Click to embiggen.

For the past three weeks, the Portsmouth Republicans have had a screaming yellow insert in our local weekly, the Portsmouth Times, and while I generally just laugh at their sad attempts to use cherry-picked statistics to mystify the electorate, I'm still scratching my head over their description of what they call "the new reality."

Gone are the presumptuous times of our past when elected officials believed they were impervious to their spending and taxing appetites and that the taxpayer was forgiving of their every transgression

I can shrug off "presumptuous" and "transgression" as a bad case of thesaurus-induced incoherence, but "officials believed they were impervious to their spending and taxing appetites." Uh...impervious?

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Editorial note: Since David Gleason accused me of being "partisan" today, let me be very clear. THIS is partisan. I am a Democrat, and I am making fun of Republicans who try to talk with big fancy words to dress up their tiny little ideas. That's partisan. When I confront David Gleason for using the Portsmouth 375 logo, and he admits that he did it because he needed cheap signs, that's not a partisan attack. That's me exercising my voice as a citizen and objecting to him taking a public good for his private gain.

Are we clear now, Mr. Gleason, or are you, well, impervious?