• Lady Anne Romney, the ceremonially ordained help meet of The Most Noble Willard Milton Romney of the Massachusetts Commonwealth, aspirant to the position of Chief Administrator of the American Republic, has officially retired to her chambers after a most unfortunate episode involving herself and the ungrateful peasantry littering the countryside.

    Previously, Lady Anne suffered a bout of exhaustion while condemning the odious actions of the peasantry made against the Honorable and Right-Leaning Noble, who only sought to look after the interests of the impoverished common peoples in addition to his own. After taking to a nearby fainting couch, she bravely ventured alongside her husband, the ever-noble Sir Willard, into the desolate wilds of Omaha. Omaha's better known for being the only place where a noble cannot find a decent steak, despite the presence of a nearby plant that specializes in delivering horsemeat to starving peasants nationwide, with said meats labeled as "steaks."

    "Good thing we didn't bring Rafalca along for this journey," noted Sir Willard, who made a mental note of where to send the currently healthy dressage horse for a "dignified retirement" when the time came.

    Unfortunately, the controversy surrounding her attempts to put the savage peasantry in their proper place caused her servants to abruptly cancel many of her scheduled appearances and interviews with cheaply dressed and foul-smelling common reporters. As soon as House Romney makes its return to the commonwealth, Lady Anne plans to retire to her chambers for the duration of Sir Willard's campaign for the position of Chief Administrator of the American Republic.

    Meanwhile, peasants in the inconsequential territory known as Iowa have already begun the process of voting, which apparently entails hitting themselves with hammers. Votes are tallied by the local bloodletter counting the number of lumps that appear on the voter's head after being struck -- one lump for the treacherous liar-in-chief, Baraq Hussein Superallah Obama al-Kenya, two lumps for an "independent" candidate consisting of a straw-stuffed scarecrow with a picture of the trickster outlaw Ron Paul and three or more lumps for Sir Willard.

    The day nearly turned uglier than usual when one of Sir Willard's campaign aides was found wantonly attacking voters with a hammer. When interrogated, she claimed that she merely wanted to "move the voting process forward in her lord's favor." She was later slaughtered and turned into a lovely assortment of "Omaha Steaks."
  • Mitt Romney is America's gift that keeps on giving, day after day. First off, the following video footage unearthed by Mother Jones dating back to 1985, detailing Bain Capital's goal of identifying companies with "potential and hidden value," purchasing significant stakes in said companies only to "harvest them at a significant profit."


    The fruits of Mitt Romney's profit harvest:


    Unlike the former steelworker interviewed in the second video, at least Romney does not have to worry about being strapped for cash. From 2005 to 2010, he made a sizable $25,000,000 from his foreign investments and income. The idea of a businessman making a tremendous amount of money from strategic investments and well-placed financial bets isn't a bad thing in of itself, as long as it isn't done in a capricious manner that's directly hostile to American interests...


    Being out of touch and out of tune with the financial interests of ordinary Americans, what Mittens himself termed as the "47 percent," is a clear indicator of how unfit this man is for the position of the nation's chief administrator.

    Meanwhile, recent polls from the Huffington Post show President Obama comfortably in the lead for electoral votes, 332 to Romney's 191. The president is also on track to sewing up critical swing states including Florida, Ohio, Colorado and North Carolina. At this point, the election might turn into a cakewalk for Obama and an absolute blowout for Romney. That doesn't mean Democrat voters should be complacent and coast as they've done in 2010. There's still plenty of work to be done between now and November 5.

  • In lieu of anything resembling actual content, here's a PSA from Samuel L. Jackson encouraging everyone who's still passive about the upcoming presidential election to please, pretty please, wake the fuck up.


  • Please note the following video. It's a clip of Mitt Romney in an interview with Scott Pelley on CBS' 60 Minutes:


    To start, the Emergency Room was never meant to be a primary means of care, hence its name "Emergency Room." Nevertheless, millions of Americans who do not have access to health insurance due to financial status or preexisting conditions are forced to use the ER when crisis strikes, instead of heading off that crisis with preventative care.

    In short, people shouldn't have to ignore easily treatable ailments until said ailments land them in the ER because they can't afford preventative care. Also note how Romney manages to hand-wave his own universal healthcare solution. He won't burden Texas or other like-minded states with the burden of having to take care of their own citizens for a change. Reassuring, that.

    If this (or any of the long strings of gaffes, shambles and other WTF moments) doesn't prove how out of touch the Mittster is with the rest of the U.S., perhaps this notable story will:
    Romney’s wife, Ann, was in attendance, and the candidate spoke of the concern he had for her when her plane had to make an emergency landing Friday en route to Santa Monica because of an electrical malfunction. “I appreciate the fact that she is on the ground, safe and sound. And I don’t think she knows just how worried some of us were,” Romney said. “When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous. And she was choking and rubbing her eyes. Fortunately, there was enough oxygen for the pilot and copilot to make a safe landing in Denver. But she’s safe and sound.”

    Omit the highlighted portion of that and you get a guy who's just talking off-hand about how concerned he was about his wife's safety. Too bad he didn't. You have to wonder how many times he's been on a Gulfstream staring listlessly out a cabin window wondering why the darn things don't at least slide open like the ones on the tour bus. I can point and laugh at this stuff all day, but I don't have all day. There's plenty of work to be done between now and November 5. Now excuse me while I talk to Lupe Fiasco* about why sitting out this election would be, pardon the pun, a fiasco for him, his fans and this country.


    I feel you, but you're going about the wrong way doing it.

    *Do a Google search and you'll see dozens of stories on Lupe Fiasco's voting stance. What caught my eye was Twitchy's headline for their story: "Lupe Fiasco: I won’t vote until ‘I heal from the wounds of 400 years of institutionalized agony’". Notice that no other news outlet went with this headline. Subtle, real subtle, Twitchy - I see what you're trying to do and how. Come to think of it, this was the same type of shit Breitbart was a pro at doing before his untimely demise. Yet another reason to stay on your A-game when it comes to unadulterated bullshit.

  • This is the meme wealthy folks like Mitt Romney love hearing their poorer conservative relations spout off. "Why that good for nothing negro's giving people who won't get a job free shit! Why can't hardworkin' folks like me get any breaks? Why give all the lazy bastards/spics/nig*CLANG* all the breaks?"

    If anyone's wondering, helping Americans remain on their feet and their heads above water isn't "taking other peoples shit," nor is money-making a zero-sum game, where giving to the poor unfairly takes from the wealthy. But the GOP knows how to twist the issue just to rile up people who can't stand their fellow poor or those blacks or Mexicans down the street getting freebies while they struggle and scrape by*.

    I think the main issue is that many wealthy Americans see taxation, especially for the purpose of assisting the poor, as a literal robbery of their fortunes. As they see it, they should be the only ones to decide when, where and how to dispense alms to the poor as they see fit and only if the poor successfully meet their beneficiaries' carefully constructed definition of poverty. For many, Americans would have to march deeper into a Dickensian existence before receiving any hopes of charity.

    Speaking of charity, eschewing government welfare for private charities isn't all that's cracked up to be. Charity giving fluctuates with the economy and this previous recession put a big dent in charitable giving:

    The stock market may be rebounding, but for charities the negative impact of the recession has only deepened over the past year, according to a survey released this week by the Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit consulting group in Boston.

    Ninety-three percent of charity leaders said their organizations are feeling the effects of the economic downturn, according to the survey, which updates similar surveys of more than 100 charity leaders that Bridgespan conducted in November 2008 and May 2009. A year ago, the share of charity leaders reporting that their groups had suffered from the downturn was 75 percent.

    Eighty percent of the charities surveyed last month said they had lost financial support, compared with 52 percent in 2008.

    Even as the economy showed signs of improvement this summer, many charities continued to struggle. More than 40 percent of charity leaders said their group's financial situation had worsened over the past six months. Only 15 percent said their financial status was improving.

    Charity executives have been forced to make some tough decisions. Nearly half said they had dipped into reserves to cope with declining revenue. More than 40 percent said their groups had laid off staff members, compared with only 28 percent in the 2008 survey.

    "For many nonprofit groups, the bulk of their costs are employees," says Sarah Sable, a Bridgespan consultant and a co-author of the report. "When you have cuts of greater than 20 percent, you can only do so much on the program side. Ultimately, you'll be forced to make some cutbacks in your staff."

    Rising demand and dwindling resources have put many charitable organizations against the wall. Without government welfare around, you can imagine the flood of needy Americans rushing in, only to see a damn-near dry pool of scant charity resources.

    And let's not go into religious charitable organizations. Many have prerequisites and conditions that many people might not be comfortable with.

    *Nevermind how many of these conservatives freely and quietly accept Social Security Disability payments, Medicaid subsidies and other forms of local and state assistance. The largest group of people currently on welfare today? White women. Even people with advanced college degrees are finding themselves with EBT food stamp cards.
  • Chick-fil-A has reportedly promised not to donate to any more anti-gay causes, and they promise to conduct a bit of diversity training in their stores. It looks on the surface as if they relented so they can finally build a store in Chicago. But that's just silly.

    This isn't just about the Chicago store. The company makes more than enough money elsewhere to survive without a store in Chicago. They were obviously being hurt all over the country, because a lot of regular people just don't like to buy stuff from bigots. The company has lofty goals when it comes to stores and sales, and it didn't want to be a "South-only" store. There were many signs that its $4 billion annual sales were taking a pretty decent hit, and as their reputation sunk in, the chances of reversing it would lessen as time goes on. Huge companies don't regain reputations they lost simply because they "change their mind."

    As a company that wears its version of Christianity on its sleeve, it's just too bad they didn't change their position on gay rights because it was the right thing to do. Jesus would be in favor of civil gay marriage; anyone with a Bible should be able to figure that out.

    I knew this would happen. In spite of the initial boost of sales from proud conservatives, Chic-Fil-A ended up sucking wind due to most ordinary customers staying away in droves. Come to think of it, I haven't had any of those Chic-Fil-A sandwiches since the boycott began, although the thought of one crosses my mind every once in a while. What stops me is the off-chance of having to interact with some conservative professing his love of the southern culinary creation and the company's political steadfastness. I just want something to eat, not a political lecture while waiting in line...




  • Lady Anne Romney, also known to adoring peasants as "Anne of the Greenest Gables" for her impeccable co-owned dressage stable, implores the simple, ungrateful and unwashed peasants to stop bothering her husband, the Most Noble Willard Milton Romney of the Massachusetts Commonwealth, aspirant to the position of Chief Administrator of the American Republic:

    “Stop it. *sniff* This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring,” she said, while being fanned by several underpaid servants. “This is hard and, you know, it’s an important thing that we’re doing right now and it’s an important election and it is time for all you worthless peasants to realize how significant this election is and how lucky you people are to have someone with Mitt’s qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to rule you all. *sniff* ”

    Immediately afterwards, Lady Anne withdrew to her quarters, upon where she broke down and expired upon a plush 18th century fainting sofa.

    Servants of House Romney are concerned how vexed these circumstances have made their fair lady and request that all subjects abide by her wishes as she recovers from this troubling ordeal.

    Sir Willard expects to do battle with the treacherous Marxist Usurper, Baraq Hussein Superallah Obama al-Kenya, at some point as the date draws nearer for peasants to pretend their vote counts by dropping pebbles into a glass jar.

    *Sir Willard's beloved fencing sword has yet to be found, although the honorable noble decided to just have another one handcrafted. Nevertheless, he's raised the bounty to $25,000 and a coupon for a three-piece chicken dinner with two sides and a soft drink from "Popeyes," a gesture suggested to him by his aides since certain classes of peasant have a deep-seated fondness for the fried dish.
  • There are two kinds of republicans...millionaires and suckers. -Redeye
    It never fails to amaze me how Republicans on the lower end of the economic scale can consistently vote against their own interests. These are the people who need things like universal healthcare, Social Security, favorable economic reform and other societal safety nets. However, they're always quick to vote for people dedicated solely to the cause of garroting these programs, with the intention of picking the resultant bodies clean of any valuables, just because.

    Whether it's the specter of "socialism," fear of federal government or the distaste/hatred of the eponymous "lazy" negro or Latino, conservatives are always willing to join forces with their moneyed, empowered representatives on Capitol Hill to help dismantle these and other programs that don't represent a hard-assed ideology that leaves countless Americans out in the cold, with no one to turn to. Republicans on the wrong side of the $250,000 income bracket are the literal suckers and soft touches of the GOP universe.

    Once again, I bring you this footage of Mitt Romney confiding in his well-moneyed supporters what he thinks about 47 percent of Americans:


    The takeaway from all of this is that 47 percent of Americans don't pay income taxes. Therefore, this percentage can be assumed to be freeloaders and welfare cases who want endless entitlements and represent a lockstep vote for President Obama as a result.

    Of the 47 percent who were spared federal income taxes, over two-thirds were still on the hook for payroll taxes, most of which go towards Social Security and Medicare. Only 18 percent of that 47 percent figure managed to avoid federal income taxes, according to data from the Tax Policy Center.

    Most of the people who avoid federal income taxes are hardworking heads of household relying on low-wage jobs to take care of one or more offspring. Being the head of household is one major deduction on tax returns and having dependents in the form of children or disabled adult relatives are also major deductions, and for good reason. Factor in various credits and adjustments, and you wind up getting the majority of your payroll taxes back in the form of a refund. For a struggling single mother with mouths to feed*, that income tax refund is the one thing they can look forward to between early February and May.

    Meanwhile, over 20,000 households earning over $200,000 per year avoided paying federal income taxes, according to data from the IRS. Of those 20,000, over 4,000 were millionaires:

    So how does someone in the top 3 percent of America’s income earners finagle their income tax burden down to zero? For the majority of them, it’s all about donating to charity, investing in local and state governments, earning money overseas and writing off doctor bills.

    In Hendricks’ Wisconsin case, ABC Supply switched from an ”S” corporation, which passes all of its profits and losses through its owner to be taxed under personal income, to a “C” corporation, which stands independently of its owner and whose income is subject to corporate taxes.

    Scott Bianchini, ABC tax director, told the Journal-Sentinel that the switch was a “substantial part” of why Hendricks had no state income tax liability. Bianchini noted that while Hendricks’ tax burden was minuscule this year, the billionaire has paid more than $10 million in taxes since 2005.

    The wealthy have a variety of methods at their disposal to avoid federal income taxes. Mitt Romney himself should know, with his Swiss bank accounts and investments in the Cayman Islands. Yet and still, its the people making under $50,000 without paying federal income taxes that conservatives claim to champion yet simultaneously castigate.

    Conservatives see no issues with wealthy entrepreneurs and major corporations using tax dodges to reduce or even eliminate their tax burden, as it would be exactly what less well off conservatives would do if they themselves were wealthy. Seeing struggling single mothers and other people near the poverty line go bereft of substantial tax burdens is something that pisses conservatives off - after all, poverty is considered a shameful defect and positive proof of general laziness among people who should quit with the entitlements, pull up bootstraps and get back to work like normal, regular hardworking Americans with incomes above $200,000.

    A near-fanatical hatred of those worse-off and a near sycophantic devotion to the wealthy is a linchpin of conservative ideology. If you're not doing well for yourself, then something is obviously wrong with you, never mind any other factors that could easily plunge someone into poverty. The wealthy love seeing middle and low-income conservatives do their dirty work for them - having these people blindly attack welfare and entitlement means future opportunities to satiate Republican bloodlust draconian regulation or outright cancellation of helpful assistance programs, save for the ones that directly help their base. It also means future opportunity for the wealthy to shove what was once Social Security or Medicare money into their own pockets via speculative market investments and other vehicles that are supposed to be "better" than Social Security.

    Mitt Romney thinks 47 percent of Americans are hopeless "welfare cases" who slavishly follow President Obama in hope of undeserved crumbs and trinkets here and there. That 47 percent should speak loud and clear what they think of Mittens come November 5. And despite all of the above evidence of Romney and Co. not really giving a flying toss about middle and low-income conservatives, they'll still vote for the man, if only to see the imaginary "welfare queen" get hoisted up by her bootstraps.

    *Along with Buy-Here-Pay-Here car lots, tax return preparers specializing in "advances" and pretty much any retailer who loves seeing the influx of taxpayers with wads of cash burning holes in their pockets.


  • If there was one way to describe Willard Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, this would be it. Ever since he wound up being the last man standing in a battle royale between between some of the most extreme and maligned candidates the GOP had to offer, the GOP establishment and Tea Party faithful ended up with this guy. I don't think they had a sociopath Mormon scion with a notable lack of empathy and warmth in mind.

    So far, things haven't gone well for the guy. He's been revealed as a repulsive bully during his youth and a predatory businessman during his time at Bain Capital. He's steadfastly refused to come clean about his finances, leaving many to wonder exactly what he has to hide. He's shown himself to be utterly incapable of interacting with ordinary Americans. Every time he tries his hand at international diplomacy, he fucks it up. His wife, the presumptive first lady, has shown herself to be more or less the spiritual kin of Marie Antoinette.

    To add insult to injury, polls have shown he's utterly incapable of drawing even a tenth of 1% of the black vote. When you can't even convince ordinary black Republicans to pull for you at the voting booth, you know you're in big trouble. Current polls show President Obama way ahead in electoral votes. At this point, this election is Obama's to lose and that worries the GOP establishment. Despite Romney having a 10-to-1 financial advantage over President Obama,* he can't seem to translate that huge war chest into huge votes.

    The 2012 electoral gameplan is more of the same for the GOP: use divisive, controversial issues with a noticeable, yet imperceptible racial tinge to rile up the captive low information voters within the GOP, while employing a variety of tactics to prevent the competition from getting out their vote in the first place. After all, there's nothing the GOP loves more than a low voter turnout. With a candidate like Willard around, that's pretty much all you have without exposing his more dire flaws, which explains the following ad:


    There's nothing wrong with personal responsibility. It's only when those words are used as code lingo for "let's get rid of the free lunch for these niggers and spics" does it become a big problem. Note the use of the already-ineffective technique of lauding former president Bill Clinton for his efforts at welfare reform, in order to drive a wedge between Obama voters and those who think fondly of the "first black president." Also note the systematic cover-up of comments showcasing Romney's failures during his time as both the CEO of Bain Capital and his term as governor of Massachusetts:

    Mitt Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts promising more jobs, decreased debt, and smaller government.
    Here’s what Massachusetts got instead:
    Jobs: 47th out of 50 states in job creation
    Taxes and fees: Increased by $750 million per year
    Long-term debt: Increased more? than $2.6 billion
    Now he wants to rape our country, pollute it and bleed it dry with his Keystone pipeline for the 1%. Romney wants us to go to war with Iran.? How much will that cost?

    1992 - Bain & Co. - Romney is CEO - Bain & Co. owes $30 Million to the FDIC, among other creditors, but the FDIC finally had to settle for $14 Million. At the same time, Bain & Co's large amount of cash on hand was used for bonuses to Bain executives who made over $200k/yr. Then, with a low cash balance, the rest of the creditors Bain & Co owed money to could not get back their money. This was only discovered AFTER a Freedom of Information Act request.
    Bain/Romney profits = creditor's losses.

    Mitt Romney's approval rating when he started Governing was 66%, after his Governorship it was 34%.
    That's lower than GW after the economy collapsed....
    Those who trusted Mitt and know Mitt's government work do not like Mitt.

    The fact that Republican viewers quickly spam-reported these comments into oblivion is telling.

    Juxtapose the above video with the following footage from a recent campaign fundraiser, which most likely wouldn't have been made public if it weren't for the efforts of one James Carter IV:


    This is what happens when Mitt Romney speaks freely in front of a crowd whose individual net worth is more than what the average American will make in their lifetime. Romney just called 47% of Americans "lazy welfare queens." Sadly, scores of Americans with their priorities mixed up will still vote for the guy, all for the prospect of seeing the imaginary black welfare queen run out of imaginary steaks and her imaginary Cadillac repossessed.

    To offset the above, Anne Romney had to run blocker to her husband's comments by explaining how he doesn't disparage the poor people:


    The Romney campaign showcased this video on their YouTube account, thought better of it and had it pulled.

    At this point, Mitt Romney would do better and actually win votes by taking a mallet to his scrotes on national television; it would be far less painful than continuing along this current trajectory towards political oblivion. No amount of campaign funding, overblown bombast from Republican Internet trolls or saccharine puff pieces about him being nice around the folks he sold his house to will balance out the rolling cavalcade of failure his campaign represents.

    * Romney may have been ahead out of the gate in terms of Super PAC money (over $300 million to Obama's $9 million), but Obama's not just catching up with Romney's fundraising tally - he's cruising past it. Meanwhile, Wall Street's having second thoughts about backing Mitt. Can't say I blame them; Wall Street always goes where the winners are.
  • Obama can’t run a lemonade stand.
    - Average Republican
    This is the refrain many Republicans currently use to criticize the president's business skills or supposed lack thereof. Which is odd, since we hired this guy to be a President, not the CEO of a major corporation. Besides, there are plenty of incompetent CEOs who've had to be cashed out like a poker chip before they did any more damage to the companies they were running.

    Personally, I blame Kelly Ayotte and Ranch Prius Reince Priebus:

    "In both the private sector and as governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney always asked, 'How can I help small businesses grow, innovate and compete?' It is the right question and it's a question that this administration never thinks to ask.

    "But why should we be surprised? President Obama has never even run a lemonade stand. And you know what? It shows."

    Mitt Romney's idea of helping small businesses grow, innovate and compete is to ship them off to China and other low-wage countries...wait, that's not growth. Or innovation. And the only competition is between China-based companies exporting yet another round of finished goods to eager, yet unemployed U.S. consumers.

    But then, I got to thinking: what would it be like if, as a prerequisite for consideration as president, each presidential candidate had to run his own lemonade stand on a small budget for about a week? Every candidate starts out with a small supply of lemonade mix, ice, cups and straws. The candidates must pull their customers from the local area - no TV, newspaper or internet promotions, so there are no pilgrimages from people who just want to see their guy win. Nope, this shit will be organic.

    Each candidate gets to create their own lemonade stand with their own design and business plan, plus they'll be responsible for making, promoting and selling the lemonade themselves. Independent bookkeepers and business analysts will tally up the profits and the guy with the best sales numbers and strongest profits wins.

    So how will it go?

    Well, you probably wouldn't have to worry about President Obama. He probably can't run a lemonade stand at first, but he'll probably figure it out using common sense. His years spent as a community organizer and his excellent people skills will win him customers based on excellent customer service alone. His reasonable prices will probably have them coming back again and again.

    Meanwhile, Mitt Romney will attempt to create a gourmet lemonade by cutting back on the powered mix, resulting in a product that tastes more like watered down sports drink than actual lemonade. It would still sell, but then Mitt gets the idea to jack up the price past Vitamin Water levels. His artificial customer interaction skills and his open contempt of those who can't afford to buy his product will result in few sales. As he gets bored and decides he's needed at some $500 per plate fundraising dinner, he'll attempt to outsource running the lemonade stand to some Chinese kid down the block, promising to pay him a penny for each cup sold. When the poor kid fails to reach sales quota thanks to shitty product and no customers, Mitt will fire him without pay.

    In short, there's more to being a president of these United States than just having business leadership skills. The best businessman in the world can be the world's worst president - there are just too many aspects of the job that require nuances that are far beyond anything found in the business world. For example, exactly how would a CEO who hasn't spent a day in the political arena smooth out the fallout from "Innocence of Muslims"?

    Perhaps we should just leave the lemonade stands to the kids. They could use the experience and pocket change, after all.

  • - Meet Steven Klein, the man who helped "inspire" Sam Bacile's Nakoula Basseley Nakoula's Innocence of Muslims. Yep, the same film that caused riots in the Islamic world and led to the deaths of three U.S. diplomats and one ambassador.

    - Gary Brecher of the Exiled Online explains why Barack Obama makes a damn good president, but a piss poor cheerleader of bloodthirsty American masses.

    - Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union have reportedly reached a tentative deal that may bring a close to a five-day teachers strike, the first to occur in 25 years. Anyone looking for background info should check out this Metafilter post.

    - In Britain, a whistle-blower tells what most of us already know about the price of fuel.

    - A group of peace activists, including an 82-year-old nun, exposes lax security at a nuclear materials storage facility.

    - Chris Brown gets a shitty tattoo. Story at 11.

    Finally, Clint Eastwood could give a hairy fuck what anyone thinks of his legendary speech at the Republican National Convention:

    "One advantage of being my age is that you know what can they do to ya?" said Eastwood, 82. "You just have fun and do what you think and then you can say what you think, you don't have to edit yourself."

    Which lends credence to my own personal suspicions that ol' Clint deliberately torpedoed the convention and along with it, Mitt's chances for anything resembling a win this November by playing the "confused old coot" role. Keep in mind the man is an actor and a pretty damn good one at that.
  • What do you get when you spend $5 million $100,000 to make a two-hour movie that encapsulates the average FReeper's views on Islam and its most prominent figure, the prophet Muhammad? If you answered "a clusterfuck," you'd be pretty close.

    The correct answer is "Innocence of Muslims." Right now, it's synonymous with "clusterfuck," especially if you've been following the news lately.

    Most of the film is spent cementing Muhammad's bonafides as a charlatan, a pedophile, a bloodthirsty heathen and an all around bad guy to hang out with, generally speaking. Poorly produced, poorly acted with nary a redeeming value to be found. According to critics, this is one movie not even the bootleggers would bother with.


    When I said "poorly produced" and "poorly acted," I wasn't fucking around. Please note the poor dubbing at various points. Sarah Abdurrahman did and thus cataloged the exact points in the excerpt where the actor's voices are dubbed over.

    The people who participated in making this film have already backed away and disavowed it, mostly in disgust. The whole film was a bait-and-switch for the actors and staff - turns out it was supposed to be an action-adventure flick that had nothing to do with Islam, with a completely different script. No one really had any inkling they were gonna be used to birth an anti-Islamic hit piece. It's no wonder much of their dialogue was dubbed over.

    If this movie was intended to deliberately piss off Muslims, consider it Mission Accomplished. Protests and riots erupted all over the Islamic world after a two-minute excerpt made its way onto Egyptian television.* In Benghazi, Libya, a U.S. ambassador and three U.S. diplomats were killed when the U.S. Consulate came under attack. U.S. embassies and consulates throughout the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia were attacked and/or raided in one way or another. In short, a major clusterfuck.

    Warships are headed to Libya. Drones are being dispatched. Libyan officials are being called on to help bag the people responsible for the attacks, lest they feel the president's sizable wingtip touching their collective prostate. There's no telling what other damage this will do to U.S. diplomatic relations in the region. Clusterfuck.



  • Personally, I think it's best to remember something the way it was instead of the event that brought them down, but that's just me.

    For those who still think George Bush was instrumental in sending Osama bin Laden to an early grave, take a look at this:


    The man just wasn't all that concerned about bin Laden. But Obama was. This was the result:


    Just something to think on.

  • For the longest time, I wondered why conservatives, more specifically the hardcore "pro-lifers" that comprise a significant portion of the current GOP, were so hell-bent on eliminating abortion and along with it the right for a woman to have agency over her own body. I actually had a longer, more drawn out post for this one, but then I thought, "the issue might not be as complicated as I thought." As much as I hated to trash that post, I'm glad I did.

    It started out with paying attention to who exactly was calling for "the right to life" and the end of abortions. The more I listened to and read about the klaxon calls, the more I saw something that was rather disturbing, but something I shouldn't have been surprised about.

    I noticed the calls for respecting the sanctity of life started no sooner than the act of copulation was done but abruptly ended as soon as the baby was finally born. Then the child goes from being a blessing to being a burden and a drain or just plain forgotten about. If conservatives had this much respect for a child when it was in the womb, you'd think they'd have that same level of respect for a child out of it, or for all life, for that matter. As you can see by current GOP goals to crumble up the social safety net like so many used Dixie cups, that's not the case.

    I caught the vibe the pro-life movement seemed to be specifically aimed at white Americans. There were furtive efforts to bring black Americans and Hispanics into the pro-life tent, but the movement took on a sort of urgency I couldn't put my finger on.

    Then I read the demographics.

    Look at the latest U.S. Census figures and U.S. population projections for 2050 and beyond. The numbers don't lie. The U.S. is getting browner and browner by the minute, and that disturbs a lot of people. That would have been the end of it if it wasn't for a black man becoming a U.S. president, signaling the crumbling of another barrier and a slow end to Anglo-Saxon hegemony when it came to positions of power. You'd be surprised at how many people were comforted over the fact that a "colored" would never become president.

    The GOP's worried about demographics being the party's downfall. With few Hispanics and nearly zero black Americans backing the GOP, the party has only a certain, dwindling pool of people to rely on. It's not just the crazy 27-percent - it's the relatively uninformed swing voters who'd vote for the most convincing personality if convinced hard enough into a certain direction. 2012 is the GOP's last chance. If they don't win this now, chances are they won't be able to win for the foreseeable future.

    The alarm over abortion transforms into a silent worry that too many white women are choosing not to be fruitful and fulfill their destined duty while the wrong types of people are allowed to reproduce like crazy. The underlying story is "too many blacks and browns being born and not enough whites." Racial hegemony and political posturing swaddled in a blanket of faux concern for womens' prenatal health.

    I also read about the Stolen Generation, about how the Australian government took scores of aboriginal children and attempted to reshape them into something more "respectable" to Anglo-Saxon standards. The ultimate aim was to simply breed the "abo" out of them, eventually leaving people with little to no trace of their original heritage and a culture that would be inevitably distilled to monuments, trinkets and rituals performed by people who haven't a clue about the actual people who were behind it all or their culture.

    The native Americans were largely slaughtered into irrelevance and attempts to breed the Negro out of Negros only succeeded in adding a dollop of "Negro blood" into the white American gene pool. Eugenics was tried but that went out of fashion, eventually. I see much of the pro-life movement as a last gasp for retaining "demographic balance" while enforcing socio-religious mores at the same time.

    Finally, I read this. This is powerful. This is something that everyone should read, comments and all.

    One thing the author addresses is how the "bad" women who do decide to go ahead with having their child are expected to give their children up without a second thought - no guilt, no pain, no mourning. It's assumed that these women were callous enough to not want to keep their baby in the first place - henceforth, letting go wouldn't be any problem. It would be like leaving a Dixie cup on a counter and walking away:

    And why the fuck are actual babies so disposable that you're expected to get over it after a suitable period of mourning (i.e., till you get a good Christian husband) in the case of adoption? It's odd how this does not apply in the case of aborting a blastocyst, when you're expected to wall yourself into a tomb away from decent society and gnaw on the bitter bones of your own despicable evil. Bad woman. BAD.

    A certain morally vindictive set of folks see pregnancy as just desserts for promiscuity. Dealing with nine months of pregnancy and childbirth is supposed to be the punishment.

    Babies as punishment, at least until they're given up to a proper, respectable "Christian" family who will raise them up in the proper "Christian" way until they grow up to be mirror images of what proper society deems to be a proper, respectable person. I always thought babies were a blessing...

  • In just about every corner of the world, hitting at killing someone with a vehicle would be cause for a court date and a possible jail sentence, more so if that person happens to be a police officer. Dragging a police officer under your wheels for 200 meters and fleeing the scene afterwards would be cause for a massive manhunt and, in some corners of the world, a "last stand" or a "furtive move" possibly resulting in worst case of "suicide" anyone's seen.

    And yet Vorayuth Yoovidhya would have been spared the remote possibility of going to jail after his literal run-in with the law if it wasn't for public outrage and a bright light shone on the double standards those with sufficient wealth enjoy:
    Vorayuth Yoovidhya, a grandson of the late founder of Red Bull, billionaire Chaleo Yoovidhya, had initially fled the scene but later confessed to hitting the policeman, police said. He was released hours later on 500,000 baht ($16,000) bail. Though Vorayuth has yet to appear in court, there seemed little faith among the public that justice would be served. "Jail is only for the poor. The rich never get punished. Find a scapegoat," said one of a stream of comments posted on the popular Thai website, Panthip.com. Another on news site Manager.co.th read: "He'll probably just get a suspended sentence. What's the cost of a life?" Suspended jail terms do seem to be the norm for politically powerful or well-connected Thais.
    It's not just well-connected Thais who enjoy the special kid-gloves treatment given to them. Hollywood celebs are notorious for engaging in all sorts of stupid, dangerous and illegal activities that would have the average person placed under the jail. It's no secret that having obscene levels of wealth and plenty of high-placed connections offers the potential for someone to either buy their way out of a criminal case or have a few people who know people pull some strings for them. It's how Lindsay Lohan can rack up slaps on the wrist and visits to detox centers for drunk driving, drug abuse and a myriad of other criminal acts while two ordinary black women wind up with life sentences for allegedly helping three teens steal $11. Having piles of money and plenty of pull with the right people does have its perks after all.



  • It's not easy being the leader of the "freest" nation in the world, less so if you happen to be a man whose mere skin tone, let alone actual policies, sets off near-homicidal rage in a certain sub-sect of American citizens. Once Barack Obama became President Barack Obama, the number of death threats U.S. presidents usually receive skyrocketed by 400 percent. Each day, the White House receives 30 "love notes" from people who really, really want to extend the president a hollow-point greeting.

    There have always been people who wanted to voice their displeasure with the current sitting president via bullet. With President Obama, there's that added dimension of race. No one wants to admit or acknowledge it, but with that crucial piece, the entire puzzle of why some Americans harbor near-demonic rage against this particular president finally comes together.

    The loons come in all forms and walks of life. They even come from within our nation's military:

    Four Army soldiers based in southeast Georgia killed a former comrade and his girlfriend to protect an anarchist militia group they formed that stockpiled assault weapons and plotted a range of anti-government attacks, prosecutors told a judge Monday.

    Prosecutors in rural Long County, near the sprawling Army post Fort Stewart, said the militia group of active and former U.S. military members spent at least $87,000 buying guns and bomb components. They allege the group was serious enough to kill two people – former soldier Michael Roark and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Tiffany York – by shooting them in the woods last December in order to keep its plans secret.

    “This domestic terrorist organization did not simply plan and talk,” prosecutor Isabel Pauley told a Superior Court judge. “Prior to the murders in this case, the group took action. Evidence shows the group possessed the knowledge, means and motive to carry out their plans.”

    Prosecutors said the group called itself F.E.A.R., short for Forever Enduring Always Ready. Pauley said authorities don't know how many members it had.

    I shouldn't be surprised. Many people see the presence of a man of a certain hue as an affront to the sanctity of the Oval Office. Others see it as proof of the worm turning, that somehow the nation's majority ethnicity will find itself in a field humming slow, mournful Nickelback tunes while carrying heavy cotton-filled sacks stitched together from old, worn Abercrombie and Fitch outfits.

    On the other hand, many people probably weren't expecting a threat like this. Like I said, from all walks of life:







    I wonder what made Donte Jamar Sims think this was a good idea. Not only was he serious "as a Heart Attack" about the threats, he started snigglin' like a Cheshire cat in front of the Secret Service agent until he realized he was goin' to jail, on the real.

    Later, however, at a police station, he grew penitent, and wrote an apology letter asserting “he was sorry he sent the messages threatening to kill the President of the United States.”

    The self-described #1 Lupe Fiasco fan claimed he was high at the time and “understood what he was doing and that it was wrong.”


    It takes all kinds. Honestly, the only thing Donte Jamar Sims needs is a psychiatric workup and to stay the fuck away from whatever he's been smoking, for his own damn good. I'm not even sure this was one of those "Uncle Ruckus" moments...just a "dumbass sherm-head smoking in his living room" moment. Put the fucking blunt down. I doubt he really had the means or the motivation to pull off any threat. Then again, it's never a good idea to underestimate people.

    Come Election Day, expect those death threats to triple in number if President Obama wins a second term in office. At this point, surviving every day in office is a blessing and a miracle from above.

  • Precious few people manage to survive a gunshot wound to the head, but Gabby Giffords did just that. She survived, recovered and now stands before us today as positive proof of God's grace, self-determination and the marvels of modern medicine and advanced healthcare.*

    This woman exudes class, unlike this comment from your average low IQ YouTube commentator:

    Obama is getting desperate he had to roll out the freak! I wonder if Clinton Shoved a cigar up fer ass first ? 

    A comment like this would prompt a juvenile retort involving his/her father's "cigar," but fighting morons on their own turf is like strangling a piranha in a fishbowl. The GOP faithful have been hitting the comments of each DNC video like clockwork, but no amount of poorly thought-out commentary will paper over how the Republican National Convention was a farce bordering on tragicomedy.

    Meanwhile, check out these full speeches from Jennifer Granholm, Joe Biden and President Obama himself.




    *Crippling debt and HMO fuckery notwithstanding, when it comes to severe trauma care and rehabilitation, the U.S. healthcare system can't be touched.

  • I've been told that Mitt Romney's been putting Bill Clinton on a pedestal while attempting to knock down President Obama by calling him "a welfare queen king president." Apparently, the plan was to drive some sort of wedge between moderate Democrats and those of a more liberal bent. It was a stupid, stupid plan:

    Regardless of the fact that the differences between Clinton and Obama are effectively non-existent, what exactly is Romney's plan when Clinton starts campaigning aggressively on Obama's behalf, delivering a major primetime address in support of Obama during the Democratic National Convention?

    Or more to the point, if Romney is spending much of 2012 telling voters that Clinton is reliable and worthy of respect, won't that be a problem when the Big Dog is urging voters to rally behind Barack Obama and reject Romney's candidacy?

    Oh yes, that's most definitely a problem. As Jamison Foser points out, the Dems tried this whenever John McCain stumped for a GOP candidate and in those cases, the plan never worked out the way they thought it would:

    Just about the best the Democratic campaigns could hope for as a result of these tactics was a line or two deep in a newspaper writeup of the GOP campaign event noting an area of disagreement between McCain and the Republican candidate. Meanwhile, they’re enhancing the credibility of someone who is endorsing and campaigning for their opponent. And, as an added drawback, they’re building up the credibility of someone who was widely seen as the best future presidential candidate the Republican Party had to offer.

    If such tactics have little potential payoff, and obvious unintended consequences, why do campaigns seem to like them so much? In part because it’s the kind of superficially smart thing that wins political operatives praise from their colleagues and reporters. And because a lot of people don’t know the difference between superficially smart things that win praise from political reporters and operatives and things that are actually smart.

    But leave it to Romney's campaign to not do their homework and learn from the mistakes of others. Now the RMoney team has to sit and watch as the Big Dog not only gives President Obama his endorsement, but poor Mitt has to take a trip to the hospital so the doctors can remove that size 13 wingtip from his narrow orifice and unwedge that bit of magic underwear it took with it. Don't worry - he's got pretty good health insurance for those sorts of things.

    Meanwhile, Artur Davis is now heading up Mitt's new Black Leadership Council, a collection of 18 black conservative politicians and leaders trying their damnedest to figure out why other blacks simply won't vote for poor Mitt. Here's a clue: as long as people assume that black Americans vote for black Democrat leaders out of racial solidarity, the BLC and their GOP paymasters will always remain, pardon, in the dark.

  • The only DNC highlight you're getting today is Michelle Obama's heartfelt speech, in its entirety. It was the speech that lit up the crowd, electrified viewers and took over Twitter.

    By the way, President Obama held an "Ask Me Anything" session on Reddit a few days ago. POTUS is proving to be more in touch with these here interwebs than anyone realizes. This is how you earn votes if you're not a GOP candidate coasting atop the flab and hot air of "Real American" Tea Party voters.

    I can't see Mittens doing one of these. He'd probably host an "Ask One of My Aides to Ask Me Something I'll Willingly Give a Canned Non-answer to (except if it involves my tax returns)" session that lasts for a few minutes before it gets cut short for "privacy concerns" or some other nonsense.
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