On the Other Hand...

The first three months of Pussydent 47A's term have been a nightmare, causing pessimistic viewpoints nationally. After scanning today's content at five or six liberal webpages, I wanted to mention a few possibilities worth waiting for:

• At least 80% of voters are asking, "What's so goddamned necessary about tax cuts for billionaires that MAGA assholes will ruin Social Security and Medicare? Fuck Elon Musk and his fucking tax cuts."
• Pussydent 47A is so unpopular, those who voted for him are ashamed to be out in public, facing open ridicule and contempt.
• The team of Pussydent 47A and Elon Mush (sic) ends after Mush finally does something the Waste of Shit can't tolerate. DOGE is disbanded and the worst existing destruction is reversed before Mush leaves (payback). 
• State and federal courts are dedicated to protecting and preserving Constitutional requirements for checks and balances, and are quickly joined by Congress and state legislatures.
• News organizations, law firms, and other targets of Pussydent 47A's retribution agenda realize his capitulation demands can be ignored because they'll win every lawsuit against him.

Added 7:00 PM:

A majority of Americans understand that MAGA could have elected any blue ribbon prize-winning hog at some red state county fair, and given the USA a better precedent (sic) than the pig they chose instead.

Civil War II

There's speculation on the Internet that if Donny Johnny is eventually removed from office, his most devoted fans will rise up in armed rebellion against the United States in what would amount to a second civil war. His most devoted fans are 

• old white people with no college education, 
• the Nazis, the KKK, and white supremacy gangs,
• the christian nationalists and evangelical lunatics

I'd pay for tickets to watch those three groups of assholes fighting a war to avenge Donny Johnny. It would probably be the shortest civil war in the history of the world, but if it thinned the herd, that would be a good thing.

Basic Stupidity Rate Update

I started assembling and writing blogs nine years ago (on 28 September 2007 to be exact). After I'd been doing it awhile, I decided to use information sources available on the Internet invented by Al Gore to compute a national Basic Stupidity Rate (BSR), providing a baseline for interpreting the significance of various public opinion polls.

I realized that a national BSR could be mathematically calculated by simply averaging the percentages of the popular vote the Republican candidate received in each presidential election starting with Bush vs Gore in 2000. After I made the intial NBSR calculation, I realized the same procedure could be used for individual states, and I could estimate the level of fundamental stupidity in Texas compared to the entire country.

The 2016 election is coming up in 12 days, and a few weeks after that, it'll be time to update the BSRs for the United States and Texas. Based on what polls are indicating today, there's a chance that Donald Trump's candidacy may have a net effect of lowering the national BSR a little bit. We'll have to wait and see.

Basic Stupidity Rate data currently on file is as follows:

• 2000 election: National percentage 47.87, Texas @ 59.30
• 2004 election: National percentage 50.73, Texas @ 61.09
• 2008 election: National percentage 45.65, Texas @ 55.45
• 2012 election:  National percentage 47.20, Texas @ 57.17
• Present National BSR @ 47.862 percent
• Present Texas BSR @ 58.252 percent  

Based on the data, I expect at least 47.862 percent of those responding to poll questions will be on the wrong side of any issue because they're basically stupid. For example, Barack Obama should never achieve a job approval rate higher than 50.1 percent, allowing for 47.862 percent national stupidity, and another two percent for the usual undecideds (so uninformed they're unable to offer an opinion). If Obama hits 51-52 percent approval, he's overachieving.

Based on the state data, stupidity in Texas is 10.4 percent more common than in the nation as a whole. As Trump would say, so sad.

Weddings

It's that long list of special rights, benefits and privileges accruing to marital status that moved marriage from the spiritual realm to the secular realm. I wonder how the institution of heterosexual marriage would fare if all the statutory benefits established by federal and state governments were repealed.

Subpoenas

Lisa Falkenberg, a columnist for the Houston Chronicle, has written an excellent piece on the latest butt hurt among right-wingers (the subpoena of sermons in connection with a lawsuit filed against the city).

When it comes to the separation of church and state, conservative Christians demand all of the protections the principle provides, but they refuse to accept any of the limitations. That whole bunch make me want to puke.

House Math

I came across an interesting article in Slate that explains why immigration reform legislation is probably DOA. If Americans ever decide to streamline and re-model the federal government, the House of Representatives is where we should start. Clean the place out, and make new rules about how congressional district lines are drawn.

OWS

Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are basically wastes of space and oxygen, and if they both vanished into thin air tomorrow it would be a day too late to suit me. The only thing they're good for is helping me decide what I should support or not support. If Limbaugh is in favor of something, that strongly indicates I should oppose it. If Coulter is against something, I'll find something good about it. So it is with the Occupy Wall Street protests, which have the lardass and the skank puking up hairballs. I was indifferent regarding OWS until I started reading the opinions of those two and other right-wing scuzzballs.

The Public Sector

In Wisconsin and many other states where Republicans are the governing majority, the primary goal these days is to chip away at budget deficits by making life as miserable as possible for the public labor force. The GOP recognizes an opportunity when it sees one, and isn't about to let a chance to demolish labor unions pass when they can claim it's necessary to protect public interests. My interest in most American political controversies is purely academic, but this time I have a dog in the fight.

My first job was mowing lawns for ladies in my neighborhood when I was in junior high. During my senior year in college, I was a courier for Western Union and delivered telegrams about twenty hours per week. Those two jobs were the full extent of my employment in the private sector.

I worked in cotton fields in the summers following my junior and senior years in high school, earning roughly 76 cents an hour. The labor was necessary for breeding experiments, and I was paid with a government check. Every other paycheck I received thereafter was issued by the federal government, the state government, or a local independent school district. After college, I was a public school teacher, an army officer, a GA in graduate school, then a caseworker in the state public welfare department and a unit supervisor in the same agency. All some form of government work, all paid from some public treasury or another.

I was never a member of a labor union, never a party to a collective bargaining agreement, and always earned considerably less than my friends working in the private sector for companies like Brown and Root or Halliburton. Except for the ones from the U.S. Army, every check I received had a deduction for both FICA and state retirement.  In jobs offering health coverage, insurance premiums were also deducted. Federal income taxes were withheld, and nearly every dime I earned was circulated back into the economy. All the jobs were demanding and required variable amounts of uncompensated overtime, and I was always pissed off when some piss-ignorant fucking yahoo wrote a letter to a newspaper bitching about public employees slopping at the taxpayer trough and freeloading in general.

My father and my wife spent most of their careers in state employment also, and it wouldn't be a stretch to say that in many ways my life has depended on government jobs... so excuse me if my empathy with public employees in Texas and other places is offensive.

Unhealthy for us

My bro in Houston says in an e-mail that he's afraid Obama is a political lightweight who's wasting time trying to get along with Republicans, and that we're eventually going to wind up with a watered-down health care reform bill that won't contain costs or expand insurance coverage. I agree with the part about the health care bill -- my biggest concern is always that Congress will pass a bad law which is worse than no law. I'm not quite ready to give Obama a grade yet, since he's only seven months into his first year. But at least one liberal columnist is thinking along the same lines we are.

Added 11:31 am, Sunday: Charlie Cook on the 2010 elections. Says Dems lose House seats but maybe hold the majority ? Would it matter if they did ? And this blog points out something else that may be a factor -- just because people think Democrats suck doesn't mean they're getting all gooey for Republicans. Maybe most people are like me and hate 'em both.

Healthy discussion

Mrs. bee and I have affordable health insurance, so our personal stake in the issue of universal health care revolves around our children and people we know who aren't as fortunate as we are. I haven't kept up with the progress of Obama's health care proposals as closely as I could have, but the impression I'm getting from internet reports is that it's turning into a major clusterfuck.

The Democrats are hopeless as a governing entity and are only tolerable when compared to Republicans, who are significantly worse. Democrats want to do good things that benefit most people, but have the organizational skills of brain-damaged pissants. Republicans, on the other hand, can unify into a well-oiled machine at the drop of the hat but have an agenda that makes my skin crawl.

Imagine a Republican president in the White House who just won the office with Obama's popular vote and Electoral College margins. Then imagine that president with Republican majorities in the House and Senate equivalent to the current Democratic majorities. Now, imagine universal health care as a Republican priority. Can you say DONE DEAL? I thought you could,

Hot babes in hats

You have to hand it to the teabag people... they've got some hot chicks on their side. This radical revolutionary attended a teabag fest in Nashville. She's digging it.

According to the rah-rah cheerleader website for the teabaggers, there were about 750 protests with an attendance nationwide of possibly as many as 544,000 lost souls. The nonpartisan sources say it was probably more like 312,000, but whatever. For the sake of argument, let's go with the optimistic 544,000 estimate.

In the 2008 election, a total of 129,438,754 votes were cast for either Obama or Top Gun. Meaning the teabaggers, who are supposedly an important national protest movement, attracted roughly 0.42 percent of last year's presidential vote. Hell, they attracted less than one percent (0.91) of Ace's share. So let the teabaggers have their fun, but let's keep things in perspective.

My bro in Houston said the collective total brain energy of the Texas secessionists wouldn't charge a AAA battery. He might as well have been talking about the teabaggers.

Friday the 13th odds and ends

I noticed an interesting item in the Austin paper (online) this morning, concerning areas in which the state of Texas ranks fiftieth (last) in the USA. Here's a hint: Some of them have to do with adult education levels and environmental pollution.

If you follow the news, it looks like the world is coming to an end. Still, that doesn't stop the people who run this state from wasting time and effort on incredible bullshit like voter ID laws. Until someone can produce evidence that voting fraud is a serious problem, just leave it the fuck alone. Personally, I think Republicans can see their status as the majority party slipping away, and will do whatever they can to suppress minority voting. They're just postponing the inevitable.

When it was necessary to finance conservative Republican agenda priorities, deficit spending was no big problem. Suddenly, the idea of spending money we don't have has become comparable to releasing hellfire upon the land. No wonder I get whiplash trying to keep up.

Michael Steele is chairman of the RNC and a black man. He's the guy who had to bow and scrape before The Maharushi after his ill-considered remark that Limbaugh was a mere entertainer, and ugly at that. Now Mike has made remarks that imply he's pro-choice on abortion. Does this guy have a death wish or what ? Countdown on him is underway.

While I was checking out some of the usual political blogs, I came across the expression "going Galt." My curiosity aroused, I learned the term refers to an idea in the Ayn Rand novel Atlas Shrugged, and in current use describes a result in which all the high-achieving white-collar professionals decide they'll quit producing since it ain't worth the effort. Among hardcore rightwingers on the internet the thinking is that Obama and the Democratic agenda will force this consequence. To some degree I heard all this happy horseshit before, back in the early 90s, when it was Clinton's tax increases on rich people that would cause them to be "dis-incentived" and lead to economic collapse. Now, of course, the same conservative morons are claiming the current conditions are Clinton's fault. The guy can't catch a break.

My observation has been that people who spend 500 bucks on their shirts and a thousand on their shoes and drive fine luxury automobiles get used to it, and decide there's no such fucking thing as too much money, or even enough. Expecting them to give up their neat executive jobs to work as greeters at Walmart or as counter help at McDonald's over a few thousand dollars in higher taxes ? Forget about it.

But just to test the theory, I'd like to see confiscatory tax rates applied to the incomes of conservative AM radio talk show hosts and professional baseball players.

How did I miss this breaking news ? Bristol Palin and Levi broke up, so their baby won't have a daddy after all ? Don't misunderstand me: I don't give a shit one way or another, but there must be thousands of conservative do-gooders having a tough time swallowing this. Maybe millions.

Search me

I should've studied my textbook at night and done my homework when I took economics in college. If I had, I could decide how I want to see the economic stimulus legislation resolved. As it stands, there are credible sources saying we need it and others saying we don't. Some saying the bills before Congress are good, others saying they aren't. Being ignorant, I'm forced to rummage through the conflicting opinions to come up with one of my own.

Here are a few things I'm pretty sure about:

First of all, most of the people running their mouths about the solutions probably don't know any more than I do, but for some reason won't admit their ignorance.

Second, anything the Republicans come up with with is almost certainly wrong, wrong, wrong. That crowd isn't afraid the stimulus package will fail -- they're afraid it will succeed. Limbaugh, the stain in America's underwear, speaks the words all other Repubs are too chickenshit to utter. Anyway, the Repubs had most of a decade to keep the country peaceful and prosperous and weren't up to the task. They can take their proposals and stick 'em where the sun never shines. I reject any Republican proposal categorically.

Third, the Democrats could do a lot better themselves. Loading any stimulus bill down with stuff that even remotely resembles pork barrel spending is at best poor public relations and at worst, criminally stupid. When you already have Rod Blagojevich and Tim Geithner in the news, there's no margin for any additional Dem stupidity.

One school of thought is that, left to its own devices, the economy will eventually straighten itself out. The problem is that I hear this contention mostly from conservatives, and I've already decided they can't be trusted. It would be nice if they were right at least once, though. If none of the suggested solutions are worthwhile, maybe doing nothing would be best.

Starry-eyed optimism ?

A week from tomorrow, the day I've been waiting for finally arrives. The make-believe gunfighter turns over the keys to the new guy, who will then have to start picking up the toys and cleaning up the ungodly mess. The same losers who believe W kept us safe for seven years will be standing on the sidelines waiting for the new guy to fail, and he might, considering the dimensions of the problems he's being handed.

Still, my official position is one of quiet, cautious hopefulness with a side order of wait-and-see. At a minimum, change is in the air -- with W, there's been a constant sense that regardless of circumstances, things would eventually get worse. Hope has just been a word that rhymes with "rope", "nope", and "dope."

I don't have any illusions that Obama will perform miracles, but right now, in the week leading to his inauguration, I'm still able to hope he'll have some success in getting those stains out of the carpet and that stink out of the air. Even that sliver of optimism is a nice change of pace.

Creeping socialism

On Skid Marks, I've been writing about Joe the plumber, a rightwing skinhead who got into the news this week because Speedbump McCain thought it'd be fun to make a big issue out of something Obama said when skinhead was complaining about taxes. Obama said he thought it would be good for the country if we spread the wealth around. Not sure, but I think those were his exact words, or pretty close anyway.

Obama was obviously talking about the general concept of improving economic conditions for the greatest possible number of people. To RWers like Joe and Speedbump, spreading the wealth around is code for a commie takeover. Personally though, I like the idea. I think a law should be enacted that would take forty million bucks from the combined incomes of Limbaugh, Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly and redistribute it to me, my two kids, and my bro in Houston. Ten million skins each. That would be spreading the wealth around for the good of the country; it would definitely improve my outlook on life. And if Limbo, Hannjob and Billo were "disincentived" to keep working, file that in the Tough Shit category.

Breathing room

The 0.7 trillion dollar bailout was voted down in the House of Representatives today, 228 against to 205 in favor. The Repubs split 133-65 against, and the Dems 140-95 in favor. Each party will try to blame the other for the bill's failure, but it looks like neither party has the numbers to make that case. The damned thing isn't really dead; like the serial killer in a horror movie it'll keep popping up and scaring the shit out of people.

Since I'm not well-informed in economics, I can't pass judgment on the merits of the bailout bill, but there are a few reasons why I'm not mourning this afternoon's defeat.

First of all, this thing got off on the wrong foot. Goober came out trying to sell the deal the same way he sold all his first-term disasters: Give me what I want or this puppy will die. This no-good motherfrakker has used fear as a marketing tool several times too often, and in eight years has yet to do a single thing to win my trust. The orginal proposal just looked like another in a long line of power-grab attempts. Been there, done that.

Second, the Republicans never did get on board in serious numbers. When it became obvious that the Repubs wanted the bailout to pass with only Dem votes, I smelled a rat.

Third, there was just too much artificial pressure to get the bill passed immediately if not sooner. That's always a recipe for disaster in Washington. Congress has a hard enough time getting things right when they take all the time they need. When they start rushing and taking shortcuts, bad shit always happens.

I've never lived through the kind of economic disaster Banjo Boy has been threatening us with. I can't imagine it would be much fun. On the other hand, people in this country have been electing governments based on trivia like gay marriage, school prayer, and gun control for at least a generation. Maybe a swift, hard kick in the ass is what it'll take to finally get their attention.

Things that make me nervous, Saturday edition

According to the headlines, the federal government is fixing to dump 700 billion dollars in an effort to keep the economy afloat. This is coming from elected officials who gripe about giving a 200 dollar welfare check to a single mom. What a strange world we live in. My biggest worry is that the banjo boy is pushing the plan. The country needs a reminder that Billy Banjo is the guy who can take a common cold and turn it into lung cancer. When was the last time he grabbed control of a situation and things got better instead of worse ? I can't remember one, either.