Quick Hits – February 7, 2018

Ronald Reagan was a liberal!

And by today’s stilted GOP standards, he was a downright Commie snowflake. So, in honor of the Great Communicator’s 107th birthday (Feb. 6), my present to all those wacky conservatives bent on canonization is to thoroughly burst your delusional bubble.

You can thank me later.

So without further ado, Ronald Reagan was a liberal because:

1. In 1986, he granted amnesty to more than 3 million illegal immigrants. In fact, he was the first Republican to famously say, “Latinos are Republicans. They just don’t know it yet.” And he was the last Republican to say it, too!

2. He raised taxes seven of his eight years in office. Former GOP Senator Alan Simpson told NPR that “Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times in his administration.  I was there. Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes.”

3. He tripled the federal deficit to nearly $3 trillion. That’s almost three times as much debt as all of the 20th century president who preceded him accrued, and far more fiscal damage than any Democratic president before or since.

4. The size of the federal government exploded under the Reagan administration with federal employees skyrocketing from a mere 325,000 to 5.3 million. Meanwhile, Barack Obama cut the size of the federal government.

5. He bailed out Social Security, by raising taxes.

6. He got along with Democrats. He and then Speaker Tip O’Neill were fast friends who let things go when they left the office.

7. He made it easier for a woman to get an abortion when he was governor of California, and he side-stepped the abortion battle as a president.

8. He illegally negotiated with terrorists, selling billions of dollars of weapons to the Khomeini regime in Iran. Explain that one conservatives!

9. He basically created the Taliban by arming the Mujahideen resistance to the 1979 Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Sometimes the enemy of your enemy turns out NOT to be your friend!

10. He was a “bellicose peacenik” whose “dream” was to completely eliminate nuclear weapons.

Why, those tenets are so liberal Reagan would be branded as a RINO and summarily drummed out of the Republican Party if he dared to run now.

Instead of worshiping a myth, I wish conservatives would celebrate Ronald Reagan’s capacity to reach across the aisle and actually govern.

It’s a policy statement?

You’d think achieving international condemnation for her dastardly and divisive television/Youtube ad, which fell just short of featuring KKK members, would’ve been enough for her. But no! Not one to back down, Wheaton State Rep and GOP gubernatorial candidate, Jeanne Ives, doubled down on it.

To quote Illinois’ own Mel Gibson:

I don’t know why people are so offended by it. What’s offensive about the ad? The ad is a policy ad. That’s what it is. It’s an accurate depiction of the policies that Rauner put in place. I mean, look, I talk about it on the stump, my literature has all these issues laid out there. The fact that you saw a visual representation of the policies he put in place is maybe considered offensive. I don’t understand that. There’s, that’s exactly … the fat-cat Exelon guy, that’s exactly who we bailed out. Hello. The teacher from Chicago Public Schools, that’s whose pension you just bailed out. The transgender man, that’s exactly what typically a transgender man looks like.

How the fuck does she know “that’s exactly what typically a transgender man looks like?” Apparently she’s been hanging out in the wrong bars, because in all my 59 years I’ve never run into a transgendered person that I could tell was a transgendered person.

While I’ve certainly heard about the institutionalized child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, at Michigan State University, and at Penn State, I’m still waiting to hear about the roving bands of transsexuals who go around grabbing children out of public restrooms.

And I have to say I’m kind of insulted that the Illinois gay male recruitment team has, thus far, failed to approach me.

And what is it with the conservative obsession with bathrooms? The first thing I want to do in a public restroom is get the hell out of it. I understand there are some rather strange fetishes out there, but there is nothing “sexy” about a bathroom or any of the people who might inhabit it.

The fact that conservatives think differently worries me far more than a heavy-set man in a red dress with a too-obvious 5 o’clock shadow.

Let’s not forget that the Cato Institute found that illegal immigrants are 44 percent LESS LIKELY to be incarcerated than their American-born counterparts. So, according to Ives’ logic, perhaps we should start deporting U.S. citizens instead.

Do I really have to say it again? Illinois’ sanctuary state status is utterly meaningless. Only ICE has the power to detain individuals based solely on their immigration status, so it’s a moot point.

An Ives supporter recently said I had no respect for people who think differently than I do. No! I have no respect for people who don’t think at all. A policy statement? Nope! It’s just another conservative Republican candidate clearly proving they have no concept of what it means to be a Christian.

Illinois just can’t catch a break

We can’t keep our governors out of the pokey. We can’t balance a budget. Governor Rauner was named the “worst Republican governor in the U.S.” Our bond rating is in the Krapper. We’re losing residents at a record rate. The Democratic gubernatorial candidates are getting their ass kicked by “undecided.”

I’d continue, but now I’m too depressed.

Our only saving grace was, when you mentioned “Chicago” or “Illinois” in a foreign country, the typical response was, “Oh! Al Capone!” accompanied by a series of air machine gun pantomimes.

It certainly was a step up from Rod Blagojevich.

But in just the last 30 days, the three international news stories concerning Illinois were:

1. Elgin throwing the homeless out of basement slumber parties.

2. A self-avowed Nazi getting the 3rd Congressional District Republican nomination.

3. And Jeanne Ives having fun with transgendered people and illegal immigrants on TV.

Sigh!

So since, in the words of those great philosophers REO Speedwagon (an Illinois band), “I can’t fight this feeling anymore,” I’m unilaterally changing Illinois’ state song from “Illinois” to “Bad Reputation” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts:

And I don’t give a damn about my reputation
Never said I wanted to improve my station
And I’m only doing good when I’m having fun
And I don’t have to please no one

And I don’t give a damn ’bout my bad reputation
Oh no, not me, oh no, not me

It works! As that great philosopher Harley Quinn said in ‘Suicide Squad,’ we may as well “Own that shit!”