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Wednesday, December 31, 2014

The Year In Confusion

Let me be the first to wish you a Merry...oh...uh...

Let me be the first to wish you a Happy New Year!

Things we learned in 2014:

If you can find a way to restrict minorities and younger voters from voting, you can win elections even with a collection of sociopathic morons for candidates.

The poor deserve to suffer.

Some Republicans are felons, and some Republicans are white supremacists. And I know I might be going out on a limb here, but some are probably both.

In general, dictators have very poor senses of humor.

It's always OK to shoot black men. No ifs, ands or buts. After all, it's one of our Second Amendment rights.

Cops have feelings, too. In fact, they can be downright whiny, pouty, little bunnies when they get their feelings hurt. But they can still get away with shooting you, so watch out! And always do what they say, especially when they're sexually assaulting you.

Unlimited money pumped into elections is exactly what the Founding Fathers had in mind.

A Democrat pretending to be a Republican will always lose to a Republican pretending to be a human being.

The Big Lie, that political tactic beloved by Republicans everywhere, still works.

The law of the land is whatever Antonin Scalia decides it should be at that particular moment. But don't worry, it will be applied as unevenly as possible.

Apparently, Kenyan anti-colonial socialism is the best thing that ever happened to the stock market.

And finally, now that noted semiologist Rush Limbaugh has told us, plainly and with his usual level headed good humor, what color James Bond is, perhaps he could tell us what color Jesus was.

Peace on Earth, Joy to the World, Don't Drink and Drive, blah blah blah...

See you next year.

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Today's Quiz

Get your pencils ready:

If and when the Supremes destroy the Affordable Care Act, A) how are the insurance companies going to react to losing all of those paying customers? and B) how will the Republicans explain to some of their supporters why they don't, and perhaps can't, have insurance anymore?

300 words or less, and remember punctuation and spelling are always important.

Extra credit: who do you think will win in the fight between Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and all those old Cubans who got run out of their own country 50 years ago on one side, and every U.S. corporation licking its chops over doing business in Cuba on the other?

Monday, December 22, 2014

Hey, What Happened?

I thought we were all supposed to be dead from Ebola by now? That's what they said on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. That we were all going to die because Obama hates white people and Ebola is his way of getting back at us for slavery. And if we didn't quarantine all of West Africa, we'd all be dead by Thanksgiving!

And what about ISIS/ISIL? It was neck and neck whether we would die from Ebola before ISIS/ISIL cut off our heads because Obama, that secret Muslim, was such a lousy, weak leader, and because he detests America so much he had opened the door for his brethren to sneak in and kill us while we slept!

And gasoline was supposed to be 6, 7 maybe even 8 dollars a gallon because of Obama's stupid energy policies! But it isn't and it wasn't and...what's the deal on that?

And the economy was supposed to collapse under the threat of that Kenyan's anti-colonial socialism, yet the stock market keeps setting records and more jobs have been created than in George W. Bush's entire presidency. That can't be possible, can it?

And remember how Putin was a three dimensional chess master while poor Barack was still shooting marbles, poorly, somewhere in a Nairobi alley? And how excited the right got about manly, manly Vladimir the Stud Dictator? Jeez, it was almost like they're genetically wired to worship totalitarianism...How'd that turn out again?

This is madness I tells ya, madness! I just don't know who to believe...

I guess the good news is that we can stop worrying about climate change, and those anti-business loons over at the EPA, because noted climate scientist and oil company cuddly toy Senator Jim Inhofe is in charge of things now and he says there's no such thing as man made climate change.

Whew, we sure dodged a bullet there.

Also, and this is very important, according to a majority of our Supreme Court, and everyone at Fox News, too, we live in a post racial society now, where everyone is judged by the contents of their character, and not by the color of their skin. And therefore, the police only shoot criminals, and not just any black person who they feel threatened or disrespected, by.

Wow, that's a relief!


Monday, December 15, 2014

You're Telling Me The CIA Lied? No!

The problem with replacing all the top CIA guys is that you'd only end up replacing them with other CIA guys...

And they all lie. And when I say "all" I mean most. And when I say "most" I mean all. And when I say "black" I mean "white". And vice versa. They don't call their world a "hall of mirrors" for nothing. It is the nature of the business.

And it has driven at least a few of them completely paranoid crazy.

I'm not sure how the Brits get around this fundamental issue with MI-6....Perhaps they don't.

Anyway, the last President who talked about truly substantive change to the CIA was a fellow named Kennedy. Remember him?

After the Bay of Pigs JFK was so pissed off about being lied to by his "intelligence" agency that he wanted to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the wind."

And we saw how that worked out in the end...

For the past 67 years we've let this exclusive little club do whatever it thought best to protect US interests, and by that I mean US business interests (often oil related) all over the world. This would include overthrowing governments, assassinations, torture,  and all sorts of other cool stuff. Since it is, nominally, part of our government, when its fuck-ups become too obvious, it will, on occasion, allow its wrists to be slapped by Congress. Then it goes back to doing whatever it wants, under the pretense of "protecting" us.

And should you complain too much about this, and be in a position to possibly do something about it, well, they have ways of dealing with that, too.

Friday, December 12, 2014

The CIA's Nuremberg Defense

Uh, for those of you not up on your World War II references, that would be "I was only following orders."

Adolph Eichmann meet Dick Cheney and all the good and true Skull and Bones boys of our CIA.

Now, I know it's dangerous to bring up the Nazis in any contemporary context. Unless you're Rush Limbaugh, drug addled sage to the unwashed, unwanted, and unredeemable, who gave us the term "femiNazis", a clever coinage which made all of his minions--his leering, slobbering, mouth-breathing, low wattage minions--chortle until they wet themselves.

But it should be pointed out, at least in passing, that the CIA has always had a certain affinity for Adolph's Crew.

After all, they brought as many as they could out of Europe after the end of the war. Set 'em up out of harm's way. Gave them fun new work they could really sink their teeth into.

Kindred spirits, you know?

So, it was only natural that "I was only following orders" was the first thing that popped into the collective CIA mind when they finally got exposed. Again.

Like I said "kindred spirits".

If you wonder why so many of "them" hate us, you really should take a good long look into what's been done in our name all these years...

Monday, December 8, 2014

World War II Was Won By A Cripple, A Drunk, A Commie, And A Queer

That would be FDR, Churchill, Stalin and Alan Turing.

Forget all your generals, forget all those heroes, dead and alive. Replaceable and expendable to a man.

The war was won by the combined brainpower and will of four people who today would be mocked relentlessly by the geniuses at Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and all the rest of the right wing media.

Think about that for a second.

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

American Justice

Young Ben Jr and I were in New York City when the Ferguson grand jury reached its decision and so we found ourselves marching up the West Side of Manhattan from the theatre district to Harlem surrounded by people chanting "hands up--don't shoot!" and various other things.

Of course, since we were predominantly white, middle class folks, mostly college students, no one got shot.

In fact, we had what amounted to a police escort clearing the way ahead, shutting down cross streets and redirecting traffic.

See, the cops know who they work for.

And who they don't work for.

The ugly truth is that many of our worst "thugs" have badges and guns and a hatred and/or fear of people who aren't white.

And that's American Justice.