America is in a real pickle. No, actually in a jar of pickles -- deadly pickles. If the terrorists don't get you, your own government will track you down and have your doctor kill your ass.

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America is in a real pickle. No, actually in a jar of pickles -- deadly pickles. If the terrorists don't get you, your own government will track you down and have your doctor kill your ass.

All this is true. At least, that's what Republicans want you to believe. Let's look at the new national threat level:


The Terrorists are Coming, The Terrorists are Coming!

Quick! Round up the towns folk. Get the old shotgun off the wall and jump in the pickup ready for action. Because, according to Republicans, Obama is going to import terrorists into the US! How many? Well, maybe as many as 229 of the little buggers. And the GOP wants you to worry about that. No wait, not just worry, they want you in a white-knuckle panic over it.

These prisoners would be held in a recently decommission super-max prison in Michigan and the maximum security portion of our premier military prison in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. These are the kind of places that hold dozens of mass murders, including some nut who bludgeoned his mother to death then ate her brains. So far none have escaped and gone on a killing/brain-eating bing.

Right now these 229 accused terrorists are held at Gitmo, a hastily-built holding facility where prisoners are kept in the kind of chain-link enclosures you might find at a high-security petting zoo. Of course, they are surrounded by military guards, but even so, for all it's grim press, Gitmo ain't no super-max prison. Yet none of them have managed to escape and turn Cuba into an al-Qaida base.

Nevertheless, Republicans have jumped at an opportunity to push their favorite button the fear button.

“To the House Republican leader, it's an "ill-conceived plan" that would bring terrorists into the U.S. despite opposition by Congress and the American people. "The administration is going to face a severe public backlash unless it shelves this plan and goes back to the drawing board," said Antonia Ferrier, spokeswoman for Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio.”

While all this nonsense is designed to gin up the GOP's growing full-mooner base, it has also scared more than a few Democrats in Congress. These Dems are not afraid of the al-Qaidians. Hell, only a a complete fool would live in fear of 229 guys locked down behind bars, concrete walls, surrounded by electric fences and razor wire. No, the Dems are afraid that the GOP scare tactic will work, as it has a depressing number of times in the past. These Dems live in terror, not of terrorists, but you, the voter.  Which, by the way, means they also believe you're stupid enough to buy into this GOP nonsense.

So much for Democratic Party leadership.

The Government is Going to Murder Granny!

Kiss your granny and grandpa goodbye if the administration gets it's way with health care reform.

Because, even though America can afford a trillion bucks to fight two wars halfway around the world, we can't afford to keep geezers alive past their sell-by dates. (A date, by the way, which will be determined by groups of heartless, and apparently granny-less, government bureaucrats.)

I know this because I heard it from a GOP member of congress:

On the House floor yesterday, Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL) became the latest conservative to claim reform would kill people. “Last week Democrats released a health care bill which essentially said to America’s seniors: drop dead,” said Waite. Watch it:

For those of you guys out there hoping they are talking about your mother-in-law, sorry. There's not a syllable of truth in the charge. What the GOP has done is to glom onto a single clause in one of the bills that would simply allow Medicare (which largely covers the elderly) to pay for a once-every-five-year consultation with their doctor on end of life care issues, such as a living will and advance medical directives. Both of which anyone with half a brain has -- which might a clue.

When confronted by this fact, GOP fear-mongers have a comeback:

“Yeah, they'll advise them alright. They'll advise them to die and stop costing their children and society money and bother.”

Well, I don't know about you, but if I went to a doctor to get well, and he or she told me to drop dead instead, I'd find me a new doc. But again, the GOP's strategy is based on the premise that you're stupid enough to believe some pretty stupid claims. Like that the medical profession would embrace such an anti-Hippocratic oath directive, and that our elders, who have clung to life through depressions, wars and multiple Republican administrations, would obediently check out upon request.

Fortunately my family is chuck full of greatest generation elders. And I can tell ya, I'd want to be well out of testicular-kicking range if I were to even suggest such a thing.


Environmentalists: The Handmaidens of Satan!

Did you know that God hates environmentalists? Sure does. In particular He's all hot under the almighty collar over all those lies they tell about global warming. It's all a plot to, to, … well to something. Republicans are not quite clear what the whole global warming thing is about, but they suspect that socialism is lurking in there somewhere. Oh, and smaller cars and gasp mass transit, which is just socialism on wheels.

Remember Dick Army? Well he's on the case:

“What I’m suggesting is we have a sort of an eco-evangelical hysteria going on and it leads me to almost wonder if we are becoming a nation of environmental hypochondriacs....Let me say I take it as an article of faith if the lord God almighty made the heavens and the Earth, and he made them to his satisfaction and it is quite pretentious of we little weaklings here on earth to think that, that we are going to destroy God’s creation.”

That's right... God isn't about to destroy His own work... except of course New Orleans. But in that case He was just smiting the holy hell out the gays down there who. by the way, were asking for it dressing like that. And about those polar icecaps --  He was never happy with the way that turned out. So, all that melting is just a bit of Almighty redecorating.  Then there's those poor polar bears --  well even God can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, right?

Anyway, the GOP wants you to know that everything is unfolding just as intended. After all, even if it turns out to be true that human activity is turning the planet toxic to humans, this is not out of character. God has a history of waking up on the wrong side of the cloud from time to time and going all cranky on mankind, with the smiting, floods, plagues, infestations, oozing sores and such.

So, if it happens, we had it coming.

In the meantime the GOP wants you to know they have the environmentalists pegged for what they are; socialist dupes and handmaidens of Satan... which are, of course, one and the same.

Obama: Anti-Christ or Manchurian Candidate?

This wouldn't be the first time that life imitated art. I speak, of course of the vintage film, The Manchurian Candidate. And now it's happened for real. We've elected a “feriner,” President of the United States of America.

Here's how it worked. (Make sure your tinfoil hat is on tight.)

So, this baby was born in Kenya back in August, 1961. The kid was half black and half-white and was recognized immediately as The Chosen One. This was known because, on his birthday a star appeared over Kenya -- a liberal star. (They knew this because it was a blue star.)

The "they" have yet to be identified, but there are indications they were from a shadowy group that goes by the acronym, ACORN.

They knew that no child born outside the US territories could be The Chosen One. So they secretly sent envoys to Hawaii to plant a fake birth certificate in government files. And then, (and this was real genius) to cover all their bases, they planted two birth announcement ads in local papers, all 47-years ago.

Talk about foresight! If Joseph and Mary had had this level of foresight, stealth and secret agents, their kid would have grown up to rule the entire Roman Empire, instead of getting nailed.

Now, one might figure that a story like this was so, well, “out there,” no one in public office would touch it with a ten-foot vaccinated crowbar. But alas, not so. GOP members of congress, fearful that all the nut-jobs they've attracted to their mad hatter tea parties, will become suspicious of their representative's nut-jobish bona fides. So, when asked about their birther supporters they say things like;

“Well, there are questions that should be answered.”

Yeah. I have one. “How the hell do low-rent intellects like you get elected to public office?”

Oh hell, that's enough of all that. There's more, but it all makes my head hurt to even write about it. I don't know if the rise of factless GOP-cultivated fear mongering on some of our times most dangerous and critical issues is a reflection of our poor educational system, or Darwinism has been thrown in reverse or, hell,, who knows, maybe conservatives were right about the dangers of fluoridation of drinking water. Maybe we'll all end up dumb-asses with good teeth.

But there sure seems to be an over-abundance of ignoramuses around these days, and no shortage of handlers eager to parade them around in public like circus ring-masters.

Authors Bio:

Stephen Pizzo has been published everywhere from The New York Times to Mother Jones magazine. His book, Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans, was nominated for a Pulitzer.