A Perfectly Good Threat, Wasted

Now that Liberia has its Worst Disease in the History of the World, i.e., ebola, under control, what will the fuckers at Faux News find to worry about?

What, no Obamapocalypse?

It wasn't that long ago when they were telling us to BE AFRAID BE VERY AFRAID of those smelly foreigners who were sneaking across our southern border, leaving a visible-from-space trail of ebola slime behind them like an invasive flood of foreign-language-speaking toxic slugs, when Bill Orally publicly and stridently called for the public execution of the head of the CDC, when they wanted to issue a travel ban to anyone who ever even thought about going to West Africa (which, it may come as a surprise to the talking dicks heads at Faux News, is not a country).

As much as they tried to spruce up their Fear Menu^TM with delicious specials like parboiled ebola and ebola flambé, it just didn't pan out for them. It was a perfectly good fear and it all went for naught. Wasted.

But I'm not worried about them running dry. There's always gonna be more, especially now that Obama has nailed them in public, by name, for their bullshit on "the poors", they'll be going after him with both guns blazing. Or, as we in the reality-based community call it, Wednesday...

So what's next on The Fear Menu? Stay tuned...

Islamic Subliminal Messaging

Here's something I'll bet you didn't know. I didn't know it either, and I consider myself something of an expert on "subliminal messaging".

Remember this from the 2008 and 2012 campaigns?

That was, as you know, the official logo for the Barack Hussein Obama campaign.

Well, it turns out that this wasn't just a logo. It was a subliminal Islamist message!

At least according to Professional Wingnut and Bloviating Blowhard Michael Wiener Savage and his guest, the maybe-kinda-sorta "former terrorist" Walid Shoebat:

“What is the symbol or campaign logo of the Obama administration?” Savage asked. “What are these Obama bumper stickers? Let’s see, a blue crescent over fallen red and white stripes. What is the crescent? Is that not the symbol of Islam? And the blue stripe over the red stripe represents the states that vote Democratic red over the states that vote Republican blue, and so he now unites them under the banner of Islam.”

Jesus, wake up America!!! It's right in front of your face!!!

As the author of the story says, somewhat sotto voce, maybe Wiener Savage ought to take another look at that logo...

["Obama logomark" designed by Sender LLC. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia]

What Is an American?

It would appear that Obama Derangement Syndrome not only applies to the president, but also his entire family.

There's an email circulating amongst the wingnuttery to the effect that "Harvard-educated" Michelle Obama, welcoming newly-sworn-in citizens at a naturalization ceremony, claimed that none of the so-called Founding Fathers, signers of the Declaration of Independence, were "born in America".

Smart people (i.e., readers of this blog) know that this is technically true, since if they were born in what later became the United States of America before July 4, 1776 (which they would have to be), they were not "born in America". They were born in various colonies of the crown, which made them British citizens.

And, yes, let's put aside the inconvenient fact that people from the other 34 countries in North and South America -- two whole continents! -- are also "Americans" and some of them are kind of resenty when we say we are "the Americans"...

But that hasn't stopped the wingnuttery from trying to make a Big Fucking Deal of it, trying to portray "Harvard-educated" Michelle as an idiot -- notice how that anti-intellectual-elite mindset only applies to Liberals? I can find absolutely no dismissive mention from the wingnuttery of the "Harvard-educated" Ted Cruz.

So what is an American? I'll let Bill Murray 'splain that, in this clip from Stripes (1981):

Must be That Home Schoolin'

The Twitterverse is ablaze with the recent post of Georgia teenager Kristen Neel's twit tweet after the election: "I'm moving to Australia, because their president is a Christian and actually supports what he says."

Poor little Kristen apparently didn't have a clue that Australia doesn't have a president, it has a prime minister, and she is a woman who is an atheist. Who is "living in sin" with her boyfriend. Jeez, that's three strikes right there, Kristin. Goodbye and thanks for playing.

Yep, must be that good ole home schoolin' at work here. She probably even thinks she can drive there.

Uh, Yeah, That's Likely

The wingnuttery is shitting itself again over Obama the Muslim. Now some "expert" from WND (World Net Daily, aka Why Not Distort, aka Wing Nut Dufus, etc.) is saying he's analyzed photos of Obama's wedding ring and has "proved" positively that the ring has an inscription in Arabic that says "there is no god but Allah".

Snopes, of course, has demolished this argument with a high-resolution photo of the ring in question showing just a scroll-like pattern and no Arabic lettering.

But if you believe it anyway, you gotta answer this question: If Obama is trying so hard to be a "secret Muslim" and hide the fact that he's going to impose Sharia Law on the United States, why would he display such an obvious "tell"? That would be like Mitt Romney claiming he's not a Mormon while wearing his magic underwear on the outside of his clothes.

Nuke 'Em!

Yep, nuke 'em. That's the sum total of my wackjob cousin's latest email regarding the tragedy in Libya. Of course she went off half-cocked, as it were, and initially identified the putative location -- and of course the putative target -- as Cairo. Oh well, never mind those fact-checking details. If Sarah Palin says it's Cairo, then it's Cairo. Besides, it'll still fry a bunch of Muslims, and that's what it's all about.

Naturally she'll be voting for Romney. Even though six months ago she was weeping and wailing and gnashing her teeth over just the possibility that he -- a Mormon cultist -- could beat her boy Newtie Gingrich. Oh how the worm has turned, and it just displays the pathology of her Obama Derangement Syndrome even more, that she is willing to support a guy she totally hated six months ago, just because she totally hates Obama more.

Go figure.

Salutegate: More from My Wackjob Cousin

Even though I've taken some time off, my wackjob cousin hasn't. Here's one of her latest:

Disgusting absolutely disgusting. A few minutes ago Mr. Obama left the White House to board Air Force 1 helicopter. Upon approaching the helicopter the Marine in his dress blues snapped to attention and saluted Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama showed total disregard or respect for the marine refusing to return salute. Mr. OBAMA THE MAN JOINED THE MILITARY AND WOULD PUT HIS LIFE ON THE LINE FOR YOU ANY DAY OR ANYTIME . Out of respect you deserve to return that salute. ACTIONS speak louder than words. We know how you feel about our constitution and our country.

What a lie you tell. And where is he headed, to FT Bliss to parse the military, what an idiot.

Really? Well, you know -- and she should have known -- that I just couldn't let this slide by without a response:

Jesus, that's what you are going with now? Now I must conclude that your visceral hatred of Barack Obama knows no bounds.
Oddly enough, the same people who are now slavering over this alleged "disrespect" are the very same ones (WND, Faux "News", Free Republic, etc., i.e., all of the "regular" sources which you seem to cite routinely) who said that Bill Clinton had NO RIGHT to return that same salute because he was a "draft dodger" who had never been in the military.
Really?
If you want to consider a REAL affront to the military, take a listen to Romney's speech last night (here's the full transcript, from Fox News so you know it hasn't been edited: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/30/transcript-mitt-romney-speech-at-rnc/, in which you will find exactly ZERO references to the troops in Afghanistan, even though he had a virtually unlimited amount of time to speak.
Mr. Romney, those men joined the military and if you were president, they would put their lives on the line for you any day or any time. Don't they deserve at least a passing mention, if not a loud and enthusiastic "shout out" of appreciation for their service?
How about that?

Okay, so after a couple more emails back and forth, one of which addressed the Romney-ignoring-the-troops thing by her saying dismissively that Romney is a busy man and the troops didn't mind:

Funny thing on that whole salute business, but I can find no record of any president doing it before Ronald Reagan, not even Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had more right than any other president with the possible exceptions of Washington and Grant. I remember the discussion in my VA "rap session" rehab group around the time that Reagan whipped out that first salute in 1981. No one had ever seen it happen before (and our ages ranged from vets from WWI on up through WWII, Korea and Vietnam), and we were somewhat divided over whether it was proper or just more of that famous Reagan showmanship.

But at the end of the day, the consensus was reached, as I recall, that no civilian, not even the commander-in-chief should salute a military person. Here's our reason why: One of the great concepts enshrined in our Constitution is that the military is always under civilian authority, command and control, and for a civilian, even the CIC or the SECDEF (Secretary of Defense), to salute a military man tends to blur that sharp distinction. For more on this topic, you might want to take a look at an interesting and lively forum discussion on this topic among some current and former service members on Military.com from several years ago, before this became a big current affairs issue: http://forums.military.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/409192893/m/9150000112001.

BTW, you can't tell me with a straight face that, if the tables were turned and it was Obama who "forgot" to mention the troops in Afghanistan in a similar speech that you would be all right with that. I don't for a second believe that. And, on what the troops themselves thought of Romney's omission, we seem to be in disagreement -- you think they didn't mind, and I think that they did. Since neither of us is a mindreader, we'll have to let this one drop, except for me to add that when I was in the Army and in Vietnam, it was nice to have our commander-in-chief acknowledge our service and our sacrifices. It contributed greatly to morale and esprit de corps, and both Johnson and Nixon, consummate politicians that they were, knew that.

Hell, yeah, I'll play the Vietnam Card!  In a New York minute!

Well, as She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed never tires of reminding me, you can't argue with stupid and you shouldn't argue with crazy... Yeah, true enough, but Jeez, sometimes it's just so goddam much fun!

Obama Derangement Syndrome Part One Million...

Longtime readers of this blog know that I am on several veterans mail lists. Yesterday I got from one of these lists a link to some dickhead's YouTube page which offers "proof" that the newly-released "long-form" Obama birth certificate is, of course, a forgery.

First take a look at this image:

And compare it with this image:

Can you guess which of these is from the actual birth certificate and which is from this dickwad's "exposé"?

Go ahead and watch his lame-ass "analysis", and then come back here for my trenchant analysis, the text of which appears below in the form of an email back to this group:

Aw, Jesus Christ, people. This is as bogus as a three-dollar bill. Anyone who knows the first thing about PhotoShop is not going to be taken in by this. This guy is a wingnut moron. Note: If you edit something in PhotoShop, you are going to have those "layers" which will show up -- to this moron they constitute a "smoking gun". Yes, they will show up when you edit it in Photoshop. On the original Photoshop document. They will NOT show up on the image you save from that edited document unless you save it as a PhotoShop file; they won't show up if you save it as a .jpg, .bmp, .gif etc etc etc. All layers are incorporated in the final image, and they won't show up if you open that image again. Already his "proof" is bogus.

But take a look at an original image of that birth certificate [good thing I saved a copy since the original image has now disappeared off of Wikipedia], open it in any image viewer and then zoom in to the level this douchebag shows on his video. Nowhere on that image can you see the kind of "editing" that this guy claims is there. Nowhere. In other words, he did it himself and then is waving the flag of conspiracy, with the sure and certain knowledge that most people who view this travesty are too stupid to do their own research on it.

Come on! If we are to believe that THIS birth certificate is a forgery (for example, the fact that his father's race is listed as "African" rather than "Negro" -- automatically makes it suspect!), then we are to believe that the Obama team, after having TWO FUCKING YEARS to phony up a document, can come up with something so patently a forgery that it couldn't pass the scrutiny of a second grade crayon class??? If you are going to forge a document are YOU going to make this kind of mistake? No, I didn't think so...

They had TWO FUCKING YEARS with the finest document forgers on the planet (i.e., the CIA) at their disposal, and nevertheless they made this many rookie mistakes?

And these are the same people who are trying to tell us that the Hilary Clinton campaign (backed by the most murderous people in history, who killed Vincent Foster and several dozen -- or several hundred -- or several thousand "enemies" of the Clinton Administration) didn't find this OBVIOUS forgery and all that is attendant with it -- Obama raised in a madrassa, belongs to Al Qaeda, is a communist/socialist/fascist/etc -- before the 2008 election?

And that Obama, despite his obvious ties to the enemies of this country, has pretty much continued most of the policies of the Baby Doc Bush Maladministration, including catering to Wall Street fatcats, keeping Guantanamo open, keeping both illegal wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) going, giving a multi-million dollar bonus to the insurance companies in the form of health care so-called "reform", and shamelessly sucking up to the Republicans in congress, Obama has been hellbent on the total destruction of our great nation? Really????

Obama Derangement Syndrome is the name of this particular mental aberration, and those of you who support these kinds of attacks on the president -- including the totally discounted and proved false claim about his appearance on Meet the Press (http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/stance.asp) regarding the national anthem and the flag salute -- are unwitting victims of this disease.

What it is really, at its core, is racism. You won't admit it, and those who feed you this shit mixed with white-doughy goodness to make it more palatable won't admit it, but that's what it is. The sooner that you Obama Derangement Degenerate/Victims recognize and accept this, the sooner you will be on the road to recovery.

Oh, and don't bother attacking me personally for this. I am performing a public service, and I won't respond to you since I have a personal rule that I will never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man.

But feel free to rag on me as much as you want on my blog, One Pissed Off Veteran (www.opovet.blogspot.com). I have the same rules there, but it's a public forum and I am pretty lenient on who I let post. I like having rightwingers on there to demonstrate their total inability to grasp the obvious, in other words, their total fuckwittery.

As you can see, I've given them a link to this blog. We'll see if any of them have the balls to come out in a public forum.

But, funny thing, I'm not holding my breath on this one...

O'Donnell "Pwns" Birther Wackjob Orly Taitz

I'm still on a break, but I had to share this Lawrence O'Donnell clip of him slapping down Obama Derangement Syndrome Poster Girl Orly Taitz on his show last night.

This is what the news media needs to be doing a lot more of.

Is it just me, or does Orly Taitz look like a guy in drag in that still? Maybe we ought to be demanding to see her birth certificate.

I'll be back next week.

Having it Both Ways

Yeah, I know that's a major "nudge-nudge-wink-wink" headline, which of course I write with a measured amount of trepidation, given the content of my earlier post today, but come on. Donald Trump and Sarah Palin as Neo-Birthers? Really???

The Donald, as he is unaffectionately known, is trying to carve out his own niche in presidential politics by attempting to resurrect the birther controversy about whether Obama was born here, etc etc blah blah blah.

So, in response to The Donald's sojourn into Total Fuckwackery, our favorite Great Huntress of The North, Caribou Barbie, aka Sarah Palin, is now on record as saying that (1) she "appreciates" Trump's questions, and she (2) "thinks" Obama was born in Hawaii because "there was the birth announcement put in the newspaper...[b]ut obviously there is something there that the president doesn't want people to see on that birth certificate, that he sees going to great lengths to make sure it isn't shown. And that's perplexing for a lot of people..."

All hail the final triumph of Fuckwackery over reason. Just because he is Donald Fucking Trump, all of a sudden he's a fucking expert on the topic. Perplexing, is it? Just to the feeble-minded and their cynical manipulators. Like you, Sarah and Donald.

But, to give credit where credit is due, supposedly The Donald has a "crack team" of investigators (by which I assume he does not mean "investigators on crack") on the job, and they undoubtedly will, once and for all, discover "The Truth" behind the secret Obama birth certificate.

But the proof of the pudding, as we all know, is in the eating, and I'm looking forward with baited breath to masticatingly mauling that lumpy, chewy indigestible mass, even as we speak.

And Sarah? She's trying to have it both ways.

No, stop it, get that mental image out of your diseased imagination. That's not what I meant. No, really, I mean it... Stop it.

Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch

Jeez, every day I am reminded of the fact that it's not enough for the wingnuttery to smear the president at every possible turn, but they also have to just make shit up to get their unthinking sheeple to forward any and all emails about him that paint him in any kind of a bad light.

Since I am proudly and publicly a Vietnam veteran, I get a lot of shit by email that really isn't intended for an unabashed liberal/leftwing neo-Anarcho-Syndicalist veteran like me.

Case in point. I just received one of those "viral" emails with this photo, the latest of that whole "Obama won't salute the flag" meme left over from the campaign, this time couched a little differently:

And accompanying the photo was the following missive:

Check out this latest picture from Veterans Day 11/11/09 at the Ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery. I don't know whether the National Anthem is being played, or the Flag is going by, or WHAT, but EVERYBODY in the picture is either saluting or has his hand over the HEART.

All except ONE.
Guess who.
I do not make this stuff up!

Yeah, YOU don't make this stuff up buddy because you lack the requisite number of brain cells to take a shit on a porcelain toilet, but you certainly don't mind passing this bullshit on to others.

Naturally, it ought to go without saying, it ought to be patently obvious to anyone with a working knowledge of how to negotiate to the nearest two-holer, it ought to be a non-starter in any political discussion, that the photo is likely a real one but the description is not.

I mean, come on! Do you really think that the President of the United States is going to do something like this at a public event???!!!

Jesus, people, just try to do the tiniest amount of research on this crap. Snopes is one of my favorite debunker sites, and they've already got the goods on this one: Check it out and be prepared to blast back at that IBIL* of yours when he brings this one up over the candied yams next week.

Context is everything!

[*IBIL = Idiot Brother-In-Law]