Tag Larkin laughs at Tagg Romney

If you were around for the 2008 election, you’ll know that our very own Tag Larkin has a blood grudge against Tagg Romney, the eldest of Mitt Romney’s Patrick Bateman-looking five sons.  Well, Tagg Romney has Tag Larkin’s attention again, this time over something Tagg Romney said in a recent post-debate radio interview.

In an interview with a local North Carolina radio station Wednesday, the candidate’s eldest son was asked what it was like “to hear the president of the United States call your dad a liar.”

“Jump out of your seat and you want to rush down to the stage and take a swing at him,” Tagg responded, laughing. “But you know you can’t do that because, well, first because there’s a lot of Secret Service between you and him, but also because that’s the nature of the process.”

“Oh boo hoo!” Tag Larkin says mockingly.  “Tagg Romney is afraid of the Secret Service.  Tagg Romney fears for his safety.  TAG LARKIN HAS NO FEAR!  Tag Larkin throws punches at heads of state all the time!  Presidents, prime ministers, the steward of Gondor… if you have executive power, Tag Larkin’s thrown a punch at you.  Tagg Romney is a puny dribble of ejaculate compared to Tag Larkin.”

Indeed, Tag Larkin will throw fists with anyone, despite federal and international laws.  It’s a little-known fact that Tag Larkin once punched the Queen of England square in the babymaker once, but if you ask Buckingham Palace they’ll deny it ever happened because what country wants to admit that their monarch got socked in the crotch? Kind of takes the glimmer off that crown, don’t it?

“Tag Larkin doesn’t talk about punching people,” says Tag Larkin after throwing a thermos at a passing bike messenger.  Tag Larkin doesn’t ride bikes – he pedals too hard and snaps chains like they were thread – so he think bikers are mocking him with their ability to ride bikes without breaking them.  “Tag Larkin just punches people, often without warning or reason. Tag Larkin is a man of action, born of fire of fury, not of privilege and pampered wealth.”

Fire and fury are the closest clues to a birthplace we’ve ever gotten from Tag Larkin.  Tag Larkin has an aura of mystery about him.  Also, he has an aura of savage virility, and one time a girl said his semen tasted like cookie dough.

“Tag Larkin has whooped asses in all legislative houses on federal, state, and local levels!”  declares Tag Larkin, and he’s right. Tag Larkin has kicked a Congressman in the taint, he has dropped an elbow on a state senator, and also suplexed an alderman through a table. As of this blog post, Tagg Romney has not assaulted any one from any branch of legislature here or abroad, and this means that Tag Larkin wins.

Tag Larkin always wins. FOREVER!

On a side note: Tagg Romney’s dad almost won Anonymous Doug’s vote during the Presidential debate, but only because Anonymous Doug misheard Mitt’s “binder full of women” quote as “binder of women.”  Anonymous Doug has bound many a woman in the bedroom during his sexually active years upon this earth, and finally here comes a candidate speaking directly to his kinky predilections.  Alas, when the error was pointed out to Anonymous Doug, he was rather crestfallen.

Election season is just a bad time for everyone.

Studying that doesn’t require any studying whatsoever

Here at the Failure, we’ve been leading the way when it comes to the study of bullshit, because who better than the blog of wild fabrications and outright lies to conduct such research, right? And whenever election time comes around in the US, it’s prime bullshit season.  It’s like Haley’s Comet, solar eclipses, and summer blockbuster movie season all wrapped up into a giant bullshit burrito – and everyone gets to take a bite of it.

One of the key bullshit markers we’ve identified this year was people of a Christian bent spouting off bullshit and then trying to sidestep it by declaring that what really matters (other than the truth) is what’s in their heart, or that you don’t know what really in their heart, or their heart is telling them conflicting information than the actual truth.  We haven’t found any evidence of this happening with other faiths yet, but we’d be happy to include them on the list.

Well, there’s another phrase we need to be on the lookout for: “study it out.”  This was brought to our attention through an angry old lady yelling at Chris Matthews that President Obama is a communist – and then failing to explain why she makes that claim.

Matthews: What did you mean by that?

Romney Supporter: All you have to do is study it out. Just study it out and you’ll see. You haven’t done your homework, buddy.

Matthews: What do I need to study?

Romney Supporter: He’s a communist. And those of us who are not voting for him know it.

Matthews: And what do you mean by communist?

Romney Supporter: You don’t know?

Matthews: Just tell me. Help me out here. I want to know what you mean.

Romney Supporter: Oh I know what I mean.

Matthews: Well help us out. You’re on national television.

Romney Supporter: I know I’m on national television.

Matthews: Well tell me what you mean when you just accused the guy of being a communist.

Romney Supporter: You just study it out.

Apparently this phrase just isn’t a weird turn-of-phrase by a raging old woman untethered from reality, it has its roots in the Mormon Faith, which we’ve previously identified as the needless sequel Christianity never asked for.

But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.

It is sort of comforting to see that “truthiness,” as Stephen Colbert coined it, has been around for a while. We’d hate to believe this high level of bullshit was a recent phenomena. You will know what is right because it will feel right – a laughable sentiment because previous research in the Renal Failure labs has determined that your feelings don’t matter.

“Study it out” seems more insidious than the previous “what in my heart” defense because it suggests actual research and thinking being done when really you’re doing none of those things to come to your conclusion.  That’s why the woman is so indignant when asked to explain herself.  I her mind, she’s apparently done the necessary intellectual legwork and you haven’t, so fuck you she’s better than you.  Granted, it’s not hard to be smarter than Chris Matthews (who we are still waiting for someone to stab in the neck with a pencil), but even a number-one ranked team has to put in some effort to beat a team near the bottom of the standings.

So we are pleased to induct “study it out” into your Bullshit Phrase Hall of Fame, putting it right next “what’s in my heart” and “bless your heart” as phrases that denote high-level bullshittery going down. Special thanks to the Church of Latter Day Saints for providing this new term for us to use when we want to justify things when little to no evidence exists to support such selfish assertions.

You’re don’t know how lucky you are to have my husband looking out for himself

Here at the Failure, we’ve come to reconsider what the American Dream – the oldest vague and pointless buzzword in our country’s short history – really means today in the broadest sense of the term.  For example, in a narrow sense of time and people  regarding  the American Dream, it once meant not starving to death in Ireland.  That’s not necessarily the case today – though who knows where Ireland’s current economic problems will lead to.

Today, the American Dream is having “Fuck You” Money , which is where you have so much money you can pretty much say “fuck you” to everyone because of the size of your total wealth.  Because when you have “fuck you” money, you get to say shit like Ann Romney says to people while trying to make people like her husband enough to make him president.

During an interview early this evening with Radio Iowa, Mrs. Romney directly addressed her fellow Republicans who’ve criticized her husband.

“Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring,” she said. “This is hard and, you know, it’s an important thing that we’re doing right now and it’s an important election and it is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt’s qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.”

“Yeah, you don’t know how hard it is to be rich and want to be the most powerful man in the world,” says Tina the Lesbian. “It’s much harder than figuring out poor people problems, like whether to pay for having heat in your home or for those prescription pills that keep your heart pumping blood.”

“I see Ann Romney is using the Mommie Dearest campaign strategy,” says Ninja Vicki. “Particularly the scene where Joan Crawford yells at her daughter ‘Why can’t you give me the respect that I’m entitled to? Why can’t you treat me like I would be treated by any stranger on the street?’ and her daughter (now played by the American electorate) replies ‘Because I am NOT one of your fans!’ I expect Ann Romney to strangle someone or hack down an orange tree with an axe in the next month or so.”

Or not, because Ann Romney canceled interviews with reporters after her “No wire hangers” moment with the press.

“So when Mitt Romney said his campaign only uses his wife sparingly because they don’t want people to get tired of her, it was really a nicer way of saying that the less they use her the less likely she is to pitch a self-entitled queen shit-fit,” says Mikka.  “Hey lady, until your husband is accused every day on an hourly basis of being a secret Kenyan communist Muslim black-power terrorist who will round up all the white people into FEMA-sponsored death camps, you’re nowhere close to knowing what hard is.”

“She’s talking like a crooked pimp talks to his ho’s,” says Avonia the Wiccan Pimp.  “Hey, you know how lucky you are to have me looking out for you?  To have me selling your ass on the street, taking all of your money, and keeping you hooked on heroin?  I am doing all this for you, you selfish bitch, and I will slap the inconsiderateness out of your mouth if you look at me sideaways again!  Now vote for Mitt Romney!”

The concept of Ann Romney as a pimp makes a lot more sense than it really should.  For one, pimping ain’t easy.  In fact, it’s very hard.  Also, Ann Romney’s already shown the back of her hand to women voters in a campaign stop earlier in September…

“Women, you need to wake up,” she urged them. “Women have to ask themselves who’s going to have and be there for you. I can promise you, I know, that Mitt will be there for you. He will stand up for you, he will hear your voices.”

Then there was her message to Latino voters at the end of August…

Hispanics are an important voting bloc, especially in this battleground state. Romney said she’s speaking out to make “sure that those coalitions,” referring to women and Hispanic voters, “that would naturally be voting for another party wake up and say, You’d better really look at the issues this time.”

“You’d better really look at your future and figure out who’s going to be the guy that’s going to make it better for you and your children, and there is only one answer,” Mrs. Romney said, giving a harsher pitch than we usually hear from the woman who wants to be the next first lady.

“When you tell someone to wake up when they’re not sleeping, you’re being a dick,” says Bernie the Half-Cyborg Cat.  “No one has ever been converted to  a point of view by being told to ‘wake up.’  You might as well just call them a fucktarded dumbass and save yourself the trouble of being polite and bothering to bring them over to your way of thinking.”

“That sounds like the worst pick-up line ever,” says Anonymous Doug.  “Hey, baby, do you want to go out?  No?  Hey, missy, you’d better really look at your future and figure out who’s going to be the guy that’s going to make it better for you and your children, and there is only one answer – me!  Now get in my car – we’re going to Applebee’s!”

The strange thing about when Ann Romney tries to convince people to vote for her husband is that she doesn’t say exactly why you should do so or what specifically he would do as president, only that you should just take her word for it that he’s going to do a good job.  And that sort of “Just do what I say and shut up” attitude comes from having “Fuck You” money.  It’s what makes having “Fuck You” money so appealing, and thus it’s what makes “Fuck you” money the new American Dream.

What should the American Dream be other than having “fuck you” money?  How about being Tag Larkin?  Sure, you can never be Tag Larkin, but that’s what dreams are for.

You’re interrupting Pokemon for this?

We’ve been taking it easy here at the Failure.  Haven’t watched most of the Olympics, but we will say that we are fascinated by the sport of Handball.  It’s our favorite obscure sport of the summer (our winter one is curling).  It’s certainly more interesting and exciting than soccer.  No fucking nil-nil ties, and no wankers diving to the ground when a stiff breeze hits them either.

But during these games, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney decided not to wait for the Republican convention in September and name his Vice-Presidential nominee this past Saturday morning.  I may not be the savviest media analyst in the game, but I’m pretty sure the strategy of making a major announcement on a Saturday morning only works if you’re debuting a new kids’ cartoon, line of toys, or sugary cereal.  We wonder if any of the networks cut into their Saturday morning cartoons to run this announcement, which would lead us to believe Mitt Romney chose to announce his VP just to fuck with children – which makes a lot more sense than it really should.

Anyway, Romney chose Congressman Paul Ryan from Wisconsin, who as regular Renal readers may recall came up with the worst budget idea ever but pundits like it because it fucks poor people in the ass with a plugged-in curling iron.  The linked article by New York Times paint-drinker-in-residence Matt Bai has this money paragraph:

Republicans admire the boldness of Mr. Ryan’s vision, even if his proposals are a little too bleak for the campaign trail. “He’s not saying the world’s going to be full of butterscotch sundaes,” is how Jeb Bush described the plan to me recently. “He’s saying: ‘Eat your broccoli. And then maybe you don’t get to eat at all for a few days. You don’t get steak — ever.’”

Of course, it’s only the poor people who get stuck eating broccoli once every couple days. The rich people actually get to eat more steak than usual.  But apparently two years after this bold vision of food deprivation, it’s been decided that this plan is no longer too bleak for the campaign trail – now it gets to be the headlining act.  It’s like when you hear a bad idea being pitched for a movie and you think ” That sounds fucking awful” and then you forget about it until it actually hits theaters a year or so later and you’re like “Oh fuck, they really went through with it.”  Yeah, that system isn’t just relegated to Hollywood.

On a glibber, more personal note we like this choice because we know a local stand-up comic who looks like Paul Ryan and now he’s going to be set for material at least the next three months (and he’s a cool guy too).

Ryan’s an improvement over 2008′s VP-nominee Sarah Palin in that Paul Ryan can form coherent sentences that have punctuation and can be properly diagrammed.  And should he lose in November, we’re pretty sure he won’t quit his Congressman job and go into reality TV.

Best of all, at least to us, we’re going to a prominent look at  a specimen the newest American philosophy that merges Ayn Rand’s Objectivism and Prosperity Christianity together so that you get all the assholish, selfish sociopathy but with none of the atheism and twice the daily recommended dosage of Capitalist He-Man/Morally Judgmental Jesus (he’s the version of Jesus who says it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, so we’re going to use child labor in our factories in Southeast Asia to make really big fucking needles and impale poor people with them, oh and gays are icky).  Sure, Ryan’s had to distance himself from his previous praise and devotion for Ayn Rand because her atheism doesn’t jibe too well with Capitalist He-Man/Morally Judgmental Jesus, but it’s a small concession to make in the larger scheme of stomping poor people in the face in service to the wealthiest among us.

So… Romney/Ryan 2012 – Because rich people have a sad.

Retroactively my teenage years weren’t filled with humiliation and isolation

It’s been a busy week for us here at the Failure, ever since Mitt Romney taught us the secrets of time travel when one of his aides went on TV to say that Mitt had “retroactively retired” from Bain Capital in 1999 even though he still working there through 2002.  Retroactive is new bullshit flavor of the month, so get it while it’s still popular.

“I retroactively invented Instagram,” I say.  “And also I retroactively recorded the song The Humpty Dance.”

“Retroactive to 2005, I dated Sarah Michelle Gellar,” says Tina the Lesbian.  “It was such a hot relationship, no one remembers it even happening.

“Retroactively I got accepted to Princeton,” says Avonia the Wiccan Pimp.  “And while we’re at it… I also got in with a 4.0 GPA, majored in Political Science, and eventually became a state senator.”

“I retroactively wore a rubber when I banged that twitchy freak room chick in that crack house,” says Anonymous Doug.  “So retroactively I did not need those penicillin shots and thus should get a refund from my general practitioner for services that were retroactively not rendered for the insane burning on my crotch that never happened.”

“Retroactively I wasn’t the last girl in my class to get her period,” says Ninja Vicki.   “Dorothy Radon fucking lied, and if she hadn’t been murdered by her ex-husband, I’d torture the shit out of her to make her confess.  Wait, I retroactively made Dorothy Radon confess to actually being the last in my class to get her period.  Fuck yeah bullshit time travel!”

“If I watch a bootleg copy of The Dark Knight Rises before it comes out in theaters, does that mean I retroactively saw it?”  says Bernie the Half-Cyborg Cat.  “Because that’s what I did with the other two Batman movies.”

“My boss got on my case for being late to work, so I showed up early the next day and told him that meant I was retroactively on-time,” says Mikka.  “He wasn’t sure how that worked, so he couldn’t argue.”

“I retroactively went to my senior prom,” says Samurai Cathy.  “The country club that they held the prom at 16 years ago held a sword auction last month that I attended.  That counts.”

“Tag Larkin does nothing retroactively!”  says Tag Larkin.  “The world reacts retroactively to everything Tag Larkin does!”

We wrote this post on a Wednesday, but with WordPress publishing we could have retroactively posted to last Monday, but then you’d never know that we had written this post.  So then when you tell us we only wrote one post last week, we’d go “Nah uh, because we wrote two, one was just written retroactively from this week!”  And then who would look foolish?  Not us, because we’re the one bending space and time.