Freak Show March 28, 2009
Posted by naughtwirthreeding in Entertainment and Media, Humor, News & Events, Politics.comments closed
While many of us in the pragmatic center have watched in barely-concealed amusement as the Democrats and unwitting (ha!) media accomplices have successfully baited Rush Limbaugh and various GOP luminaries into a frenzy of nonsensical posturing reminiscent of an imaginary Ninja war between various Southpark cartoon characters, some “cooler heads” are attempting to settle the rhetoric down. I would like to outline why that is actually a bad idea.
Rush Limbaugh is a polarizing character. People either love him or hate him, very few are able to stay indifferent. The ones that do stay indifferent are, for the most part, unfamiliar with him except for when his antics spill over into the mainstream media. Those times are most often when Mr. Limbaugh is at his most racist, homophobic, or self-destructive best. In other words, when Rush Limbaugh makes the CNN prime-time newscast, it’s never because he’s done something good.
Rush Limbaugh’s audience is necessarily capped at roughly 20% of the American population. Why? Because we just established in the last election that at least 53% of us disagree with his policy positions so much that we would vote for the Democratic candidate; and because I would say more than half of the remaining 47% just aren’t as hard-core as Mr. Limbaugh, and aren’t willing to go as far as he does on issues concerning blacks, homosexuals, and the impoverished. So while they believe in things such as life beginning at conception and keeping a conservative rein on the country’s budget, they don’t want to revert back to pre-Civil War social policy.
The Leave-Limbaugh-Alone crowd protest that since this latest media melee involving Mr. Limbaugh began, his ratings have skyrocketed. True, however I think you’ll find that overall his numbers are no higher than a linear function of the number of stations he has carrying his program multiplied by his highest historical ratings from previous years. Conclusion: listeners who were listening to him anyhow at one point or another have returned, but he is not drawing new converts. Essentially, he is not doing any more damage than he was before, he’s just getting his frothy-mouthed, Ditto-head knuckle-draggers more wound up than usual.
This could be easily managed, and the damage to public property minimized, by simply adding a mild sedative to targeted regional supplies of beef jerky.
The other thing that is going on is, with the current leadership void within the Republican Party, the person with the most media exposure is the one who is going to presume to lead the party as the mid-terms approach in 2010. With the losers from the 2008 primaries failing to step forward and assert their authority, that person is presently Rush Limbaugh. So like it or not, Mr. Limbaugh is the de facto GOP party leader for the foreseeable future. Republicans will look back on that situation and wonder how they could ever have been so stupid.
Meanwhile, what is going on with the rest of the population? Well, the equally frothy-mouthed Limbaugh-Lynch-Mob will continue their over-reactionary ebb and flow as they usually do. Pragmatic liberals and progressives will shake their heads and chuckle at the stupidity of the things that come out of his mouth. And the indifferent will stay indifferent… until he gets one news item, or off-beat quote, or legislative curve-ball that’s right in his wheel-house.
And that, folks, is where this all pays off.
Let’s say, for instance, that the Democrats introduce a bill to strengthen existing Equal Opportunity legislation. The discussion on the Rush Limbaugh program instantly becomes an endless regurgitation of race issues, fifteen hours a week, ad infinitum. At some point in that red neck circle jerk, either Limbaugh himself or one of his listeners will say something so radical and racially insensitive that the mainstream media will have no choice but to run the story.
So now we have the Big Three networks plus CNN and other mainstream cable outlets running his quote every hour on the hour, as it was heard on the air. Radio talk shows, newspapers (if there are any left by then), and the internet will be lighting themselves on fire covering the story. It will be impossible for anyone to escape the media blitz: they will be forced to confront the issue both from the perspective of whether they think Mr. Limbaugh was right in saying it, and also what they themselves believe. Most Christian conservatives outside the deep south, as well as centrists and blue dog Democrats, will oppose the racist tone of his statement. And that’s when you unleash the hounds. But not on Rush Limbaugh…
Republican politicians at every level get in front of cameras and microphones for a variety of reasons most days of the week. Inevitably, with the story garnering such national attention, the press will ask them to comment on Mr. Limbaugh’s statements. If we’re lucky, and the press is as ratings-hungry as they usually are, they will ask the “gotcha” question: “Are you willing to renounce Mr. Limbaugh’s statement formally here on the air?”
Game. Over.
If they do, they instantly have made themselves an enemy of the most visible, most popular, and most virulent conservative media host on planet earth, who remains the effective leader of their party. If they don’t, they get branded a racist and they lose their next bid for re-election. In such a scenario, we would see everyone from State House Reps to U.S. Senators get caught in that trap and go down hard. The Republicans would easily be marginalized en masse as racists for the next election cycle, and Rush Limbaugh would become the symbol of their hatred and intolerance.
Long and short, there is very little down-side to continuing to feed raw meat to Mr. Limbaugh and those that might cross his path. Making him the quarterback calling the plays is a smart thing to do for as long as he and his minions are willing to run with the ball. Rush Limbaugh couldn’t win an intellectual tug-of-war with a tenth grader, and despite his popularity with the dumb-witted, he will never represent the opinions of sane, courteous, responsible, intelligent human beings. It is only a matter of time before the philosophies he advocates become as unwelcome to us as child abuse and infanticide. Keeping him under the white-light scrutiny of the mainstream media is the fastest way to ensure that he is reduced to freak-show status in the mainstream American consciousness.
The GOP: Past, Present, and Future March 27, 2009
Posted by naughtwirthreeding in Humor, Life, News & Events, Politics.comments closed
It occurs to me that the crux of the underlying Republican philosophy is that everything in the world would be made so much better if we would simply return to the exact socio-economic and political environment as we had in 1845.
Think about it: blacks were in chains, gays were in the closet, women were in the kitchen, and you could beat your child with impunity. No minimum wage, no child labor laws, no EEOC, no environmental or financial regulation, and rich white guys could literally do anything they wanted and get away with it. I have yet to see a single Republican legislative initiative that does not seek to advance the tenets encompassed in this overarching theme.
* * * * *
Republicans have unveiled a plan to reduce global warming by implementing a system of “cap and trade” on breathing. They cite GOP-commissioned studies which indicate that reducing human breathing would lower the amount of carbon emissions to the same degree as raising fuel efficiency standards. Under this plan, each individual would receive a certain number of credits (or breaths) for himself and his family. Any pets would receive a half-credit. Additional credits for supplementary breathing that the family would need to do would be obtained at auction, with the proceeds going towards financing a tax cut for wealthy conservative talk show hosts.
* * * * *
Realizing that the immediate future is all but lost, Republican strategists are looking to a more long-term solution for their leadership problems. Memos leaked earlier this week outline the plan as follows.
Sperm from Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Bennett, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Clarence Thomas, Don Imus and Rush Limbaugh will be combined with eggs from Christine Todd Whitman, Condoleeza Rice, Mary Matalin, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Margaret Thatcher and Heidi Klum.
They will get Sarah Palin loaded on Captain Morgan, implant her with the zygotes, and administer a small dose of feral badger pheromone to ensure the children will all be male. Then Justice Alito will have his way with her, for good measure.
The resulting children will be raised together in a conservative home with beatings and lots of junk food, read to from antiquated economics textbooks, exposed to porn and white supremacist literature from a very young age, and encouraged to resolve disagreements through fisticuffs.
The resulting children will be raised together in a conservative home with beatings and lots of junk food, read to from antiquated economics textbooks, exposed to porn and white supremacist literature from a very young age, and encouraged to resolve disagreements through fisticuffs.
The children will initially be home schooled by carefully screened college professors, none of that liberal namby-pamby, every-opinion-counts nonsense: just creationist, supply-side, survival-of-the-richest, let-them-eat-caviar conservatism. Grade school, high school, and university will proceed in the same manner.
Their nannies will be supermodels who submit to any sexual requests on command. They will also be provided with any liquor, firearms or illicit drugs they would like. Transportation will be provided by Rolls Royce limousine, private jet, and to keep up appearances, pickup truck.
Before being unleashed into the world, they will be brought young women of upstanding virtue and below-average IQ from powerful East Coast political families to marry. All will be given falsified dossiers indicating graduation from the best universities, years of military service, professional experience, and legal tenure. Some will be given well-behaved children dressed in Ralph Lauren button-downs and slacks.
All parties involved in their early upbringing will be killed and buried in a nuclear waste facility outside of Stern Falls, Idaho.
From there, elections will be rigged in Florida, Ohio, and California to ensure that three of them will ascend to the U.S. House and Senate, and four will take partnership positions with law firms in New York and D.C.
By age 35, the seven will fill the positions of U.S. President, Senate Majority Leader, Speaker of the House, and four of the nine seats on the Supreme Court.
Either that, or they will all be in rehab, failed marriages, or jail.
The Fox Blaming The Farmer March 18, 2009
Posted by naughtwirthreeding in Humor, Money & Investing, News & Events, Politics, The Economy.comments closed
I have just watched the opening remarks of the House Special Subcommittee hearing on the AIG bailout and bonuses, and while hardly any of what I heard surprised me, I had to make sure something was committed to the blogosphere to set the record straight.
Most of the Democratic Representatives’ comments were the usual posturing speeches of outrage and empty threats, essentially grandstanding on national TV to get a snippet they can post on their web site. But the comments made by a good portion of the Republican Representatives rose to a new level of disingenuousness and hypocrisy, even for Republicans.
My main complaint is that these opportunistic little bastards are trying to pawn off on the American people that the root of the problem is the government getting involved at all. The government intervening in the AIG situation was wrong to begin with, and to exert control over the corporation now is just going to make matters worse. Beyond that, the current administration has mishandled the situation and should be ashamed of itself.
Hmm… Interesting that this wasn’t the tune you were humming when it was YOUR president calling the shots, when this whole thing started.
George W. Bush, his brain-dead lackeys at Treasury and the clueless reactionary Ben Bernanke over at the Federal Reserve — nominated by Bush and approved by the GOP-controlled Senate — were the architects of this entire debacle. Any fault with the mismanagement of the AIG situation falls squarely in the laps of the Republican Party. President Obama and the new Congress have been bravely trying to handle the situation handed to them, complete with all the back-alley deals and wink-and-a-nudge loopholes inserted into these AIG arrangements by bought and paid for members of the GOP.
Because let’s face it: AIG and corporate America is the GOP’s sole constituency! The purpose of having Republicans in positions of power is to make money for the people who supported their campaigns. Why else would the GOP and their associated soft-money PAC’s be raking in tens of billions of dollars exclusively from corporate donors, both at home and abroad? The GOP’s purpose in Washington is to sweeten legislation for corporate America, and put money in the pockets of the people who keep them in office.
And if you’re looking for a real-world, in-the-news example of this, look no further than Sarah Palin’s nominee to the Alaska Supreme Court. The Governor in Alaska is not able to choose anyone they want, they are restricted to a list handed to them by a panel. The list handed to Governor Palin consisted of two names: a staunch environmentalist who would, no doubt, rule against oil companies in matters before the court; and a staunch — some might say ‘activist’ — pro-choice female judge, one sure to strike down parental notification laws and other measures intended to reduce access to abortions.
So given the choice between a judge who would rule against oil companies, MASSIVE donors to the Palin campaign and Republican causes in general, and a judge who would cripple the pro-life movement in Alaska, a cause to which she is, we were led to believe, so ideologically aligned, which one do you think she chose?
You guessed it. There will be a pro-choice judge on the Alaska Supreme Court, because Ms. Palin likes her money more than her pro-life stance. Despite the constant haranguing during the Presidential campaign about Governor Palin’s fervent pro-life beliefs, because she wouldn’t give up those campaign donations, she is going to allow more unborn babies to die. She, like all other Republican politicians, will give up on any ideological position if it means they make more money. They’re for sale, every damned one of them, and corporate America knows it.
So while the Wall Street hypercapitalist mercenaries were playing fast and loose with federal securities regulations, Republicans turned a blind eye. In fact, not only did they reduce enforcement and deregulate beyond any level of sane oversight, they intentionally *refused* to implement regulations that would have prevented the AIG mess from happening in the first place. And when the excrement hit the air conditioner, it was the Republicans who put together the sweetheart deals that essentially allowed AIG managers to spread the cash around to themselves and preferred employees, then take off for the Cayman Islands.
Where were these hypocrites when all of this was happening? Where was the outrage then? Why weren’t they pounding on doors and screaming at microphones trying to convene Special Subcommittee hearings? They were back home counting their corporate campaign donations, it would seem.
So while most of what you hear at these hearings is just bluster no matter what side of the aisle the Congressman sits, the Republican representatives on this particular committee have as much credibility making the speeches I heard today as a fox blaming the farmer for having his chickens snatched. This happened on their watch, with their President. And thus, we have today witnessed a new low in Republican hypocrisy, which few thought was even possible.
