MWMB 28: Another Day in the Saltmines

Join us, dear listener...we've got really bad tasteless humor, Rick Perry's weird anti-gay ad, Blogo goes to Jail, the TSA goes to town on an old lady, Cabbage Patch Geoff sings, and Alex reveals just how very, very tired he is of business as usual here in the good old USofA...can Jim pull him out of it?  Listen and find out.

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MWMB 27: Black Friday

Death on Black Friday. Robot prison guards. Newt Gingrich at the top of the polls. Plus Ronald Reagan smokes pot and Dick Nixon is Tanned Rested and Ready for 2012. Political Talk, Lame Humor...it's just like an evening with friends.  Pop open a beer and join us for the 27th Episode of Middle Aged White Men Bitching.

Links:

Clinton Praises Newt

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/27/bill-clinton-says-gingrich-surge-a-result-of-thoughtful-positions/

Robot Prison Guards

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15893772

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MWMB 26: Work without Reward

This week...Work Without Reward.  Feel like everybody is getting bailed out but you?  So does MWMB.   This week, Jim and Alex discuss an article which claims that Americans on both the Right and the Left are looking for a government that ties work and rewards together.  Plus, fun from Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Barack Obama and Cabbage Patch Geoff favors us with a verse as well....OH YES, find out why the state of Vermont Sued ITSELF!  It's all here on MWMB...join us, won't you?

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MWMB 25: Pizzza, Sex & Tax Free Booze

Please listen! We're your friends!  MWMB is back this week.  Jim and Alex discuss the Herman Cain scandal, debate if Rick Perry is drunk or just weird, and bring you a great story about a forklift robbery!  Geoff sings!  Comet barks.  And we have a special salute to the Marines!  Join us! What have you got to lose?

Mwmb 25: Pizza, Sex & Tax Free Booze by Mwmb Listen on Posterous

MWMB 24: The Comet & Geoff Show

Alex was at the Al Franken Cry-Babies Anonymous Vegan Bar-B-Que and Air Force Bake Sale this week,  and Jim was at an undisclosed location with the Montana Militia somewhere near Mount Limbaugh.  Honestly, we'd just planed on picking up the show next week.  Imagine our surprise when we returned and found this tape from Cabbage Patch Geoff and Comet the Conservative Talking Wonder Dog....seems like the end of  Kadafi  was worth a song....right on!

MWMB24_Comet-Geoff.psd Download this file

Mwmb 24 Comet & Geoff by Mwmb Listen on Posterous

A New Bumper Sticker for you...

This morning, as I was driving my wife to work, I fell in behind a car covered with bumper stickers...anti-choice, tea party, Jesus, and a bumper sticker that said "I [heart] my wife"...

Wow, I [heart] mine too...but putting it on a bumper sticker seems, well, kind of icky. Of course, I recognized it as being from Promise Keepers...

Anyway, I realized that, what this person REALLY needed was ONE bumper sticker that covered it all. So, Rip and Read has fashioned the one you see above...

MWMB 23: Wiener Nation

We’re back!  Right Wing Jim and Liberal Alex return as Middle Aged White Men Bit---er, Complaining (It’s a Family Show).  Comet the Talking Conservative Wonder Dog visits “Occupy Wall Street”.  Jim and Alex discuss the merits of Canadian Beer. President Obama hits the road again and Cabbage Patch Geoff  regales us with song.  Plus, this week’s MWMB Salute leads Jim to speculate: Has the US become a nation of wieners?  Join us, won’t you?

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MWMB 22: ...or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

PRESS PLAY!  It's MWMB's 22nd episode.  This week we learn what Comet's favorite  edible endangered species is (Comet is a Conservative Talking Wonder Dog).  Jim and Alex look at the, ahem, "stiff" competition for the open Senate seat in Mass, where one of the candidates posed nude for Cosmo.  We wonder if Herman Cain put his foot in his Pizza Hole with his "If you're out of work, Blame Yourself" comment. Geoff sings on behalf of the 99% and Jim reveals the horrible secret behind  Alex's bow tie...OH, and the Salute this week is a doozy- do you know who to root for? Because we don't.  Turn up your speakers and join us for MWMB, won't you?

Links to this week's stories:

Brown-Warren
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/scott-brown-elizabeth-warren-spar-over-nud...

Herman Cain
http://www.thegrio.com/politics/cain-on-poor-and-jobless-blame-yourself.php

Salute
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2789183/posts

Mwmb22: Or Are You Happy To See Me? by Mwmb Listen on Posterous

A PC says GOODBYE to Steve Jobs

As I watched the candle light vigils and saw the grief I was reminded of...well, Princess Diana actually.

Here is my tribute to Steve Jobs.

MWMB 21: It's Liberal Season

Please Listen, we don't exist unless you listen.  Jim and Alex are back with another batch of home-brewed political commentary. Grab yer guns, 'cause Jim has declaired it open season on Liberals. Comet runs off with a girl beagle...are they running for president or just out hunting Commies?  Jim and Alex touch on Obama's Jobs Bill, Steve Job's passing, Christie says "No Means No!" and, as promised, a discussion of Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan.  Cabbage Patch Geoff cheers on the Wall Street Protesters,  and we do a VERY SPECIAL SALUTE to a VERY SPECIAL YOUNG MAN...yes, that's right, Kagan the Zucchini Shootin'  9 year old has done it again!  Don't miss MWMB, your source for homemade rhetoric.

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MWMB: Hello Kitty Pistol and Putin on the Ritz

Not much blogging lately, but pod-casting continues unabated. On M.W.M.B. Jim the Hammer and Alex Geofferies (Played by yours truly) have had two weeks of fun hashing it out over Rick Perry's 30,000 person Prayer Rally - a "non-political" event in which he blamed "Government" for the recession.

We ALSO tackle Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev and their political rivalry. ONE of them will run for President next year. Putin WAS president for two terms, couldn't run again right away, and so he put his little buddy Medvedev in office to keep the chair warm while he, Putin, did a stint as Prime Minister. But it seems that young Padawan Dmitry LIKES the job and might want to stay.

What's been fantastic about all of this of course is that BOTH CANDIDATES have been hiring rival teams of STRIPPERS to hit the street on their behalf. No, we didn't make it up, it's here

The girls of "Putin's Army" are trying to press him to run by taking off their clothes. Meanwhile, Medvedev's girls are supposedly on an anti drinking campaign. For each liter of beer the boys pour in the tank, another article of clothing comes off. Ah, politics.

Oh, yeah, and there's the HIT SONG in Russia "I want a Man Like Putin"

And that was just LAST WEEK....


In THIS WEEK'S EPISODE:

We head to the Iowa Straw poll to find out that Michelle Bachmann has won hands down with a whopping 28% of votes cast.

Meanwhile, the the guy who sounds like a BAD GEORGE W. BUSH imitation, Rich Perry of Texas, left his "non-political" prayer rally to head straight to New Hampshire and get started with his Presidential bid....

AND in Arizonia, a nice young man shot himself with a pink pistol.... but you have to listen to the show to find out where.

How can you NOT have fun?

Writing on the Wall: S&Ps Credit Rating Downgrade

Can you hear that? That odd noise that sounds like a fiery finger scratching on the palace wall? That's the sound of the US Credit Rating being downgraded. Earlier this week, in an event that passed unnoticed by those of us who do not belong (at least professionally) to the chattering class...the Chinese credit rating company Dagong said it is sending our credit rating down to an A rating based on our ridiculous looking account books.

At the end of the week came an event that garnished more attention: Standard & Poor downgraded the US Debt from AAA to AA+. The other two large firms, Moody's and Fitch, say they will hold the AAA rating for now...but have put us on notice that they will be watching.

Last week, the Republicans rammed a debt deal down the throat of Democrats...despite the fact that they still hold the White House AND the US Senate (by a whisker).

Is this the end of America? No...but it definitely feels like we're sitting down to dinner with Belshazzar: The writing is on the wall.

Of course, after the S&P downgrade, both political parties started to get their talking points out: Michelle Bachmann said Treasury Secretary Timothy Gietner should resign and House Speaker John Boehner (pronounced "Boner"...we still speak English here at Rip and Read, not German) said Democrats can't run anything. (This despite the fact that Republicans have been in charge for MOST of the past 30 years, during which this crisis grew.)

Meanwhile, the Obama administration...ever inspiring...began to whine about the fact that S & P should not have so petty, adding that it was really mean, and pointed out a 2 trillion dollar accounting mistake in Standard and Poor's numbers...according to Bloomberg, an unidentified spokesman from S&P responded that the mistake speaks for itself...which I can only presume means that, when a debt is SO LARGE that two trillion dollars can be overlooked....then your country doesn't really have a leg to stand on at the complaint department window.

(Vladimir Putin , by the way, weighed in...calling the US a Global Parisite...such a sweet guy.)

In the end, of course, this has been the natural result of the long term Republican Strategy of "Starving the Beast"-- George W. Bush rammed through a tax cut AND fought two wars...when the Republicans seized Congress, they did away with PAYGO- a measure put in place during the Clinton years which required Congress to find new funding to pay for ANY new programs OR Tax increases.

Back February of 2009, I wrote that the Democratic party had lost the battle for the latter half of the 20th Century...the GOP is halving everything it's own way, despite Barack Obama's victory in 2008, despite the recent lesson of the cost of the Bush years...

We who are just to the left of center are going to need to come up with a new strategy... otherwise, the handwriting is on the wall.

In the meantime, we got a debt Ceiling bill last week that does NOTHING to solve the problem... Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO) called it a "Satan Sandwich"...

Here's my take...

A new Episode of MWMB

This week's program is not for the faint of heart. First, Jim and Alex start fighting so fast over the Minnesota Government Shutdown that we don't even get to the opening credits until 5 minutes into the show. And then, we digress into a long rambling conversation about Canada Day...and Alex reveals a surprisingly bitter aspect to his personality while Jim takes the high road. Along the way, we discuss the fact that Goldman Sachs is off-shoring to Singapore after having said "yes please" to a $10 Billion Dollar US Taxpayer Bailout and we wonder how to solve the problem of turtles on the runway at JFK. Geoff gives us an old fashioned prison song and a good time is had by all. Tune in! Also, MWMB is going on summer hiatus....we'll be back on July 22 or there abouts....watch your Facebook pages.

MWMB: Chillin' with the Newspaper

MWMB is BACK for another week of fun, fun, fun. Find Us HERE! No intense political debates this week. Instead, Alex and the Hammer go on a stroll through the front pages of America's newspapers and discover the secret to getting babes to like you and learning how to have more fun in prison. Plus, we uncover more unpleasant facts about the French (what a surprise) and Alex unveils a new mind control device and learns that he can't say the polite word for "fart". DON'T MISS IT-- head on over and, please, LEAVE a comment!

MWMB: God Goes to School

MWMB returns, now that I'm back from Vacation. This week we talk about why Minotaurs make the best pets for Republicans, touch on Michelle Bachmann, take a few pokes at Weiner and then settle in for a discussion of Separation of Church and State.... the Rutland Herald,of Vermont reported last week that the class valedictorian reported he was not allowed to deliver half of his speech because he was not able to publicly thank God for his academic success. He said that the Law and not the school was to blame. So I guess that casts me in the roll of Godless liberal...

The National Debt: Peter Welch in the Hill

An article about Peter Welch from Vermont appears in "The Hill"... and it helps to underscore a important fact: The national debt is ticking time bomb. The Tea Party republicans are correct in having identified this, and actually trying to work to fix it. This is a massive change for a party who, while they have paid lip service to cutting the debt, is actually largely responsible for it. (Under Reagan, the debt went from $997 billion to $2.85 trillion-- an important gift to America which we should remember whenever we are tempted to eulogize the man.)

But, of course, the Tea Party is wrong in it's approach. In it's efforts to "Free the Rich" (from taxation, from Regulation) it would actually produce stagnation...the very wealthy have no desire to be subject to market forces which might displace them...and historically, they have taken great pains to prevent the free market from working. When market forces finally do win out, we end with disasters like the Great Depression...from which recovery is all but impossible.

It's time to elect Democrats who understand that belt tightening is important if we are to survive to grow another day, AND who understand how to wage the political battles necessary to prevent the Tea Party from inadvertently cutting our throats.

From the article, it sounds as if Congressman Welch is doing a pretty good job.

Did the French Start Every American War Ever?

Jim and I took a break from discussing semi-contemporary issues.... and discuss Jim's theory that the French are to blame for every war America ever had to fight....don't miss this week's show.

MWMB: The French Conspiracy by MWMB Podcast And More


And, if you've got the time, don't miss last weeks show in which Alex does his best to prove that every American Republican is a right wing birther nut.

MWMB: Born In the USA? by MWMB Podcast And More

OIL! Oil oil oil

Oil is once again dominating our thoughts. John Boner...ooops, sorry, BAYner (but it's spelled Boehner) is grinning all over the news saying that if Oil prices don't go down, Barack Obama won't win reelection.

I got an email from the local tea party, it reads:

$6.00 Gas Coming?

Gas has already hit $5.00 in a few places in the US. A year ago, it was $2.87. Obama says the increase is caused by "mideast instability" and speculators. We think it's inflation & inadequate US domestic production.

The government takes every opportunity to choke off our domestic oil supply.

And you thought it was supposed to be government for the people.

Wow! The Government is CHOKING off our oil supply... they must REALLY hate us.

If only we could let those POOR OIL COMPANIES free... they would help us.

But wait...last year, EXXON MOBILE MADE $30 BILLION DOLLARS...PROFIT. PROFIT! That's what they made AFTER they paid their operating expenses. That's money they KEEP. Oh, and the government, that bad old Government that is Choking off our oil, actually handed out 4 BILLION DOLLARS in Federal TAX BREAKS!

And get this, according to CNN...Exxon's profits for THIS year are expected to DOUBLE...to $60 Billion.

Now, presumably, the only reason the Tea Party is willing to put the livelihood of it's fellow Americans at risk by drilling off their beaches (and spills affect tourism, fishing, real estate, you name it.)or mortgage our children's environmental heritage (imagine: in place of the Alaska wilderness, we get an oil soaked wasteland)...is because they are betting that, if we found more oil, the natural economic laws of supply and demand would kick in and lower the prices....

But wake up people...the normal laws of supply and demand are NOT operating here. A fair profit is one thing, but THESE profits are obscene. The game is rigged. There is no reason to risk environmental devastation to further subsidize a rigged game.

Tea Party Types are fighting mad, but as usual, they are not looking in the right places.

Mouse Boobies! Did the Stimulus Work?

Did the Stimulus work? Who knows? What I do know is that I had a lot of fun recording last week's MWMB podcast. My Ex-Brother-In-Law Jim and I do a weekly podcast in which we masticate some of the issues of the day. Last week, we discussed the Stimulus plan ...and Jim pointed out that we spend 99 thousand dollars to study mouse boobies. If you like mindless talk radio...you'll be crazy about MWMB. If you DON'T like mindless talk radio, you might still like MWMB.

MWMB Episode03 by MWMB Podcast And More

President of the Planet of the Apes? Marilyn Davenport even turns some GOP Stomachs

I've been doing a little bit of research for this weeks MWMB podcast. I came across a story that was definitely "Blog Worthy"....

An elected member of the Orange County, CA Republican party has come under fire for circulating an email which shows a picture of Barack Obama’s face stuck on to the body of a baby chimpanzee. The caption read… “now you know why….no birth certificate”.

I'm not posting it on Rip and Read because I won't have it here. However, because some things need to be seen to be believed, I'll let you look it up yourself if you are so inclined. Click this link for a Google Image Search

After the email was exposed, to be fair, other Republicans in OC called on Marilyn Davenport to resign, something she has not yet done.

According to ABC, Ms. Davenport, who was elected as part of the Tea Party Movement, said QUOTE: “We all know a double standard applies regarding this president. I received plenty of emails about George Bush that I didn't particularly like, yet there was no 'cry' in the media about them."

Now, that’s true, but there IS a HUGE difference… George W. Bush is the son of a rich white president and the grandson of a rich white senator…in short, he is the scion of one of America’s wealthy families. In America, we don’t have a long tradition of using brutal cartoons to keep our underprivileged rich people down and out. We haven’t depicted them as apes or shown them running around Palm Beach as witch doctors with bones in their noses… However, as a nation, we have done ALL these things to African Americans within LIVING MEMORY. It almost defies belief that ANYONE could be ignorant of this basic truth about the brutal underside American culture. If you ARE that ignorant, then you are almost criminally stupid...and I, for one, do not believe it. I think that anyone who uses this kind of symbolism, and then backs away when caught claiming: "no racist intent" is, to put it bluntly, a liar.

Speaking of Crazy Birthers, according to a new poll by Public Policy Polling says that 51 percent of GOP Primary voters don't believe that the President was born in the country...despite the fact that his birth certificate is a now a mater of public record. Among those who believe Obama to be an Arab plant... the choice is clear, they want Huckabee to be their next President. Almost makes Mitt Romney look good, doesn't it?

A new Podcast....

I think that facebook may have just about killed Rip and Read...and that makes me sad, because I really enjoy writing this blog. Still, by the time I think about writing about it HERE, I've already yacked so much on facebook that I've run out of time to turn around and post to the blog.

But, I am having fun with my former brother-in-law, Jim with a new podcast. Jim and I have always had a lot of fun talking (and laughing about) politics, and for the longest time, we've promised ourselves that someday, we'd try our hand at producing a podcast.

Somewhat to my surprise, that day finally came last week. In our first episode, we covered the imposition of "financial martial law" in Michigan...
MWMB Episode01 by MWMB Podcast And More
This week, we talk about President Obama's reform of the Student Loan program. Jim sees it as yet another government take over, and I think that, since we the taxpayers have taking all the risk of guaranteeing student loans, it's high time we made the profit, too.

I hope you get a chance to check us out...and leave a comment!
http://soundcloud.com/mwmb-podcast-and-more