Thursday, February 28, 2013

The worm turns... and the White House backs off

Just looked up the phrase, "The worm turns." It comes from either the Bible or Shakespeare, or possibly both.... the whole phrase is: "Tread on a worm and it will turn."

That means, in the American language, "Don't tread on me."

So to explain... the Comrade pushed this sequester thing just a little too far. Flapping his jaws, giving out stern looks like a daddy whose deliquent kids have sorely disappointed him, threatening to shut down airports and/or make people stand in line four or five hours for their probing by Homeland Security, et, etc.... well, he took it too damn far.

Just a couple items:

#1 -- Journalist Bob Woordward, partner in the Woodward-Bernstein combination that exposed the Watergate scandal in the Nixon era.... Bob Woodward, who's so damn careful about what he says it drives you almost crazy (like listening to someone who stutters -- you want to finish their sentences for them.) Well, Bob Woodward published a book back before Christmas that was kind of a close-up look at the Comrade's White House. Woodward wrote a book about George W. Bush as president, too, I believe. Woodward's been a commentator on Fox as well as on other news channels, and he's regarded as one of the most painstaking and objective journalists around.

So in his book, way back when, he told the story about how the president and Jack Loo cooked up the scheme for sequester. The Comrade has stated that they didn't really mean to do the cuts. They just wanted a plan that would be so burdensome and awful that congress would be forced to do something about spending and a budget.

Bob Woodward recently pointed out, just incidentally, that the sequester that the Comrade has been ranting and raving about, was actually the Comrade's own idea.

And it's very much worth noting that the House of Representatives has passed a couple plans to head off the sequester -- and that the Comrade said would veto them. Not to worry, the Comrade's Senate Dawg, Harry Reid, never let those proposals see the light of day in the Senate.

So the poor ol' Comrade is hoisted on his own petard. (That means getting all tangled up on your own lance, basically.)

But back to Bob Woodward. Apparently the White House heard about Woodward's big mouth. Woodward got an email from "a senior official" in the White House telling him he was all wrong, and he'd "regret staking out that claim." (No more access for you, pal, and wait until I set Andrea Mitchell and Matt Lauer on you.)

Hey, Comrade Asshole, I know you don't think much of freedom of the press, unless the press is as pathetically slavish as Chris Mathews or Rachel Maddow, and even though you routinely shit on the Constitution, you might try reading a little history.

To wit: The thing that set the American Revolution into motion was the British Stamp Act, which taxed colonial printers, paper, newspapers, etc. They -- including Ben Franklin -- were very unhappy about that. It hurt their business. As it happens, you piss off the press and you're pretty much screwed. After all, weren't they the ones who got the Comrade elected in their first place?

Let's see what they do to him now. Let's see if any of them beside Bob Woodward have a spine.


#2 -- And this is a frigging nightmare, and should be grounds for impeachment. Just recently -- though I'm not sure exactly when -- ICE, the Immigration enforcement people -- released 500 ciminal illegal aliens from some holding pen they were keeping them in. Apparently ICE was warned that sequester was coming and to figure out where to cut. They choose to let loose some pretty high-level criminals upon the public in Arizona. And didn't even notify officials in Arizona. They could have at least suggested that citizens make sure to lock their doors. Or maybe they could have just dropped these criminals off at the border... give them back to Mexico. Except the Mexicans won't have them back -- those suckers are that evil.

And, as usual, the Comrade knew nothing about this. The White House, as usual, is entirely blameless. They know nothing! They see nothing! The Sgt. Schultz defense, as usual.

But in my mind, it's the Comrade's Revenge -- take money out of his budget and he'll set a pack of murderers, rapists, burglars, drug lords and gang thugs on your sorry ass. Delays in the airport will be the least of your problems.

This is getting more like Germany in the 1930s every day.

Didn't I tell you? Let the Comrade run -- give him enough rope and he'll hang himself. He's too ambitious and too convinced of his own greatness to exercise any kind of reasonable judgment.

But apparently some time last night, he kinda, sorta, maybe admitted, "Hey! I was joking. It ain't gonna be that bad!"

What a damn fool, n'est-ce pas? (That means, in French, "Isn't it?")





Monday, February 25, 2013

Let sequester begin

Well, I was shocked to turn on the TV today and see John Boehner and other House Republicans giving a brief press conference to state that they aren't going to do anything to stop the sequester. Boehner suggested that the president get off the campaign trail and talk to Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, who's done absolutely nothing for the last four years except read a little cowboy poetry.

See, a couple years ago over one or another budget crisis, the Comrade suggested guillotine-like cuts to the federal budget if congress couldn't come up with a better plan. This was in trade, I believe, for raising the debt ceiling.

Well, over the years the Republicans have developed and passed seveal bills that cut the federal budget in thoughtful ways. They even managed to gain some support for these bills from democrats in the House.

The bills went up to the Senate, and there they sit. Harry Reid won't even allow them to be introduced on the floor, and the Comrade promised to veto them, anyway.

Meanwhile, the Comrade cranks up the propaganda machine -- including ABC, CBS, and NBC tv networks, and blasts the Republicans for doing nothing about the budget.

OK... well the Comrade was on the campaign trail for the last couple years, and apparently he's been on vacation and/or golfing since then, so maybe he never heard about those House budget proposals. Or maybe the Comrade was so preoccupied preparing for the Inauguration and recycling his State of the Union address ("Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the greatest of them all?") that he totally forgot about that two-year-old proposal for across-the-board budget cuts.

'Cause over the last week or so, he's been gallivanting across the country, waving his arms and shouting like Jeremiah Wright about how the Republicans are about to steal the bread from the mouths of babes, and the like.... shut down airports, lay off police, firemen, and teachers, stop meat inspections. He seems to have forgotten that the sequester was his idea -- his and John Loo's -- the guy he's just nominated for Treasury Secretary, and also that he promised to veto any alternate plans.

Well, not only Boehner, but Eric Cantor and espeically Kevin McCarthy, House Whip, have gone to great lengths today to explain that the sequester cuts amount to about 2.5% of the federal budget. And the USA borrows that much every four weeks. In addition, the cuts would maintain the federal govt at levels approximating 2009 federal spending. Yet somehow we managed to keep the airports open and teachers in the classroom, etc., in 2009.

But bigger and better than this -- THE REPUBLICANS FINALLY GREW A SET!!

Stand tall, ye boys in Washington.We shall not be moved, etc. and any more hokey slogans you can think of.



Saturday, February 23, 2013

Before sequester - where's the cuts?

The liar-in-chief promised not even a month ago that if he could tax the rich, he'd slow down his crazy-ass, irresponsible, OCD spending. So the congessional clowns agreed to tax increases on the rich.

And now the liar-in-chief is on the road.... asking to raise taxes again. No cuts. He apparently was only joking when he promised any cuts.

Ha-ha. The joke's on the stupid sons of bitches who voted for him. 'Course most of them don't pay taxes. Their daddies do. They're on the taking end of the redistribution equation, not the side that pays for it.

So now sequester is upon us, with "automatic" spending cuts no one really wants -- but probably better than nothing.

The sequester was the Comrade's idea.

Over the last couple years, the Republicans in the House have offered several plans as alternatives to the sequester -- and they've had dem support. The Comrade promised to veto these proposals and the Senate pigeonholed them.

So Comrade liar-in-chief is, yes, a big fat liar. An irresponsible spendthrift, a deceiver and a fraud. And apparently relentless in his drive to destroy America.

How much more evidence do you need?

The more important question: How do we get rid of him?

Obama: turning greatness into drek

You have to give it to the Comrade. The USA was a brilliantly prosperous and resilient nation, and this bastard has all but brought it to complete ruination. Amazing that any one person could be so wretchedly hateful and destructive.

A long time ago down the street from where I lived was a luxury apartment building. In its parking lot a resident had a very elegant midnight blue Cadillac with golden fixtures. Very impressive car, very expensive, and apparently a limited edition. That lasted a couple weeks before some creep, no doubt seething with envy and hatred for the beautiful things he didn't own, took a key or something to the car and scratched the hell out of it. Scrawled curse words into the blue paint, drew obscene pictures. Turning it into an image of his own twisted and self-hating self.

Very much like what the Comrade has done to the USA.

Marco Rubio called the Comrade's preoccupation with taxing the rich an "obsession." The kind of obsession that besets serial killers as they stalk their hapless victims.

Taxing the rich won't solve the nation's economic problems. Surely even the blockhead in the White House can manage the simple arithmetic that proves that. If you take all the money that belongs to the rich, it would fund the US government for maybe a week.

Then what? Then who do you go after? Think the rich will continue to work and make more money, only to be appropriated by a totalitarian dictator? They didn't get rich by being stupid.

So then the not-quite-rich people become the target. And you take away all of their money.

Then after that? And after that?

Then the USA becomes a very big Zimbabwe?

And for what? What does this rotten bastard hope to accomplish?

What exactly?

Who's profiting? What's being accomplished?

No doubt this miserable tyrant in the White House will stand with one foot on Liberty's throat and proclaim a victory.

But a victory of exactly what?

The Comrade is said to be charming and affable. I don't see that in him. I see only a phoney wretch smoldering with hatred and envy. The kind of smarmy snake that smiles in your face, then knifes you in the back. The kind of slug who'd kill his grandmother for his next fix. I don't find that even remotely attractive and not at atll sympathetic.

He's liar and a thief. That usually defines a criminal. He has no respect for himself or others. A Midas in revers, turning gold into shit.

So watch your back.


Saturday, February 16, 2013

The heart of the matter


Dear Kirsten Power:

I watch you on Fox and you seem pretty reasonable for a liberal, so I was surprised about a month ago when Bill O’Reilly asked you and another commentator if you believe Big Government diminishes personal liberty. As I recall, you responded with something like: “No, it actually makes you freer.”

Not to argue with you, but I’m not sure that even Bill O’Reilly really gets it. From a political science class, the definition of government – any government – is: “A decision making process with results that are binding on the population at large.” This works for dictatorships as well as for democracies and republics. It’s simply a neutral statement, defines government by its function, not by any particular feature.

Every decision a government makes results in a law and represents one decision the “population at large” can no longer make on an individual basis. Big government is extremely suppressive of individual judgment and individual freedom – the ability to choose and make your own decisions. It makes those decisions for you, such as how to make and spend money. Or, in New York City, how large a soft drink you can buy.

Of course, the government believes it’s acting to decide what’s “good” for all of us. But that becomes extremely problematic. The Founding Fathers relentlessly championed the concept of “living by your own lights,” or individual liberty, a view of humanity developed by earlier thinkers mainly in France and England. The American colonials actually launched a revolution over the idea and established the USA to protect it. The 1st Amendment in particular places freedom of religion and the freedom to talk about it beyond the reach of government regulation. (“Congress shall make no law…”) Religion, including atheism or any other ethical philosophy, functions mainly to guide the decisions and actions of private individuals without the intervention of government.

So explain to me, please, Kirsten, how Big Government frees citizens. Frees them from what? Individual thought and decision making? Directing their own actions? Frees them from freedom?

Just something to think about. I was truly surprised that someone as apparently intelligent as you are fails to recognize this one very fundamental fact about government – any government.  
 

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Addressing violence as a way of life

Look, I'm a writer. I'm not about to suggest limiting or restricting anybody's 1st Amendment rights. No, I'm talking about values as they are reflected in American entertainment, and how that impacts on personal attitudes -- especially among the young, who, by and large have not had enough life experience to make their own judgments based on fact.

In reference to mass shootings like that at the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater especially, where the shooter dressed up like the Joker and wired his apartment like something from a 007 film, it gets pretty hard to argue that popular culture had nothing to do with it.

But then look at gang shootings, too, all across the USA, and I might say particularly in Chicago last year.

Life is cheap. The "hero" is the guy with, not necessarily the biggest gun, but the nastiest attitude and the most resolutely inhumane attitude toward death and destruction. And where on earth do people get the idea that these are concepts to be valued?

Kinda funny how no filmmaker in his right mind would have his heroes talk about "niggers," "kikes," faggots," "beaners," or "sand niggers" and "camel jockeys." The bad guys might, but not the heroes. The heroes aren't even allowed to smoke tobacco anymore. Why -- if if would make no difference, if it has no impact at all upon the audience?

I don't think that watching a violent movie or playing a violent video game will drive a normal person to rush right out and start klling people. But it trivializes human life. It makes it less valuable. And in a lot of cases, it make violence glorious, and a heroic solution to everyone's problems.

For instance, the movie Taken, which I thought was a good movie in terms of plot development, cinematography and all. Hero Liam Nissen has a totally idiot daughter who wants to go to Paris and maybe (thrillingly) get laid by some French guy. Liam warns of dangerous streets, but even her mother -- Liam's x-wife -- wants the daughter to go.

Barely off the plane, she's fingered by, I think it was, an Albanian white slave ring and is kidnapped. So Liam Nissen, a one-time CIA (or something) agent, swings into action to get her back. In the process of his rescue, he kills probably in the neighborhood of two dozen people. All creeps and criminals, granted, but the slaughter is almost mind-boggling. Brings to mind the bloodfests of earlier films like Ronan and/or Scarface.

What supposedly "justifies" this massacre in Taken is that Liam is wasting only bad guys. Or the people he regards as bad guys.

Why doesn't he contact Interpol and have them put in jail? Why doesn't he at least contact the French police (though apparently he has some kind of contact among the Surete or something) and get them to act? No, not good enough. He's got to go commit the murders himself. He's more heroic than they are or could ever be, apparently.

So it's murder, murder, murder. Heads exploding. Blood squirting out of wounds like fountains, huge explosions and car wrecks that no human being could possibly survive.

You know why? I mean, really, you know why movies are made this way? Becauase it's visual. It's something you can show on film. Like calm deliberation is not very exciting to watch. Juries are a bore. And exciting feats told second hand just don't "play" well on film.

It's not a moral decison. It's all about the requirements of that particular medium, It costs a lot less and takes a lot less work on the part of screenwriters and others who craft the so-called "stories." If they had to actually think about dramatizing more positive things, they might not be up to the challenge. But it's usually the films that go beyond simple-minded violence that are best loved and win all the Oscars.

And, of course, there's audience demand. As David Letterman used to say, "Blows up real good." I mean, who doesn't love seeing a decapitated torso with blood and tissue gushing out the truncated neck? If you can add stringy things that sort of bounce, and gooey stuff that sticks to the floor, that's even better.

All of this creates a cultural environment that violence is good, useful, effective, and accessible to anybody with a beef. "You, too, can take revenge on your enemies! Just watch this!" It makes it OK to kill other people.

And it doesn't take a mental giant to figure this out. You don't need psychiatrists sifting through the health records of gun owners. You don't need to ban so-called "assault rifles," which are, really, dressed up plain old semi-automatic rifles. You don't need government interference.YOU ESPECIALLY DON'T NEED GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE.

All you need is for Hollywood and video game developers and the like to begin to recognize the value of human life and to back away from glorifying death and destruction.

Think that's going to happen any time soon? I doubt it, but who knows? Maybe we can start a trend that even liberals might embrace: murder as politically incorrect.





Wednesday, February 6, 2013

President's license to kill

All over the news yesterday that the Comrade is claiming a "right" to kill American citizens that he suspects of terrorism. Useful, I suppose, for doing away with people like Al-Awlaki -- killed by drone in Yemen. However, the president, or whomever orders the kill, doesn't really need to show any evidence of anything to anyone as a rationale for ordering the kill. I suppose the Comrade will just "feel" it when it's OK to kill someone Maybe he'll ask Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid who they'd like to get rid of.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but what a freaking nightmare.

I suspect that six months ago, with such power in his hands, the Comrade would have found some nasty secrets about Mitt Romney's past, and whoosh -- a drone overflies a Republican political rally in Ohio, and that's the end of that.

Not that I don't trust the Comrade, a power-mad psychopath and demagogue, the worst ever to gain any sort of power in the country. With just about the worst judgment I've ever seen in one human being. And a very arrogant, ignorant man who believes he's some kind of mystical gift to the human race. Delusions of grandeur. (There's a medical term for that.)

Anyway... this is not a first in American history. And if the blockheads in the White House did a little homework, they'd probably feel ashamed for what they're doing... but on second thought, probably not. They're so far beyond shame, or any kind of moral sense, it's pathetic. They appear to measure "right and wrong" on a scale of how much power they can gather over other people. Really sick.

Anyway, there was this little problem during the Civil War. Slaves kept running into the Union army lines wherever it approached in the Confederacy. Until the Emancipation Proclamation, these slaves were still "owned" and had to be returned to their "owners." But the Proclamation, coming halfway through the war, even allowed blacks to join the Union army -- and they'd been banned from this honor previously.

In response to this, ol' Jeff Davis, President of the Confederacy, said that if his troops encountered any black Union soldiers -- particularly as POWs -- he'd  round them up, sell them back into slavery, and hang their white officers for inciting insurrection.

So Lincoln replied that the Union would hang a Confederate officer for every Union officer the Confederacy hanged.

Mind you, up until this time, the prevailing law was that you couldn't hold a POW longer than 10 days without arranging to exchange him. POWs were routinely exchanged after every battle -- the armies that captured them didn't really want to feed them.

So both sides started building POW camps, like Andersonville in Georgia, and Elmira in New York, and now they all held a whole bunch of POWs, who were very often used like hostages. If the Union POWs were starved in Georgia, then the Union starved the Confederate POWs in Elmira, and like that. Very bad situation. No one can be proud of this at all.

Anyway.... Jeff Davis releneted on his promise to hang the white officers in the black regiments, and both sides were a little worried about retaliatory measures against POWs. The upshot was, the Confederacy didn't know exactly what to do with black Union soldiers who were captured as POWs. The final decision actually was more or less left up to the commanding officer who had captured them, who didn't want to feed them, couldn't spare the men to guard them, and pretty much despised them for their "ingratitude" and "uppityness."

So there's evidence to support the claim that many black POWs were A.) sold back into slavery; B.) used as labor for the Confederate army; C.) killed outright, like at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, which by all accounts was a bloody massacre of US Colored Troops after they had been overpowered and had surrendered.

No clear cut policy, no rules to follow, really, no conditions or tests or laws to guide the treament of black Union POWs captured in the South. I've never heard of any who were actually held in a POW camp in the Confederacy -- and I'm sure the Confederacy would have had a "special" camp just for captured blacks. But it seems they never built one.

So this comes down to "rule by man, not by law." It's all up to the person in charge.

That's about as dangerous a situation as you can imagine. That really is very much what slavery was -- putting one human being totally in charge of the life and death of another. The "master" with some "right" to do whatever he pleased with the slave. Much like totalitarianism, or whatever the hell they have in Venezuela. And to think the Comrade has just bestowed upon himself the power of life and/or death over fellow citizens is terrifying, to say the least.

What's this supposed to be? Payback for slavery? But the Comrade, nor his family, were ever slaves in the USA. Or maybe he's just too damn stupid to understand what he's doing  I mean, anyone who believe "taxthe rich" is a useful economic policy can't be too bright. But I think he knows exactly what he's doing -- destroying the country, chipping away piece by piece.

I hope somebody in Washington is monitoring all this and collecting the documentation. We'll need it for the impeachment.

Monday, February 4, 2013

President wants more tax increases

Apparently entirely ignorant of econimcs and with the value sense of a six-year-old who wants a "real" fire truck, the Comrade was on TV last night trying to sell more tax increases.

This person belongs in a booby hatch.

One pundit pointed out that the Comrade doesn't know anything about economics and doesn't care, either. Rather his whole concern is "income equality." That is, he can't stand to see anyone get ahead.

Well, here's one suggestion to even out incomes.

Hey, Comrade, send me $100,000 out of your salary. Or half -- that would make things even more equal.

I can send you my checking account number for a quick and easy bank transfer. OK?

I'll be waiting for that alert from my bank.

Friday, February 1, 2013

Solving the USA's economic problems....

OK, OK. Just saw Dennis Kucinich on Fox, proposing another "infrastructure" project that would, he says, "get people back to work." No, it's a transfer of funds to union workers, who will transfer it back to the democrat party next election year. And Kucinich wants a measly $1 billion for this. Which would be added to the national debt.

Well, I have a much better idea. The US has spent more than $1 TRILLION since the Comrade took office trying to restart the economy. The money's gone to failed "green" startups, unions, buddies of the Comrade, foreign banks, and apparntly to terrorist nations and dictators.

I think the money is going to the wrong people. So here's my plan. It will cost a little over $300 million -- or only 30% of Kucinich's "modest" proposal. Here it is:

Give every US citizen $1 million.

Seriously. People could pay off their debts, which would be a huge boost to retailers and to mortgage-lending banks and financial institutions.

People could start and/or expand their own businesses, and/or invest in their friends' and families' businesses.

People could pay off their back taxes, increasing revenues to the feds and states, no doubt.

People could buy things -- and this being a consumer-centered economy, that's huge.

People could actually afford to pay the skyrocketing premiums of health insurance under Obamacare.

People could invest it in stocks, bonds, annuities, whatever -- and wouldn't necessarily be entirely dependent on social security.

The poor could get themselves off the dole, at least for a while, which would help the states bring their debt down.

On top of that, since everyone gets $1 million, it's "fair" even under the warped definition of that word that the Comrade and his Occupy Wall Street people live by.

So that's it. Very simple.

I know, I'm a hero.