Those socialist goblins

Seems children all over America have been out and about this past evening begging for candy.  The little deadbeats think dressing up in satanic costumes and saying "trick or treat!' entitles them to free goodies.

The little bastards ought to get jobs and buy their own goddamn candy.

Pretty sure that fucking Socialist Nazi Communist Kenyan Obama is to blame for it.

Peace,
emaycee

Whither our white knight?

Last Saturday, I received a multitude of e-mails--probably 20 to 25 by noon alone--asking me to sign the same petition demanding that there be no cuts to Social Security and Medicare.  This much appreciated effort was led by Bernie Sanders (who else?).

Earlier this week, White House toadie Gene Sperling stated that entitlement cuts may be necessary to get some much needed stimulus for the economy.  One assumes, since he's an advisor to President Obama, that this is the President's opinion as well.  Surprisingly, outside of Liberal blogs, there didn't seem to be a lot of blowback from Democratic politicians concerning this statement.

Perhaps this was because Harry Reid has already stated that entitlement cuts are not on the table in the current budget negotiations, but still it worries me that outside of Bernie Sanders (hello? Elizabeth Warren?) there does not seem to be much of anyone making a commotion about any mention, either by the White House or republicans, of entitlement cuts.  Frankly, I want someone to stand up and threaten every legal remedy possible to make sure these cuts never happen, up to and including telling the President to go fuck himself (implied with republicans).

Just because President Obama has been a complete disappointment in taking care of the best interests of the working men and women of this country doesn't mean any other Democratic politician has to be as well.

Peace,
emaycee

How far we've fallen, Part 2

A couple of days ago, Wal-Mart crowed that half of its workers made $25,000 a year.  There was much teeth gnashing by the good guys because Wal-Mart's figures were a little off--it's more like a third of its workforce makes $25,000 a year.

You know what really should have caused teeth gnashing?  $25,000 a years is a pretty shitty wage.  In fact, even when I started work back in the Jurassic period (1980) it was a pretty shitty wage.  It's hard to imagine the American Dream returning to so many people surviving on at best paycheck to paycheck wages.

Have to admit, though, considering their leadership's tone deafness on what constitutes a decent wage, it isn't hard to understand why so may Wal-Mart employees are staging walk outs and trying to form unions.

Peace,
emaycee

How far we've fallen, Part 1

Seems The Wall Street Journal has an "experts" page, and recently they featured Suzanne Somers discussing why Obamacare is a socialist ponzi scheme.

Ahem.

Near as I can tell, Somers is qualified to discuss Obamacare because a) she once starred as an idiot in the sitcom Three's Company (which wasn't funny and was dated after its first episode); b) she's written 24 books on beauty care and healthy living (judging from the fact that most of us don't look like supermodels and obesity is an epidemic, her talent doesn't appear to have had much of an effect on anything other than her pocketbook); and c) she once read an article about how bad the Canadian healthcare system was (never mind the fact that--unfortunately--Obamacare shares nothing in common with Canada's single payer system) which was probably written by some numbnuts conservative dunderhead.

Here's where I'm supposed to have some clever ending point, but frankly, I'm just too fucking flabbergasted that The Wall Street Journal, which at one time had at least a modicum of conservative gravitas, would have Suzanne Somers discuss anything, let alone a thousand some odd page bill which has many words that are larger than "the" and "it."

I guess next we can expect Britney Spears to discuss Benghazi.

Peace,
emaycee

A Legendary Heart

"And you've got to fight to make what's right...."  Lou Reed, "Legendary Hearts"

I titled my second novel (unpublished, and deservedly so--suffered the same fate as my first, also unpublished, that of its being overwrought horseshit) from a lyric in the above noted song.  There are probably millions of people today--most of whom can wax much more poetically than I can about his career--writing about him and like them I mourn Reed's passing.  While I've read today of people who started bands because of him (mostly because of the Velvet Underground), learned how to to be a rebel from him, or took art to heretofore never done before heights because of him, I myself took from his music that a sort of happiness comes to you as you get older and that's okay.  It's a lesson I've learned over and over again as I've aged.

The last few years have not been kind to many of those I've admired and whose work I've enjoyed.  John Updike.  Kurt Vonnegut.  George Carlin.  Levon Helm.  And now Lou Reed.

All of whom have left me with one irrefutable fact.

I'm getting old.

Peace,
emaycee

The tea party's bitch

Earlier this week, our own Governor Gutless, Rick Snyder, was asked if he thought it was okay for people to be fired for being gay.  As a very successful businessman, Snyder knows damn good and well that it's not--it's bad for business and even worse for attracting businesses to our state.  Nonetheless, Snyder tried to dance a two-step around it.  Unfortunately for Snyder, he dances about as well as most older white men.

Have you ever wondered how good a job being a politician is?  It must be an awfully good one--sure seems like there are lots of republicans who are more than happy to get bitch slapped by the tea party for a couple more years in office.

Peace,
emaycee

Psychopaths 'r' us

The town of Seatac in Washington state has a ballot initiative next month that would require most (though not all--smaller ones are exempt) retail businesses and hotels at its busy airport (again, businesses outside its busy airport would be exempt) to pay their employees a living wage of $15.  For those of you who may be republicans, that comes to $600 a week if (and that's a big if) you can get 40 hours a week, or just a little over $31,000 a year.

For some odd ass reason, this has drawn the ire of the Koch Brothers, and one of their front groups, Donors Trust, has donated big dollars to help defeat the initiative.  The big question is:  why?

I mean really--it's not like the projected 6000 people who will see this raise are going to suddenly find themselves in the rarefied air of the Koch brothers world.  People making $31,000 a year don't run around lighting cigars with $100 bills or staying in $10,000 a night hotel suites.  Christ, even if you have a spouse making the same amount yearly, the best you could hope for would be to maybe own a small home, a new car every seven or eight years, and take the kids to DisneyWorld once before they get too old for the Magic Kingdom.

It's also not as if the Koch brothers are going to pay for it all by their lonesome.  Chances are they don't spend that much time in Seatac, and even if their Big Mac (and I'm sure the Koch brothers eat at McDonald's regularly) went from $4 to $4.50 on their next visit it's going to lessen their billions about as much as removing a single grain of sand lessens the Sahara Desert.

In the end, it's probably little more than a complete lack of empathy for anybody who isn't them.  They don't give a shit as long as they continue accumulating more and more money.

King Midas' greed caused him to starve to death as his touch turned all his food into gold.  Wonder what the fate of the Koch brothers will be?

Peace,
emaycee