Herman said he's ridin' on the one after 9-9-9...

In the latest example of one of the candidates getting it absolutely wrong on multiple levels, Herman Cain exacerbated his blundering comments blaming the unemployed victims of Wall Street’s drunken gambling spree for being unemployed by saying, to loud cheers from the audience, "I still stand by my statement,".   Herman has become a stand out amongst the largely bland or, in Rick Perry’s case, stupid, pack of would- be presidents and it may be that he has had a little too much of his own kool-aid, because he then decided to elaborate...uh oh...

"They might be frustrated with Wall Street and the bankers, but they're directing their anger at the wrong place," he added. "Wall Street didn't put in failed economic policies. Wall Street didn't spend a trillion dollars that didn't do any good. Wall Street isn't going around the country trying to sell another $450 billion. They ought to be over in front of the White House taking out their frustration."

Hey Herm...just a reality check for you; blaming the rape victim for wearing too short a skirt is a really, really bad idea.  And blaming the one guy who has actually put forward some tangible attempts to fix the unprecedented and deeply fucked up mess made by profit-crazed geniuses in tassel loafers just makes you look like an tool.  Try to remember that the nasty lingering infection plaguing the economy had a long gestation in 30 years of almost unbroken republican dominance of the prevailing national discourse on economic theory, coupled with gratuitous and slavish devotion and service to corporate interests, all in the name of trickle down or Bush-a-nomics or Greenspanian gibberish that can be passed off as the one path to the American dream for struggling middle class joes scared shitless of being laid off or down-sized right out onto the street.

Of course, this fairy-tale nonsense is just another chapter in Herm’s simple minded 9-9-9 plan, one which he bravely but almost unintelligibly hollers about at every debate now, made bold by being underestimated and his rivals’ utter lack of a cogent plan of their own.  He is well schooled in the theory, made into standard republican doctrine over time, that loud and repeated lies will often be assimilated by simple-minded voters eager to hear someone say something positive about the future, even if it as unlikely as an episode of The Jetsons.  So he keeps claiming that his plan will level the playing field, enhance fairness overall and “not raise taxes on those least able to pay”, a completely indefensible position repudiated by economist after economist but clung to feverishly by Herm who doesn’t appear to have many other ideas aside from building some big-ass electrified Berlin Wall along the southern border to keep the brown hordes away.

Last night, as a matter of fact, every member of the clown posse tried to impress the audience with the ferociousness of their policy towards illegal immigrants; this is an easy sell to the hate-filled assholes who seem to gravitate to these things.  The problem is, though it may have slipped past them unnoticed, that there are a hell of a lot of Hispanics in the US – getting close to 20% of the population – and they’re not all pushing Mitt Romney’s lawn mower or washing dishes in Texas BBQ joints.  Alienating them with tough talk designed to get the base all riled up so you can win the early primaries may just make shooting yourself in the foot seem like elective surgery. 

But I am getting off the subject at hand; the pile of outrageous lies and misinformation evident every time these simpletons wonder off into the morass of theoretical economics.  It’s bad enough that all of them – with the possible exception of Ron Paul – in one way or another supported the TARP program as it was unveiled by Bush the Dullard at the dawn of the financial crisis.  Perry clearly supported it, much as he wants to pretend he’s some bad-ass anti-government gunslinger, and knows damn well that, even if it didn’t turn out exactly as planned, it was necessary for the government – not private industry muscled up with tax cuts – to do something.  Bachman had her hand out, Romney was all for it as long as his drinking buddies from the Hamptons told him to be – even Newt Gingrich, blowhard know-it-all professor emeritus specializing in how to squander an overwhelming political advantage, reluctantly admits that he would have supported it had he had a vote in the matter. 

Now, of course, all of these Nobel prize winners play I-told-ya-so and try to be the one who hates the bailout – and, by extension, Obama – the most, once again in a desperate attempt to move the anti-government nincompoops who constitute the torch carrying mob of republican primary voters to support them.  If they can’t; if they don’t drag in enough money over the next month, they will be sitting glumly around the Thanksgiving table, washing down dried out turkey and nasty oyster stuffing with tumblers of good whiskey and bending everyone’s ear with half drunken and bitter tales of why they couldn’t win the Illinois straw poll. 

It was comical and a tiny bit sad to watch Michele Bachman shrilly try to get a word in edge ways and when she finally did, propose to just shit-can the whole US tax system and replace it with a flat tax so – in her garbled explanation – even poor people can pay income tax at the same rate as millionaires, a tricky position to defend when pissed off cops and laid off sheet metal workers are camping out in the town square, murmuring angrily about the filthy swine who ruined their lives.  Clearly none of these knuckleheads has a clue really about how to fix things any time soon.  But one of them has to win and I predict the field will be significantly smaller by the time I choke down the last of the pumpkin pie and slump dazed and confused in front of the fireplace on Thanksgiving night.

How to Succeed in Fund Raising without Really Knowing How to Do Anything...

While anyone who has had to get a building permit to move their kitchen sink can empathize with those who say that pointy-headed bureaucrats wield too much influence on day-to-day life for our economy – or anything else, for that matter – to run smoothly, the constant barrage of republican campaign rhetoric for a reduction in “onerous regulation” as a means to economic nirvana flies in the face of the various catastrophic disasters we’ve seen over the last year caused by industry run amock after giving hand jobs and doughnuts to erstwhile government regulators for years.  The nexus of profit, corruption and incompetence too often leads to the mine collapsing or the drilling rig exploding or a generation of cows with two udders yielding milk that glows in the dark. 

But the republican corporate foot-soldiers like Eric Cantor and nominee-in-waiting, Mitt Romney still insist on treating “over-regulation” as the monster under the bed in describing what we should fear most as the economy stumbles inexorably along in a middling “still breathing” status.  Oh, and in case anyone forgot, taxes are too high on the “job creators”, (the single most dubious republican talking point since Nixon bragged about Peace with Honor).

Cantor must never watch recordings of himself because if he did his pathetic bleating on the Sunday talk shows about the democrats being spawns of Satan for supporting the crowds of unwashed poor people currently occupying every major city in America should be enough to embarrass him mute.  His bumbling attempt to respond when Chris Wallace – of all people – called him out, asking where the republican jobs plan has been incubating was in itself enough to drive a more conscious person into retrospection and thoughtful reconsideration of one’s position on the major issue of the day. 

Kudos to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida for saying out loud what has become increasingly clear to anyone paying attention; the republicans don’t have a coherent jobs plan, nor do they give a shit about one.  Their primary goal in 2012 is to make sure Obama isn’t re-elected.  If a few million Americans have to suffer for a couple of years to get that accomplished, well that just adds a bit of dramatic emphasis to their central argument – that Obama is a socialist negro Robin Hood and if they have to burn Sherwood Forest to the fucking ground, he’s going down.  Having a jobs plan would mean that the corporate sponsors of the party would have to reduce profits and repatriate jobs here by investing some of the bags of cash they have heretofore been saving for that little place in the Hamptons. 

Dovetailing ironically with this most recent blast of ill-considered vitriol towards the unemployed and angry demonstrators was the report detailing the fundraising efforts of the various candidates and Obama – subtitled, “How to Rake Jack”.  Obama the Evil has somehow managed to convince enough contributors to haul in about 45 million – the source of which is a worthwhile topic for another day – and has another 25 million from the democratic party so he’s sitting pretty.  What was interesting was the tally of the 10 Little Indians running against him, particularly the front runners.

{ Neither of the top fundraisers in the Republican primary have a broad base of support from small donors. Romney raised $1.9 million from donors giving less than $200, 13 percent of his total. Perry raised only $698,820 from small donors, which was 6 percent of his total, the lowest percentage of all the Republican candidates. } (Huffington Post)  In other words, they are corporate water boys to the core, representing the interests of the few at the expense of the many - same as it ever was.

In another unintentional bit of comedic irony, Rick “Shut up, Anita” Perry also revealed his own jobs plan, modeled on his successful formula in Texas.  Unfortunately he had to revise the first draft after his advisers informed him there weren’t enough gardening and dishwashing jobs to employ all 14 million people currently unemployed.  So he fell back on what little he knows best – servicing the energy industry.  His plan calls for drilling in Alaska and off our coasts and punching holes in every back yard across the country looking for buried pirate treasure...er, natural gas, a virtual Christmas list for the corporate bosses that keep him in good scotch and a list to make McCain and Palin light up with pride.  Shill baby, shill...

The fact is that every republican economic policy shibboleth of the last decade – from trickle down to tax cuts to deregulation of the financial industry - has, not only not worked, it has been a complete disaster.  And somehow the only thing they can think of to propose is more of the same only say it louder and blame the black guy.  Oh, and in the case of Bachman and Perry and some of the other deeply disturbed purveyors of old testament political ideology, pray.  Good luck with that...

Thoughts on the Knuckleheads of the Round Table...

Anita Perry, wife of Rick “What the hell happened?” Perry, has been campaigning in South Carolina and she gave a speech today right out of a fever dream in which she said the following: 

She compared her husband's decision to run to seeing a "burning bush," referencing the Old Testament story of Moses seeing a sign from God. "He felt like he needed to see the burning bush," she said. "I said, good, let me tell you something: 'You may not be seeing that burning bush but there are people seeing that burning bush for you.'" 

This incomprehensible attempt at something deep and metaphorical was, astonishingly, met with knowing nods and murmurs of agreement from the confused southern Baptist audience, who quickly swept her away to the church basement for some cookies and bourbon, and stands as a successful day on the campaign trail for Rick lately. Today – after cheaply flaunting their christianity in a craven attempt to attract even the most delusional evangelical fringe – they are suddenly whining about being victimized and attacked because of their faith -in fact, another naked grab for the sympathy vote and a clear sign of how desperate they are. 

 During the debate at Dartmouth the other night, where the candidates sat around a circular table and shared their meager knowledge of economics, Rick looked like a freshman at his first pledge dance, a semi-panicked smile on his face as he sat quietly and tried his best to figure out what the others were talking about.  As Newt Gingrich sent out one blustery blast of overheated rhetoric after another, Rick could be seen contemplating Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan and counting on his fingers. 

After witnessing this mind-bending coffee klatch, it is no wonder that most republicans are still trying – unsuccessfully – to pull the “none-of-the-above” lever and get somebody else to run.  It’s like bad cable TV, when the programs on channel after channel are ridiculous or pointless or both and you find yourself feverishly flipping through all 500 in the vain hope that you’ll finally find something worth watching. 

While this absurd spectacle is going on there continue to be very important developments happening as the republican congressional leadership stealthily and relentlessly works to undermine 30 years of progress in everything from women’s rights to environmental protection - working to restrict the ability to vote and to roll back the rights of labor unions, all with the unwitting assistance of many in the national media who can’t seem to sort out the good guys from the bad guys.  The amount of breathless commentary and theatrical outrage over the Wall Street protests is a shameful indicator of the complicity of media and political types who should know better.  It is essentially making the victims of the wholesale greed-a-thon that landed the country in such a profound mess into the enemy somehow, and causing us to take our eye off the ball as John Boner and his band of thieves work tirelessly to advance the cause of the very greed-heads who tossed gasoline on the fire that was the housing bubble. 

If the people who are supposed to cover the financial markets in the press had done their jobs instead of genuflecting every time they went down on the trading floor there might not need to be Occupy Wall Street protests – bottom line.  Beady eyed speed freaks like Jim Cramer spent 10 years screaming “Buy, Buy, Buy” at the top of their lungs and never bothered to pull the curtain back and potentially spoil the gangbang going on in the back room.

There are moments of comedy, however, everyday if you just let yourself see them.  Gingrich’s bugged eyed rant about the filthy unwashed Occupy Wall Street masses who don’t care enough about anything to pick up their Slurpy cups was a good example.  Rush Blowhard lashed out with a sputtering diatribe yesterday also that was over the top, even for him, characterizing the protestors as un-American liberal tools of organized labor and pot smoking shiftless class warriors who want to kill the unborn…or some similarly noxious bilge. The guy is funny; he really is.  The problem is that tea party knuckle draggers take him seriously and there are obviously plenty of those around. 

And of course, in keeping with the opening theme of this post, Rick Perry’s garbled attempt to explain his emphatic non-repudiation of Robert “Hey, Mormons might be from outer space” Jefferrs is worth repeated viewings, if only as a way to symbolically wave good bye to one of the previously appointed “savior of the week” nominees and remind ourselves that the height of idiocy is not limited to marching through downtown Detroit in a Shriner’s parade playing Zip-a-dee-doo-dah on a kazoo…

Hell yes, it's class warfare...get used to it...

A report released this week showed that the average American’s income has declined 6.7% since 2009.  That’s the fundamental backdrop of the Occupy Wall Street protests that are scaring the shit out of the right wing and their corporate masters, and the reason the leaders of the republican party are soiling themselves attempting to broad-brush the protestors as nihilistic hippy anarchists and serial litterers.   Me thinks they protest too much, though, because they are being ridiculed and repudiated by everyone from Jon Stewart to Paul Krugman.   The more the Mitch McConnells and Eric Cantors stand and – with a straight face – try to play the class warfare card, the more they call attention to the salient facts in the debate and sound like a spoiled Thurston Howell the 3^rd wet nursed by Eva Peron.  And the facts have been laid out quite clearly:

·         The top 1% of income earners own 40% of the wealth of the country. 

·         The top 1% takes home 24% of the nation’s income.

·         The top 1% own fully 50% of all stocks, bonds and mutual funds.

·         The top 1% have only 5% of the nation’s debt

·         The top 1% take home a higher percentage of the nation’s income than at any time since the 1920’s

Now we have these same ruling class warriors whining about the Dodd Frank financial reform act, an emasculated shadow of what it should be but which contains a major reform provision – called the Volcker Rule – that is set to roll out in the 4^th quarter and which is putting the fear of the proletariat into the masters of the universe, specifically our favorite criminals, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, whose half-mad spree of ultra speculative investments was facilitated by their ability to play with the house money and who now are being forced to moderate their heretofore risky investment strategies in favor of protecting depositors from massive losses.   Gee, how unfair is that?  

Why would the government restrict the trading abilities of these geniuses?  Here’s is an explanation from an article in Fortune Magazine; it states that the Volcker Rule “would also bar them from engaging in trading schemes that would be considered to be a “material conflict of interest” between the bank and its customers”.  In other words, no more advising customers to do one thing and then investing their own money in a bet against them.   Sound familiar?  Like maybe the sub-prime mortgage market derivatives these evil carnival barkers were selling to every greed crazed speed freak investor from Iceland to LA. 

What pisses people off about these guys is that in 2008 they decided to become bank holding companies so they could have access to the government bailout programs and now they are bank rolling the republican clown posse that has been railing against the whole idea of bailouts and whose most enthusiastic backers are the intellectually incoherent tea party.  They somehow are against government bailouts of the most powerful forces behind the candidates they now support and who have them intoxicated and confused with rants about gay marriage and military service, questions of who is the most sincerely and authentically Christian and which is more of a job killer: the EPA or the Department of Education. 

At the Dartmouth debate tonight, Newt Gingrich, in a blast of righteous reverse class warfare, suggested throwing Barney Frank and Chris Dodd in jail and firing Ben Bernanke, apparently not understanding that the Fed chairman serves as set term and can’t be fired.  I think poor Newt is in the throes of a last wrenching grasp at staying alive in the race and, like a number of the others who are ostensibly still running, he has to make a splash in the next few of the seemingly endless succession of debates.   His wide-eyed, slightly off kilter rants sure don’t give him any presidential cred to me but maybe the book’s not selling and he needs whatever works to keep the benjamins coming in so his wife doesn’t bail on him.

Regardless of these exercises in jabbering non sequiturs, the fix is in; now that Christie has endorsed Romney this thing is just going to play out over the next couple of months as an amusing sideshow.  For better or worse, the big money in the republican party has settled on Mitt as the one guy – 25% favorable rating or not – who they want to carry their firewood to the village square for the Obama roast and if he can’t manage it, well fuck it; there’s always 2016 and by then the damned terrible negro will probably have things so screwed up they could run Bachman and Palin on the same ticket and win.   Romney flips positions like an insomniac but as feverishly as the desperate others try, they can’t make anything stick.  He was pro-choice and then pro-life.  He wanted to privatize social security and now ridicules Perry for calling it a ponzi scheme.   Romney has no real positions; has no zealously defended ground staked out except laissez faire capitalism.  He’s an empty suit who doesn’t make a fool of himself very often and can be counted on to press the agenda of lower taxes and party hats for the 1% and that’s why he’s going to be the nominee.  He’s not who they wanted; he’s not great, but he’ll have to do.

Do you take me for a fool; do you think that I can't see...

For the last couple of days I have been thinking about a couple of things that are prominent in the media and closely related; the Occupy Wall Street protests and, more specifically, the reaction to them, and the republican presidential candidates’ descent into madness. 

The politburo that is Faux News has spent the  last two weeks, first down playing it, then ridiculing it and now as it is seemingly gaining some traction, criticizing and demonizing it.  This is encouraging.   The other day Eric Cantor gave us a sputtering blast of hyperbole, saying he was fearful of the “growing mobs” in various cities across the country, channeling the ghosts of John Mitchell and Spiro Agnew.  And Herman Cain, former pizza magnate and CEO, showed his deep empathy with working stiffs everywhere by saying, “Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich.  Blame yourself.”  Brilliant.  Given that the tea party rabble was initially motivated by Washington’s bailout of Wall Street and the “big banks”, I wonder how that will play with them; assuming they’re paying attention.

Several prominent tea party-backed members of congress scoffed at the notion that the Wall Street protests and protesters have anything in common with their own movement, saying essentially that, well, the difference is, they’re wrong and we are right.  They completely miss the fact that the protests have basically grown organically and, while the major unions are sympathetic, they didn't start the protests; the protests were started and are being sustained by average people who are finally pissed enough to get out in the streets and make a point about who the bad guys are in the continuing financial debacle and, just as important, their complicity in it not getting better.   The initial tea party protests were about government run amock and the bailout of Goldman Sachs and Bank of Americas but I guess they were angriest that the government did the bail out; Occupy Wall Street is angry that, now that they have been bailed out, the evil bastards have turned on us all like a rabies-infected wolf nursed back to health – an 21^st century take on biting the hand that feeds you, except they've gotten away with it. 

Aside from the normal “talking heads” blather and semantic masturbation, there are more reports every day about how difficult retirement will be for millions of us, now that our pensions are being stolen away in the name of good governance, our 401k’s have had to be spent to pay upside down mortgages and our jobs have been ruthlessly shipped overseas where starving people with no indoor plumbing eagerly line up to be exploited.    It seems people who never dreamed of having to get in the streets with a sign are beginning to realize that their lives have been blown up and the guys with the detonators are upstairs in the corner office playing hide the salami with their secretaries and plotting new ways to steal the village chickens. 

And the obvious cluelessness of those called upon to comment is hilarious and unsettling at the same time.  On Faux News there was a comment that these protests will continue “until the deficit is reduced” a hilariously wrong -headed interpretation and more evidence that these clowns are just a bunch of shills for the targets of the protest and the republican party that continues to empower them.   Jason Linkins, in his Huffington Post blog says it perfectly; “but it's a result of Obama being on the wrong side of that war, (class warfare) -- under the Obama administration, corporate profits have been jaw-dropping. Occupy Wall Street isn't an army ready to fight a new class war, it's an encampment of refugees from the losing side of the last one."

On the campaign trail, there is starting to be whiff of fatigue and “who gives a shit” as the 8 or 10 or 25 remaining republican candidates try desperately to hold on long enough to raise some more money to get to the next town to try desperately to raise some money, to…well, you get the idea.  Aside from Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich, both of whom seem to be less interested in being elected president than they are in selling books and commemorative coffee mugs, there continues to be a mad scramble for money or headlines or both by the confused and awkward prom dates the right is left with now that, one after another, those deemed more attractive and electable have decided they would rather stay home and wash their hair than bother trying for the White House at this point in history.    

Michele Bachman this week made a grim campaign appearance in Iowa in front of a dwindling number of her fans and admirers, exhorting them not to settle in choosing a candidate but to choose someone who is “pro-life, pro-god and pro-marriage”.   Her faltering campaign is sinking fast; meanwhile she says she would reinstate Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell, because the military is no place for sex.   She has introduced a bill, universally ridiculed, that would require a woman choosing to get an abortion to have an ultra sound anyway, complete with audible heartbeat, a procedure with no medical benefit whatsoever and the epitome of government intrusion into our private relationship with both our physician and our god.  It’s nice to know that by Thanksgiving she’ll be back in Minneapolis using her time more sensibly, trying to turn gay men back into straight men and giving Marcus backrubs and helping him sort out his feelings.

Newt, meanwhile, appeared on Faux News and laid out a clear but, sadly, Gestapo-like plan to drag any judges who make a ruling he doesn't like in front of a congressional committee / interrogation chamber, a spectacularly inappropriate flaunting of the constitution from someone who purports to be a member of academia; seems more like the actions of the consummate snake-oil sales man.  This sort of extra-constitutional manipulation seems to be the flavor of the month with the republicans these day, as Batman & Robin…uh, I mean John Boner and Eric “I’m scared shitless of the nasty protesters” Cantor demonstrate daily, with the able assistance of McConnell and Paul “No, really; it will work” Ryan. 

At the Family Values Hate-fest, Rick “I don’t even know this guy” Perry was introduced by Robert Jeffress, who called Mormonism a cult, just to get things started off on an unambiguous note.   Rick has been busy trying to figure out how to reconcile his vision of government with the rampant pay-to-play gig he had going on in Texas, and the continuing revelations that even Michele Bachman is talking about.  And of course his inept attempts to get both feet in his mouth almost every time he speaks publicly complicate this task enormously.

Huntsman, in the straw poll associated with this exercise in pandering, got exactly 0% of the vote, demonstrating both his limited appeal to republican primary voters and the characteristic that makes him the least noxious of the whole crew. 

Santorum gets my vote as the guy I least want anywhere near the big board in the room with the red phone and the button.  The guy is nuts.

It seems to me more and more likely that there is something fishy going on in terms of the choice of candidates available.   Obama couldn't be more vulnerable and with good reason.  He got dealt a shitty hand initially and then folded about 20 consecutive times before he finally has decided that maybe he should stop negotiating with these clowns who keep killing the hostages every time he pays the ransom.   But that’s not nearly enough; not yet.  You would think that the best and brightest on the right would be clamoring for a chance to win the big prize but instead we get this bewildered flock that keeps wandering around the country in a roving dunce contest.  It doesn't add up and I can’t help thinking that there is more going on here than meets the eye. 

"Christ you know it ain't easy...you know how hard it can be...the way things are goin'..."

Charlie Rose recently interviewed Jeffrey Sachs, author of the book, The Price of Civilization, in which he posits that, for the last 30 years or so our over-heated consumer culture combined with the rise of globalization and its concomitant loss of jobs long held by uneducated but hard working men and women, has caused us to come apart at the seams and abandon the whole notion of one nation under god, that requires us to all pitch in and share the burdens of growing our economy and seeing to our mutual prosperity.   Our political parties are unwilling to ask us to face the truth and furthermore, in the case of the republicans, are actively engaged in maintaining the continuing the fictional narrative that has the America we knew and loved ruined by waves of non-white immigrants, wasteful and underhanded politicians, excessive taxation and a “wimpification” of our culture, personified by gay marriage, nanny state welfare, and tree hugging with our pants down.  

Our biggest failure – and one that the neither party is willing confront – is not adapting to the new global economic reality.  Things have changed in a deep and profound way and yet the Obama and the democrats just keep changing the band aid and the republicans’ answer is to lower taxes on the wealthy.   Nobody has the balls to come out and say that many of the lost jobs will never come back, that it might take 5 to 10 years to turn things around and we need to have higher taxes – yes, I said higher taxes – if we are going to pay for all the things that we value as a nation. 

Republicans – and the tea party rabble in particular – propose that the only thing government should pay for is a defense establishment, (and maybe hookers and vodka), and the democrats are too drunk on campaign contributions to cobble together a big picture narrative to oppose that view.  If we continue down this path we are in for a brutal decade.

Mitch McConnell gave a speech today on the senate floor, once again dissembling like a madman, lying and distorting and misrepresenting everything in his hyper-partisan path.   This guy is so slimy you should throw salt on him to make him go away.   He accused Obama of seeking “partisan tax hikes fourteen months before an election”, the poor innocent waif, and said those tax hikes “won’t create one single job”.  Funny, but he and John Boner and the rest of the republican intelligencia seem to think that the tax cuts they want, 14 months before an election, will create lots and lots of jobs.  Either that or they don’t give a shit about jobs, since their corporate masters have been shipping jobs overseas for the last ten years in the name of globalization.  

They talk about globalization as if corporations are so altruistic and open minded and willing to embrace their fellow man, when in reality if they weren’t raking in money from moving operations off shore they would be rinsing and spitting after even saying the word, overseas.  But since the piles of cash they are sitting on comes in large part from operations and customers overseas, they aren’t particularly concerned about doing anything or sacrificing anything to create jobs here.  Why should they bother?  There is a crisis in our culture, in which an overstimulated and consumption-driven populace, in a ferocious quest for wealth, now suffers shortfalls of social trust, honesty, and compassion.  The quest for wealth has turned us against each other and allowed the republican party that is in bed with the wealthiest among us to seem as if they are trying to help the striving citizens achieve their dream.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Rupert Murdoch was also interviewed recently and among the usual self serving gibberish he spewed, he admitted that the only reason he hired Sarah Palin was that “she was hot and got ratings”.  In other words, he couldn’t care less about what she said – she never speaks in complete sentences or has any idea what she’s talking about anyway.   He only wanted her in his stable of idiots because it would make him money, the same reason he has Bill “Pinhead” O’Reilly and Sean “Obama is from Mars” Hannity.  This flies in the face of the opinion of tea party kingmaker and grand high exalted pooh bah Jim DeMint, who has decided, after having a few glasses of absinth, that Palin is as important a figure in modern American politics as Ronald Reagan.  Now we can argue about that point – to me Reagan has always been that amiable dunce described by Clark Clifford - but there is no denying his impact on the American political landscape.  It’s like he was an asteroid sucked out of its orbit that landed in the heartland and the crater is still smoldering.  Palin, on the other hand, hit the scene like some two-drink minimum pole dancer who was plucked from obscurity to run for Hockey Queen.  

What is striking about the jockeying for position going on by the republican candidates is this; we now have no Palin and no Chris Christie.  We have Ron Paul continuing to be marginalized, (that’s crazy Ron…wink, wink), a fistful of also-rans in Santorum, Gingrich, Cain and Bachman, and what seem to the chosen ones – Romney and Perry.  Does any right thinking republican strategist think they have a winner in that group?   It certainly appears that Romney has the best chance and also appears that Perry is being abandoned – when Faux News starts dissing you and Michele Bachman feels free to start speaking in tongues about your well known cronyism in Texas, you have a problem.  So what is the end game?  Are these guys the best they can do?  Or is it that the country is so fucked up that no sober republican wants to be put in charge? 

Thomas Friedman recently was quoted talking about the time being right for a third party candidate and I am feeling like that might be the best way out.  I put an Obama bumper sticker on my car the other day and was flipped off three times within 2 hours, an admittedly unscientific way to assess his chances but it made me deeply uneasy.  I think he is a good man – certainly much better than the rag-tag clown posse opposing him – but he is getting bad advice from all sides and may not have the vision necessary to run this country right now as it lurches around dangerously like a rhino that just woke up after an all-night bender at the water hole, (goddamn gazelles are crazy, man...).  In the last couple of weeks it seems that maybe somebody close to him got his ear and said, Hey Barack; the ship is going down.  It time to stop bailing and get the hell off and move the flag somewhere else to fight another day.   I think he wants to do the right thing but at this point, the right thing is going to be really hard to do.  Maybe if Bachman and Perry pray for him…

It alright John, I'm only dancing...

John Boner has decided that it is appropriate for the American tax payer to pay a private law firm 1.5 million dollars to defend the Defense of Marriage Act since Attorney General Eric Holder – and many other individuals and jurisdictions across the country – have decided it is fundamentally unconstitutional and therefore not worthy of defending.   

Unfortunately Nancy Pelosi and some of her democratic colleagues missed the point entirely, railing about the cost which, in the big picture, is a rounding error.  Nancy – try to stay off the prescription drugs for a few days and stop making a fool of yourself and your party.  Get a clue… The point isn’t that Boner and his clown posse are spending a million and a half hiring Washington hired guns who may or may not be worth it.  No, the problem is that the republican party, a party rife with perverts, closet queens and serial adulterers like Newt Gingrich, gets itself into a biblically inspired lather over gay citizens getting married.  As cultural warriors learned in California, this is really a non-starter, since the basic presumption of the DOMA is that gay marriage harms someone and, hard as they try, harried Christian soldiers can’t prove anything like that. 

But since the obstructionist republican congress has seen fit to leave an unprecedented number of judicial vacancies empty, who knows how this may end up being litigated.  We could have some conservative judge hearing arguments wearing nothing but a thong under his robe while muttering old testament verses and doodling penises on his desk blotter.   But we can’t worry about that now.  If it ever gets to the supreme court and is argued logically and covered fairly by the press, it will be very interesting indeed to see if The Nine can resist their activist conservative inclinations and send this ridiculous sideshow out of town once and for all. 

But that doesn’t mean Boner is any less ridiculous for obsessing over something like gay marriage at a time when we have far more serious issues to deal with and therein lies the problem in our little biosphere of a capital; Boner and his troops have been in election mode for at least six months now, with the election only just now a year away.  They are pissing away an opportunity – created by the appointment and task of the “super congress” – to work on real solutions to real problems for a majority of people in the country and instead chose to spend time, energy and - sure - money on something that frankly most of the country is over.  Gays are mainstream and their being allowed to marry – for better or worse – is inevitable.  But since it is a divisive social issue sure to rile up the super-partisan knuckle-draggers who form the republican base, lets worry it like a dog, (a Labrador?), with a chew toy so maybe no one will notice us changing the voting laws in 20 or 30 states to systematically disenfranchise voters who smell like democrats. 

This under the covers move by former Faux News blowhard and quasi-Hitler Youth John Kasich and anti-middle class autocrat and union busting Wisconsin governor, Scott Walker stood to be the stealthiest anti-democratic move in years until it started getting media coverage and now Obama’s keystone cops justice department is investigating, which should at least give the bastards pause.  Walker is a Reagan disciple and another true believer who is also anti-choice, against giving prisoners time off their sentences for good behavior and in favor of teaching abstinence as the favored birth control method  - oh, and cutting government spending.   These two and a number of other newly minted tea party heroes have systematically moved to change voting laws and procedures to make it more difficult for students and other non-republican white bread patriots to vote next year in a blatant attempt at denying the vote to political enemies – you know; sorta like Idi Amin or Stalin...or even George Wallace before he went and got himself shot and turned into some kind of weird folk hero.   Let’s hope dragging the weasels into the light of day and maybe into court will stop them before they steal the vote.