Saturday, November 17, 2012

Didn't Take Long For Republican Cry Babies To Befoul The Waters

By Manifesto Joe

Old Scout, the handle of a frequent commenter on my home blog, remarked about one of my recent post-election posts that I was being far, far too polite with right-wingers after Obama's re-election. Now I have to concede his point. There are just some people with whom you can't make nice.

I thought I would sincerely try to do that, to make nice at least up to a point, because I was taken aback after witnessing some of the obnoxious gloating that "conservatives" did after the highly questionable 2004 presidential election. But it was wasted effort, I must concede.

It didn't take the right wing any time at all to start talking about impeaching Obama, with robocalls to "save America." And, one "libertarian" Republican blogger told his readers that it's time for all like-minded people to tell every Democrat they know to "fuck off and die." When elections go their way, the U.S. is painted as an example for the world. When they don't, you start hearing about the U.S. electoral system being a corrupt joke, and suggestions of "revolution" (to wit, Donald Trump).

Restaurant chains weigh in

Boycotting restaurants because of their political/religious proselytizing is a bit difficult, because so many are right-wing. Most of the major hamburger chains are Republican-leaning and donate money to that party, so it's hard to get a burger and fries anywhere without being complicit. Even on the more healthful side, I used to get big salads for lunch at a mom-and-pop joint near my workplace in the early '90s -- until I saw a poster they put up near the men's room, depicting a movie poster of the Clinton administration, with Barney Frank cast as "the Rear Admiral." Haw, haw.

Now we have assorted chains announcing that they will cut hours, raise prices and even fire people to cut costs they associate with "Obamacare."

It's not hard to avoid Papa John's, because I never liked their pizza much, anyway. Pizza is one of those foods that's very hard to screw up, although it can be done and Papa John's almost succeeds. The most offensive part of this is that "Papa John" his own self, John Schnatter, is worth $350 million and held secret fundraisers for Romney on his mansion grounds. Can you say greed?

Domino's pizza is very little better than Papa John's, and I found out, years after I drove for that chain in a desperate period of my youth, that the head honcho is a reactionary psycho-Catholic.

It's not hard to avoid Chick-fil-A either, because their chicken sandwiches taste like cardboard enhanced with salt and grease. Their pronouncements about gay marriage came as no surprise to me, anyway. I won't miss Red Lobster, either, as I have allergies to some types of shellfish and their food usually sucks anyway.

It may be harder to completely boycott Applebee's. Although it's a franchise place with food quality varying widely, I know of one local place that makes a great top sirloin plate with steamed broccoli, and their spinach-and-artichoke dip is a winner, too. I'll miss them. Same goes for Olive Garden -- one local place makes wonderful eggplant parmigiana.

The main thing Denny's has going for it is affordability. When I was working my way through grad school and living largely on dry cereal and canned goods, the Grand Slam Breakfast was like a cheap staple, and about the only time I ever ate eggs (they were once thought to be bad for you). Now, some Denny's eateries plan to add a 5% "Obamacare" surcharge. I'll never eat at one of those places.

Pearls before swine

The point is that good manners and being gracious in victory are virtues that are absolutely wasted on some people.

Time has come for Obama to get his veto pen out, and stop making nice. His enemies clearly aren't going to change. Even Scumney is being a sore loser, blaming his defeat at the polls on Obama's "gifts" to women, minorities, and young people. It had to be government bribery, not differing ideology.

Time has come for all Democrats to start telling Orange Julius, Mitch for the Rich and all their supporters to "fuck off and die."

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Does Donald Trump Belong In Jail For Suggesting 'Revolution'?

By Manifesto Joe

I'm pretty much of a First Amendment purist. No matter how contemptible the speech is, in the good ol' U.S. of A., it's supposed to be free, and protected by law.

But a question now nags me. If Romney had won the presidential election, and someone with the background of, say, Bill Ayres, tweeted something suggesting "revolution," do you think he would be getting a visit from the Department of Homeland Security before long? I think it's quite possible that he would.

Donald Trump has a long history of being hostile to President Obama. He was one of the main instigators of the "birther controversy," and he persists in this behavior even after Obama won re-election.

And a recent tweet from him was reported this way in examiner.com:

Donald Trump has no regrets when it comes to his so-called Election Day Twitter rant in which he claimed the United States was not a democracy and called the election "a sham and a travesty." He later went on to say "More votes equals a loss...revolution!" and "The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy."

Trump says he has no regrets about this. Here's a link to the complete story.

Was Trump genuinely advocating a violent revolution to overthrow the U.S. government, because the election didn't go the way he wanted? Only "The Donald" could tell you for sure what was going through that privilege-numbed skull of his. I'm just judging by what he said on Twitter, and he's standing by it.

If he's not backing down, perhaps he ought to be put under Homeland Security surveillance. I wouldn't advocate that he go to jail, at least not now. That would just make a "martyr" of him.

If Romney had won, and it were Bill Ayres tweeting such things, I think there'd be agents staking out his house.

But Trump, being a right-wing billionaire, probably isn't going to have to answer to anyone for his reckless remarks. Stay tuned.

Postscript: Rock guitar has-been Ted Nugent tweeted that Obama's supporters were "pimps whores & welfare brats." Wow. Are there really over 61 million of us? Check out the cartoon at the link.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

The Curious Misbehavior Of Herr Karl Rove, Svengali To Pond Scum

By Manifesto Joe



Not that Fox News had much credibility left to begin with, but continuing to present Herr Rove, a major fundraiser for numerous Republican candidates, as some kind of even-handed political analyst should dispense with whatever small measure of credibility they had left. The only reason anybody would watch this shit is because they WANT right-wing propaganda, not news.

Here's how Sarah Palin reacted to Tuesday night's events:



And if you are so masochistic that you still crave more agony, here's Bill O'Reilly:



Oh, and perhaps the richest thing of all came from Herr Rush Lardbaugh. He suggests that the election was STOLEN. After the curious outcomes of 2000 and 2004, with Il Doofus the "winner," that seems especially laughable.

Fox News should just admit that it functions as Republican right-wing propaganda

This "network" is about as unbiased as if Joseph Goebbels were in charge of it. But there are apparently millions of "Americans" who want exactly that when they put on "news." It may have been the case, 30 years ago, that subtle bias was noticeable on some of the other networks. It should be evident that, given that journalism isn't a lucrative profession and tends to attract people who pursue a profession for other reasons, it tends to attract more liberals than conservatives. I'm personally angry that everybody I deal with in the banking profession seems to have a conservative bias. Could it be that it's a profession that's rife with money-grubbing swine?

There's no longer even pretense here. Fox is pure propaganda, and if the Rove incident isn't evidence enough, there can never be enough.

On the bright side, they can't lie enough to stop 61 million real Americans from voting for the president Fox has vilified from Day One. Many people no longer take them the least bit seriously.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Reflections On The Election: 'Get Over It'

By Manifesto Joe

I'm going to try to restrain myself from being ugly to the vanquished, but only up to a point. For one thing, the defeat is not complete. They still have control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Orange Julius will remain Weeper of the House, and therefore it's not likely that much will be done in Washington for at least the next two years.

But also, being ugly is just no-class, even when I do it. I ended a "friendship" with a righty back in November 2004 because, after Kerry's surprising defeat by Il Doofus, this drooling idiot thought it was a good idea to send all his liberal/progressive "friends" some parroted shit from Rush Lardbaugh about sending liberals to re-education camps, etc. I sent this guy a response asking essentially, "Have you, at long last, no class at all?" effectively ending our "friendship."

I sincerely have little understanding of what makes a person in contemporary America a right-winger, unless they are so rich that they benefit from the tax bonanzas. I suspect that there's a great deal of brainwashing involved. And it's especially frustrating to hear such people moronically referring to Obama as a "Marxist" when his economic policies are perhaps more than a shade to the right of Dick Nixon's. Such sheer ignorance simply angers me.

But, I will try harder to be nice. There are many Americans who have a Reaganesque image of a mythical America, that "shining city on the hill" that is supposed to have once been. My experience has been that this was always very much a myth. Those who drank the Kool-Aid under the gazebo always did so at the hideous expense of those who were just trying to pummel off the rats that were gnawing away at their Kool-Aid packages.

But, many people live by, and for, myths. Black and white, wrong and right, good and evil. No ambiguity, just absolutes. Life would be unbearable torture without that oh-so-clear dichotomy.

Reality has come to visit these people, and much to their horror, it has dark skin and is a world-class orator. This travesty could just never have happened back in 1956, the year in which yours truly was born, and when everybody liked Ike.

Romney was never really the man who was supposed to lead them back up to the summit of that "shining hill." He's a friggin' Mormon, an elder in a "church" that many people regard as a ludicrous cult. But he was what they had, and the only alternative to that uppity n****r.

Well, Romney lost, damn it. Now we are facing hard choices, decisions that will require shared -- I repeat, shared -- sacrifice by Americans rich, poor and in between, and not just that "47 percent" that Romney infamously denounced in a moment of unintentional candor. Two-thirds of U.S. corporations pay absolutely no federal income tax. Many wealthy individuals act as though they owe absolutely nothing to this country, hiding their money in the Cayman Islands and Swiss bank accounts.

Nobody, black or white, will be serving these people Kool-Aid under the gazebo. It's time to start acting like real Americans, like people who understand that they have some skin in this game. It was never realistic to think that we could make this into a Great Society -- but we may still have a chance to make it into a good one.

I am reminded of what Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the five ringleaders who appointed the "president" in December 2000, said about the Bush v. Gore decision during an interview -- "Get over it."

Well, Obama's people didn't find it necessary to steal it, or to have the Supreme Court appoint the chief executive. Now "get over it" yourself.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Civil Rights Ads: Liars, Damned Liars, And Republicans

By Manifesto Joe

Living in a state like Texas, which is considered safe for Scumney, we don't get to see these kinds of bullshit ads very much. I hear that the Republican Party is taking credit for getting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed, and for Lincoln freeing the slaves.

I've got news for however many innocent Republicans remain out there: This is not your grandfather's GOP. (I'll steal a line from my bud Cletis Stump -- it is if your grandfather was Benito Mussolini.)

For one thing, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is something that Republicans can disingenuously claim something about, because for the Republicans of the time, they did actually vote for the bill in higher percentage than Democrats did. But ...

That was back when there were a lot of "Dixiecrats" left in the Democratic Party. Led by the defection of Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-Segregation Forever, they moved to the Republican Party in droves after that. There were many reasons, but it was mainly that one of the few prominent Republican votes cast against the bill was by one Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who went on to be the Republican Party nominee for president that year.

It was a vote cast in "libertarian" protest. Goldwater, being half-Jewish (at a golf course he once asked, "can I just play 9 holes?"), had run into discrimination before. I get the impression that he was a very honest, albeit foolish, sort of guy, and sincerely believed that it just wasn't the place of the federal government to get that involved in ordinary human affairs.

But Goldwater went on to be the first Republican presidential candidate to carry the Deep South. A handful of states there, and Arizona, were all that he racked up in a devastating loss.

That was the beginning, though, of the Southern white migration to the Republican Party. Now, those states are generally lockups for them.

Of all people left in American politics, who still thinks that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a bad idea? Um, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. Among a few others.

I could bring up the fact that it was President Harry Truman who desegregated the military by executive order, or that LBJ, upon signing the Civil Rights Act, lamented that the Democrats had just given the South away for at least a generation.

The main problem here is the Republican LIE factor, their bogus claim that they have somehow been a vanguard of civil rights in America, and trying to sell themselves to black voters in such a mendacious manner.

I don't think Abraham Lincoln would recognize the current Republican Party, or want to be associated with it in the least. Nor should anyone else.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

NYC Marathon/Sandy Fiasco Shows Rich Republicans Just Don't Get It

By Manifesto Joe

Last night, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg finally had enough sense to cancel the NYC Marathon and use the designated generators, food and water to help hurricane-stricken New Yorkers instead. The decision came pretty late in the day, after a firestorm of criticism.

People were just flat-out calling Bloomberg deranged amid such misplaced priorities, like using generators and supplies for that event while ordinary people were freezing and hungry. More sympathy seemed forthcoming for those unfortunate runners who spent small fortunes to come to New York to do something as crazy as to run 26.2 miles (the guy who first did it died).

It stands as just one more of many examples of how rich Republicans just don't get it. To them, common people are indeed an abstraction. They don't really count in the vast scheme of things, unless the outcry becomes so loud that the plutocrats are forced to listen. For Bloomberg, the athletic event was more important than ordinary slobs until his hand was forced.

An endorsement Obama could have done without

Yes, Bloomberg has endorsed Obama for president, crossing party lines. He cited pro-choice and climate change concerns as his main reasons. But having an insular fool like the mayor in Obama's camp certainly doesn't impress me, or any other people who were supporting Obama back when it wasn't cool.

Bloomberg's father was a real estate agent, and he got his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. When he was fired from the Salomon Brothers investment bank in 1981, he got a $10 million severance package.

He may not have been born on third base, but it sounds like at least second base to me, and he didn't have to hit a double. His net worth is estimated at $25 billion.

There have been people who have said that money wouldn't ruin them, but it usually did. As an example of how completely full of shit this upper-class twit is, this is from his Wikipedia bio:

Bloomberg says that he frequently rides the New York City Subway, particularly in the commute from his 79th Street home to his office at City Hall. An August 2007 story in The New York Times asserted that he was often seen chauffeured by two New York Police Department-owned SUVs to an express train station to avoid having to change from the local to the express trains on the Lexington Avenue line.

A real man of the people, this one.

Scumney and FEMA

Republican presidential liar Mitt Scumney is handling inquiries about his calls to abolish FEMA, amid the Hurricane Sandy debacle, by simply declining to answer questions on the subject.

He's very much on record as having said a thing this stupid, even as the deadly hurricane was approaching the Northeast. Several other prominent Republicans, including Scumney's running mate, Paul "Ayn" Ryan, have advocated either eliminating FEMA or cutting its funding severely.

An article in The Huffington Post mentioned Scumney's current stand on climate change and global warming:

In 2011 when Romney was asked to define his position on man-made global warming, he said at the time, "My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet."

Not that this is anything new, but Scumney appears to have changed his position on this issue, to please the Republican right wing and mega-rich backers such as the Koch brothers.

It's just one more example -- rich Republicans are out of touch with reality. They just don't get it. I pray that the American people aren't dumb enough to put yet another one of them in the White House.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.