GET READY FOR A ROYAL SCREWING

Well, the President has finally decided on a budget deal he likes and it's the eleventh hour proposal of the "Gang of Six", who rather than be heroes I'd have taken out and shot. President Obama pretty much "signed off" on the plan in a speech today and hopes that in the next couple of days an official bill can be drawn up and submitted to congress. The proposal slashes everything, including medicare and social security. They say this gives social security "solvency" for 75 years. Well, as they say in the food business, shelf life isn't everything. It pegs Social Security to a brand new index that's consistently several tenths of a percent per month lower than the usual Consumer Price Index, which in itself rips old people off. This deal apparently features 1.5 trillion dollars in corporate tax cuts. But Nicole Sandler says it does contain some revenue increases. It eliminates the interest payment deduction that hundreds of millions of people rely on to make their monthly house payments. Overall it cuts 3.75 trillion dollars from the budget. I guess you could say that this is the "big deal" the President was hoping for. Trying to get the specifics on the plan is a little difficult at this point, but there broad, sweeping outlines of slashes on everything. Apparently they even slipped in a two third vote requirement to raise any expenditures. Also along the same vein, the U S Senate will remain in session over the summer. This is to prevent the President from making those "recess appointments" of people who might not make it through the normal confirmation process. President George W Bush was famous for them. But I say look now and judge whether my words were true that this President is no good and that the democrats should put up another standard bearer in 2012. This President is so far over the line that the local dog catcher could garner more votes at this point. I think apologists like Randy Rhodes and Thom Hartman have a real decision to make in the next day or so about whether they are going to be cutting edge progressive advocates or not. Nicole Sandler is not at all happy about this whole gang of six proposal. My biggest problem with this proposal is that it contains so many massive corporate tax cuts whether it will do anything at all to actually reduce the deficet. But instead of this proposal the news is content to talk about the aftermath of "Carmageddon" or the latest "Harry Potter" movie, or this doll that breast feeds marketed to five year olds. But the "cold, hard facts" are that there IS no "debt crisis. At least not yet. And were we to go into default, the sensable thing to do then is just wait and see what happens and tackle each problem one at a time. At this point, a debt default is looking better every day.

Today was not a good day for the fake Raphael Hernandez to make deals. Of course a good rule to go by with the cops is that your life is worth a hell of a lot more when your captors still think they can get information out of you. Once you have coughed up everything you know, and they know it, then your life is worthless. Raphael Hernandez found this out today. It's not always smart to get cozy with the police even if you think you are diverting blame from yourself to finger the highers up who are involved. The fact is from the information you rat out - - the cops just might come back and say "Now we've got more information to charge you with". If the police grill you, don't give them squat. Well, Raphael played the fool today, thinking he was getting some all paid one way jet ticket to Columbia where he would find friends who protected him. Instead once Raphael put his John Hancock on the dotted line, he was taken back to his cell. I kind of thought once you negotiated for Freedom then you were free. I guess that only works in Christianity. Oh, you mean it doesn't work there either? Don't let them tell you that "honist confession is good for the soul". Once back in his cell, the Dept. sent in several tough dudes with a chip on their shoulder who had met up with his double and had a score to settle. They beat him up and presumably he is Dead now. His death should make a whole lot of people happy- not the least of which are the Walker sisters and Samantha, as well as Stephano and E J Di Mira. They're all popping champaign corks. Some say you should "Give glory to God and confess what you did". Have you read the story of Akin in the Bible. Well, it doesn't have a happy ending for Akin. Joan of Arc could tell you a thing about signing confessions. I guess you could call that a "bad carrier move" on her part. A fatal one.

Meet ALEC. That stands for Alternative Legeslative Exchange Council - or something. It's a shadow organization that's been working in all of these Midwestern states like Wisconsin and Indiana to draft all the legislation that is screened first by right wingers and corporate representatives to see if it's to their liking. So if you don't like all these new, weird measures you know who to blame. Things like elimination of state employee collective bargaining, and preserving pension rights, and a "liberalizing" of pollution laws to get away with murder, and to weaken occupational safety provisions for workers. And if it is they dump in a whole bunch of money to insure that the provision gets passed. Seems like we're hearing more about right wing shadow organizations every day. I guess there is a web site now called ALEC exposed. I'm going to check that out when I'm done here, and recommend you do the same. Our whole system needs a massive political purge- - from somewhere. But I haven't a clue who has the where with all to organize such a massive effort to cleans out the corruption from all our political systems. I'm not sure whether any grass roots organization can do it on its own. But I'll tell you, I really think we ought to get this vote Ron Paul thing going in states with open primaries. You know what they say, "He who lives by the open primary, dies by the open primary". If the Republicans get stuck with a candidate that can't win and they don't want they'll really be fit to be tied.

It's an old question but "Where have all the liberals gone?" and I mean those to the left of me. Twenty years ago you had people like Maxine Waters, Jesse Jackson, Anne Richards, Ted Kennedy, Birch Bygh, Al Gore, Gloria Alred, Thomas O Neil, Lennard Woodcock, Lawerence O Brien, David Denken, Bob Packwood, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Mario Cuomo, Andrew Young, John Kerry, Alan Cranston, or even the dreaded Willy Brown, and Pete Stark, who used to regularly phone into the Michael Jackson talk show. Where is Michael Jackson? Has anybody seen Joe Byden lately? Tom Leykis was a spokesman for the liberal cause for a while, till he got into that sex thing and faded into oblivian. People complain you only see conservatives on all of the network News shows but that's because the balance has shifted something fierce in the past twenty years. Many of the people we feel so threatened by now nobody had even heard of five years ago. I'm talking about people like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, Tim Pawlente, Rick Perry, and Glen Beck. The whole constelation of both politicians and comentators has so radically altered that were you to stay exactly the same, you would be perceived as migrating radically to the left.

You know, sometimes I play the blame game too often. I tend to blame "Christianity" in its generic form too much. A lot of my accusations are stale and rhetorical in nature. If I were more honest I'd confine myself more to the hear and now and only tackle fresh problems when and if they emerge. I really do have a lot to be thankful for right now. It's just that sometimes it's as though God himself is trying to "blow you off". You know that whole Mormon group thing I mentioned a posting or two back. Well that kind of "went south" last Sunday. "Things" came up that made me wonder why the hell I was even bothering to express interest in them. If this were twenty years ago that would be no problem. But the trouble is I live in a place run by Christians in a facility filled with Christians. And there are family members and other friends. So I kind of have to put up a good front things are hunky dory with my faith even when they are not, and I guess this inherently causes tension. I have this vague feeling of limbo, like my feet aren't entirely on the ground.