Are You Ready?

Tags

2nd Amendment, budget, cartoons, corporate America, CPAC, economy, filibuster, gay rights, GOP, Humor, Individual Rights, minimum wage

Have you been keeping up on CPAC, the GOP answer to absolutely nothing? It’s been a “business as usual” kinda thing so far. Trump gets up there and trashes Jindal, and babbles about himself and how great he is. Rick Perry says they have to reach out to Latinos and is booed. Rubio says just because he supports traditional marriage doesn’t make him a bigot. (yeah actually it does).

My favorite was a clip from a “workshop” wherein a younger type white dude talked about being proud of his “demographic” (code for white supremacist) and claiming that the federal government was disenfranchising same, and that he thought his “demographic” had a great culture to be preserved.

When the moderator who was black, noted that Frederick Douglass sent a letter to his “owner” many years after he had escaped, and forgave him, the young man piped up and said, “for what? For receiving food and a home?” This was met with a couple audible gasps, but far too much applause. He was heard to utter under his breath, “we just need to go back to segregation.”

Yes, that’s the state of the GOP.

You have all heard the stories in the press. As the President and rational folks in the Democratic Party responded to the upswell of opinion that favored background checks for gun buyers and at least some restrictions on the types of guns available and large capacity clips, the gun stores have been doing a booming business.

It is now an undeniable fact that a significant majority of our fellow citizens are building up arsenals for the coming Armageddon that they are sure is on the way.

Given that these people are mentally unstable and delusional, it should come as no surprise that they actually think they can fend off the American military with their pretend assault weapons. They are so effectual against tanks and drones. What they do is pose a significant danger to the poor neighbors who unbeknownst, live near them.

No doubt you noted that the Dow has hit an all-time high. That is certainly cause for much celebration.

Business feels good about itself apparently. Business is good. During the recession they spent their money on ways to improve productivity with a smaller work force.

They were successful.

They aren’t hiring much because they don’t have to.

The fools believed that they were “job creators.”

They are profit creators dummy. Always were. The last thing they want to do is hire workers. Workers are much more expensive to keep than a robot riveter.

Yet the Right continues the mantra, and the kool-aid drinkers keep repeating it.

Need I say more?

The mantra for this one is that it depresses employment because business lays off workers rather than pay them a living wage.

Yeah, business is usually known for cutting of its nose to spite its face. I can just hear them now.

“Sorry Ms Customer, you will have to wait an extra 45 minutes for service. If you don’t like it leave. I’m not going to hire another worker at $10 an hour. So take your $150 dress and rehang it. I have principles you know.”

Yeah, I’m sure that’s what they will do.

Actual studies show they do lay off workers, for a hot minute, and then hire them back when, you know, they have more customers than their current work force can handle.

And guess what? That happens across the country. And guess what? All that extra cash earned by workers? It’s SPENT for goods and services, and that causes more demand, and more hiring. Amazing how that happens.

We’ve been hearing this whine for a long time from the Right.

And under rational and normal circumstances, it might just have some validity.

Of course it doesn’t have any validity today and everybody who bothers to be alive knows that.

Why?

Because Mitch McConnell will prevent any budget bill offered by the Democrats from reaching the floor of the Senate for actual debate.

He will filibuster.

He promised he wouldn’t do that.

He lied.

What’s new?

Forgive me if I’m not suitably impressed.

Rob Portman was against it before he was for it.

Seems his personal situation, impressed him enough to consider a change of mind.

Now, I’m glad that Portman has seen the light. I really am.

But as I said, forgive me if it’s just a bit too self-serving.

As a few have said, perhaps it would help if Portman woke up with a poor son, or a senior son. Maybe then he would be in favor of SNAP, and Pell grants, and Medicare, and well, you get the idea.

His hopes of being nominated are shall we say, in trouble?

It’s a glorious day here, with the high going into the mid 80’s. Sun is shining. Time to get busy in the yard with clean up. Diego is a messy boy. He has pieces of wood and bits of things he’s torn up scattered everywhere. To day nothing of poo. Saturday is poo clean up day.

I’m cooking my corned beef today in a slow-cooker kinda way, bathed in beer. I made a couple of loaves of soda bread. I made a white cake that I will trim with green lime frosting. Tomorrow when I get home from church I can make the colcannon. It’s a St. Paddy’s Day kinda meal!

Have a great one yourselves.

 

 

I Don’t Hafta, But I Am

Tags

American Foreign policy, Bill O'Reilly, birthers, Congress, filibuster, Jon Stewart, Nazism, teabaggers

You know, there is no good way to denote whistling is there on paper? As to the actual thing, I can do it a bit, but did you know that if you can’t sing in tune, you can’t whistle in tune either? That just seems wrong.

Don’t know why I thought of that.

I wrote a piece over at Walking in the Shadows, so I’m not feeling extra wordy over here. That means I’ll write less than 1000 w o r d s here. Are you happy about that?

Yesterday, I mentioned that Jon Stewart had skewered Foxless Noise about Megan Kelly’s claim that they didn’t use the Nazi thing to denigrate people. He did that by simply using clips from their own shows–Beck, O’Reilly, and whoa, even Megan herself was present to two such over-the-top rhetoric.

Billo got all hot and bothered, and went about the nonsense of “justifying” his Nazi reference regards Huff Po. So Jon was forced to explain to BilboBuggins that that wasn’t the point. Explaining was not a defense to “we never do that!” And just to make it even clearer, Stewart threw in two more instances wherein the Bloviator had used Nazi references to put down people.

Billy, you can’t compete against the master. Stop trying! (Go the The Daily Show to see the video of last nights show!)

***

Speaking of which, I continue to wonder. When Foxy and all the other air-headed right-wing wonkos lie, where do they think that print and video goes? Do they really think it’s out of sight, out of existence? The fact that their ignoramus  listeners wouldn’t bother to check is one thing, but surely they should realize that the smarty left will look up the archives. Archives–add that word in your dictionary Foxy Morons.

***

Instead of fixing the problem, the Senate decided it was easier to be dysfunctional. No changes in the filibuster rules. I don’t get these fools. But then again, maybe I do: they are fools.

***

I guess it goes without saying that American foreign policy ain’t quite right, when you feel restricted from supporting democratic uprisings because it interferes with our “security” interests. Why is America so often supporting dictators in the name of security? Experts claim the US cannot afford to be on the wrong side again, supporting a repressive regime.

***

Don’t know about you, but I loves me some birthers. I mean, I wish they would have a convention, because it would be grand to go and view 13 crazy people in one room. Imagine the costuming? Imagine the signs? Imagine the scary makeup?

The Blaze, that scion of rag “reporting” has a piece on the subject, and Hawaii’s innovative way to garner a few bucks from the tried and true loonies who pester then   for copies of the President’s birth certificate.

The Blaze specializes in non-stories, (three paragraphs and 4 pictures) designed to catch the attention of the rabble on the extreme right, so they can rant about how their lives are being ruined by whatever annoys their beer-swilled minds. The comments of course are the point.

BMartin1776 had this to say:

 I hope at least half the states pass that eligibility law for 2012 b/c Barry Dunham, Soetoro, Obama or whatever his name is will be screwed.

Taguoshi added:

B.O. is going to be remembered as the bowing President without a birth certificate, Now, isn’t that just so special?

Peaceuntoyou suggests it all started with a plan from his “radical mom”:

what criminals. You know wish I could rember (sic)  it all. But I truely  (sic)remember there was something in the news years ago about his radical mom and how she said He was going to be the president of the United States. She was really mad I remember. Have to try to do old research unless someone remembers to.

SMYFP thinks its odd the paper boy doesn’t come forward:

It is convenient that no more than a handful of people have come forward remembering “good ole barry” Everybody else in america that was born a citizen here in 1961 will have literally hundreds of people that can remember their life. How is it that no one knew him before? Coincidence? enquiring minds want to know!

And this last from Greensicko who is very sure:

For 100 bucks you will find out Obama is not the first black president, he (sic) listed as WHITE.

There you have it from the ideologically and intellectually deformed.

The Country is safe when we know where they are.

Let’s hear it for Friday!

Related Articles

• Selective Editing? Bill O’Reilly ‘Corrects’ Jon Stewart Over Criticism Of Nazi Rhetoric (mediaite.com)

Mendacity or Commonality?

Tags

Congress, dysfunction, filibuster, parliamentary rules, Politics

Everybody agrees on one thing–Democrat, Republican, liberal or conservative–Congress simply sucks.

Everybody, it seems, has a solution. And shockingly, so do I. After pondering the entire situation for some time, I think I have a handle on the problem and the cure.

Grid lock is the problem, quite obviously. Nothing much gets done. Over time, both sides have learned that the best way (as they can conceive it with their fairly simian brains), to get power is to simply block and obstruct every single thing, good, bad or indifferent, that the other side wishes to accomplish. The party out of power then points to the failure to do anything by the other side, and hopefully, we, the drooling electorate, too stupid to know better, vote the in’s out and the out’s in. Then we begin again.

Plenty have tried to forge a common foundation of discontent hoping to vote them all out and begin again. However, everybody finds some people worth saving, and this overlaps to a degree that, well, we never do it.

We must return to the fundamental problem–what causes this strategy of “no” to be successful? Why are we in a situation where a minority can shut down the government more or less?

I’m constrained to see that the problem lies in the rules and interpretations of the two houses. I don’t know, and wouldn’t bore you anyway, with the details. Apparently it is possible for one person to hold up the appointments of the White House so they cannot get to the floor of the entire Senate chamber for a vote. Apparently there are all kinds of rules and interpretations that allow A house or senate member to block other types of legislation from being voted upon.

Of course, we know about the filibuster, that tried and true method for one person to stop everything for as long as he/she can stay standing and continue to speak. Of course, as we now know, we are a gentler kinder people, so we don’t actually require them to do this but in some “spirit” as they go home, sleep, eat and otherwise go about business as usual, stopping by and speaking for a required period each day to qualify as “continuous speaking.”

What this all amounts to is that the Senate and House has instituted by design or interpretation, an array of devices whose sole purpose is to cause utter dysfunction within its chambers.

Let that sink in. What institution has deliberate dysfunction built into the fabric of its operation? Why are we so intend on giving A person such control?

What the American folksies want, I would argue, is a government that debates with an eye toward uncovering commonality. Where we find common ground, then we move to enact it. As to the real differences that still exist, why then we continue to argue, debate, question, answer, explain, exhort, and so forth. When consensus is arrived at on another point or two, we enact that.

We in essence, govern. We move forward. We address problems in small incremental steps. Surely, nobody is perfectly satisfied, but all can sleep at night knowing that we are not mired in mud up to our eyeballs, in danger of being suffocated.

So the solution is simple. We instruct our representatives and senators to stop this. Eliminate these rules, change these interpretations. Of course they won’t do it voluntarily, but they will when they see that we will vote them out of office if they don’t.

They will complain, they will explain, they will pat us on the head and declare that “brilliant as we are, we don’t understand parliamentary procedures and how necessary these stop gaps are to prevent tyranny.”

Bull crap. Stop it and stop it now. You have institutionalized dysfunction which serves only one purpose now–to insure your re-election to fight the good fight against the infidels (meaning the other side).  So stop it. Or get ready to return to private life when your term is over. We can all agree that any elected official who wishes to retain the status quo wishes only to protect his/her own fiefdom. They are NOT representing our interests.

You have three months. Do it. Stop whining. Just do it. Can we not agree on this even? For if we can’t, we cannot continue to castigate them for not agreeing on anything. If we can’t agree that institutionalized dysfunction is irrational and counter productive in a modern government, then we deserve to perish in flames as did Rome.

 Leave the keys under the mat, the Chinese will be needing the building.

I Don’t Know Whether to Throw in the Towel, or Chew It

Tags

brain, conservatives, far right wing, filibuster, health care reform, Health Care Summit, Jesus, liberals, McCain, Obama, Republicans

Frankly, I haven’t had a lot to say about health care reform for some time. I grew tired. I grew disgusted. I could feel my blood pressure soar at the mere contemplation.

Nothing has changed. The “Summit” turned out as expected. Mitchy McConnell worries that his side only has gotten 13 minutes and the other side 52 minutes so far, and Johnny McCain cannot avoid the temptation to mewl about the lost election but again. In between, the same tired old arguments, most all of them argued, debated, and proven wrong or right a kazillion times already.

So, I’m not wasting your time with arguments, you’ve heard them all before. What I can do is point you toward some useful information. One of these nuggets of truth is a piece from TruthOut written by Professor George Lakoff about how brains work. It’s a fascinating article and really helps one realize why conservatives are as they are and why liberals are as they are.

Basically, we are wasting time talking. The worldview of the average Republican suggests that anything Obama is destructive, thus even pointing out that Democrats are willing to push certain Republican points, Republicans will LOGICALLY flip and now oppose them. They view any action to support this president to be counter productive. They believe that they are doing the right thing in being the party of NO.

In part it depends on how one is raised. Conservative Republicans tend to be brought up in authoritative father dominated families. The world is dangerous, dad protects, children are obedient, and punished physically for failure to comply. Liberal Democrats are tend to be brought up in nurturing supportive families without gender control, where helping family and others is seen as being empathetic and responsible. Both tend to place make these “governing” models onto new institutions such as church, work, and government.

So, you cannot shame a conservative into doing the “right” thing because he doesn’t and will never see it as right. Flipping and flopping are seen as necessary to stop the ruination of America.

Lance Simmens writing at Huff Po, suggests that congress is the new death panel. They clearly and uncategorically deny that health care is a human right, thus they are the ones who are willing to decide who will receive it and who won’t. Let’s don’t go do fast, a step  at a time, and cost governs all. Such is their mindset.

His advice: Democrats must forge ahead, forget the Republicans and pass whatever they can. They will never get help from Republicans who pretty much have dug in their heels. And, their base, is of the same opinion, doesn’t listen to opposition arguments anyway, and want no truck with compromise at all. Witness what has happened to the new Senator from MA who is now being vilified by the ultra right for his voting yes on the jobs bill.

Iowa’s Tom Harkin has re-introduced legislation to end the power of the filibuster. He did so some years ago when his own party was a minority, so he has cred on this issue. Dick Durbin has gone one better, and is enlisting the public’s help in petitioning for the ending of this blocking technique. Follow the link and you will be directed to the website where you can sign a petition to that effect. For those of you in a hurry, go there directly by linking here.

Will Marshall, also writing in Huff Po, sums up the Summit by arguing that at least Republicans have been forced to put forth what they would do.  His conclusions are:

• Republicans do not fundamentally believe that health care is a human right. Their plans would insure about 3 million more people, without explanation of what standards would apply and still leaving 43 millions without care.
• They wish to reduce premiums by using methods mostly of benefit to healthy policy holders. Their solutions favor giving people options that reduce to bare bones their coverage at bigger savings by buying out of state and use of medical savings accounts.
• They have no interest in working with Democrats because their base says just saying NO is fine.

Probably the dust up between John Sydney and the President was the best moment of yesterday’s events. If you want to read a really really scathing comment on Johnny, by all means read Paul Slansky’s piece, again at Huff Po.

Of course one of the most shocking elements of this debate is that so-called strong Christians are lined up behind Republicans on this issue. Somehow they find a Christ who is not “for” health care. Paul Rauchenbush speaks to this issue, and finally admits it is basic selfishness. I agree.

Well, enough I guess. One could go on for hours, reading and linking up to various opinions. My advice: Screw the Rethugs. Get something together, and push it through. Use reconciliation. Ignore the polls. Giving some relief will have a bigger effect than doing nothing. Ignore the Republicans. Ignore the Republicans. Ignore the Republicans. Is that getting through?

And just in case, you think I have nothing else on my mind, I’m getting increasingly disappointed in Canada these days. I think they have done a fairly lousy job all around on the Olympics. I guess I should explain, but I won’t for now. Trust me. You know you can’t don’t you?

Are We Watching the End?

Tags

China, Congress, Contitution, economy, filibuster, Health care, legislation, mega corporations, politicians, Rome, special interests

Washington is looking more and more like the bloated, rotted corpse that was ancient Rome. You may think that is going a bit too far, but frankly, I don’t think it is. After all, Rome, which as we all know, was not built in a day, didn’t die in one either. It took decades and indeed centuries for the final nail to be pounded into a barely breathing empire.

No doubt some will say, that there are always naysayers and doomsday predictors throughout every era. Much like the perennial apocalyptic “the sky is falling” proponents, who surface at almost every moment in history, the claim is that “this too shall pass.” Things do indeed look worse up close and personal.

Perhaps, but I don’t think so. I think we are sliding down that ever slippery slope into the era of the reliving of past glories. Just ask the British, they probably never saw it coming either, nor I dare say, did the Romans. We’ve been through rough times before, and we survive. Yes, indeed we have, but it seems that what is going so very wrong in America these days has a cause–its an utterly dysfunctional government subject to archaic rules and laws that no longer make sense in the strange new global world in which we find ourselves.

My DD had a fine article on this today, and one that I urge you to read.  Most all of us have in recent years commented on the almost ground to a halt condition of our congress. Many things are undoubtedly to blame but I seem to see a couple big causes.

One is when we declared (for perfectly good reasons at the time) that corporations had some near human status in our legal world. This of course made it subject to being sued in tort actions and indeed occasionally in criminal matters. But it set the tone and allowed them to claim for themselves other “citizen” rights. Mostly, it gave them the right to “freedom of speech” and with that the right to support candidates both verbally and financially.  Little did we realize that soon, all our politicians would be owned by these increasingly large behemoths.

We did not foresee the growth of mega corporations, and certainly didn’t envision their global reach. Now their interests are often at odds with purely American interests, and they expect that their bought and paid for politicians will legislate in a manner than protects their interests even when the public is ill served by their actions.

We all know we need serious overhauling of the health care system, yet we are going to get a bizarre mishmash of directives that actually don’t do much of that, and don’t serve the public, but do protect the industries involved for the most part with a few “crumbs” to the masses.

We seem powerless to stop this, or change it. We have this odd, and I would suggest, irrational belief that our Constitution, so perfect for so many decades, is capable of  coping with the new world it finds itself in. Between the mega corporation and it’s puppeteering, we have the “special interest” lobby groups who have infiltrated the Beltway, their pockets stuffed with money and their demands backed up by a loyal mass of “followers” who claim they will vote their interest in large blocks against anyone who attempts to stand in the way of their legislative favorite. It is no accident that Joe Lieberman is now referred to as “Mr. Aetna” for his irrational and contradictory opposition to the public option and opening up of medicare. He is simply owned by insurance interests.

I cannot see a solution to this dilemma through elections. We would have to utterly replace every senator and house member for the most part, and all would have to be dedicated to an total overhaul of the rules of both houses that now seemingly bog down everything in endless debate, vote, cloture moves, threats of filibuster, and on and on. All of this is aimed at one thing only, and that is–effectively blocking anything meaningful coming from any quarter.

Better  to consider a constitutional convention to look at how our legislative process needs be changed in this modern world. And, without doubt, no senator or house member should be allowed to participate. No one on the payroll of any corporation or special interest should be allowed to be a delegate either. Yes, yes, I realize that there will be cries of “unfair” from nearly every corner of America.

But clearly, no sane person can argue that the Founding Fathers, whom we tend to lionize as gods of some sort, ever envisioned the world we inhabit today. Not even close. They could not, as we cannot possibly imagine the world of even a hundred years from now. Until we let go of our maudlin nostalgic clinging to words written on parchment long ago, we will continue to flounder in this growing cesspool  of greed, power, money, and sex that has become our national “shrine.”

I’ve had enough, but then I said that twenty years ago, and nobody was listening then. The chorus who join me in decrying this abysmal situation no doubt has been doing the same for twenty years. The big question is: Will we ever get beyond the rhetoric to truly address this or not.

If we choose to continue lamenting with no real effort to initiate reform, then the future looks bleak indeed. We have befouled our planet, and turned our government operation into a rusty, smelly, barely to be tolerated joke. And given our lackluster and ineffectual promotion of “good” education, it’s doubtful most of our kids will be able to speak the Chinese that will soon be required to live in America.

The ball, as they say, is in our court. Table tennis anyone?