WilliamPitt
WilliamPitt's JournalFrom the "You Can't Make This Shit Up" files...
"Staffers for Linda McMahon's (R) failed U.S. Senate campaign in Connecticut tell WTNH-TV they were not paid after Election Day. One who complained publicly said he was later handed a check but also got a little something extra in his envelope. Said the campaign worker: 'Basically he handed me a check with a condom in it, told me I was screwed. That's the rudest gesture you can ever do to a person, it's like spitting in a person's face.' His check also bounced."
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/11/22/campaign_worker_got_a_condom_with_his_check.html
Wow. Just wow.
Thanksgiving in Dystopia
(Photo: Gage Skidmore / Flickr)
Thanksgiving in Dystopia
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed
Thursday 22 November 2012
LA JOLLA - President-elect Mitt Romney held his first post-election press conference today outside his palatial estate in La Jolla, California to discuss the ongoing violence in Israel and Gaza, the results of the presidential election, and to lay out his plans for what he called the most ambitious "100 Days" blueprint in modern American history. At his side was his wife, Ann, who was resplendent in a $73,000 Gautier dress and a hat made from three live ocelots and the feathers of the last known Utah Godsblood Finch in existence.
Also present was Vice President-elect Paul Ryan, who handed out vouchers for a free turkey sandwich from the local YMCA cafeteria to the large assembly of reporters, all of whom were missing Thanksgiving with their families to be present at the press conference. When a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle grumbled about the meager offering on such an important holiday, Mr. Ryan replied, "That's the great thing about this country; it's a voucher, and you can choose not to use it. God bless America!"
President-elect Romney began the press conference with a short opening statement about the ongoing Middle East crisis. "Israel has no better friend in the world than the United States," he said, "and will have no better friend than President Romney when I am sworn in. What is happening in Israel is important to the security of Israel, and to the people of Israel, the Israelis, who are in Israel, as we all know. A proper resolution to this conflict is important to the security of the United States, as well. Gaza is, of course, Afghanistan's primary route to the sea, and given our war effort there, it is vital that we support our close ally Israel in this time of escalade crisis...I mean to say, escalating crisis."
"Sorry about that," he said, interrupting himself. "One of my sons wrecked our SUV last night, so Ann and I have been shopping for a new one, and 'Escalade' is probably the way we're going to go, so it's kind of stuck in my head."
The mention of his son brought a storm of questions from the assembled reporters about the legal status of Mr. Romney's eldest son, Tagg. The highly publicized election-night incident, in which Tagg Romney punched and kicked an African American reporter from the Associated Press who bore a vague resemblance to President Barack Obama while screaming, "You're the liar, darky! You're the liar, darky!" resulted in the soon-to-be First Son's arrest on assault, battery and hate crimes charges. Waving off the questions with a smile, Mr. Romney said, "Tagg is a good boy, and once Paul Wolfowitz is confirmed as my Attorney General, I am sure we will reach a just and equitable resolution of the matter." The reporter who was assaulted has not regained consciousness, and remains on life support.
The rest: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12897-thanksgiving-in-dystopia
Happy Thanksgiving, all.
A wish...
I just finished writing a ridiculous article about a dystopian Romney-led future that, joyfully, won't happen...in my mother's house, on her funny old computer...with the smell of my mom's pumpkin pie, my wife's outrageous buffalo chicken dip, and the crock pot chili we're having for dinner actively mugging my nose...all combining to make me, quite literally, insane.
This year began, for me, with half a dozen funerals for people I loved dearly. It is coming to an end with a favorable election result, a wildly healthy wife carrying our wildly healthy daughter...and this, tonight, with my mother, and my beloved.
I know full well just how lucky I am. I hope, with all that is in me, that this small space in time finds you happy and hopeful as well...and if not, if it hurts, if it's bad, I hope with everything I am that it will improve, both dramatically and soon.
Here's to my friends and family, for whom I am so grateful.
Here's to DU. Thank you so much.
Happy Thanksgiving, all.
I somehow managed to forget this '08 John McCain incident that explains everything about him
What I wrote then.
===
The American Tragedy of John McCain
William Rivers Pitt - t r u t h o u t
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
- T. S. Eliot
Arizona Sen. John McCain took a walk through a Baghdad market on April Fool's Day, and may well have burned his presidential campaign down to the ground in the process. That little stroll has visited upon his head a deluge of humiliation and shame vast and astonishing enough to beggar imagination, and that was before the bodies started hitting the ground.
Translated into mathematical terms, McCain's walk was Pythagorean in scope, squared hypocrisy added to squared idiocy equaling squared disgrace. In political terms, McCain's Baghdad walk was a full-blown, bull-moose, train-wreck disaster of truly galactic proportions: a veritable Hindenberg of campaign photo-op debacles. It was so mind-bendingly ugly and deranged and disgusting that the once-iconic "Dukakis in the Tank" blunder now seems quaint by comparison.
The genesis of this catastrophe, in case you missed it, was a verbal gaffe by McCain during a widely broadcast interview last week. After enduring several minutes of sharp interrogation regarding his staunch support of Bush, the war and the "surge," a neuron within his logic circuits apparently misfired. He claimed, with an entirely straight face, that the streets of Baghdad are today entirely safe for an American to walk down. This whopper made even the most shamelessly craven war apologists shake their heads in public, and forced McCain to undertake a desperate face-saving lunge to recover some shred of credibility.
McCain traveled to Baghdad to prove his claim correct, and the pictures appeared shortly thereafter. In the first available frames, the senator was shown walking through a Baghdad marketplace wearing a Kevlar vest, a general on his right and a troop on his left, and a second troop three steps ahead brandishing his rifle. While this kind of protection detail seemed to undermine his claims of safety, the escort and the vest could easily be understood as normal and necessary precautions taken to protect a visiting dignitary. For a time, McCain appeared to have made his point.
It didn't last. On the heels of those narrow-scope photos came reports of what McCain's entourage was actually comprised of. That "safe" Baghdad market had been flooded with more than one hundred battle-ready troops and armored Humvees. Three Blackhawk helicopters and two Apache attack helicopters roared overhead, and sharpshooters were posted on the surrounding rooftops. Simply put, McCain's "safe" street was one overly loud mouse-fart away from being paved with flaming lead during every step of that little walk.
To compound the calamity, a report emerged two days later describing the abduction and slaughter of 21 Iraqis who worked in the marketplace McCain's mini-Normandy force had stormed the previous Sunday, an obvious act of retribution for his visit by a violent Baghdad militia. Already belied by the revealed firepower he brought along, McCain's "safe" walk in Iraq led directly to yet another horrific Baghdad bloodbath. There is bad, there is awful, and then there is this thing, this quantum singularity of ignominy that bends the very light now shining upon it.
The rest: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x590946
You want a conspiracy theory? OK, here's one:
Hostess floated false rumors about closing down to inspire a mad rush on their product at stores all across the country.
Soon, they'll announce a "deal" that saves the company and all those jobs...and laugh all the way to the bank when their massive quarterly earnings increase comes in.
Call it a re-interpretation of the "New Coke" trick.
Mwah ha ha ha ha, prove me wrong, ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Hostess Shutdown on Hold; Deal Sought Between Union and Management
http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/19/news/companies/hostess-bankruptcy-bonuses/index.html?iid=Popular
His name was Henry Hamilton, and now he is dead.
His name was Henry Hamilton, and he owned a small business. He was taking medication to treat anxiety and schizophrenia. He was an ardent listener of the Right-wing noise machine, and lived in terror of Obama winning re-election. Two days after the election, he was found dead next to empty bottles of his pills and a suicide note that read, simply, "Fuck Obama."
Hannity, Rush and the rest didn't kill Mr. Hamilton. But they sure as shit didn't help him, either. Words, like actions, have consequences.
Leonard Pitts | The Sad State of Zealots with Microphones
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-the-sad-state-of-zealots-with-microphones-20121116,0,7918183.story
Profile Information
Name: William Rivers PittGender: Male
Hometown: Boston
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 58,179
