Happy Memorial Day!

On this Happy Memorial Day 2014, we pause from our bar-b-ques and ballgames and parades to remember one thing:

The Republicans love our veterans.

Just ask them.

Well, not all of our veterans.

Not the gay ones. Yuck.

But other than that one small exception, Republicans can't wait to tell you how much they love our veterans.

Of course, they don't love them enough to adequately fund the VA.

Because even though VA funding has gone up by 50% under Obama (little thanks to the party of "no") the number of veterans needing help has gone up over 100% since Simple W. started his wars.

And, surprise surprise, the last bill to increase VA funding was filibustered by--you guessed it--the Republicans.

Now, before you jump to any rash conclusions, this only proves that patriotism is one thing and raising taxes on the rich is another. Obviously, they are mutually exclusive.

Still, the Republicans love our veterans so much that they will happily make more of them at the drop of a hat.

What Republicans really mean when they say how much they love our veterans is this:

We will always find enough money to start wars, but never find enough money to care for the people who do the fighting.

Oh, and God Bless America!

CRAP

John Sununu, one of the smaller chunks floating around in the clogged toilet bowl that is the Republican Tea Party, says that President Obama is "lazy" and "not that bright". I guess he forgot "shiftless".

Let's take a moment and  recall who and what John Sununu is--besides a Rush Limbaugh wannabe, that is: the foreign born, former governor of one of our less significant states and the one time chief of staff for George H.W. Bush--one of our less significant Presidents, whose son, Simple W,  is the gold standard for "lazy" and "not that bright". Sununu is another one of those delusional, blowhard Republicans who like to pretend that the Bush-Cheney years never happened, that everything was fine until the "unprepared, lazy, Kenyan, anti-American, socialist, Muslim usurper" somehow "tricked" the American people into electing him. Uh huh.

Here's a fun fact about Sununu: While he was Bush The Elder's chief of staff he used military aircraft to fly to golf resorts, ski lodges, and Republican fundraisers. You know, for the good of the country. It is estimated that this cost taxpayers over $600,000, of which Sununu, when called out over it, repaid only a pittance.

Sounds like just another Republican pig sucking on the teat of government while constantly decrying those who truly need government assistance as leeches.

Yeah, I'd value and respect his opinion. Oink.

The Big Lie

"His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."  (excerpted from an OSS psychological profile of Adolph Hitler)

Remind you of anyone?

Of course it is wrong to compare today's Republican Tea Party with the Nazis.

For one thing, the Nazis were much better organized.  Better dressers, too.

However they do share at least a few traits. First there's the fascistic love of pomp and militarism. Remember how hot and bothered the neo-cons got when they saw Simple W. in his flight suit? Not a dry seat in the house! And those were the men...

They love them some war, too. Oh, not to actually fight in--remember Dick Cheney's "other priorities"? But they are very eager for you to fight for them. Because, let's face it, your life isn't nearly as valuable as theirs. (Shocking to think of it, but the Nazis have the moral edge here. They actually fought in their war.)

Then there's the fanatical hatred of the weak or different. Nothing pisses a good Tea Party Republican off more than a different skin color, unless it's a different religion, or a different sexual orientation. Or poor people in general. I think "parasites" is the word they use.

Again I ask, remind you of anyone?

But the biggest similarity is their undying faith in The Big Lie.

And why not? It worked for the Nazis and it's worked for the Republican Party for years. And it's so very easy:

Lie. About anything. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Taxes, Abortion, Healthcare, Education, Welfare, Immigration, Jobs, Foreign Policy, Gun Control, Crime. Then keep on repeating the lie until the simpletons and hillbillies believe it. Fox News and Rush Limbaugh can always be counted on to help with this.

At the same time, in the interest of balanced reporting, the so called "liberal media" will ignore most, if not all, of your lies. Apparently in their eyes, a thousand Republican lies can be counterbalanced by one Democratic lie. Anyway, if and when they do finally notice, enough time will have passed that the lies will have become facts for your base.

The truth can be a powerful thing. But when a political party admits to "creating its own reality", the "truth" becomes anything they say it is.

Here Lies Willard Mitt Romney

And lies and lies and lies and lies...

If it's not about Medicare or Social Security, it's about RomneyCare or what Bain Capital actually did to make money. Or how much he does--or doesn't--pay in taxes. Or...

Oh well, I guess we should expect nothing more from a Republican presidential candidate. Doesn't matter how much money they have, where they went to school, or how "moral" they claim to be. They just can't help themselves.

And who can blame them? It's been a highly successful "strategerie." Say one thing and yet do exactly the opposite. And always be the first to point the finger at the other guy. Then wrap yourself in the flag and grab a Bible.

They've gotten away with it since Nixon, whose "people" convinced the South Vietnamese to stay away from the Paris peace talks long enough to get himself elected. That's treason, by the way. Then, after a brief pause brought on by Watergate, it really kicked into high gear with Ronald Reagan, whose "people", allied with the Israeli's, subverted President Carter's negotiations with Iran to help tilt the 1980 election to Reagan. That's treason, too. Since the allegedly "liberal" Mainstream Media mostly ignored these acts, the Republicans were unshackled and emboldened enough that their lying, by now institutionalized, has stayed at near terminal velocity since then.

Remember Simple W. and the Dark Lord Cheney? I rest my case.

Today, the Party of Lincoln has finally reached rock bottom, willfully turning itself into the Party of Norquist and Limbaugh. And its candidate will come from Romney, Santorum or Gingrich. As that loveable cut-up Karl Marx once said, "history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."

I am tired. I have not the time, space, or inclination to list all of their various lies. It's not that hard to look them up. Suffice it to say, if their lips are moving there's a better than 50% chance that they are lying.

But some of you will still vote for them anyway. Is it because you are stupid, or scared, or crazy? Or a racist, or a fool, or one of the 1%? Or all of the above?

All Apologies

Here's a thought for the Dark Lord Cheney and his daughter Liz, who is a particularly nasty piece of work in her own right:

President Obama doesn't have to apologize to anyone for anything until lil' Dick Cheney apologizes for the following: all of the lies about WMD's and yellow cake uranium that led to the bait and switch war with Iraq; the billions of dollars that Halliburton subsequently made in Iraq; the secret energy policy meetings with his oil company buddies; the secret, unrecorded testimony to the 9-11 commission where he sat Simple W. on his lap just like a ventriloquist's dummy; the instituting of torture as official policy; being a chicken hawk despite the five draft deferments he got during the Vietnam War; about a million dead Iraqis; and well, anything else he ever did as a member of the US government. Oh, and for generally being just a no good lying sack of shit.

That ought to keep the old prick busy until the mechanical heart finally gives out.

They Must Think You're Stupid

Let's assume for the sake of argument that Simple W. got his way and Social Security was privatized in, say, 2005-2006. What do you suppose would have happened to all of that money in the great Wall Street meltdown of 2008?

Would Baby Jesus have come down and magically saved all the old folks' pensions?

Uh huh. That's exactly what would have happened! And they all lived happily ever after...

But those wicked socialist Democrats wouldn't let Simple W. and all the rest of the the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight get their slimy hands on Social Security. So there was no need for divine intervention, and even though the economy crashed and burned, and millions of people suffered, there was at least some form of safety net for the most vulnerable of our citizens.

Time passes. People forget. 2008 was such a long time ago. Not to mention 1929. Who was this FDR guy again? Weren't things so much better when Reagan was President? Who's on Dancing With the Stars and what are the Kardashians up to?

There is much discontent across the land because President Obama hasn't been able to wave a magic wand and fix everything that his predecessor messed up. Also he's, well, black. And that doesn't sit well with the large number of Americans who are still living in the toxic past.

Lies become a kind of currency and an oxymoron-ic chant is heard across the land, "Keep your government hands off of my Medicare!" Wait. What?!

"Corporations are people! They have the right to unlimited free speech!" Huh?! "The Supreme Court says so!" Well, OK then.

Besides, didn't Lincoln say "of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations"? I'm pretty sure he did--I think I heard it on Fox News.

In the confusion, the billionaire owners of the country see a chance to finally destroy the pesky labor movement. "Those damn union workers have been stealing from us all these years! And all those annoying government regulations? They're stifling growth! Tell you what, let us do whatever we want to the air and water and soil, and maybe we'll give you a job. Deal?"

As the chaos continues, the really big brains of the Republican Party are back again with their "let's privatize Social Security" mantra. Because, to quote the great bank robber Willie Sutton, "that's where the money is." And we're talking about a lot of money. Imagine the broker commissions! Imagine the campaign contributions to Republican candidates! Tax deductible, of course.

And the beauty of it, at least from a satirist's point of view, is that there are people who listen to them and nod their empty heads and say "Yeah! What a great idea!"

Terrifying

As we approach the tenth anniversary of September 11th, the avoidable tragedy that will be forever known, like Pearl Harbor, by its date, we find ourselves in an increasingly terrifying world.

Even though Bin Laden is finally dead--and killed not by order of that smirking, flight suit wearing, dry drunk, AWOL prone National Guardsman, Simple W, or his puppet master, the gun safety poster boy, multi student deferment wielding, Dark Lord Cheney, but instead by Barack Obama, our Kenyan Socialist semi-Democrat President--the world just gets scarier and scarier.

It turns out the enemy, to paraphrase Pogo, is "us".

"We" get fooled over and over by the same divide and conquer tactics that Nixon proudly called his Southern Strategy. Emphasize fear more than anything else. Play the whites off against the blacks. As an added twist play both off against the browns.

"We" accept stupid, simplistic explanations from bought and paid for corporate mouthpieces masquerading as statesmen or "mavericks".

"We" forget the lessons and struggles of the past at the drop of a hat. As a nation we have ADHD. We believe in a fictional history, fairy tales about a nation that never existed. And whoever tells them the best, Ronald Reagan being the prime example of this, gets our vote.

"We" make millionaires out of Murdoch, Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly and all of the other purveyors of hate, fear and divisiveness.

"We" don't want to pay taxes--but we still want services. But just for "us" and not for "them". Because "they" don't deserve them and "we" do.

"We" want to blame someone else. Usually the wrong someone else.

This nation will never fall to a foreign enemy. But the enemies within? I'm not so sure.

Worst Case Scenario

My boy and I went to see the angry monkey movie today and naturally that got me to thinking about our Republican cousins and the 2012 election.

To begin with, we should never underestimate the ability of the American people to do the wrong thing. Exhibit #1: the 2004 Presidential election. I'm sure that some of you believe, as I do, that the 2004 vote in Ohio was rigged. But the point is that the election shouldn't have been close enough for "electronic funny business" in one Midwestern state to have made any difference. After 4 years of Simple W--the Appointee in Chief--and the Dark Lord Cheney, including their Keystone Kops act on September 11th, the resulting bait and switch war in Iraq and, to top it off, replacing a large surplus with a huge deficit, how could more than 60 million people still vote for the Republican ticket? Are they that stupid? Sadly, the answer is "yes".

So let's say up is really down and black is really white and in 2012 the good citizens of the USA elect some lunatic Republican to the highest office in the land. (Next to Grover Norquist's, that is. Oh, that's right, he's never been elected to anything. He's a lobbyist. Strange, isn't it?)

And let's throw in the Senate for good measure. So that means the White House, both houses of Congress, and perhaps most importantly, the Supreme Court, would all be in Republican hands.

Doesn't really matter which Republican either. Sure Bachmann (or Palin or Cain or Perry) might be the craziest of the lot, but when you get right down to it, is there really that much difference between any of them and Romney (or Pawlenty, or Gingrich or, hell, any angry monkey)?

Can you imagine a country run by these people with absolutely no checks and balances?

And you think you're fucked now?! Baby, you don't know what fucked is...

Democracy In Action, or: Andrew Kowalczyk is an Idiot

For those of you wondering, "who the hell is Andrew Kowalczyk?", he is the author of one of the stupidest letters to the editor I've ever read. And considering that most of the letters to the editor that I read are from The Arizona Republic, that's really quite an achievement. Tip o' the hat to you, Andy!

Why is Andrew Kowalczyk an idiot? Let me count the ways...To quote from young Andrew's scribblings, "While adults were away in 2009 and 2010, the Democrats in Congress and President Obama decided to have a wild toga party for all their friends and cronies." This is so absurdly wrong that I'm not really sure where to begin. But I'll try. For starters, what "adults" could Andy possibly be referring to? The Republican Party? Really?

What happened in 2008-2009 is that the bill came do for eight years of The Dark Lord Cheney and Simple W's malfeasance. They squandered the Clinton surplus, they cut taxes on the wealthiest whenever they could, they let oil companies set energy policy, they attempted (but failed) to privatize Social Security, they started two unfunded wars, they crippled the regulatory oversight of Wall Street, they used the Constitution like toilet paper, and on and on. Oh, and let's not forget that 9/11 happened on their watch, too. Oops. So those can't be the "adults" Special K is talking about. Only an idiot would believe that the financial crisis, to pick just one Republican catastrophe, was Obama's doing.

Andy K. continues, "They went wild on the Internet, ordering all sorts of stuff that they've been dreaming of for years and years. They used America's credit card." This is the K meister trying to be clever. You know, like Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh? Of course it is unsubstantiated by the facts--unless you use Fox News as your source for "facts". "All sorts of stuff"? I guess he means healthcare reform. For some reason, "Obamacare" really pisses a lot of idiots off. I'm not sure why. I guess they like being at the mercy of insurance companies, or they've bought all of the Right's tired old lies about the "evils" of socialized medicine, or they plan on never getting sick or getting old. Or maybe it's just because they're idiots.

More Kowalczyk wisdom: "It's now 2011, and the Democrats are saying that America has to pay for their wild binge and they want a bigger allowance." The "wild binge" he is referring to was the money spent preventing the world's economy from melting down. Incidentally, this "binge" began on W's watch. By the way, here's a fact for Andy to chew on, if he can stop frothing at the mouth long enough to chew on anything: The national debt increased more under both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush than it has under Obama. The national debt also includes several trillion dollars that we owe ourselves. Kowalczyk's "bigger allowance" means the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling is an artificial construct that many economists consider ridiculous. However, up until now, it has always been automatically raised, regardless of who the president was. Apparently Andy would rather see the US default on its obligations than give Obama what every other President has gotten. That'll show 'em! Take that world economy!

Now we come to the heart of little Andy Kowalczyk's ravings: "Republicans are not going to raise their allowance and are simply asking for the Dems to send back some of the stuff so we might have a chance to pay for the stuff we can't send back." Since Andy doesn't specify what "stuff" we should send back, I will. Let's send back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Let's send back all of our outsourced manufacturing jobs. Those are the two root causes of most of our debt to China. Let's send back the bill for the Iraq War. It's over a trillion dollars and rising. Let's send back Federal subsidies for oil companies. Let's send back all of the corporate tax loopholes. While we're at it, let's raise the wage cap on Social Security and stop once and for all this nonsense about privatization. Now honestly, do any of those "send backs" sound like Republican ideas?

No. Republican "ideas" include cutting taxes for billionaires and corporations while gutting the safety net for the rest of us; doing away with the Departments of Education and Energy, Head Start, the EPA, the FCC, the FDA, the SEC, Medicare, Planned Parenthood, and any other agency, governmental or otherwise, that might stand in the way of their plans for turning the USA into a Christian Corporate Fascist state. Amen.

I decided to add Democracy In Action to the title of this post because Andrew Kowalczyk's vote counts the same as mine or yours. Even though he's demonstrably an idiot.

Of course, we're all born ignorant of certain things. But some of us choose to remain ignorant. Many of those who choose to remain ignorant end up in Arizona. In fact they make up a majority of the state's voters. The current state that Arizona, and indeed the nation, finds itself in is a direct result of the rise of Idiot Power. And The Arizona Republic is their paper of record.

A Pair To Draw To

Some jokes write themselves.

Sarah Palin and Donald Trump?

The two reigning giants of unwarranted celebrity got together the other day to share a slice and no doubt commiserate about the state of the union.

Unfortunately, just like Simple W. and the Dark Lord Cheney's 9-11 Commission testimony, no transcript survives, but one can only imagine the intellectual fireworks that took place when the great minds went mano a mano. "Not since Jefferson dined alone," as JFK remarked in a slightly different context...

The down home gal who can see Russia from her house and the big city man who can't help but slap his name--and 5 pounds of gold leaf--on every brick he finds, share at least one strong conviction: it's all Obama's fault.

"Sarah and Don: Forever And Always." I smell a reality show!

Or at the very least a Saturday Night Live sketch.

They're hicks, Rita

Arizona lags behind in so many areas: education, health care, the arts, public transportation, job creation. The list just goes on and on...So it's good to know we can still brag of being if not the craziest state, certainly amongst them. The latest evidence of this is our "birther bill".

For those of you who are just visiting here and not acquainted with our ways, "birthers" are people who continue to insist that Barack Obama pulled a fast one and is not in fact a native born American, and therefore cannot legally hold the office of President of the United States. They are the spiritual descendants of flatearthers and nothing will change their opinion. Definitely not facts. Thank God they've found a state legislature that will finally stand up for them!

As Representative Judy Burges, R-Skull Valley said (and I promise you I am not making this up) "It's essential that we bring back the integrity to the office." Her concerns begin to make sense when you remember that a skull is a head without a brain. So Skull Valley could just as easily be called Brainless Valley. Also consider that 8 years of Simple W. and the Dark Lord Cheney's debaucheries, including their various assaults on the Constitution and their murderous lies and criminal distortions apparently didn't concern dear Judy even a teeny little bit. Well, it's a free country and I suppose we're all entitled to have our own ideas about what does and doesn't constitute integrity.

PS This just in: Jan Brewer, who is currently appearing in the role of "Governor of Arizona", vetoed the "birther bill" shortly after I finished my post. That loud anguished wailing you hear is her base. My guess is that, once again, the state's monied interests got to her and said, "stop this nonsense before you kill off what's left of our tourism and convention business. Remember, we're trying to rebuild the state--not destroy it." But whatever her motivation, you can bet that the hillbillies aren't going to be happy.