Obama's Katrina

The recent implosion of healthcare.gov and the millions of people losing their health insurance despite Obama's promise (and we know what that's worth) have created a "perfect storm" of FAIL which is leading many to refer to Obamacare -- uh, sorry, the Affordable Care Act -- as "Obama's Katrina".

In the meantime Obamacare architect Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of Chicago mayor and Obama flunkie Rahm Emanuel, is telling anybody who'll listen that this pain parade is somehow the fault of Fox News. I'll grant you, Fox News is a veritable media cesspool responsible for pimping all manner of slimy skankiness, but anyone paying the remotest attention over the past month will tell you that Fox News didn't have anything to do with this FAIL festival.

While that business is going on, House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi is all over MSDNC... uh, MSNBC... swearing up and down that Democrats are totally in line behind Obamacare. Yeah, sure, Nancy, just keep telling yourself that. Perhaps in some weirded-out dreamscape of yours, Democrats are in lockstep behind Obama's corporate healthcare sweetheart deal, but out here in objective reality, buttloads of Democrats are running from Obamacare like it was a house on fire. I can't pretend I'm not enjoying this.

(And btw, I'm sure many of you are wondering what a hardcore Leftie like myself is doing citing articles at conservative news sites. Well, I'll tell you... it's a goddamn' shame that I have to read the Washington Times and Newsbusters to get even half a clear idea of what the hell's going on, because MSNBC is full of nothing but pimping and shucking these days. Think of it this way: I'm reading that crap so you don't have to.) 

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Hit Any Key To Continue

Those of you of a certain age who worked in corporate or office environments will probably remember a certain piece of "office folk art" popular in most offices back during the dark days of MS-DOS: a big cartoon duck with a giant cartoon hammer about to deal a crushing death blow to a computer displaying the ancient MS-DOS post-crash message: "Hit any key to continue".

This memory from my early working days came rushing back to me as I read the news of the ongoing saga of the FAIL parade that is healthcare.gov -- the poor testing, the history of FAIL in the career of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the cronyism that figured in the choice of the firm to build the Web site. It's comedy gold on a grand scale.

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Government Shutdown News Network

 
Hey, there, US news media consumers! Interested in finding out what else is going on in the world besides the government shutdown? Bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah, tough shit. Curious about what's up in Greece, the Sudan, or Palestine? Too goddamn' bad, all they've got for you is government shutdown news. Like it or lump it, chumps.

For the past day or two, pretty much every US "news" network has been nothing but wall-to-wall government shutdown babble, and MSDNC... uhh, MSNBC has been the worst of the lot, with continuous Obamacare pimping overlaid with 24/7 government shutdown hysterics, taking a break only to allow one of their resident windbags, Chris "Baby Eater" Matthews, to plug his new book about his days as a flunkie for Tip O'Neill -- at one point, being interviewed by his wife, f'crissake.

All I can say is, thank Allah for Al Jazeera. 

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Whoa! I've been picked up by Gawker!

A couple of days ago, Gawker's Alex Pareene penned an excellent article about the quality and attitude of the reporting at Washington political rag Politico, specifically referring to their article "The Drama Queen Caucus". Over the past couple of months or so, I've been spending a lot of time reading Gawker for their excellent reporting on the O'Keefe/Breitbart "ACORN Pimp" scandal as well as their media critiques and -- I must confess -- their edgy and unique style of gossip reporting; so, when Pareene's article on Politico appeared, I couldn't help but play a little bit of Devil's Advocate regarding the nature of the current Washington scene and the importance of healthy cynicism in this comment:

Awesome article, Alex, and you're right on about Politico.

Still -- I was born, raised, went to school, grew up and spent pretty much all my life and career in and around Washington — throughout Vietnam, Watergate, the Energy "Crisis", Reaganomics, New Democrats, you name it -- and I can tell you that anyone in this town without a well-developed sense of cynicism is easy pickings for the likes of Clinton, Bush, Obama & Co.

I've learned to read the Washington Post the way a Muscovite learned to read Pravda way back in the day.

Your characterization of Politico is right on the nose, but, let's face it — the current ruling class in this country really is a bunch of self-centered, vain, preening sociopaths who really do live for the foto ops, the CSPAN Moments and the Sunday morning talk show gigs. Many years of experience have taught me this.

They may be right totally by accident, like a busted clock, but Politico really is right about Dennis Kucinich: he really is a time-wasting, gutless, pussified faux Progressive attention whore who talks a good game about serious policy reforms, but is totally ready to roll over for the Democratic Party —- especially when it comes in the person of a slick flash bastard like Barack Obama, who probably promised him a new pony, just like he did to the rest of us in '08. By rolling over for the Democratic leadership on the healthcare bill, he pretty much pissed away any credibility he had left on the Left —- assuming he had any to begin with, after his dickless performance at the '04 Convention.

Well, imagine my surprise when I logged on to Gawker last night to scan for the latest Teabagger/O'Keefe/Breitbart shenanigans and found myself annointed a Comment Of The Day along with my 2008 Kucinich Campaign Poster! That's right, gang; the Kid's a hit in the Big Apple! When it rains, it pours, I guess.

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Teabagger

The recent Teabaggers' Shindig over at Senate Park(viewable above) has certainly left me inspired, to say the least. Never did I hear a gang of astroturfers yell more loudly about not being astroturfers even as they were funded by big, fat rightist PACs run by characters like Tom DeLay and Dick Armey, and never did I hear more yelling from a group about how they aren't about Left or Right, even while they never missed an opportunity to slag the Left -- or even on ordinary Liberals, for that matter -- as the lot it was my fortune to cover this past Fourth Of July.



Even more hilarious was their total ignorance of the causes and effects of events that happened before January 20, 2009 -- forgetting, for instance, that the current corporate bailout fiasco was pushed by George W. Bush. Listening to the howls from the stage and checking out the composition of the crowd, it was as if the single reaction from the Teabagger Massmind boiled down to "OMFG, the President is a N1GG3R!" -- like the old-timer in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles, hollering from the top of the church steeple, "Here comes the new sheriff, and he's a big..." ...and it sure as hell didn't help any as their event was organized and staged by members of a well-known White Power band, Pokerface.

So, considering all this, I thought to myself, "Self, it's time you did a poster that announces the imminent arrival of the National Teabaggers' Convention coming to town on the 12th of September, and maybe inspire some of the local anarchists and antifascists to organize a little welcoming committee." So, I did.

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