"Back in my day cows didn't tell you about their sexuality" 

- Twitter feed from #PTRMSK commenting on Benjy the Gay Bull

...the clueless leading the deaf and dottering, or why the Democrats got slaughtered...the utter cluelessness of the Democratic Party was starkly exposed by the Republicans' romp in November's elections...this was not the result merely of low voter turnout for midterm elections, or that many more Dem seats were up for election than Republicans...this was much more a jolt about how the Democratic Party is an insular, fossilized party led by graybeards (and hair) stuck in its own infighting and doomed by some of the worst campaign strategies I've seen in a long long long time...there's no more pathetic picture than one of Senate Democratic leader Harry ("Clueless") Reid and Congressional Democratic leader Nancy ("Cluelessette") Pelosi at the lead of a Wall Street Journal article "Democrats Find Themselves Short of Fresh New Faces" http://on.wsj.com/10MqpFC...75-year old Reid, who looked 75 when he was 10, arrogantly disagreed publicly with his own party's President on many issues, while 74-year-old Pelosi, who looks more ridiculous by the day with her fake hair and fake face and fake rationalizations, oversaw the two biggest mid-term losses for a party in the country's history (about 65 Congressional seats and counting lost by the Dems in 2010 and 2014) by running from Obama...and as this is written, the Party has totally abandoned Senator Mary Landrieu, who is in a tough run-off to maintain her seat, thus sending a clear message to any prospective candidates, and especially women, that the national party cannot be counted on the help them... 

Harry and Nancy: 149 years on Earth and they still don't have a clue.

...meanwhile, in Colorado incumbent Senator Mark ("You're Gone") Udall managed to gift his seat to challenger Cory Gardner by focusing almost exclusively on abortion rights while ignoring issues such as the economy (stupid), ISIS, and health care...hello, Earth to Mark -- what kind of idiot campaign managers convinced you that more than a handful of voters in Colorado might care about abortion much less vote on that singular issue...then there was Maryland, where Democratic Lt. Gov. Andrew ("Andblew") Brown managed to lose the Governor's race in a state that is solidly blue and has been led by popular gov. Martin O'Malley by running an appallingly negative campaign while his Republican challenger actually talked about real issues...and in Kentucky, Democratic candidate Allison Lundergen ("Fumbleagain") Grimes actually declined to answer when asked simply who she voted for in the last Presidential election...until then Grimes had been running neck-and-neck with incumbent Mitch McConnell...after her disingenuous, dismissive attempt to duck her Democratic credentials, Grimes disappeared from the polls faster than a speeding bullet and lost by a large margin...Grime's act was the perfect symbol of a dysfunctional Democratic Party with no focus that has spent the last two years running from the Administration's many positive actions instead of embracing and trumpeting them...

...speaking of clueless self-inflicted damage...Ireland Taoiseach Enda Kenny's Fine Gael Party, it's poodle the Labor Party, together with the Fianna Fail Party, and other assorted cronies in government and the media continue to be the friendliest enemies Sinn Fein and its leader Gerry Adams could ever wish for...their latest round of stupidity has been to try demonizing Adams over a peace-hating woman's claim that she was assaulted by an IRA member when she was 16 and then subjected to an IRA kangaroo court...never mind that the woman is a known IRA dissident, is strongly opposed to the Northern Irish peace process, and hates Adams vehemently...Kenny decided he should meet with her, and then audaciously attacked Sinn Fein for being lax about sexual abuse...excuse me!!!...the Irish government parties are criticizing others for abetting abuse...let us count the ways in which Kenny's Fine Gael Party and Fianna Fail have aided and abetted outrageous abuse and torture of women and children for a century...Christian Brothers children torture institutions...Magdalena Laundries...ongoing clerical paedophilia while the state looked the other way...sending orphans to draconian institutions to literally starve them to death and dumping their shriveled little bodies in nameless mass graves...symphysiotomy procedures on pregnant women (a ghastly procedure whereby the state, to preserve the Catholic Church's idea of womens' virtue and "morality," carves up women's pelvic bones for childbirth rather than performing Ceasarean sections)...

'I was just 27 and I was butchered': Symphysiotomy ...

so how have the Irish people responded to Kenny's hypocritical, self-righteous photo-op pontificating?...predictably, by further boosting Sinn Fein in the polls so it is now the most popular party in Ireland for the first time in history...so keep it up, Enda, securocrats and Irish media, you'll promote Adams to Taoiseach before you know it!...
...the running of the bulls (Irish version)...in other news from the Emerald Isle, animal rights and gay rights groups have rallied to save Benjy the "Gaylic" Bull from the slaughterhouse...it seems that Benjy, a pedigree Charolais from County Mayo (where else!), doesn't care to breed with all those lovely 4-legged cuties at his disposal, but rather prefers male company...Veternarians determined he is fertile, but is more attracted to the bull that replaced him, so his farmer decided to turn him into beef patties...but PETA, the Irish Animal Rights Action Network, and Simpsons' creator Sam Simon have raised funds to send Benjy to an animal sanctuary (let's hope it's not run by the Catholic Church)...

He-e-e-e-r-e-s Benj....oops, wrong bull...

here he is:

"Hi there, big guy"

of course, for every protest, there's a counter-protest, and we are committed to giving equal time to all sides so you the reader can decide for yourself...

...and if you think that story is a bunch of Irish bull...here's more...on the other side of the country, in County Waterford, another bull plummeted off a cliff into the sea...being bullish and keeping his cool, the baffled beast swam to a rocky ledge a few hundred metres away...the Irish coast guard rushed to the scene but it was deemed too difficult to carry out a rescue in fading light and rising tides...so at dawn's early light the next morning Tramore Coast Guard and the Waterford Animal Welfare were back on the scene...a rope was secured to the animal and the oars of the lifeboat used to usher him down off his rocky ledge...when he hit the water he started swimming toward the lifeboat (presumably using the bovine stroke first unveiled in the last Olympics)...he was then guided into a nearby cove, where the bovine was met by his grateful owner.

...give me that old time religion...there are a couple of exciting developments on the religious front...first, our correspondent Trudie from Pooks Hill reports that Pope Francis has absolved all accordion players, including Trudie and me...the Pontiff, showing mercy, said, "It's time to forgive them for all the past suffering they have inflicted - as long as they play something cool, like Zydeco or Tex-Mex."  

Pope Francis: "Just don't ever play that thing in my presence."

...It's a dirty job, but God made me do it....and in other religious news, in a creative twist to the old excuse that "the Devil made me do it", the Mormon church has blamed the Creator for turning its founder into a serial rapist...The Washington Times reports that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has acknowledged that its founding prophet, Joseph Smith, had as many as 40 "wives," including one as young as 14...however, the Church went on to explain that Smith really didn't want to take on so many sweet young things, but just had to after receiving a commandment from God...sorry, Mormons, Dan Akroyd's line "We're on  mission from God" just doesn't wash to excuse a sexual predator who concocted a church of bigamy so he could rape as many women as possible with impunity...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/11/joseph-smith-wed-40-wives-mormon-church-says/#ixzz3JLfex6lh 
...OOPS!...with this edition, Pete's Brew introduces a new feature, which will appear occasionally as the mood (and news stories) strikes, to call attention to the stupidest gaffes by public figures...there seem to be a plethora of them this week...

...Oops the first!...sexual assault does not make us laugh...the cover of AARP Magazine's October-November issue highlighted a piece titled "Bill Cosby: Still Making us Laugh"...ha ha...ha...uh...then quickly spun out another edition with the Cosby piece pulled...but then absurdly tried to deny they pulled it...ha ha...very funny...

...Oops the second!...be careful what you tweet for...Congressional Staffer Elizabeth Lauten tweeted that Malia and Sasha Obama should "try showing a little class" and not like they were looking "for a spot at the bar" during the President's Thanksgiving pardon of two turkeys...Lauten, as press secretary for Congressman Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn), should have known better than to mock the President's teenage daughters...hey, they're American teenage girls forced to take part in a silly American tradition directed by their father - of course they're bored!...after an uproar from both sides of the political aisle, both the tweet and Lauten were hastily deleted (Fincher fired her the next day)...

"Dad, you are, like, so embarrassing us..."

...Oops the third!...Senator James Inhofe (Moron-Not OK), incoming Chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, has named and shamed the Hollywood liberal commie behind the vast left-wing Climate Change Conspiracy -- Barbara Streisand...who'd-a-thunk it?...in response to the story by David Corn in Mother Jones, Streisand had this to say: "I thank Senator Inhofe for singling me out as a voice against the perils of climate change!  But I'm just a small part of millions of voices, who are informed and alarmed, including 97% of all climate scientists!  God help us! This man is going to head the Commission on the Environment in the United States Senate. It's like giving a fox the keys to the chicken coop."

...and finally, it's time for a real brew...your editor had one while in New Hampshire for Thanksgiving...Barb's Beer Emporium in Concord offered up a mind-bogling selection of beers and ales, and among the items sampled, Harvest Barn Ale offered by Long Trail Brewing Company stood out...and it's only 4.4% alcohol content, so if you can get your hands on some, enjoy several...

Happy December!

- the Brewmeister -

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

...We're not in Kansas anymore...Dorothy would be amazed...here in the dead (and I mean dead) center  of the country, the voters in this solidly-red state are actually so fed up with their conservative politicians' economic idiocy that the state may swing anti-Republican in both the Governor's and the US Senate races...the incumbent Governor running scared is ultra-ultra-ultra conservative Republican Sam ("Goback") Brownback whose irresponsible tax and spending cuts have severely damaged the state's resources, including education, transportation infrastructure and everything else, and put the state's economy on the brink of ruin...as of now, Democratic challenger Paul ("Save Us") Davis is running neck-and-neck with Brownback...according to The Washington Post, Brownback promised that his program would drive economic growth, create jobs, and stabilize the state budget...a pack of BS...Kansas now has a $300 million revenue shortfall, the state economy has lagged far behind its neighboring states, and Kansas' credit rating has plunged...education has been particularly hard hit, with parents and teachers decrying fewer coaches, fewer teachers' aides, larger class sizes, fewer school buses, and a delay in launching a hoped-for pre-school program...more intriguing, Kansas Republican Senator ("Stand") Pat Roberts is in real danger of losing his seat to Independent candidate Greg ("Stormin'") Orman...Roberts has served 18 years in the Senate and has done nothing - absolutely zero - in all that time...he appears to have all the intelligence of my dog Sammy, and the personality of your average stone...the Brewmeister cannot remember the last time a Dem or Independent held a major state-wide office in the Land of Oz, but these races bear watching as indicative of just how far the Muppets (i.e., Middle America) will put up with the false curtain Wizardry of stupid, counterproductive so-called "conservative" economic policies, which are actually wildly liberal in pretending that a totally free market has a conscience and everyone should be able to do whatever the hell they want, and plain wrong in pretending that we can stimulate the economy by cutting spending... 

"If I only had a brain."
Sen. Pat Roberts (right) consults with his campaign staff.

...relatedly, it cannot be confirmed that German Chancellor Angela ("Murky") Merkle is closely watching the Kansas races in hopes that her similarly idiotic economic policies, which have plunged the Eurozone to near-deflationary disaster, will continue to hoodwink most people...we suggest that Kansas voters and Merkle consider the thoughts of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on the folly of "conservative" economics...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/opinion/paul-krugman-ideology-and-investment.html?emc=edit_th_20141027&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=67166446 
...the only thing we really fear is fear itself (apologies to FDR)...building on the USA's prior panics over imagined communists in the woodpile, terrorists on the doorstep, rock music (see Tipper Gore), Alar on apples (see Meryl Streep), comets destroying life as we know it, and those ubiquitous UN black helicopters, the country is hitting a new low in mindless hysteria over the perceived Ebola "crisis"...so far, two (as in 2) people have died in the U.S. from the disease and health experts are uniform in saying it does not pose a likely epidemic here...but in contrast to the untold thousands of deaths every year from guns, car crashes, flu, smoking, booze, etc., the public, the media, and our stupid Congress are screaming with fear, blame, and senseless demands such as banning flights from Africa...Frank Bruni writes in the NY Times that although the flu kills up to 50,000 people a year, barely half of Americans (54%) got vaccinated against the flu last year, and 57% of parents at a Beverly Hills school filed for "personal belief" exemptions to prevent their kids from being vaccinated...http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/opinion/frank-bruni-scarier-than-ebola.html?emc=edit_th_20141015&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=67166446&_r=1...reality check, anyone?... 
...Canis ridiculatus..an Irish terrier named Vimes took a walk off a cliff in County Clare and, after bouncing off a few ledges on the way down, plunged 300 feet into the sea...the dog's walkers, who were its owner's parents, said they noticed Vimes had slipped his leash, then heard a splash about 15 seconds later...Vimes managed to clammer onto some rocks where he held on for 40 minutes (presumably emptying his bladder about once a minute) before the Irish Coast Guard rescued him, unharmed from his adventure...you can check out Vimes on his own Twitter account here: https://twitter.com/VimesTheDog...

...in an interview on his Twitter account, Vimes denied that he fell off the cliff while chasing Mickey Mouse, who was rescured by the Irish Coast Guard off the coast of County Wicklow...Vimes said he didn't even like mouse meat...in any event, after a flood of emergency calls the rescue crew recovered the big-eared rodent who, like Vimes, was unscathed by his ordeal...

"OK, you saved me, now stopping punching me in the nose!"

...drink more beer...sooner...The Register reports that researchers at Oregon State University have discovered that the chemical xanthohumol improves cognitive function in mice...why is this important enough to be an item in Pete's Brew?...because xanthohumol is found in hops, which is a key ingredient in BEER!!...the researchers found that the chemical improved the mice's spatial function for tests like the Morris Water Maze (use your imagination)...significantly, the improvement was noticeable in young mice but not in their elders, so it's important to start drinking beer at a young age...except, oops, did I mention that you would need to consume three thousand, five hundred and twenty pints per day to get the desired effect...some of us might be able to handle the final 20, but even I'd need help on the first 3,500 pints!!!...

19 down, 3,501 to go before sundown!

...which bring us to...the brew of this Halloween month...but if you thought I was going to recommend some yucky pumpkin ale forget about it...pumpkin is a pie, or a soup...pumpkin does not belong with hops...those gimmicky beers are almost as over-sold as IPAs and other over-hopped imposters, whose ongoing obsession by the yuppy generation baffles me no end...so here it is...my selection for Rocktober is Long Trail Harvest Ale (which has a nice ring to it)...brewed in down-home Vermont...enjoy, responsibly or otherwise...

Trick or treat, give us your meat

- the Brewmeister -

                     

...free White House tours...open to public at any time...contact the Secret Service after entering only if you feel like it...the U.S. Secret ("Breach of") Service is supposed to protect the President and his family but has fallen to such a disgraceful state that the President is literally in danger even in his own house...last week, the latest in a dizzying string of security breaches occurred, and it was the scariest one yet...Omar ("Oh My") Gonzalez, a crazed war vet, jumped the outer security fence, raced across the lawn, walttzed right in the unlocked(!!!) front door of the White House, then bolted past a security guard, went through the Entrance Hall, wandered around the grand Central Hall and past the stairway leading the the First Family's living quarters where Malia and Michelle's mother were at the time, then strolled through the East Room and was entering the Green Room, all the time wielding a knife, before finally being tackled by a guard...Secret Service officers failed to release the attack dogs trained for just such an incident, failed to lock the doors, failed to hit the alarm button inside the front door, and then lied repeatedly about their miserable failures...Secret Service mouthpiece Ed ("if my lips are moving I'm lying") Donovan said the intruder was unarmed, which was a blatant lie, then said his boys got the suspect as soon as he entered the mansion, which was another blatant lie...

Big Ed: "Trust me. We've got it covered (up)."

...this sorry episode comes on top of a 2012 incident when Secret Service agents brought Columbian prostitutes back to their hotel and then refused to pay them for favors rendered, another incident in 2013 when agents passed out drunk in a hotel hallway in Amsterdam, one last month when an armed felon got on an elevator with Obama because Secret Service officers on duty didn't even question him, and a 2011 incident recently uncovered by the Washington Post when a gunman sat in his car out back of the White House and repeatedly fired a rifle at it, hitting a window and knocking pieces from the exterior while the idiot Secret Service supervisors ordered its officers on duty to "stand down" because they thought it was just a car backfiring (7 or 8 times?!)...this is clearly an agency that is rent with incompetent, out-of-control macho clowns who have no sense of responsibility whatsoever...predictably, our hypocritical Congress, which has slashed the agency's budget thereby precipitating many of the staff problems, is now expressing outrage and demanding hearings and answers but typically that will probably amount to nothing but political grandstanding just like in 2012...yesterday, Secret Service Director Julie ("Blame Me") Pierson wisely resigned but Disgraceful Donovan remains arrogantly at his post/microphone...so once again Congress has extracted its pound of flesh from the woman while letting the incompetent, lying man stay on (see, New Jersey Governor Chris ("women are stupid but men are just disappointing") Christie re Bridgegate)...does the story line ever change?...see story immediately below...

...notes from the National Domestic Violence League...the National "Blame-the-Victim" Football League is reeling from its left-footed handling of star player Ray ("Rotten") Rice's arrest for knocking his fiancee, Janay, unconscious and dragging her lifeless body out of an elevator...first they did nothing, then they suspended him for all of two (2) games, then Rice's team the Baltimore Ravens had the gall to release a tweet from Janay apologizing for her role (!!) in the incident  (you know, she asked for it and all that), then denied they had seen a video of Rice punching her inside the elevator, a lie that was immediately exposed by a hotel security person confirming he had sent the video to the NFL months ago...

Ray and Janay after a night out it's lights out (for her)

...the Rice woman-beating revelation was immediately followed by Minnesota running back Adrian ("Kids are for Beating") Peterson's arrest for whipping his 4-year old son with a tree branch so fiercely that it caused bruises and scrapes to the boys legs, buttocks, and scrotum...The boy told authorities that there were “a lot of belts in daddy’s closet,” and that daddy used them often...Peterson also allegedly stuffed leaves into his son’s mouth while he was being struck with his pants down...Big Brave Adrian's response?...he said that what his 4-year-old son received was a  “normal whooping,” and he couldn’t remember how many times he hit his son, but that it was likely “10 to 15″ times...he added that he doesn’t “ever count how many pops I give my kids”..."pops" as a euphemism for beating a four-year-old! - with a branch! - on the back of his scrotum!...what a sicko...this guy should be in jail on felony child abuse charges and have his kids immediately taken away from him for their safety...but even this did not earn Mr. Peterson so much as a suspension from NFL Commissioner Roger ("Boys will be Boys") Goodell until a public uproar demanded it...in quick succession this was followed by Carolina defensive player Greg ("Hit 'Em") Hardy's arrest for violently beating up his girlfriend, strangling her and threatening to kill her last May...which again did not initially result in any punishment from Goodell as Hardy played in a game last month, until the League was humiliated into suspending him...and now comes San Francisco defensive end Ray ("Dirtball") McDonald charged with belting his pregnant fiancee but still scheduled to play this Sunday...it is clear that the NFL is rife with thugs, women-beaters, child-abusers, violent psychos and assorted other severely warped societal misfits because the NFL not only enables such behavior, but conspires in covering it up and coddling the perpetrators...

Rice: "Janay apologizes for making me knock her out cold.
It may take several more sessions but I promise I'll beat her into shape eventually."

Peterson: "Give me the ball, kid, or I'll beat the crap out of you."

     Hardy: "The bitch deserved it."                            

McDonald: "So did my bitch -- and so did her fetus."

                                                        

Commissioner "Jolly Roger" Goodell reacts to his players' comments

...on the other hand some people just have no sense of humor....in breaking news from the ACLU, we have learned that the book most frequently challenged and sought to be banned is....(drum roll please)...."CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS"...according to the ACLU's Samia ("Just Sayin'") Hussain, complaints have included "offensive language and violence"...Hussain says the books contain no inappropriate language (unless one considers potty jokes offensive rather than just juvenile), and the extent of violence consists of a kiddy game that shoots out eggs instead of balls that land on everybody's head...your editor, who does not normally read such childish material, preferring grown-up literature like Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, can relate personally to the Captain's humiliation...having just undergone abdominal surgery I am currently in the midst of several weeks of donning an undergarment embarrassingly similar to the Captain's, and it ain't fun or funny!!!...so the Captain and I don't want anybody making snide remarks about our attire, much less trying to ban our use of them...OK, TMI!!!

Just don't let this guy anywhere near Times Square!

...since this edition is a few days late, it's already October, which means its OCTOBERFEST time...and my recommended brew is, fittingly, Octoberfestbier brewed by Spaten-Franziskaner-Brau...aromatic, savoury, gold-colored nectar of the Gods...great in the bottle, to die for in draft...better yet, try all of these great German brews in celebration of Fall....

- the Brewmeister -

POLITICIANS AND PRISONS AND PRETENDERS

"The first time I see a jogger smiling, I’ll consider it."

                                                 - Joan Rivers, who died September 4, 2014, aged 81 years

Bad call Bob...it will be recalled that the January 27 edition of Pete's Brew reported that Virginia ex-Governor Robert McDonnell had rejected a plea deal offered by prosecutors that would have dropped all charges against his ex-Washington Redskin cheerleader wife Maureen in exchange for a guilty plea to a single, i.e., one, charge against him...after five weeks of sordid, peek-a-boo soap operatic trial testimony in which Gallant Bob forced his own daughter to testify, causing her to break down on the witness stand, and which featured among its low lights a pathetic tweet from lovely Maureen to rich businessman Johnnie Williams exclaiming "I just felt the earth move and I wasn't having sex!!!!", a jury of seven men and five women quickly found the former Gov guilty on 11 of 13 counts of public corruption and associated felonies and Maureen on 9 of 13 counts...the couple had been the epitome of the phony "Christian (Catholic) values", loving, hetero-family and was a hero to the right wing crowd who was touting him for the Presidential race in 2016...it'll be kinda hard to run for Prez from behind bars...the McDonnells face up to 30 years in the slammer for their misdeeds...
...Worse call Hank...from my lawyer's view, McDonnell's legal representation by one Henry ("Hank") As("shouldn't")bill, was just about the worst I have ever witnessed in any case, criminal or civil...let me count the ways...1. letting his client reject a plea deal for one guilty plea in exchange for dropping the other 25 charges against McDonnell and his wife...2. building the entire defense on an utterly ridiculous theory, i.e., that the marriage was so broken that the McDonnells couldn't have conspired together, when only one of the 25 counts hinged on a conspiracy theory...3. not suing for peace, i.e., striking a deal with prosecutors, midway through a trial which when it going against his client horribly...4. expressing that he was "shocked, shocked," a la Captain Renault when his client was found guilty...Asbill paraphrased his utter cluelessness when asked to comment on the verdict: "I have no idea what the jury deliberated about," he admitted...Hank, for having no idea what the whole case was about, you get our "Eejit of the Year"...
Comic headlines from the past year..."Man Arrested for Assault with Mashed Potatoes" (KBOI2TV.com, Aug. 18, 2014)..."Big Law Goes to Bat for Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell" (Legal Times Blog, Dec. 13, 2013)...new headline: "Big Law Strikes Out"...
...they shouldda figured it out from the Dude's name...the principal of an elementary school in Manassas, Virginia has been fired and decertified from teaching after officials discovered that his resume was a crock of you-know-what...Robin Toogood ("To Be True") claimed he had three degrees from different universities, including a doctorate in education, none of which was true...at least he attended two of the schools listed on his resume - the other one, Regent University, said it had no record of him whatsoever...the Manassas school system's sordid vetting process could almost be seen as an improvement since the same system previously hired a serial child molester who was arrested in 2010 for "taking indecent liberties" with a student and now is a resident of the state prison (where he'll soon be joined by the ex-Governor)...
...the House of MisRepresentation and Partisanship and...The House of Special Interests voted to sue President Obama for overstepping the powers of the presidency...in a 225-to-201 strict party-line vote, Republicans voted to move forward with a lawsuit against Mr. Obama for his application of the Affordable Care Act by issuing executive orders, which they argue has been selective and intended to delay the law’s most undesirable aspects...during a pointed, impassioned hourlong debate, Republicans summoned lessons from the American Revolution and the Bible...but ignored statistics showing that Obama has issued a total of 183 executive orders while George W. Bush issued 291 and Ronald Reagan 381...

...Hypocrisy and Lies...two days later, the same crowd of Congressional Republicans excorciated Obama President for not exercising his Presidential powers...after they were forced to scuttle an emergency spending measure to address the surge of young Central American migrants at the southern border due to their bigoted, economic ignoramus Tea Party allies, House Republican leaders said, and we quote: “There are numerous steps the president can and should be taking right now, without the need for congressional action, to secure our borders and ensure these children are returned swiftly and safely to their countries”...Dems welcomed the move...the party claimed to have raised $1 million overnight...Steve Israel (D-New York), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said, “When they decide to obsess on suing the president, they shouldn’t be surprised that our base is as energized as they’ve become.”
...not quite a do-nothing Congress.. in an exciting announcement that should make every American's life better U.S. Representatives Rick Crawford (R-AR) and Jim ("will") Costa ("lot") (D-CA) on July 31 announced the formation of the Congressional Rodeo Caucus to serve as an informal group dedicated to issues of the rodeo industry...yippy-yi-yo-yi-yo...
...Beware the Square...a sordid assortment of caped crusaders and other cartoon characters were rounded up in a Times Square sweep on a recent Saturday night, including Captain America, Jessie the cowgirl from “Toy Story’, and Spider Man...Spider Man did not go easily into the night, punching a police officer in the face as they grappled on the sidewalk before falling to the ground. 

...the fun started when Spidy refused to accept a dollar tip after posing for a picture with some tourists, telling theme that he would accept only larger sums...when the cop approached, the web-spinner told him to “Mind your own business,” leading to a sorry take-down spectacle in front of hordes of amused picture-snapping spectators...A crowd of law-abiding fellow mascots, including Elmo, Batman and Mickey and Minnie Mouse, watched in disbelief...the miscreant was eventually spun into custody and arraigned on charges of assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct...

"Who's next, Goofy?"

...Meanwhile, the Naked Black Cowboy, a skivvy-wearing character confirming that men should never be seen in underpants, was nabbed for drug possession after cocaine was found in his wallet during a frisk...leaving us to wonder what lucky cop got to frisk this frisky guy...

"help yourself to my wallet"

"help yourself to my wallet"

...not to be outdone, the Times Square “Cookie Monster” was accused of violently shoving a toddler and nearly slamming him into the pavement because his mother wouldn’t tip him...arguably worst of all is Elmo, who was previously arrested for anti-Semitic remarks at tourists and blocking traffic...now bad Elmo has been sentenced to a year in jail for tying to extort $2 million from the Girl Scouts -- by threatening to spread a false story that the Girl Scouts regularly arranged sexual encounters between men and its campers....

How low can you go, Elmo!

Cheryl Navielloshe, a 58-year-old woman who was rudely groped by Super Mario, said it best: “You don’t know who’s under there — that’s the scary part”.... 

Mario to Cheryl: "wanna find out?"

...but enough of those imposters...as a nod to my favorite month (well, I'm partial since I was born in September), I offer this wonderful tribute penned by my favorite poet, Louis MacNiece:

        September has come, it is hers

       Whose vitality leaps in the autumn,
       Whose nature prefers
       Trees without leaves and a fire in the fireplace.                                                                                                                                               - from "Autumn Journal" (1938)

...and with a longer eye toward the advancing Fall season, we are pleased to recommend a new taste in stout, Rasputin, introduced to me by our neighbor Mark Steinbach...a good, rich, bold taste which may make you hesitate to go back to Guinness (unless you're out of Rasputin, of course)...

Happy September!

- the Brewmeister -

IT'S SUMMERTIME, AND THE NEWS IS STILL CRAZY BUT AT LEAST THE LIVIN' IS EASY...

...picture of the day...the County Mayo Irish Football team, a perennial power, has expanded its development and recruiting efforts to Northern New York...during a wonderful break in the Adirondack Mountains last week Sharon and I were delighted to witness a youth team in training...after practicing hard all day, they posed for a team picture...

Mayo All-Ireland, 2025: Zach, Luke, Brady, and "Billy" 

...well now that's reassuring...Maine Governor Paul ("Time to turn") LePage has outdone himself (again)...already notorious for telling the NAACP to kiss his arse, suggesting the IRS is like the Gestapo, and joking about bombing a newspaper, according to Politico LePage has now been caught cavorting with a group of anti-everything nut cases who call themselves "sovereign citizens", which the FBI considers to be a domestic terrorist movement...Pathetic Paul's response to this exposure of his unseemly friends has been to (1) blame the messenger, and (2) explain that in his eight meetings with them “We did not discuss execution, arrest or hanging” of leading Democratic legislators......

Yup, Guv, you shore are a head-scratcher...

...new method for death penalty proposed...in the May 22 edition of The Brew we reported on Oklahoma's concept of a humane death penalty...after poisoning Clayton Lockett for 45 minutes of a slow, twisting death, a state official wisecracked "the line had blown" (referring to Lockett's vein)...now the great state of Arizona has obliterated the record for a drawn-out cruel and unusual death and one-upped Okie in insightful comments...Arizona slow-dripped death row inmate Joseph Wood ("not die") for two agonizing hours before he finally stopped heaving, snorting, gasping, and, finally, breathing...in an expression of profound remorse, Governor Jan Brewer deadpanned that Wood did not suffer and the brother-in-law of Wood's victim offered as an alternative "why didn't we give him Drano"...what a lovely thought from our family values folks in the Southwest...

now available at Home Depot, Lowes, and on Amazon in bulk to save taxpayer dollars on your future executions --  

May we suggest the crystals to 

further prolong the scumbags' agony.

...anti-immigrant hard-liners unveil new ad campaign...the anti-immigration crowd, emboldened by the defeat of Eric Cantor and the rollout of the Obama Administration's renewed determination to kick out South American kids who arrive without their parents, have adopted a new campaign poster to capture their political philosophy...quite catchy it is, too...

...we suggest Deporter-in-Chief Obama ("2 million off our shore and hunting for more") and his pathetic excuse for an Attorney General Eric ("Clueless") Holder, as well as their cold-hearted fellow travelers in Congress, would do better to contemplate the words of Rabbi Asher ("White") Knight of Dallas: "We're talking about whether we're going to stand at the border and tell children who are fleeing a burning building to go back inside"....

...on a cheerier note...we circle back to our lead story above...Murph and I spent five beautiful days at my brother and sister-in-law's summer place, Hawkeye Lodge on Silver Lake in The Middle of Nowhere...the Adirondacks were "lovely, dark, and deep," and unlike Robert Frost we had little to do but sleep, and swim and read and eat and drink...which leads to our brew of the month...Sea Dog Blueberry Wheat Ale is truly unique, with a mildly wild fruity taste perfect for a lazy summer day by the lake...the keg did not last long...may your summer days and evenings be long and drawn-out and delicious...

- the Brewmeister -

  

                 

...kind of like taking a frog to a snake den...we have some very serious items to report on, but we're going to lead with a single picture story that says it all about kicking back in a very un-PC way, courtesy of David Kilkenny from...County Mayo of course...

"Uh, Dave, I'd really rather not go in there."

..."Cantored" ('kan-turd)...to be knocked off your high perch for being too arrogant, too obnoxious, too rude, too cozy with fat cats, and too dismissive of those who brought you to the dance, i.e., the voters...Washington, long the city of acronyms, has sprung a new word thanks to the ignominious demise of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Two-faced Republican-VA) who lost badly to the fortuitously named David Brat (we cannot possibly improve on that name!), an unknown economics professor at a little-known college in southern Virginia...Tea Party types and other conservatives are tying to spin a narrative that Cantor's defeat is a blow to the Republican establishment and a big victory for right-wing ideologues and bigots opposed to any immigration reform...but as my favorite football announcer Chris Schenkle used to say, "hold the phone"...Cantor's defeat is primarily a fundamental lesson of the arrogance of those in power, ignoring constituents, and swimming in perks while rubbing shoulders and sharing shrimp with special interests, in other words, why Washington politicians are hated by most of the free world...Cantor's coziness with the hedge fund glitteratie cost him badly but most of all his dismissive treatment of constituents and his opponent led to his defeat...but the Tea Party could be in for some unpleasant surprises of their own, because Brat is more of a political unknown than they think...as The Daily Beast's Candida Moss has written, among other oddities he's a Catholic espousing Protestant triumphalism...not to mention that even if Brat is to the right of Cantor on most issues, he will have no clout whatsoever as the newest member of a 535-member club of real brats, unlike Cantor whose powerful position was hugely influential in policy fights...at the least, it will make it even harder for the Republicans to control their own party...so enjoy the Brat victory, Tea Party, but you may have gotten more than you wished for...

Before

After

...But don't they know he lost his Congressional seat?...in what must be the stupidest faux news headline of the year (so far), the New York Times has set a new low for utterly irrelevant, made-up, so-called "news" stories...on June 13, the venerable old, once-great, newspaper actually ran a story titled "For Cantor, Loss of Leadership Role Means Far Fewer Perks"...um, knock-knock, hello, Times...Cantor is not just resigning his position as House Majority Leader August 1 -- he's been kicked out of Congress...why did you waste paper, internet space, and our time on this bit of senseless trivia?...

...the end of the world as we know it (NOT!)...on the other hand, NY Times columnist Gail Collins wrote a delightful reality-check on April 22, tallying up various apocalypse scenarios that various wackos have confidently declared over the past several years...they include such doozies as the paranoia hype over Y2K and all the millennium end-of-the-world scenarios, Harold ("Dead Man") Camping's insistence that the final Judgment Day was going to be May 21, 2011, the Mayan calendar end-of-days nonsense in 2012, not to mention money-grubbing televangelists like John ("Show me the money") Hagee, who is hawking his doomsday book Four Blood Moons: Something Is About to Change...something should change all right - people should wake up and stop swallowing the drivel fed them by nutcases and shysters...because one truth my Catholic upbringing impressed on me is that no one knows when the world will end and anyone who claims to know is full of bull...but if I had to guess about how it will end, I tend toward Tennyson's prediction that it will end not with a bang but a whimper...'till then, as said in Ecclesiastes, let us "eat, drink, and be merry"... 

or if you prefer

...actually, we'd rather not be there...speaking of Utah (state motto: "industry" (honest))...that great state of the Mormon "religion", the Sundance Film Festival, polygamists, great ski resorts, and wild-and-crazy guys like Sen. Orin ("Anita Hill is still guilty") Hatch is prominent in the news lately for such stalwart American family value headlines as "Utah woman accused in 6 babies' deaths appears in court" and "US Marshall Fatally Shoots Defendant in Utah Courtroom...meanwhile the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (whew, that's a mouthful so let's just call them Mormons), which was founded to legitimize multiple mistresses for its lecherous founder Joseph Smith (today this guy would be in jail for life, back then they just murdered him), has thrown out of the club (they call it "excommunicated") Kate Kelly for "apostasy"...Kate's crime (besides being an unmarried woman) is that she founded the "Ordain Women Movement" (no explanation needed)...the Mormons monkety-monks are now going after John Dehlin, a straight married man who has a website which advocates (horrors!!) for fair treatment for gay Mormons... this all should do wonders for that "Bring Back Mitt Romney" movement (yes, there really is such a thing)...

...Grimm news (cont'd)...our February 21 edition of Pete's Brew reported on the unstatesmanlike behavior of Congressman Michael Grimm (Neanderthal-Staten Island), who threatened to throw a reporter off "this [blankety-blank] balcony" for daring to ask about Grimm's sleazy financial dealings...we are pleased to report that Congresscrook Grimm has surrendered to the FBI to face a battery of charges including tax evasion related to a restaurant business he owns...we shudder to think about what creep the voters of Staten Island will send to Congress to replace Grimm, whose predecessor Vito Fossella resigned after it emerged that he had a "secret family" in Virginia in addition to his public family in New York...

...it's just a lifestyle, people...our favorite moron politician, Texas Gov'nah Rick ("Scary") Perry is at it again...the most recent words of Longhorn wisdom to emerge from Perry's mouth are that being gay is sort of like being an alcoholic...let's listen to Rick speaking to the Commonwealth Club of California on June 11: "whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle or not, you have the ability to decide not to do that. I may have the genetic coding that I'm inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way"...but we're encouraged - for Texans, this qualifies as progressive thinking ("or not")...good thing Rick doesn't live in Utah, he could be prosecuted for being too tolerant...

Perry: "I am not a drunk"

"and I pray for the strength not to choose the homosexual lifestyle
...or follow the homosexual agenda...unless they're for guns"

Well it's the FOURTH OF JULY in America, and as we say here in "the most important city in the most important country in the most important world in the most important universe in the most important"....well, you get the drift anyway, "Have a Capital Fourth"...with one of the newer all-American beers, brewed by none other than that most American of beach dudes, Jimmy Buffett...Landshark Lager...trust me on this folks, it's really good!!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY

- the Brewmeister -