Just back for another planet...more to come

I started my blog long before Arianna...and all I got was this stinkin' T shirt!

How, in just 2 short years of ripping Hillary Clinton and possibly destroying any chance of a Dem taking the WhiteHouse has The Huffington Post managed to make itself worth $200 million dollars??? It isn't about Dems or Reps, it's about the Rich versus the rest of us....the poorest guy running for president "only" made $1.3 million last year...something about our "democracy" is very wrong!

When a deal is too good to be true....it most certainly is!

The last time Bush "cut taxes" I was pulling down a 6 figure compensation package and my "share" of the "tax cut" was about $350. I can't remember what I bought with my "windfall", but I'm sure it wasn't much. People in higher income brackets got as much as 100 times that amount or $35,000 (I know, I did the math at the time). If I had received $35,000, I would know what I did with that kind of money...probably invested in my family's future, bought a new car, put a down payment on a new house...you know, the stuff you remember. I bet you would have too. This latest round of "tax cuts" is structured in similar fashion, you get a little, Paris Hilton gets a lot. Here's the question for you and for everyone you know that thinks the current administration and the republican party is taking care of the poor and middle class. Why do you keep allowing Paris Hilton, Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, Jenna Bush, Barbara Bush, Dick Cheney, etc. to ride on your dime??? Do you really like these people so much that it's OK with you that they get richer while you just tool along? Most of my friends and I'll bet most of yours don't need food stamps. Is it OK with you that Paris Hilton gets a big break while people who clean toilets at $5.15 an hour lose a benefit that helps them feed their children? Are you that angry at the poor that you cheer the loss of food to children? Big Oil made record profits in Q3 of this year, but poor kids have to go to school hungry? The aftermath of Katrina isn't about black or white, it's about what happens to the poor and middle class when the shit hits the fan. OK, so you can rationalize all of this, you want your $350 bucks. Would you invest that $350 bucks in a company that is up to its ass in red ink run by a chairman who doesn't listen to the stockholders while the chairman is calling for a redistribution of the value of the company from the stockholders to the board of directors? Would you invest in a company where the chairman announces that even though the company is doing poorly, he wants to cut revenues? Even the most brilliant business minds would think that was a pretty crazy thing to do. So why is it OK for your government to follow a leader that does this shit? If you voted for George Bush in 2000 or 2004, ask yourself if you are still happy with your choice...and if you are, why, just a year after the "election" are 6 out of 10 people not happy with him or his cronies? What do you and your other 3 buddies see that the majority of americans don't see?? Are you really better off now than you were 4 years ago? If so, how?

Your Government at Work

Champions of the Rich, Enemies of the Poor and Middle Class

In this week's episode of fuck the poor, the mostly Republican House salvaged the $50 billion spending cut by a vote of 217 to 215 by not drastically cutting the programs for the poor, college students and farmers as much as they wanted to a week earlier. The Senate was a bit kinder to the poor avoiding direct cuts to the beneficiaries of antipoverty programs but allowing arctic drilling which the congress cut from it's spending cut bill. (WaPo)

In the meantime, big oil will continue to reap tremendous profits.

Democratic Senators which proposed a bill to make oil price gouging a federal crime and outlawing market manipulation by major oil companies was defeated by 3 votes. (link)

Earlier yesterday, the Senate rejected, 64-35, a proposal by Democratic Senators Byron Dorgan and Chris Dodd to impose a 50 percent excise tax on oil companies' profits when oil exceeds $40 a barrel, unless profit is reinvested in exploration activities or developing new refineries. An amendment by California Democrat Diane Feinstein and New Hampshire Republican John Sununu to eliminate some tax breaks for large energy companies also was defeated, 51-48. (Bloomberg)

The Senate this week also voted against a way to fix Bush's Folly in Iraq. How dare senators require a timely end to the war. (USA Today)

Today the Senate will debate privacy protections regarding the Patriot Act. Yes, your privacy is still being debated you scaredy cats who willingly gave up your rights after 9/11. (link)

In an effort to keep the rich as wealthy as possible, a Democratic amendment which sought to pay for $60 billion in tax cuts by closing tax loopholes failed in the Senate on Thursday.

The U.S. Senate approved a $60 billion tax-cut measure that spares about 14 million [wealthy] Americans from paying higher rates under the alternative minimum tax. (link) Lawmakers defied a demand by the White House to delete a $4.3 billion tax increase on oil companies in the measure, which passed on a vote of 64-33 shortly after midnight last night. (link)

The tax-cut package would more than wipe out the $35 million in spending cuts the Senate approved earlier this month.

Today's Newsday editorial: "Even for a body composed of professional politicians, the Senate has had quite a week. First it offhandedly punched a hole in the Constitution, and then it sought public accolades for patching up part of the damage it had just caused." Indeed. (read the rest)

OK, so there I've said it and I'm not sorry for saying it!

Ya know the sad thing is that it's not the young who forgot how Goebbels and the boys took control, it's the people who fought them tooth and nail and died fighting them that for the most part voted for the bushistas. It's the greatest generation and the children of the greatest generation that "elected" and "re-elected" these maniacs. It's the people who quietly marched off to war in Vietnam because it was "the right thing to do", and are now sending their kids to do the same in Iraq. We've gotten here because of the "good intentions" of good god fearing, queer hating, racist, but oh so patriotic flag waving, yellow ribbon wearing americans, who listen to Rush Limbaugh's every word and watch Bill O'Reilly spew his venom for big paychecks and whose politics are shaped by CNN and FOX as they sit in their comfy livingrooms drinking their cheap ass beer and watching NASCAR, NFL, and NBA megamillionaires entertain the masses, but won't take a stand like say Muhammad Ali did and say enough! It's the middle class investors who when big oil lies to congress can't get too excited because their portfolios have grown fat from the dividends of their investments in big oil and in the weapons to kill people industry. Wake up america, until we stop sending these pricks to congress and the senate, until we stop buying products who use people like Paul Harvey as a mouthpiece, until we stop driving 20-30 miles a day to and from work alone in a gas guzzler, until we just stop all the crap we've been doing and thinking "Oh, it's OK, I mean how can I make a difference, just me riding the bus won't make a difference, just me investing in socially conscious companies won't make a difference, just me not buying a posture pedic sleep system with my own computerized sleep number, just me, just me, just me!!!!!!!!!! Well, folks, unless you're writing politicians, newsmakers, media princesses and princes, businessmen and women everyday and making them very nervous about being the next bastard hauled before a grand jury, in addition to living a life consistent with your politics, even you (we) are not doing enough...and that's why we're in the mess we find ourselves in today, discussing what we should have been screaming at the tops of our collective lungs during the 2000 election, and from now until the next "election"..if free elections are even possible anymore. Our job is not to convince ourselves, it is to convince the 4 out of 10 poor bastards who still believe the crap that's coming from the pols. And in the end, and hopefully, this manical clown circus is coming to an end, when these thugs are out of office and in exile, we can all start by putting things back together. Maybe...hopefully...and the way we should have been doing it all along. Soap box safely stowed for landing...

Fitzmas, Shit-mas...2 years and bupkis!

Fitzmas came and Fitzmas went, and all I got was a fuckin' Scooter!!! That my friends is total horse shit!!! If nothing else, we know for a fact who "outed" Valerie Plame...Robert Novak. Indict his ass and let him and his lawyers argue the point about reporters rights. This administration has put down the media so much and so often that the media no longer deserves the "right" of innocence. Novak was the first person to say Plame was a CIA agent. We have it on record. We have no one else on record admitting to it, therefore Big Lipped Bob goes down!!! Fuck it, this whole matter is too polite for me. Bob takes up residence with a cell mate named "Big Herman" until Bob comes clean with the public, no testimony behind closed doors, no polite conversation on Sunday morning with other media princes and princesses. I can't believe that in a country which prides itself on the history of free journalism no one, not nobody, not no how has cracked this case. At times I wonder if they teach investigative journalism in school at all anymore?? I'm pissed...and even the Scooter I got has a broken wheel ;-)

This weekend in Fear

OK NYC, it's been a while since you guys had the shit scared out of you. "Unspecified threats against unspecified targets".....when will NYC take back its soul?The Boogie Man lives here!

Fear Runs Americans in 2005 or Only Bush could cause gas shortages in Texas!

As I watched the traffic snarls leaving Houston ("fleeing the wrath of Rita" as I recall hearing) I thought...this is all so unnecessary. What is it about the government telling us to fear everything, and then like children, we hide beneath the covers from the boogie man? Did Texans need a bigger evacuation than New Orleans just to prove they're better, bigger, and by golly more patriotic?? The facts don't prove out the case for panic the government spewed out to the people of Houston. Here's why. Houston, unlike New Orleans is 50 feet or so above sea level. Houston doesn't have water on all sides. Houston is a city mostly built in the latter part of the 20 century on solid ground. Houston's federal dole has not been cut to the bone by the current administration (thanks in part to Tom Delay). Houston's infrastructure is newer, it's roads and highways are a result of 50's and 60's planning, not pieced together over the last 3 centuries. Oh, and the bushistas are heavily invested in Texas oil and gas so are more likely to protect and rebuild it quickly. So why did the feds move more quickly to "panic" everyone when Rita (class 3 hurricane, not class 5) moved closer to Houston? And then, when the storm turned, to "protect" the people of Houston, why didn't the news get to them more quickly? Why did this exercise result in the deaths of people trying to run?? Because the current asshats in the whitehouse feast on fear. I'm not saying for a minute that a cat 3 hurricane wouldn't have caused some nasty damage had it come ashore over Galveston, it didn't come ashore there. And there is damage and there are displaced people in rural Texas and Louisiana (again). But it came ashore closer to Orange Texas, a small city on the TX/LA border, but that just didn't make juicy news. This was the lastest opportunity for the cowards in the whitehouse to pretend to "protect and serve". This exercise was an attempt to "show" that it really is the fault of the Louisiana officials (many Dems) not the feds that what went wrong during and after Katrina wasn't the fault of the bushistas. This is similar to how the asshats in the whitehouse tried to couch the Katrina disaster by saying "Well 4 hurricanes hit florida and things didn't go as bad as they did in New Orleans so it must be the state officials, not us". The difference between New Orleans and Florida is that W takes care of those who got him the job and fuck the rest of us plain and simple....oh, and the governor of Louisiana isn't named bush! And why at the 11th hour did Smirky the Chimp say "I'm going to Texas"? Was he going to get on his pony and lead the charge to stop the big bad wolf?? Or was he still pissed about not completing his vacation and wanted to grab a couple more days?? Now that the storm has passed and unlike New Orleans, Chimpy won't have to stand stage center and assure americans that "We will stay as long as it takes..(thank god somebody told him him to skip the 'cut and run' part of the speech) it will be interesting to see just how this plays out. I think there should be an investigation into this staged event immediately after the media circus ends about Katrina (with Rove assuring everyone that Bush had nothing to do with anything naturally). And finally, if Houston had been kicked to shit by this hurricane, would there have been any question that it would be rebuilt? So why did the msm keep that question about New Orleans on the front pages for a week? Slow news days...I doubt it.