Hollow weenies

If there's one theme republicans have been pushing this election season that is the epitome of political bullshit, it's how if they the win the Senate they're going to pass all kinds of legislation and get American back on track.

Fucking really?  Based on fucking what?

Their unprecedented obstructionism over the past four years?  Their complete and total lack of any ideas?  Their record of slowing down Congressional action which resulted in the past two Congresses being the least productive in history?  The mind-boggling number of days off the republican controlled House has scheduled?

If they do win the Senate (and I still believe that's a big if), I hope President Obama takes every piece of legislation they pass and lifts a corner of the bill and lights it with a Bic before throwing it in the Oval Office fireplace.

They don't even deserve the courtesy of his signature on his veto.

Peace,
emaycee

Lions and tigers and perverts, oh my

This is a radio ad, for conservative Michigan State Supreme Court justices Brian Zahra and David Viviano, that Michiganders are being subjected to in the final weeks of the campaign:

“Judges can’t stop sexual predators before they strike. But they can make sure those that get caught pay a heavy price. That’s why Supreme Court Justices Brian Zahra and David Viviano have upheld convictions for sexually abusive criminals. And Viviano and Zahra have made it illegal for sexual predators to use computers to help them commit sexual abuse. Justices Brian Zahra and David Viviano have consistently prioritized the rights of crime victims by upholding tough sentences for violent offenders and sexual abusers. Viviano and Zahra use common sense on Michigan’s Supreme Court. They are rule-of-law judges that apply the law to the facts. They are not influenced by special interests. Supreme Court Justices Brian Zahra and David Viviano use common sense and protect our children and families."

Leaving aside the fact that our State Supreme Court Justices have absolutely nothing to do with the legislation concerning, or the prosecutions of, sexual predators, you're left with the rather repugnant sentiment that somehow Liberal Justices are going to usher in the era of sexual predators in the state of Michigan if Zahra and Viviano aren't elected.

Michiganders aren't that stupid, are they?  Maybe--I know the chamber of commerce and insurance companies sure hope they are.  The republican led Michigan State Supreme Court rivals the Roberts Court when it comes to looking out for Corporate America's bottom line over the needs of working class Americans.

No special interests here...

And the ads they pay for are the equivalent of pointing at the exit and yelling "Stop thief!" in a crowded department store and when everybody looks pocketing the money from the cash register.

Peace,
emaycee

Rag, mama, rag

Rape insurance for Michigan's wives and daughters.  Right to work for less laws.  The privitization of our prison food system, which resulted in maggots in the food and drugs sold by Aramark's employees.  The shutting off of the people's water in Detroit.  Taxing the pensions of retirees.  Tax breaks for big business that resulted in zero improvement in our economy.

And yet, and yet, our supposedly Liberal big city newspaper, The Detroit Free Press, has once again endorsed Rick Snyder for Governor over Mark Schauer here in Michigan.

They said it was a close call, but that they believed Governor Gutless would somehow grow a pair in the next four years and stand up for all that is right and good and buck that tea party dominated Michigan legislature. And that--all evidence to the contrary--he would grow Michigan's economy.

And when I wake up tomorrow morning, I'm going to flap my arms and golly, gee, I'll be able to fly.

God, I am so glad I cancelled my subscription--for fuck's sake, any idiot can see we could elect my son's fucking cat and it would be an improvement over Snyder, except for apparently, the idiots on the Free Press  editorial board.

Peace,
emaycee

The battle of who could care less

In a move that wouldn't even surprise my ten-year-old (who cares for politics as much as most ten-year-olds do, which is to say not a smidge), republicans are already reminding Americans of the partisanship that was created by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and by extension, the Clintons.

No shit.

Leaving aside the fact that the average American's memory has trouble recalling what he or she had for breakfast this morning let alone the hoopla surrounding a political scandal from 20 years ago, the only fucking partisanship I remember from those days was caused solely by republicans.

Kind of like politics today.

But if the Lewinsky scandal is the best the republicans have to offer in 2016, I like Secretary Clinton's chances very much indeed.

Peace,
emaycee

Dealin'

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, locked in a tight race with Jason Carter, blamed recent unemployment figures showing Georgia with the nation's highest unemployment rate on shenanigan's from the federal government trying to sabotage his campaign.

Which caused me to wonder if Georgia's unemployed could blame their bills on shenanigans from the federal government trying to sabotage their checkbook balances.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander, so to speak.

Peace,
emaycee

Private eyes

For all the (deserved) fuss over NSA spying on Americans, often left out of the kerfluffle was corporate spying on Americans.  We can argue until the cows come home about which is worse (I trust corporations less myself), but the plain truth is that both of them speak volumes about how much freedom we actually have.

I note this because of a  recent piece which notes of how companies will check out your car while you are being interviewed for a job to look for tells about your personality (e.g., age of car, is it clean or dirty, what's it like on the inside--car seats, messy, cigarette filled ashtray).  I found it interesting because the back of my car is covered in political bumper stickers (when I say covered, the only way I can put on a new one is when an old one wears away) and because of it, when I interviewed for the job I have now, I purposely parked on a side street and not in the company parking lot because I didn't want those stickers to hurt my chance of getting the job (I've got a family to feed and food ain't free).

Just another reminder of this word of warning:  just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

Peace,
emaycee

Dork away, Dixieland

Conservative author and terminal nitwit Douglas MacKinnon this week postulated that South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida should secede from the United States and form their own country named "Reagan."

Ahem.

Any way they could take Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, too?

While I don't really support these calls for secession, (I am fully aware that roughly 40% of the populations in these states support those of us on the left and that life for the citizens of such a country would be much worse without the beneficence of the U. S. Government), we on the left sure would have a field day with the mayhem that would arise from a nation of yahoos called "Reagan."

Peace,
emaycee

How now brown nose?

In a campaign stop for Rep. Steve King this week, Chris Christie said he and King "think alike."

While I don't see Christie getting the republican nomination in 2016, if he did, the only way he wins the general is to present himself as being a somewhat moderate governors from the Northeast (it obviously did not help Mitt Romney, but Christie isn't Richie Rich, Jr. either).  And as he presents himself thusly, how often do you think his opposition, not to mention every liberal blogger from here to Honolulu, is going to bring that quote up?  Steve King is on a plane for republican nutjobs with such luminous doofuses as Michelle Bachmann and Louis Gohmert.

And herein lies the problem for the modern republican party--they are so beholden to their tea party wing that it makes them virtually unelectable on a national stage.

Good times.

Peace,
emaycee

Only her hairdresser knows for sure

George Zornick of The Nation parses a few words Elizabeth Warren gave in an interview with People magazine and wonders if Sen. Warren is changing her mind about running for President.

In a word, no.

Leaving aside the fact that I'm not a political reporters and even I wouldn't put too much stock in anything that's published in People, let alone speculate politically upon it, how many times does Warren have to say "No" before far too many people on the left believe her?

It seems to me it would be a lot more fruitful to try and pull Hillary Clinton farther to the left than it is to live on Fantasy Island and keep hoping against hope that Warren will run.

Besides, I've been wondering lately what it would mean for working class Americans economically if we had a Secretary of the Treasury Warren....

Peace,
emaycee

This could be heaven or this could be hell

Rep. Steve King of Iowa said this week that he doesn't believe there will be gay people in heaven.

What's most amazing about this is Rep. King's conviction that he will undoubtedly go to heaven--as if  a supposedly loving God directs St. Peter to have a special line at the Pearly Gates for cruel and hateful people to go straight on through.

If such be the case, I'll take my chances in hell, thanks.

Peace,
emaycee

Another reason to hate Ronald Reagan

Not that I needed another one.

Seems that one of the crucial steps in the now thirty years war lead by wealthy elites and Corporate America on the working class that lead us to the point we're at now wherein we're seriously fucked financially, was making Americans hate their government.  As in, if they hate it they won't mind it not being funded, even though that funding generally helped the poor and the middle class.  And guess who benefitted?  Rich folks! As in, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer.

Leading the charge for this was all around nitwit and second rate Hollywood actor, Ronald Reagan, and his government isn't the solution, it's the problem bullshit.  The Reagan Devolution has decimated the middle class and led to more Americans (especially children) living in poverty than when that pesky old government actually funded programs that helped actual Americans.

As one who lived though Reagan/s election, I can't begin to tell you how much I wish I had a time machine and could go back in time to show Americans what thirty years of Reagan's scorched earth economic policy has wrought upon the working class.  And for all his faults, Jimmy Carter could have changed all of that.

With two weeks to go until this years mid-term elections (November 4th!), anyone believing their local and state elections are a choice between tweedledee and tweedledum is sorely mistaken.  Elections, to quote Joe Biden, are a big fucking deal.

And it can be the difference between a strong middle class and a country that cares about its poor, and the crumbling middle class and the war on the poor that the Reagan Devolution gave us.

Peace,
emaycee

Ebola crapola

In a shocking development, republicans are trying to fire up their chickenshit (literally) base for the upcoming elections by doing what they do best:  showing just how lily-livered they are in the face of any adversity, this time the challenge being ebola.  And just to prove it, they are holding hearings next week, the point of which is to spread panic, and not to discuss their continuous defunding of crucial public health programs like the CDC and the NIH, or even their inability to get more funding for ebola research in the midst of the current outbreak because of their noses constantly being up the tea party's ass.

Because in republican bizarro world, little gnomes fall out of oak trees and deliver vaccines and disease control.

Needless to say, republicans are a bit defensive on the subject of their voting against funding for public health concerns, because, hell, everything from plagues of locusts to the whiskey shits are Obama's fault, and never theirs.  And it certainly doesn't help their cause when the head of the NIH tells Americans that we'd have a vaccine for ebola by now if not for the budget cuts.

And once again, we have the republican party showing that they just flat don't give a shit about the well-being of Americans, unless of course you're scared shitless and sitting in a corner with your thumb in your mouth.

Peace,
emaycee

Who's to bless and who's to blame

Now that a third Ebola diagnosis has been confirmed in Texas, a couple of thoughts:

• While republicans are moving forward with their usual bullshit (It's Obama's fault! Government sucks!) doesn't anyone else wonder exactly how much responsibility Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital bears?  Are they, like most corporations anymore, understaffed in order to cut costs?  Are their staff members, again, like most corporations anymore, trying to do jobs that once were done by two and three people?  Why isn't a plan for responding to infectious diseases already in place?  Was it deemed to be not cost effective?  I mean for Christ's sake, a hospital's main function is supposed to be the health and well being of its patients and staff, and it sure seems like it really wasn't at this hospital.
• For all the whining about the response of the White House and the CDC, am I the only one who isn't surprised this happened in a state that is openly hostile to the federal government?  Maybe it gets botched in California or New York, too, but one has to wonder how open to suggestion or quick to seek guidance the powers that be in Texas are.  

All of which is not to say that the White House and the CDC couldn't have done better, but we're getting the standard media laziness which all too often allows Corporate America and the republican party/tea party escape blame for  problems they likely caused.

Peace,
emaycee

Jesus, H. Christ

As I've noted before, I work in a non-profit thrift store.  On occasion, I come across some different items that our customers have donated.  One such item was donated this week--a cassette by one Laurie Beth Jones called Jesus, CEO, which purports to help one use "...ancient wisdom for visionary leadership."

Apparently, I'm a little late to the game.  Ms. Jones released this earth shattering cassette in 1995, and currently has a website which claims her work has been read by over a million people (apparently, I'm not the only one late to the game), and offers her motivational skills learned from her business mentor, Jesus.

Question:  how exactly does Jesus as the guru to CEOs  work when, near as I can tell, (a) Jesus wasn't a psychopath, and (b) wasn't stricken with a terminal case of greediness?

Proof positive that nothing is sacred.

Peace,
emaycee

And immediately a rooster crowed

Twice in the past week, Kentucky Democratic Senate nominee Alison Lundergan Grimes has refused to answer whether she voted for President Obama, on the grounds of the privacy of her voting records being a matter of principle she doesn't wish to violate (on the same lameness quotient as Kerry's "I voted for it before I voted against it.").

While I think it was a chickenshit question (was Mitch McConnell asked if he voted for one of the worst President's in U.S. history, George W. Bush, or for John McCain and Willard Romney, two of the worst major party Presidential nominees in recent history?), and I don't disagree with those who think its both a non-issue and that Grimes should hammer McConnell on Obamacare, Grimes handled the situation about as poorly as humanly possible.  A simple, "Duh! I'm a Democrat!" or in politician speak, "Of course I did, I'm a Democrat--I'm sure Senator McConnell voted for George W. Bush twice, too." would have more than sufficed.

At best, Grimes answer  looks like pandering and at worst it shows a complete lack of political courage.  Yes, President Obama has been less than perfect and is extremely unpopular in Kentucky, but if Grimes can't acknowledge that he was by far and away the best option in 2008 and 2012, I can't imagine that she'd be all that much better than McConnell in the Senate.

And another Blue Dog bites the dust.

Peace,
emaycee

Voters beware...

In a recent talk with reporters, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called on Democrats to present a more populist message, especially in talking about economic fairness.  He's right, but more important was his caveat to American voters--republicans shut up about issues that are not popular (outlawing abortion, birth control, right to work), but once elected, shove their unpopular agenda down their citizens' throats.

We've seen it here in Michigan where Rick Snyder swore up and down in 2010 that he was neither interested in destroying unions or getting involved in the abortion debate.  Four years later we have a right to work for less law and our women having to buy rape insurance.  And I will guarantee that at least the ones in blue and purple states (e.g. Joni Ernst in Iowa or Cory Gardner in Colorado) are following the same playbook.

Swear to God, every ad we run for the next month should be blunt and simple:  republicans are a) fucking nuts, and b) do not have America's best interests at heart.

At least, unlike republicans, we'd at least be honest with the voters.

Peace,
emaycee

Your slaving job

Welcome to fucked up America:  a recent survey shows that nearly ten full months into 2014, slightly more than half of Americans have not taken a vacation day.

Me oh my.

While a quarter of the respondents aren't eligible for vacation pay (more American exceptionalism), it's still nothing short of pathetic how many people haven't bothered to use their paid time off.  For fucking what?  Can you say "Suckers!"?

Know what isn't surprising?  The same survey shows that of people who make more than $150,000 a year, none reported not taking a vacation day.

Meanwhile, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.  Go figure.

Peace,
emaycee

St. Louis blues

Before yesterday's game 4 of the NLDS between the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers, there was a peaceful protest outside of Busch Stadium in St. Louis for Mike Brown, the unarmed young man shot to death by a piss poor police officer in Ferguson, MO.  A group of Cardinals fans tried to shout down the peaceful protesters with the usual conservative drivel of a) get a job, b) go back to Africa, and c) we hate black people (actually "Let's go Darren Wilson"--same thing).

I wasn't surprised by the fact that Cardinals' fans were involved in such chickenshittery--I've attended baseball games all over America and Cardinals' fans are by far and away the biggest assholes.  I also wouldn't have been surprised had this occurred outside a of a Rams game.  Or a  St. Louis University basketball game.  Or a Blues game.

But a baseball game?  Baseball is to sports as Bob Dylan once was to rock 'n' roll--brains wrapped in a melody.  Baseball is a thinking person's game.

Who knew that idiots attended baseball games, too?

Peace,
emaycee

Nothing like a lefty

Like most people, I don't much care for dealing with solicitors who come knocking at the front door of your home.  Making it even worse for me, is the fact that my wife seems to think that the responsiblity for shooing these people away belongs solely to me.

So you can imagine my chagrin today when, up to my elbows in dishwater, the Beautiful Girl said there was someone coming up to the door that I needed to talk to.  As the previous homeowners had a big sign on the front door proclaiming "NO SOLICITING" which we decided not to take down, my response upon hearing the knock at our front door was the usual--"What part of NO SOLICITING don't these people understand?"

I opened the door and gave the young lady standing before me my best scowl.  She merely smiled and said, "Hi, I'm [her name] from Working America--what do you think the most important issue is for Michigan's leaders?"

Immediately, a light went off in my head--I get e-mails from Working America (they're an organization supporting labor rights and groups).  My scowl goes disappeared pronto.  "Jobs."

"Of course," she said, "Now, in the race for Governor are you leaning toward Democrat Mark Schauer or republican Rick Snyder?"

"I'm not leaning," I said.  "I will be voting for Schauer."  A big smile came upon her face.

"And in the Senate race, are you..."

"I will be voting for Peters.  Again, not leaning."

She continued smiling brightly, thanked me for my time, and walked from our front porch.

After I closed our front door, I called out to my wife, "She was a really nice young woman."

And I thank God for young people like her who stand boldly before idiots like me trying to ensure that we have a better state and a better country.

Peace,
emaycee

Ring, ring goes the bell

This past week, Germany ended college tuition fees for all its citizens and for international students.

The thing that amazes me the most--and this may be because I'm an American, and as a nation, we're anything but--is how forward thinking this is for a nation (note that the link mentions many other EU nations have done the same).  This is a virtual guarantee of a chance at a better future, better life, and a better country for every student in Germany, and without being saddled with the $1.2 trillion of debt that American students are stuck with.

It means more doctors, more lawyers, more teachers, and more consumer spending to make Germany's economy grow faster instead of tons of students loans payments going to Big Banks.

And therein lies the rub--as long as we're beholden to Corporate America and Big Business, the chances of America being anything more than a country of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich are nil.

Pay it forward, indeed.

Peace,
emaycee