Shit My Senator Says

Here in Oklahoma, we have the dubious distinction of being represented by the absolute worst pair of U.
S. Senators, the dishonorable Dr. Tom Coburn and the clueless Jim Inhofe. On Tuesday, Sen. Inhofe attempted to rewrite recent American history before a no-doubt rapt Broken Arrow Chamber of Commerce.
Here's the "highlights" as reported in the Tulsa World:

1. “We now have a president, and I don’t mean this disrespectfully, who is destroying these very institutions that made America great."
2. Obama engineered the House Republicans’ ban on earmarks in order to give himself more control of the budget.“When they came along with this moratorium, you have to let the president run everything. They conceded that authority to the president of the United States, so that’s why the president was behind the whole earmark thing."
3. Military spending, as a share of gross domestic product, has declined during the Obama administration. He also criticized critics of Gitmo: “You know the biggest problem for prisoners when they get to Gitmo? Obesity." The idea that prisoners have been tortured there was invented by Obama and others “to make you think something bad is happening in America — the same thing he does and others do when they go around talking about how bad America is."
4. The deficit is Obama’s fault because “it’s the president’s budget. Period. That’s the end of it." The debt-limit agreement does little or nothing to reduce overall spending. One solution: repeal the health-care reform law, which he said is an example of “social engineering” designed to make Americans more dependent on the federal government and end extended unemployment benefits, saying he saw no reason for them in Oklahoma because the state has “virtually full employment."
5. Inhofe thinks that we could be "total independent from the Middle East in a matter of weeks, not years,” if the administration allowed unfettered oil and gas development on public lands.

Where to begin. But, at least he said, “Don’t misunderstand, (nothing) I’m saying now is for political purposes." If it sounds like bullshit, smells like bullshit and comes out of Inhofe's mouth, it's bullshit.

1. President Obama has been blocked at every turn by a totally anti-Obama GOP Congress. "Not to be disrespectful" is code for "I mean to be disrespectful to this black usurper."
2. Funny. His colleague Dr. Tom is credited in some circles for leading the crusade against earmarks. If Inhofe and Coburn disagree about ANYTHING, it must be President Obama's fault.
3. The Bush military budget for 2005 was 4.06% of  GDP. In 2010's budget: 4.7%. The 2009 U.S. military budget accounted for nearly 40% of global arms spending and was six times larger than China's. The U.S. and her allies account for anywhere from 2/3-3/4 of the total world military budgets. And Gitmo: His comments were too fucking stupid to acknowledge. And, oh, yeah, the black man doesn't love America.
4. Once again, and I'll type this slowly for idiots like Inhofe: President Clinton ran budget surpluses, turned the keys over to Bush and the great budget director Mitch Daniels and watched the debt explode - even while using supplemental budget requests to fund a) a war that should have been a Seal Team Six op in 2001 and b) a war to avenge a hit put out on his father. Saddam Hussein was never a threat to America. And, social engineering? The American government is tasked with protecting the general welfare of the people. That morally should include accessible, affordable health care and assistance to people who for any of a million reasons can't find a job instantly.
5. The real reason we are in the mess we're in is because of horrible circumstances such as having Jim "I never melted no icebergs" Inhofe as the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee. Doing the work he's paid to do by the oil industry, Koch Brothers, et al, he's going to insist on drilling for oil anywhere and everywhere, onshore, offshore. "Polar bears and penguins be damned, I've got to drive!"

In Indiana, we have a name for people like Inhofe: Morons. Oh, it's the same in Oklahoma.

Holy Batshit, Bachmann

The latest from the right:

1. Michele Bachmann promises $2 a gallon gas under a Bachmann Administration. Well, if everybody lines up for tankfuls to drive out of the country if that should ever happen, that could lower the price, I think.
2. Gov. Paul Walker took bargaining rights away. Wisconsin lost 8,200 private sector jobs and 12,500 total. Last month.
3. Rev. Gov. Rick Perry is a nonbeliever. He doesn't believe in evolution, he doesn't believe humans are at all responsible for global warming, he doesn't believe that it makes any difference if the vast majority of the 38% of American jobs created since June 2009  that were created in Texas are either minimum-wage or state jobs and he doesn't believe that evolution is not taught in Texas.
4. Donald Trump and Shecky Palin are bitching about President Obama having spent 70 vacation days in his first 31 months in office. The previous occupant had rung up 223 by that time.
5. John Huntsman is having descension in his campaign. Wait, what? John Huntsman? Isn't that the guy from the "I'm a PC, I'm a Mac" commercials?

Ron Paul is a big dumb idiot

I remember in 2008, hordes of young people (okay, maybe a dozen) were standing at the corner of 71st Street and Memorial in Tulsa waving Ron Paul signs and asking for people to honk if they were with them. Someone even stuck a Ron Paul 2008 sign on the South Denver overpass of the Broken Arrow Expressway. Ron Paul narrowly was outspent by Michele Bachmann in last weekend's Ames Straw Poll, losing by only 152 votes. Really. He did. I know no one said it, not wanting to appear to be sexist by pointing out that the stupid woman bought her victory. Well, of course, Paul spent $31,000 to get the prime location in the Straw Poll voting show.
Listening to Ron Paul assert his positions is kind of like picking up a woman (or man, all fairness) at closing time. You think you've struck it rich and then they keep talking and you very quickly realize you've made a horrible mistake. Here's a few:

1. Paul was the only 2008 presidential candidate to vote against invading Iraq. Big thumbs up! He also believes we need to bring our soldiers home from Japan, South Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and Europe. Okay!
2. Paul is a believer in non-interventionism, the belief that America should avoid entangling alliances  with other nations, but still retain diplomacy, and avoid all wars not related to direct territorial self-defense. Yes! Very good!
3. Paul wants the United States to withdraw from organizations he believes override American sovereignty, such as the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the Law of the Sea Treaty, the World Trade Organization, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. Wait! What?
4. He supports abolishing Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, Welfare, public education, the post office, public parks, public streets, highways, the EPA, OSHA and the USDA, and believes the Civil Rights Act is unconstitutional. From his own December 30, 2003, document: "The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers." What the what?
5. He's a global warming denier. He doubts that the gold in Fort Knox is ... gold. He supports legalizing heroin and Rand Paul is his son.

It's An Iowa Thing, Part 2

I found out last night, from Rachel Maddow, just how the Ames Straw Poll actually works. The short version: it's all about money. Here's a bit of knowledge:

1. You must be at least 16 1/2 years old and either a resident of Iowa or a student at an Iowa college to vote.
2. Democrats can vote.
3. There's a poll tax. It would make Strom Thurmond proud. In fact, the Straw Poll is part of a fundraising dinner for the Iowa Republican Party. If you qualify under #1, you can pay a $30 poll tax to vote for $30.
4. This poll tax can also be paid for by candidates. The candidates can and do literally buy votes. Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann bought 6,000 tickets last weekend and despite the fact that as many as 1,177 of those "voters" picked someone else, she used the occasion to show off her racism: "“You have just sent a message that Barack Obama will be a one-term president. This was a wonderful down-payment on taking the country back.” Bachmann backs buying ballots!
5. Candidates bid on the best placement within the display area. Bids last weekend started at $15,000.
   Ron Paul got his money's worth, too: He paid the most for the choicest booth space, $31,000.

And so it begins, again: Taking our country back

Either Michele Bachmann is incredibly stupid, has a short memory or is a racist. My guess is she's all three. In Iowa yesterday, one day after celebrating her stunning ... 154-point win over the equally hopeless Ron Paul, Bachmann used those 4 little code words: "Take our country back." Now, what do you suppose that means? Who took our country? Where did it go? Was there some great change that we weren't told about? Let's see, we got a new president a couple of years ago. He's bl ... Oh, I see.
Today, the Rev. Gov. Rick Perry told even more Iowans that the men and women in our armed forces "deserve to have a commander-in-chief that is in love with America." When have we ever had a president that wasn't? I mean, if we had a, oh, I don't know, president who "is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]," said the Marrying Man, Sir I Do of Newt.
I've really had it with this disrespect being shown to the president. I mean, Bush was an idiot, but at least President Obama was smart enough to know that everybody knew that. That's why the 2008 campaign was about the future and not the past. But, there's just one little problem: Bush's past is inescapable. He increased national defense spending from $297 billion in FY2001 to $534 billion in FY2010. Even Bachmann has stated President Obama was responsible for $700 bailout of Wall Street. She's never been the kind of person that would let a little thing like the truth get in the way of a talking point.
Rev. Gov. Perry publicly proclaims himself to be a Christian, even to the extent of misusing the funds and the stationery of his office to put on a big ol' revival in Houston. Yet, he has no problem misleading the public. Perry states correctly that Texas has created "40 percent of all the jobs in America." What he doesn't say is that the vast majority of those jobs were minimum wage jobs (Bachmann of course wants to do away with minimum wage, calling it a job-killer). Texas and Mississippi, in fact, share the distinction of having the most minimum wage jobs in the country. There's even a joke going around Texas. A man asks another man, "Is it true that Texas has created more jobs than anybody in the last couple years?" The other man says, "Yes it is. I should know. I have three of them."
Maybe Bachmann means that batshit-crazy wants to take the country back from intelligent, measured, responsible people such as the president. I mean, she is color-blind, at least historically. Who can forget her great quote, saying that the Founding Fathers "worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States." It only took them 87 years.

The Rick Perry Secessionist View

When people say, "It's not about the money," it's about the money. When a coach quits to "spend more time with my family," he was given the choice to quit or be fired. When your spokesman has to say of you, as Rev. Gov. Rick Perry staffer Mark Miner told the Texas Tribune, "He has said many times that we have a great union, and he believes it should stay that way,” he's not sold on this whole "one nation" deal.
Now, do I think Perry genuinely supports the idea of Texas secession? Based on his own quotations, yeah, I kinda do.
History lesson: The Texas Annexation of 1845 transformed the Republic of Texas into the 28th state. The Mexican-American War ensued from 1846-1848. That ended with the Mexican Cession of 1848, which extended America's southern territorial acquisitions from Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. Texas, despite statehood, claimed the eastern portion of the new territories, which included parts of modern-day Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Wyoming. The Compromise of 1850 made the disputed lands parts of other U.S. territories in exchange for assuming the Texas Republic's $10 million in debt.
President John Tyler supported annexation in 1843, but the annexation treaty was defeated 35-16 in the Senate. Upon the election of James K. Polk, a supporter of annexation, Tyler consulted with Polk and the result was the successful passage of an annexation ordinance and the writing of a Texas state constitution.
Now, here's where Rev. Gov. Perry gets confused:

New States of convenient size not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas and having sufficient population, may, hereafter by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution.

Texas can legally lift but not separate. Politico found this statement by Rev. Gov. Perry on a YouTube post “When we came into the nation in 1845, we were a republic, we were a stand-alone nation. And one of the deals was, we can leave anytime we want. So we’re kind of thinking about that again.”

So, why would anyone want to become president of a country from which he's "kind of thinking about" seceding from? And, who would vote for someone with such treasonous views? Or for someone for whom the separation of church and state has zero importance?