When is the stupidity ever going to end? No, not the Daily Discord; they just renewed their hosting. I just can’t understand why anyone would continue to support the ignorance of way too many members of the Republican Party! I know that democracy is composed of many differing factions. I believed that responsible people could disagree on issues and resolve them. Oops, I said responsible people. Can you edit that part out?

I had come to the point of considering abandoning my beliefs or accepting that many Republicans are way too ignorant, self-serving, delusional, or a combination of all of the above, to be responsible.

Now I stand firmly on my belief in myself! On my most crazy and delusional day, I could never reach the level of idiocy of even the most off-the-track idiocy of the Republican Party during any given news cycle!

A while back, four Republicans in the New Hampshire State House supported a hearing requested by a group of “birthers” who want President Obama officially removed from the state’s primary ballot. Apparently, they believe that integrity, intelligence, ability to control one’s response to irrational and reactionary people making personal attacks, and the skills needed to maintain extraordinary international relations while managing a country in a clear state of deterioration, are un-American characteristics. I will admit, I don’t see people with President Obama’s skills very often, even in the halls of Congress and State Legislatures.

If that New Hampshire group wasn’t crazy enough, one group in Arizona has even demanded that the President “release the microfiche” of his birth certificate. I’m not even certain that microfiche would last 50 years. Where do these people come from? Under rocks? Out of the ooze? A Zano family reunion? Sorry. Of course, the conspiracy theorists are a fringe group teetering on the edge – hopefully of oblivion – but the fringe is becoming more dense. And what is wrong with the elected officials that they are pandering to the lunatic fringe? Actually, these people give the mentally ill a bad name. In the past, I worked in the psychiatric unit of a hospital. No one in our unit was even close to “lunatic fringe” crazy! Or that ignorant or nasty. This group is to politics what the Ghetto Shaman is to enlightenment.

It seems to me, that if these people are so concerned about President Obama’s birth certificate, an informed government and electorate should be even more concerned about theirs. There must be some reason this non-issue is such a major issue for them. My guess is that they don’t have birth certificates. Perhaps no one should be allowed to vote in any future election unless he or she can show the original notarized copy of her/his birth certificate. Or would that be government infringing on personal rights? WELL, WOULD IT, NUTS???

The Librarian

I live in a very red state. The move was quite volitional, kind of like when I pick at a scab, or order nuclear wings, or luge naked. Yes, I’m a luger, baby, like that song. It may just be a coincidence, but I can’t get MSNBC on the telly anymore. Lately my remote skips from CNN to Fox News. True story. I’m sure this has not been orchestrated by my Governor, Jan Brewer, as I have seen both my cable company and Mrs. Brewer in action, first hand, and neither of them could pull off something this sophisticated.

Please Suddenlink Cable, I need my liberal shelter from this imbecilic storm! OK, I don’t like MSNBC much either, but I tend to only groan now and again at the television as opposed to Fox, which triggers my Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED). Oh wait, I get Fox News on multiple channels now. That’s helpful. Not! My IQ is dropping five points a week! I’m starting to grow an inexplicable appreciation for Bill O’Reilly and I can even make it all the way to the first commercial break on Hannity without the vomit bag. Mostly.

Have you been following the Republican debates? This particular Super PAC propagandic extravaganza makes the last days of Rome seem like The Garden Reiki Wellness Center (where the Ghetto Shaman and I spend our weekends hitting on enlightened chicks). To summarize events, Mitt Romney has not sipped sufficiently from the Cup of Stupid. Apparently, you must alienate everyone with a clue as well as every independent voter in the country to get “the nod.” It’s a nice vetting process, for those who wish to remain the minority.

The misinformed masses just won’t settle for someone who might secretly have a brain, so Enter the Santorum. The then PA Senator voted with George W. Bush on every issue. I lived in PA under his watch. I realize this period of time has been stripped from the memory banks of about 40% of our population. Should you be a Foxeteer, please ignore this last point and repeat the words: Obama is a socialist. Thank you.

For the rest of us, let’s review what George, and by proxy Rick, got right between 2001 to 2006:

1. Well, W’s first pitch at that ball game wasn’t bad, but we can’t really give any credit to Rick for that one.
2. Please see number one.

So….ZERO! Let’s do the recount…ZERO! Not sure what Santorum’s Senatorial record was like pre-2001, but it’s a safe assumption it involved sweater vests and important sweater-vest-related legislation.

I wasn’t feeling well the other day, so I abandoned my post at work and crawled into my favorite Archie Bunker chair. I can only claim this valuable piece of real estate when no one else is home, mind you, because as Dylan tells us The Times They Are a Changin’. If my boss happens to be reading this, I can assure you, my illness had absolutely nothing to do with Flagstaff’s recent Brew-Ha-Ha. Honest. I did not even attend that unsavory event, so please ignore my related post on the subject. Really, it’s just another strange coincidence, like that time when my monthly reports had that paper shredder mishap.

So, completely devoid of my Hannity-proof-harborage, I hesitantly turned on Fox News. This can’t really happen much in the evening anymore. When my daughter is home, she makes me turn it off by reminding me, “Dad, I’ve only ever heard you curse when you’re driving or watching Fox News.”

Even if the house is empty, like today, I can only watch Fox News until my heart monitor starts erratically beeping, then I need to switch to something more calming, like those Saw movies.

So for one hour, and one hour only, I turned on Herr Murdoch’s channel. This was the result:

Code blue: Zano’s living room…

No, it wasn’t that bad. I have learned a series of breathing techniques that allow me to lower my blood pressure between bouts of profanity. Wouldn’t you know it, Megyn Kelly is interviewing Liz Sith-Apprentice Cheney. Oh boy, returning to work was starting to sound pretty good. I reached for my Tums as a preemptive measure.

Here’s some of that magical Liz Cheney interview with my thoughts in parenthesis:

Liz on the State of the Union:

“To see a president stand up at a SOTU and act as though our prestige is at an all time high (yeah, your father made that impossible, didn’t he?). It’s not the first time he’s made such mistakes (to assume the Bush years are easily reversible is very insightful, if you’re a strain of bacteria). When you see that naivety combined with arrogance it’s really concerning (BIN LADEN, BITCH! Al-Qaeda dogs finally in their kennel!).”

Sorry, that was uncalled for. My apologies to Al-Qaeda.

Liz on the Arab Spring:

“They’ve (The Obama-Nation) had absolutely no strategy across the Arab World. Our response has been inadequate (what we really could use is just a couple more land wars in Asia to help your father’s Halliburton stocks, right?).

Come to think of it, if only Dick had been as smart as that fictional character Vizzini from The Princess Bride, this never would have happened.

Liz on Syria:

“This administration doesn’t have enough prestige to put together even a bare minimum coalition to condemn what’s happening in Syria (because of your father).”

This is kind of like burning down the only bar in town during a drunken blackout and then going to the press the next day and asking, “Why can’t our neighborhood even sustain an acceptable drinking establishment?”

You see, Liz, I remember waaay back in 2002 all those coercive tactics your father used to build a coalition to invade the wrong country under false premises. You don’t think that impacts our ability to coalition-build a mere few years later? Really? I know he’s your father, but the chances of him killing the Emperor to save Luke Skywalker is remote at best. And, lady, if you cared about the rule of law, at all, you would march your father to an airport and pick some civilized country as a destination, preferably one that would arrest him on the tarmac.

Then Megyn Kelly finishes her show with a completely erroneous summation of the situation in Iran. Well, it’s the same thing echoed in every other Fox show, so it remains a true story to those residing squarely in the neococoon. Basically to sum up Megyn’s “journalistic” segment, Obama’s doing nothing about Iran…and we are all in danger…and he’s weak…and we’re not going to back Israel because Obama’s is a Muslim, living in a madrassa, plotting the downfall of America through socialism. The usual.

I’m done. I’m shutting this shit off in favor of C-Span’s coverage of the latest Labor Relation Act for the vertically challenged. The unemployed are really falling short on this one.

Megyn, Megyn, Megyn. Admittedly, I don’t know what Obama is up to, but we will likely find out at some point how he outsmarted Iran, again, just like he outsmarts the Foxeteers each and every news cycle. Do I know how this will end? No. Is there a clear potential for something terrible to happen? Yep. And it was just as critical when Bush left office, but, luckily, Obama has an understanding of people, foreign policy, and nuance. Through a series of chemical and neural impulses firing within his frontal lobes, he can make something called informed decisions. This has been a problem with you and your candidates for a long, long time. Each election cycle the right is opting for people with less and less of these aforementioned chemical and neural messengers. Enter the Santorum!

Obama’s skills have thus far been light-years ahead of Incurious George’s, placing him well within the mediocre realms—a place the Foxeteers hope to reach someday with just the right amount of spin and Zyprexa.

A small dose of reality:

How we handle this Iranian scenario is absolutely critical. This is a monstrously delicate situation. In other words, let’s elect Gingrich! Obama is trying to avoid, for the moment, regime change and a full blown American Depression. He already sent a computer virus that pushed Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities back at least a year or two (by even the most conservative estimates). And, Iran is undergoing the most sustained and painful sanctions ever put into place, which is why they are currently threatening to block shipping lanes. Our own foreign affairs minister and many other sources claim these sanctions are very coordinated and are having a greater impact than any previous attempt. Sooo, you just happened to leave those parts of the equation out, Megyn? That’s crap, like most things that come out of your mouth.

Fox News information is based on either lies, false assumptions, or my favorite, lies of omission. This is why reality never plays out quite the way the Foxeteer predicts. Their endless patriotic march from surprise to surprise to surprise must be very vexing. And then they have to work feverishly to create a whole slew of other false assumptions to explain their last round of false assumptions. They’ve done this so much and so effectively, they might be the first group to actually reach Zen through their own rectums. I believe the Ghetto Shaman refers to this phenomenon as a self-Nirvanaloscopy.

I need transcripts for Fox’s shows. It’s comical. I know, I know…you love America so much you want to crush it into a small congealed ball of stupid, but I just don’t want any part of it. The closest conservatives have come to being right about anything in recent years is our exploding deficit. They are so close to nailing this issue, they can smell it—except the whole being nearly dead wrong part. They didn’t care about deficits, at all, until every reputable economist in the country said, umm, if we don’t keep printing lots of funny money we’ll sink into a depression. So at that very moment when we couldn’t stop, is the same moment when they had this bright idea that deficits matter and to stop. Now on other issues…ummm, they haven’t fared quite as well.

I have been on this story for years, but recently Andrew Sullivan has picked up the torch. And he has an audience about million times mine. I know, I know, we should get a room, but he’s married.

“The Republican Establishment is Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes, Karl Rove, and their mainfold products, from Hannity to Levin. They rule on the talk radio airwaves and on the GOP’s own ‘news’ channel, Fox. They have never quite reconciled themselves to Romney since he represents a gray blur in a stark Manichean universe they have created for more than a decade now. In this universe, there is only black and white. There is only them and us. Anyone who diverges an iota from this schematic is speaking without a microphone in front of a revving airplane engine.”

—Andrew Sullivan

I usually give him all the credit, but this time I think he’s actually channeling me. Hey Fox News, you really want to humiliate Obama? Take a page from the Daily Discord:

Obama Humiliated by "Singing Frog" Sensation

This post isn’t actually for reading purposes; it’s just my version of blogular therapy. I’ve tried to make a few points in a few posts over a few pints, but reality is a tough nut to crack when you’re dealing with…er, nuts. The truth has little meaning in today’s discourse (or, Discord…). Modern conservatism, in particular, has its own truth, its own facts, and its own version of history. They’re no longer interested in debating events occurring in this dimensional plane of existence, unless it involves Snooki’s antics.

Review time: the Right still thinks, and always will, that all of the causes for our economic collapse occurred after the actual collapse (Obama’s fault), that all numbers and charts regarding the policies that brought us here are false (the Congressional Budget Office’s), and that our current Constitutional crisis was brought about, not by those who gutted the thing (R), but by those who failed to restore it (D). They invariably side with those who, by choice and policies, brought about our economic collapse (R) over those who failed to fix it (D).

Most disturbing, they fear above all else the onset of socialism, during the same time period when all of our wealth is funneling to about six people. They choose to Tea Party instead of Occupy. They have been on the wrong side of history on about every key issue of our time. They have made up their minds on so many subjects without looking at anything but their own doctored data, wrapped in ideology, and served with a side order of propaganda. Elephantitis? I am not a journalist, I’m a human Baier! (Sorry Bret).

As the last lights fade upon this reality, the Right has started to ask some hard questions like Is Obama in an Alternate Universe? Compared to you? Yep…and thank your God for that.

And it’s not just this ‘weakening of Fox News’ premise from my last post. The right needs to start policing itself properly. We have needed a stronger Conservative brand for a long time. The results are a Gingrich Administration. Hah!

There are some valid concerns on the Right, but their inherent inaccuracies cloud each and every issue. I have written multiple posts on the need for a legitimate conservative media source. You can find a couple of them here and here, and if you’re a real glutton for punishment, here.

I want to know the truth—just not their twisted, faulty, hateful version of it. Last week, Michael Savage, a man clearly sinking to Limbaugh levels, said, “This is the most corrupt, incompetent, dangerous tyrannical administration in American history.” Um, sir, where the f*%$ were you between 2000 and 2008? Why don’t you and the rest of your Savage Nation climb back under the rock? Don’t you read Zano? Obama is a B+ on foreign policy.

Today’s Fox News and Drudge mentality has so confounded, so inundated the discourse with crap that it’s really hard to filter out what’s important. One would think Obama has had hundreds of scandals at this point. I want to know what those are! Scandals need to be based on reality, like Jersey Shore. If the Fast & Furious thing pans out, Obama will still be about 427 behind his predecessor (which in your Universe was Bill Clinton).

I have said time and time again, I can’t focus on the left when some Republican is waging war on clean air, or clean water, or climate change data, or science, or evolution, or worker’s rights, or critical services, or Wiccan Drag Queens for Elvis (WDQEs). God, I love those guys, perhaps a bit too much…

You can’t enact into law the same things under Bush that you’re now railing against Obama about. It shows another keen ability to bend logic into a partisan pretzel (Auntie Anne’s Coulters?).

If you read my feature on a recent Facebook thread, these same people last week were spitting venom at Obama’s failure to roll back provisions of the Patriot Act. This time I remained silent. What’s the point at this point?

“Now Dumbama can pick you up off the street without due process and lock you up forever!”

–Foxeteer number 3, Facebook (last week)

Umm, that hasn’t been news since 2003. The sheer lack of understanding of the Foxeteers remains such a profound story that our ongoing economic collapse seems to almost pale in comparison. Someone else actually said later in this same thread “to arms! to arms!”

That’s impossible! Obama’s already pried them from your cold dead hands and he’s now sending someone over to detain your corpse, right now. Oh, and before they even plant you, he’s going to redistribute all of your accumulated wealth to poor black people. I believe that was his platform in 2008.

As for indefinitely detaining American citizens without due process, I showed some similar outrage when the Constitution was actually being dismantled, over eight years ago. How did you miss all of this? How can you all see reality in such a disingenuous way? Sure there’s some racism in there, as someone else commented later in the post how, “he’s getting away with this because he’s black.” So Bush got away with it because he’s black? I thought that was Bill Clinton.

You felt very safe when your Constitutional rights were being gutted—you even waved flags as you patriotically grabbed your ankles and took one for Uncle Sam—but okay, okay, I’m beating a dead elephant… In a nut shell, the Right is incapable of accurately critiquing a Democratic administration and they go the f^*& to sleep under a Republican one, which has worked out so well lately.

The Crank weighed in on the issue, “Obama just wiped his ass with what’s left of the Constitution.” I agree with this statement, but here’s the snag: Obama was put into a corner. If he rolled back provisions of the Patriot Act and we were successfully attacked by a terrorist group, could you imagine the outcries from the right and the left? And, of course, the subsequent Darth Cheney interview? Remember Cheney told Obama he’d “thank me someday for expanding executive power.” This is why I predicted in 2003 the Patriot Act would never be overturned. This is just more selective outrage generated by someone else’s agenda. Hey, it could be worse, Tea Peeps …you could actually be making up all this bullshit yourselves.

I just want the hacks on the Right to zip it long enough for people with some credibility and insight to tackle the issues of our day. Oh, that’s right, there aren’t any with credibility. Conservatives outside of the echo chamber have been banned from Fox News for a long time.

MSNBC is not policing the Obama Administration and the Right is so discredited, so full of shit, so partisan, you’ll likely lose the election even if unemployment climbs another 10%! I would turn to CNN, but I fall asleep almost immediately. CNN…proven more effective than Ambien in most clinical studies.

You just have to watch Fox or read the Drudge Report for their ‘scandal of the day’ mentality to see the stunning level of obfuscation. Let’s see, there’s:

1. The Obama’s ‘Holiday Card Picture Isn’t Christmassy enough’ scandal.
2. The Obama ‘Doesn’t Share Our Values’ scandal.
3. The Obama’s ‘Daring to Fund Alternative Energies as We Run Out of Oil’ scandal.
4. The Obama ‘Celebrated His Birthday this Year During a Recession’ scandal.
5. The Obama ‘Received Loans as a Foreign Student’ scandal (that’s this week’s, courtesy of Mike Shmuckabee).
6. The Obama is ‘On Vacation Again’ scandal.
7. The Obama ‘Spends His Nights Strangling Puppies’ scandal (admittedly, he shouldn’t do that.)

Your scandals are scandalous! Here are the other recent ones:

1. SOLYNDRA – if we had any sense we would find a way to save and fund places like this, but we don’t. The real scandal is this: we’re not funding green energies as oil supplies screech to a grinding halt, or as the Republicans call it ‘seizing the engines of freedom!’ I know, I know, the Canadian pipeline could have let us ignore the problem for another 30 to 40 seconds (hint: you’ve had 30 to 40 years).
2. Obamacare – I didn’t support this either, folks (it’s not the right time), but I at least understand how it will not end life as we know it (Bush already did that). Besides, how much worse could it be than a system with costs rising higher and faster than college tuition and Starbucks coffee combined?

Oh, and it looks like Greenwald checked out one of my recent posts. OK, maybe not, but more and more people are starting to take notice of some of my major beefs within the left-right political discourse:

“Worse still is the embrace of George W. Bush’s with-us-or-against-us mentality as the prism through which all political discussions are filtered. It’s literally impossible to discuss any of the candidates’ positions without having the simple-minded — who see all political issues exclusively as a Manichean struggle between the Big Bad Democrats and Good Kind Republicans or vice-versa — misapprehend ‘I agree with Candidate X’s position on Y’ as ‘I support Candidate X for President’ or ‘I disagree with Candidate X’s position on Y’ as ‘I oppose Candidate X for President.’ Even worse are the lying partisan enforcers who, like the Inquisitor Generals searching for any inkling of heresy, purposely distort any discrete praise for the Enemy as a general endorsement.”

—Glenn Greenwald

I wrote a recent article about this same point. Heck, even our own Crank had this to say on Facebook recently:

“Before voting, one should have to prove that one gets their news from more than one source. There aren’t any honest journalists anymore, and if you only listen to one side of any issue, it would be too dangerous to allow you to vote. Having an opinion today means a little work. If you are too busy or lazy to put in the time, you are not automatically entitled to an opinion. There are very dangerous people on both sides.” 

–The Crank

Well said, sir. But, as usual, Andrew Sullivan is the best at summoning things up:

“The idea that Obama is trying to create a European socialist entitlement-state in America is literally surreal. Again, we have a fantasy about what has happened these past three years, and an even greater fantasy about the eight years before that.”

—Andrew Sullivan, while live blogging the Republican debates.

Andrew, of course, is being assailed right now by Megyn Kelly for his recent Newsweek article Why are Obama’s Critics so Dumb? I can answer that question in two words, Fox News. Kelly won’t have Sullivan on her show, of course, and the misinformation giants have actually blurred out his name in her feature. God forbid some of her listeners go to his site and actually learn something from a knowledgeable Conservative. It’s time to turn off that shit, people, and, yep…more and more people are taking notice of the story within the story of our time.

Today this passes as journalism. Hah! I promise to stop harping on this issue when this “News Station” gets on something to control their collective delusions, Integrizex? Profactz? How about some Retractionol? When’s the last time they admitted a mistake? Oh right, that’s Un-American.