The taxman is the Rodney “No Respect” Dangerfield of government employees. The latest hubbub over alleged Internal Revenue Service “targeting” of government-critical conservative groups is the latest ‘Tempest in a Teapot’ only Congressional Republicans could wail about. You’d think the President dug up ole Geo. Washington’s sacred bones and used them for White House Halloween decorations.… [Read more]
As I watched Marco Rubio bat down strawmen during his response to the State of the Union address last night all I kept thinking was “this is ridiculous.” The man suggested that President was somehow anti-capitalist despite President Obama’s continued commitment to finding solutions that partner both public and private actors, with the latter taking the dominant lead.… [Read more]
This week, the White House dashed the hopes of millions of Americans when it rejected a request for Texas to sever its ties with the U.S. Bad news for the more than 125,000 people who signed the online petition for Texas to secede. Far worse news for the rest of us!
My issue with the Lone Star state, aside from the fact that it keeps launching the careers of politicians named Bush, is that Texas is a colossal embarrassment to our country.… [Read more]
In the several months since the Republicans suffered a resounding defeat in the presidential election and lost seats in both the House and the Senate, there have been innumerable articles addressing why they lost and what they must do moving forward in order to avoid similar defeats in the future. Most of these articles emphasize the need for change by citing demographic statistics illustrating, quite convincingly, that trying to build the future of the GOP almost exclusively around the Caucasian portion of the electorate is not only a recipe for short-term failure, but a path towards irrelevancy and eventual extinction.… [Read more]
August 20, 2017 — Hurricane Bobo levels Miami. President Bachmann says, “I don’t know what they expect US to do. Last I heard Miami was in Florida. It’s Florida’s problem, not ours. If people can’t afford to rebuild their properties after a natural disaster, they should move someplace safer.”
September 21, 2017 — 10.6 Earthquake Destroys Los Angeles, San Diego, does heavy damage in San Francisco.… [Read more]
“Don’t stop, keep on going!”
“What do ya mean?”
“Go!”
“You sure?
“Yeah.”
These are the last words of Thelma and Louise in the 1991 movie “Thelma and Louise” as they drove off a cliff rather than being caught by the police. The leaders of the GOP in the US Congress both Rep. John Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell have the Tea Party Republicans breathing down their necks just like the cop in the movie, and Boehner and McConnell have no way out except to keep on going off the fiscal cliff.… [Read more]
In a Friday morning of “press conferences” (sans press questions), House Speaker John Boehner shot himself in the foot. Bullseye!
As for the inept amateur standup comedy act called John Boehner, he appeared to try to explain why his inadequate “Plan B[umbling]” flopped in his own caucus. Our Cat Herder from Cincinnati narrowly survived being made to walk the plank Thursday night after failing to sell his scheme to unruly, tea drunk, über-conservative Republican cast members of Mutiny on the Top 1% Bounty. … [Read more]
There’s a certain sentence that I don’t say around my friends. It’s a secret combination that I never say out loud, because if I do, it’s sure to unleash a tide of raised eyebrows and ‘Reaaaaaaaaaaaaaly?’s, and a whole host of half-baked justifications and excuses will tumble out of my mouth. Reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaly, it’s better to just keep it to myself.… [Read more]
H. L. Mencken died in 1956. Regular readers of the modest offerings distributed from this digital soapbox know my affection for this stirring, prescient Sage whose social commentary fastballs have lost none of their zip when thrown once more across the polarized and intellectually paralyzed American body politic. The acerbic, combative Mencken, whose peerless coverage of every national American political convention between 1920 and 1948 is eclipsed only by his elevation of Clarence Darrow to secular saint in the 1925 Scopes ‘Monkey Trial’, stands apart.… [Read more]
If you’re a regular reader of this site you know that each week we choose a song that reflects weekly events. In light of President Obama’s re-election, there is no more appropriate song than Queen’s “We Are the Champions.”
Are we gloating? Perhaps. But it’s not without the realisation that we still have much work to do in this country.… [Read more]
Since President Obama’s reelection Tuesday night, Republicans’ reflections on their embarrassing loss, ironically, have been a reflection of the exact reasons why they lost. In the aftermath, the $400,000,000 question is this: Who lost the election? Conservamoderate Mitt Romney or the Party itself?
First, I feel compelled to disabuse the premise. Barack Obama won the Presidential election.… [Read more]
The unsuccessful G.O.P. primary opponent of Tea Party “hero” Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) has endorsed the Democratic candidate Patrick Murphy. Martin County Sheriff Bob Crowder, a thirty year Republican, lost in Florida’s primary earlier this year to the redistricted West. In a statement from Murphy’s campaign. Crowder decried West, saying “I’m embarrassed by the radical fringe that has taken over the [Republican] party.”… [Read more]
Some people are made of plastic
And you know some people are made of wood
Some people have hearts of stone
Some people are up to no good…
The Dramatics made so much sense when they released Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get in 1971; they could have easily been talking about today’s political scene. The hearts of stone and the people up to no good?… [Read more]
“Doctor, doctor, glad I’m not sick.”
~ Bob Hope cameo,Spies Like Us, 1985
“Schlotkin! Go work on your putz.”
~ Rick Moranis, Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs, 1987
In a state better served by the produce of Lynchburg, Tennessee, (“Jack Daniels Old No. 7 Brand Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey. Same as our fathers made it.”), than by their Members of Congress, we have another skirt-chasing foible folly fit for a Saturday Night Live Newt Gingrich skit.… [Read more]
“She blinded me with science.”
-Thomas Dolby, 1982
As MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has often remarked, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Oh.) isn’t good at his job. Dozens of new Tea Party acolytes from November 2010 do make the G.O.P. House of Representatives’ raucus Republican Big Top an unruly menagerie to try and ring-master. I imagine Boehner still uneasily wonders when Majority Leader Eric Cantor will pull out the steely caucus knives for a weepy “Et tu, Brutus” coup.… [Read more]
Make no mistake about it: despite Mitt Romney’s changed tone and policy flips during his debate with President Obama, the fact remains that although they will never state it directly, a major political party, the GOP, has built its platform on the backs of the poor, middle-class, civil servants, veterans, elderly, disabled, ‘working stiffs’ and ‘non-elite’ people of this nation — even though unemployment, poverty, illness and disability affects people of all political affiliations.… [Read more]
Conservatives constantly quote Ronald Reagan, as though his soaring deficit and high unemployment numbers never existed, or Ayn Rand, as though she weren’t a pro-choice atheist. Interestingly, one rarely hears conservatives invoking the most interesting character of them all, the “father of conservatism,” Barry Goldwater.
Would Barry Goldwater vote for Romney today? Would Barry Goldwater, “Mr.… [Read more]
One continuous source of argument in my home is the long-running reality TV show “Cops”. My wife just does not get it. It’s not that she minds the show; she could not care less. Her problem is with me glued to TV whenever the show is on.
I have never explained to her why I like the show.… [Read more]
We’ve all heard time and time again, mostly from the folks on the fringe right, that all Muslims are bloodthirsty barbarian extremists who eat American babies for breakfast and want to impose Sharia Law on all of us and force us to bow to Mecca four times a day. Frankly, I’m tired of it. In fact, I’m seeing a parallel.… [Read more]
There is an up-and-coming political group, deeply conservative and spawned from the power struggles of the last decade, gaining traction by stoking the fires of fiscal dissatisfaction and social frustration that are gaining more traction with the voting populace.
This party’s platform includes such charming planks as radical nationalism, anti-immigration reform, a belligerent distaste for taxes, and a blind eye to programs that help struggling school districts, unions, and recipients of social welfare.… [Read more]
