Best/Worst News of the Week:

The pages of this nation's newspapers contain a wealth of commentary fodder.

1) The U.S. State Department has a new piece of artwork at its London Embassy. Goody. The sculpture cost $1 million. Wow, but approved by somebody with a five-name title, I guess. The department justified the expense, saying it was a “good use of our limited resources.” Washington-on-the-Deficit minions are all scientific experiments gone terribly wrong: Born and reared with no guts nor brains, and without a basic understanding of rudimentary math.

2) GOP headliners are having a hard time staying the course on immigration and gay and lesbian rights. Their conservative selves tell them they have to
“go Western” and stick to their verbal guns, so to speak. Their political survival training says to win future elections, they must capitulate. Look for many of the name GOPer conservatives to cave. The attraction of staying in power and in the limelight is what keeps some of these critters alive.

3) It was a normal day. A woman went to Home Depot and went to the bathroom. After doing what she went there to do, she got up. Or, tried to. She found herself glued to the toilet seat. Someone glued all the toilet seats in the women’s restroom with Loctite GO2 glue, which boasts of “durability and versatility.” The woman needed a herd of EMTs to unstick her and transport her to an emergency room. Here’s hoping the culprit, when caught, gets a judge that adjudges the person guilt and orders his /her lips to be glued to a toilet seat. That would be a punishment to fit the crime.

4) From this corner of the Opinion Arena, immigration reform must be faced with the attitude of creating a law that welcomes immigrants to this country; it is one of the principle cornerstones of this foundation of this country. That said, special treatment for those who are in the United States illegally should cease. Pay college tuition for illegal immigrants? Allow them most of the rights of full-fledged citizens? Sometimes we let our collective, soft underbelly show to an extraordinary degree and by doing so, we penalize citizens and further abuse taxpayers. Exhibit kindness and understanding and compassion…sure. Giving away the store while embracing on those three values…not a good idea.

5) Nelson Mandela, the living portrait of a societal change merchant, is dead at 95. The world grieves his passing, but, in time, his foibles and human frailties will surface in myriad books and his saintly image will be tarnished. This is not to say he was not a great man, nor that the hardships he endured and the positive changes he fathered in South Africa and the world were not truisms that encompassed his life. For now the world mourns a true leader, an icon for peace and dignity and brotherhood. There will be time for debating his shortcomings. But not now, not yet. Let the world grieve.

6) And, finally, President Obama issued an order Sunday that cuts all federal agencies by 10 percent, slashes the Pentagon budget by 22.25 percent, and shuts down more than 15 military armament programs that Congress has approved but that the Pentagon does not need nor want. (And if you believe that....)

Dig that grave, GOP! Dig that grave

The Republicans have one single chance to win the presidency in 2016. One big chance. Chris Christie.

The larger-than-life-size politician, the governor of New Jersey, won his re-election by about 20 points – a Republican landslide in a Democratic state – and he did it by winning a majority of votes from all minority caches, women, gays, Hispanics and blacks, Heck, he even polled 38 percent of Democrats.

And, of course, in the present anti-tolerance mode of the ultra-conservative wing of the GOP, Christie was attacked for not being conservative enough. His retort was priceless: “I don’t like labels, that’s the game they play in Washington. Maybe those folks ought to come up to New Jersey and see how it’s done.”

Touche!

It’s hard to understand the hard stance of folks like slap-happy Rick Perry, my way-or-the-highway-Rand Paul, I’m-thinking-about-staking-out-my-position-in-the-party Marco Rubio and take-no-prisoners Ted Cruz. The GOP, with the party’s present stances on social issues, will not – repeat, WILL NOT – be able to win a national political race.

The numbers for a GOP candidate to win the presidency in 2016 simply don’t add up. The party has poked its thumb in the eye of women, gays, minorities of any color and culture … and without a goodly number of those voters, winning a national election is impossible.

So, what’s the plan, eh?

That’s the point: There is no plan. There is no coordination of message. There is no common platform to bring minority voters into the Republican camp. There are no negotiations to come up with a moderate live-and-let-live party philosophy that a majority of the people of this country can embrace.

It is blatantly obvious that politicians of both parties are bought servants of big money interests, with payoffs strewn about by liberal and conservative candidate-mills alike.

Rich folks who think gays and lesbians should be burned on the public square and the event televised for all to see will pony up ungodly amounts of funky money for a candidate that will espouse that belief. Stop immigration? How much money do you need to stoke that fire? Anti-abortion advertisements? Here’s $50 million, buy the television time!

Fat cat left-leaners will help pad the political party payroll for any candidate that will lambast the hardline tactics of the Republicans. Balancing the budget and reducing the deficit are side issues to these politicos; it’s all “what’s in it for me?” and “how can I get re-elected?” mentality.

The hypocrisy in Washington-on-the-Deficit is appalling. One conservative lawmaker will lament the deficit, and then add a $2 million dam project in a non-related bill. A liberal lawmaker chides the military for spending too much money on armament, and then pushes through committee a bill tobuy military plans the military swears it does not want.

It’s a fact: Government is not working. And the sad thing about this scenario is that there are those that call themselves conservatives that are enamored with demagogues like Ted Cruz, intelligence-challenged stumble-bums like Sarah Palin and Rick Perry, political switcheroos like Marco Rubio, and weasel-word-pontificators like Rand Paul.

Assuredly, this is not the best we can do.

If the GOPers are smart, and from the last national election, there is no proof of that, Chris Christie will be the Republican nominee. He is the only one thus far that has a proven record of reconciliation and appeal across the nation’s demographical landscape. (Note: He could be the nominee IF he is not devoured by those of his own party who would rather lose a national election than win one.)

At this point, he is the only one that has a ghost of a chance in whipping the de facto Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. In opposition to the GOP, the Dems stable of viable political candidates are fairly slim: Hillary Clinton … and a bunch of who-are-they? echoes.

Chris Christie vs. Hillary Clinton in 2016 Mark it down. It would be the battle for the ages.

Hypocrite is spelled p-o-l-i-t-i-c-i-a-n

 

Politicians are hypocrites. (Note: No D or R included.)

It is simply amazing that all politicians (no D or R included) think, no, believe, the voting public has a collective short memory? Voting history will tell you that the politicians are right because we keep electing the same yahoos and yahooettes over and over again to represent us in Washington-on-the-Deficit.

Do the Republicans really think that their flash-fire-partisan antics of the past five years will be forgotten by the 2014 election cycle? Do Democrats think that the start-up mess that is the Affordable Care Act will be erased from the memory landscape of voters within the next year?

As of this moment in time, the Republicans are losing the public relations war simply by adhering to the adage “Ignorance can be temporary; stupidity goes straight to bone and is forever.” In that party, the old cliché “the end justifies the means” is a solid golden oldie with lots of playtime still in its groove.

The mainstays of that party are determined to fight the Obama Administration on every appointment, every issue, every decision, every program. Why? The answer of “petty, partisan politics” is simply too simple, too convenient of an answer to be realistic. The truth is that many GOPers detest this president and will do anything – even harm the country they claim to love and do represent – to create problems for this administration and diminish the president’s legacy.

That’s where hypocrisy raises its ugly head.

Republicans recently announced a fierce fight is a certainty over an Obama nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security because, a couple of senators avowed, the nominee made a donation to Obama’s campaign.

What? Hello!

At various times in his administration, George W. Bush appointed two men to head up Homeland Security, both of whom had made donations to Bush’s campaign. Those two senators heartily approved both men to the post without much protest.

The GOP has also vowed to fight Obama’s nominee as chair of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellin, the singularly logical choice for the job. On paper, no one deserves the job more. She’s worked at all levels of the federal reserve system, led the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco and has been vice chair of the central bank.

But the GOP will fight her nomination, not because she’s the best choice, but because of who nominated her.

All politicians talk about fiscal responsibility, then stick slabs of pork in every single bill that passes Congress to placate the voters back home.

It would be more honest if people like Rand Paul, Eric Cantor and Ted Cruz would simply say out loud for the record: “We don’t like nor respect Barack Obama. We consider him a usurper, but our opinion has nothing to do, honestly, with him being black.”

Obama – yes, he’s black and he’s not going to change colors, so get over it – has not been the best of presidents – lackluster is the term that comes to mind. His quiet brand of leadership (or benign delegation, take your pick) has not served this country exceptionally  well in these tumultuous times. However, It must be remembered he inherited the Mess of all Messes from George W. Bush and, regardless of what Obama’s detractors say, the Bush wars are winding down, Osama bin Laden is dead, and the economy is better than it was.

But the Republican Party’s vendetta against this two-term president is hurting the country, not helping their party. The fight is not just about the Affordable Care Act or nominees for various federal posts; the battle is about anything and everything.

The next fight is about immigration and the GOP is certain to shoot itself again in the foot by fighting the inevitable and, again, further alienating the nation’s fastest demographic segment of voters – Hispanics.

Further, politicians are mainly old, white men and it’s amazing to see mainly Republican male lawmakers – with not a single woman part among them – gang up to deny women the right to make decisions about their own bodies.

For the GOP, it’s just another voter bloc Xed out of the GOP column.

With the party record over the last five years, Republicans can forget about winning the presidency in 2016. You can alienate just so many voters before you can guarantee a landslide loss in that election … you know, like ... in the last one!

The Republicans are working hard to make sure that happens.

Imagine this is the thinking of a GOP candidate for president in 2016: “Which voter bloc did we hack off today? Hispanic? Check! Women? Check! Minorities? Check!

And just how exactly does this help them win a national election?

Stupid is as stupid does

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I give up!

Cry uncle!

Tickle-lock!

Calf rope!

Back down!

Waving the white flag!

Throw in the towel!

Chicken out!

Buckle under!

Cave in!

Cut out!

Quit!

What other synonyms can you think of for the word “surrender?”

Whatever the number of words or phrases, all – every last one of them – are being hurled at the national Republican Party thanks to House Speaker John Boehner, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and the Tea Party irregulars.

After costing the U.S. economy more than $24 billion, after shutting down a large portion of the federal government, after sending more than 800,000 federal employees home, after making promise after promise to defund the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) and after promising to fight until they could fight no more, the fringe Republican faction held this country hostage for 16 days. Then, the Obama-aginners crumbled.

When economic bankruptcy of the U.S. was imminent, the GOPers caved and agreed to raise the debt ceiling, approve a temporary budget, forego any meaningful changes to the health care act … and basically, to swallow a bitter pill of defeat and a heaping, helping of crow.

In this sordid mess, there were no winners. President Obama did not display a White Knight mentality when it came to dealing with the recalcitrant Republicans.  His reticence strengthened the GOP just enough so they do get to have the “next battle” over the same issues in just a few months. The Democrats held ranks for the most part and showed a much more united front than their across-the-aisle counterparts, but some, assuredly, will have strong GOP challengers in the next election cycle.

The name-calling from House and Senate members and the members of the Executive Branch was childish at best and certainly prolonged the crisis of finances, leadership, anti-governance and ignorance.

What has transpired over the past two-plus weeks is a wretched example of poor leadership. House Speaker John Boehner was so afraid that the Ted Cruz-crazies would attempt an overthrow of power in the Republican-controlled House or, worse, push a radical righty into the GOP primary in his next election, that he buckled like a tin can hit by a sledgehammer. If this were a biblical tale instead of a sad tale of politics, you would have seen Boehner washing the feet of Cruz.

As far as the Democrat Party is concerned, if Caspar Milquetoast were a real person, he’d BE Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Can “boring” ever be a noun or pronoun?

Don’t be too giddy because a major financial disaster was averted. Don't’ get too comfortable thinking government is going to stay open. Don’t even contemplate  our elected officials will “play nice” in the future and do what’s right for the shareholders in American’s future.

You don’t have to be a political science major to know that what transpires in Washington-on-the-Deficit is and always be a game … an ego-driven, what’s-in-it-for-me volatile game.

It’s just sad that the losers in the game are the citizens, your and me, the same ones who selected the players.

P.S. What price did the taxpayers cough up at the end? Well, for one thing, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell slid a “rider” in the final bill to avert economic bedlam by paying bills incurred by our government that sent $2 million back home to Kentucky to build a dam.

Conservative values, my posterior!

The present may well be the future

Democracy is a cool word: It means, simply, the power in government rests with the people.

That’s America of the past. America today and in the foreseeable future is different, with a plutocracy taking shape and forging the image of government.

Plutocracy is the ruling of a government by the wealthy class. It is the government of the day, the government that is making decision for you and me, the government that is ruled by the rich individuals and corporations who push massive amounts of money into the political process to control it.

We have a distinct separation of the “common” folk in this country and the privileged class; a majority of those money-holders are making sure that the division between the two classes remain a chasm, a growing chasm, with the economically middle and lower class becoming lower on the financial food chain.

The foundation of this country for laid by the mental and physical labors of highly educated (for the time) men, landholders and relatively wealthy individuals who wanted to control their own destiny. The foundation was solidified by these believers in freedom joining forces with Everyman, all believers in the limitless opportunities this country had to offer.

Over the past 250 years or so, there has been shifts in the individual political power bases of the legislative and executive branches of government, but, mostly, those elected leaders worked together to ensure that the principles on which this country took root were sacrosanct.

Now, due to the philosophical divisions inside both political parties, and the amount of rabid anti-Obamaism exploding from the ultra-conservatives in the Republican Party, the gap between common sense and senseless partisanship is as wide as any time in our history.

The Republican Party is being held captive by a bevy of fledgling members, a corps of Tea Party aginners elected in the past four years. These professional naysayers have pledged to run the country’s economy and the nation’s future aground rather than work for compromise on key issues: education, continued economic recovery, hand-up funds for the nation’s poor and disadvantaged, the future of foreign aid, immigration reform and right-to-vote issues.

No longer does the art of compromise have a prominent place in political discourse; the legislative miracles accomplished with Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat Tim O’Neill are ancient history. President Bill Clinton, despite his personal problems in the White House, built a legacy of compromise with Republicans via the passage of the bipartisan welfare reform act and the bill that unregulated the financial institution (not the best piece of legislation to pass during his presidency.)

Clinton was not a political chameleon as many opponents charged, then and now; he was a civil rights liberal and a fiscal conservative…perhaps the last of that particular political species we will see in our lifetime.

In a positive political environment, Repubicans and Democrats prosper, as both sides use compromise as a way to get at least part of individual party (and individual lawmakers’) agenda items enacted. In today’s heated environment, which is a buttress of pettiness, rock-hard immovable stances on key issues and political division is commonplace. Civility is something found only in a dictionary; bile and bitterness flows down the aisles of both houses of Congress like stagnant floodwaters.

As a people, we are into using “labels” for individuals and ideas rather than look at different ways to build a coalition of different ideas that would form the basis of compromise legislation.

The overall political picture is further clouded by deep-pocket lobbying groups and special interests that back candidates based on single-issue stances rather than what is best pathway for the country.

In a word, the present political melting pot is a mess of unappetizing ingredients, heated over a coal-fire of personal dislike and further fueled by a fear of being removed from office by a demanding constituency that puts short-term interests over long-term national gains.

Is it too late to stop the slide that could end up with America as a non-player on the global scene? No, but with the present crop of legislators, and with no way to get them out of the way sans term limits, the present is looking more and more like the future.

Butts, bed sheets and horizontal gravity

 

I’ve never claimed that a certain percentage of my thoughts are what one might call “normal.” It is (pick one) A) a blessing, or B) a curse to have thoughts that sometimes fall outside the realm of those shared by a vast majority of people.

Since I have them on occasion, I go with A.

An example: Have you ever been sitting up in bed, leaned against the headboard, pillows at your back, thumbing the heck out of a good novel and all of a sudden … you realize you have slid down in the bed without realizing it? Instead of being in a sitting position, you find yourself practically supine! How did that happen?

I surmise it’s a little known and totally misunderstood element of physics – horizontal gravity. As you might surmise, there’s got to be more to it than just the fact that scientists and philosophers have overlooked this phenomenon for the past several thousand years, ever since the invention of sheets with thread count over six. Not 600, but six.

I have come to the belief that there is a direct correlation between the thread count of sheets, the square inch-ary of butt surface and the theory of horizontal gravity. Check that. It is my contention that horizontal gravity is not a theory, but an existing condition that has not been properly studied.

That’s about to change.

I am writing a federal grant to study the phenomenon and, with the bringing-home-the-bacon money available from my elected officials, I expect to get started as soon as my grant can be approved, which should be as soon as this latest, silly Middle East conflict question can be resolved. Knowing members of congress like I do, I know it's easy to stick this type of expenditure as a “tail-er” on a bigger bill about nuclear proliferation or some such.

I have already done sufficient research to warrant the grant that I value at about $49,750. (I am convinced if I keep it under $50,000, it is such a fiscal pimple as to be invisible in any General Account Office audit.)

You want proof of my initial reasoning and research? How’s this: Sheets vary widely in thread count, as well as material from which they are constructed; 300-, 600-, 800-thread count sheets are commonplace. It is easy to buy higher thread count sheets of up to 1,800 threads per square inch (900 vertical and 900 horizontal). A higher thread count than that and you have Sarah Wrap.

A portion of the study will have to do with the surface area of butts on bed sheets. I am firmly convinced that the total surface area of a butt will slide horizontally in direct proportion to thread count; the bigger the butt surface, the faster the horizontal movement.

Of course, the study will have to include the movement of bare buttocks vs. clothed; the type of covering material or lack thereof and its affect on rate of horizontal movement will have its own section in the final report.

Those of you who may scoff at my research grant proposal do not know the depth of federal grant follies. Do you know whether or not it is economically feasible to create bite-sized bales of hay for cows? It is not economically feasible according to a 1980s federal grant to the University of Michigan.

What is the composition of 17^th Century violin varnish? We know this important fact due to a federal grant.

Surely, a study to research the theory of horizontal gravity is just as important.

Obama rolling the dice on Syri

 

It doesn’t take long to get tired of dangerous games.

President Obama’s credibility and legacy is in tatters today because of his indecision and penchant for playing politics rather than executing the duties of the presidency in a forthright manner.

His on-again, off-again Syrian stances have him jitterbugging more than a dance line of Zoot Suiters at the Bellicose Ballroom in New York City back in the 1930s. His so-called “red-line” associated with the use of chemical weapons in that country is a pastel shade of pink with ragged edges; there is little definition and absolutely no strength in his statements.

Obama has the executive power to order limited military strikes into that country, whose dictator undeniably used sarin gas to kill more than 1,000 of its citizens, including more than 400 children. Assad used something akin to napalm to blast another “rebel stronghold,” resulting in horrific burns on citizens. But, in a crass political move calculated to force members of Congress to vote on military intervention, Obama is in a situation of ‘be careful of what you wish for, because …”

The American people do not WANT another military engagement; that’s a pure and simple fact.  The latest polls show that more than half of the people want the U.S. to disengage from military fronts – which Obama has done for the most part in Iraq and is doing in Afghanistan – and bring our soldiers home. The American people also WANT the country to protect innocent civilians who are the targets of demagogues and dictators.

One can only surmise that Obama is betting that the members of the Republican Party in Congress will look beyond its ideological and mean-spirited pettiness and personalized hatred of Obama, and do what it is right in this case: Vote to give their permission for strategic, surgical strikes at the military infrastructure of Syria.

The intricacies of the Syrian situation are mind-boggling; which group fighting is in the best interests (long-term interests) for the Middle East and rest of the world? The present dictator is a “known” factor; the rebel forces are led by various individuals and directed by myriad factions, including al Qaeda, Who wants to climb into bed with that bunch?

Obama is taking a calculated political gamble that if Congress votes next week to allow intervention (which, in the case, the President does not need), the vote will be ….what?

The president has painted himself into a corner and regardless of the outcome, he’s going to get dirty. The chances today are that Congress will vote against the president’s plans to attack Syria. Who wants to vote to expand the war in the Middle East, even from the air or from rockets heaved from warships?

He is also counting that the Republicans – led by the strident voices of newbies Ted Cruz and Rand Paul – will put their proverbial “necks in nooses” by denouncing intervention even on a surgical strike scale, leaving the American people aghast that America is not protecting Syrian children from the big, bad dictator and his bombs, bullets and poisonous gas.

This is a damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don’t ploy by the president. And, the way things are stacking up right now, the divided Congress is going to hand him his hat and tell him to “fill it up.”