Conservatives Do Not Love America. They Are Devoted to an Illusion.

Despite the required American flag lapel pin or patriotic scarf and the hyperbolic rhetoric, today’s Tea Party conservatives clearly do not love America, not the America this country’s founders envisioned. What they do love is a fairy tale version of America created from a thoroughly scrubbed and sanitized history, a totally fabricated understanding of the founders’ beliefs and motivations, and a deeply flawed reading of the Constitution and how it is to be interpreted.

No, conservatives don’t love America, they love their made up country that, if they could magically conjure it up, would be a corporatacracy with a thin veneer of theocracy laid over the top to appease the already self-deluded evangelical wing. We live in something like that now, but in their version, there would be no social safety net, no social security and everything that could be privatized, would be. If you think homelessness and poverty are bad now, America a la Cruz would make the Great Depression look like a family picnic.

George Bush once famously said that terrorists attack us because they hate our freedoms. The same can be said for the Tea Party crowd. They hate the idea that women should have freedom over their own bodies, they hate the idea that the government should help elderly Americans to have the freedom to live lives of dignity in their final years, they hate the idea that American workers should have the freedom to demand living wages and benefits from their employers, and they hate the idea that two people in love, who happen to be the same sex, should have the freedom to marry,

I wish I could give conservatives their own country to ruin instead of trying to ruin mine. Not interested in working to fix the problems that truly matter to Americans, like climate change, rampant gun violence, income inequality, a crippled public education system and soaring college debt, they want to waste precious time and energy on the War on Christmas and Hillary Clinton’s emails. Benghazi!!!

Conservatives want to destroy American to try and save it. They want to tear down the country the founders envisioned and replace it with something else that is to them a dream come true, but to the rest of us a living nightmare.

Keith Richards: Trash-Talking Man

Keith Richards proves that you can be a rock god and still be a petty, jealous old man. In recent interviews around the release of his first solo album in 20 years, the original Stone trashed the Beatles, Black Sabbath, Metallica and all of Rap music with a series of bitter one-liners that sound more like sour grapes (especially in the case of the Beatles) than a serious musical critique. Keith is entitled to his opinions, but his constant trash talking about other superstars and genres does nothing to enhance his personal image as his life and career enter the autumn years (come on, he has to go sometime). Maybe falling head first out of that palm tree did more damage than we realized.

Like Scott Walker, George Bush Knew the Threat from Canada Needed a Response

GOP presidential candidate Scott Walker thinks building a wall along the Canadian border is a “legitimate concern.” I couldn’t agree more. Canadians aren’t Americans, ergo, they are inferior humans that need to be kept at a reasonable distance. But Walker’s fence idea isn’t the first time a politician has grasped the very real threat from our neighbors to the north. Few now remember that in 2007, then President George Bush raised the alarm about the potential for aggression from crazed Canadians and responded accordingly. Here is a news article from that period highlighting the courage and fortitude of our former Commander and Chief. 

WASHINGTON D.C. - Just days after announcing his intention to station National Guard troops along the U.S. border with Mexico, President Bush made an unexpected statement today concerning the Canadian border.

"It is true that our most immediate national security need is to secure our southern border. However, we cannot ignore the risks posed by a three thousand mile-long, largely unsecured border to our north. While our attention is diverted to the southern states, thousands of Al-Qaeda terrorists could be quietly slipping into America disguised in moose or squirrel costumes, forming sleeper cells in unsuspecting towns like International Falls or Fargo. The threat is real, and must be met."

Today, I am calling up our brave young Americans in Boy Scout, Girl Scout and Cub Scout troops all along the northern tier of states, from Washington to Maine. Scout units will be stationed along the Canadian border at designated intervals for four-week rotations. The Scouts will be issued BB guns, slingshots and Swiss Army Knives with which they will secure our borders and allow Americans to sleep easy in their beds."

Some of you may ask, 'Is sending a nine-year old child out into the Northern woods with little more than Ritalin, a dull knife and a backpack full of Snickers bars a good idea?'" I say, give our children more credit. Sure they'll miss their TVs and their mommies, but they know what it means to wear a uniform and that sacrifices are necessary in the war on terror. "

The first Scout units will be in position shortly after the end of school in June. Scout Masters will receive field promotions to full colonel and receive all respective benefits. All scouts will be given photocopies of known Al-Qaeda operatives, and they will be issued shoot-to-kill or really-really-hurt-bad orders."

My fellow Americans, I know what it means to serve one's country in uniform and the sacrifices that are required. I spent countless days away from home and family in strange nightclubs and at parties where I didn't know a soul. It's true. But America's young people today understand that freedom isn't free, and that everyone must do their part in the war on terror. All I can say is God bless them, and God bless you."

Americans Are Pissed Off At The Wrong People

The Republican Party: Draping Unfettered Greed in American Flags

In response to a question about income inequality, Sen. Rand Paul said this:

"I think it's both government policy and some of the way that economic fruits are distributed. And I think it would be foolish for anyone to argue that it doesn't have something to do with work and effort, and also doesn't have something to do with the way the public approves of the way you're doing, whether the public approves of something you're selling."

"Wal-Mart is phenomenally successful cause everyone votes every day that they like their products and their prices," he added. "And that's the way the market economy works."

Donald Trump and the Koch brothers are where they are because they work harder than I do? Wal Mart is your shining example of capitalism at its finest?

The Republican Party is no longer a political party, but a political action committee for this country’s one percent, a propaganda machine for the elite tasked with dressing up unfettered greed in American flags and white cowboy hats.  The greatest con job ever perpetuated in American political history is the Republican Party’s ability to convince average Americans that the GOP cares about their interests.

Peppering every speech and interview with time-tested buzzwords — tax and spend Democrats, the makers and the takers, political correctness, culture of dependency, stifling rules and regulations, the list goes on — Republican candidates mesmerize the faithful while at the same time working behind the curtain to beat down, divide and subjugate middle and lower class Americans.

Yes, Democrats have their issues as well and play the same money games as Republicans do to get in and stay in office, but I don’t believe many of them actually want to destroy the America of our founders and replace it with a corporate funded theocracy.

President [add Republican name]? Welcome to America’s nightmare.

Trump’s “Honesty” is a Dark Mirror

The Washington Post has an article that captures a Reddit thread where Donald Trump supporters explained why they endorse the real estate tycoon. One theme that ran through many of the responses was that Trump is “honest,” “says it like it is” and isn’t some wishy washy establishment politician reading from the teleprompter. 

There’s certainly no question the Donald says exactly what’s on his mind, and that can be an admirable trait in a political system that discourages honesty and candor.  The problem with Trump isn’t really his brashness or shoot-from-the-hip style, it’s the actual words that come out of his mouth that are troubling, and the ugly fact that people find them “refreshing” and “politically incorrect.”

Trump supporters are excited about a candidate who openly assails immigrants, treats women with contempt, calls his opponents childish names like a schoolyard bully, pretends to be a self-made man when he inherited a fortune, and who pushed the racist Obama birth certificate investigation long after the original birthers had slipped back into the crevasses and under the rocks from where they came.

Trump’s honesty is no virtue, it’s a dark mirror reflecting everything that is wrong with America, our racism, misogyny, bullying, uber nationalism, and disdain for science and knowledge.  His supporters are so blinded by their anger that they don’t even seem to realize he is an East Coast elitist who helped create an economy where they can never win, a character that in any other campaign conservatives would be railing against publically.

Trump supporters (and conservatives in general) don’t want honesty, they want validation, someone in power who says it’s okay to be racist, to treat women as second-class citizens, to hate people coming to this country looking for a better life. Your anger is justified, your fear is real, your bigotry is understandable. Trump is your reflection.

Three New Spooky Bedtime Stories

So children, we have three new short scary stories to read at bedtime. Check the closet, turn on the night light and get under the covers, your nightmares are about to begin at They're Only Shadows.

According to Sarah Palin, Trump is the candidate for Joe Six-Pack

The Republican Loonypalooza Show is a bottomless source of entertainment as candidates for the highest office in the country try to “out-crazy” their opponents. Yesterday it was Ted Cruz cooking bacon on the barrel of a machine gun. Today’s head-exploding offering is from the “Please-somebody-ask-me-to-run” non-candidate, the Grizzly Momma herself, Sarah Palin, who seems to be wooing a certain egomaniacal billionaire from New York. In a recent posting on Breitbart.com, Sarah wrote:

“The elites are shocked by Trump’s dominance, but everyday Americans aren’t. Everywhere I’ve gone this summer, including motorsport events in Detroit full of fed-up Joe Six-Pack Americans, the folks I meet commiserate about wussified slates of politicians, but then unsolicited, they whisper their appreciation for Trump because he has the guts to say it like it is.”

Donald Trump is the candidate for Joe Six-Pack Americans, according to Palin. The nation’s most arrogant, out-of-touch elitist is actually a man of the people, a defender of the little guy who can’t catch a break. Like Superman, Trump adopts a clever personae during the day, in his case, a racist, misogynistic billionaire blowhard, but at night, he dons overalls and a baseball cap and buys rounds of drinks at neighborhood bars, hands out free Slurpees in front of a 7/11, and rescues lost pets.

Loonypalooza rolls on to the debate tomorrow.  Buckle up, because it’s gonna be a wild ride.

Florida Governor Rick Scott Auditions for Movie Part

Governor Rick Scott of Florida is seen here auditioning for the part of “deranged inbred hillbilly #2” in “Deliverance II: Babes with Banjos.” He is reciting the characters one spoken line in the film, “You promised there’d be purty girls here. I don’t see no purty girls.”