With two wars still going on costing us countless lives and mountains of treasure, with Union-Busting going on in Wisconsin, Indiana and now Ohio, with open revolt in Libya, the collapse of the US-puppet regime in Egypt, massive earthquakes in New Zealand and Justin Beiber getting a new hairstyle, with all of these monumentally important things going on in the world, Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic Senate Majority leader, has decided to focus his attention on the most pressing issue he could find, banning prostitution and brothels in his home state.
Um, Harry, I'm not sure where you've been this last couple of weeks, but getting all Mormony-LDS on us about hookers and pimps in Vegas ain't really on top of anyone's pile right now.
I have no idea why this idea struck Harry as the most important issue to focus on right now, maybe he figured he'd take a leaf out of the republican book and focus on Old Testament issues, rather than the stuff confronting everyday Americans. But that only makes him look even more out of touch and let's face it, Dear Old Harry hasn't been the greatest Democratic leader in the Senate if the truth be told. In fact the only guy more timid than Harry when it came to wielding his majority with any authority is the dude in the Whitehouse. You see Harry, like Obama, hasn't found many pieces of legislation he isn't willing to cave in on at the vaguest of threats from his counter-parts on the right, even on issues where he was on the right side of history. You know things like restoring the 4th amendment, real healthcare reform, taxing the rich back to the stone age (or at least back to the rates they were paying under Saint Ronnie Raygun), in other words hot button Democratic issues that he should have been able to pass at a stroll with the 60 seats he had under his control. But rather than bludgeon the republican minority into submission, he allowed them to dictate to him how things would go, and amazingly he went along with them. Which is why I find it so surprising that he wants to focus so passionately on the one thing that a large majority of males, regardless of party, think is just fine the way it is. Harry has decided to mess with the one issue that knows no party affiliation, no barriers or pre-qualifications, the access to pussy-on-demand. A dumber move I cannot imagine.
Let me be clear, I think that these ladies could be better off earning a living doing just about anything else, but you have to work with what the good Lord gave you, and if that just happens to be a bodacious body then what the hell, at least do it legally, and safely. This is actually an example of government regulation of an industry getting it right by protecting both the employees and their customers properly. A true win-win. The ladies have employee rights and benefits, and they can ply their craft in comfort and safety, and the customers don't have to worry about back alley pimps or nasty-ass hoes with no teeth and a buttload of tat's....So why Harry wants to fix something that isn't broken is beyond me.
Besides which, if he really wanted to get serious about cleaning up prostitution, he'd be better off focusing on the whores in D.C.and their K-Street pimps...now THAT would be newsworthy...
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
File this under "Yeah I know they're fucking stupid, but Holy Shit this is messed up, even for them!"
Apparently satisfied with the rapid progress of their woman-hating agenda in congress, next on the list for the 21st Century American version of Luddites, also known as the 'republican party', is their attack on the environment. Now remember, this is the party that thinks that Global Warming is a myth. All of that melting ice isn't really melting, the salinity of the oceans isn't being affected one iota and the glaciers really aren't retreating like the French on steroids. Nope, according to the brain-trust on the Teabag side of the aisle all of this is being perpetrated by the 'liberal media' (I wish there was one, I really, really do) in an insidious plot to stop American companies from pumping out whatever toxic shit they please, into the air/groundwater/oceans. So in order to stop Americans from further educating themselves about the topic with you know, facts and stuff, the Neanderthals in the House passed a bill that would slash the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency by almost a third. Twenty-nine percent to be precise. But as with everything coming forth from the Luddite Party you have to do the math yourself. A savings of one third sounds great right? But how much will this actually take off the bottom line of the deficit? Less then one tenth of one percent, about $3 billion. But it's the thought that counts, right?
But what of the consequences of muzzling the one agency tasked specifically to keep us safe from toxic industrial waste getting into our bottled water and to prevent our lungs from sounding like we have a two-pack-a-day-ciggy habit?
On planet Teabag apparently there are two different atmospheres, two different water tables, and two different planetary eco-systems. One that affects people that think like they do, you know, morons, and one that affects everyone else. They'd have to think that way in order for them not to realize, even if it took them a good while longer than regular human beings, that by making it easier to put arsenic in the drinking water, and toxins in the atmosphere we ALL suffer the consequences. I know that republicans by their very nature are mean, greedy, selfish people, but this Bill, if allowed to stand as written, would be the height of short-sighted selfishness, even for a group of people that have not, as of yet, demonstrated an ounce of compassion or humanity to their fellow citizens.
A couple of things strike me about this latest attack on sanity by the flying-monkeys on the right, one is that there has yet to be a 'Jobs Bill' presented, even though we were told that this was their number one priority during the recent election campaign, and two, if they really wanted to impress us, how about they cut the Pentagon's budget by the same percentage (that would amount to a savings of roughly $205 Billion, you know, real money) then we'd really know if they're serious...Methinks I'll grow another head before we see that idea come to fruition, but hey, what the hell...I just wanted to see what that looked like written out.
But what of the consequences of muzzling the one agency tasked specifically to keep us safe from toxic industrial waste getting into our bottled water and to prevent our lungs from sounding like we have a two-pack-a-day-ciggy habit?
On planet Teabag apparently there are two different atmospheres, two different water tables, and two different planetary eco-systems. One that affects people that think like they do, you know, morons, and one that affects everyone else. They'd have to think that way in order for them not to realize, even if it took them a good while longer than regular human beings, that by making it easier to put arsenic in the drinking water, and toxins in the atmosphere we ALL suffer the consequences. I know that republicans by their very nature are mean, greedy, selfish people, but this Bill, if allowed to stand as written, would be the height of short-sighted selfishness, even for a group of people that have not, as of yet, demonstrated an ounce of compassion or humanity to their fellow citizens.
A couple of things strike me about this latest attack on sanity by the flying-monkeys on the right, one is that there has yet to be a 'Jobs Bill' presented, even though we were told that this was their number one priority during the recent election campaign, and two, if they really wanted to impress us, how about they cut the Pentagon's budget by the same percentage (that would amount to a savings of roughly $205 Billion, you know, real money) then we'd really know if they're serious...Methinks I'll grow another head before we see that idea come to fruition, but hey, what the hell...I just wanted to see what that looked like written out.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
WTF is wrong with South Dakota?
As some of you may be aware, the current crop of recently elected right-wing crazies in Washington D.C. have quickly unveiled their real agenda, down-grading women to 2nd class citizens, rather than the bullshit agenda they paraded around during the election of 'Jobs, jobs, jobs'. However this lunacy is not just limited to the District of Columbia, oh no, out on the plains the crazy is strong too, especially, it seems, in South Dakota.
Now let me just say right off the bat, I happen to like South Dakota. I think there is a rugged beauty to the massive sweeping plains, it is steeped in Native American history, and I like the fact that you can blast past a stationary State Trooper at 85 mph an the Interstate and he won't even stir from his slumber. It has the Badlands, which are quite simply breath-taking in their stark and desolate beauty, Mount Rushmore, which to anyone not born in this country seems a bit daft until you actually see it, and, as I can personally attest to, the best biscuits and gravy anywhere in the US. (Holiday Inn Express, Rapid City). The folks that I met there seem pleasant enough, they don't look like neanderthals, or inbred mongrels, so why is it that they seem to hate women so much? Specifically independent women. Women that want to have the same rights that men do. You know, the right to tell lawmakers and religious busy-bodies to "keep your fucking nose out of my medical business".
To whit: there is a new law being proposed in the South Dakota state legislature that appears to make murdering doctors and other healthcare professionals that provide abortions to women legal as 'justifiable homicide'. The legislation as proposed would also make it theoretically legal to murder a pregnant woman if she tried to get an abortion, completely missing the irony that if that happened, the killer could then be killed themselves if the fetus didn't survive. Despite the attempted back-pedalling and the 'who me?' bluster from the author of the legislation, this is a nasty, hateful piece of work, and a blatant attempt to intimidate both women and their health care professionals from considering a perfectly lawful medical procedure.
In the last six years South Dakota has twice tried to outlaw a woman's right to choose completely, and both times the voters of the state have voted it down, quite handily, and yet there is a cadre of South Dakotan men that apparently will not be happy until women are back in the kitchen, bare-foot and pregnant. That is a real shame for a number of reasons, not least of which is the time and resources that have to be expended to beat these troglodytes back, but mostly because it makes the entire state look like it still hasn't made it to the 21st century yet.
In the end, all of this leads me to the one question that all women should be asking, anywhere that their rights are being threatened, "If you cut off my reproductive choice, can I cut off yours?"
I think I know the answer to that one....
*Update as of 02/17/11 The proposed bill has been withdrawn. For now.
Now let me just say right off the bat, I happen to like South Dakota. I think there is a rugged beauty to the massive sweeping plains, it is steeped in Native American history, and I like the fact that you can blast past a stationary State Trooper at 85 mph an the Interstate and he won't even stir from his slumber. It has the Badlands, which are quite simply breath-taking in their stark and desolate beauty, Mount Rushmore, which to anyone not born in this country seems a bit daft until you actually see it, and, as I can personally attest to, the best biscuits and gravy anywhere in the US. (Holiday Inn Express, Rapid City). The folks that I met there seem pleasant enough, they don't look like neanderthals, or inbred mongrels, so why is it that they seem to hate women so much? Specifically independent women. Women that want to have the same rights that men do. You know, the right to tell lawmakers and religious busy-bodies to "keep your fucking nose out of my medical business".
To whit: there is a new law being proposed in the South Dakota state legislature that appears to make murdering doctors and other healthcare professionals that provide abortions to women legal as 'justifiable homicide'. The legislation as proposed would also make it theoretically legal to murder a pregnant woman if she tried to get an abortion, completely missing the irony that if that happened, the killer could then be killed themselves if the fetus didn't survive. Despite the attempted back-pedalling and the 'who me?' bluster from the author of the legislation, this is a nasty, hateful piece of work, and a blatant attempt to intimidate both women and their health care professionals from considering a perfectly lawful medical procedure.
In the last six years South Dakota has twice tried to outlaw a woman's right to choose completely, and both times the voters of the state have voted it down, quite handily, and yet there is a cadre of South Dakotan men that apparently will not be happy until women are back in the kitchen, bare-foot and pregnant. That is a real shame for a number of reasons, not least of which is the time and resources that have to be expended to beat these troglodytes back, but mostly because it makes the entire state look like it still hasn't made it to the 21st century yet.
In the end, all of this leads me to the one question that all women should be asking, anywhere that their rights are being threatened, "If you cut off my reproductive choice, can I cut off yours?"
I think I know the answer to that one....
*Update as of 02/17/11 The proposed bill has been withdrawn. For now.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
When is a budget cut not a budget cut? When Obama says it is...
Fast on the heels of the news that the President's proposal to let poor people freeze to death next winter really is in the budget, it's not just some sort of sick joke, President Obama has tried to placate those on the left that have been howling for some of the cuts to come from somewhere other than the poor and the middle class, by announcing that he was cutting the defense budget by $78 Billion.
$78 Billion stripped from the budget of the most untouchable of sacred cows in D.C. has got to be great news right?
Not really. You see the "cuts" aren't really cuts at all. What is actually happening is that the Pentagon is going to get $78 Billion less over the next five years than was originally projected. In other words they are still going to get an increase in their budget, it will just be less than originally planned. And the President dressed that turkey up as a "defense spending budget cut" and took it out for a walk.
Really? Just how dumb does he think we are? If I asked for a 10% pay raise but only got 5% I didn't actually get a 5% pay cut, I still got a pay raise, just not as much as I'd asked for, and yet that is exactly what the Obama administration is trying to claim with this budget proposal. For a guy that claims to 'do nuance' this is about as nuanced as a pork chop in a synagogue.
You know, I expect to get screwed when the guy in the Whitehouse has an 'R' after his name, after all it's what they're best at, but I sure as hell don't expect it when they have a 'D' after their name.
All of this makes me very nervous for the future of Social Security and Medicare, neither of which have been declared 'off limits' by this President.
Stay tuned.
$78 Billion stripped from the budget of the most untouchable of sacred cows in D.C. has got to be great news right?
Not really. You see the "cuts" aren't really cuts at all. What is actually happening is that the Pentagon is going to get $78 Billion less over the next five years than was originally projected. In other words they are still going to get an increase in their budget, it will just be less than originally planned. And the President dressed that turkey up as a "defense spending budget cut" and took it out for a walk.
Really? Just how dumb does he think we are? If I asked for a 10% pay raise but only got 5% I didn't actually get a 5% pay cut, I still got a pay raise, just not as much as I'd asked for, and yet that is exactly what the Obama administration is trying to claim with this budget proposal. For a guy that claims to 'do nuance' this is about as nuanced as a pork chop in a synagogue.
You know, I expect to get screwed when the guy in the Whitehouse has an 'R' after his name, after all it's what they're best at, but I sure as hell don't expect it when they have a 'D' after their name.
All of this makes me very nervous for the future of Social Security and Medicare, neither of which have been declared 'off limits' by this President.
Stay tuned.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Apparently President Obama DOES believe in wealth re-distribution...in reverse...
Sometimes I honestly wonder what happened to the guy I saw on the campaign trail, I really do. He was all fired up about rectifying the wrongs, putting the country back on the right path, bringing sanity and reason back to the body politic, and yet as soon as he was sworn into office (twice) he has become someone else entirely. Instead of wielding his mega-majority like the mighty hammer of Thor, he has meekly capitulated to every single threat issued by the radical right-wing, and he deservedly got his milquetoast ass handed to him in the mid-terms.
I have mentioned more than a few policies in which I am in complete disagreement with the President on this blog over the last year or so, and each has felt to me to be a bigger betrayal than the last, but this latest one simply takes the cake. In the midst of the most bitterly-cold winter that many folks can remember, the President has suggested in his next budget cutting the heating assistance given to the poor almost in half. Specifically he wants to cut out $2.5 Billion from a $5.1 Billion heating budget.
To put it into perspective it was -12F yesterday morning on my way to work, but my house was a nice and toasty 70F, I simply cannot fathom what it would be like to be without heat at this time of year. But more than that, I simply cannot believe that a Democratic President would come up with an idea like this. I am beyond amazed. My flabber is well and truly gasted. This is the sort of heartless shit the rethuglicans are supposed to try and pull. How he or his advisors have squared this circle is beyond me. I can think of no possible way to put a positive spin on the glaring reality that the tax-gifts to the uber-wealthy that the President just authorized are being balanced on the backs of the same poor folk he has proposed may have to go without heat.
I can sort of see how some of the other cockamamie bullshit he has pulled over the last two years could potentially be skewed to make some sort of political sense if you look at them from just the right angle and you squint your eyes a bit, but in this instance he's not even being threatened by the republicans. Bill O'Really, Sean Insanity and Rush Limpballs haven't said a word about this program, and yet, somehow this Democratic President has decided that in the depths of the coldest winter in well over a decade it would be a good idea to let the poor folks know they are well and truly buggered come this time next year.
At this rate the only people voting for Obama in 2012 will be the republicans.
I have mentioned more than a few policies in which I am in complete disagreement with the President on this blog over the last year or so, and each has felt to me to be a bigger betrayal than the last, but this latest one simply takes the cake. In the midst of the most bitterly-cold winter that many folks can remember, the President has suggested in his next budget cutting the heating assistance given to the poor almost in half. Specifically he wants to cut out $2.5 Billion from a $5.1 Billion heating budget.
To put it into perspective it was -12F yesterday morning on my way to work, but my house was a nice and toasty 70F, I simply cannot fathom what it would be like to be without heat at this time of year. But more than that, I simply cannot believe that a Democratic President would come up with an idea like this. I am beyond amazed. My flabber is well and truly gasted. This is the sort of heartless shit the rethuglicans are supposed to try and pull. How he or his advisors have squared this circle is beyond me. I can think of no possible way to put a positive spin on the glaring reality that the tax-gifts to the uber-wealthy that the President just authorized are being balanced on the backs of the same poor folk he has proposed may have to go without heat.
I can sort of see how some of the other cockamamie bullshit he has pulled over the last two years could potentially be skewed to make some sort of political sense if you look at them from just the right angle and you squint your eyes a bit, but in this instance he's not even being threatened by the republicans. Bill O'Really, Sean Insanity and Rush Limpballs haven't said a word about this program, and yet, somehow this Democratic President has decided that in the depths of the coldest winter in well over a decade it would be a good idea to let the poor folks know they are well and truly buggered come this time next year.
At this rate the only people voting for Obama in 2012 will be the republicans.
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