Author Archives: Stephen VanDyke

An updated knee-slapper for a not-so-updated president:

A lobbyist on his way home from work in Washington, DC, came to a dead halt in traffic and thought to himself, “Wow, this seems worse than usual.”

He noticed a police officer walking between the lines of stopped cars, so he rolled down his window and asked, “Officer, what’s the hold-up?”

The officer replied, “The president is depressed, so he stopped his motorcade and is threatening to douse himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. He says no one believes his stories about pulling troops out of the Middle East, why we’re in Libya, and that people say he’s simply Bush’s third term when it comes to the majority of domestic policies. So we’re taking up a collection for him.”

The lobbyist enquired, “Oh, how much have you got so far?”

The officer replied, “About four gallons, but a lot of folks are still siphoning.”

Hammer of Truth offeeshul sources tell us that USPS deliveries of Ron Paul mailers raising awareness for an August 20th, birthday moneybomb are being inexplicably delayed until August 30th and beyond. Several North Carolina and Wisconsin supporters report signs that there’s a postal snafu of potentially epic failure proportions unfolding, with the extreme delays nullifying the effort.

Now we love a good Scooby Doo mystery so here’s two questions the Ron Paul supporters out there can help us answer:

1. Have you experienced a August 20th Ron Paul Moneybomb mailer delay? Yes or no.
2. Does this mean my (utilities/mortgage/bills/income/drugs from Canada) are a possible no show for pissing off the ▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓? (fill in the blank)

In return: a link for free Ron Paul stickers. Bribery, it works every time.

Incidentally and not surprisingly, the campaign raised another healthy $1.82 million, and even weathered a sizable cyber attack along the way that was enough of a nuisance to keep the campaign’s twitter feed from boasting any updated reports throughout the day. Requests for comments from the Ron Paul campaign were not returned at the time of this report.

I don’t know about you guys on theories as to why there was a giant gap in postal service (ten days or more), but I do know that you can’t coat postcards in anthrax; So chalk that one off the list. And for all we know someone in the Paul campaign could have simply forgotten to take the bag to the Post Office, shit happens.

Share your mail issues or other craftily coordinated oddities and help us get to the bottom of the Mystery of the Missing Mailbags!

Update: This is a confirmed problem, with reddit’s r/Libertarian community also reporting that they are experiencing the same delay. The investigation continues…

A new paper released by a joint study between the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, the Medical College of Virginia Campus and the Virginia Commonwealth University has confirmed that the THC in cannabis is without a doubt stimulating healthy cells within the body to seek out and fuck up cancerous ones.

The title of the research paper is indeed a mouthful: Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol-Induced Apoptosis in Jurkat Leukemia T Cells Is Regulated by Translocation of Bad to Mitochondria. Apparently they get paid to be good scientists at universities, but are terrible at communicating this stuff very well to broad audiences.

Hidden within the nearly incomprehensible language of the finding is this image which helps dumbshits like me laymen grasp the results without having to look up the definition of every third word. U0126 is a selective inhibitor that seems to benefit greatly from being paired with THC to tag team the cancer cells.

The key probably requires a PhD behind your name to fully understand, but the results were reproduced by three independent experiments. I’m not so sure what a Jurkat cell is all about, but killing them is apparently a good idea and THC is very good at it. Good luck understanding this:

Effects of THC on mitochondrial localization of Bad in THC-stimulated cells. A. Jurkat cells were treated with either 15 μmol/L LY294002 (LY) or 2 μmol/L H-89 in medium containing 10% FBS in the absence or presence of 10 μmol/L THC for a total 12 hours, after which the percentage of apoptotic cells were determined as described in Fig. 1A. Columns, mean of three separate experiments done in triplicate; bars, SD. *, P < 0.05, significantly less than values obtained for the treated cells with THC + LY294002. B. Cells were cultured with either 15 μmol/L LY294002 or 25 μmol/L U0126 in medium containing 10% FBS in the absence or presence of 10 μmol/L THC for a total 12 hours, after which Western analysis was used to monitor expression of phospho-Akt (Thr308), phospho-Akt (Ser473), and Akt. Akt served as a loading control. C. Cells were cultured as described in B, after which precleared cell lysates were incubated overnight with mouse monoclonal anti-Bad IgG conjugated to protein A-agarose beads. Immunoprecipitates were subsequently subjected to Western analysis to monitor the phosphorylation status of phospho-Bad (Ser112), phospho-Bad (Ser136), and phospho-Bad (Ser155). All sites were analyzed on a single blot. Cos cells were used as a positive control. Representative experiment. Two additional studies yielded equivalent results. D. Quantitative changes in Bad phosphorylation were determined by densitometric analysis of immunoblots. Columns, mean of three independent experiments done in triplicate; bars, SD. E. Jurkat cells treated as described in B, after which cells were adhered to slides by cytospin and subjected to double staining with anti-Bad antibodies and Cy2-labeled secondary antibodies (green) followed by a mitochondrion-specific dye (MitoTracker Deep Red 633) and then analyzed by confocal microscopy. Similar results were obtained in three independent experiments.

Apoptosis is the programmed death of cancer cells, which was highly increased under twelve-hour THC conditions in the test.

So there you have it “plant-derived cannabinoids, including Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), induce apoptosis in leukemic cells, although the precise mechanism remains unclear.” Scientists have conclusively discovered a truth: Marijuana literally kills cancer cells.

I don’t always recommend twelve-hour smoke sessions, but if you have cancer: shoot the 420 rainbow.

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan — the now famous mom who set up camp across the street from George Bush’s ranch after her son was killed in Iraq and has been a venerable thorn in bad government’s ass ever since — informed her facebook friends today that she is the target of an IRS lawsuit:

I just got a notice from the IRS that I owe them 104 grand and they are going to levy my bank accounts and property. I don’t have any property and there’s less than 150.00 in my bank accounts. Looks like Fed Prison is in my future. I would rather go to prison than fund the crimes of this government. I am going to send them a notice that they owe me infinity dollars for killing my son.

Details of the pending legal action are probably forthcoming (we’d love to see the official reply notice being delivered into the hands of a derpfaced bureaucrat).

Some days it seems like the best people have the worst luck, and the worst people have the best luck. And even though she’s a self-avowed socialist (blech), we know that her numerous public stunts have elevated the anti-war movement’s visibility. Best of luck in your fight against the tax man Cindy, it’s going to be an upriver swim even if you’re innocent.

Static over “socialist (blech)” update: Listen you knuckle heads, if you want to start calling me nasty names because you somehow got it twisted that I was calling Ms. Sheehan some pejorative label, well then surprise: you’re the ones acting like douches (copying that count dracula riff… because it was hilarious, come on bro get your own jokes).

But hey, thanks for playing. It’s been real douchey.

Dick Cheney’s book would have been making more heads “explode” if it had been called I Shot A Man In The Face (And He Apologized To Me), but we’ll see if any heads explode after just looking at the amount of sheer DICK ON DISPLAY in the book’s glossy cover (I couldn’t help but add the truth).

According to Colin Powell on the Sunday CBS show “Face the Nation” the book is full of “cheap shots.” It is possible he’s also making a wry joke at Cheney’s gun safety record. From the AP:

“Mr. Cheney has had a long and distinguished career and I hope in his book that’s what he will focus on, not these cheap shots that he’s taking at me and other members of the administration who served to the best of our ability for President Bush,” Powell said.

[...] Powell also suggested that Cheney wrongly took credit for Powell’s resignation from the State Department in 2004; Powell said he had always planned to serve only four years. He labeled as “almost condescending” the tone of Cheney’s criticism of Condoleezza Rice, who succeeded him as secretary of state.

Wait, an old rich white man being condescending to people he sees as pawns? Pfft, no way.

Look out Colin, your face could be full of buck shot next! Cheney has ways of making you apologize afterwards.

Update: Here’s what Harry Whittington’s face looked like after being shot (Wikipedia, why you slacking?), clearly on purpose since Cheney apologizes for nothing, ever. If he’s willing to do this to an old white guy after having a rough day, just imagine what crazy shit he signed off on during his control of those wars in the Middle East.

Again, Cheney made this schmuck apologize for being shot in the chest and face at close range. Truly a dick.

Either the contentious Perry sex ad is starting to produce tangible results, or independent muckraker Robert Morrow has been sitting on a lot of info up to this point. In a facebook post, Morrow claimed to have some tantalizing new details of Rick Perry’s VIP room lifestyle and a sort of update on his quest to unearth dirt on the Texas Governor:

Here is what we are learning about the rampaging bisexual Pink Cowboy adulterer cokehead Rick Perry:

1) Rick Perry has been mining strip clubs and escort services all over Texas for a very long. Rampant adultery. Basically, Rick has his entourage literally go in the clubs and get the girls, they rent the hotel rooms, they call the escort services. Rick has been living in the gutter as much as Bill Clinton. I just talked with someone familiar with the San Antonio strip club scene and he confirmed what I know from Austin.

2) The gay rumors are very likely true, too. We have 2 gay men working on getting their friends, who they say have had gay sex with Rick Perry, to go public. There are also 2 other credible gay men who probably had sex with Rick Perry who we are working. 4 total. I have not met these 4 primary sources yet; the going is slow, but I think over a period of months something will happen. When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, he by then had hundreds of women, but only 3 went public in 1992 – Gennifer Flower, Sally Perdue, Bobbie Ann Williams. Then they were greeted with Hillary’s terror campaign of private detectives.

3) I think Rick Perry uses cocaine a lot. Remember the stripper in 2009 told me he was “too coked up” to get it up or perform sexually. Someone close to Rick’s supposed cocaine dealer called me today.

4) Anita Perry has 4-5 male friends herself according to friends of her friends. So Anita is a little whore, too. I think Rick and Anita have a pure Hillary/Bill Clinton arrangement where they have sex with whoever they want. Anita almost never lets lecher Rick kiss her on the lips; always closing her eyes, puckering her lips, then looking away from him. I think I know why!

Rick Perry is a highly compromised man and his over the top dysfunctional *personal life* is an absolute gold mine for media, GOP opponents & Demo opponents. Really, it is stunning that this stuff has not come out already.

I think it is just a matter of time before a credible primary source on Rick’s debauchery comes forward.

Sincerely,

Robert Morrow

There’s actually a growing number of investigations of Rick Perry’s personal life simmering right now even among the mainstream media. What with the sheer amount of allegations they tend to sniff these things out as extremely newsworthy (even if only for the salacious parts, which is why I love making these updates, I love dishing out the scoops on a juicy political scandal).

I agree it’s only a matter of time until more undeniable details of Perry’s parties find their way into the press.

Update: Follow the foursquare breadcrumb trail, it’s been recently deleted for a glaring reason. This guy can’t really be leading in the polls can he? I hope Jesus is having a chuckle at all this.

Update on Republic of Austin “attack site” weirdness: Wow this stinks to high hell, here’s what dillo has to say:

If you went to the blog yesterday afternoon or this morning, you may have noticed a warning. 2 hours after one of our Rick Perry pieces was posted on a major political blog, we were reported as a spam site. Last night, someone injected some sort of virus on the site.

We’re working to figure everything out…*sad dillo*

It seems as though the war on information during political season can be quite the nasty business.

Discerning journalism update: It’s highly likely that the twitter account and the attached — now deleted — foursquare accounts are both hoaxes. Then again, we’re not putting it past anyone with such swagger to have a Twitter party account separate from the official one.

That’s the question a full page ad in The Austin Chronicle asks. The following was dropped in the alt-weekly by Robert Morrow, CASH president:

The ad has been noticed across a wide spectrum of media outlets from The Washington Post to The Huffington Post and several other blog pickups. Many of them seem to be mentioning Ron Paul like it’s going to make people not fist pump Robert Morrow’s epic crusade in search of Rick Perry’s kinky sex history in a proven method. Whatever, tools.

Sure a few opportunists will show up looking for CASH with a salacious tale. But we have a feeling more than a few real skeletons might get knocked out of the closet with this kind of bold and independent investigative journalism style (backed by CASH).

The internets has discovered that Rick Perry spent $78 at La Te Da “Drag Queen Show” in Florida in 2009. Check out the website of Mr. Randy Roberts, who is headlining at the La Te Da Cabaret this week. We don’t need to spell it out to family values people: Where there’s hypocritical smoke, there’s flamingly fabulous Rick Perry.

For the record, I like the ad’s approach. And no, I’ve never had sex with Rick Perry.

[h/T to John Bush in Texas]

Bruce Gerencser is right on the money stating where our national spending priorities need to be:

Years ago the City of Defiance, Ohio, a NW Ohio city of 17,000 people, built sewers that also carried storm run off.(also known as combined sewer overflows) In the normal course of things sewage and storm runoff are processed at the sewage processing plant and the treated water is emptied into the Maumee River. This system was built many years ago, long before there was a federal department called the EPA.

Here’s the problem. This system works well until the weather dumps more rain on the City of Defiance than the drains can handle. This causes an overflow problem resulting in raw sewage being dumped into the Maumee River. This is the same river that the City of Defiance gets its raw drinking water from.

[...]

The EPA ordered the City of Defiance to separate the storm drains from the sewer lines. The City has been diligently doing as the EPA ordered but now they have reached a point where they are out of money for the project. Unless Defiance residents are willing to pay astronomical sewer bills the City of Defiance has a big conundrum on their hands.

The City of Defiance rightly fears being taken to court by the EPA. They know residents of Defiance cannot pay astronomical sewer bills, but at the same time, they also know raw sewage flowing into the Maumee River is not environmentally responsible.

[...]

The answer is simple. Congress must start and fund a major, multibillion dollar infrastructure improvement program. The focus of this program should be critical infrastructure issues like the one Defiance is facing. This will require the bickering children in Washington to work together for the common good of us all. It is time to have a budget that addresses the critical needs Americans face. It is time to understand that shit in a public waterway is more important that three wars in the Middle East.

Not often do I see an environmental editorial that needs to go viral, but Bruce’s investigative skills are really quite remarkable. Maybe if we’re lucky a smart editor in the North East Ohio newspapers or local news will get on this piece.

As a contrast, Congress spent $860,000 on bottled water last year. That act translated to the rest of America’s aging and under-performing infrastructure: let them drink shit-water.

Suspend your disbelief at how easily the DNC can ignore all those corporation loopholes that have helped Democrats along the way over the years. Instead, check out a hilariously easy t-shirt democrats.org has made of Mitt Romney’s amour for corporate personhood.

The message is loud and clear: “Cram this up your corporate butthole, Mitt!”

It looks like a bad cross-breed between Rick Santorum and Stephen Colbert without glasses. I think someone might have taken a dare of drawing a thumbs up Romney in seven minutes a little too seriously.

Apt pupils of hilarious hypocrisies will notice that the Democrats.org website is itself a corporate entity. According to OpenSecrets it’s run by none other than DNC Services Corporation with “revenues” of $224 million in 2010.

Somehow they manage to actually balance their own budgets because they only spent $223 million in the same period. Mitt Romney will certainly like them, good friends they would make. They can break the ice by talking about how to make political t-shirt designs more efficient.

Note: this article contains dead links, the url is still in the hover/alt text. Keep the web working, curate content well!

I’m not a fan of Rick Perry’s phony machismo act, but when he told an Iowa crowd “If [Bernanke] prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y’all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas” I had to applaud the fact that there’s a growing awareness of where the true faults lay in our boom and bust economic situation. I do not applaud how he unveils threats of Texans turning things ugly.

Of course the Federal Reserve and lackeys wouldn’t dream of taking that kind of verbal abuse on behalf of Texas lying down.

It seems Bloomberg reporters went hunting for reaction quotes and found their zingers from a couple of “unaffiliated” defenders of the Federal Reserve.

Cornelius Hurley, a law professor at Boston University who was once an assistant general counsel to the Fed’s Board of Governors said, “You just can’t run around shooting your mouth off and talking about the Federal Reserve and talking about treason and getting ugly.”

Hurley went on to say that this kind of stuff worries him “I have never heard the rhetoric ramped up the way Gov. Perry did,” he said. “That’s a very troubling development. We expect more of our president and should expect more of our presidential candidates.”

Yes, in fact he’s right that we should expect more. I keep thinking there’s probably a more principled warrior against The Fed than rhetorical Rick Perry clumsily learning how to dog-whistle call to Tea Party activists. Someone better than a guy who was a huge supporter of bailouts to banks in 2008. Somehow the term “dickhead” doesn’t suffice for people who “forget” to mention Ron Paul when talking about reining in The Fed.

Brian Gardner, senior vice president for Washington research at Keefe Bruyette & Woods Inc., even noted that the comments were aimed at Tea Party activists who are skeptical of the Fed but that the heated comments would actually have little impact on investors.

“Investors are focused on things other than the presidential race,” he said. “If it becomes clear that he’s going to be the nominee or if it looks like he could win the general election, then investors will start to pay attention.”

James Hoard, spokesman for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, would not comment to Bloomberg. A Hammer of Truth request for comment from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland was also unanswered at the time of this report.

Notice how both “sides” are scratching the surface of the debate instead of talking specifics of inflationary monetary policy?

Dear media cretins who insist on dismissing Ron Paul and his supporters: you only fuel our passion, and we know the size of our ranks is only growing.

Seriously, keep antagonizing us… his apparent unpopularity with people who get paid to read teleprompters and apologize for the sorry state has actually become one of our favorite marketing and recruitment tools for embittered Republicans and Tea Partiers.

Democrats are also keen to the open hostility the corporate media has against liberal political insurgencies in general. What I’m trying to really say is that I could probably peg every network that is pooh-poohing Ron Paul and ignoring his openly ANTI-WAR agenda being supportive across the board with more political corporate elitism around the world with America’s military bankrolling security.

Bring our troops home and have them build our nation. Shit’s been falling apart for 10 years now.

HIP HOP, HIP IT TO THE HIP HOP HUPDATE AND YOU DON’T STOP:
Christopher Manion over at Lew Rockwell posted the dope flow earlier today:

Ron Paul does not exist, So he is not upon our list
We’re the ones who write the news,We’re the ones with proper views

Ron Paul has dared resist, so Ron Paul will not be missed
We have seen that he will lose, We have gathered all the clues

Ron Paul has dared insist, that Liberty should raise its fist
He said our wars are all unjust, He even said we’d all go bust

So Ron Paul can not exist, and he can not be on our list
We’re the ones who write the news,We’re the ones with proper views

I’d love to see an American-centric version of Juice Media tackle this kind of story.

…ON PILLS.

Update: It’s come to our attention that Michele’s significant other, Marcus Bachmann, sets up comedians with homo-erotic jokes quite nicely.

So for the record, Marcus Bachmann also thinks corn dogs are awesome…

…BUT JUST THE TIP.

Investigative Journalism Update: It appears we owe a ton of gratitude to Toby Harnden for snapping the photo. Give him money and fame or something to make an important rich guy of him, stat.

Contextual Update: Politicians getting snapped shoving food in their gullets is nothing new under the sun. Welcome to political infotainment!

Bruce Ramsey’s column “I cheer Ron Paul” is one not to miss:

SANTORUM: [Paul] sees the world exactly as Barack Obama sees it, that we have to go around and apologize for the fact that we’ve gone out and exerted an influence to create freedom around the world. I don’t apologize for that. I don’t apologize for the Iranian people being free for a long time and now they’re under a mullah-ocracy…

The Republicans are our nationalist party. One way to stir them up is to accuse an opponent of wanting to apologize for America. I’ve never heard Paul suggest that America apologize. I’m not big on apologies, either. I thought it was silly for Bill Clinton to go to Africa and apologize for slavery, which was the responsibility of men who were dead decades before he was born.

When somebody says American foreign policy is wrong and ought to be changed, to accuse him of wanting America to apologize is not an argument. It is a taunt. It is flag-waving as a substitute for reason. Santorum is trying to intimidate Paul by accusing him of disloyalty. It is a stinking tactic. If accepted, it shuts down debate.

I like the tactic being displayed by the Ron Paul campaign towards Frothy and his ilk. Rand Paul said the following during the post-debate coverage with Slate, “You know… I’d rather not talk about other candidates, particularly if they don’t have a chance of winning. I think there are some other significant candidates and significant issues, but I didn’t really see that as one.”

If that’s not enough, Thomas Woods and Butler Shaffer at Lew Rockwell are laying down an education of their own in response to an unnamed national talk-show host over some apparently flippant remarks about how Ron Paul was “schooled” on Iran in the debate. This is backfiring on Santorum pretty hard once you look at the facts.

Update: My apologies to Ron Paul for not just letting his own debate ability stand for itself. Go ahead and watch the following video a couple times to see how badly Santorum was pwnd by the rational arguments against all this rampant war-mongering:

Well that’s pretty damn impressive.

Update: The poll has had time to percolate around the Internet and it’s only gotten more Ron Paul.

Where’s all of Romney’s mythical support? Hell Even Gingrich is making a respectable showing thanks to his fiery debate skills last night (though, no… I dare say he would be a terrible VP candidate next to Paul given his sticky history).

For the record, I would like to say this has clearly been a more scientific approach compared to previous FoxNews post-debate polling practices. They’re not out of the woods yet though.

Additional update: I’d laugh if this state was the icing on the cake in 2012.

POLLSTERS, YOU’RE ON NOTICE: Paul’s absolutely crushing it in major cities across America. Zoom in on the poll map and you’ll see it for what it is.

IMO, this kind of visual data can easily seal the nomination months in advance. But now there’s no way in hell pollsters can keep perpetuating those artificially low polling percentages for Paul, since we know they are doing it by targeting rural households. As they say: “the jig is up gentlemen.”

Typical Fox News behavior update: The Swash reports that the poll was unceremoniously removed from Fox’s website. That action seems to have had nil effect on a subsequent, old-style poll that Ron Paul also handily won:

FINAL THOUGHT: I GUESS THEY’RE BACK TO BEING CHAODS, SURPRISE!

Well this motherfucker is tone deaf. I mean when you can’t even cobble together a populist argument for corporations in front of a clearly hostile crowd, then that’s just fodder for media and opponents:

I love it when a crowd has the balls to heckle politicians when they give bone-headed responses devoid of critical thought.

I wonder what kind of additional lightning-rod moments are in store during the Ames, Iowa debate tonight. Maybe Mitt will bring out the old trickle down economics argument as the reason large corporate tax rates (calculated after the various subsidies and industry incentives tying to bureaucratic institutions to bureaucratic institutions) are substantially lower than small and mid-size businesses.

I swear sometimes I think Romney is secretly running Obama’s re-election campaign at the rate he’s going. The phrase “my friend” and smarmy delivery really seals the deal that he’s a spoiled, out-of-touch, pandering schmuck, like John McCain.

I wonder if Mitt knows how many houses he owns?

Update: The New York Times has the most softball coverage, calling this “Romney’s Authentic Moment” and of course shields him from the truly critical parts by cutting out most of the exchange (check the hat on the old guy, to be sure). Oh NYT, I really love their motto: “All the news that’s fit to… oh look, shiny!” This is your news coverage on ADD.

Hit & Run also takes a swing at this story by posting the full transcript and letting their peanut gallery commenters take Romney behind the Internet woodshed.

That headline from The Hill is betrayed by the article’s content:

I would challenge it in the courts and say that it is not a constitutional function,” Paul said on CNBC Thursday. “There’s no authority to have a super-Congress who takes over for what the House and Senate are supposed to do.”

That’s not a hint, that’s a fucking plan.

Go us, we’re number 634,873!

Has it been a year already? Absolutely.

I’d tell you all my secret plans for the future but I’d rather not make that mistake again (I’ll stick with spelling mistakes). Thanks for all the clicks, comments and occasional correction in the past year. It’s time to kick it up another notch.

PS- I’m doing my part to keep the r3volution all hugs and KISSes. Bam!

Well, representation is boned:

As the Huffington Post reported last month, the debt deal that has already been passed by the House and faces the Senate tomorrow will create an unconstitutional “Super Congress” that will be comprised of six Republicans and six Democrats and granted “extraordinary new powers” to quickly force legislation through both chambers.

Legislation decided on by the Super Congress would be immune from amendment and lawmakers would only be able to register an up or down vote, eliminating the ability to filibuster.

The Speaker of the House would effectively lose the power to prevent unpopular bills from making it to the House floor.

But far from just being a committee that would make recommendations concerning the debt ceiling, the body is now to be granted “even greater super powers, according to multiple news reports and congressional aides with knowledge of the plan,” writes Michael McAuliff.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pulled no punches in making it plain that the Super Congress would have supreme authority. “The joint committee — there are no constraints,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “They can look at any program we have in government, any program. … It has the ability to look at everything.”

Look, up in the sky. It’s Banana Republic Man, and his twelve goons.

Update: Keith Olbermann, the man who’s been banned from the mainstream media for telling too much truth, eloquently explains exactly how boned we are and issues a stern warning for politicians to “pick a side” in the face of such ridiculous theatrical behavior:

Additional Update: Ron Paul is also sounding the warning bells on Super Congress [via infowars]:

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this deal is the “Super Congress” provision. This is nothing more than a way to disenfranchise the majority of Congress by denying them the chance for meaningful participation in the crucial areas of entitlement and tax reform. It cedes power to draft legislation to a special commission, hand-picked by the House and Senate leadership. The legislation produced by this commission will be fast-tracked, and Members will not have the opportunity to offer amendments. Approval of the recommendations of the “Super Congress” is tied to yet another debt ceiling increase. This guarantees that Members will face tremendous pressure to vote for whatever comes out of this commission– even if it includes tax increases. This provision is an excellent way to keep spending decisions out of the reach of members who are not on board with the leadership’s agenda.

If it walks like a coup and talks like a coup. It’s probably a coup.

I’m here to tell you we’re at the end of the beginning the latest heist. An additional -$2.1 trillion is being tacked up on the credit card board, which will carry us into the future for as long as it carries us. The only certainty is uncertainty as the empire shifts it’s feet around in the muck, hears the rumble of the bellies of the dependent and realizes “oh shit, we have to feed the troops and masses.”

The carrot argument was to do nothing, keep running up the credit card and throw out a big ass number as the new limit being sought. Then promised to get cracking on the balance sheets right away. Luckily our junior executives, ahem Tea Party freshmen, decided to make a big deal out of the fact that no one seems to “actually have a business plan” so they’ll catch the blame, probably. Why suffer the details? Go back to sleep America.

The stick argument was fun because it promised chaos by throwing a giant limiter on the government’s check machine. What do people without credit do? They do without. The streets would run red as millions of old people not getting their social security checks would form ad hoc gangs of grannies and grandpas, armed to the teeth and raiding rival gangs for supplies and turf. Anarchy and terrordomes would descend on America at once as people would be forced to fend for themselves. Kill yourself now before you are made a sex slave to the MS-13 AARP.

The common Joe out here knows that the level of spending is speeding up, not slowing down. I have visited the District of Colombia and can tell you you can actually hear the pipes as cash and coins are sucked from the Federal Reserve, through Congress and the White House into the pockets of anyone who encourages bureaucracy. There’s only one rule that matters: don’t get caught. And even that rule doesn’t matter if you’ve got enough of the loot and fill out the paperwork in a complicated enough manner. That’s enough common sense to be the leading cause of an incensed commons.

This is knee-jerk politics at it’s finest, exploited at the cusp of a month-long August recess. But the fun won’t be over because as many of these representatives return home for “vacation” they’ll have to face the music and be ready to explain.

Personally, I think it’s time to introduce live cameras and have them follow elected officials, dumping the feed to public servers. If they want $2.1 trillion more of our consent, we the people are entitled to watch over their shoulders!

Note: this article contains dead links and dead embeds, the url is still in the hover/alt text. Keep the web working, curate content well!

As a political analyst of some degree (not many, but some), I can safely say that the more “for rent” and “for sale” signs you see in the next year before the election, the more Ron Paul bumper stickers and signs will start popping up as people start looking hard and close for some real change from what we can safely call Bush’s third term.

Here’s a Monday morning raised glass to the early adopters courtesy of RonPaulSwag.com:

Catchy jingle, awesome production. h/T Bret Hatch

Update: For the classy Dos Equis man meme with a pinch of anarchy, they have a t-shirt for that. Bueno.

This week, Obama took to the television and told people to call up their representatives and weigh in on the debt debate. It’s pretty clear most of the establishment is paralyzed with inaction and that the debate has turned completely childish at this point.

To preempt a flood of inquiries, my own Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich sent out an email explanation of why he was voting in favor of Reid’s plan (many other have issued these preemptive emails to their constituents as well). Here’s the full text of the second email, the first version misspelled “prescribing” as “proscribing” — a rather humorous error given the context:

Kucinich: Why I Voted for Senator Reid’s Revised Plan (Edited: Typo)

Washington D.C. (July 30, 2011) – Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today released the following statement after voting in favor of Senator Reid’s revised bill to raise the debt ceiling.

“I have had and continue to have serious concerns about Senator Reid’s revised bill. The cuts to discretionary spending will be adverse to the beneficiaries of programs designed to provide essential services the private sector will never—and in some cases, should never – perform. The cuts to defense funding, the single biggest source of government waste, are a good start but are small compared to those cuts to non-defense spending. I will work to ensure that we achieve defense cuts greater than the minimum required by this bill.

“We are now three days away from reaching the debt ceiling, a landmark that would drastically accelerate the $400 billion of damage to our economy already caused by the mere threat of reaching the ceiling.

“This bill raises the debt ceiling while not prescribing cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. It prevents further instances of the debt ceiling (which has been raised 74 times since 1962 and 10 times since 2001) from being held hostage. It cuts funding from the account that fuels the wars that dramatically increased our debt.

“In the past, I voted against three of the main drivers of our debt: the war in Iraq, the Bush tax cuts and Medicare Part D. I believe in fiscal responsibility. I do not believe America should go into default over a manufactured crisis. It is time to prevent fake crises, and get on with rebuilding the U.S. economy.

It’s pretty easy to see where the bullshit is being covered with delicious frosting, but rest assured the Reid plan (yes, I read bills, a very boring hobby) really is a free spending ride for Obama through 2012. Not exactly the kind of Accountability and Oversight Congress pimps themselves out as. And it reeks of the same old partisan games we’re now very much tired of as a country.

I took Obama’s televised admonishment to heart to let myself be heard with my Congressman (how often do I do that, probably more than most) Just as well I decided to post it here as an open letter:

Mr. Dennis J. Kucinich OH-10
To the Honorable Congressman from my district or his email reading staff,

What manner of drugs are you ingesting sir? I implore you to “Just say no” to the debt-junkies in Washington.

This debt ceiling “debate” is a joke if you and the other members with a constitutional backbone don’t put the Iraq and Afghanistan war funding on the table. Are you planning on quitting at the end of your term or do you no longer care about what’s really sucking this country into debt? You have your hand on the people’s purse and you need to say NO to things we are sick and tired of seeing our money wasted on.

The biggest debt-junkies being the military-industrial-complex (perhaps you’ve heard of it, I assume you’re a smart fellow).

I’m with Ron Paul 100% and need you to lead with the constitution, follow it or get the heck out of the way.

Stephen VanDyke
Lakewood, Ohio

Now I admonish senior citizens, retirees and the rest of the geriatric and bored Tea Party core to get on the horn to let them know that playing games with Social Security, and other feigns at austerity measures while leaving the costly foreign wars and massive corporate welfare out of the debate because of some new “manufactured crisis” is simply unacceptable.

Update: As I suspected the email lines to Congress are about as fruitless as calling them. I just got a message from “Microsoft Exchange Server 2007″ letting me know they apparently can no longer even afford good email hosting down in the swampland of plenty.

This is 2011 and I have better email service than my Congressman (at a far lower cost), WTF?

Update 8/2: Kucinich sent out a follow-up on this matter and appears to be voting no on bad bills. We’ll take this as a one-off dropping of the ball, but it’s noted nonetheless.

Humor has no bias, and the best humor is that which shares essential truths. With that in mind I tip my tricorner to The Daily Show for this hilarious segment on the Debt Ceiling “Debate”:

In response to Obama’s worried, televised plea for people to call their Congressman, Stewart responded “Did the president just quit? You’re the president and you’re calling on us to call Congress?!”

Yes, call them and tell them to go ahead and impeach that idiot if they can’t work with him. Both sides of the aisle need to stop playing political games over neither side’s ability to wean the corporatocracy off the the government teat.

A video of Canton, Ohio police officer Daniel Harless, 45, completely losing his shit is making its way around the Internet. It’s worth watching the entire video since OhioCCW.org did a splendid job of packaging subtitles and context:

I understand people have bad days, I have them myself where I want to shoot people who piss me off. The key differences is that I don’t threaten to do just that nor do I have the support of a government apparatus, urging me to use violence to solve all my problems.

OhioCCW is arguing that the problem is with the law requiring people to notify the cops, writing “The poorly defined ‘promptly inform’ law leaves a gaping opportunity for police officers to cite a gun owner with a misdemeanor when they can’t find anything else to charge that person with, or when they want to make an example of that person for carrying a firearm.” I agree that the law is flawed, and in an ideal world we fix policy and everything shakes out.

The problem is not that we’re not in an ideal world, it’s that we need to focus this media spotlight on removing dangerous, rage-filled police. As the video shows, Harless is a ticking time bomb with a badge and gun. He’s been suspended pending investigation, but it’s plain as day that he needs to be removed from official capacity until he grows the fuck up.

He would probably have a better career as an MMA fighter anyways.