If you’ve been perplexed by the vicious attacks on the hapless Susan Rice, you’re not alone. “What kind of crazy windmills are these Republicans tilting at now?”, I wondered. Then I remembered: tit for tat. The “payback’s a bitch” thing. The bumper sticker, “Somewhere in Kenya, a village is missing an idiot.” That’s payback for the anti-Bush bumper sticker. Nice thing about the payback reflex, you don’t have to think, or create something new and original. An eye for an eye, so simple, so biblical, so righteous. It evens the score, but this, apparently, is a score no one but Republicans is aware of, and they ain’t talkin’. After all, why advertise your childishness? So, what is the tat that inspired the Susan Rice tit? Remember John Bolton, George the W’s U.N. ambassador?  Susan Rice comes off like Eleanor Roosevelt compared to this troglodyte, but reason or logic are not part of the vengeance equation. Take the Clinton impeachment – that was payback for Richard Nixon. Yes, the vote to impeach Nixon was unanimous, but your cranium is still turned on. Turn it off! Let yourself get Hatfield vs. McCoy primitive. “One of ours went down, now it’s your turn.” Just look for total, screeching hysteria in the total absence of reason or dignity. That’s the payback profile. It’s also the profile of everything else Republicans do… -hey, I just thought of something. Remember the book, “How to Talk to Democrats” by Ann Coulter? I should write one called “How to Listen to Republicans”. You open up the book, but it turns out to be a box. Inside, a pair of noise-canceling headphones promises hours of easy listening.

I want to emphasize my nonprofessionalism. Were I a serious writer, I would have many more examples of Republican vindictiveness with which to regale, or should I say bore you, but my job is but to poke and jab and point the way.

In other news, “Chained CPI” is a term they seem to want us to memorize. Got it. What it means, though, is laughable on its face. The price of steak goes up, we buy hamburger instead, we spent the same amount, so there’s no inflation, right? Ah, give me a minute to digest… so, hamburger went up too, right? What are those folks going to switch to? You see where this is going, right? “New Food Craze Saves Nation from Inflation! Eat Dirt!”  Or maybe we should eat the unemployed that aren’t counted in our Unemployment Statistics. How long are we going to let them swindle us? They don’t like the conclusion, so they change the data! IN FACT, the inflation spiral is going the other way. Our food supply, in the effort to make it cheaper and cheaper, is getting more and more industrialized and adulterated, so people are switching to organic and local sources, which are more expensive. That’s inflation. I call it crypto-flation, and it’s everywhere. Save money on Park Rangers and National Park maintenance, close roads, and consumers buy ATVs and drive around the gates, I used to have a whole litany of examples but I don’t have time to dig up the data from my “files”. Suffice to say, wherever I looked for spending cuts, I found crypto-flationary substitution going on. And, like most public sector spending increases, crypto-flation is good for the economy: Organic Food stores, ATV manufacturers et c. More stocks for the rich to gamble with – BUT! the poor and nearly poor (the former Middle Class) are increasingly strapped for cash, which means no cushion when the crunch comes and the real economy (the people) will be too brittle to absorb the shock. Then, all bets are off, and phony statistics will burn along with those who created them.