[Artwork via FREAKING NEWS] NEW YORK TIMES: Rick Santorum captured twin victories in the Alabama and Mississippi primaries on Tuesday, overcoming the financial advantages of Mitt Romney and the Southern allegiances to Newt Gingrich on a night that amplified his argument that the Republican nominating fight is becoming a two-man race with Mr. Romney. The triumphs by Mr. Santorum elevated and strengthened his candidacy as the Republican campaign rolls ahead into a state-by-state battle for delegates. An aggressive push by Mr. Romney to try and capitalize on the divided conservative electorate failed to take hold, and he finished third in […]
MITT ROMNEY: Ugly On The Inside
[Artwork by DONKEYHOTEY] BY WILLIAM C. HENRY I’ve long felt that if you want to learn something about the character of a Presidential candidate, do a little “spotting” of the backgrounds and beliefs of those they’re “nesting” with. In the case of the likely Republican finalist, a careful scoping reveals no less than a bevy of buzzards. Nowhere in this carrion banquet masquerading as the Republican primary can the maxim patch “guilty by association” be more justly sewn than onto the empty suit aka Mitt Romney. Mitt’s that “paragon of virtue” (their words, not mine) who installed Robert Bork and Frank VanderSloot as his top legal […]
With President Rick Santorum’s Help, Megadeth Will At Long Last Vanquish Metallica Once And For All
METALSUCKS.NET: Suckalo Adam Ellsworth sent us the below photo of a painting a friend made for him. That’s a good friend – the painting is apparently an EPIC 30” x 30” without the frame. It portrays, in Adam’s words, “Dave Mustaine fighting a manticore with James Hetfield’s face while Vic Rattlehead cuts off Kirk Hammett’s hair in the background.” And there’s the Metallica/Megadeth feud summed up in a nutshell. MORE MOTHER JONES: On his rise to the top of the Republican charts, Rick Santorum has picked up plugs and plaudits from media and entertainment luminaries including Glenn Beck, the Duggars, […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: The Devil You Know
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY The best part about creating this fantasy face-off was coming to the realization that determining its outcome wasn’t going to be the slam dunk this old-school liberal had anticipated. As you would no doubt agree, discovering where a politician actually stands on a given issue (as opposed to where they say they stand) can be a pretty eye-opening experience, sometimes revealing previously arrived at conclusions to have been ill-informed rushes to judgement unsupported by facts on the ground. Although I regard this as by far the “best available” match-up for the discerning American voter, the chance of a real-life Presidential […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: The Dark Art Of Convincing White Middle Class America To Vote Against Itself
[Click to enlarge] BY WILLIAM C. HENRY Rarely has a political party so craftily cozened a majority of its naive yet trusting adherents as has the current Republican edition with its sham economic policies. Take for example convincing their blue- (and even many white–) collar disciples that a further lessening of the already absurdly low tax burden on the wealthy — many of whom for nearly a decade have paid an unconscionably lower percentage of their income in taxes than middle-class wage earners — will assuredly result in a mutually beneficial “trickling down” of vast improvement to their already-shattered-by-the-VERY-SAME-POLICIES lives. No doubt, but watch […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Free Bradley Manning
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY Never before has a supposedly sophisticated military establishment demonstrated such spitefully infantile behavior over a wholly contrived crisis brought on by its own colossally bungling incompetence. You guessed it. I’m talking about that back-in-the-news stupendously-exaggerated-harm-to-national-security Bradley Manning/Wikileaks saga the Pentagon is so determined to prove itself the fool over. No matter the number of embarrassing government-negative exposés, or the considerable public pressure being brought on Bradley’s behalf, the matter continues to prove itself a blatant travesty the injustice of which is exceeded only by the inability and/or unwillingness of its brass-laden pursuers to display so much as a smidgen of contrition or even canine-level […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: I, Misanthrope
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY A question from a friend (to whom I attribute perhaps unwarranted powers of observation) following a recent discussion on the sorry state of Republican politics got me to wondering just how my true sentiments concerning that cauldron of cacophony, callousness and cowardice should “properly” be categorized. The question was, “When did the symptoms of your misanthropy first appear?” Well, although momentarily taken aback, I quickly realized that perhaps an opportunity “too good to refuse” had just been dropped into my proverbial absence of a lap. So, with albeit a little skirting of the issues now and then, and […]
1 Year Ago This Man Slaughtered 6 People, Maimed 13 And Killed Sarah Palin’s Presidential Dreams
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] ABC NEWS: In the stunned aftermath of the Tucson massacre, Sarah Palin has found herself in the crosshairs of the ensuing political debate with opponents suggesting she may have fueled the gunman’s rage and her supporters saying it is “grotesque” to blame her and to politicize the tragedy. Crosshairs is a political phrase that emerged from Palin’s political action committee SarahPac that targeted congressional districts for the Tea Party campaign in the last election, including the district of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Although Palin later denied she meant the graphic over the districts to look like a […]
BEST OF: Sh*t My Uncle Said In 2011
EDITOR’S NOTE: OK, admittedly it’s not a very original title, but it IS accurate. William C. Henry is better known to me as ‘Uncle Bill.’ He’s always been a man of strong opinions and a persuasive argument-maker, but I was a little surprised to learn — after re-connecting with him after a prolonged period of radio silence — that his current perspective so closely mirrors that of Phawker. Which is refreshing, to say the least, since most (white) people seem to turn into Fox News zombies when they get to be his age (early 70s, FYI). Not Uncle Bill. It […]
REWIND 2011: BEST OF Q&A: The Year In Questions And Answers
THE TESTIFIER [Illustrations by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA In advance of her recent reading at the Free Library to promote her new book Reimagining Equality: Stories Of Race, Gender And Finding A Home, we present a conversation with Anita Hill, professor of social policy, law, and women’s studies at Brandeis University. Discussed: The fantasia of a Post-Racial America; the mendacity, narcissism and hypocrisy of Clarence Thomas and Herman Cain; the right wing’s racializing the blame for the 2008 financial crisis; how she passed the lie detector test Clarence Thomas refused to take; the emancipation of her grandfather from slavery; […]
Rick Perry Bashes Gays To Save Christmas; Says He’s Totally Unashamed Of His Personal Relationship With 33-Year-Old Jewish Male From Nazareth*
RICK PERRY: I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school. As President, I’ll end Obama’s war on religion. And I’ll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage. Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again. I’m Rick Perry and I approve this message. MORE RELATED: It was clearly intended to elicit a strong reaction, and don’t think that […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: War Is Over, The Drugs Won
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY Watching Rick Perry have a brain fart over which departments he was going to dismantle immediately upon assuming the Presidency got me to wondering why none of the Republican Presidential wannabes are pledging to axe the only federal “agency” that truly is, and always has been, a bona fide American anathema. I’m talking about the one Richard Nixon euphemistically dubbed the “War on Drugs,” and later christened the Drug Enforcement Administration or D.E.A.; an utterly useless bureaucracy that has never accomplished even a smidgen of its chartered reason for being; a tribute to phony promise, false […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: A Man For No Reasons
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY “Hear Ye! Hear Ye! The phoniest, pettiest, most hypocritical politician to ever ply the trade has proclaimed he wants to become your President.” Such is the headline that should have blazed across the front page of every newspaper and online news source in America on May 11, 2011, the day Newt Gingrich became convinced that the passage of time had obscured his true persona to the point that he just might be able to pull off a run for the highest office in the land. And, although the aforestated somewhat uncomplimentary hyperbole could probably attach to […]