The Notorious and Legendary Dog and Pony Show (Redux)

The sequester is big news because none of you screwheads understand economics. Nothing about it will fix the deficit - like that matters in a recession more than unemployment - as the sequester itself and all proposed solutions are just more of the Hayekan hackery that always fails. "Gee, should I have the austerity shit sandwich or skip straight to the austerity shit pie?"

My point is the sequester is a nothing story that sounds scary. And it's not the only one - those yahoos who compared healthcare to broccoli are at it again, this time with campaign financing. Since Citizens United worked out so well, the Supreme Court has decided to hear a case on whether or not private citizens should have the same rights as Super PACs. Those rights being unlimited bribery. Oh woe is democracy and stuff, right?

"Muahahaha!"

...Except, if you remember the 2012 campaign, all that Super PAC money didn't really help the Bad Guys. Let's just start calling the GOP the Bad Guys, since the ones who aren't nakedly and amorally careerist are just vicious hicks who hate brown people and happiness.

Anyways, everyone thought the Bad Guys would get some huge electoral advantage from Citizens United but all it really did is make the American election season even stupider. Long shots like Gingrich and no shots like Santorum stayed in the primary much longer than they ever would in previous election years because all the really cracked rich people could just keep funding them. In the end, it didn't win them or Romney any more votes than they would've gotten with tighter campaign financing laws.

"But!" you argue, like an idiot, "None of those clowns ever had a chance against the smoothest talking Democrat since Slick Willy! What about all the other offices!?"

What about 'em? Dems picked up more Senate seats and the Bad Guys only maintained a slim majority in the House through good ol' fashioned gerrymandering. All that corporate cash self-styled progressives were fretting about didn't do squat in the face of very real and palpable demographic changes.

All it did is make the election year meaner, crazier, and stupider than ever before. And that's all this latest case will do - because we know how this court will vote already. They'll abolish the last vestige of campaign finance law, guaranteeing the next presidential election is even meaner and stupider than the one we just suffered through. Like I said in November.

Meanwhile, American life expectancy continues to drop and the heat death of our biosphere approaches with grim certainty. But there's nothing wonky about that so why bother?