David Koch: Philanthropist By Day, Batman Villain By Night.

I know I said that I would be talking about the Koch Brothers, but it's much easier to talk primarily about David Koch.  His brother, Charles, is like-minded when it comes to politics, and I figured a long post about two old white guys would start to sound dreadfully bland - "white," if you will.  Then again, most of my political posts are about white guys.

At any rate, as I was reading about David Koch, I found that he reminded me of Harvey Dent.  Hell, maybe they're related.  Harvey Dent is, of course, a purely fictional character that also goes by the name of "Two-Face."  Just ask Batman.  Reading through David's biography is like reading the journal of a schizophrenic.  On one day he's saving lives, and on the next day he's blowing up cities.   It created a bit of a conundrum for me because, unlike Roger Ailes and Pat Robertson, David Koch has actually done good things.  He gives millions to charities and organizations as well as to art and education programs.  You know that show Nova on PBS?  He donated $7 million to it!

If David Koch's history of giving stopped right there, I'd label him a bona-fide philanthropist and call this post finished.  Unfortunately, it doesn't.  You get the feeling after reading through the full list of his donations that he really only gives to charity in order to save face.  That sounds awful, I know, but hear me out.

Pat Robertson is God's Weatherman.

I was originally going to do the Koch Brothers today in an attempt to go straight down the list over at Addicting Info, but the recent east-coast quake unearthed some hateful religious sediment that I couldn't ignore.

Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson is a televangelist and hardcore evangelical preacher that can be seen on his show The 700 Club.  He is also quite well known for being pure human garbage.  Just to refresh your memory, this is the guy that co-blamed the September 11th attack on "pagans, abortionists, gays, lesbians, and feminists" and said that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment against the U.S. for our abortion policies.    

What really bothers me about Pat Robertson is that, despite his claims, he is not a Christian.  He just runs his show and says this awful bullshit for money.  Infamous quotes aside, Pat Robertson has more skeletons in his closet than could possibly fit.  

Roger Ailes And His Propaganda Machine.

There is an art to persuading people these days.  In a time when technology is advancing with each passing hour, only one man has been able to reach into millions of homes and turn fiction into fact with the same ease as he freezes water into ice: Roger Ailes.

While most know him as the creator and "Chairman" of Fox News, Ailes has a disturbing history of right-wing extremism and paranoia.  He was always drawn to television, even as a little boy, and rose quickly to the rank of executive producer on The Mike Douglas Show by the age of 25.  His big break came in 1967 when he met former Vice-President Richard Nixon backstage of the show, telling Nixon that "the camera doesn't like you."  Nixon responded, "It's a shame a man has to use gimmicks like television to get elected."  Ailes was passionate about TV, and shot back, "Television is not a gimmick.  And if you think it is, you'll lose again."  It was at that moment that Roger Ailes became Nixon's executive producer of television, in charge of recreating the man's image in order to appeal to voters.

During Nixon's campaign, Ailes began to blur the line between journalism and politics.  Ailes knew that Nixon was a disaster on television.  He also believed that the media was anti-Republican.  So, he decided to go for the throat, as it were, and circumvent the press - go straight to the people.  By forcing reporters to watch the events of, say, a "town hall meeting" backstage, Ailes had found a way to subtly reduce the freedom of the press to a mere privilege.  Nixon was able to answer to voters with staged questions instead of on-the-fly "gotcha" questions from the media.  

Is Submission A Form Of Respect In A Christian Marriage?

The Iowa Straw Poll Debate came and went with nothing really turning up that hasn't been heard before.  The candidates stuck to their typical reality-bending, non-factual arguments (some of which have literally been debunked publicly by experts and analysts on their respective subjects) and, as always, their fearmongering.  But the award for "best shitty answer on-the-fly" has to go to Congresswoman Bachmann.  For some back story on her answer, let's turn to this quick, two minute video.  Pay really close attention from the 30 second mark on.  

"From there, my husband said, 'Now you need to go get a post-doctorate degree in tax law'.  Tax law?  I hate taxes.  Why should I go and do something like that?  But the Lord says, 'Be submissive.'  Wives, you are to be submissive to your husband... I was going to be faithful to what God was calling me to do through my husband."

Michele Bachmann Has A Hard Time Telling Fact From Fiction.

"Case in point: This week's Newsweek cover - which seems to have captured

Minnesota Congresswoman, Michele Bachmann, at the exact moment

she sees the 'Amazing Robalto' turn his hat into a dove.  'That's amazing. When

do we start the photo shoot?'" -Jon Stewart

In light of the Republican debate in Iowa tonight, I thought I'd take a moment to examine Representative Bachmann, seen above, and some of her recent statements as rated by Politifact.  If you haven't been to Politifact, I highly recommend checking it out.  Not only does it fact check statements made by politicians, it also has a counter that shows how President Obama is doing on his campaign promises (142 promises kept, 41 compromised, 208 in the works, 72 stalled, and 43 broken - check it out for the specifics), and another showing pledges made by the G.O.P. during their ramp up to the 2010 elections (7 kept, 1 compromise, 1 broken, 5 stalled, 11 in the works, and 32 not rated).

Fun stuff aside, you can also look at individual politicians for things they said, or things said about them. Okay, well, that's fun too, especially when looking at Michele Bachmann, who has an interesting track record for not knowing what she's talking about.  This will be, by the way, a rather long post that focuses on the pure insanity of a presidential candidate.  

Of her 29 statements on Politifact, only 3 of them are either mostly true, or true.  The other 26 range from  half true to Politifact's damning "pants on fire" rating.  Let's look at some examples.

Shocking News! Palin Criticizes President Obama!

You smug little troll, you.

In a rather interesting (albeit unsurprising) turn of events, Palin took to the internet on Monday the 8th to prove once again that she is the ultimate troller.  I attempted to visit her Facebook page for more concrete information but, to be perfectly honest, my mind couldn't bear all of the ignorant, racist word-crap that it was taking in.  Within seconds, I felt as though I had just gazed upon the Ark of the Covenant's disgusting, unholy twin.  

Luckily, I was able to find the filter button that showed only Palin's posts before my face melted.  In a "note" that she titled "Conquering the Storm", Sarah Palin bragged about how she saw the downgrade in the U.S.'s credit rating coming, and that the whole Obama-Reid-Pelosi spending binge got us to this point.  She then went on to talk about how we need to get off foreign oil and create more jobs here.  With alternative energy perhaps?  Nope!  She wants to drill here in America (forgetting all about the BP gulf disaster), and like a Natural Gas executive talking point, she listed all the reasons why natural gas is good and clean and blah blah blah.

The Zadroga Bill v.2.0.

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that I'm no fan of the current legislative branch.  It reminds me more of a group of kindergartners than it does a government body.  From what I learned in high school, the Senate and the House is supposedly full of elected adults.  I believed that was true until about 2009.  Now I'm convinced that we have more than six hundred children making laws and shouting at each other.  I am a firm advocate of replacing each member of Congress with a cat.  Despite the animal's six hour day, they would still get more done than the current elected body, and with less fighting to boot.  Plus, it would probably be easier to get six hundred cats (a very independent animal, mind you) to agree on something.  

Cat jokes aside, I thought that passing the Zadroga Bill would be a no-brainer.  It was a simple piece of legislation, after all.  For those of you that don't know, the Zadroga Bill gives workers at the wreckage of the World Trade Center (firemen, policemen, etc.) health coverage.  A disturbingly high amount of rescuers now have harmful diseases and illnesses caused by the volatile carcinogens that they inhaled at ground zero.  

LePage Rage.

Note: Every picture of Governor LePage is followed by an actual, word for word quote.  Link is at the bottom.

"I would say intelligence, uh, the more education you have

the more knowledge you have the better person you are and I 

believe yes and yes." -When asked if he believed Creationism

should be taught in Maine schools, May 2010.

It should be of no surprise to anyone paying attention to American politics that the incumbent governor of Maine, Paul LePage, is a twit.  He won with 38.3% of the vote in 2010 because the election had numerous runners, including three independents and a democrat.  Had the latter dropped out, independent candidate Eliot Cutler would have received more than 50% of the vote.  To give you a sense of how much better of a person Cutler is than LePage, he didn't run a single negative campaign ad during the election season.  Not one.    

But we got stuck with the man that literally looks like how all big-business republicans are portrayed.  Some say the appeal of LePage is that he is blunt and straightforward - characteristics that most politicians unfortunately lack.  Those that do not support the governor, myself included, argue that his bluntness is an understatement.  He behaves more like a mob boss than a state leader.  He is supposed to represent the state of Maine and, as such, the people of Maine.  Instead, he is an embarrassment to us, and really to all of New England.  Like an unedited, walking conservative-republican talking points memo, LePage does everything in his power to tear down unions, education, labor laws, human rights, the environment, the president, and liberals.  Don't believe me?  Fuck it, let's take a good look at some examples, all of which will be rated according to the "Dick Scale."  The Dick Scale is a measure of how much of a dick an individual is, or how "dickish" his/her's actions are.  My scale is simple, ranging from 1-5, 1 being that the person/action isn't dickish, and 5 being a person/action that is clearly such a dick, words can barely describe it.

Solving The Debt Crisis.

My question is, why does that skeleton have a mullet (a.k.a "the 

official haircut for idiots")?

Good news out of Washington tonight as the House passes a bill that will cut spending and raise the debt ceiling, while simultaneously leaving Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security alone.  Had the bill not been passed through the House tonight, and if it were to fail in the Senate, the U.S. will pass the debt ceiling limit tomorrow, bringing on the Apocalypse.  

That's right, the Apocalypse.  According to pretty much every economist, news anchor, politician, and pundit in America, our country defaulting would be what finally causes Satan to get his fat ass off the couch, break out the trident, and gather up his four horsemen to bring about the end of the world.  We are, in the hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution, the most important society that has ever or will ever exist.  Listen guys, I highly doubt that the United States defaulting would be of any concern to Satan.  He's far too busy giving the guys over at MTV new ideas for television shows.