Mitt Romney Unmasked

"I'm an uncaring asshole and proud of it."  ~Chuck Palahniuk

Feel the contempt. Taste the scorn.

America, do you really want to vote for this soulless, contemptible prick?

My Kingdom for a House

Mitt Romney has six houses.

What in the hell do you do with six houses?

I live in Arizona, and I can just barely imagine having two houses. One in the southern part of the state for winter, and one in the northern part of the state for summer, and roughly splitting one's time between them. Given that this week, before the monsoons started, the temperatures in Bullhead City and Lake Havasu were 121/122 degrees, I can easily see how having a summer home might literally be the difference between life and death.

Still, even that evokes possessing a wad of cash I don't think I'll have in my lifetime.

But...six? Supposedly he has two homes in Boston. Two? Did either Mitt or Ann, or both, not want to bruise their exquisite manicures by driving so far one day, and just decide to buy another house?

Two vacation homes on New Hampshire lakes? Did they ever hear of the old-fashioned concept called "motel rooms?" Or even "vacation rentals?" But of course, the yacht would have been missing its separate gold-plated residence, and maybe Rafalca would have been kicking down the walls of her too-small (normal-sized) stall. Those are adequate reasons to buy another half-million-dollar lakeside vacation home, I'm sure.

Furthermore, how do you plan for the logistics of moving between six houses? Do you wake up in the morning and say, "My tummy hurts, so we need to go to the house in La Jolla?" Or do you notice that a flake of snow might've fallen in Utah, and take off for the ski lodge? (Which might be a pretty rare thing, once climate change really takes hold.) Do you own six separate sets of clothes, bedding, towels, and cookware, so each house is furnished identically to the one you just left, and you don't have to worry about finding your favorite tea mug, and can slide right into your best suit? Do you have six sets of books, CDs, DVDs and Netflix subscriptions, so you can have your favorite music and comfort reads, and don't miss your favorite TV programs? Do you have six iPhones and six iPods, and six laptops, one for each house, with identical programs, and music and documents all linked through the cloud? Also, what happens to the food in each refrigerator? Do you pack it up and take it along (although that sounds horribly common, moving your food along with you when you can just buy more). If not, who cleans out each refrigerator after you leave? For that matter, who scrubs the toilets, winterizes the homes if you're not there, waters the plants, washes the windows, maintains the landscaping, locks the doors at night, and leaves the houses in perfect pristine condition so you can come through on your brief sojourns, take a deep breath and look around, and say with a sigh of satisfaction, "This is my home?"

I'll tell you who. Those invisible underpaid servants you never see (also known as "ordinary people"), because you're running for office, for Pete's sake.

I have as much in common with Mitt Romney and his merry clan of arrogant moneybots as I do an alien species. Maybe less.

Asshat of the Day

This woman.


As protesters assembled on a beach in advance of Mitt Romney's evening event at the home of conservative billionaire David Koch, the candidate slipped to East Hampton for his first of three fundraisers on this tony stretch of Long Island. 


The line of Range Rovers, BMWs, Porsche roadsters and one gleaming cherry red Ferrari began queuing outside of Revlon Chairman Ronald Perelman's estate off Montauk Highway long before Romney arrived, as campaign aides and staffers in white polo shirts emblazoned with the logo of Perelman's property -- the Creeks -- checked off names under tight security. 


A New York City donor a few cars back, who also would not give her name, said Romney needed to do a better job connecting. "I don't think the common person is getting it," she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits. "Nobody understands why Obama is hurting them.


"We've got the message," she added. "But my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies -- everybody who's got the right to vote -- they don't understand what's going on. I just think if you're lower income -- one, you're not as educated, two, they don't understand how it works, they don't understand how the systems work, they don't understand the impact."


Ma'am, I'll tell you what.

If you think there's something about this election I don't understand, then I challenge you to explain it to me.

I challenge you to get in your Range Rover and drive across the country to my house (oh, pardon me, my manufactured home)--yes, drive, not fly, because I really think you need to get your head out of your ass and see how the "common people" live (and you're not allowed to whine about gas prices in your 14 mpg, $80,000 vehicle along the way)--and explain to me just how you think President Obama is hurting me.

I'd like for you to explain to me how it hurts me for the President to have saved the auto industry.

I'd like for you to explain to me how it hurts me for the President to have ended the war in Iraq.

I'd like for you to explain to me how it hurts me for the President to have ended "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

I'd like for you to explain to me how it hurts me for President Obama to have signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

I'd like for you to explain to me how it hurts me for President Obama to have killed Osama bin Laden.

Finally, I'd like for you to explain to me just why it's oh so sad that you, as a millionaire, pay one of the lowest tax rates in history.

Since you have such a high opinion of my intelligence, I'll even let you use words of one syllable.

And when you're done with all that, I'd really like for you to explain to me why you're such a stupid, clueless, arrogant, condescending jackass.

Thank you.

The Purity Brigade

In my neck of the woods, this is called "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face."

Centrist Women Tell of Disenchantment With Republicans

You can't insult, belittle, demean and threaten 50% of the population and expect their support.

What's hilarious about this is that President Obama doesn't have to say a word. He's just standing back and watching the Republicans guarantee his re-election. The level of cluelessness on their part is just astonishing.

But I suppose that's what happens when you put purity and ideology (and religious precepts that absolutely do not belong in government) ahead of actually governing.

"Only vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself"

"If you think you are good enough, you have just started your decline."  ~Unknown

Well. What goes around will eventually come around.

The law firm that had a Halloween party mocking the people they foreclosed on has gone out of business.

After the Times published those pictures of Baum employees gleefully mocking down-on-their-luck homeowners at a super fun Halloween party, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cut Baum off.


Of course, Nocera's column was just the final straw. According to the Long Island Bankruptcy Blog, Baum filed "more foreclosure proceedings against New York homeowners than any other attorney in New York's history." How did he do it? By filing error-filled "robo-signed" documents, and using shady tactics that one Long Island judge likened to something out of the "Twilight Zone." Last month, Baum paid a $2 million fine to settle a Federal case accusing the firm of filing misleading papers to rush along foreclosures. 


The scary thing about this is, were it not for their limitless hubris, boasting about their misdeeds and mocking the people they hurt, it might have turned out differently.