More Real Than The Real — Really
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A horse walks into a bar in South Carolina, the bartender asks: Why the long face?
A newt peed on me, answers the horse.
The chaotic mess of the GOP primary is finally over and Newt Gingrich urinated on everything.
In shame of Republicans, half-crazed Steven Colbert humiliated the entire process by shoving the way-ugly of current US politics back in every straight-face that chimes democracy.
(Illustration found here).
In a land where up is really down, US peoples are laced up the asshole and remain income-challenged, wealth-challenged, and debt-constrained with nowhere to go — and no one to lead them there.
The GOP has no face and no real policies, and they’re tracking nobody — even across the aisle, President Obama is not leading, but just continuing to follow.
A bit of 2012 insight from the LA Times:
The pertinent question raised by Colbert’s attention grab on the day before South Carolina’s primary vote is why the four remaining Republican candidates are not drawing crowds as big and adoring as Colbert’s.
Yes, Colbert is a celebrity.
He’s an expert entertainer.
And it’s not too hard to get a few thousand college kids to skip class on any day of the week.
But four years ago at this point in the campaign, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were pulling in crowds as big or bigger.
John McCain was packing the gymnasiums pretty well too.
And, later in the campaign, Sarah Palin proved she could rock an arena.
This year’s candidates are avoiding big events because they do not want to be photographed in half-empty halls.
Gingrich actually refused to speak to the GOP leadership conference because so few Republicans showed up.
Instead, voters have most often been invited to meet the candidates in the cramped confines of restaurants where a few hundred or even a few dozen people can look like a lot on TV.
An example of this small-scale café campaign is Newt Gingrich’s schedule for voting day: 8 a.m. at the Grapevine Restaurant in Spartanburg, 10:45 at Tommy’s Ham House in Greenville, 3:30 at the Chik-Fil-A in Anderson and 5:45 at Whiteford’s Restaurant in Laurens.
One wishes Colbert/Stewart would actually be on the ballot in November — Obama would then have to actually lead, really talk the talk, or get punk’d.
Repugnancy Ringing
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Too early for nausea already — an election year with a bad, bad hangover of way-too much asshole behavior:
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows a new high — 84 percent of Americans — disapproving of the job Congress is doing, with almost two-thirds saying they “disapprove strongly.”
Just 13 percent of Americans approve of how things are going after the 112th Congress’s first year of action, solidifying an unprecedented level of public disgust that has both sides worried about their positions less than 10 months before voters decide their fates.
(Illustration found here).
And what has President Obama now have somewhat/maybe in common with Dick Nixon?
From ABC News:
Congress’ rating is a broad 35 points below Obama’s 48 percent approval, the biggest gap between approval of the president and Congress since 1990.
Obama, though, still has plenty of challenges of his own: In polling since 1940, just four previous presidents have started their re-election year with less than 50 percent approval.
Only one of them won, Richard Nixon in 1972.
This year is going to be really interesting, but so full of bullshit.
All this is a normal attitude for US peoples who have been ass-kicked by the assholes in Congress — and the White House — and ended 2011 with low wages in a losing job market, a bad housing operation and an economy that just won’t pick-up any kind of steam.
Not helping is the ugly, approaching fact the US market is shrinking — valuations are so low that executives would rather buy back shares than spend the cash to expand — and this will only bleed down to the guy on main street.
Hence, a change, an occupation is coming.
Instead of Wall Street, maybe Congress, and today is the day when a huge protest is expected in DC to highlight the bullshit on Capital Hill.
“Often the complaint that I hear is that, ‘you guys are targeting the wrong people.’ And so we have that discussion about you know whether or not Wall Street is the source of the problem or really Congress is,” said Aaron Bornstein, a 31-year-old neuroscientist and member of the Occupy Wall Street Think Tank, which will hold discussions at the event.
“They’re really two sides of the same coin,” he continued.
“You can’t have the corruptive influence without both the people who are doing the corrupting and the people who are corrupted.”
And never the twain…
‘Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain’
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Finally and officially, the 2012 political bullshit starts today.
Republicans are gathered like hogs at the trough as the Iowa caucuses gather to select somebody to head the GOP into November, but there’s a long, hard, pot-holed road ahead — millions of dollars squandered and 13 nonsensical debates later, all is at last hung out to dry in the sunlight of reality.
Yesterday, Mitt Romney blubbered so boldly: “We’re going to win this thing with all of our passion and strength…”
Is he another Newt Gingrich?
Newt early last month: “They’re not going to be the nominee…I’m going to be the nominee. It’s very hard not to look at the recent polls, and think, odds are very high, I’m going to be the nominee.”
And yesterday: “I don’t think I’m going to win. I think if you look at the numbers, I think that volume of negativity has done enough damage.”
Maybe he’s talking about all those nabobs of negativity culled from his own antics.
And through the last few months, each of these clowns had their time in the prime — Michele Bachmann, the early obvious nominee; then Rick Perry, but oops; then Herman Cain and his wonderful way with females; then Newt with intellectual history punching the airwaves and odds so high it’s way-hard to see the ground; and now the guy nobody wants — Romney.
However, they have attempted with much success to ignore a huge, nasty-faced elephant in the room — the last Republican in the White House.
In all the mindless squawk on taxes, war, and President Obama during all the ludicrous campaigning, the entire GOP apparatus has maintained a blissful silence on the guy who near-single-handily put the planet in the shitty spot it is now — George Jr.
One thing Republicans are hoping for is a giant, collective memory loss by US peoples.
Under George Jr.’s tenure, the whole show went to shit in a wire basket and the GOP seeks to put that whole episode in the way-background and focus on Obama, but will the trick play out among the 99 percent who saw their lives shattered by eight years of arrogant incompetence.
The problem, though, is what George Jr. did created such a enormous gap in any kind of GOP reasoning that one could easily drive an entire herd of elephants through with room to spare.
(Illustration found here).
Just take the money and run.
From the New York Times:
In 2001, President George W. Bush inherited a surplus, with projections by the Congressional Budget Office for ever-increasing surpluses, assuming continuation of the good economy and President Bill Clinton’s policies.
But every year starting in 2002, the budget fell into deficit.
In January 2009, just before President Obama took office, the budget office projected a $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009 and deficits in subsequent years, based on continuing Mr. Bush’s policies and the effects of recession.
Mr. Obama’s policies in 2009 and 2010, including the stimulus package, added to the deficits in those years but are largely temporary.
…
First, the Bush tax cuts have had a huge damaging effect.
If all of them expired as scheduled at the end of 2012, future deficits would be cut by about half, to sustainable levels.
And those mangled, horrible wars?
Bob Gates said it all: “In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”
Hundreds of thousands dead, at least two counties — Afghanistan and Iraq — have been for all purposes destroyed and literally trillions of dollars flushed down the graveyard drain.
As this political season starts to heat up, all Obama has to do is point to George Jr. and say, ‘Remember and Beware.’
Never has so, so few caused so much damage.
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
“Republicans talk a lot about losing their way during the last decade, and when they do they’re talking about the Bush years,” said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont-McKenna College.
“For Republicans, the Bush administration has become the `yadda yadda yadda’ period of American history.”
…
The former president himself has been all but invisible since leaving office in 2009 with a Gallup approval rating of just 34 percent.
His predecessor, Democrat Bill Clinton, had a 66 percent approval rating in early 2001 when he stepped down after two terms marred by a sex scandal and impeachment.
In a presidential contest dominated by concerns over the weak economy, government spending and the $15 trillion federal debt, the Republican candidates have been loath to acknowledge the extent to which Bush administration policies contributed to those problems.
Republicans also controlled Congress for six of the eight years Bush was in the White House, clearing the way for many of his policies to be enacted.
…
Bush still has loyal supporters who believe his legacy will be vindicated by history.
But even they say the GOP field won’t be embracing him anytime soon.
“Sad to say, they’re looking at polling data that indicates they’re better off not bringing him into the campaign,” former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer said.
“I think President Bush has made America a safer nation and better nation and I’m proud of it.
But politics isn’t about what’s fair, it’s about winning.”
In other words, little Ari, it’s okay to cheat, lie and don’t speak ill of even a criminal.
Are We There Yet?
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US peoples are already sick of next year’s political rodeo.
A majority chunk of Americans want the 2012 presidential campaign, readying to blast away in less than a month, to be over already — nearly triple the poor souls that can’t wait for the politicking to begin.
From Gallup (h/t Wonkette):
With the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses serving as the kickoff of voting in the 2012 presidential election campaign, Americans would likely prefer to fast-forward to the end of the campaign than watch it unfold.
Given a choice, 70 percent of Americans say they can’t wait for the campaign to be over, while 26 percent can’t wait for it to begin.
…
Nationally, there is little difference by party in feelings about the upcoming campaign — 67 percent of Democrats and 66 percent of Republicans can’t wait for the campaign to be over.
…
Importantly, despite their generally negative feelings toward the campaign, Americans are not necessarily going to tune it out completely, or decline to participate.
The same poll finds that 57 percent of Americans have already given “quite a lot” of thought to the upcoming election, and 72 percent are at least somewhat enthusiastic about voting in next year’s election.
Ah, the passion of somewhat enthusiastic…
‘Pollyanna’ Prognosis
Filed Under Bullshit, Economy, Energy, Environment, Politics | Leave a Comment
In recent history, one has learned to not trust a lot of information from any US government agency with a hidden/or not-so-hidden agenda — recent example is the State Department’s okay of the horrendous Keystone XL pipeline, claiming the 1,711-mile tube slated to carry peanut-butter-like toxic slop through the gut of middle America “would have minimal effect on the environment.”
Wrong on a lot of counts.
Now, it’s the enthusiasm and optimism on future oil and gas supplies from the Department of Energy, painting a rosy picture that’s not only untrue, but a dangerous lie.
(Illustration found here).
In a kind of preview of next week’s meeting of the the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas USA to be held in Washington, DC, a group of distinguished energy experts representing academia, industry, think tanks, and non-profit organizations held a press conference on Wednesday in front of the DOE to highlight misleading data that supposedly shows resources “could make the United States self-sufficient in oil and gas.“
The group also dispatched a letter to DOE Secretary Steven Chu to make matters more clear.
From Jim Baldauf, President and Co-Founder of ASPO-USA:
“The risk/benefit ratio is out of balance.
If these exuberant predictions are wrong, the consequences could be catastrophic.
We need to be conservative and prudent in planning for the future.
We can’t bet America’s economy and national security on Pollyanna predictions.
Exuberance about cheap energy may serve the short-term interests of Wall Street, but it threatens the future of our country.”
Not surprising, the DOE seems under the influence: Such rosy forecasts are typical of industry sources.
Duh!
Furthermore, Tom Whipple, a former CIA analyst and chief editor of ASPO-USA’s Peak Oil Review:
“There are literally dozens of reports and analyses appearing every week around the world pointing to the fact that the world is facing major challenges in maintaining, much less growing, the global supply of oil in next few years.”
He added, “Our concern here today is the growing disconnect between the solid evidence of serious troubles ahead and the Department of Energy’s benign projections concerning the availability of fossil fuels in the next 30 years.”
The DOE’s bullshit flies in the face of a pile of reports to the contrary, even last year from the US Department of Defense, saying shortages could start appearing by as early as 2015.
From the DOD report:
“By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day,” says the report, which has a foreword by a senior commander, General James N Mattis.
It adds: “While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds.
Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India.”
Also last year, a report was leaked from the German army that concluded peak oil is not bullshit and things could get a bit dicey as time wears on — and the report didn’t pull punches, according to spiegelonline: It warns of shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the “total collapse of the markets” and of serious political and economic crises.
So one wonders why President Obama’s administration is so tongue-tied and dumb-ass about energy.
Of course, Obama’s been the same way with climate change, and he’s noodling around with some dangerous shit in attempts to get his ass re-elected.
Yesterday, at an University of Colorado rally talking to the young people who flocked to his name four years ago, but now recognize…
He continued to put off making a decision about the upcoming Keystone XL pipeline: “We’re looking at it right now,” Obama told the crowd. “No decision has been made. And I know your deep concern about it, so we will address it.”
‘Deep concern?’
Obama has always had a kind of Pollyanna quality to him, a notion from the old days of “yes, we can.”
Now, we all know it’s just political bullshit.