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.
Existential Ennui 