South Dakota Republicans Key Part Of White House Scam

That's the logical conclusion based on the facts at hand. During their convention, South Dakota Republicans passed a resolution supporting impeaching President Obama. John Boehner calls that idea a "scam."

“No, no, no, no,” Congressman Greg Walden, who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, told Politico when asked whether the House would initiate impeachment proceedings. Boehner told reporters on Tuesday that there were “no plans” to remove Obama, calling the idea “a scam started by Democrats at the White House.”

Let's deconstruct this situation a bit more. South Dakota Republicans believe Obama to be feckless, but the Republican Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the person who will become President should something happen to both Obama and Vice-President Biden, has said they got duped by White House Democrats.

If Boehner is correct and South Dakota Republicans have been played by someone they consider inept, what does that say about their political skills? It's unlikely that all those who voted for impeachment are all political ne'er-do-wells.

If the South Dakota Republican party is not full of incompetents, and their electoral success suggests that they are not, how did they get fooled by a person they consider beneath contempt? Could it be that they are willing participants in the "scam"? If that's the case, then the whole right wing of the South Dakota GOP is filled with RINOs. It's a wicked web one weaves when one first plans to deceive.

Next time you talk with a South Dakota Republican, ask him or her about impeachment. If the person support it, he or she is a RINOs willing taking part in “a scam started by Democrats at the White House.” Don't take my word for it, take Speaker of the House John Boehner's.

Is Bob Ellis The Love Child Of Darth Vader And Al Gore?

I ask because Ellis, the angriest man in the South Dakota blogosphere, favorably quotes interesting phrasing in his latest diatribe. It's not his conclusion:

As is always the case with liberals (in both parties), all the burden is on conservatives.  “Compromise” means “conservatives do what liberals want.” “Tolerance” means shut up and agree with liberals.” And “unity” means get behind the most liberal candidate available, regardless of party.

That's standard Ellis fare: "Liberals hate all that's good. Everyone who disagrees with me is a liberal because I am all that's good." Every time I read an Ellis column, I wonder what would happen if he were in a room with a dozen real liberals. I'm betting on spontaneous human combustion, but I digress.

The part of Ellis's post that prompted the question in the post's title was his use of this Steven Deace statement:

This will be a day long remembered. The day eyes were opened to the inconvenient truth . . . [italics in original]

It struck me as odd that a conservative crusader wouldn't recognize a quote from a Hollywood classic, conservatives believing Hollywood to be a liberal bastion of scum and villainy. It doesn't take a pop culture nerd to recognize that the first sentence was most famously uttered by Star Wars uber villian Darth Vader: "This will be a day long remembered. It has seen the end of Kenobi, it will soon see the end of the Rebellion."

As to the second part, surely all true conservatives remember An Inconvenient Truth was the documentary about Al Gore and his efforts to make climate change a major policy issue.

Maybe, I went too far with the love child question. It would take some weird cloning to create a love child from Gore and Vader. It's just as likely that Ellis is a closet RINO. Hollywood and Gore sure sound liberal to me.

A Modest Proposal To Guide South Dakota Democrats As They Respond To South Dakota Republicans Formally Calling For President Obama' s Impeachment

The fact that South Dakota Republicans in convention assembled called for President Obama's impeachment has caused no small stir. Earlier today, reporter David Montgomery tweeted that the Argus Leader story about the impeachment has been shared over 40,000 times.

Clearly this struck a chord: 40,000 people have shared our story about the @sdgop calling for Obama's impeachment: http://t.co/JjsAXKoFHs
— David Montgomery (@ArgusMontgomery) June 23, 2014

Republicans clearly believe they are on the side of the angels. After all, at least one delegate is offering to pray for those who cannot see the need to impeach President Obama.

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak with a life-long Democrat who opined that Republicans' dislike of the President stems from the fact that Obama is a black man who is a President not a waiter. I suspect that not a few Democrats and left-leaning independents share that view and believe that this resolution is racially motivated. They may even believe that a Republican delegate contemplated giving a speech similar to one that Homer Stokes makes in this scene from O Brother Where Art Thou. Given the nature of the resolution, the speaker would, of course, change the word "hang" to " impeach." (Those of you who hate watching YouTube Clips should go to the 50 second mark or click on the Homer Stokes link to read the speech.)



Because so many Democrats believe that Republicans hate Barack Obama merely because of his race, South Dakota Democrats will likely be sorely tempted to issue a strongly worded resolution condemning their Republican neighbors for lacking charity for all while possessing malice toward one.

Such a resolution would no doubt be satisfying but counterproductive. It would certainly be expected. Because Democrats are a minority party within South Dakota, they need to move beyond the expected. I modestly suggest that they, in the spirit of bipartisanship, echo the call for impeachment if said impeachment proceedings are accompanied by war crimes trials for former President George W. Bush and former Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Now some Republicans who backed their impeachment resolution might take umbrage at the fact that prisoner exchange not sanctioned by Congress differs greatly from starting a war under false pretenses. The blood and treasure lost by latter pales in comparison to that lost by the former. There are,however, ways to get them to support this resolution if the Democrats propose it.

To put South Dakota Republicans at ease, South Dakota Democrats should call for the impeachment trial and the war crimes trials to be held in South Dakota. Surely, there can be no better backdrop for an impeachment trial than Mount Rushmore. The Crazy Horse Monument would be an equally impressive site for a war crimes tribunal.

Further, one would suspect that more than a few Republican and Democratic business owners who derive most of their income from tourist dollars might worry that the Republican impeachment resolution will cause a small backlash. These trials would likely bring thousands of tourists, many of them rather wealthy high rollers, to the state.

I suppose some on the political left might be ill-mannered enough to point out that two of the faces on Mount Rushmore honor slave holders and that Native Americas were truly the victim of war crimes. They might vociferously point out that historic grievances are being overshadowed for the sake of political spectacle. Surely, a beautiful backdrop would cover multitude of such minor sins.

Only the most rabid partisan could object to a plan that promotes bipartisanship and increases South Dakota's tourist trade, so I can see few objecting to this modest effort to heal any harm that the Republican's prayerful effort has caused.

Government Shutdowns And Pop Music

During the last shutdown, it was Hootie and Blowfish.

During this shutdown, Darius Rucker, the Hootie and the Blowfish lead singer, has gone country and is on his own.

Other than that, nothing about the government shutdowns seems to have changed.

I Give Away My Strategy For High School Policy Debate During The 2013-2014 Debate Season.

High School students who compete in policy debate will be debating the following resolution from now until the final round of the National Forensics League National Tournament in June 2014:

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its economic engagement toward Cuba, Mexico or Venezuela.

I can't speak for the rest of South Dakota's debate coaches, but my young'uns have had few problems finding affirmative and negative evidence about Cuba and Mexico. Venezuela has been a tougher nut to crack. Yesterday, I discovered my negative strategy for any case about Venezuela. My young'uns are going to run the Spider-Man Violence Kritik.

The Link (in policy debate, one must capitalize every element of the argument) will be plan increases economic engagement toward Venzuela. The Internal Links will be economic engagement will require advertising; advertising relies of pop culture; superheroes are hot pop culture properties; Spider-Man is one of the hottest superhero icons. The Impact comes from the following card: (For those uninitiated in high school policy debate, the bolded and underlined portions of the card constitute the evidence the students will actually read.)

Tag: Spider-Man causes violence in Venezuela.

Citation: Melrose, Kevin. "Venezuelan president blames Spider-Man for nation’s violence." Robot 6. Comic Book Resources, 20 09 2013. Web. 21 Sep. 2013. .

OK, so it’s primarily Spider-Man causing the problems. But can we blame the wall-crawler for the horrible violence plaguing an entire country? Let’s ask Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose nation saw 16,000 murders in 2012, and another 3,400 in the first quarter of this year.

In a new interview with the Bolivian newspaper La Opinión, Maduro said there’s a correlation between youth violence and the idolization of superheroes — it contributes to a “factory of anti-values,” apparently — a connection he made while he and his wife were watching Spider-Man 3.

“This kid, at 14 years old, carries a 9mm with a mind filled by thousands of hours of shows where people are killed,” he said. “I start to think how many thousands of hours of violence that kid will have consumed, in the end, stimulated by consumerism and violence when he grabs a 9 mm and goes to kill. [...] That’s the trouble, from the beginning until the end there are more and more dead,” he said. “And that’s one of the series small children love most … because it’s attractive, it’s from comics that are attractive, the figure, the colors and movements … so much so that we finished watching it at four in the morning.”

Our Alternative will be to reject the Affirmative until Venezuela is able to develop its own superhero genre based on historical Latin American liberators such as Simon Bolivar or the most famous 20th Century opponent of imperialism and violence Gandhi.

Melrose provides another card to give the kritik an added advantage.

Tag: Rejecting Aff Will Preserve Important Venezuelan Historical And Spiritual Connections

Citation: Melrose, Kevin. "Venezuelan president blames Spider-Man for nation’s violence." Robot 6. Comic Book Resources, 20 09 2013. Web. 21 Sep. 2013. .

Before J. Jonah Jameson orders that special edition of the Daily Bugle, it’s worth pointing out that Maduro has also claimed the spirit of his late predecessor Hugo Chávez spoke to him through a little bird to say he’s doing a fine job running the country.

Clearly, increasing economic engagement with Venezuela will destroy that nation's spiritual roots and cause it to descend into spiral of violence as kids seek to emulate Spider-Man.

Our format may not quite follow that of a traditional kritik, but our cards and story are solid. I'm pretty sure my young'uns who don't know this blog exists will be angry I gave away their best argument when I tell them on Monday.

Doesn't Anyone Remember Seismic Activity?

David Frum points to this post that quotes an Iranian cleric asserting that women who dress immodestly cause earthquakes:

A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.

Iran is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, and the cleric's unusual explanation for why the earth shakes follows a prediction by the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that a quake is certain to hit Tehran and that many of its 12 million inhabitants should relocate.

"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes," Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi told Iranian media

Of course, Pat Robertson knows that gays having a parade in Orlando cause earthquakes.

Pat Robertson: [about Gay Day at Disney World] I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes and I don't think I'd be waving those flags in God's face if I were you. This is not a message of hate; this is a message of redemption. But a condition like this will bring about the destruction of your nation. It'll bring about terrorist bombs, it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor.

Maybe both men should just blame Carole King

Proof Of The Debilitating Effects Of South Dakota's Brain Drain (Sort Of)

One has no choice but to be sorely disappointed in South Dakota's leading government officials. Unique among the 50 laboratories of democracy, the state has produced laws authorizing school districts to hire private pistoliers. Yet, no state official, not Governor Daugaard, not Attorney General Jackley, not Secretary of State Gant, not a single legislator has exhibited the creativity to come up with an a recruitment slogan to take advantage of South Dakota's unique accomplishment. No one has uttered a phrase that that can fit on a business card or bumper sticker to draw new residents

Texas, however, has produced a slogan: Texas, a state that talks big-- ". . . in Texas, the Second Amendment is right up there with mother, God and apple pie"--but in reality is all hat and no cattle:

Texas Rep. Dan Flynn, a Republican co-author of a bill allowing guns on college campuses, said opposition from public universities and big cities has so far kept the measure from coming to a vote. But the Legislature doesn't adjourn until Memorial Day.

 Texas has phrasing that can fit on a bumper sticker:

Bumper sticker from this Justin Green Post

If the state can't market its unique achievements poseurs like Texas successfully market their second-rate achievements,  perhaps South Dakota should consider fully funding the formula that determines state aid to schools instead of passing laws to fill the holsters of John Wayne wannabes.

A Minor Musing On Moral Failings

Over at Madville, Cory points to a letter to the editor from Representative Don Kopp of Rapid City. The local paper has not printed Kopp's missive, so I was unaware of it until I saw Cory's post. Kopp decries America's moral failings and quotes several of America's founders and General Omar Bradley.

Cory and several of his commentators castigate Kopp, but perhaps they misread Rep. Kopp.

I'm guessing Kopp like millions of others was reflecting on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq invasion and the on-going war that was started in part for WMDs that didn't exist and resulted in the incalculable loss of life. If one wants to look at the war's effect on the debt that will be passed on to future generations, at least $1 trillion of the debt comes from that war.

Perhaps, Kopp who I am sure is a good Christian man, is bemoaning the fact that his fellow Christians in Iraq are much worse off than they were under Saddam Hussein.

On the home front, the bankers who tanked the economy still have not been punished nor does it seem any will face legal sanction. The purchasing power of the wages of the average American has been shrinking for over 30 years. Some have suggested that those who are unemployed or underemployed should consider their involuntary "leisure time" a benefit and condemn those unable to get work for not utilizing such time effectively. Such a callous attitude seems indicate moral failing.

A well-connected elite in Nineveh would have the same sort of advantages in the economic realm that today's bankers and investors have. Cory's post pointed to Nineveh’s foreign policy arrogance. Surely, a well-read man like Kopp who is able to knowingly quote august Americans, is referring to injustices and moral failings such as these.

[Update and Correction]: This post originally identified Kopp as Koop. I blame dust on the bifocals.

What I Learned About Religion In The United States Today

First, here's a breakdown of South Dakotans' religious leanings according to a Pew Poll reported in USA Today:

Then I heard this song on from a 2009 episode of Prairie Home Companion while driving home. Go to 42:40 to hear the song sung

Baptists in a twist
They backslide and they leave the group
Jews, get the blues,
And have a bowl of chicken soup

Mormons the chosen ones
They have their secret underwear
Pentecostals are hostile
To anyone without a prayer.

Lutherans aren't much fun
They're northern folks and they are cold;
The Brethren only take men
Episcopalians all are old.

If We Ban Paring Knives, Only Criminals Will Have Paring Knives

A family in Maine discovered a paring knife in an Elmo birthday cake. Walmart volunteered to give the family a free cake and announced a ban on "the use of pairing knives at its bakeries across the country."

Clearly Walmart's top managment has been overly influenced by liberal hysteria. The banning of paring knives obviously violates the 2nd Amendment which reads "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." it doesn't limit itself to firearms. The founders were clearly familiar with the knife and would consider an person bearing a knife armed.

Don't the liberals running Walmart know that paring knives don't ruin birthday cakes or birthday parties; people who put paring knives in birthday cakes ruin birthday cakes?

Banning paring knives doesn't prevent some absent minded Walmart kitchen employee from setting a butcher knife down near the bakery and ruining a three year old's party by corrupting a My Little Pony cake with a large knife that has just been used to slice pastrami.

The South Dakota legislature will reconvene on March 25 to consider vetoes and perform other business. The most responsible thing legislators could do on that day is pass legislation authorizing every Walmart in South Dakota to create a corps of paring-knife-knife weilding sentinels to ensure that no deranged person can storm a Walmart bakery and leave another paring knife in another birthday cake.

The father of the birthday boy in Maine said "We're not going to get that second birthday back ever." We must do everything we can to prevent other children from having their youth stolen by ruined birthday parties.

HT: Kevin Drum

Update: It appears that sharp objects are frequently misplaced.

About 6,000 patients a year leave U.S. operating rooms with surgical tools mistakenly left inside their bodies. (via @theweek)
— Mental Floss (@mental_floss) March 16, 2013

 

Quotation Of The Day: Why The Onion Should Be America's Official Newspaper Edition

From this Onion article:

WASHINGTON—With only a week remaining in the 2012 presidential campaign, the one-third of Americans adults who identify as members of the lower class announced they are still waiting for the first meaningful mention of themselves by either of the major-party candidates. “I’ve heard a lot about how the middle class is vital to the economy and how the upper class may not be paying their fair share, so I’m hoping that, at some point, there’s at least one remark from Romney or Obama on the plight of the lower class,” said Spillville, IA resident Martin Huskins, a cashier who earned $14,600 last year. “Just a word or two would go a long way. Even if the campaigns talk about us in a manipulative or patronizing way—that’d be okay, so long as there’s an actual acknowledgment of the millions upon millions of Americans in my situation. Because it seems like a pretty big problem, right?” Reached for comment, members of the nation’s working poor and underclass said they were pretty sure both candidates must be saving up big speeches on poverty to deliver right before Election Day.

A Minor Musing About Permanent Political Climate Change

When people discuss climate change, someone usually feels the urge to remind everyone that weather and climate are different. This is an election year, so the political weather may just be undergoing a regular cycle. I'm not optimistic, however. It may be time to worry about permanent political climate change.

Political seasons used to be predictable.  The year began with tax-and-spend rains, followed by weak-on-defense heat waves. Then, there were the conspiracy season chills followed by a scandal sleet .

This year the weak-on defense season has been so mild that I haven't noticed it.  In fact, some youngsters might not even know that weak-on-defense season exists.

Conspiracy theory winds seem to have lasted forever. The birther humidity seems to come more often, but it has been relatively mild. Sharia Law and Muslim terrorist freezes have lasted much longer than most full conspiracy seasons. The winds of Sharia Law panic have "roiled" some regional political waters, and Michele Bachmann has conjured up a Muslim infiltration front.

Tax-and-spend-liberal season didn't register with me this year. Instead, we've have full fledged Marxism monsoons that seem to have lasted forever.  In April, Allen West claimed that Congress was rife with Marxists, and nearly four months later David Liss is still seeking to "identify and remove" them. The depth and intensity of these Marxist storms have old-timers claiming that these Marxism storms are worse than the ones in the early 1950s. That fact leads me to believe we may be entering an era of full fledged Marxist seasons.

If the political climate has truly been altered, both tax-and-spend liberal season and weak-on-defense season may disappear.  The country will then be confronted by a political climate that begins with socialism season, goes into conspiracy-theory season, which in turn leads to a Marxism season that is as long as tax-and-spend liberal and weak-on-defense season combined. That cycle might be more dangerous than melting polar ice caps.

I Create Another Conspiracy: Bobby Jindal Is An Islamist Sleeper Agent

Let's look at the facts.

Fact 1: Ed Randazzo asserts "There is no doubt that the Muslim ultimate goal is to Islamize America and makes it One Nation Under Allah." Given that Radnazzo titles his post "Muslims Plan to Islamize Our Schools," there's little doubt that Muslims plan to use public education to accomplish their nefarious ends. Did I mention "Ed Randazzo, is a nationally syndicated author"?  He obviously is a credible source on this issue..

Fact 2: Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has a national following among Republicans,  He is believed to be on Mitt Romney's short list to be the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee.

Fact 3: Jindal's education reform means that taxpayer dollars can go to Muslim schools like the madrassas Randazzo warns about.

Rep. Valarie Hodges, R-Watson, says she had no idea that Gov. Bobby Jindal’s overhaul of the state’s educational system might mean taxpayer support of Muslim schools.

“I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools,” the District 64 Representative said Monday.

“I liked the idea of giving parents the option of sending their children to a public school or a Christian school,” Hodges said.

Hodges mistakenly assumed that “religious” meant “Christian.”

Fact 4: I have no life, so I am sitting at home watching baseball, and several commercials advertise The Bourne Legacy with the ominous reminder: "There never was just one."

To review.  Sleeper agents exist among us, and Muslims want to use schools to take over the United States. Jindal duped a Christian state legislator into voting for a policy that provides taxpayer money to Muslim schools. Can there be any doubt that Jindal is a sleeper agent determined to force Americans to face Mecca and pray five times a day?

My Second Conspiracy Theory: We The People Yankton Support A UN Takeover Of Yankton Public Schools

On Thursday, The Madville Times commented about Kelsey Collier-Wise's decision to run for the Vermillion City Council.  Collier-Wise blogs at Dakota Women, but that fact is not important to the conspiracy that I have uncovered.  The Madville Times post contained the following:

Of course, astute readers will notice on her info page that Collier-Wise uses the word “sustainable.” That word is a clear signal to all patriots that Collier-Wise is part of Agenda 21 and plans to turn Vermillion into a Marxist dystopia. [empahsis mine]

In the back of my mind, I remembered that a local group had the word "sustainable" as part of their name, but I couldn't remember who it was.

Later that same day, I came upon this post on interested party: "Insurance companies urging cities to implement Agenda 21."  I was, of course, shocked that capitalistic icons like insurance companies would be involved in efforts to create a Marxist regime in nearby Vermillion, South Dakota or anyplace else.

But then, it hit me. Yankton used to have a group called Yankton Citizens For Sustainable Education.  That group become We The People Yankton (WPTY).  WPTY has an insurance agent as one of its spokespersons.

Everything started to gel.  An insurance agent founded a group with the word "sustainable" in the title: Then the group changed its name.  It even started using solid American words like "people" in its title rather than effete words like citizen, which is infamously associated with the French Revolution.  Clearly nefarious activities are afoot.

The interested party post compounds my fears when it quotes The Huffington Post, a bastion of liberal New World Order extremism.

Kiyotaka Akasaka is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information. Here is a snip from his essay in the Huffington Post:

The Earth Summit marked a milestone with agreement by more than 178 countries on Agenda 21, the visionary blueprint for sustainable development. The attacks on Agenda 21 are remarkably similar to the full-throated climate change denial movement that has seriously impeded progress on that issue.

Marxists, the French, liberals, the New World Order, and the United Nations all may be invading my neighborhood soon.  What's worse, they use words taken directly from the United States Constitution to deceive the unaware public into following Agenda 21.  I was skeptical that people intent on destroying America's bedrock could stoop so low, but then I remembered that the devil quoted scripture to Jesus.  Anybody who copies the devil's playbook is clearly a dangerous enemy of all that is right and good.

Let's look at the Agenda 21 that this group obviously supports.

Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment. [emphasis mine]

The group clearly wants to expand their demonic agenda to a global level.

Further, the Preamble to Agenda 21 makes clear that WPTY is intent on lowering local taxes only to force local citizens to send those funds abroad.

The developmental and environmental objectives of Agenda 21 will require a substantial flow of new and additional financial resources to developing countries, in order to cover the incremental costs for the actions they have to undertake to deal with global environmental problems and to accelerate sustainable development. Financial resources are also required for strengthening the capacity of international institutions for the implementation of Agenda 21. An indicative order-of-magnitude assessment of costs is included in each of the programme areas. This assessment will need to be examined and refined by the relevant implementing agencies and organizations. [emphasis mine]

WPTY's desire to destroy America and implement a demonic French Marxist global agenda serves as a profound reminder that one must always remember that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty and to beware wolves in sheep's clothing.

On April 1, 2012, I fervently hope that media sources like The Onion, the favorite news source of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and New Mexico, pick up this story before this heinous agenda spreads.

Update 2:55 pm:  In case the label "satire," the mention of April 1, and The Onion, weren't enough, Happy April Fools day to one and all.  I hope this irony laden post provided a hearty chuckle.

Saving Endangered Political Species: Is it Already Too Late?

America's paper of record, The Onion, turns it's satiric attention to the lack of moderate Republicans in a "report" "New Breeding Program Aimed At Keeping Moderate Republicans From Going Extinct".

According to members of the Initiative to Protect the Political Middle (IPPM), centrist Republicans, who once freely roamed the nation calling for both economic deregulation and a return to Reagan-era tax rates on the wealthy, are in dire need of protection, having lost large portions of their natural terrain to the highly territorial Evangelical and Tea Party breeds.

"Our new program is designed to isolate the few remaining specimens of moderate Republicans, mate them in captivity, and then safely release these rare and precious creatures back into the electorate," said IPPM’s Cynthia Rollins, who traces the decline of the species to changes in the political climate and rampant, predatory fanaticism. "Within our safe, enclosed habitats, these middle-of-the-road Republican Party members can freely support increased funding for public education and even gay rights without being threatened by the far-right subgenus."

Working within a narrow three-election-cycle window to reverse the decline before extinction becomes imminent, political conservationists told reporters they have already begun the arduous process of tracking down members of the elusive breed of sensible, non-reactionary public officeholders, which a generation ago was one of the most plentiful GOP species in existence.

IPPM officials also said that while there is no guarantee they will ever be able to restore the moderate-Republican population to its once-teeming levels, "every effort must be made" to forcibly breed the species and at least keep it alive in the Midwest and Northeast, where its chances for survival remain highest.

The Onion's editors apparently don't get to South Dakota much or they don't consider South Dakota to be part of the Midwest.  The moderate Republican is nearly extinct here. In addition to worrying about the demise of the moderate Republican, those who enjoy political diversity should be worried that one rarely sees a Democrat in the South Dakota political environment.

The Core Of Contemporary Politics

Stephen Colbert gets it.  For the irony challenged, this ad is satire at its best.

The Perfect Sunday Satire: Sports And Religion

Income Inequality Through Satirists' Lenses

Conor Friedersdorf has a great essay illustrating that Jon Stewart is a better satirist than Rush Limbaugh.  Given my attitude toward Limbaugh, I obviously believe that Friedersdorf damns with faint praise.  If fact,  Stewart and his running mate Stephen Colbert frequently rise to the level set by Jonathan Swift.

Recently both Stewart and Colbert have taken to the same subject matter that motivated Swift to pen his most famous satirical essay, "A Modest Proposal."  Swift's speaker begins,

It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.

I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance; and, therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.

In short the poor are responsible for their own condition and need to take charge of their lives.  Swift's black humor allows him to satirically suggest that the Irish sell their young as a food source for the rich.

Last night, Stewart takes on this sort of "class warfare."
                       

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
World of Class Warfare - Warren Buffett vs. Wealthy Conservatives
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Steven Colbert takes on the same targets.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive