The Satire of American Politics

I will always look back with found memories of Mel Brooks and his movies.  Ah, the man is the Mark Twain of theatrical satire, and I do believe his career would still be going strong if not for the majority of the conservative leadership in the United States.  Why pay a man for a movie, when you can turn on the News and get it first hand.  Maybe that explains why comedies are not that great anymore, we are all burned out on them.

So last week we had the Palin Brawl in Alaska.  I have heard two stories around this one with Sarah throwing down, one where she did not.  I don't know, but this story reminds me of a Jerry Springer show where he is on Monday Night Raw, and the Palins are beating up the father of Bristol's love child.  Just the same, people were really entertaining Palin as the Vice President.  Could you imagine the Secret Service breaking up that brawl?  Could you imagine the way this country would look if she really did throw down in that brawl?

We have a guy by the name of Kingston saying that Republicans don't want to change anything when dealing with ISIS. 

 "It’s an election year. A lot of Democrats don’t know how it would play in their party, and Republicans don’t want to change anything. We like the path we’re on now. We can denounce it if it goes bad, and praise it if it goes well and ask what took him so long.”

He would rather hear about it later so they can denounce it if it goes bad, praise it if it works, and then turn it around on Obama for it taking him a while to get there.  Yeah, I could only wish this was satire, that it was a piece you would find on The Onion, but he apparently really spilled the beans on the GOP plan.  Do nothing, or next to nothing and blame Obama.  Do nothing or next to nothing and chide Obama for not acting fast enough.  Do nothing or next to nothing and become enraged when Obama uses the legal options he has to get around your do nothing backside.

In other news a Utah judge stated that a man does not have to testify in a case involving child labor.  I shit you not.  Wait... What... How the....  Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.  Yeah, thats right, that Hobby Lobby ruling coming back to bite us again.  So, it is claimed that the Fundie Mormons, you know the ones that think its cool for a ten year old girl to marry a fifty year old man who has twenty other wives, were using child labor.  The person in question said testifying is against my religion.  Sad thing is, he would not be testifying, he would be answering questions as part of the investigation.  So, this may or may not have anything come of it, and if they are guilty it will make the case against them that much harder to prove.

If that didn't boggle your mind enough, maybe this one will.  Russell Pearce got on his radio program and said that poor women should be sterilized, then we can test them all for drug and alcohol use.  Alright, given every state I have heard of having drug tests found around 1% of recipients using drugs or alcohol, its a really small number of people, and it is a huge waste of money.  You know that thing conservatives are so totally against, government waste.  But to add this sterilization to this, and to double down the comment by telling women who might potentially become pregnant that if they want to "reproduce" to get a job, that is out there.  Hey, I wouldn't be totally opposed to the sterilization deal, if only it were applied equally.  Rich, poor and between, white skin, black skin, brown skin, or green with asexual organ arrangements I could live with that.  But here is the thing, it is targeted towards the poor, and likely African and Latino American women.  In that case, I couldn't go for it.  But it would be nicer to see a few billionaires breeding.  And slightly less annoying is Scott Walker, who is back on the drug test the welfare people again.  Yeah, lets waste money.  He is willing to spend your money to fight the federal government to waste your money on drug tests that catch next to nobody.

Oh but this gets better, so much worse.  See, in the conservatives lazy mind the unemployed get paid too much so they spend most of their time shopping not looking for work.  Apparently the "not employed" aka unemployed spend all their time doing meaningless things like shopping, cleaning house, learning, or wait for it... ~gasp~ Are retired...  OMFG!!!!  Yeah, they took not employed which are people who are unemployed, students, housewives or stay at home parents, the disabled, and those who are retired and lumped them all together.  Unemployed is unemployed, stay at home parents and housewives have a job that pays nothing (sadly), and the retired are retired, while the disabled are disabled.  That is what makes comments like this so funny:

LIMBAUGH: A majority of the unemployed would rather go shopping than, yeah, unemployed. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Government. Unemployed more likely to go shopping on an average day than look for a job. Why should they? They're all eating. They've all got cellphones. They've all got televisions. They've all got cable, or they all watch television somehow. They'd rather go shopping, on an average day, than look for a job.

PAYNE: Nothing surprising about this. What's surprising is we don't talk about it more. It's really a shame in America we can't have these kind of honest discussions. Because the inference is that people are lazy, that people don't want to get up and go at it. Guess what? These programs do make people lazy. They make people comfortable. They make you want to take a chill pill.

I can tell they never got unemployment...  Then again if they did, it would still be more than many people make.

So, we have this last one.  What does Ray Rice beating his wife, Adrian Peterson beating his kid, Benghazi, and the IRS scandal have in common?  Well, if you answered Elisabeth Hasselbeck you win.  See in her mind the NFL is being very transparent when it comes to the Ray Rice beat your wife episode.  So imagine how much better it would have been if the Benghazi and IRS investigations had been just as transparent.  Yeah, one of these three things was not handled very well, and it was the NFL.  But to further the insanity of it, she said it was an honor to link these three things... It was an honor to spout insanity.  Hey, Obama is to blame here (see Kingston) because he didn't condemn Rice being suspended forever and being fired.

“I want to know, where is the President on this one? My question is — and not to bring it back to politics but — this is a White House that seems to bring up a ‘war on women’ every other week.”

 Right so Obama is fighting a war on women because he didn't condemn Ray Rice being shitcanned or suspended indefinitely?   Or have I gone stupid?  Maybe there is some truth to the saying "There are two types of people you never mess with in this world.  You never mess with the insane because you do not know how they will react, and you don't mess with the stupid because they will make you insane."