Assclowns of the Week #71: Grand Theft Autocrats Edition

At long last, America is finally understanding what George W. Bush really meant in his second inaugural address when he mentioned an "ownership society." Because, as of this week, we Americans own $1,000,000,000,000,000 (that's one trillion) of collateralized debt on top of our usual debt. Huzzah and hoo-ray for ownership!

And despite the fact that a small, select cabal within our government hunkered down with Bush in his bunker to bail out his pals and benefactors, the rest of Congress on both sides of the aisle is up in arms over the first of what could be the largest of a series of bailouts.

Thank goodness we have a bipartisan legislature with a dependable history of capitulation.

But the formation of the world's first socialist corporate welfare state and those in the center of it weren't the only people to make this week's top ten edition. There was Rep. Michele Bachmann (10) who laid the blame for the financial crisis squarely where it belongs- on the doorstep of those with the least money; Ft. Mill, SC Mayor Danny Funderburk (8) for warning us about the Antichrist; John McCain (9, 1), for parachuting into the bailout negotiations like a brain-damaged Rudolph Hess and the Democratic Party (2) for direly warning us that if we don't pass the bailout bill, we could find ourselves in the deep recession in which we already find ourselves.

So grab a bucket and bail, Bail, BAIL, constant readers, while we review this week's top ten assclowns and much, much more!

10) Rep. Michele Bachmann

Michele Bachmann (R-Groupie) claims the Clintons, minorities and the CRA are to blame for the current meltdown. In the act of enlivening a boring House hearing on the financial crisis, Bachmann pointed to an article written by Terry Jones that was published in Investors Business Daily, a right wing publication.

You see, parroted Bachmann, in the Dark Clintonian Ages of peace and prosperity, Clinton caused this crisis by incorporating Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to make it easier for low income people to get decent housing. Says Think Progress:

But as the Center for American Progress’s Robert Gordon noted in the American Prospect, lenders did not approve bad loans to comply with CRA; they did so to make money: 1) Subprime loans intensified “at the very time when activity under CRA had slowed and the law had weakened,” 2) CRA doesn’t even apply to many of the loans behind the mortgage meltdown, and 3) The “lenders subject to CRA have engaged in less, not more, of the most dangerous lending.”

But, as Reagan once said, "facts are stupid things."

This is the same Bachmann who, when she wasn't fantasizing about sucking Bush's dick, thought, like Bush, that it was hunky-dory that some Minnesotans had to work two jobs in order to keep body and soul together. You know, the same poor people who were audacious enough to accept low interest loans from still-respected home lending giants and committing the unpardonable sin of wanting to join Bush's ownership society.

This is a view that's almost perfectly mirrored by Neal "Mighty Whitey" Boortz, who also blames minorities and even Barack Obama and his work with ACORN while unapologetically admitting that he was a real estate attorney helping to close loans for the same companies that are being bailed out today. In other words, Boortz and not Obama are partly responsible for the subprime crisis.

Just like poor, dark people, in the estimation of Boortz and his right wing lunatic buddies, were to blame for what happened during and after Hurricane Katrina.

9) John McCain

You know, I personally find it refreshing when Republicans can find it within themselves to be so open-minded that they can take both sides of a major issue simultaneously.

You may remember in last week's Assclowns of the Week that I mentioned Louisiana State Rep. John LaBruzzo advising the Governor to veto a bill for legislative pay raises that LaBruzzo had, in fact, voted for.

Well, seems Flip Master Zero John McCain recently said that Bush ought to veto the bailout bill that he voted for after his Rudolph Hess stunt in the Senate chamber.


To drive home his point, McCain also said that the bill that he proudly supported is "putting us on the brink of economic disaster."

8) Ft. Mill, SC Mayor Danny Funderburk

South Carolina may well go down in history where otherwise laughable smear campaigns go to thrive. The 2000 GOP primary was vivid proof of that.

Now, there's Ft. Mill Mayor and part time gospel singer Danny Thunderlips. He's been circulating an email that openly asks, "Is Obama the AntiChrist?" To be fair to Mayor Blunderbuss, he's not openly advancing that belief. He's merely using his fellow mouthbreathers to pass along this ersatz gospel regarding the Dark Prince of Chicago. He was merely "curious" if it was true.

His Honor's circumstantial evidence? A scripture in Revelations warning that the Antichrist would be in his 40's and Muslim.

Problem? There's no such scripture in the Bible and even if there was, Sen. Obama is Christian, not Muslim.

Still, what more empirical way to get to the bottom of a vitally important question as to whether the next President is the Antichrist than putting it in chain emails to an anonymous group of knuckle-dragging End-of-Timers?

Perhaps Fundiefuck was confusing reality with The Omen III.

7) Fox "News"

Why did Fox News declare Sarah Palin the winner in last Thursday's debate? Was it because of her butter-fingered grasp of the facts? Her Stepford Running Mate charm? No, it was none of those reasons. According to Steve Douche-y, Palin beat Biden because she had a bigger flag pin.

But Fox "News" regularly features political analysis that's about as profound as that found on Entertainment Tonight so it's not surprising that Steve Douchebag can't distinguish between a pin and a brooch.

Lost on them, also is the fact that Obama wore a flag lapel pin during the first debate and McCain didn't. But that didn't matter, since we all know that John McCain is still more patriotic because he was shot down over Hanoi and Obama wasn't.

6) Fundies

You remember those cute sandwich commercials with Baby Bob or the ones still on TV about the baby who talks about his online trading?

That's special effects. This isn't.

This an actual baby actually preaching to actual adult descendants of Neanderthal Man, courtesy of a priceless find: Godtube. Yes, Godtube, a silicon-based cornucopia of documented wingnuttery.

Oh no, this isn't a cut-and-dry case of Bible-thumpers exploiting innocent children, which right wingers are always screaming about when a child gets its marching orders from left wingers, right? Allison, anyone (Watch this gem of a "satirical dramatization" by Norm Coleman while you can because it was already pulled off Youtube)?

5) Blackwater Worldwide

How about the news that Blackwater lost a gun that wound up in the hands of insurgents back in 2006 and was kept secret until now? You know what's even better than that? The gun that disappeared from Blackwater's armory in Baghdad without being listed as either stolen or transferred, was an M4 Bushmaster.

Can we spell i-r-o-n-y, boys and girls?

And while we're talking about State Dept. contractors...

4) The State Department

Set a thief to catch a thief, as the old saying goes.

So why is it surprising that the American State Department would hire private contractors to investigate crimes committed by private contractors? And why should it surprise anyone that the firm that's been given this illegal contract is the Carlysle Group-owned US Investigative Services, a former government agency known as the Office of Personnel Management until privatized by Bill Clinton?

USIS, USIS, where have I heard that name before? Oh, yeah, when Col. Ted Westhusing "committed suicide" by shooting himself behind the ear after he'd launched an investigation into USIS taking an illegal offensive role during the assualt on Fallujah in 2004.

So, bottom line: It's always best to keep the secrets, and the money, in the family.

Way to go, intrepid and dogged mainstream media, for picking up on this before a parttime, C-list blogger with no sources and government access whatsoever.

3) The Commission on Presidential Debates

Meet Me in St. Louis.

It used to be that the League of Women voters used to sponsor and set the terms of presidential debates. Then they got uppity and demanded tough moderators, letting Third Party candidates have their say. So the Old Boy network got fed up and created the Commission on Presidential debates. Problem solved.

The night of the Vice Presidential debate in St. Louis, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales of Democracy Now did a segment on how this commission secretly worked with the McCain and Obama campaigns to hammer out the terms of the presidential and vice presidential debates.

Debate activist and author George Farah told Goodman and Gonzales that this commission was created by both parties to take complete control of all the debates, essentially doing an end run around the Women's League of Voters, and keeping the pact between the parties a strict secret. The Contract Against America, by the way, is nine pages longer than the original proposal for the bailout bill.

What's even sleazier is that it's heavily funded by corporations, including Anheuser Busch (explaining why there's one debate in St. Louis every four years), the very same company already heavily involved in the McCain campaign.

The debates are so tightly controlled that it pretty much amounts to shadow-boxing between major candidates because the commission is terrified that one or other will actually draw blood and Third Party candidates who could keep them honest and the American people are pretty much restricted to watching the actors on stage creating their own reality.

2) House Democrats

How pathetic is it that Congress should panic and take its cues from Wall Street?

The first time the bailout bill was voted on and rejected by the House, the Dow Jones Average plummeted by almost 800 points. Not long after that, Republicans and Democrats who were originally against the bill gradually came around and voted for it (263-171), pretty much proving that corrupt capitalism and not honest democracy calls the shots in America.

Because we can't afford universal health care. We can't afford real education. We can, however, afford to bail out sleek and bloated corporations that aren't as much in trouble as millions of homeowners in very real danger of losing their homes and watching their 401(k) plans shrivel up like celluloid in a blast furnace.

And Bush was so impatient to sign the bill, the Secret Service tackled the courier between the Capitol Building and the White House and Bush signed it on his back.

1) John McCain

I never thought I'd ever hear myself say this out loud but let's keep John McCain on the campaign trail, please?

The first time since April 8th John McCain tried to actually do his job and he only gummed up the works. By parachuting in like Rudolph Hess into the negotiations for the bailout bill, all McCain did was further extend the biggest financial crisis that we've ever had since, well, the S&L scandal of the late 80's-early 90's.

It proves something I've been saying for a while, now: That not only is John McCain unfit to be president, he's even unfit to serve in the Senate. In fact, if he was elected County Dogcatcher, he'd be setting the dogs free and locking up the owners.