A Universe of GOP Rising Stars

He's baaaaaaack! Crankyjewishguy (CJG) took a long break from his blog to go to the bathroom (yes, it took five months, but that's CJG's business). Actually, one reason CJG has been away is that he was finishing a book he wrote with Mrs. CJG that comes out next month. The marriage survived and the book is destined for greatness. The other reason, is that CJG decided to run for president as a Republican and has been building his campaign staff in the all important primary state of North Dakota where, next month, CJG will debate Michelle Bachmann on the subject of whether she is mentally competent. That should take about five minutes.

The new cast of "The Biggest Loser"? No, it's the 2011 GOP  field.
Note the presence of the Pillsbury Doughboy, third from left.
Tim Pawlenty, second from right, was voted off the island and Rick Perry
took his place only to find the surrounding waters way over his head.

Speaking of Michelle Bachmann, CJG has, of course, been closely following the circus known as the GOP race for president in which the idea seems to be to see who can say the most ridiculously stupid shit in hopes of getting the nomination. Rick Santorum's platform seems to be two pronged: the family is sacred and no one should have sex except under very special circumstances most of which have something to do with creating Christian families. Newt Gingrich, who by his own admission is the brightest of the candidates, thus damning himself with faint praise, looked at the wreckage of the U.S. economy and decided someone should go to jail -- not the CEOs of AIG, Lehmann Brothers, Countrywide or anyone else who actually had a prominent role in destroying the economy. No, Newt said Barney Frank and former Senator Chris Dodd should go to jail. Rick Perry, whose main qualification for the job appears to be incredible posture, apparently didn't realize that looking the part and acting the part are two different skill sets. Asked why there are one million children in Texas without health insurance, he immediately launched a blistering attack on Mitt Romney for hiring a lawn care company that employed an illegal alien to cut his grass thus drawing a illuminating connection between the two issues CJG had never made before.

Well, fancy me! Rick Perry as "yell leader"
at Texas A & M during his salad days.
The dog was later executed.

Speaking of immigration, the GOP field is doing what politicians do whenever times are tough: looking for a scapegoat. And what better scapegoat than illegal immigrants! They have no money or power. Let's blame them! So, who is the toughest hombre in the lot on this issue? Michelle Bachmann showed she is doubly tough on illegals by proposing not one fence along the entire US-Mexico border, but a double fence! Nice try, Michelle, but she never saw Herman Cain's solution coming: an electrified fence that would kill anyone trying to get across the border looking for a job as a delivery man for Godfather's Pizza. Cain is the new Ross Perot: a successful businessman with a simple solution for every complex problem. Most memorably, of course, his 9-9-9 tax plan that would raise taxes dramatically on the poor and the middle class while cutting them for Mitt Romney so he can fulfill his role as a "job creator."  The more Herman's ideas get exposed as lunacy the higher he rises in the GOP firmament. Please: someone call 9-1-1. Then, of course, there's good ol' Mitt Romney trying to come across as the everyman as he quadruples the size of his beachfront home in La Jolla, California and tells audiences that "corporations are people, too." He does have a point in that Mitt is a walking, talking corporation who specialized in taking over companies at Bain Capital then squeezing them dry for the cash while firing thousands of employees. He talks a good game about "job creation" but his real expertise is in job destruction and hair care products. Unlike many of his GOP competitors, Mitt cannot plead the insanity defense, but has there been a politician in recent memory so devoid of any core convictions? Trust CJG, Mitt Romney the presidential candidate and the Mitt Romney who was governor of Massachusetts are not the same person. Either that or the man has a serious case of multiple personality disorder.

Given the high quality of the GOP debates, CJG is amazed that no has taken the obvious line of attack against Perry yet: that if you rearrange the letters in Texas you get Taxes. If that doesn't set the Republican base on fire nothing will. The next time Michelle Bachmann is asked what color the sky is, she should go right at Perry on this.

Despite this, shall we say, lackluster GOP field, President Obama is in big trouble because everything that is wrong in the country today is his fault. You can take down bin Laden and Quaddafi (or Kadaffi or Qadaffy or Hanukah or Chanukkah, whatever) without a single American casualty, end the ten year war in Iraq, and finally make sure everyone is this country has health insurance, but unless you can fill, in three years, the 8 million jobs hole Bush left behind you're toast. So, help is on the way. As soon as the GOP regains power and can continue its massive wealth redistribution program in which the top 1% will soon have everything, they'll start using all that excess cash to create jobs on the plantation for the rest of us. CJG, for one, hopes to land a job as a surf board waxer at Mitt's place in La Jolla.

Man of the people, Mitt Romney, waves from his hot
air balloon above the 3,000 square foot La Jolla home
he is tearing down to build a 12,000 square foot home
in its stead.

War and Peace

Here's the question crankyjewishguy (CJG) is turning over and over this morning. Why is it that when a Republican is president other Republicans, and a lot of Democrats, will follow like lemmings as the president plunges us into an ill-advised war based on ginned up evidence that will cost the country trillions and keep us at war for more than a decade, all without a declaration of war, and, oh, by the way, if you oppose the president or the war you are an unpatriotic, French-style sissy, but when a Democratic president authorizes air strikes in say, Libya or the former Yugoslavia, there's a huge outcry about the president not getting a declaration of war, lack of mission, lack of a clear strategy etc. etc. etc. If you'll recall, a common refrain before the Iraq war was, "he killed his own people." Now that Quaddafi or however the fuck he spells his name is killing his own people that's not a good reason anymore. CJG isn't taking a side one way or the other about the strikes in Libya, he just wonders about the ridiculous double-standard Republicans apply to questions of war and peace.

The Most Brilliant Idea Ever

While shvitzing heavily on his spin bike yesterday, crankyjewishguy (CJG) had an idea...and idea so brilliant it might just solve all of the world's problems (except for Rush Limbaugh) in one fell swoop. This brainstorm, which hit CJG while in third position (you spinners will know what CJG is talking about) and listening to The Who's Pinball Wizard at full volume, may make the invention of the personal computer look like the first Frisbee. Ready? Here it is. This guy...

...should become the new star of Two and a Half Men, and this lunatic...

...should become the next president of Libya. If you've been listening to these two rant the past couple of days it's a real toss-up trying to decide which one is crazier. Is it Quaddafi (there are so many spellings of this guy's name CJG just chose one, but it can also be Gaddafi, Ghadaffi. Khaddafi, Kaddafi, or Hanukah, among others), the man who travels with a buxom Ukrainian nurse and a cadre of stunning, uniformed female "bodyguards," who insists, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that his people love him, or is it Charlie Sheen who has two "goddesses" who both sleep in his bedroom but in different beds and he gets to choose each night which one to sleep with and, by the way, these two women, one a former porn star, help take care of Sheen's two kids who, by the way, were removed from the Sheen home by police yesterday after which Sheen told the kids' mother that "this is not responsible parenting." CJG guesses he would know. Despite his very public complete crack-up, Sheen insists CBS should come on its hands and knees to get him back on his show and, by the way, he so fucking great they should kiss his feet and up his pay from a million to three million an episode. Frankly, just watching this asshole self-destruct on shows that don't have to pay him to appear is far more economical than watching him play a normal guy for half an hour a week at a million per.

Now that CJG thinks about, maybe his idea won't solve anything at all. It might even make matters worse.