My partner, Gail, and I are going on vacation.

We have been together making a mockery of traditional marriage for nearly twelve years. Before we leave for vacation, we are getting our wills, medical powers of attorney, and living wills in order. I, for one, don’t want to lie about in a puddle of my own filth in a permanent vegetative state…in some southern state.

Our goal is Key West. We want to go to a place where an unmarried straight couple won’t raise a false eyelash on a Judy Garland impersonator. Perhaps a week in Key West will be just what I need to cleanse my palette of the nasty taste of some of the crap that’s being flung about in the media by those with medieval minds.

We will have to traverse West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. If we move quickly and stop for food, gas, and lodging in well-lit places and we keep our Yankee mouths shut as much as possible, we should get through in one piece. After all, I’m missing a couple of prominent teeth and I look like one of the guys from Duck Dynasty.

In West Virginia, Mingo County Sheriff Eugene Crum died after he was shot in his car while having lunch. It is important to note that the gun used was innocent in this murder, because, as we all know, people kill people.

In a March 2012 article at iVillage (http://www.ivillage.com) West Virginia made it into the top five or bottom five (perspective being everything) worst states for women. The iVillage article analyzed health care, reproductive rights, economic success, access to affordable childcare, female representation in government, and educational attainment.

Gail likes to get through West Virginia quickly…in the daylight.

Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli has filed a petition with the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond asking the full 15-judge court to reconsider a decision by a three-judge panel last month that overturned the state’s sodomy law. Cuccinelli doesn’t want even straight couples to get blowjobs or butt sex…and we all remember Governor Vaginal Probe.

We will move quickly through Virginia.

Some Repubs in the North Carolina State House believe that states aren’t bound by this First Amendment wording, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Congress can’t, the Repubs reason, but, we can. They are trying to pass a bill that would allow them to name an official religion for the state of North Carolina.

I have two words for you boys, and one of them is “off.”

South Carolina is a mixed bag.

While State Democrats have tapped Stephen Colbert’s sister, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, to run for an unexpired Senate seat, state Republicans are angry at their other Senator, Lindsay Graham (R), for being too liberal.

When Mark Sanford (R) was Governor, he went off with his lover to “hike the Appalachian Trail.” everybody, including his wife, wondered where the heck he went. Sanford has been tapped by state Republicans to challenge Ms. Busch for the unexpired senate term.

Type “KKK South Carolina” into Google, and you can navigate to the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan web site where you can discover that “Mikey” is the Klan’s Exalted Cyclops in South Carolina.

In South Carolina, if we stick to the east coast, we should be fine.

Savannah, Georgia is a beautiful city where people treated us like neighbors. We noticed a lot of same-sex couples walking their dogs…in broad daylight. However, the top Repub in Georgia is worried that those might be straight men pretending to be gay.

Georgia GOP Chairwoman Sue Everhart is worried about insurance fraud…

“You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow. Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you’re gay, and y’all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits? I just see so much abuse in this it’s unreal.”

Florida…Sea World, Disney, Universal Studios… Trayvon Martin, Governor Rick Scott, Pythons…orange blossoms, sunsets in the Gulf of Mexico, St. Augustine…

Florida is a melting pot of cultures. Sometimes the stuff in the pot tastes real good, and sometimes the stuff tastes real bad. All you need is a big drink of water to clean out the bad taste…right Senator Rubio?

I am looking forward to this trip. I am looking forward to spending quality time with Gail…and I am looking forward to being in a place where consenting adults stay out of each other’s business…from what I hear, Key West should fit the bill nicely.

Once again the people we sent to Washington, D. C., are engaged in a staring match. They think the first one to blink loses the 2014 mid-term election.

The future of our country boils down to a game of chicken between a bunch of rich people that won’t have trouble finding a job if the economy goes back into the toilet.

Most of them will keep their high-paying jobs in the House, the Senate, and the White House. Those that don’t get re-elected will be replaced by more people that haven’t worried about having enough money to buy gas to go to work in many years…if ever.

I fell down when I got home from my day job Tuesday. I slipped on the ice in my driveway and landed shin-first on a pile of ice chunks that had fallen off of my roof. It hurt pretty badly, but the initial pain subsided.

I went to my part-time job. Twenty minutes after getting there, I couldn’t put any weight on my leg. I had a baseball-sized lump about four inches below my knee, and the pain actually burned. I couldn’t stand to have my pant leg touch my skin.

First, I tried to do my job. I needed the money to buy gas to go to my day job. Two weeks earlier, I’d missed both my part-time shifts because I was flat on my back with a terrible cold. I had already missed one whole paycheck (a whopping $56.00 after taxes), and I didn’t want to go home early…I’d be giving up nearly half of another weekly paycheck.

I got to the point where I had to go home because I couldn’t do anything but say, “Ouch,” and curse. I could barely work the gas and brake pedals.

I was convinced that I’d broken my leg, but I kept thinking how much it would cost (even with insurance) to go to the emergency room. I lay on the couch and iced the shin. I took some ibuprofen and hoped it would get better…it did. By bedtime, I could put weight on it. By morning I was still sore, but I could walk.

I’ve still got a golf-ball sized lump and my entire right shin is a giant bruise, but I didn’t go to the doctor or the emergency room. I worked my whole part-time shift Thursday night. I was slow, but I got the job done.

I’m not telling this story to get pity. I don’t think I bravely faced adversity. I imagine that 95 percent of you have a similar story. You’ve gone to work sick or hurt. You’ve foregone medical care, and you’ve done these things because you couldn’t afford to lose time or pay another medical bill.

Back to the arrogant sons-of-bitches in Washington, D. C. When was the last time one of them worked sick or hurt because they needed every hour they could scrounge? When was the last time one of them got injured and didn’t go to the doctor because they were scared of the bill?

The answer, of course, is, it was a very long time ago…if ever.

Now, these bastards are playing chicken with our future. If they run this economy into the ground to prove who has the biggest wang, they won’t have to choose between work and medical care.

They are playing poker with our money. They are wagering our health and welfare just so they can say, “The other guy blinked. Ha-ha-ha.” They should be ashamed, but they have been whores for so long that they have no shame.

Neither the right nor the left in Washington, D. C., have a clue what a tightrope most Americans walk every day. The drop ceiling in our tiny bathroom rusted out and the ceiling fell in. It took less than $75.00 to replace, but that $75.00 was supposed to be for food and gas.

The sons-of-bitches in Washington, D. C., don’t understand that my example is typical of life in America today, and I have two jobs. We don’t drink or do drugs or have expensive hobbies. Life is our only hobby, and Washington, D. C., doesn’t understand or apparently care how hard it can be.

I’m not looking for pity or a handout…I could use a hand. Corporate profits are at an all-time high. The CEOs of companies that make nothing get bonus checks in the 8-figure range and beyond while their corporation pay no income taxes.

Just remember this when some politician asks you to send them back to Washington, D. C.

Republicans and Democrats are screwing the pooch when it comes to taking care of average Americans. They are doing a marvelous job of bending over for Wall Street and the rest of the upper 1 percent, but, those guys pay better than we do.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard some idiot say, “There are plenty of jobs out there; these welfare people are just lazy,” I’d be able to retire quite comfortably.

People that say such things want to believe that being poor and living on government assistance is a non-stop party. Folks like that believe the only way to get these people to be tax payers is to stop all government assistance.

I’ve argued with folks (usually Republicans) that if they cut all government assistance, they will spend twice as much to arrest and lock up all the people that won’t have any way or any hope of supporting themselves and their families except turning to crime…like stealing food and clothing.

Here’s the big old Republican dream…

Cut all government assistance. No more food stamps, WIC, Medicare, Social Security, or anything else the government gives away to those lazy, good-for-nothing poor, sick, and old people.

Those that have been living high off the government hog but are able to work will give up and take one of those millions of jobs just waiting out there for them. Those jobs might be for low wages and have no benefits, but that’s what lazy people deserve. They just need to work hard for minimum wage, and that will be its own reward.

Sick people are whiners. People get sick. If they have been lazy and didn’t prepare to be sick, they die…so sad, too bad; why should lazy sick people get our money.

Old people are just lazy people that have lived long enough to become a burden to society. If you toss them off the dole, they will get off their lazy old asses or die…so sad, too bad; these geezers have lived long enough. They need to move on and let people with money breathe the air.

Poor, brown, and black people are naturally lazy. That’s why they end up consuming the most government assistance. If we stop coddling these human drains, they will get jobs and pay taxes. It’s just a matter of some tough love. Life on welfare is a wild party. It’s no wonder they stay on the dole.

If you believe any of this garbage, you are an idiot…or a Republican.

The American dream is supposed to be a rags-to-riches story. Anyone from anywhere can (with hard work and a love of God) be anything they want to be. There are no limits.

That’s just bullshit. It could be true someday if the playing field is leveled, but the truth is that the playing field for old, poor, brown, and black people goes uphill. The field for white people with money runs down hill.

It’s been that way since we bought and sold poor, brown, and black people in open markets. Emancipation was crippled by all the laws passed that restricted the choices of poor, brown, and black people.

In the last election, several states tried to make it harder for old, poor, brown, and black people to vote. The field is unlevel and it’s littered with mines. It’s been that way forever. So, if you believe the Republican dream, you are an idiot.

Any attempt to level the playing field is called “redistribution of wealth.” This is a horrible idea to Republicans because to them it means that old, poor, brown, and black people will be allowed into white people’s homes to take whatever they can carry.

If you slash and burn government spending like the ultra right freaks advocate, you will be up to your hips in old, poor, brown, black, and white people. There will be more homeless and sick people. The mess that austerity brings will overwhelm us faster that the scourge of the federal deficit.

If you take money out of the economy…the economy shrinks. When the economy shrinks, business tightens its belt. When business tightens its belt, you get more poor and sick people because business let them go. You can’t save the patient by slowing the flow of blood from the heart and cutting off all but the essential body parts necessary for survival.

If Republicans are right about the old and the poor and the only reason they don’t contribute to the economy is because they are lazy, the Republican dream will work.

If, on the other hand, the old and poor turn out to be victims of an unlevel playing field and cutting them loose to fend for themselves won’t force them to get jobs, then we are screwed.

Which scenario seems the most logical? We have real economic disparity in this country and less money will make the problem even worse…OR…all we need to do is cut these freeloaders off and our economy will pick right up and everything will be whiskey and whores.

I know what idiots think.

I was married for 21 years before I got divorced. In the 11 years since the divorce, I’ve accepted the things I did wrong and I’ve embraced the things I did right.

One of my worst shortcomings was acting as if volume and speed were the answers to spousal communication. If I didn’t get my way or my point across, I’d repeat them louder and slower.

As you may imagine, this approach to matrimonial communication didn’t work…AND…it made my ex feel like I thought she was stupid (which she was not). That made her determined to ignore me and my wishes. I deserved it.

This was the approach taken by the Republican Party in the last election.

The Repubs repeated their tired, old message louder and slower, over and over until they really pissed us off. That’s when folks decided to wait in long lines to teach these sons-of-bitches a lesson.

I was born in 1954. I grew up watching Black people getting their heads bashed in, and I heard people say really stupid shit about why it was OK.

I watched as we sent millions of Americans (including my Dad) to Vietnam, and I heard people say really stupid shit about what we hoped to accomplish over there.

I saw women fighting for equal rights, and I heard people saying really stupid shit about why it was OK to keep them barefoot and pregnant.

I saw gay Americans move from the closet to the streets, and I heard stupid shit about why it was OK to knock them back into the closet and take away their rights.

Saying real stupid shit only works when a majority of people believe the stupid shit you say. That usually means that the people that say and believe stupid shit are kindred in some way…religion, race, sex, sexual preference, socio-economic status.

There is no lack of people saying stupid shit in America, but the number of people that believe the stupid shit is shrinking rapidly because all of the groups of people that were marginalized group-by-group in isolation became the majority this decade.

These are still disparate groups in many respects, but they have all started to know stupid shit when they hear it, and they have come to understand that the ballot box is the best weapon they can wield against the people saying stupid shit.

I have to admit that I thought all the Citizen United money and the voter suppression drives in key states were going to blunt the power of the electorate…and I believe the intervention by the Justice Department using the Voter Rights Act as it entrée into the fight saved the day for America’s new majority.

This is a fledgling coalition to be sure. We came together to defeat the people saying stupid shit, but we undoubtedly have many more internal squabbles ahead of us. The new minority will be digging for the issues that will separate us into pieces parts again, but I think we can recognize more stupid shit when we hear it.

A sizeable majority of Americans want to:

• Balance the budget on the check books of the rich. All that entails is letting the Bush tax cuts expire only on Americans that make more than $250,000.00 a year.
• Get the United States out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Bring these people home to their families.
• Close Guantanamo. Tear it down and send everyone home.
• Muzzle Wall Street so they can’t bite us in the ass again.
• Quit trying to keep Gay men and women from enjoying all the benefits of American Citizenship.
• Find an immigration policy that rewards good people and removes bad people.
• Leave women alone to make decisions about their own reproductive health.
• Live in a country that takes care of its poor, sick and elderly.
• Have corporations pay their fair share of taxes. Take a look some time at the huge list of very successful corporations that pay no federal income tax.
• Decrease our dependency on petroleum products and develop clean, renewable energy sources.
• Make sure our past, present, and future veterans get all the help they need and deserve.

If our political leaders could accomplish any three of these things before the 2014 mid-term elections, they would be surprised at how much the electorate would appreciate it and how good it will make them feel.

The House and the Senate must be pretty depressing places to work. Success is measured by how little of anything worthwhile gets done. For God’s sake, don’t get caught doing anything that allows the other side to receive any credit for doing something right.

We shall see if the Republicans are capable of learning that repeating the same stupid shit louder and slower isn’t the way to get anything done…Lord, I hope they can learn.

October is a month of ghosts and spirits, so why don’t we learn some things from beyond the grave…The whole idea of learning from the dead is that the things that divide us (Republican vs. Democrat, Liberal vs. Conservative, Wall Street vs. Main Street) have been around for a very long time.

This week, I’m focusing on the words of a man that was born in 1879 on a large ranch in the Cherokee Nation near what later would become Oologah, Oklahoma. He died before Franklin D. Roosevelt finished his first term. Will Rogers was a cowboy, a philosopher, and a humanitarian. When he died in a plane crash in 1935, America lost a huge chunk of its conscience.

All of the Will Rogers quotes I am using can be found on at www.willrogers.com. Give the web site a look. I used only a small portion of what this great man said.

Will Rogers on the Financial Divide

“Ten men in the country could buy the world and ten million can’t buy enough to eat.”

“This country is bigger than Wall Street. If they don’t believe it, show ’em the map.”

“An economist is a man that can tell you anything. His guess is liable to be as good as anybody else’s, too.”

“Every nation must have its legalized form of gambling. We have our Wall Street.”

“If Wall Street paid a tax on every ‘game’ they run, we would get enough revenue to run the government on.”

“The difference between our rich and poor grows greater every year. Our distribution of wealth is getting more uneven all the time. A man can make a million and he is on every page in the morning. But it never tells you who gave up that million he got. You can’t get money without taking it from somebody.”

“Let this country get hungry and they are going to eat, no matter what happens to budgets, income taxes or Wall Street. Washington mustn’t forget who rules when it comes to a show down.”

“You wire the state or the federal government that our cow or dog is sick and they will send out experts from Washington and appropriate money to eradicate the cause. You wire them that your baby has the diphtheria or scarlet fever and see what they do….why can’t we get a government to at least do for a child’s protection, what they do for a cow or a hog?”

“Every guy looks in his pocket and then votes.”

“There is nothing that keeps poor people poor as much as paying doctor bills.”

“All doctors should make enough out of those who are well able to pay to be able to do all work for the poor free. One thing that a poor person should never be expected to pay for is medical attention and not from an organized charity but from our best doctors. Your doctor bill should be paid like your income tax, according to what you have.”

Will Rogers on Republicans, Democrats, and Politicians

“It takes nerve to be a Democrat, but it takes money to be a Republican.”

“Republicans take care of big money, for big money takes care of them.”

“The Republican platform promises to do better. I don’t think they have done so bad. Everybody’s broke but them.”

“Republicans have always been the party of big business. The Democrats of small business. So you just take your pick. The Democrats have their eye on a dime and the Republicans on a dollar.”

“If by some divine act of providence we could get rid of both parties and hire some good men, like any other good business does, that would be sitting pretty.”

“All there is to politics is trading. That’s why politics is not as good as it was years ago. They don’t have as many old-time horse traders in there. These we got are just amateurs. They’re crude with their trades. There is really no ‘finesse.’ You might not get that. ‘Finesse’ is a French word and it means sneaking it over.

“Imagine a man in public office that everybody knew where he stood. We wouldn’t call him a statesman, we would call him a curiosity.”

“A lobbyist is a person that is supposed to help a politician make up his mind—not only help him but pay him.”

“Tax relief, farm relief, flood relief, dam relief—none of these have been settled, but they are getting them in shape for consideration at the next session of Congress with the hope that those needing relief will perhaps have conveniently died in the meantime.”

“Why don’t they pass a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as Prohibition did, in five years we will have the smartest people on earth.”

“This would be a great time in the world for some man to come along that knew something.”

October is a month of ghosts and spirits, so why don’t we learn some things from beyond the grave…The whole idea of learning from the dead is that the things that divide us (Republican vs. Democrat, Liberal vs. Conservative, Wall Street vs. Main Street) have been around for a very long time.

October is a month of ghosts and spirits, so why don’t we learn some things from beyond the grave…

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Nomination Address, Chicago, Illinois

July 2, 1932

As we enter this new battle, let us keep always present with us some of the ideals of the Party: The fact that the Democratic Party by tradition and by the continuing logic of history, past and present, is the bearer of liberalism and of progress and at the same time of safety to our institutions. And if this appeal fails, remember well, my friends, that a resentment against the failure of Republican leadership–and note well that in this campaign I shall not use the word “Republican Party,” but I shall use, day in and day out, the words, “Republican leadership”–the failure of Republican leaders to solve our troubles may degenerate into unreasoning radicalism.

The great social phenomenon of this depression, unlike others before it, is that it has produced but a few of the disorderly manifestations that too often attend upon such times.

Wild radicalism has made few converts, and the greatest tribute that I can pay to my countrymen is that in these days of crushing want there persists an orderly and hopeful spirit on the part of the millions of our people who have suffered so much. To fail to offer them a new chance is not only to betray their hopes but to misunderstand their patience.

To meet by reaction that danger of radicalism is to invite disaster. Reaction is no barrier to the radical. It is a challenge, a provocation. The way to meet that danger is to offer a workable program of reconstruction, and the party to offer it is the party with clean hands.

This, and this only, is a proper protection against blind reaction on the one hand and an improvised, hit-or-miss, irresponsible opportunism on the other.

There are two ways of viewing the Government’s duty in matters affecting economic and social life. The first sees to it that a favored few are helped and hopes that some of their prosperity will leak through, sift through, to labor, to the farmer, to the small business man. That theory belongs to the party of Toryism, and I had hoped that most of the Tories left this country in 1776.

But it is not and never will be the theory of the Democratic Party. This is no time for fear, for reaction or for timidity. Here and now I invite those nominal Republicans who find that their conscience cannot be squared with the groping and the failure of their party leaders to join hands with us; here and now, in equal measure, I warn those nominal Democrats who squint at the future with their faces turned toward the past, and who feel no responsibility to the demands of the new time, that they are out of step with their Party.

Yes, the people of this country want a genuine choice this year, not a choice between two names for the same reactionary doctrine. Ours must be a party of liberal thought, of planned action, of enlightened international outlook, and of the greatest good to the greatest number of our citizens.

Now it is inevitable–and the choice is that of the times–it is inevitable that the main issue of this campaign should revolve about the clear fact of our economic condition, a depression so deep that it is without precedent in modern history. It will not do merely to state, as do Republican leaders to explain their broken promises of continued inaction, that the depression is worldwide. That was not their explanation of the apparent prosperity of 1928. The people will not forget the claim made by them then that prosperity was only a domestic product manufactured by a Republican President and a Republican Congress. If they claim paternity for the one they cannot deny paternity for the other.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Address at the Democratic State Convention, Syracuse, New York

September 29, 1936

Let me warn you and let me warn the Nation against the smooth evasion which says, “Of course we believe all these things; we believe in social security; we believe in work for the unemployed; we believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things; but we do not like the way the present Administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them- we will do more of them we will do them better; and, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything.”

But, my friends, these evaders are banking too heavily on the shortness of our memories. No one will forget that they had their golden opportunity—twelve long years of it.

Remember, too, that the first essential of doing a job well is to want to see the job done. Make no mistake about this: the Republican leadership today is not against the way we have done the job. The Republican leadership is against the job’s being done.

(photo: DonkeyHotey/flickr)

For those of you youngsters that never saw Bill Clinton in action, now you know why Bill kicked Republican ass twice.

President Clinton took aim at every Republican election talking point and shot each one out of the sky. Then President Clinton picked up the broken shards of those talking points, bent Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell over, and shoved them where the sun don’t shine.

Then, President Clinton stripped the bullshit away from the Romney campaign and marched Mittens and Paulie through the town square, kicking their Republican asses with a shiny Gucci wingtip.

Bill Clinton knows the truth about Republicans. When Bill was President, the Republican power structure tried to destroy him. Clinton was accused of murder. The Clinton’s were investigated for fraud in the Whitewater business. His wife was accused of being gay. They tried to impeach President Clinton. They tried everything except asking Bill Clinton for his birth certificate.

Every time Republicans thought they had Bill on the ropes, President Clinton would shake it off and come back stronger than before.

The Republicans underestimated President Clinton again when they tried to spread the notion that he would do President Obama harm because of old animosities. They had the animosity part right, but Bill Clinton drew from the animosity he feels for the Republicans and what they tried to do to him when he was President.

Wednesday night President Clinton put the Republican Party across his knee and gave them the spanking they so richly deserved.

Bill Clinton isn’t perfect. He has a huge ego, but so do Romney, Obama, Ryan, and Biden. I would argue that it takes a huge ego to think you can handle the hardest job in the country next to school bus driving.

There were several times I cheered during the speech. I really loved this explanation of the Romney/Ryan/Republican plan:

“People ask me all the time how we delivered four surplus budgets. What new ideas did we bring? I always give a one-word answer: arithmetic. If they stay with a 5 trillion dollar tax cut in a debt reduction plan – the – arithmetic tells us that one of three things will happen: 1) they’ll have to eliminate so many deductions like the ones for home mortgages and charitable giving that middle class families will see their tax bill go up two thousand dollars a year while people making over 3 million dollars a year get will still get a 250,000 dollar tax cut; or 2) they’ll have to cut so much spending that they’ll obliterate the budget for our national parks, for ensuring clean air, clean water, safe food, safe air travel; or they’ll cut way back on Pell Grants, college loans, early childhood education and other programs that help middle class families and poor children, not to mention cutting investments in roads, bridges, science, technology and medical research; or 3) they’ll do what they’ve been doing for thirty plus years now – cut taxes more than they cut spending, explode the debt, and weaken the economy. Remember, Republican economic policies quadrupled the debt before I took office and doubled it after I left. We simply can’t afford to double-down on trickle-down.”

They say, “The truth will set you free.”

I have been ranting for a long time about the choice we face in this country. I’ve used thousands of words to say what Bill Clinton said in two sentences:

“My fellow Americans, you have to decide what kind of country you want to live in. If you want a you’re-on-your-own, winner-take-all society you should support the Republican ticket. If you want a country of shared opportunities and shared responsibilities – a we’re-all-in-it-together society, you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.”

Finally, Bill Clinton is a better man than me when it comes to feelings about Republicans:

“Though I often disagree with Republicans, I never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate President Obama and the Democrats.”

President Clinton could have included himself in that statement. Bill Clinton was hated by these same Republicans during his run as the leader of the free world…they hated him, but they worked with him.

I always say the Republicans hated Bill Clinton because he kicked there asses twice…Granted, he had help from the grandfather of the Tea Party, Ross Perot, but he won…twice.

Barack Obama kicked Republican ass once already, and from where I sit, I think Bill Clinton just spiked the ball in the political end zone for the first big score in what will become the fourth Presidential ass whipping the Republicans have gotten in the last 20 years.

Please, please, please let me be right; if I have to watch the country go to Hell AND look at smug Republican faces, I think I might lose the rest of my mind.

In remarks at a campaign stop in Chillicothe, Ohio, this week, Mittens the Magic Caucasian criticized President Obama’s campaign tactics saying, “This is what an angry and desperate presidency looks like.”

Mittens took offense at some of what he sees as low blows by the Obama campaign. Granted, the “Romney-killed-my-wife” advertisement is a bit harsh. In fairness, Mittens did not give that woman cancer personally, and he didn’t hold a pillow over her face until she stopped breathing.

I say the ad was harsh, but I would have run it. There is a ripple effect from closing down businesses and leaving people to get by on savings and their wits. That guy blames Mittens for the loss of his wife. Other folks blame Mittens for losing their homes…this guy made millions of dollars by inflicting misery on other people…buckle up, Mittens, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

If you are going to start whining this early, you’ll be crying like someone that lost their house because Bain Capital closed their factory way before the election.

Mittens didn’t like it when Vice President Biden turned Mittens’ comments about unshackling Wall Street right back in his face by saying that Mittens wants to unchain Wall Street and put us back in chains. Mittens said that was race-baiting.

That’s an awful thing for a representative of the “food stamp President” to do. That should never happen in our “entitlement society.” You know what, Mittens…screw you!

President Obama’s Press Secretary called Mittens’ comments “unhinged.” I agree, but then I think the other side is all unhinged. I think they are out of their minds with anger and hate because a Black man is President of the United States.

“Oh, Bill, it’s not that he’s Black,” my anti-Obama acquaintances say. “He’s a Marxist. He’s a Socialist. He hates America. He hates rich people. He wants to turn us into a third-world country. He is spending us into the poor house. He wants to redistribute the wealth. He wants lazy people to get our hard-earned money…blah, blah, blah.”

I hope they know that is all bullshit. If you really wanted to ruin America, becoming President is a really stupid way to go about it. If Barack Obama wins in November, he will be done with his turn at the helm in January of 2017. If you wanted to change the fundamentals of our society, you’d need to buy Congress…OOPS!

Here’s a question…if cutting federal spending is so important, why did Dubya and the Republicans go through the budget surplus they inherited from Bill Clinton like drunken sailors on shore leave in Whoretown?

If deficit spending is so bad, why did Dubya and the Republicans think it was just a peachy thing to do to finance their little wars in Iran and Afghanistan?

If the individual mandate was such an unconstitutional overreach of power, why did the Republicans think it was the best way to go during the Clinton administration?

If giving rich people more of their money to spend is great for job growth, why didn’t the Dubya tax cuts create job growth?

If “Drill Baby, Drill” is the answer to our energy future, why don’t the Republicans acknowledge the INCREASE in domestic oil production that has taken place in the first Obama term?

I could go on and on with these, but I think all the reasons that anti-Obama people give for their opinions have been manufactured for them by those same Wealthy White Guys I spoke about last week. They are petrified that the brown will inherit the country so they make reasons to hate President Obama that make folks feel they aren’t racist.

President Obama did not live up to all of my expectations. He has completely dropped the ball when it comes to letting our foreign wars drag on and on. I wanted single-payer health care. I wanted early and strong support for Gay civil rights. I wanted alternative energy initiatives on an Apollo Project scale. I wanted the clamps put on Wall Street.

Oh, well, maybe next term.

When I imagine the America of Mittens and his little buddy Paulie, I become unhinged.

In that America, the rich get richer while the poor, the unemployed, the sick, the elderly, the homeless, and the disenfranchised can all go fuck themselves.

That’s just not the place in which I was born. My Mom said we were a great country. She said anybody could do anything if they got a little help and they weren’t afraid of hard work.

The Romney/Ryan America pretty much takes a ball bat to that notion and replaces it with, “If you can’t keep up on your own, get the fuck out of the way.”

In such an America, the “unproductive” are lazy and only want “other people’s money.” Oh, and they are unproductive because they don’t believe in “old-fashioned American values” and they were born in Kenya.

Unhinged, indeed.

Many tactics have been employed in the Republican frenzy to govern the female reproductive system instead of the country.

Alabama is trying to pass a law that would require doctors performing LEGAL abortions to dress like Princess Leia when she was Jabba the Hut’s slave girl.

Wyoming is trying to pass a law which would require the conception to be recorded on video and broadcast nationally before a LEGAL abortion can be performed.

“Hey,” you might say. “What about Wyoming women who have been raped or are victims of incest?”

The answer in Wyoming, and amongst the new crop of Republicans is, ”Screw ‘em, they wouldn’t be pregnant if they kept their legs together.”

In Pennsylvania, women must obtain a special abortion ID card 6 months before a LEGAL abortion because of the high incidence of abortion fraud in the Keystone state.

Here in Ohio, the Republicans in charge of the State House are trying to pass a new law that would require women wanting LEGAL abortions to purchase a billboard on which must be the headline, “Guess Who Wants to Murder Her Baby This Week.”

The newest tools in the pro-life arsenal are making LEGAL abortions so hard or so humiliating (or both) that women give up. It is despicable, but I fear effective.

These f&ckers aren’t happy just dropping anvils on women that want LEGAL abortions; they want to cut off access to contraception, as well.

So, Republicans figure, if you can’t get an abortion and you can’t prevent pregnancies with chemical contraception then all this screwing will grind (sorry, I couldn’t help it) to a halt.

I have no idea why Republicans are against screwing. It seems to me that once two people become consenting adults, they should be able screw who and when they want…and don’t forget how they want.

What about rubbers?

I may not be listening closely enough, but I don’t hear about Republicans wanting to make getting rubbers more difficult or more humiliating. I know they don’t want kids to have rubbers, but I don’t think they are all that anti-rubber, in general.

Why is that?

As it turns out, extra prostitutes have to be flown into any city where Republicans hold their National Convention. Hookers won’t do it unless you wear a rubber (or, so I’ve heard), so Republicans want to make sure they have access to inexpensive and widely distributed rubbers. It wouldn’t be nice to take something home to the wife.

Otherwise, Republicans would be trying to pass laws that would require rubber buyers to tape their rubbers to their foreheads before leaving the store. Those rubber machines in bar bathrooms would disappear or be moved out by the bar. Married people would be required to bring permission slips signed by their spouse if they wanted to buy rubbers.

You would have to speak French to purchase certain kinds of rubbers (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean). All rubbers would be labeled SMALL.

Liberals and Progressives might learn a little something from their conservative, nut ball colleagues.

Consider…

Concealed weapons are LEGAL, but we could pass a law that would require people to conceal weapons and spare ammo clips in their ass. This might cut down on some of the larger and most dangerous weapons.

Guantanamo is LEGAL, but we could pass a law that says all “interrogations” must be televised, and the interrogators must hide their identities for safety by wearing rubber Halloween masks and French maid costumes.

Unilateral, unprovoked invasion of another country is LEGAL, but we could pass a law that would require the members of the Executive and Legislative branches of the government to mark off the days of the war on their genitals with permanent marker.

Vast, bottomless lakes of campaign cash from pet billionaires is LEGAL, but we could pass a law that would require candidates to wear patches naming donors of more than $1 million on the back of their suit coats.

Republicans want to manage the reproductive systems of each and every woman of child-bearing age. There is no comparable control being suggested by Republicans over men. Women are being singled out because they have female parts. There is no way around that.

Is the motivation religious? Is the motivation because Republicans think women are inferior? The ultimate motivation is a mystery, but the fact that Republicans want to control women is nearly inarguable.

It’s almost like the rich, White, Christian men have decided that they made a mistake by letting women out of the kitchen and now they want to regain control. What worries me the most is that these guys are stupid enough to think it’s possible.