When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time

 [Blogger's Note:  Title borrowed from Maya Angelou]

With Mitch McConnell explicitly stating this week that his only goal in the next two years is to make "100%" sure the Biden Administration fails, and therefore all of America fails, it's fair to wonder just how much longer the likes of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema can continue with their bipartisanship charade.  Moscow Mitch, of course, made the same claim when Barack Obama became President, and republicans spent the next four years obstructing everything the Obama Administration did.  On the bright side, Obama did cruise to re-election in 2012; on the downside, a lot of good that could have been done for your average American was left in ruins.

Any efforts at bipartisanship are a fool's errand.  If Democrats try to appease republicans with smaller spending bills, republicans will still claim they're full of too much largesse.  Water down a voting rights bill, and republicans will still blanch at the perceived threat to white power.  Getting one republican vote for any bill will be a stretch, let alone the ten needed to proceed to cloture.

Better to let republicans wallow in their own shit and suffer the consequences of not signing on to the extremely popular Infrastructure Bill and the Family Act than to seek a bipartisanship that republicans have no intention of ever providing.

The sooner the likes of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema take McConnell at his word, the better of it will be for America.

It's Not Just an Infrastructure Bill, It's a Jobs Plan, Too

Peace,

emaycee

Their naivete on display

Is far too prevalent in our leaders

 In the past week, we've had three instances of supposedly smart people...not looking so smart:

• Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer remarked that Americans should be careful of any court packing initiatives because they would weaken our confidence in future decisions of the Supreme Court.  Somehow Breyer failed to notice that Mitch McConnell has already packed the court, and that Americans' confidence in John Roberts' Supreme Court is plummeting. 
• Joe Manchin wrote an op-ed outlining his opposition to removing the filibuster which was so flawed as to be laughable--he truly believes Democrats can get ten republican votes to pass any bill.  We got zero republican votes on the COVID Relief Package and we're going to get zero on the infrastructure bill and the voting rights bill.  If he's unaware of republican obstructionism over the past thirteen years, he's far too stupid to be a Senator.  He has yet to acknowledge the filibuster's racist roots, as well, which further calls into question not only his judgment, but his motive as he comes from one of the most conservative, if not the most conservative, states in the union.  In 2021, conservative = racist.
• Krysten Sinema, Democratic (WTF?) Senator from Arizona (not for long), and Fred Ridley, Chairman of the Masters Golf Tournament, both seem to be under the delusion that the best way for America to solve its problems is for both parties to work together to fix our problems.  Sinema has the false illusion that Americans want both parties to work together, but republican voters have repeatedly stated they are more likely to vote for republican candidates who don't, and other than her and Joe Manchin I know of no Democrats who want to waste two seconds of our lives working with republicans in Congress.  We just want the infrastructure and the voting rights bills to pass.  While I have no qualms with Ridley announcing the Masters would not boycott (Stacey Abrams has repeatedly asked that Georgia not be boycotted and that's good enough for me) Georgia, his statement that the solution to Georgia's voter suppression laws is for people to work together and have a constructive dialogue shows an obliviousness to what has transpired politically in this country that is mind boggling.  Republicans do not want to talk--they want to whine and obstruct.  

The naivete shown in all three instances above is beyond the pale, but let it be a reminder that we need a) Breyer to retire, b) a Manchin and Sinema proof Senate majority, and c) to reject the platitudes of America's business leaders as much as we reject "Thoughts and prayers" every time there's a mass shooting.

The future is now.

Peace,

emaycee

The 2016 dumb ass

Sen. Orrin Asshat (R-Utah) was speaking to the Federalist Society recently where he referred to us as "dumb ass Liberals" and said republicans should keep the filibuster reform laws in place to give Democrats "a taste of their own medicine." (And what a surprise that last one was--methinks they protested so much about filibuster reform because they didn't get to do it first.)

On the bright side, Asshat proves once again that my worries of republicans actually learning to govern are overblown--they're going to go on being their ignorant-ass selves and watch once again from the sidelines as we put another Democrat in the White House and republicans once more become the minority party in the Senate.

Because republicans don't give a shit about America--the only thing they love are throwaway sound bites that keep their dim-witted base fired up over nothing.

Peace,
emaycee

Fuck John Boehner

While fellating a bunch of his wealthy benefactors at the American Enterprise Institute this week,  John Boehner took time out to disparage the unemployed, saying,

"...this idea that has been born, maybe out of the economy over the last couple years, that you know, I really don't have to work. I don't really want to do this. I think I'd rather just sit around. This is a very sick idea for our country."

One can only be disgusted by Boehner's abject hypocrisy, though, considering that under Boehner's "leadership" the republicans in the House are responsible for the least productive Congress in U.S. history, who also will have worked a grand total of eight days beween the end of July 2014 and the middle of November 2014.  And for being utterly incompetent, Boehner is getting paid a paltry $223,500.  Fucking sitting around indeed.

The only sick idea is that a worthless cretin like Boehner is anywhere near a position of responsibility in our government.

Peace,
emaycee

My nose

Laura Clawson wrote a piece where she points out that the republican states' refusal of Obamacare's Medicaid provisions is not only a healthcare issue, but it is also a political issue.

It's also a health issue.

From seasonal flu outbreaks to potential pandemics, people who don't have healthcare don't take preventive medical measures because they can't afford them.  As everything continues to go more and more global, that means from business travellers to tourists, from truckers to those just passing through, as time goes by when one enters a state that has refused the Medicaid provision one stands a better chance to get sick.  And bring that sickness to a cross spectrum of Americans.  It's cruel for republicans to show such callous disregard for their own citizen's well-being, but's it's utterly despicable when it's shown for the rest of us.

There's an old saying that says you're free to swing your first anywhere you want--until it hits my nose.  Republicans are free to excoriate Obamacare all they want to their base...until it impacts the health of the rest of us.

Peace,
emaycee

POTUS on the 2013 State of the Union: Two minute version

President Obama makes a slew of sensible proposals that will make life in America safer, more economically viable, more democratic, and better prepared for the future for 99% of Americans.

Republicans throw usual shit fit, continue their obstructionism, make life considerably worse for 99% of Americans, and continue their never ending quest to turn America into the world's largest third world nation.

The end.

Peace,
emaycee

Twenty-five reasons to vote for Obama: #1--...

In the end, I wish I had a really heart tugging number one.  I wish I had an intellectual reason that would blow away anyone who still cares that might be reading this.

Nope.  I've heard tell that revenge is a dish best served cold, and tomorrow I'm going to find me a big old ice cream dish, a big old spoon, and eat me a hearty helping.

Because after the last four years, after Rush Limbaugh's hoping that the President failed, after Mitch McConnell's assertions that the number one priority of Senate republicans was to make Barack Obama a one term President (and how sweet is it going to be, despite all the odds, of us holding onto the Senate majority tomorrow as well), after Ann Coulter's calling the President a retard, after all the bumper stickers calling Obama a moron, after the birthers, the truthers, the Obama's a Muslim, the Obama's a Socialist, after the Obummers, Keep the Change, One Big Ass Mistake America,, after the comments of he'll be gone in five months, four months, three months...the best reason to vote for Obama is going to be...

...the look on their fucking faces tomorrow night when they realize that Barack Obama is going to be President for four more years.

And even sweeter than that--especially considering the magnificent jobs he's done in the past four years despite republicans doing their damndest to destroy his Presidency--will be eight to ten years after he's left office when Americans look  at the President and Mrs. Obama like we currently look at Bill and Hillary Clinton:  with huge approval ratings and a sense that his Presidency was good for America and done the way it should be.

Peace,
emaycee