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RachelWatch: Asking the Senate To Aim Higher. But Not in a Good Way.

Today: WNBA star Sue Wicks shoots baskets, a conspiracy theory turns out to be not so crazy, and Rachel spanks Karl Rove.

MiNOrity

Rachel started us off with the news that the Republicans are only barely bothering to pretend to want any kind of health care reform at all anymore.

WNBA All-Star Sue Wicks joined Rachel to illustrate the latest ridiculous legislative suggestion.

While I like Rachel’s metaphor for the current state of the Senate, I’ll go back to the industry in question for a simile about the health care reform battle itself: It’s like an MRI that is showing us in ghastly detail every last horrible thing that is wrong with our political system.

It might be time to admit that we need to drop the two-party bushwah and demand a system of elections that allow more parties to actually get into office.

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are serving us well when every freaking piece of legislation right down to declaring Babies Are Cute Day turns into a months-long pissing match that’s way more about which team scores political points than about actually doing any good for anybody.

The Republicans couldn’t get away with reducing themselves to the Party of No (or, really, the Party of No and Sometimes the Party of Louder No and Sometimes the Party of Backing up Screeching Whackadoos Who Seem To Be on Our Side) if there were Libertarians and Whigs and Federalists who were bringing actual ideas to the table.

And, for that matter, the Democrats couldn’t get away with their current policy toward their LGBT voters: Selling us out to get conservative street cred because it’s “just not time” to stand up for something as frivolous as civil rights and hey, at least we’re not openly picketing your funerals, right? So enjoy that lesser evil with a side of fries and know that we sure are wringing our hands about it!

I’d like to see them try to pull that crap if we had electable Greens and Bull Mooses and Rainbow Ostriches to skip to.

A Congress with a real spectrum of political parties instead of a stupid little red-blue line would mean that issues would actually have to be discussed and explored as issues instead of as the latest forgone conclusion that we’ll all be chanting football cheers about to fill up the news cycle.

How could smaller parties raise the money they need to get elected? How about switching to publicly financed campaigns? That particular medication might have the pleasant side effect of stopping the plutocracy from overriding our Republic quite so often.

(Well, that plus headaches, dry mouth, and uncontrollable thoughts of grand larceny, but it’ll be worth it.)

Our political system has a large, festering infection that requires surgery.

Now we just have to figure out how to get the procedure approved.

Grassley Roots

Rachel reported that people continue to take Senator Chuck Grassley (R — Iowa) seriously even though he has pretty much admitted that he’s not really trying to create any health care legislation that can get passed.

This is a serious question: Is Senator Grassley really a half-crazy coot, or is that just a ruse so he can get away with stuff?

Either way, you will enjoy this clip. Because coot or no, Grassley is about to run into one of the most fanfreakingtastic little old ladies you have ever seen in your life.

I still can’t decide if my favorite part of that clip is the part where the scrappy old lady just puts her fists on her hips and stares Grassley down or the part where the guy in the crowd yells, “Way to go, Grandma!”

Ma’am, wherever you are, know that in a TRMS episode with no shortage of moxieful women, you are the one who walked away with my unashamed fangirl admiration.

Ms. Information

Rachel made everyone sit bolt upright in their chairs by reporting that it seems like there was, in fact, a secret assassination squad under the Bush Administration. Which, even in wartime, is kind of illegal.

The CIA contracted the program out to the terrifying lawless bastards at Blackwater. (Now called Xe! So they’re totally different now!)

While this seems like part of a bad pattern, I believe in this case the CIA was genuinely seduced by Blackwater’s new, softer marketing slogan.

Blackwater: We’re there when it’s just too hauntingly amoral to call anybody else.

Rachel also remarked on Sarah Palin’s sudden, odd, and perhaps a tad underinformed stance against the The U.S. Export-Import Bank.

The former Governor of Alaska for as Long as it Was Fun worried that U.S. Tax dollars might be used to fund offshore oil exploration for Brazil.

Oh, please. She’s just mad that someone might get to chant “Drill, Baby Drill!” in Portuguese.

Conspiracy Theory Proved True

Remember how every now and then during the Bush years a terror alert would happen that seemed to be awfully politically convenient? Like if you were a less rational person it might almost seem like well-timed yank on the national fear leash?

But maybe you tried to suppress those thoughts because it felt like pursuing them might mean crossing an important line on the paranoia scale, so you tried to keep your mind on baseball or calculus or why they bother to have different “flavors” of Pixy Stix?

Get ready to do some of that weird laughing that happens when you’re a mix of incredulous and angry but also suddenly, totally justified.

Rachel Re: So Not Sorry

I am honestly surprised at Karl Rove’s piece in the Wall Street Journal.

We all knew he was evil, including Karl right? True, not flat-out muttering-unholy-orders-through-clouds-of-sulfur evil like Cheney, who seemed to have sort of relaxed into the whole overtly evil thing.

But sort of winky evil. Wasn’t that his whole deal? He prided himself on doing awful, deceitful things but never leaving fingerprints?

He knew it, we knew it, and he’d say something like “Good luck proving that push-poll was mine!” or “Naw, I was only NEXT to that spy when her cover got blown,” give his trademark Executive Immunity smile, and then dance on over to his next little project, all puffed up with smug pride for being so much slicker than anybody else.

Is he really trying to switch to the story that he was never evil in the first place?

And, for that matter, that he’s being unfairly persecuted by the press?

Rachel doesn’t like it either, so she got out her Facts Hammer and nailed Rove to the wall.

Just Enough

Kent did a fun piece on Jayson Blair’s new career as a life coach.

And Rachel did some basketball twirling at the end, so even though there are a lot of clips in today’s column I’m going to include it.

Because I have a feeling that if I don’t the good ladies at AfterEllen.com will stuff my short self into a regulation 10-foot hoop and leave me hanging there until I’ve learned my lesson.

At least we can all benefit from my cowardice. Enjoy.

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