Painting by Fernando Botero BY JEFF DEENEY Recently I had a rare opportunity to go inside Philadelphia’s House of Corrections, the oldest jail in the Philadelphia Prison System, and see the conditions inmates live in. I was there in my capacity as a social worker and not as a writer and frankly I had no intention of writing about the experience. But as I walked the block prisoners implored me to, perhaps thinking I was a reporter, so I feel I must report on their behalf. “Tell them out there about this overcrowding you seen here!” “Put it in the […]
WORTH REPEATING: The New Yorker Endorsement
Photo by PLATON THE NEW YORKER: Romney has embraced the values and the priorities of a Republican Party that has grown increasingly reactionary and rigid in its social vision. It is a party dominated by those who despise government and see no value in public efforts aimed at ameliorating the immense and rapidly increasing inequalities in American society. A visitor to the F.D.R. Memorial, in Washington, is confronted by these words from Roosevelt’s second Inaugural Address, etched in stone: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Old Wine In A New Bottle
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY The surprise appearance of George W. Bush at Tuesday’s debate, albeit in the form of a question from an undecided voter — as in ‘please tell us Governor Romney how you will NOT be just like George W. Bush’ — reminded me that I almost feel sorry for the guy. Almost. I suppose I could be accused of heresy for feeling the way I do about George Bush’s ostracism from all of impolite Republican society lately. Maybe it’s more a feeling of genuine puzzlement than anything else. I mean, it seems like the guy just […]
THE $32 TRILLION DOLLAR MAN: Do The Math, Mitt Romney Will Double The Deficit In 10 Years
BY MIKE WALSH You think the deficit is high now. Wait until Mitt Romney gets elected. $16 trillion in new debt is nothing for a man of Mitt Romney’s skills. He claims that Obama doubled the national debt. This is “factually inaccurate” or what I like to call “fucken’ bullshit.” When Obama took office, the national debt was about $10 trillion. It is now a little over $16 trillion. Now $6 trillion in debt is nothing to be proud of, but it is not double $10 trillion. That would be $20 trillion, Mitt. You’re only $4 trillion off. But it’s […]
JUDGE: On Second Thought, Maybe Ramming Through A Voter I.D. Law Just Months Before A Presidential Election Is NOT Good For Democracy
NBC NEWS: A Pennsylvania judge has blocked enforcement of the key section of a voter identification law which the state legislature enacted and Republican Gov. Tom Corbett signed last March, meaning that the law will not be in effect for the Nov. 6 election. Judge Robert Simpson said that even with the streamlined procedures that state officials proposed to make it easier for voters without ID cards to obtain them, “the proposed changes are to occur about five weeks before the general election, and I question whether sufficient time now remains to attain the goal of liberal access” to ID […]
RANDY NEWMAN: Dreaming Of A White President
Randy Newman, the legendary putdown/pick up artist, has been hoisting racist assclowns by their own petards since at least 1974’s “Rednecks.” Simply put, he’s better at bigotry than they are, and he doesn’t even mean it. Just in time for the holiday that shall mark the second coming of Barack Obama, aka election day, Newman is back with yet another poison pill for the haters, it’s called “I’m Dreaming” but instead of the ‘a white Christmas’ you might expect to follow such a declaration, he’s dreaming of a white president. Or more accurately, the character he plays in the song […]
PRODUCT PLACEMENT: Sh*t And Grin
Artwork via SMEAR CAMPAIGN All politics is loco, to bastardize Tip O’Neil famous nostrum, and packed to the gills foie gras-style with the fecal matter of its own corrupt bullshit. Which is slightly more elegant way of rendering the inelegant cliche that all politicians — left, right and everyone in between — are full of shit. Like all inelegant cliches, it’s entirely true. Even worse, we keep stepping in it over and and over again. Finally, somebody has done something about it. Boldly standing up and declaring that these would-be emperors have no clothes, Philly-based RS Kmiec Design, in partnership […]
WORTH REPEATING: Being Barack Obama
FRESH AIR: Author Michael Lewis made a radical request to the White House that he says he was almost certain would be denied: He wanted to write a piece about President Obama that would put the reader in the president’s shoes. To do this, the Vanity Fair contributing editor would need inside access. So what did he propose? “I’ve got to basically come and loiter and just kind of get to know him. It’s going to be very free-flowing; I want to do things like play basketball with him,” Lewis tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “I said I wanted to […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Here’s Your Voucher, Don’t Let The Door Hit Your Ass On The Way Out Of The Middle Class, Gramps
Artwork by DONKEYHOTEY BY WILLIAM C. HENRY H.L. Mencken famously said, “For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.” In the upcoming election Americans will be presented with a choice between what the Republican nominee and his V.P. for everything budgetary would have them believe is the only answer to the complex economic problem of continuing budget deficits and mounting national debt, namely, a complete dismantling of the social welfare system as we know it, and a mufti-faceted alternative that is clear, pretty cut-and-dried and altogether righteous. This latter approach entails: 1) no longer […]
How To Tell Tea Party Assclowns To Shut Their Pie Holes
Why does it take the prime minister of Ireland to speak truth to douchebag? Right wing/Tea Party talk radio gasbag Michael Graham gets a smackdown of common sense from the Prime Minister of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins. Why is it that Ireland gets elected officials like Mr. Higgins and we get asshats like THIS? RELATED: The President of Ireland Michael D Higgins has become a celebrity on YouTube over a two year-old broadcast debate that resurfaced in which he eviscerates ardent US Republican radio broadcaster Michael Graham over issues like healthcare and foreign policy. The recording is hurtling towards 500,000 […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Let Them Eat Cake
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY “And that’s all they’re going to get.” Quoth the man who would be President upon being asked by a reporter about his lack of customary disclosure of several years tax returns as well as his reaction to criticism of the conflicting paper trail surrounding his involvement with Bain Capital, plus his failure to explain in any up-front manner the justification for his ownership of off-shore bank accounts in the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Switzerland, and elsewhere. Never before in the annals of presidential campaigning has a major-party candidate so blithely shot such a tall and rigid […]
TRUTH DIGGER: Q&A With Christopher Hedges, Author, Journalist, American Who Tells The Truth
Christopher Lynn Hedges (born September 18, 1956) is an American journalist, author, and war correspondent specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and societies.[1] His most recent book, which he wrote with the cartoonist Joe Sacco, is “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” (2012). Hedges and Sacco, who illustrated the book, reported from the poorest pockets in the United States including the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota, Camden, New Jersey, the coal fields of southern West Virginia, the nation’s produce fields and in the last chapter from the Occupy encampment in Zuccotti Park.[2] Hedges is also known as […]
CHINESE DEMOCRACY: New GOP-Sponsored Voter ID Law Could Disenfranchise 758,000 PA Voters
INQUIRER: More than 758,000 registered voters in Pennsylvania do not have photo identification cards from the state Transportation Department, putting their voting rights at risk in the November election, according to data released Tuesday by state election officials. The figures – representing 9.2 percent of the state’s 8.2 million voters – are significantly higher than prior estimates by the Corbett administration. Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele has repeatedly said that 99 percent of Pennsylvania’s voters already had the photo ID they will need at the polls in November. The new numbers, based on a comparison of voter registration […]