Friendship Friday with Jimmy Olsen: The Boy Who Killed Superman!

Who better to teach us about the true meaning of friendship than Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen?

Friends DON'T kill friends. (Some of these lessons are pretty basic.)

Romney Goes Birther

Now I realize that Mitt Romney's official position up until now of not distancing himself from Birthers because he "needs to get to 50.1% or more" is pretty disgusting, but this is a whole other level of appealing to the racist vote:

"I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born. Ann was born at Henry Ford hospital, I was born at Harper hospital. No one has ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised."

 Personally my favorite part is the 4 second pause just before Romney says the birth certificate line, as if some small part of him questions this decision before being overruled by his blind ambition.  It's also especially classy given that he's spent the last week and a half attacking Vice President Joe Biden of using racist "code words."

Published as a Public Service Announcement: The Dodo and the Frog Ask "How Are Your Manners Out-Of-Doors?"

In the 40s and 50s, DC Comics published a series of PSAs in all of their titles. Some of them are still valuable lessons we can learn from today.....others are not.

I'm just going to skip right over the fact that Dodo's are extinct and the fact that the plan is apparently to have bears maul the children because I can't get past the fact that the frog is bigger than the bears and wearing a top hat.

FDR Warned Us Not to Trust Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan

Which is pretty impressive when you think about it, since he died before either of them were even born:

Let me warn you and let me warn the nation against the smooth evasion that says “Of course we believe these things. We believe in Social Security. We believe in work for the unemployed. We believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things. But we do not like the way the present administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them. We will do more of them. We will do them better. And most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything.”

-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

An iPhone App (Possibly) More Fun than Angry Birds

Ok, this is actually pretty cool (even if it makes me a nerd). The Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit that tracks SuperPAC spending, has released a free iPhone app called AdHawk that will identify who is behind a political ad, the groups history/where they get their funding, and how much money they're spending to get it out there by sampling 15 seconds of audio. I've spent a couple minutes playing with it and it actually works pretty well:

"VOTE!!!: The Game" Trailer

No words.  Should have sent a poet:

Wit of the Web Slinger Wednesday: Penguin

Spider-Man is supposed to be funny, so this is kind of an abomination:

No, I have absolutely no idea why Spider-Man is an animal wrangler for a movie.  Or for that matter why the director has placed her chair directly in front of the camera.

Republican Racism Review: Birther SEALs, Dog Whistles, and the American Dream

Real button handed out at the 2008
Texas Republican State Convention

If you start keeping your eyes open for them, there are a terrifying number of news stories about Republicans being racist:

• Now some would call reminding voters that Obama found and ordered the death of America's Number 1 enemy who is universally despised the stupidest thing you could do if you were trying to hurt him in the polls.  Those people would be wrong.  The stupidest thing you could do would be to hire as the frontman for your Swiftboating operation an admitted Birther and conspiracy theorist.  Because nothing says level headed, well reasoned, rational opposition like a guy who thinks the President is a secret Kenyan Muslim usurper who secretly assassinated Andrew Breitbart.

• Oh, the other former Navy SEAL organization attacking the President for killing Osama Bin Laden is also lead by a Birther.  You know, for symmetry.

• Lauderdale County, Mississippi has started shipping suspended school children directly to jail to serve their suspensions.  Surprising exactly no one, the overwhelming majority of these children are African American, who are being "crammed into small, filthy cells and tormented with the arbitrary use of Mace as a punishment for even the most minor infractions, such as 'talking to much.'"  Because that is a sane thing to do to children who are loud.

• Speaking of cruelty towards minority children, Pat Robertson thinks it's ok to dump a woman solely because you find out her children are adopted from third world countries: "A man doesn't want to take on the United Nations...You don't have to take on someone else's problems.  I mean, you really don't." Now I seem to remember the Bible telling us that we are our brother's keeper and that Jesus said to "suffer the little children to come onto me and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of God."  But what do I know, I'm not a big shot Religious Right leader like Pat Robertson.

• The Romney campaign is accusing Vice President Joe Biden of using racist "code words" in his comments about how Republican economic policies would unchain Wall Street and put the rest of us in chains.  Now I could go off on a tangent about how maybe when no prominent African American individuals or organizations have come forward saying the comments were inappropriate or asking for an apology and in fact the only people who seem to be upset are conservative white people, that maybe, just maybe, those comments weren't actually racist but just an uncomfortable truth.  But instead I want to congratulate the Romney campaign on figuring out the concept of dog whistle racism.  Maybe now they'll stop using it themselves.  For example not saying things like President Obama doesn't appreciate our special "Anglo-Saxon heritage."  Stuff like that.

• Joe the Plumber has an interesting solution to the illegal immigration problem: “I’m running for Congress. How many congressmen or people running for Congress have you heard, put a fence up and start shooting? None? Well you heard it here first. Put troops on the border and start shooting, I bet that solves our immigration problem real quick.”  Did I say interesting?  I mean sociopathic.  Then again I'm not sure why anyone would listen to a guy who calls himself "Joe the Plumber" who is not actually named Joe, not actually a plumber, and does not have the middle name "the."

• Meanwhile, Danny Tarkanian, a Republican congressional candidate in Nevada, defended himself of accusations of using broad racial stereotypes by accusing his African American opponent of pretending to be black.  Presumably he believes that the best defense against accusations of racism is doubling down on the racism?  Closet racists really must hate the prevalence of camera phones.

• RNC Chairman Reince Preibus believes that the "Mitt Romney Story" best represents "the American Dream."  I mean sure the child of an interracial marriage, raised by a single mother, coming from humble beginnings to become a constitutional law professor and later President of the United States SOUNDS good, but its no born to a multi-millionaire CEO and Governor who went on to be a corporate raider and then try to buy the Presidency multiple times.  Come on, this is the American Dream we're talking about.

West Wing Wednesday

Voting Rights Violators: A Fun Theory, Some Depressing Stuff, and Why It Matters

In 11 weeks we go to the polls again to reelect President Obama. Republicans know that they aren't going to gain the support of the American people, so instead they're going to strip them of the right to vote:

• The Guardian has my new favorite theory for why Mitt Romney is refusing to release his tax returns: they could prove he committed voter fraud.  The article is worth a read, but the gist of it is that during the 2010 special election to replace Ted Kennedy, Mitt and Ann Romney did not own any property in Massachusetts and registered to vote out of their son's Belmont, MA basement.  Now just because Mitt's worth a quarter of a billion dollar and owns three mansions in other states, it doesn't prove that he wasn't living in his son's basement.  But his 2009 tax returns, which were filed shortly after the special election, could.  In fact, in cases of voter fraud by disputed residence, where someone lists their residence on their tax returns is considered the gold standard.  For extra fun, this type of voter fraud would not be prevented by Republican Voter ID laws.

• Remember Republican Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, our friend from this morning?  Well he's suspended two Democratic election board members for standing up to him in his attempts to eliminate early weekend voting in the state.  Not suspended of course is Republican election board member Doug Priesse who came out saying "I guess I really actually feel we shouldn't contort the voting process to accomodate the urban--read African American--voter-turnout machine."  I mean obviously you should suspend the two election board members advocating making it easier to vote and not the one explicitly saying we should make it harder for African Americans to vote.  Republicans are trying to win an election, for Pete's sake.

• Have no fear that Ohio is the only messed up state in the union, Florida's Republican Governor Rick Scott is vowing a new voter purge before the election, despite the fact that his last purge failed when even Republicans agreed it was too blatant an attempt at voter suppression.

• Meanwhile up north in Pennsylvania, Republicans are celebrating their Voter ID law being upheld in state court by canceling a program to allow people to register to vote or apply for an absentee ballot online.

• Oh, and Forbes Magazine wonders why we even let poor people vote at all.

• Last week I made fun of Congressman Todd "legitimate rape" Akin for opposing the direct election of Senators (I was calling him a whackjob before it was cool).  Just as I pointed out this morning that his views on rape and abortion are actually pretty common in the Republican Party, his opposition to the 17th Amendment isn't fringe in the Republican Party either.  Arizona Senate candidate Congressman Jeff Flake, Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, Texas Governor and former Presidential candidate Rick Perry, Senator Mike Lee, and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia have two things in common.  They are all prominent Republicans on the national stage, and they all oppose the 17th Amendment and the direct election of US Senators.

• Why do I make such a big deal out of all of this stuff?  Because Obama (and Democrats in general) beat Republicans 2 to 1 among "unlikely voters.  Those are the people most likely to get disenfranchised by voter suppression tactics.  If you want to say that makes this a partisan issue, that's fine.  But it also means that Democrats are on the side of more people legally voting while Republicans are on the side of preventing people from exercising their right to vote.  And in a democracy, that makes us the good guys.

The DNC Helps Romney Paint a Word Picture on his Tax Returns

And it's beautiful:

Hostess Snack Break: Daredevil in "McBrain's Brain Drain."

Everyone needs a break sometimes, so why don't you enjoy this one with one of your favorite superheroes and one of your favorite Hostess snack treats:

Sure we could focus on the fact that it's lucky the guy with mind powers is named McBrain instead of like Steve or the fact that being the smartest man alive doesn't stop him from being distracted by junk food you can buy at the gas station, and maybe it's just that I've looked at so many of these ads now, but is anyone else freaked out that there isn't a single exclamation mark anywhere on here?  Not even in the title?

Terrific Tuesday Tidings: Voting Rights, Lesbians, and Todd Akin

It's Tuesday and that means it's time for my ongoing quest to become a more positive person. Here are the news stories that made me happy this week:

• Presumably because I called him out on it last week, Republican Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has backed down from a plan to increase the hours for early voting in counties that vote for Republicans while decreasing them in Democratic counties.  Which is exactly as messed up as it sounds.

• Still before you start thinking Husted is a good guy, credit goes to the Obama campaign for suing to overturn a new Ohio voting law that would strip most voters of their right to vote early in the last few days of the campaign.

• In a last bit of voting rights news, a federal judge has shut down a Republican attempt to overturn same day voter registration in Minnesota.  For those not familiar with the lingo, same day registration means that eligible voters can register to vote up to and including election day, making it vastly easier (and therefore more likely) for people to vote.

• Actress Jane Lynch has founded the first lesbian SuperPAC, LPAC, which I just think is cool.

• In other cool lesbian news, the Army has named the first openly gay female general in US history. So congratulations to General Tammy S. Smith and her wife Tracey!  Amazingly this news is about a week old and somehow the Republic still stands.

• Congressman Todd Akin is the Republican Senate candidate who said on Sunday that, "from what I understand from doctors, [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”  Under Missouri law, he has until 5PM today to drop out of the race if he is going to be replaced on the ballot.  Despite intense pressure, he says he's not going to.  Why is that a good thing?  Because what's really disgusting about Todd Akin is not how miserably he was failed by his high school biology class, but that he opposes abortion rights even in the cases of rape and incest.  And he's not alone in that.  It's a position that's going to be part of the official Republican Party platform this year, held by Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, and even Mitt Romney supports a Constitutional amendment defining life as starting at conception.  The only difference between the rest of the Republican Party and Todd Akin on this issue is that Todd Akin is stupid enough to be open about just how horrible he really is.  Which gives Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill her best shot at reelection and our best shot at saving our Senate Majority.  And if Todd Akin's exposes Romney/Ryan and any other Republicans that share his views for the monsters they are, well that's fine by me too.

Frontline of the Class War: Ryan Plans, Tax Returns, and Olympic Hypocrisy

The Republicans are right, there is a class war going on in this country. And they're the ones waging it against the middle and working class:

• Romney's selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate has put the Congressman's budget plan front and center in the campaign.  Which hasn't exactly been great news for Romney seeing as how it ends Medicare as we know it, raises taxes on the middle class while cutting them for the wealthy (remember it's only class warfare if it goes the other way), and according to Fox News of all places doesn't actually cut the deficit.  Oh, and the Catholic Church has come out and said that the Ryan Plan is "immoral."  On the other hand under the Ryan Plan, Romney would only have a tax rate of 0.82%, which is probably why his campaign said as President he would sign it into law.

• Still, when the best defense against public backlash to the campaign appears to be that a lot of people think the Ryan Plan sounds too cartoonishly evil to actually be a real policy proposal when it's described to them the first time, a lot of Republicans in competitive races are running from the plan as fast as they can.  That would include Mitt Romney.  What do we know about the "Romney Plan"?  Not a lot.  We do know that it would shift the tax burden from the rich to the poor and by Romney's own admittance in a best case scenario would create the exact same number of jobs over the next four years as doing nothing.  And as awesome as all that sounds, we sadly don't really know much more, since as Paul Ryan admits, they actually "haven't run the numbers" on any of it.  Don't worry though, Ezra Klein has, and he describes the "Romney Plan" as "mathematically impossible."  Which explains why Romney and Ryan have decided not to talk any more about their economic policy until after the election. I guess the idea is that if you want to find out what they'd do to this country, you're going to have to elect them to find out.

• Let's play a game: Which Is Worse? Congressman David Drier saying that he doesn't "think that someone who is diagnosed with a massive tumor should the next day be able to have millions and millions and millions of dollars in health care provided" OR Republican Alaska Congressional Candidate Mark Ewing opposing educating the disabled because “We are spending millions and millions of dollars educating children that have a hard time making their wheelchair move and, I’m sorry, but you’ve got to say, ‘no’ somewhere. We need to educate our children, but there are certain individuals that are just not going to benefit from an education.”??? Trick question, they're both monsters.  Besides, Romney basically agrees with that second guy since he thinks that students should only get "as much education as they can afford."

• New game: Who is More Out of Touch? A guy who thinks "the waiters and waitresses that come in and out of this room and offer us refreshments" at a $10,000 a plate dinner are "middle class OR a guy whose idea of a struggling farmer owns 54 different farms, is a real estate mogul, and has a private museum in his house (I'll admit the pictures are pretty cool)?  Trick question again!  They're both Mitt Romney.

• Just before the Paul Ryan announcement even Republicans had to admit that they were pretty trapped on the issue of Romney's refusal to release his tax returns.  Then he picked his VP and the tax return stories stopped.  So what's the savvy political play?  Probably not sending Ann Romney out to say that "there's nothing we're hiding."  Or have Mitt himself go out and say he's not releasing any more tax returns because "I'm not a business."  Apparently corporations are people, but people are not corporations.  Live and learn.  But that's ok, President Obama is willing to throw Romney a lifeline: If he'll release just five years of tax returns, Obama won't ask for anymore.  Unsurprisingly, Romney said "no."  Probably because it would just prompt a lot more stories like this one about Romney trying to reassess his property less than a year after buying his La Jolla mansion to try to cut his property tax in half.  Oh and remember how picking Paul Ryan was a great distraction on the tax returns issue?  Now people want to know why Romney demanded to see more of Ryan's returns than he's personally released.

• Another game:  Which is More Messed Up? Paul Ryan attacking Obama for not saving an auto plant in his district that closed under President Bush OR Governor John Sununu lamenting the fact that Medicare gets in the way of seniors experiencing the joys of the insurance free market?  Yet another trick question.  It's definitely Bain Capital making auto workers train their Chinese replacements before closing the factory and shipping their jobs overseas.

• Now we all know that stimulus spending is evil or something and almost certainly part of Obama's plot to something something SOCIALISM.  But you probably didn't know that in 2008 Romney was proposing a stimulus program to help the economy because "if we go into recession, the cost of our balanced budget is going to be far more severe than the cost of this program."  To be fair though, he was probably just cribbing from his running mate who in 2002 described stimulus bills this way:

"What we're trying to accomplish today with the passage of this third stimulus package is to create jobs and help the unemployed," Ryan said, in comments unearthed by MSNBC's "Up with Chris Hayes" and provided to HuffPost. "What we're trying to accomplish is to pass the kinds of legislation that when they've passed in the past have grown the economy and gotten people back to work...We have a lot of laid off workers, and more layoffs are occurring," the congressman continued. "And we know, as a historical fact, that even if our economy begins to slowly recover, unemployment is going to linger on and on well after that recovery takes place. What we have been trying to do starting in October and into December and now is to try and get people back to work. The things we're trying to pass in this bill are the time-tested, proven, bipartisan solutions to get businesses to stop laying off people, to hire people back, and to help those people who have lost their jobs."

•  Finally, Mitt Romney explained to the Olympic Athletes at the Salt Lake City Games that "You Olympians, however, know you didn't get here solely on your own power,” said Romney, who on Friday will attend the Opening Ceremonies of this year’s Summer Olympics. “For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your hopes, coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them. We’ve already cheered the Olympians, let’s also cheer the parents, coaches, and communities. All right!"  Which is fitting, since Romney also testified under oath that "without question, we simply could not host Games in Salt Lake if it were not for the enormous spending and services of the federal government."  So I guess he didn't build that either.

Welcome to the working week!

More and More I Think The Onion is Prophecy Not Satire

This aired on the Onion News Network last year:

It's a year later and Republicans have chosen a "Mystery Candidate."  We can't see Romney's tax returns, and if we want to find out what his budget plan, tax plan, or foreign policy are going to be, well we'll just have to elect him to find out.  Oh and Biden is still the original Mystery Man, "no one knows what he'll do next."

Weekly Weekend Caption Contest: Time to Vote

Alright, our captioners have done their job, now it's time for you to do yours! Here are this week's submissions:

Submitted by Reader "Joe Pesci" who has apparently not moved past Casino:

Facebook Fan Geoffrey also has a film fetish:

Facebook Fan Geoffrey comes back a second time with shades of George HW Bush:

Twitter Fan @DemageControl also likes movies more than Mitt Romney:

Reader "Anonymous" wonders if maybe the whole tax returns thing has just been a big misunderstanding:

Facebook Friend Stanley makes an introduction:

Facebook Friend Beth wonders if Romney envisions a world where servants have servants:

Facebook Friend Leslie might not understand exactly what a tax haven is:

So who's going to be this week's Weekly Weekend Caption Contest King or Queen?

Joe Pesci

Geoffrey 1

Geoffrey 2

@DemageControl

Anonymous

Stanley

Beth

Leslie

Vote for your favorite in the comments by midnight tonight!

Love Lessons with Lois Lane: Lana Lang's Romance with Superman III!

In much of the civilized world, Saturday night is date night. And everything I know about dating I learned from Lois Lane. So before heading out for the night, let's see what advice she has for us this week:

You might think that if you can't be with the one you love hooking up with one of their relatives is a good conciliation prize.  It's not, it's creepy.  Also "Mrs. Lois Superman" might be the best argument in existence against women taking their husband's name.

Weekly Weekend Caption Contest

It's the weekend and you know what that means: The Entertained Organizer's Weekly Weekend Caption Contest! The rules are simple: You have until midnight Sunday to submit your caption to the photo either in the comments here or on Facebook. Then on Monday we'll vote to see who is this week's Entertained Organizer Caption King or Queen:

Wit of the Web Slinger Wednesday: Wet Coat

Spider-Man is supposed to be funny, so this is kind of an abomination:

Putting aside the fact the guy in the trench coat is just kind of phasing through the wall in that first panel, why does he look so sad?

Voting Rights Violators: Voter Suppression, Early Voting, and the 17th Amendment?

In 12 weeks we go to the polls again to reelect President Obama. Republicans know that they aren't going to gain the support of the American people, so instead they're going to strip them of the right to vote:

• Just to kind of set the tone, Judson Philips, founder of the Tea Party Nation, responded to the question of whether it was really worth throwing five million legitimate voters off the voting rolls to potentially stop five thousand illigetimate voters by saying: "It is worth making sure people who are allowed to vote, CAN vote and people who are not allowed to vote, DON'T vote."  You know, in the same way that our legal system is designed to imprison a hundred innocent people rather than let a guilty one go free.

• Republican Governor of Pennsylvania Tom Corbett puts it more simply, "We want to make sure that they don't get to 50% [voter turnout].  Keep that down." Which is why Pennsylvania's Republican Majority Leader Mike Turzai admits that they passed Voter ID laws because they are "gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania."  Even if that means disenfranchising more than 9% of the state's voters.

• Rush Limbaugh has declared war on Early Voting, declaring it "a recipe for cheating.  It's one of the reasons it exists."  Sure that doesn't really make any sense since Early Voting gives more time to verify that the people voting are actually the voter, but that's not going to stop Congressman Allen West from doubling down, "I think that this early voting thing was something we provided and now some people see it as an entitlement, which is really not consistent with constitutional voting practices and procedures."  That's of course extra special since Early Voting is especially prevalent in West's home state of Florida, where Pews to Polls is used to significantly increase African American voter turnout.  Of course it's not really surprising given that the former Chair of the Florida Republican Party, Jim Greer, has testified that Republican Party "consultants and staff" had meetings to plan "voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting."

• Of course if you can't eliminate Early Voting, you might as well make sure it benefits you.  Which is why Ohio Republicans are shortening the hours that Early Voting will be available in Democratic counties, while increasing the number of hours in Republican counties.

• Finally, while everything above might sound crazy, really it's just evil.  Crazy is Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin calling for the repeal of the 17th Amendment because people shouldn't be allowed to vote for US Senators.

Hostess Snack Break: The Incredible Hulk and "Friends!"

Everyone needs a break sometimes, so why don't you enjoy this one with one of your favorite superheroes and one of your favorite Hostess snack treats:

It occurs to me that pretending to be the Hulk's friend is probably a great way to take over the world, at least till he figures it out and smashes you.  Also "King Torkon and the Toad World" would be an awesome band name.

Weekly Weekend Caption Contest: Winner!

And this week's Weekly Weekend Caption Contest King or Queen is......"Anonymous"!

Why I Love Comics: Batman's Adventures in Babysitting

If you've spent more than a day reading the Entertained Organizer, you know I love comic books. This is one of the many reasons why:

In 2000's Batman Gotham Adventures #26, for reasons too bizarre to get into, every criminal organization in the world is after a baby.  So of course, Batman takes it upon himself to protect the child:

Weekly Weekend Caption Contest: Time to Vote

Alright, our captioners have done their job, now it's time for you to do yours!  Here are this week's submissions:

"Scrooge McDuck" suggests a possible slogan for the Republican ticket:

"Anonymous" feels that this pick doesn't inspire confidence in the Republican ticket:

So who's going to be this week's Weekly Weekend Caption Contest King or Queen?  "Scrooge McDuck" or "Anonymous"?  Vote for your favorite in the comments by midnight tonight!

Love Lessons with Lois Lane: The Amazing Brain Machine!

In much of the civilized world, Saturday night is date night. And everything I know about dating I learned from Lois Lane. So before heading out for the night, let's see what advice she has for us this week:

Relationships are not a video game.  There is no secret code that will make anyone love you.  And if there was it would be Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start.

First Responses to the Paul Ryan Pick

A lot is going to be said about the Romney picking Rep. Paul Ryan as his Vice Presidential running mate (a lot of it probably by me).  Polling indicates that about half the country has never heard of him, and of those who have heard of him it's split pretty evenly between love and hate (actually leaning a little bit towards hate).  So it's going to be a race to define him for both campaigns over the next few weeks.  And Romney's going to lose.  Not because the Obama campaign already has this ad up:

But because when they hear about the Ryan Plan Budget, 58% of Americans (and 74% of senior citizens) are opposed to it.  And those numbers may actually be on the low side since because many people simply refuse to believe that anyone would actually advocate for the destruction of Medicare to pay for tax cuts for millionaires.  It's been 8 hours since the pick was officially announced and already the Romney campaign is trying to distance themselves from the Ryan Budget.  And that's simply not going to work.  There's not a way to separate Ryan and his budget.  He is possibly the clearest distillation of Republican economic thought, and people aren't going to like it when they see it:

And, in the Congress, there is Congressman Paul Ryan, who is angling right now to make a career out of political sadism. 

Make no mistake: Ryan is a thoroughgoing nutball, as bug-house crazy on economics as Peter King is on Muslims and Steve King is on anyone swarthier than himself. He is a lifelong adherent to the doctrines of Ayn Rand, which ought to disqualify anyone from ever being taken seriously enough to park cars by anyone over the age of fifteen. In terms of their connection to actual human reality, the difference between the doctrines of Ayn Rand and the doctrines of L. Ron Hubbard is not substantial, and the fervor of their acolytes is almost exactly the same. Picking Paul Ryan to handle your political economy is tantamount to electing Tom Cruise to be pope. 

Paul Ryan is a thoroughgoing fraud. He went through high school and most of college on Social Security survivor benefits after his father's death. He voted for almost all the Bush programs — including both off-the-books wars — that ballooned the deficit he so piously condemns now. And this week, as he rolled out his lunatic conception of a federal budget, Paul Ryan produced the definitive statement of his political philosophy: There are those Americans who deserve to live and those Americans who don't. Period. All of the former are very, very wealthy. All of the latter are poor, or struggling, or old. Paul Ryan believes the true mission of government is to bring as much pain to the parasites as it can because, by doing so, it can liberate the genius of those people who deserve to live. When Paul Ryan dreams of a free nation, it is one in which the seventy-two-year-old spouses of seventy-five-year-old patients are free to go out and shop in a rigged insurance market for the $100,000-plus they're going to need over a lifetime of tending to that patient. If they insisted on feeding themselves, and even risking the odd vacation, over the course of their working lives and they failed to anticipate what might befall them, then the spouse is going to have to starve and the patient is just going to have to sit there in his own filth, until market forces determine that they should die.

Weekly Weekend Caption Contest: VP Edition

It's been a while but you still know the rules. Submit your caption to this picture in the comments by midnight Sunday and we'll vote on whose is the best on Monday:

Friendship Friday with Jimmy Olsen: The Outlaw Jimmy Olsen!

Who better to teach us about the true meaning of friendship than Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen?

Friends DO notice when their friends aren't acting like themselves.

Let the Witch Hunt Begin!

Koch Brothers' Solution to Romney's Unlikeability Problem

It's difficult to try to sell a candidate that even the people who support him don't actually like.  And so the Koch Brothers' SuperPAC (Americans for Prosperity) has come up with a novel solution, pretend Ronald Reagan is the Republican nominee instead:

Admittedly Zombie Reagan would almost certainly be more electable than Mitt Romney, but I'm not sure what their plan is when he's not actually on the ballot.

Published as a Public Service Announcement: Superman Says "Lend a Friendly Hand!"

In the 40s and 50s, DC Comics published a series of PSAs in all of their titles. Some of them are still valuable lessons we can learn from today.....others are not.

If only Superman had abducted more children and taken them to war torn countries in the 50s, the world might be a better place today.

Romney Girl by Miss Swiss Bank Account

I should probably be more mature than to find this funny but all I can think is that this is what happens when you demonize artists and creative people.  Compare "Romney Girl" to the only pro-Romney music video I could find:

Now behold the magic of "Mitt Romney, A Hero in My Mind":

Finally, be sure to check out the Romney Girl website.  They've got a copy of the lyrics with hyperlinks to the news stories they were drawn from and more pink sparkles than you've seen on a website since the 90s.

Wit of the Web Slinger Wednesday: Milk

Spider-Man is supposed to be funny, so this is kind of an abomination:

I know I should probably be wondering why Spider-Man is at a dairy farm with a guy in a trench coat, but for some reason I'm fixating on the fact that white cows don't actually have horns.  These are going to break my brain.

Businesses Need Government OR Three Strikes and You're Out

Mostly because the economy continues to improve and Romney looks more and more each day like an elitist gaffe machine with something to hide, he's been trying to milk President Obama's "you didn't build that" speech for everything it's worth.  Now I've already covered how those remarks are being taken out of context, so today I want to focus on what a poor job Romney has been doing to capitalize on them. Namely he's created a series of ads conveniently titled "These Hands" that show business owners being indignant at the idea they're not Randian Supermen.

This is the first of those ads, featuring Jack Gilchrist and the Gilchrist Metal Fabricating Company:

Mr. Gilchrist is very upset because he feels that he and his father "With hard work and a little bit of luck we built this business."  Which is true.  But the half million dollar loan from the US Small Business Administration in the 80s probably helped as did the $800,000 tax exempt bond from the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority to build a second plant.  Also the military construction contracts.

So okay, the flagship ad in this series about how the government never helps businesses happens to star a businessman who is a government contractor whose business was started with a government loan and expanded with a government bond.  While that certainly contradicts the entire point that Romney is trying to make, I'm sure the next ad will do a much better job.  Meet Dennis Sollmann of the Sollmann Electric Company:

Mr. Sollmann is very upset about President Obama's (heavily edited) remarks, "He was trying to say 'hey, you didn't build that business on your own, the government helped you build it.'  And that's what ticked me off more than anything."  So it should surprise exactly no one that the Sollmann Electric Company is a government contractor with millions of dollars in contracts from local school districts.

Surely though, Melissa Ball of Ball Office Products will break this trend for Romney:

To start, Ms. Ball's assertion that the guys she makes drive trucks in triple digit heat for 14 hours a day built the company as much as she did is a little off message (it's almost as if labor is as, if not more important than, management).  Sounds pretty socialist to me, but that's not really what we're here for.  Nope that'd be the fact that Ball Office Products is the exclusive provider of office products to the Virginia Commonwealth University and the General Services Administration.  Now I have no problem with government contractors, but if you're trying to make the argument that businesses don't need government at all, using businesses that regularly cash checks from the government is about the stupidest thing you can do.

Which is why I'm going to stop here.  As far as I can tell Romney's made at least two more of these "These Hands" ads and I'm sure that some time spent on google would uncover that those businesses too benefitted from the existence of government.  Because as Obama said, it's simply a fact that all businesses benefit from operating in a civil society with roads, bridges, electricity, and education. All these ads really do is show that Romney's campaign is terrible if the first three businesses they picked to refute reality not only benefit in those intangible ways, but literally rely on the government for their bottom line.

So three strikes and I'm out (at least until they mess up hilariously again).

Hostess Snack Break: Captain America and the Time Warp!

Everyone needs a break sometimes, so why don't you enjoy this one with one of your favorite superheroes and one of your favorite Hostess snack treats:

I'm just going to completely sidestep how Caesar and the Roman legion know how to speak English because this is where it all starts.  Twinkies (the ultimate mind control drug) are used to send them back in time with Twinkies, which they will reverse engineer and build an immortal, mind controlled, Roman Empire.  Expect to wake up wearing a toga any day now.

This is Pretty Brutal

I don't think I've ever seen a political ad where a man claims a Presidential candidate murdered his wife before.  The fact that it's convincing is even more troubling:

"He Pays Less. You Pay More."

So just to review, President Obama cut taxes for 98% of all Americans.  Mitt Romney's plan would raise taxes on the bottom 95% to give the top 5% massive tax breaks.  Ya, this might have some legs:

Friendship Friday with Jimmy Olsen: The Bird Boy of Metropolis

Who better to teach us about the true meaning of friendship than Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen?

Friends DO stand by their friends, even when they look foolish.

Reid to Romney: "Whatever You Do, Don't Throw Me In That Briar Patch"

Anyone who has ever watched (the incredibly racist) Song of the South or been on Splash Mountain knows the story of Br'er Rabbit and the Briar Patch: Br'er Fox catches Br'er Rabbit and plans to kill him, Br'er Rabbit says he doesn't care what Br'er Fox does to him as long as he doesn't throw him in the briar patch, Br'er Fox has a cruel streak so he does just that, and then Br'er Rabbit reveals that that's what he wanted all along since he grew up in the briar patch and was safe there.  Now, what exactly does this have to do with Mitt Romney?

For the last few weeks Democrats have been playing a game called "Keep Mitt Romney's Tax Returns In The News."  The game is pretty simple:

1. Mitt Romney clearly has no intention of releasing his tax returns.
2. Mitt Romney looks guilty every time he refuses to release his tax returns.
3. Therefore we should make Mitt Romney refuse to release his tax returns as often as possible.

It's a pretty fun game and it's very good politics.  And in honor of the Olympics, earlier this week Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided to take it to a whole new level.  In an interview with the Huffington Post, Reid claimed that an anonymous Bain Capital investor told him that Romney didn't pay any taxes for 10 years.  On its face it's an outrageous claim.  Barring actual evidence that he committed tax fraud, the accusation that he paid zero taxes for a decade is certainly the worst thing that could possibly be in Romney's tax returns.  And adding insult to injury, Reid's "source" is ANONYMOUS (and quite likely made up) investor (and why would an investor at Bain Capital know anything about Romney's tax returns anyway).  Why it's almost as if Reid was trying to goad Romney into doing something stupid.

I want to reiterate that it's bad for Romney every time he has to talk about his tax returns.  At this point even releasing them likely wouldn't help him.  His best bet is just to ignore comments like Reid's.  Or he could do this:

"It's time for Harry to put up or shut up. Harry's gonna have to describe who it is he spoke with because of course that's totally and completely wrong. It's untrue, dishonest and inaccurate. It's wrong. So I'm looking forward to have Harry reveal his sources and we'll probably find out that it's the White House."

 When you're desperately trying to avoid releasing documents and are being accused of hiding things, it's probably best to avoid being tricked into saying "it's time to put up or shut up."  Because otherwise, you're going to find out that Br'er Rabbit calls the briar patch "home":

“When it comes to answering the legitimate questions the American people have about whether he avoided paying his fair share in taxes or why he opened a Swiss bank account, Romney has shut up. But as a presidential candidate, it’s his obligation to put up, and release several years’ worth of tax returns just like nominees of both parties have donefor decades." -Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid