More F35 Madness

Today's NYT is reporting that the "Pentagon" and Lockheed have agreed on the latest round of F35 purchases. The planes now cost $137 million EACH. We ask our friends to enumerate all the useful things this country could acquire for each F35 we did not build.

F 35: Our Latest Insanity

As New York and New Jersey begin to emerge from the destruction of that Category One (the smallest) Hurricane, the Pentagon (read: War Department) is going merrily ahead with plans to spend $394 billion for the so-called "Joint Strike Fighter."This latest dose of madness was conceived in an era when we had the "enemy" of the USSR. Last time we looked, the USSR was no more. And the F35 cannot prevent another dozen terrorists from diving planes into cities, should they so decide to do so.
What prompted our latest outrage is the fact that all across this pathetic country infrastructure, from bridges, to roads, to rails, to mass transit, to water and sewage systems, is collapsing under our very noses, and all we can think of to do is build more obscene fighter jets, nuclear carriers and submarines that we don't need and can't afford. Hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage gushed into the waters of the East Coast, and in some cases, continue to gush because "no one could have foreseen" the destruction of this pipsqueak hurricane.
Just wait 'til a REAL one comes along. But at least we'll have the F35 to bomb wedding parties in Afghanistan and drones to bomb schools in Pakistan. We can console ourselves with that as our homes float away in our own sewage.

Dems: Don't Get Euphoric Yet!

With all the blather about the inevitability of Democratic victories as far as the eye can see, Ned would like to interject a bit of reason into the unwonted euphoria (or is it simply relief?). Regardless of demographics, there is that ol' electoral college to keep in mind. Here's why: here are reliably red states, as far as the eye can see, with the possible exception of Arizona: Arizona, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska. These eleven states have 54 electoral votes and have about 24 million people, and some of them are actually losing population. California has 38 million people and has 55 electoral votes. Moreover, does anyone believe that the phenomenal black turnout in key states like VA and OH would have been the same for a nonblack candidate? Or if the morons of the state GOP hadn't tried to suppress their votes?
Remember that that Sneering Plutocrat Romney still got 47% of the vote, and would have gotten more had he not been overheard dissing half the country to his elitist moocher, parasite friends as, ironically, moochers and parasites.
One day, maybe in 2016, the GOP will stop shooting itself in the foot and actually run a candidate from the 20th century--much less the 21st.
It ain't over yet.

Brooks: A "New" GOP?

Poor David Brooks. In a recent NYT op-ed, he describes the "new voices" in the GOP and tries to see a way forward for the Republican Party. But this is a party that suffers from a fatal disease: half of its most reliable base consists of religious fanatics who have more in common, seriously, with The Taliban than they have with Reality-Based communities. Then take the rest of their base: racists (Obama got 10% of the white vote in Mississippi, and 15% in Alabama) and selfish, grasping, amoral Sneering Plutocrats, who care, like the Dragon of the Niebelung, only for their pile of filthy lucre, and for whom enough is never enough. Given this handicap, how can they survive? By gerrymandering congressional districts for one, and by rulings by a pliable and contemptible Supreme Court (think Citizens United) for another. Finally, they have to depend on the stupidity of a part of the electorate and the distractions (earning a living, taking care of kids, etc) on another part of the electorate. Or perhaps they just mount such disgusting campaigns that they hope voters get turned off and stay away.
There is in fact only one vacuum in modern American politics: the Populist. Think Oklahoma in the 30s, or West Virginia in the 60s. The Democrats have given up these voters and the GOP has nothing to say to them since it would alienate the Sneering Plutocracy. What we need is clearly a Populist Party, one that stands for health care, a much reduced military, education, a protected environment, fair trade, and community. Oh and did someone mention Climate Change?

Coburn for the War Department!

Obama is apparently looking for a replacement for amiable hack Leon Panetta as head of the War Department (we prefer this more realistic term for the benign 'Defense Department', since this country has engaged in nothing but aggressive wars since 1945). We suggest kook Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Many of Coburn's ideas are right out of the 14th century (BC, that is) but he is a powerful skeptic of military spending and has many fine ideas about how to cut it deeply without sacrificing the ability to invade any country we so choose to spread 'freedom' around the world, mainly by obliterating persons of color. The nomination would sail through the Senate, the War Department would quake in its boots, Obama would have his bipartisanship creds enhanced, and the country might actually see some deficit reduction that is sensible, necessary and long past time. The fact that we have a bigger war budget than the next ten countries COMBINED should make every sensible American sick to their stomach.
Let's hear it for Tom Coburn!

Big Government Comes Back

For all those Mental Midgets who drink the GOP kool-aid and believe that nothing government does is good and nothing 'private enterprise' does is bad, we direct your attention (assuming your reading level is above 5th grade) to today's NYT featuring an article on the rebirth of the New York subway system, one of the world's largest, and entirely run by government and union labor. The recovery of the system was miraculous and not a 'heckofa job Brownie' to be heard. Now, crawl back under your rocks and go back to sleep.

Election Fulminations: Geezerdom's Shame, Etc

Ned recalled today seeing numerous geezers with Romney yard signs, and condemns them to the lowest reaches of Hell for their breathtaking selfishness and ignorance.  A generation which is living off the backs of younger Americans paying into Medicare and Social Security, providing these geezers with a comfortable lifestyle, and then voting for a Contemptible Being who intends to deny those same benefits to the young. Ned asks how disgusting is that? Moreover, he remembers with exasperation that geezerette in SC who indignantly demanded that politicians 'keep their government hands off my Medicare!' Yet he recalls that this disreputable selfishness and abysmal ignorance has always been part of America. In fact, Lincoln warned against appealing to anything save 'the better angels of our nature.' This of course is exactly what the deformed and vile heirs of Lincoln have done every election since 1960. And today? "47% of Americans are moochers and parasites" said of course in private. And yet many especially the old, continue to support such beliefs.
May they all roast in hell.

Ned's Review of Elections

We would like to provide our many friends with our humble review of the past several presidential elections, starting with that of 1968. In this election, Richard Nixon edged Humphrey by a whisker. The impact of this was hard to tell, other than it led to Watergate. We feel that HHH would have enmeshed the country as far into Vietnam as Tricky Dick did, and so a HHH election would have made little difference. 1972: Here, regrettably McGovern, a true hero and fine all around man, would have made a much finer president that a second Nixon term, but the stars were aligned against him, so we got what we got. 1976: Carter edged Ford, and it probably made little difference because both were honorable men. However, Ned recalls being torn as to whom to vote for. At the last minute, Ford came out and endorsed a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, and this sealed his fate in Ned's eyes. 1980: The country's great Descent Into Horror began with the election of Reagan. Ned voted for Anderson who had the courage to tell Americans something they didn't want to hear: that they needed to pay higher gas prices. And so the Script Reader was elected, who then proceeded to run up budget deficits as far as the eye could see, all the while cementing his reputation as a "small government" man. Moreover, the pandering to the Ignorant Masses, always dangerous in the country where ignorance is a prince if not king, began in earnest. 1984: Never in doubt, but we voted for Mondale, in spite of his selection of Geraldine Ferraro as his VP, a Limousine Liberal if there ever was one. 1988: We naturally voted for Dukakis, having been repelled by the extent to which George HW Bush prostituted his principles to get the nomination, and then ran the disgusting attack ads against Dukakis. Sound familiar? The Bush presidency was a disaster, solely because he chose Clarence Thomas for the SCOTUS, one of the most glaring mediocrities ever nominated for public office since Caligula made his horse a Consul. This continues to curse the country to this day. The Clinton years were as a breath of fresh air-forget about sexual shenanigans that would make any European laugh.
Then we come to 2000, and wonder to this day how Gore managed to lose--the electoral vote of course. The 'selection' of Cheerleader George Bush may have set this country on a course of unavoidable decline, leading to the overweening hubris of Iraq, and "Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside US." But more maddening to us is the re-election of Bush in 2004, facilitated by the Dems choosing just about the only candidate who couldn't beat him. We fully supported Obama in 2008, and note with contempt and disgust the racially-motivated hatred of him by the GOP.
We predict an Obama victory tonight, but await the outcome with fear and loathing. A Romney victory would cement this country as consisting of an electorate far too stupid to be entrusted with the vote, but we shall see.

Ned's Absence: Into Red America

We would like to apologize to our many dear friends for our posting hiatus, as we have been on a research expedition deep into the foul heart of Red America. Our journey took us across the forbidding wastes of eastern Oregon, home to a few thousands of Hardy Rugged Individualists who hate government but live off federal timber payments, subsidized water, crop payments and food stamps. We crossed into that reddest of states, Idaho, filled with cultist Mormons and more Rugged Real Americans, then deeper, deeper into the most forlorn of all red states, Wyoming. We counted about three trees between Evanston and Laramie, but plenty of signs of coal mining. We now understand the cowboy lament that, while rounding up 'dogies,' poor, motherless calves, sings "whoopie tie-yie-ay, git along little dogie, it's your misfortune and none of my own, whoopie tie-yie-ay git along little dogie, you know that Wyoming will be your new home." And God help the poor beasts.
Our journey ended in Purple Colorado, where we saw plenty of Romney yard signs in the Stepford Wife-like metropolis of Fort Collins. We can, however, report that the town has a abundance of fine brewpubs and Colorado State University. We predict however, that Romney will carry the town by a whisker, but trust that our tortilla-fancying friends in the Denver region will deliver the state the Obama. Time will tell.