Teabag Psycho

Leaky Wiki

Who The Law Protects

No Choice Election Choices

And Thus The Goose Stepping Begins

Excellent analysis of the current situation and its relationship to fascist movements here.

"Democracy" in Modern America

True Colors: Tea Baggers Assault Move On Activist

Denial, It's the Republican Way.

Elephant in Fox Clothing

Why?

Dear Mr. Conway,

I am a life long Democrat and progressive. My first reaction to your "Why?" ad is to want to vote for Rand Paul to punish you for airing it. I agree with absolute separation of church and state, feel "faith based initiatives" are bad for Democracy, feel religious institutes should be taxed heavily, and think religions are hoaxes meant to fleece the weak of mind. If I didn't know Paul was a lunatic I would pull the lever for him simply to punish you for this religious bigotry. There is a very good chance I won't vote for you regardless because of this senseless ad. I am an atheist and I vote and I tend to loath voting for pretentious Bible thumpers like you. Being a Christian does not make you a good person, and being a self-righteous, fear mongering Christian makes you an asshole.

Sincerely,
Alan Miller
Louisville, Kentucky

A Letter to Bill Maher

10/13/2010

Dear Bill Maher,

I’ll start by sucking up and saying what a big fan I am, blah, blah, blah.  Sometimes you screw up or are shockingly ignorant on a subject but you’re fighting the good fight and unlike your counterparts on basic cable channels, you admit to mistakes.  A tiny mistake from last Friday’s show was the pronunciation of the county with the asshole firemen.  It’s oh-buy-un (phonetically obaiyun).  I think you said ohbeeon or something.

Just so you know, I grew up in Western Kentucky just north of there and it is a bigger shithole than you can possibly imagine.  You’ve heard of the Bible Belt?  This is the puss leaking from the penis just behind the belt.  It is a horrible place full of mean, hateful people that are truly the worst on earth.  You haven’t seen hate until you’ve lived amongst the Church of Christ and Baptist motherfuckers that make up the population there.  Horrible, evil, haters to the core, most of them were delighted to hear about this man’s house burning to the ground and would’ve been delighted if his children had been killed as well.  They would have felt it was just.

But that’s not what I’m writing about.  I was really disappointed that you let P.J. O’Rourke and S.E. Cupp get away with one of the stupidest Republican tropes out there:  “The government can’t create jobs.”  This is utter and complete horseshit.  Here’s how you counter that statement: 

1.  During the New Deal the government put most of America to work.  Those weren’t jobs?

2.  The people that are re-building all our roads and bridges aren’t working at jobs?

3.  When the government gives people jobs they spend money because they have money.

4.  That money being spent means people sell things meaning they have to buy things to sell meaning they have to hire people to sell the things and make the things and that stimulates the economy and creates more jobs.

5.  The best way to make sure that government money moves straight into the economy is to give it to the poorest first because they’re going to spend it immediately.  I’m poor.  I assure you this is true.

Republicans’ problem with this is the money is going to the bottom instead of the top, and they prefer to be trickled on than raised up.  That’s why they vote against their best interests (mention What’s the Matter with Kansas next time they disagree with you on that one), it’s because they believe they are better than everyone else even though they are dirt poor and getting poorer.  We live in a country of idiots that function according to belief rather than reality. 

There’s also the simple fact that what pulled us out of the Great Depression more than any other thing is that our government took complete and absolute control of the entire economy for four years and put everybody to work with good paying jobs with great benefits while forcing conservation and economy.  When our boys came home from war they came home to fat bank accounts, free education, and health care for life and that combined with the New Deal is why we had the greatest economy, best educated citizenry, and best health in the world up until the Republicans managed to end it all. 

“You can’t raise taxes during a recession” is bullshit.  “Tax cuts create jobs” is bullshit.  “Democratic spending caused the recession” is bullshit.  “The government can’t do it better (or cheaper)” is bullshit.  We have proof in recent history against all these but the Republicans keep on stating them as if they were laws of nature and they need to be called on it every time.  Maybe next time you have two conservatives on, haul out that little list and point out to them how each and every one has no basis in fact.  The Republican economic world view is just as H.W. Bush called it:  Voodoo economics.  In other words it is a religion, a belief system, not a science.  It is pure fantasy and history proves it again and again and again.

I watched Overtime as well and here’s a thing that occurred to me years ago about President Carter’s time in office.  The GOP hated Carter with a loathing that may exceed that which they have for Obama and were almost as obstructionist as today’s Congress.  The oil supply was cut off right after he got elected (probably with strong encouragement from GOP leaders).  The real nail in his coffin was the failed rescue mission in Iran.  Who planned this operation?  The CIA.  Who gave the intel that it was safe to fly those helicopters?  The CIA.  Who was the head of the CIA?  George H.W. Bush.  What did Nixon say about Bush?  “He’ll do anything we tell him.”  Worth thinking about.

Thanks for your time.  Please quit fucking up.

Love,

Alan Miller

US Chamber of Commerce

Many people are under the impression that the Chamber of Commerce is some kind of benign business association, maybe even a governmental branch, that helps boost small businesses.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The Chamber is, in fact, a rabid right-wing fund raising machine that cares only for profits and nothing else.  They are against labor, health care reform, and regulation of any kind.  They are against people and for corporate profit.  This avid celebration of greed with the regal sounding name demonstrates how typical it is in the world of the "conservatives" by really not caring where their money comes from or how it was made.  Most recently it turns out the CoC is channeling large sums of foreign money into our political system.  Much to my surprise the Obama administration is actually making a fuss about this.  Why can't they get outraged over the unprecedented use of the filibuster against Obama's agenda?

David Axelrod has managed to do something with this the GOP are masters of:  He's flipped their accusations back at themselves by saying, "You need to prove you're not doing this."  Amazing.  Is our Democrats learning?  Now they need to throw the results of their "free trade" like the massive loss of jobs, the number of us that have been pushed out of the middle class and it's rapidly shrinking size (shrinking into "lower class" and poverty) back in their faces.  

Links:

Obama aide asks chamber to open its books
Axelrod: U.S. Chamber Using Foreign Cash To Fund GOP Campaigns
Rove, Gillespie Slam Obama for Spreading 'Baseless Lie' Over Foreign Contributions
"U.S." Chamber of Commerce campaign stash awash in foreign cash: Frisch
Senator wants Chamber investigated

 

Morality

Mitch McConnell's Tortured Syntax

NPR Begins the Slide to Irrelevance

Current.org, a trade magazine for public media has an article about NPR in which they spout a marketing study as some kind of scientific theory.  The strength of my disdain for the entire marketing industry is difficult to express.  I decided to point out to the author and NPR how fucked up stupid this idea is with the following letter:

Cc:  NPR ombudsman

re:  http://www.current.org/audience/aud1017npr-opportunities.shtml

Dear Karen Everhart,

I'll be up front and tell you that I think "marketing" is generally a complete and utter fraud run by shallow, simple fools that believe in what they're doing while it drains dry the businesses it advises and our society in general.  This "study" is marketing research and in my mind is about as plausible as Scientology.

That being said, there is one enormous problem with the idea NPR can "expand" its audience by becoming more "accessible" (read:  by dumbing itself down):  As NPR attempts to lighten its content it will lose the people that already listen to NPR.  The television news networks did this same thing in the late 70's to "capture the youth demographic" and the result was that the people that watched the news quit watching it because it was more flash and chattiness, cute pandas and celebrity gossip than news.  None of the kids started watching it because it was the NEWS.  So viewership continues slowly to decline.  All sorts of attempts have been made to place blame on societal changes, different age groups, etc. but the fact is the people that don't listen to NPR aren't going to start but those that do listen to NPR may very well stop listening as the programming gets reduced to stupidity.  A perfect example of this is the flagship talk show Talk of the Nation.  This show has been dropped by stations around the country since it was broken up into multiple short segments around 2001 by the current host to "keep it moving."  Well, the reason people listened to the show was to hear long, serious discussions with experts about complicated issues.  You can't have that when your programming is designed to "keep it moving" and "give it energy."  As a result I know I quit listening to TOTN a few years ago and it was removed from my local NPR's lineup without so much as a whimper of protest from local listeners.  They had to keep Science Friday or the listeners would have stormed the station with pitchforks and torches.  Why?  Because Science Friday tackles difficult questions without dumbing it down and isn't afraid to bump the next subject if the host senses they have really started to make headway in explaining the topic.

I've sensed for years that NPR was heading down the road of listening to marketing professionals and focus groups rather than trying to report the news as thoroughly as possible.  This study and your cheerleading coverage of it I'm sure will be more nails in the coffin of one of the few reliable news sources we still have in this country.

Sincerely,

Alan Miller