Before I get to the congressmen, let’s look at Haley Barbour, Mississippi governor and well-known big mouth. This is the guy who thought FEMA did a bang-up job after Katrina.  This is the guy who is trying to grease the presidential wheels for himself by claiming he balanced his state’s budget.  This is the guy whose state ranks #1 at taking way more money from the Federal government than his state puts in.  This is a classic Welfare State – taking money from the blue states to “balance its budget.”    If we cut that largesse – and just gave Mississippi and Good Ole Boy HB back what they put in, we would save $7 billion a year.

Now let’s move on to Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who is becoming the poster boy for destroying social safety nets. I mean, where is Sarah Palin and her talk of death panels?  You want to kill off old people, just make them buy private insurance with vouchers (this has to be the funniest and most absurd idea in the history of dealing with spiraling medical costs – what a boondoggle for insurance companies!).   And if you want to kill off poor people let corrupt states like Mississippi that ranks last in the nation for education figure out how to help their sick.  I mean, if they can’t figure out how to educate someone beyond an 8th grade reading level, how are they going to figure out paying for cancer treatments?

If we took Wisconsin’s Federal subsidies that go beyond what the state puts into the kitty, we’d save another BILLION dollars a year.  Wow, I’ve already cut 8 billion a year!

I’ll cut about another 40 billion thus:

Big mouth Joe “Liar” Wilson and Jim DeMint of South Carolina can give back $7 billion and change a year. What the hell? Are we subsidizing tobacco?

Steve King of Iowa (holy moly this guy is a real charmer – who actually votes for someone like this?) can give back the extra $2 billion his state gets – likely for farm subsidies so we can all get fatter on corn and potatoes.

Rand Paul of Kentucky? No, it can’t be? Another welfare state with one of the biggest tea party big mouths representin’ in Congress?  Yup.  $7 billion a year.  Give it back.

Marco Rubio and a bunch of other tea party whiners from Florida can give back the extra $10 billion a year they get.

Alabama’s rep Robert Aderhold self-identifies as a tea partier while his state rakes in an extra 10 billion than they pay in every year.

None of this takes into account just how big the percent of the money in the federal coffers comes from states like New Jersey, New York, California, Massachusetts…yes, for decades the blue states have subsidized red states. NO MORE.

Of course there are some exceptions – District of Columbia takes beaucoup bucks – mainly to support Federal programs – from the IRS to the CIA to the Department of Defense.  It’s expected because it is the seat of the Federal Government.  But Iowa? Kentucky? South Carolina?  Give us our money back. Let us spend it on states that don’t whine about taxes and like having bridges that don’t collapse, cities with sufficient law enforcement, and citizens with roofs over their heads.

Some might argue – that’s not fair to the people of those states who will be harmed.  I agree. We could do something Republicans love, a voucher system.  Let’s use Mississippi again as an example since it’s such a miserable, poorly managed state.  You could use some of the saved money to give people “get out of Mississippi free” cards.  If you are at the poverty level – or let’s say 2-3 times the poverty level since, face it, the poverty level number is so low you couldn’t live on dog food at it – you get a Voucher – worth say $10K – to move to a better state.   We’d still save a lot of money.  They would likely fare better in states that are better managed.

Frankly, in the end, if people don’t want the Federal government spending money, those people should not get extra Federal money.  Fair is fair.

Oh, and if they shut down the government I hope they make sure no one’s cleaning the toilets on Capitol Hill.  Let them stew in it while they hash out a so-called budget.

PS – forgot to mention Alaska – 2 billion a year more – thanks for the check, Sarah.

Now there are Republican ads calling Sotomayor a friend of terrorists (still trying to get that tack to work). They are calling her “radical” – of course her judicial record is anything but.

The word “perseveration” keeps coming back to me. Having grown up around someone with Asperger’s syndrome, I know what perseveration looks like. For those who don’t, here’s the Wikipedia definition:

Perseveration is the uncontrollable repetition of a particular response, such as a word, phrase, or gesture, despite the absence or cessation of a stimulus, usually caused by brain injury or other organic disorder.

If an issue has been fully explored and discussed to a point of resolution it is not uncommon for something to trigger the re-investigation of the matter. This can happen at any time during a conversation. This is particularly true with those who have had traumatic brain injuries.

Those with Asperger’s syndrome also display a form of perseveration in that they focus on one or a number of narrow interests.

I am wondering if the happy little Wikipedia elves shouldn’t add a line in here about super-right-wing-nut Republicans.  They keep revisiting these ideas over and over, even after their repeated failure and even after being shot down by the majority of Americans.  Is it that they believe if they say them often enough they’ll find a sufficient number of sheep to follow?  I suppose it’s possible this could work, but their arguments are so distasteful and obnoxious that they make a mockery of intelligent discourse in American politics. I am convinced these are the people who truly hate America. They claim they are the ones who really love America, but what they really love are their batshit crazy ideas.  I’m not sure there is a group that shows more disdain for Americans, and what is America but Americans?

Although I had never heard this slang before, she didn’t have to clarify -

Needless to say – it was annoying. Millie made it pretty funny – as the screener told her she was going to “touch her backside,” Millie looked over at me and said, “She’s gonna touch my ass!” The poor screener said, “No!” and looked terribly embarrassed. We had a good laugh at that point.

I swear, every damn item in my carry-ons was removed and screened with those wand things – they attach a piece of cloth to it, wipe the over your crap, then put the cloth in a machine that can detect explosives.
Thing is – they had tagged our tickets with all these SSSSSSs and that meant we had to go through a different entrance. Then, get this, you know how they have grey bins for all the crap you have to pull out of your suitcases? You know, where you dump your laptop, liquids in a baggie, shoes, coat, and for me, a knee brace. They have special RED ONES for the people getting the extra special screening.

They really make you feel like a criminal – first you are there with your special screaming-red bins for your crap, then they let you go through the metal detector and stand in this “corralled” area surrounded by ropes on three sides and with a pair of feet silhouetted on the floor in case you are too stupid to know your feet go on the floor in this tiny corral. Then they yell out for a FEMALE check – and you wait until they open the rope and walk you over to the now-we-are-gonna-inspect-all-your-harmless-junk area. They make you stand on another footy silhouette and inform you they are going to pat you down and to let them know if you are uncomfortable. Well hell yeah I’m uncomfortable!

Then they go slowly through all my stuff – mind you, I had removed my metal leg brace to go through the detector so I’m standing there feeling very vulnerable – I finally asked, “Can I sit down?” Which they allowed.
Meanwhile, Millie is waiting behind the special gate for the extra-special-people-who-require-for-god-knows-what-reason-extra-scrutiny.

Eventually they finished up with us – and I commented something to the effect that the bad guys were walking through while they were preoccupied with the least-likely-people-on-earth-to-cause-a-problem. She responded, “Yeah! There goes Osama!”

And we had a good laugh about how patently absurd the whole process is. Criminy. If you are spending all your time on the lowest risk people, who’s paying attention when the next Mohammed Atta walks up to the metal detector?

As any one interested in challenging and thoughtful debate knows – the flip-flop debate is one of the memes of the less sophisticated – they don’t understand that if you don’t change your mind in the face of overwhelming evidence, you are not terribly bright. Just like with Kool Aid – hey, this cult was fun, but now the guy is asking me to drink something that will kill me, maybe it is time to find another group to hang with…

So click the link below and scroll to the free videos:

http://www.thisdividedstate.com/

Unfortunately we have become quite lazy as a culture – it is easier to just keep believing something that makes us feel good about ourselves than recognize something is terribly awry.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but right at this moment it seems like every soldier’s battle over there is keeping alive, keeping all their body parts…these just seem like slightly higher priorities.

If you want to see some really funny spin, check out how this editorial, compares everything to Clinton (in some of his examples he puts lying about consensual sex with an adult on par with revealing national security secrets – in a case where it was specifically done to undermine the great democratic tradition of challenging your government when you think it is up to no good). It might have been more interesting if he’d gone back to figure out who got off easy in Iran-Contra.

I probably shouldn’t poke fun – it’s obvious from the title “Patrick Fitzgerald Brings New Legal Standard to DC” and the writer’s bio that he is more a conspiracy theorist than an expert on legal matters. Unfortunately, this sort of extreme right paranoia, once a fringe element, has spread like a bizarre witch-hysteria. Such zealotry damages the basic funtioning of democracy UNLESS the average voting American is curious enough (and committed enough) to look past specious arguments and dig a bit more.

Certainly the idea that national security, the safety of NOCs, and justifications for war when Congress has relinquished its rightful authority in these matters are on par with lying about a bj is laughable – but most people don’t think beyond the surface argument. They just say, “Yeah! That sounds unfair!” I remember more than one friend with a law degree telling me, “The first thing you learn in law school, is that the law isn’t fair.” Anyone who lives in the real world knows that it isn’t.

The almost infantile belief that the law (or life) should be fair is bizarre – you could extend it to other crimes: how many murderers get away with their crimes? Sadly, a sizeable number. Does that mean it’s not fair to indict murderers you have more evidence on – if that guy got away with it, I should too!

It’s hard to ignore just how Machiavellian this has become. The idea that Dick Cheney, merely a Vice President, is so involved in these matters alone seems odd. Also see:
Cheney and Libby withhold documents from Senate Intelligence so they could continue to claim he had WMDs.via Agitprop

Is Rove Considering a Plea Deal?

Is he describing the same person who did this:

As acting ambassador to Iraq in the run-up to the first Gulf War, he was the last US diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein, in 1991.

He very publicly defied the Iraqi strongman by giving refuge to more than 100 US citizens at the embassy and in the homes of US diplomats – at a time when Saddam Hussein was threatening to execute anyone who harboured foreigners.

He then addressed journalists wearing a hangman’s noose instead of a necktie.

He later told the Washington Post newspaper that the message to Saddam Hussein was: “If you want to execute me, I’ll bring my own fucking rope.”

You have to go to the world press to see the actual factual history of Wilson vs. the spin-of-the-moment, although there are other sources that make it clear the Wilson-bashing is merely desperation. Wilson devoted his life to the foreign service – and challenged Saddam Hussein with patriotic bravado. I certainly doubt the weasels who ignore these facts would have been so bold. I imagine them quivering in a corner, crying to those Americans stuck in Iraq and looking for safe haven, “No, I can’t protect you! Saddam said he’d kill me! I have to save my own ass!”

It’s a sad day for American Democracy and Freedom when journalists quote propagandists and don’t bother to check the facts. Just because you SAY “the spin stops here” does not mean that the spin stops there. Me thinks thou doth protest too much…