The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem and I have to hand it to the Republicans for actually making it that far. With more people believing in ghosts than identifying themselves as a Republican, the party knows they've got some serious work to do if they're ever going to win another election and thankfully, they've decided it's time for a re-branding effort. When I heard about this, I thought it was great news, the party realizes they're at risk of becoming a fringe, opposition party, it's time to get some fresh faces out there to revitalize the party!
And then of course, they showed who the fresh faces are: Newt Gingrich, John McCain, Jeb Bush, Eric Cantor, Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin and Haley Barbour. There's only one clichéd internet meme that can properly sum this up:
And to make matters worse, they're calling this the National Council for a New America. Wait a minute, "New" America? What's wrong with the old America? Well, they did break it, but still... why do they hate America so much that they need a new one? I guess after that whole Real America thing didn't work out, they just feel they need to start all over.
In all seriousness, these are the people you thought would reconnect the Republican Party with the average voter? Really? I'm pretty sure when you're trying fix a failed brand, you don't go with the people who messed it up in the first place. If a plumber makes your leaky pipes worse, you probably shouldn't trust him to do something about your flooded basement. Let's take a look at our future New American leaders:
Newt Gingrich - Newty is pretty much the poster boy for what screwed up America, the prelude to Bush Era neoconservatism which reignited the culture wars. God & guns, fear & smear, etc. As noted earlier this month, Gingrich (an admitted adulterer) reemerged as a national figure to call Barack Obama "anti-religious." When I think of who would make a great leader for this new and refreshed Republican Party, I can't think of a better candidate than the ultra-polarizing, 65-year-old ex-Speaker of the House who's been in politics since 1974.
John McCain - Excellent strategy Republicans, when looking for someone to revitalize your party after a crushing defeat in an election just six months ago, go for the guy that lost the presidency. I'm sure no one will remember the vile, disgusting campaign where he and his constituents essentially called our current president an anti-American terrorist who will kill your baby. No, he's definitely the key to winning over hearts and minds.
Eric Cantor - Hey, we finally found someone under the age of 65, so that's a start. Unfortunately, that's also the end. Cantor's pretty much like a male version of Sarah Palin - empty suit, emptier head. I suppose we could call him John Boehner in training. Here's Cantor really hyping up the whole re-branding process.
Haley Barbour - The governor of Mississippi. Good thing the GOP has him to rebrand their party, because I bet Mississippi would've been up for grabs in the next presidential election! I know the Republicans have been having some trouble with such a progressive, liberal state like MS, so I'm sure a southern, career politician over the age of 60 will give them a huge helping hand.
Bobby Jindal - Oh Bobby, you're a never-ending source of entertainment. I can understand why the Republicans are pushing Jindal, they want to show that they also have a young, charismatic non-white guy... or they're just big fans of 30 Rock, but "the Republican Obama," this guy is not. In reality, Jindal is just another neocon, he supports a constitutional ban on flag burning and he believes that he actually performed an exorcism (and no, I will never get tired of that story). Although I wonder if the Republican base will constantly refer to Bobby by his real name "Piyush" and demand to see his birth certificate, much like they do with "Hussein Obama."
Sarah Palin - The biggest embarrassment in American political history and the Republicans want to trot her around again? I know I've been sarastically joking throughout this list, but for Sarah, I need to just come right out and say it to the GOP - you're supposed to be re-branding, you morons! You don't revitalize your party by bringing out Governor Avon Lady! Look, I know she's Neocon stroke material and she likes to shoot things, but she is possibly the most disgusting politician in America today and I will never apologize for saying that. Sarah Palin epitomizes exactly what's wrong with today's Republican Party and if they're using her to reconnect with voters, they'll be in the history books right next to the Whig Party very soon.
Jeb Bush - But as bad of a choice as Sarah Palin is to fix your tainted image, at least her name isn't Bush! Really Republicans, REALLY?! You're going to try to go to this well for a third time? You're going to try to use Jeb Bush as a figurehead of the new GOP while his brother just finished up the worst... presidency... ever? Dubya's been out of office for 101 days and his approval ratings are still dropping and you're going to enlist his brother?! I believe that is the very definition of "balls." Or "completely detached from reality," I'm not sure which. Considering how popular Meghan McCain is, I think you'd have better luck using Jenna Bush instead.
There you go folks, this is what the Republican Party came up with - old white men, career politicians, empty suits, relatives of the worst president in history, people who believe in exorcisms and the hockey mom pitbull with lipstick. This is literally the best they can do, go even further to the right and say "good riddance" to folks like Arlen Specter. They believe losing moderates will "purify" their party as they set up shop in the idealogical fringe section of America. The party of Lincoln is long gone, hell, this isn't even the party of Reagan anymore, this is the party of wingnuts.
Introducing the Jesus license plate, courtesy of our friends in Florida. For those people who think a bumper sticker just isn't enough to spread their religious beliefs, Florida has you covered! I wonder how all those elderly Jews in Florida feel about a Jesus and his amazing pectoral muscles being on a state-issue license plate. Surely this has to violate the separation of church and state, right? Not according to Governor Charlie Crist, who says if you don't want one, you don't have to get one. Apparently the governor thinks these things just print themselves and they're not produced with tax dollars.
And really Governor, that's the can of worms you want to open, if you don't want one, you don't have to get one? Okay then, I assume that means Florida will soon be issuing license plates with the Star of David, an Islamic crescent moon, Buddha and various Hindu gods? What about a license plate with Zeus? Or how about one with Satan and a pentagram on it? Hey, if people don't want one, they don't have to get one.
For all my religious readers, would you even want something this offensive on your car? If I were a Christian, I would find this to be one of the tackiest things I've ever seen and I'd be furious at the genius who thought this would be a good idea. I don't think being screwed to the back of a Volvo is what Jesus had in mind when he died for our sins. Isn't this the very definition of using the lord in vain, exploiting his image while you make a trip to the mall?
I can't wait for this to become a huge embarrassment for Florida when someone gets one of these plates with the custom tag "ATHE1ST" or "STN_666."
So I'm torturing myself, aka watching Fox News, and just like actual torture, watching Fox News often leads to bad information. Missouri Senator Kit Bond is on right now defending torture like a good little lapdog and he's using this clichéd line that if we prosecute the high level officials that authorized torture (Dick Cheney), then we'll turn America into a Banana Republic. No, he doesn't mean we're all going to get a nice pair of khakis, he means that like a South American dictator, Obama would be using the law to get political power.
Of course that claim is embarrassingly stupid and only something a Republican could come up with, but what really bothered me was Bond saying we can't criminalize these actions. What actions, torture? We can't criminalize torture? That's essentially saying we can't criminalize crime. Torture is illegal. I keep hearing everyone from right-wing whackjobs all the way to President Obama saying we have to look forward instead of backward and we can't dwell on the past, but using that logic, we'd never prosecute anyone for a crime. Once the crime is committed, it's in the past; if I punched Kit Bond in the face, I don't think the judge would be too impressed with my "hey, let's look to the future" defense. Just to be clear, I don't advocate violence against anyone, even political figures, I leave that up to the conservative media.
Fox News apologist Chris Wallace continued this idiotic conversation by asking Democratic Senator Carl Levin if the next president considers Obama's tactics in Pakistan to be a war crime, should Obama be prosecuted? There's really no other way to say it after such a stupid question, but Chris Wallace is apparently a complete idiot. Presidents don't just get to decide what is and what is not a war crime, torture is undoubtedly a war crime and is considered as such by the entire modernized world. Once again, Wallace was just demonstrating that Fox's bias isn't just from Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity, but it permeates every facet of the network, even their "fair and balanced" reporting.
Senators Levin and Bond continued their debate with Bond suggesting that releasing these torture memos have made us less safe. Levin, showing the common sense absent from his Republican counterpart, made the simple observation that releasing these memos wouldn't be necessary if the law hadn't been broken in the first place. Terrorist groups have already used the fact that we torture as a method for getting new recruits; the release of memos doesn't change that. The Republican Party, specifically the previous administration made America less safe, so all those people who claim Bush "kept us safe after 9/11," you need to remember who authorized the use of these tactics.
I know they're the party that elected The Terminator to be governor, but has the Republican Party truly become so insane that they're endorsing war crimes because they see it on TV? The United States of America does not torture, but that doesn't stop Glenn Beck and other Fox News shows are airing clips from 24 where Jack Bauer defends his techniques in a congressional hearing; is that really the route you want to go, Fox News? You weren't airing clips when Jack Bauer was interrogating a corrupt president, and we sure could've used his help with that the last eight years. This is how silly our national dialogue has become, the adults are trying to have a rational discussion about defending America and then the Neocons barge in and say we should torture people because the guy from Young Guns does it all the time.
Leave it to the hypocrites of today's current Republican Party to rely on something from Hollywood to justify their methods. I thought they were all just a bunch of latte-sipping liberals over there, but somehow they have the right idea on how to interrogate a detainee? Real life is not television, the conspiracy doesn't unravel at the top of every hour, we don't wrap up conflicts in one perfectly-timed day and you can't get travel all across Los Angeles in 10 minutes. Seriously, have you watched 24 lately? It gets more ridiculous every year, and this is coming from a guy who watched seven seasons of a teenage girl slaying vampires.
Bringing this back to reality, I am stunned to see people actually defending the fact that we waterboarded Khalid Sheik Mohammed 183 times in one month. That's six times a day. If waterboarding is so effective, why the hell would you need to do it 183 times? Apparently it was done so much to discover details about a link between Iraq and 9/11, of course there was none. Now I'm sure some of you are thinking, I can't possibly be worried about the treatment of the man who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks can I? Yes, I am. I'm not defending Khalid Sheik Mohammed, I think he should rot in prison for the rest of his miserable existence, but we cannot justify torture under any circumstances. No matter how horrible the person or their actions, we can never stoop to that level of barbarism.
I hear people like Rush Limbaugh say these guys weren't tortured, they were just slapped around a little bit. Well, if it's something so innocuous, what's the point? If they're not being hurt, why would that make them talk instead of just a normal interrogation? To the people who say waterboarding specifically isn't torture, I suggest you watch this video:
That's conservative writer, Christopher Hitchens, saying that waterboarding is undoubtedly torture. You can find videos like this all over YouTube of people in a controlled environment, who know they're in no imminent danger, lasting no longer than mere seconds.
If you have any other doubts that waterboarding should be classified as torture, why did we put Japanese war criminals on trial after WWII for waterboarding? What changed since 1945? Torture had no place in our society 64 years ago and it certainly has no place here today. We cannot appeal to our basest of instincts, and sacrifice our morality because of fear or a thirst for vengeance. What makes us better than people like Khalid Sheik Mohammed is that we hold ourselves to a higher principle those principles must apply to all people, even the most heinous villains. There are no exceptions for justice.
In honor of Earth Day, I need to get something off my chest that's been bugging me for awhile, I hate the "going green" movement. It's marketing buzzwords for things that we should just be doing. Do I really need people blowing millions of dollars on advertising to tell me that I should be buying an energy-saving light bulb that will last years longer than an incandescent bulb? Everyone should be using reusable shopping bags, not just because of the environmental impact, but because they're simply better than plastic. Do we really need a silly gimmick like everyone turning off their lights for an hour when we can just do what our Dads bugged us about for years: turn things off when you're not using them? In our current economic climate, we shouldn't need to be told to not be wasteful, it's common sense.
We all know I'm as liberal as they come and I'm definitely concerned about the environment, but we need to get real. We're not running out of landfill space, we're running out of polar ice caps... recycling a Pepsi bottle isn't going to stop global warming. So what can we do to stop it? Probably the first thing we can do is drop the phrase "global warming," because any time there's snowfall, some dumbass Neocon runs their mouth and says "where's all the global warming?" showing a complete misunderstanding of science as opposed to their usual misunderstanding of politics.
Climate change is real, and we're getting beyond the point where average citizens can save the planet one tree at a time. The only thing that's going to truly fight this threat is money, lots and lots of money, the kind of money only mega corporations and world governments have. It's good to do whatever you can, because it will save necessary energy, resources and money, but there's no need to go crazy over the green trend. Instead of worrying about whether or not your grill is a hybrid, maybe you should worry whether or not your congressman believes in climate change or if he actually thinks the earth can only end when God brings about the Rapture:
Joseph Loflin, a Texas man, has been fined $170 for "disorderly conduct." What was he doing that was so disorderly? He said "shit." You know, on second thought, Texas... you can secede.
I don't know what about this story is more disturbing, that you can be fined for cursing or that someone felt the need to call the police because a man said "shit." "He kept repeating the word in front of my child," the 'victim' said. Have we become this fucking ridiculous as a society that we can call the cops on someone because they said a word that you don't want your precious little snowflake to hear? I can understand getting upset if a guy was using a slew of curse words to describe some explicit sex act in front of a small child, but the guy was bitching at his neighbors about their cat shitting in his yard and the kid overhearing was 13 years old. 13 for fuck's sake, unless this kid is home schooled, I guarantee she hears far worse on a daily basis.
It's bad enough that radio and television has been stifled by these moral crusaders, but now I can't even say shit on my own street? I don't know if these people are aware, but you do not have a right to NOT be offended. The First Amendment protects all speech, even the most vile, disgusting, hateful thing you can imagine... if it didn't, how else would the Republican Party continue to exist? This is the third language citation issued in this Texas county in the last year. In August, a woman was cited for saying "fuck" in a personal conversation in a Walmart, apparently her right to a private conversation was overruled by someone's oversensitivity. Now, if you want to take your complaint to Walmart's manager, the company has every right as a private business to ask that woman to leave, but no government should ever have the right to issue any sort of punishment.
So Galveston County, Texas and any other city who thinks they have the right to regulate free speech... grow the fuck up you whiny little bitchy fucks.
UPDATE Just to illustrate this country's fucked up priorities, while we're fining a guy for saying "shit" in front of a 13 year old girl, another 13 year old girl has to appeal to the Supreme Court to fight being forcibly strip-searched by her school because she was accused of having ibuprofen in her backpack.
