Ground Zero Cash

By: Innocent Smith

I sat at my computer for almost an hour trying to think of something witty and clever and satirical to say about the latest news from the Ground Zero mosque debacle/story…but I couldn’t come up with something more ridiculous than the actual news about it.

Developers of the controversial Park51 Islamic community center and mosque located two blocks from Ground Zero earlier this month applied for roughly $5 million in federal grant money set aside for the redevelopment of lower Manhattan after the attacks of September 11th, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

The audacious move stands to reignite the embers of a divisive debate that dominated headlines surrounding the ninth anniversary of the attacks this fall, say people vested in the issue.

Get your money for nothing, and your Islamic indoctrination for free.

Glenn Beck = Hostess Product

By: Innocent Smith

In between my freshmen and sophomore years of college, I worked as a counselor at a Christian summer camp in southern Indiana near Louisville.  Each week a new batch of junior high students would be dropped off by their parents for 6 days of swimming, horse-back riding, bad food eating, and general gallivanting amongst their peers.

Near the end of the summer, as the camping season was winding down, the director of all counselors pulled me aside for what amounted to an “exit interview.”  In the course of our conversation, the director informed me that I was, and I quote, “The worst…and the best…counselor I’ve ever had work for me.  The students and their parents seem to love you, and yet I (as well as various other employees of the camp) am glad to see you go.”

To this I replied, “So would you say that I was the ‘Frosted Donette’ of counselors here this summer?”

“The what of what?”

“The ‘Frosted Donette’ of camp counselors?  You know, the little fake doughnuts that Hostess makes and sells by the sleeve at convenient stores all across this great land of ours?  They are the best tasting treats when you first bite into them, but they are wildly unhealthy, unnatural, and eventually leave you with a vexing coat of a wax-like substance on the roof of your mouth.”

“If it helps you, Robby, then yes – you are the ‘Frosted Donette’ of camp counselors.”

Putting aside how sarcastic and ridiculous I was in my youth, this anecdote came to mind recently when I was asked what I thought of Fox News’ Glenn Beck.   I’d be lying if I said I don’t catch at least part of an episode of his show every week.  His shows are usually very interesting if nothing else.  I completely appreciate that Beck is an emotional rollercoaster, one which many Americans (even many conservatives) do not care to ride.

The topics he covers are unique and pioneering.  But he’s weepy and over-the-top.

The guests he has on (when he actually has guests) are typically engaging and compelling.  But he also spends most of his time drawing things on a chalk-board and chasing far-Left political operatives down intellectual rabbit holes that even Alice would wonder about venturing off into.

He’s the best – and the worst – personality on cable news.

He’s willing to talk about issues that O’Reilly doesn’t bother with and the folks at CNN and MSNBC wouldn’t touch with a government-sanctioned 10-foot pole.

Glenn Beck is the Frosted Donette of cable news.

Centrist Olbermann Suspended

By: The Third Beltway Boy

Political and media experts were surprised to learn that Keith Olbermann personally contributed thousands of dollars to liberal congressional candidates, two being from the same state of Arizona. The middle of the road commentator shocked his fellow co-workers when the allegations came to light. Rachel Maddow, known for her even keel analysis of current events, responded to the news saying “Me and Keith had just finished listening to a really good Billy Graham podcast with our producer when the boss came and took Keith aside. I figured he was either disappointed he missed this week’s episode or just wanted to thank him for his positive attitude he displayed on air. Maybe both.”

Mr. Olbermann revealed to a K and R source that the contributions were not politically motivated. “I don’t have a partisan bone in my body” Olbermann said. Chris Mathews agreed saying “I don’t remember Keith ever overtly supporting one side or the other. We always urge him to pick a side but he always reminds us that it’s not his job to do analysis, just report. He’s like a modern day Michael Jordan, but instead of wanting to sell shoes, he wants to sell truth.”

Instead close associates of Olbermann claim he made the donations by mistake. A close friend had this to say “He was trying to donate to areas he thought might soon experience earthquakes. His heart is so big he can just sit around and wait for them to happen. And Arizona sits on a fault line.”

In a letter released to the media an MSNB spokesman stated “We regret any appearance of bi-partisanship from the network. As a news station we pride ourselves on delivering the news opinion free. We would ask that you do not judge our fourteen years of reporting on this isolated incident.” After Robert Gibbs released this statement he was seen with Olbermann at a neighborhood soup kitchen as they both have agreed that poverty is not an issue of “left” or “right”.

Don’t Bully Me, Bro

By: Knife Revolverbomb

For the past two years, much of the media has been crowing about the progressive approach to life, love, and politics.  However, the progressive approach has failed to work (the only thing it always does successfully), so its proponents have gradually fallen into silence, right?

Well, not really. Jib-jabberin’ is just too much fun.

Instead of a breather from progressive moralizing we get…warnings about bullies.  What’s that?  You didn’t know that bullying is a super huge issue right now?  Typical Tea-Partier.

Wake up and smell the fair-trade coffee, peeps: bullying is a big deal.  I mean, it certainly is according to Justin and Ellen.

http://wbads.vo.llnwd.net/o25/u/telepixtv/ellen/us/video/player/embed.swf

At 21 years old, I’m somehow already a member of the old guard who clings to the antiquated notion that there needs to be at least a hint of “new” in news.  No, I know: Ellen does not claim to be the news.  But the cultural bullying about the problem of bullying in the culture is everywhere right now – even my own house.

My younger sister is currently required to read the national best-seller, Please Stop Laughing at Me, in one of her classes.  I envision an over-educated school administrator leafing through the book at Borders and upon completion of the text, descending into a guilt-laden book-buying binge, purchasing thousands of copies and mandating students to read them.  A mere glance at the book’s tag-line, “One woman’s inspirational story,” sends my eyeballs rolling back into my skull to make sure my brain is still there.

Why so sour, you ask?  Because it’s old hat.  I’m no rook’ when it comes to sob stories.  One more won’t increase my awareness of bullying; I’ve been awash with tales of its horrors for at least the past decade.  If you’re over the age of 6, and it’s just now dawning on you that kids pick on each other, you’ve been sitting in the back of the class. Additionally, public school kids have heard this message more than anyone else, and they certainly don’t want (and/or need) to hear it again. They aren’t fixed disposal units for teachers and school administrators to stuff with their moral candy wrappers and the old receipts of past experiences that jaded them when they were in public school.

Despite my better judgment, I did, in fact, peel back the cover, let some of the excess sap drain out, and sit down to decode Please Stop Laughing at Me. After many-a-battle with the increasing weight of my eyelids, I finally managed to drag my eyes across the entire text.

The message: it is a cardinal sin to disrupt the high-held chin of a proud, powerful, young woman, no matter how she behaves in public, because the slightest dip in self esteem reduces the entire courageous edifice to rubble.  Note: bullying may produce New York Times best-selling authors who peddle their childhood misery for king’s ransoms.

What a regular heart-wrench.  As I set the book down (into the garbage), I was moved to indulge in a little introspection.

Why am I not sobbing for the plight of bold tweens?  Then it hit me.

First, the public school system disavows and disallows any allusions to moral instructions based in religion.  Telling kids to be nice to each other but not why (beyond “Because Oprah said so”) is unconvincing to say the least.  And second, I don’t take the calls to “play nice” from educators seriously because I was bullied by (sniff) my own teachers!  With ham fists they battered an endless assault of progressive plights into my poor, developing brain.

Before long (sniffle) I grew completely calloused.

I should to write a book about it!

Dems Seek to Re-distribute Congressional Power

By: Innocent Smith

Some political analysts have read the Democrats’ staggering congressional losses Tuesday night as a repudiation of the progressive Obama administration’s attempt at social and economic engineering. 

Those analysts are probably all racists.

What is obvious to anyone with a journalism, political science, or sociology degree from a top-tier university is that the re-distribution of congressional power Americans witnessed Tuesday evening was purposeful and planned out by compassionate public servants.  Democrats could’ve continued to monopolize power in Washington D.C., but only to the detriment of their bleeding-hearts and justice-oriented souls.

Seeking to lead by example,  and seeking to “show, not tell” greedy capitalistic conservatives how ethically to best handle success, Democrats kamikazed the campaigns of local and state candidates by tricking voters into thinking Republicans would be competent to stem the tide of European-style policies that have been cascading from The Beltway since Dems took congress in 2006.

Like any good Center-Left leaders, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) weren’t themselves willing to exit the political stage, but I read on another blog that they feel bad for those Democrats who had to go.

All-in-all, the mid-term elections of 2010 were the perfect vehicles through which American liberals could send a loud and clear message to the tax-paying voters about their re-distributive ideology.

That message: “We live this stuff!”

Election Reflections 2010

By: The Third Beltway Boy

Watching and reading democratic pundits respond to the trouncing received by their ideological twins in the House and Senate Tuesday night has been uncomfortable – at best.  It was clearly embarrassing to the Left that the “Party of ‘No’” was able to say “Yes” to picking up at least sixty seats in the House, and making significant gains in the Senate.  But even in the face of this landslide democratic “strategists” (a term that has yet, to my satisfaction, been defined) clenched their teeth, lowered their shoulders, and made an already-awkward situation (for them) even more awkward (for us).

Some examples:

1) A local Fox television anchor in Chicago commented about the loss of Obama’s former senate seat saying that Republicans, “Typically win that seat anyway.”

2) The Blog Queen of Mean, Arianna Huffington, reflected: “Turns out, sometimes even if you weren’t the one who broke it, you own it. So it is with our broken economy. Bush broke it, but Obama, under-estimating just how broken it is, owns it.”

3) The far-Left website, The Daily Kos, asserted “Democrats are still more popular than Republicans. Democratic policies are still more popular than Republican policies when we explain them…it’s just that the average American doesn’t have the time or inclination to be explained to.”

Here is my own quick analysis of each quote:

1) That is dumb.

2) According to Huffington, Obama’s issue was not the unpopular stimulus package, healthcare bill, or soaring huge deficits, but rather that the president did not know how bad the economy was at the time of the election. Thus, following Huffington’s “logic,” what the president really needs to do to improve his presidential game is to go on the CBS hit show “Undercover Boss”. There he could come to better understand that when people are out of work it is not good for the country.

3) This is like saying that Eddie Murphy doesn’t make horrendous movies, we just don’t take the time to understand the depth and breadth of his prolific comedy.

 

The Day the Thrill Died

By: The Third Beltway Boy

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) had this to say to host Chris “Community Organizers Make Me Swoon” Matthews on MSNBC last night:

 

And Chris was singing…

A long, long time ago…
I can still remember
How Obama used to make me smile.
And I knew if he had his chance
That he could make those people dance
And, maybe, they’d be happy for a while.

But in November it made me shiver
With every election return I’d deliver.
Bad news on MSNBC’s doorstep;
I couldn’t take one more step.

I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about the GOP’s rising tide,
But something touched me deep inside
The day Obama’s presidency died.

So bye-bye, miss american pie.
Drove my government motors chevy hybrid to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
And them good old RINO’s were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singin’, “this’ll be the day his leg-tingle dies.
“ya, this’ll be the day Matthews’ leg-tingle dies.”

Prop 19 Prep

By: Knife Revolverbomb

The kids are turned off from politics, they say. Most of ’em don’t even want to hear about it. All they want to do these days is lie around on waterbeds an’ smoke that (gosh-darn) marrywanna.

– Hunter Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72

Sounds like in 1972 politicians couldn’t convince kids to invest any of their highly-prized interest in politics. In 2010, politicians have turned the tables and invested politics into the kid’s interests. The brilliant scheme grants citizens permission (like they need it) to smoke pot on the condition that it be taxed. To be more precise, they will impose a levy of $50 per ounce (black market dealers currently divide 1 oz into eight parts to be sold at $60 apiece) and in doing so generate almost 1.5 billion dollars in tax revenue.

Such is the claim. Should the pot smoking community feel that it can achieve some sort of societal validation by the government condoning its habits, Prop 19 will pass. Assuming that it will pass, I have constructed a rough (hypothetical) timeline of the upcoming “legalization bonanza.”

Nov 1 – Pot? Check. Lighter? Check. Permission? Nope. Rats! I guess people who will smoke when it is legal have another day or so to wait.

Nov 3 – Cross advertizing begins. This week only: Buy Spiderman 4 (a straight-to-DVD sequel of that timeless classic, Spiderman 3) and receive an additional dime-bag from Government Ganja free of charge!

Nov 4 – The marketing sages who brought us the Kia Soul and Chrysler Breeze get in on the game. Pot smokers unwittingly find themselves getting high off of herbal blends named things like “conscience”, “unobtainium”, “redemption”, and other keywords from James Cameron flicks.

Nov 5 – The lucrative weed industry has grown so much that it has almost saved the bankrupt (25 billion times over) Cal-E-conomy!

Nov 6 – The initially strong weed industry is no match for the economic buffoonery of the California State Legislature. The volatile state economy has the “suits” at Big Marijuana feeling increasingly uneasy.

Nov 7 – Dear Leader Barack Obama declares several key firms of Big Mary “too big to fail” and a tax-payer bailout of the cannibus corporations is announced.

Nov 8 – Pot re-illegalized. Makers of the film “Social Network” begin work on a screen play of the week’s events.

What Wallis Avoided

By: Innocent Smith

Top Ten Questions not asked of liberal evangelical activist, and Obama religious adviser, Pastor Jim Wallis (president of the Sojourners organization) at the Wheaton College debate last Thursday night between Wallis and Dr. Arthur Brooks (president of American Enterprise Institute)

 

10. On a scale ranging from 1 to “Social”…how would you rate your brand of Justice?

9.  Jim…R.J. Moeller here…Are you familiar with my newly constructed theory of “Social Truth,” in which nothing is considered true unless it has been disseminated by a social network (excluding MySpace)?

8. Is misconstruing the Bible’s teaching on property rights, personal responsibility, and civic duty actually as easy as you make it look?

7. So…the economy, huh?

6. Do you get up on the Left side of the bed in the morning?

5. I read somewhere you desire to live in and among the proud, egalitarian N’avi people from Avatar.  Take me with you when you go?

4. With all of your various political contacts in Washington D.C., what can you do about getting Fairly Traded “Swedish Fish” candies?  The poor fjord-locked Swedes need our help!

3. I’m sorry, but I dozed off about an hour ago…around the first time you mentioned that you were “neither Right nor Left” and “non-partisan”…do you mind starting over?

2. How inconvenient really is Al Gore?  Am I right?

1. How ‘bout taking a sojourn from being wrong so often?

 

Hard Knocks: Social Justice 101

By: Knife Revolverbomb

This past Thursday evening I had the pleasure of hearing from social justice advocate Jim Wallis – a regular “Little John” in his own right.  In front of more than 1,000 people in a crowded auditorium on the campus of Wheaton College, Wallis “outlined” the biblical approach to wealth re-distribution. Assuming the stirring in my bowels to be the spirit of sharing, I then and there committed a day of action to the Wallis-themed approach.

As luck would have it, the very next morning, I came upon my first opportunity.

Whilst skipping to the bank (while my electric car charged), intent on liquidating my assets to better re-distribute, I happened upon a mendicant homeless man. The poor soul pleaded for anything I was willing to spare, but for all his whining I couldn’t but notice that there was a loud jingle emanating from his cup.

The sound was surprisingly loud.

I rushed forward and pried the McCafe out of his skinny fingers, spilling its contents everywhere. Pouncing upon the mess, I collected and counted the change coin by coin. With a triumphant, “Aha!” I thrust a total of $2.46 under the startled man’s runny nose.

“Do you know that most people on the planet survive on only two dollars a day?!” I bellowed triumphantly. Stuffing the surplus 46 cents into my pocket, I whirled around and stomped off, chin held high. Indeed, the good work had left me giddy in its incontrovertible fairness, but my elation was soon to plummet.

No more than a quarter mile away, an icy notion stopped me dead in my tracks. Said I to myself, “Surely I have done a good deed to this poor beggar by righting the selfish err of his ways. As such, I will surely be rewarded in heaven – another jewel will be placed in my crown! And what if…” the color began to drain from my face, “what if someone else in heaven will now have less jewels than I do?!?!”

Mortified with guilt, I sprinted back towards the curb where the man had once stood, resolved to undo my act of kindness. Upon seeing my rapid return to his section of sidewalk, the man shrieked and bolted off in the opposite direction, leaving his change and jacket on the ground.  I tried yelling for him to stop, but it only seemed to cause him to run faster. Nuts!

This whole social justice thing is going to be harder than I thought.