The Last Blog

Hooray! After close to a decade, our long national cakewalk is finally over. We went into Iraq in 2003 with four simple goals: blow a bunch of shit up, kill lots of people, funnel tons of money to shady private contractors, and electrocute our soldiers in showers. And we succeeded at all of them! U S A! U S A!

But alas, even the most successful of wars must come to an end. And so the Iraq War draws to a “close,” because President Obama worked tirelessly to keep his promise to end this pointless debacle Iraq would not give U.S. soldiers carte blanche to kill and rape with impunity. But don’t worry, “withdrawing from Iraq” doesn’t actually mean leaving it. What are you, stupid? It means leaving some troops there to continue training Iraqi forces, plus a barely noticeable 16,000 State Department personnel, which includes a shit-ton of those kooky private mercenaries the Iraqi people have come to know and get shot by over the years. And there’s also this, via AP:

In getting out of Iraq, Obama emphasized that “our strong presence in the Middle East endures”

Phew! For a minute there I thought we might stop raining death down on the good people of the various countries of the Middle East. And then what would we be? A bunch of pussies, that’s what! But not to worry, the foreign policy doctrine that is generally known as “neoconservatism” — but that I like to call “Uncle Clusterfuck’s Shit-Storm of Hubris!!!” — is still alive and well. Covert and/or overt wars continue on unabated in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Yemen, Iran, and more. It’s a Christmas miracle!

And now, for some reason, we’re also supposed to take seriously a push by the same war-crazy, deeply stupid fucknuts who talked us into the Iraq war to launch a full-on hot war with Iran. (This would be akin to a guy talking you into sticking your dick in a beehive, and then two minutes later letting that same guy talk you into sticking your dick in a garbage disposal.) Seriously, these motherfuckers won’t be satisfied until we get WW3 going and start letting those nukes — which are just sitting there, collecting dust — fly every which way, and we all die in a fiery hellstorm. (This would be that guy then talking you into having sex with Courtney Love.)

Honestly, why would any sane person listen to the people who brought us the Iraq war? If you’ll remember, that war did not go very well. But apparently we’re supposed to forget all about that and now be very upset at Iran for shooting down one of our drones. (Because, after all, America considers nothing a more provocative act of war than attacking the U.S. soldiers and/or robots that are invading your country.) And also because supposedly Iran’s elite spy force tapped a mentally unstable, alcoholic used car salesman to hire a Mexican drug cartel to shoot some Saudi Ambassador, a story which is the very essence of the word “plausible.” (And also, who cares anyway?) War with Iran would be a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions, but because of the warped, hysterical state of American foreign policy, we’re pretty much just one Toby Keith song away from it becoming a reality.

So yes, Virginia, there will be Endless War for the rest of your miserable life. Wait, what’s that? Is that the sound of jolly old St. Nick gliding across the night sky in his bright red sleigh? Oh, wait, no, it’s a predator drone. LOOK OUT!!!

President Obama, who, as the result of an experiment gone horribly wrong in David Axelrod’s laboratory, requires the sweet, life-sustaining juices of liberal disappointment to stave off death, was growing weak yesterday.  He had done something that liberals, even many who are very dissatisfied with him (myself included), actually liked.  His speech in Osawatomie, Kansas previewed a 2012 in which his reelection campaign would take an unapologetically populist tack, speaking out about economic injustice, defending the social contract, and taking a fight to corporate interests.

So he needed to do something quick to seriously bum out progressives, lest his skin start peeling off in chunks and his appendages begin to fall from his body, just like in Death Becomes Her. (Remember Death Becomes Her?)  Luckily, there was any easy solution at hand.  The FDA was ready to approve Plan B for over-the-counter sales with no age restrictions, because of course, and logic. Obama was quick to order HHS head Kathleen Sebelius to overrule the FDA and keep the drug unavailable to girls 16 and under without a prescription.

Obama defended this decision by calling it “common sense,” presumably because he misunderstands what those words mean.  The AP story describes some of his further justifications:

‘Obama said that as he understood it, Sebelius was wary of a 10-year-old or 11-year-old going into a drugstore and buying a medication — one on the shelves next to “the bubble gum and batteries” — that could be harmful if not used properly.’

See, the Obama administration just wants to keep kids from having access to things that “could be harmful if not used properly”!  That’s why they subsequently announced that they’ll also be removing anti-freeze, sharp-pointed scissors and trans fat-laden baked goods from shelves as well, putting them all behind a giant wall protected by benevolent, fatherly pharmacists who will toil day and night to protect this generation of clumsy, slutty 10-year-olds from themselves.

I suppose this is all due to some sort of election-eyeing political calculation, but it seems like it’s a fool’s errand.  The members of the hysterical “every zygote is sacred’ crowd are never gonna vote for Obama, even if he were to declare eminent domain over all uteruses and order drone strikes on Planned Parenthood clinics.  He might just as well try teaming up with Orly Taitz to see if he can attract some of that sweet Birther vote.  In (unfortunately) classic Obama fashion, it’s a perfect storm of bad policy, bad politics, and pointlessness.  Oh well, enjoy raising those babies, teenage girls!

I can’t manage to get myself all that worked up over the GOP’s obstruction of the payroll tax cut extension.  There’s certainly nothing surprising about it.  Republicans, after all, are required upon launching their campaigns to attend a Cosanostra-style ceremony in Grover Norquist’s basement where they swear a blood oath to never ever ever raise taxes on anyone (except maybe poor people, who, we can all agree, are totally gross.) This is because the current seemingly arbitrary tax rates are in actuality the ones that Jesus decreed to be right and just when he rode his Luck Dragon down to America to help George Washington chop down that cherry tree.  So how can I get mad at the GOP for doing something utterly hypocritical, detrimental to the economy, and downright cruel to working men and women?  Would you get mad at a lion for devouring a gazelle, or a dilophosaur for spitting toxic saliva in that guy who played Newman on Seinfeld’s face? It’s what they do.

But whereas the GOP has lost their ability to surprise me, they still manage to annoy me more than ever.  Mostly in the area of rhetoric, and specifically, their liberal use of the terms “job creators” and “job-killing.”  Repulicans use the term “job creator” to mean “anyone who happens to be a millionaire.”  This offends me as someone who understands words.  The current inhabitants of that one percent tier, with it’s average 1.2 million dollar income, aren’t creating many jobs these days, despite doing better for themselves than ever.  (And paying lower income taxes than they have in over two decades.)

The companion rhetoric of “job creator” is “job-killing.”  The GOP puts the words “job-killing” in front of any revenue increase they may be discussing.  It seems to be almost involuntary at this point, like a kind of anti-Keynesian Tourette’s.  Again, all empirical evidence demonstrates that there is absolutely no correlation between tax increases on the wealthy and decreased employment.  And yet Republicans keep using these Frank Luntz-sanctioned terms, willing them to be true, or at least to seem true to their more dim-witted constituents.

But here’s the thing, Republicans: Words - even rigorously focus-grouped words -cannot cause things that are untrue to become real.  Saying the term “job-killing” before a thing does not cause that thing to actually be job-killing.  Because if that were the case, I would simply start referring to mowing the lawn as blowjob-facilitating yard care.  I mean, boy, do I hate mowing the lawn.  What a boring, thankless chore!  But if through the power of my magic words I could suddenly summon into existence a mob of beautiful, fellatio-crazed women so turned on by the sound of a John Deere push-mower chopping through a thicket of overgrown blue grass that they work themselves into a libidinous frenzy that can only be sated with some vigorous blowjobbing, then the world would instantly be a better place, with many more perennially well-manicured lawns to boot.

But alas, this is not the case.  GOPers have been abusing these words for far too long, so this is what I propose: a “job-killing”-killing tax on use of the term “job-killing” (and “job creator” too.)  Every time a Republican uses one of these terms, they have to pay 3.2 gazillion dollars to the federal government.  This way, I will stop having to hear these offensively stupid terms all the time, and the deficit will disappear overnight.  See, who said this shit has to be difficult?