American Domination

Well, Liz Cheney is at it again. For a woman who has no more brain power than is required to watch one’s neighbors from one’s front porch rake their leaves, she is trying to make herself seem important by creating a phony issue which she is also trying to make seem urgently important.

And for her efforts—and lies!—she seems to hope the result is: Republican victories in 2010 and 2012.

The issue is Keep America Safe. It is also a website.

The whole project is spearheaded by Ms. Cheney and William Kristol, whose greatest claim to fame is being the son of Irving Kristol and creating Sarah Palin, the political force so powerful she imploded halfway through her first term as governor and not even the Virginia gubernatorial candidate wants her to campaign for his election; so politically savvy, the editorials written for her but attributed to her were refuted as being full of lies, confused logic and misinformation.

One can judge Kristol’s intelligence level not only by Palin’s “success-ion”, by also that inane, bufoonish smile permanently plastered across his face. To paraphrase an old saying: “Ignorance of one’s ignorance is bliss.”

But back to Liz. She is repeating much of what her father said back in the summer, most all of which was proved false by reports, experts and operatives who work every day in the business of keeping America safe.

Break through the façade Liz presents and you may find her father’s connection to defense contractors who want wars to keep going for profit. This is something the mainstream media never presses them on, preferring to be polite rather than journalistic.

Accusing Obama of being a radical is like accusing daddy Dick of being Wild Bill Hickok, or accusing Orly Taitz of being Perry Mason, or accusing me of being Noam Chomsky.

Dick Cheney was vice-president before 9/11. He has access to the intelligence that said Obama was determined to strike in the U.S. and he was as attentive to that as he was while hunting with Harry Whittington. The Republican tactic is to charge their opponents with what they are guilty of.

Liz should do what she is best at. So, Liz could use her numerous talents to also keep America…many things.

For example, I suggest Liz is capable of launching the following campaigns and their accompanying websites…

Keep America Dull.

Keep America Scared.

Keep America at War.

Keep America Hated.

Keep America Ridiculous.

Keep America Paranoid.

Keep America with conservatives permanently in the minority because America has changed and won’t buy their bullshit anymore.

NOTE TO OBAMA: Chill on the radicality, bro. And watch your back that Liz and Dick aren’t conspiring with those who are launching an attack on the U.S. just to scare American’s further into voting Republican. The way you’ve been going it’s going to be an uphill battle for you to get re-elected. Know why? You can’t make the same promises again that you’ve reneged on so far.

No, Obama Got a Little Excited!

In his radio interview with radio talk show host Michael Smerconish yesterday, President Obama said that the media and progressives got “a little excited” about the public option issue.

I would counter that President Obama got a little excited about the prospect of bi-partisanship for his health care reform effort. He got a little “turned on” one might say about Republicans helping him pass substantial and historic health care reform and I think it goes back to his semi-delusional Lincoln fantasy that he touted during the campaign. Did he think he and the Republicans were going to bring this country together? Is he putting his legacy ahead of the process of health care reform? Shouldn’t he be channeling the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt instead of Lincoln and FDR?

I would also argue that “progressives”—and me—didn’t get a little excited as much as we became a little afraid. Why? Because we can’t read his mind, and lately he has said some things about health care reform which raised concern that he may be selling us out. Also, we don’t fully trust that he knows what he’s doing or he is doing what he should be doing the right way.

Now, while we don’t all crowd into the cockpit to second guess the airline pilot when we’re going through turbulence, Obama seems to have lost some measure of control. Did he jump into this with too much naiveté? And by “this” I don’t just mean health care reform, I also mean his presidency.

I would have approached health care reform in a different way, so obviously there is not as much faith in him as he may expect us to have. Our trust is not strong for this and other reasons. Why? Because this is the President who has gone soft on the Bush-era torture issue prosecutions and policies, he has kept his White House visitor log secret, and he confused and even angered many with his reversal on Guantanamo, among other things during his seven-plus months in office. And, because this is the President who insists he is going to get the very same Republicans to join him who want to destroy him.

He is too nice and calm when I want fight and fire. Has his being born in laid-back Hawaii revealed itself to be a detriment for him? Seems like it. Next time we elect a black president maybe he should be born in Kenya!

Now, if this pursuit of bi-partisanship is a tactic of Obama’s to make the Republicans look bad and lose even more in 2010, I’ll give it a chance. But first, let me explain what I mean.

Only Obama knows exactly what he can and will do on health care reform to get what he promised during the campaign. Just as Captain Kirk frequently took the Enterprise to the brink of destruction—and scared Scotty, the ship’s most intimately knowledgeable engineer, to death—in pursuit of that week’s enemy, perhaps that is what Obama is doing. Perhaps the Spock comparison has been misapplied all along.

If Obama is buttering up the Republicans by being very diplomatic in his pursuit of bi-partisanship by not doing or saying anything rude or mean or nasty to anger them, his strategy may be that he knows the Republicans will reject his attempts in the end anyway and then when Democrats do pass health care reform with the public option alone and the American people like it and find there are no death panels and none of the other scare tactic items they hurled with venom during the August recess, then Americans will have good reason not to trust Republicans. That’s my theory.

Two things anyone who has ever played poker knows are: play your cards close to your vest and always keep a poker face. Is that what Obama is doing? Is that what he did on Saturday when he said the public option was only a sliver of health care reform? Was he bluffing the Republicans?

The Republicans have already shown their hand because we know how many cards they have in Congress and from these stupid town hall bullying sessions, they led early with their best cards. Everyone already knows the Republican believe they are ordained by God to head the American government. Therefore, their actions are somewhat predictable and their hand can be figured out.

However, to embellish my theory about Obama, when the American voter sees how the Republicans shamelessly sided with the insurance industry and blatantly lied to scare them, maybe a sufficient number of elderly, poor and working class Republican and Independent voters may vote against Grassley, Coburn, DeMint and Vitter in the Senate and various Republican and evil Democrat Representatives in the House.

We’ll see.

On the other hand, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Obama needs to become someone we can trust by fighting. He needs to stop being Barack Obama and become Barrage (of punches) o-BAM!!-a, and he needs to start swinging now.

SOCK!

POW!

ZOK!

BAM!

SOCK!

BLAP!

WHAP!

BIFF!

OOF!

Yes, I loved the 60s Batman TV series when I was a kid.

So, no, Mr. President, we did not become a little excited. It was more like we don’t know you that well or for that long and what you revealed about yourself during the courtship, you changed noticeably once we said “I do”.

What kind of marriage is this going to be?

Well, if we find out after the 2010 elections that Obama has secretly been a Scientologist since the late-80s that may explain some things but we’d better make an appointment with an attorney asap.

If he is or has ever been a Scientologist, he needs to resolve this bi-partisan engram that tortures him and focus on a uni-partisan endgame.

Rimshot!! Goodnight, everybody!!

Join us Monday for another thrilling and rapturous episode of the Internet’s #1 blog serial, Congressman Christ, where President Obama invites Jesus to the White House to shoot some hoops.

Check out the best of JimBuckBlog list over the weekend!!!

A Progressive Option?

Are progressives now an option in Congress? It has been within progressives control since January 20th if not Election Day last year. By “it” I mean their ability to influence national policy on some issues, the biggest and most important of which is arguably health care reform. But they don’t seem to have done it.

The first draft of yesterday’s blog contained the question “Where are the progressives?” I took it out Monday night because progressive Democrats drew a “line in the sand” on Monday (and we all know how solid and unmovable sand is) about the public option being included in anything that comes out of Congress and goes to Obama’s desk.

Being pro-active is very helpful to get what you want. This may be a gross generalization, but I think most progressives are so passive and peaceful that they even think fighting for what’s right is wrong. Get some cojones! Get your knuckles bloody if you have to!

Today I called the police at the building I manage because the problem-causing guest of a less-than-admirable tenant molested one of my tenants. Yesterday the guest caused another problem which brought everything forward. Now it is a matter of building the case against the tenant which will legally force him to leave because he did not believe he had to control his guest which allowed the guest to molest the tenant. Drugs were involved, of course. Containing and removing threats to other tenants’ peaceful enjoyment of their premises is part of my job and doesn’t happen if I just sit in my office and wait for things to resolve themselves or complain that I have no control over my building.

This is what progressives must do continuously from health care forward because I don’t think most mainstream Democrats have enough cojones to stand up to Republican bullying.

What may help progressives and Democrats in general with regard to public support of health care reform is to define the terms being used in the bills in Congress and the plans Obama has in mind.

At first hearing, who would know what a public option is just from hearing those two words? That sounds like public offering of a stock purchase. A co-op. What the hell? That’s a real estate term to most people. Couldn’t the brains behind Obama’s election and his campaign slogans not have invented terms which makes the specifics of health care reform easy to understand.

Perhaps like politics, landlord-tenant law in California does not always follow common sense or logic. But there is a framework with which I can protect my tenants.

Teabaggers and Astroturfers defined and owned health care debate in this country for a good month through town halls until last week when Obama finally came out of his cave and began to refute the outrageous myths which many Americans believed were true. Republicans defined the game while Obama and the Democrats were on the sidelines warming up. Playing catch up is not good politics.

Progressives need to get ahead of the scare tactic-question of health care reform providing free health care for illegal immigrants.

Should progressives not have started earlier to take control? Hell yes! Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are simply not fighters. Don’t wait for them to do anything.

I don’t care if this is a recess or not. Reid needs to be on the phone to Max “Raucous” Baucus and Kent “Been had” Conrad and reign them in. I hope they have learned their lesson for agenda items in the future. As the Republicans become more and more controlled by the far right, doesn’t that not also mean that, conversely, lefty liberals should move to take control of the Democrats just to balance things out in America?? Maybe I’m nuts.

The work of the Democrats in the 2010 election, before they become the Dem-o-craps, should be to focus on defeating Grassley, Coburn, DeMint and Vitter.

If the Dems allow Stormy Daniels to be Vitter’s only challenger I will be move to Louisiana and vote for Vitter myself.

HEAVY AGONIZED SIGH

Republicans May Lose More in 2010

I say let the Republicans and Blue Dogs say and do whatever they want on health care reform. If polls, which I will cite are accurate, the Republican Party may be even more marginalized in 2010, reversing a long-standing trend where the opposing party gains seats. Impossible you say? Didn’t Reagan end the trend of curse of the “zero president” or was John David Hinckley just a wuss in his job as the curse’s facilitator?

On Election Night last year a close personal friend of mine up the beach who is a recording artist agreed with me that if there is ever going to be a three-party system in this country it would be the Republicans splitting in two—like an earthworm that, when it’s cut in half, crawls in two separate directions.

With extremism on the right increasing through the issues of health care and abortion and birtherism, moderate Republicans have been effectively silenced. In fact, this recent extremism is so loud, even other far-right Republicans are working hard just to catch up and be heard, except John Ensign and the C Street-The Family politicians.

Warning: the following is not a prediction but only the observance of a possible scenario.

Recent polls show that the “vast” or “overwhelming” majority of Americans—in some polls more than the number of those who voted for Hope and Change—want health care reform. Health care is one of those hot button issues that effect people in a deeply emotional way—much more than tax cuts. Health care involves a relative dying or in misery, tax cuts only involve freeing up enough cash to buy a new car or get a face lift.

If Republicans and Blue Dog Dems are seen as being whores for insurance industry pimps and against the people come 2010 the trend Dems benefited from beginning in 2006, and which grew in 2008, could grow even more in 2010.

If that happens and the Republicans are forced down to about 30 in the Senate and down to about 150 in the House, two things may happen—the Republicans may split after a long-overdue moderate Republican backlash takes place, and, passing a progressive agenda through Congress may also get easier.

But the above presupposes that Democrats will get the balls and fight to win elections as happened in 2008. I have never thought Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid had the balls to correct the wrongs in government when they had the opportunity. I still wish Pelosi had gone after Bush-Cheney for impeachment. Cheney deserved to have his face rubbed in the dirt after the things he’s done throughout his political career, not just as vice-president. His I’m-above-the-law snobbish attitude alone deserved a bloody nose.

Impeaching Bush may have set some things straight in that stratosphere of government just as impeaching Reagan may have straightened out the abuses in his office, many of which involving drugs that I wrote about in my first four posts of this blog.

If they had impeached Bush maybe that would have shaken up the Imperial Owners so that our Imperial Manager, Obama, would not have had to sell out as much as he has or experience the difficulties he has. But no, Pelosi and Reid chose to put all that behind us just as Attorney Genital Eric Holder is putting torture behind us so they can keep using it, I guess, by not making it a crime, despite the Special Prosecutor sideshow he seems to be starting.

But I digress. Recent polls by the Gallup organization, which, according to Wikipedia, rates 17th out of 23 for accuracy, show that many states that were red in 2008 are now in play. A slight majority of these people in Texas have labeled themselves as “leaning Democrat”. Thanks, Rick Perry.

And that gubernatorial reference points me to the thesis of this piece that I have lolligagged about getting to, which is this: let the Republicans do and say what they want and they will pay for it next year. As Forrest Gump said, “Stupid is as stupid does”.

As my close personal friend who is a recording artist will tell you, the Democrats are just as pro-war as the Republicans.

That is true, but I believe the Democrats are more malleable, as evidenced by the putty-like feeling I get when I’ve held Barbara Boxer in my hands. Plus, progressivism is more closely connected to Independents but there aren’t enough of them so, for now, Democrats will have to do until the Democrats break down into more than one party after the Republicans.

Exploring the point I made about the Republicans splitting will have to wait for another post.

Once the far right is marginalized into extremist criminal acts and all locked up, and as their audiences for their TV networks and radio shows disappears, maybe, just maybe, we can turn our attention to ending global climate change, providing quality health care for all and reducing the Taliban to becoming contestants on a nationally-televised show in Afghanistan and Pakistan called “Talibans Got Talent”.

One Governor Stupidly Resigns, Another Governor Stupidly Doesn’t

Palin claims she’s a fighter and not a quitter, despite having quit her job. Painting herself as a victim stirs up the emotions in the base she is appealing to. She says she is summoned by a “higher calling”. I don’t think she means god.

She says she is going to work to change politics from the outside. The reason she is quitting her governorship is because the responsibility hinders her from traveling around the country stirring up the base. Another reason she is quitting her job is she does not want anyone to point at the lousy job she is doing which puts her on the defensive. As I said, she is playing victim to get the base to listen to her and cheer. But I think she sees herself as a conservative hero. Maybe her ego leads her to believe she has enough power to save Republicans and turn America around single-handedly.

She is convinced she can mobilize enough people to bring conservative values back to the forefront of American politics at the grass roots and kitchen table level in America. She thinks she can convince those Americans who may regret having voted for Obama to join her in tearing down Obama in 2012

Her eyes are on the bigger picture when she says she is a fighter. Her eyes are not on Alaska and have not been since her campaign-induced ego orgasm last fall when she began seeing herself as greater than she actually is.

Do I think she will run for president in 2012? Although that remains to be seen, my immediate answer is I doubt she will be able to.

She made big mistakes during last year’s campaign while she was under the control of others. She made mistakes as governor with Troopergate, etc.while she was under the watchful eye of her constituents, the opposing political party and even Alaska Republicans.

Palin is the psychology type who shoots herself in the foot. And she will. Unsupervised and unfettered in her “higher calling”, she will be able to do what she wants. And she will get herself in trouble because her ego’s voice continually tells her she is right and everyone who disagrees with her is wrong.

In giving speeches and appearing at Republican re-election rallies for 2010, as she will no doubt go around the country and she will eventually say or do something stupid and the media will focus on it and focus on it and focus on it. Palin will make the same, tired media elite persecution claim.

Republicans will begin to distance themselves from her especially when embarrassing details of how she governed Alaska begin emerging and/or from the tell-all book from Levi Johnston.

Palin has passed the Alaskan ball, as she said. As she rushes to the basket for the goal, to adopt her metaphor, when the ball is passed back to her, it will be a national ball because the basketball goal is a national political one, especially if Obama is unable to turn the economy around, which may be what she and others are counting on. Obviously he and his guys misread some things.

Palin is a fighter not a quitter. She just didn’t say how and where she would be fighting. And she’s not that great a fighter either.

And I predict…!

I predict when she begins, she will come out strong. But as time goes on (a month at most) she will stumble and falter and embarrass herself and embarrass others and when she has failed at everything she will have tried in 2012, she will be given a show on Fox where she will remain to criticize Obama’s second administration until her embarrassing interview with Joe the Plumber makes them both the biggest laughing stock ever in American politics and she is forced to resign.

Okay, maybe not the Joe the Plumber interview. And she may not resign Fox for reasons of embarrassment. But she will not be important, only annoying.

She isn’t mistaken in her seemingly contradictory statements about being a fighter/not a quitter and leaving the governorship before the end of her term, the media just didn’t ask the right questions.

But speaking of someone who should resign….


Hey, Master of Disaster, a woman has done right by her state and resigned, but you haven’t? What’s the matter, you don’t have the balls she has?? If you don’t resign, you are a girlie man governor because you are don’t have the balls to admit you are wrong and step aside.

Of course, the legislators are no better, but your policy of taking away money from education, the elderly, health care, law enforcement, etc., rather than raise revenue to cover the budget deficit is about to ruin California.

It is reported you want to gut welfare. Sure there is welfare fraud and it should be cleaned up. But is it enough to have any positive effect on the budget now? What about corporate welfare and corporate welfare fraud? Is that in your sights?

You are about to bankrupt, in the minds of voters all across California and America, the fiscal conservative ideology regarding taxes just as you are about to bankrupt California.

By that I mean, when all is said and done, you will have made many Californians realize they were wrong about taxes. But because of your cowardice, not your leadership.

Are you going to spend any money to help the new class of homeless men, women and children and the unemployed you will create with your budget cuts? Or is that not your responsibility? Get government off their backs? Is that your Nixonian-conservative philosophy?

This may be a long, hot summer. Do you have in your budget the extra cost for law enforcement and emergency services with all the civil disobedience that may well arise in protest to your cuts?

I have mentioned in this space that I manage a building with an elderly day care facility. Two days ago they stopped accepting seniors and their space has been without any activity. In fact, it has been empty.

The Tea Baggers wanted to recall you. Obviously Cornyn and Perry are not the only Republicans in their sights. But the Tea Baggers are reactionary, not thoughtful. Their thinking and the whole conservative philosophy of reduced taxation is the sinister culprit behind much of the problem. You only rode the wave of citizen cynicism about Gray Davis. All you had to do was offer movie catchphrases and Californians elected you.

I hope Californians learned their lesson, which is: if we get out of this with any kind of political and economic structural integrity, from now on, Californians cannot just think of themselves. They must also exercise wisdom. Democracy only works if the people are informed and smart, not if they are only thinking about themselves.

You, Schwarzenegger, will forever be remembered as the guy who sank California. Your accent was to your acting as your thinking is to your governing—bad, bad, bad.

Is it too late to deport you back to Austria for having violated the terms of your visa so long ago?