Assclowns of the Week #70: Soulless Corporations and the Politicans Who Love Them Edition

It's nowhere near Christmas but the last six weeks of this marathon presidential campaign can lay a better claim to the phrase "silly season." Plus, if you're a heartless, soulless, faceless, avaricious corporation, every day can be Christmas as long as we have a Congress to rescue them from themselves.

Included in this edition is John McCain (6, 4, 2), who apparently thinks that Spain and Mexico share more than just a common language; Sunni hardliners (10) who put out a contract on Mickey Mouse; the Federal Reserve (1) for bringing us one step closer to nationalizing failing industries and Wall St. investors (7) for yo-yoing up the Dow Jones Average over 400 points based on a vague idea by, of all people, George W. Bush.

So let's take a stroll down the campaign trail of tears and review these assclowns and much, much more!

10) Sunni Muslim Clerics

Buy your Mickey Mouse memorabilia while you can because it's going to shoot up in value at the Disney store.

80 years after "Steamboat Willie", Mickey Mouse's silent film-era debut, Sheik Mohammed Munajjid, a Sunni cleric, launched a fatwa on the animated rodent. In Islamic culture, rats and mice are considered vermin and "the agents of Satan." OK, fair enough. But rather than calling for better health standards that can help curb whatever problem desert countries would have with rodents, this lathered penis in Saudi Arabia is calling for the killing of a fictional cartoon character.

I suppose the next thing we'll be seeing is the Saudi Mutaweenies, or religious police, grimly trolling their way through Disney Land, Disney World and Epcot Center in their long white gowns and ZZ Top beards, shooting anyone wearing a Mickey costume.

So, it took three generations for Saudi Arabia's cleric hardliners to finally get around to noticing the most famous cartoon character on the planet earth, one used as a symbol of one of the world's largest corporations.

Oh no, they're not out of touch, at all. Sunni clerics have their gnarled fingers right on the pulse of what's ailing the world.


Then again, this isn't the first time the world's most famous rodent or a facsimile thereof, has been singled out for one Muslim propaganda purpose or another. I guess some Muslims are more tolerant of vermin than others.

(Unfortunately, Farfour/Mickey didn't last long on Hamas childrens' TV, as this charming video documents.)

9) Judge Loretta Preska

"Thank you and on behalf of myself and the Federalist Society, I hope I've passed the audition."

Gee, I can't imagine why New York Judge Loretta A. Preska would choose to follow the lead of federal prosecutors who'd claimed that Susan Lindauer was mentally unfit to stand trial (and to defend her name and proclaim her innocence).

And I'm at a complete loss to fathom why Judge Preska would choose to ignore while making her ruling the independent and contrary psychological evaluations done on Lindauer. You know, the ones that future Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey thought were suspiciously and conspicuously absent from his court while being freely available on blogs.

Don't ask me why Judge Preska is contining to gag Susan Lindauer and shielding the Bush administration from the embarrassment Lindauer can still cause them. Except perhaps because Preska owes the Bush family a lot of favors.

8) Sarah Palin


Who does she think she is? Barack Obama?

New celebrity and political porn star Sarah Palin can't be accused of being unaware of her position in the McCain campaign. At a rally last Thursday, Sarah Palin referred to a "Palin/McCain administration." This marks the first time in my 49 year-long memory that the "B" side of a presidential campaign put their name at the top of the ticket.



While it may have been a mere slip of the tongue or an actual Freudian slip, this inversion of names once again underscores the pants-shitting possibility that this glassy-eyed, unblinking evangelical with the thousand yard stare could become our 45th, third youngest and most vastly inexperienced Commander in Chief in American history.

It brings back memories of the day Reagan was shot and Secretary of State Alexander Haig completely ignoring the Constitutional rules of succession by saying, "I'm in charge."

7) Wall Street Investors

First, the Dow lost 504 points. Then it rebounded 410 points on Bush's, Paulson's, and Bernanke's vague plan for a $700,000,000,000 corporate welfare state. Then it sank another 370 points when investors woke up and realized, Oh shit, Bush's plan was vague and amorphous, wasn't it? Buy, Buy, BUY oil and gold!!!!

So, another false surge and a line graph for the Dow Jones will give us a nice "W". Coincidence? Certainly but how apropos.

6) Senator John McCain

How scary is it that John McCain can be asked direct questions and give in response non sequitor answers time and time again?

Scary enough to give a pet rock cold sweats and the shits.

Last Thursday, John McCain was asked, in English, by a Spanish newspaper reporter if he would talk with Spain's President Zapatero. McCain time after time answered with tightly scripted references to Mexico and Latin America. Finally, when no mistake or confusion was possible, McCain still gave the same stock answer then had this to say:

"I will meet with any leader who has the same principles and philosophy as us in terms of human rights, democracy, and freedom and I will stand up to those who do not."

In doing so, McCain drew a line in the sand between Us vs Them, "Them" presumably being nations that don't share our values and vision regarding American imperialism in the Middle East, extraordinary rendition, torture and have, instead, a weakness for making rebuffed diplomatic overtures.

You know, like Iran, for instance.

Here's a wonderful practical joke you can play on John McCain if you ever run into him before his campaign's orderlies can get him out of the sun:

Ask him where in Latin America the Madrid train bombings took place.

5) Congressional Democrats

When Republicans like John Boehner applaud the Democratic party for a bill, you know something wicked this way comes.

Democrats in the House, not surprisingly, are still on a Koolaid bender since they're planning on rescinding the Congressional ban on offshore drilling. What a nice bookend to accompany Bush's own rescinding of his father's executive ban.

Now, it's true that American oil production is at its lowest point since 1949. Yet, if the Executive and Legislative branches can plausibly believe that offshore drilling within the next decade will significantly lower gas prices today, then that's a clarion call for renewed R&D into cleaner, cheaper alternative energy.

And while I'm still on the subject, just because we're unofficially nationalizing home lenders and insurance companies, it doesn't mean our oil industry is going to be anytime soon. The oil drilled out of the ocean will belong to the companies who own the drilling rights. In other words, it'll belong not to the US but to the same avaricious tycoons who are squeezing us at the pumps today. All lifting both offshore drilling bans will do is further bloat the oil cartels, not give us relief.

But this Affirmative Action for oil companies on the part of the Executive and Legislative branches is entirely consistent with the corporation-compassionate government that idly stands by while people can no longer afford to heat the homes that are about to get foreclosed, anyway.

4) John McCain

When John McCain abandons the campaign trial to rush back to Washington to do his job for the first time since April 8th, you know Harry Reid's fucking up the Senate.

Last Wednesday, John McCain wanted to suspend the debates with Barack Obama (who'd initially rejected McCain's calls for Town Hall-style debates) so he could work on the economy that by his own admission isn't his strong suit.

Barack Obama's retort was priceless: "I think that it is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once."

Reid had called McCain to say, "it wouldn't help" for him to be back in Washington to work on the corporate stimulus bill. Got any better ideas, Harry?

3) LA State Rep. John LaBruzzo

With Republicans, it's impossible to tell where the lunacy ends and the true insanity begins.

This Wednesday, LA State Representative John LaBruzzo came up with a brilliant plan to fight poverty: Sterilize poor people so they make less of themselves. Apparently, poor people breed faster than rich people and, to a Republican, that's just inexcusable.

LaBruzzo actually publicly called for a plan to pay poor women $1000 to have their tubes tied (or men to get a vascectomy, so as not to appear sexist). This, to LaBruzzo is a more viable alternative than, say, better education and job training so poor people don't, you know, remain poor. You have to admit, though, it's interesting moral gymnastics to simultaneously oppose paying for abortions while advocating shelling out taxpayer dollars for sterilization of the poor.

At the same time, he would also extend tax incentives for yuppies to encourage them to take back charge of the baby race.

LaBruzzo had this to say about his eugenics scheme: "I don't know if it's a viable option. Of course people are going to get excited about it. Maybe we'll start a debate on it." Something tells me such a debate will be between himself while doctors and orderlies sadly look on shaking their heads.

And it wouldn't be the first time LaBruzzo has taken both sides of an issue.

2) John "The Regulator" McCain

Think Progress:

Soon after arriving in Congress, McCain flew on Keating’s corporate plane to vacations in the Bahamas. He “did not pay for most of the trips until years later, when the matter became public.” By 1987, “McCain had received about $112,000 in political contributions from Keating and his associates.”
...

(L)ocal Ohio reporter Tom Beres finally forced McCain to comment on the Keating Five scandal in an interview yesterday...

BERES: Is there some relevance of that chapter, which I think you have acknowledged was maybe not your proudest moment?

MCCAIN: It was a very unhappy period in my life.

Indeed. It must've absolutely killed McCain to have accepted all that money from a future jailbird and having to go to bat for him by fighting against any regulation of the S&L industry when what McCain really wanted was what he's advocating now: Federal regulation of financial giants and getting the American taxpayer to foot the bill for said financial giants that have been even more generous to McCain's campaign than Keating ever was.

So, McCain's in a happier place now. Right?

1) The United States Government

It's good for you, comrades, the Bush administration's, the Federal Reserve's and Congress's plan to bail out corrupt, greedy, self-serving corporations.

Why, if we don't bail them out and socialize the home lenders and insurers, it could cost the American taxpayer hundreds of billions of dollars!

Because, God knows, comrades, your financial health depends upon the financial health of these massive, heartless, soulless corporations. After all, look how well they cared for you, my little proles, when they were sleek and bloated and living high on the hog.

And let's not forget, comrades, that regulation only applies during bailouts and not during a time of unregulated record profits. And, while we're at it, let's make tax cuts permanent. And, uh, don't look too closely at the fine print, particularly Section 6.

So let's all pull together, comrades and victims of corporate greed and bait and switch tactics and bail out these two legged ticks. It'll only cost several hundred billions because that's what a smaller, less intrusive Republican government does.

Others who really need to get bailed out? Fuck 'em. They're darkie losers and looters, don't contribute much to our campaigns and they vote Democratic, anyway.

Too bad the FBI isn't as forgiving toward these four companies as the rest of our government. In fact, the FBI is investigating the business practices of the four financial giants standing in line to get bailed out: Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Lehman Bros and AIG, bringing the number of corporations investigated by the FBI this year alone to 26.