The President's agenda has changed. Or has it?

       You can say a lot of things about Barack Obama.  One thing you cannot say, (at least accurately) is that he is stupid.  While I disagree with a lot of what he has attempted to do; he has been the most politically savvy President in a long time.  I have previously, jokingly suggested that his agenda for 2013 was to sell guns.  I think now I have figured out what he is really doing, and I want everyone to hear it from me first.
       He assigned the biggest fool on the left side of the aisle, Joe Biden, to head up a commission (which I'm sure was a four-star, blue ribbon panel, since they all are) to look into possible gun-control solutions.  This is significant given Biden's role in the Brady bill, and his political nearness to extremists like Feinstein.
       Examine what a farce this panel has been already.  Meeting with the makers of video games, movies and television shows to discuss whether there should be gun-control measures.  Someone said this is like asking the makers of Hot Wheels their opinions on automobile safety.  I concur.  Considering how badly Hollywood and the gaming industry botch firearms in general, it is moronic to ask for their input.
       Unless your idea is to shake up your political opponents.  Here comes the NRA, the 2nd amendment foundation, and the whole of the Republican party, riding in on their white chargers.  They are yelling that guns are not the problem.  Mental health care and schools are the problem.
       The President, while taking V.P. Biden's suggestions "under advisement", meets with the NRA and the Republican leaders.  He ponders for a while, then declares that he thinks they are right.  Education and health care are what need to be fixed, not the private business of law-abiding citizens.  He then invites the Republicans, and those in the Democrats who previously voted against reforming health care, to join him in this noble cause.  To correct the issues that were his primary platform to correct.
       He will have forced the Republicans, and the Democrats who didn't vote for those reforms the first time, to gladly join him in reforming these things now.  In doing so he will have built a bridge between both parties. Brilliant, when you think about it.

Is Chris Christie too fat to run for President?

       I had heard this questioned being seriously punted around in the media, so I will present a multiple choice test here, with this as the only question.


1)  Is Chris Christie too fat to run for President?

   a) Yes.
   b) No.
   c) What does his weight have to do with anything?
   d) What kind of person would even think to ask that?
   e) Is that really what our political process has devolved into?
   f) He's too fat to run for anything.


How did you do?  Lets see by examining the possible answers.

a)  If this was your answer you are an unthinking moron who's voting rights should be removed.  I hope you die in a fire, while sitting in a filthy bathroom stall, with the most painful food poising you have ever experienced, causing explosive diarrhea.

b)  You might not be as big of an idiot as the person who answered a), but probably should have read further.

c)  Partial credit for having some sense.

d)  Partial credit for appropriate moral outrage.

e)  Full credit.  being disappointed with the whole process is the only intelligent response to such an asinine question.

f)  Partial credit for having a sense of humor about such a farcical process as our Presidential races.

A last minute plea for civil disobedience.

       What I am proposing is a little ridiculous, but if you are someone I have ever met, this will not be surprising.  See, being a "Third Party Voter" most of my life, in a solidly blue state (Illinois), I have come to despise the electoral college.  In Illinois, unless you vote democrat, you may as well stay home.
       The problems are legion with our current, electoral, approach, but let's recap.  Electors are not required to vote as instructed.  Districts are drawn by the party currently in control of the state.  (gerrymandered).  The two major parties have everything so figured out with polling, that they already know where to bother throwing money.
       It all adds up the same.  Your vote does not count.  Not directly.  Not even if your state or district votes your way.   
       So What I am suggesting is this:  If you are in a state that is "in play", vote your conscience.  Sleep the sleep of the just.  But if you are in a very red state, vote for Obama.  If you are in a solid blue, Romney.  Even if you are voting against your conscience.  Even if it will make no difference.  (It won't)
       Even states that "split their electorate" can participate.  In those states just apply the same rule at a district level.  (Blue districts vote red; red votes blue).
       The idea is for as many states as possible to have the slimmest possible margin of victory.  So that no matter who wins, the popular vote will not be the same as the electoral vote.  Maybe, if we do this enough, things will change.
       Maybe I'll win the lottery.  Maybe the tides will stop because I say so.  Maybe, in the long run, if you look at voting records rather than rhetoric, the two major party candidates are so similar it won't make a difference anyway.
       So get out and vote.  If you are in Ohio it might even mean something.

Full circle

       In the election year part of the political cycle I am reminded of the way history moves in circles.  There is a vicious cycle where one party is elected, halfway through they start to lose support, the other party takes over the Senate, House, or both.  Then that party loses the presidency.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  This may be a four year cycle, it may be 8, or longer, but it always repeats, just with the opposite party in control next time.
       Things always come full circle.  That is the heart of the problem isn't it.  Combine simple geometry with basic root cause analysis, and even a brain-damaged chimp will shortly realize that moving in circles is not progress.  As long as we continue the vicious cycle, as long as things come full circle, we cannot progress.  Progress, you see, is a line.  Not an arc, not a sine wave, not a line segment and not a tangent.  It is a line that stretches from before history, to beyond it.
       "So", I hear yo asking, "what can we do to fix this?"  Well it is simple.  Most things are, we just  complicate them as an excuse as to why we refuse to do them.  First: admit the parties currently in power do not represent Joe six-pack.  They also don't represent Joe dime-bag, or Joe Magnum-of-Champagne.  This is more than a failure of the media, the public, and the two party system.
       Also, I hate use of the term two-party system.  It comes from the two major parties, of course.  But more so; in global politics the western world is the first world.  The soviet bloc was the second world.  The two had modernity.  The "Third world" nations were those that refused to ally with either, and thus were more denied modernity.
       The implication of referring to another group as a "third party" is that they are inferior.  Funny, since normally they have the better ideas, and more honest candidates.  Also, as long as we have brought math into the picture, count the number of people running for president on your ballot when you are voting.  WAAAAYYYYYY more than three, right?
       Back to the fixing it part.  We need more people to get involved.  Theodore Roosevelt put it best.  "A vote is like a rifle.  It's usefulness depends upon the character of the user"  You can't fix it by shouting slogans, picketing, or backing someone who represents a single issue you believe in.  Nothing is solved by relying on talking points.  The world of sound-byte debating is killing real political discussion.  This is more than just bringing civility back to political debate, it is approaching things from the perspective of listening.
       Civility is not interrupting.  Civility is not yelling.  These are things that your parents should have pounded through your thick skull.  These are things that are the basics of society.
       Listening however, is accepting that the other side may have a point, and giving another point of view a chance before condemning it.  It involves thinking.  Listening and thinking are what are missing from the American political scene.  Two tenets of leadership.  All we are left with is action.  Action without thought or knowledge is at best wasteful, at worst harmful, and always leads you back where you started.  A point we arrive at every election year.  (back to top).
     

Link Card Accepted at Market Day

       For those of you from another state, Illinois uses something called the Link Card in place of food stamps.  This saves people who need government assistance from the indignity of not using a credit or debit card, like everyone else.
       Since, despite the taxes we pay, we don't have enough money for the schools to use on things they should have, we have Market Day sales.  I will not take anything away from Market Day.  I have tried many of their items, and found them mostly superior in quality.  This post in no way maligns or impugns (those words look weird, don't they), the products or character of the Market Day company.
       By now you're wondering if I've lost it.  How can these two items be tied together.  Link cards and Market Day.  One is a pay in to the system, the other a pay out.  Well my gentle reader, there is a way these two things are linked. (pardon the pun)
       The flyer sent home with my children for, Market Day, states that they will be accepting the Link card as a form of payment.  This is yet another example of Illinois circular reasoning.  And it's circular math.
       We under-fund schools so they need to have fund raisers.  We give people Link cards with some of the tax money that could otherwise have gone to schools.  (OK, its mostly lost as graft, but bear with me.)  They are then allowed to use those Link cards to purchase food from Market Day, with proceeds going to the previously mentioned, under-funded schools.  Like all perpetual motion machines this one will not stay running long without an outside force providing additional energy.  That would be our tax money; which feeds this great wheel both top and bottom.
       I will not speak out against Link cards here.  (That is another post.  They are readily abused)  I will certainly not speak out against Market Day.  I will say that it makes no kind of sense to allow Link cards to be used for Market Day purchases, since by their very nature, their products are priced higher than necessary.  Else there would be no proceeds to forward to the school system.
       While I would love nothing more than to rant against the people abusing their state paid food plan, I cannot.  Not out of any sense of sympathy for them, but because they are not operating outside the rules that were set down.  It's cheesy, no doubt; but completely legal.  And really, why shouldn't we all be abusing the state's coffers.  Our "Leaders" do.

       Off topic: the President's recent comments about being in favor of Gay Marriage are as insincere as they are brilliant.  I say insincere because if he were in favor, he would have spoken out months ago, when fist asked.  Instead, he waited until it was politically expedient.  Which is why it is brilliant.  He won't lose any votes for saying he is in favor of it.  However his opponent, in an effort to differentiate himself, immediately went on record against it.  This will cost him votes.  Brilliant, but insincere.

Ron Paul stabs Joe Biden in desperate bid for attention.

       In an effort to get any billing at all despite winning yet another Republican straw poll; Ron Paul fatally stabbed Vice-President Joe Biden in the neck with an uncooked lasagna noodle that had been sharpened, according to anonymous sources.  Paul, who is consistently listed as an "also ran" by the media despite winning nearly every straw poll was apparently in a rage over the attention being received  by Herman Cain.
       "I just don't understand," Paul was quoted as saying. "something might have happened 20 friggin' years ago and this becomes an issue.  I thought we still had high unemployment.  I mean, What the hell?"
       Paul was detained by capital police for most of an afternoon before being released on his own recognizance, since members of congress are incapable of wrongdoing.  He was referring, of course to the flap over allegations of sexual harassment dating to when Cain was in charge of the National Association of People who Spit in Food.  In a news story broken by politico, it was disclosed that perhaps there was something that happened resulting in a settlement, which included a gag order.  One alleged victim, apparently completely ignorant of what a gag order entails, said she will come forward with her story anyway.
       This just in, apparently, not to be outdone, Rick Perry has challenged Mitt Romney to settle the Primary election "Texas Style."  Apparently this entails the two contenders taking turns kicking each other between the legs until one gives up.  Mr. Romney the current leader in every way except those involving numbers or math, could not be reached for comment.  Michele Bachmann, ever the voice of reason, stated "I don't believe that's how it works, but I guarantee a Bachmann victory if that is how it has to be."  She further stated that she looks forward to running against Mrs. Clinton in November.

       If you need me to tell you this was satire you are a sad, sad individual.

Agenda for America

       I will admit it freely.  I have an agenda.  Not a unabomber-manifesto type agenda.  Or a tea-party agenda.  Certainly not a socialist agenda.  I am a centrist.  By that I mean I hold x- number of reactionary /libertarian views, and an equal number of socialist views.  So they kinda balance out.  (example, pro gun, don't care if gays marry)  In other countries, such as the Nordic Socialist- democracies, they have names for that.  Here we do not.  My agenda is simple, and detailed below:
       Keep them from f-ing it up.  By "them" I mean politicians.  You see, I am quite happy with our current political climate.  An unpopular president, a congress controlled by the other major party, and a split supreme court, means nothing gets done.
       You may be asking, "Why is that good?"  I'll tell you my friends, right this way.  The eternal dance we call a representative democracy.  You see, better minds than ours devised a way that no one could mess up too badly in government.  They contrived a method by which our "king" rotates when he would ordinarily be consolidating power, and our other representatives can be ousted without war every few years.  Only Justices are lifers, and generally speaking, the only smart ones in the group.
       This post will ramble a bit, one out of every dozen will.  No I have not been drinking.  Ask my friends, I am much more focused when I have been.
       Equal opportunity bashing:  The president has asked for an extension of payroll tax cuts for another year.  3 for 3 as I recall.  For an idea he said was idiotic when another President did it.  (I know, bad grammar)  Secretary Clinton said we needed to keep our troops deployed overseas, and "Stay the course" if you will.  Again, its only a bad idea when someone else does it.
       Now for the righties.  Congressman Walsh, all around buffoon, held a press conference to explain why he wouldn't be attending the President's speech.  Apparently, he feels that the President is wrong, even before he speaks.  Now I will at least give the leader of the free world the chance to tell me an idea before I tell him he's wrong.  Especially if that were part of my job description.  But then I'm no congressman.  The audience apparently voiced some disagreement at this point and was told by the August Mr. Walsh that they were wrong.  Joe, (see you get no respect) when the people you invited, your base as it were, tell you that you are not representing their interests; and your damned job title is Representative, perhaps they are not the ones who are wrong, jack-ass.  Just sayin'.
       To the (ahem) neutral media:  Ron Paul is one of the Republican front runners.  Bachman is last in almost every poll.  Put Ron Paul on the television.  He may be boring because he never speaks before thinking, but he is a LEGITIMATE candidate.  Perhaps the only one.
       Never wanted to be this guy but here I am:  I was watching a vlog about how poor people who vote Republican are only voting that way because of the Republican promise to oppress minorities for the gain of whites.  For the record, it was narrated by a white male.  Presumably affluent.  That is like saying; "Any rich person who votes Democrat is clearly corrupt and expects a loophole in the tax code, since all Democrats want is communism."  (Note, that was for illustrative purposes only, I do not believe that) I will say this: "Try talking to one first".  I have been that guy.  Low income, Republican voter.  I was never promised anything, nor was it under the premise of oppressing anyone.  Although if a candidate promised world domination...
       It all starts with assumptions.  We assumed, up through the forties, that our way was better, and we were right.  We now assume we are no better than any other country, and our way is no better, and we are right.
       "If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right."  -Henry Ford-