Fall!

Sooooo...Fall.  They say it was on September 22nd, the Equinox but that is clearly wrong and stupid… and wrong.  It is not fall until Day Light Savings Time sets the clock back.  You revel in sleeping in that morning adoring suddenly the cool crispness of the air. That crisp air of course intellectually advises us that winter is just about here.  The intelligent species (old people who have won the Darwinian wars with their peers) are already gone south but we, the stupid, the people with jobs, we shamble along and tell us that “Fall is not so bad!”  We exclaim!  We smile.

I got up this morning.  Cooked a large breakfast, read the paper and went to church and then got some lunch and without realizing it, the day was almost gone  Light started waning shortly after the Rams disappoint again.  Fall.  Dimming light and dimming hope that one can yet escape the bleak cold of a St. Louis Winter and forgot a cruel and beautiful baseball summer. Fall and it’s expectation makes people mad.

"Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself."

— Mark Twain

Case in point, the United States Government.  Once again, I know I repetitively refer to it as a clown car, but that is because it is… a clown car.  The open up the doors of Congress and this unimaginably large number of bozos in brightly colored wigs, red noses come barreling out with their big shoes.  And these clowns talk… and talk… and talk.  Rarely has so much shit and trash talk come out of Washington in my life.  The threaten, they pose and they posture.  They assure you that they represent the American people but, don't we all know?

They represent themselves.  They represent their family.  They represent a perpetuation of their own power and the power of their friends and benefactors.  They do it by embodying the simple mindedness that can only come from being a true believer.  This is true of the right and of the left.  This is true of progressives and conservatives. They cannot see the truth because it is not in their interest to see the truth.  It is in their interest to announce loudly simple falsities that satisfy their constituents mind set.

“The Government IS the problem!”

And of course there is truth in that but government also has power to do massive good. But government cannot “fix” anything, but… it is all we got.

And these assholes that we have elected over the past twenty years (arguably my adult life) have severely damaged our democracy and our future.  Now granted they inherited a ship which at least since The New Deal has been premised on borrowing from the future or...let’s use another platitude…

“STEALING OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE!”

Hypothetically we could take the country back and fix it but it would require thinking, balanced people, the reasonable American middle to fight back against the dogmatic, certain SHOUTERS of the right and the left.  Make no mistake when our government is pushed to the brink of a shutdown it serves no one more then the Tea Party.  They want a government that provides roads, national defense and a minimal police force.  

They stand their ground, they don't call 911!

Every time they make all of us question their basic ability to govern they win in further delegitimizing government.  It started when they out maneuvered Obama on the sequester.  Cuts so drastic and stupid and inelegant that no one could abide in them.  But of course, the Tea Party could abide them.  More reasonable Republicans in the middle could not but they are now irrelevant. The goal of the Tea party is to destroy government because it cannot be fixed and the goal of the liberal left is to spend it into destruction.  Both should be an anathema to reasonable people.

We still sit on the greatest piece of real estate in the world.  We still have a fabulous melting pot of people and their progeny who are capable of anything!  But we need to bring back the middle.  We have to look at other opinions with respect and then win the battle with a sensible way of us all going forward together.  It can be done.  The return to the middle is possible but damn, it is going to be hard, and it is going to take a long time and it is going to require that we insist on rationale discussion and decision making.

it might require shutting down 24 hour cable news and demagogues on talk radio.  I know freedom of speech is the holiest of our constitutional rights.  So holy that it is not in the constitution but instead in the First Amendment but holy is holy.  It might require us rethinking whether corporations are people (we all know the founders loved the big corporations like the Dutch East India Company.  We might also have to reconsider whether money is speech… or speech is speech.  But we might not have to do those things if perhaps we could discuss it.  I could be wrong and perhaps corporations are indeed people but it would seem to run against everything I have ever learned, but still, I would embrace discussing it.

But we would need to be brave.  We would need a leader who was willing to speak the truth and when he tried to lead us down a painful road, we would need the courage not to kick him out for his courage.  Here is one example:

SOCIAL SECURITY

1.    Entitlements are writing checks we cannot pay.  In a growing economy with productive baby boomers we could pretend that there would always be more money...tomorrow and we could spend it today and promise… whatever.  This will require sacrifice.  It will mean that people who have paid into Social Security will; NOT get the benefits they were promised.  But those benefits for our long living generation are MUCH more than they have paid in.  So, in short order:

    a.    raise retirement age to 70.  I know none of us wants to work and “The Greatest Generation” (the one who raised us) retired younger and had a retirement house in Florida.  We will not be able to do that, or likely to have that and you know what, it is going to suck and it is going to be great too.

    b.    Means test for the money.  I don’t know what the number is but hypothetically people with 50 Million do not need $4,000.00 extra a month to put in the bank and leave to their progeny.

I don’t know what to do after that but I know that is a start which will be hollered about and it will stink and it will not solve the problem, but it will start solving a problem in a sensitive, painful way that perhaps if we had a brave leader he could lead us to brave solutions.

So it is 5:30 and pitch black and these are the types of crazy ramblings that come out of a middle aged man when his fantasy football team is out of contention.  I look forward to thinking about other ideas for our new party.  A Jack Danforth Republican Party with a Bill Clinton Democratic Party might be a good start.

We can make the middle phat again!

The Sequester: Send in the (ass) Clowns

Sooooo...are you shitting me?  Really?  We have an economy that is limping along.  You can call it a recovery but that is generous.  What it is not is in recession but we are... bouncing along the bottom.  In this tenuous thing we have Washington ass clowns (who we in both parties elected) and they are going to tank this economy.  By not having a budget, by not having tax reform, with having manufactured clients several times a year, not having entitlement reform... we are barely making it.  Now they want to heard us off the cliff.

I don’t think we can sugar coat it.  We will look back on this failure as the beginning of the end for this economy.  Only one thing can happen when you cut 85 billion out of defense and entitlements, there is only one thing that can happen.  Job losses, smaller take home pay, less spending.  NOTHING ELSE CAN HAPPEN!  Arguably at this point allowing the sequester to occur accomplishes two major things, one of which is an ideological goal of the Republican party (smaller government or even better for the crazies, collapse of government) and will dump us into a recession or worse, that we will not crawl out of here by the 2014 mid term elections and they think allow a scenario to blame the Republicans.

I don’t know if they are right or they are wrong.  I do no that we have a failure of leadership at the very top.  When will our President speak the truth with love and call for joint suffering, joint sacrifice in order to save the countries economy to give our kids a chance.  When are the Republicans going to join and agree that there need to be more revenues in order to make this happen?  When will Simpson Bowles be embraced, not as an answer but only what it is, a seriously good start.  These people need to be brought to heel.  They need to:
1. If they cannot agree on a “grand bargain” than they need to just cancel the sequester.  DO NOT JUST DELAY IT creating another cliff down the road.
2. Fix tax code temporarily raising marginal rates and closing ALL loopholes including perhaps the mortgage interest loophole (classic government picking winners and losers) and eliminate EVERY corporate tax break and give us a much lower corporate rate.
3. Medicaide, medicare AND social security need to have their ages where appropriate indexed up for age before benefits can start.  Then they also need to be means tested.  If I have 5 million in my retirment account, even though I have paid into the system, I am going to need to give up some of the benefits I have paid in.
4. Healthcare... jeez...I don’t have any ideas about health care.  Explain to people that in the last 6 months of our lives. Accoding to CNN “One out of every four Medicare dollars, more than $125 billion, is spent on services for the 5% of beneficiaries in their last year of life.”  Mind boggling.

Still, do the first three.  I will be sending Clair Mc Caskill, Roy Blunt.  You should write these people too.  It is time for us to demand that the people we have elected.... govern.  That they not make things immediately worse.
ROY BLUNT ( Republican ) (202) 224-5721
260 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
CLAIRE MCCASKILL ( Democrat ) (202) 224-6154
506 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510House Of Representatives Currently Representing Webster Groves, MO
1ST STATE CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
WM LACY CLAY ( Democrat ) (202) 225-2406
2418 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington DC 20515-2501
2ND STATE CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
ANN WAGNER ( Republican ) (202) 225-1621
435 Cannon House Office Building, Washington DC 20515-4312
3RD STATE CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
BLAINE LUETKEMEYER ( Republican ) (202) 225-2956
2440 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington DC 20515-2509

In the mean time I am watching Sunday morning TV and seeing the Republicans and Democrats try and set the stage for who to blame and we need to send a very clear message that we the people are going to blame them both.  And blame them hard.  It will not effect everyone at once but it will immediately effect markets, credit ratings and public confidence.  There are bozos on this bus.

Final Aches and Pains (Or Akins and Palins)

OK...sooo... this is the last time I will bloviate on the Akin thing.  I promise.  I have listened to all the talking heads on FOX, MSNBC, local Fox and CNN.  I have read the Post (St. Louis Post Dispatch), The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.  The local folks on 97.1 FOX Radio have really stayed loyal to Congressman Akin and they are to be complimented for their constancy.  I have talked to people liberal and conservative (I have friends who are both... creepy).  A few final observations:

1.  This was no liberal media "gotcha" experience.  He was interviewed on local FOX.  Jaco asked normal questions.  Jaco did not jump on it or even follow up.
2.  It is Republicans who want the guy to back out so stop talking about the Democrats and the Liberals.  They all want him.
3.  He is not ready for prime time.  He was not prepared for a question that had to come, even on FOX.
4.  America is nuanced on abortion.
5.  This man is not in the main stream of his party.
6.  The Republicans are correct, we should be talking about the economy.
7.  The Democrats are correct in pointing out that the Republicans running will put radical social conservatives in office and in control. That has to be discussed as well.

Here is what will happen.  Akin will withdraw before the real deadline.  he will be replaced at the last minute by someone who will not have to answer a lot of hard questions, will not be Todd Akin and will offer the Republicans a chance to win the Senate.  It absolutely will happen that way.  Nothing else can happen.  Also, people will look beyond abortion and start listening to Akin about repealing the 17th Amendment and allowing State legislatures to pick Senators.  They will listen to him on school lunches.  He is not electable.  He is a good man, and a true believer and he is the best example of Missouri Taliban.  He will enforce his understanding of God's will on us and do his best to put in place a conservative Christian Theocracy.

They will get rid of him but it will NOT be the Liberals making it happen.  the Liberals want this fight. I am done with this one.  End of September we have a new Republican running for Senate in Missouri.

Todd Aching

Sooooo.... the Show Me State.  We have become reliably red.  Formerly a swing state we now cannot be prouder of our conservative values and it is reflected in our politicians.  Our State House is cornered and controlled by rural conservatives who do not trust government, city people, democrats or really anything.  Public education.  Bad.  Public programs for the poor.  Bad.  Public lunch at school.  Bad.  Government programs for poor.  Bad.  Government support of farms... well, bad in theory.  There is nothing government can do to help.  Free enterprise is the answer to everything if government would just...get out of the way.

We elect people who are “right” on the issues of small government.  Right on the issues of “the Constitution”.  Right on the issues of the democrats being “wrong”.  Right about the man in the White House being “the wrong guy at the wrong time”.  By electing these people who are “right’ and who cannot even talk to people on the other side of the aisle because of their “wrongness” and cannot even here the word compromise because it it sacrifices their values we are forced to embrace and elect wholly dogmatic people who are extreme on alot of issues.  We forget that just because their “purity” allows them to see our way on key issues that these same flawed people bring their zeal to every issue, whether we agree with them on those are not, and they bring that zeal to these same issues and it leads to totally unacceptable results.

We saw that yesterday with Todd Akin.  he is a fine man.  A Christian man.  A family man.  other than being minorly corrupted by power my guess would be that his core values are admitable in almost every way.  Yet life has brought him to a place where he can believe that raped women excrete a certain chemical which prevents them from getting pregnant.  This allows his to be totally certain of his pro life in all circumstances, even in the cases of rape, because a legitimately raped woman could only become pregnant in extremely rare circumstances and if she did become pregnant, it probably was not rape anyway...right?  I understand how this happens because cognitive dissonance is not something this type of ideologue can countenance.  That there might even be a reasonable opposing view is not possible if you have the moral certainty of God in your back pocket.  That you might be wrong on what is so morally clear to you is inconcievable so you invent and/or embrace theories which justify your position rather than admit there is any possible nuance.

I admire Todd Akin and his values.  I would surmise that I hold a lot of similar values regarding life, faith, family and government but I would never kid myself that I “know” what is right for government.  I think I know what is best.  I would work for that but the idea that God was mandating my views of faith and Chrisitianity to be carried out in government seems...un Christian to me.  That type of faith leads to Taliban-like craziness and what we are seeing is that true believers, dogmatic, doctrinal people like Todd Akin lead us away from the very Constitutional values they want to espouse.  Away from a melting pot and towards a Christian theocracy based on their particular understanding of Christianity.  The Taliban is alive and well in our Country.  When we elect them pretending that they are “like us” or “share our values” while ignoring their words and their actions we move towards an intolerant, unforgiving and unintentionally, un-Christian country.

I don’t know what Todd will do tomorrow by 5:00 when he needs to make a decision to stay in the race but when you consider him, watch his whole interview.  He did not mis-speak.  he spoke from his heart and he revealed a lot and presented Missouri with a clear choice.  Sadly, I do not know whether we will remember and that we will make a right choice in November but Todd Akin is not the right choice for Senator.

Conundrum

Soooo... there is a little bit of fun with Newt winning South Carolina. Like coming home tonight and watching FOX news and seeing them hem and haw... They cannot embrace Newt but he is clearly what their base, at least in South Carolina are embracing. They reap what they so as they have encouraged distrust and fear and racism and now that Newt (who ain’t stupid) has embraced those themes, the FOX news world is marching...indeed dancing to his tune. The bigwigs at FOX, now the mainest of mainstream media had assumed that they could undermine Romney, question his loyalty to “conservative values” and then hold their nose as he want on to beat Satan...er...I mean Barack Obama. Now Newt trounced Mitt. Now the game is on but they do not know how it will end or even really who they want. I mean, Mitt is a pretender who will be whomever he needs to be buty he is certainly “electable”, “Presidential” and a “businessman”. Newt made friends with Bill Clinton. Newt made a deal on welfare reform. Newt was forced to resign as leader of the house in scandal. Newt is on his 3rd wife (though family values people are bravely embracing his “repentance”.

Even Glenn Beck does not like Newt. What a nightmare for them all. The establishment does not love Romney. But Newt, they hate Newt. They started to hate Newt 30 years ago. He did it the old fashioned way. He earned it. he alienated EVERYONE! And the Tea Party, what has become the biting, vicious unhappy backbone of the party, which has had their anger and fear coddled by the establishment of the party to unleash at will hates Romney! He is a weak, intellectual, Harvard rich boy who has never been in a real fight. They can’t stand him. When Newt said that he did not want to bloody Obama’s nose but to knock him out... he had them at “knock”. Both sides are wondering how they are going to justify staying in the party and rallying behind a candidate which they cannot stand.


I Miss This Guy!
So tonight I am watching the four Republican candidates and Paul and Santorum look like reasonable guys, regular guys and Gingrich and Romney spent the first 15 minutes bitch slapping each other like teen age girls. When have we seen petulance at this level. The moderators from “The Mainstream Media” seem to be guiding them back to attacking Obama and talking about our countries issues. What a sad display. Now Romney is talking about what the release of his taxes will be tomorrow. They all agree that the best recipe for jobs is that no one be forced to pay any taxes, ever...EVER! All taxes are bad. All government is bad... even though we are running to elected to run government...we will hate ourselves when we do it. Now Romney is making his “I am not going to apologize for success” speech. He is a self made man.

When I look at him he looks like a very successful man who started from a millionaires perch with the best education money could by and a name that certainly did not slam any doors. Santorum... as long as he does not talk about his trademark social issues like the light of reason and measured thought. Now Newt is talking about his contract with Freddy Mac. I read the contract. It does not say anything about what he is supposed to do. That is what stinks about it. That and the fact that he said he performed services as a historian.

I EVEN MISS THIS GUY!
Perhaps the Republicans need to reset the clock and reset the clock and look around. And Romney and Gingrich are once again slapping each other like little petulant girls. They lecture and hector each other. They shoot horses, don’t they? The 4 Horseman of the Apocrypha? Ok...it is 9:03 and I put in my hour watching these guys debate. I think I am done for this election.

The REAL Tea Party

Last night I went to a place called "Lil' Mickey's" for Bar B Q. We didn't have any other place to go and thought it might be an adventure. The place was talked about a while ago in the Post when they were rating the areas best Bar b Q and it was suggested that this was the best Memphis style Bar B Q in town. It was out in St. Peters on mexico Road. That is a long way from Webster (37 Minutes according to Google Maps) and we headed out there when it was already dark. I am always amazed when I head out to St. Charles. Evidently quite a few people live out there. I had no idea. When we got there we found that Lil' Mickeys only is a carry out place. They have two small tables with stools but that is it. Thinking quickly we decided... to order carryout. We took it home and the Bar B Q was excellent. It might have been worth the drive but the bottom line was I ate a lot of Bar B Q.

To quote the great Reverend William Yonker "I told you that, so I can tell you THIS!"

It gave me nightmares. Bad nightmares. First of all they came in the form of a vicious squirrel attacking me... and then I was locked in a bank and there were some very violent people breaking in and the police would not come...but finally... the scariest dream of all came. I wish I had Daniel with me as I sit here to inturpret the dreams http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Daniel But the third one was the scary one. Those spicy ribs took me to Louis Carroll's "Alice In Wonderland" where I was at the tea party. I always found that tea party upsetting. The March Hare was such a compelling character... he was being played by Sean Hannity, Alice was played by Ann Coulter and the he was....Rush Limbaugh as The Mad Hatter. They were all sitting around and not drinking tea but dumping it into a lake, a river, a pond, a puddle or ANY water that was available to meet their metaphor analogizing themselves to early patriots risking their lives battling tyranny. Of course none of these people or even their fantasy characters had never risked a finger, a limb or a dollar for their cherished Democracy and although trumpeting the viirtues of free speech felt compelled to shout down all competing voices. I was cast in the position of the Dormouse and like anyone who disagrees was not allowed to speak. Alice appeared to be drunk and kept saying "dittos Rush". I spoke out of turn to opine that the original tea party participants were of course ruled by a despotic, unelected Monarch across an ocean while we had the virtue of election of politicians who were doing pretty much just what they said, and everyone new they would do. Couler kicked me in the nuts and called me a faggy little mouse.

All three of them were carrying guns. Limbaugh had a Glock, Hannity a vintage Colt 44 and Coulter of course had an AK-47... slung low. It went with her heels. Hannity was nattering on about the blood of the tree of Liberty needing to be watered by the blood of "Patriots". There was that word again. What of course they are implying with their guns at public meetings is that if called upon they will incite their minions to water the tree with the blood of anyone who dares to disagree.

I heard some screeching when a maniacal Glen Beck came running shouting OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! Fortunately at that point some of the pork had worked it's way through my colon and created an emergent need to wake up and take a rather large dump. It was a huge relief to realize it was only a dream but it did seem a little to weird and a little too true. The craziness according to these folks is in the White House. I cannot always argue but the fact that anyone is seriously listening to these folks is troubling indeed.

We need some sanity. We are not finding it on cable news. Maybe we can start finding it in the entrails of birds or from scattering chicken bones but we are not going to see anything of meaning from these folks other then screeds of hate.

"Off with their heads!" Indeed. No more Lil' Mickey's for me. But if you want to get some of their carry outs...
http://www.lilmickeysbbq.com/index2.html

OBAMA Where Art Thou?

Sooooo...it is March and we are about to begin March Madness and two months into Barack Obama’s America. If I listen to the news (which i have stopped doing) I know I would hear that Barack has not fixed the banking system and has not restored confidence. If I listen to Fox he is running us down the road to socialism, running up a huge bill we cannot pay and that Rush Limbaugh wishes he would fail (like that was even worth talking about?). If I listen to the liberal talking heads we are doing just what we need to and Republicans need to stop being so obstructionist.

That is all one load of bullshit. I am beginning a disappointment with our new president but only beginning and he has plenty of time to bring me back home. Am I disappointed for any of the reasons cited by the Republican opposition? Yes, two of them. One is that he has not curtailed pork and earmarks at all in this new budget and two, he has not curtailed lobbying as the way to get things done in Washington.

It is depressing for me. I feel right now like I am looking at the other side of the Bush coin, and it is the same coin. There is nothing transformative about what is happening is Washington other then we are having the other side of an ideological, we are right, they wrong, mentality which I had incorrectly ascribed to the nasty, hateful Bushies. Now I am seeing the same thing but from the opposite side. It is making me sick. Not because the policies are so wrong. I have no idea whether the policies are wrong or not. It is the attitude of exclusion. It is the business as usual. It makes me sick.

Obama still has a chance to be transformative. He can call us out to a higher standard, a higher purpose. Our Judeo-Christian (and perhaps even Muslim but I do not know enough about the faith to even comment) heritage has an awesome history of higher values. Somehow in my life, we lost our way. We confuse success with money and things. Our grandparents and to some extent our parents main goal was to improve the life of the children so they could have a “better” life. We have become concerned (like a publicly traded company sacrificing the future and making high stakes bets) with immediate gratification and having more and better then everyone else. he can call on us all as individuals to be brave, show compassion, pick up our brothers and do more for others rather then our recent culture of getting everything I want...NOW!

The Republicans cannot lead us there. They are bankrupt of ideas and take no responsibility for our current predicament being the natural result of Gordon Gecko “greed is good” capitalism. Capitalism is awesome. It has a tremendous power to transform economies and people in a good way. But when we glorify nothing but dollars at the expense of long range sustainability and the value of the people we employ, capitalism becomes the snake that eats itself. The current Beatification of Ronald Reagan is the best example of the parties myopic view of the past and it’s very limited “get me and my friends more money now” view of the future. The greed heads with continue to partner with the pro life groups so that there can be no middle ground on anything.

I do not know what our President is waiting for. He needs to make a formal request to the Republicans that their leadership step down. He needs to use his authority to force the Pelosi/Reed/Barney Frank contingent to also step down. They are to agenda-ized and politicized to be part of any serious change. These people on the left are just as guilty, now that they in power as the Republicans used to be. There is no compromise for the group. They must have everything that is abhorrent to the right and damn the consequences and they are wrong, wrong, wrong.

America is the greatest country on the earth. If we are lead by admirable people we will continue for the next generation in that role. If we are divided, hateful, small minded and unwilling to every acknowledge that there might be good people with good idea on the other side of the aisle we are well and truly screwed.. So stand up Mr. President. Call your own party to account first. Hack the pork. Save your social agenda for 2011. Get rid of your own small minded leaders and then call the Republicans to account on the other side. Then and only then can you come to the people, come to me and lead us on to a greatness that might embarrass Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation”.

We are tired of government making us afraid and expecting nothing from us but the worst. We are tired of government being corrupt, bought and sold and rife with special interests (business and social interests) which most of us in the middle are sick of hearing about. We are ready. Get off your ass and lead us. It was not the far left that you rode into office.