I do agree with the shocking honesty of Newt:

At this moment I am in no way tempted to vote for any Reflublican except perhaps Paul or Huntsman (if nominated) ... however ...

I do agree with the shocking honesty of Newt:
"One of the real changes that comes when you start running for President -- as opposed to being an analyst on Fox -- is I have to actually know what I'm talking about."


I liked Newt's confession about what credentials are needed to be a talking head on FOX (emptiness) ... however ...I agree with Maureen:

My Man Newt

But next to Romney, Gingrich seems authentic. Next to Herman Cain, Gingrich seems faithful. Next to Jon Huntsman, Gingrich seems conservative. Next to Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, Gingrich actually does look like an intellectual. Unlike the governor of Texas, he surely knows the voting age. To paraphrase Raymond Chandler, if brains were elastic, Perry wouldn’t have enough to make suspenders for a parakeet.
In presidential campaigns, it’s all relative.

This for my wife, who see's in and from me what nobody else does

Keep it Yea Yea and Nay Nay

I can relate to this. It's one of the reasons why I'm so tired Sunday evenings.


95 Percent Of Opinions Withheld On Visit To Family  (BTW: The Onion is a satire site)

"No one in my family really gets my worldview, so I find it easier just to smile and nod and agree with everything," Wilmot said Monday. "When I'm with them, I tend to be a lot quieter than when I'm hanging out with friends.

...  Once you let go of the need to express your thoughts to your family, you suddenly feel much lighter," Wilmot said. "You just float along blissfully, finally liberated from the burden of having any presence at all.

Forget that Muldoon, you've got a kiss in progress at the local grade school.

But Sarge! We're on our way to a robbery in progress at the Seven Eleven!
Forget that Muldoon, you've got a kiss in progress at the local grade school. Get moving!

Cops Summoned To Florida Elementary School After Girl Kisses Boy In Phys Ed Class

         

A sheriff’s deputy was dispatched last week to a Florida elementary school after a girl kissed a boy during a physical education class. School brass actually reported the impromptu buss as a possible

My sister had the best justification for why they might call the cops:

Well of course they called the cops.....she STOLE the kiss....

Hey, Grabinsky, forget about those occupiers. Put your spray can away and get over to the school now! Muldoon may need backup!

Vote for me! I know exactly what I'm talking about!

Michele Bachmann did not intend to be taken literally when she told the Republican presidential debate Tuesday that civil-liberties activists have taken over the interrogation of terrorists from the CIA. But even as a rhetorical point, it didn't hold water.

Fact Check: Hyperbole on Terror Interrogations

"THE FACTS: Paul was more accurate than Romney in describing what is happening with defense spending. Constraints in the military budget are much more modest than Romney suggested."
"THE FACTS: As Romney suggested, a no-fly zone by itself wouldn't do much to stop Syrian tanks and bullets from killing civilians.
Perry's follow-up argument that a no-fly zone in Syria could help deter Iranian terrorism and save Israel wasn't clear. He seemed to be referring to Iranian and Syrian support for anti-Israel groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, neither of which has air power."

 And this regarding candidates who are supposed to be statesmen first and hawks second:

GRAPHIC: MOST COMMON WORDS AT CNN DEBATE: ‘WAR,’ AND ‘ISRAEL’  

The Washington Post, as part of their helpful interactive transcript of tonight’s Republican presidential primary debate, has a graphic of the evening’s most commonly uttered words. It’s no surprise that, at a debate sponsored by two neoconservative think-tanks (American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation), candidates from the party that brought you the Iraq debacle said “war” more than just about any other word, along with “Israel.” Not on the list? “Al Qaeda,” “terror,” or “Osama Bin Laden.” Here’s the Post’s complete graphic of the top GOP foreign policy vocab:

I see where Brother Romney and Brother Huntsman were smart enough to stay away from this political fast and testimony meeting:

At Religious Right Forum, GOP Candidates Weep and Proselytize

In an Iowa megachurch, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Ron Paul put Christianity front and center.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minn., told of how her father abandoned her family, leaving her mother to sell their wedding gifts -- "all the pretty dishes" -- at a garage sale. Apparently lacking a personal story to match theirs, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Ga., summoned the tale of a friend's gravely injured child to simultaneously choke up and rail against the health-care reform law signed by President Barack Obama. 

Texas Gov. Rick Perry talked of finding Jesus. Rep. Ron Paul, Texas, gave hints of Christian Reconstructionist leanings, but proved himself inept at public soul-bearing. Asked to reveal some personal difficulty, he talked of how injury cut short his high school track career, but then said he realized it wasn't that big a deal. He did, however, admit to having trouble watching himself on television, "because all I see are my imperfections.”

Popping the balloon of another kindergarten konservative myth

... the one corporate welfare queens need us to believe: "Privatization is your friend."

Privatization Nightmare: 5 Public Services That Should Never Be Handed Over to Greedy Corporations

Why we all pay more when essential services are privatized. Alternet, November 17, 2011   Who gains – and who loses – when public assets and jobs are turned over to the private sector? 

Holiday Season ... Indulge me and read please.

Got this as a chain letter and usually do not respond or take any further action. But this one makes a lot of sense.

Holiday Season 2011 -- Birth of a New American Tradition

  As the holidays approach, the giant Asian factories are kicking into high gear to provide Americans with monstrous piles of cheaply produced goods -- merchandise that has been produced at the expense of American labor.

This year will be different. This year Americans will give the gift of genuine concern for other Americans. There is no longer an excuse that, at gift giving time, nothing can be found that is produced by American hands.

Yes there is!

It's time to think outside the box, people. Who says a gift needs to fit in a shirt box, wrapped in Chinese produced wrapping paper?

Everyone -- yes EVERYONE gets their hair cut. How about gift certificates from your local American hair salon or barber?

Gym membership? It's appropriate for all ages who are thinking about some health improvement.

Who wouldn't appreciate getting their car detailed? Small, American owned detail shops and car washes would love to sell you a gift certificate or a book of gift certificates.

Are you one of those extravagant givers who think nothing of plonking down the Benjamins on a Chinese made flat-screen? Perhaps that grateful gift receiver would like his driveway sealed, or lawn mowed for the summer, or driveway plowed all winter, or games at the local golf course.

There are a bazillion owner-run restaurants -- all offering gift certificates. And, if your intended isn't the fancy eatery sort, what about a half dozen breakfasts at the local breakfast joint. Remember, folks this isn't about big National chains -- this is about supporting your home town Americans with their financial lives on the line to keep their doors open.

How many people couldn't use an oil change for their car, truck or motorcycle, done at a shop run by the American working guy?

Thinking about a heartfelt gift for mom? Mom would LOVE the services of a local cleaning lady for a day.

My computer could use a tune-up, and I KNOW I can find some young guy who is struggling to get his repair business up and running.

OK, you were looking for something more personal. Local crafts people spin their own wool and knit them into scarves. They make jewelry, and pottery and beautiful wooden boxes.

Plan your holiday outings at local, owner operated restaurants and leave your server a nice tip. And, how about going out to see a play or ballet at your hometown theater.

Musicians need love too, so find a venue showcasing local bands.

Honestly, people, do you REALLY need to buy another ten thousand Chinese lights for the house? When you buy a five dollar string of light, about ifty cents stays in the community. If you have those kinds of bucks to burn, leave the mailman, trash guy or babysitter a nice BIG tip.

You see, Christmas is no longer about draining American pockets so that China can build another glittering city. Christmas is now about caring about US, encouraging American small businesses to keep plugging away to follow their dreams.

And, when we care about other Americans, we care about our communities, and the benefits come back to us in ways we couldn't imagine.

THIS is the new American Christmas tradition.

Why I Won't Quit Challenging Republicans

The War on Common Sense

The sad thing is that if there are genuinely good and capable Republican presidential candidates, we are at a disadvantage because in this campaign the good ones have to climb in the same circus ring as the nut jobs ... and match the stoopid talk word for word in order to get votes.

When it comes down to the nitty gritty, we as attention-paying citizens or don't-give-a-damn citizens need to come out of the closet. We need to admit who or what we stand for and declare what philosophy and policies best reflect our concerns.

If we are most focused on American Idol, Nascar, the Patriots and crime shows, let's just stay where we are, with asses super-glued to the couch.

If we are paying even slight attention to what is going on, listening even with half an ear to political slogans, television sound bytes and what passes for popular journalism in this country, let's make a real appraisal of who stands for what?

We have discredited Republicans talking about driving the bus with one hand on the steering wheel and the other hanging out for lobby money.

Republicans have one foot pressing metal to the floor and the other nowhere near the brakes.

Why?

Because the party has only one single song to sing and the choir directors don't care about consensus and think more of political children in 3-cornered hats and tea bags.

American citizens need to practice a total deferral to the self-defined patriotism of the hysterical Reflublican party.Republicans continue to insist that American citizens absolutely must trust their future to those few at the top of the power pole who want to replace the current benchwarmers.

Here is the national Republican Platform in a large nutshell:

We must fight the war on terror while remaining strictly stuck with the Republican Tax Cut Experiment which did not help Mr. Bush and has severely handicapped the much more qualified Obama.

If we want to vote Republican we are then left to hope for the best but continue to expect the worst and recognize that the burden of middle class taxes are going to continue paying for Reflublican financial and economic fantasies.

The Iraq spending spree and Reflublican saber rattling all the way to orgasm was not necessary. Trillions of dollars of debt generated by a Republican party that has always labeled Democrats as "taxers and spenders" is not something late-night comics ought to make jokes about.

Rather, the Republican Party's solution to all economic woes - as highlighted by that mental economic genius, John Boehner and his fool-de-camp Eric Cantor- is for Republicans to be the "tax-cutters and spenders" party.

We will prosecute the war on terror and suffer the war on common sense while an ungodly number of us go without access to adequate health care.

That's one thing tens of millions of Americans could use ownership of.

Somehow I fail to see how this helps the troops, keeps terrorists at bay, or will make it easier when we invade  in order to secure whatever non-attention-paying Americans (apparently the largest voting block in the state and nation) will buy into as a security blanket worth supporting.

We will prosecute the war on terror while the Republicans - under the guise of "ownership society"- preside over corporate reductions and/or eliminations of pension funds.

We will prosecute the war on terror while Republicans pretend that the extreme Christian Right represents the majority of American Christian voters. Republicans will continue to be willing to work hand in glove with the Christian Zionists to encourage Israel to widen it's borders in order to look like the Israel of prophesy. Otherwise, in the John Hagee playbook, Jesus and his Armageddon Asteroid cannot End the Times and leave all of us more liberal-minded Christians Behind.

Your Republican Party thinks more of these folks than the attention-paying voters who live and work all around us.

Republicans will continue our "war on terror" all the time camouflaging an absolute conviction on the part of failed foreign policy theorists that American might is the brave new world of the future ...

... that American might will facilitate our continued consumption of an inordinate share of energy reserves.

Why?

Because they arrogantly assume that we can do it indefinitely, that's why.

Republicans will forever deny any criminality on the part of their pseudo-religious political shill who did their bidding when they thought they would have the majority votes forever.

These things are what the Republicans are and will not admit.

They want to prosecute the war on terrorism and do it in terms of maintaining their own discredited and - when it comes to corporate welfare - dishonest domestic economic theories.

It does not matter what you and I think so long as they are in power. Only you and I can take this out of their hands. They will not change things unless we intervene.

So all you self-styled economic sophisticates who have bought into Republican capitalism worship keep your heads in the sand. If you cannot see just how many corporations in this country are only showing profits primarily through government intervention, bail-outs and contracts - you go ahead.

Reveal to the rest of us just how poorly you understand the less-government-more-free-enterprise ticket.

As we attempt to impose a fake American dominance on the world based on our failed national credit rating and economic extortion backed by big-stick-waving, go ahead and look the other way while your narrow morality authorizes a trashing of the American Dream.

Those of you who have been politically born again into the cult of a Republican Jesus, can keep insisting that Jesus would vote the same way

- and would go along with the deaths of civilian men, women and children in Iraq or anywhere else as "acceptable collateral damage."

The holes in your common sense and civic wisdom remain vast and empty.

Just because you can say something stoopid doesn't mean you have to do it all the time

 ... oh, I forgot what network I'm talking about.

It's a Food Product Essentially

‎"I don't think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police," Bill O'Reilly said tonight, discussing the appalling use of pepper spray by UC Davis police on Friday.

Okay, Joe, here's your chance. We need an enterprising free-market capitalist mind to invent a lemon meringue crowd control spray.


Survey: Fox News Viewers Less Informed Than Those Who Don’t Watch Any News

A new survey from Fairleigh Dickinson University has found that viewers of Fox News are less informed about world events than people who do not watch any news. The study found viewers of Fox are 18 points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government six points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government compared to those who watch no news. Fairleigh Dickinson political science Professor Dan Cassino said, "The results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all."

Here's the actual survey link:

This chart compares typical weekday views for all of Fairleigh Dickinson's website with pages views for the "Some News Leaves People Knowing Less" poll, President Barack Obama's 2009 visit and Bruce Springsteen's visit last spring. 

Police maced my friend, Rev. Rich Lang

Rev. Rich Lang is a friend of Lietta and me going back to the times of our own activism against the War in Iraq. He is an incredible human being. If we had more priests and preachers like this and less who'd like us to believe Jesus is a Conservative Law and Order type, we'd all be better off.

What follows is a direct paste of what Rich sent me. Rich ministers at University Temple United Methodist Church in Seattle.

A PASTORAL LAMENT FOR MY COUNTRY  

America, America, my country ‘tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty 

Of thee I singAmerica, 

oh AmericaAmerica the Beautiful has fallen.   

You could feel the tension and raw energy crinkling throughout the air as the marchers once again began their journey into downtown Seattle.   The Occupy Movement is the prophetic voice of God calling out to the nation to “repent” and turn from its ways of corruption. 

Those who camp are a rag-tag, motley crew made up of mostly young adults, mostly unemployed, almost all of whom are alienated and cast out of America’s promise of liberty and justice for all.  They are our canaries, the first fruits being devoured by the Beast of Empire.   

The police were once conceived to be a citizen force created to serve and protect the public.  Today however, the police have been militarized and view the populace as enemy combatants, as threats to their well being.   

The police, like our Armed Forces, are well trained, disciplined and exceptionally talented.  They follow a chain of command and are increasingly apprenticed into a culture of institutional conformity.  Because America has always affirmed the right of dissent, the role of the police is to keep the peace.  They are trained to enter the protesting arena as unfeeling protectors of property and people. 

What has changed in our time is that the police are entering the arena of protest as agents of provocation.  They push and shove at will, they ride their bicycles up the backs of protesters, they engage in verbal abuse.  Their commanders allow this breach of discipline.  Their comrades silently condone the bullying. 

The police become the agitators encouraging violence.  It is as if they are spoiling for a fight --- a fight mind you against the citizenry, against the youth, the unemployed, and those who are trying to return America back to its promise, and dare I say it, return America to its covenant with God, “we hold these truths to be self evident …”  

On Tuesday night a small group of the rag-tag campers of Seattle’s Occupy Movement left their camp to protest the destruction inflicted upon the Wall Street Occupy site.  Throughout the march I, as a Pastor in full clergy alb, stole and cross, acted as a peacekeeper placing myself between the police line and the Occupy Movement.   

On four occasions I stepped between verbal battles between the police and the protesters.  The point being that it was evident to all who I was and what my role was in this non-violent march of the few escorted by the many. The incident was minor in nature.   

A girl, dressed in Anarchist black waving the Anarchist black flag was plastered side by side with an officer on the bike.  They were jawboning each other.  At one point her flag was thrust in his direction --- a provocation yes – threatening?—no.  The officer grabbed the flag and in the pulling, pulled down the girl.  Her friends reacted jumping in to pull her away from the officer.  It was at this point that the first wave of pepper spray went off.  

Point --- one might think the officer acted within reason, that the officer was suddenly threatened.  But with what? By whom?  The friends of the offender were grabbing for the girl, they were not grabbing at the police.  

 Basically the officer, and his comrades, were trigger happy as if they couldn’t wait for just this moment.  And so the spray went forth. I leapt to the front and tried to place myself between the parties --- with spray in the air the protesters were also fleeing.   

Separation between the police line and the protesters was clearly visible … there was certainly no threat of the “mob” suddenly rampaging into the well armed police.  The separation had occurred (as can be clearly seen on the video captured by King 5 News).  But the spray continued.   

I walked between the lines, I was alone, I was in full clergy dress, everyone knew who I was and what I was --- with the protesters fleeing and the police line holding --- with my back to the police and my hands waving the protesters to get back --- alone in full alb, stole and cross --- six officers turned their spray on me thoroughly soaking my alb and then one officer hit me full throttle in the face.  

I praise the courage and compassion, the discipline and the decency of the Occupy Movement.  Out of the rag-tag mob came help, grabbing my hands, leading me (I was blind by then) to the wall and administering care and concern for my well being.  The protesters were assembled around all the wounded, and maintained the discipline of nonviolence (granted the nonviolence was in behavior but not language).   And they were not afraid. 

The spraying had been a baptism sealing them into the security of knowing that their prophecy of repentance was indeed the Spirit-Word through them --- it is as if they did not prophecy their very bones would melt within them.   

Against the wall in increasing pain and burning I realized I was in the midst of church. The police, on the other hand, were afraid.  Their quick use of chemical warfare reveals how cowardly they are.  The unwillingness of their commanders to maintain discipline reveals how incompetent they are becoming --- the only tool in their bag is brutality and like a drunken raging father beating wife and kids, the police have increasingly disgraced themselves.   

Step by step they are being shaped into the front face of fascism, the emerging police state that protects the property interests of the Marie Antionette’s who have seized control of our government, commerce, media, military and increasingly the Church itself.

My question to my clergy colleagues is this:   

Where are you?   

How much longer can you preach without practice?  

How dare you remain protected in your sanctuary while your people (the rag-tag mob of the least, last and lost whom Jesus loved) are slaughtered doing that which God has commissioned you to do (prophecy!).    

Where are you?   

Who have you become in this age of baptism by pepper spray?    

Do you not know how much power you have to stop our national descent into chaos?  Don’t you realize that the world is your parish and right before your eyes the Spirit of God is doing a new thing?  

Can’t you hear that God’s judgment is upon the land?   

God is against the thieves that bankrupted our nation.   

God is against the armies of the Beast who pillage other lands in our name, and turn and destroy our people on our own soil.   

Are you blind? --- Perhaps you need a baptism of pepper spray in your eyes to restore your vision.  

And to the police I say this --- there are always the brutal ones in our midst.  As colleagues you have the moral responsibility to police your own.  If your commanders order you to brutalize your people you have a Higher Command that says, “disarm yourself, turn away from your sin, renounce the orders of unrighteousness.”   

And in doing so, cross the line, come over and join us because we are the winning side of history.  And we welcome your repentance and heal you of your shame.  

And to the church, beloved church I say, you cannot sing the hymns of faith if you are too afraid to live that faith.  In Amos it says to silence your sacred assemblies and let JUSTICE burst forth.   Our nation, with the nations of the world, are under an assault of tyranny and treason of the 1% against creation itself.    

You may not worship God until and unless you care for the image of God living in those tents and prophesying on your behalf.   Once the Powers sweep the Tents away, if you dare to lift your voice even a peep, you too will be swept away.   

But the destiny of the church, the Body of Christ, is not one of quiet passivity and fear, our destiny is to bear witness having no fear of the Cross because even now we have crossed over into resurrection.  

 Rev. Rich LangUniversity Temple United Methodist Church www.utemple.org 

rich@utemple.org  

Videos:*This article can also be accessed if you copy and paste the entire address below into your web browser.

http://www.king5.com/video/featured-videos/Raw-Pepper-spray-released-on-Occupy-Seattle-march--133931238.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhl03fZ9Q2w&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Apple Unveils New Phone For Boomers

John Blumenthal writes good stuff:

Excerpt:

Boomer GPS Voice Choices App: Now you can choose from over 100 old-time voices to direct you to your destination. Included are the voices of Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason, Bullwinkle, Fonzie, Tonto, Johnny Carson, Perry Mason and the "Mamma Mia, that's a spicy meatball" guy.
Senior Discount Navigator App: This handy app lets you know which vendors offer senior discounts, where they're located, and how annoyed they'll be at having to give you 20 percent off just because you're old. Added feature: The phone will calculate exactly how much gas your car will consume and then convert that information into the amount of money it will cost you to drive to the vendor's place of business, thus allowing you to decide whether the discount is worth the drive.
Where Did I Put My Phone? App: Just say "Where are you, bro?" and the phone will reply, telling you its location by shouting out something like, "I'm in your medicine cabinet next to the Viagra, kemosabe."

You know the Occupy movement is on to something when

the Blowhard record makes people yawn.


T'would be nice to see the end of the blowhard phase.

I see the Faux Blowhard Network and the Blowhard Radio Network guys have yet to bring down the Occupy Wall Street crowd.

They keep trying and trying ... bringing them old 78's that they've played the plastic off of now going on more than twenty years. But finally ... perhaps finally ... we're not buying the old hard-ass poor-picked-on-me melody any more.

They be desperate for a hero to tackle Obama. They have yet to find a trash-talking doubt-raising hate-mongering jaw flapper who looks and acts blowhardy enough to arouse the flaccidity that permeats the mad white-guy audience.

And that self-righteously indignant pretend consitutionalist tea-party blowhard mob now finds itself starting to become the new Bevises and Buttheads in this country.

When it comes to a thoughtful critique of the Occupy crowd - the ones who really have a pulse and know the pulse of the country - the blowhards are passing gas in church but somehow think that everybody who matters appreciates the smell.

And the political celebs just ain't got it any more.

The Great Alaskan Helicopter Wolf-Shooter gets booed or worse, laughed at in front of God and everybody.

Minnesota's answer to God, Country and a lack of historic, geographic and civic perspective got elbowed out of the way by a red-neck god-talking Texas Aggie who considers verbal spam the language of the little folk.

And there's Herman who doesn't know what he knew and when he knew it and thinks connecting the dots will keep China from developing nuclear weapons all over again.

Them blowhards keep looking long and hard at the Massachusetts Flip-Flopping Mormon and can't stand the idea that somebody that woodenly complicated might be the best they can do.

Flush Limbaugh, Squawk Flannity and Blen Gecko seem to have run out of anger-making steam ... and although the choir might be able to nominate someone as dumb as they are ... the votes to one-term Obama ain't there ... probably never were.

And now their megaphone just plain aint loud enough any more. Tea-party talkers make tough noises in all the wrong directions and have pointedly refused to say much about corporate welfare and the buying or suppressing of American votes in the name of putting money-where-yer-mouth-is and shut the hell up.

The Occupy-ers have the pulse of the people. They are talking lost jobs, lost homes and sorely limited access to medical treatment.

The blowhards don't have much of a pulse at all; and aren't wanting to discuss those issues. What we get from them are whines about gay marriage, evolution in schools, immigrants holding the jobs they themselves would refuse anyway, and why Obama is the root of all evil.

in 2010 The Blowhard syndicate played the major role in getting tea-party and kindergarten konvservatives elected with promises regarding jobs, houses and medical care.

The Blowhard syndicate now has to justify Reflublican governance focused on sex and looking in the peephole into American bedrooms. As for saving the economy, these Blowhard politicians have not passed one jobs bill based and focused only on jobs rather than Grover Norquist fantasies about shrinking government and no taxes.

No jobs bills but they could certainly pass gas about defunding family planning which has nothing to do with jobs excpet if you are born to unemployed parents.

No jobs bills or solutions but plenty of jaw flapping about busting unions, no raises in minimum wages or standards of living.

Plenty of indignation about all the things that do not keep Americans awake at night.

Oh, and the Blowhards have worn out the marching song about the coming armageddon when gays can marry that is more important than putting Americans back to work.

Americans who are wanting for jobs just aren’t seeing how keeping strangers from marrying is getting them any closer to getting those jobs.

Then of course the attempt to keep white guys angry by denying global warning.

Then of course the need to keep white guys angry by vowing to correct the bank bail out outrages and in stead ... once in office ... working to cut taxes to the rich, cut out or cut down social security and medicare and keep defense spending at the level to which the defense contractor lobbyists are accustomed.

Pay no attention to that unemployed man and his family in the streets. Blowhards have a handle on the commode and know what's best to flush.

So when Ann Coulter says "Our blacks are so much better than their blacks!," the old Blowhard Network takes another stab at what used to work.

We ain't buying it.

Maybe it's time to Occupy Faux News, Tea-Party Fantasy Land and  the Party of Beat-Obama-At-Any-Cost.

Only the dimmest bulbs would argue that point.

"Can't anybody here play this game?"

When I retired I told myself I was through with being an opinionated fellar regarding politics and have tried to lay low since the end of August when I finally earned the ability to have too much time on my hands.

Although disgusted with all the parties and all their antics, I can't help myself and will again respond when guys at the tavern ask me stuff.

This first post of my "back in the game" mode I want to comment on stuff that would be funny if those saying or doing weren't so dang serious about themselves and what they say and do.


Casey Stengel, who formerly managed the Yankees to several World Series victories, wound up managing the New York Mets when they were still in their start up  mode. Their players were for the most part barely major-league material and they lost a record number of games for that time. His famous public question to sportswriters was

"Can't anybody here play this game?"

That's what I'd like to know about these here politicians. For instance, most if not all of those folks trying to become the nominated candidate of the other major party talk as if - when elected - they will whip out their newly minted wand of power and sweep away by executive order all the bad stuff they've smacked Obama for.

These are modern childish myth-makers in action and their fantasy kingdom is the realm of removing health care reform or ... as they would have you believe the imagery that equates Obamacare as an evil relic to  the evil ring of Suaron in Lord of the Rings. They'd like you to believe that with the stroke of a presidential signature they can toss Obamacare into the molten lava:

"One thing I'd do on Day One if I'm elected president is direct my secretary of health and human services to put an executive order granting a waiver from Obamacare to all 50 states. It is bad law. It will not work. And I'll get that done on Day One." - Mitt Romney 9-7-11 

"And I'll promise you, on Day One, as the president of the United States, that executive order will be signed and Obamacare will be wiped out as much as it can be." — Rick Perry Sept. 7 debate. 

"I'm going to un-pass it on my son's birthday." — Herman Cain Nov. 2 forum with the GOP's Congressional Health Care Caucus.

As they climb off their mighty steed of victory in their imaginative portrayal, the first thing they would do would be a step into an unconstitutional cow pie.

All of them know it, I'm somewhat sure. But then again maybe they are not as smart as they want us to think they are ...  and perhaps all of them assume that you and I don't know about how their promises are pipe dreams.

Here's an interesting quote from from the AP article by Calvin  Woodward and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar that prompted what I'm writing:

A president cannot overturn a law with an executive order.

Moreover, the health law lays out an onerous process for letting individual states off the hook from its requirements; that process cannot begin until 2017.
For a state to be granted a waiver, it must show that it will provide coverage that is at least as comprehensive and affordable as under the federal law.
Also, a state has to insure a comparable number of its residents, and its plan must not add to the federal deficit by shifting costs to Washington.

Finally, a state has to enact its own health law setting up the system envisioned in its waiver request.

Romney's assertion also implies that all states would want to get out of the health care law. That's a doubtful proposition for Democratic-leaning states.

Cain recognizes that for the law to be repealed, Congress must act.

But presidents don't set the congressional calendar, and even if Republicans can secure a 60-vote majority that gives them control of the Senate, the train of legislation seldom runs on schedule. - The Myths of Obamacare in the GOP Campaign 

The more preposterous, outlandish and downright silly the campaign promises - coupled with wide-eyed stares of pretended competency - ought to leave us shaking our head.

Can't anybody here play this game?