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?

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...