“KILL MORE PEOPLE FASTER WITH THE FANTASTIC BUSHMASTER AR-15!”

Wouldn't that would make a great advertising slogan for Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC.   Adam Lanza managed to pump up to 11 rounds into each of the 20 grade school kids he killed in Newtown, Conn.  Bushmaster must be really proud of that.  If you research the rifle you will find it is the most popular gun in America, that comes in various colors and with numerous accessories like different capacity clips.  They even raffled off a pink one for breast cancer research.  You can’t be more public spirited than that.  It is so popular it has been the weapon of choice in recent mass killings in movies, shopping malls and the intentional ambush that killed two firefighters in Webster, NY on Christmas Eve.   Malcolm Brady, a retired assistant director with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms told NPR in an interview:  “The weapon has a, shall we say, a Rambo effect, just cool to carry.  It may be for protection. It may be for the coolness. And it may be for the fact that people will be in fear that the weapon will be put back on a banned level, and they want to obtain it before it is banned again. But I think you will see the popularity of it and the purchase of them increase drastically, in between now and the holidays, near Christmas.”  Obviously, Bushmaster’s AR-15 sales will get a terrific boost from all its recent publicity.  I suppose the NRA’s Wayne La Pierre can now claim that the AR-15 is good for the economy.

Big Wayne La Pierre swaggered into town, hitched up his gun belt, squared his jaw and declared, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”  Those of you who read my December 20th blog, will immediately recognize the John Wayne Fantasy Syndrome:  The delusion that if you pack a gun you will someday save dozens of people by wasting a bad guy with an assault rifle and you will become a national hero.  LaPierre then proposed that armed guards be stationed at every school in America.  In other words, the NRA believes the way to stop gun violence is with more guns.  He also maintained that mass killings in America are the media’s fault—movies and video games--and gun availability has nothing to do with it. For a long time you have heard the NRA mantra:  Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.  No, Wayne, people with guns kill people.  You and I and every sane person in America have got to tell our rotten politicians to stop groveling to the NRA and pass meaningful gun control.   Or would you rather wait for the next Sandy Hook?

In radio interviews, facebook postings and internet chatter some men have been declaring the government better not take away their right to pack a rod for their own defense. These guys (they are all guys) are suffering from what I would call JWFS or “John Wayne Fantasy Syndrome.”  They fantasize that one day they will be in a shopping mall when a wild-eyed young man, dressed all in black, wearing a bullet-proof vest, will pull out an AK-47 and point it at the innocent, helpless crowd.  As the people shriek, cry hysterically and run, he will whip out his trusty Glock 9mm pistol and with consummate skill, he will drill the madman between the eyes with one shot.  The crowd will cheer and he will be a national hero.  Ironically, these are the same guys who want everyone else to be able to obtain guns.  I guess that’s so they will have somebody to defend themselves against.  I have lived in six major cities in the United States and done considerable travelling and never once in 75 years have I known anybody (including myself) who has required a gun for self-defense.  These guys either need reality checks or testosterone suppressants.  Probably these John Wayne wannabes would all like to live in Florida where they could shoot un-armed teenagers and claim self defense under the “stand your ground” law.  Hey Congress, wake up!  We do not live in the early 1800s anymore.  Maybe our laws should reflect that.

Inevitably, someone stated on Facebook that if the school teachers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School had been armed and trained the tragedy would have been avoided.   This is indicative of the depths of stupidity we have to deal with in America when it comes to guns.  I suppose these morons believe we could eliminate mass killings by arming everybody in places where such shootings have taken place:  fast food restaurants, post offices, universities, parking lots, churches, mosques, etc. Would you feel safer if you knew the kid serving you a Big Mac had a Glock 9mm 25-shot pistol under the counter?   Last  August  7, after  a lunatic killed six people in a Wisconsin Sikh church I wrote it was “thoughts and prayers” time again. Whenever one of these senseless mass killings takes place, our politicians wring their hands and declare their “thoughts and prayers” are with the victims and their families.  You know what?  Those “thoughts and prayers” don’t do those poor dead children and their families one God-damn bit of good.  What might help is if our spineless politicians stood up to the NRA and passed some laws that would ban the assault weapons, ammunition and high capacity clips that are the mass killers instruments of choice.

Let’s do some math.  Suppose I had an earned income of $10,000.000.  (Disclaimer:  I do not make $10,000,000 a year.)  At the present tax rate of 35 per cent I would pay $3,500,000 leaving me with $6,500,000 to live on.  Now if the proposed tax rate of 39.6 went into effect I would pay $3,960,000 meaning I would have to get by on a measly $6,040,000.  But some tax rate hike proposals exempt the first $500,000 meaning I would pay 39.6 per cent of $9,500,000 or $3,762,000 now leaving me with $6,238,000.  Now if, hypothetically, all my income was unearned (you know capital gains and dividends) I would pay only 15 per cent in taxes, so I’d pay $1,500,000 and have to scrape by with $8,500,000. The whole point of this mathematical exercise is that people like me who do not earn $10,000,000 a year and who dutifully pay their taxes have no conception of why enormously rich people are so adamant about not wanting to pay more in taxes.  Now the philosophical question is, do really rich people hate taxes all that much or is it because 1) Republican politicians are doing the bidding of the exceedingly rich donors who are greedy and do hate taxes or 2) Republican politicians are really dumb and have no other ideas to campaign on.  Those of us in the 98 per cent simply can’t understand why the one per cent does not want to contribute a little more for the good of our country. Warren Buffet excluded.

A Thanksgiving Story (or Stories)

Thanksgiving is often called the most American of holidays but there is something universal about it.  My daughter-in-law is Romanian.  Yesterday we spent Thanksgiving with her, son and granddaughter and 15 other people, a mix of Romanians and Americans.  The ages ranged from nine months to 75 years.  A soccer game from Eastern Europe streamed on a computer in one room and the Lions battled Houston on the TV in another.  The table held plates of turkey, beef brisket, ham, stuffing, baba ganoush, a lentil dish, stuffed cabbages and sever plates I could not identify but tasted wonderful.  It reminded me of a Thanksgiving many years ago when I took a new job in Chicago.  I had no one to spend Thanksgiving with so a co-worker of Italian descent invited me (I had lived in Italy for 12 years).  Her family, including grandparents who had come from Italy, served a huge traditional American Thanksgiving dinner--Turkey with all the trimmings--with the addition of a half-dozen bottles of Italian wines on the table and everybody was speaking Italian.  A friend who is actually in Italy right now decided to show her family there our tradition.  Her husband, she emailed, ordered the turkey from a local poultry store but made a little mistake in the weight conversion. Thinking in pounds he ordered a 13 kilo bird which is actually 28.6 pounds.  She managed to change the order to seven kilos which is a more manageable 15.4 pounds and she said she roasted her best turkey ever.  I hope you all had a very Happy Thanksgiving.

The Republican quest for the presidency was like a fairy tale.  Romney was the handsome prince who would ride his white horse into Washington and save the country.  So the Republican Party kissed his ass and he turned into a frog.  It is almost painful to watch the agonizing gyrations the Republicans are going through to justify or explain away what happened on Election Day.  The far right wing maintains that their anti-gay, anti-women, anti-Hispanic, anti-health care, anti-taxes, anti-regulations, anti-anything-Obama proposes, is absolutely the right way to go and they lost because the party chose the wrong candidate.  The prince-now-frog himself blames his humiliation on Obama’s giving gifts to all the voting groups he not only distained but insulted.   The Republican Imbecile-in-Chief Rush Limbaugh (among others) claims the loss was because Romney’s main constituency, angry white middle- aged and elderly males (the “white horse” the prince would ride to victory) did not turn out to vote.  Then some prominent Republicans like Bobby (Maybe I could run for President) Jindal maintains the only problem was that Romney did not explain Republican policies clearly enough.  Like if you carefully explain shit it turns into chocolate ice cream.  While many Republican apologists and pundits are claiming this is not the beginning of the end for the Republican Party, it can also be seen as just that.  More and more young Americans are realizing that Republican policies are not good for our country.  And old white Republicans are dying.  Unfortunately, they probably won’t take the party with them.

Would Mitt Romney please shut up!  You lost, Mitt, get over it.  Go to one of your houses and pout in private.  Our world-class liar, political opportunist, flip-flopper and former presidential candidate held a conference call with his top donors whining that his loss was due to "gifts" Obama made to specific groups of voters.  As the Associated Press reported, Romney told his money pit Obama won “because of the ‘gifts’ he had already provided to blacks, Hispanics and young voters and because of the president's effort to paint him as anti-immigrant.”  The AP also reported, “Among the "gifts" Romney cited were free health care "in perpetuity," which he said was highly motivational to black and Hispanic voters as well as for voters making $25,000 to $35,000 a year.” Doesn’t this sound like the same groups Romney denigrated during the campaign?  You know, the 47 percent of Americans who are moochers, misfits and bums who don’t take responsibilities for their own lives.  That’s Republican code for “blacks” and “illegal Hispanic immigrants.” This is but one more example of the underlying racism and bigotry which have become mainstays of Republican “values.”  Of course, if Romney had won, that same phone call to his donor fat cats would have confirmed that they voted for him because of his promised “gifts” of lower taxes on the rich, repealing  Obamacare and eliminating regulations so corporations can reap bigger profits by screwing middle class Americans.

On this Veterans Day, it’s appropriate to discuss how Americans feel about our men and women who wear or have worn the uniform of the United States.  Following 9/11, Bush’s immediate invasion of Afghanistan, which has now dragged on to be the longest war in our history, his unjustifiable invasion of Iraq which cost us too many American lives and enormous amounts of borrowed money, our military has been elevated to some kind of Godlike status.  We gush all over our men and women in uniform who have all become automatic “heroes” and we all feel smug and full of ourselves because we are “honoring” them.  Let’s rewind back to Vietnam.  I have a dear friend who fought in that war earning several medals including two purple hearts.   He tells of returning to the U.S. where his fellow Americans spat on him and called him obscene names as he walked through the airport.   Americans have short memory spans so now returning soldiers are thanked when they walk through airports and I’m sure a lot of those who hated our soldiers then are waving flags at Veterans Day parades now.   Of course we had the draft in the Vietnam era so a lot more Americans had some stake in the war because a loved one or friend fought or died there.  Now Americans are like a lot of beer-bloated, face-painted football fans cheering on their military team but God forbid one of their kids should be down on the mud-soaked field.   It eases our collective conscious to say how much we love our military.  But let’s remember ALL of them on this Veterans Day not only World War 2 veterans who  clearly fought to preserve our liberty, but also all our fine young people have been used to do our politicians’ dirty work ever since.  They have done so with honor and commitment and deserve all the praise they get.  And for the record, I am a veteran and very proud of it.

Whatever happened to Mitt Romney?  I know, I know, you are asking which Mitt Romney:  The one who passed a law as Governor of Massachusetts requiring people to purchase health insurance and when it morphed into Obamacare he denounced it?  Or the one who was a devout, severe conservative who transformed himself into a center-rightist a couple weeks before election day?  Or maybe the world class liar who, among other whoppers, told his cheering crowds in Ohio that Jeep was moving all it’s production to China which, of course, was a big “liar-liar pants on fire?”  Whichever Romney du jour you preferred, the American public has relegated him, as they say, to the dustbin of history.  If Romney has any legacy at all, it is as an ambitious, sleazy opportunist who wanted to realize his American dream of becoming President of the United States. Some future playwright my use him as a tragic figure in theatre, a kind of Willie Loman of politics.   The every-politician who is willing to do anything, believe anything  or say anything to reach his prize and failed.  As Aristotle might put it, his misfortune was not brought about by vice or depravity, “but some error or frailty.”  Romney will join George W. Bush as a pariah for the now and future Republican far right to completely ignore.  Romney can’t go back into congress like Paul Ryan and begin a 2016 Presidential campaign.  Of course, Romney doesn’t have to worry.  He is 65 and can collect Social Security and Medicare because he and the Republicans didn’t destroy it.

We have reached the final day of reckoning.  Today Americans vote not for a man to become President but to determine if our country will continue its dangerous slide to the right.  Since Regan, who declared war on government, Republicans have been shifting America to the political right culminating in the disastrous George W. Bush presidency which brought the nation to the brink of ruin.  Let’s look at just a few of the Republican policies that have nearly destroyed us:  Bush’s far right neo-cons--Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz--pushed him into an unnecessary war that the Washington Post estimates has cost us $3 trillion.  Note that Bush borrowed most of this money which contributed immensely to the deficit.  Trickle-down economics—giving enormous tax breaks to the rich which supposedly would “trickle down” and produce investment to spur the economy and create jobs—does not work as has been discredited by nearly all economists.   Eliminate regulations and the market will resolve all problems itself.  This Republican article of faith allowed the banks to run wild, rake in enormous profits for themselves and came close to destroying the world’s economic system.   There are more examples, such as dismantling Social Security and Medicare, but these will do.  Romney has clearly indicated he will continue these policies.  Unfortunately, many Americans are either hopelessly naïve or incredibly stupid and will vote Republican because they oppose gay marriage or hate black people.

Whether you like President Obama or not, you know where he stands and he won’t do anything crazy.  With Romney it’s a crap shoot.  And it is scary. When campaigning in the primaries the Mittster was severely conservative because he needed the support of his party’s extreme right to get the nomination.  In the third debate he swerved so far so fast to the center he certainly surprised me as well as many in his own party and we saw yet another of the many faces of Mitt.  We have heard the question, “Who is the real Mitt Romney?” since the beginning of this campaign and on the eve of the election, we still don’t have an answer.  What is truly frightening is that he is such a liar and so opportunistic now, do you really think he will suddenly change if he gets elected?  A lot of people will be calling in their markers.  The Tea Partisti and the neo-cons have not gone away and if Romney wins they’ll push him to the far right and you can bet the neo-cons will pull out the same old policies they foisted on George W. Bush.  That’s why a President Romney is dangerous.  Romney has a track record of going whichever way the wind is blowing.  When the neo-cons start manipulating him as they did Bush, we could be headed for big trouble.  Do your remember the scenario of a middle east country with a ruler we didn’t like who was developing “weapons of mass destruction” but claiming the nuclear program was peaceful.  Mix that with a President who wants a bigger defense budget and believes we are supposed to lead the world and you have a very frightening mixture.  I think America would be better off going with Shakespeare on this one and “rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of?"

If you really need a reason why Mitt Romney should not be President of the United States, try this one:  He is a despicable, opportunist, two-faced liar.  How can you trust a man with the most important job in the world who is a shameless liar and has changed his position on issues so many times nobody can be sure where he stands on anything? When it comes to the Mittster’s flip-flopping, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg made that clear:  “In the past he has taken sensible positions on immigration, illegal guns, abortion rights and health care — but he has reversed course on all of them, and is even running against the very health care model he signed into law in Massachusetts,” Bloomberg said. When it comes to lying, yes Obama and Biden have had their share, but let’s look at Politifact’s finding. (By the way Politifact is generally considered right-leaning.) Obama/Biden’s statements were found True and Mostly True 45 percent of the time.  Romney/Ryan were found to be honest only 29.1 percent.  When it comes to the lying categories of False, Mostly False and Pants on Fire (really bad), Romney/Ryan were lying 43.9 percent of the time compared with Obama/Biden 28.8 percent.  Now get this: Romney/Ryan had four times as many Pants on Fire lies than Obama/Biden and the Mittster alone has well over half of all Pants on Fire, more than all the other candidates combined!  You wouldn’t even buy a used car from a shyster like Romney, why the hell would you elect him President?

Well, at least the Republicans haven’t blamed Hurricane Sandy on Obama.  I’m sure they will come up with something hurricane-related to blame on him in the next few days.  They say everything that has happened since his election—recession, unemployment, gas prices, house foreclosures—are all his fault.  Does anyone remember George W. Bush?  Of course Republicans are in denial that he ever existed, got us into two disastrous wars, turned a budget surplus into a humongous deficit, let the financial industry run rampant and nearly destroy the American and global economy. But Republicans have their own kind of logic.  It involves ignoring their own history, pretending their failed trickle-down policies actually work (which they don’t), never acknowledge they caused a lot of problems though obstructionism, and truth has no relevance in the pursuit of power.  You’ve heard the latest Romney lie that Jeep is moving all its production to China.  Even after the lie was exposed the Republicans kept running the TV ad.  It’s unfortunate that Sandy arrived at election time.  Hopefully we can avoid another disaster.  Sandy’s mess can probably be cleaned up in a couple months.  If Romney is elected the mess he will create will take a generation to fix.  Remember what P.J. O’Rourke said, “The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then get elected and prove it.”

We all know that life is not fair. But one of history’s greatest inequities would be Mitt Romney becoming President of the United States.  Whether Republicans will admit it or not, Obama’s policies have begun to take effect and the economy is turning for the better—slowly, indeed, but turning. Most economists agree that whoever becomes President, things will improve.  So if Romney becomes President, Americans will see a brighter picture and he will claim credit for fixing the economy although no credit will be due.  An example of this is Romney’s spurious statement that he will create 12 million jobs in the next four years.  Economic forecasters have long predicted that 12 million jobs will be created over the next four years no matter who is President.  Romney knows this, but he is already claiming that his plan (whatever that is) will be the reason for those 12 million new jobs, which it won’t be.  Romney has already made the outrageous claim that his election alone will produce a wave of optimism because of what he will do, although no one is really sure what that is.  I would venture that Obama’s reelection would also greatly bolster the American spirit if for no other reason than this dreadful election campaign will be over and we can get on with our collective lives.  The Republicans caused the mess and then obstructed every attempt Obama made to correct their mistakes.  Rewarding them with a Romney victory would be a horrible mistake.

Dear God,

The Republicans are at it again.  In addition to blaming their bigotry on You, now they’re saying You’re the one causing women to get raped. "I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen," according to Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock. I really find that hard to believe. I realize that Your Bible isn’t precisely clear on rape like in Deuteronomy where if a woman was raped in the city both the raper and rapee were stoned to death but if it happened in the country they just wasted the guy. Another prominent Republican, Paul Ryan said his position is that “the method of conception doesn’t change the definition of life.”  You see he wouldn’t allow a women to get an abortion even in the case of rape or incest (which I know you are against, Leviticus 18:6). So, according to Mourdock, if a woman gets raped You wanted it to happen and then, according to Ryan You are adamantly against abortion no matter how conception took place.  Oh I forgot to mention Missouri Senate candidate Republican Rep. Todd Akin who said women subjected to "legitimate rape" (presumably sanctioned by You) get pregnant only because their anti-rape conception system failed.  Kind of like getting pregnant by rape is their fault. It seems the Republicans’ attitude towards women in just about everything is, oh just screw ‘em.  Excuse the pun. I do hope You get through this Presidential Election with Your reputation intact.

Your friend,

Bill

Oh poor Mitty Boo Boo.  That bad old Mr. Obama was attacking him and he didn’t like it.  “Attacking me is not an agenda,” Mitty Boo Boo complained more than once during the last performance of the Presidential Debate Show.  Of course, Mitty Boo Boo would never think of being so nasty as to attack Mr. Obama.  Oh no.  As you can see I am sparing you a rehash of all the lies Romney told which have been factchecked to death.   At several points in the “debate” I heard Romney repeating the same things the President had just said, essentially agreeing with him.  Romney’s pattern seemed to be he would do the same things the President is actually doing only he would somehow do them more, tougher and better.  Like he would have started sanctions against Iran sooner and would make them tougher.  Of course, since he was not the President, he did not actually have to deal with the problem so he can say “would have,” “could have” all he wants. Romney agreed with Obama that America has to work with China economically and politically except that Romney would declare China a “currency manipulator” on day one which hardly seems like a good start for working with another country.  If you look back at all the debates what came out of them?  Nothing substantial.  They were the same old stump speeches woven into so-called debates but all anybody remembers is that Romney came on strong in the first debate and Obama looked like he was suffering from constipation. At least the third Presidential Debate gave us one thing to be thankful for.  It was the last one.

Sideblog:  Romney won the lapel pin issue.  His American flag pin was bigger than Obama’s.

There is a very specific reason why Mitt Romney keeps changing his position on just about every issue. He’s a career businessman.  Businessmen exist for one reason: to make money.  You can’t make money by never modifying your product or updating your service.  Right now the Mittster is adamant that he wants to create jobs in America, but when it was advantageous to him to send American jobs overseas that’s what he did.  For anyone who has spent years in business (and I have) particularly in sales, you learn very quickly that you have to offer a product the clients want to buy.  You may have a product that would be better for the clients but if they don’t want to buy it, they won’t.  For example, when the Mittster was running in the primaries, his main client was the extreme right wing Tea Party so he bragged about being “severely conservative.” It worked. With their backing he got the nomination. Now that he has it, and 75 per cent of the American public think the Tea Partisti are nuts, he has new clients—the entire voting public—so he has to modify his product to appeal to them.  Remember the guy who hated Obamacare so much that he would repeal it his first day in office?  Well, he now says some aspects of it are great and he would keep them.  Could it be that those aspects are products his new clients would like to buy?  Oh, remember the Romney that hated regulations because they cripple business?  He has been replaced by the Romney who thinks some regulations are necessary.  And oh, remember the Romney who slimed 47 per cent of the American public and declared he did not care about them.  At that moment his customers were fat cat supporters.  Now the new, improved Romney says, "My campaign is about the 100 percent of America, and I'm concerned about them.”  Of course, the customers now include the scruffy 47 per cent.  The question for Americans now is:  Would you buy something from this man when you are not sure exactly what he’s selling?

Right after the second Presidential debate women became the demographic target du jour for both parties.  Just think, if you were a black, Hispanic, evangelical lesbian you would be constantly bombarded with solicitations aimed at the category vote every day.  I found it somewhat ridiculous that Romney’s idea of proof that he supports women’s issues is that he appointed women to his cabinet in Massachusetts. Wow!  Millions of women are paid less than men for the same job, they’re worried about their health care, their right to choose, right to obtain contraceptives, victims of abuse and Mitt Romney appoints women to his cabinet.  Did you need more proof that he cares for women than that? He claimed he intentionally solicited names of qualified women which produced the now famous “binders.”  Chalk up another lie to Romney.  Prominent women’s groups in Massachusetts had already compiled the binders to give to whoever became governor.  He did not solicit them they were given to him.  He put women in his cabinet because he already knew he was going to run for President and it would look good.   His popularity in Massachusetts plummeted in his last year because voters felt he was spending too much time out of state preparing his Presidential run.   In case you forgot, here is the actual debate question:  “In what new ways do you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn?” Romney replied he appointed women to his cabinet in Massachusetts.  Obama replied that the first bill he signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Play Act which extended the statute of limitations for filing an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination. You figure it out.

If Mitt Romney had gone to high school with me, he would have been called a “snot.”  Snots were the kids who always considered themselves better than everyone else. We also had our ”nerds” but we called them “brains” because, although they might be a bit awkward socially, they were really smart and we admired them because at that time getting good grades in high school was very important to us and our parents.  But the snots, sometimes referred to a “stuck ups,” were universally disliked.  That’s the Mittster’s problem.  He is just not a likable guy.  He really does think he is better than everybody else and that’s the way he comes across. You have heard him defending his offshore bank accounts and bragging about how successful he was in business.  But does he really have to ram it down our throats?  “I’m not going to apologize for being successful,” he says, but does he have to consider everyone who has not attained his millions a failure?  When he labeled the famous 47 percent of Americans moochers who don’t take responsibility for their lives, does anyone doubt that he really meant that?  Of course he did.  The spin artists blow it off and say well he was talking in private so that doesn’t count.  Of course it does.  When speaking to your snotty club members in private that’s when you say exactly what you mean.  Once a snot, always a snot.