Rick "All Hat" Perry

Poor Rick Perry.  He had the three things every empty suit needs to seduce the Republican primary base: (1) a torrent of money from rich reactionaries to whom he had sold Texas state government, (2) an unashamed willingness to pander to the primitive snake-handling machine gun wielding white men that make up the core of the Grand Old Party, and (3) – well, he forgot the third. It turned out the third was the passionate desire to crucify brown-skinned Spanish-speaking immigrants as soon as they finished mowing Wilfred Romney's lawn and bringing in the harvest from the farms of Perry's agribusiness financiers.  And maybe there was a fourth, as well: the ability to speak extemporaneously on television for two minutes without filling one's pantalones.  You could forgive the coyote-killing Governor from passing over the significance of that one, as his Austin predecessor had been similarly unable to articulate three coherent sentences in a row, and that didn't prevent him from the being elected President by the Supreme Court in 2000.  What's next for All Hat? Our guess: a retooling and circuit upgrade so he can hit the ground running, or at least talking in 2016, assuming the electorate comes to loathe the Romneytron 3.0 as members of his own party have.   

Kris Humphries

There's nothing crueler that having your comfortable existence as a grade-C reality show supporting player yanked from you just as you were getting used to having your pits shaved on basic cable. Yet that's the plight of Kim Kardashian's Schvantz of the Month for August 2011. There's going to be a new one every month, so enjoy every one of your fifteen minutes. Not that Humphries had much going for him other than the ability to walk upright. Those who watch such things [Not us! – Ed.] report that for most of his ten weeks of wedded bliss, he was seen throwing Tractor Tuchus into the ocean, shoving her onto the nuptial bed, and otherwise treating her to what sports fans refer to as the full Roethlisberger. The bad news: if you're a well-buffed mean-spirited moron whose only claim to fame is the target of your ejaculation, the 16th minute can be rough. Just ask last year's poster child for the Clueless: Levi Johnston [Who he? – Ed.].   

Storekeepers 

There's a lot of gassing these days about turning government inside out to protect small business job creators. So when the issue is protecting small Main Street shopkeepers against rapacious Internet giants, where do you think the Republicans line up? Not even close. Each year, schmucks, also known as brick and mortar merchants, lobby Congress to repeal the ban on states compelling Internet retailers to withhold sales tax just like they have to. What's the argument for giving Amazon and eBay a 5% to 10% price advantage vis-à-vis small businessmen trying desperately to keep the lights on downtown? Of course, there isn't one; it's just reactionary no-tax bloody-mindedness that's determined to break the ability of states to spend even one dollar to feed, clothe, educate, house, or heal the poor and unfortunate. Unfortunately, the real victims of this insane inequality are the very small businessmen the Republican humbugs claim to defend. That's why any storekeeper voting Republican earns a spot in our pantheon of the Clueless.

Third time's the charm

Europe

If the blood-drenched history of the Twentieth Century accomplished anything, we are told, it definitively resolved the German Question. Twice Germany provoked wars of conquest and twice, at the cost of millions of lives, the Hun was turned back. Since then les Boches keep telling us they are happy in their little swatch of land between the Rhine and the Oder, more or less.  Of course, they've said that before: didn't one of them once say they had no further territorial ambitions in Europe, in January 1939? Now, armed with the miracle weapon – Geld – Germany has conquered the entire European continent from Estonia to Portugal, with only plucky Britain holding on by its eyelashes. This Pax Germania appears to be slightly less onerous than its two predecessors, at least if you're Jewish, but if you're a Spaniard or Greek consigned to a lifetime of serfdom due to Berlin-imposed "austerity," maybe not so different. Will Europe rise once again and throw off the German yoke? Perhaps it's a promising sign that this time, just like 1940, it took only a month for the French to surrender.