Archive for May, 2009
Tuesday Open Thread
What’s on your minds today?
Here’s something that’s worthy of a longer piece, but is interesting enough to mention in passing here, to see if you have similiar experiences out there wherever you live.
Last night, we went to Sidetrack’s here in Boystown for Showtunes night because our good friend Lionel was feeling up to going out for a little fun. Lionel has been battling prostate cancer and has already had two operations. He’s lost a good 60 pounds and is at the skinniest we have ever seen him. Normally, in Boystown, that’s something people celebrate, but Lionel wasn’t very big to begin with, so needless to say seeing the toll his illness is taking on him is very, very hard. But, we know so many of you out there have been praying for him and we believe that is working. Lionel’s spirit is the same: so vivacious, so positive, so full of sunshine. The disconnect is just with his body, which continues to fail him. But, yet, he soldiers on.
Lionel’s partner is named Todd and he’s a school teacher here in Chicago, in the public school system. If you look up liberal irrational moonbat in the dictionary, chances are you will find a photo of Todd. This is one of those instances in life where we have a friend we love so much he’s family (like Abbey back in Cleveland too), but we don’t especially like whoever they are with (like Abbey’s Byron back in Cleveland too, who at the end of the day we don’t much care for in a mutual feeling sort of way).
Well, Todd was an Obot during the primaries, with the sole reason or voting for him being that Dr. Utopia is black. Lionel’s black too, and Lionel was not only on Team Hillary with us, but he also helped with Democrats for McCain as much as he could before he got sick. There’s a weird dynamic with Todd and Lionel where Todd, who’s from a liberal family and, to us at least, tends to draw attention to his interracial relationship and any involvement he has with the black community (“Oh, last week I attended a reading of the works of Langston Hughes in Bronzeville and even though it is early, I also suggested we begin organizing for our Kwanzaa celebration this year because I intend to make it the best Kwanzaa we’ve ever had”). We’ve seen Todd wear a dashiki and one of those red, green, and black beanie caps if tha completes the picture for you (and Todd is so white every year the first mildly warm sunny day turns him as red as a lobster, once the sun gets its first crack at his paler than a vampire skin).
So, needless to say, between the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democrats for McCain, we have not had much to talk with Todd about in agreement for around two years now. So, we avoid engaging him in anything that’s not Lionel-related, limiting our conversation to what Lionel’s doing, or sometimes how things are going in the school system in Chicago under new superintendent Ron Huberman (another Sidetrack’s regular who never even taught a class, knows nothing about running a school, but was put in charge of the school system because he is “dynamic”, “charismatic”, and multi-racial…sound familiar?).
Well, last night a nother friend of ours was there last night named Panda (don’t ask) who didn’t know Todd knew all of us, so Panda introduced him and then said to Todd, “Oh, these are Hillary guys, but I don’t know if they are Democrats or Republicans anymore because they also helped McCain and they don’t think Obama does a good job. They call him Dr. Unicorn.”
Close. Dr. Utopia, but Panda had the gist of it.
And here’s where the SCHOCKER came in. Honestly, Robby was drinking a pilsner and snarfed it out his nose when Todd said this, it was so shocking.
Todd said, “He hasn’t kept a single one of his G**-damned promises. I supported him from day one, and all he has done is screwed over everyone who believed in him. Not a G**-damned thing for Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell. Not a G**-damn thing for healthcare, and I know he doesn’t give a damn what people like Lionel are going through. All he wants to do is fly around on that damn plane and scare the absolute s*** out of people in New York and then laugh about it like an ass. He should be ashamed of himself. He’s just another slimeball lying politician and he conned me real good.”
Honestly, it was like hearing Oprah say, “No, I would not like another cake”, words we never thought we’d hear spoken by someone we’d never think would ever say them.
Now, we don’t know what sort of drugs Todd was on for the last two years, particularly in regards to LGBTQ issues, because we remind you that Dr. Utopia is the only major Illinois politician who has never marched in a pride parade, let alone done a damn thing for LGBTQ rights. Last pride, we told you that Dr. Utopia refused to march in our June 29th pride parade, despite being in Chicago that day; instead, he played basketball and got his hair cut on the Southside. So, Todd’s a fool for expecting anything more from Dr. Utopia than he has ever shown in the past.
Hillary Clinton wakes up early every day and goes to 15 different events, many of them LGBTQ supportive; she was the FIRST First Lady to march in a pride parade and has marched almost every year since. She’s consistently been there for the LGBTQ community, but on Showtunes Night at Sidetrack, where everyone is having a great time drinking and singing along to the music up on the screens, people don’t think about who has done what for the community and who really deserves our support in return.
Todd was always one of those low-information voters who supported Dr. Utopia because he is black, and Todd wanted to support a black candidate. Todd won’t admit this, but does admit he knew absolutely nothing about Dr. Utopia, never looked into his record on LGBTQ issues or healthcare, yet supported Dr. Utopia anyway (despite LGBTQ issues and healthcare being the two most important things to Todd) because he is “inspirational”.
We have little sympathy for people like Todd who are waking up to reality.
And just so you know, part of what’s so shocking about what Todd said was how salty his language was, and how man G**-damns he worked into the conversation. Another thing Todd always likes to do when someone is talking is correct either their English (because he’s a teacher) or admonish their blasphemy (because, we think, he believes that mimics some in the black community). If you slip a g**-dammit! into anything, Todd will say, “Don’t blaspheme in my presence” or something to that effect.
Yet, Todd was so worked up about Dr. Utopia’s broken promises that HE was the one blaspheming. Part of us wanted to call him on it, but we were too stunned. Normally, people like Todd who like to correct people should be corrected themselves, with relish, at every available opportunity, but instead we just relished the fact that Todd has seen the forrest for the gump when it comes to Dr. Utopia’s charmed road to Washington, where everything was about marketing and stagecraft without anything being what it seemed to those caught up in the “inspirational magic”.
Have you seen anything like this in your own circles?
Do you know a passionate Obot who, like Todd, now feels betrayed?
It would be interesting to hear if this is happening elsewhere. To be completely honest, we don’t really speak to many Obots. Todd is partnered to our dear friend Lionel, or else we wouldn’t talk to him.
Do you know any Obots you can report the status of? We’d love to hear from you.
Piper Palin's Lemonade Stand Still, Well, Stands
Despite being attacked by crazy person Theodore “Chip” Thoma in Alaska, Piper Palin’s lemonade stand outside the Governor’s mansion in Juneau remains open for business.
Thoma, it should be noted, has had multiple run-ins with the law involving cocaine, and has seemingly decided to make a career for himself joining the ranks of other loons who seek only to attack the Palin family at every turn.
Last night, we had dinner with some friends and were quite surprised by one of them, someone who is very bright and whom we respect a lot named Victor.
Victor voted for Dr. Utopia but supported Clinton in the primaries — and now sees that Dr. Utopia isn’t delivering on any of his promises and is being enabled by the MSM in everything he does, including the Scare Force One embarassment. So, Victor’s not a Kool-Aid drinker, and Victor also sees that Dr. Utopia’s economic policies spell doom for us all when the inflation kicks in come 2010 or 2011 or so.
BUT, Victor hates Sarah Palin.
It just comes out of the blue, totally unexpectedly…this Palin hate that Victor can’t even rationally explain. He says, ‘I just don’t like her. I think she’s not intelligent. I don’t think she is ready to be in an executive position.”
“But, Dr. Utopia was ready? What executive experience did he have?”.
Victor said, “That doesn’t matter, because he is learning now and he knew he didn’t know what to do so I am okay with that. But, Palin thinks she knows everything and that whole you betcha stuff is just an act. No one talks like that. I think she’s phony.”
And he was so passionate, too!
We’ve come to realize that in relation to the Palins, we will never understand where this irrational hatred comes from. Palin talks how she talks…and we happen to like it. We certainly would prefer to listen to her on an iPod than any of Dr. Utopia’s “historic” speeches that he likes to give people. And we don’t remember Palin ever telling anyone that she knows everything, but Dr. Utopia certainly promised he could lower sea levels and fix all of our broken souls, in addition to changing Washington and paying people’s mortgages and giving everyone unicorns.
And Palin only ran for Vice President, not even President, so it’s interesting that she’s held to impossible standards that weren’t there for Dr. Utopia.
As we’ve said here before, it’s going to be very interesting to see what the Palin family does in the years ahead. There is a concerted and well-organized effort to destroy this family, right down to little Piper and Trig. That is not going to stop, because people like Victor hate this woman without being able to articulate why they hate her with anything substantive that makes the least bit of sense.
Palin might think this stuff will just blow away, but she’s wrong. The Alinsky Method is being deployed against her, and it’s not going away. Will Palin decide she doesn’t want to deal with any of these loons anymore and leave public life? We sure as Hell hope not. We hope she keeps fighting back, and keeps getting stronger and stronger, so that one day that lemonade stand outside the Governor’s mansion can be packed up and setup thousands of miles away on the lawn of the White House in 2013.
The likes of Colin Powell keep insisting the Republican Party needs a bland moderate in 2012. Colin Powell is an enthusiastic (and racially-motivated, it seems) supporter of Dr. Utopia.
Why on Earth should Republicans listen to what Dr. Utopia’s supporters say in terms of who should be the GOP ticket challenging the incumbent’s re-election?
This is a mystery to us, just as it’s a mystery why people with criminal backgrounds like Theodore “Chip” Thoma are allowed within 500 feet of lemonade stands to begin with.
What's Hillary Clinton Doing Today? May 11th, 2009
1015am – Remarks at the annual Global Classrooms DC Model United Nations Conference
1100am – Meeting with Dr. Cai Goran Alexander Stubb, Foreign Minister of Foreign Affairs and Nordic Cooperation of the Republic of Finland
615pm – Meeting with Bernard Kouchner, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Republic
700pm – Dinner honoring The Foundation for Art and Preservation of Embassies
Go, Hillary, Go!
Monday Open Thread
What’s on your minds today?
Here are some things we find interesting this Monday morning:
(1) Criticism of Wanda Sykes’ “performance” at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is coming in from some very unlikely places. Like Nikke Finke at DeadlineHollywoodDaily and her article on it, She Said What?. Finke is a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat and has identified herself as one of Dr. Utopia’s supporters. But, Finke calls them like she sees them, and excoriates Sykes for her rancorous behavior, accurately drubbing it as the most partisan and mean-spirited WHCD in memory.
Finke, surprisingly for a liberal, also notes that Sykes didn’t lay a hand on Dr. Utopia, but instead spent the whole time attacking former President Bush, Dick Cheney, John McCain, Sarah Palin, and Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh, in particular, got the most vicious attacks. You can read Finke’s piece for a complete blow-by-blow, but Sykes said she hopes Limbaugh’s kidneys fail…and Dr. and Mrs. Utopia laughed and laughed and laughed at that.
This is who the current President of the United States is: someone who not only mocks the Special Olympics on the Tonight Show, but who thinks it’s hilarious for Americans to die of kidney failure. We’ll leave that up to you to judge whether that’s presidential behavior or not, but you can’t dispute what Dr. Utopia did in these two instances. He of the “new kind of politics” and the “hope and change” forgotten promises.
If he really was the Light-bringing Hopemeister he claimed to be, he would have stopped Sykes. Now THAT would be transformational leadership. Someone crosses a line in front of you like Sykes did, and you rise up from the dais and bump her from the mic and get the night back onto a more positive and decent track, using all of that charisma and charm and “leadership ability” Dr. Utopia’s followers went on and on about during the campaign.
Where IS the hope and the change in a room where kidney failure’s wished on someone?
(2) Pursuant to the above, the sight of Dr. and Mrs. Utopia laughing at the attacks on conservatives, but not receiving any jokes aimed at them the way WHCDs are supposed to go makes us wonder just how much danger the new administration is in, and how little they realize it.
In America, we can’t think of a time when the current administration WASN’T joked about, laughed at, and made the staple of the latenight comedy hours’ monologued attacks. Around here, we can remember back to the Reagan Era, but not anything before that in terms of presidential jesting. We’re in uncharted territory when the MSM and comedians pointedly refuse to attack the current president on anything, the way they went after all of his predecessors. AND, if you think about it, the political cartoonists and commentators back in the 1800s were FAR WORSE to politicians than anyone in the media age has ever been. Thomas Nash and his ilk SAVAGED elected officials. It’s American tradition to hold up unflattering mirrors and shine truth at power.
So, we wonder what the ultimate ramifications will be for a White House that doesn’t receive any of the “ribbing” that Sykes aimed at Republicans.
Because no one seems allowed to make fun of “the historic first black president”, this administration is treated with kid gloves, which can’t be good for the administration let alone the country in the end. In many ways, the criticism and lampooning previous administrations received helped keep them on track, and allowed them to adjust behaviors that were striking the wrong nerve with the country. They didn’t do things they may have been tempted to do because they didn’t want to be excoriated by Leno or Letterman. And, so, in that way, these latenight comics helped the administrations improve themselves, because they didn’t want to take needless beatings wherever they could avoid them.
But, what happens to a White House that operates in a protected bubble where it knows it won’t receive criticism for anything? Add onto that an administration with a tone-deaf bully like Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff, and we think you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
It feels very Versailles.
Dr. Utopia IS the state.
We’re repeatedly told Mrs. Utopia is the most glamorous and wonderful First Lady in history.
They live in a golden whirl that must never be criticized or mocked in any way, lest you suffer great consequence for your insolence.
But, on the ground, regular people still see these people for who they really are. Regular people notice the deferential treatment this administration receives from the MSM and comedians like Sykes.
If the latenight ribbing of the President was always a safety valve that allowed the frustrated and downtrodden to laugh off some of their resentment of what was going on in Washington by making a fool of the President, what happens when that safety valve is removed, and people are repeatedly told there will be absolutely NO making fun of this presidency, no matter how much it deserves it?
Because what’s happening with the press is decidely un-American. It’s more like something you’d see in Romania in the 80s or Iraq and Yugoslavia in the 90s or North Korea today…cults of personality centered around Dear Leaders who are absolutely perfect in every way and decidedly above all criticism or reproach.
Will Americans magically change and accept this new reality, or will the frustrations normally excised by that latenight laughter just fester and build until they burst out in unexpected, unprecedented ways?
It’s all uncharted territory…but historical precedent indicates administrations that don’t allow themselves to be laughed at rarely have the last laughs in the end.
(3) Here’s a link to learn about some of ACORN’s history. Now, it’s on ACORN’s own site, so it’s obviously biased, but it’s a starting point from which to learn the actual truth about ACORN. The more we learn about these people, the more we feel like the Connor family up against SkyNet. ACORN feels like it’s got its tentacles in everything, and has more people working on its behalf in high places than any of us ever dreamed of. Scary, scary stuff.
What do you think?
Sunday Open Thread
What’s on your minds today?
Happy Mothers’ Day to all the moms out there!
Susan Boyle turned down meeting with Dr. Utopia (to wash her hair and brush her cat)
This is utterly fascinating on many levels.
For starters, please read the article linked above — but pay the most attention to the comments.
This is a British paper, and the Brits are cheering Boyle on for not going to Washington to meet Dr. Utopia. Wasn’t Britain supposed to be one of the many countries of the world who were just falling overthemselves for Dr. Utopias 2008 Summer Rainbow Tour? So, why aren’t they castigating Boyle for turning down the chance to meet utopia-personified in person?
Interesting.
The other thing that really fascinates us is something we are still trying to process, because we have a lot of personal feelings that get in the way here. WE have always considered Dr. Utopia to be a joke, and a complete empty suit full of meaningless platitudes. We thought that in 2004 when he was running for the Senate. We thought that after we moved to Chicago in 2005-2006 or so, and saw he did nothing as a Senator. We, clearly, thought it all through 2007-2008 during the primaries and the general election. We still think this now.
So, what fascinates us is the fact that it really and truly does seem like OTHER people who don’t have the same long history of thinking he’s a joke are now calling Dr. Utopia a bumbling joke.
It feels like the narrative is starting to change to that, like it did for Carter. AND, Carter was never called a light-bringing God when placed atop the media pedestal. Carter did have strong media backing, and so he did fall from the height he was rocketed by that liberal cheerleading, but Carter did not have anywhere as high to fall as Dr. Utopia does.
And, every day, there’s something stupid the White House does, reminiscent of the old parodies done in the first Bush Administration where surreal futures were set in a Quayle Presidency filled with blundering mishaps and unbelievable stupidity.
But, we know Dan Quayle. Dan Quayle largely had a bad rap. Dan Quayle would have never given the Queen an iPod or a legally blind man some stale DVDs he can’t even watch in his DVD-player.
Why didn’t Susan Boyle want to meet the current US president? Maybe she really did prefer to wash her hair and brush her cat. Or, maybe Dr. Utopia is already just a big joke and she didn’t want to make the effort to go all the way to Washington to meet someone she doesn’t respect.
We wouldn’t have gone either, to be honest., for the same reason.
Where else have we heard someone living in a palace talk like this?
“I have a chief of staff and a personal assistant, and everyone needs that. Everyone should have a chief of staff and a set of personal assistants.” the current First Lady of the United States, May 2009.
Where else have we heard someone living in obscene opulance say things like this, while regular people were jobless, hungry, and desperate on the streets?
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller…Bueller…Bueller…Anyone?
MUST READ: Presidential Sleight of Hand Keeps Reporter Befuddled
Here’s a great read for a Saturday, from a little paper in North Carolina that may just as well be The Mineral City Penny-Saver.
It’s a run-down of the first 100 Days in The Golden Age of Hope and Change, calling the media out for making big stories over Dr. Utopia and Joe Biden going out for burgers together and Mrs. Utopia manufactured as a fashion icon that’s convincing only to people living in deep caves without so much as candles.
The MSM propaganda machine is ridiculed. Dr. Utopia’s bumbling and naiveity are excoriated. And the piece reads like actual critical journalism, which we thought existed in our world these days in the same abundance as triceratopses.
Also, it’s kind of a hoot, so pass it on.
Maybe Claire McCaskill can Twitter about the domestic terrorist organization she uses in her campaigns
Claire McCaskill is currently our worst United States Senator. This is, sadly, the greatest accomplishment in her life, having bestest Harry Reid, Max Baucus, Chris Dodd, David Vitter, and at least a dozen other solid contenders for Most Terrible Senator (including a red-faced falling down drunk who watched a woman drown in his Oldsmobile cum submarine).
Way to go, Claire Bear!
She’s also a sitting Senator who employed domestic terrorist organization ACORN in her 2006 campaign, and who will, we’re sure, use these thugs for voter fraud, intimidation, and democracy-corroding efforts in 2012 as well.
Educate yourselves about what, exactly, ACORN truly is and what the likes of Claire McCaskill have used ACORN for in the past, and what they will use ACORN for in the future.
During the primaries, Hillary Clinton lost the state of Missouri by the smallest of margins because of ACORN mobilization for Dr. Utopia in the St. Louis area. Clinton won everywhere else, but ACORN delivered the cities for Dr. Utopia. People on the ground in Missouri tell us McCaskill is unpopular in the majority of the state, but that she won the cities in 2006 and that made her a Senator. ACORN worked for McCaskill in the cities. There is a pattern here.
Shutting ACORN down in Missouri should be our first step in seeing Claire McCaskill defeated in 2012. She is one of a dozen or so terrible Democrats we want booted from the Senate 3 years from now (including Reid and Dodd). Between moderate Dems who remember McCaskill’s behavior in 2008 and Republicans who clearly see what a circus clown she is in every sense of the word, we can ensure a new Senator for Missouri, but we need to sart by hitting ACORN hard in that state in particular.
What a wonderful, wonderful Tweet it would be to see McCaskill type, “I lost! ACORN failed me! My kids are bugging me to stop Twittering now that I’ve been defeated, so this is my last Tweet! McCaskill, out.”
Don't forget to buy Forever Stamps today: postage increase on Monday
If you are out today, swing by the Post Office and buy as many Forever Stamps as you can. The Post Office is raising the price of postage yet again, going up 2 cents Monday morning.
Forever Stamps are bought at the current price, and are good for mailing a first class letter no matter what postage goes up to in the future.
THE FUTURE!
Just imagine if you had a time machine, you could carry satchels of forever stamps with you into 10 years from now and give your future self all of them, in a world where postage is like $15 a letter, and your future self would look at you and say, “Obama! Oh, my ridiculous former self, in this Golden Age of Hope! Change! and Socialism! your Forever Stamps are meaningless. They have no power here. No, in our utopia under the Now and Forever Light-Bringer, we have school children draw smiling faces of “The One” in the corner of our envelopes, which we use to send all of the money that we earn to the government. But, this is all glorious, as we no longer need money, no longer need food, no longer need water or even air. We have OBAMA, and Obama means not only hello and also goodbye, Aloha-style, in this perfect living dream, but it also means…LOVE. And, obviously, POSTAGE.”
We’ve already stocked up on Forever Stamps for the ancillary reason that it won’t be long before Dr. Utopia’s propaganda-poster ready mug will probably be on “historic and commemorative” stamps before we know it (since the rules regarding natural-born citizenship don’t apply to him, and those are in the actual Constitution (what’s that?), why would mere federal regulations governing who can and cannot be printed on stamps or minted on money?).
Forever Stamps, thus = a great investment in short-term household budgeting and long-term personal sanity.
