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9/30/2009

The GOP, in the last 9 months, has not agreed with a single word or deed from the President, and have no intention of ever agreeing with anything he says or does between now and whenever they get him assassinated or his term runs out, whichever comes first. They will say that the sky is magenta with yellow polka dots simply to disagree with him. Up is down, back is forth and in GOP-la-la-through-the-looking-glass-land, everything is a secret plot to destroy America with Socialism!

Why are their panties in a wad now? Because the President is making a personal appearance to try to get the 2016 Olympics brought to Chicago.

They claim that it is silly - too much to do, depsite the fact that they stall and obstruct every attempt at doing anything until it takes approximately four times the amount of time it should take to get anything done and finally everybody just forgets what they were supposed to be doing in the first place. There are simply too many irons in the fire for our President to go traipsing off to Copenhagen to Bow to the Olympic Committee! Depite the fact that the the GOP stalls and has to have public Whine-Time about every single iron in the fire, and then they have to whip up their 20%'er base for the long, drawn out lack-of-debate with Teabaggers yammering on and on about whether those irons are socialist and if those irons are really hot or if it is just another of Obama's Nazi-Maoist-Pol Pottish lies? Too many worries! The economy, which they don't have a clue or an idea about, is in the crapper. Healthcare, for which they are only worried their rich insurance industry sugar-daddies won't get paid, and by extension the GOP & Blue Screwed Pooches won't get paid. Afghanistan, which they don't think is killing people at nearly a fast enough rate.

The Olympics in Chicago, to the GOP-la-la-land'ers and their 20%'ers dragging behind the bumper, is a big, fat Marxist-Leninist waste of time.

Back to reality for a moment. Just a moment, you have my word.

Having the Olympics in Chicago will create jobs. It will boost the economy, because it requires a heck of a lot of construction of everything from stadiums to parking decks to Pizza Huts and public johns and hotels and houses, and then it all has to be maintained and staffed and run and cleaned, over and over and over again, every day, for years. All that stuff needs to be shipped, so it will be a boost to the trucking and rail industry. People might buy a new or at least used car to get the family there. We might win a gold or two.

Americans will go to this one, because they don't have to be worried about being gassed by a carbonized smog cloud in Chicago or Little Johnny going into anaphylactic shock because his asthma inhaler won't even work in the Beijing atmosphere. Hell, I might even go. Might put the Kid and Mr. Bee into the Family Truckster and head on out to the Windy City. And I don't even particularly care about the Olympic games, I just want to see the show.

This country needs a boost, and it needs it badly. Be it economic, or only psychological. This nation has had a rough time of it this past decade, and we need something desperately we can be proud of again.

It once was a high honor for a city to get to host the Olympics. At least, it was until a black man was elected to the highest position in the land and the GOP suddenly decides that it's just too expensive, frivolous and time-wasting. Maybe they're just worried there won't be enough hookers or Xanax to go around.

They complain that Obama is just trying to feed his cronies in Chi-Town. Sounds like projection, to me. Really, this coming from a party that is run by crooks and sickos that make Nixon look like a Hello Kitty doll just chaps my boot.

Personally, I don't even care if it is true. Chicago did something amazing and wonderful in the latter years of the 19th century. They created, from scratch, a gleaming city on the lake, some of which still exists today. New industry popped up all over Chicago to handle the millions of people who managed to travel there in the days of the horse and buggy. The city Boomed in the largest sense of the word, and became a powerhouse of commerce, transportation and manufacturing. It spawned one of the coolest crime shows ever to air on TV: Crime Story. Chicago can make magic again, given the chance.

I'm completely on board the "Chicago Olympics" train, so tonight I'm silently sending out brain waves to Barry and Michelle to knock'em dead in Copenhagen.

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9/29/2009

Roast in Hell, Gang of Six, because you may have just consigned another 45,000 people to death for lack of healthcare coverage next year. And another 45,000 the year after that. And another 45,000 the year after that. Only those numbers will grow exponentially every single year, because you want to increase the stranglehold that the healthcare insurance industry has on this country and its economy. All for what - so your golf buddy can buy another mansion?

The Senate Finance Committee rejected public option amendments to their bill that would create a form of coverage for that average Joe Sixpack that the republicans liked to crow over only a year ago.

No surprises here, folks, considering several of them, repube and dem alike, are owned rusted lock, busted stock and stinking retch filled barrel by the healthcare insurance industry.

Don't cry for me, Argentina, because there are at least 3 other bills floating around out there, and the fat lady ain't done singing yet. The Bee won't give up hope until it's over, and it ain't over yet, folks. Not just yet.

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9/28/2009

Over the summer, we saw all kinds of pictures of old farts waving signs around saying stupidity like "Keep your government hands off my Medicare" and "Obama's Plan - bury it with Ted Kennedy." All this "protest" in the name of...well, they won't admit it, but some of their signs said it all - protest of a black man in the White House.

We saw video footage and photos of a man carrying an assualt rifle outside a townhall meeting where Obama was speaking.

This merited no response from law enforcement other than "well, it's legal." Other than that, no response whatsoever.

A couple of weeks ago, 20%'ers turned out in droves on the streets bordering the National Mall (presumably because Fox and Beck didn't have sense enough to buy a permit for the Mall itself from the Capital Police). Again, no observable reaction from law enforcement. No "Just in case, you know, let's request some backup from northern Virginia and Maryland...just in case, y'know." No, there was none of that. None at all. Zero. Zip.

But last week, when young, unarmed, people converged on Pittsburgh to protest the societal/economic conditions in the world and to protest rampant, unchecked capitalism which has made a hash of the entire world economy and to protest it at the backdrop of the G20 summit, there was indeed a police presence.

So much so that it is reputed to have outnumbered the protesters.

The police presence was in full riot gear. They used tear gas and sound cannons to beat back the protesters.

So, the question is, given the crass law enforcement over-reaction to a group of teens and twenty-somethings protesting, and law enforcement's crass under-reaction to a million old poops and armed nuts protesting any notion of doing anything that might actually help someone else down the line, which side is law enforcement on?

And why has it taken a side at all? Clearly, the decision makers all over the country have chosen to side against progress, against youth, against the Constituion and against the the man in the White House.

So where does that leave the rest of us?

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9/23/2009

The ninth leading cause of death in the United States, according to the Center for Disease Control is Nephritis, Nephrosis and nephrotic syndrome, which claims 45,344 deaths per year.

The tenth leading cause of death per year in the United States is septicemia, with just over 34,000 deaths per year.

The Journal of Public Health last week issued a Harvard study that shows that 45,000 people per year in the United States die from lack of insurance. They can't afford to go to the hospital or doctor when they get sick, so they get sicker, and die.

The CDC needs to update its 2006 list linked above, because now lack of insurance is the number 10 leading cause of death in the United States.

Still the fiddles play all over the country, strung by morons and marched out in the alleged millions and screeched with crooked bows to combat any kind of healthcare reform. Why? Because they are batcrap crazy, that's why.

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9/18/2009

We all know that last weekend the legions of the gray-haired on Medicare and the White Power-Mongers converged on Washington DC in order to protest what they knew not, but by god, protest they did!

And then they had trouble getting to and from the World's Biggest Tailgate Party because it was Saturday, and the DC Metro didn't take the ginormous pains to cater to their whims and wants and provide more trains and more cars to ferry them and their little signs all around the City. This from idiots who didn't even have sense to get a Mall permit.

And this Bitch has the nerve to complain that the Metro didn't accomodate those hordes of middle and upper-class barbarians so they could storm the gates of Congress...on a Saturday, when noone was even home.

So Who's the Bitch who dissed my Metro? This turkey, of course from the Sad and Sorry State of Texas, Kevin Brady, House Representative and All-Around Massive Twit:

He cries the blues because Metro, on a Freaking Non-Holiday Saturday, didn't bother to add more trains to accomodate the Million Moron March, and they should, by god, because we taxpayers pay for that!

Not exactly. Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC pay for it. Congress only appropriated funds starting in 1969 - THIRTY YEARS AGO - to build it. Daily running, car-adding, train-adding and maintenance of the entire system is paid for by two states and a District. Oh, and rider fares. For less than 3 bucks, you can take the Metro all the way from Springfield, Virginia to the National Mall. It's safe, well-lit, clean and non-threatening in every way. There is ZERO grafitti, ZERO food squashed into the carpet, ZERO gum under the seats, ZERO coffee stains all over the upholstery, ZERO violence and for getting around a very congested city, it simply cannot be beat. In fact, Metro has been reckoned by many to be one of the best, if not the best, mass transit systems in this country, second only to NYC for numbers of riders. Accidents? Catastrophes? A handful since it was built 30 years ago. I've been riding Metro all my life, and every city in this hemisphere should be LUCKY to have a mass transit system like ours.

So how can we know that federal taxpayer money doesn't pay for the Metro to run?

Well, if it did, the General Manager, Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland wouldn't have had to go to the US Congress recently to ask for Federal Funding because in this economy, like so many other things, Metro is going broke, DC is broke, Virginia is pretty much broke, and I figure Maryland is broke too. They're a little broker now, thanks to this bunch. Wonder how much trash was left behind for Metro and Mall employees to clean up? Wonder how many toilets in the Museum of Natural History overflowed? Next we'll hear there weren't enough hot-dog vendors and the City should have provided more snack carts.

So, Kevin Brady, you whiny little byotch, MY TAX MONEY helps pay for that Metro. It doesn't belong to YOU and YOUR RACIST FRIENDS, it belongs to ME and my LIBERAL NORTHERN VIRGINIA SOUTHERN MARYLAND AND DC BROTHERS AND SISTERS, and I won't hear of some no-count mangy dog from Texas griping that it just wasn't good enough for you and your automatons to ride on.

Oh, how's that border problem y'all got down there? Managed to snag yourselves any of those Mexican Drug Lords that have been ravaging your border towns yet? I hear you've got American Citizens going missing thanks to that garbage.

No? No headway on that little problem yet? Well, maybe you should get to work on that, and quit dissing my Metro, because I"m not too hip on my tax money paying for the DEA that will have to come in and clean up your pathetic excuse for a state.

And next time you come to DC, hire youselves a fleet of limos to drag your sorry asses all over the MY Nation's Capital. Just make sure they're white limos, because we all know how you feel about the color black.

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9/14/2009

Pictures of the huddled masses of white people yearning to breath free under the iron fist of an insurance industry unhampered by such trivialities as regulation and reform have been flying at light speed throughout the internet. Some look pretty fake, such as this one, with its missing Museum of the American Indian (which should be just beside Air & Space, the last museum down the line, to the right of the capital, and which was opened in 2004 - in this pic, it looks like construction is still ongoing, which dates this pic to at least early 2004). This one has been floating around conservative websites, according to HuffPo, and had to be taken down by a few conservative sites:

And then there is this one, which comes from Moderate in the Middle. It looks a bit more authentic - at least the Museum of the American Indian is where it is supposed to be - it's the tan building to the left near the top of the picture:

I've seen estimates of 60,000, which is no great shakes for a DC protest, to 1.2 million, which is a more respectable turnout.

So, let's give the Million Moron March the benefit of the doubt: Let's say it really was a million morons marching for their rats (see the movie Gettysburg if you have no idea what that refers to). And they are sooo very proud of themselves for standing tall for their rats to be the white establishment masters of the universe. The uneducated, the too-religious and therefore not to be trusted, the...gray haired.

Yep, from all of the pictures I've seen these last couple of days, these are gray-haired men and women, for the most part, with a few yuppie "behind the gate neighborhood" families thrown in for good measure. They probably aren't all astroturfers, but they don't need to be. Lots of signs, from the obviously homemade and quite rancid, to the slick Kinko's signs, they really show the true infection raging within the white republican party.

Democratic Underground has been a treasure trove of the most offensive signs. Obamas Plan White Slavery. The American Taxpayers are the Jews for Obama's Ovens.

There is an upside to this - a silver lining, so to speak. Now we know just who we are dealing with. White people scared that white people might, just might, not rule the entire world anymore.

And it only took the election of a black man to the highest seat in the country to bring it out of them, like pus from an infected toe.

The 20%'ers sure can get themselves worked into a tizzy over someone besides themselves possibly getting a fairer shake. But really, that's just an excuse. It all boils down to there's a black man in the white house, and they just cannot stand it. The sad part is they liken Obama to Hitler, and then bring out their children to carry signs for them, like the good little automatons their parents hope they grow up to be. Just like Mom and Dad, a chip off the old brick-headed block.

p.s. My apologies for my totally screwed up RSS feed. It took me a month and a half to figure out how to get it into this site at all, so it might take me that long to fix it.

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9/10/2009

I have kept silent for the past week because I was starting to lose my hope. I've been reading on the Lefty side of the internet that the President is a tool, that he is a pussy, that he will back down and give a giant free-for-all to the health insurance companies.

I have seen headlines from Alternet and Huffington Post with re-writes of a speech not yet even given.

It's easy to lose hope in an elected leader when even your own side is against him to the point where they feel they must re-write his speeches for him days before he has even presented it.

So I put myself in a news-vacuum for a couple of days, had a little fun while on Stay-cation, bided my time and waited. You see, all the "leaks" from the White House, all of Politico's "tips" and whatever Axelrod has to say didn't mean squat to me, because I was waiting to hear it from the horse's mouth.

Many were convinced that there would be no public option on the table, that any plan the White House might sponsor would be a gigantic giveaway to the Insurance Industry and that there would, in fact, not only be no reform or change for the better, there would actually be reform and change for the infinitely worse, to the point of destroying this country and causing a schism of irreparable harm throughout the nation's psyche.

I will not accept that this country, which survived a Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the public murders of 3 good men who fought for decency within this nation, for god's sake, will crumble under a few Insurance Companies that throw some money around Congress and the airwaves out of desperation to save their own profit margins and shareholder returns. I will not accept that the 20%'ers (c) will bring this country into a new Civil War - I will not lend them that much consideration or credence.

Over the last few weeks, we have seen every form of vicious, feces-streaked lie created and perpetuated by those on the right. Lies driven by Industry afraid of losing its stranglehold on the the nation as a whole, lies driven by fools who managed to get themselves elected to Congress with the sole intention of scoring a few cheap political points, lies driven by the 20%'ers who refuse to accept that their idol's way was the wrong way. Like shit thrown on the wall, some of those lies stuck, some didn't.

And then there were the complaints that Obama wasn't saying enough, that he should be getting into the fray weeks ago to counter some of the insanity coming from the republican party. My gut was telling me all along that these complaints were ill-founded, I just couldn't find a way to express that feeling. It occurred to me finally last night that, if he did get involved in the melee weeks ago, it would only have fueled the fires of irrational discourse. However, to wait, to let the right reach record levels of batshit crazy for a few weeks with every new pronouncement and with every new scary story, was the right way to go. Mr. Bee likened it to jumping into the bar room brawl right at the beginning. The best the President could hope for was to get his skull cracked by a flying chair. However, to come in near the end, when the combatants are exhausted and voices are lost from perpetual screeching, he gets the final word in calmly and rationally.

The right is like the proverbial rubber-duckie. They will keep bobbing up with cries of death panels et al ad nauseum. But last night, they seemed a bit - deflated. Boehner looked as if he had swallowed a peach pit and was subsequently chewing his own tongue off. Wilson screamed "You Lie" to a standing President, and was subsequently smacked on the head for it by his own side. I sensed a hint of neutralization when the President very clearly chastised them for making a mockery of the civil discourse and debate process with their own demagoguery when he branded them as liars:

But what we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government. Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics. Some have dug into unyielding ideological camps that offer no hope of compromise. Too many have used this as an opportunity to score short-term political points, even if it robs the country of our opportunity to solve a long-term challenge. And out of this blizzard of charges and countercharges, confusion has reigned.

Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care.

That, folks, is what we here in Ol' Virginny refer to as "Calling them out."

The plans the President stressed are not perfect, but I wasn't even hoping for perfect. What I hoped to hear was what I did hear - some ideas I can live with. At least some kind of regulation to level the playing field between the average American and the Insurance Oligarchy. Some help to small businesses and individuals in obtaining some kind of coverage, be it non-profit co-op or Public Option. Some rules to what cannot be morally considered a game. In fact, it is a good start, as long as Congress doesn't screw it up - and I am sure they will try their best. However, the President still wields the veto pen, and can make them try and try and try again until they get it somewhat right. I saw the strength to do just that radiating from that podium last night.

For 100 years, the door to healthcare reform has been nailed, welded and barred shut from the inside. If whatever hits Obama's desk in a short while at least opens that door a crack and wedges it open, then more substantive change can be more easily obtained in the near future. I would far rather have that possibility than have nothing at all just because I don't get everything with a bow on top on the first try. If the door can be opened, then this is NOT the end.

The full text of the speech and the complete video can be seen courtesy of the Seattle Pi.

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9/3/2009

President Obama wants to have extended two tax benefits to low income families - the extension of the Earned Income Credit and an expansion of the Child Credit.

And the republicans cry "FOUL!!!" They bellow "He hasn't paid for it!"

I know, like that is a surprise. They haven't exactly come up with wonderful ideas for paying for that bullshit war we've been mired in for the past 8 years, either, but in RepublicanLand, that isn't the point! The point is that those poor people caused all the problems! They always cause all the problems! We should round them up and send them away!

Of course they will bitch and moan, because if it doesn't benefit the wealthy elite, then it has to be paid for, and those poor people don't deserve it, they don't even pay taxes!

Of course they don't pay taxes. They earn nothing. Just ask all those wonderful, kind, generous employers in the retail, apparel manufacturing, child care, and other low-wage industries, because they can tell you ALLLLL about it. If you can get them to talk about it. Of course, they don't, until they are hauled into court like WalMart is regularly, or unless some university researchers start looking into the low-wage world and make a nice, big, nasty report about that generous spirit of the WalMarts and the sweatshop apparel manufacturers and the low-income daycare centers and the food service industry. They treat their employees soooo very well.

Except they tend to work people without paying them. And they "discourage" them from filing workers compensation claims when they are injured on the job and incur medicals bills and missed days from work.

Except when they rip off their employees for an average of $50 per week when the employee only makes an average of $300 a week to begin with. The employers don't like to pay overtime. But they sure do like to make the employees work that overtime.

Except when they are ripping off their employees for meal breaks, and pee breaks and then don't even pay them the minimum wage.

The excuses from the employers are usually they are forced to violate wage laws to remain competitive.

IF, and that is a big IF, that were true, then healthcare reform with a public option would go a long way toward alleviating that competition problem and allow those poor beleaguered WalMarts and IHops to stop ripping off their employees to boost their balance sheets and put more into their poor little shareholder's hands.

But NOOOOOOO, the republicans and their repube-light fellows on the Dem side of the fence can't have that either, because that would actually BENEFIT some of the poor people, who will never be able to rise above their present personal hell as long as the Free Market Ideologues have their way. Their way is to keep these people as poor as possible, tax them, no breaks, not even to take a whizz or to keep food on the table because the Cult of Free Market Ideology, bastardized as it is in this country, dictates that those people should be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and if they don't, then they're lazy, or stupid, or both.

Not really. The deck is stacked against most low-wage earners from the moment they are born, and it stays that way until the day most die. The mentality which keeps this condition in full tilt boogie is social darwinism, at best.

Those tax breaks for the poor will cost $85 billion!

And the tax breaks for the wealthy cost far, far more and garner far less for the good of the country. Meanwhile, the country is run on the backs of the impoverished who need desperately every small break they can get. The price of not providing that small break carries a price tag far higher than $85 bil.

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