Warren Buffett is one right motherfucker. The man is worth an estimated $52 billion. That is approximately $52 billion more than I am worth, give or take eight dollars. And he didn’t become a really rich guy by being a moron, turns out he understands how business works, it is something he was born to do.
When he was six years old, he bought six-packs of Coke from his grandfather’s store and sold them for five cents each, making a five-cent profit. When I was six, I was staring at the television and playing with Hot Wheels. By the time Buffett was 11 he was buying stock and turning a profit. I’m pretty sure I was still playing with Hot Wheels. Buffett went on to be a stock market genius, amassing an incredible fortune.
Now he says Bush’s tax cuts are bullshit and should be altered. Buffett thinks he should be paying more taxes and that the tax structure in America is wrong.
Warren Buffett has complained that he pays a lower rate of tax than any of his staff - including his receptionist. Mr. Buffett, who is worth an estimated $52bn, said: "The taxation system has tilted towards the rich and away from the middle class in the last 10 years. It's dramatic; I don't think it's appreciated and I think it should be addressed."
Oh, it is definitely not appreciated, especially when the rich are benefiting economically from the war, while the middle class and poor suffer.
Buffett conducted a survey of his employees and found that he pays 17.7% in payroll income tax, while his employees pay 32.9%.
There wasn't anyone in the office, from the receptionist up, who paid as low a tax rate and I have no tax planning; I don't have an accountant or use tax shelters. I just follow what the US Congress tells me to do.
Buffett believes the difference comes down to lobbyists.
Hedge fund operators have spent a record amount lobbying in the last few months - they give money to the political campaigns. Who represents the cleaning lady?
That is one way of looking at it, but I prefer a completely different theory. If you have a moral code and some sort of humanity, then you wouldn’t need a lobbyist to tell you what to do. Our politicians have no conscience, which allows them to fuck over the working class with ease. Plus, they are all millionaires themselves, so why not give themselves a break?
The debate over tax cuts is still raging in Congress. Democrat Charlie Rangel wants to give a tax break to 90 million lower income families. That would mean raising taxes on the rich. Republicans want to continue Bush’s tax cuts that are due to expire in 2010 and say any increase would hurt “small businesses and farmers.”
Because if there are two things Republicans care about it is small businesses and farmers. They do not care about big businesses and agribusinesses.
I’m going to take the word of the really rich genius over the asshole Republicans, thanks.
Those of you following the Genarlow Wilson case in Georgia over the past two years know the general gist of this shocking story. For those that haven’t, here’s a quick refresher:
Dec. 31, 2003: Genarlow Wilson attends a raunchy New Year's Eve party with five other male youths at a Douglasville hotel and receives oral sex from a 15-year-old at the party. Wilson is 17 at the time. The incident is videotaped by one of Wilson's friends.
April 18, 2005: Wilson is convicted of aggravated child molestation for the sex act with the 15-year-old, a felony at the time that carried a minimum 10 year prison sentence. The age of consent in Georgia is 16. He was also accused of raping a 17-year-old girl at the party but was acquitted of that charge.
After his conviction, Wilson’s attorneys spent the next two and a half years trying to secure his release. They used legal channels (which were thwarted each time by Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, whose single-minded determination to keep Wilson in prison has made him seem like a tremendous asshole), but also made appeals to the legislature and the press on behalf of their client. The press picked it up and ran with it. Because Wilson was a promising prep athlete and the story seemed so sensational, ESPN.com even did an lengthy piece on it. Presidential candidates and political pundits made statements in support of Wilson’s cause.
The Georgia Supreme Court on Friday ordered the release of Genarlow Wilson, the Douglas County teenager who has been serving a controversial 10-year sentence for consensual oral sex. The court's 4-3 decision upholds a Monroe County judge's ruling that the sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment under both the Georgia and U.S. constitutions.
The majority opinion said the sentence appeared to be "grossly disproportionate" to the teenager's crime and noted that it was out of step with current law.
Wilson’s release has been hailed as a long overdue triumph of justice and humanity.
U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Atlanta) said Friday that the state high court "righted a great wrong, an unbelievable wrong. This young man, each day he stayed in prison, was a day too long."
[…]
The Rev. Jesse Jackson and four state legislators held a press conference at the state Capitol on Friday, at which Jackson called for an end to "over-prosecution" of young black men. "Genarlow is a symbol of a a system that's out of control," he said. "We need oversight for prosecutors who abuse their position."
Also attending were state Sens. Emanuel Jones (D-Decatur), Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta), Nan Orrock (D-Atlanta) and Alisha Thomas Morgan (D-Austell).
"It looks like we may be near the end for Genarlow, but let me emphasize there are a thousand… ten thousand… Genarlows," said state Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta).
Said state Sen. Thomas Morgan (D-Austell): "I'm proud to say that the stain that was on the state of Georgia has been somewhat removed."
Everyone’s happy now, right? Even Tightassed A.G. Baker said he would respect the decision of the court and hoped it would put the issue to rest. We can move on, and Wilson can pursue his dream of a college education. Huzzah!
In the immortal words of Lee Corso: Not so fast, my friend. Judicial “Conservatives” and “strict constructionists” (which is a fancy name for people who think the Constitution is not a living document and should be interpreted only by its meaning in 1789) are pretty pissed off. Not because they necessarily want Wilson to rot in jail for his youthful transgression, but because they’d rather the court system not do their jobs.
Let me explain: In April of 2006, largely in response to the negative press that the state had generated for their draconian laws and how they affected Wilson, the Georgia state legislature amended their child molestation law to insert a “Romeo and Juliet” provision. The provision made an exception where if the “assailant” was less than four years older than the “victim” and the sex was consensual, the crime would be treated as a misdemeanor rather than a felony. But when they enacted the law, they specifically declined to make the law apply retroactively. In other words, all future 17-year-olds who get hummers from 15-year-olds aren’t going to see jail time, but Wilson is shit out of luck because he blew his wad before the legislature blew theirs.
So, how did the Georgia Supreme Court manage to free Wilson last Friday? According to some commentators, they engaged in *gasp* judicial activism! The horror!
Judicial activism?
No need to quibble about definitions. All of Georgia has before it the definitive example of judicial activism in last week's decision by four members of the Georgia Supreme Court to legislate from the bench in the Genarlow Wilson case. Mark it down: Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears, justices Carol Hunstein, Robert Benham and Hugh Thompson are guilty of judicial activism.
[…]
The four judges in the majority "simply ignores that express legislative intent" and has no sound basis for concluding that "a felony sentence which was authorized when Wilson committed the offense of aggravated child molestation became cruel and unusual punishment when, more than a year later, the General Assembly lessened the penalty for that offense and mandated only a prospective application for that change."
The General Assembly knew what it was doing and acted with full awareness of the facts in the Wilson case —- and chose not to apply the new law retroactively, as was its right.
Make a note, here and now. This is a results-oriented Supreme Court that reacts to the 6 o'clock news.
Oooh, heady stuff from the Editorial Board at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The law says this and therefore that. Simple, right?
As with most everything else that judicial conservatives and “strict constructionists” rant about, they’re wrong here as well. Let’s actually read the opinion of the Georgia Supreme Court, shall we? Did they overturn Wilson’s appeal on the basis of the Georgia legislature’s new law? No, they didn’t. Rather, they overturned it because it was cruel and unusual and a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s 8th Amendment. In making that determination, they looked to the reasons why the Legislature made the change, not the text of the change itself.
Under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and under Art. I, Sec. I, Par. XVII to the Georgia Constitution, a sentence is cruel and unusual if it “is grossly out of proportion to the severity of the crime.” Moreover, whether “a particular punishment is cruel and unusual is not a static concept, but instead changes in recognition of the ‘evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” Legislative enactments are the clearest and best evidence of a society’s evolving standard of decency and of how contemporary society views a particular punishment.
In other words, whether a sentence violates the 8th Amendment is an entirely separate question than whether the sentence should be applied retroactively. That question can be informed by the actions of the legislature, but it is (by its very nature) a question for the Courts and the Courts alone to decide.
The guys at the AJC are none too pleased at that, either.
[The Georgia Supreme Court] concluded that Wilson had served sufficient time for the offense, as they weighed it, and overriding the Legislature, they wrote the law they wanted. Part of its reasoning, as expressed in Sears' opinion, is that "a review of other jurisdictions reveals that most states either would not punish Wilson's conduct at all or would, like Georgia now, punish it as a misdemeanor." The relevance?
Well, there’s a ton of relevance to the question of what other jurisdictions do in this situation, of course. The words “cruel” and “unusual” are intentionally vague. When they were inserted into the Constitution it was intended that judges would consider them through the lens of current societal standards. It’s impossible to truly determine what those societal standards are without looking at the rest of the fucking society. It’s not rocket science here, people.
In short, this case and the reaction to it by judicial conservatives demonstrate how blindingly wrong the strict constructionist movement is. The law is supposed to have a human element to it. There is supposed to be some room to maneuver within constitutional boundaries. The Georgia Supreme Court understands this. It’s a shame not everyone does.
It is very interesting to watch Democrats make the same mistake they made in 2000 and 2004. During both of those election campaigns, Democrats choose candidates who were so poor at debating that they ended up losing to the pathetic George Bush. Al Gore was so fucking boring and wooden that it was insane. Watching him lose the first debate to "barely able to speak sentences" Bush was startling. Then came John Kerry, who wouldn’t know a sound byte if it crawled into his anus and set up a Starbucks. (Who would? That doesn’t even make sense.) Anyway, Kerry is a blow hard. His inability to make points concisely was a disaster. But both suffered from one common, glaring problem: They were unlikable. After watching last night’s debate I can tell you the most unlikable person on the stage was the Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton.
First I’ll run down the candidates and how they faired.
John Edwards was clearly the best candidate on the stage, from a debating perspective. He was very good with his answers and counter attacks. He was never ruffled, made his points with conviction and has a commanding stage presence. He is one cheesy motherfucker, though.
Edwards hit Clinton hard all night long, with jabs like this about Hillary's recent vote on Iran.
So the way do that was to vote yes on a resolution that looks like it was written literally by the neocons?
Joe Biden also came across very well. He was authoritative, made his points and was at times funny. He slammed Giuliani with a fantastic sound byte.
All Rudy Giuliani does is says the same thing over and over again, he uses ‘a noun, a verb and 9/11.’
Nicely done. Biden is one hell of a corporate whore and I would never vote for him, but you cannot disregard his likeability factor.
Chris Dodd. Dodd could play a president in a Hollywood movie. He just has that look. He sounded intelligent, clear and was very well spoken. Dodd is less likeable than others on the stage, which may be why he is in the position he is today because on the issues he is just what liberals are screaming about.
Bill Richardson. I think he was running for Secretary of State. He spent the entire evening running his diplomatic resume, at one point saying he had negotiated the release of six US soldiers remains from North Korea earlier this year. Congrats on getting those dead guys back! He also asked everyone to play nice and stop picking on Clinton, which was the most pathetic brown-nosing attempt to get a job I have ever seen. Richardson is a likable guy, though he seems more fit for someone you would want on your bowling team.
Barack Obama. About as likable as they come with a voice that commands attention, too bad there is nothing to back it up. Obama started off strong but then began to trail off as the debate went on, probably because he hits the same note over and over. Yeah, yeah, we all should get along. We get it. You are the great healer. Maybe he doesn’t realize this is the exact shit Bush was saying in 2000. For Democrats, after years of being shit on by the opposition, it is time to fight, but Obama wants to orchestrate a group hug.
In the Sunday New York Times, Obama was quoted saying that it was time to get tough with Clinton for acting like a Republican. During the debate, Russert asked him directly about that assertion. It was a softball question that should have been hit out of the park. Obama’s answer:
Some of this stuff gets over-hyped.
Nice. Try to find a way to appear weaker, because it is exactly what America is looking for right now. Obama went on to make a joke about boxing and how he is all for "big meaningful change." Fuck off.
Dennis Kucinich. He is very small. Small people don’t get elected to be the "leader of the free world." End of story. Oh, and he admitted to having seen a UFO years ago.
It was an unidentified flying object, okay. It's like, it's unidentified — I saw something.
Kucinich handled the question well and he brings up some very important points, but he is unelectable because he is a Hobbit.
Lastly, Hillary Clinton. Seriously, this is what you guys are going with? She could not have sounded more like a Republican. Her answers were broad, completely lacking details and there was no sign of leadership anywhere. She made it very clear that she does not like Bush and his policies and kept saying she would do the opposite. She’s going to “bring smart people together” to come up with ideas and whatnot. Super. Thanks for more of the same.
The inescapable reality of Clinton was highlighted at the end of the debate. Elliot Spitzer, governor of New York, is working on a controversial bill regarding giving illegal immigrants drivers licenses. Clinton had told a group of editors that the idea made sense, so Russert asked her about it. She blathered.
What Governor Spitzer is trying to do is fill the vacuum left by the failure of this administration to bring about comprehensive immigration reform. Illegal immigrants are on the roads and will get into accidents. It's a reality and we ought to have a system to handle it.
Great, now do you fucking support it or not? You actually can’t do a poll right in the middle of the debate, so you have to make a choice. An actual decision.
Chris Dodd stepped in and said he did not agree with the idea. At that point, Hillary the follower got worried that she might have actually said something of substance.
I just want to add; I did not say that it should be done.
Dodd responded that she had just said the plan made sense. Clinton then said that the plan contained three different types of licenses. (Which was the compromise, not the original bill that she was asked about.) Clinton then accused them of playing “Gotcha” with her.
Today her campaign said she totally supports the bill.
Get used to moments like this being a common sight if Democrats choose Clinton. She is not and has never been a good debater. Her inability to give an opinion that she believes in without consulting a poll will devastate her, just as it devastated Gore. It is one of the reasons she comes across as unlikable. Standing up for what you believe in is a very attractive quality and Clinton does not seem to be able to do it.
Hillary Clinton also arrived at this stage in a very different way than the other candidates. All the other Democrats in last night’s debate started their careers winning little elections, making their way up the ranks until they achieved rather impressive victories. Barring Kucinich, that means a body of people wanted to be represented by that particular candidate and chose them. It happened again and again, until they reached a higher office. Likeability is an inherent factor in that equation. Sometimes unlikable people squeak through, like Gore and Kerry, and for whatever reason Democrats are incredibly attracted to them as presidential candidates. I offer the following as proof:
Kerry
Gore
Dukakis
Mondale
Talk about charisma! That's like lightening in a bottle, right there. Hillary is more of the same.
Hillary came to the scene as the wife of a president and from there jumped directly to the Senate. That means she came in with a massive war chest for her New York campaign and had a name that people loved. She ran against Republican fill-in candidates, who entered the race after the original GOP candidates dropped out late. Basically, she won races that were tailor made for a victory and has not proven yet that she can beat a politically savvy, likable candidate. Does she have the smarts? Absolutely. But I think we’ve seen with Gore and Kerry that smarts do not mean shit. They were both beaten by a likable retard. Hillary is certainly intelligent, capable and corrupt enough to take over the job. She’s just not likeable enough.
Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the Republican front-runner, leads New York Sen. Hillary Clinton by a razor-thin 45 - 43 percent, but voters say 58 - 37 percent that President George W. Bush's low approval ratings will make it difficult for any Republican to be elected President, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today.
Giuliani's lead reverses a 46 - 43 percent Sen. Clinton lead in an August 15 poll by the independent Quinnipiac University, but Giuliani was up 49 - 40 percent May 3.
Look at that, voters don't want a Republican, but in a head to head, they don't really want Hillary either. She has the two perfect qualities that could lead to a loss: She is unlikable and she represents the right wing of the Democratic party. Why not just vote for a Republican instead of a Democrat who is acting like a Republican? At least he will seem like a nice person.
Get used to polls like this. The Democrats are about to elect the only candidate who could possibly lose.
I think my feminist wife put it best:
I was hoping the first woman to have a shot at being president would be someone great, but she's no better than the ones with dicks.
Sometimes I have to admit I don’t know what the fuck is happening. Today is one of those days and I am confused because one KKK group hates another KKK group for being too mean. You see where I’m coming from, right? You would think they could bond over their common goal of white supremacy.
A few days ago, Cullman, Alabama approved a permit for the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan to hold a protest in front of the courthouse. The National Knights plan on holding an anti-immigration rally on November 10th, which is a great idea because it is very timely and they can scream about bad brown people. The only problem is the Ku Klux Klan of Alabama doesn’t like the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
Ken Mier, of the Alabama Klan, contacted the local paper and said they planned to protest the National Knights. Mier, an “investigator for the Alabama Klan,” said his organization is against the National Knights protest tactics. Apparently, because they are mean.
We are opposed to the ignorance and stupidity as displayed by the individuals that thumbed their nose at the area churches by continuing to use racial slurs, threats and avoided Christian deportment. We were very vocal and apologetic to the City of Athens' Police Chief in pointing out that we were disgusted that (the National Knights) would interfere with the Trail of Tears ride.
And, white power!
Athens. It all goes back to Athens and the September Trail of Tears ride. Last month, the National Knights held an anti-immigration protest in Athens, Georgia while motorcyclists held their annual ride, the Trail of Tears. The Alabama Klan showed up and held a “silent protest” against the National Knights. They officially became the biggest pussy Klan in the nation on that day. Look, I applaud the lamest Klan tactics ever, but why not just go all the way and drop the “Klan” name? The Alabama Klan seems to think they are really, really nice people.
There are many differences between our organizations that can obviously be noticed. We are the real Klan and descendants of the original non-violent Klans-people.
I did love the good old non-violent Klansmen of yesteryear. They were awesome. All they wanted was for all black people to be gone. They would dress up all in white to appear like ghosts and ride around on horses, scaring freed slaves. But in a totally non-violent way! From the Ku Klux Klan website.
The Ku Klux Klan started as a "social and fraternal" group. Members dressed up in hoods and robes made of bed sheets, riding at night on horseback to "scare" local folks, especially freed slaves. Slaves thought of them as "Ghosts" of Confederate War dead.
Exactly. They didn’t use harsh language and racist taunts, like these National Knights characters. They were just a tight knit group of fellas riding around and “scaring” folks by yelling, "BOO." It is sad to see the Klan splinter apart like this. Why can’t everyone just get along and hate black people like they are supposed to?
Now the Alabama Klan will also need a permit to protest the National Knights Klan. Cullman Mayor Donald Green says he will not stand in their way because everyone has a right to free speech, even if they are retarded.
Volume 10 of the FTR series in which he puts the word "fuck" in front of a presidential candidate's name.
The presidential primary races are beginning to heat up a bit and one asshole has actually been gaining support: Mike Huckabee. Which forces this incredible writer to have to take the time to show you that Mike Huckabee is a horrible, horrible man.
Huckabee began his professional life as an ordained minister, serving at different churches in Arkansas and he is a former president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. His political career began shortly after he felt the power of ruling the convention. In 1993 he was elected as lieutenant Governor of Arkansas and then as Governor in 1996. He left office earlier this year. But it is not like The Huck wanted to go into politics, rather, he was dragged, kicking and screaming, by God.
He compared his entry into politics to "getting inside the dragon's belly," adding, "There's not one thing we can do in those marbled halls and domed capitols that can equal what's done when Jesus touches the lives of a sinner."
And now Mike is hoping we can support him and do what is right for America.
I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ.
Oh, good, he’s never read The Constitution or a history book. But we can all take solace in the fact that he has read one book. He has called on conservatives to vote on the “social issues that are undermining” the wall between church and state. You know, the wall the Founding Fathers built so nutjobs like Huckabee would not be able to impose their religion on everyone else.
Government may have dropped the ball in modern American society, but religion dropped it first. The reason we have so much government is because we have so much broken humanity. And the reason we have so much broken humanity is because sin reigns in the hearts and lives of human beings instead of the Savior.
Oh, then maybe you should keep working as a minister instead of running for president. We should all be very afraid of a man who believes that only by following his religion can we solve the problems of our society. And we should be even more afraid of a man who got into politics to promote his religion as the solution.
During a recent Republican debate, Huckabee said most of the “signers of the Declaration of Independence were clergymen.” This is classic Christian re-writing of history and the man is said it during a debate, on live television. It is what attracts other religious nuts to his campaign, because it is what they want the truth to be. It is not the truth.
Only one of the 56 was an active clergyman, and that was John Witherspoon. Witherspoon was a Presbyterian minister and president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).
“Most” = 1 out of 56, or 1.8% for those of you who love percentages. But the truth should never get in your way when you are using The Bible as your platform for change.
And he has done what he can to legally inject his religion into our society. One example of his work is the Convenant Marriage Act of 2001. Covenant Marriage laws have been passed in three states: Arizona, Louisiana and Arkansas. It is completely ridiculous for the government to be involved in such marriages, and a bit creepy.
The Covenant Marriage Movement attempts to establish a special legal category of marriage that requires premarital counseling, signing a declaration of intent to live together "forever," disclosing personal history, and seeking counseling before divorce. Divorce is only allowed for infidelity, physical or sexual abuse, conviction of a felony or the death penalty, abandonment for one year, or living separately for two years. Irreconcilable differences are not grounds for divorce.
What a fucking joke. You need a legal reason to come to this agreement? Our government really needs to pass a law for something that is clearly a personal and religious decision? But that is the Huckabee way and I’m sure he believes he did a lot of good getting that religious law passed.
The Huck, of course, also does not believe in evolution.
If you want to believe that you and your family came from apes, that's fine. I'll accept that. I just don't happen to think that I did.
As for what should be taught in public schools I want schools to acknowledge that there are views that are different than evolution.
Well, that is why you should send your kids to Christian school, nutjob. There are a shitload of other fairy tales we could teach as the beginning of mankind as well, but we don’t.
Huckabee was given a chance to explain his beliefs on evolution in a later debate.
Does not make me feel better, sport. And way to stick up for your Christian beliefs and dodge the question, just like Jesus would have.
Being a religious man, one would think that The Huck would run a squeaky clean government. Instead, he went with being a corrupt asshole.
He made news before leaving the Arkansas Governor's Mansion, when he set up gift registries on several websites, allowing lobbyists and others seeking to curry influence to know exactly which gifts to purchase for he and his wife.
One retired Arkansas government official summed up Huckabee nicely.
“He’s using the trappings of the governor’s office to get everything he can, and the sad part of it is, I honestly believe he does not see anything wrong with this,” said Kerns, a retired lawyer for the Department of Veterans Affairs. “It’s like ‘ethics’ is a foreign word to him.”
Well, then he fits in quite well with the new breed of Christian politician like George Bush. When Huckabee left office, he made sure no one would know the shit he had been up to.
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has found that former Gov. Mike Huckabee didn't violate state law on his way out of office by having his staff's computer hard drives crushed.
Yeah, because no one had thought of writing a law forbidding the crushing of computers. Nice work, douchbag. Oh, and I'm sure Jesus used to crush computers, too.
And Huckabee did his best to represent Arkansas with dignity.
One concerned the renovation of the governor’s mansion. While the mansion needed the upgrade, Huckabee received criticism from opponents and in the media for the cost of the renovation and for the triple-wide mobile home that was brought to the grounds for the family to live in during the remodeling. Critics said that by living in the mobile home, Huckabee was promoting a national stereotype of the state.
Way to go, you are a classy man, Huck.
Of course, being a Christian, The Huck is in love with our crusade against the filthy Muslims.
Gen. Petraeus testified that U.S and coalition forces have dealt a striking blow to Al Qaeda, in Iraq, which is a part of the larger international Al Qaeda network. On the eve of the sixth anniversary of the 9-11-01 terrorist attacks on America, we are reminded of this imperative: We must continue to wage an aggressive war on global terror to prevent future attacks.
I’m actually reminded that al Qaeda did not exist in Iraq before 9/11 and our war there created a training ground for future terrorists, as well as largely increasing their numbers. But you keep thinking whatever you need to think, God boy. Mike is one of those candidates you should support if you want eternal war.
He is strongly opposed to using timetables in Iraq, calling them “absurd.”
The United States should do "whatever it takes" to win.
Uh, hey, “whatever it takes” could mean nukes, you psycho. No man who is as religious as Huckabee should be allowed to hold the office of president during this time of war. He should be disqualified because of his biases and his desire for Jesus to return after Armageddon. Most important of all are the words of support he had for Bush’s surge.
Huckabee called Bush's Iraq troop escalation "Decisive...Gutsy...An Important Move...He's Putting A Lot on The Line."
Mike Huckabee spoke out on television regarding President Bush's speech announcing an increase in American troops in Iraq. "I think we have to give the commander-in-chief an opportunity to make this succeed. You said people have said he's stubborn. That's a good quality in an executive. You don't want someone who changes the course of a military every time there's a new opinion poll.
Really? Here’s a list of leaders who were stubborn: Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khomeini, Stalin, Hitler, Franco, Mussolini, Emperor Hirohito, Napoleon and Idi Amin, just to name a few. And I agree, you shouldn’t change the course of a military every time there’s a new opinion poll, you should change it when you are getting nowhere and it is obvious to everyone in the world.
The Huck also doesn’t think the president needs Congressional approval to go to war, like it says in that thing called The Constitution.
Matthews: Do you need Congress to approve such an action?
Huckabee: A president has to [do] whatever is necessary to protect the American people. If we think Iran is building nuclear capacity that could be used against us in any way, including selling some of the nuclear capacity to some other terrorist group, then, yes, we have a right ...
Matthews: Without going to Congress?
Huckabee: And I would do it in a heartbeat.
Matthews: Without going to Congress?
Huckabee: Well, if it's necessary to get it done because it's actionable right now, yes. If you have the time and the luxury of going to Congress, that's always better. But, Chris, the most important single thing is to make sure ...
Matthews: And if Congress says no, what do you do? ... If Congress says no, what do you do, Governor?
Huckabee: You do what's best for the American people and you suffer the consequences. But what you don't do is what you never do, is let the American people one day get hit with a nuclear device because you had politics going on in Washington, instead of the protection of the American people first.
He was speaking as if Iran had grabbed the items necessary to make a nuclear weapon, dashed across the border and then started building it as fast as they could. The reality is that Iran is years away from a nuclear weapon, according to all experts that are not part of the Bush administration. Worse of all, he called seeking Congressional approval a “luxury.” Madison would have kicked the shit out of this guy.
The Huck is a delusional asshole, who paints a rosy picture of anything that is horrible, as long as it’s not happening to Christians. This summer he had some wise words about how the prisoners in Guantanamo were being treated.
Huckabee said that most of our prisoners would love to be in a facility more like Guantanamo ..."
Oh. Uh, okay. Here are some details of how awesome it is at Guantanamo from an FBI report.
Captives at Guantánamo Bay were chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor for 18 hours or more, urinating and defecating on themselves.
Detainees were subjected to extremes of temperature. One witness said he saw a barefoot detainee shaking with cold because the air conditioning had bought the temperature close to freezing.
On another occasion, the air conditioning was off in an unventilated room, making the temperature over 38C (100F) and a detainee lay almost unconscious on the floor with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been pulling out his hair throughout the night.
There was an unknown bearded longhaired d (detainee) gagged w/duct tape that had covered much of his head.
I bet The Huck would say the same thing if Guantanamo were holding Christian prisoners, right?
Mike Huckabee is a religious lunatic, plain and simple. If he wants to be president of a Baptist organization, I’m all for it but he has no place being the president of the US. We already have experienced 7 disastrous years with a born again running the country and it has clearly not gone well. The last thing we need is another 4 more years of crusades. The man clearly has no understanding of The Constitution or history.
I'm actually starting to view Ron Paul's existence as dangerous. He's not a joke anymore. We can't go oh-funny-ha-ha-Ron-Paul-supporters-lol, because they're so pervasive, so confrontational, and so one-sidedly ignorant that they become, as representatives of a larger issue, dangerous. He's a real threat to discourse and compromise in American political culture.
Earlier tonight, I went to a Halloween party that was particularly and brazenly insufferable. There was no beer, the music sucked, there were a grand total of ten people there, and each one of them (including my friends) was a stuck-up snob.
The night essentially ended with a heated argument with a friend of a friend, and I mean it was a doozy. The friend of a friend, who is a Ron Paul supporter, insists that the Federal Reserve (which was a decentralizing institution) is a pinnacle of centralized control. That "The Banks", in this case an abstract and horrifying specter of the impending doom that awaits us all, control The Dollar, a fantastic and revolutionary idea to be had for sure, and that all money that we spend goes back to the banks, which as we all know is the basic principle - a self-contained, recyclous process - and that "The Banks" controlling The Dollar equates to "The Banks" controlling me. And he argued that the Federal Reserve should be eradicated because it connects "The Banks" to The Dollar in a horrifying way, and is a fascism.
My response was this: What if we get rid of the Federal Reserve? What would happen to "The Banks?" They'd stay put. They wouldn't go anywhere, and would operate unfettered. However, there would be absolutely nothing preventing them from monopolizing and putting an even greater fascist control over the dollar - after all, the Federal Reserve is fed by twelve regional banks by law, and if we remove the Reserve, we remove the principle of the separation of banks. Essentially, it would be a vehicle to one huge horizontally integrated Superbank, a singularity and thus a far bigger threat of fascism.
He responded by telling me I don't know how the economy works. He stated that everyone in America is controlled by the banks systems, and the fact that no one admits to it only strengthens its truth.
I responded by stating that everyone in America is controlled by Martians, and the fact that no one admits to it only strengthens its truth.
I went on to say that Ron Paul is a fascist.
He laughed at me.
I said, no seriously. If Ron Paul is elected President, how will his policies be implemented? The Congress is controlled largely by moderate Democrats, and will be for a good six-or-so years, and any extreme right-wing policies that he would attempt to implement, including his horrific privatization enterprise (talk about economic fascism), would be cast aside. They would not become law. And if Ron Paul runs his platform on eliminating the Federal Reserve and completely overhauling the economy, any attempt to implement it would be dead in the water. Even if it was the right thing to do - which, it should be said, it is not - it still wouldn't be ushered through by a largely democratic Congress. I asked him if this made sense, and he nodded and started to say BUT-
And what would happen then, I continued. One of two things would happen. On the one hand, Ron Paul would sell out his political beliefs and his fierce and vocal following (the numbers of which, it would have turned out, weren't imaginary) by moderating his viewpoints and engaging in active political discourse. On the other, he would circumnavigate the Courts and the Congress and implement them anyway. In other words, he'd be a dictator.
Why else would you run for President on a platform that so few people recognize as cognizant thought? Why else would you attempt to be the leader of the free world, and representative of 200 million people, if your political views only cater explicitly to less than twenty percent of them? (The statistic, of course, was enlarged to fit his egomaniacal assertion that these polls do not show Ron Paul's support realistically. Ha-ha-ha.) If he had any hope of putting his promises of overhaul of the entire United States economy into practice, he would have to do it himself, without approval from the Courts or the Congress. And that, I told my friend's friend, is the most severe form of fascism.
And in the face of this pure logic, the poor guy went apeshit. He spat at me. He told me I was blind. He yelled and screamed obscenities claiming that I was the problem. And quite frankly, I was shocked. I hadn't expected this kind of action at a simple Halloween party.
He was, in his overblown Paultarded response, emblematic of a larger problem that in a way, we should thank Ron Paul for illuminating us to. He is the explicit representation of the total and complete lack of even the willingness to engage in political discourse in the United States.
Many Ron Paul supporters point to the fact that he is endorsed by both extreme Liberals and extreme Republicans as a disproof of this. They say, "How can he be poisonous to discourse if he is endorsed so readily by both Democrats and Republicans? Is he not a unifier?" Again, discounting completely the imaginary numbers they assign to his popularity among voters, there's a simple answer that is deeply rooted in complex political history.
The assertion that since Ron Paul is endorsed by both parties that he is a symbol of unification can be summed up by analyzing what qualifies, to a Ron Paul supporter, multi-party political endorsement. To them, the two-party system can be summed up through the following crude, Microsoft Paint-created diagram:
They think the only intersection between the beliefs of Liberals and Conservatives occurs at the state of moderation. That somehow, since Paul is endorsed by both Liberals and Democrats, he represents all parts of the political spectrum instead of just the Conservative agenda. Which is, of course, wrong. And it is an interesting problem to consider. Why do so many self-proclaimed (or otherwise) Liberals even give Ron Paul a second of their time? He stands for "States' Rights", privatization, opposition to Roe v Wade and any number of other policies and beliefs that, in any other vessel, they'd scoff at and deride.
The problem is in the diagram. They view the political spectrum as a bar, with two sides and two extremes. On the left are the Extreme Liberals, completely and totally isolated from everyone else; in the middle are the Moderates, who are willing to work together, and on the right are the Extreme Conservatives, also completely isolated and left to their own devices.
The real diagram looks something like this:
It is amazing how similar, historically, the Radical Left and the Radical Right have acted. Their actions, beliefs, and causes overlap so frequently that it is often impossible to discern the difference between the two.
Take for instance the Weathermen. They were a leftist organization in the mid-to-late '60s that began as a simple protest organization, printing fliers, organizing rallies, etc. But as they became more and more radical, they became more and more violent, until during the infamous Days of Rage, they became purely a militant organization. Their end came when the dynamite that several prominent leaders were making went off accidentally, killing three.
They were a leftist group, to be certain. But they were exceedingly militant, in many ways without regard to human life.
Now take for instance the individuals throughout history who have taken it upon themselves to prevent abortions from occuring. They often stand in front of clinics, refusing to let people inside, they hold up violent images of mutilated fetuses to protest; they cause general Constitutional civil unrest.
But some resort to violence, even blowing clinics straight off the face of the planet. Complete and utter disregard for human life that they claim to protect.
Do I see any difference between those two types of people?
No.
They are merely two examples, and there are countless more (for instance, the dictatorships - some Leftist (like Castro), some Right-Wing (like Hitler), but all dictatorships nonetheless, and the most extreme form of extremism, so to speak. But they serve the basic purpose to illustrate my point that the political spectrum is not a road, or a bar, but a circle, and an endless one. There are two points at which the political ideals meet. And Ron Paul supporters meet at the very bottom.
They are all extremists. Most are hipsters. Most are arrogant. (As all extremists and radicals tend to be.) And because they view the political spectrum as a straight line, and because they see both ends of the spectrum endorsing this candidate, they see him as a moderate of some kind; as someone who can bring everyone together under his kindly smile.
Which is why, when one points out Ron Paul's flaws or asserts that he has no chance of winning, or makes note of his obvious insanity (Thank you, FearTheReaper, your services shall not go unnoticed), his supporters become more and more vehement. Owing to the fact that they see him as a political umbrella, encompassing many different viewpoints, they see those who do not agree with his policies as being unfair or irrational. They're quick to anger with someone they perceive as not "getting it" or being, in their eyes, unreasonable in their opposition to the candidate.
Like that friend of a friend.
It's a tremendous danger to the American political system to act in the juvenile, vindictive right-or-wrong manner that Ron Paul's most vigorous supporters do. Flooding message boards. Spitting at those who disagree with them.
American politics are based on the simple principle of compromise. That two (or more) bodies can come together and make a deal, substituting some of the more radically Liberal policies for some of the more moderate Conservative, etc etc etc. Ron Paul supporters consistently refuse to even acknowledge the legitimacy of opinions that aren't their own. (Which is especially interesting when you meet Ron Paul advocates who vigorously endorse a three-party system. How in God's name will they accommodate two other parties when they refuse to entertain any and all opposition as being logical or true?)
Ron Paul is a threat - or at the very least, an emblem of a threat - to American politics. He embodies everything that's wrong with the modern political assertion that we never compromise and never negotiate, not with terrorists, not with anyone. If you throw out the fact that he is a complete and utter lunatic, that itself is enough to convince you not to vote for him, but to ignore him completely and hope he goes away by the middle of next year.
But if that doesn't work, you could always mock him.
Formus knows, in his heart, the right thing to do.
Hezbollah was started in 1982 by a group of Muslim clerics, with a lot of help from Iran, after Israel invaded Lebanon. Iranian Revolutionary guards were sent to Lebanon to create a militia that would resist the Israeli occupation. Now 25 years later, we get to watch the exact same circumstances create the exact same radical political and military organization, but this time in Iraq.
Iran is certainly funding Shiites in Iraq. Why shouldn’t they? Their greatest enemy, the US, is constantly banging the war drums. The only logical and smart path for Iran to take is to set up another Hezbollah type organization in Iraq. They have certainly learned from their mistakes in Lebanon and will know how to implement a plan that will win over the locals quickly.
Hezbollah gained favor with many Lebanese by providing social services that the government was unable to provide. The US invasion and pathetically planned occupation of Iraq has created the perfect environment for a new Hezbollah to rise out of the chaos and win over the locals. In the '80s Hezbollah provided desperately needed social services, hospitals, schools, along with radio and TV stations. They basically provided the basics to build a society, something the US has not done in Baghdad.
According to CBS News, a Hezbollah type organization is taking root in Iraq. The Mahdi Army has always been a problem for the US. The smart, brutal and radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is their leader. Much of our fighting in Baghdad has been against the Mahdi Army. They rule a slum and the street fighting can be quite dangerous. But now it seems they have stopped fighting, and that is not a good sign.
Those in the movement have shifted from gunmen to Iraq's equivalent of men in suits.
Last week, US ambassador Ryan Crocker warned that Sadr’s men were taking over businesses, like gas stations and other “basic services,” in Shiite neighborhoods. They are beginning to use control over necessities and social services as their main weapon.
The move suggests what Crocker called a "Hezbollahzation" of parts of Iraq, a reference to an emphasis on social networks as a base of strength that has been the hallmark of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Now the US finds itself in a delicate situation. To attack the Mahdi Army will be to attack those giving basic services to the people. Whoever wins the support of the street, wins the war.
"If they arrest people who are Mahdi Army but who are not doing military things, people will not like them for it," said one resident of a neighborhood where the Americans are trying to crack down. The sweeps also tend to collect suspects regardless of age.
But the US is doing exactly that, in an attempt to find the “bad guys.” So, one day maybe we pick up the guy who was delivering medicine to sick people, or the guy who supplies clean water, or the mechanic who fixes your car. Maybe we destroy a building some insurgents run into and it turns out to be a medical clinic. This is a situation built for our failure. We don’t understand the culture or the language. Iran and Sadr do.
Looking back on the invasion, this should have seemed so obvious when the looting was going on, as our soldiers stood around and watched. They were not given orders to stop the looting of the entire country. Hospitals, offices, schools; everything was torn apart and carted off. Iraq’s entire infrastructure was demolished in a month. Not enough soldiers on the ground meant massive security problems. Nearly every choice the Bush administration made in Iraq was the wrong one. Now, out of the chaos will rise an organization that can provide help and it’s not the USA. It is a radical Islamic cleric, with support from Iran.
It turns out one country had very shrewd leaders and another one was full of idiots. Too bad the idiots have all the planes and bombs.
This would be an amusing story if it wasn’t so fucked up. The Democrats have had a tough time getting to the bottom of whatever bullshit has been going on at the Justice Department. The White House has refused to turn over email and pertinent documents, while telling witnesses that they should refuse to testify. Alberto Gonzales flat out lied to Congress on several occasions and will probably be prosecuted. So, this summer Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee had a good idea: They set up a way for people inside the Justice Department to whistle blow secretly.
Members of the Committee set up a form on their website that employees of the Justice Department could fill out confidentially.
Although the panel said it would not accept anonymous tips, it assured those who came forward that their identity would be held in the "strictest confidence."
Today, Democrats completely exposed all of the whistleblowers in such an idiotic manner that it is startling: By putting their names in the “to” field, instead of “bcc.”
But in an email sent out today, the committee inadvertently sent the email addresses of all the would-be whistleblowers to everyone who had written in to the tip line.
Ah, oops. Hey, thanks for helping us out, okay if we shove a pipe up your ass? The email went to every person who had ever used the website form. That means email addresses went to every whistle blower, reporter, supervisor or whoever else filled out the form. Maybe even a few right wing assholes, who filled out the form with the message, “Go fuck yourself.” The best part of the story is the reason the mass email was sent in the first place.
To announce careful new procedures about to be put in place by the committee for reviewing the tips received through the committee's website.
Not with this email, though. After this one. Seriously, after this email, it’s all going to be good. Trust us.
So, what to do if you are the committee? You just made a horrendous error that completely fucked over a lot of people who were tying to do good. How about sending out a second email to recall the original email, that also included everyone’s email address in the “to” field?
Will somebody get this asshole away from the computer before he emails porn to his grandma? The Committee explained the situation:
A technological error in a recent communication inadvertently disclosed certain email addresses. The Committee has not begun its review of the emails, and does not know if any of them are in fact from Justice Department employees as opposed to private citizens expressing more general views. The Committee apologizes for any concern this error may have caused, and is making every effort to protect the confidentiality of those who chose to provide information on the tip line.
Uh, yeah, okay. Too bad some of the whistleblowers have already complained to the media and the committee. And there is good reason for them to complain, as some of the emails were sent straight to Lucifer himself.
Some of the email addresses appear to be transparently fake, but there's also, much more troubling, a vice_president@whitehouse.gov carbon copied on the email, which is the public email address for Vice President Dick Cheney.
Enjoy work on Monday! Satan was just carbon copied about how you fucked him over.
Here’s the email that was sent out.
Subject: Important notice re House Judiciary Committee tip line, e-mails.
You are among the people who have submitted e-mails to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on its Web site tip line for Department of Justice employees to report allegations or concerns regarding possible wrongdoing involving the Department. This message is to inform you that the Committee is now ending the tip line and has voted to approve procedures governing the confidentiality of the e-mails received.
Under these procedures, only Members of the Judiciary Committee, and Committee staff specifically designated by the Democratic Chairman or Ranking Republican Member, will have access to the e-mails, and they are prohibited from removing any e-mail from Committee offices. Any broader disclosure of any e-mail would first require a vote of the Committee to authorize it. It would be the Committees intent to consult with the sender of any e-mail before any such vote takes place.
This message is also to advise you that you have three business days – until 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, October 30 – to notify us if you wish to withdraw your e-mail rather than have it reviewed by the Committee under these procedures. If you so notify us, your e-mail, along with any records pertaining to its submission, will be destroyed. If you do not so notify us, we will conclude that you have agreed to submit your e-mail to the Committee under these procedures.
Any request that an e-mail be withdrawn should state in the subject space "PLEASE WITHDRAW E-MAIL," and should include in the body of the request the e-mail address under which your e-mail was submitted, if different than the one used to make the request to withdraw. It should also specify the date and time, if known, or the approximate date and time, that the e-mail was submitted.
Thank you for your interest in the Judiciary Committees work.
It’s weird you would say that, because I am not so interested in the Judiciary Committees work anymore.
You lucky sons of bitches. It’s Saturday, the day our Lord Jesus Christ came down from the mountain in his silk robe and fuzzy slippers and said, “Let there be an Asshole Fuckface Roundup.” Then he pointed at Luke and burped. True story. Now, here we are, three or four hundred years later and I am the vessel of Jesus, providing you with your weekly dose of the Asshole Fuckface Roundup. I pour over the news all week to find the biggest Asshole Fuckfaces out there and I deliver them on a platter, just as Jesus would have wanted. So, put on your favorite rubber apron, it’s going to get messy.
We’re going to start in California, where fire was invented and that made some Asshole Fuckfaces do bad things.
FEMA. Ordinarily I could just stop there, but today I’m going to go on. Apparently, FEMA has figured out where they went wrong during the Hurricane Katrina fiasco: Media control.
On Tuesday, deputy administrator Harvey Johnson held a news briefing about all the fine work FEMA was doing in California. FEMA told reporters about the briefing a full 15 minutes before it started and gave them an 800 number to call. Of course, that 800 number was a “listen only” line, so they were not allowed to ask questions.
Fuck, did it go smooth. Johnson gave an overview of what was going on and then he took a few questions. He responded to each question eloquently. It seemed like a good time was being had by all.
He was apparently quite familiar with the reporters -- in one case, he appears to say "Mike" and points to a reporter -- and was asked an oddly in-house question about "what it means to have an emergency declaration as opposed to a major disaster declaration" signed by the president. He once again explained smoothly.
FEMA press secretary Aaron Walker interrupted at one point to caution he'd allow just "two more questions." Later, he called for a "last question."
"Are you happy with FEMA's response so far?" a reporter asked. Another asked about "lessons learned from Katrina."
"I'm very happy with FEMA's response so far," Johnson said, hailing "a very smoothly, very efficiently performing team."
Nicely done. But it seemed a bit odd to the reporters listening on the line. Why all the easy and oddly familiar questions? Why was the media letting Johnson ramble on forever about how great FEMA was responding? Why was everyone being so nice? Oh, because there were no reporters there. Turns out the “briefing” was all FEMA employees, playing “press conference.” There was not one reporter in the entire place. Yay, America!
It looked good on TV, though. Fox News, MSNBC and other news channels carried it live. Now FEMA is apologizing to anyone who will listen, because they know they’ve done something bad if people tell them. That's what happens if you don't have a soul.
And what’s a disaster without President Bush acting like a dick? At his press conference he took a swipe at the Governor of Louisiana, while hailing the leadership of Arnold.
There is no hill he’s not willing to charge, no problem he’s not willing to solve,” Bush said of the California governor. “It makes a significant difference when you have somebody in the statehouse willing to take the lead.”
Oh, snap. And who wasn’t willing to lead, huh? The Democratic governor of Louisiana, maybe? Bush is a fucking child. Excuse me, Asshole Fuckface child. A couple thousand people lost their homes, several dead and he’s taking swipes at a Democrat in a state where he was greatly responsible for a horrible response…two fucking years ago.
And there were even more Asshole Fuckfaces showing their true colors during the fires.
A couple returned from their honeymoon just two hours before their home burned down. They rushed in and grabbed what they could, but they did not have much time. The next day, they called AT&T to tell them their house burned down and they needed to cancel their service.
That is some awesome customer service. Certainly wouldn’t want to give anyone who lost their home a break, like knocking the price down a bit. Nope. AT&T is the worst company in the world, Asshole Fuckfaces of the highest caliber. Do you hear me, Steve Jobs?
And why stop there with the Asshole Fuckfaces who were total dicks during the crisis?
How about Vice President Dick Asshole Fuckface? The President and his cabinet were being briefed on the California fires but poor Dick was apparently not all that interested.
I’m sure if he had heard Fox News say that al Qaeda was behind the fires, he would have been able to stay awake. But on a more positive note, maybe he is getting closer to death.
Okay, enough with the fires, there are many more Asshole Fuckfaces running around.
Like Pennsylvania, where the Department of State has decided not to publicize their list of polling places for elections. Why? The Goddamn terrorists, that’s why! Everyone knows terrorists want to blow up polling places. They are target number one, especially if you are retarded.
The Department of State was influenced by the terrorist bombings that struck just days before Spain's national elections in 2004, spokeswoman Leslie Amoros said.
Oh, right. The bombings in Spain, that went off and killed many people in…train stations. That is where people vote in Spain, I guess.
Critics say concealing the compiled list runs afoul of the state's open records law and makes coordinating statewide voter-mobilization strategies more difficult. A big part of (mobilizing voters) is keeping track of where polling places are, or when they change.
What a surprise. Nicely done, Pennsylvania, you are a giant Asshole Fuckface. But, I guess whatever it takes to make it difficult for people to find where they should vote. Democracy in action!
It is always great to end the Asshole Fuckface Roundup with a guy who pees on dying people.
I take you to England: Home of awful people. Take Anthony Anderson, he’s a former soldier and is also a member of the Asshole Fuckface hall of fame. Anthony received the honor for his actions back in July.
He was celebrating his birthday in Hartlepool with some friends, when they stumbled across 50-year-old Christine Lakinski. She was lying in the street, after falling and hitting her head while walking home. Christine also had physical and learning disabilities. So, what to do? If you’re a normal human being, you call an ambulance. But, if you’re an Asshole Fuckface, you do something entirely different.
Prosecutors said Anderson kicked Lakinski on the foot, poured a bowl of water over her and then urinated on her as a friend filmed the assault on a mobile phone. He also sprayed her with shaving foam in the attack which lasted half an hour.
Make that at least two Asshole Fuckfaces, because one friend was filming and enjoying the show.
One of the group shouted, "This is YouTube material" during the attack.
Ah, to be young again, roaming the streets, shitting and peeing on dying people. Those were the days.
Anderson and his friends went on their way, but did manage to call an ambulance twenty minutes later. It’s called “Asshole Fuckface remorse” and it commonly only strikes 20 minutes after you have done something horrible.
Anderson was sentenced to three years in the big house this week. Lakinski died of pancreatic failure in the street that night.
Congrats to all of this week’s Asshole Fuckfaces. You are a fine group of horrible people and will each receive a FearTheReaper travel alarm clock!
I hate to break the news to all of you politics junkies who’ve been amusing yourselves by debating issues like “Just how evil is Hillary Clinton?”, “Does Obama have enough experience to be President?” and “Who’s crazier, Mike Gravel, Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich?” over the past year, but as of this week, the winner of the 2008 United States Presidential election has been decided.
It’s done. Over. Feel free to go through the sham of having a series of primaries and caucuses, and even the pretense of a general election, but the end result has been pre-ordained.
No, not because the Bush administration has started the ball rolling on some complex “false flag” operation to orchestrate a massive terrorist strike inside the United States and thus declare martial law and suspend elections indefinitely. It’s not because the true nature of the corporate two-party duopoly means that nothing will ever really change unless there’s, like, a revolution, man. It has nothing to do with Skull & Bones, the Illuminati, the Federal Reserve, some crappy YouTube video, or that secret UFO base inside the Earth’s core.
It’s because of one man.
Chuck Norris.
On Sunday, Mr. Norris delivered a roundhouse kick to the pudgy midsection of the American electoral process by declaring that his choice for our next president is former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.
Some of you may be saying “Wait, Chuck Norris? That guy from Walker, Texas Ranger (or Delta Force, depending on how old you are)? Since when did he have the power to determine our next president?”
That’s the reaction I had, shortly before I interrupted my daily Internet browsing routine of searching for new LOLcats and downloading terabytes of lesbian clown porn to do a bit of research on Chuck Norris. I quickly discovered that over the past few years he’s become a modern-day Paul Bunyan, capable of miraculous feats of strength, most of which involve killing people. Buying penis enlargement pills from Russian websites taught me the valuable lesson that everything on the Internet is 100% true, so if Chuck Norris can both run around the Earth so fast he can punch himself in the back of his own head anddisprove the so-called scientific theory of evolution, do you really think he can’t kick the Electoral College’s ass? Have you seen how out of shape the average delegate is these days?
If you want further proof of how Chuck Norris can single-handedly determine the outcome of the upcoming election, you need only read his endorsement of Huckabee to find examples of how he’s managed to use his karate skills to alter history itself.
”Like our Founding Fathers, he's not afraid to stand up for a Creator and against secularist beliefs.”
Take that, Thomas Jefferson and the version of the New Testament you edited to exclude all mention of Jesus’ divinity, miracles and resurrection! Better luck next time, Treaty Of Tripoli and Article VI of the Constitution! Chuck Norris has just punched the space-time continuum so fucking hard that you’re now examples of the Founding Fathers standing up against secularism! By the time you read this, the Constitution will have pissed itself with fear and then spontaneously re-written itself to be chock full of Jesus references.
Not only that, but did you know that Chuck Norris can single-handedly re-define the standards by which a political candidate is judged?
”Part of our backward culture is reflected in the fact that we measure and value people by what they do, instead of first who they are.”
Ouch! Before Chuck Norris kicked me in the brain with his words, I was backwards enough to consider that people applying for a job should be judged based on how well they might perform the tasks that job requires. Once the swelling goes down, I’ll be sure to judge them by how nice they are as people.
Some of you may be a bit reluctant to accept Huckabee as our next president. Perhaps you’re a godless homo-lovingterrorist-fellating pinko who doesn’t think legalized abortion is like the Holocaust or that encouraging condom use to help prevent AIDS is like telling an abusive husband “don’t hit quite as hard”. Or, speaking of godless homo-loving pinkos, you may just think he can’t beat Rudy Giuliani in the GOP primaries:
”As with the other candidates, Huckabee has, and will continue to have, his hecklers: ‘He hasn't raised enough money.’ ‘He'll never beat Hillary.’ ‘Our society is too prejudice and paranoid to vote for a once Baptist minister.’ ‘He'll never out-race the top four Republican candidates.’
I was thinking about these types of comments the other day when I recalled another leader in ancient times that didn't match up in the line up: King David. Seven men were poised and paraded for the position of king, but David was left in the field shepherding because he wasn't ‘a frontrunner in the polls.’ They overlooked the best because they were too busy judging by outward appearance. But God appointed David king.”
Remember, polls don’t matter when it comes to electing a president, since in the end he’s appointed by God. Or in this case, Chuck Norris.
I know, I’m being redundant.
So feel free to continue to pretend that the 2008 Presidential election isn’t a foregone conclusion. I’m going to be pro-active and spend the next year preparing for President Huckabee’s first term. Not by fleeing to Canada early to beat the traffic, but by hiring a karate expert to roundhouse kick me in the head once a day.
Because Chuck Norris has taught me that the more often you’re kicked in the head, the better the phrase “President Huckabee” sounds.
No, seriously. Don’t do it. And not just if you live in Mississippi, but if you live in North Carolina, South Dakota, Hawaii or Utah as well. Bad, bad idea.
I mean, I suppose one could make the argument that you shouldn’t fuck a married person regardless of your particular jurisdiction. That’s true, but if you’re from Alabama and you bone Jethro’s ball-and-chain while he’s away working at the coal mine [FN 1], the worst thing that could happen to you is a broken jaw and a free trip to Jerry Springer. Not exactly an ice cream social, but not the end of the world.
The age-old wrong of stealing another man’s wife — “alienation of affection” — is still recognized in six states, while being wholly or mostly abolished in 31 others. It traces its origins back at least to the Teutonic tribes of early Germany in the 10th Century. Now, a well-to-do businessman from Mississippi, facing a verdict of $754,500 for “alienating the affections” of the wife of a plumber, is asking the Supreme Court to impose a constitutional ban on such verdicts at least when they are used to punish the forbidden.
You read that right, my friends. Slide your hot dog into a married woman’s bun in the Magnolia State and you could be on the hook for a quarter of a fucking million dollars. You see what I’m getting at, here? As your attorney [FN 3], I recommend you not do that.
What makes this verdict quite a bit more disturbing are the circumstances surrounding it.
Sandra Day and Johnny Valentine, a plumber, had what apparently was a rocky marriage, with repeated complaints by her about gambling and drinking. They were still married when she went to work for Jerry Fitch, who has interests in the oil and real estate businesses in Marshall County and, according to the state Supreme Court, has a net worth of about $22 million. After Sandra became pregnant, Johnny Valentine grew suspicious, and when a daughter was born, had a test done that showed he was not the father.
He filed for divorce, and it was granted, on grounds of adultery. He sued Fitch in state court in December 1999, arguing that the marriage was normal until Sandra began working for Fitch. Fitch initially denied having sexual relations with Sandra, being the child’s father, or giving money to support the child. In later court filings, he admitted the relationship and his parentage. The jury in the case ruled for Valentine, and awarded $642,000 in compensatory damages and $112,500 in punitive damages. That is the amount Fitch now owes, plus 8 percent annual interest, if the verdict is not overturned.
Poor, foolish Mr. Finch. Anyone who’s ever seen "Maury" knows that you can’t seriously deny parentage once the paternity test comes out. All you can do is claim “the bitch said she was on the pill!” and try not to look too dejected as she booty shakes to the crowd in celebration. It’s the only dignified way to go.
Instead, Finch got dragged into court and despite evidence that the marriage was fucked [FN 4] long before he became Ms. Valentine’s special Valentine, he got nailed for $750k in damages. For getting his dick wet. Yowza.
Unfortunately for Finch, he’s pretty much out of legal options here. First, he appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court.
In upholding the verdict in full, the Mississippi Supreme Court spent little effort on the constitutional due process claim. Initially, it said Fitch had not properly raised the issue, but it went ahead and considered it on the merits, and rejected the challenge. The procedural flaw “notwithstanding,” the state court said, “this Court has consistently recognized punitive damages as a legitimate form of relief in alienation of affections cases.” (Along the way, the state Supreme Court rejected a plea by Fitch … to abolish the common law tort of alienation of affections as outdated.)
With that wad blown, he turned to the Supreme Court’s most swingin’ dude, Justice Antonin “I like Orgies” Scalia, in an attempt to at least lessen the $112k punitive damages award. He argued that the award of punitive damages here was both Constitutionally excessive and violated the spirit of the Court’s holding in Lawrence v. Texas. In Lawrence, the Court invalidated anti-sodomy laws, but also asserted a right to personal privacy in the bedroom. Finch hoped this right to personal privacy extended to guys who like to boink their married secretaries.
I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself[FN 5], “If the legal consequences are so bad, how do I avoid falling into the same trap? Just stay away from OPP if I live in the Missy Sippi?”
I’m glad you asked! First, it’s important to note that these causes of action are generally based in common law, which means they’re not statutory but rather they’ve been created by the courts over the centuries. In the '60s and '70s, most states that aren’t fucking insane all passed “Anti-Heart Balm legislation” (these torts are sometimes called “Heart Balm” cases, for obvious reasons). Others, mainly those with superhuman infatuations with protecting the nebulous and out-dated version of “family”, kept them going. They’re big moneymakers for plaintiffs in other states as well.
[In the] 1990’s, North Carolina juries were even more generous. A 1990 Forsyth County jury award of $300,000 in punitive damages for alienation was sustained on appeal, even though the court struck the compensatory award for $200,000. In 1997 alone, a jury handed down $1.2 million against a female paramour in Forsyth County and awarding another jilted wife $1 million in Alamance County and a deceived husband $243,000 in Wake County. In late 1999, a judge in Durham County valued compensatory damages in a case brought by a husband against his wife’s lover at less than $3,000 in compensatory damages but the judge still awarded $40,000 in punitive damages on the criminal conversation claim.
Even in this decade, the trend of generosity has continued. In August of 2000, a Burke County judge awarded a devastated wife $86,250 for alienation of affection and $15,000 for criminal conversation, totaling $101,250. In May of 2001, in Richmond County, the jury answered the issues of alienation of affection and criminal conversation in favor of the scorned husband and awarded him compensatory damages of $50,000 plus punitive damages of $50,000. Another distraught husband, in Mecklenburg County, received an award of $1.4 million in May, 2001 comprised of $910,000 in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages.The jury found the doctor who had had an affair with this man’s wife liable for both alienation of affection and criminal conversation. After an appeal the original award of compensatory damages was reversed, the punitive damages award, however, was upheld. In 2007, a Cook County judge ordered a man to pay $4802 to a husband who was grieving the loss of his wife after an affair.
There are basically two types of these causes of action. The aforementioned “alienation of affection.”
IPOD
RADIO
