Trav Trivia

Volume 8, Number 16

July 30, 2012 -- And so began the excellent adventures of “Mitt the Twit” in far off London town where the world gathered to engage in the Summer Olympics. It is the first step of our goodwill ambassador’s overseas tour which will take him from England to Israel to Poland.

His arrival in London certainly got the attention of his British hosts. “Mitt the Twit” is the label the Daily Sun has given him, followed by “Wannabe President in Games insult -- but Cam insists: We'll show you.”

The Times, “ ‘Nowhere man' Romney loses his way with gaffe about the Games.”

The Guardian, “Romney's diplomatic gaffe: Mitt falls at the first hurdle.”

The Daily Telegraph, “Hardly a ringing endorsement from the visiting presidential hopeful,” plus editorial cartoon of a grinning, cleft-chinned Mitt gluing a big "Romney for President" bumper sticker over the logo of the London Games.

Daily Mail, “Who invited party-pooper Romney?” with sidebar, “The gaffes of muddled Mitt.”

What turned out to be the first of several gaffes occurred when NBC’s Brian Williams asked his opinion of the games, which the Brits have been working on for 15 years and he replied: “The stories about the private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials – that obviously is not something which is encouraging,” criticism of the way it was organized from a man who had himself been in charge of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday zinged him with “We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world,” the PM said, pointedly. “Of course it's easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere.”

And then Romney made some comment about “looking out of the backside of 10 Downing Street” which also was widely reported as a gaffe since use of the term “backside” in England is reserved to refer to the “pelvic floor” of the human anatomy. Next he revealed a secret to widespread consternation when he said publicly he had just met the head of the MI6 or the British Secret Service. Bad form. It seems the British consider the fact that they even have a secret service a secret no one ever talks about, even though of course everyone knows they really do have one. You are just never to admit it.

All of this follows a statement coming out of his campaign earlier this year which referred to the “Shared Anglo-Saxon Heritage” of the two countries giving the perception of the U.S. as a nation of 309 million Anglo-Saxons.

The British view of Romney at this point was best summed up by London mayor, Boris Johnson to a large crowd in Hyde Park, “There are some people who are coming from around the world who don't yet know about all the preparations we've done to get London ready in the last seven years. I hear there's a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know whether we're ready. Are we ready?”

As it turns out Mitt is getting beaten up over this in his own country on a pretty much bipartisan basis. Courtesy of Maureen Dowd in the New York Times, here is a sampling: “Conservatives on Fox News were dumbfounded. ‘You have to shake your head,’ Karl Rove said. Charles Krauthammer pronounced the faux pas ‘unbelievable, it’s beyond human understanding, it’s incomprehensible. I’m out of adjectives.’ ”

He does seem to have a twisted tongue when it comes to foreign matters despite the years he spent in France ducking the Vietnam War. He keeps referring to Russia as the Soviet Union which it hasn’t been in many years, although that might give Putin an ego boost. When he gets to Israel somebody please keep him from ordering bacon and eggs, and when he gets to Poland I hope he is careful in his remarks lest they think he is mocking them with some version of a dumb Pollack joke. Jay Leno commented that on this trip Romney, as a job creator, would visit the jobs he created overseas by outsourcing.

On the one hand it is hard not to feel sorry for the man, but on the other hand you don’t want a man seen to be a representative of your country to be a blunder mouth.

The High Cost of Keeping an Inam-o-trata

 I should apologize for trying to make the worst pun in history out of “Inamorata,” in reference to Refalca, the Ann Romney horse competing in dressage at the London Olympics. Not a kept woman, but a kept mare. Ann Romney only owns half of the horse, sharing her with her trainer and rider. The value of these rare and talented animals is given as from $100,000 to add another 0 to make a million, but that’s only part of the story.

Like any other contestant at the games the 15-year-old mare was flown to London by jet, her in-flight meal was said to be watermelon. Apparently the animal eats well; the Romney’s wrote off $77,731 as a loss on their 2010 tax returns for their share of Rafalca’s care, that being only the half of it.

Certainly the Romneys have the money and to keep the sport alive it takes people with money and a lot of it. But Mitt is skittish about this in interviews since he is running the risk of being tagged with the John Kerry person of being so elite, in Kerry’s case because he liked to wind surf. In interviews like the one with Brian Williams in which he got in so much trouble for saying the British did a poor job on organization, he claims to not know anything about the sport, it’s all Ann’s plaything and he won’t be present when the horse competes on August 3^rd. It’s just so hard trying to be a “Man of the People.” We can forgive him his wealth, but it is hard to forgive the act. If Obama can eat arugula, you ought to be able to keep your little pony.

What Romney Could Observe Close At Hand

While he is in Europe one could hope Romney will observe how grim austerity programs are working out. But he is only visiting two other countries after he leaves England—Poland and Israel—and the purpose of the latter is to raise money and boost his standing with the Jewish vote in the U.S. Still, it would be nice to see the results of it since the Paul Ryan budget passed by the House and endorsed by him is the mirror image of the European approach. Will he see the dire shape England is now in? Is he paying any attention to a growing concern back home, finally of the prospect of such austerity?

The conclusion to be drawn from a survey of forty economists just out is, have Republicans taken leave of economic reality? What does he think of those “Nuns on the Bus” who toured on behalf of social welfare and expressing alarm about the impact that cuts in federal spending could have on struggling Americans?

More and more you see headlines about the “spectacular failure of austerity policies in Europe” or “Euro's Medicine May Be Making Greece's Symptoms Worse” followed by how the austerity targets that were set for Greece were unrealistic from the beginning and complying to them has further harmed the economy.

Perhaps if Paul Krugman, the economist most loathed by the conservative right, wasn’t being proved so correct they might see the way to promote education and infrastructure as investments in America’s future, without which, as Krugman sees it “we’ll eventually pay a large and completely gratuitous price for the way they’re being savaged.” While in Europe, Mitt, get off your horse and look around and see what’s happening.

Reading and Right-ing

The purveyors of strident right-wing ideology often like to take us back to the good old days when there was less government in our lives so of course our lives were so much better. One of those e-mails that came to me a day or two ago was the last column Charley Reese wrote for the Orlando Sentinel before retiring. It consisted of a long, long list of all of the taxes we pay along with this statement:

“Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.”

Oh, the joy of living 100 years ago without that tax burden and government intervention. So how were things a century ago, in 1912?

• The average life expectancy for men was 47 years.
• The average U.S. wage was 22 cents per hour. Of course you could buy a dozen eggs for 14¢ so you only had to work about 45 minutes to buy them. Today if eggs are $3 a dozen someone earning $11 and hour could make enough to pay for them in about 16 minutes.
• Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write and only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school. There was no revenue to cover the cost of providing a decent education.
• Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores with no pesky regulations covering them.
• Ninety percent of all doctors had no college education. There were no government requirements otherwise.
• Mom stayed home with the kids alright because most women gave birth 11 or 12 times and six to eight of the infants lived, so women were like brood hens with no life of their own, no vote, little education until planned parenthood came to their rescue.
• There was no safety net since there were no tax revenue to pay for it , so those who did reach retirement age were in the care of their children, not really a big problem at a time when on average people did not live past 47.

Let’s hear it then for 1912, when the population was 95,335,000 and the income tax had been declared unconstitutional, a halcyon time conservatives would take us back to free of taxes and government intervention (and free of any benefits to protect or enhance the quality of life of Americans in general).

As opposed to this message from the right, most of the e-mails are caustic character assignations of President Obama. David Maraniss, an associate editor of the Washington Post and author, has given thought to why. As he sees it:

“What drives them? Some of it can be attributed to the give-and-take of today’s harsh ideological divide. Some of it can be explained by the way misinformation spreads virally to millions of like-minded people, reinforcing preconceptions. And some of it, I believe, arises out of fears of demographic changes in this country, and out of racism.”

My conspiracy theory is that there is a conspiracy to use conspiracy theories to change the course of the country, but the conspirators or so conspiratorial that they are too suspicious of each other to succeed at anything but creating mass paranoia.

Are You a Red or a Blue Shopper?

Dana Milbank in the Washington Post writes: “If you boycott all the targeted companies, you’d be wearing no clothing, eating compost and living in a tent made of hemp you planted yourself.” Boycotts are pretty big these days and indicate your political bent. Progressive? You won’t patronize Wal-Mart, Target, Bayer, Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries, Peabody Energy and United Parcel Service, Coors or Domino’s. Conservatives eschew AOL, Planet Hollywood, Nike, Southwest Airlines, General Mills, JCPenney, Whole Foods, Starbucks and Ben & Jerry’s. It’s so hard to keep up. There ought to be a red or blue color coding system.

Now we will have to check our list to decide where we want to eat chicken. I believe I was among the first people to eat a Chick-fil-A sandwich. The Macys flagship store I was with in Atlanta in the mid-sixties had several places to eat, including a fast food location in the basement. As I remember it someone came up with a way to bone a chicken (chickens were very big in Georgia at the time, big trucks loaded with wire cages of live birds stacked high roamed the streets with feathers flying) to turn it into one thick piece of meat and put together a fast-food operation; we leased them the basement spot for what may have been their first location. It was just a chicken counter and I do not remember it being holier than thou.

Now a chain, it seems that in addition to the boned bird they serve up what one-time presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee calls “the Godly values.” The chicken purveyor’s CEO, Dan Cathy whose shops are closed on Sunday, in an interview spoke out against gay people which caught more national attention than speaking against divorced people, which he also did. This brought on cries for a boycott and Mike Huckabee to the CEO’s defense, calling for everyone to go to Chick-fil-A on Wednesday, August 1^st and eat a chicken. Eat a chicken for Jesus? If I remember correctly, Huckabee is the guy who says while in college he would catch squirrels and cook them in a popcorn popper in his dorm room. Think of what he could do with poultry.

New York City Mike Bloomberg is against a boycott. I suppose the boycott is not Kosher, but the chicken is O.K.

Is there anyone left in the closet? Sally Ride, female astronaut and first woman in space died this week and her obituary revealed she was gay, in a committed relationship with a partner for 27 years. Her achievements, which were many, and that of others like, say, Annise Parker who is now mayor of Houston belie the claims of the likes of Michelle Bachmann, who believes “gay men and lesbians are dysfunctional products of abuse and agents of sexual anarchy.”

Frank Bruni in the New York Times wrote about the status of the conflict between the religious right and the religious left. He notes that gay marriage has been embraced in this country by both the Reform and Conservative branches of Judaism, and the Episcopal Church in the United States has developed a special blessing for same sex couples.

Gay people are seeing a lot of progress in their quest for civil rights equality, but we shall wait to see what stand the Republican Party might take at their convention. Romney has been a switch hitter so to speak being both for and against gay marriage at one time or another. If it gets into their platform it will be a prickly plank.

Where Did You Get That Hat?

On a trip to Victoria Island some years ago I attended a performance of what was billed as an authentic English traditional musical hall show complete with a veteran cast imported from London and a collection of hoary old songs and skits. The one number I remember, for some reason, was called “Where did you get that hat?” in which the performer came on stage with a felt hat with a huge brim almost umbrella size that he could bend and fold in a variety of amusing shapes as he sang and cavorted about the stage. Someday we may all need hats with big brims like that to put on every time we step outside, which is what the children in a remote, sparsely populated part of Australia do now. Why? In that small area there is a hole in the ozone layer and they humans need protection to shield them from damaging ultraviolet rays that slip through the crack.

The ozone helps shield people, animals, and crops from damaging ultraviolet. Scientists are now reporting the layer has dangerously thinned out over much of the industrialized earth, chocked by gases we have let loose in the atmosphere like the refrigerants that are now banned. We can put on a hat, but our cauliflower can’t.

Going hand in hand with that jolly news is reports on what is the nation’s most widespread drought in 60 years, stretching across 29 states and threatening farmers, their crops and livestock. It is happening on what is not only our breadbasket, but is called the breadbasket of the world. It isn’t only crops. We are running out of water. Our energy system depends on water to cool power plants and if the drought holds long enough we will experience outages. Low water levels behind damns are affecting the production of energy.

Oil and gas industries use tens of millions of gallons a day. It takes water to remove natural gas from shale. Hydraulic fracturing requires more water for the energy sector than for agriculture.

Now about storms. They threaten the ozone layer over U.S. by sending water vapor miles into the stratosphere which is normally drier than a desert carrying that ozone-destroying reactions with chemicals that remain in the atmosphere from CFCs, refrigerant gases that are now banned.

In the North, permafrost is melting so the Alaskan highway is beginning to sink into the muck. Reporting this I feel like Al Gore on a roll here. But enough. Have a nice day. And be sure to wear a hat.

Random one-liners from here and there

Mitt Romney on NBC News, rejecting new gun control laws, said the answer to horrific acts of violence may be “changing the heart of the American people” (who and how, Mr. Romney?).

Romney ads feature small businesses built with government subsidies and contracts (but as they say in the ads they did it all alone).

Gun sales are up in Colorado (duh).

They seem to regard them as religious icons (the mania some people have for carrying fire arms).

The Dow Jones industrial average surpassed 13,000 on Friday (wonderful, but why, do you really mean it or are you just teasing me?)

It’s the Pits says Pitts

Outrage over the content of the Texas Republican Platform continues. Pulitzer Prize winner Leonard Pitts Jr. in the Miami Herald can’t believe it, particularly the part about education, teaching children how to think. Here is the most offensive part of the document:

“We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”

Pitts writes: “Never mind children to think, to weigh conflicting paradigms, analyze competing arguments, to reason, ruminate, question and reach a thoughtful conclusion. Never mind that this promises the loss of our ability to compete in an ever more complex and technology-driven world.”

What does this say about the Republican party? It has turned into “A toxic stew of faith-based politics, biased ‘news,’ and echo chamber punditry has reduced it to an anti-science, anti-reason, anti-intellect caricature of itself.”

As we learned last week that mind control segment is only one plank in the outrageous Texas GOP platform. The Republican National Convention is coming up in a few weeks at which a platform will be produced that will set the tone for the November election. Taking the Texas version as inspiration here are some suggestions the delegates might find helpful.

Twelve Proposed Planks For The G.O.P. Party Platform

1. Education

Every young person has a right to the best education they can afford. We believe there is too much public money spent on education which properly belongs in the hands of parents and we urge that “critical thinking” which fosters challenges to authority be taught to be replaced by “behaviorism.”

2. Healthcare

Every citizen is entitled to the best health care he or she can afford. Citizens with no insurance in an emergency will simply go to volunteer charity clinics which will greatly reduce the percent to GDP, now above 18%, to less than the single percentage figures of other industrialized countries. While we will continue to lag well behind other countries in such things as longevity, infant mortality and the like those are aggregate figures encompassing the total population. All who can afford insurance will best the international statistics.

3. Taxes

We believe taxes should be eliminated. Public service should be voluntary as it once was in the early days of our Republic when we had volunteer fire departments, local posses and militia, and neighborhood watch programs should be expanded. What little revenue needed to operate a volunteer government could come from large feeds collected from every citizen for a national ID card.

4. Foreign policy

The United States should build on the position it at the end of World War II as the most dominate nation on earth so we can direct and guide other countries in their internal affairs. The United Nations should be abolished as our one-time envoy, John Bolton, favored.

5. Military

We must maintain the greatest military might in the world. With no tax revenue it will need to be paid for by the countries we invade and occupy, which was a mistake we made in the occupation of Iraq. Some of our most aggressive supporters of the invasion of Iraq assured us it would do so but were not given the opportunity to profit from that countries vast oil reserves.

6. Regulation

The Free Market should be free, free of all regulations which impeded the acquirement of wealth to stockholders. We believe God created the earth for mankind’s own use as he sees fit. It is the responsibility of each citizen to read and understand all documents to which they are a party Such things as ingredients in a products content is a trade secret of its maker. The health of a business enterprise over rides the health of a citizen.

7. Global warming

We believe the outcries of fear of some kind of global warming is a hoax and does not deserve our attention. As James Inhofe, our Senator from Oklahoma says, “Only God Can Change the Global Climate.”

8. Marriage

We believe the term “marriage” is sacrosanct and may be used only in the context of the union of one man and one woman. To ensure the sanctity of marriage is preserved there must be a test of X and Y chromosomes before a marriage license is issued.

9. Infrastructure

Such things as interstate highways, damn like Hoover which was paid for by a loan from the U.S. Treasury Department are unconstitutional. As it was earlier in our history landowners should be responsible for upkeep of roads abutting their property, other than major which should be privatized as toll roads.

10. Social programs

It is not the role of government to provide social services to the needy such as food stamps, unemployment benefits, early childhood nutritional programs, which should be the province of faith-based charity organizations.

11. Strong military

To remain the world’s dominate nation we must maintain we must maintain a military force many times larger than any other country. With a stream of revenue from taxes, this shall be paid for by the countries we occupy, as was originally contemplated in our invasion of Iraq considering their vast oil reserves though never perused. We believe this is a small price for a nation to pay for the blessing of having our democratic system force-fed to them for their own good.

12. Constitutional amendment

We intend to pass a constitutional amendment that eliminates all 27 of the current amendments and replace them with the King James version of the Christian Bible.

 

 

 

Volume 8, Number 15

July 23, 2012 -- Harkin back (at my age I harkin back a lot) to the 1960s, and “What’s It All About, Alfie?” That theme song of the movie has everything to do with the present, the election in November, and how we want to live our lives.

 

What's it all about, Alfie?

 Is it just for the moment we live?

 What's it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?

 Are we meant to take more than we give.

 An unfettered free market system?

 

Or are we meant to be kind?

 And if only fools are kind, Alfie,

 Then I guess it's wise to be cruel.

 

Cut government services to the needy?

 

And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie,

 what will you lend on an old golden rule?

 

Tax cuts for the wealthiest among us?

 

As sure as I believe there's a heaven above, Alfie,

 I know there's something much more,

 Something even non-believers can believe in.

 I believe in love, Alfie.

 

Love of your fellow man?

 

Without true love we just exist, Alfie.

 Until you find the love you've missed you're nothing, Alfie.

When you walk let your heart lead the way.

And you'll find love any day, Alfie, Alfie.

 

Well, it didn’t do much for the Michael Caine character in the movie, so what are its chances in the fall?

Thoughtful commentators across the spectrum cut through the hype, the hand wringing, the SuperPAC character assignation ads, the over ripe rhetoric, the personal quirks of the candidates to point out that as far as this presidential election is concerned, what it’s all about as columnist David Brooks from the right says is the free market system, American Capitalism. And how that works determines how we live, and work, and prosper or not at our various income levels.

Fareed Zakaria, opinion writer for the Washington Post sums it up as follows:

Romney: America needs tax and regulatory relief. The country is overburdened by government mandates, taxes and rules that make it difficult for businesses to function, grow and prosper. Cut taxes for all, reduce regulations and streamline government. Unleash America’s entrepreneurial energy.

Obama: Economy needs investment — in infrastructure, education, training, basic sciences, and technologies of the future. Those investments, in the president’s telling, have been the key drivers of American growth and have enabled people to build businesses, create jobs and invent.

Zakaria writes: “America is worse off than it was 30 years ago — in infrastructure, education and research. The country spends much less on infrastructure as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP).”

“The United States spends only 2.4 percent of GDP on infrastructure, the Congressional Budget Office noted in 2010. Europe spends 5 percent; China, 9 percent.”

In the “1970s, America led the world in the number of college graduates; as of 2009, we were 14^th.” On Research and Development: U.S. “5.6%, South Korea was 9.6 percent; in Singapore, 14.5 percent; in China, 21.9 percent.” This is a “decline in investment in human and physical capital.”

Will an unfettered Free Market reverse our decline, or will it take government investment? From my point of view this is a “No Bain-er,” oops a “No-Brainer.”

A Couple of Possible Reasons Romney Won’t Release Tax Returns

So far despite being hounded by people of both parties Romney still will not release those returns, just leading to more speculation of why? What’s in them? With tongue in cheek, NYT columnist David Brooks says he “donated a million dollars to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Not because he partook. He just put in the wrong routing number when he was trying to tithe late one night.”

Romney may not now like mandates, but the Mormon church has one he must live up to, tithing. Every Mormon must tithe or he is out of the club. My theory is that if he exposes those tax returns they will show he did not tithe on all of that income he stashed in the Caymans which would cause a Mormon version of “hell to pay” for the righteous Mr. Romney.

And why don’t the Romney people quite trying to come off as just regular folks? They are not, they are so bad at it, and who cares? Except they keep branding Obama with the Sarah Palin tag “he is not like you and me.” But you aren’t either, Mitt.

They sent Ann Romney off to make the rounds defending their refusal to show their returns, and she said in a TV appearance “we’ve given all you people asked for.” You people? That separates the wheat from the chaff, the we from you. Who do you think I am, a nail lady?

Shoot ‘Em Up America

“We live in shoot-’em-up America now” writes The Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky. It does seem so. “Stand Your Ground” laws encourage the Zimmermans of the country to blow away unarmed kids because they look dangerous. With due regularity some crazed gunman like the most recent one in Colorado opens fire and kills a dozen or more innocent people. And there is hand wringing, outcry, petitions signed and nothing happens.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg sounded off after this latest one. “Romney passed a ban on assault weapons back when he was governor and now he says he’s against it. Of course, he’s done that on almost everything. Obama, when he was elected, said I want to reinstate the ban on assault weapons and he’s never done it.”

As NYT columnist Gail Collins put it “a rich, fierce, loopy lobby on one side, and, on the other, people with petitions, slogging along.” It seems to me the national attitude on this is beyond the realm of reason. Like almost all Americans I do not want to forbid the ownership of all fire arms. I won some but I don’ carry one around with me, they are kept safely under lock and key. But assault weapons? Weapons that as Collins says are “capable of firing 100 bullets without reloading.” And what is wrong with doing better background checks, and registration? Of course, even so there will still be the crazed killer now and then, but must we make it so easy for them?

You hear it said we won’t be safe until everyone carries a gun. I grew up in the John Dillinger era when only gangsters had machine guns. Would I have been safer had I had a machine gun too? What would it have been like in that movie theatre in Colorado if everyone in there was carrying an assault weapon and fired back under attack? I would rather it were like that old Mae West quote which she actually never said, “no, I’m just glad to see you.”

A News Flash From The London Olympics

“A record 150,000 condoms are to be handed out to athletes for the London Games” (games indeed). That works out to be 15 each. How many days are the athletes there? There should be time for them to compete on the field and in the water, too. Someone must have done some research to come up with that number. It’s like the 88-year old friend of mine who asked his doctor for a prescription for Viagra. No problem, the doctor said. And wrote him one for a month’s supply …two!

Too bad that the horse Ann Romney took to compete in dressage is a mare and won’t need them.

“Let me tell you about the very rich.”

That could have been the headline of a column written by Joe Conason but actually is another quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald. Conason was fleshing out the story of the billionaires $75,000 lunch for two given last week in the Hamptons to benefit the Romney campaign. We shouldn’t bash the rich just for being rich, but it should not be unreasonable to take a look at how they got that way.

Ronald O. Perelman, at one time or another considered the fifth wealthiest man in the U.S., threw that little party and according to Conason’s account has a long, long history of throwing big money at the campaigns of politicians of both parties. He is the poster boy for “crony capitalism,” a term the Romney campaign has been trying to pin on the Obama Administration based on no facts I have yet to see. Perelman “thrived in a financial sector that has always relied heavily on tax advantages, pension bailouts, state investments, and a panoply of other benefits conferred by elected officials expecting campaign contributions.” Remember the savings and loan scandal, the “speculation and thievery that followed deregulation?” He and his associates are said to have made an ungodly amount of money off of the cleanup of that mess due to legislative cronyism. This election all his big money seems to be down on Romney. One wonders what plum he has his eye on, or whether he is just betting on the come? When it comes to cronies, this guy makes Rick Perry look like a penny anti player.

The funny thing is that in private business such networking between provider and customer is a good thing, relationships building good businesses. But in the public sector add those campaign money contributions and call it what you will, it’s bribery.

His Not What Cha Do Hits The Way Ats Cha Do It

What’s wrong with a national ID?, asks my conservative friends. Well, the lyric above from that old song is the answer. It is why it is being done (voter suppression) and the way it is being done. Leonard Pitts tells us about this in the Miami Herald.

No matter what Republicans say there is no voter fraud, so we are solving a problem we do not have. But the Republican Party has a growing problem; “Within the next few decades,” says a report by the Center for the Study of the American Electorate “White Americans, the only demographic sub-group from which the GOP draws significant numbers of voters, will be in the minority.” To hold on to their power, the GOP wants to suppress the number of voters who favor the opposition; hence states where Republicans are in control of the legislatures cry fraud and passing strict voter ID laws.

Texas has a dandy coming up.

One out of ten Americans do not have a drivers license, and these in general are the poor, the minorities, the elderly who are apt to vote Democratic. To try to get around this requirement being considered an unconstitutional poll tax, the states are offering the ID free but make it hard to get one. Put offices in obscure locations, hard to get to by bus, open limited hours. To get one as Pitts writes someone has to “catch a bus down to some office, fill out forms and wait in line to get a card for which they will otherwise have zero use.” Sometimes they may have to figure out how to get documentation, like a birth certificate, and pay for them which borders on being a poll tax. If enough of this group finds this too difficult to go through this to get a card it can make a difference in voter turnout.

Curtis Gans, director of the CSAE, believes the United States should adopt Mexico’s system, wherein the government automatically issues every citizen a biometric ID card. I keep saying conservative policies are going to lead us into being a country like Mexico and there’s your proof.

Pass This Along To Everyone You Know …

That, or words to that effect, are at the bottom of all of the conspiracy theory e-mails that come rolling in every day. And as the campaign gets closer to November we are sure to snowball, like an avalanche rolling down a steep hill.

You have to give them an “A” for creativity. I stand in awe. A couple I got within minutes of each other a day or two ago are typical. “I Wrote a Book” by “Dr.” Eowyn of the ‘Fellowship of Minds.” It narrates a story of a life that appears to be Obama’s until you get to the end and discover he has been talking about Hitler.

Then there was “Kill The Jews” by Frank Gaffney about the secret effort to advance the fortunes of the Muslim Brotherhood World Wide. You have to give Gaffney his due. He wrote the very same things about the Bush Administration a half dozen years ago. He has made a career of bashing Muslims and all who have an Islamic heritage at home and abroad, although he hasn’t so far as I have seen been given proper credit for the outbreak of this theory in the last few days.

When our Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made her visit to Egypt a few days ago she was pelted with tomatoes and shoes by an angry crowd at one point. Reporters on the scene questioned members of the crowd to find out why. Because she and the Obama Administration were advancing the cause of the Muslim Brotherhood was the universal answer. They were asked where they got that information. Why, off the Internet from Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann and former FOX TV’s Glen Beck! Gaffmey, you didn’t make the cut.

Bachmann has created quite a stir by attacking Huma Abedin as part of this conspiracy using her Near-East heritage as proof. You may remember her as the wife of Anthony Weiner, the look-at-my-underwear congressman who lost his seat due to the scandal, and a key and respected aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She and her Jewish husband survived the scandal, had a baby, and seemed well until brilliant thinker Bachmann turned up the volume. And stirred things up in Egypt.

This was too much for a lot of people including long time political operative Ed Rollins who had worked on Bachmann’s campaign for the presidency. “I am fully aware that she sometimes has difficulty with her facts, but this is downright vicious and reaches the level of the late Sen. Joe McCarthy”, Rollins wrote in an op-ed for Fox News.

Then there is Cliff Kincaid, author, frequent guest on the FOX shows, strong supporter of Glen Beck, and all round mega-right extremist who just hosted his annual conference at the National Press Club for conspiracy-minded conservatives. Kincaid, and other speakers on the program, informed the audience of such things as 1. Obama’s real father was the late author Frank Marshall Davis, said to be a communist and pedophile. 2. There are “a whole host of other communists and Marxists around Obama,” including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. 3. Obama is making it possible for Russia and China to attack the United States and that “Latin American states would be invited in for looting rights.”

When John Sununu, a Romney campaign spokesmen, says, as he did this week before a semi-retraction, “I wish this president would learn how to be an American,” or Romney says as he did this week Obama lacks “an understanding of what it is that makes America such a unique nation,” we are supposed to know about the conspiracies and fill in the blanks.

When it comes to this sort of stuff, though, you have to hand it to a master who managed to come out with the most ludicrous conspiracy of the week. Rabid Rush suddenly threw one of his tantrums over the movie “Dark Knight Rises.” He discovered the name of the vicious villain is “Bane,” which is close to and sounds like Bain, as in Bain Capital, the equity company that Romney is taking so much heat over at present. “Coincidence? I think not”, voiced the hoary radio host. Under that theory, decades ago when the originators of the comic strip devised it they were predicting a day long in the future when there would be a Republican candidate who had once formed a company called “Bain” who would run for the presidency on the Republican ticket and if they had a vicious villain with a similar name the Democrats could use it against him. Word association. When this silliness was pointed out to Limbaugh he claimed that he really didn’t say that but what he said was that Democrats would use it against Romney. Except that’s not true, as there are clips out there anybody can see. Actual facts have no place in hate broadcasting.

Thinking about Limbaugh and other mega-nasties reminded me of another old song, this one from seventy or so years ago sung by country singer Tex Ritter, father of the late actor John Ritter. It had to do with four consecutive stops trains made at little communities in East Texas (for those of you under fifty years old, there was a time when people rode on trains), “Tenaha, Timpson, Bobo, and Blair.” I always liked that song, it had a rollicking rhythm that has stayed with me through the years. It’s better if you know the melody, but it now rattles around in my mind substituting a quartet of right-wing personalities rather than hamlets.

“Limbaugh, Hannity, Romney, and Rove.” Fits the melody and rhythm to a tee. Sing out a quartet of mean-spirited rouges: “Limbaugh, Hannity, Romney, and Rove.”

Trav’s Big Conspiracy Theory

Note: this is not an attack on the Mormon religion, it’s just that it offers some good meat for a far-out conspiracy theory in the spirit of all of the others out there in the Internet.

As we have already mentioned, to be a Mormon you have to tithe or you can’t get in the doors of the church. This generates a lot of money, over the years a great deal amount of money. The church then takes this money and invests it in for-profit enterprises all over the world which generates even more money to invest in more for-profit operations. As Business Week Magazine reported in a recent issue the church is a “Global Business Empire.”

What are we talking about here? A new $2 billion mega-mall they just opened in Salt Lake City. A holding company operating a billion-dollar media and insurance conglomerate, and running a Polynesian theme park. DMC, which reaps estimated annual revenue of $1.2 billion from newspapers, 11 radio stations, a TV station, a publishing and distribution company, a digital media company, a hospitality business, and an insurance business with assets worth $3.3 billion. The church owns a million acres of land in the United States for farms, hunting preserves, orchards, and ranches. They seem to be busier with the temporal than with the spiritual. Money changers in the temple? The temple seems to be the money changers.

Nobody knows what they do with all of that money and of course the Church will not say, being very unhappy that Business Week brought it the public’s attention. They say the article is inaccurate, but like their favorite son, Mitt Romney does under similar circumstances, they don’t say what they are. Which brings me to my conspiracy theory.

Years ago they identified a bright young member, descendant of several generations of Mormons, and carefully groomed him for bigger things, ultimately to be the President of the United States. In that position under the guise of downsizing government would set in motion a wave of privatizing government programs and assets which the church as favored customer would acquire at rock-bottom prices, kind of like the savings and loan bailout, buildings, national parks, wetlands, dams, waterways, everything. It would become the dominate force in the U.S. and a major force in the world, accomplishing by economic pressure what it never could have accomplished just by sending its missionaries door to door. This is ominous. We must be vigilant. Pass this on to all you know.

 

 

 

Volume 8, Number 14

July 16, 2012 -- This week the political scene resembled a reality show version of that old TV series in the 80s and 90s, “Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous.” We seem to be a swarm in billionaires, how they made their money, how they spend their money, what they think of the common herd.

We started the week out being treated to video of a bevy of billionaires submitting to unaccustomed circumstances in a long “line in their Range Rovers, BMWs, Porsche roadsters, one gleaming cherry red Ferrari”, a Rolls-Royce at rest, waiting to be admitted to a fundraiser, $50,000 for lunch or dinner (or $75,000 per couple) for Mitt Romney at a forty room mansion in East Hampton, New York. Reporters were not allowed on the grounds of course, so had to be content with covering the impatient billionaires chaffing in their expensive vehicles. One annoyed woman poked her head out of her Range Rover’s window and demanded to know “Where is the V.I.P. entrance. We are V.I.P. you know.” Yes, you certainly are my dear. Another woman speaking from the interior of her chariot while waiting in line spoke of the bothersome inconvenience of there not being enough accommodations for out-of-town guests at her husband’s hotel and she was forced to put some up on her 75-foot yacht.

The quote most widely circulated was this from a woman in the back seat of a Land Rover: “We've got the message,” she said. “But my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies -- everybody who's got the right to vote -- they don't understand what's going on. I just think if you're lower income -- one, you're not as educated, two, they don't understand how it works, they don't understand how the systems work, they don't understand the impact.”

The average income for a “nail lady” is around $21,000 yearly, so she would have to work almost four years to earn what this woman and her husband paid for lunch. And the message is ordinary Americans are not smart enough to vote.

Yes big ticket fundraisers are not all that uncommon; George Clooney threw one for President Obama in Hollywood (over 50% of Obama campaign funds come from small donors versus 9% for Romney), but for a Romney campaign claiming it is working for the downtrodden American workers (nail ladies?) this East Hampton event seemed distastefully ostentatious and a shabby show of arrogance. Inside behind closed doors no doubt Mitt Romney assured his fellow billionaires he had their best interests at heart.

Some Obama advisers are urging him to eschew such events if they are proffered, but his campaign needs the money to stay competitive. After all the Koch brothers, for example, just gave $30 million to a Karl Rove SuperPAC to run character assassination ads against Obama in seven swing states. When all of this is over someone will total up just how much money was spent by both sides and we can see what that amount of money could have done if it had been spent on programs to benefit society as a whole.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Fundraiser

 Mitt Romney and his campaign have studiously avoided being seen as having any association with the George W. Bush administration. It’s the leprosy factor. Don’t let it rub off on me. So what to do when former vice president Dick Cheney offers to throw a Romney fundraiser? You want the money of course.

Here are the details. The event was hosted Thursday at the Cheney home in Wyoming. Donors paid $1,000 to attend a reception, $10,000 for a picture with Romney, and $30,000 to eat dinner with Romney and Cheney in the former vice president’s home. Pretty good support from the vice president of the dreaded Bush 43 years.

No problem. The Romney campaign allowed no photographs to be taken of Cheney and Romney together. There was no joint statement to the media. Cheney was the little man that wasn’t there in his own event in his own home.

The Old Smoke and Mirrors

 It seems however it is all a pose, an act put on so as not to turn off independents and moderates. Lift the protective curtain and what do you find? Cheney-ites. Romney may avoid any visual connection with Cheney people but his advisers on foreign policy are Cheney-ites.

What has Cheney said about Romney? He is the “only” candidate to make what he thinks are the right foreign policy decisions as commander-in-chief.

Then there is what former Bush Administration Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell had to say recently: Romney’s foreign policy advisers “are quite far to the right. Many of them advocated for the war in Iraq and now want war with Iran.”

Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) wrote in Foreign Policy this week: “A Romney presidency promises to take us back to something all too familiar: a Bush-Cheney doctrine—equal parts naïve and cavalier—which eagerly embraces military force without fully considering the consequences.”

Cheney and Romney, two guys who avoided military service in war time (Cheney with five student deferments, Romney off to France as a missionary minister to those heathen Europeans), rattling swords in Wyoming, giving those war mongering hawks their thirty thousand dollars worth.

How Things Have Gotten F. Scott Fitzgeraldish

 Fitzgerald really knew how to write about the rich. His time has come around again. Things changed a bit after he wrote “Tender Is The Night,” an old favorite of mine. For about forty years starting with the forties I don’t remember being aware of the mega-rich. I read that when John F. Kennedy was elected president, the top 0.01 percent was only about a quarter as rich compared with the typical family as it is now. And John Avlon points out that in 1987, presidential candidate Michael Dukakis made four times as much as the average American. In 2011, Mitt Romney made 400 times more. When I was at the corporate vice president level the average CEO was paid about 40 times what the average employee made. I understand at that time at least Whole Foods had that 40 to 1 ratio as corporate policy. Now the national average is about 400 to 1. In the 80s Ronald Reagan ushered what conservative columnist David Brooks calls the “Capitalist Revival.” I prefer to call it the “Era of Greed.”

Brooks writes, based on studies, “children of the more affluent and less affluent are raised in starkly different ways and have different opportunities … Over the last 40 years upper-income parents have increased the amount they spend on their kids’ enrichment activities, like tutoring and extra curriculars, by $5,300 a year.”

So, Brooks says, these affluent children tend to marry each other and perpetuate the trend and leads to what he refers to as “The Opportunity Gap.” And so “Equal opportunity, once core to the nation’s identity, is now a tertiary concern.” Fitzgerald would have a world of new material to write from were he still with us today.

“It’s really American to avoid paying taxes, legally”

 Lindsey Graham, the highly visible Republican senator from South Carolina expressed that view. Progressive taxation with revenue used to boost up the children of lower income parents has been one of the checks that have kept us from developing an ultra affluent elite to dominate the country and stifle that prized upper mobility (there are at least seven other countries who now offer better opportunities than we do). Taxes are now at an 80-year low, and conservatives are bound and determined to lower them even more, or at least those taxes paid by the mega-rich. This just acerbates the problem and leads us down the path to a nation like current-day Mexico.

There is no historical evidence that lowering taxes helps the economy. In fact, by chance or otherwise the economy has done better when taxes were high. I think it is like wine grapes. Wine grapes do not do well in good soil, they need soil full of rocks. They have to be stressed to produce the best wine. So it is with top corporate executives. We are told they have to have those whopping compensation packages as incentive to produce good results. I say not so. They need to be heavily taxed to put them under stress so anxiety will get them to work hard and produce results.

“When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

 While Googling around earlier I came across this statement from Alice in Wonderland, probably not a bad text for a political science course, all things considered. Humpty Dumpty said it when Alice told him she did not know what he meant. “Of course you don't—till I tell you” he said.

This exchange comes to mind in reading about the difficulty Romney has in playing loose with words he uses past and present. We see those clips from his race against Ted Kennedy for the senate in which he was for abortion rights and universal health care. Now this past week the Boston Globe broke a story that showed a disparity in what Romney told the F.E.C. and what he claims in public today. I left Bain Capital in 1999 he is saying now to rescue the Olympics so I am not responsible for anything Bain Capital did in the years 2000 to 2002, a period when Bain did some pretty shoddy things in making a lot of money by driving some companies into bankruptcy, closing down causing workers to lose jobs and pensions. Yet for those years in filings with the F.E.C. he claimed to be the sole owner, president and C.E.O. It appears that either he is misrepresenting his role at Bain during that time to the public today or signed false statements to the S.E.C. back then, a federal crime. He usually just ignores calls for him to correct false statements, distortions or the like but this is one he is not going to be able to shake off.

Romney and his campaign are incensed at these charges. Romney adviser Ed Gillespie said Sunday that the candidate “retired retroactively,” meaning he took a leave of absence in 1999 but never went back, deciding later on to “retire retroactively.” However, Rahm Emanuel, now mayor of Chicago and former Obama Chief of Staff, looks at it this way: “He said ‘CEO, sole shareholder, president.’ You can’t — as president of the United States you can’t have a sign on your desk that says, gone fishing.’ You can’t put that on that desk. It’s basically the buck stops there,” said Emanuel. “You can’t say to the SEC, ‘I was the CEO, chairman and president, but I’m not responsible. I’m not accountable.’”

If he let someone else run the company for him, who was it? As sole owner, wouldn’t he be taking profits from it? As sole owner, wouldn’t he want to property was doing, retain a veto over any move it made that he would think might jeopardize the enterprise? He needs to take responsibility for the bad as well as credit for the good. A novel idea in politics

Show Me The Money, ‘er, Show Me The Papers

 Romney has for years resisted doing the time honored thing that political figures do, release their tax returns. Now, friend and foe alike are all over him to do it and get it over with. So much speculation of why he won’t. What is he hiding? We already know he is extremely wealthy, pays very small taxes, has money stashed in the Cayman Islands and in Switzerland, what else is there to know? As the King of Siam said, it is a puzzlement. Look at this random selection of opinions from people who see this as an unnecessary distraction from debating important matters at hand and damning to Republican chances in the fall.

 “If there’s nothing there, there’s no ‘there’ there, don’t create a ‘there.’ Put out as much information as you can.” Michael Steele, former RNC chairman.

“It is important for Mitt to release his tax returns. The fact is we can’t fire our nominee in September.” Rick Perry earlier this year during the primary debates.

“He should release the tax returns tomorrow. It's crazy,” said Bill Kristol, the guardian of the conservative faith. “You gotta release six, eight, 10 years of back tax returns. Take the hit for a day or two.”

Romney “must have calculated that there are higher costs in releasing them,” Washington Post and ABC News’ George Will.

“There’s obviously something there” in Romney’s returns that he doesn’t want public, ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd.

“He’s done nothing illegal, nothing unseemly, nothing improper, but lots that’s impolitic,” Will said. “And he’s now in the politics business.”

And so it goes, from just about every conservative figure in the public eye. So far Romney is not heeding his brethren’s call, but something will surely give. As Perry said, the Party can’t fire its candidate in the fall.

New jobless claims fell this week to a four year low

 For a clear view of the job or jobless situation, I recommend viewing this segment on Morning Joe.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/vp/48117116#48117116

Evolving to a “Capitalist Revival” as the story of two men

 My thoughts on this subject concern the contrast in the lives of George Romney and his son, Mitt Romney. The elder Romney started out as a blue collar guy, working his way up to the position of running a very big company that provided a great many jobs, supported labor unions and gained their support when he entered politics and became governor of Michigan. A business conservative who never lost touch with his blue collar roots, even when working for a Republican administration at the national level on public housing. Taxes were high, which he paid eschewing loopholes, using no overseas tax shelters.

Then came son Mitt, who started life at the top, made superb use of excellent education (two degrees from Harvard) to make an astronomical amount of money as the “Capitalist Revival” began through financial engineering, a process with the single-minded goal of profit for investors, regardless whether jobs are created or lost, companies expanded or closed. At a time when taxes are the lowest in 80 years he has taken every opportunity to avoid them, including offshore shelters. His connection to working class America is simply lip service, the policies he advocates strongly favoring his wealthy peers at the expense of people at lower income levels.

It seems to me this story of two men is the story of America these last 35 years. It seems to me this process is on track to continue, accelerated by the Supreme Court decision in Citizen’s United. Capitalists Revival indeed.

Open Letter to a Conservative Friend

 This is more of a statement of personal opinions than a reporting of specific events of the week. You may want to skip it and go to a light-hearted closing that follows.

 Well, my young friend, I know you spend a lot of time and effort in your responses to my trivia writings and I respect that. I care about your opinions although I just wish distortions right out of the right-wing spin playbook did not creep in, although that helps me understand what a strong effect they are having on the general public.

No, although Obama inherited a mess he has not made it worse as you and fellow wing-nuts clam. The modest stimulus package begun with the Bush administration and carried out but the Obama administration while not strong enough to give a big kick-start to the economy at least arrested the downward spiral and established a point at which recovery could begin. Acknowledge, please, that the official policy of the G.O.P. established before Obama took office was to resist each and every program advanced by the Obama Administration as a way to return to power. There is no way a larger stimulus could have gotten through a Senate subject to Republican filibusters.

Since November of 2010 unemployment has gone from 9.8% to 8.2%, the automotive industry was saved, and financial institutions were prevented from disastrous failures. Was this good enough? We have to say no, but all we could expect in the face of roadblocks in the Senate.

Straight from the Republican spin book is the charge that President Obama spends all of his time blaming everything bad on his predecessor rather than trying to fix them. You expect him to ignore and just except the daily attacks of his likely opponent in November accusing him of causing everything bad that has happened even before Obama was elected to the Senate? And please acknowledge that when Democrats controlled the House Pelosi got an extraordinary amount of legislation passed much of which was then blocked by the recalcitrant senate. We can differ on how effective they might have been but it should not be said that Obama would not have fostered programs intended to stimulate growth in jobs and the economy had he not been blocked in the senate, as his latest one is now?

Then there is the call to repeal the dreaded Affordable Care Act, called Obamacare when it should be called Republicancare. Every single thing in it began with some Republican, or conservative, including the mandate which was the brainchild of the Heritage Foundation, the most conservative of all conservatries think tanks. Have you seen the video clip of Mitt Romney extolling the virtues of universal health care when he was running against Ted Kennedy for the senate? While I have not read it I understand Nixon had a blockbuster of a plan. The only thing wrong with it from the Republican point of view is that it is associated with Obama. So let’s repeal it, they say, and replace it with a more sensible, market-oriented plan. So what is that plan? Oh we don’t have one yet, but trust us. When we are elected we will come up with one. It only took us 100 years from the time when Republican Teddy Roosevelt first brought it up. So can we expect a universal health care plan by the year 3012?

So the question is, do you want to return to the way it was, where we have the best health care money can buy? If you have the money of course. Repeal will take 31 million young people off of their parents health insurance, leave at least 49 million people with no insurance who will go to emergency rooms for necessary treatment which will be paid for by money from our tax collected pool which is the main reason we spend 18% and growing of our GDP on health care, about the same amount we spend on our government, when all but one other industrialized country (Canada with about 10%) expenditures are in single digits and still do better in longevity, birth mortality, and other indicators of quality of health.

We can return to denying insurance because of preexisting conditions, caps on benefits so if you need a $140,000 heart procedure and your cap is $90,000 you’ll owe $50,000, and your policy can be arbitrarily cancelled at any time, by simply repealing the current bill. My personal feeling is that by doing so we will fail the “civilized society” test.

I’m not trying to sell you on my position. I am trying to lay data before you from which you make your own determination based on likely results. Read the Texas Republican Party platform and if you agree that we should stop teaching student “critical thinking,” emphasizing “behaviorism” instead, or ask yourself if you believe we should take $9 trillion over ten years from programs designed to aid ordinary citizens in order to give $8 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthiest among us, or if you believe the next appointment to the Supreme Court should be someone like Justices Roberts and Alito who gave us Citizens United and a host of big guy versus the little guy decisions,  if you feel we should not have all those FDA or EPA regulations to protect our health and environment, or if you admire the Ireland austerity program even though their unemployment is 13%, their economy has come to a screeching halt, then you should support Republicans because you know what you will getting. But please don’t vote based you are not comfortable with someone’s religion, the color of their skin, or because you just want to see someone else in charge regardless of the circumstances or that you live on the Northside in a gated community so if you don’t vote Republican you are a traitor to your class. Cast your vote instead because you understand what kind of society you are voting for, and you sincerely agree with it. Do that, and I will have no right to criticize how you came to make your choice.

Nursery Rhymes as Political Statements

 Historians tell us nursery rhymes seem to originate as statements on historical events. Old Mother Hubbard had to do with Henry VIII’s conflict with the Catholic Church, which is the cupboard. Humpty Dumpty may, or may not, refer to the 16^th Century British King Richard, a hunchback, and so on. Political statements. It seems a shame they are out of style so we might consider reviving the custom. The simple was to do it is to update the old ones to fit current events.

 

The Health Care Act.

 

Old Mother Hubbard

 Was insurance covered

 As The Health Care Reform Act had done.

 But G.O.P feel

 They must repeal

It so insurance she now has is none.

 

The demand that Mitt Romney, the Humpty Dumpty in this case, make his tax returns public.

 

Humpty Dumpty won’t heed the call

Humpty Dumpty continues to stall.

His past tax returns he seems bound to conceal

Making everyone wonder just what they'd reveal.

 

Mrs. Romney takes her expensive dressage horse to compete in the Summer Olympics in England.

 

Ann Romney went to London but though not alone, she

Took her favorite pet along her million dollar pony.

 

Speaker of the House on raising the debt ceiling.

 

Speaker John Boehner’

Sits in his corner

Eager to Democrats defy.

Though it may be appealing

Don’t raise the debt ceiling

Or he’ll just let the government die.

 

Bush tax expire unless action taken.

 

Hickory, Dickory Dock

Tax cuts are on the clock

If Jan one they expire

Then taxes go higher

Hickory, dickory Dock.

 

Right-Wing Broadcasters.

 

Three opined mice, three opined mice

Rodents every one. Rodents every one.

Limbaugh, O’Reilly, and Hannity’s schitck

Is the broadcast version of the old shell trick.

Enough vile distortions to make you sick

From three opined mice. Three opined mice.

 

Paul Ryan budget cuts revenue from popular programs.

 

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe

She had so many children she didn’t know what to do.

It was no fault of hers she was quick to confess

Defunding Planned Parenthood created this mess.

 

 

 

 

Volume 8, Number 13

July 9, 2012 -- I thought I would put on my seersucker jacket to write this little piece. Yes, I own a seersucker jacket. Every now and then it’s good to feel courtly. A couple of disparate things happened these last eight or ten days that put me in this mood. And peculiarly enough, though seemingly disparate, they have political overtone.

For one, And Griffith passed away. Griffith came into my consciousness when he made an appearance at the old Rice Hotel Roof Garden in Houston performing a comedy monologue he developed shortly out of college, I believe. He portrayed a country boy coming out of the deep back woods seeing a football game for the first time. The act ended with “Save yo’ Confederate money, boys, the South’s gonna’ rise again.” He went on from there to star on Broadway in “No Time For Sergeants” and the movie of the same name, made a remarkable movie, ”Face In The Crowd,” the long running Andy Griffith Show on television, and then to the series “Matlock.”

Griffith will be remembered for the most part as Sheriff Andy Taylor in Mayberry, but it should be for his star turn in “Face In The Crowd,” portraying a shiftless Southern drunk who by accident discovered he had the ability to use the broadcast media to turn into a demagogue, and attempt to use his popularity to influence political elections, not in a good way. A superb acting job, a far cry from the loveable Sheriff Taylor. At the time there was speculation that the character was loosely based on Arthur Godfrey.

That movie, on how a charlatan can use the media for political gain resonates now even more than it did then. For all who are too young to have seen it I recommend you do so if the opportunity presents itself, and if you think you can sit through one in black and white.

In an obituary in The New York Times Neil Genzlinger made some interesting, pertinent points about the Sheriff Taylor character Griffith portrayed, “… a seemingly simple man who has a craftiness and common-sense wisdom that beat book learning any day.” There is today that attitude in much of the electorate: how “common sense” among ordinary folk is so much better than that of the over-educated elite from Ivy League schools. Witness the Tea Party. Witness Sarah Palin. So blame it on Griffith. Except when he demonstrated his simple native superiority he did so while still being cordial, respectful, self-deprecating, never holier than thou. You don’t see much of that going around today.

Why the seersucker? I never watched much of Mayberry but saw a lot of him as Ben Matlock. That’s the way I think of him, as Matlock in his obligatory seersucker suit. And it ties into the actions of the U.S. Senate who a week ago Thursday officially cancelled their traditional “Seersucker Thursdays,” calling it too frivolous in these difficult times. If at first blush you agree, stop and think again. In these “difficult times” it is what we need more than ever.

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank covered this by talking it over with Trent Lott, former Republican Senate Majority Leader, from Mississippi who started the custom in the ‘90s to encourage members of both parties to get together in a convivial way and know each other personally. At the end of the day they got together kind of like a mixer, over food or drinks. Say what you will about Lott’s ideology, and I certainly could, he had a reputation for making bipartisan deals acceptable to both sides, and during his tenure some important contentious legislation got resolved and on the books. He believed in dialogue. I remember hearing him complain, in a television appearance, that as Majority Leader he could always pick up the phone and call President Bill Clinton to talk, but no one in the Bush Administration would return his calls. Probably the classic example of what he is referring to is the friendship between Republican Orrin Hatch and the late Democratic Ted Kennedy, who engaged in vigorous combat in the Senate but remained fast friends.

Lott points to a major shift that has had a deleterious effect on working relationships. Time was members of Congress lived in Washington for uninterrupted weeks at a time. Democrats and Republicans moved their families to Washington and socialized. As Lott says “It’s harder to give somebody a real hard time when you were out with them and their spouse the night before.” Now, “They’ve given themselves virtually unlimited travel allowances, so they can leave their families in their home states and fly to Washington for three-day workweeks that leave no time to create personal bonds.”

Things have come to a pretty pass when a Progressive like me can say he wishes the likes of Trent Lott were back in the Senate, but if so maybe their would be fewer log jams and something meaningful might get done. The least we could do is to make seersucker the standard uniform for members of Congress.

No “Higher Order Thinking” in Mayberry

 Nor in Texas if the Texas Republican Party has its way. Would you believe that the Texas Republican Party platform opposes the “teaching of Higher Order thinking skills” and “critical thinking skills.” They want to “focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.” Acquiring knowledge is not all that important as long as the kid behaves himself and respects his elders. But the real killer is this: “We support reducing taxpayer funding to all levels of education institutions.” I’m aghast. Or is that higher order thinking?

Texas Republican Party Platform is terrifying

 John T. Harvey writes that in Forbes Magazine. “It reads as if it were written in another age and in ignorance of the social, economic, and scientific evidence of the past half century.” Here, a brief sampling of some of its points beyond the usual tax less, spend less dogma:

• We recommend repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, with the goal of abolishing the I.R.S and replacing it with a national sales tax collected by the States. In the interim we urge the income tax be changed to a flatter, broader, lower tax with only minimal exemptions such as home mortgage interest deductions.

• State Tax Reform – We encourage: Abolishing property taxes, shifting the tax burden to a consumption-based tax.

• The Federal Reserve System should be abolished and that the U.S. should return to the gold standard.

What the platform describes, writes Harvey, is a “cheap, uneducated workforce and a massive gap between rich and poor. Unemployment would be rampant, growth stagnant.” Why did we bother fending off Santa Anna and pulling out of Mexico? Santa Anna could have written this platform.

You may want to read the bloody thing yourself. If so, go to:

http://www.texasgop.org/about-the-party

Political commentary as biting satire

 I confess I’m big on satire, give anything if I had the knack and when a really good piece of it comes along I try to run through the streets with a megaphone shouting its virtues. Saturday in the New York Times Gail Collins came out with such a piece.

She wove her comments around the discovery of the Higgs boson, the so-called sub-atomic, long sought after “God Particle.” Much scientific excitement, and why not since, as Collins puts it now we may learn “how existence began, the structure of the universe, the difference between bosons and fermions. Does it provide evidence of the existence of parallel worlds? If so, is it possible to move to one that doesn’t have Michele Bachmann?”

Rather than spoil it by trying to tell about it, I have here the link to it. I hope you have time to read it, and if so I hope you laugh as hard as I did.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/opinion/our-political-black-hole.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212_20120707

How Much Are We Influenced By Popular Entrainment?

 This question comes to mind after reading a piece in the New York Times today by Maureen Dowd while still thinking about Sheriff Taylor in Mayberry, an all-white town in the South during the struggle for Civil Rights. Do these shows reflect the attitudes of Americans, do they influence or guide American thinking, or are they just products of wistful thinking? Was the town of Mayberry meant to be colorless, the kind of society where people of any skin tone, or any ethnic group would live comfortably in an homogenized idealistic way?

Dowd covers the way the filmmaker John Ford “could pour all ‘the inarticulate longings of a nation wondering at just what pass the trail had been lost’ using John Wayne as “the perfect mold,” in Westerns or in his film about Ireland, “The Quiet Man.” So my question is did Ford instill in us, or did he just capture our inward yearning for, as writer John Didion put it, “a place where a man could move free, could make his own code and live by it,” another world, “one which may or may not have existed ever but in any case existed no more.” It’s an individualism that seems to me to run through our attitudes about governing.

Dowd quoted Didion from his “homage to the iconic Wayne character conjured by Ford.”

Wayne, as Ford created him, became “Manifest Destiny on the hoof,” as Garry Wills put it notes Dowd. “He became the ‘pattern of manly American virtue,’ even though he avoided serving in World War II.”

So how much credit should we give Ford, the “national mythmaker” as Dowd calls him. Should we assign to him all those across the political spectrum who seem to want to go it alone, without mutual cooperation with their fellow members of society, cooperative efforts disdained?

I was struck by a comment in the column attributed to Wayne, a hard right winger if there ever was one, saying he had no sympathy for native American Indians because they were too selfish to share their ancestral land with others. Really? Couldn’t that be said about illegal immigrants who come here, about us? That could be a new take on our immigration policy. People of Arizona, you are just being selfish.

In a way this ties in to another historically incorrect statement by Mitt Romney, this one in San Diego this week. In touting American Exceptionalism, he said although we have gone to war we never did so to acquire land. He said this while standing in the area where General Freemont brought troops in to soil long under the flag of Mexico, declared martial law, started a war between the two nations that led to Mexico ceding about half of its country to the U.S. You might check your facts, Mr. Romney, with your compatriots Newt Gingrich or Bill O’Reilly who distort facts to their own advantage as you do but as former history teachers would probably not made that claim.

JOB: is it “JAH BUB” or is it “JOE-BUB”

 The biblical Book of Job is concerned with bad tings happening to good people and that kind of ties in to the job report for June, only eighty thousand new jobs. Good people can’t seem to catch a break. Reaction? AP reports Dow Jones dropped 124.20 points to 12,772.47, about 1 percent.

Howls of anguish are heard throughout the land, and we could spend hours reviewing the commentary of all parties as they point fingers of blame at each other, but why are we surprised?

Let us keep several things in mind. Jobs open up when there is a demand for more goods and services, which requires more workers to provide them. There must be market demand. And where does that market come from? Economist Paul Krugman notes, “America still sells 86 percent of what it makes to itself.”

Who are these people who make up this market? Some of them are the 690,000 public employees who have lost their jobs in the last report that I saw. More are being fired every day, teachers, police, firemen who now do not have a paycheck to spend. Major corporations are reducing staffs every day. Even the immigrants we are chasing back to Mexico spent enough of their earnings in this country to provide 8 million Americans with jobs.

Oh well just give business money in the form of big tax breaks and they will hire more people, bind more factories, invest in more hardware. Why would they do that if they went to that expense but did not have any more people to sell their goods or services to? Those CEOs whose average yearly compensation is $4.7 million are not that stupid. It is a downward spiral. Cut more jobs in the private or public sector and you reduce demand so you cut more jobs. When we drastically cut public programs you won’t need people that had been running them anymore.

Congress could legislate to provide stimulus programs that would put people to work. The transportation bill passed last week is a modest little effort. But as it now stands there does not seem to be any reason to believe that is going to happen. Not with the Ryan budget, passed by the House and endorsed by Romney. Not from the “ludicrous economic solutions (Romney) has been backing” should he get to the White House, writes Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast. It “would turn America into one big Pottersville.” The old “class warfare” raises its head. One for all, or all for the one percenters?”

“Always Have Been, Always Will Be”

 That is CNN newsman Anderson Cooper in an e-mail to friend Andrew Sullivan, Daily Beast columnist confirming that he is gay. In response to a query by Sullivan, Cooper replied: “The fact is, I'm gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud” ending years of speculation.

Cooper seemed to be taking the Nathan Lane approach who, after his confirmation was asked why he had not said so before answered, “I didn’t think I had to.”

This weekend Rep. Barney Frank and Jim Ready, a carpenter and welder, were married on the banks of the Charles River. Of course Frank had “come out of the room” as then Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill mistakenly called it, many years ago.

A couple of comments on this. Being gay did not hamper or otherwise affect the career of either. Had nothing to do with it one way or the other. Second, just as in the rest of society, here are two people though gay have disparate personalities. In other words, no distinctly “gay” persona. It is hard to see how two people could be me unalike. So much for stereotypes.

Washington Post Style Invitational Week 978

 The last game called for a kind of do-it-yourself current event commentary in a strict form: A Reason To Rhyme The News. Take a topic in the news, write a couplet with first syllables of each line rhyming, the last syllables of each line rhyming in strict BA-da-BA-da-BA-da-BA-da-BA. Like these:

 

Romney Reacts to Supreme Court Decision

 Mitt bemoans the health care rule by SCOTUS.

Hits him like a swift kick to the tokes.

 

Food Stamps Victim of Paul Ryan Budget

 No food stamps says Ryan to the poor.

Go and eat some charity’s soup du jour.

 

TV Anchor Anderson Cooper is Gay

 Look here, Cooper’s gay, long secret kept.

Took so long I’d say he over Schlepped.

 

Dressage at England Summer Olympics

 Dancing horses, jolly sight, entails.

Prancing gaits, and Canter-Merry Tails.

 

Higgs Boson, “God’s Particle” discovered

How we got God’s Particle is eerie.

Wow! The Big Bah Duh Bang Bah Duh Boson Theory.

 

Romney Tells Students: Borrow From Dad

Mitt’s against the loans that student’s claim.

It’s a stance we’ll have to call “Bain Drain.”

 

Conservative Economics

Willy wing-nut lauds a “job creator”

While he governs as “job desecrator.”

 

Bah-Duh-Boom.

 

 

 

Volume 8, Number 12

July 2, 2012 -- I was prepared to contact my young sommelier friend Gabe to ask him what wine is suitable to drink while eating crow when I was sent a column written by Charles Krauthammer who made the case that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts did not suddenly morph into a warm, fuzzy human being when he wrote the majority opinion in ruling the mandate provision of the Affordable Health Care Act was constitutional, thereby saving for the moment this monumental piece of legislation. I do not have to eat crow for the things I have said about the Chief Justice in the past. A close one.

Krauthammer, not the only pundit who saw it this way but one who expressed it the strongest, called it “the great constitutional finesses of all time. He managed to uphold the central conservative argument against Obamacare, while at the same time finding a narrow definitional dodge to uphold the law — and thus prevented the court from being seen as having overturned, presumably on political grounds, the signature legislation of this administration.”

While Roberts has no intention of softening his hardliner views, as the Court is his and as Chief Justice he is sensitive to protecting its reputation for neutrality. His “finesse” allowed him to have it both ways.

If you haven’t been following it closely, if the case fell under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution—as detractors contended—it probably would be unconstitutional. Justice Antonin Scalia, using the nastiest metaphor he could think of, had said if government can force you to buy insurance it could force you to buy broccoli (horrors).

But the Administration’s lawyer likened it to a kind of “tax.” Congress has the right and power to impose a tax. Justice Roberts bought it, for whatever reason and saved the day. For Democrats anyway.

The Chief Justice wrote the prevailing opinion himself. The strongly divergent dissenting opinion was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court’s so-called “moderate.” You know how immoderate the other four conservative members are when a man like Kennedy is labeled “moderate.” He was the driving force behind Citizens United which put us on the path to oligarchy, voted against Lilly Ledbetter equal pay restitution, and equal pay for women in the workplace. His dissent went after the whole law, not just the mandate, claimed it “undermines state sovereignty” and would throw the whole thing out.

Several observers note that from the way it is written it started out as the prevailing opinion, in which case Chief Justice Roberts changed his mind late in the deliberations. Seemingly, it was a near miss.

And what would have happened if the whole Act had been thrown out, which economist Paul Krugman said would be an act of “cruelty and ruthlessness?” Where to start? 3.1 million young people would immediately be off parents insurance, cancer patients and others with pre-existing conditions would have no coverage, experts say a sudden ban would overload and jam the Medicare system for months preventing doctors to receive payments, preventing seniors from receiving needed care and raising their prescription drugs costs by billions of dollars each year. And so we can go back to the old way with no insurance on millions, tax payer money paying for the uninsured visits to the emergency room, and the insurance companies will again spend less than 80% of premiums collected on actual medical care.

Chief Justice Roberts avoided all of that … not my problem he in effect told Congress, it’s yours … for the moment, as well as the sticky problem of assessing the constitutionality of a law passed by Congress which Congress does not take very well. Roberts did not avoid cries of rage and condemnation from his fellow conservatives, however. Democrats celebrated victory, Republicans cried in outrage, finding a traitor in their midst. There could hardly be anything more contentious. Even as they deliberated there were demonstrators for both sides of the argument outside the Supreme Court building.

Minority Leader (and former Speaker of the House) Nancy Pelosi: “This decision is a victory for the American people.”

Present Speaker of the House John Boehner: “The President’s health care law is hurting our economy by driving up health costs and making it harder for small businesses to hire. Today’s ruling underscores the urgency of repealing this harmful law in its entirety.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: “I’m pleased to see the Supreme Court put the rule of law ahead of partisanship and ruled that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional.”

Senate Minority Leader McConnell: “Today’s decision makes one thing clear: Congress must act to repeal this misguided law.”

Mitt Romney: “What the court did not do on its last day in session, I will do on my first day if elected president of the United States, and that is I will act to repeal Obamacare.”

Worst comment: Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), after he likened the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act to the September 11 terrorist attacks. He later said, “My remarks at the Republican Conference following the Supreme Court decision were thoughtless.” Thoughtless? My reaction to your remarks are not printable.

Calling it a Tax is a Mixed Blessing

On the one hand, it allowed it to be called constitutional; on the other hand it opens the door for all of the taxes-are-a-crime people to make claims like this, from Sarah Palin: “Obama lied to the American people. Again. He said it wasn’t a tax. Obama lies; freedom dies.” America’s sweetheart.

A tax is a tab for goods and services rendered. If all Americans are getting health care services, either from insurance programs or from taxpayer provided emergency services, then they should pay for it. That is why it differs from the broccoli comparison like this: “The Court affirmed Congress’ power to tax people if they don’t eat their broccoli,” says Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), where the broccoli grow high as a Super-PAC lie.

Health Care Reform and the Election

At this point with all of the hue and cry one would think it will be the main issue in the presidential race. And that race is in the hands of independent voters. Studies of public opinion in Massachusetts in the period from 2006, when their similar state healthcare law was signed by then Governor Romney, are interesting and might give us a clue. More people favor both the law in general and the mandate, than not, and the favorability is growing slightly by fits and starts. Opinions are heavily on partisan lines, more Democrats like it than not, more Republicans dislike it than not. But Independents are highly in favor of it.

Here’s what Mitt Romney had to say in January 2008 about his health care law in Massachusetts when Charlie Gibson asked him, “Governor, you imposed tax penalties in Massachusetts.” Romney replied: “Yes, we said, look, if people can afford to buy it, either buy the insurance or pay your own way; don't be free-riders and pass on the cost to your health care to everybody else.” Romney must have been an Independent in those days.

Where is Romney’s Health Care Plan?

O.K., Mitt, so you get rid of it as president to start your first day of work. What happens then? You’ve made vague statements about replacing it with a more “sensible” plan. Like what? Everything in the current Act began with Republicans. Even the mandate was the brainchild of the Heritage Foundation, the most revered of all conservative think tanks. What do they do now, say we really didn’t mean it, but the next one we come up with will be the right one?

Mr. Romney, you and fellow Republicans throw out words like tax breaks (conservative solutions for every ill) and wonders of competition among insurance companies which is going to drive down costs and make policies affordable (selling health insurance policies is not like selling women’s panties where you have inventory and the faster you turn it the more money you make); what investors demand is a good MLR, Medical Loss Ratio, of policy income versus paid claims and has nothing to do with volume. There would still be millions of people with no insurance, no solution to re-existing conditions, or caps on claims, or arbitrary cancellations. The national percent of money spent on health care would continue to rise from the 18 percent or more as it is now (in 42 other countries it runs in single digits, Canada about 10) and we will continue to spend whopping sums treating the uninsured in emergency rooms. Ah, the good old days.

Ross Douthat, columnist who touts the conservative story in the New York Times, says that some Republicans actually have plans but they fear making specifics public before the general election. We are like those retail customers who get a sealed envelope inviting them to a storewide sale but won’t know what their savings are until the envelope is opened after a purchase. Elect me and be surprised.

Busy Bits of Business Here And There

Health care reform was not the only thing on the minds of Supreme Court Justices during this, the last week of this sitting season before summer vacation. In the case against Arizona immigration laws the Court affirmed the power of the federal government to set immigration policy and to pre-empt, to a large degree, state policies that can infringe on that federal power. An expert on immigration law, Michael A. Olivas, explained: “We can't have 50 different immigration policies, 50 different foreign policies.”

Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) made a very effective speech on the floor of the House about Arizona's SB1070 Show Me Your Papers law, which requires law enforcement members to stop anyone who just looks illegal and demand to see papers. It’s worth taking a couple of minutes to view:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZbMdFUFAro

The House voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over his testimony in their investigation of the Fast and Furious gun smuggling fiasco, the first time in history such a move has been done. It has all of the markings of political gamesmanship. The gun lobby is after Holder’s scalp and their congressional surrogates think they’ve found a way to get it. Not a pretty sight.

At the heart of the matter is the Executive Privilege President Obama took in order to keep some documents private, giving conservatives a great chance to take a shot at the President. The best view of this was that of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which covers it quite well with clips of former vice president Dick Cheney and former President George Bush extolling the virtues of executive privileged. Here is the clip:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-19-2012/democalypse-2012---pander-express-edition---obama-s-immigration-reform

And one clip from the Colbert Report:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/415620/june-20-2012/unraveling-the--fast---furious--scandal

The Supreme Court rendered a decision this week on a case of the little guy against the big guy, not their usual pattern, except this time the big guy was the federal government and not a big corporation The justices ruled Chantell and Mike Sackett can appeal a compliance order that said wetlands on their residential lot were improperly filled with rocks and dirt. A building permit was then revoked.

“We have a bill that will boost this economy,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), a sponsor of a bill on highway jobs and student loans. Had the bill not passed, student loan interest rates would have doubled the next day. Brinksmanship, and we don’t mean the company that hauls money around. It preserves jobs on transportation projects from coast to coast, just over $100 billion to be spent on highway, mass transit, and other transportation programs over the next two years. It’s a wonder they had time to pass this bill since they were so wrapped up in holding Holder in contempt.

Sticking It To The Middle Class Again?

“The health care law provides a significant tax cut averaging about $4,000 for more than 18 million middle class people and families—a tax cut Republicans in Washington are vowing to repeal.” That is from David Plouffe, senior advisor to President Obama. “President Obama has cut taxes by $3,600 for the typical middle class family. Republican plans will raise taxes on middle class families to give millionaires and billionaires a $250,000 tax cut.” He calls it sticking it to the middle class again.

How Now Thou Dow?

This week: Dow Jones industrial average gained 2.2 percent, or about 277 points, to 12,880.09. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose 2.5 percent to 1,362.16 and the Nasdaq composite index jumped 3 percent to 2,935.05. Dow rose 5.4 percent for the year to date, while the S&P. was up 8.3 percent and the Nasdaq gained 12.66 percent. This is great for them that’s got it, due apparently to signs the Euro Zone nations might start cooperating with each other. They need a playground monitor.

“But it’s too early to say Europe’s saved”, said Charles Diebel, head of market strategy at Lloyds Banking in London. Germany’s willingness to meet its European partners halfway gets the credit. France is having some success persuading others to ease up a bit on austerity. Yet they have a socialist president. What is the world coming to?

Answers To Questions You Never Thought To Ask

Q. How does Mitt Romney expect to halt unwanted immigration in the long run?

A. With an economic policy bound to turn the U.S. into another Mexico with a ruling class of extreme wealth lording it over a vast population at or just above the poverty level so there would be no reason for people to cross the border if, when they got there, it was just like home.

Q. Why does John Boehner seem eager to use the debt ceiling conflict to bring the government to a screeching halt?

A. Boehner wants to take Newt Gingrich’s place as the man who has done more damage to the country than any other Speaker of the House in history.

Q. What is the real reason Republican legislatures in many states are firing so many teachers?

A. To dumb down the general population so we can develop our own native-born work force work force to do those nasty menial tasks (when you send a kid to high school to learn algebra, chemistry, English literature, and the like they are reluctant to dig ditches for sewer lines, pick beans, or pour asphalt).

Q. Why does Paul Ryan think it is arrogant for needy people to ask for Food Stamps?

A. He was influenced early in life by Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist” and got the notion it is ungrateful for anyone to ask for food as Oliver did from the authorities in charge of the orphanage.

Q. Why are multi-billionaires casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Brothers donating so many millions to political candidates?

A. To relieve the boredom for having so much money you don’t know what to do with it, they came up with their own variation of Texas Hold-‘em; the one who buys the most candidates for public office gets to choose who will be their President (I’ll see your two Texas legislators and raise you an Ohio senator).

Q. Why doesn’t Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia carry a cross like any other Catholic?

A. He doesn’t have room for it as long as he is carrying that stalk of broccoli.