Those socialist goblins

Seems children all over America have been out and about this past evening begging for candy.  The little deadbeats think dressing up in satanic costumes and saying "trick or treat!' entitles them to free goodies.

The little bastards ought to get jobs and buy their own goddamn candy.

Pretty sure that fucking Socialist Nazi Communist Kenyan Obama is to blame for it.

Peace,
emaycee

Whither our white knight?

Last Saturday, I received a multitude of e-mails--probably 20 to 25 by noon alone--asking me to sign the same petition demanding that there be no cuts to Social Security and Medicare.  This much appreciated effort was led by Bernie Sanders (who else?).

Earlier this week, White House toadie Gene Sperling stated that entitlement cuts may be necessary to get some much needed stimulus for the economy.  One assumes, since he's an advisor to President Obama, that this is the President's opinion as well.  Surprisingly, outside of Liberal blogs, there didn't seem to be a lot of blowback from Democratic politicians concerning this statement.

Perhaps this was because Harry Reid has already stated that entitlement cuts are not on the table in the current budget negotiations, but still it worries me that outside of Bernie Sanders (hello? Elizabeth Warren?) there does not seem to be much of anyone making a commotion about any mention, either by the White House or republicans, of entitlement cuts.  Frankly, I want someone to stand up and threaten every legal remedy possible to make sure these cuts never happen, up to and including telling the President to go fuck himself (implied with republicans).

Just because President Obama has been a complete disappointment in taking care of the best interests of the working men and women of this country doesn't mean any other Democratic politician has to be as well.

Peace,
emaycee

How far we've fallen, Part 2

A couple of days ago, Wal-Mart crowed that half of its workers made $25,000 a year.  There was much teeth gnashing by the good guys because Wal-Mart's figures were a little off--it's more like a third of its workforce makes $25,000 a year.

You know what really should have caused teeth gnashing?  $25,000 a years is a pretty shitty wage.  In fact, even when I started work back in the Jurassic period (1980) it was a pretty shitty wage.  It's hard to imagine the American Dream returning to so many people surviving on at best paycheck to paycheck wages.

Have to admit, though, considering their leadership's tone deafness on what constitutes a decent wage, it isn't hard to understand why so may Wal-Mart employees are staging walk outs and trying to form unions.

Peace,
emaycee

How far we've fallen, Part 1

Seems The Wall Street Journal has an "experts" page, and recently they featured Suzanne Somers discussing why Obamacare is a socialist ponzi scheme.

Ahem.

Near as I can tell, Somers is qualified to discuss Obamacare because a) she once starred as an idiot in the sitcom Three's Company (which wasn't funny and was dated after its first episode); b) she's written 24 books on beauty care and healthy living (judging from the fact that most of us don't look like supermodels and obesity is an epidemic, her talent doesn't appear to have had much of an effect on anything other than her pocketbook); and c) she once read an article about how bad the Canadian healthcare system was (never mind the fact that--unfortunately--Obamacare shares nothing in common with Canada's single payer system) which was probably written by some numbnuts conservative dunderhead.

Here's where I'm supposed to have some clever ending point, but frankly, I'm just too fucking flabbergasted that The Wall Street Journal, which at one time had at least a modicum of conservative gravitas, would have Suzanne Somers discuss anything, let alone a thousand some odd page bill which has many words that are larger than "the" and "it."

I guess next we can expect Britney Spears to discuss Benghazi.

Peace,
emaycee

A Legendary Heart

"And you've got to fight to make what's right...."  Lou Reed, "Legendary Hearts"

I titled my second novel (unpublished, and deservedly so--suffered the same fate as my first, also unpublished, that of its being overwrought horseshit) from a lyric in the above noted song.  There are probably millions of people today--most of whom can wax much more poetically than I can about his career--writing about him and like them I mourn Reed's passing.  While I've read today of people who started bands because of him (mostly because of the Velvet Underground), learned how to to be a rebel from him, or took art to heretofore never done before heights because of him, I myself took from his music that a sort of happiness comes to you as you get older and that's okay.  It's a lesson I've learned over and over again as I've aged.

The last few years have not been kind to many of those I've admired and whose work I've enjoyed.  John Updike.  Kurt Vonnegut.  George Carlin.  Levon Helm.  And now Lou Reed.

All of whom have left me with one irrefutable fact.

I'm getting old.

Peace,
emaycee

The tea party's bitch

Earlier this week, our own Governor Gutless, Rick Snyder, was asked if he thought it was okay for people to be fired for being gay.  As a very successful businessman, Snyder knows damn good and well that it's not--it's bad for business and even worse for attracting businesses to our state.  Nonetheless, Snyder tried to dance a two-step around it.  Unfortunately for Snyder, he dances about as well as most older white men.

Have you ever wondered how good a job being a politician is?  It must be an awfully good one--sure seems like there are lots of republicans who are more than happy to get bitch slapped by the tea party for a couple more years in office.

Peace,
emaycee

Psychopaths 'r' us

The town of Seatac in Washington state has a ballot initiative next month that would require most (though not all--smaller ones are exempt) retail businesses and hotels at its busy airport (again, businesses outside its busy airport would be exempt) to pay their employees a living wage of $15.  For those of you who may be republicans, that comes to $600 a week if (and that's a big if) you can get 40 hours a week, or just a little over $31,000 a year.

For some odd ass reason, this has drawn the ire of the Koch Brothers, and one of their front groups, Donors Trust, has donated big dollars to help defeat the initiative.  The big question is:  why?

I mean really--it's not like the projected 6000 people who will see this raise are going to suddenly find themselves in the rarefied air of the Koch brothers world.  People making $31,000 a year don't run around lighting cigars with $100 bills or staying in $10,000 a night hotel suites.  Christ, even if you have a spouse making the same amount yearly, the best you could hope for would be to maybe own a small home, a new car every seven or eight years, and take the kids to DisneyWorld once before they get too old for the Magic Kingdom.

It's also not as if the Koch brothers are going to pay for it all by their lonesome.  Chances are they don't spend that much time in Seatac, and even if their Big Mac (and I'm sure the Koch brothers eat at McDonald's regularly) went from $4 to $4.50 on their next visit it's going to lessen their billions about as much as removing a single grain of sand lessens the Sahara Desert.

In the end, it's probably little more than a complete lack of empathy for anybody who isn't them.  They don't give a shit as long as they continue accumulating more and more money.

King Midas' greed caused him to starve to death as his touch turned all his food into gold.  Wonder what the fate of the Koch brothers will be?

Peace,
emaycee

Fools and our money

Over the past two weeks, the republicans led a government shutdown that cost the American economy $24 billion dollars.

A recent poll showed that two-thirds of republicans and 93% of Tea Partiers believe the federal deficit is growing.  It's projected to fall this year from $1.1 trillion to $624 billion.

On a recent Sean Hannity show, several everyday Americans who just happened to be Obamacare haters related the evils of Obamacare and how horribly it was affecting their lives.  A smart reporter went back and talked to each of them and found that of the three people/couples on the show, two would save better than sixty percent of what they were currently paying under Obamacare, but hadn't even fucking bothered to check out healthcare.gov.  Sixty percent savings--man, that Obamacare is just awful, isn't it?

From the republican leadership on down to its rank and file, these people know about as much about economics as an amoeba knows about string theory.  That anyone take them seriously when it comes to anything that has to do with the economic well-being of Americans is utterly fucking ridiculous.

Peace,
emaycee

Future shock

Like many Democrats, I greatly appreciated the solidarity our party showed in the face of republican intransigence on both the government shutdown and the raising of the debt ceiling--which culminated in the greatest victory our party has had since the passage of Obamacare.

But--and mark these words--if future negotiations (considering the insanity of the tea party caucus they still might not happen regardless of the ass kicking they took in popularity this time around) result in any cuts to Social Security, any cuts to Medicare, or any raising of the age limits for either, it will all have been for naught.

Social Security and Medicare are as important to the core social fabric of our party's philosophy as legs are important to running.  To cut them would be akin to republicans asking for the tax rates to be raised on the wealthy and corporations back to 1950s levels (roughly 91% and 50%, though not many actually paid those rates).

Today the AFL-CIO made it perfectly clear that any Democrat voting for any cuts to either program could essentially go fuck themselves--they would receive no support from the union (another reason to love unions).

The rest of us should do the same.

Peace,
emaycee

Anarchy in the U.S.A.

Were my daughter not a political reporter in Iowa, I probably wouldn't be as familiar with Sen. Tom Harkin as I am.  Over the past couple of years I've become quite an admirer, especially since Sen. Harkin remains an unabashed Liberal despite not residing in somewhat safer territory like the Northeast or the West Coast.  After today's votes saving the country from economic calamity, I was reminded of something Sen. Harkin said a couple of weeks back:  "Chaos. Confusion.  Tear the system down and that's the way minorities tend to take over."

For all President Obama's faults, for all the Democratic Party's faults, I think we can all be thankful for their stand in favor of democracy over the past couple of weeks, and for not giving in to the Tea Party and the 20% of Americans who live in a bizarroworld where because you believe it, everybody else should have to suffer the consequences regardless of its worth or danger or existence in reality.

The republican party got exactly what it should have got for holding a gun to the heads of the American people and trying to hold our economic well-being hostage:  fucking nothing.

Peace,
emaycee

Burn, motherfucker, burn

Amidst their government shutdown and threats to destroy the American economy by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, the republicans are having a circle jerk (also known as the Values Voters Summit) this week where they are being exhorted by Ted Cruz for their believing in free market values, the Constitution, and freedom.  Apparently their disaster capitalism which has destroyed the poor and middle class is just hunky dory with people who have their "values."

Meanwhile in Bangladesh this week, another garment factory fire took the lives of ten people who make clothing for the likes of Wal-Mart and The Gap.  This follows the fire last spring that killed over 1100 people.

It's important to remember that for all its faults, the Democratic Party is the only thing today standing between working class Americans and living with jobs where everyday we stand a chance of being burned to death to save corporate America a few pennies.

Because as far as the republican party is concerned, it would be your own damn fault for needing a job to feed yourself and your family in the first place.

Peace,
emaycee

Pretty good, eh?

It's not often that I use this space for items that aren't political, but every now and again something strikes my fancy....

When I was still a young man, I harbored illusions held by many a youth--that of writing the great American novel (and what an illusion it was--at this stage of my life I'd settle for writing the mediocre American novel). As those who dream such dreams are wont to do, I was enamored of what is commonly referred to as literature (and everyone else calls shit that only eggheads read).  Over the course of the last dozen years or so, after the republican trifecta of the Clinton impeachment, the unmitigated disaster that was 9/11, and their subservience to the gods of income inequality, fiction seemed to become more and more...superfluous.  Even  "literature" seemed to become tiresome, corporatized, let's have a meeting and write that great American novel.  And it definitely didn't seem to give two shits about the human condition.

Except for three writers I could have given up fiction forever and not missed it much.  Cormac McCarthy, Ian McEwan, and Alice Munro wrote novels and stories that over the course of that time kept me at least slightly interested and believing that there were still those who could write tales that touched the heart without being Marley and Me.

For whatever it's worth, Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize for Literature today, and was cited for being a master of the short story (she is).  She writes stories about ordinary Canadians, people that you often wonder if should even care about, but she structures their lives as such that you cannot help but.

Alice Munro never wrote the great Canadian novel (in fact, she never wrote a novel period), but she has brought much joy into my life with her work.  I can't think of a better choice.

Peace,
emaycee

An abomination #2

The republican mindset--hatred of the working men and women who every day make this country the great nation it is--courtesy of Fox Business News host Stuart Varney:

HOWELL: Do you think that federal workers, when this ends, are deserving of their back pay or not?

VARNEY: That is a loaded question isn't it? You want my opinion? This is President Obama's shutdown. He is responsible for shutting this thing down; he's taken an entirely political decision here. No, I don't think they should get their back pay, frankly, I really don't. I'm sick and tired of a massive, bloated federal bureaucracy living on our backs, and taking money out of us, a lot more money than most of us earn in the private sector, then getting a furlough, and then getting their money back at the end of it. Sorry, I'm not for that. I want to punish these people. Sorry to say that, but that's what I want to do.

JACOBSON: But it's not their fault. It's not the federal employees' fault. I mean, that's what I'm sick of, I hate and it makes me anxious, to see people who are victimized because of a political fight.

VARNEY: I take your point Amy, it is not directly their fault, but I'm looking at the big picture here. I'm getting screwed. Here I am, a private citizen, paying an inordinate amount of money in tax. I've got a slow economy because it's all government, all the time. And these people are living on our backs, regulating us, telling us what to do, taxing us, taking our money, and living large. This is my chance to say "hey, I'm fed up with this and I don't miss you when you're on furlough." Sorry if that's a harsh tone, but that's the way I feel.

Man, when this mother fucker breathes his last breath the world will immediately become a much better place.

Peace,
emaycee

An abomination #1

Apparently, the republicans are trying to see if they can give the Democrats even more than the 55% share of the women's vote that Barack Obama received in 2012:

Fucking really?

Peace,

emaycee

My idiot congressman

Over the course of the last several years, I've sent my republican Congressman here in Michigan, Mike Rogers, numerous letters--all of which are diametrically opposed to Rep. Rogers worldview.  For whatever reason, this always triggers the sending of one of Rep. Rogers newsletters, which I always immediately unsubscribe to.  You would think, after a number of years of receiving letters from me opposed to his political views, and numerous times of unsubscribing, Rep. Rogers would get the hint that I couldn't give a fuck less what he thinks.  Not so.  (Though in fairness, I know the odds of one of my letters changing Rep. Rogers' opinion is zero, and I only send the letters to -a-  let my opinion be known, and -b- be a pain in the ass--both of which are my rights as an American citizen.)

All of which makes it especially galling to hear Rep. Rogers and his fellow republicans in Congress blather on and on about how they're standing up for what the American people want.  Rep. Rogers doesn't care any more for what the American people want than he does for their well-being.  He's a trained monkey, spouting republican talking points--most of which, like that the President won't negotiate (Negotiate over what, you fucking moron?  The President and his fellow Democrats are asking for nothing.) are lies.

It's endemic to Rep. Rogers whole party--as my zip code splits two congressional districts, I occasionally have letters sent to Kerry Bentivolio (only elected because he's in a gerrymandered district--this mother fucker is so batshit insane he couldn't get a fucking job as a cashier at any legitimate business, but fucking republicans elected him) and each of the last two times I have elected not to have a response sent because a)  I don't give a shit what his reasoning for fucking over the American people is, and b) figuring I'd save his staffers from doing even more pointless work than they already do, and yet, both times I've received a response.  What, his people think I'm going to have a "bonk! should have had a V8!" moment based on responses riddled with inaccuracies (I'm being kind--they're out and out lies)?

Frankly, I've had it--these republicans are not only liars, they're flat out incompetent.

And I can sum up my response to their return letters in three words:  Fuck you, fellas.

Peace,
emaycee

Amen

Not much more I can add to that....

Peace,
emaycee

Obamacare(s) for me

Last night while the republicans were digging their graves even deeper, I was on the Affordable Care Act's web site doing some preliminary research for signing the Beautiful Girl up for Obamacare.  Apparently I wasn't alone--the national web site reported over 2.8 million people had visited by late afternoon; California's site was experiencing 10,000 hits per second.  Keep in mind this is only the first day--the enrollment period lasts for the next six months.  A bonus:  I found the site tremendously easy to navigate and I'm usually about as adept at navigating through sites as I am at hitting ninety mile an hour fastballs.  Double bonus:  looks like it's going to cost less than $100 a month (much better than my employer healthcare).

Oh, and by the way republican haters, after today's successful rollout for Obamacare, you can say hello to my little friend:

Peace,
emaycee