Ruh-roh

While much of today's hand-wringing over the decision to allow Knobby Jobby to refuse to cover birth control for their employees is warranted, in the long term this decision by arguably the worst Supreme Court in the history of our country could end up opening a can of worms that conservatives will forever wish had been kept sealed:

1)  I kept this piece from a couple of months ago--the prediction proved wrong (it called the Knobby Jobby argument DOA), but the strategy of turning corporate personhood into a detriment is not.  The decision allowing individuals at the head of a corporation to discriminate based on their religious views also erases the line between corporate entity and corporate leader--thus it could make individuals responsible as well for corporate malfeasance.
2)  Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher and every politically oriented comic in America has to be laughing with glee at the "sincerely held religious beliefs" wording in Justice Alito's opinion.  Watching courts trip all over themselves trying to decide what exactly "sincerely held religious beliefs" entails (or more likely, refusing to) as well as the nut cases who are going to try and sneak everything from doobies to doughnuts into that exemption is going to be a comedy goldmine.
3) Big business is about as popular today as is having one's eyes pierced with needles.  Think the Supreme Court deciding that corporations (however limited in scope it may be) have a right to decide\about the sexual mores of the American people is going to make big business any more popular?
4)  Republican Senate candidates Terri Lynn Land (MI) and Joni Ernst (IA) can pretty much kiss their chances of winning this November goodbye (and so can plenty of other republicans in blue learning districts/states with credible opponents).  I live in Michigan and it took all of five minutes after the Knobby Jobby decision was announced for someone to send out a petition calling out Land for supporting corporations forcing their religious ideology down our throats.  Think this isn't going to be a rallying cry for Democrats among women (who already overwhelmingly support Democrats) from now until November?

Knobby Jobby won the battle; we'll win the war.

Peace,
emaycee

Torches and pitchforks and guillotines, oh my

Like most people, whenever I read a blog post every now and again a link will capture my fancy and I will click on it.  Most of the time, though, I take the blogger's word for whatever he/she is trying to prove/call attention to and skip it.

That being said, if there is one link you click on this entire year, click on this one.  It's a piece by Nick Hanauer, warning plutocrats of the coming shitstorm that historical levels of income inequality is brewing in America.  The difference in this piece from the usual dire warnings of French Revolution, Part II is it's written by a plutocrat--Mr. Hanauer is richfolk.

While I don't share Mr. Hanauer's unabashed love for capitalism (alas, once bitten, twice shy) or his desire to make it a bipartisan affair (never trust a republican politician), I do share his belief that unless we rebuild the middle class, eventually a whole lot of richfolk are going to end up dead.

And trust me--torches, pitchforks, and guillotines are going to seem quite quaint what with the firepower our best and brightest have developed over the past couple of centuries.

Peace,
emaycee

November reign

While I haven't seen any polls that make me giddy for this November's elections, it sure doesn't seem like 2010 either.  I mean by this time in 2010 election cycle, everybody on the left was warning that the November results could be ugly--they were and then some.

The feeling this time around seems to be that we might lose some ground but nothing is looking as catastrophic as the 2010 midterms (yeah, yeah, yeah--famous final words, etc., etc.).  It certainly doesn't hurt that republicans seem to have adopted a strategy which calls for shooting themselves in the foot on a regular basis...

...like having Dick Cheney scatter his mug all over TV criticizing President Obama for his Iraq War policy, which would be like the Democrats trotting out James Buchanan, the man who fiddled while the country smoldered, to criticize Abraham Lincoln for his guidance of the Civil War.  Trotting out Cheney is like a cruise line featuring the Titanic on the front page of its sales brochure.

Not to be outdone by the man who wanted to be king, some republican Senators are calling for a government shutdown to block the President's new environmental regulations.  Because the last one worked so well.

My dear republicans, in the immortal words of President Obama, "Please proceed."

Peace,
emaycee

Skip...skip...skip...

Broken record time again....

Seems one Helen Collins, a Councilwoman in Colorado Springs, CO, thinks the best way to handle homelessness is to give the homeless a bus ticket out of town.

Because nothing fixes homelessness quite like giving someone without a home a bus ticket to another city...where they still don't have a home.

As simple as I can for dimwit conservatives:  the best way to combat homelessness is to get those poor folks without one a fucking home until they can get back on their feet.

Jesus H. Christ, you'd think this was string theory for all the trouble some folks have in understanding it.

Peace,
emaycee

Sins of emission

It's not that I deny the science--I'm sure that not eating meat will cut food-related carbon emissions in half.  It's just that it's another wistful study that has no hope whatsoever of changing anything.  Sure, a handful of  people may be swayed by it and quit eating meat, but it will be akin to covering a half dozen holes in a sieve full of water--the water will ooze out a little more slowly, but all of it is still going to ooze out.

Just as Americans like to drive, Americans love to eat.  Both may be to our detriment, but I hardly think any study is going to change the vast majority of Americans feelings toward them.  We might as well tell our fellow Americans to quit watching TV, too.

Pipe dreams do not a change make.

Peace,
emaycee

Thine own ass

Seems the tea party folks are a wee bit pissed off  after Thad Cochran's surprising victory in yesterday's Mississippi Senate primary over Chris McDaniel, the great white hope, so to speak, of this year's tea party crop of candidates.

Especially since it now seems the reason he won (Mississippi is one of many states to have open primaries) is because black Democratic voters, fearing the tea party strangulation of their voting rights, turned out in large enough numbers to give Cochran the victory.

And for all intents and purposes, in a state as red as Mississippi, sending him back to the U.S. Senate for another six years.

All of which makes perfect sense--if you live in a state where your party of choice has no chance of winning the general election, a vote in the primaries for the candidate of the other party who is least hostile to your own views would be in your best interest.

Frankly, I'll be surprised if we don't see a lot more of it as the divide between right and left continues to grow.

Peace,
emaycee

The courtesy of a reach around

For  a number of years when I worked for Kmart, we were led by numerous former military service members.  They were neither more, nor less ineffective than any of the other bozos who led the company while I worked there.  The one major difference, though, was that they tended to be a bit more surprised than the non-military leaders when their directives weren't always followed to the letter.  I always thought their surprise was easily explained--many of them had spent their military careers leading men and women who had signed up for the armed forces with the express consent that they were willing to die in service to their country.  That commitment leads to a certain rigidness in discipline.

Unfortunately for their type of leadership, I'm pretty certain that no one ever signed on to die for Kmart.

I mention this because republicans seem hell bent on turning military service into an even worse abyss than is corporate service.  From calling the parents of servicemen traitors to voting to inadequately fund care, republicans are doing all they can to corporatize the military.  This week, Sen. Ron Johnson, republican from Wisconsin,  actually said that it costs too much to fund the VA.

I wonder how many prospective military members will be given pause knowing that, should the worst occur and an arm or a leg (or both) get blown off in service to their country, that republicans believe it's too expensive to take care of that arm or leg.

Peace,
emaycee

The Koch side of life

Last weekend the Koch Brothers held a summit in California, attended by, among others, three hundred billionaires, and a modicum of the usual fellators of the wealthy (republicans), namely Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, and two men who would join them in the Senate, Tom Cotton (AR) and Cory Gardner (CO).

The summit was entitled "American Courage:  Our Commitment to a Free Society."

Ahem.

If you take the time to read the short piece, it almost comes across like the kind of scene you'd see in an extremely satirical political movie.  My guess is the summit won't be coming to a theater near you anytime soon, as it mostly included seminars on issues contrary to the views of a vast majority of Americans:  money as free speech, anti-immigration reform, pro-oil spin, etc.  Perhaps the most terrifying was "Employee Outreach:  Engaging Your Workforce in the Cause of Freedom," which is basically conservative doublespeak for "Forcing Your Employees to Carry Out Your Political Agenda With the Threat of Starving Their Children."

Labor Unions, indeed.

Frankly, the only "Free Society" the Koch Brothers and their ilk are interested in is one where billionaires get everything for free while the rest of us pay for it.

Fuck that.

Peace,
emaycee

Night of the living dead, or the return of Willard (not!)

There's been a couple of stories this week about the comeback of one Willard Romney, now seen by some as a viable candidate for the republican party's nomination for President in 2016.  Also, a poll in New Hampshire (which primary Romney won in 2012, and was soundly beaten by Obama in the general) shows Romney with a sizable lead in the republican primary for 2016.

Get real--I'm a Liberal Democrat who isn't even running for President and I have the exact same chance as Romney of winning the republican party's nomination for 2016:  zero.

I love that the republican party is flailing on a Presidential level right now, but there are real republican zombies out there trying to undo the country and Mitt Romney won't be one of them in 2016.

Peace,
emaycee

Who the fuck thought this was a good idea?

How fucking hard up for guests must a network be when they invite a fucking football analyst to one of their shows to discuss...Benghazi?

Leave it to Faux News to invite Hall of Fame quarterback (well deserved) and football analyst (not so much) Terry Bradshaw on to discuss U.S. foreign policy.  Guess what?  He doesn't trust (or like) Hillary Clinton.  One supposes he bases this on the numerous papers he's published on foreign policy over the years....

No shit--I wouldn't bet a plug nickel on any expert analysis Terry Bradshaw gave on a football game and he's been doing that for twenty years.  What the fuck does he know about Benghazi other than that it's the trumped up republican outrage du jour?  Who the fuck would possibly care--outside of the 30% of Americans who are clinically fucking nuts (a.k.a., republicans)?

Swear to God, the lame ass at Faux News who approved this stunt, while going through the human assembly line before birth, when God asked "Brains?" thought He said "Trains?" and must have said, "No, thanks."

Peace,
emaycee

The Hillary conundrum

Though it isn't a guarantee, the odds are that if Hillary Clinton chooses to run for President in 2016 both the Democratic nomination and the Presidency itself are hers to lose.  Bernie Sanders has intimated that he may run--while he would get my vote in the Michigan primary of 2016, I harbor no illusions that he will actually win the nomination.  I'd just be hoping he would pull Clinton more to the left.  I can see no circumstance that would cause Elizabeth Warren to run (you can be sure to thank me when she does--I was also certain that Sarah Palin would be the republican nominee in 2012).

There are those who think Sec. Clinton's nomination would be a boon for Democrats down ticket--allowing us to elect more Liberal candidates who would sweep along to victory with her in 2016 (and presumably bide their time until a true Progressive occupies the White House).  There are those who wonder if Hillary Clinton can be a Progressive champion or if she will follow in husband Bill's post-Presidential footsteps and wallow in the trough that is Wall Street.  And then there are those like Glenn Greenwald who look upon Hillary with the disgust most of us would show for someone who regularly dined on puppies.

While I hope that the first observation above is correct, the House has been so gerrymandered that Jesus could run as a Democrat and I'm not sure we could take back the House (though as noted in the link she could be a huge asset in taking filibuster-proof control of the Senate).  I have no doubt she would be a Third Way  champion as President, hoping that the magic Bill Clinton didn't create but nonetheless is credited with for our economic boom in the 1990s would rub off on her--i.e., things probably won't get worse economically (as they most certainly would under republican stewardship, see also Reagan, Ronald, Bush, George H.W., and Bush, George W.) but they probably will only get marginally better (see also Obama, Barack).

The one that bothers me the most, though, is the Greenwald view.  Greenwald is a lawyer and well known political writer who was instrumental in getting Edward Snowden and the NSA revelation to the American public.  He is rightfully praised for his work on civil rights and constitutional issues, and has been known to skewer both political parties for failures to respect both.  But when it comes to the needs of ordinary Americans, there is almost an elitist death wish of those like Greenwald, who seems to somehow believe that only the worst possible outcome can possibly right the ship (I find if hard to believe if the Great Recession couldn't, nothing will).  There seems to be a serious disconnect between that desire and the very real suffering of very real people.  If a republican wins in 2016, Greenwald is not going to go hungry--some publication is going to hire him for his many talents, and he also has a law degree to fall back on (and those assets were well earned and deserved).  Not so the millions of Americans who don't have his gifts (i.e., most of us) and who have suffered monumental economic losses under the last four (might as well throw Nixon in the mix, too) republican Presidential administrations.

I'm not thrilled with Hillary Clinton either, but her winning is a matter of survival not spite for people like me (which is to say, working class Americans).  I truly don't believe working class Americans can survive another four years of a republican administration.  The losses we suffered under Reagan/Bush the Elder were magnified greatly under Bush the Lesser, and the fuckers campaigning now are even more fucking nuts than GWB was.  You might as well just snatch food off of our kids plates.

Frankly, we can keep swimming under eight years of Hillary Clinton--reaching the shore in '24 sure beats the hell out of drowning in '16.

Peace,
emaycee

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown

This video should be on a continuous loop on television sets all across America:

But there's more:

• CEO pay is up 937% since 1978.  The rest of us?  10.2%.  How pathetic is that?
• Also in 1978, the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay was 30-1.  Today?  300-1.  Anyone really think CEOs are ten times better than their workers over the last 36 years?
• If you're a minimum wage worker, CEO pay is 774-1.  That's like Earth to Pluto.

All of which probably helps to explain why there aren't many American workers whistling while they work anymore...unless it's to marvel at how sharp the guillotine is.

Peace,
emaycee

Blood simple

Though most Americans don't know it, the courts over the last thirty years have put a serious hamper (specifically, though not singlehandedly through, AT &T Mobility v. Concepcion and American Express v. Italian Colors) on our ability to seek recourse against corporations via the courts.  With a simple click of your mouse on one of those Terms of Service agreements, you often sign away your rights to sue, replacing it with an arbitrtation hearing, with the arbiter being chosen by the corporation.  Which is like playing a board game where you have to roll the dice, but your opponent gets to choose his numbers from the dice (also known as, heads I win, tails you lose).

David Atkins discussed this in a piece at Hullabaloo yesterday, and posited that one day we would have laws against it and wonder why we ever let ourselves suffer through it.

Myself, I wonder how long before someone realizes that the deck is stacked and starts blowing corporate offices up as a means of extralegal recourse.

My guess is not very fucking long.

Peace,
emaycee

Calling their bullshit

Lost in the shuffle this week of Eric Cantor's unprecedented electoral defeat and the implosion of Iraq was the shooting of two police officers (and a bystander) this past weekend in Las Vegas by a pair of "patriots" who have fed at the Tea Party trough and proclaimed the shooting the beginning of a revolution.

Because nothing says revolution quite like shooting a pair of police officers unaware while they're dining on pizza.

I was wondering how the conservative media was going to spin this, but at Fox News, they aren't.  They're just ignoring it.

Because owning up to their mistakes would take moral courage, something conservatives have been sorely lacking for quite some time.

Peace,
emaycee

The republican deb-iraq-cle

While republicans take their completely oblivious potshots at President Obama over the deteriorating situation in Iraq, it's important to remember who created this mess.

Republicans.

Yep, from the get go republications were undeniably wrong about everything in Iraq.  But that hasn't stopped John McCain (McCain must be Scottish for "moronic asshole") from bitching about the events transpiring today (though he did take a colossal bitch slap from Chris Hayes).  Willard Romney, the noted foreign policy expert after serving one term as Massachussetts Governor and also getting his ass kicked by President Obama in 2012 (i.e., he's the Man Who Would Not Be President, Thank God), is taking the opportunity to bash Hillary Clinton and say Obama's foreign policy has been a failure (pretty much expected from a half-wit).  They're even recycling republican trolls like David Brooks (has learned nothing over the past eleven years) and Judith Miller (has there ever been a journalist who was more incompetent on an issue than Miller was on Iraq?).

Fortunately, President Obama has been prescient from the beginning on Iraq, and yesterday noted that we will not be committing more troops to the debacle that republicans created.  Frankly, I wish we'd just walk away--Iraq has been a monumental disaster in American lives and American capital and the ills it produced have not been worth it from the moment we were lied into it until this day.

One thing you can be sure of--when republicans are on TV tomorrow blaming President Obama for their mistakes, if good foreign policy was to jump out of their collective asses and yell "Howdy-doo!" they still wouldn't know what the fuck it was.

Peace,
emaycee

Those San Francisco Values

So the folks in Seattle decide to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and what do those pesky people in San Francisco do?  Put a question on this November's ballot asking their citizens if they'd like to raise their minimum wage to $15, too.

Yessireee, bub, those San Francisco Values really suck.  Imagine the nerve--paying workers an actual living wage.

Too bad a whole hell of a lot more of us aren't governed by such values.

Peace,
emaycee

The delusions of nitwits

In their almost daily attacks on the not even announced candidacy of Hillary Clinton (yeah, I know it's only a formality, but still),  republicans are claiming that Hillary Clinton is "out of touch" because she noted in a recent interview that after all the faux scandals republicans cooked up against her and her husband during his time as President, the Clintons were "dead broke" when they left the White House.

One supposes there is a kernel of truth to this--most of us don't rack up substantial legal fees fighting bullshit accusations from republicans.  On the flip side, republicans are a bit out of touch too, don't you think?  I mean, most of us are far too busy earning a living and taking care of our families to spend so much time creating spurious charges against our neighbors.

God, it's going to be a long two years.

Peace,
emaycee

Much nothing about adieu

While I'll freely admit that Eric Cantor's loss tonight to David Brat  in his primary in Virginia-07 (largely due to Brat's strict adherence to the Tea Party's edict on hating on the immigrants) is a stunning upset, in the end it isn't going to mean much.  The Democrats are not going to win this solidly republican district, the Tea Party's influence will still remain on the wane, and Immigration Reform is still going absolutely nowhere.

Basically all it means is that the House of Representatives will trade one far right wing nutjob who doesn't give a shit about average Americans for a slightly more right wing nutjob who doesn't give a shit about average Americans.

That and the fact that republicans are really good at voting for the haters.

Peace,
emaycee

Adolph, Vladimir, and those pesky Labor Unions

Pennsylvania state Senator Scott Wagner (R) this week compared labor unions to Adolph Hitler and Vladimir Putin, saying that like both of them, unions were all about "power and control."

Wagner said this, apparently with a straight face, and, one supposes, with an air of utter obliviousness, as Mr. Wagner must be under the assumption that corporations and wealthy individuals are striving for the purely altruistic reasons of making themselves richer whilst shitting upon the rest of society.  And who knew that Hitler and Putin were such valiant fighters for better wages, better benefits, safer workplaces, and job security?

Somehow in my travels throughout my now fifty-five years on this planet, I must have missed the slew of Assholes 'r' Us franchises from which republicans have recruited so many of their leaders.

Peace,
emaycee

Geeks bearing gifts

Apparently republicans have jumped all over the above photo to question Hillary Clinton's qualifications to be the 45th President of the United States because...she's leaning on a walker, so she must be too old.

Leaving aside the fact that you have to be a serious moron to think the patio chair she's leaning against is a walker, I actually kind of like this attack from republicans.  I mean, really--if their agenda and ideas are so bereft of gravitas that this is the kind of attack they have to resort to, we are in much better shape going into the 2016 Presidential campaign that I could have ever hoped for.

Peace,
emaycee

Greeks bearing gifts

Fresh on the heels of a report showing it is three times cheaper for U.S. taxpayers if we house the homeless rather than leave them on the streets, Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell (D--apparently it's an alternate reality Democratic Party he belongs to) has proposed what he calls "compassionate disruption" to make the lives of the homeless in Honolulu even more miserable than they already are.

"Compassionate disruption" basically entails not allowing the homeless to sit or lay on sidewalks, confiscating their possessions, and conducting sweep arrests for minor offenses, among others.  Really--the kind of stuff Jesus regularly espoused with regard to the poor.

You know what?  I'm beginning to believe that whenever some numb nuts uses the word "compassionate" in a political context (see also, Compassionate Conservatism) real people are going to suffer and take a serious fucking in their everyday lives.

Peace,
emaycee

Bowe and arrows

While most Americans may not be knowledgeable about the ins and outs of military culture, most Americans nonetheless would be familiar with the tradition that our military does not leave its personnel, be they dead or alive, behind.

Unless, of course, you're the republican party and you're as desperate for a scandal to fire up your base (such are the disadvantages of not having an agenda that can do the same) as a heroin addict is for a full syringe of smack.

The faux republican uproar over President Obama exchanging five enemy combatants for the only American prisoner of war in the Afghanistan War, Bowe Bergdahl, has actually gone beyond the point of being repulsive.  Bergdahl may or may not have deserted/committed acts of treason (amazing at how much republicans scream about upholding our Constitution until it's no longer convenient--see also, presumption of innocence), but you would think Obama had exchanged Bergdahl for Hermann Goring.  In fact, in their never ending mud slinging at President Obama, Bergdahl is actually worse than a Nazi, because, um, he wasn't friendly with his fellow soldiers and because his father has a beard.

Six million Jews compared to aloofness and facial hair--yeah, that makes a lot of fucking sense.

Frankly, this is just another in a long line of republican bullshit that proves that everything--and I mean everything--that is wrong with America today begins and ends with the republican party and its brain dead minions.

Peace,
emaycee

Serve the servants

Not really sure why this hasn't been featured more on Liberal blogs today, but the Seattle City Council unanimously passed an ordinance today that will raise the city's minimum wage over the next few years to $15 an hour.

A similar proposal has been put forward in Chicago, and is also being considered in San Francisco.

It's hard to overstate the significance of Seattle's ordinance--it can literally raise thousands of Americans out of poverty and begin to lessen the disparity between rich and poor that has widened so much since the Reagan Devolution.  And millions will be lifted if it goes national.

Here's hoping that eventually out of one, we get many.

Peace,
emaycee