The talks to avoid the dreaded ‘fiscal cliff’ continue and yet one big Republican player has been sitting on the sidelines of the debate. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a.k.a. ‘The Turtle’, has pretty much kept himself out of the discussions. But we have no doubt that in the coming days, the good senator, who famously wanted to make President Obama a one-term president, will show us the typical spirit of bi-partisanship that Republicans have exhibited the past four years and block anything the Democrats put in front of him.
Well, Congress has adjourned for the holidays and surprise surprise, no progress on the looming ‘fiscal cliff’. Speaker of the House, John Boehner (pronounced bo-ner), who seems to be under the illusion that the Republicans won the election, has stubbornly insisted that he gets his way. That means keeping his precious tax cuts for his rich handlers and cutting funds for the social safety net programs like Social Security and Medicare, which benefits most elderly Americans. Of course, most people seem to think this ‘fiscal cliff’ is baloney anyway (note how it’s always referenced in quotations) and to President Obama’s credit, he’s playing hardball with the Republicans (finally!). It’s not the first time that the great Oompa Loompa of negativity, John Boehner, has bungled up negotiations. It’s business as usual for the Republicans.
With the recent mass shootings and the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman incident, the United States Mint has decided to re-issue the Florida state quarter to honor of the state’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law which states that a person may use necessary force to defend themselves if they ever feel threatened. And who better to represent this wacky law than lovable, cartoon legend Beavis (with apologies to Mike Judge), who is depicted as his paranoid alter ego, the Great Cornholio. NRA spokesmen claim this is a fitting tribute to a nation that truly loves its guns and hopefully will put us one step closer to the apocalyptic world of The Road Warrior. Yessirree! Arizona and Florida: leading the country in crazy!
In the wake of yet another mass shooting, this time at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, more of the same predictable, reprehensible rhetoric has been spewing forth from ‘compassionate’ conservative right wingers who seem to love their guns more than life itself. From Republican congressman Louie Gohmert’s (from Texas of course) call for more guns to former Republican governor Mike Huckabee’s assertion that the massacre occurred because God had been systematically removed from school, the response is typical from the right wing. There have been 31 mass shootings since the Columbine incident in 1999 and 62 in the last 30 years. The response is always the same: the public expresses shock that something like this could happen in America; sane people say that something should be done to prevent this; the NRA and right wing neocon gun nuts scream about the right of every American to own a gun and that ‘guns don’t kill people, people kill people’; politicians say they’ll explore solutions to the problem without implementing the horrors of ‘gun control’ on assault weapons; the NRA and right wing neocon gun nuts cry that they need assault weapons to hunt; time lapses; people forget; finally nothing ever gets done…until the next mass shooting. Rinse and repeat.
Seriously folks, nobody needs an assault weapon to go quail hunting or deer hunting for that matter. It’s utter BULLSHIT!!!They should be BANNED!!!
Here’s a photo-toon from our May 12, 2007 issue right after after the Virginia Tech shootings which echoes Gohmert’s statement that somehow, if everyone had a gun, there would be no more violence and we could all join hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’.
The last couple of posts, we’ve been railing on America’s favorite ‘culture warrior’, Bill O’Reilly, who’s only goal in life is to look out for you. He has been blathering on and on about the ‘War on Christmas’ for the past umpty-nine years about how atheists and secularists are attacking christianity causing America to fail and life as we know it to come to a cataclysmic end. Of course, he fails to mention the deadening effect of the rampant commercialism on christmas.
Companies start having all kinds of xmas sales earlier and earlier with every passing year; pre-Halloween christmas sales, pre-Labor Day christmas sales, pre-St.Swithins christmas sales… you get the picture. Corporate America has killed christmas far more than secularists. And it’s been that way for a long time. We are conditioned from an early age to want and consume. It’s a part of our culture. Who didn’t drool over the toys in Sears or Penney’s christmas catalogs when we were kids?. We are taught to want, want, want from the time we’re old enough to walk. Christmas has become all about shopping. Buy! Buy! Buy! But in Mr. O’Reilly’s view, it’s all the atheists’ fault.
So how should we save Christmas in a way in which Mr. O’Reilly would approve? The answer is obvious: go out and spend like there is no tomorrow. The world’s going to end anyway on the 21st, right? (Wink, wink)
It’s almost mid-December, which means that America’s self proclaimed ‘culture warrior’, Bill O’Reilly, is in the midst of his annual ranting about the so called ‘War on Christmas’. We’ve commented on O’Reilly before. He’s one of the neocons over at Fox News, a.k.a. The Republican Propaganda Network, so this ‘War on Christmas’ fits right in with the ‘journalism’ dished out on a daily basis there. Of course, O’Reilly conveniently ignores any facts which get in the way of his agenda, like fourth century christians declaring that christmas should be on December 25th because that’s when the pagans celebrated the winter solstice. Sorry folks; Jesus wasn’t born on christmas. But that doesn’t give us warm fuzzies, and if you’re religious it’s all about the warm fuzzies. O’Reilly has a cow because people say ‘Happy Holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas’, yet the word holiday comes from the merging of two old English words which mean ‘holy day’. And yet after O’Reilly delivered performed a recent rant, Fox News showed a message which wished the audience ‘Happy Holidays’.
Here’s a photo-toon from our October 6, 2006 issue, which shows America’s favorite ‘culture warrior’ O’Reilly ready to slay all the evil, secular dragons who have the audacity to say ‘Happy Holidays’.