Great Seal of the United States, v2.0

I read on the AP wire earlier this week that the recent McDonald’s “Hiring Day” resulted in the hiring of 50,000 new burger-flippers, news that was of course deliriously cheered by the Beltway Insider crowd as part of its collective pants-pissing over the creation of 230,000 new jobs last month — nearly half of which were on the order of Wal-Mart greeters, Home Depot cashiers, the aforementioned burger flippers, and other assorted shit-wage jobs. So, I decided it was time to redesign the Great Seal Of The United States to reflect current American reality.

The news that really grabbed me, however, was a report from a McDonald’s hiring day in Cleveland. At one of many such events designed to portray McDonald’s as a decent place to work, a fight broke out between two women; the fight escalated to the point where one of the women ended up hitting three people with a car before fleeing the scene.

I’m lovin’ it.

Great Seal v2.0 on black t-shirt at CafePress, $20.99.

Under the Bus, no.2

Just the other day, I was rummaging around in the Blogozone in search of inspiration — as per usual, when I found this juicy quote from an Al Schumann article at Stop Me Before I Vote Again:

…it seems far more likely that the Democrats are paying the price, an expected and even welcome price, for demobilizing and demoralizing their base. The Great Liberal Bus is teetering on top of a pile of the people pushed under it. From the very start, the Democrats have fought their activists harder than they’ve fought the Republicans. They’ve had them arrested!

Now, the article itself is about a year and a half old, written during the depths of the healthcare “debate”, but is still amazingly prescient in the context of the intervening two years of inaction, abuse and betrayal by the Democratic Party of its Left/Progressive constituencies, culminating in the recent budget compromise which gave the Rightists in Congress pretty much everything they wanted.

Teetering on top of a pile of the people pushed under it. Jeezus, what an image. Thanks, Schumann.

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Are You In?

You’ve got to hand it to Obummer, his timing’s impeccable. On the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King — and one day before capitulating to the Rightists and allowing military commission trials of Guantanamo detainees — Obummer rolls out his 2012 re-election campaign, complete with a smarmy, grassrootsy video, and asks, “Are You In?”

“Are You In?” Jeezus, what the hell kind of slogan is that? It sounds like the wrapup for a venture capital pitch, like a question asked by some newly-minted Stanford MBA trying to schmooze a few million for his crappy-assed Internet start-up.

The “official” unemployment rate is nailed at around 10%, the foreclosure rate is climbing, bankers are getting fatter than ever, Bush’s tax cuts for the rich are still in place, the healthcare system is still in the hands of corporations, we’re up to our asses in three wars, the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay is still open, our civil liberties are in worse shape than ever, Obummer’s just rolled over for John Boehner on the budget deal — and now Obummer’s got the sheer gall to ask me if I’m “in”.

Like hell I’m “in”. Take a goddamn’ hike, piker.

“Unemployment”, 11×17 color .jpg image, 660kb.
“Foreclosure”, 11×17 color .jpg image, 884kb.
“Guantanamo”, 11×17 color .jpg image, 1mb.
“Drone Strike”, 11×17 color .jpg image, 928kb.
The complete series, 11×17 color .jpg image, 1.1mb.

Sock Puppet Rebels

Late last week, not long after Barack Obummer announced there’d be no US “boots on the ground” in Libya, the New York Times and Los Angeles Times revealed — much to my total lack of surprise — that the US did, in fact, have the proverbial boots on the ground in the form of CIA spooks functioning as “advisors” and gathering intelligence to share with Libya’s “Toyota Tigers”.

Even more interesting was this report on the CIA connections of Libya’s new rebel commander, Khalifa Hifter. Apparently, Mr. Hifter defected from Gadhafi’s army about twenty-five years ago and was living a comfortable life in the suburbs of Washington, DC, until he suddenly felt moved to come to the aid of his motherland in its most desperate hour of need.

“Verr-rrry innn-teresting…!”
– Arte Johnson, as the German soldier on Laugh-In

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