"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

I realize that I haven't been all that personal on my blog. It has been basically a plethora of political rants, music stuff, social commentary, and general critiques of the state of the world. My personal whining was reserved for my LiveJournal, which I stopped writing in.... 2007? So I'm gonna do that a lot more because when all is said and done, I guess I'm worth knowing... sorta.

"Miss Me Yet?" Not In a Million Years

If you were to go driving on Interstate 35 near Wyoming, Minnesota, you would see this billboard. It shows a picture of former President George W. Bush waving, and it says "Miss Me Yet?" Who knows? Michelle Bachmann probably funded it.

Alright... Bush looks like a jackass in this picture, number one. Number 2, Bush left office with the lowest approval rating since they kept track during the Eisenhower Administration. Number 3, who could you trace a good chunk of the mess we're in back to?

Well, Bush-in-a-Billboard, to answer your corporate-funded question: NO!!!!!!!!!!! The Republicans got their ass handed to them in 2006 and 2008 for a reason, and the answer lies no further than the goofy man waving in the ad. For all of his faults, President Obama is nowhere near as bad as George W. Bush; he's broken a lot of campaign promises, and hasn't lived up to his potential, sure, but Bush he is not.

And anyone who misses Bush must be swiggin' some serious moonshine!

Irony and Contradiction

Here are some great ironies and contractions in American policies:

- Thomas Jefferson writing "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence, while being a slave owner (and knocking one up)

- Ronald Reagan having an airport named after him after firing all the air traffic controllers (Yes, I stole this from a stand up comic; can't remember her name, otherwise I'd give her credit)

- Herbert Hoover supporting Prohibition, yet sneaking off to the Belgian embassy to enjoy a frosty cool Belgian ale

- Any GOP politician speaking out against homosexuality only to be caught in homosexual tryst (and getting busted for it)

- Al Gore using a private jet, and having a home that leaves a massive carbon footprint, while going on & on about energy conservation.

Well, the Teabaggers have managed to give irony a whole new definition this past weekend. Their summit in Tennessee had a pretty hefty pricetag of $549 (or $349 just to hear Sarah Palin open her mouth), all while protesting "reckless spending." Yes, they were spending their own money, and the government is pulling it out of thin air, and we'll have to pay it all back, blah blah blah. Still, it's not consistent with their message (other than "We have a darky in the White House, we're tools, and we listen to every word Glenn Beck says"). Most grassroots political summits such as this one should not cost much of anything; $20 and a cookout maybe. Summits with a big pricetag are for those "Washington elitists." Dinners of steak and lobster are for the assholes in charge of things, right? Imagine if Martin Luther King did that during the Civil Rights Movement.

The keynote speaker at the Tea Party Convention was the Queen of Irony and Contradiction herself, Miss Alaska. Sarah Palin took the stage to an adoring crowd, and managed to go on about slamming Obama, and dissing the "lamestream media," which she is now a part of, I might add. Recently, she has become a contributor for Fox News, which has more viewers than any other news network (I dunno why). In fact, one of Bill O'Reilly's key talking points when combating the "loony, leftist media" (which does not exist; I guess no one mentions that Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan are conservatives and are on MSNBC) is that Fox News owns NBC & CNN in ratings.

She did make some talking points on how people are fed up with Democratic leadership. I hate to give her even the slightest bit of credit, since I absolutely despise her, but the Democrats are sucking right now. The Democrats losing Massachusetts was a sure sign of that. Palin irked that the Democrats blamed their candidate, but let's face it; Martha Coakley was an awful candidate. The campaign was run on complacency, and they took Massachusetts' mostly liberal demographic for granted. Scott Brown had more charisma, and won people over simply by running to be the 41st vote to attain a filibuster for a bad health care bill. It's not some great referendum on the "Obama agenda" (and polls show that neither were the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia; more New Jersey). It's a sign of frustration amongst voters, and Scott Brown may be conservative, but he's more centrist and he's not some great Republican hero either. Sarah, you're putting way too much hope into a minor election. What she doesn't seem to get is that the Republicans are in trouble too.

She also went on about "nothing but talk, talk, talk" from Washington, and I do agree. Obama has been all about a lot of talk. A lot of talk and not a lot of follow through. I don't need to go over that again. However, most politicians are all talk, and I can bet you dimes to dollars that Palin is the same way.

However, most of her speech was just cheap shots to entice the crowd. She chastised him for his use of teleprompters, even if she used one during her RNC speech back in 2008, and politicans have been using them since Jah knows when. Also, she had points of her speech WRITTEN ON THE PALM OF HER HAND!!!!! She also said that this nation needs a commander-in-chief and not a law professor. And what qualifies as a commander-in-chief, ex-Governor Palin? Making decisions that are 'from the gut' and because YOU think that they are in your best interest? Unless I slept through Civics class one too many times, the President is supposed to interpret laws and follow the Constitution. Laws are always subject for debate. I think if Bush had acted less from his gut and maybe thought about things, we would have saved a trillion dollars and at least 4,000 people would still be alive.

And what better keynote speaker during their ironic conquest than Sarah Palin! She is a walking contradiction if there ever was one. Apparently it's OK for Rush Limbaugh to call someone a retard, but not Rahm Emanuel. Add that to the Book of Palintology!

The thing that irks me about Sarah Palin is that she can dish it out but she can't take it. Whenever she comes under fire by anyone in the media, whether it be MSNBC, Katie Couric, Dave Letterman, Elmo, Snoopy, SpongeBob, the girls from Jersey Shore, etc, she curls up and plays victim. She can spout hateful rhetoric about socialism, and Real America vs. Fake America, Obama is evil, and all that, but when someone attacks her, she whimpers in the corner. She demonizes the media for victimizing her, but she sets herself up for it. Once you go into politics, especially on a national stage, everything you do is up for grabs. Every shit you take has someone willing to inspect it. If you don't like that, ex-Governor Palin, become a private citizen, stop charging $100K per speech and SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!! If you don't like being dragged through the mud, stay away from the mud pit.

What else really grinds my gears about Palin is that she uses her family as a political football. Dave Letterman made a crack about her daughter, she calls for him to get fired. Rahm Emanuel makes a comment about liberal Democrats being retards, and she uses her Down's syndrome afflicted baby as a political crutch to get him fired. She whores her family out for her political gain, and she also whores them out to pursue action against others who may have offended her? Is nothing sacred to Sarah Palin?

Back to the Tea Party Movement, who are protesting raising taxes even if 95% of them will get tax cuts when they fill out their W-2s, I'm hoping that this is another third party that peters out in a few years, like most of them do. However, them gaining traction in the political field is actually a little unnerving. This party was started when people took reasonable concerns about Obama's administration, such as jobs, the economy, spending, and turned it into a right wing version of Paranoid Time, only some of the people in this movement are indeed Minutemen who support border control, and not the 80s punk band (or fans for that matter); and at the helm were people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.

Alanis Morissette should remake her song "Ironic" and put some of these contradictions in. It would add some truth to the song, since the original lyrics weren't ironic at all.

UPDATE: 2/9/2010 11:17 PM

And another thing... She got $100,000 for speaking in Nashville, as she does wherever she goes. She says that she is donating it to "the cause." Why charge at all, then? I'm sure "Going Rogue" has generated its share of revenue. It was #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List. She must have made at least a few million off of it at this point. If she felt so strongly about this cause, why not donate more money to it? Why charge "the cause" $100K to speak, only to donate it back to them, pretty much leaving them no better or no worse financially than before their giant convention in Nashville?

Updates Amid Snowpocalypse (well, not here, but not far from here either)

Ahoy mateys!

I've come to you all with some news. I have accepted a pretty low-paying job as a music blogger on another website. It is located at www.musicspiel.co.uk. As a result, any music-related blog entries I do will be on there... because I'm getting paid for it. tee hee.

However, I still will be updating Nothing to Fear, Nothing to Doubt to discuss current events, my boring life and its many self-discoveries, political crap, and other shit. I will keep all 3 of you who read this happy!

Till then, check out my new blog.