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October 26, 2012

My trip to Reno: With Rove & Romney & the Big Bad Wolf

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — Jane Stillwater @ 11:12 pm

After putting it off for several years, my family and I finally got around to taking a road trip to Reno, Nevada — just in time to get caught in an avalanche of deceitful election propaganda, compliments of the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson and Karl Rove. And also just in time to get stuck in a huge snow storm in the Sierras as well.

Just try putting chains onto your tires in the middle of a blizzard sometime. So much fun!

Once in Reno, however, my four-year-old granddaughter developed a bit of a cough, so while Ashley and Hugo were out playing blackjack, I was busy reading Mena bedtime stories — starting with Little Red Riding Hood. You know the one. Where the Big Bad Wolf pretends to be Grandma? Good grief! Politics are even in fairy tales!

“The better to EAT you with, my dear!” cries the wolf — cleverly disguised as Riding Hood’s sweet little grandmother. And if Rove and the Koch brothers and Adelson (and, incidentally, Ryan and Romney too) win the 2012 presidential race, then THEY will be happily eating up Grandma and there will be absolutely no kindly woodsmen nearby to save us.

But in Reno right now, Rove and his pals are still happily disguised as our innocent and well-meaning grandmother, out to buy the 2012 election for our own good. Yeah right. Enough said about that. If America gets eaten by wolves this election, then it’s just our own naive fault.

Bon appetite, Rove, Koch and Adelson. Hope you enjoy snacking on Grandma.

Obama may not be perfect, but he has shown that he’s not all that interested in cannibalizing America.

PS: While in Reno, I also visited my wonderful Aunt Evelyn and went to a political fund-raiser put on by the Washoe County democrats. We all gathered at the Atlantis, ate rubber turkey, watched the final presidential debate together and listened to speeches by senators Harry Reid and Al Franken — who commented that Romney thought Iran wanted Syria so it could finally have a path to the sea. “Forgot about the Persian Gulf, did ya?” The Persian Gulf is a body of water named after Persia — aka Iran. Iran has had a path to the sea since approximately 3100 BC.

But Rove himself hasn’t forgotten about the Persian Gulf, no no no. He didn’t forget it during that costly and spurious war on Iraq — so why should he suddenly forget about it now? Or forget it in January, after he has stolen the White House again.

PPS: Someone just suggested that everyone in America should start registering Republican — so that there will be less of a chance that our votes will be stolen by GOP election fraud. Yes, folks, American politics have actually sunk that low, where we actually have UN monitors watching our elections.

So. What can we mere helpless citizens do to stop America from getting eaten by the greedy, corrupt and evil Big Bad Wolves who continually prey on us? Just hope that the good part of human nature will eventually win out over the bad and that kindly woodsmen will always come to our rescue. But how’s that been working for us so far? Not so good. However, cooperation always trumps subjugation in the end — but it sure is taking a long time for Grandma, er, the American people to see that.

But something else also happened in Reno that did give me hope. Of course I didn’t see hardly any Obama car-bumper stickers there — but I didn’t see all that many Romney stickers there either.

It appears that Americans had really gotten fooled back when Big Bad Wolf George Bush ran for president in 2000, cleverly disguised as our folksy and kindly woodsman hero and not as the Rove-owned sleazy used-car salesman con-man that he actually was. Now, however, many voters can see that Romney is also trying to imitate Dubya disguised as a used-car salesman/BB Wolf — and this time Americans have not been so easily fooled. Or to quote from GWB himself, “Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

Hopefully.

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August 11, 2012

Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand: Cognitive Dissonance Gone Wild

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July 8, 2012

Republican Paradox Comics

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June 15, 2012

REVENGE: Why I’m gonna vote for Obama in November

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — Jane Stillwater @ 7:48 pm

This November, it goes without saying that most American oligarchs will gleefully vote for Mitt Romney — or whoever else the Republicans finally choose — because it’s clearly in their best self-interest to vote for a candidate who offers them every perk that they want. I understand that.

But what I completely don’t understand is why anyone who makes less than $5,000,000 a year would even consider voting for anyone besides progressive candidates such as the Green Party’s Jill Stein. If you’re not filthy rich and aren’t receiving Welfare for the Wealthy, then voting for progressives is clearly in YOUR own best self-interest too.

And then there’s Barack Obama to consider. Given his dismally neo-con-ish track record these past four years, why in the world would any American working-class hero ever consider voting for Obama again either? He has proven time and again to be a friend of the rich, an admirer of banksters, a happy supporter of oil barons, the corporatistas’ BFF, and a buddy-buddy-pal to war profiteers.

According to journalist Mark Karlin, Obama has recently come up with even more and better ways to help out oligarchs — not us. “Under President Obama and the Republicans, apparently we are about to surrender portions of our legal system that protect our health, environment, financial system and working conditions to a corporate-driven international tribunal.” http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/13547.

A vote for Obama is definitely not a vote for the Salt of the Earth like you and me and definitely not in our own self-interest. So why would I ever vote for him? Here’s why: REVENGE.

After repeatedly selling out the very people who elected him to office in a landslide in 2008, dontcha think it’s finally about time for Obama to finally feel the pain of our wrath? Yeah! And what could possibly be more painful than to torture Obama by getting him re-elected and forcing him to spend another four miserable years listening to racists, birthers, wannabe assassins, thugs and haters spewing out vitriolic, horrid and slimy things about him and his family again and again and again — like they have already done for the last four years.

But, ironically, it is these very same racists, birthers and haters who used to practically cream their jeans with happiness back when George W. Bush came out with all the very same “Bail out the Rich and kill everything that moves in the Middle East” policies that Obama now embraces. Go figure. You would think that these people would simply adore Obama just like they did GWB (and now Bush’s twin brother Romney).

I’m still surprised that they don’t.

PS: At the 2012 Netroots Nation convention last week, Van Jones gave a very stirring speech in favor of voting for Obama (for reasons other than revenge). And here is the gist of his speech, hopefully quoted correctly by me. But is Jones right? Should we actually go ahead and vote for Obama? Who knows. But I personally like my REVENGE reason better.

Here’s pretty much what Jones said:

“With regard to Wisconsin, you have to do a lot more than outspend us eight-to-one in order to beat us down. We are not giving up!

Our grandparents knew what it was like to march for change for real. They faced fire hoses and billy clubs. And now some of us want to give up after a really bad Tweet?

In Wisconsin, the local forces stood up — but they fought alone. Where was the national Democratic party? We did our minimum and the others did their maximum — and they won. Democrats, women, civil rights movement? They didn’t step up.

And now we have a quandary. We know we’re supposed to be all fired up. But we’re not. We like this President — but we don’t love him. We went from having a crush to feeling crushed. And we’re upset. Caught between a Barack and a hard place!

But if we try to teach Obama a lesson, let me just say a few things. If the Tea Party is allowed to score a trifecta and they govern America, they might use power a little bit differently than we do. They might use their power to decimate us! These people truly want to decapitate us — to eliminate the EPA for instance, which has probably saved more American lives than the Department of Defense.

When we had power, we went all bipartisan. But if they win, they won’t act that way. Do you actually think that if they win in November that they are going to be all bipartisan too? All the crazy stuff they say that they will do? They will do it!

It will be the worst.

Imagine a beach with a lifeguard, not the best lifeguard in the world — but not the worst. Then imagine a tsunami coming. Then imagine someone saying, “The more people who drown, that is a good thing — because then they will fire the lifeguard and I could get the lifeguard’s job.”

I respect Tea Party members. They are Americans. But I want to beat them in November! It’s time for us to stand up for what we believe in. It’s like when my kid plays soccer. I want my kid to win. But I don’t want my kid to win by biting the other kid and or to cheat and lie.

So we are in a quandary. We’ve been dealt a tough hand. But we have to be as strong as the opposition. So. What to do? Re-elect the president — and then hold him accountable too.

But before you can get a president to do what you want, you have to have a president who can be moved — and then you’ve got to do the moving. And Obama can be moved. But if the Tea Party gets a president elected, you can bet that their president will not and cannot be moved. So we have two fights here — first, to stop the Tea Party in November. But also to stop the budget committee in December as well, when the Bush tax cuts and the Pell grants expire. And we can do it. Occupy Wall Street was able to stop the SuperCommittee. Remember that.

We are dealing with ham-and-egg justice here — where the rich only have to give up a few eggs but the rest of us have to contribute the ham for breakfast. And in the process we, like the pig that contributes the ham, have to be killed.

In 2000, we had no idea that Bush would bankrupt the nation or crumple our international esteem. But in 2012, we now know. They have a wrecking-ball agenda. And we know this now. Education, clean air, unions. They have a brutal willingness to destroy all we have fought for. “I want to drown America’s government in a bathtub.” Who even thinks like that?

Kids coming home from wars are killing themselves — one a day. They’ve been nation-building in other countries. Now do it here at home!

You need to take yourselves very seriously now. We’ve got to take a time-out from our pity party. The stakes are too high — and you have the power. Our grandparents fought worse things than this and they won. Somebody has got to stand up now. Fight back. The fight to take back America has to start somewhere. Why not here.

PPS: Was it Plato who first got all excited about Beauty being the most important thing in the world? Beauty. That’s right.

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” Keats tells us.

“Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world,” says Ralph Waldo Emerson.

But no matter who you personally plan to vote for in 2012, please remember this: There is no beauty in greed, no beauty in poverty and no beauty in war.

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June 11, 2012

The Bane of Boehner

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May 8, 2012

The Right-Wing Propaganda Devil vs. the Goddess of Truth

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April 2, 2012

Old GOP vs. New GOP

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March 27, 2012

Political Tabloid Headlines of the Future

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March 17, 2012

How Republicans Spent St. Patty’s Day

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February 25, 2012

Last Issue of The Tea Party Christian Patriot Gazette

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December 23, 2011

More Political Good, Bad and Ugly

More Political Good, Bad and Ugly

Good: Your husband has decided to get more involved in politics.
Bad: He’s running for president as a conservative Republican.
Ugly: He’s Rick Santorum.

Good: Your wife is a nationally-known political figure.
Bad: She’s Michele Bachmann.
Ugly: After thirty-three years of marriage, she still doesn’t know you’re gay.

Good: Your husband landed an important job in a presidential campaign.
Bad: He’s an advance man in Iowa to the hard-core Christian Right.
Ugly: He’s working for Newt Gingrich.

Good: Your wife has a new job that pays well.
Bad: Working for Mitt Romney.
Ugly: It has something to do with inserting a crank in his back in the mornings.

Good: Your daughter just got a new job.
Bad: She’s working for Ron Paul.
Ugly: Editing his newsletter.

Good: Your son’s new book is about to be published.
Bad: It’s a biography of Rick Perry.
Ugly: He’s started talking like him.

Good: Your wife just got a good-paying job.
Bad: With the Herman Cain campaign.
Ugly: He invited her to his hotel room for a private conference.

Good: Your son just got a new job.
Bad: He’s working for FreedomWorks.
Ugly: He admits he’s doing ‘coke’ but not the drug.

Good: Your daughter just landed a job working for PolitiFact.
Bad: She’s been instructed to make sure her ‘facts’ are ‘fair and balanced’ between Republicans and Democrats, even if the facts show that the Republicans lie far more often than the Dems.
Ugly: She has to come up with misleading headlines that don’t match the facts in the story.

Good: Your son was just employed as a top staffer to an important politician.
Bad: It’s House Speaker John Boehner.
Ugly: He’s tasked with making liquor store runs and applying tanning lotion.

Good: Your daughter has decided to devote herself to working with the OWS Movement.
Bad: She’s working undercover for a right-wing website owned by James O’Keefe.
Ugly: Jimmy has invited her to his parents’ house for the weekend.

Good: Your son has just received a full four-year scholarship to attend college.
Bad: The college is Penn State.
Ugly: His tuition is being paid by the Jerry Sandusky Boys’ Foundation.

Good: Your son was just hired to work for a national celebrity.
Bad: It’s Rush Limbaugh.
Ugly: His job is to oil Rush every morning and then screw his clothes on.

Good: The ideas of Thomas Jefferson are being discussed on TV.
Bad: By Gretchen Carlson on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends.”
Ugly: Carlson insists the liberal Deist Jefferson would be a conservative Christian if he were alive today and join her in condemning those who say ‘Happy Holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas.’

Good: You’re not feeling well and your friend says he will find you a good doctor.
Bad: You’re flat broke and have no job or health insurance.
Ugly: Your friend is Paul Ryan.

© 2011 RS Janes. www.fishink.us

October 31, 2011

Halloween Costumes of the GOP Candidates

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September 8, 2011

The GOP Debate or, the Injustice League of America Has a Press Conference

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Random Notes on the Sept. 7, 2011 Republican Debate
(Candidates listed in order of polling popularity)

First off, the questioning was pathetic. Here they are huffing and puffing that big government spending is the biggest problem with the economy, then they start babbling about building a two-thousand-mile electronic fence across our border with Mexico and hiring thousands of new officers to police it. The ‘journalists’ on the debate panel never asked how they planned to pay for all of this, especially since some, like Rick Perry, want a ‘balanced budget’ amendment in the Constitution. Okay, Rick, how do you spend the tens of billions to ‘secure’ our border (it will do no such thing, of course), and still balance the budget? Also a few of the GOP Fabricasters greased up that old Republican chant that the government doesn’t create jobs. Aside from the one these candidates are running for, or the one they already occupy, this is obvious bull pucky and I wish one of the ‘reporters’ on the panel — NBC’s Brian Williams fancies himself one I hear — would have asked them what in hell they think all of those American civilians building M-1 Abrams tanks, smart bombs, cruise missiles, predator drones, F/A-18 attack jets, and Nimitz-class aircraft carriers are doing? They all, ultimately, get their paychecks from the government, i.e.: the taxpayers. That said, here’s a brief rundown of how the Clod Squad did:

— Rick Perry: For a supposed ‘Master Debater’ he didn’t live up to his reputation. Hint to Rick: Never give your opponent an opening with a snarky line about his record as governor when you have bigger skeletons hanging in your own closet. Not that this matters to the moon howlers in the Perry camp, though — they’ll refuse to hear it, just as they filter out anything that doesn’t fit their goofy worldview.

— Mitt Romney: Better than expected. His quick, sharp comeback to Perry’s snipe about falling job rates in Massachusetts under Romney’s reign was his best moment, but it’s not going to do him any good with the loony Teabaggers; Romney will merely lose ground less quickly now, barring a sex scandal or major foul-up by Perry.

— Michele Bachmann: Fading into insignificance before our very eyes. Her ad lib about kids needing a job should warrant some kind of investigation into what she did with all of those foster children she likes to brag about raising. What — was she running some kind of Dickensian sweatshop on Daddy’s farm for a little extra cash? “Goddamn it, hurry up and finish those sweaters and then you can have some cold gruel; Kathy Lee’s people are picking them up this afternoon!” I’m just sayin’ I wouldn’t put it past her.

— Ron Paul: Sure, he’s got some good ideas — ending our dumb wars, stopping illegal spying on Americans, and legalizing drugs for adults — but it comes wrapped in a lot of raging anti-government Ayn Randian stupid. I know papa Ron wouldn’t see it this way, but government work is preventing his country-club drunk son from practicing his ‘love’ on his patients, so that’s one thing the gov’t is good for, as well as keeping the elder Paul off the streets and well-fed.

— Newt Blingrich: Did I type ‘Blingrich’? Guess so — that’s my new name for this Tiffany fake who keeps reappearing every presidential election cycle like a bout of stomach flu. His funniest line last night was his insistence that kids should learn American history — that’s priceless coming from the Newt-wit who keeps revising it to fit his ideology and bank account. ‘Blingy’ should be gone by Halloween — there’s not much money flowing into his coffers these days and his campaign staff now consists of two guys he met selling DVD players out of the trunk of a car I’m told. I meant the two guys were selling the DVD players, not Newt, but I can readily understand any confusion.

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