It Has Come to This

If you want to know how craven the Republican party has become. If you want to know how hypocritical the Republican party has become. If you want to know the extent to which a single shameless individual can make a mockery of our entire form of government, then you need look no further than Alabama Senator Richard Shelby. A prominent member of a minority party that has twisted Senate rules to impose an near-blanket, un-democratic supermajority voting requirement on Senate legislation, Senator Shelby has now pushed the un-democratic envelope further by taking the unprecedented step of blocking every single one of President Barack Obama’s presidential appointees until his personal needs and demands are met. And what noble principle or governing philosophy motivates the good Senator, prey tell? Well, nothing other than Pork, ladies and gentlemen:

According to the report, Shelby is holding Obama’s nominees hostage until a pair of lucrative programs that would send billions in taxpayer dollars to his home state get back on track. The two programs Shelby wants to move forward or else:

– A $40 billion contract to build air-to-air refueling tankers. From CongressDaily: “Northrop/EADS team would build the planes in Mobile, Ala., but has threatened to pull out of the competition unless the Air Force makes changes to a draft request for proposals.” Federal Times offers more details on the tanker deal, and also confirms its connection to the hold.

– An improvised explosive device testing lab for the FBI. From CongressDaily: “[Shelby] is frustrated that the Obama administration won’t build” the center, which Shelby earmarked $45 million for in 2008. The center is due to be based “at the Army’s Redstone Arsenal.”

So there you have it: while t he Teabaggers lecture us about the evils mounting deficits, while the GOP climbs atop its podium and lectures us all on the perils out of control spending, one of their very own has set in motion a maneuver that will create a disastrous precedent: that any single member of the Senate can bring the wheels of government to a grinding halt until the Federal government, and by extension the taxpayers of every other state in the union, shower his constituents with piles of cold, hard cash. Will the Teabaggers now turn on Senator Shelby and denounce him for the peril in which he places our nation’s future? Or will they simply brush his tactics aside as trivial and hardly worth mentioning. The world awaits with bated breath.

46 Comments

Did you see Boehner telling the banksters that the GOP will not only suck, it’ll swallow heartily if Wall Street funds the party’s campaigns?

I really think that as progressives, or, in my case, fucking socialists we should infiltrate the Teabag movement and provide them with information like the above. They are our best hope in 2010.

@FlyingChainSaw:

To which they all rolled their eyes and muttered “Yeah, what else is new…”

3 year olds throw less spectacular temper tantrums than the GOPers have in the past year.

@ManchuCandidate: Three year olds are far more mature, intelligent, and ethical.

@FlyingChainSaw: Yeah yeah, and the Democrats will softly cup and jiggle the balls while the GOP is sucking.

@FlyingChainSaw:
this endless siding with wallstreet, banks, credit card companies and corporations in general is nothing but a gift from god to the stupid fucking democrats if they were smart enough to take it.

@FlyingChainSaw:
I mean even the fucking teabaggers are against this supreme court decision to allow corporations to buy elections.

I’m only surprised this doesn’t happen more often – especially to Democratic presidents.

You just know that LBJ wouldn’t put up with this shit. That’s what needs to happen up in this bitch. Barry needs to get all LBJ on his ass.

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ:

that is exactly right.
Obama should start a press conference by saying exactly what is in this post.
why doesnt he do that?
I would. maybe that is why I am not president.

Now Dick Shelby has got the vapors
And he’s been known to throw a snit or two
Lord he loves pork so much
He’ll hold things up when he’s feeling blue
Now how about you?

Sweet home Alabama
Where the pork is so “blue”
(’bama gets $1.61 back from the Feds for every dollar they pay in Fed Taxes)
Sweet Home Alabama
Lord, Dick’s bring’n it home to you

please suggest witty rejoinders for when the next person asks me
“who am I rooting for in the ‘big game'”
or
“are you watching the game alone or with friends” or some such nonsense.

@Capt Howdy:

How about, “what? It isn’t on until June” – then when they get confused, either reference the NHL playoffs, or (for maximum head-asploding potential) the World Cup.

I will be playing my awesome new videogame “Darksiders”, and then maybe some porn with the Mr., thank you very much.

@al2o3cr:
I think I am gonna just start saying I am rooting for the loser. cause thats how I roll.

@Capt Howdy:

No, the halftime show.

Shout, “I fucking love it! They come charging out high-stepping all over the place and playing fascistic marches with half-naked chicks undulating in time to this hyper-militarized tattoo. Oh, fucking, yeah! FUCKING HALFTIME! It’s the best part of the show!”

Then start high-stepping in place and stopping occasionally to grab the back of your head and fling your hips back and forth while scat-singing a rudimental snare-drum solo, synchronizing them with the accents of the music.

@FlyingChainSaw:

I LIKE it.

I just got this from someone.
even if you don’t like sports, it’s the socialization of the super bowl experience that makes it so great !I’ll eat some duck balls for you since you can’t be here…they are our specialty every super bowl. in fact we will make them tonight with several friends.

I had to explain to her that watching it would actually be a lonely experience for me since I also do not know anyone who will be watching it.

actually thats not true. I said this:

the duck balls sound interesting. thought I didnt even know ducks had those. but honestly you may be the only friend I have who watches the superbowl.

crickets – – – –

@Capt Howdy:

Tell them it is awesome and that I want a job Project Managing their packaging.

ADD: Also, we have a bet going in our office that the tagline on the back of the wrap is a gold foil stamp. Is it? What was the per unit on that wrap, anyway? It had to have been redonkulous.

@Tommmcatt Say Relax:
I honestly dont know. we have not gotten our free copies yet and none of my office buds know.
it could be. but for, what, 60 or 70 bucks you are paying for good packaging.
dont say I said that.
also I should be clear. my building did not do that game but the parent company THQ

@Tommmcatt Say Relax:
but
if you are into games you would be thrilled to know what is coming.
the game we are working on, its the next Red Faction and I dont think I can tell you the title yet without killing you, is so far ahead of the last installment its amazing. the technology is changing so fast its unbelievable.
for example, we now have LIGHTS. hundreds of them in a scene. this is new development.
I am lighting now and my title is lighter. a title that did not exist 6 or 8 months ago because there was one light.
of course what I meant is this is not just true for the Red Faction franchise but for all games.
yesterday I saw my the first listing for a job as a “lighter” at a game company.

@Capt Howdy:

“Real men watch rugby, not this padded bra bullshit.”

“The referees to call it your team’s way so I don’t have to listen to your whining on Monday.”

“Pssh. I haven’t watched that since they got rid of ‘Up with People’ for the halftime show.”

“Who cares? It’s puppies. Everybody wins.”

“Fuck you.”

@Capt Howdy:

No, the packaging is cool, but expensive. It has a lens flare foil stock which is registered to the weapon in the lead characters hand, which is totes expensive, and then there is at least a fifth color, and what looks like a foil stamp just for the tagline on the back cover.

I brought it into work and the expense of it is blowing our minds. The idea that you would foil stamp a tagline is almost unbelievable.

@Capt Howdy:
I never played Red Faction, but now you have created a sale for the next one.

Do you play? I have been playing Dragon’s Age Origins for the past month, and loving it. LOVING IT.

@Tommmcatt Say Relax:
not that much. and I try not to admit that to the wrong people.
I like games but I sit in front of a fucking game 8 to 12 hours a day.

the new red faction is going to be awsum. it looks amazing. the last one, Red Faction Guerrilla is pretty cool. it has real destruction. the first game with real destruction. games have said that before the we were the first to do entirely destructible environments. you should try the downloadable thing. some other aspects of the game suffered a bit because the destruction was so expensive. so we are pulling back a bit on the open world and destruction for the next one so we can do other things.

ps
RFG was my first game credit. I did effects.

Oh God, is there more Sport?

@Capt Howdy: Was that video you posted with the Holst one of your games? It was lovely. I’ve never played a video game. Though my initials are etched into the case of a pinball machine in the lobby of the downtown multiplex in Phoenix. Do you play on a special thingy? Should I get one? You mean ‘lighter’ like lights in a movie sense? *cough*Peggy Eisenhower*cough*? If so, you should hold out for ‘designer’ credit. So when they come up with the first Gameys you got your credits in line, yo.

@Tommmcatt Say Relax: This Dragon’s Age. Are there wizards and um spanking? Just idle curiosity. Nothing else. Dum di dum…

@Capt Howdy: … the destruction was so expensive. By me that is the quote of the week.

@Benedick:

Yes. And yes, it’s the one where you can have gay buttsecks with an elf. Which I did within the first hour of gameplay.

@Tommmcatt Say Relax: it’s the one where you can have gay buttsecks with an elf. Haven’t we tried God’s patience enough?

@Benedick:
yes
lighting in the film and stage sense. exactly.
also
feeding time for the dragonfish
thought you would enjoy this.

oh and as for getting a game thingie, you should.
XBOX now does lots of things, like netflix.
and the new PS3 is also a Blue Ray player.
and there may be games coming you want to play.
I can see you playing Assassins Creed.
(that my current favorite)

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: Puppy Bowl! And according to flippin’ our favorite bunny-owner, this year’s Puppy Bowl (with Kitty Half-Time Show) is going to feature … pause, to catch your breath…. RABBIT-BUNNY CHEERLEADERS!!!

OMFG! As much as I am rooting for the Saints, I will be begging my Super Bowl hostess to have at least one TeeVee tuned to Animal Planet so I can watch the puppehs, kittehs, and bunnehs! Much better than catching Tim “My Momma Didn’t Flush Me Down the Toilet” Tebow’s FOTF anti-choice ad.

@Benedick: … the destruction was so expensive. Perfectly sums up the Bush years.

@SanFranLefty:

Did you read up on that? His momma didn’t flush him down the toilet because in the Phillipines, she didn’t have any choice. Abortion has been illegal there forever.

@Tommmcatt Say Relax: Oh, you, with your wackiness of pointing out all the logical inconsistencies in the story of the next star of the C.F.L.

(no disrespect intended towards our favorite resident of Canada City, Mr. Manchu)

@Capt Howdy:
even if you don’t like sports, it’s the socialization of the super bowl experience that makes it so great

Bullshit. Those people just annoy the fuck out of those of us who are watching the game. They should be relegated to the kitchen or the patio area where we who understand what is going on do not have to explain everything or shush their inane conversations about what so-and-so did to her hair right before the school recital.

Business as usual. And I mean business.

As long as corporations are treated as persons this shit is inevitable.

Please, anyone, give me a convincing argument that corporations don’t already own our asses government, I will give you a prize, some prize, you name it, as long as it doesn’t involve money.

Investment in sport-team, nationalism, religion, etc. leaves me cold. I will use the Superbowel as an excuse to shop at places I would normally avoid because of the crowds.

Call me a manic-depressive socially awkward misanthropist — you’d just be right.

@Pedonator: My local bookstore is having a 20% off sale Sunday afternoon. I was all fired up until I got their chirpy e-mail that there would be an accordianist providing entertainment. Why would you ruin a good thing like that??

@Mistress Cynica: Nojo and I are just 30 minutes or so south of the fabulous Lawrence Welk Resort.

@Pedonator: We are? Shit, maybe that will give my parents an excuse to come down here, instead of me heading to Eugene for an overdue visit.

@Mistress Cynica:

Hey… could be worse… could be a Sarah Palin book signing.

My wife hates the Stupid Bowl so I may head down to a local bar where they have Turbo Dog beer, a New Orleans brew. I should add that her Super Bowl is the Academy Awards, my favorite part of which is the red carpet arrivals.

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