Friday, August 29, 2014

Barack Obama: The Testosterone President

Washington, DC. Republicans are facing a serious dilemma. For years now they have been hunting for (or desperately trying to manufacture) scandals that will not only tarnish but burn the Obama presidency to the ground. So far nothing has worked.

Part of the problem is President Obama's likeability. Even those who may not agree with his policies generally think he's a good guy. And of course he has had a number of historic accomplishments that make their own obstruction, inaction and pettiness all the more noticeable, sort of like the 300 lb. woman with hot pink spandex pants and flaming red hair in front of you in the check-out line at Walmart.

But desperate times call for desperate measures, and since actually governing is right out the window, Republicans have been forced to use other means to keep their information-challenged base foaming at the mouth while maneuvering the Ship of State into the nearest iceberg they can find.

For a time it seemed that the IRS "scandal" just might do it, but that turned out to be a real yawner. Everyone hates the IRS anyway. Then conservatives far and wide achieved maximum tumescence with the Benghazi tragedy. Unfortunately, the response of Americans who get their news from somewhere other than Fox, was (and is) basically, "It's a fucking war zone. Four people got killed in an embassy whose security you defunded. Fuck you."

But Republicans are nothing if not masters of creative destruction, especially when it comes to destroying the swarthy usurper in the White House.

They trumpeted President Obama's overuse of executive orders. "See," they said, "that boy thinks he's a goddang king!" This gained some traction until it was revealed that Obama had issued fewer executive orders than any other president, 187, and that Dubya had issued 291 and Reagan decreed 381. Damn.

So some genius in the Republican brain trust came up with the idea of beating up the President over his inordinate number of vacation days. "Hyuck," the base said, "all that boy does is play golf while there's a war agoin' on!" Unfortunately, this tack too was destroyed by communist media operatives who dug up facts. Like Obama taking 138 vacation days to George W. Bush's 490. This coupled with the clip of Bush on the golf course addressing reporters on the serious issue of global terrorism in which he said, "I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive" did not help at all. Double damn.

But now Republicans are playing their ace in the hole.

"President Barack Hussein Obama" said Speaker John Boehner, "has had more (hic) sex in the White House than any president ever. And while a (hic) war is going on. It's disgrace-(hic)-ful."

"And what do you think he doing on his vacations?" asked Senator Lindsey Graham. "Having sex. That's what he's doing. Putin is slipping into Ukraine and President Obama is slipping into...well, you get the picture."

"President Reagan never had that much sex. Neither did President Bush," said Senator Mitch McConnell. "He was cutting brush. Besides, by the time he got to bed at night, Laura was pretty much comatose."

"But what about Bill Clinton, Senator McConnell?"

"You've met Hillary. Besides, he wasn't having sex with a Black woman for God's sake."

That we know of Senator. That we know of.

©2014 Kona Lowell

You can hear a reading of this blog every Sundayat 9 AM Central at Brass Knuckle Progressives Radio.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Racial Nerves Still Raw in Jurgenson

Jurgenson, MO. Tensions are still high here in Jurgenson following last week's shooting of yet another unarmed white teenager, but police are allowing demonstrations to continue tonight as long as they remain peaceful and there are no more attempts at singing.

As has been widely reported, the outrage started when Blake Farquhar, age 18, was shot by Officer Rashid Jones as Mr. Farquhar was leaving a local convenience store in the early morning hours last Wednesday. Responding to a disturbance call, Officer Jones saw Mr. Farquhar running "crazily" around the dark parking lot followed by a very excited clerk from the store. When Mr. Farquhar ignored orders to stop and began running towards the officer, Officer Jones fired several shots and Mr. Farquhar was killed instantly.

White residents of the town became enraged when it was discovered that the teen had simply forgotten his change and that the Korean clerk, whose English is a bit uncertain, was only chasing him to return the change for a hundred dollar bill that he had left on the counter.

"This has got to stop!" said Heath McMaster, one of the local protesters. "Our children are being targeted by these Black policemen. My son, Troy, has been stopped twice this month — just for driving his BMW too slowly! Yes, he likes his music loud, but just because the police don't like Metallica is no reason to harass him!"

Many residents believe that the root cause of the problem is lack of representation. Jurgenson, as has been reported, has only three white officers on the police force although the town itself is 86% Caucasian, as well as having a Black mayor and a predominantly Black City Council.

Further inflaming tensions was the release of the toxicology report that showed that Mr. Farquhar had traces of Vicodin, marijuana and LSD in his system.

"My son was so stoned he didn't even realize that Officer Jones was a policeman. He probably thought he was a giant talking eggplant," said Chatsworth Farquhar, father of the deceased. "Black kids get stoned, too, and they don't shoot them down in the street! They give them NBA contracts and record deals!"

However, Black residents of Jurgenson say that far too many of the town's white teens are just asking for it due to their arrogant, erratic behavior, excessive allowances and bizarre clothing, usually consisting of tight-fitting black jeans, black leather jackets, wild hair and eerie makeup.

Conflicting accounts of the shooting are causing controversy as well. Several Black residents have corroborated Officer Jones account, supporting his claim that Mr. Farquhar was acting extremely white and ran threateningly at the officer screaming profanities. But another witness, Odgen Stratford, claims that the teen was only screaming "Eggplant!" over and over.

Officer Jones has expressed his sympathy for the family but maintains that he felt that his life was in imminent danger.

"Mr. Farquhar was acting strangely and screaming. He was wearing all black, had on black lipstick and eyeshadow and looked like he was going to turn into a bat any minute and fly right at me," said Officer Jones. "I've seen enough movies. I thought he was a damn vampire. I just couldn't take that chance."

Calls for a Special Prosecutor who understands how fucked up white people really are has so far gone unheeded.

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All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

©2014 Kona Lowell

You can hear a reading of this blog every Sundayat 9 AM Central at Brass Knuckle Progressives Radio.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Sarah Palin: A Brief History

If you were to ask a young person today "Who is Sarah Palin?" they would most likely answer that she's that crazy, old, snoopy neighbor with the annoying voice on the toilet paper commercial. But we older folks remember her for other reasons.

Sarah Louise Palin (nee Heath) was born in Sandpoint, Idaho on February 11, 1964 to Charles R. "Chuck" Heath, a science teacher and track and field coach, and Sarah "Sally" a school secretary. It was the multifaceted Chuck who gave the young Sarah both her scientific mind and a constant desire to run.

Shortly after her birth, the family moved to Alaska where they finally settled in Wasilla. It was here that Sarah would begin to make a name for herself, playing sports — in which she earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" for her biting wit (and for habitually biting other athletes) — as well as winning beauty pageants and playing incredibly good flute. Her remarkable embouchure is still legendary in Wasilla.

But the lure of exotic, faraway places called and after completing high school in 1982, Sarah packed up her flute and enrolled in the University of Hawaii at Hilo. She immediately transferred to the University of the Pacific in Honolulu, but finding that there were still far too many dark-skinned and oddly Asian-looking students there as well, hopped a plane for the whitest place she could think of, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. It was there that she gave three more colleges a try, finally graduating with a BA in Communications and a special place in her heart for white culture and heavily armed militias.

Returning to Alaska, Sarah worked as a sportscaster, but soon eloped with her old high school sweetheart and rabid flute aficionado, Todd Palin, a commercial fisherman with a great line. A short time later she gave birth to her first child, Track (named in honor of her father's area of coaching expertise), followed not by Field, surprisingly, but by Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig (in honor of one of her math teachers.)

But Sarah was born to run, and soon the political bug bit. She ran for and became a member of the Wasilla City Council. She then ran for mayor, trouncing her foe 651 votes to 440. But she was not done. She ran for lieutenant governor and although she lost, she knew bigger things awaited her. She ran for governor and won. But after a couple years she grew weary of being held accountable for her questionable actions and retired. It seemed she would sink into obscurity. But miracles happen.

It was 2008 and Republican Senator John McCain, who had just won his party's nomination for president, needed a running mate. He had an uninspiring bench of losers to draw from but luckily the brilliant strategist, the unerring Bill Kristol, had the answer: Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. After some hasty discussion, it was settled and the virtually unknown Sarah was announced as McCain's running mate. This would pump up the conservative Religious Right. Women would love it and vote for the ticket in droves. After all, she had a vagina. Men would fall in love with her and her vagina, too, just like Rich Lowry over at National Review. This bold gambit would entirely derail the Obama juggernaut.

Obama won in a landslide.

But Sarah Palin was not done. She became the darling of the Tea Party and vigorously fought Obama's bid for a second term with unbridled nastiness and spite.

Obama won again.

She became a commentator on Fox News, had her own cable show, put out several books with her name on the covers and then started her own subscription internet TV channel. Unfortunately, the great majority of her dwindling supporters couldn't figure out how to log in, so it was cancelled after a few months.

A few years later, in 2019, after her husband Todd was killed on a fishing trip by a rogue halibut, Sarah Palin remarried, becoming Mrs. Glenn Beck (forever dashing Rich Lowry's hopes) and shortly thereafter gave birth to a son, Frack, followed by two daughters, Dingo and Corvette. The couple toured for several years on the home schooling/unaccredited Christian colleges lecture circuit until Mr. Beck's untimely drowning in a dangerous rip tide inside a Miami shopping mall.

Sarah continued to publish children's books, such as Jesus Hates the Color Brown and A Child's Guide to Seal Hunting.

Several years later, she became the spokeswoman for You Betcha Hot Dogs, which led to a brief cameo in a low-budget MILF porn film, titled Big Gulp.

And of course some will remember the late-night cable horror movie show she hosted as the creepily sexual Sarvira, Mistress of the Dim.

Now in her late 70's, Sarah Palin still acts in commercials and lends her voice to conservative political causes, such as there are. She still does a little wolf hunting in Alaska from helicopter (when it's not too hot) and sells her own special line of bumpits. And she continues to vigorously deny John McCain's fabled last words, arguing that what the lifelong baseball fan really said was, "Just give me a bat to whack that funky pitch!"

©2014 Kona Lowell

You can hear a reading of this blog every Sundayat 9 AM Central at Brass Knuckle Progressives Radio.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Our Historic 113th Congress: The Fine Art of Being Useless

Washington, DC. As the most unproductive (or useless, fustian, equivalent in value to a bucket of tepid dog spit) Congress in the history of the solar system begins its five week summer vacation, it might be a good time to assess, as a nation, just where we are.

First, we should give credit where credit is due and edit that opening sentence to read "the most unproductive Republican Congress" because it is entirely the GOP, and specifically their rabid Tea Party members, who have made this 113th Congress one for the record books.

We should also note that according to a recent NBC/WSJ poll a little more than half of our fellow citizens approve of this gridlock, even though it is more than likely giving them severe anal pain, and would prefer that Republicans control both the House and the Senate come November.

That means that every other person you come in contact with is a fucking idiot, which is why I don't go out much.

This is depressing if you function on more than a brain stem. But wait. There's more. Another recent poll shows that a slim majority of Americans believe that Republicans are foreign policy Jedis and aver that the world would be much better off with them at the helm. They believe this even though they disagree with the GOP's policies on Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia and Syria, implying that perhaps they would know how best to handle interplanetary war with Jupiter. Yes, I could have said Uranus for laughs. But do you really want me to talk about Uranus and Republicans in the same sentence?

And yet, all is not lost. Do not despair or abandon hope. Yes, America is like that big, stupid, drunk guy that's fun to watch the game with but you wouldn't invite to your house, but the Republicans are their own worst enemies. Even now, as they are dabbling their fat white toes in the warm Caribbean or cheating on their golf scorecards or cruising leather bars beneath fake mustaches, or whatever they're doing to recover from the debilitating ennui that is is governing, they have an uncanny ability, nay, a nearly magical power, to fuck it all up.

Just wait. When the Tea Party returns from summer camp (where they are learning to tie very scary lanyards and taking target practice on eerily familiar silhouettes), they will launch into more Benghazi hearings, more IRS witch hunts and more impeachment fantasy. This while suing the president for temporarily suspending part of a law they voted against 54 times.

They will also continue with their grand scheme to make the GOP the last bastion of white privilege, unabashed sexism and frenzied xenophobia while doubling up on the anti-science, anti-21st Century tolerance and perpetual warmongering that so endear them to their mouth-breathing, knuckle-walking base, but which the average voter finds just a bit embarrassing, like being caught masturbating in public.

Yet in spite of the Republicans' penchant for incredibly accurate personal foot-shooting, we know that their deranged base is fired up. We know that our base takes mid-term elections off. So there is a problem. And with ridiculously gerrymandered districts, we need a huge turnout or they will hand us our collective butt on a plate. There is one best hope: that the Republicans stay home on November 4th.

This will require presidential action of the boldest kind. President Obama must use the bully pulpit. He must take the lead and address the nation. Our very democracy is at stake. On Monday, November 3rd, he must walk up to that camera, gaze sternly into the face of America and say, "I, President Barack Hussein Obama, command all Republicans to vote tomorrow."

It might just work.

©2014 Kona Lowell

You can hear a reading of this blog every Wednesday at 7 PM Central at Brass Knuckle Progressives Radio.