Another Presidential First

 

According to the Daily Caller, President Obama became the first siting commander in chief to directly address Planned Parenthood. He proudly bragged that the number one abortion provider is not going anywhere. He concluded his remarks with the remarkable, “God Bless You Planned Parenthood.” Tiny Tim was not available for comment.

Shrewdly, he gave the speech on a Friday, allowing the Saturday lull in the news cycle to bury his highly offensive remarks.  If however next week, people are still disturbed by his asking the Almighty to bestow grace upon those who advocate the death of the most innocent for power and money in all circumstances, I’m sure Jay Carney will come to the podium to assure us that someone just sneezed and the president ad-libbed what any normal person would do when someone involuntarily expels unwanted blobs of cells.

We have come to the point that atrocities of the greatest magnitude no longer hold our interest as a nation.  Or at least, the media has decided, they shouldn’t.  Any attempt by Mark Steyn or others to rouse the imagination of the American public with the gruesome reality of abortion as brought to its logical conclusion via performance abortion artist Dr. Kermit Gosnell is met with a collective yawn. The moral compass of the country continues to mutter in its sleep, the unintentionally ironic slogan of the age, “COEXIST.” At best, we get people to declare the atrocities of the clinic in the city of brotherly love are an outlier, a deviation from the mean, the mode and median of the business of abortion.

However, the response of those who advocate pro-choice positions does not indicate that this doctor’s practices are the standard deviation from the sample, their silence speaks volumes to the reality of abortion, the clinics, the persons who perform these procedures and the aftermath of those “choices.”  If this were unexpected or unusual, they’d be screaming disassociation, demanding that abortionist providers speak out to declare that you cannot judge us by the behavior of a single person who performed badly.   They are not lining up to do this, they are running for the hills, hoping we will be distracted as we easily are, by anything and everything, so that things may go on as normal, meaning clinics like this go on doing what they do and everyone shuts their eyes to the trains that flow by on time every day. Dr. Gosnell is not the Westboro Baptist Church of abortion, he is the poster child of its practices.

We can tell ourselves this isn’t happening. It doesn’t make it so. We can say that the deaths of 55 million nation wide over 40 years has no effect on the people of our nation, but it doesn’t make it true.  We can lie all day to ourselves even when there are feet in jars in front of us, it doesn’t mean we aren’t becoming blind to all that is good, true and beautiful as a people.  It doesn’t mean we aren’t becoming like Gollum, forgetting the taste of bread, the softness of the wind, the smell of grass, even our own names as we allow for more and more of our future to be destroyed for the pleasures and convenience of the present, and we will weep, precious, we will weep to be so alone.

Why I Voted For Romney

The election is over.  The President has secured another 4 years.  I wish him well as leader of our country and hope his stewardship of our nation improves from past experience. 

But I thought I should tell you why I voted for Mitt Romney.

I voted for Mitt Romney because I am pro-life. 

The President has signed into law the HHS Mandate that requires all Americans with the limited exception of churches --not schools or charities or hospitals, to pay for sterilizations, birth control and abortions even if doing so is in direct violation of one's moral code or religion.  If you don't believe me, go read the damn mandate or do a search of it for abortion. I have. It's there. 

I voted because the Current President sends unmanned drones to bomb countries in the War on Terror, killing innocent civilians without any more qualm than the prior president did.  (And I was troubled then).  And I hoped if there was a change, the press would wake up and pursue truth or at least less than the White House Spin.  I also thought there would be more desire for an end to foreign wars than there seems to be, or do the deaths of countless innocents abroad and soldiers far from home (2000+ in Afghanistan) only matter if the Commander in chief has an R attached?

I voted because the current President's first act in his first term was to repeal the Mexico City Policy that had prohibited the spending of federal dollars abroad to fund/support abortion. 

I voted against Planned Parenthood continuing to receive 300,000,000 in tax dollars to use however they see fit, which is mostly to lobby for more support of Planned Parenthood.   They don't do mammograms. They only do referrals. No one would be robbed of the opportunity to get a mammogram by defunding them. 

I voted against a man who voted against providing medical help to infants that survive abortion attempts while in the State Senate.  You may say, that was a long time ago.  I would say, it doesn't matter.  He wouldn't help those born if the mother had willed them otherwise. 

I object to my nation's treasure going to fund things I KNOW to be evil and immoral even if they are completely legal.  

Before anyone lectures me on how Not Pro-life Mitt Romney is, recognize I know the candidate I voted for is imperfect.  But the President is an aggressive advocate of abortion. 

So one issue voter --you betcha.   I had no illusions about repealing Roe-vs. Wade, nor was I entertaining such notions, but I did hope the nation might not think funding them unchecked forever might cause some pause. 

For those who say Safe, legal and rare...55 million plus children have been lost...or 1/6th of the population since 1972.  3000+ a day.  At what point, does it stop being rare?  

I voted in hopes that a new President would stop some of these things. I presume the current President, since he continued or started these things, won't.  

Do I sound mad?  Yes. I'm disappointed.  I knew there would be loads of hard work if Romney won.  But there's even more because he didn't.   We have a lot of hearts to move if only on this issue, that all life is sacred.  All human life is precious, from unborn to elderly.  The other issues to me are turf wars and pork barrel projects, fights for bragging rights and titles.   I'm pro-life.  That's why I vote.  That's why I voted.  

Political Gadfly Designed to Make Everyone Miserable

Watching the debate last night made me angry.  I've been busy this morning so I don't know how it played with the rest of America and frankly, it's irrelevant.  I don't shift my mood to suit the country or my party. 

Neither man showed themselves to have a strong enough or steady enough moral compass to be given the power the Executive branch now wields.  I know as a Pro-lifer, I'm not supposed to upset the apple cart when Mittmomentem is surging toward Election day.  But a person who talks openly about killing with Drones, is not pro-life.  A person who designed the government health care program used in Massachusetts that used state taxes to fund abortions, is NOT pro-life.  A man who keeps "modifying" or "evolving" his position on being Pro-life, is pro-life only on some occasions, which is the same as Not Pro-life.  He keeps saying he'll defund Planned Parenthood.  Absent a line item veto (unlikely in the extreme, didn't someone else propose this, doesn't everyone before now propose this and then not get it and not be upset about it because it lets them sign whatever such that now it's not even been proposed), how is he planning to do this? 

 I can hear my friends in the Conservative Political blogoshere's heads exploding. "SHHHHHHHHH! SSHHHHHHHH! He's better than the alternative."  It is a question of degrees. 

I can't think my friends on the liberal side of the political spectrum are so happy either, especially when the guy in charge for the past four years keeps pretending none of us pay attention to his actions or words and how they disconnect...often.   I know they aren't happy with the employment rate.  I know they're troubled by Fast and Furious, by the Drone strikes, the complete break down in security in Benghazi, the continued existence of the prison in Guantanamo, the 2000th death in Afghanistan, 900 + executive orders to end run Congress, and the erosion of civil liberties including religious civil liberties.  Not to mention the trivialization of women as the sum of their parts. 

So I'm mad because while the moderator tried to ask about foreign policy, the men stayed on their stumps, got out their sound bites about bayonets and budgets.  We didn't have a mature discussion in the arena of ideas. We had two grown men trading high school smug shots at each other while preaching to their laundry list of followers about the Bogey man the other one was and all the goodness that would follow in their elected wake. It made both men look small and the world much more than either could handle. 

Part of our problem is not so secret substituion of the 4th estate with Folger Crystal versions of journalists.  Do we honestly believe we'd be in this state if the media hadn't picked a political side rather than to serve truth first? We've been living on a fast food diet of op-eds from talking heads that sing to our own personal tastes so long, we don't know how to recognize anything but our own choices as having any validity in application of policy or politics.  

Where are our real political gadflies that sting everyone?  Shouldn't the press be discussing the total abdication of duty by the Senate to pass a budget in now 4 years?  Shouldn't the press be discussing the true unemployment rate and why what is political is not what is right, true and necessary for the country's growth. 

Shouldn't someone argue that while all spending may be stimulus, if it is a zero sum game, then for the government to expand, the private sector must shrink.  Shouldn't someone ask beyond slogans of paying your fair share and cutting taxes for small businesses, what is the limit/scope of government and what should be the limit/scope of taxes to ensure maximum liberty while fulfilling civic obligations?  Shouldn't this be somehow, discussed?   If all spending is stimulus for the economy, doesn't that argument eliminate the acknowledgement of any government waste?

 Likewise, anyone who says they'll balance the budget but there will be no pain is also woefully wrong or disingenuous.  It can't happen without actual pain.  It is a bit much however to see a leader who presideded the past four years over a stratospheric surge in spending, talk condescendingly toward anyone who proposes that anything done in the past four years might possibly have been rash, wasteful or excessive.  You can't say you will work to ballance the budget when the budgets you've proposed didn't garner even one vote in the Senate....from your own party.  You're not serious. You're not even trying.

 Lastly, an unpopular question to be sure, why would anyone who doesn't pay taxes, vote to have some? Shouldn't everyone have to kick in at least a dollar?  If everyone must pay in something, then everyone feels keenly the need for the government to be a good steward of our treasure.  Our government has been a poor steward.  We have a 16 trillion dollar deficit and we didn't even get invited to the party.  If we're serious, really serious about this, we need to know what we bought with that 16 trillion. 

Shouldn't the press be screaming Screaming, SCREAMING about the Executive having a KILL LIST?  Shouldn't the press be camped outside the home of every person involved  in the decision not to provide security or send help in the 7 hours after the initial attack on our embassy?  Shouldn't the press be investigating the 2,2 million in illegal donations and why a 15 million dollar loan was needed from Bank of America?  Shouldn't these things be the subjects of investigations from our supposed "Truth detectors?"  Do we have any way of knowing if subsequent scandals and problems for whatever administration follows will be covered up or blown up to suit the political ideologies of those doing the investigations?  If we continue to devolve into having right and left fact checkers, we might has well simply surrender the ground. We're going to be entitled to our own facts. All other facts will be ignored. In which case the slogan for our new Non-representative republic should be: Vote ignorant. Vote often. 

Sigh.  
The checks and balances of our system have all bounced.  

I know, put not your trust in princes.  But I'd like a better option than what we have and a diet version what we have, where you get the same things but with 25% less conviction.   Who wants to vote for ME or me too? 

Yeah.  The debates depressed me. Go Vote Anyway and pray for our country regardless.  Yay America.  Rah.  

Halloween Hangover

Three years ago, I analyzed all of the candidates running for President by determining what beverage they would be, if they were the drink that best enbodies their personality, policies and the consequences of their possible election. If you want to read it, click here. This time around, to keep things fresh, I'm going with candy.  

President Obama: The man gave out fruit this year.  Sure it's a once a year celebration, sure everyone expects/wants candy.  They gave out dried fruit mixes.  You know what normally happens to houses that give out bags or boxes of raisins, cranberries and dates? That's right! He should expect to wake up to a White House T.P'd but good. He should also know that probably the Secret Service and possibly his own daughters supplied the materials.

Rick Perry: Wants us to believe we've found Mr. Goodbar.  More like a Nestle Crunch.  Not bad. Not great.  Funny aftertaste afterwards that makes one circumspect on the whole thing. What are those crunchy bits?  We'd like him better without those puffy additives.

Michelle Bachmann: Now I admit, I liked Michelle to start.  Anyone willing to take on being a foster parent to 23 children has to have some serious stuff, courage and stick-to-it-ness that is nothing but admirable.  But she doesn't have the polish to come across as mainstream.  So I'm going to go with Mounds.  Not because sometimes you feel like a nut, but because as good as a Mounds bar is, we don't actually go to the store to buy one.  They're just a pleasant surprise on occasion to experience.  But it's just unusual no matter what.

Mitt Romney: Twizzler. No one gets psyched over the candy that isn't chocolate, but it's still candy. So you take it and say "Thank you. Happy Halloween!" and hope the next house is giving out better stuff.

Herman Cain:$100,000 Bar.  Undervalued, probably should have another zero attatched to be competitive and in keeping with the times. There's a lot there to like; he's real. Like Bachmann, perhaps not polished enough to be a first tier confection.   Like Bachmann, not something you sought but worthy find if you get one in your bag.  There are still questions, like why he keeps suggesting that you should learn to love Twizzlers.

Newt Gingrich: Milky Way.  Thinks it's Snickers.  It isn't.  Not Even Close.  If that's all that's left, you'll eat if if you need a hit of chocolate, but you'll be disappointed and the scale will still hate you afterwards and you will too.

Jon Huntsman: Skor.  Most people don't know about him.  But those that like it, are passionate about it.  They're just a very very limited pool of individuals and others are wary.

Rick Santorum: Three Muskateers Bar. There's nothing wrong with the candy per se, it's just whatever it is, it isn't sufficent, even if the serving is full size and not one of those minis.

Ron Paul: Sky Bar.  A confection of chocolate, caramel, vanilla, fudge and peanutbutter.  You like, maybe even love some of it, but not all.  And the part you don't like, you either really don't like and/or are possibly fatally allergic to, and as such, won't tolerate. 

Gary  Johnson, Fred Karger, Andy Martin, Jimmy McMillan, Tom Miller, Buddy Roemer, Matt Snyder and Vern Wuensche:  You know those candies that get passed at at some home that you visit because you're going for bulk and you knock and the stuff you get is small, unidentifyable and has the whiff of having sat on a shelf for somewhere over two years?  Yeah.  That stuff never gets opened. It never gets eaten. There are no reports of massive food poisoning as a result of exposure, but that may be because no one willingly tries these unknown and possibly inedible items.  They just get tossed the next day after the great sorting of all the good stuff has taken place. 

After considering all the possible fruits and candies, I think I'll scream for Ice Cream. 

The Truth about Obama

I've kept it secret for years.  People shun nutroots and as such, I've tried to cultivate the personality of being reasonable but the signs themselves are too obvious to ignore anymore and I must come clean. 

There have been countless theories about the President's heritage; about the place of his birth; there are truthers, people in Indonesia and Kenya and Hawaii all call him their native son, but the truth again, is stranger than fiction. 

Let me explain:

1) Barrack was the newest Kennedy brother.
2) In his first year, he held a beer summit.  Now he's brewing his own.
3) The President has a way with words that is both musical and memorable, a gift of gab if you will.
4) He keeps company with Catholics all the time and has even found time to visit Notre Dame.  I'm sure the reason he filled out a March Madness bracket is they're a top seed this year.
5) Currently, he seems to be sparring a bit with England.
6) At his last check up, the doctors told him to cut back on his drinking and quit smoking.
7) As a youth, to improve his chances of being taken seriously, he changed his name to shield his true nature.

That's right.  President O'bama is Irish. 

Good Night Everybody! 

Happy Saint Patrick's Day Everyone!

Shill Shell Game

The President is out shilling for his healthcare plan because after sixteen months of discussing it and multiple speeches and town meetings and countless articles, he needs to get people wee-weed up about passing this bill.

What he either does not understand or willingly ignores, is that most people would be amicable to the careful crafting of healthcare reform and even the full funding of Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP; but this bill is so messy and intrusive and full of pork and backyard deals that cheering it for its original moral pure intent (if not now, when? What should I tell these people?) can only be the foaming at the mouth true believer or the cynical manipulator of the masses. (Actually, he'll have to tell them, the services won't be available until 2018 but that's a mere trifling detail).

The deals are endless and myriad and complex. President Obama says Insurance companies are evil because they work for a profit, and that government is good, even though it works for the accumulation of power. However, the President undermines his argument by giving those evil companies 330 billion dollar subsidy. Is he buying their complicit silence as he thumps them with one hand and lines their pockets with the other? It SEEMS like that would be the case. The brother of Representative Mathewson, an undecided, is nominated to the Court of Appeals; 10th circuit but there's no quid pro quo. Every undecided or No that the government thinks it can shave has suddenly won the Ben Nelson Mary Landrieu lottery if they just keep it under the table.

If this healthcare bill is so morally pure, such muddy messy total bribes shouldn't be necessary. If all of America is writing letters beseeching the leader of the free land with ceaseless weeping, rended garments and howls of pain, shouldn't this bill be a shoe-in? But the idiosyncratic tales of individuals who need actual help are being co-opted for political cover. Every letter the President holds up is in complete favor of his program. All these parallel stories are only unsubstantiated and coincidental. They prove we need reform and these people need help; they do not prove we need THIS bill.

When Planned Parenthood and Emily's list and tons of 100% NARAL approved politicians are the chief architects and cheerleaders of a program, one can't just believe that there aren't shenanigans about funding abortion taking place. When you can look at page 118 and 119 of the Senate Bill that the President is shilling, it's obvious. Abortions shall be funded by the Federal plan for those circumstances as determined by the Health and Human Services Secretary. You have to wonder why they even bother to lie so stupidly; but they want THIS bill and we're the mark they have to get to agree to buy into the game.

The part of the population that agrees with the current proposed policies by the Senate, House and Executive branch should not be puzzled that those who do not agree, suffer from a "deficit of trust," that could only be bridged by the willing suspension of disbelief. You can't triple the deficit and add a new massive entitlement program and claim that by adding taxes and cutting waste, you'll have a deficit neutral bill. Unless you pre-pad the deficit such that when you don't spend as astronomically in one area as you planned (say cutting the Moon project of NASA for example), the money you originally estimated to spend in that area is shell game switched to pay for healthcare then technically it is deficit neutral. The Queen of Hearts was palmed before the shuffle even began.

It's being done right now with the stimulus funds and the TARP money. It may be clever. It may be accurate. It's still a total sham and a lie, with money being pre-allocated for one need, held until the crisis abates and then funneled to the program of the politician's choice. It's just been preplanned as part of the con.

We've been the front money for the game. We will not win in this three card Monty. Our best bet is to walk away. It's the only way we won't lose anymore.

Promises Promises

There's been a lot of talk about how the President has not yet fulfilled any of his campaign promises for which he was elected. But I submit that this accusation is unfair.  It's not true. Just look at what he promised and what has occurred over the past year.

1) End global warming. Remember, this was the moment when the oceans would recede and the world would be healed of its humanity inflicted injuries?

Currently, DC is under 2-3 feet of snow and a lot of the settled science has been revealed to be mushy. So voila, promise kept! No one is worrying about global warming anymore.

2) President Obama inherited a debt Inauguration day. It was awful. Something had to be done. No one could imagine how the country would manage with such a staggering debt. 10.6 trillion (Chart from the Washington Post).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2009/03/21/GR2009032100104.html

 When we consider we just finished year one and we're now at $12,357,481,272,872.09 according to the national debt clock. 2 trillion in a year.  Suddenly, I think we could have manged a 10.6 trillion debt better than the 12.3 and up we're going to have to; see I'm learning nuance.  Memo to the Dems and Executive branch: If you want to keep bashing Bush for his irresponsibility, don't expect me to be pleased with yours.  

3) The current President said that Transparency in Government would no longer be an issue with his administration. And....it's just not an issue for this administration.

4) Not hiring lobbyists. Now we all know he hired Eric Holder(Global Crossing), Tom Vilsack (NEA), William Lynn (Raytheon), Mark Patterson (Goldman Sachs), Ron Klain (Coalition for Asbestos Resolution, meaning trial lawyers), Melody Barnes (ACLU) and (ACS), Cecilia Munoz (National Council of LaRaza), and Patrick Gaspard, a lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union.  But since they're not lobbyists anymore, what's the problem?   (Source: Politico, January 28, 2010).

5) Everyone will have skin in the game. He will not raise taxes on 90% of tax payers.

This is true.

He's raised it on 100%.

6) Because we would be more worldly and sophisticated, the world would again respect us. China? No. Venezuela? Iran? Iraq? Russia. Nyet. France? Japan? Spain? India? England? Oh dear, look at the time. Germany? Poland? Israel? Pakistan? Mexico? Canada? Kenya? The UN? The mayor of Tampa? I mean, if we were in a jam, (like most would say we are), who would be on our "Phone a friend" list?

Not an expert on foreign policy, but I'd say the likelihood of someone willingly answering the phone to give us a helpful final answer is 50/50.

7) That politics in Washington would no longer be business as usual. Insert your own political joke here.

So shame on all of you Republicans, Conservatives, Democrats, Independents and Tea Bag Partiers!  We should realize how wrong we were to criticize this man, this leader of our country for not being a person of his word. He meant everything he said; just not the way we thought.

On Matters of Language, Politics and Rham Emanuel

There's a big flap over Rham's comment about the Democrats in Congress when he insulted them by calling them f---ing retards. The current administration prides itself on its intellect and its capacity to think of solutions but the call to remove the word "Retarded" from all the papers of Congress is symbolic at best. Calling the Kennedy's to apologize also struck me as a silly response. He has since sought to make amends by asking that we all draw a black curtain over the word retarded. How about we draw a curtain over the word f---ing? Or over using insults as a substitute for argument?

Now ugly is as ugly says, and Rham certainly meant no respect to those he criticized by his words. But banning words seems largely irrelevant to the true issue; that the Chief of Staff for the President lacks class, tact and a generous heart. If he speaks in private of his allies and his own party in such pejorative terms, imagine what he says about the opposition, any opposition.

Should he lose his job? No.
Do I think he should engage in public self flagellation? Again no and I'm a conservative Republican Catholic mother of a Down syndrome child.
Do I hope he engages in a bit of introspection about his own attitudes towards others in general? Yes.

As the mother of Paul, I don't give too much weight to the idea of no longer saying the medical condition my son actually has. My son has some retardation; it is part of his actual genetic condition. Retardation is I think the reason people fear Down syndrome so much that 90 percent of all diagnosed in utero are aborted. While the range of handicapping is unknown, the reality of that handicapping quality is a given. It is an inescapable fact. I'm not always happy to face this fact, but if I look in his eyes, the fact falls away because it does not matter in the broader context of who my son Paul is.

However I don't think we want a government Republican or Democrat monopolized by the most thinly skinned person in the country.  I don't think we'd like a society where whoever yells "I feel hurt!" gets vindicated and the offender gets marched to the firing lines of public opinion. No.

I think giving full license to that sort of psychological adolescent peevishness will eliminate the capacity not only to communicate and govern but to tolerate being human or being in the presence of other humans.  If we cannot say what we see or mean what we think, if all we can engage in is politically correct edited redacted sanitized for your protection speech, why will we want to speak about anything anywhere at all? It is dulling to the intellect and the heart to live in fear that others will take offense or take over offense.

But since the President reads blogs, I'll offer my 2 cents tax free. Rham, go to the mike. Say the truth. "I was really annoyed with the folks in Congress and I mouthed off. It wasn't my finest hour." and if he wanted to use humor, he could pull a page from Keith Olberman a'la Scott Brown, "I shouldn't have called them what I called them. What I meant to say, was, "They're spineless greedy self absorbed bloated power mad hypocritical preening lost souls who won't do what we want."

Then at least, Rham would be on the same page with all the rest of the American people in his opinion of Congress.

Stuck in Wonderland

The new budget has a 3.83 trillion dollar price tag. Telling lawmakers to tone it down but be sure to pass cap and trade, health care and the stimulus two package --I'm sorry, job recovery package so as to save 1/2 of one percent of the budget through a 3 year discretionary spending freeze that won't happen until 2011 doesn't just smack of chutzpah, it mock turtle dances in the streets of sheer Alice in Wonderland madness. "It's all her fancy that: they never executes nobody, you know. Come on!"

As Americans, we've been down this rabbit hole before. We followed and found the loans that said drink me and eat me and made ourselves balloon up and out and every which way but right. It was only after we'd discovered our errors and dropped the fan crushing much of the housing market that we thought our way back to a safe size. It was a narrow escape.

To excoriate the prior administration for its fiscal irresponsibility and compound it with one's own is to pretend that your wrongs are irrelevant because you've been wronged first; well, Alice, surprised by her own courage, speaks truth to the President. "No, No!" Said the Queen. "Sentence first --verdict afterward."

His new tone of being a fiscal hawk rings hollow.

"Cheshire Cat would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat. We've been told, we can't save our way out of this economic problem, we can only spend to prosperity. Between the Mad Hatter, (Congress) March Hare, (press) and Sleepy Door Mouse (Republicans) and the Tea Party, nothing will get done except badly. They'll just keep changing chairs and cups and repeating the same sob stories of the Mock Turtle and when they were unjustly accused.

To our commander in chief who asks us to believe he means business about the deficit, I would say, "This is all nonsense." The budget is filled with imaginary numbers. You have not slain the Jabberwocky with your vorpal blade. Meanwhile, all the nobles gather to play croquet. "I don't think they play at all fairly." "And they quarrel so dreadfully, one can't hear one's self speak."

But the Democrats march merrily along, painting the white roses red and red roses white. All these promises, all these programs are just a bunch of cards. If we speak up, we shall be told, "Off with her head!" because "Nothing could be clearer than that. Let the jury consider their verdict."

Here's hoping we wake up soon.

Apologies to Lewis Caroll, but when you spend 16 years reading children's literature, it's what you know.

Stuck on the Odyssey of Politics

All politicians make promises they can't keep, it is par for the course with the electoral process. Promise gold on every street, except for that evil other guy. Deliver something, anything, an ostrich when you ordered a sofa, meatloaf when you wanted a polar fleece jacket, DVD's when you only own a VCR. Claim victory because it would have been much worse if nothing had been done. Mission accomplished.

When the first President Bush said Read my lips, the broken promise was obvious. When Clinton said, "I did not have...well, you know the rest," we wanted to believe he was telling the truth. We let ourselves despite all evidence to the contrary, hope he was being honest. When Dubbya told us about weapons of mass destruction, a very liberal friend called me in despair. I agreed, the only answer I could give her was, "He'd better be right." We all know how that turned out as well.

So when President Obama came along and in his first speech as President, promised a new era where we'd put aside childish things and have a new tone, once again, I wanted to believe this was true.
A year later, he offers the same siren call and I want to be moved by his eloquence not because I agree with his politics but because I really do want a government that doesn't think half the nation is evil and the other half are idiots.

But the tonic of past performance acts as binding as ropes on the mast, the words reach out but they can't grab me because I know, the deficit was bad under Bush, but it tripled in the first year under Obama. He can say he's bringing home all the troops by August, but those pronouncements are best made once the last soldier has deboarded the plane home. As witnessed by Christmas day, a lot can happen in a few weeks, let alone a few months. The President can say he hasn't raised anyone's taxes, but like Maureen Dowd, I hear hidden words unspoken, "yet."

He can say he's serious about deficit reduction, but it's more like he's the character from Popeye, Wimpy. "I will gladly reduce deficits tomorrow for some new taxes paid today." The healthcare if passed won't go into effect for several years, though the taxes are immediate. The freezing moratorium won't affect the areas it won't affect, meaning other parts of the government will still grow and expand and spend.

As a fiscal conservative, I can't say $250 Million is nothing, but it isn't real and it isn't serious since it won't happen for several years and won't be adjusted to ensure that it is an actual $250 million saved. He keeps talking about only taxing those who make more than 250K, but people who run small businesses and pay for their own insurance and all of that, often have books that say pre-tax, that they make that much.

What we need is the security to know, we can take home more, not less. People who hire, don't hire when more of their capital is tied up in taxes, even for a $2000.00 per worker tax break. Who hires someone who cost 20K or 40k or 65k to get a 2000.00 tax break? So when he talks about tax cuts for 95% of the people, it isn't genuine, because 95% of those tax cuts come with strings attached. You get it if you buy these windows or hire that worker or use daycare. They are not tax cuts tied to the bottom line, and that's the bottom line.

The one thing I do believe is he won't quit and he won't back down. All his history indicates when people disagree; he sticks all the stronger to his position. I also know his style now, to state what the opposition will criticize him with and declare it null and void with a preemptive oratory strike. The President talked about change and how this can only be done with all of us, daring me to refuse upfront to cooperate, turning me and anyone who disagreed with him into an obstructionist because I don't like what has been done and what is proposed. It was not a unifying speech because it only unified if you agreed.

This speech may have recaptured the hearts of those who truthfully, were in love with the policies he proposed and has of yet not delivered, but for those whose hearts were not won to begin with, this was the same song it always was; come dash yourself upon these rocks because I sing so beautifully.

Pass the wax plugs please so we can sail on by.

Monopoly Rules

On December 21st, the President, touting some 41 billion the federal government would save by 2011, said the following. "The Federal government can no longer spend taxpayers' money like it is “monopoly money.” I'd congratulate the President but he already did for himself anyway, and it just means our deficit is 12.1 trillion plus at the moment, as opposed to 12.5 trillion plus at the moment.

Keep in mind, I concede that any government must spend money to function. In Monopoly, every player starts with 1,500 in cash. But the Democrats have gobbled up the utilities, the cars, they're the banker and seem able to roll doubles three times in a row without going to jail. People are selling the houses they've amassed on their properties to pay the bills while Congress never pays the luxury tax and keep raiding the parking lot and community chest for extra dough. We pass go. We do not collect the 200 dollars, they do.

As straw men go, this one is pretty weak Mr. President. It's not like tax payers have been beating on Congress's door saying, "Spend more! Spend more! We know who we're working for!" Like his predecessor, he gets the bills congress passes. They write the bill. He signs the bill. We pay up the bill. It is very convenient.

He's right though, it's not monopoly money, it's ours. Even though both games are made in China, it's not like we can raid the Game of Life for more funds if we run out. This scenario is more like Wheel of Fortune and we landed on Bankrupt. In one year, we've added a third to our total national debt. I'm not sure we can afford much more of the current government's financial restraint. The government plans to pass health care and cap and trade is next and silently, they've raised the debt ceiling so they could borrow more. The president's "I feel your pain and that's why I'm scolding CEO's, banks and Congress." moment does not resonate a real thirst for fiscal thrift.

I sympathize that the problems the current leader of the land received upon taking office were not easy, but to lecture on how the government will be cutting coupons from now on is laughable given the current Congress's monopoly on power and the Executive's fetish for the high life.

The Presidency is supposed to be a symbolic office in addition to being an actual executive office. Let us examine the symbols we've seen. His wife wears 400$ sneakers. He feasts on Wagyu Kobe beef at 100$ a pound. His kids go to Sidwell, a $28,500 per kid per year school. This year, they Christmased in Hawaii at a place that costs more per day than Boardwalk or Park Place with hotels. Now it's okay that the first family wanted to go take a vacation and Hawaii even makes sense for their family; but they've had more than a few. Trips this year included a jaunt to China, Copenhagen, France, Germany, England, Cairo, the Virgin Islands and the pricey date night in New York plus those necessary democratic fundraisers that are scattered throughout the land. I didn't go to Harvard so maybe I'm missing the nuance, but these things do not seem to me like symbollic empathy with the poor, down trodden or economically struggling.

With 10% unemployment and 20% underemployment, 401K's that still offer little hope for a secure future, underwater mortgages, looming higher taxes on a federal and state level to make up the shortfall of projected income for new and reallocated spending, most people scaling back on even everyday things. Maybe he should you know, trim it back a bit, have the staff shop at Costco or use priceline to book his hotels and maybe occasionally order up some ground chuck or pasta for dinner.
Bo could switch from the gourmet can food to dry, just to underscore the "skin in the game" and sacrifical stewardship of the public trust and public funds the President feels those in government ought to be so concerned about.

Then he could say, he understands and that these tight economic times even affect his own family.

But for the rest of us taxpayers, we've got to keep rolling the dice and hope we can keep landing on Chance to get taken to a Railroad we own, Go or directly to jail, and that last one might be cheaper than even just visiting.

No one is Forcing You to Change

I know the President has said on many occasions that "If we like our current insurance policy, the government will not make us abandon it." He's said this in various ways and I believe he is sincere when he says this.

I also think about the fact that he has never run a business.

Most businesses are in the business of making money and most families are about turning out healthy happy capable adults. For the sake of this discussion, let's think of businesses as being like families, wanting to churn out happy customers and have a profit margin and succeed without being strung out by too many obligations or too many activities or too much overhead.

A business has operating costs. So does a family. A business will add to operating costs only if it is necessary to improve the business. It's called investment. Families add burdens of classes or an extra car to make the business of running a family easier, trading money for time or convenience or enrichment that will pay off both now in enjoyment and possibly later with a life skill.

There are some families who opt to put their children in Catholic schools and thus make an investment. They do not get to opt out of property taxes which pay for public schools. They do not re-coop on their investment of tax money fiscally, but believe the pay out of the extra cash for tuition,is worth it. After all, it's their kids.

Very very few businesses are going to say, "I want to pay taxes to finance the public option on top of paying for my own plan. While I was happy with the plan before there was a public option, now I must decide. Do I want to pay taxes for one health care policy I don't use in addition to offering one which I pay out of pocket pre-tax?" Very few businesses will want to pay double tuition as it were, taxes and private school even if they liked their plans before. Businesses, being about making money, will opt for the public option and only pay the tax once. With an additional tax if the plans they offered were premium, the businesses will say "No thank you." They're not going to say, "After all, it's my employees."

While no one is forcing them NOT to pay more, most of them will when given the option of not paying, will out of merely a sense of good business, opt for the public option.

While we may have liked our prior plans better, there will be no take it or leave it in this scenario. Businesses, being businesses, will opt for the public option that helps the bottom line, and so there will be no take it or leave it option, just "Take it."

Where Have All the Smart People Gone?

Remember when Hollywood declared if Bush were elected the second time that they would leave the country? Not one of them even filed a change of address.

Now, with a record deficit and no end of spending in sight and congress lining up not to craft thoughtful policy that the American people as a whole can support, but to systemically demonize anyone who still dares to say they are Republican, watch anything other than MSNBC or think anything other than "Obama's the Greatest!" at all times, I have to ask the question.

Where are all the smart people?

We have CNN doing fact checks on SNL but not on itself. We have the speaker of the house saying things like "It's not a tax increase. We're eliminating a tax decrease." and Whoopi saying "It's not rape-rape." Chris Matthews says "I have to tell you, Rush Limbaugh is looking more and more like Mr. Big, and at some point somebody’s going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and he’s going to explode like a giant blimp. That day may come. Not yet. But we’ll be there to watch." and Keith Olberman trashes people for blood, money and sport on a nightly basis. Meanwhile Gore Vidal fantasizes about murdering the 43rd president while on live television.

The current argument by the media elites and the White House and Congress is "Yeah but when Republicans ran the show..." Memo: If it was wrong then, it's wrong now too. Obama freezes out Fox News but points out Bush sometimes ignored MSNBC. Saying he did it first does not fly in my house with my children when they start hitting. Congress and the White House and the Press ought to be able to behave in a manner more civilized and mature than grade school students just after school who haven't had snack.

So I have to ask another question. Why are you folks so ticked off?

You guys WON. Your guy WON. Your Party WON. You control the house, the senate and the executive branch and 95% of the media outlets of the United States. (I can say that because the President said Fox isn't a media outlet) and most of the entertainment industry. You guys could write and have written bills that finance the analysis of radioactive rabbit waste and people who disagree can just get together and be annoyed.

Yet even this is considered "suspicious or fishy" behavior. Even just this kind of thinking sets off those in power to no end, declaring those who don't march in line or who "ask questions" are Nazis, fascists, teabaggers, racists, neanderthals, idiots, wingnuts and fanatics that are worse for the country than militant extremists who strap bombs on children with developmental delays to kill our military and anyone else who happens to be standing near by.

We're not going to leave the country or take our toys and go home. This nation has worked for 200+ years prior to this Congress and this President despite periods of great turmoil, economic hardship and seemily intractiable foes, prejudices and public injustices that seemed would never cease. Republicans and conservatives are part of this nation that has done all these great goods not just here but around the world just as surely as Democrats. History did not restart in 2009 with the touch of a button, we are all part of the ongoing story that is America and deserve better than to be accused of every evil under the sun because politically it is expedient to do so.

So we disagree with you. Big deal. We think your guy is making promises he can't and in some cases shouldn't keep and writing checks we can't ever cash. We aren't being treasonous. We disagree. We disagree strongly and we have reasons that have nothing to do with the earth being flat or the existence of dinosaurs or God. I thought smart people who did debate and drama in high school and college and who studied law understood that there were nuanced elements to every argument, validity to multiple points of view or was that mere smoke and mirrors?

To presume that the only ones with intellect or ideas worth considering are those posited by people with Ivy League degrees is the height of hubris. But I must be part of that stupid people that doesn't understand so please explain. You want to get things done I get, but don't you want to get them done well? Your own committees and constituencies are not misinformed, they're more informed than ever and what they've read and what they've learned, they don't like. Shouldn't that matter?

People aren't elected to Congress to rule, they're elected to represent.

By the same token, the President isn't elected to browbeat his political opposition; he's elected to lead and to govern the whole country, to hold the whole American people with greater respect than even they will have for him. A president who wishes to be historic and Presidential must have greater love for the people he represents, than the office he holds, and greater respect for the whole people he governs than the party that helped him win.

It's time for those in power to prove themselves worthy of their titles and their perks and privledges. It's not too late if the people in charge let go of their grudges. We have plenty of politicians and platitudes. What we need at this point, is substance and statesmen.

Show Me

The Town hall meetings, the endless discussion and cycle of arguments from the left and the right have left us right where we started, with multiple bills none of which are the one which will be signed into law. Thus the Congressional Budget Office can declare the proposed bill to cost ONLY $829 billion over 10 years and that it would lower the deficit by $81 billion by cutting costs in Medicare payments, taxing insurance plans deemed too expensive and not providing coverage to 25 million of the currently uninsured.

But if health care is a right not to be withheld for moral reasons, the 25 million left out in the cold by this proposal are unjustly singled out. If healthcare is designed to ensure no one suffers from a lack of coverage, then isn’t the extra value added tax to higher end plans going to discourage people from getting the coverage they perhaps need? If Medicare payments are cut, who will make up the difference for the doctors? The patients who rely on Medicare? The doctors? These are not partisan hack questions, they are serious ones. Even proponents of the healthcare bills in all its forms do not seriously believe that increasing spending by instituting a new government entitlement will result in a deficit reduction without draconian cuts in other areas that may not be possible.

We keep hearing how unjust insurance companies are for saying “No.” but the government by paying pennies on the dollars to doctors, also says “No.” and in a substantial way. What are the protections for the patients, the doctors and the tax payers who in this circumstance absorb all the risks the insurance companies once handled. What will be covered? What won’t? And Why? Who decides? Will the government pay for a Down syndrome child to have open heart surgery the way my insurance did for my son? Will it pay for others home health care the way insurance did for my grandmother when she suffered the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease? Will it take care of a child who faces down death nightly because of an extremely rare condition that causes her autonomic functions to shut down when she sleeps? Will it pay for the medications my friend who is on her third kidney at the age of 43 because of Juvenal diabetes needs? Will it pay for a tenth pregnancy the way it pays for a first should such a thing happen? These are real and difficult situations I know of that insurance companies have handled. Will the government do the same?

As tax payers, we need to know what our government is proposing to do in creating this new added on value program that will seek to address real and pressing needs.

We can’t simply trust the government just because the government says “Trust us.” even if we have the belief that the current administration’s goals are purely benign. We can’t know that if the bill won’t be seen or read until it reaches the President’s desk after being reconciled in committee. We’d like the chance to see the bill, critique it, criticize it and ask real questions that need real answers not because we fear change or wish the poor to die quickly and decrease the surplus population, or because we wish people to suffer or society to be divided into the haves and have nots. We’d like to examine the bill because at 1000 pages each in its multiple draft forms, there is a lot to digest and not all of it is good and much of it gives cause for serious concern. The bill put on the President’s desk ought to represent more than the machinations of a few cherry picked legislators if it is going to count on the economic support of all the American people.

Insulting those who want answers like why the number of people affected keeps shifting and what the coverage provided by the government will cover, calling those who show up unpatriotic, racists, bigots, xenophobes, Neanderthals, tea baggers and idiots –to name only the polite terms used, does not constitute argument or legitimate discussion of legitimate issues. Nor does such ungenerous rhetoric by those in power engender trust or the presumption of benign motivations in the minds of people asking the questions. The American people deserve better from their elected leaders, the elected leaders’ surrogates and the press. Trust is a two way street. Show us the bill. Make your case to the American people based on factual issues rather than political posturing.

We may not love everything. We may object, but surely we can be trusted to look at what you have created rather than simply take it. If you want us to trust you with our healthcare and our tax money for the greater good, trust us with the bill, warts and all. Stop hiding behind insults and protocol and spin. Show us the real bill before it becomes law because it’s the right thing to do whether or not it is the prudent political thing to do.

Applying for a New Position

In this economy, every organization is looking to cut corners. Washington DC is no different than the rest of the nation. Now I am a patriot so I sympathize with the municipality in its thirst to trim budgets, spend less and get more for every dollar. As such, I am willing to make this sacrifice for the good of my family and the beltway crowd.

I will take on managing the Nationals, the Wizards and the Washington Redskins for the low low price of $400,000.00. I know I have no experience with coaching, with professional baseball, basketball or football but that wouldn't really matter. If I screwed up, I promise to let them fire me but they'd pay less for the same results.

Let's look at the hard stats.

The Nats: 59 wins, 103 losses. It's possible someone lacking baseball know how could rack up a worse record than the pro parasites currenty coaching but they'd have to be truely dedicated. Maybe management could have a fan appreciation day and let the 15,000th fan be coach for the day. It might improve attendance. The team might even get to the 15,000th fan. While batting 300 is a success in the major leagues, having a .341 winning percentage isn't.

The Wizards: In the 2008-2009 season, these guys racked up 19 wins and 63 losses. This is the stuff of legend. Statistically winning only 22% of the season, one wonders if it isn't just time to chuck it all and invite the President and all his men to come in and suit up. I hear they've got game and clearly these guys don't.

Redskins: They're only 2 and 4, but this was the easy part of the schedule, the seven years of bumper crop time. What do we have to show for it? We beat the Buccaneers. Tampa Bay has no wins, and the 'Skins beat them. Yeah us. The other team we beat, the also winless Saint Louis Rams. Before anyone gets too excited because we at least beat those two teams, the Lions who hadn't won since 2007, ended that streak against the Redskins. We gave hope to Detroit. 'Nuff said.

I promise to do as badly by taking naps in the dugout, blogging during practices and reading to my toddlers during training. All three teams will be in lousy condition, they will have no battle plan for the 2 minute drill, coming out of a fast break or to address the hapless fielding, sleepy bats and poor base running. Things will be no different than things are now, except, it will cost a lot less.

I'll be waiting by the phone expecting a call any day now.

Photoshop Reflections in the Arena of Politics

If I had tech savvy, I'd create a program where one could turn anyone using the Photoshop tools into the Joker from the most recent Batman movie. Then I'd use it on Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, (okay, that might not make much effect), on Barney Frank, on Ahmadinejad, on Kim Yong-il, on Harry Reid, on George W. Bush (I know, it's been done), on Michael Steele, on Bill Clinton, on Hillary, on Al Gore and on Ronald Reagan (I think this was done too by the way). I figure the various images would be like a political Rorschach. One's ideology would determine if the picture was sexist or homophobic or scathing political commentary or dangerous or stupid or racist or simply a mask placed on a face.

Why?

There's this poster of the President as the Joker. Some are claiming racism because at a low point in the history of our country, "black face" was wrongfully considered entertainment. But does the mere use of the President's face in a poster to protest, using the Joker as a means of expression constitute the height of insensitivity? I'll give that it does not reveal the height of creativity.

The President has been rendered in art in messianic and biblical and mythological terms. He's been Superman, Jesus and Moses, the heir to the Kennedy legacy, he's been given a halo and painted as the ressurected Christ. These too, I would argue are offensive even as they praise, because they pair theological and spiritual values with political ones. The President is African American. The combination makes him historic, but by no means sacred or holy or even just super powered.

I also object to the spotlight and website and television program dedicated to the 86,400 seconds of every day for the four years of his presidency. None of us are seen properly by either being portrayed as bigger than life or less than human. This is true of the leaders put under the microscope or enlarged to IMAX size, and of those who voted for and against. I believe there ought to be access but that does not require absolute intimacy on the trivial.

But back to the poster and those who see racism in its creation, promotion and existence. Ascribing hate to the motives of anyone, even someone we consider unsavory, involves making a judgment about character, about the state of the soul we judge and subsequently condemn. Condemning is easy, it allows us to ignore anything at all from that source, even legitimate criticisms and questions.

Is the poster of the President as the Joker offensive? I didn't think so at first glance because I'm something of a nerd and so my first association is not "White face" but "Comics, the Joker."

Can I see why some would find it offensive? Upon reflection, sure.

Do I think it should be banned because it is offensive? No.

Why? Because our country celebrates free speech. We have the right to satirize, to criticize, praise or mock our leaders and our government with our words, with satire, with art, with music, with every capacity we have at our disposal. I didn't care much for all the vitriol at Sarah Palin and her family, but I understood that when you sign up for being in the public square, you should expect to get bloodied. Still, it is a rough business. You get posters and jokes and paintings that seem more about "being mean" than content.

But I know that good satire reveals the society to itself. Bad satire reveals the author to the world. Great satire does both. I would argue this is an attempt at political satire but that it lacks depth. There's no there there.

Why?

Because the Joker was not a socialist but an anarchist,so the analogy doesn't hold. Further, we may disagree about the finances, about foreign policy, about health care, about abortion, about any myriad of topics one wants to discuss, but plastering a poster that says "Socialism" beneath it is to me as uninteresting as a contribution to the national discussion as the posters that say "Hope." These aren't discussions, they're slogans. Yeah! Boo! Nay! Huzzah! This is what these pictures reduce our national discussion to, agree or disagree. That's it.

One always hopes no matter what our political stripe, that the other side will be merciful. We always hope the other side will play fair, and frequently, we don't hold our own side accountable because the other side didn't either. It's hard not to want that eye for an eye. It's also hard to surrender any symbol or method of attack in the arena of ideas that shows signs of being effective. Ideology may be a choice of the heart and mind, but politics is about one thing, just win baby.

This is why the gift of political free speech is so very precious. Even so, it will be abused. Those who enter politics must recognize they and their families will be excoriated by those who do not love their way of thinking or them. This is why public office is something of a vocation. One may opt to enter for love of power or influence or altruistic or utopian or civic minded idealism, but it still involves sacrifice even if the reasons for entering or staying are less than noble.

And while politics is all about winning, policy making in the traditional sense, is about compromise. I see very little in any of the bodies of our Government interested in crafting any bills that will garner broad public support and be just to all while addressing very real social ills. There may be some out there trying, but at the very least, they are not getting very far while we spend all our energies calling the other side right or left wingnuts, racists or kool-aid drinkers.

I've never met anyone who had their heart or mind moved on a subject of any import because of an insult. Nor have I ever seen effective policy crafted by virtue of clever snarky remarks. Photoshopping our opponents to make the valued contributions disappear, or our heros to erase the faults does a disservice to the entire country and to the individuals affected by our airbrushing of ideas and those who hold them dear.

National dialogue on real issues needs to happen. There are dozens of issues that matter, like race, like abortion, like education, health care, the economy, the debt, the wars abroad, national security, the housing market, wallstreet, social security and immigration to name just a few. What we want our nation to be in the world won't happen as long as long knives, internet wolves and photoshoppers of the sound bite and kodak moments are used on every occasion whenever any advancement of any argument garners traction.

This is not a call for people to shut up and sit down, it is a call to our leaders to recognize that there are 350 million people in this nation and all of us matter, all of us are affected by what is done. We're all Americans, the tired, the poor, the unwashed and the unwanted, the crunchy con, the liberal activist, the nascar dad, the hockey mom, the single gen X'er and the New Yorker. McDonalds eaters and vegans, it doesn't matter what clever lable is crafted to create a subset of us for easy designation, none of us deserve to be given no more than a pat on the head if we're quiet, and a patronizing sneer if we're not, regardless of our political orientation.

True governing is a messy job if done well that involves allowing for those blemishes, for those flaws, for the missteps and the benefit of the doubt, the belief in good faith, in the hearts of even our fiercest critics and most aggressive political opponents. It allows for the jokers who make Joker posters, and the Wingnuts and the Palin jokes and the uneducated and the clever, the rich and the poor and all those inbetween in the flyover country.

If I may sound a Cassandra warning to those who think there is justification against one side or the other because one holds one's own politics to be not simply one's own, but the only true way, the only smart way, the only way worthy of consideration. The very same heavy handedness and unwillingness to listen/compromise/consider the other side that has been slung at Bush and Cheney for the past eight years should serve as a reminder that such overt exhertions of power and belief in one's own rightness about ideology have consequences, and some of them involve elections.

Proposed Top Ten List for the POTUS

Yesterday while playing around with words, I wrote a top ten piece for the President that was favorable to him.

For the record, I think the existing proposals are problematic at best and that there are many less contentious, less expensive means by which we could provide coverage to the uninsurred and effect good reform on the procedures which govern care than the current bills under consideration.

That being said, I also believe, if we can't laugh at ourselves and our own ideological worst points, we are lost.

Thus, I present to you, my proposed humor piece for the POTUS appearing on Dave Letterman tonight.

President Obama's Top 10 Regulations That Would be in the Health Care Bill if I Were the Stalinist/Fascist the Rightwing Nuts Think I am.

10) All Voters registered as Republican shall be taxed at an extra 50%; documented townhall tea party members, an extra 10% beyond that.

9) All States that went for McCain are hereby dissolved and absorbed into their more enlightened blue state neighbors.

8) Every school pre-k through 12th, shall issue as standard text books, both of my autobiographies, Socialism for Dummies, the complete works of Michael Moore, Al Franken and Air America.

7) School lunches shall replace tater-tots with any one of the following: Tuscan Kale, arugula, or Dandelion greens.

6) Conservative radio programs and television stations shall have all their material reviewed for accuracy and fairness. Nominees for review shall be made by Keith Olbermann.

5) Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh shall be expatriated to a country to be named later.

4) Elected Republican Officials must wear a t-shirt saying "The One Won." whenever they appear at a public function, punishable by fine and a vicious hit piece on YouTube by Moveon.org.

3) All Republicans shall be locked out of the public bathrooms at the House and Senate. They will have to use the port-o-lets stationed on the far end of the mall open between the hours of 3-5 AM. See Nancy or Harry for the keys.

2) We will fully fund health insurance for the whole world by taxing big oil into non-profit status.

1) I am King.

Fishy Thoughts on My Soap Box

There are many ways to express one's opinion: yelling at a congressman, writing an op-ed, throwing shoes at a President, patronizing movies that satirize the opposition. What all of these things do, is not address issues, but release pent up emotion about a state of things in general.

As cathartic as it might be to some to yell or to take pleasure in watching legislators squirm, (and I conceed, I've done my fair share of snarking because it is catharitc and fun to feel terribly clever for a moment) it does not address the actual issues that should be carefully considered and actually discussed. Part of the fault lies in the way Congress goes about its business and has as of late with a breath taking speed. When you race through bill after bill spending money hand over fist without stopping even to read what you are voting on, people who voted you into office start to feel that even if they offered reasoned discourse, it wouldn't matter. The rubber stamp from the party in charge would be all that determined if a bill became law.

Also, some people who (yes, their side lost), have no voice in any part of the legislative process feel powerless and thus angry that they are being force fed tax after tax, bill after bill, and while some good may come of the laws, much mischief is also afoot.

No one can say honestly that 1.7 trillion without reflection is without tremendous waste. But no one believes that this Congress, having had a taste of Wagyu beef type spending on a daily basis, won't find throwing trillions around much less scary from now on. Everyone talks of how we need to control spending; no one cuts one damn thing. No one wants their sacred cows turned into hamburger, only someone else's.

Here are my questions for our leaders from my blog. Please understand I know the facts about health care are not set, as the bill has not been passed, and that the numbers also jump from one day to another. I will try to use only the numbers and statements issued by official sources.

The White House said we won't lose our doctors or our coverage. I believe they believe that to be true. I also follow the logic of economics. Public schools versus Private schools seems like a good comparative.

There are public schools. There are private schools. There are some families that sacrifice to send their kids to private schools, but those who can't afford it, must contend with public schools. Within those public schools, the kids don't get a choice as to which one they attend. Some of the schools are admittedly, not very good, but there aren't many options or alternatives. Homeschooling has cropped up as a counter to the public vs. private dilemma. But this too has an operating cost of time and expertise, no everyone can manage it, and places like California are trying to limit one's ability to take it on, even if the results are stellar.

So I follow the pattern. There will be public care and there will still be private care which some sacrifice to hold onto, but some of the public care will be less stellar. I'd rather fight insurance companies than the federal government to get a "yes" when the bureaucrats say "no." So I worry about the lack of options. Also, home doctoring doesn’t seem like it would enjoy much success.

Here is my second problem. We currently have Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP. None of these are fully funded, and that causes some seniors that currently rely on the government programs, to not get the care they need. Doctors will refuse to take Medicare/Medicaid because it pays so poorly. Medicare and Medicaid are not fully funded because it would be too expensive.

So...I want to understand how it would be less expensive to pay for 50 million or 43 million or 15 million or whatever the number is that actually would be supported under this omnibus health care bill, than to fully fund Medicare and Medicaid and SCHIP? Or is that next? Why aren’t we doing this first? It would be less contentious.

Then there is the issue of waiting periods. Britain, France and Canada all have Universal Health Care. The lines are long for basic services. The waits are long. Many of them come here if they need something more immediate and can afford it. When I was at Children's for my son, people flew from the United Arab Emirates to have their kids treated here. Here is honestly, the very very best for medicine in part because it is so very very swift. How can we guarantee this swiftness won't be lost, when we don't know how this will work?

"Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good." the President has said. It's a good line; a pithy way to dismantle legitimate objections about the inability to anticipate or control costs or ensure quality.

Now I want the mother who opted to keep her Down’s Syndrome baby despite pressure to abort to be able to get the life saving heart surgery at Children's from the doctor who does this routinely even if she doesn't have my health care plan. I get it. I'd pay for that because it is the right thing to do, to care for the sick. (So shouldn't you be in favor of this health care plan?).

No. I'd rather the government go and purchase those health care plans from the private insurers with my tax dollars. Then, tax the profit from those plans at a higher rate to recap some of the tax money. (I'm a pragmatic Republican).

Why? Because I distrust giving government ownership over our health care program, and I haven't seen this Congress or this administration (or any for that matter) show prudence or restraint or wisdom in its stewardship of all our interests or income.

Don't make the good of this country, the enemies because we have legitimate concerns about a policy or patterns of policies. Don't demand silence just because some people shouted. Don't let the legitimate good of caring for the sick result in allowed evil. There are concerns about funding abortion. There are concerns about rationed care and the possible push of assisted suicide as a form of medical treatment. These ethical and moral issues need to be addressed and expressly denied in the legislation itself to ensure such fears are unfounded. The people who shout are some of the people who will be paying the taxes to fund this program should it pass, and they ought to be granted more deference than to be simply branded Republican shills and lobbying hacks.

Last question to answer for those who are thinking....Sherry...this is a humor blog...why are you being so darn political? Well, this blog is many things, an outlet for humor and for thought, and since I can't make it to a town hall, here is also my personal soap box.

Also, this week, my kids have all been good, so there's been no story for a few days. So maybe they're getting sick...or I'm in really big trouble because they're colluding on something big.

Government Prescribed

"The best health care is not always the most expensive." --President Obama

"It darn well better be!" --Sherry Antonetti --after looking at the price tag that refuses to be named but has been speculated at, for the federal government health care.

I don't actually remember anyone ever saying the best was the most expensive, but let's just go with what he says for the moment.

The best beef is Wagyu. The President serves this when he wants to court Congress or impress, it is also stated to be his favorite. It is roughly $100.00 a pound. Now maybe there's some ground sirloin out there at Sam's club that can compete if cooked properly (slow smoked burgers that have a touch of green chili's and white and black pepper), but otherwise...the best is well, expensive.

His wife is styling in her $400.00 sneakers. I'm sure Easy Spirit makes a shoe that is similar in design and color, but the best shoes that make all of Paris and London and the media swoon are fashionably expensive.

And his lovely darling daughters go to a private school, very posh, but the best education isn’t always the most expensive either… I’m sure the DC public schools would be just swell.

Now the President lives in the best public housing that is available in the nation.

But when it comes to health care, just remember, the best is not always the most expensive. Trust us, we didn't take a vow to do no harm, but we're from the government and we know the best for you isn’t the best for us.

P.S. On a serious note, I do understand that we need to make some changes to the existing health care structure and that the moral quandry involved in health care is always --say yes to everything and go bankrupt, or say no and risk having made an error in judgement that cost someone else grave suffering or death. It is not an easy issue and I do not take it lightly.

That is precisely why I feel ill at ease with the speed with which this bill was being pushed. I subscribe to the quaint philosophical notion that we ought to demand our leaders read the things they vote into law or bother to sign. I also worry that we are already spending massive amounts of money we don't have, and at some point, we do have to stop. If government spending is holding the economy afloat, haven't we just swapped one bubble economy for another, the dot.coms to the housing home equity incomes to government? Lastly, why is this not being asked by a person in the media as opposed to a blogging house frau?

President Wikipedia

In blogging, you never know what will resonate, but you keep throwing things out there, hoping that something will catch people's attention and tickle their hearts or move them. Sometimes, you lavish time over a piece, crafting it to your own perception of perfection. No hits. No interest. In blogging as in life, you can pitch what you perceive as a perfect game and still lose. But once one attains viral attention, it's hard to lose that hold on the public. Perception trumps reality.

And so it is, that we can have amazing deficit spending, high unemployment, stagnant house sales, declining 401k's, lost jobs, lost opportunities, and homes that are underwater, owing more than the mortgage demands, but according to the editor of Newsweek, the President is sort of God.

We've seen Brian Williams bowing to the Commander in Chief. We've heard about tinglies in the leg. We've seen women faint and men gasp with shock and awe at his presence. He's historic; he's beyond Jefferson, JFK, Martin Luther King, Lincoln and the Roosevelt’s historic. And yet, everything that was before him is prequel. We shall have the P.B.O. (Pre-you know who) era, with the new chronology beginning with 2009.

He's the first athiest president, and the most religious but ecumenical, understanding nuance in a way that men who confine themselves to one practice of faith Can't be.

He's metro-sexual, he takes off his shirt when he swims and has a date night. He's hot. He's cool. He's like jazz that everyone likes and knows, but that isn't so overly familiar as to be pedestrian. He can spend more money than we ever have before, percentage wise or absolutely, and then preach that we must become more fiscally responsible. What can't this man say or do?

He can preach at Notre Dame and the University of Cairo. He can claim we're not a nation of Christians and be understood to mean we're bigger than just one orientation of faith, and we're a nation of Muslims and be known to be talking to a specific audience about the lack of citation of the gifts and contributions of Islam.

Pointing out any over glossing or exaggeration about anything historical or factual is just pettiness, partisan or envy. You shouldn't do that you know; it's not good for you.

And so we waft along sipping our overpriced Grande Starbucks coffee, knowing we can't afford it, enjoying how cool we look for having it, and fiercely resisting and resenting any attempt to point out, "It's just coffee in a paper cup."

Because we have our President, our emotional teleprompter, who shall tell us when to get up and when to sleep, how much to work and what to eat, what to drive, how much we should earn and how we should live, so that one day, maybe, we might ...well wait a minute..He’s never said what the reward was for doing all this stuff.

Think maybe we should ask?