Monday, December 31, 2012

New Year's Eve Update

(Wow.  New Year's Eve.  Unless this is all a huge figment of my imagination, most of us made it safely through 2012, Mayan calendar notwithstanding.  To all you preppers out there who are still struggling to overcome your deep depression that the world didn't end and you're going to have to pay off all those bills you rang up installing and stocking those underground shelters, all I can say is bwaaahahahaha.  By the way, I understand you can pick up your new Mayan calendar at Bi-Mart.  I told you they just wanted us to buy a new one.  But I digress ... )
  • There was plenty of weird stuff to go around this past year, and one of the things that contributed to the apocalyptic feeling, along with the end of the Mayan calendar, was the depressing press release that Hostess was ceasing production of Twinkies.  Oh, the horror.  People flocked to convenience stores all over America and bought up every last Twinkie they could find.  Only in our worst nightmares can one imagine what will happen to mankind when the last Twinkie is devoured by some thoughtless overweight couch potato.  Mark Morford dares to tell us that it'll be no big deal.  Read more.
  • And who can forget the election year nonsense between President Obama and Mitt Romney?  Who would like to?  I know, I know, me too.  But here's just one more jab at the Romney family who apparently have a hard time spelling their own name. Or do they ...?  See picture above.
  • The hottest selling item in America this Christmas was the assault rifle.  Seems like everyone has to have one, for some reason or another.  Apparently people are buying these military-style weapons to protect themselves from other people with similar military-style weapons.  And there's actual serious NRA talk of arming teachers in the classrooms.  We would carry that idea one step farther and ask why not just arm all the children?  (meet me in the street in front of the saloon at high noon and we'll discuss this further.)  Gawdhelpusall.
  • As this year ends, the idiots in the District of Columbia are telling us to be very very afraid of "the fiscal cliff."  While this whole scenario sounds like something out of a Road Runner cartoon, this "horrible catastrophe" was evidently caused by the idiots in D.C. themselves.  Remember this next time you vote:  Even if these people serve only one term, they receive a pension for the rest of their lives.  Kinda makes you woosie, don't it?
  • On a happier note out of Washington, The evil Tea Party had its worse year ever.  After practically destroying the Republican Party with ultra-extremist ideas, and gloating responsibility for placing John (ala orange') Boehner as Speaker of the House, the Tea Party flag has been retired and its members have gone into hiding.  Good riddance.  The ignorance and hate fueled blatant bigotry of this movement was America's shame.
  • One of my favorite all-time writers in the world is Dave Barry.  Click here to read Dave's "Year in Review," with thoughts like this:  "...we were slapped in our national face by the cold hard frozen mackerel of reality in the form of the hugely popular new “reality” show “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” which, in terms of intellectual content, makes “Jersey Shore” look like “Hamlet.”
  • And to all faithful readers of Bad Hat, we here at Headquarters wish you a very Happy New Year.  Behave yourselves tonight, please. 

Monday, December 17, 2012

Hurtling Toward the Apocalypse

(Here we are just one more full weekend away from Christmas, and we as a nation have just endured the most gut-wrenching weekend in many years.  But, as they say, life goes on, so we're going to attempt at this time to shoulder our way to the front of our emotions and get back to as near as normal as possible.  On a personal note, my steady march toward infirmity was aided this last week with the extraction of 4 of my teeth.  Three of them had broken off at some point or another, and the fourth one was cracked and painful.  Now I'm in the midst of my retirement I no longer have dental insurance, so I've informed the family that Christmas will be a bit tight this year.  This news was met with stony silence.  Oh well, at least the pain meds were good.  The weather report for western Oregon and Lane County this morning calls for lowering freezing levels for the rest of the day, with the snow level to reach 500 feet tomorrow morning.  That should put those of us up here in the hills at about 6 inches of white stuff.  I'll be stocking the larder with wood stove pellets and brandy today.  Batten the hatches!  But I digress ...)
  • If you depend on the Mayan calendar and not the one with the cute pictures of dogs hanging on your refrigerator, you're probably aware that the apocalypse is scheduled for this coming Friday.  So what's this apocalypse going to be like?  Zombies?  Cataclysmic earthquakes, floods, hurricanes?  Meteors?  Christian Raptures?  Mark Morford says we have it all wrong.  He also says it's not going to be some sort of New Age Grand Awakening.  "Bad news, Marin county: We are not on the cusp of some sort of collective consciousness shift, whereby those who are already vibrating at some higher-pitched thrum are somehow 'ready' to transcend this ugly plane and plop over into another happier, shinier dimension with better coffee and longer orgasms, and then sigh a patronizing sigh back at the rest of us because they were 'enlightened' enough to have the right kind of crystals and the right meditation apps on their iPhone." Read more.
  • Word on the street this morning is that President Obama has decided to nominate Senator John Kerry as Secretary of State to replace Hillary Clinton, who is stepping down.  We think it's a good choice.  Kerry has come a long way since he was a Vietnam War protester in the early 70's.
  • Here's a depressing statistic: Approximately 700 homeless people die every year due to exposure to the elements.  The solution, one would think, is simple.  If you're homeless and the weather is life threatening, get yourself to a shelter.  But there's apparently a problem with that.  Here's 10 reasons Why Homeless People Sleep in the Cold - and Die, by Piper Hoffman.
  • Former Governor, current FOX commentator, and creepy Jesus-Freak Mike Huckabee said of the recent news:   "We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?"  But somehow Mike received a sign from his aforementioned God, and now he's trying to back-pedal on that ridiculous remark.  Read more.
  • The Pulitzer Prize-winning falsehood fact-checkers over at PolitiFact.com put their famed Truth-O-Meter™ to work to root out the biggest untruths of the year, and invited its readers to weigh in.  So what was the biggest political lie of 2012?  We were rooting for our favorite big fat liar Rush Limbaugh, who said "Obamacare is the biggest tax increase in the history of the world."  But alas, he only came close.  So here's the winner.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

The News From Connecticut

On an otherwise routine Friday morning, in a quiet New England town in Newtown, Connecticut, a 20-year-old young man walked calmly into an elementary school with several loaded guns.  By the time he was finished with his horrific mission, 26 human beings were dead, including 20 children between the ages of 5 and 10. As has become all to common in these cases, the gunman allegedly killed himself as authorities were closing in on him.  Days later we now are coming to the frightening realization that there will be no making sense of this.  Easy access to guns?  Passive mental health treatment?  Seasonal depression?  We'll probably never know for sure.  In the mean time, we grieve.

Our good Bad Hat friend Alex lives but 30 miles from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, where the shooting took place.  Alex and his beautiful wife have two children of their own, one of who's picture graces the heading of this blog as the Face of Bad Hat.  When I heard where this had happened I was immediately concerned for Alex and his family, but he quickly contacted me and assured me they were okay. He has graciously allowed me to share his thoughts with all of you.  The following is the combination of two E-mails, the first part on Saturday, when confusion and misinformation reigned, and the latter came this morning, when more facts have come clearer.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, from what I understand, the news you are getting is probably better than the news we are getting. Lots of media mistakes and "made up" facts being shot around. CNN and a host of others stated the name of the brother of the shooter as the actual shooter. The poor guy was at his work in New Jersey, but had received a text message from a friend saying he had shot up the school and wtf. He apparently announced on his Facebook that he was in NJ and on his way home to figure out what was happening.. then the police picked him up. That's gotta suck.

The school is about 30 miles from where we live.. roughly ten miles west and twenty miles north. Sandy Hook and the Newtown area are on the comfortable middle end of the rich upper crust neighborhoods. The poorest people in the area are probably the teachers, since I'm sure the maids and gardeners earn easily two to three times an educational salary in tips and sex favors alone.

The shooter himself is 20 years old.. said to be somewhere on the functional end of the autism spectrum. Functional enough to load and use a gun. Depending on the news source, he had two or four guns of various types, all legally owned by his mother, the Kindergarten teacher at the school. He obtained access to the school because he is a family member of the teacher - otherwise, all doors to the school would have been locked or otherwise secured, which is how Maisie's school works. The school did everything right in this case. It would have been no different from if I had shown up at Maisie's school to visit her teacher or take her out of school early.

My understanding is that this was a family matter gone bad. The kid had some beef with his mom and decided it was better to end it all. She obviously wasn't a firm believer in gun safes or in securing her weaponry. He got access to the school, shot up the office staff.. took a bunch of kids and teachers out.. depending on the news, you get a different story. Some even said he had hostages at some point. One said he committed suicide. Another said he was taken out by a SWAT officer. I'm sure we'll get a better picture as the reporters actually listen to what the police and survivors have to tell them.

There was one touching story I heard which stood out in my mind - after seeing his kindergarten teacher shot down (which may have been the shooter's mother), one of the kindergarten students bravely grabbed a couple of his friends and they all marched out a door to get outside. The gunner ignored them as they left.

We have a few problems with the local media out here. Recently, there was an auto accident involving friends of my neighbor. Three women died in the car. Of the local media coverage, one news channel, being denied comments from the surviving family, decided to put a camera up to their living room window to get video of the family mourning so they had something to play on the air. A second news channel broadcast the names and addresses of the victims. Neither of them were FOX affiliates. I hate to think what FOX must have done. The media frenzy is blinding and annoying, so I'm sure most of what I say here is faulty in some way.

It is close to home.. only thirty miles. It's somewhat between our home town and Tina's school, which caters to wealthy families. Due to the area of the shooting, I'm certain many of the students who were shot would have eventually transferred to Tina's school and become students of hers. No doubt their siblings will transfer to Tina's school in years to come.

Tina and I haven't had a lot of chance to talk about it, since she's been at work and then had a work-related holiday party to attend this evening. One thing we did discuss, though, is that this could have happened anywhere. Not just in the US, but… it seems since this was a family affair gone bad and the shooter took it out on the entire school… well, what if she worked at a mall or a movie theatre? It just happened to be a school.. and happened to be a grade school. Sucks. Shit happens.

Just a few thoughts.

And my deep thought for the evening - Lack of universal access to mental health care kills people.
 
Love, Alexander
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
On reviewing the most recent news on what happened.. I'm not certain universal mental health care would have helped in this situation. The mother was a volunteer, not a teacher. Her ex-husband is a VP at a big corp and she got $10,000 a month in alimony. In the divorce hearings, the judge ordered them all to seek mental health care... And they appear to have ignored this. Given they had the money, plenty of available doctors in the region and a court order, I doubt having universal access would have helped at all.. Like donating a dollar bill to a billionaire banker during the bailout. They don't want filthy paper money.

I'm not certain I see the paranoia here, but it is no doubt due to our east coast differences. The class divisions between upper, middle and lower class are much stronger here. On the west coast, I found it difficult to see the differences on the street. Public schools taught basically the same standards as private schools. Most people, despite economic levels, shopped in the same stores and went to the same entertainment venues. Here in Conn, you can really tell just by looking. There is a readily visible difference in the education standards taught in rich towns, be they public or private schools, as compared to poor towns. The rich and poor live in entirely different worlds and very rarely cross paths, utilizing different stores, restaurants and entertainment sites. Only the working middle class cross lines and see both worlds.

The upshot of this is that, rich or poor, they are all at the very basic level whiny complaining bastards. It's that tough working middle class of skilled survivors who push on and carry the weight of the whole. For instance, after Sandy hit and the power outages shocked the nation, it was the rich and poor towns who complained, whined, egged repair trucks and blamed each other for causing the repair delays. It was the tough working middle class who did what had to be done to survive the power outages and repair the damage.

Overall, though.. And getting back to my point.. I don't see the paranoia here. People still go out and do things. Sure, the day of the shooting I saw a couple of families pulling their kids out of school early - but it is important to note that this was happening while I and other parents were dropping their kids off for afternoon kindergarten sessions. Maisie is in a small class, but it is very diverse. She is half Chinese. There is an Indian kid. There is a Muslim kid. There is a Japanese kid and a Filipino kid. And, ya, a couple of white bread Christian kids too. Everyone in her class was in attendance despite the shooting.

Maybe it's because we live in a middle class town, well removed from the Bridgeport slums and pristine neighborhoods of Greenwich. (Although the New Haven slums hang over us and police reports constantly remind us how close they are.) We love our kids, but we also think its ridiculous to close a school just because the power is out or some mentally ill person in another county went apeshit.

I still stand by my words - it coulda happened anywhere. The mother was a privileged woman who volunteered at the school. She could just as easily been volunteering at the library or a hospital or working at the mall to embellish her $10k/mo. A shooting like this could happen anywhere, anytime.. Including in our own living room. It just happened to have been a grade school this time.

I highly doubt tougher gun laws would have helped. I also highly doubt having armed teachers or staff members would have helped. Had they actually sought mental health care, that might have helped. Had the mother been a responsible gun owner and secured the weapons legally bound to her, that might have helped.
Love, Alexander
 

Letter to the NRA

Arthur just sent the NRA a couple of suggestions. If you have some things you'd like to tell them, now might be a good time to do so:  (Click Here)

Dear NRA Leadership,

I grew up in Oregon, where having guns around was an everyday thing. They were grand-dad's old revolver, a .22, a deer rifle that my sister's husband used, and so on.

These were guns, not cult objects, not playthings for those who had fantasies of being in Seal Team Six, or to defend our nation against the threat of Islam, or Mormons, or Chinese frogmen.

No one in my family needed a military-style weapon.

I know that running the NRA is a lot of fun, having a huge Association jet aircraft probably feels really, really wonderful, but your blind knee-jerk advocacy of every kind of weapon possible has become Loony Tunes. As it happens I am personally acquainted with the woman who had taken her neighbor's daughter down to see their Congress-lady in Tucson, only to be shot herself and to have the young girl be shot, and killed, by a total nut bag. We are a good and caring people, but there will always be mentally ill among us, some of them who aren't just miserable and disabled, but who seek some deranged kind of "fame" or "meaning" by shooting up a lot of other Americans.

Call me old-fashioned, if a person can't shoot a deer, a moose or an elk with six slugs, they need to go back to marksmanship class. The sale and legality of crazy large magazines seems like some kind of fetish, maybe something that someone who thought their penis was too short would buy in compensation.

Is that what this is all about? Are all of your afraid your dicks are too small, so you need to act all macho to compensate for your feeling that your manhood doesn't measure up? Have you considered getting some counseling?

In the meantime, whatever your reasoning is, our nation is fed up with these grotesque "publicity stunts" that leave dozens of innocent people dead and wounded.

Enough.

YOU MUST STOP BLINDLY SUPPORTING WEAPONS.

Yours, with a wish that your plane be grounded, your huge salaries get cut, and that your sense of morality be awakened,

Arthur

Monday, November 26, 2012

Speaking Truth to Power

Benghazi. Four dead. The big question should be; what the heck was our Ambassador doing out there, in what was not even a Consulate? His Embassy Security detail was not with him, only two private contractors. Stevens was a confident guy, but even so, he was four hundred miles from his Embassy, without much of a safety net. And he paid a terrible price for the risk he took.

But while those questions may never be fully addressed, or answered, we would do well to keep the issue in perspective.

Reagan:
On his watch we lost 241 troops to a truck bomb that penetrated the defensive perimeter around their barracks out near the Beirut Airport. We fired a lot of shells from battleships at areas we thought were the source of the attack, then the entire American peacekeeping force went home. And no one suggested that we needed to hold hearings to get to the bottom of such a security blunder. Even though the death toll was sixty times greater.

So why is the Benghazi tragedy such a wonderful talking point for Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsay Graham?

Could it be a grab for political relevance and television interviews, by two increasingly irrelevant Senators? A shocking suggestion, I know, but someone had to say it out loud... (Click Here)

Arthur

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

A Letter

Dear Senator Graham,

It is obvious that you and Senator McCain have become completely desperate to find some way, any way, true or false, to defame the President. One can only speculate as to Senator McCain's motivations, but it increasingly looks like he is a Sore Loser. Your own actions appear to many (trending toward most) of the voters in the United States as a case of knee-jerk displaced loyalty.

I strongly suggest that you read the following:  Official: Changes to Benghazi talking points made by intel community.
And then I strongly suggest that you man-up and apologize to UN Ambassador Susan Rice for your attempted smear campaign, which appeared to be targeting her as a way to try to damage the President. My President. Our President. A President who has been legally elected by the American people, the American voters, twice in a row. If that means nothing to you, then it damn well should.

If one wished to be extreme in their reaction to the recent actions of Senator McCain and you, some might call it treason. I will not go to that extreme. I will suggest, however, that your actions have been blatantly political, without basis, that they are, to quote Shakespeare:

A tale of sound and fury... signifying nothing.

If this is how you wish to be remembered, if this is how you wish your countrymen to view you, there is little that I can say to you. Your path to history's shadowy world of those who mistakenly abandoned their better principles in hopes of achieving political gain, or to "score points", is littered with the reputations of those who have chosen that dark and dishonorable path. It is not too late to recapture your honor, but your chance is fading fast. Once a person is judged to be beyond contempt, there is little or nothing that can be done to repair such damage.

Wake up. Please.

I do not like people who falsely attack my President. When you do so, I feel that you are attacking the country of my birth, that you are besmirching and trampling on everything that I was taught in school. I do not take that lightly, and I strongly object to such actions.
Arthur

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Special Note, Veterans Day, 2012

 
 
To my friends, Brothers, and Sisters who spent 12 or more months in Viet Nam in combat at Bien Hoa, Chu Lai, Phan Rang, Da Nang, Con Thien, Binh Thuy, Pleiku, Phu Cat, Tan Son Nhut, Tuy Hoa, Khe Sahn, Cam Ranh Bay, Firebase Bastogne, Camp Carroll, Camp Holloway, Ca Lu, The Rockpile, Dong Hoi, Tay Ninh, My Tho, and all the others, between 1955-1975: 
 
Welcome home.  I love you.
 
And to those who remain
 
I will never forget. 
 
 
 
______________________________________________________
 
 
From a reader: "Let us not forget us vets who served in Thailand at the same time. We didn't experience combat directly but we put in 12 hour days building bombs in the hot ass sun!"  Right you are, Brother.  Here's to all you Vets who served at Don Muang, Ubon, Udorn, Korat, Takhli, U-Tapao, and Nakhon Phanom.  Let me know if I left yours out.
  
 
(To add your base name to this list, send it to eprush1@aol.com.  I invite you to send a brief message along with it, and I will post it. )

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Weekend Update - Bob Winslow Edition

(On this day in 2008, Robert Winslow, Uncle Bob, passed away.  While on one hand it seems a lot longer than only 4 years, I still feel Uncle Bob's presence every day.  He's particularly close to me whenever I post something on this blog.  Sergeant Major Bob Winslow was, and still is, one of the most influential people in my life.  To mark this day as a special one, I sit here writing the 394th post on Bad Hat, something he and I created on the 4th of July, 2007.  It's all as he would have wanted.  To continue.  And to all the Marines out there, young and old, Happy Birthday and Semper Fi.  Uncle Bob, this one's for you.  And we digress ... )
  • Well the election's finally over and the best man won.  But what the hell's happened to my beloved state of Oregon?  Washington, Oregon and Colorado all had measures that would legalize the possession of marijuana, and WA and CO passed, but the drunken red necks in OR voted it down.  What?!  Oregon is where old hippies go to die, fercrissakes.  Something is definitely amiss here, and I promise I'll get to the bottom of it as soon as I finish off this bag of Doritos. 
  • Someone hacked into my bank card the other day, after I ordered some silly thing off the internet, and charged up about $300 worth of stuff before my bank called and alerted me.  After some investigation we discovered it was done by someone living in Florida.  Bank lady said she wasn't surprised.  Evidently a lot of illegal activity comes from Florida.  By the way, Florida finally declared Barack Obama the winner, which changes it from The Sunshine State, to The Irrelevant State.
  • Good grief!  Talk about a sore loser.  Bad Hat's Asshole of the Month Award goes to the CEO of Murray Energy, a coal mining company, Robert Murray.  The day after the election, the chairman and chief executive of the Ohio-based coal company fired 54 employees at American Coal and 102 at Utah American Energy, but not before reading a prayer and telling workers that “the takers outvoted the producers.” Murray faulted Obama’s “war on coal.”  Mr. Murray's prayer (as he handed out pink slips to the employees) starts with this:  "Dear Lord, The American people have made their choice. They have decided that America must change its course, away from the principals [sic] of our Founders. And, away from the idea of individual freedom and individual responsibility. Away from capitalism, economic responsibility, and personal acceptance."  We congratulate Mr. Murray on his prestigious award.  Way to go, Asshole!
  • Our sincere congratulations to new Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who won the election in spite of Ms. Warren’s opponent and his allies making repeated attempts to portray her as antibusiness.  Here's why her election is important to us all:  Click Here.
  • From the I Hope She Was Worth It Department, we have this:  CIA Director David Petraeus abruptly resigned Friday after admitting to an extramarital affair in a shocking end to a 37-year career in which he rose to become the Army’s leading counterinsurgency strategist, the top U.S. commander in Iraq and Afghanistan and then head of the country’s premier spy agency.  They say he was among the top GOP prospects for a Presidential run.  Ah, the power of a little pussy.
  • If you voted for Barack Obama for president, there's another sore loser in Texas who thinks you're "a maggot."  Peter Morrison, who serves as treasurer of the Hardin County Republican Party, wrote in his post-election newsletter: “We must contest every single inch of ground and delay the baby-murdering, tax-raising socialists at every opportunity.  But in due time, the maggots will have eaten every morsel of flesh off of the rotting corpse of the Republic, and therein lies our opportunity.”  He thinks Texas should leave the United States.  Our Hat is off to him, and we wish him all the best in his endeavor.
  • Think about this one for a second.  Since President Roosevelt, no GOP presidential campaign has won the vote without a Bush or a Nixon on the ticket.  That gives us a scary thought:  Jeb Bush 2016?  Or even George P. Bush? And here's a little tidbit that just drives that point in deeper: Dubya Bush won a larger percentage of the Mormon vote than Mitt Romney did.  Really.  Let the nightmares begin ...

A Bad Hat Rant

(A rant.  Seriously, a rant.  Who woulda thought ...?)

Okay, so now really.  Let's you and me talk, okay?  If you're a staunch Republican and you vote the straight Republican ticket every year, and if you think that it's a good thing Al Gore wasn't elected president because global warming is a hoax and he was coming after your guns ... well, maybe you should skip this post.  Go do whatever it is you normally do when an adult calls you out on yet another silly idea, and you get genuinely offended.  Go pout.  Have a drink.  Go shoot something. Put it on my tab. I just really really have to get the following off my chest, once and for all.

If you're still reading, here goes:  Dude, I told you so.  GOD that's good to get off my chest.  I, WE, told you so.  Since July 5th, 2007 we've been trying to explain to you what was wrong with the Republican Party and you haven't listened.  Nope.  Not one word.  You were all guns, illegal aliens, gays, sanctity of marriage, abortion, war against drugs, and war against Christmas.  You listened to FOX News and swore your allegiance to pundits like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and even certifiably insane people like Glenn Beck.  You had pity for poor people but considered them 3rd class citizens who were, for all intent and purposes, expendable.  Expanded health care for the poor?  Nah, that's why we have emergency rooms.  Even if you were like the majority of us working class stiffs who barely got by and who couldn't retire because of rising health care costs, you STILL called yourself a Republican, and ohmygawd did you think YOU were going to win the freaking lottery and be a RICH person too?  If I'm talking to you, you're an idiot.  And you "free market" assholes, well, yeah, the poor can go to the ER for a broken leg, and we could make every freaking food stamp recipient take a weekly urine test, but will the market adjust enough to help these people?  What the hell is wrong with you?  I mean, seriously.

But you know what the sad thing really is?  Some of you, perhaps most of you (I don't have the statistics, I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt) didn't REALLY believe all the bullshit they were feeding you, you just wanted, needed, to believe it.  Why?  WHY did you do that?  Do you actually believe that Barack Obama is coming to take your guns away from you, or are you just freaking nuts?  Either way, you're incredibly weird.

You're Out of Touch.  You're out of touch with mainstream America.  You say you care about all sorts of inane bullshit that quite frankly most of us DON'T. The Republican Handbook needs a serious re-write. Don't get angry with me (he said, knowing full well you are), some of you are amongst not only my best friends, but also my freaking family.  I really don't want to piss you off.  I want to wake you up.  On a few of the issues we face today in this country, you are totally wrong.  Period.  This election should be a wake-up call to all of you.  Now seriously, pay attention. Bring, nay DRAG your party into the 21st century.  The year is 2012, and in recognition of when I became cognisant of what year it was, around 1950, THIS IS THE FUTURE!  A black man is President of the United States and we're not all going to die on December 21st.  Want to guess who we're going to elect in 2016?  A woman. 

Okay. Sorry.  I may have gone too far with that last one.  I just wanted to see if you were still reading me.  At any rate, between here and now you guys have to grow. the. hell. up.  Stop being so stupid.  Most conservatives are pretty intelligent people, but a large majority of you seem to have a streak of stupidity that defies logic.  Stop it.  Go clean your room.  Respect your elders.  Sit down and pay attention.  And for gawd sakes, for just a bit, shut the hell up.


God bless America ... JP  

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Drama Obama

I have no idea what that very odd first debate was all about, but if that was some form of "ropa-dopa" and the idea was to add a bit more drama to the election, it certainly worked, didn't it? It also scared the crap out of all the other world leaders, if one can judge by their huge sighs of relief at the outcome:  CLICK HERE

Oh, and all the concern about the Republicans taking over the election by hacking electronic voting systems? You know, because one of the Romney sons owned a share in a company that was involved in the Ohio election? The State that has a blatantly partisan Secretary of State who worked to cut down voting hours and tried to install an untested and unapproved vote counting software the morning before the election? You remember him, the guy who was told by a Court he couldn't do that? Remember Karl Rove on Fox News arguing desperately that the Ohio election could NOT be called yet for Obama, that it just couldn't be! He was so agitated that the Fox News staff were politely explaining to him that no, there was no mistake, that it just really was all over. While Rove was losing it, the Ohio Secretary of State was closing his office, issuing a statement that the election was over and going home. Odd that he fought so hard, then folded. Did anyone stop to wonder why?

In Obama's speech, do you remember one part where he talked about people having to stand in line for hours to vote, saying "We're going to have to fix that, that's just wrong, that will never happen again". His tone of voice was markedly different than at any other part of his speech. Then he shifted gears and went on to talk about us coming together and making this a better and stronger nation, but that one small remark struck me as signaling that there were going to be no more Florida/Ohio voter suppression efforts, ever again. That there were going to be no more "hanging chads" and phony Voter ID shenanigans, that this would be the last American election that was going to be bedeviled by corrupt attempts to steal the election. I've said it before and I will say it again, our government has a very high level of cyber-defense capabilities. Our entire economy relies upon electronic communications, both personal and structural. Various bad guys around the world, from Russia, China, Iran, Nigeria, Israel and God knows where are continuously probing our defenses, both personal, governmental, military and commercial, in hopes of being able to steal something of great value, or to find a way to cripple our national infrastructure.

Needless to say, our nation is well-aware of such efforts. As we become increasingly interconnected, there is a quiet war going on every hour, minute and second of every day. We gain enormously from our massive electronic infrastructure, but it has an obvious vulnerability that our nation is keenly aware of. We are working, constantly, with our largest technology firms, to keep on top of any potential weaknesses in our nation's security. Oh, and in those tech firms' own security. Each hand washes the other's.

If you accept that as a given, does anyone seriously imagine that our nation, at this point in our history, would be dumb enough to permit any entity, foreign or domestic, to hack into the electronic voting system, in any State or County, and let it be "taken over" in order to generate a false count of the votes that were cast by our citizens in a national election? Seriously? Does anyone think we are that stupid? If the GOP were allowed to do something like that, why would China hesitate to do so? Forget the brainwashed "Manchurian Candidate" meme, China could step in and fiddle the results juuuust enough to overturn a national election.

In the grips of his partisan passion, the Ohio Secretary of State may have imagined he could do just that. We may never know for certain until the story gets declassified twenty years from now, but it certainly does seem odd that he tried to install a new and untested vote collection software package the day before the election, doesn't it? And that was only one of the GOP efforts to try to steal this election. The harsh voter ID law enacted in Pennsylvania, those enormous lines, only in certain neighborhoods in Florida and Ohio? Deja-vu 2004, wasn't it? It is not Rocket Science to be able to see how many voters there are in an area and assign enough voting stations and staff to accommodate that number, is it?

If we take the President at his word, this will be the last election where States, Districts or Counties will be able to engage in that mischief without there being serious consequences. Judging by the curious actions of the hyper-partisan Ohio Secretary of State, who seemed to suddenly fold up his tent and go home, my guess is that someone carefully explained him that he was under very close observation and that he could do what he wanted, but that actions have consequences, and bad actions often tend to have bad consequences.

And I can tell you that the entire world just issued a huge sigh of relief. Now the Chinese can go ahead and elect their new Premier, after delaying their National Party Congress until two days after our election so they would know where they stood. The Europeans are either publicly celebrating the outcome of our election, both governments and citizens alike. They have been on edge for months, hoping for the best, fearing the worst.

It's a good day. There is still a tremendous amount of work to do, just as there was before this election circus got started. We've learned which people are trying to move our country forward, and which people are trying to game the system as though our government was a huge card game in which they play with a marked deck and win the pot. Something really important happened in this election. Things are going to be okay. A lot of the work that is going to be done will not be done publicly, nor will it be done with a lot of fanfare or perp walks... but it will be done. Our country has gone through other dark periods, for example in the 1930s when a ground of Millionaires (that was big money back then) tried to get General Smedley Butler to stage a military coup.
 
It never happened, but it was the sort of thing that HAS happened in other nations, during times of enormous social and economic stress. Our nation has been tested before, and it was just tested again. The sounds you thought you heard, but weren't sure of? Those were the sounds of Dark Armies, positioning themselves and maneuvering themselves to take greater control of our nation, and by extension the world. So no biggie, just the something that happens now and again. In business they call it an attempted "hostile takeover". Defenses are thrown up, actions are taken, the takeover is thwarted... and everyone goes on about their business. And that's what our nation will do, as it has done many, many times in the past. Nice try, but please don't ever try that again, okay? By sheer coincidence (I am sure) the Ohio Secretary of State just decided to call it an early night and go home yesterday. He just suddenly felt really, really exhausted, for reasons he can't exactly explain.

The world has issued a collective sigh of relief, our role as the most powerful, and currently the most admired country in the world, has been reconfirmed. But it should be remembered that with great power comes great responsibilities. The world is a Godawful mess. Our world population has grown so large that a widespread famine could kill Billions. That is with a "B". A virulent plague could kill half of the world's populations. That would be three or so Billion. With a B. Every other country on this planet looks to us, either to help figure it all out, or as the country that is keeping it from being figured out. We are far from perfect and everyone understands this very, very clearly. China is trying to figure out whether to become us, reject us, turn back into a fake Socialist fantasy world or become more democratic, in hopes of staving off a revolt among its massive and increasingly angry population. Workers making iPhones for 75 cents an hour are glad to have a job, but not happy to see a Chinese plutocrat drive by in the back of a brand new Rolls Royce, with their two mistresses tickling them and feeding them caviar. You think our country has problems and a growing gulf between rich and poor? Please let me tell you about China. Almost everything you think you know about it is wrong.

It was a good night, today is a good day, as a nation I think we just avoided a train wreck. As a nation, we've got a lot of work to do over the next four years, but the wonderful thing is that no election will ever have the structural flaws that this one did. I could explain, but I think when you stop and think about details like appointments to the Supreme Court and the heads of government agencies you can figure it out for yourselves. There is a lot that will go very, very right in the years ahead, that will have resonances that will impact our nation and our history for the better. But we can celebrate all that later. For now it's time to get back to work. And for me it's time to go back to sleep, now that I've gotten this off my mind.
 
Arthur
 

Friday, November 2, 2012

The Real Question

Paul Krugman asks the relevant question. What next? Mitt Romney's boasts about being bi-partisan have been scathingly debunked as no more true than his claims about Jeep production being sent to China. In Massachusetts he was either at war with the Legislature, or trying to alter their work with over 800 line-item vetoes, that they thanked him for by over-riding them, in many cases unanimously. There is s reason that Mitt Romney is polling in the 30s in Massachusetts currently, which is unusual for a former Governor.

But back to Krugman. This really is the argument, isn't it? "If you want a government that works, then it HAS to be Republican or we will never let it function without constant fighting and intransigence, okay?"

In other words, elect us and support us or we will destroy the government and all that it stands for and is attempting to do on behalf of the American people. We don't WANT to have to do this, so the voters need to vote for us so that this will not have to happen.

What an offer. Have some corrupt morons in government, or a working majority of them. Okay, don't rush me now, I have to think about this...
Arthur

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

A 60 Point Spread

Obama is up to a more comfortable 60 electoral vote advantage over Romney (O 299 - R 239) and there looks to be a 90% probability of Democrats holding control of the Senate. I think those margins may inch up somewhat more, with Obama taking 310 to 330 electoral votes, a respectable margin over the 270 needed to win the election.

Today the world's oddest couple, Obama and Governor Chris Christie, are going to be the news as they tour New Jersey's hurricane damage. Romney has very pointedly not been invited to come to New Jersey and say stupid things, which means he will be struggling to appear relevant and coherent, while saying "Gosh" and "Golly" a bit too many times to be believable. About the only thing Romney could do to breath some life into his flagging campaign would be to tell someone to get fucked, but that's not likely. "Sandy" seems to have helped the public focus on reality vs. posturing. I continue to believe that the election is essentially over, with either a flatline or a steady GOP slide in the final week. Any last-minute Omigod! moments have been outgunned by the tangible reality that the climate and the oceans really do matter, and FEMA is a pretty decent way of sharing the risks among all fifty states.

I find it telling that Romney is collecting plastic bags full of canned goods, something he may have learned in his Boy Scout days. Or his kid's Scouting days. Our youngest is an Eagle Scout, so I spent a lot of time with Scouts and I respect the organization, but FEMA it ain't. Interestingly, many Mormon boys are encouraged to join the Boy Scouts, which made me wonder whether Romney was a Boy Scout? For a Boy Scout to gather together a gang in a Private School and hold down another student so Romney could give him a forced haircut would have been very much against the Scout Code. It turns out that Romney was not a Scout, nor an Eagle Scout, but three of his sons are Eagle Scouts and Romney has been on the Boy Scouts Board for ten years. It is not clear he learned anything, except to collect canned goods.

Romney seems increasingly desperate, showing easily debunked ads that claim that Chrysler is planning to ship all Jeep production to China, which the Italian head of Chrysler issued a scathing rebuttal of in a mass mailing and e-mailing to all of the Jeep workers in Ohio and Michigan. To the contrary, some Jeep plants are working double shifts, employment is up by thousands and sales have tripled. There are no plans to move that production offshore. That information, now being widely disseminated in Ohio, makes Romney seem like a pathological liar and desperate propagandist, which I would suggest that he is. Rather than taking the high road, my hunch is that Romney is going to try to double down on his Hitlerian/Joseph Goebbels "Big Lie" tactics in this last week, in hopes of brainwashing the "truly clueless" class of voters. Fortunately a lot of them are Union Members and the Unions think Romney is a dickhead. I think the net effect will be to energize his opponents, rather than convert them to his version of Scientology and Fantasy. Some Americans may be a bit slow to catch on, but they don't like being lied to.

When this election is over I predict that there are going to be a lot of confessions from pundits and reporters about what a jerk they always secretly thought Romney was. They've kept the false meme of "a close race" going as long as was needed to keep viewership up, but now I think the storm is a better story, so they don't need to spin the "Romney could win" fantasy any longer.

In the interests of full disclosure I should mention that I disliked George H. W. Bush so intensely that I felt certain that some Iran-Contra dirt would come out about him before the election and sink him like a rock. So I called up a bookmaker in London and put a $1,000 bet on him to lose. Not the best gamble I've ever made, so I vowed to make donations in the future, rather than try to be a predator, which I came to see as bad Karma. In this election I've given some modest support to Elizabeth Warren, one of the smarter and more principled candidates I've seen in years. The Republicans hate her because she is so damn smart and so principled, while having such a clear sense of what is needed to do to protect American consumers from Predatory Banking. We all should be taking our funds out of Major Banks and putting them in Credit Unions. I like the Oregon Community Credit Union myself; they provide fantastic service and operate on honest business practices. How old-fashioned of them!

And that's what I think is needed right now... a return to honest business practices and straight talk. Mitt Romney is pretty much the polar opposite of that, which I think many Americans are beginning to understand. Lastly, it has nothing to do with Romney being a Mormon, though I think many will be conscious of that. Senator Harry Reid is also a Mormon, which strongly suggests that there are good Mormons and wingnut Mormons. This election may have a catalytic effect on whether Mormons lean strongly conservative Republican in recent decades. I think when more is known about Romney's tax dodging, some of which appears related to his donations to the Mormon Church, they will be doing some soul-searching.

Arthur

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Sports, Politics, and Weather

For those of us who live in the San Francisco area the SF Giants have given us a pretty fun ride this fall. One of the more memorable moments was when the Giants recovered from a 3-1 deficit, which is not easy to do, and won the next three games straight, one in Cincinnati and two at the AT&T Park here in the Bay Area. Great p.r. for the city, from Fox Sports blimp footage of the Bay near sunset.
 
So, that shows a lot of crazy confidence, to come back from the brink of oblivion to win the next three games and go on to the World Series, and then win that in a sweep, for the first time since something like 1992. Or one of those mindless statistics that Joe Buck kept blathering about.

But back to game Seven in the National League playoff. The Cincinnati Reds were understandably fairly bummed. Who wouldn't be? But the Giants were playing their tails off, doing strange things, looking odd and generally being what passes for "normal" among them. And then, an hour before the end of the game it began to rain really, really heavily up north here. About five or six miles from the Ballpark. And we could look out the window and see a massive black cloud, moving slowly, majestically south across the Bay. Pissing down rain. Apparently in a World Series they don't call games on account of rain. Instead they have a rain delay, of an hour or two, or a day, and then they go at it again. On television, and in the sky, we could see when the Black Cloud reached the Ballpark. It was... kind of like Judgment Day.

In the Park it began raining quite heavily. One of our players threw his head back, opened his mouth and began drinking the rain, as though it was the champagne he expected to be tasting soon. But for the Reds, it felt very much as though their parade was getting rained on. It was not fun. Great players, just not their destiny to win that critical game.

And while that was going on, everyone in San Francisco came to believe that SportsModel Joe Buck was a complete jerk. People made signs that read "Joe Buck Sucks" and waved them instead of their team colors. They decided that they hated Fox Sports and most of all they hated Joe Buck, who would NOT shut up. They also hated that when the Giants did something great, Buck always seemed to speak of them as having had a stroke of luck. What's with him?

Anyhow, where I am going with all of this is that Hurricane Sandy is a bit like that dark cloud we watched cross the Bay, moving inexorably down to drench the Reds chance to win the World Series. Just one of those things. So Mitt Romney? When he can stay on script, he was getting fairly good at sounding like he had half a brain. Not more than half, but okay, a half. But toss in some bad weather and what is he out doing? Collecting canned goods in Ohio. That the Red Cross says that they cannot accept, since they don't have time to sort through them in time to get them where they are needed. Please just send money, they told him. Did Mitt listen? Naah, he really is a moron. See, he thinks that he is anointed by Mormon theology to win this election because he is the "White Horse". I mean, he's definitely white, and Lord knows he's got lots of horses, see? It all makes sense.

But it doesn't. And now it has rained on his parade. Badly. So badly that Chris Christie just converted to Democratism in hopes of getting lots of Federal assistance. Why? Because if he doesn't he will end up in the crapper like Bobby Jindal, and he knows it.

Politics really does make strange bedfellows, doesn't it? Obama is about to prove to the nation that he can work perfectly well with Republicans, even morbidly obese trash-talking morons like Chris Christie. I mean really, can you imagine anyone who is more of a polar opposite than Obama?

Anyhow, so the Presidential election is over. Oh, you still need to go out and vote, there are a lot of candidates and other things that are still in play, but the Presidential election just got decided by Mother Nature.

She probably doesn't like Joe Buck, either.
 
 
Arthur

Friday, October 26, 2012

Beware "The Crazies"

(Halloween is upon us once again, and the crazies are coming out of the woodwork.  There's a particular eerie feeling in the air this year, what with the full moon, Halloween, and the presidential election all within two weeks of each other.  I use to enjoy Halloween.  I loved the little kids who came to the door in their costumes trying to muster up the courage to say "twickertweet" in hopes of getting some candy.  Now I'm glad I live in a very hilly neighborhood, with more up hills than down hills.  Keeps the little bastards from bothering me.  It's an age thing.  But I digress ...)
  • Not sure how you feel about the final debate between Obama and Romney, but I'm sure you all have an opinion.  If "zingers" were the gauge of who won, this one went to Obama.  His comment to Romney about the military not needing bayonets and horses anymore was beautiful.  But as usual, the end of the debates signals the start of what I call "The Weirding."  For example:  General Colin Powell endorses Obama; Dick Cheney holds a fundraiser for Romney with Glenn Beck as special guest; former Republican official and current preacher tells his congregation "You can't be a Christian if you don't own a gun;" (The) Donald Trump offers to contribute 5 million dollars to Obama's charity of choice if he shows the world his college transcripts and passport information. What? 
  • Bad Hat Comment of the Week:  In a Rolling Stone interview recently, President Obama finally told it like it is.   He called Mitt Romney a "bullshitter."  Could this be the beginning of a whole new trend in campaigning?
  • Arthur writes: Omigod. Of all the earthly demonic forces I would HATE to have pursuing me across the surface of our home planet, Gloria Allred would be at the top of my list. Once she gets a taste of blood, she never stops.  The key points of the story would appear to be that the lady who got cheated in her divorce by Mitt Romney's dishonest testimony went on to having her wealthy husband take her child away from her, only to later reject and discard it, cut off her health insurance although she ALSO had MS (like Anne Romney, but minus the expensive therapeutic horse and two Cadillacs) and then she lost her house. Nice. A preview of what Romney might like to do for those slackers in the 47% of our nation. Screw them over bigtime:
    (Click Here)  And here's more on that story, "Court Releases Romney's Testimony."
  • And what's a post about "crazies" without mentioning the queen of crazy, Ann Coulter?  Apparently after the third debate she referred to President Obama as "a retard."  Now, I've often wondered if Ann Coulter's act was just that, an act.  She not very bright.  She's more comedienne than pundit.  Even the right-wing don't take her seriously.  Yet she's still out there, vomiting all over herself.  She's like the passed out drunken co-ed in your roommate's bedroom who nobody wants to take home. 
  • What's up with the Republican party and rape?  Several references to this heinous crime have been made by Republican officials lately, from "legitimate rape" to the latest from Richard Mourdock, Republican Senate candidate from Indiana, who has not retracted his debate remark that a pregnancy caused by rape "is something that God intended to happen."  Listen, wives of redneck American men:  Don't let your husband vote for you.  Tell him you'll do it yourself this year, because this time, you really care.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Weekend Update - "Bunch of Malarkey" Edition

(Been busy taking care of a good friend who just had back surgery.  Seems to me that older people - my age - can and probably will get all sorts of ailments, like arthritis and fallen arches and unexplained shortness of breath, and we generally work through them or take ibuprofen and brandy until it goes away.  But when your back goes, it's pretty much all over, life-style wise.  My friend Jodi is a singer and is my age and we've known each other for 30+ years, and we've made music together and had many wonderful adventures together - we "did" the 80's together, if you know what I mean - and I hate to see what this back thing is doing to her.  It's making her look her age.  Before the surgery she was in constant pain, some days better, most days worse, bent over and not in the best of moods.  Immediately after the surgery it was more pain, sometimes absolutely excruciating, only helped by drool inducing pain medication.  She seems to be getting better each day now, after the operation.  And that's a good goddamn thing, because I wonder if she can take much more.  I hate getting old.  I hate that my friend has to go through this.  In spite of the fact that I'm not in any way a religious person, I pray that this operation helps her stand up straight again, without pain.  As the old saying goes, life is, indeed, a bitch.  But I digress ...)
  • Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci snapped the photo of Mitt Romney you see on the right, and it's kinda funny I suppose, as the little girl was really excited that Mitt was about to sit next to her for some reason or other, but Bill O'Reilly got all kerfluffed and pissed off and demanded that AP apologize immediately.  Did I mention that Bill O'Reilly is a idiot?
  • Remember when Joe Biden got to debate the little empty-headed cheerleader from Alaska named Sarah Palin?  I'm sure he had fun.  Well, he had fun once again in his latest debate.  Paul Ryan's smiling, doe-eyed, zombie-faced look did nothing to hide his desperation as he attempted to lie his way through the facts of life once again.  If you watched the debate, you know, regardless of your political leanings.  If you missed it, here's a great report from Charles Pierce that pretty much sums it up.  (Also, see Arthur's post, below)
  • Ever heard of the "Gish Gallop?"  Neither had I, but apparently it's a debate tactic created by creationist Duane Gish, that involves spewing so much bullshit in such a short span that your opponent can’t address it all, let alone counter all of it. "To make matters worse a Gish Gallop will often have one or more 'talking points' that has a tiny core of truth to it, making the person rebutting it spend even more time debunking it in order to explain that, yes, it's not totally false but the Galloper is distorting/misusing/misstating the actual situation."  Does anything about all this remind you of the Obama/Romney Debate the other night?  

Getting To Know You ...

I think I did get to know Paul Ryan a great deal better last evening in the debate. What I came away with is a sense that Ryan believed that if he looked straight into the camera and gave long speeches, while his soulful eyes were staring out at me, that I would swoon and believe every vague promise and dubious claim that he made.

Didn't work. Instead I found myself looking at what an odd double-bump nose he has, what odd Brilliantined hair, what a peculiar rabid puppy-dog look he has, and I found myself not wanting to be subjected to any more of his diatribes. Ever. He came across as a true believer, a sort of "Mini Mitt", a less practiced version of his running mate, but with more extreme theories about the economy and our society. I would not want such a person to be "one heartbeat away" from the Presidency.

So, not only do I think Biden won, on points, on personality and on the facts, the contrast between the two men has fired me up to work as hard as possible to make certain our country is not subjected to Ryan and Romney.

Oh, and their claims about Romney being so bipartisan when he was Governor of Massachusetts? Because he worked with an 87% Democratic Legislature? (their figures, not mine). Well gee, did he have any CHOICE about working with Democrats? Short of barricading himself in the Governor's Mansion and bellowing out the windows over a bullhorn, he either had to work with the Legislature or take a hike. Now if the Legislature was 49.5 - 50.5 and he worked well with Democrats, then they'd have a talking point. Do they imagine the American people are too stupid to understand the difference?

Guess again, quasi-pseudo-crypto-conservatives!

Arthur

Thursday, October 4, 2012

"Newt" Romney 2.0

I kept wondering where I had seen this debate before. One of the debaters spouting an endless series of lies and misrepresentations, all in a condescending tone of voice. I thought of "Dick" Cheney debating Joe Lieberman, talking down to him in a condescending tone of voice while he spouted complete bullshit. But that was a different type of nonsense. But worth remembering.

But the flood of misinformation, delivered in a forceful and blindly self-confident way? That felt more like Newt Gingrich, except on steroids. Others will make the comparison I am sure.

Okay, so now we know how Romney did his business deals. When he wants something he can push people (and facts) around pretty well. Where his listeners were wanting to have someone forceful take over and "lead" them, then Mitt would fill the bill. But there is just one problem here; the "facts" and "plans" used in this first Presidential Debate simply didn't add up. We heard a flood of assurances, evasions, claims and rewrites of history. That may convince those who want a President who is "tough" and "forceful", but I'd rather have a President who is intelligent and who levels with the American people. I would NOT like to have to listen to Romney's laundry list of bullshit for four years. Oh, and that Medicare thing? His pledge to not change Medicare for older voters? Any older voter who believes that is a fool. The goal clearly is to gut Medicare and Medicaid, along with as many other social programs as possible.

Food stamps? Food stamps are bad, right? Really? Romney's father's family lived on public assistance for several years after bailing out of Mexico early last century. Was that assistance a bad thing? And if many more families had needed it, wouldn't it have been better to give it to them than have them hungry and in distress? It is bad that people NEED public assistance, but it is not bad that it is there as a safety net to help them. What the President said about job training was to my mind far more intelligent. We live in a world where a lot of jobs are changing rapidly, which only works when there is a widespread system of worker retraining. But that approach would be too fussy for Mitt, after all, he is not really a manager, he is a "takeover artist". Once he has taken over a firm he was an expert in deciding whether the business could be grown, or whether it would be more profitable to run up huge debts and drive it into bankruptcy, while his company kept the borrowed money.

If that's the character that you'd like our President to have, you can stop reading. I think Romney's approach to government would be very similar to "Dick" Cheney's, which makes sense given each of their business backgrounds. Cheney ran a major defense contractor and oil equipment supply company. Guess which industries he lent support to as Vice President? Those two pointless wars? Check. Unchecked and poorly regulated oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico? Check. Huge tax breaks for the wealthy and businesses? Check. Shoddy regulation of banks? Check and check.

And the impact on our economy and the world economy? Devastating.

Personally, I doubt that the effect of electing Romney as our President would be much better. We're still cleaning up from the last Republican administration, so I'm not inclined to let that same group of morons into power again.

Now, what about Romney's unexpectedly fired-up "performance" in this debate? Will that sway a lot of "undecided" voters? Maybe, we'll just have to see. I see Paul Ryan as a youthful clone of Romney, wedded to the same anti-regulation, anti-tax, anti-government philosophies. For the record, I don't see the rich as "job creators". I see them as "money grubbers". Romney's investments in a host of Cayman Island trusts does not convince me that he is a great fan of "progressive taxation". I say that because I paid a higher tax rate than Romney did last year. Given our wildly different economic circumstances, one might even go so far as to say that Romney believes in "regressive taxation", where the poor pay a significantly higher percentage of their income in taxes. Those "loopholes" that Romney talks about, but does not reveal the nature of? Would you expect a Vulture Capitalist to (a) protect and massage his peers, or (b) screw the other 99% of us over, because he can? That is pretty much what he is already doing, so why should anyone imagine he is likely to change? He LIKES being an economic aristocrat, seeing the world through gilded glasses. He is no friend to the poor, I am afraid, unless they are Mormons. That's okay, as long as he doesn't gut our Country's social welfare net, but Mitt seems to think it should be privatized, then perhaps be outsourced. Trust him, he can't explain yet how it will all work, but you are really, really going to like it.

Honest!

Um, no thanks.

Arthur

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

(Haven't posted in a while, just now recovering from the season's first cold.  I'm going to attempt to post this entry with as little political items as possible.  The Romney campaign is so pathetically boring there's not much to be said anyway.  The first round of debates is scheduled for this Wednesday, and they should be good for a hoot or two, but for the most part this campaign is all but done.  I read somewhere there is over a 95% chance Obama will win reelection.  Turn out the lights, the Republican party is over.  But I digress ...)
  • Good news came to us guys this week in the form of a little postcard size piece of papyrus that apparently quotes Jesus (yes, THAT Jesus) as referring to "my wife."  Well now, that puts a whole new spin on "WWJD?" When you factor in the idea that he not only lived with a woman other than his mother, he was probably touching naughty parts and cleaving away with gusto, then he becomes a bit easier to relate to. And I supposed the Pope will now allow priests to marry, which means the pedophiles will have to move back to the Boy Scouts.  I bet the sermons at church last Sunday were fascinating.  Mark Morford reports "Jesus, I'm Married!"
  • Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Batshit) slimed her way into a Chicago synagogue on the eve of Yom Kippur the other night, and just the fact that she was in attendance so irritated some of the congregants they immediately went out and donated to her opposition.  "The holiness of the room and the holiness of the evening was greatly diminished for me, if not completely destroyed," said Gary Sircus, a 25-year member of Anshe Emet Synagogue.  All this in spite of the fact that Bachmann is supposedly a big supporter of Israel.  So what is it about this idiot woman that has them all fired up?  Bachmann is anti-gay rights.  Sounds like this country is finally starting to wake up.
  • And on a related note, "California has become the first state to ban a controversial form of psychotherapy aimed at making gay teenagers straight."  What?  One would think we'd be reading about some state being the LAST state to ban this insanity.  Okay, okay, at least it's a start.
  • Two items in the newspaper this morning have alarmed me about the state of our existence.  First, they're recalling peanut butter.  Peanut butter!  For crissakes, I can understand worrying about washing your vegetables before eating and not leaving potato salad out in the sun too long and refrigerating leftovers, but peanut butter?  Peanut butter is the staple of the earth.  If I was trapped on a desert island with only one thing to eat it would be peanut better.  Come on. Sorry, some things just piss me off.  Oh, and the other thing?  Some farmer in Bandon, Oregon was eaten by his hogs.  Coos County District Attorney Paul Frasier reported that the 69-year-old farmer's remains were found last Wednesday in a hog enclosure at his farm.  The remains consisted of his dentures, and several body parts.  The article didn't report what parts those were.  And what are you having for dinner tonight?
  • And finally, allow me to pass on to you this fascinating article by Robert Jensen entitled From Start to Finish: Why We Won and How We Are Losing.  It's rather long, but if you've got the time ... Click Here

Monday, September 24, 2012

Ouch, Ouch, Ow, Oweee, OUCH!

(CLICK HERE for video.)

Others have noted the story that John King told about his family. I strongly agree that very, very few Americans like to admit it when we are in trouble, both men and women. Most of them will suffer through poverty, worries about being able to pay the rent and other personal crises. Romney is outside and above the hard-scrabble reality of most peoples' lives. No one hands us big stacks of money on a plate, though we'd love it if they would. When things are tough many Americans tend to become quiet, very focused and very, very worried. They don't feel "entitled" and they don't feel like "victims". They are too worried to indulge themselves in such fantasies.

I guess when you live in a big house on a hill, oh sorry, on three or four houses on hills or lakes, the facts of many Americans' lives are a kind of never-never Land. Never been there, never will be there and never cared about those who were.

I'm afraid that it is official now: Mitt Romney truly is an elitist dumbass. Money can buy a lot of things, for example a really shiny GOP Nomination, but it can't buy you the respect and love of the American people.

As Clint Eastwood explained: "I figure if somebody's dumb enough to ask me to go to a political convention and say something, they're gonna have to take what they get."
 
Arthur

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Mitt Just Lost the NY Times Vote

Jon Stewart has had a lot of fun with Mitt Romney's "47%" speech, given in May at the home of a fellow Venture Capitalist who is known for having wild parties featuring live sex shows. Must be some of that Family Values stuff, I suppose?

Some are saying this is the week that Mitt Romney is losing the 2012 Presidential Election, but in fairness they said that last week too. But Romney's speech, where he essentially writes off the 47% of American voters who pay no income tax as hopelessly pro-Obama, since they are (apparently) all moochers and slackers, who feel they are "entitled to be supported by the government". Now, since this includes most of those on Social Security who are no longer working, and since Mitt is sixty-five, then next year he could be part of the 47% himself, since the bulk of his income is investment income, on which he pays a lower "capital gains tax" than the "income tax" he said that hard-working Americans pay, to show their loyalty to flag, country and apple pie.

And there is one thing more; most of those receiving Social Security or some kind of benefits paid in to that account by their Payroll Taxes, half paid by the employer, half by the employee (so the total cost impacts their salary). They also pay 1.85% in Medicare tax. So how much does all that add up to? 6.2% employer + 6.2% employee + 1.85% employee = 13.85%. That's funny, that's exactly... the 13.9% that Mitt Romney paid in taxes in 2010. Now in 2011 and 2012, as an economic stimulus the employee paycheck deduction was reduced by 2%, so for these two years their total would be 11.85%. But there are many other taxes to consider. Sales tax, State tax, gasoline tax, alcohol tax etc. Those often hit those of moderate and low income far harder than those of high incomes. So that 47%, not counting those who are retired, unemployed, disabled or in jail, are probably paying as much as Mitt Romney is. Or more.

So what the heck is Romney going on about? The New York Times, in an Editorial expressing their corporate opinion (as opposed to that of one writer) believes that Romney is engaging in "Class Warfare", to try to fan the flames of economic division and resentment, but in his case, for the rich towards the poor, the needy, the disabled. Not everyone reads the Times. I do because a cousin of mine works there and I do business in New York, a city I know well and that I really, really like. My mother grew up in Brooklyn, in a family of modest means, but she was able to commute into Manhattan to attend Hunter High School, a school for high-achieving children of low income, then she went on to Hunter College, which operated on the same idea. There was some justice in it, since her family, parents and children alike, were very active in the Salvation Army, which at that time was really pulling people out of the gutter and helping them stay alive.

There is a long and venerable tradition in our country of reaching out to those in need, not asking whether their plight is a sign of their moral weakness, but judging that for whatever reason they are in a world of trouble, they are our fellow countrymen and women, and that to leave them to rot would be immoral and unthinkable, in a country where such riches exist. In another part of Romney's talk he quoted a friend who said something like "95% of what we need in life we get by being born in America", which is true up to a point, but if that was "all that we needed", then there would only be 5% in need. The math does not add up. Nor does it count the 20% in the country who are retired. But I guess when you are giving a speech to major donors who you believe may trend toward the self-satisfied and selfish side of the social spectrum, that may be what Romney thought they wanted to hear. He does seem to "tailor" his speeches to his audiences, doesn't he?

Arthur

The Headache That Has Become Mitt Romney

  • Poor Mitt Romney.  This just hasn't been his week.  First he gets yelled at for opening his mouth too soon immediately after the misguided attacks on our embassy and blaming President Obama for being soft on terrorism or something, then he's secretly recorded deriding the "47% of Americans who never pay taxes and who will never vote for me," because, Mitt says, they "believe they are victims" and are entitled to support from the government.  Mitt, Mitt, you're trying way too hard.
  • And here's something about Mr. Romney that we should remember:  Mitt Romney paid only half a percent more in taxes than the poorest of Americans.  Remember also that the people Mitt referred to in his latest rant include a majority of retired Americans, millions of working parents of young children, a significant number of military families, most students, and most of the disabled and people who can’t find work (some of those people probably were going to vote for Mitt.)  His statement "My job is not to worry about those people" tells it all, doesn't it? 
  • As a Republican presidential candidate, you know you're in trouble when Bill Kristol calls you "stupid and arrogant."  So what are we to make of this man?  This man Maureen Dowd says was "born on third base and acts self-made, whining to the rich about what a great deal in life the poor have."  I suspect my thoughts about Mitt were right when I heard about the dog-on-the-car-roof incident.  He's a mean clueless asshole.  'Course that's just my opinion.
  • And Keith Olbermann's(!) comment on all this: Click Here