Grover Norquist's Group Totally (Hearts) Ryan's Social Security-Slashing Budget

There you go, focusing your attention on silly things like reality, rather than listening to the talking points. How ever will you learn to be a good little drone if you insist on thinking for yourself?

The "funny" thing is, Norquist's concept, to "shrink government so small you can drown it in a bathtub" is the geographic center to the whole Reagan Voodoo Economics/Reagan Revolution plan since 80. Yeah. Right. Leave everything to state governments, which can't run deficits and have zero chance to compete against the power of multi-national corporations that have budgets the size of small countries — leaving us all relying on the sheer beneficence of those multi-nationals to bring us quality (re)education, health care, security for our golden years (read that: never able to retire) and response to natural disasters. Oh, and having policing and fire-fighting become for-profit industries themselves.

That is their "roadmap," their vision of our future. Since 1) We the People is the government in our democratic republic, 2) "Government does not solve problems; it is the problem," then 3) We the Peole can not solve our own problems or take care of ourselves, but the influence of our democracy needs to be shrunk so small it can be drowned in their sh*t-filled bathtub.

This revolution is against the democracy of our founders. It is against the basic functioning of our government. Think not? Look what they've done to the senate.

After all, according to the Constitution's preamble, one of the many core functions representing creation of "a more perfect union" requires our government (We) to "promote the general Welfare."

A simple look in the dictionary defines "welfare" (first/most-general meaning) as, "health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being." That is the contextual definition at the time the founders wrote the preamble and constituion as well.

Meaning? All these neos, and their revolution kicked off by Reagan, are focused on their hatred for the fundamental principles of our country. This revolution, and any accompannying "roadmap" is, and has always been, aimed at changing this country to something very different: A corporatocracy, where the entire direction of the country's policies and fruits of production are aimed at enriching a small oligarchical band of private individuals, not all of whom are even citizens of this country, and where the "problem" of "We" is solved by stealing away all our power and forcing us to only be sweatshop workers supporting their greed.

I'm just sayin... .

"People actually vote for a little shit like this to represent them?"

Well...sure. They fool fools into believing they represent all things that are 180 degrees away from what they actually functionally do when they get in office (e.g., serving the best interests of the government is the meme they sell, but killing the functioning of the Constitutional government is what every one of their actions aim at). They sell snake oil to the gullible, whom they keep gullible and vulnerable through terrorist fear-mongering tactics. They force government to not work, then channel the resulting anger and frustration of people with the dysfunctional government they created back toward the ones who actually want to fix it. And their "solution" for making it functional once more is to rely on the very operating principles that killed its functionality in the first place.

They've got a compliant corporate mass media — CMM — (they've been busily and quietly buying up over the past 30 years) to totally support their talking points and other memes to help sway the now-fear-driven masses into buying more of the snake oil that made everyone sick in the first place.

And we can't pooh-pooh the overwhelming influence of that CMM, or we do so at our peril. I mean, really: What is the single biggest political "story" or "news" of this whole past year? I suggest (having actually been a reporter at one time in my checkered past) the Big Story of the year is: The Republican obstruction machine is totally crippling the functioning of government through unprecedented and historic abuse of Senate rules, an obstruction that essentially halts government action at a time of crisis so severe it poses a threat to the very stability of our country.

How many times has this story been discussed by Brian Williams? By Katy Couric? By Charlie Gibson/Diane Sawyer? Any of the other major players?

Not so much. Or they treat it as a lighter piece, some "aren't those guys/gals rascals, though?" fluff piece at best.

It's also really tempting to blame Dems for not trumpeting these truths — and there have been many who do. But what good does all that trumpet blowing do when these CMM meat puppets ignore the trumpet blasts in favor of conservative talking points?

I mean really. When these pukes admit straight-up out-loud that they refuse to participate in governance, why do the CMM types have them on their chat shows so often? They refuse to participate in democratic governance, so why is it important to listen to anything they have to say? Yet there is an endless parade of them, spouting clear, provable lies that go completely unchallenged by the CMM talking heads. And the Low Information viewers are left with the impression (since their lies are not challenged) that these lies must have some validity, that theirs is a constructive part of the narrative of current events.

Even the few "good ones" (talking-head-types, that is) do it. I see Ed Schultz talking to a repuke spouting known and knowable lies in some interview and Ed's response: "Sure."

So, yeah: People vote for them. The 4th Estate is as dysfunctional as the Senate and SCOTUS by now — and a lot of people still rely on their "news" to help decide who to vote for or whether they will even get out to vote.