Climate Change Doesn't Care Whether Or Not You Believe In It

So the Koch brothers and their buddies can buy up all of the Republicans (and, to be fair, a few Democrats, too).

And they can find a small handful of scientists to pay off. There are always people willing to say whatever they've been paid to say--however absurd.

Naturally, Fox News will be happy to repeat all of the lies and misinformation ad infinitum.

In the end, it won't matter.

Eventually we will reach a tipping point so obvious and so severe that even the typical "well informed" Republican voter will have to acknowledge it--or not. Doesn't really matter.

Because lies and dissembling are human inventions, nature remains unimpressed and unmoved by them.

So buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy flight.

They're All The Same? No,They Aren't.

We've really got to stop this nonsense about "oh, both parties are at fault. The extremists on the left are just as bad as the extremists on the right."

No. They aren't.

One party wants to discriminate against gays. The same party wants to demonize unions. This party does everything it can to deny voting rights to minorities. This party also wants to take away a woman's right to control her own reproductive system. And destroy public education.

Affordable health care reform? Not if this party has it's way.

Rebuild the infrastructure? Sorry, can't afford it.

In general, this party has said a loud, resounding "No!" to every progressive measure. Even those that they originally supported.

Of course, this party does say "yes" to some things:

Lower taxes for the rich? You bet!

Beat up on poor people? Fuck yeah!

Industries free to pollute? Right on!

Money equals speech? Makes sense!

Destroy the safety net? About time!

Ignore science? The Bible says so!

Corporations are people? Sure!

War? Why not!

No, the fault runs entirely in one direction.

Oh, and by the way, what extremists on the left?

Barack Obama? 

Elizabeth Warren?

Nancy Pelosi? Harry Reid?

Give me a break.

The Romney Method

We've all met people who could look us right in the eye, smile, and lie their asses off.

Usually they are trying to sell us something defective--snake oil or a used car or land in Arizona--and not running for the presidency of the United States.

But that, in a nutshell, is Willard Mitt Romney.

He will say whatever he thinks you want to hear, regardless of the facts.

Indeed, facts are completely fungible things in his hands.

If a previous statement becomes inconvenient, he will then deny that he ever said it.

Indeed, he will claim that you said it.

He will do this all with a twinkle in his eye, a smile and a firm handshake.

His one overriding purpose is to close the sale.

Maybe a country enraptured by "reality" TV and Faux News, a country that forgets--or never learned--those parts of its history that don't follow the phony, Tea Party narrative, deserves a smiler with a knife as Commander in Chief.

But, my God, has it come to this?

Democracy In Action, or: Andrew Kowalczyk is an Idiot

For those of you wondering, "who the hell is Andrew Kowalczyk?", he is the author of one of the stupidest letters to the editor I've ever read. And considering that most of the letters to the editor that I read are from The Arizona Republic, that's really quite an achievement. Tip o' the hat to you, Andy!

Why is Andrew Kowalczyk an idiot? Let me count the ways...To quote from young Andrew's scribblings, "While adults were away in 2009 and 2010, the Democrats in Congress and President Obama decided to have a wild toga party for all their friends and cronies." This is so absurdly wrong that I'm not really sure where to begin. But I'll try. For starters, what "adults" could Andy possibly be referring to? The Republican Party? Really?

What happened in 2008-2009 is that the bill came do for eight years of The Dark Lord Cheney and Simple W's malfeasance. They squandered the Clinton surplus, they cut taxes on the wealthiest whenever they could, they let oil companies set energy policy, they attempted (but failed) to privatize Social Security, they started two unfunded wars, they crippled the regulatory oversight of Wall Street, they used the Constitution like toilet paper, and on and on. Oh, and let's not forget that 9/11 happened on their watch, too. Oops. So those can't be the "adults" Special K is talking about. Only an idiot would believe that the financial crisis, to pick just one Republican catastrophe, was Obama's doing.

Andy K. continues, "They went wild on the Internet, ordering all sorts of stuff that they've been dreaming of for years and years. They used America's credit card." This is the K meister trying to be clever. You know, like Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh? Of course it is unsubstantiated by the facts--unless you use Fox News as your source for "facts". "All sorts of stuff"? I guess he means healthcare reform. For some reason, "Obamacare" really pisses a lot of idiots off. I'm not sure why. I guess they like being at the mercy of insurance companies, or they've bought all of the Right's tired old lies about the "evils" of socialized medicine, or they plan on never getting sick or getting old. Or maybe it's just because they're idiots.

More Kowalczyk wisdom: "It's now 2011, and the Democrats are saying that America has to pay for their wild binge and they want a bigger allowance." The "wild binge" he is referring to was the money spent preventing the world's economy from melting down. Incidentally, this "binge" began on W's watch. By the way, here's a fact for Andy to chew on, if he can stop frothing at the mouth long enough to chew on anything: The national debt increased more under both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush than it has under Obama. The national debt also includes several trillion dollars that we owe ourselves. Kowalczyk's "bigger allowance" means the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling is an artificial construct that many economists consider ridiculous. However, up until now, it has always been automatically raised, regardless of who the president was. Apparently Andy would rather see the US default on its obligations than give Obama what every other President has gotten. That'll show 'em! Take that world economy!

Now we come to the heart of little Andy Kowalczyk's ravings: "Republicans are not going to raise their allowance and are simply asking for the Dems to send back some of the stuff so we might have a chance to pay for the stuff we can't send back." Since Andy doesn't specify what "stuff" we should send back, I will. Let's send back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Let's send back all of our outsourced manufacturing jobs. Those are the two root causes of most of our debt to China. Let's send back the bill for the Iraq War. It's over a trillion dollars and rising. Let's send back Federal subsidies for oil companies. Let's send back all of the corporate tax loopholes. While we're at it, let's raise the wage cap on Social Security and stop once and for all this nonsense about privatization. Now honestly, do any of those "send backs" sound like Republican ideas?

No. Republican "ideas" include cutting taxes for billionaires and corporations while gutting the safety net for the rest of us; doing away with the Departments of Education and Energy, Head Start, the EPA, the FCC, the FDA, the SEC, Medicare, Planned Parenthood, and any other agency, governmental or otherwise, that might stand in the way of their plans for turning the USA into a Christian Corporate Fascist state. Amen.

I decided to add Democracy In Action to the title of this post because Andrew Kowalczyk's vote counts the same as mine or yours. Even though he's demonstrably an idiot.

Of course, we're all born ignorant of certain things. But some of us choose to remain ignorant. Many of those who choose to remain ignorant end up in Arizona. In fact they make up a majority of the state's voters. The current state that Arizona, and indeed the nation, finds itself in is a direct result of the rise of Idiot Power. And The Arizona Republic is their paper of record.

Surprise Grandma!

All of those old people, who've relied on the law and order, family value Republicans to keep them safe from the blacks and the gays and the liberals and the feminists and the young people and all of the other boogie men (and women) that trouble their dreams, I wonder how they like the idea of their Medicare disappearing?

You don't need "entitlements", do you? Of course not. So, that nice Mr. Ryan and the other good Christians that make up the GOP are going to give you "vouchers" instead of health care. Good luck with that.

And your Social Security? Well that's going to Wall Street, because they'll treat it just like it's their own. And before you know it, it will be. Just wait and see.

But whatever happens, you can sleep well, content with the knowledge that none of your tax dollars are going to fund abortions.

After the horrors of the Great Depression it took more than 30 years to build a social safety net. It wasn't perfect, but it was certainly better than nothing. And most of the heavy lifting was done by the Democrats.

It won't take nearly that long to tear it apart. And all of the damage will be done by the Republicans.

So by all means keep voting your fears. But remember "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

Where do I even start?

Sometimes I just don't know where to start. Writers often complain about the terror of facing a blank screen, wondering how they can get anything written. When I contemplate the Republican assault on the middle and lower classes, I seem to have the opposite reaction: there's just so much to say that I don't know where to start.

As an example, right now I have six different web pages open on my computer, all detailing Republican atrocities towards either the people or the law itself. Each one is worthy of pages of analysis, yet no one in the media seems to be paying any attention. If not for the internet, I have no doubt that the rape of America would be much further advanced than it is right now.

The media. Let's start there. Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post is generally seen as moderate, possibly left-leaning journalist. He appears constantly on MSNBC on The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell and The Rachel Maddow Show. I got to know who he was through his appearances on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Seems pretty liberal, right? Not so much. When discussing the Social Security issue this week, Cillizza followed the typical beltway rhetoric, advanced by the Republican Party at the behest of their corporate benefactors and followed blindly by the media. Cillizza says that "the obvious fix" is to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. "The simple solution is to make cuts to two large government entitlement programs: Social Security and Medicare," he states.

Nowhere does Cillizza mention the most obvious fix -- raise the goddamned cap on FICA and Medicare taxes. If you or I make $85K per year, we pay SS taxes on the entire amount of our taxable income. A person who makes $250K pays on just $106K of their taxable income. Every single member of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, who all make considerably more than the average American citizen? You got it, they pay SS taxes on just $106K of their annual taxable income. They also receive a much more generous pension than most of those in the private sector, amounting to roughly 80% of their pay while in Congress. Have you heard anyone in the media discussing this and noting that these are the people who are debating what should happen to the rest of us?

I don't know about most of you, but I'm certainly not wealthy. I've worked as an actor,  restaurant manager, newspaperman, retail manager, and a few other things, but nothing that ever paid more than $106K. So guess what? I don't have a pension. I, like most Americans, have lived paycheck-to-paycheck most of my life. That means I'll be relying on my Social Security when I retire, as well as probably still trying to work part-time on the side. Now they want to cut it? Simply because the rich folks don't want to pay a few more dollars in taxes? This makes me angry -- very, very, angry. What makes me angrier, however, is the fact that the Democratic Party is not shouting from the rooftops about how wrong this is. Once again, they have let the Republicans define the debate, with the result being yet another slide to the right. And yet again, the corporate media reports the story the Republican way. Let's face it, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN, etc. are all owned by corporations who have much to gain from the Republican agenda, at the expense of 98% of the American people. As a result, it looks like I may have to learn to like cat food eventually.