December 7th, a day that will forever live in infamy...and no, this has nothing to do with Pearl Harbour..

Today marks the 69th anniversary of one of history's biggest military blind-sides, when the Japanese attacked the US Navy at Pearl Harbour and kicked off the Pacific Theatre portion of dubya dubya two. Alot of brave men and women died that day and this post is meant in no way as an insult to their sacrifice. In fact, I am using it as a clarion call to anyone (and it probably is only 'one') that reads this to pay attention to what is going on in this country, and to gird their loins for the upcoming conflict.

Today, December 7th 2010, President Obama made it official, he becamse the greatest republican president of the new century. He accepted the deal (if by 'deal' you mean steaming pile of rancid horseshit) offered by the republicans regarding their platform promise of 'Leave No Millionaire Behind'. Obama has once again proven his willingness to unilaterally fuck over the stupid motherfuckers that thought that he really meant what he said on the campaign trail. 'Hope' and 'Change' apparently only apply when the President is speechifying, and do not actually come into play when dealing with any real policy decisions. I, along with tens of millions of other voters in America, didn't see the asterisk that must have been on the campaign banners. We didn't read the small print disclaimers in the campaign brochures that apparently stated 'Actual hope and change may differ once elected'.

So here we are trying to digest the news that the republicans in congress got absolutely everything their greedy, blackened hearts desired, PLUS concessions on the estate tax which, although they affect less then one tenth of one percent of the total population, have been so successfully marketed by the gop and their whores in the M$M as the "death tax" that the President apparently caved, well,  just because. All we're left with on the left is the minor concession from the Millionaires Club (aka the House of Representatives) that the unemployed get their benefits extended for 13-months. Got that? Tax breaks for everybody (but most importantly the jet-set) extended for 2 years PLUS give backs on the estate tax, PLUS a holiday on payroll tax, but the unemployed get only 13 months of relief, and if you've been unemployed for 99+ weeks already, well that's just too fucking bad, you get a nice big helping of sweet fuck-all.

Calling him a republican isn't a case of irrational hyperbole, it isn't a case of a screaming liberal like myself going ever-so slightly mental because I didn't get my fucking pony, or because Obama didn't send the entire gop to re-education camps as soon as he was sworn into office. No, this is the plain god-awful truth.

Don't believe me? Look at the facts.

Since being inaugurated he has: failed to close Gitmo, allowed the spying on US citizens to continue unabated(he apparently missed the fourth amendment class at Harvard whilst becoming a 'constitutional scholar'), given a multi-billion dollar gift to the health care industry and insurers and called it 'health care reform', extended the scheduled 2011 exit date from Afghanisnam to 2014 at the earliest (and somehow still managed to win the Nobel Peace Prize in the process, fuck knows how), he has declared that the President has the authority to execute American citizens abroad without due process, he has defended the previous adminstrations use of torture by failing to investigate or prosecute the offenders and now he has validated the bush tax cuts, and in the process fucked the terminally unemployed.

I know of no real Democrat that would ever, EVER, think that any of those actions were acceptable in any manner, shape or form, and yet when he was ushered into office with a massive majority in both chambers of congress, and an absolute mandate from the people to change course from the previous policies of division, he barely changed a thing. Oh sure, the press conferences now feature complete sentences, and when the President says he reads alot of books no-one sniggers and asks if they have lots of pictures, but when it comes to actual change, you know, doing things differently than before, well that just hasn't fucking happened. And judging by today's latest capitulation it isn't likely to happen anytime soon.

With this guy in office and a republican majority in the House the next two years could be very, very rough indeed.

Obama caves (again)..and the rethuglicans just keep on laughing...

So it appears that the Prez has caved on the rethuglican "leave no millionaire behind" tax-break plan. The gop's base get what they want (shitloads of money) and in return the peasants can have a little relief too (unemployment benefits extended for another year). The fact that this adds close to $1,000,000,000,000 onto the deficit's bottom line doesn't appear to phase the "deficit hawks" and "small government" tea-party asswipes just elected to congress one bit. Not in the slightest.

So as Democrats get yet another punch in the gut from the gloating fuckers on the right as the Capitulator in Chief rope-a-dopes his way out of another fight, all that is left is to try and get their heads around the reality of the situation. Someone, somewhere in the West Wing decided that the rich getting their money, the poor getting their alms and all of us getting to talk about this all over again in 2012 is a good deal.

On what kind of messed up planet does this sort of logic make a winning strategy?

In order for the poor to get their stale bread crusts the rich are given more caviar.

All of the talk of 'fiscal conservativism' turns out to be complete bullshit(there's a fucking surprise!)

And just in time for the 2012 Presidential election we get to have the same "Democrats want to raise your taxes" meme shoved down our throats by the gop and their enablers in the M$M. Kicking this shit-covered can down the road another couple of years is the thing that must have the Millionaires Club (Congress) the most giddy because it's a win-win for them. If the economy is still in the shitter in 2012 it's because the Prez is an economic dunce by allowing the deficit to continue to grow, and if it improves it's because tax-gifts to the wealthy really ARE good afterall...

Why not go on national teevee and say it like it is..the gop want the rich to keep more money and they are willing to fuck everyone else over in order to make that happen...Use small words so that the teahadists understand it as well..or is it only rethuglicans that get to use the bully pulpit...??

For a guy that got his job with pretty speechifying and verbal persuasionism he sure seems tongue-tied when it comes to actually doing something hard..

Obama looks to remove protections for Gray Wolf and Grizzly Bears...or why "Change" was complete and utter horseshit...

Look, let me just start this by stating quite clearly that I expect to get fucked when the republicans are in office (see: G. Bush the Lesser 2000-2008). What I don't expect is to get fucked just as hard when the Democrats are in control. I don't make anything resembling enough money annually, or have a net worth in remotely the right strata of the atmosphere to actually count for anything as far as the republican party is concerned. So subsequently when the shit started rolling downhill (as it inevitably does whenever the Angry White Rich-Guy party gets hold of the reins and did so with avengeance in 2000) I just hunkered down and tried to weather the storm. As I sat there in my wellies praying that the flood of polished turds would stop before it reached the top of my boots, I scanned the horizon for some glimmer of hope. Some sign, however small, that the maelstrom of bullshit, hatred and bile would end one day. In 2008 Barack Obama was that sign. His speeches were uplifting, his rhetoric was bold, and his passion was immeasurable. 'Hope' and 'Change' was in the air. It felt as though the rancid stench of right-wing policies solely designed to enrich the already wealthy was going to be washed out of the body politic, and once more 'We The People' would be heard loud and clear. We would get our country back from the monied interest groups and lobbyists, we would begin the process of re-building the country they way it was intended to be, 'of the people, by the people, for the people'.

Then he got elected.

And guess what? Nothing changed. Not really. Oh, he got a health care bill passed (if by health care bill you mean 'Gift to the insurers and health care providers that lined the politicians pockets'), and he did pull the troops out of Iraq (if by pull out you mean 'still leave a military presence of 100,000 behind'), but as time passed it became more and more obvious that the campaign rhetoric wasn't matching up with what was actually being done.

His justice department didn't stop the DEA raids on (legal) marijuna clinics in California. His justice department didn't look into the allegations that the CIA had destroyed evidence of torture. His justice department wouldn't look into whether the former administration had broken international law by either engaging in, or allowing the facilitation of torture. He approved (and then rapidly unapproved after BP's little oopsie in the Gulf) more off-shore drilling. He actively advocated for 'clean coal' (whatever the fuck that mythical substance is) and more nuclear power plants. The only mercy there being that he actually said the word 'nuclear' correctly. His interior department refused to overturn the bush administration ruling removing protections for the Rocky Mountain Gray Wolf and the states of Montana, and Idaho promptly rushed out and started slaughtering the Wolves in their hundreds.

Earlier this year several environmental groups (several of which I am a proud contributing member of) won a major court victory forcing the Gray Wolf back onto the Endangered Species List, and instructed US Fish and Wildlife to base their listing/delisting on proper scientific evidence rather than policy decisions.

Way to go wolves, right? Wrong. It turns out that for some unfathomable reason the Obama adminstration wants to delist both the wolves AND grizzlies so badly, that they are willing to try and do an end-run around the Endangered Species Act via congress, to get their way. So, rather than accept the courts' decision, and allow proper scientific data to be gathered and studied to determine what the appropriate wolf levels are to be deemed as 'recovered', the Obama administration has decided that the ranchers and land-owners in those western states know better and that they should be allowed to kill as many wolves and bears as possible.

I have been able to make excuses and rationalizations for many of the actions (and cynical inactions) of this administration, but for me, this is the end of the line. This is where I get off the Obama express. This is where I declare that I have had enough. Yes he is better than the alternative, if only for the fact that it kept that self-promoting ex-beauty-pageant contestant from being a heart-beat away from the nuclear launch codes, but being the 'least bad' is no longer good enough. Not when we have such urgent issues to deal with. 'Change' isn't carrying on with the same policies that were already in place. 'Change" isn't doing everything the opposition party wants and ignoring your base. 'Change' isn't bobbing and weaving when asked straight forward questions on things like gay marriage, DADT or choice. It is with much sadness and more than a little anger, that I admit that I got sold a bill of goods. I really thought this guy was going to be different, I really did. Turns out he wasn't, and we are ALL the worse off because of it.

Mr President, please don't kill the wolves.

So much for change...or why I have finally had it with President No-Bama..

Read this link and then tell me who is worse, the torturers or those that cover up the torture.

I am disgusted.

Nothing funny, pithy or amusing about this post.

"Change" my ass.

Republicans are people too...mean, selfish, greedy people...

As unemployment benefits run out today for close to 2 million people in the United States (also commented on here) and nary a vote in sight to restore them, the Angry White Rich-Guy Party is hard at work making sure the poor just keep on getting fucked.

Not satisfied with emptying the Treasury Dept directly into the coffers of the very same banks that steered the economy to the edge of the precipice, the rethuglicans now want to make sure that any money they might have left behind stays in the pockets of the rich, and the poor can just go fuck themselves. That's right. If you are unemployed and haven't been able to find a job in the last two years, you are well and truly screwed as of December 1, 2010.

You see, these miserly fucking bastards have said they will not even contemplate extending the benefits because it will add another $18 billion onto the deficit, unless something else gets cut to pay for it. If not, well, let the peasants eat cake.

Now to a "fiscal conservative" (also known as "tight-fisted fuckwad") as many of the self-righteous millionaires in Congress like to call themselves, this may seem quite reasonable, but it all starts to come apart at the seams when the topic turns to extending tax breaks for themselves. Thats when these "fiscal conservatives" get all kinds of giddy with indignant rage. You see, the soon-to-expire tax-gifts to the wealthy would add $700 billion to the deficit, but the rethuglicans say that doesn't really matter, they are SO vitally important to the overall health of the economy that they need to be continued no matter the expense.

Got that? $18 billion to help two million Americans = BAD. $700 Billion to the rich = GOOD.

One Democrat has had enough and is speaking out about it. Nancy Pelosi has called the reptiles out on their blindingly obvious hypocrisy and stated in plain English just exactly how fucked in the head these greedy bastards are.

Think it'll do any good?

Me neither.