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You’ll All Pay #25

© Joe Conat 2004

The latest stupid kerfuffle in the news has been over Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s attack on California Legislature Democrats for being three weeks behind on the budget by calling them “girlie-men”, a direct rip-off of the “Hans and Franz” sketches immortalized on Saturday Night Live by Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon.

Democrats all over the state, and probably the country, have snottily decried Schwarzenegger for “calling names”.

Democrats in my immediate area (my wife and my Democrat friends) are split. Some decry this as another sign of the fall of Western civilization and an omen of an impending witchhunt against liberals. The rest of us think the whole thing’s stupid and our only bitch is that the Democrats don’t fight back.

Democrats never fight back.

Democrats: FIGHT BACK, ALREADY!!

Schwarzenegger calls you a “girlie-man”? Call him an oafish muscle-bound meathead and insinuate that his ill-considered remarks were the product of ‘roid rage. Say that perhaps the Governor should go back to the less complicated things he’s accustomed to, like remembering the three word line “I’ll be back” and how to look cool while holding a prop gun, and leave the complex governance of the largest state in the Union, population-wise, to people who have spent years in higher education learning how to do precisely that. Remind people that his most public business enterprise, Planet Hollywood, went under some years ago and, golly, how does that reflect on one of its primary “governors”, Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger? How about just saying “Running California is a difficult business and maybe we should not so much listen to a man whose primary concern for years was ‘lifting heavy things’.” Remind him how to correctly pronounce “California”.

Let’s take this national, people! Fight back! Bush makes lawyer jokes about John Edwards? Edwards should make drunk driving jokes! Baseball manager jokes! Failed oil entrepreneur jokes!

Bush bashes Kerry for being a “waffler”? Why doesn’t Kerry bash Bush right back for being such a poor marksman he invaded the wrong country! Why doesn’t Kerry say right back “Hey, I served my country…and I have the records to prove it!” Or even “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you…I was listening for somebody who was actually elected President!”

Bush says, in response to a question about John Edwards’ suitability as veep “Dick Cheney could be president”, implying that John Edwards couldn’t? Say “Of course Cheney could be president…he got the votes!” Or “Really? That might be difficult to do, presiding over the United States from the Hague!”

I know, I know…the “high road”. “We’re too good…too dignified…to fight back in such a beastly manner.” Well, your following the Marquis de Queensbury is getting your butt kicked. You come out swinging you could be trouncing Bush right now, rather than a nail-biting neck and neck. California Dems could have Schwarzenegger eating out of their hands rather than cowering because the Governor is urging the people to “terminate” them at the next elections.

Taking the high road is making you look like the snotty nerd boy everyone hated on the playground. The one who sniffed that the other kids were beneath him and that fighting was unmannerly (because he was no good at it) and tattled to the teacher every five minutes…but never EVER got to play on the monkey bars and got his ass kicked every recess.

You don’t have to be a bully. Never swing first is rule number one. Never goad another into an attack. Comport yourself with dignity and be on your best behavior. Until the bullies pounce.

Then…finish them! Fight. BACK!!

If you don’t they just keep hammering on you, and they win. If you don’t they keep the power and they win. If you don’t they get their way and they win and the country gets worse and worse off. This is too important to stick to the high road at all costs. Fight back! Be a hero! Win this thing!

Gandhi managed to turn back the British Empire with passive resistance. Good for Gandhi. You know why that worked? The Brits cared that they were hurting people and that their image was being tarnished by looking like the bully.

Bush doesn’t care. Schwarzenegger doesn’t care. To them, being a bully is being the hero. They use words like “Tough” and “whatever it takes” and they mean it!

Fight back, dammit!

And, while you’re at it, would someone please kick the crap out of that attention whore Ralph Nader?

Turns out the Unsafe for Any Campaign candidate is giving up any pretense of chastity and is openly bending over for a GOP injection of funds and aid. In Michigan he accepted a spot on the presidential ballot as an “independent” candidate based on 43,000 signature collected for him by…the Michigan Republican Party!

Someone, please…just kick this guy in the nuts, wouldja? Somebody? Hell, bring him by my house, I’ll nut him for ya.

I’m all about “Yeah! Third parties! No reason we should only have two parties! Go!” but not this time. And since Nader is, again, trying to be a deciding factor in swing states…he may as well just tell his followers to vote for Bush and give up the charade.

The guy might as well hang out on a corner in Hollywood, really. In West Virginia the Nader campaign hired a Florida company, JSM Inc., to gather petition signatures and get him on the West Virginia ballot. That firm is now under investigation by Kanawha County prosecutors for allegedly getting those signatures illegally, by misrepresenting what their ballot was for (“get a ‘minority’ on the ballot”) and refusing to reveal that the minority was actually Ralph “Hey, Sailor” Nader, or show their credentials. In Arizona, that same firm used a convicted felon to collect Nader petition signatures…that’s illegal in Arizona.

Good-bye, Nader. You can’t run a legal campaign, you shouldn’t be in the race. Go. Away. Already.

Plus, as far as I can tell his platform is “Because I wanna be President. Because I wanna. Because. Because. Because.”

Fight back. Take a swing. The chins are out there, beggin’ for a swat. They’ve left themselves open and the fight needs winning so FIGHT already!

You don’t have to get down in the mud. But you will have to bloody your knuckles, someday.

You’ll All Pay is brought to you by World Boxing Federation (not really). You can weigh in for the ring here.

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You’ll All Pay #24

© 2004 Joe Conat

“Power Grab”

Yeah, kids, it’s a Special Edition of YAP, coming hot on the heels of #23. But there’s cause, o children…Bush may have to be pried out of the Oval Office with the Jaws of Life ™.

It’s big news and there’re probably a dozen places you can read about it. Here’s one of my favorites. But the topic is the same no matter where you get it.

The administration says it may have to, regrettably, delay the elections if there’s a terrorist incident. That’s what they say. “Delay”.

I’m betting the Weasel in the White House will try to postpone the things indefinitely using his “you don’t change horses mid-stream” argument.

Hell, Bush will probably try to proclaim himself Generalissimo Father of Our Country President Eternal.

Currently, Aufseher der Heimat-Sicherheit Herr Tom Ridge is having the Dept. of Homeland Security explore what “legal steps” may be necessary to hijack the country and deliver it unto Bush’s crushing iron grasp at a moment’s notice should the putative dictator of the former democratic republic of the United States of America so order. To that end the Dept. of Loosely Defined Justice is reviewing a letter from Mr. Deforest Soaries, chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

The what? you ask? Funny, I asked the same thing. So I went a-huntin’. And it turns out, according to their about page, the E.A.C. was established by the Help America Vote Act of 2002. Since Florida proved that enough idiots being unable to figure out how to punch a hole in a stationary piece of cardboard in such a manner as to indicate who they’d like for President or with enough force to make that choice clear can deliver the country into the butterfingered hands of a raving lunatic, we need to pass an Act of Congress to establish a whole commission dedicated to helping us dimwitted plain folk figure out how to vote.

On the About page of the official E.A.C. website you will find this excerpt from the Help America Pull Its Collective Head Out of Its ASS Act of 2002: “…establish a program to provide funds to States to replace punch card voting systems, to establish the Election Assistance Commission to assist in the administration of Federal elections and to otherwise provide assistance with the administration of certain Federal election laws and programs, to establish minimum election administration standards for States and units of local government with responsibility for the administration of Federal elections, and for other purposes.”

Replace punch card voting systems. With what, I wonder?

Electronic voting? Well, there’s a problem with that. Oh, wait…I’m sorry.

There’s a PLENTITUDE of problems with that.

According to this article in Computerworld, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights assembled IT security experts to look at the problem and the experts’ assessment is the technology isn’t ready and the procedures are not secure from potential vote tampering. That’s a big issue as roughly 30% of the country will be using e-voting machines this November. If there’s an election this November.

Australian IT reports that Florida’s new touch screen e-voting machines failed to recognize the vote of approximately one in one hundred people who used it during Florida’s Democratic presidential primary. That’s about eight times the failure rate of the optical scanner used previously.

And, of course, the prime maker of e-voting machines, Diebold Inc., is chaired by Walden O’Dell, a massive supporter of Bush. Mr. O’Dell, while trying to sell Ohio on Diebold’s e-voting machines, told Republicans in a fund-raising letter that he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”

Help America Vote my ass!!

But it may not even come to that. As I mentioned, DeForest Soaries, head of the E.A.C., wrote a letter to Tom Ridge pointing out that “the federal government has no agency that has the statutory authority to cancel and reschedule a federal election” should terrorists attack again and asking Ridge to ask Congress to pass legislation that would let the government cancel an election.

If this passes…how long are we stuck with Bush? Can he be called President if he is, in fact, Dictator for Life?

I will not be surprised if Bush makes an obvious power grab like this. His ship appears to be sinking under him. His former relationship with indicted Enron CEO Kenneth Lay is causing him enough trouble to throw a temper tantrum in the middle of a press briefing. His Vice President faces indictment by French authorities on charges of bribery, misuse of corporate assets and money laundering in his former role as CEO of Halliburton and is being investigated by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission for a $180 million dollar “slush fund” that may have been used for bribery. (articles here and here) The Vice President’s wife, Lynne Cheney, is saying that gay marriage is a state’s issue and not the federal government’s, in opposition to the Bush/Cheney administration’s desire to impose a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and subsequently marginalizing a section of the American citizenry. Senator Alfonse D’amato is calling on Bush to dump Cheney as his running mate for re-election.

An investigation by the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services has found that the White House intentionally misled Congress on the final cost of the Medicare plan. Which, it turns out, may not be illegal. It’s not right…but it’s not illegal.

His aides allege he’s insane. His military record is in question and any documentation that would settle the question has been inadvertently destroyed. Michael Moore is making him look like an even bigger ass (“…now watch this drive.”) and his own father is reported to disagree with his policies.

With all this going wrong around him, would anybody be surprised if he attempted another, albeit bigger and more blatant coup as possibly the only means by which to keep his office?

How long, do you think, until we hear this speech:

“My fellow Americans…due to recent events I am forced to cancel the upcoming elections and retain my office as President of the United States by force of arms. I regret that this is necessary, but the war on terror is hard on all of us.

I must also, in the interest of national security within our borders, declare martial law throughout the entire country. I do this with a heavy heart, but secure in the knowledge that what I do is right for the American people and ensures their continued safety, prosperity and way of life, after a fashion.

I tell you this right now…I will not rest until every terrorist is caught. I will not rest until we, as a nation, are entirely safe. I will not leave my office as President until these goals are accomplished, and peace has been restored.

God bless us all. Looters will be shot on sight. Good night.”

You’ll All Pay was written in the midst of the rioting subsequent to the fall of the American government. You can send missives of hope to be included in his supplies airdrop here.

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You’ll All Pay #23

© 2004 Joe Conat

There’s a meanness in the air.

Have you felt it? I have. I’ve had to work very hard not to take part in it or respond to it when talking politics. The country is so divided and so vehement about the lines its drawn that reasoned discourse is rapidly becoming impossible.

I feel it, believe me.

“Experiment in Vitriol” (You’ll All Pay #21 here) was not just a tongue-in-cheek sniping at the grossest and most vile of the conservative pundits. It was, I now confess, an indulgence in hate speech of my own, a street-level down and dirty attack on conservatives and the G.O.P. It was my “fighting fire with fire”, my revenge for what I perceive is the stupidity and, in some cases, pure evil of the loudest spokespeople for the right-wing.

I do not apologize.

I’m tired, folks. I’m so damn tired. I want this election over, I want good to triumph over evil already, I want Bush out and somebody sane and intelligent in.

Here. Did you see this? Funny, huh? Hahahahahahahaaaa!!

I’m not so sure it’s satire.

Every damn day something new comes out. Today the New York Times revealed that Bush’s service records during the 1972-1973 period where, it is alleged, he didn’t bother to show up for his Air National Guard duties were “coincidentally” destroyed. Aw…too bad. They might’ve proved that Bush isn’t a lying duty-shirking weasel. But they’re not available anymore.

We are assured the records would have proven that Bush isn’t a lying duty-shirking weasel by the Bush administration. Pardon me while I express my doubt.

Ahem. Suuuuuurrrrre they would, Mr. Not-Elected-President.

The Miami Herald reports that Florida hasn’t fixed its ballot woes. Big surprise, Jeb Bush. Ready to whore out your state to your brother again? Florida’s cheap and gives satisfaction every time.

Do I sound mad? I am mad. I’m extremely pissed off, actually.

The Senate Intelligence Committee issued a report that said the C.I.A. was grossly and unbelievably wrong in the intelligence it handed our government in regard to Iraq. This bolstered an entirely false “justification” for a costly and unnecessary war.

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV is quoted as saying “There is simply no question that mistakes leading up to the war in Iraq rank among the most devastating losses and intelligence failures in the history of the nation…The fact is that the administration at all levels, and to some extent us, used bad information to bolster its case for war. And we in Congress would not have authorized that war — we would NOT have authorized that war — with 75 votes if we knew what we know now.”

That mean 880 U.S. troops would still be alive. $151.1 billion would not have been poured into two foreign lands that still hate us!

“But…” I hear conservatives stammer. No. No “but”. Iraq is worse off, and we are even more unsafe than we were ON Sept. 11, 2001. What once was a secular nation that had no truck with al Qaeda is now brimming with terrorists.

“Aha!” I have heard conservatives justify “that’s the brilliant part! Iraq is acting like flypaper, attracting all the terrorists in the world in one place so we can get them!”

Whuh? Are you really that retarded? That’s the dumbest plan since Wile E. Coyote strapped on roller-skates and a rocket!

The “Flypaper plan” is something Andrew Sullivan “heard from an unnamed source close to the Bush administration” (read: pulled out of his ass) and continues to stand by to this day, exhibiting typical neo-con blindness and adherence to party dogma no matter how patently idiotic it is.

Sullivan, on his blog, states: “[Bush] has to tell the American people that more violence in Iraq may not in some circumstances be a bad thing. It may be a sign that we are flushing out terror and confronting it, rather than passively waiting for it to attack again. He has to remind people that this war is far from over, that the mission is still very much unaccomplished, and that this is not Vietnam.”

That, to me, sounds like desperate rationalization of what is rapidly revealing itself to be the worst foreign policy blunder in American history if not, say, EVER!

“President” Bush is raping the environment, messing up healthcare and the Social Security, screwing the middle class with tax cuts for the rich…and he has the balls to claim he’s doing a good job!

270,000 new jobs. Crap! I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again…those are recovered jobs, jobs we got BACK that were lost when the market tanked because the Bush family was stealing the election! Not to mention the economic fallout from 9/11 and we’re going to see even more fallout from this disastrous boondoggle in Iraq!

Let me spell this out clearly for the G.O.P.: Bush is a liar. He is an incompetent. He is a madman. He is a moron. He is the worst president EVER. Okay? Why are you so damn blind to that? What will it take for you to separate party loyalty from fact and realize that supporting Bush has come to mean helping the destruction of America?

I usually try to sound more reasonable in these columns, but this time I just don’t have the patience. I’m letting a little of the national meanness slip in. Believe me, it is by no measure all the meanness I feel.

I’m coming to feel prejudiced. I’m coming to associate “Republican” with “fanatical retard”. I’m coming to associate “conservative” with “brainless automaton”. I don’t want to feel that way. I enjoy reasoned debate, I enjoy measured consideration of a subject.

But, to me, there is nothing to measure here. Bush is wrong for the country and he must be removed from office this upcoming election. He MUST.

Or we will lose this country.

You’ll All Pay is screamed into a dictaphone by Joe Conat. You can tell him he’s gone ‘round the bend here.

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