The secret to ending political partisanship

"There's a Kool-Aid drinker born every minute" Z-man

When both sides finally realize that they're all full of shit. Gerald Ford probably was the only president who actually gave an honest State of the Union address: "The State of our Union...is not good." Politicians, they're shaking your hand with one hand and jerking you off with the other.

The Newt & Mitt Show

Up until now I have for the most part avoided those endless GOP debates (are there supposed to be so many?) but I mainly tuned in last night at Rock Center on NBC to see if moderator Brian Williams would Go There, you know the Newt marital material which liberals are suddenly interested in but as I watched all I got was Cuba is 90 miles off the coast of Florida. I watched about the first hour off and on, it was fairly exciting to tell the truth with Romney and Gingrich attacking each other. Newt kept saying he wasn't a lobbyist for Freddie Mac, Romney put his tab at about $1M/yr. with Newt giving a much lower figure of course and truth be told I thought Romney's points were relevant and Newt gave off a stink cloud like an octopus obfuscating the issue, reminds me of some of the debates here. Meanwhile over at Bain Capital......Santorum and Paul looked like those Jeopardy contestants who just stand there and never ring the buzzer, Williams seemed to notice and got them in there too. Uncle Paulie thinks there are too many wars we can't afford but it was clear who the night was all about. Obama HHS Sec'y Kathleen Sebelius telling Catholic hospitals they have one year to figure out a way to provide birth control services to women, I would have thought it better for Mitt and Newt to go after Obama who seems to me likes to stoke the Culture Wars - "throw another log on the fire Corey" - but I guess they have to get rid of their respective threats first before they can go to the next level. Gosh man so how many more of these to go? it's becoming a weekly series like American Idol. Maybe Marky Mark can host the next one.

Church & Gov't - the Original Mistake

Now this is convoluted and I haven't really followed everything on the Pro-Life front like I used to when I got pro-life stuff in the mail back in the day (PLEASE please don't tell Janet Napolitano!!) but my pastor was explaining this past Sunday that due to something in ObamaCare, the finer print now all Church institutions like hospitals and universities will have to provide contraceptives and sterilization to their employees. OK so by now you know my thoughts, if sex is a private affair then so is birth control and leave me and everyone else the hell out of it. I mean why not hit me up for some lube and anal beads too while we're at it and I totally agree with my pastor regarding religious freedom and conscience exemptions but there's a BUT here and you knew that. The root cause and what John Kennedy once warned about is the Church and the Gov't getting in bed together. Once you work with the government, once you as a religious institution or body agree to some federal funds and yes it's always altruistic at first be it helping the homeless, getting immigrants set up and assimilated, low-income housing projects, drug rehab, whatever, once you get in bed with the Government you then have to do its bidding maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe in a year or two from now but THEY will be setting the Terms make no mistake. Take Catholic Charities which accepts some federal funds for their charitable work, laudable stuff to be sure but not that long ago they were told by you know who that they also have to place kids for adoptions with some gay couples because that's the law and so they stopped placing kids for adoptions altogether. The point is this, the Church should be the Church and the Government the Government so while I agree with my pastor I am somewhat agitated that the Church still doesn't get it, understand the root causes here. You wanna do something with Habitat for Humanity and work with Jimmy Carter and Bob Vila knock yourself out, have at it but your funds should be your funds and their funds their funds and may Obama stay out of it and just watch the Superbowl or go shopping with the missus or go on another Hawaiian vacation and crack open a coconut. Just be careful is all, you may have to pay for some poor worker's IUD down the road:)

Straights have destroyed the institution of marriage

& over time gays will too. You want leaner and meaner government? that'll be when the gov't finally says we are no longer going to recognize failing institutions like marriage. I was thinking about this the other day, polygamy is technically illegal but that's a religious issue isn't it? Why not have the gov't simply say have at it, we're not gonna recognize it but you won't go to jail over it? Word now that ABC News is gonna give one of Newt's ex-wives two hours to dish and it's gonna air on the Monday after the SC primary. Apparently there was some big internal discussion over there about when to air it, personally I wouldn't air it at all but what's with the two full hours? American Idol season premieres get two hours but this is what journalism has turned into. Newt must pose some sort of threat or something. I once had a workable theory that gays have gay sex because straight sex often leads to feticide and well maybe it's some sort of protest act over the destructive power of women but there's holes if you'll pardon the expression in the theory as gays are often the most pro-choice. Ah my meandering mind! Funny though both gays and straights, even those who are for and against the gay marriage have one thing in common, they both seem to feel that marriage is still some type of viable institution or something. One final question though and it's been nagging at me of late: how come many of the same people who are for the so-called woman's 'right to choose' want to take away your right as a consumer to purchase an incandescent light bulb? Liberals are only libertarian on the social issues but not much else and listening to people like Shaw and Saty wax poetic about the golden right to abortion I'm, I'm just getting into a mood here and I might accidentally delete something:)

GOP Has-Beens

The subject of has-beens interests me. One day Rocky and Blaine are one of the biggest things in the NYC radio market, the next day they're frying chicken at some Popeye's off the Interstate. These days the GOP has-beens are Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, that pizza godfather guy and maybe, make that probably Newt who can already feel the powerful vortex of the has-been hole sucking him in. IMO the architect of 1994's "Contract with America" deserves more respect than he's getting but that's just me. Michele Bachmann, too many brain farts and maybe the last straw was her mistaking Elvis' birthday for his deathday. I know it's not a big thing but taken as a whole you don't want her trying to reset Russian relations or pondering ending the embargo against Cuba. I want to devote the bulk of this blog though to Sarah Palin. Now when her star was early rising in the political sky (it didn't hurt that most men would've done her) early conservative commentary focused on such things as a family that hunts together stays together but the Gander Mountain voting bloc is only so big. Many many people have a mild distaste for the sport of hunting not through some elaborate theory of critter rights but Sarah and her family having a fine bowl of Moose Nose Stew on a snowy winter's night doesn't exactly impress them. Those be all-American values, heartland stuff to be sure but maybe not to a Manhattanite. So what makes a has-been or who has has-been potential? Could simply be just the inexorable Passage of Time, I mean Danny Bonaduce had to beat up a tranny to get back on the radar screen but in Palin's case and this is a biggie it was her overall Lack of Knowledge especially on the foreign affairs scene. You don't want this chick going up against Bashar al-Assad or negotatating some Arab/Israeli peace deal. I think the final nail in the coffin though, no it wasn't Tina Fey but Back in the Day some 8' giant black man who played the hoops plowed her. Sure it was back in the day but it's still a shock to the evangelical mind, yeah I know she's for the smaller gov't and pro-life and all so we can forgive her her youthful dalliances, her sex'chal 'perimentation but we kinda can't forget it either. Thanks Joe McGuiness! Oh yes Herman Cain and that's the really painful part of being a has-been nobody talks about you anymore. You know gimme someone who quietly has staying power through the years. Um I hate to say this but you can kinda say that about Romney. I hope to never become a blogging has-been btw, please lemme know:)

Romney

I'm not gonna be spending a whole lot of time on this guy, hell I may not even vote. To all the Ron Paul critics out there and it's all good but tell me why I should vote for Romney. He probably has the nomination wrapped up by now but to me it's boring, hardly blogworthy on a daily basis anyway. It's been rather apparent for some time now that the conservative infrastructure in this country, pundits, commentators, talking heads, chuckleheads, opiners-at-large while not maybe passionately in love with Romney at first have tacitly nodded their assent and the question is why? I kind of pride myself on my astute political analysis but to me it's a mystery, all I can come up with is he's not scary. Saw him recently on The Charlie Rose Show and he's articulate and can talk and again maybe he makes mainstream conservatives comfortable in a coffee, cruller and blog sort of way, throw in a nice sweater and a cat on the couch. I honestly don't even think pro-choice Republicans are that threatened by him and even here I think his flipflopping may be the wrong term. He's gone from pro-life to pro-choice back to pro-life again and in physical terms, to put it in the jargon of science this is more like a vibrating strand of energy, a string (pro-life pro-choice pro-life pro-choice pro-life pro-choice pro-life pro-choice) and it's not to be taken seriously, it could be a mood. It's fluidity that's all like tipping that glass chemistry tube with the blue liquid inside, swishing it back and forth to study it and if he was pro-choice once he can be pro-choice again since he's able to see so many angles and sides. He ain't no static Santorum that wants to outlaw buggery or something and take away the coils and pills. Mormonism is an interesting subject and I've been meaning to google it, oh hell let's do it - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism. It's just a touch Secret Circle-ish to me but that don't bother me none, hell if the guy's a Mormon the guy's a Mormon. I don't think though that ABO (Anybody But Obama) is the right way to look at it, the political calculus for modern conservatives to live by. On another note "I ain't no angry black woman." OK so go tell Oprah:)

You see this is the reason the people don't like celebrities

The Most Important Birth Since Christ

There was no room at the inn but they had Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. They took over a whole wing, some folks weren't happy, you know the 99%. Beyonce's mahogany suite with the bulletproof glass which one can expect some minimal anti-paparazzi measures but C'mon! and some guy couldn't even see his twin preemies in the ICU. The NYS Health Dept. investigation into the Matter went the way of the Natalie Wood reprobe, actually that one lasted longer. One hopes the Blessed Child develops some gender-identity issues later on in life and embarrasses the proud parents, a little Chaz Bono action (Sonny hit a tree skiing and couldn't live to share in the Joy) or else becomes a porn star like Laurence Fishburne's daughter but Jay-Z does seem to be really in love with her, it ain't no sham - a Kardashian marriage not. A nursing note: why so many C-Sections?

(lite agitating fare - about 230 calories)

Conservatives miss the point about Tim Tebow

It seems that everything has to interconnect these days, Politics and Sports in this case and some conservative commentators are making it out like liberals making fun of NFL quarterback Tim Tebow's religiosity is a war on Christianity itself. He blesses himself and prays before the game or something and thanks God at press conferences. Not the first athlete to do this nor the last, you'd think it was never done before. Yeah liberals never miss a chance at a cheap shot but the Larger Point missed as usual is that

God doesn't care about a damn football game:)

It's not so much the Republican candidates I hate...

...it's the conservative political commentators. These movie critics of the political scene who have to overinterpret every daily up-to-the-minute pollette or subpoll and who dismiss various surges as the flavor of the week (as a group they heavily tend to lean towards Romney for some reason), these union commentators who tell you how to vote, who tell you Ron Paul is a system-hater when maybe all he wants to do is return to the Original System, these self-important chuckleheads who tweet and blog and pontificate and opine which leads me to a very important political maxim here you would do well to heed:

By all means know a candidate's political positions, study his or her belief system, judge their sincerity for yourself and how they'll impact on your life personally but you're perfectly capable of doing that already aren't you average American that you are. DO NOT however read the political commentary, do not allow it as a critical mass to influence the way you vote or think. If Newt tweaked another woman's nipple not his wife's, well you already knew that didn't you? You don't need me or some other pundicrat to tell you that's baggage, you don't need to read George Will's petulant commentary on Newt's view of the judges in this country just 'cause his wife is advising the Rick Perry campaign (look Will has a frenulum too). John Podhoretz, Michael Goodwin, David Brooks, Jonah Goldberg, Peggy Noonan, Carlmax Newsmax or whatever the hell it's called and so on down the list, just don't read 'em. I'd rather read soap's take on the ethanol subsidies situation anyway:)