LOL, Douchebags

A blowout, Armani Exchange tee, male kissy face, flexing and some dumbass hand gesture for the camera. Do douchebags get anymore textbook than this?

This is what happens when douchebags pass along their DNA

Douchebag of the Week (May 9-15)

Welcome to Cook County, Illinois, where you could be forgiven for thinking the local government is a monarchy. As we were reminded this week, the legislative process here stipulates that a veto from the president of the Cook County Board can only be overridden by a four-fifths, or 80 percent vote from the county’s 17 commissioners.

So you would have to think it has to be good to be current Board president Todd Stroger (often confused with the character Steve Urkel from TV’s “Family Matters”), whose belief that “revenue is reform” led to a full percentage sales tax increase last year that gave Chicago a 10.25 percent rate—the highest of any major city in the country. Additionally, the hike meant a rate no lower than 8.75 percent for communities in suburban Cook County, even inspiring the city of Palatine to talk about seceding.

The move has been enormously unpopular, leading the Chicago Tribune to begin running a “Sales Tax Calendar” reminding readers how long the tax increase has been in place and how many days were left until the February 2, 2010 primary election when voters could presumably replace the commissioners that supported this measure.

This past week, a clear majority of the board attempted repeal the tax increase with a 12-3 vote, two votes short of the necessary amount to override the veto Stroger of course decided to exercise. But Urkel Stroger is willing to change his mind … just not right now:

“I have always supported rolling back the sales tax as funds become available. That is what I committed to in 2007, and that is why I proposed rolling back the sales-tax increase by 25 percent last month. That’s why I am committed to future rollbacks as funds become available.”

The lost business that has led to lost jobs because of this egregious tax increase and the veto on Monday keeping it in place made Stroger douche-worthy enough, but he truly solidified his full douchebag status on Wednesday when it was revealed that Stroger and his wife failed to pay nearly $12,000 in federal income taxes.

So, did Stroger clear up this mess by releasing his tax forms as do many other elected officials—such as, say, Mayor Richard M. Daley?

Not exactly:

“If (people) want to know what we spend our money on, then they need to move into the household and start doing some chores,” said Stroger.

Hopefully, a visit to the Stroger’s home won’t be neccessary. Rather, we’re hoping that as long as Urkel Stroger continues to see Cook County run its historically dysfunctional course, voters are able to perform the only necessary chore of casting the ballots that one day rids this local government of the douchebag running it.

Douchebag of the Week (May 2-8)

That’s Tampa Bay Ray Johnny Gomes there with his fist raised in a game last year against the Boston Red Sox. Ironically, he was the designated hitter that day—a position adopted by the American League in 1973 to generate more offense in games and inflate the league’s batting average by comparison to the National League, where the game is actually played like it’s supposed to be played and the nine guys on the field are the same nine guys that appear at the plate.

Enter Chicago Tribune baseball “expert” Phil Rogers, whose past work earned him occasional infamy over at the late, great Fire Joe Morgan. Clearly hurting for new incoming mail, Phil boldly titled his May 4 column, “Common sense calls: DH in NL too.”

The mere suggestion of making the already controversial rule a universal one is douche-worthy enough (we imagine that many clearer-minded Tumblrs could poke infinite holes in that idea, but we still feel Earl Weaver put it best about the Baltimore Orioles’ first designated hitter, Terry Crowley, in his legendary “Manager’s Corner” interview). Remember that in 2004, an economist and a mathematician found the DH to be a “moral hazard” in how the rule actually encourages pitchers to exhibit truly douche-like behavior by being able to throw at batters without any fear of retaliation.

But that’s all irrelevant to Rogers:

Every time a pitcher takes the field, he’s an accident waiting to happen. The risks inherent in pitching are huge. It’s silly to increase those risks to increase the ones that hitters and baserunners face, especially when so much of a team’s payroll and its hope for success is tied into the arms of those pitchers.

Well, that certainly is an odd bit of twisted logic from Rogers. Oh sure, that statement can sound somewhat reasonable to someone like, say, George Will.

Admittedly, Rogers pointed out that his idea was unpopular (4-to-1 against it) in his follow-up column today. But nowhere in the published responses will you find mention of the fact that just this past March, it was Phil Rogers who was the guy waving the American flag and doing a bit of cheerleading when he reported “U.S. players are having a great time in World Baseball Classic”:

Chipper Jones could have caught the first flight back to the Atlanta Braves’ complex in Florida. He didn’t.

A day after straining a muscle in his side, Jones spent Monday hanging out with his Team USA teammates. “You couldn’t get me away from here with a crowbar,” he said.

Consider that a ringing endorsement for the World Baseball Classic, at least when things are going as well as they are for these guys.

Of course, a week later, Rogers had to report that indeed “Injuries riddle Team USA in World Baseball Classic” and still try to defend his stance that players already contractually obligated to perform in a 162-game season should also go play in a still meaningless global exhibition:

[Team USA Manager Davey] Johnson knows the run of injuries will be used as proof of the folly of the event, which has been popular throughout the world but hasn’t caught on with many fans of major-league teams and some front offices.

You know what else is a folly? The ever-continuing contradictory logic of Phil Rogers (“Pitchers should play all year … but never bat!”), who could just as easily title his next column, “Common sense calls: I’m a douchebag.”

Lance Armstrong says Sheryl Crow’s biological clock doomed their romance:

“She wanted marriage, she wanted children; and not that I didn’t want that, but I didn’t want that at that time because I had just gotten out of a marriage, I’d just had kids [Luke, Grace and Bella],” Armstrong, 37, reveals in the book. “Yet we’re up against her biological clock—that pressure is what cracked it.”

Dude, Lance, you have one nut and you’re putting the blame of your failed relationship on the ticking clock of your significant other’s fertility?

We’ll go ahead and do the honors of what you need tattooed to your forehead.

tsexrex:

it’s funny when someone from high school finds you on facebook, and it makes total sense that they would have a sleeve like this.

I see what you did here…

File under: How to celebrate Cinco de Mayo like a cultureless American Douchebag.

Douchebag of the Week (Apr. 25-May 1)

Yee haw! Behold Texas Gov. Rick Perry this past April 15 at one of the three douche-heavy tea parties he attended that day, playfully suggesting the idea that Lone Star state could get so fed up with that darned federal government that they might just go ahead and flat-out secede:

“There’s a lot of different scenarios,” Perry said. “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.”

But whoa there! Turns out that not but a few cotton-pickin’ weeks later, here’s the same tough-talkin’ Rick Perry this week askin’ for swine flu hysteria assistance from … the federal government?

“Texans can be confident that we’re making every effort to stay ahead of the curve to keep them and their families as safe as possible,” Perry said after Houston officials confirmed the death of a 22-month-old boy.

Staying ahead of the curve, indeed. As it turns out, part-time secession suggestionist  Perry actually sees to it that his state gets more federal disaster relief than any other state.

Yes sir, even the douchebags are bigger in Texas.