Uh huh.

If virulently anti-gay pastors and Republicans have taught us anything about their disturbingly homophobic behavior... it's that it's usually driven by they themselves being gay. This asshole's reaction towards a cursory touch by a man speaks volumes. It's so over-the-top absurd that you'd think he was grabbed by the crotch...

So synchronize your watches, folks... It's only a matter of time before Representative Daryl Metcalfe is caught with an underage gay prostitute in a public bathroom.

They always are...

The weekend may be ending, but there's still some awesome to be had, because a Very Special SUPER-SIZED Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Red Up! Trae Crowder has released another video and it's starting to look like this is not a fluke... he's funny as hell, dead on target, and the real deal...

"Now I don't know much about Kasich... apparently that somebitch eats the hell out of some sketti." — And in case you've now got a hankerin' for some redneck sketti, I'll share a video with the recipe (a tub of margarine microwaved with a bottle of ketchup and poured over spaghetti) courtesy of Mamma June...

Now that's some fancy cookin' right there.

   
• Mac-N-Cheez! And while we're on the subject of delicious pasta dishes, the college where this drunk kid attends must have the best mac-n-cheez on the planet, because... damn...

It's not often you see a man go to jail over mac-n-cheez! Oh, one last thing, apparently he's sorry now...

I hope he eventually managed to get that mac-n-cheez. It would be a shame to go through all that for nothing.

   
• Apocalypse! Apparently we're experimenting with reanimating the dead now. BECAUSE WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? Have these morons seen, like, ANY ZOMBIE MOVIE EVER? No? Well carry on then. Carry on.

   
• Rex! No way. NO. WAY!

Purplesaurus Rex Kool-Aid is back! Better run to the grocery store and stock up before Kool-Aid changes their minds and discontinues it again.

   
• GWEN! James Cordon's "Carpool Karaoke" just doesn't know when to quit! In case you missed it, another episode has dropped...

I hope James starts doing this with more esoteric artists in the future... it's just too good to be restricted to major pop stars.

   
• Judgement! Sometimes... not often, but sometimes... the humanity that's been lost in our justice system turns up in the most unexpected of places. Bless you, Judge Olivera.

   
• Suckerpunched! On top of making unbelievably shitty movies, here's yet another reason DC Comics needs to take Zack Snyder the fuck off their films. This asshole has no concept of what makes a good flick... let alone a good super-hero flick... and it's driving me insane. First he utterly destroys Superman, then he takes Christopher Nolan's terrific take on Batman and turns him into a psychotic moron. If, like me, you're waiting for video rental to see the horror that is Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, AND you don't give a shit about the movie being utterly spoiled, here's all you need to know about it.

   
And there you have it... more bullets than you can shake a stick at. See you next Sunday.

Turns out MadTV had a handle on the current state of the Republican Party all along.

Not bad for a show airing twenty years ago...

   
Preach it, sister!

And, seriously, this wasn't written as parody yesterday... it's from nearly twenty years ago...

Darlene McBride really needs to come out of retirement.

Of course, we've already got Mike Huckabee, so she's almost redundant... but still...

Kill me. Kill me now.

To say I am no fan of the Republican candidates for President of the United States is a drastic understatement. Each one of them is either bat-shit insane, a fucking idiot, or both.

Then here comes the Democratic Primary Presidential Debate, and it's painfully clear that the Left isn't faring much better. Sure, it seemed more civilized and adult than what we've seen from the Republicans, but only so far as the pandering to their base supporters isn't laced with bigotry and racism...

Photo by John Locher / AP

The winner of the debate is a no-contest Hillary Clinton.

It's almost shocking how far ahead of the competition she is. Her nomination is so far in the bag that she could get a blow job from Monica Lewinsky on stage at the next debate and there would still be nobody to touch her.

Speaking as somebody who loathes the idea of a Clinton presidency, I type this with a note of sadness in every keypress, but what can you do? If there's a challenger for the nomination, I didn't see it on stage tonight. Rumors are circulating that Vice President Biden might still drop in the race, but I don't think it would make a difference. Joe Biden probably couldn't get his own family excited enough to turn out to vote, let alone the rest of the nation.

I've stated my objections to Hillary Clinton many, many times. The fact that she is probably going to be running the country next term fills me with a sense of dread that approaches despair. The only more polarizing candidate I can think of would be if President Obama won a third term.

Yes, she had her moments during the debate. But ultimately there was nothing there for me. Her reaction to criticism of her past decisions is absurdly dismissive. Nobody is more tired of the conversation surrounding her damn emails than me, but I still don't think she's adequately addressed it. Clinton advocated jail time for Edward Snowden because of security breaches, but she just gets to sweep her security breaches under the rug because she declares they "weren't classified information at the time?" Bullshit. By nature of her damn job as Secretary of State, everything she emailed has the potential to become classified information (yes, even after the fact) and she fucking knows this. And you can say that there was never a breach of security on your email server AND that you didn't delete any damning emails, but you'll have to forgive me for not counting on a politician to tell the truth. Hillary Clinton does whatever Hillary Clinton wants and doesn't care if you don't approve. Move on. Next question. So much for transparency in government (as if it ever had a chance).

And then there's Bernie Sanders.

If I had to pick a loser from all the rest of the losers in tonight's debate, I'd have to put him at the top of the list. Here was his opportunity to reach past his fan base and secure a chunk of voters for his nomination... and I think he blew it. Socialism, which is perceived as so anti-American that even hard-core Democrats be like "Damn, Bernie!," is such a rallying cry for Sanders that it might as well be a boat anchor tied around his neck. Sure he can tread water for a little while, but ultimately it's going to be the thing that sinks his campaign. Even for people like me who aren't scared by a little socialism intruding on their democracy. Because ultimately socialism is lopsided and unfair no matter how you divvy up the pot. You want my tax dollars to make it so that absolutely everybody gets to go to college for free? Bullshit. Some people are simply not built for college. For whatever reason, they don't have the aptitude for college, and any money shoveled towards a college education for them is money wasted. Not that I'm calling anybody "stupid" here... I'm just saying that different people have different talents in life, and not all of them involve college. But college is going to be free for everybody in BernieWorld, so who cares if you're any good at it? Free-fitty-free is free, so party on.

Sanders also has an almost child-like depth when it comes to foreign policy. You want to give money to Saudi Arabia to fight ISIS? Seriously? Have you been paying any attention whatsoever to what's actually going on over there? Do you have any concept of the history in that region? Even more laughable is Bernie's anti-war rhetoric. Have you been paying attention to your voting record? Dance around it all you want, but the staggering profit that is intrinsic to the massive American War Machine ain't going anywhere. Not with Bernie at the wheel. And sure as fuck not with Clinton.

But all that's incidental when it comes to Sanders' assault on rich people. Do I think the distribution of wealth is grotesquely imbalanced in this country? Of course I do. And we should absolutely be addressing this. You can't have the wealthiest of the wealthiest gaming the system to keep making themselves richer and richer while the rest of us keep getting poorer and poorer. There are companies run by some of the richest people on earth who have an entire workforce supplemented by welfare. They get huge tax benefits and breaks that regular citizens can't even fathom benefiting from. They use their massive wealth to buy our politicians so they can do whatever the fuck they want... including destroying the environment. They are untouchable and influential at the highest possible levels of a government they've bought and paid for. No rules apply.

That being said, I'm tired of the sorry socialist rhetoric that implies wealthy individuals don't pay taxes. Loopholes and all, the wealthy pay massive amounts in taxes... hell, they pay most of the taxes (don't let Leona Helmsley fool you). Percentage-wise it may seem as though they aren't paying their fair share... but dollar-wise they pay more than their fare share. And everybody has opinions on which way you should be measuring it. I'm somewhere in the middle. Tax loopholes that only benefit the wealthy should be closed, because establishing them for the fantasy that is "trickle-down economics" that never work is categorically stupid. But setting out to screw people just because they're rich is also categorically stupid, and that's where Bernie goes off the rails for me. If you want to be fair, let's talk about a flat tax. But you can't include the very poor in a flat tax because they don't have money to pay taxes. And taxing people on welfare is makes no sense. So is it really fair that there are people who pay absolutely no taxes when the rest of us have a chunk taken out of their paycheck in taxes... even as a flat percentage? How is that "fair" for everybody? Well, it's not. But it's the only way the system can work. Poor Americans are still Americans. Even more importantly, poor Americans are still people, and I am sick and tired of the Republican spectrum implying otherwise. A good number of poor people are poor not because they want to be... but because our government failed them. If all your opportunities for a living wage are shipped off to foreign shores because the government makes it so easy for corporations to outsource jobs... and even easier for those corporations to shelter their profits from taxes... who is the bigger leach on society? I'm not pretending I have the answer here (I lean strongly to a straight percentage tax levied on all goods that are not edible) but I will say that neither the system we currently have... nor Bernie Sanders' Socialist Utopia... is a viable option.

I could go on and on. But nobody wants to read that. Suffice to say that while I appreciate the passion Bernie Sanders has for working class Americans and preaching equality for all in a system that's far from equal... I think his brand of socialism is not "America" and has no place in the presidency.

Jim Webb is the Rand Paul of the Democratic ticket. A whiny candidate that has zero chance of staying in the game, but demands that everybody pretend he does anyway. If he spent what debate time he was given in a useful way, maybe Anderson Cooper would have let us hear more from him so he could craft any semblance of a serious presidential candidate. But Webb doesn't feel like he's taking any of this seriously. Or rather, he's impossible for anybody to actually take seriously. From his crazy ramblings about killing a guy (which is a fascinating aside, by the way) to his weird, shifty takes on racial justice, he felt more like a Republican candidate than a Democratic one (Iraq War vote excepted), and has nobody but himself to blame that he got short-changed on time.

Martin O'Malley literally faded away on that stage. Despite having good talking points and a bit of passion for Democratic ideals, I sincerely doubt he made any impression whatsoever on voters. It's kind of a shame, too, as he's a healthy middle ground between Clinton and Sanders. If he could get Democrats even a little excited about his candidacy, he might make a good Vice President. Assuming Bill Clinton passes on the job.

If Martin O'Malley made a weak impression, I'd have to say that Lincoln Chafee made no impression at all. Or, if you want to factor in his absurdly stupid "It was my first day in office!" response, a bad impression. And, let's face it, his excuse for having voted to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act was stupid. What happens if he gets elected? "I didn't mean to launch a nuclear missile at Canada and turn Toronto into a radiation-soaked crater... it was my first day as president, so give me a break!" Of course, this is the guy who thinks he should get the nomination by default because he never had any scandals attached to his name. If there's no better reason he's unelectable, that would be it. If you're a politician not embroiled in scandals, you're not in the game.

   
Can you believe we have five more of these things to go? Good Lord... just have Hillary Clinton announce her running mate and get on with it all ready. Anything more than that is pointless.

Though wouldn't it be cool if some game-changing event lands on the Democratic ticket to make next month's debate must-see TV? We can always hope.

And so this happened...

   
Now that Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum has come in a pathetic fifth place after Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman, and Newt Gingrich, is it too much to hope that he drops out of the race?

Because please, Rick, please drop out of the race.

I am just done with your stupid fucked-up racist, homophobic, sexophobic, anti-woman, anti-college, anti-poor, anti-environment, anti-gay, anti-diversity, anti-American bullshit, and there's no place in this country for your disgusting hate-filled rhetoric.

Just be content that you took a big ol' dump on the USA and move on.

Then never show your face in public again. The only thing I ever want to see of you is the giant shit stain that's left once you've been scraped off the face of America and tossed in the garbage where you belong.

Oh, and before I forget... fuck you for shitting all over my country. That stain is not going to be an easy thing to get out. Even with some Oxi-Clean and a bottle of Clorox.

It's Bullet Sunday in the middle of Winter... except the sunny days and complete lack of snow makes if feel a lot more like Spring. I'm seriously starting to wonder if we're ever going to get a winter. Hope everybody in the Valley is fond of water shortages come Summer.

   
• Doodle! The "Google Doodles" are always interesting, but the Charles Addams birthday doodle from yesterday hit it out of the park...

The original cartoons were genius. Still are. And this was the perfect tribute. If your only experience with The Addams Family is the old television show and the Barry Sonnenfeld movies, then you owe it to yourself to check out the original cartoon collections. Not only are they funny as hell, but the artwork is absolutely beautiful. Even the most simple drawings have lush details and textures...

Besides, who doesn't love Uncle Fester?

   
• Taco! As the Doritos flavors keep getting more and more "extreme" I find myself liking them less and less. Nacho Cheese Doritos are so caked with cheese powder that you can barely taste the corn anymore. Which is why I'm such a big fan of the "retro" re-release of the original-flavor 1960's Taco Doritos. I thought they were going to be a temporary thing, but they keep showing up at the grocery store...

The flavor is nicely "taco-like" but not at all overwhelming. You can still taste the corn chip. They also make an incredible topper to a veggie taco salad. I have my fingers crossed that they continue to be popular so Frito-Lay will keep making them.

   
• Ojo! I've worn glasses for what seems like forever... but it's the "vitreous floaters" that are the real problem with my eyes. For those lucky enough not to know what "vitreous floaters" are, they're tiny particles floating around in the goo that's in the middle of your eyeball. They cast shadows on your retina which makes little blurry spots that move around your field of vision. Most of the time I don't notice them. But, as I get older, more and more of them are forming. This makes them more noticeable more often.

Every once in a while, I do an internet search to see if there's any new technology for dealing with the problem. Maybe they've found a laser than can vaporize the floaters. Or maybe there's a new medicine that can disintegrate them. But, alas, no. The only solution seems to be to suck the goo out of the middle of my eye and completely replace it with saline water. It sounds horrific. And dangerous. And I'm not nearly desperate enough to let somebody suck goo out of my eyeball. At least not yet.

But now the reality is setting in that one day I may actually be that desperate.

Holy crap.

   
• Firm! I'm a fan of nearly all the early John Grisham books. They're not deep by any means, but they are darn good entertainment. The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Runaway Jury... all good fun. But it's The Firm (the first Grisham book I read) that I like the best. It was a really good story that had some genuine suspense built-in. Sure the Tom Cruise movie fucked all that up, but I still always wondered what happened to the characters in the book. Instead of that, I got this...

NBC Television has a new series called The Firm which picks up ten years after the FILM ended (not the book). And, despite starring the talented Josh Lucas, it's kind of a mess in the way it bounces around. Mitch McDeere is no longer on the run... he's just a lawyer with a sketchy past doing regular lawyer stuff (like most every other lawyer show on TV). In other words The Firm has become boring and unoriginal. Sure there's hints that things are going to ramp up, but in a totally redundant way. Mitch is involved with yet another evil law firm! Not enough of a retread? Oh yeah... here comes the mob. Again. What the hell? Oh well. It's not like I had time to fit a new show in my television-watching schedule anyway.

   
• Debate! The Republican Debate last night was... interesting. You get the sense that the candidates reeeeeally don't like each other. At all. Indeed the only thing they seem to hate more than each other is President Obama. I guess this is understandable, but they blow it way out of proportion. I'm not Obama's biggest fan by a longshot, but the level of blame they lay at his doorstep is categorically absurd. In many respects, President Obama is practically a Republican, so it's kind of senseless too. But I guess they gotta play to their voter base however they can, and demonizing Obama is a quick and easy way to do that.

The debate itself was pretty lame... but also a bit enlightening. Mitt Romney comes across as a huge dick when he fails at being clever, which is often. Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum bounces between being a disgruntled idiot and a whiny baby. Newt Gingrich is just plain bitter all the time. Rick Perry is just fucking stupid. Ron Paul is entertaining, but not always in a good way.

And then there's Jon Huntsman. The only current Republican candidate I can even fathom voting for. He's got Conservative sensibilities. He's got loads of experience in the international arena. He's personable and inspiring. He's smart, quick on his feet, and not overly-reactionary. In short... I honestly believe that he's the only GOP candidate that could move independent voters in a race against Obama. And yet... his own party seems to hate him. Probably because he's not Conservative to crazy enough extremes. It's a real shame too, because nobody else on that stage is going to woo the much-needed middle ground. If things keep going like they are, I guess we're getting four more years of ObamaNation.

   
Annnnd... I'm spent. Sometimes bullets can really take it out of a guy.

Meh.

I woke up at some ungodly hour this morning so I could watch the lunar eclipse.

I was expecting to see something like this...

Instead what I saw was this...

Clouded in again. Story of my life.

Can't catch a break when it comes to eclipseses eclipsees eclipses.

   
The latest Republican Debate that aired tonight was PRICELESS. Seriously, unless you saw it you just don't know. I didn't think it was possible for the entertainment value on these things to go up with Cain no longer in the picture, but there you go. It was like the nomination was pinned to a piece of raw meat that was thrown into the middle of the room and they all had to fight over it. Some of the attacks and in-fighting were so delicious that I found myself wanting to lick my television screen.

Usually, I'd run a recap of all the candidates and how they did, but it really wasn't that kind of debate. The only thing that surprised me this time around was how questions were designed to attack Gingrich in a kind of passive-aggressive way. I mean, when you ask about the importance of marriage fidelity when Gingrich is on his third marriage and everybody else is on their first, it's pretty obvious. I guess this means the honeymoon is over, and the Powers That Be have decided it's time for Newt to take a powder.

But despite it all, I'd say that Gingrich still came out on top (even if he likes to invent invented people). It wasn't hard to do when Mitt Romney was getting slapped around the entire time (and reminding everybody that he's sooooooo rich that a $10,000 bet is not a big deal didn't help his case much).

Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum and Michele "Bat-Shit-Crazy" Bachmann can't drop any lower than they already are, so I'd say the big loser of the night was Rick Perry. His folksy form of Christian exploitation and poor grasp of even basic issues makes him sound like he's mentally deficient. But what do I know... maybe that's what Republicans are looking for in a candidate. Has he had his turn as front-runner yet?

Personally, I don't want to wait for a Republican candidate to emerge victorious before debating President Obama. The entire panel seems to to nothing but attack the guy, so why not invite him to the next debate? That would be all kinds of awesome.

In the meanwhile, getting a good night's sleep would be all kinds of awesome.

If I were as insanely rich as Mitt Romney, I'd wager $10,000 it ain't gonna happen though.

LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLLLLLLLLLE!

Well that was entertaining. I wish I would have had some popcorn.

The only consolation I have after watching the CNN Republican Debate is that the odds of Michele Bat-Shit-Crazy Bachmann or Rick Piece-of-Shit Santorum becoming president are effectively zero. But try telling them that. You'd think the person in charge of the Republican party would cut them loose, but apparently a few more weeks in Crazy Town is on the agenda. Along with four more years with President Obama.

Because if there's a challenge to the Democratic ticket here, I'm not seeing it.

Time to drag out the Don't Fuck It Up Presidential Matrix to pit the candidates head-to-head and see which has the best chance to screw up the country even worse than it is now...

And now the run-down...

   
Rick Santorum (SCORE: 0)
Rick Santorum is a piece of shit. He's worse than a piece of shit. In fact, I would rather have a literal piece of shit... a turd that fell out of my ass... in the Oval Office than Rick Santorum. It might smell bad, but it would do far less damage to our country. After his wacky ramblings about "gay napkins wanting to be paper towels, but they can't be paper towels because they're napkins" I pretty much wrote him off. How in the fuck could this lunatic possibly represent this country?

   
Michele Bachmann (SCORE: 1)
Certifiable. The fact that this particular flavor of crazy has made it this far in a frickin' PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION is just mind-boggling to me.

   
Herman Cain (SCORE: 2)
I admit, I was a fan when the guy first got started. He had straight-talk and a policy of sticking to his guns. Then he went nuts. I mean, seriously, have you heard the goofball shit that has come out of his mouth lately? It's almost as if this is all a big joke to him. But when you crunch the numbers, this guy has a serious chance to be tapped for Vice President on the ticket. Scary.

   
Ron Paul (SCORE: 3)
Despite his low score, there are some things that Ron Paul has to say that I actually like. But the guy is simply not presidential. We desperately need a president who can inspire and give people hope at a time when there's not a lot of hope to go around. But Ron Paul is not that guy. His doom and gloom crotchety old fart routine may be "telling people what they need to hear" but there has to be something positive in your persona to make people want to follow you. Couple that with his horrifying take on foreign policy, and Ron Paul shouldn't be anywhere near The White House.

   
Rick Perry (SCORE: 4)
Yikes. No. Just no.

   
Jon Huntsman (SCORE: 5)
On paper, the guy has presidential credentials that look pretty darn impressive. He's sane. He's good on foreign policy... especially in China. He's not wacky religious. He seems pretty open-minded and forward-thinking. AND he shares a name with the very scary Huntsman Spider. You don't fuck with a Huntsman Spider. Where he fails as a serious candidate is in full effect at the debate... he's just bad at it. His own party seems to hate him. How is he going to get anything done?

   
Newt Gingrich (SCORE: 6)
The guy has so many scandals in his past that it seems impossible to understand how Republicans tolerate him as a candidate. But he does seem to have a very clear vision for how things should be. Sure this vision is hard-core Conservative to its core, but at least it seems solid, which is something both Conservatives and Liberals can cling to in uncertain times. I don't really like the guy, but I can't deny he seems like a candidate that has his shit together (if not his campaign) when it comes to being a president. I admit that his high score surprised me quite a lot, but head-to-head he just kept winning when I factored in all the pieces.

   
Mitt Romney (SCORE: 7)
Out of all the Republican candidates, he's the only one I could bring myself to vote for. Mostly because I don't know much about him yet. Granted, it would take a lot for that to happen, but there it is. And while I don't think he would make a great president, I do think he could make a good president. If nothing else, he seems more presidential when stacked up against the other hopefuls. He certainly seems the most respectful and the least crazy of the bunch (with the possible exception of Huntsman). In this crowd, that's saying a lot.

   
In all honesty, I am not against voting for a Republican candidate. If the right one came along, I'd absolutely consider them in a race against Obama. But I'm just not seeing it in this bunch. So what happened? I just don't know. Looking at how this debate went, maybe all the good ones are too smart to jump into such a volatile race. Maybe they think they have a better chance if they wait until President Obama has his second term. Perhaps they don't want to take the reigns when things are so bad. There could be a hundred reasons.

In the meanwhile, it is what it is.

I wrote a long political rant over the past 20 minutes, but deleted it because it was just too easy. President Obama and the Democrats are fucking things up at every turn, nobody can get their shit together, and everybody is acting so surprised. Well, almost everybody.

Democrats are surprised because nothing is really changing and they were delirious with hope that it actually would.

Republicans are surprised because nothing is really changing and they were scared shitless that it actually would.

I, on the other hand, am surprised that people are surprised that nothing is really changing. It's politics as usual in our Nation's capitol... only the players have changed. Personal agendas and personal politics still rule. Lobbyists and money still make the decisions. And it's the citizens, as usual, who are worse off because of it.

Sadly, that's just the way our system works. The only difference from one politician to the next is degrees. And since people are more interested in fighting than coming up with solutions, we end up with the government we deserve.

I remain... unsurprised.