The 2014 Election Summarized: “GOP Used Car Salesman Wins”.

Granted, it was from a single race. And it seems like a punch line, rather than reality. But it’s true: a member of one of the sleaziest of all professions just won election to high office, in spite of his complete lack of qualifications and dearth of experience:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Mark Maynard owns a used car lot, runs a towing business and spends his spare time on a professional drag racing pit crew. And despite not raising a dime for his Republican campaign and agreeing with his Democratic opponent on almost all the issues, he defeated West Virginia’s longest-sitting state senator.

Got it? The majority of voters that turned out and cast ballots in this race elected an unqualified used car salesman instead of a qualified public servant. There is nothing else to say about that choice except, “Oh, ferchrissakes, you stupid f***ing f***s”. But it wasn’t just in this one contest: all across the country, those who actually chose to vote made some amazingly silly choices, like electing hog-castrators and science deniers.

Kudos to the minority of American voters who cast thoughtful, deliberate ballots based on rational criteria. Thank you for being responsible citizens, we need more like you.
Bricks upside the heads to the vast majority of eligible American voters who lazily sat it out and let the Moron Minority choose our government. You are about to get what lazy people usually get: whatever the non-lazy people wanted. Tough s*** if you don’t like it.
And dunce caps for all the eedjits who voted for shysters, con men, extremists and yes, used car salesmen. You are about to get what you truly deserve.

We can’t fix stupid, but we CAN fix apathy. Get out and vote next time, please. If you disagree with that course of action, well, there’s a newly-elected “Republican” West Virginia State Senator who has a used car he’d like to sell you. Or maybe two or three used cars.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

ANOTHER toxic chemical spill near Charleston, WV.

These poor folks cannot get a break. This time, it’s coal slurry laced with even more toxic chemicals than the MCHM of the infamous licorice smell (it is not at all good, but there is plenty of it). The local water company said that this spill shouldn’t harm drinking water-but they said that about the last event, too.

Up yours, John Boehner, and Freedom Industries, and Patriot Coal. Shove your fake “American” names. We need regulations, because it is obvious that industry can not and will not take the required steps to protect their customers, employees, or the general public.

Let’s regulate them, and then jail them. And let them drink and brush their teeth in the polluted water they have befouled.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

How the media covers a Teapublican rally:

Yesterday, we talked about how liberal demonstrations are ignored by the media, even if tens of thousands are present and protesting. Here is a picture of one small part of that crowd, which was NOT covered on major US “news” outlets:

Now we bring you a few photos of Right-Wingnut “events” that WERE covered by that same media. See if you can spot the difference:

Yep, if you are a Teabagger, Birtherbot, Right Wingnut or a “Republican” of any sort, then the media will show up and cover your “rally”, never mind how small or ridiculous it is. But if you are anybody else, sorry, but Bubba’s having gotten a blowjob back in the 90’s or a “celebrity” sighting is far more newsworthy than you are.

Since the right-wingnuts and Teapubs own the media, this may not be surprising. But it remains infuriating.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

“Safe water” sickens WV kids and puts teachers in the hospital.

This post is for all you idiot Reagan-worshipping fools who still believe that “government is the problem”: because of all the deregulation St. Ronnie championed, there is no way to tell if water from the Elk River is fit for human use. So the locals trusted the unregulated chemical industry, declared the water to be safe, and a load of kids and teachers got very ill indeed.

The licorice smell typical of MCHM contamination resurfaced in schools early in the week. Several students reported burning in their noses and eyes as well as skin irritation. Multiple people were hospitalized, including a teacher who fainted and a cook at one of the schools, according to Ashton Marra at West Virginia Public Broadcasting. The reported symptoms are consistent with exposure to “crude MCHM.”

Note: saying “Duuuh, I dunno, sure, I guess it’s probably kinda sorta safe-ish” is NOT good public policy. When our elected officials have become so lax in their civic responsibilities that we can’t tell if our drinking water will hospitalize us or not, it is time to make a few changes. And the first step towards change is admitting that we have a problem.

A little further south, a load of toxic coal ash is fouling the river that another city uses for its water supply. The locals there have also said the water is OK. They are absolutely maybe guesstimating the water to be pretty much safe-ish to drink. Until it isn’t.

It’s time we knocked Ronald McReagan off his pedestal and realized this harsh truth: government is not always bad. In fact, it can do a lot of good. A well-managed regulatory system can protect us from harm.

Think about that, America, as you play Russian Roulette with each and every drink of water. Richard Nixon gave us the gift of safe water. And since 1979, his fellow “Republicans” have been busily taking that safety away from us.

Think about it, America, as you drink with one hand, and prepare to call for an ambulance with the other.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

John Boehner, Stop Your Lyin’.

Even for Speaker Boehner, this is epic lying: yesterday, he blamed the Prexy for the West Virginia chemical spill, by claiming that there are plenty of regulations already, so it must be Obama’s fault. In reality, there are loads of unregulated chemicals in our drinking water, including the batch that screwed the pooch for West Virginians recently.

As it chances, people in WV are still reporting health problems from using the supposedly “safe” water. And no one can help them, because regulations do not require the chemical manufacturer to know or provide information on possible side-effects. And so, since there’s no regulations (Boehner is truly telling some really big lies) requiring such information, nobody knows anything about this chemical.

It’s now heading down the Ohio River, and eventually will proceed through the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean. And no one knows what will happen.

Because, contrary to what comes out of Boehner’s lying mouth, there are no regulations requiring such knowledge. Since there are no regulations, the manufacturer spent no money on creating such knowledge. So we do not know what’s coming at us. Libertarians and Republicans may like this situation, but the rest of us would prefer to know if we can drink the water or wash our hands in it.

John Boehner is lying as usual. Also as usual, most of the media aren’t calling him on his lies. But now, Gentle Reader, you at least know he’s lying to you.

So what are you going to do about it?

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Libertarians think Fiction is Reality.

300,000 people in West Virginia can’t use their tap water for anything but flushing their crap down the dumper because an unregulated toxic chemical facility just upstream from Charleston’s water supply sprang a leak: it’s so bad, people in 6 counties can’t bathe, wash their clothes, cook, clean, and such. Sensible people asked for some regulations, but the Libertarians blocked them, because the “free market” would magically make the tank farm’s operator do everything necessary to make the place safe and squeaky-clean. Of course, that turned out not to be the case.

Last year, a town in Texas suffered a devastating and deadly explosion because a barely-regulated fertilizer plant blew up. This being Texas, only a few sensible people argued for regulations, and the Libertarians blocked them too, because the “free market” is a peachy and perfect way to ensure safety and cleanliness in industry. In fact, the libertarians are STILL blocking new regulations even after that blast, so that town (or another) could blow up again at any moment.

Time after time, this silly-arsed idea that businesses are somehow innately good and will always do the right thing when left to their own devices has been proven false. And yet its adherents still insist that it is true, that we just need to get rid of even more government and then it’ll work, honest, really, pinky-swear. That’s like a compulsive gambler telling you that if he just had more money to bet, he’d be on Easy Street.

This ideology does not work in real life. Smart people who live in the real world and have read Adam Smith know that a regulated free market is what works best. But because a czarist Russian exile had an understandably huge hate-on for Commies and wrote a few novels, somehow a lot of otherwise sane and intelligent individuals decided that a whole philosophy should be based on those novels; and indeed, a new economic theory be created out of the whole cloth and immediately declared valid, based largely on those novels. Fiction, to libertarians, is reality.

And that, friends, pretty well sums up Libertarianism: it is a theory, based on fiction, that has no basis in reality. People have been trying for decades to make it real, to make it work, to take it from marionette status and turn into a real boy. All that has been realized from their efforts is that Libertarians have grown a very large set of donkey ears as their Ayn Rand-based Pleasure Island has gone morally, intellectually, and financially bankrupt.

Libertarianism has failed. It is dead. Stop trying to make the corpse move; bury it and try something based in the real world next time.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

On Edit – more than one cranky reader has pointed out that the band Rush is no longer espousing libertarianism in their more recent lyrics. Apologies to Rush, and anyone else offended by the reference, which I have removed. Thanks to those who pointed out the error.

WV High School Uses Secret Funds to Hire Insane Fundagelical who Verbally Abuses Students

Sometimes you have to wonder if there is a single law-abiding public servant left standing, ya know? Here’s a strong argument saying there aren’t any: some school officials in West Virginia used a secret slush fund to pay a “Christian” speaker to intimidate, abuse, scare and shame students at an alleged “sex education” assembly.

So, Gentle Reader, we have:
Number A: financial shenanigans,
Letter 2: a potential Constitutional violation ,
Thirdly, a complete and utter betrayal of the trust put in the the school boards in the communities involved.

All in the course of a single high school assembly.

On the yardstick of corrupt, crooked, slimy “public servants”, this crew has got to be right up there at the top. Such criminality, raised to such a level is pure genius. Evil genius, yes, but genius nonetheless.

Here’s a link to the lunatic “Abstinence Prophet”: Pam Stenzel. This maniacal shrieker is truly bugf*** insane. She tells kids things like “If you take birth control, your mother probably hates you”, and that birth control makes girls “10 times more likely to contract a disease than if she were not taking that drug”, among other lies and distortions. We’re not exaggerating, here’s a link to one of her YouTube videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq1YJRsLsuE And yes, she has quite a few. And by the bye, she rakes in north of a quarter million bucks a year peddling this tripe.

But a single loony-tune screecher is only part of the problem. The larger issue is what we said at the outset: people who are entrusted with the health, well-being and education of our children are failing miserably at all three: their health is being compromised by the schools’ insistence on telling them lies about their bodies; their well-being is wrecked by screaming orators who belittle, shame and abuse them in school-approved activities; and they are not being educated at all. Not if this is any indicator of what they are being taught, at any rate.

Add to that the clumsy attempt to skate around the Constitutionally-mandated separation of Church and State, and the potentially illegal use of a slush fund to pay some jackalope to abuse their students, and it is safe to say that this school has one helluva big problem. And so must lots of other schools. Do the math: this one example of the breed makes $268,799.00 a year, and gets an average of 5 grand a speech, so she has to give an average of a speech a week to make that kind of cash. And since there are lots more of these “speakers” out there doing the same thing, the odds are pretty fair that a school district near you has had a similar experience/committed similar crimes.

This writer suggests you act to protect your community, your kids and your wallet. Get in the faces of your local school board and make sure they aren’t using secret slush funds in your town; make sure they aren’t teaching your kids a pack of bald-faced lies; and make sure, above all, that your kids are safe at their school.

Because at Washington High School in West-By-God-Virginia, the locals are f***ing up on all three counts.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

State Legislator: Make Children Work for Their School Lunches

A West Virginia “Republican” state legislator said exactly that. If a child gets their school lunch paid for, this Dickensian (accent on “dick”) jackass thinks they should be made to perform janitorial duties, landscape work, and so forth.

Really, Mr. Canterbury? Child labor? Forcing six-year-olds to haul trash and push power mowers? You DO know that’s illegal, don’t you?

Or maybe he just doesn’t care. That seems likely. To be on the safe side, this writer will avoid the town of Greenbrier WV in the future, since the worthies there elected this fool. For all we know, forced child labor might be an everyday occurrence there.

It is worth noting that almost everyone else in the House of Delegates disagreed with him, and school kids in West Virginia will not be required to do slave labor in order to eat.

It is also worth noting that “almost” everyone disagreed. Eight other West Virginia legislators voted with him.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky