On the last day of December, as 2010 slithers out the back door with its forked tail between its legs, let's take a look back at the travesty that was this year. And what a load of crap it was.
Let's get to the annual Stupidest State of the Year award. This award goes to one of the 50 states which has scaled the heights of batshit-craziness and has truly embarrassed itself (and the rest of the nation) on a planetary scale. To review, here are the criteria used to assess the idiocy:
1) General level of inborn stupidity among the residents
2) Venal, corrupt or insane governor/executive branch
3) Prevailing religious tyranny
4) Batshit-crazy or fundamentalist-controlled regulators or legislature
5) Potential for global embarrassment and species degradation
And the nominees this year are:
1) Alaska - this state continues to blaze new trails in the frontiers of stupidity, due mostly to its most infamous quitter-ex-governor, Sarah Palin. Like a hideous, never-ending bout of herpes, Palin continues to pollute the airwaves and insult everyone on earth with her deadheaded idiocy and non-stop doltishness. Always choosing to heap insult upon injury, she not only came out with another completely stupid, utterly pointless and unnecessary book, but also was in a reality show on the TLC channel (and everyone at TLC can die in a fire for inflicting this pile of stinking, festering manure on us). She had company this summer in the form of Joe Miller, the Tea Party candidate for Senate, a creepy-crusty guy who lost in a write-in election to the incumbent and at this writing is still fighting his loss in court. To Joe Miller: STFU. You lost, no one wants you. Go away and take Palin with you.
2) Arizona - I really didn't think this state could get any more ridiculous and insane, but they sure proved me wrong in the midterm elections. Not only did the clueless, idiotic voters in this state elect as governor the moldering, decomposing remains of some ancient, disease-ridden hooker, but somehow decided that putting more Republicans in office than ever will somehow make things better. Obviously letting their racism and bigotry do the thinking for them, Arizona has indeed taken several giant steps backward into the morass of ignorance from whence it came. This is such a beautiful state, but the politics are incredibly hateful, moronic and depressing.
3) Florida - The Sunshine State appeared to be spiraling into a sinkhole of dumbness this summer with some weird three-way race between Tea Party token-Hispanic candidate Marco Rubio, some other guy and Charlie Crist, doing something completely incomprehensible for some unknown reason. Everyone was hoping that a hurricane would blow in from somewhere and sweep all the crazy nutjobs out to sea, but that would leave the state with a population of maybe a couple hundred people.
4) New Jersey - this state got a huge black eye with the advent of Jersey Shore, and even when the show picked up its greasy self and went to South Beach in Florida, New Jersey still suffered. Now a huge snowstorm has buried most of the state in 2 feet of snow. If I was a Christian I would say that God is punishing those people with bad weather for all the horrendously stupid things they did but then I realize that if that were true, then I would be dodging meteor storms and cataclysmic earthquakes for living in Arizona.
5) South Carolina - The people of S.C. will always be damned for inflicting a weird, vicious, insane creep like Jim DeMint on the national scene. It's almost as if some monster chewed up and swallowed Tom DeLay, got sick, and vomited up Jim DeMint. The Democratic candidate for Senate this fall was someone named Alvin Greene, I think, and seeing him on television painfully struggling to say something even remotely sensible was sad and pathetic to the extreme. Apparently, someone has talked him into running for some other office, which is a damned shame, like making fun of retarded people. Hey, South Carolina, ENOUGH ALREADY!
Quite the sorry slate this year, but the decision is in: The Stupidest State is ... ARIZONA! Yes indeed, the state where I live has busted through to the front of the pack and has left everyone (almost everyone - Alaska was a close second) in its dust. It's become clear that Arizonans are not even bothering to disguise their racism, since all politics in this state turn on the illegal immigration issue. That was the source of the Republican sweep of this state. Most analysts agree that earlier in the year, polls indicated that the deceased, insect-like Jan Brewer was stumbling clumsily through her term-without-a-mandate as governor and would surely lose to the Democratic candidate. Then she signed SB 1070, the infamous statute which, besides making everyone in this state look like a prejudiced pinhead, gives law enforcement Nazi-like powers to compel dark-skinned people to "show their papers" on demand. The Arizona voters surmised that if a Democrat was in the governor's office, that bill would not have been signed; and in fact if Janet Napolitano had still been governor, there's no way that bill would have become law. So, if one Republican in high office garnered such good results, then putting them in all the other state offices would be a great idea, they thought. Except that it's not. This state has solidified the perception that the country has of us - of a bunch of boorish, poorly-educated, trailer-park meth-heads who hate immigrants. Because of the astonishingly fabulous job this state has done in sabotaging its own image and portraying itself in the worst possible light, it truly deserves the Stupidest State of the Year Award.
The pop-culture wreckage of this year is all over the landscape, dominated by a really annoying little anal fissure named Justin Bieber. He seems to be fancying himself as some sort of rapper/crooner and is cobbling together something vaguely resembling a career from the ritalin-addled obsessions of hordes of 12-year-old girls, for whom watching the same miserable music video on YouTube 2500 times is just another day. I think there's a real good chance that his expiration date is coming up soon and he will be pushed to the sidelines by some other marginally-talented young twerp who will capture the illicit, pre-pubescent attentions of the tweeners. Eww, it was unpleasant to even write that sentence. Ferociously trying to claw their way back from the desert of obscurity on one of those blindingly pathetic New Year's Eve shows (and yes, we still love you Dick Clark but for God's sake GIVE IT UP ALREADY!) is the two-headed monster calling itself the "New Kids On The Block/Backstreet Boys Reunion," to which I pose a simple question: WHY??? Way too old to be cute and too lightweight to be taken seriously, these people need to do something with their lives. And fast.
I was trying to think of good things that happened this year, but I came up short. It's been a tough year on all levels. I think back of all the beautiful, wonderful bunnies we've lost - Duncan, Alyce-Michele, Eliza, Sage, Fuzzy, Amelia - to name a very few, and I start to realize how depressing this year has been. The year ends more poorly than it started, it has been a net loss emotionally and spiritually. I would like to think 2011 will be better, but I have little reason to be optimistic.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Christmas 2010
Here I am in the wee hours of Christmas morning, 2010. The house is quiet, all the bunnies are fed and getting ready for their bedtime. The doves are quiet after a late-night chorus of cooing that had almost all of them going off at the same time. I haven't the slightest idea what motivates them to start singing their songs so late at night, but I'm sure they have a good reason. All the outside lights are turned off and all is quiet and still. It's been over two weeks since I last wrote anything in this blog. I had an art project to finish and just found myself to be extremely busy. Whoever said that retirement would be boring did not know what they were talking about.
Time is running out on 2010, and I for one will be glad to see it go. Not a lot of real good things happened this year. Or maybe I should say, some good things did happen this year but they were outweighed and outnumbered by the not-so-good. This past week has seen a terrible spate of bunnies passing away - one was Sage (featured in a previous post in this blog), a very sweet mini-lop who had suffered through tremendous trials and tribulations but never once lost his beautiful personality nor his graceful serenity. Fuzzy was another bunny who had struggled with numerous health issues for quite a long time and was seemingly doing very well when he crashed on us and had to leave for the Bridge. I lost an injured cottontail that came to me with drooling from the mouth and a mysterious injury so bad that the poor bunny just faded away despite my best efforts. My dear friend Julia lost three of her beloved bunnies this year, two of whom (Duncan and Alyce-Michele) were born into my home on a chilly, damp, dark Tuesday in February 2004. I held them in the palm of my hand when they were mere hours old. In a way, losing them was like a parent outliving a child. There is a sense of great loss, disorientation and disorder, a sense that something happened out of sequence that should not have happened, in a perfect world.
But alas, I'm finding out over and over that this world is far from perfect. Politically, it was a pretty gruesome year, with the midterm elections putting more Republicans in high office than I can remember. In state government it was even worse, as most if not all high state offices went to the Republican candidates. The newly-elected president of the state senate is a crusty old troglodyte named Russell Pearce, who has unashamedly associated himself with Nazi and white supremacist groups in the recent past and does not even bother to conceal his rabid, vitriolic hatred for Hispanics. It's incomprehensible how someone could even consider voting for a vicious old creep like that. Expertly riding a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, the desiccated, ancient remains of the eternally loathsome Jan Brewer got elected to a full term as governor of this wretched, godforsaken state. Looking like the dried-up husk of a gigantic praying mantis, we are going to be afflicted with her idiocy, stupidity and appalling appearance for the next four years, and that is a damned shame. The voters in this state have to be the stupidest, most hateful and bigoted people on this planet.
It really seems as if stupidity is on the ascendancy in this country. There is such a current of anti-intellectualism nationwide, as if it's a bad thing to have an education and speak and act intelligently. Instead we get the supremely annoying bleating of the incredibly obnoxious Sarah Palin, who insists on shooting off her big mouth every chance she gets and in the process says very little. She is single-handedly dumbing down America every time she opens her yap. Luckily we have heard very little from Sharron Angle, a hot mess of a Senate candidate from Nevada who must be living in another century, or from Christine O'Donnell of Delaware, another loser in a Senate race whose most memorable lines were in a television ad she ran claiming "I am not a witch," and "I'm just like you." God forbid anyone would be just like her. Between Palin, Angle and O'Donnell, women have absolutely nothing to be proud of with these public figures.
I know this country has suffered through periods of massive stupidity before, and we seemed to have gotten through it and survived. Certainly the Reagan administration in the 80s was an eight-year stretch of some of the most mendacious dumbness this country has ever had to slog through. Having a senile, fourth-rate hack actor for a president wasn't the worst of it, because fascist creeps like Alexander Haig, James Watt, Edwin Meese, and James Baker almost made Reagan look moderate. That's because there has always been a resiliency in the American spirit which has allowed it to get through periods of difficulty and somehow its innate better nature came through. There was a little bump of stupidity with the first George Bush presidency, but that was more creepy and weird than stupid. But with the enormous idiocy of George W. Bush, somehow stupidity has become a permanent feature of America and even after Bush we are showing no signs of coming out of it. Like a foreign weed, stupidity has taken root in this country and is spreading with every Republican that comes to office.
As the clock ticks down to 2011 there is a palpable sense, at least to me, that America's better days are behind her. Obama has been crowing mightily about this hot-shit compromise he made with Senate Republicans that back-loaded an additional $800 billion of debt onto this country. Although Obama promised in his 2008 campaign that his administration would be transparent and he would not be involved in backroom deals and bargaining sessions, that is exactly what it was - a quid-pro-quo that clearly ended up in the Republicans' favor by ensuring that the wealthiest one-percent of wage earners in this country would continue to live their opulent lifestyles thanks to the extension of the Bush tax cuts, while the middle-class continues to drown in debt and have their homes foreclosed. We have become a huge debtor nation to the Chinese, who will be sucking this country dry of all its money for many decades to come. In a very real way, young people just starting out in their careers today will be working for the Chinese for most of their lives.
Wealth and resources continue to drain out of this country at an alarming rate, and Congress and the President are content to look the other way and repeatedly postpone any meaningful (i.e., painful) remedies to the situation. We all know what has to be done, but no one has the political courage to do it. So we just pass the burden on to the next generation. What a horrible thing we are doing to children yet unborn, mortgaging their future and condemning them to live in a third-rate country, which is what the U.S. will be in a very short time.
So, I'm finding very little to be cheerful about this particular Christmas season. I'll be glad when it's over, I'm already violently sick and tired of all the awful commercials they show on television over and over again. The automobile commercials have been particularly galling. Who the hell gives new automobiles as Christmas gifts? Seriously, I've never met anyone who did that. Maybe I hang out with a different set of people, but that is just so out of my experience I can't imagine what it must be like. Crass commercialism and greed has been rampant this year, as always, but I've opted myself out of all the craziness and that has been a very good choice.
I can only hope 2011 will be a better year for everyone. I will absolutely not say that it couldn't get any worse, because I'm sure it can, but I sincerely hope we can get back to some good news and good things happening after the past two horrific years. But I have to say I have very little reason to be optimistic.
Time is running out on 2010, and I for one will be glad to see it go. Not a lot of real good things happened this year. Or maybe I should say, some good things did happen this year but they were outweighed and outnumbered by the not-so-good. This past week has seen a terrible spate of bunnies passing away - one was Sage (featured in a previous post in this blog), a very sweet mini-lop who had suffered through tremendous trials and tribulations but never once lost his beautiful personality nor his graceful serenity. Fuzzy was another bunny who had struggled with numerous health issues for quite a long time and was seemingly doing very well when he crashed on us and had to leave for the Bridge. I lost an injured cottontail that came to me with drooling from the mouth and a mysterious injury so bad that the poor bunny just faded away despite my best efforts. My dear friend Julia lost three of her beloved bunnies this year, two of whom (Duncan and Alyce-Michele) were born into my home on a chilly, damp, dark Tuesday in February 2004. I held them in the palm of my hand when they were mere hours old. In a way, losing them was like a parent outliving a child. There is a sense of great loss, disorientation and disorder, a sense that something happened out of sequence that should not have happened, in a perfect world.
But alas, I'm finding out over and over that this world is far from perfect. Politically, it was a pretty gruesome year, with the midterm elections putting more Republicans in high office than I can remember. In state government it was even worse, as most if not all high state offices went to the Republican candidates. The newly-elected president of the state senate is a crusty old troglodyte named Russell Pearce, who has unashamedly associated himself with Nazi and white supremacist groups in the recent past and does not even bother to conceal his rabid, vitriolic hatred for Hispanics. It's incomprehensible how someone could even consider voting for a vicious old creep like that. Expertly riding a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, the desiccated, ancient remains of the eternally loathsome Jan Brewer got elected to a full term as governor of this wretched, godforsaken state. Looking like the dried-up husk of a gigantic praying mantis, we are going to be afflicted with her idiocy, stupidity and appalling appearance for the next four years, and that is a damned shame. The voters in this state have to be the stupidest, most hateful and bigoted people on this planet.
It really seems as if stupidity is on the ascendancy in this country. There is such a current of anti-intellectualism nationwide, as if it's a bad thing to have an education and speak and act intelligently. Instead we get the supremely annoying bleating of the incredibly obnoxious Sarah Palin, who insists on shooting off her big mouth every chance she gets and in the process says very little. She is single-handedly dumbing down America every time she opens her yap. Luckily we have heard very little from Sharron Angle, a hot mess of a Senate candidate from Nevada who must be living in another century, or from Christine O'Donnell of Delaware, another loser in a Senate race whose most memorable lines were in a television ad she ran claiming "I am not a witch," and "I'm just like you." God forbid anyone would be just like her. Between Palin, Angle and O'Donnell, women have absolutely nothing to be proud of with these public figures.
I know this country has suffered through periods of massive stupidity before, and we seemed to have gotten through it and survived. Certainly the Reagan administration in the 80s was an eight-year stretch of some of the most mendacious dumbness this country has ever had to slog through. Having a senile, fourth-rate hack actor for a president wasn't the worst of it, because fascist creeps like Alexander Haig, James Watt, Edwin Meese, and James Baker almost made Reagan look moderate. That's because there has always been a resiliency in the American spirit which has allowed it to get through periods of difficulty and somehow its innate better nature came through. There was a little bump of stupidity with the first George Bush presidency, but that was more creepy and weird than stupid. But with the enormous idiocy of George W. Bush, somehow stupidity has become a permanent feature of America and even after Bush we are showing no signs of coming out of it. Like a foreign weed, stupidity has taken root in this country and is spreading with every Republican that comes to office.
As the clock ticks down to 2011 there is a palpable sense, at least to me, that America's better days are behind her. Obama has been crowing mightily about this hot-shit compromise he made with Senate Republicans that back-loaded an additional $800 billion of debt onto this country. Although Obama promised in his 2008 campaign that his administration would be transparent and he would not be involved in backroom deals and bargaining sessions, that is exactly what it was - a quid-pro-quo that clearly ended up in the Republicans' favor by ensuring that the wealthiest one-percent of wage earners in this country would continue to live their opulent lifestyles thanks to the extension of the Bush tax cuts, while the middle-class continues to drown in debt and have their homes foreclosed. We have become a huge debtor nation to the Chinese, who will be sucking this country dry of all its money for many decades to come. In a very real way, young people just starting out in their careers today will be working for the Chinese for most of their lives.
Wealth and resources continue to drain out of this country at an alarming rate, and Congress and the President are content to look the other way and repeatedly postpone any meaningful (i.e., painful) remedies to the situation. We all know what has to be done, but no one has the political courage to do it. So we just pass the burden on to the next generation. What a horrible thing we are doing to children yet unborn, mortgaging their future and condemning them to live in a third-rate country, which is what the U.S. will be in a very short time.
So, I'm finding very little to be cheerful about this particular Christmas season. I'll be glad when it's over, I'm already violently sick and tired of all the awful commercials they show on television over and over again. The automobile commercials have been particularly galling. Who the hell gives new automobiles as Christmas gifts? Seriously, I've never met anyone who did that. Maybe I hang out with a different set of people, but that is just so out of my experience I can't imagine what it must be like. Crass commercialism and greed has been rampant this year, as always, but I've opted myself out of all the craziness and that has been a very good choice.
I can only hope 2011 will be a better year for everyone. I will absolutely not say that it couldn't get any worse, because I'm sure it can, but I sincerely hope we can get back to some good news and good things happening after the past two horrific years. But I have to say I have very little reason to be optimistic.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Done With Obama
It's been a pretty surreal couple of days in the world of politics as the current "lame duck" session of Congress lurches toward the finish line at the end of the year. Can I just suggest we come up with some name other than "lame duck" for the ending of the session before the new Congress comes in next month? It's lame in more ways than one.
The big controversy was the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts. You know the ones, notable for giving a huge tax break to the wealthy, as if they needed any more after 8 years of Bush-Cheney, and kind of a tax pittance to everyone else. The Republicans staked out their turf early, vowing on the lives of their illegal-immigrant servants that tax breaks for the rich must survive at all costs. Everyone knows that the wealthy create a lot of jobs for the lower classes. Sure they do, and these are real high-paying jobs with lots of benefits, like pool boys, car washers and nannies. They just never get tired of flogging that 30-year-old trickle-down economics theory, even though it's been widely discredited by nearly all economic experts as being total bullshit. When the Repubs find something they think works for them, you can be sure they will stick with it come hell or high water. "Beating a dead horse" doesn't come anywhere near describing their weird, unnatural attachment to completely fictitious ideas.
Somewhere back in his presidential campaign, Obama stated clearly that the tax breaks for the wealthy will have to go when they expire on December 31, 2010, a little over 3 weeks away. And it seemed like pretty much of a done deal, along with his pledge of getting rid of "Don't Ask Don't Tell," the ridiculous, anachronistic and discriminatory policy that forces gay and lesbian servicemen and women to hide their sexual orientation and live in fear of being discovered and discharged, all the while serving their country and risking their lives fighting in two incredibly costly and pointless wars. Apparently it's okay to take a bullet in the head or step on an IED (improvised explosive device) but not okay to tell a fellow soldier that you're gay. All that was until the recent midterm elections which scared the crap out of Obama and convinced him that he better play nice with the newly re-energized Repugnantans because even though the Democrats will still have the Senate and the Presidency, the Republicans must still be placated and coddled like spoiled, psychopathic three-year-olds. In other words, give them whatever the hell they want just to shut them up.
Into this unholy witches' brew gets thrown unemployment insurance, which was set to expire for a lot of people this month. This is something that Obama really wanted, and the Republicans smelled leverage. And they dug in their heels, saying that if Obama wants his unemployment benefits they come with a price tag, which is $138 billion dollars for the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers. You can say a lot of horrible things about Republicans (and I certainly do) but you have to give them props for being incredibly loyal to their rich contributors and financiers. "What rich people want, rich people get" is the G.O.P. mantra, and they will hold any group hostage if that's what it takes. I'm surprised they don't hold crippled children hostage to get something passed.
Apparently the prospect of millions of Americans losing benefits right around Christmastime was too much for the Obama administration to bear, so he folded like wet cardboard. He gladly handed over the tax breaks for the rich, something that will give taxpayers with $1 million of income a windfall of over 104,000 extra bucks next year. When you consider that what they will be getting as a tax break is more than twice what the average worker in the U.S. makes in a whole year doing things like, you know, working and being productive, the glaring immorality of all this is stark. And then, in an astonishingly, jaw-droppingly bizarre news conference yesterday, Obama took members of his own Democratic party to task for not falling over themselves and supporting his Deal from Hell with Satan's minions. It really stopped me in my tracks, because Obama was showing genuine signs of pique and irritation with Democrats, instead of directing his snippy little tantrums toward the Republicans, who shoved this ridiculous "compromise" down his throat like he was their bottom bitch or something.
I thought when you compromise with someone, each side gives some kind of concession to the other. Obama got his unemployment insurance, but the Republican side got so very much more. Because Obama is so spineless and afraid of the Republicans, he gave them everything they wanted and more, at a very cheap (to them) price. The U.S. debt will get boosted by $900 billion dollars, but they don't care as long as their rich puppetmasters can buy another vacation home or a new yacht. And Obama showed incredible cowardice by extending the tax breaks for two years, essentially kicking this whole issue down the road to be rehashed again in the midst of the 2012 Presidential campaign instead of decisively dealing with it NOW.
Seems like I missed the memo about Obama changing parties and becoming a Republican because it sure seems like he's working for them now. It's because of Obama's complete lack of a backbone, his inability to stand up to the Republicans and his unwillingness to fight just as dirty as they do for his core principles, that I am saying now that I am finished supporting Obama. He has shown he's just another politician, making deals and basically screwing his base of supporters by making high-falutin' campaign promises, and then choking like the Arizona Cardinals at a playoff game when the time comes to actually deliver on these promises. He has shown that everything he says and does comes not from the heart, but as a deliberate political calculation. I feel as if I've been scammed, lied to, and betrayed by this person who spoke so highly and eloquently about hope and change, but in the end proved he was nothing more than a coward and a liar. He has shown no loyalty to his Democratic and progressive base, and so I have no loyalty to him.
If there is anything positive that comes out of all this, it's the realization that I completely agree with the Republicans on one thing - that Obama should be a one-term President.
The big controversy was the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts. You know the ones, notable for giving a huge tax break to the wealthy, as if they needed any more after 8 years of Bush-Cheney, and kind of a tax pittance to everyone else. The Republicans staked out their turf early, vowing on the lives of their illegal-immigrant servants that tax breaks for the rich must survive at all costs. Everyone knows that the wealthy create a lot of jobs for the lower classes. Sure they do, and these are real high-paying jobs with lots of benefits, like pool boys, car washers and nannies. They just never get tired of flogging that 30-year-old trickle-down economics theory, even though it's been widely discredited by nearly all economic experts as being total bullshit. When the Repubs find something they think works for them, you can be sure they will stick with it come hell or high water. "Beating a dead horse" doesn't come anywhere near describing their weird, unnatural attachment to completely fictitious ideas.
Somewhere back in his presidential campaign, Obama stated clearly that the tax breaks for the wealthy will have to go when they expire on December 31, 2010, a little over 3 weeks away. And it seemed like pretty much of a done deal, along with his pledge of getting rid of "Don't Ask Don't Tell," the ridiculous, anachronistic and discriminatory policy that forces gay and lesbian servicemen and women to hide their sexual orientation and live in fear of being discovered and discharged, all the while serving their country and risking their lives fighting in two incredibly costly and pointless wars. Apparently it's okay to take a bullet in the head or step on an IED (improvised explosive device) but not okay to tell a fellow soldier that you're gay. All that was until the recent midterm elections which scared the crap out of Obama and convinced him that he better play nice with the newly re-energized Repugnantans because even though the Democrats will still have the Senate and the Presidency, the Republicans must still be placated and coddled like spoiled, psychopathic three-year-olds. In other words, give them whatever the hell they want just to shut them up.
Into this unholy witches' brew gets thrown unemployment insurance, which was set to expire for a lot of people this month. This is something that Obama really wanted, and the Republicans smelled leverage. And they dug in their heels, saying that if Obama wants his unemployment benefits they come with a price tag, which is $138 billion dollars for the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers. You can say a lot of horrible things about Republicans (and I certainly do) but you have to give them props for being incredibly loyal to their rich contributors and financiers. "What rich people want, rich people get" is the G.O.P. mantra, and they will hold any group hostage if that's what it takes. I'm surprised they don't hold crippled children hostage to get something passed.
Apparently the prospect of millions of Americans losing benefits right around Christmastime was too much for the Obama administration to bear, so he folded like wet cardboard. He gladly handed over the tax breaks for the rich, something that will give taxpayers with $1 million of income a windfall of over 104,000 extra bucks next year. When you consider that what they will be getting as a tax break is more than twice what the average worker in the U.S. makes in a whole year doing things like, you know, working and being productive, the glaring immorality of all this is stark. And then, in an astonishingly, jaw-droppingly bizarre news conference yesterday, Obama took members of his own Democratic party to task for not falling over themselves and supporting his Deal from Hell with Satan's minions. It really stopped me in my tracks, because Obama was showing genuine signs of pique and irritation with Democrats, instead of directing his snippy little tantrums toward the Republicans, who shoved this ridiculous "compromise" down his throat like he was their bottom bitch or something.
I thought when you compromise with someone, each side gives some kind of concession to the other. Obama got his unemployment insurance, but the Republican side got so very much more. Because Obama is so spineless and afraid of the Republicans, he gave them everything they wanted and more, at a very cheap (to them) price. The U.S. debt will get boosted by $900 billion dollars, but they don't care as long as their rich puppetmasters can buy another vacation home or a new yacht. And Obama showed incredible cowardice by extending the tax breaks for two years, essentially kicking this whole issue down the road to be rehashed again in the midst of the 2012 Presidential campaign instead of decisively dealing with it NOW.
Seems like I missed the memo about Obama changing parties and becoming a Republican because it sure seems like he's working for them now. It's because of Obama's complete lack of a backbone, his inability to stand up to the Republicans and his unwillingness to fight just as dirty as they do for his core principles, that I am saying now that I am finished supporting Obama. He has shown he's just another politician, making deals and basically screwing his base of supporters by making high-falutin' campaign promises, and then choking like the Arizona Cardinals at a playoff game when the time comes to actually deliver on these promises. He has shown that everything he says and does comes not from the heart, but as a deliberate political calculation. I feel as if I've been scammed, lied to, and betrayed by this person who spoke so highly and eloquently about hope and change, but in the end proved he was nothing more than a coward and a liar. He has shown no loyalty to his Democratic and progressive base, and so I have no loyalty to him.
If there is anything positive that comes out of all this, it's the realization that I completely agree with the Republicans on one thing - that Obama should be a one-term President.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Signpost to Senility No. 4,298
Getting older is not for the faint of heart or the easily frightened, as I'm finding out on an almost daily basis. It pretty much sucks on every level and should be avoided at all costs. Try as we might to press onward and live our lives as we have done for the past 30 or so years, stuff comes up that definitively lets us know that we are no longer in our mid-20s. Time does indeed march on, and we are either along for the ride or destined for the off-ramp.
I had one of those moments last night as I attended the Roger Waters The Wall Live Tour. Formerly a member of Pink Floyd, one of my all-time favorite groups, Waters created this magnum opus thirty years ago. About the alienation and isolation fame can bring, the original live show centered around a huge wall built on stage, separating musician from audience. At the time Waters felt at first a real disconnect from the people who came to see them, which eventually grew into a disdain and then hostility. He transferred these feelings onto his main character, Pink, who lived a hellish rock-star life of great excess but also great pain and sadness. Searching for the sources of this sadness, Waters heaps blame on a smothering, overbearing mother-figure, an unfaithful harpy of a wife, and a brittle, psychotic schoolmaster straight out of a Dickens novel.
Performed by the original Pink Floyd members, it was staged in 4 cities only. In later years the band broke up, and The Wall was never performed that way again. Resurrected in Berlin after the fall of the Berlin wall and in some other venues after, the show grew and changed, but the construction of a giant wall and its subsequent destruction on stage was always the one part that didn't change.
So this latest reincarnation is a high-tech tour-de-force that has to be one of the most elaborate and expensive shows ever. The Wall is still there, and is now used extensively as a screen for a huge amount of high-definition graphics. Gigantic puppets, probably 50 or 60 feet high, loom above the stage as grotesque symbols of all the horrible things that have happened in Pink's life. A model World War II plane glided high above the audience as it crossed the USAirways Center and crashed behind the Wall in a huge ball of flame. A giant inflatable pig floated around the arena, much to everyone's delight. It was total batshit-craziness from beginning to end, and was an amazing concert. Roger Waters was in fine voice and looked like he was having a really good time.
However, I am now officially done with huge concerts like that. No more for me. The crowd there was really obnoxious, loud and inconsiderate. There was an idiot sitting behind me who screamed and hollered throughout the entire show, as if he were carrying on a personal conversation with Roger Waters. This douchebag started shrieking "TEAR DOWN THE WALL!" in the first 20 minutes of the show, something that doesn't happen until the very end, two hours later. I didn't know one person could be so loud, this goon was really giving me a headache. He also did some whistling thing with his fingers that was extremely loud and shrill. But he didn't care who he bothered or annoyed with his actions, he was having a good time and that was it. Also a number of people around me smoked pot during the show. I don't have any problem with marijuana use, but not offering to share? Unforgivable and tacky.
Time was, I loved to go to concerts like that. I attended my first rock concert sometime during the 60's at the now-defunct Civic Arena in Pittsburgh. While I forget who it was that I went to see, I remember having a lot of trouble coming up with the $8 ticket price, a far cry from the $125 ticket price for The Wall. But it was an atmosphere of anything-goes as thousands of crazed music lovers like myself were in one place for the sole purpose of listening to a live performance by a favorite band. It was an awesome and amazing time and I loved every second of it. I went to many, many concerts over the next couple of decades, and it was something I loved almost more than anything else.
Now, not so much. The noise, the sheer volume of the music, and the machine-gun-like barrage of visuals and graphics became almost overwhelming. It was great fun to hear the live versions of the songs from the album that I listened to hundreds of times and to which I knew every single word, but the loud, obnoxious crowd just got to be too much. I know it's impossible for some people to just sit and enjoy a show, but having to ruin the experience of everyone around them due to their selfishness was a real turn-off for me.
So, Roger Waters, you did good. The genius of your work shined through at every turn, and putting together such an incredible show is nothing short of a miracle. I'm glad the last big concert I will go to see was yours.
I had one of those moments last night as I attended the Roger Waters The Wall Live Tour. Formerly a member of Pink Floyd, one of my all-time favorite groups, Waters created this magnum opus thirty years ago. About the alienation and isolation fame can bring, the original live show centered around a huge wall built on stage, separating musician from audience. At the time Waters felt at first a real disconnect from the people who came to see them, which eventually grew into a disdain and then hostility. He transferred these feelings onto his main character, Pink, who lived a hellish rock-star life of great excess but also great pain and sadness. Searching for the sources of this sadness, Waters heaps blame on a smothering, overbearing mother-figure, an unfaithful harpy of a wife, and a brittle, psychotic schoolmaster straight out of a Dickens novel.
Performed by the original Pink Floyd members, it was staged in 4 cities only. In later years the band broke up, and The Wall was never performed that way again. Resurrected in Berlin after the fall of the Berlin wall and in some other venues after, the show grew and changed, but the construction of a giant wall and its subsequent destruction on stage was always the one part that didn't change.
So this latest reincarnation is a high-tech tour-de-force that has to be one of the most elaborate and expensive shows ever. The Wall is still there, and is now used extensively as a screen for a huge amount of high-definition graphics. Gigantic puppets, probably 50 or 60 feet high, loom above the stage as grotesque symbols of all the horrible things that have happened in Pink's life. A model World War II plane glided high above the audience as it crossed the USAirways Center and crashed behind the Wall in a huge ball of flame. A giant inflatable pig floated around the arena, much to everyone's delight. It was total batshit-craziness from beginning to end, and was an amazing concert. Roger Waters was in fine voice and looked like he was having a really good time.
However, I am now officially done with huge concerts like that. No more for me. The crowd there was really obnoxious, loud and inconsiderate. There was an idiot sitting behind me who screamed and hollered throughout the entire show, as if he were carrying on a personal conversation with Roger Waters. This douchebag started shrieking "TEAR DOWN THE WALL!" in the first 20 minutes of the show, something that doesn't happen until the very end, two hours later. I didn't know one person could be so loud, this goon was really giving me a headache. He also did some whistling thing with his fingers that was extremely loud and shrill. But he didn't care who he bothered or annoyed with his actions, he was having a good time and that was it. Also a number of people around me smoked pot during the show. I don't have any problem with marijuana use, but not offering to share? Unforgivable and tacky.
Time was, I loved to go to concerts like that. I attended my first rock concert sometime during the 60's at the now-defunct Civic Arena in Pittsburgh. While I forget who it was that I went to see, I remember having a lot of trouble coming up with the $8 ticket price, a far cry from the $125 ticket price for The Wall. But it was an atmosphere of anything-goes as thousands of crazed music lovers like myself were in one place for the sole purpose of listening to a live performance by a favorite band. It was an awesome and amazing time and I loved every second of it. I went to many, many concerts over the next couple of decades, and it was something I loved almost more than anything else.
Now, not so much. The noise, the sheer volume of the music, and the machine-gun-like barrage of visuals and graphics became almost overwhelming. It was great fun to hear the live versions of the songs from the album that I listened to hundreds of times and to which I knew every single word, but the loud, obnoxious crowd just got to be too much. I know it's impossible for some people to just sit and enjoy a show, but having to ruin the experience of everyone around them due to their selfishness was a real turn-off for me.
So, Roger Waters, you did good. The genius of your work shined through at every turn, and putting together such an incredible show is nothing short of a miracle. I'm glad the last big concert I will go to see was yours.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Touch My Junk, Please
The newest tempest-in-a-toilet that is gripping the short attention span of the nation is the kerfuffle over the new and improved search procedures at the nation's airports. Boarding passengers are now given a choice of being irradiated by body scanners or felt up by clumsy, unattractive TSA agents with cold fingers. Mind you, this is after they get to the airport two hours before they can even think about leaving, and before they get herded onto a cramped, crowded airplane by a surly, disinterested, underpaid airline employee. That little plastic cup of tepid orange juice is going to taste mighty fine while your butt is tingling from all the anti-neutrinos or whatever the hell the scanning machine doses you with.
This latest development seems to be a concerted effort to get as many people as possible to permanently give up air travel and is due, at least in part, to the infamous underwear bomber from last year. This simpleton, who apparently is not too good when it comes to "thinking things through," tried to get on a plane with explosives in his undies. Now, thanks to this dimwit, the Transportation Safety Agency has spent untold millions developing and deploying some kind of scanner which peeks underneath your clothes to see if you have any explosives hidden in any bodily crevice or orifice. Eww.
Despite all the assurances of enhanced privacy the TSA is making, a number of people are a little bit leery of having their naughty bits digitized and stored on some computer chip somewhere. A while ago they demonstrated a prototype of the scanning machine "live" on one of the morning news shows and the result left little to the imagination. I can't conceive of what a horrible job from hell it would be to look at people's junk all day long. Can you imagine the mood you'd be in after eight hours of that? I would think there would be some strange interest in seeing celebrities' crotch-shots and maybe that would be a revenue stream for the TSA: peddling celebrity-peekaboos plus "enlarging" certain things to more enhance their image.
Some people are understandably not that anxious to have their sticky parts broadcast all over the place so for them the TSA is offering body pat-downs. But these pat-downs are considerably more thorough and explicit than what the American public sees on television cop-shows (which is where a lot of people get their conception of reality). Reportedly there is a lot of upper-thigh action and some people, in typical overreaction mode, have likened it to molestation. Um, not quite that bad, I'm sure, but bad enough to get some people bent out of shape. Americans hate to have their crotches fondled except under very specific circumstances, which usually involve dark, dirty parts of town and cheap liquor.
It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow, the day before Thanksgiving and one of the busiest travel days. Some are calling for a "National Opt-Out Day" where passengers boycott the scanners and throw the whole system into disarray at airports when they are at their most crowded. As for myself, given the choice of scanner vs. being groped, I would opt to stay home. Back in the day, air travel used to be fun and exciting and pleasant. These days, it's a toxic mixture of frustration, boredom, aggravation and annoyance, topped with a heaping-helping of humiliation.
And if they want to touch my junk they're going to have to do a lot better than that.
This latest development seems to be a concerted effort to get as many people as possible to permanently give up air travel and is due, at least in part, to the infamous underwear bomber from last year. This simpleton, who apparently is not too good when it comes to "thinking things through," tried to get on a plane with explosives in his undies. Now, thanks to this dimwit, the Transportation Safety Agency has spent untold millions developing and deploying some kind of scanner which peeks underneath your clothes to see if you have any explosives hidden in any bodily crevice or orifice. Eww.
Despite all the assurances of enhanced privacy the TSA is making, a number of people are a little bit leery of having their naughty bits digitized and stored on some computer chip somewhere. A while ago they demonstrated a prototype of the scanning machine "live" on one of the morning news shows and the result left little to the imagination. I can't conceive of what a horrible job from hell it would be to look at people's junk all day long. Can you imagine the mood you'd be in after eight hours of that? I would think there would be some strange interest in seeing celebrities' crotch-shots and maybe that would be a revenue stream for the TSA: peddling celebrity-peekaboos plus "enlarging" certain things to more enhance their image.
Some people are understandably not that anxious to have their sticky parts broadcast all over the place so for them the TSA is offering body pat-downs. But these pat-downs are considerably more thorough and explicit than what the American public sees on television cop-shows (which is where a lot of people get their conception of reality). Reportedly there is a lot of upper-thigh action and some people, in typical overreaction mode, have likened it to molestation. Um, not quite that bad, I'm sure, but bad enough to get some people bent out of shape. Americans hate to have their crotches fondled except under very specific circumstances, which usually involve dark, dirty parts of town and cheap liquor.
It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow, the day before Thanksgiving and one of the busiest travel days. Some are calling for a "National Opt-Out Day" where passengers boycott the scanners and throw the whole system into disarray at airports when they are at their most crowded. As for myself, given the choice of scanner vs. being groped, I would opt to stay home. Back in the day, air travel used to be fun and exciting and pleasant. These days, it's a toxic mixture of frustration, boredom, aggravation and annoyance, topped with a heaping-helping of humiliation.
And if they want to touch my junk they're going to have to do a lot better than that.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
November News Roundup
Here we are, ripping through November like Cher goes through costume changes at her concerts, and I haven't posted in a couple of weeks. It's been a busy month but let's look at what's been happening.
Those ugly midterm elections are history and we've certainly heard way too much about how the new crop of Repugnantans are descending on Washington like dimwitted locusts with bad haircuts. Right off the bat they are thumping their chests and setting their sites on undoing the health care reform bill passed earlier this year. They might find that a little more difficult than they think, because they have the illusory, overblown courage of someone who is putting way too much confidence in their own talents. The Republicans are going to find out all those Tea Party candidates who got swept into office like a gigantic toilet backing up are not going to just kowtow to everything that new Speaker of the House John Boner, I mean Boehner, spits out at them. Same with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who looks like a huge, bulgy-eyed catfish who was yanked out the the water and is gasping for air. Sweet Jesus, those Republicans are some of the most gawd-awful fugly bastards I've ever seen.
But what is shaping up to be a real battle is the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy. Set to expire at year's end, it would mean every taxpayer would be on the hook for higher taxes. The Democrats and the Obama administration want to keep the tax cuts for workers who make less than $250,000 a year but eliminate them for those who make more. Naturally the Republicans are apoplectic at the prospect of their wealthy overlords paying a penny more tax than they do now, and have vowed to hold a defense appropriations bill hostage until they get what they want. And just recently, the Republicans killed a bill which would have extended unemployment benefits for the millions of people still out of work.
Now let's think about this for a second, shall we? The Republicans want to extend tax breaks to the wealthiest 2% of our population, which would mean the whopping sum of $700 billion over 10 years would not fill the coffers of the Treasury, in this era of soaring deficits and recession-induced tax shortfalls. That is okay to them, but they don't want to extend benefits to all the unemployed people who have to do things like pay mortgages and buy food and pay utilities and send their kids to college. I can't think of anything else that has happened recently which more starkly points out the fact that the Republicans only serve the wealthiest Americans, and couldn't give a rat's ass about the people that actually do meaningful work in this country. After seeing this, it's impossible for me to understand how any middle- or lower-class voter could even think of voting Republican. This is what the Republicans do to people who are not wealthy - they take everything away from the middle class and shower it upon the rich and well-to-do, who already have much more money than they need. Why don't people comprehend this? It's not that difficult - Republicans only care about the rich. It is indeed that simple.
The Obama administration, still smarting from their ass-kicking at the polls, are flip-flopping all over the place and have all but sent up a flare indicating they are in the mood to compromise. The Republicans feel they have the momentum on their side, and they very well might. But if Obama caves to the Republicans and extends the tax breaks for the richest people, I am done with him. He can go directly to hell if he lets the Republicans have their way. It would be political suicide for him to do so, his liberal and progressive base would never forgive him. He would certainly lose my support. Instead of rolling over and playing dead for the Republicans, he needs to spit in their faces and tell them if you want a fight, you're going to get one, and then go to the mat on the tax break extensions, defense appropriations be damned. They need to find out what "party of NO" really means. Bipartisanship is dead, if it ever existed at all, and it's time for Obama and the Democrats to grow a pair and fight the Republicans with their own tactics.
Those ugly midterm elections are history and we've certainly heard way too much about how the new crop of Repugnantans are descending on Washington like dimwitted locusts with bad haircuts. Right off the bat they are thumping their chests and setting their sites on undoing the health care reform bill passed earlier this year. They might find that a little more difficult than they think, because they have the illusory, overblown courage of someone who is putting way too much confidence in their own talents. The Republicans are going to find out all those Tea Party candidates who got swept into office like a gigantic toilet backing up are not going to just kowtow to everything that new Speaker of the House John Boner, I mean Boehner, spits out at them. Same with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who looks like a huge, bulgy-eyed catfish who was yanked out the the water and is gasping for air. Sweet Jesus, those Republicans are some of the most gawd-awful fugly bastards I've ever seen.
But what is shaping up to be a real battle is the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy. Set to expire at year's end, it would mean every taxpayer would be on the hook for higher taxes. The Democrats and the Obama administration want to keep the tax cuts for workers who make less than $250,000 a year but eliminate them for those who make more. Naturally the Republicans are apoplectic at the prospect of their wealthy overlords paying a penny more tax than they do now, and have vowed to hold a defense appropriations bill hostage until they get what they want. And just recently, the Republicans killed a bill which would have extended unemployment benefits for the millions of people still out of work.
Now let's think about this for a second, shall we? The Republicans want to extend tax breaks to the wealthiest 2% of our population, which would mean the whopping sum of $700 billion over 10 years would not fill the coffers of the Treasury, in this era of soaring deficits and recession-induced tax shortfalls. That is okay to them, but they don't want to extend benefits to all the unemployed people who have to do things like pay mortgages and buy food and pay utilities and send their kids to college. I can't think of anything else that has happened recently which more starkly points out the fact that the Republicans only serve the wealthiest Americans, and couldn't give a rat's ass about the people that actually do meaningful work in this country. After seeing this, it's impossible for me to understand how any middle- or lower-class voter could even think of voting Republican. This is what the Republicans do to people who are not wealthy - they take everything away from the middle class and shower it upon the rich and well-to-do, who already have much more money than they need. Why don't people comprehend this? It's not that difficult - Republicans only care about the rich. It is indeed that simple.
The Obama administration, still smarting from their ass-kicking at the polls, are flip-flopping all over the place and have all but sent up a flare indicating they are in the mood to compromise. The Republicans feel they have the momentum on their side, and they very well might. But if Obama caves to the Republicans and extends the tax breaks for the richest people, I am done with him. He can go directly to hell if he lets the Republicans have their way. It would be political suicide for him to do so, his liberal and progressive base would never forgive him. He would certainly lose my support. Instead of rolling over and playing dead for the Republicans, he needs to spit in their faces and tell them if you want a fight, you're going to get one, and then go to the mat on the tax break extensions, defense appropriations be damned. They need to find out what "party of NO" really means. Bipartisanship is dead, if it ever existed at all, and it's time for Obama and the Democrats to grow a pair and fight the Republicans with their own tactics.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Idiocracy in the Desert
There was a sci fi/fantasy movie a couple of years ago called "Idiocracy," in which a really stupid person went into some kind of hibernation and woke up 500 years later, to find that society had been so thoroughly dumbed-down that he was now the smartest person on the planet. In a really depressing example of life imitating art, one can have a similar experience in Arizona and you don't even have to hibernate for five centuries. Usually five minutes will do it.
The midterm elections are history, and not a moment too soon. While such elections are typically hostile toward the party in power, these were particularly ugly. The American electorate can always be counted on to make a stunning variety of horrible choices at every turn, picking the most batshit-crazy, bigoted and ignorant candidates imaginable. It's almost like the Republicans or the Tea Partiers or whatever the hell they are calling themselves nowadays said, "Hey America! Check out this completely insane, repellent, moronic candidate we dredged up from under a giant pile of manure. Nobody in their right mind would vote for this mess, right?" And America says, "Are you kidding? Of course we'll vote for them! We can't wait to get to the polls to make sure all levels of government are overstuffed with the most incompetent, racist, prejudiced and paranoid-schizophrenic people available!" After all, we are Americans and that's what we do.
The US House of Representatives now has a Republican majority although the Senate still stays under Democratic control, albeit with less of a majority than before. There were a few bright spots on the national level, with the tragically mentally ill Sharron Angle losing to incumbent Senator Harry Reid in Nevada. Thank you so much, Nevada, you have restored my faith in you more than you can know. Thank you, Delaware, for soundly defeating and humiliating witch fetishist and secret masturbation addict (you know she is) Christine O'Donnell. Thank you, California, for electing Jerry Brown and retaining Barbara Boxer. I'm really not that excited about legalizing marijuana although I do support the idea. Thank you, West Virginia, for sending your Democratic governor to the Senate. And thank you, New York, for sending that pasty-faced tub of bacon grease Carl Paladino back to whatever mutant alien breeding farm he came from. I take tremendous satisfaction in all their failures, especially since it is a big slap in the face to the braying, grating Sarah Palin, who strongly backed a lot of the losers. It was a bad night for some other of her so-called "mama grizzlies" as Carly Fiorini, Linda McMahon and Meg Whitman very deservingly went down to defeat despite Palin's endorsements. The words "Sarah Palin" and "loser" go together so very well.
We were also subjected to the monumentally surreal, stomach-churning spectacle of the presumptive next Speaker of the House John Boner, I mean Boehner, blubbering and slobbering on national television at how he worked so hard overcoming so many obstacles in his life to get to where he is. If he worked one-tenth as hard on his legislative efforts as he does trying to look like a fluorescent carrot with his cheap skin bronzer, he might have something to talk about. His display last night was cringe-worthy to the extreme, and the ick factor was way off the scale. It's going to be really tough having to listen to his maudlin sentimentality and overwrought stupidity for the next two years.
But the really disgusting stuff was reserved for the state of Arizona (big surprise), the worst being that we will have to put up with the decaying, disgusting remains of Jan Brewer in the governor's office for the next four years. How this puckered, haggard, old sarcophagus even walks around by herself is a mystery, since corpses are usually not that ambulatory and she looks like she died a good 20 years ago. There are 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummies in the British museum that look much better than she does.
All this has to do with SB 1070, Arizona's anti-immigrant law. That is the sole basis for Brewer's success, since her blinding stupidity, overwhelming incompetence and all-around repulsiveness would normally scare away most people. SB 1070 was also the centerpiece of all the other Republican campaigns, as they loudly crowed their undying support for that misguided measure, and undoubtedly was a big factor in returning the bill's chief architect, the corpulent, sweaty Russell Pearce of Mesa, to office. Voters have figured out that if previous governor Janet Napolitano (i.e. any Democrat) had still been in office that bill would never have been signed. Brewer, as all Republicans do, found a way to appeal to the basest, most prejudiced and degenerate aspects of human nature and harness them for their benefit. You have to hand it to the Repugnantans, they sure know how to take an enormous pile of shit and build it into an empire.
The only good thing that happened here is that shockingly, Arizona voters were smart enough to reject an NRA-backed initiative, Proposition 109, which would have amended the state constitution to make hunting and fishing a right. I think what frightened most people is the prospect of the state legislature making wildlife management decisions, because it is well known that they can and will screw up absolutely everything they touch. Dear NRA: Eat shit and die. Love, Steve. But in fact Republicans have increased their stranglehold on the government of this wretched, benighted state by sweeping their candidates into most state-level offices.
It's baffling to me why so many middle-class people vote Republican, even though it is directly contrary to their own economic interests. Republicans have and always will be the puppet-party of the ultra-wealthy, seeking huge tax breaks for their rich donors at the expense of the lower classes at every possible turn. They've even taken to hiding behind the facade of "small businesses," seeking to keep Bush-era tax breaks for the upper-class in place because they say a lot of these so-called "upper-class taxpayers" are really small business owners. When in reality, small businesses make up a tiny minority of the over-$250,000 a year taxpayers. Just as they maintain the estate tax is a bad idea because it makes hard-working farm families pay taxes on the family farm when the owner dies, when in fact it just shields the wealthy from paying taxes on their vast accumulated money. They also say rich people should get tax breaks because they will invest that money in other businesses, which is probably true if you own a yacht showroom, ski resort or a Lexus dealership, but mostly this "trickle-down" theory of economics is a cruel, self-serving hoax.
Looking forward, the Republicans are now in charge of the House of Representatives, and they will be shouldering at least part of the responsibility for whatever happens next. They will no longer be able to blame the Democrats for everything that has happened since the dawn of history, because they now have some power. Power comes with accountability - a very painful lesson the Democrats have learned - and the Republicans may not like having to actually answer to voters for the bad stuff that will inevitably come down the pike. Also they may find out that getting in bed with the Tea Party might not be as wonderful an experience as they imagined, since a lot of the T.P.-ers have been just as hostile to Republicans as they are to Democrats. But I'm sure we haven't seen the last of Representative Boner, I mean Boehner, sniveling and blubbering on television about his wonderful life, while the rest of the country suffers. It's painfully obvious that "embarrassment" and "shame" are two concepts completely alien to Republicans.
The midterm elections are history, and not a moment too soon. While such elections are typically hostile toward the party in power, these were particularly ugly. The American electorate can always be counted on to make a stunning variety of horrible choices at every turn, picking the most batshit-crazy, bigoted and ignorant candidates imaginable. It's almost like the Republicans or the Tea Partiers or whatever the hell they are calling themselves nowadays said, "Hey America! Check out this completely insane, repellent, moronic candidate we dredged up from under a giant pile of manure. Nobody in their right mind would vote for this mess, right?" And America says, "Are you kidding? Of course we'll vote for them! We can't wait to get to the polls to make sure all levels of government are overstuffed with the most incompetent, racist, prejudiced and paranoid-schizophrenic people available!" After all, we are Americans and that's what we do.
The US House of Representatives now has a Republican majority although the Senate still stays under Democratic control, albeit with less of a majority than before. There were a few bright spots on the national level, with the tragically mentally ill Sharron Angle losing to incumbent Senator Harry Reid in Nevada. Thank you so much, Nevada, you have restored my faith in you more than you can know. Thank you, Delaware, for soundly defeating and humiliating witch fetishist and secret masturbation addict (you know she is) Christine O'Donnell. Thank you, California, for electing Jerry Brown and retaining Barbara Boxer. I'm really not that excited about legalizing marijuana although I do support the idea. Thank you, West Virginia, for sending your Democratic governor to the Senate. And thank you, New York, for sending that pasty-faced tub of bacon grease Carl Paladino back to whatever mutant alien breeding farm he came from. I take tremendous satisfaction in all their failures, especially since it is a big slap in the face to the braying, grating Sarah Palin, who strongly backed a lot of the losers. It was a bad night for some other of her so-called "mama grizzlies" as Carly Fiorini, Linda McMahon and Meg Whitman very deservingly went down to defeat despite Palin's endorsements. The words "Sarah Palin" and "loser" go together so very well.
We were also subjected to the monumentally surreal, stomach-churning spectacle of the presumptive next Speaker of the House John Boner, I mean Boehner, blubbering and slobbering on national television at how he worked so hard overcoming so many obstacles in his life to get to where he is. If he worked one-tenth as hard on his legislative efforts as he does trying to look like a fluorescent carrot with his cheap skin bronzer, he might have something to talk about. His display last night was cringe-worthy to the extreme, and the ick factor was way off the scale. It's going to be really tough having to listen to his maudlin sentimentality and overwrought stupidity for the next two years.
But the really disgusting stuff was reserved for the state of Arizona (big surprise), the worst being that we will have to put up with the decaying, disgusting remains of Jan Brewer in the governor's office for the next four years. How this puckered, haggard, old sarcophagus even walks around by herself is a mystery, since corpses are usually not that ambulatory and she looks like she died a good 20 years ago. There are 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummies in the British museum that look much better than she does.
All this has to do with SB 1070, Arizona's anti-immigrant law. That is the sole basis for Brewer's success, since her blinding stupidity, overwhelming incompetence and all-around repulsiveness would normally scare away most people. SB 1070 was also the centerpiece of all the other Republican campaigns, as they loudly crowed their undying support for that misguided measure, and undoubtedly was a big factor in returning the bill's chief architect, the corpulent, sweaty Russell Pearce of Mesa, to office. Voters have figured out that if previous governor Janet Napolitano (i.e. any Democrat) had still been in office that bill would never have been signed. Brewer, as all Republicans do, found a way to appeal to the basest, most prejudiced and degenerate aspects of human nature and harness them for their benefit. You have to hand it to the Repugnantans, they sure know how to take an enormous pile of shit and build it into an empire.
The only good thing that happened here is that shockingly, Arizona voters were smart enough to reject an NRA-backed initiative, Proposition 109, which would have amended the state constitution to make hunting and fishing a right. I think what frightened most people is the prospect of the state legislature making wildlife management decisions, because it is well known that they can and will screw up absolutely everything they touch. Dear NRA: Eat shit and die. Love, Steve. But in fact Republicans have increased their stranglehold on the government of this wretched, benighted state by sweeping their candidates into most state-level offices.
It's baffling to me why so many middle-class people vote Republican, even though it is directly contrary to their own economic interests. Republicans have and always will be the puppet-party of the ultra-wealthy, seeking huge tax breaks for their rich donors at the expense of the lower classes at every possible turn. They've even taken to hiding behind the facade of "small businesses," seeking to keep Bush-era tax breaks for the upper-class in place because they say a lot of these so-called "upper-class taxpayers" are really small business owners. When in reality, small businesses make up a tiny minority of the over-$250,000 a year taxpayers. Just as they maintain the estate tax is a bad idea because it makes hard-working farm families pay taxes on the family farm when the owner dies, when in fact it just shields the wealthy from paying taxes on their vast accumulated money. They also say rich people should get tax breaks because they will invest that money in other businesses, which is probably true if you own a yacht showroom, ski resort or a Lexus dealership, but mostly this "trickle-down" theory of economics is a cruel, self-serving hoax.
Looking forward, the Republicans are now in charge of the House of Representatives, and they will be shouldering at least part of the responsibility for whatever happens next. They will no longer be able to blame the Democrats for everything that has happened since the dawn of history, because they now have some power. Power comes with accountability - a very painful lesson the Democrats have learned - and the Republicans may not like having to actually answer to voters for the bad stuff that will inevitably come down the pike. Also they may find out that getting in bed with the Tea Party might not be as wonderful an experience as they imagined, since a lot of the T.P.-ers have been just as hostile to Republicans as they are to Democrats. But I'm sure we haven't seen the last of Representative Boner, I mean Boehner, sniveling and blubbering on television about his wonderful life, while the rest of the country suffers. It's painfully obvious that "embarrassment" and "shame" are two concepts completely alien to Republicans.
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