Daily Kos Con Chart

This really isn’t a post, it is plagiarism.  In fact, I depend on Ed Darrell retweeting Nancy Flanagan — two people I have never met — for enabling my sin.  (Thank you.)  But I enjoyed this Daily Kos post so much, I had to share it and I can only wish it were my own.

Here you are, The Daily Kos Guide to the Conservative Movement!  Other than being too soft on the cons, try to find any fault in it.  If ever there were a better example of “funny because it is true” I haven’t seen it.

Enjoy!  And share.

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I Started to Write Something, But…

…I cannot write a damn thing.  Obviously.

Hit when the hitting is good, or something like that.  Hit when its hot.  Right now the only thing that’s hitting are ideas, one after another they hit the trail.  (Can ideas hit the trail?)  One will not coalesce with another.  No way, not happening.

But I am forcing myself to write something anyway and you’re reading it.  Push through, write on…kind of like public speaking, you only have a moment to recompose and you cannot go back, it’s best to put your head down and move to your next point.  No looking back.  Keep going, keep doing it…like this.

Less than 12 hours ago I was full of ideas.  My thoughts we sharp and nimble.  This morning, however, I feel about as sharp and nimble thinking as a Republican.  That isn’t good.  Frustrating for me, but you know…I almost feel sorry for Republicans as I think about it.  I mean I literally feel it, feel what it must be like to be so…dumb.  In fact, I almost understand the appeal of the stupid clichés they follow…Ha!…They cannot think bigger!  It is a real experience, a real way of being, and, alas, kind of sad…

But back to me!

What should I write?  (Submit ideas here.)  Golly, I had such brilliant ideas last night.  Wow, I was something!  (You would have been impressed.)  The lesson here, boys and girls, is strike with the idea is hot.  Don’t turn out the lights and tell yourself you’ll be double-sharp in the morning.  No!  Put your ideas down when you have them.

Otherwise you might be writing something like this.  Or worse…empathizing with Republicans.

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Debunking the Fair Compensation Myth

The very wealthiest 1% in the United States possess more wealth than the bottom 40%, the top 20% possess more than the lost and dying middle class.  (See well-documented report here.)  Any suggestion that policy redistribute this inequality draws cries of anti-American socialism, most loudly from those barely hanging on in the sinking tiers of America wealth.  This is simply a symptom of ignorance.  A full 1/3 of Americans believe they are among the top 10% of American income earners and nearly all still believe the United States is the land of upward mobility and economic security.

Those are problems of understanding and conditions of cognitive dissonance.  But there is another layer to inequality and it resides mostly on the upper tiers of wealth distribution.  It is the idea that the very wealthiest somehow earned and deserve their growing wealth.  This view is supported by the idea that without competitive compensation — as unfair as it might seem — we would be worse off because “talent” would not be attracted to the complicated careers of corporate management and high finance.

There is a simple one word answer to this (although you still sometimes see it written in its more archaic two-word form):  Bullshit.

This is where the obligatory apology and reassurances need to enter any polemic about capitalism and its rewards.  Most people, myself included, do not want to live in a world where people are not awarded for their talents and efforts, we don’t want to take away the benefits of good fortune, but increasingly talents, efforts, and even good fortune play an ancillary role to strategic regulatory and market regulation.  While most of us work hard to earn a living and pay our way, a very elite few employ others to work even harder for them to change the rules that favor their privileged interests.

How else do you explain public policy that gives breaks to high incomes, subsidizes profitable industry (cf. fossil fuels, mercenary wars, industrial agriculture, etc.), and dismantle social structures that distributed opportunity more equally (cf. education, health care, social security).

The fact is, in an era when we invested more of our wealth in our common interests, we all did better, rich and poor alike.  In fact, in the second half of the 20th century right, high-priced talent and corporations produced enormous wealth for this country, indeed for large parts of the world.  American society was the envy of the world,  It was the source of innovation and creativity and we made political decisions to foster those characteristics.

If we returned to those days, does anyone really think a wealthy capitalist — a “job creator” — would stash his wealth in a mattress somewhere in the Cayman Islands?  (That, by the way, is another policy-enabled issue that we should address.)  If the potential for profits exists to be taken, someone will take it.  If today’s titans are unwilling to take risks, others will follow.  Someone on the sidelines today — squeezed out perhaps because of the enormous comparative advantage that those with great wealth enjoy — might be happy to invest for a single-digit margin where today’s robber barons expect double-digit.

Would we be any worse off if that happened?

Eventually money would return to the market.  Think of a reverse auction.  Investors would jump in if they thought opportunities were being usurped.  Likewise, for every CEO unwilling to spare his talents for anything less than tens of millions, there are talented people willing to take the helm.  Perhaps economies of scale enable tremendous compensation, but it need not be this way.  We didn’t pay CEOs 350 times the average compensation of his employees to attract his talent 30 years ago, why is that necessary today?

Today corporate profits rise — dramatically rise, to record levels — and worker compensation lags, even declines, and the trend is for the worst.

The myth of fair high compensation is perpetuated by those who profit from it.  They sustain it to keep complaints away.  Once we believed kings ruled by divine right.  The time to pull back the curtain is long overdue.

Moreover, looking at so-called talent, it isn’t so rare.  What’s the difference between a hot shot hedge manager in New York versus someone with similar talent and ability in Mumbai?  The answer is Wall Street.  One has access, the other does not.  Likewise a kid raised in Manhattan’s wealth stands to gain much more than a kid raised in rural poverty.  We created this wealth, no one did it alone.  One depends on the other.  It is time we put credit where credit is due.

But most importantly, if unrealized opportunity exists, it will be exploited.  It is absurd to think that we need to sustain an economic system that disproportionately favors the few at the expense of the majority.  It isn’t talent that matters, it is access to power that matters.  If our democracy is protected — something which itself is in doubt (cf., Citizens United) — citizens can regain control of that power.

We accomplish by voting wisely, that starts with turning against the regressive Republican Party.  We are not talking socialism, we don’t even need the redistribution that sustained the 50s and 60s in this country.  We simply need parity, both economic and political parity, along with the safety nets — social security, health care, education — that gives a strong society a solid foundation.

The truth is the world is changing.  The economy is changing…rapidly.  It is a global one.  Someday — which is really yesterday — we need to find a way to remain competitive in the global market.  What is happening instead is we are allowing a slim minority of people harvest the capital of generations and make off like bandits.  In the long run, even those of us who are better off will lose in this game.  It is time we wake up and get our accounts in order.

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Dead Snow and the Decline of Conservative American Politics

Well, shit’s going to hell in a hand basket out there and I don’t know what think.  Anyone pooh-poohing the Zombie Apocalypse hasn’t been paying attention to the GOP, that’s for damn certain.  I only wish they would kills us in the old fashion zombie brain-eating way rather than this slow, tortured death.  Seriously, our destruction isn’t even in good taste, instead it unfolds like a bad Vincent Price film filled with unnecessary theatrics and a crying Speaker.  It is downright pathetic.

Such Well-Behaved Boys.

More pathetic still — when we delve into the plot — we can see that  the Boehners, Cantors, and McConnells of the world are the zombie masters.  The zombies are you and me, or more specificallly the zombies are those of us who march with the political dead casting votes for regressive conservative masters.  How else do you explain a vote for Bachmann?  There has to be a zombie involved somewhere.

Zombie bites have consequences, very bad consequences.

Oh,but then there are the masters master…the ubermeisters…reigning over the obedient Boehner et al.  The concentration of power — the fasci — tying industrial might to political power and ordering a bunch of ortsgruppenleiter about.  Oh wait…best to reign it in a little.  People will get all indignant over any hint of a Third Reich references.  (I wouldn’t dare.)  Slandering opponents as Nazis is reserved for the geniuses of the Tea Party anyway, and only then when insulting the sitting President of the United States.  No one dare suggest that there might be a little fasci at work behind the doors at Koch Industries, for example.   That would be scandalously unpatriotic, even unfair.  (How dare I?)   I can’t spell sturmabteilung anyway.  Heil!

What’s this?? See…We all can have a little fun.

Anyway, no one needs to freak out.  You can have intolerant fascists without the Nazi part.  Remain calm.

I write this only to remind myself to watch that really strange, kind of lame, Norwegian zombie film, Dead Snow (2009), and see if I can draw any connections between that and the really bad episode of current American politics, the 113th United States Congress.

Like Congress, Dead Snow takes forever to get going and when something finally does happen, it is a  lot of senseless — and very predictable — mayhem featuring zombies who happen to also be Nazis.  Leave it to the Norwegians to provide the allegory.

And is there an allegory?  No, not really, not in Dead Snow, at least.  It is a teen zombie movie, a budding cult classic.  That’s all.  But who cares?  The hint is apt.

(P.S.  Tubing behind a snowmobile is very dangerous.  Don’t do it.)

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Sharpening Pencils

This post should be especially interesting to Republicans because I am going to reflect on some school day memories.  School.  That big brick building in the neighborhood that once upon a time was a place where kids went to learn stuff.  I’m not sure Republicans are familiar with the place — or the concept — either then or now.  I do recall seeing some people who are today known Republicans scurrying about my school, however, including Tim Pawlenty.  So, yes, he was there, he attended one, although it is difficult to make the argument that he retained much from the experience.  It is a shame that we should care, but we should.

Anyway, I don’t care, not now.  All I want to do is write about pencils.  That’s all I want to do.

Do kids still use pencils, by the way?  I recall how important pencils were back in the day.  It wasn’t until we got into the higher grades — you know, fourth or fifth grade — that kids dared dream of Bic pens so pencils pretty much carried the day.  Pencils and erasers.  I always had an assortment of both.  Every self-respecting kid did.  But I am wired funny and I really liked my pencils, I mean really liked my pencils.  Pencils!  In truth it has been worse than that.  I have always been a paper and pencil geek, a hoarder of office and school supplies.  The school storeroom was a place of sanctity for me.  A marvelous cache of treasures.  That and pencils.

So I liked my pencils.  Let’s move on.

Back in the day we collected them and showed them, like some people show cars or dogs.  Most pencils were yellow with black lead, but occasionally different colors appeared.  The barrel or “shell” of the pencil — the wooden part- — might be colored white or black, which was my favorite.  Red painted shells  had red lead and blue ones had blue.  (Yes, blue…isn’t that amazing?)  And we had enough varieties of graphite hardness (the “lead” I’ve been talking about) to require special instructions for tests.  ”Make sure you have two #2 pencils ready for your exam tomorrow.”

Old pencils purloined from relatives even older than mom and dad were super special.  I had one that had a metal cap designed to protect the pencil’s point, a short stubby thing meant to fit in a shirt pocket with a small notepad.   It was stamped with “Wood Brothers” on the cap, my grandfather’s business.  (I wonder what I did with that. I must still have it here somewhere.)  And once I brought in a carpenter’s pencil that I found in my dad’s pocket (he always had extras) and was disappointed to find out that no one thought it special and it didn’t fit into the sharpener.

It is that sharpener that I want to talk about though.  You see, a pencil was something like a token of freedom in our school.  Unlike requesting permission to use the bathroom (called a “lavatory” in my polite schooldays), you could get up any time to sharpen your pencil.  In fact two sounds stand out more than others when I think back to school, they are banging old heating radiators and grinding pencil sharpeners.

I am buying a box tomorrow.

A lot of kids intentionally broke the point on their pencils to earn an excuse to walk up to the wall-mounted sharpener.  I learned that it wasn’t necessary to break the point, even a sharp pencil could grind in the sharpener.  And like a yawn spreading from person to person, when one classmate got up to sharpen a pencil — or two or three pencils if he were flush — others would certainly follow.  One could not miss the pattern.  In fact, quite quickly we would all catch on.  Knowing that the teacher didn’t like groups congregating at the pencil sharpener (two or more constituted a group) we would keep watch for a vacant path to the pencil sharpener to claim.  Often two or three of us would rise from our seats simultaneously, leaving the perceived laggards to concede to the quick.

This always set Miss Gee’s eye’s rolling, which was half the fun and part of the challenge because every so often we would push things too far — mayhem threatened — and Miss Gee would announce:  ”All right, everyone up and to the sharpener!”  Or something like that.  And we would dejectedly and obediently line up — all 12 of us — and each silently take our turn at the pencil sharpener and then solemnly walk back to our desks knowing that for that hour at least, the freedom bestowed by the pencil had been forfeited.  Life was so unfair.  Only real tragedy — two broken leads — could justify a timid approach to the pencil sharpener now!  A kid would have a better chance asking permission for the lavatory.

That’s ok.  If we were quietly wearing down pencils in Miss Gee’s class we were likely learning the cursive capital Q or something like that, and now I wish I had paid more attention to my worksheet than the sharpener anyway.  (My cursive is horrible.)  Lessons matter, I understand that, even lessons learned indirectly about discipline and manners enforced by a Miss Gee.

I can’t remember for certain, but I think I learned a lot back then.

Anyway, I have my very own pencil sharpener now.  It is much like the one we had in school and the special one I got as a gift one Christmas.  I still get a lot of joy from sharpening a pencil, but now nearly all of it is comes from the memories it keeps fresh.

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Michelle Obama and the Oscars

What does it say about the state of politics when Michelle Obama‘s Best Picture cameo at last night’s Academy Awards causes disunity and bitterness?  Conservatives — proving again that they are what they are — complain that Hollywood’s “liberal elite” tipped its hand, showing political favoritism.

You know what…shut the flip up.

That prime time idiot Rush mocked it and this afternoon people in once-progressive Minnesota are calling WCCO radio smelling something sour.   Some are even criticizing the bangs!

Come on, people.  Really?

Michelle Obama is the First Lady of the United States of America.  Let’s show some respect, if not gratitude.  Michelle Obama added a dash of class, something the ceremony often lacked.  And for many people, especially children, the First Lady is someone they look up to as a role model.  Given the context of Hollywood celebrity, this is a refreshing twist.

Can you imagine Democrats raising a fuss if Laura Bush presented an award?  What about Nancy Reagan?  She could have conducted séance and gotten away unscathed.

Of course the hand that really tipped is the conservative hand.  Maybe there is a reason why they pick on Hollywood’s success.  These are creative, intelligent, and open-minded people who create a  successful synergy between art and business.  One might surmise, therefore, that there is a case of resentment at play here or maybe jealousy.  And I can understand it.  If conservatives mock and complain about the success of intelligent creativity perhaps that is all about looking from the outside in and not possessing it for oneself.

Keep whining if you can’t say anything nice, I suppose.

 

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Back from the Cliff: Let’s Eat Eggs!

In a celebratory recognition of Congress pulling us back from fiscal dairy cliff, I bought a half pint of heavy organic cream.  And because my grocery store categorizes them as dairy, I picked up some eggs, too.  (What exactly is dairy?)

I did all of this for two reasons:

First, I believe all properly stocked kitchens should have plenty of dairy, especially cream and eggs.

Back to Work!

Second, you can prepare eggs in many, many ways and incorporate cream into many, many recipes.  Unlike politics, there really isn’t a right or a wrong way to do many of these things.  Eggs your way might be damn near as good as eggs done my way!  And doesn’t it feel good to be so nice about difference once in a while?

Take scrambled eggs, for example.  You can prepare them in many ways and perhaps never decide that one way is any better or any worse than the other.  You might — hold on — agree that your eggs can exist in friendly harmony with mine and no one need to sacrifice his future to do so.

Unfortunately I must insist, however, that most people overcook eggs.  Eggs should be squishy, not bouncy.  Keep that in mind and we’re all good.  (See…I’m already going back to my bickering ways.  Proceed with caution, senator.)

Ok, back again now to celebrating.

Often I choose to make simple scrambled eggs for a quick breakfast.  This approach is fast and it is easier than falling out of bed, entirely in harmony with the morning.  This is all you have to do:

First, put a sliced English muffin in the toaster and start toasting it.

Then heat a small omelette pan over medium heat (this is the only time you will really ever use a small omelette pan), add a teaspoon or so of softened butter, and when the butter has melted and begins to bubble, toss in an egg.  Shake the pan rapidly to keep the egg from sticking to the pan bottom, then let it sit for 15 seconds.  Next take a fork and stir up your egg a bit, shake the pan some more, and let it sit for a few seconds…then repeat…stir with a fork again, let it sit (but only for a moment this time) and remove from the heat.  Your muffin should be about done at this point.  Make your sandwich.

If this take more than a minute, you’re doing it wrong.

American Eggs, Suzn Smith

You might add cheese to the sandwich — or even ham — and sometimes I add one or the other or both to the egg before cooking and make a lazy man’s omelette for my breakfast sandwich.  A friend taught me the delight of adding a drop or two of Tabasco sauce just before eating, especially if you have dark roast coffee, and this is a perfect accent to a simple egg muffin sandwich.

But now let’s get to the cream because I think I have covered egg breakfast sandwiches once or twice already here on A Little Tour in Yellow.  Plus, let’s not lose sight of what is going on here.  We are celebrating avoiding the Dairy Cliff.  Let the cream flow!

(I mentioned every kitchen should be stocked with heavy cream already, right?  Fiscal and dairy crisis be damned.  Live liberally.  Live with cream.)

The best scrambled eggs, I have discovered, are made with heavy cream.  And they are wonderfully easy to make.  You need an omelette pan (a real one), a small bowl, a fork, and a plate.  You also need eggs and cream, of course, but you might want to add some cheese (shredded parmesean is my favorite) or salt, but not much salt if you add cheese.  The cheese is your salt.  And not too much cheese, either…these are scrambled eggs, not something else.

I use a small bowl — something like an English consommé bowl, if you can imagine such a thing — to mix my eggs and cream together.  I use between one and two tablespoons of cream per egg.  (Probably closer to one tablespoon.)  Just as we did before, heat your pan over medium heat until your dollop of soften butter melts and begins to bubble.  While you wait, whisk up the eggs and cream — maybe that dash of salt, too, or a dash of cheese (not both) — until eggs and cream mix.  Don’t over mix!  You should be able to discern eggs from cream, but you do want the yolks broken and creamy, literally.

Now, when your pan is ready, pour everything into your omelette pan, shake your pan (sounds like fun), and then you might want to cover the pan.  I usually do.  If I have a cover.  (Any cover will do, if it does the trick.)

Let the eggs sit for 10-15 seconds, then start folding the eggs over in the pan, roll them gently with your fork.  Let them sit for another 10-15 seconds.  Then mix them a little more with your fork one more time, let them sit again for a few more seconds and remove from the heat.  You’re done!

Of course the squeamish can watch for “runny” eggs and cook more to taste, but don’t overcook.  Unless you’re my little sister, who overcooks everything, you don’t want over-cooked eggs.  Remember:  Squishy, not bouncy.

In my experience, eggs are the last thing I cook when making breakfast, and if you disagree with me you must be a god damn Republican.  Ha!  Couldn’t resist, even during the fiscal cliff truce, it’s still fun to poke fun at Republicans.  So easy to do, too, just like cooking simply delicious eggs.  Try it.  Even if you’re a Republican, try it.

Ok, never mind.  Sorry…

So that’s it.  That is all that I have tonight.  Me, cream and eggs, and fiscal truce, too.  Let’s eat!

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Put the Blame Where it Belongs…On the Shoulders of the GOP

Reports increasingly suggest that no “fiscal cliff” compromise will be reached before the end of the year and with this all signs point to a rather dismal start to 2013.  Where should the blame rest?  The diplomatic answer is “Washington”, blaming the nation’s broken political process.  But if the political process is broken — which it obviously appears to be — then the Republican Party broke it.

Republicans are unwilling to compromise.  Period.  It is their way or no way.  Last week House Speaker John Boehner could not rally support for a compromise proposal – one that essentially endorses failing conservative values — and that demonstrates how radically Republicans are not even willing to present plans to negotiate in the first place.

At the most simple and basic level, the GOP takes positions that don’t stand up to reason.  There is no sound economic argument, for example, that defends the extreme government-gutting positions taken by the GOP.  Their fears over current deficits and future taxes are absurd and frankly abusive, taking down our economy while dismantling government programs.  We are not getting more for less, we are simply getting less and less.

After thirty years of supply side economics you would think smart Americans would understand that the “trickle down” argument is hollow one and has not delivered promised results.  In fact it has delivered just the opposite.  (cf. Starve the Beast to understand the true conservative agenda.)  And now, in the midst of a self-inflicted economic crisis, we intend to inflict more economic pain on the people and economy of this country.

Unfortunately we seem to have a lack of smart, informed voters — especially at the caucus level!  – steering the right people to political roles.  In the end today’s elected conservatives are exceedingly radical and in  possession of no shortage of bad ideas.

But again it worst than bad ideas.  It is bad politics.  One might even say without inaccuracy it is about bad people.  Better Americans — the educated and informed — understand solutions to our problems exist, but the backward regressives have been given too much control and as a result we are out of control.

What can you think of people who govern in fear of reprisals from caucuses led by people like Michele Bachmann for Christ’s sake?!  Good lord!  Are we really this tragically stupid?

This is not a bi-partisan problem.  If you really care about your future and this country stop voting for today’s GOP.  Fear and ignorance are not the qualities of strong leadership, and we are suffering through our decline because we are forced to concede to this elected imposition of backwardness.

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I Am Beyond the Point of Caring, But Not Beyond the Point of Writing Again.

Generally I don’t go back and change posts on A Little Tour in Yellow, I rarely edit after I write.  Last night I discovered I had posted a draft, however, and made an exception to that habit.  (And likely ruin a good post!  But it was too crass…)

It has given me a chance to reflect.  And you know what…I still I don’t give a rat’s ass anymore.  I am increasingly reluctant to lend a civil ear to the rhetoric from the right.  It’s simply too numbing.

This Doesn’t Feel Quaint Anymore

Take a listen to a fresh example, Wayne LaPierre‘s response to increasing calls for gun control laws after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.  Is this for real?  The guy had a week to come up with something.  He could have taken steady aim at a reasonable target, but instead took a reckless shot from the hip.  (Sorry.)

Thirty years ago we didn’t need armed guards at elementary schools.  We claim we do today.  What happened?  This pathological fight to keep our well-regulated militia free from any regulation whatsoever is a symptom of an overall insanity that should raise loud alarms and instead becomes a rallying point for even more insanity.

The lack of civility and progress in this country is a symptom of intellectual decline.  Period.

Then on the right — a party that by any objective measure is wrong on the facts on everything from science to economics to the social benefit of robust government — makes claims they cannot support by fact.  When I was a kid, lying was sign of bad character, today it is a credential for leadership.

This same party — the party claiming to support individual autonomy and freedom — imposes shockingly regressive social views.  Do people listen?  The last year, an election year, was an embarrassment of bigotry and ignorance.  Review any 2012 Republican presidential debate and hear god evoked time and time again.  If you’re not blushing, certainly god is.

We have idiots out there saying they don’t want gun regulations because they don’t want government telling them what to do.  Often these are the same cretins who try to impose their narrow social and religious beliefs on good people, beliefs about marriage, for example.  You cannot reason with people like this.

Why don’t we call these people what they are?

They also claim they don’t need — never did need, in fact — the burden of government to help them survive and prosper in the world.  Fine.  Get off the goddamn roads and stop drinking clean water and good luck if anyone violates your rights.  Wouldn’t it be easier to leave government?  Just go away.  Self deport!

The same for the stupidity that insists upon ruining our future with political games of chicken based on opinion over fact.  Show me an educated Tea Party opinion…maybe an expert on global warming or economics?…by anyone who has a valid argument to support the opinions that you claim trump the facts.  Anyone?  Anyone?

Just show me an argument!  Reason with me.  Tell me how supply side economics has worked.  Convince me that millions of guns make America safer.  Show me some science that contradicts the science of climate change.  Defend your imposing religious views.  Show me God‘s footnotes…

I am too smart to be stupid, too informed to be conservative.

Stop imposing your stupidity on me!

Related articles

• Why Secede When Somalia is Available? (alittletourinyellow.wordpress.com)
• The N.R.A. Crawls from its Hidey Hole (nytimes.com)
• Two Debacles in 12 Hours (slate.com)

Why Secede When Somalia is Available?

I have an idea for all the anti-government, anti-tax “Americans” wanting to secede from the United States.  Self-deport to Somalia!  If there were ever a paradise for the self-made man…the rugged individualist who does it all on his own…there it is.  No government to get in your way, no threat of health care reform, no taxes that I’m aware of (you can choose to opt out), and maybe best of all, guns everywhere.  You can even outfit your own little army and call yourself colonel.

I’m sure IBMs and General Motors and Microsofts will be popping up like weeds over there.  Business thrives when it is untethered from bothersome government control and moochers.  Unlike Americans, Somalis will be grateful for a job and willing to work for pennies to show their gratitude.  Worker benefits?  Hell, who would think to ask?  They’ll be grateful to be alive, right?

And you can raise your family the old-school way, the righteous way.  Evolution?  Out.  Climate change?  Not in Somalia.  Supply side economics.  That’s in, hassle free.  And you can make up all the lies you want about your founding fathers.

Mitt Romney — where is he, by the way? — had a great idea when he suggested self-deportation, he simple addressed it to the wrong people.  We can be a better and stronger nation once again looking at a brighter future.  We just need a mass exodus of GOPers.  Why not claim Somalia as your own? (Please do.  Tell us how it works out.)

Related articles

• US troops in Somalia will do God’s work, says Bush: From Guardian archive, 5 Dec 1992 (guardian.co.uk)
• Somalia’s journey from disaster to resilience a test case for development | Mark Tran (guardian.co.uk)