If you're cutting back, and I'm cutting back, and they're...

(10:34:30 PM)
Everybody's got an opinion on the federal budget. I've enjoyed Kevin Drum's analysis at Mother Jones, and the NYTimes has a sweet little roll-yer-own budget fix toy at their site. And the Republican's have the Tax Hike they wrote ten years ago and scheduled as a surprise for this New Year's Eve. Obama and the rest of the G-20 are talking spending cuts to solve the economic disaster brought to us courtesy of Phil and Cindy Gramm, Mozillo's Countrywide, and the folks that rolled and sold the mortgage securities we all got high on, before we crashed.

Here's what I know about the economy:
I'm in a high tech position in a low tech field, in the 6th year of a three-month contract at a privately-held company. I can be let go any day. My wife, on the other hand, has a secure position as a researcher (read "profit-center") at UCLA. As secure as a state employee's job can be in California these days, anyway.
Those things in mind, we are paying off the three credit cards and the second mortgage as fast as we can. We are not buying new cars any time soon. Mine's ten years old, her's is fifteen, but they'll last another five years, until we can buy used in the electric-car or hybrid markets.
We used to go out at least once a week. That ended a year ago, partly due to schedules, partly because of the economy.
We're putting everything we can into not being vulnerable to the banks or the unemployment line.

We ain't helping the economy.

Neither are the corporations that are sitting on, what's the latest sum, one trillion, two trillion in cash? They're flush, but they're afraid to invest in America, because they don't see where it's going. Obama keeps driving along the edge of the ditch, never quite pulling us back onto the road to the future, but never letting the Republicans steer us further off the road into the ditch. The Republicans, now with one-and-a-half houses of Congress, want to extend tax cuts and cut spending on oversight and regulation. Insanity isn't the only thing that is "doing the same thing, expecting different results." The death of America is caused that way, too.

And the wealthy sure as hell aren't spending. Not here. They're getting their exit plans in order. Mister Prince, former owner of Blackwater, now resides in Dubai, which has no taxes and no extradition treaty with us. Offshore accounts, in the Bahamas and on the Isle of Man for example, are doing more business than ever. Wealthy Americans now just consider themselves wealthy. They have enough to live anywhere, and to buy off anyone, to avoid taxes or "penalties."

You and I aren't spending anything we don't have to. Neither are corporations. Neither are the top half of 1%, who have taken their 25% or America's wealth, and taken it off the table. States are almost all in the red, and are bound by their own constitutions and laws to balance their budgets.

So demand is collapsing across the board, as every person, every company, every agency pulls back, holds onto what they have, only reluctantly spends anything, and only when it's absolutely necessary.

That leaves only one possible current source of demand, for goods and services, and research and investment. Only one source of income for the 15 million unwemployed, the 60 million uninsured, the tens of millions of aged and infirm on Social Security.

So the best way, the only way, to grow the American economy, to put Americans back to work, to get American corporations back in the game, not just at home, but in the world's markets, is for the Federal government to...cut back on spending, fire federal workers, reduce other workers income, and eliminate suppprts to the unemployed, the uninsured and the aged.

Because that's Investing in America's Future.

Assuming she has one.
(11:02:10 PM)

Same GOP: '06, '08, '10: Never Give Up, Never Give Up , Never Give Up

(11:05:05 PM)
This one's to catch up on a note that's been burning a hole in my pocket.

Last Saturday morning, while I was running, I heard this interview on NPR's weekend edition. (transcript)
I hope you'll take the five minutes to listen to it. This is the enemy.

This is Mike Fitzpatrick, who just won back the PA-08 House seat he lost to a Democrat in '08. He is not a caricature, like Michele Bachmann or Christine O'Donnell, nor a sharp operator like Haley Barbour, or John Boehner. Fitzpatrick is the drone of the zombie horde, the enemy of the future of America, the walking dead idea. Listen to him. A calm, reasonable voice. Not trying to sell or convince, simply stating his long disproved, and recently re-disproved, Republican mantra: more tax cuts, fewer returns on our social investments, we must make cuts in entitlements, lower taxes to create jobs. You are getting sleepy, you will stay home, you will not vote against us, because we walk the land and feed on brains...brains...brains of FOX viewers....

He's not stupid, he just has no ability to question the  hive mind overlord,  Murdoch or the CofC, whatever those things out there are being controlled by,  but if it takes putting down NPR to keep them from infecting the rest of us, so be it....

Two final points, mildly related to this post.

1) I finally got around to re-upping my subscription to my all-talk NPR station. I re-joined for $10 a month, every month, until I tell them to stop. I had also done this for the Californuia Democratic party's DEM2010 program, starting back at the beginning of the year. That seems to have worked out. (C'mon, Kamala!) With Republicans threatening to take away the maybe 3% of the funding NPR gets through federal grants, I want to help make up the difference.

2) A joke I heard before Halloween: The Zombie Rallying Cry: "What Do We Want?" BRAINS! "When Do We Want Them?"...BRAINS!
(Well, FOX and its viewers do stay on message. Perhaps this explains why.)
(11:22:43 PM)

Nimrata Randhawa Haley vs. Barack Hussein Obama

Now that the elections are over, I have two major writing projects ahead of me. First, I have (been) volunteered for the management of the neighborhood council's newsletter, which is due to have all copy and pics ready this weekend, delivered to the layout person for preliminary set-up. This is my first time out doing it this way, but this isn't a political newsletter, like I did monthly for a few years for my democratic Club.
This one has a circulation of several thousand, delivered, and is printed professionally. I'll be editing and corralling, but hardly write an original line.

Original writing will be left (mostly) to a second year of effort at NaNoWriMo.org, writing a novel of 50,000 words in 30days. >Whew!< Yes, but I did it last lear, and fortunately, this year, Election Day was as early as consitutionally possible, "first Tuesday after the first Monday" and all that.

I will not be boring you with the contents of that novel.But it means that what I post at the blog will usually be short, without much elaboration, but hopefully worth reading.

That said, let me beat on TeaBaggers one more time. Not the 'last time,' just 'one more time.'

Many one-liners stood out in last night's victory, and hard-reality, speeches. Harry Reid's 'that bell is just the sound of the start of the next round' was a winner. Rick Santorum admitting that the reason the 'Contract On America' didn't succeed in 1994 is because 'we didn't have FOX to carry the message.' I couldn't watch the victory speech of whatever clod Feingold lost to in Wisconsin, because I can't afford a new TV right now, and I'd have put my foot through the jerk's picture, mid-sentence.

But the one that struck me was Nikki Haley's speech. You know, Nimrata Randhawa Haley, the new TeaBagger-elect of the state of South Care-a-Lotta Nuthin for Ethics, home of Gov. Sandford of the Appalachian/Argentinean Trail, and Sen. Jim DeMentalCase, and Rep. Joe 'You Lie!' Wilson.

"Eighteen months ago, I saw a state and a federal government losing control. Arrogant in its spending, arrogant in its responsibilities, and a need to step in and say we need to take our state and our country back."

Eighteen months ago, Barack Hussein Obama had been in office less than 100 days. He had not proposed a budget. He had not passed Health Insurance Reform (HIR.) he had not added a nickel to the national debt, and was barely started on a budget that ended up with less deficit spending than the last one the Republicans had passed for their fearless leader, Junior Bush. Obama was still trying to get out from under the steaming turd of an economy that Junior and The Dick had dropped in his lap as they hot-footed it out of DC.

Eighteen months ago, the only thing that had changed was that Bush TARP'd the banks, and Obama took office.

No, eighteen months ago, the real thing that happened as far as any South Carolina Republican was concerned is, omigawd, they's a darkie in the White House.

I suppose it should be nice to see a person of color (Nikki) hate another person of color, on actions and policies. Except that couldn't be what this was about, 'cause Obama hadn't been in office long enough to act much, or have any policies other than the ones he ran on for over two years before the election.

No, the only thing that changed was, thay's a darkie in the White House.

And it's an ugly thing to see self-haters in government. All the gay Republicans who hate gays (David Dreir, I'm talking to you), women who hate women (pick any Teabagger candidate, from Sarah Palin to Michelle Bachman to Carly Fiorina to Virginia Lamp Thomas), and all the people of color who hate people of color because they think that's how to get ahead (Michael Steele, Clarence Thomas, and now, Nikki Haley. It's a short list. Republicans hate people of color)

The corporatists like the Bradleys and the Kochs and Forbes all saw this racist wave come out of the closet the day Obama was sworn in, and they put a shitload of money (that's more than $10 million and less than $1 billion, which, of course, is a fuckload) into getting racists to run against their own interests but in the corporational interests.

And down the toilet we go. Enjoy the ride, because it's dark down in the sewer of racist, corporate shit streams, and it'll be a few years, and at least one more Republican president, before we really solve these problems. And I'm not sure America has that kind of time left.

Like I said, dark.

 

How I Love America (And Why I Sent Money To Al Franken)

I know Al Franken's book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them," is old news by now, and the paperback promised to include the transcript of proceedings of FOX's suit against him over the title. But I'd like to add a note about the book that no one else seems to have noted. In academia, you earn a doctorate, a PhD, by adding a new idea to your chosen field. In that case, among the devastating analysis, satire, and flat-out great jokes, Al earned a PhD in Poli Sci for the following opening to his fifth chapter:

    If you listen to a lot of conservatives, they'll tell you that the difference between them and us is that conservatives love America and liberals hate America. That we "blame America first." That we're suspicious of patriotism and always think our country's in the wrong. As conservative radio and TV personality Sean Hannity says, we liberals "train our children to criticize America, not celebrate it."

    They don't get it. We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America the way a four-year-old loves her mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a four-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful, and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad, and helping your loved one grow. Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world. 

    That's why we liberals want America to do the right thing. We know America is the hope of the world, and we love it and want it to do well. We also want it to do good.

    When liberals look back on history, we see things we're very proud of. And we also see some things, which might have seemed like good ideas at the time, but turned out to be mistakes. And some things we did, well, they were just bad. That doesn't keep us from loving our country --- it's part of loving our country. It's called honesty. What do you think is more important to a loving relationship: honesty or lies?

beginning of Chapter Five, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, by Al Franken

I use this to comfort me, that I am dealing mostly with the immature when I meet Republicans, led though they are by some genuinely mean, bitter people....

PS: A simple comparison of signs from Glenn Beck's 8/28 rally and those at the Rally To Restore Sanity on 10/30/10 demonstrate a lot of this.

Why Republicans Won't Win On Tuesday

The generals are always fighting the last war, as the saying goes, and the pollsters are polling the 2008 electorate.
There are two problems with this, one demographic, and one technological.

Demographically, there are a significant number of younger voters this cycle, ones who registered for the first time in 2008. Many of them may have moved,  many of them may have not participated in the run-up to this election (more about this in part two) but they were sensitized to politics through both the party primary contests of 2007&2008, and then the actual election that brought Obama to the White House with over three times the vote margin that Junior Bush had across both his (s)elections.
The vast majority of this cohort were Obama voters. They're still Obama "monitors." And most of them are still registered.

Second, 2008 was the first presidential election since the cell phone became widely used as the primary or only phone for a large number (majority?) of Americans, and moreso among voters. Even though a huge number of voter registrations were processed nationwide, only the new ones got changes in phone numbers to cell phone numbers, if they put the number down at all. Remember, phone number is not required on registrations in most states, just encouraged. And people who still have home land-lines as well as cell phones usually put down the land-line as their phone number on legal docs.

What this means is that this election cycle is the first cycle where the landline population is ignoring their home phones because all their friends, family and co-workers have their cell numbers, which aren't on the voter reg.
Meanwhile, cell-only phone owners, even if they gave their numbers on their registration, usually ignore numbers they don't recognize or that their phone's phone book doesn't match to a name.
And while robo-calls are out there, and phone banks are burning up the air, the calls are falling on deaf ears, because the robo-calls leave messages that are dumped, and the phone bankers, generally, leave no message at all, but just hang up after four rings, mark 'NoAnswer' on the call sheet and go to the next number.

Polling companies will claim they are taking this into account, but they can't, by definition. They may include a statistically significant number of the younger age bracket, but the quality of these will not match that of the politically aware, if not campaign-engaged, that are registered. Their polls will use younger voters who are hoping for a call, from anyone. Ones who can't or don't hide behind caller-id. Which, you and I know, is not even the average youth, much less the young Obama voter.

But on Tuesday, the energizer gap will have closed significantly by the close of the polls. Because these 2008 voters, living their lives behind caller-id and voicemail, will show up in sufficient numbers to seriously screw with the pollsters' numbers.

And John Boner will still be the limp dick he's always been.
(5:58:41 PM)(6:04:49 PM)

Birthers, Up Close and Personal

[Got this in my In-Box late this afternoon]

To the 2008 California Electors:
 
You will recall that Alan Keyes and others brought a “Birther” lawsuit in November 2008, seeking to block the casting of your Electoral College votes.  We have had the privilege of representing you, President Obama, and Vice-President Biden in that litigation.  As we advised you last year, the case was dismissed by the Sacramento Superior Court on the grounds that the state court did not have jurisdiction over the qualifications of presidential candidates, which the Constitution commends to the Congress, and that the case was moot — plaintiffs failed to even attempt to obtain any order before you had completed voting and President Obama had been inaugurated.

Keyes and his cohorts appealed that judgment, and this week the Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, affirmed the dismissal.  A copy of the court’s opinion, which will be published in the official reports, is attached.  As you will see, the opinion affirms the decision below on all grounds.  

 Keyes can attempt to get review of the decision by the California Supreme Court and, failing that, by the U.S. Supreme Court, but neither court is obliged to hear the case and it is unlikely either one would.  So we expect that this decision will be the final word on the matter as far as California state courts are concerned.  

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

[Happy to send any readers copies of the attachment on request]

America is the Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs. "Let's Downsize It!"

(4:31:00 PM)

Businessmen are lousy in government for a lot of reasons, as I showed yesterday.
But wait. There's more reasons.

Ever met a business man who didn't want to grow his business? Not a successful one, no. He or she wants to do better than the other sales operations, get the better product to market faster, to be able to be bigger than any other people in the same business, maybe in the same area.

Businessmen are built to grow their kingdoms. It's how they know they're important. More important than the other businessman. Reagan grew government bigger by huge amounts. Hell, the largest civilian office building in government is the Ronald Reagan Building in DC.

Please square this with "I want to make it smaller" that they all claim during their campaigns for public office. It's crap when they say it, and they know it's crap. They want more territory, more people who need their OK to inhale or exhale, and, good Republican business people that they are, they will do ANYTHING to be on top. This includes rewriting the Constitution, handing out lobbyist checks on the floor of the House, handcuffing  or stomping opponents and their supporters. This includes going in the hole 4 trillion dollars to buy a second term (Bush Junior's tax cuts) or starting two wars to prove you're more important than your dad (same bozo.)

And they rarely want to learn the ropes. Because being good at business means you're good at everything. It's that ego that knows everything that keeps them from being willing to listen to anyone that's also elected to government. It's especially what makes them lousy legislators: no idea what working on a team is like. Just want to be 'Leader.'

Finally, businessmen seem to think that they are the golden goose that we should all respect and idolize, because they make the gold. But they've got it backwards. They're a dime a dozen, mostly.

But there's only one America. And it's the goose that lays the golden eggs. Whether the gold is long-term investments like sewer systems and clean air standards, or a standardized market for business to grow in, or the businesses it encourages.

America is the golden goose. And businessmen thinking they know how to run it are just like the butcher who cut open the goose in the story, to get all the golden eggs now. Dumb butcher. Dumb businessmen.
(4:58:28 PM)

Being a business owner or corporate CEO is exactly the WRONG preparation for Government.

(6:15:06 PM)
What the hell makes businessmen, and this cycle, businesswomen, think that running a business is any qualification for working in government? And notice I said 'working in'. The idea that no 'ONE' is running the government seems to escape a good many people these days. Even progressives who think Obama was elected Good Witch of the North, complete with magic wand. But especially business people and (usually) the Republicans who are buying that 'run government like a business' load.

Look, it's called a democracy, a republican democracy, for a reason. We all get to vote. We all get to choose who represents us in doing the various functions of government that we find necessary but, usually, realize we have either no time to do, or don't know much about. Or both. Example: what do you know about shale field frakking? Yea, yea, you just got to get the baby's bottle made, what do you care about shale field frakking...Aren't you glad someone is trying to prevent it from releasing crude oil by-products into the water-tables of northeastern North America...oh, yea, you're in California. Who cares about eastern North America?

But here in California, two business women are trying to approach government like a business. First, by buying a major interest in the company, err, in government. And much to their surprise, there's more to it than putting money on the table. The buyer has to actually like you, like what else you bring to the table. And being good at business, which neither of them really were, ain't much of a qualification anyway.

See, you can't just fire the ones who disagree with you. I'm talking to you, Meg. The others get their positions the same way you're trying to. We voted for them. And if they disagree with you, well, tough. This was the great frustration of the Republicans in the nineties. They wanted to fire Clinton, and but they actually needed a cause. Electeds can't just fire other electeds in government because they don't like them. Especially when they've been, oh yes, elected.

Also, government's not there just for a financial profit. Certainly not your own. Truman said you could tell an honest politician by whether he was poorer when he left than he was when he entered the office. You especially don't get to arrange for $40Million golden parachutes. Ya hear that, Carly, ya tone-deaf dirty Q-tip? Did listening to all those HP board members you wiretapped make you tone-deaf?

In fact, government's not in it for the next quarter's returns. So you're in it for the long haul, over a horizon that's way past the end of your term in office. Kennedy spoke of reaching the moon by 'the end of the decade.' Jerry Brown looked thirty years down the road from his tenure in office. Guess what? We're there.

And a big piece of why we can see the horizon at all is because California politicians, especially Brown, saw clean air and clean water as important, and energy efficiencies and pollution reduction as the way to get there. So instead of the smog, and effluent, and multiple nuclear and coal-fire plants business people told us we had to have, Californians use less energy, and less manufacturing materials, than they did thirty years ago. And we can see the mountains from the coast, even with more than twice the cars that were here then. All with the same living standards as the rest of Americans.

Who are suffering, along with us, from the national disaster of letting people run the country like a business, people who claimed to be qualified because they had "run a business, and made payroll."

Frankly, compared to working in government, especially a democratic republic, that ain't shit.

More later, including 'comparing sociopaths.'
(6:37:29 PM) (6:46:51 PM)       

Random Monday: ToDos: Multitasking Sucks

Rounding the corner into the fourth quarter of 2010. Jesus, where does it go? Looking ,at what happened this year around the house and around the life, it takes my breath away. Yet the ToDo list seems as long as, if not longer than, ever. After a few of the things this year, like Mom getting better but Dad dying, and Magnolia expected to graduate at year-end, a lot of the ToDos have attained (or been assigned) entirely different positions on the list.

It's weird. There's a resignation over some things, and a renewed determination about others. The resignation comes somewhat from realizing that there's not as much time left as there was when I was twenty (no duh!), but also from the fact that I know those things were never as important as they were interesting, and important is the only game in town from here on out.

'Important' brings with it determination and, hopefully, focus. Daily, I find examples of getting things done, and often done well, just by doing them to the exclusion of everything else. I have remarked earlier but want to reiterate: Multi-tasking is crap. Sure, you get three things done in the time it should have taken to do...three things. But by intermingling them, none are done as well as any would have been, had it been done to the exlclusion of the others.

Sure, sometimes, it's not possible to deal with the screaming kid and the boiling pan separately. And anger at not being able to separate them is a hallmark of the mind of the self-important. When the world deals you cards and throws you a ball at the same time, well, just be glad you've got two hands.

But why plan to do several things at once? That's just stupid.

I have a hand-scrawled Post-It on the fridge at home, reminding me of this.
"Doing too many things, and None of them Well" is how it reads, punctuation, capitalization and all.
 
At least Dawn is out-growing her Post-It, "Hell Is Other People", a pensee from JPSartre.

"Dinner At Eight, With San Pellegrino" (...sing it with me...)

If you remember the tune for these TV ads for the sparkling water, you'll understand. If you don't, well...here's a link to the jingle. (just press the > play button in the middle). Don't listen to the whole ad, just catch the 4 couplets of the jingle, to get the idea...then sing along:

Purveyor of hate
it's Carl Paladino.

Nothing but straight
for Carl Paladino

The natural state
of Carl Paladino

Is loud and irate
That's Carl Paladino

He cheats on his mate
That's Carl Paladino

She found out too late
About Carl Paladino

Run New York State?
Not Carl Paladino.

Don't take the bait.
Vote for Andrew Cuomo.

Not the best, but it'd be a fun radio spot. Stick the tune in the heads of the voters of New Yahk.

TeaBagger or American: Pick One.

In December of  2008, just before the Electoral College vote to confirm Obama as the next president, I received a package from WorldNetDaily.com. It was a list of 4,000 names, each of which had paid a princely sum ($19.95?) to sign the petition that warned Electors to do their Constitutional duty and vote against Obama, since he'd never shown his birth certificate, and wasn't born in America, and yadda yadda yadda.....I still have it somewhere, if you want to see it.

The Fedex guy who delivered it recognized the sender, and knew my politics. "What'd they send ya?" So I told him, and I showed him. "What are you gonna do with it?" he asked. And my answer was quick, and clear. "If they'd given a rat's ass about the Constitution at any point during the Bush Administration, I might listen to them," I said. "As it is, fuck 'em." He laughed. We shook hands. He drove off.

In the face of this election, the TeaBaggers, (including those 4,000 signers, I'm sure)  have been created out of the whole cloth of hatred for Democrats, but energized by the fact that Democrats actually did what the Constitution said, and elected the person who got the most votes (almost 10Million more than the old guy and the nutbag) and the most Electoral votes, because he was considered more qualified. And who happened to be half-white, instead of all-white.

The Teabaggers are the 18% of America that watch nothing but Fox, listen to nothing but the LimBeck voice of doom, and only read RedState and Freeper-rama. They are the ones that couldn't believe that America would actually elect someone based on their platform and qualifications than on their ability to withstand pain (McCain,) their lack of knowledge (Palin) or their lack of interest (Junior Bush.) At least they were WHITE. (And she's pretty hot in that black leather zipper fetish, and them red six-inch fuck-me pumps. Hoo-aah!)

So when I hear these TeaBaggers screaming about the deficit (90% of which was caused by Bush's tax cuts, two unpaid wars, and deregulation) or about the National Debt (90% of which was generated by the Reagan deficits, and the fiscal stupidity of both Bushs, father and son), and then demanding that "Government better keep its hands off Medicare", (while party Republicans know there's nothing they can cut that won't make voters screammmmmmmmmmm,) well, I just don't have any sympathy.

Because all these problems were created by the Republican 'principles' of tax cuts and deregulation, and all had far worse trend lines when Obama got elected than they do now.

If the Teabaggers had been screaming about this when Georgie suckered them into not one, but two unpaid wars, or when Republicans swindled them into going into debt so that the Bush family's friends could get their taxes cut in half, if any of this 18% had raised a ruckus then, I might listen to them now, when they say 'It's Not Racism' or they whine 'why do you keep blaming Bush?'

But as it is, fuck 'em.

Vote Democratic On November 2nd.

Two Pairs: Pattern Matching The News

(05:39:46 PM)
A couple of match-game matches came to my attention today.

First, counterpoint the story we've all heard about the Tennessee firefighters who came out to watch a home, and the homeowner's pets, go up in a blaze of libertarianism, first telling the owner he hadn't paid the vig..err..the monthly fee for fire protection, with the other end of the spectrum, a NYCity EMT who's been charged with official misconduct for not coming to the aid of a pregnant asthma victim who collapsed and died in the bakery where the EMT was waiting in line with her boyfriend.

Well, at least the EMT called 911. It's something.

Late addition: aren't those Chilean miners glad they're not in that county in Tennessee? "No, sorry, we can't bring him up. He didn't pay this month's rescue fee." "But I have it right here. Please. I miss my husband." "No, senora, you'll have to take it up with Payroll and HR, and they're both gone for the day."


The other match seemed to exemplify social tipping points, and which side of each drew the attention of the court. In 1958, the Supreme Court decided that Alabama didn't have any right to demand the NAACP's membership list. Hmmm...wonder why? Don't you? Alabama seemed to still be trying to drag the darkies back to the plantation. (Has much changed in the 52 years since? Just askin'.)

Last year, the supporters of California's Prop 8 (sponsored by 'Hate me some of them Gays' Mormons from Utah (?!) sued to keep their membership list secret. Perhaps because they want to be left undisturbed on their plantations, in their gated communities and their stadium-size mega-churches?

They lost.

Isn't it lucky for them that us liberals aren't into actual lynchings, setting on of dogs, or calling out the police? Imagine if the WeHoPD treated Prop 8 supporters the way the Selma PD treated the members of the local NAACP?
(06:00:45 PM) (6:04:49 PM)

Court TV...Or Audio, Anyway..Now On, Every Friday

(9:47:11 PM)
A couple of Supreme Court cases have caught my attention.

The more important of the two is FCC v AT&T and CompTel, #09-1279, in which AT&T is claiming protection from requests made under the Freedom of Information Act, for records relating to, well, just about anything that happens in the company. AT&T is that part of FOIA "which exempts document disclosures in law enforcement records that would constitute an invasion of “personal privacy” ", according to this article  applies to AT&T because AT&T is...wait for it...a person !! The GOP continues to play the long con, and with the Roberts court dealing from the bottom of the cold deck the District court judges have been stacking since they were installed during Republican administrations, I don't have any doubts that AT&T and corporations across the world will win big on this ruling. Instead of the specific law in question, Roberts, Noni, Guido and Unka Thom will pull another Citizens U, addressing issues not in evidence and expanding rights that don't exist.

And they said 'penumbra' was nebulous.

This matters why? Because, as the conservative turnover of government services into private hands advances, this will assure that we, the dumb masses, the former citizens, have no right to find out what happens to the tax dollars, or fees, or whatever we end up paying are called, once they're collected by the private providers. Sure, the city of Bell is a cesspool of official corruption, but citizens found out what was going on, and pulled the threads that led to it unraveling. AT&T can't let that happen to them, and Roberts, et al, will make sure it doesn't.

The reason why you can't run a government like a business, at least not in the United States, is because you can't hang that sign that says "We Reserve The Right To Refuse Service To Anyone" in the lobby at the DMV. Or at the Social Security office, or at the VA. And the reason a CEO usually makes a lousy elected executive is because they've lost the skill of negotiating, of working with people who aren't beholden to them, who won't ask 'How High?' when told to jump. Much as Arnold would like, he can't fire a state senator, or the attorney general. Meg wouldn't be able to, either.

But if this case gets the fine fondling I expect it will, in the hands of Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas, the debacles behind closed doors at the companies that will be providing your formerly-government services will be unknown to you...forever.

A sly note: why would this be reviewed by the Supremes when it went the company's way at the appellate level in the Third Circuit? If you pull up the PDF on that page (the link's under 'Documents', called 'Petition') you'll notice the 'Solicitor General, Counsel of Record' for the government is Elena Kagan, the Supreme Court's newest Supreme. As a participant in the case, she now has to recuse herself from its appeal. With an 8-justice panel, a tie affirms the Third Circuit's ruling in favor of the corporations. So the fearsome four-some of Scalia's Mighty Mafia won't have to cajole Tony Kennedy into joining in.

I don't know why they'll bother hearing arguments. Thomas won't ask any questions anyway. He never does. "...than to open your mouth and remove all doubt", I guess.

The other case of interest, and I suppose, for entertainment, is the Westboro Church case, Albert Snyder v. Fred Phelps (or 'how to make your family a tax-sheltered operation'), about the right of this family of "Christians" to picket at the burials of US servicemen, like my dad's at Arlington a couple of weeks ago. Their picketing includes signs claiming that 'God Hates Fags' and that our service personnel are dying because America allows homosexuality. Not "allows it in the military" or "allows it is schools". Just "allows it."

Their right to perform these pickets is what's at issue in the Supreme Court case that was argued yesterday. But the lunacy, stupidity and insanity of this position is what strikes me. Does this mean if we just expelled all homosexuals from America, we could then send our soldiers into battle knowing they could not be killed? A new policy of "MAME", 'Must Ask, Must Expel' would certainly cut down on Defense Dept. expenses, since armor and all defensive systems would become pointless. Send our soldiers into battle with boots, underwear, a gun and lots and lots of ammo. God'll keep 'em from harm.

Yea.

Think of the impression of Christianity this gives to those not familiar with its better works, and saner followers. Think of how all the soldiers of all the 'Christian' nations down through history must have died because there were homos in that nation's populace. It would seem to make hunting down homos the most important thing in the world. It would mean that the people who founded our nation, since a few soldiers died along the way to our independence, need to be held accountable for not writing 'and kill all the homos' into the Constitution.

I think the case should have been brought in a different way: Westboro is an insane asylum that is failing to protect the populace from its patients. It needs to be closed, and the inmates need to be interred at other, more competent institutions. Camarillo got closed out here during the Reagan governorship. Is Bellevue still available in New York?

(10:28:27 PM)(10:39:54 PM)

Back in the Saddle...

(10/6/10 5:38:28 PM)
I’ve been beating myself up for a few days for not writing in a few days, after I’d pledged to myself that I’d write every day.
For a change, I’m just going to start writing here. Welcome to Mister Kelley’s Wild Ride:

It struck me that I used to be able to recall a face and a name when I met a person again, regardless of timelag or context. But that was, what, thirty years ago? Nowadays, I’m lucky to realize I’ve met someone before, unless I’ve had to work with, or for, that person. Yet when I’m back with that person, and reminded of the where or when, the whole context drops in place, and I remember entire conversations, histories, etc. Apparently, my flat memory model has self-reorganized into a paged model, perhaps because of the volume of experience that now fills my head. (How many neurons are wasted on the dozens of ad jingles and TV themes I experienced in my childhood? Or that the latest brain science has discovered that neurons communicate not just through synaptic signalling but through actually twitching physically, actually nudging the neuron next to it.)  I pulled a shirt off the rack at home, to wear to a nice dinner, and where it came from never occurred to me. Yet when Dawn remarked that she’d bought it for me, that cue brought back the entire experience, the shop in Ventura, the smell of the shop and the location of the rack in the store. I could take you there right now. Fighting to make my brain work one way when it wants to work differently is a waste of time, now that I understand what it’s doing.

A side effect, or maybe just a related area, is that I still am looking forward to all the careers I was hoping to choose from, or at least try, when I was in high school. Comedian, mathematics teacher, paleontologist, outfielder for the Reds. This is not to be mistaken for immaturity. At least I hope not. Emotionally, I had to do a lot of growing after I stopped smoking and started growing up again. (The second-worst side effect of addiction is that you stop growing up the day the addiction kicks in. The worst side-effect is swirling down a toilet bowl of life, and trying to drag everyone you know down with you.) No, emotionally I’m mostly the grown-up I look like. But I still expect to get through this part ad then go on to a career in…see above. I think a lot of guys are stuck at their senior year in high school when it comes to self-image. Maybe that’s why guys still think women, younger women, will be attracted to them. Which can be pathetic to watch in even mild cases, much less the Trump or Hefner extravaganzas. Women don’t get off much easier. I think they get stuck around twenty-two, but that’s just my experience from the past.

A friend’s Facebook entry (one of her many today) remarked that one of the fastest ways to lose friends on Facebook is to be too focused. None of that here, eh? In fact, that may be why I’ve been a ‘net fan since about ’94, when I helped write a ‘B’ license domain request for a since-defunct company called Fibermux. That license became the most valuable asset they had when their parent company rolled them up and took all the paperwork back to Minnesota. I love disappearing down the rabbit hole, because it’s like living in the reference library of my brain’s various cubbyholes.

Running long…more on Thursday…
(10/6/10 6:02:15 PM)

Manufacturing: Make It In America (Again)

Steny Hoyer's got a good post up at TheHill.com, the paper for the company town that is DC. It's an article on what we need to do to bring manufacturing back, or reestablish it, in America. And why. And what the Dems have been doing about it.
The rest of this post makes little sense if you don't read it and the comments (there are only seven) on it.

Apparently, my 'comments' were rejected by the administrator. Not sure why. So I'm posting them here. See, I'm a liberal, a Democrat, and I worked 15 years in manufacturing, developing shop floor systems for, among other companies, a job shop/aviation station out in Burbank, at the end of the southbound runway. Unofficial motto: 'We stand under what we sell.' Always proud of that job. I worked in electronics manufacturing, elastomer compounding, and repetitive systems. I loved it.

So when I shoot mine off on manufacturing, I have some experience, and an APICS cert, for those of you who know what that is.

This, then, is the post that wasn't:

@CurryWalker - So you will call your Republican Reps and Sens and tell them to support the Democratic "Make It In America" bill that they blocked yesterday, to give tax breaks for manufacturing jobs brought back to US and eliminate tax breaks for shipping jobs off-shore from now on? Yea, didn't think you would.

@Kimberlee - From '68 to 2008, 40 years, the White House had only two Democrats, Carter and Clinton, for a total of 12 years. For half of those 12 years, Congress was fully Republican (1995 on). Bush Junior had wall-to-wall Republican activism for six of his eight years, and got everything he wanted except the privatization of Social Security. I don't know what 46 years you're talking about. Do you?

@Knuckles - I worked in mfg for 15 years. The big reason Detroit died was because management fought every new technology, from seat belts to unleaded gas to antilock brakes, as well as new materials science and mfg technologies, until after the Japs had installed them in every car, made those cars better and cheaper, and then cleaned Detroit's clock. To this day, most SUVs are classified as trucks, and thanks to industry lobbying, head restraints are not required in those. But try to sell one without 'em.  Union costs over non-union costs for labor were a tiny percentage of the differential among American versus foreign manufacturers of cars. American manufacturing management was just stoooopid. Example: Roger Smith, of GM, tried to replace every worker with a multi-million dollar robot. No redesign of process, no analysis of line layout, no knowledge of robotic technology's abilities. Just a 1:1 replacement. It's a wonder GM lasted until you could blame everything on Obama.

The reason why this recession will take so long to recover from is that we have no idle plants for workers to return to. Most of the jobs have left. The last major manufacturing industry is/was housing. Until someone has the balls to create an entire new, local industry (say, solar on every roof in America, which would create mfg jobs, installation companies, infrastructure investment, maintenance and repair businesses, reduce pollution by reducing burning for energy, and improve security by dispersing the national power-generation capacity) this recession is going to last, and America's employee class is going to be working for peanuts.

And that was the Republican plan all along. And you can look that up on the ATR.org web site. (Hi, Grover!)

Tax cuts and deregulation have been the order of the day for twelve years (1995 Gingrich Revolution to 2007 Dem Take Back of America,) and we're in the disaster that is the natural result of using those policies, exclusively, to run a country. And Republicans can't (or won't) propose anything else. "Party of Ideas" indeed.

Javier Makes My Day

(07:01:14 PM)
I met Javier yesterday as I was registering voters at the Abbot Kinney Street Festival. Javier was one of the many I approached, fishing in a stream of people walking from booth to booth in the hot sun and the loud music of the annual neighborhood event. My Democratic Club always runs a booth there, getting volunteers for the upcoming election and selling swag to raise money for, well, the registration fee for this booth. Volunteering is never a financial success, but it's how we took America back from Cheney and Rove and their dwarf, Junior Bush.

I try not to 'profile' who might be a likely target for registration. I ask new young Yuppie parents, packs of Hispanic girls, black ladies with parasols, skatebaorders with tattoos. I'm not looking for Dems or Republicans (although I love a good face-off.) Dad always said "The more people who vote, the more Democrats get elected." Obama won his White House by more votes than all the Bushes put together, because we got the vote out, not by working to suppress the vote, like Richard Viguerie recommends to Republicans.

So when a stocky, sunburned guy came shuffling past, I asked 'Are you registered to vote?' He stopped, realizing I was talking to him, and said something in Spanish. Thick, Mexican Spanish, at least to my ever-so-Midwestern ears. I tried again, slower. 'Votar?' he asked. 'Si!' And I kept trying. 'Citizen? Are you a citizen?' 'Si!' he said, smiling. Then something about 'nuevo california' and 'Arizona no mas.'  He barely had any English, and I was becoming certain this was a losing proposition, but he'd filled out forms before, and as I pointed at the spaces, we discussed in very bad whatever what each meant. 'What state or country were you born in?' I asked in several different ways. 'California? Arizona? Mexico?' trying to get him to mistakenly admit he was from south of the border, and couldn't really vote in the election. 'California! Anaheim!' he announced.

Javier was born somewhere near Anaheim back in 1973, which makes him 37. As far as I could figure it out, when he was one year old, his family moved back to Mexico. A death in the family back there. Grandfather? He stayed there until maybe four years ago, when he came back to Arizona (friends, family there, apparently) to get work. But since the recent SB1070 passed in Arizona, he has to show his papers 'six, seven, every day' as he showed me his Arizona drivers license, Social Security card and California birth certificate. So about six months ago, he moved to California.

He's working when there's work. His English is lousy, but how many of you have tried to learn a new language in your thirties? In fact, who among you would have the balls to move to a foreign country where your foreignness, and your lack of language, leaves you excluded from day-to-day socializing, and makes your job prospects only marginally better than the place you left? Which is why most first-generation immigrants have a better work ethic than most 'I was born here' Americans. They've taken the big chance.

Which is why I was proud to register him to vote. When we got to the 'Party' checkboxes, he pointed at me. 'You?' 'No, you choose.' He pointed at me again. 'What you?' I pointed at the banner above the West LA Democratic Club's booth. Javier looked at the sign, looked back down at the choices, and checked the 'Democratic Party' box.

He finished the rest of the form, signed and dated it, and I gave him his receipt. I also gave him a Party Endorsements sheet.
'Gracias' he said.
'Muchas gracias, Javier.'
He made my day.

And that's what we get for taking people as they come, instead of profiling them.

Now I need to make sure he gets to the polls.
Welcome home, American...
(07:29:14 PM)(07:38:29 PM)

SEC, Allen Stanford's Ponzi, and More Of The Same from the GOP

(10:56:00 AM)
Watching C-Span while we pack to head back from the funeral and our so-called vacation. SEC IG H.David Kotz testifying and answering questions at Dodd's Senate Banking Committee, about the R. Allen Stanford Ponzi scheme. The two salient points of his examination are that the SEC office in Texas figured lout this was a Ponzi scheme in 97, 99, 02, 04 and 05, before the SEC actually brought action in 08 & 09, and that the Texas office did not get news to the DC Main Office until the 2005 examination.
I don't know who was running the SEC office in texas in the mid-90s. Normally, I'd expect a Democratic appointee. But with the Gingrich revolution changing a lot of rules in Washington, and the Republicans owning both houses, so any appointee (Barrett, head of Enforcement in that office, as they just said,) was probably picked to clear the hurdle of Republican expectations about enforcement: Don't do any enforcement.
This was exemplified by the appointments of first Harvey Pitt and then Chris Cox as heads of Junior Bush's SEC in Washington. And Kotz's testimony implies that, had Madoff not confessed to his crimes, the SEC probably would not have done anything about the Stanford fraud. Sen. Jim Bunning, and Key Bailey Hutchison are shocked, shocked I say, that the people they voted to appoint to these offices were completely incompetent.
This is all of a piece with the GOP's attitude towards enforcement of almost any laws or rules that Big Money is subject to: First, avoid passing any regulations. Second, appoint or permanently hire and place chairs and staff that are explicitly opposed to enfocement, or are untrained in the regs to be enforced. Third, reduce or eliminate funding for the agencies that do enforcement. And finally, denigrate that function of government and anyone who would perform that function as the law requires and the legislators expected when they passed the rule. Remember, 'original intent' is valid for a 250-year-old Constitution, but not for the 40-year-old Clean Air Act, or the 1937 creation of the SEC.


And if you'd like this kind of quality operation to continue in government, sign up to the GOP's new Pledge to America, another repackagingof the same old crap, including the enforcement attitude I remarked on above.
Jon Stewart did a fun analysis of that Pledge, an analysis that only works as a video. Watch.
(11:25:36 AM)

A Shame About The Washington Post: Bad Education, Worse Reporting.

(8:30:55 AM)
We’ve spent the last two nights with friends, at their condo on the beach on the DelMarVa peninsula, southwest of DC. Dawn seems to have caught a cold, and is living on Sudafed and an occasional pinot grigio. But the weather’s been great, the water, too, and I’ve managed to avoid most of the noise going on in politics. The Post is the only generally available paper down here, and after skimming a couple of copies when we were in DC for the funeral, it seems pointless to read during our ‘vacation’ time.


I mean, how far can a paper fall from its heyday as the paper that broke Watergate, printed the Pentagon Papers, broke a president? Now, the two copies I’ve skimmed this week each had three of the ‘A’ section pages used for ads against the Dept of Ed’s proposed regulation of private training schools. The ads are because the Post Company makes most of its money from its Kaplan Educational company, which trains people to take tests, among other things.


Most of WaPo’s editorials were anti-Obama, both from the right wingers and from their supposed lefties. I guess they’re trying to out-right the rightwingers who left the company to found Politico, a site I avoid unless I want the views from what I describe as the rational, or Rockefelller, Right.

Politico is for the Republican left-behinds, who want a party somewhere between the Democratic Party and the TeaBags, but can’t seem to see that the Democratic Party is currently selling the mid-seventies Republican Party line. The Dem leadership certainly isn’t pushing much that can be called progressive or forward looking, at least not by seventies standards.

The success of the right wing , the Kochs and the Bradleys, Norquist and Limbaugh, in pushing the ‘legitimate political spectrum’ to the far end of the right wing, is not the amazing thing. It’s that they continue to whine that it’s not right-wing enough, that they are still victims of a terrible communistical socialist conspiracy, now headed by a Manchurian-candidate muslim from Kenya.


And Politico, and the Washington Post, are far too scared of them to report on this, to do a history of how this happened, naming names, listing organizations, and doing an accounting of it. Not as an indictment, or to reverse it, just to, ahem, ‘report’ it. (You guys do remember how to report, don’t you?)


An analogy, for those Redskins fans: Remember when the 50-yd-line was at the middle of the stadium, and the endzone goal posts were at either end of the field? Welll, politics in America now has the left end goal post at the center of the stadium, the 50-yd line at the wall in front of the first seats at the end of the stadium, and the right goal post most of the way up the stands. What used to be the middle of the field is now the far left end of play, and what used to be out of bounds, waaaayyyy out of bounds, is now the place where most of the plays occur.


This analogy probably will be lost on most Post readers. I mean, have you read their Sports page lately? Sheesh. Two-day old line scores for their own Nationals. I wonder if they’ll print the Redskins’ results before Tuesday.


A shadow of its former self. No wonder they’re trying to make up the margin by swindling folks who need vocational training into taking on college-size debt.


PS: Isn’t it a shame that I can write ‘college-size debt’ and you know, probably first-hand, what I mean? More on that another day.
(8:59:02 AM)(9:07:22 AM)

Dad's International Sponge Circuit

(8:24:45 AM)


Been off the air for a week. A promise to myself, to write daily, and post daily, broken. Ah well, probably break it the next time I bury a parent, too. Big whup. Back at it today. Weirdly, I’m actually in Delaware, ground zero for the TeaBagger Effect, personified in Christine O’Donnell. And I could vent on that for a week or so, easy.
But my wife and I are here visiting friends, making parents’ friends into personal friends, after my father’s funeral at Arlington. I haven’t looked at the net since I posted pictures of that event, largely because every time I got to the point in the day I wanted to write, Dawn had tuned into the ‘This American Life’ site, put on the headphones, and gone to sleep. Beats hell out of sleeping pills. But since we only brought one netbook with us, I end up having to just relax, read a book (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 5 stars) or go for a walk. Vacation. I’d almost forgotten what it was.
It’s amazing how, in just a few years, Dawn and I have gone, as a couple, from two or three multi-week vacations a year to having to sneak a week on the DelMarVa coast, using my Dad’s funeral as an excuse to get away. We’re both to blame for the change, Dawn’s school and my annoying political habits, and we’re both also subject to the duties of children to their aging parents, which have been sudden and large for both of us over the last five years. First Dawn’s, then mine. And of course, the ‘for better or worse’ clause makes hers mine, and vice versa.
Nonetheless, this scheduled but unstructured avoidance of responsibilities, this vacay, has been relaxing. A chance to remind us of how well we vacate together. Little things remind us of other vacations we took in the early years of our marriage. Conversations with all the people, friends as well as relatives, that came for Dad’s memorial, inspire us to make a better effort to get back on the travel habit. We’ve never seen Asia, or Africa. Dawn’s never seen any of England, and, well, there’s a lot of America we’ve each seen without the other, and want to share. Crested Butte, for example. And the Montana cabin Dawn built.
The folks we’re visiting (I’m at their dining room table at this moment, only one up. No, not any more, Bob just walked past to go get the morning papers,) are off in a few days for a three-week trip to Paris, perhaps my favorite place on the planet. While there, they’ll visit friends of my family’s, friends I’ve known since I was 11. These friends met those friends at our wedding.
Make friends. Travel. Introduce your friends to one another. Meet their friends, and pay attention to them, because you can learn about the world from them, and maybe you can see the world from their perspective first-hand.
My dad jokingly referred to this as his ‘sponge circuit,’ built of brothers of his, of my mom’s, professors from the many universities my dad had attended or taught at over decades, and of course, friends from politics and from the war, WWII.

Build your own sponge circuit. Go sponge of those folks for a few days. Let them come sponge off you. It’s a better, more authentic experience than hotels and travel brochures. It’s the original social network.
And it beats hell out of sitting at your computer, reading Facebook.

Done for now. The beach calls, and I must answer…
(8:55:03 AM)(9:04:16 AM)

At Least Government Has To Tell You When They Take Your Money

(4:33:07 PM)

Well, you can't say our home-builders aren't innovative. Faced with the collapse of their market's demand in the face of an over-built supply, they need cash, or at least an asset to leverage. (Don't we all?) The banks got theirs (from us), and ain't lending to no one, no way, no how. So where to get the cash, where to find an asset.

How about making one up out of thin air, or more precisely (and expectedly) out of your pocket or mine?

Developers have started tacking a 'commission' covenant onto the sales contracts for tract homes they've built. A covenant that says that every time that home is sold, for the next 99 years, that developer gets one per cent of the sale price. Nice, huh? Automatic inflation on homes, just to cover, not the builder's cost and profit margin, but his future cash needs, as insurance against another disaster caused by, umm, err, his housing industry.

Not outrageous enough? How's about this one: they don't even have to show you that covenant. Yep, they can write a covenant that says anything, and you won't know about it. Whether it says they get 1% of every sale of that home, or that the broker must always send a dozen roses to their sainted aunt to celebrate the sale, you won't know a thing about it. Isn't it nice to know that you are participating in a sale where you're not allowed to know all the terms. Doesn't that sound Republican?

Well, two can play at this game.

One of the reasons why the housing bubble disaster happened was that no one writing paper, whether the original mortgages or the the AAA ratings on bundles of mortgages, or the insurance on those securitized bundles, no one had to hold onto that paper. But, as the developers' covenant trick proves, we can track sales and corporations for almost a hundred years.

So how about stretching out those commissions over the life of the mortgage too?

Instead of the broker getting his whole commission the day the mortgage is signed, regardless of whether or not the mortgage ever is paid, how about a piece of each mortgage payment going to that broker's bank account? Smooths out his income, and more importantly, keeps the quality of the mortgages up, since the guy dioesn't want to do the work for a mortgage that won't be paying next year because the person goes bankrupt. If the mortgage gets paid off in a sale, he gets fully paid off from that.

Same for the securities that Fitch or Moody's rates. Maybe they should be required to take half of their fee in the offering they're rating. And have to hold those secutities or bonds for, say, two years before they could sell them. They'd be much more likely to be realistic about their ratings.

I can dream, can't I? But we know the house never rigs the game to improve the odds that every one does better, just so that the house does better. Kind of an Ayn Rand thing. Me first, screw everyone else. We can see how well that worked out for America, can't we?

In the meantime, I've moved my mortgage to my credit union. Not because I hate banks. Just because I'd like my mortgage to be held by the institution that wrote it. If that had been the rule across the board, none of this crap would've happened to begin with.

But those financial guys, well, you can't say they're not innovative. You just wish they were a little less gung-ho about it.
(04:55:07 PM)(05:04:18 PM)

A Real Reality Show

(11:38:05 PM)
This one's quick.
I don't watch 'reality TV', mostly because it's less 'real' than anything else on TV. (I do know what's going on in reality, thanks to 'The Soup' on E! channel on Fridays. Funnier than hell !)
They swap wives, swap spit, swap in the dark. They date, they fight, they curse and backbite anddrss badly to cover the disasters of their extreme makeovers. They're reality show contestants, on islands, in the hilss, from Bachelors to Housewives.
And they'll talk about anything, or anyone, as long as it's on camera.
Except one thing.

So let me pitch my new Reality Show: 'GLA$$ HOU$E$' : Real people list the actual value of all their assets and debts , reveal their income amounts and sources and review their last tax return.

What if everyone found out that none of us are making any money?
What if we actually knew how much money the people we look at, on TV or in the movies, in politics or sports, make, and who they're paying?
Wouldn't you watch to see all the expenses of Lady Gaga, and how much she spends to avoid paying her taxes.
Wouldn't you like to see where Limbaugh spends his $400 million multi-year contract?

I don't know where to go with this, but I know this is the only real taboo in America. We'll put snuff porn on the internet, send nude pics of ourselves to our lovers using cell phones, we'll publish video of animals being squashed by feet dressed in fancy shoes. That last was just declared legal under First Amendment rights. I don't know where to go with that, either.

But dare anyone to put their actual tax return up on the web, with their name on it, even if all the other person info is redacted, and you'll see them stare at you as if you'd proposed using their 4-year-old as a food source.

It's said that in France, they will talk about their finances, but never about their sex lives. I know it's just the opposite here in America. Because money is the real porn in America. And how much you really have, and how you really got it, is a secret everyone keeps, and no one wants to tell. Parents hide it from children, spouses hide it from each other, services now investigate it for fiancees before they get married, because 'I love you and trust you' doesn't include money and finances.

And no, if this show gets picked up, I won't tell you how much they pay for it.
Because there's a difference between Honesty and Reality. And there's only so much of either we can handle.
(12:08:24 AM)

My 9-11 Isn't Like Yours

Please indulge me.
My experience of Sept. 11th separates me from my fellows in America, and every 9-11 I want to talk about it.

I was in Naples Italy, vacationing with Dawn, when the planes hit. We toured Pompeii (couldn't get home, after all) while the ash fell on Manhattan. We made it to Paris and stayed with family friends of my father from WWII, while we waited for the flight ban to be lifted, and we attended bi-lingual services at Notre Dame, for all the losses in America, and all the stranded travelers in Paris, while the Mayor went on the radio hourly asking for citizens to call in to volunteer to take in these same travelers that had overwhelmed Paris's hotels.

We came home to zombie-followers of Bush, liberal friends all, who had seen 8(?) days of uncommercial, unplotted TV news, seen the attack played ad infinitum and the speeches of Junior and Rudy run on perpetual loops on TV.

We had seen the true reaction of the world, in Italy, France and England, among locals and immigrants like our taxi driver in Paris, a Muslim who refused to let us pay for our fare.'We're all Americans now.' The old crone from Greece, traveling to her brother's funeral, who patted my hand during the world-wide minute of silence while we were in the air from Rome to Paris, 'So sad. So sad.'  The French Antarctic explorers we stayed with, in their eighties now, who brought their 5-nation reunion to a halt as we entered, and raised their glasses to these two disheveled Americans, "We are all Americans." I damned near cry as I type this, remembering their unanimous pride in America.

But the thing that I remember most is the monument the Parisians have put up, on the far corner of the gardens of Les Invalides, to the victims of the series of bombings in Paris in the mid-90's, bombings most of us never heard about.
It is a fountain of a stylized, single person in a long coat, standing on a small rise. The person's backbone is absolutely straight, a rectangular bar than cannot be bent. The person holds something in the crook of its left arm. And that something explains the rise the statue stands on. Because that something is the person's head, eye-to-eye with the observer, open and unflinching. While the water of the fountain flows slowly out of the severed neck of the person, killed in a terrorist attack, and flows down the coat, the person continues to stand, unbowed, open-eyed, undaunted.

I needed that monument that day, to remind me that people before us have known how to survive, how to continue, how to deal.

And I recall it as a symbol of all the people I met in those two weeks when I couldn't return home, and it counters the hatred my government later ginned up against all those people for not doing what our president wanted in Iraq. It reminds me of the opportunity America and the rest of the world lost by having the government we had that day.

And until I die, I will never forget that, and I doubt I will ever forgive those bureaucrats, Republicans all, for throwing that opportunity away.

Second BP Spill Coats Partners and Contractors

(04:40:03 AM)
I hate that I am not surprised at BP's blackwashing of its responsibility for the Deepwater platform's oil volcano this summer. After sitting through hours of Congressional hearings broadcast on C-SPAN (god help me, I've got it on satellite in my car, even) it was obvious that Hayward and his fellow fuck-ups at BP were doing everything they could to minimize perceptions, of the spill and of their part in causing it. By the time BP's incident report came out Thursday (NYTimes article and BP Report) I don't think anyone was surprised when it basically said, 'Yea, it happened, but it wasn't our fault, so fuck off!'

And the neat thing about that attitude, that corporate stance is...they'll make it stick. Because it's the new American standard, and we're who they're selling on that position. We'll buy it, because, for all the lip-service our culture has given responsibility and accountability, we don't expect anyone to actually own up to it anymore.

I'm not sure when it started to fade away. John Wayne's characters always admitted when they were wrong, whether they liked it or not. President Truman said 'The Buck Stops Here' and became famous for being the little backwoods senator who went from contractor plant to food processor, exposing graft, corruption, and war-profiteering during WWII. President Johnson decided not to run for a second term, because his actions in Viet Nam had become too devisive, and even Nixon acted on the consequences of his crimes in office, the only president to ever resign. But it took him years to come close to admitting his crimes. Carter took responsibility for the Iranian hostage crisis, and lost the presidency partially on the actions he took and didn't take in that event.

But Reagan claimed to not know, or not believe, that crimes were committed in the Iran-Conta debacle, and his VP and successor, George HW Bush, pardoned everyone to avoid anyone contradicting his claim that he 'wasn't in the loop' on those crimes. Clinton admitted mistakes of policy but never those of his peccadillos, and the Republicans who hunted him never saw the destruction of a nation as a bad thing. And since Bush Junior never made any mistakes, he had nothing to take responsibility for.

But at least we can vote on them, and vote them out.

But BP and other corporations seem to have arrived at a wonderful point here in America. With almost no exception, they are never wrong. Their products don't fail, their practices are legal, their motive is always and exclusively to maximize profits for the shareholder this quarter, and that's the only thing a company is supposed to think about, isn't it?

If anything goes wrong, it's not their fault. GM failed, not because it fought against its own lack of modernization and its refusal to see the future, but because employees were paid too much. Lehman Bros. didn't fail because they were leveraged 30 to 1 in a market that relied on a perpetual-motion machine of always-rising home prices, but because the Fed didn't lend them a hand. The collapse of the US economy isn't because of thirty years of steady defunding of regulatory agencies combioned with the denigration of that function in government, combined with a religious aversion to paying the bill for civilization (otherwise known as 'taxes'.) No, it was caused by an out-of-power Congressional fag running interference for Fannie and Freddie. Not one person has been removed from office for starting the longest most expensive war in America's history. Because Saddam attacked us on 9-11.

Don't get me started on Iran and Iraq. See tomorrow's post on 9-11 for that.

The American corporation has become impervious to blame. The corporation is used, not to create something long-lasting and useful, but to shield its owners from responsibility. LLC means exactly that. S Corp is for that specific purpose. To avoid human, personal responsibility for the consequences of human actions. A corporation is a piece of paper that authorizes human action. It does nothing until a human does something in its name. This is why not one single person has gone to jail for destroying the world's largest economy. (Bernie Madoff doesn't count. He wasn't accepting blame, he confessed to avoid being murdered.) Experts and corporate officers can never be wrong because...well, because then no one would hire them as experts and corporate officers any more.

This is a far larger subject than a blog entry can do justice, so thanks for sticking with it this long. A complete rewrite of the corporate contract is in order, from its place in society and its goals, to how it is monitored, fined, jailed (if a corporation is a person, it should be capable of being jailed) and a method of involuntary death, for being a menace to society, should be defined.

But when you look around you, at the 'culture of accountability' that Bush promised, once 'the adults [were] in charge' as Cheney declared, notice that almost no one of any importance takes any responsibility for anything, anymore.

Ever. 
(05:22:13 AM)(05:33:38 AM)

Republican Dream, American Nightmare

Scene: Night. A standard two-story suburban house, on fire, fills the screen.
As the camera pulls back, waist-level close-up of glowing screen of hand-held credit card terminal, held by a work-gloved hand. The other glove holds a credit card.
The screen blinks..."WAITING..."... "WAITING..."
Camera pulls back again, showing two men, the left one in a heavy coat, his gloved hands holding the terminal and the credit card.
The man on the right, disheveled hair, one untucked button-down shirt-tail hanging out over his slacks, looks nervously from the burning house to the terminal screen.
Suddenly the screen brightens. It says "APPROVED."

The gloved hand hands the credit card to the nervous man, and turns offscreen as the camera pulls further back.

"OK, Let's Put It OUT!!!" the gloved man shouts, as camera now cranes back and above, revealing him as the leader of a crew of firemen who've been waiting to see if they'd get paid for their work.
The fire crew leaps into action, hoses bursting into spray over the house, surrounding it, spraying from two or three directions.

Over closing action, screen reads:
"REPUBLICAN DREAM. AMERICAN NIGHTMARE."

Voiceover: If you don't want this to be America's future, Vote Democratic.

-----------
If you think this can't happen, you haven't been paying attention. Read this.

Koran-flavored Burgers...yum!

(01:32:23 PM)(Too many synapses firing today...)
Down in Florida, some clown is planning to celebrate 9-11 by burning the Koran.
And they're already rioting over it in Indonesia and Baghdad.
Out there, they don't understand that in the US, especially in the hinterlands, any boob can slap a cross on his lawn, claim to be a preacher, and collect a few parishioners whose cars can't get them into a real church anymore.
Such is the preacher at the Dove Ministry, whose 80 followers help put the 'duh' in Florida.

But if their religious convictions demand that they burn  Korans, it's their First Amendment right.
And no one can stop them. And every news camera in America will be down there in the boonies of Swampsuck, Florida, to record it.
And broadcast it.
Worldwide.
Regardless of General Petreaus's saying that their doing this will threaten increased hostilities against Americans worldwide, especially our soldiers.
Cause these are good Americans: self-centered, me-first, whatever-it-takes-to-get-on-TV Americans.
And any clown can drag the Weber out of the garage, throw in some Kingsford and a match, and then toss on his kid's Science book, a picture of the president or the religious book of his choice, and grill burgers over the flames.
 
Yes, this is America. And there is only one response.

Collect a gross of King James Bibles, a box of Torahs, a smattering of Book of Mormon, another gross of catholic Bibles, a few Shinto scrolls and a couple of Buddhist prayer wheels (for color).
Hell, maybe even a picture of Madelyn Murray O'Hare.

Drive 'em down to that church at showtime.
And with all those cameras running, toss 'em in with that bozo's Korans, and light 'em all up.
Thus proving that America makes no law respecting the establishment of religion.
By demonstrating a complete absence of respect for all those religions.

Maybe the Muslims that are so threatened by a copy of their sacred book being burned will get over it.
I mean, Allah'll still be there, won't he?

And maybe Americans will see how stupid they look to the rest of the world.
Because, for at least one day, this small-minded yahoo is the world's image of 'American.'
And we should be ashamed.

(01:48:49 PM)(01:52:22 PM)

NRA: Not Real Americans

(07:27:30 PM last night)
Now, I've promised myself to write every day. I let people know, but I don't expect much in the way of readership. And I haven't been disappointed. But I wrote Saturday about the SouthBayOpenCarry card table at the Hermosa Beach Arts Fair. And that brought me readers. Go read the comments. They're fun. I learned several things.

One: Someone is monitoring for this sort of thing. If you Google for any keyword in my post, you will NOT find my post. I looked through 20 pages of Google results for each of about ten terms. Nothing. (Humbling, but part of the scientific method.) Two possibilties are left: I've got more than one Facebook friend who is a Republican, or the NRA is running a spider and has zip-coded rapid response teams. Maybe they even get points at the local gun club. But it was surprising how easy it was to get a response.

Two: Not one of them read what I wrote. I mean, it went in their eyes, and then set off their lower extremities, causing knees to jerk. But that's not reading.

Three: They come in a wide variety of closed minds and jerking knees.

Four: They assume I know nothing of guns, am therefore afraid of them, and in a couple of cases, that a few sessions with one would cure me of said fear.

(07:35:55 PM pause for dinner and a show)
(08:12:12 AM this morning)

The point to my column was something rarely remarked on, that the second amendment was unique in that the authors felt an obvious need to explain why it was included. They explained that a state, in order to remain free, needed a well-regulated militia, because, until WWII, the U.S. didn't see the need to maintain a significant national standing army. It drafted as needed, but only if the volunteer militias of the various states were insufficient to whatever needs the national interest were.

They didn't justify the amendment with a need for personal protection, or a explanation that every other member of 'We The People' should be looked upon with suspicion. In fact, secure in their homes and papers is a completely separate amendment.

Not one of my commentors responded to this.

How they did respond was fun to read. One gave me several Jefferson quotes, all at the ready, pre-fab from his local NRA chapter. One quote says, almost verbatim, that in the range of sports that can keep you in shape, shooting stuff keeps you sharp without taxing you physically (see 'video games') while games played with balls require too much exercise, (and probably bathing, too.) More on this later.

Another was a woman who commented that my blog wouldn't take comments. A dial-tone that can type.
And of course, personal favorite:
"Ah, the problem... A member of the party of treason, hate, and racism complaining about the 2nd Amendment." 

I especially like the "Ah, " at the beginning. As if the author has given this a significant amount of consideration. And this is the great analysis that resulted. At least the one with the list of quotes could keep track of where to cut and paste them from. This one just had to get back from the toilet to watch the second half of Glenn Beck.

Finally, granted, I haven't been shooting...since the Santa Anita Firing Range closed. Always liked that place. Because at a range, just like Jefferson explained, it's a sporting location, like a bowling alley. Bring in the bowling ball/gun, or use one from the house. Ask for a lane, get a scoresheet or 10, maybe you have your own shoes/earcuffs, maybe you use the house's. Don't bowl in the other guy's lane, wait til they roll/shoot before you do. And at the end, you've checked your game, improved on a weakness or developed a new skill, and maybe picked up a twenty betting with someone on who can score best. And you need a shower. Burnt powder stinks worse that cigarettes.

I started shooting when my grandfather let me and my cousin help build a .22 rifle. 'Why does the barrel have eight sides?' I won a few contests with .22s at Boy Scouts when I was living in Wisconsin. My dad was a teacher, not a factory guy, so I was usually one of the boys left in class when the rest went out for deer season or duck season. Ever been to Horicon Marsh? One of my best friends died of a blood disease at twelve. They buried him in his Scout's uniform, with the key's to his new Ski-doo, and his .22LR.

Since then, I've practiced with a little 5-shot S&W Police Chief thumbless revolver, a few automatics from .22 to 9mm, and a 586 S&W which is just dead on the target if I use wadcutters. And that Henry Survival .22 rifle breaks down small for store and carry. (Buy American!) Just needs a little plumbers tape before closing the stock, to keep it watertight.

But my ex-cop and cop friends all recommend 1) don't have a gun at home, because you'll shoot a friend, and 2) if you HAVE to have one at home, have a light action pump shotgun. Because a) you or your wife won't have to aim it well to hit something, b) even if you don't hit anything, you'll scare the crap out of an intruder and alert the neighbors, and c) (and this is a biggie) shot pellets stop somewhere inside the wall, while most penis-replacement bullets with overloads (the usual for macho men) travel through walls, across streets, through furniture, endangering your neighbors several apartments or even houses away.

This last is why open carry is dumb. Because there's just nothing that thrills me more than half a dozen scared, under-experienced, poorly-trained civilians pulling down at the same incident, and starting to fire.

A final note: Women who feel socially inadequate in current American culture get breast implants. Men who feel similarly threatened buy guns. In both cases, I feel sad that you think so little of yourself, and of Americans, that you think this will improve you.

But at least tits won't go off accidentally in the line at Starbucks.

(08:46:46 AM)(09:00:45 AM)

Koch-heads and Koch-Suckers...

(6:11:05 PM)
First, let's be straight about their names. It's spelled K-O-C-H, but it's pronounced 'COKE', like the drink from Atlanta or the drug from Bolivia. It's the first subterfuge in the lives of Charles and David Koch, cause if you hear the name, you don't know how it's spelled, and vice-versa.

I won't go over Jane Mayer's article in the 8/30/10 New Yorker. If you've read it and not been appalled at the Koch brothers and their operations, you're not an American. Why you should care: They own the second largest privately-held corporation in America, and they own the Tea Party operations nationwide. If they weren't funding the Tea party, it wouldn't exist.

But in reviewing the article, a couple of things struck me. One was how much money they have, and how they lie to themselves about it. David Koch jokes that he learned business through buying low, selling high, year after year, until  (punchline:) "Father died and left me three hundred million dollars!" And that was 1967 dollars, when the average annual income was around $7,300, a house ran about $14K and a new car was $2,375. So this wasn't like a measly $300M is today.

 Fred Koch, fresh from MIT, invented a newer way to refine oil to gasoline. But when Big Oil of the time (1930s) shut him out, he went to Soviet Russia and helped them set up refineries based on his technology. It's where he made his early money, until Stalin started confiscating everything and purging his associates. He came back to the states, started an oil company of his own, and in the late 50's, was a founder of the John Birch Society. Apparently, he was unable to tell the difference between a democratic republic and a totalitarian dictatorship. Something else Fred left his sons.

So neither David nor his brother Charles are what you would be called self-made men. Not like their father, who actually invented something after his graduation from MIT. But they like to appear philanthropic. On the first page of Mayer's article, she lists The following donations by David H. Koch:
$  2.5M   - American Ballet Theatre
 100.0M  - Lincoln Center refurb
    20.0M - Am Museum of Natural History
    10.0M - MOMA
    40.0M - Sloan Kettering Cancer Ctr

That's roughly $175 Million. Since 2008. From a guy who, along with his brother, is worth $35 BILLION. And, along with his brother, owns, OWNS, a conglomerate with $100BILLION in annual revenues. This isn't a philanthropist. His total donation, over several years, is one-half of one per cent of their net worth. It's not even a major part of the interest he's earning on his principal.
And what's his brother, Charles, doing with his money. According to interviews, his goal is to tear government "out at the root."

So these are small men, recipients of the luck of which uterus they turned up in.
They keep anyone from looking hard at them, by paying the high and mighty of society to look the other way.

And they have become what their father despised. Corporate squatters who run off anyone who threatens their lazy corporate fortunes.

This was the other thing I realized, reading the article. Remember, dear old dad, Fred Koch, ran off to help the Communists when Big Oil wouldn't let him play, wouldn't try something new. Now that the Koch brothers ARE Big Oil, they will do anything and everything to prevent new technologies from gaining a foothold, or from American citizens from dmanding that they actually pay for what they list as 'externalities' on their books: massive oil spills (convicted), benzene dumps (convicted), deaths from exploding refineries (settled out of court), and massive numbers of cancers from from formaldehyde, of which they produce 2.2 Billion gallons a year.

This last the EPA is trying to finally issue a carcinogen notice on. Which is one of the big reasons why the Koch Bros ginned up Americans For Prosperity, which ginned up the Tea Party, which 'terrorized' Congressmen all last summer, to swing back the few Republicans who'd seen Obama's huge numbers at election time and after, and had become willing to work with him. Anything to stop Democrats from actually holding Big Oil, including the Koch Brothers, accountable. Anything to prevent competition. Anything to be able to destroy the existing government and run it themselves.

Almost as if Stalin had been twins...
(06:54:40 PM)(07:19:07 PM)  

'Nice gun'

(3:31:39 PM)
Ah, election season, and a young, insecure man's fancy turns to open carry laws.

Have you ever read the 'Bill Of Rights', the first ten amendments to the US Constitution? They were demanded by a few of the state delegations in order to get the Constitution signed and ratified to begin with, so these ten are particularly special. And if you read them as a whole, you'll notice that these say what governemnt can and cannot do, with varying degrees of specificity. They don't say why any of these amendments, these rights, are included. They just are. Deal with it.

Except one.

Remember, these were men (yes, only men) were born into a era of western culture when skill and training  rhetoric, debate, argument were required of an educated man. The written word was particularly chosen, a phrase was included in a formal document for a reason, the order of words in a sentence were chosen to underline the thoughts in that sentence. Arguments were built with craft and care.

So why is the second amendment only one that the founders thought needed an explanation, a justification? And that explanation of the need precedes the definition of the right, so the reader has to read 'why' before reading 'what' about the right.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

I'm not going to get into all the other discussions, the history, the 'shall not be infringed.' But I always find it interesting that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof' isn't explained, nor is 'the right of the people to be secure in their persons, house, papers...', etc. You get the idea. Read through them all, it only takes a couple of minutes.

So the idea that the right to bear arms is just like all the other rights is, well, wrong. It had a situational restriction on it. And once a state was secure (in that it got to govern itself, and wasn't threatened by , at the time, the French, the Spanish or especially the English) this 'right' was expected to be unnecessary.

This all comes up because the SouthBayOpenCarry group had a table at the Hermosa Beach Art fair today. And the two of them (pathetic, huh?) were packing heat.

I rode my bike down to breakfast in Hermosa this morning, to enjoy its annual Labor Day street festival, without having to deal with parking. Lots of booths, selling jewelry, paintings, lawn furniture, vitamins, pet adoption, you've been to one of these. Roasted corn, tacos, bratwurst, Pink Floyd tribute band, followed by one doing Neil Young's early stuff....and in the strip behing the band's stage, the political booths.

I had friends staffing the South Bay Democratic Clubs' stand. And we reviewed the other operations in that semi-circle. Join me: The John Birch Society (no, I'm not kidding) had a full booth, preprinted vinyl banner, and a foam core sign: 'Stand Up For Freedom. Repeal Obamacare!' Well, at least they're consistent. Like Koch (founding) father, like Koch sons. There was the Southbay Republican Club, a surfing elephant their unlikely logo. They had several 'Meg 2010' signs. That's all there is on the sign. 'Meg' above, '2010' below. Of course, there was a Christian Evagelist booth.

Off across the bike path, some poor kid had apparently driven in from up north, set up a card table, and hung several small hand-made signs, some saying 'Legalize Marijuana' signs, a two saying 'Vote Nov 2nd',  and three clipboards of petitions. Not a single mention of Prop 19. A friend at the Dems booth and I whipped together three 'Vote YES on Prop 19' signs, and I walked them over, along with a roll of tape. The kid was surprised, happy, and promised to return the tape.

When my wife's with me, she lets me chat with friends, but makes me stay away from the other booths. After a few years, a wife's voice stays in a guy's head, even when she's in an all-day class 20 miles away. But not poking a stick at the OpenCarry Clowns was damned hard.

Two guys, both over-built, like the wannabecops you see parodied in movies, were standing in front of a pathetic cardtable, again with a couple of clipboard with petitions. Both were sporting holstered automatics. One wore purple Cons high-tops, I suppose to prove gun nuts are cute, too. The SouthBayOpenCarry 'militia'. Look em up, they do neighborhood clean-up, like Heal the Bay volunteers or the Girl Scouts. They just do it armed for Islamic (or Democratic) assault.

I'm standing there in black and yellow bike clothes, taller than either of these clowns. It was all I could do not to poke them with a stick, the old 'What part of "Well-regulated" don't you understand?' argument, just to see if I could get one to pull down on a longhair in spandex, thus ending their group's effort in the South Bay in one unfortunate photo.

I considered explaining to them the difference of the second amendment, as I did at the opening of this blog. But cowards with guns are not the most educable population.

Son I rode home instead, because my wife wants me at the house, not getting bailed out of jail.
(04:31:17PM)(04:52:03 PM)

The Hand of Sarah Palin

(04:34:38pm)
There it is. Sarah Palin’s hand. The picture that launched a thousand stories. “She can’t remember what she’s talking about,” says the Left. “The poor man’s teleprompter,” Sarah herself calls it in her speeches, according to the latest in Vanity Fair, making indirect fun of Obama’s use of more modern technology. Personally, I enjoyed the word play, that “this was the hand penned by the hand of Sarah Palin.”

But did anyone read the damned thing? I mean, besides Sarah? Because there’s a lot written on that tiny hand.

It starts with the word ‘Energy’. This includes oil, which is taxed in her state to fill the Alaska Permanent Fund, specifically to send a check to every man, woman and child in Alaska, every year. 2009’s payout? $1305 to any resident who’d been there a year. Sweet.

I’ll just leave to the reader the exercise of listing all the ways this contradicts her attitude towards taxation, government support of citizens, government regulation of business…

The hand ends with ‘Lift American Spirit,’ a nice, content-free reminder about her big finish in whatever speech she’s giving.

It’s the three words in the middle that say so much, about her, and about the self-knowledge that the GOP is selling lies. That if they told the truth, they’d be done for.

The line originally reads ‘Budget Cuts’, but then ‘Budget’ is crossed out, and ‘Tax’ is written under it. Now, the message is ‘Tax Cut’. Why?

Because if the Republicans ever actually listed the programs, the volume of cuts, the level of national financial destruction that would be necessary to perform their advertised magic act of tax cuts combined with a balanced budget…well, it’s not that they’d never win another election. It’s that Jan Brewer would finally be proven right, there would be decapitated bodies in the deserts of Arizona…and the forests of Utah, and the swamps of Louisiana and Mississippi. Bodies of Republican officeholders and candidates, their FOX pundits, and all their hangers-on. (I’m talking to you, Grover ‘Sign the No New Taxes pledge’ Norquist, you lying, America-hating weasel.)

Did Sarah understand this? Of course not. She’s on the payroll now, she won’t be missing any meals or mortgage payments. She wrote ‘Budget Cuts’ and someone else said, “Are you nuts?!” and crossed it off, and told her ‘Tax Cuts’ is the party line, always.

Because if she stood there and told her adoring flock that Medicare is closed, and the Social Security checks aren’t coming, and the military retirement is cancelled, and so’s the mortgage deduction, they’d get damned grumpy. And if she told them that junior’s school would need to shut, and the playground is closed, and there’s no more unemployment insurance, all just so her new friends could have more tax cuts, and higher interest income from their bonds, well, they might come to their senses, and render her…well, just render her. You farm boys know what I mean.

This is the hand of the Republican Party, with a one-word change demonstrating the sleight-of-hand they pull on their followers every election.
(05:10:07pm)(0527:25pm)