F*&%ed And Furious

It Was The Best Of Lies. It Was The Worst Of Lies.

The United States of Corporations

June 30, 2012

Pity the poor Republican’ts.  Their 2012 candidate for president created the template for the lousy Affordable Care Act that their darling Supremes fussed and fought over for months.  The Supreme Court, five of whom appointed their guy George W. Bush as the 43^rd “president,” in 2010 entrenched their huge-money sugar daddies’ ability to buy elections with their inconceivable Shitizens United ruling, shot down equal pay for women and recently went even further to change the law in favor of corporate personhood.  The Republican’ts’ beloved Supreme Court that has given them just about everything they wanted, suddenly disagreed with them for the first time in a decade.  All of a sudden the Tea-Brained psychos on the Republican’t side of the aisle are railing against activist judges.  The usual suspects like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann crawled out of their padded rooms with the usual hysteria.  Rand Paul (R-Ayn Rand), reproductive spittle of Ron Paul (R-Crazytown), and fifty-one cards shy of a full deck, said, "just because a majority of the Supreme Court declares something to be "constitutional" does not make it so."  So I guess that being elected senator doesn't make you a senator.  Rush Limbaugh said he would move to Costa Rica if this happened - I hope he's got enough Viagra and Oxycontin to last a lifetime.  Maybe this will make them so angry they’ll just hold their breath, turn blue-in-the-face and suffocate themselves into oblivion.

The insurance mandate (a truly horrible idea, whose sole beneficiary is the insurance industry, but seems to be as good as it gets for American health care so far) was originally the brain child of one Richard M. Nixon in 1973, but was short-circuited by a little dust-up known as Watergate; it was revived in the 1980s by the Heritage Foundation a conservative think tank, then again in the 1990s by a host of Republican’ts including future Viagra salesman Bob Dole.  The mandate scam was resuscitated in 2006 as the foundation of the major accomplishment of Willard M. Romney, while pretending to be a liberal governor of Massachusetts.  Massachusetts currently has 98% of its residents covered by medical insurance and today Mr. Romney is more likely to strap another dog onto the roof of his car than admit his affinity for the type of socialized medicine he so proudly enacted as governor.  Perennial, pyrrhic presidential contender Romney now knows better than to let slip even the slightest policy position, lest he be caused to defend any particular viewpoint on any important issue.  He is wise to stick with The Hair as his political raison d'être.

A Governor and a Half: Fat and Furious

Speaking of governors running for president, New Jersey’s governor and newest county, Chris Christie has discharged more toxic emissions from the exhaust valve below his nose.  Christie, is currently fighting for New Jersey to legalize sports betting, which is against federal law.  Crisco Christie said of sports betting, “It's going on everywhere except now it's being handled by criminals who are benefitting from it. If it's going happen, let's make the conduct legal and let's make the people who participate in it comply with certain laws.” "We intend to go forward and allow sports betting to happen," Christie said. "If someone wants to stop us, then let them try to stop us."  It’s interesting that this same titanic governor and many of his colleagues think going against federal law is tantamount to treason when it comes to legalizing marijuana, or allowing already-legal abortion, gay rights and health care.  And if things keep going the way they are, be ready for slavery to make a comeback.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Chris Christie as prophetically portrayed in

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

Fake and Furious

Meanwhile back in the Main Tent, the Tea Party-paralyzed Congress decided to hold the Attorney General in contempt of Congress for a program  -  Fast And Furious, which their own illegally appointed president began, and which the current administration shut down.  It turns out that the crime they accused Holder of overseeing never even happened.  One whistleblower who exposed the alleged gun-walking scheme was likely the only one who, against orders, allowed untraceable guns to get into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.  The desperate and certifiably insane Republican’ts, never ones to allow the facts to interfere with their witch hunts and yearning for absolute power, just won’t let go.  Now they say they’re upset because the Obama administration was withholding important documents.  Anyone remember Dick Cheney’s energy taskforce?  The one where he shut out environmental groups from discussions about energy policy then refused to hand over any information about his secret meetings?  These assholes are so pathetic they make me want to vote for Obama.

Half of these dimwits are still whining about Obama’s birth certificate when they would be better served taking a first look at The Constitution.  The Constitution that exists in their minds, including one of their biggest brains, Antonin Scalia, is little more than a fantasy of Rich Supremacy, unfettered by the imposition of the needs and rights of average people.  The current Supreme Court, generally bullied into submission by the arrogance and so-called Originalism of Scalia, who believes that he, and he alone, understands the thinking of our Founding Fathers, is merely a rubber stamp for corporate greed and stupidity.

Stay tuned for the Republican’ts offering up a constitutional amendment requiring a minimum six-to-three majority in all future Supreme Court decisions…unless they involve rescinding gay rights, human rights, civil rights, voting rights, union rights, women’s rights or decisions giving corporations more rights than real people.

I. Mangrey reporting.

Thanks for listening. Responsible comment invited.

Gutting Out The Vote

Kill The American Dream Before It Dies

The Voting Booth At The End Of The Universe

June 13, 2012

Republican'ts continue their relentless obsession with stifling the vote. Numerous Republican'ts have publicly proclaimed that they don’t want too many people voting. And who could blame them? CONservative icon Paul Weyrich, co-founder of conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation who also helped to establish the Moral Majority spoke directly to this issue in the fall of 1980. While I can unfortunately understand the connection between voter suppression and our Heritage, I'm a little less clear about the Moral aspect.

Weyrich bemoaned the fact that “many of our Christians have what I call the ‘Goo-Goo Syndrome.’ Good government. They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote…As a matter of fact our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” At least Mr. Weyrich had the courage, if not the good taste to speak his incredibly un-democratic mind in public. Today, his successors couch their language, hide their contempt for just about everyone and pretend to be looking out for Democracy.

This anti-vote philosophy, spoken or hidden remains at the core of the conservative movement. Conservatives know that higher voter turnout hurts their chances. This will become even more likely as the American citizenry becomes less and less dominated by white people. Not sure, but maybe it's because today’s Republican’ts keep shitting on everyone who's not white, straight, rich and misogynistic.

The number of cases of voter impersonation fraud, is infinitesimal compared to the constant handwringing of conservatives and weighed against the tenacity of their now more and more successful attempts to pass voter ID laws. State after state is pushing to Gut Out The Vote. Finally the Department of Justice has noticed and appears ready to make a stand. I'm not Holdering my breath.

You may recall a while back ACORN was vilified for voter fraud, allegedly submitting phony names on voter registration lists. ACORN was hung out to dry by the Dems while the lunatic fringe mainstream of the Republican'ts hacked them to death. In fact, it was ACORN who discovered some illegitimate signatures on their registration forms and reported their findings to election authorities. After Republican'ts ultimately destroyed them, ACORN was vindicated by a Congressional Research Service. Hurrah. The so-called liberal New York Times buried this story on page twenty-four on Christmas Eve, assuring the story scant notice.

Protecting The Integrity Of The Vote, Assuring The Outcome Of The Election

Most of the latest voter suppression laws are purported to stop people from casting votes using someone else’s name. That should be very easy to stop since it almost never happens. We don’t need to disenfranchise countless legitimate voters to solve a problem that does not exist. The truth is these anti-voting fanatics are after one thing – stop non-conservative voters from casting ballots…by any means necessary. If only they would be as honest as Paul Weyrich was, at least on that one day in 1980.

Take the example of 93 year old Viviette Applewhite, who once marched beside Martin Luther King. Ms. Applewhite was finally allowed to vote in 1960 and has not missed a chance to exercise that right since then. She is proud that her daughter and her daughter’s five college educated children all vote every chance they get. Her pocketbook was stolen. She lives in Pennsylvania with its new anti-voting laws and cannot get photo ID and will, though never shirking her civic duty since 1960, not be permitted to vote. She has made numerous attempts to get the proper identification, but has been declined each time without a reason. Ms. Applewhite told an interviewer, “I just think they’re taking your rights away because there were so many rights we did not have. And now we do have them and this way they take them away from us; we won’t have nothing, be right back where we were before…Voting is important to me because it gives you equal rights to do things.”

The voter ID laws cropping up across the country, all backed by Republican't politicians, Teabag conservatives and secretive big money are clearly designed, despite all the denials, to disenfranchise the poor, the elderly and the non-white – historically non-conservative groups for some reason. One group taking a major role in this massive effort to Gut Out The Vote is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an ideologically conservative (like the KKK) group, founded by none other than Paul Weyrich and consisting of business interests and conservative state legislators. ALEC was recently in the news when a number of high-profile corporations including McDonalds, Wendy’s, Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, Intuit and PepsiCo severed ties with the previously secretive organization after ALEC hit the headlines for supporting various controversial laws across the country, including anti-voting legislation.  ALEC says they are just protecting the integrity of the vote.  MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Let us not forget Florida’s then-Secretary of State and co-chair of George W. Bush's Florida election campaign, Katherine Harris who, along with George’s brother Jeb (then Florida’s governor) hired a private firm to create a list of ineligible voters in her state. Ms. Harris managed to purge the rolls of tens of thousands of eligible African American voters just in time for the 2000 presidential election, in which George W. Bush was eventually alleged to have 537 more Florida votes than Al Gore, giving him an Electoral College victory without winning the nation’s popular vote. Of course the Florida votes were never actually counted once the renegade Supreme Court illegally halted the count, preferring instead to appoint the man who would become the Worst President In American History.

Is That Florida In Your Pocket Or Are You Just Glad To Screw Me?

Well, don’t look now but Florida is at it again.  This time Florida has a smorgasbord of voter suppression entrees on the menu.  Laws to limit early voting (favored 2-to-1 by black voters), laws to curtail registering new voters (important for young people) and of course the good old reliable Katherine Harris/Jeb Bush approach of a wanton purge of alleged illegal voters guaranteed to include countless examples of collateral damage, that being thousands of eligible (mostly Hispanic this time) voters being disenfranchised for no reason, other than the fact that they are very likely to vote Democrat.

If anyone truly wanted to stop vote fraud one need look no further than the conniving manufacturers of computerized "voting" machines and those who store them in their garages, closets, etc. It is clear that these machines are at the beck and call of those in power and can create any desired outcome. I guess the only thing keeping it even slightly real is the fact that they haven’t figured out how to flip these machines en masse, but must manipulate them one at a time. But stopping vote fraud is not the mission of these vote fraud frauds.

Though most of us choose not to vote, those who choose to do so should be encouraged, not purged. I have spent time in both camps and even when I was opposed to voting I never tried to interfere with anyone who chose to do so. These weasels will stop at nothing to prevent actual democratic processes from taking place. It's already hard enough to maintain any semblance of democracy in this country, without the already-too-powerful raining on our facade. Stay vigilant and do what you can to stop those with a vested interest from tampering with our right to vote for whomever we feel will best represent our rights and interests. We are a nation that claims to value the right to vote above most others - let’s act like it.

It Can't Happen Here

There have been at least 180 vote-restricting bills introduced in 41 states since January 2011. Fourteen states have already passed laws making voting more difficult. Those 14 states represent almost 70% of the electoral votes needed to "win" the presidency. Naturally these laws were proposed by Republican'ts, passed by Republican't controlled state legislatures and signed into law by Republican't governors. Nobody could have anticipated this kind of thing happening in Nixonland.

OCCUPY THE FUTURE.

I. Mangrey reporting.

Thanks for listening. Responsible comment (and hanging chads) invited.

Presidenta Non Grata

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

June 5, 2012

George W. Bush, the unelected, unwelcome, unwitting ex-"president" returned to the scene of his eight-year-long crime spree last week.  He dared show his face, yes I believe that was his face, in The People's House because in America we don't hold war criminals accountable for their dirty deeds. Actually, America is to modern-day war criminals what Argentina was to Nazi war criminals.  We are home to a number of international war criminals who were, shall we say no longer welcome in their home lands, not to mention a sizeable number of the homegrown variety who are considered war criminals by other countries.  The likes of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, to name a few, enjoy continued freedom here in the Home of The Brave and the Land of The Free War Criminals though they would be unwise to travel abroad, at the risk of being arrested for their crimes.  Remember, if the United States does it then it is not illegal...as long as it is the United States doing it.  If anyone else tries to get in on the fun they will be held accountable...by the United States.

Anyway, good old George still has his peculiar sense of humor.  And by peculiar I don’t mean unique unto himself, I mean peculiar as in strange, annoying and amusing for reasons he did not necessarily intend.  He was invited to the White House by his successor and apparent war criminal wanna-be Barack Obama, who is droning people to death all across the globe, checking off names on (or near) his special Kill List.  Yes he got bin Laden and five or six of al Queda’s seemingly endless supply of Number Twos, but any good Republican’t will tell you Bush deserves all the credit for that.  So now Obama has his own super (now not so) secret Kill List.  He decides who to kill, and anyone near enough to a target apparently deserves to die along with the lucky duck du jour.  Who needs due process when you’ve got a Kill List?  Send in the drones.  There has to be drones.  Don’t bother, he already did…but I digress.

Bush, Jr. was invited because only a very select group of war criminals gets to have their portrait in the White House.  He arrived, heavily medicated wife in tow, as their portraits were unveiled, though not un-viled.  He joked about all the happy people attending his “hanging” and a good time was had by all since not even a whiff of extradition wafted across the room.  Maybe some other time…I’m not holding my breath even though I would still like to see Nixon impeached.

I. Mangrey reporting.

Thanks for listening. Responsible comment (not George W) invited.

The Cream Of The Crap

Somewhere in Amercia
May 31, 2012

This is one of Willard Romney's new apps:

Yes you can put this text on any picture you want...

The great Mor(m)on knows how to speek to his baes.  He knows how to ipmress the intelligensia of the Tea Party, the Birthers, the Christian Right and the Trump.

You tell 'em Sparky.  Don't mess with my Medicar.  Keep yer big govmint paws off my gubs.  Don't trend on me!  Occupy the men's room.

Piece out. 

Ed Venture, reporting live.

Saint Ronny And The Big Dick

America In Retrograde

May 24, 2012

Saint Ronald of Reagan, patron saint of Republican’ts everywhere has a shiny image his followers love to caress…as often as possible…in public.  Blindly faithful disciples of Saint Ronald pretend he was what they need and want him to be.  They pretend he never raised taxes, which he in fact did, eleven times, including one of the largest tax increases in American history.  They pretend that he was pure and, with the exception of his two marriages and that chimp, chaste. 

They seem to forget that little kerfuffle where The Ronald sold arms to our mortal enemy Iran in order to flagrantly disregard the will of the American people, Congress, and a specially-passed law forbidding exactly the thing he broke the law by selling Iran weapons in order to do.  Those foolish enough to remember American history going back past yesterday will remember the Iran-Contra hearings as a moment in America’s past as shining and brilliant as the heady days of Watergate and the subsequent looming impeachment and actual resignation of the previous Republican’t president Richard Motherfucker Milhous Nixon.

Reagan believed, like Nixon before him, that the powers of the president were unlimited and above the law.  I suppose his copy of the Constitution might have been older than mine, so maybe I’m just being ignorant. In any event a report by Congress concluded, "If the president did not know what his national security advisers were doing, he should have."  Reagan's popularity declined from 67% to 46% in less than a week, the largest and quickest decline ever for a president.  The scandal resulted in fourteen indictments within Reagan's staff, and eleven convictions, a record which stands to this day.  Congress’ disdain for Reagan’s actions and his if-the-president-does-it-then-it-is-not-illegal-style defense reached deeply across the aisle, but not all the way.

There was a minority report, dissenting from the overwhelmingly bipartisan decision of Congress.  A lone voice in the wilderness cried out, an unknown, unassuming and clearly unfamiliar with the United States Constitution, Founding Fathers or the laws of our nation voice, but the solitary voice of a congressman nonetheless.  This unyielding and twisted soul insisted that if the president does it then it damn well is not illegal.  King Dick was someone who also did business illegally with Iran when it suited his purposes years later.  This little-known congressman later became known as Dick Cheney, lover of torture, proponent of starting illegal wars, outing inconvenient CIA operatives, a private military, a massive, illegal wiretapping program and secret governments running the country from secret undisclosed locations and confidential documents.  He did all this while blithely disregarding and disrespecting the civil rights of his lesbian daughter.  Cheney did manage to take a break from all this hard work to shoot a man in the face with a shotgun at close range.  It worked out okay though, the shooting victim ultimately apologized.

Cheney pretending to need a wheelchair to

avoid standing for the innauguation

of America's first black president



As a congressman Cheney voted against calling on the South African government to free Nelson Mandela from prison and against a federal holiday to recognize Martin Luther King, Jr.  During his time at the Defense Department the serial draft-dodger gave a private company a few million dollars to study the possibility of having a private company handle all the logistics for military operations abroad.  The idea was to have a private firm profit from military operations by overcharging and shortchanging our troops instead of having the military do the things it has always done, and as it turns out, done better.  The company Cheney hired to figure this out was called Halliburton, who looked into it, decided it was not only a good idea, but determined that they were the only company capable of carrying out such a task.  Mr. Cheney would later use this as a template when asked by George W. Bush to find him a running mate while Cheney was CEO of, you guessed it, Halliburton.  This is a guy who knows how to make capitalism larceny democracy work.

I wonder when the Republican’ts will officially canonize the Big Dick.  The process has already begun.  Multi-millionaire and fellow chicken hawk Willard Romney, who received four deferments from the Vietnam War he protested in favor of, recently asked about choosing a running mate said of Cheney, “I listened to him speak and said whether you agree or disagree with him, this is a man of wisdom and judgment, and he could have been president of the United States. That's the kind of person I’d like to have - a person of wisdom and judgment."  Maybe he should ask Cheney to help him find that running mate or to shoot an opponent in the face.  Or at the very least baptize Cheney as a Mor(m)on after he dies.

I. Mangrey reporting.

Thanks for listening. Responsible comment (and sainthood) invited.

Romney-o, Romney-o, Who Both Art Thou Romney-o?

The Mitt Personality of Splitt Romney

United We Divide

May 19, 2012

Democrats, led by Barack Obama during this presidential election year, are clearly trying to divide America.  Just ask anyone at Fux News.  All the Democrats running for office are determined to divide Americans by emphasizing the difference between the adamantly ignorant and the (at least relatively) fact-based camps.

Obama and his Democrats are relentless in their efforts to distract Americans from the big issues like the ability to shoot anyone you find threatening (or just overly dark), keeping IQ scores down and birth certificates.  Yes birth certificates.  This is why Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett is threatening to keep the current president of the United States off the Arizona ballot in November.  Everybody knows it’s standard procedure to vet duly-elected black presidents before allowing them to run for office.  Damned, stubborn Democrats refuse to acknowledge that facts are no better than made-up-shit. 

Meanwhile Splitt Romney, an avowed Moron (sometimes he inserts another ‘m’ in the middle; probably just a typo) is fighting with everything he’s got to reconcile his disparate camps.  Some examples will show the difficulty of the task before him. 

In 1994 Romney supported allowing gays and lesbians “to serve openly and honestly in our nation’s military.”  Willard continued, “Clinton’s don’t ask/don’t tell policy on gays in the military is a fine first step but must ultimately lead to gays and lesbians being able to serve openly and honestly in our nation’s military.”  In 2006 Romney said he supported the Republican president whose name he now will not mention, and his decision to keep DADT in effect instead of extending normal civil rights to gays and lesbians.

In a 2008 New York Times op-ed, titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” Willard claimed: “If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.”  Now he says, "I pushed the idea of a managed bankruptcy, and finally when that was done, and help was given, the companies got back on their feet.  So, I'll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry has come back."

There are countless other examples of Romney’s interminable inability to agree with himself on a wide range of issues.  At least in that he is consistent.  How can he possibly bring together these two absolutely irreconcilable perspectives?  So far his strategy is just to ignore the inconvenient one as necessary.  This is working well so far as most Americans tend to approach issues the same way.  There’s no doubt that Splitt Romney will continue his efforts at reconciliation.  Remember, this is the same country that allowed George W. Bush to occupy the White House for eight years.

Maybe Romney should strap both parties to the roof of his car and take them for a long, long ride to a secret undisclosed location.

Tune in next time when Romney takes both sides on the issue of flip-flopping on the issues and picks his two running mates.

I. Mangrey reporting.

Thanks for listening. Responsible comment (and no comment) invited.

Art For Fuck's Sake

One Nation Under Duress
May 11, 2012

One Nation Under Socialism

The subtle stylings of Jon McNaughton have recently been plunged into public awareness thanks to well-known art lover and impresario Sean Hannity.  Hannity gushed about purchasing one of the painter's pieces (shown above) during an interview with the artist.  The factually and intellectually challenged Fux News entertainer bemoaned the fact that he probably couldn’t afford the piece he really wanted, which apparently won Sean's heart and "mind" due to its size.  Many in the culturally deprived masses are unaware that one of the most important criteria in assessing the quality of a painting is its area (no, not the location where it was created, like a fine wine, but the area: length x width); contrary to popular opinion weight is not considered at all relevant to those in the know.  The other key factor is whether or not any of the paint got on the carpet or furniture.

One Nation Under God

The very large One Nation Under God (above) shows incredible likenesses of wax figures of many, what I can only assume to be people, including a Supreme Court justice on his knees in tears over the thought of Jesus handling the Constitution.  We also see Abraham Lincoln doing an impression of Al Jolson while a young boy points out a typo in what I'm guessing is the resurrected Constitution wielded by Jesus who is in what appears to be the only pose McNaughton believes anyone holding the Constitution can assume.  One cannot escape McNaughton's clear message that Jesus and Obama are one.

McNaughton's talents are now being heralded as rivaling the likes of other conservative giants in the art and entertainment fields such as Dennis Miller, Hank Williams III, Victoria Jackson, Herman Cain and Ted Nugent.  McNaughton denied reports he has begun his largest work to date rumored to be titled: Rush Limballoon.

Reported by Ed Venture for Paying Attention

Haymarket Massacre, Four Dead In Ohio, Occupy The First Amendment

Occupy America

May 4, 2012

It’s May 4, 2012.  As we watch the Sane Slowly Setting in the West it is once again the Fourth of May in Americaland.  From Ronald Reagan’s shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere, to George H. W. Bush’s Thousand Points of Light, to George W. Bush’s inspirational MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner and codpiece on the USS Abraham Lincoln, from sea to shining sea, America pushes itself farther and farther away from the principles on which our Founders brought forth a new nation.  Congress is full of LSTea drinkers, 60% is the new 52% in the Senate, the Supreme Court is playing more partisan politics than drug addict Rush Limbaugh and the only minority the president isn’t hanging out to dry is the 1%.  Just like practically every other president.  Except this president is the only one Rick Santorum called “a nig.”

On May 4, 1886 a peaceful protest at Haymarket Square in Chicago in support of workers striking for an eight-hour work day turned ugly due to the intentionally intimidating presence of the police.  The police were there to assure that nobody got overly First Amendment-y.  You know, peaceably assembling, publicly opining, seeking redress and all that sort of commie pinko non-gun-related nonsense.   A bomb was thrown by an unknown individual, the police began wantonly attacking the crowd, and several deaths occurred with dozens of injuries on both sides.  The Haymarket Affair, Riot or Massacre, depending on your mood was the inspiration for international May Day workers’ actions from that point forward.  Many of you Americans out there might not be familiar with May Day’s dedication to workers’ rights since America has shown so little interest in workers or rights.

Ultimately eight anarchists were convicted of conspiracy.  Seven were sentenced to death, the other given a fifteen year sentence.  Prosecutors admitted that none of those convicted had thrown the bomb, but let a bunch of facts get in the way of some good old government-sponsored killings.  After the smoke and mirrors had cleared four were hanged and one had committed suicide.  In 1893 the new Illinois governor pardoned the remaining defendants and criticized the trial.  He was apparently unwilling to bring the five dead innocent men back to life.



America was stunned on May 4, 1970 when rally turned to riot up at Kent State University in Ohio.  Peaceful protestors were set upon by National Guardsmen at the behest of later-disgraced president Richard M. Nixon.  Four unarmed students were murdered by the soldiers again for the crime of exercising their First Amendment rights.  Maybe if they had been similarly exercising their Second Amendment rights it would have been more of a fair fight. 

On May 4, 2012 the Occupy Movement continues is efforts to educate, inspire and awaken the American people to Pay Attention and take an active role in revolutionizing American politics and society.  Once again we see the heavy hand and boot of our government – at all levels – sparing no expense and no Draconian effort to stifle Constitutionally-sanctioned, thoughtful and peaceful protest.  Once again we see the police, who are sworn to Protect and Serve the 99%, bought off by the 1%.  Instead of standing shoulder to shoulder with the American citizenry offering up non-violent protest and civil disobedience in an effort to reinstitute the power of We The People, are instead continuing to spray, beat, and incarcerate law abiding citizens.  In fact these are not merely law abiding citizens, they are patriotic Americans voicing opinions and adding to the public discourse.  We should thank them for their service not allow them to be treated like hoodlums.  The hoodlums are running our banks and Wall Street and they are allowed to roam free on our streets and in our towns with our money literally spilling out of their pockets.  The armed forces on the streets of our towns and cities are protecting the already protected against the poor and powerless – The 99% who don’t own banks, don’t run corporations, don’t write the laws and don’t own any politicians.

With any luck the Occupy Movement is moving us all toward a tipping point.  Though the Occupy Movement is less visible than just a few months ago it is only just beginning.  You may have to look to find it for now, but don’t give up…Occupy hasn’t.

OCCUPY THE FUTURE.

I. Mangrey reporting.

Thanks for listening. Responsible comment invited.

May Day MAYDAY

Everywhere, USA

May 1, 2012

Well, if it isn't May Day 2012.  I'm surpried it wasn't cancelled.  Last May Day saw some problems here in the Home Land.

This little kerfuffle still hasn't gone away.  The Democratic party is trying to crush the movement that is trying to make it a party of The People.  The party bosses are fostering a nasty primary, hoping to get their corporate-preferred candidate to defeat the already-installed, corporate-preferred Republican't governor.  With any luck the actual people of Wisconsin will manage to decide the primary for themselves and then run Scott "Koch Brother From Another Mother" Walker out of town.  On Wisconsin!



May Day.  The day when workers the world over made their voices heard for many years, achieving incredible things for average working people, even here in America.  Then it was co-opted and hijacked to assist the general public in erasing anything useful from its collective memory.  Now most Americans prepare to vote for rich people who want nothing more than to keep them poor and powerless.  Move along folks nothing to see here.  Anyway, just wanted to keep in touch.  I'm still a fan of democratic principles, equal rights, civil rights, workers' rights, women's rights, free speech, taxing the churches, fairly taxing the insanely wealthy and little green apples.

Anyway, i'm kind of busy at the moment, so i thougt i'd take you back to yesteryear and dedge up a golden oldie from a May Day not so long ago...

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Another May Day, MAYDAY
 

Wishing Well, DC

May 1, 2008
 

Happy MISSION ACCOMPLISHED Day everyone.  Yes it was just five years ago today that Feckless Leader declared “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”  We all know how accurate President Oil Profits was on that fateful day, speaking from his codpiece aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which he apparently rented for what is still perhaps his most famous photo-op.  This stunningly pathetic episode is of course just one in an almost infinite array of idiotic moments we are all hoping we can soon forget, or at least put behind us in 263 days.  Only time will tell when this nightmare will really end, and even then there will be horrible scarring that may never fade.  But at least the war is over and the surge is working and nobody got hurt.  And isn’t that what really matters?

Today, however – five years after the first MISSION ACCOMPLISHED festivities – there is another reason to cheer.  Unfortunately, I was unable to rent the USS Abraham Lincoln or even the newly built atomic aircraft carrier, the George Bush, which came to be for a mere seven billion dollars or so – what a bargain.  All I have is this keyboard and the magic of the Internets to spread my holiday cheer.  Today we learned that President Codpiece has become the least approved-of president of all time.  This is the first time any president has surpassed 70% disapproval.  And he has certainly earned it.  His brilliantly staged war in Iraq, a war no other president (not counting his father) would have ever imagined, the war he waged to (after countless other reasons we were given) assure low oil prices, has surprisingly caused oil prices to skyrocket.  Nobody could have anticipated THAT!  The good news is that the hourly increase in gas prices at the pumps across America has created thousands of new jobs – each gas station now has a full-time employee perched next to the sign showing gas prices, so the price can be quickly and accurately displayed at the very moment the next increase is to take effect.  Finally, a job that can’t be outsourced and one that even a person of George W. Bush’s talents is capable of doing.

Sure, it’s small compensation for the demise of the United States Constitution, the Justice Department, the Supreme Court, the American Dollar, the American economy, the American military, elections, public education, the housing market and the Middle Class.  But why quibble over such trivialities when there is so much good that has come out of the Bush Years?  We have finally thrown off the oppressive Geneva Accords, the brutal Theory of Evolution and the crippling Rule of Law.  And we are this close to completely ignoring the Global Warming Hoax.  And, perhaps best of all, it is now safe for drunken vice presidents to shoot people in the face.  This is the New Improved America we all really want, whether we know it or not.

These are the good times that America has been fighting for since at least the day we (well, not me; I was observing a strict abstinence-only voting regimen at the time) elected a lousy ex-actor with Alzheimer’s to lead us through the Eighties, a period of time of which he had no recollection even as it was happening.  This of course didn’t stop him keeping American hostages safely in Iran until he was innaugurated or later selling arms to the very same Iranians to raise money to fund the murderous Nicaraguan Contras.  Then we elected our first Bush who invaded Iraq to help boost his popularity, followed by the Republican-who-ran-as-a-Democrat – William Jefferson Clinton whose claim to fame was staining the dress of a young intern with his precious presidential bodily fluids.  And NAFTA.

Sure May Day used to be known as International Workers’ Day, a day to celebrate the social and economic achievements of the American labor movement, originally chosen to commemorate the 1886 general strike and subsequent Haymarket Massacre.  That’s just so Nineteenth/Twentieth Century.  Those days are gone.  This is a New American Century and these are The Zeros –its first, and perhaps only decade.  America’s biggest labor unions are now in India, where poor, smart people are thrilled to have our jobs and China, where striking is punishable by death.  There’s no room for that kind of Commie Pinko Labor Union nonsense in post-Democracy America and I for one am ready to impale myself on Barak Obama’s unused Flag Lapel Pin.  Bring it on.

I. Mangrey reporting

Thanks for listening. Responsible comment invited.