You Should Be Scared Now

Tags

editorial, Election 2012, foreign policy, Mitt Romney, Neo-cons, war hawks

Your intrepid writer (that would be me) is going into the darkness once again in an attempt to get inside the head of the average, leaning Romney, but feeling slightly uncomfortable. The realm of the few undecided who are fairly high information types. So the five of you, listen up.

I have a safety rope attached, so if I tug twice, pull you swabbies for all you are worth. This ain’t no aircraft carrier you know.

Okay, so Romney is no Georgie Bushkins. I mean in what drives this man. Georgie was the screw-up in the family Bush and decided that bein’ Prez would be a good way to show old Dad and Babs that he was “somebody.” Romney is no Dubya, in that sense.

No, I read Romney as driven by his Mormonism. A recall a younger man talking about coming back from mission and feeling as he claims most of them do, “so anxious to get on with making their mark in the world.” It’s a fundamental stand of the Mormon Church as I understand it, to take the gifts given and achieve for the glory of God, (and the church).

Now, George Romney came up from nothing and became not only the CEO of a major car company, but a two-term Governor if Michigan, and failed at running for President. Willard starts up three floors. Becoming a CEO of a car company is no real accomplishment, so he switched to venture capitalism, where he certainly made his mark. But being even Governor would not measure up, so I believe he set his sights on the Presidency while still a very young man.

This is not to prove anything to anyone else, it is to PROVE TO HIMSELF that he has achieved what he should. All his efforts for decades have been setting up that scenario. The last two years as Governor of Massachusetts was largely spent out of state setting up his political framework.

That is the backdrop.

Now consider yourself an average hardworking working class stiff who isn’t doing all that well. You’ve been treading water for a long time, just getting by. You figure you’re entitled to better. You aren’t much of an ideologue. You don’t consider yourself a racist, a sexist, or unfeeling when it comes to the needy. You’re more inclined to live and let live and so some of Romney’s rhetoric on social issues makes you uncomfortable.

But, you think, “hey, he is a successful businessman, and if business is happy, maybe they will start ramping up their companies, hiring and raising wages. That’s good for me. Romney probably can do that even though I know he is basically an opportunist. Business will love him being president, and that should be good for me. I don’t feel real good about how he might screw the less fortunate, but hey we all have to sacrifice. If this makes our economy better for all of us in the end, we just gotta bite the bullet. And besides, the Democrats won’t just lay down on this social stuff. They’ll fight him.”

So you are leaning toward the Willard, even though you know he changes his mind about most things, and you don’t really have a clue where he really stands on much of anything.

Now bring in the foreign policy debate.

Romney has undeniably rattled the sabre for months, if not years, when it comes to foreign policy. We have heard about the President being an apologist, (code for not being a real American), about American Exceptionalism, about American superiority and how we are the leader of the world. We have heard all about not being tough enough on Russia, Iran, Syria, and China  and that we have not glued ourselves sufficiently tight to Israel. We have heard about leaving Iraq too soon, and not setting deadlines for withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Most all of this has come from his foreign policy advisors who are basically a collection of Bushites. Fully 18 or 24 of his advisors are old Bush boys. They are essentially neo-cons and war hawks who have their very own agenda (which they pushed Bush into adopting), and how want to return to that through Romney.

In the debate, Romney did not say any of the things he’s been parroting for months about various aspects of foreign policy. Instead, he pivoted to the hard middle, and tried to present himself as a “man of peace” who would leave no stone unturned to avoid war anywhere in the world. He agreed with Obama at nearly every turn. He did what he did in the first debate, he pretended not to know anything about the policies he had been pushing for years.

In a stunning reversal, he showed once again that he will say anything–literally anything–to get a vote.

Why does this matter given that this is nothing new?

It shows that he is, like Palin, supremely uninterested in foreign affairs. I heard in passing that a couple of his aides admit that he doesn’t read the daily foreign policy briefings. He had memorized a whole set of “policies” for the world, none of which he cares about. When it became prudent to help secure the “women’s vote” (presumably more pacifist), to tack to the middle and seem not threatening, he did so.

He doesn’t respect the electorate. But that is not the crime. The crime is that he does not care about the world, insofar as it has nothing to do with becoming President. Being President is ALL that matters. And if he becomes President, he will continue not carrying, and the same neocons and war hawks will be making the decisions.

The decisions they make will invariably, I believe, lead us into another war. The neocons desire American control in the Middle East and those reasons have zero to do with stability there other that the stability required to get their hands on the oil. That is their goal. They live in a weird world of American superiority and control over the entire globe. Where we can force everyone to dance to our tune because we can and will enforce our will on them.

A vote for Romney is a vote for shadow government who will “do the foreign policy” while Willard makes life more comfortable for the rich, who he truly believes are the reason why America is what it is. The rest of us?

Somebody’s got to carry the rifles. It ain’t gonna be his sons and grandkids–they go on “mission” instead. It’s your kids who will be the fodder in the next war machine.

So consider that when you vote. Please, THINK.

Related articles

• Robert Reich: Obama as Commander-in-Chief, Romney as Dithering Bully (huffingtonpost.com)
• | 5 Facts To Commit To Memory Before Tonight’s Foreign Policy Debate! (truthaholics.wordpress.com)
• Opinion: Romney Scrambles to Be Obama-lite on Foreign Policy (wnyc.org)
• Obama takes Romney to school (politico.com)
• Foreign policy: Is Mitt running as Dubya or Obama – or both? (salon.com)
• Decision 2012 – Romney Has Senior Moment On Libya, Defense Spending, Neocon Advisors (hulu.com)
• Mormon Assclown Romney’s Ludicrous Foreign Policy Cockups! (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
• Mitt Romney, the Man of a Thousand Faces, Tried to Put on an Obama Mask Tonight. It Didn’t Go Well. (slog.thestranger.com)
• Final presidential debate exposes the real Mitt Romney (thegrio.com)
• 18 Ways Mitt Romney Is Just Like George W. Bush | Politics News | Rolling Stone (spiceofyourlife.wordpress.com)

 

It Either Feels Good or God Did It

Tags

crazy, Election 2012, GOP, right-wing insanity, tea party

I’m beginning to wonder that shooting yourself in the foot must feel good. Otherwise, why are so many Regooflicans doing it with abandon? If it hurts as much as I suspect it must, then there is only one other alternative–God actively jerks chains and changes the game. I must tell you, that I don’t believe in the latter-it just screws up my entire theological mindset to believe that the game is rigged.

So, it must feel good. Of what am I speaking you ask?

Oh.

See I pride myself on a certain sense of what is logical. You know. You put your finger on a hot stove and “yikes that sucker is HOT.” You avoid similar finger touching in the future. Logical? Of course.

So, let’s say that you are in a very contested and tight race for a political seat. You are facing a very tough challenger, you are pretty much tied in the polls, or even worse, you are behind. Every vote counts. It is long since time when you had to appeal to your “base” wherever they may sit on the sane<———————>insane scale, and with ReStuplicans, it’s pretty much —————————>way over here. You are appealing to the tiny group of “undecided” voters who may be everything from insane to sane but have more interesting things to do than listen to candidates up until the last couple of weeks when they are gonna “decide.”

So, given that these people are “relatively” (and I use the term with a certain amount of rolling of my eyes) logical and sane, because after all, worrying about bills, whether Susie needs braces or Bobby will make the soccer team, not to say the least of which dish to take to the family reunion next Saturday, you would want, as a candidate, to say rather intelligent, and BENIGN things, doncha think?  (I know, I just love to let sentences go on for ever since it’s so Marcel Proust and so very much against all advice as to how to write, but I have now digressed haven’t I?)

Anyway, my point was, shouldn’t you not say stupid and controversial things that would be offensive to huge segments of the population you are trying to convince to give you another go round the old DC circuit? Huh?

Well, such is not apparently the case, and I can assume safely I think that the “So you want to be re-elected Mr/Mrs/Ms Republican” video doesn’t stress acting sensible in the last few weeks before the big voting thing.

Cases in point, or case in points as the case may be.

Todd, my man who fancies himself a medical gynecologist, of “legitimate rape” fame, is in the fight of his life. Abandoned, then embraced by principle-lacking Rethuglicans, Akin finds himself behind in the polls in a race that literally couldn’t be lost before his foot in mouth disease moment.

So you might think, that he just might. . .just might try to make “normal” remarks heading toward the vote day? No, not our Toddy. He went off and called Ms. McCaskill, “unladylike” in her debate manner.

Now some folks thought that just plain funny of old 18th-century livin’ Toddy, but others nodded that he was a misogynist, paternalistic, asswipe.

And some of that latter group is going to vote.

So, not to be associated with anything logical, Toddlikins ups the ante. Now he has referred to Ms. McCaskill as having the mannerisms of a dog.

Now dogs are fine creatures as so many of us know. They are loyal and loving, and aim to please, but they are after all, dogs–who have some limitations on their ability to reason (I keep telling Diego to stop walking through the dirt I’ve just swept into a puddle while I run for the dustpan, but he just finds that little puddle of dirt wonderfully interesting so he stands in it and sniffs, puffing the dust motes into the air–digression again, I know).

So my achin’ Akin referred to the Senator as someone who is kinda dumb and just does what the DNC tells her to do. But you see, dog is not so far from female dog, and female dog is B I O T C H, and we are back to that misogynist paternalistic thing again.

Todd, what are you thinkin’ there boy? You got no more feet to shoot!

Cases in point number dos ( just a little Spanish practice)

My beloved (are you kidding me?) Steve King from Iowa is also in a race for his life with Christie Vilsack, the wife of the former Governor of Iowa and present Secretary of Agriculture, you know, Christie.

Now King is from the arguably most conservative area in all of Iowa, but just because they are only a few points up from being classified as intellectually challenged out there in the western section of the state, don’t mean the entire congressional district is competing to challenge chimpanzees for the lower SAT scores.

Mrs. Vilsack claimed that King was against the sale of contraception to ANYONE. And his answer was?

He took us on a long and detailed explanation of why Griswold v. Connecticut (which struck down a state law making it illegal to buy contraception) was wrongly decided. He explained that the SCOTUS based the decision on a “freedom of privacy” which doesn’t exist in the Constitution. I could explain all this but you probably don’t care, so I won’t.

He is then asked, does he personally find himself against the sale and use of contraception by people, married, or otherwise. Does he say, “hey of course not, that would be. . .INSANE!”????

No, he says, “I have not taken a position on that issue.”

Well, doncha think you should moron? And don’t you think you should say either I am of course in favor of contraception or I’m a Catholic who follows the teaching of my church in my own personal life, but I don’t presume to tell others who aren’t Catholic and find contraception okay, that they are wrong?

Isn’t that would you would say?

Tell me that is what you would say?

Have I lost my mind?

Do these people want to lose?

All I can say is that I sure hope so.  It must be a disease. It is called Tea-Party-Dementia. I hope they all get it.

As the President said, “we have a cure for that, it’s a covered under Obamacare as a pre-existing condition.”

What do you say?

Related articles

• FOURTH DISTRICT: The Race Between King and Vilsack (whotv.com)
• Steve King: Comparing Immigrants To Dogs Was ‘A Compliment’ (huffingtonpost.com)
• Tea Party favorite Steve King in trouble (salon.com)
• Todd Akin Likens Claire McCaskill To ‘One Of Those Dogs,’ Fetching Taxes, Bureaucracy (AUDIO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• New poll has McCaskill up 6, Nixon’s leading (but not by as much) and Kinder-Montee in a knott (midwestdemocracy.com)

 

It’s Alive! My Old Yeller KitchenAid Still Breathes!

Tags

Humor, kitchen disasters, KitchenAid, life in the foothills

For some reason, I become a maven of the kitchen on Saturday. Today I’m make the classic French Chef dish, Boeuf Bourguignon, made famous by Julia Child. It’s a time-consuming recipe rather than being difficult, but that’s not my story about the KitchenAid mixer. No, that is the other recipe I’m making which is called S’more’s Monkey Bread and is just another of the infinite Monkey Bread variations of which I have become enamored.

So anyway, this is a yeast dough and I have it all mixed nicely and am kneading it in my machine, similar to the one pictured at left. Mine however is ancient having been secured at a  farm auction for the dear price of $60 over 12 years ago. Now given that it is probably from the 50’s or so, I figure this baby is in its yellowed condition, some fifty years old.

So, as I was saying, I have the Boeuf in the oven, (okay so it’s a fancy beef stew), and I have the KitchenAid a beating away, kneading, and I’m taking a moment to rest my weary tootsies and sip a bit of coffee for five while it does my work for me. The Contrarian is in the kitchen making himself an egg salad sandwich for breakfast, when all of a sudden such a crash was not heard since the aliens crash landed at Roswell up the road a bit.

I rushed into the kitchen, where the Contrarian is standing at the sink, holding his chest, and looking at the floor, which is now the new home of my good-old mixer. The bowl is askew and my dough is oozing out onto my immaculate floor (I am NOT throwing away that dough I can tell you that!). The back of the machine has sprung loose, and the cord is laying fully out, having stretched and pulled itself out as well.

Together we pick it up, me grieving like I have just lost a relative to a tornado, and deposit it back on the counter from which it walked itself off and over the cliff to the waiting CERAMIC tiled floor. I get the bowl which is only banged up and bent a bit. The mixer had apparently landed on its nose, and there was a chip gone from the snout and the cover plate was on the floor under the counter and wouldn’t go back in. The dough hook  unlocked, and I retrieved it with my dough. The Contrarian ran to the garage for a screw driver.

I am moaning, since a new one of these costs more money that I can afford to display at one place at one time. I am figuring my serious baking days are about over. Since I don’t bake from boxes, I rely on my KitchenAid almost weekly for cakes, and various yeast doughs and fillings.

Meanwhile the Contrarian places the back casing back together and screws it back in place. He plugs it in, and well, I wait to hear the a new rendition of Simon and Garfunkel’s, The Sound of Silence, or just as bad, a grinding, clanging, scream of “I”m broke and that’s that!”

I heard neither.

It hummed. It hummed with the same beautiful rhythm of old.

I cried for joy!

Seriously.

Now, you and I both know that all the normal mixers of average price which are made of plastic and look shiny nice, would have erupted into 25 or more pieces, and would have been fit for the trash.

There is a reason  that KitchenAid products cost what they do. They are THAT GOOD.

So, if you are thinking of buying a mixer, one that is heavy-duty enough to tackle the heaviest doughs and batters, this is the one you want. It may take you a while to save up for it, but it will be worth it. Take it from me and my experience. As the Contrarian said:

“That is the first thing that has hit this floor and survived to tell about it.”

And before you ask, no I don’t have any deal with KitchenAid. I have been entering the Pioneer Woman’s contests for free KitchenAid’s for a couple of years. I so much would like a new one but alas no luck so far. But it seems that I shall always have my trusty Old Yeller (that is her name since she has discolored over the years) to rely on, and that’s a good thing.

PS: I’ll post the Monkey Bread recipe soon over at the cooking site: What’s on the Stove? in a few weeks. I’m a bit behind and plan to post a recipe called Apple Cheesecake Bars today.

Have a great day.

My Old Yeller

Time to Bring CongressMEN into the Hospital

Tags

Election 2012, GOP, Humor, Joe Wash, Reproductive Rights, sarcasm by the bucket, teabaggers, women's health

We been doin’ this all wrong folks. Dumb us! Us wimmin’ been confused once again, showin’ the need for that fine masculine hand to show us the way.

We been going to MEDICAL doctors for health advice. Stupid us, when all the time it’s the CongressMEN of America we should be asking to ‘splain to us what ails us and what’s the cure.

You all remember how Todd Akin informed us that if we were “really” raped, than we would produce some mooby-dooby juice that would kill that durn sperm in their wiggly tracks and leave us pregnancy free. Remember that?

And him? He was a salesman and then a steel executive in the family business. But he didn’t get his medical smarts there–no he got it when he got to Congress. It was right there in the “freshman packet of how to be a Congressman” handed out to him and all the new Congressmen by the House page. Chapter 394, entitled: Your New Medical Degree, explains in only 12 pages all the medical stuff a Congressman needs to know in order to pontificate on women’s naughty parts, which is all the Congress ever investigates or legislates about if you are of the Republican flavor.

Iffin’ you don’t believe me, I give you case in point number two. We just adore Joe Walsh from Illinois. He’s a favorite of ours because he says such silly things. We thought he was such a jerk, but heck, we were wrong. Now that we have found our right binder to live in, we realize that he too “had our back” all the time.

Joe, who dabbled in theatre, and then went on to social work and teaching history (can you just imagine how many people want to erase that thought from their noggins?), went on to Congress and he too got his How to be a Congressman packet and it too contained his Medical Degree.

He explained to us slow learners (women of Merika, that be you!), that we can’t have no abortion for any reason what-so-ever! No, he is not one of those avoidance  types who throws up his hands and says, “let God decide”, cause it would seem to me that iffin’ it’s actually God’s will that I be raped, and then I develop some sort of dangerous condition that threatens to kill me if I carry this fetus to term? If that happens, I guess you could argue that God will decide how it all turns out, much like those folks who don’t allow blood transfusions and just pray, because that is the Godly way of doing it, right?

Well, no. Joe, see he is a medical doctor (and not just posing as one as did Robert Young, who was constantly asked medical advice by the way, which he dutifully deflected with the statement, “I’m not really a doctor, I just play one on TV). Where was I?

Oh, yes, Joe, and his medical advice.

He says, Joe that is, that there is no such thing as a need for abortion to “save the life of the mother,” since his twelve pages of Medical mumbo jumbo included the fact that given the world’s state of technology and science, there ain’t nothing they can’t fix! Nope, nothing at all that they can’t spray, operate on, medicate, x-ray, irradiate, fumigate, cut off, sew-up, or chant over and fix.

Joe says that either that is what he read, or it was about how to change a tire in the Congressional parking garage. One or the other, but heck, it’s close enough.

In either case, us silly wimmin’ are suitably informed now, and we can just stop worrying our pretty little heads about the “dangers” of pregnancy.

Joe believes everyone lives forever of course, since technology and science must have solved all the other diseases too. He says Arlen Specter and all the rest of the folks you think are dead? why they are just hanging out in the Cayman Islands where they work as money counters keeping the tabs on Romney’s millions.

Boy, the things we girls just don’t understand.

Related articles

• GOP rep: Abortions unnecessary to save women (usatoday.com)
• GOP congressman admits Paul Ryan, GOP will “end” Medicare (elections.americablog.com)
• Rep. Joe Walsh: Abortion never medically necessary (tv.msnbc.com)
• Another Republican doesn’t understand female reproduction (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
• Republican Rep. Joe Walsh To Employers: Threaten Employees To Vote For Romney (alan.com)
• More Junk Science: GOP Congressman Says Abortion Is Never Necessary To Save A Woman’s Life (thinkprogress.org)

It’s Raining Binders of Women

Tags

Election 2012, Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, Mitt Romney, Reproductive Rights, Women's issues

Before hauling butt out into the desert this morning, Diego and I were able to catch a bit of Morning Joe, which I just love because I love Mika. So, they were still talking about the debate, because that is what news talk shows do, talk about old news until something new peaks their interest.

As Mika broached the subject of Romney and women, Joe was quick to point out that “women have more concerns than just abortion.” This caused Mark Halperin, (perennial douche) to chime in that “we need to have a substantive discussion between the candidates about what they would do for women, but this binder stuff is distracting and just details.” He also considered the fact that Romney lied about the binders in the first place a “detail” of little importance to the big issue.

Mika rightly pointed out that the fact that he was prepared with an answer using an anecdote of his past, and that he lied about the story was significant.

Willy Geist of course agreed with Halperin.

Men don’t get it. At least most of them don’t. Well, to be fair, REPUBLICAN MEN DON’T GET IT. And it’s got everything to do with how they actually view women.

Let’s take a look at what the binders comment means to women and what else Romney said that is indicative that he no more “gets” it than he gets brats and beer on Sunday.

At the debate Romney made these basic arguments:

1. 1. He realized upon becoming Governor of Massachusetts that there were no women candidates put forth by his staff for cabinet positions. He demanded that a search begin to find qualified women.
2. 2. At least one woman on his staff was given flex time so she could get home to “fix dinner”.
3. 3. All women should have a right to contraceptive care and he would never do anything to hamper that.
4. When asked about assault rifles, he waxed on about how women with children should be married, and that somehow households without the man/woman + children contributes to gun violence.

Now let’s look at the record:

1. Romney has never publicly acknowledged that the Lilly Ledbetter Act for equal pay for women was a good thing. In fact his staff apparently has said he was against it, but “would not actively work to repeal it now.” Note that only about 2 Republicans ever voted for it in the first place.
2. Romney is decidedly (at this point anyway) in favor of taking away a woman’s right to choose. He vacillates as to what exceptions might apply. He has said both “the health of the woman” and the “life of the woman”. It remains unclear why a fetus loses it status as a life when it results from rape or incest, but Romney maintains these exceptions, at least so far. Ryan of course makes only one exception: for the life of the woman.
3. Romney opposes “Obamacare” which in part protects women’s health by denying insurance companies the right to deny women coverage based on pre-existing conditions. Romney lied and said that his “health care plan” includes this protection but it does not. It only states that if you lose your job and were covered, and continue to pay your COBRA, you can get a new coverage within 3 months and not be denied on the basis of a pre-existing condition. The existing law covers anyone, not just those who already have coverage they are losing.
4. Romney has made it crystal clear that he intends to defund Planned Parenthood. PPH is the only source of health care for millions of poor women. It is where they get mammograms and cervical cancer screenings. It is where they get contraceptive care.
5. Romney came out in favor of the Blunt Amendment which would have given employers the right to deny women working for them, coverage for contraceptive care under their health care policies. They had in effect a right to reject paying for it, because they were “morally” opposed to contraception.

What his comments at the debate said to women:

1. Apparently though all the years that Romney has been a businessman he had not come across any “qualified women” to appoint to his cabinet. He had to direct his staff to find some.
2. We now know that this “story” was fabricated. A women’s group presented the list of resumes to the Governor when he was elected. They prepared it for whomever won the election.
3. His claim that he gave one woman on his staff flex time is admirable, but his claim that he did so because she had to get home to “fix dinner” is indicative of a mindset that women’s jobs include taking care of the household. It apparently doesn’t occur to the governor that men can cook dinner too.
4. When Romney says that single mothers do a wonderful job but it’s better to wait and get married, then have sex and produce children, and this somehow impacts assault weapons possession and use, he’s basically saying that single mothers, by their promiscuity, are responsible for gun violence (an admittedly mostly male phenomenon).
5. His claim that believed that women had a right to contraceptive care and that he would do nothing to impinge on it and didn’t believe employers should have that right, is patently a lie, given his support of the Blunt Amendment.

Which all comes down to this: Romney carries on the tradition of women having their “place” in the world, behind and supporting their husbands. He has learned all the nice phrases to make it seem that he “respects” women in their very hard role as mother and housekeeper, but frankly women need to be guided by men in their reproductive decisions and in their behavior. Men should continue to control these issues for women because men know what’s best for them.

That’s what women hear from Mitt Romney. And frankly, I think we have pegged him just about perfectly.

Related articles

• Mika Brzezinski Calls Out Mitt Romney For Lying About Seeking Out ‘Binders Full Of Women’ (mediaite.com)
• Romney Lied About ‘Binders Full Of Women’ Anecdote. Surprised? (addictinginfo.org)
• Mitt Romney’s binders full of women just don’t stack up (guardian.co.uk)
• Five Ways Romney Alienated Women In The Second Presidential Debate (thinkprogress.org)
• Despite Bulging Binders, Mitt Romney Was Awful at Hiring Women as Massachusetts Governor [That’s So Romney] (jezebel.com)
• About Mitt Romney’s ‘binders full of women’? Guess what. It’s BS. (dailykos.com)
• ‘Binders full of women’ (maddowblog.msnbc.com)
• The “Binders full of women’ meme and coverage (psawomenpolitics.wordpress.com)
• ‘Binders Full of Women’ Illustrates Memes’ Power (rollcall.com)
• ‘Too Small for Women’: Amazon Flooded With Hilarious Reviews of Binders in Wake of Debate [Debates] (gawker.com)

 

Oh Gosh, What a Difference a Night May Make, or Not

Tags

debates, Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Mitt's lying

I didn’t have much to say about Debate I. President Obama was not prepared, neither having done his homework  it seemed, nor was he ready for a Romney who simply rewrites his position whenever the political winds seem most helpful. He lost in the public opinion, though he surely won on the facts.  But as we increasingly know, facts matter little.

Last night was a different story. The President came prepared to take off the gloves and call a spade a spade. Romney attempted to run over him as he had the first time, pushing aside the moderator and taking that elite-entitled control as the “most important man in the room.” He shockingly silenced the President, announcing, “you’ll get your turn when I’m finished,” and “that was not a question, that was a statement” dismissing the President’s interjection, and talking on.

He time and time interrupted the moderator telling her he wanted to answer the President’s statement, then arguing with her, and finally just saying what he wanted to say in spite of her attempts to keep to the rules. He was the first to violate the agreed upon rules by walking up the President and demanding answers to specific questions–answers he got and probably wished he hadn’t asked for after all.

Funny isn’t it how Vice President Biden was subjected to withering criticism by the Right for being intemperate and rude to the moderator, but oddly they were silent in the face of Romney’s dismissive and rude behavior toward both the President, the Office of the Presidency, and the moderator.

Romney of course, relied on lies once again, claiming that he was not in favor of allowing either legislatures or employers power over the reproductive rights of women. But of course he’s on record as supporting fully the Blunt Amendment which would have authorized just those things. Further his determination to defund Planned Parenthood strikes most seriously at the contraceptive needs of poor women.

In the end, Romney walked into trap after trap. It was as if the President knew that if he dropped these little enticements, Romney could not fail but jump to gobble them up and open himself up to disaster. He did so regarding Detroit and the bailouts, then of course most famously on Libya where he simple didn’t know the facts, and finally he had the stupidity to mention in his closing that he was “for 100% of the people”, giving the President the perfect opening on the 47% argument, and Romney could do nothing but stand there with that weird stance and look.

How will it all play out? It’s anybody’s guess. Romney by rights had no claim to a move up in the polls given that he lied all through the first debate. But he did. He lied a good deal in the second according to the fact checkers so far. Will it matter? Will President Obama’s crisp clean answers coupled with a deadly assault on Romney’s etch-a-sketch political philosophy make any difference?

I truly don’t know. It should. It all should have mattered, but after all, the people watching are high interest people, who have made up their mind, and low-interest voters who are fairly unaware of much that we know to be the truth. It’s a matter how of it “sounds” to them. Will women be offended by how Romney treated the Office of the President and Candy Crowley? Will they be offended about his lies regarding women’s issues? Will they be offended by his assumption that women need flex time because they have “dinners to cook” and his claims that he asked for lists of competent women (apparently he never met any in his long career as a businessman), when in fact the “binder” was prepared in advance to be given to the winning candidate by women’s groups eager to see more women placed in government service. Will people be okay with a man who assures us that the “numbers add up” because I’m a businessman and I know?

Who knows? The election is in the hands of people who don’t care that much. They don’t care enough to know the facts but settle for who sounds good.

I remain cautiously optimistic, but no more than that.

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Oh Paulie Come Wash My Clean Pots and Pans!

Tags

Election 2012, fact and fiction, Humor, Paul Ryan, satire, short stories

In the best tradition of the privileged and  entitled, Paulie “lyin’ Ryan stopped in at a local soup kitchen. He hoped you all would notice. He made sure to wait for the media to get along with the cameras and such just in case they feel the need to show Merika what a fine and compassionate dude our Paulie really was.

Problem was that Paulie waited so long for the media types to git there, that all those creepy icky, sometimes smelly poor people had already been served and headed out mostly. So Paulie, said, “shucks, I didn’t know they ate at noon! We usually have cocktails at 1 and a Cobb salad (hold the ham, hold the cheese) at 1:30. But I can wash some dishes! Oh, all washed? Well dang, well no one will ever know, give me a pan and washing thingie and let’s get those pictures!”

I few minutes later, Paulie was seen directing his handlers to a guy walking slowly down the hallway. “Hey, he looks like a homeless man, that jacket is definitely not this season’s Ralph Lauren!” Whereupon the gentleman was stopped and urged to come talk to the next Vice President. “Vice President of what?” the man growled.

Whereupon Paulie, strode up careful to not touch anything that might be infested with crawling insects, and said,

“Hey dude, how’s it going? I’m Paul Ryan,  running mate of Mitt Romney!”

“Huh, Gloves? I don’t need no gloves, not yet anyhow. Still pretty warm. Hey what’s with all the lights? I know my rights, are you the police? I want a lawyer.”

“Nobody here to arrest you my good man. Can you tell me what it’s like to not have your own bed to sleep in? Are you cold at night? Must be hard to keep up with episodes of Masterpiece Theatre huh? Do they have big screens in the shelter?”

“Ya got a buck man? I could use a smoke?”

“Smoke? No. Bad for your health man. Do you work out? I work out. You probably saw the pictures of me, pretty buff don’t you think?”

“Well a buck then for some coffee? Anything will help.”

“Oh sorry man, I don’t carry money with me. Why do you need money? The shelter has a bed for ya, and this kitchen feeds ya. I mean what else do you  need. Oh, wait, I can see by the look of them teeth, that you could probably use a new toothbrush–where do you keep it dude? in your pocket?”

“Are you nuts? Get away from me you fucker, and take your damn lights. Who are all those guys standing there with microphones? “HEY, what you lookin’ at?”

“Whoa, easy now guy. Well nice talking to you. I feel your pain and all that. Vote Romney, Ryan!”

That was the conversation you didn’t hear, because Paulie’s handlers kinda knew it would go about as it went. But hey the media saw him actually speaking conversationally with a bona fide poor person. And he washed a pot in a bona fide soup kitchen. Mission accomplished!

It’s all about appearances ya know. It’s only about appearances.

My dirty pots are waitin’ for ya Paulie. I also got some doggy poo in the back yard that needs picking up.

 

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