How is this guy still getting published?

Glancing through some old newspapers today, I chanced to see this headline from Friday 12/13:

Top six Dems in presidential field lacking racial diversity

And I thought "Hmm, I wonder which liberal syndicated columnist is making this point."  Well, I guess I should've known, it was that well-known champion of racial diversity, Pat Buchan --  wait, seriously?

Yeah, Pat Buchanan is not only still alive but is still being published in formerly respectable newspapers.

So, all right. I'll bite. What does racist Dracula's problem with the Democratic field?

The “Our diversity is our strength!” Party is starting to look rather monochromatic in its upper echelons these days. The four leading candidates for its presidential nomination — Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg — are all white.

Okay, that's true. Of course, one is Jewish, one is a woman and one is gay, but sure. By pure chance we just happen to be focusing only on the issue of RACIAL diversity.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer are both white, as are Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Whip Dick Durbin.

Okay. And, honestly, the sooner these four are all replaced the better, but you might want to conside that the chair of the Democratic Financial Services Committee is one Ms Maxine Waters.

And the chair of the Democratic House Committee on Natural Resources is Raul Grijalva.

And the Veterans' Affairs Committee is headed up by California's own Mark Takano

Or that the Committee on Science, Space and Technology is chaired by Ms Eddie Bernice Johnson.

And I'm not sure who is chairing the House Oversight Committee right now, but up until his untimely death, it was led by Mr Elijah Cummings.

But that wouldn't fit into you completely not-at-all-disingenuous narrative, so we'll just skip that, I guess.

Absent affirmative action by the DNC, neither Cory Booker, the leading black candidate for the nomination, nor Julian Castro, the leading Hispanic, will be on the stage Dec. 19.

"Affirmative Action" -- oh, fuck you. How are you still riding that hobby horse?

Yet the lack of racial diversity across the party hierarchy is going to put immense pressure on Joe Biden, should he win the nomination. If he hopes to reunite the Obama coalition, a woman and/or person of color as his running mate would seem an absolute imperative.

Yeahhhh, that's not "immense pressure." Not for a decent human being. If Biden's advisers say "Joe, I think you should probably select a female running mate," Biden would probably just go "sure. Who'd you have in mind?"
Actually, this being Joe Biden, he would probably tell a 20-minute story about being a lifeguard then say "let's get Geraldine Ferraro!" (plagiarism joke. Google it, under-40's!)

And before Biden gets there, he has other problems.

Yeah, he ain't getting there. It's Biden. The human gaffe machine. The guy who's known for siding with the credit card companies in the Bankruptcy Bill, being a strong proponent of the 1994 Crime Bill, and being super shitty to Anita Hill. There's a reason he has run for president twice and made nary a ripple.

His “No Malarkey” bus tour across Iowa is all about his fear that, if he loses Iowa on Feb. 3 and New Hampshire on Feb. 11, he may not survive to reach his South Carolina firewall on Feb. 25.

Though he leads in the national polls, Iowa and New Hampshire polls have Biden running as low as fourth. Never has a candidate contested and lost both those states and then gone on to win the nomination.
Nor are these Joe’s only problems.

Oh, we know. Be-LEIVE me, we know!

Call them what you will — gaffes, mental lapses — his repeated verbal miscues, some of which have caused debate rivals to laugh out loud at Joe, are a cause of alarm among Democrats who fear a Biden-Trump TV debate could produce a debacle for their man.

Ah, yes. What a one-sided debacle that would be. A senile Joe Biden against the alert, aware, keen-witted Donald Trump! It would be not at all like two dementia patients babbling over each other. NO, that would obviously only be a "debacle" for Biden!

Nor are the other front-runners without racial-ethnic problems.
African Americans are a bedrock constituency of the Democratic Party. In recent presidential elections, they have voted 90% for the party’s nominee, and even higher for Barack Obama.
How is Mayor Pete doing with this constituency?

Yeah, you're not going to need to worry about "Mayor Pete" either. His 15 minutes were rightly up about 2 months ago and he's running out of extensions.

Bernie Sanders, an unapologetic socialist who went to the Soviet Union, Reagan’s “Evil Empire,” for his honeymoon, is holding on to half of the loyal base from his impressive 2016 race against Hillary Clinton. The other half of Bernie’s base, however, has been captured by Warren. 

Where are you getting these numbers?

I don't think that you'll find many people who supported Sanders in 2016 who are now supporting Warren.

And, like Bernie, she is weak with black Democrats, who will decide South Carolina one week before Super Tuesday, when 40% of all the Democratic delegates will be chosen.

Yeahhhhh, you're thinking of last time. Last time around, Sanders had trouble attracting non-white voters. This time around, well  I'll let  the headline speak for itself.

Bernie Sanders Has Highest Approval Among Nonwhite Voters in Recent CNN PolHome | Politics

Tags: 2020 Elections | Polls | 2020 | election | bernie sanders | joe biden | african american women

VoterLabs Poll: Black Women Support Sanders Over Biden 

How did Democrats arrive at this pass?
As the 2019-2020 campaign began, the party divided into two camps.
There is first the moderate-centrist-pragmatic wing, whose goal is the removal of Trump, and who will go with the Democrat who is the most certain to deliver that. Biden, who spent four decades in the Senate and as vice president, was liked by many and offended few, and was first in the polls, was their natural choice.

Yeahhh, Biden offends a lot of people. Whenever he opens his mouth and says shit like

"We bring social workers into homes of parents to help them deal with how to raise their children. It’s not that they don’t want to help, they don’t want — they don’t know quite what to do. Play the radio, make sure the television — excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night, the phone — make sure that kids hear words. A kid coming from a very poor school — a very poor background — will hear 4 million words fewer spoken by the time they get there"

or

or

“I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” Biden said and then, imitating a Southern accent, added that the senator “never called me ‘boy,’” a racial epithet used against black men.

Or does shit like

Then there is the ideological left of the party that wants not only to win but also to remake America. It was to this huge slice of the party that Warren and Bernie have made their radical appeals.
The promise of victory offered by Biden and the ideological agenda offered by Sanders and Warren trumped the ethnic appeal of Booker, Castro and Kamala Harris.

Wow, it's almost as if Democratic voters care more about a candidate's stand on the issues than they do the candidate's skin color. How very racist of them!

My view: Super Tuesday will cut the field to two or three. And the nominee will be one of the six palefaces on the stage Dec. 19.

Wow! The nominee will be one of the top six remaining candidates? What a bold prediction! No wonder people still seek out the insight and wisdom of this worn out racist crank!

Fuck Christopher Columbus and Fuck Bill O'Reilly

I'm not sure how Bill O'Reilly ever began to fancy himself an historian. Maybe he spent enough time with David Barton to think "well, hell, if this idiot can do it. . ."

At any rate, Bill decided to weigh in on the controversy over celebrating Columbus Day.

Bill O'Reilly: Killing Columbus and never learning your history

Oh, something tells me that title is going to turn out to be pretty ironic!

In Los Angeles County, the holiday of Columbus Day will soon vanish. The Board of Supervisors has replaced it with "Indigenous People's Day."
The reason: Christopher Columbus was "oppressive."
Kind of like the traffic in LA.

Ahahaha! Good one, Bill. Having to sit in traffic is totally like having your hands cut off because some asshole Spanish pirate isn't happy with the ammount of gold you brought him! Hahahaha go to hell.

The hate-Columbus movement is led by a woman named Sheila Kuehl, who once upon a time played Zelda Gilroy in the classic 1960s sitcom Dobie Gillis. It is hard to imagine Zelda, Dobie and their pal Maynard G. Krebs protesting the great explorer back then but, hey, who knows?

 Yeah, I don't think anyone is "leading" the "hate Columbus" "movement."

It's like saying someone is leading the "hate Charles Manson movement," or the "hate Harvey Weinstein movement" or the "hate Bill O'Reilly movement." But, putting that aside, what the fuck kind of pop-culture joke are you trying to make about Dovie Gillis and Maynard G. Krebs? You do know a joke has to be funny, right? I know you've spent a lot of time with Dennis Miller, but you can't just toss out a pop-culture reference and act like you're doing comedy. That's his bit.

One thing is for sure, the wave of political correctness that has taken root in America is way beyond "oppressive," but that's another column for another time.

 Yeah, I mean, it's getting to where you can't even tell your employees how much you'd like to rub a falafel over their naked bodies without getting into some kind of trouble!

 

Right now we have to deal with places like Los Angeles County, New York City, Denver and Albuquerque, N.M., disrespecting old Chris and, by extension, many Italian-Americans who celebrate Columbus Day as an ethnic holiday because the explorer was born in Genoa in 1451.

 Oh, well in that case, let's all celebrate Hitler! To disrespect Hitler is to disrespect, by extension, many German-Americans!
 And let's have a day for Meyer Lansky and Louis Buchalter. If we don't respect these two murderous thugs, we're not respecting the many Jewish-Americans who. . . well you get the point.

 For those who admire Christopher Columbus there is a feeling that the PC nitwits know little about him, and that is most likely the case

 And a happy opposite day to you too, Mr. O'Reilly!

First of all, "Indigenous People's Day" might sound good on the campus of U.C. Berkeley, but it may be troublesome. Yes, some native tribes were enlightened societies but many were not. After inter-indigenous battles, torture and enslavement were often on the menu for the losers.

Oh my God! Thank the great good lord that that sort of thing didn't happen in enlightened Western European societies!


 

 


(or doesn't still!)

And then there is Columbus himself. I am almost certain that the L.A. Board of Supervisors do not know that Chris never set foot on what is now mainland USA. Nope, the closest Columbus got was Cuba.

 EVERYONE KNOWS THAT!
In fact, that's often one of the reasons given for why we shouldn't have Columbus Day

 Jeezus, there is nothing worse than a dumb guy getting all smug because he thinks he's smarter than everyone else. It's like when George W. Said something about "people who dis-assemble," then added "that means they don't tell the truth!" Like he was the only one in the room who knows what the word meant, even though he was the one getting it completely wrong. Arrgh! So aggravating!

 For the record, Columbus made four voyages across the Atlantic between 1492 and 1504. He was looking for a route to Asia so he could buy spices at a discount or something.

We all know why Columbus sailed. We also all know that he got it wrong, landed in the Caribbean, and thought he was in Indonesia. What a hero!

But Chris kept running into various Caribbean islands, also the formidable obstacles of South and Central America. There was no passage to the Far East, only an endless drifting around.

Now let's all have a fucking parade to celebrate Endless Drifting Around Day!!!

Along the way, Columbus ran into some Indian tribes, most notably the Caribes. They did not like Chris and his malodorous European crews. Strife broke out and some bad stuff went down on both sides.

Seriously? "Both sides?" You're seriously going to trot out "both sides?" 
Okay, you're a pretend historian, let's look at the actual historical record. 
Here's an entry from Chritopher Columbus's own diary:

They … brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned… . They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane… . They would make fine servants…. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.

 This is from a book Columbus wrote about his voyages:

 They Natives are very gentle and do not know what evil is, nor do they kill others, nor steal, and they are without weapons and so timid that a hundred of them flee from one of our men.

And here is the writing of a Catholic Priest (you're Catholic, you have to believe him) Father Bartolome' de Las Casas:

Endless testimonies . .. prove the mild and pacific temperament of the natives…. But our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy…

 So I don't know where the fuck you're getting this "both sides" bullshit. Also, even if in your shriveled little brain that Columbus and his men were met with violence, bear in mind that THEY WERE AN INVADING ARMY. They should have been met with force. But they weren't.

On the island of Hispaniola, present day Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Columbus did establish slavery to support various laborious enterprises. Not good. Slave labor was common at the time the world over, but that's no excuse.

Okay, there. That's it. We're done. Argument over. Columbus established slavery. That's enough. That's enough of a reason to not celebrate this man.

However, that was a minor part of the "Columbus business," as Hollywood would have put it if they were wooing him for a three-picture deal. Mostly, Columbus was a brilliant navigator who opened up the world for travel. No small achievement.

 Oh, fer fuck sake! First of all, stop trying to be funny. You're not funny. You're not clever. You're not witty. Just stop. 

 Secondly, how brilliant a navigator was he? He sailed West from Spain and eventually ran into a land mass that he had no way of knowing was there. How is that an accomplishment? I mean, if he had found the passage to India he set out to discover, you might have an argument there, but he literally just stumbled into land that he had never intended to arrive on. You're right that it was "no small achievement," it wasn't an achievement at all.

We now live in a time where severely misguided people with little frame of reference are dictating how history should be told and what Americans have a right to see and hear. And if you disagree with them, then you, yourself, are "oppressive." And they'll cover up your statue.

That's what you're doing. You're doing it right now. You're trying to dictate how the story of Columbus should be told. You're doing the exact thing you're complaining about!

Christopher Columbus was not a villain and does not deserve the vilification the PC police are heaping upon him. Every person on the planet has done bad things, but it is the totality of a human being that should be the litmus test.

 Oh my God. Are you fucking serious? "Every person has done bad things?" Are you serious? I mean, there's bad things - there's swearing in front of your mom, there's cheating at poker, there's lying to get out of jury duty -  and then there's bad things like this:

"The Spaniards forced their way into Native settlements, slaughtering everyone they found there, including small children, old men, pregnant women, and even women who had just given birth. They hacked them to pieces, slicing open their bellies with their swords as though they were so many sheep herded into a pen. They even laid wagers on whether they could manage to slice a man in two at a stroke, or cut an individual?s head from his body, or disembowel him with a single blow of their axes. They grabbed suckling infants by the feet and, ripping them from their mothers breasts, dashed them headlong against the rocks."

 

--- Pg 15 Bartolome De las Casas

 How many good things would you have to do to balance that out? It wouldn't be possible. Jesus Christ and Mother Theresa together couldn't do enough good to counter that horror.

 "All those who could do so took to the hills and mountains in order to escape the clutches of these merciless and inhuman butchers, these mortal enemies of human kind trained hunting dogs to track them down. Wild dogs who would savage a Native to death as soon as look at him, tearing him to shreds and devouring his flesh as though we were a pig."

--Pg 16 Bartolome De las Casas

Oh, and if shockingly brutal violence isn't enough, there's also this:

In 1500,A hundred Castellanoes (Spanish Coin) are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general about there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from the ages 9 and 10 are now in demand, and for all ages a good price must be paid.

--Pg 102 Christopher Columbus

 
 Yeah. Selling 9 and 10-year-old girls as sex slaves. That's your "great explorer" in action.

Amd this is how Columbus extorted gold from the native people for his own enrichment:

"They tortured him with the strappado, put burning tallow on his belly, pinned both his legs to poles with iron hoops and his neck with another and then, with two men holding his hands, proceeded to burn the soles of his feet. From time to time, the commander would look in and repeat that they would torture him to death slowly unless he produced more Gold."

--Pg 117 Bartolome De las Casas

So, you say Columbus was "not a villain." Let's let someone who was there have the last word:

"Such in humanities and Barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel. My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that I now tremble as I write."

--Bartolome De Las Casas

What we committed in the Indies stands out among the most unpardonable offenses ever committed against God and mankind, and this trade as one of the most unjust Evil and cruel among them.

 

--Pg 31 Bartolome De las Casas.

It's Your Fault We Have Trump

I've seen a few of these lately. These weird articles from conservative writers that basically amount to "hey, liberals. It's your fault Trump got elected." Which is odd in a couple of ways. First because no it fucking isn't. I mean, I guess we bear some responsibility for not coming out in larger numbers to vote for HRC, but Trump is your fault, conservatives. You own this mess. And secondly, you voted for Trump, you wore the stupid hat, you cosplayed as him in Charlottesville.

 

Some of you did this.

So why are you looking to put the blame on other people? You never hears conservatives saying "stupid libs, it's your fault we got Reagan" Or "Your political correctness is rthe reason Dubya got elected." Have you already fugured out that voting for Trump was a collossal mistake? 

Anyway, someone on the Twitter called my attention to this well-thought-out thesis:

Your Refusal To Date Conservatives Is One Reason We Have Donald Trump

By Jerrod Laber

September 19, 2017

 

 

Wow! Where to begin with this guy?

First of all do you want to date liberal ladies? Why would you want to date someone whose politics you find repulsive? Am I to understand that if left-leaning women were to say "oh hell yes I'd date a right-wing troglodyte," you'd be running to their doorstep with flowers and chocolates?

Also, maybe it's not "conservatives" that women are refusing to date so much as it is guys who look like this:

When you look like someone who is legally obligated to let his neighbors know he's moved in, I gotta think that limits the pool of eligible ladies who are interested in you. Have you ever thought that maybe it's just you? I mean, most conservative fellas seem to have no trouble attracting a mate.

Anyway, back to the article.

Your Refusal To Date Conservatives Is One Reason We Have Donald Trump

OkCupid will let users indicate their support for abortion. This type of assortive mating is one factor that allowed for the rise of a candidate like Donald Trump.

Ohhhhh, assortive mating! Sure. Of course. And here I thought it was "economic insecurity" or "blatant racism" or "hatred for the strong woman" that Trump rode to victory, but clearly it was "assortive mating!" Oh, it's all so clear now!

The popular dating website OkCupid announced Wednesday that it would make the online dating scene a little easier for progressives who can’t risk interacting with someone with whom they disagree (imagine the horror!).

Oh my God! You people literally created Conservapedia so you wouldn't have to interact with any facts that don't jibe with your narrative. You've built an entire infrastructure of FOX News, am talk radio and websites like the one on which you are currently posting so you would never be inconvenienced by a dissenting opinion. And you're complaining about proressives who don't want to spend their evenings making out with someone who reflexively shouts "Benghazi!" every few minutes?

They announced a partnership with Planned Parenthood that allows site users to put a badge on their profile signifying support for the nation’s largest abortion provider, much the way Facebook becomes saturated with similar kinds of profile pictures during the newest disaster.

That seems eminently reasonable. Seems like it benefits everyone involved. Conservatives don't have to waste their time chatting up baby murderers and progressives don't have to have their time wasted by someone they're going to break up with as soon as he mentions that he doesn't believe she should be allowed to make decisions about her own body. It's a win-win. 

Oh, wait. I forgot. For conservatives, everything has to be part of a nefarious plot against them personally. Sorry, please continue.

It’s hard to not see this as a reaction to the rise of President Trump

Well, it is if you're not obsessed with Trump. But, sure it's hard not to see how a multi-million-dollar for-profit company, a division of an even larger corporation, would obviously be a part of a liberal conspiracy against the Turd Reich. Duh!

 

It’s hard to not see this as a reaction to the rise of President Trump, as Planned Parenthood has long been a political football tossed back and forth between left and right, although dating sites have never made such an overt venture into politics. But, in our current bizarre world of politics, this represents a widening chasm between those who are most politically active, causing people to see an opposing viewpoint as an all-out assault on their personhood. The irony is that the type of assortative mating OkCupid is encouraging is one factor that allowed for the rise of a candidate like Trump.

Gee, I wonder how that chasm got so widened? Who could have introduced this type of eliminationist rhetoric into the mainstream?

      

I guess we'll never know!

The Effects of Assortative Mating

Assortative mating is when someone partners and starts a family with someone of a similar background.

Oh. So. . . what almost everyone does? And has done since the dawn of time? And that's what caused Trump to be elected? How did it take this long?

Assortative mating is when someone partners and starts a family with someone of a similar background. It can be based on innate characteristics, such as race and ethnicity, or socioeconomic backgrounds. People have always engaged in assortative mating of some kind or another, but as social scientist Charles Murray explains 

Woah, hold on there. 

Charles Murray? 

The "Bell Curve" Charles Murray? 

You're going to cite Charles Freakin' Murray?

You sure? You sure that's who you want to bring into this? 

All right, let's have it!

. . . as social scientist Charles Murray explains in his book “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010,”

Oh my God, you couldn't pick a book with maybe a less racist-sounding title?

. . . as social scientist Charles Murray explains in his book “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010,” there was a shift to a particular type of mating in the ‘60s which continues through the present day.

As cognitive ability became the most valued aspect of human capital––and the biggest predictive indicator for professional success––people began marrying others with similar intellect. Ivy League graduates marry other Ivy League graduates, and their kids do the same, and so on and so forth, causing severe economic stratification between what Murray calls the “New Upper Class” and “New Lower Class.”

Right. That never happened before the 1960's. Scions of wealthy families never married the daughters of the similarly well-placed until the Nineteen Fucking Sixties. It's not like the royal families of Europe all married each others' cousins or anything. 

This is all developing at a time of increasing polarization in politics. . . 

Polarization is a result of the emotional reactions that politics naturally bring out in people. The most politically active are the most extreme of each group––the most likely to surround themselves with only the likeminded, and the least likely to give an inch to an opposing viewpoint.
These groups also vote heavily in primaries, which pushes candidates further left and right. 

 Yes, which is why the Democratic Primary was won easily by Senator Bernard Sanders oh wait!


 And, as represented by the ascendance of the Tea Party, they demand ideological purity.

And I suppose you have a similar example for the Left? 

We're waiting. . . .

No?

Demagogues Love Tribalism

Assortative mating serves to intensify this polarization. It amplifies an already significant ingroup-outgroup mentality around contentious social issues. Social and cultural issues create severe disagreement because they trigger the emotional part of the brain: the disagreement challenges a core part of group identity. . . 

Trump was able to convince rural and working-class people that he was the answer to their collective malaise. Economic anxiety, which Never-Trumpers are so wont to point out as the reason for his success, is intimately tied to cultural issues, because the anxiety is seen as a product of unfair cultural decline.

Or, to put it more succinctly: Racism.

You didn’t lose your job because your skill set didn’t match a changing economic reality. Instead, it was the result of a rigged system that benefits the elite, liberal urban centers on each coast and their progressively government-dependent constituents, at your expense.

Are we going to bother pointing out what a load of bs that is? That Blue States contribute more to the federal government than they get back, while it is Red States who are suckling at the government teat?

Are we going to mention the way the system is actually rigged in favor of smaller-population rural Red States, in that a state like North Dakota gets the same number of senators as does California despite having fewer people than the city of Los Angeles? And how that system gives these small rural states an outsized influence on the Electoral College? 

In a less polarized environment, that schtick might be seen for the nonsense that it is. But in a world of ignorant voters and social stratification––in which progressives who live in wealthy ZIP codes and small-town conservatives share a mutual disdain for one another––you get stratification that populist blowhards can exploit.

Okay. Good. You acknowledge that this "schtick" is "nonsense." Good. But it's also nonsense to suggest that progressives are the wealthy elites while conservatives are good ol' salt of the Earth regular folk. 

But at least you seem to realize that the Trump voters are people who have been lied to over and over by the Limbaughs and Hannitys of the media hellscape, but somehow you still believe that these people voting for an unqualified senile malignant narcissist is a result of their dating habits? 

Humans naturally form groups, but when rampant partisanship is the foundation upon which the group lies, extreme politicians are those most likely to win their sympathy.

Hmm, interesting. Especially since, prior to the current occupant of the White House, the major party nominees for the presidency in the last few cycles have been Barack Obama, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Hillary Clinton. Not an extremist among them. If this stratification has been going on since the 1960's, how is it that, for example, the Republican primary voters have managed to reject Pat Buchannan, George Wallace, Rick Santorum, Pat Robertson and Michele Bachmann without any of them making a real dent in the race? If this is a phenomenon that has been going on for five decades, shouldn't we have had a President LaRouche or a President David Duke by now?

If a progressive doesn’t want to date a conservative and vice versa, that’s perfectly fine. Everyone has deal-breakers. But as a political protest, this form of virtue-signaling is counterproductive in the long run.

Oh my God! Please, ladies. Please someone go out on a date with this creepy little weasel. It's the only way to prevent Trump's re-election! If Jarrod Laber doesn't get to second base with a liberal girl soon, he'll have no choice but to vote for Trump again! One of you gals is going to have to take one for the team.

Charlie Daniels is a very silly man.

So Charlie Daniels has a message. A message for the EyeYa-Toll-Ah and the terrisits.





First of all, I love how this is presented as a message to the Ayatollah. I picture somewhere in Tehran, a harried aide rushing into the office
"your holiness, a message! From Charlie Daniels!"
"You mean that fiddle player who had a couple hits back in the Seventies? Assemble my advisors!"

And then he says "you may have met our fresh-faced, flower-child president and his weak-kneed Ivy-League friends." To which I assume the "terrisits" would respond "you mean the guy who sends drones to bomb the fuck out of  our people every day? The guy who sent the SEALS in to put a bullet in bin Laden's eye? That fresh-faced flower child?"

Also, why is "fresh-faced" an insult? Because the President washes his face and is clean-shaven, that's supposed to mean he's somehow deficient in some masculinity or something? Did you mean "baby-faced?" Also, why is "Ivy League" only an insult when it applies to Barack Obama or Bill Clinton, people who actually earned their way into our country's most prestigious Universities? Why isn't it an insult for Yale legacies?

"But you haven't met Amerrrrica! You haven't met the Heartland."
Oh, God. Here we go with the Sarah Palin "real America" bullshit.

"the people who will defend this nation with their bloody, calloused bare hands"

Yeah, okay. Let me just stop you there. That won't be neceessary. I don't know if you're aware of this, but we actually have an Army. And a Navy, and Air Force and a Marine Corps. Your bare-knuckle defenses will definitely not be needed.

Why I'll give that Ayatollah a sound thrashing!

I'll certainly give him what-for, eh?

And if Iran were to invade the United States, they would come with guns and bombs and what-not, so your bloody bare hands wouldn't stand much of a chance, but thanks anyway.

"You haven't met the steelworkers, or the hard-rock miners."

Do we still have steelworkers? Isn't all our steel production done overseas now?

Also, I don't know what you think "hard-rock mining" looks like, but nowadays, it looks a lot more like this:

. . .than this:





"or the swamp folks in cajun country that can wrestle a full grown gator out of the water."

First of all, is that even true? I mean, I know there are guys who wrassle gators. But they do it on dry land. I wouldn't think you could get a gator out of the water, he's going to be much more agile in the wtaer than a person. But either way, your gator-rasslin' skills will not really be relevant if there is either an invasion or a terrorist attack. No one was looking at the carnage at Ground Zero thinking "if only someone from swamp country had been here to rassle those planes away."

 "you haven't met the farmers, the cowboys, the loggers, the truck drivers"

The truck drivers? I work with truck drivers every day and they are not an intimidating lot. Half of them can barely reach the steering wheel over their third-trimester beer bellies. These are guys and gals who make a living sitting down. They can barely walk from the cab to the receiving door without getting winded. Truck drivers! Please.

Also, are there still cowboys? Are there still cattle drives going on in this country?

Doesn't count.

"you don't know the mountain men who live off the land."

Is that still a thing? Are there still wild men living off the land up in the mountains? I mean, Eric Rudolph did it for a while, but I assume the terrorists do know him, being in the same line of work and all. Or maybe Charlie thinks that the Revenant took place in modern times?

Wait, so DiCaprio didn't really fight a bear?

"or the brave cops who fight the good fight in the urban war zones."

Okay, the less said about that the better, but Charlie, we all know what you mean when you say "Urban."  Dog whistles really ought to be a bit more subtle.

You know, when this started, I figured Charlie was still stuck in the Seventies, still mad at the Ayatollah. But now I think maybe he is in an eralier century all togetenr.

Asshole Response of the Day

Representative Peter King somehow managed to outdo all the usual suspects with his assholish response to Darren Wilson's . . . not acquittal, exactly, but being allowed to walk free after having committed murder.

Sure, your Coulters and your Nugents did the expected bald-faced racism thing, but King took being a disgusting prick to a whole new level.

Peter King: President Obama should invite Officer Darren Wilson to the W.H.

By Kendall Breitman

11/25/14 1:56 PM EST

Wow!

Okay, first of all, the last time President Obama invited a racist cop to the White House, you right-wingers went apoplectic. 

Second. Why the fuck would this guy get an invite to the White House? He killed an unarmed kid and you want to treat him like he just won the Super Bowl?

Even if you're enough of a racist toolbag to believe Wilson's story, there was certainly nothing heroic about what he did. In his version, he was so scared by Micheal Brown's "angry face" that he emptied his gun into him from 35 feet away. Even if you're able to do enough mental gymnastics to convince yourself that this wasn't murder, it's pretty shcoking cowardice.

“I think it would be very helpful if President Obama went and met with the police officer, or invited him to the White House and said, ‘You’ve gone through four months of smear and slander, and the least we can do is tell you that it’s unfortunate that it happened and thank you for doing your job,’” the New York Republican told Fox Business on Tuesday

The late Micheal Brown has gone through 4 months of smear and slander in addition to having been murdered. Wilson has been on a paid vacation during which some people have pointed out the he killed an unarmed kid who was no threat to him which is totally what he did. But sure, obviously he deserves the thanks of a grateful nation for doing his "job." Why the fuck not? Brown's family hasn't had enough metaphorical slaps in the face, let's have the President treat his kiuller like a national goddamm hero. 

“I thought it was terrible how, over the last four months, a narrative was put out there by our national leaders and by many in the media presuming that the police officer was guilty,” King said.

Name one.

Name one "national leader" who made any comments presuming Wilson's guilt. Name one.  And name me some of the "many in the media" who didn't go with the old "he says A, the witnesses say B, I guess we'll never know!" Go ahead. I'm all ears.

King was not happy with Obama’s remarks, and said, “I wish he had said one good word about the police, one good word about Officer Wilson, who has gone through all this.”

Jeezus Christ! Wilson has "gone through all this?" Wilson has? See. I would have thought that the people who have "gone through" a lot would be those who lost their son, those who lost their friend, and all the people who have been told once again by the "Justice" system that their lives don't count. That they can be shot down in the street at any time and no one will ever be called to account. I would have thought that those people had gone through a lot these last few months. But obviously I'm wrong. Obviously, it's much tougher to have kllled a person and have to worry that there's an off chance that the prosecutor might accidentally get an indictment. That's what's really tough.

Even by Republican standards Peter King is a sick piece of shit.

Very Serious People

These very serious people all hold positions of responsibility and must be taken very seriously when they address very serious issues.

Very Serious Person #1:
SC Governor Nikki Haley

  

There are two people in the world who spell their name "Nikki."

One of them is the governor of South Carolina.

SC governor defends Confederate flag at Statehouse: Not ‘a single CEO’ has complained

Wait, that can't be right, can it?

 “What I can tell you is over the last three and a half years, I spent a lot of my days on the phones with CEOs and recruiting jobs to this state,” the governor noted. “I can honestly say I have not had one conversation with a single CEO about the Confederate flag.”

Oh, Geez. . .

Nikki, bubula, you're not supposed to say things like that out loud. You're supposed to pretend that you give a shit about the opinions and feelings of people, even those little non-CEO people, um what do ya call 'em. . . oh, yeah voters!

Okay, so that was one slip. I'm sure everything else she had to say was about very serious ideas and. . .

Haley said that she had tried to improve the perception of the state by ordering employees to answer the phone with the phrase “it’s a great day in South Carolina.”

  

Oh fer fuck sake. . .

That's how you improve your state's image? By having your employees recite some bullshit tagline when they answer the phone? Do you really imagine that anyone is calling the state, hearing "It's a great day in South Carolina" and thinking "it is? Well, heck I'm a gonna bring my whole durn business down thar if the days are really that great! It's rainin' cats & dogs up here in North carolina, Im a headin' down south right now! Pack up yer things, ma - we'se a movin!"

This is like how Chic-Fil-A makes their employees say "it's my pleasure" every time the serve a customer. * No one believes them. Everyone knows they're being forced to say that. It's not like customers are thinking "oh, it's her pleasure? Well, shoot then I guess I don't feel so bad about the miserable minimum wage in this state. If I'd  only known that this cashier is doing this job for her own enjoyment!"

But, really, even if people are fooled by your employees insincere catchphrase, do you really thin that erases the history of slavery and racism that the Confederate flag represents? Don't you think that even with this exercise in P.R. genius, people might still be reminded of the more shameful parts of your state's history when they see that flag?

“But we really kind of fixed all that when you elected the first Indian-American female governor,” she insisted. “When we appointed the first African-American U.S. senator, that sent a huge message.”

  

You stop that, Judge Judy! Stop laughing! Nikki Haley is not to be laughed at. She is a very serious person!

Just as serious as Very Serious Person #2:  Jeb Bush.

Jeb Bush does not currently hold a position of responsibility, but he used to be Governor of Florida and has, well not exactly thrown his hat into the ring, but he is holding his hat in his hand and pacing around the ring waiting for someone to finally ask him to throw it in.

You can tell how serious Jeb is just by his answer to this question about an actual important issue:

Progress Michigan: Do you think Secretary Land should support the Paycheck Fairness Act?
Bush: What's the Paycheck Fairness Act?

 

 You know, I'm sure that there are a lot of folks out there who don't know what the Paycheck Fairness Act is. But none of those people is qualified to be the President of the goddamned United States of America!

Oh, I'm sorry. You were saying? Saying very seriously?

Progress Michigan: The Paycheck Fairness Act is a piece of legislation that would ensure women receive the same pay as men...equal pay for equal work.
Bush: Equal pay for the same work, not for equal work—I think that's the problem with it. I think there's a definition issue.

Whoah! Hold it right there!

Am I misunderstanding you, or is your position seriously that women doing the same work as men is not the same thing as women doing equal work? Is that really what you're saying? Like if a male accountant is doing the same job as a female accountant, that's not equal because of course the female accountant's work would not be as good? 'Cuz, um, boobs? Or something? Are you really trying to imply that? Because that's what I'm hearing.

Progress Michigan: So you don't think Secretary Land should support it?
Bush: I don't know. You'd have to ask her.

Really? You'd have to ask Secretary Land what YOUR OPINION is on whether she should support the Fairness Act? Now that's a serious thinker! No wonder he's considered "the smart one."

  

George was "the cute one." Neil was "the mysterious one."

And of course, no discussion of very serious people could be complete without

 Very Serious Person #3: Louie Gohmert

Discussing the very serious subject of the miniscule possibility DEAD CERTAINTY!!! that there could be an Ebola pandemic in the US, Gohmert offered this analysis:

“You know, it’s a shame that the CDC head, Frieden, is apparently the commander of the Democrats’ new war on women nurses,” Gohmert opined. “Because, goodnight, they set them up, and then they throw them under the bus.”

  

What???

Now, not being a very serious person myself, I really don't understand what the fuck any of this is supposed to mean, but apparently the head of the CDC, at the behest of the Democratic Party, is purposely infecting nurses with Ebola? Because the Democratic Party hates women nurses? I guess that makes sense, I mean why wouldn't the Democrats hate a group made up largely of women who are union members?

“The idiot comes out and says that clearly she had violated protocol,” the Texas congressman continued. “At least in football, they have to tell you what you violated.”

Umm. . . okay. Football. Sure. That just could not be more germane. Whenever anyone doesn't behave the way a football referee would, it's safe to say that person is an idiot. 

And on that note, I think that's about all the very serious people I can take right now. 

 

*Yes, I used to eat at Chic-Fil-A. No, I don't any more. They say they've stopped contributing to anti-gay groups, but the damage has been done. To my arteries.