What they ain't got--courage!

Baby, the rain must fall

COVIDIOTS in Michigan planned another rally at our capitol building in Lansing today but according to The Detroit News had a minuscule turnout of about 300 (some say this number was exaggerated, and considering The Detroit News is a right wing rag, not surprising).  The reason for the poor turnout?  Seems Michigan today was covered with a steady and quite chilly rain.

So let me get this straight--these folks aren't afraid of dying from the coronavirus, aren't afraid to threaten to assassinate our Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and aren't afraid to shed the blood of their fellow Americans to further their cause...but can't show up for a rally for freedom because it's, uh, raining?  Such a valiant effort to show all the backbone of an earthworm.

I'm sure Donald Trump will be sending their Congressional Medals of Honor any day now.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Yakety-yak, don't come back

Blah, blah, blah, old Nolan, blah, blah, blah, it's not about tax cuts, it's about spending, blah, blah, blah, skip to my lou, who cares if there's no empirical evidence that tax cuts create jobs, cock-a-doodle-doo, cut spending, cut spending, never mind the failure and human toll of austerity measures, put the needle to the record, yo, cut it....

Yawn.  In fact, double yawn.

And try feeding that bullshit to the mobs in Spain.  Or else pay careful attention to them--because if such brutal austerity measures are ever enacted here in the States (where we're raised from birth to believe that we we have a God-given right to live like millionaires) the Spanish protests are going to seem quite tame compared to the Mansonesque circus you're going to see here. 

You never know when you just might need some useful tips on dumpster diving.

Peace,
emaycee

More conservative malarkey

It reaches a point where it becomes almost absurd, this conservative belief that apart from defense, the U. S. Government is to blame for all that is wrong and not responsible for anything that is good.

As if no business ever hired someone who had a public education, as if none of their workers ever drove on roads that the government built--hell, that none of them shopped at stores or used auto mechanics or saw doctors that never benefited from the internet or the NIH or welfare benefits.

But it doesn't stop numbnuts like Nolan Finley from peddling their peculiar and misinformed bullshit about individual initiative and the evil government--and making like a scratched record and repeating their tired mantra of how terrible those (not so) high taxes on corporations and the wealthy are to boot.  Yawn.  The piece was like every other such piece written by a comatose republican--so riddled with inaccuracies and specious arguments that my seven-year-old could successfully rebut it.

Finley does make a piss-poor stab at humor (remember, conservatism by its very nature is antithetical to good humor--no rebellion allowed) when he refers to President Obama as President Pinocchio...which is lame even for someone who has all the cleverness of a dead tree stump.

And he closes with an almost admission that the President will probably win re-election and then, ooh scary, it's going to be on us foolish voters and we'll suffer all the horrible consequences.

Like you know, the country not falling into another Great Recession, and not having Wall Street fail and having to spend our tax dollars to bail out their asses, and not watching income inequality continue to have us resemble a Third World country, and maybe having a chance to have more decent wages for normal folks, and not fighting two pointless wars, and not having the social safety net shredded, and maybe having our grandparents still have a guaranteed income and decent healthcare in the later years, and....

I could probably go on for two or three more hours, but you get the drift and I've got to get some sleep before work tomorrow.

Peace,
emaycee

I used to be disgusted...

...now I'm just flat-assed pissed off.

It's been a horrible couple of weeks in the Detroit Free Press (not so good in the Detroit News, either, but it's a conservative publication and you gets whats you pays for)--so much so that I am seriously considering letting my subscription lapse when it expires in September.  I've been reading newspapers since I was eight-years-old (no child prodigy, I started with the easy stuff: sports and the comics) and I've never been so utterly disgusted with the level of discourse and the slip-shod journalism.  Misinformation--swear to God, it seems that several of their pundits are looking for jobs in the Beltway.  Just brutal with the "trying to appear balanced even though we're reporting completely incorrect information and our opinions are so ill-informed..." ad nauseum.

And then...and then...I read a piece like this one and this one (disclaimer:  they were written by my daughter) rooting out real life problems while exposing real life problems (homelessness and issues with local homeless shelters in a small Iowa town) and I think to myself maybe journalism isn't such a fucked up field, after all, that it's still capable of doing some good in this big old goofy world.

Maybe I just need to subscribe to a small town newspaper....

Peace,
emaycee

On the merits...

...this idea sucks.

Seems one Ingrid Jacques, an editorial writer for The Detroit News, thinks that merit increases for teachers are just ducky.  As is often the case with vapid conservatives, this is an opinion voiced by one who has no personal stake in the matter, and even less experience in the real world.  She cites the usual twits--Michigan legislature (currently the laughing stock of the entire nation--vagina, vagina, vagina), the Mackinac Center for Public Policy (conservative think tank based on Fantasy Island for the wealthy in Michigan, notoriously mistaken on fucking everything), and Students First (private education organization most noted for cheating on test scores in D. C. to make themselves look better).

I've spent 30 years in the real world, working for real companies, and there once was a time when merit increases actually did exist.  It died off after Numbnuts Reagan's term, but merit pay raises in the corporate world (not including executives who never miss an opportunity to find a reason to give themselves a raise--I farted twice today!--despite their lack of success or profitiability) today have become codespeak for "NO RAISES."  Trust me, no matter how well you do in your job, no matter how much you contribute to the bottom line, if you're not an executive, they will find every reason possible to not give you a raise.

Trust me teachers, the same will eventually happen to you, especially since there are enough idiotic voters out there who absolutely think you're overpaid making $50,000 for teaching their increasingly moronic kids.  Avoid this deal at all costs!

Ms. Jacques, in a typically republican classless move, concludes what passes for thought in conservative circles by declaring that teachers not interested in merit pay should seek another line of work.

I'd suggest the same for Ms Jacques, considering her reasoning is extremely poor, her research is embarrassingly bad, and she's a miserable writer, but it's a conservative publication, and we all know that conservatives love to reward the incompetent as long as they're either rich or spout the party bullshit.

Peace,
emaycee

Lunkhead of the week

Leave it to old Nolan to come up with the harebrained op-ed this week.  Old Nolan isn't much at this whole election prognosticating--a while back he opined that Thaddeus McCotter might just be a dark horse for the republican nomination for the Presidency...except that Thaddeus pretty much turned out to be a doofus who couldn't even last until the Iowa Caucus.  In fact, Thaddeus couldn't even run his congressional seat campaign--seems that coming up with competent personnel who could find 2000 signatures to get his name on the ballot was too tough, too.  Hell, they only missed it by 1800 signatures.

Now old Nolan's telling us that my home county here in Michigan, Oakland, may be the county that holds the key to Willard Romney winning the Presidency this November.  That, who knows, we just might be the folks who put him over the top. 

Nate Silver at 538 armed with polls and relevant stats (and being the most correct prognosticator the last two Presidential elections) has Obama as an 81% likelihood victor in Michigan.  I'm willing to grant that we have a little more than four months before the election, but let's face it, to win Michigan Romney is going to need an utter collapse of the economy (in which case we're all fucked) or to spend an ungodly sum of money here at the expense of other states (in which case Romney is fucked).  Keep in mind, though, that I'm not convinced an economic collapse helps Romney--more and more Americans are seeing the republicans as being obstructionist when it comes to the economy and their lack of effort could hurt them as much as Obama if the economy collapsed.  I am willing to give Finley the benefit of the doubt on Romney winning Michigan--I know it's not likely, but I still hope Obama takes North Carolina again.

Finley's idiocy, though, comes in the reasoning that he thinks will lead to Romney winning Oakland County.  First, ask Bush the Lesser how many times being born in Connecticut lead to his winning Connecticut.  Romney's birthplace will more than likely win him zero votes.  Second, Finley ignores that Oakland has been trending leftward the last several elections, and note that even in the republican wave of 2010 Rep. Gary Peters still held his seat (a Conservadem, but he won).  Third is the willingness to buy into the whole get out the vote campaign as envisioned by Oakland County republicans--if all the organizations in Wisconsin who e-mailed me claiming  to have been winning the battle to get out the vote for the recall had been correct, Tom Barrett would be the Governor of Wisconsin.  They weren't, and he isn't.  Finally, and perhaps most foolhardy, is Finley claim that Oakland County moderates are going to see Romney, after he ran a primary so far to the right as to make Reagan look like a commie, as some kind of middle of the road candidate is utterly delusional.

My guess is it's just a diversion as the glow begins to wear off the Romney campaign.

Peace,
emaycee

You really should be writing that book you've always dreamed of

It's not so much that the conservative drivel in this piece by Mark Judge about that bastion of conservative ideology, nineteen-year-old Washington National's outfielder Bryce Harper, is so noxious. Hell, I read the hopelessly deluded Nolan Finley in the Detroit News and the factually challenged Mackinac Center in the Free Press virtually every week.  It's not so much that if you'd read his piece before you became a baseball fan that you never would have fallen in love with baseball--ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" has about as much baseball acumen as Mr. Judge.  It's not even that the writing is so bad--I mean they have bad writing contests yearly and those people actually try to write as badly as Mr. Judge.

No, it's the fact that this hack has published a book.  His book, A Tremor of Bliss, purports to be a discussion of Catholicism, sex, and rock and roll.  What the fuck Catholicism has to do with sex and rock and roll--let me repeat that--what the fuck Catholism has to do with sex and rock and roll is completely beyond any rational human being.  Aren't the terms pretty much mutually exclusive?  (And judging from the reviews on Amazon, Mr. Judge's book is as well written as "Bryce Harper, conservative hero.")  Either Mr. Judge has a parent who runs a publishing company, or those goofy bastards are printing books by anybody these days.

Damn, I have to get back to that novel....

Peace,
emaycee

The same sad echo

It wasn't as if I thought Nolan Finley would ever win a Pulitzer (a Pukelitzer, maybe) for commentary, but Jesus Christ, he and the Detroit News have gone completely off the deep end with their ass kissing of the Antoinettes.  His latest diatribe is against all the ballot proposals being worked on here in Michigan--why, heck, if we don't watch out we're gonna end up like all those evil folk in Californey.

Finley's concern is laughable--I certainly didn't hear a whimper from him when republicans were pushing through ballot proposals to enact racism (Affirmative Action Initiative) and Homophobia (Defense of Marriage Act) into law.  Methinks Finley's big concern is the ballot proposal to ensure collective bargaining will remain a right for Michigan workers and end once and for all the charade of right to work for less laws.  Despite his near constant attempts to turn the UAW into some sort of bogeyman, most people in Michigan are smart enough to realize that the UAW has helped increase all of our wages, and the right to collectively bargain is actually immensely popular.  His rants are merely a sop to a bunch of rich white men.

The part that got me the most, though, was when he wrote of the ballot proposal to increase wind power in Michigan (which frankly, isn't high on my priority list) and noted that it was "reportedly" backed by a California billionaire environmentalist.

You know, "reportedly" Nolan Finley has a brain, but when it comes to a piece in a big city newspaper, I'd like some proof, not just Antoinette wishful thinking.

Peace,
emaycee

This is racism

All you really need to do is look at the title of Nolan Finley's recent column: "Is Detroit ready for white mayor?"

What the fuck?  I mean, really?  Really?

What Finley is saying--based on nothing more than skin color--is that a white mayor would be better for Detroit.  And that's racism, pure and simple.  Because I don't remember a Finley column in 2008 asking, "Is America ready for black president?" And I'm not holding my breath waiting for his column in 2014 asking, "Is Michigan ready for black governor?"

Am I the only one who is disgusted that this shit appeared in the newspaper of a major American city?  And probably even worse, no one will even bother to call them out on it.

Liberal media, indeed.

Peace,
emaycee

Yawn

Oooh scary.

Labor unions, Jennifer Granholm, and California, oh my!  Labor unions, Jennifer Granholm, and California, oh my!

Old Nolan continues his crusade this week to keep all of us working for a dollar a day.  Seems them nasty old unions are using the ballot box to fight back against wildly unpopular policies enacted by Gov. Snyder and the republican led Michigan legislature.  The horror!

The sheer hypocrisy of the republicans regarding the emergency financial manager dictum the unions seek to overturn is overwhelming.  How come the government overreaches on healthcare but when they want to rip up union contracts and see to it that good middle class folks earn much less money, they're just aces?

Fuck you, Nolan.  And by the way, if you love Indiana so much, why the fuck don't you move there?  One more idiot in that shithole of a state would be Michigan's gain.

Peace,
emaycee

No wise man has the power...

The first thought that I had when I read the title of old Nolan's tripe this week ("UAW will man class war") was "Thank God!"  I mean, who the hell else is going to do it for the working men and women of this nation?

The rest of the piece (?) was the usual republican scaremongering and lies, but arguing with them would be like trying to rationalize with a four year old about the monster underneath her bed.  Fortunately, the four year old will outgrow it.  Republicans, not so much.

It is instructional though as a means of showing republican fear.  The White House is looking more and more like a lost cause for them, and the farther away it gets, the better Dem chances for holding the Senate and retaking the House.  If the 99% Spring is half as successful as the Occupy Movement in getting the tradtional media to discuss income inequality and the ever declining middle class it could a really long November for the party of the old, the white, and the shrews.

So best to get out there early to call the Occupiers dirty hippies (yawn), complain about how the poor bond holders fared vis a vis the UAW in the auto bailout (never mind that this is capitalism--the bond holders paid their money and they took their chances--and lost), scream about class warfare (which republicans only despise when we fight back), and whine about that evil government (despite the fact that Michigan would be a fucking wasteland right now without the federal bailout of the auto industry).

Better that than to hang your hat on the Bush the lesser policies that has resulted in extreme poverty doubling, in 93% of the income gains going to the top 1% (mother fucking 93% for Christ's sake), or to face the fact that 64% of Americans believe unions should have the right to collectively bargain.  Better to scream about imaginary boogiemen than give credit where credit is due for the auto industry bailout.

Republican pols and pundits can afford to blame President Obama for all the world's ills--the backbone of this country, the men and women who actually do the work, can't afford to.  We have to eat.

And we eat much better with unions like the UAW leading the way.

Peace,
emaycee

If I could pay you less I would

It never ceases to amaze me how little regard for the poor and middle class the republican party has, and how they can continue to get even a single vote from anyone in those blocs.  I suppose it's like P. T. Barnum said about a sucker being born every minute.  The republicans are good at exploiting those suckers for their own gain.

The Detroit News has chastized Willard Romney for saying he supports indexing the minimum wage to the rate of inflation.  Taking a cue from its benefactor, the chamber of (ill-gotten) commerce, the News trots out falsehood after falsehood--how it hurts teens, costs jobs, raises prices.  All of their assertions are demonstrably false--the people working for minimum wage are largely adults, disproportionately women.  It neither raises prices nor costs jobs.  It does lessen poverty.  The News editorial staff is either woefully ignorant  or outright lying (and probably beholden to the 1%).

In the end, it's this simple:  republicans think making $7.25 an hour--fucking $7.25 an hour for Christ's sake--is too much money.  They think we would be a better country if most of us were paid less.  Think about it:  in a country where consumer spending is 2/3 of our economy, they think we should have less money to spend.  Who does this benefit except the 1%?  Fucking who?

This is republican class warfare.

To which I have but one response.

Fuck you.

Peace,
emaycee

Fair and square

The utter tone deafness of the republican party and its enablers can often be mind boggling.  Witness the Detroit News regurgitating for the umpteenth time (yawn, yawn, yawn) how "fairness" can't be legislated  through our tax code.

Horseshit.

Even worse, they drum up the usual republican fearmongering about how taxing the wealthy their fair share will put a stake in the economic recovery, despite all evidence to the contrary.  Tax cuts do not stimulate the economy.  Tax cuts for the rich do not trickle down.  The greatest economic boom of many of our lifetimes--the Clinton economic expansion of the nineties--occurred after taxes were raised on the wealthy.  But the piece de resistance of the News's idiotorial is their claim (typo or outright lie, you decide!) that the Bush tax cuts in 2003 created 8 million jobs--which is truly a miracle since the record shows Bush created just three million jobs over the course of his Presidency, the worst job creation record since W.'s mentor, Herbert Hoover.  Tax cuts for the wealthy don't create jobs either.

But the one idea emanating from their idiotorial that I did really like was their idea that Willard should pounce all over Obama over his idea that millionaires should pay more in taxes.  What a sight that would be--the two hundred million dollar man with his tax shelters in the Caymans and Swiss bank accounts telling those of us who live paycheck to paycheck why he should pay less in taxes than we do.

And when we've finished laughing we can vote to re-elect Obama and go back to whining about how moderate he is.

Peace,
emaycee

Little piggies

I could probably think of a few hundred reasons why I will never vote for, or be, a republican, but Nolan Finley's commentary in last week's Detroit News is a microcosm of all those reasons.  Finley's basic assertion--that since Gov. Snyder is loathe to sign a bill that makes Michigan a right to work for a lot less state (because it's "divisive") and the republican legislature is unwilling to build a second bridge from Detroit to Canada (ostensibly because they're in the pocket of the first bridge's owner, Matty Moroun--and don't even get me started on how, if the shoe were on the other foot, Finley would be excoriating Democrats for being beholden to their special interests) the two sides should be willing to hold their noses and make a trade that will be beneficial to both.

This kind of partisan gamesmanship is repulsive on so many levels, but is specifically endemic to the republican party and its enablers.  At a time when Michigan is beyond hurting for jobs to hold jobs hostage so that working men and women can be paid less to further line the pockets of the wealthiest of the wealthy is class warfare at its ugliest and disgusting.  This isn't about disagreements over policy--this is about winning at all costs and the people be damned.  As an acquaintance of mine recently told me, "You have to be a fucking idiot to vote for a republican."

Nolan Finley is a pig who cares not a whit for Michigan or its citizens.  He is exactly what the republican party is and what it stands for--and we need to hammer this home on a national, state, and local level from now until Election Day.

Peace,
emaycee

Reasons to be cheerful, Part II

Week one:  old Nolan tells us why we should take the notion of Rep. Thaddeus McCotter running for President seriously (side note:  no, we shouldn't.  McCotter has the same chance of being President in 2012--important distinction--as I do:  zero).

Week two:  old Nolan tells us why Mitt Romney can win the state of Michigan in the 2012 Presidential elections (side note:  barring an economic collapse, no he can't.  Thank you, Gov. Snyder!).

You have to love the panic these two pieces show:  in the first, republicans are still looking for their saviour; in the second, they're trying to explain away the likely nominee's positions which they're going to have a tough time selling to their base, let alone a majority of American voters (is it just me or is Mitt looking more and more like the republican version of John Kerry everyday?).

And those two don't even take into consideration the electoral map for 2012.  It's hard to imagine the republicans taking back the White House without picking up at least a couple of the following states:  Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania.  Unfortunately for the republican nominee, all five have extremely unpopular republican governors right now and it's hard to imagine much is going to change in their numbers between now and November 2012--they campaigned as middle of the road and turned out to be radical right.  I can see the Obama ads now:  "You don't like this bullshit in your own state and now you're going to give the keys to the White House to these bozos?  Fat fucking chance!"   And the republicans won't even be able to spin it as a union orchestrated conspiracy to keep the rich from getting richer--that lie has already failed in Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

And did I mention that Obama got Osama?

Now if we could just get the President to have the backs of the poor and the middle class, we'd really have something....

Peace,
emaycee

It's hard to argue with stupid

...but somebody has to do it.

Seems old Nolan is already crafting--and failing at--the republican gameplan for defeating President Obama in 2012 (and good luck with that--did I mention he killed Osama bin Laden?) by "claiming" that the President's  policies are choking economic growth here in America.  As proof, old Nolan is trotting out those old republican bugaboos like the EPA and unions--oh my!--and berating Obama for picking on those red, white, and blue oil corporations.

Yawn.

If Finley truly believes this bullshit, he is truly an idiot. When it comes to elections, NOBODY gives a rat's ass about the EPA.  Pretty sure all of the recall petitions in Wisconsin--as well as the weeks of protest--show how the American people feel about unions.  And as for the oil companies...well $4 a gallon gas doesn't win corporations a lot of sympathy, and after the Great Recession the vast majority of Americans have lost all confidence and trust in corporations to look out for what's best for the American economy--hell, we trust corporations less than we trust politicians anymore.

But what's truly beyond comprehension is that Finley would be without a job if it wasn't for Obama.  See, like me, old Nolan lives here in the great state of Michigan, and had Obama not bailed out the auto industry we'd be looking at 20% unemployment and an exodus not unlike the Jews leaving Egypt.  Hard to imagine The Detroit News--which has struggled mightily financially--surviving that.

In brief:  republicans are not part of the solution.  They are part of the problem.  Ergo, sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up so those of us who really want America to succeed economically can set about to seeing just that happen. 

Peace,
emaycee

Preach it, Nolan

There's nothing but the usual republican bullshit in old Nolan's piece last week--completely misreading the American people, thinking republicans got elected last fall to do anything other than improve jobs and the economic outlook for ordinary Americans--except for this:

     "But if republicans who came to Washington to battle the deficit won't lead at this critical moment, there's
      no point in them staying there."

There's really no point in them ever staying there, but I like hearing republicans help us say it.

Peace,
emaycee

There never seems to be enough time...

...and you have to wonder if I'm running out of music themed post titles when I start using Jim Croce lyrics.

  Three quick takes on things not involving Michigan's continued horrible weather that pissed me off this week:

1)  Old Nolan is still getting tummy troubles from the fact that school teachers actually believe they should get paid for the work they do--and that they should be paid a little more because unlike most of his dim-witted followers, they actually went to college to better themselves (not, of course, believing that fellating the wealthy would take care of this for them).  When will someone of more stature than a piss ant like me ask old Nolan this simple question:  WHY DO YOU HATE WORKING PEOPLE YOU FASCIST FUCK?  They could even ask it in a nice fashion if they so choose.

2)  The Free Press continues its love affair with that oh so different, tea party jihadist, Gov. Snyder.  What a piss poor interview (if you want to call it that--in reality it's just Gov. Snyder said, "some bullshit in quotation marks")--the Free Press just seems to love any idiot who claims he's going to do something different, even if it isn't different, and regardless of whether it will work or not.  Word to the wise:  there were plenty of people who bought George W. Bush's bullshit about compassionate conservatism  and all they were sold was a radical right wing agenda that nearly bankrupted the country both financially and spiritually.  Michigan cannot afford even four years of some GWB clone.

3)  Can't find a link for this so I'll hold my nose and type the Free Press' "Quote of the Week":  "My band can't negotiate sick days.  If you don't play, you don't get paid."  (Ted Nugent, saying how he thinks union members are coddled).  Leaving aside the fact that outside of the Free Press and conservative media (Christ, they have so few celebrity endorsements they'd fucking take Charles Manson if he joined the cause) there isn't a media outlet in the fucking universe that doesn't realize how culturally irrelevant Ted Nugent is (and always has been--Christ, we have Bob Seger, Eminem, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Berry Gordy, and Jack White--to name a few--what the fuck did Nugent ever do of import?  Even in his heyday he was a minor celebrity at best, and a talentless leech at worst) a few notes:  pretty sure most of the members in his band belong to the Musician's Union already, not hard to worry about sick days when you work about a hundred days a year, for five or six hours a day, and don't have to show up for work until five or six in the afternoon, not to mention the fact that musicians list of demands for concert promoters is the definition of coddled and how many of us get to rehearse for a few hours before we do our job and get to call it a day's work?  What the motherfucking fuck--the war on stupidity can begin with Ted Nugent and the Detroit Free Press (though Nugent's been brain dead so long he may be a lost cause....).

Peace,
emaycee

It sounds like a whisper

Well, well, well...who would have thought five short months ago that the significant gains of the republicans in 2010 would be already be in jeopardy?  Thank you Govs. Scott of Florida, Snyder of Michigan, Kasich of Ohio, and Walker of Wisconsin for doing your best to hand us back the majority.

You can tell because old Nolan is bemoaning that nasty liberal media (which exists only in his fragile mind) for letting the unions get away with murder--murder, I daresay!--while the tea party was just crucified.  Was it just me or is there anyone on the entire planet earth who did not see the Hitler depictions, the armed citizenry, the shouting down of politicians by the union rallies and protests?  Old Nolan did, though--maybe old Nolan needs to visit his doctor pronto.  Methinks he's seeing things.  Old Nolan also claims that the union movement has a history of violence--they sure do, if you count protecting themselves from the thugs hired by corporations in the days of yore to intimidate them.  I would also defy old Nolan to name the last time an American union got violent--he couldn't because unions are not stupid.  The quickest way to lose the support of the American people is to get violent.

The Free Press also jumped on the revolution bandwagon (well, as much as a vanilla flavored newspaper can) with this piece by Steven Thomma that shows how as union influence has waned since the 1980s (thanks, Ronald Reagan, you asshole) so has the financial power of the working men and woman of America.  Unfortunately, there is still work to be done--too many fault the government (not that it is completely without blame) when the bulk of the problem lies with the power of corporations and the wealthy to influence our democratic process and turn the distribution of wealth in this country completely in their favor, and at a rate that is unsustainable to our future well-being.  As Plutarch said, "An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics."

It would also help if the traditional media would do its homework like Digby does--this whole notion that tea party members are anti-big business is a fallacy.  As Digby points out, they are little more than "willing serfs" who fellate at the altar of the wealthy.

More proof the revolution will be televised--enough signatures have been obtained in Wisconsin to start the recall process against one state senator.  Dan Kapanake, the pleasure has been all yours.  And the referendum process has already begun in Ohio to overturn Gov. Kasich's union busting bill--they have ninety days to collect 200,000 signatures (about 1 out of every eight who voted Democrat in the last Ohio election).

Still not convinced?  Check this out:  while doing "research" for this post, I looked up the lyrics to Tracy Chapman's "Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution" (thus the title to this post) and discovered that in the past ten months 70,000 have checked out the song's lyrics just on this one site.  Methinks I'm not the only one writing about a revolution these days.

Peace,
emaycee

It could be worse--it could be raining

The Detroit News posits this week that "cutting business taxes will lead to more jobs and higher wages in Michigan." Ha, ha, ha, ha, hee, hee, tee hee, tee hee, hoo-haha, hoo-haha. guffaw, guffaw, giggle, giggle, ho, ho, ho.... Are these fucking people fucking serious? I don't even think tea party goons believe that bullshit--well except for the higher wages part, because those tax cuts will make for some nice raises for Michigan CEOs and their corporate executive brethren. For the rest of us, not so much. As for the jobs, well...corporate profits are at their highest since 1993, and unemployment in America is still hovering near 9%. Not exactly hard to do the math. Peace, emaycee