If Wishes Were . . .Pineapples

Tags

FRB, GOP, Gov. Walker, John Edwards, Peter Diamond, Rick Santorum, right-wing idiots, Sarah Palin, wingnuts, Wisconsin

Politicians are a strange breed, you have to admit. I mean, they live in a rare reality known only to themselves. They, or at least many of them, dream of power and riches. They awaken with visions of being the ruler of the world.

In fairness, I guess we all do this to a degree. We daydream of whatever we think would make our lives perfect. The difference is, we know the difference between dreams and reality, a lot of politicians don’t.

Case in point: Ricky (don’t Google me) Santorum. Ricky has got it in his head that he would like to be president. So he has announced that he is running. He did this this morning on GMA, afraid I guess, that if he set up a press conference on the steps of the Pennsylvania State House, that (a) nobody might show up, or (b) Sarah’s bus would show up and suck all the air up.

In any event, he’s running. Of course, he is dependent upon his faithful, such as they are, sending him dollars to finance his dream quest.

Now, let me draw an analogy for you.

I want to be the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. I want this, even though I am (a) a woman, (b) have never had on boxing gloves in my life, and (c) and 61 years old. So send me money to hire a coach, join a gym, and throw in a housekeeper to take care of my house and cook meals, since I’m going into this full-tilt.

Get the idea? A Rick Santorum rally is staged at the corner of any major downtown street, but is only active when the “don’t walk” sign is on, because that is the only time there is a crowd.

In other words, Rick Santorum stands as much chance of being president as I do of being the heavyweight champ of the world. Anyone who sends him money (other than a relative hoping that his campaign might keep him from the family reunion this year) should be placed on a list of “too dumb to vote”.

What in God’s heaven get’s into the minds of these idiots?

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I have come to see John Edwards as a vile excuse for a human being. He exhibited perhaps the most unfeeling, cold, and awful behavior in having a silly affair while his wife was battling a life-ending cancer. (Videos of him flirting on a bus with his new lady remain nauseatingly silly). He later denied his own child in an attempt to salvage his political career.

There is not much I can think of to defend, but I have to say, in the end, that the charges lodged against Mr. Edwards are far-fetched in my opinion. This smacks of hoping that the public finds Mr. Edwards to be so immoral, that they will stretch a law to an absurd extreme just to seek revenge. This is not justice, no matter how little you think of the man. Just my opinion of course.

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One of the things that continues to gripe my soul is that the GOP continues to block every effort on the part of the Obama Administration to assist the economic recovery, all the while cheering silently from the sidelines for continuing stagnation. Their recipe is complain about the economy, do everything to block anything that might help, and then argue that voters need to give them a chance, since the Administration has failed miserably.

Case in point, the blocking of Peter Diamond, Nobel Laureat in economics from the Federal Reserve Board. GOP Richard Shelby continue to argue that he is “unqualified” for no reason other than, gee, he might actually help the economy, and that wouldn’t be good for us.

Similarly, John Boehner once laughed at the idea that the Administration could cure the ills of Detroit’s auto industry. Now that they have, he claims it was in reality, “no big deal.”

Is there a Republican in Congress who actually gives a damn about the country? Please alert me as to whom that might be. I’d like to meet this rare creature.

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Ya probably heard this, but sista Sarah ain;t none to happy about being dissed on her lack of historical truthiness regarding one Paul Revere–who as WE ALL KNOW warned AMERICANS that the British were coming. He did this without benefit of bells, Liberty ones or otherwise.

Ms. Moosey cannot take criticism so she has enlisted those who really really read, and they found in some obscure dusty history book, that Mr. Revere was momentarily detained at a roadblock and wildly inflated the size of the American arsenal.

Ms. Idiot’s loyal drooling fans are trying to rewrite Wikipedia pages regarding Mr. Revere to reflect their girl’s superior understanding of events.

Our most favorite up on the news of the day maven, Moe, from Whatever Works has all the gossip.

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Meanwhile, OKJimm keeps us apprised of Guv Walker’s attempts to hold onto his office by generally screwing everybody whose last name doesn’t end in INC. Jim lets us in on the fight to stop abortions where they don’t exist, and turning over road work from the state to private companies.

I also understand that the GOP is trying to set up dummy Democratic candidates to “run” against the GOPer’s who are being recalled, in some attempt I guess, to so split the vote that GOP incumbent can retain his office.

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What’s on the stove? Pizza–a bad choice on a day when it’s humid and going into the damn 90’s…

 

Political Points in Peyton Prospective

Tags

Congress, corporations, GOP, gridlock, John Edwards, John McCain, Michelle Bachmann, Obama, personhood, right wing nuts, Roe v Wade, Sarah Palin, SCOTUS, State of the Union, teabaggers

It’s been a good two weeks of political this and that. Time for everything to marinate, blend, shake out, and the subtle themes and nuances to shake out. In other words. . . .time for a retrospective, Peyton style, of the news. We are after all, a hurry up, short attention span sort of species.

I can only conclude, as I always do, that I have been misplaced again in the universe, for surely I don’t fit in with what I consider to be the majority of Merikans and others around said globe. In other words, they are all nuts, I’m sane, and stop the world, I wanna get off. Preferably on the planet from which I was abducted, and am still Queen in absentia.

First on the docket is the SCOTUS disaster–personhood for corporations. This is indeed a sad day for democracy lovers world wide. It of course makes a joke out of the concept of “judicial restraint versus judicial activism.” As I’ve said, one is either one or the other, depending on whether the Court acts as you desire or not. Surely, no Founding Father could have anticipated nor condoned the idea that a “thing” a corporation would have personhood.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission bodes no good in many directions at once. Overruling decades of precedence, the reactionary and activist right, reset the playing field as election politics go. Now, it seems, corporations will be able to flood the market with millions to promote the candidate that best helps their cause of greed. And with a slight bit of finesse, foreign countries will be able to influence and perhaps control elections in this country.

While everybody is bemoaning this state of affairs, I see a much more sinister movement here. Declaring corporations to be persons for purposes of constitutional rights such as free speech, can only embolden those who see to reverse Roe v. Wade. After all, how can you sustain an argument that a corporation is a person, but a fetus (which will grow into a human being in time) is not? I suspect you will be hearing more about this “business” case than you might think.

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The tea baggers are proving to be about what we would expect from people who have spotty educations and basically little in the way of actual sense. Their convention seems fraught with problems, mostly stemming from the fact that the whole thing is a bit of a scam.

First they start with Michelle Bachmann and Sarah as their two-pronged assault team. These two are enough to make a grown man celibate for life, hoping to stop the generation of any more spawn from these two crown idiots. But Michelle has now pulled out, and Sarah is being impolitely asked to leave by a segment of the tea bagger nation.

The reason? Seems Ms. Moose is not quite right wingy enough to suit the multi-faceted tea brigade. People are also complaining about the exorbitant price for one of the Alaskan Artist’s prized tickets.

How did Sarah get too “mainstream” for the tea bagger cult? Why she’s agreed to stump for one John Sydney McCain, the poor old Senator from Arizona who is having a hard time being right enough against his primary challenger. The tea bag gang thinks McCain is decidedly NOT right enough, and therefore Sarah can’t be either.

Speaking of which, Johnny is sure showing his true colors–“Ideology be damned, I wanna be re-elected!” It seems John has privately at least expressed his mea culpa about hiring on the said Palin express in his failed presidency bid. Yet, when push comes to shove, the ideal-less get going and bring in what might work, much as he privately might despise the woman. So much for John and integrity. But we knew that.

Which all goes to show–picking through the trash just locates trash doesn’t it? A pox on all their house.

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Obama, following what was touted as a rather brilliant State of the Union speech, traveled to Capital Hill and met with the GOP. As you might expect, the cleaned the floor there too, making the Rethugs look like petulant children. One poor representative, was shocked that Obama had read his bill–though he quickly reverted to the usual handed out talking points that all Rethugs have come to know and love

What is at work here, and what the crazies in the GOP can’t get, is that, much as they try to deny it, Obama is a first class mind. And alas, they are holders of quite ordinary small minds. Thus the shock that he actually reads bills, even those proposed by lowly junior representatives.  I suspect in some sense, they truly cannot “get” him for just that reason.

It also points out just what we and they look for in candidates. It seems the GOP is not big on thinkers, but is very big on those that will faithfully mouth the GOP mantras of big business and low taxes for the wealthy.

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Last but not least. John Edwards. Oh my, what can we say? To be duped by a sleazeball of this size is really thought provoking. It can cause one to stop in mid-stride. How can I or anyone be so incredibly wrong about our take on the integrity of another human being? It utterly boggles the mind, and contributes again to the belief that politicians are all worthless scum who via for office as a means to personal power.

Can you imagine being his new daughter who will one day have access to the information out there today about what her daddy did to try to stay at arms length from her? From pleas for abortion to substituting another daddy in the breach. What an awful man. Elizabeth, whatever her personal failings (and we all have them), is well rid of the snake.

More Questions than Answers

Tags

character, Democrats, dualistic thinking, founding fathers, John Edwards, judgment, Politics, Republicans, values

Richard Rohr would suggest that’s a good thing. The more questions than answers thingy. It may be more a matter of not having seen the sun in over a week, or the fact that I don’t have the right size knitting needles, and it’s too far to travel in questionable weather to get them. Or it may be the obscenity of the loss in Massachusetts and the ugly irony of it all. It may be because of how John Edwards managed to lie boldly and regularly for so long with all of us thinking him a great guy.

So I don’t know where it is coming from, but I surely have more questions. I’m trying to relax into the unknowing and be okay with that. It’s not easy I tell you. I’m a product of my Western culture which is answer oriented. But at least I’m convinced that such dualistic thinking is primitive, best left to the fundies who wallow in torturing words into ideas that give them “answers,” that offer the pretense of security they crave.

The Contrarian and I have been engaged in a friendly disagreement about the Democratic Party and politicians in general. I’m leaning toward a complete disengagement, figuring that the great unwashed get what they deserve and blindly yammer for. The Contrarian sees things as more or less the norm, and life goes on. I’m practicing my Hamletic “to be or not to be” weighing of alternatives.

The Contrarian argues quite rightly that poor President Obama has barely completed one fourth of his presidency and it’s grossly unfair to write him off yet. I rely on what is becoming increasingly clear: namely that the attention span of the average dull American is about six months. Fair to produce sufficiently, and they are frenetically off to find a new “savior.” Forget that no human person could accomplish much in our rusty, barely functional government. It’s self fulfilling prophesy if there ever was such a thing.

For those who tout to heaven the importance of “doing what the Founding Fathers intended,” I offer this: they never expected that a two party system would develop. And if it worked a 150 years ago, it sure doesn’t work now. The “umbrella” needs be too large, and thus the platform is meaningless, only reflecting the opinion of some barely 50% of the party faithful. Worse, they never envisioned career politicians and that their first adherence is to whatever will keep them employed.

The two party system is outmoded, and no longer serves any purpose but to those who feed from its trough. They represent only themselves. The Democratic party is chock full of traitorous Dems in name only. Traitorous in the sense that they will vote their re-election before they support the platform of the party they claim to be part of. In fact they are Republicans who for some reason, so far, find it still convenient to call themselves Democrats.

I’m ready to find some purity I guess. I would like to vote for someone who actually believes what I believe. I’m more and more convinced that we’d get better government should the party with the most votes be FORCED to compromise with other parties to form a working majority. We might actually pass a LAW then, instead of passing generic all encompassing crap that hands out pork to buy votes for passage.

I’m appalled at John Edwards. During the lead up to Kerry’s nomination, the Contrarian was a huge supporter of Edwards, and I liked him a lot too. During the last cycle, he continued to push for Edwards and I felt that it was sad there were so many qualified Dems in the field.

His affair was disgusting, not on a personal level so much as that he was willing to derail the road to victory by a scandal of this magnitude. Now we learn even more, how he lied, how he bold face lied, and then admitted the lies, and lied some more. Then admitted them, and lied some more. Now we learn that he tried to bargain his withdrawal from the primaries for either the VP or the AG positions. He paid off a campaign worker to claim a child as his own, when Edwards knew full well it was his. Elizabeth Edwards comes off as no saint either, if you believe the rumors. I might as well, since this kind of behavior seems to go with the territory these days.

I wonder, can I any longer judge character? Is there any character to judge at all when it comes to politicians? Are there new standards I’m unaware of ? Does character have anything to do with the ability to lead? Does truth matter any more? What are values anymore? Is there a correlation between values and good judgment? Can rich people relate to me at all? Have we lost our capacity to be empathetic? Does absolute power corrupt absolutely as they say? Or is it only the type of power that is hard to hold on to that scrambles our brains and makes us tempt the devil to achieve power?

It seems I’m full of wondering. And Richard Rohr says we’ve lost our ability to wonder and live in the mysteries of life. I’m sure wondering, and I find it all a mystery. I guess that means that at least my spiritual life is going strong. Then how come I feel so glum?

Dammit John, It Matters!

Tags

Election 2008, John Edwards

I personally don’t give a rat’s bum about the marital peccadilloes of John Edwards or any candidate much. I figure that’s between them and their spouse for the most part. They are no different in that respect than Joe Blow down the street as far as I’m concerned. And besides, I have no clue what kind of arrangements any married couple might make and for what reasons they might make them.

That said, I wish to discuss Edwards affair. Okay? What he did was so God-awful wrong and it’s down right unforgivable on a number of levels. If John were admitting to an affair conducted many years ago, then hey, okay, I could and would probably say–history, none of my business, has nothing to do with you as a candidate. If it had happened as it did in 2006 and this was it’s first uncovering by the press, and you admitted to it, I would have grudgingly said pretty much the same, although I think there might be more of an issue to resolve.

But alas, it didn’t happen like that at all. It was uncovered by the press in 2006 and you lied about it, boldly, deliberately, while looking me and millions of others right in the eye, and with sincerity you said it was a terrible awful lie. And it was you who was terribly and awfully lying all the time.

You see this came up some weeks ago. The Contrarian and I first heard of it on Jay Leno. The weird thing is that we didn’t hear about it the next day or the next, or the next. So, we figured it was somehow just some stupid rumor without basis in fact, and we forgot about it. Our only comment was, that we would be disappointed if it were true, but apparently it was not.

Then suddenly, it’s all true. Disappointment? You betcha. At least with Bill Clinton, we had plenty of warning, such rumors and well, more than rumors had circulated about him for years. We took his lies with a grain of salt. You, John? We thought better of you. Everyone has respect for Elizabeth and more than respect, we were terribly hurt and saddened by her return of cancer.

Yes, we know, she was in remission while this affair occurred. So what? I know you said that that didn’t change a thing, and of course it doesn’t, but you really did have to mention it didn’t you? Not as an excuse, but certainly as an “explanation.”  Not really a total ass, am I, after all, it wasn’t like I said, “Wife is gonna die, better start looking for a replacement.”

But John, you were the Populist among us. You were the little guy from humble beginnings who made it. The bright kid who got a chance and made the most of it. You were one of us, and you made a mockery of us and you. You let us down, and you showed us that you weren’t one of us at all. Just another glib, smart-talking wealthy, I can do what I want because I’m rich and famous, son of a bitch, that you so liked to ridicule as the “other America.”

It’s isn’t the act John that I so despise. I have no idea how Elizabeth felt. There are  women who would have left you in a heart-beat, and others who would hardly have been phased at all. Not my call to make. It’s the freaking lying that I can’t and won’t forgive. Politics is simply gorged with liars, everywhere and on every topic. We, the polity, at least some of us, strain mightily to cut through the gutter sludge and arrive at some truth. We thought we had some semblance of that in you. Wrong we were. Again.

And what of the Party? What if, John, you had secured the nomination? This revelation would have been the undoing of the party, and John McCain could have walked into the presidency. I guess that simple idea never crossed your arrogant mind.

You say, in mitigating your crime, that you were seduced by the power and the celebrity. You became all self-consumed and felt you could do whatever you wished and not suffer consequences. Really? Sorry, I don’t buy it. Just another convenient excuse, without any convenient truth attached.

Such is the excuse offered by any addict. I know that, I’ve been one. I have quit smoking twice, hopefully this time for good. I also was an alcoholic by any fair barometer of such things, albeit a functioning one. But I never thought in either smoking or drinking that I was above the addiction. I never thought I could do either to excess and still be “recreational” in my usage. I knew I was heading down a road that would lead to uncontrolled use. Thankfully I’ve stopped both.

Let me try another analogy. Drugs. I grew up in the late 60’s and was a young twenty-something in the 70’s. Drugs were popular, and were very easy to procure. Heroin was addictive, and besides, nice people, didn’t do that. But, cocaine was hip, the in thing to do. I never did it. Why? Because John, I was able to see that while not physically addictive, it was emotionally so. It was expensive and people who used it tended to spend more and more money buying more of it. They ended up losing their jobs and families. They would sell their mother to get more. Why and how was I going to be any different? I realized that. I assumed I would love the stuff, and would want more. The only intelligent thing was not to try it. I never did.

It was just common sense. It helped that I saw first hand what happened to a few attorneys who succumbed. One nearly lost his license, the other is in prison for life. He murdered a woman in his cocaine world, so lost did he become. While I recognize that I perhaps didn’t have the driving triggers to succumb in the first place, I had too much at stake and my life was too decent to let myself wander into that morass.

You were the same. Too much at stake, too much appearing to be right in your life. You were just lazy, and self indulgent, and you didn’t waste any time in really thinking it through. If you had, you wouldn’t have done it. It wasn’t worth the price, and you know that. But don’t patronize me with the idea that you really didn’t think it wouldn’t someday spiral out of control and be exposed. You knew it would most likely, and you were too lazy to care. So much for caring about the American people and what was best for them. You put John first, John’s silly sexcapades came first.

As I said, all of this would be none of my concern, but that you risked America’s future. You might well have been the candidate. There are some, who suggest that Hillary might have won Iowa but for you. I don’t know as I buy that, but well, speculation is speculation. She might have, and she might now be the candidate. We will not know if things would be different or not. But you risked my future, and I’m damned mad. How dare you?

More than that, you have perhaps nailed the last nail in the coffin of public trust in elected officials for me. I did trust you John. Did, get that, did. I wouldn’t trust a thing that you say now, or ever for that matter. Kiss your political career goodbye. I don’t care if that matters to you or not.

I have a fair idea what John McCain is hiding in his closet of horrors. Now I wonder what Barack is hiding in his. That’s what you have done to me John. That’s why it matters John, and by the way, kiss my ass.