Teetering On
The Edge Of The (very silly) Fiscal Cliff
December 31, 2012
I hope you all enjoyed the halftime festivities. This brings
us to the final day of 2012. For any of you still left conscious after wading
through Part One, we're back with Part Two of The Post Pseudo-Apocalyptic
Payback Playback. While Congress dukes out the final round of the Battle For King
of The Fiscal Cliff, we take some time to stick our heads out the window and
scream, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore"
join with our friends to celebrate the fresh start of a new year. To escape
from the petty calamities that surround us, and from this blog, if only for a few hours.
Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may wake up sober squinting up at the Sun rising over the Fiscal Cliff…
July 4, 2012
The Science Beat
By Ed Venture
Higgs Bosons, Big Morons And One Giant
Mitt Wit
Scientists
believe they have finally discovered the long sought after Higgs boson, better
known as the God Particle. The Higgs
boson is the last missing piece scientists needed to explain how all matter in
the universe has mass under the Standard Model, the most-widely accepted theory
of particle physics. The Higgs boson has
been extremely elusive. The only things
more elusive than the Higgs are coherent thoughts by Tea Party politicians and
a consistent position on any single issue by Willard Romney.
Lead
researcher, Allyson Wundarland recently generated excitement with what she
thought was clear example of Romney holding a position for more than a
nanosecond, but it turned out he accidentally reread a statement from his
teleprompter. Wundarland explained,
“I’ve been after this for so long and really thought this was the big one. Willard, I mean Mr. Romney was speaking to a
group of mental patients at one of his better attended campaign stops and I was
sure this was it. I admit I was a little
sleep deprived; after all I’ve been on Romney’s trail for the better part of a
decade and as he’s as good a sedative as there is, but I cannot afford to let
him anesthetize me off my game. There
was a point in his presentation where he said that the healthcare mandate was
not a tax and then repeated that statement and I almost screamed out in
surprise, but I caught myself just in time, not wanting to startle the already
tense and unstable crowd. I quickly
returned to my lab with the video only to discover that Romney had quickly
reversed himself at the moment I became excited. I can’t believe I lost my focus and my
objectivity like that. I will not give
up though. If my colleagues at CERN can
find the damned Higgs boson anything is possible. I just know it. One day Willard Romney will agree with
himself. And I will be there to verify
it.”
July 11, 2012
Money
See, Money Do
Global Economy Change
Before I go
any further I must share a statistic that should be important to 88% of
Americans. I recently read that 12% of
Americans apparently disagree with the premise set forth in the Declaration of
Independence that a government derives its legitimacy from the people. I’m not sure where these brainiacs think our
government derives its legitimacy. The
King of England? Funk and Wagnall’s? God?
The Flying Spaghetti Monster?
Their neighbor’s dog? The Koch
brothers?
I understand
that benevolent douchebags deities like the Kochs believe, in their tiny little
hearts, that they are doing all they can to trickle down on us undeserving
peons. They’ve been hard at work
trickling on us since St. Ronny graced us with his presidency and his
union-busting, anti-regulation giveaways to the already greedy wealthy. The only problem, other than the fact that,
in all these years, not one drop of golden rain has yet to trickle all the way down
to the huddled masses and our economy is on the fast track to nowhere and
unemployment remains intransigent, is that anything that trickles down
immediately evaporates back up to where it started.
July 18, 2012
Romney’s Bane
As if all
that wasn’t enough to drive a Mor(m)on to drink, his helpers are not helping so
much. Romney surrogate and former chief of staff to George H.W. Bush, John
Sununu, clearly not the sharpest crayon in the box, was evidently let off his
leash too early, sputtering, “I wish this president would learn how to be an
American,” shortly before his head exploded. Sununu later apologized for “using those
words.” Not, of course for the
disgusting sentiments they represented, just the actual words. Then fellow Republican’t John “I-Lost-Five-Of-Our-Planes-In-Vietnam-
and-Can’t-Remember-How-Many-Houses-I-Have” McCain, trying to deflect attention
from just about everyone clamoring for Willard’s tax returns insisted he didn’t
reject Romney as his running mate in 2008 because of anything to do with dodgy
taxes. McCain said he chose Palin
“because we thought that Sarah Palin was the better candidate.” Just so we’re clear - the McCain team thought
that Sarah Palin, the moron’s moron, was a better candidate for vice president
than “Mitt” Romney. Sarah Palin. McCain declined to speculate on whether or
not he still felt that way. Oh, the
humanity.
July 20, 2012
Bach-Mann:The
Dim Wit Rises
Oh,
Brother(hood) Who Art Thou?
Now we have
protesters in Egypt, pelting Hillary Clinton’s motorcade with shoes and
tomatoes and screaming “Monica, Monica,” because… hope you sitting down…they’re
watching too much Glen Beck. These
Egyptians, paying us back for The Bangles by walking like an American –albeit
Glen Beck - are angry at America because the Egyptian people elected the Muslim
Brotherhood candidate. The Muslim
Brotherhood appears to be about as anti-American as anyone could hope for, with
the exception of good old drug-damaged, IQ-challenged Beck, who of course
believes that Obama is a radical-Marxist-Muslim himself. Stay crazy my friend.
In other
news, America is once again shocked and saddened by the weekly senseless slaughter
of innocent people by a whack-job with a gun.
Luckily the president took swift, meaningful action; he courageously
called for a “day of prayer and reflection” and ordered flags to be lowered to
half-mast. That should finally put a
stop to all the tragic gun violence in America.
As always, Second Amendment jihadists insist that the important lesson
to take from this horrifying calamity is that, thanks to our one unassailable
freedom, another unstable white guy was able to exercise his god-given right to
have firearms. Can I get an Amen…or
maybe a WTF.
July
28, 2012
Socialists On Parade
Wake Up And Smell The Marxists
But
now, one of our most special friends, Great Britain has stabbed us right in the
back – on international television.
Judas, Brutus, Benedict Arnold, Prescott Bush move over. There’s a new ex-friend in town. The whole world must know how hard we are
fighting to avoid falling victim to socialized medicine in this country. We are practically the only civilized nation
left who hasn’t destroyed their entire social structure by providing decent
health care to all our citizens and we’re insanely (literally) proud of our
unflagging resolve on this issue. But
somebody out there seems to forget who the boss around here is. Those queen-loving, foreign socialists, The
Brits had the nerve to celebrate their national health care service in front of
the entire world during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics. Like it’s something to be proud of. What a bunch of wankers. And I thought we had such a Special
Relationship. Not even the dreaded
Chinese tried to pull a stunt like that when we let them have the Olympics. And they own us. From now on, nobody else gets the Olympics
until they learn how to behave.
August 1, 2012
Ex-Veep
Verbally Violates Perpetually-Vexed Vixen
Half-Term
Governor, Full-Time Half-Wit Comes To Defense Of Self
Simple Sarah
is back, haunted not surprisingly, by the ghosts of vice presidents past and
future. The smell of selecting a running
mate for Willard “W-2” Romney is in the air, either that or BP farted
again. That’s the ghost of vice
president future. I’m pretty sure Sarah
isn’t coveting that post right now, but I could be wrong; she’s a veritable piñata
of brainless baubles. I’m sure she still
expects to be asked to join the Romney ticket.
I would pay to see that.
As you may
recall, Cheney was asked by George W. Whatever to help him find a running mate
for the 2000 election appointment and Cheney found George’s running mate
in Cheney’s bathroom mirror. Who knew
that Cheney had a reflection?
Petulant Pageant Participant Opens
Mouth, Takes Dump
The She-Gorilla
From Wasilla, never one to waste an opportunity to waste an opportunity, jumped
in front of the first camera she could find, coming to her own defense as only
she could. Princess Palin vigorously
refudiated the unprovoked attack perpetrated by the metastatic lesion on our
nation’s history that is Dick Cheney. “Seeing
as how Dick – excuse me, Vice President Cheney – never misfires, then evidently
he’s quite convinced that what he had evidently read about me by the lamestream
media, having been written, what I believe is a false narrative over the last
four years, evidently Dick Cheney believed that stuff and that’s a shame,”* Palin said.
Apparently Palin’s English as a Third Language lessons are, as one might
have said, if one was inclined so as if, beginning to, as it could be
considered to be causing some improved ability in the speaking of it.
In Cheney’s
defense, he hasn’t shot anyone in the face in several years…as far as we
know. He does after all live in Wyoming,
the least populated state in the Union.
Coincidence? If Cheney shoots
someone in the face in Wyoming do they make a sound?
*really and truly an actual quote
August
9, 2012
Another
One Has The Dust Bitten For Him
Texas just executed Marvin Wilson, a man with an IQ of 61, even though
the Supreme Court in 2002 ruled that executing “mentally retarded” people was
unconstitutional. The Supremes gave
states some discretion to decide who qualified for protection. Discretion is not something you think of when
you think of Texas. "Despite all
the signs of Mr. Wilson's intellectual disabilities and the diagnosis of the
court-appointed neuropsychologist, the District Court of Jefferson County
(Texas) concluded that Mr. Wilson is not mentally retarded," the ACLU
posting said, with "not" italicized for emphasis. As difficult as this may be, perhaps we
shouldn't jump to any conclusions before all the facts are in, or before we
make up our own facts to make us feel better, as did the District Court of
Jefferson County. It may just be that in
Jefferson County, Texas an IQ of 61 is considered exceptional. Justice Antonin Scalia handles emergency
appeals from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which oversees Texas. Scalia was asked for a stay of execution in
this case, which he denied. Sources say
that Dick Cheney asked if he could be of any assistance.
August 15, 2012
Ayn
Ryan’s Express
In 2005 Paul
Ryan, then an up-and-coming libertarian heartthrob, attended a gathering to
celebrate Ayn Rand’s 100th birthday, which she was fortunately not
around to enjoy. Ryan offered up this
heartfelt homage to his beloved inspiration, “The reason I got involved in
public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it
would be Ayn Rand...you can’t find another thinker or writer who did a better
job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism,” adding “It’s so important that we go back to our
roots to look at Ayn Rand’s vision, her writings, to see what our girding,
under-grounding [sic] principles are.”
More recently Ryan gushed, “I give out ‘Atlas Shrugged’ as Christmas
presents, and I make all my interns read it.”
For anyone keeping score, Ayn Rand makes Saul Alinsky look like Ronald
Reagan.
Now that Ryan
is working his way up the food chain it is becoming clear that not everyone,
that is, practically no one, other than Ron Paul who named his idiot son after
her, finds Ayn Rand to be an inspiration.
So Ryan has disavowed his love for Ayn Rand in public for all to see,
claiming that his unbridled devotion to Rand in an urban legend. The extensive video record claims otherwise. Maybe Mr. Ryan, after becoming the next Sarah
Palin, will immigrate to Russia and write the next great Russian novel: maybe
The Emptyhead or Asshole Shrugged.
September
1, 2012
Charge Of The White Brigade
For those of
you wise enough to have ignored the Republican’t convention, I salute you; then
I assault you. You’re not getting off
that easy. Of course it’s no surprise
that the Republican’t Party lies and stupids.
You go with your strengths. But
they didn’t just repeat their most important lies over and over. They created a complete alternate reality,
every word made up to fit the mood they need to create. Goebbels would have been proud. Just like their now-disavowed/disappeared
past “president” they did everything possible to “catapult the propaganda,” but
I don’t know where they’ll find the time to repeat all of the lies often
enough. I wish they’d just pick a few of
the best ones and stick with them.
Speaking of disappeared former “presidents,” George’s little brother was
invited to carry the Bush legacy forward, preferably without mentioning
anything about the span of time between 2000 and 2008. Talk about doing the dirty work. You’d think he’d have changed his last name
to Saud by now.
They
pledge allegiance to themselves
Not the United States of America
And
screw the Republic for which it
stands
What
assholes, oh my God
Where’s
liberty and justice for all?
September 19, 2012
The
Political Genius That Is Willard Romney
or
Is That Your Real Hair, Or Do You Have
A Dog Strapped To Your Head?
Willard
Romney’s latest daily disaster (or disaster du jour as the French-speaking
ex-missionary who baptized dead Jews and others would say) comprised video of
Willard calling 47% of Americans who pay no income taxes ”victims who believe
the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe they are ENTITLED,
to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it,” adding, “And so my job is
not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take
personal responsibility and care for their lives.” For some reason it didn’t help that he
specified he was not referring to real Americans, just Obama supporters. These ne’er-do-anythings include a laundry
list of handout seekers like military veterans, retirees, special needs
children, the working poor, recent graduates paying off student loans and those
currently serving in the war that Republican’ts won’t even mention -
Afghanistan. Oh yes, there’s one more
group of people draining the very lifeblood from our treasury - those worthless,
tax-skating millionaires who only pay the tiny little capital gains tax on the
money they earn by doing absolutely nothing other than being rich.
October 2, 2012
Waiting With Debated Breath
Many thoughts
and feelings fill our minds and hearts as America prepares itself for the first
Big “Debate” of the 2012 election cyclone.
Questions, questions, questions, flooding the minds of today’s nauseated
concerned voters. Who will win? Who will lose? Will I be able to stay awake? Will I be able to keep my dinner down? Who will suffer the most zings and arrows of
outrageous rehearsals? Brother can you
spare a dime?
All in all
your best bet is probably watching the whole thing with the sound off and your
eyes closed, but I can't because I. Mangrey...
October 14, 2012
Pompous
Circumstances
Willard
Romney, Inc.
Corporations
are people my friends. Or so I have
heard. And one of those people is
Willard Romney. Willard "Bain"
Romney still has oodles of stock in Bain Capital, stock that continues to pour
money into his already very deep pockets and will continue to do so even if he
is elected...well you know. In the grand
tradition of Dick "Halliburton" Cheney, Romney wants to bring his CEO
sensibility to Pennsylvania Avenue. If
there is a God I hope he has not been surreptitiously baptized as a Mormon.
October 18, 2012
Obama's Recovery Act
Romney’s platform is simple:
Romney:
Every American will have their own Unicorn when I am president.
Undecided
Voter: But Unicorns don’t exist.
Romney:
That’s not important right now. The important thing is that you can trust me
when I say every American will have their own Unicorn under a Romney
administration. I’m Mitt Romney and I approve this answer.
Undecided
Voter: But governor Unicorn...I mean Romney, there is no such thing as
Romneys...I mean Unicorns. The science is quite clear on this. Nobody has ever
seen a Unicorn in the known history of humankind. We have fossil evidence that
there were dinosaurs, but not one shred of evidence of the existence of
Unicorns. How can you stand there and tell us we’ll all have our very own
Unicorns? By the way, do you believe there were
dinosaurs?
Romney:
Unicorns are people my friend. I cannot tell you exactly how I will put a
Unicorn in every American home until I am officially sworn in as president.
Undecided
Voter: Are you high?
Romney:
I am a Mor(m)on sir. I don’t even drink coffee and I frankly resent the
implication that just because I have stood up here lying and misrepresenting
everything I campaigned on up until this moment that somehow this has anything
to do with my ability to lead 53% of this nation into a prosperous future. I am
offended by your question sir.
Undecided
Voter: I am a woman Mr. Romney. But thank you so much for clearing that up,
severely-conservative-governor Romney. Does everyone in Massachusetts now have
a Unicorn?
Romney:
No they do not, just guaranteed health care...for now. I was saving this
incredible Unicorn plan for my time as president.
Undecided
Voter: So you stand by your promise to give each and every American a
Unicorn once you become president.
Romney:
Sir, I don’t know where you got such an outlandish idea. I never said anything
about anyone getting Unicorns. Are you on drugs or just part of the 47% who
thinks they’re entitled to government Unicorns?
Undecided
Voter: Hurray! We’re all getting Unicorns. USA, USA, USA!
October 24, 2012
All
Policy Is Foreign To W. Mitt Romney
My Kingdom For A Horse And A Bayonet
I do feel
sorry for Mr. Bush Romney. The theme of
the debate was after all Foreign Policy and policy of any kind is clearly
foreign to Willard, especially when it involves foreign. If we had any doubts about Willard’s grasp of
the world-outside-his-magic-underwear-shoes, he forcefully and permanently put
them to rest on Monday night. Willard
3.0 apparently didn’t have the time to formulate new positions so he just
repeated whatever Obama said, or in some way echoed the policies already in
place. All of course completely at odds
with everything he had been parroting up until that time. Romney is in the last throes, if you will, of
trying to appeal to the undecided regular folks in Medieval America, but his
new Obama-lite foreign-policy-like babblings are confusing the compromise-intolerant
rabble still sitting at home scratching their heads and asses
simultaneously.
Barack Obama has decided to close out this campaign with the
theme of Integrity, as in which candidate do you think has even a shred of
it. On this final leg Obama has the strong
support of Bruce Springsteen while Willard has enlisted the musical backing of
Pot Roast, I mean Meat Load...umm Meat Laugh, er, Loaf...hey Willard the
Seventies called and they want their B-level talent back. You may know Meat as one of the pathetic
losers on king-of-pathetic-losers Donald Trump's Celebrity Asshole
Apprentice or perhaps his lunch-wrenching stint on Celebrity Rehab. I guess Romney had to bring out the big
over-the-hill guns to help push his Final Lies Tour.
November 5, 2012
A
Cry Laugh For (NO) Help
Meanwhile,
back to the other major disaster - Sandy.
Two things you should know. Number
one, W. Mitt Romney, who got very low marks for disaster response as governor
of Massachusetts, compared cleaning up after one of the largest hurricanes on
record to cleaning up a high school football field; and I quote, "I
remember once we had uh, a football game at my high school and the football
field afterwards was covered with all sorts of uh, rubbish and uh, paper goods from
people who had a big uh, celebration there at the game and there was a group of
us there that was assigned to clean it up. And I thought, how are we gonna
clean up all this mess on this football field, there were just a few of us. And
the person responsible for organizing the effort said, just line up along the
yard lines...and if everybody cleans their lane why we'll be able to get the
job done. And so today we're cleaning one lane if you will." This was at the gathering where his campaign
purchased $5000 worth of canned goods for hurricane victims, which his people
gave to attendees so they could give them back to Willard in front of the cameras
in a desperate attempt to make him look useful and relevant. Willard sure has nice hair.
From the editor - November 7, 2012:Maybe
Things Don't Go Better With Koch
Good morning
campers. This is your host Ed
Venture. I. Mangrey is taking a
well-deserved and desperately needed (my words, not his) day off but he does
have some breaking news, which I will get to shortly.
Let me now
share this breaking piece filed early this morning by I. Mangrey, now
recuperating in a quiet room somewhere, but insisting this be heard: I know
most of you are relieved and comforted today. Romney conceded in honorable
fashion early this morning. He may yet have the last laugh though. My sources
inform me that W. Mitt Romney is planning to reverse course and claim victory
some time later today. "Conceding is just something you do on election
night. Today is a new day and Governor Romney has had time to sleep on his
earlier position and get into some fresh underwear," said my source close
to the Romney campaign, "The governor phoned a small group of us upon
awaking and has called us together for a strategy session. I think you can
expect Mr. Romney to pull out the old Etch-a-Sketch and claim victory sometime
around noon, Eastern Time today. He is convinced that his ability to change
position on any issue at any time is still a powerful political tool, as is the
governor himself, and he intends to make the most of it. I suppose we'll still
have to wait and see just how many Americans will be willing to take this walk
with us after the apparent defeat we suffered in the actual election yesterday.
But hey, we still have a ton of money to throw around so what could it hurt. We
fully expect the governor to take this bold and original step, after all his is
a devout Mor(m)on and someone who means what he says...sometimes for the better
part of an hour." The source
continued, "We are not going to allow the election results to be dictated
by a bunch of fact checkers. We are in this thing for the long-haul."
November 15, 2012
I’m
A Little Occupied Right Now
I’m just
sitting here watching the wheels go round and round. I really love to watch them roll. Some of the wheels I'm watching are those
that have come off the Tea Party bus as it turns a corner it cannot negotiate. A new faction seems to be raising its head
and voice as if emerging from a coma.
Americans With Brains turned out in impressive numbers to shut that
whole Tea Party thing down. This faction
was always there, it just seemed like it had fallen and it couldn’t get up. Then suddenly, it got up. It seems quite possible that there is
something blowing in the wind unlike anything we have seen, smelt, felt or
tasted in a very long while.
It is clear
to me as I reflect on the crawl-up to the election that one of the most significant
catalysts in waking this sleeping giant and changing the entire dialogue was
the Occupy Movement. A significant
number of people didn’t just stick their heads out the window, they went right
out the front door and took their bodies out of their homes and into the
streets to say, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” They said it all across the country for
months on end. Once the Occupy Movement
made their presence felt, a certain president in the process of seeking
reelection decided it was at least safe if not in fact wise to attach himself
to this organic expression of promoting the general welfare.
In fairness I
suppose credit also goes to the Tea Party infection of 2010. This raging infection of our political class
certainly triggered an auto-immune response in the populace at large. The Occupy Movement was that response, like a
homeopathic remedy to stimulate We The People to take a stand against Wall
Street, the banks and politics-as-usual.
I believe they struck a nerve.
Americans With Brains started believing in their ability to heal the Tea
Party infection and leave their social-sickbed.
December 8,
2012
Who Gets What You Pay For
We're hearing a
great deal of talk about entitlements these days. W. Mitt Romney ran a campaign based on stopping
people from getting stuff from the government like bombs, warships, tanks,
more bombs, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. Stuff these people apparently think they're
entitled to. W. Mitt told a room full of
greedy rich white folks that 47% of Americans were lazy moochers who simply
feel entitled. This, as it turned out,
did not propel him to victory in the recent election. What is wrong with this country? Apparently one thing these indolent bums are
willing to do is VOTE.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Buffoon Leader Mitch
McConnell introduced a bill backed by Barack Obama, based on an idea of
McConnell’s to give presidents permanent power to raise the Debt Ceiling as
needed. He didn’t think the Dems would
allow the vote to take place. Harry Reid
said Bring It On, whereupon McConnell oozed up and filibustered his own bill.
You just can’t make this shit up.
December 20,
2012
God Kills Those That Shoot Themselves
Guns don’t kill
people, people kill people. You may have heard this bon mot before, in fact
you’ve probably heard it at least thirty-one times since the Columbine High School
massacre in 1999 left 13 dead and 21 injured. Of course guns don’t kill people
unless some asshole, lunatic or just your average overpaid pro athlete gets
their opposable-thumbed paws wrapped around one…or two. So what's another senseless slaughter of
innocent children among friends?
Just like a
drunken Dick Cheney became secret and undisclosed for eighteen hours after
shooting a man in the face, the cowardly NRA weasels went into hiding after the
Sandy Hook Massacre. The NRA must have been
drunker than Cheney because they've been incommunicado for a full week. Usually
they like to show up lound-and-proud in towns right after some gun-related
tragedy takes place riling up their weaker-minded-better-armed minions to make
sure nobody gets uppity and tries to crack down on gun violence. Not this time.
This time they went silent. They suspended their Facebook page. They sent no
high-profile gun-lover to scold Sandy Hook and America about blaming guns.
Clearly we also need to change our policies on mental health
care, for the fragile of mind who pick up guns and kill innocent bystanders and
for the weak-of-mind Worst Responders whose only answer to every gun-related
tragedy is MORE GUNS. These people need professional help, handcuffs and maybe
their very own island somewhere.
December
22, 2012
It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over…And Maybe Not
Even Then
If you're
anything like me - and I'm not suggesting that you should be - you didn't wake
up dead this morning and were surprised, delighted, disappointed, bemused
and/or unfazed to learn that all the mis-interpreters of Mayan cosmology were
somehow wrong and the world did not come to a screeching halt.
So Long And Thanks For All The Firearms
So, on we go
into the mysterious future, mysterious save for the fact that we will continue
to see many more incidents of senseless slaughter as a result of music
videos guns in the hands of unstable individuals, exercising their Second
Amendment rights and who have the full faith and credit of the NRA.
And that
brings to the end of the year that was supposed to end ten days early. I blame
Obama - he can't anything right. Everything was just fine until he came along. He's
got us on the brink of a Fiscal Cliff, just because he won't give the Republican'ts
everything they want…finally. And with that in mind, I bid you a happy and
healthy new year. Use it wisely. Be sure
to tune in to these same stations tomorrow for my predictions for 2013.
I. Mangrey
reporting.
Thanks for
listening. Responsible comment (and a happy 2013) invited.
