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5 Things That Are Less Out of Touch and Extreme Than The Republicans

A recent poll released by the people at Pew Research shows that 62% of those who responded classify the Republican Party as “out of touch.” That’s not exactly welcome news to a party that’s trying desperately to shrug of the much-deserved reputation of being full of old, bitter and out of touch conservatives who are just upset that America’s demographics are changing, and with it, Americans’ opinions on the issues of the day. Another 52% of respondents called the Republicans in Washington “too extreme.”

While no one who’s been paying attention to the idiocy that’s been free flowing from GOP Land for the last 20 years or more would be surprised by those conclusions, it’s definitely news that the majority of Americans feel that way. What will happen as more and more Americans come to the realization that one party really is only making things worse? I don’t know. It depends on how lazy we’re feeling at the moment, I’d suppose.

To put things into perspective, I’ve compiled a list of 5 Things That Are Less OUt of Touch And Extreme Than The Republicans, and here they are now.

#5. Adolf Hitler

First, I get to check-off one of the “10 Things You Have to Do In Any Political Argument Ever” by bringing up Hitler. Secondly, if the right-wing gets to invoke Hitler (incorrectly) every thirty seconds when discussing gun control, I get to bring up a bullshit comparison between the Republicans and the guy who ruined that mustache (and genocide) forever.

#4. A Motorola MicroTAC Cellular Phone

No one has probably put their hands on one of these clam shell beauts in at least fifteen or twenty years, which makes it at least a decade fresher than the GOP’s economic policies, and about twelve decades fresher than their social policies. In fact, if you were looking for an accurate analogy between the Republican Party’s ideologies and a technological advance, you’d probably want to go with something like “the wheel” or “fire.”

#3. High-Diving From The Top Of the Empire State Building Naked Into a Kiddie Pool Full of Nair

When it comes to extreme, nothing is more extreme than plummeting to your death from the top of one of New York’s landmark buildings as you try to land in a kiddie pool filled to the brim with hair-removing lotion. Then again, Republicans draft bills that could make miscarriages technically murders, and that would force rape victims to carry their attackers’ babies to full term against their will. But that’s not extreme! That’s just standing up for what American used to be according to Republicans. It’s not that Republicans are extreme, it’s that Americans don’t want to be insensitive assholes anymore, and whose fault is that, really?

#2. Being An Un-Ironic Fan of Jason Mraz

I just personally don’t like Jason Mraz’s style, in every sense of the word. So fuck him. Next.

#1. Nothing Is Actually Less Out of Touch Or Extreme Than The Republican Party

The reality of the situation is quite simple. The Republican Party hitched its wagon to Rush Limbaugh, conservative talk radio, and Fox News. They funneled and whittled their core message and audience down so tight, that their ideology became specifically targeted to a set of values that frankly just don’t match up to modern society any more. Of course they seem old and out of touch as they posit Trickle-Down Economics as viable Fiscal Policy. Of course they seem out of touch being stalwartly opposed to marriage equality when the rest of the country has simply embraced reality; that homosexuals are no less deserving than the full rights of humanity as anyone else. Of course they seem marginalized and crazy as they talk about the “illegal immigration invasion” that’s supposedly sending millions of uneducated and illiterate people over our borders for the express purpose of sucking America’s riches dry utilizing our social safety net (forget that as undocumented people they actually can’t access any of those things, facts don’t matter to Republicans anymore).

The Republicans seem out of touch and extreme, because that’s what they are. Only extremists think rape pregnancies are “gifts from God.” Only extremists think it’s okay to give the wealthiest upper-crust of society carte blanche to do whatever-the-fuck they want to do while the rest of us are made to pay higher and higher property and sales taxes to offset the cost of letting rich people do everything they can to shirk their responsibility. Maybe 2012 made the reality of the situation more apparent, but up to now, it sure as hell hasn’t made them any less extreme or out of touch.

Ask Chuck Hagel if the Republicans got the lesson of 2012. Ask Susan Rice, or perhaps Hillary Clinton. Maybe you can ask the myriad Republican women in Congress who weren’t given a chairman’s spot on one of the House committees. Ask John Boehner if he really thinks that stubbornly sticking to “no more revenue” is the smart thing for the party to do, even though the math simply does not add up without it. The Republican Party is in desperate need of change; but if the first two months of 2013 are any indication, they’ve got a long way to go indeed.

5 Things Ted Cruz Wants To Accomplish In the Senate

To paraphrase The Joker, “I have given a name to my pain, and it is ‘Senator Ted Cruz.'”

The Smarmy Index in Washington has hit an all time high, thanks to the arrival of the Junior Senator from Texas by way of Canada. (Honestly Canada! What did we do to deserve this son of a bitch?) Cruz makes every Tea Party Lady quiver in her nether regions. It’s as if someone created a mold for “Peevish, Accusatory, Inflamatory, Self-Righteous Prick Senators,” poured a glop of hair gel and good ol’ fashioned Texas Bullshit into it, squeezed the damnable thing together, and out  popped Ted.

Watching Cruz embarrass himself for all of history has been fun though. The way he insinuated that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel — how’s that filibuster working out for you now, Senator McCain? — may have taken money to speak in North Korea will be one of those “Are you now, or have you ever been…” moments. So at least he’s accomplished that much. But what else can this legislative lightweight hope to accomplish after having pissed off members of both parties in his Hill debut?

Maybe one of these things…

#5. Discover Just Who The 81 Communist Democrats in Congress Are

Oh sure, the Lame Stream Media will tell you that former Rep. Allen West (R-FL) is a crackpot moron. Sure, they’ll also tell you that he had absolutely zero proof of any Democrat being a communist, and that’s why he refused to name names. And sure, that group of liberal jerkfaces will also tell you that there’s nothing in our Constitution or other founding documents that says you can’t be a Communist, or a Socialist for that matter, much less that you can’t be either of those things and serve in Congress. But that won’t stop Senator Teddy “So There Are Assholes In Canada After All” Cruz from fulfilling and finishing Rep. West’s brave work in unearthing the sinister influence of communism in Congress.

Sen. Joe McCarthy just got a ghost boner while he works the phone bank in Hell.

#4. Getting To The Bottom of  <INSERT CRAZY RIGHT-WING CONSPIRACY THEORY HERE>

I don’t think Republicans in Congress are interested in anything unless it involves vaginae or a conspiracy. If you could somehow concoct a conspiracy around President Obama using the vaginae of all the women in the land to smuggle guns into Mexico so that they may one day ban both guns and female genitalia, you would hit the Republcian crackpot jackpot. It’s not shocking or surprising at all that the GOP loves their conspiracies  — whether they be Fast & Furious or FEMA death camps — they’re the party of alternate reality as it is anyway. After all, it takes a certain conspiratorial dismissal of truth to not only believe in but proselytize trickle down economics.

#3. Outlaw Dancing In His Town

I know he’s Canadian. But Senator Cruz came to Congress by way of Texas. And it’s probably safe to say that approximately 82% of all towns in Texas qualify as being “Footloose-ian” in nature. That is to say that most small towns in Texas could easily play host to a Kevin Bacon and/or Kenny Wormwald figure to stroll into town and wreak havoc on the elders, inciting rock and roll dance marathons! And women wearing dungarees!

#2. BENGHAZI!!!!!!!!111111111OneOneOne

Remember how way back in the times of Number Four on this list how we talked about Republicans loving conspiracy theories? Benghazi is the ultimate right-wing conspiracy theory. It involves the president, an evidence-free assumption that he did something wrong, and a bunch of mouth-breathing simpletons champing at the bit to bring down the entire administration. On one level, a thoughtful inquiry of the facts of the attack on our consular building in Benghazi is needed. On another level, it was already done, and the findings released. Blame was assigned, and the country seems ready to turn it into a learning experience. But that’s not good enough for Cruz and his cohorts, who are still looking for that one thing that can bring down the president. The good news for Cruz is that he can’t be president and he works for the party of congressional gerrymandering, so barring any major fuck-up (and why would we assume that a man with such plus-sized hubris and anorexic intellect would fuck up?), he’ll be around to chase the Benghazi rabbit down the hole for years and years.

At the taxpayers’ expense…of course.

#1. Be A Complete and Total Dickhead

Oh wait. He’s already accomplished that. So maybe it should say “Continue Being a Complete and Total Dickhead” instead. Oh well. The point is that Senator Ted Cruz is a complete and total dickhead.

5 Things Other Than Sequester That Congressional Republicans Would Rather Avoid

Oh, Congressional Republicans. You silly bastards, you. You’ve wanted these sequestration cuts all along, and were thrilled that they were a part of the Fiscal Cliff deal way back in 2011. You licked your lips in anticipation every day since then to now. And now that they’re about to happen and the public will pin the blame squarely on you, now you’re acting as if you want be reasonable. But as we all know, there’s very little that excites you all more than slashing government spending, whether it’s a dime or a trillion dollars’ worth.

Just how badly to Republicans want these sequestration cuts? Here are five things they’d much rather avoid instead of averting the across the board and uneven cuts entailed in sequestration.

#5. President Obama’s Impeachment Trial For Being Kenyan, Socialist, Marxist, Socialist and a White Sox Fan

Republicans in Congress are so eager to see government spending get cut, that they’d even be willing to forego the one thing they’ve been praying to Baby Jesus for over the last four years. It’s a safe bet that as soon as March 1st, 2013 roll around and there isn’t another last minute stalling measure employed, Republican penises all over the country will engorge into full turgidity. Nothing gets their hormones raging faster than watching little kids lose their  after-school programs, which are precisely the kinds of discretionary spending cuts that the sequester will force all over the country. With all the blood flowing to their penises, they won’t be able to concentrate on anything else…not even finally getting rid of Maobama the Usurper.

#4. The Noid

I will never, ever pass up a chance to insert a reference to 1980s pop culture. So enjoy this Domino’s commercial, which has far more ability to govern and legislate effectively than any Congressional Republican could hope.

#3. Functioning Airports

You know, for the talk of how anti-business that Barack Obama is, it’s sort of hysterical that Republicans would be so willing to allow sequestration to happen given that flight delays due to lack of  TSA screeners and air traffic controllers would most deeply impact the thousands of people who fly in this country every day for business purposes. Sure, maybe the average American isn’t hopping on a jet constantly to jet-set around the world. But you know who is? Countless people working in the private sector, going to meetings and conferences, all in the name of commerce and our economy. How many fewer meetings will be held? How much of a company’s business is impacted by groundings of flights? It seems to me that it’s far more anti-business to allow idiotic self-inflicted budget crises to potentially take a bit out of business travel. But who needs logic and consistency of principle when discussing our nation’s economy, yeah?

#2. Well Taken Care of Americans

The reason these cuts are so stupid is that they impact the exact wrong people. Yes, a big chunk of the cuts go to the Department of Defense, which is most assuredly in need of a budgetary slicing and dicing. But there are also billions in discretionary income being cut. Those cuts will impact things like educational subsidies and programs for domestic abuse. Perhaps it’s no big deal to an Ayn Rand sycophant if little Bobby in Ohio can’t participate in his school’s tutoring program, but society will pay a huge price in a few years when Bobby’s too mathematically illiterate to work at McDonald’s and winds up firmly in the social safety net. Though if there’s a silver lining for Republicans, it’s that the more mathematically challenged people there are, the more potential Republican voters there are. It’s hard to convince people that cutting revenue when you need to make up a budget deficit is a good thing if they understand that when you add one to one you get two, and not “Trickled Down Awesomeness.”

#1. Working

This is the only real reason on this list. We all know it. The bottom line is that the idea of “working” in this case means actually coming to the table to negotiate with the president. The right-wing and even the media who is only interested in headlines and not accuracy, are hammering away at the president for being too willing to scaremonger instead of work with Congress. And yet, the president has proposed actual entitlement reforms twice in the last three months, and both times Republicans have walked away from negotiations. It’s all about stalling to the Republicans. Ironically, while they accuse the president of only wanting to score political points and victories, it’s their number one political objective, the failure of President Barack Obama, that’s front and center now.

That desire to tank President Obama’s presidency also happens to have the consequence of hurting working class people means nothing to them now, it never has, and it never, ever will.

 

5 Reasons Republicans Don’t Want To Raise The Minimum Wage

One of the most unsurprising complaints from the right about President Obama’s State of the Union speech was his bold challenge to Congress to raise the minimum wage. It didn’t very long for the right-wing media consortium to surmise that this was yet another anti-business move from the socialist Obama. Forget the fact that so many Americans can’t find a working wage. Forget the fact that so many American families have to have both parents (and many times a work-aged child) holding jobs to make ends meet. Apparently if we raise the minimum wage, it’ll just send American businesses into a tailspin, laying off employees that they can no longer afford to hold below the poverty line, like dunking someone’s head in a financial toilet and flushing it.

Or at least that’s what they’ll say. That’ll be the doom and gloom line they use to discourage any talk of raising the minimum wage. It’s like when they claimed in the nineties that raising taxes would cripple the economy. It didn’t. Or it’s like when all the gun zealots were afraid that Obama’s executive actions were going to include confiscation; they didn’t. But maybe I’m being too harsh on our Republican friends in Congress, because late last night I was emailed a list of talking points Republicans are now to use in their arguments against raising the minimum wage, and you know, they might just have a point!

#5. Hitler Raised the Minimum Wage Too!

Hey, if it works for the gun control argument, maybe the Hitler thing can work for every ideological point conservatives need to make. Who cares that Hitler actually did not disarm his people? The talking points don’t work if you get so picky about being historically accurate, do they? So why not apply the same level of ethical standards when talking about raising the minimum wage?

#4. Raising the Minimum Wage is a Gateway Social Policy

Look, if you give a mouse a cookie, it’s going to expect affordable health care. That’s the point here. Once you start treating people like actual human beings, when do you stop? Once you raise the minimum wage, what’s next? Free, top-notch preschool for all kids so they can hit the ground running in kindergarten, set off on a lifelong path of education?

He did what? Oh great, thanks Mao-Bama. Now you’re teaching our kids to be commies too!

#3. Raising the Minimum Wage Might Help Keep People Off Welfare and Other Social Assistance Programs

One big misnomer about people on welfare and other assistance programs is that they’re all lazy and out of work. The fact is that many social programs are for people who may have an income, but it puts them far below the poverty line, or puts them at a disadvantage and incapable of paying for health insurance for their children. Compare motor trade insurance costs with a family with young adults in the public school system, I’m sure that you will appreciate your situation a little more after that! Raising the minimum wage would help people afford the things in life they rely on assistance from others for. But on the other hand, people like John Schnatter, the CEO of Papa Johns –you know, the guy who said that thanks to Obamacare he was going to raise the prices on his shitty pizzas a few cents —  might not be able to charge so little for their pizzas if they’re not fucking over their employees. And God knows a millionaire’s profit margins are more important than a minimum wage worker’s quality of life. So moving right along…

#2. Raising the Minimum Wage Might Help Reduce Crime and Violence

If there’s anything economists know, it’s when people feel like they’re stuck in a shitty job with shitty pay, things never go bad. It’s not like the feeling of there not being a light at the end of the tunnel leads people to lash out, right? We don’t think that the places of high crime and violence are helped along by the lack of livable wages right? After all, what’s the point of demagogueing education if you’re not going to also keep the “Poors” working at sub-poverty rates too? It’s not good enough to rob them of their feeling of hope; you have to also make them feel sub-human as well. And what better way to feel hopeless and full of despair than when surrounded by violent crime? Take away welfare and other assistance programs on top of keeping their wages low, and just watch the Hunger Games break out!

#1. They’re Assholes

Look, maybe they have feelings deep down in their hearts that we simply must protect job creators’ profit margins above all else. But doesn’t it just feel like when the president proposes things that might actually help dig people out of poverty, and the first thing the right cries about is hurting business owners, that they really don’t care about laborers at all? It’s because they think of themselves as job creators, or at least potential job creators. Because they’ve been sold on a lie that anyone, regardless of stature or place of birth, can become rich and powerful. The truth of course is that the system is supposed to work like that, but very honestly it’s not.

People like Senator Liz Warren excite me because she seems to get it. She rather boldly tells people all the time the system is rigged against the middle class. Because it is. And that’s exactly how the Republicans have wanted it for the last thirty or so years. Raising the minimum wage is a step in reversing that trend…so that, at the end of the day, is the only reason they oppose raising the minimum wage to something even remotely resembling a livable hourly rate.

Wayne LaPierre’s Lost Love Poem To His Guns

If you thought National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre loved guns after you read his blunt and at times apocalyptic op-ed he wrote for The Daily Calleryou’ll just flip your lid for the accompanying love letter he wrote to his guns. Initially The Daily Caller was going to run the love letter side-by-side the op-ed, but for whatever reason they didn’t, and instead sent it to me. Crazy coincidence, of course.

So here now is Wayne LaPierre’s Lost Love Poem to His Guns.

Ode to My Piece

I love my piece, I love it so much
It’s always so responsive to my caress and my touch
I just love running my hand up and down the rounded curves
I can’t wait to pull it out and show all the boys the girls

I love my piece, it makes up for other things being so short
I get so sick and tired of hearing them all chuckle and snort
I love my piece, It’s nice to know I’m packing heat somewhere
Especially when I’m so thoroughly lacking in my underwear

Of course I need a semi-auto to go hunt!
What if that deer or duck is packing too?
Let me be completely blunt,
Blocking common sense reforms is  just what we do

I love my piece, more than life itself for sure
Being a scared, old white guy  has only one cure
You stock up, lock, load and fire
Gosh, I can already feel my loins burning with desire!

I take you out, rub you with my hands
Your cold steel gives me a tingle in my man glands
I just can’t get over how hard you make me in my pants
Let’s go out on the town and have a song and a dance!

If only I could have you as my bride
I’d lay you down and rub your hide
We’d find a way to make a baby, and play house for all our days
I need you to protect me from the blacks, Hispanics, women and gays!

All around me, I see threats to my conservative, white, Christian life
But all I need to protect me is you, my beautiful Gun/Wife!