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We’re Screwed

Okay, we’ve been screwed for about thirty years now, but we got an indication of just how screwed we are this morning.

But the good news is that as we found out how very royally screwed we are, we also got an answer to a question that has confounded me for about a year and a half.

I’ve maintained for years now that our political parties are actors on the stage of political theater. We don’t have two parties that are on opposing sides. We have two parties that are beholden to precisely the same corporate interests. We have two parties that are designed to appeal to two distinctly different groups of people. We have one party that appeals to the authoritarian, “tough guy” and another party that appeals to the big thinker, “consider the big picture”. One party claims to be for the working man, while the other professes to tirelessly work to stay out of our lives. All of this is, of course theater. They’re both batting for the same team. One party is more shameless about who they’re working for, but make no mistake; democrats will take this country to precisely the same place that republicans will. They will just do it on a longer timeline. And along they way, I will give democrats credit for doing a few things for the American people, while republicans have done absolutely nothing for us for over thirty years. But at the end of the day, both parties are going to place the health and welfare of the corporations over yours every single time.

So the question with democrats is, “how big of a shill is my representative?” We already know that all republicans, with the exception of Ron Paul, are 100% shill.

Watching Obama acquiesce in perpetuity, to the point of absurdity had me wondering if it were possible for someone to be this bad at negotiation. Let’s review;

-He started off the health care debate by taking a public option off the table. Huh? Why not proclaim that anything short of a public option is a non-starter, and then back down slowly from there? But not our Obama! He starts in the middle and moves right from there. The end result was the Bob Dole plan from the 90s (subsequently the Mitt Romney plan). WooHoo! He got what republicans were willing to give eighteen years ago!

Republicans emphatically demanded that Obama cut 31B out of the 2011 budget. He releases a budget that cut 32B as his opening gambit. Was anyone surprised when republicans demanded he cut from where his budget started? He gave them more than they asked for as his opening move, and didn’t get any credit for that first 32B he cut. He then had to cut another 39B on top of that!

Be honest Obama supporters; if you were in the market for a new car, would you send Obama in to negotiate the price for you?

Honestly, he’s so fucking bad at this that it was becoming increasingly more difficult to believe that someone could suck at negotiating this much. I was honestly starting to think that he was the most wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America, that we’d ever seen in politics.

This morning, my question was finally answered. When Obama caved into the craziest among us, and released yet another form of his birth certificate, he definitively showed me that he just sucks at this. He’s the world’s most incompetent negotiator, truly.

He sent some very clear messages this morning. He told the world that there is no demand too crazy for him to acquiesce to. And there is no person too crazy for him to cave in to. He took off his shirt, and showed the world the tire marks on his back.

This weakness is about to fuck Americans like they’ve never been fucked before.Let me explain why this monumental display of weakness concerns me right at this moment in time.

Paul Ryan just came out with a budget plan that literally everyone, republican and democrat alike hates, despite the main stream media’s best efforts. Remember how they all used words like “courageous” and “bold” to describe the plan for the first week after it came out? It didn’t take long for Americans to figure out that this plan was going to fuck the old and the poor, for the sole purpose of making the rich richer. By Ryan’s own admission, his plan wasn’t going to balance the budget for forty years. Forty years? That’s at least five presidential administrations!

Republicans never intended for this preposterous plan to fly. I think they underestimated how big of a shit storm it would start, but they never really believed that they would pull it off. They made a tactical decision to open with the most draconian far right wing hand job they could, so that they could negotiate from there.

Obama had already demonstrated that he was going to start the negotiations from a right wing position when he appointed two well known social security haters to his debt commission. He was obviously planning on making cuts to social security and medicare. Given the birther cave-in this morning, I’m positive that republicans are now going to get way more out of Obama in terms of cutting those two programs than they initially imagined they could get. They would have to be in a halcyon induced coma not to seize on the spinelessness that Obama now openly wears on his sleeve.

In short, we’re fucked. We’re more fucked than we would be if Obama were merely being controlled by his corporate masters. Bill Clinton was obviously the most corporate friendly democratic president we’d ever had until now. Every subsequent democratic president was obviously going to slowly up the ante on the democratic party’s corporatism. This president predictably did, but he has no conviction. He has no conviction, and no hard deal-breakers. There’s nothing he’s not willing to compromise on. And even if he did have conviction, he doesn’t have the balls to stick to them.

He caved to the birthers. Enough said.


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Trumped

I’m desperate and I feel compelled to send an urgent plea to republicans, since you are the only ones that can alleviate my current state of agitation. Without your help I, and the rest of America, are going to have to suffer through seventeen months of supersized stupid.

My plea is this; Please, for the love of God, sane republicans must find your voice! If you don’t rally your troops, Donald Trump is going debase you and your party, forcing you to have to deny that you’re republicans again.

Every presidential election cycle starts with one right wing whack job setting the bar of crazy that every other republican presidential hopeful must keep pace with. Aren’t sane republicans tired of being embarrassed in this way? Where the fuck are you? Why are you allowing the crazies to hijack your party, and the country’s conversation again?

Half of all republicans don’t believe that President Obama was born here. My question is, where the fuck are the other half? Is there something wrong with your throats? Speak up! Save us!

Democrats suck in eighteen million different ways (that I regularly point out) but they are good at muzzling their crazies. Can you imagine a 9/11 truther doing national interviews in which he/she hints at a presidential run? Honestly, can anyone conceive of that ever happening? Of course not! And thank God, because I would be loathe to let that kind of nutbaggery define liberalism.

And if you think I’m being unfair in drawing parallels between truthers and birthers, let me set you straight right now. Both groups show contempt for America in a way that is unparalleled by any foreign entity. The birthers have to believe that the American government is so fucking incompetent, that it can be hoodwinked by a couple of guys cooking up a plot from their huts in Kenya. The truthers are so goddamned cynical, that they believe that George W Bush is evil, competent, and powerful enough to orchestrate an attack on his own country. And he would have to be so beloved, that the hundreds of people that would have to be involved in pulling off this coup, will maintain their silence until they die. If you believe either of these things, it’s hard to imagine anyone that could hate America more than you do.

Back to my plea to sane republicans. Why are non-batshit crazy republicans letting the lunatics taint the whole party? Donald Trump is whackoing it up for attention, and he’s dragging all of you down with him. And when he surges in the polls among republicans by going all birther on us, all of you republicans get dragged into the gutter with him. Forget the pain that I will be forced to endure if you don’t stand up, you must speak out to save yourselves! Why would you allow yourselves to be dragged onto this kind of crazy?

Here’s the best part; Donald Trump is not a birther. Donald Trump is not a racist. Donald Trump isn’t even a republican. If you look at the totality of what he’s said over the past twenty years, you would have to conclude what I’ve concluded; Donald Trump is a vapid media whore that will say anything to get a camera pointed at him. Over the years, he’s referred to Jimmy Carter, George W Bush, and Barack Obama as “the worst president in US history”. He sang Obama’s praises until about a year and a half ago. He rarely ever shows up to vote. He obviously doesn’t give a shit about politics. Twenty-five years ago, when he released a book that no one was buying, he proclaimed that he was going to run for president. Book sales soared, and the Trump presidential campaign never materialized. He’s just recycling an old play in order to get more money out of NBC, who he’s in contract negotiations with to renew his reality show.

So all of you silent, sane republicans are letting your party slip into the gutter again so that Donald Trump can get an extra two million per episode. Is it worth it? Are you all good with being labeled nutjobs, just so that Trump can delay his third bankruptcy for a few months?

Please, speak up so that we can have primaries that are about ideas and ideology. Make it clear to future GOP whackos that the well is dry, and they need not apply. Let’s start off this election cycle with serious candidates that have an actual platform. I’m so fucking tired of having to suffer through lunacy before we get down to the meat of the hypocrisy. Can’t we just cut to the chase and go straight for the lies and distortions? Must we always become the laughing stock of the world first?

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