He ain’t Dick Cheney. He’s my brother.

I never thought that I’d say this but, you guys, I’m worried about Dick Cheney.

And not worried in your run of the mill, Holy Mantights Batman, that VeePee Vermin has Struck Again! sort of way.

I’m talking worried like, Sweet Rollerskating Jeebus it’s Friday Night and my Budget Will Only Allow for Beer or Pizza- Not Both.  You know, seriously worried.

At first, I thought that he had a case of the George “It’s not a lie if you believe it” Constanza-s.  But after seeing the footage on Dr. Maddow’s show last night I’m becoming a bit alarmed.

My brother is unwell.  He presents with symptoms concurrent with schizophrenia.  His illness manifests itself in paranoid delusions, anti-social behavior and disordered thoughts.  He has accused me of working in collusion with Them while being part of a vast gay conspiracy to imprison him.  He once told me that he had to stop using the internet because the computer was talking to him and watching him.

He refuses to seek treatment because he believes he is the only okay one in the world.

Listening to the voracity with which Dick Cheney defends and praises the use of torture is like listening to my brother defend and praise his “camouflaging” and admonish me and the rest of my family for suggesting that he might not need to camouflage if he would seek professional help.
When Dick Cheney talks about giving comfort to the enemy, I imagine one of my conversations with my brother when he accuses me and my sister and my cousins of being snitches who are out to get him.
Thinking about the fact that Dick Cheney spent most of the 8 years of the Bush Administration in an undisclosed bunker that could not be imaged on Google satellites reminds me of the fact that not once in the past 6 years has my brother told his address or kept the same phone number for more than six months.
The unwavering sureness of Dick Cheney’s convictions, despite fact, history and public opinion to the contrary is indicative to me of deep and chronic delusion, paranoid in nature.
I think he’s crazy.  And not just racist and mean-spirited crazy like Pat Buchanan, Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck.
Really crazy.

You know, when he was in charge I was scared for us.  Now, despite my best intentions, I’m scared for him, as I am scared for my brother.

Team America, Fuck Yeah!

Suck it, Brazil.

Earlier this week I was feeling all down about the fact that America lost its bid for the 2016 Olympics but I must say this news this morning of President Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize – after three of our scientists taking the Nobel Prize in Medicine – really eases the pain.

After all, Brazil may have won the Olympics, but they didn’t win any Nobel Prizes.  Maybe we can loan them one of our 318.¹ 

Now I am sure that some outlets on the Right are really working hard today to paint the fact that our sitting President winning a Nobel Peace Prize is a super bad thing.  I’m sure that someone will even have the gall to throw in a little Affirmative Action into the mix to which I say: It sure as hell is an Affirmative Action pick.  Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace prize AFFIRMS that his ACTIONS are in line with the aims of the global community and AFFIRMS that America’s ACTIONS are being well received by that community.  Which is awesome for Team America.

If the certain outlets on the Right want to believe that this is bad then, well, that’s on them.  Some people just like to be miserable.  Maybe the flags that they’ve wrapped themselves in have gotten too tight and have decreased the flow of oxygen to their brains.  Maybe they’ve been smothered by their tea bags.

Course, I would like to remind them, that you can’t be a right proper jingoist, if you’re going to be all Team America, Fuck No about this.

And also, in Team America news… we fucking shot the moon.  And it’s as awesome as it sounds.  I’m going to wait until to post Dr. Rachel Maddow’s take on it tonight.  Which should be totally nerdalicious.  Fuck Yeah!

.

.

¹Which makes me kind of sad for Brazil.  Seriously, maybe we can give them one of ours.  Not Barack’s, but someone’s. 
Brazil is awesome – my friends have the pictures on Facebook to prove it.  The Olympics are going to be a rocking good time because, I firmly believe, Brazil knows how to party.  And sport.

Doggone it.

Some people have no home training.

You know the people I’m talking about.

Kanye

Serena

Joe Wilson

And some people act like they’ve never even been house broken.  Rush Limbaugh is just that kind of person.  He’s the kind that you don’t even want in your house but if he has to come in, you want to make sure you’ve put some newspapers down because you know that he’s just going to run around yapping and pissing all over your nice clean hardwood floors.

That’s why my Grandma always had outside dogs.

Voodoo Child

Another day, another opportunity to make smart ass comments about the things that happen in politics.

7:49PM

Let’s introduce the players while we’re waiting for things to get started:

• Presidential Address Buffet.
  Leftover Chinese food from last night.  Leftover pizza from two night’s ago.  Mini-Heinekens.  Can of coke.
• My fiance the lovely and talented Red Headed Stepchild (RHS).
• Peaco

7:57PM
CNN Pundits are trying to low-ball our expectations and prepare us for the eventuality that Obama will punk-out on the public option.  RHS starts yelling at the TV and then goes into the kitchen to get a mini-Heineken for herself.  (That’s my girl, just drink the pain away, sweetheart.  Drink the pain away.)
I feel like I should say right now, that logically I am prepared for Obama to punk out on public option, but emotionally I am not.  I really don’t want to have to end this post with “Fucking Grow a Pair Obama.”  But… we’ll see.

8:01PM
It’s go time!

RHS:  Peaco is a central presence at any political event.
Peaco: Silence.

8:02PM
Michelle Obama enters.  I think that she has her very own wind-machine for her hair.  That’s the kind of power I want, ya’ll.  Also, I love the color on her, but I am not sure about the pleats.  The Snobs on the Blacksnob group chat totally agreed.

Is it just me, or does Eric Holder look a lot like Oprah’s Stedman Graham?

Obama's man

Oprah's man

8:05PM
Ed Rollins, Republican Strategist,  wants to “argue on the merits.”  I want to be a former lover of Angelina Jolie.  We can’t always get what we want (especially if Republicans are in the vicinity).

8:11PM
Obama enters as I sing the Rocky theme song in my head.  Clapter ensues.

8:14PM
These people sure do love to clap.

8:15PM
No, thank you!

8:16PM
Nancy Pelosi:  I have a gavel!  And some pearls!
Members of Congress:  Eh!  Oh!
Arsenio Hall:  Woot!  Woot!

8:17PM
Obama:  When I spoke here last winter, you all liked me so much better.  Remember liking me?  Let’s go back to that happy place.

8:21PM
Obama: Middle class Americans are being bankrupted by health care costs.  The fact that America can’t provide health care for Americans makes us an embarrassment to the world.  I’ve got the numbers to prove it.

8:23PM
Miami Sound Machine: Get on your feet! Stand up and take some action!
RHS:  The members of Congress or worse than Broadway audiences.  They’ll clap at anything.

8:25PM
Obama:  We know that we must reform the system.  The question is how.
BPD:  The answer is single payer.  At least a public option.
Obama:  I believe it makes more sense to build on what works and fix what doesn’t.
Whitney Houston:  I believe in you and me.

8:27PM
Obama: Let’s focus on how we have been able to come together and get unprecedented work done.

8:28PM
Obama: “The time for games has passed.“

8:29PM
Obama:  All right America.  Let’s get it cracking.

1. If you’re already covered, you’re straight.
   1. This plan will just make your shit all the more tight.
   2. You can’t get dropped for pre-existing conditions.
   3. Limits on out of pocket expenses.
   4. Routine check-ups and preventive care are covered.
2. If your insurance situation is jacked up you’re going to get something you can afford.
   1. An insurance exchange will be created.  (It will take four years to get rolling.)
   2. If you can’t afford it, we’ll provide tax credits.
   3. In the meantime we’re going to provide you with affordable options.
   4. Individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance.
   5. Business will be required to provide health care or chip in to cover the cost of their workers.
   6. Small businesses will get a nice little deal.
   7. Big business will get the wrath of Sasha Obama if they don’t.
3. Improving our health care system only works if everyone does their part.

8:37PM
Obama:

“…given all the misinformation that’s been spread over the past few months, I realize — I realize that many Americans have grown nervous about reform. So tonight, I want to address some of the key controversies that are still out there.

Some of people’s concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but by prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens.

Now, such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie plain and simple.”

Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina, just interrupted the President and called him a liar.  In the words of The Coasters, “yakity yak.  Don’t talk back.”
In the words of my Grandmother, “Child, sit down and be quiet.  Can’t you see grown folks is talking.”

WTF Break

RHS:  Did someone just boo the President of the United States, Commander and Chief of our Armed Forces and Leader of the Free World, and call him a liar?
BPD:  You heard it too?  I thought that I was stroking out.  That is some mess.  This is a joint session of Congress not an Octagon match.
Peaco:  I wonder if that would have happened if the color of his skin doesn’t make him fair game to many people in the room?  This denial of rank and privilege is a common thread of White Americans in response to people of color.  No one was going around hanging images of Dubya in effigy.  I know.  I am a man of color too.

8:45PM
Obama:  I will not back down on the basic principle that, if Americans can’t find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice.  (How you like them apples, BPD?)
BPD:  Sweet, hunny, listen, the POTUS’ balls just dropped!

8:46PM
Obama:  I have no idea how I’m going to pay for this.

8:47PM
RHS & BPD: We’ll pay for it, Jesus!  Just get the shit done!

8:48PM

Obama:  Now, part of the reason I faced a trillion-dollar deficit when I walked in the door of the White House is because too many initiatives over the last decade were not paid for, from the Iraq war to tax breaks for the wealthy.
I will not make that same mistake with health care.

8:49PM
Obama:  Old people, Medicare is safe.

8:55PM
Obama:  My door is always open.  But know this: I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than to improve it.
BPD :  I think that Obama got my letter.

8:56PM
Obama:  We will call you out your lies.  And we will stare right at the Republicans while we do it.

8:57PM
Obama: Ted Kennedy
Biden: Joe Biden is a real man!  Joe Biden cries!
Pelosi:  Thank goodness I wore my waterproof mascara.
Obama:  Now I’m going to put some Republicans on the spot and make them feel bad about punking Ted Kennedy’s memory.
Pelosi:  Joe?
Joe:  Don’t look at me woman, I’m barely keeping it together.  I am two gentlemanly sniffles away from breaking into full out sobs.

9:03PM
It is over.  Barack Obama just lit that shit on fire and gyrated over it.

I stand up next to a mountain, and I chop it down with the edge of my hand.

9:04PM
The crowd loses its mind.

9:07PM  – RETORT
Rep.  Boustany:  Lord Boustany here responding.  My arms sort of flap at my sides when I’m not wearing my crown.  I think that when people get sick, it’s their own fault.  Ta! Ta! peons!

BPD:  Loud Boustany = FAIL.  When you make Bobby Jindal seem like he’s got Ferris Bueller charm you’re not doing anything but helping my team.

~~~

Dudes, Barack fucking killed it.  The speech was well structured and I really applauded when he got forceful.  I was glad to hear him clearly articulate what he wants.  I am very interested to see how the wonks work it all out.  I was really pleased with the way that he directed a great deal of his address to the Republicans.  Equally pleased was the, “I think I just soiled my pants” face that most of them started to make.

He really brought it home at the end with the Ted Kennedy bit.  That was just masterful.  I feel good that he’s still in the fight.

And I know, that it’s not cogent policy, but enough cannot be said for how useful a little hope injection can be.

Yes we (still) can.

Dear President Barack Hussein Obama,

Every morning before I leave for work, and every evening when I return from work I look at the dry-erase board on the back of my apartment door and I re-read your “Yes We Can” speech.  It drives my wife, Johanna, crazy because she has been asking me for nearly 10 months to erase it so that we can free up the board for love notes to each other.
We are obnoxious like that.  I am sure that you and Michelle are kind of like that as well.

Barack and Michelle sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

I’m telling you this so that you can understand its very real, not just sentimental, value in my life.  Every day, when I come home from working longer than I should have at my job at a non-profit in New York City … every single day when I worry about whether the agency is going to have to shut any of our clinics, or reduce our counseling services or if I’m going to still have my job and my healthcare at the end of the week – I look at your speech and I am confident that I am headed in the right direction.

I’m telling you this so that when I tell you that it took me seven tries before I finally succeeded in crafting a post about your win you will understand that much like Michelle, for the first time in my adult life, I finally felt proud.  Finally felt American.
I meant it when I wrote:

I know that there are good policy reasons and feel-good historic reasons for feeling jubilant about President-Elect Barack Obama but when I see him, I see the Daddy that I should have had. The Daddy that a lot of little girls and little boys (and not so little girls and not so little boys) should have had.
When I see Barack Obama with his daughters I see everything that I lost when I was ten. I see how my father should have filled the space in. I see a man who doesn’t believe in giving up, who smiles like a warm embrace and who calls his daughters every chance he gets. I see someone who would not abandon his responsibilities, Michelle, Malia, Sasha and now the United States of America.

I still mean it.
I’d just like to take this opportunity to clarify what I mean by your responsibilities to the our United States of America.
You are responsible for the 50 million uninsured in America.
You are responsible for the 25 million underinsured in America.  (As of 2008)
You are responsible for my fellow citizens who are being bullied and intimidated and dissuaded and told that they are Nazis or Socialists; who are receiving death threats; who are being shouted down and threatened in their towns.  You are responsible for providing them with a clear message about what is going on with our desire for health care reform.
You are responsible for affecting real health care reform.
Real health care reform includes at least a public option.

You are responsible for honoring my vote.  When I voted for Michelle, I voted for a public option.

Let me also clarify what I do not mean by your responsibilities.
You are not responsible for the “legality” of any of the uninsured.
You are not responsible for the people who seek to exploit the fear and hatred of scared and manipulated people.
You are not responsible for spending your hard-won political capital at the counters of the Republican Party.  No matter how long you sit there, they do not intend to serve you.  They intend to do all that they can to humiliate you and harm America.
You are not responsible for sacrificing real health care reform on the altar of bipartisanship.

But in case that wasn’t clear enough, here’s a quote that will clear it all up from someone we both hold in high esteem.

This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.

Sincerely,
BPD

cc:  www.whitehouse.gov

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Wise, indeed.

Tim Wise defends his view that racism is “driving force behind the outpouring of anger” that we’ve been seeing this summer in town halls in this essay entitled, “Racism, Right-Wing Rage and the Politics of White Nostalgia“.

My favourite is this bit:

This second writer sought to explain herself further however, just so as not to be misunderstood. When people like her claim they want to return to “what our forefathers started,” she continued, they simply mean the part about being dependent on God, rather than government.

Of course, last time I checked God wasn’t offering to pick up the tab for chemo treatments, organ transplants, or any other medical procedure for that matter. Oh, and not to put too fine a point on it, but the founders actually did foster quite a lot of government dependence: enshrining slavery was about government protecting white people from the competition of free black labor, and white folks becoming quite dependent on that protection. Stealing native land and then redistributing it to white people was about dependence on government-imposed violence. And later, yet still in the supposedly “good old days,” government dependence was at the heart of segregation–which artificially subsidized white people in the job, school and housing markets–and was at the heart of the FHA and VA loans that white families used (and from which black families were all but completely blocked) in the 40s and 50s, which literally built the white middle class.

But I’m guessing that when she uses a phrase like “dependence on government” she isn’t thinking about the white folks who were given 270 million acres of essentially free land under the Homestead Act. Or the 15 million or so white families who got those racially preferential home loans, with government underwriting and guarantees, thanks to programs implemented by liberals and thanks to pressure from the left. I’m thinking she isn’t talking about the white soldiers (but typically not the black ones) who were able to return from World War II and make use of the GI Bill to go to college, or get job training. And the fact that she likely doesn’t think of those kinds of things and those kinds of people as being dependent on government is, of course, precisely the problem, and the point I was trying to make.

Indeed several of the e-mails made this same argument about opposing “government dependence,” all the while oblivious, it appears, to the way in which that concept has become so color-coded in the white imagination over the past several decades. In fact, this is a point I had made on the program: that according to a significant body of social science research (among the most prominent, Martin Gilens’s brilliant book, Why Americans Hate Welfare), most whites perceive social program spending aimed at helping the have-nots (be they income have-nots, housing have-nots, or health care-have nots) as being about giving something to those people, who are, of course, conceived of in black and brown terms, and taking from “hard-working” white folks in order to do it. So if the notion of government dependence itself has been racialized–and the evidence says it has been–to say that it is only this dependence you oppose, and that racism has nothing to do with it is to either lie or engage in self-deception of a most unfortunate and unbecoming variety.

He really gets into it and I really appreciate that he does.  Please give it a look-see. 

That Tim Wise, he certainly lives up to his name.

No graduation day for you.

Dear Beauty School Dropout Sarah Palin,

I thought long and hard about the best way, if any, to reply to your fear-mongering about health care reform.

It finally occurred to me that I couldn’t use too many words, since it’s painfully obvious that you can’t read.  After all, if you could read, you wouldn’t have gotten so confused about what Congressman Earl Blumenauer meant.  ‘Course, perhaps it’s more than you not being able to read… perhaps you’re just unable to understand.

To aid your stunted comprehension, I’ve decided to include some pictures to help clarify some things.

Death Panel

That's one mighty deadly panel of steel.

Not Death Panel

The bow tie is dead sexy, but not deadly.

Death Panel

You know it's true.

Not death panel

Not it.

Not it.

Socialist country

Flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam ("socialist" is even in the official name)

Not a Socialist Country

One of those 50 stars is for Hawaii. Suck it, birthers.

And lastly, because this seems to be a really hard concept to grasp for many of your ilk.

Hitler

Short, pasty and poorly moustachioed... That spells Hitler!

Not Hitler.

Tall, clean-shaven, cool drink of water. Obama, don't hurt 'em!

In closing…

Sarah, don’t sweat it (Don’t sweat it).
You’re not cut out to hold a job.
Better forget it (Forget it),
No one wants their country run by a slob.

Sincerely,

BPD

P.S.
If the pictures sparked your interest in truth go here to get some more info.

What’s a pirate’s favourite kind of political action? Astrot-arf!

I was born in Panama City and raised in Tampa Bay, Florida (Hillsborough County in the house!) until we moved to Connecticut when I was 11.
I do not have many fond memories that are Tampa-specific; but of the few my favourite is of the Gasparilla Festival.

Every late January or early February Ye Mystic Krewe of the Gasparilla would invade the town and wreak havoc.  There were chocolates shaped like coins in the street and snappers (that used to scare my sister terribly – much to the delight of my brother) and grown men in mascara and tights.  It was a magical time.

+

Real men wear tights.

÷

That's Mister Manscara to you.

=

Pretty, pretty pirate

My father would take us every year and every year between the Krewe’s cannons and pillaging he would say, “I can’t wait until next year.”  Indeed, my brother, sister and I wished that every day was Gasparilla Day.  So I guess that I kind of understand what these residents of Ybor City are going through…

They’re just a riotous mob who simply can’t wait for next February. They want to rape and pillage now and they’ve decided to use decency and (as the cool kids say) small dee democracy as the targets of their doubloon-hoarding zeal.  They are just itching to throw their pocketfuls of incendiaries that Glenn Beck bought them at the feet of the President they don’t like.  And they want their very own Captain Hook to be proud of them.

If they keep this up they’ll end up just like all of the other pirate captains (including Jose Gaspar)… they’ll go down with the ship.  Before they take health-care reform and America down with them, I think that we should mutiny.

Somebody watched his Chappelle Show reruns last night.

When keeping it real goes wrong.

When keeping it real goes right.

So far. So good.

Getting a jump start on the crucial first 100 days of his presidency, Barack Obama accomplishes the following in the first 100 hours (as of noon on Saturday, January 24th).

1. Convinced Aretha Franklin to dig out her church hat and go to town.
   

   Bad-ass hat.

2. Increased his swoonability factor to the one-trakallionth degree.
   
   (The answer, by the way, is “very good looking.”)
3. Took the Oath of Office twice.
4. Revamped www.whitehouse.gov to make it more user-friendly and promote the transparency of the Obama Administration [which, “Obama Administration” totally just sent shivers down my spine].
5. Proved that he has much better luck as President than Wyclef Jean.
   
6. Ordered the closure of Guantanamo.
7. Took a firm stand against torture.
8. Put firm limits on lobbying.
9. Put the freedom back into the Freedom of Information Act.
10. Raised a ruckus over the International Gag Rule.
11. Caused Aaron McGruder to make a big ol’ fool out of his sour grapes self.
12. Made a whole bunch more money for Blackberry.
13. Put the smack-down on Rush Limbaugh’s listeners in the Congress.
14. Delivered his weekly address.  Online.
    
15. Gave my girlfriend, Rachel Maddow, something new (though I must say, a something far less worrisome than before) to worry about.

I guess, essentially, during his first 100 hours the Obama Administration has achieved more awesomeness than the Bush Administration did in eight years.

Sweet!