With apologies to Eddie Ducatti, infamous, highly caffeinated eastern Michigan greaser...
Much excitement in the Elephant herd tonight; Michele Bachman has announced that she is throwing her straight jacket into the ring and will campaign for the Iowa caucuses in what appears to be an attempt to exceed Sarah Palin’s short lived, 15 minute foray into comic absurdity and political futility, and I think she’s just the guy for the job. She joins Jon Huntsman, by most reports a decent and reasonable man, which, ex post facto, makes his a Quixotic quest indeed, as the last, decent reasonable man elected by republicans was Eisenhower and some people think they only elected him because he wore that snappy uniform well.
In other news, the criminal swine from Goldman Sachs are still not in jail, although there are vague threats from congress of “increased oversight” of hedge funds, which sounds like the SEC regulators will meet the masters of the universe for cocktails and chicken wings once a month. I think it’s pretty clear by now that congress’ interest in regulating Wall Street runs to opening the envelopes to make sure the checks are made out correctly. In a hopeful turn of events, however, there does seem to be some groundswell among the public, expressed mostly as sputtering outrage directed towards bankers, and that might just mean, in a more perfect world, that some of those heartless, shiny-eyed, suspender-wearing overlords will end up in jail. Of course it wouldn't be a real jail - those guys would probably have conjugal visits with $1,000 hookers - but at least the treacherous fuckers would be off the streets.
Meanwhile, Alan Greenspan’s legacy is fading as quickly as Milli Vanilli, with a long queue of economists, money managers and CEO types now swearing that they wondered what he was thinking at the time, (1987 – 2006, including the final, sleepy days of Reagan’s second term, Bush I, Clinton and most of Bush II), and wanted to advise him that ignoring both a stock and real estate bubble happening at the same time was unwise and imprudent but they had other shit to do and everything, plus he wouldn’t return their calls. Poor Greenspan - his star went supernova a while ago and now I picture him left with Andrea Mitchell laying around in her lingerie drinking gin at 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon.
The funny thing about outrage amongst the great unwashed electorate is that is directed at the very same people who the republican party supports unequivocally – those god damned TARP accepting pigs who ruined the country are the same people beloved by the Ayn Rand bedazzled republican intelligencia who are, in turn, carried on the shoulders of the Tea party rabble for demanding prayer in school, deporting all illegal aliens, treating gay couples like they do the guys who mow their lawns, wrapping themselves in the flag at every opportunity and hating Obama. Oh, and cutting corporate taxes – don’t forget that.
That this makes absolutely no sense has somehow slipped past the mainstream press still intoxicated by Palin’s emails and Weiner’s genitals, (although those are sooo last week). They don’t care a bit about blue collar jobs, as average wages are virtually unchanged for the last 20 years while corporate profits have swelled and grown even in the face of multiple recessions and assorted economic slow-downs. The Paul Ryans of the world want to turn the medicare that most of these people depends on into “let them eat cake” voucher systems and privatize social security so that they can cut corporate taxes even more – because they, you know, create jobs. To paraphrase Chevy Chase in Caddyshack; “Yeah…in China”
That this makes absolutely no sense has somehow slipped past the mainstream press still intoxicated by Palin’s emails and Weiner’s genitals, (although those are sooo last week). They don’t care a bit about blue collar jobs, as average wages are virtually unchanged for the last 20 years while corporate profits have swelled and grown even in the face of multiple recessions and assorted economic slow-downs. The Paul Ryans of the world want to turn the medicare that most of these people depends on into “let them eat cake” voucher systems and privatize social security so that they can cut corporate taxes even more – because they, you know, create jobs. To paraphrase Chevy Chase in Caddyshack; “Yeah…in China”
In a final middle finger gesture of contempt for workers and genuflection before the bulls and bears, the US Supreme Court, led by Antonin “Fuck the Doomed “ Scalia and his half wit side kick Clarence Thomas led a close 5-4 majority in deciding that women who had been systematically discriminated against by Wal-Mart for years, could not sue as a class because – irony alert! – it was too big! Too many women had been treated like semi-emancipated slaves by the 1960’s deep south management of Wal-Mart and so therefore…um…er…case dismissed. Nice one, guys. But it does dovetail nicely with what surely will be remembered as one of the most infamously stupid and cowardly decisions in the history of the court, the Citizens United case. So at least you can admire the consistency of intent and single-mindedness of the elphant herd in support of corporate overlords. It just begs the questions, could Obama actually screw this up badly enough to lose to these guys?
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