All right Zano, it’s been a while since I responded to your political musings, but it’s taken me nearly a week to get that last bad post of yours out of my mouth. Thank you, Tums! So if the government uses tax money to engage in activities that conflict with a tax payer’s conscience, they should be legally compelled to give birth control to employees? …or bake cakes for gay weddings? …or purchase health insurance? Really? And to make matters worse, all these things happened last weekend at your hacienda of hedonism! I’m sure my lack of an invitation was an oversight on your part. But I see you invited my sister, dick.

You also argue that the IRS violated no laws in targeting conservative groups. You said they should have expected such treatment since ‘teaparty’ groups sought to shut down the IRS. So you say that it doesn’t matter what the administration calls “terrorists” just so long as they kill them? I had another point about your Walmart midget comment, but I will save that for another post. Onward to the main three!

Point 1: The government spends tax money on activities that may well conflict with one’s conscience.

Take the Iraq War, for instance…no really, take it. We must expect that the government can legally force a person to violate their conscience. I’m glad you brought this point up, because it requires clarification. The government cannot force a person to directly violate their conscience. It can take tax money from me to be used to wage a war that I find immoral, but the government cannot force me to directly engage in the fighting of this war. They may draft me and force me to help in the efforts, say as a medic or a chaplain, and the same thing goes for birth control. Although I would not agree with this policy, it would not be unconstitutional to collect taxes and use that money to pay for birth control and abortions; however, the government does not have the right to force me to directly pay for birth control or abortions. They do not have the right to force me to directly contribute to a gay wedding through cake baking, musical performance, or catering. And although this point is slightly different, I would argue the government has a constitutional right to collect tax money to pay for health insurance for people, but they do not have the right to force me to directly purchase health insurance under the threat of penalty of law. If you recall, the Obama administration bent over backward to assure us that the “penalty” was not a “tax”, even though the IRS collects the penalty.

Point 2: The IRS Targeted Republican Groups:

Speaking of the IRS, you flippantly justified their agents targeting conservative groups by writing, “It’s group wanted to shut down the agency that I work for and they were looking for a tax break to do it, ‘Uh, oops what happened to that application?”

The same thing probably happened to those emails. This statement of yours, Zano, shows your argument’s flaw and the essential the flaw in your evaluation of the Obama administration. The Tea Party didn’t just want to shut down the IRS, it wanted to shut down the Obama Presidency as a whole. So by your very “reasoning” (quotes added to incite annoyance), you would look the other way (which you are obviously doing). There is real wrongdoing if the Obama Administration gave the signal to its thugs to target his political adversaries, since they were looking to shut him down.

Point 3: Let’s Placate the Terrorists

My point was not to complain about Obama’s refusal to call a “terrorist” a “terrorist”, although that is an issue, it’s not my issue; and you, by making it my issue have sidetracked my point. I complained that by blaming the terrorist attack on a video, the administration emboldened our enemies, which we have obviously been doing throughout the Obama Presidency. The Obama Administration was directed to blame the attack on the video rather than the people who did the attacking. The video was “hateful and offensive” (Susan Rice), “reprehensible and disgusting” (Jay Carney), “disgusting and reprehensible” (Hillary Clinton, who should have used a thesaurus), and “two thumbs down” (Siskel and Ebert). And these are just the responses to your last post, Zano (ba dum bump).

The administration should not have ever mentioned the video as being a fault in the attack. That’s making an excuse. What was the cause of the Benghazi attack? Plain and simple, it was Islamic fascists. I don’t care how they justify their violence–Israeli apartheid, the great Satan’s U.S. foreign policy, a reprehensible novel, an offensive cartoon maker, or even the Ghetto Shaman’s The Tao of Skullfucking (although I stand by parts of chapter four). It’s all just an excuse, perpetuated by our leaders who are pushing this narrative that ultimately emboldens terrorism.

I have speculated that the Obama Administration has embraced the “reprehensible movie” narrative for its own self-serving reasons. I realize that this is just speculation, but it makes the most sense to me. Leading up to the 2012 elections, President Obama was promoting his “we’ve greatly weakened terrorism throughout the world” theme as a prime selling point for his upcoming election. A terrorist attack on the anniversary of 9/11 didn’t fit his PR campaign so he got everybody on board to blame the attack on the video rather than the terrorists. That’s the point Zano, and you’re refusal to accept this point makes you a “denier.”

More importantly, my sister is not going to your next party unless I am invited. Her words, not mine.

The following rant was initially submitted to the Arizona Daily Sun by Dr. Kwela Juluka. It was rejected for its edgy harshness and, perhaps, because it was caked in a mysterious layer of white power. So he sent it our way because he knows this rag fosters such bouts of edgy harshness…and he also knows we snort anything. I have since asked Dr. J to consider becoming a regular contributor here at The Discord, as this remains one of the best places to foment such edgy harshness as to allow such rants to eventually encompass all the remaining synonyms for harsh and edgy….uh, hedgy?

Here’s the submission:

Having lived through the past dozen years with my ears pummeled by the increasingly brutal cacophony of modern politics, I can say in all certainty that I am nauseated with the nonsense that rings in the media about the present crisis in Iraq: seeping from the mouths of those such as Sen John McCain, who glorify war.

A casual reading of any historical summary of Iraq will convince even the most partisan hacks among us that the country is, at the very least, a seething cesspool chock full of the worst elements of the crusades, Mexican cartels, the 19th century US Calvary, and Ebola. For 1400 years, the factions in that region have been beheading one another over the rightful heir(s) to the second coming of Jesus, a fiction that, for instance, commands a father to stone his child to death for being logical. Following the only major terrorist attack on US soil in the past 20 years due to our leadership’s failure to pay attention to real intelligence information, the Bush administration deliberately fabricated new intelligence, with most of us then, blinded by self-righteous vindictiveness, were suckered by snake oil.

But soon, some of us regained our senses, only to become dehumanized as unpatriotic leftist extremists while “victory” was declared. Now we have the McCains, Rumsfelds, Cheneys, and other ophidians that disturbed the bees (and in the process destroyed our economy), insisting we slither into the hive again. These lethal pretenders to leadership should have their mouths washed with bleach and sewn forever closed on matters of war. Their venom should never again pollute our sensibilities.

Dr. Kwela Juluka

Tell us how you really feel Doc? As ISIS captured city after Iraqi city, Dr. J was obviously deeply troubled with the recent charade on Fox. Frankly, I was never angrier after their coverage. And when I use adverbs frankly Mr. Winslow is never angrier. Maybe they should change their logo to:

Fox News: Let’s keep asking what idiots think.

But kudos to Megyn Kelly for calling out Dick Cheney on his Horseshit. She was the only bright spot last week. Her station, meanwhile, chose to just show 2007 Surge justification quotes (SJQ) in the guise of insight (my take here).  In some ways this particular brand of their revisionist history is the most offensive yet. Hopefully it will only act to further expose their master plan. Regardless of the facts on the ground, they will continue to try to shift everything, even their greatest blunders, into another flight suit moment beneath some metaphorical Mission Accomplished banner. The Republican Party is an utter farce and the more people who realize this the better. It’s not just that some of the stuff they peddle is bullshit, it’s that everything is either outright lies, trivial, meaningless or some combination thereof.

I’ll end with a marvelous quote about this constant pile of “bullpuckey” being pushed by the right wing media:

“They are happy to tell each other, for years, that this stuff is news, and not just stuff that they made up, while the real media—and frankly the politicians who have to swim in that sewer—have to worry about this parallel track of paranoid fake information that traffics as news on the American political right, but that is disproven everywhere else outside their echo chamber.”

—Rachel Maddow, 7/8/14

Rachel Maddow’s rant on July 8^th was marvelous.  She covered how the right wing media convinced a huge faction of our society to question our real news and instead believe this new conservative brand of crapolla. She then ended the segment by explaining how this has a direct correlation to the sad, sad place our country now finds itself. For years, I have called this the story within the story of our time, but frankly Mr. Winslow that last frankly was from Rachel. Notice the quotes, sir! So, frankly, you can’t hold that one against me.

Have you heard about this Quinnipiac poll? Thirty three percent of those polled claim Obama is the worst president in history. It’s damning, unless you have a basic understanding of today’s society. Everyone is ignoring the irre-elephant in the room. The numbers are entirely predictable. Nearly 40% of our country are Foxeteers and they keep polling themselves to remind us of how strongly and wrongly they all agree. But where is the other 7%? Should we send out a search party? Should I turn on the Batshit signal again?

This poll is more of a collective case study for a dysfunctional ideology than anything else—the Scheissgeist, as it were, which I believe is German for Vote Hillary 2016.  As for our current State of the Union, history will clearly say something more pythonesque, aka, something completely different. Scholars and historians have a way of being scholarly and historical. Funny how that works.

Here’s a more realistic summary of Obama’s final judgment.

Barack Obama: Descent President, Horrible Congress

The Foxteers need to understand, even with their current War on Math, how a 7% approval rating is worse than 40%. And much of Obama’s 40% approval rating can be attributed to that same not-so-magnificent seven. Seven is the lowest in the history of polling, Rasmussen.

Also, when judging Obama we need to keep in mind most of the criticism on the right is entirely fictitious. Quick scandal review:

1. Damning and impeachable but not linked to Obama (The IRS).

Fun Fact: Bush targeted liberals, here, and no one cared.  Republicans want to impeach Obama for the same reason, but can’t actually prove any link to the White House.  Hey, why not just try to impeach Obama for breaking into the Watergate Hotel?

2. Doesn’t make any sense whatsoever (Benghazi).

My latest coverage here. If this scandal does make sense to you, ask your doctor if an injectable anti-psychotic is right for you.

3. A real genuine scandal (NSA).

Hint: most real shit can directly be attributed to republican policies.

(Fun Fact: it’s harder to impeach someone after you make it legal.)

Fox knows this fact, which is why their always forced to refocus their energies on bullshit.

Meanwhile, Obama’s biggest mistake was thinking he could work with these people. The rest of us have watched as the GOP splintered into a hodgepodge of dangerously misguided ideologies. The splintering of conservative groups into two camps, let’s call them Jeff Daniels and Jim Carey, will only hurt them in future elections. That’s good news for people who like to eat and live and stuff.

More are taking notice of their descent into madness:

“The sense that you could stick it to the liberals by being utterly indifferent to reality actually grew worse on the right after Bush left office, starting with the adoption of Sarah Palin as a right-wing hero. Palin represents this new era of treating the truth like it’s a horrible force of oppression trying to squelch conservative America.”

—Amanda Marcotte, Why does the Right Embrace Ignorance as a Virtue?

At this point this is not a treatable condition. As I’ve said before, we are watching a faction of our society de-evolve before our very eyes. This is causing a predictable backlash of poorly behaving liberals. I’m afraid we passed the polarization point of no return, but ultimately it comes down to this:

“Bad behaviors are now rampant on both sides of the political aisle, but liberals have one thing republicans don’t, valid points.”

—Mick Zano (today)

Well, Mr. Zano, then how should Obama be rated?

Good question, imaginary person. In 2008, I said I would rate his presidency on two things.

1. Domestically

His ability to avoid a double dip recession (essentially a 2nd game-ending global economic collapse).

So far CHECK

2. Foreign Policy

His ability to end wars and avoid new ones, especially of the WWIII variety—if you recall, things were ramping up between Iran and the U.S. at the end of the Bush years.

So far CHECK

Sounds easy? A republican would fail both.

“My prediction on inauguration day was this: Obama would do poorly on the economic front and well on foreign policy.  He has done a little better on the economic front than anticipated.”

Full Zano feature here.

I always thought Obama would have a much tougher time domestically, but he’s been a bit of an overachiever in this area and, as for his foreign policy, he is doing much better than people give him credit.  Many on the right blame Obama for everything going wrong in the world today, but I knew the Middle East would get worse before it got shittier. Thankfully, so did Obama. As an important bullshit journalist, I stand by my foreign policy coverage and predictions. I even went out onto some rickety limbs, like on Syria, yet I’m still hanging on.

If you look at Obama’s top 25 campaign promises, he’s done pretty well. Here’s the PolitiFact score card.  The only three issues that there’s been little movement on is:

1. Closing Guantanamo:

He tried, I blame Congress.

2. Creating a foreclosure prevention fund for homeowners:

There’s no excuse. Please bailout the people not just the banks, sir.

3. Reeling in lobbyists:

Fun Fact: no one will accomplish this EVER, at least under our current system of government.

He’s either accomplished the rest, or he’s making some progress—another exception might be Immigration Reform—but he does have a better PoltiFact score than his predecessor, here. And, hell, he aint done yet. Can you say “executive orders”? I knew you could.

Domestically, all economic indicators have shifted positively over the course of his tenor, admittedly not as robustly as many would like but in my opinion it was the best we could hope for under the circumstances. Europe and the rest of the world is actually recovering more slowly from Bush, but we’re all on borrowed time at this point. Meanwhile, Despite Republican opposition, Obamacare has started to bring down healthcare costs across the board, so more people are insured for less money. Republican translation = America died.

Also, Obama is the only president in recent history to avoid any major scandal. Admittedly, his pile of imaginary ones have had a real effect on this approval numbers. Fox News’ fuck reality approach has had a clear impact on this man’s legacy. This sounds absurd, but I don’t think Obama can afford another imaginary scandal. And you just know several more are in the works, or: GOP Scandal Factory in Honduras Collapses, Killing 47.

As predicted on inauguration day, Obama will end up ranked somewhere in the middle. Bush is near the bottom and will likely drop further as people come to terms with the irreparable damage he has caused. But there is some good news W., you don’t have far to drop. Sorry, GOP but all of the Foxian bat guano in the world isn’t going to change this eventuality. I maintain that stepping into what Obama did and ranking somewhere in the middle is still an impressive feat, at least for those of us who understood the time period and the historical context involved. Republicans obviously don’t. For a current example, go to Fox News or The Drudge Report, right now, and read a headline, any headline. Then you can laugh a little and cry little, but whatever you do don’t believe any of it. The country you save may be your own.