Archive for March 24th, 2010
Feedback on the way forward: ideas for our new site
Behind the scenes, we’re putting together an action plan for us to move away from WordPress and create a new site that will be uniquely or own, with a lot more flexibility to express ourselves and turn HillBuzz into a real force of nature all our own.
What we want to be is a place for daily political analysis, humor, satire, social commentary, and anecdotes about life in Boystown, Chicago. We’ll continue to track the careers and adventures of people we like in the political world, but will try to take the next step up and push ourselves into daily activism, with Action Items tailor made to impact the political process instead of just commenting on it.
We’re conservative/moderate former Democrats who are wholly alienated from the Socialist-Democrat party. We will never be Republicans, and are more or less independent at this point, as we no longer recognize the DNC…not after all Leftists have done for the last two years.
We want to continue to build a community of moderates, independents, and conservatives who love America and want to stop the Left and its socialist takeover. We also want to show the world that the LGBTQ community is much more diverse than what The Advocate or Genre teach you. AND, likewise, we want to show Boystown that all of you out there in red states are good people to know, despite what the DNC preaches.
We have a unique little niche here. We want to grow it, to really commit to making this place something special, and to build a structure to be around for a very long time.
So, we want to know, what do you like best about us that you don’t want to see change?
What things do you wish we would do?
What would you most like to see in a new site?
Do you like the idea of us hosting our own radio show and podcasts?
Would you be interested in us pursuing some Hannah Giles/James O’Keefe investigative projects here in Chicago, with a video series on topics related to corruption?
Where do you see us evolving, and what do you think we should do to get there?
It’s been a weird journey for all of us here. This site originated as just a little clearing house for articles on the 2008 primaries, meant solely for the 300 or so people on our Team Hillary email list. Two years later, we have readers all around the world and just passed 8 million hits. It’s been a real struggle to write the 15,000 or so words a day we post here, and the 10-15 articles we run daily. There were many times when we resented the effort this all took, and wished we could have our old lives back without this responsibility. For the longest time, the trolls, the hatemail, and the attacks on us from the Left made us ask ourselves everyday why we were doing this and for what reason we were putting ourselves through this.
But, honestly, we think we’re standing up for America every day on this little corner of the Internet. We stand up for the good people we love and respect in this world. We raise a voice of reason to hector the deserving. We hope we carry a little of Ben Franklin’s spirit, in using humor and satire to ridicule the powerful, and powerfully self-absorbed.
We’ve accepted that HillBuzz has become a permanent part of our lives. We’re touched by all of you out there who tell us we’re a daily must-read for you, and that through us you’re connecting not only with moderate Democrats and Hillary guys, but that you also are changing your opinions, even slightly, on the LGBTQ community because you now “know” us. That gives us chills to think about, because it’s something we don’t think actual gay publications ever accomplish, something we never see anyone else in Boystown doing.
Maybe we fell into all of this for a reason. Perhaps there’s an unseen hand guiding us. We know we keep working hard every day because of your encouragement…and that we would not be able to do anything without you.
So, we want to hear from you.
Tell us what you like about HillBuzz and what you’d like to see us add going forward. We don’t know how long the remodeling will take, because we are not tech guys in the slightest, but we really feel it’s time to move to the next level now that we’ve accepted the simple fact that we never want to stop doing this, not as long as we think America needs guys like us to tell it like it is, even if not all of you out there agree with us every day.
We hope it’s not sappy to say this, but we’ve grown to love many of you very much. Though we may never meet, you’ve all become a part of our lives, and we can’t thank you enough for your encouragement and support. We know how blessed we are — and pursuant to that, we want to really buckle down, improve, and become even better at the things you like going forward.
So, chime in…and help us brainstorm today.
Strong talking point against Obamacare: Democrats exempted themselves from it
We think this could be DEVASTATING in campaign ads: the simple fact that Democrats chose to exempt themselves and their staffs from Obamacare.
They actually wrote that into the bill that was passed on Sunday, that Democrats in Congress and the White House and their families and staffs won’t be forced into Obamacare.
If what they put forward was so good, and if Americans are all now mandated to be part of this, then how can Democrats decide this law won’t apply to them?
How is it Constitutional for these people to not only legislate that Americans are now forced to purchase products against their will, but that an elite section of the country won’t be forced to do anything it doesn’t want to do?
Could this, too, be a Constitutional challenge this monstrosity — this ’tis for thee but not for me business?
Americans are in a bad relationship with their government — will they break up?
Last night, we were all talking here at Buzzquarters about the state of this country, and we came to realize that Americans are in a bad relationship with their government, but don’t necessarily realize it…yet.
This is similar to the bad relationship Sebastian had with his ex, David…and in all truth, with his ex mother-in-law, Louella, since she insisted on wedging herself into every facet of their lives, like a bad, true-life, cartoon caricature of an always-wrong meddler.
The mother-in-law from, if not Hell itself, then one of its dingier suburbs.
Like Richmond Heights, Ohio.
For three years, we watched Sebastian and David together and just shook our heads, because we all knew they’d break up someday, since they were both miserable all of the time, mainly because of the crazy things Louella did to sabotage their relationship.
That woman forever came up with the most ridiculous things to drive Sebastian and David apart. Walking down the street, she’d practically grab strangers and tell them, “This is my homosexual son, David. And that’s David’s homosexual partner, Sebastian. They’re homosexuals and I accept them. I am a wonderful mother. Look how accepting I am of these two homosexuals!”
No, Louella, you aren’t wonderful. Unless you are traveling in BizarroWorld where people say “goodbye” instead of “hello” and “terrible person few like” means “wonderful”. That’s a place where cats chase dogs, rain falls up, and your feet don’t stink like moldy garbage.
You also don’t really accept anyone. The fact you feel the need to use the word “homosexual” 17 times while introducing your son and his boyfriend to people always told us you have a deep-rooted problem with your gay son and must go out of your way to use cold, clinical terms to seem PC and friendly – while you spend night and day thinking of ways to break your son and his boyfriend up…the way you broke up every relationship David has had.
Increasingly, we see the Socialist-Democrat party as Louella on steroids.
Manipulative.
Single-minded.
Agenda-driven.
Chaos-fueled.
Moonbat crazy.
The relationship Americans have with their government is being fundamentally changed by these Socialist-Democrats. It’s causing tension. Pressure. Stress.
The things Socialist-Democrats are doing in office, and to the Constitution, are the equivalent of Louella coming to visit for weeks at a time, rearranging Sebastian and David’s apartment, getting rid of things of Sebastian’s she didn’t like (such as his smurf clock), all the while claiming to know what was best for everyone involved (no…smurf clocks…EVVVVVVER!).
Please.
That woman never had a handle on her own life, let alone the lives of others. She’s been married three times, cheated on every one of her husbands, and has all of three friends because she’s alienated everyone she knows (and two of those friends are dogs, who only like her because she keeps liver snaps in her pockets…though we’ve never been 100% sure those treats are for the dogs, and not something Louella herself would find a yummy reward for various medium-grade random acts of evil throughout the day).
Socialist-Democrats don’t know what’s best for any of our lives, yet they insist on Louella-ing themselves into our homes, rearranging our lives, tossing out things we think are good and replacing them with the absurdity they believe in. They give lip service to minority groups like blacks and gays, but what do Democrats really think of these people? Like Louella, they use all the politically correct terms. They say “African-American” and “Homosexual”, but we know they’re thinking “stupid n*****” and “f****** f*****”. Their actions routinely speak louder than words.
Socialist-Democrats keep blacks poor, uneducated, and dependent on the entitlement system, because that keeps them loyal Democrat voters. Prosperous blacks fully integrated into society without a grievance mindset would start voting their economic interests, which would make them look a lot more like Michael Steele, Condoleezza Rice, and Michael Williams and a lot less like Al Sharpton, Henry Gates, and Jesse Jackson (RAAAACISM! WAAAAAH! RAAAACISM IS TO BLAME FOR EVERYTHING!).
The Socialist-Democrat Party claims it supports the LGBTQ community, but it’s as sincere as Louella introducing her son and his boyfriend to randoms at the mall, insisting how proud she is of her “homosexual son and his homosexuality”. Did she mention David’s a homosexual? Because he is. Homosexual. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Really. The reason Louella keeps using clinical terms for sexual identity to describe her son, to cats and dogs and birds she happens upon, is because she has a real problem with him but knows, as the youngest of her children and the one most likely to be stuck with her some day, she needs to keep him in her corner. He’s gullible enough to think she supports him, and has been carefully taught by her to see her constant use of “homosexual this and homosexual that” to describe him as strong parental support. Well, let us tell you that Robby’s mother, Patricia, is the poster woman for PFLAG. Her son’s “homosexuality” isn’t something she addresses with mailboxes, street lamps, and statues in the park. Robby’s gay. Pattymelt’s cool with it. She’s like Debbie Novotny on steroids at Pride, rainbow-festooned like nobody’s business, but none of us have ever heard the woman use the cold, clinical, PC term “homosexual”, about Robby, any of us, or even randoms like Richard Simmons or Tom Cruise.
Socialist-Democrats are a lot like Louella in that they constantly manipulate people they need for their future purposes, using political correctness and lip service to keep them forever in their fold. It’s sad that David, as well as the black and LGBTQ communities, falls for this garbage. We doubt any of them will wake up anytime soon.
But, increasingly, many former Democrats like ourselves — moderate, conserative, and newly independent — are indeed waking up to the wake that our current government has been hijacked by leftist lunatics. We want Washington interfering in our lives and telling us what to do as much as Sebastian ever wanted Louella to occupy his apartment here in Boystown for extended periods of time, holding court and changing daily life to “Louella Rules”.
That’s when the fridge could only have things that were white or yellow in it, since Louella followed a bizarre nutritional regiment called “The Golden Diet” — eggs, American cheese, skim milk, cottage cheese, popcorn, creamed corn, tapioca pudding, Lorna Dune cookies, sour cream, cauliflower, anything white or yellow. Nothing green, red, blue, brown, orange, or colorful was allowed because Louella believed, with cultish passion, that “colored foods caused cancer”. Essentially, she was a food racist, and whenever she visited she made Sebastian and David eat only yellow and white food in her presence.
Promptly after which Sebastian headed to Nookie’s Tree for as much colorful food as possible, because he was damn sure Louella wasn’t going to dictate what he ate, when he ate it, and what he could spend his money on the way she did with David.
Louella might have controlled her son, the way Socialist-Democrats control the government right now, but she was never going to get Sebastian to submit to her madness or tolerate her more than he absolutely had to.
Ultimately, Louella succeeded in driving Sebastian and David apart, and Bast was sad for a few months because he really loved David, but quickly realized how nice it was to not have Louella as a daily part of his life anymore. Once David moved out, he didn’t hear from him again for two years, and he never once missed the nightly phone calls from Louella that put ideas in David’s head that picked fights when prior to her phoning in everything was wine and roses here in Boystown for the two of them. But, Louella brought the thorns, with gusto. When she no longer had the power to terrorize him, and was sufficiently relegated to a minor player in his world he very rarely thought about, Sebastian took a large step back and realized just how crazy she was, and how he’d never again date a guy with a Louella of his own.
This is what we think is going to happen to America sooner than later.
Americans are going to be like Sebastian and reexamine their relationship with their own David, the government. They’re going to take a look at the extreme and irrational influence the Louella of politics has on this country, and they are going to be as glad to vote Socialist-Democrats out of office as Sebastian was to see Louella marginalized and removed from his life.
Just as Sebastian won’t get into a relationship with another guy who brings a Louella with him, we can’t imagine Americans choosing to embrace future governments that are Socialist-Democrat controlled.
It took having the mother-in-law from Hell for three years for Sebastian to realize just how bad a partner’s parents could be. Before Louella, all of us, in fact, thought people like this existed only in cartoons — and not Richmond Heights, Ohio.
But, once a lesson like Louella is learned, it won’t soon be forgotten.
Though things might seem tough now — like being forced to eat off the “Golden Diet” menu and seeing your apartment ransacked and rearranged by a loon — trust us when we say this madness won’t last long.
Americans might have to put up with it for three more years.
Ironically enough, that was the length of Sebastian and David’s relationship.
But, it will be over eventually.
And when it is, believe us when we say America will never again allow a Louella to take control of our government…not for several generations.
Mystery of the Day: What is Kevin Smith's "political horror film" Red State about?
Kevin Smith is best known for being denied passage on Southwest Airlines because they said he was too fat. We swear that's not a joke.
Here’s a project we’ve been tracking for a while, because the concept of a “political horror” film really intrigues us: Kevin Smith has been given the green light to shoot “Red State”, which is billed as “political horror” based on the Reverend Fred Phelps.
“Political Horror” is a new genre…unless you see “The Omen” as a political movie as much as a horror one, the way we do. The last scene of “The Omen” has the anti-christ holding hands with the President and First Lady, about to be adopted into the White House, setting course in the eternal sea of politics.
We’re not fans of Kevin Smith by any means. There are moments in Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back that are inspired and funny, but we enjoy watching his movies the way we enjoy most Broadway musicals — as little clips shown here and there at Sidetracks on Showtunes or comedy nights. Smith should direct short skits and digital shorts, not movies.
As for Fred Phelps, most people conveniently forget he’s a Democrat.
We’ve seen the man in person, screaming at gay guys to get AIDS and telling people he doesn’t even know how much he hates them. Honestly, there aren’t even words to tell you how despicable watching that was. “Stomach-turning” doesn’t come close; “repulsive” doesn’t do it justice. It is the LEFT, not the RIGHT, that wishes AIDS on gay people it doesn’t like. We can testify to that from personal experience. The worst, to this day, that any Republican in any red state has ever done to us is say, “Boys, you ain’t right, and I’m gonna pray for y’all”.
But, that would be a pretty boring horror movie…nice people who think we’re broken and keep praying God will fix us, whether we want to be “fixed” or not. We think it’s naive of them to do this — but very sweet — and know those prayers aren’t coming from a place of hate, no matter how much they can’t understand our affections for Jake Gyllenhaal.
Fred Phelps has always reminded us of the crazy preacher in Poltergeist II or some kind of a scarecrow monster from a bad B-movie.
He is chilling to watch in person.
We wonder exactly what Smith’s movie will be about…and how it’s “political horror”.
Chances are, it will have a bunch of Liberals traveling through the South, stumbling upon Phelps’ hate cult, and falling victim to all manner of horrors.
It’s a shame Republicans don’t make movies, too, because the current administration sure feels like a needless remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where America seems to have gone insane, with Leftists replacing everyone in government who once upon a time acted with common sense.
Have you heard anything about the movie “Red State”?
If you were making a “political horror movie”, what would be in it?
Question: How on Earth do Leftists think they can jam Cap & Tax through next?
We’d love to hear from you on what you think Leftists will do with Cap & Tax next — that absurd push to tank Western economies, like our own, based on the rantings of the discredited Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Do you think Leftists will really mount this effort?
If they do, what about the Climategate scandal and everything else the UK press has revealed about the deliberate, duplicitous, criminal fraud committed by true believers in Al Gore’s apocalyptic cult? The American MSM has completely ignored every story that reveals the extent of the fraud committed in the name of AGW.
But, will that MSM news blackout be able to hold if Leftists really do push for Cap & Tax legislation?
Can you think of a plausible way for them to do this in the eight months between now and when Democrats lose the House and maybe the Senate too in November?
If not Cap & Tax, what other madness do you think Leftists will focus on instead of job creation and the things this nation actually needs?
Terror for small franchises: Sunday's actions by Leftists will cost $75,000+ a year in many cases
Here’s a comment we received on another thread about Obamacare’s crippling burden on small businesses. This example involves McDonald’s, which is made up primarily of mom and pop owned franchises. People think “McDonald’s” and picture the megacorporation, not realizing “McDonald’s” is, in fact, just a massive collection of franchises owner-operated across this country. Those franchisees are constantly put over the barrel by corporate over something…forced remodelings, forced marketing materials, forced upgrades.
Now, the federal government is going to cost these franchisees a fortune too, according to what one reader sent in:
In our daily email at work today from the trust department (I work at a bank), the advisor remarked that apparently on McDonalds recent earnings call, they had stated that it will now cost an additional $75,000+ to run a franchise. Massive company, but “70 percent of McDonald’s restaurants around the world are owned and operated by independent local businesspeople” (from their website).
Imagine how many layoffs and/or cut hours are going to result from that
If McDonald’s franchisees, which we assume will suffer a lower cost because of their connection to the megacorporation, are faced with $75,000 bills because of what happened on Sunday in Washington, how much will the average small business owner be saddled with in new taxes, fees, and penalties for Obamacare?
Who are the 20 Leftists Sarah Palin is targeting and how can we help her?
American Artemis, practicing what she's going to do to Leftists this fall
Who are the 20 Leftists Sarah Palin’s put a bounty on come November?
Let’s put them on our lists of Leftists we need to identify all major Donors for, and help the Governor take them down by drying up their fundraising efforts.
Add Louise Slaughter, Bart Stupak, and Nancy Pelosi to whomever Palin’s taking down.
