The Democrats Have a Koch Problem

It's really sad when the Democratic Party and the "regular" Republicans (are there any left?) are being held hostage to the TEA Party, started by Dick Army but hugely funded by the Koch Brothers.  These people in the TEA Party have one loyalty and that is to the ultra conservative ideology spewed and paid for by the Koch Brothers.  These men are billionaires who have made their money the new fashioned way:  By doing nothing but inheriting money from their family.  They have made it their goal in life to take over the world by trying to defund Planned Parenthood, the EPA, FAA, and anything that will help us lead safer healthier lives.  Unlike the rest of us, they will not have to ever wonder whether or not they will be able to be taken care of, because if they can buy such a huge faction of the Republican Party, they certainly can afford to pay for any treatment necessary for their well-being without ever lifting a finger to work. 

However, as a Progressive Democrat, I am very troubled by the codependent behavior the left has fallen into by giving in to the demands of the right.  What's worse, the more they give, the more the right wants.  When will we stop running out of stuff to give away?  What happened to the tax breaks that were supposed to be taken away from Big Oil?  Gone, up in smoke, or some Wall Street hot shot's nose.  Do the fundamentalist, family values party members have any idea how many illegal things are going on at the expense of the American people?  Are they really that brainwashed, or are they collectively that uneducated and ignorant.  I don't care how many degrees you may have (real or otherwise), when  you think as one very small minded brain, your education has been wasted.  This goes for the entire "Beltway", as they say.

I listened to Boehner & McConnell speak today, and good ol'  John could only come up with the use of the words "cul de sac" four times in a span of 3 minutes.  How brilliant does he sound, saying nothing over and over again?  They have their heads shoved so far up each other's asses that they can't hear what the Democrats stand for.  They act like there hasn't been a plan.  The legislative branch of the Federal Government is supposed to do just that:  make laws.  Then the President can decide whether or not to sign or veto what they write.  Also, Boehner keeps repeating as many times as he possibly can, how it's all the President's fault.  Why don't they remember how it is all President Bush's Administration's fault that we have soldiers in Afghanistan who are wondering whether or not they are going to get paid.  George Bush blindly followed his war-profiteering friends right into Iraq.  And for what?  We have killed far more people than the 9/11 attacks.  I agree, they were a horrible, unspeakable tragedy;  but what did the Iraqi  people do to us?  It's disgusting.  Who are the evil doers?  How many American lives and families have been irreparably ruined by going to fight a war that was started under false pretenses and fear Washington permeated into every pore of the fabric of America?  Chew on that, TEA Party, instead of pizza; and get this freaking debt ceiling raised!!

If at first you don't succeed cry, cry, arm twist, then capitulate to the TEA Party

After spending the entire day watching MSNBC and the waiting for the "vote that didn't count" except to waste vaulable time and taxpayer money, I am frustrated beyond belief at how John Boehner, one of the few people to actually have the President's ear and 3rd in line to be the President if something horrible happened (which in my case would be Boehner becoming President)[ he'd probably never stop crying if that were to happen, and not because of the catastrophic event that landed him the job, but for purely selfish reasons] did the equivalent of a reality show on TV.  His lame ass attempt to get this grossly ridiculous bill passed, finally, was like his friends telling him it was okay to ask the girl to the prom (his Republican friends), then when he finally got up the nerve to do so, he was shot down like the fool he is.  (his Democratic "friends").  This entire week has been a joke.  No one is looking good except for the Progressive Democrats.  Boehner basically let himself be trapped by a bunch of uninformed idiots who are so out of touch with reality that some of them actually had to pray on casting a vote for something they knew ahead of time was going nowhere.  So here I am, at 1:00 a.m. left hanging on whether or not I'll receive my Social Security check, as I'm sure are many others out there.  The sad thing is that most of the people in Washington who were sent there to make laws have no idea how damaging this will be to all of us who are not the uber-rich.  Anyone out there agree with me?

If the TEA Party Hates the Government...

If the TEA Party has such an aversion to the Federal Government, would someone please tell me why they even get involved in it in the first place?  Basically, they are trying to eliminate their own jobs...don't we have enough unemployed people in this country as it is?  They, however, would undoubtedly go to work for the Koch Brothers or the Heritage Foundation; so unlike their constituents, their literal asses would be covered and welcomed with open arms into the fold of those that helped dismantle what's left of the Democratic process in this country.  Also, do these people not have to go through any kind of educational or training program to be lawmakers?  There is one person in particular who is running for President, namely Michelle Bachmann, who has no clue what is the actual meaning of the Constitution.  The 14th Amendment, I'm almost certain, is one which most Republicans wish had never been passed in the first place.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, try reading it.  Look at how the newly elected Republican governors are trying to change their states' voting eligibility laws!  This is just as prejudicial as not allowing African Americans to vote before President Johnson signed the Equal Voting Rights Act. (And that still didn't stop interference at the polls.)  Where are the people protesting this horrible suppression of our voices?  I am sick and tired of the right wing extremists wrapping themselves in their conservative Christian beliefs and acting exactly the opposite of what Jesus would have wanted, that it makes me want to hurl.  They have interpreted the Constitution in the same way they have interpreted the Bible, in a way that's advantageous to those who look, act, and believe like them; and they are blinded by making any rational decision on their own.  I just saw that the vote to raise the debt ceiling has been cancelled once again by the Republican Majority's Town Cryer, John Boehner because they can't even strong arm their own party into agreeing on something that has never been an issue before.  Be afraid, people, stand up and shout, write, get involved, call your government officials; please don't sit idly by and contiue letting this insanity destroy our country.

Oh My God

I am so sick and tired of listening to these idiotic statements made by the freshman and other Republican Congress People saying that the American People don't want tax revenues when everything tells anyone who has a brain or common sense that we want the people who are the richest in this country to pay their fair share of taxes.  The ridiculous tax breaks utilized by the big corporations and those on Wall Street are not even fair or available to the average American.  If anyone has seen "Inside Job" or "Too Big To Fail" he or she will see how the abuse of their power has destroyed the economy, all under the sanctions of presidents from Ronald Reagan through George W. Bush.  Now President Obama is trying to govern with what appears to be both hands tied behind his back with his ankles bound by the ideology that there is a certain class of people in this country who are "entitled", and most of us are not included in that class.  Does anyone see what the far right posturing did in Norway last week?  It is, as I've said before, scary.  I have worked for a paycheck for 42 years and am totally dependent upon Social Security and Medicare.  I raised my daughter on my own since she was 2 years old and paid $5,000/year for child care in order to work and provide for us.  I could only claim $480 of that on my income taxes.  I did not have a lobbyist or some secretive accounting practices that allowed me to write these expenses off under the guise of legal tax loopholes.  I sure wish I could have used that $5,000 over the 10 years she was in day care to invest, put in a 401k, etc.; however, with the crash of the economy in 2008, all of that probably would have been lost, and I'd still be in the same situation.  I got sick by no fault of my own.  I worked as long as I realistically could in order to continue contributing to the economy and pay my share of Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes so I would have access to them if I found myself in need of these benefits as I am now.  We need the Republicans to take a walk in the shoes of those of us who are paying their salaries and health insurance benefits, but I'm not sure they have the intelligence to understand it anyway.  And I am tired of them saying that since they won in November, they are all and powerful, when their campaigns were based completely on lies.  Just ask the people of Wisconsin, Ohio, and the FAA who are all suffering from buyers' remorse.

Yikes!

I am watching C-SPAN and the ridiculous voting going on in the House of Representatives.  They just held a vote to cut over $619,000 of the $1.5 million for the Congressional Ethics Committee.  Great, exactly what we need, less oversight in Congress.  Fortunately it didn't pass.  Then John Boehner had a press conference with his shadow Eric Cantor and several other members of the Republican caucus bragging how they have done their job.  What are they talking about?  They have passed a bill that would destroy our education system and social safety net that are of huge importance to middle class America.  I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 2007, filed for my Social Security benefits in 2008, but had to wait until this last June to be eligible for Medicare, even though I have a disease that is, at this time, incurable.   I can assure you that the Wall Street executives, hedge fund mangers, and lobbyists from every corner of the country will never have to worry about their ability to have access to healthcare, in fact several generations of their families will not have this problem either.  John Boehner can cry all he wants about how he came from nothing to be Speaker of the House, but the days of "pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps" no longer exist for most of middle America.  Access to a decent education doesn't seem to be a problem for them either.  Who elected the Wall Street execs and lobbyists who have such a grip on Washington?  Not the American people; yet they all seem to be in charge, along with the huge corporations who keep profiting from sending jobs out of the country or using prison inmates to answer the phones for airline companies to take your reservation.   Still, we are stuck at their mercy.  How did this happen?  There is a vote going on right now to pass an ammendment barring funds for polystyrene containers in House cafeterias.  Oh my God, this is the important work being done by our elected officials while the American people are stuck in their quagmire of indecision over raising the debt ceiling.  They also had a vote on light bulbs.  Wow, these are matters of National importance?  This is what our tax dollars are being spent on?  Why can't the American people decide how our money is spent on things that are of vital interest to those of us watching this ridiculous charade. Is this what we went to the polls for?  The Republican Party is willing to destroy anything that may be helpful to middle America.   Why don't the people who have the weight have to help carry the burdens?  Instead, they would rather keep lining their pockets while our children who they are so concerned about, so they say, are suffering by having education
 drastically cut state by state.  There is an overwhelming imbalance in who gets what is this country these days, and most of us and our children will never have an opportunity to get out of this current state of affairs. 

What's Going On?

I have been watching the REAL news talk shows and am wondering what Grover Norquist's power is over, in particular, the TEA Party.  He stated while at Harvard that his goal is to make sure no Democrat can ever rule this country.  Why don't we just elect a king?  This is imperialism at its worst.  I wonder what would happen if a Republican who signed his "No Tax Increase" pledge decided to break the pledge.  Is he really that powerful?  And if so, who made him this way?  Has he threatened them with death?  Does he have an FBI list that would expose the people on the right?  It just proves that the Republican Party cannot think for itself.  It's easier to be told what to do than to have to decide as an adult a practical solution to serious problems facing this country.  That way they can place the blame on someone else and not takee responsibility for anything.  "Grover made me do it" is no excuse.  Why is his pledge so binding?  It is constipating the progress of the U.S. government to move forward with anything.  The explanation the Republicans give is that "this is what the American people voted for in November"; I disagree.  The Republicans ran on jobs, jobs, jobs and cutting spending, then took office and have spent time trying to send us back to the 1950's.  They are so Pro Life, but only BEFORE a baby is born.  What happens to that child after his birth seems to be of no concern to these so-called "Values" people.  Are they willing to help them if they are sick, poor, hungry or uneducated?  It appears the answer to that is no.  We clear thinking people should be concerned about how the voting laws are slowly changing to make it difficult (or nearly impossible) for anyone who  is not following the Republican mantra to register to vote.  This is definitely election tampering and discrimination.  The U.S. Constitution says each person has one vote.  If they are so glued to the Constitution, why doesn't it matter in this case?  The hypocrisy is, and should be, frightening.