An idea whose time has come...

With all of Bohner's weak protestations of "But come on! We're broke! We've got to make tough decisions," I find myself favoring the old union suggestion: Cut from the top! Here's my plan:

Part A. So, all members of congress cut their pay. In fact, while we're dreaming here, all members of congress take the pauper's oath (like they used to do) and serve without pay or compensation. The taxpayers thus don't have to pay for the representation they're not getting anyway.

Part B. To prevent our members of congress from suffering from such problems as lack of affordable health-care, we have corporations take up the slack. They're already spending obscene amounts of money on our elected officials anyway, so let's just formalize the process. We use the US Chamber of Commerce to handle the congressional payroll and benefits.

Result. Everything's out in the open. We know who's paying who—and how much—by simply looking at their tax returns and pay stubs. Simplicity itself. The investment funds for their pay can be used on the stock market; how representatives will vote can be part of futures trading. And we know exactly what we'll get when we vote for these elected officials.

Who knew corruption could be so beneficial?

The obvious is still worth repeating 2

"It's random Republicans who act as if that certificate of live birth doesn't exist so they can continue to peddle their racism under the guise of concern for the Constitution. And they'll continue to do it as long as the traditional media gives them a platform and pretends that there is a controversy with two sides and is worthy of debate.

There isn't and it isn't."

• Barbara Morrill

Re-reading the warranty

It's too bad the 30-day return feature on our politicians has expired already. I mean, we all supposedly voted for conservative candidates who claimed they spoke for the American people, would unify us all and bring the country around. Instead all we get is like this governor in Wisconsin whose favorite strategy is like all other Republicans: divide-and-conquer, divide-and-conquer, divide-and-conquer. I don't recall us voting for divide, nor for conquer. Is there a product return policy at our voting places? (On a side note about unions and collective bargaining: I don't recall seeing unions exporting jobs out of the USA. So why are we blaming them?)

When they take off the blinkers

Starting to wonder: Conservatives aren't addressing rampant unemployment for a simple reason: They can't.

Republicans are unable to create jobs. Not due to any ideology (that just provides their excuses), but rather they lack the tools, the ways and means to do so. Not won't, but can't.

In the recent past, conservative strategy has been to ignore or divert attention from things they can't do or provide, places where they don't have answers or solutions. Yes, in this past election cuycle they've talked about jobs. But only in an abstract sense. Rather then directly addressing the issues leading to rampant unemployment and the loss of available jobs, they spoke of jobs appearing as a benefit of their economic measures, not as part of the machinery of recovery. Fix this, they said (usually something social/cultural or even racial) and we'll have jobs again. Not where we create jobs and much of the social ills are thus corrected.

For example, to create jobs is easy, just get people off welfare. That's capitalism. But not create jobs so people don't need welfare. That's socialism.

When paleo-conservative candidates were asked what federal budget cuts they would make, their typical response was to change the subject by labeling it something else—and throw a temper fit if that didn't work. Once they were elected to office, we now see why they were so evasive: they can't cut the budget. Can't as in powerless, incapable, ignorant. When asked how they would fix unemployment, their nearly uniform response was "fix the budget." When pressed for details, they would lunch into a tirade how it was all the fault of liberal socialism.

Now they're in office. The nation's people demand jobs. Conservative response is to attack human rights using women as an excuse. And jobs? They can't.


Not won't, but can't.

Hammer and sickle elephant

For all conservatives claim Obama and liberals are socialists, the conservatives are waging economic warfare that would shame a card-carrying marxist.

And their response to nearly crisis or problem—especially perceived as part of their culture war—has been ever larger and harsher government repression.

A simple moment filled with light

Update on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ):

Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has recovered enough from a bullet to the brain to ask for toast with breakfast.  [...]
Doctors at Giffords' Houston rehabilitation center, one of the top five sites in the country, on Tuesday said that she's recovering well and that they hope she can make enough progress to attend her husband's space shuttle launch in April.

Source: DailyKos

The obvious is still worth repeating

"What this exercise proves is that the Republican approach doesn't represent a serious effort at deficit reduction. Instead, it's an exercise in targeting programs that help the kinds of people Republicans don't like. They really don't care about deficit reduction: the GOP's precious tax cuts for the wealthy added nearly twice as much to the deficit as the total amount of cuts in this proposal."


The only thing Republicans didn't slash was the budget deficit