Bend me, shape me

   

Sure, something like this could be created for any candidate who has gone through a contested primary race,  but the underlying theme of shape-shifting is undeniable. I don't think any of us know what we're going to get with a President Romney.

And now, of course, half these characters are flip-flopping, too, as they are out there talking up Gov. Romney as their guy.

Good thing principles are only for the little people.

It's a black fly in your chardonnay

A rush of concern for manners and decorum from people who were apparently fine with Mitt Romney's lies and rudeness to the moderator in the first Presidential debate.

I don't know, irony doesn't seem like a strong enough word here.

Old pleasures revisited

Well, that inhabitant of the White House has gone and done it now. He's committed act number 37 on the list of One Hundred Ways to Be More Like George W. Bush.

I'm grappling here for something. Anything. All I come up with is a question. What's the point anymore? Was there ever a point?

Oh yes, those convictions. You know, like how I believe to my core that while the Democrats will mentally abuse us and cheat on us and end up impregnating their mistresses, we can also be just as sure that the Republicans are going to more or less kill us.

And being more or less dead is like his mistress being more or less pregnant.

Tricky stuff that will likely give you migraines and a drinking problem. If you don't already have one.

I once blogged like any of this shit matters. Here's what I had to say about Executive Orders back in my old idealistic, lacy black bra days.

UPDATE: TPM Muckraker covers the concerns about this Executive Order here and here.
AND how about the timing of the E.O. with this from Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast.

The Pentagon told Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton that her questions about how the U.S. plans to eventually withdraw from Iraq boosts enemy propaganda.

Learn more about Executive Orders here.

I don't have time to go through this carefully, but read it. (Thom Hartmann opened his show with this and it immediately got my attention.)

Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq

Pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), I hereby report that I have issued an Executive Order blocking property of persons determined to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people. I issued this order to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004. In these previous Executive Orders, I ordered various measures to address the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by obstacles to the orderly reconstruction of Iraq, the restoration and maintenance of peace and security in that country, and the development of political, administrative, and economic institutions in Iraq.

My new order takes additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315 by blocking the property and interests in property of persons determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people. The order further authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, to designate for blocking those persons determined to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person designated pursuant to this order, or to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.

I delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, the authority to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of my order. I am enclosing a copy of the Executive Order I have issued.

GEORGE W. BUSH
The White House, July 17, 2007.
And this...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004. I hereby order:

 Section 1. (a) Except to the extent provided in section 203(b)(1), (3), and (4) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(1), (3), and (4)), or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the date of this order, all property and interests in property of the following persons, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, read the rest.

Even people on the right are discussing how dangerous this Administration is. Read this from Paul Craig Roberts.

The best thing about that old post was its title:  He issues Executive Orders. We yawn, scratch our asses and check the TV Guide for tonight's entertainment options


I miss the good old days with its transparency and lack of corruption. 


What?

That's what she said

After the Michigan Pee Pee Wee Wee fiasco, I feel it necessary to say something about the absurd level to which our politics have sunk. Which made me want very much to write intelligently about the Republican War on Women by highlighting the number of newly-enacted laws having to do with limiting reproductive rights and other anti-female legislation versus laws meant to spur job growth.

After a few moments of googling, I gave up the idea of something intelligent and fact-based. Instead, I would do a very short post on the theme "It's not a war on women, you silly creatures, it's a police action."

I wanted to title it Hey, laaaaady! and add a clip of Jerry Lewis doing his Hey, Laaaaadeeeeee bit. That's how I ended up watching this and snorting with laughter.

While I might not have said what Representative Lisa Brown (D) said on the floor of any state assembly, I think the Republican decision to silence her was more than an overreaction. It was, quite frankly, ridiculous.

 Let me clarify - I wouldn't say what she said for two reasons. First  - I don't trust myself to know when to engage my filter. It's the same reason I've never been violent with my children. What if, once I've started, I can't stop. What would happen if I were to begin with vagina and proceed through pussy, pink taco, twat and beyond to the C word of infamy and whatever comes after?

I'll tell you what. My mother would die of shame - right there in her chair, her Inspector Lynley novel clutched in her hand. Her last words would be a declaration of ignorance. She had no idea where I learned such filth. My father would stand around looking somewhat annoyed and confused. My children would be ostracized from civil society. People would unfriend me on Facebook. I'd lose Twitter followers. Publix would never take another check from me. My doctor would refer me to someone else. I'd have a wikipedia page where people scrawled hideous things about me. Of his own good judgment and at the behest of his family, MathMan would insist that I give him back his last name, and the remaining cats would ask to be dropped at the Humane Society as I'm run out of our little village on a splintery rail.

Georgia would slam the door at the state line and lock it behind me.

The other clarification is a quibble for sure, but it matters nonetheless. While we all know what Representative Brown meant, she would have been more accurate to have said "Finally, Mr. Speaker, I'm flattered that you are all so interested in my vagina uterus, but 'no' means 'no.'" Because what these many pieces of legislation actually deal with isn't le vagin, but rather the uterus where the precious babies are grown.  The organ where, if the anti-choice crowd has its way, the sanctity of life will remain swaddled in the assurance that it will have a chance to grow and be born and become personally responsible for all its own actions and profitable for any and all who see a way to part it with its money forever and ever amen.

Aside from the technical inaccuracy, the problem with the word vagina is that it is too connected with s-e-x. It's one thing to refer to a vagina in the abstract. Most adults can deal with that, even if it makes the feel all squidgy and giggly. But when you put the possessive in front of it - my, her, their - well, now you're forcing people to make a further connection. It's no longer a sanitized cartoonish vagina like you see in an anatomy cross-section drawing.

Nope, now we're talking about a vagina  that belongs to someone. To her. Or her or her. To them. To me. (Not really! I'm like a Barbie doll. Ask MathMan.)

I know men. When it's a vagina in the possessive- it's labia and clitoris, hair and skin. It's a palette of pinks, reds, purples.

It's loaded with meaning. It's curiosity bound with shame. It's lover and mother. Chaste or not. Unreachable or inviting. It's both fantasy and very, very real. It's utterly female. It's power, possession, pleasure, pain, hatred, fear, worship, disgust, and reverence. It's scent and taste.

Representative Brown made them think of her vagina and the men in that room blanched. They reacted not because half of them haven't at least once pictured her naked, but because they refuse to admit it. It may have been a passing thought during a tedious discussion about some piece of doomed legislation, but for just a second,  it wasn't just a vagina, it was her vagina.

And that, according to the male Republican leadership of the Michigan State Assembly, is not up for public discussion.

Case and legs closed.

Simple idea

Can we all agree that it's ridiculous to stand open-mouthed and aghast when a politician does something for political reasons?

It's an argument that has run its course.

Now, of course, if you're a person who does things exclusively for political reasons, you should check your morals in the mirror. But since we've got many elected officials driven mostly by the almighty campaign contribution, I don't see doing something purely for the purpose of making political points nearly the pearl-clutching offense it could be.

Over to you, my friends...... what political arguments would you like to see put out to pasture?

I, Masochist

I can't stop peeking through my fingers at the carnage, the aftermath, the bruised and bloodied form of our society stretched out among the shards of glass on the side of the road. We could see the collision as it unfolded because history, that repetitious asshole, has shown us what happens when you concentrate wealth, gut regulation, and poke your tax code full of holes.

Americans from sea to shining sea want to know who is going to fix this mess? Answers come from all sides. We pick and choose that which suits us. A Chinese menu of solutions.

A young man on the right toys with his drink, places his order. Um, I'll have the tax cuts with more deregulation on the side. Oh, and hold the entitlements.

There they were on the television. Angry white people sneering into microphones. Angrier white people trying to hook up with each other made up the audience. The CPAC turned C-SPAN into one hellacious hate fest. Rage against the machine that is government, liberals, elites, taxes, regulation, teleprompters, pro-abortion atheists, Democrats, welfare queens, entitlements, poor people, lovers of European-style Socialism, practitioners of Chicago-style politics, Massachusetts, New York and California, the lamestream media, Occupiers, gun control freaks, homosexuals and people who refuse to learn English. Those haters of all things America. The blame America first crowd. The apologizers and appeasers.

There was no mention of drowning government bureaucrats in bathtubs, but there were lots of references to Obama. Please do take note. Obama. Not President Obama.

Grover Norquist wants to rule the world without taxes. Sarah Palin wants to deliver real Americans from progressive evil and into the welcoming arms of free market capitalism. Her mean mouth formed sharp words with which to stab at crony capitalism. Without the slightest hint of irony, her scorn for those who would use their political positions to gain wealth was palpable. You could see it coming off her in waves.

The crowd was hungry for this kind of lovin'. Cameras flashed. I held my hand to my forehead, was I flushed? Was this the equivalent of a good mental spanking? Would this scratch my itch, my need for a little punishment for my loose morals and liberal ideology? But that's redundant, isn't it?

I closed my eyes and soaked in their fury, marinated in the blood of their Christ who railed about sex and preached the gospel of prosperity. I could smell the green ink of the dollar bill. A vision of Ronald Reagan swaddled in red, white and blue bunting came to me as I moved closer to the television. I had to see the fire in their eyes, the exact curve of their lips where the spittle of righteousness gathered, their pores a thousand points of light, I'm sure, if only we had high def.

The crowd roared its approval. I drew back to see the big picture. Sarah Palin in her perfectly-fitted red suit body surfing the crowd, the young disciples passing her, smiling and waving, over their heads. A country singer crooned over the rapturous noise "She's not just a pretty face......."

Radical!

Question posed to an Wall Street Occupier:  Do you know who Saul Alinsky is?
Answer:  Does he have a deli on the Lower East Side?

Question posed to Bob Grainger, Chair of the Lake County Democratic Committee: Do you know how Saul Alinsky is?
Answer: Al who?

Question posed to MathMan, a native of Chicago:  Do you know Saul Alinsky is?
Answer:  No. Why?
Me: Newt Gingrich is talking about him in relation to the President and he's trending on Twitter.
MathMan: Oh. Here, look at this graph of the x^2cos(1/x)

Question posed to a regular consumer of Fox News and right wing radio:  Who is Saul Alinsky?
Answer: He's the guy from Chicago who wrote Rules for Radicals which influenced the radical methods of Obama when he was a community organizer and who is now taking our country in the wrong direction with his radical ideas and trying to turn us into a radical European style socialist version of Europe. With its radical ideas. I think he was a communist.

Ah. And, of course, only radical liberals use Alinsky's principals for organizing.

Alinky's main message for organizing: Pick the target (Big Government), freeze it (Do Nothing Congress), personalize it (Gov't wants to take away YOUR rights), polarize it (We're going to take OUR country back). Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual (Obama) . Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame (Stop blaming Bush, this is YOUR mess, Obama!).

I believe in the power of redemption

 An intervention may be in order.

I've gotten sucked into the cesspool of election year tomfoolery and non-stop coverage of what Tengrain calls the Goat Rodeo.

Evidence that it's a become a real problem:

1. My politics/media twitter feed is enormous and growing. It's a fine blend of snark, bawdy humor and info links that could keep me reading all the ding dong day.

2. While I wouldn't have recognized a quarter of the celebrities on the red carpet at the recent Golden Globe Awards, when I click twitpic links posted by political reporters, I recognize about half the people in the photos. I repeat political reporters.

3. I've been having erotic dreams about a three-way with Dylan Ratigan and Melissa Harris Perry.

4. I followed Jonathan Capehart aka Mr. Butters' vacation to the Virgin Islands via Facebook.
4.1 I know that Jonathan Capehart is also Mr. Butters and when he gets his haircut. And when he goes to McDonald's or not after his haircuts.

5. I can tell the following people apart:
Ari Melber / Ezra Klein / Sam Stein
Chuck Todd / That guy from the bookstore
Thomas A. Roberts / Peter Alexander
Luke Russert / Jeff Spicoli
Ron Allen / Ron Christie / Ron Mott
Gov. Rick Perry / Fmr. President George W. Bush
Mike Taibbi / Matt Taibbi
Chris Mathews / Lawrence O'Donnell
Fmr. Gov. Mitt Romney / Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney
David Gregory / A jar of paste
Chris Hayes / Rachel Maddow

6. Confession: In my weaker moments, I yearn to run my fingers through Howard Fineman's gray hair while talking music with Jon Heilman and drinking shots with Willie Geist.

7. I know more about NY Times columnist Charles Blow's daughter's fencing career than I know about what's going on with my parents. Of course, my parents could fix that if they got a computer and had Twitter accounts. Slackers.

8. While MathMan likes to impress me by being able to identify a piece of classical music within a few notes, i.e. Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4, 5th movement, I like to turn him on with my ability to identify some pundit or other by their voice. It's awesome foreplay. "Oh, baby. You be Monica and I'll be Bill. Where's your blue dress?" It's so much fun resurrecting an old role-playing theme.

9. My little "problem" is affecting the kids. Sophie and I chat about the afternoon MSNBC personalities like they're family. "Did you see that exchange between Martin Bashir and that asshole from the South Carolina Republican Party?" I'll say to which Sophie will respond, "I almost threw my Cheez-its at the TV I was so disgusted so I changed the channel to iCarly. I know how angry you get when I make a mess in the living room."

We also worry about Mika Brzezenski's unresolved father issues because we can't help ourselves. We like her.

9.1 The cats and I are involved in a co-dependent relationship which now stretches beyond food. They insist I leave the TV on so they can watch Andrea Mitchell and speculate what it must be like to sleep with Alan Greenspan. They really have a mean streak, those cats.

10. And most disturbing of all, even though I've written about the many reasons for which I could never run for office, it's becoming increasingly clear with all the Republican hypocrisy shenanigans coming to light, I could indeed run for office as long as I'm willing to run as a Republican with a one hand on the Bible and a compelling redemption narrative.

I'm thinking there's really no downside here. I win and that's cool. I can be a public servant and support the policies I think will make this nation better for all of us. I lose and I can make some money on speaking fees. I mean $365,000 isn't a lot, but I could manage on that. Hell, one speaking gig at $40,000 would be twice as much as I made in 2011.

It's time for the Pussies for Peace and Income Equality (PfPIE) to get busy raising money for that Superpac. I just need to remind them not to put the money into investments in the Cayman Islands.

I don't like that dark stuff

I wheeled my semi-full grocery cart into the check out line. In front of me was a woman of maybe eighty, her hair newly done, makeup just right, a hearing aid implanted in her ear. Her cart remained unloaded while she leaned across it studying the cover of the National Inquirer or The Star.

The checker spoke. "Ma'am, are you ready?"

The woman snapped to and began loading her items onto the belt. I waited until she was finished and reached over for the black plastic separator to put between her order and mine. The cover of the tabloid that had so captivated the elderly woman caught my eye. "Obama Divorce" it screeched in bold yellow across unflattering photos of the President and First Lady.

I busied myself with unloading my cart in my usual OCD fashion.

"Oh, I forgot my coffee," the woman in front of me yelled.

The checker offered to hold her order while the bagger offered to fetch the coffee. The woman gestured toward me. "I don't want to make her wait."'

I appreciated that, but I wasn't in a hurry. "Thanks, but don't worry about it. I'm not in a hurry. Get your coffee."

She shrugged at the bagger who asked what kind of coffee to get. "The one on sale for eight dollars and something. But not that dark stuff. I don't like the dark coffee."

I went back to unloading my cart while the woman fussed at the checker for not ringing her up and letting her go get the coffee after she paid. The checker explained how she needed the bar code, but quickly gave up. The customer wasn't interested in explanations.

Another shopper pulled in behind me and noticed the hold up. I gave her a quick smile with an eyebrow raise. She craned her neck to see the other lines, looked back at me and shrugged. "Might as well stay put."

I smiled and pulled the checkbook out of my purse to fill it out while I waited. The bagger still hadn't returned and the woman tugged the sleeve of my jacket.

"Did you see that about that Obama?" she said pointing at the tabloid.

I looked at the tabloid and nodded.

"You know, her parents paid for him to win. That black son of a bitch was educated in Saudi Arabia," she said conspiratorially, incapable of a whisper.

I took a deep breath and turned to slip my checkbook back into my purse to give myself a chance to count ten and not react.

The woman behind me met my eyes and gave me the one eyebrow raise back. Her arms were crossed as she shifted her gaze from me to the woman tugging on my sleeve again. "Those blacks in Chicago rigged the election to put Obama in the White House. He didn't get all those votes."

I glanced at the checker who was clearly alarmed. The checker the next aisle over, a young African American woman had obviously overheard.

Fuuuuuuck.

The bagger finally returned from Tennessee with three containers of coffee. "I brought you some choices."

The woman made her choice, paid her bill and continued to complain loudly that the checker wouldn't ring her up sooner, that she was unhappy that the Food Lion is closing stores in Georgia (we weren't in a Food Lion at the time), and, how much she hated Obama. Not once did she refer to him as President Obama.

The desire for her to leave was palpable. The checker, the bagger, the woman behind me, the checker across the way and I - we were all aghast. And then the last straw came. The woman tugged her pocketbook up onto her shoulder and turned to me.

"There aren't enough black people in America to elect him. That's how I know the vote was rigged."

I handed my stack of coupons to the checker and smiled. "I voted for him," I said.

"What did she say?"

I turned to the woman who was fiddling with her hearing aid. "I voted for him and I will vote for him again," I said with a smile.

"Ahhh, you're putting me on."

"Nope."

"I never met anyone who voted for him. You're kidding me."

"I'm not. I voted for him."

She drew back and eyed me. "What's wrong with you? Why would you vote for that --? All he does is give away the money of hardworking Americans to no accounts. People who won't get jobs on unemployment, food stamps. Just a bunch of lazy..."

The bagger interrupted. "Can I help you with this?" She gestured toward the woman's shopping cart.

I hoped she'd take the hint. I had no stomach for this pointless conversation. She ignored the bagger. "So what are you? One of them lazy people who won't get a job?"

"I'm one of those hardworking Americans who can't find a job," I said still smiling. I was surprised that I wasn't getting a surge of adrenaline, my heart wasn't racing, my palms weren't sweating and my voice didn't crack. I'd realize later that the medication I'm taking really does work well.

"Uh huh. That's what I thought. You're on welfare," she spat out.

The woman behind me shifted and bumped into my cart. When I turned to see what the problem was, she was glaring at the old woman.

"Actually, I'm not on welfare, not that it's any of your business. I was getting unemployment, but that's run out," I don't know why I felt compelled to keep talking, but I did. "Let me ask you this - do you get Social Security? Medicare?"

"Hey, my husband worked his whole life and paid for those things," she snapped.

"Well, that's true, but you're probably taking out more than he paid in. And what's more, I - me - I worked for twenty-five years paying into unemployment in case I needed it. So before you go fussing about what other people are getting, you should consider that you're part of the system, too."

"Well, it ain't welfare."

"No, it's not. But you know how you're upset that the Food Lion is closing stores? I can guarantee you if people didn't have food stamps, you'd see a lot more stores closing. And I don't know what kind of world you want to live in, but I don't want to live in one where people go hungry."

She opened her mouth to speak, but said nothing. I made an apologetic gesture to the checker as the old lady marched away hollering at the bagger about how rude I was.

I filled out my check and marveled at the fact that my hands weren't shaking. I felt so calm.

"You handled that well," the checker said to me.

I took the receipt from her. "Thanks. I really hate to talk politics. I know my views aren't very popular around here."

"Well, maybe she learned something from you. I know I did," she said with a smile.

The woman behind me cleared her throat. "I'm glad you were the one dealing with her because I would have whipped out my EBT card and shoved it down her throat."

Damn it.

The Politics of Envy

Envy.

Mitt Romney, the man who has finally gotten to the head of the line, thinks we envy him and those of his stratospheric ilk.

Let's not lie to him or ourselves. We do envy him. But it's not for the reason he thinks.

Since it's rude for me to speak for you, I'll stick to why I am envious. My envy of Mitt Romney is specifically because he's never known what it's like to be financially insecure and it has nothing to do with his superior skills, hard work, or intelligence. By virtue of his birth, Romney has never had to worry about a lack of money. No, his only money worries have been about the accumulation of more wealth.

So that's the basis for my envy. What's at the root of my dislike for Romney is the fact that he seems unwilling to even imagine for a second what it's like for most Americans who have worked hard for the last thirty years and are still just running in place.

His refusal to acknowledge that there might be valid reasons for people to be pissed off tells us what we need to know about Mitt. He has no interest in understanding the plight of the middle and working classes, the poor. He subscribes to the idea that, unlike his situation of being born to wealth setting his destiny, if you're not rich like him, it's because you're not smart enough, you don't work hard enough. The fact that American socio-economic mobility is pretty much a myth and getting worse holds no sway with Romney.

I would say that by virtue of that same solid gold birth, perhaps Mitt Romney is incapable of empathy for the less fortunate, but then how do you explain wealthy families that breed bleeding heart liberals? Does it really come down to how the brain is wired?

Mitt Romney wants to run on his record as a businessman. Fine. Look at his record at Bain Capital where he was far more comfortable dealing with profits and numbers and data. People who lost their jobs were merely collateral damage. No, that's too generous. They were the cost of doing business and they were expendable.

Running a government is far different from running a business. The missions are different. Romney isn't smart enough to know that. As President, he would do just as he did at Bain. He would increase profits for the shareholders by any means just this side of legal while cutting out the waste and inefficiency.

What Americans need to understand is that unless you're a top investor, you are waste and inefficiency.

Read Bob Lefsetz on this.

Wide Sarcasm Sea

Here's a perfect example of why we're getting nowhere. Our media continues to keep us mired in the most ridiculous places.

The setting:  Morning Joe
The main cast for this segment:  Joe, Mika, Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post and Peggy Noonan, a serious woman of serious words in her own mind
The subject: The blood lust on the Right, specifically the sustained applause for executions in Texas during this past week's Tea Party debate televised on CNN

First Peggy declared that this was really nothing. You see drooling, babbling weirdos at Left Wing events, too. It's nothing, inconsequential, the crazy uncle at dinner who wants to tell you about his most recent tinfoil needs.

Eugene Robinson would have none of it. No, not true. First, there is no equivalent of this kind of disgusting behavior on the Left and second you'd never see a far left group be allowed to have a national debate on television.

Joe stepped in, cutting off Robinson, but in a way that made Peggy admit that as one of the people in attendance at the debate, she was shocked at the audience reaction to the high number of executions in Texas.

She recovered quickly though by attacking the Obama Administration and evoking the words Monica Lewinsky and Whitewater. Then she coughed dust.

Yes, that was the only arrow left in Peggy Noonan's quiver. Trying to make some sort of connection between a president who is trying desperately to work with a recalcitrant and craven Republican House of Representatives to fix the fucking economy and events so moldy they would have felt comfy in my mother in law's fridge. I suppose when you're left with nothing but crazies to the right of you and a widening gap between you and the Left, you've gotta reach far to take a slap.

I Write Letters

 
Dear Rich Lowry or should I say the man for whom Sarah Palin's wink launched a thousand erections,

I saw you on CSPANKme last night. It was a rerun of you boring a bunch of young Conservatives to death as you droned on about President Lincoln. The show was taped on a Friday night and those poor kids just wanted to hit the bars and hook up, but there you were, nattering on, equating the political parties of today with the political parties of 1860. You were taking great pains to illustrate a connection between Democrats today and the Southern Democrats who supported slavery. You said something about how they had to deny the part of the constitution that states All men are created equal. I think. Anyway, I may have nodded off from boredom. Or maybe it was because you were sucking both the oxygen and the sense out of the room. Whatever.

You owe an apology to those kids for misinforming them and for cutting into their fun time. Sheesh, man, don't you remember what it was like to go to those conferences?

I'm writing to you today, Rich Lowry, to let you know, in case you hadn't noticed, anyone who would have identified as a Southern Democrat in 1860 would now identify as a Republican. You failed to mention that.

You're welcome,

Lisa

Dear Rush Limbaugh,

My mother took me to see the re-release of Disney's Song of the South in 1972. I was seven years old. Even at that tender age, I understood that Tar Baby had a racial meaning and was a phrase I should not repeat if I didn't want my butt blistered.

Zip-A-Dee-Do-Da,

Lisa

Thank you for the ongoing support

Dear lord, I'd noticed a spike in online searches for information pertaining to Nancy Pelosi's breasts. I don't get it, but there are many things I don't get.

So! I'm pleased to report that through an anonymous contact with access to the House Fitness Center's women's dressing room, we now have photos.

You can thank me later.

Will Cuddle for Gas Money

I just received an important memo from the Pussies for Peace. Facing grant cutbacks and skyrocketing expenses, they have elected to step up their fund raising activities. In addition to the biannual bake sales, four scheduled car washes (don't believe what you hear about cats and water) and one gigantic yard sale later this month, the PfP are looking for new ways to raise money to keep the PoofMobile running so they can take their message of peace from across the nation.

Their new scheme is more akin to the good old fashioned kissing booth. I don't know, though, it just appears a little........unseemly.

moar funny pictures

Times are tough all over, but you wouldn't know that from listening to our idiot president or his Siamese co-joined twin Johnny Mac. They're doing okay. We're just out here livin' it. What could we possibly know?

Terrorist Training Activities in the Front Seat of My Car

Here are the youthful terrorists plotting their next caper

Newsflash: I Am Raising the Next Crop of Domestic Terrorists

About that fist bump.....The Actor and I did the fist bump nearly every morning as I dropped him off for school. It was a very brief moment we shared before I sent him into his middle school to blow up toilets. Now our secret is out. (Will someone please make sure I have 600 thread count sheets on my bed in Gitmo? Thanks.)

Originally posted June 10, 2008

Middle Class Illusions

I've got to hand it to Bob Herbert. Today he was on in more ways than one. He wrote this piece for the NY Times and then he was on MSNBC's Morning Joe where he noted that it's harder and harder for Americans to 1) Be in the middle class; 2) Hang on to their place in the middle class; 3) Move into the middle class from the working class. Now, I don't know about you, but I find the topic of class divisions refreshing. I don't think it's discussed enough.

I was especially interested when Herbert brought up the fact that at one time, a middle class lifestyle could be obtained and maintained with one salary earned by a man with a college education or a good manufacturing job. (Credit where credit is due - Pat Buchanan was sitting there, too, agreeing with Herbert and reinforcing his position. His feminine alter ego Bay was nowhere to be seen. Thank goodness.)

The main point that Herbert was making was that the American middle class has been losing ground for quite a while and most of us haven't recognized it or let ourselves be aware of it. Where my dad, a forklift driver for (please forgive me) Monsanto who worked a lot of overtime - thank you, dad - was able to afford a nice home, nice cars, vacations, a swimming pool, etc. and my father-in-law, a Chicago public school teacher, supported six kids in a three bedroom ranch on the NW side, imagine now trying to pull that off. First of all, those jobs like my dad's just don't exist so much anymore. And I can tell you, a teacher's salary cannot support a family of five, never mind six.

One of the things Herbert pointed out was that the struggle to maintain middle classdom has been masked by a growing use of credit. Lord, yes. The other point he made was that when women went to work outside the home, in large numbers, their income helped mask the ground being lost by men in their buying power. That was true in my family, as well as in MathMan's. My mom went back to work when I was in the third grade (1974ish). MathMan's mom got a job outside the home in the early '80s. I suspect that one of the reasons our moms went to work was to stretch their husband's paychecks. I know for a fact that my mom went to work to help pay her McAlpin's and Shillito's bills. Those were the ones she trained us to retrieve from the mailbox before Dad got home. We dutifully hid them in her underwear drawer.

Identifying the problem doesn't fix the problem, but for about three minutes today, viewers of MSNBC were reminded that what they think is a comfy middle class life is fleeting and getting harder to hold on to all the time. With the increasing impact of rising fuel costs and all the associated things that will increase in cost, too, most of us who thought we were middle class will find our grip loosening even more to the point that many of us will slip into the vast pool of poor without ever being able to put the words to what is happening to us.

Originally posted June 10, 2008