One of my favorite mythological stories is that of Ares, god of war, returning from the battlefield at Troy. He was wounded in the fight and complained about it to his father, Zeus.
Dad’s response was logical and predictable:
'Do not sit beside me and whine, you double-faced liar.
To me you are the most hateful of all gods who hold Olympos.
Forever quarrelling is dear to your heart, wars and battles.
Republicans love war, but only when they’re winning and when they’re not getting hurt.
Or when the war doesn’t involve complicated things, like, you know, words.
Billionaire Warren Buffett recently upped the ante on his earlier claims that he wanted to be taxed more. In an interview with Time Magazine, Buffett said he’d be willing to match dollar-for-dollar all contributions Republican legislators made that would go toward paying down the national debt.
He called out Sen. Mitch McConnell, adding, “I’ll even go 3 for 1 for McConnell.”
McConnell is worth about $10 million. He’s the senior senator from Kentucky and the leader of the senate minority. He’s probably also getting a ton of likeness rights cash from Cabbage Patch Kids people, so a challenge like this shouldn’t be a huge problem.
And yet, this was the response from some literacy-challenged email monkey in McConnell’s office:
Sen. McConnell says that Washington should be smaller, rather than taxes getting bigger. And since some, like President Obama and Mr. Buffett, want to pay higher taxes, Congress made it possible for them to call their own bluff and send in a check. So I look forward to Mr. Buffett matching a healthy batch of checks from those who actually want to pay higher taxes, including Congressional Democrats, the President and the DNC.
The response, of course, makes no sense as a) Buffett said he’d match Republican contributions, not those from Democrats, b) the three sentence statement switches from third to first person at least once and c) ignores the fact Buffett isn’t proposing a tax, but rather a donation to pay down the debt.
I wanted to tell McConnell to grow some balls, but I realized that would be insulting to the ball-less everywhere. My grandmother is tougher, stronger and more aware of the debt situation than McConnell and she’s been dead for 10 years.
Republicans have made a living on the “get tough” ideology. In fact, they’ve adopted the word “tough” as a standard for keeping themselves in office. They want to get tough on crime, tough on drugs, tough on illegal immigrants, tough on foreign powers, tough on toughness…
And yet when someone actually gets tough on them, they scurry like roaches when the lights come on.
In Wisconsin this week, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald filed a complaint with the GAB, arguing that the people who are attempting to recall him got an extra day to collect signatures. Of course, this is horseshit, as the GAB explained the rules back in November, explaining how the clock worked and when signatures were due.
Did Fitzgerald bitch then? Nah.
It’s only now that it looked likely that he’d be told to squeal like a pig that he’s pitching a fit. Or, as one volunteer put it, acting like “the kid who's not winning at Monopoly throwing the board up at the end."
For McConnell and Fitzgerald and the other members of the Usual Gang of Idiots, it’s great fun when you’re running the show, calling the shots and demanding things of other people. When someone turns the tables, especially when you think there’s NO WAY that could happen, it’s going to suck.
When you decide to fight that way, though, you need to be able to dish it out and take it.



One of the first blog-based books, the anthology Special Plans examines Feith's role in misleading America into war. Buy from 