Crapraesque

Not content with just taking away Social Security benefits from the disabled, republicans are now setting their sights on gutting the Children's Health Insurance Program because heaven forbid poor children's health  should be a collective concern.

Ever get the feeling that when republicans watch It's a Wonderful Life they root for Mr. Potter?

Peace,
emaycee

What the world needs now

Fearing that his constituents who use food stamps may choose to buy French's Mustard instead of the generic store brand with their monthly stipend, Wisconsin Rep. Glenn Grothman has begun urging his district's citizens to be ever vigilant while waiting at the grocery store checkout lest some poor folks waste our tax dollars.

Which begs the question--considering Scott Walker this week comparing Labor Unions to ISIS--exactly what in the fuck are they putting in the cheese in Wisconsin these days?

If Rep. Grothman really wanted to help the citizens he represents, he'd be encouraging them to slap the living shit out of anyone who has nothing better to do with their lives than nitpick the grocery choices of poor people.

Peace,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. IX--The Commodores: Easy

Remember last week how I said I had an affinity for Top 40 songs from my youthful introduction into the world of pop music?  Well...this week we're featuring one of those songs.

If you're of a certain age, you may not realize that Nicole Richie's Dad had quite a career in the music business.  Granted, most of it was sentimental drivel, but Lionel Richie certainly had his share of hit records.  And if you're of a certain age once again, you may not realize that Richie's career began in a band called The Commodores whose work at one time was a hell of a lot cooler (well, some of it anyway) than Lionel Richie's solo work ever was.

At any rate, in 1977 the Commodores released a single called "Easy" (on their rather cleverly titled album The Commodores) and for me it was love at first listen.  Written by Richie, the song is one of only two to three million pop numbers to deal with a relationship's end, though "Easy" should be noted for the breakup's overarching relief in comparison to the usual abject sorrow.  Needless to say, it's a ballad, and it features heartfelt vocals from Richie, wonderful background "aahhing" from the rest of the Commodores, and, of all things from a funk/soul band, a dandy little guitar solo that can best be described as "whoop" guitar (that's the noise I make when I try to imitate it).  The song reached #4 on Billboard's Hot 100--and despite that fact, it still sounds as good today as it did back when I still had a full head of hair and washboard (well for a scrawny kid anyway) abs.

And who wouldn't want to be "...easy like Sunday morning"?

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee

Take it from us

As Wisconsin republicans move closer to legislating a right to work for less law in Wisconsin, foks here in Michigan can tell them exactly what this law will mean:

It will not create any jobs.  It will not attract businesses to your state.  It will not increase anyone's wages.  It will not increase the state's standard of living.  It will not keep college graduates in your state.  It will not attract highly skilled individuals to your state.  It will not improve your kids education.

On the other hand, it will decrease wages.  It will lead to a lowered standard of living.  It will send your kids to other states that are more friendly to workers.  It will lead to an exodus of college graduates.  It will mean that fewer people want to teach in your state and your kids education will suffer.  It will lead to people abandoning your state in droves--who the hell wants to freeze their asses off for six months out of the year to work for peanuts?

It will also mean that your state, just like your neighbor to the east, is on the fast track to being as culturally, politically, and economically irrelevant as the Dakotas.

Probably should have followed the lead of your neighbor to the west, Minnesota.  Seems they elected a Democratic governor who raised taxes on the rich and raised the minimum wage--and now they have one of the best economies in the United States.

Too bad your governor, Scott Walker, chose to bury his nose in the Koch brothers asses, much like our governor, Rick Snyder, chose to bury his nose in the DeVos family's asses.  Funny how that works, isn't it?  He gets to run for President while you and your family get to survive on less and less money.

It's enough to make a man want to grab a pitchfork....

Peace,
emaycee

Billshit

I've been asked literally hundreds of times this week to sign petitions asking that Fox News suspend/fire/remove the vocal cords of Bill O'Reilly because apparently--and this came as quite the shock--he lied.

No shit?

Believe it or not, I have signed/e-mailed zero of these petitions.  Why the hell would I want O'Reilly off the air?  O'Reilly could tell conservatives that he walks on water (in his mind he probably does), and they would believe him.  He gets pulled off the air it's just another way for them to raise money in the fight against us evil Liberals.  Independents, though, don't like confrontation, ergo they don't like O'Reilly.  And as for the good guys--hell, we use him to show independents (we already know) just how nuts republicans are and to raise money amongst ourselves to elect more good guys.

O'Reilly's lack of integrity only serves to shred Fox News' credibility even more amongst those Americans (and not just Liberals) who are actually sane.

Peace,
emaycee

Hysteria on steroids

Ever since 9/11, I've often thought that if terrorists really wanted to hurt America, they'd hit us where we live.  Toss a bomb in a shopping center in Peoria, a few days later one at a mall in Tulsa, another day or two and pitch one in a movie theater in Topeka--the death toll wouldn't even have to be high to send Americans into an apeshit frenzy that would make our collective reaction after 9/11 look like having a glass of wine while listening to Enya in comparison.

[I've never mentioned it--in all sincerity--out of fear that some numbnuts would read it and proclaim that the attacks were all the fault of that emaycee fucker.  Yeah, me of the blog with the three regular readers.]

Lo and behold, this week Somanlian terrorists are purported to have called for attacks on shopping centers in the United States (The Mall of America in Minneapolis to be exact), Canada, and other western nations.

There are those--and perhaps correctly--who are questioning whether these are really threats or just political propaganda in the face of the imminent shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, but whether real or imagined, I'd just as soon not have to deal with attacks that would cause far too many Americans to jump out of their shorts every time some doofus decides to flick a firecracker down an aisle at Wal-Mart.

Life's hard enough just trying to survive financially in America these days without adding a trip to the psycho circus into the mix every time we need groceries.

Peace,
emaycee

About to slip down

When I first moved to Michigan, there was no doubt in my mind that the reason my paycheck was fatter than it had been in Indiana was because of the United Auto Workers.  There's plenty of evidence that the decline of Unions has had a direct causative effect on income inequality--when Unions get their members better pay, everybody gets better pay.

Needless to say, republicans just can't have regular folks making a decent living at the expense of their benefactors, the Richie Rich's of America, and their war to destroy the middle class continues apace.

Not content to have destroyed public sector Unions in Wisconsin (and the state's economy with it), Koch brothers sycophant Scott "I Have No Opinion on That" Walker is readying himself to make his home staters even poorer with a new right to work for less law.  Ought to make for a hell of a Presidential campaign slogan:  MY CITIZENS MAKE LESS MONEY THAN YOURS!

Taking a cue from Walker and hoping to get a share of that Koch brothers cash for themselves, Nevada republicans are readying a series of laws to weaken labor unions and show that republicans don't have a problem with government regulation as long as it's being used to fuck over the poor and the middle class.

Couple the war on workers with new evidence that up to half of Americans are in dire shape financially and you have a recipe for Kochs flambe.

Because you can't keep a man down for long when he's starving.

Peace,
emaycee

Jellyfish

In an effort to stave off his ever increasing irrelevance, Rudy Giulani this week claimed that President Obama doesn't love America.

Never having met a tea party ass he wouldn't kiss, Bobby Jindal was quick to join the other two Americans on the Giulani bandwagon and agree with the former mayor.

Scott Walker on the other hand, as he did with the Theory of Evolution, was quick to parse out a no comment--which begs the question of whether or not the Wisconsin Governor has a thought in his head that doesn't involve fucking over workers and educators.

And this, my friends, is what passes for "leadership" in the republican party.

Peace,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. VIII--Canned Heat: Going Up the Country

After four straight weeks of eighties' tunes, we're heading back to Woodstock...

When I was but a wee lad in the mid 70s, my indoctrination to pop music was WLS-89 in Chicago, a top forty station (as I'm sure will come up at some point in this weekly feature, I still have quite an affinity for old top forty songs).  As I hit my later teen years, my indoctrination to the fact that there was a lot of good music not being played on WLS was the film from the Woodstock concerts (and Rolling Stone, back in the day when it was still a music magazine).  And the first song I fell in love with was, naturally, a poppish little hit by the band Canned Heat called "Going Up the Country."

Released in 1968 on the band's Living the Blues album (and featured since on about 9000 60s' compilations), the song has become the unofficial anthem of Woodstock and was Canned Heat's highest charting single (#11 with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100.  The song was based on an old blues number called "Bull Doze Blues" by Henry Thomas that the band reworked and rewrote and turned into a magical piece of 60s' history.  It features an infectious countertenor (yes, I had to look that one up) vocal by Alan Wilson, a guitar sound that can best be described as circular, free-spirited lyrics, and of all things, the catchiest flute--yes, a flute--playing you're ever likely to hear in a rock song.

And who wouldn't want to go where the water tastes like wine?

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee

One small step

There is still an awful long way to go concerning income inequality, but news today that Wal-Mart is raising wages for a half million of its employees to $9.00 this year and $10.00 next year is definitely a good first step.

And proof positive that organized workers can make a difference.

Peace,
emaycee

Once again, we learn nothing from history

A new CBS poll shows that for the first time a majority of Americans (57%) favor sending ground troops to combar ISIS.  Against a group that while responsible for some despicably heinous acts against American citizens, hasn't come within, oh, 6000 miles of any kind of attack on American soil.

For fuck's sake, we still have in our collective rearview mirror the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the lives lost and permanetly disabled, and the disaster they both wreaked on the American economy, and how little difference either of them really made...and still a majority of Americans want to start another one?  For fucking what?

Someone needs to boot a lot of Americans in the ass and remind them of the futility of fighting other people's battles (see also, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan).

Peace,
emaycee

Birds of a feather

Jeb Bush gave a speech today in which he said he loved his father and brother but that he was "his own man."

Anybody outside of a Bush family member actually believing that needs to have a bucket of ice water dumped on their head.

Fucking really?  He is a Bush of the inherited wealth/buddy system for being even wealthier just as Bush the First and Bush the Lesser are, and just like them he has no idea what the economic reality of 99% of Americans is like, and even worse, just like the previous Bushes, he doesn't care.  And as for the rest of the world--well fuck them, they aren't rich or Americans anyhow.

On the bright side, Jeb Bush is probably the best candidate republicans have to face Hillary Clinton, at least from a standpoint of keeping their losses at just the White House level.

But from a having to survive in America economically in this day and age standpoint, I can't see American voters believing that the third time will be the charm for the Bush family.  Two economic disasters are more than enough, thank you.

Peace,
emaycee

The other side of the mountain

I've spent most (though not all) of my adult life living paycheck to paycheck.  While my immediate family has been very fortunate in not having had catastrophic illnesses or injuries, many is the night I've laid awake in bed worrying about a car going on the fritz, the refrigerator humming its last hum, or a pipe bursting from the frigid cold (this week's worry!) and knowing there was no money to pay for any one of them.

Never, though, have I worried about having enough money to buy groceries.  We always had enough money for food.  Which is why, after reading this post on fifth Fridays (if you pay rent weekly, a fifth week in a month is hellish), you realize how propitious something many of us take for granted really is.

Have you ever frozen the leftover Christmas ham just so you could have meat for the next month?  Ever dumpster dived for dented cans of vegetables?  Wondered what it was like to wish you had enough money to buy whatever you felt like eating?  The young lady who wrote the post has.

And you can certainly understand her wondering just where in the hell in America this good life that we have all been promised if we worked hard enough is located these days.

Peace,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. VII--Billy Bragg: Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards

The fun and games couldn't last forever--you knew eventually I had to feature at least one overtly political song....

Billy Bragg is a long time musician and political activist of the left wing variety--he had a modicum of success here in the states (including a Grammy nomination) for his work with Wilco wherein they put the unused lyrics of Woody Guthrie to music which became the Mermaid Avenue albums.  The bulk of his success has occurred in his native U.K.

Released in 1988, "Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards" (on his album Workers Playtime) takes as its inspiration China's disastrous economic and social initiative entitled The Great Leap Forward which resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese from famine and political retribution--i.e., all too often our better selves are diminished by the reality of human nature.  Still, while the song starts as a lament for the disappointments and disillusions of political activism, it ends on a rousing call to arms and an exhortation to keep fighting.

The song also follows one of my favorite patterns in a--a slow musical entrance that grows into a crescendo by song's end.  It's basically an old folkie's dream--a little piano, a little guitar, and a political theme.  Bragg's vocals are also a treat--from the weariness as he lists the broken ideals of the Kennedys, Fidel Castro, Robert Oppenheimer, and himself to the fuck this, we're gonna keep on keepin' on brashness of its conclusion, Bragg never falters.

And as the man says, the revolution is just a t-shirt away...

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee

Hiding in plain sight

Let's see....

Jeb Bush embarrassed himself in the past week by proclaiming himself to be the technology candidate and then hiring as his technology chief a misogynistic homophobic racist and releasing a slew of e-mails from his governship in Florida trying to show his caring nature only he didn't care enough to redact the senders' personal information (including social security numbers).   Rand Paul embarrased himself in the past week by proclaiming that kids who were vaccinated suddenly turned into crazed zombies and that Hillary Clinton spawned ISIS.  Chris Christie embarrassed himself by going overseas and showing he knows nothing about foreign policy or vaccinations.  Scott Walker embarrassed himself today by also going overseas and refusing to say whether he believes in evolution because it isn't a question a politician should be concerned with (fucking really?).

No wonder republicans this week began sniping at Hillary Clinton because she's not campaigning and is supposedly in hiding.  If our candidate was peforming this badly, I'd want anyone out there from the other side who might deflect attention, too.

Christ, how does anyone vote for a republican?

Peace,
emaycee

Tennessee dud

Congratulation to the state of Tennessee and its republican leadership, which has joined Florida and its republican leadership (positive rate 2%) and Utah and its republican leadership (.2%) in pissing away taxpayer dollars to drug test welfare receipients and only finding a whopping .2 percent who tested positive for illegal drugs.

Apparently republicans have no problem with our tax dollars being flushed down the toilet as long as it's being done to appease the Tea Party.

Peace,
emaycee

Getting out of Dodge

Well, well, well--seems Richie Rich and his cronies are buying private airstrips and farms in remote areas of New Zealand in preparation for when the rest of us finally figure out that the game is rigged and are sick and tired of watching our kids go hungry and come looking with our pitchforks for our rightful share of the fruits of our labor.

Thought I'd been preaching to a choir of one but it appears not--I've always thought any idiot could be a millionaire (win the lottery) but that there are no stupid billionaires.

Though it does seem like it'd be a lot easier just to pay folks a living wage than plan some elaborate escape--and just who the hell do they think are going to take care of those farms in New Zealand?

Greed isn't pretty.

Peace,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. VI--Hoodoo Gurus: Bittersweet

When you name a band Hoodoo Gurus, entitle an album Mars Needs Guitars!, and write a song about the, um, bittersweet nature of seeing an old love, it only stands to reason that said song should be, oh, stupendous.

Hoodoo Gurus lived to tell the tale.

To call the Gurus a one hit wonder would be incorrect--while they enjoyed a modicum of success on U.S. college charts, they never had a top 100 single or album here (they did enjoy a great amount of success in their native Australia, where they were inducted into Australia's rock and roll hall of fame).  Still, "Bittersweet," released in 1985, is a hell of a song which I discovered on MTV back in the days when MTV still stood for Music Television instead of Moronic Television.

Featuring what an old co-worker called "jangly" guitars, a driving rhythm, and plaintive vocals about a love gone wrong, the song is one of those that even thirty years later has not lost any of the thrill of the first time I heard it.

Cut and bleed, indeed.

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee

Show me the way to go home

If I'm going to bitch every time a city screws the homeless, I should call out those cities that are at least trying to help them....

Salt Lake City (which my oldest son calls home and tells me is a blue oasis in the red desert that is Utah) has enacted a program called Homes First which is basically giving homeless folks apartments at a cost of $10-12,000 per person.  The cost of leaving the homeless on the streets?  $20,000.  The goal is to end homelessness this year.  Amen to that.

In Palo Alto, CA, a group called Project WeHOPE is seeking funding for a mobile trailer that would house showers, bathrooms, and a laundry room for the homeless to do the one thing that is probably hardest for them to do:  get clean.  While still in the funding stage, their Dignity on Wheels program would go a long way toward helping the homeless feel a lot more comfortable job hunting or seeking medical attention, among others.

They might be baby steps in a big sprawling country such as ours, but they are a good start.

Peace,
emaycee

2016

For all the talk about Steve King's Iowa Freedom Summit last week, the opening salvo in the 2016 battle for the Presidency came today when President Obama proposed his 2016 budget which directly attacks income inequality through increased spending and tax cuts for the middle class and higher taxes for the Richie Rich's of America.

While republicans have had a recent come to Jesus moment with their (faux) overtures on income inequality, there is real doubt that they're going to offer any thing other than their usual and disproven tripe of tax cuts for the wealthy which will trickle down to the rest of us (and we're still waiting for a trickle....).

With this budget proposal, the President has basically forced the republicans to prove whether they really care about the American people of if they're just blowing it out their asses--and given campaign soundbites and commercials galore for Hillary Clinton.

Let's hope she has the good sense to run on it.

Peace,
emaycee