Media / Politics

Meet my new favorite columnist – Victor Epstein:

“Let’s get this straight McKay Hatch, you and your “Campaign Against Cussing” have crossed the motherfucking line with your recent attack on the Modern Family TV show and decent hardworking people like me are not going to take it anymore.
“We’re fighting for basic survival in the worst economic climate for the American middle class in nearly a century and you and your fellow religious nuts are worried about cusswords? Are you out of your intolerant 18-year-old mind?
“Look kid, I’m worried about paying the rent, high gasoline prices, and having a heart attack without health insurance. I don’t have time for this shit.
“The painful truth is that you have the legal and moral right to do a lot of fucked up shit in the United States. If you want to steal homes from little old ladies, you’re free to trick them into predatory mortgages; if you’re willing to prostitute yourself to business interests, we’ve got a seat for you in the U.S. Congress; and if you want to get rich on blood money you can deny care to the uninsured while showering senior citizens covered by Medicaid with unnecessary medical procedures. You can even start a needless war to help your political supporters raid the treasury.
“But you and your “Campaign Against Cussing” may not fuck with the Modern Family television show in my world just because you embrace a Mormon faith that demonizes gays and frowns on gay marriage.”

Really, he rarely curses in his other columns. This one was special.

http://www.cynicaltimes.org/articles/zealot-wants-modern-family-pulled/

“The mainstream media continues to advance knowing sins of omission in its economic reporting as evidenced by Friday’s erroneous report that 1.64 million new jobs were created in the United States in 2011. The real gain was more along the lines of 440,000 jobs.
“Why? Because zero is not zero in monthly job creation. It’s 100,000.
“That’s how many new jobs must be created each month just to keep pace with our fast-growing national population, which has expanded by 33 million people to 314 million since former President George W. Bush took office Jan. 1, 2000. Anything above 100,000 new jobs a month represents a “net gain.” Anything less represents a net loss.
“The Great Recession, which officially claimed 7.43 million jobs, began in December of 2007 and lasted 18 months. The true number of jobs destroyed during that time span is at least 9.33 million once the data is adjusted for the 100,000 jobs that must be created each month to keep pace with population growth.
“That’s 1.2 million new jobs every year just to tread water.
“Once we subtract that 1.2 million figure from the 1.64 million jobs created in 2011, we’re left with a net gain of only 440,000. At that rate it will take 21 years for the U.S. labor market to recover from the Bush presidency.
“Twenty-one years. Two. One.”

http://www.cynicaltimes.org/articles/spit-out-that-kool-aid-the-jobs-picture-still-sucks/

“(Washington) DC’s preference for convenient political lies over inconvenient truths has become so pronounced that it’s created hundreds of new jobs by giving birth to a genre of television shows that includes the The Colbert Report, Onion News Network, The Daily Show and Real Time With Bill Maher. The only reason they seem to lean left is because the right provides the best material.
-Did you know that radical Muslims are taking over the United States and replacing our legal system with sharia law?
Not.
-Did you know that Obama is advocating death panels and rationed medical care?
Not.
-Did you know that the American medical system is the envy of the world?
Not.
-Did you know that any oil drilled from the Arctic National Wildlife refuge would be sold at a discount right here in the U.S., rather than to the highest bidder in the global marketplace?
Not.
-Did you know that Wall Street isn’t slanted in favor of huge investors?
Not.
-Did you know that Congress is full of strong, principled, sacrificial leaders who come from the same backgrounds as you and me and are devoted to advancing the greater good?
Not.
-Did you know that cutting taxes for political donors stimulates more donations.
OK, that last one is true.
“The current crop of machine politicians seems to feel nothing but contempt for the decent, middle-class Americans who put them in office and their watchdogs in the Fourth Estate. They pity our attachment to the truth.”

“One of the side-effects of our bifurcated Society is that many machine politicians just don’t know the voters they’re supposed to represent anymore. That’s why Dems declared victory in 2008 and Republicans claimed a mandate in 2010.
“The painful truth is that neither side won in either election because most of the middle-class wasn’t voting Democrat or Republican. They were voting against incumbents in a bid to burn down two political machines that now seem to exist solely to serve themselves.”

http://www.cynicaltimes.org/articles/gop-the-party-of-fabulists/