Don’t Do It Texas!

I usually ignore fringe political candidates because they don’t generally get elected. Texas has more than its share of far- right politicians, and we now have one at the state/national level in Ted Cruz. I hope we don’t double down by electing David Barton to unseat Senator John Coryn. I’m certainly not a fan of John Cornyn, but if it’s a choice between him and David Barton; I’ll campaign for John Cornyn.



David Barton is a frequent guest on Glenn Beck’s The Blaze show; that alone should tell you something. Mr. Barton says he is a Christian historian but is known to make things up. This is how he ties abortion to climate change. For some reason, God spends an awful lot of time worrying about Republican politics.

“1. America voted in politicians who support abortion rights.
2. In so doing, we “opened the door to the curse,” which includes floods, tornadoes, murder and pedophilia.
Back in the days of early America, Barton explained, if crazy weather was happening, the first thing leaders would do is “call for a national day of repentance, humiliation, fasting and prayer … and today we’re saying, ‘Oh no, it’s global warming.’”
In reality, he said, “We opened a door that lost God’s protection over our environment and that’s our choice.”

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/04/potential_senate_candidate_david_barton_explains_how_abortion_caused_climate_change/

Senator John Cornyn seat won’t be up for another year but it’s better to nip it at the bud.

I’ll be watching the Alabama’s congressional race where an establishment
Republican governor is getting challenged by a Tea Party/birther (whose hero is Ted Cruz) named Dean Young. It’ll be a test as to whether ideology will trump common sense. The other test will be in Virginia where the Democrat will likely win.

I used to dismiss all the nonsense but Colorado will have a secession initiative on the ballot tonight.

Our newspaper ran an editorial condemning David Dewhurst for his talk about impeaching President Obama, but I wish they would have included some other Texas legislators for doing the same such as our own Blake Farenthold.

Welcome to the Rest of the Year

This morning’s CNN poll revealed that 54% of Americans say “it’s bad for the country that the GOP controls the House of Representatives, "Sixty-three percent of all Americans think that Boehner should be replaced as Speaker of the House, a view shared by roughly half of all Republicans." The Tea Party ignores those numbers as liberal media propaganda because the real Americans reside in Texas and the rest of the southern states.  Ted Cruz got a hero’s welcome at an event in San Antonio yesterday, and he can expect the same when he visits Iowa Friday.

Yesterday, an agitated Marco Rubio used little revisionist history to explain to Chris Wallace why he voted to keep the government closed and default on our debts.  He used the standard GOP line of today, “the president and Harry Reid shut down the government.”  I’ve actually heard republican legislators say how bad it was to vote for default while the records show that they voted for default.  We’re supposed to learn the lessons and move on to regular order but if one party has not learned their lesson; history is bound to be repeated.

Today’s two major themes of “Morning Joe” was the failure of the HealthCare.com roll out and the internal rifts between the two factions of the Republican Party.

The House of Representatives is convening an investigation into the failures of the healthcare website, as if they had a genuine concern of its success.  Fair enough, it should be investigated and Kathleen Sebelius should testify, although she says she is too busy right now.  Chris Wallace pointed out three times that she is not too busy to attend a Boston gala.  The number one question will be “how many have signed up?” As soon as that anticipated low number is revealed, fox news and other media outlets will feature that as a “breaking news” segment.

Tea Party America is separate from the rest of United States, and they are proud of it.  Ted Cruz portrays himself as speaking for America, although he’s not well-liked by non -tea party folks. Today’s tea parties are really just libertarians who infiltrated the established GOP and have now decided that they want to rule it.  The old guard used to have all the money from the RNC and rich donors, and they would use it to support the next in line.  That changed after the Citizens United ruling which allowed unlimited secret contributions.  The Tea Party now has a money source of their own (Koch Bros), and they are the grassroots folks who lick the stamps, do the mailing calling, and the other little things the country club Republicans won’t.  Fox News and talk radio allows them to spread their message, and that’s why you won’t find mainstream Republicans bad mouthing Rush Limbaugh and others of his ilk. This is nothing new because libertarians tried to take over the GOP in 1964; Goldwater lost badly, and they were put out to pasture. The mainstream GOP will eventually win over the Tea Party, but they might lose congressional seats and the 2016 presidential election in doing what needs to be done. The Tea Party are right wing purist who really believe in tiny government (although they are recipients of government funding) hardly any taxes and very little regulations. They have a hard time winning state wide elections because they have to cater to people who believe in conspiracy theories and have a hate for our current president.

The right is doing all it can to change the talk of the shutdown because they want the subject to the Obamacare rollout, the debt and Benghazi.

 

This Time,It’s Different

It’s true. President Obama is roaming the country singing the same song, but he’s hoping that a few Republicans will hear a verse they like, such as corporate tax cuts. The title of the song might as well be “This time ,it’s different” because the obstructionist party is not listening.

I think Chris Haynes is right, progressives are glad that the GOP is not taking the president’s deal. The last time we passed legislation to give corporations a tax break on their foreign profits,they used the money to buy back their stock and cut 20,000 jobs to boot. A prominent tax attorney, Clay Johnson, said that the new low tax rate would be the new highest tax rate the corporations will ever pay. The corporate tax rate is 35% but the average effective rate they pay, comes out to 12.5%. A car dealer is not going to hire a new salesperson because they got a tax cut. I’m not against a corporate tax rate cut but I would put it under recapture rules to ensure that corporations hired a certain amount of employees at a livable wage with benefits.

I’m sure there’s a word or term for educated people who make ignorant statements but I can’t think of one right now. Senator Mike Lee echoed the Obamacare sentiments of his colleagues ,Ted Cruz,Rand Paul and Marco Rubio when he said “Defund it, or own it. If you fund it, you're for it."  He might as well have said that for Social Security or Medicare because the Affordable Care Act is the law and is now considered an entitlement. Congress cannot defund major portions of the law without a 2/3 majority and a president’s signature. Those individuals can shut down the government but it won’t make them anymore principled;it just makes them stupid and badly uninformed. It’s not even a good bluff.

It turned my stomach to hear that Halliburton got away with a $200,00 fine for admitting to destroying evidence in the BP spill fiasco, but  the culprit didn’t go to jail. I’m not surprised because the Dallas fed is now reporting that 2008 financial crisis cost was $14 trillion, and not one CEO has been perp walked.

I just can’t seem to get away from the injustice that’s being displayed every day. Have you tried to watch a major-league  baseball game lately? ESPN devoted several innings on three separate games talking about Alex Rodriquez and his possible lifetime ban for using performance-enhancement  drugs. Major League baseball knows of at least 100 ball players who they suspect, but they will only ban eight players or so, within the next two weeks. Want to clean up baseball? Ban all 100 for 50 games or more and start off fresh.

Another Tea Party Summer?

Congress is taking another crack at passing immigration reform, but it’s 2007 all over again. It doesn’t matter how it’s packaged or how much data there is that proves that it’s to our economic benefit to pass a comprehensive immigration bill because the right wing of the GOP considers anything less than 100% attrition as amnesty. The right-wing does not want to address the 11 million undocumented people residing in our country other than to say “citizenship …never” and “let’s just secure the border.” There is language in the bill that calls for 90% of the southern border crossing being secured but there are people here  illegally from countries other than Mexico.

It’s pretty funny watching Senator Rubio trying to satisfy both sides of the issue while trying to maintain his credibility. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee thinks that he has found the answer. He upped the ransom that he will pay to get a few more Republican votes. His amendment will now include 700 miles of additional fencing, and he doubles the amount of the border patrol from 21,000 to 42,000. Remember we’re still in sequester mode but now he wants to hire more federal workers and spend millions more to extend the fence, even though the illegal border crossings are at net zero. All these sweeteners are just to pass a bill in the senate which doesn’t stand a chance in the other body unless Speaker Boehner relies on 100%  yes votes from the Democrats once again.

The Democrats are signing on to just about everything that appeases Republicans because they think they will outsmart their opponents in the long run. Even Michelle Bachmann understands the Democrats’ strategy. If the Senate passes a bipartisan comprehensive bill that has 70 votes in the affirmative, it will put the speaker on even more shaky grounds than he is in now. If by some miracle, the GOP controlled house passes their version of an immigration bill, it then has to go before a committee, so both versions can be merged. Will speaker Boehner stick with the Tea Party and destroy any chance of the GOP ever winning a national election or will he go to Nancy Pelosi ( hat in hand) and ask her for all the Democrats votes when he can only produce 20 or so? John Boehner can kiss his speakership good-bye if he does the latter.

The Republican base’s pep rally issues are front and center awaiting the 2014 mid-term elections. Yesterday, the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Louie Gohmert, Steve King, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Michelle Bachmann held an all day rally on the White House lawn. I will never understand why people who have so much distain for government, run for office. Their complaints ranged from Benghazi, abortion, the IRS, Obamacare, illegal immigration reform, President Obama and government in general. Ted Cruz called for abolishing the IRS; Rand called for the same, but he also said that he would never send foreign aid to countries that persecuted Christians. Rand Paul is testing the presidential waters for his eventual 2016 run. The crowd images I saw I saw had about as many anti-Rubio signs and there were anti-Obama signs. The call was for small government for the safety net and more government for abortion, NSA and border enforcement. The Libertarian Republicans still have to convince their non- libertarian members that they have to be scared of big brother snooping. It shouldn’t be that hard, they’ll try to use the IRS and Obamacare as examples of big brother can’t be trusted to do anything right.

We are seeing record abortions bills passed in GOP controlled states and in the House of Representatives, but it’s not because there is an increasing amount of abortions, it is for political reasons. The states that are passing the unconstitutional bills don’t care about the costs; both politically and monetary because they want this issue front and center. The Pro-lifers want a Supreme Court challenge where they think having five conservative judges gives them an excellent chance of overturning Roe v Wade. In the meantime, GOP lawmakers are the beneficiaries of the Pro-lifers money and votes.

I’m finally at the point where it’s pretty obvious where the lines are drawn on the gun, Obamacare and immigration issue. The pro- gun people watch the evening news, read their paper and listen to their radio and come to the right conclusion that our country is getting more violent. They don’t trust law enforcement to be at the precise time and place to protect them. They want as much firepower and ammunition as they think is necessary to protect themselves in any situation.

A lot of people don’t have the slightest idea of what it takes to insure 31million more people, because they never spent the time and effort it takes to learn how the Affordable Care Act will affect them. Those who have company paid insurance or those on Medicare and VA will not see much difference. A lot of people fear that the government will take away benefits that their company gives them and redistribute them to the uninsured. There will never be convinced that we pay for the overuse of the emergency rooms with increase premiums rates. I could go on and on but that’s for another blog.

The immigration bill opposition is pretty easy to understand . We live in south Texas, so a lot of people here think that it’s a Mexican issue. If that’s a case, then it’s about food stamps, welfare, more crime and the overburdened of our hospitals and schools. Those people will tune you out if you present facts that contradict what they already presume to know. Citizenship, hell no; that just legally puts them on the public dole. Some people still believe Americans will pick those crops, and they can say they will pay higher prices to make it happen because they know they never will. The more browning of America is the underlying issue. If you need more proof, you won’t have to look no further than our redistricting maps. I have yet to hear a reasonable answer as what to do with the 11 million people who either came to this country illegally or overstayed their visas.

I believe that you have to be blunt because sugarcoating an issue just prolongs the solution. There’s a lot to “tell me what you really think.” Think about it; that’s why we have all the back and forth about a legal document being translated into Spanish.

Am I the only who is curious about the tease of two homes being raided yesterday? I didn’t see a follow up on the evening news or in my morning newspaper.

It doesn’t have to be a one-way street

Just as soon as soon as the rumor hit the airways that Jack Lew, Obama's chief of staff for the past year and budget director before that, will be nominated for treasury secretary, the Republicans charged that he was too liberal.  The Republicans think that the Senate's role of “ advise and consent” means they get to pick the nominee.  What does too liberal mean? Jack Lew was Bill Clinton's budget director when the president, and the Republican Congress balanced the last three budgets. John Boehner’s staff said that Jack Lew was relentless and condescending and wouldn't give an inch on entitlements, but the truth is that they were over matched by Jack Lew. Mr. Lew was not just going to give away the farm (entitlements) without a fight.  It's the  negotiating skills of  Jack Lew that they don’t like. Remember how the media made Vice President Joe Biden and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell  the heroes of the fiscal cliff deal. Joe Biden only got his marching orders after the White House was assured that Nancy Pelosi could get her Democrats to vote yes,Harry Reid do the same in the senate. After that every proposal Joe Biden made had to have  stamp of approval from Jack Lew.

It’s not just the just the conservatives who were smitten by the president's first five cabinet choices; the liberals were equally angry because his small group of confidants are all white men except for Valarie Jarrett. The president’s first-term  picks were pretty diverse, and he's not through choosing his cabinet.  Sometimes the person that you put in as an assistant will give them the necessary experience to be a future leader.

The gun-control  issue is heating up again, especially after Joe Biden unannounced that the president might use his executive authority to strengthen some gun laws that are on the books.  Matt Drudge immediately posted images of Adolf Hitler and Joe Stalin to equate executive orders with gun confiscation.  That's where we are; the extremists are trying to take over the issue. A local man, Jason Hoover, is making it “ either you're with me or against me” issue and our local Academy needs to get with the program and start displaying the guns in question, even if if they don’t have any.  I like that the  administration will forgo any comprehensive legislation and instead do it by piecemeal.  For example, a bill to ban high-capacity  ammo clips might be hard to vote against. 

It doesn't have to be a one- way street, but sometimes you have to use those tactics to show your opponent what it feels like. The freshman Tea Party legislators remind me of trying to get a Brahman bull to do something he doesn’t want to do. I  am not a rancher but as a young Highway Dept. employee I had the pleasure of riding with a part-time rancher. One day as we patrolling the highways, the old timer pulled over to watch some ranch hands as they were penning some cattle. I thought that was going to be boring, but he pointed out the bull, who was a long way from the pen, and assured me that was when the fun was going to start. I saw the ranch hand use the cattle prod on him making him move a little, and once they got him close to the pen one of the hands busted a two by four over his head, which got the bull’s attention and they were able to persuade him enough to get him inside the pen. It was still a struggle inside the pen, but they accomplished their mission.

No Facebook for me

Just about every time I get the itching to open up a Facebook account, I read a comment or two off our local online forum, breathe a sigh of relief and  assure myself that I made the right decision, especially since the local newspaper can’t control the content.  For example, a local arrest brought out the issues about the public housing, and the audacity of a tenant  playing on their Xbox in the middle of the afternoon. It's very common of an attitude that screams "you know people on public assistance are at our mercy and they should be treated that way. ." Every move they make should be scrutinized.   It took off from there -to someone being called a cyber stalker, creepy, and the other being unhinged.  If only that was the exception rather than the rule.

I would love to get back to commenting because I love to debate the issues,  but I draw the line when it comes to having a daily name- calling contest.  I would love to go in and correct the myth that going into Iraq was a bipartisan issue. The sole decision to go to Iraq always rests with the Commander in Chief and  besides less than 1/3 of the YES votes came from democrats.  There were only 374 legislators who voted YES to give the president the authority to use military force, but you would think on such an important decision; it should have been at least 450 yeses.  Only six senators had enough initiative to look at the contradicting evidence in the intelligence report that said  that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction.  After viewing the report they didn’t make a real effort to convince their colleagues.

The first myth that I would correct is that President Clinton caused the housing bubble.  Using that logic, the housing market is on the rise, should President Obama be given credit for that?  As I've said several times, the economy was booming and the president, treasury secretary, Congress, and Federal Chairman Alan Greenspan(conservative Republican) supported legislation not to make Wall Street be more transparent when dealing with derivatives. The repeal of Glass-Stegall did not by itself cause the 2008 financial crises.  It was a perfect storm of an ineffective SEC, a corrupt Wall Street, credit rating firms which stamped the junk mortgages with an AAA credit rating, and predatory lenders who lend to unworthy home buyers just so they could bundle the junk mortgages and resell them to naive investors.  The fed itself kept the interest rates' low feeding more fuel to the fire.  I could go on and on because it was not a one-factor  collapse.  I couldn't believe when I saw that  AIG, after being bailed out by the taxpayers, has the audacity to want to sue the government.

This is just the beginning of a never-ending  saga.  This morning I was watching an interview  with a freshman tea party representative from Arkansas, Tom Cotton.  The man has excellent credentials, so I thought he would be a breath of fresh air, but he's further to the right than most legislators.  He actually thinks the win in his district is equal to that of Present Obama and  Massachusetts senator, Elizabeth Warren.  He constantly uses the word “ liberal “in the pejorative, thinks Obama is the cause of all our ills and that he has been sent to Washington to cut spending and nothing else. People like him, thinks a compromise is for sissies, and they are tone death when a pundit tells them that polls results contradicts everything he believes.

I was told that we should be punishing our representatives by cutting their pay and benefits.  I can see making it a law that our representatives couldn't get government paid health care that was better than what most Americans get.  I believe then, they would take some steps to improve our health care but a majority of them are rich, so that's not much of an incentive for some.  There's a lot, to “ we get what we pay for” but I think the first thing we need to do is quit sending people to Washington, who will not compromise.  We need to do something about the gerrymandered districts and get to work on some serious campaign reform measures.

We used to have some serious discussions but that's long gone because the posters at the VA would rather spread their long- held myths than discuss topics such as, education reform, climate change, reasonable gun control measures, and things we can do to improve health care.
I’m waiting ,I’m a “never say never” person but for now Facebook is not for me.

We need fresh ideas

Congratulations baby boomers, we're the first generation who can say that we will put more into Social Security than we received. Spare me; don’t tell me how much you could have earned if you would have had a chance to invest it. Number one, you don’t know and the other is, it’s a” you pay for others as others paid for you” retirement supplement Yep, if you're a baby boomer, we can say that we weren't as much of a socialist as our parents and grandparents were. However, that's only a comfort for those people who use that line of reasoning.

Every since I heard the word " misinformation" sometime last week , I just can't get that word out of my head. I agree that the media, in one form or another is the probable cause, but I think of it as replacing the roof shingles. It's best if you replace the old shingles and felt paper and start anew. We still have people trying to convince us what the founders meant, or they want to use philosophy from the 1900s. America was once an isolationist country and afraid of the military; we're now at a leader in the global economy and have the largest military known to man. The fundamentals are the same, such as spending less than what we bring in but today; we have to deal with huge budget and trade deficits and preventing our financial sectors from bringing down our country, with their predatory schemes.

I flipped on Fox News Sunday to hear what potential Texas senator to be, Ted Cruz, had to say, but I can't say I was surprised when I heard the boilerplate rhetoric. I was disappointed because, if elected, he'll be another obstructionist. When asked if he would compromise with the Democrats he said, "I am perfectly happy to compromise and work with anybody,” Cruz said. “Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians. I’ll work with Martians. If — and the if is critical — they’re willing to cut spending and reduce the debt."... That would sound reasonable except, he won't consider raising taxes. We're back to that," won't take $10.00 in spending cuts for $1.00 in revenues" deal. For the record, I am very anti- Ted Cruz and his ilk. I understand his line of thinking; he thinks that the government does not need any more money to spend, but he doesn't understand that we cannot cut our way to prosperity. Ted Cruz is bought and paid for by the Club for Growth and FreedomWorks.,so he 'll never understand that it's going to take a balanced approach.

Try going back to my " replacing the roof'" analogy'" where I said that we were going to have to start fresh. I think the partisan propaganda we've been fed throughout the years won't allow new ideas to penetrate. Chicago's Mayor Rahm Emanuel, realizes that our Federal government is tapped out but the infrastructure in Chicago is in a state of the decay. The mayor knows that the city of Chicago won't be able to grow unless they fix the infrastructure. What company would want to move to a city full of potholes, busted water mains, and inferior public transportation?

 The mayor will use conventional methods like raising utility bills and issuing bonds, but the city will negotiate a private-public trust fund with three banks to fund their needed repairs. For the record, the city of Chicago sold their parking meter rights to a private company, that is making 10 times more than what the city ever did, and they have also issued long-term leases on their parking garages, which amounts to the private sector owing that source of revenue for a long time. Chicago is not letting those two mistakes stand in the way of yet another risk taking proposition. On paper, it looks like a win- win proposition; the banks have been waiting for a safe investment to spend some of their low-interest money on. The city will use private contractors and make them pay for any cost overruns because, as we know; cost overruns and can run into millions. The city will install cost saving devices such as smart meters and use that savings to pay off their debt. If everything works well, the city will get their needed repairs without extra cost to taxpayers. Cities and states are copycats, so if this project works in Chicago other cities and states will adopt it. This is just a temporary measure until our country's economy recovers, and then we can go back to federal government grants and loans when it's more feasible.

I know that occasionally we will take an exit road to discuss some social issues and that's OK, as long as you understand that some will evolve and others won't. The economy doesn't work that way. The economy is like a baseball pitcher who has to make adjustments on every hitter, umpire, and his capability. I heard a great discussion about the Keystone XL project this morning. On one hand, the proponents of fossil fuels say the tar sands from Canada will provide $45 billion a year in revenue and 500,000 jobs by 2035. I think it's a bit exaggerated but on the other hand, what will it do to the natural gas and alternative fuels industry? We shouldn't let the lure of cheap fossil fuels make us forget the environmental impact that this project will have on greenhouse emissions. That's why I say we need to keep an open mind and not be persuaded by those who stand to benefit by our lack of interest.
 


Yet, another senseless shooting but again this is not the time to talk of measures to try and prevent those “impossible to stop” tragedies. If only one of those Sikhs were armed! I can hear the same old talking points.

Will Texas move to the extreme right?

It's time for a “not interested in Texas politics" person like me, to sit up and take notice because it's possible that Texas can get more ultra conservative than it already is. It could take the word "ultra" to another level.

The victory by Ted Cruz Tuesday night set up a political shakeup where a whack job like Debbie Medina could be a legitimate candidate for governor. The Texas house has 40 members who are not coming back, and it is expected they will be replaced with more conservative Republicans if you can imagine that scenario. Rick Perry will not be a favorite because of his flubs in the presidential debates, and Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst is coming off an upset loss. The far right feels emboldened because the establishment has been defeated. I can see where Atty. General Greg Abbott, the main power behind the voter ID law, will have the heads up in the governor's race.

We keep talking about being broke, but Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst spent and raised $19 million and Cruz raised and spent about $8 million. Outside groups spend another five million against the two candidates, but they supported Cruz with $2.8 million compared to $684,871 for Dewhurst according to CRP data.

I have to give the forces behind Ted Cruz, their political props because this time, they picked a Harvard graduate who can go on the talk shows with less bellicose in his rhetoric. I started laughing when I saw one of Ted Cruz campaign ads that shunned David Dewhurst for being a moderate and a compromiser. Really! Is at all you have? It's been said that the only difference between Cruz and Dewhurst are that the former had a longer list of federal agencies to abolish.




Don't be fooled by this sheep in wolf's clothing because senator to be, Ted Cruz, is 100% tea party. The pundits are already trying to tout his appeal to the Hispanic community. Not so fast, as Gail Collins of the New York Times put it in describing the rise of Mayor Julian Castro of San Antonio and his twin brother Joaquin, who is a state legislator and is running for a safe democratic seat in Congress. She jokingly said," we will see your one Cuban -American Harvard law graduate who memorized the constitution when he was in high school (Cruz) and raise you, Mexican American twins who went to Harvard's law and got elected mayor and state representative." She left out the part of Mayor Julian Castro being the keynote speaker at the democratic convention. Wasn't Barack Obama the 2004 keynote speaker? We know how well it went for him. The pundits are wrong thinking that Ted Cruz will bring more Mexican- Americans to the Republican Party. Mexican Americans are not swayed by surnames, but they are by the harsh rhetoric.

I've eaten two Chic-fil-A, sandwiches in my entire life, and I didn't think they were that great, but the recent controversy will not influence me either way. It's much ado about nothing, but I see it's continuing anyway. I do wish people would understand that free speech only applies if the government tries to suppress it. The private sector cans infringe on your supposed free speech rights and there is not a lot you can do about it. Oh well, Mike Hucklebee and Ted Cruz benefited and so did a couple of mayors, so to each, their own.

It’s always a Catch 22

I don't think we'll ever be able to prove who the job creators really are. We have always considered our bosses to be the job creators but what would happen if the employees were to take their pay and only bought foreign goods? What if we didn't have enough consumers buying the goods? It's a Catch 22.

That's where we are today. We have two major parties and an element of one party with three different theories on how to get this economy back on its feet. The Republican Party wants to make it easier for big business to hire by lowering taxes and scaling back what they called job- killing regulations. The Democrats want to continue to use Keynesian policies such as a joint venture with the private sector to repair our infrastructure, until our economy improves. The third element, the Tea Party, wants to drastically cut our budget back to 2006 levels, no matter what the outcome. Meanwhile, we are not doing any of the above. We should congratulate Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Boehner for agreeing to fund the government for an additional six months. It still has to be approved by Congress.

We all make assumptions and think it's a truth certain. This morning I was watching Joe Scarborough telling us for the umpteenth time, that he was a small government conservative and praising the likes of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Adam Smith. He was also praising conservatism as if it was the only economic philosophy that made sense. Joe was on the defensive because the new NYT/CBS poll had President Obama ahead  in 3 key swing states  and in Florida by six points(Scarborough's home state) even thou the state has a Republican governor and the majority of the legislators. It's even more remarkable since our unemployment is still high and showing no signs of coming down before the election. Joe advised the Mitt Romney camp to come out with another ad saying " Obama got his near $900 billion stimulus package, unemployment was at 8.3%, today it's at 8.2% ." This will drive home the point that we spent $900 billion for .1% drop in unemployment. That's the outcome but not the real story.

Mitt Romney is not a good politician, and he showed it recently with his overseas trip. He had to know that his trip was going to be compared to Obama's 2008 trip where he wooed the Europeans, drawing 200,000 Germans at one event. We can argue that Romney's gaffes won't matter in November, but his mistakes are cumulative and the clock is ticking. Joe Scarborough thinks that all Romney has to do is tout the small government conservative message, and it's in the bag but this is 2012 where it's all about the candidate's plan for the future,  money and optics. Romney has the money but nothing else. The people may say," I don't have a job, and neither does my brother-in- law and Obama has been in charge but Romney sounds and acts like the person that fired us."Obama wins the likability factor hands down.No matter how hard he tries Romney will always have a hard time proving that he understands the middle class. 

Today is August 1, 2012, so that means the Affordable Care Act,  will provide women, with the limited exception for those working for pervasively religious employers, to have access to all contraceptive methods approved by the Food and Drug Administration as well as to sterilization procedures and to related patient education. And pregnant and postpartum women will have access to the counseling and equipment needed for breastfeeding -- one of the most effective ways mothers can protect both their children's health and their own.

"Women, with the limited exception for those working for pervasively religious employers, will have access to all contraceptive methods approved by the Food and Drug Administration as well as to sterilization procedures and to related patient education. And pregnant and postpartum women will have access to the counseling and equipment needed for breastfeeding -- one of the most effective ways mothers can protect both their children's health and their own.

Finally, the ACA will ensure coverage of screening and counseling for interpersonal and domestic violence."

This is what Nancy Pelosi meant when she said," we have to pass the bill, so you can find out what's in it." Crudely put and it does take some interpretation, but I understood what she meant.

What does Mitch McConnell think of all this? He said it's time to add an amendment to repeal Obama care. And he wonders why the GOP has been accused of waging war on women. It's no better at the other chamber where the GOP controlled House of Representatives tried to pass yet another abortion bill, yesterday, instead of working on a jobs bill. They're not paying attention to the memo that states that women represent the largest voting bloc, and they vote.

It looks like Texas took the first step to ensure that gridlock will remain the status quo in Washington by voting in Ted Cruz  over David Dewhurst. It was a terrible blow to Rick Perry and the establishment Republican Party in Texas. David Dewhurst was a conservative's conservative but Ted Cruz was to the right of him. Ted Cruz with the help of the Tea Party, and outside influences was able to pull off the upset. This is after; David Dewhurst lent his campaign $25 million and bought a family-size Chick-fil-A just to cover all the bases. The man I voted for, Paul Sadler spent a whopping $132,000 to defeat his opponent. I heard a Republican pollster say that Ted Cruz will win handily in November but the GOP will pay because in 2016, Texas will become a purple state. He said in Travis County alone there are 600,000 unregistered future Democrats who will be courted by the DNC in 2016.

Government shutdown?

I suspect when the republicans get through using every trick in the book to weaken Roe v Wade and the Hyde amendment; they will submit some serious budget plans.  I expected them to  submit  proposals on the high end and strictly partisan but the ones I've heard will lead to a government shutdown.  We have not seen the level of cuts they're proposing since World War II.  Senator Harry Reid said "in many cases these proposals may mean taking workers off the assembly line or taking teaches out the classrooms or police officers off our streets." He went onto say "after all, you can lose a lot of weight by cutting off your arms and legs," he added.  "But no doctor would recommend it ."Not to be outdone, Iowa Congressman Steve King said he would not vote for the legislation until it completely defunded health care reform.

For the past two years, the Republican Party has been screaming about high deficits, spending and debt.  You would think that they would have a plan to put in place immediately upon taking office. In their last campaign, they promised to cut $100 billion from the budget.  They knew they didn't have a basis for that number, but it sounded good. After some serious arm twisting by the tea party, their proposals is to cut $100 billion in the next seven months, mostly in items that will damage our frail recovery. The house republicans want to make cuts in job training, environmental protection, disease control  and crime prevention.  The republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Harold Rogers, warned that the full cut will require laying off the FBI agents and air traffic controllers.
 
Speaker the house, John Boehner, will appear on Meet the Press, but I suspect it will turn out like they always do. David Gregory will ask him a question. He'll give the canned answer. David will try again to no avail.  I'll be watching just to see how far they are apart from the president's budget, which the White House will unveil Monday.

We do need spending cuts, but we also need tax increases because our country not only needs to get to get its house in order; we also need to grow.  This is not a time to privatize Social Security or Medicare.  If Senator Rand Paul thinks that Social Security can be fixed by raising the age limit and means testing, then that's the bipartisan route, we should take.  Senator Harry Reid  said that Social Security was fine for now(40 years), so there we have it ,views from very different sides of the aisle.  Now, if you think the house of representatives is taking an ax to the budget; Rand Paul takes a 50 caliber machine gun to the budget.  He is proposing a $500 billion cut.  The freshman senator has a lot to learn about economics' and Washington.
 
Federal and state budgets are different because most states have to balance their budgets but the Federal government doesn't, but early in March, I believe we will have a showdown between those that know the seriousness of that action and the tea party faction which remain in solidarity by not increasing the debt ceiling. At CPAC today, the tea party may have found their presidential candidate in the former governor of Minnesota ,Tim Pawlenty. He said " We should not...We should not raise the debt ceiling." Pawlenty used to be a moderate Republican but he has really change.

President Obama will hear from the democrats about his 2.5 billion cut to LIHEAP, a home heating fuel assistance for low income people.  Today republican senator Scott Brown from Massachusetts joined the democrats saying". “With Massachusetts residents getting pounded by brutal winter storms, cutting…funding is a nonstarter for me.”

I understand it is customary to sway voters with some outrageous proposals like the one Governor Rick Perry proposed but he is serious.  The good governor " urged Texas colleges and universities to create a bachelor's degree program that cost less than $10,000 including textbooks. Of course, he didn't say how these schools could or should do this..

http://tinyurl.com/49ppwwp