Worry About Kerry

From David Podvin over at Make Them Accountable:

“Stop crying in your teacups. It isn’t going to change. Get over it.”That was the response of John Kerry to a liberal who condemned the theft of the presidency by George W. Bush. If the sentiment sounds familiar, that’s because it isn’t original. Kerry borrowed his words from America’s vapid conservative posse for whom chanting the phrase “Get over it” constitutes a dazzling display of wit.

Plagiarizing witticisms from Ann Coulter is not an endearing trait for a potential Democratic presidential nominee. It is one thing for liberals who are still incensed about the stolen election to be treated contemptuously by right wing banshees – it is an entirely different matter to incur such disdain from a man who seeks to be our champion.

But it is not unusual for Kerry to parrot the Republicans or be dismissive of liberal concerns. When members of the Congressional Black Caucus approached the senator for his support in challenging the Jim Crow tactics that subverted the 2000 presidential election, he told them to go away.

Kerry supported the Iraq War Resolution, either because he really believed Bush’s transparent lies (in which case he is not very bright) or because it was the politically shrewd thing to do (in which case he is not very honorable). Whatever the reason, there was no profile in courage from this Massachusetts senator.

When Bush and John Ashcroft used the terrorist attack on America as an excuse to confiscate civil liberties with the USA Patriot Act, it was Russ Feingold – not John Kerry – who rose with a stirring defense of American liberty. Kerry sided with the Republicans.

Kerry has consistently collaborated in stocking the federal courts with people who exalt the corporate agenda and reject the Theory of Evolution. He has voted to confirm the vast majority of Bush’s reactionary judicial appointees, and has thus doomed America to suffer many more miscarriages of justice like Bush v Gore.

The senator voted for the misnamed No Child Left Behind Act, legislation that drained money away from teaching school children by mandating unproductive testing. The result has been a decline in the quality of education and an increase in the profits of the Washington Post Company’s Kaplan test-publishing subsidiary.

Siding with Bush on the theft of the election, supporting an illegal war, gutting the Bill of Rights, voting to confirm extremist judges, and misusing education money to buy favorable news coverage for Bush comprise a track record that is unlikely to inoculate nominee Kerry from a crippling third party challenge. His record of accommodating the Republicans will prevent him from easily moving to the middle – where elections are won – because a significant number of liberals will hesitate to throw their support behind a candidate who has so frequently abandoned them.

Go read the rest, especially if you’re thinking about voting for him. He’s beginning to look like a dream candidate–for the Pubs.

(Thanx to Phaedrus at No Fear of Freedom.)

Worry About Kerry: Wall Street Stooge?

The newest FITE newsletter outlines yet another reason to worry about Kerry.

FITE (Fairness In Taxes for Everyone): email newsletter #14

We shine the spotlight on one of Senator Kerry’s promises to protect us against criminals that embezzle the retirement funds of our current and future senior citizens. First, some background.

Congress has actually HELPED Wall Street criminals to embezzle billions each year from the mutual funds where half of all Americans save for retirement and hard times. WE DO NOT EXAGGERATE. We rely on numerous Wall Street Journal articles for our information.

We wrote back in November that the embezzlers weren’t just “skimming” mutual funds as the media had been reporting. It’s more accurate to say they were PLUNDERING these funds where working Americans put their hard earned retirement savings.

Only now are newspapers starting to report the staggering amounts embezzled. With investigations hardly beginning, the estimate so far is $5 billion every year. We won’t be surprised to see bigger estimates down the line as they investigate more firms.

Our own Senator Kerry is TALKING tough on this issue. He proposes to use the so-called RICO statutes against them. These are laws designed to go after organized crime.

We regret to say it’s all show. This and other measures he proposes can’t be effective, and he no doubt knows it. Here’s why:

We need stock market police to catch stock market criminals. The best way to HELP these criminals is to never provide the money to hire enough police. And that’s what Congress has done. Back in 1993, the outgoing head of the agency in charge of these police, the SEC, pleaded for more funding to catch the criminals plundering mutual funds. If Congress had done the right thing, we would not today have a mutual fund scandal. But he was flatly refused. Kerry was there; he knew. Yet there is not one word on his web page about increasing funding for stock market police.

Why? The ultra rich, of course. As one insider said of the mutual fund lobbyists, “You’re talking about people that were pretty wealthy. They had influence. Influence on the Hill, and influence with the staff.” The ultra rich went on to embezzle the retirement funds of seniors and future seniors.

Without the strength of a mass movement behind him, Kerry dares not propose more enforcement. We need to build FITE so he and others can move against the ultra rich embezzlers.

Do you want to know more about the embezzlement of the stock market in the 1990s that our politicians did their best to HELP? Trillions were stolen – enough to fund social security, get universal health care coverage, invest in a program to get energy independence in 10 years and more.

We don’t shock easily. Politicians are politicians. But the size and boldness of this embezzlement shocks us. Our information comes from the Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine, Business Week, and books and articles from respected experts. http://www.FairnessInTaxes.org, “How the Mega rich Embezzled America.”

Republican Dirty Tricks in Iowa?

Richard Sherman at Sherman’s Blog (link on sidebar) posted some disturbing anecdotal evidence that the Republican Party may have urged some of the faithful to turn out in Iowa pretending to be Democrats:

Rumors, scuttlebutt and evidence exists that makes clear that the Republicans are actively trying to sabotage/corrupt this election. In that spirit, note the following, posted on Danny Schechter’s site (www.mediachannel.org)THE CHARGE: REPUBLICANS INFILTRATE IOWA CAUCUSES

From a Dean group. My friend Dawn in Iowa told me the same thing – that they were stunned by the number of Republicans changing their registration at the door. It appears that possibly only 55% of the Iowa caucus voters were Democrats trying to cast a legitimate vote. We can expect this cross-over voting in any caucus where it’s allowed. My impression is that it’s allowed in a great number of the states. So whoever chooses our Democratic nominee, it won’t really be Democrats. We have the same thing here as I’ve discovered when calling Democrats on election day, only to have some of them nastily and gloatingly tell me they’re Republicans and have already voted – for Bush. Margie.

Another voice:

GOP crossover 45% in Iowa caucus*

I don’t watch TV. My friend Cathy in Kansas is a huge CSPAN fan and reported the following this morning (comments edited). She called CSPAN complaining about all the Iowa shenanigans.

DEMOCRATS FOR A NIGHT

I called into CSPAN this morning at 6:30 AM and told them my view of the Republicans and Independents who got to cross-over and cause that surge that pushed Kerry over the top. I also agreed with another caller who was Republican, who said the media was running Dean as a big top dog and then when he did not win the number one spot he crashed a lot harder. The other caller also said the media did negative reporting towards Dean. I said that the history of the Iowa caucuses only sent two on to the presidency. The Iowans that were calling into the program Susan hosted were reporting the huge number of new voters…cross-overs who were Democrats for the night. They said they had never seen so many like last night! They ran out of the sign-up sheets. The workers at the caucuses were having to turn them over and use both sides of the sign-up sheets and then started using plain paper to sign up new voters. Susan on CSPAN quoted 45% new voter registration. That is big. They picked Iowa’s guy by crashing the caucuses and voting for Kerry and Edwards. This is why the media had to tear down Dean and fix the bad Zogby poll then pack the caucuses to give Kerry & Edwards the votes. Republicans again picking our candidate.

If this is even partly true, then the Rove Dirty Tricks Machine is already humming. Sherman then notes the revelation that for a year GOP committee staffers had access to Democratic communications, especially planning memos, and showed no compunction about stealing them and making them public; he is apparently suggesting that the two things are not unrelated. I agree with him. I think they’re different aspects of the same strategy: Win–no matter what you have to do.

The problem, of course, is that many of the primary states–including NH and SC–have very loose rules around registering to vote in a primary; in some states you can change your registration at the door to vote in one primary, then change it back to vote in the other. If Rove and the RNC have been planning to orchestrate an infiltration by the GOP faithful of the Democratic primaries nationwide, then we are talking about massive and deliberate falsification of Democratic primary results with the goal of trying to push the Dems into nominating the weakest possible candidate to oppose Bush.

Of the 4 legitimate candidates, the weakest–imo–is Kerry, not Dean. Dean is a centrist with a history of being able to appeal to the party base for primaries and then successfully make a shift to the center for the general. He’s proved he can generate excitement, press coverage, money, and legions of avid volunteers. Kerry, on the other hand, is a standard Democrat tied to the party machinery. He tends to be a yawn on tv, not much better in person, and he’s pushing pretty much the same old issues-oriented platform that lost the Dems the Congress–the Pubs already know they can beat him where Dean is an unpredictable outsider. In addition, Kerry has major negatives that make him an easy target, and a history of caving in when the chips are down. For purely political reasons–he was reading which way the wind was blowing–he voted against affirmative action and the tenure system (the only protection teachers have from being fired for taking politically unpopular stands), and for welfare reform and the Second Gulf War, in each case abandoning his previously stated positions in order to feed his ambitions.

All of this means that Kerry is far more likely than any other legitimate candidate to repeat the mistakes Al Gore made in the last election and the Dems as a whole have been making for a decade. The Pubs don’t want to run against a Lieberman who who can credibly mimic their agenda or against a wild-card like Dean who has a real chance to catch fire late enough in the game to capture the swing voters. And they sure as hell don’t want to run against an Edwards if they can help it–his populist “two Americas” theme (which has proved so effective on the campaign trail that Kerry stole it for himself) is tailor-made to exploit every weakness Bush has in the polls: his excessive kowtowing to corporations, his mania for tax cuts that favor the rich, his championing of a jobless “recovery”, and his perceived disconnection from the reality ordinary folk have to deal with.

So are the Publicans planning to distort the Democratic primaries to favor the man they figure is their lamest opponent? Polls say that some 45% of people who took part in the Iowa caucusses were “new” voters. How much of that was due to Dean’s all-out effort to get the uninvolved back into the process? Not that many, apparently, since he came in third at a bare 18%. Which raises the question, who were the rest of these people? Could some–or a lot–of them have been Republicans crossing over for the night to injure or cripple a dangerous front-runner? And can we expect to hear more of this as the primary season wears on?

Questions that deserve some serious thought.

Note: I want to stress that these are unverified posts, not news reports, and as such we need to be careful about giving them too much weight. But given the horrendous job the press has done covering any story not stamped with the Bush Admin’s imprimatur, they may be the only evidence we’ll have to go on if it is in fact happening, which means we’d better be equally careful about dismissing them too easily. From my pov, these stories have a ring of potential truth because they are precisely the sort of tactic we have come to expect from Rove&Co.

The Real SOTU: Translating from the Bush

Kryton posted this at the Political Forum on Christopher Lydon’s BBS (link on sidebar) under the topic “State of the Union.” I thought it was a fairly amusing–and accurate–translation.

The real text of the state of the union:

THE 2004 STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS: COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT OF PRESIDENT BUSH’S SPEECH TO CONGRESS AND THE NATION
The United States Capitol
Washington, D.C.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, fellow Republican CEOs, terrorist-coddling liberals, telegenic colored toddlers, and uniform-wearing military props:

America this evening is a nation whipped into a state of perpetual paranoia over terrorism. And I, your Supreme and Omnipotent Leader, am rising to sustain that. (Applause.)

In short… BE AFRAID. Be very afraid. Be constantly and persistently afraid. Be totally consumed by fear. Be absolutely, *censored*-in-your-Dockers terrified. To do otherwise is to voluntarily lay your blue-eyed babies at the Muslamian altar of sacrificial murder. Of course, don’t be so a’scared that you feel like you can’t let your kids play hopscotch on the sidewalk or go about your daily business as if you were living in the 90’s. I’ve got your back. In fact, I’m the only one who knows how to protect this country from the hole dwellers who tried to kill my daddy.

As we gather tonight, America’s military is stretched paper-thin across the face of the Earth. The servicemen and women for whom I feign respect are committing suicide and resigning their commissions in droves. Yet by scattering them around like so much disposal bio-confetti, we keep our domestic news media fixated on war, and in so doing continue to pound the enormous bongo drums of fear which buoy my approval ratings so gloriously. (Applause.)

Indeed, hundreds of military grunts are losing their lives so that you and I can secure the SUV juice we need to keep our country running. Who controls the spice… er, “oil,” controls the UNIVERSE! And we thank the Hailiburton Corporation for their tax-deductible, pre-war donation of over 100,000 beautifully ornate military tombstones. (Applause.)

After all, our veterans deserve no less. (Applause.)

Tonight, members of this Republican Congress can take pride in having joined me in donning a fabulous star-spangled toga, invoking terror ad nauseum, and successfully imploding six miserable and horrifying decades of misguided legislation designed by evildoers (yes, American evildoers!) to interfere with God’s divine plan for our nation’s socio-economically inferior. Way to go, boys. (Applause.)

I want to thank the Democrats, in particular, for having purged their skeletons of the unruly vertebrae which might have otherwise prevented me from experiencing the groin-moistening satisfaction of effortless domination. I know that after this speech, Tom Daschle and Nancy Pelosi will stutter through their prepared remarks with all the persuasiveness and gravitas of a Richard Simmons tutorial on eating *censored*. And for that, I am doubly thankful. (Applause.)

Moving forward, our nation faces a choice. We can act like a sissy little school girl, and waste a bunch of time thinking and talking about boring, non-terror-related stuff – or we can be a massively studly dude, and stay totally focused on bringing the world’s most powerful arsenal to bear upon a few hundred hole-dwelling, lice-bearded boogey men. Now some say I’m thick as a brick, but I’m not blind to the irony there. Whoever would have guessed that Americans could believe that the only way to be “tough” is to twist your panties in a frantic perma-knot over some boxcutter-wielding religious loonies all named Mohammed? Not me, for one. But hey, whatever works! (Applause.)

(President holds fingers up and begins counting) Er… twenty-eight months have passed since September 11th, 2001. That’s gotta be over at least 100 days. Now given that I mention 9/11? every five minutes of the 10 hours each day that I’m not sleeping, napping, or funneling Buckler – that means I’ve only had the opportunity to bring up September 11th about a half a gazillion times since it happened. If you count this now, we’re looking at a half a gazillion and one! My goal of course, is to mention 9/11? at least a multi-gazillion billion million times before leaving office. To do that, I will need at least five more years. (Applause.)

Inside the United States, where 9/11? happened, we must continue to exploit this tragedy to eliminate the so-called “civil liberties” that continue to lend false legitimacy to the Marxist-infested ACLU. A key tool in that mission is the Patriot Act, which allows federal law enforcement to lock up suspicious-looking brownies (and I ain’t talkin’ about the kind grandma bakes on your birthday!), keep tabs on Al Gore, and generate comprehensive activity logs of Michael Moore’s animal porn downloads. Damned beastialitator! For years, we have used similar provisions to entrap colored teens trafficking in dime bags and reeducate them to help turn their communities into gang-controlled, economically profitable war zones (CIA code name: Ghetto Projects). If these methods are good for incarcerating impoverished, nappy-headed juveniles, they are even more important for dealing with political troublemakers!

Key provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire next year. (Applause.)

Shut up! Think you’re really clever clapping there, don’t you? Yeah, well go ahead and have your little fun, you wily Democrat fruits. I mean, just so long as you keep rimming me every time there’s an actual vote on the floor, I don’t mind. Really!

Anyway, Rev. Ashcroft says he needs the Patriot Act. And to me, that’s as good as Jesus Christ Himself shouting it down from His condo in the clouds. So do as I say and renew it – unless of course you’re eager to spend the rest of your Congressional recesses kicking it Taliban-style at Camp X-Ray.

As we move forward into this selection year, it is essential for me that the American economy appear robust. Fortunately, as my friends at Enron taught us all, accounting is a many splendored thing. No matter how gloomy the big picture is, there’s always some handy, yet ultimately meaningless figure you can point at to make it seem like everything’s humming along real hunky-dorey. You know, like the “economic optimism index” or “composite leading thingydoodle.” So long as you keep rolling those figures out before election day, those corn belt crackers will eat it up and think I actually care. It’s only later, when your deficit is so big that the whole shi-bang collapses, that folks wise up to what’s been going on. Of course, by then, us guys at the top have already cashed out – big time. (Applause.)

Americans are proving once again to be the hardest working people in the world. Well, those of them with jobs, anyway. That’s because my bestest college pals who make up the fabulously-compensated executive management class of our nation’s corporations are squeezing every last drop of productivity juice out of those, sorry working-class factory monkeys. Really cracking the whip, as it were. Who says slavery is dead, anyhoo? (Knowing Laughter.)

Of course, as the year progresses, my traitorous Democratic opponents will no doubt point to the fact that at this point, it is inevitable that I will have the worst record on job creation since the fiscally infamous President Herbert Hoover. Well today, I am pleased to say that the unemployment rate is now dropping! Sure, that’s only because millions have either given up looking for work or their unemployment benefits have run out, but once again, all that underlying stuff is just complicated explanations and substance. In short, accounting to the rescue once again!

Hey – somebody tell the cameraman to quit cutting to Ted Kennedy! If I look up in the monitor one more time and see that fat *censored*’s bloated kisser shaking his head like what I’m saying is wrong, I WILL come down off this stage and dish out some serious whoop-ass on that hooker-drowning pinko.

Oops – it’s been five minutes. Back to 9/11?. You know, as horrible as 9/11? was – except for the great political side effects – Americans should at all times be letting their imaginations run wild, dreaming up scenarios of terrorism perpetrated against America that are so horrifying, they make 9/11? look like a ding in the fender of your F-250. Because if we don’t stay utterly fixated on TERROR, it becomes unpatriotically tempting to examine my domestic record. Fortunately, thus far the people of the United States are determined: We refuse to live in the shadow of thoughtful calm. (Applause.)

One year ago, I appeared in this chamber to deliver another terror soliloquy. At that time, unbeknownst to any of you in the lowly Legislative Branch, I had already decided to strike unilaterally in order to exact long-overdue personal vengeance against Saddam Hussein. I spoke breathlessly of “alluminum tubes” and “yellow cake uranium” from the mysterious and nefarious country of Niger. And though the ensuing months would see those claims exposed as laughable forgeries, I would hold my ground during the Nigergate storm. Because even without that stuff I misled you all about, my crackerjack operatives had gathered plenty of other evidence and intelligence we could use to flip the bird to global opinion.

And so, ten months ago, I unleashed the dogs of war. Today, Iraq is the picture of perfectly pre-planned chaos. The Iraqazoid people are slowly but surely coming to appreciate how wonderful life is under America’s glorious Superpower Thumb. They are submissively grateful for the love we have shown them, and have are adjusting fabulously to all the new FREEDOM® we’re bestowing on them at the end of a howitzer barrel. (Applause.)

Having broken the secular Baathist regime, which mistrusted the religious zealots who comprise most terror organizations, we now face an Iraq fully infested with countless thousands of foreign terrorists flowing through its now-porous borders. Yet despite the increasingly frequent explosions and deaths of our soldiers, we can still claim progress. After all, it only took nine months to smoke Saddam out of his hole. (Applause.)

Lately though, some whiners have been rudely dwelling on the fact that I sold America on an illegal war by promising to unearth weapons of mass destruction, which I have since failed to do. To them I say, “Who cares! Saddam’s out of power, and that’s a good thing!” I mean, I just don’t get those folks. For instance, if I write a check for a new lawn mower, and the dealer brings me an ice cream truck instead, am I going to complain about it? Hell no! I like ice cream! Well it’s the same thing with Iraq. Sure, the transaction may have technically been fraudulent, but ice cream is yummy! You’d think liberals could get that through their thick skulls. I mean, sheesh!

And on that ostensibly happy note, let’s move on from the often unpleasant and politically volatile subject of Iraqistan. Let us talk instead of pleasant, joyous, and uncontentious things – like marriage.

As we all know, marriage is a very special and precious institution. The citizens of our country love getting married. In fact, millions of Americans love and respect it so much, they do it again and again and again! As a believer in competition in the free marketplace, Republicans like me believe that all this marrying strengthens the institution. If you enter into one marriage, and it’s not to your liking, you do what any good capitalist does; dump it and move on to something newer, better, and with less saggy *censored*. Or, at the very least, you make like my baby brother Neil and go cut yourself some tasty slices of fine Asiatic poon-tang on the side. (Applause.)

Unfortunately, the past year has seen practitioners of the homosexual choice expressing their interest in daring to defy our stereotypes of them as insatiable orgiastic pederasts, and settle down into stable monogamous relationships. Activist judges in Howard Dean’s Vermont and John Kerry’s Faggachusetts have moved aggressively to give queers special rights. Namely, the right to pretend they deserve to be equal to folks like you and me. That, my fellow Americans, we cannot abide. And should it be prove necessary, we will pursue a Constitutional Amendment supporting Biblical principles regarding marriage. Because in the end, marriage is about love, and when you hate someone as much as normal people hate homos, there’s nothing quite so sadistically delicious than depriving them of the right to love. Well, except depriving them of the right to not be brutally gay-bashed. (Applause, Knowing Laughter.)

Of course, before one is married, one is often young. And when you’re young, every last cell in your body is usually screaming bloody murder for hot teen S-E-X. I’m told it’s due to “hormones” or some such liberal science mumbo-jumbo. Well I say nuts to that! That’s why, when it comes to teaching our country’s nubile puberteens about human reproduction, my administration’s policy consists of but one recommendation: “Keep It In Your Pants!” Indeed, let it be known that abstinence is the only acceptible option for Bush Youth. Well, unless you’re my brother Jebber’s boy Jebby, who was arrested porking his sweet sixteen hottie in a mega-mall parking lot. Or Jebber’s other boy George P., who had no choice but to start stalking his teen girlie as soon as she had the nerve to stop putting out.

But back to terror for a minute. You know, there are so many things of which we can be terrified. From S.A.R.S. to “Mad Cow” to our inevitable destruction by Islamian-engineered nuke pox, there are countless reasons for us to cower in eterna-terror. Franklin Roosevelt once said that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” I don’t how that cripple got re-elected so many times with a back-asswards strategy like that, but I’m sure as hell not making the same gamble. I once made the mistake of suggesting it in a meeting, and Karl Rove slapped me across the face so hard, it dislodged a whole fiscal quarter’s worth of pretzel plaque off my choppers!

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And just like the War on Terror, the War on Drugs is far from over. Though not on the front burner of my administration, we still keep it simmering in the unlikely event that the world’s mad-dog terrorist Muslims cry Uncle, accept Christ and start attending tractor pulls tomorrow. In that event, we would need to immediately fall back on another “war” to terrify and distract you while me and my pals use your money to throw the biggest, raging-est, corporaternity kegger ever, then spend all night gang-banging the Constitution like an asking-for-it Tailhook slut.

The Republican Party knows what we’re doing when it comes to making sure that pacifying drugs stay in the ghetto, where they’ll continue their Darwinian job of whittling down the country’s mush-mouthed Spigras, and ensuring that only the finest blow gets in the hands of the blue-blooded elite – because hey, the rules don’t always apply to those who own the ink they’re written with. (Applause.)

Over twenty-five years ago, this nation was going bat*censored*, ushering in a new era of the kind of loathsome freedom that, unlike today’s variety, makes it difficult to oppress the Matrix-like human batteries I’m forced to call my fellow Americans. During this era of libertarian excess – where people could actually make personal decisions without fear of societal thumbscrews or divine thunderbolts – one of the greatest crimes ever was perpetuated. That crime’s name is “Roe v. Wade.” And I swear to you that we will overturn that Supreme Court decision. (Applause.)

The simple fact of the matter is that ladyfolk just can’t be allowed to make decisions about their own bodies. You let broads decide they have a say over what they can and cannot do about their holy holes, and the next thing you know, they’re demanding an accountable electoral system that reflects the will of the voters.

A woman’s womb is the rightful property of the God, and his mortal seraphim, the Federal Government. And very soon, I will require the USDA to properly stamp a woman’s uterus and make it illegal to do anything but squirt out future Marines. Remember that women are emotional creatures, and oftentimes need guidance in life, guidance that can only be supplied by us guys. Sometimes a woman says “No,” but she means “Yes.” Therefore, sometimes a woman says “My daddy raped me and I don’t wish to give birth to a child with no brain stem,” but what she really means is, “I want to make babies! Dozens of babies who will grow up to be slack-jawed cubicle monkeys!”

Abortion is a moral issue, but moreso, overturning Roe v. Wade is about filling in the levy that once separated the government from your body. And fifty years from now, when only the wealthiest can LearJet® it over to some third world country and shop for life-extending, genetically grown pig organs, you’ll be thankful that the American government was there to make sure no trailer trash or booty shakers were allowed to replace their Winston-ravaged lungs for new ones, thus dramatically limiting the amount of time their lesser persons pollute our world with their presence.

Wait a minute! I’m sorry… I’m getting a transmission from Upstairs, here – it’s Jesus. He says “Hi.” Pardon me – this is unexpected – he wishes to speak through me directly. Don’t be afraid as my eyes roll back in my head… I’M HERE JESUS, TAKE ME!

“It is I, the Son of Man. Behold me, faithful! Fear me, Jews, atheists, and Barbara Boxer! Do you doubt me? Watch as I perform the miracle of turning one Twix bar… INTO TWO! As George W. Bush’s #1 Constituent, I am using him as a conduit through which to talk at you. Obey me. Obey the President, as we are one and the same. Like the trinity, only more like a twoity. It’s through this king of kings that I bid you to do unto others before they do unto you, and to love thine enemy with full-metal-jacketed understanding. Unfortunately, I must leave your realm now, for I have floods, famine, and plagues to oversee. But never forget that I am watching you always, and if you deviate even one iota from the Grand Old Party’s grand old plan, remember that Satan keeps Goliath around in Hell – specifically to split your sinning asses in twain with his white hot, Goliath-sized prick! And in my name I say – A-men”.
Whoa! That’s always a trip. I’m back. Later J.C.! Thanks for the stigmata!

Funny old Hay-Seuss should show up, because I’d like to take this time to talk about the faith-based initiatives that I love to spin as benevolent community service, when in actuality it’s just my way of bleeding social programs of tax money and filling the coffers of the private God industries and the fire and brimstone profiteers, who, over two thousand years ago, would have been tossed out of the temple by Jesus.

It’s a good thing it’s so hard to see your own hypocrisy, huh? (Applause.)

Instead of a society that welcomes the hungry and destitute with a bowl of soup, counseling, and money to get back on their feet, we will be a society that forces them to swear allegiance to our holy mind control club before getting a steaming mug of beef spinal cord broth. And what if they don’t fall on their knees and let the Lord help them oppress themselves? Well, starve in the cold, *censored*nut. No disaster-saving Ark for you.

As a devout neoconservative intellectual, I am signaling an end to big government, and ushering in a new epoch of Jehovah-sized government. Your tax dollars will not be wasted trying to give the downtrodden an edge in a vastly unfair society. Your tax dollars will be used to fatten the purses of sanctimonious men that would make Caesar himself blush. And here’s the catch – faith-based initiatives will be accountable only to the sacred bean-counters in the bowels of Christ-branded corporations.

Hey, it’s Osama Bin Laden! Boo! See? We can never let our guard down. We can never be safe. We can only be alive and obedient or else be turned into worm food. But it’s not all hopeless – we are making progress in the War on Terror… a war that has to be fought on every front, including your local mall, front lawn, and bedroom.

Why, the current casualties in Iraq have topped 500 – more than in the first four years of Vietnam. If that’s not progress, I don’t know what is. And if we keep it up, we can top the close to 60 thousand casualties of that war I bravely fought while chasing debutante humpboxes in Texas in less than the ten years it actually took. But get this: we charbroiled over three million gooks during the ‘Nam. And we hope to double that amount in Iraq over the next few years.

We will not stop our siege of the world, we will not waver, we will continue with a policy of preemptive war and dare our fellow Earthlings, who by our grace we allow to wallow in polluted urban penitentiaries and feast on the rotten fruits of our savage excess, to *censored* with us. We dare you. Bring it! Cuz it’s brung, dawg. Bounce!

Preemptive war works, because it’s linear, and simple and I understand it. But remember, that preemptive war worked for the Nazis and the Soviets. Why, without such a policy, Poland and Czechoslovakia might have flown planes into their normally annoying liberal breadbaskets.

Hey, how bout that 9/11?? That was some severely scary stuff, huh? You know what’s weird though? You can grab any random person off the streets of New York City, and there’s a pretty good chance they actually saw that attack go down – and yet, there’s not a one of them who are as frightened of terrorism as America’s brave and rugged heartland. Why is that? I’d have asked Hillary Clinton, but she’s about as real a New Yorker as I am a Lone Star State cowboy. Anyway, who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?

For all Americans, the last three years have brought tests we did not ask for like the “Are there no less than five flags on your SUV, potential patriot?”, Federal tyranny unparalleled in history, and Christmas bonuses shared by the privileged few. By our actions, we have shown what kind of nation we are – a nation of morbidly obese philistines too drunk on power to realize that our time as an Empire is short, because we give the world nothing, but take everything.

In grief, we found the grace to go on – and I exploited that peerless moment of national character in order to create a society that would make George Orwell *censored* little iron Yorkshire puddings. In challenge, we rediscovered the courage and daring and susceptibility to gilded lies of a free people afraid for their lives and unsure of the future. In victory, we have shown the bloodlust and monolithic loyalty to a fascistic leader whose sedating promises obscure a plan to twist the world’s nutsack for the next thousand years. What does it profit a country if they gain the world, but lose their souls? Well, try a 50,000 Dow and quarterly growth that will get to Mars before we do!

I’ve been witness to the character of the people of America, who have shown impressive malleability in times of danger, utter intolerance for those unwilling to surrender to paranoia, and serious toughness when it comes to talking loud and saying nothing. All of us have been partners in a great, collective, almost witch-like hysteria. And even the youngest are not immune to the riptides of irrational panic sweeping our national consciousness. Last month a girl in Lincoln, Rhode Island, sent me a letter. It began, “Dear Infallible and God-Ordained Prince George W. Bush. If there’s anything you know, I, Ashley Paulson, age 10, can do to help you win re-selection, please send me a letter and tell me what I can do to make our country a quasi-fascist wonderland.” She added this P.S.: “If you can send a letter to the troops, please put, ‘Ashley Paulson believes it when FOX News says you should be dying for oil.” (Applause.)

Isn’t it great to know we still live in a country where you can scare a kid *censored*less and she’ll do whatever you tell her to, because she really believes there is good and evil in the world – as opposed to just saying there is to score some cheap, condescenting political points? That kind of sweet, naïve, endearing sentiment is just the sort of sound-byte Karl prays for.

Well tonight, Ashley, your message to our troops has just been conveyed. So smile, you’ve just been manipulated and dehumanized! And, yes, you have some duties yourself. Pray hard and loud in your public school, listen to your mom and dad – and if they say anything suspicious, report them, and when you and your friends see a man in uniform, first say, “Sweet package!” And then turn serious and say, “thank you, future benefitless veteran! I hope you don’t wake up with the sweats in twenty years because you murdered all those brown-skinned babies and watched their blood drain into the sand – right along with your youth and innocence!” And, Ashley, while you do your part, all of us here in this great chamber will be doing our best to extricate ourselves from the sticky, crotch-deep vortex of saccharine verbal diarrhea I’ve just now spewed from my teleprompting pie hole. (Applause.)

My fellow citizens, we now move forward, with confidence and faith in the one and only true lord Jesus Christ and the eucharistic greenback. Our nation is armed to the teeth and overflowing with self-righteous indignation. The cause we serve is Me, because I am the Way and the Light. My momentum, along with that of my party, is unmistakable – and it is not carried forward by our inherent superiority alone. It is carried forward by God, who year after year, may allow other countries to sit on the sidelines in the Game of Life, but always and without fail personally slips a gemstone-encrusted Super Bowl ring onto America’s rugged, yet perfectly manicured paw. (Applause.)

Thank you, and may Big Daddy, Junior and The Spook bless the Red States of America and curse those sumbitches that don’t jump when I say so. Thank you.

This is my favorite line from Kryton’s very funny satire:

We refuse to live in the shadow of thoughtful calm.

It oughta be a bumper sticker.