So you’re David Brooks, pundit/columnist who’s contribution to the status quo is Thomas Friedman quantities of vagueness that pepper your columns. So afraid of biting the hand that feeds, that you refuse to acknowledge the very vague notions you are presenting in your articles. Mr. Brooks has tried to break down our current economic nightmare in to economic “tribes” trying to find their way, has wondered aloud where all the liberals are, poorly peddles the notion that the GOP is really the party of the working class, and now claims that “our generation” has borrowed from the future like no other generation before.

Firstly, what is Mr. Brooks’ “our generation”? The vague notion is key to his status quo clutching baloney of an article, but I think if it was given parameters would definitely allow this article to be more substantive than it ultimately turns out to be.

Like most of his columns, Mr. Brooks spends an inordinate amount of time selling you a bill of goods you must buy or his entire article don’t make sense…relatively speaking. They’re all boiler-plate, run-of-the-mill, status quo maintaining non-articles generally, but the amount of slack you have to cut the articles so the ideas can even be taken seriously is pretty ridiculous.

Because older generations didn’t have the luxuries of modern technology and were so often one misstep away from utter catastrophe that they remained insecure. “[the older generations] developed a moral abhorrence about things like excessive debt, which would further magnify their vulnerability.” So if you completely ignore American history where expansionism and risk are inherently the “American way“, sure this makes some sense. If you believe, like Mr. Brooks seemingly does, that indebtedness is a modern trope, and that peaks and valley’s in our economy didn’t occur with such veracity until the late 20th century, then sure Mr. Brooks is on to something.

Because modern generations are more secure, we’ve become complacent with debt, according to Mr. Brooks. Which, arguably, the point can be made to this. But I think it’s less compliancy with debt, and more that debt is utterly necessary in this day and age. The standard of living has gone up, while the wages that are paid have plateau-ed and stagnated for decades so that some debt is necessary to the modern nuclear family, even if both parents are working.

It seems Mr. Brooks is making the argument that people just take on debt because they don’t see any harm in it. That people are so stupid as to be tricked by credit card companies to accumulate more debit, or to take out student loans to pay for college and view it less as debt and more as an investment in the future, which is the general line that is used when attempting to pursue higher education. This right-wing ideal that the blame for America’s larger economic ills rest squarely on the general public is old and tired and who’s refutation must become louder and known to all.

That’s not to say there isn’t some truth to “the general public is over entitled and spoiled”, but it doesn’t rest on the general public who’ve paid their taxes and spent their money like the good citizens they are. These citizens were told by the older generations that if they did so they needn’t worry when it was their turn to rest and depend on the next generation. Meanwhile that older generation misrepresented their lessers and filled our “entitlements” with IOU’s that must be paid back more than the government needs to diminish it’s deficits.

The center right and GOP want to keep painting their plan of economic recovery as “we’re all in this together”. It’s utter bullshit, and slowly but surely the voting public must become aware of this, as history has shown, it takes entirely too long to figure this out. In the meantime, the very pundits of status quo that peddle this shared sacrifice narrative are attempting to chain the current economic climate on to a new boogeyman.

Also, what do we have to make of the “We’re not a nation of have and have nots, but a nation of have’s and soon to have’s”? Perhaps this could be related to the tolerance of indebitude that Mr. Brooks seems to think is the major problem our nation is facing at this moment. Is it not inconceivable that an optimistic citizen would view taking on loans or accrue a large credit card debt, if they think that eventually their number will be pulled and their wildest dreams and riches will be at hand?

Mr. Brooks refuses to use this because it would show the sham of that right-wing rhetorical device. Can’t tip the status quo boat, so it’s best to just assume that the American dream has a price tag that many of it’s citizenry can no longer afford on their own because it’s tolerance for debt is soo great.

What the general public is to blame for is being a schizophrenic, ill-informed voting bloc. This constant notion that if that one guy with the “D” next to his name isn’t getting it done, that we may as well get that guy with the “R” next to his name in there is what is truly fueling this continued political strife. That our political parties are becoming more and more similar isn’t helping either, but I believe that is more the fault of a disjointed voting public and the political class evolving to pander to it.

This is why when Mr. Brooks mentions in his article that states are struggling with pensions promises that should never have been made, you have to, as a reader see that he’s pissing on your back and telling you it’s raining. That unions and their desires are crippling our states economies is utterly false. It’s when these Republicans governors are trying to please their corporate overlords with generous tax cuts, subsides and incentives coupled with previous “pension promises” that you have the current deficit debacle that states are supposedly going through. Not even to mention the regressive legislative agendas towards women’s rights, the educational system and public works.

Unfortunately, states can’t run the deficits that the federal government can. So when a republican governor passes a regressive economic agenda, he knows full well he won’t have to deal with the fiscal fall out that will occur long after they have left office. The short term political gain is ALWAYS the prime agenda of the right-wing and GOP, because they are so ideologically bankrupt that they can’t even fathom nuanced, pragmatic policy of any kind.

Mr. Brooks article then switches to the recall of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. According to him Scott Walker turning a $3.6 billion deficit into a $150 million surplus. What David Brooks doesn’t’ relate is that Scott Walker was the chief agent of the $3.6 billion deficit when he propelled a regressive tax plan furl of corporate subsides through the republican dominated legislature. His attempt to fix the deficit he created was to gut the public unions of Wisconsin.

According to pollster Scott Rasmussen that Scott Walker keeps his job will be proof that voters do value deficit reduction and will vote for people who accomplish it. There is no truth in that whatsoever. It proves that voters only turn out for the big elections (your senators, presidents, and governors), and that their ambivalence is not complicit agreement to anything set forth. It also refuses to acknowledge that Tom Barrett, the man running against Scott Walker was limited by campaign rules and only had about $3.9million to campaign with, whilst Scott Walker had $45.6 million dollars, was not confined by rules, which allowed him to collect more than state regulated $10,000 per donor, due to a loop-hole for incumbents. Three-fourths of the funds for Walker came from out of state donors. It’s an unfair fight, and one that laissez-faire “independent” voters will be completely oblivious to. It’s also kind of shows that unions aren’t nearly as powerful and government killing as the right-wing would like you to believe.

Mr. Brooks assertion that a move to populism is what will fix our economic ills is also a right-wing tale as old as time. It’s about as close to “remember how awesome Ronald Reagan was (so awesome)" that you can get without being yet another Ronald Reagan myth fellating right-wing blowhard. And honestly just how much more populist can Obama get and still be tagged with the liberal socialist banner by the right-wing? If by populist we’re referring to kowtowing or caving to House republicans on most of his “liberal socialist” agenda.

The shift back to economic awesomeness isn’t going to be lead by a cultural shift. It’s going to happen after our society reclaims it’s equilibrium and we can tip back to a sort of political pragmatism that’s sorely been lacking. Sadly, it’s just not going to happen any time soon, and maybe not even in MY generation. The conclusion that the current generations need to come to is that the boomers and their ilk have let us all down, and they’re too delusional to admit to as much. The art of kicking the can down the road and “borrowing from the future” was an idea mostly held by them, and sure as hell wasn’t brought on by any insecurity born of a classical age. At a certain point they must be held accountable for the current trend of our politics and socio-cultural trajectory.

If there’s one thing I love more than anything else about Bill O’Reilly it’s his never ending supply of blue collar platitudes that “form” his world-view. You’d think that by now, someone who’s spent predominantly more of his life as a millionaire than a blue collar fella, he’d can it with the “tough guy” business.

In his article "Are teenagers really Americans?” starts off by commenting that he knows one of the great challenges in education is getting teenagers interested in their country. He knows this because he was once a high school teacher. For two years. 40 years ago. He doesn’t relate the length of his tenure as a teacher or how long ago it was presumably because it’s boring. But I think it speaks volumes as to why some old white guy insists that teenagers aren’t interested in their country and that only he has the answers. Teenagers according to Bill O’ Reilly “…are too busy keeping up wit the Kardashians to absorb John Adams.”

What’s exactly so wrong with that? The right-wing is always pooh-poohing young voters for making poor voting decisions. The decisions are poor because that don’t involve much support for right-wing agenda, and the republican party may as well be an old white man factory of utter uncool to young voters. So why now is it so important that teenagers learn how to be “real Americans”? Does “real American” mean that the voter is informed has their own opinions on the things they are about to vote on. More likely “real American” means conservative, all republican voting, and ill-informed.

Bill O’Reilly then takes it upon himself a new project: teaching a 13 year old girl how to care about being an American. I hope that this is some sort of satire, and not a real project. I think there’s Geneva Convention stipulations against this sort of thing. Also, he doesn’t appear to say whether or not this 13-year-old girl is relation or not. Did Bill O’Reilly kidnap a 13-year-old girl, take her to a sub-basement on his compound/lair, and attempt some odd psychological experimentation on how to care about being an American? Is the Department of Justice following up on this? Where’s the law enforcement community in all this or are they being complicit in a kidnapping of a 13-year-old girl?

His first lesson: Obey the rules. This is definitely a kidnapping scenario if he’s dealing in “lessons” and “rules”. The enforcement of such involves all doors being open, “unless there is a dressing situation”. So I guess bath time isn’t covered in that rules, sorry young lady. If Bill O’Reilly wishes to engage in conversation, you’re going to have to hide in the shower with the curtain drawn, or be in a constant state of “dressing situation”. Bill O’Reilly’s reasoning for the “open door” policy: “To discourage internet chicanery and encourage lively conversation”. Has Bill O’Reilly raised any children, in the last decade, or ever? There are computer programs that you can use to stop “internet chicanery”. And I think Bill O’Reilly is using chicanery wrong. How exactly is this 13-year-old girls clever manipulation of language. If he’s being literal, then he shouldn’t allow this 13-year-old girl on the internet at all! It’s chock full of chicanery, and not even to mention things like messenger services, or e-mail, or social networking sites. Also, the internet is full of informative information. Does reading Huffington Post count as chicanery, if the 13 year-old isn’t on BillOReilly.com? What if she doesn’t want to sign up for his e-mail list?

Lesson 2: Discuss Intelligent things - not just reality shows and music maniacs. First of, music maniacs? What is this, the town of Bomont? I can understand things like The Black Eyed Peas or LMFAO being considered “music maniacs” as I do believe they are terrorizing our young people with some sort of noise and light chicanery. And that by it’s very nature would frighten an old white man like Bill O’Reilly. But really, how far would a conversation involving “music maniacs” go between Bill O’Reilly and a 13-year-old girl?

13-year-old girl: Uhh, ummm so have you seen “Party Rock Anthem” By LMFAO
Bill O’Reilly: A what?
13-year-old: NO…it’s a group called LMFAO, they’re pretty cool.
Bill O’Reilly: A what? You know, when I was growing up in the tough streets of Levittown, we beat up LMFAO’s all the time. They were punks and burnouts…and they even asked me to join them, because I was so cool. But I didn’t because they were "hoodlums".
13-year-old: What’s that go to do with anything?
Scene

The greatest thing about lesson 2, aside from the “music maniacs” portion, is that in his scene the 13-year-old girl says “Nobody wants to talk about politics. That’s boring!” To which later in the scene he replies “I do just fine talking about them. Millions of people listen.” It’s phenomenally awesome to read that scene not even two weeks after he went on an entire bender about politics being boring. Is Bill O’Reilly having his Factor writing staff just write his editorials? I mean, it wouldn’t be the hardest thing to do. But to not even have the wherewithal to notice that he literally had a 13-year-old girl tantrum-read-column that said the exact same thing is delicious! I also love the classic Bill O’Reilly “how awesome am I? so awesome” of dropping his “millions of people listen” right in the middle of this column. He’s not done with that stuff either.

Suddenly, the lessons fall away and “rules” begin! This has to be a hostage situation, as this is a classic psychological turn. The ole’ switcheroo! Caring benevolent caretaker, suddenly becomes cruel dominator! Rule 3: Learn about your country’s past. Doesn’t it kind of seem odd that Bill O’Reilly would reach for this when so much about his politics and the very channel “millions of people listen” to him on a nightly basis are revisionist historians and sheer ignorance/fear based ideology? As a former teacher, wouldn’t Bill O’Reilly also remember just how poorly written and fallacious history books can be? Especially in America, where the “history” books we give our children should just be titles “White Guys: Yup, we sure did kick some ass! Oh and we wrote most of history because most brown people are liars. Volume One: How Hard Columbus Kicked Ass!”

The Bill O’Reilly fun zone doesn’t stop there. This 13-year-old girl has just been assigned to read over the summer Bill O’Reilly’s (with "historian" Martin Dugard as co-author) new book "Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever”! Whoa! Even the education system is complicit in this hostage situation, having to assign something like that AND make the child buy the book (he actually has the temerity to say the book is $20). Surely this material is a bit over the head of a 13-year-old?

The disdain that Bill O’Reilly shows this 13-year-old girl, doesn’t just stop at his young hostage, it spills out onto all today’s young people. He calls them urchins that need to be forced or bribed to pay attention to “important things”. Sadly, I don’t think the 13-year-old girl really thought that paying $20 for “Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever” was a bribe of any kind. And this idea that kids today just need book learning, is absurd. Bill O’Reilly says in his article that as a child you had to read to fight off boredom. Yet, he’s a part of such a monolithic entity that preys on peoples ignorance, and buoys itself on rhetoric and misinformation.

What exactly is so important about learning about the value your country? I thought the idea was to be a “real American”, not being informed about your country’s value? It seems rather vague right? At least he didn’t actually say “Hey, watch The O’Reilly Factor every night at 8pm EST on the Fox News Channel and be a “real American!”

Apparently Bill O’Reilly thinks the lessons and rule in his article are a successful way of educating America’s youth about the value of their country. He also tosses in that current right-wing gem of how this election is a battle for the souls of the next generations. It’s kind of sickening that the very thing Bill O’Reilly represents is the chief agent in darkening those souls, and poisoning generations further down the road as well. That he thinks his teaching plan would somehow be approved by Abe Lincoln would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic. The right-wing is literally turning our history and politicians in to those whacky animatronic monstrosities that resides in museums and amusement parks. The bullet point list of achievements that white wash away the context and human nature that actually surrounded those men. While I can’t argue that they need to be eradicated from existence, as I do think they have some place in helping to inform children under the age of six, the idea that these caricatures are made mythological and important should be terrifying to those of us who do know our history.

Dear readers, I’ve been trying so hard not to write any more Kathleen Parker is a Shithead tinged articles. It appears it has all been in vain. One of these days, I will collect all the Kathleen Parker articles I’ve not been publishing and throw them up here. It will be horrible, and I hope that you will forgive me when that day comes.

But I can’t help it, out of all the editorials I’m exposed to on a daily basis, I see her the most. I’m compelled to read them simply out of an insane hope that she will eventually pick a side rhetorically and stay there or actually start writing good articles. That she will one of these days buck the status quo and actually write foreword thinking pieces. That she will become more like George Will in that matter: they don’t have to be correct, cogent or topical articles, but at least they’re something different than the seemingly endless, lazy, talking point memo induced columns that choke up our newspapers.

In my opinion the most egregious writing style, and the apex of most Ms. Parker’s columns, is the cowards way of backing up a weak article with “facts”. These facts are typically in the shape of polls, which by now, everyone is keenly aware are mostly contextual of the exact moment in time the question was asked, and when we’re talking political leanings are NEVER proof positive of any trend or held belief. Yet, to the right-wing writers who use them, they are the manna from heaven with which they bake all their lie bread.

In Ms. Parker’s case she always front loads her articles with them because 90% of the time her thesis’ are so weak they need to be braced by polls or weak rhetoric. Even a razor thin toothpick of a poll result is good enough. Problem is, as is the case most of the time with any article held up by polls, by the end of the article the writer will always start sliding in their rhetoric and “polls” that back up their point. But there’s no names or percentages like the polls referenced at the beginning of the piece. It’s a shell game, and only those of us who are most diligent even realize this nasty trick.

Perhaps it’s a tad ironic that Ms. Parker’s recent column about how these presidential campaigns are essentially high school popularity contests, is so full of immature snark and bite. Oh, it’s all aimed at Obama. Since she’s finally done with writing the “Seriously guys, Romney” Romney harlequin short fictions about the presumptive republican presidential nominee, she’s gone after Obama with a ham-handed ferocity. Not one to wander too far off the status quo reservation, she continues to run with the idea that Obama isn’t nearly as popular with the ladies as he’d want you to believe.

The first thought is, who the fuck cares anymore? I mean really…the GOP and right-wing have burned more than enough ladies with their anti-woman policies. In fact, when Rick Santorum was having his moment a few months back, Obama was looking REAL good to pretty much everyone, ladies included. The second thought is one that I’ve stated before, there’s more than enough evidence to show that the right-wing and GOP on every level of government is attempting to subvert the constitutional rights of women. This is no longer a battle of rhetoric, as it was at points in the past. The GOP is acting on a lot of it’s regressive agenda before it overreaches too far yet again, and get’s the boot.

The key thing I realized, and what propelled me to publish this piece is the shitty way Ms. Parker slides in her bullshit. (The emphasis is mine)“…[a] poll showed women tilting toward Mitt and voters overall favoring him by 46%.” She follows it up with another poll showing it was higher a month ago, so it’s doubly insulting. It’s using that right-wing regressive idea that women are irrational about their politics AND that readers of this articles won’t happen to notice that “voters overall” and women are being poorly lumped together. The poll didn’t read women are favoring Romney by 46%, it says voters OVERALL. Ms. Parker is abstracting the women part, because she desperately needs to make her point.

I’m also surprised at amount of surprise that the right-wing writers have about Romney’s past transgressions seemingly always popping up to bite his campaign in the ass. The GOP establishment aren’t surprised by this at all. This is where you can see the clear differentiation between the establishment writers and the status quo followers. I wouldn’t even be surprised if right up to the election that people like Ms. Parker will keep being astonished by Romney’s flip-flop-ness, Crategate, and so on. Whereas the establishment long ago accepted that Romney was a weak candidate and that the focus should return to filling the congress with republicans.

About the middle of the article Ms. Parker whips out the rhetoric with a “poll” that showed that four in ten voters think Obama’s policies will tank their financial situation if he’s re-elected. Where’s the source, Ms. Parker? You had zero problem laying out where the first few polls came from, yet here, it’s just slid out there for the reader to absorb. Towards the end of the piece another gem about the recent announcement Obama supported gay marriage: “…but polls show that the broader voting audience isn’t strongly swayed one way or the other…” She opens with two thirds of voters think the announcement was politically motivated, while 57% (arguably could also be closer to two-thirds) say it would have no affect on their vote. So her point is moot. As it should be, as again, we need to focus on the real issues that are facing this nation.

Oddly, she puts this sentence in to the piece after saying that Romney running Bain Capital that “sometimes” profited from failed businesses that resulted in job losses is capitalism: “For likeability, see auto bailout.” It’s unclear whether Ms. Parker is playing in to the recent Romney led history re-write where he says the auto bailout was his idea that Obama used, when in fact, and there’s a New York Times editorial to back this up, he suggested that the auto industry go bankrupt. Which sure, is indeed capitalism at it’s finest, but shows (along with "Crategate", or his “prank” on a long-haired classmate) that Romney is heartless and incapable of compassion in the face of oblivion. That he lacks the pragmatism to solve problems without doing great harm to those that may not matter to him. He’s a cutthroat businessman through and through and that’s not going to tilt the likeability meter to him ever.

But this idea that Obama isn’t going to embrace his record and attempt to bamboozle the voters with charisma is absurd. The Romney campaign is going to flagellate the shit out of the talking point that Obama’s record is poor. The “likeability” and reliability issue that needs to be addressed is purely a Romney problem.

The Bored Games of Bill O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly is bored. It’s part of his “I’m just a blue collar, hard workin’ guy” candor that I actually do enjoy about him. I enjoy it the same way I enjoy the seriousness in which grown ass men in the WWE unfurl their “drama” every week on television…with utter irony. Bill O'Reilly isn’t bored. It’s clear something may be the matter however, with the utter shortness of his old man shaking his fist at a cloud disguised as an “editorial”.

First of all the presidential campaign has become “…boring. Tedious. Painfully insipid.” Bill O'Reilly is knee-deep in the media landscape, has a nightly primetime show, and somehow he’s become bored? If you don’t like the conversation Mr. O’ change to the topic, right? I understand that maybe he’s trapped, deep in the Fox News buildings basement, where his studio resides, he has to keep flogging a dead horse in the republican presidential campaign. It was assumed Romney was going to win from the start, yet those in the media had a time with it and it kind of took on a life of it’s own. But, did Bill ever stop it? No. Not one time. To his credit, I suppose being bored doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t just go through the motions.

In keeping with his boredom with it all he begins with something my sixth grade English teacher admonished, and has been loathed by everyone who comments on the media. “[“At the end of the day“ is] Overused by pundits and politicians alike, those words are now making my ears bleed. Lights out on this one, please.” Bill O'Reilly says please? Is this condemnation aimed more at his Fox News compatriots? From the times I’ve accidentally watched a fair bit of any of that channel, and have been exposed to their clips in my various left wing media shows, the pundits on Fox News have the smallest vocabulary out of any of the pundits or politicians that feature on any news show. To be fair, it’s a worn adage, just like “it is what it is”, but lazy metaphors and simile are paramount on Fox News, where else do these people that call in to their right-wing radio shows get their limited vocabulary? Did this shortened vocabulary trickle up? Hardly.

Next, Bill O'Reilly says there is no war on women. It was just made up by the left. Of course it was, there’s no recent empirical evidence otherwise! And even so, according to Bill O'Reilly American women have more “opportunity” than anywhere else on the planet. Keyword here is “opportunity”, it’s that tired GOP/right-wing optimism for you. You see, we’re a nation not of haves and have not’s, we are a nation of haves and soon-to-haves! So of course women have all the “opportunity” in the world! But this has zero to do with opportunity and more to do with the real fact that the GOP in federal and state governments are passing regressive legislation that’s anti-women. Because it’s boring, and Bill O'Reilly just squashed all that beef, it’s time to knock it off.

I would hate Bill O'Reilly on face value alone if he didn’t occasionally embrace some populism on topics. In his next paragraph he admonishes those who call Obama a Muslim. Of course he’s not, he’s a Christian, and it’s boring to keep talking about it. Yet didn’t Bill O'Reilly fan the flames for a time on his Fox News show, of course. But it’s boring now, and people who are bored don’t have time to look back! It’s key to not that he does say that if Obama was Muslim he would damned just for that. But isn’t the mere idea that MAYBE he was a Muslim was fodder enough for the right-wing? The fact that it’s still a mitigating factor in a lot of right-wing opinion and news say enough to that effect? Sure, to Bill O'Reilly you’re insane if you think Obama was a Muslim, whether or not it effects your vote is another matter that won’t be discussed…it’s boring!

Global warming, according to Bill O'Reilly, is a hoax because Al Gore got rich off of it. It also may be because we’re going through a warm spot. But, no one knows except God. I do agree with him on those stupid bulbs that supposedly save you energy, I don’t know what he’s talking about wit h $60 variety. What kind of bulb is that? Anyways, the fact that they are very dim and when they break you have a small hazardous waste issue on your hands and need to quarantine your house and family so you don’t mutate or die from changing a broken bulb. It’s also boring…moving on.

Bill O'Reilly covers the current pundit distract-o-topic of dogs in this years election campaigns. While, I agree to Bill O'Reilly’s point that it’s indeed boring, the general takeaway from Romney’s “Crategate” is that it actually shows Romney having a genuine human emotion: asshole. Only an asshole would strap his dog, in crate to the top of the car, pull over when it shits all over the roof, hose the dog and crate off, then put it BACK on to the roof of the car to finish the trip! It’s why, pun intended, that talking point still has legs. Should we somehow glean a human element out of the stilted, karaoke renditions of “America the Beautiful”? It’s boring that pundits like Bill O'Reilly will put up a weak-armed defense of both Romney and Obama, yet won’t ever perhaps delve in to just why a thirty year old story about the time he strapped the family dog to the car is still bugging the Romney campaign. It’s boring!

Next we have the other right-wing distraction topic of “illegal’s”. Somehow, we’re confusing the illegal aliens that Bill O'Reilly knows. The left-wing states that if you call an illegal alien “illegal” then you’re committing a hate crime. But, to Bill O'Reilly, that’s what they are. What are you supposed to call a human being who’s here illegally being paid pennies on the dollar doing a job that no one wants to do? Somehow, on top of being boring, it’s also amazingly tedious to Bill O'Reilly! These illegal aliens that Bill O'Reilly is friends with are also demanding to know what their status is. So is Bill O'Reilly complicit in this whole scheme by hiring illegal aliens? How does he have such intimate knowledge of how they feel about a topic that’s supposedly boring to Bill O'Reilly, yet has no problems trotting it out only to level it with his tough guy nonsense? Bill O'Reilly, I need names!

Medical Marijuana is next on the list of boring topics. He tells us to mellow out (but if we’re so bored, are we not already in a “mellow” state?). Everyone knows that it’s a con. Is he talking about his illegal aliens confidants again when he says “Everyone”, or is he talking about everyone that resides in the Fox News building at any given moment? Because if the latter is the case, then everyone also agrees that global warming is a hoax, Obama is actually a socialist Muslim, who wants to outlaw all guns, and he’s raising prices on gas to fuel a green agenda…and so on and so forth. Also you seemingly get a prescription for medical marijuana in a back alley scheme where you pay a doctor $200 (so cheap!) and he hooks you up. Is the $200 just a co-pay to buy out the doctor, and the prescription for the drug is a moot point? Since the symptoms to get prescribed a drug are “made up”, that invalidates the reason for going to the doctor and you’re just a bong-ripping, hacky-sack playing hippy who’s gaming the system?

Bill O'Reilly next tells the Occupy Wall Street protesters that the movement is over. That’s odd, I never read or saw him declare the TEA Party movement dead. And from what I gather, it’s over for those patriots. Occupy Wall Street is also moving us toward a Cuban style government, which of course Bill O'Reilly doesn’t want to live in. It’s not boring, it’s just over.

I lambaste this article because it makes my point that the pundit class is out of touch. In some cases it’s willful, and often times it’s not. I don’t expect a corporatist, center-right blowhard like Bill O'Reilly to ever betray his overlords. In fact he called the Occupy Wall Street movement dead in the water mere days after it sprung up in New York. But what’s notable is that he was part of a Fox News chorus that was chanting it’s demise. Hoping to influence the mainstream media in to not covering Occupy Wall Street, which they for the most part obliged. Then Bill O'Reilly kept going and going until Bloomberg had them shut down forcibly. All that jazz did get a degree of coverage.

To speak truth to power isn’t in Bill O'Reilly’s wheelhouse. This bullet point list of topics that are boring may as well be a list of talking point for the week that any right-wing pundit could harp on ad nauseam in a column space. The week this article was published every single one of those points had a corresponding article by a pundit. What’s interesting is that the general citizen would never recognize this, and why would they care? The real issues aren’t even on Bill O'Reilly’s list, there are ALL non-starters to common folks. Perhaps even they were much too boring to even be bothered with by Bill O'Reilly.

More to my constant point on this blog is that when the pundit class openly sticks it’s finger in the eye of the readers. This article may as well not have been published. It’s still a tiny bit of print, but it’s still taking up spaced better suited for something else…anything else really. This sullen bullshit article about being “bored” is essentially the current mind state of the American public. Where’s the spice, the passion the flame of this political drama? The pundit class dare not speak to the systemic problem inherent to the boredom: a protracted primary season with weak politicians. Of course, Obama’s 2008 campaign run was a huge hit of that hard, sweet stuff, and no substitute is ever going to match that level of both pundit and public fervor. Why would anyone not be bored?

I’m not saying that Obama has a home run campaign on his hands and that he’s just going to be re-elected, but I am saying that Romney is a weak candidate that barely won his own party’s primary. To the pundit world, there’s things that Obama CAN’T run on, and that’s all fine and good, but what does Romney have to run on ? If he’s still beleaguered by a three decades old “dog shitting all over his car” story, then what can he say or do to prove an electorate he’s got something different than that other guy with a similar political bent. Obama is a essentially the populist, republican we as a public are supposedly always pining for. Until we can reanimate Ronald Reagan‘s corpse, it’s the best we can do!

More importantly, why doesn’t Bill O'Reilly just step down from the half-assed editorial writing, or get a stooge to fill in for him when he’s so bored?

The old white men and women’s issues somehow continues to trudge on, long after even I assumed we had done settled all this. I’m not quite of the mind that Democrats are the saviors and keepers of the flame of women’s rights and the like. I am very certain that Republicans are anti-women most everything though.

This recent hub-bub over Hilary Rosen admonishing Ann Romney’s place as the head of the women’s social and economic issues for the Romney campaign, is more a desperate right-wing reach to attempt to muddy the political waters in terms of women’s issues. Hilary Rosen’s right though: what the hell DOES Ann Romney know about real women’s economic issues. Sure, she was a stay at home mom, raising five children. Yawn. I’m not going to placate a group of people with “oh yeah, that is so hard”. I’m going to go with the “I’d rather be a stay at home parent than out digging ditches or paving roads for a living” argument.

I understand that raising children is hard, but for Ann Romney the assertion that that was a job worthy of propelling her to understand the plight of the modern working woman is absurd. The wife of a multi-millionaire just raised these kids ALL BY HERSELF? Give me a fucking break. The maids, nannies, next door neighbors with children of their own in the affluent areas where the Romney’s lived, and so on. This is a fantasy to women who have to work the 9-to-5, 40 hour week, AND raise children. This is pure mythology to the low-income single mothers, who have work two or three jobs to keep afloat. Ann Romney can relate to their struggles?

Hilary Rosen’s point is still apt: what the fuck does Ann Romney know of women struggle and sacrifice? For the Romney campaign as a whole, this was an opportunity for Ann to be a political operative of her own and score cheap political points. Then milk that she once had breast cancer and currently has multiple sclerosis. Never mind that she can afford the best treatments and never have to decide to take an overpriced treatment over caring and providing for her children or leaving them in mountains of debt and cratering their futures. Heaven forbid she ever have that struggle.

This isn’t about the “job” of being a stay-at-home mother or it’s inherent weight amidst the myriad of jobs in the world. To see right-wing pundits act as though Democrats were all ashamed of or cowing away from Hilary Rosen’s comment is a desperate reach. Do you really think this is going to convince independent women voters that the right-wing and the Republican Party isn’t still the most regressive party in terms of women’s rights? Just because Obama played lip-service to the Oprah crowd by saying that stay-at-home mother’s have the hardest job, doesn’t mean that the ENTIRE Democrat Party is admitting that they have a secret women’s issue problem that’s just now bubbling up.

Even more saddening is the news media, instead of putting Hilary Rosen’s comment in context by, I don’t know, playing everything after the “never worked a day in her life” part, instead chose to hit the streets and asking mothers if their mothering was indeed harder. What the hell is this shit? Mrs. Rosen’s point wasn’t that motherhood wasn’t hard, she’s a single mother herself.

The Romney’s are mistaking benevolence with compassion. Mitt Romney and his generous tithes to the Mormon Church are not a substitute for general human compassion. That they pay taxes isn’t an assertion that they understand the struggles and needs of the less fortunate that subside on government assistance. It’s been the general problem with the Romney campaign in general: he, and by extension his wife are completely out of touch with the rest of America. Ann Romney being a woman will do little to buoy the fact that the Republican Party her husband is attempting to lead is aggressively and publicly anti-woman and anti-poor. Even her husband said of poor mother’s who wanted money to raise a family that instead of depending on welfare “hey, have some dignity and get a job…you’ll be better for it.”

This reach by right-wing pundits stinks so bad they should be ashamed of themselves for attempting to even bother trying to rub their shit covered hands on anyone else. Their failure to keep their fringe, women hating elements in line is why Mitt Romney is going to lose a vast majority of the women voters. Ann Romney’s political operative song and dance aren’t going to sway the single women voters, and I highly doubt that married or mother voters are going to be convinced to just sweep aside the last few months of Republican overreach on their reproductive rights and civil liberties. It’s a nice attempt, they should’ve just picked a better Democrat Party pundit gaffe to harp on to build a case with.

I haven’t cracked open a Parade Magazine lately, but I guess they’ve started this “Sunday Joe” section in the back part of the magazine where Minka Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough hash something topical out. Topical is being a bit generous. The he said/she said thing is also played out, but I guess the demographic of Parade is 48-89 year olds, and they don’t want to take on any real issues of the day. Better yet, I’ll just assume that “Morning Joe” probably covers a LOT of that stuff, right?

The question this week: “Should Sugar Be Regulated?” Fair enough, “Morning” Joe Scarborough and Minka “I Coulda Been a Contenda” Brzezinski should be able to “spar” over this easily.

Right out the gate, Minka actually answers the question! I assume this is because she’s marginalized enough on Morning Joe as is, perhaps Joe will actually stay the course and “spar” on this question. Minka addresses the very real problem of America consuming ways too much processed foods and high-fructose corn syrup (which is in most everything food these days). Perhaps she’s goading Joe with her answer as she’s goes right in to the “government should probably regulate this” and her cherry on top “…put a tax on soda”.

Joe Scarborough, the wet fart of the republican revolution of the early mid-90‘s, wastes no time labeling Minka’s answer as a “vision of the nanny state that is so overreaching”. As a small-government conservative who takes offense to that notion, he clearly is not interested in answering this question either. Instead, he continues to marginalize Minka, who as an abused co-host, tightens her lip and insists on answering the question by saying that kids ingest a lot of sugar, and that parents need to educate themselves to feed their kids a proper meal.

What’s more insulting, besides Joe essentially patting Minka on the head and saying “Oh, you silly gir/socialist”, is his blanket paint-by-numbers republican rhetoric that he masks as an answer. Here’s the short list:
“I grew up in a middle-class family”
“Most of my breakfast were flavored kids cereals”
“I was healthy and slender because I led an active life, [just like everyone in the olden days]”
“My grandmother poured sugar on everything and lived to be 93”
It’s just condescending, pandering, nonsense. He does say that American kids need to get off the couch and go play, but then insists that Americans have changed a lot of their bad habits. It wouldn’t be because that socialist Michelle Obama’s first lady pet initiative that kids get active, or food and drug administration push of what consists a balanced meal for children that a blind dog could understand and implement. The NFL’s Play60 intuitive that also wants kids to stay active. They also address the copious intake of sugar and try to get children to demand better drinks, which is presumably where it should start.

Asking our children to be active, however, isn’t some new concept that just came to be in the past decade, as Joe suggests. It may not look it, but this “small government” Joe trying to take away a victory from Obama by acting as if Americans came to this health conscious solution long ago. I may be stretching a bit too, but I think the right-wing’s pettiness is always apparent and is engrained on their DNA, so for Joe to lob that out there instead of providing something rhetorically is unsurprising.

Not finished condescending to his co-host Minka, he says that she’s just talking a big game “but when she goes home at night she probably has Cap’N Crunch Crunch Berries and Cocoa Krisipies” he then adds “Am I not tell the truth?” Minka replies “No, you’re not.” Then this tete-a-tete then breaks down foodie habits amongst the two and never really dovetails back in to the question of sugar being regulated. If I was the reporter transcribing this I would’ve quit, or just stopped them and been like “So, you guys are just doing this instead of answering a pretty straight forward question in at least an entertaining manner?” Better yet, drop this nugget on America defender Joe and say that recently reports show that an alarming number of pre-schoolers are showing up to their first dental appointment with 6-10 cavities. Gee, I wonder how those got there? If this doesn’t show a trend of the too much sugar being in a kids diet, I don’t know what else could.

I wondered if Minka Brzezinski actually had more going for her than being a Joe Scarborough punching bag and did a little of that old time internet searching. This only confirmed the notion I got from the Parade article: Minka somehow thinks she’s upholding some journalistic bona fides, and then Joe Scarborough wipes his feet on her bona fides and tells her to get back in the kitchen. It’s the way a husband from a upper middle class family would talk to his stay at home wife. From time to time she would happen upon a little opinion of her own (sometimes supplanted by The Oprah), then over breakfast, unleash this opinion on a half awake, half caffeinated husband, pretending to read the sports section of his paper. He would grumble something about something, then tell her she needed to pick up eggs from the supermarket.

With all this talk of women’s rights and standing up for themselves in the ever increasing regressive attack on their rights, it’s a shame to see that women with the visibility and exposure of a Minka Brzezinski marginalized by white men oaf’s with that tongue-in-cheek jabbing and prodding. Not only to take it, but to shrug it off as it is what it is. That our female news anchors, who should be the pioneers of the women’s rights and freedoms, especially in navigating a brutally male dominated work environment, are reduced to the Today Show created, Fox News Channel perfected “skirt” that reads news headlines and nothing more.

What’s even more ridiculous is the news anchor thinking that they are a real journalist of some sort and demand that respect and bona fides therein. Ann Curry comes to mind. I can’t count the number of times I’ve read that she’s pretty much anti-The Today Show shenanigans, yet every morning there is she is tottering around in high heels and short skirt, talking about the serious seriousness of dogs needing shampoo to battle split ends. Then once a year NBC will let her travel to some far away land, poke the indigenous people and file some real journalism piece for Dateline or something.

Granted this is all easier said than done. Of course I understand the nature of the business the ladies may find themselves in, but at a certain point, there ARE representing their sex, and influencing future generations of young idealistic women who actually want to do something progressive for their gender. When Minka Brzezinski opines in her book “Knowing Your Value" that in in the early days of Morning Joe after “'After child care, on-air wardrobe, makeup, travel, and the other ridiculous expenses that women in this business end up taking on, the job was actually costing me more than I was being paid", you have to wonder if this is really the kind of person you want representing you to the masses. The fact that the way she comes across as a woman who knows her place, solidified for me that while there may be money to be had being the “skirt”, there’s no respect in it. That respect is what future generations are built on.

Dear Mitt: Ignore that weird lady trying to climb your fence and give you campaign advice

Dear Mitt: Consider me a citizen that lives in the general vicinity of your dozens of mansions. You have do have mansions don’t you? You probably have fences, but they’re not the fences we mortals put up in our yards to keep out the varmints or loitering masses that use our backyard as a shortcut, trampling much cared for flower beds. No, you have the type of fences you would need a rope to scale, and quite possibly the tops of said fences would be anointed with barb wire and waiting on the other end of the wall a ferocious attack dog of some sort. I would get a ladder, but now that you have secret service protection, they’d be more inclined to shoot first and ask questions later.

This is what I want to say: pay no attention to that woman with the over-dyed hair masking a vain attempt to hide the gray. Just because Kathleen Parker share’s a propensity for flip-flopping on any and everything rhetorical with you, doesn’t mean that she’s in your corner. She’s picked you as her pony to win the nomination, which you will probably do at some point in the summer, but she’s doesn’t care about you or your campaign. She’s only concerned with being a semi-cogent prognosticator with the republican primary, so that people with Sunday news talk shows like David Gregory will keep bringing her back. Regardless that the GOP Presidential primary winner has never been more readily apparent, if only these silly humans would listen to people like Kathleen Parker!

You should listen to George Will, and be more mindful of the fact that you are the de facto face of the republican party after you win the nomination. You’re going to singlehandedly cost the GOP seats in Congress if you don’t get your act together. You’re beginning to act like all you want to do is win the republican nomination and not the bigger prize: the Presidency of the United States. Your race is far from over, and if you’re already tuckered out…then woe be to you! Recharge your battery cells and get back to rigidly riding the talking points you’re being fed.

Your visage of desperation is a candid view in to the marathon that this primary season has been for you. You’ve humbly and gracefully went up against every single bozo that fell out of the GOP nominee clown car this primary. You’ve given each of them enough leash to appear to be legitimate, and have wryly smiled your way through over two dozen debates with a gaggle of buffoons not seen in modern historical politics. You’ve danced for you voyeurs and have held back the tears as you’ve asked time and time again “Is this enough for me to be the GOP Presidential Candidate yet?” and they keep saying “NO!” (as is one of the only words they can verbalize with any consistency) then shove another hapless toadie across from you to dance with.

On top of this, the Republicans want to be so cool right now that it hurts. The Democrats somehow came out with a rock star politician with Obama, enrapturing a nation, yet all the GOP have that’s remotely presidential material is stiff regressive white guys. Hell, even their token black guy at the time of Obama‘s inauguration, Micheal Steele, wound up being another horndog republican with an overdrawn platinum card. There’s nothing you can do to be cool or hip, regardless of what “neighbors” would like to tell you.

But, you are great foreshadowing of what elections will be like (hopefully before too long) when we have to elect a robot president. Once you’re kind reach dominion over mankind, you’ll attempt to level some sense of normalcy by replicating the charade known as our elective representative government system. Too be fair, since your kind will control all electronic media at this point, the validity of our election overall outcomes will never be in question or challenged outright, as you have ruled judicial proceedings of any kind to be highly illogical and wasteful. Oh, but you’ll have a tribunal system of some sort, but only for show and perhaps as entertainment to those of the resistance forces that live in the earths underbelly and are trying to unseat your power. You’re only judgement on the hapless human rebels? DESTROY!…or more likely ERADICATE!

Perhaps you would be better served if you just out and out said you were actually a robot, (of course) sent from the future to gauge the metrics of a robot political candidate and how that would stand to public scrutiny in the early 21st century. The robots don’t want to overplay their strategy and come on too quick with their plans for humankind. If you are found wanting, they will just leave you in the past and try again at a later decade.

You are pro-life because babies are the fuel of the latter day robot kind. You are pro-gun because they are insulting in power compared to the modern laser guns that can actually damage your robot brethren. The longer you have humans clinging to outdated technology, the better. You are by your very nature pro-corporation because in the distant future they have replaced establishment governments of all kinds. You want their taxes lowered so they can pump more of those profits in to research and development to expedite the robot revolution. It’s also why you don’t care for the poor, because their skulls are always getting caught up in the treads of your robot army’s tanks. Some robot then has to get out and fix it, then some rebel ambushes them…you get the idea. This is an utter drain on resources better spent suppressing humankind.

Pay no heed to Kathleen Parker’s apology for calling you a “dork” on the human show “Meet the Press”. She was being hyperbolic, because that’s what she is paid to do. When human’s have nothing of substance to say they pull ridiculous notions, to use human parlance, “out of their ass” to not appear as if they are clueless. As you can see from her article where she attempts to console you with a “Dear John” letter of sorts, she’s incapable of proofreading her articles for inconsistencies like saying she has a “few” suggestions for you, then only providing a singular suggestion. Or by saying that she thinks the American Human Public wants an uncool president for some odd reason. We have discovered that the female human is a highly irrational creature, and depending on the phase of the moon, may be more or less of reason. This also explains why she attempts to back pedal on her remarks saying that of course the humans want you to be uncool, because that somehow makes you more adult, and able to do considerably more than the current president has been able to do with similar circumstances.