Leading Without a Clue

Donald Trump thinks we have to show ID's in order to buy groceries.  Yes, that is hilarious; it is also just another example of the verbal diarrhea that is Donald Trump.  But it also points to something essential to what is wrong with our government, something we have overlooked for far too long.

The people who run our government don't have a clue who we are.

Trump is a perfect example, because he has so completely isolated himself from the real world.  When do you think was the last time he bought something on his own?  With cash?  In public?  When was the last time he even walked on a sidewalk in any city, much less down a road in a suburb.  For that matter, when was the last time he was driven through one of those towns in which any of us live other than to get to a rally where he pretends to be like us?

And no, I'm not even talking about since he became "president."  He was as closely guarded and isolated before he hunkered down in what was once the people's house.  Other than his lowly employees, Donald Trump has no friends or associates that come even close to living the life of most Americans.  And we should know by now that he only gets close enough to his employees to pick their pockets.

But what of the rest of those elected officials?  In 2012, Mitt Romney provided some comic relief when he went grocery shopping, and before that, the elder George Bush was astonished to find that supermarkets had scanners at checkout.  Nikki Haley may have known that you don't have to show ID to buy groceries, but she sure as hell doesn't have a clue what it is like to work forty hours or more at minimum wage, or even at median wage, and then go home and cook for a family.  And I wonder when was the last time Nikki walked down the street to actually get somewhere, or went out to "run errands."  Or rubbed elbows with any of us when it wasn't politically motivated.

Because that is when we see our elected officials.  They show up now and then, less so these days, in order to remind us that they are one of us, when they aren't.  They show up so we will believe they like us, and respect us, and want to help us, when all they really want is to get re-elected.  And then they want us to leave them alone, and they do the same for us in return.

The media is no different.  I heard someone (a presumed liberal) on MSNBC this week talk about tariffs and the cost of big cars, and how the added expense wouldn't matter as long as the price of gas remained at "record lows."  Obviously spoken by someone who hasn't paid for gas in awhile.  The rest of us may not realize that the price of gas began to increase the week after Donald Trump was elected, but we sure as hell know that it has gone up over $1 a gallon since he has taken charge of wrecking our economy.

It is no surprise that republicans don't have a clue what we all go through.  They are wined and dined from the moment they are deemed to be political assets.  If you have started off as a small business owner, it doesn't take long to get accustomed to the flattery, to living that better life and having others do your bidding.  In fact, it feels so good that fear of losing the privilege may begin to outweigh things like doing a good job.  And along the way, you begin to think all those people who are bugging you for government freebies are just whiners who don't deserve the handouts the way your real donors do.

That is how we end up with republicans who fight to kill healthcare, food stamps and social security, and with Democrats who will sell us out in the name of "working with the other side."  If you think wondering how to make ends meet makes you feel insecure, imagine what it feels like to work in a cushy place like Congress and know you could lose it in two years.  Poor things, living a good life that could disappear, know they need to kiss as much big corporate ass as they can for the day when they are no longer able to live off the government.

Of course, that is not how they see things.  They don't.  What they ignore won't hurt them.  Our elected officials learn quickly to listen to those with the deep pockets, who provide them with the bullet points they use to make us feel like they are working for us when they aren't.  It even helps them believe they are really, really working for us.  When they aren't.

The delusion that fattening the rich will make us all better off has never worked, and yet we keep electing people who keep selling us that fairy tale.  Apparently, we want to believe it as much as the politicians, who need to believe it so they can continue to work guilt-free to keep fattening the rich, who keep them just fat enough to stay loyal.

This is just a piece of the problem we have with elected officials who don't represent us.  Here in SC, we have two single men (I am tempted to say "white men" because Tim Scott does a great impression) as senators.  With their own great government benefits, they weigh in against health care; with no clue as to what it takes to raise children, they tell us what families need to be whole.  They don't just opine, they vote: on wages, on contraception, on education, religion, and of course, taxation.  Because they are really there to make sure that the rich don't pay taxes and the poor get nothing for free.

Trump is a buffoon, and his comment about needing ID to buy groceries was a moment of fun, but it was actually also a glimpse into where our politicians stand in relation to us:  far, far away.  From a distance, it makes it so much easier to lie, and cheat, and steal, and justify it with nonsense about what the simple folk do.

Ashley Madison and Planned Parenthood

More people seem to be upset about the Ashley Madison hack than about the edited videos being used to attack Planned Parenthood.  Chris Hayes was positively apoplectic in talking about the breach, because it was actually ruining lives.  In his defense, he tweets that this hack could just as easily have been one on confidential medical records, income tax returns or emails.

But why hasn't the attack on Planned Parenthood resulted in the same outrage?  Nikki Haley has expressed her outrage at the Ashley Madison hackers while vowing to begin an investigation of Planned Parenthood in South Carolina.  Not to be outdone, fellow idiot, Bobby Jindal, actually showed movies on a continuous loop outside of the governor's mansion of those abhorrent tapes.

But have you seen the video of Elizabeth Warren on the Senate floor denouncing yet another Senate vote to defund Planned Parenthood? Nobody is playing that on a continuous loop.  I did not even hear it referred to on MSNBC; it might have aired at some point, but it surely didn't get the airtime of Donald Trump's latest attack of verbal diarrhea.

In Warren's speech, she gets right to the point:  our republican Congress has repeatedly attempted to shut down Planned Parenthood, despite the fact that government does not fund abortion services.  They have perpetuated lies and misdirection.  They have blocked unrelated bills by adding amendments to defund, and continue to threaten to shut down the government if Planned Parenthood is not defunded.

Meanwhile, small businesses like Stem Express are feeling the pressure of the intense publicity resulting from the bogus Center for Medical Progress films, and intensified by by House and Senate demands for them to appear before congressional committees.  They have essentially been forced to cut ties with Planned Parenthood in order to attempt to survive the assault.  Of course, the right-wing media is using this to further insinuate that it is Planned Parenthood's misbehavior that caused the rift.

The greatest difference between the Ashley Madison hack and the assault on Planned Parenthood is that the latter is based on lies, editing and misdirection.  Imagine, per Chris Hayes' tweet, that your income tax records were hacked, and then edited to show that you had broken the law in an egregious manner.  That is what is going on with the attack on Planned Parenthood.

It happened with ACORN, when a couple pretending to be applicants entrapped employees into making questionable statements.  Some of the same characters whose names have popped up egging on CMP provided the grist for the right-wing republican hate machine with the same dirty tactics.  Housing, voter fraud, abortion:  all red meat and headlines for the right-wing scam artists and the members of the echo chamber in Congress.

Here's the thing.  Next time you find yourself talking politics in a restaurant or at work, next time you send an email to a friend or post to Facebook, imagine that what you say is being taped or copied.  Imagine that at work there may be people who are listening to pick up anything you might say that could be heard as improper or inflammatory.

And how often does a friend, acquaintance, customer or stranger ask a leading question that you grudgingly answer in a way that you honestly don't believe rather than argue or be seen as different?  How often have you not responded to racist, anti-gay or misogynist comments in a way that made it absolutely clear that you disagree?  Imagine that this is being done in a planned and purposeful way.  On tape.  And then the tape is edited, further distorting what you just said.

That, friends, is the world we need to be worried about.  Whether it is Ashley Madison or Planned Parenthood, people are able and willing to expose us, for things we have done or not done, things we have said or haven't said, intentions we had or never did have.

That is why we need to bring the debate back to the lies.  Every time.  We need to keep asking the accusers, as did Elizabeth Warren, "Did you fall down and hit your head???"

Because it could happen to Bobby Jindal, as it did to Mitt Romney, as it did to those playing out their fantasies on Ashley Madison.  And just as those real faux pas can go viral, shit factories like the Center for Medical Progress can also crop up to "expose" right-wing groups.  I like to think that those on the left hold to higher standards than that, but, hey, it could happen.

That is why we all just might want to take another look at this new world of warfare.

Vote for Me

I've been thinking lately that maybe I should run for office.  Any office.

I have a Ph.D. in psychology and I read a lot, but I don't consider myself all that knowledgeable about the issues you need to know a lot about to make laws.  I don't think that would make much of a difference.

I've been listening (not on purpose) to people like Ted Cruz, who I hadn't even heard of a few months ago, and now he has "public service" ads telling you to make your elected officials get rid of the IRS.  Then there are creepy evil characters like Mitch McConnell who I imagine likes to take away his grandchildren's favorite toys just to see them cry.  Speaking of which, there is John Boehner, who cries when he is happy (haven't seen that happen in awhile).  One of my favorites has got to be Louis Gohmert, who can always be counted on to come up with "facts" like, for example,  more people are killed by hammers than guns.

I don't want to make it sound like men in public office have the prize for stupidity locked up.  There was the New Mexico state legislator who introduced a forced pregnancy bill stating that in cases of rape the fetus could be used as evidence.  And let's not forget Jodie Laubenberg, the Texas legislator who stated that if a woman were raped she could go to a hospital for a rape kit, that was like a morning after pill.

My point is, you really don't have to know anything to be an elected official.  In fact, being smart can and will be used against you.  Those Harvard educated wingnuts like Mitt Romney get to call Harvard educated Barack Obama "elite" because Romney has managed to pretty much renounce any intellect he may have had at one time.  William Safire, who despite not making it through college, got to write a column criticizing y'all's use of the English language and call us all snobs at the same time, was also a speechwriter for those two great anti-intellectuals, Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.

So it's not really how smart you are that determines your success in politics, it's really how convincingly you can kiss up to the truly wealthy and influential.  Look at our own Nikki Haley and Tim Scott.  I can't imagine there is a corporate backer that would have an opinion on which either one would beg to differ.

And then it just becomes a matter of practicing all those well-used arguments about taxes and the minimum wage killing jobs and guaranteed health care and food stamps making people less motivated to go out and work.  And trust me, the more I read, the more I find that today's right wingnuts are only just reinventing the wheel, in their case a square one.  They've been saying the same tired things for decades, and nobody notices they aren't true.

So how hard could it be to run for office?  All you need is a bankroll, and the ability to memorize your lines.

Brains and morals not required.

  

A Little Perspective on an Ivy League Education

No, this isn't an excuse to brag on my son getting his bachelor's degree (Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude) in physics from Harvard last week.  But I was the first to get a bachelor's degree from my immediate family, just barely scraping by at the University of Rhode Island, which is a good school.  But it's not Harvard.  So I said it.

Last week was an awful lot of pomp and hot air.  I was taken in till my sister and her husband arrived, and that was good for bringing me back down to reality and having a few good laughs at all the putting on of airs, hot or otherwise.

A lot of that hot air involved telling the almost-grads that they are now about to become members of an exclusive and important club.  All said with a great deal of noblesse oblige.

Doors would indeed be open to them because of their "H-brand."  And it would be up to them to use that power to do good -- to be leaders, and to make the world a better place.

Hmmph.

It wasn't till I got home, in fact, days after I got home, that I wondered at just how many students in that audience were vowing that they would indeed take it upon themselves to use their power for good rather than evil, as opposed to checking their iPhones.

After all, Harvard graduated Barack Obama, but also Mitt Romney.  I can assure you that both believe that they are doing good and we all know which one really is.  

Then there are those who are world leaders, and done much good along the way, who decided Harvard just wasn't doing it for them, people like Bill Gates.  Of course, there is debate about how he accumulated the resources to do good with his Foundation, but still....

It is more likely that many of those who are on that august roster who have made the greatest contribution to our country and the world are not known by us.  There appears to be a tendency for those notables who use their Harvard credential -- or any noted credential -- to affect change to take care of Number One first -- and best.  And whether that grad has come from wealth or poverty, most are willing to forget, if indeed they were ever aware of, those who are being left behind.

Compare the scientist who searches for a cure who is funded by government grants to the scientist who works for the pharmaceutical company who has vowed not to share progress rather than risk cutting into potential profits.

Then there is the army of Harvard MBA's -- bless their cold and shiny hearts.  I was pleased when a joke was made by one student speaker about another -- a notable business school speaker -- destroying the world.  Could it be that the students have clearer vision at the point of departure than those faculty that send them off?

Maybe Commencement Week at Harvard isn't the place to be unabashedly honest about the likely futures of many of the grads.  And, to be fair, cheating scandal and student tragedy was brought up alongside the acclaim of the four years.

But parents, time to wipe away the tears of pride.  Harvard, by virtue of that prestigious "H", has given your graduates  the power, and given many the confidence, and offered them all an ethical education with a moral message.  But whether or not they heard that message will remain to be seen.

Reel Me In

So yesterday I talked about how cheapskate Mark Sanford got "friends" to paint signs on their old plywood.  I based this on a quick Google search where there were a number of articles interviewing Sanford on how he came up with this "frugal" scheme, and how he claims it proves he will save you tax dollars.

Well imagine my surprise when I read Andy Brack's commentary in the April 5  issue of Statehouse Reports:

Following Sanford’s much-publicized fall from grace while governor, he has been talking squarely to the camera this year with a message of conservatism mixed with old-fashioned religious redemption. His campaign erects big plywood signs that say “Sanford saves tax $,” making it look like his professional campaign is so tapped out that it has to make its own signs. Hogwash. The wooden signs are more expensive (and heavier) than the slick cardboard ones, but Sanford knows the homemade signs look better for his image.

Which had been my first impression, but that slick SOB managed to get journalists to give him some great free publicity, as in the Island Packet:

"Leftover plywood out of a dumpster combined with a three dollar can of spray paint works just fine," Sanford wrote in an email blast this week, encouraging supporters to find their own scraps and fashion signs. "I even saw an old door being thrown into a dumpster yesterday that would work perfectly as a sign."

Meanwhile, his campaign is also shelling out money to make more of the plywood signs at $7 a pop. They're using leftover materials from previous campaigns.

The campaign calls it a great way to save money.

S.C. polticos are calling it smart messaging that reinforces Sanford's spendthrift reputation.

Think of Mark Sanford's plywood as Scott Brown's pickup.  It's a really clever marketing gimmick.

Not only does Mark Sanford have contributors with very deep pockets (and no old plywood doors lying around), but, like Brown, he happily throws his votes in with those wealthy supporters.  And, like Mitt Romney's comments about the 47 percent who mooch off people like him, Sanford has absolutely no clue, and certainly no empathy, for those of us who have had to struggle to make ends meet, for the working poor, for seniors who have held jobs through their lives and are now in fear of losing their safety net.

But I do have a solution and, to misquote Stephen Colbert, I would like to thank Mark Sanford for his inspiration.

I can't afford plywood and a can of paint, but I do have a pad of paper and a magic marker.  So I created a little hometown message of my own:

You can do it too, folks.  This can be a real grass roots campaign, and not a marketing gimmick.  Put that handmade sign in your windows at home and in your car.

Let's literally take this campaign on the road.

And don't forget:

Vote May 7

Elizabeth Colbert Busch

US House of Representatives

Read more here: http://www.islandpacket.com/2013/03/06/2407356/rudimentary-signs-make-for-sophisticated.html#storylink=cpy

A Nation of Whiners

Isn't it pathetic to see John Boehner trying to look fierce saying, "You got your tax increase.  No more."

Because the couple of percent that those who make over $400,000 a year are having to pay was waaay too much of a sacrifice, and their lives will never be the same as a result.  

And if we then tax estates of a million dollars or more, those poor youngsters who inherit just might have to stand in line for food stamps with the Wal-Mart workers.

And if you've invested a couple of million dollars and have made umpty-million more through that investment, why shouldn't you get to keep every cent of those not-so-hard-earned dollars?

We who have the nerve to fight for a wage that allows us a decent roof, health care, high quality education, and maybe the right to a vacation with our family are really tired of the real whiners.  It's the Mitt Romneys and Paul Ryans, the Rand Pauls and Eric Cantors who are doing the whining.  Why should their money be used to fund public schools that their kids don't use?  Or pay for roads and bridges that are crumbling?  Or pay for health care that...

You know what?  Each of those whiners gets quality health care paid for by us, the taxpayers.  Yet they fight heartily to cut back Medicaid for the poor, Medicare for seniors, and Obamacare for all those of us who have been used and abused by the insurance industry.

They are neither courageous, nor are they patriots.  They are the whiners.

All In This Together

MSNBC is currently making a big deal out of the fact that Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey has spared no praise for President Obama in his handling of Hurricane Sandy.  People like Christie for that reason; you can count on him to not be afraid to say what is obvious, regardless of possible political outcome.

I would hope that in a similar circumstance, Romney would act in much the same way.  But this is not what you might call "the takeaway" in all this.

The difference between the two is not what they might do in the midst of a disaster.  The critical factor is the groundwork that gets laid -- or destroyed -- prior to a disaster.

Romney and his cut taxes/cut the deficit bunch, Paul Ryan among the ringleaders, would leave us with slashed resources and a decentralized, disorganized disaster relief plan, made worse by privatization (for profit).  First you give over authority to the states.  Then you cut the Federal budget.  Then you cut the Federal staff.  Much as we have been forced to do in the Bush years with Medicaid and education.  The states, already struggling, would never get the same amount of aid if they had to individually create their own disaster relief program.

This morning, I heard one of the owners of the Coast Guard House in Rhode Island give kudos to the Weather Channel for calling this storm so accurately.

Wrong.  It was NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that does the research and provides the incredible and incredibly accurate storm data to the country. Weather Channel and other news centers feed off this free information, paid for by our tax dollars.

These are examples of things entrepreneurs did not build.  Without good centralized emergency management (FEMA) and good national weather forecasting (NOAA), Hurricane Sandy would have left many states fending off floods and blizzards much as the Bush administration left New Orleans during and in the aftermath of Katrina.

So, yes, Governor Christie, President Obama gave you the support you needed.  One could hope that Romney would do the same.  But only if he had the federal funding and well staffed federal programs that we are currently having to fight tooth-and-nail to preserve in the egocentric and short-sighted Congress.

There are some things we just can't do alone.

Liars, Inc.

Remember that best friend you had in junior high?  That's right, the one who knew everybody, and was really popular, and you couldn't believe she was your best friend.

She seemed to always be where you were going, wanting to know what you were doing.  Even though she had already done it a thousand times before (roller skating, going downtown to meet boys, buying beer) she was always happy to be doing it with you.  That brand new Beatles movie?  She had special permission to see it before it opened up in the theaters, so she had already seen it six times.  And the concert you couldn't get tickets for?  Not only did she have tickets, but she went backstage after the concert and met the whole group.

Turns out, she was your best friend because nobody else liked her.  Nobody else liked her, not because she got to do all this stuff they didn't do, but because she was a liar.

You were gullible, because you could never imagine someone telling a story about themselves that was totally untrue.  So it must be true, right?

This is the lot of the American voter.  Mitt Romney promises to be our new best friend, even though we heard him say he didn't like 47 percent of us, that he thought we were lazy and not worth him paying attention to.

But now he likes us.  Even though he knows all the important people in the country, and the world, and they all want to know what he is thinking, he likes us best.

Except that all the important people in the world don't particularly like him either.  They pretend to be his friend because he might be able to get him stuff, like tax breaks.  Believe me, they aren't crazy about him either, because they know he is a liar.

Why do they know he is a liar?  Because they are liars too.  Unlike your junior high school "best friend", Mitt had an important family, so he was able to go to important schools, and then become very rich and important.  And being very rich and important makes other people want to be your friend.  Even though they don't like you that much.

And liars lie because they want people to like them.  For Mitt, just as with my old junior high friend, he would say anything to get someone to like him.  And he doesn't have any idea how ridiculous some of those lies are.

For example, Mitt's "binders full of women" was not just a case of Bush-era word-mangling.  Fact is, the story was a lie.  And whether you are a one-percenter, or the rest of us, Mitt Romney will lie to you.  Those one percenters know that, which is why most of them didn't support him till he was the only game in town.

But the sad thing is, a lot of the rest of us really want Mitt to like us.  And since we don't lie, as a rule, we can't imagine that Mitt would lie to us.  So we conveniently forget what he said to the other guys just days ago.  And even though the other guys are rich and important, they pretend he is not telling us how much he likes us right now.  Because they know that liars like Mitt fool a lot of the people a lot of the time.  And, lets face it, he only has to fool us until November 7.

Oh, and his new best best friend, Paul Ryan?  Didn't like Romney either.  But we are finding out pretty quick that Ryan doesn't mind telling a lie either, whether it's about Medicare or his best marathon time, or stopping by the soup kitchen to help out.

So step back, take a deep breath, and make your choice wisely, because if we choose wrong we may regret the best new friends we have for the next four years.

Don't Fall Asleep!

We should not be surprised, after Romney's "reboot" into "copycat Romney", to hear Ryan last week, and then Romney last night, refer to "trickle down government."

After all, the new strategy is to mirror Obama.  The new Mitt is the old, liberal Mitt, who was liberal because he was running against liberal Ted Kennedy for the Massachusetts Senate in 1994.  Boston being Boston, and Mitt being a smart and unscrupulous businessman, he ran for governor as a liberal, only to -- surprise -- become more conservative while in office.

Our Mitt is as comfortable stealing ideas as he was stealing companies, or as Mitt referred to it, "harvesting."



Which, not only being harvest season, but since it is also  Halloween season, also puts me in mind of that scary movie wherein "They Come from Another World..."

Yes, it's a world where it looks like Mitt, and even has Mitt's voice, but the words aren't his.  Words like "trickle down," which means that those fat cats at the top, if allowed to get fat enough, will zip open their flies and let some of it flow onto the rest of us.

If you recall your scary movies, the pod people don't think, they just open their mouths and say whatever will cause you to follow.  Which is why the Romney-pod's "trickle-down government" doesn't really make sense.  It's an almost-mirror-image of a concept that has actually been in place since our other old pod-president sold it to us back in the 80's.

You might wonder, then, why we should fear.  It's because the pod has no needs, other than to possess you; no conscience, motivated only by the instinct for self-preservation; and no brain, parroting only what his masters, those extraterrestrials from that far-away income bracket, command him to say.

And that is the scary story for this Halloween season.  So, whatever you do, don't fall asleep until after November 6, or, as Samuel L. Jackson might say,

Nice Guy Mitt

Somebody told Mitt that people like it when you tell a story about some plain old person you met.  If it has a tragic ending, it's even more better.  So he and Stepford VP Paul Ryan have taken that message to heart.

So every now and then, when asked a question, say about tax cuts for the wealthy, they may reply with a story about a plain old person, hopefully who came to a tragic end.

The thing that makes this odd and not just creepy is that the anecdote really has nothing to do with the subject.  The story is really all about Mitt, and what a good guy he really is.

To give a really stark example, Romney recently told about meeting a Navy SEAL who was later killed in the recent Benghazi attack.  Why?  To let people know that it made him sad.  Needless to say, the young man's mother took exception with Romney's use of her son to make political hay. 

Last night, when Biden brought up Romney's crass and stupid comment about the lazy 47% who pay no taxes, Ryan came back at him with the story of Mitt Romney helping a family whose two sons had been seriously injured in a car crash.

Wrong on so many levels.  Besides being totally irrelevant.

First, there's the fact that Joe Biden had lost his first wife and a child in a car accident.  Fully displaying the sensitive side of the Romney/Ryan team.

Secondly, we all know how generous our Mitt is.  Especially with those in the Mormon Church, to which this family belonged.  Romney, who hides much of his wealth, believes charity should take the place of social programs.  This way people like him can give only to those they believe are deserving.  Oh, and take the charitable tax deduction as well.

Finally, besides being despicable and creepy, bringing up stories having to prove what a nice guy Romney is, is just irrelevant.  Because the way he uses his wealth, the way he hordes his wealth, and his proposed policies, speak for themselves.

So please, Mitt (and Paul), no more anecdotes.  They are just sad.  Those kinds of stories should be left to people who really do care about others; then they might not land with such a resounding "clunk."

Because Big Bird Can't

Apparently, the folks at Sesame Workshop have asked the Obama campaign to take down the hilarious ad featuring Big Bird.  But it needs to be seen, so here it is:




It needs to be seen because it's a rare funny moment in a really grim political season.

Of course, we all know that neither Big Bird nor Jim Lehrer are allowed to defend their jobs from the likes of Mitt Romney, because they are funded by the government.  And the minute either of them indicated that they even had an opinion, the Republicans in Congress would descend on them, well, like a flock of angry birds.  There goes your funding, Big Bird.  There goes your job, Jim.

Because it is not about the funding of public broadcasting and the national debt.  It is about the funding of any public program, no matter how much it has already been depleted and how miniscule it's budget, and especially no matter how much it contributes to the public good.  And it is certainly not about the debt, not when billionaires are clutching every penny they ever earned, or hiding it in offshore accounts.

It is about the mythical 47%.  The actually 99%.  Those are the ones that are driving the one percent up the wall.  The nerve, expecting millionaires who have come up the hard way, or whose parents have come up the hard way, or, uh, whose grandparents have come up the hard way, whatever, to pay for something someone else is enjoying for free.

It's truly about the unconscionable greed we are seeing in 21st century America.  The folk who count the pennies that are spent on food stamps, and defend the oil barons and their government handouts.  Those who see a way to profit from a woman's cancer, her children's schooling and her father's retirement years.  They fight to privatize the roads we drive on and the water we drink.

There is no safe hiding place for people like Jim Lehrer and big yellow birds.  Because it's hunting season, folks.  And these guys aren't allowed to defend themselves against the predators.

So at least we all can take a moment to laugh at the absurdity before we must reflect on the cruelty.

Who's Mitt?

Well, last night we got to see the real Mitt Romney.  The storm-the-boardroom guy who smiled as he ran companies into the ground at Bain.

Obama's problem is that he doesn't like street-fighting, and that's why he has lost against Congress, and that's why, last night, he lost against Mitt.

The thing about Romney is, he is facile at being all things to all people.  He is able to promise no tax cuts at the debate, and then speak at a corporate fundraiser and assure them (after checking for mikes I would assume) that he's got their backs.

The irony of the night was when the two candidates became one, over health care.  They were both responsible for the health care we have now, Romney in Massachusetts and Obama for the rest of us.  They both love it.  They took turns delineating all the wonderful features of the plan, and swearing how they wouldn't change a thing.  Obama was so thrown by the Romney shape-shifting routine that he wasn't able to address the fact that leaving it to the states would give Massachusetts (blue state) a great plan, and throw anyone in a red state under the bus.

That was the most stark example, but throughout the night I was put in mind of an old Popeye cartoon:




Obama is going to need to actually be a couple of steps ahead of Romney for the next debate, because Romney wants the presidency far more than Wimpy wanted a hamburger.  The first thing he needs to do is replace John Kerry with someone who is quick on his feet and knows how to say anything to get what he wants.  I know that's harder to find among the Dems, so he may have to look on the other side.

The other thing Obama needs to do is get angry, pull the mask off Romney's face to show the audience that guy that criticized the British for their competence in hosting the Olympics, the guy who will attack Palestine in order to pander to Israel while stirring the flames of hate.  You know, the guy that doesn't feel he needs to take care of the lazy 47%.

As Popeye says, "You can steal me looks, but not me goil."

Some Things Never Get Old

It was with some surprise and sadness that I flipped a page on my ACLU 2012 calendar and saw this cartoon:

The great political cartoonist, Herblock, penned this one in 1981.  If you were lucky enough to have been around then, that was when the radical right realized they could make great hay by using the religious right to put them in office.

And so it goes.  Today I heard a news clip wherein John Boehner replied to a question about Romney's now infamous rant on the worthlessness of the 47% by saying, "This election is about jobs."  "Jobs," he added.  And then he repeated, "Jobs."

Yeah, I thought, it's about you keeping your job.  And, recalling the actual 112th House of Representatives, it's about abortion.

What I Hope Elizabeth Warren Doesn't Say

I am far more excited about Elizabeth Warren's Convention speech tomorrow than about anyone else, including either Obama.  She is the fresh voice that he was in 2004.

But I worry about her.  I worry that she has way too many people who are worrying at her and for her, and crowding her.

I think that was the reason that she had scheduled a $1,000 a head fund-raising event here in South Carolina.  When I heard that I did a spit-take.  Nobody told her, apparently, that even good Democrats here in South Carolina don't have pockets that go that deep.  She would have been far better off, and so would we, had she done the $250 shindig, and stopped over at the College of Charleston's Cistern to say hi and shake some hands.

The Elizabeth Warren who is my hero would have said yes to that in an instant and nixed the $1,000 nonsense.

So with that in mind, I would like to add my two cents:

I hope Elizabeth Warren doesn't tell us in nauseating detail about her family.

I hope she doesn't go on and on about her family's military service and her pride in the military.

I hope she doesn't try to lead a cheer for women.

I hope she remembers to mention Obama, because all those nitpickers that counted Mitt Romney references last week will be back, but I hope she doesn't go on about all the great things he's done for the economy.

Because, to be honest, we all know he hasn't.  His intentions were good, but he was naive, and when he heard that the American people wanted compromise, he believed us.  So he got slammed by the other side, who abhor compromise.

But she is speaking at his convention for a reason.  We believe in her, and Obama knows we believe in her.  She is smart and she is fearless.

So I hope she tells us about why the American economy is still not working for the American people.  I hope she tells us that it is time for corporate control of our country and our lives to come to an end.  I hope she talks about the need to regulate those big-monied interests, starting with Wall Street.

Because if she does that, if she gives a no-frills, this is the way it is speech about where we stand and where we are heading, we'll all be there with her.

Opposite Day at the GOP

We're all pretty accustomed to the flip-flops and distortions over at the GOP, but I think that of late they have surpassed Orwellian flights of fancy.

It was the anti-Obama ad where the Romney crew cut his words so that it sounded like, in 2008, he did not want to talk about the economy:

"...if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose..."

What is notable about this ad is that, instead of trying to dance around the fact, Romney himself basically said, "Yeah, we lied, so what?"

And that, folks, has been the modus operandi for the GOP ever since.

Every day is Opposite Day at the GOP.

Paul Ryan went on the road after the VP announcement condemning President Obama for trying to cut his mom's Medicare.  You know, those cuts he made to private insurers who had been gouging the government through subsidies for the Medicare Advantage supplemental health plan.  He assured us that it is the republican party that is going to save Medicare for his poor old mom.  You know, the snowbird that plays golf in Florida during the winter, just like our moms.  By the way, he also reassured us that, while grandma will be safe, the younger folk will be screwed.

While heads were spinning over that nonsense, the GOP was just warming up.  The GOP Convention, in fact, was a panoply of nuts and lies.

In the backrooms of the asylum is Ralph Reed, pockets full of gold and heart full of hate, preaching to his choir a plan for spending buckets of Supreme Court-approved anonymous cash to wipe out the evil Democrats in every election in every state.

Our own Nikki Haley bragged that it was because she stood up to Boeing that they offered to add jobs to their Union shop in Washington.

Of course, the big lie was the entire theme:  We Built It.  Each heart-warming story involved those hardscrabble Americans, from Chris Christie to Mitt, who all worked their way up from hardship.  With no help from the government???  Celebrating their hard-won success in a convention center that was built with government funding.  And that theme "We Built It" was, by the way, a misquote of Obama's, a clumsily stated tribute to those who built roads and bridges, the American system that fueled the success.

Mitt Romney nearly shed tears over how disappointed he is that Obama's plans to save the economy had failed, followed by Clint Eastwood blaming an empty chair that he mistook for Obama for things like the war in Afghanistan.  The combination of which finally caused Jon Stewart to go ballistic.  Good to know just how much bull it takes to put him over the edge.

For your sanity's sake, watch the whole segment.  Be sure to take away from it Jon's deduction that the republican view of reality exists because "...there is a President Obama that only Republicans can see...."

And if they really want to make the election about "invisible President Obama", he invites them to,

"Go ahead...Make my day."

At last, something about this election season I'll be looking forward to.

Irony Abounds

Where to start?

First of all, immediately after announcing Paul Ryan as his running mate, both Mitt and his new sidekick proceeded to blast President Obama for cutting Medicare.  Welcome to Through the Looking Glass, GOP style.

If you recall way back a few months ago, or maybe it was years ago...

Anyway, for as long as I can recall, the republican party has been bashing President Obama for single-handedly increasing the debt.  According to the GOP, we poor folk, those who have lost our jobs, or our health, or our homes, have been living high off the hog here in the Democrats' U.S.A.  Entitlements, entitlements, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a republican on a soap-box talking about entitlements.

Of course, they didn't mean corporate entitlements.  The big corporations -- Wall Street banks, ExxonMobil, big pharma, big agribusiness -- they need us to keep feeding them.  The fatter they get, the hungrier.  After all, we are told, they are the job creators.

But the rest of us poor slobs are just sapping the strength of this great land.

Now the way I remember it, peacemaker Obama agreed to begin to cut the waste out of Medicare, if only the republicans in Congress would agree to just a teensy-weensy tax increase for the wealthy.  Which, of course, left us with Medicare cuts and no increase in taxes.

Those Medicare cuts that Paul Ryan wants you to believe will kill his grandmother are actually to a large extent cuts to the private insurance companies -- Medicare Advantage -- that supplements regular Medicare benefits.  Another large piece of the savings is through lower reimbursement rates to hospitals that see more of the uninsured, which will be less necessary under Obamacare and the individual mandate.

Not exactly killing grandma, is it?

But then, if you can stand to listen further, Ryan (and Mitt) will tell you that you shouldn't worry, you old people.  Because apparently they are only going to screw people under 55.

Okay, so that's Part One of 2012 Madness.

Then there is the unveiling of David Koch.  You know, the gazillionaire that owns Mitt Romney, and unknown other large pieces of the country.  Apparently, it is time for Koch to come out from behind the curtain, especially since we all had caught on to the fact that it was him running things anyway.

Of course, if you have gotten caught red-handed, the smart thing to do is act like you've planned it that way.  So David Koch is actually going to be an official delegate to the Convention.  Even more special, he will be honored at a "Salute to Entrepreneurs," and we can all get tickets.  Well, actually, we can all get on the wait list.  You might be surprised to know that this event, sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, is actually funded by the Koch Brothers.  Well, maybe you won't be surprised.

And definitely not last, but all the irony-processing center in my brain can handle at one sitting, is the cornerstone of the convention.  No, I know you're thinking the anti-abortion plank, but that's the cornerstone behind the cornerstone.  The centerpiece of the convention, which is being "unveiled" today, is the "National Debt Clock".

Don't laugh.  It's true.

After creating laws that would chase down teens and women  trying to get birth control or abortions while shutting down the most cost-effective health care programs available to women...

After refusing to even consider the most modest tax hike for the wealthiest Americans...

After working exhaustively to kill Obamacare despite Congressional Budget Office and other expert opinions that savings will outweigh costs...

...these idiots are going to show us just how much debt we are accruing as they speak.

No, too much irony for me.  Need some air.

The Republican Inquisition

Bizarre that we are in the midst of debate about government required "vaginal probing".


This is, however, effectively sidestepping debate on the economy, at a time when President Obama is finally standing strong and gains are becoming more evident.  It is easier to take a moral stand on something you believe your God has told you to do than to stand in front of GM workers and criticize the actions the president took which saved the plant and the jobs within, although Mitt Romney will be the one to try.  It is also refocusing the attention deficit media from the economy to these ridiculous religious dicta.


It's always fun to make fun of Rick Santorum, but how on earth do we deal with the wackos in the various state legislatures that are introducing these bills which propose to reduce women to cattle, as does the bill introduced by, yes, I kid you not, Illinois' House Agricultural Committee.  At least you can say they are telling it like it is.


If you are able to take a step back to see the bigger picture, I guess it is safe to say that every state has its resident elected wacko, and in many states they are religious wackos.  And now, the Catholic church, who no one has ever listened to in this country anyway, has proudly taken center stage on their belief that God has determined that sex is for procreation, and any attempt to stop it is a sin.  And add the megalomaniacal Santorum, whose conversations with God have gotten louder and more shrill over the weeks since his primary successes.


What you have is the perfect climate for brewing crazy.


Forgive us women for being slow to rise up against this idiocy.  Even though our U.S. House of Representatives has been running its own special sexist Inquisition for the past two years, we honestly didn't think it would catch on.  I mean, even Mississippi voted down the "personhood amendment".


I would like to make more jokes about this situation, because it is so ridiculous that this is happening in 2012.  But there have been so many signs that the religious wackos are taking over the country that I must rely on Jon Stewart for the humorous perspective.  It is also too personal for me as a woman with an adult daughter, to laugh it off.


But I should.  After all, these are men whose idea of stimulating the economy goes no farther than "vaginal probing".


See, it's easy.