As predictions go, here's an easy one: I predict things will get factually bumpy where politicians are concerned. I also predict you'll detect today's Mystery Guest on Spot the Weasel, the game show that offers fabulous conundrums the longer you play!
Are you ready? From the time tunnel of 2009, Clue Number One: "Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term." In case there was any confusion about the issue, there was additional clarification right away: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."
Is that Slope of Truth Morsels not slippery enough? No guesses yet? Here's another helping, from just this week: "Just because we have a two-party system doesn't mean we have to be in perpetual conflict." This was said at the same time along with an admission that representatives were sent to Washington "to fight all the time." Puzzled? Here's one more clarifier: "Gridlock in Washington can be ended."
Tick, tick, tick.... BUZZZZ. Have you Spotted the Weasel yet?
All right, here's some more help: "We're going to go back to work and actually pass legislation." Has our Mystery Speaker moved into your Circle of Light, or your Dim Recognition of Awareness, as yet? No? Well, there's always this one: "The first thing I need to do is get the Senate back to normal."
Well, this is awkward -- I'm informed today's Oath Giver has done all he can to create that very same gridlock, and has gone above and beyond to ensure no useful legislation has come within a distant whiff of passing, and has labored long and hard to establish gridlock as the new norm.
Stumped? Here's a Sudden Death, bonus quote: "People no longer trust [government]," our guy adds. Well, the heck, you say -- There's no waffling there: That's direct and to right the point. Maybe so, given the calendar date is 2014. Given the amount of trust this speaker has personally -- cough, cough -- inspired, this axiom is quadruply correct.
However, in all fairness, though, governmental trust has been an issue of severe deficit in the nation since 1964's physics-impaired Warren Report and has been richly aided by the incredibly magical Nixon Administration, another Republican bastion of righteousness. Well, self-righteousness, anyway.
No, our Lip-Flapper of the Day continued to pledge he would work with the president, and get to the business of the public, to the business of the nation, and not just the business of self-serving politicians, like the previous five or six years has proven to be, under constant Republican stalling, blocking, stonewalling and perpetual naysaying. Our guest on Spot the Weasel recently added a strongly worded, no-nonsense, tersely firm, unwavering oath displaying a backbone of hardened steel, when he said, "We'll see whether we can work with the President." Give up?
Mitch McConnell, ladies and gentlemen -- your new majority leader of the Senate.
Johnny, please tell our American contestants what they've won -- or, better yet, what they've already lost, and what they're very much unlikely to win, ever again!
[ Laundry list voiceover with career vid highlights; Key applause light;
Music up and out; Fade to blackout and migraine ]
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On the upside, McConnell says there will be no government shutdowns or defaults on the national debt on his watch. Let us hope his watch is not only wound, but accurate -- but, then again, we're talking Republicans here, so that watch of his is likely a jewel-encrusted Rolex that could level the national debt of a half-dozen Latin American countries, even at pawn shop pricing.
It's good to know McConnell has vowed to not do anything as destructive, unpatriotic, and treasonous as shutting down the government on an illegal Tea Bagger whim, or a perform a pouting refusal to pay debts on spending already authorized, like previous Republicans.
I suppose that's a positive -- although, to be fair, we do not actually know his views yet on setting off test nukes in straggler Blue states, or importing Ebola patients to hospitals and clinics in those same politically underperforming areas of the country.
There comes a time when common sense just ain't very common, and assuming anything is a mistake. Of course, on the other hand, having vows, oaths, and statements is just as worthless in the end as a "no comment," or silence, when all the stated goals and intents are so flamboyantly contradicted by actual, verifiable actions.
This is known as a predictable quandry in today's political world -- well, since December 12, 2000, anyway, when SCOTUS made official our new national motto, imported directly (OK, stolen) from The Firesign Theatre: Everything You Know is Wrong.
Yes, I predict McConnell will continue to provide us all endless mirth with self-contradictory truths -- what used to be previously known in unkinder, ungentler times as lies -- such as this recent doozy: "We all know that having the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world is a job exporter."
Yes, pity the poor corporations, weighed down by consistently profitable boom years, sitting on record mountains of cash after slashing jobs in order to make bottom lines -- and CEO bonuses -- more shapely.
Pity the poor corporations, so beset by responsibilities to the country in which their stunning profits were created, on the backs of taxpayer infrastructure, like highways, and built by [shudder] socialism of the worst kind... So burdened, these corporations, that they must move 3% of their operation, and 1% of their assets, to Ireland or to a post office box in the Cayman Islands, in order to become [ ding! ta-dah! cha-ching! ] Irish and Cayman Island companies, for tax purposes....
Sure, you could argue that the U.S. has among the highest statutory tax rates in the world, at 35%, with only a handful of countries higher -- like the United Arab Emirate's 55% or Chad's 40%, to name just two higher -- but that's before deductions and lawyerly steering of corporate interests through planet-sized loopholes, and black holes, in the nation's well-finagled, stellar tax code.
Finagled by whom? Oh, right -- by politicians... who are then free to criticize how high the nation's taxes on corporations are... even when they aren't. Confused yet? Welcome to America. Please do not use the term "bottom dollar" in reference to sitting on one's assets, and please do not squeeze the Charmin, or you will be placed on the Homeland Security Full Cavity Search List, even when using subways and the bus. And cabs. And coffee shops.
So, if you're a fan of paying your own personal taxes, based on calculations before deductions, then, well, I suppose you and McConnell are soulmates and deserve each other. Everyone else: Please feel free, as they say, to consult local listings -- your (s)mileage may vary.
Fact check: U.S. corporations pay an effective tax rate of 12.6% -- well below most industrialized countries.
Fact check: Corporations move jobs overseas when there is a monetary incentive to do so, as predicted by Ferd's Third Law of Incredibly Predatory Profit-Taking and Operational Cheapness, amortized by the Tables of Questionable Pariotism (see para 178293 (c) through 178684 (f) 89 (M), U.S. Tax Code, revised 2013, by Republicans, just before adjourning for an illegal government shutdown and threatened refusal to pay debts previously authorized.
Fact check: 26 profitable Fortune 500 companies paid zero dollars in federal tax over five years.
Fact check: Government spends more on corporate welfare than on social welfare ($92 billion versus $59 billion).
Fact check: Most voters don't vote, question what they hear, or show signs of having a pulse, even in tests involving road-cratering explosions set off in test subjects' neighborhoods during favorite reality TV shows and sports events.
Fact check: Some of these Fact Checks stretch the actual truth, while being in the full service of the Actual Truth.
So: Cue the music, do the math, and roll the latest feel-good campaign ad:
Yes: Mitch McConnell -- an unmistakable leader, sporting a strong jaw line... clear, precise diction... able to glaze over obvious facts atop the tallest buildings, and tap-dance a festive waffle-step around any blue-sky issue dear to a voter's heart...
Able to say one thing and do the complete opposite -- this has been, coincidentally, the only McConnell plan, and the only Republican plan, since that scary black Muslim commie dared run rough-shod over the nation and take over the White House.
Yes, it's good to know we can count on you, Mitch, to get the Senate going again, since you're primarily to blame for log-jamming it, beaver-style, for the past five or six years.
Another case of knowing where the bodies, and the key logs, are buried, one supposes. No wonder they're called eager beavers.
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Meanwhile, in completely unrelated news, an eastern diamondback rattlesnake has had a change of face after surgery for a swollen gland, getting filled with silicone to keep the facial structure in place. The gland was in the head. (Editor's Note: In keeping with the policies and philosophies of this agency, and our writers, we do not refer to any such upper body ailments as having problems with a swelled head. When snakes are involved, that is -- there is no such policy excluding others in the reptile family, such as Republicans.)
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Yes, when it comes to making predictions, I predict all this nonsense will continue, where Republicans will just say NO! to everything, until they lock down all branches of government. At that exact moment -- looming sooner than you think -- I predict a magical return to full employment, as a side-benefit of a renewed, full-tilt, no-holds-barred rape of the Treasury, the country, the people, and the planet.
Yes, when you're stuffing yourself at an all-you-can-eat caviar buffet, it pays to hire someone to follow you around with a shovel and a bucket, policing up anything you missed. This is called a drop in unemployment.
And that, boys and girls, is how you run a country to the benefit of one party only: You wait and say NO! until you can have everything your way, take your ball and go home -- and the country be damned. When you can have everything your way, you bring your ball back from lock-and-key at home, and allow the game to be played for a while, under your own rules -- making sure to take full credit for knowing where the ball was, and for reintroducing it into play. This is called proficiency in political economics.
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Advice for beginners: When it comes to making predictions, it's best to hone it a while, being as vague as possible, in order to ensure almost any eventuality can qualify and prove you right, while being as specific as you dare, so as to keep your perceived gifts of clairvoyance as potent as possible.
And keep it neutral, if not actually hopeful. For example: Say something along the lines of "The Middle East will continue to face periods of unrest," instead of committing to something like, "Real estate prices in the Golan Heights will face an unsettled period of valuations and rocky investment. And explosions."
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Flash: I predict more endless wars and periods of ardent national security imperatives. I also predict we will spend at least another four trillion dollars in pressing these urgent, essential, do-or-die wars, only to show no real tangible, or even intangible, benefit. I further predict Americans will continue to note that everyone in the country, after these repeated, double-digit, trillion-dollar war splurges, could have had a complete education, full medical care, and a paid mortgage for far less money. Again.
I also predict a certain country -- gads, which one, which one? -- will change its name to the Corporate States of America within the next 15 years. Or months.
One more: I predict the right wing will continue to beat the Fear Drum regarding the inscrutable left wing forces arrayed against it, even though the left wing ceased to exist, c. 1980. I also see that the right wing will continue to denigrate Liberals, even though Liberals are in fact responsible for the best, most admired and fundamental aspects of modern American life.
In addition, I predict Democrats and Independents will finally see that acting as members of the Republican Lite Party does them no favors whatsoever -- but I also predict this will take them at least 20 more years of losses before this breakthrough concept takes root and fresh thinking occurs.
Sidenote for Student Prediction Practitioners: See, you have to jump on this stuff when it arrives in the back of your mind, especially if it makes the jump, all by itself, from brain stem to keyboard fingertip. It might feel spooky, but just think of it as your supernatural gift in play, and not a caffeine-induced spasm of your hippocampus and hypothalamus.
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Reader's Digest used to have a section called "Toward More Picturesque Speech" to help readers use a more artful, evocatively descriptive -- perhaps somewhat poetic -- manner of language. It was meant to help flesh out the many levels of and full, possibilities of the description of actual actions, events, places...
Republicans, however, are far more creative, and are able to create entire worlds of inference, denotation, and connotation not currently existing in any reality-based universe, thanks to the Luntz-ification of the language, such as Death Panels and Death Taxes.
For more information on concealing the truth, and increasing your personal wealth and power overnight -- using European techniques pioneered and proven 75 years ago -- please send 95% of your current liquid holdings to: Spin Cycle Gazette, Box 1313, Claptrap, KY. This offer may not be repeated. We repeat, this offer may not be repeated... *
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See how easy this is?
Thank you again for enrolling in the Mitch McConnell Institute's Symposium: Toward More Effective Talking Point Regurgitation and Thought Manipulation via Cloaked Language Use! And, please be sure to pick up your introductory Fox News package, "Duping the Hard of Thinking with Easy, Pea-under-a-Cup, Three-Card Monte Logic," and your complimentary Rush Limbaugh ear implants and memoir, "My Life as a Millionaire Junkie Fact-Torturer."
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One more: I predict a prolonged period of business as usual, until money is forced out of politics. (Tip: The very best predictions are profound no-brainers.)
Caution: Final thought may require some punchline assembly or connection of dots. Batteries not included. Please think responsibly.
* Offer not valid in areas of highly educated populations or where right-wing radio and TV media is struggling for a foothold. Or where knowledge of propaganda tactics is known.