The truth is elusive these days, but thank goodness you all have a spoof news blogger to rely on for your information. I received considerable backlash from my liberal friends recently when I warned Obama about attempting any form of gun control. I suggested, rather adamantly here, to avoid the whole thing unless he called it the Let’s Only Disarm Progressive Liberals Act or some such.

Yes, the Republicans are only protecting the Constitution for their perceived in-group members, aka, they don’t remotely understand the Constitution (see: the Patriot Act). In this cultural context, I realized the sheer number of illiterate Nugentinians out there would derail any such efforts, no matter how common-sensical or benign. Usually the Republicans are the ones who miss these social cues, but the prez didn’t read the tea party leaves correctly on this one. I don’t get the sense Obama really understands who he is dealing with yet. Like Cheney before him, he only seems to be watching the favorable press these days.

If you recall, I couldn’t bring myself to support Obamacare either. You won’t hear this from the GOP, because it’s true, but out-of-control healthcare costs is one of the biggest problems facing the middle class and small business owners today. We certainly need something like the Affordable Care Act but, my concern remains, how do we implement such a thing during a very fragile recovery? I also agree with Republicans on this much: I don’t have a whole lot of confidence in supersized bureaucracies. I work in one and it makes Sean Hannity seem like Lex Luther. Other countries can pull off universal healthcare, but we’re fast becoming a country of the ‘very special’ variety. Ultimately, I think we’ll get there but it’s going to be messy, Lindsay Lohan messy. And, regardless of the details, it will never pass muster on the Right. They will cite every poor person’s death as some Obamacare nightmare. I can see the Drudge headlines now:

Obamacare Strikes Again: Man Dies on Medical Floor after Being Denied Procedure!

Never mind that in Matt Drudge’s world the same man would have died in the lobby, after failing to be admitted for lack of funding. And, not to mention, that kind of thing already happens every hour in America.

Dear GOP,

Valid points…isn’t it time you made some?

Sincerely,

Reality

Similarly, I warned Obama about even mentioning gun control. My reasoning then was:

A. It’s not the right time amidst this environment of fear and ignorance.

B. If forced to a vote, such a bill might purge even more moderates from our red states, and why accelerate the GOP’s radicalism?

C. Like a certain Cardinals quarterback, it won’t pass.

Forget gun rights for the moment, Mr. Obama, we need to be focusing all of our energy on avoiding a double dip recession—an event I called immanent some time ago. I’d really like to be proven wrong on this one.

Here’s the 2^nd Amendment coo coo roll call:

Due to a delicate balance of ignorance, lobbyists, and propaganda, there’s a very small but vocal percentage of our population who believes it’s essential we arm our criminally insane with loaded Uzis. This minority is well-funded and well-represented in Congress. After all, that was the founding father’s vision, right? It makes sense…in the same way Jesus only wanted his followers to protect embryos and stem cells, not people. And even more disturbing, this is the same group that won’t fund any of these Uzi-toter’s Haldol injections.

Bumper sticker alert:

Make Guns Not Haldol

—The NRA (in conjunction with James Holmes, Adam Lanza, and Jared Loughner)

“I’m not blaming the guns, I’m blaming the greedy assholes who make the guns.”

—Mick Zano

So how does the only armed group die out, you ask? Well, here’s my scenario:

The Republican dies during a shootout with a Charlie Manson type while I’m hiding safely in a nearby tree. I don’t underestimate firearms, but the GOP always seems to underestimate avoidant pacifism.

Obama nailed it last week when he endorsed Mental Health First Aid. This training, started in Australia, teaches folks how to identify a psychiatric emergency, as well as the subsequent DOs and DON’Ts while encouraging the individual to seek professional help. Living in Arizona during Loughner’s rampage, I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if someone earlier in his life had pointed him toward the nearest mental health center. I’m talking to you Marcus Bachmann.

Admittedly, I haven’t been doing well when it comes to handling Republicans. I keep challenging their delusions, which is a big MHFA no no. So instead of poking more fun today, here’s a national hotline 1-800-GOP-HEAL.

Most of our killing sprees have more to do with our underfunded mental health system and our ignorance of mental health disorders than any political affiliation. Both sides have been shameless on this point and, as usual, each party can only seem to recognize the other side’s hypocrisy.

“Normally, terrorists tend to be to the far right.”

—Chris Mathews, MSNBC

The Boston bombing occurred because: “Obama is disengaging from the Middle East.”

—Brian Kilmeade, Fox News

And, yes, it’s another case of dumb and dumber. Chris Mathews quote goes against my understanding of spiral dynamics as liberalism tends to attract more terrorists, but then not to be out-dumbed:

“The fact Fox News is still allowed to comment on foreign policy issues is a testament to our 1^st Amendment rights; the fact people still listen to them on this topic is a testament to our stupidity.”

—Mick Zano

On the flipside, there’s a growing number of libs who believe no one but the army and the police should own firearms. These are the Michael Moore’s of the world and I am sorry to say one of my heroes, Bill Maher, is among them. Both of these views are equally absurd. I think the majority of our country is wrong on this issue.

Now let’s add to our tally those who are too young or too disinterested to care about gun rights and we find, sadly, only about four people in the U.S. are making sense on this issue. So if my math is correct, the Ryan Budget works! (Ha, ha, ha…kidding). But, what it does mean is the majority of this country is seriously 2nd Amendmently impaired. This includes our president, who should have taken my advice and gone golfing instead.

Hearing the GOP complain…well, it’s like having the head of your local Home Owner’s Association sporting a car graveyard on their front lawn. Fix yourselves first, or stop commenting about my unkempt hedges!

Or, as The Ghetto Shaman put it:

“I’m just growing them out so I can eventually shape them into a middle finger, bitches.”

—The Ghetto Shaman

A recent Gallup poll found only 4% of the country believes gun control is our number one issue. Of course, this was immediately translated by the batshit Right as:

“Only 4% of the county thinks gun control is important.”

—The Batshit Right

Yeah, I guess there’s only one topic allowed per administration. Hell, I wouldn’t even place gun control as the most important issue of our time, but is Gallup the problem? No. It’s the people who immediately distort the meaning. This isn’t about some Huffington Post interpretation of an issue three months later, this is about the systematic and blatant misconstruing of any given study, topic, or event before the ink even dries.

So CNS—the stepson of the Media Research Center, who I creamed last week here—read this Gallup question, What do you think is the most important issue facing the country today? and they came up with this headline:

Gallup: Only 4% of Americans Think Gun Control is an Important Problem.

CNS is not alone, dozens of websites now have it framed this way. I don’t even know which was first. I can’t find nearly this much flagrant misrepresentation of facts on the Left. It’s as if Democrats alone have cornered the market on something called reading comprehension.

Fact: 90% of our country favors background checks, or as Bill Maher put it, “Even some of the people who wouldn’t pass a background check are in favor of background checks.” This 90% number came from something called Politifact.com, not delusionalGOP.org.

Which brings me to this point: the GOP came late to the internet, they came late to Facebook, hell, they came late to just about everything…but if I were forced to decide on the most pressing issue facing our country, it would be the dire need for the Republican Party to reform. Why, you ask? Because information on the Right starts on Fox News and degenerates faster than the Ghetto Shaman at a bacchanal. In other words, if left unchecked, it effects every other topic. We can no longer afford to look through this Republican fun house mirror before addressing each and every issue!

(Breath.)

But, on the issue of gun control, the Left annoys me as much as the Right. There are tons of good reasons to protect our 2^nd Amendment:

1. Overturning it in its entirety is never going to happen and is not even advisable.
2. People have the right to hunt and skeet and continue any number of other related hobbies.
3. People have the right to protect their families and property. Home invasions are not fun.
4. It would be a real issue if we handed over every gun in the country, and here’s why:

Number four needs some explaining. When a Republican says, “I don’t trust the government enough to hand over my gun” the Left has been dismissing this with something akin to:

“The government has drones. If you try to take on the government you’ll be blown to smithereens.”

There are a number of future possibilities for our country and most of them are not rosy. Let’s say we go broke and no one is paying the military anymore, so it disbands. What then? Do we really want to be one of the only easily occupiable countries on the planet? What about a great cataclysm that leaves parts of the world defenseless or isolated? Do liberals really think there’s no chance of our government going completely bankrupt, or completely Dr. Evil? Or what if the unthinkable happens and our military is somehow defeated? I am afraid we are moving into a time of great instability (for other unstable time periods see: Earth History).

Here’s some other reasons:

1. An invasion of radioactively enlarged bugs. THEM! THEM!
2. An invasion of radioactively involved reptiles (you get the idea).
3. A Zombie apocalypse
4. A Bachmann Administration
5. A Palin Administration (you get the idea).
6. A Twilight marathon. Believe me, I would need a gun.

If we survive long enough, we will gradually become a more peaceful species. But that is not the case today, not by a long shot (pardon the pun).

The two most likely scenarios for our future demise are:

1. Climate Change Related Upheavals (CCRUs).
2. A revolution fueled by our increasing disparity of wealth.

So, yet again, the Republicans aren’t even discussing these. But, if and when a revolution does occur, a firearm may come in handy…especially during Twilight: Breaking Dawn. That one was the worst.

What are we to make of the likes of a Ronald Reagan or a Margaret Thatcher? We have trouble understanding what happened in yesterday’s news cycle, let alone decades ago. For instance Thatcher headed the Inquisition and started the Black Plague, while Reagan was most known for implementing alternate-street-parking here in the states, right?

There’s a good reason the Left is not blindly rubberstamping the Thatcher legacy. There’s a point behind their recent Senate shenanigans. Do I agree we should block a resolution honoring a former prime minister of England? No. But, on the flipside, should we unconditionally praise a divisive figure? Post Reagan, we should never sugarcoat that shit again…EVER!

First, I need to get this off my chest. On a recent Real Time episode, Bill Maher officially reached Zano-disgust-levels (ZDLs). In the middle of a debate, Maher smacked down Republican Stephen Moore’s circular argument on Climate Change.

(The end of this Real Time dialogue is paraphrased due to a rampant laziness our readers have come to expect.)

Moore: I’m the one who wants to debate this; you’re the one who doesn’t.

Maher: No, at some point science reaches a consensus and then shifts the focus to what are we going to do about it? Do you still want to argue whether or not the world is flat?

That’s what the GOP wants. They want the conversation to continue, until it’s too late. Yeah, only 95% of climatologists worldwide agree the planet is warming, not 100%, so let the debate continue! Never mind the fact we know who funds those few remaining naysayers. Hey, let’s take a Fox News poll on our planet’s future, because those folks have shown so much insight in the past.

Do you think the U.S. will lose its competitive edge with China if we address Al Gore’s climate rants?

o Yes

o No

o Fuck Science

Fox News: Fair, Balanced, and I’m Afraid!

There’s zero understanding of how science actually works on the Right. I predicted The GOP’s Climate Change “strategy” long ago:

1. Deny reality as long as possible to keep raking in the cash (Koch and a smile?).

2. When Climate Change becomes undeniable, blame natural Earth cycles (Operation Shit Happens).

3. Keep pointing out that even if we change emission standards in the U.S. other key countries won’t, so why bother (Rapture for Dummies).

Great plan. The children of the world thank you for your courage and insight (aka, greed and ignorance, or the Full Thatcher as they call it in the UK). This view is stunning when you place this into the context of our pending extinction. I could not agree Moore with Maher (sorry). The debate is over.

Similarly, when addressing other topics, I only read those few Conservatives left with a clue, which I can now accomplish during my coffee break—okay, half of my coffee break. And sorry Matt Drudge, adding endless bullshit examples to your sick worldview doesn’t make it any less false. But, on the bright side, more and more GOPers are identifying their own party’s need for reform. Here’s someone channeling yours truly:

“It’s not just the comforting delusion that he’s a golf-mad dilettante, but also the reverse-negative image of that delusion—that Obama is a not-so-secret Marxist Kenyan with dictatorial ambitions and a nearly limitless appetite for power. That caricature makes it far too easy for Obama to laugh off the legitimate criticisms of the kind of political leader he really is.”

—John Podhoretz, Commentary

This is another of my key points finally echoed by, of all people, a neo-conservative. At least a few voices of reason are emerging from the cesspool (CHUDs: Cannibalistic Humanitarian Underground Democrats?).

History already supports 90% of George W. Bush’s mistakes but a similar percentage of Obama’s criticism is proving false. This is muddying the waters of political discourse. The latest outrage on the Right is Thatcher-gate. Last week the Senate allegedly blocked a Resolution honoring Margret Thatcher. Well, in the Dems defense it was Honey Boo Boo night.

I don’t really know what’s going on with the Senate blocking resolution thingie (SBRT); the only source is the Heritage Group, aka, there is no source. Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan is showing his conservative English roots and singing Thatcher’s praise over at The Dish. And, in Thatcher’s defense, it seems with the situation in England at that time—which was almost a complete merger of government and business—her shot of Ayn Rand had some positive effects. Of course, it came at a heavy price.

Look, I used to be all for the whole don’t-speak-ill-of-the-dead-shit premise (DSIOTDS), but there’s consequences for getting things wrong, as we have seen over the years in news cycle after Fox News cycle. Face it, the Iron Lady has a mixed legacy, much like Reagan’s or Obama’s. Here’s Juan Cole’s take:

“The hatred for the late Margaret Thatcher, former British prime minister, among a broad segment of the British public has manifested itself in visible and undeniable ways in the week after her death, but these are not highlighted on American television. The status quo corporate media are afraid of admitting that policy-makers who favor the rich and punish the middle and working classes are deeply hated by the latter.”

Glenn Greenwald discussed the danger of simply singing Kumbaya when a controversial figure passes. Namely, a long time ago a similar event birthed a bouncing baby delusional ideology known as modern conservatism.

“—the week-long tidal wave of unbroken reverence that was heaped on Ronald Reagan upon his death, an episode that to this day shapes how Americans view him and the political ideas he symbolized. Demanding that no criticisms be voiced to counter that hagiography is to enable false history and a propagandistic whitewashing of bad acts, distortions that become quickly ossified and then endure by virtue of no opposition and the powerful emotions created by death. When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms.”

—Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian

If only more Democrats had spoken out and denied such a false and damaging narrative (Reaganetics?). The GOP still believes a lot of the shit they concocted during Reagan’s funeral—shit created from their own tears, prejudices, and cognitive deficiencies. Here’s what another Guardian type said last year about Thatcher.

“Across Britain Thatcher is still hated for the damage she inflicted – and for her political legacy of rampant inequality and greed, privatization and social breakdown.”

— Seumas Milne

Or as the GOP calls it, “The free market works!”

In other words, “Ding Dong the witch is dead!” Kidding. But let’s face it, the Foxeteers wouldn’t even know who Thatcher was if she hadn’t once made a famous slam on socialism.

We need to honor an old lady’s passing with dignity, but we also have an obligation to tell it like it is. So let’s talk realistically about what happened, while avoiding any ding-dong disrespect. You know, like how the GOP will handle Obama’s funeral. HAH! This will be Obama’s legacy:

The GOP believed something which turned out to be bullshit. Then the GOP believed something else which turned out to be bullshit, and while everyone was fixated on this aforementioned bullshit, we completely missed ___________ which, as it turned out, had profound implications for our liberties and our future.

Here’s another Greenwald slam on Hannitizing history:

“If anything, it becomes more compelling to commemorate those bad acts upon death as the only antidote against a society erecting a false and jingoistically self-serving history.”

—Glenn Greenwald

I remember watching some of the endless footage of Reagan’s funeral and thinking, “WTF?!” This was before WTF existed, but I thought something similar, perhaps BWTF. I said at the time, wow, they’re really creating something out of nothing with this one. Hell, the Iran Contra scandal was still fresh on everyone’s mind, which was a much, much more significant than Benghazi and the Fast & Spurious combined. Reagan also helped create a group known as Al-Qaeda to fight the Soviets. That worked out well. But I’m sure if Obama did the same thing, the GOP would have let that slide. I also knew, even then, that unless you’re a fan of high deficits Reaganomics sucked.

Reality Alert: Obama may yet pass Reagan’s presidential ranking. And make no mistake, Reagan’s legacy was pumped up during that week of endless processional blathering. Dems have remained silent in the past during such passings, which in retrospect was a huge mistake. Never give them an inch, because the GOP will take an ideological mile. We will fight them in the hills and the beaches and the landing grounds. That was Thatcher, right?

At the time, I thought Reagan’s trumped up funeral was harmless enough, after all, we were honoring a great actor. But the bubble of non-reality on the Right has a direct link to that month long ceremony. Conservatism had nothing to brag about before Reagan and they still don’t, so they created a false legacy. You have to have something to cheer about and it’s much easier to just make shit up than deal with the fact that we suck and our ideas don’t really work on this planet (win one for the Fibber?). Reagan’s funeral helped to create a collective delusion, which, among other things, may yet destroy us.

I missed the significance at the time, but in my defense, I wasn’t a blogger then or even particularly interested in politics—but nevertheless I blew it. I’m not willing to make that mistake again.

On that note:

“Bedtime for Bonzo was not Reagan’s best work.”

—Mick Zano

There, I said it.

What? Too soon?

We should no longer allow anyone, anyone to run rampant with revisionist history. We’ve seen the effects first Hannity, or…

Dear Republicans,

If over the last half a century Reagan is your only high point, you suck.

Sincerely,

Reality

The age of making nice-nice when a controversial figure kicks the bucket is over. Long live the age of truth. Kidding! We are still amidst the Age of Bullshit, but at least some of us are taking notice and, more importantly, taking notes.

Oh, and Mr. Winslow reminded me that when Reagan died (circa June 2004) we were together in Harrisburg, PA at a Kentucky Derby party, after which the Triple Crown was awarded to a horse named Smarty. So, of course, I came up with the headline, “Dying Dummy Ruins Big Day for Smarty.”

Hmm, maybe I did get it back then. In fact, that might have been the very kernel that started The Daily Discord? So something good did come from Reagan’s legacy after all.

Never mind.