Trav Trivia

Volume 7, Number 24

September 26, 2011 -- Déjà vu all over again. Seen one, seen ‘em all. It’s TV rerun time. This is where I came in. Haven’t we met before? Same O, Same O. It seems that we have stood and talked like this before, but I can’t remember where or when. What goes around, comes around. It was another Republican presidential wanna-bes debate, coming to you from Orlando, Florida, the home of many fantasies, those not proffered by the Republican Party provided by Disney, and my lips could move along with theirs.

Oh, the people paid to evaluate these things picked winners and losers, Mitt got the better of Perry; Bachmann came out swinging at Perry, the man who has knocked her down into the second tier, but it is still considered a two-man Mitty and Ricky race, and she made quick sort of reasonable parry against her last debate gaffe about the dangers of vaccinations; Santorum was thought to have had a better night, a little livelier though anti-gay; Cain again is “to the nines;” Huntsman as usual tried to portray “sane;” Gingrich seemed to strain to tolerate the rest of the fools and took credit for the budget surplus handed to George Bush in 2,000 that somehow Obama frittered away while Bush was in office; Ron Paul was vintage Ron Paul. Romney and Perry did get into what each had written in their own books that they no longer say today but we have heard it all before. Maybe they were just trying to boost the sale of their books. These are just my impressions of course but I must say in my case the thrill is gone. Lots of other commentary, though.

Oh yes, there was one thing; there was a new cast for this performance but it did not change the dynamics. Gary Johnson, former two time governor of New Mexico who has been a kind of stealth candidate for some time was invited to join the group this time. He is kind of a younger version of Ron Paul politically speaking except he has a sense of humor. In fact at the end when it was his turn to say which of the candidates on the stage would make a good vie resident he chose Paul. While that may sound like an example of his humor that remark was meant to be serious; it was the crack he made that has been repeated everywhere this week, including late night television that earned him quick national recognition. It is a canard of course, and as it turns out a Rushism that he heard Limbaugh say the day before, but took the credit and the instant recognition from stating:

“The next-door neighbor’s two dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than this current administration”

Of course, from my point of view more shovel ready stuff came out on that stage in Orlando than two dogs could make in a year.

“Don’t do that. This man is serving our country and we are to thank him for his service”

Rick Santorum did not actually say that at the time in response to the boos the audience at the debate gave the gay soldier calling from Iraq who asked, “Do you plan to circumvent the progress that has been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military?” It was what he said he would have said had he heard the boos. I am willing to cut him some slack on that point, but not on his rambling response, “we would move forward in conformity with what was happening in the past,” in which he promised to reinstate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which finally was done away with this week. Now you can fire your gun at the enemy even if your pinkie is bent while doing so (that’s a cheap shot on purpose meant to underscore how ridiculous this has been). Where do they these people in the audience? In these debates they have cheered when Ron Paul would let the young man who needed health care die because he didn’t buy an insurance policy, they applauded Rick Perry for executing 234, now 235 prison inmates, and they booed an active duty soldier for being gay. What do we have here, a generation like Madam Defarge?

“Logic and understanding are left behind in the latest presidential debate.”

That is the observation of the New York Times editorial page. Facts take a hit, too, sometimes with consequences, as with the Michele Bachmann last week’s report of the mother who claimed vaccine to cervical cancer made her daughter mentally retarded. It was all well and good that Bachmann said this week that she was just saying what the mother told her, but vaccine rates drop when some prominent person raises a false alarm. Perry, the man who issued the mandate requiring the vaccine, covered his tracks by a touching story of being motivated by a woman who thanked him for wanting to do so. Turns out that motivation was after the fact since the meeting was after he issued the mandate. Details, details.

“Children now in third grade might graduate from high school without ever experiencing a totally Romney-free day”

“Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee for president”, states Gail Collins in the New York Times with a lead in of: “Gloom pervades the land.” No equivocating by Mrs. Collins. “Mitt is going to be in our face for the next 14 months. Conceivably for the next nine years” Collins, who spent her summer in Texas working on a book about Perry, wrote “it was impossible to watch that debate without realizing that Perry is not presidential timber, or even presidential polyurethane.” Well, we’ve already had a man we called the “Teflon President” (Reagan, if you remember) so perhaps it’s time for a polyurethane one.

“Next week, give a Republican a cookie, just to show you understand.”

Collins expressing sympathy for Republicans who seem to have such a difficult time choosing their nominee. She writes they voted for Bush to avoid John McCain, voted for McCain to avoid Mitt Romney, and now, vote for Romney to avoid Rick Perry? Kind of reminds you of some survivor TV program.

“Romney will not win the nomination”

Author James Moore says he can’t, no matter what Gail Collins thinks. And even though he writes: “Mitt Romney is emerging as the grown up in the GOP primary process, which is too bad. He will not win the nomination. He would make the strongest candidate for the Republicans in 2012 but he cannot win the primaries. The primary process does not require sanity and moderation in the GOP race. The candidate must appeal to the Tea Party, evangelicals, fundamentalists, and right wing conservatives who vote on social issues.” Moore flatly says: “A Mormon cannot win Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, the Carolinas, and, consequently, the White House.” How about Huntsman, the one who is trying to portray himself as the “sane” one? Oh, he’s a Mormon, too, and the Republican voters in those states listed treat the primaries like revival meetings and consider the Mormon religion not a religion but a cult. It is unfortunate for them because unless you stripped them down to their mandated religious underwear you can’t tell them from any other dotty Republican politician.

What does that mean to u s? In the ‘30s when Ogdon Nash was contributing little pieces of verse to The New Yorker, one of them went: “Here come the wapiti, hipity hopity.” If Moore is right, “Here come Texas Terror, My God what an error.”

“Perry really did throw up all over himself in the debate, at a time when he needed to raise his game.”

Seems like a different view every minute. This statement from Fox News commentator Brit Hume on a Fox New Sunday panel today. “He did worse, it seems to me, than in previous debates. ... Perry is one-half a step away from almost total collapse as a candidate.” Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard was on the program and had written a piece entitled “Yikes” about Thursday’s debate in which he said: “None of the candidates really seemed up to the moment, either politically or substantively. In the midst of a crisis, we’re getting politics as usual -- and a somewhat subpar version of politics as usual at that.” These are “very weak frontrunners,” Kristol said. And if you remember, it was Kristol who first touted Sarah Palin as presidential timber. If this group is weaker than Palin we are indeed in deep shovel-ready trouble.

It is “the notification you get when you have a waiting instant message in Gchat”

Chris Cillizza in the Washington Post commented on the new “Gchat” noise the sponsors, Google and FOX, chose to warn speakers their time was up. After the debate last week hundreds of viewers weighed in with the complaint that what they were using sounded like a door bell and it shook up their cats and dogs, so they came up with a new noise. Cillizza finds it annoying. If ringing a bell or Gotcha noises are out, what would be a good sound? The raspberries comes to mind, but that would never fly. How about a nice strong dull thud (symbolic), as if they had hit a wall? Or the screeching of brakes? The simplest thing to do would be to turn off their mikes. As far as I’m concerned they could do that even before they began to speak.

For a little more relaxed view of the Republican debate, take a look at how Saturday Night Live saw it:

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/gop-debate-cold- opening/1358180/

“Private equity is a little like sex. When it’s good, it’s very, very good. When it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.

NYT columnist Maureen Dowd quoting a quote quoted by Karen Tumulty in the Washington Post attributed to Howard Anderson of M.I.T., an attribution I just made longer than the quote but we shouldn’t want to pull a Gary Johnson. It came up as Romney tried to portray himself as an average guy who feels the pain of his fellow middle class Americans, all those people with incomes around $200,000 a year. On Wednesday he declared a member of the “great middle class.”At a town hall meeting in Miami: “It's not those at the very low end; it's certainly not those at the very high end. It's for the great middle class -- the 80 to 90 percent of us in this country.” Us? Come now Mitt. Keep it believable. You were doing fine until you hit that “us.”

He knows how to create jobs because he had a business. Bain Capital, a private equity firm that helped him reach his net worth which the Boston Globe estimates at about $200 million. He did a good job, no doubt, but create jobs? Bain Capital “excelled at: buying companies, restructuring and downsizing, and selling them for a profit,” says Anderson. So rather than a “job creator,” the Stormin’ Mormon” as Dowd calls him has been a successful mega “job killer.”

Luring investment from one state to another is not job creation — it’s job shifting.

From the Washington Post Editorial Board on Texas as “the number one state for business relocation for five years in a row.” States competing with states for business relocations through giveaways of taxes, land, and infrastructure like special roads. Imagine how it would be for business if everything was determined at the state and local level as the Republican candidates seem to want: an “expensive patchwork of regulations … insurance, banking and health care — even car manufacturing. The federal government can set one standard for tailpipe output, California another. 50 different standards of purity for air and water, which blows and flows across state lines. It won’t help the environment, either, if businesses can play one state off against another by promising to locate where regulation is most lax.” In my business life I lived in four states. Imagine moving from one to another and each time having to change everything in my personal life … retirement, insurance, health care, everything … to conform to new rules and standards. You would almost need a passport to go from one state to another. As a veteran of WWII, I had a lifetime drivers license from Georgia than I had to hand over to be shredded when I moved to Rhode Island and had to get one from that state. It broke my heart.

“We can either have a hard decade or a bad century.”

That’s the way Thomas Friedman writing in The New York Times sees it, and these debates sort of foretell what may happen. We need “spending cuts, increases in revenues and investments in the sources of our strength”, he writes, and I don’t see it in the offing as the political game is progressing, not from what Friedman calls “freewheeling capitalism with its brutal ups and downs.” Good Lord, I’m just trying to make it through one century, not two. I’ve reached the point in life where I only plant annuals, not perennials.

“Take a weekend, work with us, cool off.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid postponing a Senate vote on a stopgap spending bill needed to keep the government from shutting down again on October 1^st. It is hard to get excited about this prospect anymore. It seems to be the crisis of the month each month. First the House failed to pass a bill the House Leadership wanted, but 48 Republicans broke ranks and joined Democrats to defeat it. House Speaker Boehner probably had another cry over losing control of his troops. They tried again, got a bill passed, sent it to the Senate where Democrats say no way Jose (or John). The kicker is pegging emergency relief for disaster victims to even more tax cuts. FEMA is running out of money, relief to hoards of victims is at stake, not to mention a government shut down on Oct. 1^st. As Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-NJ) said: “This is an absolute disgrace,” playing politics with disaster relief. I wish Reid a lot of luck on Monday.

“…the latest addition to the hundreds of species that are known to engage in same-sex sex.”

A coincidence? The same week Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was abolished scientists announced the discovery of a squid that lives a solitary life in the dark waters of the Pacific Ocean is the latest addition to the hundreds of species that are known to engage in same-sex sex. This species lives alone in the dark with no singles bar to go to, hardly ever runs across another squid like himself but when it does he doesn’t stop to figure out the gender. We need to send Michele Bachmann’s husband down in a diving bell to pray the gay away.

$1 million to anyone who can document a gay or straight sexual relationship with Gov. Rick Perry

In my serious quest to stay abreast of everything in the political field it looks like I may have to subscribe to Hustler. Let me rephrase that. “Abreast,” though seemingly appropriate here, is a little flippant and beside the point. Substitute “keep up with” instead. I may have to make that personal sacrifice on behalf of anyone who reads this weekly account of political activities. I will do it for you so you won’t feel you must.

Why? Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler Magazine and astute observer of the world we live in, is offering $1 million to anyone who can document a gay or straight sexual relationship with Gov. Rick Perry. Now you may think this is just an idle publicity stunt, on the order, say of offering $1 million for nude photos of Nancy Pelosi when there is no reason to believe that such photos exist, but in this case Flynt is following up on rumors that have kicked around the Texas capital for years. Maybe in the political world it goes along with having good hair, like John Edwards. Flynt made the offer in a full page ad in the Austin Chronicle, reaching the most likely market for his offer, and followed up with an ad in the national magazine the Onion.

Gay or straight? The ad did not mention bestiality even though the Governor has animal husbandry in his background. The only resemblance to former Governor Spitzer of New York is he looks like a guy who would also keep his socks on. A Governor Schwarzenegger type of revelation is out of the question since we all know about the vasectomy administered by his father-in-law, a fact that oddly seems to have a prominent place in his resume.

I also found a little odd the way he spoke about abstinence only sex education. As I remember it, he said he knew abstinence worked because he practiced it in his own life. He didn’t indicate when, and if so why did he need that vasectomy? We may be naturally suspicious because so many times we have found that men who beat that super religious evangelical drum like Perry does use it s a cover for indulging in forbidden sexual appetites. But we will leave this to Larry Flynt and his intrepid investigators. I just want to assure you that in the line of duty I will be carefully scrutinizing the pages of Hustler Magazine to be sure we do not miss any of these important developments. You're welcome.

 

 

Volume 7, Number 23

September 19, 2011 -- My dinner companion was just back from a visit to friends and family in Sweden, the country of her birth, where she worked as a journalist for about thirty-five years covering music, art, and movies throughout Europe before marrying an American and moving here thirty years ago. I know little about Sweden, a country with a population slightly over half that of Texas, so it seemed a good opportunity to learn a little about the lives of the downtrodden Swedes; they are downtrodden, aren’t they, since conservatives like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh threaten us against the horror of turning into such a “socialist” country? Oh, those poor, poor people. Prompted by my questions, then in a matter of fact way the lady gave me her view of how the people lived, making no comparisons, drawing no conclusions, leaving that to me. As far as she is concerned she is no longer Swedish, she is an American like the rest of us for better or worse.

As she talked about family and friends I kept trying to put my finger on the differences in their lives under the “socialism” label and ours. They go to work in privately owned businesses, own their own condos and houses, elect representatives to a parliament governed by members of which ever political party won the last election. So far as I can tell they have no financial crises demanding severe austerity. They do not use the Euro avoiding the problems of that currency and their reaction to a financial crises is considered a model to follow.

In actuality Sweden is a constitutional monarchy with an extensive welfare system. Like all other civilized countries they have a universal healthcare system, access to drugs essentially free but with long waits for some services other than emergencies, yet they have about the longest life span in the West and rate right up there in such things as low infant mortality. My companion spoke of vacations which are a month long, and concern for and investment in the development of children, in terms of education, and extraordinary maternity leaves of six months or more for either parent.

Upward mobility? The opportunity to rise about your station in life? Again they rank at the top, well above the U.S. which now is below seven other countries. Can people, through skill or entrepreneurship acquire wealth? Yes, and my companion has a brother that proves it, but there is not a great gap between the super rich and the middle class as in this country where two or three percent of the population own fifty percent of the assets.

When you come right down to it, it sounds like the poor people who are saddled with extensive welfare system are living pretty much like the middle class Americans did between 1950 and 1980, kind of a total middle class country. Do they have our freedom? Well, I doubt if they would be allowed to walk into a bar in Stockholm caring a loaded pistol, but otherwise? It seems to be a pretty good life. Oh, there is one thing. They pay extremely high taxes. So you get what you pay for. Despite those taxes, surveys show that the population of Sweden is contented with the quality of their lives. Not so here in the U.S.A. Here we seem to equate “freedom” with “freedom from taxes” which of course results in freedom from programs designed to reduce the risk of random catastrophes that can befall us in everyday life. Pay zero, receive zero. I don’t advocate Sweden, but to demonize all taxes, even sensible one as evil simply put, is stupid (sorry, but I just don’t have a gentler word in me to express what I think about this).

But in the name of self reliance, conservatives have become “hostile to the kind of society we’ve had for the past three generations — that is, a society that, acting through the government, tries to mitigate some of the ‘common hazards of life’ through such programs as Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicare and Medicaid” writes economist/columnist Paul Krugman. Three generations that showed a little compassion for their fellow Americans. Is that too Swedish for Americans?

“That’s what freedom is all about—taking your own risks.”

Representative and candidate for the Republican presidential ticket Ron Paul in last Monday’s Tea Party debate in answer to a Wolf Blitzer question as to whether you provide care to a 30-year-old young man who has not bought health insurance but suddenly needs a lot of care. The answer being no, an unspoken “let him die,” the Tea Party audience cheered. Cheered just as loud as they did in the previous debate to 234 executions in Texas under Governor Rick Perry’s leadership.

Today, “free to choose” has become “free to die.”

That’s Krugman again, on a role, about the Ron Paul remark and the fact that no other member of the eight in the debate took issue with it.

“Vote for the Man Who Can’t Be Bought for as Little as $5,000!”

NYT columnist Gail Collins suggests that as a bumper sticker for the Rick Perry campaign based on Perry’s indignant response to Michele Bachmann’s charge that he issued an executive order requiring 14-year old girls to have an anti-cervical cancer vaccine worth millions of dollars to Merck pharmaceuticals, client of his ex chief of staff, Mike Toomey, now a lobbyist and contributor to Perry’s political campaign. Perry in a huff said he was offended at the idea he could be bought for $5,000 (what he said was the size of the contribution, but was actually $28,599) which sounded as though it took more money than that for him to be bought. This will be Mrs. Bachmann’s Excalibur sword against Perry for the rest of the campaign. So good it might even give her relief from here reported migraines. Collins also made reference to what she called the Bachmann “rather free-floating relationship with reality.”

It will “devastate a small but thriving sector of the economy”

No, that was not Paul Krugman railing about some of the plans debaters spoke of at the Tea Party gathering, it was testimony at a Congressional hearing considering designating the Burmese python and eight other snake species as “injurious.” These things are getting loose and becoming dangerous in Florida, but importers of exotic snakes need to make a buck. This is a direct parallel to bankers testimony before Congress that being made to spell out loan details clearly in readable rather than “mice” type would cut into their profits. In so many words, then they have to be able to flim-flam the public in order to make a buck. I think we have some more names to add to that list of dangerous snakes. As for the aforementioned Krugman, as a follower and defender of the man, I was pleased to see Stephen Colbert get him to actually laugh in an appearance on the Colbert Report. In his defense it’s hard to laugh and say the sky is falling at the same time.

“What happened after 9/11—and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not—was deeply shameful.”

While we are on Krugman, those words in a column he wrote about 9/11 so angered Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the man who had as much to do as anyone with the subsequent actions sent a Tweet saying he cancelled his subscription to the New York Times. Krugman’s point was “The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue.” Rumsfeld will not wear a scarlet 9/11for his controversial actions as Secretary of Defense which, we should remember, led to his forced resignation.

“I’m actually for gun control—use both hands.”

That’s our man, Rick Perry, at a campaign event in South Carolina. NYT columnist Maureen Dowd sees in the coupling of Perry and Obama the feel of the 1962 movie “Who Shot Liberty Valance,” a “collision between a skinny Eastern egghead lawyer who’s inept in Washington gunfights and a pistol-totin’, lethal-injectin’, square-shouldered cowboy who has no patience for book learnin’.” I can see Jimmy Stewart as Barak Obama, but John Wayne as Rick Perry might be something of stretch, Pilgrim.

“Why do Republicans want to be the Stupid Party?”

The caustic Ms. Dowd follows through on the intellect vs. street smarts subject noting the absence of knowledge that seems to be in favor among Republican supporters. Her column was called Eggheads and Blockheads. Bachmann and Perry are the case in point.

Perry seems to be proud that as he said he graduated from his high school in the top 10 … in a class of 13. Richard Oppel looked into his grades at Texas A&M where he intended to become a veterinarian. In chemistry Perry pulled a D one semester and an F in another (that might win him some sympathy from some of us who have also experienced those courses). He earned more Ds in the principles of economics, Shakespeare, ‘Feeds & Feeding,’ veterinary anatomy “and what appears to be a course called Meats.” More sympathy. When I was at college in the hands of the Navy they found a hole in my schedule and made me take a course in “Food Stuffs,” dealing with such esoterica as how to refrigerate lettuce. Made me long for another semester of calculus.

I suppose Perry’s experience among cow patties conditioned him for Texas politics. Say what you will about the man’s intellect but he has one extraordinary skill: persuading people to give money, lots of money.

“Rick Perry’s plan for Washington: hire David Copperfield to make it disappear.”

I confess. In this case I am quoting myself (who else would do it?) prompted by a couple of things. Perry has said he wants Washington to disappear from our lives; Paul Burka of Texas Monthly states voter anger “is not directed at how to make government work better, it is directed against government, and no one channels that anger better than Rick Perry;” Gail Collins writes how a Perry advocate sees no “Federal government at all, except as a sinister force that can be identified as the villain when anything goes wrong.” The ogre under the bridged, ready to jump out and grab you. Collins adds that Perry, “has contempt for the job he’s running for.”

Sort of take this job and shred it.

The Perry “free-market policies have led to the creation of 23 billion jobs, most of them involve cleaning up the roadkill from his exercise runs.”

Conservative columnist David Brooks in a tongue-in-cheek comment on Rick Perry economics as well as is famed shooting of the coyote he said was threatening his daughter’s dog. That was tongue-in-cheek, wasn’t it Brooks? Never can tell about Brooks.

“Sell crazy someplace else. We’re all stocked up here.”

NYT columnist Thomas Friedman resurrected that line Jack Nicholson delivered in “As Good as it Gets” in writing about global warming deniers like Rick Perry, as well as using the old liar, liar, your pants are on fire line. In the governor’s state wildfires have devastated 3.6 million acres since December 2010—an area about the size of Connecticut. “Texas had the distinction of experiencing the warmest summer on record of any state in America, with an average of 86.8 degrees. Dallas residents sweltered for 40 consecutive days of grueling 100-plus degree temperature.” Warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor and the weather turns really weird, in Texas like its governor.

“bunga bunga” parties, … triple-X opera buffa”

Some of the words columnist Frank Bruni used in the New York Times writing about the rise of moral individualism. He was referring to 74-year-old Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi. As Bruni reports, the man “hasn’t been shy about sating himself,” paying for sex with a minor, regularly assembling “veritable harems of young women for bacchanals with a dress code that could be described as whimsical” like as nurses or nuns to give lap dances (now if it had been Julie Andrews dressed as Mary Poppins it might have been another matter … to each man his own fantasy). Just today in the Daily Beast he is reported to be bragging about sleeping with eight women on one night. He’s rushing tings. He is only in his seventies, not yet an Octogenarian.

Brunni writes of the “U.S. petit guignol version of Italy … coast on the accomplishments of yesteryear … neglect our infrastructure … watch young people struggle … waste precious time while lawmakers behave in ways petty and self-serving. Another kind of bunga bunga.

“Tim Pawlenty endorsing Mitt Romney for president is like Miracle Whip endorsing mayonnaise”

Political observation by Stephen Colbert. He, Jon Stewart, and Al Fanken make a good case that the world would be a better place if run by comedians.

"Listening to Perry try to a put a complicated policy sentence together is like watching a chimp play with a locked suitcase."

Not a comedian this time, or a professional one at least, but GOP strategist Mike Murphy writing on Twitter as Perry gave an answer to a question on Afghanistan. Perry might be creating jobs for people to write gags about him.

"It was the most nervous I had ever been.”

Former President George W. Bush telling HBO the most nerve wracking moment of his presidency. Was it giving a State of the Union address to the nation? Was it hearing of the 9/11 attack and realizing he must respond? Was it ordering the invasion of Iraq? Noting like that. It was throwing out the first pitch in game one of the 2001 World Series. “The adrenaline was coursing through my veins, and the ball felt like a shotput. And Todd Greene, the catcher, looked really small. Sixty feet and six inches seemed like a half-mile.” That other stuff? Just a day at the office I suppose.

“I have a high regard for Vice President Cheney's political skills”

Former President Bill Clinton to Bob Schieffer on CBS “Face the Nation” in response to Cheney’s suggestion that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would make a better candidate in 2012 than Obama. Clinton continued, ‘I think one of those great skills is sowing discord among the opposition. So I think he's right that she's done a heck of a job. But she is a member of this administration, and committed to doing it. And I think he, by saying something nice about her in the way that he did, knew that it might cause a little trouble. I don't want to help him succeed in his political strategy. But I admire that he's still out there hitting the ball.” An answer that says something about Bill Clinton’s political skills.

“Obama's Solyndra scandal reeks of the Chicago Way”

Headline of a John Kass column in he Chicago Tribune who sees Chicago style politics at work. However you see it this could get nasty, plays right into the hands of right wing ranters and will divert attention from the serious problems that need to be solved. And of course wrong is wrong on either side of the political spectrum, how wrong the FBI investigation should tell us. The $535 million loan backed by the government is not peanuts. On the surface a sure winner, Solyndra to create eleven hundred jobs in the field of green energy, but then, bankruptcy. To what extent did political contributions influence the deal? Who ignored warnings that the deal was not sound? Jon Stewart has done his number on this concluding that the right wing media should follow Viagra warnings and if the thrill of reporting this lasts more than four hours at a time they should seek medical attention.

TOP TEN THINGS YOU HAVE NOT HEARD RICK PERRY SAY YET

10. To get a government job in Texas just go to my PAC … Perry Accepts Cash

9. Of course the idea that my ex-employee, friend, and lobbyist would make a fortune had nothing to do with my mandate that every young 14-year old should be treated for pink eye.

8. How could I tell God was on my side in my quest for the Oval Office? When he told me to run he spoke with a Texas accent.

7. In Texas the textbook we use in science classes is the St. James version of the Book of Genesis.

6. We don’t need things like carbon caps and fuel efficiency rules because of misplaced fear of global-warming; we just need bigger air conditioners.

5. If at first you don’t secede, you can always threaten to again.

4. In Texas we have created lots of jobs and some of them pay as much as the minimum wage.

3. Of course I pack heat. You never know when you will run into a vicious coyote or the Federal Reserve Chairman.

2. What’s the big deal? Wasn’t Ponzi just a character on that old TV show “Happy Days?”

1. Yes I am responsible for 234 prisoners being put to death, but isn’t the measure of how good some one does his job, is how he executes?

David Letterman, eat your heart out.  

 

Volume 7, Number 22

September 12, 2011 -- Some days, of course, are milestone days of our lives, marking a turning point, or containing events that change our lives. The memory of where we were and what we were doing at the time, stays with us as long as we live. I suppose there is a generation to which the events of 9-11-2001 is as much of a game changer as 12-7-1941 was for me.

On the day that will live in infamy, when I got back to my military school barracks from seeing movie, I found all of the cadets crowded around radios listening to reports of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Many of them were sons of colonels, generals, and admirals stationed around the Pacific, at Pearl Harbor, in the Philippines, and in one case Japanese occupied China. In that attack on U.S. soil 2,493 Americans were killed, two-thirds of them in the first 15 minutes. And our lives were never the same again. Several of those cadets clustered around the radio that day with me never made it back from the war.

On September 11, 2001 I was walking into a meeting at a radio station and was met at the door by a grim sales manager who informed me that a plane had just crashed into one of the twin towers in Manhattan and I thought good Lord, I’ll bet a couple of hundred people might be killed, with no inkling how or lives were being changed. Once again in an attack on U.S. soil, Americans were being killed, this time 2,740.

In retrospect, when looking at what followed you, or at least I, have to wonder if it had to be that way. Putting it in perspective, about 3,000 deaths of innocent people is abominable. But we lose well over 30,000 people a year in fatal automobile accidents. We wanted to punish the perpetrators, we wanted to prevent it happening again, but what if we had treated it as a police action against international murderous gangsters instead of going to “war,” going after the thugs where we believed them to be but not as “invaders” out for “nation building?” In the name of those here thousand lost on 9/11 would we have lost the additional 7,500 or so combat troops, and the thousands of Iraqi and Afghan lives that have been lost? Or would we have spent the trillions we have spent on the wars we made no provision to pay for which is one factor in our big deficit? It all seems out of perspective.

But here we are, ten years later, a time to honor all whom have been lost. There are credible rumors that a terrorist attach with truck bombs is planned. We can but hope our Homeland Security will be able to continually prevent such things from happening. As for the rest of us, President Obama called for a day of national service to mark the occasion. Many in the right-wing media were up in arms at such a thought. Rush Limbaugh, for example, called it a socialist idea. Of course he did not call it that when George W. Bush called for the same thing during his Presidency.

To some extent in a lesser fashion events of this week promise to have some lasting impact on our lives: the debate between Republicans one of which could very well become our next president and leader, the other the President’s “call to arms” speech on unemployment.

As entertainment, I found the Republican candidates’ debate on Wednesday at the Reagan Library something of a bore. We have heard it all before. Yes, Rick Perry made his debut appearance in these debates but the media has devoted so much time and space to him nothing new was revealed, and he stubbornly stuck to everything he ever said or wrote. I am tempted to bring up the fossil find in South Africa that is believed to be the long sought missing link which made me immediately think of Perry, but it is 2 million years old and Perry doesn’t believe the earth yet had formed back then.

Perry did manage the feat of working Galileo into a political debate although he had Galileo being persecuted by fellow scientists when in fact it was the Catholic Church. He was trying to make a point about evolution as shaky science but it was unintelligible. He is saving Copernican for the next debate.

Jobs came up, of course. Perry to Romney: “Michael Dukakis created jobs three times faster than you did, Mitt.” Romney to Perry: “George Bush and his predecessor created jobs at a faster rate than you did.” Now if the contestants will return to their corners and let the cut men do their work.

Romney made reference to the new plan to create jobs he has just come up with, 150 pages containing 59 ways to create jobs. Economist/columnist Paul Krugman says there are 59 bullet points with nothing behind them. I have yet to see a critique of this plan, although if there is not yet one there will be, and I am not about to go online to read 150 pages attributed to Romney. If anyone was taking this seriously I feel sure we would have heard a lot about it by now. But the frightening thing is Romney has chosen as one of his main economic advisors—and wrote the forward to his published plan—the chief economic advisor of the George W. Bush administration in its early years, Ron Hubbard. This is the man who gave us that $1.7 trillion tax cut goose to inflation. If you liked what that did for us he stands ready to do it to us again.

Jon Stewart on the Daily Show had a little fun with Romney's plan. Click here if you would like to watch it.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-7-2011/indecision-2012---oh-my-god--rick-perry-is-going-to-be-our-next-president

Herman Cain reminded us he has a 9-9-9 plan for the economy: do away with the existing tax code and replace it with a nine percent tax on corporate income, a nine percent tax on personal income, and a nine percent national sales tax. This seems to me to be a perfect candidate for a David Letterman Top Ten.

The all wise and omnipotent pundits seem to agree that Michele Bachmann pulled off an Alice in Wonderland Cheshire Cat performance and faded away, making this essentially a two-way contest, Mitt and Rick.

The others? Ron Paul got in his usual Twilight Zone points in rapid fire fashion. Jon Huntsman shockingly defended science once again in gutsy defiance of the Tea Party. If Rick Santorum said anything of import it went over my head.

The most lasting message to come out of this is Rick Perry sticking to his guns in calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme. That will haunt him for the rest of the campaign and is worrisome to his fellow Republicans who can see losing a lot of votes in trashing the program so dear to the hearts of most Americans, and could be a God send to Democrats in the presidential race. This brought forth that wonderful comment from Al Sharpton he used again on the MSNBC follow up TV show, who said the DNC should be busy right now making bumper stickers to read like this in my tweaked version of it:

IT’S NOT ABOUT OBAMA

IT’S ABOUT YO’ MAMA

(Sharpton may have said "your" but I like "yo" better)

If you would like to hear more from Perry on Social Security, Here’s Colbert’s take:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/396075/september-08-2011/rick-perry-presents

Even those of us who swing the other way politically ought to pay attention to these people because five will get you ten that one of them will be our next president.

A jobs plan with much behind the bullet points was laid on Congress at a joint session Thursday evening. “Pass this bill now” the President said over and over. The plan calls for … a payroll tax cut, a small business tax cut, infrastructure spending, subsidies so states don’t have to lay off cops, firefighters and teachers, and a plan to use unemployment insurance to subsidize temporary work for the unemployed to get them back involved in the labor force. The cost? About $442 billion: $200 billion in new spending, much of it on things we need in any case, like school repair, transportation networks, and avoiding teacher layoffs, and $240 billion in tax cuts. The object? To create 1.5 million to 2 million jobs, and perhaps a boost in the GDP by 2 percentage points. Pass is bill now.

The President was firm, assertive, insistent, and in a way it puts Republicans on the spot. Eugene Robinson put it this way in the Washington Post: “The President will be able to tell voters that he’ll never stop fighting for jobs and prosperity -- and that Republicans will never stop defending tax breaks for ‘millionaires and billionaires.’” So the Republican leadership, who obviously will not agree to much of this plan, treated the speech and its contents gingerly. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said “We are going to work together,” adding, “I think it’s time to build consensus here.” On Friday Cantor and Speaker of the House John Boehner sent a letter to Obama saying “It is our desire to work together to find common ground between your ideas and ours.” The New York Times’ comment was “the letter read like two families joined at a wedding that both would rather not attend.”

Just how hard it would be to get a bill like this passed is evident in the reaction of individual Republicans during the speech as observed by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post. Showing little respect for a president they believe they have on the run, Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) chuckled at being told to pass the bill right away. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) guffawed, Milbank wrote, at the words “It isn’t political grandstanding… it isn’t class warfare.” Eric Cantor (R-VA) and whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) giggled at “We’ve identified over 500 [regulatory] reforms which will save billions of dollars.” Great sense of humor, these guys, while Rome is not burning, still 14 million Americans are out of work. Hah, hah, hah.

In case you watched the football pre-show and missed the president’s speech, but would still like to see it, click on:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/44446278#44446278

Will the plan work? On the progressive side, Paul Krugman says: “If it passed it would probably make a significant dent in unemployment.” But he adds “Leading Republicans are against tax cuts — at least if they benefit working Americans rather than rich people and corporations.”

Writing from the conservative point of view, NYT columnist David Brooks, who does not believe stimulus works, yet writes: “I think the president has earned a second date … His plan may not be enough to jolt prosperity, but it might maintain its current slow growth” because a double-dip depression which he see likely would be “horrifying.” He notes, “Mainstream economists view is that we should combine near-term stimulus with long-range austerity.”

Brooks, who forever has his nose in one book or another, refers to one by Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen M. Reinhart, “This Time Is Different.” Their research indicates recessions last five to six years no matter what, so you “work hard to fix the education system, the tax code, the fiscal mess and the regulatory rules” so when the economy recovers it is ready to surge. So take a deep breath and hold it until 2016.

The President immediately took his American Jobs Plan production on the road to sell it to voters, first to Virginia, home district of opponent Eric Cantor, then to Columbus, Ohio, John Boehner’s turf. Wednesday he makes his pitch in North Carolina. He is taking the ball right up the middle.

In Washington, Cantor and Boehner can make Nice-Nice for show, and why not? There is an outpouring of invective like big fish wildly flopping around on the deck of a fishing boat trashing the plan for them. I just got another one as I write this, “Take This Job Plan and Shove It.” Right back at you, fellow.

So far the reaction on Wall Street shows they do not believe he can sell it. The reaction of some economists and opinion people is if he doesn’t it’s a double dip depression. Soup kitchens here we come.

 

LAIGNAPPE

“Truly bad ideas never die; they are recycled in Republican presidential primary campaigns.”

Joe Conason referring to privatizing Social Security (Eric Cantor, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain. Cain through the privatization policies of Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator. Now there is a role model for you). Privatization would be worth about a trillion dollars in management fees to Wall Street bankers leading Conason to say “kookiness is no vice and sanity is no virtue.” I have nothing to add to that.

 

“If the Republican House Conference was inundated by a couple hundred thousand angry carrier pigeons, there would probably be a real reaction.”

Columnist Gail Collins, back from book leave and swinging away again in the New York Times, had this reaction to the President’s call for action by e-mail, fax, Facebook, tweets or “carrier pigeon.”

 

No letters? No wonder the Postal Service is going bust.”

Columnist Maureen Dowd in the New York Times on the President’s call to action. She also asks “Do we get Energizer Barry or Enervating Barry?” on the President going hardball.

 

"The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy."

President Obama in his big Jobs Speech. Circus? Well, in the mid-term election we responded o the song “Bring in the Clowns.”

 

“The University of Cambridge has reported that high levels of chocolate consumption might help reduce the risk of heart disease.

Gail Collins reported this. Who says there is nothing good in the news anymore.

 

Another billet doux inviting hostile congressional Republicans to please sit around the campfire and sing “Kumbaya” wouldn’t have cut it.”

Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post commenting on why it was important the Obama make an aggressive speech. Cantor and Boehner handing out lobbyist Smores I suppose.

 

Flooding from Virginia to New York is fueled by greenhouse pollution.

That is the report of climate scientists according to The New York Times. Isn’t Rick Perry in New England campaigning? Since he doesn’t believe it, perhaps he is up there somewhere with his finger in a dike.

 

A LITTLE NONSENSE

The Al Sharpton crack about Perry triggered a desire to give some of the other debaters their own personalized couplets.

 

Climate warming? It’s just a hoax

So say sweaty Michele Bachmann folks.

 

Our troubles began, Gingrich has us believe

When Obama took an apple from socialist Eve.

 

Herman Cain’s plan in German sounds fine

Government regulations? Oh, Nein, Nein, Nein.

 

Were you happy with the George Bush reign?

Vote for Romney and experience it again.

 

If we lived in the world of Ron Paul

Without rules life’s just a free for all.

 

Santorum eye’s Wall Street’s trillion dollar prize

If Social Security he can privatize.

 

Jon Huntsnan is the science smarty

Cheers for science, defies Tea Party.

 

While we are at it let’s see if we can come up with a few words or slogans from the Democratic point of view as commentary or apply to the 2012 election.

 

Republi – cans are Republi-can’ts

They can’t fix it … so they nix it.

 

Regulation Repeal:

Another G.O.P.

License to Steal.

 

The G.O.P. is a Koch-y bunch.

 

New jobs were a goose eggs, Democrats say invest

But the G.O.P. will leave it in hopes it hatches in it nest.

 

Don’t accept austerity

From G.O.P. fat cats

Invest in the future

With Democrats.

 

An up or down vote is coming your way that’s

Go down with Republicans, up with Democrats.

 

This is the kind of thing that on TV would carry the admonition, “don’t try this at home, leave it to the professionals.” It is better left to Al Sharpton.

 

 

 

 

Volume 7, Number 21

September 5, 2011 -- “The truth is imperishable, eternal and immortal … We feel we stand with progress. We feel we stand with science. We feel we stand with intelligence.”

No, those words were not spoken on the Republican campaign trail, not spoken in Congress, not spoken in the White House, they were spoken when I was still in a crib. They were spoken at the infamous Scopes Trial in Tennessee, or Monkey Trial as it was popularly known. To refresh your memory John Thomas Scopes was a high school biology teacher who had the temerity to teach evolution in his class, against the law in his state, and was put on trial. The quote is from the defense who were trying to put scientists on the stand as expert witnesses.

The trial and the quote come to mind today when science is under assault, it seems more so than usual, and not only in the case of evolution, although with Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann constantly in the news we hear more of that than usual, but there seems to be a general effort to denigrate science. And if one word jumps out at me from that quote above it is the word “intelligence.” Have we moved no father than this in my lifetime? Some 79 percent of Republican voters in Iowa still reject evolution? The climate change deniers? Those who reject any kind of governmental or economic theory out of hand to go with gut feeling? It looks to me the view these people have of science is they see scientists as Dr. Frankenstein, conducting experiments outside of mainstream thinking, drawing useless conclusions for their own aggrandizement.

If you can stand a little levity in the middle of a grim subject, click on this link to see a clip of Young Frankenstein “Putting on the Ritz,” a Mel Brooks concoction (too bad Brooks doesn’t speak out on politics … no matter where he stands his take would expose the ludicrous).

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCAQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DsZ-aRwEbp5I&ei=zXthTvDIHuKLsgKOvcD9Dw&usg=AFQjCNE39uNl0yHD6eumiKhrTWneYKq2ng 

If only Rick Perry were wearing a top hat and tails while doing his public dance, but no, he’s got to do the boots, the pistol, the swagger, the macho cowboy thing. He might give the illusion of having an intellect if he wore a top hat and tails, because ignorance is bliss in Tea Party town. Who “stands with intelligence?”

The Republican Party is aggressively anti-science. The most blatant attacks come from current Republican front runner Rick Perry who is happy making statements calling evolution “just a theory,” one that has “got some gaps in it.” As for global warming and climate change, he says: “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.” The problem with that is it goes against the growing number, now some 97 percent to 98 percent of researchers in the field whose findings are that man is a big part of the problem.

Economist Paul Krugman writes of the “deepening anti-intellectualism of the political right.” The editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal on economics advises to pay no attention to “fancy theories” that conflict with “common sense.” Well, even “common sense” ought to have some basis in fact. I don’t vote to elect politicians to govern by sticking a forefinger in the mouth to wet it then wave it in the air in order to make decisions.

Aren’t the attacks on the EPA at heart a disdain for the findings of science? “Breathing ozone can trigger a variety of health problems including chest pain, coughing, throat irritation, and congestion,” says the agency’s Web site. “It can worsen bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma. Ground-level ozone also can reduce lung function and inflame the linings of the lungs. Repeated exposure may permanently scar lung tissue.” But Republicans in a locked-arm, high-kick routine dancing across the political stage cry the EPA is killing jobs. That’s really not true, but even so: don’t kill a job, kill a person?

Rick Perry has an actual record as an EPA-basher, having taken the agency to court in an effort to block rules on greenhouse gas emissions (he calls Al Gore “a false prophet of a secular carbon cult.” What do they do, meet every other Thursday evening at a belching smoke stack, don gas masks, make circle, and do a ritual dance to ward off CO2?).

Ron Paul says most environmental questions should be resolved through the courts. Herman Cain and Jon Huntsman take the orthodox position: that any new environmental regulations should be put on hold. In Iowa last month Bachmann proclaimed that if she is elected president, “I guarantee you the EPA will have doors locked and lights turned off, and they will only be about conservation. It will be a new day and a new sheriff in Washington.” Well, at the very least, Michelle, could you institute a program on the order of food stamps that issues credits good for cough drops?

Oh for the good old days in 1970 before that famous environmentalist Richard Nixon created the EPA and we enjoyed the benefits of acid rain, Los Angeles with more than 100 days of smog alert, a Great Lake went devoid of life, and the citizens of Cleveland could bask in the light of the Cuyahoga River so polluted it caught on fire. The job killing EPA ended all of that.

This week the President, apparently bowing to the wisdom of the frivolous opposition, put a hold on the EPA’s plan to return to recommend regulations before the George Bush Administration weakened them. Environmentalists, like the old Native American in a public service TV spot of years go, wept.

While the focus is on Perry at the moment, by no means is anti-science, anti-intellectualism his alone. With only a minor exception or two, Republican candidates, Republican politicians at every level either hold these beliefs or stand mute without protest such positions being a necessity to win over the Republican base where to “know nothing” is a good ting. Take prominent Republican senators like Tom Coburn, an M.D., trained in science, from Oklahoma. He calls anthropogenic climate change “malarkey.” He also once explained why Jesus would be opposed to the public option feature of the Health Reform Bill, but it was a reply to a question at a town hall meeting. Why doesn’t anyone ever ask what Moses would think?

Coburn also said in that meeting that there is no compassion in government, which was clearly demonstrated this week by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Hurricane Irene left about a billion dollars worth of damage to the East Coast with widespread flooding, roads and bridges out, homes and businesses destroyed, power outages, farming produce ruined, particularly in Vermont and upstate New York. FEMA to the rescue in a much better job than Katrina (attributed to having a professional in charge rather than a political appointee) but funding is running out and the States need a lot of help. And Cantor’s response? In a follow up to the comment he made about the earthquake on the order of no one merits assistance if they didn’t insure themselves in advance, he said no money for relief until an equal amount is cut from the federal budget. That’s compassion for you. What would Jesus say?

Columnist Joe Conason reports on how Republican candidate Ron Paul sees things. “Paul said he believes that we cannot afford to assist anyone injured or ruined by natural disasters, and that the nation would be better off without any federal relief efforts (and without environmental protections of any kind, or any regulation of the safety of food, pharmaceuticals, consumer products or transportation). ‘We should be like 1900,’ Paul said, without mentioning how brutish, dangerous and short life tended to be for most Americans back then. To insist that we must revert to a more primitive and predatory way of life may well be Republican dogma these days.”

Conason asks whatever happened to “traditional standards of community and decency?” I’ll tell you, Joe. Cantor, Paul, Bachmann, Perry and the like happened.

You would think Perry has a big bulls eye painted on his chest since he is such a target for amazed ridicule. Or maybe it isn’t ridicule when you just report what the guy wrote or said. Based on some reporting by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post you wonder if his fellow candidates will ask him the hard questions next Wednesday night in his first appearance in the Republican debates.

Tell me, Governor Perry are you still against universities as harmful because students have been taught that corporations are evil, religion is the opiate of the masses, and morality is relative.? Is that what you got out of Texas A&M?

Do you still hold, Sir, that the human rights commissions is “often nothing more than a front for attacking institutions that teach traditional values?” And human rights are not a traditional value?

You’ve written that “the weight of evidence” supports intelligent design. Was it wishful thinking then when you said the other day that it was being taught in Texas schools, when in actual fact it isn’t? Or is it that you just don’t pay any attention to what is being taught since you are cutting thousands of teacher’s jobs in your state?

For his part, Perry will find a way, Milbank believes, to “cast his rival for the nomination, Mitt Romney as a defender of gay scoutmasters.”

But jobs, killing them or creating them, is the hot topic and most pressing problem of the moment as Congress comes back in session on Wednesday, in the face of zero jobs created in August. We had to watch the spectacle of President Obama giving in to House Speaker John Boehner as he moved the speech he wants to give on a plan to create jobs to a joint session of both houses of Congress on Wednesday night, as the members get to work again, to Thursday night. Was John Boehner disrespectful of the Chief Executive in the way he handled it as one side claimed? Or was the Administration arrogant to try to book it on the same night of a Republican debate as the other side contends? In the eyes of most observers the President does not look good on this one. Either way, members of Congress will report for duty Wednesday, Wednesday night the Republican candidates, including Perry making his premier appearance, will debate and Thursday night President Obama will lay out his plan for job creation before a joint session of Congress and the American people. High drama, and all that is at stake is our way of life.

As demonic congressional austerity hawks pick up their scythe to have at the budget I wish they would pause and review a couple of historical events. What happened in Argentina, for example. Author Ian Mount gave an account of it in the New York Times.

The country got in economic trouble and gave in to international pressure to take up extreme cost cutting when they had a stagnant economy. The results? Between 1998 and 2002, Argentina’s economy shrank by almost 20 percent. Over half of its 35 million people went into poverty. But then it bit the bullet. Made a U-turn.

By such measures as government spending to promote local industry, pro-job infrastructure programs, and unemployment benefits the economy has grown by over 6 percent a year for seven of the last eight years, unemployment has been cut to under 8 percent today from over 20 percent in 2002, and the poverty level has fallen by almost half over the last decade.

What does this mean to the people of Argentina? The author says “the streets of Buenos Aires are choked with cars as Argentines are on track to buy some 800,000 new vehicles this year; the wine mecca of Mendoza is full of high-end tasting rooms, hotels and restaurants offering regional haute cuisine; and plasma TVs and BlackBerrys have become household staples among the urban middle class.”

In our history, F.D.R. came into power and instituted stimulus programs that took the economy out of its deep hole and got it going up the recovery ladder until 1937 when, bowing to conservative pressure, F.D.R. backed off the programs and what do you know, the economy took another tumble only to recover with the stimulus of the war effort. It seems that when you try to cut your way out of a hole it only gets deeper.

But what about ideology? As Mount writes, this: “does not turn a country into a kind of Soviet parody … puts money in the pockets of average citizens.” And there’s the rub. Our power intoxicated Tea Partiers do not seem to be thinking about the empty pockets of average citizens, just “small government.”

So what will Thursday bring, and what will be the aftermath of the speech on creating jobs? Will Obama make a strong, forceful pitch? Will Congress take it as put up or shut up? Or will they just take it as another opportunity to trash Obama as usual blaming him for lack of job growth in order to win the next election?

LAGNIAPPE 

New report reveals eating certain potatoes, namely purple ones, can improve your blood pressure with little or no gain in weight. On average, diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number) in a blood pressure reading dropped by a statistically significant 4.3 percent and systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure reading) dropped by 3.5 percent. Well now, fry me to the moon and let me snack on chips in bars. No, frying won’t do since too much heat destroys the good healthy stuff in them. Bake or sauté instead. So it will have to be:

I’ve seldom seen a purple spud

But soon I hope I’ll see one.

To drop the diastolic blood

On diets there should be one.

It is said that the 5.8 earthquake that shook up Washington D.C. did some damage to the Washington monument but my theory is that it was more likely caused by the release of advanced copies of Dick Cheney’s new memoir. The structure was not built to withstand that much oppressive overload. 

Dana Milbank, in the Washington Post wrote “Think of Perry as Bush without the charm.” Okay, we‘ll admit to the Bush charm, but it is like the line from the play “The Man Who Came To Dinner” I treasure when the character Sheridan Whiteside says to the seductive actress character “You have the charm of a sex-starved Cobra.”

Paramedics must have had a very busy time of it rushing to rusticate Karl Rove, Eric Cantor, John Boehner, and other Republican leaders this week after one of their own, former Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) told the Financial Times he’s “disgusted” by the “irresponsible actions” of Republicans during the debt-ceiling debate. “I think the Republican Party is captive to political movements that are very ideological, that are very narrow. I've never seen so much intolerance as I see today in American politics,” he said. Oh, how sharper than a serpent’s tongue is the thankless Republican who does not follow in lock step the party line.

“Is this the Mother-May-I presidency? With John Boehner in the role of paddle-wielding matriarch?” Frank Bruni posed tat question in an essay in The New York Times contrasting Obama, in whom “erudition and eloquence join hands,” and the “Smarts” of Rick Perry, who has the political instincts of a man in a knife fight. Perry flunked advanced organic chemistry in A&M, made a C in animal breeding, a D in “principles of economics” while Obama headed up the Harvard Law Review. But none of that counts in a knife fight. I still go with the Scopes trail words, “We feel we stand with intelligence.”

From polls taken in Iowa and Texas we can see that a vast number of Americans do not subscribe to the common beliefs of modern day science. As we noted before, only 28 percent of Republicans in Iowa believe in evolution; in Texas more than 50 percent of the population believes that Adam and Eve shared a Garden of Eden with a vegetarian T-Rex. And we know that some Texans believe that light from the Moon comes not from a reflection of light from the Sun, but that it has an inner glow all its own like the Bile says. So why do they think the astronauts made that tri to the moon? To change the bulb?

Monday is Labor Day. While you are enjoying the holiday please keep in mind the purpose of it is to honor the American worker, who has job to do that feeds he economy … and in today’s economic environment just as soon as we find that person we will be so thankful on them we will heap much praise.