Bernie Sanders’ Revolution is really just common sense. Sadly, that HAS become Revolutionary.

Yes, he’s calling his campaign a “revolution”, but if you look at Senator Sanders’ positions, it’s kinda hard to find anything all that radical:
* Clean up Washington by getting bribes money out of politics;
* Fix the tax code so that everyone pays their fair share. Including “people” like corporations;
* Adjust the minimum wage for inflation so it works as originally intended;
* Work to protect our national security by addressing climate change and its impacts;
and other sensible policies like those.

Even though he calls himself a “Democratic Socialist”, his ideas are actually quite mainstream if you ask regular folks instead of Pundits, Polticians and Plutocrats. C’mon, who in the real world seriously objects to obeying the law, being able to pay your bills, having insurance and living in a reasonably safe place? Even “Republican” voters profess to hold such values, ferchrissakes, if they don’t hear that scaryscaryscary word “Socialist”. All Bernie’s saying is “let’s do things the way we are supposed to already be doing them’.

It is truly sad that if we are to get some common sense back into American politics, we WILL, in fact, have to have a revolution at the ballot box. It’s sad, depressing, and disgusting that things like fighting corruption, fair tax policy, equal protection under the law, and requiring the government to honor its obligations are revolutionary, but they are. They have become ever more revolutionary over the past few decades, as Teapublicans and Vichy Dems have dragged us down the slimy slope of Supply-side economics and Teavangelical social policies into the trickle-down sewage lagoon that is contemporary America.

A Revolution of Common Sense? Sign this blogger up. See you all at the polls.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Republicans: Cop-Killing Political Necrophiliacs.

How quickly we forget, amongst the current din of Liberal-bashing: ’twas only a few years ago that G. Gordon Liddy (he of Watergate and Steely Dan infamy) said, and we quote him verbatim:

Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they’re going to be wearing bulletproof vests. … They’ve got a big target on there, ATF. Don’t shoot at that, because they’ve got a vest on underneath that. Head shots, head shots…. Kill the sons of bitches.

That is a right-wing thought leader and convicted felon saying things that far exceed anything that, say, Obama, DiBlasio or LeBron have said about cops. That is not someone asking for Justice: it is a mainstream “Republican” advocating the wholesale execution of law enforcement personnel. A Nixon Repub salivating over the possible bodies of dead police. And he is not alone:

How about Teapublican Craven Cliven Bundy acolyte Jerad Miller, who actually ambushed and murdered two innocent cops in Las Vegas?
Or Larry McQuilliams, who shot up a Texas courthouse and was, yes, a Republican, Teabagger-on-steroids, right-winger?

Do you hear about the manifold anti-cop words and deeds of Teapublicans like these today, Gentle Reader? No, you don’t. You hear a pack of lies and selective omissions about liberals and people of color, who supposedly hate cops, that is what you hear. And it is ALL you hear.

Never mind that DiBlasio already gave the NYPD $400,000,000.00 in EXTRA funding, in less than a year. Nearly half a billion ADDITIONAL DOLLARS to the NYPD from the mayor the NYPD union blames for the killings of two officers. Screw the soundbites, that is supporting the cops. But do the Raging Righties in their Tightie Whities acknowlowledge this? Of course not.

It’s one thing to call for Justice, as people in the Center and the Left have been doing. That is constitutionally-protected free speech and is not violent. Indeed, it is aimed at the same ends pushed by honest cops and prosecutors: a fair, just, and orderly society. One in which the police are our public servants and we their supporters.

But when Right-Wing Jackalopes like Fox News talking heads and other Repubs (like Police Union Chiefs in St. Louis, Cleveland, and New York) blame people of color, liberals and non-Wingnut politicians for the killings of cops, it is not aimed at justice. Not at all. It is “Republicans” trying to use the dead bodies of Americans for political advantage.

Like Bush did after he crawled out of his hole after 9/11 and many occasions therafter, it is what Repubs do these days. A sort of political necrophila, in which the dead are merely tools to be used for partisan advantage. Ghoulish, revolting, disrespectful behavior that SHOULD be beyond the pale. But, alas, in these sorry times, nothing is too extreme, too disgusting, too taboo for a “Republican” to say or do in the pursuit of his or her own power and wealth.

Those two dead cops deserve better. So do Brown, Gardner and other murdered police and civilians. They are, all of them, deserving of justice; not having their corpses used for the profit and pleasure of Right-Wing Necrophiliacs.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Here is why Obama “can’t work with Congress”:

Check out this official statement from John Boehner’s office, in response to Obama’s upcoming executive actions on immigration reform. Tell me if they sound like somebody you’d like to work with:

Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, said in a statement: “If ‘Emperor Obama’ ignores the American people and announces an amnesty plan that he himself has said over and over again exceeds his constitutional authority, he will cement his legacy of lawlessness and ruin the chances for congressional action on this issue and many others.”

And it’s not unique. In fact, it’s pretty typical. That is how “Republicans” talk about (and to) the President, on a regular basis. And frankly, this writer wouldn’t wouldn’t feel all warm and fuzzy about working with anyone who talked that way about him.

Insults? Check.
Lies? Check.
Professional decorum? Nowhere to be found.

If the Teapubbies really want to know why they have such an awful relationship with the Prexy, they should try this little experiment: go into a low-class dive bar (the Speaker will be quite comfortable there), find a patron, and start talking this kinda s*** to them. They could say things like “you lie!”, or “Godless Communist Kenyan illegal immigrant!”, or any number of the slurs they have hurled at Obama over the past 6+ years.

Any bets on the sorts of “relationships” the GOPee will establish? Not many productive working arrangements, no. Far more likely that fists will “meet up” with faces.

Hey, Johnnie-me-lad: try using some manners for a change.
Because, dude, you are making a deliberately obnoxious blogger cringe. That says nothing good about your individual and collective social “skills”.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

“Republicans”: Don’t Fix the Problem, Make it a Secret Instead.

It’s a reflex, really: anytime Teapubbies want to do a thing and some pesky thing like “legality” or “optics” interferes, they do the thing anyway, and hide it. Look in your dictionary under “Teapot Dome” or “Watergate” for some classic examples. But it didn’t stop there, Cranksters: here are three examples from recent American history, showing that the GOPee is all about them thar secret thangs:

Number A: Recently, a lot of drug companies (ya know, they exist to make money by saving lives) have refused to sell Ohio drugs if they’ll be used to end lives instead of saving them. This puts a crimp in the execution-via-lethal-injection process that is so beloved by “conservatives”. In short, it’s getting hard for the Gummint to kill people quickly and cheaply.

So, there’s the thing Teapubs want to do: kill convicts. Do they come up with a new way of doing this, or an alternative punishment? Nope. In Ohio, they are trying to pass a law that would hide death drug information instead:

State lawmakers are preparing to introduce legislation to address legal concerns about Ohio’s administration of the death penalty, likely including language to keep secret the names of sources of execution drugs. Batchelder said the legislation has been drafted, and he anticipated its introduction in coming days. He declined to offer specifics about what would be included in the bill, though he said it would address issues that have arisen from court decisions related to the death penalty. “We have a problem in the sense that some of the federal judges have held that our existing system does not provide due process safeguards for those who have been convicted of homicide,” he said.

Got that? The problem is that Ohio (like some other states) is unconstitutionally executing convicts. Do the Repubs seek a constitutional way to execute said offenders? Of course not, don’t be silly. ‘Tis far easier to hide their actions than to solve the problem at hand.

Letter Two: also in newly-Red-ified Ohio (motto: “As red as Ohio State’s Scarlet, as Confederate as Ohio State’s Gray”), Guv Kasich wanted to hand his Kronies a lot of Kash. Alas, that’s illegal. So, he set up a secret money-laundering scam called JobsOhio, and then added more secrecy when the public objected to having their collective pockets picked by a load of millionare motherf***rs. The link provides a good summary of the matter, sans cranky snark and lingua franca.

Thirdly: since it’s illegal for Parties to coordinate with “outside groups”, Repubs had a problem in the recent election cycle: how to, well, break that law and get away with it. The solution? A secret Twitter account, of course. Click the link there, it’s pretty f***ing outrageous s***.

Nor are these the only examples. ‘Twould take a hundred bloggers a hundred hours to document a hundredth of these crimes. They are sufficient to illustrate the situtation: the scumball “Republicans” that Americans have stupidly put in charge of 2/3 of our government are a load of uber-liars and thieves who are not only adept at hiding their crimes: they instinctively hide them. Trust them not a bit, Gentle Reader. Not a single bit.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

A Modest Proposal: Require all Americans to Vote, Read Plato, and Read Mark Twain.

America has a dismal record when it comes to voting. It also has turned into an Oligarchy, in which the politicians are bought and sold by rich motherf***ers (since there aren’t enough votes to get their attention). This is not a coincidence. When most Americans don’t vote, we get liars, crooks and con artists “elected” via bribes and propaganda to be our “public servants”.

So mandatory voting would at least get more of our citizens to show up and vote (maybe charge them a fee on their taxes if they don’t). And that in and of itself would be a benefit, even if the new voters just vote randomly: it would scare the crap out of our “representatives” and the 1%-ers who own them. But to get maximum benefit, it would be better if people understood just what and who the Hell they are voting for, and (most importantly) why they should question everything a candidate or government says.

One example: a popular bit of Plato, currently winging its way about the Intertubez:

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

This is not the exact wording (he wrote, “But the chief penalty [of good men who refuse to lead] is to be governed by someone worse if a man will not himself hold office and rule.” [Republic, Book I, line 347c]) but it captures the essence.

In other words: we wind up with crooks, fools, and a**holes in government when the competent, intelligent and decent people refuse to run and/or vote.

Another couple of examples:

In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing. – Autobiography of Mark Twain.

Sounds a lot like the crap we hear from Teabaggers and such, does it not? Willful ignorance, regarded as a virtue rather than a vice. Here’s one example: James Inhofe http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inhofe-an-epa-foe-likely-to-lead-senate-environment-committee/2014/11/05/d0b4221e-64f4-11e4-836c-83bc4f26eb67_story.html
And:

“To lodge all power in one party and keep it there is to insure bad government and the sure and gradual deterioration of the public morals.” – Mark Twain’s Autobiography

This writer would prefer that it say “a party” rather than “one party”, but that’s just me.

That is wisdom, Gentle Reader, spanning thousands of years, and speaking a truth we most sorely need to hear: if you let parties and plutocrats run things, they’ll run things to suit themselves. Which they have done. Those of us who do not participate in politics will NOT get the government we want: we’ll get the government THEY want.

Everybody needs education. Everybody needs motivation. This modest, if cynical, proposal can help empower our people and repair our democracy, at a very low cost. It’s kind of hard to think of anybody who’d object to that, right? Ermmmm….well…the bastards who have stolen our country will most certainly object. But f*** those people.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Repubs Impose the Nation’s First “Uterus Tax”. Most Eligible Michigan Voters are Responsible.

Yes, you read that correctly. In Michigan, women who are raped may not have an abortion if their rapist impregnates them. UNLESS they purchased what is being called “rape insurance” ahead of time. Result: women need to plan for being raped, and pay out of pocket in case they are someday raped. Your humble correspondent feels that “rape Insurance” is the wrong term. Really, it’s a tax on people who can become pregnant.

It is a tax on fertile women, levied upon their functioning uteri. A “Uterus Tax”.This is a 100% “republican” idea, pushed only by repubs, voted for only by repubs. Repubs have successfully imposed it upon women in Michigan, and plan to spread it across the nation.

America, you just voted to give the party behind such obscene ideas even more power than they already had. You voted for it, and you are getting what you deserve. Almost all eligible voters are to blame for such travesties as these.

Perhaps you didn’t vote? By not voting against the GOPee, you helped Repubs to win.

Perhaps you voted third-party? See above.

Perhaps you voted “Republican”? You stupid f***, you truly do DESERVE this. Hope it hurts, motherf***er.

The only people who are blameless are those who voted for the candidate with the best mathematical chance to beat a Teapubbie. Every other eligible voter within the locale involved in a Repub outrage bears some measure of responsibility for the outrage in question.

This is just the first example of what America asked for during this week’s election. Look forward to years more of such revolting results. And as you are subjected to these manifold obscenities over time, remember: America voted for this. America asked for this. America demanded this. AMERICA’S VOTERS MADE THIS HAPPEN. As the Politicos like to say, “elections have conesquences”.

Maybe we’ll learn our lesson. Maybe after we get f***ed so brutally, so often, so painfully, the country will learn to ignore the propaganda, respect the facts, and get out to vote in our best interests for a damned change. Maybe.

But for the foreseeable future, we will all pay, as a nation, for the sins of the majority of actual voters.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

“Republicans” are VERY Different from Democrats, Day Two: Repubs Support Terrorists. Dems Do Not.

Another example of why the “no difference between the parties” line is a bunch of bulls***. Dems fight against Terrorists in word and deed, while Teapubbies talk a big game when it comes to law and order: but the Repub walk doesn’t match the talk.

Example Number A, take Cliven Bundy and his Moocher Militia, who violated even more laws than Bin Laden, but still got support from the GOP. In fact, not only do Repubs support Bundy’s sedition, they were lining up to get their pictures taken with him. And after members of the Bundy Bunch murdered some cops, “Republicans” said and did little or nothing  – except, of course, continued support.

Example Letter 2:  we see that Repubs love the Sovereign Citizen terrorists. The Justice Department calls these mutts the most dangerous security threat to our nation, but that doesn’t stop GOP politicos like LePage from including them in their inner circles, or granting them rights to carry weapons that scare the sh** out of law-abiding Americans. Hell, even when they commit terrorist crimes the Repubs don’t do much of anything about it.

Example the Third: always remember, Gentle Reader, Bush and his fellow Repubs allowed Bin Laden to get away with murder – the worst foreign terrorist attack on our soil, thousands dead, and the Tevangelicals said “meh”. They used hs face to whip up the population in a manner that even Goebbels would have envied. But while abusing his face, Repubs kissed his a**. Then, of course, they bitched about Obama, who brought Bin Laden to justice.

There we have it,  another example of the enormous differences between the two political parties.

Remember this when a Raging Righty or Loony Leftie tries to tell you that there is “little or no dfference”: that is a big, fat lie.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Teapublican Obstruction leads to Fewer Millennial Voters. Was that Planned?

It’s a fair question. Did Boehner and McConnell and all the other Kochsuckers work to cut down on Democratic voter turnout at the same time they stuck it to the Prexy all these years? It’s one way to interpret those falling numbers of Millennial voters:

And for a while, it didn’t look like millennials would need much convincing. As more members of this generation reached voting age, participation among young voters rose. The peak year was 2008 (52 percent). In 2012, the turnout among voters 18-29 dropped to 45 percent.

On top of that, the rate of voters under 30 who could say with certainty that they were registered to vote fell steadily after 2008, according to the Pew Research Center. By 2012, it hit 50 percent — the lowest number Pew has recorded going back as far as 1996.

Ashley Spillane, the president of Rock the Vote, says it’s no mystery why millennials, or any voters, would be turned off from the process: “Politics right now is really disheartening. I think it’s why you see in the polls that young people are not affiliating with political parties.”

Think about it for a second: right before the “Republicans” started their “f*** Obama and the voters he rode in on” campaign, youth voting numbers were frickin’ huge, because the kids believed change was possible. But after 6 years of deliberate Teabagger destruction of change, the youth of America are disillusioned and are disengaging. And Millennials tend to vote for Dems.

Coincidence? In these times? Yeah, right. There is no way to prove it, of course, but in the end it doesn’t really matter whether or not the GOP has been manipulating Millennials on purpose or just enjoying a fringe benefit of their racist, treasonous, corrupt plan to seize power.

It doesn’t matter for two reasons:
Number A: it is wrong to suppress votes, whether it is a primary or secondary goal, and
Letter 2: the way to fight back is to defy expectations, by voting.

Millennials, wake up: you have been played. Strike back by voting against every Repub in every race, every ballot, every election. Vote to show them you are smarter than they think you are. Vote, because they don’t want you to.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

The “Republican” Idea of Freedom: Forced Sterilization of Women, and No Privacy for Anyone.

Starting with the poor, but not stopping there.
We’ll let this senior GOP official lay out his party’s “conservative” vision:

“You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I’d do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations,” said Russell Pearce on his weekly talk radio program. Then we’ll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] then get a job.”

He also suggested Spartan accommodations and strict rules for anyone who received government housing assistance.

“Ever live in a military barracks?” he said. “You’ll maintain your property in a clean, good state of repair, and your home will be subjected to an inspection at any time, possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or an X-Box 360, then get a job.”

Got that? Forced surgery, like they do in China, and did in Nazi Germany. No Constitutional rights, like they do in Russia and Iran. You will have no rights at all, none, zip, nada. That is the Repub agenda, and has been for the entire century (remember the Patriot Act?).

Why the f*** is anybody voting for these Fascist bastards? And why the f*** isn’t everybody voting against them? Christ on a ballot box, people, we need to wake the f***ing f*** up.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky