Political Fallout

The American Scab Dream: Will Work for Congressional Crumbs

2011-04-11T11:45:00.004-04:00

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that our rapidly ailing Democracy is suffering from schizophrenia? My other 16 personalities tend to agree.

Our Democracy, the best form of government money can buy (just ask China), flexed its ~~bipartisan~~ bipolar muscle Friday night as the possibility of a government shutdown loomed over Corporate Hill. While watching whether our Do Nothing Congress was going to let the ball drop on the budget at the midnight hour, 16/17 of me wanted them to reach an agreement, thus averting the worst teabaggin’ in U.S. History.

Besides, that’s their damn job and why We’re paying these folks, right? Congress is the only profession in America that, due to its own incompetence, can legally allow itself to shut down while elected members still receive a paycheck without having to wait in an unemployment line.

Meanwhile, the other 1/17 of the multiple me, myselves and I wanted the government to shut down. If anything, I wanted to see how a shutdown would affect the free market, namely whether a spike in pitchforks and V (from Vendetta) mask sales would follow in the shutdown’s wake. You see, I’ve been harboring a secret fantasy of becoming a U.S. Senator without having to go through all the hassles of having to run a campaign and prostitute myself to raise money for potential ~~lobbyists~~ pimps. After all, Congressional members are merely “Indentured Servants,” who serve corporate interests in exchange for campaign contributions, under-the-table Swedish massages and ringside seats at WWE Smackdown main events.

Had the government shut down, I could have slipped in through the chamber back door and become a Scab Senator, filling one of my representatives’ spots on the floor.

The Rat Race in D.C.

HELP WANTED: Scab Lawmakers

Job Description: Now hiring 535 temporary workers to fill striking lawmakers’ seats in Washington, D.C. Qualified applicants will be responsible for maintaining the ~~status quo~~ politics-as-usual; which include but is not limited to maintaining three war fronts, keep pretending health care costs will level off some day, sign blank checks to Military Industrial Complex, create more jobs overseas, pilfer Social Security cash box when nobody’s looking, craft more unconstitutional laws that will make judicial branch look like they’re legislating from the bench when they overturn them 10 years down the road, occasionally rotate environmental issues on backburners, add a new page to the tax code every day and write mean-spirited press releases that call members on the other side of aisle mean, albeit outdated names like Commie Stooge, Socialist, Right Wingnut, Bleeding-Heart Liberal, and Poopy-Head Jerk Face.

Qualifications: A pulse (formerly possessing a pulse will suffice, so as not to discriminate against current dead weight and card-carrying Zombies serving in Congress).

First 100 minutes: Since my livelihood on the Hill will be basking in uncertainty, should a scab opportunity ever arise, I will have to act fast -- something that completely bucks the current dysfunctional system in D.C. That said I plan on sponsoring the following bills during my first 100 minutes in office.

I, Scab Senator Lindsey, hereby sponsor the following bills:

-Permanently banish “politics-as-usual” from the political lexicon, not just in name only;

-Make the Unites States a neutral country and auction the Pentagon on e-Bay;

-Move the White House and Corporate Hill to the center of the country, somewhere in the rural Midwest, and build a shark-infested mote around the perimeter to keep lobbyists from preying on my fellow scabs;

-Let Texas succeed from the Union, thus whitewashing the historical implications of 3 illegal wars enacted by Texas-born presidents;

-Continually broadcasting "Ally ally oxen free! Come out come out wherever you are!" around the globe until Osama bin Laden comes out of hiding and multinational corporations return jobs and tax-sheltered money they’ve hidden overseas.

Unfortunately, Congress and President Obama rammed a blunt pitchfork through my dreams at the 11th hour, so it looks like it’s back to my current government job (at least 7/16th of me) and politics-as-usual in D.C. on Monday.

Originally posted on sister site: Say Something Funny

Top Ten Signs Donald Trump is Serious About Running for President

2011-04-09T08:49:00.004-04:00

It seems that if you want to grab and hold the media’s attention these days, all you have to do is drink tigers’ blood or booze with pickles, run around in public and babble incoherently about nothing to total strangers and take yourself too seriously. At least these are the modern-day prerequisites for running for President of the United States -- or at least pretending to run for president while prick-teasing the media.

Speaking of which, Donald Trump keeps threatening to make a presidential run but hasn’t made it official, which involves forming an exploratory committee to search your parents’ basement and attic with the task of finding your original birth certificate and making an obligatory appearance on "The View". Next you send out press releases telling them you plan on making an important announcement at some historical American ~~wasteland~~ landmark such as ~~Liberty~~ Taco Bell in Philadelphia or The Mall of America or Carhenge in Alliance, Nebraska.

Carhenge: Nothing smacks of Americana more than makeshift graveyard of American-made cars passed off as art

Before the event, you leak information that you plan on announcing that you’ve filed papers and you’re running for president. But at the actual event, you tease the media by telling them ~~you have list of names of 257 card-carrying Terrorists working for Homeland Security in your breast pocket~~ are officially forming a presidential exploratory committee, now that the preliminary exploratory committee ~~manufactured a new birth certificate claiming you were born at said landmark~~ has located your birth certificate, thus proving you are over 36 years of age, were born in America and are prone to 4-year cycles of hyper-narcissism.

That said, news leaked by Donald Trump’s legion of underpaid ~~casino workers~~ interns indicate that he’s in the preliminary exploratory process, thus indicating he’s taking the first serious step in making a presidential run, which leads to this week’s David Letterman’s Late Show Online Top Ten Contest entry. But I am not going alone, Dear Reader. I’m soliciting your help – or not. I’ve written ten possible entries for this week’s list, and it’s up to you to help me select the CHOSEN ONE from the list (for I can only submit one) that you think has the best chance of winning.

This Week's Topic: Top Ten Signs Donald Trump Is Serious About Running for President

10. Using “Celebrity Apprentice” next season to help choose Vice President running mate

9. Apologized to James Dobson for leaving a horse’s head at the foot of his bed

8. Boycotting own show to generate more press

7. Fired videographer after reading John Edward’s new book, “The Idiot’s Guide to Running for President”

6. Acquired Diebold Voting Machines company, whose technicians are calibrating voting machines to hit three Trumps every-other

5. Hired WikiLeaks and B.A. Baracus to head Opposition Research A-Team

"I pity da fool who don't vote for Mr. T"

4. Running political ads on “The Howard Stern Show”

3. The Tea Party, Birthers and Newt Gingrich’s mistress added him to their speed dial

2. Ordered 2 million red, white & blue “Obama, Your Fired!” matching headbands and thong underwear

1. Burned all the skeletons in his closet – insurers issued $12 million check to replace Trump Towers

Don’t forget to indicate (in the Comments) which ONE of these I should submit to the Top Ten Contest.

The Freak Show's Pullin' Me Back In

2011-04-04T23:56:00.009-04:00

I tried to swear off politics and political satire forever, but the GOP's Declaration of War on public employees, doves, common decency, the vanishing Middle Class,common sense, attrition, the environment, Democracy, freedom, mobile home owners, education/public schools, immigrants (legal and otherwise), intelligence, the Judicial Branch, gay marriage, the Constitution, and the list goes on has slowly pulled me back into the fray.

And the elected Democrats inability to grow a backbone cannot be overlooked either.You are complicit in Democracy's demise and will be exposed, should you wander underneath the satirist' microscope of absurdity.

I don't think I can bite my tongue any longer without risking permanent damage that I cannot afford with my current health insurance plan.

And with the GOP Presidential Freak Show coming to Iowa's Political Theatre this year, I cannot resist such tasty morsels I'm sure they'll be serving at their $1000 plate galas.

GOP Three-Ring Circus Lands in Iowa: Sarah Palin takes center stage and mounts unsuspecting GOP Elephant in her non-bid for presidency

Stay tuned for more, and in the meantime be sure to follow me on Twitter if you are not doing so already. Or you can catch me every once in awhile on my formerly neglected sister site, "Say Something Funny".

Quagmire Stew: A Recipe for Disaster

2010-07-05T15:04:00.004-04:00

Preemptive Ingredients:

2 bloodied handfuls of WMD seeds
2 Congressional chambers locked-and-loaded with free-range Chickenhawks
1 Military Industrial Complex armed with a blank check (and no balances)
1 slightly tattered Constitution

Ingredients*:

120,000 to 170,000 homegrown pounds of American flesh** (flak jackets not included)
2 million stockpiled missiles marinade in benzene-based napalm
1 demonic dash of despotism
Several vats of patriotic zeal
A liberal supply of recyclable right-wing propaganda
1 bottomless well of fear
A limited supply of hope

* Feel free to improvise ingredients to satisfy any shifts in political winds
**To feed larger blood-lust appetites, add more Faustian flesh as needed

Preparation:

Strategically place (but not too strategically, thus hinting any semblance of an exit strategy) a manufactured medium-sized pot on the front burner, making sure to fire heat up to hottest level of revenge, thus ensuring the backdrop Chickenhawks have ample time to rattle their limp-fisted sabers. Blindly throw in 30 to 50 thousand pounds of expendable flesh adorned in patriotic platitudes of freedom preserved in the American Way of Life. Once the pot-o’-flesh comes to full boil, drop in several marinade missiles from above, occasionally stirring in a pinch of patriotic zeal to flavor the furor. Stir liberally, occasionally tossing in a splash of fear-induced right-winged propaganda until the flesh has time to congeal. Move to back burner and let medium pot simmer until flesh is cooked through and thoroughly seasoned with rhetorical promises of hope.

After thoroughly stirring all up of the preemptive ingredients in a large two-dimensional fishbowl, pour mixture into a giant mixing bowl, shake well, and strategically (but again, not too strategically) dump into a giant melting pot on the front burner and turn heat up to Shock and Awe. That’s right: Shock and Awe. But don’t let the fireworks seduce you into forgetting about what’s cooking on the back burner.

Always keep an eye on the back burner.

Once the Shock and Awe has fully effervesced, be sure to keep feeding the pot with unseasoned homegrown flesh, adding several thousand pounds every six months or so, mixing in a demonic dash of despotism and bloodied-handfuls of fear as needed.

Stir conservatively for six years, making sure to keep a watchful eye on the back burner.

Pour in a liberal amount of hope into the giant melting pot and move to back burner until long forgotten. Take out and conspicuously dump spoiled ingredients into nearby VA hospital and pour remaining ingredients into medium pot on back burner.

Did you take your eye off the back burner?

Move medium pot back to front burner, add a liberal supply of right-wing propaganda and fresh flesh and turn heat down to: Simmer Indefinitely.

Serves, if ever fully cooked, nobody except special interests and those beholden to the Faustian pact made at the crossroads of Ground Zero and K-Street.

Rep. Boehner Just Says Hell No to "Yes We Can!"

2010-03-28T23:14:00.004-04:00

The Obstructionist Party of No (OPN) may want to consider a new campaign strategy for November. Not too many folks like to be told "no" all of the time. Take for example a toddler who has been told "no" all day long, who in turn unleashes all of that pent-up anger in what is known as a temper tantrum. Now we have a bunch of grown-ups throwing collective temper-tantrums and calling them Tea Parties.

No You Can't (Featuring John Boehner)

The White (House) Elephant Obama Would Like to Soon Forget

2010-03-19T22:20:00.005-04:00

While the Health Care Reform debate ramped up during the past few weeks, with arm twisting on the left and Hyperbole bombs dropping on the right, the war in Iraq celebrated its 7th birthday -- a party that flew under the radars of all parties.

BraVenew Foundation's latest new video commiserating the 7th anniversary of the war in Iraq.

Iraq: Thousands Dead, $747.3 Billion Spent And Not Any Safer

Rebranding War: What is it Good For?

2010-03-17T10:00:00.005-04:00

What’s in a name? That which we call a war
By any other name would smell of death, destruction --
And a democratic resurrection
Of burning flesh dipped in oil
Buried deep in foreign soil…

FADE IN:

Uncle Sam’s hot-shot marketing machine (sponsored by the Military Industrial Complex: Where one soldier’s misery is another man’s bottom-line prophecy…), armed with the monumental task of re-branding the war in Iraq. Which begs the question:

How does one sell repackaged rotten meat
To an electorate that’s fast asleep?

That is precisely what Obama’s marketing machine intends to find out when it re-brands the war in Iraq in September with “Operation New Dawn.” A little too close to the 1984 film “Red Dawn” for my taste. That film has already branded itself into the nostalgic catacombs of my memory. Not only can I not make this marketing leap of faith, but the thought of imagining a bunch of high school students, hopped up on Molotov hormonal cocktails, running around the hills flanking Baghdad and shouting “Wolverines!”will only serve to undermine the objectives of the current mission -- whatever the hell that is supposed to be.

"Red Dawn": The last line of defense standing between Capitalism and Communism (note the "Star Wars" product placement; George Lucas = merchandising genius)

By the way, the current US occupation in Iraq is known as Operation Iraqi Freedom, for those of you dear Civilians who did not know about the third re-branding since our troops were deployed to this oil-enriched wasteland. President Bush’s Marketing Team, deeply couched among the hidden branches of its Spin Machine, had initially branded the preemptive attack on Iraq “Occupation of Iraq,” which later evolved into “Second Gulf War” (a serious blunder, given the fact that everyone knows the sequel rarely lives up to the novelty of the first, not to mention the box-office profits tend to take a nose-dive). The D.C. Spinsters quickly realized their sinister marketing SNAFU and quickly plagiarized itself by pilfering its other major campaign in Afghanistan, “Operation Enduring Freedom” by replacing “Enduring” with “Iraqi.”

Read rest of post at Political Fallout's new Axis-of-Evil-Sister Site: Confessions of a Cold War Veteran

Pssst…Don’t Tell Anyone I’m Hetero

2010-03-04T09:28:00.002-05:00

Never in a million year did I imagine myself agreeing with former Vice President Dick Cheney, but I confess dear Civilian, I recently found myself taking my first step into the Dark Side by agreeing with Cheney that the military should repeal its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy. However, truth be told, which is not an option for gays currently serving in the military, it was Cheney who agreed with me -- since I opposed this half-baked (but not exhaled) policy the moment President Bill Clinton bent over on his campaign promises in 1993 and let the homophobic Congress have their way with him. (I know: bad pun; but in my defense, I am not writing about the unwritten “Don’t Ask, Don’t Pun” policy.)

Now I entrust that you, dear Civilian, will not tell anyone about my dirty little secret, for public knowledge of my foray into the Dark Side will not only disrupt the unique conditions of my civilian service to humanity but will undermine the unit cohesion of my community, which includes but is not limited to my fiancé, three impressionable sons, extended progressive political family, fellow Cold War veterans, substitute mail carrier, the neighbor’s dog Pookie and my spiritual and economic adviser Therapist Bob. Most of these folks are still reeling from the psychological ripple effects from the day I jumped out of the closet and scared the crap out of them by outing myself by finally coming to terms with my repressed heterosexuality. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Since I served in the Army during the rear-end of the Cold War (yeah, yeah, sue me...the courts always side on behalf of bad puns) during the latter part of the ‘80s, before DADT kicked in and the wall in Berlin fell, I’m not sure what it’s like to serve under this policy now -- especially while the current metaphorical war, “The War on Terror,” is being waged. You know, the kind of war where people actually get killed, rather than the metaphorical death by boredom while sitting around waiting, waiting for something – anything to happen.

Read more at new Axis-of-Evil Sister Site Confessions of a Cold War Veteran

Sen. “Tough Shit” Bunning: Get a REAL Job

2010-03-02T18:26:00.011-05:00

I don’t imagine the 1.2 unemployed Americans waiting to see if their benefits will be extended another 30 days were amused by the latest episode of C-SPAN’s latest episode, “A Democracy of One,” on The Obstructionist (a spin-off from Seinfeld’s “show about nothing”) that aired the other night. If Seinfeld is a “show about nothing,” then The Obstructionist is “much adieu about nothing.”

Flying solo, Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky, hosted the show and, using an anti-democratic procedural maneuver, vowed to repeatedly block any attempts by the Senate to pass a bill that would extend unemployed benefits set to expire this weekend, despite overwhelming support from both sides of the Red-Ink Sea.

During a recent Congressional Hearing about nothing, Sen. Bunning of Kentucky uses hands to exaggerate size of his latest obstruction

But lo and behold, T.S. Bunning took the altar, stuck to his guns and objected to every attempt at trying to move forward with a vote on the bill – despite all the guilt trips left at his self-anointed feet. In fact, Sen. Jeff Merkely, D-Ore., even lowered himself to beg the Self-Anointed One, but ol' Bunning would have none of it and replied: “Tough Shit.”

Others joined in with T.S. Bunning’s “Crusade on the Desolate,” claiming an extension of benefits will merely serve as a disincentive for these desolate people to actively seek employment. If there is a will, there’s a way right? All these folks have to do is find the Holy Grail and they will discover a stack of job applications weighted down by this glorified paper weight.

Ironically, what T.S. Bunning does not realize is that sitting on top of this illusionary heap is a stack of applications for “Do-Nothing Congressman.” Now there’s a job I would like to get my hands on. Who needs a REAL job when we can get paid to do nothing, not to mention we would get face-time on the TV to help market ourselves for a revolving-door lobbying job when we get tired of doing nothing all day long. Although as a lobbyist, we would have to shift from doing nothing to ensuring that other people do nothing.

It’s the “ensuring” part that sounds so exhausting, but when you consider your salary will grow exponentially and you’ll be able to abandon your measly Cadillac Health Insurance benefits for a Rolls-Royce policy that requires providers to pay you a co-payment every time you use their services, “ensuring” doesn’t sound so exhausting after all. So while the Desolate are out giving blood and donating plasma to help make ends meet, these fat cats are making bank on routine checkups for their kids. Unfortunately, T.S. Bunning is merely a cancerous speed bump in the current Obstructionist Movement that has spread through Congress and plagued the democratic process, which has evolved from Majority Rule to Super-Majority Rule.

Congress have become so dysfunctional (“How dysfunctional has it?”), Jerry Springer has requested to air his show live on the chamber floors as both sides of the aisle air their dirty laundry out on cable television while lawmakers in the peanut gallery flash their nipples (Don’t do it Barney, we’re begging you Mr. Frank…) for a set of beads and 15-minutes of fame on Jerry Springer’s uncut DVDs. Although no meaningful legislation will ever get enacted, at least Americans get a chance to watch old people smash chairs over each others' heads and get restrained by formerly unemployed bouncers at D.C.’s swankiest gentlemen clubs.

After shoveling shit for 7 hours during a filibuster on the Senate floor, Mike Rowe of "Dirty Jobs" take a break off-set during a recent shooting of an upcoming episode

I wish I worked for a company that had a policy wherein if one employee doesn’t like the direction the company is moving, he or she can call in sick and the rest of the employees get to stay home as well. I mean, do we really need a full-time Congress anymore? Couldn’t we get by with hiring temp politicians, so we could cut out all their benefits, beginning with health insurance?

Better yet, like rural communities who depend on a volunteer fire department, shouldn’t we turn to a volunteer Congress to keep our citizens safe – not only from what they do do but what they do not do as well. Either way, given the way Congress is currently run, it’s like playing Russian Roulette.

Another remedy to the current Obstructionist Movement would be to give Congress a transfusion and replace all of the obstructionists with scab politicians who are willing to cross the line and make money to feed their families. With around 10 percent of our workforce unemployed, I’m sure we could find plenty of qualified people to fill these seats. What job skills do you need besides saying “aye,” “nay” and occasionally having to read aloud a script composed by a team of lobbyists?

And if Sen. Bunning has a problem with scab politicians from Kentucky crossing the line and taking his non-job, I have two words for him: “Tough Shit!”

Jon Stewart's Take on Sen. Bunning: The GOP’s Next Top Obstructionist

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

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Iowa Congress Spares Masturbatory Drivers

2010-02-26T06:56:00.009-05:00

Masturbating motorists across Iowa were relieved to hear that the Iowa Senate did not include “masturbation” as part of its bill outlawing texting-while-driving. Unlike the Iowa House’s version, the Iowa Senate passed a tougher bill that would not only ban texting while driving but would put the kibosh on reading text messages as well (although the bill made no explicit distinction between texting and sexting).

Despite lawmakers pleas for including other dangerous activities while driving, the Senate spared the following language from its bill: masturbation, playing Suduko, paddle ball, thumb wrestling, changing baby or senior citizen’s diaper, spinning records on turntable, juggling, balancing checkbook, doing laundry by hand, thumbing through seed catalogues, playing Guitar Hero, journaling, tying a Windsor knot, opening CD packaging or using common sense.

(This is a dramatization: The driver is a professional actor and certified stunt man and you should not try this in you own car while driving, even though it is not illegal.)

Lobbyists representing MAMD (Mothers Against Masturbatory Drivers) said they were disappointed neither bill included masturbation but vowed to keep up pressure on lawmakers. “How many victims of auto-eroticism will it take before lawmakers realize that driving and masturbating don’t go hand-in-hand,” one lobbyist said.

Opponents of adding “masturbation” to the bill argued that there’s no significant difference between masturbating and driving a manual transmission, admitting, however, that the former may lead to carpal tunnel.

Political Fallout Public Service Announcement:

Remember: Friends don’t let friends masturbate and drive. Reach out and give a hand; the life you're saving may be your own.

‘Confessions of a Cold War Veteran’ Sounds Off

2010-02-19T00:13:00.002-05:00

Surprise, surprise: I've launched yet another blog, "Confessions of a Cold War Veteran."

Part memoir, part humor/satire, part pop-culture, and like our government's annual budget -- 50 percent Military Industrial Complex.

Delay cadence/Count cadence/Delay cadence/Count!

One!...

I confess, dear Civilian, I am not a Catholic nor am I a war veteran, rather I am a veteran of the Cold War, not to mention a narcissist. Regarding the latter, why else would I create my own blog, the fifth to date? If I weren’t narcissistic, I wouldn’t be able to convince myself that there is some niche of readers floating in Cyberland who gives a damn about me and what I have to say or what thoughts are trip-wired in my brain, especially when the primary subject is Me.

Hey everyone, look at me! Over here, look at me…!

Or maybe the niche I have created is a mere figment of my imagination that consists of an audience of one? In that case, please do excuse me, dear Civilian, if at times you catch me talking to myself; the theory being that if you cannot hold a conversation with yourself, the notion of carrying on a conversation with fellow members of your species is futile. At least that’s what Therapist Bob tells me. Speaking of whom, it was Therapist Bob, my psychological and spiritual and financial adviser, who recommended that I start yet another blog as a means of publicly purging my experiences while actively serving in the Army during the tail-end of the Cold War during the late ‘80s, thus tearing down the wall erected between the right and left sides of my brain.

Moreover, based on Therapist Bob’s recommendations, Confessions of a Cold War Veteran will provide me with a safe, nuclear-free space to share my insights as a Cold War Veteran on contemporary issues, military and otherwise.

Hence, a blog was born: Confessions of a Cold War Veteran...

Read rest of debut post at Confessions of a Cold War Veteran and don't forget to bookmark page and tell all of your friends, your IRS agent and the neighbor down the street who is described as a quiet, lonely man who keeps to himself (but does not live in his mother's basement, where he spends his waking hours blogging).

Sarah Palin 2012: Let the Rapture Begin (SNL video included)

2009-11-23T00:00:00.002-05:00

Like big fat bullies, Rush Limbaugh (dare I repeat myself?) and genital warts, some irritants never seem to go away regardless of how hard you try to ignore them or how much you douse them in vats of white vinegar. I’ve tried employing the former techniques when it comes to Sarah Palin, hoping she would disappear from the political landscape, forever, but to no avail.

Although this may hold true for Alaskans, the rest of the country has been under siege with the release of her new book “Going Rogue: An American Life,” which by the way, happens to coincide with the release of teaser pictures of her grandchild’s biological father Levi Johnston’s debut in “Playgirl” magazine (both events categorized as official precursors to Armageddon by the Doomsday Society for a Better America). Now it’s only a matter of time before Big Johnston jokes start popping up all over the Internet, but fortunately Political Fallout has risen above these types of sophomoric dick jokes, so we’ll pass on any cheap digs here.

Ironically, as some members (no pun intended) of the teabaggin’ element on the right are licking their parched lips with the prospect of Palin making another run for American’s highest throne (not including the one soon to-be-vacated by Oprah ), their counterparts on the left are licking their chops with equal delight at this prospect as well, thinking a Palin run will guarantee four more years of President Obama.

But what if Palin wins in 2012?

Should that be the case, let the Rapture begin, since that’s when my 5,125-year-long Mayan Long Count desk calendar runs out of pages anyway, which can only mean one of two things: the end of the world or the deluxe edition of the Mayan Long Count desk calendar hitting stores everywhere just in time for the holidays – assuming the War on Christmas hasn’t already wiped these dates from our secular calendars.

In the meantime, “Saturday Night Live” has used its prophetic powers this weekend to give us an apocalyptic glimpse into the future:

Sarah Palin 2012: The Trailer

On that note, I leave you with the following piece of advice, free of charge: be careful what you wish for.

Will Ferrell's Protect Insurance Companies PSA

2009-09-22T14:24:00.006-04:00

The folks over at Funny or Die (which by the way is not a slogan for biparisan health care advocates) unveiled an exclusive Public Service Announcement lampooning Big Hellth Insurance, which, for whatever reason, keeps sliding under the public ire radar.

(Sarcasm Alert: subjecting yourself to the following video may overload your sarcasm threshold, thus prompting immediate care from a nearby by ER -- assuming your health insurer covers SOS (Sarcasm Overload Syndrome).

Something Terrible is Happening! (Will Ferrell & Friends)

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

F*** Obama’s Health Care Reform

2009-07-14T17:11:00.003-04:00

My favorite 4-letter F-word is, you guessed it: FREE.

Despite the cautionary advice that “nothing is free” or “you can’t get something for nothing,” I’m a sucker for free stuff. What can I say, I’m a public school teacher, and I know better than to jump into the middle of a rabid teacher scrum when post-it pads are at stake.

If anyone has mastered giving away free stuff with an invisible price tag attached, it’s Obama, Inc. Obama the Campaigner mastered giveaway marketing during his presidential bid and has lobbed these practices into his presidential money-raising strategy. During the campaign, my addiction to free-stuff helped me procure an “Obama ‘08” bumper sticker and button, neither of which I contributed any money -- despite the accompanying solicitations for donations.

Regarding the latter, I will admit that I was thoroughly disappointed when my button showed up and it was the size of a quarter and could only be seen with satellite vision. I realize size isn’t supposed to matter, but I was too embarrassed to sport my new microscopic button in public, as if the button itself symbolized my free-stuff addiction. Either that or I had an affliction of button envy and was not about to compensate for my inadequacies by sporting a flag pin on the lapel of my collared t-shirt.

More recently, Obama, Inc. was giving away free bumper stickers to help push its health care reform through the dysfunctional aisles of Congress. All I had to do was sign a petition pledging my support for President Obama’s three principles for real heath care reform.

Unfortunately, I will have to wait 4-6 weeks until my free bumper sticker arrives. By then, the duct tape keeping my bumper attached to my car could become unglued, much like Obama’s health care objectives once it gets tied down with red tape and green lobby money in Congress. Although 6 weeks in Congress is a mere blink-of-the-eye in the big picture of getting things accomplished. As the old saying goes, “If you don’t like the way things are going in Congress, just wait a couple of years and you still won’t like the way things are going in Congress.”

In the meantime, I’ve decided to come up with my own bumper sticker ideas, one of which I may order from an online bumper-sticker company:

1. My Other Car is a Health Insurance Payment

2. All I Wanted Was Real Health Care Reform, and All I Got Was This Lousy Bumper Sticker

3. Cancer Happens!

4. W.W.J.I.? (Who Would Jesus Insure?)

5. Coming to a Hospital Near You: Attack of the Right Wingnuts Socialized Health Scare

6. Underinsured Baby on Board

7. So it goes...!

8. FREE Obama's Real Health Care Reform!!!

Originally posted on sister site: Say Something Funny

Scott Bateman: John McCain versus Health Care

2009-06-16T23:06:00.003-04:00

While trying to follow the GOP's line of argument against including a public option in health care reform, I found myself sniffing the rear end of Wile E. Coyote in an underground tunnel just outside of Alburquerque. Go figure.

Scott Bateman: John McCain versus Health Care

Open Letter to Sen. Grassley: Real Health Care Reform

2009-06-09T12:02:00.004-04:00

Dear Senator Grassley:

My monthly health insurance premiums are killing me, literally.

I wish I was speaking hyperbolically. And no, I’m not a hypochondriac: Who could afford to these days with skyrocketing health care and insurance costs, especially in the midst of an economic crisis?

One of my biggest fears, other than Congress sabotaging a golden opportunity to reform health care (If only we could sue our elected officials for Political Malpractice, eh?), is my mailbox. You heard me right Sen. Grassley: my mailbox. But before you file me away under “Crazy Constituents” and cast aside this letter, I implore you to hear me out.

It’s not that I’m afraid of mailboxes per se, rather it’s what’s lurking in them that scares the living bejesus out of me: bills. I am especially afraid of reconnaissance bills which attempt to lessen the inevitable financial and subsequent psychological blows, claiming they are not bills with “THIS IS NOT A BILL” emboldened in the letterhead. Not yet, anyhow.

In March I received one of these non-Bills in my mailbox from my health insurance provider, Wellmark BlueCross Blueshield of Iowa informing me they want to raise my monthly premium 17.3 percent from $529 to $641, which covers me and my three sons (ages 1, 4 and 7). Given the effective change date was to be April 1st, I initially thought Wellmark was playing an April Fool’s Day joke on me. After all, what reputable, legal business can jack their price up 17 percent and still stay in business during an economic crisis? Reputability aside, Big Health Insurance and Big Pharma are the only industries that can pull this off, while Our employers, The Big Three Branches of Government, haggle over policy proposals while We sit by and watch our savings accounts bleed to death, one painful payment at a time -- hoping to elude Bankruptcy’s knock at the front door.

Speaking of which, according to a recent Harvard Medical study that will be published in the August issue of “The American Journal of Medicine” indicates that Bankruptcy will come knocking on an estimated 1.5 million American doors this year and 60 percent of these will result from an inability to keep pace with incoming medical expenses.

But who am I to tell you, Sen. Grassley, about bankruptcy. After all, as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, you helped usher in the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), which makes it more difficult for individuals to file for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. Shame on the uninsured and under-insured consumers for taking advantage of our country’s vulnerable and financially unstable health care business, eh?

Like you, Sen. Grassley, I’ve served the public my entire adult life, working at all levels of the government. I served two years active duty in Germany with the Army, followed by working seven years with the City of Iowa City as a swimming pool manager during college, and I have been working the past twelve years teaching high school English in Iowa City. Moreover, I’ve been coaching junior high swimming to help fill the financial gap and pay my monthly insurance premiums.

Unlike you, however, my employer’s health care benefit is no longer an option. Although the school district pays for an individual premium ($485/month), I would have to kick in an additional $750/month for a family plan (that’s $1235/month, which is more than our mortgage payment and property taxes, so I’ve had to purchase my own policy).

Unlike you, I have been struggling to pay my monthly health insurance premiums for the past seven years, and I’m on the verge of dropping into the health care casualty pool of the uninsured, thus driving up the costs of the insured – unless drastic reforms are implemented soon.

Now, since you are technically one of my employees, I thought I would tell you what needs to be done to help draft and pass real health care reform that is more cost efficient, affordable, and accessible. Ideally, a single-payer system, where all working Americans buy into the system makes the most sense, especially since it removes for-profit incentives from the equation which is immoral in the first place. I realize National Health Care scares some folks, who feel threatened and turn to their Socialism crutches as an only retort and feel the need to resort to fear mongering.

Like my mailbox phobia, these fears seem irrational, since we already implemented a similar system: Medicare. My 73-year-old mother, a lifelong Republican who worked as a billing receptionist for a neurosurgeon, always complained about how difficult it was to get payments from the private industry compared to Medicare. She also contends that the biggest causes of the problems facing this industry are when health insurance became attached to employment and when Big Health Insurance and Big Pharma hopped into bed together.

To help legitimize and rationalize their fears, I’m sure opponents of a public option are out researching industrialized countries with a national health care program, scouring for health care horror stories. If that’s the case, I suggest they start digging in our own back yard and talk to the survivors of the estimated 22,000 Americans who died last year because they didn’t have adequate health care coverage.

But I also realize you’re under a lot of pressure from lobbyists representing Big Health Insurance and Big Pharma, who fear they will be driven out of business if the government sets up shop, so I’m willing to make a compromise and let you push through a public option. That way, those who are afraid of the S-word taking over their lives can stick with their current policy. Personally, I’m more afraid of whether or not I will be able to pay my premium next month and what will happen to my any one of my sons, should we lose coverage in the near future, than being called a Socialist.

If anything I have conveyed to you in this letter does not make any sense, maybe I can simplify and condense my message into Twitter format, something you are more familiar with, Sen. Grassley:

"Sen Grassley u got nerve sayin u bipartisan u only partisan to BiG Hellth INsurnce and PharMA. Put da profit hammer down start actin morally"

Sincerely,
T.M. Lindsey
Iowa City, IA

Anti-Gay Marriage Wingnuts Thank Colbert for Mocking Them

2009-04-19T00:03:00.004-04:00

When your livelihood is teetering between living on the fringe and living in obscurity, I guess there is no such thing as negative publicity. This may explain why the National Organization for Marriage sent a letter thanking Stephen Colbert for parodying their new ad, “The Gathering Storm”:

"I've always thought Stephen Colbert was a double-agent, pretending to pretend to be a conservative, to pull one over Hollywood. Now I'm sure," said Maggie Gallagher, President of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).

"Thank you Stephen for playing our ad in full on national television--for free. HRC eat your heart out. Plus we all had a great chuckle, too!" said Brian Brown, NOM's Executive Director. "Where can I make a donation to the National Organization for Colbert?"

As if Colbert really needed any help, given the ad is a parody of itself. If I had originally seen this ad run during “Saturday Night Live,” I, based on the hyperbole, certainly would have thought it was a parody.

The Colbert Coalition’s Anti-Gay Marriage Ad (April 16, 2009)

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The Colbert Coalition's Anti-Gay Marriage Ad

colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

NASA Name Contest

And now that I, a lowly blogger on the front-lines of the culture war in Iowa, have brought even more attention to the NOM’s Gay-Marriage Crusade, I imagine it’s merely a matter of minutes before this post pops up on their Google alerts and the staff sends me a thank-you letter.

Unlike Colbert, however, this type of attention may actually boost my career.

Best Parody of Anti-Gay Marriage NOM’s “Gathering Storm” Ad

2009-04-16T22:14:00.001-04:00

It was only a matter of time before somebody created a parody of the National Organization for Marriage hyperbolic ad “Gathering Storm”:

The Teabaggin’ Revolution: Rebels Without a Full Teapot

2009-04-16T14:50:00.002-04:00

When I think of teabagging, I can’t help but think about John Waters’ “Pecker.”

I was first exposed to teabagging while watching John Waters’ “Pecker” on the big screen in 1998. The film’s protagonist, Pecker, a Baltimore sandwich employee becomes an overnight success when pictures of his eccentric family become the new rage in the modern art world. During a scene in a gay bar, Pecker whips out his 35 millimeter camera and snaps pictures of a stripper teabagging one of the customers, which is strictly forbidden by the female barkeep in spite of customer requests to have the dancers bounce and drag their balls across their balding foreheads – in exchange for a sizeable tip of course.

And now, the GOP is mixing metaphors with its Tax Day Tea Party and call for widespread teabagging across the nation on Tax Day. In a feeble attempt to co-opt the Boston Tea Party, the GOP has inadvertently co-opted teabagging in its mixed-metaphor crossfire.

Ms. Liberty, embarassed by being dragged against her will to rally by Teabaggers, hides her face in shame

The thought of the sexually repressed GOP, armed with fully-loaded DSB (Dreaded Sperm Buildup) teabags and collectively dragging them across the receding landscape of America sends shudders down my spine to my teabags.

Ironically, the GOP and its foot soldiers are aiming their pent-up anger at the Obama administration for increasing taxes and blaming him for the current economic plight, when it was the previous administration, led by He Who Must Not Be Named, which ran up the deficit and broke America’s economic back.

Boy, it must be great to have selective amnesia.

Better yet, it must be great to have selective amnesia.

It’s only fitting that the Howard Beale inspired I’m-Mad-as-Hell-and-I’m-Not-Going-to-Take-It-Anymore faux frenzy has been fueled by the leader of faux news, FOX News, who I imagine is fronting for Lipton. Now Fox News is co-opting Beale -- a byproduct of the satiric film “Network (1976),” which prophesized the co-opting of the news media by sacrificing journalistic integrity for entertainment and higher television ratings. Sound familiar?

Read rest of post and view pics/captions/ at sister site Say Something Funny

Iowa’s Culture War: And the God-Fearing Homophobes Will Rise Again?

2009-04-14T00:48:00.005-04:00

Upon the heels of Easter weekend and the celebration of the resurrection of God’s only child, Jesus Christ, the Religious Right (alias GOP) grabbed their pitchforks and stormed the Iowa State Capitol Monday demanding that the Democratic majority put forward a bill that would change the Iowa Constitution by redefining marriage “between a man and a woman.”

This begs the question: W.W.J.D.?

Despite His pledge to help the down trodden, me thinks Jesus, unlike the GOP*, would run away from the oxymoronic Religious Right.

*You know it’s hard out there for the minority.

Moreover, recent GOP actions beg the question:

Which one of the following poses the least threat to Iowans?:

A) GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Putz vowing, if elected, will use his executive powers to help erode the Iowa Constitution and take over the judicial branch (sinister, Howdy Doody laugh here)

B) God-fearing Christians sending threatening, vindictive, “Your-gonna-burn-in-hell” e-mails to state Dem legislators

C) A man of the cloth espousing the fear-mongering notion that gay marriage is worse than floods, because it “erodes the soul” and “destroys generations”

D) Anonymous caller who makes death threats towards openly gay Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines

E) Two same-sex people who love each other and want to make a lifetime commitment to one another

Traditionally, this would be a no-brainer, but we all know the potential harm of blindly sticking to tradition, eh? So I will spell the answer out for you: E.

Now it’s bad enough we have our own homegrown, cornfed zealots to worry about without the Christian Right rounding up the Usual Suspects and shipping them off to Iowa to spew their vitriolic venomous messages of hate. Although Rev. Fred Phelps and his rabid, inbred clan of Homo-Haters have yet to load up their wagons, literally, and head to Iowa, the National Organization for Marriage launched a pre-emptive propaganda attack with a $1.5 million ad campaign intended to promote fear through scripted testimonials of how gay marriage destroyed these peoples’ fragile lives:

National Organization for Marriage’s “Gathering Storm” (This is a Dramatization*)

*On her show the other night, Rachel Maddow took on the ad’s legitimacy by showing bootleg audition tapes somehow procured by the Human Rights Campaign. The video shows straight people auditioning to play straight people whose “straightness” has been threatened by gay marriage.

The Rachel Maddow Show (clips begins at 2:07 minute mark)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

As of today this video was pulled from YouTube, because the NOM folks said it was a copyright infringement.

So let me get this straight, using a syllogism if you will:

The National Organization for Marriage fears Rachel Maddow.
The National Organization for Marriage is God-fearing.
Rachel Maddow is God.

I knew it! I knew all along that God is a lesbian woman.

Thank Rachel for that!

But the laugh last is still on NOM, who really didn’t think through their anti-gay marriage campaign beyond the fear-mongering and bigotry components. NOM dubbed its campaign “2 Million for Marriage.” Or the acronym: 2M4M (translation for the Acronym Challenged: Two Men for Men). Where do they get off promoting such behavior?

To add insult to ignorance, some civil rights group, “Two Men for Marriage,” bought up their domain, “2m4m.org”

What can I say when this satire literally writes itself. I’m looking forward to more satiric servings from NOM, so BRING IT ON!!! (My team of hot-shot lawyers is waiting with open arms...)

Gay Marriage Hits Iowa, Homophobes Vow Revenge

2009-04-05T00:22:00.013-04:00

(Disclaimer: a satiric moratorium has been placed on the front end of this post. Anything that smacks of satire is intended to be non-hyperbolic truth and should be read as such.)

In a long overdue historic move, the Iowa Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling that overturned a 10-year-old ban on same-sex marriage, noting the latter violated the Constitution’s basic fairness and equal protection clause.

Finally, gay couples and all Iowans (not including the homophobes whose marriages are already teetering on disaster and cannot handle any threats, perceived or otherwise, to their personal commitment) have reason to rejoice.

Gay marriage supporters gather at University of Iowa Pentacrest for rally celebrating Iowa Supreme Court ruling

Personally, I have always had a beef with the unconstitutionality of marriage laws. I’m a purist when it comes to the separation between “church and state” and state-sanctioned marriages endorsed by the church through its archaic biblical definitions (translations) smell like rotten meat.

On one level, gay people are required to pay taxes (with, by the way, unconstitutional money propagandizing religion: “In God We Trust”) but, unlike traditionally married couples, do not receive the same financial returns on their investment in the State. The Iowa Supreme Court, armed with logic, recognized that denying gay people the right to have their relationship endorsed by the state is unfair and unequal.

On another level, the landmark ruling plants a positive rainbow flag into the soul of humanity, reminding folks that it’s not a gay issue, rather a human issue. Like it or not, we are all born into the human experiment together, so it’s time for homophobes to drop the phobia and start looking inward to build or resurrect a stronger faith.

Speaking of homophobes, Iowa’s GOP, led by their flag-bearer and third-time gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats, is in a bit of a pickle. The only way they can reverse the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling is through a politically initiated amendment to the Constitution that defines marriage as “between a man and a woman,” which needs to pass through the Iowa Assembly two consecutive sessions and be approved by the majority of Iowa voters. So the earliest this can happen is 2012.

I find it interesting that a party so hell-bent about keeping the government out of individuals’ bedrooms is equally hell-bent on letting the government into their churches. While the GOP insists that it is up to the majority of Iowans to decide what is best for everyone when it comes to defining marriage in Iowa, they are forgetting our forefathers' intent when they penned the Constitution, which ensures protections to the minority. This is precisely why they created a system of checks and balances.

But the GOP doesn’t like this notion when the balance is not in their favor, inspiring them to pull out their rhetorical crutches: “If those damn liberal judges would stop legislating from the bench…”

My retort to this is “Well, if those damn conservative lawmakers would stop enacting legislation that is unconstitutional…”

If the GOP wants to keep running to the right in Iowa and make gay marriage the cornerstone of their platform during the 2010 election, I’ll offer my services now to help write their concession speeches. In case they didn’t get the memo: Theocracy is dead in Iowa.

And before I unleash the snark, I just want to say how proud I was to be an Iowan yesterday. Once again, the nation was watching and we did not disappoint.

Revenge of the Homophobes: Send in the Clowns…

(Disclaimer II: the moratorium on snark and satire has been lifted from this point onward…)

During gathering at Iowa Supreme Court House, an unidentified Single Canadian Black Bear was spotted patroling the perimeter in search of mate -- a Single Black Bear who seeks same

Speaking of Clowns…errr homophobes, three-timin’ gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats sent out an e-mail response to yesterday’s ruling:

Dear (Homophobic) Friends,

A societal earthquake hit Iowa today, shaking our cultural and moral landscape to the core…

The National Weather Service reported no such thing rocking our societal foundation yesterday. Although they did report some seismic readings and sporadic tremors across the state, which were attributed to social-conservatives collectively throwing temper tantrums on the ground, screaming and pounding earth’s shell as their marriages crumbled around them.

…Unfortunately, the will of the people is being thwarted by Democrats who control the state legislature thanks in large part to huge contributions from the homosexual rights lobby…

I knew it was the gay lobby. When everybody else was blaming the unions and the will of the people exercising their will and delivering the GOP a smack-down at the polls in 2006, I knew it was the powerful gay lobby that sent Lt. Gov. wannabe Vander Plaats and his sidekick Jim Nussle packing.

…We can no longer afford to deceive ourselves. Our values are under attack. Iowa isn’t just on the front lines of the cultural war; today it became the epicenter. We need your help TODAY to defeat the homosexual rights lobby and turn back its agenda. We must stop the tyranny of a minority bent on imposing its misguided will on the majority of Iowans and Americans…

No comment. The irony of this statement and campaign solicitation speaks for itself.

Like the Iowa Dems, I’m hoping the GOP does nominate Vander Plaats next year, which may inspire yet another satiric blog in the tradition of Nussle & Flow.

The argument that gay marriage opponents use that I find most absurd is that gay marriage poses a threat to traditional marriages and the institution of marriage. As if the latter institution didn’t already have other a more daunting threat: divorce.

To help dramatize this absurdity, I wrote a comedy sketch on my sister site Say Something Funny: Six Feet Under (Broadway): ‘Marriage Under Attack (This is Not a Dramatization!)’.

George W. Bush’s Top Ten Facebook Status Updates (An Exercise in Futility)

2009-03-19T00:49:00.004-04:00

Just when you thought former President George W. Bush had fully disappeared into the Texas sunset with the satirists’ shadow following closely behind, David Letterman’s “Late Show” posse resurrected him for this week’s Online Top Ten Contest. While most satirists have boxed up their George W. Bush satiric crutches and stored them in the attic, CBS insists we beat the “dead horse” and contemplate what the “Great Decider” is doing during his twilight years.

When Bush first left office, I had no doubts he would follow his arch enemy Osama bin Laden’s lead and go into reclusive exile, resurrecting every so often to remind the American people, probably through the release of a grainy video clip on YouTube, who helped elevate the world of satire and made it what it is today.

However, unlike the “No White’s Allowed” sign mounted at the entrance of bin Laden's Pakistani cave, Bush moved into the formerly whites-only Dallas suburb of Preston Hollow. Bush was immediately ostracized by members of his new upper-crust neighbors, whose property values made double-digit drops when They moved into the neighborhood.

Birds eye view of former President George W. Bush's new post-presidency bunker in Preston Hollow, where Bush remains holed up

Fortunately while living in exile, Bush has kept in contact with his two friends through his Facebook page, which leads to this week’s online Top Ten Contest.

Due to the recent demise of voter turnout among SSF readers, my quest to win the Holy “Online Late Show” t-shirt has devolved from an obsession to an exercise-in-futility. That said, here’s my top-ten list of possible entries to this week’s Top Ten contest. Once again, I’m soliciting your help – or not. I’ve written ten possible entries for this week’s list, and it’s up to you to help me select the CHOSEN ONE from the list (for I can only submit one) that you think has the best chance of winning.

This week’s list: George W. Bush’s Top Ten Facebook Status Updates

George W. Bush is…

10. Having trouble deciding what to title upcoming memoir about decisions made in office

9. Missing Jon Stewart dropping his name on “The Daily Show”

8. Playing Grand Theft Democracy on his new X-box

7. Wondering if he should double-down on life-insurance policy before weekend hunting trip with Dick Cheney

6. Now friends with Kim Jong-il, Will Farrell, Joe Lieberman, Miley Cyrus, and Krusty the Clown

5. Watching “W” and wishes he could act like Josh Brolin

4. Feeling better after coming out of eight-year coma

3. Upset Laura’s book club is reading Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope”

2. Using 12-step program to break addiction to presidential signing statements

1. Hitting up AIG CEOs for presidential library donations

Don’t forget to indicate (in the Comments) which ONE of these I should submit to the Top Ten Contest.

Originally posted on T.M. Lindsey's sister site Say Something Funny

Bureaucratic Genocide: Iowa Politicians Attempt to Kill Off Elders with Acronym

2009-03-12T23:08:00.002-04:00

The Iowa Assembly has set the stage for an epic battle-to-the-metaphoric-death between the state’s elderly population and the up-and-coming elected power mongers. Fearing the Elders may usurp their power, Iowa Lawmakers approved a bill changing the state’s Department of Elderly Affairs (DEA), not to be confused with the fed’s Drug Enforcement Agency, to the Department of Aging – or more aptly Dead on Arrival (DOA).

Recently appointed Head of D.O.A., Will T. Corpse, moves into new office in State Coroner's basement

Despite the age-old prophecy espoused by the Blind Prophet, Iowametheus, that one day a group of power-hungry legislators, armed with a deadly acronym, will rise up and destroy the Elders, the latter refuses to relinquish their walkers and allow their power to be usurped.

Masking their true intentions, Des Moines Democrat Rep. Janet Petersen, 38, claimed that the move was needed, because some people don’t like the word “elderly.”

And they would prefer being labeled DOA?

Read rest of post at T.M. Lindsey new favorite sister site Say Something Funny

Spring Forward: Daylight Savings Next Casualty in Economic Downturn

2009-03-08T13:06:00.003-04:00

The Clock Also Rises...

In states that still participate in Daylight Savings, which may soon be nationalized by the federal government if Americans continue to lose confidence in daylight and are reluctant to spend their time, everyone bemoans the loss of an hour – namely because they could have used the hour to reset all the clocks in the house.

But seriously, what would they have done any differently had they had that extra hour this weekend? I’m sure if we conducted a family-feudal survey, the survey’s number one answer would be: sleep. Of course this assumes that those surveyed do not have children or milk cows, whose biological clocks resist man-made cosmic alterations in the Timexian universe. By the time these biological clocks are completely recalibrated, it will be time to “Fall Back.”

In Iowa the designated witching-hour to either spring forward or fall back centers the 2 a.m. bar-closing time, thus clearing up any confusion among alcohol peddlers as to when they should stop nursing the drunks passed out at the bar. The delayed time-switch also provides the lonely beer-goggle populace an extra hour to lose even more focus as they zero in on their intended target, preferably the one in the middle – even though they’ve only locked in on one target.

Local Iowa City drunk attempts to pull back clock's big

hand to extend "last-call" in bars

So why do we still have Daylight Savings, which allows Mother Nature’s invisible hand to unhinge our time-structured world without any government oversight and/or transparency? Better yet, what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of Daylight Savings and the age-old prospect of Springing Forward?

ADVANTAGES:

Less time for our Do-Nothing Congress to do less of nothing

More daylight in the evening to watch your new Plasma television

Provides excuse to take off for lunch an hour earlier or justify extending your afternoon cat nap: “Really, it’s an hour later, so…”

Get your newspaper an hour earlier, so your metabolism can get a jump start digesting all of the depressing news

Milk cows, whose teats aren’t prematurely pulled, are less likely to conspire with the pigs and the horses in overthrowing the Animal Farm and/or the government

DISADVANGAGES:

More time for the GOP-arm of our Do-Nothing Congress to obstruct Congress from doing less of nothing

If you die before ‘Fall Back,” you’ll be robbed of an hour of precious life, assuming every hour of your life is not already preciousssssssssss…

More daylight in the evening to shed even more light on the melancholic faces of those folks who have lost their jobs, homes, dignity, or thought injecting botulism into their foreheads ten years ago seemed like a good idea at the time

More time for Rush Limbaugh’s shadow to eclipse the sun, especially after he has succeeded in fully consuming the GOP

Insomniac’s more likely to join Fight Club, but we’ll never really know, because the first rule of Fight Club is never talking about Fight Club (looks like my membership has just been revoked; now what Tyler?)

Originally posted on Say Something Funny

Top Ten Surprising Items in the Economic Bailout Plan

2009-03-04T14:57:00.003-05:00

Uncle Sam's New Improved Economic Bailout Plan: Just add more tax $$$ (drowning CEOs sold separately)

Looks like it’s politics-as-usual over at David Letterman’s Online Top Ten Contest Headquarters. The Paul Blart Mall Cop lobby has influenced this week’s winning entries once again by sleeping outside of its Hollywood caste and slummin’ with the independent film “Slumdog Millionaire.”

Paul Blart reared his head at the No. 3 spot in last week’s list, “Top Ten Things Overheard at the Academy Awards,” with “Just read my new script. It's called 'Slumdog Mall Cop.'" Moreover, the Online Top Ten Contest lists of the Late-Show past have seeped into one another as Joaquin Phoenix and Christina Bale made cameo appearances, proving once again that negative campaigning does work.

I took the Slumdog route and submitted “Who let the Slumdogs out? Woof! Woof!,” but to no avail.

I defy you Paul Blart!!!

Due to the recent demise of voter turnout among SSF readers, my quest to win the Holy “Online Late Show” t-shirt has devolved from an obsession to an exercise-in-futility. That said, here’s my top-ten list of possible entries to this week’s Top Ten contest. Once again, I’m soliciting your help – or not. I’ve written ten possible entries for this week’s list, and it’s up to you to help me select the CHOSEN ONE from the list (for I can only submit one) that you think has the best chance of winning.

This week’s list: Top Ten Surprising Items in the Economic Bailout Plan

10. Billboard-sized cardboard check from taxpayer’s checkbook with “Screwed Over Again” written in Memo

9. Finance Attorney’s General to prosecute the Invisible Hand

8. Advance to write next 9 sequels of the Economic Bailout Plan

7. All banking CEOs get to pass Go and collect $2 million, split Free Parking pot and will receive one get-out-of-jail-free card

6. Billion-dollar endowment to the Electoral College

5. Salaries for The Watchmen to oversee how bailout money is spent

4. In honor of Joaquin Phoenix, increased funding for Hollywood actor relocation program

3. Funding to reinstitute Wampum as national currency

Show me the wampum! Get your bling (see above) on..."

2. Six-figure writing fellowship awarded to former Illinois Gov. Blagojevich to pen his memoir

1. Money for people who ACTUALLY need it

Don’t forget to indicate (in the Comments) which ONE of these I should submit to the Top Ten Contest.

Originally Posted on dominant sister site Say Something Funny

Pimpin’ Pollack Painting: A Modest Proposal for Sen. McCoy

2009-02-06T14:40:00.007-05:00

Once again, Iowa Lawmakers are toying with the idea of prostituting Jackson Pollack’s “Mural” painting in exchange for cash to help pay for damages incurred by last summer’s flood on the University of Iowa campus. Sen. Matt McCoy, the new Fine Arts Pimp on the Block, proposed selling the painting “to help students mired in the state’s economic crisis.”

The Real McCoy: "Pssssst. Hey, buddy. Looking for some company? How 'bout a wall-sized Jackson Pollack painting to keep you comapny for the next hour?"

Beside the fact that proceeds from such a sale can only be used to buy more art and not directly help struggling students and recent college graduates, McCoy’s rationale for pimpin’ da Pollack painting drips with logical fallacies:

“If the college believes that owning up to a $200 million painting is more important than keeping tuition low they’ll continue to retain it,” McCoy said. “If they decide keeping tuition low and helping students find a job in the toughest economic downturn since the great Depression is more important, then sell it.”

Can you say ‘appeal to pity’ and ‘if…then’ fallacy? I knew you could.

Using this same logic, one could just as easily insert the following, replacing Pollack’s paining, to get the desired effect:

1. Des Moines Art Museum (completely furnished of course)

2. The South Side of Des Moines (sell off, including McCoy’s crib, and make own profitable municipality)

3. Terrace Hill Mansion (completely furnished as well; Culver family extra)

4. The State Capital Building and grounds (Do they really need all that room to get nothing done?)

5. The Golden Dome atop the State Capital Building

6. Western half of Iowa (sell to Nebraska; no extra charge for Rep. Steve King)

Of course, if we really cared about our college students and their futures, all of these items should be on the table.

Moreover, if Sen. McCoy is genuinely concerned about their economic woes and would like to jumpstart the sacrificing process, I propose he throw in his first-born child to sweeten the pot, hence:

A MODEST PROPOSAL

FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE IN IOWA FROM BEING A BURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS OR THE STATE, AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLIC

IT IS a melancholy object to those who walk through Iowa City when they see the streets littered with college students, who spent the rest of their tuition money on another all-night Thirsty Thursday booze binge. But not all college students and recently graduating students, who are currently frictionally unemployed, are to blame for the skyrocketing tuition costs exacerbated by the current economic downturn and last year’s deluge in Iowa City. These students, instead of being able to attend college or find gainful employment to ensure an honest livelihood are forced to employ all their time begging for coin to fund their binges.

To end this scourge on society, I propose a top-down economic solution, wherein the top financial rung of society, including all lawmakers, sacrifice their first-born child, which will be auctioned off to the public to the highest bidder. Proceeds from these sales will be used to replenish state coffers and funding mechanisms directly used to finance the education of all prospective college students in the state of Iowa, thus alleviating the burden to parents and lawmakers, the latter of which lack imagination and/or foresight.

Disclaimer: In no way does Political Fallout endorse human trafficking and/or the decapitation of golden domes. The proposal, albeit modest, should hopefully serve as a mere deterrent to future proposed prostitutions of the fine arts. After all, it worked in the film, “Blues Brothers,” when Jake, who on a mission from God, crashed a fellow band members fine-dining establishments and used similar implicit threats to convince a him to join the band.

God's Minions: Elwood & Jake

Jake to father at nearby table: “How much for the little girl? How much for the women? Your women. I want to buy your women. The little girl, your daughters... sell them to me. Sell me your children.”

The Stimulus-Plan Dating Game: How Big is Your Package?

2009-02-03T17:12:00.001-05:00

This week “The Stimulus Plan Dating Game” hits the Senate floor for another rousing round of monetary courtship between We the Taxpayers and our three contestants, who are vying to lay claim to the Taxpayer’s Mega- Jackpot.

Before we begin, let’s meet our three contestants:

Contestant No. 1: Like most American Taxpayers, Contestant No. 1 started his illustrious career with good intentions, lobbying on behalf of responsible corporations in D.C while simultaneously moonlighting as an ACLU lawyer. Once swallowed by the D.C. political culture, Contestant No. 1 had no chance of escaping the abyss of greed, unless he was vomited from the underbelly of Greed’s stomach – which coincidentally brings Contestant No. 1 here today.

Contestant No. 2: Discovered burning a hole in a pocketbook near you, our second contestant takes pride in his elasticity skills and ability to help Americans slide headfirst into Bankruptcy.

Contestant No. 3: Although unborn, our final contestant has a great deal at stake here today, since the ultimate burden of this week’s Mega-Jackpot will fall on his or her shoulders. Due to communication issues, Contestant No. 3’s responses have been recorded by an ultrasound machine, which translates the sonic airwaves into English.

Without further adieu, let’s begin our first round of The Stimulus-Plan Dating Game:

We the Taxpayers: Contestant No. 1, if you were an economic stimulus plan, describe to me what our first date would look like.

Contestant No. 1: First, I would pick you up in our company’s private jet, hybrid of course, and fly you to an undisclosed location in the Cayman Islands, where I would wine and dine you with the best that American money can buy. After dinner, we would enjoy side-by-side Swedish Massages, during which you would tell me about all the dream legislation you would like to see Congress enact – with your name on it, of course. Exhausted from looking so deeply into your eyes and pretending to care, we would head back to our own rental island for a nightcap and romantic evening as I try to lobby you into bed.

We the Taxpayers: Wow, Contestant No. 1, you really know how to treat a Taxpayer. So I take it we’ll be going Dutch? (laughs at own joke as audience joins in, laughing at own expense) The same question goes to you Contestant No. 2.

Contestant No. 2: Let’s just say if you choose me, the sky’s the limit with your credit line. And no more annoying late fees, if you know what I mean (winks at audience, which takes cue and laughs). As if you had rubbed a bottle and wished for me to come out and sweep you off your feet, I will slide into your life and pick you up for a magic credit card ride. Unlike Contestant No. 1, I will let you decide where our magic credit card takes us. With me, you can charge your dreams and watch all your worries slip into the next Congressional Bailout.

We the Taxpayers: Sounds great, but unfortunately I am afraid of heights --- (pauses for comedic effect) -- high Annual Percentage Rates that is (laughs at own joke as audience joins in). Contestant No. 3, since you haven’t been born yet and the thought of talking to an incubator over dinner and conversation sounds a little embarrassing, I will ask you a different question. If my eyes were matching crystal balls and you looked into them, what type of future do you see for us in, say 40 years?

Contestant No. 3: (through translator) I see China. Everyone on earth speaks freakin’ Chinese, including you and me and this ultrasound Speak-Easy you sick bastards have jammed down my throat. I hope I’m never born, and if I am, I swear to God I will be a Libertarian.

We the Taxpayers: Wow, so young, yet so cynical Contestant No. 3. I think somebody needs an infusion of Hope (laughs at attempt to make joke).

Thus ends the first round of The Stimulus Plan Dating Game. Tune in for the next round to see who indeed has the biggest package? (laugh track here)

Originally posted on sister site Say Something Funny

Satirists Mourn Loss of Bush

2009-01-23T12:19:00.004-05:00

Satirists' Battlecry for past 8 years: "Speak, Bush, speak..."

While Tuesday’s changing-of-the-presidential guard was billed as a day of Hope for most people, there was a melancholic ripple in the satiric force. Satirists, who could always depend on the former President George W. Bush to feed their muse in times of desperation, had their satiric crutches pulled out from beneath them with Bush’ stage-left exit.

George W. Bush, disguised in an Osama-like beard, could not allude a pack of wild satirists on his trip to Texas,where he plans to hibernate indefinately. Bush eventually turned on the mob and told them he was done and they repsonded dumbfoundedly: "What now, George?"

President George W. Bush: 2001 - 2009

"That’s all I have to say about that."

Top 10 Things Overheard at Barack Obama’s Inauguration

2009-01-21T10:12:00.002-05:00

President Barack Hussein Obama's 2009 Inauguration: "Where's Waldo?"

My quest for winning a David Letterman “Late Show Online” t-shirt continues after a disappointing, yet hopeful attempt at last week’s online Top Ten Contest, which featured the topic: “Top Ten Least Popular New Products at the Consumer Electronics Show.”

After readers weighed in, one actually bribing me with a pound of flesh if I submitted “Life-sized, remote-control mime” (I guess some people out there have a thing for electronic mimes), I went with the top online vote-getter: Bernard Madoff Money Changer.

Among last week’s winners, Bernard Madoff did make the final cut at the No. 1 spot with “New Video Game: ‘Grand Theft Madoff.’”

Undaunted, I will continue my quest to win the holy Late Show Online t-shirt, but again, I cannot do this alone— so I’m soliciting your help, dear reader. I’ve written ten possible entries for this week’s list, and it’s up to you to help me choose the ONE from the list (for I can only submit one) that you think has the best chance of winning this week.

Be sure to indicate your choice in the comments section at the end of the post.

This week’s Top Ten topic and list:

Top 10 Things Overheard at Barack Obama’s Inauguration

10. “Excuse me, but could you please point me toward the Washington Monument?”

9. “Frosty malts! Get your frost malts!”

8. “George W. Who?”

7. “Freebird!”

6. “HOPE: It’s not just for breakfast anymore.”

5. Aretha Franklin: “You want R-E-S-P-E-C-T? Talk to the hat, baby.”

4. “Whew!”

3. “I heard Michelle leased her dress from Sarah Palin?"

2. Dick Cheney’s backstage Dr. Strangelove impersonation: “Mein Fuhrer! I can walk!”

1. “Pssst, wake up George. Your reign is over.”

Don’t forget to let me know (in the Comments) which one of these I should submit.

Originally posted on sister site Say Something Funny

Obama Should Elope to Detroit for Inauguration

2009-01-19T20:01:00.002-05:00

If President-elect Barack Obama really wants change I can believe in and to break away from politics-as-usual, I suggest running off to the Motorless City for this year’s Inauguration. A good ‘ol fashioned elopement is the perfect way to bite your thumb at tradition, especially when the expectations for a traditional marriage between a Man and an Executive Branch (that’s what it says in the Constitution, so it must be true) grow exponentially by the nanosecond.

Motor City or Bust: "I got other plans D.C."

Estimates for this year’s inaugural bash are pushing the $150 million envelop, not to mention it’s BYOBMCHPPTPH (Bring Your Own Beer, Makeshift Cardboard House, Porta-Potty, Toilet Paper & HOPE). You would think the Inaugural Committee could stretch this money and throw in a couple of kegs and a sleeve of plastic cups.

However, like the federal budget, most of these funds have been earmarked for defense and homeland security purposes. By security I mean party crashers. And by party crashers I don’t mean bitter and/or disgruntled Republicans, rather twenty-somethings who still go to high school keggers, Ryan Seacrest and those pesky Mad Maxian party crashers from the 1980s cult classic film “Weird Science.” Regarding the latter, everyone knows, at least those of us who viewed “Weird Science” as a cautionary tale know the best and by far the cheapest defense against these alien thugs is wearing a brassiere on your head and reciting passages from the Old Constitution – not to be confused with the recently revised edition.

These are professionally trained Home security officers. Do not try this at home.

Just think what Obama could do with all that Inauguration money if he were to elope to Detroit. He could use the money for a down payment on a new White House in a new location, say the upper-Midwest where he would not only be insulated from D.C. lobbyists, but he would be closer to his Fortress of Solitude -- should he ever feel the need to get away from it all and find himself through introspection and a steady supply of Klondike bars.

Having already spent over $700 million on his presidential bid, I imagine Obama wanted to have something small, quaint and private for his swearing-in ceremony.

But, as is the case in the multi-billion dollar wedding industry, politics almost always trump intentions, whether it be family politics or the loathsome politics-as-usual boogeyman – both of which begin rearing their heads during the initial drafting process of the guest list. If you thought the legislative process was messy, you’ve obviously never planned your own wedding. Bill in Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill” has it made compared to the embattled Guest List in the yet-to-be released “I’m Just a Guest List.”

The process begins with both parties listing immediate family members before moving on to listing people you may actually see after the wedding, thus avoiding any potential snub incidents. After the first draft is complete, you submit it to your managing editors: both sets of parental units (who are more-than-likely funding the impending train wreck). They add all of their relatives and acquaintances you’ve never heard of, yet somehow know all about you.

Next you send out the initial wave and wait for the word-of-mouth to spread, so those folks who were excluded can call your editors and voice their complaints until they are added to the next wave. This process repeats itself until both parties approve the list and send it up to the Mother of the Bride, who ultimately decides whether or not to exercise her veto power.

In Obama’s case this nightmare scenario has been compounded by the size of his potential guest list that draws from the 66.8 million people who voted for him. Any slight and these folks may not ever speak to him again and/or vote for him in the next election, not to mention the underlying tension at next year’s Thanksgiving dinner table.

This alone is reason enough as to why Obama should elope to Detroit.

Why Detroit, you ask?

If anywhere in the United States epitomizes rock bottom and needs the Obama bump, it is Detroit. Not only has the Motor City been idled by the economic meltdown, but its beloved Lions set a record in futility by losing all 16 games this year. Better yet, Obama could hold the 2009 Inauguration at Ford Field (just blocks away from where Mitt Romney announced his failed presidential bid). Most of the seats saw little wear-and-tear this year and Obama can help Detroit rise from the ashes – an economic rebirth, if you will.

Opposing fans remain to watch their team win in last-second overtime.

My guess is Obama is already committed to tomorrow’s Inauguration, but there’s still an outside chance we may have our first Runaway President.

At least we can HOPE…

Originally posted on sister site Say Something Funny

‘Say Something Funny’ is Up and Running

2009-01-14T11:35:00.003-05:00

My new sister sight Say Something Funny survived its first post, unscathed for the most part. While 27 percent of up-start blogs never publish a second post, I can safely say I’ve defied the statistics with a second post: “Keep your hands off my drugs, Big Brother.”

Here’s a taste:

This year, despite the fact I’m not even remotely religious, I’ve decided to give up Responsibility for Lent.

Why not? When in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights, might as well do as what Jesus would do, eh?

Why responsibility, you ask?

For starters, responsible people, ever since the beginning of time, have always been getting the short end of the snake. Just ask Eve. (Ba-dum-bum—Ching! I couldn’t resist, which is not a good sign that I’m going to successfully resist responsibility for 40 days.)

If you need more anecdotal evidence that the Responsible are always getting screwed, read “The Book of Ecclesiastes” in the Old Testament. And if you’re still not satisfied and need a more reputable source, I suggest you look up “Responsible People Are Eternally Doomed” on Wikipedia to feed any empirical doubts you may have been harboring. Trust me, it’s there. I should know because I added the entry late last night while the Wiki-Police were off chasing my soon-to-be irresponsible brethren. God I can’t wait for Lent to begin. Oh the Sinful Places I will Go.

Now I’ve been responsible my entire life, maybe too responsible for that matter, but I stared responsibility down the other day for the last time (an epic battle indeed) at a nearby pharmacy while trying to purchase a box of Suphedrine, or what I call Suphadrain, from the certified Pusher behind the counter. (Read more)

No worries political satire aficionados, I do plan on returning with a post in the next day or so.

‘Fallout Launches New Sister Humor Site: ‘Say Something Funny’

2009-01-12T15:57:00.008-05:00

In the wake of the Dot-Com Bust of the ‘90s and the impending Blog Bust, I thought I would launch yet another blog site, “Say Something Funny,” thus adding more virtual cholesterol to the clogged arteries of the Internet Super Highway (ISH).

I know, I know that I’m a part of the problem, having chucked five start-up blogs to the Superhighway roadside (Witsend Here, Nussle & Flow, Surviving Yepsen, Colbert for Head of F.C.C. and Iowa Veterans Blog), but the force tells me these endeavors were all part of a process leading to Say Something Funny.

I’ve called Political Fallout my home away from home away from home the past few years, even though I did sublease the space, at least mentally, for most of last year due to obligations writing straight journalism for the Iowa Independent. Over the past month, however, my satiric voice has been slowly returning to me, much to the chagrin of my family, friends and unsuspecting targets of satiric attacks. During this 12-step recovery process, my voice has been telling me to start a new site, so I had no other choice to listen and obey its every command or risk losing it forever this time.

I still plan on maintaining and writing for Political Fallout on a regular basis, like right now for instance, but Fallout will have to get used to sharing my mind’s custody with Say Something Funny, which will provide another avenue for humor that is not driven solely by politics. SSF will include a plethora of bits including humorous essays and poems, short quips, daily observations, parodies, comedy sketches, monologues, captions, quotes, and the list goes on.

So if you need a brief reprisal from the political world and whether you are a comedy aficionado, part-me reader of funny stuff, or layman humorist, I invite you to take a detour on the Internet’s Super Highway and check out “Say Something Funny.”

I’ve posted the introductory piece, “Prologues: ‘Say Something Funny’ or Die” today. Here’s a little teaser:

In the global world of comedy, “Say something funny” is the ultimate Weapon ofMass Destruction (WMD), claiming more lives and quick-witted tongues than the WMDs stored on temporary U.S. military bases scattered across the sands of Iraq.

On the list of top Say Somethings, “Say something funny” holds the second spot, wedged between the frontrunner “Say something romantic” and “Say something to help cheer me up.” “Say something clever” and “Say something (uncomfortable pause here) anything!" round out the top five.

Anyone who has been involved in a romantic relationship knows the underlying power of “Say something romantic,” especially when ensnared in the midst of a heated moment of unbridled passion. Nothing kills this moment, besides the sound of symphonic snoring, faster than being put on the spot by the volatile “Say something romantic" game changer.(read more)

Top THREE Reasons Why You Should Bookmark “Say Something Funny” to Your Favorites, Forward the Link to Everyone You Know -- or if You are a Part of the Impending Blog-Bust Problem, Add the Link to Your Site:

So one day you can truthfully say, without hesitation: “I remember when T.M. Lindsey was JUST a blogger”

Oprah bookmarked it

I asked you nicely without groveling and/or begging, so please, please, please, please, please, read and help promote Say Something Funny

Rachel Maddow Parody Makes Debut on SNL

2009-01-12T00:50:00.003-05:00

To officially cement yourself in the world of political punditry, you have to become a caricature on Saturday Night Live. With Rachel Maddow’s debut on last night’s episode of SNL, it looks like MSNBC has run the table with Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and the latest prime-time pundit of 24 hour cable news.

The Rachel Maddow Show: Roland Burris and former Illinois Gov. Blago

Obama Comes Down from the Burning Bushes with Bush Jr.'s 10 Commandments

2009-01-10T15:37:00.004-05:00

President-elect Barack Obama met with all the living U.S. Presidents at the Oval Office for a luncheon, which the new prez-on-the-block hailed as an “extraordinary” occasion.

Obama caught on camera hiding in the Bushes

Meanwhile, while the sitting President George W. Bush used the occasion to help whitewash himself from the recently stained office and remind everyone that the office “transcends the individual,” President Bill Clinton was reliving memories of literal stains left in the wake of his term.

The luncheon was held up President Jimmy Carter, who had trouble finding the office because Bush Jr.s office had inadvertently sent him the Roadmap to Peace in the Middle East, which had been misplaced sometime during the first year of his first term in office.

During the luncheon, the presidents shared advice with the incoming Obama, ranging from how to avoid being a one-termer to what kind of dog he should get.

Half way through the lunch gathering George W. Bush passed a napkin under the table to Obama, which had a message scrawled in black pen written on it. Obama is still trying to figure out whether or not the message was serious or intended to be some kind of presidential prank that presidents play on the newbie.

Through one of its sources, Political Fallout was able to procure a copy of the message scribbled on a White House cocktail napkin:

Hey O’Man,

Thought you might need these when you take office. They’re my own 10 Commandments and helped me get through the past 8 years and survive my low approval ratings:

King George’s 10 Commandments

1. Just do what Big Dick says and you’ll be okay

2. Don’t make any Play-doh statues of members of intelligence community and/or yourself during morning security briefings

3. When the cow paddies hit the fan, run for Crawford and lay low until EVERYTHING blows over

4. Remember that Sundays is for reading the funnies (except those poking fun at you), taking extra nap between regular naps, watching sports and Laura read books, and eating pretzel sandwiches with Barney

5. Honor Big Dick

6. Thou shalt not kill anyone who doesn’t have it comin’ (unless of course the demon who possesses Barney’s body tells you to do it)

7. Ignore Little Dick

8. Thou shalt not steal when you can pass tax breaks and/or draw down from unlimited line of credit tax payers gave you

9. You shall not bear false witness against Canada or Mexico ‘cuz that’s what it says in NAFTA

10. You shall not covet your neighbors’ house, wife, work force, professional hockey players, or anything else that belongs to them ‘cuz that’s what it says in NAFTA

Later,

The Bushmeister

Obama Condoms: Obama is the New ‘Star Wars’ of Political Merchandising

2009-01-07T16:54:00.014-05:00

A long time ago n a galaxy far, far away, the kingpin of modern merchandising, “Star Wars: A New Hope,” was born.

Thirty-one years later, the New Hope President-elect Barack Obama, has been resurrected in the over-saturated galaxy of mass merchandising.

In today’s marketing day and age, consumers often ask: “What came first, the movie or the merchandising?” during the branding process -- which usually begins in the womb for most savvy marketing exploiters.

Such is the case for the Obama brand, which has been selling like GOP union-busters over the past year. Obama’s name reigned in over $700 billion dollars in campaign contributions, which includes some of the merchandising the campaign directly tapped into such as t-shirts, buttons, bumper stickers, 2009 calendars, posters, coffee mugs, and commemorative coins.

But the Obama Buck does not stop here. Other entrepreneurs and opportunists alike are cashing in on the Obama name brand, selling everything from Obama car-seat covers to Obama Action Figures. (Note: It took the Jesus estate nearly 2000 years to get a Jesus Action Figure on store shelves. For the record: when placed side by side, the Obama Action Figure is BIGGER than the Jesus Action Figure.)

Like its predecessor, “Star Wars,” anything is fair game for merchandising the Obama brand, including condoms.

Last year a young New York City entrepreneur Benjamin Sherman started selling Obama condoms -- along with John McCain and Sarah Palin condoms -- through his company Practice Safe Policy. The Obama condom carries the slogan “Use With Good Judgment” and has the following pitch on its We b site:

WHO SAYS EXPEREINCE IS NECESSARY?

These are uncertain times. The economy's a ball-buster and the surge went flaccid... but now there's Obama Condoms, for a change you can believe in!

-FOR THE ELITIST PENIS
-THEY WON'T LEAVE A BITTER TASTE IN YOUR MOUTH
-WHEN YOU JUST WANT TO CLOSE THE DEAL

As Seen on TV: Condoms Unite Obama and McCain

In an attempt to close the condom merchandising gap, I imagine it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing glow-in-the-dark light saber condoms popping up behind drugstore counters.

Growing up during the “Star Wars” merchandising surge in the late ‘70s, I resisted the temptation to invest in the pricy Star Wars action figures, models, Death Star Disco Globe and Princess Leigh blow-up doll (batteries not included). Even at a young age I was caught up in ‘80s politics under President Reagan’s watch and wondered why George Lucas didn’t file a trademark suit against the federal government for adopting the nickname “Star Wars” for its Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).

Moreover, since the ‘80s were my formative years for satire, I was preoccupied with parody, and “Star Wars” – the movie – was not immune to parody. As was the case in Mel Brooks’ “Spaceballs”:

Spaceballs Parody: Merchandising

Obama the Senator, Obama the Bestselling Author, Obama the Campaigner and Obama the President-elect have successfully branded the Obama name, and as the Inauguration approaches next week, it will be interesting to see how Obama the President sells in the market.

Here are a few merchandising trends to look for during his first term:

The Obamamobile: imagine driving a sleek hybrid sports car that has room for the entire family. Equipped with tinted, bullet-proof windows, the Obamamobile is the perfect nocturnal ride for speeding through crime-infested streets left in the wake of Bush’s economic meltdown. Mass merchandising of Obamamobiles will help conceal the President’s whereabouts while in transition at night. All Obamamobiles come with the trademarked bumper sticker, “My Other Car is the Air Force One,” slapped on the rear bumper.

The Obama Diet: Are you sick of all those exercise programs that you actually have to work to shed pounds? Fed up with all of the quick-fix dietary pills? Tired of those lose-weight-while-you’re sleeping weight loss gimmicks that have carried over into the work day?

How would you like a washboard stomach like the one Obama’s girls used to surf on while vacationing in Hawaii?

Introducing the “Obama Diet” -- a guaranteed lifestyle diet that will have you shedding the pounds before you know it. To get started on your Obama Diet, all you have to do create a stressful daily schedule that mirrors Obama’s while he was on the campaign trial for 21 months: 16 hours of rushing from event to event and pretending to like everyone in the process, 2 hours of basketball (schedule permitting), 3 hours of writing speeches and policy papers, 2 hour of meetings with top aids and marketing/merchandising manager, and 1 hour of meditation in lieu of a regular sleep cycle. To help expedite the six-pack abdominals process, we recommend taking up smoking.

The Hoprah Machine: why leave home in search for hope when you can stay at home, sit on the sofa, and have hope pumped through you via the Hoprah Machine. Financed by television’s modern Midas, the Hoprah Machine works like a humidifier as it spews hope into the air of your living room and fills your pores with very little to no effort on your part. Sound hopeful? Nope, it’s Hoprah!

Got Scandal?: Iowa’s Bottom Nontroversies of 2008

2009-01-04T11:52:00.019-05:00

"That's it...say it...say it...don't be shy..."

Like our ancestors the Brits, Americans love a good scandal.

However, unlike the Brits, American journalists and the Sound-Bite Corporate Media Machine are willing to sacrifice real journalism for gotcha journalism, especially in the political realm.

Armed with pens, laptop computers, video cameras, crackberrys, cell phones, tiki-torches and temptresses – journalists, bloggers and concerned citizens have assumed the role of makeshift paparazzi and hit the campaign trail in search of their 15 minutes of fame.

Unfortunately a number of gotcha moments only became controversial when the media, like blood-deprived leeches, clung to the nontroversy and spun it through its continuous loop of 24-hours news, which only contains an estimated 30 minutes of new news according to a recent Political Fallout study.

At the national level John Ridley catalogued a number of the top Nontroversies in 2008.

Meanwhile in Iowa, here are some of the Bottom Nontroversies of 2008:

Muslim Statehouse prayer threatens Christian faithful (outside of Iowa). Iowa’s 2008 General Assembly appeared to start off fairly smoothly with an invocation by Imam Muhammad Khan of Des Moines on the first day of the session Jan. 14. Not until outside agitators, including conservative talk show hosts and anti-Muslim organizations stuck their self-righteous noses in did this become a nontroversy.

GOP voter challenge/suppression of Grinnell College student voters falls short during November election. Ironically, the seeds of this challenge were planted by GOP adversary Sen. Hillary Clinton during the Iowa Caucuses. The Clinton campaign feared, justifiably so, Sen. Barack Obama’s turn out of young voters. Where was Joe the College Student when Obama needed him or her?

Rep. Steve King’s Little Shop of Horrors (A Tone-Deaf Musical). Iowan’s have become accustomed to the 5th district earsore, whose only claim-to-fame is measured in cubic vitriolic spew units (cvsu). Most Iowans have managed to ignore our very own political Master of Horror, hoping that if we ignore him he will simply disappear. Poof! Unfortunately, the national media keep feeding his Napoleon complex by running his nontroversial statements to help bolster otherwise slow nontroversial weeks.

During his "Oh-the-Places-We-Can-Drill" tour of western Iowa, Rep. Steve King pulls out one of his trusty nontroversy props to illustrate why drilling is the best answer to our energy consumption crisis.

Iowa Democrat Party serves up new brand of McCarthyism to Des Moines Register. As if the media needed any help (although given the recent across-the-board layoffs in journalism, maybe they could use a little help from their “friends”) scouring court documents for juicy details of elected officials past foibles, Rep Kevin McCarthy and the Gang delivered a neatly-labeled binder exposing several Republican Iowa House candidates’ backgrounds. Opposition research or good ol’ fashioned Witch Hunt? You make the call, dear Reader. Either way this should help ease the divisiveness of the two sides come Jan. 12, eh?

Gov. Chet Culver’s condo habit. Okay, so the Big Lug has an addiction to vacationing in million-dollar condos in Florida that just happen to be owned by real-estate tycoon Bill Knapp, who in turn happens to be a contributor to Culver’s campaign and longtime family friend of the Culvers. At least Chet admits he has a problem and that he is paying the $1000/week fee for using the Knappster’s condo. I’m sure that ever since he won his gubernatorial bid, the Big Lug has been scratching his head, wondering: “Hmmmm…now that I work for the people of Iowa, does that mean I still get to keep my friends with benefits before I was elected?” Had Chet done what most state employees who went to the Outback Bowl did, cut lodging expenses by cramming 20 people into one condo, some folks may be a little more forgiving of the Big Lug's addicition.

Gov. Chet Culver: "I might as well face it, I'm addicted to heavily discounted million-dollar condos in Florida owned by a major campaign contributor and longtime friend with benefits."

And Iowa's bottom nontroversy of 2008?

“Smokin in the Guv’s Car”: starring First Lady Mari Culver. While the passage of the public smoking ban may have been controversial -- given Gov. Culver other addiction: gambling revenues (Hmmm…I wonder if gaming lobbyists get the same discount on the Knappster’s condominiums?) – catching his mate, Mari Culver, smoking in a state-owned vehicle is by no means as controversial as the media and some Republican lawmakers made it out to be.

Mari admitted to breaking the law, paid the fine and promised she would never do it again.

Admitted adulterer John Edwards unites with admitted smoker in public places Mari Culver during a campaign stop, both sharing the same thought: "God I'd kill for a cigarette right now."

But the nontroversy did not end there. The newly appointed Iowa House Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen used the incident as a springboard to draw the line in the political sand, calling for a probe into whether the state should fund Mari’s police escort service.

As the economic crisis hits home, I’m sure this nontroversy will be a high priority when the legislative session reconvenes Jan 12.

Narcissism 101: Political Fallout’s Top Posts of 2008

2008-12-31T15:34:00.007-05:00

T.M.: Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who in this blogsphere is fairest of all?

Mirror: You, my creator, are the fairest of them all.

Ah yes, nothing smacks of narcissism more than an obedient mirror -- except of course anyone crazy enough to run for president of the U.S., because they think have what it takes to speak for the entire free world.

Or worse, someone crazy enough to start a blog because he or she thinks the entire world wants to hear what they have to say.

That said, I’ve compiled this year’s top posts on Political Fallout based on number of times viewed. Granted, due to my adventures in writing straight journalism this year, my satiric voice was less prolific than last year and suffered from comedic laryngitis. However, I have managed to resurrect Political Fallout this month and my satiric voice is slowly returning to the page.

Drum roll please…

Political Fallout’s Top Posts of 2008:

No. 1: Obama Plagiarizes Bob the Builder in NH Concession Speech

While watching his concession speech after the New Hampshire loss to Hillary Clinton, this was the first time Obama infused his catch-phrase: “Yes We Can!” Living in what has become a Bob the Builder household (which I declared to help offset the “War on the Wiggles”), I couldn’t help but give attribution where it belonged. Surprisingly, Obama’s catch-phrase has survived any Bob-the-Builder plagiarism allegations and has become a mainstay of the Obama phenomenon.

No. 2: How Will Clinton Spin Out of Potomac Spanking Machine?

After Hillary got handedly spanked by the Obama Campaign Machine in the Potomac states, two of her top-level campaigns stepped down, while the rest of us sat back and watched how she would spin her way out of these primary defeats. People keep coming back to this post for whatever reason, more than likely research-op interns gathering ammunition to tear down the Clinton Machine. (I wish Rove's mommy would take his computer away from him for once and for all.)

No. 3: GOP’s Trusty Invisible Hand Fist F*cks the Trickled Down…Again

I never bought into Adam Smith’s free-market myth resurrected in the 1980s by President Ronald Reagan. The theory doesn’t account for the greed factor, especially in today’s corporate context, wherein greed is a prerequisite and not an exception to the rule.

Given the current and ongoing economic meltdown, these big wigs are falling like dominoes.

Unfortunately the people on the bottom are breaking these fat cats’ fall.

No. 4: Dear American People: Please Excuse General Motors for Driving its Company into the Ground

Having been privy to several real-life excuse letters from today’s helicopter parents, I though it apropos to apply this medium to those folks who are supposed to be models of responsibility. General Motor’s economic crash is partly due to other market factors, but ultimately they were the source of their undoing, once again illustrating the the myth of the free market.

No. 5: Insourcing Rock ’n’ Roll: Guess Who Invades Coralville’s 4thFest

This was my video debut and the camera work looks more like something out of “The Blair Witch Project” than first-rate investigative journalism. Nonetheless, we need to expose washed-up bands from other countries, who come to America and take jobs away from hardworking garage bands looking for their next meal ticket to stardom.

Jib Jab’s 2008 Year in Review: The End of Democracy as We Know It?

2008-12-31T09:45:00.003-05:00

Looking back, the year 2008 may earmark the end of Democracy’s Bronze Age in America. Politicians opened Pandora’s political box and unleashed a maelstrom of the Seven Deadly Sins on an unsuspecting electorate.

Unfortunately, the decline of democracy is no laughing matter – unless you’re Osama bin Laden, Lucifer and/or Dick Cheney – who are down below perfecting their sinister laughs around a bonfire while stoking its flames with Our Constitution.

However, the folks at Jib Jab did manage to capture this year’s decline of democracy in a short animated piece:

Jib Jab’s 2008 Year in Review:

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Despite capitalism and democracy’s fall this year, Pandora and President-elect Barack Obama did manage to shut HOPE in-a-box. Moreover, Obama managed to capitalize on HOPE during his campaign, which hopefully will help stop the bleeding and restore faith in our Democracy.

We can only HOPE: "Yes We Can!"

GOP Political Satire Gone Bad: ‘Barack the Magic Negro’

2008-12-27T16:50:00.007-05:00

The first sign of satire gone bad, and a catalogued precursor to the Apocalypse for that matter, is when your attempt at satire debuts on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show.

Please, please, please, dear reader, do NOT forward this post to Rush Limbaugh; I have a family to feed and unlike Rush, they cannot survive on barbiturates alone.

Worse, Tennessee Republican Chip Saltsman, who also managed Mike Huckabee’s failed presidential bid, resurrected the racist ditty in question, “Barack the Magic Negro” and sent the song among others recorded on a CD to the Republican National Committee to help get his foot in the door for the RNC chairman gig.

Smooth move Chip.

"Dammit, Jim! I'm not a racist; I'm a proliferator of bad satire."

The song, played to the tune of Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Puff the Magic Dragon” was first played on Limbaugh’s show in 2007. The feeble attempt at satire targets a Los Angeles Times column about white guilt and is sung through Al Sharpton’s parodied point of view.

Chorus:

Barack the Magic Negro
Lives in D.C.
The LA Times they call him that
Because he is not authentic like me

To get a full sense of the racism veiled in satire, feel free to listen to the clip below:

“Barack the Magic Negro” (played live on Rush the Magic Pill-Poppin’ & Ego Strokin’ One-Man Radio Show)

In response to the RNC’s distancing of Saltsman’s Christmas gesture, Chip defended the song: "I think most people recognize political satire when they see it," Saltsman told CNN. "I think RNC members understand that."

Apparently not, Chip. But what they do recognize, unlike Rush and his minions, is bad satire.

Speaking of bad satire/parody, let’s use Mr. Saltsman to help illustrate this, using the chorus to the same tune of “Puff the Magic Dragon.”

“Chip the Magic Hayseed”

Chorus:

Chip the Magic Hayseed
Lives under a rock in Tennessee
Where he frolics with the likes of Huckabee
And distributes racist song parodies…

Santa Claus Turns to Congress for Bailout

2008-12-23T10:51:00.007-05:00

It was only a matter of time before the collapse of the free-market hit home for everyone, including Santa Claus and his trusty employees the Elves. Santa took no chances with his top-level executives and made the trip to D.C. himself aboard his environmentaly friendly sleigh.

Santa Claus Bailout Hearings (National Lampoon)

Update: Although the House passed a bill that would help keep Santa afloat with a $25 billion bailout, chances of making it through the holiday season dimmed when the Senate denied Santa, Inc. a helping hand of taxpayer money.

Initially, the bill appeared as if it would sail through the Senate on a one horse open sleigh until the GOP found a suitable political scapegoat: The United Elves and Little Helpers Union (UELH). A few members of the Senate who, like the Winter Warlock from “Santa Clause is Coming to Town,” did not receive any presents as children, blamed Santa’s economic collapse on the unions.
The UELH refused to take wages equal to their top competitors’ workers -- pre-teen children in China.

Moreover, the Elves’ union argued they could barely live on their current wages -- given the exponential rise in the cost-of-living in the North Pole. Some union members have already been forced to live on and commute from the Island of Misfit Toys to help compensate for stagnant wages.

“The Republicans have been trying to bust us up ever since we unionized,” a spokesman for the UELH told Political Fallout in a phone interview. “Maybe they’ll think twice about messing with us when they wake up Christmas morning and find a lump of clean coal in their stockings.”

Last-Minute Christmas Wish List before the Impending Shopocalypse

2008-12-22T00:10:00.011-05:00

After watching the classic “The Little Drummer Boy” for the umpteenth time with my boys this evening, I told them that, due to the economic downturn, I don’t have anything to give them this year for Christmas.

Needless to say this didn’t bode well, as tears welled up in their eyes.

“Don’t worry,” I reassured them, “I will give you a piece of my soul to fill the empty void under the Christmas tree and play my guitar for you on Christmas Day.”

Having heard me play before, this only made matters worse.

With less than 72 shopping hours before Jesus’ 2008th Birthday Party remaining and the impending Shopocalypse, I had my work cut out for me. And when staring in the face difficult times like these, I oftentimes turn to the birthday boy himself and ask: “What Would Jesus Buy?”

I know the question is inward, but it does help to channel through Jesus’ messenger Reverend Billy and his loyal flock, the Church of Stop Shopping, for an inspirational spiritual from the church’s choir (which ironically sells its “Shopocalypse” CD online for 15 And-God-We-Trust paper faith-slips each).

Here is a little ditty I always keep in the back of my head when out shopping for whatever reason:

The Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir: “Back Away from the Wal-Mart"

While working out the supply-side of the Christmas shopping equation and how to package my soul in anything but plastic, I turned my attention to the demand-side, thinking I could take Rev. Billy’s lead and ask for nothing. Just think, if everyone did this there would be no pressure to feel obligated to give what you don’t have – or charge what you don’t have (and may never have) on your credit card.

But knowing this will only prompt the obligatory “But surely you want something…?” response from those who want, or feel obligated to give me something on somebody else’s birthday, I’ve made a Christmas wish-list that includes items and/or requests that should not bore a hole in the ubiquitous empty pockets this holiday season.

Political Fallout’s 2008 Christmas Wish List (not in any particular order mind you):

1. All members of Iowa Congress to donate any campaign contribution over $2300 they received from an individual donor (which applies to federal elections but not Iowa’s – go figure) to Iowa’s rapidly depleting general fund

2. Iowa’s Democratic majority leadership to return the government to the people of Iowa

3. A backbone (metaphorically speaking of course, since real backbones in politics are rare and expensive) for those in #2 to make my second wish come true

4. Rep. Steve King to retire from Congress and turn his attention to writing his memoir, which, no doubt would be just as horrifying as anything the other Master of Horror Stephen King has penned to date (except maybe “The Shining”)

5. A freelance writing job for either “The Colbert Report” or “The Daily Show” (in the immortal words of DJay, the pimp turned musician in “Hustle and Flow”: “Everybody got to have a dream…”)

6. Sen. Joe Lieberman to come ALL the way out of the political closet and join the ranks of the GOP

7. Texas officially succeed from the United States and name George W. Bush its sitting president

8. President-elect Barack Obama name me, T.M. Lindsey, Blog Tsar (“Oh the Places I Will Go…)

Vilsack Trades in Sugar Mamma for Ag Secretary Gig

2008-12-17T00:51:00.011-05:00

It looks like Iowa’s adopted son and former governor, Tom Vilsack, has a new benefactor. Vilsack, whose Sugar Mama, Hillary Clinton, was already tagged President-elect Barack Obama’s Secretary State, was named Secretary of Agriculture by Obama.

For those of you who live outside of Iowa or have been blessed with a short-term political memory, Vilsack was the second Democrat to drop out of the never-ending presidential race. He left a $400,000 campaign debt in his wake, which his democratic rival and soon-to-be Sugar Mama agreed to retire with no strings attached – assuming of course there was no under-the-table agreement to deliver Iowa to Hillary, Inc. in exchange for his hefty national co-chair stipend and Obama attack dog duties.

The highlight of Vilsack's failed presidential bid was his V-logo, which drew comparisons to "1984" and "V for Vendetta"

If so, Hillary should be demanding a refund after her third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.

And now Obama, who is $30 billion in the black, has agreed to help Hillary retire her $7.5 million campaign debt.

Nobody said "The Team of Rivals" was going to be cheap.

March of the Gay Penguins: Penguinphobia Lands in Iowa

2008-12-15T17:09:00.011-05:00

As temperatures dipped below zero in Iowa, one of the first Farmers’ Almanac indicators that hell is on its way to freezing over (Thank Man for exacerbating Global Warming), Penguinphobia finally hit the Heartland.

“Chicken Little, the Gay Penguins have landed. Run for your life before it’s too late…”

Despite arctic temperatures forecast this evening, the Ankeny school board plans on holding a public debate regarding a recent challenge of the children’s book “And Tango Makes Three.” The challenge was issued by Cindy and James Daucus after their kindergartner child checked the book out, completely unaware of the gay penguin subtext.

Exhibit A, or the children’s book in question written by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, is based on the true story of Roy and Silo, two male penguins in New York’s Central Park Zoo, who formed a couple for six years. Not that there is anything wrong with that; although the Zoo refused to recognize them as a couple.

The dynamic-penguin-duo, cursed by nature and penguinphobic onlookers, tried to hatch a rock resembling an egg, but to no avail. Eventually the zookeepers realized what the dirty birds were up to and gave them an egg from a heterosexual penguin couple. Roy and Silo were successful in their efforts and helped hatch a healthy young chick, a female named “Tango” by the zookeepers – despite the name’s sexually suggestive connotations (e.g. “Last Tango in Paris”).

(Warning: watching the video clip below may lead viewers to question thier own sexuality and/or species identification.)

Under the Pink Carpet and Gay Penuins

And now the Daucus’ are taking on the Ankeny school district for exposing children to the gay penguin agenda. They asked the school board last month to shelve the book in a the parents-only section of the East Elementary school library (these sections even exist in an elementary school?), claiming the book “normalizes” homosexuality to children too young to understand the “risky lifestyle.”

After all, everyone knows that gay penguin relationships, even asexual gay penguins like Roy and Silo, is a gateway lifestyle that leads to riskier lifestyles and sexual behaviors such as gay porcupine or gay crocodile sex.

If parents are truly concerned about schools and teachers slipping in literature that promotes the gay penguin agenda without a suitable foil, they should suggest piggybacking (metaphorically speaking of course) “And Tango Makes Three” with the film “Happy Feet,” which provides the audience with an alternative subtext of gay penguinphobia. Happy Feet, who was born different than the rest of the penguin community is ostracized and nearly killed for being “different.”

As far as the Daucus’ are concerned, I would suggest not reading your own agenda into a piece of literature and read the story as what it is supposed to be: a story. Unless it is too late and their child has already moved on to the homosexually repressed crocodile in “Peter Pan,” whose gay biological alarm keeps ticking in his hot pursuit for the never-aging lusty young chap Peter.

Truth be known, if you read into anything hard enough, you could probably read a gay subtext, penguin or otherwise, into just about any piece of literature, including the following classic texts adopted by several districts across the nation.

Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck: This is obviously an allegory about two closeted, homosexual men. Farmhands, George and Lenny, are trying to earn money to buy their own share of the American Dream, which consists of the two of them buying a house and living happily ever after – while George gets to “tend the rabbits.” While George is able to sweat his latent homosexual desires out through hard work, Lenny does not possess the self-actualization skills needed to deal with his inner-homosexuality, thus causing him to unknowingly act out in fits of heavy petting and violence against innocent puppies and young ladies. In the end, when George realizes he cannot save Lenny from himself, nor can he have Lenny for himself, he takes matters in his own hands during the novel’s climactic ending.

The Odyssey, by Homer: A story about a Greek man’s 10-year return to home (after a 10-year war in Troy mind you) aboard a ship with dozens of sexually repressed men? I will let you, dear reader, connect the dots here. Why else would Odysseus pass up immortality with Calypso, one of the most beautiful goddesses of mythology? On a Freudian level, it only makes sense that wise Odysseus, despite the plethora of prophecies handed to him on his journey home, would keep making stupid mistakes which caused him to lose all of his men. He had to somehow destroy the guilt his men personified for indulging in his homosexual desires while away from Penelope.

Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare: While most readers and audience members get caught up in the young-lust affair between Rome and Juliet, they miss out on the other characters, Mercutio and Balthasar, who yearn for young Romeo’s acquaintance. Meructio, who willingly took a sword and died for his good friend Romeo, clearly showed his affections for Romeo. Meanwhile, Romeo’s man, Balthasar’s desire for Romeo is more subtle. Not until he enters near the play’s end dressed in riding boots and perfunctorily announces Juliet’s death to her husband, that we see his loyalties to Romeo go beyond mere kinship.

Update: Roy (left) and Silo (right) were last seen leading a Gay Penguin Pride March across Antarctica, while their daughter Tango (not pictured) is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at Harvard University in English.

Lame-Duck Bush Ducks Not Once but Twice in Iraqi Shoe Attack

2008-12-14T17:09:00.002-05:00

President Bush may be one of the biggest lame ducks in U.S. political history, but today he unveiled his uncanny ability to duck during a shoe attack by a disgruntled Iraqi reporter in the Iraqi prime minister’s office.

When it comes to ducking the issue Bush has been masterful, and such was the case during his final trip to Iraq.

Shoe and Awe: Fire Away

The president shrugged off the preemptive attack and said “I’m OK” after the incident in Baghdad today. “All I can report is it is a size 10,” Bush said afterwards.

On that note, I leave you with the words of Bush’s assailant: “This is the farewell kiss, you dog…”

The Day D.C. Stood Still: Auto-Bailout Crashes

2008-12-13T14:54:00.018-05:00

The world premier of “The Day D.C. Stood Still” opened yesterday in the global market and the horrifying ending sent chills down the collective spines of the automotive industry. Meanwhile several accounts of an unidentified flying cloud of uncertainty (UFCO) looming over Wall Street (see pic) were reported by unsuspecting taxpayers just before Congress slammed the door on the Big-3.

(Spoiler Alert: The following synopsis of yesterday’s event not only reveals the plot’s climax, but also provides insights and hints about the end of planet earth in its current ozone-trapped form.)

The UFCO eventually landed on the front lawn of Corporate Hill as a human chain of curiosity gathered around the object and joined hands, as if preparing to pay homage to the residents of Whoville by singing Christmas carols or bracing themselves for their worst fears to emerge from the spaceship’s door.

No singing commenced nor did Vice President Cheney manifest from the UFCO; rather the crowd was greeted by the Big 3’s highest-paid lobbyist, Klaatu -- an alien messenger of peace and part-time freelance lobbyist for companies on the verge of apocalyptic doom. Klaatu was shadowed by GORT (see pic) – his robot sidekick, who by the way had a striking resemblance to Cheney.

At this point the capitol city’s remaining three National Guardsmen, who have not yet been sent over to Iraq or Afghanistan to protect our oil interests, pulled up in repossessed Army jeeps, panicked and opened fire on Klaatu. The bullets missed their mark but did destroy a gift of gratitude Klaatu had brought for Congress and the American people – a mechanism that would end all need for oil, thus forever ending America’s dependency on oil.

Klaatu, who is well versed in earthly scripture, forgave the guardsmen for shooting at him and -demanded to meet with both chambers of Corporate Hill, claiming that a failure to bail out the Big 3 would not only lead to the end of America, but to planet earth and the intergalactic community as well. Congressmen were suspicious of Klaatu’s message, not to mention messenger himself, and wanted a sampling of the monetary messiah’s powers.

Klaatu agreed to the request and used his powers to halt anything in D.C. that depended on electricity and/or gasoline extracted from oil – consequently stalling all cars and shutting down the power of all the buildings in the area. The gesture evoked pandemonium and sent the city into a panicked frenzy as D.C. bureaucrats began flipping over SUVs, luxury cars and anything that did not get over 30 miles per gallon.

The house heeded Klaatu’s warnings and passed a bailout bill, but the Senate, despite the ensuing chaos, rejected the final version of the bailout bill – the GOP scapegoating the United Auto Workers union members for the cause of the bill’s peril.

Meanwhile, the police put a bounty on Klaatu’s head, citing his intergalactic ties to Jabba the Hut – a notorious hedge-fund con-alien -- were responsible for the economic crisis, the Big 3’s executive decisions that drove their companies into the red, the failed bailout bill and the ensuing pandemonium created by the latter.

Klaatu, in an attempt to return to his hybrid UFCO, was gunned down by D.C.’s finest and pronounced D.O.S. (Dead on the Spot) by first responders. At this point, Klaatu’s sidekick GORT stepped into the scene, picked up the fallen Klaatu, and carried him back to the UFCO, where he was resurrected by the Almighty Spirit after GORT spoke the sacred command in his robotic voice:

GORT: “Klaatu barada nikto…”

Upon his resurrection and soon-to-be departure, Klaatu stood on the edge of his UFCO and left the gathering crowd, bloodied and tattered-clothed D.C. bureaucrats, congressmen, automotive executives, taxpayers, and media, with the following message:

I am leaving soon and you will forgive me if I speak bluntly. The Universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression and dependency on oil and ignorance can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all – or no one is secure.

This does not mean giving up any freedom except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Your car companies have acted irresponsibly and so have your elected officials, despite being chosen by you. But you are not exempt from your irresponsibly, for it is you who have demanded the gas-guzzling cars, SUVs and Hummers that have nearly destroyed your planet.

Sure, I came here on behalf of the Big 3, but I am leaving on behalf of peace. I came here to give you the facts and a way to help end your addictions to oil, greed, and video games. Granted it is no concern of ours, the United Planets, how you run your own planet – but if you threaten to extend your ignorance and violence, this little planet of your will be reduced to a burned-out cinder.

(Producer’s Note: Although the first run of “The Day D.C. Stood Still” ran $14 billion in the red, producers are looking to tap funds from the previous $700 billion bailout appropriated for the banking industries. Stay tuned for the blockbuster sequel coming soon to a bankrupt theater near you.)

Dear American People: Please Excuse General Motors for Driving its Company into the Ground

2008-12-10T00:03:00.008-05:00

Simply put: General Motors and Congress are in a bit of a political pickle. And by pickle I don’t mean the classic Vlasic Pickle, which was faced with the prospect of bankruptcy in 2001 until it was bought out by Heinz, Inc., rather the pickles you find glued with ketchup to the bathroom walls in McDonalds.

On the verge of bankruptcy, General Motors, along with the other two heads of the three-headed monster Ford and Chrysler, has thrown itself on the congressional floors, begging for mercy, forgiveness and a multi-billion dollar bailout --- or corporate subsidy? Your call, dear taxpayer:

Heads: Bridge loan

Tails: Corporate welfare*

*Current odds-on favorite in Vegas

As GM executives continue to beg Congress, dispensing empty but-this-time-will-be-different promises, it is hard for me to sympathize for GM’s man-made plight. Or in GM’s case, what they did make but did not put into mass production: electric cars.

After watching the documentary film “Who Killed the Electric Car?” last year, I couldn’t help but think that GM’s alleged role in sabotaging efforts to launch and market the line of EV1 electric cars would come back to bite them in their Hummers.

However, the film concludes that GM did not act alone in the assassination of the EV1. The documentary found all of the following guilty in helping bring down the electric car: consumers, oil companies, car companies, the California Air Resources Board, hydrogen fuel cell and the government – namely our beloved Congress, which is now taking the holier-than-thou pedestal because it holds the taxpayers’ purse-strings.

Who Killed the Electric Car?: Round up the Usual Suspects

In the meantime, GM is doing everything in its limited power to improve its public image including leaving their corporate jets double-parked at home and promising to forgo executive salaries. But they have yet to take full responsibility for their role in driving the company six feet under…

Stop the Press: GM took out a full-page advertisement out in Automotive News Monday, not only confessing to its blunders but apologizing to the American people as well?

Say it isn’t so, Taxpayer.

A letter entitled “GM's Commitment to the American People,” appeared in the ad and explains why GM needs $18 million and how it plans to turn the company around.

"While we're still the U.S. sales leader, we acknowledge we have disappointed you," GM said in the magazine ad. "At times we violated your trust by letting our quality fall below industry standards and our designs become lackluster. We have proliferated our brands and dealer network to the point where we lost adequate focus on our core U.S. market. We also biased our product mix toward pick-up trucks and SUVs. And, we made commitments to compensation plans that have proven to be unsustainable in today's globally competitive industry."

Well, that should take care of everything. I’m sold. I wonder how much that full-paged apology cost them?

However, some lawmakers, including Sen. Chuck Grassley, R – Iowa, want the Wall Street executives to serve up some Japanese-style apologies to the American people.

“I am talking about scenes I've seen on television where in belly-up corporations the CEOs go before the board of directors, before the public, before the stockholders and bow deeply and apologize for their mismanagement,” he said in a statement in October. “Something like that happening among Wall Street executives would go a long way toward satisfying my constituents and many Americans that help might be needed and would more gracefully be given by the taxpayers of this county.”

I say take it one step further and turn their public apologies into a marketable game show, say a season of “The Running Executive” (an offshoot of Stephen King’s novel “The Running Man”). All of the executives from the Big-3 will be unleashed in D.C., which is filled with anyone who has lost their job from these companies and the object is to make it to Capitol Hill – alive. The first one to make it alive will receive the lions’ share of the profit generated from the television show.

However, we at Political Fallout –- a no-profit organization – are a little more civilized than this. That said, we would like to resurrect “Please Excuse the Excuses: The War on Excuses”:

Dear American People,

Please excuse the executives at General Motors for, among many other unfortunate mishaps, driving our automobile company into the ground. We really did have your best intention in mind when we killed the electric car, the EV1, and put all of the shareholders eggs in the Hummer basket. At the time, we had hoped the visibility of the military Humvees in Iraq would increase the demand for our civilian version back home.

We thought the Hummer would be synonymous with the American Dream, wherein every child would grow up wanting to be behind the wheel of a vehicle the size of a mobile home. Besides, our constituents, the United States Congress, assured us the war in Iraq would end quickly, thus freeing up the vast oil reserves bubbling beneath the Iraqi soil and yearning to feed a customized Hummer.

Blessed with hindsight and a new awareness that the intelligence procured by our marketing division was faulty, we now realize the EV1 could have been the wave of the future. Our minds must have been muddled, which is only natural given the quickening of global warming back in the day. Boy, that came out of left field, huh?

We admit that we are not perfect, nor are our line of automobiles, which is why most Americans prefer to buy foreign cars, but we do want to somehow make it up to you.

If you just give us another chance, say to the tune of $18 billion for starters, we promise to turn our company around and close the gap on our foreign competitors.

This letter was not easy for us to write, that is why we paid an entry-level employee in our public relations department to do it -- who by the way will be unemployed if we don’t get the bailout.

Finally, please don’t let Congress know we sent you this letter. We have already had to do a lot of groveling in front of these folks, not to mention we had to carpool in a hybrid all the way to D.C. as part of our penance for being so greedy and ungrateful.

Sincerely (we really do mean it this time),

General Motors Executives

How Much for that Vacant Illinois Senate Seat in the Window?

2008-12-09T13:44:00.013-05:00

Foiled by the FBI, my big chance to break into politics the old-fashioned way – buy a seat outright as opposed to the current one-lobbyist-at-a-time method – swiftly came to an end with the arrest of Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich – who attempted "to sell the U.S. Senate seat" that President-elect Barack Obama recently vacated.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich caught on camera upon emerging from underground Chicago garage after "shooting the breeze" with "Deepthroat II".

Looks like politics-as-usual in Chi-town, eh?

I was waiting to bid on Obama’s abandoned seat on eBay. Maybe, to help appease potential bidders, the Feds will put the wiretap taps of Blagojevich dropping an f-bomb on the president-elect?

Register, Inc. Downsizes Soul: Throws Cartoonist Duffy under the Bus

2008-12-08T23:52:00.003-05:00

Brian Duffy, the former staff editorial cartoonist for the Des Moines Register, helped me fall in love with irony while growing up in Des Moines.

In grade school, Amelia Bedelia, a fictitious maid for a well-to-do family, introduced me to the power of word-play through her literal interpretations of idioms. (It wasn’t until later that I learned that some folks who read certain texts literally can be very dangerous when unleashed on the campaign trail: “Woof, woof. Who let the literalists out?”)

The evil Mrs. Dann introduced me to irony the hard way in junior high when she confiscated my personal copy of Jim Morrison’s biography, “No One Here Gets Out Alive,” in the middle of our “Fahrenheit 451” unit. She seized the book in front of the entire class, noting that it was pure filth because of an explicit masturbation scene early on in the book. (Thank Mr. Mojo Risin she didn’t skim ahead any further.) Needless to say I failed the exam, because I couldn’t quite grasp the underlying mixed-messages of censorship. That, or a hormonal malotav cocktail exploded in my brain during the exam. (Hmmm…if only I had learned of an alternative outlet beforehand.)

My tough-love initiation into the world in irony was all it took. I had become an irony addict at age 15 and it was editorial cartoonists, namely Duffy, who helped stoke my addiction. I couldn’t go 24 hours without an irony fix , and I knew I could depend on Duffy’s daily cartoon in the Register to keep me from jonesin’. Believe me you, irony withdrawals are not a pretty sight.

Duffy is synonymous with the Register, and now, after 25 years of creating cartoons for the Gannett-owned corporate news dispensary, the Register fired Duffy, along with 70 other employees.

I realize the economy is on the verge of bottoming out and the newsprint industry is facing possible extinction with the recent boon of online news, but this does not excuse flushing one’s sense of dignity down with it.

It’s bad enough that Duffy was fired, but what is worse is how he was fired, which Duffy laments upon in an interview with WHO-TV:

Brian Duffy on WHO-TV

I’ve been told that this is the modus operandi regarding protocol for firing people in some corporations. I find this disturbing and reminiscent of Willy Loman in “Death of a Salesman,” who, after 34 years of sales service was stripped of his salary, reduced to working on commission only and inevitably fired for “lack of profit.”

Upon his firing, Willy says, “You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away, a man is not a piece of fruit.”

Unfortunately, in the corporate takeover of the Register, Gannett had no qualms with squeezing the juice out of the orange before tossing the peel aside – or at least escorting it out of the building to preempt any possible pen-wielding altercations.

Fortunately for Duffy, he is a top-notch cartoonist and the Register cannot take that away from him He is syndicated in 400 newspapers and should have no problem peddling his artistic wares elsewhere.

I, for one, will always remember Duffy’s satiric insight, his influence on me during my irony formative years and hope all the best for him.

In the meantime, Duffy left us with his final cartoon under the Register’s corporate thumb, which pretty much says it all – without saying it all of course.

SNL resurrects Hillary Clinton: “Secretary of State is better than being governor of Alaska”

2008-12-07T14:12:00.005-05:00

Just when you thought it was safe to watch Saturday Night Live again…

(Jaws theme here)

Landshark?

No: the Clintons.

With Hillary’s Secretary of State nomination, the Clintons, much to the joy of SNL and satirists alike, will be around for another eight years or so.

Political News Haikus: Obama, Franken & GM Bailout

2008-12-06T18:41:00.007-05:00

Obama Campaign Contributions

Merchandising HOPE:
Thirty million in the black,
Fear still in the red.

Al Franken Recount

Two + two = 5.
What Would Stuart Smalley Say?
Al won, dog-gone it.

GM Bailout

General Motors,
Who killed the electric car,
Wants more seed money.

Breaking: Economy experts finally state obvious and pronounce R-word

2008-12-03T00:28:00.006-05:00

After 12 months -- during which time the U.S. economy has been on life support, tanked, bottomed out, took a nose dive, crashed, plummeted, or whatever adjective and/or descriptive word(s) you have been using around the house or can still afford to use – the National Bureau of Economic Research has finally overcome its speech impediment and declared that we are indeed in a Recession.

I wonder how many man hours, speech therapy sessions, and how much money it took these crack researchers to figure out the obvious?

Whatever the cost, I would have done it for half in six months: “Our economy is screwed.”

I repeat: “Our economy is screwed.”

Although signs of the R-word have been bantered about over the past year, the NBER had to wait a year to make sure we were in a recession, despite all the tell-tale signs including:

1. Depression-era survivors started referring to the 1930s as “the salad days”

2. Golden parachutes have been replaced by aluminum parachutes

3. The dollar fell below wampum in exchange currencies abroad

4. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are household names in households that could not procure mortgages from either one of these behemoths

5. People all over the country willingly invested nearly $750 million in HOPE

6. The Man filed for bankruptcy

To get a real sense of the NBER’s surprise announcement, Political Fallout turned to the Caped Crusaders for their reactions to the breaking news that we are officially in a recession:

Robin: Holy falling stock market indexes, Batman! Did you hear we’re in a recession? Whatever will we do?

Batman: No worries, Robin. This is no time to panic. Besides, I have my trusty multi-billion dollar bailout lever to help protect the Bruce Wayne fortune.

Robin: I hope you didn’t put all of your eggs into one basket and had enough sense to diversify your portfolio.

Batman: Clever pun, Robin. But you really should leave the puns to the wordsmiths and keep focused on fighting green-collar crimes.

Robin: You’re right, Batman. It’s just that this whole recession thing has me worried that our investments will ebb while crime flows at an unprecedented rate. This puts a damper on my retirement plans.

Batman: That’s no excuse for taking liberties with our language, Robin. It may help to know that while we have been simultaneously protecting the citizens of Gotham, I’ve managed to exploit the local economy by outsourcing “good” to other communities in exchange for stock options in “evil.”

Robin: Genius, Batman. Absolutely genius.

Batman: No, Robin; inventing Corporate Welfare in my lab was absolute genius.

There are reasons to be thankful this year: Just ask Tina Sherman, Joe Lieberman, and Sarah Palin

2008-11-26T23:40:00.010-05:00

Despite our involvement in the Pentagon’s pocketbuster hits The Neverending Wars: Parts I (Terror), II (Afghanistan), and III (Iraq); the exponential rise in health care costs and premiums, a schizophrenic lame-duck presidency, and the economy bottoming out, there’s a lot to be thankful for these days.

You just have to poke around…

For example. I’m thankful:

1. For all of the technological advancements such as free blog sites and YouTube, which have helped level Democracy’s playing field – unless of course you have a predilection for illegal dumping or leaving your cell phone (with nude pics of your wife on it) behind at McDonalds.

Tina Serman, whose husband left his cell phone with explicit photos of her behind at McDonalds, plans on suing the fast-food chain for $3 million after the pictures were posted all over the Internet.

2. That I’m not Sen. Joe Lieberman, whose plans to lay the groundwork for war on Iran were throttled by President-elect Obama’s victory. However, I’m willing to bet 30 pieces of gold that we have not heard the last of The Lone Jew of the Apocalypse and his plans to launch WW III in the Middle East. No wonder the Dems left Joe the Warmonger at the head of the Homeland Security table in the Senate. The reason, however, I’m most thankful that I’m not Joe Lieberman is that I could not bare knowing that my voice was the prototype for Alf’s dad. The horror, the horror…

3. That my 6th-grade elementary teacher taught me during our introduction into sex education to abstain from drunk, adulterous sex in bathroom stalls with alleged strangers at UI Hawkeye Football games – either home or away. This mini-lesson helped me navigate my way through six seasons of football as a season-ticket holder unfettered.

4. Sara Palin plans on making a presidential run in 2012. Satirists rejoice!

The Sarah Palin Turkey Massacre

(Note: I’m thankful I’m not the turkey in the background, who was fed to the turkey chipper. Great backdrop for political theater, eh?)

5. For the 22nd amendment to the Constitution (That’s the one, Sarah, that limits the president to two terms (wink)).

Obama vs. McCain: Video killed the grumpy ol’ political star

2008-10-16T10:51:00.000-04:00

Sen. John SYDNEY McCain has taken several lumps from the media for his inability to keep up with the latest trends in technology. Last night’s non-debate illustrated this point, literally, as McCain showed the world that he has yet to adapt to the technological advancement born during his formative years. Not the club, silly, rather: the television. In particular, the split-screen that simultaneously captured both candidates’ facial expressions for the American viewers — half of which just may vote.

I caught the first part of the debate on the radio and both candidates sounded presidential — whatever that means. However, when I caught the rest of it on the tube, I knew within five minutes that McCain’s last pitch to the American people had failed. Voters, especially the undecided and independent, were not buying McCain’s Howard Beale-Grouch Marx impersonation.

McCain: Why so angry?

For McCain, pundits have argued that he needed a game-changer — not a channel-changer.

I suspect his strategists knew this going into the final non-debate and turned to desperate measures: hypnotism. McCain’s R.E.M. like blinking failed to entrance and/or hypnotize me, or Obama. We were not swayed by McCain’s Svengalian attempt to lure us into submission:

“Must vote McCain/Must vote McCain …”

Nor were those polled by the mainstream pollsters afterward.

McCain touts himself as a reformer, yet he keeps sticking to failed tactics in his campaign as evidenced in the debate (e.g. playing the Bill Ayers card). Whenever he is called out on why he has resorted to negative campaigning, McCain’s resorts to his patented “If … then” logical fallacy:

“As I have said before, my friends, if Senator Obama would have agreed to the series of town hall debates I proposed earlier, I would not have to resort to negative campaigning, character assassination, and hypnosis.”

When the election is over, I imagine McCain will use this line of defense to try to reconcile his reputation, or what is left of it at that point. I’m sure he will continue to blame the media as well — that is, when he’s not eternally damning ALL bloggers to hell (several blinks into submission here).

SNL Skewers Palin, Serves Up Another Moose-Inspired Appetizer

2008-09-28T13:09:00.003-04:00

Secretly, satirists are hoping for the worst: a McCain/Palin victory come November.

Why, you ask?

Answer: Job Security

Tina Fey delivers another spot-on impersonation of Sarah Palin. Fey’s first Palin bit convinced her daughter, so much so that she said at last week’s Emmy’s that she didn’t want to play Palin anymore.

Nonetheless:

“Gov. Palin and Katie Couric get real and adorable”

Will McCain’s ‘Campaign to Nowhere’ Cut-and-Run from Tonight’s Debate?

2008-09-26T12:16:00.005-04:00

Sen. McCain, far left, prays that President Bush, or anyone else for that matter calls on him to repsond to any questions regarding the economic crisis and/or how to fix it: "Please, please, please, God ... don't let them call on me. I sware I will never approve another lie or half-truth in an ad against my opponent, Sen. Obama, again."

Enquiring minds:

A. Could care less

B. Are preoccupied with more pressing issues such as global warming and. or whether or not Lindsay Lohan is really a lesbian

C. Are still trying to figure out why McCain picked Palin

D. Have subleased their bodies to America and moved their minds to Canada

But the Campaign to Nowhere, although suspended*, is playing up the dramatic, made-for-television pilot show that is destined to be canceled by the Producers Nov. 4.

*In an attempt to hold Congress hostage by threatening to cancel his appearance at the debate (“Ooooooooooooooooooo…”), McCain suspended his Campaign to Nowhere to return to D.C. and help fix the sound economy. Although suspended, McCain is still allowed to make appearances on shows that will loft soft-ball questions, but any media outlets that ask questions that merit responses to complex issues (e.g. “Late Night with David Letterman”) will be off limits.

Triumph: “Is Ralph Nader Good Enough to Poop On?”

2008-09-21T19:11:00.005-04:00

On the night of this year’s Democratic Primary in Indiana, I officially boycotted watching mainstream punditry after CNN’s absurd lambasting of the mayor of Gary, Indiana. I thought punditry had bottomed out, but my sources who still watch the Talking Heads tell me the MSM is still scraping the bottom, hoping to discover a juicy geyser of minutia to fill up its around-the-clock coverage.

Question: What is longer than this year’s presidential election?

Answer: Coverage of this year’s presidential election

Other Possible Answers: Number of days it took politicians to figure out something was amiss on Wall Street or Donald Rumsfeld has been in the former Bush Employee Relocation Program

Fortunately there is still one mainstream political pundit out there who is still committed to quality, fair-and-balanced coverage and reporting: Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

If you didn’t get a chance to catch his coverage of the Republican National Convention, check out the trilogy here and here and here.

While in the twin Cities, Triumph managed to scoop up sloppy seconds, collaring an exclusive interview with presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

Why Nader agreed to the interview, other than a desperate need for media attention, is beyond me.

Worse, Nader genuinely thought it would be able to outwit an insulting comic dog. There’s a reason the Political Campaign Constitution calls for a “separation between politicians and comedians.”

Triumph the Insult Comic Interviews Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader

GOP’s Trusty Invisible Hand Fist F*cks the Trickled-Down…Again

2008-09-18T09:06:00.009-04:00

When the late artist Robert Mapplethorpe portrayed photographs of fist-f*cking in his 1988 retrospective show, “Robert Mapplethorpe: the Perfect Moment,” opened in a D.C. gallery (after being canceled in Philadelphia), Republicans denounced the exhibit as obscene and tasteless and demanded that Congress strip (pun intended) funding to the National Endowment of the Arts.

When the Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, Congress wasted no time crafting a bill that would bail these guys out with an $85 billion loan, essentially bilking the taxpayer for the company’s free-market f*ck up.

This begs the proverbial question: Who’s fist-f*cking whom?

Better yet, what is more obscene in D.C.: Mapplethorpe or the D.C. fat cats and Republican politicians who cling to the free market when they are afraid?

Artist's rendition of the Invisible Hand

If you have ever heard a Republican on the stump fielding unscreened questions, you know what I am talking about.

GOP Stump Speech Script Responses:

Voter: How will you solve the economic crisis that has recently plagued financial institutions?

Candidate: Nothing. The Free Market will eventually help our economy rebound.

Voter: What is your exit plan for the war in Iraq?

Candidate: The Free Market

Voter: How will you help insure the 47 million uninsured Americans and prevent the bottom rung from dropping coverage -- because they can no longer afford the monthly payments?

Candidate: The Free Market may be unhealthy right now, but left alone, the invisible hand will heal our health care woes?

Voter: What are your thoughts on pre-marital sex?

Candidate: Who am I to argue with the Free Market?

Voter: Sex outside of marriage?

Candidate: Again, who am I to argue with the Free Market? Let it takes it natural course.

Voter: Sex outside species?

Candidate: Free Market

Voter: If news surfaced that you fathered a child out of your marriage, what would you name your bastard child?

Candidate: Free Market

Voter: Are you, or have you ever been diagnosed with Free Market Tourettes Syndrome?

Candidate: What the f*ck “Free Market” are you f*cking “Free Market” talking about? Who let this Commie “Free Market” liberal “Free Market” in here “Free Market”?

I think it’s time to revisit Witsend Here and resurrect “Talk to the Invisible Hand” (April 20, 2006).

(Note: This post was sponsored by the Free Market and written by an Invisible Hand, thus relinquishing the blog’s Creator T.M. Lindsey of any responsibility or libel suits filed on behalf of Adam Smith and/or Robert Mapplethorpe)

What do Sarah Palin, a Moose, Castration, and this Year’s Election Have in Common?

2008-09-14T22:17:00.004-04:00

Nothing, if you had asked Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge, who delivered some stinging laugh lines at today’s annual Harkin Steak Fry.

The Iowa Independent’s Jason Hancock serves up his account off Judge’s bit:

Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge is getting tired of the comparisons some are drawing between herself and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

The two female politicians differ on almost every major issue of the day, Judge said, but the differences between them don’t stop there.

“Sarah knows how to field dress a moose,” Judge told a crowd of about 1,000 at Sen. Tom Harkin’s annual steak fry. “I know how to castrate a calf. The thing is, neither of those things have anything to do with this election.”

Judge said it would be stupid for Republican presidential nominee John McCain to think simply putting a woman on the ticket will mean women will support his candidacy.

“Just because you wear a pantsuit doesn’t qualify you to be in the sisterhood,” she said.

On the issues that really matter to female voters, Palin is out of touch, Judge said.

“Sarah does not believe a woman has the right to reproductive choice,” Judge said. “She does not believe in science-based education as the foundation to truth and learning. And the fact that she could be a heartbeat away from the presidency of the United States scares me to death.”

She also called into question Palin’s resume, which includes serving as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and governor of Alaska for less than 2 years.

“I was elected twice to the state senate, twice as Iowa’s secretary of agriculture and now as the state’s lieutenant governor,” she said.

Then she added, jokingly, “but here’s the rub: [Sen. Barack] Obama never called.”

Palin & Clinton Flaunt Nonpartisan Baggage on Saturday Night Live

2008-09-14T10:35:00.004-04:00

When I first saw Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, I thought she looked like Tina Fey and imagined the elitist late-night sketch comedy show, Saturday Night Live, would have a field day with Palin.

SNL wasted no time satirizing Palin last night with its opening sketch:

“A Nonpartisan Message from Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Hillary Clinton”

Best Juxtaposed Lines:

Clinton: “I believe that diplomacy should be the cornerstone of any foreign policy."

Palin: “I can see Russia from my house.”

Best Straight Talk:

Clinton: “I invite the media to grow a pair and if you can’t, I will lend you mine.”

This line especially hit home after Team McCain and the GOP Machine called for a jihad on the press at its widely covered Republican National Commercial.

The latter may be "The Campaign to Nowhere's" undoing, for it may work on the GOP base, but it is likely to push the Independents into Obama’s camp.

Republican National Commercial: Fallout and Other Observations

2008-09-08T23:31:00.013-04:00

The Republicans’ four-day Infomercial ended Thursday in Minnesota’s fraternal Twin Cities, and despite the fact no literal casualties were reported (although crews have yet to clear all of the balloons from ground zero), it is safe to say that politics will never be the same.

McCain shows off the largest of his seven homes, bragging his eighth, The White House, will be his biggest achievement of all

Regarding the latter allusion, I felt like the target audience inside the arena was upper middle class folks who have been duped by the powers that be that such a distinction exists and those prone to sporadic bouts of amnesia or Nationalistic-induced Tourette’s Syndrome outbursts:

“U.S.A…U.S.A…U.S.A…!” (shouted to drown out dissenters)

“Drill, baby, drill…! (chant for collective lobotomy to help end dependence on foreign thinking)

I realize the GOP wants the voting electorate to whitewash the past eight years in their minds, but I couldn’t help but feel I was watching an Amnesia Convention. Or was it a gun show? It seems I have forgotten.

Everyone, including McCain, knows that John SYDNEY McCain was a P.O.W. in the Vietnam War, and was shot down and tortured by his captors. But did every speaker need to remind us of this?

Everyone, including McCain, knows that former New York Mayor Rudy Guliani was on the ground during the Sept. 11 attacks, but just in case, the RNC displayed a video of the New York City skyline at sunset as it reflected off the harbor and Rudy’s receding skyline.

Before mocking Obama and community organizing, Rudy Giuliani read Allen Ginsberg's poem, "America," with the NYC sunset falling on the harbor in the backdrop

Speaking of which, most voters are Baldists, so whether voters are ready for another bald president remains to be seen come November.

Romney/Romney ‘12

Romney used the platform to deliver his 2012 speech, filled with liberal bashing and an allusion to “Romeo & Juliet” with an attempt at poetry and the sun rising in the east. Somebody forgot to tell Romney that Romeo and Juliet die in the end of the play – not an optimistic outlook for the former Eastern Governor.

Most Effective Speech: President Bush

Although the party faithful oohed and ahhed over Palin’s speech, the most effective speech was the one not delivered, thanks to Hurricane Gustav. Not being seen with Bush trumps being seen with Palin in any hand, unless you are playing with Karl Rove’s loaded deck. Can’t wait for the next two months of 52-card pick up, now that the GOP has officially declared a Jihad on the MEDIA (sparing only the fair-and-balanced FOX News, so somebody will be left to tell the story to future neo-cons). Tsk, Tsk, GOP; I suggest giving Gary Hart his presidential playbook back.

Best Chant: “Four More Years…Four More Years…!”

Republican National Commercial Political Fallout Index:

Ratio of Protestors to GOP Delegates: 9 to 1

Ratio of Corporate Lobbyists to GOP Delegates: 17 to 1

Number of protesters arrested outside of convention center: 400

Number of Delegates who fell asleep during McCain’s speech: 400

Number of times speakers said “executive experience”: no total (abacas ran out of beads)

Number of times speakers talked about health care: 0

Number of times Republicans played P.O.W. card: no total (again, abacas ran out of beads)

Number of times McCain addressed Veterans Care: 0

LiveBloggin’ Da Maverick Wannabe: John SYDNEY McCain

2008-09-04T22:33:00.011-04:00

Late start on live blog...

McCain wants to reach out to every willing patriot and find peace and prosperity through Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, and Alaska.

Enter Willing Patriot: “Come on down, you are the next contestant on the RNC’s ‘The Price is Right’”

Code Pink is in the House and she is pissed as she rushes the stage and appears to be shedding her clothes for America, unveiling a hot pink silk negligee that may have aroused Johnny Mac at one point in his life.

We take a moment to interrupt this live blog to introduce this Infomercials official buzz words:

EXECUTIVE EXPERIENCE!

Can you say executive experience? I knew you could, neighbor.

Sydney plays the Maverick Card.

Two mavericks minus one Cowboy and one Darth Vader = the end of the world as we know it.

Mac does a little Republican bashing, throwing in some Dems. D.C. bashing in the Twin Cities is contagious, folks. The bashing my friend is blowing in the wind… Nice homage to Minnesota’s very own, Bob Dylan.

Johnny Mac: Don’t legislate from the bench inspires crowd to rise from genuflecting stance and applause, nodding their heads, thinking that it’s better to legislate from the Oval Office, not the bench.

Look out those of you on the dole, Mac is going to send you packin’ to another country where you will be able to get your job back that put you on the government’s dime.

I wish the teleprompter wasn’t by the camera, I feel that the Maverick is looking right at me, right through me and the gateway to my soul: okay, I confess, Johnny, I’ve had sinful thoughts about Cindy.

Dear John, How will poor kids get to these other non-failing public and charter schools you speak of?

Can you say project? McCain just officially made it three syllables. If vouchers had only been around when he was a kid. He could have buggy-jacked a buggy and whipped his way to the nearest non-failing school down the unpaved highway.

Did they have public speaking in public schools back then? If so, I imagine Bam-Bam would have eventually improved his monosyllabic vocabulary.

Johnny’s not afraid of those Damn Ruskies. He know evil, especially Commie Evil.

Did you see how he handled that Code Pinko Commie sympathizer? Huh, did you? You want some of that Russia?

WTF: Sydney hates War? Who needs war when you can have surges and conflicts and the franchising of Democracy, eh?

I have the scars to prove it? Was Mac speaking metaphorically?

Interesting strategy: Bash Obama, then let’s bring it together and work together. Political Shock and Awe. This may just work.

Hat tip to GOD. You the Diety, God!

McCain admits service was all about him, not anything bigger than him?

Breaking News: John McCain was a P.O.W. during the Vietnam War.

Audience has inappropriately displayed USA flag and sign that says “John Mavrick.” Was that intentionally misspelled. How did that kid get by security? Clearly a byproduct of the NCLB movement.

McCain points out misspelled sign, "John Mavrick," and says "Hey, that's not how you spell Maverick. Maverick has two 'r's"

MSNBC apologizes for footage of Code Pink protestor, washing their hands of any responsibility, noting that the camerapersons are part of a consortium.

Stand up and fight ending sends GOP into writhing frenzy.

61 political-shopping days until the election...

Will Hillary be the next Nader?

2008-08-26T18:06:00.006-04:00

Recent history indicates that the Democrats have been successful at one thing: losing presidential elections.

As Americans face the prospects of never-ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an economy that has tanked, the foreclosure crisis, health care costs still growing exponentially in relation to inflation, and myriad other indicators that spell out political D-O-O-M for the incumbent’s party, this year’s presidential election is the Democrat’s to lose.

But don’t underestimate the Democratic Party, which has been saddled with the historic curse of losing the presidency to George W. Bush not once, but twice.

When in doubt, leave it to the Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Besides handing over presidential elections, the only enterprise Democrats have been more successful at the past eight years is blaming everyone but themselves. They have cornered the market on political scapegoats.

In 2000, the poster boy for Al Gore’s failure was the Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, who has been demonized by party loyalists. Nader’s spoiler status spilled over into the 2004 election but was deemed less of a threat by the Democratic Party. Nonetheless, under the direction of Terry McAuliffe, who served as Hillary Clinton’s national campaign chairman during her failed presidential bid, the Democratic National Committee took no chances and tied Nader up in court and drained his resources with lawsuits challenging his ballot access in several states.

This doesn’t sound very democratic, now does it?

However, Nader’s reigning scapegoat status was challenged and inevitably pushed aside by the new scapegoat on the block: The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who helped sabotage fellow Vietnam veteran Sen. John Kerry’s bid with its book, “Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry.” The 527 group managed to effectively smear Kerry’s name, thus supplanting Nader for the reason why he lost.

This week as the Democrats gather for the Democratic National Convention in Denver to coronate their new presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, a subtext is brooding underneath the unity narrative the Democrats are trying to spin as the general election revs into full gear.

Three words: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton, who was narrowly defeated by Obama in the Democratic primaries, has helped cultivate a loyal following, which is not ready to let go of their mentor’s monumental run that fell just short of victory a few months ago. Although Clinton has endorsed Obama, her most fervent supporters have yet to be won over by him. Moreover, some of these voters have vowed to vote for the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain of Arizona. The most recent Zogby poll indicates that only 56 percent of Clinton-backers would vote for Obama, while 21 percent intend to vote for McCain.

The general election campaign is still young and there is time for some political wounds to heal, but to throw support from Hillary to McCain, who resides on the other end of the political spectrum, or I had assumed, doesn’t make a great deal of sense. I could understand harboring some differences with Obama regarding policy, but jumping on board with McCain suggests a few things.

For these voters, McCain’s ideology is more aligned with Clinton than Obama, which would point to a possible reason as to why the majority of Democratic voters didn’t vote for Clinton.

If these voters are upset and bitter about the outcomes and want to seek revenge against Obama, why not throw support behind third-party candidates such as Ralph Nader or the Green Party’s Cynthia McKinney?

Unlike the faulty logic of the past two elections, when Democrats’ power of persuasion was reduced to “A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush,” there is no logical breakdown with: “A vote for McCain is a vote for McCain.”

What remains unclear is what exactly the Clinton faithful want from the Obama campaign, or what will appease them, thus enticing them back to voting for their party’s nominee. Some of these Hillraisers feel that Obama’s campaign did not reach out to them enough or disrespected them through the campaign’s treatment of their candidate in the post-primary fallout.

Some were holding out for a possible vice presidential slot for Clinton, but these hopes were officially dashed at 3 a.m. Saturday, when Obama text-messaged his choice for VP: Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware.

In a CNN poll conducted after this announcement:

Sixty-six percent of Clinton supporters -- registered Democrats who want Clinton as the nominee -- are now backing Obama. That's down from 75 percent in the end of June. Twenty-seven percent of them now say they'll support McCain, up from 16 percent in late June.

As the Democratic National Convention gets under way, it will be interesting to see how this subtext plays out as the Democratic Party attempts to build a unified front before taking on the Republicans in the final leg of the election.

Feeling disenfranchised by Obama and the DNC, one group, Political Unity My A.. (PUMA) refuses to give up the fight for Hillary. Although I’m not sure what they are still fighting for at this point, rather, it is what they are fighting against that appears to be behind their vow to make their voices heard at the convention.

The underlying threat that if their demands aren’t met, there will be hell to pay come November threads it way throughout the P.U.M.A. manifesto found on the group’s website:

But what our adversaries fail to realize is that it is not just we the people with PUMA affiliations that will make the difference in November.

It is all of us, all across this great country who feel disenfranchised, betrayed and hoodwinked by Obama and the DNC.

It is all of us who see through Obama’s persona.

It is all of us who believe that the measure of a man is his character. That people should be judged by the company they keep, the truths they live by and the lies they tell. Judged by whether they pander to the popular line, or take a hard stance, accepting the consequences of their actions and having the courage of their convictions.

Sensing the discord among the Clinton supporters who feel disenfranchised, the McCain campaign attempted to woo these voters by releasing some new ads after Obama picked Biden as his running mate.

McCain Ad: Clinton Supporters Can Come to Me

McCain’s ad, featuring former Clinton delegate and PUMA Debra Bartoshevich of Wisconsin, attempts to simultaneously woo Clinton supporters and appease any guilt about switching sides, but his ad may prove to backfire. The new poll numbers were already in his favor, not to mention, the Democrats were already lined up in a circular firing squad.

Exploiting Clinton and her supporters may only serve as the perfect opportunity to bring the two factions together and turn on the external enemy.

Either way, there’s a great deal at stake for Clinton’s future aspirations, should Obama lose in November. The Democrats will be out for blood and the Hillary Democrats who voted for McCain will offer a perfect target. However, they won’t blame Clinton’s supporters, because they’ll need a face to put on the scapegoat, and that is where Hillary Rodham Clinton comes in to play.

However, Clinton will be the headliner at the convention Tuesday, thus providing her an opportunity to assuage her supporters and convince them to get behind Obama, before she unleashes her delegates on Wednesday.

This will be the first step in the healing process, but the polls suggest Clinton may have more work cut out for her over the coming months. Granted, Clinton is not alone in this enterprise. Obama needs to reach out to these supporters as well and work to convince any undecided voters he should be the next president. But he can only throw the rope so far, and it may be up to Clinton to convince her loyal following to let go and move on.

For Clinton, the difference between them letting and not letting go may be the difference between her being a hero or a goat – a scapegoat that is.

McCain Spokesman: Obama Hasn’t Visited Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory (Maine)

2008-07-27T23:02:00.009-04:00

While Obama wrapped up his World Tour and media love-fest, McCain’s campaign took time out from its County Fair Tour to issue some “Oh yeah, but…” statements to whomever would listen or had some dead-air to fill before deadline.

“In fact, [Obama's] never met with President Uribe in Colombia, as John McCain has,” McCain’s spokesman Tucker Bounds said on CNN today. “Obama has still yet to take a trip to Mexico City to have those meetings there and his relationship with Canada, I think, took a turbulent roll through the primaries.”

So na-na-na-boo-boo, Mr. Fancy Pants Obama.

When reporters pushed Bounds to elaborate, he added, “Oh yeah, and Obama has never been to heaven, hell, or Purgatory, Maine,” implying that McCain has vited all of these places.

Inspired by the battle of the Oh-the-Place-We-Will-Go Empty-Rhetoric War, the Political Fallout Fact-Check Team did some of its own digging into the past and unearthed, literally, some other places that John McCain has visited BUT Obama has NOT:

Atlantis (below): McCain reportedly visited the island before it sank below the sea. Reports indicate that McCain intended to inspect the island’s powerful naval academy to brush up on naval domination, but got sidetracked by his “Go Atlantis Guidebook.” McCain spent the majority of his goodwill trip to Atlantis snorkeling and looking for King Titan and his restless band of mermaids under the sea.

Hades: Upon returning from the underworld, seemingly unscathed by shades of the past, McCain promptly checked into the Betty Ford Clinic, where it’s reported that he underwent a fervent detoxication program to help flush sacrificial goats’ blood from his system.

Ithaca: Although Homer did not mention or footnote McCain’s visit to Ithaca and meeting with King Odysseus, McCain distinctly remembers having a cordial conversation with the King and his wife, Penelope. “I truly felt Odysseus’ pain after his 20 years away from home, 10 of which were lost in a grueling battle with the Trojans,” McCain told Political Fallout. “I felt like I really connected to Odysseus, especially when comparing my experiences as a prisoner-of-war and Odysseus’ seven-year captivity by Calypso. I can’t begin to imagine what Odysseus must have suffered at the hands of a beautiful goddess, whose only promise for being her boy-toy was immortality. The horror…the horror…”

Mesopotamia: During a 6th-century visit, upon the arrival of the Archaemenid Empire, McCain warned leaders that if they didn’t implement a surge of troops, Mesopotamia would lose its independence to foreign powers wanting to colonize their land. McCain’s prophecy, ignored by leaders at the time, came true with the arrival of the Islamic Caliphates, which paved the way for modern-day Iraq. Ignoring McCain’s 6th-century prophecy once again, Iraq fell to yet another takeover, which McCain has prophesized will last another 100 years.

Sodom & Gomorrah: After escaping the brimstone and firestorms of these cities, McCain’s only comment to the press was “What happens in Sodom and Gomorrah, stays in Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Iowa Chops Hockey Takeover Spurs Punslinging

2008-07-10T15:05:00.005-04:00

Not since the Muppets have we seen Pigs on Skates. Move over Miss Piggy, the Iowa Chops, the newest American Hockey League team, are coming to town.

Don’t worry, I’m sure that Iowans and the minor-league hockey community outside of Iowa, assuming such a thing even exists, will be hamming up the Chops new name with a plethora of pig puns and other piguendos.

The Iowa Chops, which is a farm team for the Anaheim Ducks (What the puck were they thinking when they named their franchise?), partnered with the Iowa Pork Producers Association and the co-owner Kirby Schlegel wanted a name that nobody else had (e.g. The Bitch-Slapstix).

"Something that got the community excited and most of all ties into Iowa,” Schlegal openly confessed to the Des Moines Register.

I don’t know about you, but nothing gets me more excited than pork; whether it be the film “Porkys” (which was the first R-rated movie I snuck into), traipsing in the meadow with my butterfly chop net, or hearing Mr. Pork Chop’s famous “Porrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk Chop” call while riding my bike on RAGBRAI.

Tragically, Mr. Pork Chop, who I assumed would be the poster boy for the Iowa Chops was ham hocked in the merger by a corporate logo. Das Pigs!!! Fearing a blitzkrieg of puns that would only serve up an affront to the Chop’s manliness and play on the insecurities of its players, the team was rebranded with a corporate logo that showcases a mean-looking boar’s head.

As Mr. Pork Chop gears up for RAGBRAI, fine tuning his pork-pink bus and warming up his chops to decry his famous pig call (see video below), I can’t help but think he feels slighted by the new Chops logo. (Note: RAGBRAI is famous for being the only week-long bike ride across a state, in which riders actually gain weight before plummeting into the Mississippi and floating downriver: Soueeeeeeeeuy!))

Mr. Pork Chop Serves Up a Taste of Pork Chop Fever

In the stuttering words of the most famous pigs of all, Porky Pig (why the redundancy here; this can’t be good for his self esteem, not to mention the all the pork spent on speech therapy), I leave you with:

"Tha-tha-tha-that's all folks!" ...

Insourcing Rock ‘n’ Roll: Guess Who Invaded Coralville’s 4thFEST

2008-07-08T14:39:00.011-04:00

When I think about Independence Day (the actual day celebrating the birth of our nation and not the movie, which I had managed to successfully repress until NOW), several American staples come to mind. These include the clichéd standbys such as baseball, apple pie, and last but not least, Canadian rock ’n’ roll.

You heard me loud and clear: Canadian rock ’n’ roll!

While North Americans have obsessed about our neighbors to the south crossing our borders in massive droves, we’ve turned a blind, albeit nostalgic eye to the north as Canadians cross the border and infiltrate our culture.

Such was the case on the eve of Independence Day when longtime Canadian rockers The Guess Who invaded Coralville’s 4thFEST and wooed more than 1,000 unsuspecting American citizens at S.T. Morrison Park.

Three generations of The Guess Who jam to "No Time." Pictured from left to right (1st to 3rd generation) are Derek Sharp, Laurie MacKenzie and co-founder- Jim Kale.

However, when you delve below the surface of their seemingly innocuous lyrics, as in the case of The Guess Who’s most famous hit, “American Woman,” you can’t help but feel the anti-American sentiments brewing and biting off the hand that fed the group its '70s fame.

American woman, said get away
American woman, listen what I say
Don’t come hangin’ around my door
Don’t wanna see your face no moreI don’t need your war machines
I don’t need your ghetto scenes
Coloured lights can hypnotize
Sparkle someone else’s eyesNow woman, get away from me
American woman, mama let me be.

Metaphorically, it is clear that the “American woman” in the song is the United States and the narrator, Canada, is tempted by certain aspects of the American way of life but isn’t willing to accept the dark side of our capitalistic ways such as ghettos scenes and war machines. In light of these messages, the Coralville crowd adopted the Canadian anthem and was hypnotized by the song as they nodded their perfunctory heads and sang along as if reciting the “Star Spangled Banner.”

Despite the crowd’s complacency, front man and lead singer Derek Sharp (pictured left) took no chances and came out of the patriotic closet. Sharp, who has been touring with the band since April, joining after Carl Dixon was in a serious car accident, told the audience that he was celebrating his first Fourth of July as a citizen of the United States. He confided that he has been living in North Carolina for the past 17 years and recently received his U.S. citizenship. However, Sharp was reluctant to completely sever ties with his Canadian homeland.

“I’m still a citizen of Canada as well,” Sharp announced to the crowd, most of whom had no idea The Guess Who was Canadian bred in the first place. “Now I’m a citizen of the best two countries in the world!”

The Guess Who is not the only group to infiltrate our borders, but it is the first Canadian rock group to usurp the No. 1 slot on American charts, doing so in 1970 with “American Woman.” Before that, the band’s occupation in the United States was overshadowed by the British Invasion, which took root in 1964 when the Beatles landed in America. The Rolling Stones led the second wave of the British invasion 18 months later, followed by third wave spearheaded by The Who two years after that.

The British Invasion gave the The Guess Who more freedom to move about the U.S. and establish its roots without drawing notice from the watchful eyes of J. Edgar Hoover or the pop charts. Granted, the group traveled under its alias name, “Chad Allen & the Expressions,” until the group’s record company, Quality Records, attempted to create a mystique about the band by crediting its hit single to the “Guess Who.” The name stuck, and the group was outed in the U.S. and could no longer fly under Hoover’s ubiquitous radar.

The Guess Who, however, is by no means the most famous Canadian rock band to infiltrate our borders. That honor goes to “godfather of grunge” Neil Young, who crossed the border in the late '60s with his group Buffalo Springfield (two distinct American names, eh?). Uneasy about anti-Canadian sentiments, Young’s solo career took a detour with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, thus placating American audiences before unleashing his barrage of anti-war and protest songs, most notably “Four Dead in Ohio,” “Alabama” and “Southern Man.”

The latter two songs did not go unnoticed by homegrown Southern rockers Lynrd Skynrd, who took offense to the Canadian rocker’s racial undertones and slight against the South:

In Birmingham, they love the governor (boo boo boo)
Now we all did what we could do
Now Watergate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you?Tell the truth...

Lynrd Skynrd fired back with its Southern anthem “Sweet Home Alabama,” which not only expressed its regional pride but also took a jab at Young:

Well I heard mister Young sing about her [Alabama]
Well, I heard ole Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A Southern man don't need him around anyhow

Since The Guess Who first invaded America in 1965, several other soloists and groups have followed and found success, including Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, 40 percent of Steppenwolf, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Rush, April Wine, Triumph and, lest we forget, Loverboy.

Forty-three years later, The Guess Who is still rocking and taking jobs that American bands don’t want, such as playing the 4thFEST in Coralville. However, only two of the five original members graced the stage to serve up some of the band’s greatest hits, blinding the baby-boomer audience into a nostalgic stupor.

(Note: The following footage was shot on location by non-union cameramen from Canada, who also were not legal citizens of the Unites Sates during the filming, thus explaining the Blair Witchian feel throughout the song.)

The Guess Who Invade Iowa (“No Sugar Tonight”)

Meanwhile, The Guess Who, among other Canadian musicians, are stealing jobs from hard-working white Americans, most of whom the pundits discovered supported Sen. Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential bid. Ironically, Clinton’s hands are less than bloody when it comes to insourcing Canadian musicians, when considering a plethora of washed-up American ‘70s bands or contemporary garage bands would have sufficed.

After all, it was Hillary who adopted Canadian diva Celine Dion’s song “You and I” as the official theme song of her campaign. To add insult to injury, the song had already been commissioned by Canada’s national airline, Air Canada. So not only did Clinton insource Canadian music, she helped outsource the Canadian airline’s marketing strategy through her campaign.

The Guess Who finished its 70-minute set, billed to the City of Coralville at a price tag of $35,000 (that’s 35,000 American dollars, folks, or $200/minute), with “These Eyes.”

…These eyes watched you bring
My world to an endThis heart could not accept and pretend
The hurtin's on me yeahBut I will never be free no no no
You took a vow with me yeah
You spoke it - you spoke it…

Similar to “American Woman,” I’m sure the “you” in the song is the U.S., and I for one guarantee that when The Guess Who returns to Iowa Aug. 23 in Davenport, these eyes of mine will be watching.

And I’m sure I won’t be alone.

I Can’t Believe George Carlin is Fckng Dead

2008-06-24T13:05:00.005-04:00

George Carlin did not pass away, expire, kick the bucket, nor did he leave this world for a better place

Plain and simple, folks: George Carlin is f*ck*ng dead, and no euphemism is going to change or conceal that fact.

Carlin reportedly died of “heart failure” Sunday night and had he lived long enough to read his own obituary, he probably would have had a heart attack.

"Why? Because words matter and people might assume that doctors were substituting "failure" for "attack," that they were concealing the truth and implying that Carlin's heart somehow let him down as opposed to the other way around. As he looks down upon us now, I’m convinced Carlin would say that it was only a matter of time before his heart would kill his ass for all the terrible sh*t he did to his body when he was still alive.

Carlin, undoubtedly one of the most influential stand-up comedians and satirists in American history, earned his notoriety by using words in his routines deemed vulgar or obscene. But Carlin argues there is no such thing as an obscene word, in and of itself; rather it’s the context of how and when the words are used that ultimately determine whether it is obscene or not.

Carlin addressed this notion in one of his famous comedy bits, which unleashed a verbal assault on the powers that be, who have hijacked the language to feed their own agenda and conceal America’s sins by masking the truth with words.

George Carlin on Language

Americans have always been afraid of the truth and Carlin reminds us that no matter how hard we want to sugarcoat the past, we cannot use words to hide our crimes. Nonetheless, our government, in cahoots with the media, has used euphemisms and double-speak to manipulate our language as a means of hiding unspeakable truths while simultaneously justifying and condoning its own atrocious behaviors.

Now some of you may be thinking to yourselves: “What’s this unpatriotic bastard talking about?”

(Speaking of context, all Americans are bastards -- given the fact our country is the bastard child of Mother England. And considering the American Revolution was an unpatriotic act of patriotism, aren’t we all descendants of unpatriotic bastards?)

Well, for starters, we have yet to completely face the hard truths about our role in committing systematic genocide against Native Americans, the enslavement of Africans and the World War II bombings of innocent people in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden.

The list of obscenities goes on, but ironically, it was an abridged list of obscenities, “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” that landed Carlin in jail in a 1972 performance at the Milwaukee Summerfest. In the spirit of Lenny Bruce, Carlin was charged with violating obscenity laws. The case was dismissed five months later when the presiding judge declared that the language was indecent, but Carlin had the right to exercise his free speech, not to mention, the routine did not create any disturbance -- other than Carlin’s arrest.

The Seven Words You Cannot Say on Television:

However, a version of the original bit came under fire the following year during a radio broadcast of Carlin’s routine in New York. The radio station, WBAI, received a citation from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for broadcasting “obscene” material.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action, by a vote of 5-4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene," and the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience.

In its ruling the Supreme Court split semantical hairs, arguing there is a distinguishable difference between what is obscene and what is indecent, thus setting the precedent for years to come. The ruling transcended words in 2004, when Janet Jackson brandished her nipple during the Super Bowl halftime show. Because her nipple was indecent, and not obscene, Janet Jackson avoided arrest and detainment in Guantanamo Bay.

Ironically, news of Carlin’s death spawned a blitzkrieg of asterisks in the print media (see title), while broadcast interns across the country combed through over 40 years of material to find a clip of “decent” material to air on television.

Carlin picked up where Lenny Bruce’s untimely death left off and the question now is who will carry Carlin’s satiric torch into the future? Who will use humor and hyperbole to unmask and expose the awful truths in our society? Who has the balls to step into Carlin’s shoes and shine America’s dark side back in its face?

Arguably, some satirists, influenced by Carlin’s acid tongue, have already begun doing so. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are dominating the late-night scene with their faux news and critiques of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, Chris Rock, whom Rolling Stone magazine recently dubbed the “Funniest Motherf*cker in America,” is torching the stand-up circuit with his scathing satire of contemporary political and social issues.

Tragically, it appears Americans can only handle the truth in small doses and these doses have to be ensconced in humor and dispensed through biting satire. This appears to be the only way we can digest the truth.

Knowing this, Carlin not only used strong language to make sure that the truth was bitter while going down, but ensured that it burned while coming out the other end as well.

It is the latter that will keep Carlin’s words alive; I sh*t you not.

I, for one, know that I am going to miss that funny motherf*cker, and I will never forget George Carlin. That’s for damn sure.

A Bike to Work Week Survivor’s Guide

2008-05-27T15:49:00.010-04:00

Bike to Work Week (BWW) is nationally recognized May 12–16, however, Carbon Footprints Without Borders does not recognize any perimeters placed on the reduction of one’s emission of greenhouse gases.

That said, I did participate in this year’s BWW for the first time, and I have been biking to work ever since. Yeah, yeah, I know; they got me. It was only a matter of time before the Johnson County bicycle community ensnared me from the world of the Motorist Muggles, although for the record, the abduction was consensual.

During the first pedal-rotation of my journey, I made several rookie mistakes and imagine I will continue to make many more. With this in mind, I would like to impart some advice, hoping that you, dear reader and potential BWW convert, will not follow in my carbon footprints and make the same mistakes I did.

1. Preparation is the Key

This should go without saying, but I had to say it anyway. I will skip over the obvious (e.g., a bicycle) and focus on the two most important elements of biking attire: bike shorts and helmet. True, biking shorts may not be the most aesthetically pleasing to the eye, but on a pragmatic level they may one day save your life. Ask anyone who has ridden a day of RAGBRAI without biking shorts what I’m talking about, and you’ll find your answer. Better yet, ask their proctologist.

Wearing a helmet should be a no-brainer, but Americans have always harbored a libertarian streak and choose to ride without helmets, thus grasping the delusional reins of freedom’s last ride. Whenever one of my sons spots a bicyclist or motorcyclist not wearing a helmet, he asks: “Dad, why aren’t they wearing a helmet?”

This prompts my patented response: “Well, son, it appears they don’t have any investments to protect.”

2. Avoid Reading Online Comments Responding to Articles about Biking

I’m perplexed and shocked by how many people out there, especially in the anonymous abyss of cyberland, harbor deep-seeded animosity toward bikers. Reading these comments will only serve to exacerbate any fears a biker may have about being run over by a road-raged motorist, whose life may have been inconvenienced by having to temporarily slow down for a biker.

“Four Wheels Good, Two Wheels Bad!”

During BWW, Greg Beaumont, of West Des Moines, submitted the following editorial, “Bikes and Traffic Don’t Mix” to the Des Moines Register:

It's another ill-conceived Bike to Work Week. We just returned from Phoenix, where they have an abundance of bike lanes. This helps a lot, but it's still dangerous, particularly at intersections and driveways. In business portions of our metro without bike lanes, organizers have no business putting everyone at risk. Biking is great, but not on city streets during rush hours.

Beaumont’s letter served as a springboard for anonymous commenters to unleash their inner beast and hatred for bicyclists, while some of the more extreme commenters went as far as to suggest and/or advocate committing vehicular homicide.

Jules 1965 wrote:

In the town where I live [Carroll}, I have to tell you there are some days I would just love to tap a bicyclists and hope they fall over.…use the trails or get off the streets and roads as I don't need to be hitting you accidentally of course…

But of course… “Four Wheels Good, Two Wheels Bad!”

Bloghead wrote:

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand stinking times: Bicyclists do NOT belong on the roads with 10,000 pound death traps…

“Four Wheels Good, Two Wheels Bad!”

Moreover, shocktheallah wrote:

...You fools want to mess with 4000lb vehicles, then expect the consequences....

“Four Wheels Good, Two Wheels Bad!”

Given this wrath, bicyclists can only hope these commenters’ mothers don’t ever let them out of the basement. Better yet, they should stay locked up indefinitely, but for humanity’s sake, they should be allowed a monthly conjugal visit form the Geek Squad to have their computers fully serviced.

I’m not quite sure where all the animosity toward bikers comes from, but it appears that the hatred is spawned by anecdotal evidence of a biker who did not obey the traffic laws, therefore all bikers are evil lawbreakers.

Jules1965 wrote:

They don't belong on the streets with cars, especially if they are not abiding by the rules of the road. There is always one cyclists in town who seems to think he can go through every stop sign there is and I'm waiting for the day he gets hit...

Now Jules1965, lest we forget the wise words from our predecessors:

“He who hath not committed a moving traffic violation, cast the first 10,000 pound death trap.”

3. Plan Your Route Safely, not Geometrically

In the geometric world, the shortest distance from point A to point B is a straight line, but this doesn’t always translate well in the bike world. For bikers, the quickest route is not always the safest route. Because I live in an exiled community between Tiffin and Coralville, I have no other choice but to share the road with motorists on a two-mile stretch of Highway 6, where the speed limit is 55 miles per hour.

This stretch of highway, which has no bike lane or spacious shoulder (see pic below), has served as a deterrent to my biking desire in the past. The stretch feels like a 2008 version of “Death Race 2000” – a cult classic film about a brutal cross-country car race where pedestrians are run down for points. I imagine a high school English teacher wouldn’t score a lot of points, but when you throw blogger in the mix, I’m willing to bet my point status shoots up, for there aren’t many of us who leave the couch, let alone ride bikes.

My fear of being run down and killed came into fruition last summer when a red pickup truck tried to run me off the road. You know, to send me a message or somethin’: “Next time yous won’t be so lucky, biker boy.” I did manage to get the license plate number and called the police, which probably only fueled his hatred for two-wheel obstacles.

If I survive this stretch, I’m blessed with the Clear Creek Bike Trail, which, after four miles, pretty much takes me to the promised land: work.

4. Ride with Your Mouth Closed

Similar to remembering to let go of the rope upon falling while waterskiing, keeping your mouth shut while biking should seem obvious. Nonetheless, I have trouble remember either one. I must, subconsciously, have some repressed desire to eat bugs. Thanks to this year’s wet winter and spring, there is an overabundance of bugs to feed upon, thus circumventing the need to add protein to my breakfast dietary needs.

Mosquito Flats: Home of second largest breeding ground of mosquitos in Johnson County (located on Clear Creek Trail)

5. Take the Pain

Unless you are already in decent physical shape, you will feel the pain, and it’s best not to think about it. Otherwise, the pain will inevitably consume you and serve as a pre-emptive excuse to not bike to work the following day.

6. Reward Yourself, Frequently

We are champions at deluding ourselves into believing such fanciful thoughts as democracy is democratic, this is the year the Chicago Cubs will finally do it, and by golly, I deserve something special for working so hard. The latter is where your own personal reward system kicks in. As part of the official BWW, sponsors threw a party at the end of the week to reward bikers for participating.

The party held at Old Brick Church in Iowa City, however, did not count toward RAGBRAI training, because beer, although samples from Millstone Brewery were provided at no charge, could not be purchased and consumed in mass quantities as part of the biking process.

“Two Wheels Good, Four Wheels Bad!”
“Two Wheels Good, Four Wheels Bad!”

Appendix A: BWW by the numbers:

Number of commuting miles pledged: 61,135

Estimated gallons of gasoline saved: 3,396

Estimates amount of money saved on gas: $12,465

Appendix B: Lone Bicyclist of the Apocalypse Index

Number of miles I covered during BWW: 63

Estimated gallons of gasoline saved: 2

Estimated amount of money saved on gas: $7.34

Unsolicited gestures from passing motorists: Zero

Total carbon footprint reduction: Priceless

Anticipated legal fees for defending myself in Mastercard parody lawsuit: Priceless

Every Day is Earth Day, Eh?

2008-04-23T00:47:00.004-04:00

Question: Why is this man crying?

Possible Answers:

A) He’s being exploited yet again, only this time for the Public Service Announcement Complex devoted to guilting people into turning the station or investing in Tivo (I smell a conspiracy here…)

B) Pennsylvania voters prolonged the Democratic primary at least two more weeks

C) George W, Bush is STILL President of the United States

D) He had his Superdelegate status stripped from him when he endorsed None-of-the-Above

E) Victim of poetic justice in that Earth Day only gets one day out of the year, while poetry consumes an entire month

On that note, this post will pause for a public-service Haiku to honor National Poetry Month:

Junk science, my ass:
The Profits screamed “I’m on fire”
From the Burning Bush!

Now back to our regular deprogramming...

F) Michael Johns was unjustly ousted from “American Idol"

G) His Bon Jovi compact disc melted on the dashboard of his 1972 wood-paneled station wagon

H) George W. Bush is STILL President of the United States

I) He’s still BITTER about you know what; but we cannot talk about you know what, because doing so would admit that you know what actually happened and this would lead to us asking: You know why?

Answer: All of the Above

GOP Lawmakers Give ‘Selves ‘Time Out’

2008-03-21T12:36:00.005-04:00

(Disclaimer: Above picture is a dramatization. Any likenesses to actual GOP lawmakers is merely coincidental and/or happenstance.)

In an attempt to stall a controversial vote to change Iowa’s collective bargaining laws for public employees, GOP senators gave themselves a “time out” and set themselves to their room. However, unlike Max in “Where the Wild Things Are,” they were not denied their supper. Iowa Independent’s Jay Wagner reports they ordered pizza from Pizza Hut last night and had access to their laptop computers, so they could watch March madness.

I wonder if “Time Outs” were on the table when they negotiated their employment contracts with the state of Iowa and Iowa voters?

Golly, I wish I could give myself a time out, order pizza and watch television on the taxpayer’s dime.

Eighty-Four-Minute Hate: Rove Makes Bank at UI Lecture

2008-03-17T13:38:00.005-04:00

(Click) “Shameful!...” “War Criminal!...” “Liar!...”

And so began the Eighty-Four Minute Hate at the University of Iowa, reminiscent of George Orwell’s Two-Minute Hate in “1984,” featuring Karl Rove, former member of President Bush’s Inner Party, and those who have come to despise him.

1984: Two Minute Hate

Take this and mulitply it by Forty-Two and you have:

Abridged Video of Karl Rove’s Eighty-Four Minute Hate (filmed by Iowa Independent’s Adam Burke)

While serving under Bush, Rove, dubbed “The Architect,” was credited with helping orchestrate Bush’s campaign victories in 2000 and 2004. For his behind-the-curtain efforts, The Wizard of D.C. has been lauded as a political-strategy genius on the right, while some members on the left, who are still scratching their heads and asking themselves how Bush could get elected not once, but twice, have conceded this title.

However, not everyone has been impressed with Rove, who, for the left has metamorphosed into the Poster Boy of Hate, temporarily usurping the Throne of Hate from current Inner-Party member and reigning vice president, Dick Cheney.

And now, while the Inner Party and its chief monetary benefactors, The Military Industrial Complex, keep profiting from pumping fear and hate into the economy, Rove has left the Inner Party, at least literally, and has begun testing the private market value of hate by peddling his wares on the lecture circuit.

While the Bush administration’s Orwellian Two-Minute Hate consists of projecting interchangeable figureheads such as Osama bin Laden, North Korean Dictator Kim Jong II and Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the television screen, Rove’s has hit the road with his live rendition of Eight-Four-Minute Hate. At a nominal speaking fee of $40,000, audience members get a chance to spew their contempt for Rove in a public forum.

Such was the case at the UI when Rove took the stage and was greeted by a chorus of boos and cheers. The latter consisted of Rove’s supporters, who not only came to see Rove but to hate on the haters. The evening’s hate fest went something like this:

Heckler shouts question at Rove, who responds by attacking the question, followed by more attacks from the audience, thus inspiring Rove to attack the questioner, which drew applause from his supporters, which drew boos from his haters, and the cycle repeated itself as the hate momentarily subsided until the next round of hate began.

The Architect’s plan was working. Rove had become a performance artist reminiscent of comedian Andy Kaufman, who exploited hate mongering for monetary gain. When Kaufman’s career turned to professional wrestling, in particular wrestling women, his target audience grew a certain disdain for him, yet paid to see him perform anyhow.

Andy Kaufman wrestles a 327 pound woman

Rove has adopted the same formula, but in order for this formula to be successful, you need an audience.

The UI community provided just that as members of the UI Anti-War Committee staged protests beforehand, local peace activists attempted to conduct a citizen arrest of Rove, and random audience members used the event to voice their unsolicited disdain during the Eighty-Four-Minute Hate.

And like a clown at a carnival dunk tank, Rove egged on the audience and made fun of the hecklers, oftentimes forgetting that he’s not a trained professional comedian. His attempts at witticism never rose too far above the coping crutches of the I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I caliber. The same could be true for some of the comments shouted at him from the hate groundlings, thus perpetuating the hate cycle and negating any possibility of an intelligent discourse. Granted, the latter would put a damper on Rove’s new shtick, driving down his market value on the college lecture circuit.

If the anti-Rove movement really wanted to make a statement, they should have silenced him by not showing up or attacked him with a surge of love. The profit margin for espousing love is nominal at best, unless of course you are Hallmark.

Filling up the IMU only serves to legitimize Rove and verbally attacking him plays into his hands, not to mention it does little to end the war in Iraq.

Hopefully, Rove’s lecture appearance at the UI will serve as a blueprint for what not to do for future colleges that plan on paying him to come speak at their respective institutions. The best way to usurp Rove’s power is by turning off the Eighty-Four-Minute Hate.

After all, just because Big Brother is watching doesn’t mean we have to.

(Click. White Noise.)

Tracy Morgan Serves Up “Bitch” Retort to Tina Fey’s Hillary Endorsement

2008-03-16T09:59:00.000-04:00

The battle of words in the Democratic nomination race took a new turn during last night’s episode of “Saturday Night Live” as the battle between former SNL cast members heated up.

At a loss for words, I’ll let the video clip speaks for itself.

Tacy Morgan Commentary on SNL’s “Weekend Update”:

This begs the question: “If a bear gets bitch-slapped in the woods, does it make a sound?”

Will McCain ‘Denounce’ and ‘Reject’ Bush’s Endorsement?

2008-03-06T22:19:00.009-05:00

Like young misguided lust, political campaigns can be such “sweet sorrow,” especially when it comes to endorsements. Bush, whose disapproval rating has nearly bottomed out, save those still on the White House Payroll (including Iowa’s very own Jimmy the Hustler), invited John SIDNEY McCain over for tea and crumpets before dropping an endorsement bomb on John-Boy’s head.

“Bomb, bomb, bomb…bomb, bomb McCain's bid…”

At one point during their political tryst, Sydney and Walker were spotted walking and holding hands en route to the White House garden. Caught unawares by a White House photographer, the two pulled their hands away like a couple of fifth graders who everyone in the school knew were “going with each other,” but tried to conceal their public displays of affection nonetheless -- fearing they may get caught and everybody would find out what they already knew (see pic above).

Despite the political airs put on by Sydney and Walker, which culminated with the exchange of their political vows, the Democrats were not fooled by their convenient reconciliation. The Democrat attack machine took a Herculean approach to the newly forged alliance and used the occasion to warn voters about the latest Neocon-Hydra Monster (aka John SIDNEY* McCain) lurking in the political cesspools surrounding D.C.

Knowing full well that cutting Bush’s head off will merely result in two heads growing back, the Democrats had to devise a new plan of attack: “A Surge of Liberals!”

McCain: McSame as Bush

Jump the Shark: Clinton’s Grassroots Movement Becomes Parody of Itself?

2008-02-21T23:03:00.003-05:00

Maybe Hillary Just Hillary’s top-down campaign strategy of keeping a tight leash on any semblance of a grassroots movement wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Letting go can be very dangerous, and it looks like her grassroots peeps had their jump-the-shark moments in the YouTube world. (Jump the Shark: an allusion to the moment during the TV series, “Happy Days,” in which the Fonz jumped a shark on waterskis (see video below). Verb: For something, often a television show, to have a significant storyline development whose ridiculousness or incredibility signifies that the series has lost its previous quality.)

Fonzie Jumps the Shark

In what appears to be an attempt to rival Obama’s grassroots video, “Yes We Can,” Hillary Just Hillary’s across-the-river grassroots camp made its own set of videos. After several viewings, Political Fallout’s investigative video team (the very same team which has been analyzing “recent” Osama bin Laden tapes to determine if it is indeed bin Laden or an unemployed actor from LA named Gary) has yet to determine whether the Hillary-inspired videos are parodies of pop culture songs or merely parodies of themselves. (Note: Both videos have been sent over to England, where they are currently being used for “Operation Clockwork Orange” -- an experiment trying to reverse behavioral disorders among London’s unruly droogs.)

We’ve juxtaposed the videos with actual parody videos, hoping you, dear readers, can give us any insight into the sources and/or intent of these videos. (Warning: Viewer discretion is advised and Political Fallout cannot be held responsible for the destruction of anyone’s aesthetic sensibilities due to viewing any one of these videos in its entirety. View at your own risk.)

Hillary & Hillary

PINE - Laverne & Shirley Theme

Hillary 4U&Me

The Chaser Decides "The Jackson 5 ABC" Parody

How Will Clinton Spin Out of Potomac Spanking Machine?

2008-02-13T00:02:00.005-05:00

The results from the Beltway are rolling in: Snap! Crackle! Pop!

No, our beloved little Rice Krispies’ friends aren’t projecting tonight’s winners, rather, that was the crisp staccato of the political spanking machines reverberating across Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia

Now that Clinton’s Dynamic-Duo, Patti Doyle Solis and Mike Henry have stepped down (“Wonder-twin powers form into the political byproduct of a top-down campaign!”), to spend more time with their families I presume, the big question is how the Clinton Campaign will spin their way out the Potomac Spanking Machine: Snap! Crackle! Pop!

Here’s a glimpse into some possible spin scenarios:

Spin No. 1: Of course we lost the Potomac vote by such a wide margin; this clearly shows that Obama truly is the Establishment candidate. What next: Wisconsin, Hawaii, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania? Don’t worry, we’re on to Obama and his follow-the-yellow-brick-road establishment strategy. In the meantime:

PLEASE DONATE NOW!!!

You spin me right round baby, like a record baby, right round…

Spin No. 2: Despite what the exit polls are saying, we’re winning the Dunkin Donut vote!

You spin me right round baby, like a record baby, right round…

Spin No. 3: People of Metropolis, this is no time to panic. What happens in a smoke-filled room at convention, stays in a smoke-filled room at convention (uproarious applause).

Look (points up to the sky): it’s a bird, no it’s a plane…why no, it’s Superdelegate!

(Note: this product-placement spin was bought and paid for by the Democratic Leadership Corporation, where "Moderate" is no longer a dirty word.)

You spin me right round baby, like a record baby, right round…

Spin No. 4: Endorsing Hope is so five minutes ago…

You spin me right round baby, like a record baby, right round…

Spin No. 5: ‘Tis a minor scratch, I’ve had much worse.

Obama “Yes We Can” Music Video Makes Hillary Cry

2008-02-04T21:22:00.000-05:00

During a rare, off-camera, and unscripted moment on the eve of Super Tuesday, Hillary Just Hillary teared up while watching the newly released Obama music video, “Yes We Can.”

Yes We Can - Barack Obama Music Video

Why Hillary Just Hillary teared up remains a mystery, but Political Fallout has speculated as to why the former first lady’s tear ducts may have sprung a minor leak:

5. Senior Campaign Advisor Mark Penn, no relationship to Sean, had just informed his boss that Obama had out-raised her by $18 million in January

4. Video stoked fond memories of a training film produced at Wal-Mart while she served as its first female member (1986-1992). The training video instructed employees on how to resist unionizing efforts with a proven call-and-response technique:

Call: "Can We Bust ‘Em!?"

Response: “Yes We Can!”

3. The Black Eyed Peas will.i.am always make Hillary Just Hillary cry

2. Video reminded her of Bob the Builder episode when Farmer Pickels, despite the efforts of Bob and Wendy’s “Yes-We-Can” optimism, lost his family farm during the agribusiness boon in the ‘90s -- spearheaded by Slick Willy and the Corporate Pigs.

1. Now regrets having cast an absentee vote for herself in New York

Karl Rove Comes Out of Burrow, Sees Shadow: 10 More Months of Fear!

2008-02-02T21:03:00.000-05:00

As if on cue, Karl Rove reared his head on Groundhogs’ Day, saw his shadow and predicted “Lots of surprises lie ahead…” (sinister laugh here, eventually drowned out by the sound of Rove stuffing his cheeks with walnuts)

From an op-ed piece in “Newsweek”

“…Maybe we are not seeing the crackup of the GOP. Rather, America is more likely to be at the start of an intense and exciting election. The contest will be hard fought, the actions of the candidates each day hugely significant. It's far too early to draw sweeping conclusions about the health of either party; the presidential race, after all, has barely begun. Lots of surprises lie ahead…”

This is not the first time Rove emerged on Groundhogs’ Day to make a campaign prediction while evoking an undercurrent of fear. I captured the Rovian Groundhog experience on my debut blog, “Witsend Here” in 2006:

The Satiric Press – On Friday, D.C. Karl emerged from his burrow where he’d been hibernating for the past few months, saw his shadow, and predicted 10 more months of fear for the remainder of the political campaign season. Karl Rove, White House Chief of Staff and the President’s top political advisor, made his prediction in front of a prescreened audience of loyal Republican followers. “The United States faces a ruthless enemy," Rove said, "and national security will be the preeminent issue of this years’ campaign.”

The last time D.C. Karl saw his shadow and predicted 10 more months of fear was in 2004, and as it turned out, Karl was right. The unprecedented campaign of fear in 2004 helped President Bush win his reelection bid. While both predictions hinged on the fear of terrorism, the 2004 prediction took a two-pronged fear forecast by throwing homophobia into the mix by way of gay marriage.

There was no doubt as to whether D.C. Karl saw his shadow, for it eclipsed the entire Washington, D.C., area and eastern portions of Virginia. According to Jan Jorgensen, an astronomy professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, “I was in the laboratory making my daily calculations when the sky unexpectedly blackened. I thought for sure we had experienced a partial eclipse of the sun. It wasn’t until later in the day that I heard on the news that it was D.C. Karl’s shadow. Then it all made sense.” Startled by the ominous girth of his own shadow, D.C. Karl was reported to have fled his inaugural speaking engagement (see photo) before he could fully outline his fear forecast.

John McCain: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Bush’s Troop Surge

2008-01-31T22:54:00.000-05:00

In times of unchecked war and agression, We the People must ask our leaders

What are you compensating for lately?

Live from the War Room: Sen. John McCain and Gen. Buck Turgidson illustrate they have a lot to compensate for:

(Video produced by Brave New Films)

Hillary Finds Precioussssss New Voice in NH

2008-01-11T22:51:00.000-05:00

After her victory in New Hampshire Tuesday, Hillary Just Hillary turned her victory speech into a public confessional, “Over the last week I listened to you and in the process I found my own voice.”

Hillary practices new voice during Pledge of Allegience before springing it on unsuspecting New Hampshire supporters

This begs the following questions (feel free to use either Hillary Just Hillary’s new voice or her old voice when begging these questions, but do listen to your own voice during the pontification process):

-Where had Hillary Just Hillary’s Voice been hiding (“lost") before the New Hampshire Primary?

-Whose voice had she been using up to the point she had found her voice?

To help address these questions, Political Fallout’s crack Crime Scene Investigators have been scouring the campaign trail for clues and has narrowed down the possible answers:

1. Where had Hillary Just Hillary’s Voice been hiding (“lost") before the New Hampshire Primary?

a) Buried under $400,000 unmarked dollar bills stuffed between Tom Vilsack’s mattresses

b) In a haystack between “Let’s Have a Conversation” and “The Hillary I Know”

c) At the DLC convention in Tennessee, which all the Democratic candidates, including Hillary, skipped to attend the Daily Kos convention in Chicago

d) In a dust-coverd box in the White House attic labeled: “Hillary Rodham’s Stuff – 1991”

e) In Terry McAuliffe’ssssss other pantssss pocketsiessss: “In here preciousssss….me haves your voice precisousss. We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little hobbitses. Wicked, tricksy, false! “

2. Whose voice had she been using up to the point she had found her voice?

a) A pre-programmed, poll-tested voice concocted from over 5 million sound bites of HillarySpeak, which had also been poll-tested in several political niches

b) Terry McAuliffe's

c) A watered-down version of James Earl Jones's

d) “Tony's” -- Danny’s imaginary friend from “The Shining”: “Amabo…Amabo!”

e) Millli Vanillli's

Take the Hillary Challenge

Here’s a recent sampling of the New Hillary:

So what do you think?

We taste-tested a random sampling of Political Fallout readers and the overwhelming consensus was that they preferred the Classic Hillary over the New Hillary. We reassured them that it won’t be long before the Classic Hillary reemerges on the political shelves. Although, whether the same marketing genius that helped propel Classic Coke back into its frontrunner as the peoples' preferred pop (or soda for Easterners and coke for Southerners) remains to be seen.

Obama Plagiarizes Bob the Builder in NH Concession Speech

2008-01-08T23:24:00.000-05:00

Despite Sen. Barack Obama’s surprise, at least to the pollsters and those who believe them, loss to Sen. Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire tonight, he remained upbeat and positive, borrowing a line from apolitical Bob the Builder to fire up the audience. During a call-and-response component of his concession speech, Obama called out a series of rhetorical questions, only to answer them himself with “Yes We Can.”

Obama's Call: "Can We Do It, America?"

Obama's Response: “Yes We Can!”

Bob the Builder stumps for Obama at local Teamsters' Union rally in New Hampshire

“We’re happy to see that Bob’s message has resonated with Obama,” Wendy, a spokeswoman for Bob the Builder, told Political Fallout. “Bob has always espoused the same message -- a message of change, and we’re glad to see that it has finally gained some traction among eligible voters. My only regret is that Mr. Obama didn’t attribute Bob for using his life-long message. ”

Pseudo-Live Blog of Da Dem Debate

2008-01-05T21:37:00.001-05:00

Jumping in a little late to the Democratic debate, but here goes.

Edwards joins Obama in "War of Change" against the Status Quo PrimaDona:

"We got change yes we do.
We got change, how about you?"

Clinton raises her voice:

"You want change, I got the most.
I got the most..."

Cue David Bowie’s “Changes…”

“Ch-ch-ch-changes…Turn and face the strange…”

“Boo, it’s me, Osama bin Laden…”

“Turn and face the strange…”

“Boo, it’s me: George Bush…”

“Ch-ch-ch-changes…”

Richardson, the little kid trapped at his friends when his friend’s parents start family fight over his head, jumps in with humor to ease the tension:

“I’ve seen more civil arguments in hostage negotiations.”

Speaking of change, let’s ch-ch-ch-change the subject.

I finally figured out who Edwards reminds me of when he speaks and gesticulates, using his thumb and forefinger(s) when making points: Quincy, M.D. (from the TV Drama):

Quincy speaking in the morgue over a frozen cadaver: “Sam, can’t you see. If we don’t do anything to stop the meaningless slaughter of people caught in the perpetual cycle of poverty whose only crime was being born under the Reagan era and crushed to death by a maelstrom of trickle-down economics, we’ll be performing millions more autopsies just like this one. Something has to be done before it’s too late, and I intend to do something about it. Pack your bags, Sam, we’re going to an off-shore bank to find some answers and maybe do a little snorkeling…for answers of course."

Scott notices double-team on Hillary: Why don’t New Hampshire voters like you?

That hurt my feelings. (Newsbreak: Hillary has feelings. Details at 10).

Hillary is comparing Obama to Bush? Who in their right mind would want to have a beer with Bush? Don’t people know that drinking beers with Bush is dangerous business? The odds of choking on a pretzel are astounding?

Newsflash: According to Fred Thompson, the Liberals like Obama more than “Law and Order.”

Bill’s eyes are caught in the caught in the what-have-you-done-about-energy-lately headlights. Blink, Bill, blink…Quick, Edwards, loan Bill some of your blinks before his eyes dry up.

Bill says Al Gore is right and deserves the “Noble Price…?”

Political Fallout starts the bidding at $10… Can I get 15? Where’s Leonard Boswell when I need him and his auctioneer skills?

Scott challenges Edwards’ selective memory: “Scott, can’t you see; young children are dying because we don’t have a patients bill of rights…”

Note: John Edwards’ father gets a day off from retirement to attend the debate.

Clinton calls for “Reality Break”: Tsk, tsk, Hillary, even NH voters know that reality and politics don’t mix. Translate change into action. Again another political paradox. Let me check my English to Political Speak Dictionary for confirmation.

Political Action: see oxymoron.

Obama: “Words do matter.” Ain’t that the truth.

Bill feels the pain of do-nothing-Congress. You guys are screwin’ up my state.

Edwards & Obama: We need to unite and galvanize Americans and sick them on those big, mean lobbyists. Grab a bat folks and let’s take to the streets and march on K-Street. Maybe if we’re lucky, we can hook up with Romney’s father on K-Street as he marches with us.

Just Say No to Carbon Taxes. Way to go, you know everyone is going to start taxing carbon, just because you told them not to. Now we’ll never win the "War on Carbon Taxes." Cough…cough…cough…

Richardson reminds us again that he’s the only one who has balanced a budget as governor in New Mexico. Whew…I nearly forgot. Thanks, Bill. Which reminds me: Gov. Culver is the only governor who has been in the classroom over the past 20 years.

Now’s your chance to take back something you said in a previous debate:

Hillary…say it Hillary, say it…Drivers licenses for illegal immigrants….”I pass to the pundits…” I can’t wait to see the pundits run this back for a touchdown afterwards. Go Redskins.

Edwards: Sorry about teasing Hillary about her jacket. Liar, liar, pants on fire Johnny E.; that jacket was horrendous. My neighbor's purse dog has a matching sweater. In the immortal words of Triumph the Insult Dog: "That jacket is good enough for me to poop on..."

Stay tuned for the post-pundit spin. Thanks, but no thanks. Just say no to pundits.

“You spin me right round, baby, like a record baby, right round…”

Yawn, I think I’ll follow Obama’s lead and turn it to football.

Robot Heckles Bill Clinton on Behalf of Sister Souljah During Iowa Stop

2007-12-11T19:00:00.000-05:00

Not everyone was happy to see Bill Clinton in Iowa City Tuesday night. Just as Clinton was about to hit his stride, an unidentified robot heckled the former president, who was playing the surrogate role while stumping for his wife, Hillary Clinton, at the Iowa Memorial Union on the University of Iowa campus.

Dressed as a contemporary robot reminiscent of Gort in the 1951 film “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (see pic below), the soon-to-be heckler mounted a chair on the media platform as if it was going to snap a picture of Clinton. The chair began to wobble a bit before fellow journalists offered support, not knowing at the time that they were aiding and abetting a future heckler.

Armed with a plastic microphone, the heckler, Mr. Ifobaca (Mad Robots in Favor of Bill Clinton Apologizing), made his demands:

“I want you to apologize to Sister Souljah!”

Trying to maintain his poise, Clinton initially fell into a sophomoric rebuttal: “Look, look into the mirror... ”

Clearly on a premeditated mission, Mr. Ifobaca began throwing dozens of multicolored slips of paper in the air, thus providing Clinton with the opportunity to recapture his wits and respond:

“You need to find a more responsible ways to protest than throwing graffiti around. “You can disagree with me without killing a tree.”

Most of the crowd laughed at Clinton’s quip (not because he said graffiti, when he meant to say confetti), but some were enraged by the disruption and began booing and yelling at Mr. Ifobaca. One woman, clearly a devout Hillraiser gauging by her Hillary flair adorning her blouse and matching jacket, began screaming at Mr. Ifobaca and waving her arms at the robot as if she intended to scratch his eyes out. Mr. Ifobaca, unperturbed by the woman, namely because he was wearing safety goggles for such occasions, was eventually escorted from the platform and ballroom by security.

After Mr. Ifobaca left, a Hillary Clinton team entered the media pit and made a mad scramble for the littered propaganda, making sure all the calling cards were collected before they fell into the wrong hands. The scene was reminiscent of the 1967 Abbie Hoffman stunt in which he and his fellow demonstrators threw fistfuls of dollars (most fake) down to traders on the New York Stock Exchange, some of whom booed, while others scrambled frantically to grab the money as fast as they could.

No charges were pressed against Mr. Ifobaca, who, unmasked, was not Klaatu, but rather Kembrew McLeod -- a tenured professor in the Communication Studies Department at the UI. McLeod, who has published four books on freedom of expression and intellectual property issues, has a documented history of committing pranks on his web site. McLeod is also a documentary filmmaker, including “Money for Nothing: Behind the Business of Pop,” which won the Rosa Luxemburg Award for Social Consciousness at the 2002 New England Film Festival.

McLeod, President of the Iowa Chapter of MR. IFOBCA has been on a mission for the last 15 years in an effort to get Clinton to apologize for “dissing Sister Souljah while happily accepting the honor of being America’s “'first black president,'” as novelist Toni Morrison once put it. In his manifesto, “Why did I bum rush Bill Clinton?,” Kembrew vows to continue sending an army of robots to all future Clinton appearances until he apologizes to Sister Souljah.

Kembrew made do on his vow Monday night, only Clinton did not reciprocate by publicly apologizing to Sister Souljah, the former member of the outspoken hip-hop group Public Enemy, a crew known for its pro-black politics.

Moreover, Kembrew makes the following claim on his manifesto:

The first time I fully realized Bill Clinton was not on the side of racial andsocial justice was after the “Sister Souljah Moment,” as it has come to be known in political circles. In a mean-spirited move—something straight out of Karl Rove’s playbook—Clinton tried to demonize a young Black woman named Sister Souljah by taking something she said out of context. Clinton did this to ingratiate himself with white upper-middle class swing voters during the 1992 presidential campaign, and he portrayed Sister Souljah as a reckless radical who advocated killing white people. This was patently false, and Bill Clinton knew it, but that didn’t stop him from cynically turning her into a sacrificial lamb that helped save his flagging campaign.

With less than a month left before the caucuses, the question remains whether McLeod or one of his robots will pop up on the campaign trail in Iowa.

Mr. Ifobca (alias Kembrew McLeod) is escorted out of the IMU by Clinton staffers, but vows to be back

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Breaking News: Clinton Endorses Clinton During Muscatine Dog-and-Pony Show

2007-11-27T21:16:00.000-05:00

Iowans were surprised today when former President Bill Clinton hit the campaign trail in Muscatine, Iowa and endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton for the coveted political nod: “The person I’d most likely want to go into a blizzard of adversaries until the last dog died.”

Dog-fighting adversaries, still reeling from the high-profile Michael Vick conviction, took note of Bill Clinton’s liberal use of dog-fighting metaphors and vowed to ramp up the anybody-but-Hillary voting contingency.

Hillary uses her powers of persuasion to convince Bill that she is well deserving of “The person I’d most likely want to go into a blizzard of adversaries until the last dog died” endorsement

In unrelated news, a spokesperson for Michelle Obama has indicated that Michelle, unphased by the recent Ophrah-endorsement bump, is leaning toward endorsing her husband Barack, but is holding off on her decision until she has met all of the candidates.

Democratic Candidates Endorse Biden, Sort of… (And Other Observations from the Campaign Trail in Iowa)

2007-11-18T21:30:00.000-05:00

While watching the last three or four Democratic non-debates, I stopped counting after 100, I’ve noticed some distinct patterns emerge, one of which was the number of times Sen. Joe Biden’s competitors acknowledges the “Ears of Experience” candidate. Whether it be agreement or praise, the red flags kept popping up and it looks like I’m not alone. The Biden campaign seized on this and spliced together a medley of Biden’s political peeps piling on the kudos to the beat of Randy Newman’s “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”

“Candidates Agree: Joe is Right!”

While watching over the campaign trail in Iowa (Yes, Political Fallout has staffed its own “Big Brother” – not to be confused with Hillary Just Hillary’s Big Brother Tom Vilsack), I’ve noticed a number of other patterns and/or trends that have emerged along the dusted-up trail over time.

Let’s begin with the Democrats:

1. The candidates of CHANGE* are no longer painting themselves as the candidate of change with bold brush strokes.

*Candidate of Change: candidates who, while working in D.C., had an epiphany after being visited by the DLC (Democratic Leadership Corporation) Ghosts of Democracy Past, Present, and Future.

Besides, what change were they promising in the first place, a change form the past eight years of tyrannical despotism? Duh!

2. The Son of a Mill Worker was locked up in solitary confinement once the “War on Lobbyists” was officially declared.

3. Obama’s Wayne’s-World induced flashbacks to the definitive moment five years ago when he spoke out against an impending war on Iraq have been fewer and far between.

4. Hillary Just Hillary’s initial campaign theme, “Let’s Have a Conversation,” is still going strong -- only the dynamics have changed from Hillary having a discourse with paid staffers to Hillary having conversations with surrogates of paid staffers strategically planted in the crowd.

Now on to the Republicans:

1. Rudy Giuliani has managed to reign in his “9/11 Tourettes” to some degree, but as caucus night nears, the anxiety is bound to unleash a barrage of 9/11 episodes on the trail.

Rudy Giuliani’s “9/11 Tourettes” flared up while addressing NRA members:

2. While Tancredo had cornered the market on xenophobia, the GOP frontrunner in Iowa, Mitt Romney, illustrated why he's the "Turnaround Artist" when he usurped the “Beware of the Illegal Immigrant Under the Bed” crown, which was spearheaded by his fear-mongering Americana TV ads in Iowa.

3. As predicted, Fred Thompson’s best chance of winning the GOP nomination was not actually running or officially declaring his candidacy, and now that he’s running his poll numbers are sliding. Although three months have passed, and what do we really know about Fred, eh? What I would give to be a fly on the wall of Fred’s brain – preferably not the side where the campaign teleprompter projects empty rhetoric.

4. It looks like the GPS device on McCain’s “Straight Talkin’ Express” made the bus take a wrong turn at Albuquerque and has chosen to bypass Iowa on the road to the White House…parking lot.

Reported Missing in Action (MIA):

Democrats: Dennis Kucinich & Mike Gravel

Republicans: Duncan Hunter & Joe Lieberman

Reservoir Dems Plot Political Job at Harkin Panderfest

2007-09-17T11:27:00.000-04:00

Six perfect strangers teamed up for the perfect political crime at the annual Tom Harkin Panderfest in Indianola: Steal back the White House and restore the U.S. Constitution.

From left to right: Mr. Blonde, Mr. Blue, Nice Guy, Mr. Brown, and Mr. White

Not Pictured: Mr. Orange and Ms. Pink (she's on another job)

For full coverage of the political job pulled by the Reservoir Dems., go to the "Iowa Independent"-- the official news outlet for this year's Harkin Panderfest.