YOU KNOW THAT PITCHFORK LEANING UP AGAINST THE SHEEP-PEN?

You know that manure encrusted pitchfork leaning against the sheep-pen?  I hope we don't need that come the Fall of 2014!!!  When Americans hit the street to change history, it looks like a swarm of humanity heading to church.  WE SHALL OVERCOME AGAIN!!! The Republicans are cowards through and through. Not one of them had the courage to challenge Boehner for his Speaker position! As soon as the gavel came down, the knives came out, and members of the Republican Party have waged war on Boehner incessantly. They rage at him and threaten him like spoiled children demanding candy. They treat their Leader that they elected like they treat the American Woman, African Americans, Hispanics, or Veterans. Since Obama ran for office we have been subjected to a constant and escalating din of their slander and false witness against him.  Their vile inner-family squabble has paralyzed all legislative progress on the Federal level.  Of what possible use are Republican Representatives?  Since the outset of the financial crisis, Republicans have obstructed reform and filibustered reform votes at every opportunity.  The Republican House hasn't passed a single jobs bill and only passed 13 bills as the majority.  Their disparate elements, The Fascist Corporatists, the Anti-American ignoramus insurgent Tea Party which is partially manipulated by the Corporatists, the Aynn Rand Libertarians, and the Religious Zealots.  None of these groups have anything in common.  They all have contempt for politics and most alarmingly, they hate each other as much as they hate Obama.  THEY JUST DON'T HAVE THE GUTS TO LEAD.  Like a cancer, the voters of California broke years of gridlock and went Blue.  Now they're in the black.  Voters in Minnesota followed suit and passed an honest budget with no landmines while paying back the schools money taken from them by Republicans.  Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility.  Every statistic bears that out.  My arthritis wanted to stay up last night so around 4:00 AM me and old Art watched the Hunger Games on Netflix. The movie told of a dystopian future where young people fought to the death to provide the wealthy with entertainment. They called it "the peace" because only the combatants were fighting. Before being forced to fight the kids lived in poverty with no chance at an education. Many elements of the story could be lifted from life today. Fans of war are cheering to send our kids to die in a war that's been going on for thousands of years. Their kids won't go. Their arms industry friends will sure prosper though. For thirty years I've heard Conservative politicians talk of how the best of America is behind us, blaming labor unions for runaway costs while taking salaries 2,000 times that of the working man. Faith is shaken and huckster ministers preach a twisted selfishness having no resemblance to the teachings in the New Testament. They attack our teachers who invest more in our children than anyone in the community except parents. I have news for Conservatives. War is not security, it is war. Education is not a waste of money unless it is spent on your ignorant mind. Teachers start work at 7:00AM and get off about 8:00PM and they have health insurance and retirement. When more folks belonged to Unions, folks who didn't earned more money. There is virtually no middle class anymore due to conservative policies and blunders. 50% of Americans live in poverty. The Hunger Games and Conservatives love of Aynn Rand values makes the more of a template than a fantasy.   They are so harsh, they treat the Speaker like a child after it is born. They simply never had the capacity to govern.  Golly, I wonder if all that Republican talk about the "Soviet Union" being our number one enemy over the last couple of years has created any suspicion in Russia of America in Russia complicating Obama's relationship with Russia. It all started out innocently enough. They were too lazy to get Bin Laden so they tried to convince the American people the "Soviet Union" was the real threat. Sometimes when you spew diarrhea from your mouth it has real world consequences.  Americans can take an accurate measure of the depth of the Republican intellectual pool.  Louie Gohmert says, "Mankind has existed for a pretty long time without anyone ever having to give a sex-ed lesson to anybody. And now we feel like, oh gosh, people are too stupid unless we force them to sit and listen to instructions. It's just incredible." He must have the dullest children in Texas or else he's a liar. Kids ask questions and they deserve an answer. Nobody forces kids to go to sex ed. Every kid that goes must have a permission slip.  Republicans fear education and wish to limit the spread of informed voters.  BREAKING NEWS...THERE WERE MORE STUPID REPUBLICANS IN TEXAS THAN ORIGINALLY ESTIMATED.  A State Senator claiming to be a Dr. claims,  pregnancy only occurs after “accurate intercourse”.  Does this mean dyslexic people can't reproduce or that there is no such thing as sloppy sex?  State Rep. Jodie Laubenberg claimed  “In the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits where a woman can get cleaned out."  She was asked to clarify and she did.  She explained her misunderstanding that a rape kit is for getting the goo out and not collecting evidence therefore abortions should never be needed.  That begs the question, "Is a heart valve the faucet you turn to get a transfusion?   Common sense...to Conservatives on the Court? HELL NO!!! The law passed Congress with only about 35 nays. Remember all the bitching Republicans did about "activist" courts when they simply interpreted the law. That's what you call a Freudian slip.  When killing 4,500 Americans in a war of choice and trashing the economy just isn't quit enough to show how little you care for America you take away their voting rights and allow the Klan to run the elections and decide who votes.  Texas immediately announced voter ID plans which were struck down last year.  You have to show your gun, your cowboy hat, a picture of your horse, your birth certificate, answer a simple random "civics" quiz about Rev. Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, or George W. Bush, and show your white skin.  Today, more than any other day, it is important for the survival of our Democracy to dedicate our hearts and passion in honor of Representative John Lewis. He has taken the beatings and nearly died...many of his close friends did die to ensure voting rights. This June marks the anniversery of their death at the hand of the Klan.  He has offered forgiveness to those that have beat him. Today, dedicate yourself to restoring the Dream.  First Congress must re-enact this Law then go forward with a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote.  The time for tact with old friends has passed.  Voting GOP is destroying our way of life and our rights.   The activist Supreme Court is dismantling voting rights. Is it important to vote in America? Not if you are Hispanic or African American. How can anyone of conscious vote Republican? As the demographics change, the Supreme Court makes it possible for racists to disqualify Hispanic and African American voters.  We have Fascism not Judicial temperance with this ruling all to facilitate more White electoral victories while suppressing African American and Hispanic voters.  My arthritis wanted to stay up last night so around 4:00 AM me and old Art watched the Hunger Games on Netflix. The movie told of a dystopian future where young people fought to the death to provide the wealthy with entertainment. They called it "the peace" because only the combatants were fighting. Before being forced to fight the kids lived in poverty with no chance at an education. Many elements of the story could be lifted from life today. Fans of war are cheering to send our kids to die in a war in Syria that's been going on for thousands of years. Their kids won't go. Their arms industry friends will sure prosper though. For thirty years I've heard Conservative politicians talk of how the best of America is behind us, blaming labor unions for runaway costs while taking salaries 2,000 times that of the working man. Faith is shaken and huckster ministers preach a twisted selfishness having no resemblance to the teachings in the New Testament. They attack our teachers who invest more in our children than anyone in the community except parents. I have news for Conservatives. War is not security, it is war. Education is not a waste of money unless it is spent on their ignorant mind. Teachers start work at 7:00AM and get off about 8:00PM and they have health insurance and retirement. When more folks belonged to Unions, folks who didn't, earned more money. There is virtually no middle class anymore due to conservative policies and blunders. 50% of Americans live in poverty. Thirty years of Reagonomics has left the American economy in a shambles.  The Hunger Games show Conservatives love of Aynn Rand values makes this more of a template than a fantasy.

ENOUGH WITH THE METRO SEXUAL SPIES ALREADY!

The OldSheepHerder longs for the days when spies were more like Humphrey Bogart’s character of Sam Spade in the movie The Maltese Falcon than David Bowie in Labyrinth.  Metrosexual spies have had a bad run lately.  Take Julian Assange.  The Mastermind of Wikileaks, a tell all publication of spy gossip and classified information is holed up in an embassy because two women charge that things got out of control and Mr. Assange became nasty when it was just their intention of having sex with a worldwide hero.  These two gals should have talked to sweet little Bradley Manning, finally getting a trial after rotting in jail a couple of years.  Manning fell under Assange’s spell, delivering a cache of classified documents that could choke several herds of horses.  Julian set about publishing the classified information, exposing Manning, while being hailed as a hero for all his Xerox work and no risk.  Those two fame seeking Swedish gals should have taken stock of Manning’s situation before hoping in the sack with Assange.  That’s still no excuse for rape.  While feeding his lust for fame and adoration, Julian Assange hung Bradley Manning out to dry.  Hmmm?  Would you go to “war” with a guy who greets you, after you’ve taken out a machine gun nest, by shaking your hand and dropping a grenade in your pocket?  Manning got the grenade and some pity while Assange got ill earned fame and glory.  The latest boy to have come under Assange’s spell is Edward Snowden.  He’s announced that his sole purpose in seeking employment as an NSA subcontractor was to steal classified information.  This speaks volumes for the Republican model of “contracting out”, don’t you think?  America’s corporate media types are enamored with Snowden.  They may be getting a decent wage, yet as professionals most of them are just shills for corporations, presenting the news according to corporate standards and they know it.  Within their sad little circle, it seems as though they are clumsily trying to manufacture consent that Snowden’s actions are somehow heroic.  I think you can believe that the Patriot Act savaged the America we once knew and turned it into a quasi-Fascist state yet still understand Snowden is a self-aggrandizing idiot.  The only reason we have the Patriot Act is that Bush was a moron, his staff were morons, and most of the GOP Congress were morons.  Like today their focus was, “No Niggers, no vaginas, end Medicare, privatize Social Security, and no taxes.”  When they were warned REPEATEDLY OF THE TERRORIST CELLS AND BIN LADINS PLANS OF LEADING AL QUEDA TO STRIKE AT THE US WITH PLANES THEY WERE TOO STUPID TO RESPOND.  They just needed a few more tools to get it through their thick head that when the terrorists come calling it’s time to cancel that little vacation to Crawford, the brush can wait, and go Boston on their ass.  Facts meant as little to Republicans then as they do today.  Fearing Bush’s extreme limitations, which matched his administration and party, and wanting to protect our country the Democrats became a party to making the police state.  Bush and the Republicans are more of a threat to America than Al Qaeda ever was.  Good intentions muddled by fear result in horrific decisions.  The police state must be undone BUT NOT IN THE NAME OF SNOWDEN AND ASSANGE!!!  Our Grandchildren should laugh at a brief period of time when some virulent Fascists gave corporations the same rights as human beings while excusing them concurrent responsibilities.  The activist Supreme Court is dismantling voting rights.  Is it important to vote in America?  Not if you are Hispanic or African American.  How can anyone of conscious vote Republican?  As the demographics change, the Supreme Court makes it possible for racists to disqualify Hispanic and African American voters.  Long live Whitey!!!  Half of Americans live in poverty while paying tribute to oil companies for the last 100 year of American history.  Republican rhetoric about taxes just doesn’t mesh with reality.  You don’t hear that on the news do you?  Wealthy corporations simply pay no taxes.  Our tax system is so complicated because it is a long gift list written by corporate Congressmen so their sponsors don’t pay taxes.  Wealth not votes steers and determines policy.  Damn reason!  Damn the future!  Ignorance is knowledge.  Fetuses are people and babies are an unwanted burden on society.  You prevent pregnancy from rape with rape kits.  You gotta admit it…George Orwell was a punk!!!  But the OldSheepHerder has digressed.  I guess one more thing troubles me about Snowden.  Do you think Sam Spade would trade a life of confinement in some Ecuadorian embassy over a girlfriend that can hang upside-down on a stripper pole?   

THE MANURE JUST KEEPS GETTIN' DEEPER

Republicans are terrified for America (themselves) and see 2014 as a stepping stone to groom their awesome stable of candidates for President to read better and not be as personally repulsive as Mitt Romney was.  It is just unacceptable to them that a woman, Hillary Clinton, should be elected after Barrack Obama (who is 1/2 African American).  Republicans are fairly certain Negroes and Women are not really Americans.  And besides...Benghazi!  Republicans are so bent "to get to the bottom" of Benghazi, they publicly demand e-mails they are already in possession of. It could go back to their literacy problems.  Maybe its just a cry out for a Democrat to read them for them.  In 1995 Right wing fervor burned bright and was completely out of control.  An extended witch hunt by Ken Starr was attempting to overturn the election of Bill Clinton was underway.  To Republicans nothing was out of bounds.  They allied themselves with the most radical militant groups in the country to unseat the President.  Then Oklahoma City happened.  McVeigh perpetrated his mass murder because he felt personally wronged by the events at Ruby Ridge and decided to extract his pound of flesh from the government by murdering employees at the Social Security office and their children at the day care.  The most astonishing fact of this boiling resentment is the leadership of the Right Wing applauds the heavy handed police tactics used at Ruby Ridge that causes all this boiling resentment when it is used against people of color or another religion.  You’ll never hear anybody say, “Boy those Right Wing guys sure have a lot of brains.”  The Right Wing is populated with people that pay homage to the Constitution by violating it and lobbying for laws contrary to basic Constitutional principles.  Conservatives took no responsibility to dial back their caustic rhetoric in an effort to not incite the unstable.  In fact Conservatives have significantly INCREASED INFLAMMATORY AND INCITEFUL RHETORIC.  President Clinton handled the tragedy like the true statesman he is.  Republicans maintained and fostered their dark alliances.  The Boston Marathon was dedicated to the victims of the Newton massacre.  The Right Wing has come to revile the victims as pawns in the gun safety debate. The Right Wing identifies with Boston and the Founding Fathers throwing off the shackles of tyranny.  Hearing the rumblings that a mere 10% of Americans support this extremism, and having lost the last election decisively, the extremist can only preach fear and filibuster.  What cowards.  Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi voted on gun control with the Democrats and received a poison ricin letter in the mail.  Senator Carl Levin D-Michigan received a poison ricin letter in his field office.  The President received a ricin letter.  In order to maintain our sense of objectivity should we gather up some Saudi and Al Qaeda suspects?  The attempted poisonings with ricin have Right Wing fingerprints all over them.  The Boston bombing has been impeded by NRA obstruction of putting a simple marker in black powder, making its origin traceable when it is used in bombs like Boston.  The entire Republican Party and its most visible politicians, commentators, media outlets, and organizations have been organized FOR THE LAST 15 YEARS in a manner that produces VIOLENT LONE WOLF DOMESTIC TERRORISTS.  The calls for second amendment solutions, assassination, secession, and street violence are so common with Republican politicians and on right wing media that the nation has become numb to this violent talk and threats.  These kinds of threats and actions are not Free Speech.  These are acts of sedition.  They are the actions of an insurgent movement bent on destabilizing our economy, our security, and our common welfare.  If Conservatives truly cared for the futures of children, they would consider the consequences of their harsh treatment of Gay Parents and how that harsh treatment affects their children.  Holding a Bible in one hand doesn't give one God like prerogatives to mistreat people.  The same political constituency righteously sited their rights to own slaves in the Bible.  Corporations employ these zealots for their purposes by feeding them cash.  The complete absence of any review or reflection on their hate filled position is shocking.  When all else fails it’s time to pound the impeachment drum to deny Americans of their elected government.  Their world view won't change but they will feel even more threatened after their prejudice is no longer codified in law.  We see Conservative Legislatures attempting to establish State Religion.  We see them establishing “personhood” amendments for clusters of cells while eliminating food, housing, and medical welfare for living children.  We see them openly and repeatedly disputing that rape is even traumatic or serious criminal offense.  We see them celebrating guns in the aftermath of 26 people being blown to pieces by a madman that they are opposed to putting through a background check.  We see the GOP base accepting a twisted version of reality without ever questioning it or checking out its authenticity.  I'm hoping an amendment is offered during the second go around with the gun safety debate placing heavy sanctions on the level of a trillion dollars, for every mental health incitement, frivolous and unfounded call to arms, slanderous and false statements to advance political agendas, and assassination incitement. Canada prohibits the broadcast of "news" which is mostly false.  Each of us will have different interests.  It's important to respect each other’s rights, negotiate in good faith and by reaching political compromise, some of our interests are met and we all can enjoy some progress.  If you poison the well by refusing to compromise, by refusing to talk, by refusing to negotiate in good faith then girder these unreasonable positions by seeking to aggressively limit other citizens’ rights, you aren't a participant in Democracy, you're an insurgent.  The underpinning of contemporary Conservationism is Fascism. Conservatives define their rights and freedoms as the right to oppress and steal other’s liberty as they chose. I just don't see that in the Constitution. What Conservatives want is a western version of Somalia.  Congratulations to Georgia Governor Nathan Deal for refusing to surrender during the Civil War. It's 2013 and Republicans still regard kids having a racially integrated prom in the old hateful context of "race mixing" and call it a Leftist idea. It is a Ku Klux Klan idea that the prom was still segregated. You know...the guys that lynch African Americans for having eye contact with them and for not stepping off the side walk when their White superiors pass. Each member of the school board, the superintendent, and every state official should be sued personally out of their personnel pockets not public funds for perpetuating this bull shit. When the government entity is sued, the taxpayers pay and it’s no skin off the bigot’s ass. They should be held personally accountable.  Compulsive liar and budding megalomaniac, Rand Paul spoke at Howard University, an African American University, and condescended to the students in a way that only a hack deluded hillbilly chiropractic optometrist could. He asked the students if they were aware that Republicans were the anti-slavery party. Emphasis on WERE. It seems the penile penetration/ejaculation argument that is central to defining marriage took a shit when Justice Kagan asked attorneys if it was within the parameters of the rights of the state to deny marriage licenses to couples over 55 as they will not produce children. The lawyer evaded the direct question claiming instead the couple was fertile. It had to be explained to him that couples over 55 produce no children. The courtroom erupted in laughter. Even Scalia laughed at him. What is it about the birds and bees and these yahoos?  Sadly, it has come to my attention that just like the Post Office, The Pentagon ran a deficit last year. The proportion of that deficit ran up by the Post Office pales in comparison to the deficit ran up by the Pentagon making it an urgent mandate that we de-fund the Pentagon. Next up...requiring Wall Street to capitalize the annual bloated salaries of their CEO's for the next 75 years at the nearest credit union.  We are now in a prolonged skewered era of our tax system where poor and middle class people pay direct supports to a minority of wealthy people and corporations as they plunder our shared resources and ship jobs overseas to Communist countries and Third World Countries paying slave labor wages. At every attempt to reform this corruption, Republicans obstruct and even lobby to enhance this newer form of slavery. Private profits and shared risks are the guiding principles of the GOP.  One thing is for sure. People don't seem to be getting a lot smarter. When I hear people lionize Reagan, I just shake my head. If "Morning in America" is paying 18% on bank loans and 22% on credit card interest, you got a hell of a lot more disposable cash than I do. Through the Nixon/Ford (second term) stories of long bread lines and short supplies came out of the Soviet Union. These stories multiplied during the Carter administration compounded by the USSR's invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. As the USSR failed to provide domestically, their Imperial designs crumbled, spelling the end of the USSR. I call him "Right Time, Right Place Ronnie." Republicans claim he defeated the greatest communist empire on the planet. I gotta take exception to that claim. His party invested in the greatest communist empire on the planet. Ask Mitt.  The unelected corporate interests that control the Republican Party have no interest in the civil wellbeing of our nation.  Their one and only interest is profit.  They distort and manipulate every issue through that perspective.  TheOldSheepHerder has a suggestion for lobbying the cowards in Washington.  Ask them if they are going to stand with the American people or the home grown terrorists like the Boston bombers, the ricin mailer, the gun manufacturers, or other American insurgents.  Remember that these mounting numbers of acts of domestic terrorism are going to be great for automatic weapons sales and big clips. 

IT'S TIME TO REDEDICATE OUR MOVEMENT

Do you ever get the impression that defecating on the American Apple pie is the Republican strategy and platform?  The GOP leadership has admitted there is no debt crisis yet continues their war on the citizens of this country.  We have paid our tribute to the wealthy now it is time they pay their fair share of taxes and relinquish their preferential treatment in the tax code.  I have a proposition that may seem a bit radical but I do wish that you would consider it.  Working people are being enslaved by corporations and the current tax structure. We the people support the rich with tax subsidies and tax write offs.  We want to move away from fossil fuels and nuclear energy but Conservative politicians have structured tax policy in such a way that we have little money to invest in alternative energy.  We want to preserve the environment but that ideal of rapidly expanding green energy crimps the Koch brothers’ accumulation of unusable wealth and our payments to them.  States gerrymandered districts have make it nearly impossible to vote in Democrats.  More people voted for Democratic candidates yet the GOP still holds the House in this rigged game.  The GOP even went to great lengths to suppress the Democratic vote.  We see the corporately sponsored and paid for Supreme Court Conservative Justices taking retaliatory action against the Democratic coalition of voters that said the wealthy should pay their fair share by ending the Voting Rights Act.  In these very urgent times, the best the Republican Party has been able to come up with is a strategy of disciplined stupidity, by letting the Sequester cuts take place and filibustering last minute Democratic solutions.  They are after all, the paid obstructionists of Wall Street and the Extremists.  The Progressive Caucus can make a gesture which by its very name change will articulate the positions of the Progressive Caucus and define the opposition to these changes for what they are.  I suggest that the Progressive Caucus change their name to the “Progressive Abolition Caucus”, standing against corporate enslavement in the tax code, in the environment, at the voting booth, in the clinic, in the work place, in our schools, and every other place corporations have usurped human priorities in the interest of accumulating unusable wealth.  The Confederatization of politics must be beaten and shamed so no fantasy of the South Rising Again can be sold to home grown insurgents who would and have torn our country apart.  Insurgency, Secession, and the dismantling of social safety net programs and support of the decay of infrastructure in deference to making our subsidy payments to millionaires, billionaires, and highly profitable large corporations can’t be mistaken for politics as usual but defined as the crippling national economic enslavement that it is.  Its way past time we articulate our message in an “us against them manner.”  It’s taken 16 years for the idea to get out there that supply side economics doesn’t work.  A simple message is a more effective message.  Having a pointed message which is repeated every time you speak to the American people and is reflected in the name of your Caucus’ name would go a long way to adding clarity to what can be confusing for voters to grasp.  Corporate enslavement isn’t working out for America.  It’s corrosive to our laws and institutions and is the primary corrupting influence in our government.  If citizens that fear public transit and drive a car as a result can’t write off that expense as a “security” measure, corporations should not be able to write off jets for security purposes.  America is NOT a catered luncheon.  Waiting the Republicans out is not good enough.  We need a national coordinated effort to say the Democrats will no longer tolerate corporate enslavement of their constituents.  For every tax loop hole banks, corporations, and Wall Street enjoys, the Democrats need to counter with a mirrored tax break for poor and working people.  Grover’s gang will oppose these and this will expose them further to their constituents.  Instead of showing Norquist opposes tax cuts for working people a couple times, the point could be driven home for 2014.  If it’s not good for the goose it’s not good for the gander.  The GOP assaults the public with shocking proposals and calls them necessary and patriotic.  Democrats need to do more than just simply counter this nonsense and brain washing of the public.  We need to wage an all-out assault.  Nobody can afford to be a dignified man in a suit from Washington.  In America, those men do not exist.  If you are not marching behind the likes of Elizabeth Warren, announce your retirement.  We need leadership from the Progressive Caucus with a short message, that people are rallying around, have staying power, are truthful, represent our values, and can serve as a legislative foundation.  With his flaccid leadership on filibuster reform and near desertion on gun safety legislation, Harry Reid has shown he is tailored to lead the Blue Dog Caucus not Senate Majority Leader.  The President needs to stop fretting about getting “his homework done” and stop offering up things like chained CPI.  That’s like telling Granny she can get a new wheel chair…right after you amputate her legs.  CONFRONT THE REAL PROBLEMS AMERICA FACES, NOT THE RED HERRINGS THE GOP THROWS OUT IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE!!!

THE FISCAL CLIFF

What is the threshold where pursuit of personnel political objectives becomes a dereliction of ones responsibilities as a voter or a legislator?  What is the threshold where defying the will of the majority becomes the systematic plan to overthrow representative Democracy by making it dysfunctional?  Is it patriotic to stand on the freeway and obstruct traffic because you have an opinion that traffic should move the other way?  This is how Republicans use the filibuster.  When the consensus is to move one way, Republicans submit a letter which starts a filibuster on the matter and stops the discussion, or traffic.  The 112^th Congress has used the filibuster more than any Congress in American history.  They have denied the Administration appointments to the Courts, thereby disabling our court system by blocking appointments at a historically highest rate.  Law and order Republicans?  By having a full complement of judges on the bench, the Department of Justice would be better able to deal with the back log of Wall Street thieves from 2008.  These guys contribute heavily to the Republican Party and expect NO PROSECUTION.  The bench is about half filled.  The Republicans are for Law and Order like Stalin and Hitler were Human Rights Activists!  Voters that continue to support this party are acknowledging broad disagreement with established civil law relating to voting rights, racial equality, women’s rights, health care, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and public education.  Republicans will continue to filibuster to dismantle these institutions that underpin our society while lobbying for the super-rich and corporations that often pay minimum wage if they are based in this country at all.  Sedition is defined as:  1. speech or behaviour directed against the peace of a state  2. an offence that tends to undermine the authority of a state  3. an incitement to public disorder.  If you’ve heard Louie Gomhert, Michelle Bachmann, Peter King or any of the Tea Party office holders speak, they don’t criticize our government, they attack it with slander and lies and never apologize when proven wrong, are never punished by the Republican Party for their inflammatory remarks and the consequence is that their lies spreads like a cancer in our country THEY CLAIM TO LOVE SO MUCH.  Ill informed voters, repeating the lies, becoming enraged and hateful.  Spreading sedition has become the national sport of the Republican Party.  There are still idiots that are so filled with hate from the GOP and their upbringing; they think Obama is a foreigner.  Just to counter all the voter suppression mischief, Democratic districts should require Republican voters to identify Obama’s birth place!  Seriously, with all the turmoil of the last twelve years, we often hear America being compared to Rome.  The only Empire that is crumbling is the Republican Party.  Rome depended on loyal and ignorant peasants blindly supporting the blood thirsty Emperor against their own interests.  Right now the Tea Party is in the process of eating their own.  We learned as children, how much a simple statement can become distorted in the game of telephone, whispering into the ear of the person next to you, until the message had been delivered to the first person who said it.  When you start out with a lie as the Republicans and Fox News do, the end message is hyper virulent and toxic.  This is by design.  Their Super Pacs, this election cycle, proved to be a complete fraud.  Sara Palin’s is her own personnel checking account.  Dick Armey tried to get control of his with an armed guard.  Dick Morris’s Super Pac was modeled after a pyramid scheme.  Morris sold contributor’s information to other contributors and kept all the money for himself, using none of it for political activity.    The scams don’t quit.  What would you expect from a party whose “coalition” is built through lies?  There is a sort of Stockholm Syndrome relationship with the GOP and its base.  There are three big threats to our economy.  The first is the GOP base.   In spite of all available facts and against their own interests they keep voting Republican.  The second threat is conservative media which scrupulously avoids the facts in order to brain wash the base into this bizarre value system of worshipping rich people and loathing their peers while calling themselves Christian.  The third threat is the seditious Republican legislators who crashed the economy and have done everything possible to gum up the gears of government to prevent economic recovery.  The Republicans use the power of their offices to spread slander, lies, fantasy, hate speech, throw tantrums, avoid work altogether, and even refuse to raise the debt ceiling on spending that they had authorized, reducing our credit rating, and inflicting increased costs on the taxpayers with the ensuing higher interests rates paid on our debt.  When you think about it, Conservatives from all quarters have express such contempt for government that it has turned into a mission of destruction of our government.  Obama’s re-election was met with calls for secession from the Fox News masses.  All the hate speech had done its work.  All the slander had done its work.  These ignorant masses, the highest demographic of American citizens on Social Security Disability and Medicare along with their neighbors who had received multiple income tax reductions from the administration would not be governed by this Nigger President another four years.  The most conservative member of the Supreme Court, Anthony Scalia, has addressed the issue of secession, defining it as illegal and foolish.  The aptitude of Republicans for governing our nation was revisited again when John Boehner couldn’t get enough votes to bring his Plan B Bill to the floor because many in his party felt it wasn’t worshipful enough to the super-rich.  Boehner said the serenity prayer to rally them and when they didn’t rally he adjourned the House, hit the Bar, and basically said fuck it, let Harry Reid and the Senate deal with this shit because I’m going home.  Now that’s what I call leadership!  At least everybody that keeps up with politics that knows about AA got a good laugh.  The deep and abiding common factors in the Republican psyche are that only they should benefit from tax dollars while resisting every penny in taxes paid.  This narcissistic world view impedes intellectual and spiritual growth.  The Republicans had planned on electing Romney and robbing working people on a grand scale to “address the fiscal cliff.”  That didn’t happen. They had a year to plan and they can’t adjust.  The dictionary calls that maladjusted.  They refuse to acknowledge the outcome of the election.  All the voter suppression favored their candidate.  All the voter fraud was perpetrated by them or their agents.  Having the grace of Al Gore, even though he won the popular vote, is beyond the capabilities of the Republican Party.  Republicans are incapable of putting their country first.  Typically Republicans expect civil treatment from the community at large but feel no obligation to conduct themselves that way.  Their rigid ideology precludes them from government service.  Demanding that an entire nation adapt to meet the perceived needs of a small percentage of the super-rich who need accountants to apprise them of the level of their wealth is tragic.  Where in World history has indulging the excesses of the wealthy benefitted a nation?  History is clear.  It is admirable and desirable to prosper.  At a point that these goals become all consuming, you have admitted failure and are stealing from normal community obligations.  When your community has crumbled, where will you prosper?  President Obama knows that Congress controls the purse strings.  He also knows that Federal unemployment benefits have expired.  Making this deal ensures people can buy groceries.  If this is what makes him a Kenyan Mau Mau, then sign me up.            

Ignore the NRA

How do we differentiate ourselves from backward countries like Somalia, Afghanistan, and Syria where life is cheap?  We assert that we are a nation of laws.  We assert we govern ourselves with the ballot.  We have heard a continuous message from the NRA of fear and encouraging escalating gun play in public.  Through ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) the infamous “Stand Your Ground Laws” were enacted.  Maurice Moorer is not the kind of person lawmakers had in mind when they gave Florida the broadest self-defense law in the nation in 2005.  State legislators sold stand your ground as a legal protection for law-abiding Floridians who were forced, through no fault of their own, to defend their family and property.  But the day Moorer killed his ex-wife's boyfriend in 2008 capped two years of violent behavior that had landed Moorer in jail multiple times and left his wife living in fear.  Still, prosecutors set Moorer free, saying Florida's stand your ground law prevented them from pursuing murder charges.  A Tampa Bay Times analysis of stand your ground cases found that it has been people like Moorer — those with records of crime and violence — who have benefited most from the controversial legislation. A review of arrest records for those involved in more than 100 fatal stand your ground cases shows: Nearly 60 percent of those who claimed self-defense had been arrested at least once before the day they killed someone. More than 30 of those defendants, about one in three, had been accused of violent crimes, including assault, battery or robbery. Dozens had drug offenses on their records. Killers have invoked stand your ground even after repeated run-ins with the law. Forty percent had three arrests or more. Dozens had at least four arrests. More than a third of the defendants had previously been in trouble for threatening someone with a gun or illegally carrying a weapon. In dozens of cases, both the defendant and the victim had criminal records, sometimes related to long-running feuds or criminal enterprises. Of the victims that could be identified in state records, 64 percent had at least one arrest. Several had 20 or more arrests.  Florida's stand your ground law has been under intense scrutiny since George Zimmerman claimed self-defense after killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin at a Sanford apartment complex Feb. 26. Police and prosecutors said they did not immediately charge Zimmerman because they could not disprove his self-defense claim.  All told, 119 people are known to have killed someone and invoked stand your ground. All of the perpetrators of these homicides were inspired by these laws and sight them as their initial defense. The laws had their intended effect.  They created fear.  That fear caused gun sales to sky rocket.  With sky rocketing sales comes inexperienced users, increased deaths due to accidents, increased homicides, but most importantly, increased PROFITS.  The NRA worked tirelessly on behalf of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker who stripped collective bargaining rights from teachers.  Now the NRA is recommending those same teachers should be carrying weapons to respond to gunmen in the classroom.  How long would it be before a naughty fourth grader grabbed the teacher’s gun and accidently killed himself or another student?  Then what?  Arm all the students?  That would be a great economic boon for Smith and Wesson but hardly the right direction for public schools.  Look at the people that have gone on these murderous rampages, they come prepared.  Handguns aren’t cheap.  Who is going to pay for a sidearm for every teacher?  The GOP won’t even sign off on the debt ceiling on money that’s already authorized by them to be spent.  Our nation wants to have a dialogue about reducing the capacity of suicidal madmen to inflict massive casualties on civilian populations by limiting clip size, banning off the shelf assault rifles, and tightening up sales at gun shows so the paper work is the same as at a gun store.  The longer a madman has to struggle to acquire or modify an automatic weapon, the more likely they will come in contact with the law before they can execute a fatal plan.  While the NRA accuses those that plea for public safety of being gun grabbers and that they will come for shot guns and bolt actions next, take a rational look at who really keeps upping the ante.  We recently found out that “main stream” Republican Dick Armey had an armed assistant help him fire people at his Super Pac then agreed to leave the organization himself with an 8 million dollar golden parachute.  FreedomWorks is still filled with corruption contributing nothing to campaigns, only stealing from contributors.  Is this what we want for our country?  Is absolute corruption and the worship of the almighty dollar regardless the cost in human life, bound to replace the rule of law?  Is promoting fear, lies, and insecurity, important enough that we should live in a virtually lawless nation, similar to Somalia or Syria all for the benefit of increased gun sales?  The NRA does virtually nothing for habitat or game preservation.  Their entire focus is gun sales and politics.  Whenever the response of uniform gun laws (gun shops-gun shows) comes up after a public slaughter the NRA sends out a message of fear that people are out to get your Grandpa’s shotgun and your Dad’s deer rifle from you.  P.S.  You had better buy an AR15 while they’re still legal (to protect yourself).  And don’t forget about those times you can’t have your AR15 with you.  You’ll need a good conceal and carry weapon with knock down power as well as a boot pistol.  And don’t forget the little lady!  No circumstance is too grim or sad to refrain from making their fear filled sales pitch.  Ignore the NRA.  They have already had their say in these sorry circumstances.  If being well armed protected one from madmen, the Newtown killer would be dead on the kitchen floor at his Mother’s hand instead of being his first victim.  Learn about the limited gun controls that are being proposed from a neutral news source.  Don’t trust an organization that pushes a law that ends up helping criminals.    

Round Two

As TheOldSheepHerder surveys the pasture as the fog hangs over the pasture after the election, a few things are clear.  If you had some idea that the day after the election, the sun would rise, there would be a clear and authoritative course ahead and voices of dissention would be moderated you were mistaken but not nearly as off base as old Turd Blossom, Karl Rove.  The Big Spenders Club is irritated with Karl for frittering their money away on the “South Will Rise Again” strategy to win a Presidential election.  There aren’t that many old angry white guys, and even fewer Confederates.  The majority of Americans supported governance according to our Constitutional traditions and rejected heavy handed big government Republican initiatives that interfered with people’s lives and cost money.  American’s are experiencing a crushing burden exploding property taxes in a soft real estate market.  We hear a lot of bragging from the GOP how they have held down taxes.  This lie is described by each of our tax statements arising out of the last legislative session controlled by Republicans.  Destroy my homes value through your recklessness, then heap huge tax increases on my home and tell me how you never taxed me.  President Obama reduced my income taxes to help me pay for my increased property taxes courtesy of the GOP.  The best description I heard of the GOP this year was that they are not a Political Party but a mental illness.  I think it may be helpful for activists to keep this perspective.  We can get a whole lot less crazy in Minnesota if we make getting rid of Bachmann as big a priority as the Take Down Cravaack effort was.  Graves was close.  In two years, with a lot more grass roots cash, who needs an extra $70.00 anyway, we can send Bachmann back to the seventies where you can get patted down for talking like she does.  In two years the mid-terms will see a shit storm of pay back from corporate America.  The Chamber of Commerce is pissed that it lost and it’s coming after you.  Democrats must have a strategy of focusing on 30 extreme House of Representative incumbents for defeat.  A focused strategy will keep the GOP playing defense and continue Democratic gains.  There would be many in that House that would be running when the new Democratic nominee for President runs in 2016.  Taking thirty seats in 2014 would give Democrats a slim majority.  Having all three branches of government would vastly accelerate the rate change that could be effected.  Minnesota State government went all blue.  The Democrats were gracious in victory, pledging to work with Republicans.  In defeat, the Republicans were bitter, mean spirited, and as rigid and partisan as ever.  What a fine example they make for their children.  Just imagine if they were Gay.  The cancerous effects of the right wing media machine are terrifying in our society and how it affected this election.  The reason conservatives complain about Liberal Media bias is that it is a strategy for covering up a decade’s long conservative take-over of media.  Ronald Reagan fast tracked Rupert Murdock’s citizenship so he could own American media.  He turned the news into a version of the “National Enquirer” with a right wing message to it.  A conservative judge ruled that Fox News did not have to tell the truth in its news broadcasts in an FCC ruling.  Republicans have used this media to spread fear, dissention, anxiety, and most of all volumes of lies and slander.  It is a cynical brainwashing tool.  Fox News doesn’t even resemble a program about a News show.  Nearly half of the Nation gets all its news from the same media source that would have you believe that Hillary left Bill for Bigfoot.  Perhaps a court challenge could reverse this ruling and enable Americans to ban false broadcasts of news as Canada did.  Exposing children to Fox News costs taxpayers money.  Studies have shown that people who watch Fox News know less about current events than people who watch no news.  Remedial education in public schools is skyrocketing.  After Hurricane Sandy a simple organizing strategy revealed itself.  The GOP base is so filled with hate that when Chris Christie did his job rather than grand stand, the base hated him.  He committed the unforgiveable sin of being polite to the President.  He thanked the President, who happened to be doing his job too.  They posed for pictures and talked to people devastated by the storm, offering encouragement.  Each of them were executives in charge of large civil relief efforts.  They just don’t do anything remotely like this in the private sector and never will.  I think the most reviled Democrats should speak in the most glowing and personal terms of every high ranking GOP official there is.  How would the base react to hearing Barney Frank describe Jim DeMint as a delightful man, a cherished colleague, or a loyal public servant?  Jim DeMint’s base would know that he and Barney Frank had consummated a personal relationship.  The Republicans have poured gas all over themselves, the least we can do is strike a match.  That bell you heard ringing my friend?  That was just the end of round two.

Judge Not or I Might Give You an Ass Chewing

There is this one old hag that works at the Co-Op and stares at my boots when I go in to pay the feed bill.  I’m careful enough to scrape off the big chunks of sheep manure before I go to town but I aint going to take a microscope to ‘em.  I’ll admit it, there might be a fleck or two of manure on my boots but I know that old bitty votes Republican.  I got news for you.  Her shit does stink.  This is what unlimited money in the electoral process yields. Romney is a blithering money hoarder that yearns to be President in order to satisfy his and like-minded money hoarders deepest money hoarding fantasies. These people have no comprehension of the dynamics of how a civil society should function domestically or internationally. Romney is devoid of tact, wisdom, foresight, hindsight, basic social skills, BUT HE IS NOT LACKING IN MONEY. Thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizen United ruling, creatures like Romney are bound to be nominated.  The Republicans are not a National Party anymore.  The problem is their message. Romney planned to sell himself as a highly skilled businessman with the knowledge to tackle all the complex financial problems America faces.  That came unraveled in short order.  The myth that Romney was a problem solving CEO with the knowledge to lead America has been debunked by Romney himself, the mean spirited vulture capitalist who would say anything in his lust for power. His campaign is in debt and he has been unable to cloak his GIMME MORE CAMPAIGN with some palatable slogans for Independents to gravitate to. He has written off poor people, minorities, women, union members, Gays, teachers, and Veterans. That only leaves him the angry white vote for support. Good luck winning a general election with that bumbling "business man" strategy.  There just aren't that many bigoted back woods religious zealots that are certain trickle-down economics really works.  The tax code in this country is written by senators and congressmen put in office by wealthy people. That's why the Romney's can write off $77,000 for horse feed and veterinary care for their dressage horse and we pay our vet bills in full and buy our pets food with no tax deduction. Yet it is this entitled elitist who has the gall to claim half of Americans are parasites. Many Americans are fearful and naive. Romney was speaking to the Parasite Club on everybody's favorite 47% video.  The Ayn Rand loving GOP loves to rail about personal responsibility.  What is their interpretation of that anyway?  Taking care of personal responsibility would seem to mean paying their exorbitant tribute to the hallowed "Job Creators" in higher income taxes, spiraling property taxes, and exploding small business property taxes so the wealthy can pay even less. They get 90% of America's paycheck and bitch that they are paying 40% of America's taxes.  The Salt Lake City newspaper endorsed Obama because Romney has no core beliefs and has engaged in such profound deception.  He is behind in Massachusetts by 30%.  The people who know him best have rebuked him.  GOP Representative Scott DeJarlais got one of his patients pregnant while violating his Hippocratic Oath.  The Family Values GOP was outraged over underwear pictures of Representative Anthony Wiener.  Boehner, Cantor, and Ryan did NOTHING in their leadership positions to discipline one of their own for far more serious ethical violations. The Republican leadership allowed him to serve his entire term, unmolested, in order to aid in their obstruction of America's recovery. If coercing a patient to get an abortion after you has violated the Patient/Dr. Boundary isn't enough to catch the attention of one of their own, PRAY TELL JUST WHAT DOES A GOP REPRESENTATIVE HAVE TO DO TO GET DISCIPLINED?  Maybe the Democratic expectation that Romney should speak the truth is setting the bar too high.  Shouldn't a candidate for a major political party be able to read, comprehend, and attribute statements to the proper source? If all you have done your entire adult life is read spread sheets, sometimes the more nuanced way of communicating with WORDS can be difficult if not impossible.  To hear Ann Romney tell it Mormon missionary work is just like military service.  Being told "No, I don't want your pamphlet is just like being shot at and having IED blow up under you, then have your GOP legislators desert you when you come home physically mangled. Yup, just like Military Service.  Dinesh D’Souza the right wing darling movie director and president of Evangelical Kings University shacked up with his secret fiance (who is married as is he) at a big Evangelical conference. While these people call themselves Christians, it is an invented political religion that bears no resemblance to Christ's teachings.  Their professed religion is as similar to Christianity as a squirrel looks just like an elk.  GOP Senator David Vitter serves the same preachy GOP nonsense while carrying around the history of acknowledging being a client of a Washington Madam.  He dragged his wife through his mud and apologized to her and now it’s all good…or is it?  Covetous, judgmental, unforgiving, cruel, and self-absorbed are a few adjectives that reasonably describe all those Republicans subscribing to this bankrupt doctrine.  Family values have been turned into a filthy word by the way these Republicans live their lives.  Anyway, his work is done after scaring the shit out of a bunch of old people with his propaganda film.  He’s Hollywood now.  Or so he hopes because he lost his job at Kings University which paid a million bucks a year.  I bet OBAMA made him do it.  Republicans are so lazy they want public subsidies for their corruption.  The GOP has a national movement afoot in the states to suppress votes of the very old, college students, and minorities, all of which lean Democratic voting.   Are you struggling with high property taxes?  Vote NO!   Estimates range as high as $50 million state wide for voter I.D. just to get it up and running with annual up keep costs every year not yet factored in.  FOR WHAT?!   Voter fraud is a nonexistent problem.  The GOP has flooded our state with misinformation about voter fraud. Don't believe it.  Get informed and vote your pocketbook.  Kurt Bills was a big hit with the Teabagger crowd.  As he spread the “word of the bag” around the state he became a nonviable candidate.  It seems Minnesotans were not ready to embrace his message of the state printing its own money.  Advantages-none.  Disadvantages-too numerous to mention.  But it was the word of the Bag.  After he fell so far behind, the Koch brothers moved their Dark Money to state House races.  Shit really does roll downhill.     Remember Jobs, Jobs, and Jobs? I do. Zero progress was made in the direction of that stated objective. It collided with their political objective of making Obama a one term President. Something had to go.  They substituted vaginas, vaginas, and vaginas and figured nobody would notice.  I did.  Women that would prefer to not be pregnant from the time they get married until their change of life noticed. If you’re a Plutocrat yearning to create a “New China” here in the U.S., eliminating birth control is a good strategy for building a labor pool that has to work for 90 cents an hour and live in squalid dormitories.  The Romney/Ryan ticket is proposing that us 47%ers bundle part of our retirement income, our Social Security, with toxic assets Wall Street needs to balance out with no liability except postage for a too bad so sad letter that our money no longer exists.  Good deal for Wall Street.  Bad deal for account holders.  They would also like to change Medicare into a voucher program.  This is their “This is an emergency, we have to cheat you plan.”  All millionaires are not morally bankrupt.  There are liberal millionaires who believe that U.S. citizens should keep Social Security as it is.  I’m going to vote for that guy.  Of course, I’m just in the Co-Op to pay what I owe, not give that old bitty a brain transplant!!!

Mitt Gets Exposed in Second Debate

How about that?   The OldSheepHerder got the grand tour of Romney’s “mysterious mansion” the other night at the second debate.  We got to see just what was inside this man’s head, what he values, and his depth of knowledge.  Greed, Greed, and more Greed.  His “plans” were a sham, a thin cover for an avalanche of lies to obscure what he has promised the GOP he will do when he assumes office.  Dismantle Medicare, end Social Security, stop “Obamacare”, more and bigger tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, rollback all environmental regulation changing the chemical composition of the water we drink and the air we breathe, shredding the social safety net, public education, Medicaid, destroy Unions, and reduce women and minorities to a sort of cattle status where decision making and voting is highly restricted in their classes.  While taking advantage of these institutions and programs, the conservative base is conditioned to have a baseless hatred of all of these things in spite of the personal benefits which they reap from them.  I hate to brag, but I got sheep with keener perceptions than these guys.  Even his most extreme supporters are tolerating his moderated positions, knowing he has to mislead a lot of people to get elected.  How has Romney prepared for the most important elected office in our country?  He has hired 17 of George Bush’s former staff members as his advisers.  Romney claims it’s time for change by consulting with the staff that crashed the economy and left our diplomatic reputation in shambles.  We can tell from his remarks in the debate about Benghazi that Romney is devoid of all intellectual curiosity.  “The 17” read in their Reich wing blogs that Obama did not define the attacks in Libya as terrorism.  Romney was wrong.  The bloggers were just small time racists, telling lies to slander Obama in order to give Romney an advantage.  It isn't just pathetic that Mittens marched right into, and was devastated by a Republican slander it’s shameful he accepted as fact from these failed Bush advisers that Obama did not define the incident as terrorism.  He brags about what an astute business man he is, yet with the Presidency at stake, makes a fool of himself repeating a GOP racist blog.  Mitt Romney is not a business man in the classic sense.  He is a vulture capitalist who is wholly incapable of assimilating a broad range of facts and making a decision.  Romney only speaks spreadsheet to his benefit.  He is a completely awkward man.  He is devoid of social skills and charisma.  When you add his compulsive lying, condescending manner and bald faced ambition along with his stupidity, greed, and selfishness you might have the perfect Republican Presidential Candidate but you sure as hell don’t have anything close to a person with leadership qualities.         

Republican Icons and What the Party Believes

The Old SheepHerder got to thinking.  For all the bluster the Republican Party puts forward, just how many truly remarkable leaders has this noisy entourage produced?  By acclaim, the very first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, is a man who changed the course of history for the better with the Emancipation Proclamation.  Freeing the slaves defined the Republican Party as the progressive party of its time.  Slowly that begins to change.  Its death throes marked the second great Republican President; Theodore Roosevelt, who took on the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age, fractured the Republican Party, but heralded much needed reform.  Next up, Dwight Eisenhower.  He had the vision to tamp down the size of the Pentagon so its budget did not swallow our domestic economy and took the post war ball from Roosevelt/Truman and built the interstate highway system.  It was one of those great economic multipliers whose power is hard to overestimate.  These roads were arteries of commerce.  They provided local, state, and national mobility for the nation’s work force.  They opened up under served markets.  They expanded the countries development.  This monumental endeavor of building infrastructure has paid for itself many times over.  Republicans would like to add Reagan to that very short list.  I think the crumbling Soviet Empire had more impact than the Gipper.  History doesn’t give points for being in the right place at the right time.  When Reagan took office bread lines had been long for 15 years and the population’s patience was wearing thin with even more austerity and death from the Soviets misadventures in Afghanistan.  Soviet youth were having a love affair with stylish western clothing.  The people of the Soviet Empire were chaffing under the oppression and austerity to feed the military in the Cold War.  Reagan proposed “Star Wars” driving our nation deeply in debt while we were battling the most protracted cycle of inflation our economy had ever experienced.  Paul Volker, Reagan’s Fed Chairman eventually tamed that beast but it was on the backs of consumers with sky high interest rates.  Reagan and Gorbachev’s talks failed.  When Gorbachev went home empty handed, the cracks in the Empire turned into a full collapse.  How much credit does Reagan deserve for the demise of the Soviet Empire and ending the Cold War, driving us deeply in debt, then walking away to leave it to Obama to find and negotiate and secure and ship all the loose nukes from the U.S.S.R.?  NOT VERY GOD DAMNED MUCH.  These loose nukes were the weapons Al Qaeda sought.  Thank you President Reagan for leaving one in the chamber, pointed at my head, for the folks you called “the equivalent of America’s Founding Fathers.”  You might recall the GOP kept Clinton sort of busy impeaching him, W was either too stupid, didn’t give a shit, and if he did, he had such horrible international relations; he would never have gained the cooperation of the old Republics.  Was President Reagan a nice man?  By many accounts he was.  Niceness is no measure of a great President.  How does today’s Republican Party honor the greatest of its members?  They honor Lincoln through voter suppression.  They honor Lincoln by re-segregating schools.  They honor Lincoln by re-introducing Jim Crow Laws.  They honor Teddy Roosevelt by pushing for legislative changes to alter the chemical composition of the air we breathe and the water we drink.  They honor Teddy Roosevelt by creating a fable that free market capitalism works by “trickling down”, NOT MARKET DEMAND, therefore all wealth must be concentrated at the top or the economy will collapse.  Gilded Age II.  Teddy Roosevelt was unceremoniously betrayed by the Republican Party for his service to the American people.  The second time he ran he had to form his own political party, the Bull Moose Party.  The GOP honors Dwight Eisenhower by moving U.S. companies to China.  They honor Eisenhower by refusing to invest a nickel in repairing a one pot hole or fix one rivet on the bridges of our interstates.  The Republican Party can’t afford to invest in America.  They believe America is a bad bet.  They believe service to our country in the Armed Forces is somebody else’s job but war profiteering is a family business.  What else does the Republican Party believe?  They believe honesty is for suckers, discipline is for naughty people, and kindness is a sign of weakness.  As Paul Ryan articulated the GOP belief system that life begins at rape and the bitches better not accuse us of anything The OldSheepHerder became disturbed by the shit eating grin on Paul Ryan’s psychopathic countenance.  He grinned as Biden related how people struggled financially.  He grinned as Biden related how people struggled without health care.  He grinned about cutting $300 million from the State Department even though the security cuts cost the Libyan Ambassador his life.  He grinned that poor people a higher tax rate than wealthy people even though he persistently lies about this publicly in the campaign.  It had to be over 30 years ago and there were rumors of rampant corruption on the Fair board judges.  I had this in-bred, castrated, toothless ram I entered in the Fair.  Its hindquarters were caked in manure and its ears were so full of ticks its mouth was drawn back in that phony Paul Ryan grin.  I left a $5 dollar bill under each of the judge’s folder with my card clipped to it.  I won Grand Champion that year.  The Fair Board cleaned house on the judges taking bribes.  Maybe Ryan can’t help that inappropriate grin on his face.  It could be that the Koch brothers have packed so much money up Ryan’s ass, he has to work to keep toned glutes on the PX90 or it will come blasting out like a slot machine pay off.  But I’m wandering all over the pasture when I’m trying to express just what it is Republicans believe.  They often profess Christianity but in fact ignore the teachings in the New Testament.  They claim to be Capitalists but in fact are top down Socialists, who receive more welfare in income tax breaks and corporate subsidies than the rest of the population many times over.  Free trade Republicans believe that means moving American companies overseas then sheltering their profits in foreign banks while receiving tax breaks to do so.  Free for somebody.  They profess family values then try to water down the definition of rape, destroy aid for the poor and elderly in favor of more for the rich, and spurning veteran’s needs after starting wars and beating war drums yet.  You see, Republicans believe in absolute destruction.  They value nothing.  If you are still voting “R” you missed more than one therapy appointment!!!                

MITT HEADED FOR A SHEARING AT THE DEBATE

Wherever you go in the pasture these days you hear the pious Republicans voicing their concern that the United States not end up in the same financial purgatory as Greece because of their “European” decision making.  They claim the only thing that can save us from the ballooning debt crisis is to follow their prescription of severe austerity.  Further cut backs in education, teachers, public employees, infrastructure repairs and replacement, Medicare and Medicaid are claimed to bring order to our fiscal balance sheet.  This fiscally pious message from folks that give away crippling tax breaks to corporations and wealthy individuals loses all credibility as it’s punctuated with even larger tax breaks for the wealthy and more tax breaks for wealthy corporations.  While The Old SheepHerder has never been to Europe, on occasion, I find newspapers now and then that have blown in across the pasture.  It seems that Europe is in a much deeper recession than the United States.  All across Europe they have followed a severe austerity plan to cope with the financial crisis inflicted on the world by the investor class in 2008.  The only discernible differences between the Eurozone and U.S. economies are the much maligned stimulus and the much maligned Detroit bailout.  This is a comparison on the viability of trickle-down economics vs. trickle-up economics.  All across Europe, obscene tax breaks were maintained for the wealthy yet nothing trickled down.  The severe austerity facilitated the continued tax breaks and still no recovery relative to the United States where some investment was made in the middle class.  The results of this investment are undeniable.  Your guess is as good as mine why these inbred aristocrats who need to wear top hats in order to conceal their pointy heads, want to follow a failed European economic model.  A lot has to do with club membership.  In the “Good Old Days” rich plutocrats could get their kids into the best schools with the best degrees for the best jobs with no competition.  We have a President today that made it into those hallowed educational institutions with hard work and talent and as the benefactor of years of civil rights struggles.  Did I mention that he is darker than your average President?  Since his election the cock roaches of blatant racism have over run all political dialogue in the House and Senate.  On the day President Obama was inaugurated, Republican leadership met and planned a slanderous, obstructive, and uncooperative relationship with the incoming President.  The Republicans became the party of sedition.  No consideration of our National Security, our Financial Well Being, our civil contentment, our Nation’s Health or the well-being of our Nation’s children was sobering enough for the Extremist GOP legislators to put their country first.  After the ACA was passed, the GOP propaganda of “Death Panels” was voted as lie of the year by Politico.  Since they led us into war in Iraq, Republican legislators were asked by Harry Reid to write the Veterans Jobs Bill so they could support it.  They wrote it but did not support it.  This will be their shameful legacy.  Is it any wonder the GOP wants wholesale revision of the history books according to their own peculiar perspective?  The Old SheepHerder has to give the Republicans credit.  They recognize they are unworthy and incapable of winning a fair election early on.  In order to address this minor problem they’ve created a whipping boy called voter fraud.  I know it’s kind of shocking at first because voter fraud and Republican go together like Monday night and football.  They’re not giving up voter fraud; they’re raising it to new heights.  Republicans are claiming that voter fraud is rampant in Democratic districts in swing states controlled by GOP legislatures.  It seems The Constitution has been misread all these years and voting isn’t a right after all, it’s a “privilege.”  The way to be granted the voting privilege is to follow a number of new Republican rules.  Following the Republican rules is costly, but if you don’t, you don’t get to vote.  What could be fairer?  Republicans telling millions of Democrats they are not allowed to vote.  The entitled party wants its entitled candidate in office in the worst way.  With the election a little more than a month away and the debates about to begin just what do we know about The Entitled Detroit Dandy?   He is a keen businessman who has had overwhelming “Citizens United” money showered on him by numerous conservative millionaires and billionaires yet his campaign is eleven million dollars in debt.  The whole narrative of Mitt Romney as a businessman doesn’t pass the smell test. In Romney you get a businessman who started Bain Capital through meeting with representatives of South American Death Squads, their way to crush political opposition. He secured several million dollars from them and started Bain Capital. Bain bought companies, borrowed massive amounts of cash against them, then paid out Bain managers obscene management fees, then on the verge of bankruptcy, gutted the retirement systems of these companies, fired the employees, and either went into bankruptcy or sold the company. This isn't an indicator of success; it's an indicator of entitlement.  When running for Governor of Massachusetts he was caught lying about his residency on his tax returns. He chose extremist, Paul Ryan as his running mate and after becoming exasperated for accounting for Ryan’s legislative agenda and weakly asserting a secret Romney agenda, is now privately referred to as “The Stench” by Rep. Ryan.  Paul Ryan even acknowledged that the entire Romney economic plan is based on trickle-down economics, a most broadly and deeply disproven economic hocus-pocus.  Paul Ryan has no standing to speak of financial conservatism. As a Representative he voted for two unfunded wars, the unfunded Medicare drug benefit expansion, and the Bush tax cuts which were the expenditures in legislation which led to the financial crisis we find ourselves in. Would you hire a crack addict as your personal fitness trainer?  Ryan was tasked with solidifying support for Romney in Iowa.  After spewing his lies about Medicare, Iowa is in Obama’s camp.  It seems Obama couldn’t have had a better operative to convince “undecided” to vote Democrat than Paul Ryan.  Paul Ryan epitomizes what is broken in Washington. He publicly professes his Christian faith to low information Tea Party voters but gains his inspiration from a renowned Atheist Ayn Rand. His heavy handed assaults on Social Security and Medicare he describes with a straight face as saving those programs. When one understands the Rand doctrine of contempt for dependence and support for the poor you understand Paul Ryan. There is no such restriction in Rand doctrine from Plutocrats to steal the wealth of their nation. In fact, it is expected that they should. If they don't, they are weak and don't deserve to keep their wealth. Ryan's budget has been condemned by the Catholic Church for its harsh treatment of the poor in order to line the pockets of plutocrats with yet more money. When Ryan is trying to convince voters he is working in their interests he cites his devotion to the Catholic Church.  When he is publicly rebuked by the Church for following the teachings of Ayn Rand and harsh treatment of poor people HE JUST BLOWS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OFF.  Mitt Romney has a lower approval rating than George Bush.  He had bags of cash to stomp out his competition.  Is this the only talent Romney has?  Possessing large volumes of cash?   The leadership challenges of President are far more complex than Romney is capable meeting.  The Romney/Ryan ticket doesn’t even attempt to use facts in their campaign.  It’s all about fear and hate.  They are simply Cheerleaders for hatred and fear calling themselves Christians.  How inspirational for young people!  Our government is not working.  Republicans made that their objective and they achieved it.  Now they are campaigning on it.  Of course their narrative is skillfully nuanced with lies.  Fair taxation is critical to achieve.  Republicans boast all the time that wealthy people pay 40% of the taxes.  That’s a remarkable number unless you understand that wealthy people take home 90% of America’s paycheck.  If you went out for coffee with a plutocrat at the local café and all you could afford was coffee for a $1.00 but your buddy runs the tab up to $10.00 and only leaves $4.00 every day, how sustainable would that be?  To add insult to injury your former new best friend would brag that they always contributed 40% towards the tab.  Should they be getting applause when they have received 90% of the goodies on the tab?  The Republican Party is no longer a National Party.  It is a patchwork of Civil War Dead Enders, oligarchs, and ignoramuses.  The interests of the Plantation, the Gilded Age, and Thing One and Thing Two are not germane to the American body politic.  As in 2008 America faces a mountain of challenges.  Selfish wealthy people practically own and write this nation’s tax code.  Legislators are put in office by wealthy individuals and corporations who then write tax law designed exclusively to benefit the wealthy.  The Old SheepHerder about choked on his chewing tobacco when he heard that the Romney's received a $77,000 tax write off for their dressage horse. When the public was taken aback by this plutocratic abuse, the Romney campaign pushed back with “Ann has MS and that horse is therapeutic for her!”  The horse tax write off is categorized as a business expense on their taxes.  Does this speak to Mitt’s passion for his wife or am I just a hopeless romantic?  I wouldn’t wish MS or any other debilitating disease or physical condition on anyone.  Right now millions of Americans have debilitating diseases and are working and paying America’s bills as well as paying for Ann Romney’s dressage horse despite the fact that she can well afford it without the help of taxpayers.  God help those Americans who collapse from chronic disease after paying 25% and more income tax their entire working career.  The only thing these people have done is keep America moving, building America, and paying America’s bills.  Republicans attacked the Affordable Care Act with unprecedented levels of slander and lies.  How dare Americans look out for each other!  How dare America cap Insurers percentage of profit!  How dare Americans prohibit Insurers from excluding liability of treatment for the very sick!  Chronic disease is the leading cause of bankruptcy.  Republicans made a historically scurrilous attack as American’s attempted to better follow the teaching that we are our brother’s keeper. Profits before people has always been the business model of conservative governance.   With the money not paid in taxes, these types of manipulative people use money stolen from the tax code to convince poorly educated people that they are just like them in critical elections like these. Bringing this demographic up to a comparable tax rate of working Americans is a first step in addressing budget problems.  Our nation is stronger, safer, and greener if we invest in regional alternative energy co-ops sourcing our energy with wind, solar and natural gas instead of multinational oil companies that milk us for tax subsidies then gouge us on cost.  Once these co-op entities are established, America could offer amnesty to foreign held money in lieu of 15 year investment in the co-ops to help capitalize them initially.  This is a jobs program, an energy program, a manufacturing program, and a banking reform program.  Historically, the period of time the Republicans were completely out of power the longest was called “The Great Prosperity.”  Was this because of all the Socialism and taxes that were inflicted on our nation?  How do failed economic policies result in the longest sustained period of economic growth our country has ever seen?  Compound this question with an explosive growth in Union membership.  People with good paying jobs can make long term financial plans and purchases.  The shelves always need restocking.  That means people keep working.  Wealthy people make money.  The tax base is expanded optimally.  With coherent legislative planning infrastructure projects can be methodically attended to.  Don’t believe Republicans dire pronouncements that America’s best days are gone.  Addition is best accomplished through subtraction when it comes to obstructionist Republicans.  It seems as though the Republicans haven’t been telling the truth again.   It simply isn’t enough to win this election and the majority in both Houses.  We have to win the next election and the one after that and so on.  The Republican Party needs to be relegated to organizing militias in the back country and swamps.  Clearly that is their comfort zone and the level of leadership they are capable of dealing with, drunken target practice.  America has watched as a cancerous pay to play mentality has consumed Washington.  Is that how America should work?  Our country is set up for FAIR representation not minority rule.  American’s who are paying their taxes and are paying America’s bills are constantly under siege from Republicans for Union membership, for being a woman, for being an ethnic minority, for being Gay, for being a Senior Citizen, and for not conforming religiously.  NONE OF THESE STATUSES ARE CONSTUTIONALLY PROHIBITED CONDITIONS FOR CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.  Republicans consistently express contempt for government.  It is time voters returned the favor to these destructive extremists. 

HISTORY REVISION AND THE FISCAL TOLL OF AMERICAN EXTREMISM

A not too distant glance back in world history finds the Nazi movement formulating mythologies which square with their commonly held bigotry.  They would call this newly “rediscovered” propaganda Arian history, which, not too surprisingly, justified their superiority over everyone.  Through this propaganda and their ruthlessness, the Nazis enforced their pretend Arian history into their nation’s conciseness, seized power, conceived of the Holocaust, and started the Second World War in Europe.  They did this to expedite Germany’s rise from the ashes from the First World War, which had left them in complete economic ruin.  The conquering of Europe and killing all the Jews didn’t have the desired economic outcome.  Their mindless ideology trumped their own economic interests.  Lesson learned.  Today Germany is a moderate Social Democratic nation and a strong ally.  I believe fascism is beginning to take root in the United States.  The clowns that support the tea party like Mitch McConnell say “Democracy just doesn’t work.”  Tea Party pin up boy, Eric Cantor gives speeches to oil derivatives traders assuring them his party will do everything in his power to reverse Dodd Frank’s legislation.  These speculators inflate gas by as much as forty cents per gallon.  They are taxed on this ill-gotten gain at fifteen percent annually while their secretaries pay thirty percent.  They are the MASTER RACE OF JOB CREATORS!  Actually, they create nothing.  Their “business” is just a big rigged casino game on Wall Street where consumers always lose.  Dodd Frank’s was set up to change that.  The bombastic right wing media outlets pounds out a coordinated drumbeat of lies.  They seize upon others credit.  They excuse themselves from all responsibility.  They can embrace Reagan as a hero because Clinton’s tax policies paid for Reagan’s deficits.  They’re a little torn over the legacy of the last Bush.  He did all the things a good Extremist president would do but the bottom line sure looked crappy when he left office.  FOX news and Limbaugh have been working hard to convince people of an alternate history.  Obama actually disclosed the costs of the wars to the public and placed those costs on the books.  Were we really happier and safer when George, Dick, and Rummy were lying to us?  The Republican Party ceased to exist.  While the name is still the same, for well over a decade they have been an Extremist movement.  Nationally, their political strategy is to eliminate all social safety net programs for seniors, children and working people.  Extremists fight with their political life to enrich large corporations and benefit the wealthy from general tax revenue.  Everything else is off the table.  Then they slander, slander, slander.  I guess they think it’s the Christian thing to do.  Our Nation is in a lingering economic crisis.  We cannot afford extremists in our national, state, or local government.  Republicans hate government.  Today Extremists must believe we can build a strong economy by governing other people’s sex organs, mistreating workers, pushing legacy costs to our future generations, and having working people subsidize jets for corporate bigwigs and  oil companies.  The Old Sheep Herder isn’t sure what that has to do with economics, but a lot of people didn’t get the connection with Iraq and the attacks of September 11.  The G.O.P.’s irresponsible and heavy handed policies have set a political tone akin to the Civil War.  Their most ardent followers still don’t believe the President was born in this country.  They promised you the good old days and they really delivered.  In spite of our growing population, race relations had shown slow and steady improvement for many years.  The Bush era ended that.  Overt Birther racism poisons all G.O.P. dialog and legislation.  In spite of the G.O.P.’s rigorous defense of Bush Twos legacy, they are unwilling to take responsibility for the fiscal legacy.  History will show it was neither fiscally nor strategically responsible for Bush to go into Iraq.  He destroyed a geo-political checkmate between Iraq and Iran.  That leaves us in a position where we have to stabilize Iraq.  In the meantime Iran is free from the threat of Saddam and can pursue its nuclear program.  Oh well, at least Bush’s oil field company holding buddies were assured American troops paid for by American taxpayers were protecting their interests in Central Asia. Domestically, Bush and the Extremists stripped away financial regulation and oversight setting loose a torrent of greedy and corrupt housing transactions ending in the Bush crash of 2008.  Its Bush’s legacy that he cast aside intense precautions that Al Queda was an extreme threat to our national security.   That precaution was offered by the Clinton administration’s National Security Team to Bush’s Transition Team before he was sworn in.  Its Bush’s legacy for ignoring his National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, passing on the word that Al Queada plans to use planes to attack the United States.  Its Bush’s legacy for demoting Richard Clarke for insisting on bringing this to Bush’s attention personally.  Bush responded “I’m not interested in swatting at flies.”  Its Bush’s legacy to sit dumbfounded in front of a classroom of children as he formulated a historically foolish response to this act of terrorism.  Our Air Force, Military, Marines, Special Ops and Intelligence made short work of the Taliban and had Bin Laden trapped in Tori Bora.  George Bush had other work for our military.  That Bin Laden thing would just have to wait.  His constituents, the oil companies were nervous that their assets would be seized by terrorists.  George Bush headed off in the opposite direction of the battle.  Knowing that General Lee shot men in the back for acting like this, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld told the big lie about weapons of mass destruction.  They are the Gas and Oil Party.  Bush’s legacy is that his administration identified CIA agent Valerie Plame when she presented information that completely contradicted their lies to the public for going to war in Iraq.  Do you think as commander in chief, that the Bush administration alienated the CIA by this sordid political dirty trick?  Did that dirty trick compromise American security?  Did it slow down our hunt for Bin Laden?  Is the CIA’s job to gather intelligence or fabricate political lies?  Bush’s legacy was surrounding himself with intellectually bankrupt, corporately controlled, political partisans who brought nothing to the table to compensate for his innumerable shortcomings.  Bush’s legacy is that he helped Bin Laden achieve his objective on his holy war on America.  Bin Laden wanted to bankrupt us.   Bush put a war of choice on the national credit card.  He tore down the last vestiges of regulation and oversight.  He overburdened Medicare with an unfunded drug benefit to put that program in crisis status.  He gave huge tax breaks to the wealthy.  Those tax breaks for the wealthy have mostly ended up out of our economy and in investments overseas.  Contrary to all his cowboy rhetoric, Bush was an ideal partner for Bin Laden’s holy war on America.  Al Queda might be on life support, but the Tea Party which supported Bush and revises history so the amnesiac will think of him favorabl,y needs putting in its place.  Bush’s legacy was saying that in 2002, Bin Laden wasn’t even a priority because he was out of Afghanistan and not in a command position anymore.  He closed the CIA unit dedicated to his search in 2005.  In 2005 Bin Laden started building his quaint little villa in Pakistan.  Bush’s legacy is while claiming to be a small government Republican, he established and expanded multiple government agencies in order to impress the importance of future threats through his thick skull and into his dull brain.  The legacy to taxpayers is The Department of Homeland Security among others.  They have about 850,000 employees.  Many of them focus on mass mailings to employers having employees fill out forms with driver’s license numbers and birthday.   Most importantly the key questions,; are you a member of a sleeper cell?...y/n…non-member of sleeper cell?..y/n.  When these are all filled out and mailed back and boxed up, maybe we could drop them on a real Al Queda camp in Yemen.  Bush’s legacy is that he admits to having only one regret during his Presidency.  He thinks he mishandled his initiative to privatize Social Security.  Guess what would have happened to a privatized Social Security in the 2008 financial crash.  At least Wall Street would have had fun gambling with it until the three lemons turned up.  Since his election, Obama has begun the massive redeployment of troops to Afghanistan to finish the mission George Bush deserted. After 800 days in office he ordered Navy Seal Team Six to go in and execute the most daring military mission since our initial pursuit of Al Quaeda.   While it didn’t go flawlessly (the loss of one helicopter) it was a smashing success. George Bush had almost 2700 days to accomplish or coordinate a similar mission. It wasn’t important for the oil companies so he didn’t do it. With the real mission accomplished, not a photo opportunity on an air craft carrier, the GOP history revisionists are on overtime saying, “Give credit to Bush!”  History will give Bush his due legacy.  Bush and his defenders pout in their infamy, too ideologically rigid to realize they are carrying on Bin Laden’s legacy of destroying our economy through class warfare.  The Tea Party chafe at the handful of regulations passed over their perpetually filibustering House and Senate members during Obama’s first two years.  The Republicans long for the good old days of wars off the books and Wall Street valuing your garden shed at a million dollars.  Americans do not want class warfare.  Americans want shared sacrifice and innovation to get us out of this very deep ditch we are in.  The Tea Party is opposed to what the American voter wants.