Assclowns of the Week #89: Occupy the Catbird Seat/Thanksgiving edition

(Editor's note: If you could help Mrs. JP and I weather another month so we could make the rent after the holidays, we'd surely appreciate it. Doing so in any amount would certainly help keep online fine programming blogging such as this.)

(Image courtesy of iconic artist Shepard Fairey.)

What a week, eh Pottervillians? These past seven days, we’ve seen the pepper-spraying of virtually the entire First Amendment (free speech, peaceful assembly, press and petition of grievances) and enough wingnuttery on the campaign trail for a whole year. Included in this week’s lunacy was Michael Bloomberg and the NYPD (2) valiantly defending Wall Street’s interests by spending millions to clean one small park; Lt. John Pike and Linda Katehi (1) gave us a less lethal but spicier version of Kent State and Newt Gingrich (5, 7) showed us why he deserves to lead the rat pack of GOP presidential contenders.

Add to that NASCAR fans (10) who doffed their ballcaps to the veterans and replaced them with hoods for Michelle Obama and the Super Congress (3) for showing us they’re just a microcosm of the usual gridlock on Capitol Hill. So hop on board the rickety shopping cart of the 99% as we review this week’s unpardoned turkeys and much, much more!

10) NASCAR fans

Nothing quite says “class” like a pack of badly-shaved NASCAR inbreds booing our first African American First Lady for simply trying to honor the troops. On Sunday, First Lady Michelle Obama and the Second Lady, Dr. Jill Biden, appeared with a group of children as grand marshals at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Their joint appearance was to publicize a charitable endeavor to help the families of our fighting troops. Everything went well until Mrs. Obama’s name was announced. Great example to set for the kiddies, Billy Bob.

This is a pretty typical tactic this year for the Tea Bagger faction, which has no problem cheering on the death of a hypothetical comatose man with no health insurance and booing a gay veteran fighting in Iraq during GOP presidential debates. And, of course, far be it for the GOP frontrunners of the week to encourage that faction. Wait for Newt, Willard and Herman to be showing up at future NASCAR events waving Confederate flags and gingerly sipping Pabst Blue Ribbon draft while talking about states’ rights and championing the racist blowhard coming up next.

9) Rush Limbaugh

Today, Grand Dragon Rush Limbaugh mud-wrestled his ongoing pathological obsession with Michelle Obama to new depths when he explained why the sons of the soil booed the First Lady yesterday: It was their “recognition of uppity-ism.” Because, in Rush’s antebellum world, if you're African American (even if your husband is President of the United States and you’re the First Lady), you’re supposed to shuffle along in rags with an Aunt Jemima kerchief on yo nappy haid, never look da white folk in the eye and mutter, “Yassa, massa.”

I realize, people, that we have something called the First Amendment, which guarantees Freedom of Speech. But every great rule has an exception and may I humbly nominate El Rushbo, the world’s richest and most beloved pill popping child molester to be the exception?

8) Clueless Joe Walsh

The longer his inexplicable term stretches on, the more Deadbeat Dad Joe Walsh sounds like Howard Beale’s evil twin. Earlier this month, Clueless Joe ordered a double shot of infamy by going off on a constituent during a beer hall putsch in Gurnee. But last Saturday, Walsh delivered an encore performance at a town hall that he could’ve just as well have called “The Torpedoing of Truth Tour.” I’d encourage ya’ll to take a drink every time Walsh lied and attempted to mislead the public but I’d never encourage cirrhosis of the liver.

Essentially, Walsh revealed once again what a shameless, squishing cum dumpster he is for Wall Street by telling his constituents that war veterans are “clueless” and Occupy Wall Street is a “well-funded, far left” movement of the “spoiled and pampered” that’s encouraged by the Democrat Party (if they’re so well-funded then how come the Occupy Wall Street library is now in a shopping cart?). It’s not worth refuting his talking points but I’ll only suggest watching the video. I don’t know what Bizarro dimension Joe Walsh lives in but it’s obvious it doesn’t have truth and facts any more than it does child support.

7) Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich is actually a lobbyist. He just doesn’t play one on TV.

Mr. Advise and Contort Newt Gingrich heaved himself to the top of the GOP heap when the rest of the country found out that last month’s front-runner Herman Cain was an EEG flatliner on everything from foreign policy to women’s rights to the economy. Republican voters are so desperate to get that Kenyan, Muslim Socialist Fascist out of the WH that they’re even willing to reanimate the corpse of the Gingrich campaign whether or not he took $300,000 as a Freddie Mac lobbyist who sold in return for that moolah influence and access.

If you’re as forgiving as the tea bagger racists who are momentarily supporting Newt despite him accepting over a quarter of a million smackeroos, some of which being taxpayer bailout money, then Newt’s choice thoughts on Occupy Wall Street ought to justify him getting the #8 spot in this week’s roundup.

“Hey, everyone! Newt says to ‘Get a job.’ Why didn’t we think of that? We’re Saved!” “Yippie! The jobs are back!” “We’re going home now, Officers. Newt Gingrich just saved us all!”

6) Mitt Romney

“Did I ever say I was a Republican? I never said that. Massachusetts? Never heard of it.”

After months of denials, Mitt Romney finally admitted in an interview just this past Monday that he and his staff had destroyed and bought work hard drives, emails and other documents pertaining to when he was governor of Massachusetts so his political opponents couldn’t find them and use them against him. Strange tactic for a public servant to make. True, no previous administration had even left emails lying around but how many other gubernatorial administrations before Romney’s had used email?

Willard’s also screaming about greater transparency in the federal government. Oh, yeah. You’re a regular rock of consistency, aren’t you, Mittens?

5) Newt Gingrich

Come for the education, stay for the litter.

Echoing Mike Lee when he said last year that child labor laws were “unconstitutional”, Newt Gingrich pulls double duty this week for saying that children should stay in school… not for the education but the menial work. At least Lee was attempting to put a patina of semi-intelligence to his opposition to child labor laws. Newt just called them “stupid.”

In fact, this is exactly what Gingrich told CNN the other day:

It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid. Saying to people you shouldn't go to work before you're 14, 16. You're totally poor, you're in a school that's failing with a teacher that's failing. What do we say to poor kids in poor neighborhoods? Don't do it. Remember all the stuff about not getting a hamburger-flipping job? Worst possible advice to give the poor children.

Yes, Newt actually thinks we’re enslaving and “entrapping children” with those pesky child labor laws imposed on them by Big Gubmint. And, if you’re an inner city kid and want to do better than flip burgers for Newt’s voters, don’t let the grownups fool you into thinking you’re destined for better, more fulfilling jobs. Embrace Calvin and accept your fate.

Gingrich adds, “You're going to see from me extraordinarily radical proposals to fundamentally change the culture of poverty in America.” I can’t wait to hear this. No doubt, it’ll include the return of debtor’s prisons and workhouses for the poor.

4) Wisconsin Cheeseheads

It’s one thing to vote Republican. That’s everyone’s right, however misguided it tends to be outside of the corporate sector. But openly opposing a gubernatorial recall petition by ripping up petitions and otherwise resorting to theft and death threats is a little beyond the pale. Recall activists need to gather just over 540,000 signatures (or 25% of the number who voted in the last gubernatorial election) to force a recall election. But some charitably-named “conservative activists” are opposed to the idea. In fact, these cheese-headed thugs are so venomously brazen about subverting Wisconsin state law, they’re even announcing their plans on Facebook.

Basically, it’s the tried-and-true “Nice recall you go goin’ here. Be a shame if something… happened to it” tactic. One recall activist reported getting a 4 AM death threat from as far away as Minneapolis. This is a typical tactic of a right wing that pretends to take one side whether or not it’s beneficial to their self-interests just as an excuse to bash and intimidate liberals. They know Walker will get recalled and they can’t stand the idea of liberals and unions winning in “their” America.

3) The Super Committee

God only knows what our government was thinking when they decided to set up the Super Committee when it’s obviously just another synonym for “oligarchy. I guess some dimbulbs thought that by freezing out over 97% of Congress they’d somehow avoid the usual gridlock. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that the Super Committee that’s made up of six Republicans and six Democrats weren’t able to agree on anything as the trigger deadline looms. Republicans want to trim $1.2 trillion on the backs of the poor and not make the 1% pay a penny more in taxes. Democrats want the 1% to pay more in taxes instead of making unnecessary, Draconian cuts to the safety net. Gee, who could’ve seen this coming?

But just to show that we still need a Congress to tackle the other big issues of the day, they decided that pizza sauce is a vegetable (tomatoes are actually a fruit, according to accepted scientific definition). So, while Congress didn’t actually call pizza a vegetable, I mean, come the fuck on. This ranks right up there with Reagan supposedly calling ketchup a vegetable. And whether or not they designated pizza as a veggie, our nation’s schoolkids will still be that much more nutritionally poor thanks to an army of frozen food lobbyists.

(Btw, here’s Firedoglake’s petition for you to sign to tell the Super Committee to keep their grubby paws off Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid).

2) Mayor Michael Bloomberg & the NYPD

Typical of special ops tactics, early Tuesday morning and on orders from High Chancellor Sutler Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the NYPD swooped in on Occupy Wall Street in the wee hours of the morning and began tearing down tents and arresting what would later be estimated as 200 (including at least five NYPD-credentialed journalists who don’t happen to work for Bloomberg’s media empire). The predawn eviction made headlines but no sense. The eviction was done ostensibly in the name of “health and public safety” so they could clean Zuccotti Park. This obviously required sound cannons, helicopters and a bulldozer. Essentially, this means Bloomberg squandered more valuable time, money and resources in cleaning one park than he ever did cleaning up Wall Street itself.

By 6:30 that morning, State Supreme Justice and ACLU veteran Lucy Billings issued a temporary restraining order against the city, NYPD and other entities that was thrown out a few hours later by another State Supreme Court Justice and useful Bloomberg idiot, Michael Stallman, who said #OWS could go back to the park but were not allowed to stay overnight, bring tents or sleeping bags. This means that two NY State Supreme Court Justices couldn’t get on the same page in the same day about the same first amendment in the Bill of Rights.

1) UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi and Lt. John Pike

Since he hates obstructionist people sitting on their asses & doing nothing, I say we draft Lt. John Pike to pepper spray the Super Congress.

Michael Bloomberg will be saying a silent prayer at the dinner table this Thursday for Lt. John Pike and UC Davis Chancellor Eva Hitler Linda Katehi for taking the heat off him. Katehi told ABC early on Monday that she refused to step down because the university “needed” her (despite faculty members, much of the student body and the Davis Faculty Association clamoring for her immediate resignation). By now, I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you why. Last Saturday, Katehi sicced the UC Davis campus police on peaceful student protesters who were sitting down and linking arms to support Occupy Wall Street. Lt. John Pike then whipped out a can of pepper spray, held it up like an over-the-hill WWF bad guy brandishing a weapon and proceeded to spray the students in the face at point blank range (Note: the canister of pepper spray is military grade is meant to be fired from no less than 15 feet).


The night of the incident, Katehi met with student representatives for about a half hour then refused to leave the building for several hours while trying to mislead the press into thinking the students were holding her hostage. Finally, the blue-blood bitch emerged to begin her walk of shame, clearly shaken if not stirred, as if it was her and not the dozens of students who were brutalized and hospitalized on her orders. She even had the nerve to demand, through a mouthpiece, “a silent, respectful exit.” Linda Katehi became, literally, a walking disgrace.

What made Pike’s act especially brazen was that he had no problem doing this while knowing good and well that his despicable act was being documented by no less than 15 photographers and videographers. I’d give you his phone number and professional email address except that Pike, the campus police chief and several others have been put on administrative leave. (Btw, there’s no truth to the rumor that Lt. Pike’s nickname is “Agent Orange.”)