Showing posts with label boehner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boehner. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
The Wrong Side Absolutely Must Not Win
One of my friends (a real one, not a FB one) saw an article on Reason.com and suggested that I read it. In today's political climate, which is at turns divisive, extremist, absolute and contrarian, the author of this article channels Jonathan Swift to warn us about something really important. The article is called The Wrong Side Absolutely Must Not Win . I'm not going to post the text of the entire article here, because I'm hoping that after November 2, nobody will need to read it again. But it's really important, right now.
Friday, August 3, 2012
"Never had a real job" - Karma, round two
Loose-cannon Democrats have not cornered the stupidity market in this election year. Republicans are now taking their turn in the arena.
Remember back in April, when Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen said (in an interview on CNN) that Ann Romney had "never worked a day in her life," and then Rosen got buried in the blowback, and abandoned by her fellow Democrats?
Well now, Republican House Speaker John Boehner said (in an interview on Fox News, yesterday) that Barack Obama has "never even had a real job, for [God's] sake."
Huh. According to celebritynetworth.com, Barack Obama is worth $11.8 million. He didn't inherit that money from his father. According to his résumé, he worked hard for at least part of that money. I think that working hard for your money is what constitutes a "real job," don't you?
I guess it depends on how you define a "real job." If Speaker Boehner means that Obama never had to punch a time clock, then he may have a point. (Then again, he may not. Maybe Obama worked at McDonald's when he was a teen. Surely, that would qualify as a "real job.")
What's makes Boehner's statement really stupid is that, only a few sentences earlier, he said "Sometimes I have to catch my breath and slow down because the rhetoric in this campaign is just so over the top."
Watch for the blowback.
Remember back in April, when Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen said (in an interview on CNN) that Ann Romney had "never worked a day in her life," and then Rosen got buried in the blowback, and abandoned by her fellow Democrats?
Well now, Republican House Speaker John Boehner said (in an interview on Fox News, yesterday) that Barack Obama has "never even had a real job, for [God's] sake."
Huh. According to celebritynetworth.com, Barack Obama is worth $11.8 million. He didn't inherit that money from his father. According to his résumé, he worked hard for at least part of that money. I think that working hard for your money is what constitutes a "real job," don't you?
I guess it depends on how you define a "real job." If Speaker Boehner means that Obama never had to punch a time clock, then he may have a point. (Then again, he may not. Maybe Obama worked at McDonald's when he was a teen. Surely, that would qualify as a "real job.")
What's makes Boehner's statement really stupid is that, only a few sentences earlier, he said "Sometimes I have to catch my breath and slow down because the rhetoric in this campaign is just so over the top."
Watch for the blowback.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Contempt of Congress
The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Boehner, is moving ahead with plans to charge U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder with "contempt of Congress", for his refusal to cooperate in the Congressional investigation into the horribly mismanaged, criminally botched, gun-running program the Justice Department was running on the Mexican border.
That's what the papers are reporting.
But hey, if you want to charge someone with "contempt of Congress," then you're going to have to charge me too. The archives of Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters show just how much contempt I have for the currently seated Congress of the United States.
In fact, if the honorable Speaker is going to charge me and AG Holder with contempt, he might have to charge 240 million other Americans with the same offense. According to the latest polls, between 75 and 79 of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job right now, and it would be fair to say that most, if not all, of those 75 to 79 percent have nothing but contempt for today's U.S. Congress.
Here is a measure of our contempt:
Dear Senators and Representatives: have you stopped being idiots yet? How's that budget coming? How about that tax code rewrite? Social Security reform? Have you stopped messing with our schools? Have you stopped catering to the banks, the insurance firms and the other too-big-to-fail companies that do more favors for you than we, the average Americans, can do for you?
Are you still blindly voting the party line? Are you still spending money that isn't yours to spend? Are you still voting to give to the military, things that the military has said they don't want, and don't need? Are you still filling the pork barrel for your state, for your constituency, even to the point of making "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" deals with your colleagues who have their own pork barrels to fill?
Have you rewritten things so that your families and fortunes are subject to the same challenges and difficulties as the rest of America, or are you and yours still exempt from so many of the rules and regulations the rest of us have to live under?
Are you still quietly voting yourselves pay raises or other emoluments that the rest of us cannot get? Especially those of us who are still without a job, even though we voted to send you to Washington?
Do you feel even the slightest twinge of guilt after reading this, or do you instead feel as much contempt for the American people as they feel for you?
That's what the papers are reporting.
But hey, if you want to charge someone with "contempt of Congress," then you're going to have to charge me too. The archives of Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters show just how much contempt I have for the currently seated Congress of the United States.
In fact, if the honorable Speaker is going to charge me and AG Holder with contempt, he might have to charge 240 million other Americans with the same offense. According to the latest polls, between 75 and 79 of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job right now, and it would be fair to say that most, if not all, of those 75 to 79 percent have nothing but contempt for today's U.S. Congress.
Here is a measure of our contempt:
Dear Senators and Representatives: have you stopped being idiots yet? How's that budget coming? How about that tax code rewrite? Social Security reform? Have you stopped messing with our schools? Have you stopped catering to the banks, the insurance firms and the other too-big-to-fail companies that do more favors for you than we, the average Americans, can do for you?
Are you still blindly voting the party line? Are you still spending money that isn't yours to spend? Are you still voting to give to the military, things that the military has said they don't want, and don't need? Are you still filling the pork barrel for your state, for your constituency, even to the point of making "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" deals with your colleagues who have their own pork barrels to fill?
Have you rewritten things so that your families and fortunes are subject to the same challenges and difficulties as the rest of America, or are you and yours still exempt from so many of the rules and regulations the rest of us have to live under?
Are you still quietly voting yourselves pay raises or other emoluments that the rest of us cannot get? Especially those of us who are still without a job, even though we voted to send you to Washington?
Do you feel even the slightest twinge of guilt after reading this, or do you instead feel as much contempt for the American people as they feel for you?
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