Republicans Lie

This post is being posted again in memory of the crash sixty years ago that inspired the original song upon which this one was based. I hope you enjoy and I hope you’ll share it if you do. Thank you.

I have to thank Jane for her fantastic help with some of the words. Her suggestions really made this a lot better and a lot easier to write. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you very much, and if you’re out there Don McLean™, I apologize. 🙂

UPDATE: At the very good suggestion of a poster at dkos (Fumie), I changed one word. “stay” to “pay”. I like it better. I hope you do, too. I am not in the habit of changing these things after I finally post them (except to correct typos.) 🙂

Republicans Lie
(Original words and music, “American Pie™” by Don McLean™,
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider, 2009)

A long, long time ago…
I can still remember
How that party use to show its guile.
And I knew if they had their chance,
That they would take an ugly stance
And maybe they’d be greedy for a while.

But Ronald Reagan made me shiver
With every falsehood he’d deliver.
Bad views for the nation,
I couldn’t fake elation.

I still remember how they cried
When they read about his widowed bride.
But something left them satisfied,
The way they used their lies.

So why, why do Republicans lie?
Give them credit how they edit
Out what they want to hide.
And them Party boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye,
Singin’, “This’ll be the way The Truth dies.
This’ll be the way The Truth dies.”

Do you hate the Book of Rules,
And would you make space for God in schools,
If the Bible tells you so?

There’s Truth, and There’s What Some People Believe

We have a serious problem in America. Too many of our fellow countrymen believe things that are just plain demonstrably untrue. I’m not referring to religious beliefs, which presents its own set of misguided believers (did you know that over the past thirty years, Gallup polls have consistently shown that around 45% of Americans believe that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so?), I’m talking simple facts. It sure surprised me to learn that about one in five Americans believes the Sun revolves around the Earth. I always thought that one was a “no-brainer” and I guess for those one in five, it’s true – they have no brain.

That’s not to say that intelligent people

Bad Newt Rising

Well, we know that besides Callista, there’s at least one person smitten with Newt Gingrich, and that’s Sheldon Adelson, the multi-billionaire who’s been pouring money into a Super PAC that supports Newt. Early on in his book tour presidential run, Newt promised to run “a positive campaign.” But if you’ve listened to him lately, his old, nasty, vindictive self has been rising to the surface once again. This is the same guy who likes to throw the word “radical” at his opponents, not because it fits, but because it’s one of the “contrasting words” that Newt suggested GOP candidates use when talking about their opponents (see the GOPAC memo here), but who also proposed that they fire all but the “Master Janitor” in poor schools and pay the kids to keep their schools clean because it would teach them what earning a paycheck is like. Note that he didn’t propose this idea for rich kids going to school, who likely never saw a parent break a sweat at a job in their lives, only the poor kids. Oh, and proposing a colony on the Moon by the end of his second term isn’t radical? I can tell you why that would never work in one word: Water.

Bad Newt Rising
Original words and music by John Fogarty. Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider, 2012

I see a bad Newt arising.
I see subtle all the way.
I see girth makes him fright’ning.
I see sad times today.

Don’t let him ‘round tonight,
Well he’s bound to change his wife,
There’s a bad Newt on the rise.

I hear

Under Their Scheme

Please don’t sue me, Disney. I just wanted to warn people about the dangers of what the Republicans are trying to do, and I thought a catchy little tune might help. This also happens to be one of my all-time favorite Disney songs.

Under Their Scheme
Original words and music “Under The Sea” by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, 1989
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider, 2011

Sebastian (spoken): Ariel, listen to me. The Ayn Rand world is a mess
Life under their scheme is deader than anything you’d want out there

(singing) The sequence is always greener, in somebody’s else’s take
You dream about growing up there, but that is a big mistake
Just look how their view confounds you, they scare you and want you poor
Such powerful things astound you, what good is they working for?

Under their scheme, under their scheme
Medicare’s deader, not getting better, take it from me