American Conservative Union — The World’s Most Expensive Hooker

No more calls, we have a winner. The American Conservative Union wanted $3 million for its, uh, “services” to FedEx.

FedEx and UPS were in a legislative dispute, and the American Conservative Union offered to support FedEx for a nominal fee of $3 million. This support would include articles and editorials written by ACU Chairman David Keene, who writes a weekly column.

FedEx refused the offer, so the prostitute threw the john out of her room the ACU retaliated by supporting UPS instead.

The dispute between UPS and FedEx is over a labor bill working its way through Congress. Right now, there are certain union protections that apply to UPS but not to FedEx. This bill would apply the same union protections to FedEx as well. FedEx, needless to say, is against the bill.

And the American Conservative Union promised, for this special one-time offer of only $3.4 million — Call Today! — to run “an aggressive grass-roots campaign to stop the legislation in the Senate.”

“Grass-roots?????” ROTFLMAO! Calling all rightwing millionaires — there’ll be a spontaneous hootin’ and hollerin’ rally at the yacht club.

Dennis Whitfield, the ACU's executive vice president, was a deputy secretary of labor in Ronald Reagan’s administration. You can imagine the empathy this wingtard must have had for those lowly peons who work for a living. Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse.

Other winners on the ACU board include Grover Norquist. Birds of a feather…

cross-posted at Bring It On!

Get Sick, Have Health Insurance, Go Bankrupt

In 2007, 62% of all personal bankruptcies were the result of an illness. And 78% of those people already had health insurance when they first became ill. Most of these ill and bankrupt people had been covered by a private insurance carrier, not Medicare or Medicaid.

Compare these figures to 1981, when only 8% of personal bankruptcies were caused by illness.

If you’ve seen Sicko, you’ll remember that all of the victims from that movie had health insurance as well. It’s one thing to dismiss Sicko as just the ramblings of a flagburning socialist. But it’ll be harder for the knuckledragging community to dismiss this article, unless Business Week is just another communist front group.

According to this article, most of the people who filed for bankruptcy were middle class; two thirds of them owned their homes. One of the authors of this study, Dr. David Himmelstein, said:

"For middle-class Americans, health insurance offers little protection. Most of us have policies with so many loopholes, co-payments and deductibles that illness can put you in the poorhouse. Unless you're Warren Buffett, your family is just one serious illness away from bankruptcy.”

Dr. Himmelstein has also described health insurance as “an umbrella that melts in the rain.”

So — how can we pass health insurance reform over the objections of the multi-billion dollar health insurance industry and their harem of prostitutes (formerly known as “Congress”)?

Obama needs a villain, according to this article by Josh Skolnick. He says:

“Obama needs more than deadlines, his charm, and Rahm Emmanuel’s legendary arm-twisting abilities to get this kind of mammoth legislation passed. He needs a villain…He needs to out the nefarious characters blocking change — to put a face to the opposition.”

Republicans have known this for decades. For that matter, it’s ALL they’ve ever known. Get the public riled up, terrified, boiling with fury, and then create a villain. Presto!

How many laws have Republicans ever passed without conjuring up images of “Terrorists,” “Communism,” “parasites on welfare,” “bumbling faceless bureaucrats meddling in our Free Enterprise system,” etc. Zero. Nada. Zip point shit.

The article continues with: “So far Obama has only shown us the victims of the system. The enemies are insurance companies—but can you name a single insurance company executive?”

Time to start naming names. Let the Swiftboating begin. Vilify!

And how do we pay for health insurance reform? There’s a bill in the House that would raise taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of the population. Republicans are hysterical about this. As they point out, successful Americans haven’t paid such outrageous taxes since 1986, when this rabble-rousing commie was in charge.

cross-posted at Bring It On!

The Shanking of Antonin Scalia; The Drowning of Levi Johnston…

Who needs Fear Factor or the Jerry Springer Show? If you get off on lowest-common-denominator entertainment (and the operative word is LOW), nothing beats the daily unraveling of the Republican Party.

Today’s antics include:

Jason Mattera, a spokesman for Young America’s Foundation, said that if Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed, she might shank Justice Antonin Scalia. After all, she’s one of them hot-tempered Puerto Ricans and she comes from a bad neighborhood. That’s the way those people settle things back in the barrio.

And the continuing saga of the Clampett Palin family just gets wackier all the time. After Levi Johnston told the media that Sarah Palin cut and run so she could make more money, the Joads Palins went wild. And just today, Pat Buchanan had a suggestion for the First Dude — or whatever his title is now that his wife’s a Quitter.

His advice: Todd Palin should drown Levi Johnston. In Pat Buchanan’s own words: “Well, first, with regard to Levi, I think First Dude up there in Alaska, Todd Palin, ought to take Levi down to the creek and hold his head underwater until the thrashing stops.“

And speaking of “putting lipstick on a pig” — Ralph Reed, one of the most notorious of the Biblehumpers from the 1990s, is BAAACK. But don’t worry, he’s changed. He’s all wrapped up in a brand new package.

That stodgy old hate-spewing Christian Coalition has now morphed into the hip new Faith and Freedom Coalition. Think of it as Christian Coalition 2.0.

The Grand Inquisitor Himself says: “This is not going to be your daddy’s Christian Coalition. It has to be younger, hipper, less strident, more inclusive and it has to harness the 21st century that will enable us to win in the future.”

And then he said — be sure you’re sitting down for this — “Even though I’ve been doing other things, this is kind of like Steve Jobs returning to Apple.”

All righty then…

cross-posted at Bring It On!

Learn Other Languages, Prevent Alzheimer’s; and Other News…

A new study is speculating that linguistic skills can help prevent dementia. That sounds like some sort of comminist un-American gimmick to destroy the moril fabrik of our great nation.

(PSSSST — If you can find the spelling error in each of those pictures, you musta been dabblin’ in one of them furrin languages.)

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: OK, the issue has been settled. We’ve been warned in no uncertain terms — if gays are allowed to serve openly in America’s armed forces, our once-great military will degenerate into a bunch of Nancy Boys, just like those sissy armies of Israel and Australia. Case closed. Back to the closet.

And then the Obama Administration said to the mortgage industry: Fox, please guard this henhouse. I trust you completely.

China’s Achilles Heel

Not that China is in danger or anything, but the ethnic riots in Urumqi might be a lot more serious than last year’s Tibetan uprising. The Uighurs don’t seem to have that same look-inward, turn-the-other-cheek mindset that Tibetans are famous for.

These ethnic tensions have been building for a long time. Night Train to Turkistan (1986) was a first-hand account of four Americans who traveled all over western China. They had fascinating adventures, but there were long-simmering ethnic feuds even then. I think the book mentioned the Uighurs in particular (I read it a long time ago). In any case, everywhere these travelers went, there was resentment against the Chinese. Millions of Chinese citizens have moved (or more likely, they got “moved” by the government) into these remote western regions, causing the indigenous tribes to become minorities on their own turf.

Same with Tibet — in Lhasa, Chinese citizens outnumber Tibetans.

Mongolia offers more perspectives on China — past and present. The two countries had centuries of warfare, and Inner Mongolia is now a Chinese province. Everything is relative, and Mongolians think of Russia as the lesser of two evils.

Somehow, it’s hard to picture these Urumqi riots as something that will flare up and then die down and everyone will live happily ever after.

This isn’t wishful thinking or anything. After all, China is our landlord. And if you’re a renter and your landlord is in trouble, YOU might not have a place to live.

So let’s hope China can find a workable solution.

cross-posted at Bring It On!

“I’m Sarah Palin and I’m Here to Help You”

“Hi! I quit my job so I’d have more time to help you with your campaigning. Isn’t that great? Well?? Hello??? Anybody out there? Is this thing on?”

Sarah Palin has offered to help campaign for Republican gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia. So far the response has been, well, not quite the roaring enthusiasm she was hoping for.

Bob McDonnell, Republican candidate for governor of Virginia, said his staff had spoken with Sarah Palin’s staff. He called her “a good spokesman” but didn’t mention anything about wanting any help from her.

In New Jersey, Republican candidate Chris Christie is more popular right now than the current Democratic governor. Asked about Sarah Palin’s “help,” the state GOP chairman said:

“No!! She’ll fuck everything up! Keep her the hell away from here We don't have any plans on having her in. We're busy working to get Chris Christie elected and telling people about the failed record of Gov. Corzine.”

Upon news that The Quitter might campaign for Republican candidates — this was the Democrats’ response.

cross-posted at Bring It On!

When Rep. Peter King Died, Millions Mourned

Oh wait,I was thinking of somebody else.

Let’s see, Peter King, who’s he again? Oh, right, he’s that pathetic dipshit that has nothing better to do than kick Michael Jackson after he’s already dead.

I would’ve thought a member of Congress would have had more important things to do than make nasty comments about one of the greatest pop performers of the last few decades. Since his bloated salary comes out of taxpayers’ money, you’d think his constituents in New York State would want their tax dollars put to better use.

Peter King has his First Amendment right to call Michael Jackson a “pervert” and a “lowlife” if he wants to. He’s perfectly free to announce to the world that he’s a clueless asshole with too much time on his hands.

When Peter King dies, there’ll only be two pallbearers at his funeral. Why only two, you ask? Because a garbage can only has two handles.

cross-posted at Bring It On!

Credit Card Companies Trying to Squeeze Blood Out of a Turnip

Those poor banks. Thanks to the federal legislation they purchased several years ago, they’re now able to squeeze and gouge and draw and quarter their prisoners customers like never before.

But now they’ve made a horrifying discovery: After too much bloodletting, their victims might declare bankruptcy. And then they can’t be gouged any more. Damn! These credit card CEOs are in the same position as a torturer when the victim dies too soon, before the torturer had a chance to get his rocks off.

In states that allow debt collectors to garnish their creditors’ wages, the bankruptcy rates are much higher than in neighboring states that don’t allow this practice. In the most striking example, Georgia — where wages can be garnished by creditors — has four times the bankruptcy rate as South Carolina, where the practice is prohibited.

It already seemed like a pretty obvious cause and effect connection, but now it’s been clearly spelled out in a study of millions of bankruptcy records from 2006 to the present. This study has produced an Economic Stress Map — a geographic, chronological and visual display of economic misery based on the unemployment rate, foreclosures and bankruptcies.

It was the bankruptcy “reform” legislation of 2005 that gave credit card debt the same legal priority as child support payments and back taxes owed to the IRS.

When credit card debt and child support payments were put on an equal footing, there’s probably no way to calculate how much child support money went uncollected. In any case, the irony was lost on millions of “Family Values” “For The Children” drones.

And speaking of our burgeoning Beacon of Freedom south of the border: The United States has been training Honduran soldiers for decades now. But how well did we train them? In the event that Honduras was taken over by some rabble-rousing Communist who tried to redistribute some of the Oligarchs’ hard-earned wealth to the riffraff — would our American-trained Honduran soldiers know how to handle this emergency?

Ah, that’s our boys!

Prove Your Patriotism — Go To a Tea Party

Fireworks, barbecues, family gatherings — that’s all well and good. But Real Americans will show their True Grit by attending a Tea Party on July Fourth. They were such a smashing success last April — boy, did we show that commie in the White House a thing or three — let’s do it again.

As you probably know, the “Tea” in Tea Party stands for Taxed Enough Already. If you’re sick and tired of Big Government and Class Warfare, you WILL get out there on July Fourth and do some teabagging.

Government bureaucrats standing between you and your doctor, successful Americans paying higher taxes than the riffraff — Enough!

These tax-and-spend Democrats are ruining this great nation. If you’re longing for the huge budget surpluses we had during George W. Bush’s presidency, let everybody know. Ask yourself: what have you done for Big Business lately?

Find a tea party near you.

cross-posted at Bring It On!

Far Right: “Honduras Did It. Why Can’t We??!?!?!?”

Wingtards, Rightwads: Your country needs you! Socialists are tightening their stranglehold on our great nation, and what are we doing about it? It’s fine that our Exulted Grand Caliph sits there and passively says “I hope he fails.”

But that’s not enough.

What can we do? Let’s look to our shining inspiration to the South.

It’s been sixteen years since the last rightwing military coup in Central America. And if you’re sitting in your double-wide frying something as you read this, you probably agree: that’s sixteen years too long!

What do you do when some limpwristed commie tries to redistribute wealth, remove all incentive to work and destroy our moral fiber? Send in the cavalry!

Of course our CEOs and robber barons — and the government they’ve purchased — don’t care about us. But if we have a limited government that lets them do exactly what they want when they want, some of their wealth will trickle down to us. Prosperity is just around the corner.

And we can always count on the Army to make things right. Liberal politicians come and go, but soldiers always embody those bedrock values that made America great. With a godless Communist desecrating our White House, our troops will be champing at the bit to come storming in and —

Oh. Nevermind.