Aye caramba! Freaking me out . . .

Watching the online streaming version of tonite's GOP debate (yes, I am a masochist).

All I could think of as each one of these lizard brains prattled on with their idiocy was this:





I honestly wish it weren't so, but it is what it is.


TFG

"Let him die!" -- Battle Cry of the Spiritually Bankrupt Moral Degenerates....

Ron Paul and the Libtarian-baggers want Americans to look after themselves, their neighbors and their friends and families. On a basic principle level, it is not a horrible idea. On a reality level it is a horrible idea. To believe that churches and charity will or can shoulder the burden of caring for all of the destitute in America is simply fucking insane and is not the kind of thinking that is firmly, much less loosely, rooted in the reality-based world.

If this country would simply stop listening to the people (Koch brothers, teabaggers, Fox Noize, etc.) who don't give a goddman rat's ass about them and pull it's collective head out of it's ass and take a fair and balanced (and no - not the Fox Noize kind of fair and balanced) look at single payer health care they would realize that this country easily has the means to provide health care to all of it's citizens through taxes. We can eliminate the paying of obscenely exorbitant premiums to profit driven, bean counting health insurance company middle-men who can, and do, drop anyone at the first sign of illness or simply deny anyone insurance because of a preexisting illness.

WE THE PEOPLE ARE THE GOVERNMENT whom Dr. Paul and the Libtarian-baggers so abhor. Taking care of ourselves and our neighbors through an equitable system of taxation is the best and cheapest way to insure that everyone has access to quality, basic medical care!!! Ask any Canadian or Brit if they would exchange their "socialized" health care systems for the type we have in America. A 2008 poll by Strategic Counsel found that 91% of Canadians would choose their publicly funded system over America's profit-driven system. Polls of Brits are similarly one-sided in favor of their publicly funded system. The amount per capita spent on health care in Canada is less than the U.S. The amount of total GDP spent on health care is less than the U.S. There is a reason for this folks -- it isn't rocket science!

It is simply unacceptable that many millions of American citizens are reduced to begging for medical care in the wealthiest country on the planet. It is unacceptable that a major unanticipated injury or illness can make one destitute overnight and simply another statistic added to the one that has unpaid medical bills as the root cause of 65% of personal bankruptcies. Who in their right fucking mind believes that this is the right way to do things????

And lastly - what has happened to this country's morals and it's humanity when a question like the one Wolf Blitzer proposed to Ron Paul asking if we should take care of an uninsured young man in a coma or let him die elicits hoots of laughter and ghoulish yells of "let him die" from the crowd? Why is it so wrong to provide for all of the citizens of this country. When did our values and our humanity get so perverted that we can give billions and billions to bankers and hedge fund managers and bomb makers at the drop of a hat, but giving medical care to our citizens is considered a sin?? This is not the America I grew up believing in and loving and I'll be damned if I will stand by idly and quietly as the Libtarian-baggers and their kind destroy it from within.



TFG

DOH!!

As badly as I feel for the Texans who have lost land, livestock, homes and unfortunately lives during the monster wild fires, which are still currently burning across the state, I truly have to point this important factoid out to them in the hopes it will make them think and wonder exactly who's side people like their holy-roller Governor Rick Perry are on:

"But while Perry complains about the feds’ response, he and Texas lawmakers have also been called to task for huge cuts to state firefighting resources passed earlier this year. The two-year budget that took effect last Thursday includes a 75 percent slash to volunteer fire departments — from $30 million to $7 million — and a one-third cut to the Texas Forest Service. State Sen. Kirk Watson (D-Austin) said this year’s fires near the capital city underscore the need to better fund the emergency-services districts stretched thin at the outskirts of Texas’ growing cities."

Ok - let's see -- they took $23 million from the state's volunteer fire departments, and several more million from the state Forest Service. One can only wonder if that money might have made a difference, however slight, in the amount of destruction the current wildfires have caused? More importantly, to me anyhow, anyone care to guess where those "saved" dollars went? Do you honestly think a majority of those savings were returned your average Texas middle class family in the form of a "tax cut?" I'd be willing to wager a case of God's sweet cactus juice nectar that around 95% of those "savings" went into the bank accounts of the wealthiest of Texans - you know - the ones Fox News and the teabaggers call the "job creators."

I hope people are learning lessons from this country's ongoing, slow death spiral. Because if they aren't, the flicker of hope that I myself retain which believes that some how, some way America will have a mass epiphany as to how the ruling elites are fucking them over and come to their senses enough to do something about it and put and end to it, is going to be snuffed out - along with a thing we used to know as "The American Way of Life."


TFG

Careful for what you wish for Teahadists . . .

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi writes:

"But for the new GOP, compromise of any kind defeats their central purpose, which is political totale krieg. This party's entire reason for being is conflict and aggression. There is no underlying patriotic instinct to find middle ground with the rest of us, because the party doesn't have a vision for society that includes anyone outside the tent.

I've always been queasy about piling on against the Republicans because it's intellectually too easy; I also worry a lot that the habit pundits have of choosing sides and simply beating on the other party contributes to the extremist tone of the culture war.

But the time is coming when we are all going to be forced to literally take sides in a political conflict far more serious and extreme than we're used to imagining. The situation is such a tinderbox now that all it will take is some prominent politician to openly acknowledge the fact of a cultural/civil war for the real craziness to begin."

Taibbi is a bit late to the Right-wing cult watch game, but at least he did finally show up. I've been talking about this shit for years - just ask some of my conservative pals who most have disowned me as a result. They will confirm for you that I was using the words "GOP" and "cult" in the same sentence with earnest frequency more than 5 years ago.

Nonetheless, Taibbi makes a critical point here which I have underlined in his excerpt. The point is -- unfortunately it looks like the right wing is really going to force Americans to take sides in what I fear is not only going to be the verbal jousting of political conflict, but conflict of the physical kind which is the hallmark of a true civil war.

It is almost unfathomable to think it, but this current crop of teahadists truly are sufficiently fucking insane to fire the first literal shots just to start civil discord. I fervently hope it never comes to that, but if it does, I would sincerely advise the right wingers to exercise some measure of control over their testosterone fueled fantasies and contemplate carefully the consequences of the fight they are itching to pick - for whether they recognize it or not, there are plenty of signs that they very well may not only have underestimated the size of their "army," but also the fortitude of it's bravado and the depth of it's support.



TFG

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

With Representative Michele Bachmann’s victory in the Ames, Iowa straw poll, and Texas Governor Rick Perry’s triumphal entrance into the GOP presidential primary, there’s been a sudden spike of attention drawn to the extremist religious beliefs both candidates have been associated with – up to and including their belief in Christian dominionism. (In the Texas Observer, the New Yorker, and the Daily Beast, for example.) The responses of denial from both the religious right itself and from the centrist Beltway press have been so incongruous as to be laughable – if only the subject matter weren’t so deadly serious. Those responses need to be answered, but more importantly, we need to have the serious discussion they want to prevent.

People who care about leaving a viable, functioning democracy for their children and grandchildren had better start paying attention to what Christian Reconstruction and Dominionism are all about and the people involved in it.

This article is a very good start at learning what they are all about:

[CLICK HERE FOR LINK]



TFG

The Teahadist Game Plan . . .

Indeed.



If one of the most craven GOP dick-stroking hacks in MSM punditry is postulating that the Republicans and the teahadists are of the view that it is better to make the country as a whole suffer rather than work with or help the darkie President in the White People's White House, then you can take that to the bank.

Of course never mind the obvious fact that if it were the Democratic party doing something similar to a GOP President cries of "TREASON" would be ringing throughout red state land.

Fucking hypocrites.


TFG

GREED! What is it good for? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! HUH!!

I'm of the general view that the majority of Americans are decent, hardworking, honest people who are simply striving for a comfortable life and to leave a good life for their children and grandchildren.

However, it appears that our Galtian overlords aren't on the same page as all of those good people:

Many of the country's largest banks received $6 billion in kickbacks from mortgage insurers over the course of a decade, according to a previously undisclosed investigation by the Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This is why vigorous regulation is needed of the financial industries and institutions in this country and specifically at this time in our history. These people simply cannot be trusted one iota to temper their greed and do the right thing by their country and their fellow countrymen.

It was Wall Street's and the banker's gilded age greed that brought on the great depression of the 1930's. Some tough regulation came out of that awful and cruel experience. Over the decades however, people have historically forgotten why the depression happened and what the solution was and they have allowed the greed-meisters to pay their way out of regulation jail.

And guess what? They've done it again.

What's the old saying? Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me? . . . we won't get fooled again?...





...or maybe it's just too late and we have been fooled again already . . .




TFG

When will it end?

I read about this sad story as it was in the process of being breaking news prior to my starting work this morning. My initial gut reaction, as has become numbly routine with these horrible events, is to simply observe that - here we go again, just another day in America's shooting gallery.

The initial story which I read appeared on Yahoo! News, and so, probably against my better judgement, I glanced down at the end of the article and took a quick peek at the first wave of reader comments. And I became sickened. In particular by this comment from one reader (which seemed to be lustily echoed by several others):

"I'm fairly conservative and don't like America-bashing but I have to say the guy's (a witness) comment that it happens in third world countries and not here is just weird... happens here a lot... what the people who want to take guns away don't seem to get is that if some of the victims had been able to carry, they could have put the shooter out before he got more people... crazies and criminals will always get their hands on guns, legal or not... the rest of us have to be able to defend ourselves and others"

All I could think of after reading that, other than irony certainly is not that person's forte, was, my god, is this our society's future? Mom and dad or grandpa and grandma want to take their kids or grandkids out for a nice breakfast at IHOP, perhaps celebrating a birthday or a child's school achievements or just to spend some quality time with loved ones, but they had better be either packing Glocks themselves or be desperately hopeful that others around them are heavily armed and ready at a moment's notice to engage in a life and death gun battle? Fucking really?? This is the kind of America these people want to live in? Fucking really???

Our society is mind-numbingly sick. It is sick to it's very core. Our national soul is grievously ill when that Yahoo! commenter's viewpoint is the predominant viewpoint after a story like this emerges.

Admittedly, I really don't know what the most equitable answer to this crisis is. I have an idea or two of where to start, but I honestly believe that many of the same people who agree with that Yahoo! commenter would probably just as soon put a bullet in the back of my head than actually have a sane and reasonable conversation about such subject matter much less agree to any level of compromise about it.

What I am fairly certain of though is that America, if it doesn't address this diseased culture where armed violence is an acceptable method of dealing with conflict, then eventually this beautiful experiment of democracy that has benefited many the world over since it's inception, is certain to die from the destructive side effects of that illness - and that does not bode well for humanity as a whole.


**UPDATE**: More info is trickling out. One witness, an armed business owner who was on the scene, said that he saw the guy emerge from his vehicle and immediately start randomly shooting a heavy caliber automatic weapon and stated, “I had my pistol, but I wasn’t going to go up against an automatic rifle....but when he came at me, when somebody is pointing an automatic weapon at you — you can't believe the firepower, the kind of rounds coming out of that weapon." To which I'm sure the brain-dead Yahoos on Yahoo! will simply reply -- "then maybe more people should carry assault rifles around with them in public" . . . which of course would simply confirm my diagnosis of the societal sickness with which we have all been afflicted.


**UPDATE #2**: When I refer to "America's shooting gallery" as I did at the beginning of this post, that reference carries absolutely no charm or wit with it. Yesterday's carnage in Nevada was so par for the course for this country that it actually overshadowed (news wise) two other multiple death shootings that occurred on the same day yesterday:

Five dead here.

Three more (including 2 children) dead here.

The question stands - when will it end?



TFG

If it's a class war they want, I think they should get it...

This is why I had to chuckle heartily about the right wing and Fox Noize getting their panties in a twist about Teamster President James Hoffa's remarks at a Labor Day rally yesterday. The right's view is they they and only they are allowed to aggressively express their political views. And Hoffa's remarks must have hit a soft spot because boy did they squeal like stuck pigs (mostly because Fox Noize deceptively edited the video to make it sound more sinister than it was). Anyhow, fuck the right, fuck the teahadists and fuck Fox Noize. It's about time someone said what Hoffa said and stuck by their guns when the crybabies screamed about it. But here's really why I'm not bothered by Hoffa's remarks (vicious attacks like the following have been taking place against Obama and the Democrats since Obama's election):

Today, Bradblog’s Brad Friedman reports for Mother Jones about a secret meeting that the right-wing oil billionaire Koch brothers held at a Colorado resort in June with hundreds of wealthy donors who plotted to finance right-wing causes and elect conservative politicians.

Friedman reports that audio he obtained from the conference reveals that Charles Koch alarmingly referred to President Obama as “Saddam Hussein,” saying that the right had to fight the “mother of all wars.” He rallied his guests to donate millions of dollars to help defeat Obama and boost other right-wing causes. Listen to audio of these remarks obtained by Friedman:

Honestly, I could give a shit less how much money Charles and David Koch have or how Christian they consider themselves. I view them as evil men who are at war with Democracy and with working Americans. They deserve neither respect or deference. They are the modern day Benedict Arnolds and they had better realize one thing -- they may have all of the money, but "We The People" have the numbers. And there endeth the lesson.


TFG

We Don't Need No Stinkin' New World Order . . .

Ministry's answer to George Bush Sr.'s 1991 "New World Order" (N.W.O.) speech. It's basically a big middle finger to the ruling elites like Bush. More importantly, it's a great fucking song.

Enjoy.






TFG