Hungry Libertarians

So I tried watching Fox News to get their spin on the tailspin that the Republican Party is in, but it's tough. I watched for a little while yesterday, I almost switched when one of their guest book panderers made a comment about Obama's disturbed mother being part of the reason he is the way he is. I did switch when, as Colbert refers to him, the brown haired guy who's not Steve Doocey, in a tease for an upcoming segment about prison furloughs, no not Willie Horton, referred to them as "guys in prison, who are out."

So I moved one down the dial, boy does that term age me, to Morning Joe. It seems Joe's written a book. Good for him. It is apparently about conservatism. Joe, just like Arlen Specter, is no longer a Republican. He is a conservative / libertarian. Apparently, Joe doesn't know if there is a difference.

On one of his shows last week, he had on Suze Orman and Donny Deutsch. The were discussing ways to survive during the down economy. I was wondering how any of these people would know, when Joe told the story about his father being laid off from Lockheed during a previous recession. It seems Mr. Scarborough, and industrial engineer, couldn't find work in his chosen field, so took a job selling insurance. This was on topic for Deutsch's point against Orman. Deutsch saying that one shouldn't wait for the right job to come along, they should take whatever job they can get.

This is a valid point, and good for Mr. Scarborough for doing it for his family's sake. And Joe is proud of that, which he should be. But there is the implication that there are people out there who wouldn't take the job. The implication that there are shiftless, lazy, indolent people out there, living off the government dole.

I'd like to remind Joe that there were probably 40 people applying for that job. Joe's dad got it. Joe kind of forgets that the other 39 people, the other 39 families continued to suffer. Joe, as a proud conservative / libertarian, gives the impression that Democrats don't value the hard work that his father did.

Democrats do value it, but we also are concerned about the other 39 families. We are concerned that they have at least a bare subsistence living. That they have access to health care. That their children have access to education. When Joe was sworn in as a Congressman, he put his hand on the Bible, a book about helping the sick and the poor, and swore to uphold the Constitution, with its preamble about establishing justice and promoting the general welfare, and just doesn't seem to care.

I don't recall ever meeting a poor conservative or a hungry libertarian. Do they exist?

Elephant Burial Grounds

Arlen Specter, who had such great faith in the pristine magic bullet from the Warren Commission, no longer has faith in the Grand Old Party. I've had respect for the Senator over the years, but I can't help seeing him as rat fleeing a sinking ship. I don't blame him, I understand his reasoning, both philosophical and political. I also can't stop giggling about the Republican Party.

Contrary to what a lot of my friends think, I was not around for the demise of the Whig Party. I have read a lot about the times, and the situation was just so much different. The Republican Party was truly born out of the slavery issue. And it was pulled together not just by disaffected Whigs, but some of the true leaders of that party. Men like William Henry Seward, Salmon Portland Chase, and Abraham Lincoln.

The Republicans like to call themselves the party of Lincoln, which always makes me laugh. Yes he was one of the original leaders, and the first President elected as such. But if you read his first Message to Congress, the State of the Union address of the time, you will see that the Republicans quickly abandoned his ideals. And Lincoln abandoned them. He was reelected under the Union Party banner. Yes the Republican party eventually endorsed his candidacy, but he was no longer in that party.

What I'm not seeing now, but what occurred then, is leadership to new ideals. The leaders of the Republican party, such as they are with a 21% approval rating, are still welded to the Reagan ideals, low taxes, smaller government, conservative fiscal policies. Unfortunately, the only one of those they have been able to pull of are the lower taxes. And also unfortunately, those lower taxes have truly only impacted a small percentage of the population.

I believe that Mr. Specter will not be the only Republican to switch. The impact will be severe. As the party fails to accomplish anything in Washington, the money flow will fall. This is going to have repercussions at the state and local level. I think we are seeing a true sea change.

Now there is a strong possibility that a new party could form in the center. One would think that this would be the natural occurrence, with the dregs of the Republican party continuing their march further and further right, a political vacuum is bound to occur. There aren't many moderate Republicans, at least they don' t claim to be in public, but I think some may come out of the closet. And there are quite a few Blue Dog Democrats. There would seem to be enough to coalesce in the middle.

At the same time, President Obama is a pragmatist, and smarter then most politicians. I think there's a good chance he can keep a majority of Democrats, and democrats, behind his standard for the next few years.

All and all it's going to be good fun. I'm going to have to watch a lot more Fox News. At some point in the next few years I think they might even get a clue as to what is happening.

And The Truth Shall Set You Free

So I was reading John Kass in the Chicago Tribune yesterday. I've seen him reprinted in other papers around the country, which seems a little strange. He mostly writes about local politics, and crime. Also he sucks.

My friend Meg used to read him religiously, till she just could not take anymore of his crap. Meg doesn't like the fact that he claims to be a conservative, though he doesn't spell that out very well. He's more against liberals than a conservative. At least as far as I can tell. Meg also thinks he's an idiot, uses faulty logic, and just doesn't write very well.

I wouldn't call him an intellectual, but I wouldn't call him necessarily an idiot. He's written for both the Trib and the Sun-Times. Although, both of those papers are in bankruptcy, so I'm not sure that is as ringing an endorsement. I once wrote to him to try to correct him on an address he used in a column. It took six or seven e-mails back and forth, including a Google Earth satellite picture, to get him first to understand what I was attempting to do and show that he was using the wrong numbers. This though I think is becasue he doesn't listen to, or read, what other people are saying.

His logic is faulty. I've imagined him having had a pet cat he named Dumbo, because of a drawing of his that his mother praised. The drawing, of course, was a connect-the-dots drawing of an elephant that he had drawn as a cat.

I have to agree with Meg though, he just doesn't write very well.

The column from yesterday is not put together very well. The bulk of it is comparing the support needed for CIA agents and the like, with the support needed to be an investigative reporter, which is what Mr. Kass likes to think he is. This is mostly because his column replaced Mike Royko's, who also fancied himself an investigative reporter. Royko really wasn't. I happen to know that the biggest story he "broke" was due to a phone call he received from the pissed-off future ex-wife of one of the principals in the story. But at least Royko could write!

In his lead up to his analogy, Kass attempts to denigrate President Obama, so that the reader, who he hopes will understand the analogy, will then dislike the President. He uses a couple of quotes that Kass says proves that the President "bowed to his base in the hard political left by reversing himself", though a simple reading of the quotes shows it is indeed an elephant, not a cat.

The quotes are from Rahm Emanuel:

"He believes that people in good faith were operating with the guidance they were provided," said Emanuel, no fool. "They shouldn't be prosecuted. ... It's time for reflection. It's not a time to use our energy in looking back in any sense of anger and retribution."

and from the President:

"With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say, that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general," he said. "I think there are a host of very complicated issues involved there."

It's pretty clear that there are different people referred to here. Those "operating with the guidance they were provided" and "those who formulated those legal decisions."

I want to interject here that most people on every side of this issue should agree that the Army personnel from Abu Ghraib were acting under orders, we now know came from the DOD. They were not "bad apples" as Don Rumsfeld indicated, they were not letting things get out of hand, they were following orders and should be released from the stockade immediately.

Back to my point. Kass is sort of dumb, but he should be able to tell the difference between the people referred to in the quotes. So should his editors. But the references are there intentionally. He is lying, at the very least misleading.

What I don't understand are people who will lie, mislead, obfuscate to prove a point. If their point is right, they should not have to lie. They really need to step back and think that if they need to use mis-truths to prove their point, it might be time to re-think their point.

I have no idea what Mr. Kass would draw from this. Maybe a duck.

Proving the Negative

So the Republican leaders, and their talking heads, are now on the attack. And they're hitting several fronts. They're attacking the Democratic leadership, Nancy Pelosi specifically, and saying that she was aware of the torture, and condoned it. They're also using the old familiar fear tactic, implying that the ends justified the means, in order to save American lives.

The interesting thing about the what did Pelosi know and when did she know it tactic, is that it is not coming from people who were in the room. Yes, she was given information on the torture, what specifically nobody is for sure saying. The specifics of the information, and the method of presentation, are key. If she, and the other leaders, were informed that the tactics had been deemed legal, then unless she had been schooled in international law, she would not have raised any objections.

It's similar to the charge that Democratic congressmen, who gave Bush authorization for the war, had seen the evidence against Saddam and okayed it. That may have happened, but I'm darned sure that it was the cherry picked evidence, and I'm willing to bet it was pretty gussied up. Yes, these Democrats bought a pig in a poke. With lipstick.

As to the fear factor, yes the President should do whatever he can to protect American lives. But as a Constitutional officer, he must uphold the law. The Geneva Convention occurred not during the heated times of war, but in the cool, calculated, negotiated times of peace, when people could reflect on the horrible things that people are capable of, and try to stop them.

And so leaders of the civilized world are aware of the laws, and as such know that if they violate them, they will need a real damned good reason to do so. And, don't get me wrong, saving American lives is a damned good reason in my book. But what's getting lost in all the shouting, and this is intentional on the part of the conservatives, is that there is no proof that this information could not have been obtained legally. They never even tried. My god, they used people who had familiarity with methods designed to obtain false information! If there truly are documents showing that the torture produced information that thwarted attacks, that means that the administration screwed up again. They didn't obtain the planned misinformation, they got real information.

My buddy Joe Scarborough said today that such documents exist, that they reveal in clarity the direct line from information obtained through torture on to the arrests of people who were planning another attack. I wonder how he knows this, as even Dick Cheney does not have access to these documents.

Hm mm

Conspiracy Theory

So my latest conspiracy theory is that the Bush Administration went out of their way to create the monumental screw up in the economy so that the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress would be so overwhelmed that they wouldn't have an opportunity to look backwards and see the incredibly stupid things that were done.

I think they also hoped that the economy, and the business trends in general, would have had a more adverse impact on the newspaper business, especially the NY Times. The Times is going through some serious problems, but they can still put together a pretty good story.

Their latest one about the cluster-, well you know, surrounding the enhanced interrogation (some people refer to it as torture - toh-may-toh, toh-mah-toh) is almost unbelievable. George "Slam-Dunk" Tenet, I now believe, was an even bigger screw up than Michael "Heckuva Job" Brown. The CIA hired psychologists to assist them in these methods, they got them from the army program for training soldiers to endure torture. Yes, I mean torture, not enhanced interrogation methods. They had been through some practice tortures, but had never done the real thing. These were the experts.

The Administration was also convinced that we needed these methods, as they were the only ones that the terrorists would react to. These were people who would've been on one of the planes on 9/11, willing to give up their lives for their cause, and the experts figured that scaring them to, almost, death would make them give up their secrets. There was no other way.

I imagine over the next few years, once the economy is back on track, there is going to be a marathon truth conference. I'm not sure that there were that many illegal activities. Well, the Yoo memos on torture, the loss of the pallets of money in Iraq, the Halliburton contracts, I think there might have been some minor infractions there. But for the most part, a lot of the other things, the build-up to the war, the shift in focus from Afghanistan to Iraq, WMD's, Katrina, etc., were just partyhack, unfoucused, inexperienced, people who didn't analyze enough, didn't plan for congingencies, blindly followed orders, and pretty much just acted stupidly.

So, I guess I've disproved my theory. I think the economy screw-up was just another day at the office for the Bush Administration.

Why Doesn't Cheney Hide Anymore?

From years hiding in his bunker, Dick Cheney is everywhere now. Criticizing this, criticizing that, except for anything that happened while he was in office. He firmly believes that Obama has made us less safe. The only thing protecting us was mistreating people at Guantanamo and other places unknown.

This is the man that wouldn't release a scrap of paper. He tried saying the VP position is not in the Executive branch of the government, that it's in the Legislative branch, in order to shield himself and his papers from any scrutiny. Now he's looking to declassify CIA files. He needs them for his book.

He claims that if this information is released that it will justify the use of the enhanced torture methods. Interesting, since he already has claimed they were justified, and legal. At least in his bunker, not in the real world. We had better hope it was.

He's going to make a big splash, and the media, even those not at Fox, are going to buy into it. As it makes a good story. The problem is that the files will not be able to justify the torture. Cheney wants to show that the enhanced methods produced information, and that information led to the discovery of attacks being planned that were thwarted.

I have no doubt that the enhanced methods produced information. (Though, I wonder. Did these guys, after doing 182 water boardings on the same guy, sit there and look at each other and say, "I think one more time should do it!") The question, and one that the files will not be able to answer, is could this information been obtained legally and morally. We'll never know, as the CIA was directed to use them on the "high value" detainees.

The other question is was the value of the information obtained greater than the losses in prestige we experienced. Was it greater than the new terrorists created through the use of these methods?

Ugly Americans

So Newt Gingrich is upset with the way the President conducted himself at the Summit of the Americas. He's probably also upset that those other countries are using the name America.

And since he's upset, you can bet that Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan are too. And they are, I again made he mistake of watching Morning Joe today. Joe was apoplectic that Obama didn't respond to the evisceration of America. Well I, too, would be upset if someone had eviscerated America. So I checked to see when this had happened.

Turns out it didn't. Hugo Chavez did have the effrontery to give the President a book. Had he done this to Bush, it would have meant war, Bush not being the big reader and all. Chavez and Obama also exchanged smiles and handshakes. At least Obama didn't bow to him, or give him a back rub.

Daniel Ortega spoke for about an hour denouncing US foreign policy over the last century. I think this is what Joe had in mind, I guess one man's evisceration is another man's rant. My guess is that Newt, Joe and Pat wanted the President to denounce the denunciation. But I don't see how? Not while being honest.

Our foreign policy history in Latin America has more stains on it than my tie. How could we answer Ortega? Should we say we didn't have a policy supporting the rebels in his country, one that violated our own laws? I think that one still bothers him just a tad. Maybe Obama should have responded that he was lucky we stole Panama (fair and square) instead of Nicaragua. Heck, it would have been a shorter canal.

Of course, that's not our only fiasco in Latin America. Let's see, the Chiquita Banana revolution in Guatemala, which returned the land to the rightful owners, Chiquita Banana (United Fruit Co.) How's that liberation of the Puerto Ricans from the imperialistic Spaniards going?

As we spin around the world, it gets worse. We "liberated" the Philippines at the same time we 'freed' the Puerto Ricans. There was a little mop up exercise with the native people who didn't understand that our meaning of freedom was different than their meaning of freedom. These language things can be troublesome. About fifty years later, they finally got their freedom. Interestingly enough, the US Army used water boarding on the Filipinos.

When George W. Bush talked about bringing democracy to the Middle East, I just had to roll my eyes. Iran had formed a democratic government, elected a parliament and Prime Minister. Unfortunately, this guy thought that, like the Guatemalans, the Iranians owned the land, including the oil rights. The accountants at Anglo-Irani Oil (later British Petroleum) quickly figured out that this policy might adversely affect the profit margins. So they called the Dulles boys and badda boom, badda bing! The PM is out, and the Shah is in. And we wonder why the Iranians don't trust us.

I love America, and am proud to be a citizen. I am proud of countless acts that our fore bearers performed around the world to bring safety, freedom, equality to foreign lands. But just as we didn't always do a perfect job domestically, e g civil rights, we have not always done the right thing across the seas. And sometimes it hasn't bitten us squarely in the ass. (Ho Chi Minh was at Versailles trying to free his country in 1919. Nobody would talk to him.)

But to hear Newt and the gang, we've always been perfect. And no one else has. I understand the concept of speaking softly and carrying a big stick. I'm not sure I get the concept of ranting like a jingo and carrying an overused, overtired, mortgaged to the hilt stick.

A Simple Twist of Fate

So I caught a bit of the Rush Limbaugh show. I'm not sure what he was trying to do, but he was all over Obama for killing defenseless, teen aged, black Muslims. He may have been trying to speak to the liberals out there and raise their ire. If that was his plan, he has to figure out that most liberals don't listen to him, or believe him. It may have been satirical, and what's funnier than shooting pirates. Just ask Yosemite Sam.

I'm pretty sure the conservatives were really bummed that the rescue of Captain Phillips worked out so well. You know they were hoping for something to go wrong, so they could blame the Obama administration. The way they jumped on Clinton for Somalia (though HW put the troops there) or for Bosnia, but curiously not W for Iraq. Or the way they jumped on Carter for the failed hostage rescue.

Which got me wondering. If a gust of wind, or a large wave had occurred just as the Seals fired, Captain Phillips would be dead and the pirates would be alive. This surely would have pleased Rush, not that he truly cares about the teen aged black Muslims, but then he could go on for weeks about Obama's lack of military service, his incompetence, etc.

Then I wondered about the haboob in April of 1980. How things have might have been different if the wind had died down. A haboob is a desert sandstorm. The one I am referring to happened as the US military was attempting to rescue the hostages in Iran.

Had that mission been successful, Ted Kennedy doesn't run against Carter in the primaries, and a much stronger politically Carter defeats Ronald Reagan. The conservative movement no longer has its storied leader, and the whole world is completely different. Our deficit situation would no longer exist, and Rush Limbaugh would still be spinning disks in St. Louis, though by now he would have been replaced by the Ryan Seacrest show.

I don't know who is pulling the weather strings upstairs, but whoever it is has an odd sense of humor.

One Lump or Two?

So today is tax day, and tea-bag day. If nothing else, some tight-assed Republicans have learned a new sexual technique. Or at least that it exists.

People are so upset about their taxes that they plan to meet in town squares around the country and make a pile of tea bags. Well, for one thing, they'll be some stimulus for the grocery stores. I'd bet that the majority of these people, even if they can name their government representatives - national, state, local, etc, would not be able to tell you how these representatives have voted on various tax issues. The complaint is that taxes are too high, not necessarily that spending is too much or spent on the wrong things. They still want good schools, good roads, a healthy economy, good jobs, a safe neighborhood, safety from foreign invaders, etc. They just think we could get that stuff cheaper.

They are complaining that the various stimulus payments and bailouts are too high, but they're not paying for them. These are simply added to the debt.

But it gives these people a chance to put on funny clothes and get on TV. It beats telling their stories to Jerry Springer. And I'm sure there will be as many fights as Springer has. Ah, American democracy at its finest! We'll know we've accomplished our mission in Iraq when they have tea bag protests.

I made the mistake of watching Morning Joe again this morning. There was a Reuters news item that Janet Napolitano has concerns about right wing groups, their rantings and the effects they may have on people, mostly returning veterans that they might react by terrorism. Issues such as immigration, taxes, the first black President, etc.

Joe was incensed. You could tell it really affected him, cause he couldn't think straight. This was evidenced by the leaps he took every time he went back to the item. He went on about what would have happened if a Republican administration had issued warnings about left wing groups. Next time he talked about it, he used the example of Dick Cheney telling Tom Ridge to watch out for and monitor left wing groups. Now you can truly imagine Cheney doing that, and I wouldn't be surprised if he did. But there was nothing in the Reuters story that indicated that anyone had told the Homeland Security head to do this. But Joe lays out his analogy, implying that he had. Further along, he rants about Obama monitoring veterans, which again is not in the Reuters story, but the synapses in Joe's mind work differently.

There wasn't a lot of information in the story, but I understand the concerns. I saw someone the other night from some 2nd Amendment group who was explaining why guns sales are up. One of the reasons was fear of the government, including, I kid you not, proposed changes in health care. Can't you just see it! "Momma, grab another box of Double Ought, they's a comin' to alter my deductibles!"

There are the mental health problems we've been experiencing with the veterans returning from combat. There's the vigilante groups patrolling the border. Irate tea-baggers. They're letting gays marry in Iowa and Vermont. Rush Limbaugh feels he has more and more power.

And if you don't think something terrible could possibly arise out of these things, I give you two words.

Timothy McVeigh.

GOP Congressional Priorities

The GOP Congressmen have finally gotten around to doing something. Wait, if you're thinking they have improved their wildly successful alternate budget - no nothing there. A new view on the stimulus? Nope. An answer to the banking crisis? Sorry. New tax cuts to bring down the deficit? You would think so, but no. The environment? Right. Energy policy? No, sorry no new tax cuts for big oil. Foreign affairs? Nada. A new timetable for Iraq? Zip.

No, they've come out with new attack commercials on Congressional Democrats. Three months into the new Congress, 19 months before the next elections. I guess you can't start too soon.

I've never liked negative campaigning, but I have to admit it can be successful. However, after you've maligned an opponent, you need to show an alternative. These commercials don't. They just make fun of the Congressman. They don't say how a Republican might do it different. They don't say who would make a difference. No new ideas, no fresh face.

They do have a face on them though, that of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. They didn't pick up on it in 2006 or in 2008. The idea of a Democratically controlled Congress just doesn't scare most people like it does Rush Limbaugh and his audience. I think that the GOP uses sound data. By that I mean they think that loud protests must be coming from a large group of people, instead of one really loud nut screaming at the rain.

The Republicans just can't accept the fact that a majority of Americans don't believe another small for them, big for others, tax cut will bring the deficit down. And small wonder, since it won't.

The GOP will have you believe it will by using the Reagan tax cut, or even the Kennedy tax cut as examples. These tax cuts did increase government revenues. The Kennedy cut brought the top rate down from 90%, the Reagan cut down from 70%. The previous rates were confiscatory. The cuts did free up a lot of capital and provided incentives for new technology. The Bush cut from 39% to 35% freed up enough capital to blow up a bubble. Which it did.

Since tax cuts won't work, they have to rely on scaring the public. And they are scary people.

Efforts to fight bailout top $7 trillion

Are there still journalism schools out there? If so, when people graduate where do they work? Obviously not at the MSN web-site and their news headline. Just a little point to the folks there, the trillions of dollars are not fighting the bailout, they are the bailout.

If there are journalism schools out there, it seems now that a required course is "How to Come Up With Bad Puns for Headlines." The really crap papers have been doing this for quite some time, but now the Tribune is doing it. I've never liked their editorial stands, but they have had some renown for their journalism. But they lost it, it must be something with printing it tabloid style.

Communication everywhere now just sucks. People and organizations, who are in the business of communicating, have forgotten how to do it. The aforementioned Trib, in an effort to save paper (though for cost rather than environmental reasons) has gotten into twittering information in the baseball standings. They feel the need to put some information about each team in the standings, but leave themselves only about 140 characters to do it. Today's tidbit was the last time each team pulled off a triple play.

Watching my White Sox yesterday, they were posting blatantly inaccurate information up on the screen - wrong averages, and they even showed you how they calculated them!

Last week on the Today Show, Matt Lauer was chatting with Fox News Analyst Laura Ingraham. The title had something about Obama apologizing to Europe. I would have expected Ingraham to be the one saying he had apologized (he hadn't) but it was NBC who was putting out the misinformation. I guess the truth just doesn't sell anymore.

I'm reading today about the heroic rescue effort in saving the captain from the pirates. It was darned good shooting, but it was not heroic. If they hit the pirates, he's saved. If they missed, he was dead. The rescuers didn't risk a thing, it was really cool, but not heroic.

The pirates are upset. They remind me of the conservatives who were angry when President Carter ceded the Panama Canal back to Panama. "We stole it fair and square!" I wonder what the Somali word for aaargh is.

I guess I am just old fashioned. I should be able to show more creativity and could have said the above in less than 140 characters.

Phil Spector was just convicted of murder. His mistake was not using the Wall of Sound to muffle the gun shots.

I got that in under 140 characters!

Walking and Chewing Gum

So for weeks now I've been hearing the complaints from Obama's critics that he is not focusing his efforts on the economy. He's worried about education, the environment, education, etc. I guess we've gotten to the point, after eight years of inefficiency, that we think our President can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

I heard an CNBC reporter last week voice her complaints, though strictly about the banking situation, that it should be "all hands on deck!" I guess that meant that Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates should have been concerned about the banking situation instead of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan etc. And obviously they should have been more worried about the banking situation than North Korea.

At least Newt Gingrich knows that the administration should have been concerned about North Korea. Of course in his eyes, Obama blew it. He should have launched a preemptive strike against the missile. Since we obviously have the spare funds, and spare troops to launch a third front.

My favorite line from Gingrich was "I just think that it's very dangerous to have a fantasy foreign policy, and it can get you in enormous trouble." Like the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld policy of regime building in Iraq wasn't a fantasy.

Since the Republican Party does not have a left arm, they are forced to constantly turn further and further to the right. Any move in the other direction is seditious, as they have been pointing out for years. They are trapped by their own oratory, so they now must use the only weapons in their arsenal, fear and tax cuts, and they can only appeal to their base by stating that America must go after those who are hell bent on our destruction. They cannot see that preemptive action against the North Koreans would be costly, both in money and bodies, and further erode our international standing.

Don't they remember the end of the Cold War? Just as what happened to the Soviets, Pyongyang is going to run out of money, and Kim Jong-il will run out of power long before they can get a bomb, and a missile to shoot straight.

I guess that is too sissified for Mr. Gingrich, who has a long career in the military and foreign affairs. His idea is to draw first, not from his holster but from a nuclear submarine in the Sea of Japan. Just like in the Reagan oaters, the bad guy will be bested.

Probably not, but his supporters, all couple of dozen of them, will know he's strong.

Joe Scarborough is an Ass

So I woke up about 2:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. There was some good stuff on the TV, though I couldn't watch most of it because my cable system, RCN, sucks. So I was not in the best of moods when Morning Joe came on at 5, though I'm not sure I can be in the right mood for that show, because Joe Scarborough is an ass.

So Joe starts fulminating about the staggering National Debt. He hearkens back to more halcyon days when his hero, Ron Reagan, was President. He states that the accumulated debt of all the Presidents prior to Reagan was $1 trillion. He goes on about the current situation, the $12 trillion debt that he says "has Obama's footprint all over it." Obama has signed one spending bill, and Joe thinks it was for $11 trillion dollars. That's because Joe Scarborough is an ass.

Joe forgets to mention that President Reagan left office with a National Debt just shy of $3 trillion dollars. Joe Scarborough is an ass, but he is also a conservative Republican, by which I mean a god damned liar. Those of his ilk will always leave you with the impression that Democrats are wastrels and Republicans are thrifty. How do you triple the debt in eight years by being thrifty. You don't. Conservative Republicans don't conserve money. The last Republican President to have a balanced budget, or a surplus, was Eisenhower! But Joe won't tell you that, because Joe Scarborough is an ass.

By the end of George Bush's last fiscal year, this coming September, the debt will have doubled since he took office. Joe will now say that Bush wasn't a conservative. Joe didn't mention any of this the last eight years. He's now like St. Paul, the scales have fallen from his eyes and he sees the light - Hallelujah! Bush was not a conservative. When I say he's like St. Paul, it's about the blindness. St. Paul was, well, a saint. Joe Scarborough is an ass.

Later, Andy Card joins Joe and there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the debt. Andy Card, as Chief of Staff, was the first mate on the good ship Piss All the Money Into a Hole. His explanation was that the Democrats exerted too much power during the Bush years. He really said that! Joe nodded in agreement, or else was just doddering. Joe Scarborough is an ass.

It's always the Democrats fault. The control they exerted was obviously hiding the veto pen from the President. The Congressional Democrats must have been the ones who loaded pallet upon pallet full of hundred dollar bills, hundreds of tons of them, and sent them off to Iraq where they went missing. (Nobody is in prison for this, by the way.) Joe agrees wholeheartedly. Joe Scarborough is an ass.

Later, Joe asks Peggy Noonan why there is not more of an outcry from the public as to this deplorable situation. She says that the majority of Americans are more concerned about their day to day lives, that they don't get up each morning overly concerned about government finances. That may be true. It also may be true that if people like Joe Scarborough didn't lie to them, they might have a better understanding of what was truly happening. Joe Scarborough is an ass.

Joe twitters. He's not an ass because he twitters, but Joe Scarborough is an ass. I saw an interview with the guy who founded Twitter. He had a great quote as to the 144 character limit: "creativity will be inspired by these constraints." Really, he said that. I think it's funny.

I also think that Joe Scarborough is an ass.

Another Tribune Bankruptcy

After already filing for financial bankruptcy, The Chicago Tribune today filed for moral bankruptcy. And I'm not talking about the imbecilic thing they did with the Live section. (I can write that, but I don't know how to say it, is the section name the verb or the adjective?) No, it was the item that was conspicuously missing from today's paper.

The Congressional Republicans released their budget yesterday. I heard it on the news, saw it on the internet, some guy even blogged about it. So I wanted to see the Trib's take on it. Went through the front page, nothing there. The Business section, nope. I looked at the Obits thinking I might find:

Party, Grand O. 154, died yesterday after long struggle with trying to impose the will of the few on the many . . . .


but, alas, no.

So the Trib's take on it was to pretend it never happened. If they reported on it, then the Editorial Board may have had to comment on it. The integrity of that board, and I realize I'm being generous, would not allow them to comment unfavorably. So, they ignore it?

If they agree with the plan, they should report it and state their support. If they disagree, they should report it, state their disagreements, and chastise the leadership. But to ignore it?!?!

Then again, they did strike that ostrich like posture during much of the previous administration. So I guess they are being consistent. Morally bankrupt, but consistent.



Interesting note, when I spellchecked, the Blogspot spellchecker doesn't recognize the word internet.


Or Blogspot.

GOP's April Fools Joke!

They tried before to destroy Social Security, now they are trying to destroy Medicare. These are supposedly Christian people with family values, yet they really don't want to see the elderly taken care of. At least not if it means the rich won't get richer!



Their attempt several years ago on Social Security was to pull money out of the system, going into privatized accounts. The end result of this was to hasten the bankruptcy of the system, in the name of trying to save it.



Just think of what the value of those privatized accounts would be today!



Now they are pulling a similar stunt with Medicare, trying to pull people out of the system, when those dollars are necessary to sustain it. They just don't get it!

Social Security and Medicare are insurance policies. Those of you old enough to remember your old pay stubs would have seen OAI for the deduction. Old Age Insurance! It was meant to be insurance against being broke when you retired, not a pension plan!

You buy the policy, alright it is forced on you as a responsibility as a citizen, in case you need the insurance later in life. Just like you buy auto insurance in case you need it. If you don't have an accident, you don't get your money back. If you have sufficient assets and income, you don't need another monthly check, you don't get the monthly check. Same thing for Medicare. If you can afford a better policy, get a better policy!

Again, it just makes me shudder to think of people who call themselves family oriented, family valued Christians even considering ending these programs which dramatically improve the lives of our elderly.