Well…an interesting day in the news yesterday and Ole GW should start sweating a little…if you didn’t hear, the mayor of London issued a warning to GW about any idea for a book tour that would include Europe…with the victory tour to support his new book, the idiot has gone on record with Matt Lauer of NBC and even in the book that he authorized torture…the waterboarding of a couple of prisoners over 100 times when waterboarding is torture in both international treaties that the US has signed, and in a 1994 US law that makes it a felony to approve or participate in torture. This moron thinks that just because his hand-picked lawyers said it was okay to torture, that he is protected by the law…when it is clear in the treaties that there is no hiding behind lawyers; as Augusto Pinochet discovered when he was arrested for approving torture and murder in Chile, as he traveled to Europe for medical care. Now, the outcry to hold Bush and Cheney responsible is rising across Europe and Canada as a result of the decision of Obama to not investigate or prosecute these clear violations of the law…this lack of commitment to uphold our international obligations is another black eye on the Obama administration and on us, the people of America and have further destroyed our moral standing in the world.
I hope both Bush and Cheney decide to flaunt their lawbreaking by traveling to one of the countries that is a signatory to these international laws against torture….they deserve to be prosecuted for their role in the torture and the ruination of our country’s traditional role as the leader on human rights….we are supposed to be a nation of laws and we used to be…now, we are a society that Orwell described in “Animal Farm”…that everyone’s equal…but some are more equal than others…
It will be a shame if we have to be taught our obligations to the world by Europe and Canada…geez…
If it sounds like I take this stuff personally, you’re right…
Well…another night at home last night…and I think that is going to be the refrain for a while until I get some cash coming in…it was nice to see my atm card still works…haven’t had to take any money out all year but I needed cash today…gives me a sinking feeling when I have to do that for some reason. Oh, well…not much to do today..I just started the coffee and have a couple of newspapers waiting for me…then there will be Michigan football for later…don’t know if there is going to be anything else…but, who knows? A meteor might drop out of the sky….I do have a topic for later that I touched on way back when I started this thing….it’s about ole GW…and I think it’s a good one…more later…
One last thing…just wanted to say Happy Birthday to Joe Walsh…can’t believe he’s 63 today…if you don’t know Joe…listen to the James Gang and “The Smoker You Drink, The Player you Get” or Smoker to us fans or any of his other solo albums to get a taste of what he’s meant to rock and roll over the past 40 years…going to make it a Joe day in the car…
Well…this is going to be a short one but one that I had to comment on…the repubs just shot down the extension of unemployment benefits for the purported reason that any additional spending has to be paid for by cuts in other spending. this move will cut off these benefits to almost 2 million people at the end of the year and has never happened in history with the unemployment rate so high…and their comments ratcheted up their nastiness to a new level even for them…they think it is a citizen’s duty to take any job, no matter that the pay is less than they would get in UI benefits; that it is less than the money they need to keep feeding their families…but that is not the repubs problem. They just don’t give a damn about anyone but the rich…and you can see that by their continued insistence that the 700 billion dollars in tax cuts for the rich be made permanent…but with no word of how to pay for that….of course…geez…
Well…one of the themes that has come out of the recent mid-terms is the shrinking of the “Blue Dog Democrat” caucus from 56 members to only 23. And, the losers are casting their losses to be all tied to the healthcare bill and that they were not conservative enough in their philosophy….what planet are they living on? The reason that most of them lost was their abandonment of the Democratic party and the principles of fairness and protection of the middle class that has been part of the dems ideals for more than 50 years. During the healthcare debate, and the financial regulation debate, when the blue dogs talked you couldn’t tell them from the repubs…and most of this crap was motivated by political calculations made to ensure their re-election. What they didn’t count on was that the dem voters would remember what they said, and what they did to gut the healthcare bill and turn it into a windfall for the insurance companies. This was compounded by their siding with the repubs on financial reform….and not offering any reasons other than the tired old repub talking points of “government regulation bad, free market good” that has run this country into the ground over the past decade.
So, what did they expect? When they abandoned their constituents didn’t they foresee that these same constituents would abandon them? I guess they thought that repubs would vote for them if they acted like repubs…but that was never going to happen, either. I say good riddance to them…to these Democrats in name only who showed their true colors and lack of empathy for all of us that have no healthcare and because of our age, have few prospects…that is not the America I grew up in…I hope Democrats become Democrats again and grow a spine…geez….
Well…I’m going to get to the blue dogs after I go out for coffee but right now it’s just going to be the normal stuff…C and D did come into town and it was fun to go out and have a couple of beers….and it did force me into cleaning this place up and it looks the best it has in quite a while….I do need to get the T-day groceries today to make sure the turkey is thawed by next week but I’m not sure if I’m going to have anyone here…but, I still do the full boat dinner even if it’s just for me since I need to have turkey sandwiches and the carcass for turkey soup….not much else to do today….I did take the day off riding yesterday so I need to get back on the bike today….may take a long one since I’m running out of nice weather….still in shorts, though, for 6 more days….more later…
Well..the new repub talking points are out and they all have one thing in common…the phrase “adult conversation” is in all of them; this coming from the “adults” that have said nothing but no…nothing but no to the needs of the country’s unemployed, nothing but no to the uninsured, nothing but no to any compromise that didn’t give them everything they and their business cronies wanted. Sounds more like the conversation of a three year old instead of an adult. I thought an adult conversation was one where people sat down and were serious about the issues and could see that are two sides, or more, to an issue and disputes can’t be resolved by one of the side just saying no, it’s going to be my way or we won’t talk…which is the way the repubs are framing the issues…shouting “no compromise” as they use all of their energy to pander to their base with utter disregard for what is best for the country.
So, let’s recognize this new set of talking points for what they are…just the newest tactic in the war to destroy the middle class and the safety net that is fast being shredded to give the rich their $370,000 tax cuts…I want to gag every time I hear these idiots.
Yeah, I know, less reasonableness than I have promised…but where has that gotten us progressives? We are still playing by the old rules that have been overwritten by the thugs in the republican party…it’s time to get a copy of that rulebook…but, I wish we didn’t have to…geez…
Well…I was going to go out for a while last night but thought better of it…not too prudent an idea with 8 bucks in your pocket…but that’s another story…the Wings did win after a a game that they looked slow until the last 10 minutes when they scored 4 to put the Blues away…pretty cool. This should be in sports, though…I guess…but I run this thing so I get to do what I want. Didn’t do much else last night but just hang out here and not drink…and I am feeling reasonably well this morning…I wonder why I just can’t seem to remember this feeling….oh, well…we all do need to have our vices but I think I’m pretty happy that they are in check right now…but that goes to a thought that I’ve had some as I age…what am I saving the liver for? So it’s healthy when I die of some other cause? Or maybe I’ll never die….yep, that’s delusional…
Not much to do today…have to clean this joint up some since C is coming into town and is going to hang out for a while but that’s about it..no cooking to do since I did that yesterday and today is a leftover day…I may even stay off the bike today to let the little soreness heal and see how much of it is caused by riding and how much is just age….who knows? I will have some topics for later….so, come back if you’re not too bored yet…
Well…I was going to title the one “the hypocrisy starts” but the one I used seems to describe what is happening better. Let’s start with the new repub member of the house from out east who was elected after railing about the new healthcare law and promising to repeal it. Then, this idiot goes off on congressional staffers who tell him that his “Cadillac” health benefits don’t kick in for a month….doesn’t he get it that his opposition to reform will keep 50 million Americans from having their healthcare kick in at all? Of course, these guys are so dense that they can’t see the irony of this kind of behavior…I’ve got mine, everyone else can go to hell.
Then you have our good buddy Rep. Mike Pence who has been on record multiple times saying that he can’t support extension of unemployment benefits for those most hurting in our society unless he gets the tax cuts for the rich extended…basically, extorting the majority of the working American people for the top 1% of earners. Don’t the rich already have enough? Another example of repub hypocrisy…getting elected by duping the middle class then screwing everyone but their rich buddies…geez…
Well…it’s come to my attention through some comments that some of you may be having trouble downloading the novel…I just tried it using another provider and it worked using Word as the program…but I’m using firefox so I don’t know if that makes any difference…let me know if any of you are still having trouble and I’ll get the IT geek son on it….thanks for looking…and I hope you like it…
Oh…and the spam filter on my e-mail has been deleting some comments and I think I have that fixed, too…at least I hope so…it’s important to hear from everyone….agree or disagree….
Well…after the rally to restore sanity on the Washington mall a few weeks ago, one of the questions that keep recurring to me is what’s next? How do we take the idea of reasonableness and apply it to the problems we face in the US? Especially when all of the successful politicians over the past few years (mostly on the right) have espoused the winner take all philosophy that Boehner and McConnell have refined to an art form. I understand that there are real policy differences between the right and left, but I think we’ve lost sight of the fact that this hyper-partisanship is gradually painting us into a corner where the compromises necessary to make democracy work are no longer thinkable. Is this patriotism? How did we lose the vision of America as the place where things are possible? Reasonable politicians are roadkill for the well oiled machine of the right…and the rights only definition of compromise is that they hold out until they get everything they want even though they are hurting the country when they do so.
Again, I fault the American people for allowing this to happen…..to listen to the lies and accept them as truth…to buy into the “death panels” and the 200 million dollar a day cost of Obama’s trip to southeast Asia…one that was pushed by Michelle Bachmann as the absolute truth when the entire story was debunked by Anderson Cooper of CNN. I think the window for preserving what is great with America is quickly closing and the heavy hand of the moneyed interests are leaning on it to close it faster. We need to couch this fight in the idea of patriotism; that continuing to think in the short-sighted way our politicians do is not what is best for our country….but to expect this to change may just be wishful thinking…hope not…
Let’s start thinking about the next steps that come from the idea of reasonableness in government…and what we reasonables see as the path forward…I welcome any comments to try to build a new consensus…and aren’t there things that we can agree on already? For example…a balanced budget is a good thing when we are not digging out of a recession? That government intrusion into our lives should be the smallest it can be and still have a functioning society? That from those that much is given, much is expected? That there is a prohibition of the establishment of religion contained in the first amendment? What are some others that you think about?