The other day I heard a Liberal talking about some possible ‘good’ that might come out of the hurricane. His thinking was, that even though hurricanes are bad, the reconstruction afterward would be good for the economy, new jobs and so on. Because, hey, look how good the post-Katrina construction has been for Louisiana.

The sad thing is, I’m not even surprised at that kind of utter stupidity. It reminds me of the guy calling the snow storm that shut down NY, “14 inches of pure stimulus” because he saw people shoveling snow outside for money. *sigh*

To think such wildly stupid things, doesn’t it seem like you’d have to be a kid, or an adult with a brain injury that makes you as dumb as a kid? “After there’s a disaster, there’s always employment.”

I’ve got the cure for the economy! Let’s get a bulldozer and flatten all the homes and businesses on on all the major roads. Or maybe I’ll go burn down Meijer. Just think of all the employment that will result in over the year or two it will take to rebuild!!!! Just like the snow storm that shut down a whole city so people could make money shoveling, and just like the hurricane that’s damaging buildings and is shutting down businesses and stopping human activity, there will be construction jobs we can see afterward. Never mind the numerous more jobs lost due to inactivity and destruction of businesses.

Things like this make me want to join the Tea Party’s Nazi-esc takeover of the government. I know I know. How could a reactionary movement of employed people perform a Nazi-esc takeover of a government when their single tenant is to stop the growth of government? Well… I don’t know. Ask the libs. They know. It seems to me a Tea Party would have stopped Hitler and his Brown-shirts in their tracks.

Like I said before – who are you going to replace them with? More partisans that reflect our currently divided society? We need rational, pragmatic, cool-headed leaders. (As opposed to politicians that manage to achieve a slick image) Anyone we kick out now will be replaced by a Tea Party Conservative or an Obama Democrat. We need more Boehners and McCains to bridge the divide between hard-math Tea Partiers and –let’s write a bill and figure in savings from leaving Afghanistan in the future and call it a spending cut– Harry Reid.

Boehner is cool. He’s not a weird ideologue like his Pelosi and Obama counterparts. He’s been trying to put together a deal. His problem is that he needs to pull something together between Obama and the Tea Party. Tea Party won’t move for obvious reasons, they were elected to counter the Obama tide. And Obama is stuck in his ideology.

I see the old problem of poor negotiation skills. It’s like I’ve stated before: The strongest leverage one can have in a negotiation – is the ability to withdraw from the negotiation. The Dems certainly can’t withdraw. They’re in charge, and their ideology relies on wild spending.

The only thing keeping the Republicans in the negotiation, politically, is public opinion. And when it comes to the conservative Republicans, and especially the Tea Partiers – some of whom don’t want the ceiling to rise at all – public opinion prevents them from compromising, so they have the strongest of strong positions. They’re using that position to try and purchase some long-term spending controls — God bless their hearts.

This is why the Dems demagogue. It’s all they have — public opinion. This is why Obama/Dems needs to move to the middle, rather than posting signs on the Left calling it the middle. This is the logical reality. They’ll never get the ardent Tea Partiers, but they can get enough Republicans if they’d only embrace some actual math. Obama’s expectations were odd. It’s as if he expects his charm to cause people to do things against their own interest and against their ideology.

Of course, Obama also has his hard Left breathing down his back. But he shouldn’t let that affect him. I suspect Liberal calls are what caused Obama to retract the deal he and Boehner were working on, the one right before Boehner gave up on direct negotiation with Obama (a task Boehner described as “negotiating with Jello,” which I’m sure we can all understand. Obama never really says anything concrete.) Obama will have the Liberal’s support no matter what, even if they’re butt-hurt and pissy. So it’s not as if he needs to pander to them.

But since no one seems to understand negotiation, now we’re doing this bill-voting show… I don’t know what’s going to happen. Reid’s bill will slip through the Senate no doubt. I bet if they allowed some reasonable amendments they would get enough Republicans to pass the House. I wouldn’t bet on the Dems allowing any reasonable amendments though… If I were to guess, I’d say this thing will crash into the deadline for sure, and the Dems will pull some bullshit to raise the ceiling, something that will get us past the election without any spending cuts.

Regardless, the Tea Party really mucked up some good Republican political strategy. It would have been cool if they took those bullshit “tax increases,” the private jet deduction and whatever the other one(s) were, and agreed to them. The zero tax increase adherence isn’t logical if you can trade some zero-impact bullshit tax deductions for leverage in getting some serious spending controls set in stone.

Eeeehhhwww…. I let a zucchini grow super big in my garden as an experiment. Big zucchini isn’t very good. Tough. I bet it would do well in soup. That was the goal of this particular zucchini, but I already had some zucchini soup made.

If we replace congress to send a message, as some suggest, we’ll replace them with ideologues. And the message they take is the message the loud people make, and the loud people are all ideologues.

It’s been like compounding waves. Bush wasted beloved Bubba’s son Al in a controversial election, ending any hope for the Progressive agenda at the time. Then the Republicans legislated aggressively. The laws they passed came through with bipartisan support, and those laws otherwise would have been palatable by Dems if the President wasn’t a Republican, and weren’t very Conservative. But they still trampled the minority and pissed people off, especially when they cut taxes and talked about ending the filibuster.

The Dems saw their chance to strike back when the post-war strategy failed, and they went after him hard, disregarding troop safety or our actual work in Iraq. Certain politicians road this wave, and in 2008, with the help of a recession, the Dems took the presidency and both houses.

The Dems followed up on none of the war ‘ending’ promises, mostly because the revised Bush strategies worked, and they entered reality once in office. They legislated far more aggressively than the Republicans, passing partisan legislation, spending literally every dollar they could. They talked about ending the filibuster.

So all the anti-war independents, fiscal Conservatives, and ideological Republicans suddenly appeared in a powerful mass called the Tea Party. Within two short years, 8-years’ worth of shift occurred and effectively 2008 happened to the Dems. The Republicans couldn’t take both houses and the presidency — obviously. But they effectively crippled the two branches they couldn’t take by hiring people so seriously dedicated to fiscal discipline and not joining the Washington machine, that won’t raise the precious debt ceiling, and we all think we’re going to die.

So now what? I only see people getting louder. Dems are lashing out at Tea Partiers with the same vitriol they’re now famous for. Regular Republicans are mostly quiet, just trying to survive the Tea Party. Like Boehner. He chose a good time to be elected Speaker didn’t he? Tea Party in his party and Obama leading the other.

It’s like a lamb with a shotgun stranded in a life boat with a wolf. What are they going to settle on through negotiation?  The liberal would say “not drowning”.

The problem isn’t drowning though stupid. They’re in a boat. I was going to use an island, but then I’d have to explain that the island is small and lacking vegetation…

I’d like to see a movement that would dispatch some of these overly dramatic politicians. There was some show on Public Radio where they were playing some clips. The “holding a gun to the county’s head” is popular, as is comparing the Tea Party to Hezbollah and terrorists.

One lady claimed the “Republicans” were ‘fraging’ the American people — frag as in the colloquial term used to describe intentionally killing a fellow soldier. She explained it…

Another said elderly people were calling her office “sobbing” because they were worried they wouldn’t get their checks, and that soldiers in Afghanistan keep asking if they’ll be getting paid. Then she says, “Shame on you Republicans for making that happen!” –Yeah, stupid Republicans! What the hell man? If only the Democrats could get full and total power in Washington. Then all the problems would like, get solved and stuff.

It’s no wonder no one will make decisions in Washington. True, both parties are guilty of demagoguery. In this case though, one side is willing (struggling) to make the tough decisions and the other is struggling to vilify them for it while offering no solutions other than borrowing and spending. Of course, for that one side to suddenly become honest required a crop of consciously and intentionally single term congress people.

We should just confiscate ALL of the income from everyone who makes more than 250k this year. (1.4 Trillion) That will almost pay for the 1.6 Trillion Obama wants the ceiling raised. Budget balanced.

Speaking of demagoguery and fiscal insanity — I saw Barney Frank on C-SPAN yesterday, and again today on FOX. Neither time was he wearing his goofy glasses. He needs those back. Without them he looks like just a regular crazy ranting lunatic old man.

How do you guys like the new press secretary, Jay Carney, the one who looks like a 23-year-old? I think he’s doing a pretty good job — and that’s saying A LOT considering his boss. He’s a lot better than Mr. Smirks-a-lot the pretentious dismisser. Gibbs… Boy was he ever in the wrong position. Isn’t there a dog in the Whitehouse he could be looking after? Don’t let him around people.

Whow… Reid’s bill got shot down hard. 50-49 it got thrown out…. Well short of the current necessary 60 senatorial votes to pass anything. lol Didn’t make it to a vote. Didn’t make it to the House.

I was thinking it might get enough votes from Republicans like Brown. Brown said he’d vote for both bills. I guess not.

Baa, baa…

In the recent primaries and elections, the Tea Party has proven itself a political force. I still don’t know what to make of them, though. They’s stated they don’t want to create another political party, but reform the ones we’ve got. I like that. Yet there’s something about their decked out patriot costumes and slogans that shouts Obama Birthers and 9/11 Truthers. What do you think? Is the Tea Party something to support?

Movements can be powerful. A powerful movement is good or dangerous – depending on your politics.

The Tea Party is a unique type of movement for the United States. It’s large and quiet. Most US movements are small and loud, representing specific minority issues, and are often organized and financed by unions and other organizations.

The Tea Party movement represents the general ideas of efficiently small government and personal responsibility, which are ideas held by the majority of working Americans, regardless of past voting habits. And the movement is ‘grass roots,’ meaning it simply sprang up comprising numerous like-minded people throughout society. That’s why Tea Party rallies are held on the weekend, so the whole group doesn’t have to get the day off, unlike the common Hippy-Liberal rallies that appear on weekdays intentionally to be disruptive.

You can tell the Tea Party movement is powerful just by how nervous it makes outspoken Liberals. And the Liberal criticism of the movement is weak at best. Liberals, including Obama, describe the Tea Party like they’re Anarchists, wanting no government – but the Tea Party just wants government to stop growing wildly. They agree government is a good thing.

Liberals describe the Tea Party as hateful and dangerous – but the Tea Party has harmed no one, committed no property damage (unheard of at Liberal rallies), don’t cause disruption, and even pick up after themselves. The favorite Liberalcriticism of the Tea Party, of course, is that Tea Party activists are anti-Obama racists – but the only examples of racist behavior has been by Liberals planting themselves at Tea Party rallies. There’s even a $100,000 reward for evidence of a Tea Partier using a racial slur – unclaimed!

The Tea Party has proven a strong force in the few special elections held since its appearance. And if you believe in its basic principles – not further growing/financing more government bureaucracies – then supporting it is natural. The few goofballs wearing the 1700s gear, birthers, and 9/11 truthers are few at most. As far as political rallies go, you’d expect to see more weirdos. But the average Tea Partier is the average working American. Don’t be fooled by the press and its tendency to show only the most eccentric or dangerous looking members of a protest in its news reports. Yeah, the Tea Party is mostly white, but so is America.

The real question is strategic: What will this movement mean for the direction of the country? Movements like this can be extremely productive in promoting their ideas – but can be equally as destructive to them.

Electing Brown in Massachusetts was an example of a productive direction of power. It stuck a republican into one of the most traditionally Democratic seats in Congress. An example of a possibly destructive direction was the Tea Party induced victory of Rand Paul over Trey Grayson in Kentucky’s Republican primary election for the mid-term Senate race. Grayson was the more electable candidate, the one establishment Republicans were backing. And Rand Paul, somewhat a radical, has since already said a few ‘unelectable’ things…

So we’ll see. If this were a Democrat upsergence I’d predict that the eventual result would be repetition of history: Dems splitting the vote and handing victory to the minority, how Lincoln got elected. But the Tea Party is mostly Republican and Libertarian. The Libertarians worry me, but Republicans are generally a big-picture type of people who will recognize the necessity of electing electable people, rather than ideal people.

And by ‘electable’ I don’t mean moderate. Indeed, America wants a moderate government, one that will provide expert non-ideological solutions. But that would require expert non-ideological people. And those kinds of people rarely run for political office and even more rarely are elected (they’re usually ugly and/or awkward). So we have to settle for electing the most reasonable seeming ideologs in even numbers on each side of the spectrum. Right now we’re dealing with a swinging pendulum in that respect.

Here’s a question: You know how the Left has been working away trying to sell the narrative that the Tea Partiers are violent and stupid? They sight what’s-his-name predicting that Obamacare will be Armageddon and call FOX and Glenn Beck hate mongers. They scrutinize a brick thrown through a Democrat’s office window and ignore the regular Leftist disruptive and destructive protests. I’m mean – shit – the Tea Partiers get out of your way and even clean up their own litter – lol.

I don’t know about you guys, but when I hear an idiot congressman on either side call something like the health reform bill – it passing or not – Armageddon, or other similar statements like, “the Republican’s plan want’s you to die quickly” I just shrug it off as an idiot politician who probably shouldn’t be reelected. And for the record, nothing about FOX or Glenn Beck is hateful, unless you’re talking about the far-left definition of “hate speech” which is anything that shines light on the fundamental flaws in Leftist thinking.

And no, seeing a map on Sarah Palin’s website with reticles over ‘targeted’ congressional seats does NOTHING to insight my evil side, nothing at all. More so, it makes me think we should all prepare and watch those states carefully, with the idea we’re going to bag a new Republican seat – which I think was the intention. But then, I know what a rifle is. It’s a tool.

In other words, when I hear a Conservative talking up conservative ideas, or talking down Liberal ideas, evencalling Liberal ideas dangerous, it doesn’t make me angry or have violent thoughts. It’s actually calming. Hearing Bill O’Reilly at the end of the day usually unknots some stress from my shoulder. It’s nice to have someone validate my reasoning in his clear, thoughtful, and authoritative way.

However, what does get my blood boiling is when people call me a racist because I don’t like their poorly conceived and unorganized reform bill. When stupid congress people equate the Tea Party to the Democrats protesting the end of segregation, that makes me mad. What makes me angry is when the leader of our country isn’t pulling the sides together after his victory, but instead keeps up his dismissive attitude and sets up his trusty straw-men in place of our valid arguments, all in an effort to sell his cheated-through garbage bill for the sake of reelection – that makes me angry. And when people talk about the “Fairness Doctrine,” oh – that get’s me pissed.

So here’s my question, finally: When all us crazy stupid Conservatives are pushed over the edge by our small-minded back-woods perspective, and start attacking people whose ideas we don’t understand, what then? Will we get the same treatment the Liberals want to give other terrorists? Will the Left blame the corporations for exploiting us and society for keeping us ignorant? Or will some sight our grievances? In the same way the Left demand America pull out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and all other “Muslim” lands and not draw pictures of Mohamed – will the Left demand we cut spending and not raise taxes?

Scott Brown elected Massachusetts State Senator

Do you think a woman who had posed nude could ever achieve national political office?

Disaster in Haiti

The only hope long term for Haiti is a deadly disease that only affects jerks. That’s the only hope for a lot of developing nations criminally ruled by jerks. The CIA got close with AIDS, but they didn’t realize back then that butt-sex and being a jerk were not mutually inclusive. Ah well, dreams for the next conservative administration.

‘We are the world’ Haiti relief recording session begins

These people need to be stopped. Send your money to Red Cross.

State of the Union address

I don’t know why people take Obama’s speeches to seriously. I mean, they were never meant to be taken literally. His message is one of hope and change. We can all learn valuable lessons from his speeches but – lol – you can’t apply those ideas directly to policy – that was never the intended purpose of his message.

Toyota Recall

Yeah! Another fat-cat scapegoat! Yeah, let’s get’m! Whoohoo!

Obama getting tough on China for trade agreement infractions

I’m getting tough on my credit cards too. I’m taking a different approach though. I’m paying off the debt – or at least trying.

Underpants bomber now talking, encouraged by parents

Wow Obama administration! Way to go getting the kid to ignore his lawyer’s advice. If only all terrorists had responsible parents. And thanks for telling us about it too. Now all of America knows how great of a job you’re doing protecting us. Hey, so have you gone ahead and put Al Qaeda on the list to receive your FUCKING news letter yet?

Sarah Palin to receive $100k speaking fee for Tea Party Convention

Only a Liberal would find this controversial. She’s a Conservative from Alaska. What do you think she’s going to do with the cash? Buy something with it? You give those people a rifle and a pair of boots – a few years later they’ve got a city with a shipping port. Watch, she’ll invest in some unknown little jackass somewhere and turn another baby-blue state red. Astroturf my ass… U-S-A U-S-A U-S-A

Healthcare reform bill stalled

Ok guys, I get it. You got caught up in all the inaugural excitement. We elected Obama assuming “change” meant a thoughtful approach, but you thought we gave you a mandate to turn the country on its keel. So you went after you’re dreams: single payer, sky-rocketing business costs, and reduced carbon output. I can’t blame anyone for going after their dreams. And hey, at least you go that juicy stimulus!

But those darn Democrats, they got in your way. Single payer was compromised into single payer under a different name – then into a public option. Then even that was compromised – first into some fancy long winded name coined by Pelosi that essentially meant public option, and finally, a year later, into nothing more than a list new regulations – more similar to the Republican alternative to Hillary Care than the brilliant progressive stride we were all assuming would slide through. (Eh, regardless of the naïve math and unfunded state Medicaid mandates) And to add insult to injury, you have to buy some of those Dem votes too.

And darn-it – you could have passed it. Hell, you could have passed a bill covering sea lions FFS. I know you’d like to blame the Republicans, but shit man – you knew you had all the power and that’s how you wrote the bill. No Republican could have voted for that thing any more than you guys could all climb on board with invading Iraq! Or – wait. You got tricked on that one – hu? Well, you know what I mean. You can’t blame the dog you’re walking when you walk into a pole – even if he was enthusiastic about it.

So the question is: What now. Indeed, this bill is shot to shit. Stack that monstrosity on the back of the toilet in the staff bathroom. But what now? Should you pole-vault over the wall with Pelosi? Should you try to come to some reasonable consensus with a few reasonable Republicans? Should you keep this unorganized circus with your ring leader off in his own ring singing his poems?

I’m not sure what you should do. I’d like to see some actual reform though.

Congress to cut funding for KSM trial in NY

Every time anyone asks Obama or anyone in his admin a question about trying KSM in civilian court, they duck the question and assure us he’ll be convicted and executed. So if this is just going to be a $1 billion show trial – why not just “have the trial” (wink-wink)? You know – take a few days off, “have the trial,” print up some transcripts and stuff, execute the bastard, and use the $1 billion on some new Predator drones or something.

Don’t ask don’t tell – once again up for debate

What part of “don’t ask don’t tell” is so hard to understand?

Honesty, I’ve bee mulling that (spending freeze) over for the past couple hours or so and I don’t know what to think. I’ve heard rumors Obama will talk about tax credits in the State of the Union Address too. I don’t know what to think.

I have the feeling this is a purely populous move after the Tea-Baggers violated Massachusetts.

Or, maybe the Whitehouse is finally bending to logic. Six months ago Noisy Dove was screaming that the clumsy pork laden state-backfill “stimulus” bill was a shameless waste of money. Today – I’m sitting here watching MSNBC (Obama channel) and they are all in agreement now – finally – that the “stimulus” DIDN’T WORK!!!

So maybe Obama is giving up on the broad-brush ideal that government spending of any kind is stimulus – which it’s not. Only spending on things that produce economic activity greater than the investment is stimulus. Otherwise they just shovel money out of one place and fill in another. Only in this case we’re printing the money or borrowing it from outside the US and shoveling it into sub-economies, like state bureaucracies – or trickling money out on infrastructure. Oh – and the randomly places barrels of pork too.

But – you know what this most likely is? This is most likely more of the same Obama we’ve seen for the past 2+ years. He says one thing while he does another. With all the spending he has increased I doubt any spending freeze a year from now will be an actual spending cut – probably more of a spending shift – since military and economic spending is exempt. There’s the TARP funds too that Obama plans to spend as they come back – instead of pay off the loans we used to get the funds. So if you count that – and whatever else I’m not thinking of – I doubt this freeze will do anything mathematically significant.

It will give Dems in Conservative states the chance to say “Spending Freeze” this fall while Tea-baggers are chasing them out of office though.

LOL – Astroturf.

I was just reading a thing on the ISO (International Socialist Organization) and they were bitching about how they don’t support the US democratic party because they support the interests of the ruling class they hate – and how in a Socialist system the bailouts wouldn’t have been ordered by elitists, and that the bad loans wouldn’t have been made because it was the elitist ruling class that compelled them to do so. In the ideal utopian Socialist society, the workers would be making all these decisions – lol – using democracy.

According to the ISO calling Obama a socialist is an insult to Socialists. He hired some US Socialists though – maybe there are US Socialist groups that like him? http://www.internationalsocialist.org I think we better start calling Obama a Communist or Fascist.

ISO is also an engineering standard. It feels weird referring to it in the Socialist context. International Organization for Standardization. www.iso.org

Listen, Mr. President. You’ve been spending a lot of time in the past six months or so defending yourself. Now, it’s understandable, I’m sure you’re not just overly emotional. You’re a smart guy. I keep thinking back to your book – The Audacity of Hope – and trying to remember a passage that might explain your borderline over-reactions. I seem to remember something about taking criticism head-on perhaps? I can’t be sure.

Here is the trouble though: First, you bring up your predecessor all the time.That’s just plain getting old. I know – you got into office bashing everything about the man – but you’re the man now. So let’s have just a little more class could we?

Second, you’re reaction to criticism is coming off arrogant and dismissive. I’ve seen this displayed in two different styles. One style is the humorous know-it-all, “What do you think stimulus is?” reaction. Sure, the press laughed along with you. But for many of us – we don’t like you laughing at our real concerns. Some of us do understand economics enough to know what stimulus is and see a lot of stimulus dollars being wasted.

Your other style is more dismissive. I’ve seen it come out when you bring up specific comments people have made, “this could be his Waterloo” or “we need to break him”. Hey, I know how specific comments can get under your skin – but seriously man, you’re the one putting them in the news.

I know it’s an adjustment. You’ve gone a long time as a politician with virtually no criticism. It says good things for our country, but I think it’s spoiled you. The fact is – everyone in your place gets loads of criticism. It’s not just the fact that you’re attempting to make broad sweeping changes to every aspect of our lives, or that you’re a Democrat. The president gets criticized – it’s the American way! You remember the days before you’re inauguration don’t you? Hell Barack, every move you made was a partisan move against the Republicans. You remember voting against all those health care reform ideas back then don’t you – or “present” – or whatever?

You know what it’s like being in the minority party. You remember how it was when your constituents were scared out of their minds Bush was going to go to war with every dictator and privatize every inefficient program. Well that’s how it is now for your opposition. They have people back home buying record numbers of guns because they think you’ll kill the 2^nd Amendment. They see you buying majority control in auto companies and trying to take over medical insurance. And they’re worried you’re a hippy apologist who will leave the back door open for terrorist.

So yeah, they are going to try to stop you now. A large segment of our society wants you to fail – and that’s no more unpatriotic than you wanting Bush’s policies to fail. And let’s be honest. You guys wanted Iraq to burn more than the insurgents just so you could wag you fingers.

So suck it up and stop acting like no one is allowed to hurt your feelings. You had a powerful run of euphoric support, the new trendy thing, Obamania, but your koolaid isn’t going down that easy anymore. The media is even starting to ask questions about policy. You expected Washington to be easier to change. You have a long list of impossible promises. The people that got you here are demanding impossible Left things.

You’ve seen nothing yet.

And while I’ve got your ear: I think you need to tie up some ends. You’ve got some Leftists over there still suffering from the trauma they endured under Bush, and it seems they still think they are at war with anything and everything associated with the Right. This is bad. You’ve had two significant attacks on the CIA since you took office for Peat’s sake. Seriously, you know as well as I what would happen if we let an attack occur – you’ll get chased out of the Whitehouse like a cat out of the kitchen.

We didn’t see the fall of the USSR coming. We missed the Al Qaeda activities in Afghanistan. Why? Because the post Vietnam and Nixon fiasco tore the CIA down, made them afraid to take chances, made the old hands retire, made the young protegés go into marketing – and at least those Liberals waited until after the war to tear up the warriors. We’re still fighting this one. We need those guys. Harming the CIA while we’re trying to stop terrorists is like raising taxes during a recession. You don’t want people looking at either of those issues and saying you were acting stupidly.