Intravenous Caffeine

Totally Unfair and Completely Unbalanced

What Would It Take For A President to Say “The State of the Union Ain’t Very Strong”?

Two Hookers critique the state of the union address: Good oral, now let's see a little bump and thrust.

Or maybe a little slap-and-tickle on the right side of the aisle?

I mean seriously, what WOULD it take for the President to start out, “The State of the Union isn’t very strong”? Massive depression? Naw, even Herbert Hoover said the SOTU was strong. Open rebellion? I bet even Abe Lincoln said the state of the union was strong. And it was, if you didn’t count the 11 states that up and left when he was elected. Perhaps alien invasion? “Let me remind you, you still have two out of three branches of the federal government and that ain’t bad,” as the President said in MARS ATTACKS. Actual unemployment and underemployment is around 20%, we’re in debt up to our yinyangs to China because of a double recession during the Bush presidency, two wars that we shouldn’t have been in in the first place, tax cuts for the people who didn’t need them and a massive bailout of banks that had been holding a craps game with our money, credit card companies charging 30% interest, 30 million people without health insurance, BUT–The State of the Union is strong.
We did get one moment of high comedy tho–thanks to Chris Matthews of MSNBC. Forgot he was black for an hour, Chris? Way to GO! Only one month into 2010 and you already have the gaffe of the year! But wait–maybe you can outdo yourself–you have 11 more months to do it in!
President Obama gave himself a number of pats on the back, waved his finger at the right side of the aisle and outlined an ambitious agenda to get us back on track–well, not all that ambitious, there were a lot of half-measures–i.e., we need to increase jobs, but we need to keep the budget under control, so hey, let’s just do a little of both. He pointed the finger at the Bush administration for getting us into this mess more forcefully than he had since…his inauguration. You told Justice Roberts where to get off (and Stephen Colbert brought up a great point about how Roberts is willing to overturn precedent if he has only two dissents to do it on–and just where WERE Scalia and Thomas last night anway?). And he wants to see things on his desk! Well, Barry, let’s hope that you tell people exactly what you want on your desk this time around the calendar and that you knock some heads together to do it.
The problem is that we’ve heard all this before and we haven’t seen enough action on it. As my hookers say in the cartoon, you’re good at oral, now let’s see a little bump and thrust. You told us bank presidents weren’t going to get away with things and then you turn around and let them get away without showing up for their meeting with you. LEAD! Stop taking things off the table before you start negotiating. Get rid of your bad advisers. Rely more on Joe Biden than on Rahm Emanuel–Emanuel’s been advising you to give away the farm for nominal victories but Biden knows where the bodies are buried. Get rid of the financial cronies and slap around those bank presidents like you did the auto manufacturers. And for god’s sake, stop going on expensive dates with Michele while your middle class is going down with the ship–at least look like you have a bit of empathy. You said you’d rather be a good one-term president than a poor two-term one. Well, we don’t want you to be a good one-term president–we thought we were voting for a GREAT president. So stop futzing around and be what you promised.

ANNOY YOUR FRIENDS! CONFOUND YOUR ENEMIES! PRESS ONE OF THESE BUTTONS--OR ELSE!
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The Battle for the Hearts and Minds … of our ALLIES!

No misconduct by the troops--they merely ran through a Swedish run hospital, forcing patients out of beds and tying up the staff.

Thank you and have a nice day...

Back at the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003–was it really over six years ago now? My, how time flies when you’re having fun!–we discovered that there were some interesting wrinkles in our treatment of the local populace. They did not especially like being called “hadjis”, “ragheads”, “towelheads”, or “sand niggers”, and seemed to get upset if they were politely told to “put your face in the ground mother****er or I’ll blow it off!” The effort to get the Iraqis to trust us became known as the “Battle for the Hearts and Minds”–to distinguish it from the “Battle to Bomb Saddam Hussein Back to the Stone Age,” which seemingly was mostly accomplished in three weeks. Although it took several more months to capture Saddam Hussein himself, we could congratulate ourselves on the Stone Age part, especially since parts of Baghdad still do not have 24 hour electricity, seven days a week. The Battle for the Hearts and Minds took a bit longer because even our leadership didn’t understand that breaking the Geneva conventions did not endear us to the populace, saying “Stop” to someone who didn’t understand English doesn’t always give you the right to open fire, and that Blackwater Security was a bunch of trigger-happy psychotics whose boss thought he was on a holy crusade. But I digress.
Now that we are back in Afghanistan, finishing the job that George Bush left against a country that probably shouldn’t have been invaded in the first place (if you remember, we demanded that the Afghans hand over somebody they neither had in custody nor knew where he was, giving us the excuse to invade, overthrow the Taliban government, find Osama bin Laden, and then give up on the 5 yard line so we could play in Iraq), what the media refers to sometimes as the “GOOD war”, destined to become the same quagmire that the British fell into in the 19th century and the Russians in the 20th, yet we still have our image problems. THIS time, it’s with our own allies. After the NATO air strike that killed 70 civilians (who we claim all but five of were insurgents and yes I’m quoting the Washington Times for the irony value), we then turned to a civilian hospital run by a Swedish charity, broke down doors, tied up four of the staff and two innocent bystanders visiting relatives, and forced patients out of beds while we looked for insurgents. Our MEN searched the women’s ward and ordered the staff to report if any insurgents sought medical aid before we gave them permission to treat them. The staff refused. According to Fox News (who else?) U.S. Military Challenge Allegations of Misconduct at Afghan Hospital. Someone who wasn’t there said that no one was tied up and doors were only kicked in with the permission of staff. Since civilian hospitals are supposed to be neutral territory, troops shouldn’t have entered in the first place. I suppose there was no misconduct because we didn’t shoot anyone or tase them, but really, tying up staff and visitors should be left for the BDSM club in Kabul.
In the meantime, we at Intravenous Caffeine have decided to remain on a once a week schedule for a while longer as we prepare a few items for publication. The first is a rendering of Edgar Allan Poe’s THE RAVEN which will be available here and at various conventions that I will be attending. Please see the link for further information and samples!

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