Stop Voting for Republicans

My parents were good people, but they might have let sleep with used dry cleaning bags and eat lead paint.  I can’t say for sure.  But even a guy dropped on his head a few too many times can see that voting for Republicans is a bad idea.

Never mind that the GOP openly declares a war on America, pitting “makers” against “takers.”  (That’s you, Grandma, you miserable leech. And thanks for the cookies.)

I won’t name names, but I  hope no one has forgotten the GOP presidential debates already or the goofy things some people say about race, Muslims, pregnancy, and such.  Shut it down!

We are not shutting down this ignorance.  Just the opposite.  We are supporting it.  Tell me, since when is it a good idea to ignore fact and history to the point of wanting to restore a more desperate era 100 years in our past?

Give me a good reason — just one! — why we should follow Boehner, Cantor, McConnell et al down that rabbit hole.  Just one!  Please post it in the comments below.  (I am still waiting for a list of cool Republicans, too…chirp, chirp.)

Let’s look at the most recent GOP scandal:  The Sequester.

Here you have a situation forced upon the president by an entirely uncooperative GOP-controlled congress and they put the blame on the president.  This happens in school yards.  It shouldn’t happen among adults.  What’s worse about this is they get away with it!  Americans have to stop being so plainly stupid.

Republican leaders cannot be as stupid as the American voter.  They see that their policies are destroying opportunity in America, breaking down the American economy, and destroying generations of progress because that is precisely what they want to do.  They want to destroy the America that has done so much for so many and rework it into an “objectivist” utopia where men stand opposing each other at gun point from their tar paper compounds.

Where’s Bachmann’s Thought Police When You Need Them?

Read a newspaper, talk to your friends, go walk down the street…are things better or worse?  More than 30 years of less is more has not worked.  When you strive for less, you get less.  You don’t have to be the smartest guy in the room to see this.  More than smarts it takes courage, a person needs the guts to trust his own experience in the world.

Until someone can present intelligent conservative arguments — ideas organized around reason and facts — I have no more time for backwardness of the GOP.  Our decline is not a bi-partisan issue.

Let’s start by seeing how GOP policy has contributed anything positive in recent decades.  Anything?  Should be a simple enough assignment, but the answer is lost in the emptiness of GOP rhetoric.  There is none.

 

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Back from the Cliff: Let’s Eat Eggs!

In a celebratory recognition of Congress pulling us back from fiscal dairy cliff, I bought a half pint of heavy organic cream.  And because my grocery store categorizes them as dairy, I picked up some eggs, too.  (What exactly is dairy?)

I did all of this for two reasons:

First, I believe all properly stocked kitchens should have plenty of dairy, especially cream and eggs.

Back to Work!

Second, you can prepare eggs in many, many ways and incorporate cream into many, many recipes.  Unlike politics, there really isn’t a right or a wrong way to do many of these things.  Eggs your way might be damn near as good as eggs done my way!  And doesn’t it feel good to be so nice about difference once in a while?

Take scrambled eggs, for example.  You can prepare them in many ways and perhaps never decide that one way is any better or any worse than the other.  You might — hold on — agree that your eggs can exist in friendly harmony with mine and no one need to sacrifice his future to do so.

Unfortunately I must insist, however, that most people overcook eggs.  Eggs should be squishy, not bouncy.  Keep that in mind and we’re all good.  (See…I’m already going back to my bickering ways.  Proceed with caution, senator.)

Ok, back again now to celebrating.

Often I choose to make simple scrambled eggs for a quick breakfast.  This approach is fast and it is easier than falling out of bed, entirely in harmony with the morning.  This is all you have to do:

First, put a sliced English muffin in the toaster and start toasting it.

Then heat a small omelette pan over medium heat (this is the only time you will really ever use a small omelette pan), add a teaspoon or so of softened butter, and when the butter has melted and begins to bubble, toss in an egg.  Shake the pan rapidly to keep the egg from sticking to the pan bottom, then let it sit for 15 seconds.  Next take a fork and stir up your egg a bit, shake the pan some more, and let it sit for a few seconds…then repeat…stir with a fork again, let it sit (but only for a moment this time) and remove from the heat.  Your muffin should be about done at this point.  Make your sandwich.

If this take more than a minute, you’re doing it wrong.

American Eggs, Suzn Smith

You might add cheese to the sandwich — or even ham — and sometimes I add one or the other or both to the egg before cooking and make a lazy man’s omelette for my breakfast sandwich.  A friend taught me the delight of adding a drop or two of Tabasco sauce just before eating, especially if you have dark roast coffee, and this is a perfect accent to a simple egg muffin sandwich.

But now let’s get to the cream because I think I have covered egg breakfast sandwiches once or twice already here on A Little Tour in Yellow.  Plus, let’s not lose sight of what is going on here.  We are celebrating avoiding the Dairy Cliff.  Let the cream flow!

(I mentioned every kitchen should be stocked with heavy cream already, right?  Fiscal and dairy crisis be damned.  Live liberally.  Live with cream.)

The best scrambled eggs, I have discovered, are made with heavy cream.  And they are wonderfully easy to make.  You need an omelette pan (a real one), a small bowl, a fork, and a plate.  You also need eggs and cream, of course, but you might want to add some cheese (shredded parmesean is my favorite) or salt, but not much salt if you add cheese.  The cheese is your salt.  And not too much cheese, either…these are scrambled eggs, not something else.

I use a small bowl — something like an English consommé bowl, if you can imagine such a thing — to mix my eggs and cream together.  I use between one and two tablespoons of cream per egg.  (Probably closer to one tablespoon.)  Just as we did before, heat your pan over medium heat until your dollop of soften butter melts and begins to bubble.  While you wait, whisk up the eggs and cream — maybe that dash of salt, too, or a dash of cheese (not both) — until eggs and cream mix.  Don’t over mix!  You should be able to discern eggs from cream, but you do want the yolks broken and creamy, literally.

Now, when your pan is ready, pour everything into your omelette pan, shake your pan (sounds like fun), and then you might want to cover the pan.  I usually do.  If I have a cover.  (Any cover will do, if it does the trick.)

Let the eggs sit for 10-15 seconds, then start folding the eggs over in the pan, roll them gently with your fork.  Let them sit for another 10-15 seconds.  Then mix them a little more with your fork one more time, let them sit again for a few more seconds and remove from the heat.  You’re done!

Of course the squeamish can watch for “runny” eggs and cook more to taste, but don’t overcook.  Unless you’re my little sister, who overcooks everything, you don’t want over-cooked eggs.  Remember:  Squishy, not bouncy.

In my experience, eggs are the last thing I cook when making breakfast, and if you disagree with me you must be a god damn Republican.  Ha!  Couldn’t resist, even during the fiscal cliff truce, it’s still fun to poke fun at Republicans.  So easy to do, too, just like cooking simply delicious eggs.  Try it.  Even if you’re a Republican, try it.

Ok, never mind.  Sorry…

So that’s it.  That is all that I have tonight.  Me, cream and eggs, and fiscal truce, too.  Let’s eat!

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Where Will Bachmann Build Her Next Bridge?

Michelle Bachmann squeaked by Jim Graves Tuesday night to win her fourth term in the United States House of Representatives.  So now what?

I believe a strategy that turns Bachmann into an asset for progressives is the smartest approach.  She’s won, she’ll be in the public spotlight, and she’s a disgraceful joke.  Any remnants of the regressive Tea Party that remain after yesterday’s election should be made to go down with her.  And in that way, it can be useful, even if it is painful, to have Bachmann as a standing reminder of how inept poorly chosen leaders can be.

A couple things work in favor of ensuring this victory is Bachmann’s last.

First, she won this election based on the broad support of fellow travelers pumping millions of dollars from across the country.  The radical American right elected Bachmann as much as our misguided neighbors in Minnesota Congressional District Six did.

Bachmann won’t have a presidential election to use as a stage in two years.  Her short-lived success as a GOP presidential candidate gave her an appearance of credibility on the national stage.  That is gone.

Michele Bachmann

Instead, unless Bachmann changes her stripes (maybe someone can pray away her crazy), she has two years to reinforce her true character and that character is not good.  Even her own party prefers to stay at a distance from her making her an amazingly ineffective multiple-term representative.

In the last election Bachmann had the bridge over the St. Croix River south of Stillwater to sell as an accomplishment.  She doesn’t have another boondoggle to promote, nothing that will be accomplishment before the next election cycle.  Moreover, Bachmann would not have that bridge without the work and cooperation of others, especially Amy Klobuchar (more about this in a future post).

It would be nice to think that perhaps Bachmann’s experience has mellowed her some; maybe should would be willing to build a bridge of a different kind, one that would bridge the political aisle.  But don’t count on it.

First of all — and I saw this with sincerity — I don’t think Bachmann has the moral character or the intelligence to either want to do this or be able to do this.  Bachmann is among the worst of the worst when it comes to ranking the bottom of our political leaders…and today that takes some doing.

Secondly, only hours after Tuesday’s historic election, the GOP sounds like it is positioning itself for more of the same.  I have been listening to interviews and reading commentary all morning.  Conservatives, with few exceptions, have not changed their rhetoric.

(Mitch McConnell, it is important to note, has softened his anti-American rhetoric.  He hasn’t said his priority is making Barack Obama a one term president this year, although I think it would be funny if he did and it would be maybe the most realistic comment he has made in years.)

Thank you, Jim Graves.

With more credible colleagues circling the wagons and a base — albeit shrinking — of narrow minded misguided voters of the Tea Party ilk, Bachmann has cover and she has an audience.  That’s all she wants and needs.  Minnesota?  Just a means to an end.

For that reason it isn’t too early to start pushing Bachmann now.  We know who she is, we know what she is about.  I see little sense in trying to work with her.  She has to go and the effort to unseat her started in this election.  It didn’t end last night.

An approach that focuses more on positive differences from Bachmann is an overdue approach.  The people who are voting for Bachmann are voting for her at least in part — if not for the most part — because they agree with her outrageous positions and ideas.  Running negative campaigns, therefore, become in a twisted way a positive reinforcement of Bachmann’s base.

Clearly we cannot give Michele a pass on the overly-abundant negative side of her career.  I simply think we need to focus on what makes her opponent different and better.  Don’t overlook promoting the positive.  Differentiate and divide.

And, finally, for that, better Minnesotans and Americans need to thank Jim Graves, his team, and all the people who worked on his behalf and gave him the support he needed to put Michele Bachmann on her heels.

Keep pushing!

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Preaching to the Choir at the Church of Politics

Breakdown of political party representation in the United States House of Representatives.

Politics is especially divisive and messy today.  Everyone knows that.  And just to get it out there at the beginning, I am not going to pretend this is a bi-partisan issue.  What fails American politics today is an unbalance of discursive power.

Generally speaking the left accedes to the right a contrite sense of shared responsibility for our political failings.  Blame is not a bi-partisan issue and the right knows it.  They are not honest about it, of course, but they don’t care and they are happy to confuse the issue.  The right swings blame like a giant hammer, knocking off opponents with rhetorical ease.

Case in point…compare offers of compromise from the conservative right with those of the left.  First off, you have a hard time finding examples of compromise from the right, and when it does happen those politicians put their careers in jeopardy.  In fact search “compromise” and “Republican” and you likely find a story about the so-called Tea Party condemning a political leader.

And when was the last time — any time, in fact — that you read about a Republican taking any responsibility for our current economic decline.  It is all Barak Obama’s fault.  (Find counter examples and post them in the comments section here.  I need to see some sign of hope.)

Romney For President

Not everyone on the conservative right is an idiot, however.  Smart people there know that our economic malaise is not President Obama’s fault.  First of all he hasn’t been able to get much in the way of policy to do much, good or bad.   Ultimately that is neither here nor there when it comes to politics.    Congress makes policy proposal law.  President Obama does not.  It is so much easier to blame someone else, is it not?  Facts and procedures merely get in the way of power.

This problem will only get worse through the next four months, and almost certainly beyond.  To understand this we only need to see what has become of political “leadership.”

Politicians are not so much leaders as much as they are preachers, and they preach to their increasingly dogmatic followers.  All that will happen between now and November is a lot of blah, blah, blah.  Sadly — I will insist — the failure of leadership falls most firmly on the side of conservatives because they have the ability to engage the power of Congress.  But they won’t do it.

Since 2008, failure is the goal of successful GOP politics.  As long as Barak Obama is in power, success is not an option.

Take the economy as an example.  At a government level, there isn’t much we can do to turn things around.  The primary government players include Congress, the President, and the Federal Reserve.  Of these three, the only one that possesses any meaningful power to act is Congress.  Even during the best of times the President is a minor player, drumming up a party platform and selling it.  The president has very little direct effect on the economy, always has and, unless we change the Constitution, always will.  Congress enacts laws, the President enforces them.

The Federal Reserve hasn’t much it can do either, but it has become sport to blame the Reserve as a de facto wing of the Obama presidency.  In truth, policy options there are tapped out.  All the Federal Reserve can do now is monitor and report.  No one really pays attention anyway, especially politicians.

From a government policy option, Congress has the most power.  If there is an answer in the short term, it will come from Congress, not Obama.  Sadly, we would be in much better shape this were not true.  If President Barak Obama did in fact wield the power conservatives claim he has in hurting the economy, we would be in much better shape today.

But wait a minute, don’t you hear your Republican leaders preaching a sermon about saving American jobs, the economy, and the middle class?  Are they not worried about your children and grandchildren?  They have hijacked that rhetorical trope and, in the face of the facts, get away with it.

Help for a stronger economy is up to a Republican Congress and therefore we can expect nothing.  The party of wrack and ruin needs a depressed economy to maintain its hold on power.

Moreover Republicans use class warfare to divide America.  This enables them to rollback sound economic policy that once supported America’s prominence and power — Ronald Reagan’s Shining City on a Hill — but that shining city is inconsistent with an increasingly paranoid and ignorant conservative ideology that has a long list of social issues to push.

The United States has done a lot of things wrong, according current conservative dogma.  It began taking care of its citizens, protecting its environment, and investing in the future of a shared common good.  Increasingly the rights of the minority were protected against the wishes of intolerant majorities.  But these things cannot stand.  I don’t know, maybe success and shared prosperity ruined us, leading us astray of Christian values.  That isn’t exactly the conservative narrative, but what else in our country’s shining past would cause our ruin?

Conservatives tried to divide us on permissive social issues and largely failed.  Now they divide us on economic issues and succeed.  In a country so enthralled with the myth of independence, this works.

So what can we do?

I don’t hold out much hope in converting the right to joining the left.  It won’t happen.  But I believe a majority of Americans do in fact understand where their long-term best interests are served.  It isn’t in the disastrous policies of conservative politics — politics that too many liberals supported as well in recent years — but in a future that values shared investment and cooperation.

America’s future depends on a progressive majority turning out to vote.  It is that simple.  Apathy is a bigger threat than ignorance at this point.  It is too late to expect some sort of intellectual enlightenment among the dogmatic right.  The disengaged middle doesn’t strike me as a crowd that will study the facts of policy history (they are uncertain for a reason).  Instead it is time to rally.

If you don’t like the way our country looks today, don’t vote for the people who put us here.  Save the country.  Don’t vote Republican.

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Super Losers

Super Losers.

It is no surprise that the congressional “Super Committee” did not propose a plan for reducing our national deficit.  And it is time to stop pretending this is a bi-partisan problem.  It isn’t.  The GOP is to blame.  Period.

Republicans are beholden to special interests, not tax paying Americans.  Anti-Americans like Grover Norquist have hijacked our government and call the shots.  There is no comparison on the Democrat side.  None.

For decades this country has not had a spending problem, it has had a funding problem.  As taxes have been cut, our public services have been gutted.  The results have been disastrous.

More and more people are either in poverty or dangerously close to it, as many as 100 million or more.  Real wages for most Americans are flat or in decline.  Meaningful economic growth increasingly happens overseas, leaving Americans with fewer prospects for the future.  Still conservatives tell us that we need to continue to do more with less even as they support policies that give more to people who have the most.

On almost every measure, America is in decline.  Yet Republicans want us to believe that the policies they support — the very same policies that have ruined so much — are the solution to the very problems those policies create.

If we are going to square our nation’s bottom line, we need a balanced and intelligent approach.  This includes taxes.  We need to invest in our future, not cut it.  Republicans haven’t any interest whatsoever in a balanced solution.  They want everything their way.  You cannot negotiate with this kind of ignorance.

The solution is in the future and as it looks like it needs to be Repbulican-free.

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Trending in the Right Direction

At least something appears to be trending in the right direction.  Think glass half full.

While President Barak Obama’s numbers remain low, this isn’t necessarily unusual for presidents in recent decades.  Even the beatified Ronald Reagan struggled in the polls in his first term.

There is, however, a number that polls even lower.  Congressional job approval is miserably low, a record low, in fact.  This, of course, includes Congressional Democrats struggling against obstinate GOP cynicism, but when we look generally at the regressive Republicans, they continue to lose favor with Americans.

Ironically, perhaps, I’ll call this good news.

According to the most recent CNN poll, more Americans continue to trust Obama and his policies over GOP policies.  Forty-three percent of Americans favor Obama’s job plan while only 35% oppose it.  Forty-six percent of Americans trust Obama more to handle our economy over Republicans by 46% over 37%.  This is a sign of hope, especially in a country largely disengaged from facts and history.

Many reasons for concern remain, however.  First off these number reflect opinions in a system that most Americans think is broken.  Republicans running for office now are campaigning against this system and it isn’t clear that some voters want more, not less, of the GOP’s anti-government, anti-American policies as a solution.

The challenge for Democrats, especially the current Democratic leadership, remains the single problem of gaining control of the nation’s political narrative.  Democrats lost control of our political discourse and have been playing defense ever since.  This needs to change.

There is hope, however.  People are not happy and with this there is opportunity.

Bad Economics

The GOP-manufactured debt crisis — one that exists in large part because of bad economics and poor fiscal management — only adds another layer of bad economics on a bad economic situation.  Yes, a lot of bad economics.

In a recession we are cutting $900 billion of discretionary government spending.  How will that help?  We have a demand crisis more than we have a debt crisis.  Further cuts in government spending will slow our economic recovery, prolong our economic hardship.

We are in a recessionary economy.   We need demand and government can help support that demand.  At the end of World War II, the United States hit debt levels exceeding 20% of GDP — much higher than our debt today — but people then did not choose to cut government.  Very much to the contrary, they ran with these deficits for several years, supporting programs like the GI Bill and massive infrastructure investments like interstate highways, among many others.  In time, the economy gained strength and helped create wealth and opportunity for all Americans, rich and poor.

Remembering Ronald Reagan

Who would’t welcome an economy on par with the 1950s today?

Our current economy is starved for demand.  Money is not moving in today’s economy, consumers don’t have the spending power or the powering power that had become the foundation of our economic growth.  Moreover, business is not investing in the United States despite record cash reserves.  The entire argument that cuts will spur growth is a misleading political lie.  We’ve had the cuts.  Where are the jobs?  (In China, India, Mexico…)

This is a classic example of when government can help support demand and growth, but we are running in the opposite direction.

Even voodoo economists see the light.  We are not pursuing economically sound policies to correct our immediate economic needs.  We need to set things right with our economics so we can look down the road to better forecast and plan for future fiscal policy.

Next let’s think about what has happened to politics so that conservatives would be willing to risk the financial security of our nation to win a political battle.  It is party over country for Republicans today.  Is that patriotic?

 

Grand Bargain…

I am not the smartest guy you’ll meet, but I am beginning to think I am smarter than most people in Washington.

Sadly, ignorance and incompetence overwhelms and prevails in Washington today.  The victors are the conservatives, the losers the progressives.

Correcting our budget crisis is not an economic question, it is a political one, and the politicians answering the question are not qualified for the job.

The root of the problem rests in the risks of democracy.  As long as we have a gullible and uninformed majority electing bad people to office, we will have unqualified leadership and inappropriate public policy.  Votes on election day matter as much — maybe more — than votes taking place in Congress now.

Republicans have the bad politics and Democrats cave in to them.  Listen to any Sunday morning news talk show.  The Democrats talk in terms defined by the Republicans.  The Republicans have framed the debate, controlled it, and won it.  We now have a government run by people who see our government only as an oversized, wasteful, and economically unsound bureaucratic mess.  This is a political opinion, not an economic fact.

There are ways to fix this problem.  Again this is an issue with an economic solution, but politics have hijacked the debate.  The biggest Republican lie that Democrats do not stand up to is this idea that the United States does not live within its means.  Perhaps politics has made Democrats weak, but they fail to deliver the simple answer:  We have a funding problem, not a spending problem.  We have obligations, not entitlements.  We need to fund our government with smart and sufficient tax policy and own up to our obligations.  Government is not the problem, how we choose to support it is the problem.

Republicans gave us — some of us more than others — tax cuts we could not afford.  They did this so they could destroy social programs that go against their selfish, short-sighted ideological preferences.  For decades conservatives – conservatives morally superior than many of today’s Republican leaders – tried to divide the United States on social issues, but they respected obligations of government.  Today the self-described patriots have succeeded in dividing us by installing irresponsible fiscal policy and fostering economic lies.

Anti-tax, anti-government policies have not helped this country.  It certainly has not helped most Americans.  These policies haven’t even helped most Republicans who support them.

Just years ago it looked like we would be back in surplus today, but we pushed irresponsible tax cuts and enormous unfunded expenses like our wars.  One can easily argue that anti-government policies set up our financial collapse and that our anti-tax positions left us with no corrective opportunity to move on fiscal policy.

Moreover, supply side economics DID NOT deliver the prosperity conservatives promised.  Even in the best of times, real wages for most Americans remained flat or declined.  Real household debt reached record levels.  And don’t forget this recession.  Did the policies that allowed us to roll up to the economic collapse in 2008 serve us well?

It is time to call a spade a spade.  We have shameful stupidity on Capitol Hill.  Anti-intellectual Republicans are a real threat to this country.  They are rearranging an American social contract that has worked for generations.  The results are disastrous.  Better, smarter people need to lead, but that won’t happen until Americans become smarter and better.  People simply don’t get it and that the real disgrace.

What kind of bargain is this?

Republican Shut Down Strategy

.

Regardless of blame, cause, or reality, Republicans and their poorer cousins in the Tea Party complain loudly about the horrible state of the economy. 

They can only rail in superlatives:  We are seeing the absolute end of freedom and the American way of life because of the worst economic crisis in history…and it is only going to get worst…and then even worse than that still unless…of course…we elect more Republicans who have the wrong strategies for economic strength and recovery.

(Fact check anyone?)

So what can Republican do as the economy improves despite their best efforts to keep things down?  Well…they can derail the economy with a petty government shutdown.  Isn’t that what’s going on? 

By the way, you can watch the conservatives insert their self-serving social agenda in what is supposed to be fiscal legislation as they introduce things like abortion legislation and environmental regulation in what should be spending bills.  I have said all along that the budget and the economy are merely convenient vehicles for moving anti-government, anti-people legislation through Congress.

What is wrong with these people?

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