Eric Cantor: Conflater, Liar, and yes, a Pussy

Richmond, Virginia--Is there something in the water in the former capital of the Confederacy or is it just another great example of an overall problem in the culture that goes beyond regional issues?

Someone--and nobody knows who at this point--fired a bullet into the air and it hit a window of a room that's sometimes used by Virginia GOP Representative, Eric Cantor. As most don't want to know by now, Cantor's a prominent figure in the health care debate and wasn't exactly a voice of reason during the dialog during all of that, and there was a lot of it. He was hardly alone within the ranks of the GOP's current congressional incumbency nor their press arm, found primarily in the daily bombast and obfuscation of Fox News. What exactly does the FCC do anyway? If the right had their way, nothing, and that includes inciting others to acts of political violence. What's the new president, someone who stands to get hurt, doing? Apparently, nothing.

Fox News pundit Glenn Beck, political porn star Sarah Palin, conservative media sociopath Rush Limbaugh and a gaggle of former and current GOP incumbents have been telling us more than we ever wanted to know about fictional "death panels," encouraging the carrying of firearms to speaking engagements of the president, and then some. There were also the shoving matches (often clearly planned and even staged by or for GOP operatives) at town hall meetings, the violating of the rights of others to speak at those meetings through shouting (an interesting obverse of silencing activists at Bush speaking events), various other acts of political violence including the murder of a late-term abortion doctor in Kansas, and so on, and so on. Not a pretty picture at all, and much of it coming from that political gadfly movement, the Tea Party crowd. Yet, there is and has been very open demagoguery by even the likes of "mainstream" incumbents enjoining the unhinged towards pointless and violent political action.

Some--even GOP Senator John McCain--are advocating rhetorically of taking up the gun now that the populist right appears to have lost the health care battle. The patrician McCain can hardly be called a "man of the people" either, having married into money when it was clear he wasn't good at anything beyond being propped-up like some banana dictator. Then, there has been the talk and open fanning of the flames of secession in Texas by its current, Republican Governor. But Big Phrama and the insurance and private health cartels are making out like bandits while all the flailing is going on, all the political theater. It's all bullshit, not real. But many of these demagogues have now gone too far with the recent attack-by-plane of an IRS building in Austin, numerous death threats and failed plots on the president, attacks on Democratic incumbents and their offices, verbal assaults of Democratic incumbents, some of them civil rights era heroes, and worse, including numerous attempted break-ins going back as far as the summer of 2007. Like most criminals, they fear a natural backlash for their misbehavior.

Now, we have one of the chief flame fanners (puffer) in Eric Cantor trying very desperately to play the iconography of the victim. As usual, and being a Republican, the truth isn't on his side:

The Richmond Police Department is investigating an act of vandalism at the Reagan Building, 25 E. Main St., Richmond, Virginia. A first floor window was struck by a bullet at approximately 1 a.m. on Tuesday, March 23. The building, which has several tenants including an office used by Congressman Eric Cantor, was unoccupied at the time.

A Richmond Police detective was assigned to the case. A preliminary investigation shows that a bullet was fired into the air and struck the window in a downward direction, landing on the floor about a foot from the window. The round struck with enough force to break the windowpane but did not penetrate the window blinds. There was no other damage to the room, which is used occasionally for meetings by the congressman.

The Richmond Police Department is sharing information about the incident with appropriate law enforcement agencies.

At this time there are no suspects.

Posted by RPD at 12:21 PM (http://richmondvapolice.blogspot.com/2010/03/richmond-police-investigate-cantor.html)

With the projectile coming from a downward trajectory, it's very likely that the bullet was shot from an unrelated location and incident and reached its destination without being purposely aimed with any intent of hitting that location.

Some are already speculating that Cantor and some associates concocted the whole event, but life can be more obvious and stranger than that. Would the GOP stage an event like this? It's not beyond their capacity, surely, they've engaged in criminal acts in the very recent past and can be expected to continue doing so without any significant accountability being brought into play by the forces of law and order. It's a curious thing that while open flouting of the law by the right goes generally untouched the left gets a far different treatment. Simply ask yourself what would have happened to progressive activists had they begun brandishing weapons at Bush II speaking engagements or made the kind of noise of "taking up arms" from 2001-2009. They would have been crushed, and some who were doing a lot less were, some of them antiwar protesters and veterans. This distinctly different treatment of the progressive left and the populist right speaks volumes as to who's the real threat to a corrupt Wall Street.

The Eric Cantor "attack"doesn't appear to be one at all but his the reaction to it, that of the bought media, and the rest of the GOP, is definitely opportunist in trying to downplay their demagogic comments to take up arms that have been triggering acts of political violence within the right in recent months. It's the classic defensive game of projection: you did it, not me. It's a curious event at the end of over a year of the GOP fighting against the same bill that McCain and Mitt Romney would have passed. Why the tantrum? Because they didn't get to pass it, someone else got the spoils, and that's about it. Their pathetic attempts at victimhood would be laughable were they not harming the lives of millions across the globe, the real Insane Clown Posse, and definitely a party comprised mostly of race-baiters at this writing.

Tokyo Rose us, but Single Payer is Never Going Away (you bet!)

Washington D.C.--We expected this, didn't we? It's political theater, this Finance Committee vote, desperation. The funniest thing about this is that no matter what gets passed in Washington, the health system is going to crash, take the economy down further again and again, and that they're going to have to pass single payer de facto down the road anyway and they know it.

So, these morons at town halls can throw their pathetic tantrums, and the insurance companies can keep trying to milk us dry (too late!), but you cannot get blood out of a turnip. Without a consumer base, they have nothing. They're going to get their way for a time, and the economy will continue to crash. From this, will come even more unprecedented election turnouts (hence the bald attacks inside and outside of Congress against ACORN and other groups registering people to vote), and that means voter retribution for those who voted against single payer throughout the entire process.

Eventually, the political costs will become so high in a rapidly disintegrating situation that Congress and the executive branch will have to make something at least resembling single payer as a matter of fact, not fancy. Day-after-day, the average American is pelted with an all-out propaganda assault not unlike Tokyo Rose telling G.I.s to surrender and that their folks at home don't care about them anymore. This is a lie. Through polling over a generation, the public stands firmly behind single payer, medical care for all, and significantly more social spending rather than for unwinnable wars.

This is business fascism--this plutocracy--as simple as that, and it's time to face the reality that citizenship doesn't mean passivity. Single payer isn't going away as a hot-button issue anytime soon. In fact, it's taken on a new life that it hasn't had in decades, and it's not going away. Neither are calls for justice over the criminal behavior of the last administration.

On the dumbbell parade (the 9/12) march numbers and your lazy asses

Washington D.C.--Was it 2 million, as many--uh--parade goers and their tax-cheat backers want us all to think? Nope. Not even close.

Reasonable estimates coming from the police and even the conservative Washington Times has it at around 70-75,000. That's not the real problem. The numbers don't mean anything, it's the sprawl of yelling zombies, spouting terms they never learned anything about in civics class: "Socialist!" Yet--and to underscore their extremism--Obama's in-the-pocket of big pharma and the insurance companies anyway. No, it's because he's black and that their party lost the election, the Republican Party, that other party of big business. Also, they're incredibly ignorant individuals who are easily swayed by the message of fear. That's what we call an idiot, incidentally, a fool.

And who's paying to cart all the tards around? The aforementioned big businessmen and women who declared war on the average person, and therefore, the social contract, long ago. America's sinking, but these morons are too stupid to see the man on the hill running everything into the ground. No, instead, it's the "niggers," the "faggots," phantasm-like "socialists" (yet they never refer to Sen. Bernie Sanders as one, and he is), "communists," and a lot of other terms that aren't applicable outside of science fiction and The Turner Diaries. What supporters (70% of the public, easily dwarfing these loud-mouthed dunces) of single payer are waiting for is beyond me, I guess they're all on Facebook fucking around...ahem. The fact is, these crazies at the town halls are the minority, they're just very loud and they have corporate backing in many cases, if not having been pushed there by these same faceless forces through propaganda. Yet, where's the majority? Something needs to be done, and done now about these yelling geriatrics and racists, these fools.

In other words, if you support single payer, you need to get off of your collective dead-asses and do this: go down to your congressional representative's office and hold a vigil, and not just for one day, for a long, long time if necessary. Write them and call them incessantly until they start doing what we--the majority--want them to do on health care. These jackapes are being scared and even paid to come out and threaten, yell, and intimidate the rest of us into apathy and silence and it's working. They are the minority, we are the majority, and we want socialized medicine. Period. There is nothing left to say after you know that statistic of 70%, and some stats are higher than that.

And young people: what the fuck are you assholes waiting for? Are you retarded? Stupid? I can assure you that you're not going to live forever. Just look at some of you coming back from the Middle East in body bags. And for what? Once again, to make some faceless investors richer. To do nothing about this and to just apathetically take it or buy into it is to be less than a slave. After that, one begins to deserve everything that flows-out of that arrangement. There literally are no words, because after that, widescale violence becomes inevitable with the collapse of the social contract, that agreement we all have to band together as a society to care for one another rather than to murder each other. What are societies for? I bet you cannot answer that question.

Now, that's how stupid you're all being by doing nothing. It doesn't get any lower than that.

But if you really want to get to the crux of this stupidity, it's the American South again, the old Confederacy of Dunces that was never able to function within a democracy and still isn't. If you look at the outlays of the elections since the American Civil War and the voting patterns that drag America into a jaded authoritarianism, it's the South doing it again and again and again. Stupid is as stupid does. We could very well end up with another Civil War, it will have been just as avoidable as the first, and the South will have created the majority of the mess once again. We're seeing the cost of this stupidity writ large and we will reap chaos and destruction from it if we don't start making this a participatory democracy. There's only one way to do it, we all know how, and it's time to get off our asses and into the town halls and the streets to counter these incredibly moronic assholes, there is no other way. Democracy isn't a microwaveable pizza. Do it, hit it, go, now. Quit playing with yourselves.

This whole deal is political theater to give you that golden opportunity to cop-out and do nothing--and I know full well you're all looking for it. Do it. Now. Go. Find your congressional representative's office this weekend and go to his office personally and tell them you want single payer. If they're not going to support it, tell them that not only are you not going to vote for them, but that you're going to campaign for their opponents, that you're going to tell all of your friends and family not to vote for them. Know someone who should run for office but hasn't ever bothered? Push them, get them to run as an independent who will support this agenda of single payer care for all. No excuses, do it. Do it now, otherwise you're also intellectually incapable of functioning in a democracy, and that's about as low as it gets.

Obama's in their pocket, it's about race, ignorance, unwarranted fear, and lost elections:

http://www.citizensforethics.org/file /20090904%20-%20Summary%20of%20Health%20Care%20Visits.pdf

Purple Mays, all in my brain...

WWW--You know, who woulda thunk? Me. Millions who aren't pathetically naive. Billy Mays, a not-a-man who was a carnival barker for fifteen years of his unnatural life, and who hawked a bunch of products I'm not going to mention, was a coke-head. Well, duh.

Far be from me not to speak ill of the dead. This one's worthy of it. And besides: he's dead Jim, he can't feel anything, just like most of corporate America and Wall Street, hence the need for all the coke, hookers, amphetamines, alcohol (sorry, they don't make ludes anymore in America, but that's not good fuel for these folks), and whatever other addictions can fill that gaping-hole in their souls.

When did it all start, and who cares? For over fifteen years, this not-a-man has yelled at me and America, blaring his inanities to sell crap nobody ever wanted or need for rich asshole investors to...get richer. No, I don't think that's a good thing, nope. Again, I'm obviously "just jealous," so please bear with me...

It's doubtful that the autopsy report's going to be impeached--ever--even if someone gets sued or bribed to do it, we now know he had metabolites of cocaine in his system, it's out. Science can be a tad tenacious like that, as seen on TV. Yet, his family and backers are scared shitless about the stiff's image, making statements that contradict--I don't know--a valid autopsy report by the accredited and licensed Hillsborough County medical examiner? You know, a mean guy, so he's probably just doing his job and was just telling us the truth, so money is surely at-stake somewhere in all of this.

"We were totally unaware of any non-prescription drug usage and are actively considering an independent evaluation of the autopsy results," Mays' family said in a statement.

The statement said the family was "extremely disappointed" by the release of the information by the medical examiner's office. The report "contains speculative conclusions that are frankly unnecessary and tend to obscure the conclusion that Billy suffered from chronic, untreated hypertension, which only demonstrates how important it is to regularly monitor one's health."...

Longtime friend and colleague AJ Khubani, founder and CEO of the "As Seen on TV" product company Telebrands, said Mays never exhibited any signs of drug use and was always prepared for his many commercial [sic] shoots.

"I'm just shocked," Khubani said. "He was the model of a responsible citizen." ("Autopsy: Cocaine contributed to Billy Mays' death, AP, 08.07.2009)

Mmmm-hm. Life's full of disappointments, or didn't you get the memo? I know I did. Hey, if I was all coked-up, I'd be "prepared"most of the time too, locked-and-loaded, baby. Mr. Khubani: define what a "model" and responsible citizen is for me some time. I'm assuming it means making you rich(er).

No, I would never think that someone yelling at the top of their lungs showing absurd and abnormal degrees of stamina for the majority of his adult life was taking stimulants, no. Considering that the examiner has listed cocaine as a "contributor" (no, not that kind, silly) to his death (make more sense now?), that he did cocaine just a few days before his departure from this dimension, and the fact that his head appeared poised for explosion since the public first heard of him from all that yelling, I'd say he was at least using the drug off-and-on much of his life. You could say he was probably driven to it, but that he was wrong-headed appears pretty obvious to these eyes and ear, and these ears are still ringing.

Whether he abused the drug is another story, but clearly the man had lifestyle problems. Mays' family made a public statement:

We are extremely disappointed by the press release released by the Hillsborough County medical examiner's office. We believe it contains speculative conclusions that are frankly unnecessary and tend to obscure the conclusion that Billy suffered from chronic, untreated hypertension, which only demonstrates how important it is to regularly monitor one's health.

Given the hectic nature and pace of Billy's life, especially during the past 10 months of his exhaustive travel across the country, it was not surprising to hear that hypertension was the cause of his death.

We were totally unaware of any non prescription drug usage and are actively considering an independent evaluation of the autopsy results. As those who were close to Billy knew, he had been in chronic pain for more than two years and was about to have his third hip surgery in 18 months.

His use of prescription pain medication for his hip condition was guided by his physician and was at recommended usage levels. This has been a very difficult period for our family and we appreciate the respect for our privacy that Billy's many clients, fans and members of the media have extended.

We appreciate your continued thoughts and prayers for the family and will not have any immediate comment beyond this statement.

If you think that I don't pity Mays and his family or mourn him, you're sadly mistaken, I do. The bastards that made a mountain of money (and concomitantly polluted our minds, bodies, and our world, and still are right now) took this poor little man--this barker--and used him up until there was no more to take. Now he is gone, and the madness continues on, but for how long? Until they've made our world uninhabitable.

So, it's not that I hated Billy Mays the man, it's that I hated the image he had to project out there at-the-behest of a bunch of evil businesspeople and investors. Bearing witness to his death is almost like watching the statues falling in the former Soviet Union: Crash, crash, crash. Watch the Shibboleths fall, one-by-one. Historians say that the late Richard M. Nixon was a barker for the gambling-tents during the Great Depression. Makes sense.

"Autopsy report: Cocaine use contributed to death of Billy Mays," 10 Connects.com, 08.07.2009: http://www.wtsp.com/news/mostpop/story.aspx?storyid=111143&provider=top

"Report of Diagnosis and Autopsy on William Darrell Mays, File 09.04082," Hillsborough County, Florida, Medical Examiner Department, conducted 06.29.2009: http://download.gannett.edgesuite.net/wtsp/pdfs/2009/mays-autopsy.pdf

"Toxicology Report, Mays, William Darrell ... ," 07.27.2009: http://download.gannett.edgesuite.net/wtsp/pdfs/2009/mays-toxicology.pdf

Illnois Governor Rod Blagojevich's arrest today

Chicago, Illinois--Let the chips fall where they may, I have no sentimentality for the Democratic Party of Illinois, or otherwise.

You have to wonder if Blagojevich knew Fitzgerald was closing in on him when he went down to the Republic Windows and Doors plant to announce his solidarity with them and also stating that he was doing the almost unprecedented act of halting all business with Bank of America in the state of Illinois until they were compensated.

I think he really did know it was over. Yes, I believe he's guilty, but these are also very peculiar times, one never knows.

What Blagojevich didn't know was what else to do but try to appeal to the people directly, it was all he had left, surveying what might have been. He may continue to do so. If he felt this way, it was too late, as it usually is with scoundrels. He leaves a sad legacy.

What does this event tell us? That corruption is a bipartisan affair. And let's be honest--this is Chicago at its finest, this is what keeps the place going. I don't believe Obama had anything to do with Blagojevich's actions.

Why anyone's shocked by his language in the wiretap transcripts is beyond me. Listen to the JFK tapes, LBJ's, and Nixon's. "Cocksucker" is a favorite, including several variations of "fuck." Like everyone else, they're human beings with all of the same frailties. Remember that due process should be honored in all of this. As hard as it might be for us to believe, the GOP didn't invent corruption and they're not the only ones engaging in it. Let the chips fall where they may, although the evidence appears solid.

One thing's certain in all of this: Rod Blagojevich has always had strange hair. His "alliance" with labor will be seized-upon by GOP and Chamber of Commerce cockroaches, but none of it will matter because he's the one who blew it. His visit to Republic Windows must have presented him with a picture of "what might have been" watching the real solidarity of workers engaged in a sit-down strike. Then he went on to his last hours as Governor of Illinois, before his new status as a "perp."

At 6 a.m., the FBI made their courtesy call. "Is this a joke?" he asked. No, no joke, said the FBI. Look, he had to check. Wouldn't you? Will Rod Blagojevich contemplate how it all came to this? All the tireless years of effort to reach the position of governor? Will he reflect on how all of his supporters over the years are going to feel? Nah, but since he's not a Republican, he's going to be intelligent enough to resign shortly.

President-elect Obama appears to be coming out clean in all of this so far. This all has a ring of "Huey Long" to it, just another broken human dream while others emerge into reality, a shadow on cave walls of what might have been. Blagojevich acting Populist at the very end is both sad and tantalizing, and begs the question, "Why not all of the time?" Blagojevich's possible exposure is part of the answer.

Why shouldn't the governor of a state side with the workers of that state for the common good, and why isn't this more common? The answer is in the workers of Republic Windows and Doors--they stood up and demanded just the things they were owed, which sets them apart from the rest of us and Blagojevich. The governor wanted more, much more, than he was due, and now the GOP are having their brief moment where they're not running their cha-cha line into the courts over corruption charges.