Voter fraud? No big deal, probably.

Look for more (and more egregious) examples of this as we approach November. No, I don't want Santorum to win, but at least it would be comforting to know where Nehemiah Scudder actually was.

If you vote on any level except the local, you are wasting your time, energy, and brain power.  If your vote really mattered, Santorum would have thrown a fit. If your vote realy mattered, these people wouldn't be in power anyway.

If you vote, you're saying "I believe in this system, I believe it is honest enough to participate in, and I believe I can actually accomplish something by participating." 

If you vote, you're not just cooperating with the inevitable, you're holding the victim down for the guards.

If you vote, you are responsible for their decisions.

This should replace those "I VOTED!" stickers.

On the one hand, I'd like to see the whole thing collapse faster...

... on the other hand, if this did happen and the economy cratered, they'd just do more bullshit just like it.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. has offered his own $804 billion jobs plan that calls on the federal government to hire the nation’s 15 million unemployed Americans for jobs paying roughly $40,000 each, and bail out all the states and cities facing budget crises.

On the gripping hand, though, it'll hasn't got a chance in hell of passing.  We're not quite THAT far down the path to outright communism. 



It's this kind of party, but for the economy.



Remus vs. voters

Something like this has been my answer every time someone says "if you don't vote, you can't complain":

Ask most so-called conservatives if they're willing to go back to pre-New Deal America. The answer, shorn of its Clintonesque waffling, will be no. Therefore they are New Deal collectivists. No patriotic citizen of conscience will lend legitimacy to this farce by participating in their, formerly our, national elections. Punching the New Deal's ticket every couple of years has no upside. Stay home on election day, spend it immersed in some guilty pleasure or another, vote for "None of the Above" and luxuriate in unblemished righteousness thereafter. - 'Ol Remus and the Woodpile Report

George Carlin (who decidedly did not share Remus' politics) said something along the same lines, and both of them have often reminded me of something the Grand-Master once wrote: "Relaxing to the inevitable is not the same thing as stooling for the guards."

Voting only means you're part of the problem.



A cop posted this.  Really think about that for a minute.  A federal cop.



Fear the Future

More specifically, fear your elected leaders.

File this in the random-things-politicians-say file. Speaking to a Cary Rotary Club today, N.C. Gov. Bev Perdue suggested suspending Congressional elections for two years so that Congress can focus on economic recovery and not the next election.

"I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that," Perdue said. "You want people who don't worry about the next election."

So, was she joking as she later said, or was this more like sending up a balloon to see how it would be received?

Also, how was it received?  Not much mention of that, and THAT scares the hell out of me.

Although, I guess it won't be a problem for much longer.  The "elected leader" part, that is.

“The cost of the attack that you’re going to see was $10.50 in retail quantities,” explains Warner in the video. “If you want to use the RF [radio frequency] remote control to stop and start the attacks, that’s another $15. So the total cost would be $26.”



Yay! Democracy!



RAH RAH RAH!

Maybe we should put away the pom-poms and pick up a book or two.

If I were to speechify to a conclave of Tea Partyers, “America is the free-est...the most democratic...the best educated and most dynamic country the world has ever known, an example to all mankind,” the assembled would hoot and hooroar and applaud in dizzy exaltation. Here is the soul of the American approach to existence, bottomless self-admiration devoid of knowledge or curiosity, wrapped like a psychic burrito in the patriotism of overwrought middle-schoolers. And there are many, many of them.

We face rule by pajama party. Saints preserve us, someone with the foregoing understanding may become the president of the (for a few moments more) most powerful, erratic, and ignorant country on the planet. Among presidential possibilities we now have Rick Perry, Michele Bachman, Sarah Palin and, in the Great Double-Wide on Pennsylvania Avenue, Precedent Obama—political epiphytes all, fantasists, tent-revival Christians, provincial governors, inward-looking certitudinous naifs. The difference between Americans and Mohammed Ali is that when he said, “I am the greatest!” he was.

Fred is quite brilliant about many things.  Also, he's Grumpy, which grants about 10 bonus IQ points.

Funny stuff

I know it's not supposed to be a secret girl fight between the candidates, but doesn't this look like Rick Perry got tired of someone's lip and slapped the shit out of him?

"Question me on proper credit for Texas' profitability?  I've got a question for you; what did five fingers say to the face?"

You're next, old man...

Family, re-defined

You want to know what's scary?  Family can always get worse.

The Obama administration didn’t invent the phrase but has taken it to new heights.
“Under the direction of President Obama and Secretary Janet Napolitano, the entire federal family is leaning forward to support our state, tribal and territorial partners along the East Coast,” a FEMA news release declared Friday as Irene churned toward landfall.
The G-word — “government” — has been nearly banished, with FEMA instead referring to federal, state and local “partners” as well as “offices” and “personnel.”

So, if use of the term "Federal Family" has been incrementally increasing since the Clinton administration, when do you think they'll roll out the phrase "dear leader?"

Totally unrelated to one another...

Buffett to co-host Obama Fundraiser in NYC.


Buffett to Invest $5 billion in Shaky Bank of America.

I was just interested in his schedule, I'm sure these have nothing to do with each other.

The trains don't even run on time...

I don't vote, but if I did, it would be for Ron Paul.

“The last nail is being driven into the coffin of the American Republic. Yet, Congress remains in total denial as our liberties are rapidly fading before our eyes. The process is propelled by unwarranted fear and ignorance as to the true meaning of liberty. It is driven by economic myths, fallacies and irrational good intentions. The rule of law is constantly rejected and authoritarian answers are offered as panaceas for all our problems. Runaway welfarism is used to benefit the rich at the expense of the middle class. Who would have ever thought that the current generation and Congress would stand idly by and watch such a rapid disintegration of the American Republic? Characteristic of this epic event is the casual acceptance by the people and political leaders of the unitary presidency, which is equivalent to granting dictatorial powers to the President. Our Presidents can now, on their own:
1. Order assassinations, including American citizens,
2. Operate secret military tribunals,
3. Engage in torture,
4. Enforce indefinite imprisonment without due process,
5. Order searches and seizures without proper warrants, gutting the 4th Amendment,
6. Ignore the 60 day rule for reporting to the Congress the nature of any military operations as required by the War Power Resolution,
7. Continue the Patriot Act abuses without oversight,
8. Wage war at will,
9. Treat all Americans as suspected terrorists at airports with TSA groping and nude x-raying.
And the Federal Reserve accommodates by counterfeiting the funds needed and not paid for by taxation and borrowing, permitting runaway spending, endless debt, and special interest bail-outs.
And all of this is not enough. The abuses and usurpations of the war power are soon to be codified in the National Defense Authorization Act now rapidly moving its way through the Congress. Instead of repealing the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), as we should, now that bin Laden is dead and gone, Congress is planning to massively increase the war power of the President. Though an opportunity presents itself to end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, Congress, with bipartisan support, obsesses on how to expand the unconstitutional war power the President already holds. The current proposal would allow a President to pursue war any time, any place, for any reason, without Congressional approval. Many believe this would even permit military activity against American suspects here at home. The proposed authority does not reference the 9/11 attacks. It would be expanded to include the Taliban and “associated” forces—a dangerously vague and expansive definition of our potential enemies. There is no denial that the changes in s.1034 totally eliminate the hard-fought-for restraint on Presidential authority to go to war without Congressional approval achieved at the Constitutional Convention. Congress’ war authority has been severely undermined since World War II beginning with the advent of the Korean War which was fought solely under a UN Resolution. Even today, we’re waging war in Libya without even consulting with the Congress, similar to how we went to war in Bosnia in the 1990s under President Clinton. The three major reasons for our Constitutional Convention were to:
1. Guarantee free trade and travel among the states.
2. Make gold and silver legal tender and abolish paper money.
3. Strictly limit the Executive Branch’s authority to pursue war without Congressional approval.
But today:
1. Federal Reserve notes are legal tender, gold and silver are illegal.
2. The Interstate Commerce Clause is used to regulate all commerce at the expense of free trade among the states.
3. And now the final nail is placed in the coffin of Congressional responsibility for the war power, delivering this power completely to the President—a sharp and huge blow to the concept of our Republic.
In my view, it appears that the fate of the American Republic is now sealed—unless these recent trends are quickly reversed.
The saddest part of this tragedy is that all these horrible changes are being done in the name of patriotism and protecting freedom. They are justified by good intentions while believing the sacrifice of liberty is required for our safety. Nothing could be further from the truth.
More sadly is the conviction that our enemies are driven to attack us for our freedoms and prosperity, and not because of our deeply flawed foreign policy that has generated justifiable grievances and has inspired the radical violence against us. Without this understanding our endless, unnamed, and undeclared wars will continue and our wonderful experience with liberty will end.”

Bachmann-ia

Not that there was ever any danger of it, but I absolutely will not vote for a person who doesn't know the difference between "lie" and "lay."

Really, Ms. Bachmann? It's sixth grade English, and you're applying for the #1 speaking job in America. Unless every other candidate confuses your/you're and there/they're/their, you're not getting my vote.

Of course, I don't actually vote anyway. There is no point, and it pisses off the hippies when I revel in not doing shit on the first Tuesday in November.