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 […]
BOOKS: Q&A With Daily Show Writer Kevin Bleyer, Fearless Re-Framer Of The U.S. Constitution
BY JONATHAN VALANIA The Constitution may be a remarkable schematic of human rights in a liberal democracy but it’s a terrible piece of comedy. Seriously, I didn’t laugh once. And what the world needs now, besides love-sweet-love, is funny. Kevin Bleyer has a pretty impressive resume in The Funny: humorous commentaries on NPR’s All Things considered; staff writer for Bill Maher and Dennis Miller; joke writer for President Obama’s White House Correspondence Dinner speeches; three Emmys and more than a 1000 broadcast hours of The Daily Show With Jon Stewart under his belt as a staff writer. One day he […]
NEW LOW: Douchebag Tea Party Chicken Hawk Sez Opponent Who Lost Both Legs When Her Helicopter Was Shot Down In Iraq Isn’t A ‘True Hero’
THINK PROGRESS: Though he never joined the military himself, Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) disparaged his Democratic opponent’s military service at a town hall on Sunday, saying that she’s not a “true hero.” Walsh is running against Tammy Duckworth, a double amputee who lost both her legs in Iraq when insurgents hit her helicopter with an RPG in 2004. The Tea Party freshman opened the Elk Grove town hall by arguing that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was reluctant to discuss his own military service in 2008, which made him a “noble hero.” By contrast, “Now I’m running against a woman […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Life’s Rich Pageant
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY So the other day I was, for reasons unclear, daydreaming about a Mitt Romney inaugural parade that celebrates the forces stacked against what’s left of the middle-class — or as Mitt might call it, The Envious Class — full-blown flag-waving plutocratic fanfare for the uncommon man complete with flag bearers, floats and a marching band. Actually, it’s not all that imaginary. It’s pretty much already underway. To wit: The Flag Bearers: Here’s a trivia question the answer to which may be one of the most unconscionable statistics ever recorded: What is the amount of money […]
EXTRA! EXTRA!: Mr. Phawker Goes To Washington
DAILY NEWS: We’re surprised he cleared Secret Service security, but Phawker.com editor Jonathan Valania was at the White House on Friday interviewing President Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, about his love of indie-rock veterans Guided By Voices. The interview is to appear in the October issue of Magnet. Like the local music magazine, which had been on hiatus, Guided By Voices is also back, after more than five years apart, and plays the Trocadero (1003 Arch) on July 6. Carney revealed his affinity for the Ohio-based Robert Pollard and his GBV cohorts last year. The interview was rescheduled a […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: The Tao Of Mitt
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY Mitt Romney’s appearance at Liberty University was altogether astounding given the fact that applicants to the school must specifically reject the Mormon concept of God and acknowledge that the Book of Mormon is not divine revelation. Be that as it may, he took the present-company-accepted opportunity to genuflect his steadfast concurrence with the Christian “tradition” of marriage being between one man and one woman (he opposes civil unions and supports a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage as well) and it got me to thinking about his own rather dubious religious heritage and the inescapable bit of hypocrisy that could easily attach thereto. Just in case you’re one of those who remain […]
WAR PIGS: GOP Votes To Literally Take Food Out Of The Mouths Of The Hungry To Build More Bombs
BLOOMBERG NEWS: The U.S. House voted to cut food stamps, federal workers’ benefits and other domestic programs to avoid scheduled reductions in defense spending. The chamber today passed, 218-199, a plan to cut about $310 billion in spending to replace automatic defense-spending reductions that lawmakers in both parties agree shouldn’t be allowed to take effect in January. “This plan ensures that we maintain our fiscal discipline and commitment to reducing out-of-control government spending, while making sure our top priority is national security,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican. Democrats lined up against the measure, H.R. 5652, saying […]