Boehner's Monster

Well, looks like the monster lovingly called Teabag has broken his chains and escaped, and Speaker of the House, John Boehner can no more control his right wing creation than the fabled Dr. Frankenstein could control his.

Neither monster, Boehner's nor Frankenstein's is really human....has no human tendencies or compulsions or understanding or any emotion with the exception of pain. They may look human...have the requisite number of fingers, toes, heads, legs and arms...but that doesn't make them human.

Some philosopher once said that you lose your humanity...if you ever had it in the first place...when you stop caring about others...Boehner's monster crossed that line a long time ago.

The Frankenstein monster didn't really want to hurt anyone. He killed accidentally when attacked by the fearful villagers, who were scared of what they didn't understand. Frankenstein's monster didn't try to destroy his surroundings. He tried or wanted to live peacefully within his surroundings, in harmony.

Boehner's monster, however, is a different story. It is mean, vindictive, possessive of all it surveys, selfish and unempathetic toward anyone who does not resemble them. Boehner's monster is intent on destroying anyone or anything that prevents it from having its way. Boehner's monster bears a closer resemblence to Ripley's Alien or Arnold's Terminator.

"It doesn't eat...it doesn't sleep....it won't stop...ever...until you are dead!"

Boehner's Speakership is on the line because he can't control his monster, which isn't all that big, yet. But he needs some help from the gazillionaires who financed his experiments in the first place. Cutting off the money is the same as cutting off the head. The Teabag monster will follow the duckets right over the cliff, if they act quickly enough. Boehner may have to sacrifice himself. But it's looking like any action taken will be too late for all of us.

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Another Attack Ad in Ohio

Ohioans are currently being subjected to yet another vanilla faced attack ad created by some rich guy with too much money and time on his hands. This one comes from Crossroads, GPS and is aimed at Senator Sherrod Brown and President Barack Obama. It claims Brown has voted for trillions of dollars in tax increases that will drive up the deficit.

Really?  I wasn't aware that our taxes have gone up. In fact, taxes under Obama have gone down if I'm reading the statistics correctly.

Can't attack Sherrod on health care. He voted to help the people keep their kids insured and enable those with pre existing conditions to finally get coverage. All this while forgoing government health care himself.

Brown in fact, is the only member of Congress who does not take congressional health care...never has...says he won't until health care is available for all the people.

And since the government is in such dire straits....why aren't more congressmen and women giving back their health care benefits, retirement and salaries.

They're gonna get paid regardless of whether the Country tanks on August 2nd or not. Congressional salaries are considered to be emergency funds that must be funded, empty treasury or not....check it out!

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John Boehner, The Gutless Wonder

Well, it's official. We now know that John Boehner has shit for brains. Still playing Polyanna, President Obama threw Speaker Boehner a lifeline, and the fool stepped up to the plate and callusly threw it back.  Again and again, Obama reached out and attempted to pull Boehner into the light. But it didn't work. A smart leader could have used Obama's words to lead the teabaggers to clarity as well as an understanding about what they are doing to America.  It could have been a teaching moment and a reality check by the GOP to the Teabags. Instead it was more posturing on the part of the Speaker of the House, who somehow views himself as co-president to Barack Obama.

 Boehner's  response to the President could have been written three years ago. Based on the same talking points, lies, myths and innuendoes that the GOP/teabaggers have been pounding him with since his election in 2008. He didn't bother to listen to what Obama said. He refused to see the olive branch imbedded inside the speech. He ignored the bipartisan plea housed inside the rhetoric.

Boehner simply followed orders from his puppeteers and said "no." Strawman..no brain...no heart.  John Boehner is no leader. He is no patriot. He doesn't give a damn about the American people. But he sho love him some tea, apparently.

For the first time since the last election, Obama verbally bitch slapped the teabaggers, attempting to jar them awake to see the dangerous precipice upon which they stand. He put the blame where it rightfully belongs smack on the teabaggers in both houses. Obama said the American people may have voted for a divided government...but they sure as hell didn't vote for a dysfunctional one. Obama implied they are either totally stupid or totally insane to think they can play chicken with the world financial industry and that America, in its weakened state will still survive.  Obama all but told them it was time to grow up and to realize that a sustained temper tantrum is no way to govern, but it is a way to destroy the USA, no jihad terrorist needed.

Further cuts without increasing the revenue base via taxes on the wealthy will only add to the deficit, not reduce it. The social safety net that protects the poor and the now destroyed middleclass, will be gone. What little progress that has been made over the past couple of years in putting people back to work will cease and probably reverse. The stock market will probably tank. Interest rates will go up. More people will lose their 401k funds..that is if they still have them in the first place.

Signs of the impending meltdown can already be seen with the most recent report issued by the US Census. Minorities have never really been allowed to take part in  the good times in America and this recovery/recession is no different. The recovery reversal has stripped away what little financial progress Blacks and Hispanics have made, with the net worth tanking close to zero these days. Whites collectively have a net worth north of 100,000-dollars per household,  while minority net worth is between 5 and 6 thousand dollars per household. The rule remains "last hired...first fired." The insidious grasp of institutionalized racism prevails, unchecked, even during the reign of America's first Black president.

It is time for  some people in this country to admit that institutionalized racism exists and that the war on Iraq was absolutely the wrong move, coming on the heels of the deregulation frenzy of the financial system by the  Clinton and Bush administrations. And it isn't the healthcare act that is so destablizing to the economy...it's the big pharma drug payoff that Dubya and the GOP passed in 2007.  Obama's health care law has not yet taken full effect, and won't until 2014. Nor can the stimulus be laid at the feet of Barack Obama, either. It was implemented by Obama, but passed by Bush and company. John Boehner was in Congress and on board for all of this spending being done by his party. He gleefully helped dump it on the desk of the incoming president, Barack Obama. Now he is apparently attempting to smother him with it.

And yes, I am going to play it again and again and again until it sinks in....no white president would have to deal with this type of disrespectful surliness....ever.....EV-VER! Ronald Reagan increased the debt ceiling 17 times and never once met the kind of opposition Obama gets just for saying "good morning."

Feel like I'm caught up in an abusive marriage, where the husband has decided..."if I can't have you...no one else will!" So the wife and kids all have to die...just so he can make his point one last time. Get ready for the late, great America!

Gutless son of a bitch!

Obama-Boehner Smackdown The Thrilla Outside Wasilla

Talks have once again broken down with Boehner walking away from the table and the deal. This time around President Obama was visibly pissed off. You could see it on his face and hear it in his tone. He has summoned the parties to the White House for a rare Saturday session.

As we wait and watch helplessly from the hinterlands...Here are some things to consider:

TRUTH-America is in an unsustainable deficit situation coupled with massive unemployment.

TRUTH-The present deficit/economic situation has never been seen before in the history of the USA.

TRUTH-President Obama inherited this mess. He made it worse by not increasing revenues allowing the Bush tax cuts to go forward, unchallenged. He has allowed himself to be caught inside a dangerous game of "good cop-bad cop" being played by Cantor and Boehner. The people are suffering.

TRUTH-Obama has moved so far  right of center that his policies resemble those of Richard Nixon, rather than any Democrat living or dead. There will be no compromise, only capitulation on the part of the Democrats.

TRUTH-Repeated White House cave-ins are not compromise nor bipartisan behavior.

TRUTH-The past election was not a mandate for teabag policy changes. It was an election that most voters sat out, thinking the problems of the past, were past....or a waste of time from the point of view of so called progressives who remain in the midst of a gigantic temper tantrum because they didn't get their way as quickly as they think they should...

TRUTH-John Boehner is protecting his own ass rather than representing the American people. Teabaggers have made it plain to Boehner that he will lose the Speaker of the House position if he compromises and strikes a deal with the White House.  What happened to "taking one for the team?"

TRUTH-Teabaggers have the power to force Boehner out of office...they have the power to reshape America into it's own bizarro view, but only if we the people allow it to happen as we did during the past election. The teabaggers aren't just playing politics...they are playing crazy politics and they are willing to destroy America in order to get their way...

TRUTH-Ronald Reagan raised the debt ceiling 17 times during his tenure in the White House, but you'd never know it listening to conservative republicans. Dubya raised it 7 times during the last administration.

TRUTH-Giving rich people tax cuts does not  generate jobs. Never has...never will. Statistics have shown over and over that the rich people hide and save their money, while the poor and middle class spend their money, putting it back into the economy.  Trickle down economics is a myth....pure and simple voodoo..or doo-doo...take your pick...

TRUTH-You can't have full economic recovery without increasing the revenue base. Reagan raised taxes, Nixon raised taxes, Daddy Bush raised taxes...Got to be done...Dubya sent the country into a spiral by cutting taxes and spending our resources on two illegal wars actions and a big pharma deal that gave a bunch of money to his corporate cronies...leaving us holding an empty bag...

TRUTH-When asked how to jumpstart the economy a few years ago, Dubya said "everyone go buy something."  That's a paraphrase, but the gist of how the economy really works. Cutting everybody but the rich cats a $10,000 check would go a long way in re starting the recovery.

TRUTH-Think a non-regulated totally free enterprise capitalistic system works?...take a look at South America...several countries tried it for a while, before the people voted socialism back in. The totally free enterprise system made five or six people rich and completely ground down everybody else...the same thing is going on here in America, albeit, at a slower pace.

TRUTH-Obama has said he is willing to cut a big deal, even if it means he loses the next election. He's got the American people bent over...wondering if his latest deal comes with or without vaseline. There has been no reciprocation on the part of the teabaggers.

TRUTH-At no time have the congressional teabaggers offered to share the pain of the American people...they still have their health care...they still have their salaries...they still have their merit raises...they still have their retirement....

TRUTH-teabag recalcitrance on Capital Hill is also tanking the states...will the governors speak up? If the USA credit line is lowered....so is  the credit line for the states....The states are caught between a rock and a hard place...

TRUTH-In an effort to get this deal, there will be no tax increases or closures of tax loopholes...but you can bet there will be lots and lots of cuts to programs that matter.....The Republican party....the GOP is dead....snuffed out by teabags...

So when do  we start this revolution?

Obama Wins!

All the GOP had to do was to swallow a couple of tax loophole closures. That's all. There has never been a desire expressed on the part of Barack Obama to really raise taxes on the wealthy.

Historian that he is, Obama knows that no republican congress man or woman has voted for a tax increase since 1991. Not one. Not no time. Not no how. He wasn't asking for anything out of the realm of ordinary. A deal is do-able.  John Boehner knows that. Eric Cantor is too busy making a power grab to see it.

Obama has said he would bite the bullet and take the hit on entitlements, in return for minimum cooperation from the GOP.  But they don't get it. Or I should say the teabaggers don't understand when to say "yes" to the deal. They've blown it. They've blown a chance to get real fiscal stability through real compromise.  Obama wins. The people, the polls say are siding with him against the GOP.  The GOP is viewed as cowtowing to the fringe element that is the tea party. The people, even the old people who voted to return power to the GOP during the last election, are wishing for a do-over.

The Tea Party upstarts are already dead. They just haven't fallen down yet.  Cantor, Bachmann, et al are deadmen walking. You can't govern by throwing a temper tantrum and threatening to hold your breath if you don't get your way. There must be give and take. Compromise and everybody wins.

Even the right wing economists are saying the tea party is wrong for not supporting a deficit ceiling increase.

During this entire deficit ceiling fiasco discussion, I have felt that I was listening to a Republican President talking to his party about how to govern the people.  The people don't matter in this sense. The deficit is going to be balanced on the backs of the poor, right on top of the budget, crushing the middle class.  I have called Obama a DINO before and I am more convinced now than ever. He has been pushed so far to the right, he can't even read his own message anymore.

The one certainty out of all this is the rich are going to get richer. They don't lose. They don't suffer. They don't have to bite any bullets.

The only thing going on this weekend is whether or not Obama is going to hand us a jar of vaseline when he asks us to bend over.

The people suffer because there is no one in Congress or in the White House with a big enough brain to see down the road. If there is one lesson to be learned from the first three years of Obama, it is that America is neither post racial, nor post partisan. The can is once again being kicked for someone else to handle. There will be a deal, I believe, but it won't come until August 1st, at 11:59pm.

All this stress and angst is not necessary. The fringe needs to be sent to the cloak room and paddled for being so damn stupid.

This Congress misses the likes of Ted Kennedy and Dan Rostenkowski and Everett Dirksen and Lyndon Baines Johnson. These guys understood the art of the deal and made things happen even when they weren't part of the majority or liked what was on the table. They could see the big picture and even though they liked power, understood they worked for us.

Bet they're laughing their asses off while passing around the scotch and cigars sitting on their special cloud somewhere in the sky.

Obama wins.

No Social Security Checks?! When Pigs Fly

So now we're being told that Social Security checks for August may not go out, if Congress doesn't put a deficit deal in place. It goes without saying that watching helplessly while Congress and the White House play chicken with my life is not sitting very well with me.

Rather than negotiate in good faith, the GOP lead by Miz Mitch McConnell from Kentucky wants to give the President more power than allocated by the United States Constitution to solve the problem. Only trouble is, it is a catch 22 for the White House..accept the power described by McConnell in his grand idea and the GOP/teabaggers will immediately fall back on all their third world banana republic scenarios, claiming Obama is attempting to establish himself as America's first dictator.

It's a trap whose only purpose as McConnell has repeatedly stated, is to bring down Barack Obama, limiting him to one term in office. He needs help cleaning up the GOP mess left over from the past decade, but he's not gonna get it from Congress, apparently.

According to all sides and sources, we need to increase the debt limit or face dire consequences financially, including a return, if you will, to recession or even depression. Some sources are even predicting the end of the world as we know it, if steps aren't taken soon.  Okay, so what's the holdup?

Well the GOP wants to cut entitlements. Read that Medicaid, Medicare, and gut social security.  They see no need to fix the infrastructure or create more jobs or recreate the manufacturing base that built this country in the first place.

They see no need to make health care even more affordable, after all, they already have it. Their salaries are protected under emergency funding, meaning they will get paid even if the country defaults on everything else.

 They see no need to cut defense spending, just in case we have to go to war again and despite the fact that we will never fight war like this again. The neocons still cling to the visions of batallions of men marching toward one another on an open field, while war has evolved to the push button phase from the safety of our own borders. And they have no clue or idea what to do with the vets who are returning home from the illegal actions that have been raging for the past several years.  We treat our vets worse than we treat poor people in this country, and that's pretty bad.

They also see no need to raise taxes on the wealthy, figuring, I would guess, that the middle class can  absorb about $500 in cuts per person better than the wealthy can come up with $5 per person to help out. They see no need to increase the revenue base at all.

American jobs are still being shipped overseas.... most workers haven't seen a pay increase bigger than 2% for the past several years, while corporate honchos are averaging 28% increases before the yearly bonus.

Unemployment is at 9.2% if you happen to be white. If you're black...it's right around 16%..Not much has changed since the days of Ronald Reagan.

So inquiring minds want to know...

1...Why is the GOP afraid of the Tea Party...so much so that it is allowing the inmates to run the asylum since most of these insane solutions for cutting the deficit come from the teabagger caucus?  Are there no moderate republicans willing to stand up and lead rather than to follow the crazies over the cliff dragging America into oblivion?

2...Why does the White House see the need to always capitulate to the right, when it wasn't the right that elected the president in the first place? When does "Change" become a big idea rather than a whispered wish?  There once was a dream that was change. What happened?

This White House is like a ballplayer who comes to the plate in the bottom of the ninth...two outs...bases loaded...team down by three runs...winning run at the plate..time to go big or go home...what do you do...lay down a bunt...or swing for the fence...This White House tends to bunt more often than not...

3...When does Congress stand up for the middle class and do the job it is supposed to do, which is to protect us from the whims of both the right and left crazies, the bloodsuckers of the corporate world and the wolves of Big Pharma who see people as nothing more than human lab rats with pockets full of money?

4...When are the American people going to stand up and vote in their own best interests rather than sit back and allow the power elite to drive the frenzied mob into a stampede that overwhelms the voting booth, snatching power from the people?

Me?  Voting at every opportunity for my own best interests, but still making plans to expatriat, having lost faith in the courage of the American people...

Pride Cincinnati 2011

Another Pride Sunday come and gone. It was so hot! So much so that, initially I had to push myself out the door.  Surprising, since usually, in the past, I had to be at death's door before even thinking about missing a Pride Celebration.

Must be a product of age, I guess.

Pride celebrations are often pretty quiet. There is only one marching band in Cincinnati and this year, they were at the end of the parade. Go figure.

A couple of floats had music, but otherwise it was a pretty quiet affair as parades go.  Never the usual messy, noisy, naked fun that I've seen in other cities.  Cincinnati, quiet and dignified as always. Never really lets her hair down.  Must be all the marching church brigades.

Also missing on the grand scale were politicians who understand the power of the LGBT voting block.

Mayor Mark Mallory led off the parade for the second straight year and we thank him for that, riding in a convertible sporting  a dapper summer chapeau to protect his balding head from sunburn.

Council wannabes Yvette Simpson, Chris Seelbach, and Nick Hollan marched surrounded by supporters passing out campaign literature telling us about them. Thank you for coming.

I was extremely happy to see Councilmember Wendell Young. He was the only sitting councilmember in the parade. The others, I would guess, figure they have the gay vote locked up or something...Maybe they don't think they need it. I don't know.

What I do know is that the only people who will ever get my vote are those who respect me and mine. Pretending the Pride Parade doesn't exist or not worth marching in while knocking down people in order  to march in every neighborhood  block parade that comes down the pike on the west side is no way to govern or get my vote.

So thank you Wendell Young, Yvette Simpson, Chris Seelbach, Nick Hollan and Denise Driehaus for recognizing our equality.

Cecil, Roxanne, Charlie, Amy, Neil and whomever....c ya!  I'm done...yes Roxanne, I'm talking to you, too. It is time for Cincinnati to grow up and come into the 21st century. An hour downtown shaking hands during Pride Sunday, never hurt any political campaign.

Glad handing also never hurt the Fire Department or the Police Department or the Cincinnati Bengals or any number of major Cincinnati Corporations. Parades are a cheap and easy way to widen your sphere of influence and good feeling...hint...hint...

One thing to note....Why was Walgreens not open? On Pride Sunday?...on Fourth Street...It was closed...big ass white burglar bars in place for all to see....So what...they afraid of queer money? Better ask Jeff Ruby how closing establishments or taking inventory when minorities are downtown, worked for him... Think I just changed drug stores...CVS, here I come....

Thank you Macy's, Procter and Gamble, Delta, and US Bank for showing up. Time to move my money where my mouth is.

One absence of note...The CCV, or Citizens for Community Values...didn't see em. They sent out a letter on Friday warning "perversion" erupting on Fountain Square this past weekend.

I figure CCV didn't show because there wasn't any porn being passed out. Or maybe they finally have begun to realize that nobody buys into their bigotry anymore.

Cincinnati Roller girls in the house!