Smite the Hand That Feeds You

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it -- Voltaire

Continuing his uphill struggle against sanity and encroaching irrelevance, legacy evangetollah Franklin Graham has a message for all you disobedient kids out there:

Graham equated the Obama years with a national rejection of God. "In the last four years, we have begun to turn our backs on God," he said. "We have taken God out of our education system. We have taken him out of government. You have lawyers that sue you every time you mention the name of Jesus Christ in any kind of a public forum." Oddly, Graham ignored the fact that he and other shepherds of the Christian right have griped about such matters for much longer than four years. It didn't start with Obama.

As Graham denounced the Obama years, Newsmax's Kathleen Walter asked, "So we've become too secular a nation? How do we bring God back into government?" Graham replied:

Maybe God will have to bring our nation down to our knees—to where you just have a complete economic collapse. And maybe at that point, maybe people will again begin to call upon the name of almighty God.

Economic calamity was the one option Graham mentioned—as if only such a disaster could move the United States in the right direction.

It's almost sad to watch; first Graham's old man removed Mormonism from his website's list of cults just a couple weeks before the election -- at best a cynical, opportunistic, nakedly political move by an organization undoubtedly taking advantage of its non-profit status to advocate politically; at worst a revealing look at the transparent intellectual dishonesty of these people.

So it goes. As the mossbacks continue to die off, and more and more sentient beings grow up to realize that they don't need hucksters like the Grahams for much of anything, the televangelist breed will continue to fade into irrelevance. Which is great for the ideal of intellectual probity, but the world of comedy and satire will sorely miss that breed, until the next incarnation of P.T. Barnums come along.

Insanity Workout

Ed ably defenestrates yet another deserving moron, but to really appreciate the full measure of crazy, read the original post, and then, for an extra side order of crazy with extra crazy sauce and crazy bread, read the comments, as well as this profile, bearing in mind that this guy used to work for Ron Paul.

Of course, even the most Paultarded things I've seen since Gandalf the Cracker cast his weird isolationist spell over our nation's befuddled masses never quite approached this intellectual loogie:

Seccession of [sic; obviously he means "Secession or"] leave. I say we've got two to three years left before they start rounding up dissenters and sending us off to Nazi-style concentration camps. I've got a little more time, cause I live in Texas.

Arizona is a good place to be for now. But New York, Iowa, Michigan, Massachusetts, PA beware. You're vastly on the road to complete authoritarianism and statism. Grab your guns, protect what few things you have left. You're living in Nazi Germany circa 1933-34.

It goes on like that; Dondero later talks about "disowning" his brother and one of his sisters, "....the fucked up brother in Delaware, piece of shit, scumbag mother fucker who is a Democrat, and another sister in Philly who won't tell me, but I'm almost certain voted for Obama....They are dead to me now. And I will not under any circumstances attend their funerals in 30 or 40 years."

One can only assume that those hapless siblings are well relieved to be rid of this thing, instead of having to help change his poopy diaper every time an election doesn't go his way. Seriously, I think we can all recall the vicious, hyperbolic nature of the 2004 "election", culminating in election fraud normally observed by Jimmy Carter in, say, Guatemala.

Plenty of butthurt liberals were threatening to move to Canada (perhaps until they realized that it's harder than you think; there's more to it than packing a U-Haul and professing loyalty to William Shatner and Geddy Lee when you hit the border). Maybe a few got weird with their friends and family, exploiting rifts along pre-existing fault lines that all families have. Hell, maybe even a few of the more vituperative may have seriously prophesied that the Cheney regime would round them up and stick them in "Nazi-style concentration camps".

But I don't think any of those extreme butthurters were former staffers for a presidential primary candidate. Nor did they go into the extensive laundry list of "activist" ideas that Dondero claims, such as loudly berating EBT card users at the Wal-Mart check stand, just in case any are within earshot and are suitably shamed by his dissatisfaction.

Everybody Hurts

This is awesome. This is my favorite thing for the weekend so far (especially since the Raiders failed to show up yet again today). I could watch 20 minutes of this with nothing but a wah-wahhh muted trumpet noise every few seconds. Extra props to the glassy-eyed blonde dingbat at 1:27, "ROMNEY" written across her forehead. She looks like her cult just told her to start crushing pills in the applesauce, so they can catch the comet coming around the dark side of the moon, mind processing the command as pure gabble, but still not bridging the synaptic divide caused by weeks of barinwashing and protein-free porridge.

Seriously, you wonder about folks like that. Did she scrawl across her forehead bu herself, getting in front of a mirror to get the lettering just so, or does the poor thing actually know someone who's enough of a friend to do the writing for her, yet not enough of a friend to talk her out of it in the first place? (And yes, anyone who wrote "OBAMA", or "PELOSI", or "SPRINGSTEEN" across their forehead like that deserves an equal measure of ridicule. People who pretend to hold deeply-conceived political philosophies, and then dress up like they're going to a Florida State-LSU matchup need to get a damned grip.)

Anyway, so long as we're clear -- the core of the schadenfreude (or as TBogg is calling it, Mittenfreude, nicely done there) is not that these poor souls dared to disagree with "us", as if Obama voters were and are monolithic. It's that they failed to explain their discontent sufficiently, it's that both they and their candidates failed utterly to clarify their positions, what they'd change, what effects those changes would entail, how those changes might help the economy.

It's pretty simple, folks -- when plutocrats wreck the economy to their own advantage, and your party then has the balls to put one of 'em up as a nominee before the wreckage has even been cleared from the playing field, you need to explain yourself. And if you can't, it's your own damned fault.

Electile Dysfunction: After the Laughter

So many cool things to take away from the big day yesterday, not the least of which was how Nate Silver (pictured at right) totally pwned the conservatard punditocracy -- who, if they really believed in the accountability and personal responsibility they espouse for the peons, would scrape up some dignity, resign their positions due to gross incompetence, and go out and get real goddamned jobs.

Also heartening is the fact that the Koch Brothers wasted their money on a guy they probably didn't even want in the first place; that wrasslin' wife Linda McMahon has now wasted around $100 million losing two runs for the Senate; that Sheldon Adelson blew a metric fuckton on not one but two guys he didn't want in the first place (unless, you know, he wants to admit that he wanted Newt Gingrich as preznit, which even the current future former Mrs. Gingrich isn't guaranteed to do).

Until actual conservatives rip off the blinders and relearn the basics of intellectual honesty, they're going to be stuck with these jackasses that just tell them what they want to hear:

In conservative fantasy-land, Richard Nixon was a champion of ideological conservatism, tax cuts are the only way to raise revenue, adding neoconservatives to a foreign-policy team reassures American voters, Benghazi was a winning campaign issue, Clint Eastwood's convention speech was a brilliant triumph, and Obama's America is a place where black kids can beat up white kids with impunity. Most conservative pundits know better than this nonsense -- not that they speak up against it. They see criticizing their own side as a sign of disloyalty. I see a coalition that has lost all perspective, partly because there's no cost to broadcasting or publishing inane bullshit. In fact, it's often very profitable. A lot of cynical people have gotten rich broadcasting and publishing red meat for movement conservative consumption.

Uh, yeah, and the careful observer -- oh hell, who are we kidding here? a casual observer -- can see that the lack of accountability alone proves that the entire political commentary industry is just a carny sideshow designed to reel in the goobers. As always, they deserve such treatment for as long as they're willing to put up with it. If they demanded one-tenth of the integrity and accountability from their news readers as they do from their caricatured preznit, they might notspend most of their waking hours in a haze of smoke and bullshit.

It'll be a matter of hours, if it hasn't happened already, before the conservabot failures will start gravely intoning that Rmoney lost because he wasn't conservative enough, and by implication, other folks in the clown-car primary would have won. Obviously, this is true only in the fantasyland they inhabit, with one important exception -- Jon Huntsman, who I still believe firmly would have pulled more than enough Democrats and independents to beat Obama.

Whoever's really running the GOP these days -- one assumes it's still well-heeled, cynical business douches using hypocritical fambly-valyews sociopaths and say-anything-for-a-buck media monkeys to do their bidding -- needs to sit down and really decide where they want to go from here. For reasons I've stated here ad nauseam, as well it just being human nature that some people just don't learn, I still think they will double down on their bullshit, find someone even more craven, but more provocative, stir up the rube vote.

But maybe not; the rubes are a fading, dying demographic, and what the blue-island-in-a-sea-of-red electoral maps don't readily point out is that it's those blue islands where all the people are, that vast swathes of broke, undereducated goons outnumbered by livestock and inoperable vehicles are not going to effectively serve their corporate interest going forward.

And shit, maybe if these tightwad motherfuckers -- who seriously must have to spray WD40 on their ankles in the morning so they can screw their socks on, they're so goddamned tight -- decided that, instead of spending their pelf to paint the 99% as greedy, grasping moochers, simply granted the peons even one-tenth the median wage gains that they've given themselves for thirty years running now, might convince more people, more cheaply, and with no animosity.

Of course, that won't happen -- these are people for whom money is no longer a means of subsistence or support, but merely a game, a way of keeping score. They think they'll take it with them, and proceed accordingly. But eventually you hit that point of equilibrium where there's just not enough lucky-spermers or hyper-successful bidness innovators to keep that machine going. But Flying Spaghetti Monster bless 'em, they'll always try.

Really, it'd just be better if they'd make good on that longstanding threat to go Galt on us already, makers thwarting takers, producers combating the teeming class of parasites seeking to rob and expropriate them of their precious pelf. They'll never do it, of course -- it would be like a fattened tick leaving his dog. But it's always interesting to ponder the shared dreams of diametrically opposed groups of people.

The Lyin' King

It's rare that I'll link to (or even read) MoDo, but she is absolutely on the money (Boo Boo) with this:

Even some of Romney’s own campaign advisers confess they don’t really know who he is. Is he the pragmatist who would curb Grover Norquist, John Bolton and Dan Senor, or the severe conservative who would let them run wild? It’s sad when you are hoping someone is an opportunist and a liar.

Exactly. With Obama, the disappointment has a far different quality, because Obama seemed in 2008 to have the talent and desire to be a genuinely transformative figure. (Although he did say, over and over again, that "we are the change we've been waiting for"; implicit in that statement/slogan is that he couldn't and wouldn't do it himself, that an engaged (and given the circumstances, enraged) electorate would do some share of the heavy lifting, instead of losing interest and waddling off to watch the 200th season of Survivor.)

But Rmoney is, in many respects, a WYSIWYG candidate; if he appears to be a political lycanthrope, a smarmy shape-shifter ready and willing to be everything to everyone, it's because that's exactly what he is. The only rule in effect for him and his team, to determine how he would govern, is simply to follow the money, look at what Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Bros. want and plan accordingly.

To the extent that, per the N8r b8rs' masturbatory fantasies, there is actually a statistically significant number of third-party defectors throwing it to Rmoney (highly unlikely that he'll win, or that there's enough third-partiers to make a difference), those folks certainly need to keep in mind that, whatever their misgivings about Obama, Rmoney would be an order of magnitude worse on every single one of them.

But where this is really decided at, as we'll see in a couple of days, is if the horse-race coverage is true, if there really are a sufficient number of low-info women voters anxious to vote so directly against their own rational self-interest. Every time I hear or read a woman complaining about the oppression of the male hierarchy, I instantly respond that we can't do it without your help, ladies. I assume they'll keep that in mind when Preznit Money Boo Boo finds another Combover Tony or Strip-Search Sammy or Long Dong Thomas to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg to get a SCOTUS that will not only overturn Roe v. Wade and Obamacare, but find new and creative ways to damage families and children.

Just Say Mo' to Drugs

Whatever Bobo's smokin' these days, maybe we could all use a hit. Vote for the Republican, because he'll actually have to compromise. Hilarious. Any more prescriptions, Doctor?

The bottom line is this: If Obama wins, we’ll probably get small-bore stasis; if Romney wins, we’re more likely to get bipartisan reform. Romney is more of a flexible flip-flopper than Obama. He has more influence over the most intransigent element in the Washington equation House Republicans. He’s more likely to get big stuff done.

If there were ever any merit or upside for vindication, I might actually bother to dig through the archive and see if this was also Bobo's guiding "logic" for Jorge Arbusto back in the glory days of 2000 and/or 2004. But there are rarely any surprises to be found in reading Bobo's gnomic droppings, and so I punt. We are where we are, Tonstant Weader, knowing what we know about the players in this here game.

Really, if there's any greater argument against the welfare state than the continued sinecures of overpaid token media contrarians, I'll be goddamned if I have any clue as to what it might be. One of these days, someone should have Bobo and his ilk blind-taste-test competing policy initiatives from each candidate, see if they can actually differentiate. Ten bucks ('cause that's all I gots after The Man has taken his 93% cut) says they cannot.

October Surprise

Not to be opportunistic in a time of extreme weather and no small amount of damage and tragedy, but....is Hurricane Sandy a sign from an eternally vengeful deity, a fountain of wrath signifying that we need to stop treating homosexuals and libertines like, well, human beings? Is it a demonstration that maybe there are things for which the big bad evil gubmint serves a clear, tangible purpose, that maybe we don't really want to have our disaster-recovery services administered by Halliburton or some such? Is it a harbinger of future extreme weather events, consequences of a planet abused beyond its capacity to recuperate and refresh itself quickly, something we'll just get used to, the way we've become accustomed to weekly incidents of armed lunatics snapping and taking out everyone within firing distance?

Perhaps it's all of those things, perhaps none, or some. But all three of those ideas contain factors that we can actually affect to some extent. Having control of even some of the decisions we all face is a great thing (especially if, like me, you tend to be a bit of a control freak about certain things).

But certainly we can all decide whether to endorse or to actively repudiate groups that peddle hate and nonsense under the guise of arcane religimous interpretations, instead of just ignoring the loudmouths until they infest the school boards with their bullshit. We can all soberly assess the things government does and doesn't do effectively, and what the private sector does and doesn't do effectively, and plan accordingly, rather than just assume that Big Capitalism always and only knows best. Bottom line here is that almost all 50 states are terminally debt-ridden and understaffed in response to Wall Street's shenanigans, and if there's one thing capitalism sucks balls at, it's appropriately addressing the needs of a captive market in an emergency. So yeah, if you enjoy profiteering in the wake of the next hurricane, tornado, flood, whatever, then go for it.

Obsession

So much for "It's the economy, stupid": (video at link is very NSFW):

Hundreds of outraged South Florida TV viewers have called or emailed network affiliates to complain about anti-abortion ads that have flooded the airwaves this week.

The ads, paid for by U.S. Congress hopeful and anti-abortion rabble-rouser Randall Terry, show scenes better suited for the grossest Halloween horror movies. They have aired in the middle of the night in most cases, but also at family-dinner time.

The images in four promos include what appear to be mangled human fetuses, tiny body parts and even a lifeless infant stuffed in a bloody plastic bucket.

Awesome. I suppose that when they get around to the requisite "gay marriage is shocking the kids and spooking the horses" jabber, they'll run a commercial with a gay-porn sex scene, something subtle like that. That's America's Wang for ya.

Make no mistake, assuming Obama squeaks through for a second term, he's got his work cut out for him. But scumbags like Terry show very clearly an important dimension in this ongoing "culture" war -- namely that the crazy-aunt wing of the party rides on Rmoney's coattails in this, and they will expect a lot in return. I hope the dingbats going Vulture/Voucher feel good about their choice, because it's their pooters that get wanded, their decisions that will get made for them by obsessive loons like Randall Terry.

Wasted Motion

Again, just an observation on who's throwing the election and whom to blame:  Jill Stein is polling at a statistically insignificant rate, even more so in swing states, whilst spoiled dingbats and butthurt crackers are apparently going for Rmoney en masse. I am willing to bet my next paycheck that, should Vulture/Voucher manage to squeeze this one out of their poopchutes, not one of the swing state losses will be able to be blamed on the DFHs, and all of them will be because of the party jumpers. Bet your last dollar on that, friends 'n' neighbors.

As I've pointed out too many times in the past with the N8r b8rs (now in their second decade!), the problem here is not so much who gets stuck with the blame, it's the inevitable practical ramifications of the scapegoating. American political parties these days move to the right when they lose the presidential election, that is the intent and design of the ratchet/pawl system we have. Scapegoating the DFHs simply gives automatic cover to ratcheting the Democrats, whether that takes the form of further capitulation to extreme-right jabber, or putting up "more electable" candidates in the snake-handler states.

Moreover, it absolves them from having to look at the real reason why they lost in the first place. With Gore in 2000, there were so many factors, only the most unself-aware partisan could have singled out Nader not just as the proximal cause, but as the only cause. With Obama, the cause for the supposed mass defection is said to be that Rmoney will be better on jobs, even though he has yet to say exactly how he'll create decent jobs here, even though he made his fortune creating jobs overseas.

So are DFHs also responsible for that much greater degree of mass cognitive dissonance, of collective stupidity? Of course not. But until we either make voting mandatory and on Saturday, like in Australia, and mandate a short, publicly-financed campaign to take all the pelf out of the perpetual-campaign system, they'll keep getting scapegoated. Failing that, we need to start finding ways, individually and collectively, to start divesting ourselves from this system that shackles us to lifetimes of wage slavery and debt peonage.

Ladies' Night

Not sure exactly how many of these insane pigfuckers have to fly the same party banner for some of the dingbats out there to realize that the Republican Party is not your friend. This has very little to do with whether individual women happen to be personally pro-life or pro-choice, and everything to do with how accepting they are of the idea that assholes like Mourdock or Akin should be making that choice for them regardless, and sticking them with the consequences. (And don't get me started on the pretzel logic Akin's angels deploy in the Guardian write-up; so pathetic it's not even worth parsing and clarifying, just the burbling of addled, self-hating morons.)

We are no longer postulating the shopworn conservatard bugaboo of the airhead trollop strutting down to the nearest strip mall for a quick D&C, followed by a trip to the food court and thence to a club for more meaningless slut sex. We are talking about people who are on record as saying that women's bodies are able to secrete mystical chemicals that prevent them from being impregnated by rape -- or worse, that if somehow they are impregnated by rape, it's God's will. Worse yet, these are people who are vying for the United States Senate, when they should be practicing safe sex by going out and tagging all the livestock that kick.

At this point, I'm really not sure which is more conclusive proof that God is a total dick -- that He would actually will that a woman be impregnated by a violent, awful, dehumanizing crime, or that He still hasn't dropped these bastards with bolts of lightning and flaming pools of carbolic acid. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these people, not just Mourdock and Akin, but the women who would actually vote for them? How do you get to a point where you hate and devalue yourself to that extent?

Freudian Slip

Oh, this is charming. Yet another interchangeable Foxface shoots from the hip with some baldfaced nonsense pulled so freshly out of his ass he had to brush the peanut and corn chunks off it first. The difference here is that he actually admitted that he had no evidence for what he was about to drop, which makes him a perfect surrogate for the Republican Party and all of its candidates and voters. Hell, they're not even pretending to try anymore.

Maybe someone should remind them of that time when 241 Marines were blown up by a suicide bomber in Lebanon, and Saint Reagan's swift and mighty response was to get the fuck out of there. But hoo boy, four people die in mob violence under Obammy's watch in some country most of 'em couldn't find on a map if their lives depended on it, and their media provocateur surrogates come unglued.

These are the jerkoffs fabricating your news analysis, America. How do you like it?

Hair Today, Gall Tomorrow

Renaissance man and serial monogamist Donald Trump's twitter-twatting is the stuff of legend. Near as I can tell, this is not a parody. He coins amazing, memorable turns of phrase:

Boy howdy, if this century gets its own Algonquin Round Table going, the Trumpster's got a seat right next to Kanye West, ya heard? Jesus, I hope someone remembered to chronicle that timeless nugget o' wisdom.

But wait, there's more. He's not just the Samuel Johnson of the new millennium, you miserable peons. He's also a formidable baseball prognosticator:

Bang zoom, chumps! Forget that Verlander gave up three hits and one run (and that to start to ninth inning) in leading the Tigers to a 3-games-to-none leg up on the Yanks in the ALCS. The Donald has spoken.

WYGIWYD

It's about time someone in the big leagues said it.

If you believe that Thursday night's vice-presidential debate was a "draw" because Joe Biden was "rude" and "disrespectful" while Paul Ryan was obviously being disingenuous and uninformed, or that you've decided to go with "disingenuous" and "uninformed" because its manners made it more "likable," then you deserve the inadequate health-care voucher that's coming your way in 2014, as well as the letter from the Social Security Administration that your benefits will be down to 85 cents a month because International Embezzlement LLC went belly-up and took your retirement with it. Tough luck, kids. Them's the risks of an Opportunity Society.

This is something I've harped on for months (probably years), but it really cannot be overstated. If you're a woman and you vote for Rmoney/Ryan, you bloody well deserve to have a conservative Mormon and a conservative Catholic tell you what your reproductive rights are (and more importantly, aren't). If you're gay and you vote for them, you deserve to have them and their knuckle-dragging surrogates tell you what a "real" family is, and treat you like a third-class citizen (or, you know, a chick).

If you care about scientific and technological advancement, and about America's primacy in the sci/tech fields, and you vote for self-styled teabagger morons, you deserve to have a school system that would rather teach your children that the earth was created in six days a few thousand years ago, than teach them to read and to be rigorous critical thinkers. If you're a working-class dog and you vote for a money-grubbing plutocrat who pulled his hectomillions out of the downsized hides of people who actually produced something worth buying, don't be surprised when your job gets sent to Shenzhen or Bangalore.

Conservative friends 'n' neighbors, all your high 'n' mighty valyews won't pay a day of your light bills, or make health care an iota more accessible, or put a dent in the upward siphoning of the economy to those who already have more than they could spend in five generations. If you like a landed aristocracy sucking your childrens' futures dryer than Phoenix will be in twenty years, keep on keepin' on.

Income for most workers has barely risen in the last 30 years, but the top 1 percent of earners have seen their income almost triple in the same amount of time.

Keep telling yourself that anything else is communism, and let us know how that works, how that's been working, for you.
 

Shit For Brains, Part 2: The Poopening

I leave it to youse gentle readers out there to decide which is more appalling -- that a chuckleheaded clown like Paul Broun sits on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee (along with noted ladyparts enthusiast Todd Akin), or that he is running unopposed for re-election.

Since the Georgia 10th was created a few years back by gerrymandering, it has been a safe 2-1 seat for the Republicans, even with a college town (Athens) in the district. But that's no excuse; you should never concede territory, especially to a well-known buffoon who's only held the seat for two terms. Hell, even Nancy Pelosi doesn't get to run unopposed.

If they can't muster the nerve to at least pretend to try to contest Broun's seat, the least the Dems can do is stick him on a committee where he can't do any real damage. Maybe if the U.S. can drop another ten or twenty notches in science education and aptitude, we might get serious about it. In the meantime, thanks a bunch, Real America, for keeping these short-bus goofballs off the unemployment rolls.

Mock the Vote

So, uh, it seems that Ozzy Osbourne/Brenda Vaccaro impersonator and noted thespian Scott Stapp is disappointed in Barry O, so, you know, let that sway you however it will. No word yet on who Chad Kroeger's endorsing, but then, he's Canadian isn't he?

It's hard not to enjoy the dynamic in play here -- did Faux News have to flip a coin to decide between Stapp and, I dunno, Janine Turner? What sliver of Faux' Maalox-chugging demo will even have any idea who Stapp is in the first place? Just weird -- or indicative of Mittens' level of pull among H-list has-beens and never-weres.

Crass Warfare

I don't usually do the "read it all" or "what they said" thing, but uh, what Angry Black Lady said.

You know, we've all got that conservative loudmouth brother-in-law type, whether it's a co-worker or cousin or whatever, who basically internalizes and regurgitates on demand whatever lie they heard most recently from their "news" source, whether it's Fixed Noise or Rash Limpballs or just their own friends and acquaintances.

And you realize pretty quickly on when they try to engage you with the latest nonsense some joker chain-emailed them, it's unfortunately a waste of time to try to counter their arguments with rational debating points. They are not looking for a debate, they're looking for affirmation of their preconceived prejudices, nothing more, nothing less. Any response or point that takes any longer (or even as long) as a typical teevee sound bite (say, six seconds) is going to go in one ear and out the other. They last about ten seconds at a stretch before they shake their wittle heads and mutter, "Whatever."

Okay, then. So what do you counter these passionate bozos with, that they might actually listen and pay attention? That Rmoney thinks half of all Americans are freeloading losers because of their voting preference -- at least, according to the comments he made at a fundraiser thrown by a orgy-throwing vulture capitalist scumbag? That he quite literally made his fortune gutting American companies and sending American jobs to Chinese labor camps? That not just Rmoney himself, but the people he quite explicitly represents, are in fact the only people who are significantly better off than they were four years ago, and they still fucking complain, still seethe with contempt at the the peons who don't know their place? That this modern aristocracy persists in referring to themselves as "job creators", yet after twelve years of the tax cuts they insisted on, have somehow managed not to create any jobs, but have hoarded over a trillion dollars in aggregate private-sector cash reserves? At what point do these schmucks actually pay attention to what's right in front of them, and believe their lyin' eyes once and for all?

You can give it your best shot, and at least make it somewhat interesting. One obvious problem is the high degree of built-in hypocrisy, the mindset of people who deeply resent what they perceive as a class of freeloading untermenschen, always with their hands out, but who have for the most part never themselves said "no" to any free gubmint money coming their way. On the one hand, you don't want to argue too much with a moron, because people might not be able to tell the difference, but on the other hand, that's precisely why their toxic stupidity manages to hang in there every damned time.

Stepping In Mitt

For a campaign that appears to run on endless amounts of hot and cold running derp, Money Boo Boo continues to find new and better ways to fail:

Romney's response to the incidents of the last 24 hours -- the storming of the American embassy in Cairo and the killing of the American ambassador and three others in Libya -- is widely being regarded as hasty and ham-handed. From his initial statement late Tuesday, which accused the Obama Administration of "sympathiz[ing] with those who waged the attacks," to his Wednesday morning press conference reinforcing that criticism, Romney, critics say, appeared overly eager to turn the tragedy into a political wedge, and insufficiently respectful of the gravity of the situation.

Even for a team famously refusing to be constrained by the rigors of mere fact-checkers, this is a pretty bad whiff. As awful as the events yesterday in Benghazi are, and as tempting as it might be to "there they go again" at the crowds protesting what appears to be a seriously half-assed production of internets provocateurs trying to stir up violent responses, the fact is (to use the always handy Rumsfeldism) we don't know what we don't know. It is entirely possible (even likely, considering the apparent sophistication of the deadly event) that a small cell of actual terrorist types hung in for cover with the protesters. No one knows much of anything yet, certainly not the guy who fired his foreign policy advisor for being a lustful cockmonster.

Plus there's that whole "water's edge" thingduring events such as this. It would have been an easy and even graceful move to just hit the "thoughts and prayers are with the families" note and move back to the economy, which is really (ironically enough) the one card Rmoney has to play in his hand. And he couldn't even do that one right.

Of course, we are talking about the same guy that poked the Russian bear just for shits and giggles:

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin said today that Mitt Romney's characterization of Moscow as the United States' "number one geopolitical foe" has actually helped Russia.

The Russian leader said Romney's comments strengthened his resolve to oppose NATO's plan for a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, a system Russia believes will degrade its nuclear deterrent. The U.S. insists the system is aimed at Iran, not Russia.

"I'm grateful to him (Romney) for formulating his stance so clearly because he has once again proven the correctness of our approach to missile defense problems," Putin told reporters, according to the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

"The most important thing for us is that even if he doesn't win now, he or a person with similar views may come to power in four years. We must take that into consideration while dealing with security issues for a long perspective," he said, speaking after a meeting with Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic, according to Interfax news agency.

Mittford apparently thinks Boris and Natasha are still out to get Moose and Squirrel. Regardless, his recent comments on foreign policy, for a perpetually tumultuous part of the world, underscore the distinct impression one gets that he would just go ahead and appoint John Bolton and Elliot Abrams as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, or vice versa. Maybe run everything past Netanyahu beforehand, that sort of thing.

More and more -- though the media, in their interest to keep things close, will undoubtedly weight it just like they did for GeeDub -- it looks like Rmoney will get his clock unceremoniously cleaned by Obama in the debates. Whatever misgivings one may have about Obama, and they're there, and for good reasons, one strength the guy has is that he really does seem to be unflappable. Nothing ruffles his feathers. And yet he manages to convey humanity, even while tamping down emotion. Mitt, on the other hand, makes the simple act of, say, drinking a glass of water looked forced and robotic. You can almost see the smoke coming out of his ears as he attempts to figure out the algorithm to Barry O's rope-a-dope stylings.

As dismal as this chapter of the perpetual campaign industry has been, and as anti-climactic as an Obama win will be with the possibility of both houses of Congress being GOP, it will at least be appreciated to watch these jagoffs lose. Romney and Ryan present the most tedious, regressive, been-there-done-that-tried-it-what-else-ya-got ideas. Doesn't matter whether it's foreign or domestic policy, the economy, labor relations, health care, the environment, women's right to control their own reproductive decisions, they're Rip Van Winkle, two guys who fell asleep while Herbert Hoover was in office, and can't figure out why the rest of the world moved on.

No wonder the only people falling for this schtick are angry old white farts. The world stopped for them too, about the time Pat Boone was schlepping Little Richard tunes for the preppy uptight white kids.

What The Chuck

When the Islamocommiemoooslimkenyan usurps the Stormin' Mormon and re-ascends the Throne O' Doom, thereby heralding a thousand years of dorknessdarkness, don't say you weren't warned, America. Warned, I tells ya, by 72-year-old thespian and Whirled Nut Daily jokester Chuck Norris, his much younger wife, and way younger hair.

It's the next best thing to watching a fist-shaking codger tell an empty chair to get off his lawn.

Here Comes Money Boo Boo

Once again, Mittford "Buzz Killington" Rmoney is king of the unforced error, on this morning's Mitt the Press (see what I did there?):

In his interview airing Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Romney praised the Wednesday night speech by the Democratic ex-president, which ridiculed Romney and Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan on issues ranging from fiscal policy to Medicare.

"He did stand out in contrast with the other speakers; I think he really did elevate the Democrat convention in a lot of ways," Romney said. "And, frankly, the contrast may not have been as attractive as Barack Obama might have preferred if he were choosing who'd go before him and who'd go after."

Clinton's speech was regarded as one of the highlights of the Democratic convention; he formally nominated President Obama for a second term, and his folksy speech built up the current president while simultaneously taking Romney to task. But as Romney suggested, Clinton's speech drew as much interest as Obama's among political observers, and Romney seemed to suggest the former president even overshadowed the current one.

Think about that for a second. Rmoney just got showed up at his own coming-out party by an empty chair, gets barely a dead-cat bounce in the polls from it, and after a substantially more successful and well-received Democratic convention, the best he can do is try some passive-aggressive comparison between Cinton and Obama? It's a piss-poor, half-assed attempt to try to paint Obama as some hardcore lefty, and came off as such.

Especially considering the Republicans' own most recent White House occupants were nowhere to be found, it speaks volumes that the current ticket is left scrambling, preferring to find ways to tie themselves to Bill Clinton, somehow, some way, than to even bother mentioning He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, lest eight sordid years of monkeyfuckery be revisited.

Fun observations from the interview and panel discussion:

• The "Juntos Con Romney" strategically hovering over Mittford's shoulder reminds me of the old "Juntos Pedemos" signs from the Jorge Arbusto years. Good times.
• Good thing they got Sportin' Life Bill Bennett to explain values and shit. What's the over/under on him trying to pick the pulled pork out of his teeth with Julian Castro?
• Apparently Chuck Todd is cutting his own hair these days.

Also too.

Mock the Vote

It's oddly reassuring to see that ignorance and bigotry is not the province of any particular race or creed, but can be found just about anywhere.

Many of the congregants in Wooden's Upper Room Church of God In Christ express conflicted feelings with the same phrase offered by Ieisha Hall: "I'm praying on it." The 37-year-old voted for Obama four years ago, in part because "as the mother of three sons, a big part of it for me was the history of" supporting the first black president.

"If God says so," Hall said she will leave her presidential ballot space blank rather than vote for Romney, even though he opposes same-sex marriage. "I know he does, but I just don't believe in Mormonism," Hall said, echoing a sentiment expressed by many congregants.

Do us all a big favor, lady, and stay home, then. A Vulture/Voucher victory will affect your life a hell of a lot more than, say, mine, or a lot of other folks. But you can congratulate yourself for your sanctimonious righteousness whilst your access to health becomes more expensive or non-existent, as your sons' ability to attend college gets curtailed, as your job, or your friends' or relatives' jobs, get outsourced or downsized so that Rmoney's stock port can go up an eighth of a tick.

There's nothing at all surprising about fools living down to their names, but still, like a train wreck, when you see it you have to look and wonder.

Somewhere deep in hell, Bull Connor is cackling his ass off. Is it really that much to ask that we have a nation where, if it doesn't break our arm or pick our pocket, we all agree to mind our goddamned business?