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.”

Horses of a different persuasion

 

I wish to make a pronouncement, several, in fact.

I’m not a liberal.

I’m not a conservative.

I’m an independent voter with fiscally conservative leanings.

I think Big Government is too big and the only ones who can change that won’t because they feel powerless. (Hint: You, me, the voters.)

I am for civil rights. Heck, I love civil rights, especially when they pertain to me.

And, I distain nutcases regardless of party affiliation, political bent, or something important like … hairstyle.

One of the biggest nut jobs around today is Glen Beck. He is a Rush Limbaugh clone, although a skinnier, shadow version of the first well-known angry conservative pundit. Beck likes to take folks to the lick-log for disbelieving the political pabulum he spews on his television and radio shows. He seems to have a new target for this righteous indignation every day or two, and sometimes the target does not really seem to matter.

He, along with screamin' liberal-leaner Al Sharpton, is the King of Righteous Indignation and wears his divisive colors proudly. For example, Beck recently stated he will no longer use the Google search engine because of what he claimed were the site’s ties to government agencies and its so-called involvement in the recent turmoil in Egypt.

Say, huh?

Spread that manure a little more smoothly, if you please.

Seriously, the man said, “There’s a strange thing going on with this search engine and our government and we all have to choose who we do business with.” (Without splitting too many fine hairs, the correct grammar for that statement would be …”to choose with whom we do business.”)

Personally, I like Google. I have used it for years and not once have I felt it was being used to overthrow this or any other government. Social media is a tool … and some people use it to push their personal agenda. So?

Not to let the Google matter drop after one stupid comment, Beck explained further: “I’m really not sure that I want my search engine involved in government overthrows, good or bad.”

It’s a major jump from scary to stupid, but Beck did it with aplomb, supreme confidence and graceless energy.

The devoted followers and believers of jaw-droppers like Beck (those of conservative AND/OR liberal bent) are sheep, being led down a path of ridiculousness while trying to fervently embrace philosophical kinship with minor celebrities and larger-than-life demagogues. Beck, Sharpton and the rest of the political preachers of political and ideological faith are not visionaries; they are entertainers doing what they do not for principles but for money.

God protect us from the debilitating influence of the Glen Becks and Al Sharptons of this world. But, then again, if He was even interested in this political mish-mash philosophy mess, He would already done something about it.

Rick Perry: “F” is his grade in education

     Politicians have a strange DNA strand that allows them, almost at will, to insert their foot in their mouths … and still keep on talking.

     It’s too easy, too simplistic, to say that Texas Gov. Ricky Perry is dumb. He is not dumb; he is a graduate of Texas A&M, and all joking aside, that is one fine educational institution. He was an Air Force pilot that the fact that he’s still alive attests to having some degree of smarts. He was an Eagle Scout and that is not an easy task. He was a cheerleader in college … and I’ll let that great opportunity to a stinging, yet thoughtful, jibe just slide on by.

     A former cotton farmer and former Democrat, Perry proved he’s not dumb by making a living from working in the dirt and getting elected three times to the Texas House of Representatives. In 1988 he chaired the president campaign in Texas for Al Gore, and the next year he switched to the Republican Party.

     After running for and being elected state agriculture commissioner and lieutenant governor, he was pushed into the governor’s office when George W. Bush was elected president. Perry has won three terms as governor since 2000.

     I first met Perry when he was Ag Commissioner and he was on a vote-me-in march through East Texas. I remember thinking: Good hair, great teeth, strong handshake … yep, he’ll do just fine as a Texas politician

     He, as has every politician at one time or another, performed stupid politician tricks in his years in office. Perry’s claim to Intellectual Hell will forever be hinged on his executive decisions that severely harmed the state education system. (Just talk to practically any Texas teacher; they all have Perry stories.) But, as an example, when he ran for president in 2011 and 2012, one of his campaign promises was to shut down the U.S. Department of Education.)

     Texas ranks in the Bottom 10 in per student expenditures in education (at No. 9 in 2013 with a “bullet”) and Perry seems proud of that fact.                                                                                                                                  

     He is a Pisces and shares this distinction with Alexander Graham Bell, George Washington, Chaz Bono, Sam Houston, Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, Antonio de Lopez Santa Ana and Osama bin Laden. The single most recognizable trait that all of these folks, and Perry, share is extreme decisiveness.

     Being “decisive” does not always compute into “being right.” Perry’s record on “being right” has more to do with his perception of how the winds of public opinion are blowing at any particular point in time.

     His penchant for cutting funding to public education in Texas is beyond reasonable and measured explanation. While Perry is crowing about how well Texas is doing on the economic front and how much the state has in its surplus account, the state has dropped to more than $3,000 per student below the national average. (To make it clear: Arkansas and Louisiana spends more per student on education that does Texas. The only states that spend less than Texas per student are Utah, Idaho, Oklahoma, Arizona, Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina and Nevada.)

     Added to that stat, Texas ranks 38^th in average teacher salaries, down four spots from 2012.

     While the governor claims that “the idea his decisions about education are doing long-term damage to public education funding is just not true.” Last year Texas high school students matched their lowest average scores on the college entrance exam in the past decade; average scores dropped in math, reading and writing.

     He, like others of his party, refuses to acknowledge that the demographics of his constituency are changing at a blazing pace. California and New Mexico now have a higher Hispanic population than white; Texas is projected to join that group no later than 2020.

     As became evident in the 2012 presidential election, ignoring and/or demeaning huge voting blocs will not fly outside of a regional or state political race. Whatever Perry’s future political ambitions may be – and if his disastrous 2012 presidential bid is any indication, that’s all he has … ambitions – he has to begin rethinking and retinkering with his political philosophy.

     A good place to start would be in the area of education. In this area he has worked hard to earn a rousing, romping F. The sad part is the man seems proud of that grade.

     Which leads us back to the original thought: Can he really be that “dumb”?

GOP needs wake-up call

     This country needs a two-party system -- at least two, maybe more.

     Many folks still believe we have two: The Republicans and the Democrats, right?

     Actually, it’s one-and-one-half – The Democratic Party and half of a GOParty.

     The Republican leadership at this point in time in our country’s development (and this country, like most countries, is still developing) has lost touch with the reality of the demographical shift in the United States. The voting power is no longer strictly in the hands of unions and big money; diversity has risen up and slapped the political process upside the head.

     Blacks now make up about 14 percent of the population; Hispanics, at more than 52 million, are almost 17 percent of the population. If my elementary math skills are still intact, that’s about 31 percent. The number of Hispanics without our borders has more than doubled in less than 25 years; within another 25 years, that number will grow exponentially until by 2050, 30 percent of the nation’s residents will be Hispanic.

     These two facts – plus another biggee to be dropped a paragraph from now – seem to elude the Republican Party and its take-no-prisoners chairman, Reece Priebus. He thinks he can bluster his way and his party to the presidency by ignoring demographics and stridently harping on the scourge of the rise of minorities in our political process.

     His ignorance is startling – but not surprising. Politicians and those that are served by them are blissfully ignorant of facts with which they do not agree. Priebus, unlike Robert Steele, the former RNC chairman, has also forgotten another voting bloc that the GOP has tried hard for years to disenfranchise: Women.

     The party of Lincoln and Reagan – now of McConnell, Boehner, Paul and Cruz – conveniently forgets the 156 million women in the U.S. and the influence these modern females have on the home-front voting decisions.

     In the past decade, the Republicans have done just about everything they can do to alienate a large segment of the female voting population on the issue of personal health, i.e., abortion. The likes of Cruz and Paul, today’s front-running darling in the dash for the primary nomination, cater to the extremists of the party (for the moment at least) in order to curry the “early favorite” mantle in the party primaries and caucuses that are still over the horizon.

     Neither can be elected president; you can take that to the bank … or Las Vegas, where they will gladly take your money on that sucker bet.

     Taking the facts that a Democratic candidate – virtually any Democratic candidate – can count on a majority of votes from blacks, Hispanics and women if the GOP stays its historical course, how can the Republicans win the presidency in 2016?

     With the individual members of the herd who has his or her neck stuck out now, they cannot. 

     That statement is not political, it’s demographics mixed with common sense and logic.

     Additionally, the more the GOP tries to skew those voting numbers by bogus voter ID laws that are aimed at reducing the number of minorities who vote, the more minorities will vote. By such actions, the GOP is flatly stating it is a non-inclusive political party. 

     To have a chance to win the presidency in 2016, the GOP has to – HAS TO – move to the center of the political spectrum. And the Tea Party movement will fight any such move tooth-and-claw, creating a wider party chasm than now exists. For the past five years, the leaders of the party have spent so much time and energy “hating” Obama, they have lost sight of the bigger goal … elect a Republican president.

     In order to win the presidency, as a party and as part of their stated and approved platform, the Republicans have to embrace minorities and establish an acceptable (read, flexible) path to citizenship for immigrants, drop the bombastic abortion noise to a murmur (or at least leave that debate to Women of the GOP) and allow that it’s really not a part of the Constitution that any citizen can own an automatic assault rifle or any other weapon of choice.

     The party hardliners will not be able to make those adjustments. And, thusly, the GOP will have to be content to win regional and statewide seats in Congress and let the Democrats run the White House.

     It’s not too early for a wake-up call.

      

TV fare is the pits (No! Not the programming – the commercials)

TV fare is the pits

(No! Not the programming – the commercials)

    

     Things that don’t seem to affect normal folks one way or another seem to drive me quietly bonkers. My pet peeves range from slow service in restaurants to a button missing on a shirt freshly back from the cleaners to people who fold up their checks in the church collection plate so no one can see how little they are giving.

     Television commercials, on some level, are irritating to a majority of viewers – or at least to those viewers with whom I discuss the matter. But they don’t seem to drive them crazy and want to throw a can of tuna at the screen.

     The problems with commercials are growing. Commercials too loud. (Wasn’t the Federal Communications Commission going to fix that?) Too many commercials. As the number of channels proliferate like the number of hamsters in a cage munching on rodent-grade Viagra, the price of commercials go down, and the number of cheaply mad commercials go up exponentially.

     Television commercials have made almost a full circle in the past 60 years. Producers and sponsors have gone from cartoon ads (LSMFT–Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco and those cute, singing elves that needed a haircut in the ‘50s Ajax the Foaming Cleansing ads) to multi-million-dollar I’m so sexy you need to buy this product ads and back again. Notice how many cartoon commercials there are today?

     Many commercials today insult the intelligent of the average viewer. (What is it with The General insurance company ads? I get “The General” but what’s up with the penguin sidekick? And The General’s mustache style went out in the 1870s!))

     And, really, do we need to see consecutive commercials for pills and auxiliary products aiming to fix every male and female problem that could possibly exist from the waist to the knees? You might argue that public information on new medical discoveries is important to the general television viewing public. You might be right. But give me a button to blip those hummers before they get to the punch line (so to speak) and you can send me one for every TV in the house.

     The proliferation of medical ads selling drugs for every possible dysfunction known to medical science, makes me feel weak, sluggish, creates a twitch in m right eye, creates atrial fibrillation, makes the space between my toes itch and gives me a pronounced, pounding headache.

     The actors hired for any commercial that’s not for a major movie trailer or a major car company come from Rejection Casting.

     There’s another insurance company where a guy puts a lampshade on his head and his pretend-wife is wearing an orange sweater that is tight enough to show her chest veins. I don’t remember the name of the insurance company because I am wondering how she got that sweater over her Texas Big Hair and her doctor-bought accessories.

     I like some of the white-on-white Flo commercials and the talking baby ads are a hoot, but have trouble remembering what company they are promoting.

     Good writing – in movies or on TV – can sometimes save bad acting, but when you have neither, you are wasting your money trying to reach potential customers with an IQ that add up to more than their personal digits.     

     If you watch the prescription medication commercials and listen to the words closely, you will never, ever again take a prescription medication. Bottom line: Take any medication that ends in “syn,” “ox,” “oid,” “ol,” “tra” or “xa” and you have a good chance of developing smelling armpits, upchuck your toenails, retain enough water to float a boat in the Uncertain Christmas Parade or die.

     A frequent TV watcher has two choices: Tape everything and “button fly” through the commercials or get up every time a commercial airs and go to the bathroom.

     The first option seems best. Even me, at my age, can’t go to the bathroom that many times in a day.

     I take a pill for that. Heard about it on TV.

    

What is about the IRS that makes us hate it so?

A word about the IRS: The Internal Revenue Service collects money from taxpayers so the gummit  can provide services for taxpayers.

That's it. Plain. Simple.

It is the most-detested of all spokes in the gummit wheel not because it takes our money but because the agency has no heart. Of course, being in the tax collecting business is not going to ingratiate yourself to many folks; history points to that truism time and time again.

Starting with the premise that the mere action of their work -- and the fact that WE pay them to do it -- is aggravating to most folks, what is not understandable is the clear perception of a pompous and condescending attitude exhibited by the agency. It is not a miscalculation to state that from the IRS's standpoint, the citizen is presumed to be wrong -- a liar, cheat and thief, if you will -- whenever the agency decides it's Audit Time.

I've had two run-ns with the IRS in the past 20 years. Well, "run-ins" is a bit harsh; they sent me a tax bill and I sent them a check both times. The intimidation factor of that agency -- even to a rebel with claws -- is as real as the hangover after a night of swilling tequila trying to wipe out bad memories.

The IRS, like the persona of "public welfare" is a part of the government we love to hate. And, darn it to hell and back, the IRS asks for it.  In 2010-2011, the agency has spent $49 million on 225 conferences, with some officials spending more than $3,000 a night on accommodations.

They paid $17,000 for a speaker who drew pictures of Michael Jordan and U2 singer Bono to motivate employees. Conference expenses have fallen dramatically over the last year as the administration is trying to revamp its image in the second term. And it's making a dent: After spending more than $40 million on do-something conferences, the agency dropped that "educational" number to slightly more than $4.1 million last year. That's still about $4 million too much

Tax reform is needed but will never become a reality until lobbyists for major corporations and Richer-than-Rich individuals are told to fly a kite by our elected officials.

Fact, there is no reason that IRS statements of earnings, deductions and payments should not be readily accessible on a3x5 note card. Well, there is one reason: Money. Those that want a complicated tax code with well-hidden exemptions for those that make enough money to hire folks to find them will never let that happen due to campaign contributions.

It's sad when the system that's supposed to be working for the public is "working" the public.

Tax reform? It will happen ... when world currency is based on the underarm hair standard.

What about those guns?

Three times in the past month or so, I've sauntered into a store and tried to buy ammunition for one of my guns. No ammunition was to be found. For my .22 caliber pistol and rifles.

Someone out there is hoarding ammo and I'm getting a little nervous thinking about the herd of armadillos I know is gathering in Andres Thicket, ready to pounce upon us as soon as I snickety-pop the last .22 shell at a charging target. 

I don't need bullets for an AK-47 or a a nosecone for a ballistic missile, just some little ol' long-rifle .22 shells.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 25 states this year have considered restrictions on certain types of weapons or ammunition accessories. Not in Arkansas. 

The Arkansas Legislature loosened restrictions on carrying firearms in churches and higher-education institutions. Lawmakers also exempted former law-enforcement officers, court bailiffs and county sheriffs, from concealed-handgun licensing requirements, including mandatory training.

 Other bills included recognizing all states’ concealed-handgun licenses in Arkansas, allowing liquor store employees to possess a firearm and granting authority to a church that operates a school to permit concealed handguns on its campus. The salons still won't permit a citizen to carry a gun in the state Capitol. Good thing, too.

As Tina Fey said recently, doing her schtick as Sarah Palin, “If more people have guns, there are less guns in stores, you betcha.”