Newt Gingrich.
Newt. Fucking. Gingrich.
This is how bad things have gotten.
I think it’s time to revisit a post I did a while back. It’s primarily about lies in politics, but has a good amount of information about Gingrich specifically that most people aren’t aware of. I’m pretty proud of this piece:
I’ve been having a bit of fun, joking around about the wave of Veterans’ Day posts that we see every year on this day, and I know not everyone appreciates the humor. I get that, and I’m sympathetic. But I don’t apologize.
I’m a veteran. I’ve had blood on my hands. I’ve lost friends. And to me, though I realize how sincere most people are, Veterans’ Day is a day of jingoism and platitudes, particularly in a time when we send our soldiers to die in wars we do not need to fight, and when we don’t take care of them when they come home.
Yes, we should honor the soldiers who are fighting and dying in our name, but we should do that by making sure they are doing so ONLY when necessary, otherwise we are wasting their efforts and their lives. Honor them by doing all you can to bring them home. Let their spouses curl up with them every night, their parents be able to sleep in peace, and their children grow up with fathers and mothers.
Yes, we should honor the veterans who have fought in our name when ordered, whether misused by their leaders or not. And to do that best, we should make sure they are given the medical and psychological attention they need when they’re back home, and we should make sure they’re given the benefits they’ve been promised (the VA screwed me out of over 80% of my College Fund, and I’m not alone), we should make sure their homes haven’t been stolen by bankers, and we should do all we can to help them find security in our lousy economy.
So yeah, wave the flag if you want to, tell everyone how important it is to honor our warriors, but if that’s the extent of it, it’s meaningless. If you want to thank me for my service, do something that’s going to help those who need help because they volunteered.
Hey! Stupid!
Just because you’re making ends meet, just because you haven’t stumbled because of a terrible illness, just because the culture we live in is so awash in products produced from petroleum and by corporations with no loyalty to our country or to you that it’s impossible to avoid their use, does NOT mean that there aren’t huge things wrong and does not mean people should just fold their tents and go home like compliant little sheep.
In a time when our country, and the world, are still bleeding out economically because of the ongoing excesses and corruption of Wall Street and large corporations in general, it amazes me that otherwise reasonable people are dedicating their energy and their bile to trying to tear down the people who are trying to change things.
Really? You stand for the banks? You stand for BP? You stand for all the companies who won’t give jobs here because it’s cheaper to pretty much enslave people in foreign countries? You stand for the insurance companies that will let you die if it saves them a few dollars? Really?
You are the 53% because you can’t count all the way to 99.
So the cops have started brutalizing the Wall Street protesters again today. I hope this pisses you off as much as it does me. If it doesn’t, there’s something fucking wrong with you.
What is the heart and soul of Christianity in America?
If you pay attention to most of the news related to Christianity, what you see is hatred and intolerance, militarism and fascism, a lockjawed embrace of ignorance, and a blind adherence to principles which seem to actually fly in the face of those presented by Christ himself.
Last week I was fortunate (blessed?) to have the opportunity to see the two extremes of Christian behavior, and while the first was disheartening, the second was wonderful.
First, the suck. Continue reading
The boat is sinking.
Supporting the Democrats is bailing water with a bucket with a hole in it.
Supporting Republicans is shooting more holes in the boat’s bottom with an automatic shotgun, hoping the water will drain out.
Supporting third party candidates is hoping a playmate-laden sailboat will come by and save us.
What do we do?
Kudos to the New York Republicans who disavowed the institutional intolerance, ignorance, and hate of their own party this evening and made history helping to advance the human race.
Newt Gingrich wants to change the Constitution:
Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit individual or group prayer in public schools or other public institutions.
Thanks to Cairelle Perilloux for this…
I fully support Donald Trump in his quest for the Republican candidacy for President of the United States.
Now, people who know me might automatically think I’m trying to be funny, or that I figure Trump would be easy for Obama to beat, so that’s why I’d like him to be the chosen candidate. But after the last decade, I no longer trust the American people’s ability to make smart decisions in their own best interests; at this point, if Trump won the office it wouldn’t actually come as a surprise to me. And Obama has been such a bowl of gruel, after promising a succulent banquet of hope and change, that I know he’s probably beatable.
No, I support Trump as the Republican candidate because I think he’s the best they have to offer. Yes, he’s a corporate shark. Yes, he’s a narcissistic douche-bag. Yes, he’d probably be a bad president. But I’m more concerned with what he isn’t.
He’s not a religious nut who wants to take us back to the days of Cotton Mather. He doesn’t want to burn witches or books, he doesn’t want to outlaw people’s private sexual choices, he doesn’t want to bring on the friggin’ Rapture by attacking heathen countries. Far as I know, he doesn’t want to teach children ancient fairy tales in school instead of science.
He’s not beholden to corporate interests. This one might seem surprising, but I think that Trump is so insulated in his World of Trump ™, so completely narcissistic, that he doesn’t give a fuck about other corporate douche-bags. As long as he gets his — the power, the money, the attention — I don’t think he’s going to put a lot of energy into protecting and furthering the corporate oligarchy now running things. (Which may make him actually preferable to Obama on that front).
He’s not a tea-bagger. Sure he’s pandering like a flat-broke hooker who hasn’t eaten in two weeks with all this nonsense about Obama’s birth certificate, but surely no one actually thinks he believes it for a second. He’s just stroking them, trying to make ‘em purr, the same way the GOP power brokers have been doing.
If Trump took the presidency, the results would likely be terrible. But he probably wouldn’t do nearly as much damage to our country, and to the world, as George W. Bush did, or as much as the rest of the assholes the GOP is likely to field would do.
[UPDATE FOR THE OBTUSE: Read closely. I say I support Trump being the Republican candidate. I do not say I support him being president, though I do say he'd probably be less damaging than any other possible GOP contender right now.]
Roy Zimmerman offers up a very funny song and hits his target squarely in the balls. This ain’t satire, folks; it’s journalism.
…I’d never let him in my house.
Chuck Norris is a tool. He’s a bad actor and an over-the-hill karate instructor and a particularly idiotic political commentator.
The jokes about him are often funny, but they aggrandize a man who should be allowed to wither in obscurity without the eyes of the world upon him. Granted the aggrandizement is largely ironic, but Norris is such a nitwit I’m sure he takes it all in as evidence of his place of respect in the world.
Back in May 2009, I took it upon myself to spend the day tossing out Facebook statuses which were Chuck Norris jokes that more properly belittled him. Offered below, for posterity, are my creations. I invite you to add more in the comments.
It’s a worthy cause. Continue reading
Walker, Wisconsin Danger
The following comes to you through a chain of association I hope will continue. I got it from Krista Smiling Wolf Hill, who got it from the blog of Al Stefanelli, who got it from his friend Joe Markey. It originated with someone posting in an online forum under the screen name “yeahIknow5.” I hope you’ll read it and pass it on in turn.
Reading it, I felt that it might well have been written about my own father, or any number of other folks I know who have locked-down minds and are easy prey for the authoritarian puppeteers of our world. Continue reading
An artful short film of one of Mark Twain’s short stories.
This, too, thanks to Kate for sharing…
There is some spectacular and gorgeous footage of forests in this video. Which is apropos, as it’s about forests.
Thanks to the lovely Kate for sharing this…
Yann Arthus-Bertrand was appointed by the United Nations to produce the official film for the International Year of Forests.
Following the success of Home which was seen by 400 million people, the photographer began producing a short 7-minute film on forests made up of aerial images from Home and the Vu du Ciel television programmes.
This film will be shown during a plenary session of the Ninth Session of United Nations Forum on Forests (24 January – 4 February 2011) in New York. It will be available to all from February 2 – for free – so that it can be shown worldwide.
While engaging in some funny smartassery, this guy makes one of the most cogent statements about the Republican side of the health care issue I’ve heard in a while…
Just to amuse myself yesterday, I started coming up with new emoticons.
Here they are. Feel free to add your own in the comments if you like.
;i ;i ;i ;i ;i ;i Blink blink blink…weird smokin’ guy with a twitchy eye
:911 Rudy Giuliani
:2+2=25 Sarah Palin (may also represent Michelle Bachman)
:USA<$$$ The GOP
:NOIQ Tea Baggers
:C+ Barack Obama
:F- George W. Bush
:666 Dick Cheney
And my favorite:
:(###################################
A sour face and a lotta pounds?
That’s Rush Limbaugh, of course.
Thanks to the Great Global Goon Patrol, we now know what’s causing these mass animal deaths, and it’s not pollution or sonic weapons testing or liberals from Betelgeuse.
It’s not often you see a true man of faith who’s a public figure in our culture who actually walks the walk.
Stephen Colbert is exactly that.
A devout Catholic (who actually teaches Sunday school), he not only bases his political views on principles like compassion and rationality, he’s extremely active with a long list of charities. He’s clearly a much better man than the buffoon he lampoons, Bill O’Reilly (who this week hilariously tried to one-up an atheist on his show by telling him we don’t know what causes the tides to go in and out).
An undead ex-VP rejects another heart…
Thousands of black birds with blood-red marks fall from the sky…
Dead fish choke the shores…
A troll doll from a northern state gets a book deal…
Orcs seize control of the House…
A newt and a hagfish in grizzly furs set their crazed eyes to the White House…
The Rupture is nigh.
