The Lunatic's Asylum

Santorum The Apparatchik…

2012-02-14T10:35:00.003-05:00

RE: Rick Santorum’s rise in the polls, winning a few caucuses without delegates and the revision of the Iowa Beauty Contest in his favor:

I will not make the argument that Rick Santorum is a bad man, but I will argue that he is a bad candidate for the Presidency.

All of his “I’m the only goddamned Conservative Beast up here!” chest-thumping aside, one is hard-pressed to find a single, solitary achievement of note in Santorum’s resume. What one does find is a long string of “me-too!” conservative viewpoints, a lot of sounds-conservative-but-is-it-really soundbites, a recitation of all the right talking points, and a long history of ticket-punching.

Santorum would have you believe that he was a solitary voice in the Senate, leading a righteous crusade in that moribund body to see the Conservative view (as it stands today, it leaves much to be desired) against a variety of societal and political forces which, on the whole, saw that particular brand of so-called Conservatism strangled in it’s cradle.

It's the Rape of the Sabines all over again.

What does it matter if Santorum, the staunch fiscal conservative, helped balance the Federal Budget back in the 1990’s; What happened to all that Fiscal Conservatism in the Age of Bush II? What does it matter if Santorum led the fight for the Right to Life movements goals; all they had to show for it during Santorum’s tenure were marginal gains, and ultimately, a misguided, no-brainer Senatorial proclamation passed in the middle of the night, that didn’t keep anyone from removing a brain-dead woman’s feeding tube.

(Note: that in the process of trying “to save” Terry Schiavo, the Santorum-like conservatives trampled all over the supposedly sacrosanct notion of Marital Rights and Obligations, and that such a trampling went both unnoticed and unremarked upon by the greater mass of so-called conservatives at the time, is most telling).

It has become apparent -- to this writer, in any case -- that Santirum’s rise is a natural result of the fall of Gingrich, Cain, Bachmann, Perry and Pawlenty. In other words, as these people have floundered, Santorum has picked up the votes of the died-in-the-wool ideologues and doofuses who have been panicked into believing that they have “No Place Else To Go”. In this case, the No-Place-Else-To-Go voter may, in a backhanded way, be helping to achieve something that a few weeks ago I would have thought impossible:

They may be helping to engineer the race into a contest between the Apparatchik Obama and an Apparatchik Santorum.

Look, this page bears no great love for Mitt Romney -- and already begins to see signs that Romney is petering out -- and is greatly saddened by the now-looking-inevitable self-destruction of Newt Gingrich, but Santorum as your GOP nominee? Have we gone that far down the Road to Perdition that even an underachiever of Santorum’s ilk seems to some superior to the grossly underachieving Obama? A Santorum-Obama contest is sort of like that episode of South Park, in which the school kids are given a choice of voting on a new name for their school teams: Giant Douche or Turd Sandwich?

Santorum talks the talk, but doesn’t walk the walk – except on the Right to Life Issue. That is, in effect, the main case against Barack Obama from the Left over and above the fact that he couldn’t find his own ass with both hands and a flashlight. The recent brouhaha over forcing the Catholic Church and other religious institutions to pay for birth control benefits for their employees might have been the one stroke of genius the Obama Titanic Team has had in nearly four years: they may have succeeded in ensuring that the guy they probably cannot beat (Romney) is in turn defeated by the one guy they reasonably can (Santorum).

And they would have done it by splitting Conservatives in the process with a bullshit issue, which makes it a doubly-delicious thing. Talk about baiting a hook?

However, I think Obama and his people aren’t really that smart; if recent history is any indication, it would appear that this is perhaps the dumbest White House at least since the Carter Administration, and sothis state of affairs must have begun to evolve completely by accident. The Obama people, by pressing a non-issue (contraceptives are readily available to anyone with $10 and half-a-brain, in your local CVS, and the provision which makes it mandatory being – as they know – unconstitutional and unconscionable), might be unwittingly engineering a more favorable electoral climate for President Knows-and-Does-Nothing. The recent passage of same-sex marriage bills in Washington and (soon) New Jersey are simply more of the same, and have much the same aim; stampede Conservatives away from Romney/Gingrich, and into the arms of the ineffectual Santorum.

I’ve always said that Today’s Conservative is a flying dunce, if only because they tend to see the world through two lenses:

a) Anything that can be tortured into a religious imperative is something that must either be obeyed without question, or reflexively fought against without question. This is the herd mentality in action, and because the Religious Conservative puts his faith before his reason he is always easily manipulated -- by both parties. “The Philistines be upon ye, Sampson!” is their battle cry, and none ever make a conscious effort to ensure that the Philistines are, in all actuality, really upon their doorstep. If they aren't, someone will convince them -- emotionally -- that the attack is imminent, anyway...any day now...maybe after they have lunch.... It’s enough that the cry is raised, for most.

b) Whenever there is an issue of “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s”, the Conservative can be counted upon to choose the exact opposite of what Conservative ideology dictates. So long as people got their tax cuts, few, if any, objected to the last Republican congress’ spendthrift ways. So long as Iraq was being bombed and Afghanistan forcibly dragged, kicking-and-screaming, forward into the Mud Age by American Soldiers-cum-Missionaries-with-Stealth-Bombers, no one questioned the policy. When Republicans/Conservatives were expanding Medicare, under the guise of reform, no one batted an eyelash, except for a few who saw in McCain’s Gang-of-14 bullshit the specter of “Rockefeller Republicanism”, which is a euphemism for “Oh, shit, why didn’t anyone see that coming?”

The Conservative, therefore, is blinded by his religion and his pocketbook, and often the order of importance is reversible. Today’s conservative (small ‘c’ intentional) bears no resemblance to the Conservative beast of 1960-1990; he is, at best, someone who at regular intervals punches a specific set of buttons, mouths a plethora of stale slogans, attempts to pass a slew of largely-symbolic, mostly-ineffectual, and contrary-to-doctrine stupidity which passes as “policy”. In this regard, today’s conservative has become what he has always hated the most: a democrat, only one who can quote Scripture as an air-wasting measure, and always to no good end.

Santorum is that kind of “Conservative”, and while Ann Coulter would like you to believe that Mitt Romney is suddenly some sort of Ur-Conservative (after she has spent a decade-plus savaging him on everything from State-run healthcare systems, to taxes, to Family Values issues), he is at least more honest about what he truly is – a pragmatic politician – than Santorum ever was.

Romney at least talks up Capitalism, which makes him infinitely preferable to either Santorum or Obama; wherein the former sees the state of the economy as a decidedly secondary issue, the latter pretends as if the Capitalist system (when it doesn’t benefit him and his friends, that is ) is a cancer. In both cases, we have a man who has put his religion – the Judean-Christian god on the one hand, the Religion of the State on the other – ahead of more practical concerns.

Each is advocating for his own special form of Heaven; Santorum’s Ultimately Useless kind which would succeed in mandating the Ten Commandments be printed on condom wrappers, and Obama’s Utopian Socialist brand. You pick your poison in either case. One would use the power of the state to foster a disguised and ultimately futile Semi-Theocracy, the other to usher in Communism by a different name. Either way, the result is the same: focus upon narrow issues which leave most people disaffected, more stupidity, fewer solutions, and eternal, politicized debate about hills of beans.

Santorum is an empty suit with a list of questionable achievements of nearly 20 years vintage that he can’t stop talking about, assuming, as he does, that anyone actually gives a crap, or is even listening. He is the undeserving recipient of the fruits of an accident of history, vis-a-vis Gingrich. All you need to know about Santorum, both the Brand and his constituency, is contained in one of his more-popular campaign slogans:

Faith, Family, Freedom.

Did you notice which one came first?

That sort of slogan is little more than a marketing campaign aimed at religious conservatives in much the same way that “Yes We Can!” was a marketing campaign aimed at the Welfare Class. The differences between Santorum and Obama are much like the argument over whether people prefer Pepsi or Coke in a blind taste test. In any case, what usually wins is RC Cola. Which is to say, crap.

We have already suffered three-plus years of the Reign of the Marketed President, and I don't think anyone with sense would make the case that another such candidate, only professing a diametrically-opposed ideology, would be considered much of an improvement.

UPDATE: for some reason, George Orwell has been on my mind all morning. I have just recalled an Orwellian quote which seems to fit the present circumstances, and Rick Santorum, to a tee. The greatest peril, Orwell wrote in 1940, is:

An army of unemployed led by millionaires quoting the Sermon on the Mount – that is our danger.

Spooky, ain't it?

Somewhere, James Burnham is Laughing His Dead Ass Off...

2012-02-14T07:46:00.002-05:00

Cronyism 101 in the Age of Obama.

Actually, it's more like Managerial Socialism, but that's sorta-kinda redundant.

(H/T PowerlineBlog)

UPDATE: Already have received a couple of e-mails asking for clarifications, such as "Who is James Burnham?", and "What does he have to do with Obama?". Okay, here's some background:

James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution

Here's what George Orwell had to say about Burnham.

Read, and expand your horizons.

A Few Loose Ends...

2012-02-09T12:26:00.000-05:00

Some stuff that I had meant to blog about, but forgot or didn't get to.

Professor Hanson reminds us why he's smarter than everyone else...and a snazzy dresser.

This Just In: Even after getting ventillated braincase, JFK is still a fucking slimeball.

Iowahawk: A Fistful of Rebates...

2012-02-09T12:22:00.000-05:00

Iowahawk is a National Treasure -- except without that faggot Nicholas Cage and his fucked up teeth. Jesus, you’re a movie star and cousin or some shit of some famous director, or something. You’d think Nick could afford a decent dental plan?

Anyway, Iowahawk has more talent than Cage, and better teeth, so read him every goddamned day.

Anyhoo, here's Iowahawk taking the Clint Eastwood "pro-Obama" Super Bowl ad to task. Enjoy.

Think of It As The Healthcare Version of "Catch-and-Release"...

2012-02-09T09:10:00.000-05:00

Nutjob climbs L.A. Tower....naked and whistling hymns.

While the President is busy using Gestapo-like tactics to force the catholic Church to pay for abortions, perhaps he could explain what his "landmark" "healthcare" law is going to do to help the truly mentally ill?

Oh, right…democrats only care about that when one of their own has the top of her head blown off by a lunatic they can if-they-really-stretch describe as "right wing".

I don't know about this guy, but I'll bet when someone digs into his background, they're going to find the following things:

1. The Man is "known to Police..."

2. The Man is "known to mental health officials..."

3. The Man has been court-ordered into an institution for "observation and evaluation" more than once...

4. That after 24 or 48 hours of "observation and evaluation" he was released without anyone doing much more than filling in paperwork...

5. There's probably a lawyer somewhere who successfully argued that even if The Man was a stark, raving, lunatic, a danger to himself and others, the State could not force him to take prescription medication because it gave him tummyaches, acne, or simple, chronic hallitosis, and violated his Civil Rights.

Never mind OUR Civil Rights when The Man goes ballistic because his baloney sandwich told him that we're all some form of alien parasite that needs to be cleansed with a flamethrower before Jesus can make an appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

The real healthcare crisis in this country is that people who are really sick, and potentially dangerous, often roam the streets for lack of hospital space and funding, because all the taxpayer money that was supposed to go to their care instead got wasted on out-of-whack Union payscales, politicians and free face and butt lifts for illegal aliens.

Sometimes it's more compassionate to lock these guys up, since a goodly number can never be "cured" or "controlled" by the tried-and-failed, standard "therapy-and-wonder-drug" routines. It's certainly safer for everyone involved, especially the cops and firefighters who have to talk this guy down before he lands on some unaware passers-by 15 or 20 stories below.

Of Catholics and Contraceptives...

2012-02-09T07:49:00.003-05:00

On the newfangled-and-iron-fisted idea that Barack Obama (supposedly a Constitutional Scholar? Go figure!) and a bunch of died-in-the-wool Libtards can force the Catholic Church to provide contraceptives and abortion benefits for it's employees in violation of the First Amendment, I have the following thing to say:

Barack Obama can force the Church to provide the Morning-After Pill to it's employees just as soon as:

Obama mandates that every mosque in America should allow unfettered access to it's grounds, members and records by the FBI,24/7/365.

Obama mandates that the ACLU, NOW, Planned Parenthood, the Occupy Movement, the EnvironMENTAList organizations and every Labor Union in America open their books to a public audit and media scrutiny.

Obama turns over the names and addresses of all his illegal foreign campaign donors.

Obama mandates that ACORN identify every fake name and address it ever ginned up during a voter registration drive.

Obama mandates Racial and Ethnic Profiling by the TSA.

Obama orders the Justice Department to stop suing states over immigration laws the federal Government won't enforce, and prosecute the Black Panthers for Voter Intimidation.

Obama discloses the cost to taxpayers of every vacation he's taken, and the expense of every one of Michelle's foreign-shopping-sprees-disguised-as-diplomatic-events.

Obama declares George Soros an Enemy of the State, and sends a CIA or SEAL hit team out to arrest him and bring him to trial.

Obama tells us just why Richard Trumka has dibs on the White House guest rooms.

Obama mandates that every person who has ever received a welfare check start paying that money back, plus interest.

Obama releases his college transcripts and admits to having been a beneficiary of Affirmative Action.

Obama tells the truth about Jeremiah Wright.

Obama demands that Tim Geithner, Hilda Solis, Charlie Rangel, et. al., do jail time and cough up the fines for tax evasion, like everyone else.

Obama mandates that Robert Byrd's name be taken off every edifice in West Virginia, including all the signs over the Men's Room door on the Interstate rest stops.

Obama declares Louis Farrakhan a terrorist, and the Nation of Islam a terrorist organization.

Obama mandates an end to collective bargaining rights for Public Unions.

Obama mandates that every captured illegal alien be branded upon the forehead (for easy identification) and forced to walk back to whatever Third-World shithole they emerged from at gunpoint.

Obama returns the Nobel Peace Prize he got for simply being (half-) black.

Obama has Al Gore committed to a mental institution.

Obama reveals just who it was that Valerie Jarret slept with to get that job.

Obama buys his own crappy Chevy Volt.

Obama forces Solyndra, EnerOne, etc., etc, to repay the billions in stolen taxpayer dollars they got for being his campaign bundlers, plus interest.

Obama tells Jeffery Immelt to go fuck himself.

Obama finally admits the truth; that he's an incompetent nincompoop ideologue, far out of his depth in the first real job he's ever had, making it up as he goes along.

Obama gets the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport all of his illegal-alien-welfare-cheating-drunk-driving relatives.

Obama demands Eric Holder's resignation on the grounds that Holder is a complete retard.

Obama fires every third Government Employee as excess-to-needs, and cuts the pay of the remainder in half.

Obama arrests Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, and has them imprisoned in Gitmo.

Obama actually causes the seas to recede.

Obama gives one, solitary speech that he's actually written himself, provided it hasn't been written in crayon.

Obama saves the taxpayers money and jettisons the gold-plated teleprompters.

Obama finishes the Border Fence,and then orders minefields planted along it's entire length.

Obama partakes of his own policies, does the decent thing and resigns, and takes those 99 weeks of unemployment benefits.

I could go on and on, but this will do to begin with. if you have any to add to the list,please feel free to contact us here at the Lunatic's Asylum, or respond in the comments box.

I fully intend to send the entire list -- including your responses -- to the White House in a week. If I'm not here the week after that, assume that I have been declared an Enemy of the State and have someone get me a good lawyer.

Romney's Freudian Slip?

2012-02-08T11:34:00.001-05:00

Mitt Romney: "I’m Not Concerned About The Poor…"

There are Three Dots after that sentence fragment for a reason; Romney said more that qualified and explained this otherwise callous statement, but don’t ever expect anyone to give him any credit for what followed. Faster than Barack Obama could say "Michelle, pack our bags!" Romney was being excoriated in the media for being a modern-day Scrooge, and opportunistically assailed by his political opponents as someone too damned rich to have clue one about of the travails of the Common Man.

Let me put this out here at the beginning: this Lunatic has always been holding out for Newt Gingrich, and has been beating the Gingrich drum on this page for close to eight years now. I have no great love for Mitt Romney, but should he garner the GOP nomination to run against Barack "I’m-not-a-Real-President-but I-did-stay-at-a-Holiday-Inn-Express-Last-Night" Obama, I would gladly fix bayonets and go over the top for him. The alternative, as we have seen, is simply too terrible to contemplate.

For my money, even Mitt Romney is a better choice in a notional Romney/Obama race if only because he still seems to believe in Capitalism.

Be that as it may, while Romney isn’t really my choice for…oh, anything…I must say that I am rather disappointed in the reaction this sentence fragment, taken out of context, naturally, has evoked, but not terribly surprised. I mean, isn’t this what the Libtard Media and democratic (small ‘d’ intentional) party has been telling the Poor for nineteen million years, already -- that Republicans hate poor people? That every GOP candidate from Dog Catcher on up to President of the United States wants poor people to starve in the streets and to die horrible deaths in the worst Dickensian conditions and traditions?

Of course they have, so Romney in making that before-the-dots statement has done little more than give his opponents more grist for the mill, and they, predictably, ran with it in an attempt to smear him as some sort of heartless moneygrubber. It’s what they do, even though they know in their black little hearts that Romney isn’t really that unsympathetic and unfeeling. By uttering the words, which are then automatically presented out of context, Romney only sings a chorus of one of their favorite tunes, and does their work for them.

But let us assume for a moment that Romney really was that sort of cold and uncaring bastard, and forget the Three Dots. If you took that sentence fragment at face value, as if it were some sort of Freudian slip and the man was actually saying something he believed, do you think you might find yourself – even for a second -- in agreement with him?

My answer is HELL YES. Here’s why:

"The Poor", as a class, fall into three categories. The first category are those who, usually through some failing of their own, are unwilling or unable to make themselves useful and productive members of society. Typically, they wander about uneducated, with criminal records, no moral or ethical code, having been raised like feral wolves. Unwilling to make an effort to better their own lives, this behavior is usually a result of having learned to take advantage of the kindness of others or government. Though many are quite capable of doing some form of work to earn a living, they’d much rather be bottom-feeders, and live – even badly – off the scraps tossed to them by charity and government.

It requires no personal effort, you see. It's easier that way.

The second category consists of those people who have had their poverty engineered for them, typically by government. A great many of the people "who fall between the cracks" of society find themselves solidly within this second rank; those with some form of slight-yet-not-truly-disabling-disability or the elderly pensioner. Newt Gingrich was correct when he criticized Paul Ryan’s "reform Social Security" plan as Right-Wing Social Engineering; any true conservative (small ‘c’ intentional) would instead be arguing that Social Security shouldn’t even exist, let alone be reformed. Why should a conservative work to save a Left Wing program that does little more than make people the slaves to the democratic party? Are we supposed to make them the slaves of the GOP, instead? But, I digress…

The third category of The Poor is totally given over to the Demonstrably Stupid. This is, surprisingly, a rather large class of people who are possessed of just enough animal intelligence to eat, reproduce, and operate a cell phone or video game. This is a class of people for whom 21st Century technology has made it possible for them to not only survive, but to apparently thrive without any obvious effort whatsoever on their own part. The Demonstrably Stupid find themselves poor because they simply cannot think much further than their next uncontrollable and infantile impulse, and they have been largely shielded – by the culture, by government, by others who take a maternal interest in them – from the true consequences of their stupidity. This is, perhaps, the largest group of the Poor there is. It must represent at least 50% of the American population, to judge by how many of them eventually show up on Judge Judy, The People’s Court or The Maury Povich Show.

All three categories exist because some outside force requires that they should. This must somehow be true -- for if we take it for granted that human nature compels Man to crave the rewards of effort, drives him towards distinction and accomplishment, that if Man really is motivated by a great desire for self-preservation and that this drive is instinctive -- then there must be some external and mechanical reason for why so many utterly fail.

And worse, they’re failures in a country which, even after Barack Obama is done with it, will still be the freest and provide the most opportunity to it’s citizens the world has ever known. They should have no excuse.

Something must be interfering with the instinctual drive for self-preservation and improvement. Broadly speaking, those outside influences must be one or all of the following: Cultural attitudes, Government, and Poor Potty Training (and I mean this as a catchall for "bad parenting"). These sorts of people are the lost. They will never serve much use to anyone.

If this is true, then why should we give a rat’s behind about such people? Useless Mouths, sucking up resources that will be expended to no good end. Oh sure, a few do occasionally escape the cycle of Sloth, Government Entrapment, and Stupidity to break out of their circumstances by virtue of hard work, but those examples are few and far between. Does the greater mass seem to you to serve any greater purpose than as mass consumers and easily-manipulated voting blocs, kept alive by great expenditure of tax dollars?

The answer is No. These people serve no greater economic purpose – they are parasitical creatures, and they have no motive to change that status. Modern Government and culture have made it too easy for them to live, often well, at the margins of American life. After all, "The Poor" in America are not living that squalid an existence in comparison to, say, peasant mud farmers in parts of Africa and Asia. "The Poor" in this country receive food stamps so that they don’t starve, subsidized housing with amenities like heat, air conditioning, running water and cable or satellite television. Many own their own automobiles. Our "Poor" can walk into a hospital at any time of day and night and have everything from a case of the sniffles treated to a multi-organ transplant, free of charge.

Just think of how many times you’ve seen someone pay for a buttload of groceries with Food Stamps, while talking and texting on their cell phones (I wonder who pays that bill?), with seven children by eight fathers in tow, and then drive off with this free bounty in a better car than yours. This is a common occurrence here in New York City, I can tell you.

And it’s not as if they pay for anything with taxes, either. If the numbers I hear are correct, then 47% of the people in this country pay no income taxes, whatsoever, and the only taxes they DO pay are the ones they can’t avoid, i.e. those collected at point of sale.

We live in a country in which the productive are raped in order to support the unproductive, and it has been this way since Johnson’s Great Society bullshit declared "War" on poverty. In that time, we’ve seen the numbers of "The Poor" continue to climb, the amount of money spent on social programs do little else but increase, federal bureaucracies become entrenched and more expensive. We have only succeeded in making Poverty a career choice, and a quite lucrative one, too.

I know what all this Professional Poverty is intended to accomplish (to create legions of brain-dead assholes created for but one purpose in life, which is to vote democratic straight down the line, reflexively). The carrot is always dangled "Vote for me, because the other guy will make you work for a living". The Welfare State is little more than a sedative to seething masses of lazy and violent douchebags who would otherwise riot if we didn’t continue to keep them like treasured-but-dangerous pets. At what point does this insanity stop?

Well, I’d say that it’s all about to come to a screeching halt; there isn’t any money left to pay for it, after all, and Barack Obama’s spendthrift ways have assured us that there never will be. It’s time that the choice to be Professionally Poor was taken away from people, and that those who are irresponsible or stupid should have to suffer the consequences of their actions without having someone else bear the expense against their will. A little Social Darwinism would go a long way towards solving many of America’s cultural and economic problems.

If I parse Romney’s comment, and stop right at The Three Dots, I find something I can whole-heartedly agree with. There should be no concern for The Poor: they are poor because they want to be, and because government has become their drug of choice. You do a heroin addict no favor by supplying him with his drugs as an act of kindness, after all.

Screw the Poor. What have they ever done for us, except to steal our money and convert our economic and political systems from that which once guaranteed freedoms and opportunities, into systems which instead promote the grossest of injustices to occur under the banner of "Love Thy Neighbor?".

The day is coming, rather soon I think, when what Mitt Romney half-said may come to pass as hard-working American taxpayers finally get outraged by an out-of-control welfare state (you know, the one Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum were supposed to have ended in the 1990’s?) that only supports that which they cannot abide. With 80 million baby Boomers – the most spoiled, mollycoddled and insane generation of people ever to walk the Earth – about to retire, the Welfare State is no longer affordable, nor justifiable. With economic hardship staring us in the face, it’s continued existence and Obama’s determined expansion, is unconscionable.

Perhaps Romney, totally unintentionally, and ironically, with the aid of the Libtard media, may have begun a conversation within the electorate that has long been delayed. Maybe it’s time we began to rethink this War on Poverty nonsense, and this Welfare State stupidity. We either live in a free country where people are able to keep what they earn, from their own labor, or we live in Zimbabwe where the productive are harried and dispossessed, and the lazy, halt, and stupid are given rewards they haven’t earned.

We know which country Obama thinks he lives in. Maybe its time for productive Americans to chart a different course, where one of these days Mitt Romney, the Evil Miser, will have a statue – the words "I’m not concerned about the Poor…" graven in stone, erected in his honor somewhere by a grateful future generation – and every one of those people a person with a large bank account, and a comfortable non-government-funded retirement.

Thank you, Mitt. You may have started something spectacular with those words, and begun a national conversation which is long overdue. Only time will tell.

This Is Why The Public Schools Suck, Part II...

2012-02-08T11:07:00.004-05:00

Brooklyn teacher allegedly molests special ed charges, distributes kiddie porn on the Internet.

And yes, that is a picture of the alleged perpetrator dressed as the Easter Bunny.

Makes you wonder what the hell we're spending so much money on; obviously, it's about keeping alleged pedophiles employed instead of educating children.

No doubt this asshole's union will be front and center in defending him to the death. In New York City, even if this man is eventually convicted on these charges, he will no doubt still be collecting a paycheck and a pension the entire time...while in jail.

Because the ultimate purpose of the so-called Education Unions is not to educate anyone, but to ensure that the lowest-common-denominator in American Life gets to enjoy a decent standard of living, free of responsibility and at someone else's expense, in return for dues which then go to buy politicians. If that cause demands that a pedophile be protected from the consequences of his actions, then so be it. Just you watch.

It's never about the kids.

People like this should be taken out and burnt alive at the stake. On Pay-per-View.

Where's Jared Loughner When You Need Him?

2012-02-08T10:56:00.002-05:00

Oh, right...he's already in jail for shooting a congresscritter.

Maybe we ought to be giving him a fucking medal, instead? He seems to have had the right idea, but maybe just picked the wrong target.

(Before I get an avalanche of faux-outraged e-mails from Libtards: no, I'm not advocating that someone actually shoot a member of Congress, or making fun of Gabby Giffords and the other victims of that particular crime. I'm asking a rhetorical question in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. Get a fucking sense of humor, and unbunch your friggin' panties, you ninnies!)

The Washington Post identifies 35 Congressdouches who used their power to benefit themselves. And just in case that didn't make you sick, the Post then goes on to tell you how members of Congress use their power to benefit their relatives.

It's become clearer with every passing day that the real problem here in America is not our President (regardless of how ineffectual and stupid he's truly been) but our Congressional representation. After all, Obama can only stand before a camera and pontificate, while your typical Congresscritter can actually appropriate funds for this, that or the other wasteful, hare-brained project that puts money into their pockets...no matter how indirectly.

Nancy Pelosi, when she had the title of Speaker of the House, vowed to "drain the swamp" of Congressional corruption, but you knew that was just lip service. The current holder of that title, John Boehner, is little more than a placeholder until someone more interesting or smarter shows up to wrest the job from him. In neither case did one ever get any sense of confidence that the days of Washingtonian corruption will ever end.

After all, the GOP defended Duke Cunningham to the hilt, and the Congressional dems rallied around Charlie Rangel and Anthony Weiner. Who says there is no honor amongst thieves? Never mind Tony Soprano, the FBI should be targeting members of Congress with RICO statutes.

Regardless of who actually wins the Presidential battle in 2012, the real source of our national nightmare will still be the complete doofuses we have elected to Congress. So long as Congressional asshats have the power to cut a slice for themselves here and there, and to routinely exempt themselves from the very laws they yoke the rest of us with, the days of this Republic are truly numbered.

The political parties blame each other for the mess this country is in, but it's become crystal clear that the real problem is US: we keep voting for crooks, and then act surprised and shocked when they go out and steal. When will we learn?

UPDATE: Check out this brazen theft of taxpayer funds and act of nepotism carried out by the aptly-named Rep. Norman Dicks (Dingbat - Washington).

Crazy Lady Sues New York For $900 Trillion...

2012-02-08T08:53:00.002-05:00

Yep, you've read that right: that's 900 trillion dollars.

That's 60 times the current National Debt.

That's 64.28571 times the annual Gross National Product of the entire United States.

That's almost 15,000 times the entire budget for the City of New York.

If you lined up 900 trillion dollars bills, end-to-end, it would stretch...well, pretty damned far, I reckon!

That is the sum a Staten Island woman is suing the City of New York for, in a lawsuit over her children.

Fausat Ogunbayo, 46, had her children removed from her home in 2008 after the city's Administration for Children's Services (ACS) received several complaints about the crazy woman who left her kids home alone all day.

ACS caseworkers found that Ms. Ogunbayo suffers from severe mental issues that require medical attention. Since Ogunbayo never sought that attention, the City erred on the side of caution and removed her two sons, now aged 16 and 13, from her home. One report states that Ogunbayo actually wrote to her children's school administrators and told them that her children were targets of the FBI and Secret Service. Just why the believed they were being chased by the Federal Government is never exactly made clear.

Now, I don't know if Ms. Ogunbayo is, as they say, crazier than a bedbug. If she is, then I should damned-well hope that someone is going to put this woman in a padded room, for her own good. People who launch $900 trillion lawsuits and insist their family members are being followed by Black Helicopters are probably a little fruity in their loops, and in dire need of professional help. It's unfortunate that in this country we can find money to make certain that NFL teams get to build new stadiums, or there's money to build new schools for illiterate Afghans who don't value an education, while the mentally ill (dangerous or not) are left to fend for themselves, never mind their minor children.

She sounds insane, and trust me; I know insane when I hear it.

But just when you think you've got a cut-and-dried case of Delusional-Dingbat-With-Kids-at-Risk, along comes the worst of society's bottom-feeders to muddy the already-murky waters. Of course, we're talking about Lawyers.

Since no one can actually force Ms. Ogunbayo to take treatment, she hasn't had any, and that's thanks to the lawyers who have argued for decades that institutionalizing the provably insane is bad for their self-esteem and a violation of their civil rights. Of course, should a non-institutionalized dingbat come by and shoot seven people, including a democratic US Congresswoman, then it's a big deal with recriminations all around, all of a sudden.

So, while Ms. Ogunbayo doesn't actually have to have the treatment that trained social workers say she needs, and which her own writings almost prove beyond doubt are required,ACS still has a responsibility to see to the children's welfare, and decided to take them away, anyway. Which apparently pissed Ms. Ogunbayo's lawyers off, because not content to stand upon the laurels of ensuring a lunatic gets to roam the streets untreated, they had to take it one step further...

...and argue that even if you are batshit insane, demonstrably delusional, and inventing and living in your own Tom Clancy-style fantasies, it necessarily doesn't mean that you can't be a good parent. Some lawyer argued (to a real, live judge?) that the children should be returned to Ms. Ogunbayo's care and custody.

You know, the same care that saw them left all alone for extended periods of time.

Now, I don't know if Ms. Ogunbayo is a good -- if crazy -- parent, and don't particularly care. Bad parents are like dogshit in these parts; they're everywhere. But this is the part of the story that truly disturbed me, because it came from the mouth of a freakin' judge:

"Proof of mental illness alone will not support a finding of neglect," unless there's a causal link between the parent's condition and actual or potential harm to the child, said the court.

There you go. Even if you're psychotically mad, the authorities shouldn't step in to save a child's life until the Mental Patient actually does something to warrant it. You know, like douse them in lighter fluid and set them aflame to get the spiders off them. Or maybe open their stomachs with a butcher knife to let the little voices inside their belly buttons out. I'm just waiting for the day when an infant gets killed by his mother who dropped him from a rooftop to "scare the Devil out" of him.

Because that's how these cases usually end in New York City...with a dead kid. If you're an ACS worker in New Yorkistan, you can't win; you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

I'm thinking maybe Ms. Ogunbayo should be left to wander the streets, and her lawyers and the judge should be locked in the padded room, instead.

Then maybe we could give that $900 trillion we saved on the lawsuit to Planned Parenthood, so they can abort the crazies and the lawyers before they're even born. Sheesh!

This post also appears at the Insane Asylum blog. Please drop in and say hello!

Muslims Upset by NYPD Surveilance…

2012-02-06T10:21:00.001-05:00

Ever stop to think that maybe if you turned your crazy brothers, uncles, and fathers in before they go BOOM! you wouldn’t have this problem?

Of course not; that would make sense. It would also put an end to the Jihadi Lawfare project wherein certain groups seek to use the legal system to wage a war of whining against the Infidel, not to mention your ability to generate fake outrage amongst your demented kinsfolk whenever that becomes politically convenient for you.

Personally, I hope the NYPD is up your tight, little bungholes 24/7/365. After all, it wasn’t 19 Jews who took down the World Trade Center and killed 3,000 people. Hindus haven’t hatched 50 harebrained schemes to blow up the Lincoln Tunnel. There is no conspiracy of Druids and Jedi Knights to park car bombs in Time’s Square. I can promise you that not a single Greek Orthodox Christian was involved in the plan to destroy the underground fuel pipelines that serve Kennedy Airport.

You reap what you sow, my Islamic friends.

You want the NYPD out of your mosques? Then prove to us that you’re on board with the War on Terror, and do something about the killers in your midst. Like report them to the authorities. Hell, I’d even settle for a mass march of Muslims in the streets of New York denouncing terrorists and terrorism, something which -- 11 years after 9/11 -- still hasn’t happened.

Until Muslim-Americans take an active role in protecting the rest of us from their murderous progeny and counterparts, we’ll watch you like hawks day and night, night and day. Deal with it, Achmed.

The Religion of Peace? More like the Religion of retards.

This Is Why The Public Schools Suck...

2012-02-02T09:14:00.001-05:00

News this morning of a California elementary school teacher who was busted for taking exceptionally lewd and lurid photographs of children between the ages of 6 and 10.

People like this disgust me, and all the torments of Hades are hardly sufficient to deal with their ghastly crimes. I'd say we should kill them just as soon as they're discovered, but some douchebag from the ACLU would challenge me on it with some nonsense about due process of law, and then we'd have to kill someone extra.

Mark Berndt, a third-grade teacher from Los Angeles apparently has a convoluted fetish involving little children, tape, cockroaches, semen and a camera. I don't even know where to begin on this one; there's got to be at least 50 twisted pathologies right there, and I'm almost certain that any psychiatrist with half a brain just might beat Berndt to death with his bare hands 15 minutes into the initial examination.

Apparently, Mr. Berndt was caught because an alert (Jesus, how alert do you need to be to spot this kind of shit?) film processor reported Berndt to the police. Which begs a few questions:

1. What sort of brazen pedophile must Berndt be if he's still sending film off to be processed in an age of digital photography and home photo printing arrangements? Either Berndt is technologically challenged (in which case, he's too stupid to teach), or he just never thought he'd get caught. Perhaps he's been daring someone to stop him all along (that sometimes happens). Either way, he's a dangerous fuck who needs to be hung. On TV.

2. One wonders how many other photos may have gotten past the un-alert photo processors. In this case, police say they have gathered 399 photos, although it's not clear if they're all from the same batch.

It's also made clear in the article that while Berndt may have been fired immediately after his arrest, that school administrators did nothing to warn parents of his dalliances, even though they apparently knew about this demented bastard for a year!

Of course, stupid and dangerous shit going on within a Public School is not the private domain of California pedophiles. Oh, no. We've got some real winners right here in New York City. I had intended to blog about this particular douche last week, but didn't get around to it. Now seems a pretty good time.

Disgraced Teacher, Worth $10 Million, Makes $100,000 a Year, Does Nothing and Refuses to Leave.

Thanks to absolutely Byzantine union rules designed to keep the worst teachers in the world from getting fired, New York City taxpayers get to continue paying for this complete scumbag, who seems to enjoy sticking his thumb in everyone's eye.

And naturally, the asshole just had to be a lawyer, to boot.

We're continually being told by the media and our government that American school children are performing at a lower level with every passing year, and that the solution to this economic time bomb is "more money for education". However, it's become quite clear that the problem is not that we don't spend enough -- it is, in part, because we're spending it on people like this. More like wasting it on people like this. Not just the bad teachers, but the bad administrators, too, who can't seen to do a damned thing about the bad teachers, and who are apparently cool with that.

And in both cases you see a mindless bureaucracy which must exist solely for its own sake -- never mind it's core responsibility to educate children -- protect the wrongdoer. One pedophile has his activities kept secret from the general public for a year, the other collects a hundred g's to Xerox something every so often and run his own law and real estate firms from inside a city-owned-and-operated office, rent free.

This is either the bureaucracy protecting itself, or an indication that no one knows what the hell happens anywhere at any given time. This bureaucracy can't admit that it hires pedophiles when it does, and can't admit that it doesn't even screen for them in the hiring process. Heck, it doesn't even report their existence to the school-going public when they're identified within the school system! It's all CYA. If the bureaucracy itself isn't screwed up (mostly because it's full of civil servants who managed to score a 60 on a 3rd-grade-reading-level test) we see how the bureaucracy is tied up in red tape by the teacher's unions that make it damned-near impossible to fire anyone, for any reason whatsoever.

The stock, ineffectual-bureaucratic response to "Why is that asshole still here?" is summed up nicely by the defender of Mr. Rosenfeld:

“If these people are actually dangerous, it’s better to waste the money than to put them back with kids.”

Yeah, never mind putting them in fucking jail, right?

And why shouldn't this be the administrator's/union's attitude? It's not their money, is it? Besides, when the bureaucracy does run out of money to waste as a "precautionary" measure, or because the teacher's unions have bled the system white, they just go hat-in-hand to the politicians who find some other way to make our lives more expensive and aggravating.

American kids score low marks in international ratings in math, sciences, and reading, and according to President Obama (and her husband, too) there's an "epidemic" of child obesity that must be remedied with a state-approved dietary plan (another expensive boondoggle), as if this were Nazi Germany, or something.

Perhaps if the kids weren't being taught by pedophiles, the school systems hired only the best-qualified individuals, the unions didn't get to dictate the conditions of their contracts, and we started taking all the super-expensive Heather Has Two Mommies bullshit out of the curriculum and replaced them with more traditional and useful subjects -- more math, phonics, music, civics, real history, hard sciences, perhaps a fucking gym class once or twice a week -- they'd do a lot better.

But to hire the best-qualified individuals you need to be able to fire the worst ones, first. To run a school system efficiently and effectively, you need to have people who are dedicated to the needs of their customers -- the kids -- and not to the unions. In order to have the best damned school system on the planet you need to have a bureaucracy that has the ability to make easy judgement calls, like Do we inform the public that we have a pedophile with a cockroach fetish teaching pre-teens as soon as we discover him? or Shouldn't we fire this piece of shit who doesn't work and steals city resources by running his own business out of our offices?

Apparently, these questions aren't being asked, or even addressed, by at least two school systems in America. I should think this is pretty much par for the course in every state, county and municipality in the nation.

As long as the education establishment is run by a monopoly consisting of unions and political hacks, we will never see the sort of achievement that justifies the huge expense. Americans have paid hundreds of billions of tax dollars into the public school boondoggle, and what they get for it is lackluster performance, protected and tenured pedophiles, union dues going to influence the political process, bureaucrats paralyzed by stupidity and regulations that can't protect or educate anyone.

If I ever hear another person say "education is underfunded", I just might shoot them on the spot.

The Whitewashing Begins...

2012-01-31T10:51:00.000-05:00

I meant to blog about this earlier in the week, but had no time to do so. It is a New York Post piece about the tragic failure of President Obama's much ballyhooed Stimulus Plan, and how it has failed miserably, and do we have to say it?,Unexpectedly.

The Apologia begins with the faulty premise that the Stimulus was poorly designed and implemented without commenting upon the fact that any Socialist-redistributionist agenda typically is before you even begin to get into the details. It also is curiously silent on how taking (stealing) approximately $2 trillion out of the capital markets (where the money would have done far more good, and been more-readily available) through TARP, GM bailouts, Socialized Healthcare and Stimulus bills, and distributing it on obviously-politically-motivated criterion, was akin to giving a critically ill man -- in this case, a market that was screaming for credit and capitalization -- rat poison instead of anti-biotics.

The piece is also, woefully, inadequate in explaining how it was government interference in markets (guaranteeing faulty mortgage deals through Fannie and Freddie) that was the chief ingredient in the evaporation of half a trillion bucks in September of 2008, and subsequent collapse of the housing industry.

The Whitewashing of Barack Obama began, literally, on January 21, 2009, but it has now, with an election in view, revved up to hyperspeed. Barack Obama was not prepared for this job by experience or temperament, and the collection of complete boobs he's surrounded himself with -- from Rahm Emanuel, Joe Biden, and Valerie Jarret, not to mention a legion of ex-Clinton and carter flunkies -- ensured that when President On-the-Job-Training needed help, what he got instead was "handling".

Even sadder still, it's not even as if Obama actually asked for help, if what we've seen over the last three years is any indication. The man has been proven arrogant and persistent in his stupidity, after all. Frankly, he can be forgiven his misimpression that his shit does not, indeed, stink: he only finds himself within a Mirrored Echo Chamber in which his very visage and dulcet tone of voice is treated as if it were the greatest ecstasy ever known by man, surrounded as he is by self-interested sycophants and a compliant, like-minded press that couldn't be objective if you held a red-hot iron to their sphincters, on a good day.

The money quote, re: Why The Stimulus Failed Except for the Most Obvious Reason is this:

"I’ve always heard that the definition of a giraffe is a racehorse that was assembled by committee," one Democratic congressional aide told me. "Sometimes, that’s what you end up with when you have a lot of voices working on it."

And thus begins the Whitewashing of Failure with the tried-and-true rubrics that are stock-in-trade of this most miserable of Administrations. The Stimulus, and all that has followed it, have failed because:

a) Congress (typically the Republicans within, in either their capacity as minority party, or later with control of the House) gummed up the works, stalled, obstructed, frustrated or delayed...something.

b) The general public is stupid, and doesn't recognize the sheer genius inherent in the Obama Economic Strategy (such as it is), or the untrammelled beauty of Keynesian Economics spiced with a dash of Social Justice.

c) A bad communications and press policy which has prevented the Obama Administration from effectively getting it's message across and unable to communicate it's oh-so-obvious successes.

d) Some unforeseen circumstance which always arises at the very last second, and which, all together now, is totally unexpected.

e) Did we say the Public is a bunch of drooling dunces who couldn't find their collective ass with both hands and a flashlight? Just in case we haven't, let's do so now. In case we have, then let's underline it.

In short, everything that has gone wrong is someone else's fault, and not the result of the sainted Obama's lack of knowledge, skill and experience, nor his dunderheaded belief that freedom and capitalism are deeply-flawed concepts that cannot be truly enjoyed by us rubes unless they are, paternalistically, restricted and directed for us by our intellectual betters.

It's for our own good, don't you know.

Americans are lazy, dumb and spoiled, you know. President Dickhead has said so repeatedly. And because we're fat, dumb, and mollycoddled, we're unable to see that The Greater Good has been served, or just ungrateful bastards who won't take that minimum-wage job at the local solar factory that will fold in another year just so that the unemployment numbers look better, and O-man gets to take another victory lap with (P)MSNBC tossing rose petals in his path, and the New York Times writing paeans to his Greater Glory, the very Angels of Heaven trumpeting his Most Regal Majesty as he vacationed his way through a second term.

The fact is that His Heinous, Emperor Barack I, has done nothing good, and in fact, has done little of anything. He left his first year to his handlers, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. He spent his second year doing the bidding of the Europeans and the U.N. in Libya, and filming Presidential Infomercials in some now-probably-long-closed factory. He's spent his third year crying about his political opposition and avoiding anything that looks like work, unless there's a campaign check in it.

Yes, the Whitewashing of Barack Obama has begun in earnest, but you knew it would the second the man claimed he could calm the seas, and received the Nobel Peace Prize for being (half-) black. Obama was always all expectation and propaganda, and the truth must never be allowed to come out.

It (truth) will never make it into the History Books, but it will continue to exist in our collective memory. Don't buy this line of bullshit: Barack Obama was never really a President, only a Pretender, and no amount of retroactive airbrushing will ever erase that fact.

Human Resources Manager In Chief...

2012-01-31T10:02:00.002-05:00

President Obama tells woman that her Engineer husband's inability to find work is "interesting", and doesn't square with the information he has about our apparently Stealth economic recovery.

Odouchebag then goes one step further, and offers to give his resume a once-over. You can't make this shit up, folks.

So, since Barack Obama is going to be personally involved in helping this man find a job -- strictly for political purposes -- why not force the Vacationer-in-Chief to put his money where his mouth is? If finding people work is such a simple matter, given all this economic prosperity that we rubes are just too stupid to see and wouldn't otherwise find without the O-man's enlightened leadership, why not just send Barack Obama your resume and have him hook you up with the job of your dreams?

I know I will.

The address is http://www.whitehouse.gov/. Mark it "Find me a Job, Mr. President", and let's see a) how easy it is for Barack Obama to find you one of these high-paying, high-tech jobs, and b) how quickly the White House servers screech to a halt under the deluge of job-seeking professionals, and a public statement is made to please knock it off.

Here's my resume (see below), Mr. President. I'd like $100k/year, and three weeks vacation, and please, no Green Energy jobs; I've had one of those before and it evaporated faster than your chances of ever being re-elected next year have. Maybe one of your buds at Goldman-Sachs can hook me up? They can contact me here at the Asylum.

Thanks ever soooo much, President Kelly Girls!
====================================================
The Lunatic's Resume:

Objective: To obtain a challenging position which will allow me to fully utilize my skills and work experience.

Work History:

December 2009 – Present: Self-employed                   Staten Island, NY
Position: Blogger/Freelance Writer

Provides content for online web pages, including The Lunatic’s Asylum, The Insane Asylum, and Diogenes Middle Finger blogs. Featured in the New York Times healthcare blog of December 20, 2010 in an article entitled “One of Those Days”.

May 2009 – November 2009: Just Energy, Inc.           Staten Island, NY
Position: Customer Sales Representative

Sale of electricity, natural gas and other energy delivery services to small businesses and residential customers. Completes customer orders and contracts and submits them to Customer Accounts department for further processing.

Jan. 2000 – May 2004: Smith-Barney, Inc.                New York, NY
Position: Technical Analyst, Systems Automation

Converts data from project specifications, statements of problems and procedures to create or modify system automation programs. Prepares workflow charts and diagrams. Applies knowledge of system capabilities, subject matter to create automation programs utilizing C and REXX-based languages. Confers with representatives of various departments to plan, create, test and implement automation routines, and resolves questions of input, control requirements and internal checks. Writes, tests and implements programs intended to increase efficiency through the use of automation software and processes. Writes detailed instructions and flowcharts for use by Operations Staff.

Apr. 1998 – Jan.2000: Smith-Barney, Inc.           New York, NY
Position: Data Center Supervisor

Co-ordinates all Computer Operations activities in a multi-CPU, multi-LPAR Z/OS production environment. Includes the execution and prioritization of production batch and workload regulation utilizing OPCA, CA-7 and input queue manipulation. Maintains system integrity utilizing all available monitoring tools (Omegamon suite, NetView, MQ/Manager, Candle Command Center). Monitors and controls 300+ CICS regions and associated databases with real-time monitors. Identifies and responds to all matters pertaining to system availability. Schedules and co-ordinates all system modifications and maintenance events. Provides end-user support for a worldwide TCAM network servicing 2,000 branch offices and exchanges. Performs all managerial and administrative functions for a staff of 14.

Apr. 1995 – Apr. 1998: Smith-Barney, Inc.           New York, NY
Position: Senior Computer Operator

Performs IPL and POR for all systems. Monitors system activity through use of real-time monitors (Omegamon suite, NetView, MQ/Manager, Candle Command Center) in a CICS-heavy (300+ regions) automated securities trading environment. Tracks and executes batch production through OPCA and CA-7 schedulers, performs help desk functions for an international, 2,000 branch office TCAM network. Identifies and reports any issues of system degradation and implements recovery procedures.

Mar. 1991 – Apr. 1998: Telehouse International Corporation         Staten Island, NY
Position: Site Support Technician

Sept. 1988 – Dec. 1990: Nomura research Institute of America      Staten Island, NY
Position: Lead Computer Operator

Oct. 1986 – Oct. 1987: Salomon Brothers, Inc.               New York, NY
Position: Senior Computer Operator

May 1985 – Oct. 1986: Insurance Services Office            New York, NY
Position: Computer Operator

Software:
Z/OS, OS/390, MVS/ESA, MVS/XA, MVS/SP, DOS/VSE, VM/XA, VM/HPO operating systems, JES2, TSO/SPF, NetView, Omegamon for MVS, CICS and DB2, AF/Operator Suite (AF/Oper, AF/Remote, AF/IRM), RC?MVS, ESCON Manager, SAR, IDMS, DB2, MQ/manager, CA-1, CA-7, OPCA VTAM, TCAM, TCP/IP protocols.

Programming languages: C and C-variant languages, REXX.

Education:
Graduated St. Peter’s Boy’s High School in May of 1985, with honors.

Candle Corporation Certified in all Omegamon products, AF/Operator, IRM for AF/Operator and Candle Command Center at various dates.

Certified in REXX programming and Advanced REXX Programming Techniques by TechKnowledge Corp., Baltimore, MD, in November 2001.

References: Available upon request.
========================================
Update: If anyone can use someone with this sort of experience, or if you know someone who can, please contact me here at the Lunatic's Asylum (see e-mail address above!). Thanks much!

Making Your Privates Public…

2012-01-30T23:17:00.004-05:00

You know, there used to be a time before cell phones existed when people took great pains to do two very important things:

a. Keep their noses out of their neighbors’ business, and

b. Keep certain aspects of their personal lives private.

Apparently, this is no longer true. I won’t go into the near-impossibility of keeping most facets of your life a secret when you actually want to, nowadays (technology has made this somewhat problematic if not damned near impossible). However, one would think that some things about most people’s private lives that should be kept secret would remain safely hidden if only cell phones had not become ubiquitous…

…and if the people who insist on using them in a public setting had the same sense you’re likely to find in a brain-damaged Irish Setter.

As an example, I’ll tell you a tale with which my girlfriend, the lovely Lady Tess Trueheart (names are changed to protect the innocent), regaled me with just this afternoon.

Tess was sitting in her doctor’s office this morning, patiently awaiting her turn to see her physician, when in came a type of woman that Lady Trueheart’s sainted mother used to aptly refer to as “low-grade ore”. You know the type; she only managed to get through high school because she had once been voted “Most Likely to Swallow...Often”. She’s probably had at least two husbands – both alcoholic and/or abusively deviant, no doubt – and in-between them a whole legion of hot-dog-and-a-hump dates. She’s rapidly approaching 60, but clings to 45 with a desperation that reminds you of the Boat People fleeing Vietnam after the fall of Saigon.

According to Tess, I would have known this type in an instant by her “ratty-blond hair”, and indeed, I unfortunately do. Without much more in the way of eyewitness description, I can tell you the rest by describing the vision that leaped into my head upon hearing the words “ratty blond”.

I picture someone in acid-wash jeans two sizes too small, which only serves to accentuate her two-tiered muffin top, which itself is further augmented when she tries to sit in a waiting room chair; the backrest forces all that extra, doughy flesh forward for full effect. One gets the impression that if you were to picture such woman sitting naked on the toilet, and having to scratch her belly button, you somehow know that she would have to lean forward and reach down between her knees in order to accomplish the task.

And then you wonder what the fuck is wrong with you that you pictured this shambling hulk of a human being naked and on the toilet.

But I digress…

Anyway, the point is that this is a person who apparently has no shame, no real notion of what should and should not be discussed in public, and who then probably has learned how to use a cell phone inside a sawmill. Personally, I incline towards her being clueless, but let’s not put too fine a point on it.

Shambling Hulk of Belly Fat gets on her phone, inside a crowded waiting room, and calls her girlfriend (who one imagines is pretty much a carbon copy of Jabba The Butt, only in rhinestone spandex and stiletto-heeled boots that clash with her walker), and begins one of those annoyingly one-sided conversations that we normal folk must suffer since the invention of the Mobile Phone and the advent of Facebook began the decline of Western Civilization. I’ll spell it out phonetically for you, just so you get the full effect of the New York Accent:

“Yeah…I wuz sittin’ here, an’ I remembah’ed dat I had a apperntment wid dis udder doctah dat I fergit all aboud. An’ you know, I hadda call ‘em back, because dat’s da doctah dat’s lookin’ at the cysts I got on my over-ees an’ fall-oh-bian toobs…”

Great. As if looking at the Human version of the Titanic was not enough to give you douchechills, you now have to be informed about the most intimate details of her plumbing. A pussy that no person in their right mind wants to know anything about; a snatch most men with a decent fear of STD’s wouldn’t even dream of fucking, even with a stolen penis. And that, incidentally, was not just for Lovely Tess Trueheart’s consumption, but apparently also for the benefit of the 17 or 18 other people in the room who were also previously woefully misinformed about the status of Ms. Titanic’s Toxic Twat.

Of course, the rest of the conversation (which went on for some time), naturally, was much the same, leading the (I’m told) usually-stoic male receptionist to sadly shake his head. Since he didn’t puke immediately at the mention of Lady Chattery’s Unmentionable, I’ll just assume he’s gay, and that feeble gesture was simply the best he could muster without throwing a heavy piece of office equipment in her direction and telling her to shut the fuck up about her Diseased Beaver, already.

Things could be worse, and of course, they certainly did get that way. For while My Beloved was waiting in the Eighth Ring of Hell where Dante apparently forgot to mention that they keep the Public Pubic People, I was suffering my own version of the Public Private conversation clear on the other side of the island.

I had occasion to pass through a certain section of the neighborhood on my way to the supermarket, where my ears were accosted by yet more public pussy talk.

Apparently you will find people possessed of just enough animal intelligence to eat, shit, and fuck without government assistance, and sadly, operate a cell phone, just about everywhere,.. So, here I am, simply walking up the street and minding my own business, when I heard…and then saw…It.

“It” is a very large black woman, and when I say “large”, I mean that I have hardly ever seen anyone who could wear size 52 pants, or thereabouts, who wasn’t already lying on a flatbed tow truck, strapped down like King Kong in order to keep their shifting weight from causing the vehicle to topple in a tight turn. Or having the Fire Department tear down the outer walls of their dwelling in order to affect a rescue with a backhoe and elephant chains. Why, it was a miracle that this woman could even walk; I could hear her thighs rubbing together from 20 paces, and was surprised that she hadn’t burst into flame from the intense friction. Had she worn corduroys, it’s entirely possible that upon hearing that sound of rubbing thighs, one might imagine that God was about to deal a hand of Texas Hold ‘Em, and was shuffling an enormous deck of cards.

I hate to belabor the point, but you know I'm compelled to; this woman is so fat that when she had her ears pierced, she probably leaked gravy for 72 hours. She is so fat that the blood bank classifies her blood type as “Ragu”. She has canckles: that combination of flabby calf and ankle that spills over the side of her shoes and has you wondering how she copes with the problem of unexpectedly finding that excess skin occasionally getting under her own heels while walking.

Anyway, It had a cell phone, too. And was screaming into it. I managed to overhear a snippet of conversation, which, frankly, wasn’t all that difficult to overhear from 25’ away, since she was literally screaming at the top of her, (obviously working overtime) lungs. Again, I shall spell it out phonetically for you:

“Oh no, Niggah, don’ go dare! You cain’t say dat when ya KNOW you wuz beggin’ me to suck yo’ dick two weeks ago! When you know ya wuz beggin’ ta hit dis shit! Oh no ya dinnit, Niggah. Niggah, pa-leeze, ya know ya said dat shit, ya know ya said dat shit, don’ go an’ deny it now, mothafuckah, ya wanna git wit me.”

I could listen to no more, a) for fear of bursting out laughing, and b) because the more I looked at It, the more I wondered just what sort of crazy-brave asshole took a run at THAT. You have to be either psychotically desperate or some kind of demented-super-horny to even consider potentially endangering your health and safety just for the slightest chance to pork Ol’ USDA-on-The-Hoof. Never mind “roll her in flour and aim for the wet spot”; this would be more like “Strap a board across your ass and have a length of rope handy because you otherwise just might fall in and never be heard from again”.

And this was just TODAY. You’d be astounded at the embarrassing (to normal people) conversations I’ve overheard – all against my will, I assure you -- on public transport on a daily basis. Usually from all manner of unhinged, baffled, unglued, berserk, screwball, insipid and vacant souls talking freely (and loudly) about their familial problems, addictions, sexual exploits, arrest records, deviant behaviors, recent criminal activities, all exposing their better-off-closeted skeletons.

Don’t get me started on what one is liable to hear in what were once considered more respectable places, like restaurants and offices. For sure don’t ask me about these sorts of conversations when they take place in the most inappropriate of venues – Men’s Rooms, Elevators, a department store changing room. It’s bad enough that the individual’s privacy is slowly being eroded by a combination of legislation, government interference, technological “progress’, and declining social norms (of which things like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube are the visible pustules of a degenerative disease); now we have to have our personal space forcefully violated by the Rude and Stupid who insist on invading it with their own personal crapolla.

And human nature being what it is, you just know that if you asked one of these douchebags to simply have some courtesy and self-respect, and not air their dirty laundry in this manner you’re certain to get either a punch in the nose, or a sharp rebuke about “minding your own fuckin’ business”.

Honestly, I’d be more than happy to mind my own fuckin’ business, except that people who behave this way have made their business my business (and everyone else’s, too) because they lack a) manners, b) grace, and c) intelligence.

Some might say that the deadliest instruments ever conceived by man are Nuclear Weapons, but I beg to differ: the deadliest instruments ever created by man are the transistor and the several generations of complete retards who have inherited it’s now-questionable bounty.

I’m reminded of an old saw that goes something like this:

“If you try to teach a chimpanzee to write, one of two things happens -- he either learns, or he eventually gets frustrated and sticks the pen in your eye”.

Nowadays the chimpanzees don’t even have to write, mostly just speak, and in one of those Great Ironies of The Universe, Man utilizes his opposable thumbs (one of the few things that separates him from the Lower Primates) to text and cell-phone his way through the devolution back into Baboonhood.

Unfortunately, we’re unable to shoot people on sight whenever they make it perfectly clear that they’re drooling idiots, so another solution must be found. In another of those Great Cosmic Ironies, perhaps the Tree Huggers are right in advocating that we might be better off as a society if all progress were simply arrested by regulation, or starved of the energy that makes it all possible.

At least I wouldn’t have to hear all about what some rather nasty excuses for women are saying about and doing with their vaginas in the pubic…err…public square.

Wait A Second...When Did Romney Become a Conservative?

2012-01-26T14:08:00.009-05:00

I love Ann Coulter. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if it were possible, I would gladly bear her children. Our prospective rugrats would be so exceedingly adorable, so wonderfully smart and sarcastic that they would probably be some of the most dangerous (in an irreverently cutesy kind of vicious way) people to ever walk the face of this great Planet Earth.

I'm also a great fan of one Mark Steyn, a talent so great that the bounds of our Solar System are hardly sufficient to contain it. I sometimes find myself wishing that I had one tenth the sheer writing skill of Mark Steyn, if only because that sort of eloquence would be an acceptable substitute for the hundreds of hours in the gym needed to sculpt myself into a Greek Adonis.

When in doubt, go for brains. Brains will always beat great abs, you know.

However, when I'm listening to or reading either of these two great luminaries of the Right Wing Galaxy of Intellectual stars, these two stalwart defenders of the Conservative Position on All Things nowadays, I find myself somewhat confused and consternated by their support of one Willard "Mitt" Romney to be the eventual Republican nominee for The Presidency of these United States.

Primarily because I just can't figure out what the fuck is so conservative (small 'c' intentional) about Mitt Romney. It's almost as if Ann and Mark have taken leave of their senses when they make the case that Mitt Romney is the 'real' conservative hope in the 2012 Sweepstakes to replace The Gross Mediocrity of Tried-and-Failed Socialism that is Barack Obama.

Now people are entitled to their opinions, and I'm going to admit that there might just be something in this intellectual formulation of Romney As The Next Reagan that I'm missing; stranger things have happened. But just based upon simple appearances, I'm hard-pressed to understand the appeal of Romney to some within the greater Conservative Movement.

Romney possesses, at first blush, none of the core qualities that gets one tagged Hardcore Conservative these days.

Romney has had more positions on the Right to Life Question than I've had hot dinners. In years past, such seeming fickleness on what is supposed to be one of the foundation blocks of Conservative ideology would have discounted Romney as a flip-flopper and political opportunist which would have had 'real' conservatives jumping up and down like schoolboys bursting for a pee, screaming "hypocrite"!

Historically, conservatives have always claimed that while the Left considers hypocrisy to be a virtue, it is a deadly vice which automatically excludes any candidate calling himself 'conservative' from any race, because conservatives are supposed to stand "on principles" which are considered inflexible and unyielding. This formulation has torpedoed many a would-be candidate before, but apparently the conservatives this time around are giving Romney a free ride on this particular failing.

Romney is also, at least in spirit, the midwife of the greatest bugaboo since the Red Scare, which is state-run healthcare. The Romneycare scheme in Massachusetts is perhaps the greatest contraindication of Romney's conservatism; it applies the power of the state to the individuals' greatest possessions, i.e. their bodies and health, and forces individuals to make certain choices (they're called "mandates") against their will. None of this screams "Conservative!" in my mind, and worse, Barack Obama himself has proudly proclaimed that Romney's monstrosity was in fact the blueprint for much of Obamacare.

It's hard to see the conservatism in this, and Romney has not had to do much more than answer a few unpleasant questions in this regard. I'm wondering when it became a conservative principle to use the power of the state to force people into making health and economic choices they might otherwise not make, given the possibility of other free-market options? After all, conservatives are supposed to be all about personal rights, including the choices one makes about their personal care, and against the creeping power of the overbearing state, and all for unbridled economic freedom.

Romney has hit the campaign trail loudly boasting of his ability to "work across the aisle" and "bring Democrats and Republicans together" while he was the Governor of the People's Republic of Taxachusetts, a job I would liken to being president of the Glee Club if only because Massachusetts is such an insignificant little state. It's not like being Governor of Texas, California or New York. Massachusetts, whatever it's virtues in the history and folklore of the United States has, historically, been little more than a socially-retarded boil which occasionally erupts for good or ill. Good when it is the cradle of the American Revolution and Abolitionist Movement, grossly ill when it occasionally vomits up yet another generation of Kennedys.

It has been 'real' conservative boilerplate for decades now that "working across the aisle" is a bad thing. Coulter herself has often said that there is no way that any conservative worth his/her salt can work with the political Left in this country and still be considered a conservative, generally speaking. Compromise with the left, in any way, has always been one of the greatest sins a conservative can commit. One does not, according to Coulter at least, elect Conservatives in order to accommodate Socialists and Communists.

Otherwise, what was the point? I mean, doesn't accommodating the Liberal Left (which is what bi-partisan compromise is) sort of negate the purpose of a Conservative Movement in the first place? Coulter has gotten wealthy, one assumes, by writing a ton of books implying that the political Left has a devious scheme for turning us into something akin to an East German police state, making the accusation that the Liberal is never to be trusted and should be thwarted at every turn by all means necessary. So why would she support someone who boasts of his ability to compromise with her social and ideological enemies? What is it about Romney -- the half-a-loaf-is-better-than-no-bread-friend-of-Lefties -- that strikes you as particularly 'conservative'?

At least Steyn makes a better case for Romney in terms of free-market economics, and one gets the impression that his support of Romney is more a fervent wish to see Capitalism sustained and Obama vanquished than it is a matter of non-priority social/ideological goals being met. Steyn is nowhere near as hysterical in his calls for Romney over Gingrich/Paul/Santorum as Coulter is. One gets the distinct impression that where Steyn's assertion of Romney's conservative chops is tied to policy and possibilities for sustaining the American ideal, Coulter's may be, sadly, childishly tied to personalities and a need to be perceived as right.

She just doesn't like Gingrich, et. al., and although I'm certain that she could give you a hundred reasons to justify this dislike, it still doesn't square with christening a flip-flopping, accommodating, quasi-statist as the best conservative hope to beat Obama. She's been so wrong in identifying the Next Great Hope of the Republican Party so often in the recent past that just this once, you get the impression, she wants so badly to be right that she'll even try to sell you that someone she wouldn't consider conservative on his best day is suddenly the Next Barry Goldwater.

Frankly speaking, a bread mold with a half-assed economic plan and a pledge to do the right thing -- rather than the expedient thing -- and with a history of such behind him, ought to be able to beat Obama next November, and rather handily, at that.

Obama, entering the home stretch of the lamest presidency in American History, is little more than an empty shirt that utters speeches fed to him by brilliant writers. Obama doesn't do anything; he simply floats the idea out there and then expects someone else to do the actual work. If anything, Barack Obama is set to achieve the impossible, and start a movement to get James Earl Carter's portrait on a postage stamp, or the $4-1/2 dollar bill, as people begin to refer to the flabby malaise of the Post-Nixon 1970's as "The Good Old Days".

It took Barack Obama to make the days of Odd/Even gas rationing, Iranian-held Hostages, stagflation, wear-your-sweater paternalism, and the Pet Rock appear to be a Gilded Age of Great Statesman and Happiness. Anyone could beat that, and Romney not least of all, but the question is not "who will win?", but "what will win?".

If we're talking "what" in terms of hard-core political philosophy and ideology (and here we mean the hard-core social conservatives), then it's hard to see how Romney is your choice of champion. But apparently, Romney must possess some strange power that I'm not aware of, because the greatest advocates -- amongst them Coulter -- of that sort of conservatism are willing to fervently back that which they formerly despised, discounted and discarded, labelling such people with the approbation "not a REAL conservative", and "just as good as a democrat".

Steyn's position is easier to see; he likes Romney because he agrees with him, in the main, and because Steyn thinks in terms of a conservative movement which makes advances where possible under present circumstances, rather than in terms of a all-consuming conservative activism. Coulter, apparently, likes Romney simply because he's not Gingrich, and this, somehow, suffices, even if he does have a problem with telling the truth or staying on the same side of the Pro-Life Street for more than five minutes. Then again, it wasn't all that long ago that Ann Coulter told us that Mike Pence was the Greatest Conservative Evah! and should have been pressed into service as the REAL conservative alternative to G.W. Bush tenure. One wonders what Ann Coulter is smoking, sometimes.

Of course, Pence was never any such thing, and was happily earmarking his way through a lackluster Congressional career, like any good ticket-puncher who's main ability was never much more than to parrot the proper slogans, pretend to believe in what everyone else did, and then do what was good for Mike Pence.

Then again, perhaps this is the similarity that explains Coulter's support of Romney? In any case, it is my opinion that no matter how brilliant she might be, no matter how smart and acute she is in making her case for conservatism, that Ann Coulter is perhaps the worst judge of who or what actually is conservative; her aim, apparently, is not so much to advance a conservative agenda, it's to be one of the shapers of conservative thought and activism. In this regard, she's willing, in my eyes, to drive the Romney bandwagon for the simple reward of having been right and relevant.

There can be no other explanation for this "Conservative Mitt Romney" meme on Coulter's part, at least, except to raise her own profile in "the Movement" by backing the "right" horse, this time, even if it means hypocrisy. Coulter has gone all "Establishment" on us, while Steyn makes a better case in terms of pragmatism: it's better to have someone who espouses and advances some conservative views (mostly economic) where possible, and who then leaves much of the social folderol where it belongs -- for a time when we're not thisclose to starving and living in a Third World State. Only populations which are comfortable, confident, and unthreatened by the impending doom of terrorist attack or collapse have the time and energy to discuss such matters like Abortion, Gay Marriage, and whether you should be able to own an unregistered Sherman tank and a brace of RPG's to serve all your recreational deer hunting requirements.

Steyn's support of "Conservative Romney" is easier to explain, then, if your purpose is to set things aright in this country in stages and by priorities, and to work within the framework of what is presently possible: you must first fix the economy and restore some semblance of free-market capitalism in order to begin addressing all the other problems we face, and so Romney, the businessman, does seem to offer more in this regard than any of the other candidates. Romney the social-conservative-lite in the race (discounting Ron Paul's insanity for what it is), the prevaricator, the flip-flopper, the slick used-car-salesman-huckster with a reputation for saying anything he thinks he needs to say and contradicting himself at every turn, is not what Coulter, just three short years ago, would have termed "one of us", i.e a REAL conservative.

Especially since the Pray-All-Day Rick Perry has dropped out of the race, and Ann's once evil arch nemesis, John McCain, has endorsed Romney with gusto.

Go figure.

Steyn's position is more tenable, and understandable; one must fight the conservative fight in much the same way as a military commander would fight a major battle. Columns of troops advance where they can, hold their positions where they must, and the overall strategy is tied to winning and pressing piecemeal incremental strategic advantages, rather than in attempting to annihilate a formidable foe in one fell swoop.

But in either case, is Mitt Romney really all that conservative? I don't see it, but then again, I don't make a fortune writing books, gracing National Review or guest hosting for Sean and Rush, so what do I know? I'm just some dude in his pajamas that asks stupid questions, and then gives half-assed opinions.

I'll give Steyn and Coulter credit (they've earned it) for being smarter than I am, but unless there's some great subtlety that my tiny intellect has missed, I'm hard-pressed to figure out how a guy most said was a shill a few years ago suddenly became the Ur-Conservative choice for 2012, and how it was that they both arrived at this formulation.

UPDATE: Edited, as I've apparently spelled Ann Coulter's last name incorrectly at least fifty times. My apologies.

If This Is What Real Life Looks Like…

2012-01-18T21:50:00.006-05:00

...then we're all screwed, blued, and tattooed.

I am a voracious consumer of television. I don’t know specifically when this bad habit started, I only know that television is a part of about half my normal day. I watch the news religiously (thank that non-existent deity for Fox) and The History Channel, and most sporting events (hockey and football) are about as close to a religious experience as I can manage.

My television viewing habits used to be quite selective, but this has changed since I have taken up residence with my new/old girlfriend. Her viewing habits are, shall we say, not quite as discerning as mine. This fact has led me to a whole slew of new viewing experiences that, quite frankly, cause me to fear for the future of the human species.

Because my beloved is addicted to what is euphemistically referred to as “Reality Television”, and unfortunately, some aspects of the genre now have me hooked. This makes me want to simultaneously vomit and volunteer to be forcibly sterilized. If this is what Reality is like for most people then I must have been sleeping under a rock somewhere; I can honestly say that I have never known anyone like most of the douchebags I’ve see on these programs. Amazingly, I was not aware of just how much stupidity is going on around me, apparently 24 hours a day, that I’m failing to notice, and it has me thinking that I have to get outside more.

Armed to the teeth, of course. Because I do need to be protected from these idiots.

Most of this “Reality” fare is simply shocking, and leaves one to ponder this question:

If an extraterrestrial being landed on this planet tomorrow, and if he all he had to learn the basics of human culture was television only, just what would he learn, and would it cause him to either; a) tell the home world not to bother coming here, seeing as there is no intelligent life, or b) advise his superiors that the bags of flesh inhabiting this world are ripe for conquest and enslavement?

Let’s start with one of the more disturbing reality shows which is the newly-returned Fear Factor, a show in which contestants are apparently willing to risk life, limb, and their dignity for the chance to win $50,000.

The show consists of a series of stunts that follows a repetitive pattern which always include tests of stamina, agility, and intestinal fortitude, undertaken in an extreme manner. Contestants are left to hang upside down 15 stories above concrete, to try to unshackle themselves from all sorts of contrivances underwater before they drown, and of course, eat the most vile and disgusting substances known to man that did not originate in a Waffle House or White Castle.

Because let’s face it; one has not really lived until you’ve eaten raw elk penis, rancid fish heads, hissing cockroaches, all manner of molds, spores and fungi, and done it while lying within a locked, Lucite coffin, full of snakes and scorpions, trying to free yourself from a couple of padlocks before said box is destroyed in a horrific explosion. From what I've been told, the stunts are becoming ever-more extreme and it's simply a matter of time -- in my opinion -- before they end up killing someone.

I don’t care about anyone’s “competitive nature”; that’s simply too much danger and degradation to endure for a prize that will eventually equal less than half-a-year’s median salary, after taxes. If you’re lucky. One gets the distinct impression that there is a certain class of Americans out there that would literally eat their own shit for money, and the only way they can somehow manage to make that unpleasant prospect fun is to do it before a national television audience.

If our alien visitor wanted to know all about a certain class of people we call “Italians”, then he’s in store for a real treat.

We Italians were once the people who ushered in and fostered the Renaissance. We used to be the inheritors of the Roman legacy. We used to beam with pride at the Italian Roll Call of the world’s greatest men: Caesar, Da Vinci, Marconi, Michelangelo, Cicero, Galileo, Dante. Anyone with half a brain would be damned proud to be associated with, arguably, the brightest stars of the intellectual, scientific, political and artistic galaxies.

And then you watch an episode of Mob Wives and you begin to wonder if it’s possible to change your ethnicity in the same way that others get new noses or boobs.

Mob Wives follows the exploits (such as they are) of four Mafia princesses. They have achieved this lofty ideal either through accident of birth or marriage, but somehow it entitles them to be famous and play by a different set of rules than the rest of us. Personally, I find it little more than four illiterate whores living vicariously on the vile misdeeds of others, and presumably upon the ill-gotten gains, as well. About the only accurate thing in the show is the Italian propensity to both yell and curse, and it does nothing to indicate that Italian women are very often true ladies. But, it can, and does, get worse, because they're all living and hanging out in my hometown of Staten Island, New York.

So now you know why I stay inside the house so much, I guess...

Of course, there’s always The Jersey Shore, a show about the exploits of what we call in these parts ‘The Bridge and Tunnel Set’, only suspended in a noxious jello mold of massive quantities of hair gel and rank stupidity that can only be remedied, I think, by multiple gunshots. One wonders just what a girl has to do to get a name like ‘Snooki’, and how many arrests and STD’s did she accumulate whilst earning it?This show proves, once and for all, there’s a very good reason why stereotypes – of all kinds – exist; because they’re often all too sadly true.

I rather doubt you'd find one legitimate high school graduate on The Jersey Shore, and the one girl who actually did get her diploma probably performed an act of oral sex in order to get it.

If you’re interested in what life is like in most of America’s ghettos, then you can watch one of my new favorites, The First 48. The show follows the investigations of real-life homicide detectives, and all too often, the victim is a minority. In this show you will learn that although African-Americans all have given names, no one ever uses them. Instead, men prance about with names like G-Bizzy, Skeeter Man, and Goldtoof, and very often, their closest and dearest friends (often their partners in crime) can say – with a straight face – that while they’ve known Boo Boo, Hammerhead and Stankypants forever – they’ve been tight, solid homeboys for 15 years now – no one knew they’re REAL names were Robespieere, Eustacean and Vitalis.

You’ll also learn that all African-American males, either suspects or victims, appear to be “aspiring rappers” or “music producers”, which I guess is a polite euphemism for drug dealer, gangbanger or deadbeat dad, which is what most of the people covered truly are. You’ll also discover that most of the victims are often dead for no logical reason whatsoever, except that the preferred method of conflict resolution in many African-American neighborhoods is to break out an AK-47 and indiscriminately spray bullets rather than settle things over a beer and a burger.

When there is an unfortunate case in which an upstanding pillar of the community -- a good father, a beloved coach, the well-known neighborhood watchman -- is killed, there is typically absolutely no remorse shown by the suspects at all. There is usually also no help forthcoming from witnesses or other members of the community who will then consequently bitch and whine about the violence done in the streets everyday, expecting someone to do something without their input or help. For some reason,. African-Americans seem to think -- one would get this idea from watching The First 48 -- that the police don't really need their help, and that talking to a cop about your dead relatives' activities and associations (they call it 'snitching') is the next best thing to sticking your bare tongue up a leper's ass.

About the only emotions one ever sees on The First 48 are the raw grief of the victim’s loved ones, or the policeman's irritation and frustration, and then there's always that one scene at the end, the one where the cops know they have their man because you can see him on the hidden interview camera tucking his arms inside his shirt. Invariably every suspect does it. It’s the reaction one expects from someone whose blood has just run cold in the presence of the police, and not because he fears for his safety or feels remorse for having taken someones life, but because he knows he’s about to lose his freedom, a commodity he usually badly abused while he had it.

There's another brand of nonsense shows which display that category of people I like to call “Possessed-of-just-enough-animal-intelligence-to-eat-shit-and-fuck”. This category cuts across all racial and ethnic lines and proves that Darwin just might have been right.

The Jerry Springer Show and The Maury Povich Show will introduce you to a class of human being that ranks somewhere between slime mold and that brown ring you find around the toilet when you don’t clean it regularly. These shows are a cornucopia of the decidedly lascivious underbelly of American Life – transvestites, lesbians, S&M aficionados, Rednecks, Trailer Trash, Welfare Mothers, the professional deadbeats, in short, the reason why most people should have to take a basic IQ test before they’re allowed to breed.

Springer’s show is so infamous, I should think, that its standard fare barely bears repeating. The truly interesting, and disgusting, sideshow takes place on Povich’s show, which is a wall-to-wall fourth-rate melodrama of paternity disputes, cheating baby daddies/mommas, polygraph tests and pap psychology. Recently, here in New York state our politicians have been debating the question of requiring all convicted felons to submit a DNA sample to a state database for use by the various police departments. They shouldn’t bother: Povich has done so many paternity tests (Is He or Isn’t He the Father -- it’s virtually the entire show) they should just ask him if they can use his.

It would certainly be a much cheaper option, and save the taxpayers a shitload of money.

Our rhetorical extraterrestrial would probably despair of finding anything worthwhile about this planet, if television was his only guide.

Watching this disgusting parade which masquerades as entertainment makes me despair, too.

Don't Take That Victory Lap Yet, Mitt...

2012-01-12T11:13:00.001-05:00

#Excelsior502 - Mitt Romney has won the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, and has, de jure, become the presumptive GOP nominee in the Great Battle to Defeat Stupidity in 2012.

Big Deal.

I do not wish to pee in Mr. Romney's Wheaties; after all, winning a beauty contest that is typically dominated by the man who manages to dish out the most potato salad to the Godbot farm-welfare set (Iowa), or winning a contest which is designed to cater to the specific mental deficiencies of the blue-blooded descendants of 17th century witch-burners (New Hampshire) cannot be easy feats. They certainly are expensive accomplishments, I'll grant you.

But then again, it's not as if we're talking Mitt's personal fortune here, is it?

The President of the United States, strictly speaking, is not elected to pass out the corn dogs and fried Twinkies, nor is he elected to pay lip service to the questionable social psychoses of the most unreliable of political beasts -- the Northeastern Republican who's conservatism begins and ends with his wallet and special social status (so he thinks). You know, the sort who on the one hand complains the current dipshit in the White House is a radical socialist peddling dangerous class warfare demagoguery, and then somehow finds it perfectly acceptable to question Romney's unbridled capitalist past when he's winning?

But, I digress. The point is this: neither Iowa nor New Hampshire represents the will of the majority of Americans. They are simply Potemkin displays of democracy in which the purpose is not so much to begin the serious business of selecting the best candidate, but to begin the process of excluding candidates. The one's who win these two contests are typically those who have the money to spread around and who can pass an extremely narrow test based upon mostly-bullshit ideological concerns; those who haven't greased enough palms, or who can't talk the talk, fall into a secondary status which begins the process of starving them of funds and media attention.

After all, who is going to keep paying Jon Huntsman's bills in the next few months? Who would want to? But while Huntsman might be a rotten candidate who's view of Republican politics and conservatism may be skewed by his own special brand of stupidity, it doesn't stand to reason that he should be silenced for lack of funds, either. Those who cannot pass the test of Iowa and New Hampshire drop out of the race, almost a full year before any vote that really counts is actually taken. Let's not even begin to discuss the mind-boggling system of some of these states coming up in which registered democrats are able to vote in republican primaries -- talk about the potential for fucking with the integrity of the political process? -- and vice-versa.

Anyways, we're talking about Mitt Romney and why he shouldn't get all excited about his little winning streak. His problems begin in earnest next week in South Carolina, where his money probably won't buy him as many votes. The problem, from my point of view, with Mitt Romney is that he's not liable -- at this point -- to achieve much better than a dead tie with Resident O-boo-boo, and he doesn't inspire much confidence that he can do better.

Mitt may think he's begun the process of coasting to eventual victory (many in the media seem to agree), but the process is about to get tougher, as it should, and today's presumptive front-runner just might be tomorrow's also-ran. One just hopes against hope, however, that the candidates already being dismissed because of two third-place-or-lower showings aren't totally starved of the contributions they'll need to keep going. Romney will eventually falter, and someone credible will need to still be on the scene to either pick up the banner, or join his team and bolster any chances he has left.

He's (Romney) gotten his "Gimmee's". That is, he's bought all the contests that can be bought, and he'll need something extra this time. Can he deliver? Your guess is as good as mine.

Here's why Mitt's got some trouble brewin':

1. Religion: although it should not matter to anyone with a full set of chromosomes just how another goes about the process of worshipping an imaginary being, it most certainly does in the places where the primary process moves to next, i.e. South Carolina and Florida. Religion usually looms as a pretty large subject in places where incest is rampant (although I have it on good authority that, somehow, second cousins don't count), like parts of the South and Utah.

Okay, that was gratuitous. Sorry.

Anyways, the bulk of the GOP electorate in South Carolina calls itself Evangelical Christian, which is twice the stupidity for half the price. To these people, Romney's Mormon faith marks him as some sort of pagan savage. It is safe to say that unless someone puts a gun to his head, no self-respecting southern Christian (regardless of denomination) is going to pull the lever for a Mormon candidate. That's almost like joining the Dark Side, and they cancel your reservation for the Rapture.

The GOP is (shotgun?) wedded to a strategy of winning the South, which means that the party must present a candidate who can speak to the Southern Christian trinity of God, Guns and Gays, or at least gain a modicum of their trust and respect. This means they want someone who will promise to put the Ten Commandments on condom wrappers, make sure everyone gets their own RPG without a licence, and builds concentration camps to house the queers and abortionists. Okay, so that's a bit of hyperbole, but this is what truly matters to many of these folks more than most other things.

Romney represents a branch of Christianity that they cannot abide for a bunch of reasons that mostly revolve around...who the fuck cares? So far as I'm concerned, there's no difference between an Evangelical, Presbyterian, Mormon or Seventh-Day Adventist: it's all insanity to me.

But it's not just religious differences and prejudices which come into play; it's the social views attached to them that are probably even more important-yet-less-relevent in an election in which economic and systemic issues are the real vital questions. Romney's had more positions on the issue of abortion than appear in the Kama Sutra. Who knows what the fuck Romney thinks of Gay Marriage, as I haven't heard him address this question yet. The Southern Evanglical Douchebag wants those questions answered, and he'll ask them.

I haven't any confidence that Romney can explain his way out of those questions in a way that keeps him a decent level of Southern support.

2. The "Electability" Question; I question as to whether this should even be a question at all. I wonder who the fuck invented it, too. As far as I understand it, it's all about appearances and assumptions, mostly ginned up by the media so that they have something to talk about for the next 11 months.

In animagined contest between Romney and Obama, Romney should squeak out a victory, if only he can manage to avoid saying anything completely out of left field. Obama is such a bad president and rotten leader that his only means of achieving victory is to count on the 40% of the population that votes democrat like most people take a dump (casually, reflexively, with little to no thought in it), and then let his opponent do or say something that make him -- on a very shallow level -- appear to be "out of touch" or "unprepared".

Romney would simply have to avoid saying anything astoundingly stupid or untrue for about four months next spring and summer. This might be tricky, as Romney has a bad habit of talking himself into corners. He's too slick, by half. He's ideologically all over the place. His thought process is half republican boilerplate, half social liberalism. It's hard to keep from saying the wrong thing, and Romney has the bad timing thing down pat.

Which is why I wonder who it is that keeps saying Mitt Romney is "electable". He's only such in the sense that the alternative is so painfully bad. Romney, on his own in a general election, is no more electable than anyone else. Romney alone does not give one hope that he can generate the down-ticket buzz that gets him a few more GOP senators and congresscritters to make his job easier, should he get elected. Romney alone is not electable, but Romney as part of a GOP team that combines two candidate's strengths is far more electable than anything else.

Which is why you hope that Santorum and Gingrich, at least, manage to stay relevant to the process, and why you also hope the candidates don't beat the rhetorical snot out of one another; Romney, should he prevail, is going to need one or both of them to shore up his weaknesses.

There's your "electability" right there: a GOP team, rather than a single persona. Let the dimwits run their deity Odoofus, divorced from a plan of action and without the ability to formulate one, against a Team America consisting of members who can focus expertise on an issue, like...say...the economy, while the other tackles government reform or foreign policy.

If the GOP runs a campaign of personalities and "It" factor, it looses with Romney. It must offer a solution that is not based on such intangibles as who has the nicest hair, speaking voice, or is better-dressed. That's how democrats vote, not adults.

I wouldn't start poping champagne corks and building floats for Inauguration Day just yet. Romney is about to be vetted some more, and in ways which he hasn't had to deal with, either. Stay tuned.

GIRL WHO WAS MISTAKENLY DEPORTED TO COLUMBIA GOT WHAT SHE DESERVED

2012-01-06T10:35:00.001-05:00

Sorry to break up the pity party, but I can't believe the outrage around the blogosphere and in my Twitter feed about Jakadrien Turner, the young lady who was mistakenly deported to Columbia by ICE agents in April of last year. There's all kinds of hate toward the ICE agents, the Columbian government, Houston police and the media for not treating it like they would a White girl in the same situation. If that's the argument, say that, but don't bash the agencies for doing their job.

I've read and re-read every piece of information available about this incident - ten, eleven times - because I wanted to be sure that I wasn't missing anything. If I am missing anything, somebody please let me know because all I see is a series of unfortunate events that she brought upon herself, and a bunch of people tripping on this girl's race.

At 14-years old, when she lived in Dallas, Jakadrien ran away from home. Her Grandmother said that her Grandfather's death and her parents' split-up drove her to do so. She ended up in Houston where she was arrested for theft. She didn't have an ID on her, so she did what anybody who doesn't want to get caught would do: give a fake name. Ahh, but the fake name was a real name indeed, belonging to someone who apparently earned deportation status.

So...she was deported.

After Columbian authorities couldn't find anything wrong on their end, she was released. She obtained a work card and has been there ever since. She's pregnant now and apparently has or had a steady boyfriend, as advertised on her Facebook page. I also understand they've detained her since our government has begun to show interest in her.

Jakadrien choose to lie about her identity. She even maintained her fake identity throughout the whole deportation process. It's not like she was arrested in Houston one day, then sent to Columbia the next day without a process. She could've called home then.

I mean, I understand her Granny being upset and everything, but Jakadrien seemed happy in Columbia up until the part where they began holding her again.

Why Iowa Shouldn't Matter...

2012-01-03T12:58:00.007-05:00

Ho-fucking-hum. Iowa caucuses...can't....stay...awake...

I'm wondering why it is that we should expend so much time and energy wondering what Iowan republicans think. I'm not suggesting that the good people of Iowa are not worth listening to -- if only because even blind hogs still find the occasional acorn, after all -- but because of the sort of republicans they generally tend to be.

Personally, I'm of the mind that there are really only two Iowans one should ever take seriously:

James Tiberius Kirk and Iowahawk.

And while one may be a fictional character (seriously, has anyone ever seen Iowahawk and his mild-mannered, beer-guzzling alter-ego in the same place, at the same time, ever?)they still make more sense to me than any of the morons on display in those Man-in-the-Street interviews from Ames or Des Moines which have dominated the news for the last month.

(Author's Note: If you're still not reading Iowahawk regularly, you are a flaming retard. Iowahawk should be considered one of the basic food groups like caffeine, high-fructose corn syrup, MSG and saturated trans fats. Get your daily requirements!).

I know, I know...you can't tar the inhabitants of an entire state based on the drooling responses to a dopey trick question asked by an openly libtarded journalist with the epithet "moron"; that's totally unfair in that way that your liberal friends will often ask you to consider the self-esteem-sapping, psychobable-y consequences of a risque joke by inserting "black" in place of "homosexual" or 'jew". But one would be hard-pressed to find any signs of intelligence in the process of the Iowa Caucuses.While we expect the majority of candidates to be stupid (sorry, Rick Perry), it's quite frightening when you realize just how stupid the mass of the electorate seems to be.

Then again, the stupidity of the common man was evident long before this latest go-round. After all, Bill Clinton got elected twice and some 52% of the electorate -- particularly Iowans --pinned their fortunes to a clearly unprepared and unqualified Barack Obama. It's just that the exquisite, honey-sweet and specific brand of republican stupidity that has been on display this last month leads one to start to question the validity and direction of the Modern GOP.

To begin with, let's start by examining just what calls itself 'conservative' (small 'c' intentional) in Iowa. They seem to come in two varieties:

The first species seems totally concerned with telling other people how they should live. They believe the proper role of the government is to impose a strict Christian morality. These are the voters who call themselves Social Conservatives, and their pet peeves often revolve around three, fundamental issues:

God, Guns, and Gay Rights.

These are the greater mass of Born-again and Evangelical Christian doofuses who believe that American Culture (such as it is) is in rapid decline, and that this decline is emblematic of a moral failing for which God herself will punish us. America must repent of it's sins (Abortion, Gay Marriage, Internet Porn, and MSNBC) and take to the righteous path of obeying the Word of God, or it shall be laid waste with great suffering, destruction, economic ruin, and military defeat. Those who survive will then need their shootin' irons to defend themselves against the Government Leviathan which possesses aircraft carriers, tanks, artillery and Stealth Bombers, if and when it should ever decide to go all Czech Summer on us in the resulting chaos. Good luck!

Except for the lucky people who managed to kiss Jesus' backside...they'll all be Raptured, of course. So they're not really as interested in my soul as they say, are they?

Because saving souls is what concerns them; however, they are impatient about it. The traditional roles and activities of religion in the process -- saving one soul at a time, building trust and personal relationships between institution, soul, and The Lord -- takes too much time, and requires great effort. Not to mention scads of cash. The Social Conservative wishes to turn the apparatus of government to the task of Saving Souls under the false belief that this will achieve God's work all that much faster.

The Social Conservative wants the government to use it's powers (particularly those of legislation, taxation and appropriation) in much the same way the Libtard wants to use them -- to support those causes they consider the most just, which is to say, those that support their own highly-suspect beliefs and mindset. That doing so, in the Christians sense, might literally mean that the earthly effects of those spiritually-directed policies might be less than stellar, doesn't even enter into their thinking (after all, what does God care if we're all gainfully employed, or that our levees are in good repair, or that the Marines have bullets when there's abortionists to hang, and Gay Boys to put in Concentration Camps...ooops...re-education camps... where they learn to Pray the Gay Away, and accept Christ as their personal Lord and Savior?).

That which is directed to the ends of a Higher Power leaves those concerned with the Here-and-Now-Rather-Than-The-Hereafter with the short end of the stick.

Now, I'm often accused of being Anti-Christianity on this page, which is patently false. Christianity, the philosophy, has much to offer. My problem is with Christians, and in particular, a certain brand of Christians who can't see the trees for the forest. Using the power of the government to first establish (even unofficially) a State Religion, and then turning it to the purposes of that religion, is hardly conservative at all. Conservatives, by and large, care about individual freedoms and personal rights, while organized religion is typically concerned with keeping people ignorant, dependant, obedient, and frightened.

After all, God doesn't grant Rights: She gives Commandments. If you disagree with that statement, then I would challenge you to count up all the "Thou Shalls..." and "Thou Shall Nots..." in the Bible, and compare them to the number of instances of "Thou Hast the Right...." you find. Get back to me on that one when you're done.

A movement, social or political, which believes that it does not have to answer to any earthly authority and does the work of an authority which is unknowable, unseen, and ultimately doesn't exist, is a dangerous movement that will instill a tyranny as great as that which it fears from it's opponents on the Left. Once you begin to justify any action by the quaint-and-unanswerable formulation of "God Wills It", it's only a short hop, skip and a jump to a Soviet-Style police state run by a the Christian version of the Taliban.

These people are not "conservative" in the sense that we would recognize the word; they're fucking nuts.

The second species of Iowan conservative is just as dangerous, and nakedly hypocritical. They bear many names -- economic conservative, small-government conservative, Free-market conservative -- but they all have one thing in common; keeping the gravy train of federal subsidies rolling, and filling their pockets. With a tax cut on top.

Iowa is awash in federal subsidy money. What this means is that Iowa's farmers are paid the the hard-earned money of New Yorkers to not grow food in order to 'stablize' crop prices. Which really means that Iowa's farmers get paid money to artificially skew the market price of their produce in their favor, and then get to rape us at the checkout counter. Iowa's farmers also, perversely, get paid the hard-earned money of Arkansas' taxpayers to grow crops specifically for use in biofuels which largely suck, don't work, and artificially inflate the price of gasoline and just about every other product you can think of.

In other words, Iowans are getting paid (twice) to fuck every one else in the backside. And the beauty of the entire scam is that the rape victim gets to pay for the privelege!

If anything, far from being free-market, small-government, economic conservatives, Iowa's republicans are probably amongst the biggest recipients of welfare in the entire country!

One cannot consider oneself 'conservative' while simultaneously arguing that the entire structure of agricultural and industrial welfare system administered by the oversized-overstuffed-and-overbearing federal government, operating specifically to undermine competition and free markets, should be preserved and extended at the expense of everyone else. Either Iowa's farmers can survive in a true free market, or they can't. People either wish to buy ethanol or they don't. Why should anyone be paid to not produce products that are needed, and conversely, also paid to make a products that no one seems to want?

Didn't the Obama Administration just get into huge trouble over Solyndra for just such a thing? Or have we forgotten already?

And of course, both species want lower taxes. Because let's face it; it's hard enough having to live amongst heathens, or spending your days not farming, manipulating markets for your benefit with the connivance of the federal government, standing at the mailbox waiting for the subsidy checks to roll in, without having to pay taxes, too.

Above all, what I truly hate about what I've seen this past month overflowing out of Iowa like a toilet at the Port Authority is the smugness. The arrogance that comes with the knowledge that one can say one thing, but mean another, that you won't get called out on it, and that some schmuck who's willing to spend a billion bucks of someone elsr's money for a job that pays $400k a year will kiss your ass for it, too. Couple this with the extraordinary belief that some Mid-Westerners seem to have that they are a race apart, a special breed, and you can begin to see why I have a problem with the Iowa caucuses that goes beyond their already-proven ability to get it all consistently wrong,destroying the promise of many a GOP candidate through their special brand of insanity in the process.

I can predict this much: by the time it's all over tomorrow night, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum will be the big 'winners' of the Iowa Caucuses. None of them matches up well against Obama in 2012; Paul is crazy. Santorum is soooo 1950's and uncharismatic. Romney is too vulnerable to the charges of inconstancy and hypocrisy. The candidates which can defeat Obama handily -- Gingrich in particular -- will be wounded (perhaps fatally) by an Iowa loss that will have largely been engineered by people who didn't like the fact that they didn't promise to toss the moneychangers out of the temple and pledge to protect the current system of farm welfare with their very lives.

In other words, the GOP voters of Iowa are no better than the Food-stamp-and-Crack- Whore voters of Watts, Detroit, or Harlem on the opposite end of the Political Spectrum.

In effect, the GOP voters of Iowa, by artificially skewing the results of the Caucuses according to issues that largely do not concern the greater mass of Americans -- may begin the process by which Barack Obama squeaks out a second term, and coincidentally bringing about the reality of that national decline they all fear so fucking much.

Let me just say it now, just in case I need to later:

Nice job, Assholes.

The Case Against Barack Obama...

2011-12-27T13:45:00.001-05:00

As if one actually needed to be made?

Anyhow, I have not bashed President Frequent-Flyer-Miles for some time now, which is not surprising: in order to criticize someone for anything, it is first necessary for them to have done something. Barack Obama, as I have said many times before on this page, is simply not a doer so it has been difficult to criticize anything after his first year in office -- except his lack of action. However, the last few months of Presidential inaction may have given new meanings to the words 'procrastination' and 'inertia'.

There simply hasn't been anything to talk about. The first year of the Obama Presidency was an easy topic to discuss and dissect, what with such juicy topics as nationalized health care, nationalized banks and auto companies, welfare-programs-disguised-as-economic-stimulus, the enormous waste of resources that was the actual Stimulus Bill, the twice-daily accusations of racism on somebody's part, the forceful implication by the administration and it's allies that mere principled disagreement with the Vacationer-in-Chief was tantamount to treason.

The second year of the Obama Experiment was simply chock full of politically-expedient bullshit; the Debt Ceiling Debates, the Libyan War, the call for an even bigger waste of taxpayer money (Son of Stimulus), Solyndra and the Green Energy Boondoggle.

Going into our Third Year with no one at the rudder, even the flow of politically-motivated crap has first slowed to a trickle and then eventually petered out into a state of complete non-action on anything. Once again Barack Obama, who's supposed to be a leader, has done what he's always done best: let someone else do (in this case, a Republican-led House of Representatives) and then cry "Obstructionist/Racist/Unfair!" at the top of his lungs.

Let's start at the very source of all of this apathy and political spinmeistering; it was clear to anyone who could draw breath without mechanical assistance in November of 2008 that Barack Obama was little more than a slick marketing campaign that took advantage of the sense of panic which gripped America at the time. If you bought the bill of goods that was the new-and-improved Kennedyesque kabuki play that was the rise of Obama, if you seriously believed in the nonsensical rhetoric about lower sea levels, international brotherhood, and an economic recovery sparked by more social and political welfare programs, then you cannot be in the least surprised that we have arrived at this current state of affairs, with a crippled President reduced to ducking hard issues and honest work.

It was perfectly clear then that Barack Obama was not prepared to do this job, and even more apparent that he didn't have the slightest clue as to how to do it. He didn't even have the intellectual honesty to admit that he wasn't even willing to learn, or to even try. Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid ran things for the first year of the Obama Presidency, dragging a clueless Commander-in-Chump along for the ride.

When the ride ended at a Republican recapture of the House of Representatives, the people around President Doofus set about portraying their wounded and clueless man as the victim of a conspiracy of racist Tea Parties and nasty Republicans, and cried victim.

When that didn't work, it was back to the old democratic (small 'd' intentional) party tactic of good old fashioned Class Warfare, and when that, also, failed to do anything except make Obama look like an even bigger retard, Plan C was to simply do nothing at all (the better to safeguard any chance of squeaking out another electoral win) and complaining that your political opposition is dead set against your special brand of mental diarrhea (did you really expect them to embrace it lovingly and enthusiastically?). All the while, Barack Obama pretends to be above the fray, to be shocked and concerned at the acrimony of the political landscape...and go on vacation...again.

We're now into Plan D, similar to what Muhammed Ali once coined the Rope-A-Dope Strategy; go totally defensive and protect yourself. Avoid the offensive by doing or saying anything that threatens to keep people interested in the political process, or which gives an opening to the ideological and political enemies of the regime. Barack Obama is more than willing to simply sit back, and make his political enemies punch themselves out, all the time sincerely hoping that the crowd gets bored or that your opponent will make that one fatal mistake. This plays out politically in the following fashion:

Obama says and does nothing, and lets the business of government be carried out through the two warring houses of Congress. The man who simply polluted the television screen with useless, bullshit speeches a year ago is now rarely seen. Every once in a while he presents what appears to be an opening in his defense, and then comes out punching when the enemy falls for the feint (and often, even when he doesn't). He then throws haymakers and prays that one connects, only to return to the defensive posture when he doesn't.

If you need a literal explanation of how this works in the political sense, then think of it this way: the recent Payroll Tax Cut debate has Obama actually agreeing to extend the tax cut, but only for two months. He basically says "You republicans love tax cuts, you should love this one..." knowing full well that he's only appearing to give them what they want, just on terms he knows that they cannot accept. When they, predictably, don't fall for this feint, Obama goes back on the defensive, saying the Other Side won't take "yes" for an answer, and is doing further damage to the economy.

Anyone with half a brain knows that a two month extension of a tax that does absolutely nothing to spur hiring or to increase demand for goods and services is no economic panacea. However, the purpose of this whole deception is not intended to produce any tangible result: it's simply to keep up the pretense that Obama, who does nothing, is actually trying to do something against unreasonable opposition.

Let's be completely fair to President Marriott-Suites: he was never prepared, by education, temperament, experience, or intelligence, to do this job. He was doubly unprepared when you stop to consider the the circumstances under which he took the job. Still, he should have known (or the people around him should have told him) all about the trouble he would soon face. Apparently, no one cared: the purpose of Obama's elevation wasn't so much to fix pressing national concerns as much as they were the last gasp of a 1960's brand of socialism. For that task, Obama was perfectly suited; for the task of running a country embroiled in two wars, teetering on the brink of insolvency, politically divided, Obama was the proverbial plaything of democratic party interests who knew how to manipulate the levers of power to their advantage.

Obama was the perfect empty vessel, the perfect figurehead behind which the Woodstock and Communism-was-a-good-idea-only-poorly-executed crowd could hide behind while they gave it once last try.

And now here he stands (when he isn't on vacation, that is) with the following record to run on in 2012: the economy is no better, and arguably worse. We may be withdrawing troops from Iraq, but the War in Afghanistan continues and we've become embroiled in a third in Libya (don't you believe that we're out of that one, yet); the democratic party -- barring some unforeseen miracle -- is poised to suffer electoral defeats next year that may banish it to the political hinterlands for a decade or more. The country's debt has tripled on Obama's watch. And quite frankly, one wonders just how much Obama hands-on time was spent in crafting the policies that will, now, be forever associated with him.

My guess is none. Obama simply reads what someone puts in his teleprompter, and exudes a pretense of intelligence and competence. Work and sacrifice is always somoene else's responsibility, whether it's America's fault for being too soft and lazy, or Republicans' fault for not passing a bunch of legislation and regulation that's tantamount to their own suicide note as elected officals or a party. All the while Barack Obama plays the victim; pretending to be misunderstood one day, a victim of racism the next, the helpless plaything of political forces beyond his control the day after that.

And every day that goes by, he does less and less, and accepts responsibility for even less than that. Note, however, that he doesn't seem to have any problem whatsoever picking up the paycheck, attending the fundraisers, or dragging Air Force One and the Secret Service to yet another tony vacation destination on someone else's dime.

Frankly, the less he does the better, so far as I'm concerned. He done enough, already, by being either easy to manipulate, too stupid or stubborn for his own good, or just plain ideologically unsuited to our current realities. It's often said that "Less is More", and never was this adage more apt/

If there's anything Barack Obama HAS accomplished, it is sadly this:

He has reinforced every negative stereotype about a black man it is possible to think of. He has also lent even more credence to the voices of the pro-colonialists of the past who warned that the dissolution of the old European Empires would spell world-wide catastrophe because never before in recorded history had a stable, economically-secure, militarily-strong democratic state ever been run by a black man. They have been proven right, unfortunately, and surprisingly it's all happened on the watch of an African-American, a native to this culture, educated in our finest universities, but unfortunately still obsessed with discredited racial, economic, and social theories that blind him to reality.

Barack Obama makes Robert Mugabe and Nelson Mandela look like fucking Pericles of Athens.

The tragedy of Barack Obama isn't so much that he hasn't been effective; it's that the next African-American with Presidential ambitions will wear his failed administration around his/her neck like a lead albatross. This isn't fair; but it will happen. Obama may have been the first Black man to be elected President, but he stands a very good chance of being the last...ever.

There is no reason to vote for Barack Obama in 2012, unless you, like him, still live in the 19th Century world of exaggerated Dickensian inequity; you still believe that welfare is better than work and personal merit, or are a lazy bastard who leaves the heavy lifting in all things to others and takes undue credit where available, or are somoene who lays approbation for your own failure at someone else's feet. If you believe that symbolism is more important than substane, if you believe that stirring up the animosities of the the past is more important than fixing the problems of the present from which they've spawned, if you believe with all your heart that stealing borrowed (Chinese) money from Peter to pay Paul is sound economic policy, then by all means, vote for Barack Obama.

I'll see you on the bread line, assuming there's any bakers left by then, and they haven't all been unionized, legislated out of existence, or the trade falls completely by the wayside because there's no more carbon-spewing bakeries.

But, if you care about your country, if you'd like an opportunity to have a job one day, if you're sick and tired of the pantomime theatre that democratic party politics has become, if you're tired of seeing latter-day hippies roaming the streets demanding high-paying jobs geared to their useless Master's in Gender Studies, all the while complaining it's Wall Street's fault they're having to pay off college loans and wait tables, then go the other way. Romney, Gingrich, it almost doesn't matter, anymore, so long as it's somebody with a makes-sense plan and the seeming ability to at least put in a day's work. And vote Republican all the way down ticket, too. It only works if there's enough R's to make sure some of those ideas get a fair hearing and can be passed.

At this point in time anyone but Barack Obama -- Charles Manson, Adolph Hitler, Stalin, Francisco Franco, Ebola Virus -- is a better choice for President of the United States in 2012.

Why Conservatives Fear Newt Gingrich...

2011-12-19T13:50:00.002-05:00

I used to think I was a Conservative, but that was before I realized what the difference between a Conservative and a Republican really was. This realization didn't just sneak up on me, arriving with one of those "Eureka!" moments where the skies seem to part and thunder echoes across the valley, with the trumpets of angels heralding some great epiphany.
Rather, this realization came about as the result of a banning from the 'real' conservative (small 'c' intentional) website, FreeRepublic, the hip and happenin' gathering place for the mentally constipated.

My crime back then, it seems, was to make the case in 2007 that one Rudolph Giuliani was far more conservative than his other Presidential candidate cohorts in that year's primary contests. You know, the contest that eventually brought us John McCain and Sarah Palin and the national heartbreak that has been the Obama Administration, and put Mike Huckabee on television? Yeah, that one.

Anyways, it seems that if you make a halfway decent argument that someone with a proven record of conservative governance behind him would make a good President of the United States, the denizens of some Republican/Conservative precincts will argue back that unless the person in question has an impeccably unimpeachable moral record (and perfect church attendance), or that there may be a relatively minor disagreement on ideological grounds, that background means jack shit.

One of the denizens of FreeRepublic was actually alarmed enough by a simple question in 2007 that he/she saw fit to report my support for Rudy to the moderators of the site. I was (and still am) banned from making comments on that site, although if I wished it I can still read all the Biblically-infused political dribble I want. This does not bother me personally, as I've since realized that what I truly am is a Republican with some conservative leanings, and not a complete retard. But, the message was sent:
We're not interested in debate, or free speech, we just want to associate with people who think and believe the way we do.

The question I had asked? Paraphrasing, it was this:

Why was Rudy Giuliani, who many on FreeRepublic deemed unfit to hold the Presidency and vilified for having been divorced, not a credible conservative, but Ronald Reagan, himself a divorcee, lionized and almost elevated to sainthood?

The general answer was that even if Giuliani was a small-government, law-and-order, no-nonsense, fiscal Conservative, his lack of orthodoxy on other issues (most revolving around abortion, Gay Rights and Gun Rights)made him the next best thing to Satan. Rather than have to answer such questions with logic and reason, the good doofuses at FreeRepublic just decided it was easier to silence me, letting me know my posting privileges were revoked because I was, quote, "trolling for Rudy".

It was then that I realized that what I had once considered a righteous political ideology to no longer be anything of the sort. Whatever conservatism had once been, it was no more (the last Republican Congress, packed to the gills with 'Family Values" conservatives, pretty much killed the idea that conservatism was a responsible force) and not because it had many failings as a philosophy but because it was steadily being embraced by a bunch of retards who put their faith and their bulletproof stupidity ahead of their logic and enlightened self-interest..

Giuliani eventually bowed out of the primaries in 2007, having never gained a critical mass of support. Mainly this was because the Republican primary process is not about policy or even achievement; it's about kissing the asses of the self-appointed hall monitors of American Society. If the contest had been about actual achievement and policy, Giuliani would have wiped the floor with his rather lackluster competition, and then it's not much of a stretch as to whether he would have won a general election. Rudy might have been a much better option than the two we eventually got, anyways.

But several months of 'real' conservative (small 'c' intentional) invective -- Rudy once wore a dress as a gag, Rudy was the Anti-Christ because he once had a gay roommate, Rudy was tarred with the label of Adulterer because of his marital problems, his children hated his guts, he was widely seem as a 'gun grabber' and deadly threat to the 2nd Amendment-- were the proverbial Death by a Thousand Cuts. There was no inbred redneck who would ever pull the lever for Giuliani in a primary because he just wasn't one of them, and by that we mean that he didn't spend seven day a week in prayer, praying for an eighth day just so he could have the time to repeat the process, and spend the rest of his time cleaning his shotgun, guzzling cheap beer and watching NASCAR.

Above all, however, was the fear that while a Giuliani presidency might well have addressed many of the pressing problems of the day -- ballooning federal deficits, an out-of-control court system, terrorism, tax and economic policy -- that because Rudy did not hold out the prospect of being the type to engrave the Ten Commandments on all public monuments, execute abortionists, frog-march the Gay Rights crowd to the ovens, and promise free flamethrowers and RPG's for everyone -- none of that really mattered. What truly matters to these folks is that they get to tell everyone else how to live according to their own questionable moral code and wild-hair-up-your-ass mindset in much the same way they claim their opposite numbers do. That means that every GOP primary must produce at least one candidate who invokes God every four minutes, makes the pilgrimage to Bob Jones University, kisses Franklin Graham's behind, and promises a new reign of saccharine-sweet Norman Rockwell Americana from sea to shining sea; these things keep you in the race at least until your other -- more frightening -- failings come to light.

That's the only conservatism they truly care about; any other kind is just gravy, so far as they're concerned. The real purpose of the new conservative movement is to address what many consider to have been a shortcoming in the mindset of the Founding Fathers:

Since the political system does not establish nor validate any Religion, then Religion must be the force which remakes and validates the political system.

What today's Evangelically-minded, abortion-and-gay hatin' inbred wants is a candidate who promises to elevate their religious and moral values above all other concerns. Only with a tax cut. Because if there's anything worse than having to live amongst heathens, it's having to pay taxes for the privilege. There's also the question of having to kow-tow to the Pantheon of Conservative Flapping Rectums, the professional commentariat that earns it's daily bread by analysing everything in America within an inch of it's very life through the narrow lens of ideology.

Which brings us to the topic of Newt Gingrich and the recent display of 'real' conservative (small 'c' intentional) ire, and the beginning of his own Giuliani process of Death By a Thousand Cuts.

Never discount the ability of the conservative (small 'c' intentional) wing of the Republican Party to shoot itself in the ass, and then complain loudly that "if only we had selected a REAL Conservative, things would have been better...". If they were being honest with themselves (which they never are; after all, they believe in God) they would recognize that they are the main obstacle to Conservative victory, rather than it's bravest foot soldiers.

The truth, as I see it, is that if a 'Real conservative' (by their definition) ever managed to obtain the highest office in the land with a Congressional Majority, and therefore the ability to enact the entire Ultraconservative Platform, there would be riots in the streets. As it was, we had just this circumstance with George W. Bush, but since Bush apparently failed in his Divine Mission to have sayings from the Book of Matthew imprinted on condoms, or to forcibly baptize illegal aliens by the millions, it became axiomatic that Bush failed because he found it necessary to compromise these important principles, or -- even worse -- because he was betrayed by a pack of RINOs- (Republicans in Name Only), people who only pretended to be conservative in order to get elected, and who now must be purged.

The idea that, often, our political system operates this way, in fact was designed to work this way, eludes them.

And much like the Muslim Douchebags we're currently bankrupting the country to alternately fight and then bribe into leaving us alone, when a Religious Conservative doesn't get his way it must be because of some personal moral failing on the part of the chosen vessel, or a conspiracy of outside influences, all dripping with a Satanic Evil that threatens to undermine the Will of God. The answer is never to be found in cold, calculating reflection, a careful process of evaluation of success and failure, but rather in a renewed, ever-more-obnoxious, more militant, fundamentalism. We failed because we lost the favor of God, you see.

Of course, in GWB's case, the leader of that pack of Apostate RINOs was last round's loser, John McCain, but let's not quibble about those sorts of details. McCain only got the 2008 nod because Huckabee couldn't quite part the Great Lakes and feed the multitudes with three Cheetos and a box of Fig Newtons, proving that he was, indeed, merely mortal. McCain just managed to survive a deeply-flawed primary process. In any case, the problem for today's brand of principled conservative, ruled as he is by his faith and innate fear of anything related to the genitalia, is that what's needed to correct America's list to port is a candidate who embraces an uncompromising viewpoint on every issue...and who wears out the knees of his pants in fervent prayer.

Gingrich, by nature, is an intellectual. Intellectuals, by and large, often reject the dictates of faith in favor of reason. Reason often dictates compromise. Compromise means that a Conservatism wrapped in the Flag and drenched in the Blood of Christ, can never truly be realized. If the country cannot be made 'perfect' by a renewed moral crusade the Rapture will be delayed, and the self-righteous douchebags who assume they've got First Class tickets for the Great Ride in the Sky, will be condemned to stay here amongst filthy sinners who watch South Park, frequent tattoo parlors and saloons, and engage in sexual activities explicitly proscribed in Deuteronomy.

That type is more concerned with their immortal soul, more focused on the Next Life than they are on this one, and this preoccupation causes them to skew the reason, function, and role of and for Conservatism, to the point where the word itself no longer means what it once did and becomes instead little more than a label, a tribal affiliation, the religious version of Gang Colors. Nowadays when one calls himself a 'Conservative' what he really means is 'Bible Thumping Asshole who would cut off his own nose to spite his face, because he believes -- sans evidence -- that God somehow commands it."

Why we should paying this much attention to people who don't even want to be here, and who have such obviously selfish motives, is beyond me. But somehow, they have managed to slant the GOP primary process so that we do exactly that, and in the end, it leads us to pretty much the same place: we get an 'electable' candidate (i.e. one who simply managed to avoid saying the most stupid things in a debate), and a crowd of disaffected, pissed off religious nuts who cry in their Holy Water and who vow to be even bigger assholes next time around.

Conservatism, at it's base, is the natural extension of what used to be called Classical Liberalism. Instead, with the influx of so-called 'Values Voters' (itself a misleading term, as many Values Voters are simply people too stupid to recognize that which is in their own self-interest because they are blinded by superstition) into the GOP, the Republican brand begins to slowly drift away from it's roots as a party defending the Natural Rights of Man, and becomes a party devoted to cleansing the Earth in preparation for the End of Days. It's not about improving the conditions of life and opportunities for enjoying personal liberty for the largest number of people anymore; it's about religious values, which have nothing to do with Natural Rights (and I don't care which Enlightenment philosopher you trot out to gainsay that; what those guys were doing was trying to find an intellectual foil to the thorny question of Divine Right, and decided that if the King could arbitrarily claim the authority of God to rule, then so could the masses. It's not like God was going to settle the question for anyone, seeing as how She doesn't exist). But I digress...

On the question of Conservatism, pure Conservatism divorced from mindless superstition, we can discern the following from Gingrich's history:

There is much more Conservatism in Newt Gingrich's little finger than there is in Rick Santorum's whole arm. There's more Conservatism in Newt Gingrich's record than there is in Michele Bachmann's entire body. In the great "I'm-more-conservative-than-you" pissing match that GOP primaries have devolved into, there's more conservatism in one hair from Newt's butt crack than there is in Mitt Romney's entire genealogical history.

But the issue of Gingrich is not really about Conservatism the political/religious amalgam, as much as it's about Gingrich and the prospect of Compromise. Gingrich just might compromise what he considers minor principles in order to make a much bigger splash someplace else, and gives no assurance to those who can't walk and chew gum at the same time about what stays and what goes. This frightens the fertilizer out of some Conservatives, because they're not quite convinced that Newt is "one of them", and he has not given them any insight into just what aspects of conservatism he might consider to be expendable.

If you're one of those religious faggots, a Snake-Handling Baptist or Speaking-in-Tongues Evangelical who thanks the Almighty for a proper bowel movement in the morning, you get the impression that Newt Gingrich would gladly allow Gay Marriage and unfettered abortion (or at least pay no mind to those issues) if it means getting significant cuts in the Federal Budget. If you're a Conservative Intellectual, you fear that Gingrich will be apt to appoint Federal or Supreme Court judges who will continue to allow some of the worst excesses of Modern Progressives to stand in American Law or Government as a temporary political tactic. If you're a Free Trader, you're afraid that Gingrich will gradually destroy the carefully-constructed edifice by which you enrich yourself while impoverishing your country through a complicated system of legal wrangling, tax code gerrymandering, and outright bribery of Congress.

After all, he refuses to say outright what he might do if faced with that possibility, and when he does make his positions clear, you're persuaded by the past airing of Newt's dirty laundry so as to avoid giving him the benefit of the doubt that he might actually mean just what he says.

Gingrich threatens to establish a pragmatically-feasible version of Conservatism that rubs many the wrong way because it would tend to treat their particular pet peeves as so many bargaining chips to be expended in the quest for a Better America -- one that doesn't need, eventually, to pay attention to their special brand of stupidity. Gingrich stands, if successful, to make many who currently enjoy special power or status within the party extraneous to the process.

So when you hear that Newt Gingrich is "undisciplined" what you're really being told is that Newt is not ideologically rigid, and possessed of a mind of his own that doesn't require the approval of the Krauthammers and Lowrys of the world. When you hear a criticism of Newt as 'profligate' in his personal affairs, what you're really hearing is the criticism that Gingrich isn't one of those idiots who considers the Bible to be literal truth, and the promise of Divine Retribution all that unsettling. When you hear the criticism that Gingrich's intellect is 'disordered', 'scattershot'. 'unfocused', what you're really hearing is "This guy will sell your narrow-minded, single-issue concern down the river for a vote on ______". When you hear that Gingrich has "a checkered past" and "made many enemies in Conservative Circles" what you're hearing is a feeble attempt to damn the man with insinuation and not with objective evidence.

What frightens some conservatives about Gingrich is that he might prove to be pragmatic, and so successful in a way that turns the entire structure and focus of the modern GOP upside down and inside out. And if he does, then who needs Franklin Graham? Who needs Charles Krauthammer? Who needs National Review? It'll be a republicanism of the right and center, and not of the Self-interested Right that makes it's (very good) living by tut-tutting at everything under the Sun, and which would be happy to let us all burn in Hellfire so long as they get to be seated at the Right Hand (the perfect spot from which to begin the process of snivelling grovelling which protocol deems necessary when Kissing God's Holy Buttocks. Oh right, forgot: She doesn't exist. My bad).

It's why many of the very people who pooh-pooh a Gingrich candidacy, those who say that Newt is "unelectable" because he displays no central principles (or no principle they can agree with, at least), are so busy lining up behind Mitt Romney -- the one man in this race for whom that can be genuinely said! They hide their concerns behind words like 'undisciplined' and 'unelectable', and say them as if they were engraved upon stone, but they're not being honest. They fear Gingrich because he, finally, threatens to do something which has never been tried before and which would destroy the foundations of the entire Modern Conservative charade: he might make choices and advance policies that make actual sense, as opposed to making choices and policies that depend upon the approval of narrowly-defined and often mentally-deficient constituencies.

They'd rather lose with Romney and endure another four years in the wilderness, than to win with Gingrich and therefore be made irrelevant to the process.

Personally, I've advocated for a Gingrich presidency for many years on this page. It seems to me the only real choice now -- unless you truly like your Presidents to be flip-flopping self-promoters or the self-elected keepers of the Sacred Flame of an America that no longer exists and which cannot be resurrected without much societal turmoil and perhaps even violence. That Newt has not obliged me has often vexed me, but perhaps he was just keeping his powder dry? In any case, considering the choices we'll soon have between Gingrich and a man who will say anything to be popular (Romney), facing off against a man who couldn't find his own ass with both hands, a compass, and a battalion of aides giving him conflicting advice (Obama), the decision couldn't be an easier one to make.

However, the way the GOP runs it's primary system will probably guarantee that Romney gets the nod, if only because he'll be the only one left standing due to the scads of money he has available to pay off this or that off-the-reservation constituency. Gingrich will be gradually worn down by having to answer mostly-annoying charges made against his character (by people who demand their candidates have all the attributes usually only associated with Jesus) while the guy with very little of that quality about him gets to mostly skate. In a General Election it's a toss-up as to whether Romney can avoid saying something obviously untrue, screamingly self-interested, or inanely stupid, for long enough to beat even a weakened-and-out-of-his-depth Obama.

And that's assuming that Romney's Mormon faith doesn't cost him the South (not that this matters, but somehow you know it will). The System, as it now works, produces that sort of skewed result: it gives far too much weight to the purists and the pious, and not enough to the general consensus. It's how you wind up with an aging-Cold-Warrior-Gang-of-14-RINO-bordering-on-Alzheimer's John McCain and a clueless Sarah Palin, rather than a Rudy Giuliani and maybe Condoleeza Rice as your ticket.

In retrospect Rudy Giuliani might have been a credible candidate and President, but we'll never know because the process played against him in the primaries. The same thing is happening to Newt Gingrich, and it's mainly the same people who are doing it. One hopes that Gingrich's ideas and force of intellect can carry him through to eventual victory, because the alternatives, quite frankly, are far scarier. And if the process doesn't produce the right result (meaning the best-qualified candidate, rather than the candidate who can manage to garner the Seal of Approval of people who you wouldn't follow through your own front door), we're well-and-truly fucked.

Five Reasons Why You Can Stick a Fork in Herman Cain…

2011-12-02T09:52:00.003-05:00

#Excelsior502- I really liked Herman Cain, truly. To me, Mr. Cain was a breath of fresh air cutting through the rank, musty effluvium of Our National Political Scene. A self-made man, not a professional politician, with a record of success, and a homey sort of demeanor that made him downright likable from the get go.

Cain might have been somebody in this 2012 GOP nomination contest, he could have been a true contender. He might even have found himself as the eventual nominee’s Vice-Presidential choice, but alas, it is not to be. For Herman Cain, far from being the mighty planet in a crowded political solar system has instead turned out to be little more than a streaking meteor, flashing spectacularly in our metaphorical night sky before crashing to Earth with a mighty "Boom!".

For Herman Cain, Grandfather figure, kindly old gentleman math teacher, solid businessman, apparently suffers from some of the same weaknesses -- some expected, some wholly surprising – as any other man, and particularly some which you’d expect to find in the professional politician he so obviously wasn't. It’s all crushingly disappointing to a people who have become both inured to slimy political figures and simultaneously repelled by them. Herman Cain, in whatever capacity he survived the primaries, would have stood as something refreshingly different.

Herman Cain would truly have been Change You Could Believe In, if only he hadn’t had been all too human. Barring some miracle, the Cain candidacy is over, but for the shouting and post-game analysis.

Here are Five Reasons Why You Can Stick a Fork in Herman Cain.

1. Alleged Victim #1, Alleged Victim #2, etc., etc…

The appeal of Herman Cain was that he seemed so thoroughly smart and decent. It turns out that this is certainly not the case. Now, it’s still entirely possible that Cain was the victim of a political whack job (the jury is still out), but it’s difficult to make the case that the string of his alleged sexual antics is totally a matter of political or financial opportunism when there seems to be so many of them.

Think of it this way:

If one woman accuses you of such base conduct, you just might be the target of a gold-digger or a disgruntled employee. If two should accuse you of the same, then you just might be an unlucky person. If a third accuses you, then where’s there’s smoke there’s probably fire, and if a fourth comes out of the woodwork with phone records, evidence of gifts, and an allegation of a 13 year-long extra-marital affair, then you, Good Sir, are entering “Liar, Liar, Pants of Fire” territory.

America has had to suffer its share of philandering douchebags in the Oval Office, for sure. But the public believes, for the most part, that we deserve better. Considering the dire straits we currently find ourselves in, we can be forgiven if the general trend is to want to elect, if at all possible, an honest man, seeing as how the present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue avoids telling the truth as if doing so would put his immortal soul in jeopardy of eternal torment.

Herman Cain seemed to be that honest man, so much so that when Anonymous Victims Numbers 1 and 2 were unceremoniously thrust into the political spotlight by cowardly political operatives who used the shield of non-disclosure agreements to tar Cain without him being able to confront his accusers, that we gave him the benefit of the doubt. Contributions to Cain’s campaign and his poll numbers went up, not down. We believed him.

Until it became too difficult to continue to believe, naturally.

Now with the apparent demise of Mr. Cain, we’re down to a bunch of people we’re pretty much certain have some slime on them, the only questions are “how thick is the slime?” and ”how much slime are we willing to tolerate in the course of defeating Barack Obama and the democratic party?”

Which sadly means that we’re back to business as usual.

2. Herman Cain Knows Dick about Foreign Policy…

An eleven second pause before a convoluted answer on the question of a nuclear Iran was the stake through the heart in this area.

To be fair, Cain wasn’t exactly the strongest candidate in this area to begin with, but he did make an effort to learn a few things. Unfortunately, he didn’t learn enough, and what he did learn he seemed to quickly forget or misconstrue. There is nothing deadlier in American politics than to be asked a direct question about an important issue, repeatedly, and not be able to answer it. Even Barack Obama would have been able to issue a stream of bullshit that would have neatly danced around inconvenient questions and yet still satisfied the 50% of Americans whose attention spans can be measured in RPM’s, most of whom seem to work in the Media.

Cain’s problem is that in this arena, he simply looks lost. We already have a President without a clue, and people will have little patience for another.

3. The 9-9-9 Plan…

This was perhaps Herman Cain’s biggest mistake: he put forth a tax policy that was simply too easy to understand, and way too easy to politically demagogue.

The Plan’s biggest structural strength was also the major structural weakness: since the plan was so simple it threatened to remove the fog of obfuscation surrounding the current Federal tax codes which is the sea of graft within which both political parties swim.

Additionally, it did nothing to protect the tax payer from losing the gains in Federal tax relief from the depredation of State Legislatures, who would regard that potential windfall as ‘found money’, and as an excuse to raise local taxes.

Billions of dollars in ‘free money’ (in the sense that it would not be going to Washington, or into the coffers of tax preparers, but rather the pockets of the people who earned it) was simply too big a loss for the Washington, D.C. set to suffer, and so the Plan was beat to a bloody pulp day after day, by pundit after pundit. They had to: that money is their lifeblood, which allows them to buy votes. The Monument to Graft that is the Federal Tax Code had to be protected for the benefit of those who thrive on it.

Then again, after one absorbed the very simplicity of the 9-9-9 concept, one also began to notice it’s other major holes, namely, that it didn’t seem to have been thought through much past the concept stage. Even Cain couldn’t answer the questions surrounding it. After the experience we’ve had with ObamaCare we want to know the details beforehand, and in great depth.

4. Racism, Or Just a Proper Vetting?

One has to ask this question for a very simple reason, and that reason is Barack Obama.

Obama practically sailed into office with nary a nick, scratch, or dent put in him by the Press. The reasons for this are numerous, and mostly ideological, and we don’t need to go into them here, but the salient point is that Barack Obama never had to answer very many tough questions about his background, his ideology, or his experience in the lead-up to the 2008 Elections.

We’ve learned the unfortunately painful lesson that when you don’t ask questions beforehand, when you don’t do your homework, when you trust to blind faith rather than cold, hard facts, you end up with a leader whose greatest attributes are the ability to whine, pander, and go on vacation every three weeks, and who doesn’t seem very interested in doing the job he’s set to spend a billion bucks (of other people’s money, of course) to keep.

If we had only done a little more research on Barack Obama we might have avoided the reality of this Presidency: we (and by that, I don’t mean ‘I’; I voted for the other guy) elected a complete boob to the Highest Office in The Land. In retrospect, it would appear (and it pains me to say this) that had Obama not dazzled with the connivance of a sympathetic Press, and McCain not disappointed by being himself, that Hillary Clinton was perhaps the least of the three possible evils we could have chosen.

While that thought gives me douchechills, one could still say this: things would have been far different, and perhaps a bit more tolerable, to the point where the specter of having Billy Jeff around to soil more White House furniture might be considered the needed comic relief a Hillary Administration would scream for.

But getting back to Obama, there’s one other aspect to his reign that can’t help but have put some people off on Herman Cain, and this was even before his personal foibles became public knowledge. Barack Obama has, in three years, probably done more to destroy racial relations in this country than any militant Klansman could ever have hoped to achieve. Why? Because Barack Obama has neatly reinforced in the minds of many just about every negative stereotype about Black Men that you could ever think of.

Obama doesn’t s appear to like work, but loves picking up the paycheck. Obama likes the trappings and perquisites of office, but not the responsibilities that come with them. He’s not detail oriented, preferring to let others handle that for him. He whines and cries about racism whenever he doesn’t get his way, and often for no reason at all. He’s quick to accuse others of having base motivations, but slow to consider his own. He seems to spend more time on vacation than he does in his office, leading to the conclusion that he’s lazy and a procrastinator. Obama talks a good game, but then never follows up. The aroma of ‘scam artist’ clings to him. The Shadows of Affirmative Action and Incompetence seem to seep from every pore…

…and let’s not get started on his wife.

It’s quite possible that having achieved something that many thought they would never see – the elevation of an African-American to the Presidency of the United States – that it’ll be a very long time, if ever, before we see another one. And if we do see another one, he or she is going to be subjected to the sort of scrutiny that one usually only associates with a colonoscopy.

In this sort of electoral environment it was probably inevitable that someone was going to go through Cain’s life with two fine-toothed combs and find some dirt on him, and to cite it and his lack of experience in the field of Foreign Policy and lack of Legislative expertise, and use them to put a hole in his boat. It might not have been fair, but this is now the gift that the legacy of Barack Obama has bequeathed to a new generation of Black Politicians who have national aspirations: you’d better be squeaky-fucking-clean, My Brother, and extraordinarily well-prepared.

5. We DO Have Other Choices…

And as much as it pains me to have declare the Cain Candidacy a Dead Duck, we can at least take some solace in that at least one of the remaining candidates has the wherewithal, experience and intelligence to wipe the proverbial floor with Barack Obama next fall.

Personally, I was holding out for a combination of Romney, Gingrich and Cain, and it looks as if I’m going to get my wish. I’ve lobbied on this page for a Gingrich run for 8 years now. I can abide Romney, if the choice was strictly between him or Obama, figuring Romney to be the lesser of two evils. However, I was hoping to see someone new on the political scene, someone not marinated in the sewer of politics, who might bring a measure of sanity to the political discourse, but alas, I am to be disappointed.

Which is the natural state of life, I figure, but damn if it doesn’t seem a great pity to me today.

Previous: Five Reasons Why Michele Bachmann Should Quit While She's Ahead.

Five Reasons Why Michele Bachmann Should Quit While She’s Ahead…

2011-11-30T13:18:00.003-05:00

#Excelsior502- Pity Michele Bachmann. It must be tough enough to be a Congresscritter without the added burden of being a punching bag for the political Left in this country, it must be doubly-hard to be a Congresscritter running for national office with the added bonus of being way too easy to tag with a torrent of left jabs in the immediate seconds before the final knockout blow is delivered.

And, yes, the mixing of metaphors vis-à-vis boxing and politics is especially relevant when discussing the candidacy of Mrs. Bachmann. For all intents and purposes, Michele Bachmann is the Vito Antuofermo of the 2012 GOP field.

For those who do not remember him, Antuofermo was a knockabout boxer who made it relatively big in the mid-to-late 1970’s. His greatest attributes (if you can call them such) were a propensity to take a tremendous asswhipping at the hands of otherwise mediocre pugilists, and to bleed profusely the second anyone gave him as much as a cold stare. After a short stint as the middleweight champion, Antuofermo pursued a short-lived acting career (he was in The Godfather, Part III), and then promptly vanished from the collective memory of all but the most ardent boxing fans. What most can remember was Vito’s ability to step into a ring, be pummeled insensate, and then somehow emerge still breathing.

That short stint as Middleweight champ was the highlight of Vito’s otherwise lackluster career. A wiser man with similarly average talents might have retired while he was on top, figuring that lightning would only strike once, but not Antuofermo.

One always wonders just why it is that a man would subject himself to such a horrific experience repeatedly, but I as I remember it, it often appeared as if Vito just didn’t know any better, and probably didn’t even know what day of the week it was after a while. He was a fighter, after all, and that was what he did. It was second nature to him, in much the same way its second nature for a neutered dog to continue to hump the sofa: he’s not sure exactly why he must do so, just that he’s compelled to do it, and the end result is so much wasted effort.

Bachmann has repeatedly referred to herself as a ‘fighter’. She fights for this or that cause, many of them taken up by the recently-ascendant Tea Party. Much like Antuofermo, however, she often manages to come out on the losing end, battered and bloody, and seemingly unaware that victory might require a change of tactics, or that it’s perhaps best to let someone else take the beating and give this particular fight a miss while you perfect your footwork.

Without further ado, here are five reasons why Michele Bachmann should quit while she’s ahead:

1. Michele Bachmann, The Fighter, Has Fewer Victories Than Even Vito Antuofermo:

Since the beginning of the 2012 popularity contest that is the GOP primaries, Bachmann has regaled us all, ad nauseum, about how she ‘fights’ for us. She fought against TARP and the other government bailout plans. She fought against Obamacare. She fought against raising the Debt Limit Ceiling. She fought against the Obama-era explosion of Federal regulations that have probably done more to tie up capital than anything else.

Last time I looked, TARP not only passed through Congress, but has apparently gone even farther than was originally transmitted to the American people. We thought that ‘only’ $700 billion was being funneled into the banks, but it now turns out that number was closer to $7 trillion, and that foreign banks received a good deal of that money, too.

Obamacare is the law, and the only reason it hasn’t sent us into the economic equivalent of the Ninth Ring of Hell is because it hasn’t taken effect yet, and won’t until 2014, unless a sweeping republican victory in 2012 makes repeal a foregone conclusion.

The Debt Limit was raised anyway, not withstanding the fig leaf of promised Federal budget cuts…someday…in one of those backroom deals that promise much, deliver nothing, and keep issues alive for political – rather than practical -- purposes that Washington politicians have shaped into an ultimately self-defeating art form that destroys the lives of the Average American.

Michele Bachmann seems to keep losing fights, and while one must give her proper respect and full credit for continuing to tilt Quixotically at this at this or that political windmill, one begins to wonder just when it is that the gap between intentions and results became so unimportant, and when it became irrelevant to the process of deciding just who is fit to be president of the United States.

It’s one thing to fight; it’s an altogether different thing to win…even occasionally. While one might learn more from defeat than it is possible to do in victory, it’s also true that people will follow winners if only because winners are usually proven commodities who seem to know what they're doing.

Besides, Congress is a major part of the problem, anyway (the real problem is cultural; Congress is just the seeping rash that is symptomatic of a deeper disease), so why should we expect the solution to come from within the ranks of that body, regardless of party affiliation? Bachmann, for all intents and purposes, is part of that despised subset of Americans with a 9% favorability rating. At this point, gonorrhea rates higher than most members of Congress, and no amount of ‘fighting’, let alone unsuccessful fighting, changes that fact. You might as well answer the bell next round with one hand tied behind your back and a blindfold on.

2. Michele Bachmann is Very Good at Telling You What She’s Against, But Just What The Hell is She For?

I’ve asked myself this question a number of times, and can’t come up with a good answer. Bachmann is very good at playing up general themes – taxes, government intervention, out-of-control A, B and C, Family Values (and why is that supposed to be the government’s concern, one wonders?) – but then often falls way short in terms of specifics.

And I’m not surprised at that, either. She’s a Congresscritter, after all, and Congresscritters often don’t do details. That’s what Congressional Aides are for. If there’s any American still under the mistaken impression that your Congressbeast actually has much of a hand in crafting the legislation with which we’re all taxed and regulated within an inch of our lives, guess again. Very few are.

Legislation in this country gets written by a conclave of Congressional Gophers, lawyers, lobbyists and interest groups, and Congresspeople are just the visible face, much like Alex Trebek flogging life insurance on Television. Hell, if we’ve learned anything these last few years, it’s that Congress doesn’t even bother to read most of what it produces, and if you did manage to have no life and therefore the time to give it a go, you’d be comatose within five minutes.

When Nancy Pelosi infamously said “We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it…” in reference to Obamacare, she wasn’t being coy, nor was she just putting her notoriously colossal stupidity on public view yet one more time, she was accurately describing the culture of Modern Washington. It’s a “Ready, Fire, Aim!” mentality that is one part self-serving inanity, one part media manipulation, and three parts pure, evil asshole.

Giving Bachmann the benefit of the doubt for having at least a sense of professional ethics, it just might be too much to expect that anyone who’s been steeped in that sort of culture for any appreciable length of time can avoid being infected by that bass-ackwards thinking. If the point of the whole Obamacare debacle was to get something passed for the sake of it, or merely for strictly political purposes, then it’s safe to assume that what one side does the other does just as readily. Considering the results this form of Congressional action has brought us in recent years, just why the hell should we elevate anyone from the Congressional ranks at all?

One would think the remedy to that handicap – being a prominent part of a massively dysfunctional body that routinely fucks up by the numbers, and which passes laws without giving a second (or even first) thought about what a) the law is intended to do, b) it’s utility, c) it’s practicality and d) it’s ultimate costs and effects – would be a candidate who would be specific. Bachmann is anything but. Even Mitt Romney – flip-flopping, opportunistic used car salesman that he is – is incredibly specific about whatever politically-expedient positions he thinks he must espouse this day. Until Michele Bachmann can say more than “I fight”, and then explain her reasoning, motivations and strategies, she’s just another member of a mass of clods you wouldn’t hire to mop your floors.

3. The Curse of The Brilliant

It is my considered opinion that, contrary to what the Leftard Press would have you believe, that Michele Bachmann is quite literally brilliant. Before running for Congress she was a tax attorney, and by all accounts a very good and successful one. Stupid people don’t enjoy success in that sort of environment, which is why is so many mediocre to sub-par lawyers find their way into politics -- where brains and talent are not prerequisites -- much to our detriment.

But most very smart people I know suffer a lack of common sense. It’s one thing to be able to recite the cannons of law by heart, or to manage to manipulate the tax code for the benefit of a client, quote Shakespeare, or know the Periodic Table inside and out; it’s quite another to put that knowledge to practical use. In the Private Sector, Michele Bachmann made herself a fine living; in government, she’s not exactly covered herself in glory, mostly because government should be about common sense and the majority of people within it are profoundly lacking in such, regardless of their actual intellectual talents.

By all accounts, Barack Obama is a brilliant man, but that’s belied by his inability to speak without having half-a-dozen teleprompters loaded with speeches that someone else wrote for him at hand. Bill Clinton was said to have been a keen intellect, but then again, he fucked trailer trash and married Hillary. Richard Nixon was a brilliant politician, but he was arrogant enough to believe that he was above the Law. Smart people don’t necessarily make the best leaders, particularly when they get too clever by half, which is what the trappings of power usually do to people.

That’s not to say that we should be electing complete retards to public office (at least any more than we are now); only that it may be great to be the smartest guy in the room, but this means absolute jack shit when that intellect is not tied to an ability to grasp the practical aspects of the problems at hand. By her own temperament and actions, Michele Bachmann has proved (to me at least) that she doesn’t have the same sense God gave an Irish Setter.

All of her fighting rhetoric is tied to failed causes. All of her anti-whatever lip service is divorced from an explanation of the practical considerations of reversing this or that policy, stating this or that particular goal. It’s seems to me that like most smart people, Michele Bachmann believes that she’s so clever that she can find the shortcuts that turn idea into action, and that the forces arrayed against her ideas and policies don't have something to say about these issues. For better or worse, this is a still a representative democracy, and it’s one thing to say “I want to reform Social Security” and quite another to manage that feat. This requires more than just being smart; it requires an appreciation of the finer points, something which Bachmann was good at when she was making a living as an attorney, but thus far has shown no evidence of having while sitting in Congress.

Once again, we have to consider Bachmann’s history of inglorious defeats on the broader range of issues, and her seeming inability to change tactics in order to overcome those defeats. This is the first sign that Michele Bachmann hasn’t got much in the way of common sense. To be fair, it’s a common disability in the ranks of government service. Better we should be led by one person with a high school education and enough sense to avoid sticking their privates in a wall outlet, than by 100 ‘smart’ people who ‘fight’ the same battles with the same tactics over and over again, expect a different result every time, and then wonder why that more favorable result never materializes.

If you needed yet another example, consider the recent Jimmy Fallon Show kerfuffle: someone with common sense and a level of awareness would have walked right the fuck off that set the second “Lyin’ Ass Bitch” began playing. Instead of doing the right thing, Bachmann got her face time and complained about the obvious bias inherent in that selection afterwards, and then probably only after someone else had pointed it out to her. In the end, while I cannot condone what Fallon and his crew did to Bachmann (would they do that to Michelle Obama or Maxine Waters?), it’s screamingly obvious to me that Bachmann either couldn’t figure out that she was being insulted, or simply didn’t give a fuck. Take your pick.

4. Michele Bachmann Can Scare the Fertilizer out Of You

I find Michele Bachmann rather attractive, personally. She’s not a bad-looking lady at all. Unless, of course, there’s a television camera nearby and then you begin to wonder if there’s anyone at home inside that mannequin on the screen.

While Bachmann may be brilliant, she exudes an aura of airheadedness. This manifests itself in what I like call “The Thousand Yard Stare”, a sort of unblinking, detached visage that gives one the impression that she’s not really here, that she is perhaps some form of alien robot being operated remotely from the Mother Ship. Somehow, she is unable to find a camera to look into whilst talking on any televised show; she always seems to be looking off center out in to some mystical distance, as if her attention is divided, or as if this whole thing is simply a routine that she has down pat so that she can do it in her sleep.

This might be an unfair observation on my part, but watching Michele Bachmann on television reminds me of the stellar performance turned in by Cate Blanchett as Queen Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings; Galadriel spoke in this dreamily airy semi-distracted fashion that led you to believe that while she was, in fact, living in this world, her true attention was drawn to another, invisible realm, someplace just over the top of your head.

For better or worse, we live in a visual age. Michele Bachmann does not make for an attractive visual, not because she’s ugly (far from it). but because you get the impression that she really just isn’t here, and the visual cue is that she either stares somewhere beyond you, or presents this vacant stare that Vanessa Redgrave once had down to a tee (five points to any reader who can identify the source of THAT reference).

People are looking for leadership they can put their confidence in. Michele Bachmann, mostly because of how she appears on television, doesn’t inspire much. All in all, one gets the distinct impression that Bachmann figures she can just ride the wave of national discontent embodied in the Tea Party spirit to higher office, and that her shortcomings – the distracted, detached look, the dearth of specifics, the lack of common sense, the long string of losses cooked up by the same old charge-up-the-middle strategy – would be discounted by an electorate that’s just fed up with being pissed off and pissed upon, a feeling that anyone would be infinitely better than what we currently have.

Considering the rush of people who made the fateful decision to vote for Barack Obama (a man with even fewer qualifications than Bachmann) she could be forgiven for making that vital strategic error. After all, the point of elevating Obama was that he was supposed to be something different, that he wasn’t one of the Usual Gang typically at the center of American Politics. He was to be the New Blood that would revitalize the Body Politic, a breath of fresh air, a new way of thinking, a divorce from the Old Politics -- and if you bought that I have a few bridges to sell you – so why couldn’t Bachmann expect likewise?

In the end, Michele Bachmann is much like Barack Obama in this regard: there’s no ‘there’ there. She is as much an empty vessel as he was, the major difference being that while people filled their Obama Cup with a new version of the old Socialist-With-A-Smiley-Face Kool-Aid, Bachmann’s is being filled with vintage Silent Majority wine given an exciting new bottle, rebranded as "Tea Party". Both taste like shit, but then again, the package was designed to be more important than the product, but marketed in the exact opposite fashion.

5. We DO Have Other Choices

And while I’ve been running them all down, one-by-one, at least one of them will eventually display enough of the skills and abilities needed to become President of the United States. In short, these are:

a. An ability to articulate a national agenda, with some broader details attached.

b. An ability to show a track record of success that inspires confidence. Beyond some minor Congressional dogsqueeze on single-issue advocacy items, Bachmann has few successes to show for all her ‘fighting’.

c. An ability to relate to the American people, to tell them the unvarnished truth about the current state of affairs and to convey your ideas in meaningful and tangible language – something beyond simply always ‘fighting’ – for righting the Ship of State.

d. Display the ability to be both adaptive and pragmatic. Bachmann is neither; she can’t be, because this would invalidate her self-created public crusader shtick, exposing her to the same approbation which clings to Mitt Romney like Saran Wrap covered in Crazy Glue, that once you set yourself up as the Fidei Defensor of Everything you’ve lost your ability to adapt and compromise without appearing to be a complete sellout. Michele Bachmann, by her own words and actions, is doomed to go down with the ship of her candidacy. This is a self-inflicted wound, probably taken by someone who thinks they’re too clever by half.

Michele Bachmann appears to have none of these qualities, whatever her real virtues may be, and one gets the distinct impression that the underlying motivation in her candidacy is sheer opportunism. She believes that she has the right combination of factors in her favor – massively displeased electorate, connections with the Tea Party, the sort of biography that sets ‘real’ conservative (small ‘c’ intentional) hearts a-flutter, Iowa roots that might gain a victory in at least the Iowa Caucuses that could propel her further -- but these are not exactly qualifications; they are simply taking points, the sort of thing one might jot down on the simple Pros-and-Cons list you might compile before buying auto insurance, not when electing a President.

This might be completely unfair of me, but it’s what I believe to be true.

Bachmann has gained herself some attention on the National Scene, which might be useful to her later on in her Congressional career, but without any record of even half-decent results or a program of action to go with it, it’s not likely that Bachmann will ever get much further, or achieve more prominence than she has to date. Frankly, I believe she’s already gotten far more attention than she’s ever truly warranted.

Previous: Five Reasons Why Rick Huntsman Should Be Mowing My Lawn.

Next: Five Reasons Why You Can Stick a Fork in Herman Cain.

Five Reasons Why Jon Huntsman Should Be Mowing My Lawn...

2011-11-22T10:12:00.003-05:00

...and for free.

#Excelsior502 - One of the many services we provide here at the Lunatic’s Asylum is the proffering of unsolicited opinion on topics various and sundry. One of my personal favorite past times is in serving up my cynical and jaundiced political views with a large side order of sarcastic invective, and the latest targets of my diseased political outlook have been the current crop of 2012 GOP contenders.

I’m licking my chops in anticipation of a 2012 GOP victory as much as the next guy, but it appears that there are some folks in this race that have less utility in that quest than a boar hog has for teats, people for whom, I should day, I have less use for than a dog has for it’s fleas.

I have been quite harsh in expressing my viewpoints thus far on Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, and it is perhaps time to turn my venom upon the person who, in my opinion, is the least qualified in the current batch of wanna-be’s, and that would be former Utah governor and Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman.

Huntsman is one of those people who just rubs me the wrong way, but for all of the right reasons. Quite frankly, when one stops to consider the fact that others in this race, like Michele Bachmann, have even less of a reason beyond shallow politics to be involved, Huntsman leaves one wondering just why it is he has decided to do what he has done, and just who was stupid enough to give him some money to do it.

So far as I can discern Huntsman’s overall motive, it would seem that reforming the system (as they say) is not prime amongst them. The 2012 election is likely not to be simply about Barack Obama, nor is it about mainstreaming some narrow points of view, like Messrs Santorum or Paul appear to be trying; whichever republican nominee wins the selection process on their way to defeating President Marriot-Suites will have to be fully on board with a program aimed at changing our political culture for the better by:

1. Taking on the subjects of government spending, tax and regulatory reform, entitlements, and general economic and legislative processes.

2. Devote him/herself to ensuring that victory not only entails an end to the democratic party business-as-usual (tax and spend) process, but GOP business-as-usual (acting like democrats…only with a tax cut) process, too.

3. Arresting the reach of the Federal Government into the private and economic lives of its citizens and then cutting its fucking rhetorical hands off at the fucking rhetorical elbows.

4. Preparing the way for future generations of sober, intelligent, pragmatic republicans (because democrats are neither intelligent or pragmatic, and hardly ever sober)to build upon the foundations of responsible government left behind (one hopes).

It’s argumentative as to whether many of the current front-runners can actually achieve most of these things solely on their own, and it’s certainly unrealistic to expect the Pauls, Bachmanns, and Santorums of this world, speaking as they do to narrow constituencies ,to do these things at all -- even accidentally. In Huntsman’s case, it’s entirely possible that there would be a Second Coming (complete with a Puppet Show) before a President Huntsman would even get around to working up the ambition to administer to any of the considerations mentioned above, if only because Jon Huntsman doesn’t give me any indication that he considers the current state of business-as-usual as all that bad a thing.

Then again, he was the governor of Utah, which is sort of like being President of the Glee Club, and he lacks the so-called gravitas that a career that doesn’t involve just being idly rich brings with it. Without further ado, here are five reasons why Jon Huntsman Should Be Mowing My Lawn for Free instead of running for President of the United States.

1. Huntsman is a Free-Trader

Normally, this would be considered a good thing, but only if you took the words “Free Trade” at face value. Like much in American Political Life, the words “Free Trade” are not concerned with the actual business of ensuring that international trade is conducted under fair and equitable circumstances, much like the current appellation of “Liberal” has no connection with anything actually Liberal, and instead concerns itself with forcing people to do things against their will by government diktat.

The definition of Free Trade in this day and age is a misrepresentation of a program of self-destructive Globalism. In this formulation of Free Trade, America is certainly Free to send its jobs, productive capacity, and capital overseas -- where rapacious American robber barons can produce cheap crap at high prices by exploiting the availability of cheap labor and lax regulation in foreign countries. In return for being able to ship your sparkplug plant to Shanghai -- where wages are low, legal systems are a joke, and government ministers are easier to bribe -- the New American Robber Baron gets a slew of benefits all of which he has paid our elected officials to embed within Federal Law, and profit grossly at the expense of his fellow American Citizens. These benefits are:

a. The ability to dodge American taxes,

b. The ability to dodge American Labor and Environmental Law,

c. The ability to maximize profits by taking advantage of near-slave labor overseas.

In this formulation, a Free Trader gets to produce t-shirts in Nicaragua where workers have no rights, there are no established wage scales, and where the only environmental law is “don’t shit in your own living room -- assuming one might have a living room inside a cardboard-and-tin shanty on the edge of a garbage dump with wall-to-wall dysentery", that is. In return, he gets to ship his produced-for 14-cents t-shirts to America with a reduced import tariff and the ability to put a “Made in America” sticker upon it, and sell it for $9.95, making an exorbitant profit. And then, utilizing the banking and tax regulations he has paid Congress to produce, offshore that profit back into his “foreign subsidiary” (the storefront in Managua where the t-shirts are made), thus avoiding the sting of U.S. corporate taxes.

In defense of his wholly outrageous action, the Free Trader explains it away as a matter of providing American consumers with the best quality for the lowest price, or in terms of delivering shareholder value, both of which are supposed to be good for the American People (normally, these would be good, but this system reduces American’s ability to buy those products as it puts them out of work). He (The Free Trader) then cries poormouth and screams for a new round of tax cuts, special benefits, set-asides, and reduction of regulatory hurdles so that he can squeeze every last penny out of the whole thing.

American workers – who cannot compete with coolie labor, pay 40% or more of their income to a government who then wastes it upon eye drops, band aids, and Disney-style theme parks for Haitians -- lose their jobs, savings, and purchasing power, and capital that might re-employ them flows outwards to make Nicaragua a better place to live than Detroit. Or at least one might think that; one of the supposed benefits of NAFTA, the Free-Trader Holy Grail, was that it would keep Mexicans employed in Mexico and, therefore, on their side of the fence.

Didn’t quite work out that way, did it?

The Free Traders are, under the guise of economic conservatism, undercutting their own country and citizens for personal gain. Most Free Trade agreements signed by Congress are no such thing, mostly allowing finished products (constructed with American investment) to return here with lower tariffs, and little to no safeguards or standards regarding quality, in return for campaign contributions. If you doubt this, take a good look at the recent recalls of all sorts of Chinese made products made with lead paints, deadly chemicals, and poor quality control that allows them to fly apart at high speed, and then take a gander at all the Wall Street pointy heads who are still insisting that investment in ‘emerging markets’ is a good thing juxtaposed against the Rogues Gallery of dimwits they have supported for President and Nancy Pelosi’s ‘ethical’ Congress.

Of the major elements in recent American economic collapse, the most egregious have occurred under democratic stewardship: NAFTA, CAFTA, repeal of the Glass-Steagell Act, failure to audit Fannie And Freddie. All were done (or undone) under the false-flags of “What’s good for business is Good For America”, or ‘Don’t rock the boat”.

Free Trade is no such thing; for if it was, then we’d be able to sell Pontiacs with the steering wheel on the wrong side in Singapore in greater numbers, while importing fewer plastic ashtrays that spontaneously explode upon contact with air.

Huntsman beats the Free Trade drum with a vigor that could only be generated by someone with an extensive portfolio constructed with the fruits of American-style Free Trade, that is, by the collusion of bought-and-paid-for elected officials, bribed ministers in foreign countries, avoidance of domestic taxes and fees, cheap labor, and the poor quality control and liability systems of the sort to be found in Kazakhstan, meeting the extensive bank account of someone who inherited large sums of money from his probably even less-scrupulous ancestors. All put to good use in picking which foxes get to guard the henhouse of course.

Huntsman doesn’t understand business in the conventional sense of making and selling things, as much as he understands it in terms of a managerial system in which those best poised and prepared to manipulate the system in their own favor win biggest.

If there’s anything those Occupy ______ protesters have to say that’s even remotely worth listening to, it’s this: Corporatism is one of the factors in the decline of America, and its genesis lies not only in greedy Wall Street Bankers, but in Stupid Politicians, as well. And when the two are allowed to combine in the fashion that they have been for the last 25 years, the end result is both predictable and shameful.

Huntsman’s version of Free Trade is not an economic boon for America: it’s an economic boon to Jon Huntsman and other super-rich doofuses like him. Quite frankly, Huntsman has never held a job that didn’t involve administering to his family fortune, or in government, and this makes him unqualified to pontificate about what’s “good for business”.

2. Huntsman is a Mormon

While this does not bother me, personally, it bothers a whole lot of other people who view Mormons as the next-best-thing to convicted child molester. Many people who will gladly tell you that “God commands me to love my fellow man” are the same people who will then discriminate against , even hate, their fellow men just because their competing versions of the New Testament are contradictory or incompatible.

Jon Huntsman, much like Mitt Romney, will have severe problems in winning a primary in the American South, and should either actually win one, it will be such as to embolden democrats to make a play for a southern state or two that they currently consider out of their league, believing those states to be in play. Nothing divides people more than religion, especially when you get into those “my Jesus is better than your Jesus” pissing matches which mean absolutely jack shit to anyone not currently funding Reverend Mudd’s Biloxi Tabernacle and Bait Shop with their entire life savings because the good Reverend Doctor insists that the Lord will take him if he can’t raise the necessary $32 million.

It’s also entirely probable that Huntsman’s rise in politics has been entirely due to the Mormon Vote in his home state of Utah, which is not exactly a mean political feat. Mormons will vote for their own kind in much the same way African-Americans do (unless your name is Alan Keyes or Herman Cain, and your sort of Blackness is not their sort of Blackness), reflexively, automatically, without engaging in critical thinking, because of the “Us-vs.-Them” (Mormons vs. Non-Mormons) nature of politics in that state.

At home, Jon Huntsman has his own, built-in voting bloc; nationally, he couldn’t win an election in another state short of offering booze and hookers at the polling places, and in many places the vote for Huntsman might still be contingent upon whether or not the voter and the hooker were biologically related or not.

A Huntsman candidacy just doesn’t fly nationally. The only reason the Other Mormon, Romney, has gained any traction is because he’s the ex-governor of a Northeastern State where religion doesn’t count for much, few people actually know Romney’s a Mormon, and for whom the majority could care a Tinker’s Cuss. Not so below the Mason-Dixon.

By the way, Huntsman and Romney are third cousins, just in case you didn’t know.

3. Huntsman Has Advocated in Favor of Gay Marriage and Believes in Man-Made Global Warming…

…which just warms the cockles of every good, God-fearin’ conservative’s (small ‘c’ intentional) heart.

You might as well come out in favor of public puppy burning, incest, free drugs at taxpayer’s expense, and unfettered public defecation.

These issues make Huntsman a non-starter in many republican precincts (and to Independents, there are more vital economic and political issues that take precedence), and both are extremely stupid issues to bring up in the context of the current state of American politics. Anyone dumb enough to announce to a room full of Iowa conservatives (small ‘c’ intentional) that they support Bob and Doug’s right to enjoy a condo in the gated community of their choice, complete with a set of adopted Chinese twins and shared health benefits, and that this is a matter of civil rights, is someone too stupid to be President. Even Barack Obama won’t go that far!

I believe both of these positions to be simple opportunism, an attempt to gather ‘political moderates’ to Huntsman’s tent, a move that some GOP candidates just can’t help but make, if only for appearances sake. In that case, then, Huntsman’s positions are phony and self-serving.

We already have enough stupid and phony people in Washington, D.C., thank you very much. We shouldn’t send any more.

Huntsman’s advocacy for Gay marriage is probably a stealth attempt to eventually allow the bigamy that some especially-fervent Mormon’s seem to love so much. If you allow Gays to marry, why not allow bigamy, right?

4. What, Exactly, Has Jon Huntsman Ever Accomplished?

Besides three awesome daughters (Abby, please call me. Although I already have a girlfriend, I’d be happy to accept you as a Sister-Wife!), Huntsman’s accomplishments read as follows: assistant to Ronald Reagan (who refused to fetch his own coffee, methinks), Ambassador to China and Indonesia (Ambassadorships usually go to high-level political donors, not always to the best-qualified people), Governor of a state where being a Mormon automatically assures you of at least 51% of the vote, and inheriting a vast fortune by virtue of being born.

While even these slim pickings are considerably more substantial than Barack Obama’s resume (his consists of being half-black and having had two bullshit biographies written for him by a terrorist), it’s hardly worth stacking up against many others in the current field: Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain can at least claim to have worked for a living once (putting them up on Obama, too), Gingrich can boast of having a long record of Congressional experience and books to his credit, and even Romney can show an actual career in the business world for his efforts. Not so Huntsman, whom so far as I can tell hasn’t worked a day in his life that wasn’t connected to either maintaining the family fortune, or to the Mormon Missions.

But hey, he was once in a rock band, so that’s something…unfortunately, he was a keyboard player, and we all know what prima donnas they all are. Oh, and Haley Barbour called him a conservative…once. If Haley Barbour is your sort of conservative (small ‘c’ intentional) then you probably opted for John McCain over Rudy Giuliani. More fool you.

So, if Jon Huntsman wants a real job for the first time in his life, maybe he should set his sights a little bit lower: He can come mow my lawn, and in the process discourage those Central American coolies that NAFTA was to keep at home from crossing the border in great waves. Huntsman can mow my lawn in order to see what work is really like, and since he needs the experience of being able to relate to the Common Man, I figure it’s all a Fair Trade – I get cheap labor, he gets the experience of a real job, and through it all, America’s economy is helped in that esoteric, nebulous, mysterious way that an unequal arrangement of labor, capital, and perceived-vs.-real value is supposed to bring in the Free Trader ‘s eyes. At Minimum Wage, of course.

Let’s see how he likes getting screwed over by the very policies his ilk advocates for a change.

5. We DO have other choices, you know:

A vote for a Free Trading, Gay-Marriage-supporting, no-talent, No-Office-Daddy’s-Money-Couldn’t-Buy nebbish who can’t even garner more media attention than Rick Santorum is, objectively, a vote for President Frequent-Flyer-Miles, no matter how you slice it.

Huntsman’s candidacy is not about change at all, not even in the abysmal way Obama’s Change You Can Believe In changed anything; what we need is the Change That Has Been Urgently Required, and it will require someone other than one perfectly satisfied with the Status Quo…with Gay Marriage, to boot. Huntsman stands for a certain republican (small ‘r’ intentional) mindset that has little to do with America, and more to do with ensuring he gets to continue to draw dividends from his cancer-producing plant (they’re actually creating cancers for export there, I figure) in Bangladesh.

If you’re happy with the state of America’s economy – Free trade policies in which Americans are put out of work and foreign competitors are granted unfettered access to our markets, where massive trade imbalances are considered a feature and not a bug by the few who benefit, where the legal status of marriage is turned upside down and it’s traditional value is spit upon, where the ‘struggle’ for homosexuals to have their diseased lifestyle choice normalized simply to avoid the stigma of activities and attitudes which the vast majority consider morally repugnant, and where a complete dipshit with little obvious talent can rise to the top of America’s Heap – then vote for Jon Huntsman. He’ll bring you all the NAFTA, WTO, G-20, China-is-an-emerging-market bullshit you can handle, all the while shipping more jobs overseas and importing more illegal aliens along with the lost-cost, Wal-Mart-quality penicillin, steel, and sub-standard auto parts you can handle.

Yessirree, a vote for Jon Huntsman not only promises to prolong our economic agony by continuing some of the policies that made it possible, it promises to complete the process of disintegration by ensuring that the rat poison we all take to end our suffering is simply chock full of ingredients that made their way past those otherwise notoriously-scrupulous Peruvian Quality Control Checkers, purchased with borrowed Chinese money.

Anyone but Huntsman, please.

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Next: Five Reasons Why Michele Bachmann Should Quit While She's Still Ahead.