Post 382: Andy finds the ‘nip

nom~nom~nom…

“Whew!”

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

This year, Nebraska voters who registered as “Nonpartisan” can ask to get ballots that allow them to vote in the primary on the Democratic Party ballots as a “Nonpartisan-Democrat”. One other party (I think a libertarian party, but don’t recall) allows Nonpartisans to vote on their primary ballots, too. The Republican Party doesn’t allow Nonpartisans to vote on their primary ballots.

I voted 4-23-14

I don’t know that there is any particular benefit to approaching the primary either way, but am glad I had a chance to vote for actual people in state-level positions for a change without having to register for one of two parties I don’t particularly identify with.

I mean, I’m conservative on some issues, liberal on others, and centrist on most. Today’s parties are too polarized to include me. As a person registered as a Nonpartisan, voting in the primary was a waste of time and money for the county and me: Last time, I had exactly one thing to vote on, and it was something related to regional Natural Resources District policies or something. (I had no horse in that race.)

Post 359: Bow to your master!

This weekend, multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson called in the Republican Presidential hopefuls for a look-see. Which candidate looks like a winner? Which candidate will get the benefits of the millions of dollars he will spend to elect the “Anointed One”?

Multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson

It’s all legal. Both parties do it. This is who decides the candidate-to-be to win the Presidency of the United States of America for you, the unwashed masses who can’t be that clever or you’d be multi-billionaires, too. Besides, you can’t buy what isn’t for sale: They aren’t victims, they are willing participants.

If invited, they came. If they came, they sucked up to the money bags arrayed before them. The more they smelled the money, the more they were Sheldon’s best buddy. Mr. Adelson? No, Sheldon! Bosom buddies, apologetic for transgressions– referring to the West Bank as being occupied in front of a gathering of Jewish folk…! Smelling those millions, and swooning effusively in front of the wonderful benefactor. Grovel! Bow before your master!

Did “Sheldon” secretly laugh at these seeming obsequious tools? Or did he honestly feel his money bags contribute to a lively and thriving democratic process in America? Does he feel his interests are best for this country? Or does he give a damn as long as he, the Gamblin’ Man, gets the House return of mega-millions for his millions bet on putting the “right” fellow– his fellow!– in the White House?

The process the Republicans used to “thin the herd” the last time, the entertaining and illuminating debates of the Republican hopefuls, was degrading to the participants by the end, though a credible possibility on the stage ultimately rose to the top. Of the lot, I personally liked best former Utah Governor and former Ambassador Jon Huntsman, Jr., for the depth of his experience in government and foreign affairs. He didn’t come off as conservative and anti-government enough for the Republican base. Too bad. I couldn’t related to the patrician Romney or his wife and her dancing horse. Must be my 47%-er mentality as a retiree who gets Social Security and Medicare benefits, who could apply for VA benefits. Yeah, the dancing horse isn’t the only one eating at the rich man’s trough, to believe the 2012 candidate and his running mate, Paul Ryan.

Gadsden flag

And you thought the Miss America and Miss Universe parades of young women in swimsuits and high heels were degrading to the participants! The “Adelson Primary”, as this command performance of the potential Republican candidates for the Presidency of the United States of America is characterized on the conservative “Morning Joe” program, makes me cringe.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Sheldon Adelson photo credit:

adselson

Post 299: Again? I’m watching you, Adrian. I’m watching.

Guess what time it is, again! Yes, time for Congress to vote to raise the debt ceiling!

Remember last time? An element in Congress forced the entire Federal Government to shut down at a cost of an estimated $24,000,000,000 hit to the economy. The country came so close to a notch down in its credit rating that you wondered which foe, foreign or domestic, paid off these clowns in the US House of Representatives and US Senate to bring America to her knees.

Remember what the whole business was about, what the hang-up was on voting to pay for US bills already authorized by Congress? No? Well, it kept changing because one variety of clowns in Congress continued not to understand that the President wasn’t backing down, he wouldn’t negotiate on the debt ceiling vote, that “no means no”.

Well, they are loading up the clown car again, just in case. You know, that tiny car that rolls into the chambers of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate, the doors open, and out pop a sufficient number of clowns to gum up the works. Yes, it is debt ceiling time again, and there is talk again by one party of holding the nation hostage for something in exchange.

“They think they should get something out of it,” I heard the television guy say. I was half asleep in my glider, but that woke me up!

“Yeah,” I thought to myself, “a swift kick in the butt and another one to remove them from office for any Congressman or Senator who puts us through last Fall again!”

The television guy used an analogy: “If you pay off your credit card (that is, pay for what you’ve already spent), you shouldn’t expect to be rewarded (that is, get handed some political deal you seek for doing your Constitutional job, which is to authorize money to pay for what you’ve already spent!)”

US Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew says the window to vote to raise the debt ceiling or risk national default is narrower than last time. Will our dysfunctional Congress step up and pay for what they’ve already spent, or will there be another round of clowns popping out of the clown car? I’m not sure. All I know is there are only three potential clowns from Nebraska that I have any control over.

It’s time again to keep my eyes on how they handle this round, maybe remind them even Republicans in a scarlet state can make the mistake of popping out of the Congressional clown car, that they can’t run fast enough in clown shoes to avoid a swift kick in the butt if they play last Fall’s debt ceiling game again.

One is running again in 2014. I always vote. That isn’t a threat. It’s a promise. I’m watching you, Adrian. I’m watching…. Don’t be a clown!

~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~

I must admit, this was my favorite clown from last Fall, the most clueless of the most clueless:

>honk! honk!<

Post 291: “You lie!”

Following President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech tonight there’ll be the spectacle of three rebuttal speeches delivered by elements of the Republican Party.

The actual Republican response will come from Cathy McMorris Rodgers. She serves from Oregon in the US House of Representatives. Had the other two “speechifiers” held back, Representative McMorris Rodgers’ response could have served as visual “evidence” that Republicans actually think women can handle responsibilities without a man behind them. The Congresswoman is known to be competent and conservative.

The Tea Party response comes from Utah Senator Mike Lee. You remember him for his part in the Federal Government shutdown in October 2013, as an ally of Texas Senator Ted Cruz. I presume he didn’t cause the shutdown either since Senator Cruz recently made the claim he had nothing to do with it. Maybe it was the Grinch who stole Christmas.

Tennessee Senator Rand Paul will offer up a third response from his Libertarian point of view. Of the three responses, Senator Paul’s seems more an opportunity to promote the Senator’s personal ambitions to be President than a necessity.

I’m trying to find the horns. He doesn’t seem to have any horns. Is the Right lying about the horns? Where are the horns???

Three responses. Doesn’t say “one party” to me, though the reality of the Republican Party these days is that it isn’t one diverse party working toward a common goal. It’s three parties within one, all trying to beat out the others, a dysfunctional marriage verging on a divorce.

If the leadership of the Republican Party were capable, they’d work to consolidate these three responses into one. My probably simplistic point of view is one consolidated message would come across as equivalent, just different from that of the Democratic Party’s as delivered by the President. Three individual responses just shows how divided that party is.

Of course, I’m not sympathetic to any of the three, so let them fall on their faces for all I care. I’ll listen, try to hear the messages tonight, but can they top the infamous outburst of Republican Congressman Addison Graves “Joe” Wilson, Sr. of South Carolina, who, in a fit of passion, called President Obama a liar twice during the 2009 State of the Union Address!?

Joe Wilson’s outburst is the most outrageous behavior I’ve every seen during one of these speeches, though the way clapping always follows party lines is a clown joke, grade school posturing.

For that matter, having Republicans sit on one side and Democrats on the other reminds me of how grade schoolers tend to self-segregate into boys on one side and girls on the other of a classroom unless the teacher assigns seats alphabetically. Would America have better government if we arranged the House and the Senate alphabetically? LOL! Couldn’t be worse than what we have.

Civility isn’t that hard. Nor is it too hypocritical to give the President a little polite applause even though you intend to obstruct every damn thing he tries to get done during his term of office: applaud politely but put on a “whiney-face”! Watch Speaker of the House John Boehner if you think that can’t be done.

Post 290: Send in the clowns!

Tomorrow is the wonkiest, wackiest day of the year, the day the President of the United States of America gives his State of the Union speech. I look forward to this exercise to inform the people of the day’s issues and policies proposed by the various elements of our political process to turn America into a Utopian wonder.

…as viewed by Democrats

Oh come on! I’m sorry! I tried to write that without irony, but I pride myself on readers who know “snarky” when they come across it! But I do look forward to the four speeches – yes, FOUR!!! – three of which it takes these days to tell us the President is a Nazi-Socialist-Communist-Muslim-Kenyan-big government-bankrupting mistake and not worth our respect but not because he’s black… oh, no!

Regardless, the opposition will continue to obstruct any progress whatsoever in America until they take over the reins of government, which I hope is no time soon if I have my way.

…as viewed by the Republicans

Well, I’ll allow them one term so I can find absolutely everything the Republican President does to be totally wrong and destructive to the American way of life. If his name is Jesus, he still will have no credibility, I guarantee! After five years of Republicans working to subvert the current US President’s efforts, I’ll enjoy watching one of theirs enjoy karmic return on their investment in the success of the Obama presidency!

…as viewed by the TPers

Seriously, I pray something better comes about: The real Republicans reclaim their party, and the Tea Party-ites and Libertarians break away to form their own unelectable political stump parties.

…as viewed by Libertarians.

There will be few, if any surprises tomorrow, though there is the circus of four speeches where one can rail, rant, revolt against any combination of three points of view one selects from the four available.

Ain’t America great? I’m drooling, going into a cross-eyed coma of anticipation at what’s coming! Set up the circus and…

SEND IN THE CLOWNS!