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?
Well…I know, no additional topic yesterday but my mind wasn’t working well and it would have been a crappy one anyway…I promise to do better today and I try to keep my promises..but the operative word is try….did go out to Ada last night and Tom just whipped me in pool…he was hitting everything and I couldn’t shoot a straight in shot…but it was about time he won one…I think it was that he just became a grandpa Monday night…I’ll use any excuse…but the streak will end next week at one…I was a good boy on the way home and didn’t stop for manhattan ingredients…and I feel good about that this morning but still no sleep…oh, well…
Not much to do today….going to run the slow cooker with a pork loin roast but that is about it…might go out for the first perlod of the Wings game just for the hell of it but with my cash being so low, that might not be a good idea…and, of course, the normal stuff for the rest of my day…I am going to try to get some topics out today do come back if you want…you never know, it might be a good one and then you’ll have missed it…oh, that’s right, you just have to look down..it will be there…