Whiffs and Tiddles of Flotsum on a Sea of Sandy Dreams

Tags

journalism, life in New Mexico, main stream media, New Mexico

We  began to wonder the other day just exactly what this symbol on the flag of New Mexico stands for. As is often the case, there is a story behind the emblem which is interesting.

One thing leads to another and I became immersed in the history of this state.

As you may or may not know, New Mexico was settled first by Native peoples, mostly Navajo, Apache and Ute. It was claimed as part of the Spanish Empire. It was not named New Mexico after the country of Mexico, but by early Spanish Conquistadors who, coming north from Mexica (the Aztec Empire) thought to find gold there, and called it such meaning the New Aztec Empire. This was back in 1563, long before the English had entered upon the Eastern Coast of North America

Later, it was claimed by the new country of Mexico, in the 1860’s, then a US territory, and finally a state in 1912.

Our state has the highest percentage of Hispanics of any state in the Union, and the second highest native population.

All of this bears intimately on our flag.

The colors red and yellow are in honor of Queen Isabella of Castile, the colors brought to this continent by the conquistadors. The symbol in the center is a sun symbol, and relates to the Zia pueblo where such insignias were found on pottery by archeologists.

It’s rays reaching out in four directions refer to the four directions on the compass, the four seasons of the year, by the four divisions of the 24-hour day, sunrise, noon, evening, night, and in the four seasons of life,  childhood, youth, adulthood and old age.

The Zia believed that life contained four obligations:

1. The development of a strong body,
2. The development of a strong mind.
3. The development of a pure spirit.
4. The devotion to family and people.

The pledge to the flag of New Mexico is telling of how we are as a people here:

“I salute the flag of the state of New Mexico, the Zia symbol of perfect friendship among united cultures.”

“Saludo la bandera del estado de Nuevo Mejico, el simbolo zia de amistad perfecta, entre culturas unidas.”

You see, of all of the American Southwest, only New Mexico was not found to be “valuable” from an Anglo point of view. Thus New Mexico escaped much of the animosity and warring that occurred as Anglos sought to take away lands from Hispanics who had held these lands for generations in places like California, Arizona and Texas.

We have always been a place where a melding of cultures has been accepted as being right and proper. While not officially bilingual, the state did adopt the English Plus approach which encourages the teaching of other languages. A Navajo textbook is used in the state. Jurors are not disqualified by speaking Spanish only.

While border problems have not been unknown historically, it is seldom if never that one reads of any problem in the local Las Cruces newspaper or hears about problems on the local news. Being only 40 miles from the border, surely we would be hearing about it if such issues were occurring regularly.

Given that the two cultures are so incredibly intertwined and have been for ever, I think the average New Mexican looks upon all the craziness of places like Alabama and Iowa and their screaming about “border security” with a bit of bemusement and no little anger.

Well, enough of that. This is not a history lesson on the State of New Mexico. It’s just interesting to see how one similarly-placed state sees the whole issue of amnesty and immigration in an entirely different way than do significant portions of the Republican party at least.

I’d sure like to hear about interesting factoids about your state or country. Please do tell.

On the other hand, we’ve decided we are through with most media news. We started with ABC, gave up in disgust, went to NBC, then CBS and then remained with PBS. Now we are through with it too. For some reason journalists think their job is to “give both sides” and leave it at that. No investigation as to undeniable facts, no push back on broad but unsupported allegations, just a nod and on to the next question on the list.

The trouble is, we are living in a time of stark differences. There are not often “two sides” rather there is a side supported by evidence and a side supported by wishful thinking. Some of this permeates both sides of the spectrum of left-right, but more often than not, the wild-eyed incredulous nonsense emanates from one side only.

Fox has successfully ranted about the “liberal” media (which is not supported by facts) and the mainstream media has out of fear of the label, decided the best course is to simply let both sides spout as they wish. Yes the mainstream media is probably composed of more liberals than conservatives, but it remains the case that the overarching ownership of most mainstream media remains in corporate hands who by and large are essentially conservative. The fact is that the journalism (if you can call it that) is not at liberty to do as they wish, but are supervised by larger corporate interests.

So the mainstream has caved to a charge not born out, and is essentially worthless in my opinion. To the vast majority of citizens, giving them both sides is akin to giving them nothing at all. They are not, like myself and those who are passionate, going to investigate and research to find if one side is vastly better in truth-telling than the other. So they do whatever they do in choosing between what they see as two  equal sides. This is what you hear when people claim that the “entire Congress” is useless. They see both sides the same.

So, we have moved to BBC-America, which gives no more than one item on the US and the rest international. Since we don’t get Al Jazeerra in our cable package, this is the best we can do. Frankly both the Contrarian and I read all the national news over the Internet already, so we aren’t missing much.

Oh, and if anybody has forsworn cable in favor of other options, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, please do tell. We lost ABC for 3 weeks over some dispute, picked up our favorite shows online, and with a cable moved them to our TV, so we got the idea we might be able to find almost all of what we watch and save a bundle. Most prices for non-cable are around $80 a year vs. $80/month for a barebones cable package. Weigh in on any info you can offer please.

That’s it for me today. Happy Boo day.

 

 

It All Depends on How You Define Insurance

Tags

GOP, Health care, Obamacare

The headlines are simply appalling:

“Pregnant woman loses her health insurance because of Obamacare”

“Florida woman told her $50 health insurance will now cost $500 under Obamacare.”

Peter Sessions sends forth a Facebook entry: “While the Obama Administration publicly promised that Americans who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it, privately it knew that wasn’t true.”

The GOP knows the whining about a website’s faults only gets so much traction. As one commentator said, the average person can pretty much separate a faulty website from the value of an insurance plan.

So we have to move on. Now all we are hearing is that millions of people are losing their insurance unless they play 5, 10, 20 times what they paid before. All this after the president promised that we could keep plans we liked.

Okay, lets actually look at the FACTS.

President Obama did say that if people were happy with their insurance they could keep it. In some instances he said “if you are happy with your employer insurance, you can keep it.”

Eighty percent of all those who are insured are insured through employer plans. So the President was accurate as to 80% of all insured people.

That means 20% are self-insured. Of those something between 40-60% have plans that meet federal standards or are grandfathered in. The latter accounts for the 20% discrepancy since the grandfathering aspect is a case by case situation depending on how stable the plan has been over time–if your plan fluctuates every year in terms of deductibles or so forth, it might not be grandfathered.

Let’s be fair and split the baby. Say 50% of all self-employed have policies that are acceptable. That means that now 90% of all insured people can have the policies they already have. The President is now 90% accurate.

That means that for 10% of insured, their cannot keep the insurance they have.

Why is that?

Quite simply, it’s because those policies are deemed to be sham policies by and large. They have exorbitant deductibles for instance, don’t cover pre-existing conditions, have annual limits or life-time limits, and don’t cover enough situations to make them considered real insurance. The “insurance” company has two options–to discontinue the policy or to improve it with presumably higher premiums.

Is that the end of it?

Certainly not. Every such person affected has the right to then go into the Affordable Health Care system and see what is available there. In most cases, they will end up with better coverage at equal if not less cost. That will not be true in all cases, but at least preliminarily from anecdotal information that has actually be investigated, it suggested that upwards of 60-70% of those people will end up with better policies at little or no additional costs and sometimes much cheaper.

Let’s look at some of the cases reported so far that I have heard of.

• A well-known satirical writer from NY who is I would guess in his 30’s, says he went on the exchanges and ended up with a much better policy at a lower cost than he was paying.
• Three people appeared on Sean Hannity and said they were losing their policies and would have no insurance they could afford because of Obamacare. One later admitted he had simply lied, none of his claims were true. The other two admitted that they had not sought to determine what they could get on the exchanges. When that was done for them, in front of them, based on the information they supplied, both were eligible for plans that were better than they had and at lower cost.
• One man got a letter from his insurance company saying his plan would be cancelled. He went on the exchanges, and admits he found a better plan at a lower cost, but he is angry because he has the right to pay more for less if he wants to and no government has the right to step in and keep him from being an idiot (okay, he didn’t say the very last part).
•  CBS News reports The Florida woman who was paying $50 and will have to pay $500? Start with she lives in Florida whose governor and state legislature are controlled by Republicans who have refused to extend Medicaid or set up exchanges. This story was reported on CBS Evening News. The reporter, Jan Crawford, didn’t bother to do any investigation. If she had, she would have learned that the woman in question had what Consumer Reports calls “junk” insurance. The policy doesn’t cover hospitalization of any type. It grants her $50 toward a doctor’s visit, $15  toward her prescriptions, and pays for lab tests. This is not insurance. The company clearly makes money, since nobody sees their doctor once a month or gets lab tests every month. This is similar to “prescription insurance” cards which pay some portion of any prescription you might have to get in the future. If you have a condition with monthly prescription renewals, you surely aren’t going to qualify. They want to make money, not pay it out. Further, with the Florida woman, there is no indication that she has even looked at the federal exchanges. The $500 premium is what is quoted from her “insurance” company for a policy that meets federal standards. With a bit of effort it was determined that this woman might well qualify for a full plan under AHCA at almost exactly what she was paying, but at worst (if her income were substantially higher, she could get a full plan for about $332.00.
• Red State reported the pregnant woman story. They did not bother telling you the entire story. Again, the woman was paying $98 a month in California for “coverage”, of what we know nothing. Obviously it cannot be for much. It turns out that the woman cannot get subsidies because she and her husband (both lawyers) make in excess of $80,000 per year. Well, I’m terribly sorry but I fail to see why I should be heart-broken if two lawyers can’t afford something a bit more than $98 a month for a junk policy.
• I can think of at least three other instances of people self-reporting that they got through the exchanges and discovered that they could get more coverage at lower rates than they were paying.

Anecdotal evidence doesn’t prove much I admit. But most of these examples are from the Right. And they prove to be false.

It turns out that the vast vast majority of self-insured will come out the same, no different or better than they were before. A few percent will pay more we think. Some will be more than able to afford it.

The GOP has made this whole thing worse by its refusal to extend Medicaid in poor red states. And now they cry about the predictable outcome.

Just like they claim that the business is getting a years delay. Except the truth is that 6% of business is getting the delay. Not the other 94%.

It’s all lies, brought to you by those who are desperate to dismantle health care before everyone discovers the truth–it’s good for America. When people have that fact concretely in their brains, they will demand that the GOP stop blocking their right to health care. But the GOP prefers not to help solve the problems that exist, but only try to pretend that such problems will cause the end of America.

So are you hearing different? Let me know.

Related articles

• A few words about that “Obamacare Sticker Shock” you may have heard tell of! (americanliberaltimes.com)
• The Bright Side of Obamacare’s Broken Promise (nation.time.com)

It’s Official–I Don’t Have to Like Any Republicans

Tags

conservative, GOP, ideology, liberal, teabaggers

I’m a big fan of UP, formerly with Chris Hayes and now Steve Kornacki. Given that it starts at 6:00 a.m. here in New Mexico, that tells ya just how much.

They usually have an interesting and varied panel of folks who dissect whatever interesting topics of the day seem appropriate.

Well, live and learn as they say. I came, I saw, I learned. And now I am no longer ashamed of disliking Republicans pretty much to a person.

You see, the Contrarian likes to think of himself as somewhat more centrist than me.

me<————->Contrarian<—————->Crazy Right

Mostly he’s just as liberal as I am, but it makes him feel better to think he’s not.

Me? I’m almost off the page. I’m an anarchist with the foresight to know that politics belongs to those who realize that you gotta give up something to get something. So I am willing to swallow a  bit of bitter for the sweet. I recognize that the only people who get exactly all of what they want are dictators and they usually don’t last too long. Facts is facts.

Any the how. One of the things said Contrarian likes to dig me with, is shit like “if George W. Bush discovered a cure for cancer, you would find something wrong with it” and other bitter ilk of that sort, all designed to make me look unreasonable in general and downright wrong in any given specific instance in which he decides for the fun of it to argue with me. Basically he claims that “you don’t like any of ’em”, ’em being Republicans.

So I always argued that such was not the case, and cited an instance or two, of people who were not downright by birth pathological liars, cheats, and shills for big business, and had just maybe one bone in their wretched bodies that hummed like a tuning fork when hit as to the poor and you know, the brothers and sisters out there barely gettin’ by. Am I my brother’s keeper keeps echoing in my head, though it seems to have not had the same effect upon most Christianist Republicans I have known.

I defended that position to every challenge.

Until.

I saw this graph on UP. I can’t find the graph on UP today, but I recall it generally. Congress is made up of 535 seats all told. Back in the 60’s or so, on a liberal/conservative continuum, 355 members were overlapping between the two parties. That means that while there were some Democrats all alone on the far left and some Republicans alone on the far right, there was a vast middle where they scored about evenly.

Given that for some 40 years, the Democrats had owned both Houses of Congress, it became incumbent on the part of Republicans to cooperate and find common ground on some things if they wished to participate in governing. There were a lot of Northern liberal Republicans and lots of Southern conservative Democrats, but there were enough in the middle that compromises were worked out and legislation passed. No faction was large enough to overcome the vast middle.

Then 1994 happened, and Newt Gingrich orchestrated a majority win for the GOP. This happened for a variety of reasons not the least of which was the loss of the South to Democrats following the Civil Rights acts of the 1960’s. Democrats in the South left the party in droves, or certainly were prepared to vote Republican if only given a good reason. Newt gave them that reason in his Contract with America, touching on sensitive issues of “welfare” and budget deficits.

He also started something new and unique in Congress, the 4-day work week. Members were encouraged (especially in the House) to return to their districts each weekend and spend time with constituents. This gave the average voter the illusion at least that his congress person cared about his or her opinion. The downside to all this was that the sense of collegiality that had been the grease in the machine of Congress was now gone. Weekend parties, and various other gatherings for dinner and drinks were no more. Members didn’t get to know one another as they formerly did. Many Republican wives or husbands stayed in the home district, missing the other opportunity for camaraderie.

With Gingrich and Tom Delay, more emphasis was placed on sticking with the team no matter what. Voting as a cohesive unit was prized to control a larger agenda that was dreamed up in the offices of the Speaker and his upper echelon elites.

It all went down hill from there.

Denny Hastert gave us the Hastert rule: thou shall not bring to the floor any bill that does not have the majority blessing of your own party–it is irrelevant if enough members of one’s own party plus enough members of the other party would ensure victory.

Today we reap the results of a Congress that is entirely partisan. Today that same graph indicates that of 535 members only 11 overlap. Yes you read that right. Only ELEVEN senate or house members from the two parties are rated at the same point on the liberal/conservative spectrum. All the rest, 524 lie to the left (Democrat) or to the right (Republican). There are essentially no moderate Republicans to embrace. There are no fiscally conservative, socially liberal GOP members. They have been purged or threatened so fiercely that they deny the emperor has no clothes.

There is simply no Republican left for me to “like”.

And so I don’t.

So sue me.

That’s the way I see it. If you don’t well, there is a comment box.

A Typhoon in the Bathtub Only Threatens the Rubber Ducky

Tags

America, Health care, Humor, immigration, life in the foothills, Politics, satire, state of the freakin' world, teabaggers, the GOP

Excuse me if I’m a bit confused here.

The GOP has agreed on one thing–to a man and woman they HATE Obamacare. I mean they don’t just think it’s not a good program, they see it, also to a man and woman as the singularly one piece of legislation that will be known historically as the only and complete cause of the demise of the Republic and like a domino, will precipitate the collapse of Western civilization (which is the only one worth discussing of course) as we know it.

They have worked tirelessly since its passage to repeal it, defund it, and/or otherwise make it ineffective. They have sued it, screwed it, and otherwise squeezed it until every bit of blood was drained from its carcass. This they have tried.

They have warned the public that the plug would be pulled on grandma, that death panels would deny their precious precocious preteen the very treatment needed for life, all in the name of communistic commune-style equality. They have said that the doctor you love so much that you never forget her birthday, will be ripped from your arms to be replaced by automatons spitting forth paper check-off symptomatic lists and nurses that cackle in the hallway as you sit drenched in sweat and shivering dressed in your paper suit awaiting the verdict from a committee of cost-cutting psychopaths.

They have, in the guise of their governorships and GOP-controlled state houses, refused to participate in enlarging their own Medicaid rolls, even when guaranteed that for the first three years the Federal government would pick up the entire tab and 90% of the tab thereafter. They have sat with arms crossed and refused to set up exchanges to allow their citizens easier sign-up.

They have threatened the very economy of the entire country rather than give up on their pipe dream of ending this law–all in the name of stopping the vicious damage they have predicted would ensue to Ma and Pa Kettle and all their lil’ childrens across the great American landscape.

Sooooooo.

It strikes me as odd, that when your constant refrain to folks is, by golly gee wiz, doncha dare sign up for that devil-inspired, dripping with communistic red health care plan, that when there are problems, as there always are, with the website and sign-up procedures, you are not jumping for joy at how many people are being saved from the evil law, but rather you are complaining about how difficult it is for people to sign up as if that is evidence that the law is all kinds of bad.

I mean my head is turning around faster than Regan in the Exorcist. Aren’t they glad the sign-up is not working? Instead all I see are properly “horrified” members of Republican rectitude moaning about how this “has got to be fixed” or defunded, or repealed, whichever.

Has there been ONE SINGLE offer of a solution?

Has there been ONE SINGLE offer of an alternative to insure those presently uninsured?

Oh, yeah, I forgot, this is the party of NO. This is the party of destruction. This is the party of no government is good government.

Except where you and my uteruses are concerned. Except where who I sleep with is concerned. Except where who I pray to is concerned. Except to what I learn as science is concerned. Except there. Oh yeah and except where there are enough cheap junk F-18+ how ever many more there are today that still don’t work worth a damn but until there are enough of them to have one in every damn driveway of America–Strength Through Massive Military Might–. Except where it concerns black and brown people and their pesky determination to continue having children and making me sooo uncomfortable that they might not want to the same things I do, so I need to keep them marginalized with voter suppression laws. Have I left anything out?

Now, the President has called once again for the House of Representatives of Big Business to get off their yawning asses and get on with some immigration reform. And the response of  Speaker out of both sides of his mouth, Boehner and his wanna be speaker next, Eric Cantor, has been, why sure we need some of that, cuz as rational? Republicans we know that we gotta placate those brown faces EVENTUALLY or we will never win a damn election again. But the rank and file? Oh my heavens no.

The same crazy that brought you 16+ days of glorious “screw America” can’t wait to bring you more of that sort of crap, because “I can’t stand to even look at your face” and you know that means that we can’t do a thing that would make this BLACK Demon look good. We enjoy cutting off our noses to spite our ugly faces doncha know? Course it ain’t got a thing to do with our fear that we as pasty white dudes are losing control of the reins of power. We are wearing Depends all the time now, cuz we are so scared you will do unto us as we have traditionally done unto you. But you’re being Black? Why that’s irrelevant to our cause, and besides you are only half-black which means something even worse to hear it from the TeaLegions of Crazy.

Which all goes to say, that I am expecting nothing to change.

Did you know these lazy asses have only 19 more days to work for the whole rest of the year?

And I am so very sick and tired of talking points.

And I’m in favor of taking a lottery system and putting everybody’s name in the drum, and drawing out the requisite number of sending them forth to Washington. It could not seriously be worse. I mean can you imagine worse at this point? Don’t you feel rather Italian? Or Greek? Hurrah, we now have governments just as chaotic and worthless as much of Europe. Or truthfully, are we more like China, with only the illusion of government meant to mimic real ones?

I’m going back to bed. At least my dreams involved palm trees, and warm sands and softly brushing waves upon the shore of my sanity.

Armaggedon Bound

Tags

Glenn Beck's crazies, Humor, Tea party nuts, teabaggers, teabibbers, TeaBirchers

Glad you all found out the new location. Thelma and BillyJohn are still recovering from their little adventure. When that Farah guy over at WorldNetDaily signaled that the war was about to commence, well Thelma and BillyJohn headed over to their bunker to make ready.

They was just headin’ back from the truck with a load of water jugs when Henry’s still blew sky high. Course they both thought it was a military strike and dropped everything, hit the bunker, and slammed the door. Was easy enough given all that for BillyJohn to forget that the keys were still in the truck.

So him and Thelma was locked in for two days before Henry came back in there to check the still, and found what had happened. Well, he say BillyJohn and Thelma’s truck, and after working on repairing the still for a good couple hours, finally heard them pounding on the door to the bunker. He got the keys and let ’em out. Boy was they a sorry mess.

But for all that, it did uncover a design flaw in the bunker. BillyJohn says Thelma sent him direct to the survival store and ordered them up two big ole port-a-potties. Henry said that the smell dang near knocked him down when he opened the door. Thelma is still taken to her bed and claiming she may never get that smell out of her again. BillyJohn is sleepin’ in the truck until she cools down.

Anyway, Ted Cruz fought the good fight didn’t he? So, let’s call this meeting to order of the Mason County Patriots Tea Party Division A.

So what y’all think of them goin’ ons in Washington?

Cosmos 102 says: Historically, third parties didn’t work. This next election is too important to risk it. Better to drain the swamp of Republican elitists and create a new party from within. Much the same way Obama has been remaking America from within. We can do this. If Libertarians and Conservatives team up, there will be more of us than there are of them. Ya might want to do that math again there Cosmos. I don’t think that adding the two together amounts to as much as you think. And exactly how has the President been “remaking America from within?” Any examples there guy? Or is that like mixing chocolate syrup in white milk that you are meaning?

Joshundead1 says: Health insurance already belongs to private companies in a competitive market. He is changing that and putting it in the hands of the government, which has failed at every thing it has touched. And the real freeloads those who stay on government assistance will be given insurance whether they can pay for it or not, because the rest of us will be forced to pay for it. Socialized medicine has never and will never be successful. Everything it’s touched? It seems it’s touched the military a lot Josh, and gosh, don’t you guys think the US military is the greatest on earth? Do you like the roads you drive on? Do you feel pretty safe eating food you buy? Is the Hoover Dam still operating okay? Did we land on Mars several times and on the Moon? So what is your solution to sick people who don’t have insurance? Do you prefer to pay for their “emergency treatment” or just kick them to the gutter to die? As to socialized medicine–Canadians and Brits seem fairly healthy? Ever checked out MOST OF FREAKIN’ EUROPE?  

TreeTeacher says: Why the Well Not,Most of the GOP are now gut less, for the ones with Hotspa to go to a New or just another Party is a good thing, Thins out the Hurd. The TEA Party was a Great start but was Highjacked by the GOP. This could work, Ah Constitution Party you say. I’ll look for them Well, I can see why they have you teaching trees my friend, cuz you are a whole bag of stupid aren’t you? Is Hotspa supposed to be chutzpah? You just continue “lookin’ for them” and we’ll see you in a few years.

Joshundead1 says: Im sorry but not everyone NEEDS health insurance and it is most defiantly not a right. Rights don’t infringe on others. Insurance is a company in which you pay money for them to cover you in case you get hurt. They will take you and if you get injured or something goes wrong they use their money to foot most of the bill letting you pay a minimum. They provide a service and as far as I can tell any company that provides a service should get paid. Do you not get paid for going to work? So lets look at car insurance. If you have tickets and wrecks on your background they can either not accept you or charge you lots of money. SO why should it be different for health insurance? If you have a preexisting condition costing them more than they will make why shouldn’t they have the right to turn you away? Do you specialize in teaching Tree Teacher how to teach trees? Nobody needs health insurance until, duh, they need it. And saying definitely doesn’t make it definitely Not a right.If you shoot me (2nd Amendment right) do I not bleed (infringe on me?) So you think that your choice to drive badly is equal to your not choice to get cancer? I am assuming that you missed all the classes on logic at your school? I’m guessin’ that you might not have even matriculated through the 12th grade huh Josh?

Rosemary Woodhouse says: Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Allen West, Michelle Bachman, Herman Cain, Jeff Sessions, Ben Carson, Sarah Palin and others were to do this en masse that would send a HUGE message and true conservatives would follow suit. The cannot hang onto a party that is going the way of the Whigs hoping things are going to change. The Republicans who represent us AND are conservative are the minority. THEY MUST LEAD THE WAY OUT! Yep it would send a message all right Rosemary, that the nuts are all together and the net can capture them all at once.Did you read what you wrote dear? The last sentence? Do you know the meaning of MINORITY? You got that party right. You are in the minority and while you may speak, you don’t necessarily get to rule. That’s sorta how majority rules work hon. Sorta.

Adronicus.Americanus says: If it were not for Senator Cruz, the Second Amendment would have been repealed and the DHS would still be gunning down Mr. and Mrs. America at this very minute.
Senator Cruz is a congressional hero because he keeps his word to his constituents.
His latest attempt to sustain our economy in the Defund Obamacare movement will be acknowledged in the 2014 election by more than conservatives but also democrats and independents. Boy when you like a guy you kinda rewrite history don’t you? Cruz prevented the repeal of the Second Amendment huh? AA do you have ANY idea how you repeal a constitutional amendment? I mean just any? And just a hint there AA. . . .Cruz kept his word to himself: increase my name recognition, increase my campaign coffers, and establish a bigger and longer campaign donor list. I’m sure you’ll be hearin’ from him soon AA–can ya spare a dime?

Mrsstirfry99 says:

it makes me happy knowing that Harry will be judged by a Righteous Judge.

I’m tending to agree with Glenn more and more, Harry is senile. Wow lady, to know God’s mind AND to agree with Glenn Beck? Now that may be a symbiosis that has never been contemplated before. I take it you got the name stirfry from recognizing what is going on in your head?

media-bias-steals-elections says: the conspiracy of silence, surrounding the activities of King Clinton, are on the tips of our tongues?

United we stand, against Lady GaGa haters, and all haters in general?

King Clinton can not use Rush Limbaugh as the tip of the spear, or the human shield of his media empire that Glenn Beck is teaching you how to fight?

Mr. Reid, we might suggest that football players that participate in the conspiracy of silence, who refuse to tackle the issues your political party present, is not a joking matter?

The billions you have cost the economy, and the hardship, is not something we can hope goes away for more than an hour if we watch an entertainment event? It requires we take your jokes, and make better ones? You have a fascination with question marks doncha? Methinks you spend too much time with that bottle of Jack Daniels under the bed. I bet you like conspiracy theories, mostly because they make about as much sense as you do, which is mostly none. Still back in the Clinton years aren’t ya?

socratessocrates says:

If anyone tries mob/thug tactics at Senator Cruz, his family or his home, I will be there fighting with Senator Cruz against [all enemies].

Liberal pieces of crap wanna play? Let the games begin. Seriously, you have no idea who Socrates was do you? Not a dang clue.

Patty Henry says: EVERYTHING YOU SEE AND HEAR IS COMING FROM a totally PANICKED Administration!!
Cruz landed body blows not only to this Corrupt, horrid Administration who has NO EXCUSE but their insatiable greed and ambition but also to the corrupt and horrid GOP creeps like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, Kelly Ayotte …. I mean really think about this folks: IF CRUZ was so ineffective; was such a loser; and did not COUNT in the world of POLITICS…we would not have heard his name after his 21 hours. CRUZ slaughtered them in the name of PATRIOTISM and FREEDOM, AMERICA and the CONSTITUTION…
It’s been a long, long time since ONE individual was able to knock them all down at once…a Bowling Strike that struck fear in all the little CRONIES in DC Politics and beyond.
In ONE 21 Hour period, this man became the most powerful, influential single voice in America. Karl Rove knew it…you all saw Rove the day after.. filled with admiration over Cruz’s STRAIGHT TALK.
NOW these dolts are all scrambling like the little whiners they are trying swat Cruz down…from all sides.
ONE man/One Night called out: THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES…. and ALL the people heard him….and ‘all the kings horses and all the king’s men will not be able to put Obama back together again’ no threat, no bribe, no power can stop THE TRUTH. TED CRUZ spoke the TRUTH and what should really scare them even more : THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE BEHIND HIM. HALLELUJAH !! Ephesians 6: 10-18 TED!! I bet you think you are the female version of Patrick Henry doncha? Oh, if only typing it made it so. Do you use medications to continue living in that bubble where up is down, right is left, and you are inside not outside?

Alas, my friends, enough of the fun. The time locks on all these cells is set to lock ’em up until next time. Thanks for visiting the zoo known as Glenn Beck’s nincompoops brought to you straight from the pages of The Blaze, the little online hell hole where you too can pretend that your opinion matters. To the barricades my tea party patriots, to the barricades. They are coming to take you awayyyyyy!

Whew! Dodged a Bullet. Time to Start Filling the Bunker

Tags

tea party, teabaggers, Ted Cruz

The shutdown is over, the fiscal cliff averted, and we can all sigh with relief and go back to Packer football, raking leaves, and worrying about whether Uncle Henry’s flatulence will ruin the Thanksgiving dinner once again this year.

Ted Cruz and Tea Party soundly defeated. Dust off the hands. Job well done.

Not so fast my dears. Not so fast.

When nearly everyone with a brain that can think of a good answer to 2 + 2 (tea baggers excluded since whatever is in their skulls doesn’t qualify as a brain anyway), says that this was a no brainer from day one in that it had a SNOWBALLS CHANCE IN HELL OF WORKING, well, methinks I smell a rat. This had nothing to do with winning on the issue of dismantling Obamacare. NEVER. It was the ruse used to light the fire under the rank and file.

Ted Cruz is not an idiot. He may be crazy and narcissistic to a fault, but stupid he is not. He got out of this exactly what he wanted: a bigger national name, money pouring into his coffers, and a brand spanking new donor list to use. If I had to guess, I’d be really really sure that Cruz has read at least one book on how Adolph Hitler (a not stupid person) managed through sheer force of charisma to incite a small group of rabble (Brown Shirts) to catapult him into the Chancellery and ultimately to the dictatorship of the German people. Ted has a plan, I can assure you of that, ill-conceived and product of a meglamaniacal mind as it may be.

While Sarah, the grinning Barbie doll,  paraded around the WWII memorial with 200 elderly veterans,  and spouted how Obama was abusing them for political gain, as she abused them for political gain, veterans across America suffered from the loss of Meals on Wheels. Oh yeah, they couldn’t quite see the photo-op there did they?

Did the teabaggers learn a lesson? Sure they did.

They learned that a rather tiny group of very angry people can wreak big havoc with government, and cause millions of people real pain. And when you are a destructionist rather than a constructionist, well, that’s a valuable lesson.

Will they do it again?

Yes. We will go through all this again in January and February because disrupting things works. They have no care whatsoever that the fortunes of the GOP are falling faster than a meteor streaking across the sky. They only care that they can disrupt and bring government to a screeching halt.

If you have any question about that read Eric Erickson, founder of Red State, and his call for making all those “RINOS” pay in the 2014 elections. “A vote to end the crisis, is a vote for Obamacare!” If you don’t believe me still, compare the votes against ending the shutdown to those who are running for re-election in 2014.

This is not to say that the Tea Creatures are only about destruction. Like just about anybody, once in actual power, they will enjoy it all too well, and will merrily go about the business of enlarging government to suit their predilections. All that talk about “getting government out of our lives” is true. They mean that, but they missed a few words that always are in their head when they say it. It’s more like getting government out of OUR lives and into the lives of all those who don’t live the RIGHT way.”

Surely women will no longer get abortions except illegally, and once the nice white people have picked all the kids they want to adopt from the foundling homes set up to deal with the influx, the rest will be raised by the states. There will be no such thing as health care for the poor, no such thing as Medicaid surely. No such things as food stamps or any of that stuff. The poor will not be left to die, but rather, work houses will be set up in every county where they will live.

Work? Oh there will be plenty of that to go around for the foundling kids and poor-house inhabitants. Streets and bridges to repair and build, lettuce to pick, trash to collect. All the stuff that white people don’t like to do, well they will do for a bed and three squares a day.

While the monied interests will pay these workhouse overseers well, letting them have a few more dribbles of cash to live in the best part of town, not quite in the elite section reserved for monied business interests, but the next best thing. For you see the rich shall be very busy once again. With no restrictions upon them at all, they will be busy building businesses that no longer have to care about working conditions, product safety and all that.

Rockefeller you may recall had no interest in fairness. He wanted to destroy the competition. When you have so much money you can’t begin to spend it, you have to do something. So winning the game is all that matters. And once they have locked up control of America they will expand the game to the rest of the planet. And then, well, there is the moon, and Mars, and from there on read whatever version of science fiction “galaxy wars” excites you, but it surely won’t be a “federation of planets” ala Star Trek.

This all works so damn beautifully. As Theda Skocpol informs us, it’s a pincer effect. The grass-roots crazy ignorant frightened white people do the dirty work and the money pays the tab. The grassroots never knows it’s being used until it’s too late. Like I said, enough of them are paid off handsomely to forget that they are nothing more than enforcers for the “man” now. No freedom for you! TeaNazi.

You remember that some weeks ago we had a conversation about physical discipline of children. I lamented that a segment of my high school classmates thought today’s youth was “disrespectful” and not as they should be, and that mostly that was due to not being beaten as they had been. Course, they don’t call it being “beaten” they call nostalgically call it, “being whooped on”. Another classmate was always telling us how her relative was “scamming” the food stamp system, and she used that example as “proof” that the system was rife with people who were “just too lazy to work”.

Skocpol says this too is normal, for these grass-roots angry white people don’t like their own kids and grandkids, finding them all too willing to take government student loans for granted, and certainly not thinking as they do on social issues.

The monied interests, on the other hand adore their fundamentalist social straight-laced attitudes, for they fit right in with their agenda. While nobody suggests that the monied interests share tea party social values, it’s convenient to them when their work force is mired in simple-minded beliefs that are focused on them versus us in so many guises. So they give lip service to ending abortion and marriage amendments to keep the ignorant teabibbers lasered in on their own neighbors and co-workers rather than of course where they should be–the uber rich who pull the strings and continue to garner all the assets.

Can we stop this?

Well, as in most things, that depends.

When most people are rightly focused on how to make ends meet as a full-time occupation, it’s hard to find time to become involved in our civic responsibilities. When monied interests are all too happy to ply us with toys of every kind (how much bigger can that big screen get and how more pixilly perfect?), we are dutifully lost in our pleasure palaces that are controlled by the flick of thumbs on buttons. So we have to move ourselves off of that to be an effective counterpoint.

I have utter faith in the instinctive goodness of most people and in their can’t-quite-put-my-finger-on-why-it’s-wrong-but-know-it-is ability to separate the goats from the sheep. I believe that the American public at large see through the smooth talk of Ted Cruz and knows him for what he is, a demagogic wannabe, much as the public saw through sista-Sarah and her grifting scheme to be a celebrity Vice President, and prance around in designer clothes and nifty heels.

But that means we have to go further than simply voting for a Democrat come 2014. It means a whole lot more since these old angry white people are infested in our state legislatures and school boards, and city councils.

Whether we are up to the task remains to be seen.

This guy is so cynical, he thinks that YOU are no more his match than the tea party minions who are following him as their new god.

I’m betting you are more than his match.

What do you think?

 

 

 

I would highly suggest you read this post from Salon, which I read after composing this post in my head, and suggested to me, that I’m not too far off the mark here. And you might want to pick up the book by Theda Skocpol as well.

 

Related articles

• Ted Cruz Admits Budget Standoff Was All About Building Fundraising Lists (thinkprogress.org)
• The left thinks business controls the Republican Party. They’re wrong. (washingtonpost.com)
• FOCUS | Democrats Must Stop Ted Cruz’s Hollywood Ending (readersupportednews.org)
• Ted Cruz Used Texas to Create ALEC’s Anti-Obamacare Legislation (sacurrent.com)

 

I Admit It. I’m Truly a Jinx

Tags

Humor, life in the foothills, New Mexico, Sports

I was a child of merely seven. I can’t tell you that I KNOW I watched the Lions beat the Bears that fateful day, December 29, 1957, but I KNOW I did.

Of course Lions “fans”, that rarefied animal that looks a bit like this,

may be something that is hard to find anymore. Most, I suspect have given up. Patience is one thing, but fifty-six years?

When I married the Contrarian, he was aware of course that I came from the land of pussy cats. Being a Packer fan, he took pity on me and mine. Whereas he saved his best invectives (and they were some doozies I gotta say) for the Bears and he Vikings, he smiled softly upon the hapless Felines and referred to them as the “little brothers”. He dutifully cheered on their lackluster performances again and again as they attempted to bloody the nose of various teams, and gave a loving pat on the head to me when they were trounced by the Gods, otherwise known as Green Bay.

We were neither of us baseball fans. You may remember that the Detroit Tigers were not quite so hapless, scoring victories in 1968 and in 1984. The last, I celebrated in the very city of Detroit after watching each of the games.

I had been at one time a Detroit Piston fan, and attended a fair number of those games through the years, especially during the Thomas, years, when they repeated to our delight and the streets were full of cheering fans. But upon leaving Detroit, and that team disbanding as all teams must, I lost interest.

I had as well been a  hockey fan, first with the Boston Bruins and that magnificent team under the leadership of Bobby Orr. I had of course seen a number of local RedWing games at the Arenas, but old and new. I had finally come around to enjoying a RedWing game, now and then, especially during the playoffs.

The Contrarian was neither a basketball fan (preferring college hoops) nor a hockey fan, likening a hockey score to the likelihood of spotting a blue footed boobie on the outskirts of Troy during hunting season. Scoring was rare and all that skating back and forth seemed only for the purpose of hurling into another human being at breakneck speed, all of which induced anger and a fist fight.

It took a long time for it to sink in however, that I had committed some terrible sin when it came to Detroit teams by leaving the state. For I did you see, back in 1996, first to Connecticut, then to Iowa and now to New Mexico.  Leave that is. While I have experienced a great deal in living in other parts of the country, places were I learned so much about history and culture from very different perspectives that what I had gown up with, I was plagued it seemed by always landing in states without professional sports teams.

So, I adopted sometimes another, or I ignored the sport more or less. I was a Houston Oiler fan long ago, before being a Texas fan of anything seemed slightly off-putting. I was a Denver fan for a bit. But nothing much settled in, and I was okay with that. I preferred Tennis and Soccer to professional baseball or basketball in any case. All that scandal and money seemed to take the fun from the sport and make it into an “entertainment” spectacle replete with too many characters acting too badly.

So, back to the jinx thing.

Well, even though one has fairly “given” up on being a true fan, doesn’t mean that one never wants to see said sport played ever again. So if there was a place to watch, it did seem it should be at the end of the season when everyone gets excited about who will win the big enchilada.

And that’s when it started happening.

You see, last year, when the Redwings, I lately learned were in the playoffs, we decided to take a look. They were up 3-1 in the series and still at home, a fitting place to win out the fourth game and the divisional championship. So we watched, and they scored and all was well until the third period when the other team scored (who? can’t remember, doesn’t really matter). And then they went into overtime, and they lost. And then they went on and never won another game. And that was that for that season.

And I realized that the MSU Spartans had a very bad habit of losing whenever I watched them. And March Madness never went too well for them either when I watched. Nor for that matter the UCONN Huskies, my second favorite college team. And the most hated team in the entire universe, The FREAKIN’ UNIVERSITY OF CRAP MICHIGAN did seem to win when I watched, which was watched by the way, ONLY to root for the other team. And if you don’t understand that, well I can only say you have never attended a major university that has an intense interstate rivalry that will stay with you in the form of abject hatred for the rest of your very long and otherwise coherent life.

But I figured, hey just a coincidence.

Oh, and I never thought anything of the fact that NMSU our very local university here in Las Cruces, has the WORST teams on the face of mother earth. I mean the AGGIES stink up the entire foothills with their pretense of playing football or basketball, and it really seems doubtful that few of the players know which one they are playing at any given time. As far as I can tell, they have always sucked, so it’s not on me for sure.

Yeah, so last night we watched the Detroit Tigers play the Boston Red Sox, because hey, it seemed like a good thing as the ONLY game I had seen all season, since the season was rapidly ending. So the Tigers won the first game, which is hey, really cool, since they were in Boston, and everyone knows that’s great. So we watch as I said, and low and behold we see another incredible pitching exposition, even though that can be boring as watching the proverbial paint dry. And the Tigers score, and then in the 6th score FOUR more, and they are cruising to victory and the pitcher is relieved to rest, having done his job. Well, before you can say, I DON’T FREAKIN’ BELIEVE IT, in the eighth, the coach which for some idiotic reason is called a manager, can’t manage to find a single solitary reliever who can throw a strike that the other team can’t hit, and after three tries MANAGES them five runs, and the score is tied.

And then in the 9th, there is a single, then a continuation of screwups that make it clear that the mafia fix was in, and they were throwing the game, because NOBODY could play that freakin’ bad so suddenly, and the Bostonians score again and win the game.

So of course it’s really really clear I am a jinx.

Obviously.

And I guess I’m responsible for the Detroit Lions too. Even though, mostly I blame that idiot Ford for owning them. Which is another whole story best left unsaid at this point.

So I wish the Tigers well, but I won’t watch in the hopes that they can snatch victory from those incredibly hairy men. Who told them that it would look really cool to grow scraggly beards anyhow?