The Gaspin' Flag for commemorating the 2012 Total Collapse of Teaparty (#TCOT)

Just call me Betsy Ross for my alterations to the infamous yellow snake teabag flag...

The official "Gaspin' Flag", which will soon be flying over Total Collapse of
Teaparty (#TCOT) memorial service barbecues throughout the red states.

Please feel free to use and share this variation on the old Gadsden flag that the teabaggers appropriated during their headlong rush to irrelevance.

Tomorrow is Today

“Tomorrow, we begin a new tomorrow. Tomorrow, we begin a better tomorrow. This nation is going to begin to change for the better tomorrow. … We can begin a better tomorrow tomorrow, and with the help of the people in Florida, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”
-- Mitt Romney, yesterday in Sanford, Florida (not in coordination with Stephen Colbert or Colbert's "Americans for a Better Tomorrow Tomorrow" Super PAC)

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
--William Shakespeare, The Scottish Play

Vote today as if it does signify something.

Another Must-See Hurricane Sandy Video

Here's another essential video from Hurricane Sandy. I'm sure that we'd be doing much better if we had Mitt Romney's privatized Federal Emergency Management Agency working on a profit motive starting the clean-up later this week, wouldn't we?


This performance from a (pre-Etch-a-Sketch) man who would be President took place at one of the early Clown Circus performances in New Hampshire on June 13, 2011. This asshole has been on our television sets for much too long. The American voters cannot be stupid enough to keep him in the public eye for four more years, can they?

"... this boardwalk life for me is through ..."

Could the namers of hurricanes have picked a more appropriate name for a hurricane aimed directly at the boardwalks of New Jersey?

The One Hurricane Video You Must See...

I'm sitting at home with my office and mass transit closed in advance of Hurricane Sandy's arrival in the New York area later today. I haven't had any trees come down on my power or cable lines yet, so I have the opportunity to watch a lot of daytime television, with non-stop storm updates on WABC, WNBC, and WCBS. There are the predictable number of weatherpeople in suits predicting storm tracks in front of satellite maps and field reporters in raincoats standing on boardwalks in Long Beach, NY and Long Branch, NJ, but the number of mentions of the possible role of climate change in relation to these storms I've heard is the same as the number of mentions of climate change I heard during the Presidential debates: Zero.
Both sides need to be criticized for sacrificing the environment on the altar of low gas prices, but no one (especially those soon to be affected by record storm surges) should forget how one of the candidates milked sea level rise for laughs during his convention speech:

Worse than the words are the way that Mitt Romney waits for the laughs and jeers from his audience of well-heeled white "Job Creators" (one of whom may be the next crony looking for a cushy job running FEMA, or dismantling the EPA, in a Romney administration).

The Marketing Slogan of the Day

"When in Doubt Drink" was seen on the blackboard in front of Louise and Jerry's Tavern on Washington Street in Hoboken, 25 October 2012.

It's not just a joke.
Imagine how much more peaceful the world would be if the Middle East had more doubt. And more drinking.

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Update 11/16:  I took and posted this picture only four days before Hurricane Sandy, simply because the blackboard message struck me as funny.  None of us had any sense that New York harbor would see the storm surge it did and that no basement businesses or apartments in Hoboken would be dry when the Hudson River came to town and stayed for a few days..

#MittsMissingReturns (Part Fifteen) -- The Donald's "Major Announcement"

Donald Trump's "major announcement" has been the subject of twittering speculation this week, and now he's announced his major announcement on YouTube and Facebook. If you can't stand his voice, the gist of the following video is basically this: If President Obama releases all of his college applications and records and passport applications and records by October 31, America's self-anointed Birtherist-in-Chief Donald J. Trump will donate $5 million dollars to a charity of the President's choice.




Of course this is as meaningless -- and as racist -- as the campaign for the "long-form birth certificate."

How much is Donald Trump offering to Willard "Mitt" Romney to release as many years of tax returns as Barack Obama has released? What if The Donald offers Willard one million for one year? He won't. And we won't even see 2009, let alone any tax returns from any of Mitt's years in the private sector. The press is playing dead and it's obvious that the richest man to ever run for the Presidency is going to give us the least financial information, even though his financial expertise is supposedly his main qualification for the office (Slogan: "Elect Me for My Business Experience, but My Business Experience Is None of Your Business."). Maybe Mitt's plan involves cheating America back to prosperity.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Review this past list of installments in the #MittsMissingReturns saga by clicking on any of these links:

• #MittsMissingReturns [part one], July 3 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Two), July 6 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Three),  July 10
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Four) -- In a Nutshell, July 14 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Five) -- In Which Mitt Romney Gives a Typically Squirrelly Response, July 16
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Six) -- Herman Cain Weighs In, July 25
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Seven) -- Romney Finds One Issue on Which He's 100% Consistent, July 26
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Eight) -- Another Lesson in Mitt's Lying Laugh, July 31
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Nine) -- Mitt Romney vs. Harry Reid, August 4
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Ten) -- In which Paul Ryan makes Mitt Romney throw up in his mouth a little, August 13
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Eleven) -- Fox & CNN are ready to move on already, August 15
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Twelve) -- In which the privileged candidate tells the small-minded press which questions they are allowed to ask, August 16 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Thirteen) -- Romney may not know how to treat a dog, but he knows how to blow a dog whistle, August 24
• #MittsMissingReturn (Part Fourteen) -- False Equivalency from The Wall Street Journal, August 30

And keep up your small-minded tweeting with #MittsMissingReturns on Twitter.

With the Debates Over, The Task Is Clear

http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-vote-obama-90/

Mitt Romney's Escalating War on Avian Americans

Debate #1, Denver Colorado, October 3:

"I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you [Jim Lehrer] too. But I’m not going to -- I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it. That’s number one."

Debate #2, Hempstead New York, October 16:

"The administration brought a criminal action against the people drilling up there for oil, this massive new resource we have. And what was the cost? Twenty or 25 birds were killed, and they brought out a migratory bird act to go after them on a criminal basis." 

Which bird(s) will Mitt Romney attack in Debate #3 next Monday?

It makes you wish that famous flock of crows in The Birds would make an appearance.

If You Were a Republican ...

... you might say to yourself about the following bald eagle photographed along the Potomac River last spring:

"If we were free of the repressive Endangered Species Act and the EPA Gestapo, I could use an American Assault Weapon rather than a Japanese Camera to capture that beauty forever, stuffed and mounted on my office wall to show how fucking patriotic I am!!"

Bald Eagle in Arlington, Virginia
March 30, 2012