Fun with fruit

"Shut It Down, America" - Let's take Howard Schultz's suggestion and close our purses and wallets

By Jack Brummet, Ethics Editor

and
Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

We could follow our earlier advice and "throw the bums out."  But we just might end up with a President Bachmann, or President Nader.  Or, we could take up Howard Schultz's suggestion and starve them out.  Eliminating all campaign contributions would seriously shake the pumpkin.

"This means not kicking the can anymore. It means reaching a deal on debt, revenue, and spending long before the deadline arrives this fall. It means considering all options, from entitlement programs to taxes." - Howard Schultz

illustration © 2011 by Jack Brummet

A "throw the bums out" movement won't really change anything, because politicians thrive on backbiting, sophistry, backlash, and factionalism.  But choking off the supply of cash to all politicians would surely have desired effect. It is the thing they fear the most.

Let's give it a shot.  In the words of Tina Fey, "Shut it down America!"

In his--now--widely distributed email dated today, Schultz wrote:

August 15, 2011

Dear Fellow Concerned Americans:

Our country is better than this.

Over the last few weeks and months, our national elected officials from both parties have failed to lead. They have chosen to put partisan and ideological purity over the well-being of the people. They have undermined the full faith and credit of the United States. They have stirred up fears about our economic prospects without doing anything to truly address those fears. They have spent a resource even more precious than the dollar: our collective confidence in each other, in the future, and in our ability to solve problems together.

As leaders in business, we have watched all this unfold, first with frustration and then with dismay. Like so many of our employees and customers, we are gravely concerned about the current situation. Today, with both humility and urgency, we propose to do something about it.

First, we aim to push our elected leaders to face the nation's long-term fiscal challenges with civility, honesty, and a willingness to sacrifice their own re-election. This means not kicking the can anymore. It means reaching a deal on debt, revenue, and spending long before the deadline arrives this fall. It means considering all options, from entitlement programs to taxes.

This is what so many common-sense Americans want. That is why we today pledge to withhold any further campaign contributions to the President and all members of Congress until a fair, bipartisan deal is reached that sets our nation on stronger long-term fiscal footing. And we invite leaders of businesses – indeed, all concerned Americans – to join us in this pledge.

We also believe in leading by positive example. And we believe that while the long-term fiscal challenge is serious, even more painful to millions of Americans today is the immediate crisis of jobs. Tens of millions are unemployed and underemployed. Right now our economy is frozen in a cycle of fear and uncertainty. Companies are afraid to hire. Consumers are afraid to spend. Banks are afraid to lend. Record levels of cash are piling up in corporate treasuries, idling. That cash is not being used to expand operations, train new workers, underwrite new ventures, or spark innovation.

The only way to break this cycle of fear is to break it. The only way to get the country’s economic circulatory system flowing again is to start pumping lifeblood through it. That is why we today issue a second pledge. Our companies are going to hire. We are going to accelerate growth, employment, and investment in jobs.

We do this because we want to set in motion an upward spiral of confidence. We are not waiting for government to create an incentive program or a stimulus. We are not waiting for economic indicators to tell us it’s safe to act. We are hiring more people now. We invite leaders of businesses across the country to join us in this pledge as well – and to bring their stakeholders into the effort. Confidence is contagious. The best thing we can do now is to spread it.

This is a time for citizenship, not partisanship. It is a time for action. We don't pretend that our two pledges are quick fixes. We just believe that in this moment of great uncertainty, the government needs discipline, the people need jobs – and leaders need to lead.

Our country is better than this. Let’s get things moving now.
Respectfully,

Howard Schultz

Other recent relevant posts on ATIT:
"Throw The Bums Out" - images from a quick web search
Throwing The Bums Out Does Not Mean Replacing Them With Teabaggers
"Throw the bums out!": more reflections on the deficit fiasco

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Michele Bachmann politicks and tries out a corn-dog at the Iowa State Fair and Sarah Palin can't resist a photo op

By Jack Brummet, Flyover States Editor & Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

Congresswoman and declared candidate Michele Bachmann has been hanging out in Iowa.  The Queen of Rage, as Newsweek described her in the notorious "crazy eyes" cover article, was in state for the big Straw Poll, and the big GOP/Tea Party Debate last night, at which you could probably say she didn't take on a lot of water, but didn't really make any headway.  However, the rumor-mill says that Pawlenty is considering dropping out, and a disastrous showing in the notorious straw poll may just push him over the edge.

Rep. Bachmann samples a local corn dog at the Iowa

State Fair. On Twitter Mike_FTW  wrote, "Ladies.

Gentlemen. Start your Photoshop engines. "

Ex-Governor Sarah Palin made a high-profile appearance. Of course she did.  It was a high profile GOP/Tea Party week.  And she has been out of the news cycles for two or three weeks.  She told reporters on at the fair on Friday that she had watched the debate on Thursday night and saw nothing that made her think that the Republican field was closed to late entrants.  We agree with her on that point, anyhow.  There's room, because there is maybe one marginally viable candidate. 

We say butt out, Democrats.  Quit rending your garments over Bachmann, Perry, Gingrich and the others.  Let them nominate their Goldwater, say a Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann.  In our own house, we need to decide who our own candidate will be.  At his break-neck fund-raising pace, it seems highly unlikely that BHO will pull an LBJ. But you just never know.

USA Today's web site reports "Sarah Plain caused a media and fan frenzy as they swarmed her from the minute she and her entourage stepped onto the fairgrounds."  She may be coy about whether she will run or not, but she can't resist a media opportunity.




"There is still plenty of room," said Sarah Palin, as she was mobbed by the press. “There is still plenty of room for a common sense conservative,” she said,  once again stirring up speculation that she might after all enter the 2012 fray. 

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Nasturtiums

Digital art by Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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High School Students Unite! A 1970 flyer distributed around Seattle

By Jack Brummet
Seattle History Editor

Most of the time I was in high school, there were protests, moratoriums, sit-downs, the first earth day, and marches.  This flyer from Seattle attempts to organize a strike of high school students on April 16th, 1970, with the following demands:



1. The schools must serve the people....

2. We want an end to all the phony, unfair discipline in the schools....

3. We want better classes....

4. All police, narcs, school security guards and other types of pigs off campus....

5. We want all military recruiters kept off campus, and the schools must quit aiding the draft boards....

6. We want an end to all the white supremacy in the schools....

7. We want an end to all male supremacy....

8. We want an end to all lying texts and history classes....

9. We want every student to have the chance to enter college and the right to a decent job....

10. We are united with our sisters and brothers in the factories, the communities, the colleges, and all the oppressed peoples of the world."

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Alien Lore No. 211 - "neither the resources or the will..."

By Jack Brummet
Alien Lore/Paranormal Editor

The latest release of National Archives UFO files has just been made in the U.K.   Read in detail about the new files on the BBC website. 

"The latest set of government files on UFOs released by the National Archives show that the Ministry of Defence had neither the resources nor the will to study thousands of sightings reported to them over decades," writes Sanchia Berg.

According to Dr. David Clarke, "In what I believe to be the most important revelation so far, an intelligence officer reveals that 'lack of funds and higher priorities' had prevented any detailed study of the thousands of reports they had received since the end of World War II. "

Other recent Alien Lore articles on ATIT:

Alien Lore No. 210 - The crash artifacts from Roswell have been tested, and appear to be extraterrestrial
Alien Lore No. 209 - The Greatest Story Ever Denied
Alien Lore No. 208 - a sketch of two UFOs from Great Britain
Alien Lore No. 207 - The Greys, Betty and Barney Hill, and Zeta Reticuli
Alien Lore No. 206 - Conditioning Us For The Visitors
Alien Lore. No. 205 - NMA.TV hits another one out of the park: "Roswell Aliens, A Plot By Stalin?"
Alien Lore No. 204: Hitler's deal with The Greys
Alien Lore No. 203 - UFO lightships around Delaware PA, October, 2010
Alien Lore No. 202 - Dolan & Zabel on UFO Disclosure: "There is going to be blowback beyond belief:"
Alien Lore No. 201 - Was JFK killed because of his interest in aliens?

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Faces No. 243 - The Auditors

Drawings by Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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"Magic Trip - Ken Kesey's search for a kool place" - the documentary is out

We are really looking forward to the documentary "Magic Trip - Ken Kesey's search for a kool place,"  by Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood. 

The clips show some pretty sweet footage of Ken, Ken Babbs, The Merry Pranksters, The Grateful Dead, and Neal Cassady.  You can watch the movie on demand in various outlets (iTunes, HBO, Comcast on demand, etc.).   Check out their website here.  Interestingly, it's done by the same guys who recently released the grindhouse flick "Hobo With A Shotgun."

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A photograph of Seattle's Hooverville, circa 1934

click to enlarge

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Faces. No. 242 - Sextuplets

Drawings by Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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Goodbye, So Long, Farewell — 37 years ago today, Richard Milhous Nixon became the first President to resign from office

By Jack Brummet

Criminal Justice Editor

The date August 9th, 1974 is still burned into my head.  For weeks, we had all been waiting, hoping for, and expecting Dick Nixon to step down.  His former Vice-President Spiro Agnew [1] was now in prison, and would soon be most of his henchmen and White House inner circle.  This was a good thing.

President Nixon should have resigned long before August 9th; he could have ended what his successor Gerald Ford called "our long national nightmare." But he held on, even as incredibly incriminating evidence--hundreds of hours of "secret White House tapes, grand jury testimony, transcripts from numerous House and Senate committees and subcommittees, leaks from "Deep Throat,"  resignations, convictions, and indictments--poured in. As much as I admire him a few select, very specific fronts, he was the ultimate paranoid personality, and despite all his accomplishments, a real danger to society and liberty in general. I remember parties that summer night in 1974.  All that being said, I am something of a Nixon scholar, and have been to his museum and birthplace in Orange County.

clownin'

 

the historic meeting with Chairman Mao Tse Tung (now transliterated Zedong)






All This Is That articles on President Nixon:

Visiting Richard Nixon In NYC
Jackie Gleason, Richard Nixon and The Alien Fun with Richard Nixon's Ghost
Nixon's Back Pocket speech in case of a space disaster
RMN's Comedy of Errors
The photographer who stole Richard Nixon's Soul
Lying and Contractions
POTUS 37, or, the comedy of errors
Presidents it was fun to vote against
Visiting Richard Nixon

 

[1] An excerpt from the hilarious Agnew page on the Uncyclopedia:  "Agnew, raised as a Democrat, suffered a head injury in 1951 that left him a Republican. His conscience gone, he became a politician, and made successful use of knockout drugs to secure appointment to the Baltimore County Board of Appeals. Finding the opportunities for graft as County Executive too limited, Agnew ran for Governor of Maryland in 1966. In this overwhelmingly Democratic state, he was narrowly elected after his Democratic opponent, Cliff "Screwtop" Hooper, made a number of gaffes, which included denouncing Maryland as "a cesspool of inbred hillbillies" and opening fire on crowds of his supporters with a shotgun." 
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Rick Perry's Report Card from Texas A & M (not so good)

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor with research by Jack Brummet, Editor in Chief

Governor, and Presidential hopeful, Rick Perry did not exactly reach for the stars during his college years at Texas A & M University.  Later in his career there, he did become a student leader.  But he could only do that after he emerged from academic probation.  If you check out the transcript below, you will note that he almost never earned a grade higher than a C in his courses -- a C in U.S. History, D in Shakespeare, and a D in economics. One semester, he even got a C in P.E. 

click transcript to enlarge

The Governor also got shelled in classes in his animal science major.  In fall 1970, he received a D in veterinary anatomy, and flunked a second course on organic chemistry, and took a C in animal breeding. He did receive an A in world military systems and a class called the“Improv. of Learning," which were his only two A's in college. 

"A&M wasn't exactly Harvard on the Brazos River," recalled a Perry classmate in an interview with The Huffington Post. "This was not the brightest guy around. We always kind of laughed. He was always kind of a joke."

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