Oh, God.
She’s going to make a reality TV show, isn’t she?
It may be freezing and rainy in London on this afternoon in late May, but boy am I glad to be well outside the broadcast reach of the TLC network right now.
Good luck, America.
Politics
Exit Bachmann
Well, this is a very sad day for American comedians and political junkies across the land. Our thoughts (but certainly not our prayers) must especially go out to Bill Maher at this difficult time. Why?
Because US Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota’s 6th district – otherwise known as Minnesota Palin – will not be running for re-election in 2014.
And she made this incredibly cheesy YouTube video to break the devastating news to her constituents:
She assures as that her decision has nothing to do with any of the following potential juicy reasons:
1. The fact that she barely held on to her seat in 2012, and the same Democratic Party challenger is gearing up to take her on again in 2014.
2. Her 2012 presidential campaign is being investigated by the Federal Elections Commission for potential serious improprieties.
3. She goes on dirty, McCarthy-ite, partisan witch hunts against loyal public servants.
4. She’s quite clearly insane.
So what, oh what could the real reason be? Did Michele Bachmann jump or was she pushed?
Normally I wholeheartedly agree with the likes of Glenn Greenwald, who argue that this type of Politico-esque process and personality-obsessed gossiping should not be part of our political discourse, and that it distracts from real journalism, and serious discussions of policy when we need them most. Quite right. But this particular dose of schadenfreude is too good to pass up.
Farewell, Michele Bachmann.
At least she was looking directly at the camera this time around.
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Sanford Wins
Well, I was wrong.
Based on pre-election polling data, and an excess of trust in the wisdom of the electorate, I predicted that the Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch would defeat the Republican former governor Mark Sanford in South Carolina’s 1st congressional district election.
Politico reports:
In the end, the nail biter that late polls hinted at never materialized: Sanford crushed Colbert Busch, 54 to 45 percent.
A turning point in the race came two weeks ago, when Sanford held a mock debate with a cardboard cut-out of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, implying that the California Democrat — persona non grata in conservative South Carolina – was a stand-in for his Democratic opponent.
The former governor endured days of derision from the press for the move — Mark Sanford, once regarded as a viable potential presidential candidate, was debating a piece of cardboard.
But behind the scenes, Sanford’s aides grinned: Every time a reporter put “Pelosi” and “Colbert Busch” in the same sentence, the Republican was winning.
From reading this article it is clear that Sanford ran a far superior campaign to Busch. Tightly-controlled campaigns such as Colbert Busch’s, with handlers keeping the candidate away from any potentially awkward encounter with a real person, are almost never the best way to win, let alone the right way to behave, and yet that is precisely the model that Colbert Busch chose to follow.
Sanford, by contrast, ran an old-fashioned retail politician campaign, barnstorming the district, accepting every invitation for interview or appearance, and offering no end of mea culpas whenever he was asked about his chequered past.
The article continues:
This time, Sanford was, in a sense, running from scratch once again. Without the trappings of the governorship, he hop-scotched the Lowcountry in a black van driven by an aide. After spending a year in obscurity, he was reintroducing himself to voters — soothing the concerns of voters who still felt squeamish about what he had done.
In a district rich with evangelical voters, he adopted religious language to describe his personal journey, talking about a “God of second chances.”
“His strength of his campaign style is that he’s out there every day,” said Scott English, who served as Sanford’s gubernatorial chief of staff. “He loves being around people, and that’s the hallmark of his campaign.”
He ran a smart campaign because he knew how to run a smart campaign. Because he has been doing this since the age of 34. Because he is a career politician.
In South Carolina, the better candidate – but the worse representative – prevailed.
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On Bank Holidays
Tomorrow is a Bank Holiday in the United Kingdom.
We all get the day off work, which is thrilling and terrific. Apparently, the weather is going to be nice for this one, which will end an unbroken streak of rainy bank holidays stretching back to 1834. But something has been bugging me today, as I look forward to my day off tomorrow. What could it be?
Oh yes, it’s in the name.
It’s technically not a public holiday, as they would call it in America, it’s a Bank holiday (everyone genuflect † now). Which, when you actually think about it, will make your brain explode. Because the idea of naming our precious days off after the one and only institution as odious as the Bank of England – or the special dispensation granted by Royal Proclamation to high street banking branches, letting them shut up shop on certain days – is a rather large kick in the teeth to everyone in, let’s say, less controversial professions.
Those who know me personally will note the irony in what I am writing now. Nonetheless.
Coal Miner holidays? Sure, that’s probably some serious hard work in a coal mine. Dangerous, dark, unhealthy. I would never go down one of those pits.
Nurse holidays, or Careworker holidays? The people who treat us in hospital, or look after our elderly, infirm loved ones, sometimes for little more than minimum wage? Hell yeah.
Inventor holidays, or Entrepreneur holidays? We could have Tim Berners-Lee Day and Dyson Day, folks, wouldn’t that be sweet?
Corporate Lawyer holidays? My Corp Law friend’s office has sleeping pods for the staff who work so late on a routine basis that they can’t make it home safely some nights. Sleeping pods, people!
Military Service holidays? COME ON! Who deserves the honour of naming our public holidays more than our military and our emergency services?
But no… We name our precious days off in honour of the people who open their shutters at 10AM when we are already at work, close them at 4.30PM before we have a chance to escape for the evening, who deign to give you an exhilarating crowd-packed 2-hour window on Saturday to conduct your financial affairs with a disinterested half-trained drone, who allow fraudsters from countries you have never even visited to make their Amazon purchases with your account but who stop your debit card on suspicion of fraudulent activity if you shop at Tesco and Sainsbury’s on the same day, who offer you the low, low fee of £25 to wire money from one country to another when it costs them nothing, who charge you £12 for going a penny overdrawn…oh yes, and who NEARLY BROUGHT OUR WHOLE ECONOMY CRASHING DOWN ON OUR HEADS.
So to all of my British readers – tomorrow, as you enjoy your Bank Holiday †, take a brief moment to stop by your local bank branch and leave a little sign of appreciation for the people who work inside, so that they can look at it and smile when they open up shop at 10AM on Tuesday morning. A small bouquet of flowers, a cuddly stuffed toy, a votive candle in a jar, that kind of thing. It won’t go unappreciated.
Unlike the bailouts.
The complete and actual history of bank holidays can be read here.
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“Patriot” Watch, Ctd. 2
NEWSFLASH FROM INFOWARS – Throngs of black people, filled with anti-white racism by MSNBC, are forming mobs and going around targeting “domesticated, docile” whites and brutally attacking them in broad daylight. You can most likely see it going on outside your window right now, if you take a look. And of course, if you just see a calm street scene, it’s probably a fake, government-projected hologram beamed down from space to fool you into thinking that everything is normal while they ruthlessly take over the world.
From last Thursday’s show:
You want the segment from 2 hours 46 minutes onwards, in which our intrepid host Alex Jones, livid at the injustice he sees going on around him, fulminates:
But then there’s epidemics all over the country of black folks who have been so filled with racism by MSNBC that whites are inherently racist and evil, that groups of black people, like what the Klan used to do to blacks, are now beating up whites, who are so domesticated – on record, including newspaper people – they roll over and flop around on the ground, so I guess they deserve it in some way. And this is happening all over the country.
And the media have articles about ‘struggling with reporting it’! Cause maybe it’s… maybe we deserve it! Maybe whites should all walk out, in public, and slit their throats! Find a black person, then grab a big double-edged knife and then just go “cchhhuh-aaaaaah! Whites die! I’m evil! Bluuugh! Gluuurgh!” And then just spray blood everywhere, and go “bleeeeeh” and just bleed out, and then Chris Matthews will dance in the blood, and it’ll be a big celebration…
I mean, because… whites are being murdered, tortured, killed, attacked, all over the country, and there’s never going to be a candle-light vigil, the news won’t even say that it’s blacks doing it. And again, I love black people! But there are racist black people full of this whole thing, and it’s all the media trying to create division in this country.
The thing is, Alex Jones actually is not a racist. I have now watched many hours of his show, and I do not believe him to be racist at all. In many ways, he’s probably actually quite a good man. He’s just either a) batshit insane, or b) a masterful…entrepreneur (to be charitable) who convinces himself of the worthiness of his own rhetoric enough so that he can sound sufficiently authentic to wring money from the wallets of his gullible subscribers with his rants about the coming New World Order.
But yes. White people sacrificing themselves in front of black people, and Chris Matthews from MSNBC coming to dance in the blood. This is totally about to happen all across the country right now.
Be prepared.
UPDATE (16:56, 05/05/2013) – How can you not love this picture of Chris Matthews and Al Sharpton, taken from the LA Times?
Semi-Partisan Politics 