Jeebus! ... Somebody Change Their Diapers Please! . . .

So the GOP Presidential Clown Van made another stop this past week.

And the wailing and the acrimony and the butt hurt is still on-going - for apparently, the CNBC (not a liberal fucking network by any goddamn means) debate moderators asked some questions of the 10 dwarves that they just didn't like very much .... you know -- like specifics on policies, questions about their personal integrity and trustworthiness based on their well documented past political and private affairs.

But aside from the whiny ass titty baby response by nearly every single candidate as to how CNBC treated them, The Gadfly was struck mostly by just how intellectually vacuous this entire group is.

The Gadfly will let one of America's journalistic treasures, Esquire's Charlie Pierce, put it all in to perspective for you dear readers:

Ezra Klein does a great job demonstrating that Tailgunner Ted Cruz  is more of a truthless reptile than even I thought he was, although young Ezra seems to tear up the language to avoid pointing out that the Tailgunner is a truthless reptile and, instead, contents himself with pointing out that Cruz's mock tirade against CNBC's debate moderators was wrong on the facts. It was stone bullshit, all the way down, and so has been every appalling squawk from these people about having been thrown to the wolves of Rick Santelli's television network.

I have come to the conclusion that it is very easy to be a Republican presidential candidate. First of all, to paraphrase J.R. Ewing, once you give up truth, the rest is a piece of cake. Second, and most important, you really only have to memorize one answer.

"Dr. Carson, how do you respond to the simple mathematics that prove that your tax plan was developed by marmosets?"

"Liberal media!"

"Senator Rubio, exactly how many loan sharks are looking for you down in Florida at the moment?"

"Liberal media!"

"Senator Cruz, where in the Constitution does it say we should have an air force?"

"Liberal media!"

"Ms. Fiorina, what's the capital of South Dakota?"

"Liberal media!"

"Governor Bush…ah, Jesus, man, can you wake the fck up?"

"Hmph, snort, ghack…liberal media!"

You get the picture. The Palinization of conservative rhetoric is now complete.

 http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a39304/republicans-liberal-media-palinization/


What Pierce is talking about of course is the avalanche of post-debate whining from conservatives about how the mean 'ol liberal (CNBC) debate moderators and their panel of "experts", a panel which included included Wall Street apologist Jim Cramer and the Godfather of the Tea Party, Rick Santelli, were to the poor, defenseless 'widdow Republicans by asking them questions which they just didn't like.

Can you imagine any of these 10 fucking crybabies having to deal with guys like Putin, or Xi Jinping of China, or any of the mid-east warlord leaders?  Every time they don't get their way, what are they gonna do? ...  throw a childish temper tantrum and take their toys and go home?  Just fucking wow!

Anyhow, The Gadfly just finds it astonishing that Americans are even seriously considering any of these preening, self absorbed assholes as Presidential material.  And what is truly disheartening is that every passing week, and every passing event demonstrates just how bereft that one of the major political parties of this country is of the integrity, the wisdom, the courage and the humanity this is vitally needed to lead this nation forward in a time of great domestic and international challenges.

But you know what dear readers? ...  that is what happens when you allow narcissistic, lame-brained and hateful extremists to infect your ranks and transform the once proud party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower, in to a one-stop clearing house for discredited political and social ideas and policies of the past and universally loathed ideas and policies of the present.

The more that these clowns open their brain dead mouths, the more they pretty much guarantee a Hillary Clinton landslide come next November and it really ought not to be that way.

Please dear readers --- think about your children's future when you walk in to that voting booth -- think about how it might be under the "leadership" of one of these 10 boors.



----TFG

Scarlet Letters, Star of David Patches . . . They Inch Closer to Repeating History's Ugliness ...

The Gadfly is pretty damn certain that the picture at the top of this post depicts precisely what the reaction of the Christ man would be to the subject of this story and his supporters:

Lewiston Mayor Robert Macdonald, a longtime critic of public assistance programs, wants to publicize the names and addresses of Mainers on welfare by creating an online registry of recipients.

Writing in his regular column in the Twin City Times, a Lewiston-Auburn weekly newspaper, Macdonald said if the public can get information about people who receive public pensions, they should be able to do the same for welfare recipients.

Macdonald said in an interview Wednesday that he has no concerns about how the column might be perceived.

“Go into a grocery store. They flaunt it,” he said, referring to people who receive welfare benefits. “I’m not sorry. I hope this makes people think twice about applying for welfare.”

Macdonald also said that putting names and addresses out there might encourage neighbors to “make a call.”

“Then we can go after all these people who are gaming the system,” he said.

http://www.pressherald.com/2015/09/24/lewiston-mayor-wants-online-registry-of-welfare-recipients/

When The Gadfly first got wind of this story about Lewiston, Maine's mayor Robert MacDonald advocating for publishing the names of all of his state's citizens who are receiving any form of public assistance, The Gadfly said to his self -- "I will wager a good sum of money that this man is a Republican.":

And sure enough . . .

Macdonald, a Republican who is running for re-election in November, also wrote that he plans to resubmit a bill that would limit General Assistance...

First off - let's start with the thoroughly repulsive idea of publicly shaming our fellow citizens for being in the unfortunate situation of being poor.

Why stop with just publishing names Mr. Mayor?  Why not mandate that anyone applying for welfare or food stamps have the word "MOOCHER" tattooed on the inside of their forearms?  Or how about making it a law that any public assistance recipients, when they are out in public, have to be sporting a sewn-on patch (a big yellow 'M' - for Moocher) on their clothing which clearly identifies them as welfare scum?

Secondly - note the manner in which the "good" Mayor refers to the least fortunate citizens of his state ... he basically is insinuating that most, if not all, welfare recipients are deliberately abusing the welfare system - by "flaunting" their ill gained "wealth."  He then states that one of the motivations of his idea to publish names of people on welfare is so that like-minded assholes like him will spy on their neighbors and if they "suspect" someone undeserving might be receiving some food stamps, they can "make a call" to the local gestapo . .  er . . authorities so that they can "go after" them.

This man's views are all the more appalling when one considers the fact that the vast majority of Americans who are receiving general assistance and food stamps are women and children.

A study from a year or so ago estimated that the wealthiest individuals on the planet are stashing somewhere between $21 and $32 trillion (that's between 21 and 32 thousand billions for you math flunkers) in offshore, tax-free havens.  Around 50% of that amount is generally considered to be from American elites.

So that would be somewhere between $11 and $16 trillion (once again think 11-16 thousand billions) that is being hoarded tax-free by a very small number of American oligarchs.

Now - statistics show that the federal government spends somewhere in the neighborhood of $220 billion annually on cash and cash-like public assistance programs such as TANF (Temp Assistance for Needy Families), Supplemental Security Income, food stamps, housing vouchers and the child tax credit.  And yes - those programs are being paid for by people who pay taxes in this country.  But make no mistake about it -- many of the people receiving public assistance are people who at some point in their life times have contributed tax dollars from their earnings in to that system so that in the event adverse life circumstances put them in a position of need, that safety net is there for them.

Simply put - that $220 billion is approximately 0.6% of the wealthy elite's tax-shielded hoard that is sitting in some shady foreign banks and doing absolutely nothing productive, neither for the nation that made it possible for them to gain that wealth, nor their fellow citizens.  Bottom line is - the public aid expenditures in this country are truly penny-ante chump change compared to the money that the oligarchs are squirreling away offshore to avoid having to pay their fair share of what makes America the greatest and most prosperous democracy on the planet.

So - for conservative jerks like Mayor MacFascist to be stamping their whiny ass little feet and crying about how much the poverty-stricken moochers in our society are "taking" smacks of some of the worst and most hypocritical demonizing of a whole class of people that The Gadfly can imagine.  It is sickening and disturbing and un-American and it needs to be called just that by many more people.

So fuck Mayor Robert MacDonald and his shit-for-brains ilk.  The man is an idiot in a political party which these days appears to have literally cornered the market on idiots. And quite frankly,The Gadfly doesn't give a scrawny rat's ass who that viewpoint offends.



----TFG

Listen! Can You Hear It? . . . The Faint Sound of Marching Jackboots and Fevered Idolatry...

Famous American author Sinclair Lewis reportedly once wrote that:

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

If Lewis were around today, he might amend that quote to say:

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and wearing a red baseball cap that says 'Make America Great Again - By Beating Up Anyone Who Dares To Disagree With You.'"

http://crooksandliars.com/cltv/2015/10/trump-supporter-assaults-latino

The Gadfly is ashamed to know that these gutless assholes are his fellow countrymen.  But not so ashamed that he will sit around idly and pouting about it.  No - The Gadfly is going to fight these flag-waving, mantra chanting low-brows with every fiber of his being.

Oh -- and let's just say for the sake of saying it -- that had The Gadfly been at that Trump rally and saw that big bald asshole dragging and kicking that young man the way he was, The Gadfly would have planted one of his size 10 1/2, steel-toed motorcycle boots upside that bully's shriveled little nut sac.  Oh sure - The Gadfly likely would have been gang jumped by The Great Donald's brave stormtroopers, but not only would it be worth it to see that bald, beer belly goon writhing on the floor gasping for breath while his gonads try to find their way back to their original anatomical position, more importantly, The Gadfly would have sent a much needed message to all that not everyone is going to roll over and turn the other cheek to these democracy hating vulgarians.



----TFG

The Emperor Has No Clothes .... or Class, or Integrity, or, Humility, or ______ Fill In The Blank...

You really have to read Deborah Friedell's review of Michael D'Antonio's biography of Donald Trump.  If only that some of you begin to belatedly understand just what a selfish, uncaring, major-league fucking dickhead Donald Trump truly is.

This excerpt of the review just blared out to The Gadfly:

‘I have made myself very rich,’ Trump says (over and over again). ‘I would make this country very rich.’ That’s why he should be president. He insists that he’s the ‘most successful man ever to run’, never mind the drafters of the constitution or the supreme commander of the allied forces. Bloomberg puts Trump’s current net worth at $2.9 billion, Forbes at $4.1 billion. The National Journal has worked out that if Trump had just put his father’s money in a mutual fund that tracked the S&P 500 and spent his career finger-painting, he’d have $8 billion. Wisely, D’Antonio refrains from offering an estimate of Trump’s net worth. When Timothy O’Brien, a New York Times journalist, suggested in Trump Nation (2005) that Trump probably wasn’t a billionaire at all, he was sued for libel. The case was eventually thrown out, as Trump must have known it would be, but O’Brien’s publisher is thought to have spent much more money defending the book than it could have made.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n20/deborah-friedell/tycooniest

The reason that this excerpt caught The Gadfly's discerning eye was because of the analysis that was done which concluded that had The Great "businessman" Donald just put his daddy's trust fund money into a conservative mutual fund, his wealth would be much greater at this point in his life than the wealth which he currently has -- wealth that he brags about so much as being as a result of his "superior" business mind.  And this man intends to run America just like he has run his "business" career??

Lol.

Fucking hilarious.

Go read the review -- then read the book if it so pleases you.

Here's what The Gadfly can discern from just this review -- and -- btw -- yes .. he is going to buy the book and read it too ..

It's no secret that The Great Donald (let's just call him TGD from now on huh?) ... was born half way between 3rd base and home plate, and with a full set of platinum silverware in his mouth, via his father's willed wealth.

But the unadulterated fact of the matter is that Donald Trump has never worked an honest to god, hard day of physical labor in his entire fucking life.  Not one.  Not ever.  How can that man possibly know what middle class working people (the few that remain) deal with on a daily, weekly, monthly basis economically? --  much less the working poor and the destitute?

TGD peddles his famous name and his notoriety and that pretty much is the extent of his "business" acumen.  The reality is - he is a phony true and true and the fact that a good portion of the populace are falling for his gilded populist shtick is just goddamn nauseating.

What's ironic is that TGD, if you think hard enough about it, actually personifies the British oligarchs/monarchs who tried to oppress and politically subjugate the fledgling American rebel patriots.

TGD, and by proxy, his cultish supporters, appear to The Gadfly's senses as being the modern day version of King George's red coats and their traitorous colonial backstabbers ... which of course .. would make the rest of us dirty fucking liberal hippies, the equivalent of George Washington's ragtag army of revolutionaries who are determined to, not only disallow the wealth worshiping, oligarchy consolidating sons of bitches to make America into it's bastardized version of the Monarch's dominion, but to ensure that democracy prevails and serves every single American man, woman and child equally.

If that sounds a bit bombastic to some of you dear readers ----- GOOD! .. Sure hope so, because if that is what it takes to wake your dumb asses up to the danger of TGD - so be it.


----TFG

That Con Artist, Karma Boomerang Sure is a Bitch Ain't It? . . .

To someone who has been a long-time observer of the political propaganda outfit that goes by the name of Fox "News" -- this is just one more example that vindicates what The Gadfly and many others have been saying about Fox "News" for a very, very, very long time.

Observe:

Wayne Simmons, a recurring guest on Fox News who claimed to have 27 years of experience with the CIA, was arrested Thursday after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that he lied about his service.

Simmons is accused of falsely claiming that he worked as an "outside paramilitary special operations officer" for the CIA from 1973 to 2000. On Fox, this was often shortened to "former CIA operative."

He was also indicted for using that false claim to gain government security clearances and an assignment as a defense contractor, where he advised senior military personnel overseas.

Simmons made his initial appearance in court on Thursday afternoon. If convicted, he could face up to 35 years in prison on charges of major fraud against the United States, wire fraud, and making false statements to the government.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/15/media/wayne-simmons-tv-commentator-arrested/

Holy shit!

The Gadfly has seen a few appearances of this asshat on Fux, err ... Fox.

He is known for making very ugly charges against Democrats and the Obama administration.

Here's a sampling of this now indicted impostor's slanderous on-air puking on Fox:

1.  2008 -- The election of Obama, whom he referred to as the "boy king" would inspire more homeland terror attacks.

2.  2005 -- If Democrats gained control of Congress, America would suffer 9-11 attacks "unabated."

3.  2009 -- CIA operatives would abandon their posts and America would be attacked because of "pathological liar" (projection much??) Nancy Pelosi.

4.  2015 -- Claimed that he (not unlike The Great Donald) has a plan to totally defeat ISIS "in a week."

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/10/16/3713099/fox-news-wayne-simmons/

The one where he called Nancy Pelosi a "pathological liar" is beautiful - considering it was coming from a guy who at that moment was criminally masquerading as a "CIA operative."  Hahaha!

They never vetted the guy and his credentials.  As long as he was making vicious and lying statements against Democrats and Obama -- he was golden with Fox.

Quite honestly though -- this could not have happened to a nastier media mogul -- speaking of Uncle Rupert Murdoch of course.  That dishonest, narcissistic man has been to honest, fact-based journalism, what Jeffery Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy were to young, naive boys.

It's only fitting that his team of all-star dissemblers in his Liars Club "News" outfit were hoodwinked by an even bigger fraud than themselves - and one of their own club members to boot.



----TFG

Many Are Being and Will Be Fooled Again . . . and Again . . . and Again . . . . . . . .

The fact that this man continues to evade hard, journalistic questioning of his ideas and positions just fucking astounds The Gadfly.

If you’ve paid attention to right wing politics at all, you know that Republican politicians never, ever back down from a batshit crazy statement. This would make them look weak to the nuts they’re trying to appeal to, so they stick to their delusional guns no matter how many people express outrage and no matter how many times their craziness is debunked.

Ben Carson is staying true to this Republican axiom today, refusing to budge an inch from his ahistorical, counter-factual, highly offensive statements about the Holocaust.

Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday, Carson defended his assertion that if more people had been armed leading up to and during World War II, Adolf Hitler may not have been able to carry out the mass murder of Jews in Europe on such a large scale. 

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/45142_Ben_Carson_Blames_the_Media_for_the_Outrage_Over_His_Holocaust_Statements

The Gadfly is still waiting for this faker to produce the police report supporting his on-air claim that he once had a gun shoved in his ribs while standing in line at a Popeye's chicken restaurant that was being robbed --- at a time when he was (and supposedly still is) a professed Vegetarian.

Ben Carson's problem with the media isn't that they are picking on him, it's that they aren't fucking shredding him enough for his fucking bullshitting and lies and his asinine positions on most of the issues.  But for the right wing nuts, the big media has for years been one of their bogey men.  If something isn't going good for one of their batshit insane candidates (here's a classic example) it's all the "liberal" media's fault - and damned be the reality that their chosen one is actually an empty-headed buffoon.

Once again, The Gadfly will defer to his previous post about how the mainstream media in this country is totally fucking useless on most fronts when it comes to accurately and truthfully informing the American electorate.  The heads of the major news corporations in this country cannot even openly acknowledge the very documented reality that a specific "News" organization called Fox "News" is in fact a quasi-news-right-wing propaganda outfit.  They fucking won't admit it.  That, in The Gadfly's view, calls in to question their commitment to the art of honorable journalism and by proxy - the truth.

Anyhow - back to the subject at hand - for Ben Carson to be whimpering about how the media is distorting his words, is just fucking laughable.  The man actually said, in his own documented, recorded words, that if Germany's pre-WW2 Jewish population had only been super armed with lots of hand guns and rifles (yeah - sure - a tiny portion of the populace armed with 1930's era small arms against Hitler's Army - fucking LOL!), they might have avoided the dreaded gas chambers.

Sigh ... the simple truth of the matter is that Ben Carson is an idiot outside of his trained specialty.  He knows nothing of the subject(s) the he is trying to impress his NRA supporters with.  The Gadly could provide an entire page worth of historically linked documentation which blows Dr. Ben's Nazi/NRA/armed Jews fantasy to kingdom hell, but what's the point?  He said it, his moron supporters believe it, the mainstream media fails to call him on his woeful ignorance, and so we just simply await for the whole insidious process to regenerate with the next bullshit statement.

If Ben Carson tomorrow would claim he has proof that Barack Obama personally profited off of the sale of baby parts sold by Planned Parenthood ... the media in this country would take the statement semi-seriously and ask for an interview with Carson so that he could "clarify" his remarks.

"Clarify" what??  Fucking fact-free bullshit pulled out of your sphincter? .... jeebus....

And The Gadfly is sick of that fucking bullshit.  Sick of that fucking, mindless, discourse ruining bullshit.

Carson and his ilk are not playing on a level playing field, their fucking brains are deeply ensconced in a Matrix of their own creation .... and they aren't just peddling red or blue pills, but mauve, plaid, aqua and polka dot pills too.

They are loons -- loons -- loons -- loons -- loons.  Why does The Gadfly have to repeat this bit of obviousness ad fucking nauseum on the pages of this shitty little blog???

Pant!,,,Pant!!,,,,,,Pant!!! ... Apologies for the rant dear readers ... the wingnuts truly do get The Gadfly riled up some times and he loses perspective of the end goal ...

Anyhow, here's The Gadfly's paean to not putting any faith in to the conservatives fucking bullshit clown show politics any more:






Yeah kids ... if u get fooled again .... don't look at The Gadfly .... blame your dumb ass selves ..... that's all.




----TFG

When Bobby Met Martha . . .

Please watch this clip - even at peril to your own mental health . . .




OMFG! ... So Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who, The Gadfly forgets, is either Clown #9 or #11 in the GOP clown car of Presidential clown hopefuls is spouting off about how much better he would be at handling all of the batshittery going on over in the middle-east.  ABC's Martha Raddatz asks lil' Bobby how he would better be able to handle the problem of ISIS than Obama:

RADDATZ:  "But how do you train rebels who are there to fight [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] to suddenly want to fight ISIS?  That's the main problem with those Syrian rebels."

... and lil' Bobby puffed out (or in) his hairless little concave chest and blurted . . .

JINDAL:  "We need to enforce that no fly - we need to create a no-fly zone working with our Turkish and other allies."

... and thankfully Raddatz did her fucking job as a journalist for a change and didn't let him bullshit his way through with that statement . . .

RADDATZ:  "Let's talk about a no-fly zone, ISIS doesn't have aircraft. So what would that no-fly zone really accomplish? When has it really worked?"

http://crooksandliars.com/2015/10/abcs-martha-raddatz-shoots-down-bobby

Lil' Bobby, stunned that a mainstream media hack actually had the temerity to question his smug dissembling, then went on to stammer a bunch of bullshitting gobble-dee-gook which served only to to compound the stark reality that he was just pulling large steaming piles of manufactured horse shit out of his ass in order to impress the rubes who support him.

This is what drives The Gadfly stark-raving mad.  The fact that know-nothing clowns like Jindal, Trump, Carson, Fiorina . . . . . and the rest of the knob jobs in that circus car . . . can just get their air time on national TV, and fling around statements like Jindal's "no-fly zone" nonsense - like chimps flinging gobs of their own feces around in the monkey house - and nobody calls them out on their flim-flammery.

It's fucking maddening.  The Gadfly will acknowledge though that Raddatz does deserve partial credit for at least making the obvious known in her follow-up, but if she were a truly top-notch journalist, she would have gone in for the kill and just bloodied Jindal with the blunt end of his own prevaricating clap-trap -- if for the sole reason that Bobby Jindal wants to be President of the greatest democracy on the planet, and if he is as fucking stupid and ignorant about world affairs as he seems to be, or as much of a fraud as he also appears to be, the American people sure as hell deserve to know about it.



----TFG

It's All Fun & Games Until They Cause The Next Great Depression . . .

New Late Show host Stephen Colbert has a few laughs at the expense of the 40 or so mental midget Teabaggers in the House GOP caucus who basically are slow motion pouring gasoline on the tattered remnants of the establishment Republican party and all while holding a ready-to-strike road flare in their hands.




The Gadfly has to admit that his laughter at this video was couched in a copious cocoon of misgiving.

The Gadfly finds it utterly amazing that just 40 malevolent neanderthals, who laughably call themselves the "Freedom Caucus," can hold an entire political party hostage, with wet dreams of doing the same to the entire nation if given the opportunity, unless they get their way on every policy position that they have an obsessive interest in.  What is even more disturbing is that these asshats very likely will suffer no repercussions for their toxic senselessness.  And that really is a reflection on just how bugfuck insane that a significant portion of the electorate has become for this situation to have evolved in to what it now is.

One of the guest bloggers over at Hullabaloo hits the nail on the head with this devastatingly truthful analysis:

The Freedom Caucus wants to guarantee its ability to use the threat of triggering a "recession comparable to or worse than 2008 financial crisis” over raising the debt ceiling to secure "significant structural entitlement reforms" (read: cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid).

The Freedom Caucus wants the next Speaker to commit to passing "all 12 appropriations bills" (no omnibus) to maximize extremists' ability to extract maximum concessions in extended fights over each one. And to commit to shutting down the government "unless President Obama (and Senate Democrats) agree to defund Obamacare, Planned Parenthood and a host of other priorities." Or else they'll hold their breath until our faces turn blue.

No wonder Rep. Kevin McCarthy dropped out of the Speaker race and Rep. Paul Ryan is trying avoid having the job thrust upon him. The Washington Post calls the caucus' approach "nihilism vs. a willingness to govern." Legum writes:

The agenda of the House Freedom Caucus makes a difficult job effectively impossible. Agreeing to their demands means presiding over a period of unprecedented dysfunction in the United States.

That is a polite way of saying what nobody wants to say out loud: the Congress is being held hostage by a doomsday cult. If the Freedom Caucus doesn't get its way, it will ride like jilted Brünnhilde into the flames and burn the place to ashes if it cannot return God's Own Party to the Rhine gold standard, or something. Or something like one of those dreary murder ballads. They really do love their country. And if they can't have her, then nobody can.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-gotterdammerung-caucus-by.html

That pretty much is the gist of it.  40 unhinged cult members braying loudly and menacingly that they are willing to drive the country over a fiscal cliff as a consequence of every single one of their ransom demands not being satisfied.

The Gadfly doesn't like bandying about the word "treason," because it was the word that the G.W. Bush supporters attempted to use to stifle and silence the views of The Gadfly and other progressives when we dared to question the wisdom and legality of Dick and George's great Iraq sandbox adventure.  Nonetheless, if the "Freedom Caucus," out of pure spite, intentionally causes another, likely even worse financial crisis to occur, one which would most assuredly devastate the economic livelihoods of millions of Americans, and endanger this nation's moral and leadership standing around the world, then perhaps it is time to pull that word out of mothballs and take a hard look at how it can be applied to those kinds of actions, and specifically to the ruthless assholes behind those actions.




----TFG

What About The Right to Not Take a Badly Aimed, Stray Bullet to Your Head? . . .

[ click pic to enlarge ]

It's official - the dawn of the ultimately doomed idiot nation is in full swing.

Observe:

Police in Auburn Hills, Michigan are investigating an attempted shooting at a Home Depot, where a 47-year-old woman with a concealed carry permit tried to shoot a fleeing shoplifter, WXYZ reports.

According to authorities, the woman witnessed a man exiting the Home Depot while being followed by loss prevention officers. The man attempted to flee in a small, dark sport utility vehicle, at which point the woman pulled out her concealed 9mm handgun and opened fire in the Home Depot parking lot.

She fired repeatedly, and police believe one of the bullets struck and flattened the SUV’s tire — but the suspects, described as two males in their 40s, one white and one black, still escaped. The woman is said to be cooperating with police, who are still deciding whether to charge her for shooting up a Home Depot parking lot to stop a suspected shoplifter.

According to police, there were many people in the parking lot when the woman shot at the fleeing SUV. A police spokeswoman told a WXYZ reporter that “the best thing that anybody who witnesses or thinks they’re witnessing a crime could do for us is gather information, write down information, provide it to the officers when they arrive.”

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/07/good_woman_with_a_gun_shoots_up_home_depot_trying_to_take_down_suspected_shoplifters/

This is the kind of America that the NRA gun goon guys and the Teabagger nuts get sexually stimulated just thinking about.  It is a nation where a petty crime instantly triggers the violent process of a rootin' tootin', varmint shootin' gun nut to let his (in this case - her) Dirty Harry freak flag fly, while being coldly and selfishly oblivious of the environment they might be in at the time.

This idiot woman, for whatever fucking idiotic reason that was flowing through her idiotic pea-sized brain, saw a petty crime being committed and looked upon it as a golden opportunity for her and her 9mm killing toy to be a spontaneous judge, jury and executioner.

This woman was not in any danger, nobody else was in any danger, she was not defending her person or her own property, and the petty thieves were not only unarmed - they were in full skedaddle mode when she let fly with the bullets.  To put it bluntly, in broad daylight, in a major retail establishment's parking lot, this supremely idiotic woman decided that she had the right to unload her 9mm clip, a clip which generally holds anywhere from 15 to 30 rounds, on a couple of fleeing petty criminals.  And this occurred, according to police, with many innocent bystanders present.

What the fuck is wrong with these people's brains?  What kind of mad-cow form of parasitic virus has invaded and shredded the reason and analytical centers of these asshole's gray matter such that they feel it is their right to behave in a manner which very easily can result in grave injury or death to innocent people?  Who's fucking afraid of ISIS when you have these home-grown terrorists running around??

This is the kind of stupid and dangerously uncaring behavior that all of these NRA championed, conservative sponsored and passed open carry gun laws are emboldening - and it goes without saying that nothing beneficial to a civilized society will ever come from it.

The reason why The Gadfly has such a visceral reaction to this story is because The Gadfly can envision his self at his local Home Depot or whatever other public establishment, perhaps with his wife or his grandson or one of his beautiful granddaughters, and this scenario plays out and one of The Gadfly's loved ones is seriously hurt or possibly even killed by one of these Yosemite Sam, gun stroking lunatics.

The Gadfly is so goddamn sick of these delusional, ammosexual asshats and their killing toy fetishes.  Fucking enough of this asinine OK Corral stupidity already ok?  It has become long, long past time for the sane people of this nation to stand up in numbers to these cretins if they care at all about a safer, less violent society for their children and grandchildren to live and prosper in.



----TFG

If You're Going to Lie, Try at Least to Make the Lie Faintly Believable . . .

Jon Stewart's replacement on The Daily Show, Trevor Noah, is beginning to make his mark -- watch how he deftly filets bullshit artist Dr. Ben Carson's lame-ass hypocrisy . . .


http://crooksandliars.com/cltv/2015/10/daily-show-obtains-surveillance



Trump's bombastic idiocy is bad enough.

Ben Carson, it appears though, is determined to go the fully monty with his own level of lying asshattery.  Yes - that is right - The Gadfly is calling the distinguished neurosurgeon, Dr. Ben Carson a fucking liar - specifically in regards to this having a gun shoved in his ribs story, purportedly while he was standing in line at a Popeye's restaur . . .oops - sorry . . organization.  Why is the story a lie? Here's why:

Republican primary politics is often about giving “red meat” to conservative voters, but that is something Dr. Ben Carson will not do. Carson, the only openly vegetarian candidate in the 2016 pool, has avoided meat for decades. He told the Vegetarian Times in 1990 that his religion and health concerns inspired his diet.

http://national.suntimes.com/national-politics/7/72/1153268/ben-carson-vegetarian

Carson is a fucking vegetarian.  Do you get it kids?  What is a vegetarian doing standing in line at a greasy fried chicken joint??

Also, how does Carson then reconcile his claimed action in Popeye's - cowardly imploring his armed assailant to shoot the store clerk instead of him - with his comments this past week in support of the gun nuts about how people caught up in a mass shooting situation should, for the sake of freedom loving 'Murrikans everywhere, all bond together and rush the bullet spraying madman?

Of all the things to tell a made-up, bullshit story about . . . . that one's a beaut -- and it certainly has The Gadfly questioning the man's mental fitness, not only for the office of the Presidency, but in general.

The fact that Trump and Carson are the two leaders in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination tell you everything you need to know about the currently sad and also frightening state of affairs of the party of Lincoln.  And with pathological liar Carly Fiorina running a strong no. 3, it truly does look like the GOP nominee battle is going to be one which is all about who can bullshit the brain dead wingnuts more effectively.

They truly are, as Esquire's Charles Pierce keeps reminding us all, the fucking mole people.


----TFG

Their Lord Sure Does Work in Mysterious and Assholish Ways . . .

[ click pic to enlarge ]

The Gadfly has made many personal pursuits his missions in life, of which the most esoteric revolve around a motorcycle road trip to an notorious annual gathering spot where bikes, booze and semi-nude floozies rule society for a couple of weeks.  But The Gadfly digresses.

One of the other long time Gadfly missions in life has been to maintain a firm wall of separation between his presently healthy mind and soul, and any and all organized religions - and expecially their zealous recruiters.

The Gadfly, long ago, after much outward analysis and inward thinking on the subject of what role religion would play in his life, arrived at the conclusion that immersing his spiritual self in religion (speaking primarily of his birth religion - Christianity - all though all religions apply at this juncture) would only, at some point down the line, result in colossal disappointment and disillusionment for The Gadfly.  And as it simply made no sense for The Gadfly to set himself up for such a deeply personal and devastating spiritual downfall, The Gadfly decided it was best to endeavor to follow a righteous and moral path as a human being, unencumbered by all of the moral mischief (see Paine, Thomas - Age of Reason) baggage that comes with devotion to an organized religion and an officially sanctioned and approved version of that organized religion's chosen deity.

And now that The Gadfly is approaching his 6th decade of life on this plane of existence, he is deeply grateful to his younger self for making that momentous life decision and sticking by it over the years.

For you see dear readers, it's not that The Gadfly isn't cognizant of the fact that there are some very good and decent people who are deeply faithful Christians and who actually do understand the very liberal and humane teachings of the one called Jesus Christ.  No - the problem is that those kinds of Christians, at least in America in this day and age, are far and few between - and worse yet, whether out of fear of speaking out or fear of being attacked (or both), they allow "Christians" like this ignorant, hateful old asshole to be their public spokespeople:

VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA - Torrential downpours in South Carolina have caused flooding throughout the state. The state's governor, Republican Nikki Haley, said South Carolina hasn't "seen this level of rain in the low country in a thousand years." Many proponents of climate change action are pointing to the flooding in the state as the latest in a series of crippling storms, including Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Katrina, that have been increasing in frequency and devastation as a reason to expedite governmental action to try to mitigate the damage down by climate change, but televangelist Pat Robertson said on his podcast Monday morning that he has an alternate theory for why the flooding has occurred in the Palmetto State so hard, and it has to do with "the gays getting married."

Robertson was speaking on his Monday morning podcast, "Wake Up With Jesus," when a caller asked him if he felt that the South Carolina flooding was in any way a message from God. "Well, you know," the octogenarian preacher told the caller, "that's a mighty fine question. We all know that God's main weapon of choice for the mass culling of the human race is a flood, so yes, I do think God's hand is at work in South Carolina." Robertson said that if he lived in the state he'd consider building an ark, like that of Moses, and he'd start putting his and his neighbors pets in the ark, two-by-two.

"I may not have been too sure about the Texas flooding earlier this year," Robertson told his podcast audience,  "but I know for a fact that God was so angry about the Supreme Court's gay marriage decision, that he deliberately waited for almost four months and then flooded South Carolina as a warning to the rest of us."

http://crooksandliars.com/2015/10/pat-robertson-warns-god-will-flood-all-50

It really isn't that complicated to understand where exactly The Gadfly stands on the idea that a truly "loving" and "merciful" god would willingly inflict misery and even death upon randomly chosen groups of humans simply out of the uniquely human behavioral trait of spite -- as a reaction to some humans, who happen to be of the same gender, wanting the same rights and respect for the love that they have for their partners, for which the rest of society demands and already has for their social bonds.

Pat Robertson's postulation that his God maliciously manipulated the weather to flood South Carolina (odd that a deeply red, conservative, bible state was chosen btw) and destroy property, livelihoods and lives, is horrifying and is just as morally offensive to The Gadfly's senses as is the equally sickening behavior from the extremist nutballs in that other organized religion who behead people on a whim in the name of their own officially sanctioned and approved deity.  Once again The Gadfly would refer you dear readers to Thomas Paine's blunt observation that belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man.

The Gadfly, based on his own analysis, years ago as a young man, arrived at the view in his own mind that organized religion has had the single most devastating impact on the ability of civilization to advance, to improve the human condition, and to realize our full potential as a species - not only on this planet, but likely as well in our quest to expand our presence in the universe through interplanetary exploration and colonization -- an activity by the way, in The Gadfly's humble opinion, should not even be undertaken until such time the human race grows up and moves on from this competitive religion asshattery.

Honestly though, The Gadfly doesn't have a great deal of hope in that occurring.  In fact, it has gotten to the point that The Gadfly has resigned himself to the all too real prospect that the end of the human race will in all likelihood take place on this planet -- and at the center of that ignominious end, unsurprisingly, none other than our old friend organized religion will be playing a major, if not decisive role in such an outcome.

In summation, the point that The Gadfly is really attempting to make here is that if the decent, thoughtful, caring Christians in America would collectively stand up to the wingnut extremists like Robertson and his ilk and drown out their hateful, selfish, greedy, and ultimately, un-Christian views, then maybe, just maybe, there might be a sliver of hope for this nation's, and by proxy, humanity's future.

That's all.



----TFG

WWWJD? ..... What Would Wingnut Jesus Do? . . . . .

Sigh . . .

Fucking Again . . .

The gunman who carried out the deadly attack at Umpqua Community College was a student in the same class as many of his nine victims: Writing 115, also called Introduction to Expository Writing.

Authorities identified the dead on Friday and they, as well as friends and family, shared details about those lost.

Some were teenagers, trying to make their way toward four-year colleges. The oldest was their teacher, Larry Levine, 67, an assistant professor of English who taught part time at Umpqua for many years so he could pursue his other passions – fly fishing on the Umpqua River and writing about the outdoor world he loved.

In between, there were mothers and fathers just looking to learn.

“This is one of the hardest things that anyone has to do,” C. Lance Colley, city manager in the small town of Roseburg, said when the victims were named. “Something that we hoped won’t happen anywhere, much less our community.”

In addition to Levine, the slain victims were identified as Lucero Alcaraz, 19; Quinn Glen Cooper, 18; Kim Saltmarsh Dietz, 59; and Lucas Eibel, 18, all of Roseburg, Ore.; Jason Johnson, 33, of Winston, Ore.; Sarena Dawn Moore, 44, and Rebecka Ann Carnes, 18, both of Myrtle Creek, Ore.; and Treven Taylor Anspach, 20, of Sutherlin, Ore.

The gunman was described Friday as a “hate-filled” individual with anti-religion and white supremacist leanings who had long struggled with mental health issues, law enforcement sources said.

The family of Chris Harper-Mercer, who is suspected of killing at least nine people Thursday in Oregon, says they are in shock.

Officials said Friday that they recovered 13 weapons linked to the shooter, identified as Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer, 26. Six weapons were found at the college, seven were found during a search of his apatrtment—and all were legally purchased, officials said.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-oregon-shooting-20151002-story.html

And as in past mass shootings, the gun nuts went in to hyperdrive mode before the corpses were cold repeating their hoary old mantra that if only a good guy with a gun had been present ... yada, yada, yada . . . .

Well, turns out, in this case in Oregon this past week, a good guy with a gun was present and his take on the whole thing was practical and unlike the NRA gun clowns, reality based:

A veteran who says he was carrying a concealed weapon on the UCC campus Thursday when 26-year-old Christopher Harper Mercer went on a murderous rampage, says he didn’t intervene because he knew police SWAT team members wouldn’t know him from the shooter.

In an interview with MSNBC, vet John Parker said he knows lots of students who conceal carry at the school because, despite a school policy that discourages weapons on campus, Oregon state law does allow it.

[…]

“Luckily we made the choice not to get involved,” he explained. “We were quite a distance away from the building where this was happening. And we could have opened ourselves up to be potential targets ourselves, and not knowing where SWAT was, their response time, they wouldn’t know who we were. And if we had our guns ready to shoot, they could think that we were bad guys.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/armed-vet-destroys-gun-nuts-argument-on-mass-shooters-by-explaining-why-he-didnt-attack-oregon-killer/

And there it fucking is.  Because in a fluid, chaotic situation like that, how the fuck are the trained authorities to know exactly who the fucking true bad guy is if every fucking NRA Yosemite Sam, dickhead wannabe is running around with his own firearms in hand?

Yet this is the society that the NRA assholes would have you believe is the society that is best for America - a society awash with guns, guns in everyone's hands, guns of every size, power and killing capability, a society where a car backfiring has families and children diving for cover in their own neighborhoods, or now even in public places, a society where even babies in their classroom at school are considered expendable.  It is, as Geraldo Rivera says (and The Gadfly rarely agrees with that asshat) a "gun sick" society.

The American voters have a ton of blood on their hands for this ongoing slaughter.  They continually vote for asshole politicians who are bought and paid for tools of the NRA and the gun manufacturers and who also buy in to the warped, sick neo-biblical views of these same ignorant creeps and their equally ignorant and criminally incompetent mouthpieces in the media.

The Gadfly is convinced that if the real Jesus Christ were to return to this planet today, and see the hateful, death cult sickness that is being perpetrated in his name and see how all of these people are distorting his teachings to fit their own narrow-minded, regressive political and social narratives, he would truly fucking weep .. and then .. in a moment of uncontrolled rage .. (in The Gadfly's vision) he'd turn them all in to fucking cockroaches.

Hey .. a dirty old fucking liberal hippie can dream --- can't he? . . . . .


----TFG