In the beginning, God made us a deal - you chill, I'll do all the heavy lifting.

Who was this God dude anyway? Didn't matter - the uncertainty was replaced by someone in charge. Our job was to do (and to enjoy), not to know, not to decide. Above our pay grade.

And thus it continued till some damn woman stuck her nose in and said "hey, I hear there's another way".

Another way for what? There we were, minding our own business, heading out to the fields every day....

And then someone says, "How does it work?" OMG, zoots - how *does* it work?

And suddenly the men are wearing suits and wielding slide rules and carrying briefcases and asking about rules.

("Rules?" the bad hombre says to Butch. "First thing is, there are no rules", Butch replies with a kick)

Rules. How this, how that, what size, for how long, in what stages, what color...

We got so good at reckoning and lugging stone, building grain pyramids, we started building to the sky - wheeee!!!

And then it broke. No one knows exactly why, it just done broke.

All that machinery wasted. So we went back to the fields, got ourselves a few feudal lords. And waited.

A long time. A *really* long time.

In 1994, Richard Mellon Scaife, a billionaire heir to the Pittsburgh Mellon fortune, embarked on a new $2.4 million effort to hobble the new liberal president called "The Arkansas Project" with fake news, eventually funding the Paula Jones' lawsuit as well that led to Clinton's impeachment, along with a couple "exposé" books on him.

Scaife did not just embark on his endeavour unwittingly - his ex-OSS (pre-CIA) father had bought a news outlet to disseminate anti-Communist and pro-conservative propaganda worldwide, but had to shut it down once made public.

Scaife's giving of $620 million by 1999 - worth billions in today's dollars - had from the 70's already created The Heritage Foundation and helped sustain such right-wing mainstays as the Hoover Institute, the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), later on NewsMax, FreedomWorks and ALEC. The term "Think Tank" does little credit to the destructively active role these orgs have played in American political life, and Scaife's focused conservative "philanthropy" was unusual for its time, helping to launch the Gingrich "revolution" in 1994 and propped up the new neocon movement post-2000.

[To Terry]. Eight years ago midnight New Year's Eve, I watched fireworks flying across the remote mountains with a queasiness in my belly as the world's economies melted down and Obama prepared to assume the presidency, and I meditated and prayed for his success as only an atheist can do, feeling that if the elements could pull together in some kind of Shakespearean concoction, we'd find a way out of this madness.

It's been a maddening 8 years with occasional somewhat neutered success. The bailout that extended the tax breaks "stimulus" madness, retaining trader bonuses, forked stimulus cash straight to banks that never got used, diverged into largely unpunished mortgage theft after the dust had settled, and as a side-show had Washington bean counters combing over Detroit business trying to understand cars only in terms of cashflow, investors (gotta give the previous owners 100 cents on the dollar), and retirement plans. The health care that'd been derived from Hillary's campaign turned into an industry-friendly mixed cocktail, only after 2 years of favors and invites to all the objectors that never quite showed up in the end. That Nebraskan Senator who helped shove the no-abortion-benefits into the package and then got voted out of office anyway - all those Blue Dogs are gone now, but Obama still played the deficit scold compromise game with the Republicans that they largely won, tying hands for greater social programs. Rahm made it clear that unions no longer had a sure place at the table.

'Twas the day after Christmas and all through the site
Not a blogger was stirring, no postings in sight.
The comments were lined by the masthead with care
With hopes for some non-Trump discussion as fare
While readers rolled restlessly slumped in their beds
Damning hangover headaches that chastened their heads.
My alias and I had just poured a nightcap,
thinking we'd hack out some politically motivated crap.
When out in the blogosphere there arose such a natter,
A tweetstorm with fake news that filled it with chatter.
Off to my Facebook I flew in a rage
To offer my musings on each open page.