the Rich Don't Need to Play the Lottery - They have the Republicans!!

The rich don't need to play the lottery, they have the Republicans. The Paul Ryan budget proposal, endorsed by the now Republican Presidential Candidate, Mitt Romney is a $3 trillion giveaway to the rich - millionaires and corporations - over a three year period. To pay for the giveaway, Ryan will take away benefits that go to lower and middle class Americans.

There is a cost to the rich, of course; as they will be expected to ante up some campaign contributions. But, let's say they each give the individual maximum of $10,000; the profit margin is tremendous as anyone with a $1million annual income will get something like a $150,000 tax break.

And, the odds are terrific. They have a 50/50 chance of winning which is not bad odds considering that if they do nothing, they could take a hit as President Obama would then have a chance to put in his Buffet tax on millionaires which would ensure that they hve to pay something like a fair share of taxes like most of us.

So, what's the problem? The problem is that such a budget will ruin the economy which is driven by consumption by middle and lower class income people. The rich don't produce, they manage, mostly their own money and now ours too. The end result of the last tax break for the rich (the Bush one) was a devastated economy and a stock market in the toilet. The stock market in the toilet actually also affects more the middle class than the 1% as the 1% can ride out the storm until a good Democrat gets back in office to restore the value of all our investments, while the middle class, especially the seniors who are retired take a hit that makes life difficult as the margin between their base need and their real income moves to nill or below.

Here's the kicker... a good number of people who will be robbed by the Romney/Ryan budget will vote for the Republicans. I have to hand it to them. They believe and are successful in getting, if not a majority, then something close to it to believe a lie - that the rich drive the economy and so to give them money creates jobs for all the rest of us.

I can only say: you get what you vote for. Don't be stupid!!!

Why Patriots are Killing the Country

It's the "patriots" who are dragging the country down and destroying the moral fiber of the nation, not the dissidents, not the critics. The question is "why". But first the "how", for those who are stuck on this first question.

The how is easy to explain. "My country right or wrong" is a formula for disaster because no person, no country, no ball club, no political party and no nation can get better if they never admit where they are wrong. The best companies have really good evaluations of all the aspects of their company life. The good ball clubs get better because the coach had the human decency to care enough for his/her players to correct their mistakes. But, for the patriot, if you criticize the nation, you don't love the nation.

Patriots are weakest where they should be the strongest. The biggest economic, political and moral mistake a nation can make is to make war for no good economic, political or moral reason. The "patriots" have no criteria. They never met a war they didn 't like, because the patriot believes against all odds, all facts, all history, that the nation can win any war. We are, after all #1. The problem is that war has proven to be the achilles heals of every developed country that thought it was #1. Wars bring down both the victor and the defeated. But, the patriots are absolutely blind to this damage that war does to the nation, so they just call for war whenever anyone seems to take exception that we ought to determine the fate of the whole world in a way that, of course, favors us.

So, if you believe that there is still a problem with women having equal rights in the United States of America, Rush Limbaugh and all his patriotic crowd will come down on you like a heavy mountain calling you all kinds of names and, if not stating it directly, implying that you are not "patriotic" (which, given the true identity of "patriots" is actually a compliment). This is not the heart of the problem, although it is a problem because it makes it more difficult to have civilized conversation which is something that could help the country. The problem is that the "patriotic" clamor delays and sometimes succeeds in stopping efforts to make this a better nation for women and, thus, for all of us.

Now the critic may pay his taxes which is the most patriotic thing to do, but that doesn't qualify him/her as a true American. You have to believe in American supremacy (at any cost to the nation), support all wars, and not be always criticizing the nation. The "patriot", on the other hand doesn't have qualms about reducing contributions to the common pot; doesn't mind if the gap between rich and poor gets wider because if you do support increased taxes to pay common expenses or think that more people ought to get a living wage and the rich ought to share proportionately in the cost of having good roads, bridges, health care, retirement, etc. for all citizens you are not a patriot, you are a liberal, or in some patriotic circles a "communist."

So, you want to improve the country, then be quiet and don't say anything that could lead us to learn something about how to become better...that would be a criticism and that is not patriotic. Women will get equal pay for equal work if we just all shut up. And we will all get better health care at a more reasonable cost is all just repeat the mantra: "America has the best health care system in the world." We can all count on Social Security being there is we just shut up about the rich getting away with what amounts to taxpayer murder when they pay a smaller percentage of their income to the common pot than does their own secretaries.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the country is all of us, all the land we live on, all the histories we have brought to and make in the country and the ideas and rules that are set down in our constitution and Bill of Rights. This is a country that, in fact, the "patriots" don't like at all and would love to bring down and that is why the patriots insist on bringing down the country (if the country means all of us and our Constitution and Bill of Rights)

"Patriots" don't like most of the people who live in the country. They don't like the poor for sure, nor the critics, nor the legal immigrants who don't yet speak the language; nor the gays or lesbians, or the liberals and certainly not single moms who get food stamps. They don't like sick people or disabled people because they cost a lot of money. They don't like black people because, black people secretly love Africa more than the US as go the Latinos love South America (or wherever they come from) more and Asians are part of a conspiracy to turn the US into a colony of China (as though our bankers haven't already done that). They don't think the constitution and Bill of Rights should apply to anyone except the original ones - the white ones of the male species. So, the parts of the official guiding documents that seem to apply to the poor, to the black and Latinos and women....these are all part of the later conspiracies to change the idea of the country.

The "patriots" like white people who think like them and people who wear uniforms and rich people because someday they all are going to be rich and they too will need the ones in uniform to protect their wealth. So, they really love the country as long as that does not include about...oh, let's say, 70-80% of the people.

Here's the good news. The "patriots" are many but still in a minority. Most of the citizens still love the country in the holistic sense and still consider criticism as healthy, normal and sometimes leading to correcting mistakes and improving life. Most people think that the best way to support soldiers is to make sure they don't have to die for no good reason or get traumatized for life because the ideologues and corporate leaders decide its time to flex some muscle.

We can pray for even more "unpatriotic" nation as this would definitely increase the quality of life in the country, possibly lead to a more just nation and definitely improve the possibilities that we could live in peace for long periods of time. And, by the way, prosperity of the kind that reaches out to all of us would also be a result of this more "unpatriotic" nation.

The Order of Finish: Romney, Gingrich, Paul, Santorum

This is how the Republican primaries will end, in terms of delegates pledged for the National Convention: Romney, Gingrich, Paul and finally Santorum. Despite the rhetoric from Gingrich and Santorum about the "long haul", their haul will end when the money ends and that will happen first for Santorum and then for Gingrich. Ron Paul will finish third and will stay the distance as he never had and never depended upon the Super PACS for his financing. In truth, Paul is the only real alternative to Romney in this race with his more radical economic notions (which are not so good for the nation) and his more reasoned and sane approach to military spending and war.

There will be woman named by Romney for Vice-President (as he is trailing Obama with women all over the world). Then, President Obama will win the general election.

Why will Obama win? In the first place because he has done a reasonably good job: passed health care, ended two wars and put the economy back on a pattern of growth. And, because not enough people will really believe that Romney is in the race for the sake of building up the middle class. He is so far removed from the middle class that he has no idea of it means to be middle class or struggling to stay there. He doesn't care about the poor, doesn't know what it means to be middle class and his best friends are corporations (they are "people" too, you know...at least according to Mitt). I would add that one other deficit for Romney is that he doesn't really have a sense of humor as Obama does.

Mark my words. I put it down in writing on this 3rd day of February so that, later, it cannot be claimed that it is easy to say that this is what I predicted but how does anyone really know it was what I predicted.

Gingrich is Finished, Comic Relief is Over

Never mind the specifics of what Marianne Gingrich, second Newt wife said. The mere fact that she spoke out brings into clear view the incredible difficulty that Newt has in making the case for himself in so many aspects of what some Republicans desire in a candidate and what the nation needs. The problem is not just to determine if, indeed, Newt did ask Marriane for an "open marraige." If the request was made, it was, at least, a stab at some kind of transparency in the relationship. The problem is that there are three of them - wives, I mean. That means that at least twice, Gingrich made a major decision in life that, by his own reckoning, was fatally flawed. If he cannot decide, by his own admission, what is good for himself, how is he going to decide what is good for the nation. Forgiveness, if he ever really asked for it, does not, by the way, make the forgiven one more holy, more mature or more intelligent.

It might be interesting, however, to have Newt explain which mistakes he confessed when asking God for forgiveness. There are so many possibilities and one wonders if he really could remember them all. The two affairs while married, for instance, would have definitely required a good amount of not telling the truth and to more than just one person. Which staffers were asked to be complicit by keeping quiet (you know that sin about causing others to sin - it's considered worse than just sinning yourself)? The follow-up question could be what he learned from each sin that was forgiven...the first time it was forgiven and then the second time it was forgiven. Then I wonder what dispensation he received from the Catholic Church to take communion as the church does not recognize divorce. Can polygamists still participate in the Eucharist?

It just is too unseamly for the candidate of the "family values" party to have so many divorces trailing behind him and to complicate the matter, the potential first lady was eight years an adulterer with Newt. Imagine the possible questions to Newt and Callista on the campaign trail about those eight years.

Personally, I don't care about Newt's sex life or his infidelity. The problem with Newt is the problem with his party - they have bad ideas for governing the nation.

Gingrich should have known that his history would be his undoing and it will be, because, when push comes to shove, even if he did receive a small uptick in support from the usual backlash to bad news, the Republicans will not tolerate a candidate who, on their own sacred social issues, is, according to their own standards, one of the most prolific sinners. He can be forgiven. But no one will forget and especially not the true Evangelicals in the heartland. Goodbye Newt.

The lingering question is how a person like Newt Gingrich with so much baggage both personally and politically (from his days in the Congress) can go so far down the road without either the electorate giving him a clear indication or realizing himself that he never really had a chance. The same could be said about the big money that supported him. If you are looking for someone who knows how to invest their own money in a winning cause to take charge of your money for investment, then get the list of Gingrich donors and do not ever contact them.

To add to this puzzling reality is the fact that Gingrich is not the only one who, for reasons that should have been obvious to the candidate themselves as well as the electorate, should never have gotten as far as they did in the primary process. We still remember Herman Cain. It could be that the lesson here for the rest of us is that the air in the high altitudes of arrogance that are bred by the system of power brokering as it it exists in a corporate run state such ours is mighty thin and causes the death of those brain cells that ordinary would prevent such delusions.

In this sense, the Cain exit, the Perry exit and the soon to be Gingrich exit are more reflective of the public's need for Sarah Palin to reappear now and then to serve as comic relief.

The real worry comes when you consider that the remaining candidates for the Republican party are quite aware of who pulls the strings and are ready and able to lead the next coupe on the hopes of ordinary people for some form of economic, social and political justice to prevail within our boundaries.

Getting on the Record

Just for the record I want to make my US presidential election in 2012. Romney will win the Republican nomination. Obama will win the general election. There still are not enough stupid people in the United States to hand the reins of the government back to the Republicans. And, in fact, it is the economy, stupid. The last time the economy was in the hands of a Republican president it went south, big time (not to mention the debt piled up by two wars we did not need to fight). Obama has overseen the process of addressing the problems created by his predecessors and the initial stages of the economy coming back; plus, he managed to get health care passed which no other president has been able to do. Did he perform the way I wanted him too. No! I wanted singl-payer health care and immigration reform that allowd for amnesty, both of which would make this country healthier.

By the way, speaking of stupidity, our local U.S. Congressman was recently quoted as saying that we cannot remove the tax cuts from the rich because it is their money that drives the economy. Really, And, where did they drive it? Right, you got it - exactly in their direction. If they are the drivers then they should be arrested on several violatons of the law and common sense. So, a few days later, this same Congressman was on the floor of the house denouncing how Obama had mismanged the economy. So, which is it...is Obama driving or the rich? You have to wonder sometimes if the politicians think we don't listen or it doesn't matter that what they say has some level of consistency (or lack of demagogery).

But, given the conditions of the economy and the wars when he inherited the office and the Republican House, I would say that he has performed admirably. If he can manage to get the absolutely logical and advisable agreement to remove Bush tax cuts for the rich, we will do even better in this year and the years to come.

Surviving the Republican Primaries

it seems that the incredibly thin slate of candidates for the Republican nomination for U.S. President has been reduced to a competition in which the winner is the one who can survive the cut throat politics within its own party. The larger question is whether the nation can survive the Republican primaries.

To the extent that rhetoric and ideas influence how we feel and how we act, the current primary promises to be a tsunami for the American people, as candidates curry the favor of the tea party enthusiasts and the evangelical right in an attempt to wipe out all remnants of a progressive American committed to the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. These are mean people who dislike government, people who are poor and not their color and who have a vision of America which is not only outdated, but dangerous for the national security. In addition to being mean, they are hypocritical; professing to love small government but not at all adverse (as the Bush years demonstrated) to handing out billions to those who already have millions and spending trillions on wars that either have no meaning or no end.

The rthetoric then is about "American" or "Christian" values which most of the candidates have violated with frequency but that lacks any breadth or depth; completely sidestepping most of the founding principles of the country, even those embedded in the constitution, for a reduced set of rules which only constrict the creative powers of the nationaand its people to confront the challenges of the real world. The rhetoric of American "exceptionalism" is among the most dangerous as it is the standard way that politicians of the right set the foundation for fighting wars which keep the military/industrial complex firmly on their side of the political equation, i.e. we are exceptional and that is why we have to send our sons and daughters to die, even when the end results only impoverish the country and give us a new generation of traumatized young adults.

So, for months now, as the Democrats wait in the wings, we are treated, each evening, to summaries of the latest ideas of how to make sure the rich get richer, the immigrants get deported, the unemployed get dropped from receiving unemployment benefits; the old get reduced medical care and how to turn back every progressive and intelligent reform that has been made by the government in the last 50 years.

Can we survive this onslaught of negativism and jingoism? Probably so, as the spirit of the major of Americans still seems to be resistant to the illnesses visited upon us by the "core" Republican constituents. And, there is reality also: immigrants make economies vibrant; investment in proper care of the old and the poor stimulates the economy; and most folks are tired of losing the husband, wives, sons and daughters to wars that have no meaning and no end. There still are intelligent, compassionate, justice loving and peace seeking people in our nation.

But, I would not discount the effect that this period of uninterrupted barrage of bad ideas and cultural primitivity can have on the American psyche. It would be best for all of us if one or another of the candidates wins Iowa big and then blasts everybody else out of the water by end of January and we can get on to a new level of debate in which the mean ones do not control the content or the tone.

It doesn't really matter which one it is as whichever one survives will come out of it so tainted by his or her own statements trying to suck up to the "true believers" that they will be unable to reposition themselves inside the mainstream of what most healthy people can accept. If I am wrong about this and the "tea party" and the "evangelical right" do represent the mainstream of American political opinion, then, my friends, I repent of believing that the American spirit is still capable of casting out the demons.

G.O.P. - Dream Killers

The newly empowered congressional GOP delgation has wasted no time in establishing its reputation.....as DREAM KILLERS. First there was the defeat, in the Senate of the DREAM BILL that would have granted a path to citizenship for about 2 million immigrant youth who came with their parents to this country without papers and who have demonstrated both educational acumen as well as loyalty to the nation by either entering college or volunterring for military service. So, to tell us who they really are, the GOP, killed their dremas and the American Dream.

I just wonder exactly what all the comments I have heard over the years from Republican-types about Latinos not being interested in education really mean. Here are 2 million who value education and have progressed well and the Republicans step on their dreams. I wonder exactly what all the comments I have heard from Republican-types about the lack of qualified and educated job force are really about when they step on the dreams of about 2 million who are getting qualified and educated. Well, I don't really wonder, because it has been a long standing tradition in the Republican Party to criticize the poor, the downtrodden and the marginated as responsible for all the nation's problems and then, if they show any initiative, to step on their dreams to make sure that, in fact, they do not escape poverty and they always will know their place. It is a very acceptable form of racism within the right-wing world of enthusiasm for legal ethnic cleansing.

To make sure that no one is in doubt about the mark that the GOP wants to make on our national life, the new congress with a GOP majority in the House moves quickly, while the nation burns, not to increase job opportunity or address the deficit, but to kill another dream of the poor: to have health care. So, next week, the House vote to repeal the recent health care reform even though they know it has no chance of prevailing in the Senate and no chance to overcome an Obama veto. I suppose this is what they call the effective use of legislative time that they criticized previous legislature for not having.

Okay, you say, hypocrisy has always been the hallmark of the Republicans - promise whatever you need to in the elections and then just get to work to protect the interest of rich white men. True. You've got me on that one. I guess I just have not harden my heart enough to overcome a kind of innate hope that I think lies within most of us that people can change and that we Americans deserve a Congress that actually serves the national interest and not the narrow interest of the rich white class of people who pay the bill for their election campaigns.

I an going to have to up my daily dose of cynicism in order to keep up with the times.