Pity the Poor
Plutocrat!

The 3 R's of Modern (sic) ReThuglicanism

Last night was really fun. I made the mistake of not having any booze in the house last night, because I wanted to monitor multiple media, plus I was afraid that if Romney and the intellectual pin head of the Repuke Party, Paul Ryan wound up elected, I would go on a really sad and then mean drunk.  I never thought that the Man from Bain and the altar boy from Wisconsin could actually win the election, but based on past performance of Reich Wingers both here in Canada and down below the forty-ninth in recent years was trying to be mentally prepared to witness another outright theft of an election. I guess the Democratic Party after two stolen elections were prepared this time and hordes of lawyers were all over the Republican Statehouses and Election Officials before even official voting day in order to deal with the RePuke tricks before the fact, rather than after.

I NEVER watch Faux, but last night I made an exception and checked out what nonsense they were spewing from time to time, though I mostly followed the returns online at Politico and mostly switched between CBS and PBS for the necessary dose of punditry and talking heads. The Comedy Channel should be nervous, because Faux News is really stepping over the line into their department. Especially funny was watching that unctuous excuse for a human, Karl Rove, vainly arguing with the rest of the idiots at Faux that Mutt Mitt was still gonna prevail in Ohio. An hour and a half after every media outlet on earth had called the election for Obama, the Runt Rove was still arguing that Ohio was gonna go Mitt, meanwhile Virginia fell to Obama, then Colorado, then  Nevada, and finally it didn't even matter if Mitt got Ohio, Barrack Obama had been re-elected. 

Some people make a big deal about the tightness of the end result of the vote, and point out that the country is still split, but there is NO doubt that Obama WON the popular vote, unlike Bu$h the Lesser who lost the popular vote in 2000, but still got to be Preznit thanks to his bro the guv of Florida and the creeps that his daddy and his Uncle Ronny Raygun had appointed to the Supreme Court. That decision was so odious that the majority opinion felt compelled, COMPELLED, to insert into it that it COULD NOT EVER BE REFERRED TO AS A PRECEDENT for anything.

Since cases generally aren't even heard at the USSC unless a legal issue needs to be settled for future use, this was extremely unique. I'm convinced that once she saw what she had wrought by giving Dubya the keys to the kingdom by going along with Fat Tony Scalia and Uncle Clarence Thomas, she retired earlier than she might otherwise have done, out of shame.  She must wake up screaming in the night, when she thinks of 9-11, Iraq, Chief (in)Justice Roberts and mini-Fat Tony Scalito the meltdown of 2007-8 and all the rest of the shitstorm that ensued because the winner of that election didn't become President.

Even more fun is today, watching all the Republican heads explode and listening to the excuses and suggestions from taking to the streets by Lord Hairpiece Trump (watch out the Donald, we might bring out the guillotine) to the National Review who concluded that Americans obviously don't deserve democracy, or they would have given the MittStake the Oval Orifice to which he was entitled.  Meanwhile Dick Cheney's former female (I think) Dickette Cheney, Mary Matalin lashed out with "political narcissistic sociapath leveraged fear and ignorance with a campaign marked by mendacity and malice?" I would have sworn she was describing Mitt Romney, and why he lost, but no, according to Let Freedom Rain, she thinks she is describing Barrack Obama...........WOW!


Frothing at the Mouth in Canada

Polling in Canada and most of the world showed that if other countries were allowed to vote (and considering the effect the USA has on the rest of the world, maybe they should) the election could have be called as soon as the polls closed. Obama was favored by sixty to eighty five percent in country after country according to the pollsters. But in Vancouver there is a sad little, well not so little, blogger who figures the whole world lost because the Marvelous Mittster got sent back to Boston, Utah, the Cayman Islands or Switzerland or where ever he'll go to get back into doing some good old Vulture Capitalism. Maybe he'll move to the Cayman Islands or Switzerland, to be close to his money cuz him and the unfortunately NOT Queen Ann are empty nesters with the boys all off on their own now learning how to plunder companies and  run hedge funds and stuff themselves. You would think anybody with FIVE grown sons, with dreams of the Presidency might have suggested at least one of his sons might have considered military service, even if not at the pointy end of the stick. I mean even Bu$h the Lesser spent a few weeks or months patrolling the Tex-Mex border during the Vietnam War and Joe Biden's son Beau served in Iraq with the JAG.  Of course perhaps the boys served their country cult like their daddy did by going to France to try and make Frenchmen quit drinking wine.

According to the greatest blogger in at least this part of the world (in his own fevered pea brain that is:

The national popular vote split 50/50, proving my point further. The vast majority of counties (these are comprised of America’s electoral college precincts/polls) were awash in Republican red. 30 Governors–all Republican; an increase in the House, with continued control–all Republican.

 I don't know which election he was watching last night, just like I don't know what reality he is generally discussing at the best of times, but here is a fact or two:

30 governors - all Republican (this is as misleading as anything Mitt or Paul Ryan might say) There were only eleven governor seats up for grabs and the Democrats won six for sure, and are almost guaranteed to win Washington state as the last votes counted there are King County heavily Dem and with over half the votes counted, the Dem Jay Inslee is leading so on last night Dems win 7 to 4. 

 In spite of the sitting 30 RePuke governors who took advantage of the recent census to redistrict gerrymander their brains out to favor republicans(even eliminating the district of Dennis Kucinich - one of the few who voted against the illegal Iraq invasion) the democrats still picked up seven seats in the house while some Republicans will go home in January. Michelle Bachmann almost lost her seat.

The Democrats picked up two Senate seats and now have 53, plus two independents from New England who generally caucus and vote with the Dems

As to the popular vote split 50-50, I guess El Bloatto isn't all that good with math because the vote is now 60,531,516 for Obama to 57,726,562. Now I don't know if they teach some alternate form of mathematics in fancy private schools as they apparently teach alternate history, but where I went to school that adds up to 2,823,824 or just shy of THREE EFFING MILLION advantage Obama. Now when you consider that Dubya LOST the popular vote (and without the help of daddy et. al. would have lost the all important Electoral College, them numbers ain't chicken feed. Yet even opposition members unfortunately "reached across the aisle" to back Drugstore Cowboy George in his hairbrained schemes to remake the world by bombing and killing folks.

Also, Dubya SQEAKED by with 271 Electoral Votes in 2000, even with the illicit gift of Florida and never got to even 290  in 2004, in spite of flipping voting machines in Ohio. Obama got 303 to Mitt's 206 and if the Big O gets Florida in the end he'll wind up with 332, not that he needs them.  I don't call that a squeaker, I call that a good old shit kicking.

"The vast majority of counties (these are comprised of America’s electoral college precincts/polls) were awash in Republican red" is irrelevant. Obviously these were low population suburban and farming areas, or else the MittStake would have won both the pop. vote and the Electoral College and would be Preznit next January (shudder).  

As usual over at the CyberSewer known as Rubbish without a Pause, the usual crew of sycophants imaginary or just nuts is showing up to slap their mentor on the back and then low and behold one poor individual I've never seen comment there has the temerity to actually disagree with the King Kong Blogger. Part of the actually quite respectfully put comment is:

.....it is impossible to take you seriously with regards to US politics any longer,.... Things you are spouting here are lifted wholesale from the Faux News echo-chamber. I mean, seriously. Obama, “one of the most left wing politicians in American history”?! “Socialist”? Mitt Romney a “man of the people”? Mitt Romney, vulture capitalist and tax evader extraordinaire – “best economist-in-chief”? And you’ve bought wholesale into republican lies about Benghazi.

Then Asshat jumps to the attack with:

What’s sad is that you can’t read.

I never said Romney was a man of the people. What I said was that he wasn’t able to parlay that story into a workable narrative.

And Obama is a nightmare. You don’t like that. Too bad. The only thing sad, is you.

Really intelligent rebuttal buttface - what you said was:

if only Romney was able to better articulate that he was a man of the people,

That sounds like you are saying either "he is a man of the people, but couldn't get that across (cuz he ain't) or he should have been better able to PRETEND to be a regular guy. That one exchange between King Kong and a commenter clearly illustrates why his comment threads read like letters in a fan magazine. Thin skin, weak logic and a tendency to live in an alternate universe..........

 I could go on and ridicule the idea of trying to make a big deal out of the unfortunate events in BenGhazi, when Bu$h and Cheney had months of warnings about 9/11 and Al Queada, but preferred to cook up a reason to overthrow Saddam over non-existent WMD, which is what really threw the Middle East out of whack. Saddam wasn't a nice man, but he was a bulwark to Iran and upsetting him has basically allowed Iran to turn Iraq into a client state. Anyway, I've got other fish to fry tonight, as i am sure does the Evil Obama and that Poor, Poor little Plutocrat MittStake RMoney!

I know the King of the Sewer don't think much of Newt, and neither do I, but at least the Newt realizes that the Republicans better figure out how to seem relevant to anybody but greedy Billionaires like the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson and angry old white men or they will be a memory like the Whigs.  

The one thing the King got right, although he acted like it was a bad thing, was that Obama's campaign ran like a well oiled clock, which would have been a good thing if Mitt's had done so well. But the problem is with Mitt and the ReThugs is they are just too busy drinking their own bathwater while they yell at each other on Faux and radio shows like Rusty Limpball's. Frankly, I'm quite happy with that, don't change a thing - and I'm an old white guy, just a grumpy one, not angry..............................and definitely not a billionaire!

They're
Off

 4:53 PM - Starts out bad for the Prez. Of course very few votes are counted yet, but Politico has already given the Man from Bain 13 Electoral Votes (referred to in future as EV) to 3 for Obama. But this is based on the state that separated from the Commonwealth of Virginia, because they didn't need black slaves, the whites were willing to do dangerous, hard work for less than it cost to feed and house slaves, West Virginia and Kentucky, whose junior senator is so Randian, that is his name, so what can anyone expect. 

Obama actually is leading 49.6 to 48.9 in West Virginia at the moment, but Politico has already called it because West Virginians love dem coal mines that so many of them die in and we all know that Obama HATES coal.  Obama has a strong lead of 3 to 1 with over a third of the votes counted in Vermont.

Meanwhile in the Indiana Senate race, Mr. "Rape is a Woman's Gift from God" Mourdock was leading earlier, but now with almost a quarter of the votes counted, Donnelly the Democrat is leading with over 50 percent to just under 44 percent for Mourdock - a Libertarian is scooping almost 6 % in this race. 

Meanwhile, Independent Bernie Sanders appears to have his Vermont Senate seat locked up.  

 4:53 PM - Now less than twenty minutes later they're calling it Obama 64 EV to RMoney 40 as Illinois, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Delaware have been put into the Big O column. Interestingly of the counted votes RMoney leads the Big O by over 200,000, luckily the retarded types tend to live all bunched together in Appalachia and former states from the Confederacy.

 6:24 - Wild Swings, polls still open in Virginia (where they quit reporting for 90 minutes) because of line-ups, the same in Florida, though with just shy of seven million votes counted it is a dead heat  50-50. I'm following this on CBS, NBC, PBS and online at politico. I have somebody else monitoring Faux for me, so I don't have to watch them yell and snort. The projections vary wildly from site to channel. Politico has RMoney 154 to Big O 109 while others call it R-154 and the Big O - 144. 

Interestingly while Obama can be assured to carry his two home states of Hawaii and Illinois (not to mention Mass. where he studied law) while it would seem that Romney especially and even Ryan aren't liked that much where people know them. Romney is getting smeared in Mass and Michigan has been called for Obama for awhile now. Most folks don't think Romney can carry Wisconsin either, even though the VP candidate is from there. 

Uncle Joe Biden's side seems to have Pennsylvania, where he was born and Delaware where he serves and lives. People, that should tell you something.  Hell's bells, LBJ carried Texas ALWAYS and Kennedys couldn't lose in the Bay State.  

6:38 - Elizabeth Warren leading the pickup driving boy toy of Wall Street Scott Brown by five points with almost a third of the votes counted for Ted Kennedy's old seat. Faux is really bummed out about Scott Brown.

8:03 - With about 90 percent reported in Florida Obama has a point or so lead, the Romnoids are concerned. Elizabeth Warren has won and Pickup Patronizer has conceded after his two year career as a Senator.

8:25 PM - CNN, CBS, CBC, and everybody's dog has called it over and

Barrack Obama Re-Elected

Well, I can hear the ReThuglican teeth gnashing already, all the way from here, because Romney might win the popular vote, yet lose the election. Of course they won't care that the same thing happened to Al Gore in 2000 and three or four other times. Don't forget either that two of the bluest states, New Jersey and New York just suffered a major catastrophe and many Democratic votes may have gone bye the bye due to people being away from home (assuming they still have one). The last I looked the Marijuana Legalization initiatives were leaning towards the yes side in both Oregon and Washington. The Republican blame game has probably already started and by 2016, half of their angry old white men will be dead and Latinos and Afro-Americans will outnumber whites, especially angry old rich assholes. So Mitt the Mutt can go back to Vulture Capitalism and hey Barry, let's get onto some REAL CHANGE NOW, shame, threaten or whatever you have to do, do it to get those TeaBaggers in the House either working for the country or out on the street in 2014!  

8:44 PM - In Wisconsin Dem Baldwin is leading popular multi-term former governor Tommy Thompson in the Senate race by over three points with almost two thirds of the votes counted. Maca Maca Mouth George Allen looks to be history in the Virginia Senate race. Overall a good night for Dems in the Senate, now strike the god damned filibuster bullshit that requires a sixty votes of a hundred to go to the bathroom in the upper chamber.

 9:22 PM - It is only obvious that Obama has won the election, even if the Diebold operatives and Tagg manage to flip votes in Ohio during the night, like in 2004:

 In one Ohio precinct, exit polls indicated that [Presidential candidate John] Kerry should have received 67 percent of the vote, but the certified tally gave him only 38 percent. The odds of such an unexpected outcome occurring only as a result of sampling error are 1 in 867,205,553. [emphasis added]

 But Obama has enough EV with or without Ohio, yet not surprisingly mean spirited Mitt is refusing to concede. Somebody should remind Mitt that unlike George Bu$h the Lesser, Mitt's daddy never was Preznit, even though like Mitt he tried - and frankly would have been a better president than Mitt (of course there was that being born in Mexico thing with  George Romney, but Trump was just a child then, if that and Sheriff hadn't learned about being a birther back in the fifties - if he had even been hatched then.

Mitts no party hall is a joy to observe, I love the look of disappointed ReThugs in large sad groups.........

Our Common
Mother(effing) Country

Ye Olde Empire and then some...

Just for a break from the wall to wall election coverage from the failing nation to our south, which may or may not be over tomorrow night, because we could have another 2000 type result requiring herds of lawyers and weeks to litigate I decided to seek out some articles about something, anything else, which led me to pose the following question to my faithful readers. What do Andorra, Belarus, Bolivia, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo, Guatemala, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mali, Marshall Islands, Monaco, Mongolia, Paraguay, Sao Tome and Principe, Sweden, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and the Vatican City have in common? 

Out of kindness and a desire to not waste screen real estate, I won't make you scroll down and will answer right here and right now. Out of the almost two hundred "countries" recognized in the world today, they are the  only twenty-two that were never invaded (at times under another name) by the common Mother Country of we Canadians and our American cousins. This is the conclusion found in a recent book by Stuart Laycock, who has previously written about the (admittedly amateur by comparison) Roman Empire with the title  All the Countries We've Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To. Apparently Mr. Laycock isn't one to stand on grammatical fussy points like not ending a sentence or a title with a preposition. 

The book was the result of a question from the author's eleven year old son, according to an article in the Daily Telegraph:

Mr Laycock, who has previously published books on Roman history, began the unusual quest after being asked by his 11-year-old son, Frederick, how many countries the British had invaded.

After almost two years of research he said he was shocked by the answer. "I was absolutely staggered when I reached the total. I like to think I have a relatively good general knowledge. But there are places where it hadn't occurred to me that these things had ever happened. It shocked me.

"Other countries could write similar books – but they would be much shorter. I don't think anyone could match this, although the Americans had a later start and have been working hard on it in the twentieth century."

The only other nation which has achieved anything approaching the British total, Mr Laycock said, is France – which also holds the unfortunate record for having endured the most British invasions.

"I realise people may argue with some of my reasons, but it is intended to prompt debate," he added.

He believes the actual figure may well be higher and is inviting the public to get in touch to provide evidence of other invasions.

In the case of Mongolia, for instance – one of the 22 nations "not invaded", according to the book – he believes it possible that there could have been a British invasion, but could find no direct proof.

The country was caught up in the turmoil following the Russian Revolution, in which the British and other powers intervened. Mr Laycock found evidence of a British military mission in Russia approximately 50 miles from the Mongolian border, but could not establish whether it got any closer.

The research lists countries based on their current national boundaries and names. Many of the invasions took place when these did not apply.

The United States, though much younger is certainly making an effort to catch up with Momma England. The list includes countries which were merely raided by British Pirates with approval of the government, which explains many of the far flung New World former Spanish colonies where pirates routinely attacked the Spanish settlements and made off with the plundered gold. The way the CIA operates secretly around the planet, maybe the U.S. has already broken the record, but we just don't know yet.

Maybe if Mitt the "business man" becomes Commander in Chief/CEO he'll just blow up the whole world at once, thus breaking Britain's record, but few folks will be around to appreciate the accomplishment.

This was also re-published at  Information Clearing House, which is worth dropping by just to be dumbstruck by some of the dorky comments there like this classic exchange between Franky and None:

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Reply

Franky ·16 hours ago

A lot of you foreigners loath the Brits but choose to live in the best country in the world and suck it dry of cash taking benefit payments, you scrounge off it and still you don’t work or integrate.

None · 15 hours ago

Why do they hate the Brits? Oh, it must be for their "freedoms".

The Brits have been sucking the world dry and scrounging off it for over two centuries, and have not stopped, slaughtering populations and plundering countries. Look at what you have been doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria in the last decade alone. You have the audacity to talk about others "suck it dry"? I wouldn't live in that stinking genocidal country at any price. I hope everyone will "suck it dry" until it no longer exists. Same applies to USA, its lapdogs, and all colonizers and imperialists.

"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." --- George Orwell