Once more, with feeling!

We decided against using 'the cave that keeps on caving' as the title of our last 2010 post.  Instead, we're using this from the subject header of an email that not-so-silent Rollah sent to Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish (link on the right).  We didn't get quoted, so here's what Rollah said, more or less:

I was going to just fire off an "F U" for your condescending label of "whining left and right" ... I know you respect the office of the presidency the way I used to, maybe that is why you are so optimistic about Obama. You think it's long-game. I don't share that hope. I see a country in decline. But let's set aside for the moment any predictions on tax cuts, or the results on health care, or even an issue of extreme importance for you personally: DADT (which should be a civil rights issue for all of us). There is something fundamentally wrong with our government in terms of the way it operates. Obama comes along back in 2008 and promises change. 120 million people vote, incldg. about 55 million for McCain and Palin [whole other post there]. Yet here we are 2 years later, and most of you and your fellow blogger pundits are debating results, not process; when, to some, any change has been incremental, not transformational. The system is rigged to prevent progress, but you don't change the culture when Rahm is COS, and Timmy and Larry are giving econ advice.

OK, you are bright, well-spoken, well-written. I respect your work. You have counterparts and colleagues who are also bright, well-spoken, well-written. What has them so upset and you so upbeat about Obama? Why such contrasts? We're not talking lunatic fringe either. Krugman, Maddow, Thom Hartmann. And [today], Sen. Sanders; he did not spend all day talking so you can feel good about Obama and insult his friends and his foes alike with 1-line throwaways. I am no psychiatrist, though I should play one on TV, but I suspect that there is just so much raw emotion because there are more than just symbols at stake. There are deeply personal issues that affect our daily lives. I have concerns -- they have concerns -- that are valid and our voices need to be heard. I also recognize that not everyone's pet causes will be resolved favorably or equally. He can't please everyone.

But Obama's problem right now is that he's already looking past all of us; he won't hear me or know my opinion (doubt he would care what any 1 single voter has to say); fine. Dismissing all of us, all concerns -- as though he can't be bothered with differences of opinion -- exacerbates and enflames all the more. No one likes feeling ignored, but then to have their feelings invalidated too? Not good. He can rationalize and still be all cerebral, but how about we get a "F-in A" or "bloody well right" once in awhile first? The most emotion he's shown has been chasting "idealists" who only want him to keep the promises he made, how does that help?

Here's something from AP on Yahoo!: "Democrats and Republicans have spent two years gridlocked over the question of extending the expiring tax cuts, and Obama has characterized his compromise with Republicans as a temporary, two-year concession on a policy he opposes." If he opposes, then do something about it! He's the President. He could have had whatever he wanted. Bush got tax cuts passed through reconciliation and they were NOT PAID FOR! So again, here comes Obama now saying whatever he thinks is pragmatic... that's missing the point. People want leadership; they need empathy. That's a tough combo to sell, I admit. He hasnt addressed the real and palpable anger and frustration of a lot of us. Progressives' reaction to Obama's compromising is visceral at this point: he campaigned on these promises to close Gitmo, end war, repeal DADT, end the Bush tax cuts, get a public option. He wants the buck to stop with him. He said so.

Perception is reality. He can't say one thing in public and take action that does the opposite in private. And then when challenged, he's going to brush aside or insult his own base?  [Sorry, wrong answer]

PS, just so my cynicism doesn't bring you too far down before the holidays, I don't think Palin will run. She doesn't want to work for anything, she just wants the money and the fame. Oh, she'll milk it for as long as possible, but she has been a bully all her life. She won't start a fight she can't win. And if by some hell-swallowing nightmare on Earth she runs, wins the nomination and wins the general, then it won't matter. Because I won't survive the end times and Canada is too cold.

And I thanked him for indulging my whining.  Speaking of which, at one point do we move from whining to legitimiate concern?  What's the threshold when people's hurt feelings cross over into real differences needing real solutions?

And speaking of the great Senator Sanders from Vermont, here's this gem from Matt Taibbi.  Don't forget too, we can run to his eternal Rudeness, The Rude Pundit; go check out his entry from 12/13.  And finally, for even the smallest sliver of perspective, courtesy of Steven Weber on Bob Cesca's blog:

"...Indeed, the passing of human lives great and small throws the truth of how we lead our lives into bright relief; the profound personal impact of death should suggest that we live in observance of the lessons such profundity imparts.
But that is not the case. Rather than our mortality humbling us, it can make us arrogant, profane. It provokes a rancor and distrust in people who see life as an competition in which to seek victory rather than as an opportunity to embrace the collective, unifying reality of our brief existences.
More than that, such a result suggests the possibility that certain, if not all, our political ideologies are essentially superficial control-fantasies, frantic attempts to bat away the terrifying reality that our lives are mere, brief flickers of consciousness, mattering little. ..."

As if that needed added context, a friend of the family had to spend this Christmas in the hospital as her sister was dying, unexpectedly, at the age of 42!  For the human condition, for peace on earth, we do the best we can with what we're given:

HanuXmaKwanzaFestivus, whatever your faith, and see you next year!

the Full Cynical, 2010

Has it already been another year?  J, have you ever been as disappointed in a politician, let alone a President, as I am in this guy?  Compared to W., sure, he was going to appear more to the left, but I never expected him to be a true liberal lion.  However, not only has he shown he can't fight, he can't stand up or even clearly convey what he stands for.  And now he's already looking punch-drunk, throwing in the towel when the other side hasn't even stepped into the ring.  Michael Buffer hasn't started his catchphrase, "Let's get ready to ruuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmble".  No, wait, Obama's on the canvas, spitting up blood from punches yet to be thrown from his own shadow-boxing. 

Look only at the tax-cut issue as but 1 example: a major political party is holding this hostage (can you guess which one?).  Obama is so bad at negotiating [how bad is he? ... ], he is so bad, he's telling the hostage-taker, 'stop! don't do anything rash! I'll kneecap myself first, and then you can take me instead!'  It sickens me as a citizen to see what's happening.  He reads a paper, he is not stupid or intellectually 'un-curious' (like the guy he replaced)!  There has to be a West Wing episode in all of this, where the fictional unlikely hero-candidate wins, then immediately upon taking the oath of office, sits down and says, "Alright, I can't believe we won, so how do we get re-elected in 4 years?"  Then the lackey loyalist pipes up, "What about governing?  All those campaign promises?"  And the President replies, "Say what?"  What else could possibly be going on?  Thus, we get the Full Cynical 2010.  With some Ditto, amen, yes plus, thrown in for good measure.
Happy Holidays, and good luck in 2011.

PS, this.  Money quote for me:

Whatever is going on inside the White House, from the outside it looks like moral collapse — a complete failure of purpose and loss of direction.

PPS, quick J, find us a copyright lawyer so we can trademark the Full Cynical before it's too late.  Then, we can use the money from said trademark to buy some progressives, right?  FDL certainly puts the 'en fuego' in FDL.  It's the cave that keeps on caving.  [J, maybe I should have saved that last line to title another post?]  But 1 more point here (and then I need to be finished): it takes a special kind of person to tick off both sides to the extreme as here.  The FDLs of the blogoworld are not alone in lamenting the lack of leadership, the wimpy/wussy theme; at the same time, the batshades on the right still want to call him Hitler and a secret Muslim socialist.  Even I get that socialism and fascism are on opposite sides.  But if the far-right gets to keep up the HIGHpocritical labeling, and the left gets to come at him from the other side, wow, that is one special conflation of a clusterF^&K.

hell's bells J

Why didn't we get off our lazy butts and write a book, or something.  We've already said all this, just not in literary form.

+1, -2

= a negative number!  Some part of me wanted to wait for the inevitable spin that comes from last night.  But man, do we love the Rude Pundit sometimes.  Click the link on the right to read his post today.

And then there's this blurb of reporting: so he thought about it, but didn't take action?  Sounds about right. 

At one point last night, also via the Y! home page, there was a line about how the GOP won with tea party help.  So much to say and so little patience to say it with.  J may have a different take, but here's mine, and it's as twisted in delivery as can be when trying to make any sense of this coming nightmare:  the Republican party co-opted tea party 'anger' and 'resentment' whenever it could; a few movement conservative billionaires duped the very people that would have no business being within a voting booth's throw of any established and sane candidate.  To butcher the point another way: all tea party candidates were Republicans; not all Republicans are tea partiers, nor would they ever be.  Some nutbars won, some didn't.  But none of them will ever govern, because that wasn't the plan.  So, you can certainly fool enough of the people, most of the time, to win a mid-term election in a down economy with a no-spine majority.  Congratulations, America.  Democracy rules, we're #1, yeah !!! 
... but just remember, "1 is the loneliest number" ... 

Pre PS

As bad as this night is going for many, here's a quick question to divert attention to some Fox-based a**hattery (might be a new word for the domain):  Fox may know how to televise a football game, or maybe not, but did anyone else see all the damn replays of the Giants' players reacting to their World Series win?  I mean, Fox had a camera on every single position player, the bench, the coaches, everyone.  And they showed each reaction separately, one right after the other.  It was cartoonish.  [1st base, Bugs Bunny, 2nd base, Bugs Bunny...]  For the few people who might have been watching outside the Bay Area, I can't believe they would care to see something as silly as every single player's individual reaction.  Baseball is a team sport.  Team. 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled idiocracy, wherein despite polls showing most Americans hate Rs more than Ds, they vote against their own self-interest and re-elect more suckwads to screw them back into the future.  I'm with these commie pinkos, and democracy for all; truth, justice, and ... oh never mind.  No one's listening.

Broken record

He's not the only one.  We've been saying the same thing, but you'd think a Nobel Prize might resonate more.  If he can't break through the noise machine and all the corporate hell unleashed by you know what, then what chance do we have here?

how bad is it?

As we have said here before, W was so bad that this country elected a black guy for President.  Obama on some level (the non-fighter rope-a-dope level) and too many Dems on other levels have been so bad and/or so disappointing to so many, that despite the minority having its a$$ handed to it in 2 straight elections, the aaRRRgghhhs are about to go back into the majority in at least 1 part of Congress.  Yes, there's the wingnut noise machine and all their money, but how bad do you have to be at governing to let these batshades take over again?  How bad do you have to be as Senate Majority Leader to even be in a close race with the tea party?  Remember when Jon Lovitz was doing his Dukakis on SNL, and he's debating Dana Carvey's bush I, and he says, "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy"?  Exactly.  Gore probably said the same thing; Reid is saying it now.  Well, believe it, you're that bad.  You didn't have to be, but you are.

- Warren-Feingold 2012  (corrected)

Elections for sale, get yer Elections here!

A quick +1 to our most recent post, below:  what we said about usurping the Teabaggers, one line, Matt Taibbi explains in waaaaaay more detail.  He is one of the best writers around, period!  This also goes to an older post we did when Citizens United came down.  Another blow to democracy, courtesy of the bushies.

New theory, Same experiment

Sorry that we haven't been doing as much of the HHHIGHpocrisy thing as we used to; J has been the silent one as our separate bi-coastal lives and families keep rollah-ing along.  Most of every topic these days seems to find hypocrisy all by itself, without us having to dig.  But we are trying to develop a more cohesive theory to enlighten our two followers, without relying on links to the pros to do it.  Just to prove how amateurish we can be, here are some random musings, such as:  the system sucks, of course it's broken!  And by 'system', we mean a 2-party political system (no other viable parties) beholden to corporate benefactors (even more unchecked in their influence thanks to a right-wing Supreme Court that gave us Bush v. Gore long before Citizens United), where the minority regularly beats up on the majority by votes of 40 to 56-59, and where the mere threat of a filibuster (not an ACTUAL filibuster) is enough to stop s%^t from getting done.  Just once, I'd like to hear a real one, like on The West Wing, where the ol' guy starts reading the recipe book because his grandson has autism, until someone from Jeb Bartlett's office calls in the marker.  If only life could imitate art!  If only average Americans had a true voice, or a voice that rang true!

But no matter how off-base we are, let's play the blame-game anyway:

- The conserva-Doofs are so afraid of winning a few rounds, they're willing to tank the fight before it begins.  Latest example?  Not even bringing up a vote on tax cuts for the middle class, until after a mid-term election that some of them won't even win.  You can't vote later if you're sitting at home, genius!  These are the Ray Guys of Congress (punting reference, get it).  You can't tell them to grow some, because that train has sailed.  To borrow from a local radio ad, this is one of the biggest no-brainers in the history of mankind.  So naturally, Democrats blow it.  Or to borrow from old Brooklyn Dodgers fans, "Dem bums".  [We can't let go of that whole 'Obama is no Jackie Robinson' thing', it completes us.]

- Another sort of big picture comment re the level of dishonesty among the Republican leadership: it is so staggering, it has to be on purpose.  These so-called "leaders" can't possibly believe all the vile crap they're spewing or passively allowing to be spewed.  Maybe a few of these old white guys got together one day, looked around in search of a blueprint for success, and said, "Eureka!  The WWE!"  They call Linda McMahon and tell her she can run for Congress, but they want the script in advance.  Or she approaches them, either way, how else to explain it?  The whole demonizing of Obama is all for show; all the usurping of the Teabaggers also for show.  Politics on steroids, but still just for the money and the ratings.  Hey, true story: I interviewed Jesse the Body and a few other pro wrestlers back about 25 years ago, for college radio, remember J?  Not one broke character.  Same formula works today.  These a$$-hats, they know he's not a secret Muslim socialist.  He wasn't a commie when he was in the Senate.  He wasn't a commie when his books came out or when he delivered his famous race speech.  He's not a commie now, but more on that failure at bottom.  It's the WWE come to elections: no matter how outrageous the character (Palin, Bachmann, O'Donnell), no matter how weird the costume (tea bags on hats), there's just a good guy vs. a bad guy (often a fer'ner), some oblivious 'ref' distracted in the middle, and the script says the good guy doesn't always get to parade around the arena with the belt on.

Obama's ideas have so many Republican origins, it seems his role model is looking like Reagan, really, not FDR, but Reagan?  But he's damned if he does or doesn't.  He hasn't ended any wars, hasn't touched defense spending, health care was watered down from the 1970s model, he hasn't fought for social issues that his base supposedly cares most about ('hi DADT, you still here?'), and he's perpetuated some of the worst abuses that his criminal predecessor began.  And those are some of his achievements (rim-shot sound effect).  Tip your waiters.  Speaking of tips, his econ team was Goldman Sachs, it's a miracle any financial reform was able to pass.  News flash: it's not about you; they don't care what you do.  They are such sore losers, they have to rig the next game in order to win.  Country first, my a$$!  And they don't want to govern either.  So sad that the average person is either too ill-informed or too busy trying to stay afloat but that is what happens when the visceral appeals to the lowest common denominator, it preys on fear and the unknown.  These soul-less liars can't stand up to the crazy, either, because that would be too civil.  If you say the other side is the anti-Christ, how do you deal in good faith?  [Plus, they would have no chance to win again].  So they foment even more Crazy, and the weirdest part is how much money comes in from an elite few, not from any so-called movement. 

- So the corporate-owned media has a liberal bias?  No way to deal with that level of batshade.

- And lastly, back to the big O himself: we've said this repeatedly, there has been a complete disconnect between Campaign O and Commander O.  We're not in the inner sanctum, which presumably has some blame there too, but we're not talking puppet and strings here either.  He said the buck stops with him.  Well, awesome for you, dude, but the rest of us need our bucks to work and to eat, and to save whatever fading hope that our kids can have better lives.  [You know, even if those aren't the same opportunities you had, what happened to rewarding hard work and effort?] 

I wish we had the answers.  I wish a lot of things.  I wish I could come up with a better ending to this post!  But no matter what sports analogy we try here, even a theory as implausible as pro wrestling, life is not a game.  Go read our older posts: we're witnessing some serious empire decline; and just when we need a system that works the most, we get a couple loud-mouth gasbags throwing chairs into the ring and running off camera while the idiocracy screams and claps for more.  You can't write a worse ending. 

Another blog?

With a post like this, we may have to up our blog roll to 14. Red meat, blue meat, it's all American meat. And that is not meat you can beat. [We catch on quick]

Wrong screaming, wrong brother

Rollah's peeps got this: numero uno, and part deux in our Disappointment playbook. [Many of our links can link to their links, and so on, and so on... ] But haven't we been saying this for a long time? Or, at least 2 threads below this one?
Good thing J and I never tire of hearing ourselves think out loud!

Scream It, Brother

Obama's centrist pragmatism can be maddening, maddening we say! The same guy who can call out Republicants for their HIGHpocrisy on the deficit [only given a short mention in today's local paper; but still - jerkweeds cry about not extending unemployment benefits that would cost some millions, but wanting to revert back to W-era tax cuts for the rich, without paying for them, costing us billions!], can also order National Guard troops to the southwest border. On the topic of immigration enforcement, not-so-silent Rollah knows of that which he speaks: enforcement only as a matter of policy does NOT work.

BP+Bachshade

Always like us some Bachshade, which, when coupled with the disaster that is, was, and always will be BP, can only bode ill for the rest of this sad social experiment known as 'America'.

Ho hum, all the de-legitimizing must be working. If only he had governed the way he campaigned... could we say that the wingnuttery would not have been this bad? No, we can't.

MIHs

Have we missed any HIGHpocrisy in the last couple of months, as we've decompressed from health care reform? Let's see, Republicans still saying 'no'; isn't financial 'reform' going to pass?
... Big Oil not accepting responsibility for what may prove the worst oil disaster in memory (poor Gulf Coast)
... another nominee for the Supreme Court
... nope, nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

CUBS win! CUBS win! [but no joy in Mudville]

Hey, how about them Dems, huh? Harry Caray would have been proud of some Chi-towners this week. The concept of reforming health care has been around almost as long as the Cubbies' last World Series win in the 19-aughts. Since we've raised the comparison to barrier-breaking Jackie Robinson before (conclusion: Obama's no Jackie), we were all set to analogize to America's pasttime yet again. But a funny thing happened on the way to the ballgame. Some crazy fans started brawling in the cheap seats, and the losing team came out of the dugout to toss a few more bats into the fray.

Seriously, what is up with all this violence and hate on the nutbar right? The process took more than a year; they had their August town halls; Obama wasn't on his game at the beginning, he took single payer off the table, there was no public option at the end... The bill they now call "reform" does some good things, sure, but still needs improvement. It is a moderate fix to a broken, unsustainable system; it was a Republican plan from 40 years ago; Romneycare from 4 years ago. So where is the socialism? Where is the government takeover?

And what is worse, where are 'opposition party' leaders to condemn the fringe? Why is the 2nd of only 2 major political parties in this country if not outright condoning then subliminally encouraging such a rise in right-wing extremism? There is no "Militia" in G-O-P (but there is the "M" in T-E-A...-M). We haven't been unconditional supporters of the Dems, but come on, this faux rage is ri-donk-u-lous! And it's faux, alright, as in Faux News. Check out Steven Benen's Political Animal blog, linked on the right. Or Bob Cesca. If you have the time, read some comments to that HuffPo piece. Some of these folks are just unhinged. [College hoops are not the only Madness this month, by the way. Zing! We're good at sports puns. And how cool is it that Steven Weber, yes the same, is writing on Bob's blog?]

So if there's that much anger at HCR, why aren't the Tea Partiers threatening Wall St. ??? Where are the calls for trying war criminals who committed or authorized torture, or lied the country into war? You know what would have paid for health care reform by now? Not invading and occupying Iraq. We're not shrinks here, and we didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express recently, but if we had to speculate, the racists are really vocal right now. How else to account for it? There are almost zero-to-no people of color at Tea Party rallies; there is no Big Tent. These loons were never going to accept a black President, and thanks to the MSM's horse-race mentality, and to Republican batshades, their paranoid lunacy is being shoved right out onto the open field. The delegitimizing process began before the election in November 2008 and has kept on chugging right up to present day.

So, to the MSM: stop giving these whackjobs a platform; stop with the false equivalency. And to so-called Republicans: stop this cycle of hate, this Naomi Klein Shock Doctrine of a strategery has no place even in the game of politics. [By the way, Keith, your Special Comment was great on Monday night, but the target audience doesn't watch you]. We can only hope that government-run law enforcement is there in time; that government-run fire departments -- all paid for with Tea Party tax dollars -- can travel across public roads to help whenever called. When you bench the best you got, and you bring the crazies up from the minors, when all that's left is co-opted anger and fear, that is one losing team.

Here's a final question to ponder: how many wingnuts does it take to change the scoreboard at Wrigley Field? A>: we never want to find out.

Nature's H

We are fans of Bill Maher, always watch on TiVo, 1 of the best. He took about 4 months off so last Friday's show was only his 2nd back in this new season. He is a big animal rights guy, so naturally, he tossed out a comment about Tilikum, the killer whale at Orlando SeaWorld, having killed a beloved trainer. [Gist: 'sad for the death, but that's what happens when a big, wild animal is kept in a tiny pen'; Mom agrees. Because the orca's worth so many millions to SeaWorld, they're not putting it down. Sorry, we were distracted by Olivia Wilde, wow is she amazing looking? Wife agrees]. Just wondering aloud, since Queen of Batshade believes dinosaurs and people co-existed about 4,500-6,000 years ago, isn't it amazing that any humans survived? We didn't have health care then, so we must have been even awesomer, you betcha!


So, Bill, you had the disingenuous conservative on, but you let him get away with the usual pivot on the concept of reconciliation. What was that!? Maybe there aren't enough low-information voters who watch your show, or maybe you didn't have time to hammer this home, but here's the problem: on the radio, TO-DAY, in about a 30-second report from CNN 'headlines' at the top of the hour, the reporter said HCR was a "controversial bill" and that Dems might use an "extraordinary measure" known as budget reconciliation. See what we're up against here? The refs have already been gamed!


Controversial? Only among chickensh-t conservadems and people who actually want to fix 1 of the worst abuses this country has ever known. 37th in the world in health care, but 1/6th of our economy. 45,000 dead every year from lack of insurance. There's no controversy.


Extraordinary? You can't throw a shoe at 1 of the blogs we follow without seeing that 'budget' reconciliation has been used before, and often by corporate-owned, white-haired old dudes with '(R-Insurance Giant)' next to their names. The only extraordinary thing here is watching people try to defend the status quo.


Steve Benen's Political Animal is the real animal worth watching: health reform legislation has already been passed last year in both chambers of Congress! Budget reconciliation can be used on stuff that has to do with the budget. Anyone that says otherwise, even some moron at CNN, should be thrown to the fishes. To borrow from Hulk Hogan, "Whatcha gonna do when the pythons run wild on you brother?!"

Buh Bayh 1.0

I swear, but for some family vacation time, this entry was going to be called "Buh Bayh". How could it not be? Oh well, 538.com beat me to it; they're established and we're not. Nice to be in that company (whether it's 'great minds think alike', or, 'fools seldom differ'). So, in conclusion then, 1 less HIGHpocrite in the Senate.

For J --

From the dispassionate and detached, to the offensively obvious, with Andrew Sullivan at all points in between, Batshade is as Batshade does.
J, please remember to seek out my family after the end times; help protect them. Remind them often that I love them, always.

DNR

J, do you get it? Monday's post was titled, 'R and D', and today's is DNR. As in, 'Do Not Resuscitate', which is the Republican response to health care reform, especially after last night's SOTU. [What is with all of these abbreviations lately: SOTU, SCOTUS. Oh, they scot'us alright; we're totally scot'ed.]
re Obama's message: nice speechifying! J, don't we know another charismatic African-American who is not President but also a gifted public speaker? Natural born leaders? Well he's got oration, now we just need action to back it up.

R and D

Thom Hartmann is very good. Paraphrasing and oversimplifying from this morning's brief commute: [R]epublicans claim government is the problem; but 'vote for us anyway so we can go clean it up via transfer of power to the private sector's biggest for-profit companies; if you don't vote for us, you'll die'. [D]emocrats claim only government can help solve some of our worst problems; but 'we don't often explain clearly why that is, or how that works; vote for us because we're not Republicans; even though we take a lot of the same money, we want to get better at social justice and make a difference'. Our shining example is now health care reform.
Lots of blurbs are asking (demanding?) that Obama lead on his signature issue. Obama had a D next to his name on the 2008 ballot. Will he show some fight with his actions, not just his words? Or will he give a State of the F.U.? We'll know in 2 days.

SCOTUS HHH - why s%*t matters

I am no clairvoyant, but I guaran-frikkin-tee that the Founding Fathers would never, EVER, have assigned businesses the same rights and freedoms as individual persons, as the Court just did in Citizens United. Doesn't anyone who takes an oath of office -- to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic -- actually fulfill that oath anymore? 4 of the worst, most HIGHpocritical judges ever appointed to the Supreme Court (+ Kennedy) just flushed that document down the toilet. If you thought corporations had too much control over this country before, just wait another 10 months. Un-be-frikkin-lievable.

UPDATE: Wow, Keith: "our Dred Scott". Happen to agree; a company is not a person. But Roberts has officially sanctioned the cliff dive that began in Iraq. The only Supreme thing here is the irony that if W hadn't been elected by his daddy's court in 2000, Roberts (and Alito) might never have been there to finish us off.

Follow-up: F me!

Yikes, he's wicked fast. And he seems to echo how I feel, which goes a long way to refining some of my language that may be inconsistent or meandering. I've hit the leadership thing already. But a couple of follow-up points anyway, for some attempt at closure --

1st, voters are morons. And not just in MA. From all I've read so far, Senator-elect Brown seems like a douche, a hard-working, duplicitous, say anything for a vote, empty-suit political douche. He'll be on the Highpocrisy radar for as long as he can stay in his seat (which hopefully won't be past 2012). He's already on record as saying that health care reform will burden the middle class and raise taxes. He's Republican, right? Geez, for a nobody who came from nowhere, why does he already seem a less-Mormony Mitt Romney?

2nd, if this country's screwed anyway, it won't matter who is or was ultimately responsible. A former colleague from many years ago held the view that in all of human history, only a handful of actual humans made enough of a difference in affecting other people's lives. And I thought I was glass half-empty [keep reading]

So we resolve this year to get back to some basic Highpocrisy and ease up on the venting / lamenting. But before that, let us have a fresh plate of perspective. Here's but 1 recipe:
- Haiti
- my friend's mom. She passed away last month after a very brief but too late in detecting bout w/ cancer. Her husband has now lost 2 wives to cancer.
Death is part of the deal. We all want to live happily ever after. The ever after happens anyway, but the human struggle is for the happily part. More hugs, kids eating ice cream or staying up a little later, or laughing at farts. Adults can do these too, by the way. Our capacity to love and to laugh is our best big ticket item!

And thus, we pivot to Highpocrisy's current target, the MSM. Some doof wrote in the NYTimes this morning about all the problems Obama and the Dems now face from the MA results. Whatever. But if the 4th estate had done its job 10 years ago, we might not have had 2 terms of the last moron elected by moron voters (beer buddy is never a legit criterion for elected office). And by extension, maybe we would not have been lied to or sold a war that no one but pond scum sub-human profiteers wanted. $1 trillion saved would have paid for health care instead. Maybe had the MSM called out Wall St.'s greedy, heartless bastards, the economy might not have tanked. That's a lot, OK, so we ask a familiar mantra, how bad Bush must've been for the same morons to vote in the commie-fascist to replace him? So MSM, you Highpocrisy-loving corporate shills, welcome to 2010!

no MLK

We can be respectful enough of the process to wait our turn, but now that the vote's over in MA, after the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, it's time to draw our impudent conclusion: Obama may yet be a great President, but he's no MLK, and sadly too, he is no Jackie Robinson. I don't think many people voted for him expecting him to be a combination of both. But I'd have settled for some sign that he might or could have been a bit of either. He's also not yet even Reagan in terms of transformational.

'Oh that's not fair, progressives are piling on, he's only had a year to right the horrors of the past 8, the Repos can't get back in power or it will only get worse' ... Maybe all of that is true. But focusing only on Obama as leader of the free world, he doesn't get a break. America is full of fat, drunk, and stupid so I don't care how hard he asked us to work. He has to lead too! We're naive, so what? He has to fight for what we the People want, if not for what he wants. Or at the very least, he has to create the perception that he's fighting. And the perception that I see out there right now is that because he's not fighting, progressives have soured on him or he's selling out to his corporate masters... And we get to vent about it here on this silly little blog.

Remember when Obama referred to the Senate's health care bill as the most important social legislation in 70 years? I don't recall him saying the same thing about the House bill... [please pass along the link if he did; I'm spent]. Let Pharma walk, that deal should not have been made in the 1st place. There might be reform, and it might actually work in the longer-term. But anything that passes, if it passes, could have been so much more if only the President had made the case for the moral necessity to take care of this country's sick. Meaning, we'll never know what he could have accomplished on this front because the perception is he never tried.

Speaking of never trying, how bad do you have to be as the D candidate to lose Ted Kennedy's seat in blue Mass., to some pick-up driving, nude-posing tea party wannabe? As bad as W was in setting the stage for Obama's rise, because this stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. Still, tasty pick up there boneheads.

By the way, if only the Senate version matters, why take civics or government or history in school? The answer (via my daily baseball trivia calendar for 2010) -- because Dr. King was quoted in a book about Jackie Robinson saying this:

"Jackie Robinson made it possible for me in the first place. Without him, I
would never have been able to do what I did".

So what's our take-away here? Is it to engage in the blame game? If so, we kinda already did a little, especially with Mr. Buck-stopper himself. No, I would rather read as much as I can, e.g., from this guy, or to TPM's Josh Marshall in his hastily-cobbled but pretty accurate post-script, to then arrive at a more informed decision as to how best to proceed.

We could end up at the Full Cynical, game over, man. Game over. [And we mean that in the 'America's empire is already on the decline' sense; it won't take much more to bankrupt us all. If China doesn't foreclose, climate change should take care of the rest, maybe in 200-300 years if we're lucky?]

But maybe, just maybe, someone in a position of power, say the President (?) could rally the base, the troops and a whole mess in between, and get the $%^ done that we voted him to do. Most humans want the basics in life: health, the pursuit of happiness. Dr. King never took his eyes off the prize; we sometimes do. 40 years later and we're still not there yet. Amazing.

HH, early 2010 'roids edition

So, Mark McGwire admits he cheated, but could not admit he cheated at the time he may or may not have lied to Congress? We're not just about politics here; we're also about baseball and politics, especially when they converge.