Rainin' on Dubya's Parade

The "Decider"
`

"We've had enough Bushes."

-Barbara Bush on the Today Show

"Ain't it the truth! Ain't it the truth!"

-Burt Lahr, as the Cowardly Lion

So, the man who is in serious competition with James Buchanan for being remembered as the worst, most insanely incompetent chief-executive in the archives of human stupidity finally has his own library? A place where future historians may romp with joy and scholarly abandon to their little hearts' content? Hmm....

FDR

I live less than forty miles from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum in Hyde Park, NY. I visit there as often as I can because I really love the place. I always feel a little better about this doomed country whenever I leave there. It is truly a fitting memorial to a great American leader, arguably the greatest in history. I might be persuaded to visit the Bush Library someday - if only out of morbid curiosity you understand. I imagine any place that is designed for no other purpose than to put a sugar coating on the sick and twisted legacy of George W. Bush ought to be just oodles of fun to visit! I liken it to putting a smiley face on the carcass a decomposing pig. "Whoa! Lookie thar, Martha, ain't that purdy!"

Revisionism can be a riot of laughter, a cornucopia of mirth and merriment for anyone with a halfway-decent knowledge of history. So it was with the cascade of nonsense flowing in torrents out of the George W. Bush Presidential Center at its opening this week. It was an absolute hoot watching the speakers pay tribute to the disgusting little thug - especially the Democrats! The very spectacle of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama attempting to twist the English language like salt water taffy in order to honor this guy was too much for the senses to even come close to comprehending. About the best the president could come up with was this beauty:

"To know George W. Bush is to like him."

Somebody hand me my chisel. 

It was about as surreal as any news event that has been my dubious joy to witness with my own eyes. Did you catch the aptly-named, Andy Card? This bird-brain was actually bragging to a reporter from CNN about Bush's economic record! I believe the words he used were, "second to none". Indeed. Does this nitwit even know the definition of the word, "irony"? More than a few people on this day were saying that history would be kind to Bush. Someone on Fox Noise even had the chutzpa to put the hideous little bastard up right up there in the pantheon of great American presidents:

"George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan....George W. Bush"

It's bad enough that these knuckleheads still insist on putting the likes of Reagan on the same level as Lincoln and FDR - but George W. Bush???  

Can grown adults be that completely unhinged from reality that they sincerely believe that posterity is going forgive the worst blunder ever made by the American electorate? Remember the reason people gave for voting for Bush? They would rather have a beer with him than the nerdy policy-wonk, Al Gore - or the colorless boy-scout-wannabe, John Kerry. Truth be told, I would much rather have a beer with George W. Bush. You see, I have this reoccurring fantasy about smashing the half-witted little frat boy upside the head with a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon ale.

We can console ourselves  in the knowledge that the elections of 2000 and 2004 were stolen. Had every vote been counted - and every registered voter given access to the ballot box - Bush would have lost both of those contests. He won the state of Florida in 2000 because his brother, the governor, denied 57,000 legally registered African Americans the right to vote. He won Ohio four years later because the Republicans made damned sure that polling places in the cities of that state (where all those nasty brown people tend to reside) would be limited to a small handful, and therefore, quite crowded. People left the polling lines in utter frustration. A lot of them had children at home waiting for dinner. Both thefts were enough to put him over the top. Nowadays the success of the GOP depends upon the suppression of votes. What do you think those "Voter ID" laws were all about? You might want to make a little note of that.

One does not envy the people in charge of developing the exhibits for the Dubya Library. Whoever the poor bastards are I hope they're paid quite handsomely for their efforts. It takes real talent to turn a mountain of chickenshit into a tasty plate of chicken salad. 

Yeah, Bush and Cheney rid the Middle East of a naughty "evil-doer" named Saddam Hussein, but they did it by means of some incomprehensible evil-doing. They lied about Saddam's capacity to make war; that he had weapons of mass destruction; that he was somehow complicit in the atrocity committed against this country on September 11, 2001. All lies - and anyone bothering to pay attention knew damned well that these murderous bastards and bitches were lying. The result was a mountain of dead bodies, the number of which may reach a million or more. We'll never know the exact death toll.  'Twas all about an ocean of oil - flowing 'neath the Iraqi soil.....  

Does the Iraqi War wing of this place take note of the fact that by illegally invading the (like it or not) sovereign nation of Iraq the Bush Mob created a geo-political nightmare that will haunt the United Nations for decades? I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that they probably neglected to include that nasty little reality in their presentation. Why waste one's time with cold, hard facts when fantasy is so much more palatable to one's deluded sense of reality? Welcome to Bush World. Enjoy your stay - and watch yer step, Buster, ya hear?

And speaking of Iraq, there's a pretty good reason why Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld don't travel abroad anymore. They're war criminals who run the risk of being arrested for their crimes against the human race. Staying put is a dandy idea if you know what I mean.

"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace." 

-President Dubya
June 18, 2002 

Won't you come home, George Orwell? Won't you come home? 

Knock! Knock!

I wonder if the Bush Library has a wing that highlights what "a heck of a job" his disgusting administration did during the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. I really hope so. I've only been to Dallas, Texas once - and that was a very long time ago. I don't imagine I'll be passing through that town any time soon, but the chance to see their "Katrina Wing" would be worth the price of the journey! Can you imagine the job it took to sugarcoat that one? It was Katrina, more than anything else, that finally woke the American people up to the horrible realization that sending this idiot to Washington was an error of incalculable dimensions. 

At the FDR Library in Hyde Park, there is a building called "The Henry Wallace Welcoming Center", named for Mr. Roosevelt's second vice-president. There is also a large photograph of Mr. Wallace at the entrance. Call it a silly hunch on my part, but I doubt very much that the Bush Library's "welcoming center" bears the name and likeness of Dick Cheney. Who the hell in their right mind would even enter the joint with Cheney's face snearing at them in the doorway? Would you subject your children to something that weird? I ask you!

I can still remember the first time first time I ever laid eyes on George W. Bush. It was in May of 1988, when his father was being seriously challenged in the South Carolina primaries by preacher-from-hell, Pat Robertson. He was being interviewed on NBC News, telling the correspondent that no one was "gonna whup" his daddy. "My goodness", I remember saying out loud, "the boy is dumber than dog shit, isn't he!" If you had told me then and there that in thirteen years this inarticulate jackass would be the president of the United States of America I would have said, "Have another sip". As Fats Waller liked to say back in his time, "One never knows, do one?"

BAD NEWS:
Whoever is president fifty years from now in all likelihood hasn't even been born yet. I don't envy that person. He or she will still - on a daily basis - be dealing with the damage that George W. Bush and company did to this once-great nation so many generations before. Best of luck to them. 

GOOD NEWS:
Most of us will be dead and gone by that time. Isn't that nice?

During the entire eight, gruesome years that George called the White House "home", I only wrote one letter to him. It is dated March 19, 2007, the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Here it is for the record in its entirety: 
 
*******************************

Dear President Bush,

Today on MSNBC, they re-broadcast the footage from May 1, 2003 of you on the deck of the aircraft carrier, Abraham Lincoln. I saw the Mission Accomplished banner. I saw you in that silly flight suit. I saw you with that disgusting smirk on your face as you declared, "Major combat operations in Iraq are over." 

Question: Sir, with the benefit of 20/20 historical hindsight, do you even have a clue as to how fucking stupid you looked? Just wondering.

Love and peace,

Tom Degan

PS - By the way, when you get a chance, have a look at my blog:

www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

It's a lot of fun!

 ************************

FOR THE RECORD:
He did make a sincere effort to alleviate the AIDS crisis in Africa and, by all accounts, the effects were positive. Good for him. That is the only decent thing I can think of to say about President Bush. But in all fairness that fact should be noted.

This is more than likely the last piece I'll be writing for a very long time on the depressing subject of George W. Bush. Tomorrow marks the tenth anniversary of his idiotic "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" stunt on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln - a mission that would never be accomplished. I won't be taking note of it. It's about time we consigned him to history's shit pile where he rightfully belongs. Unless he says or does something really stupid, or unless still more evidence comes to the surface shedding even more light on how mind-jarringly corrupt his administration was (both scenarios not being out of the realm of possibility), I'm pretty much through thinking about Dubya.

Me 'n' Dubya, 10/27/08
`

I really should give a tip of the hat to the contemptible little freak. It must be said that George W. Bush had a major impact on my life; in fact he gave it new meaning. I had always, since childhood, paid close attention to politics and current events. Bush turned me into a stone-cold activist. The site you are now reading is as much his legacy as it is mine. For that reason alone I owe the guy a great debt of gratitude. Credit must be given where credit is long overdue:

Thanks a heap, George!

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net 

SUGGESTED READING:

Bushwhacked - Life in George W. Bush's America
by Molly Ivins and Lou DuBois

A hysterically funny (and terribly sad) book detailing the fallout from Dubya's reign of error from our beloved  Molly - the greatest political humorist that ever walked this troubled earth. 

For more recent postings on this disgusting assortment of left-leaning, COMMIE propaganda, please go to the link below:

"The Rant" by Tom Degan

You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for reading such hideous, un-American ramblings.

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, JOE McCARTHY??? 

Portraits of Deregulation

Everything's bigger in Texas....Ahem.
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Governor Good Hair

 "Here's what we know after more than a decade of Republican rule: Texas works."

-Governor Rick "Good Hair" Perry

Howdy there, Texas! How's all that DE-regulation workin' out fer y'all?

Governor Perry is absolutely correct when he tells us that "Texas works". What he neglected to mention is that it doesn't work very well. Molly Ivins, a native of the Lone Star State, once expressed a heartfelt feeling of gratitude toward the state of Mississippi: "If it weren't for Mississippi we here in Texas would be dead-last in just about everything." Dear Lord, I miss Molly Ivins. She was just about the funniest human being who ever walked this earth.

The fertilizer plant that exploded a few miles outside of Waco, Texas this week decimated part of the town. The plant had not been inspected since 1985 - nearly three decades ago. As of this moment fifteen are dead with an estimated sixty or more not accounted for. We can expect the death toll to go through the roof in the days to come. 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that was legal to have in one spot was at this site. In an interview on Current TV the other day, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now put it perfectly when she labeled this latest massacre "industrial terrorism". And this was indeed a massacre. Make no mistake about it. This is the price we pay for conservative form of governance. Are you having fun yet?

This is a topic I've been beating to death on this site for nearly seven years now. Conservative ideas and conservative policies and conservative politicians have destroyed this country. This used to be a nice place in which to live. It's not anymore. And if the people in the so-called "red States" keep going down the road they're presently traveling, it's going to get a lot worse for them in the future.

Would you like to check out a real, honest-to-goodness conservative paradise? Here's a perfect illustration of what I'm talking about: Have you ever caught those ads that are shown late at night on cable television? "For less than a dollar a day you can help Julio get the food he needs to eat and the clean water he needs to drink". You see scenes little Julio walking through garbage-strewn paths, attempting to retrieve water from a sewer-contaminated stream. Those ads always emanate from countries like El Salvadore or Guatemala - right wing dictatorships - places where there is no government regulation whatsoever! 

Wanna have a gander at what the conservatives in this country have in store for America if they ever unconstitutionally seize total control of our government (as they're trying to do)? The next time you take a vacation, visit one of those places. Have a lovely trip.

QUESTION: Have you ever come across a listing of states with the lowest quality-of-life for its citizens? They tend to be in the red states - with Mississippi, Texas and Alabama always at the bottom. What's the most progressive state in the union? With very little argument, it would have to be Vermont (home of my man, Bernie Sanders!) On every list ever compiled of states in this union with the highest quality of life, Vermont is usually at or near the top. Sure, people there may pay a bit more in state taxes, but their lives are a lot better than in shit holes like Texas or Mississippi. And the crime rate in cities like Burlington is relatively low. Tell me, where would you rather raise your children?

This ain't rocket science, kids. 

Amy Goodman

It's always a hoot watching Rick Perry trying to lure business from California to his state. His pitch? Texas has a "predictable" business climate, by which he means, "ain't no gub'ment messin' round here with all them damn regulations". As Amy Goodman pointed out during her Current TV interview, between the years 2008 and 2011 California had fourteen-hundred labor-related deaths. In that same period Texas had eighteen-hundred deaths. These are instructive numbers especially when one considers that California's population is forty percent higher than that of  Texas. Something to think about, ay?

The catastrophic explosion this week in West Texas that killed sixty-or-more people was pretty predictable, too. The more we allow corporate America to rape and denigrate the American infrastructure, the more we can expect this sort of thing to happen in the future. It's sort of like with guns: Less regulation means more deaths. Again, this is not terribly difficult to figure out; in fact it's kind of a no-brainer.

BREAKING NEWS: Right wing form of governance does not work. This is a lesson that should have been learned nearly a century-and-a-half ago during the administration of Ulysses S Grant. Why are we still having this conversation?  

Howdy there, America! How's that "Reagan Revolution" workin' out fer y'all??? 

I thought so.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net 

AFTERTHOUGHT:

You know, I was just thinking: If the day ever arrives when true Progressives are ever able to take over the congress and the senate and every statehouse and every small town  government across the land, what would I do? What will I have to write about? Oh, the dilemma....

SUGGESTED VIEWING:

Here is a link to watch the interview with Amy Goodman this week on Current TV that I referenced in the above piece:

http://current.com/shows/viewpoint/videos/why-is-it-that-when-it-comes-to-texas-we-know-so-little-amy-goodman-on-the-fertilizer-plant-blast/

The gal's good.

John Barrymore

SUGGESTED READING:

Damned in Paradise 
by John Kobler

This 1977 biography on the life and times of the actor, John Barrymore, is the best one written on the man as far as I can tell. Although long out of print, you can probably find it on ebay - as I did my copy. Jack Barrymore was a complete mess - depressed, dysfunctional, self-destructive - and (next to Montgomery Clift) the most unhinged alcoholic I've ever read about. But there was also something genuinely lovable about him. He's one person I would have liked to hung out with. It has been said that his portrayal of Hamlet on the stage has never been surpassed in the ninety years since. By the time of his death on May 29, 1942, he had been reduced to portraying crude caricatures of himself in B movies. What a waste - and what a talent. He was a truly brilliant, tormented and tragic figure.

Liars and Cowards

"We've been betrayed by liars and cowards. It's shameful."

President Barack Obama
17 April 2013 

Ana Marquez-Greene,  age 6

"This fight has just begun....We are the 90 percent....90 percent will not be ignored....The American people were insulted yesterday....This is going to be a turning point in the history of the Republican Party....This party is moving toward extinction."

Joe Scarborough
MSNBC, 18 April 2013 

KEY PHRASE: "....moving toward extinction." Something I've been saying for a couple of years now. It's nice to know that people are beginning to catch up. As you're probably aware, Joe  Scarborough is the conservative, former congressman from Florida. I have to admit that old Joe has grown on me in the last few years. He's still an insufferable gasbag, but a quite likeable and (at times) agreeable one. The first piece I ever wrote on this site nearly seven years ago was called, "George W. Bush: The Last Republican President". Mark my words, boys and girls. Mark my words. Listen to those pretty chimes of doom.

Catherine Hubbard, age 6

What happened on the floor of the United States Senate on Wednesday made me murderously angry. In fact it put me into a blind rage from which I have yet to recover. Give me a day or two and a couple bottles of vodka and V8 juice - that'll do the trick! But it did not surprise me - far from it. I've come to expect nothing less (or nothing more) from these hideous bastards and bitches. The most insanely watered-down version of gun control legislation - mandatory background checks - was defeated by a minority of US senators yesterday - four of them Democrats. This was something that ninety percent of the American people wanted desperately. As Chris Matthews recently observed, it's next-to-impossible to get ninety percent of this insanely complicated populous to agree on anything.  This begs the musical question:

Caroline Previdi, age 6

Who the hell are these people representing? 

I don't need to answer that question, do I? Oh what the heck, I'll answer it just for shits and giggles:

Four months and four days ago, twenty little boys and girls, and six of the women whose job it was to educate and protect them, were massacred like rabid cattle by some mentally deranged freak with an arsenal of rapid-fire killing machines. A bill to ban these lethal weapons was proposed by Senator Diane Feinstein of California. It was killed about as rapidly as those poor children in Newtown, Connecticut. Yesterday's defeat of the Background Checks legislation - which would not have made a bit of difference in the case of Adam Lanza by the way - is the last and best bit of evidence that can be offered with a straight face that the "lawmakers" that defeated it represent the financial interests of the NRA and the gun industry. They're certainly not there to do right by your children.

As the late, great Frank Zappa once brilliantly intoned:

They're just lookin' out for Number One
And Number One ain't you
You ain't even Number Two.... 

Noah Pozner, age 6

In the Rose Garden of the Executive Mansion, Barack Obama could barely contain his rage. Behind him stood the families of the Newtown victims, some of them looking shell-shocked, still paralyzed with grief. It was all too sad and horrible to witness. How could their elective "representatives" betray the memories of their murdered children? Vice-President Biden was openly weeping. He knows what it's like to lose a child. That's one of the reasons why  I love Joe Biden.

What can you do? Nothing really. This is the situation we'll have to live with - or at least until 2014 when some of these assholes will be up for reelection. Until then we might as well batten down the hatches, ay? Just grin and bear it. And while we're at it we can conjure up some REALLY goofy dark comedy out of this hopeless situation. Mass murder can be quite a humorous thing if handled in the right way. If you want to know what I'm talking about here, just go out and rent yourselves a copy of the film, Doctor Strangelove. Or better still, listen the lyrics of the old Monty Python tune: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life:
`
Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you!

Jack Pinto, age 6

Then again, while that particular little ditty might be the perfect requiem for America's complete and utter self-destruction, it's hard to imagine the boys and girls who were slaughtered on December 14 embracing the lyrics. Jack Pinto loved sports. He wanted to be a professional athlete when he grew up. By all accounts he was thoroughly enjoying his existence on this otherwise troubled planet. Call it a silly hunch on my part but I doubt very much Jack would have described his precious life as "a piece of shit".

Allison Wyatt, age 6

Allison Wyatt was an aspiring artist, and apparently she was loaded with talent. She even turned her bedroom into a sort of art-studio-for-tots. She also had a passion for gardening. Those who knew her best say that the kid was an absolute hoot-and-a-half, with a sense of humor that exceeded her tender years. She was able to make her parents weep with laughter. Now they just weep. According to a family statement, “Allison made the world a better place for six, far too short years, and we now have to figure out how to move on without her.” I'm fairly sure that Allison did not think of her life as "a piece of shit."

Andrew Wheeler, age 6

Andrew Wheeler was a creative boy who liked to draw and who studied the piano. His mother is a musician and his father an actor, and Andrew apparently inherited these talents from them. They say he was always performing. And like his classmate, Allison, he was a very funny little guy - a budding comedian. Andrew was also a HUGE fan of the Beatles. This was a kid after my own heart. He didn't think his life was a "piece of shit", I just know it. 

None of the little boys and girls who were murdered in cold blood at the Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012 believed their lives to be "a piece of shit". They were wrong of course - terribly wrong. They were as wrong as they would ever be during their short time on this earth. They were twenty little pieces of shit - worthless and expendable shit. That was proven for all time and eternity yesterday, April 17, 2013, on the floor of the United States senate.

Hang your head and weep for your country.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net  

SUGGESTED LISTENING:

Now or Never

by The Spirit Choir

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyGpKdq9XiQ

People of the world, please listen to your souls

We can change the times to a century of hope

'Cause dream you dream alone is only a dream

But dream we dream together is reality.... 

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

by Monty Python
(sung by Eric Idle)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw1nFmNsHp4

Always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath.... 

A Very Bad Day in Boston

Photograph from the New York Times

 `
Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com: 2 Explosions Reported Near the Finish Line of the Boston Marathon [3:11 p.m. ET]

The reports began trickling into my e-mail at mid-afternoon: Two explosions near the finish-line of the Boston Marathon. "Bad craziness", as Hunter Thompson might have said. We can thank God that - as of this writing anyway - the death count is relatively low. It might have been a lot worse. And to think that it happened on Boylston Street. I used to work there.

I'm counting the minutes. It is now 4:33 in the morning. Here's something you can take to the bank: By noon, the right wing scream machine will have found a way to blame this tragedy on the president of the United States - count on it. They're so predictable that way, you know?

We don't know who committed this hideous act, or whether this particular brand of terrorism was foreign or domestic. To be sure, the time and location are a bit suspicious - Liberal Boston, Tax Day, Sight of the original Tea Party....blah-blah-blah - but that's just the paranoid delusions of a hungover, semi-comatose lefty who only fell out of bed a few minutes ago. Pay it no mind, please. We'll find out soon enough who is responsible for the carnage yesterday afternoon in Boston, Massachusetts. 

A political statement was made yesterday by some anonymous coward. This is it:

"I'M ANGRY!"

Well, yeah, I'm pretty angry, too. A lot of us are - and I imagine we're all a bit angrier on this otherwise dandy Spring morning. Thankfully most of us are rational enough to channel our collective anger through more thoughtful and creative outlets. Why spill the blood of innocents? Of the three people killed in yesterday's explosion, one was an eight-year-old child. A lot of little kids have been losing their lives lately - have you noticed that? These sure are interesting times in which to be alive. 

Will this type of event become the "new norm" in America? That's hard to say. This is the kind of thing that usually happens OVER THERE. "It Can't Happen Here", or so we've always lulled ourselves into believing. But in fact it can happen here. It happened here only yesterday.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? THE SHADOW KNOWS! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh!"

I guess we'll have to look to The Shadow for a little guidance. To be blunt with you, I can't even begin to figure this one out - which is a good thing, I suppose. We shouldn't attempt to mine sense from such a senseless act. When the person or persons responsible for the bombing yesterday are finally apprehended, it won't do us a bit of good trying to analyze what (if anything) their motivations were. Just remember it for what it obviously is: a cruel and stupid act of cold-blooded murder; an act of horrific treason committed on - of all days - Patriot's Day....

Oh, beautiful for patriot's dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears

I don't really have much more to offer you on this gloomy Tuesday. Somehow we'll get through this.

Chin up, Boston!

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net  

SUGGESTED LISTENING:

America the Beautiful
by Ray Charles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yaetvTj5DE
`

Ray is on the mountaintop this morning. What say we join him, ay?

AFTERTHOUGHT:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHARLIE!

One-hundred and twenty-four years ago today Charlie Chaplin was born in London, England.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu-rLA4POkI

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky
You'll get by....