BottleOfBlog

Keep Up The Good Work!

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa is hoping to stamp out the sex trade by taxing pimps and prostitutes, then jailing them when they don't pay.

The Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday morning approved a bill sponsored by committee chairman Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, authorizing at least $2 million toward the establishment of an office in the IRS criminal investigation unit to prosecute unlawful sex workers for violations of tax laws.

Finally!  The gubment is doing something about all these whores on my street!

I can't tell you how many times I've been out for a walk in the neighborhood and I see some prostitute and I think, "Why is the Senate Judiciary Committee not doing something about that hooker on my street???"  I can't tell you how many times I've looked out my window to see some strange car double parked with the engine running in some alley way and thought, "What does a guy have to do to get some kind of Congressional oversite into what's going on in the back of that dude's van???"

I can't tell you how many times I've seen some pimp flashing his money roll and thought, "Why is the IRS not auditing that pimp??? That's undeclared income!"

To anyone who'd listen, I'd practically shout myself blue in the face, for years, saying, "These freaking whores are a federal problem.  Just what exactly do we decent people have to do to get some troops on the streets to break up the out of control whoring that's going on?  I mean, would it help if we told Congress we were infested with Mexican whores???  Illegally in the country???  How about if they were gay, illegal immigrant whores wearing hot pants made out of the Stars and Bars?  Would that finally get the National Guard on my block?"

So, anyway, I'm pretty pleased that the Gee Oh Pee is on the job, responding to the most pressing issues facing our troubled republic.

Because, since 2001, I can't think of one single thing that Congress should look into or concentrate it's energy on that's more important to the preservation of this great nation than taxing pimps and hookers.

I try.

I think and I think.

I wrack my brains.

I ask my friends.

But I just can't seem to think of one single problem we've had in the last five or six years which is more important than the hookerization of America. 

I just can't think of anything that the United States Senate should spend more time on investigating and overseeing and legislating about than hookers.

And I can't think of any political party other than the Gee Oh Pee which is more knowledgeable about America's super huge hooker problem!

Federal authorities are investigating allegations that a California defense contractor arranged for a Washington area limousine company to provide prostitutes to convicted former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) and possibly other lawmakers, sources familiar with the probe said yesterday.

Even gay hookers!

WASHINGTON - A conservative ringer who was given a press pass to the White House and lobbed softball questions at President Bush quit yesterday after left-leaning Internet bloggers discovered possible ties to gay prostitution.

I can't think of anything that the Senate Judiciary Committee should be debating or investigating more than hookers! 

I can't think of one  single thing that the Republican controlled Congress should be over-seeing more than whether the Treasury of The People's gubment is being bilked by pimps and hoes!

Ten thousand empty mobile homes, costing U.S. taxpayers $250,000 a month:  not a Republican Congressional concern.

WASHINGTON, June 26 — Among the many superlatives associated with Hurricane Katrina can now be added this one: it produced one of the most extraordinary displays of scams, schemes and stupefying bureaucratic bungles in modern history, costing taxpayers up to $2 billion.

Whore:  Republican Congressional perk.

Mexicans, faggots, flag burners, and whores. 

This is what Republicans are running on.  With two ongoing, unwon wars, costing a hundred billion taxpayer dollars a year.  With record setting deficits.  With bin Laden still not smoked out of his cave.  With the good name of America falling lower and lower in the esteem of the entire world.

We're going to solve your pimp and ho problem and increase gubment revenue!

It's so pathetic.

Not only can't these total frauds govern,  not only are these total frauds completely disinclined to even try, but they're so stupid that without something to be against, they can't for the life of themselves think of something to pretend to be for.

Stop Us Before We Bill Again!

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush, urging the Senate to pass the line-item veto, on Tuesday criticized House Democrats who didn't back the measure even though they've called for federal spending restraint…

"I was disappointed, frankly, though that more Democrats didn't vote for the bill, especially those that are calling for fiscal discipline in Washington, D.C.," Bush said in a speech to members of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank based in New York. "I mean, you can't call for fiscal discipline on the one hand and then not pass a tool to enhance fiscal discipline on the other hand. You can't have it both ways, it seems like to me."

The bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate. Democrats generally oppose the measure, and not all Republicans are excited about the idea. "We need to set politics aside" and pass a line-item veto, Bush said about the measure that the GOP embraces as a way to demonstrate election-year resolve to rein in federal spending.

Hahahahahaha!

You don't need a line item veto to rein in federal spending, you impossibly dishonest Gee Oh Pee freaks! 

You need to stop spending so much goddam taxpayer money, assholes!

That's it.

You, Republicans, you own the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.  You're the government you're trying to "rein" in.

Heart Of A Dog

WASHINGTON - The annual cost of replacing, repairing and upgrading Army equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan is expected to more than triple next year to more than $17 billion, according to Army documents obtained by the Associated Press.

Why is it expected to triple?  There are less soldiers there this year, using less equipment, than last year.  The upgrading of vehicles has been going on for two years.  But this year, the cost is going to triple.

At least.

From 2002 to 2006, the Army spent an average of $4 billion a year in annual equipment costs. But as the war takes a harder toll on the military, that number is projected to balloon to more than $12 billion for the federal budget year that starts next Oct. 1, the documents show.

The $17 billion also includes an additional $5 billion in equipment expenses that the Army requested in previous years but has not yet been provided…

Why was the funding not provided?  Was it really requested?  I was under the impression that everything the military asked for they got.  I mean, after Kerry got completely slimed for voting for every penny of military spending Bush requested, I find it hard to believe anyone in Congress voted against any Iraq appropriation.

Army and Marine Corps leaders are expected to testify before Congress Tuesday and outline the growing costs of the war — with estimates that it will cost between $12 billion and $13 billion a year for equipment repairs, upgrades and replacements from now on…

From now on?  We've been fighting in Iraq for three years.  We've been making great progress.  We've reduced our troop levels. 

Why will equipment costs now triple and remain tripled from now on?

Pentagon officials have estimated that such emergency bills would have to continue two years beyond the time the U.S. pulls out of Iraq in order to fully replace, repair and rebuild all of the needed equipment.

Even after we leave Iraq--which we're never going to do--we're going to have to continue to pay emergency military appropriation bills?  For two years? 

And do you know why all of this is? 

Because the Bush administration has been lying to the American people about what this fiasco has really been costing.

They've been hiding the costs and juggling numbers and, after three years, guess what?  They can't do it anymore.  The bill is coming due.  The piggy bank is empty.  And the Pentagon is just starting to hint at what this thing is really going to cost you.  Even years after it's over.

The push for additional equipment funding comes after the House last week passed a $427 billion defense spending bill for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, which includes $50 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. A separate $66 billion emergency funding bill for the two wars was approved earlier in the month.

War-related costs since 2001 are approaching half a trillion dollars.

A half trillion dollars.

And they still haven't dropped the other shoe.

But, please, don't let this national catastrophe distract the Republican Congress from its really important work. 

After all, as many as seven or eight--out of two hundred and eighty million Americans--may have actually burned an American flag in the last decade--Congress has got to act now!

Without immediate election year Republican Congressional action, hell, the amount of flag burners in this country could in, say, thirty or forty years, possibly eclipse the amount of people who are annually devoured by ants in this country.

But, you know, some things are worth fighting for.  Even if only every couple of election years or so.

"Ever since the Boy Scouts first taught me how to care for our flag over 40 years ago, it has always held a special place in my heart," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said in a press release yesterday.

And when something is inspirational to Bill Frist, you know that something is good and clean and pure.

"Well, your first patient was a dog," Karyn said. In medical school, Frist cut out a dog's heart and held it in his palm. It continued to beat for a slippery minute.

"Watching it beat, the beauty of it," Frist recalled. "I decided I would spend my life centered around the heart."

Yes, please, let us all, as a nation, be moved to tears by the sentiments of a man who cut the heart out of a living dog and saw the beauty of its dying beats in his bloody hands.

Oh, For God's Sakes!

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Senate began debate Monday on a proposed constitutional amendment that would prohibit the desecration of the American flag, the latest in a series of election-year votes pushed by the chamber's Republican leaders.

What is that now?  Is that it? 

We've had homos, Mexicans, the national language, and now flag burners.

That's got to be it.  That's got to be every single last bullshit thing Republicans can think of to gin up the rubes during an election year.  Shit that's got fuck all to do with the federal gubment, shit that's got fuck all to do with making your lives any better or worse, and shit that Republicans, who control every single branch of our gubment, do anything about when it isn't an election year.

Oh, no, I'm sorry.  Abortion.  Get ready for some kind of draconian abortion law.  Or dumbass non-binding, un-Constitutional resolution on abortion.  It's coming.

Maybe some jackass will propose Schiavo's Law to protect the millions of Americans who have absolutely no cognitive function--the Gee Oh Pee base--and no hope of ever getting any.

It's pathetic.

I was born when Lyndon Johnson was Preznit.  I've lived through 8 different American Preznits.  I've lived in four different states, eleven different towns, three big cities, a couple of smaller ones, and I have never, ever, ever seen one stupid asshole actually burn an American flag in my entire life.  In person, in America.

Never.

And I've never, ever, ever seen as many people burning American flags as I've seen when I watch George W. Bush travel outside the country.

If the Congress would like people to stop burning American flags, they should impeach George W. Bush.

It's that easy.

Beyond the several hundred million people around the world who have grown to despise what they believe our flag now stands for--unjustified, illegal and pre-emptive war, torture, and imperialism--who is burning the flag???

This is what the Republican controlled Senate is wasting its time with?  Horseshit debate over stuff that never happens and, even if it did, wouldn't do shit to one single living American?

We've got two unwon, ongoing wars--neither of which is going particularly well.  We have out of control gubment deficits.  We've got runaway gubment corruption, the likes of which we haven't seen since Reagan restored honor and dignity to HUD.  We've got any number of gubment agencies which appear to be completely disfunctional.

And this is what Republicans feel the urgent need to talk about?

Well, one can only hope Republicans are more serious about this pressing issue than troop withdrawals from Iraq, otherwise next week Rumsfeld might be grilling up the Stars And Stripes at his Fourth Of July barbeque.

This is so dumb.  It's so obvious.  And unserious.  And just dumb.  It's dumb, dumb, dumb.

Newspapers and television and magazines should just describe it as what it is:  an incredibly stupid, predictable, meaningless waste of our time and money for no other reason than to piss off a bunch of people who don't even understand the form of gubment that flag represents.

And to encourage those dumbasses to vote for a gubment which holds those very same people in such contempt that it thinks it can manipulate them with stupid, idiotic, meaningless debates which it will, on the day after the elections, promptly forget all about for two years until it's time to cheat and decieve the rubes again.

Republicans are so desperate to run the gubment.  And so appallingly disinterested in running the gubment.

Doesn't that tell you something?  Doesn't that tell you why these louts really want to be in Washington?

Nothing Lost In Translation

gipfel ('gip-fel) noun: German for a gathering usually consisting of two men and one wildly gesticulating suited monkey.  Traditionally, the monkey is retarded or deformed in some way.

How About Three Years For A Reasonable Answer?

VIENNA, Austria (CNN) -- Iran should give an answer within "weeks, not months" to a U.S. proposal for incentives and talks concerning its nuclear program, President Bush said Wednesday.

His remarks referred to August 22, the date announced by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his country's response.

Bush called it "an awful long time for a reasonable answer, for a reasonable proposal."

"It shouldn't take the Iranians that long to analyze what is a reasonable deal," he said.

Hmmm...I'm no big fan of Iran but, really, dude--

Just after the lightning takeover of Baghdad by U.S. forces three years ago, an unusual two-page document spewed out of a fax machine at the Near East bureau of the State Department. It was a proposal from Iran for a broad dialogue with the United States, and the fax suggested everything was on the table -- including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups.

But top Bush administration officials, convinced the Iranian government was on the verge of collapse, belittled the initiative...

Last month, the Bush administration abruptly shifted policy and agreed to join talks previously led by European countries over Iran's nuclear program. But several former administration officials say the United States missed an opportunity in 2003 at a time when American strength seemed at its height -- and Iran did not have a functioning nuclear program or a gusher of oil revenue from soaring energy demand.

I mean, that's just embarrassing.

Even for Bush.  That's just fucking stupid embarrassing.

Someone, Please, Ask The Question

WASHINGTON, June 21 — The Senate was immersed today in an impassioned and prolonged debate over Iraq, with Republicans accusing Democrats of lacking the resolve to see the war to an honorable end and Democrats accusing Republicans of election-year politics…

Mr. McCain said that the Bush administration had made "serious mistakes" in Iraq, but that withdrawing prematurely would be a far more serious one. "Iraqi forces are not yet capable of securing the country," he said.

The options available to the United States are what they have always been, Mr. McCain said: "Withdraw and fail, or commit and succeed."

Succeed at what???  What exactly is it that we're hoping to win in Iraq? 

A global defeat of terrorism?  That'd be a neat trick since Osama bin Laden--the guy who murdered 3000 Americans on live TV--is and has been for the last four years in Pakistan.  At best, a "victory" in Iraq might actually manage to stop Iraq from being a training ground and net exporter of terrorists.

Though, I can only get so excited about that since Iraq had no terrorists in it before Bush stupidly invaded the country. 

I mean, that's stupid.  A trillion dollars--and make no mistake, this fiasco is going to cost a trillion dollars--and thousands of lives to stamp out terrorism in a country where there would be no terrorists if we hadn't invaded to stamp out a terrorist threat, which, of course, never existed.

I can't call that a victory.  Even if it happens.  I just can't see how we won anything.  It seems like a giant fucking stupid waste. 

But what else?  What else are we going to win?  The Amazing Shrinking and Expanding Iraqi security forces, when not shooting Americans, are going to secure the country, and the Great Iraqi Democracy is going to take root, and thrive, and spread it's American Eagle like wings over the whole region?

That's what we're going to "win"?

TEHRAN, Iran -- To Iran's west lies a natural ally and perhaps its most potent weapon in the international fray over its nuclear program. While Iran and Iraq were arch enemies during the rule of Saddam Hussein, all signs point to an increasingly robust relationship now that Shiites have achieved a dominant role in the Iraqi leadership.

It's a bond that has yet to reach its potential _ in large part because the U.S.-led invasion is responsible for Iraqi Shiites being at the top of the political heap for the first time in modern history. Iraqi Shiites are not looking the gift horse in the mouth…

"Iran has a clear strategic depth in Iraq and there is an alliance between Iran and the upcoming Iraqi powers," said Iranian political analyst Mashallah Shamsolvaezin. "Iran hasn't utilized that option yet and it's a card that will be very influential."

The government of Iraq, with or without American firepower, is going to be an Islamic, Iranian friendly theocracy.  That's it.

That is the best you can possibly hope for.

It already is. 

It might be an Islamic Theocracy which pretty much minds its own business.  Or it might be one that flexes it's gigantic petro-dollar muscles, assisting Iran and Pakistan with missile technology and nuclear weapons, while exporting Islamic theocracy all across the mid-east.

But that's it.

Maybe it'll be a theocracy that tolerates the Sunnis, but then, the Sunnis have grown to despise America and support al Qaeda.  Maybe it'll be theorcracy that unleashes genocide against the Sunnis.  Then the Sunni problem will be gone and the Shiites can get down to business of being Iran's new best friend. 

With oil.

And if Americans leave, then the Iran friendly Islamic theocratic government will surely disavow all those oil contracts with American corporations the CPA shoved down their throats.  So Americans can't leave.

Which means the plan is to stay in Iraq forever.  At an appalling cost.  And every two years, have this same debate in Congress.

But that's it.  That's what's in the pot.  Is anybody, is one single American going to feel like they've won anything if that's what we get?  And no one has realistically suggested we're going to get anything but that.

There is nothing to be won. 

This debate is nearly as stupid as the coverage of it. Tell the American people. Tell them. 

Here's what you stand to win!  And here's what you stand to lose.

For God's sakes, someone tell them the truth.

It's Their Country, You're Just Paying For It

What do these lousy, rotten bastards even want "guest workers" for?

The Republican refusal to even allow a fair up or down vote on the House Floor on raising the minimum wage is a stark contrast in priorities. While Democrats are fighting for the average hardworking American, Republicans are worried about giving Paris Hilton another tax cut. Republicans pulled the funding bill for labor and health programs that contains my minimum wage amendment from the schedule to avoid a vote. Then they announced that they were adding to the schedule a vote on a drastic cut to the estate tax - a tax that affects only the heirs of the wealthy few.

What was the wage hike?  From $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour.

Well, no wonder Republicans wouldn't even allow it to come to a vote!  Shit, some hardworking American man or woman, putting in an honest forty hour week, 52 weeks a year, at that rate, could pull down...what?  Fifteen grand a year?

You pay people that kind of money and their kids are bound to grow up spoiled and pampered and lacking the kind of work ethic to go out and get themselves a job, and make something of themselves.  Hell, their kids will probably squander their youths playing polo or, even worse, getting drunk and spending the family money pretending to be oilmen or something.

It's much more important to teach the children of the poorest people in our society a lesson about what happens if you don't work hard and succeed than it is to guarantee that the poorest people in America can actually live from an honest's week's work.

Which is why Republicans, instead of voting to raise the minimum wage, elected to try to get rid of the estate tax.  Which only effects the children of wealthiest two or three percent of Americans.

In other words, if you actually have to work, you're not entitled to anything--not even subsistance level pay.  But if you've never had to work, you're entitled to every single penny you could possibly inherit.

That's your modern Gee Oh Pee.  Traditional family values.  Unfortunately, for you, that "family" is the Bourbon Dynasty.  And that "tradition" is like 17th century France. 

Got lots of cake at home?

So, anyway, $5.15, that's a lot of money.  Unless, of course, you figure that the minimum wage in 1980 was about $3.10.  Which, in today's dollars, would be about $7.25.  Or, to look at it another way, that $5.15 an hour today would be about two dollars in 1980.

As crappy as it is, it isn't even keeping up with inflation.  But you know what is?  Congressional salaries.

WASHINGTON - Despite record low approval ratings, House lawmakers Tuesday embraced a $3,300 pay raise that will increase their salaries to $168,500.

The 2 percent cost-of-living raise would be the seventh straight for members of the House and Senate.

Apparently, when it comes to themselves, Congress sees the need to have their very generous salaries keep pace with inflation.  When it comes to the Americans they represent?  Well, if they're not happy with their salaries, they shouldn't look to the gubment for some kind of entitlement!  They should find a better paying job.

So say the men and women of the Republican majority who make their livings entirely from the gubment.

And you know what else, under the watchful eyes of Republicans, hasn't kept pace with inflation?

The income of eighty percent of Americans, including the nearly thirteen percent of Americans who's income is below the povery line.

But, aside from Congressional salaries, some things have kept pace and even exceeded inflation! 

The number of millionaires! The number of billionaires!  And your share of the mindblowing, explosive national debt.

You can spin it anyway you like--though, why you'd like to is beyond me.  It is what it is.  The People are no longer governing themselves.  According to Bush's whopping big thirty something percent approval rating, the People are no longer even consenting to being governed.

The People are just being governed. 

Way to go, Gee Oh Pee.  Way to go, modern Republicans.

Way to turn the greatest political idea in the history of mankind into just another crapass gubment, run by thugs and aristocrats, and men in uniform.

Meet Your Next Chairman Of The RNC!

HARRISBURG, Pa. - House Speaker John M. Perzel defended last year's ill-fated pay-raise legislation by telling a public-television program that some state lawmakers are having money problems and by comparing their salaries with those of tattoo artists.

"We have roughly 30-some members who can't apply for a credit card because their credit's so bad," Perzel said on WITF-TV's Smart Talk program Thursday. "And I know a lot of people out there watching this show have the same exact problem."

Reeeally?

I can only assume that, since John Perzel is the Republican Speaker of the House in Pennsylvania that the 30 some other House members who felt comfortable enough to share such personal information as their credit history with John Perzel are also Republicans.

I mean, I can't imagine some Democrat going up to the Republican Speaker of the House and saying, "Jeez, John, my credit's so bad I can't even get a credit card!  But, hey!  By the way, please don't tell anyone.  I'm up for re-election and that's just the kind of thing my Republican opponent could use against me.  That's just between me, a Democratic Representative, and you, the Republican Speaker of the House.  Okay?"

So, 30 some odd other Republicans in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives have such lousy credit that they can't even get credit cards!

Couple of things here:

One, are they involved in the drug trade???  Are they in jail???  Are they in jail because they're involved in the drug trade???

Who the fuck can't get a credit card???

This idiot is trying to tell the people of Pennsylvania that 30 something members of the House have such bad credit they can't even get a credit card?  Who does this shithead think is the number one target of companies offering money at nineteen percent interest?

People with good credit?

Jesus, you declare bankruptcy today, and, tomorrow? I guarantee you'll need a dumpster sized mailbox just to handle the blizzard of credit card offers.  Credit card companies didn't spend about a bazillion dollars lobbying Congress to pass the worst bankruptcy bill in the history of the world because they don't loan money to people with bad credit.

Credit card companies make their living off of people with bad credit.

Two, personal catastrophes aside, people don't get bad credit because they don't get paid enough.  They get bad credit because they can't--or won't--do basic math.  They get bad credit because they get paid a certain amount of money--an amount that's known to them--and they spend another amount--also known to them--which is more.  Then they can't pay their bills.  Then they get bad credit.

See, the problem here is not how much you make.  The problem is how much you spend--all the while knowing how much you make. If you're spending more than your salary, it's not as if your spending is responsible and it's your salary which is the problem.

Bizarre, isn't it?  This nut, part of the fiscally conservative modern Republican party, seems to think public employees are entitled to a certain lifestyle and the public ought to be ashamed that some employees have wrecked their credit because that lifestyle is in excess of their salaries.

Three, asshole, if you know of at least 30 Republican members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives who are so irresponsible with money that they can't get one credit card, the People of Pennsylvania want their names.

The House of Representatives is largely responsible for how the money of the Pennsylvania taxpayers is spent.  And at least thirty of these Representatives are so damn dumb with money that they can't get a credit card?  Having thrown that out there, hell, the People of Pennsylvania are entitled to know the long list of Republicans who are too stupid and irresponsible to be trusted with taxpayer money.

These shitheads are the Representatives Republicans have sent to Harrisburg to handle our money???

Let us do a little basic math--something fiscally conservative Republicans seem unable to do:  there are about 109 Republicans in Pennsylvania's House of Representatives.  According to the Republican Speaker of the House, at least 30 of them have credit so fucked up they can't even get a credit card.

30/109=0.275

That's right.  Twenty eight percent of Republicans in the House of Representatives in Pennsylvania are so irresponsible and profligate with their spending that they can't get a credit card.  Nearly a third.

And that ain't Michael Moore saying that.  It is, again, the Republican Speaker of the House.

Apparently someone--not the dimwitted Speaker of the House, though--noticed that embarrassing irony:

His spokeswoman Beth Williams said Friday that Perzel was repeating "anecdotal information" given to him by a senior House official. She declined to identify the official and said Perzel did not know the names of legislators with supposed credit problems.

Laugh with me. 

It's so stupid and embarrassing, and comical, I'm almost tempted to feel sorry for the people who voted for these fucking jokers.  And I probably would, except in the face of such insultingly ludicrous dipshittery, Republicans keep voting for these assholes anyway.

In other words, the Speaker of the House got on television and claimed something was a fact and then his spokeswoman said that, while being a fact, it was largely anecdotal  information that Perzel got from sources he doesn't even know.

In other words, Perzel's spokeswoman is saying that, while it's completely true, we should all bear in mind that it's entirely made up.  And so the point is still valid.

(And why the fuck does the Speaker of the House of Pennsylvania have a spokesperson at all???  Do the People of Pennsylvania pay for that?  How much do they pay?  The guy's a state rep.  He has a spokesperson?  Because he's too busy to talk for himself?  In Harrisburg?)

Perzel described lawmakers as board members of a $25 billion corporation - the approximate size of the state budget - whose pay should be tied to congressional salaries.

This is the modern Gee Oh Pee all over.  This asshole thinks he's Chairman of the Board of a $25 billion dollar corporation.  This is like Bush or Rove. No, dickhead.  Members of a board are either owners or represent owners of a business.  They own it.  Representatives in a democracy are not owners.  They're public employees.  They don't own the entity they govern.  They're employed by it.

At best, their salaries should be tied to their performance--and if you've ever had the jaw-rattling, kidney aching, tire-exploding joy of riding on a Pennsylvania road, you'd probably tie their salaries to a penny over minimum wage.

We won't even go into the property taxes, which go up every year, except the years when we're told property taxes won't go up and, instead, we all get our homes reassessed at about 50% more, or the decrepit and sometimes scary infrastructure, or about the negative population growth from young people fleeing a dying state, or about the tolls which are still on the Pennsylvania Turnpike about thirty years after they were supposed to come down.  And we certainly won't talk about how the Pennsylvania Turnpike is always under construction.  Always.  And, yet, somehow, it never gets any better.

And for that great work, the state of Pennsylvania employs nearly as many Representatives and Senators as the United States federal government.  And they pay them $72,000 a piece.  For what, no one fucking knows.  The state Reps and Senators also get an extremely generous health care package, retirement package, per diem for travel, and a freaking car allowance.

Apparently, some of them also get spokespeople.

All that together?  Worth well over a hundred thousand dollars a year.

In a state where the median income is about $35,000. And the majority of jobs are quickly becoming service industry.

You think your Gee Oh Pee gubment cares?  Hell, no!  They're so crazy and dishonest they say shit like this:

"When I see that a tattoo artist in the city of Philadelphia makes more than a legislator, I think there's a problem," said Perzel, R-Philadelphia. "I thought the members of the General Assembly were worth one-half of what a member of Congress makes."

Most state lawmakers currently are paid $72,187, with annual cost-of-living increases and generous fringe benefits. Perzel is among the legislative leaders who make more than the base salary - nearly $109,000 last year in his case.

A Philadelphia tattoo artist on Friday said the job typically pays about $30,000 in the city.

Just a crazy slip-up?  The guy just made a mistake?  Wait for it!

Perzel's remarks echoed comments he made in September - and for which he was ridiculed - that cow-milkers in Lancaster County make as much as $55,000.

Did he just say "cow-milkers" were making $55,000 a year in Lancaster County?  No!  He went one better!  Immigrant workers are making $55,000 a year milking cows!

"The people who are milking the cows in Lancaster County are making between $50,000 to $55,000 a year. They are immigrant workers. I am trying to point out, you are paying someone to milk the cows $55,000, and you are saying it is excessive that members of the General Assembly make one-half of what a congressman makes."

After his comments, reporters went out to Lancaster County to search for a $55,000-a-year cow milker. The udder was dry. No such farmer could be found.

But Perzel's not totally for wildly crazy overblown, unearned gubment salaries at the taxpayer expense!  He does draw the line somewhere!

Perzel also said Thursday it was not fair to pay nearly all representatives and senators the same amount. He named a Democratic representative who was recently elected to fill a vacant seat - Rep. Shawn Flaherty of Allegheny County - to make his point.

"He's there now one month," Perzel said. "I have at least 25 members who have been there 25 years. They get paid this month the exact same amount of money that Shawn Flaherty makes."

Yes, he draws the line at party affiliation.  Some people are getting unfairly paid--Democrats.

Look, I know any House of Representatives is bound to be full of wildly idiotic yahoos.  That's the point of a House.  They should be responsive and reactive to the heated passions of the moment.  They should stir up debate about issues which are important to the electorate right then and there!

Then, we have a Senate, which is a little bit more removed from the electorate, which has the luxury of cooly and rationally weighing the pros and cons of public debate and making more reasoned decisions.

Then we have an executive branch which can provide even another level of protection to the hotheads.

Then we have a judicial system, which, if all else fails, can finally say, "All you people have gone berserk!  And, I'm afraid, it's illegal."

So, yeah, the House in Wershington is full of hysterical nuts.  And Houses in state gubments are made up of people who haven't been smart enough to make it to Wershington, and so are trying to make up for their lack of political skill with a strong public showing of hysteria.

So, fine.  I get that.

But this dude, this Perzel, is not some first term Rep from Bumblefuck County.  This guy is the Speaker of the Republican House of Representatives for the entire state of Pennsylvania.

He's one of the highest ranking Republican officials--if not the highest ranking--in the state.

And he's entirely full of shit.

He just lies.  He just makes things up.  It isn't even debatable.  He gets on TV and just invents crazy stories which prove his ridiculous points.

He needs to make more money?  Why?  Because migrant workers milking cows make as much as him!  They don't?  Well, then tattoo artists make more than him!  They don't?  Well, then it's not so much him, but 30 members of the House who get paid so little--eighty thousand dollars a year, plus benefits--they can't even get credit cards!

Every now and then, some jackass winds up on my blog and leaves a comment saying I'm so full of irrational hate and so predisposed to hate Republicans that I'm just silly.  I can't even address facts rationally because I'm such a hater.

It always makes me laugh, because I'm not really sure who I'm supposed to be hating.  Conservatives?  I've got no problem with conservatives.  My understanding of conservatives is that they're people who are not inclined to take risks or embrace dramatic changes without thoughtful consideration of the possible outcomes.

That's fine with me!  Sign me up!

I think nearly every post I've ever posted has had one point--the modern Gee Oh Pee has nothing to do with conservatism.  It's got nothing to do with fiscal responsibility.  It's got nothing to do with any kind of careful or thoughtful consideration of action.  And, finally, it's got nothing to do with any kind of definition of traditional moral values.

It's about soaking the taxpayers. 

That's it.

Money for salaries.  Money for benefits.  Money for boosters.  Money for contractors.  Money when they leave gubment service and then become high paid lobbyists for the very industries they supposedly formerly regulated.

Good God, if I ever actually saw a truly conservative Republican candidate, fuck, I'd freaking vote for him or her.

Why the hell not?  Cut my taxes, cut gubment spending, perform your duties ethically and morally, balance the budget, and keep the dumbass gubment out of the daily lives of Americans who pay for this answer to tyrany.

I'll not only vote for it, hell, I'll grow a big fat ass like Rush Limbaugh, wear a stupid Elephant tie, and gobble Viagra so Manne Coulter or Michelle "Jackpot Baby" Malkin can finally give me a hardon

And I can say that stuff and mean it because it won't ever happen. 

It's not about hating Republicans or "conservatives" or "red staters".  It's about being violently alarmed at the aristocratic thiefs and liars and propogandists who are, right now, calling for a full court press  to steal your national heritage and your national endowment, and, while doing so, are mortgaging your future, at an obscene rate, and besmirching the good name of your country.

It ain't hate.  It's wild desperation.  Because 49% of the people keep voting for people like Perzel, who think cow milkers make $55,000 a year, and even if they don't, that's still a damn good point.

Dream On

Yesterday, I posted that the Gee Oh Pee just broke our gubment, and that, instead of even caring anymore, we should all get goldfish or get totally into Sudoku, or something.  And some people--thanks for reading!--said that, while Republicans created this catastrophe, Democrats would have to fix it and then they'd take all the blame for the hard, hard choices that will have to be made.

I like your optimism, but I just don't even see Democrats fixing this horrendous mess.

To fix it requires a lot of hard, ugly choices.  And the Democratic party has made them in the past.  But in the 80's and early '90's they did it with huge majorities in Congress.

In 93, they did it and it cost them the House.

Clinton did it throughout the 90s, but he was, without a doubt, the greatest politician in my lifetime and one of the greatest in the 20th century.

I don't see any Democrats with either his brains or his political ability.

And even if there were one, Clinton didn't have to make the hard choices  with two unwon, unwinnable, expensive and eternal wars to support.

And Clinton did it before Asshead tacked another trillion dollars of debt to Reagan's legacy.

How's anybody going to fix this?  They have to get rid of $400 billion of annual debt, while financing at least $100 billion extra annual military dollars for Afghanistan and Iraq--on top of the $400 billion regular military dollars we have to pay the Pentagon to not turn this country into a dictatorship.

And that $100 billion a year is not the true cost of Afghanistan and Iraq.  You can safely bet your Bush tax refund that the true cost has been hidden and deferred and put off in a million different ways.  The true cost of Bush's failures can not be known until the second week of November in 2008.

And maybe not even then, depending on how that shakes out.

Then there's the new Pentagon--the horrendously stupid and wasteful and pointless Department of Homeland Security.  Which will soon require as much spending as the Pentagon.  I mean, it won't really.  But politically, it will.

You want to be the Congressman who runs for re-election with a history of voting against appropriations for Homeland Security???

It'll be just like the Pentagon.  Remember the asskicking Kerry took for voting for military cuts proposed by Dick Cheney?  It'll be just like that. Congressmen and women will have to continually vote for huge ass stupid and pointless appropriations for Homeland Security unless they want to be slimed as soft on, well, Homeland Security.

So, it'll be a second Pentagon.

Then there's Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security and any number of programs originally intended to benefit Americans.  And the Gee Oh Pee has been doing everything it can to divert those dollar bills to subsidize huge corporations.  And it's a waste of our money.  And one more screwing of the American taxpayer.  But Democrats can't do much about that.

Because, aside from being anti-military, and anti-Homeland Security, the last thing they need to be is less interested in the Public Welfare than Republicans!

And, then, finally, it's a new America.  Democrats, in the past, didn't have to deal with a consolidated, conservatively owned and operated corporate media that regarded mainstream, popular opinion as "extreme" and "fringe".  In my lifetime, there was a crazy thing called the Fairness Doctrine, which provided that anytime some lunatic group like the Swift Boat Liars attacked someone on television or radio, that television or radio station would have to provide equal time for a response.

Today?  Half the FM radio stations in the country are owned by a former bidness associate of George W. Bush.  Half the Am radio stations broadcast uninterupted, unopposed right wing propaganda from your morning commute until the insomiacs call it a day and a night.

Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Liddy, Ingraham and on and on and on...

Today?  Aside from the biggest conservative corporations in the world--GE, Viacom, Disney--owning our public television airwaves, as well as our cable and satellite news, we even have an official corporate propaganda arm of the Gee Oh Pee--FOX News.

As far as print goes, well, no one reads it, and, if they do, anything that isn't local comes from a daily dwindling number of conservative news organizations, like the AP wire.  You know the one, the one that just gave Harry Reid the hot ink poker up his ringside seat.

You got fifty five to sixty percent of Americans opposing nearly everything that's happened in the last six years and it's happened anyway. 

For example, your "liberal" media keeps trying to convince Americans that Americans supported the Iraq War and that we've somehow become discouraged and lost faith--or as the Asshead in Chief likes to obscenely suggest--lost our nerve.

Is that true?  NO!  But you'd never know it.  No one I know knows it.  Are you ready?

Americans would approve of U.S. military action to remove Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from power, but by 48% to 27%, they say their concern is making sure that Iraq is disarmed. They are willing to give the U.N. more time to build a consensus around how to do that…

But most believe that President Bush sees things very differently -- 54% say he is more interested in ousting Saddam Hussein, and just 20% think his goal is to disarm Hussein. Even though less than half think enough evidence has been presented to justify an attack now, most believe the President has already decided to launch a military strike…

Americans remain split on whether Iraq poses an immediate threat. 43% say that while they believe Iraq is indeed a threat to U.S. interests, it is one that can be contained for now. Roughly the same number, 45%, say it is a threat that requires immediate military action…

Americans are willing to wait for the support of the international community before taking military action. The public’s desire to secure U.N. approval for action remains strong, and has slipped only slightly in the last few days…

The public also urges patience with the inspections process, as it has for months: 60% say give the inspectors more time right now…

Not only do most Americans want to wait for U.N. authorization, most also continue to believe the U.S. should take its allies’ views into account on the Iraq question…

When asked whether a possible war with Iraq would be fairly quick or result in a lengthy involvement, half of Americans say they think the U.S. could end up fighting for quite a while…

60% also think that a conflict with Iraq is likely to lead to a wider war in the region, involving other Arab nations and Israel. One-third do not believe it is a likely outcome.

That's one week before Bush kicked the U.N. inspectors out of Iraq and started his own pre-emptive war of choice.

That story, by the way, is titled:  "Poll:  Americans Divided On Iraq".  As in, "Americans are divided into overwhelming majority opposing Iraq War and small ignorant and delusional minority who support Iraq War."

Just like we were "divided" by the whole Terry Schiavo thing--with 80% of us opposed to Congress and the White House intervening and less then 20% for it.  It was very divisive.  There were two points of view.

Just like a majority of Americans favor universal health care:

In an extensive ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll, Americans by a 2-1 margin, 62-32 percent, prefer a universal health insurance program over the current employer-based system. That support, however, is conditional: It falls to fewer than four in 10 if it means a limited choice of doctors, or waiting lists for non-emergency treatments.

But you ain't got it.  And you ain't gonna get it.

Just like a majority of Americans want to uphold Roe v. Wade:

The poll found that 59 percent say Bush should choose a nominee who would uphold the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. About three in 10, 31 percent, said they want a nominee who would overturn the decision, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.

But that'll come up before the Court.  And it might be overturned by this Court.

And similar overwhelming majorities oppose privatising Social Security, deficit spending, and more tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent of people who have ever lived.  Majorities opposed a Moon Based Mission to Mars, and a crazy Medicare bill, and the cruel bankruptcy bill and very nearly every single thing that's happened in our gubment for the last six years.

And it doesn't matter.

All this shit still happens.

Over fifty percent of us vote against it.  A good ten or twenty percent who vote for it, are voting for shit they oppose.  And your "liberal" media, the guardians of your democracy, can't stop telling you how happy you are with things you absolutely abhor.

Christ, routinely papers like the Washington Post print editorials extolling the virtues of bills their own front pages are reporting that a majority of Americans oppose and for good reason.

And next up?  The internets are going to be reigned in.

Who's going to fix this mess?

The People are betrayed.  The People are ignored.  The People are lied to.  The People are managed.

Who's going to stand up for The People?

People, we have an oligarchy here.