Blowback

Today's word is "blowback!"

Blowback as in what's going to happen once Ohio Governor John Kasich signs house bill 5 into law. It passed the State Legislature last night following a day of debate in Columbus. This bill effectively neuters Ohio's unions by making strikes illegal, outlawing collective bargaining except for safety equipment and eliminating seniority.

Kasich says this will go a long way in helping to balance Ohio's budget. Maybe. But what about the raises Kasich gave his minions upon taking office? If we can't afford to help the people of Ohio by way of social programs, how the devil can we, the people afford to pay wall street salaries to those in government who pretend to have our best interests at heart.

History shows us that a good leader is one who does not ask his followers to do anything that he, himself would not do. So how can Kasich give his cabinet a raise, and take his own paycheck when he is asking the rest of us to bite the bullet and live on less money? 

Are we the people supposed to take our happiness watching the gov and his boyfriends live it up on our nickel? Are we the people supposed to be sustained on the sizzle rather than the steak?

Just askin'.

We, the people can do something, if we're not happy about Kasich and company starting with signing the petitions to place House Bill 5 on the November ballot. If we do this and then actually turn out and vote, we may actually be able to kill HB 5.

State level blowback of the best kind!

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Federal Blowback

Teabag hypocrisy is surfacing in DC like turds in a toilet bowl. Seems many of those alleged deficit hawks have been sucking at the public tit for years, by way of farm subsidies. A report out today says they have literally pocketed billions of dollars in the past 15 years or so. Yet, while they are ready to cut off the tit at the breast bone for the rest of us, they are expressing reticence about turning loose the nipple themselves, and these guys are millionaires without the subsidy bucking them up.

Heck, did you know there is a law that allows these jackels to give back some of their salary as well as health care benefits to the government to help pay down the federal deficit?

Did you know that of 535 members of Congress, only two congressmen have chosen to do so?

Some well placed blowback in the form calls to your congressman or woman demanding they divest of their subsidies, their paycheck and their health would go a long way in making me believe that a government shutdown and cuts to all social programs are our only options.

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White House Blowback

Word is we're thinking of arming the Libyan rebels against Moammar and his family.  Word is we're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a day in a country that does not give us oil or anything else for that matter. Libya is important to our allies in the region so that is the justification being tossed around.

Okay, so we arm these guys and what happens....are they the Taliban in the making for the 21st century? That's how we got Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, back in the day.

Just like war...you can't half ass regime change either. What is needed is a 007 type action in Libya. Somebody needs to "sanction" old Moammar and his son and bloodthirsty daughter, but be direct and upfront about it.  A well placed bunker buster bomb or two or three, would do the trick. Done, with no boots on the ground.

America has been half assing war in Iraq and Afghanistan for years, allowing Americans to watch the sanitized version on television from the comforts of our very safe suburban homes, when we should never have been there in the first place. If it is regime change, then go in and shoot the so n so in the head and come home. If it's war, make the country a parking lot and be done with it.

America is the only country known to destroy nations and then spend billions to rebuild them so they can attack us again and again using our money and our weapons to do it.

Or maybe this is job security Pentagon style, ya think?

There is a lot of waste down Pentagon/Department of Defense way...Maybe we the people should harrass our congressmen to make some deep cuts in that direction, if they really want to make some headway on the deficit.

It is not in our country's best interest to keep building outdated weapons systems to fight illegal wars, or funding crooked contractors or blackwater type mercenaries when the people are hurting.

To paraphrase Mr. Spock..."sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one!"

Where is our Vulcan when we need him? At least Obama has the ears...

Let's hope he has the heart and fortitude to put an end to this self defeating cycle in which we're stuck.

Blowback..

Bigoted Scare Tactics from the Right

Have you seen this commercial? It's been running on Cincinnati stations for several days now.  It's paid for by a group calling itself Citizens Against Government Waste, which self promotes as a private, non partisan, non profit organization, claiming to have more than a million members nationwide.




According to its mission statement CAGW seeks to eliminate waste, inefficiency and mismanagement in the federal government. Well, if that is  the case, then why create a commercial using bigoted stereotypes that pushes every racist button  within white middle America?

Fear tactics....scare the hell out of white people in order to keep America from moving forward into a more diverse and equal future.

CAGW was founded in 1984 by one J. Peter Grace, the Koch brother of his time, and syndicated columnist Jack Anderson. Both have now passed onto that all white heaven in the sky leaving their organization in the hands of paler and younger minions to carry on their xenophobic. message.

The late Jack Anderson was an interesting person. He won a Pulitzer for exposing President Nixon's favoritism toward Pakistan during the war with India. He uncovered Iran Contra, for which Reagan should have been jailed, but wasn't. G. Gordon Liddy, one of the Watergate schemers also tried to have Anderson killed. J. Edgar Hoover didn't like him either and regularly tried to make Anderson's life miserable.

Like much of the craziness that the right keeps tossing around, the CAGW has its root firmly planted in the Reagan  presidency and the Grace Commission which was supposed to promote an end to wasteful  and needless taxation, read that cutback or end of all social programs for poor people while allowing corporations to run free and unregulated.  And just like all right wing nuts, the CAGW refuses to admit that Ronald Reagan actually raised taxes instead of cutting them. Reagan only talked about decreasing taxes and ending the deficit. He never actually did either.

CAGW claims to have saved taxpayers 1.4 trillion dollars by continuing the work of the Grace Commission along with other recommendations of its own creation. If that is the case, then why does the deficit keep growing? Why did Reagan leave office without balancing his own budgets for eight years?

CAGW failing econ 101 by continuing to promote failed Reaganomic policies otherwise known as trickle down economics.

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Comitting Mass Sepuku

The land of the rising sun is sinking rapidly in the East. Today comes word of no less than three nuke meltdowns while Japanese leaders watch and wait. What the hell are they waiting for? The way it looks now, these damaged reactors are going to finish the job America started back in 1945 with the dropping of Big man and Little boy, the bombs that took out Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Trouble is if all of those reactors explode, they will take not only Japan, but much of the world, too.  Look on the bright side...we won't need electricity anymore. We'll all be living, glowing human lightning bugs with personal internal power sources.

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Obama Explains

President Barack Obama goes on television tonight to explain why he sent our military to deal with Libya. Obama has referred to the situation as a humanitarian crisis that needed to be handled.In other words to keep the crazy man in power from killing his own people.

Despite skyrocketing gasoline prices, America does not use Libyan oil, so there is really no need for America to be there, according to the naysayers. Besides, they say, you didn't ask permission from Congress, meaning the real masters of the universe didn't sign off on such a big order.

It's okay that Dubya did it and his daddy did it...and...Reagan did it...and Clinton did it....But Obama, well he just doesn't have the smarts to do it...that's the problem...he needs guidance....right?

It doesn't matter what Obama does, he is going to be roundly criticized by the right. Case in point, Newt Gingrich who is doing summersaults attempting to explain his own flip flops and still not look like the blatant racist that he is. While Obama studied the matter, Newt wanted to bomb Khadafi...Yet when Obama bombed Khadafi...Newt said we shouldn't be in Libya at all.


In fact, take the last statement and substitute the names of Pawlenty, Palin, Bachmann, Boehner, Huckabee and Paul for Gingrich and you will have the complete picture.

Maybe tonight he should use the Seasame Street approach or School House Rock for those on the right and mainstream media, to make them understand that sometimes you have to help out and not make war for greedy monetary reasons. Once in a while the people count.

And as I recall, aren't we still a part of NATO....so that means that we will be there as long as NATO is there...which is why Obama can't say when we will leave permanently.

Why don't we do something really constructive and shutdown all the military bases not on American soil and bring our people home. That way we won't look like the cop on block trying to keep peace.