Mental-Dwarf-Tossing
By Primo Encarnación
Growing up attending Catholic school, we were exposed early on to school prayer, scripture, theology, ethics, morals… you know, all the stuff that makes being a sentient being a lot harder. So of course, along the way, we learned the Golden Rule as expressed by our Lord in Matthew 7:12: “Do unto others…” Yadda. Yadda.
Then we would go to Pete’s, the corner tavern, and learn about real life – how it works, why it works, when it works, in the City that Works – from a barroom Bhagwan who hardly ever works: Uncle Jimmy “Barstool” Grobnik. From the top of his mountain, the end stool nearest the jukebox, Uncle Jimmy would dispense pearls of wisdom to us, along with the occasional quarter for the shuffle bowling machine. (We were nuts for that thing!)
Barstool’s take on the Golden Rule? “Dem dat gots da gold, makes da rules.” It’s a life lesson that has rung true. It’s also a life lesson that the Tea Party is about to learn.
The hard way.
They’ve been the unwitting, unwashed cannon fodder for their corporate overlords ever since they were astro-turfed into existence, voting as instructed to elect a cadre of Congresscritters only sometimes, and then only slightly, less idiotic than themselves, to further the interests of their masters. Global warming? Tax policy? Health care? All these mean less than nothing to the TeaBirchers, so long as they get to keep their guns and maybe shoot somebody, just as guns mean nothing to the oligarchs, so long as no one uses them to take away the TRILLIONS in cash they’ve been stockpiling offshore.
The only Superfly in the ointment of the super rich has been this Democratic President. So they will stop at nothing to avoid a repeat of 2012, where every billionaire had his pet candidate. Instead, they are scheming to throw the full weight of their oligopoly behind a single 2016 “establishment” candidate, mental-dwarf-tossing the Ted Cruzes, the Rick Perrys and the Michele Bachmanns of the world under the short bus they got off of, using the anti-democracy tactics they’ve been perfecting for the last 10 years. Turn out the lights, the Tea Party will be over.
Except for “dem dat gots da gold.”
No surprises there, Primo. Useful tools are only good as long as they are useful. However, it won’t be smooth sailing for Charles, David, Shelly and their oligarch pals. Shake the clown car of the crazy tools and what is left are The Jersey Thug, John Ellis Bush and Willard Romney. Or, possible “dark horses” John Kasich and Brian Sandoval running as stealth candidates. As if maybe we don’t know them we’ll like them. Good luck with that strategy in the age of social media.
Best to leave the pig metaphors to Joni Ernst this election cycle. So, introduce the fine cigar. However fine the leaf chosen for the wrapper, it isn’t a cigar without the tobacco.
So that leaves Charles, David, Shelly and the boys using billions of cash for the wrapper, yet they still do not have an electable candidate.
Republican primary 2016: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vJ8ta7jYL.jpg
1Yes! I will pay $5 to see a video of plutocrats gathered together in a conference room to pick out a mutually agreeable Republican presidential candidate.
These are people accustomed to getting what they want, not most of the time, but every time. Heads roll when they don’t. I’ll pay another $5 if they can agree on three pizza toppings when someone suggests they order a snack. Meeting adjourned.
2PKM, if they don’t have an electable candidate, they’ll create one. Who knew that Dubya was “electable” before the big money got to work on him?
3Rhea, Dubya, in his own words: “There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” And, he was only “elected” by a breach of ballots in FL abetted by 5 robed criminals. Second time, a little Diebold snafu or two. Witness Karl Rove’s meltdown, when the fix he thought was in failed for $Rmoney. Social media and Anonymous only get better, so I doubt the Koch fix of cash can rehab a republican candidate.
Then, there’s fun with republicans, all 3 splits of the party. As Primo pointed out, the Tea Baggers are about to be rolled under the bus. That is more than a little problem for the GOP with their shrinking old white base, if they lose the votes of the clown car crowd. Then, the “staunch” Republicans are split between the war hawk crowd and the money crowd. Not all of the money crowd is gung-ho greed; they get it if that as parasites they kill the host, it could get bloody for them. (there is a division between the .01% and the 1%) Many of the 1% are younger, more liberal leaning and could easily move to a Democratic candidate.
As for the Oil/MIC crowd, Bush/Cheney scared them. There’s playing cowboy, then there is plain st00pid.
While it would frost Charles, Davey and the boys, in many respects Sen/Sec Clinton is a more attractive candidate to once ‘moderate’ establishment Republicans. The Chamber of Commerce is a practical crowd; they’ll recover from the D after her name, before voting for a Kochsucker.
Christie doesn’t play outside NJ, and maybe a few parts of Chicago. JEB is a sure loser amongst the haters of the GOP, and the establishment hasn’t forgotten his failure brother. Willard? Seriously, does anyone think all the Koch money and then some can send plastic man to finishing school?
Would be fun, if the Koch’s pick the Mitt. Imagine the fun they will have telling Queen Anne not only will she stay home, but she is required to shut her mouth.
4Is Jimmy related to Slats Grobnik?
5Don A- we’ll call it homage but Primo should have at least tipped a hat to Royko for lifting his Studs Terkel doppelgänger.
6Primo- FDR was the last Democratic president who’s support for the common man was real and who’s actions proved it. Presidents are aspiring plutocrats. The criminals on Wall Street prosper while immigrant workers are deported in record numbers. The directives to turn a blind eye to one and to execute th other with extreme prejudice came from the same White House.
Anything on the common man front since The Lily Ledbetter Act? The ACA should be named the Insurance Industry Windfall Profits Act, as in, now everybody gotta buy our gambling for profit product.
I’m watching and will vote for ANYONE that would piss off the rePUKEians, I’d vote for a nazis candidate before any rePUKEian one. I’ll most likely vote for Hillary, as that would really make them steam!!! Two terms with a black man and now a WOMAN!!!!! They will scream in frustration, that alone makes it good.
7PKM, I know Dubya wasn’t elected by the voters, except for those five guys in black robes who got to vote twice.
But I’ve been waiting for the GOP to fragment– I was hoping the Bible-belters would someday take a look at the 1% and wonder why they were voting for the plutocrats’ lackeys, but I grossly overestimated “Christians'” familiarity with their own supposedly sacred book. I’d love to see them break up, but I’m not holding my breath.
8So the Koch Brothers are going after a robot as the Republican candidate on the national ticket. Thats as far as I can devine the situation. I honestly don’t think they are going to be smitten with anyone in the GOP that has come down the pike in recent years, especially if the other party’s candidate is HRC. A robot would not go off message or say or do anything so stupid that it would immediately go viral around the globe or make the first page above the fold in the morning paper.
9I belive that Dubya’s second term was due not only to digital stuff, Rove’s expert died in plane crash before testifying, but also Kerry practically threw the election to a frat brother.
10Rhea, as always, you raise interesting points. You are so correct that we can neither educate nor wait on the buybull crowd or the lottery ticket wannabe 1 per-centers to restore sanity in state houses in each state and in the US Congress.
GOP isn’t just all about the religious wrong, but money. Even the reactionary Chamber of Commerce is backpedaling off the GOP. I’m ok with that, I’ll forgo a schadenfreude moment of gloat simply to see the GOP implode; no fireworks needed.
But as Primo Chips was saying, the GOP clown cart is about to be jettisoned by the big money, which changes the equation.
I almost feel bad for Shelly Adelson. Not. He and his ilk bought Tea, crazy Tea. That didn’t work. So now he and his pals want to jettison that 12% of the electorate to buy the remaining Republicans to shove another dummy into the White House in 2016.
Maggie, may I present to you the Governor of Nevada, Brian Sandoval. Shelly and the boys may wrap their money around this unknown buffoon, but in the day of social media, they’d be better off rolling their money into cigars.
11I’m sure this is what the plutocrats want, but never underestimate the power of crazies in large numbers. Especially when those crazies vote in the early primaries. The Establishment candidate may win in the end (as Romney did), but he’ll be bleeding.
12Interestingly enough, it’s been exactly a year since we introduced Uncle Jimmy Barstool and discussed his relationship to Slats and how he fits in with the Hachecristo family.
https://juanitajean.com/2013/12/09/because-this-mob-is-gonna-come-over-there-and-fix-your-hair/
13daChipster, no worries man for how you and Primo will fill in the gaps between the Barstool, Hachecristo and Encarnación families. Easy sell.
More interesting is the Cuomo clan and Governor Lard Bellow from NJ. Is it my imagination, or is Andrew Cuomos’s face falling faster than his lies and the portrait of Dorian Grey? Even younger brother Chris is aging fast under the weight of the pretenses.
14Sandoval? Really? Well, I guess for the Koch brothers that just might be as close as possible to a robot. I know for certain they won’t cozy up with pRick Perry who as of Jan. 20 will be looking for his first paying non-political job of his life. Of course, as if he needs one. He’s getting at least 3 different pensions. As for the top 1%-ers, there is a good article in today’s WaPo about this group. The question is, do they even know how ticked off the other 99% are about the income disparity in this country and what it could lead to? My bet is, No and in their own philosophy, why should they. When the crowd wheels the guillotine into the public square, the 1%-ers will be elsewhere on this planet.
15The rule of unintended consequences certainly applies to political machinations intended to determine a candidate. It seems reasonable to expect the Republicans will be no less entertaining this time than they were leading up to their 2012 convention.
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