Me and the eff, bee, aye

One of the problems I have had with all the teeth gnashing over the NSA revelations is that I just can't imagine--and this could be because I don't take myself or my existence all that seriously--they really give two shits about 99% of us.  I mean really--most of us live a life that is just slightly more exciting than that of a turtle at a nearby pond resting regularly on a piece of driftwood floating in the middle.  And some of us don't even top that kind of excitement (you know who you are).  Doesn't mean I think the spying programs are hunky-dory, just means I can't get as worked up as some people do.

For shits and grins, I decided to send in a Freedom of Information/Privacy Act request to the FBI (surprisingly, you can't send one to the NSA...hmmmm...).  Now, I would have been stunned had I shown up on any watch lists--other than a handful of traffic tickets, none of them egregious, I have had zero run-ins with any kind of law enforcement.  Nor do I run around threatening to blow up government (or any other kind of) buildings.  For the last thirty-two years I've had a family to support, and while Susan Sarandon can get arrested for forming a human chain in front of Wendy's to protest their use of chicken factory farms, I can't.  No work, no kids eating, very unhappy mothers of children.

My request came back this week, and surprise of surprises, I am not on any watch lists...but...I did find these couple of passages in my official letter from the FBI a bit disconcerting.  Pardon the legalese, I'm quoting:

"By standard FBI practice and pursuant to FOIA exemption (b)(7)(E) and Privacy Act exemption (j2) [5 U.S.C. 552/552a (b)(7)(e), (j)(2)] this response neither confirms nor denies the existence of your subject's name on any watch lists."

And:

"For your information, Congress excluded three discrete categories of law enforcement and national security records from the requirements of the FOIA.  See 5 U.S.C. 552(c) (2006 & Supp. IV (2010).  This response is limited to those records that are subject fo the requirements of the FOIA.  This is a standard notification that is given to all our requesters and should not be taken as an indication that excluded records do, or do not, exist."

What the fuck?  Anyone familiar with All the President's Men would have to call this a non-denial denial.  For fuck's sake, what's so hard about either yes, dipshit, you are on a watch list, or, no, numbnuts, you aren't?

While I still sincerely doubt the FBI or NSA has any photos of the Beautiful Girl and I doing the midnight two-step, you can certainly see why no one--on either the left or the right--would want to trust these bastards.  After reading my letter, and the gobbledygook in the two passages above, where my government can't even give an ordinary, law-abiding citizen like me a straight answer, I know I don't.

Transparency indeed.

Peace,
emaycee

Reason #1258

Although we've seen it so often before (austerity measures which have actually made the deficit worse, being against unemployment and SNAP benefits even though they offer the greatest return on our tax dollars of any expenditure, refusing Medicaid as part of Obamacare on principle rather than as a matter of economics and costing their states even more money, hell, even supporting the right to continue using old-fashioned light bulbs even though they use much more energy and don't last nearly as long) the credibility republicans have on fiscal responsibility is about that of Charles Manson claiming he believes in the Golden Rule.

Another case in point:  the state of Utah has spent $30,000 since they passed a welfare reform law last year requiring welfare applicants to undergo drug testing and have caught...wait for it, wait for it...12 fucking people.

I know it's a republican wet dream that every welfare recipient is a crack-addicted mother with eleven kids, but the plain truth of the matter is that the vast majority of welfare recipients are just ordinary folks, and if they can't afford to buy food for their kids, they certainly can't afford to buy dope.

If the republicans really wanted to protect our tax dollars they'd shut the fuck up and go home.

Peace,
emaycee

And know they love you

What a wonderful world...

Seventy-five percent of teachers (up from sixty percent just a year ago) report that they have children in their classrooms who regularly come to school hungry.  One supposes with the republican push to cut $40 billion from SNAP benefits they're shooting for an A+ and hoping to get that number to 100% of teachers.

Speaking of teachers, did you know that American teachers spend an average of $37 every month to feed their students?

What a bunch of overpaid assholes those teachers are....

Peace,
emaycee

Phuck you

Seems Phil Mickelson won $2.2 million dollars for winning two golf tournaments over the course of two weeks in the British Isles, and after taxes, he "only" cleared $900,000 for hitting a little ball across a lot of grass into a hole.  This, Mickelson claims is making it hard to motivate himself to work harder.

Setting aside the fact that Mickelson should get down on his hands and knees every single day for the rest of his life and give thanks for getting paid an exorbitant amount of money for playing a game that serves no discernible good whatsoever for the fate of the planet, can you imagine the uproar if a real athlete, like Tom Brady or Derek Jeter, had said the same about the taxes they pay?  Instead, the "readers" of Breitfart act as if Mickelson is Nelson fucking Mandela.

If it's such a burden, though, Mickelson can always retire and manage retail stores for a living.  He'd quickly find that fear of starvation and homelessness are excellent motivators for working harder.

At the very least he'd learn--as I have--that having a gut that hangs over your belt sure gets in the way when you're trying to pick up all the shit customers drop on the salesfloor.

Peace,
emaycee

Scenes from an American trainwreck, Coda

And the beat goes on:

• Republicans across the country, from state legislatures to the U.S. Congress, are happy to help turn the rest of America into Detroit--they won't fund public education, they won't fund improvements in our infrastructure, and they won't lift a finger to combat our epidemic of gun violence.
• The republican party's assaults on ordinary Americans have gone beyond the pale--cutting funding for SNAP benefits in an historic economic downturn, spending $50 million trying to repeal Obamacare 40 different times, refusing to pass sensible immigration reforms, restricting voting rights with no basis in facts, restricting a woman's right to choose, and obstructing judicial and cabinet nominations in unprecedented numbers.  They do not have the best interests of anybody other than the 20% of Americans who make up their base, i.e., the Antoinettes.
• Looking for a job?  Don't read this piece--republican attacks on the working men and women of our country have resulted in record corporate profits while wages are falling, the middle class is getting smaller, McJobs are becoming the standard, unemployment is twice what we read, the cost of college is at historic highs, and income inequality is rivaling that of the Roman Empire.  Thanks, Donnie Downer!

And in the end, from the double standards on CEO performance to the Wal-Martization of our workforce, from the Senate's catering to the wealthy to the sequester's effects literally putting our lives at risk, from the republicans' war on ordinary Americans to the futility of our job market, it's all about fairness.

Whether it is economic justice, equality before our laws, or equal access to healthcare, any time a majority of a republic's citizens do not feel they are being treated fairly that republic--and especially a democratic republic--is in serious trouble.

It is my sincerest hope that the trend lines showing America's young people leaning to the left in massive numbers will be enough to eventually offset the inequality that the Reagan Devolution has brought us over the last thirty some odd years.

If not, it's going to make the French Revolution look quaint--the French, after all, were never promised an equal chance for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Peace,
emaycee

Scenes from an American Trainwreck, Part 4

The 1918 flu pandemic infected 500 million people around the world, and killed 50-100 million people.  Twenty-eight percent of the people in the United States were affected by this flu and it killed over 500,000 Americans.  Many scientists consider it to be the worst medical disaster in history.

Many of today's scientists think it's only a matter of time before another pandemic of such epic proportions strikes the world again.  First the good news:  thanks to our wisely spent tax dollars, the National Institute of Health believes we may only be five years from a universal vaccine, which would also work against a massive pandemic.  And for the bad news--thanks to the republicans sequester cuts (too many Democrats have been duped by the evil forces of austerity, but let's face it, if we had control of the House, this sequester bullshit would be a long gone mother fucker) that target date will probably be pushed back because of a lack of funding. 

Feelin' lucky, punk?

Because that's what republicans are counting on--luck that another widespread pandemic won't occur.  So they can continue to throw our tax money to the wealthy, at the expense of the poor and the middle class.

Remember this:  if there is another outbreak similar to 1918, it won't be the children of republican senators and congresspeople that will die.  It won't be the children of the moneyed elite.

It will be our kids.

Peace,
emaycee

Scenes from an American trainwreck, Part 3

I'm shocked, shocked to find that a recent study shows the U.S. Senate is much more responsive to the needs of the moneyed elite than they are to their poor and middle class constituents.

Thomas J. Hayes, a political scientist at the University of Connecticut has studied the U.S. Senate since 2002 and found that not only does the legislative body favor the wealthy, it does so overwhelmingly, and most often at the expense of not just the poor, but the middle class as well.

I know this news is of the "Hey, did you know that sweaty feet stink?" variety, but you have to wonder how much a system rigged for the moneyed elite keeps voters home on election day and how often it keeps Americans from getting involved in trying to make their lives better.

Because it can't get much more self-defeating than knowing the one person in power who should be looking out for your best interests is much more likely to be taking care of your employer's CEO, who needs the financial help about as much as the Gobi Desert needs more sand.

Peace,
emaycee

Scenes from an American trainwreck, Part 2

A number of years ago, when I worked for the Sears Holding Corp., the decision was made to stop giving paid vacations to part-time workers.  One of the women who had worked for the company for more than thirty years as a part-timer was very unahppy with this decision, and as she had nothing to lose, she decided to call our corporate office to express her unhappiness and ask the rationale for this decision.  The answer she got was as simple as it was straightforward:  Sorry, but Wal-Mart doesn't do it.

There was once a time, boys and girls, before the Reagan Devolution, when there wasn't a race to the bottom in what was offered to employees in terms of wages and benefits.  Wise business leaders heeded the mantra of Henry Ford that you had to pay your employees enough to be able to afford to buy the products they made.

Wal-Mart makes $35,000 in profit every minute.  They have annual nets sales of over $405 billion.  The Walton family is estimated to be worth $115 billion, which is more than 42% of Americans combined.  We further subsidize their business with tax cuts and incentives worth even more billions.  Yet the average Wal-Mart worker makes $9.00 an hour and has no health benefits.

Wal-Mart workers are the number one recipients of Medicaid.  Wal-Mart workers are forced onto food stamps because of their low pay.  As if it isn't bad enough our taxpaying largesse goes to give even more billions to the moneyed elite, we're also subsidizing Wal-Mart's refusal to pay its workers a living wage by using tax dollars that could be spent on infrastructure or education to keep their employees healthy and fed.

It's one thing to give small business owners a hand to start a business or a leg up to hire more employees, and completely another to pour countless billions into a fabulously successful corporation that also expects us to keep its employees out of poverty while its billionaire owners pile even more money in their bank accounts.

Peace,
emaycee

Scenes from an American trainwreck, Part 1

I've been reading a lot of depressing stories lately (thanks Alternet!)--time to share the sorrow....

What is it with republicans that whenever something goes wrong with a business or a municipality, they always blame the working men and women (usually over how much money we make--even though more often than not it's an extremely modest income)?  Seriously--we follow orders from our leadership, we follow their plans and outlines, but in the end, it's our fault?  What the fuck, right?

And if we are incompetent, or hurt sales, or make a major mistake, we get fired, and more often than not, since it was our own fault, we can't even collect unemployment.  It's either find a new job pronto, or starve.

Compare and contrast, however, with American CEOs--they run corporations into the ground with piss poor strategies, reduce earnings and profitability, watch sales decline, all with the business acumen of an armadillo...and they get a golden parachute worth unfathomable amounts of money and job offers out the watoozi for even more money.  And their employees end up with pink slips or are asked to forgo raises, or worse take a pay cut, all because of their leadership's utter incompetence. 

If we lived in a truly capitalistic society, these CEOS would get the same treatment we get when we can't do the job--a boot in the ass propelling us out the front door.

The only thing free about the free market in America is the free ride CEOs get.

Peace,
emaycee

Whither the American Dream?

Happy days are here again...if you're wealthy. 

We are number one--the champs, numero uno, the winners--in income inequality.  In fact, it isn't even close--our nearest competitor, the U.K., had the share of income among the top 1% increase by 6%, while we increased by 10%.  Seems it's a confluence of cutting taxes for the wealthy and regulations for corporate America...and having the both of them use their extra money to cut their taxes and their regulations even more.

And who got screwed?  You and me--they got richer and the trickle down that republicans would have us believe was a foregone conclusion never came close to fruition.  (Truth be told, any time you hear about how wealth is going to trickle down you'd better hold onto your wallet or purse--they're bound to be quite a bit lighter monetarily shortly).

And the American dream?  Why it ended up in the pockets of the moneyed elite.

And they don't give a good goddamn what kind of future you or your kids have.

Peace,
emaycee

How do you spell hope?

Once a month in his "Open thread for night owls," Meteor Blades features an excerpt from the always interesting Harper's Index. From the current month's--these two factoids:

• The percentage change since 1996 of the number of children living in poverty in America is plus 12%.
• Likewise, the change in those receiving cash aid from our government is minus 60%.

Not surprisingly, the suicide rate in the U.S. has increased 23% over the last decade.  And a recent study shows that--again, surprise, surprise--the republican austerity agenda is to blame.  The study notes that when the wealth and wages of the working class falls, suicide rises--and that when the government provides proper stimulus during economic downturns, it stays flat.

At a time in America when the republican party controls one-third of our federal system, too many of our state legislatures, and flat doesn't give a shit about anyone not in the moneyed elite, when corporate America runs roughshod over its workers and owns our system of justice, and when the wealthy think they deserve every privilege that comes their way but think the rest of us should earn them, the only way any of us can spell hope is G-O-V-E-R-N-M-E-N-T.  As shown above, people's lives depend on it.

Our government may be incompetent at times and overmatched at others, but it is not intrinsically evil.  Those noted in the preceding paragraph are.

Peace,
emaycee

Gettin' fucked over by the rich

"Everybody know the poor are always being fucked over by the rich.  Always have, always will."--King, Platoon

From The Daily Kos, on Detroit's bankruptcy woes:

"Wade P. Johnston got his bachelor’s degree in finance in 2012 from Michigan State University and is part of the team the consultants, Conway MacKenzie, have working to turn around city operations. The Birmingham firm billed the city $288,671 for the work of 11 staffers over two weeks in July, including more than $26,000 for Johnston alone.

The records give a rare look at the costs being picked up by the city and state, a breakdown city council members and other critics have argued has been hidden amid Detroit’s historic bankruptcy. Conway MacKenzie’s hourly rates range from $495 for the group’s senior managing director to $275 for Johnston, who started with the company in June as a senior associate, according to records. [...]

Conway’s rates are not the most expensive. The city’s bankruptcy firm Jones Day has charged up to $1,000 an hour, according to a July story in the Am Law Daily website."


Amazing, isn't it, how Rick Snyder and his team of financial boobs can find the money to pay the above figures, but you know, for those pensioners, well $32,000 a year is a just a king's ransom.

Interesting, too, how those republicans in our state legislature just go on and on about government spending and how overblown it is, but make no mention of the state paying some jackass a year out of college $13,000 a week ( but, oh, how overpaid those autoworkers are who make $60,000 a year).

They're not even trying to hide it anymore--the republican party is the party of the moneyed elite and frankly, as far as the other 90% of us are concerned, well hell, if we can't afford bread, we can just eat cake.

Peace,
emaycee

And a one way ticket, too

Seems Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) doesn't  believe the gross malpractice practiced by the financial industry that wrecked our economy and caused The Great Recession constitutes a crime because it didn't involve a gun.  It's also why he doesn't support a new Glass-Steagall Act or any further regulations on big banks.

I wonder if it would be posssible for someone to kick McClintock's ignorant ass all the way back to Idiotsville.

Shouldn't be a crime--no gun!

Peace,
emaycee

$204,080

Minus roughly $25,000 to $50,000 and multiplied by three, the above number represents (bad career choices didn't help much, either) why I've never been to Rome, why I live in a home built the year JFK was inaugurated, drive a ten year old car, and have holes in half of my jockey shorts.

That number represents the cost of raising a child born in the year 2012, which has risen by an average of 4.4% since the 1960s.

Truth be told, a hundred times that amount (not that I could have afforded it) wouldn't have been too much.

The joy they have brought me and their mothers has been worth every penny.

Peace.
emaycee

They say it's your birthday

Social Security, that wondrous program championed by the greatest American President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is seventy-eight years old today.  For a poor bastard like me, it's also the program that stands between me and being eighty years old, standing behind the counter of a McDonald's, and asking some scruffy seventeen year old if he'd like fries with his Big Mac.

Many people are using today to give a boost to the Harkin-Begich amendment which would--rather than cut as far too many fools are encouraging--actually give a generous raise to those collecting Social Security.  A most worthy cause for today, but...

...today is also a day when we can remind everyone that Social Security is not an entitlement.  I have been paying into Social Security, at a clip of 6.2% of my wages for almost thirty years now--as have the vast, vast majority of my fellow Americans.  When I retire, I am being given nothing when I receive my Social Security checks.  I earned every fucking penny of them--and so have my fellow Americans.

Today would also be a good day to remind the American people just who it is who would benefit the most from cuts to Social Security--big business.  Unbeknownst to many, our employers match our 6.2% contribution.  The same mother fuckers who ended pensions as we knew them for the crapshoot (for ordinary Americans, anyway) that is the 401k plan, who shifted health insurance premiums to employees (believe it or not, boys and girls, 'twas a time when employees contributed nothing to their company sponsored health insurance--the company bore the entire cost) for little more than to make the rich richer and the rest of us to live paycheck to paycheck ad nauseum, would certainly see their bottom lines balloon should they not have that match, and as before, all that it would mean is Daddy Warbucks would have a few more hundred dollar bills to light his cigars while the nation's elderly would keep Purina Cat Chow profits soaring.

Remember--Social Security is the panacea that will prevent the drool from my eighty-year old lips falling on your grandkids french fries....

Peace,
emaycee

A deal with the devil is no deal at all

August 5th was the thirty-second anniversary of Ronald Reagan's firing of the air traffic controllers for striking.  As such, strikes virtually never occur in America today, and working people have lost the only leverage they ever really had.  Since that time union memebership in America has plummeted, the gap between rich and poor has reached historic proportions, and the working men and women of America have been fighting a losing battle to keep their heads above water financially. 

Unbeknownst to many (as pointed out in this excellent piece by Steven D for The Daily Kos), was that Mr. Reagan had promised PATCO (the air traffic controllers union) that he would work with them to satisfy their demands (President Carter, in what may have been the worst of many bad decision, would not negotiate with PATCO)--a promise which won him the backing of PATCO in the 1980 Presidential election against Carter.  On August 5, 1981, Mr. Reagan fired 11,000 air traffic controllers, which, also unbeknownst to many set the airline industry back years and cost billions--that's right, billions--more to repair the damage done to the industry than it would have cost to have met all of the demands of the union.  Mr. Reagan, of course, had no desire to work with the union--as we see still from republicans, this was another case of republicans putting their ideology above what was best not only for America, but for the American people.  That we let them anywhere near anything that has to do with monetary policy is a testament to the power of corporate lobbyists (not to mention the ability to be suckered which afflicts far too many Americans).

What Reagan's action also underscores is that all the talk of the need for bipartisanship in the halls of Congress is just so much hogwash--we should be ever vigilant.  A deal with the devil is very often no deal at all.

Sort of like all those jobs republicans have created (repeal Obamacare anyone?) since they ran on jobs, jobs, jobs in 2010.

Peace,
emaycee

We are many

"Ye are many--they are few."  Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Mask of Anarchy"

Shelley wrote the above words in a fit of pique over the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, England in 1819.  Sixty to eighty thousand people had gathered to protest their representation in the face of high unemployment and rates of poverty (sound familiar?)--government forces charged the crowd, killing 15 and wounding several hundred.  Shelley wrote the poem as a call to non-violent action, and the poem was known to have influenced Thoreau's Civil Disobedience as well as being quoted by Gandhi in his speeches.  Shelley, it should be noted, was quite wealthy, which might explain his use of "ye" rather than "we".

I waited a couple of days to write this post, because after reading this piece about Ty Fahner, former Attorney General of Illinois and all around asshole, speaking at a meeting of the Union (their use of the word "union' made me want to take a shower to clean this shit out of my eyes) League Club of Chicago I was angry.  Like Charlie Sheen in Platoon angry--"...we need to frag his fucking ass!"  Time has not cooled the anger.

Briefly, Fahner spoke of sabotaging the state of Illinois by whispering in the ears of ratings agencies (Moody's, Standard and Poor's) to downgrade the state's ratings, which in turn drives down bond rates, which are often bought by pension funds, and in the end, leaving funding for pensioners well short (we're talking police, firefighters, and teachers--as the piece notes, we're also talking roughly $32,000 a year, and they do not collect social security in addition to that).

Now one assumes, that should Mr. Fahner find himself facing the gun of a criminal, that should the police be called, that he would expect the police officer to risk his life in an attempt to save Mr. Fahner.  One would assume likewise of a fireman should Mr. Fahner find himself stuck in his burning home.  One would also assume that since not all of us can afford to send our kids to private schools, and that since there are not nearly enough children of the wealthy to supply all the doctors, auto mechanics, clerks, or store mangers that our society requires, with that education provided specifically by teachers, that Mr. Fahner, like the rest of us, gets his money's worth on that one, too.

The social contract we have with all of the above is that for firefighers and policemen, they risk their lives for a small wage, but in return they can retire after 20 years with a decent pension.  Likewise, with teachers, the idea is that they take less than they can make in the private sector, but catch up (modestly) on the back end of their lives.

What it is, is that psychopaths like Mr. Fahner want the services provided by public employees, but they just don't want to pay for them.  They just want ordinary Americans to pay for them, so that he and people of his ilk get richer and richer, while the rest of us live in a state of perpetual poverty like the peons of old.  Mr. Fahner and his ilk are the moneyed elite--they deserve it, but we pissants have to earn it.

My first question would be: how much better can mother fuckers like Mr. Fahner eat?

My second question is:  how much longer are we going to put up with this shit?

Non-violent protest will only take you so far, and while reasoning may have worked with the moderate middle for Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., it's not  a tactic that will work with members of the radical right (which today is the vast majority of the republican party) who think reasoning is for pussies.

There are two ways to deal with psychopaths--you either put them in jail until they die or you kill them.

It's as simple as that.

Peace,
emaycee

I like our house

You know, sometimes I think the biggest problem our party/movement has is the fact that once people get a big platform, they completely fucking forget what it's like to be an ordinary American.

Thereisnospoon--whose postings I really like, usually much better than Digby's because a) he still has hope, and b) (at least I think) he understands that our philosophy is as much about heart as it is brains--had a piece today in which he asks if we (meaning the government) really want to be incentivizing home ownership so much.

The short answer?  Fuck yes!

I'll be the first to admit that an ordinary American like me was a little lost as I read the piece--there seemed to be something about how wage stagnation sucks (it does!), how we shouldn't be letting the rich buy up all the houses (hear, hear!), how renting a place to live has been given an unnecessary bad name (lost me on that one), and how we Americans like cheap mortgages (no shit, Sherlock). 

I might not know much about the ins and outs of our housing policies, but I do know a few things about calling a place home.  Renting sucks--I'm willing to grant that there are those for whom renting is ideal.  Young people starting out who don't want the responsibility that comes with home ownership, older people who no longer want the hassles of yard work and shoveling snow--hell, after my first marriage ended renting was great because I was busy with a career and when the kids visited I really didn't feel like spending what free time I had with them painting walls and cutting the lawn.  But for most of us, it sucks.  It's expensive as hell and you get zero return on your monthly check.  Having your upstairs neighbor drop a can of Progesso soup on the kitchen floor which wakes your two year old up from his afternoon nap isn't a whole hell of a lot of fun.  Climbing three flights of stairs with the weekly groceries is a good waste of your time.  If you're lucky enough to be in an apartment complex that allows barbecuing, it's kind of a pain in the ass having total strangers stroll past as you're cooking dinner (face it, you wouldn't let them walk through your kitchen while you're making spaghetti, why the fuck would you want them there just because you're cooking outside?).  And don't even get me started on renting a home--most of those letting homes take most of their cues from slumlords.

The government is helping me get a better mortgage rate--because we couldn't make a 20% down payment (well, maybe on a cardboard box we could have) the government is guaranteeing our loan.  I pay a little more for it, though less than was our rent at the last apartment we lived at.  For this I get the chance to play catch with my son and not have to worry about one of us beaning the neighbors' kid who's pretending to be an airplane in the middle of us--I can tell him to get the fuck out of my yard and play airplane in his own fucking yard.  I can crank "Baba O'Riley" as high was it will go on our stereo and the neighbors won't be calling the apartment owner to have me turn it down.  If our neighbors are having an argument in their home, we don't have to share it.  This year we planted daisies because our son loves them and tomato plants because we don't want to drive to the Farmer's Market once a week to get good tomatoes.

Our house is a long way from perfect--it was built when JFK was President and most of the house still has fixtures and electrical outlets from that era.  It's an igloo in winter and a sauna in the summer (shit you not, no exaggeration).  The appliances were new when my wife was in high school (class of '95).  But it's our home--it may be an investment to Wall Street and the wealthy, but it's not to us.  It's where we live.

I honestly cannot think of anything that is uniquely more American than owning one's own home.  Just ask the Martinis--the Bailey Plan was a whole hell of a lot better than the Potter Plan.

Peace,
emaycee

Sloganeering

An astuste blogger notes that our slogan for the 2014 elections should be "They did nothing."

It's short, it's sweet, it's truthful, and it's the kind of phrase that will appeal to our uniquely American sense of achievement.  It describes the republicans perfectly.

It's a good one.  Besides, I don't think mine--"They're fucking assholes"--would be allowed on network TV.

Peace,
emaycee

The odd wild hair

Every now and again I read a story that's not political that evokes a strong reaction--like Digby, I have no idea if this account is true or not, though I do remember having the same reaction a few years ago when another stranger struck someone's misbehaving child in a Wal-Mart in Georgia.

The thing that amazed me the most though, was that after this man supposedly struck this woman's child because he was wearing a feminine headband, that she didn't open up a can of serious whoop-ass on the idiot.

I mean, I can be the most Gandiesque of bleeding heart Liberals...until someone attacks one of my kids.  Then I could make The Humungus from The Road Warrior look like a model of restraint.

Seriously--the mother fucker would soon be asking St. Peter how exactly is it that he gets to hell.

Peace,
emaycee

Chump Summers

I don't generally like to make predictions (ahem, I had Sarah Palin as the republican Presidential nominee in 2012)--I had a post all written after the Boston Marathon bombings in which I had carefully outlined why I was sure it was either an American militia group or an Eric Rudolph wannabe.  At the last minute I thought, man if I'm wrong I'm going to look like a complete idiot, and I deleted it.  Every now and again, the blind squirrel and all that.

But with all the rigamarole over Larry Summers becoming the next Chairman of the Federal Reserve, I thought, what the fuck, why not?

Here's what's going to happen:  we will be asked to sign hundreds, nay thousands, of petitions asking President Obama to appoint anyone but Larry Summers, there will be much hand wringing, hundreds upon hundreds of blog posts explaining why this will be horrible, and the MSNBC bunch will have countless pieces reinforcing these beliefs.

And President Obama will appoint him anyway.

Summers will not be as big of a disaster as Alan Greenspan (Greenspan has set a pretty high bar) but he will do absolutely nothing--absolutely nothing--to help the poor and the middle class, but will insure the rich keep getting richer.

It's a good thing I enjoy eating so much, because this existential cynicism is enough these days to make me think about giving up the fight and going back to writing fiction.

Peace,
emaycee

Their never ending war on workers

Thirty-six republican senators (that's eighty percent of their caucus) have sponsored legislation that will virtually make it impossible to pass any workplace regulations--zip, zero, none.

They're not even fucking hiding it--Tea Party idiots Tom Coburn and Rand Paul are trying to turn the country back a century with some bizarre ass interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.  The only purpose of this legislation is to continue the republican fellating of wealthy Americans and corporations.

How does this bill help ordinary Americans?  It would drive down wages, worsen workplace conditions, and make worker safety non-existent.  It is a sop to corporate America and that is all--it wouldn't create a single job and it certainly wouldn't provide American workers with any decent benefits.

Fortunately, with a Democratic Senate and a Democratic President, this bill has no chance of seeing the light of day.  But for all those Hillary haters out there, this is exactly why I'll have no problem supporting her if she runs in 2016.

Because after Obama departs in January 2017, and with our Senate chances looking slim, she may be the best hope we ordinary Americans have of averting the utter fucking economic catastrophe republicans are bound and determined to give us.

Peace,
emaycee

80%

When I saw this stat this week, that 80% (that's right, boys and girls, eighty percent!) of Americans will face economic insecurity (defined as joblessness, living below the poverty level, or relying on government assistance ) in their lifetime, in the richest nation in the history of human civilization, the first thing I thought was how far the republican party has brought us since the Reagan revolution, to this point in time, when any American can grow up to live in poverty. 

From tax breaks to the wealthy, to its assaults on unions, to its assaults on the social safety net, to its fellating of corporate America, the republicans have brought us the morning in America of which Mr. Reagan spoke.  Unfortunately, it's our citizens waking up weak from hunger, not knowing if they can make their rent payment for the month, working for corporations that don't care if they live or die, and foreseeing a future that isn't any better for their children, while all the while the rich keep getting richer and republicans keep blowing smoke up our asses about how much they care about ordinary Americans.

Sort of like how a much a maggot cares for the rotting flesh.

Peace,
emaycee