attended the announcement in Oslo. The union has been accused of being slow and overly bureaucratic, and of foisting onto its heavily indebted members a crushing austerity that has crippled domestic economies and sparked social unrest in nations such as Greece and Spain.
“Twenty years ago, this prize would have been sycophantic, but maybe more justified. Today it is downright out of touch,” said Martin Callanan, a Conservative British politician and chairman of the European Conservative and Reformists Party in the European Parliament. “The E.U.’s policies have exacerbated the fallout of the financial crisis and led to social unrest that we haven’t seen for a generation.”
The peace prize decision fed into complaints that the Norwegian Nobel Committee increasingly has strayed from the award’s original ideals — including when it honored President Obama in 2009, just months after he took office. Some critics said the prize is venturing deeper into the realm of political theater.
“It’s just laughable,” Svetlana Gannushkina, a longtime Russian human rights activist whom Norwegian parliamentarians said they had nominated for the award, told Interfax. “The award has been depersonalized to such an extent . . . The Nobel Committee could have defended the principles of peace and democracy if it had awarded the prize to those who have worked in this sphere for many years and now need support.”
The blockheads really don't get it, do they. Europe in 2012 is poised about where it was in around 1932 or so. The economies of many of its member nations are in free fall, the political "leadership" is weak and divided and ugly nationalism and xenophobia are starting starting to rear their ugly heads again.
If what the global economy is experiencing were just a run-of-the-mill post World War Two recession, one could maybe shrug what's happening in Europe off as being of no long term consequence. But it's not. Not only is the global economy on the precipice of a major economic catastrophe, but Europe is particularly fucked because what oil reserves it does possess are rapidly depleting and will likely run out completely within the next couple of decades just as the Export Land Model (rising demand combined with falling production in oil exporting nations) makes oil virtually unavailable on the world markets. Combine that with a population that is largely accustomed to living a middle class lifestyle with a generous social safety net and you have the recipe for a continent-wide conflagration that could well dwarf even World War Two in its destructiveness.
My prediction is that 100 years from now historians, assuming there still are any, will be able to only shake their heads in wonder and disbelief that the Nobel committee awarded its 2012 Peace Prize to the very entity which was just about to fly apart and experience perhaps the mother of all resource wars.
So let's say you are the supposedly "liberal" party in a two-party system that has been completely captured by the billionaires and big business interests. What's more, let's say that the country this is taking place in is seeing the disparity in incomes between the rich and everybody else skyrockting to levels not seen since the Gilded Age. And yet, for some mysterious reason you still seem to have difficulties get your base (i.e., the non-rich) to turn out on election day. What do you do? Do you craft policy positions that might appeal to them so that they have a reason to get out of the house on election day? Of course not. Someone on the right might call you mean names like "socialist" or "communist," and many of those rich scumbags you grovel to for campaign donations might decide to start giving their money to the other guys.
Wait, I've got an idea. If you can't get 'em to go to the polls with your positions, pass laws that FORCE them to vote. Everybody (well, at least your side) wins! Here is blogger Simon Liem of Harper's Magazine with the wacky proposal:
Presidential-election voting peaked in the twentieth century in 1960, when nearly two-thirds of eligible voters came out to the polls, and reached its nadir in 1996, when just over half did. The most recent two presidential elections were better, with each turning out over 60 percent, but the most recent midterm elections managed only 40. Given that it has become a struggle to get half of Americans to the polls, it’s quite incredible that anyone would do anything to discourage voting.
This has become a particular problem for Democrats, who, if they were wise, would be targeting nonvoters with more than just get-out-the-vote drives.In August, a USA Today/Suffolk University poll showed that unregistered voters, if they had to choose, would pick Obama over Romney at a rate of nearly two to one, while registered voters who said they weren’t sure if they would cast a ballot also heavily favored Obama. The pool of 90 to 95 million nonvoters represent a significant missed opportunity for Democrats, one they might someday capitalize on by pushing to aggressively reform voting laws around the country, a strategic goal that happens to coincide with increased participation in the democratic process. Allowing same-day registration and a variety of acceptable identifications at the voting booths helped Minnesota achieve the highest turnout of any state in the 2008 presidential election, at 77 percent, while Democrats in California have passed laws that allow for online registration in the upcoming election, resulting in promising early numbers. But to really push people to the polls would require much more.
The most obvious and effective reform would be a compulsory voting system. While such a move would invoke the rage of tea partiers and those who see compulsory anything as inimical to the American notion of freedom, the concept isn’t foreign to U.S. politics. In the seventeenth century, several American colonies required eligible voters to participate in elections. (In Virginia, the fine for not voting was at one point two hundred pounds of tobacco, while Georgia wrote into its first constitution a fine of five pounds for anyone who absented himself from an election without valid reason.) More recently, many delegates to Massachusetts 1917 constitutional convention supported amending the state’s constitution to permit compulsory voting. Turnout had been backsliding in the United States from its highest historic participation rates in the late nineteenth century, and was heading for its all-time low in the 1920 presidential elections. One of the Massachusetts delegates argued that “when these men find it obligatory on them to go and vote they are going to give this question thought, and they will study it over, and they will talk it over in the market-places and in the grocery stores and with the folks at home, and the result is they get more light and are better able to vote.” Another complained that 28 percent of registered voters had not voted in state elections that year, and that primaries regularly drew less than one-quarter of voters—turnouts that would be nothing short of miraculous today. The trends were troubling enough for drafters of the constitution to add the amendment permitting the government to require voting, though no law has yet been passed to test it.
But wait, there's more:
It would be in the Democrats’ interest to push in that direction—and at relatively low cost, as reform would first have to happen slowly on a state level, where, if other systems are any example, the success and popularity of compulsory voting would serve as a model that could spread through the country. The biggest challenges would most likely be legal ones—because, as Bassetti points out, the lack of a federal constitutional right to vote makes standards flexible and essentially subject to the whims of state courts.
First of all, let me start out my response to this lunacy by pointing out the obvious: it ain't ever going to fucking happen. I really would like to ask Simon Liem what country he thinks he is living in if he also thinks that such a proposal, once made by any Democratic politician of any prominence, would not cause such a right wing backlash and media shit storm as to be immediately dead on arrival.
But more importantly, this is an incredibly stupid fucking idea because it basically acknowledges that the Democratic Party has no hope of ever appealing to non-voters because it is so utterly compromised by being totally in bed with the same corporate interests as the Republicans. And if that is the case, why should we force people to go to the polls to vote for the same old shit they are going to get no matter who wins? That's the same type of crap they used to pull in the old Soviet Union. And I have news for you Simon, if you force me to go to the polls, I'm not going to punch the button for your great Democratic savior, but instead write in "Mickey Mouse," "Wydon Jablomie," "Fuck Bill Clinton" or some other such nonsense.
The appearance of this bit of lunacy in Harper's the very day after one of their other bloggers implored his fellow liberals and progressives to help "push Obama over the finish line" despite President Hopey-Changey's apparent disinterest in being reelected just shows how desperate Democratic partisans are becoming. They know damn well their party is hopelessly compromised and should be abandoned altogether, but they just can't bring themselves to admit it. Just another sad example of how partisanship is yet another form of brain damage.
I was attending a sporting event with my wife not too long ago. It was a nice day, the sun was shining, a light breeze was blowing and the crowd was amped. We were looking forward to a good time, and one might have been had but for the appearance of a group of the worst sort of omnipresent invasive species: the loud, obnoxious, idiot American sports fan.
Let me paint you a picture. There were four of these dopes--white, middle aged, overweight, slovenly dressed and clutching cans of pisswater lite beer in their chubby digits--and they unfortunately had the four seats right behind us. And they were of the type I have seen all too frequently at ballgames in recent years, meaning that they spent the whole game when not texting or yapping on their cell phones talking loudly as if the whole section around them was breathlessly waiting to hear every pearl of wisdom that fell from their lips.
Though they were drinking, they were not intoxicated, which would have at least been an excuse for acting like such louts. They were also not being belligerent towards other fans, which might have at least given the rest of us the blessing of seeing them get kicked out of the stadium. They were instead just determined to prove to everyone around them what absolute fucking morons they were. Seinfeld may have been the "show about nothing," but Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer sitting around the local diner were a gathering of nobel laureates compared to these four fucktards.
For example, at one point one of the morons, who as he repeated over and over and nauseum, was a Baltimore Orioles fan, started going on and on about he always gets dirty looks from other fans whenever he is in a stadium outside of the state of Maryland and upholds the Baltimore tradition of yelling out "Oh" for "Orioles" during the "Oh" portion of the national anthem. After several minutes of him and the other morons agreeing that buying a ticket means he can do whatever he wants once he's inside the park, he summed things up by saying "After all, I'm from Baltimore, where we WROTE the national anthem in 1776." Bad enough that the dumb fuck insists on persisting with his boorish behavior despite knowing it is not appreciated by other fans, but despite being from Francis Scott Key's hometown he didn't even know that THE FUCKING STAR SPANGLED BANNER WAS WRITTEN IN 1814. And yet this was something he apparently feels PASSIONATELY about.
That same moron then went on to describe how just this year he had finished his goal of visiting every major league ballpark around the country and his buddies were describing their own progress in doing the same. Not that any of them really seemed to have much of a clue what was going on down on the field, or even fucking CARE for that matter--spending what would have to be tens of thousands of dollars attending Major League Baseball games appeared to be just something to occupy their time that they could then brag about with their friends.
As we were leaving the stadium that day, my wife and I were reflecting on how the experience was diminished by the presence of the louts behind us, and I said that what amazed me was that someone that fucking stupid could somehow make enough money to be able to afford to fly around the country attending professional sporting events. And that's when it hit me...that guy and his three buddies must each have some particular talent or skill that makes them highly marketable in a certain job field (I have no idea what, for despite all of their inane blather during the couple of hours we had to endure their presence none of them ever mentioned what they did for a living).
Multiply those four assholes by tens of millions and a picture starts to emerge of just how America has gotten into its current predicament. We've become a nation made up largely of idiots savants, people who are good enough at one particular thing to make a decent living but have no fucking clue about virtually anything else. It certainly goes a long way to explain, for example, how our most recent presidential election campaign has managed to devolve into the utterly banal and trivial spectacle that it has without the citizenry rising up in arms about it. My four buddies never once talked about politics that afternoon (thank Christ) but I guarantee you that you could search far and wide and have a difficult time finding four less informed potential voters.
Thinking about it some more, calling America a nation of idiot savants is actually an insult to real idiot savants who would never pretend that they understand or have any competence in anything beyond their narrow range of superior talent. Americans, on the other hand, because they were blessed with a particular ability, but more importantly were lucky enough to have been born atop the largest pile of natural resources ever bestowed upon an individual nation, in their hubris have come to believe that they possess superior knowledge and opinions about EVERYTHING, even often while simultaneously proclaiming their pride in their own fucking ignorance. That's how, to use a particularly regrettable example, Jenny McCarthy could come to believe that she alone knows more about what causes autism than the entire medical establishment because she's got big tits and horny American men are willing to pay her big bucks to see her take her fucking clothes off.
This whole country would be so much better off if more people would recognize that they are not as smart as they think they are and if they would at least try to do their basic duty as citizens and become informed as to what's really going on in the world. Oh, who am I kidding? There is a classic line in the World War One novel, A Long Long Way, by Sebastian Barry that perfectly sums up the real problem: "The curse of the world is people thinking thoughts which are only thoughts that have been given to them." The oligarchs in America have made it so damn easy for the ignorant fools not to ever have to think an original thought. People like my four buddies will keep bumbling along through their comfortable lives, until one day they wake up in shock and awe, wondering how suddenly it all got taken away from them and who could possibly be responsible without ever once looking in the fucking mirror.
The prevailing mythical narrative that Americans still live in a representative democracy in which the choices at the ballot box actually matter is so pervasive that it continues to affect the thinking of even that small minority of the population who at least question the prevailing Holographic consensus. Case in point: economic blogger Karl Denninger of the Market Ticker, who on Friday was shocked, SHOCKED that the National Rifle Association would stoop to endorsing Willard Mitt Romney for president:
The National Rifle Association (NRA) endorsed Mitt Romney for president late Thursday.
NRA Executive vice president Wayne LaPierre and NRA Political Victory Fund chairman Chris Cox will formally announce the endorsement at a Romney rally in Virginia later Thursday evening. Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan will also be on hand.
“In this election, there is no debate,” LaPierre said in a statement. “There is only one choice – only one hope – to save our firearms freedom and our way of life.”
So what got ol' Karl all hot and bothered? I'll let him tell you himself:
Let me remind you what Mitt Romney actually believes when it comes to firearms, from Mitt Romney's own mouth.
"Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts", Romney said, at a bill signing ceremony on July 1 with legislators, sportsmen's groups and gun safety advocates. "These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people." - July 1st, 2004 -- Mitt Romney
If this is the only choice and only hope we may as well give up now.
Join JPFO (I have) and tell the NRA to stick their fundraising appeals up their ass.
I've said before that I have a soft spot for old Karl, even though he is wrong at least half the time. He at least understands that America's economy is horribly broken and that our fearless "leaders" are doing nothing whatsoever to fix it. The difference between Karl and me is that, as shown by the example above and in many of his other writings, he still seems to believe that the system is salvageable despite the obvious truth flashing right before his very own eyes.
Look, I don't care what your position is on the right to bear arms. It just amazes me that Karl, or any other gun owner or NRA member still believes that the likes of Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox actually give a flying fuck about the Second Amendment and the rights of gun owners. They don't. What those two power whore super lobbyists care about is keeping the dues of dimwitted NRA members flowing in so that they can keep their exorbitant salaries and benefits, fat expense accounts and access to all the perquisites that come from being deeply embedded within the Washington power structure. If tomorrow they were to realize that the political winds had suddenly changed and that they could only keep their positions by turning against the rights of gun owners, they would do it in a heartbeat. No doubt about it.
So how can I be so certain of that? Well, just look at the asinine and hysterical rhetoric in LaPierre's statement: “There is only one choice – only one hope – to save our firearms freedom and our way of life.” Not only is Wayne making that assertion on behalf of Romney despite, as Denninger points out, Willard's earlier anti-gun position, but he is making it to assist a campaign against an incumbent president who has not only not lifted a finger in favor of gun control, but is actually the gun lobby's most effective tool for keeping the progressive gun haters in his own base at bay and away from any chance to tighten America's gun laws. The gun control advocates had a perfect chance to advance their agenda after the public outcry in the wake of the Gabby Giffords shooting, and what did Obama do to help them? Nothing. Do you really think LaPierre isn't smart enough to know this? If so, there's big phallic granite tower planted square in the middle of the Washington Mall with only minor earthquake damage that I'd like to sell you.
The fact is that the political landscape on gun control issues has been frozen in ice for at least the last decade. The Republican Party is owned by the gun lobby and the Democrats are so afraid of the NRA's power that they might as well be. But LaPierre cannot level with the NRA's membership and say that because then the organization's fundraising might dry up. It's a political con job...the same kind every other lobbying group in Washington pulls, from AARP to NOW. It is yet another way that the elites use the illusion of real democratic choice to con the masses and steal both their money and their votes.
I'm going to go ahead and expand my original rule about contributing to political campaigns to include contributing to lobbying groups...if you are not a millionaire or a billionaire and yet you give any of your hard earned money to lobbyists who care more about their own power and perks than they do about the issues that got you to contribute, you're an idiot. Really, you would be just as well off sending your money to me. I promise, I'll spend it on nothing more harmful to the cause than a few cases of good microbrews.
Bonus: "You well heeled big wheel...ha ha, charade you are"
As I have said here before, every day in this stupid ass country the movie Idiocracy looks more and more like a documentary. No greater proof need be presented of this basic fact than looking at just how completely the presidential campaign has descended into absolute farce. With this contest between two corporatist candidates who differ not one iota on any issue of substance, our completely corrupt and thoroughly compromised mainstream media is working overtime to gin up fake controversies that will be all-but-forgotten by the morning of November 7th in order to maintain the illusion that Americans have a real choice at the ballot box.
Below is a collection of campaign related headlines that have appeared in just the past few days on the liberal politics and news site, The Raw Story. I'm only including the headlines and not links to the stories because the titillating headlines and the resulting sound bites are what's important to swaying the opinions and votes of Americas two great political tribes, not the substance of the stories themselves. I'm also not including the stories because I did not read any of them for fear that my brain would revolt and try to escape out of my ears if subjected to such a heaping pile of sheer nonsense. Anyway, here goes:
What we still don’t know about Mitt Romney’s taxes
What's there to know that we don't already? He's a filthy rich fucker who got that way from offshoring American jobs and paying a tax rate half that of what people who actually work for a living pay. Nothing new to see here, let's move on.
Hollywood celebrities use social media to get out the vote
If you are the kind of mouth breathing nitwit who makes your choice at the ballot box based upon some poorly articulated two sentence tweet from some vacuous celebrity, your voter's registration card should be permanently rescinded because you are clearly a danger to yourself and others.
Limbaugh sides with George Will and calls Obama ‘an affirmative action hire’
Regrettably, the difference between these two bloviating media whores is that Will is allegedly smart enough to know better.
Republicans seize on Biden ‘buried’ middle class gaffe
Wow...the notoriously gaffe-prone Biden said something stupid. Stop the fucking presses already.
Supporters at Romney rally tell cardboard Obama to ‘Go back to Kenya!’
These fucking idiots absolutely fail to realize that every time they say such idiotic, bigoted things it just reinforces the Obama supporters' determination to vote for him again however disillusioned they may be with the sellouts of the first four years of his presidency.
Gary Johnson goes crowd surfing in Utah
Nice to see Gary is trying to paint himself as a different kind of candidate by stooping to the same kind of dumbass, meaningless stunts that the major candidates do.
Ann Coulter ‘horrified’ she ever dated liberals
Hear that Maher--Skeletor has officially made you part of her "walk of shame." Which begs the (ahem) burning question--can an STD be passed from a liberal to a conservative?
Richard Belzer mocks Fox News with Nazi salute on live TV
Because there is absolutely no more effective method of winning a political argument these days and bringing people over to your side than calling your opposition a bunch of Nazis.
Republican candidate posts his gun on Facebook: ‘Welcome to Tennessee, Mr. Obama’
Memo to any Tea Party morons who apparently haven't been paying attention: mentioning the president, any president, and your guns in the same sentence WILL draw unwanted attention from the Secret Service. Bank on it.
Former N.H. Gov. Sununu: Poll showing Romney losing in my state is ‘a piece of garbage’
Yeah...you tell 'em, Gov. It isn't like the land of "Live Free or Die" went blue in 2004 and 2008 or anything...oh wait.
Voter registration slumps amid lack of enthusiasm for Obama and Romney
Well, what do you know? An actual intelligent headline. Gee, ya think maybe Americans are starting to catch on that the election is a sham and that it will have absolutely no affect whatsoever in their lives no matter who wins? Perish the thought!
Beck: God put Romney behind in polls to prove it’s a miracle when he wins
Obviously, that is Glenn Beck, not the rock singer Beck. In case your whole life doesn't revolve around watching the drooling troglodytes on the cable news shows.
GOP volunteer tells voter: Obama is a Muslim who wants ‘a socialistic country’
I really think we're going to have to find a photograph of Obama with his pants down around his ankles and Lloyd Blankfein sodomizing him before these idiots get their heads out of their asses and start to realize that the truth is even worse than their delusions.
Ingraham: ‘Fools’ errand’ for Romney to attempt ‘human moment’ at debate
That would be Laura Ingraham. I just love how the media has become so insular that they just assume we know who every fucking second-rate clown pundit is, like "Ingraham" means the same thing that "Madonna" does to popular music fans.
McCain suggests Harry Reid ‘doesn’t care’ about US ambassador’s death
And you don't eirther, you warmongering old fuck. Or otherwise you'd stop pressing for the aggressive war policies that make acts like the Ambassador's killing far more likely.
But here is my absolute favorite of the lot:
Ryan on Romney’s tax plan: ‘It would take me too long’ to explain
Wow, we were just about to actually, maybe discuss one of the issues, but they are way too complicated for you stupid fucking sheep to understand. Just be sure you get your ass to the polls on November 6th so that no matter who wins this fake campaign between two Holographic images you're going to get sheared yet again over the next four years.
Bonus: We're all losers, baby, so why don't you kill me
I've mentioned here before that at one time I was an NFL season ticket holder. So why did I give it up? Well, it was a combination of the skyrocketing ticket costs, the league's increasingly mediocre level of play, the media hype that has reached insane levels, the seemingly endless displays of superficial patriotism and the advertisements that bombard you continuously from the moment you set foot in the stadium...oh, and also so I don't have to ever again be in physical proximity to clueless idiots like the people who appear in the video above from opening weekend. Seriously, what a fucking freak show.
You want to know why America is going down the shitter? It's because people like these alleged adults are not only walking around free, but are actually allowed to vote. And remember, these are morons who are somehow still prosperous enough to be able to scrape together the cash to attend a ridiculously overpriced NFL game. Yep, instead of spending hundreds of dollars and battling the traffic and the crowds I spent much of this past Sunday afternoon napping on my couch and reading a book...and I'm a happier man for it.
But hey, fan stupidity isn't always grim. Sometimes, it's even good for a laugh:
Well, the excruciatingly horrible Democratic and Republican National Conventions are now over and the general election campaign can "officially" begin in earnest. In reality, however, the selections of Willard Mitt Romney and President Hopey-Changey to be the respective nominees of the only two parties which matter were actually made a long time ago. It was a foregone conclusion that no matter how often President Sellout rubbed his delusional supporters' noses in the dogshit that is his undying support of big business, war and empire he would face no reelection challenge from the left wing of his own party. As for Willard, despite the fact that his party's base hates his RomneyObamacare passing guts and a couple of rogue billionaires tried to throw a monkey wrench in the process by momentarily underwriting challenges from the hilariously inept Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, the fix was in from the beginning. The last Republican president was the first MBA to hold the position, and now the party has gone one step further and ended all pretense by nominating a full blown Wall Street oligarch as its standard bearer. That's what passes for "progress" in American politics these days, I'm afraid.
It sort of reminds me of the farcical elections they used hold in the old Soviet Union. Communist regimes always seemed to have the words "Democratic" or "Republic" somewhere in their official title, so as a result I guess they thought that they had to go through the motions of allowing their citizens to actually vote for something. How it worked was the Communist party selected all of the candidates, there would be a few weeks of campaigning and then the voters were free to vote for or against each candidate. Routinely, candidates would receive about 99% of the vote each election day and then when the farce was over everybody would go back to standing in line waiting for turnips.
In America today, by contrast, each party's oligarchs select which "safe" candidate they are going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars supporting so that they can utterly obliterate any troublesome outsiders with thoughts of puling an upset in the primaries. And in case any of the non-select don't get the memo, they'll use their dictatorial powers to completely stifle them and their supporters at the convention (please go sit in a corner and shut up, Dr. Paul). The two nominees might differ on a few issues of no importance to the monied interests such as abortion and gay marriage, but when it comes to unwavering support of big business, war and empire they really will be, as the old political adage goes, an echo and not a choice.
The office of President of the United States has in effect become equivalent to the position of Premier of the Soviet Union, who was the titular head of government but took his marching orders from the elites, particularly the General Secretary of the Communist Party, who really ran the country. In America today, the oligarchs are not a completely unified group, and their battles for supremacy each election cycle may seem very real to them as evidenced by the billions of dollars now thrown into the campaigns in our post-Citizens United dystopia, but the results for the average person are always the same no matter who wins. That's how you get a guy installed in the Oval Office on the basis of his very tepid opposition to the Iraq War who then turns around and doubles down on the even more unpopular and pointless Afghanistan occupation.
On November 6th, more than 100 million Americans will dutifully trudge off to the polls to vote for one of two members of the ruling class who are no more representative of their interests than the candidates on those old Soviet ballots were for the average Russian or Ukrainian. Sure, there will be a few fringe third parties on the American ballot like the Libertarians and the Greens to make it look good, but 99%+ of the voters will cast their lot with the oligarchs, just like they did in those old Soviet elections. The one real difference is that the denizens of the Soviet Union likely suffered no delusions as to whether they were participating in anything other than a sham imitation of a true democratic process, which is far more than you can say about their contemporary American counterparts.
Bonus: "They couldn't hear this song in Russia...but couldn't understand the words anyway"
The latest Gallup poll has what would appear to be bad news for America's Congresscritters, especially those who are running for reelection this fall:
Ten percent of Americans in August approve of the job Congress is doing, tying last February's reading as the lowest in Gallup's 38-year history of this measure. Eighty-three percent disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job.
Congress approval was 30% in Gallup's first measure using this question wording in April 1974, and has averaged 34% across the more than 230 times it has been measured since. Congress approval has been below 40% since early 2005, and below 20% every month since June 2011 -- dropping to 10% in February of this year and again now.
Before 2007, Congress approval had been below 20% only twice -- in 1979 and 1992. The highest congressional job approval in Gallup's history was 84% in October 2001, a month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.
Congressional approval is down among all political groups and is now virtually the same across these groups -- with Democrats at 9%, independents at 11%, and Republicans at 10%. Democrats' approval declined the most, from 18% in July.
I say "would appear to be bad news" except for one little countervailing point: despite the fact that Congress's approval ratings have averaged a mere 34% since this poll began in 1974, more than 90% of all incumbents have won reelection every two years since that time. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that, despite the current record lows in Congressional approval ratings, the 90%-plus figure will be substantially different this year.
So in other words, an overwhelming majority of American voters hate Congress but yet will dutifully trudge off to the polls in November and vote for the sitting representative in their district and Senator for their state, assuming he or she is running this time. If the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results, the only conclusion you can therefore draw from this poll, my friends, is that American voters are certifiably insane.
Bonus: More and more, Bob Roberts looks like a documentary
Thanks to a recent series of refinery and pipeline mishaps, gas prices are spiking again, and Spoiled Rotten Nation isn't happy about it. In fact, SRN is SO unhappy about having to pay more money at the gas pump that it is demanding government action to correct the problem. The call to arms was issued on Friday by one Patrick DeHaan of Gas Buddy.com:
The day when motorists see such rapid increases in gasoline prices is the day when it should be asked by lawmakers if there is enough spare refining capacity. That day should have been long ago.
The number of refineries have dwindled. Unstable margins have added into the risky future of expanding a refinery. The U.S. can require a certain amount of ethanol to be consumed and produced yearly, prompting hundreds of new ethanol refineries. But oil refineries? Nothing new in decades. Why hasn't the U.S. looked at oil refineries and the lack thereof in the volatile prices? It doesn't matter how much oil prices are or how much ethanol we produce- if we're still subject as a country to sticker shock like we're seeing- what's the point?
As I recall, the requirement of ethanol was supposed to drive us towards energy security. As long as there is conventional gasoline, there's no such thing. As long as we're subject to refinery fires and equipment malfunctions, all is pointless.
We need additional refinery capacity. We saw the direct reason why several times this year- specifically along the West Coast today. It was the Great Lakes region a few weeks ago, it was the West Coast earlier this year. It could have been the East Coast earlier this year when several major refineries were being sold or closed.
The bottom line, politicians, is that it doesn't matter how hard we try to become energy independent. It should start here at home with managing our refineries better, and building new state of the art facilities- just like the ethanol industry has been doing the past decade.
As a motorist, I'm disgusted that we're subject to every problem at a refinery, whether it be a fire, a control board failure, an equipment problem, etc. Let's get the act together. If we don't follow up, it'll cost this country precious GDP as more money goes to the gas pump, diverted from elsewhere in the economy. Wake up, politicians.
Holy shit...alert Michelle Bachmann and let her know that there is an good old fashioned Trotskyite writing for Gas Buddy.
I'm being only half facetious here. Mr. DeHaan is simply falling back on the typical reaction that nearly every American has when they are upset about something: the federal government must DO something...and now. The fact that oil companies are private concerns and that their decisions to build or not build refineries have NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with government policy (other than the required licensing) nor the "politicians" he is desperately pleading for action from seems not to have crossed his mind.
To make matters worse, DeHaan confuses his demand for something to be done about America's supposed shortage of refining capacity with federal ethanol polices in which an entire industry largely exists because of corn subsidies and federal mandates. The government did not itself build any of the ethanol plants that are now consuming approximately 40% of America's corn crop each year and helping in this recent time of severe drought to drive corn prices into the stratosphere, it merely created the conditions to allow big agribusinesses to profit from the whole boondoggle.
Herein lies the very essence of Spoiled Rotten Nation, petulantly demanding that the government take action to allow its resource depleting and environmentally destructive happy motoring ways to continue indefinitely. It is also a big reason why there cannot be any serious debate about the very dire predicament we find ourselves in as the day of reckoning for our unsustainable "American way of life" approaches. The only redeeming quality in DeHaan's delusional article is that at least he didn't trot out the ridiculous notion sometimes asserted by conservatives that the utterly impotent environmental movement is responsible for preventing the rich and politically connected oil companies from building all the new refineries they'd want to build or drilling any hole anywhere they want were they so inclined.
The fact is, and this would be obvious to Mr. DeHaan if he stopped for a minute and thought this problem through rationally, that if the oil companies thought building new refineries was going to be at all profitable, they would be building them as fast as they could. The fact that they are not doing so tells you all you need to know about the reality of peak oil and whether the industry itself really expects there to be enough oil available in the future to keep the current number of refineries busy, let alone any new ones that they might bring online.
So, Mr. DeHaan, here is a little friendly advice from me to you and SRN: suck it up. Buy a hybrid. Move closer to your job. Take the fucking bus, already. Because it isn't going to get any better from here no matter how much you piss and moan, and there isn't and damn thing the politicians can do to help you.
Bonus: "You can say what you want to say...You can think what you think you want...It doesn't matter anyway...It's not funny anymore"
Now THAT is a beautiful bit of trolling. I have no idea who or what the Ralph Smeed Foundation is, in fact like most people I had never heard of the organization before they generated national headlines and yet another stupid media controversy by paying for the billboard pictured above. Nevertheless, whoever they are they did such a masterful job of once again getting idiot liberals and progressives to misdirect their ire that it made me wonder (and only half in jest) if the Obama campaign wasn't secretly behind the whole thing.
Because here is the question I have for the members of my former political tribe who are frothing at the mouth about this latest "outrage": what exactly are you upset about? Yes, the message is crass and insensitive coming so soon after the recent Aurora shootings. But that doesn't mean it isn't fundamentally correct. Putting aside the "in your face" nature of the billboard, what it is really saying is that Americans only get upset when it is other Americans who are killed for no good reason by a marauding sociopath. Shoot up innocent movie theater patrons in suburban Denver = national outrage. Drop a drone missile on an innocent wedding party in Afghanistan or Pakistan = "(Yawn) Hey, honey, what time is American Idol on, anyway?"
The reaction to this story on liberal op-ed website Think Progress was particularly galling. Check out some of the comments:
Scott Merrick · Top Commenter · Vancouver, British Columbia
Proving yet again that there is no bigger liar than a Republican/right winger. They KNOW Bush/Cheney started that war, as well as Iraq (which they conveniently do not mention in this revolting billboard), so not only are they dishonest, their pathological hatred is also fully on display.
Margie Robinson · Top Commenter · University of Georgia
Thanks for this, Scott, because it's 100% true: "Proving yet again that there is no bigger liar than a Republican/right winger. They KNOW Bush/Cheney started that war, as well as Iraq (which they conveniently do not mention in this revolting billboard), so not only are they dishonest, their pathological hatred is also fully on display."
Mark Duwe · Top Commenter · Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis
This nutjob could have donated the money he spent on this billboard to the Aurora Victim's Fund, if he really wanted to do something positive, but clearly, he doesn't. (Bill's note: because paying for an advertising campaign advocating the end of an insane war isn't doing anything "positive" at all)
Anna Soull · Top Commenter · Toronto, Ontario
I have never witnessed the citizens of the USA attack a President in such a demeaning, hateful way as I have witnessed their public disrespect of President Obama. In previous decades any such deep, personal, slanderous attacks against the President of the country would have resulted in criminal charges against the culprits. I wish that Republicans would actually use some sort of political argument in their race for the Presidency rather than a personal attack on the man who is trying to steady the sinking ship of a country he got for his Presidency. (Bill's note: Yep, Anna, and I'm sure you never referred to Bush as a war criminal. And if you didn't, you should have)
Rob Willhelm · Top Commenter
My concern is not with the sign itself but I definitely concern myself with the millions of supposed "Americans" who believe this crap, complemented by their total contempt for the fair and open democratic processes that finds Obama as the President of the United States, thus representing the greatest threat to my beloved country.
Scott Douglass · Top Commenter
I somehow don't think the people in Aurora "volunteered" for what they got. This person is an opportunist looking for their 15 minutes of fame. With any luck, the sign will fall on him as he's standing there admiring his 'handy-work'. (Bill's note: notice how this idiot is only thinking of American soldiers and has no concern whatsoever for the civilian casualties of Obama's wars?)
Jackie Rawlings · Top Commenter
This is just one of the many examples of how insane our country has become with the current insane Law Makers and their King Mitt. (Bill's note: yep, Jackie, this country is insane all right...and if you support Obama depite his war crimes, you are every bit as much of the problem as the conservatives you claim to loathe)
Aaron Keith Fewell · University of Louisville
This is so disheartening. While I'm a Democrat, I like to think I can look at things objectively and I work to see where people are coming from with their logic. But there is a growing faction of "movement conservatives" who have no logic...their strategy is simple, win on hatred, play on people's weaknesses. With each year, it becomes more outlandish. There was McCain heavily hinting at Obama as a terrorist at a rally and then he seemed shocked when he asked "Who is the real Barack Obama" and one of his mindless followers screamed "A terrorist". You can't practice the strategy of hatred and encourage it and then wash your hands of its effects.
Robin Potter
This is outrageous. I do not agree with the war, but come on, Obama did not start this war. I believe he is trying to end it and although, I am very sad about any deaths( American AND Afghans AND Iraqi"s) but I hardly see that we can lay this at THIS presidents feet. (Bill's note: holy shit, nearly four years and one huge troop surge later, Afghanistan is STILL Bush's war. The cognitive dissonance is strong with this one)
Margaret Ann Williams · Works at The Dow Chemical Company
this is about as absurd as I've seen, such a shame that they would spend money to advertise such ignorance. (Bill's note: yeah, and it's also a goddamn shame that the Guantanamo Gulag is still open despite the campaign promises of that lying sack of shit in the White House)
And so it continues on in this vein for nearly 100 more grueling comments. I didn't even have to selectively choose among them to make my point here. Sadly, the Ralph Smeed Foundation could not have done a better job of getting the delusional Obamabots fired up, and thereby more likely to go to the polls and vote for President Sellout again this November, thus helping to legitimize President Hopey-Changey's aggressively warmongering foreign policies, if that had been their intention all along.
There was a time in this sad, sorry ass country about 45 years ago when the American left brought down a Democratic president for waging aggressive war and slaughtering innocents abroad. ("Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" Remember THAT one, fuckers? What...because it isn't YOUR ass on the line anymore it no longer matters? Is THAT it?) And thus has the American left has been reduced to reflexively supporting a President who does exactly the same thing because, hey, you know, at least he isn't George Bush, Dick Cheney or Mitt Romney.
Bonus: "Your flag decal won't get you into heaven anymore...they're already overcrowded from your dirty little war"
Once in awhile, I run into a piece on a mainstream website that perfectly sums up my position on a particular issue. So without further ado, here is Hamilton Nolan from Gawker:
How did the recent ruling on Obamacare change the American public's opinion on the Supreme Court? Well, the public approval rate of the Supreme Court went down. Who cares?
The average American cannot tell you how many justices are on the Supreme Court, much less intelligently interpret the vagaries of Consitutional law and accurately assess how well it is being applied, in a philosophically coherent manner. Most Americans get the bulk of their education about the legal system from the popular Fox television series Cops.
Sure, there may be a vague—and accurate—public sense that the Supreme Court is dangerously politicized for such an unaccountable body. But the fact that the latest high-profile ruling featured a justice going against his party's preference should be an encouraging sign for anyone with that concern. The fact that public opinion simply marched in lockstep with the yammerings of cable news pundits makes it all the more clear that asking the average American about the Supreme Court is as worthwhile as asking a two-year-old how to pick up that hot girl at the bar: sure, they'll you something, but it won't be worth a shit.
I suppose the members of the Supreme Court can simply pose next to a popular professional athlete when they're ready for their approval numbers to rise again.
Poor Michelle Bachmann. She REALLY doesn't understand the way the world works. Because, you see, Mooslim-bashing (and gay-bashing, and librul-baching, and feminazi-bashing, and athiest-bashing) is perfectly acceptable as a tactic for scaring up votes and keeping the little people divided against each other if you are a wingnut Republican. You've just got to be sure that the Mooslim you are bashing isn't part of the in crowd.
Now even that tanned clown John Boehner and political hatchet man Ed Rollins are getting in on the act, ganging up on Bachmann for her recent two-bit McCarthyite antics. Here is Atlantic Wire with the details:
Speaker of the House John Boehner has become the latest high-profile Republican to denounce Michele Bachmann's "pretty dangerous" accusations that Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's deputy chief of staff and Anthony Weiner's wife, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. "From everything that I do know of [Abedin], she has a sterling character and I think accusations like this being thrown around are pretty dangerous," Boehner told reporters during his briefing today. (There's that word again, hmmm ... sterling) As Senator John McCain did yesterday, Boehner is doing his part in taking down accusations put forth by Rep. Michele Bachmann and other conservative congresspersons which allege that Abedin, among others working in the U.S. government, have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Bachmann and Rep. Trent Franks (R-Arizona), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Thomas Rooney (R-Fla.) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) put those accusations in letters which were sent to five federal agencies, reports The Huffington Post's Amanda Terkel and Jennifer Bendery.
Boehner said he hadn't yet seen the letters, according to Politico, but his admonishment of Bachmann's crew is notable in that he joins the ranks of high profile Republicans-- denouncing the "dangerous" accusations. Since McCain's fiery defense yesterday, senators like Florida's Marco Rubio and Massachusetts' Scott Brown have voiced their displeasure with Bachmann, but the most scathing seems to be Bachmann's former campaign chairman Ed Rollins, who has come out with a "Shame on You" op-ed on Fox News' s website on Wednesday. Here's Rollins's parting shot:
As a member of Congress, with a seat on the House Intelligence Committee, Mrs. Bachmann you know better. Shame on you, Michele! You should stand on the floor of the House and apologize to Huma Abedin and to Secretary Clinton and to the millions of hard working, loyal, Muslim Americans for your wild and unsubstantiated charges. As a devoted Christian, you need to ask forgiveness for this grievous lack of judgment and reckless behavior.
Gee, the whole spectacle of the right wing eating its own to protect poor Huma is almost enough to bring a tear to a good, diversity-loving liberal's eye. I mean, she is the very embodiment of the American Dream: daughter of immigrants, educated in the finest schools and has become very successful based upon her talents and work ethic. Heck, she's even a Muslim who married someone JEWISH. She's a wine-sipping, brie-eating, NPR-listening, Prius-driving, Daily Show-watcher's wet dream. You just HAVE to admire her, am I right?
WRONG!
Let's examine for a moment who Huma Abedin is. First of all, she is a prominent Congressman's wife, and even though that Congressman had to resign his seat over a sex scandal, he's still part of the exclusive club of business, political, academic and media "leaders" who run this country on behalf the billionaire elites. According to Wikipedia, Huma herself first began working as an intern for Hillary Clinton in 1996 when the latter was First Lady. She rode Clinton coat tails, first as a Senate staffer and now as the Deputy Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State.
That means Huma has been with her boss the whole time while the latter voted to authorize the Iraq War, was a consistant supporter of the Iraq War while in the Senate, and then was the Obama administration's most passionate advocate for the Afghanistan surge after she became Secretary of State. Yet if Huma has had any qualms whatsoever about her boss's consistent belligerency towards her fellow Muslims, she has kept it well hidden. So well, in fact, that (again, according to Wikipedia), Hillary Clinton said about Huma on the eve of her wedding to Anthony Weiner: "I only have one daughter. But if I had a second daughter, it would [be] Huma."
Huma Abedin is in fact a perfect tool of the empire. As a minority female, she is the Democratic Condoleeza Rice, a useful idiot that even the likes of wrinkled up old warmonger John McCain and the blithering John Boehner can hide behind when they try to convince people that America really is all about diversity and not run by a tiny cabal of rich, evil old white fuckers who rule the world with an iron fist. The agenda here should be very apparent to anyone who is paying attention. As I've said repeatedly on this blog, whenever you see Republicans and Democrats agreeing about something, THAT is when you should keep a tight hold on your wallet.
Though she is far too stupid to ever realize it, Michelle Bachmann has now been shown her real place in the hierarchy of the American elites. She may have thought she was a true insider, but what she didn't realize is that she is instead another Rod Blagojevich, a sideshow clown whose batshit insane antics merely serve as a holographic distraction for the idiot masses. The reactions of McCain, Rollins, Boehner and other conservatives to Bachmann's over-the-line demagoguery against Huma were a shot across the bow, and if she persists in wandering off the reservation of the elite consensus, she might just find herself sharing a fate similar to that of the original Tail Gunner Joe.
Bonus: I'll bet Passover in the Weiner household was never anything like this
Yesterday was of course Independence Day in America. A day we celebrate in earnest even though many of us have no real fucking clue what it is that we are actually celebrating. It's a day when dozens of nimrods across this great land invariably blow off various body parts doing things with fireworks that they were never designed to do and challenging old Charles Darwin to take his best fucking shot.
If there is one single annual Fourth of July event that sums up just how badly America has gone astray, it would have to be the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest held every year at Coney Island. Not so much the contest itself, really. After all, Coney Island was was always a place of seedy entertainment. No, it's the fact that it has become a major televised spectacle and has helped launch a professional sports league called, I shit you not, Major League Eating. That America's whole economy has become based on mindless consumption is bad enough, but now we've gone and made a major spectator sport out of it and put it on fucking ESPN.
In that spirit, I thought I would share this enlightening story from Deadspin, which attempts to answer the age old question, what happens when these guys have to poop after the contest?
The Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest is a lot of things—patriotic, promotional, repellant—but above all, the contest is a study in misdirection. Like so many of Coney Island's storied card sharks and freak shows, the contest succeeds by distracting its audience, plying them with sideshows between and around the twenty minutes of actual competitive consumption. Mookie Wilson, Greg Louganis and Miss New York dived into a 15-foot apple pie, somebody pulled a pick-up truck with his hair, MarShon Brooks played HORSE against a randomly selected crowd member. The action was deliberately brisk, but it couldn't vanquish my reasonable, pressing question, the question that would be on anyone's mind.
What are the post-contest poops like?
Every competitor I spoke to or heard speak yesterday maintained that they would not be throwing up at any point, before, during, or after the contest. Forget the skill and determination required to eat 50 or 60 hot dogs in 10 minutes: the true test of wills comes after that, when the media descends on the eaters in the Coney Island heat—an atmosphere that can turn stomachs even before Nathan's stuffs them.
Some competitive eater code dictates that they may not, under any circumstance, admit to feeling even a little nauseated. But they have to be. An eater must walk around for the rest of the day full—literally full—of hot dogs (packed, as an oppositional pamphlet reminded us as we left, "with fat, sodium and cholesterol"), the water they dunked them in, and what Major League Eating euphemistically calls "detritus," which is to say, chewed-up hot dogs they mistakenly spat out, but then had to re-swallow because otherwise they would have been docked points or disqualified.
But let's say the competitors were being honest about not vomiting. If all those dogs don't come out one end, they have to come out the other. So I sought answers. Do they race to the bathroom right away? If not, how long would it be until the post-contest dump? How does that dump compare to a regular dump? Do toilets get clogged? Are they just in the bathroom the rest of the day?
I found someone who I thought had been on stage—he was a bit of a mess, as eaters often are post-competition—and jabbed a tape recorder in his face to ask about his next shit. Part of me wishes that he had been a bystander, as I briefly feared, if only because that would have made his unhesitating response ("Not fun!") pretty amazing. But the eater in question was actually Micah "Wing Kong" Collins, ranked thirteenth in the world by Major League Eating. He once ate 84 ounces of baked beans in 58 seconds. The man presumably knows from shits, and yet, when pressed, he said his post-hot-dog contest evacuation would probably only take 10 or 15 minutes, and would likely occur about three hours from the time of our chat. Pretty standard stuff.
Lee Vilinsky, a first-time competitor who received lusty boos for having the temerity to be from Canada, echoed Collins' sentiments. Though he wouldn't say when, exactly, he could expect to rid himself of the day's work, Vilinsky speculated that the result would be "Not pretty."
Patrick "Deep Dish" Bertoletti seemed like a good candidate to give me more detail. The third-place finisher at 51 hot dogs, Bertoletti, who ate in a Speedo, seemed like the answer to a poop enthusiast's prayers. "There's Porta-Potties back there, I think they might just explode, to be honest." Alas, he was joking—apparently those Porta-Potties generally go unused. Bertoletti said he'd need a good eight hours before he had really digested the 51 dogs, and he was disinclined to predict size or intensity that far into the future. Bertoletti claimed to have "tons more space" in his stomach, and explained that what separates Chestnut from his competition is the ability to eat until he's at true capacity without succumbing to tangential roadblocks, such as throat soreness, or fatigue. I was more interested in the poop, but hey, spare a thought for Bertoletti: he ate 51 hot dogs in 10 minutes and still lost by 17. He needed to vent.
Runner-up Tim "Eater X" Janus, eater of 52 hot dogs (and burper of 18.1 seconds) grew contemplative when asked about his next poop. After a pause, he shook his head and said only, "You gotta live with the consequences of your actions." (We bet the average American hears this a lot on July 4.)
With four interviews in the books and the crowd dispersing, I'd only learned what the poops wouldn't be like: not fun, not pretty, not immediate, not inconsequential. Would I get any positive comment on what it's like to crap out scores of hot dogs? A media scrum formed around the only remaining eater, winner Joey Chestnut, who answered questions like, "How did you eat so many hot dogs?" very professionally ("I used my mouth") despite the sweat pouring from his body, and the fact that he'd just eaten 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes. Chestnut was dismissed after a minute or two and the scrum dispersed, but he stopped for one last question on his way out. Suddenly sheepish, I asked, "Mr. Chestnut, what will your next bowel movement be like?" Resplendent in victory, sweatier than anyone I've ever seen before in my life, Chestnut thought for a moment and then said confidently: "Picture-worthy."
Even better than the article was this delightful little nugget from the reader comments:
As the friend of a girl that dates one of the top three finishers and having attended the Nathan's private after party every year I can tell you that they all puke it up 100% of the time. Every contest, no matter the food. The euphemism is "vacating."
I have come to know way more about this "sport" than I truly ever cared to--the training involves drinking gallons of water regularly to expand the stomach but with the immediate need to puke it back up before suffering from water poisoning. The eater my friend dates has been in the hospital because he was "training" but didn't puke it back up in time. Water poisoning is apparently pretty serious. I Wikipedia'ed it.
Anyhow, the real funny stories come at this Nathan's after party every year--these guys are complete social outcasts that all the sudden become "stars" one day a year and totally act like douchebags for a night. But not like actual douchebags, like what nerdy kids think douchebags should act like. One of them always ends up getting shitfaced and being kicked out, only to have a gaggle of weird-ass eating groupies (not really all that attractive, but still--actual fucking groupies) attend to him on the curb. Then he usually pukes more.
