Remember how Bill Clinton was always referred to as a “draft dodger”?

Or how we all slagged Barack Obama for not saluting a Marine when getting off the helicopter?^[1]

Or how none of us liberals “support” the “troops”?^[2]

Hold that thought, because it’s time to play yet another round of IOKIYAR!

The Current Occupant was inspired recently to personally pin a Purple Heart medal onto Army SFC Alvaro Barrientos, where he congratulated the young man, whose leg had been amputated, telling him it was “tremendous.”  Just tremendous, not yooge?  But I digress.

The Current Occupant’s brain, from my observations, seems to be pretty binary: A/NOT A.  There is no B, and Cthulhu help the rest of the alphabet.  He sees winning and not winning.  The young man won a Purple Heart.  He was to be congratulated for winning.  Simple.

The idea that perhaps the young man would rather have his leg than the ribbon, that there might be more layers to this man’s experience, that perhaps other words might better express the Commander in Chief’s appreciation for a citizen’s service/sacrifice, never entered the Current Occupant’s brain.

So “Congratulations!… Tremendous!” it is.

Now imagine, if you will, if Barack Obama had handed a Purple Heart to a wounded soldier—let’s say, for the fun of it, a white boy from North Carolina—as if he were getting the immunity idol instead of being voted off the island.^[3]  Imagine how Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly or god help us Michelle Malkin would have reacted.  Imagine the huffing and puffing on the Sunday circus shows from Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham or John McCain.

How do you think the rightwing Wurlitzer is reacting to this tone-deaf gaffe?

1. crickets
2. crickets
3. crickets
4. dead crickets
5. all of the above

Take all the time you need.

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^[1] Which, as a civilian, the President is not supposed to do.  Reagan, that Great Pretender, was the first to pull that stunt.

^[2] Limited to bumper stickers, yellow ribbons, and yelling at hippies.  Funding veterans healthcare or GI Bill not included.  Prosthetics sold separately.

^[3] Imagery used deliberately.

We all live in bubbles—it’s more comfy in here, isn’t it?

But some choose to live in some pretty dark bubbles.   On a whim just now, wondering what the conservative side of the world thought about Sean Spicer’s disastrous press conference where he idiotically compared Assad to Hitler (who didn’t even use chemical weapons, you guys), I went to the Fox News website and typed in Sean Spicer Holocaust.

This is what I got:

Zero results.

Here’s what Google gave me:

Not a fair comparison, you say?  Google is an aggregate search?  Fine. Here’s CNN:

No, it’s not because CNN is “liberal.”  CNN is a news outlet, and Sean Spicer’s astounding gaffe was news.

Fox “News” chose deliberately not to tell its audience that this thing happened.  Fox viewers have no idea that the Republican Administration’s press secretary said that

“I think a couple things. You look — we didn’t use chemical weapons in World War II. You had a — someone who is despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.”

and that it went downhill from there.  (For a truly hysterical, laugh-so-that-you-might-not-cry summary of the debacle, see as always Wonkette’s take.)

A study done several years ago showed that people who watched only Fox News were less knowledgeable about current events than those who watched no news at all.  Even taking into account that correlation is not causation — people that blindered would seek a narrow worldview anyway — it’s still a reason why your rightwing relative thinks you’re an insane libtard.  Whenever you shower them with facts, their innate fight-or-flight mechanism kicks in: you’re a snotty, pointy-headed intellectual without any common sense.

It’s a pretty thick, dark bubble to be in.

Last night, my lovely first wife and I finally got around to watching Martha and Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party, and it was pretty much everything everyone said it would be.  But since we were having to stream it via VH1 we had to watch the ads, which is not our wont.

Most of the ads were what you might expect: Axe products, that kind of bro stuff.  But late in the show, there was an ad (which I cannot find online) which floored me.

It was—in style and in content—a campaign ad.  For the Current Republican Administration.

It led with “jobs added in the first month,” which even the most rabid Trumpista cannot think the CRA accomplished (especially given its stunning incompetence in almost every area).  Other stuff, similarly pitched.  I wish I had taken notes, because I can’t remember now.  My jaw was on the floor the entire time.

I thought it was by some organization called makeamericagreatagain.com or something, but here’s a hoot of a thing: if you click on that link, it doesn’t go at all where you think it will go.  makeamericagreat.com just leads to a single page.  greatamericapac.com is a PAC, but doesn’t have the ad on its site.

Anyway, it ended by encouraging us to keep up the pressure so that we could “finish the job.”  It was a campaign ad for people who already won the election.

Is this where we are now?  Is this who we are now?  Our government—We The People—is one big reality show.  With ads, selling us styrofoam opinions and urging us to watch Must See GOP.  The Real White House Staffers.  Survivor: American Cabinet.

I wondered if the ad were part of the White House communications push to subvert American opinion during the run-up to the 100th day mark.  (As always, Wonkette’s take on the story is a delight.)  But since the ad was from a PAC, that would mean the CRA was coordinating with a PAC.  IS THAT EVEN LEGAL, KENNETH?  Actually, I don’t know.  Is it?

Stay classy, America.

(We’re doomed.)

The other day I found myself behind a very large, black pickup truck.  It had all the accoutrements—if one may use the term—one expects from the male of that species, and it was being driven as one might expect it to be driven, i.e., without regard for others.

Plastered across the driver’s side of the back window was this:

::sigh::

This is big bad, no?  We know that the driver has big hairy balls, as indicated by his embrace of the death cult.  He has no reservations about killing.  He will shoot evil-doers.  He will shoot you.

You know what’s coming, right?  You can guess what occupied the center of the rear window, can’t you?

Yep.

I’ve written about this before, 10 years ago, and my point is the same: this is not what the man meant.

When I was a kid, all those mega-movies coming out of Hollywood based on such novels as Ben-Hur or The Robe all portrayed early Christians as practically feeding themselves to the lions.  They were meek.  They offered themselves as sacrifices, as martyrs.  They went to their gruesome (offscreen) deaths with beatific calmness, certain they were going to join Christ in eternal bliss.

It was a good thing, we were told, by both Hollywood and Sunday School, to recognize one’s wormly status and to embrace it.  He was despised and rejected of men; He hid not His face from shame and spitting.  We were to follow His example, were we not? Something something other cheek.

So where does this ultramacho bullshit come from?

We all know the answer: it’s conservative white men for whom everything is about dominance.  Period.  There is nothing in their attitude that is congruent with what they say their religion is; but it is as if they feel they have “perfected” Christ’s message by taking it to some kind of “next level.”^[1] They are more than you in every way: more manlier, more Christianier, certainly more kick-buttier.

I’m not the only one who has noticed.  Here’s a good read from a Christian author.  And of course my favorite liberal evangelical blogger, Slacktivist.

Needless to say, I have no solution.  I know it would take a true Road to Damascus moment for the scales to fall from these men’s eyes, and I’m not in charge of those.  If I had any advice for them, though, it would be, “Mean, prideful, and poisoned is no way to go through life, son.”

For funsies, here are two images I found in a Google search for “Christian truck decals man”:

Oy.

—————

^[1] Spoiler alert: They’re wrong.

So yesterday the Republican Administration signed a quickie little bill that encapsulates that particular party’s stance on the working person. Here, read the article.

tl;dr: The Obama administration put into place a regulation that says if you have a contract with the federal government, you have to document any labor/wage violations you’ve had for the past three years, the presumption being that if you’re a real dick to your workers, the federal government might want to give our tax dollars to someone who isn’t stealing them from their employees’ paychecks or killing them outright.  Emphasis on might; the rule was not ironclad.

However, even that was too much for our captains of industry, and so they got their employees (aka Congress) to fire up the Congressional Review Act and overturn the regulation.  The CRA is a particularly nasty little piece of procedural fuppery that says a Congress can overturn any regulation within 60 working days (which for our Congress could be nearly an entire year) and then prohibit the re-introduction of that regulation or anything resembling it unless the Congress passes a law doing so.

Here’s the deal: companies can skirt the labor/wage laws with near impunity.  They can require you to work overtime without compensation (another recent CRA triumph); make you work in unsafe conditions; limit your hours so that they don’t have to pay you benefits; etc etc etc—and 99 times out of 100 nothing will be done about it.  The workers affected by these kinds of things are usually low-wage workers without agency.  They can’t stand up to the boss because they can’t afford to lose their jobs.

So the previous administration decided that perhaps the carrot of easy federal money could be supplemented with the stick of lawful compliance.  You’d think that wouldn’t be too much to ask.  You know, follow the law, we give you our Ameros.  Seems simple enough.

What gets to me is why this should even be necessary. Your company screws over its workers?  No Ameros for you.  Period.  You’re breaking the law.

But for the Republican Party, those laws are the problem, and any regulation that seeks to enforce them is a Bad Thing.  If they could overturn the laws themselves, they would, and my advice is to keep your eyes peeled and count the silver.

Here’s the link to the article imaged below.

Emphasis mine.

This is Gingrich’s modus operandi: he loads everything he says with nasty, vituperative words so that even if you are only paying attention halfway, you cannot avoid feeling revulsion at whatever the hell he’s ranting about.

He’s done this since the 90s, and he’s done it deliberately. If you wonder where Kellyanne Conway or Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly came from, look no further.

Newt Gingrich is why we are where we are today.

One day, in the gym locker room,^[1] on the flatscreen TV:^[2]

FOX NEWSBOT: We welcome to the program Congressman Frothermouth, from [Red State Redacted].

REPUBLICAN FROTHERMOUTH RIGHTWINGER [RFR]: First step repeal Obamacare repeal it disaster horrific consequences protect American freedom health care costs we’ll have a plan BUT FIRST REPEAL IT BECAUSE ARGLE BARGLE GYAAAAAHHH!

BOT: You say that the Affordable Care Act has been a disaster…

RFR: ARGLE BARGLE GYAAAAAHHHH!

BOT: In what way?

RFR: [all the terrible things that would still have happened even if ACA had never existed]

BOT: Let’s look at some data.  More citizens now have insurance than before ACA.  Health care costs have actually slowed. There are fewer preventable deaths now.  People are now actually getting preventive care.  Are you saying that the plan the Republicans will propose will continue these trends or even better them?

RFR: Obamacare has crashed and burned ARGLE BARGLE GYAAAAAHHH!

BOT: Let me ask you this.  It’s been eight years since the Congress passed the ACA.  Why don’t the Republicans already have a plan to replace it?  After all, you’ve voted over sixty times to repeal it. Surely you’ve been at work all this time?

RFR: REPEAL THE MANDATE SELL ACROSS STATE LINES AMERICANS GYAAHHH!

BOT: I’ll ask again.  Why don’t you have a plan ready to go to replace the ACA?

RFR: We placed plans on Obama’s desk but WOULDN’T SIGN IT ANTICHRIST REPEAL OBAMACARE!

BOT: If you had a plan, and Obama wouldn’t sign it, shouldn’t you be able to pass it now secure in the knowledge that the Republican Administration would sign it into law?  Why don’t you do that?

RFR: First we have to REPEAL THE FAILED OBACAMARE ARGLE BARGLE GYAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

BOT: Is it at all possible that you have no plan, you never had a plan, that you will never have a plan, mainly because the ACA was a Republican plan to begin with?  Is it at all possible that the 60+ votes you took to “repeal” it was just grandstanding to rile up the amygdala-based lifeforms who constitute your base and who have no real understanding of the law but who because of your grandstanding now react with visceral hatred at the very mention of the name “Obamacare”?  And finally, is it not possible that you’ve caught your dick in your zipper and the only thing you can do now is keep yelling the same talking points without any coherent approach to legislating the issue?

RFR: WE HAVE TO REPEAL THE HEINOUS^[3] OBAMACARE HILLARY’S EMAILS BENGHAZI RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISTS BOWLING GREEN MASSACRE!

And scene.

—————

^[1] It’s the locker room where I look like this:

^[2] Based on an actual Republican congressman’s interview, for real.

^[3] No, it is unlikely the RFR would know or use a word like heinous, but this is a fantasy, remember?