Would you believe we have several Congresspeople who have held their elected seat for more than forty years?  Forty years!.  Yet, we hold our executive branch, the President of the United States, to two terms.  Furthermore, neither a bill nor an actual vote has ever been introduced in the House requiring term limits.  It was just too scary after FDR won four consecutive terms to the White House.  The United States Congress had to do something about this outrage, so they introduced term limits, for the executive branch.  Somehow, they believe it’s no problem at all to cultivate a ruling class in the House, who stays in Washington until they die.

Had they been young enough, we’d still have two or three members who participated in that vote still in office today.  Former Ku Klux Klan member Robert Byrd missed that distinction by only a few years.  He has served in the House since 1952, first as a Congressman, then as a Senator for the state of West Virginia.  He’s been in office for fifty-seven years!  It’s almost as if he was born there.  Part of the trouble with our system today is that there seems to be a ruling class who never, ever leaves Washington once they are there.  They look at Government “service” as their personal jobs program, and rarely do they ever wander back into the private world to get a real job.  I think I can safely say that many Americans feel as though our elected officials in Washington have lost touch with real America.

Furthermore, they have become corrupted by the way they do business in Washington.  Is it a mistruth to say that legislation is for sale to the highest bidders?  If you followed Lobbyist contributions and PAC money, you might believe, as I do, that there are no House members left who are not corrupted in some way.  We need to change that, and limiting their terms to two might be one way to solve this mess.  More and more Americans are coming to the conclusion that Washington smells funny.  More and more people are starting to believe that they have no real representation there, and that voting the incumbents out of office is not nearly as easy as it sounds.

True, we can limit the terms of our elected officials through the ballot box, but incumbents in the two major parties are very difficult to beat.  First, they have name recognition, and secondly, they have the financial and verbal backing of their party, which, oftentimes, uses lies and halftruths when fighting tooth-and-nail to hold onto every seat they own.  Removing an incumbent from power shouldn’t be a popularity contest.  It should be a mandate, and our elected officials should see it for what it really is; a method of forcing them to stay honest.

After weeks of waiting, and then more weeks of waiting, I have just discovered that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was cancelled.  I am crushed.  I was a die hard fan.  Instead, we have “V”, and about two hundred “Reality TV” shows.  Gag!

Summer Glau, where are you?!

There is a rumor circulating that the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan, had attempted to contact the terrorist group Al Qaeda, and that US officials knew of his attempts months ago.  I picked up the rumor from ABC’s website, here.

That, coupled with the fact that The Associated Press reported Sunday that Major Hasan attended the Falls Church, Virginia mosque when radical mosque leader  Anwar al Awlaki was there.  Following an intense FBI investigation into his activities, Awlaki fled to Yemen a few years ago.

If these rumors are true, this story will become the main focus of the tragedy that took 13 lives and saw 42 others wounded.  If US officials knew that Hasan had tried to contact Al Qaeda, and did nothing about it, do we then have to ask how many other things they have ignored?

Again, I must stress that this is a rumor.  I have not had opportunity to confirm this from any other source.

I left the following as a comment at a friend’s blog.  It was in response to the overwhelming spin the Democrat are using for why they won’t attempt Single_payer legislation.  They say it’s just not possible due to the vast opposition and the powerful corporate lobbying system.  They say Single Payer could never pass in this political climate.

“Single Payer WOULD have passed, with the help of a few smart people playing the parts of elected officials. Instead, we have the Democrats and Republicans.

Both parties govern not to provide the soundest possible legislation; rather they provide the legislation that will keep them in power. Both parties compromise the American people for the sake of “The Party”. Both parties are usually defeated before they ever get started whenever they attempt legislation which reflects their core values.

“We just can’t do it in this political climate”, “it’s not possible facing all this opposition”, are the usual platitudes we hear both party hacksters repeat over and over until the bulk of their followers succumb, and agree. Thank God our founding fathers had some balls, and some honor. Can you imagine this current group of clowns trying to write our constitution? I can’t. If we had been forced to let Republicans and Democrats face down the King, we’d still be vassals of England.

What we are getting right now, as Americans, is the lowest common denominator, and often, the path of least resistance. That’s not good enough. Yet neither party can change that way of doing things. Their very nature makes it impossible for them to do so. Group think is group think, and both parties are already defeated.

If you outlaw political parties, you will stand a chance of changing every major problem in Washington. It’s not the corporations standing in the way of change.   It’s the two parties. They are swimming in contaminated water, and rather than emptying the pool, they prefer to swim in filth and try to clean the water using bleach every so often. How has that worked?

When a party has a majority as huge as the Democrats have, and still can’t pass legislation, nay, won’t even attempt to bring legislation to a vote that would reflect their core values, what does that say about your party? Is this the best we can do? I think if you asked most Americans, they’d say “no”. Ask most Americans the one question no Republican nor Democrat, nor even mainstream media member wants them to answer:

“Do you think America would be better off without political parties?”   What do you think would be the overwhelming majority of answers?”

Democrats in the House of Representatives passed their version of the Health Care reform bill, complete with a version of the Public Option.  There are numerous reasons to celebrate this, but there are also numerous reasons why this bill could end up being a major hurdle in the way of Single Payer health care.

At any rate, the Democrats won 220-215…hmmm… not much defense played in that game.

Twelve dead, 31 wounded at Fort Hood, Texas.  Not many details coming out, but rumors are spreading that there were three shooters, all of them US soldiers.  My heart is with all of you.

If you believe in God, pray for their families.  If not, send them your thoughts.

Oh…look, the Mainstream Media is having multiple orgasms again…

I wonder how much blood they’ll squeeze from this bunch of turnips.  Fucking vultures.

President Obama today told Afghan President Hamid Karzai to make an honest effort at cleaning up corruption in Government.

“I did emphasize that this has to be a point in time where we write a new chapter based on improved governance, a much more serious effort to eradicate corruption, joint efforts to accelerate the training of Afghan security forces… that kind of coordination and a sense on the part of President Karzai that after some difficult years in which there has been some drift, in fact, he is [now] going to move boldly forward in taking advantage of the international community’s interest in his country….

He assured me that he understood the importance of this moment… But as I indicated to him the proof is not going to be in words. It is going to be in deeds.”

After a brief hiatus, I am back.  Glad to see some of you have stuck around.  I’ll be focusing on the usual suspects; political parties, stupidity, Washington, stupidity, politicians, stupidity, the mainstream media, stupidity, and why common sense solutions and Washington are polar opposites.

Did I mention stupidity?

Things are really getting interesting with the healthcare reform debate.  I’m a single-payer advocate, but I guess, with only a super-majority in the Senate and House, the Democrats thought that drafting legislation which reflects their core beliefs was just too risky.

Which begs the question:  What is a political party good for?

Yesterday, Max Baucus of the Senate Finance committee introduced the gem; the coup de tat, the end all and be all of all that is all…his health care reform plan.

I can’t begin to describe the futility of it.  To summarize, his committee believes that forcing every American to buy health insurance is a great idea.  Fining them if they don’t is even better.  Heck, let’s introduce jail time for three time offenders, why not?  At least in jail, they’ll get decent care.  He also believes in forcing insurance companies to offer high deductible, low benefit policies..something they already do, so, hey…mission accomplished.

As I browsed the plan, I couldn’t believe what I was reading.  I thought to myself, “How is it possible for these clowns to be so blatant about their patronage of the health insurance industry?”  How is it possible indeed?  The bill reads like a wet dream of the insurance lobby.  Let’s see; every American must be forced to buy our insurance…check.  There can be no possibility of realistic competition…check.  No public option to keep private insurers honest…check.  High deductibles and the right to rescind policies, and deny coverage due to pre-existing conditons…check.  This bill is the culmination of the insurance lobby telling the finance committee to bend over…and our finance commitee saying, “more, please”.

Whores, all of them.  Max Baucus and friends have proven that they can accept their bribes, vote on an issue in which they have clear conflicts of interest, and manage to piss nearly every American off, and still keep their jobs.   And why shouldn’t they flaunt this power?  They’ve not been taught otherwise.  On the contrary, American voters continue to vote these walking tombstones into office every six years.

Corruption.  That is the word that best sums up both parties, and nearly all of Washington.  Tell me, if it isn’t true, how is it that every senator and congressperson is a multimillionaire earning just $160,ooo a year on their congressional salary?

Swine, all of them.  This health care reform debate was never serious.  It was just another opportunity for Washington to put the campaign finance screws to their favorite lobbyists, and collect the jackpot.  This was about getting re-elected, and nothing else.

One of the most frustrating statistics in this time of economic turmoil is the one that depicts the unemployment rate in this country.  As it nears double digits for the first time in nearly three decades, one can’t help but begin picturing an economic collapse of epic proportions.  I know that this might sound alarmist; after all, we have not reached double digits in unemployment…or have we?

Currently, I have over 150 clients who are, or were, small business owners before this most recent downturn.  As of last Friday, twenty-three of them had closed their doors to business for good, directly related to the lack of business caused by this recession.  That’s a little more than a fifteen percent fail rate, which is, I am sure, higher than the national average.  Nevertheless, what is significant about this number is not the percentages of businesses closed; rather it is the fact that these small business owners do not receive unemployment benefits, and are therefore not amongst the statistics when considering the unemployed.

These small business owners do not pay for unemployment insurance, do not receive unemployment benefits, and are amongst the most hopeless of cases in our nation.  Not all of them are destitute by any means, but consider the ramifications of a small business owner who was barely making ends meet before the recession hit, and who has since closed his doors.  An employee would receive unemployment compensation if he loses his job; the small business owner will not.

As we approach that dreaded double-digit unemployment number which the mainstream media circles over like a vulture, please think about the fact that if we included small business owners in those unemployment numbers, the actual statistic would be closer to fifteen percent unemployed than ten percent.  Those are numbers we haven’t seen since the Great Depression.

The stock market may be rising, but Main Street America has not benefited from its impact.  The local liquor store, the small family restaurant, the town dime store, the local hardware store are all suffering still.  If you get a chance and don’t mind paying a bit more, maybe your neighborhood drug store is a better choice for that shampoo purchase than Walmart.  Maybe Bill’s Family restaurant takes a little longer than McDonald’s, but the food is better and comparably priced.  Sure there’s no playland or Happy Meals, but your children will remember sitting down at Bill’s, while the thousandth time they’ve eaten Chicken McNuggetswill get lost amongst all the other memories of fast food drive- throughs.

Small business America is dying, and the only number the main stream media cares about is double digit unemployment.  We’re already there; they’ve missed it by over five percent.  If you will, think about your local small businesses; and maybe you can spread the word that they need help, and won’t be getting a $10,000 bail out from the government because Bank of America and others who caused this mess received billions as their reward for being stupid.