Well…just thought I’d get a shorty out to let you know that I am working on getting another one going in my head but this whole day has been a weird jumble of things happening and I am so far off my normal routine that I haven’t even read the online papers yet…so I’m going to do that now and then come back in a while to finish this…
Okay, I’m back…had to run an unexpected errand and still haven’t found anything to write about….maybe the hurt feelings of Paul Ryan would be appropriate…I just had to laugh after Obama attacked Ryan’s radical budget proposal, with Ryan calling the speech “overly partisan”…oh, poor baby, you should be happy he didn’t call you the idiot that you are…well…he kind of did, and as time goes by and people other that the Heritage Foundation take a close look…we’ve learned that it does nothing to lower the deficit, yep, that’s right…nope, I can’t even fake surprise at this one….these guys have taken “voodoo” economics to a new high, and I am so happy they did it, finally letting the curtain fall on their agenda to end the social contract that has existed for the past 90 years. It is a little heartening to see the same kind of thing happening here in Michigan with gov Snyder losing support even from his own party where they still have some realists…..I can’t wait to see the ads for the next election where the dismantling of Medicare is going to be the subject…and it will make it easier to believe when the left says the repubs want to end Social Security, too….going to be interesting time over the next two years…strap in and hang on…
Well…just a couple of things today…I haven’t been able to come up with a really coherent set of thoughts, so I’m just going to kind of let it loose and see what happens….first…with the anniversary of the Civil War’s start, I find it so odd that there is still an ongoing effort by some folks on the right and in the south to obscure what the war was about; they have been floating the whole states rights malarkey as a replacement for the real reason…the south wanted to keep slavery plain and simple. I wonder at the reason for these efforts, after all, it’s been 150 years. What benefit is there to be gained by trying to change the reasons? Just another episode to me where people on the right can’t accept facts and are intent on using one of their favorite tactics to change the truth; that is repeating lies until people say “oh, I’ve heard that somewhere” and then saying it must be the truth.
On other thing that I want to talk about is the lack of fight coming out of the White House in the budget battle which truly are struggles for the soul of this nation….why can’t they just stand up and compare what the US looks like now, and how it will look if the Ryan proposals are enacted…starting with the windfall the changes in Medicare would be for insurance companies…c’mon Obama, if you can’t make insurance companies look bad by just citing their actions, you’re just not paying attention..stop being so afraid of looking partisan and get to this whole tax cut nonsense for the rich…call the repub idiots out to prove that these cuts create jobs…which they don’t. How can you fumble this when all of the facts are on the side of the moderates….what does cutting funding for Planned Parenthood do to create jobs? Geez….I came up with these two by myself without much thinking, get off your butt and start working for us….and remember, crazy ideas from the right need to be called crazy…stop being so nice to these idiots and slap them with their lies, it is not partisan to call out idiots…I think you are allowing America to be hijacked by the tea partiers because you don’t have the guts to stand up and put them in their place…I for one, don’t want to have my life dictated by the 15% fringe that is the tea party…
Well..one of the most striking things that I have taken away from the budget battles that have been going on for the last couple of years is the utter lack of vision that the dems have laid out to support their version of America….and I fault Obama for a large part of it…his tiptoeing around to not anger the repubs have gotten him what? Nothing but an emboldened opposition whose crazy ideas have gotten a huge voice without the counterpoint of rationality that the president could bring to the discussion, and his almost unfathomable reliance on bipartisanship, or the appearance of bipartisanship, is making him look so disengaged that those of us in the middle and on the left are sitting here shaking our heads. I hope that the budget plan that is coming out from the dem leadership later in the week will help to flesh out what they think America should look like and I think they have a golden opportunity to contrast with the Ryan proposal; one that gives more and more to the rich while taking the majority of the savings from programs that are designed to help the middle class and poor.
It was a good start when Obama said that the plan will include increased revenue from letting the bush tax cuts expire on the richest, and I think it is a reasonable request since those tax cuts never produced one new job or made America a better place to live; except for those super rich who benefited from the cuts. I also understand that there can be cuts and streamlining to major government programs to make them more efficient, but let’s make sure that the cuts are made to the inefficiencies, and maintain those few things that can help the American dream live on….
Well… this is going to be a short one, just had a couple of thoughts about things that popped up in this morning’s news that does a couple of things; one points out the craziness and lack of moral character that the repubs have, and the second sheds light on the real agenda of the new theftocracy that is called the republicans. First, yesterday in Georgia, at a town hall meeting held by Paul Broun a repub rep, a questioner asked this idiot “who is going to shoot Obama?” and the reaction of rep Broun was to change the subject…not address it as being so out of line and using it as a teachable moment, but just moving on; giving the questioner the tacit approval of his silence. These are the people you’ve elected folks…doesn’t anyone else see anything wrong with his response? Especially in light of the shootings in Arizona, this idiot should have been taught right then and there that violence has no place in our political process…but the repubs have benefited by their violent rhetoric so why would they want it to stop?
The next one is about a neat little trick buried in the bill that will strip workers of their rights in Wisconsin…this bit of thievery gives the governor the absolute ability to sell any and all public buildings, powerplants, or any other public property to whomever he pleases without any oversight, bids or recourse for the citizens of the state. Yep, that’s right…this guy that got elected by the Koch brothers and the tea party who railed and railed about dems doing things by unelected regulatory bodies, have just taken away the rights of the people of Wisconsin to have any say in the disposition of government property that they paid for…the czar of Wisconsin now gets to do whatever he pleases with the people’s property….all I have to say is watch…the real agenda of these folks is becoming clear…the lip service they paid to representative government and upholding the constitution was just that, nothing but lies to get elected and to give them the chance to steal everything else they haven’t already given to business and the rich.
Well…I do hate to pick on one person all of the time..no that’s not true, I love to call out the idiocies and inconsistencies on both the right and left…but if you’ve been here before, you’ve noticed I do tend to to go after those on the right more…but I should because they are the ones that have taken idiocy to a new level that I could not have imagined a few years ago. This morning I was reading the Detroit News again (I know, why should I keep reading that right wing rag?) and our boy Nolan Finley is at it again…taking the president to task for going to the chamber and asking them to take part in the recovery by hiring. Well..old Nolan goes on either to lie, or to show his ignorance of economic reporting saying that companies are not going to hire until they are profitable when, as you and I and almost everyone else in the US knows, retained corporate profits are at their highest level in the history of the world. He goes on to assert that they are not hiring because of the repub talking point about uncertainty keeping business from being able to plan and know what their costs are going to be down the road. Nolan, Nolan, Nolan….the only uncertainty that business cares about it whether or not the billions they spent buying a republican house is going to give them free reign to steal more from the pockets of workers. You guys have created the uncertainty about the healthcare law….spending almost all of your time since the new congress started trying to repeal the law when you know it won’t happen and snowing your business buddies that the money they gave you is going to get them something; all the while collaborating with them to keep from hiring to make sure you have a new talking point.
But that’s not the worst of it….here in Michigan the earned income tax credit for lower income folks is being eliminated while business is given a huge tax cut…this is a tax increase no matter how the right tries to spin it…and these guys are held up as fiscally responsible when any time the previous governor asked for more taxes to help cut the deficit she was tarred as a tax and spend liberal. I guess it’s okay if you raise taxes on those that have no money, power or lobbyists…another example of the hypocrites that reside in the modern repub party….geez…
Well..this one came to mind with just a tiny little article in one of the newspapers I read every morning that passed on the fact that taxes, for both individuals and business, are at their lowest level in more than 60 years. If you’ve been here before, you heard me talk about this topic, but not in this context….the context of Obama going to the Chamber of Commerce and promising them lower taxes and less regulation if they will just start to hire more people with the over 2 trillion dollars in retained profits that they now hold; a figure that is higher than any time in recorded history. How did they make so much profit if their taxes are too high? My question is, “who pays for the infrastructure, education of the workforce, and other things necessary for business to thrive if they don’t pay their fair share of the tax burden? Guess who? You and me….
I understand that this trip to the Chamber was a political calculation to look like there was no stone unturned in creating jobs, but to go to these thieves with his hat in his hand and say “pretty please” to get them do do the right thing for the country that made them successful is just wrong…business owes it to the people of America who bought the roads they use to transport their goods, who bought the education that gives them good workers, who bought the military that protects them every day, and who gave them the profits they so jealously hoard….to dismiss this debt while passing responsibility on to individual Americans is morally reprehensible…geez…
Well…I think I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking in sounds bites and prejudices which has taken me away from the resonableness that I have been espousing. Some of it is a hangover from the “I hate Bush” syndrome that I regretfully admit had me in its clutches for quite a while and some of it is was caused by the growing demise of the middle class and my situation in particular. It is really difficult to watch the people who are still doing well in their 500 dollar gloves and new Mercedes when that used to be an attainable aspiration for me and it no longer is. What makes it even more difficult is that I know it’s not something I can correct…there is no way I know of to make myself not be 57 anymore; to be 35 again with prospects….I may have let these facts color the way I see the world and has led me to see that any compromise in a complex political situation was a defeat, was a failure of Obama to stand up and support those that supported him.
So, on that note, I am going to try to be more objective in my thinking starting now….as the tax bill is parsed and studied, I think it may be a better deal than I thought and it could be the start of grownups looking at real solutions for the terrible recession…after all, there are stimulative measures in the bill that will help get the economy going and we did get the extension of UI benefits…now, if we could just teach the rich that they have enough and giving some back to help continue the country’s success is in their self interest, things might be able to get better…..we can hope anyway….
Well..this one just came to me a few minutes ago and I thought I’d try to see if I can make sense of it….looking at the political maneuverings going on over the tax bill I’m struck by one consistent theme, that Obama won’t take on a fight unless he is sure that he can win…even when he constantly disappoints his supporters with what looks like compromise for it’s own sake. What kind of a win is it when you just fold up? Does that make sense? I guess what I’m trying to say is that there are times when taking on a fight because it is the right thing to do is a much nobler thing than compromising your principles and allowing something you know is wrong to continue. I think this is one of the reasons the left is so frustrated with Obama right now; he doesn’t seem to think anything, any principle or goal is immune to compromise when it is clear that saving the middle class is worth a fight, that repealing DADT is worth a fight, that keeping the repubs from stacking the deck against us is worth a fight. This is the time when we need a fight, even one for a losing cause so we can hold our heads up and say “we tried”.
I’ll end this with one question for Obama, “what IS worth fighting for?”..geez…
Well..I cannot overstate my disappointment with Obama right now…and his misguided march toward bipartisanship at any cost..especially when his compromise with the repubs is going to give them more ammunition to attack the progressives in the next election. Doesn’t he understand that when you give in to blackmailers, all they do is come back with larger and larger demands? What about us? The people that voted for him…when do we get anything that he promised to us? I guess the only hope now is that the congressional and senate democrats grow a spine and destroy this bill….but, I’m afraid it’s finally over….the rich have bought this country lock, stock, and barrel and the rest of us are left to our own devices as we slide down the ladder….
Well…this is one that I hoped I didn’t have to write, but I have completely lost faith in the Obama administration…not only for how he caves in to all of the threats by the repubs on taxes,DADT, and all manner of other issues, but this law professor, this person that should know and understand that the rule of law is the only thing that makes a civilized society, has seen fit to abrogate our international obligations, too. It has recently come to light that when Spain, and many other nations that have signed the treaty against torture, wanted to indict the architects of these abhorrent policies, Obama leaned on them and threatened them with diplomatic consequences if they went forward. All in the name of politics…but breaking the law and punishment for it is supposed to be outside of politics; everyone is subject to the law whether they are a beggar or a president. Where is your respect for the law Mr. Obama? You are supposed to uphold the constitution and you have failed miserably in your primary duty to do that…you are now breaking the law by not prosecuting these individuals; and I hope there are consequences for this terrible, cynical reaction to this destruction of America’s standing in the world. Geez….