A guest post from our esteemed, super-smart friend, Charles Hugh Smith, publisher of the Of Twos Minds blog and author of the new book, Resistance, Revolution, Liberation: A Model for Positive Change
 
The global crisis is best understood as the convergence of the modern trends identified by Marx, Orwell and Kafka. Let’s start with Franz Kafka, the writer (1883-1924) who most eloquently captured the systemic injustices of all powerful bureaucracies—the alienation experienced by the hapless citizen enmeshed in the bureaucratic web, petty officialdom’s mindless persecutions of the innocent, and the intrinsic absurdity of the centralized State best expressed in this phrase: “We expect errors, not justice.”

If this isn’t the most insightful summary of the Eurozone debacle, then what is? A lawyer by training and practice, Kafka understood that the the more powerful and entrenched the bureaucracy, the greater the collateral damage rained on the innocent, and the more extreme the perversion of justice.

The entire global financial system is Kafkaesque: the bureaucracies of the Central State have two intertwined goals: protect the financial Elites from the consequences of their parasitic predation, and protect their own power and perquisites.

While Marx understood the predatory, parasitic nature of Monopoly Capitalism, he did not anticipate the State’s partnering with Cartel/Crony Capitalism; in effect, the State has appropriated the appropriators, stripmining the citizenry to protect the financial sector from the consequences of their “business model” (leverage, fraud, embezzlement and the misrepresentation of risk). But the State doesn’t merely enable (“regulate”) the predation of financiers; it also stripmines the citizenry to fund its own expansion into every nook and cranny of civil society.

This is where Orwell enters the convergence, for the State masks its stripmining and power grab with deliciously Orwellian misdirections such as “the People’s Party,” “democratic socialism,” and so on.

Orwell understood the State’s ontological imperative is expansion, to the point where it controls every level of community, markets and society. Once the State escapes the control of the citizenry, it is free to exploit them in a parasitic predation that is the mirror-image of Monopoly capital. For what is the State but a monopoly of force, coercion, data manipulation and the regulation of private monopolies?

What is the EU bureaucracy in Brussels but the perfection of a stateless State?

As Kafka divined, centralized bureaucracy has the capacity for both Orwellian obfuscation (anyone read those 1,300-page Congressional bills other than those gaming the system for their private benefit?) and systemic avarice and injustice.

The convergence boils down to this: it would be impossible to loot this much wealth if the State didn’t exist to enforce the “rules” of parasitic predation. In China, the Elite’s looting proceeds along somewhat different rules from the looting of Europe and the U.S., but the end result is the same in all financialized, centrally managed economies: an expansive kleptocracy best understood as the convergence of Marx, Orwell and Kafka.

This has been a guest post from Charles Hugh Smith, publisher of the Of Twos Minds blog and author of the new book, Resistance, Revolution, Liberation: A Model for Positive Change

 
I’m sure he meant well…

Follow The Mountain Goats on Twitter.

Via reddit/r/politics

 
Frank Bruni took a much-deserved swipe at Michele Bachmann in the New York Times op ed pages this morning.

From “The Divine Miss M”:

What I find most fascinating about Michele Bachmann — and there are many, many more where she came from — is that she presents herself as a godly woman, humbly devoted to her Christian faith. I’d like to meet that god, and I’d like to understand that Christianity.

Does it call for smearing people on the basis of flimsy conspiracy theories? That’s what Bachmann just did to Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, by essentially suggesting she might be a mole for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Does it endorse scaring young women away from immunizations that could spare them serious illness? Bachmann did that during her memorable presidential campaign, when she blithely drew an unsubstantiated link between a vaccine for the human papillomavirus and mental retardation.

Does it encourage gratuitously divisive condemnations of Barack Obama as “anti-American,” one of many incendiary phrases in her attacks against him in 2008? And does it compel a war against homosexuality waged with the language and illogic she uses?

She has said that gay men and lesbians are dysfunctional products of abuse and agents of “sexual anarchy,” and when the singer and songwriter Melissa Etheridge was battling breast cancer years ago, Bachmann helpfully chimed in: “This may be an opportunity for her now to be open to some spiritual things, now that she is suffering with that physical disease. She is a lesbian.”

Bachmann’s concept of Christian love brims with hate, and she has a deep satchel of stones to throw. From what kind of messiah did she learn that?

OUCH! Nicely put, Frank Bruni!

Bruni concludes by wondering if we should “start noting the difference between Christians of real compassion and those of exclusionary spite.”

Again: OUCH! There needs to be more like this. A flood of them to drown the stupid out.

And have you heard about the goofball Teabagger in Arizona, promising to launch a recall effort against Sen. John McCain for daring to defend Huma Abedin on the floor of the Senate? Even principled chivalry from a war hero gets no respect from these people?

From Huffington Post: “Wes Harris, Arizona Tea Party Leader, Seeks To Recall John McCain Over Huma Abedin Defense”:

Wes Harris, the founder and chairman of the Original North Phoenix Tea Party, now says McCain’s words have given him grounds to mount an effort to unseat the longtime senator.

In an interview with the Arizona Capitol Times, Harris called McCain an “embarrassment,” before laying out a variety of unapologetic anti-Islamic sentiments.

“Have you ever read the Quran? I suggest you do so, because anyone that is a Muslim is a threat to this country, and that’s a fact,” Harris told the Times. “There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. If they are Muslim they have to follow the Quran. That’s their religion and that’s their doctrine.”

According to the Times, Harris believes Muslims are incapable of being loyal to the U.S., because he claims that their faith in Islam and the Quran trumps any other allegiance. He also apparently believes Muslims shouldn’t be able to serve in the State Department at all.

“Is [Abedin] a Muslim? Is she an active Muslim?” Harris asked the Times. “I rest my case. That’s all she needs to be.”

Did you feel your brain cells dying as you read that?

It smells like burning hair.

For good effect, Harris told Senator McCain:

“Go to hell, Senator, it’s time for you to take your final dirt nap.”

By now, even a life-long Republican like McCain is probably thinking “These people are fucking nuts” and his own sense of vanity (if nothing else) will probably see him distance himself more and more from his party’s most embarrassing and outspoken dimwits like Bachmann, Louie Gohmert and Steve King (King’s the asshole from Iowa gloating that he’s been able to monkey-wrench animal cruelty laws! HOORAY FOR ANIMAL CRUELTY. Wha???).

It’s obviously only a matter of time before McCain’s own daughter leaves the GOP.

And look at John Roberts. Does anyone really think he’s going to be more conservative after the insane hatred unleashed in his direction after the Obamacare ruling?

Forget Republican vs Democrat, or Liberal vs Conservative, what’s shaking out in America is more like Smart vs. Dumb.

This is what it’s coming down to, is it not?

The all-out total implosion of the Republican Party cult is something that is both nauseating on one level (it hurts to admit that we live in an Idiocracy cum oligarchy doesn’t it?) and hilariously funny on another. It’s getting really intense. The flailing form the right seems so much more frantic as the election year rolls on.

From where I’m sitting, in the liberal stronghold of Hollywood, California, I’m thinking, hey, it can’t happen to a nicer bunch of flaming fucking assholes. A Republican Civil War would make my day, every day. So far Bachmann has shown no signs that the numerous denunciations of her latest stunt from fellow Republicans have slowed her “crusade” down even a little bit. I hope she keeps it up, with her pedal to the metal.

As a non-believer, and an avowed Marxist, I believe that, in the scheme of things, Michele Bachmann has a VERY SPECIAL ROLE TO PLAY.

She’s the best!!!

Bert & Ernie, together since 1969

The Jim Henson Company has severed their partnership with fast food chain Chick-Fil-A. The company’s “Creature Shop” toys are being given away with kid’s meals, but that’s coming to an end, due to Chick-Fil-A’s conservative Christian President-CEO Dan Cathy’s anti-gay public statements.

The Jim Henson Company posted this statement to their Facebook page:

The Jim Henson Company has celebrated and embraced diversity and inclusiveness for over fifty years and we have notified Chick-Fil-A that we do not wish to partner with them on any future endeavors. Lisa Henson, our CEO is personally a strong supporter of gay marriage and has directed us to donate the payment we received from Chick-Fil-A to GLAAD.

The comments are fascinating.

Meanwhile Boston mayor Tom Menino has publicly stated his opposition to a Chick-Fil-A opening in Beantown. It’s not like a mayor can single-handedly decree something like this, but Menino can make damn sure that opening the Boston branch of Chick-Fil-A is a very, very slow and expensive process for Dan Cathy and his crew.

Not eating at a Chick-Fil-A is an easy way to send a message that this kind of thing won’t be tolerated in your community, either. Why give Truett and Dan Cathy your money to fight marriage equality? Bigotry = bad business. It’s time Chick-Fil-A’s stockholders and franchise owners realize this and kick Dan Cathy to the curb. He’s a PR disaster.

 
American Vyckie Garrison, a self-described “die-hard conservative Republican,” moved to Canada in 2008 and was “disgusted” at the prospect of universal health care. Garrison was so far right, she writes at RH Reality Check, that “I believed based on my politics that government mandated health care was a violation of my freedom.”

Until she actually used universal health care, then she dramatically changed her tune:

I started to feel differently about Universal government mandated and regulated Health care. I realized how many times my family had avoided hospital care because of our lack of coverage. When I mentioned to Canadians that I had been in a car accident as a teen and hadn’t gone into the hospital, they were shocked! Here, you always went to the hospital, just in case. And the back issue I had since the accident would have been helped by prescribed chiropractic care which would have been at no cost to me. When I asked for prayers for my little brother who had been burned in a camping accident, they were all puzzled why the story did not include immediately rushing him to the hospital. When they asked me to clarify and I explained that many people in the States are not insured and they try to put off medical care unless absolutely needed, they literally could not comprehend such a thing.

I started to wonder why I had been so opposed to government mandated Universal Health care. Here in Canada, everyone was covered. If they worked full-time, if they worked part-time, or if they were homeless and lived on the street, they were all entitled to the same level of care if they had a medical need. People actually went in for routine check-ups and caught many of their illnesses early, before they were too advanced to treat. People were free to quit a job they hated, or even start their own business without fear of losing their medical coverage. In fact, the only real complaint I heard about the universal health care from the Canadians themselves, was that sometimes there could be a wait time before a particular medical service could be provided. But even that didn’t seem to be that bad to me, in the States most people had to wait for medical care, or even be denied based on their coverage. The only people guaranteed immediate and full service in the USA, were those with the best (and most expensive) health coverage or wads of cash they could blow. In Canada, the wait times were usually short, and applied to everyone regardless of wealth. If you were discontent with the wait time (and had the money to cover it) you could always travel out of the country to someplace where you could demand a particular service for a price. Personally, I never experienced excessive wait times, I was accepted for maternity care within a few days or weeks, I was able to find a family care provider nearby easily and quickly, and when a child needed to be brought in for a health concern I was always able to get an appointment within that week.

—snip—

I also discovered that the Canadian government looked out for its families in other ways. The country mandates one year of paid maternity leave, meaning a woman having a baby gets an entire year after the birth of her baby to recover and parent her new baby full-time, while still receiving 55% of her salary and their job back at the end of that year. Either parent can use the leave, so some split it, with one parent staying at home for 6 months and the other staying at home for 6 months. I could hardly believe my ears when I first heard it. In America, women routinely had to return to work after 6 weeks leave, many times unpaid. Many American women lost their jobs when becoming pregnant or having a baby. I knew people who had to go back to work 2 weeks after giving birth just to hang onto their job and continue making enough money to pay the bills. Also every child in Canada gets a monthly cash tax benefit. The wealthier families can put theirs into a savings account to pay for college someday (which also costs far less money in Canada by the way), the not so wealthy can use theirs to buy that car seat or even groceries. In the province we lived in, we also received a monthly day care supplement check for every child under school age. I made more money being a stay at home mom in Canada than I do in the States working a close to a minimum wage job. And none of the things I listed here are considered “welfare” they are available to every Canadian regardless of income. For those with lower incomes than we had there are other supports in place as well.

If a woman gets pregnant unexpectedly in America, she has to worry about how she will get her own prenatal care, medical care for her child, whether or not she will be able to keep her job and how she will pay for daycare for her child so she can continue to support her family. In Canada those problems are eliminated or at least reduced. Where do you think a woman is more likely to feel supported in her decision to keep her baby, and therefore reduce abortions?

I should probably mention here that one of Vyckie Garrison’s main problems with universal healthcare (edited out by me, it’s information less relevant to DM readers) was that it would make getting abortions easier. She’s a former adherent to the Quiverfull philosophy of patriarchal Christianity. Re-read the last two paragraphs, with this in mind. She’s not whistling “Dixie” here: She’s a conservative, Bible-believing American who, when confronted with FACTS about socialized medicine and the evidence right in front of her own eyes, came to some very logical conclusions.

Since all of these benefits are available to everyone, I never heard Canadians talking about capping their incomes to remain lower income and not lose their government provided health coverage. Older people in Canada don’t have to clean out their assets to qualify for some Medicare or Social Security programs, I heard of inheritances being left even amongst the middle classes. Something I had only heard about in wealthy families in the USA.

And lest you think that the Canada system is draining the government resources, their budget is very close to balanced every year. They’ve had these programs for decades. Last year Canada’s national debt was 586 billion dollars, the USA has 15.5 trillion dollars in national debt. Canada has about one 10th the population of the US, so even accounting for size, the USA is almost 3 times more indebted. And lest you think that taxes are astronomical, our median income taxes each year were only slightly higher than they had been in the States, and we still got a large chunk of it back each year at tax time.

Canadians are also, on average, now WEALTHIER than Americans are, but if you watch Fox News, you might never be exposed to THAT salient lil’ factoid!

Here’s to open minds! Thank you kindly, Vyckie Garrison!

 
Julie Goodridge, who was one of the two lead plaintiffs in Goodridge v. Dept of Public Health—the lawsuit that brought same-sex marriage to Massachusetts—describes her personal meeting with then governor Mitt Romney and the shockingly cold thing he said to her about her child.

Goodridge (powerfully) describes her encounter with Thurston Howell III Mitt Romney as “the most frustrating experience in the entire marriage case.”

More at the Mitt Gets Worse Project.
 

Wrong Waltons

This is so fucked up, I actually swooned when I read it.

THIS is exactly what Karl Marx warned us would happen…

From Working Economics:

Concretely, between 2007 and 2010, while median family wealth fell by 38.8 percent, the wealth of the Walton family members rose from $73.3 billion to $89.5 billion…In 2007, it was reported that the Walton family wealth was as large as the bottom 35 million families in the wealth distribution combined, or 30.5 percent of all American families.

And in 2010, as the Walton’s wealth has risen and most other Americans’ wealth declined, it is now the case that the Walton family wealth is as large as the bottom 48.8 million families in the wealth distribution (constituting 41.5 percent of all American families) combined.

Let’s deregulate the economy! YEAH! Let’s cut the estate tax EVEN MORE so THESE FUCKING PARASITES can, you know, buy more politicians to protect their wealth for generations of worthless heirs to come!

These are the folks who are going to benefit more than practically ANYONE IN AMERICA if Mitt Romney gets elected.

Romney’s own immediate family and their heirs and their heirs and beyond—not to mention his election-buying buddies the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson—would also be on that same list, natch.

Yes, let’s elect HIM and let the FREE MARKET TAKE OVER!

HOORAY FOR AMERICA!

HOORAY FOR CAPITALISM!

HOORAY FOR DEMOCRACY!

If this information doesn’t make you sick to your stomach, you’re an idiot.

This IS a fucking IQ test!

The 50th anniversary of the opening of the first Wal-Mart was two weeks ago. If more wealth than the bottom 40% of the country has, combined, equals what these fucks have got, it stands to reason, does it not, that if this ONE FAMILY has more wealth than that of 48.8 MILLION American families combined, that they got it by placing a TAX—hidden in the price—on absolutely every single item sold in a Wal-Mart. It’s one of the largest, most pervasive cons ever perpetrated, all legal of course.

What have the Walton heirs done to deserve this bounty other than being BORN to the right family? Nothing? Talk about winning the lottery, eh?

AND IT TOOK LESS THAN 50 YEARS TO ACHIEVE THIS TRANSFER OF WEALTH.  Don’t call it wealth creation. Being born worth the same as TWO FIFTHS of your fellow Americans COMBINED isn’t wealth creation!

It’s an absurdity. If the Walton heirs collectively possesed more wealth than just 48 American families combined it would still be fucked up!

Think about it: Every item for sale at the largest retailer in the world basically has a TARIFF factored into the price which is paid to the stockholders of Wal-Mart, which is chiefly owned by the members of the Walton family. It’s not like you have to slog through 1000+ pages of Das Kapital to understand how this works. It’s not a complex equation.

If you’re okay with this and you want to continue to give your own hard-earned money to the queen bees of the Walton family, please continue to do so, mentally deficient fool. It’s your dignity!

However, if you think this is totally insane, and if you do not wish to slip a few bucks out of your grocery bill each week to the WEALTHY PARASITES pictured below, then all you have to do in protest is not spend your money in a Wal-Mart ever again.

As in NEVER.

Read more:
Inequality, exhibit A: Walmart and the wealth of American families

Half Of American Households Hold 1 Percent Of Wealth
 

 
Via Think Progress

 
As seen on the “Truth Has a Liberal Bias” Tumblr blog:

“If Sarah Palin were black, her daughter’s out of wedlock, “baby daddy drama” would have been presented as an example of both pathological behavior and a dysfunctional family that is symbolic of the social problems in that community.

If Sarah Palin were black, never would the poor decision making by the Palin family be marked off as challenges overcome, or deeds to be valorized.

If Sarah Palin were black, her neo-secessionist husband would have been the death knell for her political career, because as we all know you can’t trust “those people.”

If Sarah Palin were black, her lack of intellectual curiosity, willful and cultivated ignorance, and lack of grace both written and spoken, would not be taken as “folksy.” Instead, Palin would be viewed as unqualified for any public office.

If Sarah Palin were black she would be tarred and feathered as an “affirmative action baby.”

If Sarah Palin were Black, she’d be Sweet Brown!

Liberals Are Cool added this for good measure:

Just goes to show how far Palin’s whiteness can take her. Zero intellect, two high school drop-outs, an unwed teen mother, a quitter of the one major job she had. Master of hateful coded language targeting opponents as not “real Americans”. Belongs to a church outside of the mainstream. Still a top GOP candidate.

 
UPDATE: Respect to Senator John McCain for denouncing Bachmann’s fact-less, pointless, unintelligent attacks on Huma Abedin on the Senate floor today.

And to Anderson Cooper, as well, for his full-throated ridicule of Bachmann (and Louie Gohmert, too). Her nonsense should not and cannot be tolerated by a good society. Bachmann and her idiotic ilk are a cancer on the Republican Party and America itself.

Should there be a minimum IQ test for members of Congress?

Think of it as a prophylactic against idiocy. The type of idiocy perhaps best exemplified by the blinkered queen of the Tea party caucus, MN’s Michele Bachmann. Bachmann’s back in the news for her latest round of pig ignorant neo-McCarthyism, and this time her confused, brain-addled conspiracy theories are directed towards the US State Department.

Bachmann’s latest affront to intelligence, expands on her initial charges against Hillary Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin (wife of disgraced former Brooklyn Congressman Anthony Weiner) and others of harboring terrorist sympathy. Last Friday, Bachmann publicized her new 16-page conspiracy theory, written after she was challenged by MN’s Muslim congressman, Rep. Keith Ellison, to put up or shut up with her vaguely worded accusations of alleged Muslim Brotherhood “infiltration” in the ranks of the State Department and national security agencies.

What’s on your tiny mind, Congresswoman?

Via Salon:

In the new letter, Bachmann questions why (Huma) Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the wife of former Rep. Anthony Weiner, was able to receive a security clearance despite having family members that Bachmann believes are connected to the Brotherhood. “I am particularly interested in exactly how, given what we know from the international media about Ms. Abedin’s documented family connections with the extremist Muslim Brotherhood, she was able to avoid being disqualified for a security clearance,” the congresswoman wrote.

As evidence, she pointed to Abedin’s late father, Professor Syed Z. Abedin, and a 2002 Brigham Young University Law Review article about his work. Bachmann points to a passage saying Abedin founded an organization that received the “quiet but active support” of the the former director of the Muslim World League, an international NGO that was tied to the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe in the 1970s through 1990s. So, to connect Abedin to the Muslim Brotherhood, you have to go through her dead father, to the organization he founded, to a man who allegedly supported it, to the organization that man used to lead, to Europe in the 1970s and 1990s, and finally to the Brotherhood.

The next paragraph of the law review article she cites quotes Syed Abedin concluding that the Koran calls for, “multiple ways of life … i.e. religious and cultural plurality among mankind.” Pretty scary Islamo-fascist stuff. It’s also worth nothing that Weiner, Huma Abedin’s husband, is one of the most unquestionably pro-Israeli politicians in America. But Bachmann would have us believe that the security clearance process somehow missed Abedin’s nefarious connections, and thus she knows more than, say, the CIA and FBI, who are involved in the background-check process.

As Jason Linkins quipped on Huffington Post:

“And from there, all connections lead to the obvious Islamofascist puppetmaster: Kevin Bacon, star of Footloose.”

Pretty much…

This shit is getting ridiculous. At what point will intelligent and morally responsible Washington power-players tell this racist, xenophobic, homophobic shithead to get stuffed? Maybe a censure vote? The longer it goes on, well, drats, the longer it goes on. I realize you can’t legislate against stupidity, but for fuck’s sake does this infuriatingly stupid nincompoop drag American politics down to a low, low, mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging level.

To call Rep. Michele Bachmann a fucking moron is to demean fucking morons, everywhere. With this latest affront to intelligence, Bachmann needs to be put in her place.

If congressional weenies won’t do it, I sincerely hope that Hillary Clinton decides to take her dumb ass down over this.

Demonstrably stupid people like Michele Bachmann—that’s not a controversial assessment, she’s got shit for brains and everyone except for the dumbest people in the country know it and have known it for years—are ruining life in America.

Why let them get away with it? Someone should have told Senator Joseph McCarthy to stick a cork up his ass in 1950 and someone needs to tell Michele Bachmann to do the same in 2012.

Responsible people in Washington need to call this Bachmann for exactly what she is, an IDIOT. Why mince words? She’s an idiot, a fucking idiot. That is what she is, her defining characteristic is her STUPIDITY. Her district should be ashamed that an assat like Bachmann wastes their tax dollars like this. It’s shameful.

 
After the past week of just painfully pathetic public prat-falls capped off by the devastating new Obama TV spot released over the weekend that left Mitt Romney’s patrician glass jaw smashed into tiny bits, you’d have to imagine that the Tea party-led rightwing shock troops, having pinned ALL of their post-2010 electoral hopes and dreams on the deeply flawed shoulders of one Thurston Howell III Willard Mitt Romney, is more than a little worried.

Who wouldn’t be? The man is an excruciating embarrassment as a candidate. Mitt’s a self-parody who jumped the shark before he even became the official nominee! What a “Debbie Downer” on the GOP morale he must be! It’s hard to keep rooting for the home team when the quarterback is such a witless plonker, isn’t it? The GOP is terrific at getting the vote out, but will the faithful line-up to vote for a tax-dodging plutocrat with Cayman Island bank accounts like Mitt Romney? If you know, for sure, that your vote will count for nothing, would you even bother making the effort to vote? If the very act of voting is perceived as a waste of time? What if it’s a little rainy that day? Can even a superior ground game on election day (the GOP always has a better ground game, always—it’s a lot easier when your base voters are easily-herded, authoritarian-loving sheeple) make a difference with Mittens? It will be interesting to see. My gut tells me there will be lower GOP turnout this year than in 2008. Not that much lower, but lower, crucially lower.

Mittens looks like a sad, ineffectual “Richie Rich” who just had his pants pulled down in front of the entire class and then a plate of school lunch spaghetti dumped over his head (Karma’s a bitch, Thurston!). Romney seems undignified, unsure and weak. He’s (quite obviously) the worst candidate one of the two parties has nominated since hapless Democrat Michael Dukakis back in 1988.

THIS bungling sacrificial lamb in khakis is the best candidate all of that sweet, sweet Republican money can buy? Mitt Romney? Seriously?

After last week, it wasn’t just the Democrats and Independent voters who were asking that question, the Republicans are asking it aloud now, too.

Scanning the rightwing blogshere in the aftermath of that weekend YouTube bomb Obama lobbed into Romney’s lap (more a nuclear warhead), it’s incredible to the extent that the rightwing is wringing its collective hands over “the Romney problem”: From FreeRepublic’s redneck red staters to Breitbart editor John Nolte (who called the Obama ad a “kill shot” aimed at Romney), let alone East coast “establishment” Republican stalwarts like William Kristol (the man who extolled the virtues of Sarah Palin to the McCain camp, don’t forget) and the increasingly barmy George Will (Why does anyone care what he thinks? Why the hell did I just mention him if no one forced me to???) Republicans, clearly, are starting to hit the panic button.

Even the dumbest, doofiest Fox News-watching flag-waving, red, white and blue Republican true-believer dipshit can recognize a loser when they see one, smell the blood, and predict the inevitable November outcome as they take a look at Thurston Howell III Mitt Romney. Romney’s GONNA LOSE and the entire country knows it, or at least strongly suspects it. Even Romney must realize his performance is getting panned and why. The guy has NO GAME, zero, none, no charisma, apparently no empathy, just… bales of money. It won’t be nearly enough. I’ve never seen a poorer-looking national candidate in my life. (Michael Dukakis must be watching his fellow former Massachusetts governor with glee as Romney erases his reputation as a nightmare national ticket political punchline with each newly reported misstep and ineffectual response to Obama’s repeated kicks to his balls. (“Is (fill in the blank) the ‘Mitt Romney of 2___?” will be a cliche in the punditry for years to come, mark my words).

So what happens next? Well, this could get interesting.

Memo to the mainstream media: It probably won’t.

Among credible Republicans who is gonna be dumb enough to want the gold-plated booby prize that an open convention—something that was discussed for MONTHS leading up to Romney’s week from Hell—could bestow upon them? Newt Gingrich must be having quite a good “I told you so” chuckle, not that a desperate GOP is (ever) going to be desperate enough to give that slimy amphibian another look.

Cain, Santorum, Perry… you all probably shouldn’t sit by the bat-phone holding your breath, either, fellas.

Who could or would step up for the good of the Grand Old Party, to carry that tarnished brand’s sword in November, even unto certain career-ending defeat, if Romney were to be pushed aside? Besides mentally deficient, unhinged attention seeking halfwits like Sarah Palin, Allen West, Michele Bachmann, Steve King, Louie Gohmert, etc., etc. who is that, ahem, white knight going to be? Well, not one of these folks. It’s useless speculation.

Ron Paul? He’d take the sword into battle, but it will never be offered to him. Not worth discussing him, either. They won’t even let him speak at the convention and that seems to be the big reason he ran, to influence the GOP platform. Not gonna happen.

Rep. Paul Ryan? Rep. Eric Cantor? Chris Christie? Bobby Jindal? Jeb Bush? Scott Walker? Think any one of them is jealous of the nationally televised dick-stomping Mitt Romney is getting? Marco Rubio knows he’s not ready, even for the VP slot. Maybe John Boehner will run? Orin Hatch? Who then? Someone you’ve never heard of? Will James Baker III come out of retirement at 82? John Sunnunu? Is a picture starting to paint itself?

WHO among the Republicans save for Mitch Daniels or Tim Pawlenty—would even have a tiny chance of taking enough blue states to flip the race if pulled in at the last minute to replace Shit Romney? Christie is the governor of one, but as a former resident of the Garden State myself, I wouldn’t even bet on Christie getting a second term. His popularity is already dropping. Besides that, any smart Republican would just stay out of it until 2016, it just stands to reason. This go round is a strategic non-starter.

Thaddeus McCotter?

Fred Karger, maybe?

HEY, WHAT ABOUT DONALD TRUMP!?!?!

John McCain?

My point, if there is one, is that the Republicans have no plan B. Any speculation that there will be an open convention, I think, is utter poppycock. There is no one on that team that can beat Obama. There is no one on that team with half a brain that really wants to try. They’re stuck with Mitt Romney, what choice do that have now? I hate to say it—I mean I really, really hate to say it—but Newt Gingrich was 100% right about Mittens and the GOP should have taken his advice and looked for a Romney alternative while there was still time. Not that I think they should have picked Newt (he’d have been slaughtered) but it’s so apparent what a loser Romney is, that, in truth, practically ANYONE would better.

If someone offered you—at a great bargain, too—a lotto ticket guaranteed not have the winning number, would you buy it? Look how many Sheldon Adelson bought and now he wants to buy some more. I say let him!

(I used to think that Citizens United decision was the worst thing that could happen to this country. Now I’m looking at it more as a “give ‘em enough rope” kinda scenario. Many Republicans might tend to agree with me by the time the 2012 election cycle is over. A billion dollars spent advertising a faulty (Fawlty?) product such as the candidacy of a buffoon like Mittens is a billion dollars spent reminding the American voters why they don’t want this blue-blooded nincompoop in the fucking White House. “Hey smell this, it smells like shit” amplified with a billion dollar advertising spend might backfire badly with a derp like Romney topping the ticket…)

The Obama campaign has defined Mitt Romney in the eyes of America as a whiny blue-blood with too much money made from sucking the blood of the little guy. Maybe a felon? Sounds about right to me. That classic commercial is so smart, and so vicious that it is positively thrilling. It’s what the Democratic base wanted to see and what John Nolte fears it was: a “kill shot.” Tell me that Obama doesn’t look like Muhammad Ali about to take down well, take down Thurston Howell the fuckng third? What else can really be said about this situation?

And the best part of it will be the batshit crazy reichwing reaction everyone is bracing for after Romney is crushed in a landslide defeat. How long will it take until after the vote is in before a crazed sheriff from Arizona or a freakish fuck like Rick Scott of Florida is shooting his mouth off on Fox News about election fraud and that’s the next new dumb dumbly dum-dum thing we’ll have to listen to until 2016???

A wasp’s nest got stirred up in 2008 that still won’t get put to rest during the second Obama term, and expect full retard from the GOP in 2016, but I’m getting ahead of myself…