Video Of The (Past) Week: Megadeth

Sure, Dave Mustaine used to be such a bad alcoholic that he was kicked out of Metallica. But Megadeth did things that were so much better than Metallica: Countdown To Extinction, in my opinion, tops the Black Album.

And sure, Mustaine supported Mitt Romney in the recent election. I don't know what to say about that, I never thought Mustaine was that much of a redneck, and definitely not stupid like Ted Nugent. Live and learn, I guess.

In any event, many of Mustaine's songs were politically-charged, usually standing up for the proverbial ''little guy'', usually critical or war, government overreach (oh, wait...), most of the time as a riff-machine worthy of Jack White.

In any event, even if you are a fan of small government, there was no excuse whatsoever to vote for Romney, the two-faced pathological liar who would sell his mother (to China, probably) for office. Being a partisan of one political party does not excuse voting for whatever face they choose to run; voting blindly is dangerous, and can alter one country's history irrevocably (see: Canada 2011, Germany 1933, Rome 50 B.C.).

Still, Symphony Of Destruction is an amazing fucking song, at the perfect level of heaviness, good enough to get your head bobbing even if you dislike loud music. But at a level where it's still acceptable to call it ''music''.

Romitt Wouldn't Concede To Votebama

Almost 1AM. That's how late Mitt Romney held onto his illusions this morning, refusing to concede his defeat. It had been more than an hour since most media outlets had given Ohio to President Barack Obama, and almost two hours since Jon Stewart had declared Obama winner of the elections.

For a while, Romney led the popular vote but trailed the electoral College by a landslide; things went back to normal around midnight, with the President maintaining a fair advantage of electoral votes, but also winning the actual vote count, avoiding a repeat of (what History remembers of) the 2000 election.

In a predictable yet ironic twist, we now find ourselves exactly where we were before: same President and VP, the House to Republicans, the Senate to Democrats. However, perhaps the House will actually stop cock-blocking Obama now that their strategy of ''our job is to avoid a second Obama term'' has failed massively, and maybe they can ratify a few of his plans to get Americans back on the job market, which they were saying was their priority, although their actions proved otherwise.

Now that that's done, here's a cat being coy about trying to suffocate a child (or just being stubborn):

Chris Christie: When Republicans Do Their Jobs Instead Of Merely Obstructing The System

This was Day 3 of the fallout from Hurricane Sandy, in what, for the Mitt Romney camp, has now become Hurricane Chris Christie. Indeed, Romney's opponent for the Republican nomination has been praising President Barack Obama for three days straight in regards to his help in providing relief for New Jersey, where Christie serves as governor.

Quotes such as these abound:

It's really important to have the President of the United States here.

In the meantime, Romney has to live up to his past statements about wanting to dismantle FEMA (the federal relief-effort program) and replacing it with State-run programs instead or, as he would prefer, the private sector (i.e. companies such as Halliburton), who would no doubt overcharge and leave many poor people hanging.

The problem with that line of thinking is trusting the ''humanity'' of corporations to do good, when all they are mandated to care about is their bottom line; an additional one would be to take the risk that not all states view prevention funds as an investment rather than an expenditure, and would likely kick it to the curb; or one state would provide better relief than its neighbour and compensation problems would inevitably occur for folks living at one state's border, particularly if they work in the other one.

Another question I asked myself was: now that Christie, a huge Obama critic and obstructor, has seen what The President can do when you work with him rather than against - he is, after all, the President who has tried the hardest to negotiate with his adversaries in a half century - will it incite other Republican superstars to tone down their rhetoric or - gasp! - start working for the American people?

Time will tell, but I'm liking this development.

Binders Full Of Women

I'm sure Ann Romney must facepalm herself at least ten times a day, unless she's just enraged at how dumb her husband is.

At least his recent quip about ''binders full of women'' has created so much rage that many websites came a-birthing, including this photoblog.

Here's a hit (hopefully you get the Big Lebowski reference):

At least he sounds like the real Mitt Romney again... speaking of which...

Debatable

Many people have declared Mitt Romney the clear winner of Wednesday's debate, and many progressives were disappointed at Barack Obama for not having attacked Romney on any topic - be it the ''47%'' debacle, his constant flip-flopping and outright lies, the rampant mischievousness of the Republican camp in general, health care, the economy and economics and general, as well as numbers in general. The New Yorker even released its next cover, referring back to the Republican Convention and Clint Eastwood's speech:

My take is simple: there was a reason why the Obama camp repeated all week that Romney was such a ''master debater'', and it is because they let him win. Obama had no reason whatsoever to answer to everything Romney put forth, and not just because more than half of it was lies.

Obama's lead was more than 5 points, and in some polls, close to the 10-point mark, at 55% versus 45%. A difference of merely 5 more - half the undecided voters left - would make it a 20-point margin (+5 on one side and -5 on the other makes a 10-point difference, simple math).

At 20 points, the risk for Obama's supporters to want to stay home thinking ''he's got this'' and of Romney's supporters going all-out to ''make every vote count'', resulting in an improbable Democrat defeat was too great, and with the PBS crowd (where this debate took place) already being set on voting for the Democrats and, thus, not likely to switch either way with the result, Obama just read his notes, said what he had to say as he would in any press conference, and didn't bother with Romney at all. Had he been a batter in a baseball game, he would have walked three times, not even swinging at strikes, giving him an impressive 1.000 on-base percentage, but a boring 0-for-0 at bat, and a .000 batting average.

When the debates turn to CNN and Fox News, you'll see him as he usually is: strong, decisive, adept, alert, funny, and perhaps even sarcastic.

Proof of that exists not just in every speech Obama's ever given and every debate he's ever participated in, but also in an address he gave yesterday in Denver, the same city that hosted the debate:



Let him be. He knows what he's doing. We are, after all, talking about the best American orator not named Bill Clinton or Samuel L. Jackson.

Killing The Truth

The Republican Convention is over, and many will remember it because of Clint Eastwood's surreal stand-up comedy act featuring an interview with an invisible President Obama in an empty chair. It showed that, should Condi Rice not run in 2016, he could definitely pull a Ronald Reagan and become a two-term, senile, funny, everyday man in charge of the world's biggest economy and army. Would be entertaining, to say the least.

But that moment overshadowed the Republican presidential and vice-residential nominees' speeches - more specifically, the fact that they were full of lies, half-truths, and dangerous innuendos. Many of them were outed by the New York Times in this article, not surprisingly the most of them coming from Paul Ryan, who has made it his mission to see Barack Obama fail and has obstructed everything the President has attempted, even his attempts at compromise and Republican-friendly policies.

Here is but one example:

In his attack on the president’s time in office, Mr. Ryan said: “It began with a perfect AAA credit rating for the United States. It ends with the downgraded America.”

When Standard & Poor’s lowered the nation’s credit rating, it was in large part because of the standoff last year over the debt ceiling — which needed to be raised so the government could borrow money to pay for spending that Congress had already approved. The White House had asked Congress to simply raise the debt ceiling; Mr. Ryan and House Republicans balked at doing so without reaching a deal on significant spending cuts. The ensuing standoff took the nation to the brink of default.

In its statement explaining the downgrade, Standard & Poor’s wrote that “the political brinkmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policy making becoming less stable, less effective and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.”

That one's on the Republicans - not Obama.

For decades, politicians have exacerbated the population's cynicism by lying making deliberately false campaign promises, such as ''vote for me and I'll fix the economy'', or ''vote for me and I'll fix the roads / schools / system / healthcare'', and we accepted those because they were pipe dreams told by snake oil salesmen. We knew they were likely to try a little, but never completely succeed, and it's not like we wanted their jobs anyway.

But in the past 15 years, with negative ads becoming more and more prevalent, it seems the speech / ad writers feel the public has assimilated the ''personal attack'' technique and may be ready for the perpetual lying about the opponent's positions. Except that TV ads, usually paid for by a SuperPAC or a lobbying group of some sort, could historically be called out by the candidate it supported, who would just have to say ''I don't agree with what was said in there and apologize to my opponent'' while the message still got across; nowadays, the politician will spew the bullshit himself, live, in front of an audience (and the media), but for some reason, there isn't an entity who can put them back in their place, and maybe fine them (hit them where it hurts, their money).

I guess that's what you get for always demanding a smaller and smaller government: you get a free-for-all party of bullshit and fuckery, and may the meanest asshole win (and fuck up the country).

Raging For The Machine

By now I guess you've heard: Mitt Romney's choice for VP, Paul Ryan, cites Rage Against The Machine as one of his favourite bands. And the band's guitarist and chief militant, Tom Morello, has a few choice word for him via Rolling Stone:

Paul Ryan's love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades. Charles Manson loved The Beatles but didn't understand them. Governor Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteen but doesn't understand him. And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine. (...)

I wonder what Ryan's favorite Rage song is? Is it the one where we condemn the genocide of Native Americans? The one lambasting American imperialism? Our cover of "Fuck the Police"? Or is it the one where we call on the people to seize the means of production? So many excellent choices to jam out to at Young Republican meetings!

Don't mistake me, I clearly see that Ryan has a whole lotta "rage" in him: A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Basically the only thing he's not raging against is the privileged elite he's groveling in front of for campaign contributions. (...)

Many activists around the world, including organizers of the global occupy movement, were radicalized by Rage Against the Machine and work tirelessly for a more humane and just planet. Perhaps Paul Ryan was moshing when he should have been listening.

He even ends with humour:

My hope is that maybe Paul Ryan is a mole. Maybe Rage did plant some sensible ideas in this extreme fringe right wing nut job. Maybe if elected, he'll pardon Leonard Peltier.  Maybe he'll throw U.S. military support behind the Zapatistas. Maybe he'll fill Guantanamo Bay with the corporate criminals that are funding his campaign – and then torture them with Rage music 24/7. That's one possibility. But I'm not betting on it.

I'm so glad to see he hasn't lost his spunk.

R.I.P. Sally Ride

Sally Ride, the first woman in space, died yesterday of pancreatic cancer.

Mitt Romney had this to say about her, to try to gain capital on her demise:

Today, America lost one of its greatest pioneers. The first American woman in space, Sally Ride inspired millions of Americans with her determination to break the mold of her time. She was a profile in courage, and while she will be missed, her accomplishments will never be forgotten.

The thing is, she ''broke the mold of her time'' in more ways than just jumping a shuttle and flying above the planet: she was also in a same-sex relationship, and her partner of 27 years Tam O'Shaughnessy will not be allowed to receive any federal benefit because, well, they are of the same sex.

I think it's safe to say that when you've co-authored 4 books, lived together and been a couple for 27 years, it's a stable relationship...

At least one blog took offense:

Memo to Mr. Romney: If you don’t support our most fundamental relationships — if, in fact, you dedicate a significant amount of your political career to undermining those relationships, and make political hash out of marginalizing us and playing on people’s fears and hatred of us — you don’t get to speak about us with sentimental gushing after we’re dead.

Second memo to Mr. Romney: Fuck you.

I agree wholeheartedly.

Now, since she decided to keep her sexual orientation on the down-low, can't we all just let her go away in peace?

The Thing With Mitt Romney

Earlier this week, Jon Stewart said smart things about Mitt Romney on The Daily Show. Because Viacom are being jerks, it's difficult to find clips of it online - and the rights to the show differ from country to country, so I'd probably have to find 6 or 7 videos anyway, but have instead affixed it on an image:

I'd like to add this: Romney's running for President of the United States. Chief of the country with the biggest influence on Democracy on earth. As President, one of the things he'd have to decide on is how to spend his people's money - what services to provide, what benefits to give, who to subsidize, what wars to wage.

This money comes from taxes.

Romney (and folks like him) paid 15% in taxes last year, yet is worth roughly about half a billion dollars. His money is and always has been held in tax shelters (previously Switzerland, now the Bahamas and Caiman Islands).

How can he be an authority on - and have authority with - his people's money when he, himself, barely contributes to the pot?

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. As an elected official, he's allowed free health care, paid for by seemingly everybody in the country except himself.

That's what's offensive. Not the ''fact that he's rich'' - everyone deserves a fair shot at life. It's what you do during it that matters, and what he's done is hide his away from the greater good and try to manipulate everyone else's. It's unfait, it's wrong, and above all, it's unfit of a Presidency.

Mitt Romney Hates Cops, Firemen And Teachers

''Did (Barack Obama) not hear the message in Wisconsin?''

The Republicans did, and it seems they heard more than just ''let's kill unions''.

Now Mitt Romney says America doesn't need police officers, firemen and teachers. Sure, civic security and education don't matter if all you want to do is create shitty minimum-wage jobs and have people live 20 at a time in tiny foreclosed houses owned by your baker friends.

Video Of The Week: Bruce Springsteen

Just in time for Mitt Romney's purchasing of the Republican nomination, Bruce Sprinsgteen has released an official video for what I've already deemed the Song Of The Year...

And should you not be convinced these two events are inter-related, remember Romney's ''joke'' about his father closing a factory in Michigan, and compare it to these lyrics from Death To My Hometown:

They destroyed our families’ factories and they took our homes
They left our bodies on the plains
The vultures picked our bones
So listen up, my Sonny boy
Be ready for when they come
For they’ll be returning sure as the rising sun

And then think about Romney's quote about ''letting Detroit go bankrupt''...

I'm glad folks like Springsteen still have fire in their repertoire. And if he can mix it with a great fucking song, all the better...

Freudian Slip Of The Year

Mitt Romney can't spell. Or at the very least, can't concentrate on anything other than money. He even makes his children out to spell the word itself when they should be spelling his name.

This guy's really making it way too easy - it's like he wants to enter the history books as the guy who spent the most money to not get a nomination for the party who's going to lose an election.

How hard is it to sort the fucking kids by height? And we're to believe this guy was successful in business? That he's in touch with ''normal people'' somehow?

He just might be the ultimate proof that Charles Darwin was wrong...

When Republicans Are Quotable

Ha!

What's best is that this was all in last night's debate - and there were even more quotes that could have been taken not-quite-so-out-of-context for even more ads!

Mitt Romney Wants To Hang Obama

Another Republican puts his foot in his mouth...