GOP Revolts: Switches to Coffee for 2016

The truce that was called to end "Class Warfare" was the U.S. Constitution.

Wouldn't it be nice if all members of Congress would at least read

and commit its "Preamble" to memory.

The  "makers" and "takers" diatribe being spouted by the radical right just doesn't cut it.

It doesn't account for a very important consideration: The truth of the matter.

The true "takers" are the ones who have bought the House of Representatives, lock, stock, and barrel, in order to have its members serve as their personal lobby masons. These block shoppers have used money they've stockpiled while plundering the world's economy to lay mines in the path of upward mobility for the poor and middle-class.

The foxy guardians of righteousness have attempted to steal a couple of elections, lost the last election, and they will lose the next, because their greed and lust for power has not taken into consideration the law of diminishing returns: specifically, the tax returns of the actual "takers".

The real "makers" are "We the People." Today's Republicans shiver when they hear that phrase. People acting in concordance? How scary that sounds to them. They have names for people who want harmony. They call them "takers", because they cannot seem to use the "S"-word while keeping a straight face. 

Ryan, Jindal, Cantor, Rubio, et al, good luck with healing your party's tone deafness. You know you really should listen up when your constituents are talking to you, unless your wish is to meet your "maker" again in 2016.

A thought for the ages:

"There is no such thing as was—only is.

If was existed, there would be no grief or sorrow."

     --William Faulkner

Happy 307th Birthday, Dr. Franklin

Benjamin Franklin, was born on this day in Boston, New England in the year 1706.

In his autobiography this great American listed some virtues and their precepts that he, as a young man, tried to achieve in his conduct of life. Whether he succeeded, or not, is irrelevant, for Franklin is nearly universally regarded as the kind of man who has earned the respect of all humanity.

These names of Virtues with their Precepts were

1. TEMPERANCE.

Eat not to Dulness.

Drink not to Elevation.

2. SILENCE.

Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself.

Avoid trifling Conversation.

3. ORDER.

Let all your Things have their Places.

Let each part of your Business have its Time.

4. RESOLUTION.

Resolve to perform what you ought.

Perform without fail what you resolve.

5. FRUGALITY.

Make no Expence but to do good to others or yourself:

i.e. Waste nothing.

6. INDUSTRY.

Lose no Time.

Be always employ'd in something useful.

Cut off all unecessary Actions.

7. SINCERITY.

Use no hurtful Deceit.

Think innocently and justly;

and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. JUSTICE.

Wrong none, by doing injustice or omitting the Benefits that are your Duty.

9. MODERATION.

Avoid Extreams.

Forbear resenting Injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. CLEANLINESS.

Tolerate no Uncleanness in Body, Cloaths or Habitation.

11. TRANQUILITY.

Be not disturbed at Trifles, or at Accidents common or unavoidable.

12. CHASTITY.

Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring;

Never to Dulness, Weakness, or the Injury of your own

or another's Peace or Reputation.

13. HUMILITY.

Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Paid For: Lock, Stock, and Barrel

When repeatedly asked by PBS-TV correspondent Ray Suarez, of the Newshour, to state her position on allowing the continued availability of assault weapons and large magazines of high-powered ammunition to civilians in the wake of the Newtown Massacre, the newly elected Senator from North Dakota, Democrat Heidi Heitkamp, avoided answering, because she was not sure she yet understands what caused the slaughter at the Connecticut elementary school. Basically, she stated that she isn't a fan of mental illness, and intends to find out what can be done about eliminating it.

We have a Congress that has been bought and paid for by lobbying interests, such as the NRA, that have little in common with the average American citizen, or their common good.

For Whomsoever

No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is

a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a

Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse,

as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor

of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans

death diminishes me, because I am in-

volved in Mankinde; And therefore

never send to know for

whom the bell tolls; It

tolls for thee.

JOHN DONNE

Leonard* of Arabia

From the days of the Barbary Pirates (can anybody remember why Thomas Jefferson decided to send the U.S. marines to the shores of Tripoli?) to the days of the Somali Pirates, America has been shaken down by terrorists who are frustrated and disappointed with their numinously orchestrated hopelessness. Shaking the American money tree and watching golden shekels rain down upon their various promised lands has become an international sport for these highly self-regarded jihadists. America has been driving headlong into the sandtraps that these "Mice that Roar" have been laying out for it for more than 200 years now. Finally, it seems, that in Obama we might have a President that doesn't want to continue playing this idiotic cat and mouse game.

Perhaps if we just ignore these poor, helpless, democratically-challenged Warriors of God they will attempt to shakedown their 'god-fearing' neighbors in China or Russia? Good luck with that.

And regarding Myth Romney's worry about the world being four years closer to Iran having a nuke, may someone remind this self-adoring Olympian that the U.S. is always four minutes closer to having, inshallah, 2,000 nukes stockpiled.

*Leonard Wibberley, The Mouse that Roared. 1955.

Out of the Bush: Myth Romney, The Lyin' King

In a display of a deeply imbedded atavism, not to mention a palpable fear of losing all that they have not worked hard for, the Republican Party's stale offering for President of these United States, from out of the bush, the former bane of the workingman, his high and his mighty, to himself twice-endeared, Myth Romney is a cruel joke being played on an embattled and embittered middle-class. To the consternation of his Party's tea-swilling base this choice of the lesser of a dozen evils was grudgingly granted his candidacy with a reactionary stiff-upper-lip formerly suitable only for senescent, if not fossilized, British lions.

However, now that this crimson-colored, flick-tongued lyin' king has demonstrated his latest moves (somewhat reminiscent, actually, of the Soweto Shuffle) to at least 47% of the 99% that had already feared his bite more than his bark, any remaining Myth Romney acolytes may be switching to coffee come November. To merely call him out as a duplicitous charlatan capable of a callous casuistry not seen or heard since Marx (both Groucho and Karl) is not strong enough hortatory. This louche bean counter must not be allowed in a place where 2 plus 2 does not equal 4.

De Omnibus Disputandum

After bearing witness to the shambolic main event on the Denver card last evening wherein the red-eyed challenger from (tba) had the effrontery to land several stinging jabs at the seemingly diffident gentleman in blue from (tba) in whose hands many have entrusted their prosperity, if not their posterity, I exited the arena myself reeling with a disoriented feeling, a sense of being, in the words of the late Christopher Hitchens, (or was it Winston Churchill?) "bruised, battered, and buggered." (Or in my own poor choice of words, as battered as a filet-o-fish being lowered into a cauldron of roiling oil). Fortunately, however, being a modern man (for my age) I have an attention span that can be measured in bites of sound, and a memory that can be measured solely by its relative paucity of kilobytes, so I awoke this morning only able to recall the following salient blows landed during the first round of these so-called "debates."

Firstly, I was struck by the tenacity with which the Republican who somehow, heuristically, perhaps, made the best of his innate talent for imposture and dealt short, swift, shots to the insouciant southpaw; and dumped a tautology [flurry] of baleful ignominy upon the Democrat.

Secondly, the crowd which had gathered to attend this long-awaited conflagration were foresworn to silence, thus disabling their deliverance of the appropriate amount of opprobrium due to the hard-punching outlier. The entropy of the incumbent, though, was palpable.

Finally, not being one to repine, I must confess that the referee of the contest (who I like as much as his doppelganger, Walter Cronkite) was rebarbative, to the nth degree. The whole affair hung upon me throughout the day like the redolent circumambience of another long-gone, widely-touted battle,  one that took place in a distant ring when the sonorous Max Baer plucked the crown from the swollen head of another gentle giant, Primo Carnera.