One thing that time off does, is give me time for reflection, time for thought, time for comprehension. And, as I often find after such a time, things are as bad or worse than I had thought.

I was just watching Rachel Maddow show how the Repugs were hot to destroy ACORN, but so far have been either silent or in defense of BP. As usual, she made a masterful presentation of how Republican hypocrisy hurts our nation. Between Lisa Merkowski, John Boehner, Steve Kline, and other tools of the far-right, BP may get off with not even a slap on the wrist for destroying the Gulf coast. Meanwhile, ACORN is out of business. (I'll post this segment of her show tomorrow, when it's available online.) How is this even remotely equivalent?

BP takes in literally billions of dollars in government contracts; ACORN, in comparison, received $54 million from 1994 to 2009. BP has killed uncounted thousands of wildlife in the Gulf, destroyed the fisheries in the area, ruined tourism, and is literally making people sick now that the oil is hitting the shorelines. The Gulf oil spill is a tragedy of unimaginable proportions, unlike anything ever seen in the United States. I have to go back to things like Chernobyl or Bhopal to find something even remotely similar. BP has lied about their readiness and ability to handle an oil spill in the Gulf, has lied about the amount of oil flowing from their well, and has killed 11 people. The economic disaster is even more devastating, with estimates that the spill may kill all life in the Gulf, and the cleanup might last for ten years or more.

The Supreme Court recently decided that corporations have the same right of freedom of speech as do individuals. So, I have to ask: when will BP be tried and executed?

Line 'Em Up - I'm Back!

I've been suffering with with back problems for the last month or so, so I've not been around to post. Unfortunately, that didn't stop the evil, the greedy, and the stupid from doing evil, greedy, and stupid things while I was away from the blog. I've got a lot to catch up on, and a lot of people to thank for making our lives "interesting," as the Chinese curse goes.

There's far too much for me to catch up and blog about it tonight, but just to show that I'm back, here's something for ya: the Oscar-winning animated short film "Logorama." (BTW, it's very NSFW) I'll be returning to taking names & kicking asses tomorrow--enjoy!

Ah-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HA!!: Another Hypocrite Busted

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A Fowl Idea

"I hate chickens." --Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart.

 
Clearly, Nevada Senate candidate Sue Lowden (R-NV) has no animus towards chickens, given her suggestion that we barter chickens for medical care. Rachel Maddow, however, has found an appropriate and humorous response to that ludicrous idea:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

By The Time I Get To Arizona

The whole state's lost its damn mind:

New York Times:

Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed the toughest illegal immigration bill in the country into law on Friday, aimed at identifying, prosecuting and deporting illegal immigrants. The governor’s move unleashed immediate protests and reignited the divisive battle over immigration reform nationally.

[...]The law, which opponents and critics alike said was the broadest and strictest immigration measure in the country in generations, would make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime. It would also give the police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Opponents have decried it as an open invitation for harassment and discrimination against Hispanics regardless of their citizenship status. 

Are the Repugs aware that Hispanic voters are becoming the majority in Arizona?

The Hill:

[...]If current population trends continue, Arizona will become a majority-minority state by 2015. In 2003, more Latino babies were born than non-Hispanic white babies. And by 2007, Latino babies were 45 percent of the total, compared to 41 percent for non-Hispanic whites, and 14 percent for non-Hispanic Asians, Native Americans and African-Americans.

In 2008, Arizona Latinos opted for Obama 56-41, which seems lopsided, but nationally, the number was 67-31 for Obama. Sen. Jon Kyl also got that respectable 41 percent in his 2006 reelection battle. In 2004, John McCain won 74 percent of the Latino vote. 

While Arizona Latinos aren’t a solid Democratic voting bloc, this law may very well change that. The Proposition 187 analogy is instructive — the GOP engages in heavy-handed, hateful, discriminatory and partisan demonizing of immigrants at its own electoral peril.

Oh, please--keep pissing off the Hispanics, GOPers!

It Must Be Something In The Water

This afternoon I find myself yet again humming that old song, "When It's Crazy Time Down South." Ahh, the American South, or "Dumbfuckistan," as I call it, the source of 90% of the insanity sweeping across the country. Where one can visit museums featuring dinosaurs wearing saddles. Where first cousins marry, and "moving upscale" is defined as a getting a bigger trailer than your neighbor's. Where people have the free time to be bused across the country for astroturf protests, but never have the opportunity to consult a dictionary or spelling guide before scrawling their signs.

So recently, the Georgia State Legislature wanted to ban the implantation of microchips into humans, because these idiots think that it's part of health care reform. Then they meet a woman who says that she already has an implanted chip....and guess who put it in, and where:

TPM:

The Georgia House Judiciary Committee took up a bill last week that would "prohibit requiring a person to be implanted with a microchip," and would make violating the ban a misdemeanor. According to a report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, one exchange from the hearing could have been ripped right from Dr. Strangelove.

The Journal-Constitution reports that things started getting weird when a woman who described herself as a resident of DeKalb County told the committee: "I'm also one of the people in Georgia who has a microchip." Apparently no lawmaker took this as a warning sign, and she was allowed to continue her testimony.

"Microchips are like little beepers," the woman told the committee. "Just imagine, if you will, having a beeper in your rectum or genital area, the most sensitive area of your body. And your beeper numbers displayed on billboards throughout the city. All done without your permission."

"Ma'am, did you say you have a microchip?" state Rep. Tom Weldon (R) asked the woman.

"Yes, I do. This microchip was put in my vaginal-rectum area," she replied.

No one laughed. State Rep. Wendell Willard (R), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, asked her who had implanted the chip.

"The Department of Defense," she said.

Willard thanked the woman for her input, and the committee later approved the bill.

And you know what I think is the spookiest part? "No one laughed."   

Must be something in the water.

Ungrateful Basterds

OK, my hiatus is over, time to resume taking names and kicking asses. And what a list of choices I have today!

First, let us consider the tea party fools. Did any of them notice that their taxes most probably went down? You wonder what the hell is wrong with them; it seems that they just really want to bitch about the black guy living in "their" White House? Speaking of which, President Obama himself had a few choice comments to make about their cluelessness:

TPM:

"We cut taxes for 95 percent of working Americans, just like I promised we would on the campaign," Obama said.

[...]"So I've been a little amused over the last couple of days where people have been having these rallies, about taxes. You would think they would be saying, 'Thank you!' That's what you'd think!"

95% of all Americans received a decrease in their taxes. So, despite that recent New York Times/CBS poll showing that tea partiers are allegedly wealthier and better educated than most Americans, still, a large number of these idiots, perhaps the vast majority of them, should also have received a tax cut. What's the rationale for their anger, then?

Well, for starters, I have a problem with their numbers. I refuse to believe that these old, fat, largely male and overwhelmingly white crowds of idiots, marching with their misspelled signs and unfocused anger, are wealthier and better educated than, for example, I am. (But that's a topic for another post.) More likely, these crowds of people--who somehow manage to find the time to travel cross-country in the middle of the work week--are the unemployed who were displaced by the Bush Recession, as detailed in a recent post at Politico.

Uber-geek Nate Silver discovered something even more damning and determinate, the tea party love affair with Glen Beck:

FiveThirtyEight.com:

[...]tea-partiers are disproportionately attached to, and perhaps influenced by, FOX News. And they are particularly enamored of Glenn Beck. Nationally, just 18 percent of people have a favorable opinion of Beck (the majority have no opinion whatsoever about him). But most tea-partiers do. Do the math, and you'll find that 59 percent of those who do think highly of Beck consider themselves a part of the tea-party. This is, in fact, the single biggest differentiator of any of the items that the NYT asked about: not ideology, not any particular political belief, but whom they watch on television.

So I'm supposed to believe that people who get most of their news from Faux, people who adore Glen Beck, and who can't spell "certificate," "Germany," or "moron," are wealthier and better educated than most Americans? Please!