Shut it down.

Okay, that's it. Shut it down. America is over.



Because this was an actual headline I saw online today:

Hillary or Trump: Who would survive the Walking Dead?

The Walking Dead Actors Ross Marquand, Josh McDermitt, Michael Cudlitz, and Executive Producer Greg Nicotero all answer one hard question. Who would survive the zombie apocalypse? Hillary or Trump?

So that's it for us. We once were a society that produced FDR, Miles Davis, Willie Mays and Katherine Hepburn. We are no longer that society, because this is not only a question that someone thought of, but they actually took the time and effort to find some actors from the Walking Dead and ask them, without a hint of shame, which candidate would fare better in this fictional scenario which, by the way, none of these actors have any real insight about since they are actors in a TV show and have confronted exactly the same number of living dead as you or I have. (spoiler alert: it's zero.)


It's not like it's a slow news day. We are in the midst of a Presidential election, one in which  a good portion of our electorate seems hell-bent on handing the reigns of power over to an egomaniacal failed businessman with fascist leanings. And you're going to ask about the Walking Dead?

Oh, well. We had a good run.

The end is upon us!

Every so many years, some Harold Camping-type nutty preacher will come up with a date for when the world is supposed to end. Inevitably, that nut is incorrect. Which leads to the prophet's dilemma. Once your date has come and gone, how do you keep the true believers believing? Do you a) admit you don't know what the hell you're talking about? b) Say you miscalculated? c) Say that God has changed his mind? There really aren't any good options.

Right-wingers in this country have a similar problem. They promised everyone that if Barack Obama was elected President, the entire nation - nay, western Civilization - would collapse around our ears. Then they swore that if President Obama were RE-elected, then for sure this once great nation would plummet into the dustbin of history along with the Roman Empire and Nicholas Cage's acting career. But it's been 7 years and so far the US doesn't seem to have teetered into the abyss. So what to do? Right-wingers looked at the above options and said "none of the above." They came up with a new strategy: pretend it did.

I didn't get it at first. I saw clips of the various GOP candidates making speeches and doing their little debates and they all promised to "re-build" our military if elected president.

Rubio: That's why when I'm president we are going to rebuild our intelligence capabilities. And they're going to tell us where the terrorists are. And a rebuilt U.S. military is going to destroy these terrorists.

CRUZ: Chris, in 1981, when Ronald Reagan came to the Oval Office, he encountered a military that had been debilitated just as the current military has, just like Jimmy Carter weakened our readiness, undermined our ability to defend this country, so too has Barack Obama.

BUSH: The question that you asked was a really good one about what you would do — what three things would you do.
I would restore the military. . .

I didn't really get why they were all pretending that we don't have the largest, most powerful military the world has ever seen. You'd think they'd be proud of that. You'd think they'd be proud of the fact that our military might dwarfs every other nation on Earth.







(Click to embiggen)

 And there's other things that are just factually and obviously untrue, like:

The ad is titled “Second Amendment.” In it, Trump says:
So important is our Second Amendment. The politicians are chipping away at it day by day, night by night, [and] it gets weaker and weaker.

“In the past month, we have seen religious liberty under assault at an unprecedented level,” Cruz told the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition outside Des Moines in April.

But I think I finally see what the strategy is here. 1) They've been predicting doom and gloom for several years. 2) Doom and Gloom have failed to materialize. 3) They aren't capable of admitting they were wrong. So. . . they just pretend that they're right.

It's like one of these cult guys takes all his followers up to the mountaintop and says "the world will end tonight!" Then the next morning, when the flock says "Hey! The world didn't end last night," he says "yes it did."
And won't let it go.  The prophet is just walking around saying "boy, can you believe how much Heaven looks just like a mountaintop in North Carolina? That's unexpected! Hey, brother Jim, did you hear Gabriel's trumpet last night? You slept through it? Haha, your wife said you sleep like a log, she wasn't kidding!"
Oh, look, there's the saints and apostles, um, dressed up as deer and rabbits for some reason. Hi, Saint Paul! Great costume!"

I guess the only difference is that the cult members probably wouldn't buy this much bullshit. Republicans eat it up.

I swear to God, the more I hear about Ted Cruz, the scarier he gets.

Sorry, I've been away for so long. I've been sick. So very, very sick. I still am. I'll tell you what, this is the last time I don't get a flu shot. I mean, sure, a flu shot is technically a vaccination, so there's a good chance of catching autism from it, but this is just awful.

Anyway, here's the latest Cruz News you can use

Ted Cruz's Dad: My Son Ran for President After God Sent His Wife a Sign

Here's the story, according to Rafael Cruz:
My son Ted and his family spent six months in prayer seeking God's will for this decision. 

 Okay, you know from the get-go that this story is bullshit, because even if God himself came down from Heaven, walked straight up to Ted Cruz and said "I, the Lord thy God, forbid you, Ted Cruz, to run for president," Ted Cruz was gonna run for President.

 Also, I know God's a busy guy, but it really took 6 months to get back to him?

 But the day the final green light came on, the whole family was together. It was a Sunday. We were all at his church, First Baptist Church in Houston, including his senior staff. After the church service, we all gathered at the pastor's office. We were on our knees for two hours seeking God's will.

 Oh my god, give it up! He doesn't want to talk to you! You've been leaving him messages for 6 months, now you're bothering him for 2 hours straight. This is stalker behavior. God is probably at the courthouse getting a restraining order.

Really, if you're "seeking God's will," why would you have to work that hard? I mean, if you're asking God for a pony, sure. Then I could see why you'd have to wheedle and plead for a couple hours until God finally just goes "fine, if it'll shut you up, here's your stinking pony!" But if you're asking him "what is your will?" "what would you have me do?" why would it take that much arm-twisting to get him to tell you? I mean, it's what He wants. Is he God or Laura Petrie?

Well, if you don't know I'm certainly not going to tell you!

At the end of that time, a word came through his wife, Heidi. 

Was that it?
Was that the problem the whole time?
Like God keeps trying to get back to Ted, but he never picks up and his voicemail is always full and so after 6 months God says "hey, does anyone have Heidi's number? Maybe I can just call her and she can tell Ted. I'm sure as hell not gonna talk to that lunatic father of his, but her I can deal with."


Oh, also if some psychotic had me spending 2 hours on my knees waiting for a message from God, I'd probably do the "oh. . .um, yeah, I totally just got a message, Ted. Um, he says to get off the floor and take me to Waffle House."

At the end of that time, a word came through his wife, Heidi. And the word came, just saying, "Seek God's face, not God's hand."

What? After all that time and knee damage, that's the message? What the fuck is that even supposed to mean?  Why Would God take time out of his busy busy day running the universe to deliver a message that doesn't even make any sense? And how do you hear "seek God's face, not God's hand" and get from that that yep, he definitely wants me to run for President. I mean,sure you're Ted Cruz, so you've made up your mind long ago that God wants you to be president, so God could have said "buy low, sell high" or "always bet on black" or "I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!" and it would have sounded to you like "Yes, Ted, run for President, but you gotta realize that to the rest of us this doesn't really sound like an endorsement.


And the word came, just saying, "Seek God's face, not God's hand." And I'll tell you, it was as if there was a cloud of the holy spirit filling that place. Some of us were weeping, and Ted just looked up and said, "Lord, here am I, use me. I surrender to you, whatever you want."


To which God apparently responded "anything I want, hmm? Oh, you know I would like for someone to make sure that the people of Flint don't get any non-poisonous water ever."

Ted Cruz Singlehandedly Blocking Aid to Flint, Michigan

by Sam Reisman | 4:32 pm, February 25th, 2016

Ohhh, you know what? I think I see the problem here.

Ted, when you talked to this "God" person, um, did he by any chance look anything like this?

Saturd80's - misc

Here are a few songs that were a bit silly, but were still enjoyable

Let's see how they hold up.

The Dumbest Campaign Promise in History

Ted Cruz vows to nix gluten-free meals for military as stand against Pentagon ‘political correctness’

Was there anyone out there, trying to decide on a candidate, thinking "I just wish someone would do something about the lack of gluten in our soldiers' diets?"

"Oh, if only one of our politicians would have the guts to stand up and say 'if you've got celiac disease, stay the hell out of our military, you commie!'"

Whose support could he possibly hope to gain by making such a stupid promise?

I've known a couple of people with gluten allergies, and it's serious fucking business. Our friend's little girl nearly died because someone inadvertently gave her a cracker to eat. I know that gluten-free diets are kind of fashionable right now, and if soldiers were demanding gluten-free meals becasue it's the latest health craze and last year they wanted paleo MREs and before that it was Atkins or whatever then I could see where you might feel like you need to put your foot down and say "enough! Just eat the damn food already!" But gluten sensitivity is no fucking joke. People really do get sick, some, like my friends' daughter, dangerously so. I knew a guy with celiac and he not only had to remove the dinner roll from his plate, but had to cut away and discard the part of the meat that the roll had touched, lest he have digestive tract issues for the next several days.
I don't know about Ted, but I feel that anyone who voluntarily signs up to risk his life for his country should at least get food that won't sicken him.

So why would a presumably troop-supporting Republican candidate want to deny healthy food to the troops? The only thing I can think of is that it's just an instinct that these people have to attack and ridicule anything that they see as weakness, and an inability to digest certain proteins looks like a weakness to a loathsome narcissist like Ted Cruz.