Halloween

"Children at Halloween party, waiting for signal to come for refreshments. Shafter migrant camp, California."
Dorothea Lange, 1938
Library of Congress, FSA/OWI Archive
Its proximity to Election Day becomes prophetic each cycle.




A segment of their religious nutcase base may call the date Satanic—and its candy cursed—but Republicans own this day.

They've got the costumes.

The terrifying tall tales.

Working in such plush, lavishly funded laboratories as they do, Republican mad scientists find it a breeze to create monsters.

More driftglass, on the unveiling of this year's model

... Mainstream Media began began predictably and endlessly fetishizing as Fresh!And!New! a Teabagger Movement which had clearly been fabricated almost entirely out of the body-parts of old Republicans, and reanimated by the same radical Right wing billionaire industrialists who have bankrolled every other Republican crackpot power-grab for the last 50 years.

The course of Republican denials...

From the century of quaint, old media: a mundane, "I'm not a crook."

To—excuse, me: am I in the 21st or 16th century?—"I'm not a witch."

(Also: not much of a look-alike here, but, good points)...

None of this matters, of course. It's not only for Halloween that Republicans get to dress up the Dems: as the Commie/Socialist/Muslim/fill in the blank boogeyman!

It has been pointed out by others before, but—

Weren't the Commies previously vanquished by St. Ronnie?

Speaking of ancient history: a caller to Thom Hartmann's show reminded listeners that St. Ronnie's Bitburg visit included placing a wreath at Waffen SS graves; any connection between that and candidate Iott's dress-up choice?

We've been on this haunted house ride, year after year...

Eight of the Cheney administration.

Followed by Dems... With a genuine mandate they never wanted to use. Their flailing only of use in reinforcing the noise machine's anti-government narrative. And in "proving" that "socialism" doesn't work.

We have a wide-eyed, low-information audience eager to believe tall tales, like this from Morning Edition—

LIASSON: Democrat Dan Teters of Chicago is a party loyalist. He says he'll vote for his incumbent...

... But, like a lot of voters who wanted change in 2008 and still do, Teters doesn't have a problem with the prospect of Republicans controlling Congress.

Mr. TETERS: I'm a little bit like many people I know, who say let's try something else, what we've got isn't working. Just because one or the other party controls one or both houses doesn't mean that nothing gets done. Just sometimes the agenda changes.

Republican bait-and-switch goes seasonal, with the hand holding out a supposed Treat of "divided government." If the electorate falls for it, the reality will be classic Trick—shut down government...

... With one exception: staging investigations, and possibly, impeachment of the Kenyan Usurper.

Which may all be test marketing for launching the worst monster to date.

At the start of the campaign season, the media in my state immediately elected the Republican our new governor; it's all over but for that candidate's party counting the votes.

Working in a public institution as I do, a one-way ticket to the job market funhouse may not be far in the future.

A prospect that always reminds me of this.

Joyce McGreevy got it exactly, on interviews:

The process is an exercise in humiliation, and the prize for success is a nightmare -- employment by your torturers.