“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what….These are people who pay no income tax.”

-Mitt Romney

It’s time to wind up the masquerade
Just make your mind up; the piper must be paid
The party’s over
It’s all over, my friend….

If the Romney Campaign ever has a requiem, that will be it. 

Strike the stage. Fold up the tent. Close the doors. Turn out the lights. There will be no encore. There will be no final bows. There will be no curtain call. The reviews are in and they’re all bad. This show died during the out-of-town tryouts. It won’t be opening on Broadway. It won’t be opening off Broadway. It won’t be going on the road. It won’t be going anywhere. This show is closing. It’s over. It’s finished. Finis. Adios. Arrivederci. Auf wiedersehen.  Au Revoir. Kaput. KABOOM!

Can I be any clearer?

MEMO TO THE PREZ: Don’t waste your precious time on the campaign trail. Why bother? Mitt Romney lost the election yesterday. His fate is sealed. If – after all this – the American people decide to send him to the White House, our reputation as the international laughingstock will be sealed. There are forty-six days between now and the election. That is a lifetime in politics as they never tire of reminding us, but I just can’t see how Romney is going to get out of this one. The only thing that may save him is a scandal in the Obama camp so vile that the electorate will flee en masse. That could very well happen. The Republicans are quite adept at creating scandals out of thin air – as Bill Clinton found out much to his eternal chagrin.

MEMO TO MITT: The little eight-year-old girl who skips over to the corner candy store to buy an Almond Joy candy bar pays taxes. Everyone pays taxes. Some pay too much. Others (like you, Mitt) not enough. That’s your civics lesson for the day, Mitt. You could use a lot of them.

Here’s the funny thing! When one contemplates the complete and utter devolution of the Republican party in the last fifty years. it is instructive to remember this: As hideously incompetent as Mitt Romney is, of all the nitwits and kooks who sought the nomination during the primaries – he was the best of the bunch; the cream of the crop! That is a party that that has found itself rotting at the bottom of the ideological sewer. They should never again be trusted by reasonable and enlightened people with the governance of our nation. I’m just sayin’.

When the video surfaced of Mitt’s little “chat” with a closed audience of plutocratic investors, I couldn’t help but wonder if the man has been paying attention to the developments in video technology that have been going on in recent years. Fifty-two years ago during the campaign of 1960, when Jack Kennedy or Dick Nixon spoke at a private fundraiser, it’s a pretty safe bet that they knew those events would be “closed” They would have easily been able to spot any recording device. Back in the day it was not possible to hide a television or film camera. Some of them weighed so much that they were nicknamed “the thousand pound pencils”. Even an audio tape recorder was a bulky, cumbersome affair. Today a video camera can literally fit into one’s shirt pocket. Mitt Romney has had nearly a decade to absorb this new reality. What is the matter with him? Is it ignorance? Is it arrogance? Yo, Mitt! What gives?

FUN FACT: The video that has stirred up so much controversy and will probably, more than anything, end up costing Romney the presidency, was made public by David Corn of Mother Jones magazine. It was given to him by James Earl Carter IV – the grandson of Jimmy Carter. Aren’t politics fun?

Here is the corner they’ve painted themselves into: In order to win the nomination, a Republican candidate has to say and do a lot of really stupid things. That’s been the case for the last half century. The problem is the fact that the party has become so extreme during that period, once nominated, the candidate no longer has the luxury (as he once had) of veering back toward the center during the general election – or even the center-right for that matter. If he does, he looses the base. If he doesn’t he’s lost damned-near everyone else. The “party of Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln” has become, I believe, virtually unelectable. Isn’t life beautiful?

_________________________

TOM DEGAN is a video artist who in 2006 became so thoroughly disgusted at the state of America’s national political dialogue, he decided to take time off to become a freaking civics teacher. When you’re not reading him here, check out his awesome blog “The Rant”

It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

 -Mitt Romney 

If a more utterly perfect reason not to send this fool to the White House was needed, it was generously provided to us last week - gift wrapped – by Mitt Romney himself!

Incredibly, der Mittster was responding to a statement he claimed was made by the Obama administration responding to the terror attacks on the US embassies in Egypt and Libya. Only it wasn’t made by the administration. It was made by the embassy in Cairo – and they weren’t responding to the attacks. The statement was made hours before. They were responding to an incendiary video that was produced by some half-witted extremist in the United States that has the Arab world in an uproar. Mitt must have known that he was inflaming an already dangerous situation. And if he was unaware of what he was doing, he (and the people he surrounds himself with) are too incompetently idiotic to be trusted by reasonable people with the responsibilities of the chief executive. 

The “foreign policy advisers” that Romney has surrounded himself with are the same neocon freaks that plunged this country into an unnecessary, nine year war when it invaded the (like it or not) sovereign nation of Iraq. Seventeen out of twenty-four of them were part of the Bush Mob. These same people are now rattling their sabers, drooling for us to go to war with Iran. Since I assume most of us have the capacity of 20/20 hindsight, the question needs to be asked:

Do we really want to go down this road again?

There are people out there who would sent this country into the abyss rather than reelect an African American to the most powerful office in the world. There is no denying it. I see it every day in my personal interactions. A significant minority of his fellow Americans despise the president of the United States for no other reason than the color of his skin. They may not be telling the pollsters this, but it’s the truth. We have to face the unvarnished reality, unpleasant as that reality may be. We can only beg our bigoted brethren that on Election Day, they check their racism at the town hall door. Not that that’s gonna happen.

 _________________________

 TOM DEGAN is a video artist who in 2006 became so thoroughly disgusted at the state of America’s national political dialogue, he decided to take time off to become a freaking civics teacher. When you’re not reading him here, check out his awesome blog “The Rant”

The mayors of Oakland, California and New York City apparently have no understanding of human history – not to mention human nature. They attempted this week to shut down the Occupy Wall Street movements of their respective cities through means of violence and intimidation. It didn’t quite work out too well for them. Quite to the contrary. Not only have they not weakened the movement, they have instead strengthened it – tenfold.

When people have been subjected over long periods to injustice, it’s only a matter of time before they revolt. Revolution is not something that can be swept away by think tanks or police riots. It’s a bit more complicated than that. Revolution-in-reaction-to-human-cruelty is as natural as the sun rising in the eastern sky. All the king’s pepper spray and all the king’s soldiers can’t stop a rising sun either. Try it sometime.

The comedian-turned-activist Dick Gregory once compared revolution to a boiling coffeepot. When the pot starts to boil, it protests by making a whistling sound. It is giving us a fair warning and a choice: We can wisely take that pot off the fire, or we can plug up the spout that’s making all that hideous racket. If our choice is the latter, eventually that pot is going to explode, burning everybody in the room.

The people who are now in the process of occupying this once-great nation can be likened to that boiling coffeepot. They are sending the “rulers” of this country a clear and unmistakable warning: Give us economic justice or be prepared to live with permanent civil unrest. Here’s another pearl of wisdom courtesy of Dick Gregory:

“Repression is more detrimental to the ones who are doing the repressing than it is to the ones who are being repressed.”

Something to think about. The ground of the planet earth is littered with the graves of regimes and ideologies that fell of their own, bloated weight. The times they are indeed a’changin’. Get out of the way or get rolled over.

It would seem to me that “the suits” don’t take the power of the American people all-too seriously. That shouldn’t surprise us.. Sooner or later they’ll realize that we have the power to shut this country down. They don’t. In fact, even if they did have the power, they wouldn’t dare shut it down. The need for the machine to keep churning out bodies. Lots and lots of bodies.

And as is usually the case, most of the main stream media refuses to understand what is happening. Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda empire has been busy portraying the movement as a cabal of thugs and perverts. The main charge that has been leveled by the talking heads against the Occupy movement is this little gem:

“THEY CANNOT DEFINE AND DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHAT IT IS THEY’RE PROTESTING AGAINST!”

Sure they do. I do not attempt here to define myself as a spokesman for this movement. One of the neat things about Occupy Wall Street lies in the fact that, unlike their Tea party counterparts, there is no cult of personality. We do not have our own Glenn Beck – and that’s a good thing, I promise you! But let me take just a brief moment to step into the roll of interpreter. First, a quote:

“Governments are instituted among men [and women - fess up!] deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

NOTE TO SEAN HANNITY:

NO, that wasn’t from the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx. Nor is it from the pens of Che Guevara or Stokely Carmichael. That nasty little bit of revolutionary screed was written by none other than Thomas Jefferson, and is from a document which was ratified on 4 July 1776 and now rests snugly in our national archives. When this country was formed, those present – and succeeding generations of Americans – were given an instruction manual called the Declaration of Independence. It may be found at all public libraries and any computer search engine. I’m also certain you can find it in audio form on CD. Hell, it might even be available on 8-Track tape somewhere for all I know. Its message is as clear as sunlight. When those who govern become destructive toward the happiness and well being of the governed, revolution is not merely an option. It is a duty. Ting-a-ling-a-ling!

Thirty-one years ago this month, on Election Day 1980, the American people were placed on a path that would eventually lead to the destruction of their social and economic infrastructure. Deregulation of the marketplace – and tax cuts for a class of people who already had more money than they knew what to do with – were the new and seemingly permanent reality in America.

We are now learning the extent to which private banks went to gamble on and squander the money – our money – only to be bailed out of the mess by the same people whose treasure was squandered in the first place. We had no say in the matter, and not a single condition was placed upon the corrupted banks. In the meantime the middle class, the engine that once fueled our economy, is falling apart. The American dream is as dead as a doornail.

And they’re wondering why we’re pissed off. Imagine that.

What do we want? We want economic justice. When do we want it? NOW, BABY! But we’re realistic. We can wait them out for as long as it takes. The plutocracy has one of two choices. This is a black or white. There are no subtle shades of gray that can be misinterpreted. Either the wealth of this country will be redistributed via the route of taxation – or they can expect civil chaos for as long as it takes to wake America up from its stupor. If it takes decades, so be it. If it takes a century, so be it. If it means the complete and utter destruction of the Republican and Democratic parties – even better. For as long as it takes. In the long run it will cost them a hell-of-a-lot less to give in than to keep obstructing the will of the majority. To paraphrase Mick Jagger (0r was it Keith Richards?) Time is on our side – yes it is.

You say you’ll change the constitution,well you know
We’d all love to change your head
You tell me it’s the institution, well you know
You’d better free your mind instead

-John Lennon

But if you go carrying pictures of Rush Limbaugh
You ain’t gonna make it anyone anyhow

-Me

We are at a point (according to the pollsters) where the popularity of the congress is at an all time low (hovering just below nine percent). They’re telling us that Paris Hilton and Communism have better numbers. I’m not surprised. What is surprising, and in spite of the propaganda aimed against it, is that the Occupy Wall Street movement’s numbers are comparatively high, and rising by the hour. This movement ain’t no fad, boys and girls, and the good people out in the streets are in it for the long haul. I was just reminded of a great quotation from Mahatma Gandhi:

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

We win. Isn’t this a neat time to be alive?

AFTERTHOUGHT:

In an appearance this morning on Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer, Ron Paul made the following statement:

“To argue that they attacked us on 9/11 because we are free and prosperous is dangerous because it’s not true”

Old Ron is correct here on more levels than he realizes. We are neither free nor prosperous. Hi ho.

_________________________

TOM DEGAN is a fifty-one year old video artist who in 2006 became so thoroughly disgusted at the state of America’s national political dialogue, he decided to take time off to become a freaking civics teacher. When you’re not reading him here, check out his awesome blog “The Rant”

At this point in the game, it would appear painfully obvious to anyone with an IQ greater than your garden variety sea snail, that Herman ‘I got all this stuff twirlin’ in mah brain’ Cain does not have what it takes to lead this great nation of ours. These past few weeks, this man’s intelligence, morality, integrity, and general credibility have been exposed as being virtually non-existent. Moreover, on the key litmus conservative issues like abortion, he’s consistently proven to be a pillar of inconsistency. Everything about this guy, from his inane economic policies, to his goofy cowboy hat, right down to his cheesy 70s porn mustache literally screams disaster!  

So why is he still afloat in the polls?

One could say that the right-wing contingent simply does not value intelligence or gravitas, that they just want a straight talker and someone they can relate to….but that ain’t the reason. Thing is, Cain isn’t relatable or a straight talker. His meandering, double-speak is so convoluted it borders on the schizophrenic. On top of that, the megalomaniacal way he refers to himself in the third person and his general used car salesman persona, could repulse even the sleaziest three-card-monty street hustler. Relatable this guy is not.

That, I feel, gets to the point of what I believe the attraction is.

For years, right-wing, working-class conservatives in this country have been comprised of mostly white guys. To cartoon-ify them, they’re the fat dudes that love sports and beer and view their America through Eisenhower colored glasses. They aggressively rattle off the talking points fed to them by trolls like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to anyone within earshot, because it makes them feel well-informed.  They’re obtuse, and simply refuse to notice that the entire GOP agenda runs counter to their interests. Oh…and they’re obsessed with black people.

…and that is the attraction with Herman Cain.

After years of rightfully being painted as a collective of ignorant bigots, these blue-collar buffoons finally have that one black ‘friend’ they can wrap their arms around. Now they can say: “ I’m not racist! I like Herman Cain!!”

Case in point, Joe the plumber loves Cain.

In general, I’ve always been wary of white people that have that one black ‘friend’ – I call it ‘The King Of Queens’ syndrome. In the context of the sitcom, ‘the black friend’ is used to portray the white protagonists as being open minded and tolerant. Of course they’d have to be, I mean, one couldn’t possibly stomach the idea of being friends with a black person unless they had Job -like tolerance.

The ironic thing is, while Cain supporters consciously back this doofus in an effort to prove they don’t believe in erroneous black stereotypes, they are actually supporting a guy who typifies the shifty, shady, pimp-tastic, white woman harassing black man they’ve been fearing all their lives.

At the end of the day, I don’t believe Cain ever had any chance of being the GOP nominee for Prez, but along the way, it certainly appears that his followers have gotten a kick out of him. They love their new black friend. They talk about him loudly in public in between bites of bratwurst, and highlight how ‘articulate’ he is. He’s their ‘brother’ from another mother.

Their craven mendacity and poisonous insincerity is so transparent, it’s stifling.

I got the phone call from Harragin on Saturday morning, the twelfth of November. He was on his way to Zuccotti Park to be part of the occupation that is the focus of the nation. Would I like to come along for the ride?

When history is being made so close to where one sleeps, it is the duty of all true patriots to make their presence known. When the times calls on one to choose sides, it is better not to hide within the comforting walls of blissful anonymity. Wherever people gather to confront the forces of greed and destruction, those of good conscience must enlist in the armies of righteousness. This is not a time to be anchored by quiet desperation. Now is the time to stand up, my friends! Now is the time! CAN I GET A WITNESS!!!

“Uh, New York? This morning??? Um, well….Aw, shit, Johnny, I’ve got nothing better to do. I’ll come along, what the heck.”

First a few words about John Harragin. Other than Kevin Swanwick and Mike O’Connor (both of whom you might have read about within these pages) he is one of my oldest friends in the world. It’s hard for me to even fathom this but we go back almost forty years. He’s always had a keen awareness of injustice and hypocrisy which makes him the ideal traveling companion to witness the Wall Street Occupation in “real time” so to speak. He’s also proving to the world that solar power is a viable form of energy. He is now installing panels on his house and in six months time, the entire place will be powered by the sun. He says, “If I can do it, that means we as a society can do it.”

He picked me up at around ten o’clock at my house across the road from the adult book store and the tattoo parlor, and we were on our merry way. Traffic was unusually light, even for a Saturday morning, and we made it to lower Manhattan in less than an hour-and-a-half. Parking our car at the corner of Clarkston Street and the West Side Highway, we hoofed it toward Zuccotti Park.

Somewhere along the way we became a bit disoriented and John inquired of a police officer, “Excuse me, sir. Can you tell us how to get to Zuccotti Park?”

“No.” was his gruff answer. We were in fact less than three blocks away. John flashed his mile-wide grin and began to gently tease the cop: “Aw, c’mon! I know you know where it is!”

“What do you wanna go there for?” he asked, obviously exasperated.

“We’re going there for you!” said John. The guy just rolled his eyes. It was clear that he was fed up with this revolution, and that he just wanted things to get back to normal. How could we get him to understand that things would never be “normal” again? Best not to even try, I thought to myself. He’ll find out soon enough, poor bastard.

I tried to convince him that we were important and respected journalists on a dual assignment representing the National Review and FOX News, but it was all to no avail. It was blatantly apparent that neither one of us were dressed for the part. We looked more like correspondents from Mad Magazine. We’d have to find our way to Zuccotti Park on our own. Fortunately for us this proved to be not-too-difficult a task.

Arriving at this gathering is hard to put into mere words. If you’ve ever been an eye-witness to something you were certain historians will be discussing a century after your death, you’ll know what I’m talking about. There is an energy that is palpable. The people here know very well that collectively they are the seed that will eventually produce the fruit that’s going to turn this country around. No doubt about it: Zuccotti Park is the place to be. Y’all come down now, ya hear?

We ran into a guy named Ryan Michael who was giving away purple peace signs (for a small, optional donation) which John and I both purchased. “I give a lot of credit to the people who stay down here at night”, he told us, “It’s cold!” Indeed a good number of these faithful have been here since the occupation began on September 17. I’ll be down here again, of that you can be sure. But if the weather starts to get out-of-hand, or if some “private security” army like Blackwater rolls into town with violence on their minds, I always have a cozy apartment on the corner of 8th Avenue and West 52nd Street that I can retreat to. These people are the real article. They have no intention of leaving regardless of the personal cost. You gotta love ‘em. You just gotta!

If you’re naive enough to rely on Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda empire for your news and information, you’ll be forgiven for having a warped understanding of what is now happening down in Zuccotti Park. In this morning’s New York Post Toasties, they ran a front page photograph of some guy they identified as a “Occupy Wall Street protester” being dragged out of some event he was disrupting – in Queens! Obviously he was not part of the Wall Street occupation, but that’s how the Post and FOX Noise do business. They send their cameras down there and seek out the most disreputable (in their minds) people they can find, broadcasting the images as your typical Wall Street Occupier: Filthy, unkempt radicals.

BREAKING NEWS: THEY’RE LYING TO YOU. Film at eleven.

All of the people that John and I encountered on this day were very kind and well behaved. About the weirdest thing I saw was a young woman in a pink dress who ran passed me at full-speed yelling, “I’ve gotta pee really badly!!!” Other than that little incident it was a very relaxed scene. And if some of them were a tad “untidy”, well, how tidy would you be after almost two months of being exposed to the elements? I tip my hat to them all. Forgive the cliche, but these are beautiful people.

We came upon a young and intense African American kid named named Dee Jackson who was giving away granola bars. He is going to be turning twenty-one on the twenty-fifth of this month. When we happened upon him, he was in the middle of a debate with a plump young woman who had come all the way from Oregon in an apparent attempt to convert us heathen who would dare try to overthrow America’s sacred financial institutions. From New York she was headed straight to Washington DC to volunteer – full time – for the Ron Paul campaign. It was clear that Dee Jackson was not about to be converted. After she politely walked away in frustration, John and I talked to him.

“What people need to understand is that this revolution is in the embryonic stage”, he told us. “I’m only twenty-years-old and I’ve been waiting for this moment my entire life.”

Dee Jackson is in it for the long haul.

When the movie of the Wall Street occupation is made, the soundtrack CD will have drums – lots and lots and lots of drums. Having taken part in more-then-a-few dumb circles in my day, I was in my natural element. I have my dear pal, the noted magician Jeff McBride to thank for this. The guy is seriously into communal drumming. Some believe that the continual, rhythmic pounding drives away the evil spirits. I think these different drummers might be onto something. If the spirits haven’t exactly been driven away, they’re definitely in a blind panic at this hour.

Bom-boom BA-DUM!
Bada-boom BA-DUM!

It’s almost hypnotic – and very beautiful. Yeah, something is happening here and I do know what it is. Honest, Mr. Jones. Unlike their counterparts out in Oakland, California, the cops on this day – for the most part – were very nice. I think a lot of them sympathize with the aims and aspirations of the protesters. and why shouldn’t they? They are, after all, a part of the middle class that is in the process of being obliterated. And if the cops in Oakland don’t yet understand what is happening, I have a funny feeling they’ll be understanding it soon enough. I’m just guessing

It would be a mistake for anyone to interpret what is transpiring down on Wall Street as a fad that will blow over the moment the weather hits the freezing mark. The fact of the matter is that weeda people are doing what we should have done twenty-five years ago. This imbalance between rich and poor cannot possibly continue. I don’t know about you but I’m not particularly crazy about returning to a new Gilded Age. This is not just an American phenomenon. This is happening all over the world. OCCUPY THE PLANET EARTH, BABY! Anyone who thinks they can put a stop to this is in for a seriously rude awakening. A historical tide cannot be turned back. Try it sometime.

“The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart.”

-Dorothy Day 1897-1980

We might be near to that point. This is a revolution that is inspired and nurtured by love – love of country, and a boundless compassion for the suffering of humanity. On November 12, 2011, John Harragin and Tom Degan saw it with their very eyes. Come down to Zuccotti Park and see for yourselves! Just be sure to bundle up.

_________________________

TOM DEGAN is a fifty-one year old video artist who in 2006 became so thoroughly disgusted at the state of America’s national political dialogue, he decided to take time off to become a freaking civics teacher. When you’re not reading him here, check out his awesome blog “The Rant”

Early Tuesday morning, the NYPD entered Zuccotti Park, evicting the resident commie punks so that the space could be scrubbed down all nice and shiny-like. Apparently, those pesky protesters have been taking hefty dumps all over the perimeter and the stench was beginning to encroach upon the virgin nostrils of their neighboring Manhattanites.

It’s good to know my fair city is so conscientious about cleanliness.

This move serves as a roadblock to the movement, officially rousting the occupiers from their homebase.

“You are required to immediately remove all property, including tents, sleeping bags and tarps from Zuccotti Park,” the notice read. “That means you must remove the property now. You will be allowed to return to the park in several hours, when this work is complete. If you decide to return, you will not be permitted to bring your tents, sleeping bags, tarps and similar materials with you.”

I see the ploy now. Paint this movement as a slovenly, unwashed, defecating collective in a desperate appeal to the unimpeachably tidy. Nice try you fascists…I was born in FRANCE, my personal hygiene is sketchy at best!

In all seriousness, I’ve had a couple of interactions with the Occupy Wall Street-ers and I can report that there are indeed some rotten apples. I dunno whether I was mistaken for the one percent, but on one occasion, some dipshit holding a peace sign actually kicked me in the shins.

I am not joking.

I glared at him and kicked him right back. Then I turned and ran, I mean, the guy was big and black after all…and I’m a scaredy cat. Of course, I still support the cause despite that unfortunate incident.

As the smelly gathering shuffled back into the park, one could hear the haunting melodic strains of “We Shall Overcome” and the rhythmic chant: “We are the 99 per cent”. Personally I think this movement needs a better publicist. Rhythmic chants are so Lollapalooz-y.

That being said, I have every confidence the hardy 99 per cent will persevere. I stand behind you my brothers and sisters, even after getting a swift kick in my shin. All I ask for is a little less bongo and a little more of a cohesive demand. Concentrate on getting taxes raised on the rich. That’s a good one! Even if that’s the one goal you accomplish, it’d be worth the effort.

Hang in there, and try not shit on the street, it’s looked down upon. Not by me, or your average canine, but certain persnickety passers-by find it rather gauche.

In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorial board this Monday, Cain seemed completely discombobulated when asked whether he would have handled the Libya situation differently than Obama.

The craggy faced pizza man, sighed, turned his eyes up to the ceiling and practically crawled into a fetal position as he uttered, ‘I got all this stuff twirlin’ around in my head’. Eventually he composed himself enough to throw out a line of convoluted, double-speak gibberish.

“It’s not a clear yes-no answer, because all of those things I think should have been assessed, that’s what I’m saying,” he said, with more than a smidge of irritation.

“And you don’t think they were assessed?” asked an editorial board member.

“I don’t know that they were or were not assessed. I didn’t see reports of that assessment,” he responded.

Jeebus, this muldoon is even more painful to watch than Rick ‘oops’ Perry. How he ever got to be the president of the restaurant association is beyond me. Of course, I had no idea there even was a restaurant association, but that’s of no import! This doofus shouldn’t even be allowed to helm the cash register at a White Castle.

You know who he reminds me of? The father in ‘Coming To America’ Cleo McDowell. He’s got that same, backward, old-timey, Uncle Tom, egotistical cluelessness.

CLEO MCDOWELL

Personally, I think anyone who refers to themselves in the third person should automatically be disqualified as a presidential candidate.

All this of course leads to the bigger question – how is this nimbus even taken seriously? Well, that’s a two parter… A) Conservatives aren’t very smart and B) Those stump-brains just can’t bear the thought of Romney. When you’ve got collection of white guys with racist tendencies considering a black dude with a history of harassing white chicks as a viable choice for Prez, then you know something’s decidedly screwy.

The fact that we live in interesting times is an understatement. The death of the America you and I grew up in – the America our grandkids will never even know – may be a grim and depressing thing to contemplate, but witnessing the demise of this once-great nation sure as hell ain’t boring. Truth be told, it has been quite entertaining! Thanks to television and the internet, we can all have a front row seat as we behold the spectacle of the United States of America being completely and utterly destroyed from within. Isn’t technology neat?

Welcome to the United States of China.

The bottom line is this: Your country is doomed. And the sad fact that everyone is ignoring (except yours truly) is that there is no realistic way out of the proverbial hole we have dug ourselves into. Add that to the fact that the plutocracy has purchased the media, all of the Republican party, most of the Democratic party – and the Supreme Court. They now control not only the the message but the electorate as well. The right wing propaganda machine rings the bell and people salivate like Pavlov’s dogs. Take this to the bank: Americans will continue to stupidly vote against their own best interests, and the implosion will continue to compound itself – year after year.

WE’RE SPIRALING DOWNWARD! WHEEEEEEEEEEE!

And do you want to hear the punch line? I’m okay with it. There is a certain kind of schadenfreude that comes with seeing a people getting exactly what they deserve, and I imagine that I’m going to love every minute of it. It’s also a much better thing to understand the shit storm that is just around the corner than to delude oneself into believing that some nameless secular messiah is going to lead us all to the beloved Candy Land of our fantasies. A lot of us (myself included) made that mistake with Barack Obama and our hopes exploded right in our faces. It’s almost like anticipating that knock-knock-knocking sound to be Winston Churchill – only to open the door to find Neville Chamberlain standing there – utterly clueless and befuddled. And unless he is challenged in the primaries by the ghost of Eleanor Roosevelt, I’m afraid we’re stuck with him.

Why is it I drink as much as I do? Because heroin is too damned expensive.

The few pockets of hope on the horizon shouldn’t deceive us into thinking that things might change for the better any time soon. Yes, Glenn Beck’s ratings are tanking and he’s probably months away from being canceled. Incredibly his act has gotten too weird for Rupert Murdoch even. Yes, the people are rising up in Wisconsin against the rape of worker’s rights, but the GOP is hell-bent on destroying the Union Movement and I’m betting that they’ll probably succeed in the end. Yes, Sarah Palin is self-destructing before our very eyes, but there are a hundred or more other half-witted extremists ready to take her place once she exits the national stage.

Let’s not allow these little gifts to distract our attention from the larger picture, okay? The nasty truth of the matter is that Corporate America overthrew our government a long time ago – and I’ll prove it to you:

A relative handful of high rollers in the banking and investment industries made billions in the last decade looting the pensions of regular, working class Americans. Why is it that Bernie Madoff is the only one of these hideous bastards to go to prison thus far? The answer is so obvious it boarders on hilarity: He was the only one of the bunch whose victims were the rich and powerful.

MESSAGE: FUCK THE PEOPLE. BUT DON’T YOU DARE MESS WITH CORPORATE POWER, CAPISH?

Yeah, our government got overthrown a long time ago. Stop kidding yourselves. And if the movement that is now growing in Wisconsin decides to take its act on on a nationwide tour, watch how fiercely and violently Corporate Power reacts to it. As Lenny Bruce would say, “There’s gonna be a lot of dues, Jim.” Yeah. A lot of dues and a lot of blood. When Governor Walker of Wisconsin was busted last week in the greatest political prank of the decade, he told a person pretending to be one of the uber right wing Koch Brothers that they had “talked about” sending hired goons into the crowd to stir up some violence. It’s only a matter of time before mere words are transformed into deeds.

The plutocrats are determined to eradicate the rights of working people – and if that means the murder of two-thousand or more innocent human beings – tough shit, baby. If you’re naive enough to believe that something that atrocious would never happen in this country, think again. If you think I’m talking like a crazy person here, it’s obvious that you don’t know a blessed thing about the history of the American Labor Movement. Mass murder committed on the orders of “the captains of industry” Is not really a new concept. It has happened before and if the rabble forget their place, it will happen again. Watch your ass, Bubbah.

Just look what’s happening at this very moment! After thirty years of economic plunder by the richest one percent, whom are we now being told is responsible for the financial carnage that resulted – the very people who are in fact responsible for it??? Nah! That would be way too easy. Then who’s to be held accountable for the hard times? Hold onto your sides: It’s the unions. That’s right! The teacher’s union in particular. The people who are educating your kids are trying to destroy this grand and glorious land of ours! They’re Communists! CAN I GET A WITNESS???

But seriously, folks….

“We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

- Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

BAD NEWS:
Justice Brandeis is dead and he’s not coming back. Organized criminals rule America. This is the way it’s going to be from now on. Get used to living in a country in ruins. On that happy note….
_________________________

TOM DEGAN is a fifty-one year old video artist who in 2006 became so thoroughly disgusted at the state of America’s national political dialogue, he decided to take time off to become a freaking civics teacher. When you’re not reading him here, check out his awesome blog “The Rant”

Yeah this comes as no shock whatsoever…I mean look at the dude’s face, it positively screams REPRESSION!

Gawker – the site that originally broke the story – has just posted this follow-up:

In the past 10 days, two D.C.-area transgender women contacted us, each with a separate story about exchanging emails with the ex-congressman. One sent us an ad that Lee allegedly posted on Craigslist in search of trans women; the other sent us a never-before-seen photo that she says Lee sent her after they started chatting by email. Taken together, they present a possible explanation to those who have wondered why such a tame “sex scandal” forced Lee’s hand so quickly.

No wonder he resigned so quickly. I knew there had to be more to the story than just getting caught lying about his age and showing off his shirtless pecs.

I feel sorry for these repressed Republicans, I really do. They’re all so caught up in their own charade, it must be a living nightmare. Personally, I think 90% of all Republican officials are self-hating closet cases…either that or they’ve got socio-pathic tendencies.

Lack of empathy folks…and a serious lack of reality.

Full story at GAWKER

Boy oh boy…when this bomb drops, I don’t see how this muldoon will have any shred of credibility left.

The Daily Beast got their hot hands on an advance manuscript of former Sarah Palin aide Frank Bailey‘s In Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years, and it’s blazing stuff!

I’m just going to cut to the chase and post a few of the highlights:

While she was governor, a political enemy accused Palin of not securing infant Trig in a car seat, and Bailey confirms this:

“…I’d seen Sarah drive off with little Piper (5 at the time)—by law required to sit in a car seat—not even buckled, sprawled out on the back seat or climbing from the back to the front to sit on Todd’s lap when he drove. We even had a photo of Piper in the back seat of their car after a drive of several hours, asleep on top of her unbuckled seatbelt and definitely not in the required child seat.”

According to Bailey, she considered her political career a ‘divine calling’:

“I was at Wasilla Bible Church…and the service was awesome b.c. he talked about just knowing that you know that you know…you know when you’re called for something…there’s no guarantee of the outcome but you just know, with a confidence that can only comes (sic) from God, that you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, even though there’s no crystal ball to tell you how it will all end. Our pastor…talked about Solomon having to build the temple when he was young & inexperienced & there were political tensions and struggles all over the place…my mom looked at me and said: do you think he’s talking to you?!”

Bailey then writes about her husband Todd’s reaction to a phony naked photo of his wife that hit the internet:

Todd’s response was “Is it real?”

“He laughed in his quiet Todd-way and said, ‘Well she walks around the house with her robe open and with all those windows we have, well, you know…”

Bailey writes: “If it were my wife, faked X-rated photo or not, I’d be horrified. Todd? His was a Ha, ha, what-the-hell response. He seemed not to care much either way. When I assured him that it was probably a PhotoShopped job, that someone had taken her head and pasted it onto some Playmate of the Year’s body, I felt as if I’d wasted words. Naked photos: not such a big deal.”

Man…I can’t wait to read this thing, should be good for at least 10 healthy dumps on the porcelain throne. If I were going to be totally honest, despite the fact that this woman is an irredeemable imbecile, I can’t help feeling just a weeeeee bit sorry for her. I dunno, she’s just so astoundingly, colossally moronic.

I guess I’m just an old softy.

Check out the Daily Beast site for more details…