On With the Mishigas!

 

 

For those keeping score

 

 

Forget New Hampshire (better flush twice)

 

 

Vindication for the outsiders. (haiku)

 

outsiders' Tuesday

who says they're vindicated?

South Carolina?

Man, You've Changed

Since the John Birch Society adopted its mission statement, "we will lose nothing, ever," in the early sixties, there has been their acceptance of defeat (for politically correct reasons despite the irony today) along with a renewed determination to get past that hiccup part of pushing their agenda when given another chance.

Yes, they built whatever it is that they have and behind closed doors. I'm sure they're mighty proud of it. I'm just a pajama-wearing, guitar-player pundit (like the one two doors down from everyone in the United States), but the rules of losing an argument with the American people, to these guys, commands them to re-package, re-purpose, re-use.

Their best kept "tell" is when things are going precisely as they intended. They take actual breaths and use punctuation. (It's the pajamas which render up a pundit's clairvoyance.) Meaning: when the gear noises suddenly cease, you are in really dangerous territory.

When the co-opting and the Machiavellism was going down in real time, you thought something was hinky, but the fourth estate had that covered, right?

Riddle Me This, Mt. Rushmore

Talk About a Hangover

Eight million dollars and FreedomWorks

Less government, lower taxes, economic freedom. The Tea Party 'miracle' was that it played a cynical okey-doke on redneck America, one more time. What, the Reagan revolution wasn't enough?

When you hear Trump supporters or operatives rail against the Republican establishment, they mean the cynical Machiavellists who set the country on a path to letting them get away with paying even less for the general well being of the commonweal. Eight million dollars and Freedom Works.

Their spawn, those posturing purists who in many cases successfully 'primaried' an incumbent who had held office for years with no complaints, set about the business of business first. That and a whole lot of agita over 'moral' issues dredged up from the first half of the last century.

In the realm of getting things done, which once was considered the meat and potatoes of government, they play the obstructionist card outright when they're not slapping on incongruous riders to necessary bills.

Ever Feel Like James Madison Has Hijacked Your Twitter?

Reaping

and the sowing so and so's who sowed

Back around the triumph of David Brat, you could tell that an ill wind was being taken for normal. A sort of climate change.

Winning at any cost, laying out the necessary alternative reality to make proposals seem contextual rather than the shrewdly anarchic, synchronized talking points straight out of central command anyone with Frank Luntz's weight in lunchmeat for brains ought to be able to recognize, and delivering them with what passes for joy in this not as yet fully developed form of entertainment: that's the ticket. Learn how to punch that ticket and you'll go far with the plutocrats.

MSNBC and CNN: my how you've changed. Al Jazeera America: you're getting out of the market entirely. Local newscasts which are grateful for 'packages' delivered by national sources reinforce whatever is in the wind, for that is 'newsworthiness' on a budget. Trickle down idiocy.

Bonana-fana-fo-Fataki

Fee fy mo Mataki

Starbucks Nailed Simplicity

While Fox & Co. paraded their disdain for the Starbucks cup, too reductionist for their sensibilities, the business media, honest to god, talked about it in business terms. It's like having your panties in a bunch and going commando at the same time. No mere mortal could possess that much compartmentilization.

There was too much class in the design to suit those who lead with their agenda. The Trotskyites probably railed at the Bolsheviks about the symbolism of re-used, chipped china. A green logo on a Christmasy red cup. Must all your cleverness come with a bludgeon?

Anyway, here in New Mexico we make the perfect use of red and green.

"Eat It"

Tonight, the 25th, we're having a casserole style enchilada with NM red sauce at one end and green at the other. Black beans and leftover latkes.

"Domini, domini, domini..." as The Firesign Theatre once put it.

Good Americans

"Obama bin Lyin'" Herp Derp

Lately, political correctness (PC) has been receiving the same kinds of denunciation as secularism once did. I don't have a problem with either which makes me suspicious of all that agitation.

It also generates enough blow from the reactionary right for the rest of us to question if yet another term has been coopted out of the lexicon (it would help if) everybody uses. PC is as healthy a blend of The Golden Rule, free speech, good manners and statesmanship (where applicable) as one might expect from a country with a Constitution such as ours. I get that it may seem tedious to those who poke and prod for a living.

It's intended to short circuit the manner of getting one's points across, when hateful, disrespectful, ignorant or worse, but not attempting thought control. Perhaps that should have been placed into past tense. As many in the press are well aware, it's being branded as a cudgel to prevent that greater depth of understanding about the events of the day and the participants. Also the locations, times and reasons for it all. (Recalling a free press can make a person feel as old as a party-line windup telephone in quantums of quaintness™. "Hello, Gertie?")

No-Credit-Check Politics

If only we had that 20/20 hindsight beforehand

The science behind advertising and campaigning is taught in our universities. Even in poorer ones. People can and do earn a living off the fruits of its research.

Some favor the dark side. There is no shortage of predation where the trusting meet the unscrupulous.

You see those ads on the independent channels in los boonies for a dealership with national name recognition and a goofy avatar which wants to put you in a 2002 Tercel without running your non-existent credit past a non-existent, ergo: cost-effective credit checking service.

Its business model assumes the repossession of your Tercel and its hasty return to the inventory, rinse, repeat.

Or, should you faithfully make every last payment, you will have paid someone unmercifully to obtain a 2002 Tercel.

For one of the parties, that's a win/win. For you, it's a lesson in the costs of not saving.