Class Warfare

In response to President Obama's call for a minuscule tax increase on the richest 0.3% of Americans, the Republicans are labeling it "class warfare." To these GOP obstructionists, I say simply this: "You want to see what class warfare REALLY looks like? Keep it up, assholes."

The GOP Finally Agrees: Raise Taxes!

I simply have to apologize.

Here I am, sitting here in the comfort of my government-supplied house with my liberal family and my socialist dog railing against the mean-spirited, crappy ol' GOP, accusing them of all kinds of nasty stuff, demonizing them and generally making them sound all devilish and evil.

Shame on me.

Turns out that, when the shit really hits the fan economically, the Republicans are, at the end of the day, a totally reasonable bunch. For example, on taxes. The rest of the Democrats and I have been just lambasting our colleagues across the aisle for their complete and utter intransigence on the subject of taxes. "They will not," we thundered, "under any circumstances, even in a once-in-a-lifetime financial emergency like this, even consider raising taxes! Ideologues! Tyrants! Assholes!"

Well, never mind. I take it all back. Because, as it happens, the GOP is actually considering raising taxes. Hell, some of them are even talking about it on the campaign trail. Can you believe it? Amazing, right? I can hardly conceive of it myself.

Oh, one little thing: they want to tax the poor.

That's right. It seems that the poor have not been paying their fair share. In fact, did you know that some of them- perhaps even a majority of them- pay nothing in Federal income tax. Sure, a lot of that has to do with the fact that they're...you know...poor and everything. But that doesn't mean they can't dig deep down and contribute what they can. Haven't you heard? This is a down economy! Where's the sacrifice? Pony up, poor folks!

According to the leading voices of the right, it is important for everyone to contribute something. They should have, as they say, "skin in the game." Maybe if they were an active part of this economy, they'd get up off their lazy asses and start working for a change.

Until that sad day, we'll just have to wait for the Democrats to come around and realize that when it comes to balancing the budget, there's only one place to look:

In the gutter.

Eric Cantor - Heartless Schmuck

Here's a good one: Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and other GOP leaders are attempting to link Federal disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Irene to budget cuts, arguing that any spending to help victims of the hurricane should be directly offset by cuts to the Federal budget.

After hearing this, I couldn't help but think that it would have been nice if the GOP had this same fiscal opinion during the runup to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan eight years ago. Sadly (and not surprisingly), their approach to solving budgetary problems seems to be as follows:

Start two unfunded wars costing trillions of dollars? No problem.

Provide desperately needed disaster relief to thousands of American citizens whose homes, livelihoods and lives have been devastated by a natural disaster? Sorry, but we're going to have to work out how to pay for that first.

And right there, you've got both the GOP mindset in a nutshell and the definition of heartlessness in one, neat package.

Thanks, Eric. You evil schmuck.

Republicans: Corporate Tools?

It has become a popular Democratic pastime over the past...oh, I don't know...100 years or so...to attempt to portray the Republican Party as a group of corporation-loving toadies who don't give a shit about the common man but instead live to enrich and kow-tow to the wealthiest of the wealthy.

But is this charge fair? Do GOP politicians care only for their "corporate masters" and regularly throw their contituents under the proverbial bus? Or is this a gross mischaracterization of Republican policies, an unforgivable and thoughtless slight against people who are doing nothing more than serving the needs of their voters?

A quick examination of the practices of the GOP politicians should reveal the truth, I should think, so let's give these policies the once-over, shall we?

What would a group of political booklickers beholden only to corporations actually do? What day-to-day activities would consume their schedules and dominate their policy decisions?

Well, first would be taxes. If the GOP was truly under the complete and utter domination of the uber-rich and the business elite, they would insist that the rich pay as little taxes as possible. And not just in income taxes, God knows. Capital gains taxes, too. And, of course, corporate taxes. Oh, how they would rail against corporate taxes! "The highest in the world!" they would holler, ignoring the fact that most multi-billion dollar corporations not only hide their profits overseas but also exploit loopholes in American tax laws that result in their spending less in taxes than most janitors.

And when they want to bring those overseas profits back to America and dole it out to their own executives as bonuses, they'd probably push for some sort of short-term tax amnesty. Bring the corporate rate from 35% down to....oh, hell...let's make it 5%. But only every once in awhile! Say, every five or ten years. That's fair, isn't it?

What else would they do? I know: deregulate. Strip away all those pesky environmental, safety, OSHA, anti-trust and other laws that strangle and hold back that fierce beast that is American capitalism. "Free the free market!" they would preach. "Let the greatest capitalist nation on earth shake loose its fetters and become the titanic force it was meant to be!" Never mind that rivers, streams, lakes and oceans become fetid, chemical sinkholes. Forget that the air becomes unbreathable. Or mountaintops become a thing we tell our children about ("That mountain used to have a peak, Timmy!"). As long as the corporations are free to roam unhindered, all is well with the world.

Anything else? Aha, what about unions? How about we demonize the American labor movement? Paint unions as corrupt, productivity-crushing, elitist relics of a bygone era. Unions used to be important, sure, but not anymore! We have plenty of worker protections now. Why coddle American workers? They're tough enough to stand on their own two feet, aren't they?

Hell, they don't even need a minimum wage! Get rid of it! And don't get me started about child-labor laws...what a joke! Kids want to work, dammit! It's good for 'em!

Finally, they would do everything they could to make sure that corporations and rich businessmen were allowed to give unlimited amounts of cash, with complete anonymity, to GOP politicians. That would be key. Reversing 200 years of campaign finance law...that would be the real giveaway.

So...if the Republicans did all of these things- pushed for lower and lower taxes for the rich, lobbied against the EPA and all other bothersome regulatory bodies, attacked unions, tried to destroy the minimum wage and basically did all they could to give corporations free reign over our political and social system- then and ONLY then could they be accused of being complete and utter tools of the ruling class.

But...that couldn't possibly describe the Republican Party with any accuracy.

Could it?

Rick Perry, Anti-Gay Douchebag

Following hot on the heels of his questioning evolution, dissing Social Security as an unconstitutional Ponzi scheme, deriding child labor laws as government intrusion and arguing AGAINST environmental regulations, Rick Perry has gone a step further by signing the anti-gay marriage pledge touted by the so-called "National Organization for Marriage" and, thereby, proving himself to be an enormous douchebag. He is, however, climbing up the polls!

To solidify his douchebag status, Perry is also planning to hang out this weekend with everybody's favorite pseudo-historian David Barton, evangelical leader and founder of WallBuilders (a more aptly named organization cannot be imagined), the virulent anti-gay crusader and, not incidentally, rumored cock-muncher.

I mean, they all are, aren't they? All these guys who make it their mission in life to deny gays their basic rights. They're ALL self-loathing pillow-biters, am I right? I'm telling you: you show me a guy who is that intimidated, threatened and downright scared of a gay dude and I'll show you a guy who, in his heart of hearts, craves the man-spunk.

And now that Perry has signed the pledge and gotten all buddy-buddy with Barton...all I can say is:

Have a nice weekend, boys.

Good Night Irene

A special shout-out to my East Coast brothers and sisters as they face down Hurricane Irene. Many of my nearest and dearest are right up against the dear old Atlantic and I'm sending all my love to each and every one of you.

Stay safe everybody.

Muammar Hearts Condi

In what must go down in history as one of the oddest post-war finds, the Libyan rebels have uncovered, in Muammar Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli a photo album containing dozens of pictures of former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.

Apart from the "yuck" factor associated with owning such a thing (try not to think about what he used it for), it further cements the fact that when it came to nutjobs, Gaddafi topped 'em all.

I mean, at least Idi Amin had pictures of Farrah Fawcett. Condi Rice? Eeeeeewwwwww.

Quote of the Day

From the "He Said WHAT?" department:

Mark Rubio, freshman Senator from Florida, on whether or not he is interested in the V.P. spot on the GOP ballot:

"I have no interest in serving as vice president for anyone who could possibly live all eight years of the presidency."

So...lemme get this straight, Mark. If there was a really old, sick, decrepit nominee (say, John McCain plus ten years or something) who looked like he wouldn't last more than a year or so before keeling over on the Oval Office floor....THEN you would consider the VP spot?

Creepy, man.

A Brief History of Time (Lost)

About a year and a half ago (right after the big battle over the Health Care Bill), I wound up putting this site on hiatus due to the fact that I was so busy I didn’t know which way was up. It proved to be a wise choice as my schedule (work-related, artistically and otherwise) would have only allowed for sporadic and undoubtedly half-baked postings (not that we haven’t had those before) and it was best, I determined, to remove my voice from the cacophany.

But now we are heading into the campaign season and the electoral stakes- while perilously high before- are now even higher. The slate of goons lining up to try and knock Barack Obama off his perch is so ominous, so terrifyingly extreme as to make George W. Bush look like a short-panted Boy Scout. And a bright one, at that.

So in the coming months, I thought it best to re-open the dialogue and see if we can generate a little action heading into 2012. This is shaping up to be the ugliest campaign of all time and we’re going to need to contribute all we can to keep the slander, obfuscations and downright lies from becoming the accepted wisdom of the electorate.

My esteem for said electorate, by the way, is at an all-time low. Far from getting smarter, the folks who actually vote in this land of R's have become even more dimwitted. They can no longer seem to tell the difference between truth and complete and utter hokum. Not that they have much opportunity to be educated. From a news-gathering perspective, the media is a disaster. As a result, the American people have consuming the journalistic equivalent of shit sandwiches for the past decade and the current crop of GOoPers are asking the folks if they’d like the next batch of crapwiches to be toasted or oven-baked and folks are actually lining up to get more.

Well, we can’t have that, can we? Time to expose the b.s., call out the liars and carnival barkers among us and, most of all, underline the terrifying messages that are currently being disseminated to the masses for the blood-curdling bullshit that they are.

Here’s truth number one: The Republicans learned NOTHING from the George W. Bush years. They are gearing up to double-down on every bad idea he and his pack of cronies ever had. For every step forward we have taken in the past three years, the current crop of GOP candidates is ready to take us ten steps back.

And if that doesn’t scare you….brother, you’re just not paying attention.

Vrooooom!

Hey, did you hear that sound? Didja? Know what it was?

It was the sound of getting behind the wheel of this creaky old blog, turning the key and listening to the engine roar to life, that's what it was.

Time for us to get back on the campaign trail, I reckon. Well overdue, in fact.

So...away we go.