Republicans Say The Darndest Things

Whenever Fox hosts a debate, I'm always stuck watching a couple of minutes of O'Reilly before it starts.  I really can't stand him.  Arrogance has to be earned through superior intelligence, but O'Reilly's combination of crazy arrogance and astounding stupidity really defies description.  Also, there appears to be a muffin controversy going on, I'm sure I don't want to know.

Tonight's debate is sponsored by Fox News and Google, and being streamed on Youtube.  Fox anchors Chris Wallace and Bret Baier are doing the questioning, along with Fox "anchor" Megyn Kelly.  Also, there's a new guy on the stage.  Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson is joining in the fun tonight.  Let's do it.

9:04PM: Perry promises that we'll see a more extensive jobs plan from him, ya know, eventually.

9:05PM: Mitt Romney has a 59 point economic plan.  For a minute there I thought he was going to go over all 59 points, but he stopped at four.  In the earlier debates, it was a seven point plan.  Mitt Romney will keep adding points to his plan until we promise to vote for him.

9:08PM: Bachmann says "people deserve to keep every dollar they earn".  Is she proposing a 0% tax rate?  Somebody had to do it eventually.

9:10PM: Santorum boldly comes out against public worker unions.  It makes sense that Rick hates teachers, some of them know science, and boy does Rick hate science, and gays, and women.

9:11PM: Gingrich says you should have to participate in a training program in order to collect unemployment insurance, because "people should not get money for doing nothing".  Training for what, Newt?  There aren't any fucking jobs!

9:14PM: Huntsman basically dismissed solar and wind energy as crazy future stuff we can't do right now, and sadly, he's probably right.  Ya know, I don't think Ronald Reagan gets called an idiot enough for taking the solar panels off the white house.

9:15PM: Wallace asks Cain about his hilarious 999 tax plan.  Herman understands how much Americans hate math.  Math tests would be much easier if all the answers were just 9.

9:17PM: Question for Ron Paul from a woman named Brandy and a guy in a backwards hat.  Ron promises to veto any bill that violates the 10th amendment.  Of course, that's only going to happen in the crazy alternate universe where Ron Paul actually gets to be President.

9:19PM: Not a good start for Gary Johnson, who says he's run for two political offices in his life, but he was counting the Governorship of New Mexico twice.  He reminds me of someone, but I can't put my finger on it yet.

9:21: We just learned that 44% of Fox viewers think you aren't rich if you earn $500,000 a year.  That concerns me, and so does the fact the Fox's percentages added up to 101.

9:27PM: Romney keeps referring to Perry's book.  Perry's face while he's doing it says "go ahead Mitt, keep tellin em you know how to read, and they'll keep votin for me".

9:28PM: Poor Mitt, he had one good idea as a Governor, and now he has to pretend it never happened.  By the way, is this a debate or a book fair?

9:30PM: Does Mitt Romney believe President Obama is a socialist?  Romney called him something worse, suggesting that the President is sort of European-y.  Ouch.

9:31PM: Kelly asked Huntsman about how 66% of people agree with raising taxes on the wealthy.  Instead of just pointing out that most people are idiots and we shouldn't be putting economic policy up for a majority vote, he went off on a whole taxes=freedom tangent.  I think Jon's been hanging around these morons too long.

9:34PM: Cain says the EPA has gone wild.  Worst "gone wild" video ever.  Then he finishes with "the solution is...fix it!"  OK then.

9:35PM: Gingrich always seems like he's angry that someone dared to ask him a question.  Crap! I forgot to award the prize for the first mention of Ronald Reagan, I think Huntsman got it about ten minutes back.

9:36PM: Everybody gets 30 seconds to bash the Department of Education.  I think my favorite part was Mitt Romney's suggestion that the teachers unions hire more teachers.  That's going to be kind of tough when we're busting the teachers unions and eliminating all federal funding for public education. 

9:43PM: Bachmann says she'd go over to the Department of Education and "turn out the lights".  I think she's got how you eliminate a cabinet department confused with how you put a parrot to sleep.

9:45PM: Ohhh, we're talking about the stupid border fence again.  This is like Groundhog Day, only instead of hilarious Bill Murray antics, I'm getting terrible Republican ideas over and over again.

If anyone's interested, here's what I think about immigration http://somethingclever13.blogspot.com/2010/04/guardians-of-secret.html
I don't know if I'm right, but I know I'm smarter than these people.

9:57PM: Fox appears to be using google searches for coupons as a measure of economic health.  It didn't even lead to a question, it was just two minutes of random facts about what people are googling followed by a commercial break.  Sigh.

10:03PM: Foreign policy time.  Romney suggests we should never disagree with Israel, ever, on anything.  I guess that's one way to do it.

10:04PM: Everyone shut up and let Ron Paul talk! Damnit! What do I care what Herman Cain thinks about foreign policy?  Do they have a lot of Godfather's Pizza franchises in Jerusalem?

10:06PM: Perry is doing the old George Bush "watch me pronounce these foreigner names" trick.  They actually asked him a really good question about what he'd do if Pakistan lost command and control of their nuclear weapons.  Spoiler alert...Rick didn't answer the question.

10:07PM: Rick Santorum is the Mozart of warmongering.

10:10PM: Stupid question about the foreign aid budget.  Who screens these questions?

10:11PM: Somehow Bret Baier's question about our Cuba policy led Gary Johnson right back to his talking point about balancing the federal budget. 

10:12PM: They went through the whole foreign policy section without asking Ron Paul or the former ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, any questions.  Fuck you Fox.

10:16PM: The Republican crowd just booed a gay soldier.  Proud moment for Florida.

10:16PM: Santorum refers to repealing don't ask don't tell as giving homosexual soldiers a "special privilege".  Somehow, in Rick Santorum's mind, kicking gay people out of the military is making sex "not an issue" and treating everyone the same.  I've made this point before.  If you hate a certain group of people, just say that, and then we can judge you.  Don't stand there and try to convince me that not discriminating against a certain group of people is somehow "treating them special".  You are awarded no points, Rick Santorum, and may your imaginary god have mercy on your soul.

10:23PM: If Chris Wallace isn't going to make these people actually answer the questions, I really don't know what he's doing there. 

10:26PM: Bachmann refuses to apologize for suggesting that the HPV vaccine causes mental retardation and defends herself by saying she never made that claim, she just repeated it when someone else said it.  It's like she's trying in each debate to say something stupider than anything she said in the previous debate.

10:27PM: I'm still a little concerned that Rick Perry has to defend his opposition to cancer, but he's doing a solid job of it.  I don't know if he actually gives a crap about preventing cervical cancer in Texas, but he's certainly doing a good job of seeming like he does.

10:30PM: Romney only has two gears, way too passive or super-dismissive asshole.  He's going to need to find a middle ground.

10:32PM: Perry seems a little frustrated right now, like he's tired of this.  I don't blame him, he just spent three minutes arguing with Michele Bachmann about whether or not preventing cancer is good.  But he gets this really whiny tone in his voice when he gets annoyed, he needs to work on that.

10:38PM: Hunstman just mentioned some small town sheriff from New Hampshire.  Now that's what I call pandering!

10:40PM: Mitt says we're the only people in the world who put our hands over our hearts during the national anthem.  That can't be true, can it?

I just want to make this point again, because we're smack in the middle of a Reagan-fest right now.  Ronald Reagan was a corporate shill who destroyed the middle class and set us on the path that led to the economic disaster of 2008.  If our economy never comes all the way back, and America is never quite the same, history will record that our downfall started at the moment of Ronald Reagan's inauguration.  This insidious idea that Reagan was some kind of great leader is one of the many things currently destroying the Republican party.

10:48PM: Why does Newt always have to make some kind of snide remark about every question?  Just answer the questions man. I know you're not that bright, but they aren't that hard.

10:51PM: The final question asked each candidate who on the stage they would choose as a running mate.  Rick Santorum suggested that he would run with Newt Gingrich.  I'm gonna go hide under my bed for a while now.

A Christmas Quorum

Twas the night before Christmas
and all through the House...and Senate
not a creature was stirring
not even a mouse...or Senator Bob Bennett

The stockings were hung
in the cloakrooms with care
in the hopes that campaign contributions
would soon be in there

The lame duck Congress worked hard
in their own special way
sometimes they voted
on more than one thing a day!

It was jarring, alarming
amazing, stupendous
so what if some of the things
they passed were horrendous

First came a deal
on the Bush tax cuts
did they make the hard choices?
No, silly, that would be nuts

Instead they just gave everyone
whatever they wanted
tax cuts for all
and spending undaunted

And earmarks as far
as the eye could see
project after special project
pinned to the Christmas tree

The DREAM act died
on the Senate floor
Republicans say it was amnesty
sneaking in the back door

I don't care much either way
so I'm not going to panic
but Republicans; good luck winning elections
with zero votes from Hispanics

Democrats fought against
don't ask don't tell
while Republicans fretted
about unit cohesion going to hell

But you can't ask people to fight
for our country indivisible
while simultaneously asking them
to remain invisible

So finally they repealed
that bigoted piece of crap
and then...the gay army took over the world!
oh no! it was a trap!

The 9/11 first responders bill
can't get votes from 60 men
suddenly we're all worried
about deficits again

For a fraction of the cost
of tax cuts for the wealthy
we could help keep real heroes
alive and healthy

Where is the outrage and shouting
that usually abounds?
even John Q. nine-elevington himself,
Mayor Daffy Giuliani, is nowhere to be found

If that bill doesn't pass
by the end of this week
I wish everyone who blocks it
a horrible, slow, coughing death
(they don't all have to rhyme people. My blog, my rules)

Televangelist Beck railed
against the food safety act
clearly it was some kind of
big government attack

On our personal liberties
but Glenn brought the heat
defending our holy right
to eat tainted meat

The START treaty sits
unratified and useless
apparently we're still afraid of the Russians
and I have to admit to feeling a little clueless

Didn't conservative hero Reagan
single-handedly win the cold war?
isn't that why we forgive him
for being a big corporate whore?

As I write this it looks like
START will pass soon
don't worry about Russia
they couldn't even beat us to the moon

I'm not used to the federal government
doing so much so quickly
this Congress spent its first 22 months
abdicating responsibility so slickly

Frankly, I'm impressed
with the savvy of the President
some tough words for his own party
and now he's everyone's favorite D.C. resident

But success in politics is fickle
and this could all go awry
as Republicans remind their base
that he's still a black guy

For now, with everyone bitching
on the left and on the right
I hope the President understands
he must be doing something right

Promises, Promises

I've decided to run for Congress. Maybe the House, maybe the Senate. Hell, maybe both. I've been watching election coverage for the last two or three months (it feels like about 13 years) and these people are idiots. I could totally wipe the floor with them, but I'm going to need some campaign promises, so here goes.

First of all, I'll take money from anyone. You hear me? ANYONE! Karl Rove, George Soros, nefarious foreign entities, illegal aliens, space aliens, Kermit the Frog, anyone. And I'll take it whenever. During the campaign, while I'm in office, after I've resigned in shame over a scandal (campaign promise 1B, I promise to resign in shame over a scandal. You'll never see it coming, but it'll be fun and interesting and you'll be glad you voted for me).

By the way, why is it that neither party gives a crap about our government being for sale until they don't like the buyers? Wouldn't it be better for everyone if the people we elect could spend more time governing and less time running around begging for donations? Actually, now that I think about the current crop of people we've elected, and the people we're about to elect, it's probably a good idea to have them doing anything but governing. Ignore this paragraph.

I promise to cut taxes and the deficit. How? Through serious, substantive cuts to the federal budget? No, don't be ridiculous. Through the mystical magic of the free market. Here's how it works:
Step 1: Cut taxes.
Step 2: Abracadabra!
Step 3: No more deficits, balanced budget.
It's that simple. What? You don't get it? That's because you're stupid. You need to read a little less about economics and a little more about Ronald Reagan (campaign promise 2B, I promise to call voters stupid, like all the time, at least once a day. That's called being bold).

I promise to find a way to get rid of some of those pesky constitutional amendments. I know the first amendment talks about respecting no establishment of religion and not prohibiting the free exercise of religion, but that was written like 250 years ago or whatever, before we knew what the mooslims were really up to. Obviously, what the founders really meant by freedom of religion was the right to worship jesus however you want. I'll put that in the hopper and we'll start working on language for the new and improved first amendment.

Also, the 8th amendment. No cruel and unusual punishment? That just seems silly now. I bet if we could talk to Thomas Jefferson today he'd say how silly that was. In fact, I bet they were just joking about that. Those founders, always with the funny jokes. What good is punishment if it isn't cruel and unusual? Why even bother?

No changes to the 2nd amendment though. That would be insane. Firearms haven't changed at all since the 18th century. If the 2nd amendment was good enough for muskets, it's certainly good enough for handguns and semi-automatic rifles. And we need our gun rights and our militias, you never know when the British might come looking for another re-match.

I promise to pass a law requiring all TV shows to make at least 52 new episodes every year. No breaks, no re-runs, just pure entertainment. Any show breaking this law will be punished with a mandated guest appearance by one or more of the following awful celebrities:
David Hasselhoff
Urkel
Rosie O'Donnell
Jamie Kennedy
anyone from the Jersey Shore
Gene Simmons
anyone who's ever been on a VH1 reality show
Roseanne
Weird Al Yankovic
Don't think that's a harsh enough punishment? Just think about how quickly a Weird Al episode could murder Glee. Speaking of TV, I promise to get rid of American Idol. I just can't take it anymore.

I promise to end all the crazy weather. Hurricanes, nor'easters, crazy heat, random hail storms, now apparently there's some kind of wind storm heading for the midwest (seriously? a wind storm? when did we move to Mars?) I'm sick of it, aren't you?

Plan A is to hire someone to build us a weather machine. Evil geniuses do it all the time, and with my magically balanced budget, we could afford to hire one. A weather machine is plan A because it's really more of a proactive approach, we wouldn't just be hiding from the weather, we'd be on the offensive against it.

In the absence of an evil genius willing to take on the challenge of plan A, plan B is building a dome over the country. It would be clear, so we could still see the sky, and it would be broken up into little retractable sections, so we could open it up when the weather is nice. And we could collect the water as it rolls off the dome when it rains, so we'd still get water. The dome plan is pretty bullet-proof, but I'd still prefer a weather machine.

I promise to end don't ask don't tell. No jokes here, this is just such a stupid policy, why are we so stupid sometimes? Hey! I promise to start a commission to find out why we're so stupid sometimes. I'd have to find not stupid people to be on the commission though, otherwise I'd just get a stupid answer. Governing is hard.

I'm out of promises for now, but it's starting to sound like I'm going to need some unilateral power to get some of these things done. Sure, I could get 60 Senate votes for a weather machine (provided we had parts of it built in 30 different states), but 60 votes for ending don't ask don't tell? Ridiculous. New plan, I'm running for President. Wait no, the President can't do whatever the hell he wants either. Hmmm...how about Dictator? No, Americans are pretty wary of dictators. King? I'd have to learn how to speak with a British accent, no dice.

I've got it! I'm running for Oprah. She could do all of these things and nobody could stop her (and even if someone could, they wouldn't dare try). I also hear she's leaving her show soon, so we'll need a new Oprah. I think I'd be perfect, and then I could do all this cool stuff I just told you about. Vote for me for new Oprah!...and a better tomorrow.

Just Tell Us How

I was watching some footage from Sarah Palin's tea time speech over the weekend, and it struck me that she was doing something that's one of my major beefs with the Republican party right now. She kept talking about things she wanted, and things we should do, and things that should happen, and a lot of them sounded just fine with me. But Sarah, like a lot of politicians, seemed to keep leaving out one key point in all of her proposed ideas. How? How does she propose we get to where she wants to be?

My favorite example was her take on fighting terrorism; "we win, they lose". I'm not making that up, I actually saw it on tape. Awesome! Why didn't the rest of us think of that? Unfortunately, I can only remember her mentioning two actual strategies she might employ. I don't expect her to lay out her whole secret plan for defeating the terrorists, but I'm going to need more than this.

First, divine intervention (once again, I'm not making that up). Let's try something. You start praying and I'll start shooting at you (and let me be clear, I'm not shooting at you because you're praying, you're praying because I'm about to start shooting at you, which I already decided to do for some unrelated reason). Let's see who comes out on top. I don't mind a President who prays a little about how to deal with enemies, really, I don't. Even with my not believing and all, I can accept prayer as a way many people clear their minds and focus. I'm just not willing to accept it as a key part of the strategy.

Second, not giving Miranda rights to terrorists. I honestly don't care what we do with terror suspects. I feel the same way about this as I do about the death penalty. I have an opinion, but if the government is doing something different, I'm not going to get all worked up about it. But I have a question. Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, people like them, they always tell us how our rights are inalienable, given to us not by the government, but by the man in the sky. If that's the case, don't those rights apply to everyone? Isn't Sarah and Glenn's god in charge of everything? Inalienable, god-given rights don't really sound like the kind of thing you have to be American to get.

Also, isn't this whole terror thing about us defending our way of life? And doesn't our way of life involve, ya know, rights and stuff? Look, I'm not in charge of what we do with terror suspects, and I don't know enough about it to say I think we should do one thing or another, and I'm perfectly happy with us not giving people rights if the experts think that's best. But things you say have to be congruent with other things you say. Rights can't be endowed to us be an omnipotent creator but also only apply to certain people. We can defend ourselves against terror by stepping outside of our usual rule of law, but don't tell me we're defending our values and our way of life by not adhering to them.

I'm wandering a bit. Seriously, I DON'T CARE what we do with terror suspects, send them home, kill them, shoot them into space, whatever. I just want to know what the plan is. How does Sarah think we can get from here to "we win, they lose"? Can we even win? Do you see terrorists ever surrendering and signing a peace treaty? Me neither. Can we convert or kill every terrorist? I don't think so. I don't think this is winnable. This is the new world order, it's how things are from now on. We'll be in this fight for decades or centuries until there's no more America. And then the new America will have to deal with it. That's what I think. Sarah thinks there's a way to win. That's much better than what I think, but I need to hear how.

Federal spending is another one of these things. Both parties do basically the same thing on this, but I have more of a beef with Republicans. Democrats are supposed to be stupid with money, they're Democrats. Republicans are supposed to know better. Everyone wants to cut federal spending, balance the federal budget, make the government live the same way American families live. On the other hand, both parties can't wait to tell me how they're not going to cut defense, social security, medicare, medicaid or national security spending. Why? Because cutting any of those things would be terrible politics.

Hmmmm. Social security, national security and defense, medicare and medicaid and interest on the federal debt made up somewhere around 65% of last year's federal budget (I refuse to do research for anything I'm not getting paid for, but I'm pretty sure I'm within a few percent one way or the other). If we spent on just those things, and completely cut everything else, we might break even. So, how do we balance the federal budget without cutting any of the areas where we spend real money?

Am I suggesting we cut these areas? Well, I'm 30. I've already spent 13 years paying into social security. Good luck getting me to vote for you if you're telling me I can't get a check when I retire (by the way, I don't see me living to 65, or whatever the retirement age will be when I get older, 91 maybe? I'm just saying, ya know, when I hypothetically retire). And good luck getting anyone to vote for you if you're suggesting cutting defense. Everyone wants to cut taxes too, don't even get me started on that. Balancing the federal budget is a great idea. I just don't see it being possible anytime soon. Some politicians talk like it's possible. That's much better than what I think, but please tell the rest of us how.

I see a lot of issues like this. Republicans keep saying they want health care reform too. They want tort reform. I'm OK with that as long as it restricts frivolous malpractice suits and not people's ability to sue insurance companies for screwing them. They want interstate portability. Speaking of asking how, someone tell me how letting insurance companies sell insurance across state lines without any federal regulations on them doesn't result in every insurance company being headquartered out of a P.O. Box in Delaware or whichever other state is willing to regulate and tax them least, or not at all. More importantly, Republicans say they have a plan to reform health care too. Fine, great, I can't wait to hear it.

Here's my point. People will say I'm wrong about everything. Maybe. I don't know a whole lot about terrorism or balancing the federal budget or health care. I'm not saying I know the right way to handle any of this. Here's what I'm saying. For either political party to campaign and speak as if they will win the war on terror, or balance the budget, or solve one of our other seemingly unsolvable problems, but not actually have a plan to do so. That's criminal. Have a plan. Be ready to do something when you get elected. Otherwise, go away, because you're not helping.

PS...there's been a lot of talk about ending the don't ask, don't tell policy since the President mentioned it in the State of the Union Address. I'd like to write about this, but there's not really a whole blog here. It's a bigoted and incredibly stupid policy that makes some people more equal than others AND prevents us from having the best possible military at a time when we're fighting two wars. Anyone with a working brain should be all for ending it, and that's really all I have to say about that.