Chuck for ...

GOPer Governor Shows What He Knows, Gays

2012-01-26T16:00:00.000-08:00

Wednesday Gov Chris Christie had this to say about Civil Rights while referring to Gay Marriage,

“People would have been happy to have referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South.”

I think there was a referendum at the time, Chris, and it involved little things like three kids in a dike, Medger Evers gunned down, fire hoses, German Shepards, and National Guard troops at a goddam school. So what the Governor is saying is that those black folks should have waited until when for their Rights? I mean it's not as though the South didn't demonstrate some rather strong feelings about the issue or anything. Maybe the Governor doesn't know much of anything about his own Party's history in regards to that area?

Ding Ding
LBJ's line about Democrats losing the South for a generation?

Brewer Photo-Op

2012-01-26T15:07:00.000-08:00

YOU'RE GOING TO SIT THERE UNTIL YOU EAT YOUR SHIT SANDWICH

Now I have to admit that if I had GWB (the never to be mentioned GOPer) in front of me I might have had a finger up, a different digit to be sure. There is also the minor issue that I'm not a Governor.

But that gets to a point, what exactly is it that this President has done that is sooooo damn offensive. I get that he is a Democrat and all... I've even noticed that he's a bit darker than other Presidents. I don't remember this guy starting an optional war that lasted quite a few years, or crashing an economy, or signing a Patriot Act, or really being particularly divisive - I haven't heard them call the opposition "traitors" or such. The 'usual suspects' are gleeful over this ecounter...

Yep, Mitt figures this guy is dividing America...

BTW, Arizona is a real pretty place from the saddle of a Harley in May... Brewere is a bit of a drawback, though.

State of the Union As WWF

2012-01-24T16:05:00.000-08:00

Last time around one of the GOPers in the House lost track of what show he was watching and turned Congress into his couch in front of the TV playing WWF silliness. "You Lie!" he shouted as he imagined himself doing some folding chair smashing. A lot of people pointed out the incivility of that behavior... as though that Party doesn't breed for it.

Tonight the President is going to play to pretty much the same audience in house - and a segment that is considerably more pissed-off out in TV land. Given the President's disinclination to rile people up; it is a pretty safe bet that we'll get some soft proposals surrounded by pretty words. Liar Mitch Daniels is up as the GOPer rebuttal operative and he can speak in complete sentences without seeming embarrassed by it. You can expect a bunch of "real America" kind of stupidity from Mitch with maybe even a touch of heat.

Now if the President were to give a State of the Union speech that reflected the political and economic and social realities of The Union the House seats would look just like a WWF cage fight. There'd be chairs uprooted and thrown at the podium and Democrats body slammed. The hooting, catcalls, and racial epithets (how long to you think they can do socialist and food stamp President before the nigger word breaks out?) would shatter the media's sound meters. The media follow up would then include the words "both sides do it."

No, the President is not going to tell the Union that we've been in a class warfare for over three decades, he's not going to tell the Union that un-regulated near criminals crashed the economy and made out like bandits for doing it. He is not going to tel the Union that one Party has dedicated itself to the failure of the Union in a bid to replace the speaking President. He is not going to tell the Union that one of the Parties sustains itself on hate and resentment while inflating the plutocracy. Nah, you'll get a pretty speech and the GOPers will play hyenas anyhow.

The only people who'll get satisfaction will be that amorphous "why can't they all get along" middle. Yes, they'll wonder "why" while the President doesn't bother to tell them exactly "why." Sure, I'll watch it - just to see what it takes to get called a socialist while that person's base, which is miles from socialistic, tears its hair out in light of the plutocratic agenda of its President. Cynical? Yeah, and...?

SC Primary

2012-01-21T17:19:00.000-08:00

On the basis of exit polling the media started calling the South Carolina Primary for Newt a couple minutes after the polls closed. With a third of the vote in it looks like 41 Newt, 26 Mitt, 18 Rick, 13 Ron. (50% in 40,27)

So, in ascending order the GOP has:
The Last Confederate Standing
Frothy Blah People (Google is your friend, with a strong stomach)
MultipleMitt
The Slimy Amphibian

And from this stellar field they propose to beat President Obama like a cheap drum with whoever is erect (sort of) after this Primary. Honestly, I was kinda hoping the GOP would give America a pretty clear choice between the fakery of a Plutocrat versus the Middle Black Guy (sure I'd like left versus their crazed right but you've got the President).

Exit polls showed Mr Multiple losing the electability issue, geewhiz - that's been almost his entire play, "at least I can run with Obama."

Now I'd like to point out to the Ron Paul cultists, you might be impressed with your 13% in a GOP Primary, but here's the reality - that is your possible vote, not one of the other GOPer's supporters would go your way and any other Party voters already did. Generously speaking, in a two Party system that means you all are at best 6% in South Carolina where your flag is still flown on the State House grounds. Contrast that with the rate of serious insanity in the US...6%.

Rick Santorum... who the hell knows what that is about or would go. Maybe he wants to be a VP or maybe God told him to save the cretins in this country from themselves. If it was God, not many other than Rick were listening.

I think the biggest question is what Mitt Romney does about the results from South Carolina. Both he and Newt Gingrich are fakes of improbably degree, but Newt is a hell of a lot better actor. Without saying much of anything of consequence Newt has scorched Mitt, taking him from over a ten point lead to maybe a seventeen point deficit and that would be a twenty seven point drop against Newt. Mitt is going to have to do something about that and what Newt has is tough to top by a Romney. Mitt is going to out dog whistle and out mean Newt? Mitt cannot "fire" Newt and his smug dismissal isn't going to work with that dog. Added to that Mitt has some idea that he can appeal to the not crazy part of the General Election and he cannot get there by trying to out-Newt Newt. Maybe Mitt's best course is to wait for Newt to pull the pin on a grenade and then drop it.

That gets to the point of people looking for Newt to implode in the Primary. If Newt doesn't say something "socialistic" it is hard for me to see where Newt loses votes from the ABMs. The GOP establishment can't stand Newt and will do what it can and their problem is that the ABMs do not give a damn or they'd not be ABMs. The South Carolina voters think Newt is more electable than Mitt and that is a pipe dream worthy of Ron Paul sponsorship. Newt's negatives nation wide are horrific and short of an economic implosion or other national catastrophe he'd be smashed.

This GOP Primary may be way more fun than the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. (well, there is the part where they're competing to be Sauron) Buy lots of popcorn, this show may be pretty long.

Where's The Truth?

2012-01-21T16:09:00.000-08:00

I wish I could have written this, but Charlie Pierce did it:

The lies are also bone-deep in Romney's campaign. His wife, of all people, told a complete fairy tale here on Friday night about how, "a year ago," she and Willard "were talking and had the same conversation so many of you have had out there, and we said we thought the country was going in the wrong direction, and I turned to Mitt and asked, 'Can you save the country?'"

Okay, now Ann Romney is a very nice lady, and a very brave one, but, honest to god, is there anyone not playing with their toes who believes that Willard Romney stepped into the fray a year ago out of patriotic altruism? Is there anyone not playing with their toes who believes that he he ever stopped running for president after 2008? Hell, the hardcover edition of his campaign book, No Apologies — the book he barbered to make its contents more palatable to a Republican primary audience as a paperback — is almost two years old. The truth simply has ceased to matter in this campaign.

Does the truth come out of Willard's mouth other than when he says, "Hi, I'm Mitt Romney and I want to be President?" Except of course that his name isn't Mitt...

Balanced Media...

2012-01-21T14:47:00.000-08:00

Why in the name of whatever deity it is you like is Ramesh Ponnuru doing on my goddam TV when it is tuned to something other than goddam FauxNews, not to mention on with Chuck Todd, Andrea Mitchell, and Chris Cilliza on goddam MSNBC? Thank that same deity that they couldn't or didn't find somebody as crazy and as big a liar to represent their idea of some nutty leftism to balance that dirt bag with. What information am I supposed to come away from this with? That he doesn't drool in public?

Gee, I wonder why politics in this country is such an exercise in goddam stupidity.

goddam

Rah, Rah, Mitt... oh sure...uhuh

2012-01-21T13:59:00.000-08:00

This morning I watched a TV clip from a Romney rally, and considering the time difference it must have been mid-morning or so in South Carolina. The crowd started chanting, "We need Mitt," and MultipleMitt responded, "You're going to get me." OK, so far pretty standard election morning stirp the team stuff, right? Wellllll...

I didn't listen to the volume because I don't trust audio levels or mic placement. What I did listen to and for was the mix of voices, the varying tones and sexes and differences in volume. What my ear told me was that this chant involved very few people, I don't mean around a hundred - I'd say not much more than twenty. There's a point to this...

What is there about Mitt Romney beyond Mormon and wealthy that would inspire you to jump up and chant? Well, that or even jump up and smack you hands together and holler, "Yahoo," or whatever? Maybe repeating applause lines like, "apologize for America," or some such... well... other actual lie. I'm not even sure, "let GM die," would work in a Mitsubishi assembly plant.

It is to be sure, true that I don't like MultipleMitt, that I think, by evidence, that he is a two faced lying sack of ... poo; who will say anything to anyone in order to further his own ends and that there isn't anyone outside his immediate family and immediate friends he wouldn't throw in front of a train for extreme profit or his political desires. You have to look at the Bain profits to understand exactly how disconnected this guy is from anything other than himself. Bain wrecked companies to make 200-300% profits, keeping a company alive and people working might have meant returns like ordinary investors salivate for... 15%. Bain was not in the business of creating or salvaging businesses - it was in the business of making great whacking piles of money for a couple people, anything else that happened was entirely secondary. In that world humans are no more than an integer on a spreadsheet and long term considerations are entirely trumped by short term profit taking. If you think you count to that guy, just watch him around "regular" people. What? You thought that picture was just some prank sort of thing, a damned joke?

Oh hell, in a General Election straight up tribalism and hate will get him that good old 27% plus another nearly 15% of who'd hold their noses just for the (R).

Dividing America

2012-01-20T17:50:00.000-08:00

Mitt thinks the President is dividing America and that the alternative to the current plutocracy is ... North Korea??? Can we please harken back to the GOP mantra of class warfare? And, maybe, just who is actually waging it?

Regarding taxes, SS/FICA on median income is nearly 16% total employee/employer and 15% as the bracket which would be 31% and if you want to get picky and dismiss the employer end you'd still get to over 22% on every bit of wage. Without any monkey business Mittens pays 15% and no SS/FICA on the immaterial at his wealth cut-off because that income is not wage/salary and is exempt from SS/FICA. (this neglects the temporary cut)

We could get into the division between income gains by the top 1% versus the bottom 20% would be somewhat informing and you will please note that whether or not the bottom 1/5th pays a nickle of Fed Tax, every cent of wage is subject to SS/FICA.

One could point out to Mitt that while the vast majority of us were growing up in families that had to pay real attention to finances his Daddy was CEO of AMC and later Gov of MI. Maybe there are divides that you were insulated from, maybe there are outcomes of performance that you flatly never had to worry about. Maybe while you were busy raping companies the warfare aspect didn't dawn on you, something like that awareness might have cut into your returns, obscene returns by the standards of most investments.

Mr Romney, it is not the President and the Democratic Party that are using falsehoods and dog-whistles and code words to stir hate and resentment. Mr Romney, the President may be one of the best friends your particular version of wealth has. He may be the guy offering you a really good deal compared to what almost all Americans get. But then, anything other than the bootlicking you're used to is class warfare.

The Mitt Juggernaut

2012-01-13T18:57:00.000-08:00

To listen to the media of late, you'd have to be really impressed by Mitt's strangle-hold on the GOP Primary. He's racking up the victories and that's really something. So, how's this impressive machine functioning today?

Mitt Romney got about three quarters of Iowan primary caucusers to vote for somebody else. That's right, he tied or lost or something real close with Rick Santorum. He got to New Hampshire and managed to get three fifths of their electorate to support someone else. Looking at the polling in South Carolina he's got over two thirds of that electorate looking elsewhere. Yep, and Newt is moving up.

This is the GOP version of the annointed, presumptive nominee. Wow, that's one hell of a machine.

Newt, It Was Predictable

2012-01-13T16:21:00.000-08:00

Going after another Republican was going to cause some heartburn in the GOP. Going after their presumptive nominee was going to cause some heartburn. Going after a Republican as a greed head plutocrat was going to cause apoplexy. The mental derangement has extended all the way to John Sununu making not so veiled economic threats to those funding the attacks and people fuming about Communism. Yes, really.

Now it is true that Ronnie Reagan made some references to some sort of Eleventh Commandment regarding fellow Republicans. That has been kept mostly in a theoretical sort of way as John McCain might note regarding a South Carolina Primary involving GW Bush. In fact, a bit more recently - like Iowa Caucuses - a certain Newt Gingrich got eviscerated by fellow GOPers without so much as a peep by anyone other than Newt.

You could be forgiven for scoffing at the idea that the GOP problem is with attacks on the front runner, especially since Newt was that guy in Iowa when he got whacked. You'd hurt yourself laughing trying to make the case that attacking Mitt hit the purity of the Party message.

Whew. That leaves the money issue. Not the personal money, money issue - the how I got my personal money issue. Outside of making big piles of money from Drugs and Hookers making big piles of money is the entire good for the GOP. (not so sure about the Hookers if it is Nevada) To the GOP it doesn't matter if you got your piles from gutting companies or making trades every two minutes or off taxpayers or from building an enterprise. The methodology is trumped completely by the big pile not the outcomes as long as it doesn't involve handcuffs. (you could make the case that if the handcuffs result from violating regulations... crickets chirping)

The sin being committed against Mitt is that somebody has the temerity to question the methodology from within the GOP. That is just not done. If you were to stop and think about it for even a moment it might raise questions regarding the "Job Creators" and some of the other themes. That cannot be done. Making big piles of money is the engine and it doesn't matter that those big piles of money are resulting in the impoverishment of our economy... or wrecking the environment or...

"Roof, Roof," Said The Dog

2012-01-12T18:13:00.000-08:00

Maybe Mitten's ability to translate doggisms to patricianisms made for a misunderstanding of "Woof" and resulted in Seamus the Irish Setter diarrhea-ing all over the roof of the Romney family station wagon during a 12 hour drive. If you're a bit worried about your economic status the idea of handing it over to someone who'd hose off the dog and car and continue on his way in the face of the dog's obvious distress may cause pause. If you throw that on the balance with Bain or some of Mitten's prescriptions for the nation, you could get to feeling like a distressed and dismissed dog.

If you'd do that to a dog...

I'd bet clever commenters could come up with "dog themes"

"Morning In America" to be followed by "Dog Day Afternoon" or something really a lot more clever?

When You Listen To The GOP...

2012-01-12T16:09:00.000-08:00

The latest stuff out of the GOP "elite" (names - not money) is that attacks on the MultipleMitt come from the left and worse are damaging to the "front runner". Now the really odd thing about that argument is that they weren't making it when Newt led in Iowa and Mittens' surrogates gutted him. Now I don't really care which one of these outfits nails the other to their reactionary right wing cross and I could care less if they hit them from the left or populist side.

The huge difficulty every one of these GOPers faces is that what they stand for has driven what they've done and exposed to the light of day, starts to rot - like the gutted fish they ought to be. You really have to ask why Confederate Ron Paul has racist tripe newsletters? You really have to ask why Silver Spoon Plutocrat Mitt has a Bain in his past? You have to ask why... oh hell.

Really?

The Conservative "Return To The Values..."

2012-01-12T15:41:00.000-08:00

Just to make what ought to be a self-evident statement, when Romney talks about returning the US to the values that made us great what he is talking about is The Gilded Age, or more properly, The Robber Baron Era. If you look at the tax structures, the regulatory structures, labor policies, and social "norms" he advocates in total, the time you've aped is pre - Teddy Roosevelt.

It is a part of the conservative mind set to promote the status quo; or a previous status quo if the current one is ... out of line with their kindergarten understanding of history. This ought to create some kind of cognitive revolt when the period you're trying to ape is so generally counted as ... sucky?

News Or Stenography

2012-01-12T14:32:00.000-08:00

I guess some questions would seem jaw dropping in another era of media, but the NYT actually asks Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?. I wonder if the name Judith Miller has dropped out of institutional memory? I wonder if the appellation, paper of record, has any meaning?

There are some things that take awhile to dig out, especially if they've just suddenly popped up. Most political issues aren't in the least like that, particularly with the GOP. Any reporter that is anything more than a stenographer knows about most of the GOP hobby-horses and from a simple understanding ought to know what can be quickly analysed and what is going to take some time. Some things have been around long enough that if the reporter gave a rat's patoot about facts they'd already have gone over that ground and there would be an institutional archive.

Mitt Romney is scarcely a new phenomenon and neither is his bragging about Bain Capitol. If something like Bain Capitol has not already been researched by the NYT you'd have reason to question their competence and if it is already there, for it to not appear in direct juxtaposition to a candidate's claims is a source of question. That would be any candidate's claims regarding Bain. If a politician is going to make claims about "death panels" on whatever side they shouldn't be able to do it without any question by someone who purports to provide news.

There is a very serious difference between being partisan and being objective and there is also a very real difference between objective and being a stenographer. That a politician has something to say is not news, the content my be news. It is immaterial to buy the NYT (or other) to find out what any campaign will be happy to provide - a transcript or their talking points around it. What is meant and its relationship to facts is what actually counts and it is exactly what is not provided.

I'm happy to say that in my contacts with local papers of whatever stripe their questions almost always were directed at illumination rather than obfuscation - the sole offender in that regard was The Oregonian, which also purports to be a "paper of record." I'd see it as hopeful that the NYT asks the question, but I find it too distressing that they'd be in a position to find it necessary. I guess that's the result of a generation's worth of screaming "LIBERAL MEDIA !!!"

The Bane of Bain or Mitt's Ba(i)ne?

2012-01-10T00:02:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry to take such delight in the (mis)fortune of others. It's true I've poked away at poor mis-used Mitt over his unemployment difficulties and even his pink slip worries. I've had mean things to say about corporate raiders and maybe even meaner things to say about some lying wealthy SOBs.

All that just doesn't begin to cover my delight in watching Mitt get attacked from his right on the left. Uh, yes I did say his Right. I'll bet you thought (I did) he'd get creamed for being a "secret" liberal. I'll be go to hell, he's getting it in the neck for being a plutocrat from GOPers.

Don't worry too much, they aren't going all socialist on us, no fears they'll out left President Obama. This will all sort itself out before the General Election and all plutocrat all the time will be back into GOP songs.

I do get great joy out of almost 2/3 of GOPers being ABMs. You can pretty much figure there are going to be hard feelings.

What Is Too Stupid For NYT OpEd?

2012-01-09T21:08:00.000-08:00

It seems from campaigning that maybe Mittens wishes that NYT had said his attack on the auto industry government deal wasn't good enough and wasn't out there to haunt him. Well, sure that's one thing but maybe Bill Keller's Hillary VP OpEd should have gotten the spike. You can read the thing for yourself to see what sort of silliness this thing gets up to in order to make its case, but I'd suggest saving your time and just laughing.

I'm not going to go into it, I read it to see if it was nearly as stupid as it sounded - it was (edit) worse. (h/t JG -BJ)

Who Gets To Have Nice Things?

2012-01-09T16:06:00.000-08:00

DAVID GREGORY: All right. We're gonna come back to the question of obstacles to the nomination, but let me get to policy, Governor Huntsman. This is, by all accounts, an age of austerity for this country. A jobs crisis. Also a spending crisis in Washington. I wonder what specifically you would do to say to Americans, "These are cuts I'm going to make in federal spending that cause pain, that will require sacrifice?"

From the MTP "debate" transcript.

By all accounts... Age Of Austerity... Jobs Crisis... Spending Crisis... Sacrifice.

Hmmm. You know, if you took all those themes and addressed them as regarding working and poor Americans you might really have something. They are not, of course, regarding working/poor Americans other than the SACRIFICE. Every one of the people this horseshit question was addressed to has a tax plan up that would cut the taxes on wealth and increase the taxes on work and cut programs designed to keep people out of abject poverty.

If you were to read the comments on the MTP Debate transcript you'd find a whole lot of them attacking Gregory for being a LIBERAL trying to stir up trouble and - by the way - shorting Ron Paul's time to be a Confederate.

You would think that from the time of St Ronnie the Raygun there'd be enough data laying around to make something like a coherent case for something in regard to tax policy and the state of the economy. Well - it happens there is. The really big problem is that it doesn't support Clinton era tax rates much less StRR or GWB. The case that gets made in regard to the overall economic health is that StRR screwed things up and pretty much everybody made things worse and Bill Clinton only managed to mildly stem the tide in some regards.

Working/poor Americans have been sacrificing every damn day from StRR on in one way or another. Some of them tried to avoid that sacrifice and used their houses as a credit card or profit center but most just kept working harder for less while watching their betters rake in more of the scraps that might have fallen off the banquet table.

Now you have - no shit - the kid of Geo Romney talking about being "unemployed" and having to worry "about getting a pink slip," as if he had a worry about falling into the lap of luxury instead of off the face of the freaking earth. This is the kind of crap that gets served up as a goddam question by the goddam liberal elite media by talking head that has about as much to worry about or goddam sacrifice as Willard Mitt Romney does.

Mittens seems to make about $15M per year for doing nothing for Bain Capital (numbers vary - mostly up) which sounds like a bit of money, but probably ought to get taken in the context of $43K/yr median income family of four which works out to be 349 of them. Yes you suckers, Mittens makes that much money being un-damned-employed. Taken another way, he virtually makes DAILY that median income.

How it could be made much clearer to the rubes that these guys want to give themselves and their pals a big break while cutting your throat is way the hell beyond me. I don't begrudge these bastards their wealth... but I'm not hot on the idea of being their human sacrifice.

Wolf Wonders

2012-01-09T13:14:00.000-08:00

At 1:13 PM during an interview regarding the Perry campaign talking about Mitten's job destruction record Wolf wondered if after the Primary they'd talk about the "tens of thousands of jobs Bain created at Staples and..." Nothing to indicate that this was an assertion of Mittens with any questions involved about the numbers. Stated as bald fact.

Gee, would one have cause to "wonder" if Mittens is Wolf's boy?

Oh yeah, "the liberal media"

*UPDATE
About twenty minutes later Wolf has POW on and feeds him the line about job creation and then goes on the fluff Bain, himself. Correcting the record is laudable - repeating a campaign's talking points is a bit of a different horse. CNN - news? There are a lot of measures of Bain, including how many jobs under their direction and what kind of paying jobs were involved - Wolf couldn't be bothered...

Sanctimony Of What?

2012-01-08T19:39:00.000-08:00

The GOPers all seem to have jumped on a sanctimonious train. Some how, some way sanctified has come to mean something most of us were unaware of. You know that county clerk you went to when you got your marriage license, that person has somehow become an agent of GOD.

I give you Merriam Webster online
sanctity

1: holiness of life and character : godliness
2 a: the quality or state of being holy or sacred
: inviolability bplural: sacred objects, obligations, or rights

Now back to that county clerk thing, that person would be an agent of the State, the ones drawing up the regulations regarding getting married. You may have noticed that the clerk let you get that license even though you hadn't, oh say converted. You see, Newt -et al; the clerk is following laws written by the State and isn't in the least interested in your view of religion in this regard. What that clerk is interested in and the State is interested in is that civil contract you're just about to engage in. You'd be forgiven for thinking that Newt, at the least, would be real familiar with the civil aspect of that contract considering the outcomes of trying to get out of it - in simple speak, divorce.

Now I'm not arguing that the State shouldn't set conditions on civil contracts but it is a pretty simple statement that all law-abiding citizens should have equal treatment under the law, ie: the same rights and responsibilities. I've been married for over twenty years and frankly if gays want to go there they are welcome to my club. It isn't like there aren't outcomes that aren't all rainbows and ponies... even avoiding the nastiness of divorce.

* Oh c'mon, which one of you is gonna claim you're a peach to be around day after day after day after... every day?

All Hat And No...

2012-01-08T19:09:00.001-08:00

So, Rick Perry wants to put troops back in Iraq? Just to mangle that saying: he's now demonstrated that he's all hat and no filler between the ears.

GOPer Second Round. Can I Take Much More?

2012-01-07T18:32:00.000-08:00

To recap, Mitt doesn't have a lot of blood in the water, but there is some pink tint. It is funny to watch Paul and Santorum joust. I hate to use the word reasonable and a GOPer in the same sentence much less next to each other, but Huntsman.

State's right to ban contraception - Mitt? No answer. Seems to ignore MS.
I can't take much more of this stuff,
if you've been amused, I'm sorry. My brain is melting away cells it can't afford to lose. I'm done.

The Sacrement of Marriage makes me want to puke. Which one of these folks got their Marriage License from a church? It is a goddam civil contract.

Screw this shit.

GOPers Cont...

2012-01-07T18:16:00.000-08:00

Paul v spending, Santorum a big spender. Santorum - uhuh?
Perry - I'm the outsider. Get Teabaggers behind nominee. Nobody seems to be buying it. In TX we call Paul's earmarking voting against it hypocrisy - uh, yup.
Santorum - I tried to do something, did something.
uh oh, CIC
Huntsman - vision, leadership - I've got it, leadership that can be trusted. I heard that as a hit against Romney. Term limits.
Romney - Huntsman can do a lot better than Obama - one error after another. Failed Presidency. Integrity? From multiplemitt? Obama shrunk the military?
Perry - CIC in TX? WTF? Ah, money from the military to spend somewhere else.
Newt - child of vet. hmmm.
Paul - deferrments. I went. Vets messed up from undeclared war. Chickenhawk accusation.
Newt is pretty unhappy.
Uhoh - newsletters
Twenty years ago, didn't write. MLK a personal hero - pacifistic libertarianism - er, MLK Day?
first round - thank god

LIve Blog The GOPers - Masochism?

2012-01-07T18:02:00.000-08:00

Romney, Obama has made the recession worse and longer. Obama as rooster taking credit for sun rising. Heh.

Santorum on not needing a manager - huh? OH, CEO isn't what a President is. True.

Romney wants us to connect him with entrepenures building businesses from the ground up - huh?

Newt - Romney taking apart companies.

Romney - surprised to see people on his stage taking on FREE ENTERPRISE

Huntsman - records count. My record v the rest of you.

Romney - Private sector counts - I'm the private sector.

Paul - Santorum is a big govt person, oops - lobbiests.

Santorum - CREW called me corrupt - ah Geo Soros - same stuff about PA getting its fair share back. I'm a CAUSE GUY. I'm a lobbiest - for all the right guys.

ABM And MultipleMitt.. and genetics?

2012-01-06T18:15:00.000-08:00

You have to look at Mitt Romney and today's GOP and wonder how in hell you've got this situation where a guy like Mittens will just win, anyhow. There are a lot of ways I can laugh at the ABMs, but their dislike of Romney just isn't one of them. I understand, in ways that would offend them, just what it is they're up in arms about. It isn't about purity of view, it is about a fraud sticking the con down their throats.

It is true that what the ABMs have got to work with is pretty pathetic and there are a lot of them. Yes, that "a lot of them" does mean split votes letting pathetic Romney numbers count as victories. The recurring ABM implosions is what tells the story, those voters run away from losers once they've defined themselves as losers. They don't want MultipleMitt, but they've got nothing to work with so they will get stuck with him.

Considering the enthusiasm for ABM you have to ask why the ABM field sucks so badly. If this mess had started in '08 you could understand prospective candidates taking measure of Obama and saying, "uhuh, no way." That wasn't the case, the '10 elections had happened and the economy stinks and current Presidents get to own stinking economies. The odds of success against Obama should have measured as high when this got put together and good candidates come out in force. Instead, you have this clown car parade led by MultipleMitt.

Do you suppose I'd be going out on a limb to propose that what created this situation is the composition of the ABM electorate? In the face of Mitt they could have Huntsman, could... They don't want him even though he isn't the fraud Mittens is. What Huntsman isn't, is the brand of crazy they want. Yes, I finally got to the word "crazy." Now how the hell do you want crazy and applaud crazy and not get someone who is crazy and flawed?

Here's the thing ABMs, while you may make up the majority of the GOP Primary voters, your problem is that you're only that 27%+/- loon section of the electorate and your gene pool is pretty damned limited. You are getting what you breed.

Mittens And Taxes - On And On We Go

2012-01-06T15:18:00.000-08:00

It has been pretty clear to anybody with two live brain cells in communication that the Federal Tax Policies proposed by the ABMs would result in great big tax breaks for the overburdened wealthy and large hits to everybody in escalating effects down scale. Now - in a huge surprise to everybody dead in the head - Mitten's plan has been shown to do the same thing.

It just goes on for-goddam-ever. Most of the voters in the country will be harmed in one way or another by this and over 40% would vote for MultipleMitt, anyhow. I know there's nothing new in this...

Blah, Blah, Blah

2012-01-06T15:04:00.000-08:00

Well, you have to give Rick (don't google me) Santorum credit for almost covering the Republican theme honestly. You know the theme, those "blah" people stealing hard working "why" people's money. Just lacking a certain coherence in consonants.

There certainly is some epic stealing going on, the problem is that it is by the (consonantly deprived) "ri" people. It would be deficient on my part both practically and consonantly to not note that they aren't just "ri" but "why" people; they certainly aren't "poo" people indicated by Santorum.

Just to be fair about it all, "Don't Google Me" isn't alone in the talk, just the part where there was a mistake involving consonants...

(I could have a bit of fun with the consonant thing but it would render both my writing unintelligible and probably my speech as well)

Politics As A Suicide Pact

2012-01-05T01:46:00.000-08:00

It hasn't been real unusual for Iowa GOPers to come up with some odd results, I mean historically it isn't as though Mike Huckabee happened in the Dark Ages before... well, anyhow. Here we are now with Mitt Romney and his bazillions of dollars and 2:1 PAC spending tied with little Rick Santorum - Mr Don't Even Google My Name - Catholic theocratic Abramoff/DeLay lap-dog. Given the past half decade of Catholic News stories being their alter boy ought to be a questionable public relations stunt. I can see how "blue collar parents" out plays "silver spoon in the kazoo" but somehow it seems that if Obama can get past the Kenya Daddy thing... Oh - wrong Party.

Rick Santorum is packing as much baggage the Right won't like as Mittens is. Oh it is a bit of a different variety since Rick didn't govern a state, but oooh boy does he have some reeking going on. It might be a bit difficult to reconcile his forced abortion Marianas Ils support with his conception-ism - even if there were big bucks for friends in the former. I don't think Newt shines sufficiently on this particular issue to lay a whacking on Rick.

The whopping Mitts PACs gave to Newt seems to have P-O'ed him a bit. After a moment's reflection answering the question of are you calling Mitt a liar, "Yes," is pretty ... ummm ... uncivil in political terms, even when talking about the other Party's members. Democrats don't seem to do that much at all and in regard to one's fellow Party member even when quite true will probably be pretty heavily counselled against. Maybe the ABMs braying for bloody Mittens will eat it up but I'm not so sure about how broad that sentiment is when it is their own brand name. I doubt it would offend even the most bland of Mittens' dollar men if it were about that guy currently in the White House but - whoa Nellie, Mittens wears an R. (well when convenient, anyhow)

Really, while it is pretty funny to think of any of these GOPers getting all up in the air and calling "liar" about any of the others and not having their collective noses grow; it isn't going to make coming together later all that easy. It may have been stupid for the Mittenpacs to nuke Newt considering who he is and just how much a threat he'd have been in the long haul, but if Newt's reaction to it is as telegraphed by that interview we may have reached a point where MAD (ok, mutual assured destruction) has been enacted as action rather than deterrent. The limits to that particular activity are exactly who the hell has standing.

I whole heartedly approve of the self-destruction of what the GOP has become. It is well past the time for lunacy and destruction of governance to stop being a political platform. I don't know how many pieces they'd splinter into, don't care, but it is not at all good to have a party of crazed plutocrats/theocrats opposed by the not quite crazed plutocrat party. Maybe three parties, crazed plutocrat, crazed theocrat, and crazed people's party would work. I don't know, but the result of the two theo/pluto - crat versus a not really opposition party isn't good. (you will notice that I said not spit about a mythical "crazed middle party") You get voters with a choice between dangerously deranged and "not as bad as" and big money busily buying anything not nailed down and valueless.

Republicans took the dominance engendered by the Civil War and let it become the recipient of the influence of big business and big money and later the resentment of the logical outcome of the War - Civil Rights - combine. It may be the politics of resentment that brought along the theocrats or possibly their native turf being home to its hotbed, but somehow you have a political Party that is the champion of unbridled wealth, melted together with the un-natural bed-fellows of race resentment and biblical governance and that, my friends, is a suicide pact and Iowa is the prophet.

The Democratic tent holds a large and frequently squabbling crowd, but their differences primarily involve who is in the front seats rather than diametrically opposed combatants. Mittens and Santorum are supposedly two faces of that with Newt's meanness thrown in for leavening. What may save Mitt is that while he really is that corporate raiding silver spoon unprincipled plutocrat, all his attackers have is the illusion that they aren't the same things. Hell, that may be what keeps the Republican Party intact - every one of them is a lying sack lying to people who want to be lied to.

What will ruin the Democratic Party is that the GOP is so damned crazy that they look sane despite where they follow the GOP.

*Edit
No, I am aware that I didn't bring up Ron Paul. That is because they are only GOP by default, not enthusiasm. I know their racism and 'fuck you I got mine' seems GOPer, but only on the fringes. They truly are the heirs of ole Jeff Davis rather than the panderers to him that the GOP is - other than the hangers on with their momentary enthusiasms for what they think "Drug War" and "Military Adventurisms" means in Paul-speak.

Reading Assignment - Charles Pierce

2012-01-03T17:14:00.000-08:00

I read Charles Pierce over at Esquire's Daily Politics Blog regularly, partly for the politics but mostly for the writing. Charles Pierce does what I aspire to, and what I know how short I fall from doing. Pierce isn't for the fan of equivocation, but does use splendid language. If You haven't already, go check him out.

Twas A Dark And Stormy Night

2012-01-03T16:01:00.000-08:00

Out in GOPland and especially the ABM faction, it has to be that sort of feeling. What you've got is the hard core Ron Paul faux-libertarian bunch who really, really like the standard bearer of The Confederate Party of Republicanism but once you get past that bunch ... Wow, the Romney PACs sure did a job on our favorite salamander which has left not so much other than late comer Santorum. (you make the jokes - Google) Paul will be around all the way to the end, the question is who else will.

Now if you look at the others beyond Ron Paul you see momentary poll enthusiasm followed by disregard. That isn't the behavior of a happy electorate. It sure isn't the behavior of a happy electorate for the presumptive nominee to be hanging around 27%; regardless of the size of the current field.

I have no idea how this parade of clown cars is going to play itself out. It is silly to ignore what Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, ad infinitum actually were but I won't propose that today's GOP is the same Party rather than an out-growth and maybe natural consequence of its century long history. That makes predicting where the current GOP will jump a pretty iffy proposition. It is starting to look as though the enthusiasm will be composed of not much more than getting rid of the guy currently in the White House. It will be difficult to get much going with those not deep into the hate Obama camp if the GOP itself just tolerates its own candidate.

Six months ago this might have been the GOP's election to win, it now looks as though it might just not be.

Newt - Mitt Is A Liar

2012-01-03T15:47:00.000-08:00

So Newt shocks an interviewer by saying that MultipleMitt is a liar. That is a shock? It sure is shocking that the word actually got used, but in relation to Mittens it had to be coming but when lobbed by Newt it does seem a bit odd. Actually, I'm pretty sure damn near every GOPer should avoid the word like a plague if they don't want it freely applied to themselves.

I pretty much forgive exaggeration, a candidate for freshmean House seat sure isn't going to get far by being realistic about the impact of freshman Reps. There are some things like the Mittens ad using Obama quoting the McCain campaign as Obama's own words that isn't exaggeration but an out and out lie. If you're a Democrat looking at the GOP and expect anything different, you're ... being silly. If there is a question about the regard such things are held in, it applies to the un-affiliated. Don't hold your breath.

A Laugh For Starting The New Year

2011-12-31T19:33:00.000-08:00

My Mom sent this to me, thought you could use a laugh to start 2021

Ole's car was hit by a truck in an accident. In court, the trucking company's lawyer was questioning Ole.

'Didn't you say, sir, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine, ?' asked the lawyer.

Ole responded, 'Vell, I'll tell you vat happened. I had yust loaded my favorite mule, Bessie, into da.....'

'I didn't ask for any details', the lawyer interrupted. 'Just answer the question. Did you not say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine'?

Ole said, 'Vell, I had yust got Bessie into da trailer and I vas driving down da road... ..

The lawyer interrupted again and said, 'Judge, I am trying to establish the fact that, at the scene of the accident, this man told the Highway Patrolman on the scene that he was just fine. Now several weeks after the accident he is trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please tell him to simply answer the question.'

By this time, the Judge was fairly interested in Ole's answer and said to the lawyer, 'I'd like to hear what he has to say about his favorite mule, Bessie'.

Ole thanked the Judge and proceeded. 'Vell, as I vas saying, I had yust loaded Bessie, my favorite mule, into da trailer and vas driving her down da highvay ven dis huge semi-truck and trailer ran da stop sign and smacked my truck right in da side. I vas trown into one ditch and Bessie vas trown into da other. I vas hurting real bad and didn't vant to move. However, I could hear Bessie moaning and groaning. I knew she was in terrible shape yust by her groans'. 'Shortly after da accident da Highway Patrolman, he came to da scene.. He could hear Bessie moaning and groaning so he vent over to her'..

'After he looked at her and saw her fatal condition he took out his gun and shot her right 'tween da eyes.

Den da Patrolman, he came across da road, gun still smoking, looked at me and said, 'How are you feeling?'

'Now vut da hell vould YOU say?

Ron Paul - There Is A Difference

2011-12-31T18:15:00.000-08:00

I've been hearing lately about some "liberal" love for Ron Paul. I don't know about this, I hear things that frequently sound like something but have no weight. Just to act as though there is something to this, I'll go to the heart of some of the nonsense.

Yes, Ron Paul is against the Federal Drug War and that somehow puts him to the left of Obama and maybe the Democratic Party. I don't like the Federal Drug War but I don't propose the having the States wage it is some kind of improvement or somehow Left of any damn thing. I don't see where there are benefits to be gained from being executed in Mississippi for smoking pot and taxed in California.

I don't like wars of adventurism, or frankly - any of them. I can actually be persuaded that it has to be done, but the operative word there is "has." I don't propose that the way to avoid foreign wars is to disengage. I'll agree that the US is stupidly reflexively supportive of Israel and quick to forgive that nation's anti-democratic and theocratic behavior while bashing its neighbors for the same things but it is an entirely different matter to propose its abolition as a state.

I'm not in the least in favor of indefinite detention or other of the National Security tomfoolery but that doesn't put me in the camp of opposing the Civil Rights Act as though entire states and a region didn't use law to treat citizens as a despised second class. Ron Paul would have you believe it was an un-necessary infringement of liberty to make people stop doing that. He'd love to have the Civil War undone.

As for his "consistency" I'd have to question that in regards to the professed Libertarian view of not interfering in citizen's lives in view of his stance on abortion and actual Federal legislation he's written to interfere with it. He's perfectly fine with mucking around in a women's uterus as a Federal agent, but then men don't have such a thing. Maybe more to the point is that white men don't have them...

It matters how you get to a position. Let's say you and I agree to meet at a parking lot at noon. I leave early and drive carefully arriving at noon. You leave late and arrive at noon with your car beat to hell and smashed cars and run down pedestrians in your wake. We're both in the parking lot at noon, but you're a criminal asshole and I'm not.

Ron Paul is not to the left of anything other than Ghengis Khan.

The ABMs Are Gonna Be Pissed

2011-12-20T22:41:00.000-08:00

It wasn't a real surprise when the Establishment GOP and its hangers on started to pile on to Newt. It may have surprised Newt, but it shouldn't have. Once Perry's head exploded publicly those folks had no place to go but MultipleMitt. Be assured, despite the endorsements and the Newt kicking they didn't want Mitt either. Well, he's one of them, you say - nope. Mitt is a Mormon Robot from corporate raiderhood. First of all, the candidate is supposed to be a Christian and second - you don't let the marks in on the scam, no broken companies, layoffs, and gadzillion profits doing it. No, rich is fine, a plutocratic tool desirable, but a shape shifting ruthless job raper with the personality of a board is not fine.

Three years ago they had no hope of winning, now that they've broken government's function of governing they do actually have a chance and they want to badly. They're seriously hamstrung with MultipleMitt but Newt was a ticking time bomb. They are, of course, scandalized enough by R Paul to keep real quiet and they pay no attention to the other loons, but Perry was supposed to do the job after all their first choices bailed on the idea. Newt as the last to rise and near IA Caucuses had to be stomped even though Mitt would be the beneficiary.

The ABMs are pretty screwed. Despite the racism and assorted bigotry, forced birthism, god-bothering and general screw the poor that Paul packs around with him - he misses real big on war and dope. Bachmann and Santorum are crazy enough, but just the wrong crazy. Perry should have been it, then he opened his mouth. Newt is getting cannonaded from all sides by the Establishment; so where have they got to go?

I don't know, but the ABMs are gonna have some real resentments when they start going to the polls. It might dawn on them that they're being played for the rubes... again. Mitt can go on all the TV shows in the world and even "poke fun" at himself and the result for the ABMs will be ... nnaaahhh.

Yeah, if Perry doesn't rise and Newt keeps sliding it will be Newt, the possibly electable one, and the ABMs will feel about like Democrats would have if Hoe LIEberman had been the 08 candidate.(not real unreasonably) I just shake my head.

(It would pay to think about Newt being hit with 2400 negative ads mostly from SuperPacs in the last 2wks in IA, of all places - CU Decision)

The House And The XL Bill

2011-12-19T17:58:00.000-08:00

The GOPers in the House are beating the drum of a one year extension of the UE/FICA Pipeling thing versus the sixty day one the Senate managed. The crux is that the Senate couldn't figure out how to pay for the thing longer than sixty days and the House isn't satisfied with that. Now maybe you're thinking sixty days is a bit of underperformance and I'd agree.

My guess is that the House wants to poison the thing so badly that they can get an optics switch into the Democrats sinking the thing. I'll be real frank, though they could have done that next year it is probably a lot more politically efficient to poison the thing before Christmas. It is probably their hope that it won't be noticed that in order to deliver the present some other poor group must get coal in their basket. That and that pesky Pipeline thing must be fixed - the Prez might say no...

OK Democratic Party, they're going to put the ball in your court once again. They're going to try real hard to stick you with choices that you don't want to make and you're not going to get to jamb your choices down their throats because the flatly don't care about the hostages. You care, they don't, now what?

You know that poison beyond Pipeline is going to be in your future and you'll have to make some decisions regarding what you'll give up. Or not.

Heh.

Some Of My Best Friends Are Democrats

2011-12-19T02:38:00.000-08:00

Yep, really...(there's also a not so nice joke there) Despite the outcomes of Democratic votes in the Senate and the House there are actually a pretty fair number of them who are to the left of Geo HW Bush. Some more than others, but that does include some some who are pretty far left of Ole George I. They don't get much acknowledgement, thanks to the contingent of plutocratic buttkisser who wear the same (D) and their fellow travelers who are scared spitless somebody will notice that St Ronnie the Never Existed wouldn't approve.

You really should have some admiration for these folks laboring under the shadow of the cretins who'd faint if a GOPer yelled "boo," and it isn't fair in the least to blame them for the actual outcomes of Democratic votes. It isn't so easy to forgive the collegiality that keeps them quiet in the face of a ... Max Baucus or especially a LIEberman. It isn't cowardice that makes it happen, partisanship is part of getting votes and coralling support for projects. The plain fact of it is that if you want to get even some watered down POS passed you can't have Mary Landri...whats her face... going off in a huff because you called her quite accurately a corporate whore. So they're stuck with making nice with someone they'd walk across the street to avoid because homocidal maniacs are running the other side. (exaggeration you say? well, bomb bomb Eyeeeran)

These folks (I'm being nice) are going to exist as long as the NABA GOP holds true. I'm not kidding, you'd rather live next door to a shoplifter than Gengis Khan so you let the thief into your neighborhood. Well, there is that and the endless pursuit of the imaginary middle (I)s. There's a bunch for you, despite the media pretense it is only homogenous in its label. That masquerade consists of:
Democrats too left/right
GOP too left/right
I'm busy don't bother me
They're all the same
They're all crooks
They should all get along
Don't rock the boat
I don't know anything and I'm proud of it
and a few other critters with their special hobbyhorse nobody pays attention to.
who could forget the Libertarians and their special world - though they may have jumped the corral.(I amost did forget them)

Sometimes it is really difficult to make a case to them that holds water and that is especially true for Democrats. If one of the best cases you can make is we're not as bad as the loons and your outcomes range from St Ronnie to GHWB and that leaves you crying in the corner because some GOPer called you a socialist you've got a tough sale. For pete's sake, I've been a Democrat since like forever and it is hard to get me to see past voting against the horror show that is the GOP. I'm not voting my interests or the well-being of the nation, I'm voting against its destruction. That's a choice? Really, in the end run, I'm not voting against the destruction of the nation, just the pace it progresses at. It would be nice to vote for something, but that would involve the risk of running on clear principles and advocation of clear actions...

Ah well, thanks guys for existing, anyhow.

The Elite Liberal Media

2011-12-19T01:57:00.001-08:00

The Erin post got me thinking, well reflecting, on that frequently abused seldom verified creature and its hydra-headed clique. Sooo, how many practitioners of that dark art are there in major print and broadcast media? I started counting and so far I haven't had to take off my socks. If I were to get real loose in the definition I might have to take one off.

The really sad part is that I don't really care to have that imaginary creature (GOP hobgoblin) as a media. I would, however, appreciate some fact checking and a bit of questioning when Pols spout stuff for their edification. (regurgitation is more apropos) The job is supposed to involve a bit more than just giving a Kyl or even an Obama a platform to just say any damn thing. Maybe the job is even to tell some of the things that wouldn't make your Corporate owner's friends real happy for the rubes to know.

I know print is bleeding money like a ink on paper in a thunderstorm and the internet is cutting into their advertising, but they're also approaching bad internet in their credibility. Broadcast is in competition with shrieking "reality" shows and whatever the hell you'd call the Nancy Grace type thing. But honestly you jerks, I can go to any Party/Candidate website and get their take without all the damn commercials and I'd really like my news a bit more newsy than a Whamo commercial and maybe a bit more... truthful?

If there's a service MSM has provided in recent years it has been to run the GOP clowncar Primary show, despite the fawning softball questions and horse race foolery involved Americans have actually gotten to see them on display. I don't know what the much vaunted vigorously courted (I)s will make of it. Considering the '10 new hires a ballbat to the head wouldn't make much difference to the thinking processes involved.

How about just a little news to break up the commercials?

Hey Erin Burnett, Anybody Home?

2011-12-19T01:16:00.000-08:00

Maybe they all went Out Front into the yard when your show came on. If a lovely, vapid, Wall Street pimp was supposed to put CNN into a good ratings place, well, maybe not. It only takes a little exposure to this Bidness Shill to wear out anybody that knows anything not put out by Rupert's outfit. I really have to applaud this bold move into the toilet by CNN. Somebody had to replace Beck and the IMMIGRANT!!! GUY (ok Dobbs) who could manage stupid without being homely or scary crazy. Well, she is pretty and if you turned the sound off she might be interesting to watch for a couple minutes... the problem is that you'd get about as much information that way (maybe more with the crawler).

If you're thinking CNN just sort of wandered into this consider that her entire work life is tied to working for, fluffing on air, and even getting engaged to bankster.greed.crooked/unindicted. I have heard that there are those who think much of the criticism is sexist... now how the hell could sex have any bearing on a CNN hire of a bathing beauty bidness carney barker for a news program? I know the GOP and Big Bidness ain't getting a fair shake anywhere other than from the Murdochians...and WaPo...and ABC...and well hell everywhere other than a couple MSNBC programs and never seen Current and FSTV. (yeah, you probably have to ask - Free Speech TV)

Damn CNN, you're supposed to keep at least a veneer of not being a Corporate Propaganda Arm Network. If you keep it up you're gonna let the marks in on the scam.

*if you think I'm piling on poor widdle Erin with two posts close to each other, somebody asked me about her and I wondered about her ratings and got way more info than I wanted so I thought I'd share overload with you all... oh yeah regarding her sympathies she's supposed to be worth somewhere north of $12M and $2M/year. You surely wouldn't want her to be a class traitor in the War On Capitalism that's being waged... uhhh maybe that's not quite right? Let me call the GOP. Yup, class warfare aimed at the JOB CREATORS.

Kim Jong Il Shuffles Off This Mortal Coil

2011-12-18T19:43:00.000-08:00

Dead is what I mean, you know - checked out, permanently. It seems Kim Jong Un the third son of the third...marriage is now the boss. He's twenty eight or nine and last year was appointed a four star general. He looks a lot like daddy and may have daddy's diabetes along with high blood pressure. Daddy thought a lot of him apparently and he seems to have spent the last year cementing his position - essentially scaring the military into obeisance.

Not a heck of a lot is known about the guy, reports are that intelligence agencies have very little to work with. I'd be willing to guess that since daddy was into him his grasp on reality might be a tad bit loose. I suppose that what governments that have to deal with NK are hoping is that he isn't more cracked than the block he was chipped off of.

I suppose it's too much to get the pants wetters minds off Iran to point out that NK has actually managed to make a bit of an atomic bang. As you might guess, NK is suffering through a cold winter and has food shortages - just no shortage of Kim Jongs...

The XL Pipeline Bill & Other Crap

2011-12-18T18:02:00.000-08:00

Oh, sorry - the UE, SS/FICA, Medicaid Bill with some fancy non-descriptive title bill has bit the Boner, er Boehner. It appears that the Prez won't have to sign the XL Bill as written. It does seem he'll be signing the Indefinite Detention Bill - er, NDAA Bill as re-written with its life in prison without trial provision.

Wait...it only says INDEFINITE, that's not the same thing. Well, if you have a "War" that isn't one and is never going to end it certainly is. The same applies to the "POW exists" appologists.

No, I never expected different. There is a real cost to constant fear mongering and that cost has been getting paid for a lot longer than since even the miscreant GWB held office. It is always pretty much the same crap, fear stoking and it's only about 'them' and it'll never come to haunt you and... well can't afford to hurt "our guy" whoever the hell that is. The GOPers used to make quite a stir about "slippery-slopes" and then the Dems were quite outraged and then... well none of it really meant spit - civil liberties are just disposable to the fear of the moment. Terrorist, Mafia, Guns, whatever.

Really people? We can expect the '12 elections to be run by democrats making the point that they're NABA. Just not quite as bad as is the accurate part. You surely aren't expecting someone to set out clear principles and goals are you? (well other than the clown car GOPer Primary bunch) ((well other than MultipleMittens, er - Newt))

Yeah, I'll vote for Obama - not in the interest of something positive, just in preference for a slower route to hell than the Clowncar Express. That is about the entire Endorsement. I don't expect that indicates much of an interest in making donations, knocking on doors, voter registration, or other propagandistic endeavors. I no longer see much point in pushing at Democrats, they know I'll (or like me) will vote for them out of horror at the consequences so they'll do policy that mirrors the previous decade or so GOPerism and feel safe. The thing is that one day the horror may over-load and result in the REAL GOP having both Houses and the Presidency and the rest of the SCOTUS. Do you REALLY think the GOPers can't be completely crazy and get there? Do you REALLY think there is some line the Dems can't cross in pursuit of not offending the rightward shift?

Maybe there is a line, but it sure the hell isn't going to get drawn without absolute revolt from the Democratic Voters and I don't see any sign of that - just a whole lot more capitulation. Here's the thing about that revolt - it will mean GOP dominance because pols sure aren't going to get the idea as long as they get VOTES.

Hell, they'd get the wrong idea if they didn't get votes...
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So why keep blogging? It's bad for my digestion to keep swallowing bile.

Secure The Borders

2011-12-18T00:24:00.000-08:00

The GOP has spent quite a bit of rhetoric on securing the borders. Now their emphasis seems to be on the illegal immigrants crossing for jobs. Given that a border is the edge of a nation there is some reason to think it being an actual edge ought to mean something, even if it is just a line on a map. There are some issues with borders that aren't disputed, the biggest one being some form of smuggling, whatever that is including terrorism.

The job stealing aspect is another thing entirely and the most obvious consequence of porous borders. Well, thinking a border won't be porous is pretty damn optimistic and if the most obvious thing is jobs then why aren't you addressing jobs and employment? Let's be clear, legal hiring and illegal hiring are two completely different things.

Even if an illegal hire has proper taxes with-held they have essentially no recourse with an employer. Thanks to their legal status they cannot afford to stick their heads up and they're easily replaced by another. The consequence is low wages and a second class work force. Because business is profit driven a further result is lower wages in surrounding employment. In virtually every business endeavor labor cost is the one variable, material costs of whatever sort are pretty even as well as regulatory costs. The outcome of legal hiring is that prices on some products will rise, the real question is just how much. The crux is that labor costs are a much smaller piece of the cost of an item than most people realize and the real costs of illegal hiring aren't too easily quantified and some are not measurable by dollars.

The aspect that isn't dollar oriented but that has huge consequences is the creation of a second class group of residents. Try real hard to comprehend the soul crushing mind bending results of having your life in a place depend on never attracting the notice of the government. Throw in the disdain or even hate of large portions of the legal residents and tell me this is an outcome this nation can afford. And... the driving factor is cheap labor.

The point where correction can be made is at the root, not the border but at the employer. Employers do not care because the costs of infractions are so low. It is easy enough to claim Americans will not do the work, which is entire nonsense, what they will not do is that work for that wage. No, businesses cannot survive when there is a large wage differential amongst competitors. If the farm next to yours, or across a state line, has significantly lower labor costs; your goose is cooked because you do not have the margin to cover it. You cannot address this by "securing the borders."

This issue is entirely separate from the reality dealing with people who have been in this country for quite some time in large numbers. The only possible way to make any form of amnesty work, whatever the qualifiers, is to lock down employment into legal compliance. It will absolutely not work without that just as St Ronnie's amnesty didn't. It is simply an invitation to enter until the problem is once again unmanagable. You will not be able to do a thing about the greedy cheating employers unless they understand that they will be caught and the costs will be unsupportable and that the playing field is even, that 'my' legal hires will not be undercut by 'your' cheating.

This matter cannot be left to States to sort out, they will not do it well and the results will be entirely uneven. This matter cannot be left to simmer much longer, the American public already is getting unreasonable in its temperment and willingness to scapegoat. It is time to stop with the idea of a Berlin Wall around this nation and do something real. If the employment issue is fixed the qualifiers for staying will be met or unemployment will be the result.

I do not have the time or energy to start trying to set out what qualifiers need to be, other than that we have a moral and ethical responsibility to do something right by those who've tried to do the right things without that work visa.

Back To Serious Business - Skyrim

2011-12-16T23:26:00.000-08:00

I doubt anybody will be stopping around looking for something new at this time so I'm going back to my second go-around with Skyrim on the XBox 360. If you're a gamer you know or ought to that this is a First Person Shooter (FPS) involving a fictional medieval sort of Norse country with dragons and magic and assorted bad guys and good guys. The thing is massive in scope and complexity of story, characters, build options, and serious eye candy.

I think it is pretty much a foregone conclusion that the thing will be Game of the Year just like it's predecessor Oblivion. Its Bethesda cousins are Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas and it is properly a part of the Elder Scrolls.

If you're used to the idea of video games being a fig leaf of a story to move killing around this isn't it. There is a deliberate and mostly successful attempt to involve the player in the story and to further complicate his life by making some major choices one of ambivalence or outright distaste. Beyond the major theme of the return of dragons there is a civil war raging requiring taking sides along with the day to day decisions imposed by gods, demons, asassins, theives, and general difficulties imposed by residence in a fantastical world of magic, arms and armor, and even marriage in an open access world map.

The game is stand alone, one need not have played any of the Elder Scrolls to deal with it, but I would strongly suggest Oblivion as an introduction - especially with its bargin price now and all the down loads available. Be prepared for games that will have around 200+ hours run time, I kid you not. (no I don't mean time involved in having to re-run sequences for getting killed - actual forward progress time)

There have been some kinks and Bethesda has made up-dates but I don't know how thoroughly all issues have been addressed.

Hmmph?

2011-12-16T23:13:00.000-08:00

How do you like that, a couple people are actually reading my new content...

Maybe I ought to do it a bit more often.

Sometimes it's damn hard not to be too depressed by the news before I get to it to actually have any desire.

Erin Burnett???

2011-12-16T20:28:00.000-08:00

Why the hell did CNN hire a CNBC corporate buttkisser for a news show? Is this a competition with FauxNews to get to the lowest possible denominator in reporting/news reading? Who the hell writes her scripts, Lehman Bros?

I just watched her take big swipes at Fannie and Freddie in the light of investigations/charges for officers and not bother in the least to mention who the hell sold the paper to them - hint, hint = her former buttkissed buds at Banksters.greed.crooks/unindicted...

My low opinion of CNN is scrambling to find new expressions. (ones that don't involve inventive physically impossible profanities)

Childish Pursuits

2011-12-16T18:45:00.000-08:00

You might not believe it, but once I was young. A couple things that are relevant to this blog were a part of being young, one is that I was raised by professional middle class parents in an environment that stressed broad education and striving. You might not think that as a white boy with those advantages growing up in smaller to mid-sized cities in Ohio that I'd take on the ideas that some people in this country are given nothing resembling a fair shake and that manual labor was honorable, valuable, and even attractive and even odder, that Religion was over-rated.

As a youngster I didn't find myself ostracized or odd for holding these ideas, despite having prayer in school and this being Ohio. Since I was born in 1953 a bit of math will tell you my age as things like Civil Rights and other happenings were going on. I can tell you that I found myself riveted to the reporting of the events surrounding the Civil Rights struggle, including kids in dikes, fire hoses, white German Shepards, all the stuff. Given my feeling that there were some who were actively screwed by our own governments and their neighbors the stuff happening burned into me a fierce anger.

I was always interested whenever some kind of work was going on, I'd be there if a tree was being cut, street work was going on, something was being built. No doubt I was a nuisance, always trying to see, asking questions, and trying to scavenge lumber for my own "projects" and, you know, I don't remember a worker ever getting mad at me. I thought it was amazingly cool that these folks were out there using their hands and tools to get something done that needed to be done or making something out of a bunch of bits and pieces. It never occurred to me that they were failures who'd not managed a better education or something. I thought they were an example of what to do.

I fell out of religion as I learned it and watched its "practitioners" in action. People talk when there is a kid around if they think their talk is over that kid's head. They will say things that don't begin to square with their "Book," not realizing that that kid is there measuring the two. More information about the Books started to poke me in that part that didn't think people were getting a fair shake and the idea that God was the instigator sat very poorly. I couldn't quite square the part where a good person of another faith got screwed by ... God. It sure looked a lot like those folks being beaten by police or spit on by their neighbors for nothing other than not being them.

I was young and there was quite a bit I didn't know about law or other religions or how people wind up cleaning a house. I know a lot more about it now - I haven't changed my mind. I will tell you right now that this country and its wealth are built on the labors of people who do things and that the screwing of people hasn't diminished (minus the cops and shepards out front) and that "Books" aren't the problem, but their readers sure the hell are when they take them too seriously.

If you think I'm FOS that's alright, but I do have to tell you that we are mortal enemies because I want to see your viewpoint stomped into the dust of history. I'll even admit that I've done what I can to ensure it. Sadly, I might as well yell at clouds for being there.

Awww, Ron

2011-12-16T17:49:00.000-08:00

I can get along with the idea that insurance companies are not the only devil in escalating medical costs and that Medicare will run into financial trouble at some point if its difficulties are not addressed. I can almost get along with the idea that there might be a GOP Congressperson who isn't batshit insane and who a Democrat could possibly work with... providing said Dem didn't expect to get his fingers back after reaching across the aisle. I can actually manage to swallow, with lots of choking and complaining, quite a bit - see ACA...

What has me spitting bile and finding my veins standing out on my forehead is any Democrat putting his name anywhere near that POS Paul Ryan. I'll just stop right there so I don't start spewing profanities that would upset my dear mother. The rest of you can fill in that big blank space following this sentence with as many convoluted references to ... well, you get the idea and think CONSTRUCTION SITE.

Extension Packages?

2011-12-16T17:43:00.000-08:00

Now that the details on the funding, UE, and payroll tax break extensions look like and what Democrats seem to agree to go along with; it might be time to start considering what is going to happen when the BushCo Tax Cuts expire.

Ron Paul Almost Right

2011-12-16T15:27:00.000-08:00

I'll have to paraphrase ole Ron because I don't have a transcript but anyhow, when asked if he could win in the General Election he answered 'Anyone up here could.' That wasn't quite right, but what should frighten the hell out of anyone with two live brain cells that talk to each other is that it isn't quite right.

Any one of the cretins on the stage with him would poll in the 40s in a General Election against Pres. Obama. Now you can play with intellectualizing reasons for that all damn day but it does not change the fact that such a percentage of voting Americans would look at the election in such a manner.

Scrooge

2011-12-14T14:42:00.000-08:00

I'm not in the mood but here's your damn Christmas/Holiday Card. No pictures of over decorated trees or white stuff on the ground or cutsie family portraits. You get Harley because, well because I like 'em.

No, I don't know why the picture is cock-eyed, operator error...

Taken near Glacier Nat Park.

'Tis The Season To Be Jolly...?

2011-12-14T14:00:00.000-08:00

Now that the NAR has admitted to inflating pre-owned home sales since around 2007 it would seem that maybe housing is and has been in worse shape than the currently abysmal condition... I let my contractor's license expire this fall after subsidizing it for 2 years so I'm not a, umm, fan.

Congress is what it is, something as apparently functionally useful as extending unemployment benefits is going nowhere and a really good sized number of people are going to suffer - along with the people who sell the stuff they'd buy. The GOP is willing to go along if they can poison it, the Democrats along with the GOPers are bound and determined to pay for it, despite the fact that neither is willing to pay for it in any way the other would.

Once again we're playing at DEADLINES in terms of government funding. The GOP makes the calculation that the 'gubmint loving' Democrats will go along with eating a poo sandwich in order to keep their thing going. Evidence seems to be on their side but there might be a limit to the size sandwich they'll eat. If that is the case and things shut down, a pretty good sized chunk of money that would get spent isn't going to be. I haven't seen much debate that business isn't hiring because people aren't buying. (well, that and it isn't made here anymore, anyhow)

Americans are getting dis-enfranchised without committing an offense - other than maybe not being reliable GOP voters. In fact without evidence of offenses against the system that is purportedly being defended.

The catalogue is pretty long and depressing and it sure looks as though Santa is going to deliver out of it. I know that some of you who are left of George Wallace are getting some 'jollies' out of the GOP Primary - I'm not. I'm not being a sour-puss here or some seasonally depressed spoil-sport. That mess over at the GOP is a symptom of this nation's condition. Unless you're willing to propose a 70/30 election in 2012 and get along with the high 40's for the other side no matter who the heck pulls it out; then you're getting laughs at nearly half the nation being barking at the moon crazy. This doesn't begin to address what space the President/down ticket can get into without trespassing into their territory.

No, I am not full of cheer and I give a rat's patoot if it is a White Christmas and Merry HoHo to you to.

Mitten's Bain

2011-12-12T16:03:00.000-08:00

You'd think that a Romney might figure out that Newt and Fannie (jokes write themseleves) would bring on a Bain hit. That it didn't seem to dawn on him (them) kind of points up their view on capitalism. There was a time, a long time ago (before I had a furry face), that business thought corporate raiders were akin to pond scum though a bit lower in elevation. The words "bankruptcy, out-sourcing, lay-offs are a big easily documented piece of Bain type "business." It is plain amateur hour to go after someones business when your own has big capital letter STOP signs all over it.

You know I think they're both sad pieces of work, but for such a shapeshifter of political conveniences as Romney to not get this is stunning in its incompetence. Keep in mind that this is the guy that the Media portrayed as the inevitible smart candidate - now they've got their Newt toy, so we'll see what they come up with.

The GOP is the Party Of Business, think about it. I don't know exactly what that says about "business" in the US, it doesn't seem kind.

Lowe Down Cowards

2011-12-12T13:15:00.000-08:00

TLC is running a show called "American Muslim" about ordinary Muslims living in Dearborn, MI. An outfit in Florida, American Family Association pressured Lowe's to pull its advertising because the show is some sort of stealth attack on Americans. This AFA's problem would seem to me to be one of projection - they figure the evil Muslims are gonna put religious law onto Americans because that is their agenda. Theocrats are just exactly that, religious law is their thing and it must also be everybody else's thing.

The divorcement of overt religion from public institutions isn't simply a matter of keeping an arm's distance between the two - it is Godless Atheism winning a religious war. The vastly majority religion in the US is under attack and being persecuted because... well because they don't get to drape their version of religion in the mantle of government.

This is what Lowe's caved to, a pissant organization with theocracy at its core...

I don't much care for big box stores and I do like locally owned business so it isn't much of a deal for me to not shop at a Lowe Down Coward Store. I don't care about the "Muslim show" what I do care about is giving these cretins power.

Appeasement

2011-12-10T14:38:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about the Mitt "appease, appease, appease" speech the other day. The root of this seems to be the base's idea that Barack Obama is weak. I might agree that the President has been a bit weak on economics and a bit on Civil Liberties. What they, GOPers, seem to have mental lacunae about is that this guy has done things as President, some of them damned aggressive in foreign policy and he has faced ludicrous lockstep opposition from the GOPers and still managed to get some things done.

Maybe, when they get ready to trot out this junk, they just completely miss what it means to be black in this society. If you look at the complexions of the actors it is pretty clear that they've not had to personally deal with the (at best) whispers, the profiling traffic stops, above the mean requirements to succeed, and ... This guy never has gotten to forget it, every morning that mirror restates the condition. The work Obama did before his political office career was a constant reminder. Somehow this man not only managed to run for offices but to actually win a nomination against the presumptive nominee and beat an angry old white guy war hero POW.

Playing at 'weak appeaser' is factually stupid and politically extremely risky. Flying in the face of facts this way only gets the stupid vote and gives the target a chance to make you look ridiculous while touting his own record. It isn't as though almost anybody reading this doesn't know where this theme comes from or know what sliver of the electorate Mitt was reaching out to. The question is why such a candidate thought it was a good idea since even FauxNews was likely to run the President's response.

As this Primary goes on the GOPer clown show just seems to get more broadly stupid, despite the seeming unreasonableness of such an occurrence.

Cain Legacy?

2011-12-05T14:41:00.000-08:00

I honestly did hear this mentioned, the phrase, on a national "news" cast. Then I stopped to think about it - for a couple seconds...

I suppose that if there is a Cain "legacy" it would be one of the warning sign - big yellow curve sign - variety. There are serious risks to Palinism. Knuckle-heads with big problems on their resume probably ought not get near National Politics. As suck-up and stenographic as mass media is, there are limits to what they'll ignore or justify as "both sides do it." Even Mt Everest is a bit hard to miss for the paid equivocators... well, maybe...

A Stupid Man's Idea

2011-11-21T16:23:00.000-08:00

Krugman doesn't thnk much of the GOP "IdeaMan"

“It was his time, the Republican base doesn’t want Romney and they keep looking for an alternative, and Newt — although somebody said ‘he’s a stupid man’s idea of what a smart person sounds like,’ but he is more plausible than the other guys they’ve been pushing up.”

This would be fun other than what it says about the state of our two party system...

The President, "No"

2011-11-21T16:04:00.000-08:00

So who was that guy on my TV? He looked a lot like Pres Obama.

I assume he means it, "No," you don't get to just bypass your "Super Committee" deal. I found the whole "Super Committee" thing ludicrous on its face and political buck passing by the GOPers. Now lets see if Americans get straight in their heads who has what role - Congress passes laws and the Pres signs or vetoes them. His actual power is that and it begins to look as though the GOPers walked into a massive trap.

My affection for the Pres veers around quite a bit and it is based mostly on what he is willing to tolerate and some of that I don't like one damn bit. He is a hugely better choice for President than anyone the GOP is promoting, but that is also a pretty back-handed compliment.

I've heard people say that if in 2012 we'll have won if we re-elect the President in regard to things like OWS and rightwing nuttery. I disagree. Rather than making actual progress we'll have marked place or slowed the descent to hell. We won't have won spit and we won't until this nation ceases to tolerate positions where Obama seems anything other than moderate right.

You can love this President and still agree with me...

The GOP's Deep Bench?

2011-11-21T15:27:00.000-08:00

It has been an article of faith amongst Democratic activists that one thing the GOP has done is to develop a deep bench. There sure the hell are alot of candidates "running" in the GOP Presidential Primary but if this is a bench it surely is an egg sucker of one. If you look at MultipleMitt as the presumptive front runner/nominee it looks as though the quarterback ought to be playing tiddly-winks and his back-ups can't get out of the sandbox. Now, lots of GOPers go with the claims that there are those not running who ought to be, but that sure begs the question of, "why aren't they if they're so good?"

One of the "conservative" favorites is Mitch Daniels, but he appears to have some kind of family problems and a close national look at Indiana politics ought to blow right up in his face. Then there's Chris Christy, who might be just plain too mean spoken to appeal to somebody other than the angry right and he's just way too damn NE Liberal GOP to do spit in the Confederate Party of Republicanism. Jeb Bush, um - Bush? I'm really at a loss to come up with replacements from whatever bench it is proposed to exist.

The bench is composed of GOPers, after all. That does mean they adhere to the GOP idiotology and that has gotten so far out of hand that reason is one of the last things they have to offer to voters. It looks as though they'll have to fall back to their old standbys of fear and hatred. That will work with a certain percentage (27% seems to be it) but that should be short.

I'd say it is up to Democrats to offer something that looks like a real alternative other than "not as bad as."

(hmmm, I think I'll coin a new tag - NABA)

Can’t we do better than this?

2011-11-21T12:58:00.000-08:00

John Cole at BalloonJuice asked that question, in a post regarding the violence at UC Davis:

Which leads me to what bothers me the most, which is the failure of leadership in every institution in this country. Can’t we do better than this? Can’t we do better than pay 400k to someone who doesn’t have an instinctive gut rejection of the idea of macing a bunch of kids sitting on a sidewalk. Can’t we do better than that? Shouldn’t we be able with that kind of money and benefits and perks to find someone who would immediately recoil at the thought of sending riot police with batons and chemical weapons to go thump the kids paying 35,000 a year for the privilege to sit in that public space? Can’t we find people whose immediate response to everything is not the application of force and a reliance on police brutality? Are we really this lost as a nation that our academic institutions are run by sociopaths with no problem solving skills? It’s just fucking amazing, whether it be UC Davis or Penn State or Wall Street or the Catholic Church or, well, wherever.

I like BalloonJuice and I think Cole is a really good writer, but...

Maybe there's an age difference or maybe some different choices in reading American history between us, but the tone is one of offense taken to a violation of an accepted standard that I don't see as having existed except theoretically. I do understand that if you stay within the bounds of what the establishment finds acceptable in belief or values you should be fine. You won't have done a damn thing to better the system, but you won't get pepper sprayed in your Teabagger costume of 'Ladyliberty.' It was quite well understood by the cops and their directors that the Teabaggers were the GOP and quite within the bounds of belief that the plutocratic state approves. The same cannot be said for OWS, it is a direct assault on that plutocratic state.

It has been said that history is just the story the victors tell. That was much more true of periods when literacy was uncommon than it has been from the time literacy was fairly common - at least for something other than "popular" history. The actuallity of the history of anti-establishment movements and protest in this nation is that they've been met with state approved violence with numbing consistency. On occassion this violence has backfired by engaging the general populace in matters that 'were not their concern.' (see Civil Rights or Labor) At those times, as today, most media was complicit in demonizing the protesters and scoffing at their cause.

No John, we're not better than this; this is what we do and what we have done from the time Declaration of Independence signers were still holding office. I am scarcely suggesting that we shouldn't do better - I just want it understood that this establishment protection behavior is deeply engrained and it involves one hell of a fight to do something about it and the natural tendencies of police too ... well act like ... police.

EDIT
(in case anyone think I'm bashing John as ignorant - I think the failing is more one of POV, he wants to trust our establishment and I flatly do not. I think history is on my side. The civics lesson of the run up to and process of the Revolutionary War was quickly forgotten by a hell of a lot of the leaders - the Establishment protects itself whether it be George V or Citibank.)

The Not Mitt Of The Week

2011-11-14T17:35:00.000-08:00

I'll save myself the blood pressure hike of analyzing every body's favorite lizard Newt, and you the boredom of repetition. This week or last week the leader is/has been the NotMitt. I can certainly understand the NotMitt sentiment on their side - what they've got is an opposition field that completely sucks eggs. The NotMitts consist of grifters running performance art projects ... and Rick Perry. The Perry Problem is that he's managed to look dumber than a post next to ... posts. (no I didn't mention Huntsman - nobody does)

The GOP adopted a proportional delegate selection process which may cause them some real heartburn this time out. There certainly are smaller areas where MultipleMitt will do well on the basis of not being barking at the moon crazy but that leaves plenty of smaller areas where that barking will be the compelling narrative. MultipleMitt just doesn't create what you could call enthusiasm - well he does in a negative sense. Enthusiasm of some form is what gets people to go out and actually vote for a candidate in something like a Primary and Primaries are notoriously low turnout elections. (even amongst GOPers)

When the voting does start, if somebody is in the position of the NotMitt of the Week they could benefit from Mitten's lack of appeal. If that translates to a loss or very narrow win for Mittens those NotMitts will get a bump with Primaries starting to stack up. Proposing to use logic and reason to analyze how things shake out is a real iffy project with the crazy/stupid. Reason would tend to favor somebody who has run in at least statewide elections and done well and who has money - Perry. There is a reason US House members are under-represented as Presidents. Playing to a small electorate with narrow interests isn't the same thing as appealing to the public at large.

The Administration apparently has decided that the eventual nominee will be MultipleMitt. I don't know, they're pros and all, but I do wonder if that disqualifies them from figuring out how this will go. The professionals and establishment keep beating the drum about Multiple being the only one with a chance against Obama and thus getting the final nod. One could point to some '10 elections and scratch his head.

This could give me a headache... OMG, I just realized I'd spent all these words to tell you nothing.

Mitt, 'Idiotology Trumps Facts'

2011-11-11T14:03:00.000-08:00

Oh for gods sake, Mittens...

“Sometimes you wonder, would there be someway to introduce some private sector competition, somebody else that could come in and say, you know, each soldier gets X thousand dollars attributed to them and then they can choose whether they want to go on the government system or the private system and then it follows them, like what happens with schools in Florida where they have a voucher that follows them. Who knows.”

We must help those poor veteran victims of socialization...
Steve Benen bothered to take a look at what actually happens at the VA. Quoting Philip Longman:

An answer came in 2003, when the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a study that compared veterans health facilities on 11 measures of quality with fee-for-service Medicare. On all 11 measures, the quality of care in veterans facilities proved to be ‘significantly better.’ … The Annals of Internal Medicine recently published a study that compared veterans health facilities with commercial managed-care systems in their treatment of diabetes patients. In seven out of seven measures of quality, the VA provided better care.”

This surely needs Mitten's grubby profit hands all over it.

Facts entirely optional GOPers...

I'm not suggesting that health care isn't (rude word) up.

How Long Mitt? (edit) NOT LONG)

2011-11-09T15:43:00.000-08:00

How much time will elapse between the elections last night and Mitten's refutation of his support for Zygote Citizenship and Union Busting? Suppose it will be some nuanced, well those were sorta like what I want but not quite and ... Obama, anyhow - or will he just forget he ever had anything to do with such things?

Most of the rest of them were too far into that camp to switch gears and besides their voters won't tolerate any ... back-sliding.

I don't know that OH2 and MS26 signal any political re-structuring but they certainly give The Administration a Romney Ballbat. That is useful...

I do have to wonder how a debate on a "business" channel is going to work out in MI with previous anti-auto bailout rhetoric laying there like a large ... dogpile. That and the approval of the State subsidized foreign auto makers in ... ooops ... The Confederacy. Er Mitt, Michigan was pretty proud of the number of troops it sent into the Civil War Meatgrinder. Maybe in the rarified Romney surroundings you missed the monuments in every town?

Oh hell, there is that safe 27% of the electorate is safely ... CPR*.

*see tag

****UPDATE

So it took until this afternoon for the Romney campaign to state that he never was on they Zygote Bandwagon. Ummm ... video tape Mittens? Mike Huckabee and the word "Absolutely"? Honestly, this makes the crumbiest choices Democrats have had look like a choice between saints.

Gotta love it...

In Ohio and Mississippi Stupidity Loses

2011-11-09T12:46:00.000-08:00

The first order of business is to acknowledge all the smart hard work done by volunteers and congratulate them on the outcomes. Ohio's 2 and Mississippi's 26 went down by large margins. The issues at hand managed to essentially offend a broad spectrum of voters and failed thanks to that. Well, that and some actual organizing and pushback that amounted to more than whining.

There has been a lot of happiness on the leftish side about the overfall results of the off-season elections. It is nice to have something to be happy about but over reading the elections isn't smart. I don't have much to say about MS26 because it was patently stupid and obviously a step way too far. OH2 was a bit of a different thing, it was a GOP wet-dream and something they really wanted - a mechanism to break unions. The GOP's problem is that they struck at something important to people, more important than "god, gays, and guns." The GOP didn't just play the division game, they played an actual issue. That is the crux.

The GOP does pretty well with emotional division bullshit, and have for quite awhile. OH2 turned on something else and blew up in their faces. This ought to be considered in any leftish celebrations. OH2 isn't a repudiation of the GOP, it is a repudiationn of their stepping out of their baliwick of emo-stupidity. If you're thinking the GOP hate and division machine is mortally wounded then you're just not paying attention to what voters get up to. There is a difference between smacking a broad coalition in the face and kicking the small and impotent around. The GOP miscalculated the amount of "the other" factor involved with unions - it just isn't the same thing as ... gay. There are just way too many people involved, especially if you include friends and relatives.

The other side, loosely called Democrats, can learn something from this - especially the part about giving a broad spectrum something to get excited about. Sure, go ahead and hold your breath...

Sexual Harassment

2011-11-08T16:36:00.000-08:00

Just to be real clear, I don't think sexual harassment is a joke or mostly made up. I don't have much of anything like experience with it at a personal level for a couple reasons, I work construction and I was boss and I would not tolerate any crap that broke the relationship of being a crew.

Doing something that makes the work place a hostile environment is wrong and if done from a position of power even more unacceptable. I just don't give the least bit of a damn about Cain.

The Cain Game Fun

2011-11-08T14:15:00.000-08:00

The Media, even David Gregory, have been busy analyzing the Cain situation ... no really ... not just stenographing. This is a pretty funny thing to see. Any GOPer you can think of is allowed to make fact free assertions on their programs that flatly contradict actual, ummm, facts without even a bit of questioning.

What could possibly be different here? Well there is the sex aspect of it. The sex aspect has driven some stories before. Here is one thing that certainly is true in this case - Herman Cain is not the Establishment's candidate. That "NOT" is important, the Establishment does not want the candidate of their Party to be an actual clown - as opposed to a multiple choice Mittster type.

I doubt that Mitt's weaknesses please them, but they certainly don't have a real problem with his current momentary positions. Cain is certainly in line with them, but Cain as GOP candidate for President is a joke and that's known by everybody other than the twenty some percent who say they'll vote for him.

I'm not saying anything about the veracity of the women's allegations. People have been known to lie and they've also been known to tell the truth in extremely difficult situations. I could care less about Herman Cain, what I care about is what this says about our political process and the media's part in it and the plutocratic control of the whole damn mess.

Hold onto your hats ... I just heard David Gregory, no kidding, state that Cain has no facts to back up his assertion that OWS and the Democrat-machine ramped this up. "NO FACTS" from David Gregory??? Honest-to-pete when these people go this far out of character you have to know something is going on that isn't ordinary.

Don't forget that for the Establishment to have a Cain type as candidate could allow a Democrat to say something Progressive and not get hung for it... That certainly would not do.

*Edit
Just to be clear about harassment

Caligula's Horse

2011-11-08T13:26:00.000-08:00

Pierce at Esquire had this to say about voting for GOPers in, say, Ohio:

You knew what they were when you invited them in. You might as well be surprised and offended when your dog licks his nuts in front of the vicar.

I know some actual liberals/progressives from the various states that elected Kasich types to "responsible" positions who vehemently did not vote for them. To be sure, it is unfair to paint with too broad a brush but the election results speak for themselves. Maybe the polling shows that voters would do something different and you'd like to think they've learned a lesson. I also have a bridge in Brooklyn...

If lessons were learned in this way you'd think there would have been second thoughts about putting the cretins who wrecked the economy back in charge. You'd think that what some random woman does with her uterus is less important than ... gads, fill in the damn blank.

I pretty much grew up in Ohio and got a good education thanks to their system and had some other fair opportunities - along with the privilege of watching some of my peers get shot by the National Guard under another GOPer. That was also a point where a significant portion of the public figured those kids had it coming. I never saw any good reason for the large percentage of Ohioans who were members of the Northern Confederacy; but they certainly do exist.

That bunch would elect Caligula's horse if it wore an (R). I have no idea what the rest of the Kasich voters' excuse is. Well, they do say things, but...

I'm really glad there are people out there who have had the nerve and energy to push back - it shouldn't have been necessary. THAT is the whole point of voting.

***Just a note in fairness - I live in OR-02 and they've proven they'd elect that horse... er have done it, at least the back portion of it.

GOP ABM* Strikes

2011-11-07T15:00:00.001-08:00

*Anyone But Mitt

With Huntsman deep in the weeds, Mitt seems the only "establishment" candidate to the GOP. That is just plain unacceptable and thus:
Trump Bump
Bachmann Bump
Perry Bump
Cain Bump

And now ... MSM is on about a Newt bump. A bump for the tired old idea (I use that word extremely loosely - fantasies) man; a guy whose personal behavior most of them would loath and whose campaign is transparently about self-promotion. The Media Pundits may ignore this stuff but even if Newt moves up some I strongly doubt he can strike any emotional chords with the ABMs nor does he have real money to sustain himself without a real connection to emotion. I think the Media is playing the "it's his turn" theme rather than looking at Newt and the ABMs.

The sex stuff isn't going to do huge damage to Cain, but he will implode at some point with that group and never ever forget that he is ... well, black. What I do think is that if Perry can stop doing things the way he has been he's going to be their guy. He's white, he's from Texass, and he's ... hmmmm ... pretty ... and he's white... Oh yeah, he does have some real money. And even if he is stupid he might be able to stop doing it in front of voters.

When something is operating in a mode like ABM, an entire negative, staying power helps - that and an ability to not do something stupid. You've got people looking for someplace to land, not an actual enthusiasm for, and about all that requires is an ability to stay in front of them and some sort of "charm." Charm is another of those words I'm using loosely since it can easily include a 'go for the nuts' type persona they wouldn't want as a dinner guest - supposedly a Perry characteristic.

I'm not presenting this as some sort of prediction - it's silly to do that with crazy people; not that I like Mitt a bit, either. The Obama Campaign seems to think Mitt will be the one but I'm less sure. They may well have fallen into the trap of using reason in regard to craziness. I'm inclined to think an ABM could pull it off, especially considering Mitt's consistent 23%.

Sure, It's Fun Laughing At The GOPers...

2011-11-04T14:14:00.000-07:00

I know a lot of my readers (using the words 'a lot' is hyperbole) get some real fun out of what the GOP has to offer this time around. They're so easy to mock and so full of s**t on a regular basis that...

Here's the thing about that; this has something to say about the state of the nation that isn't in the least reassuring. There are two Parties in this country and one of them is producing what the GOP is. What that means to the "other" party is yet to be seen. Running against lunatics/multiple choicers leaves that "other" party with a hell of a lot of options to be ... stupidly almost GOP. How will the Democrats read the public? Will they read the election as really being between Right and Righter? They have done that previously.

The most open question today is whether the electorate can understand that fiddling around at the margins of the system is inadequate and that the failure to recover falls on the heads of those fiddlers and the total obstructionists. There is discontent, how deep and how reflective it is I can't begin to measure. If the "Middle" is still stuck on the "fiddle around" with the status quo position we are going to see candidates and policies that reflect that and the same failures. Politicians aren't generally known as risk takers and expecting them to move more than marginally from the status quo isn't reasonable if the "Middle" hasn't already been there for some time.

I don't think the Democrats generally are so stupid as to not realize that being the Party of the GOP's previous decade or so isn't going to address what's wrong with the nation. That particular intellectual "accomplishment" doesn't mean spit in regard to what policies they'll advocate or support. I'm not ignoring the percentage of Democratic legislators that would do something, I'm flatly aware of what the outcomes are.

OWS may mean something, but in regard to actual useful policy it won't mean anything unless that "Middle" is truly pissed off. I don't have polite words for the outlook of that group other than status quo at all costs. Accurate adjectives involve swearing and words like ... nah, not gonna go there. If that's where you stand - I have no appologies to make.

No, I'm not in the least optimistic.

OWS, I Appologize - Sort of

2011-11-03T00:59:00.000-07:00

From the start OWS garnered my emotive support and my intellectual dismissal. I understood what OWS was unhappy about, in fact I figured it was about thirty years late in coming. What my intellect dismissed was its staying power and the reach it could have into political discourse.

I didn't believe the plutocracy would allow its reporting or physically allow them to stay. I never thought the lack of a narrow political agenda was a problem, but I did dismiss their chances of pushing the economic dialogue anywhere in their direction.

I don't think the GOP is real impressed yet, they still see it as a target of convenience. I have an utter disbelief that Democratic outcomes will show any particular effect any time soon but I am actually impressed to see the President and a few other speaking in more openly populist terms. Lacking OWS I strongly doubt the President would have adopted his current ... confrontational? ... style.

I don't think it is so late that flaming mansions are required to get some sort of relief within the halls of government, though thinking something realistically effective is coming soon is pretty damn optimistic. It isn't as though we lack models that have demonstrated their utility through practice, it is true that those models are nowadays considered radical.

Facts are blatantly on the side of OWS, that has never proven a decisive factor in politics. People are actually starting to make a fight out of something that should have been settled business a half-century ago. No, I don't really expect the plutocracy to let much happen and they certainly own sufficient law-makers to ensure not much happens. Sides are being picked ... what that means is still an open question as are the consequences for being on the wrong side from the American people.

I cannot afford to do a damn thing to help keep OWS going beyond typing this handful of words but if you've got even a couple bucks with nothing to do there are ways to help out, even if it is just ordering a pizza to be delivered to their site, it would be something.

Oh yeah, about that appology ... sorry to be too quick to dismiss.

I Know,

2011-11-03T00:56:00.000-07:00

I quit politics. Addiction is a powerful thing.

The Perry Saviour

2011-11-02T23:54:00.000-07:00

You can look at the current GOP field and find something interesting at the most optimistic and if you were a GOPer - appalling. It is pretty obvious that there exists a rather sizable and wealthy "Anybody But Mitt" segment of the GOP. This is where the Rick Perry campaign came from.

Now, if you cannot understand the sizable "ABM" sentiment because you aren't a GOPer you could try this one on to see how you would react - Joe Lieberman For President (D). If the mere concept makes you throw up a little, you can start to "sympathize" with the "ABM"s. I may have found Barack Obama, the primary candidate, a bit lacking in leftism but supportable as intelligent and generally in agreement with my concept of a Democrat - something Joe Lieberman totally fails. It is reasonable to assume that the GOPers who put forward Rick Perry were at least astute enough to understand that the rest of the clown parade were ... well, clowns and never going to get anywhere in a General Election. In shorter terms, not completely stupid.

Before his entry, I was somewhat familiar with Rick Perry by reputation. The reputation of not losing elections, the reputation for being a 'hardnosed' candidate, and someone the handful of thinking Texans I know of, loathed and considered stupid. It has taken his entry into "Presidential" politics to acquaint me with the levels of incompetence he has, a Texan who makes GWB look able and Sarah Palin a speaker of the English language. It isn't as though he wasn't good at debating, a shy child would have out-performed him. His speech in New Hampshire ... well, jeeze. His failure at the persona of candidate isn't even the crux of the issue.

This guy's campaign looked at a demographic that thought the tax code is a mess and decided to add a voluntary additional layer to the current mess. Never mind that the voluntary chunk would screw them and aid the oligarchy - even the factually impaired will quickly grasp that it is just another layer of complexity.

What you're looking at in this little snapshot of Rick Perry is what the ABMs came up with, their best shot. This is the cure for Mittism. Imagine that you are a GOPer and this is what a bunch of your movers and shakers came up with as Party Saviour.

I find it real damn difficult to feel sorry for the GOPers, but there's an actual twinge.

2004 Chevrolet SSR For Sale By Owner

2011-09-14T15:14:00.001-07:00

Right click pics for full size

This truck has 43,000 miles and is in excellent condition. It is the 1SB option pack without chrome wheels. This option pack includes carpeted and "wood" stripped bed, side saddle bags, cargo net, storage bag for toneau cover, and hide away hitch and 6CD Bose stereo and gauge pack. This is the 5.3L 300HP w/4 speed OD auto and 3.73 "Posi" rear.

Serious inquiries contact cbutcherATbakervalleyDOTnet

$23,000

Where Now, Libya

2011-08-22T18:25:00.000-07:00

It would appear that the Qaddafi era in Libya is drawing to a close, not done but ending. It will probably close messily, but with that guy out if not dead. The immediate challenges are to keep the necessary infrastructures functioning, electricity, garbage collection - the stuff that keeps the place from being unlivable. There may be no real political structure within Libya but there is a structure that supports the day to day life support system. It will be a challenge.

The piece that has pundits and pols disturbed is the political outcome. There doesn't seem to have ever been any sort of political system in Libya, political in the sense of opposing points of view being somehow accommodated. There certainly has been a system of cronyism, propaganda, repression, and militarism but nothing properly called politics. This lack of traditions or actual systems has folks in an uproar.

You would think to hear them that they are regarding a pack of monkeys or something as informed as that. Despite all the propaganda and the rest, Libyans seem to have been able to figure out that not only was something wrong but that there is something to replace that wrongness. It is repeatedly pointed out that Libya is tribal and regional, as though that means that none of those folks have had to get along with each other and competing ideas and agendas. That is flatly ridiculous. What they do not have is the experience of an established political system.

I'm not so sure that is an actual drawback. They do not have the experience of a history of, say English Common Law to fall back on but they do have an idea of fairness violated. Putting together a system doesn't mean you have to a previous system you've lived under to use as an example. What you need to do it successfully is to understand that your point of view isn't the only one to be considered. (Maybe our government could learn that) It is also necessary to understand that not everything is open to consideration. Another Qaddafi is not open to consideration, for one example. Government has to be able to change, it has to be able to meet new conditions with new answers. It also has to leave all its inhabitants feeling as though they have a stake in its continuation. (another consideration for our own) It is not all that difficult to keep a privileged few from taking over the place with the examples of others to look at (ahem).

I think it will be much more difficult for a place like Egypt to overcome the faux political system than it is for Libyans to create one. There certainly are those who have a lot to lose without Qaddafi to keep them on top and they certainly won't like it. The absence of a faux system to keep them protected could easily turn into an advantage - or a bloodbath - or both.

I'm not silly enough to predict any outcomes in Libya but I would like to stand up to the doomsayers. I'd also like to stand up for people, actual people as opposed to the elite who seem to think they're destined to run any damned place that exists. I've found that people in general seem to be able to figure things out when they're not stultified by generational bullshit.

NO - this is not a foray back into goddam politics.

Oh No, I've Had A Relapse Into Politics

2011-08-04T01:15:00.000-07:00

Damn blast it, I've had a slip and paid attention to politics. I could feel it coming, shoot, saw it well before the collision. In point of actual fact, I picked up the remote and pushed the button that brings up the channel menu and chose ... holy cow ... Rachael Maddow. Sure, I think she's a sweetie, but it wasn't for her personality - it was the damn politics that I went for. My blasted drug sucked me back in and what did I get for my trouble? Things like the FAA shut down.

Should I really re-think my decision to get the hell out of that addiction on the basis of politics that shut down an agency like the FAA and cost $200M/wk put 70,000 people out of work and involves things like ... for pete's sakes ... going through the skies at hundreds of miles an hour in a metal tube and putting it on the ground at 3 or more times the speed limit in any state?

The hell with that noise; and it is noise - there is no crisis of any magnitude beyond the GOPers desire to break unions.

Oh hell, there is other stuff on the show that is about as stupid but if I think about it too much there'll be no going back so the menu got pointed at the Sirius Network's BB King's Bluesville and clicked. Jimmy Burns is now bopping my night and making way more sense singing about a "train" he'd like to "ride." Euphemistic sex beats political jabber and I'm back on the road to recovery. (for now)

Blue Collar Prejudice

2011-08-04T01:00:00.000-07:00

* Posted previously and I thought maybe it needed saying again...

I bet you're thinking, 'What???' Let's take a look at this like it might actually exist.

Name a television entertainment program with a blue collar male that is something other than a dolt, an "Archie Bunker." Or try to find one where such a character isn't based around sloth and irresponsibility. I can think of 2 programs, "Made In America" and "Dirty Jobs" both of which are "reality TV." Regarding sloth and irresponsibility, productivity has increased virtually every year for 20 years. Workers today are getting more done in a work day than in the "good ole days."

Here's some reality to go with TV mindlessness, over a 20yr period most blue collar job wages have remained static or declined. Yes, working harder and better and making less. In that same period corporate profits have increased over 700%. Working for the same employer for an extended period is increasingly unlikely. Blue collar jobs are relentlessly dangerous and harmful to health, lower income health problems are frequently blamed on poor lifestyle choices, the reality is that the nature of the work is frequently the base problem.

A large percentage of skilled blue collar workers require a 2 income household to keep a family of 4 above the poverty line. This is not about extra income to buy expensive toys, this is about reliably keeping a roof, food, and transportation and these people are one health problem from disaster, if they have health insurance (unlikely) they face deductibles nearing 1/2 year wages which is very nearly pointless to have.

Blue collar workers face increasing employment competition with illegal hires. This competition takes two forms, one is direct hiring competition and the other is wage depression. This competition is largely ignored in any debate regarding illegal workers. The divorce between blue collar workers and their fellow citizens is increasingly evident. Debates arise concerning product pricing at market and the legality of the employees producing the product, statements are made to the effect that produce prices would skyrocket if legal hiring were in place, which ignores the fundamental fact that labor is one of the smallest portions of a product's price at market and that the associated costs of illegal employment far exceed the savings of illegal hiring. The educated "progressive" elements commiserate with the plight of illegal aliens and ignore the steady depredation on legal blue collar families. Apparently the ignorant buffoons of TV land are unworthy of concern.

No doubt voting patterns have influenced this trend. There is an apparent disregard of their own economic interest by blue collar voters as they have trended Republican. While this conflict in interest is obvious, many of its roots are not. There has been no evident economic policy benefiting blue collar over the last 20 years and that period is not all Republican. It is not difficult to see blue collar workers regarding their economic best interests as a hopeless case and voting some other interest that feels close to home. When a person has very little, perceived assaults on the few things they do hold are taken very seriously. One of the side effects of the gun control debate was to tell the blue collar worker that he is too ignorant and too irresponsible and too criminally inclined to own a firearm. His "betters" disapproved of the gun owning lifestyle. Accurate? Possibly not, politically potent? You bet.

These people trade their time and their bodies for income, they work long hard hours and get little for it. Little pay, little respect. Many jobs that 30 years ago were held in high esteem are now little regarded. It is not as though the work has changed, it is the point of view that has changed. Maybe it's time to give it a re-think. Maybe it's time to look around and see the things produced with the hands and backs of your fellows and give some regard to their value, all those paper assets and banknotes are derived from those things.

Sometimes You Out Grow A Thing, Like A Bike

2011-08-02T23:24:00.000-07:00

I previously mentioned my friend Phillip and his 650 one lunger. What I didn't mention was that he just got his motorcycle endorsement late last summer and it is the bike he learned to ride on - sort of. Phillip started riding with me in late spring and there was a lot he needed to learn and in the process of nearly 3,000 miles up to now he did. He also found that the bike wasn't designed for hundreds of miles at highway speeds and that he'd gotten all he could from it.

Soooo... we took a ride over to High Desert Harley Davidson in Meridian, ID - the folks who've taken care of my bike. This is Phillip's 2011 Wide Glide, 96 inch six speed in Burnt Sienna and Black.

***click to enlarge

Our bikes make a pretty colorful piece of scenery. Better yet, it does everything Phillip needs in a bike, it is stable and powerful - also loud and beautiful.

I've always considered the Dyna frame one of the nicest rides Harley makes and the Super Glide family one of the best deals. The Wide Glide with the rake on the forks looks like it should be going a million miles an hour sitting still. Phillip is a pretty understated kind of a guy, but this thing is breaking that mold. He uses Phillip in place of his Chinese name and he was born and raised in Hong Kong and owns, big surprise, a Chinese restaurant and lounge. He is a friend and has turned into a great riding partner ... and he now has an extremely cool motorcycle.

A Dinner Run, A Long One

2011-08-02T22:15:00.000-07:00

My friend Phillip and his wife Gina, myself and my wife Scottie took a little ride for dinner. This involved OR7 to the Dooley Mt Hwy OR245 to US26 east to Ontario, OR and Mackey's Irish Pub and great food. Dooley Mt Hwy has a huge number of curves and this shot is on one of them and the blue grey bike is Phillip's 650 Suzuki Savage one lunger. It sure isn't much of bike but it is something to learn on, which he's done. Yes, my Harley is that much bigger.

***click pic for full size

From Ontario we took OR201 to Weiser to I-84W to Cement Plant Rd (old US 30) into Baker City. This shot is one I've tried to get for years, sunset over the Elkhorn Mts above Baker City. Really, click it to enlarge.

Oh yeah, 218 miles round trip.

One Of My Favorite Short Rides

2011-08-02T21:43:00.000-07:00

Union Oregon is north of Baker City and it is the mid-point of one of my favorite shorter rides. Just outside Baker City north is OR203 known as Medical Springs Hwy. This picture is taken on the plains outside Baker City.

***click pic for full size

This picture is shot north east into the Wallowa Mountains and was taken in early July. At Union you will find Poppa's Steakhouse and Saloon and on Thursday night you can get smoked prime rib and Friday smoked ribs and the smoking is in-house and beyond excellent. The route is OR203 to Union from Union south on OR237 to North Powder and US30 back to Baker City. It is a round trip of 85 miles with a really swell meal in Union. The roads are excellent and the traffic light to non-existent.

Now That I Know What It Means To Be A Democrat

2011-08-01T20:03:00.000-07:00

As I stated previously I was quite willing to hold fire about bills regarding debt ceiling bills, I have done so. I now know what it is that defines Democrats at the national level with control of the Senate and the Presidency. Knowing that, I'll say what it is, it is the slower path to GOPer wingnuttery. It is a matter of getting to today's version of TeaParty stupidity and plutocratic agenda in a decade rather than a couple years.

I'll be blunt - I'll not be a party to such horseshit, I'll let those who love excuses and cowardice take the reins, or load, or act as though they give a good goddam. I simply cannot continue to divide my thinking between what works and is right and what isn't "as bad as." You like "not as bad as" you can help yourself to as much as you please.

I've had a (D) behind my name since 1971 and I was of that persuasion from time of Kennedy and Nixon, well previous to being able to register anything. I've watched what happened to the "Democratic Brand" for all those decades and I've done what I could to affect the direction of drift - including being willing to try for the US House so things could be said. I'm stubborn about such things and I've been stubborn for a damn long time in the face of all evidence.

The so-called middle has won the day, it has made itself clear that GOPerism is the way. I'll let that go if not actively help it happen. By rights I ought to be a part of advancing the GOPer way and get done so people can see what it means. But what I can't do is be an active part to harming my fellow citizens so I'll just let it go. I don't know if I'll even bother to vote, that's well up in the air, but I do know that if the public wants what the GOPers offer, they ought to have it and get to live with it. That certainly means that I'll have to struggle a lot harder to support the Plutocrats in the manner they desire and have a lot less left for me and mine. What I can do is join the great unwashed ignorant masses in not giving a damn and ignore and be unaffected by the scoffing middle-way Democrats in their self-satisfied "not as bad as" theme.

This blog thing has become immaterial and irrelevant. Maybe I'll post pictures or
stuff but look elsewhere for politics because I simply can no longer stand to give a damn. My affiliation with the Democratic Party is at an end, I probably won't even bother to change the registration seeing it as further exercise in pointlessness.

I'd like to thank the political readers I've had, take care and do whatever seems right to you.

Good night and good-bye.

Outcomes Matter

2011-07-27T23:46:00.000-07:00

I know there are actually a pretty fair number of "progressive" US Senators and a good percentage of House Democrats are as well. This, of course, depends heavily on what progressive means (or hell - Democratic). I'll get along with some generic generally understood "progressive" rather than a named Caucus, still a doubtful exercise, but one has to start somewhere. Anyhow, I'll just postulate that there is a pretty large percentage of national Democratic legislators who could be called progressive. Now that's thrashed out...

You might think that would have some meaning. You'd be FOS if you did. Take a look at legislation passed. What the Democrats managed to do was to pass a previous decade or two GOP legislation. Now, the Democrats only control the Senate and the Presidency. The President manages to advocate for the stuff of one or two decades previous GOPerism. Sure, I have the luck to live in Oregon and having 4 of 5 House members as Democrats and passably progressive to go along with Sens Wyden and Merkley and all that means is ... well, what we've gotten.

It is easy enough to see that President Obama is far less harmful to Democratic ideas than any of the GOPers and I suppose that can be presented as a reason to vote for him. There is a problem with that, the Democrats tried that in 2010 and to a significant extent it didn't work (a whole bunch of Bluedogs found out). The President I worked for and voted for in the Primaries and General has turned out to be the best of the bunch and about what I expected (a bit more of what I expected, maybe). When you toss the reality of LIEberman, Bauchus, and Nelson you get something that you have to try pretty hard to call Democratic. It comes down to the most important people in the room are hardly recognizable as Democrats and you get what we've gotten.

The President and Speaker Spoke

2011-07-25T18:53:00.000-07:00

And what did we get? The President almost kicked the GOP in the teeth all the while proposing GOP policy. The Speaker managed to start out with lies and then a major FU. It seems that the GOPer policy of holding the economy hostage will either succeed or kill the economy. Somehow we're supposed to believe that something Democratic will be included in this while the President takes the GOP approach called the Reid plan with no revenues.

Maybe you can start to understand that we're not talking about pissing off the Left, we're talking about doing the GOP dirty work and calling it compromise. It is not compromise to do what the other side wants, period. This was a speech by a Democratic President? This is a proposal by a Democratic Senate Majority Leader? I won't call compromise a dirty word, but I'd call this a dirty deal by cowards.

Where the hell does that leave most people who'd call themselves Democrats? (I don't mean my lefty friends) As this plays out I am assessing my affiliation. I don't like what I'm watching.

Wanna Make Any Bets?

2011-07-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

So after all the bullshit around the debt ceiling ends, what will that look like? I have no faith that anything that looks remotely Democratic will be the outcome. If that is how it goes, who gets blamed?

Bachmann And Migranes

2011-07-19T20:58:00.000-07:00

The Daily Caller (no link, ever) published a bit of a hit piece on Rep Michelle Bachmann's migranes. Of course this went all over the internet. It seems she controls this debilitation with medication, as do many others. If you're new and drawn in by the 'google' let me assure you that I think Bachmann is a clown with an attitude - no I don't like her.

The "Caller" is a GOPer organ so one has to wonder to whose benefit this story was designed for. I don't think those enthralled by Bachmann's craziness would be much put off by such a story, but considering the publisher and their agenda it is obvious that it is supposed to work to some one's benefit. It is pretty safe to doubt that Mittens is their guy, and Pawlenty is a bit too soft for them. I'd guess this is an opening salvo for the TexAss godliness governor Perry. There is no way Perry and Bachmann can share the same oxygen in a GOP Primary - they simply split that god-botherer vote and marginalize each other.

Tucker Carlson's vanity publication going after Bachmann says something about the state of the bunch running as of now and how the GOP feels about it. The shapeshifter Mitt doesn't do much for the GOPers other than to assure the monied interests that somebody will look out for them with some modicum of sanity. Pawlenty has proved he couldn't punch his way out of a wet paper bag and the rest are just jokes. This means Bachmann, in the absence of someone else, starts to look like a credible player in the Primaries. Barring a serious mishap for Obama, Michelle looks so poor against him as to cost the GOP not only in a General Election in 2012 but in future elections and that might be the why of "migraines."

If the idea of this is to benefit Perry, you really have to feel pretty amused by what passes for the GOP in today's world. Oh hell, you have to be amused by them or be horrified - anyhow.

Debt Ceiling Resolution?

2011-07-19T17:28:00.000-07:00

Since I've managed to carp pretty strongly about this "budget" resolution to the debt ceiling I'll go ahead and step up with my predictions of how it actually goes from horrid to just bad and unlikely.

Horrid is the one where House GOPers manage to put us into defualt. I'm sure the plutocrats don't want that, but how much leverage they have with the lunatics is open to question.

The next one in the steps up from lunacy is where Democrats let all the pain fall onto those who can't take much more resulting in nothing in results to deficit - essentially a cave to House GOPer near loons.

The least likely outcome is a ceiling increase without strings, or one that makes it appear that the President is responsible (McConnell). The only way this happens is if the plutocrats make it clear to the loons that they'll crush them flat for not letting it happen - and making them believe it. It might be best for the nation of all alternatives, even if it is correct.

Oh hell, I'll be more clear. If it would be good for the nation as a whole it has no chance and if it is good for corporatism and plutocracy it is likely. Without a major shock to the electoral system that is the course set for us. Since Congress and the President have managed to kick the can of the BushCo tax cuts down the road this day has been coming - quicker and quicker - and at some near point reaching this kind of debacle for the simple reason that the US was spending way too much without revenue.

Look, between wars, corporate swilling, and waste the tax revenues have been way short for quite awhile and this recession pushed the whole show over the brink. I have never been and am not much in the line of a deficit hawk but everyone saw this coming and it can't go on and ... we'll continue to pour money into Middle Eastern Wars as though nothing else matters. Even raising taxes won't do the job any more so stuff has to be cut. The question is whose ox gets gored in the cut regime. The answer, my guess is, whoever can't afford lobbiests and doesn't vote regularly. There ya go, we're really screwed and the recourse seems to be handing the tiller over to the lunatics or more of the same GOP policy dressed up as Democratic policy.

Chambliss And Nelson ???

2011-07-19T16:48:00.000-07:00

So John King of CNN has Chambliss and Nelson on as champions of the "Gang of Six" plan? That is just wonderful, Right and Righter as champs. Maybe you can figure out why legislation today winds up to the right of '70s GOPers. You got a health care reform plan right out of the GOP opposition to Hillary Care that is now Obama sCare and banking reform that is that in name. Go down the damn list and tell me why I should listen to a single thing Nelson has to say as a Democrat.

Democrats will define themselves for pretty much a generation with what they do. Wanna make any bets?

If you think the plutocrats will be in the least inconvenienced by anything Chambliss and Nelson won't oppose or that the poor and working class won't get the knife in the process you are an optimist of real proportions.

OK, I'll hold fire ... for awhile. I know DC gives a damn if I just up and quit.

BTW - "Gang" is probably charitable as an appellation.

GOPers And Debt

2011-07-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

The GOPers seem to be in hostage taking mode or in the position of dead hostages don't matter. Either position works for opposing Democrats. Now it does seem as though almost all economists are scared spitless of default and yet a good sized piece of the GOPers are stating publicly that it just doesn't matter. Another piece simply don't seem to be able to follow the numbers from the BushCo tax cuts sufficiently to have reason get into play.

The dead hostage bunch likes to make the case that the President has the ability to decide who gets paid, which is true. The problem is that a ten percent whack to the GDP will result in a serious crash no matter who gets paid what. They will tell their ignorant true believers that the crash happened because the President made the wrong (ie socialist) choices. They win with their nut-base no matter what when the crash comes.

The hostage takers are betting that the President and Democrats will blink (or more correctly swerve in the game of chicken). What they ignore at their peril is that Democrats would be committing electoral suicide to swerve. Not just some, but almost all of them, and the polls are real clear. They also manage to ignore that doing anything about the deficit without taking back some of the gifts to the plutocrats is impossible. Electorally the consequences to them depend on whether they can continue to successfully play their "job killing tax increases" mythology to their base and some "middle" voters in the face of what history says since BushCo did it.

It is my guess that the President and a bunch of Democratic legislators believe some sort of reason will seap into the ranks of the GOP. I see a complete lack of evidence of such a thing. Most of us have zero ability to do anything to prepare for the consequences of a failure of that optimism. It seems the results will be either a car crash involving a tree or a long fall off a cliff depending on default or cave in and the same 27%ers* will be cheering - despite what happens to them.

*Those who'd be crushed by drastic cuts will also continue to not vote - either from GOP disenfranchisement or apathy. The GOP** knows it and counts on it.

**So do the "Ben Nelsons" of the Democratic world.

'Faux' :News Corp And Murdoch In Trouble?

2011-07-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

You'd get the feeling from watching the news lately that 'News' Corp might be in a bit of difficulty over the junk they got up to at News Of The World over in England. It certainly has stirred up the Brits to find out just exactly how corrupt the relationship between their government and Murdoch's Empire has been. Now, it certainly is a valid question to ask just how it is that it has taken this long. Consider that they have published headlines claiming credit for the election of a party?

The Brits and their political parties have pretty much just plain ignored real obvious evidence that something has been broken for some time. Once you face up to that, you find that what broke things loose was a specific piece of wrong doing - not the fact that the system was flat out corrupt. It just isn't a problem that Rupert Murdoch runs their political system, it is about a dead girl and hacking.

According to Murdoch, himself, the problem was with 1% of his empire. He's shut that down and shifted the business to one of his other papers at the cost of 200 some jobs. Pretty much meaningless in terms of business. The BSkyB purchase may be off the table for now; and that is now. At this moment politicians are running away from their buddy Rupert, but neither he nor his empire have gone away, the back door to 10 Downing or whatever will still be open once the furor dies down. Keep in mind that everyone is looking right now and that won't last.

The horrifying consolidation of media in the US continues, essentially unopposed by anyone with actual power. Only the most blindly stupid don't consider NewsCorp a defacto GOP enterprise - or possibly the GOP a defacto NewsCorp enterprise. GOPers and FauxNews fans still consider the NYT and WaPo and ABC, CBS, and NBC to be liberal news propaganda - despite their corporatist fluffing exercises and stenography as balance.

Short of some memo from Rupert approving bribes and hacking the "I had no idea" crap will carry the day. Too many politicians in this and other countries owe NewsCorp big time and the public doesn't want truth or fact based analysis since that might challenge their ideological mythologies. The masters of the universe know that control of information is the trump card in dominance and the public flatly doesn't give a damn as long as they're not challenged or crushed in one fell blow.

Rupert and NewsCorp will be just fine and will continue to win the GOPer hearts and the rest of the media will continue to be useless to informing the public because those who care about it have power and money and those who'd oppose it have squat. Maybe if everything just completely crashes...

Not even then, bet ya.

Motorcycle Service Fun (Sarcasm)

2011-07-11T23:29:00.000-07:00

Some of you know that I own an FXSTSSE3 and that I ride - a lot. (in English that's a 2009 Custom Vehicle Operations Screaming Eagle Springer Soft-tail) Riding a lot means that Harley-Davidson's 2 year unlimited milage warrantee expired this mid-May and the bike just rolled over 40K miles. That expiration means that I feel free to do my own maintainance. I know a company can't make you use their service centers to honor warrantees, but I also know that this is an expensive bike that gets way more miles than Harley anticipated and conversations that start and end with "your people are the only ones who ever touched it" cut a lot of wiggles out. Yes, I own the actual Harley service manual for that motorcycle.

So, back to my tale. I am mechanically adept, I am damned good with tools and with reading, understanding, and following instructions. I cannot do anything with the computerized bits but that is outside the perview of service. Some of the service is complex, partly because the bike has a springer front end but it isn't beyond me or anyone competent. The last service was done while I was on the road back from FL and it seems that somebody managed to not understand torque specifications. To change the oil in the primary case you pull the drain plug in the bottom and then remove the primary cover to replace the oil. The drain plug was no problem, the #27 torx head screws in the primary cover were an issue, well ... two of them were. The specification are 84-108 inch pounds which isn't a lot. The top two screws refused to move with a hardened tool steel socket and 1/4 inch rachet. The torx grooves on the top one simply started going away, even with tapping with a light brass hammer and that is what it took for the next one left to it. The top one took being driven loose with a chisel, a bad thing, but I did get the cover off and the oil replaced. I will have to replace those once I can get to a dealer. I was not happy.

The next problem point was the oil filter, no filter wrench I could put on it would budge the damned thing. Not the light rubber strap wrench which should easily have removed it, and not even the Harley wrench borrowed from a local motorcycle shop. This filter is to be torqued 1/2 to 3/4 turn from gasket contact by specs. That is a bit more than you could manage with your bare hand, but it isn't a heck of a lot. I wound up driving a screw driver into the filter and cranking on it - not once, but three times for a total of 3/4 turn and then the Harley wrench barely got it off. At that point the gasket was squealing as it turned. I don't know how much beyond gasket contact that thing was turned but it was a lot and with holes through the side of the filter a lot of oil ran out on the engine.

The engine and tranny in these bikes go through a very wide temperature range, they get darned hot and they are subject to vibrations and that is a consideration whenever messing with one. But way tighter is not way better. This is what Harley publishes torque specifications for, that difficult environment. By the time I was done with these problems I was pretty unhappy - swear words were involved.

The oil all looked good which in nice and having nice fresh oil in the bike is very good - and better yet, I won't have this mess again.

What Did Anybody Think Would Happen?

2011-07-11T23:03:00.000-07:00

The jobless numbers went up last month because the jobs added simply were well short of population growth. The stark part was the break out between public and private sectors. The private sector added 60K jobs and the public sector shed 40K getting a net of plus 20K.

Low tax rates on the rich have not resulted in jobs, not since GWB got them, vast profits for favored industries have not produced jobs, in point of fact the housing bubble was the job driver for GWB while everything else went to hell. Why people can't manage to see that the GOP policies have not produced spit is beyond me.

The actual numbers exist that demostrate that the GOPer policies are bad for the economy and bad for the general citizenry and yet... well, we're talking about the damned debt ceiling and crashing the economic clown* car.

*if you don't think this economy deserves that level of derision ... well ...

GOPers And Their Pledges

2011-07-11T22:38:00.000-07:00

Michelle Bachmann got herself into some hot water with her signature on the Family Something Pledge thanks to its reference to black children being more likely to be raised by two parent families under slavery than under Obama. It is a part and parcel with the GOPer Grover Norquist stupidity in relation to taxes. To be sure there is a lot of other noxious stuff in the pledge she signed, just as there is in the Norquist idiotology.

What they seem to see is the hanging plum of getting a segment of voters on board without seeing the actual meaning of the stupidity they're signing onto. To be sure, a Christian Taliban may not seem like a problem to a Bachmann just as subsidies for targeted favorite companies aren't a problem for some. There are consequence, though.

I don't think potential Bachmann voters are much bothered by the slavery thing or the rest of it and I don't think potential Paul Ryan voters are much bothered by hedgefund managers paying less tax percentage than actually poor people. The problem for the GOPers is that these folks get to be their public face to a public that might pay attention.

Democrats Will Define Themselves

2011-07-10T13:57:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the bullpucky argument about the debt ceiling (this is debt not new expenditures) the deficit hawks and others in the GOP will force Democrats to define themselves. I'd say it is the case that Democrats don't want to define themselves as shown by their behavior over the past couple years (or hell - decades). I don't suppose there's much debate that the GOPers have defined themselves as the Party of Theocracy and Plutocracy with their voters opting for one or the other of those defining features.

While the Democrats have shown little inclination (through results) to do something other than coddle the Plutocrats, there has been a continuing mythology that it is the party of the ordinary citizen. What the GOPers have managed with the debt ceiling nonsense* is to force, through the application of a gun to the head approach, the Democrats to actually take some kind of public stand. It seems the GOPers are unwilling to let them weasel out of the defining business.

What I have decided to do is to let this month's nonsense play itself out and see just how the Democrats do define themselves. Since they've already caved to the idea that the existing debt/debt ceiling is the budget I don't have a lot of optimism for what that definition is going to be.**

*you can certainly include WI, OH, FL, & ETC

**certain definitions could make me willing to join the the ranks of "as if it matters"

Don't expect much in the line of posts... Heh - you already don't.

GOP Economic Sabotage

2011-06-30T18:50:00.000-07:00

It appears that some in some form of national Democratic leadership have brought themselves to the point of stating that the GOP is engaging in economic sabotage. Now, it has been my position since St Ronnie that economic sabotage was being conducted on the American public. That public hasn't been willing to engage in that discussion - not as long as it was the poor, working poor, and blue collar who were getting their throats cut - it seems enough of that public is willing since those reluctant Democrats are speaking up.

You bet, I'm just being mean and expecting waaaaayyyy too much - well other than this - have you heard any of this up until now? It isn't like this is something real new or that the Democrats haven't gone along with much of it all the way up to now. Will it stop here? Hah...

Not Too Many Posts...

2011-06-30T18:13:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed a spate of posts and then an entire lack. Some work came my way. Then there is the matter of what has passed for politics lately ... yes I do actually mean lately. I'm more impressed by an elementary playground riot than what is passing for politics over the last couple weeks.

The outrage meter burnt out, circuits fried. Along with the meter the humor reservoir dried up. I'm pretty sure this isn't the first time in our history outside the Civil War that things have gotten this out of hand but that's not much consolation to living in it.

How is it I'm supposed to give a damn about something that is just plain stupid? Sure, I'll wait and see how this summer plays out, but I don't have high expectations when one Party is out to lunch and the other is trying to do reasonable deals with them.

Moderate Republicans - Bill Clinton Mentions Them

2011-06-30T18:00:00.000-07:00

So, they must exist? Bill, to paraphrase, said that a moderate Republican could give Obama a real run. I'm not sure which political landscape the ex-Pres is watching, but the one I'm seeing on display is the one where the moderate Republican's name is Barack Obama - even if he is running under the blanket of a (D).

Don't misunderstand that - in today's climate the President is practically a progressive radical. I don't pretend to mind read the President, out side my pay grade and capabilities - what I can do is look at outcomes. So can you.

It has been demonstrated to my satisfaction that there are no "moderate" Republicans at any national level and none at most state levels. You could argue about NY, but that is NY.

I'm sorry Pres. Clinton - you, sir, are FOS.

The Constitution and Debt and Congress

2011-06-30T17:42:00.000-07:00

I present for your perusal Art 4 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. I give full credit to Bruce Bartlett and Lawrence ODonnell for bringing it back to my consciousness in this mud fight over the debt ceiling.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Since most of you readers know where my sympathies lie I won't bore you with that. The Article seems pretty clear to me, the debts incurred by the US are its debts and won't be questioned. It doesn't seem in the least odd to me that debts incurred by the US are its debts and the US is responsible for them as legally entered into contracts and must be honored. That, in itself, is the reason why most think it would be catastrophic to default on that debt and it is the reason people are willing to let the US assume debt. Whatever it is that you think about government spending, that spending has been done on the authority of the citizenry of the US whatever their political leanings.

Setting a budget is certainly the business of the Congress, primarily the House, but obligations are not subject to political high-jinks. It is not the business of Congress to hold hostage the debt and obligations of the United States for any reason. There is a difference that seems to have evaded the Congress of the US.

and a few others...

GOP Movie Fantasy World

2011-06-27T15:01:00.000-07:00

Sure, some of us noticed that Michelle Bachman got John Wayne's birthplace wrong, not Waterloo, IA, and that caused some giggles. That isn't what matters, not even a little bit.

What matters is the theme she was hitting, she wants to live in John Wayne's America. That America is a Hollywood Production, it does not and never did exist. John Wayne was only a brave dedicated soldier on the movie set, he only played a part in movie sctipts that had little to do with history. The pictures and dialogue from the screen are just that, they are not reality, they are not a true picture of America at any time other than very exceptionally and John Wayne's flicks are not among the exceptions.

This is not a Michelle thing, it is practically the foundation of the Modern GOP. As you pick through their policy stands you find almost nothing that reflects reality or even a return to some previous reality. Their ideas and policy ideas are the stuff of fantasy. They sell their voters on the concept of a return to some previous foundation of morality. Gays are scarcely something new, not being closeted and scared to death is fairly recent. Movie stars that were idolized in those halcyon days turn out to have been ... well, really queer. That fierce warrior John Wayne never served a day in his life, while somebody like that goofy likeable Jimmy Stewart certainly did. St Ronnie, of revered GOP mythology, never saved a wagon train or served or own a chimp - he was a figment of Hollywood imagination now set into cement as a Great President.

There were no Happy Days, the Fifties sucked really bad for an awful lot of Americans, WWII was an ugly nasty brutish affair, you could go on and on about the taming of the West, the Revolution, the Gilded Age and most of American History. That's not about hate America - that's about love the real thing and understand how and why we are here today. There were real and astounding accomplishments during the Gilded Age and there were horrid conditions and actions accompanying them. You cannot understand the Gilded Age unless you know what it was and how it worked out - and that isn't available from a Hollywood Movie Script. You just cannot address today on the basis of imaginary images. You cannot, for example, set a tax policy that works based on the idea that cutting taxes increases revenue if it just never happened except in your fevered imagination. You cannot do anything about the outcomes of slavery by pointing to scripts rather than the reality of racism and institutionalize poverty to just deny it exists or is justified.

I like movies, I'm willing (if it is any good) to suspend disbelief for awhile and let the fantasy be momentary reality. I sure the hell don't expect to see hobbits and wizards out there saving civilization from the orcs.

I'm So Wrong On Economics...

2011-06-17T19:46:00.000-07:00

For quite some time now I've had some things to say about tax rates and the rich and ultra-rich that involve dissuading them from wringing every last cent out of the economy. Awhile ago I was gratified to see that somebody with qualifications was tracking along where I'd been. The plutocratic right, quite naturally, pushed back.

Well, Robert Reich was having none of it. Not even a little bit of it. Yes, he has more and better credentials than I do and he used actual numbers but he said what I said. Let's try to pay attention and not act as though the GOP bullying is going to get them anywhere. Um, Democrats?

Why do I have the distinct impression this is wishful thinking?

Hey, See That Comment Button?

2011-06-17T02:00:00.000-07:00

Yeah, you're allowed to use it, even encouraged to use it. Please do.

This'll be around for awhile.

In Honor Of Congress A Tasteless Photo Of Self

2011-06-17T01:31:00.000-07:00

I won't even bother to try to deny to the media that it's me.

I don't suppose sex is the first thought that occurs...

ah well

You Can Tell The GOP Something But It's Probably Pointless

2011-06-17T00:58:00.000-07:00

Hey, Family Values Guys:

I know in relation to gay marriage you like to portray me and others like me as dedicated to the destruction of marriage and modern civilization. I am aware of the tradition of asserting a homosexual agenda.

Let me assure you of the Family Values persuasion - I don't give a good goldamn if Hank and Harry want to get married any more that I give a rat's patoot if John and Mary want to get married. I don't know them and I'm not invited to the nuptials or the more fun reception. I don't care! I have NO agenda and I have no approval of any of their proposed unions. I have no idea whatever if they should get married, if they're doomed to divorce, spousal beatings, or any other damn thing about it.

What I do know is that I am firmly of the belief that each and every law-abiding citizen should have the same rights and responsibility as any other citizen. There are some good things that are connected to getting married and there are some serious responsibilities that go along with it as well. Ask anyone getting divorced if that isn't the case. I am a married hetero-sexual male and there is nothing in the marriage of anyone else that is going have the least affect on that.

When I have straight friends getting married I have hopes for them to be happy and successful in their union. I have the same hopes for my gay friends. This is because I know these people and have a reason to care about their marriage. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why I should care about some anonymous marriage or make it any of my business and I have no intention of randomly encouraging it (or for that matter - discouraging it).

I do not give the least bit of a fat rat's ass if anybody I don't know gets married or not. Now we get to the crux of the issue, because I do want law abiding citizens to have the same rights and responsibilities I do very much give a damn if they can get married.

Now do you understand?

No?

I thought not.

Democrats Lose By Joining Cuts Jabber

2011-06-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

Congress and then the White House have budget difficulties to deal with along with a looming debt ceiling problem. There sure are a lot of issues at play in this mess but one thing is real clear, spending and revenue are out of joint - pretty seriously. You sure can try to address such a problem from only one edge, but that does mean that half results ensue or unacceptable consequences ensue.

The second Democrats start to talk about cuts, sensible cuts, or any kind of cuts without taxation reform they have accomplished two things that are bad for them and the nation. First they have ceded to the one side approach and the two prong approach simply disappears. Secondly by engaging in cuts dialogue they put themselves into comparison with the GOPer while admitting that cutting is the way to go.

Any approach that involves simple humanity in relation to cutting by itself will result in virtually nothing and assuage no one concerned with the budget without slamming military spending (not gonna happen). Democrats cannot with any conscience or hope of electoral success slam hell out of people who are already over the edge or going over and the GOP gives a damn. The Democrats cannot look as though they are doing anything and will at the same time make quite a few lives just enough more difficult to take a lot of heat. Some people will notice that wealth makes out and poverty increases and the only people who will care an iota aren't voting GOP.

In order to end DADT and get a START treaty the Democrats let the BushCo tax cuts get extended. In order to get a treaty nobody opposed for any principle whatever and to get a policy that affects a vanishingly small minority of the nation revenue was decreased. Any attempt to cover that lost revenue will badly harm a hell of a lot more people who cannot take it than DADT would over years of extension. If you think I in anyway ever supported DADT you're ... well, way wrong. But that is now the proposition Democrats face if they go to cuts alone. The plain politics of it is that they would lose a lot more votes than they gained. Was DADT flat wrong, yes - was the mechanism also flat wrong, yes; and that is what you get when you do deals with the Devil.

Our tax code is so completely skewed to the favor of absolute wealth that leaving it in that state is damn near criminal and will continue to crush the economy of this nation. It is simple enough to understand that wealth will always do well short of fires and murder. It is not difficult to stay wealthy in a system that operates with capitalism at its base and I don't have a real big problem with that since most of us can benefit as well. We do not benefit as well, but the operative word is can. The fault is not with a system based on capitalism, it is the matter of making sure that not even crumbs fall off that capitalistic table. This is the crux of what Democrats face - well that and the reaction of wealth.

Democrats pretty much take anyone left of Obama for granted as voters because they have nowhere else to go and the alternative is generally nasty enough to get them to vote. It may be the case that the 2010 election results showed Democrats that a campaign of "not as bad as" can have bad results. There is also the aspect that the results of 2010 scare the hell out of anybody left of Genghis Khan. I would not want to bet on how that tension plays out and I'd sure think Democrats sure shouldn't unless smashing the country to teach us a lesson is part of the thinking.

I don't think many Democrats expect much in the line of taxation reform and that they'll go along with essentially half-measures. What I don't see them going along with is absolutely nothing done other than a ball bat taken to the poor, disabled, and disadvantaged. It no longer matters how many lies the GOP tells about "job creators" in the wealth category, only a few deluded souls believe it.

I'd like to see President Obama re-elected and Congress in responsible hands other than GOPers but there really should be some reason to do it.

Hot Dog, He's Gone And We Can Stop Talking About ...

2011-06-16T23:09:00.000-07:00

See ya, Anthony.

After today's frenzy over the resignation maybe the media and Democrats can talk about something that matters a hill of spit. The GOP sure doesn't want to talk about anything that actually matters and they might miss having a Weiner to put in their bun.

A person can have hopes and all - can't they?