Public institutions, however, SHOULD say “Happy Holidays” to be politically correct. I know, I know, I can’t believe there are other religions and that people have different holidays circa Christmas but you can be rest assured they are ALL equally stupid. So when you start complaining that your Childs educational facility is saying Happy Holidays, just take a deep breath and think that there may be other equally obnoxious religions or groups that celebrate different holidays during this season and that they might want to be recognized as well.

This is supposed to be the land of equal opportunity so lets keep that in mind during this season. Just think, most of the people who are angry about this kind of thing are usually the overly obnoxious “I’m patriotic” dip-shits who don’t quite understand what it means in the first place.

Don’t be an ass. Merry Christmas!

Republicans of good cheer and good will toward men plod along in their anti-woman mode, slashing health services and questioning the values of working mothers. They decry the poor who “pay” no income taxes, toss the children of “illegal” immigrants out of public schools (which they detest and want to privatize), blather about “big” government, which means entitlements and safety nets for citizens, pompously suggest that the rich already pay too much in taxes and rage on about job killing regulations.

Unions are of the devil, of course. Religious leaders of conservative bent (and which ones aren’t?) interpret religious freedom in terms of whether the State will enable them to foist upon the faithful (and clueless) all the medieval superstitions and myths currently available.

Obama, too, is in collaboration with Satin and anyone who has viewed the circus comedically called the Republican debates realizes that this country is in grave danger of becoming a)unexceptional, b)defenseless, c)bankrupt, d)secular, e)sexually deviant, f)taxed like Europeans.

Socialism is seen at every economic corner. We can give bankers the freaking store but we cannot save the millions of jobs that the auto industry provides. No public worker, whether a teacher, a cop or a firefighter should be paid a living wage, much less a pension.

So, living this Christmas season has become rather a precarious undertaking for someone like me, a retired teacher. I am political and economic horse meat for every low information bigot going. Not to my face, however. We find these kinds of callous ideology confined to newspaper columns, Fox News innuendoes, and such.

So, given the political environment outlined above, I can only say that I miss you, Christopher Hitchens and Merry Christmas to all progressives, OWS types (wherever you are), and to everyone of my friends and relatives who sent me a seasonal greeting. . . in response to mine.

To the rest of you. . . May you find in your greed infested stocking a lump of unregulated (meaning ‘not clean’) coal.

This post was submitted by Lawrence Young.

In 2008 it looked like America had changed forever. Collective condemnation of the Bush
Administration brought voters to the polls in record numbers and Democrats were able to take the
White House and put a grip on Congress. Pundits at the time were asking questions and making
predictions about what was to become of the Republican Party. Many left the party’s platform, as
it stood, for dead. The belief was that a new party with fresh ideas more allied with the center of
America would have to emerge. In an interesting turn of events, the opposite happened.

The economic meltdown and subsequent bailout of banks and General Motors galvanized America’s
fiscally conservative, laissez-faire Capitalists. Grassroots movements collectivized to form the
Tea Party and exert a push back on a government perceived to have become too large and too
wasteful. As the recession poured down on average Americans, a lack of political luster created
the perfect storm for Republicans to retake many seats in the House and Senate, creating a check
on the Obama Administration. In addition, Republicans were wildly successful at the state level in
legislatures and governorships. Two short years earlier, conservative politics had been doomed.
Suddenly it was back with an even greater fervor for ideological principles.

Since the 2010 election, neo-conservatives have been able to wield their self-proclaimed “mandate”
to frighten Republicans in Congress in to refusing to compromise. While our nation has always had
political theater, behind closed doors deals get worked out between the aisles. Speaker Boehner, and
other leaders have been held hostage by the younger, more blood-thirsty Tea Party Conservatives.
This is a very interesting dynamic that most people just do not properly understand. Why, you might
ask, do they have to cow-tow to these people?

In 2012 the battle for Republicans will be more so against themselves than it will be to defeat
Democrats. The fear that Boehner, and many other Republicans have, is that by compromising
with the Obama Administration and moving toward the center, they put themselves in grave danger
of losing Primary races to uber conservative Tea Party candidates. I am not specifically asserting
that Boehner is in trouble, but inside Republican circles I can assure you that this is a major fear.
Remember that the goal of politicians is self-preservation and they are decidedly short term thinkers
because they have to be. Every vote, every speech, every action is a potential pitfall. They cannot
afford to be perceived as compromising with a wildly unpopular President in the ultra-conservative
districts where they reside; lest they open the door for primary defeat.

Polls indicate that the Republican solutions to America’s economic problems are shockingly different
than what the average person wants. Pundits are taking this information and trying to make sense
of it. What they do not understand, however, is that it does not matter to a Republican in the House
from Kansas, or Texas, or Mississippi what the majority of American people want. Their local districts
are uber-conservative and because of self-preservation, that is the only thing that matters. Politicians
are not concerned with the “good of the party” or long-term viability of their opinions or votes. If they
simply keep their nose to the grindstone, advocating and voting based on dogmatic principles, their
next election will be a piece of cake. Expect no true compromises from Republicans because the
base will engage in cannibalism if they do.

This piece brushed over the political landscape of the past few years. I have attempted to do what
few people are right now- use logic to explain seemingly illogical Republican policies and actions.
In my next article, I will take a look at the long-term implications of what is happening right now and
predict what the political landscape will look like in the coming years. We are on the cusp of great
changes in our nation’s history.

Really, what a guy! This is a man who can weep at the sight of a young boy saluting a flag but is conspicuously unable to sympathize with a family going bankrupt trying to pay its hospital bills.

This is a man marked with such a lack of personal ethics that he would rather the country cough up its responsibilities to pay its bills rather than ask a billionaire for more money.

Global warming is anathema to Boehner. He treats science much like the major religions have always treated science. It represents an elitist approach to atheism and anti God attitudes. Drill Baby, drill is a mantra designed for an age that left us sometime in the 1960′s but it works for Boehner, a man who loves to trash the science behind wind and solar renewables.

Right now I’m thinking that at least Boehner is free of criminal activity, unlike Delay, Frist and Gingrich. But perhaps, in time, he can disspell that assumption, too.

Ethically, morally and intellectually, we are talking about a man bereft of each, speaking for an ideology wimpering for the gluttonous top one percent of a country now hurtling toward an uncertain abyss.

Let us ask the essential questions that may be the essence of, what I consider, a today Republican or a today Democrat. I say “today” to ensure you, the reader, that I understand that the roles have changed over time.

1. Do you believe that every person in America is actually able to obtain the same opportunities no matter rich or poor? If you answer “Yes” to this question be sure that you understand that I’m equating anyone to anyone i.e. George Bush to inner city school kids who were born into broken homes.

Answer: “Yes” – Republican, “No” – Democrat

2. Do you believe that Social Security is a hand out? (Despite the fact that we all PAY IN to this system)

Answer: “Yes” – Republican, “No” – I understand that since I pay into this system that I AM entitled to a payout when I reach a certain age.

3. Do you believe that leaving health care to the private sector would give us the best quality care?

Answer: “Yes” – Republican, “No” – Democrat

4. Did you go to College?

Answer: “Yes” – Democrat, “No” – Could still be either

5. Do you believe that we, as humans, have some responsibility to care for one another even those who are less fortunate?

Answer: “Yes” – Democrat, “No” – Republican

6. Are you a member of the NRA who condone the open carry laws that would allow us to bring guns on planes and in schools?

Answer: “Yes” – Republican, “No” – Democrat

7. Have you ever sourced Fox News in a serious manner that would imply that you believed all that was written?

Answer: “Yes” – Republican, “No” – Democrat

8. Did you actually believe that George Bush was “folksy” and like the common man?

Answer: “Yes” – Republican and really depressing, “No” – Democrat

9. Have you ever researched a political topic with more than one source that did not include Fox News?

Answer: “Yes” – Democrat, “No” – Republican

10. Do you like Sarah Palin?

Answer: “Yes” – Republican, “No” – Democrat

11. Do you hate Unions despite that they only effect 7% of all workers in the US?

Answer: “Yes” – Republican, “No” – Democrat

Now if you feel so inclined to respond I will mention that I will not take kindly the use of specific instances that get into “Bill Clinton did this”…and “George Bush said this”. This is conceptual argument that is tailored to hopefully help me, and others, understand how you promote various laws that continually stretch the middle class and encourage laws that have historically been to our Country’s demise.

It seems regardless of how the money is dispersed the idea that he’s directly giving it to the Muslim Brotherhood is one of the ideal fear tactics that those on the Right love to utilize to invite the idea that Obama is Muslim and somehow anti-American. Sarah, like others on the Right, chooses her words carefully in that regard.

Secondly, Obama has continually reduced foreign aid to Egypt since he took office to reach levels lower than the Bush years significantly which also was an effort to repair relationships with the Egyptian Government which was severely damaged over the Bush era.

While there is a segment of the population that regard her as a serious political figure, to the educated population she is considered an idiot. See “what do you read” by Katie Couric.

Essentially Boner and the simpleton’s who make up that party just may agree to raising the debt limit however they need to do it on the backs of Medicare and other entitlement programs to make it happen. The notion that we should increase taxes on the rich is unfathomable to them while cutting education makes much more sense.

Our circus of a government is comprised of very simple individuals on the Right. I know that is a very partisan thing to say but of every Republican I can barely say that even one of them has any kind of moral compass that isn’t backed by the almighty buck or just plain stupidity. Ron Paul at least seems to stand for something but he is operating under the assumption that the government really doesn’t have much of a role other than operating a military and that, through his consistent policy suggestions, everyone has equal opportunity.

All-in-all making a deal isn’t anything more than a publicity stunt that will somehow factor into the polling in the next election.

In fact, the only element that was of any importance in this budget debate was planned parenthood. It clearly demonstrates how much the democrats hate America and are Satan worshipers for contributing towards women’s health in general. We all know where women should be and it isn’t out getting abortions.

If the sarcasm isn’t thick enough for you, I will say that I just threw up in my mouth a little.

1. Minimally educated. This person didn’t graduate high school or barely skimmed by and it is entirely possible they were accepted and graduated from a community college somewhere in or near Wasilla.

2. Uber rich. This person has more money than 99% of other Americans and control the peon “Today Republicans” to make even more money (Scott Walker and the Koch Brothers).

3. Tea baggers (aka The Tea Party). This group is an extension of people who are in class #1 and follow the ten cent ideals of the likes of Rand Paul or, worse, Sarah Palin.

As you can see, by keeping our country uneducated and poor the Republicans can control the masses and further their own causes in the same fashion. I completely see their point. I mean, what good is education if you aren’t rich anyway? The fewer who have knowledge, the fewer who will compete!

Chris Christie has it right. His proposal was to cut nearly $1 billion dollars to education in order to meet their own budget crisis in New Jersey. I’m fairly certain that to qualify as the Armpit of America the requirements (for education) are minimal at best. I think he should top it of with some much needed tax breaks for the top tax bracket and lets have some trickle down effect for those lazy uneducated citizens. If it’s going to be an effective armpit, better increase the stink.

Scott Walker’s tactics are what led the way for the Right when he embarked on a triumph to put those over paid teachers in their place. I’d have to assume he knows what its like to be a teacher and he’s only saving them from themselves. When you think of the Right’s ideals on health care and then combine it with the expansion of the poor class, a teacher would likely be sharing a room with diseased poor people. Teacher’s get out while you can and work a “real” job. Slackers.

$2.6 trillion dollars sits in the Social Security coffers, much of it created after the 1983 reform that took into full account the retirement of the boomers. This isn’t what the “Moment of Truth” operation wants you to hear. They want you to think that Social Security and Medicare are bankrupting this country. They want you to think that despite the fact that you paid into this account your entire working life, that to expect a return on that money is not only greedy but unpatriotic. They want you to think, as Richard Eskow wrote, that “cutting is reform” in the same way that Orwell’s 1984 espoused “war is peace.”

And now Congress has the “gang of six”, a policy touting contingent of thieves and crooks working under the auspices of ‘bipartisanship.’ Republicans and Democrats working together to pillage the middle class, hopefully with their approval. If they can’t win approval, it doesn’t really matter.

At no point do these mavericks want you to think that any of these entitlements can be saved. They disguise their intent by shouting louder than the Left, using terminology that triggers the worst response in popcorn boomers. What are those words? Socialist, communist, Nazi. I’ve even heard a few words that are left over from the anti-union rhetoric of 100 years ago. Namely, Bolshevik, anarchist, bomb throwers.

Are there solutions? They are relatively simple in scope and easily implemented should congress ever recall that their signature purpose is to defend the American people. For Social Security, extend the tax cap beyond its current levels. For Medicare, restructure the health care system so that it is not so market driven (code words for greed driven).

But the right has several fronts going at once and the Left simply reacts to each firefight as they erupt. There are the culture wars (predominantly against women and gays), the corporate antagonists, the unions, and the entitlement forays. They manufacture tales about our founding fathers and they push the myths and superstitions that cradle modern religions and they lie, openly and boldly, about what constitutes a patriot.

The math is incredibly slippery in the hands of our current government. The fact that Obama is so terminally prone to ‘compromise’ weakens us all. In the same way that teachers in this country have been so demoralized by critics, progressives have been punked by a president and a good portion of the democratic party, leaving them stunned and gunning for retribution but on the defensive.

The plutocracy has established a beach head. Soon they will be at our doors and we will be the new slumdogs.

Its goals are three-fold. (1) Break the spirit of labor, meaning minimum wage legislation, the concept as well as the reality of collective bargaining and pension systems, health benefits and other aspects of what Tea Baggers call the “gravy train.”

(2) Manufacture and even initiate, if necessary, government deficits on both the State level and the Federal level. Spread enough misinformation to construct a foundation for fear to take a solid hold. Fox News will hammer this topic home over and over again until even the most ridiculous assertions are considered to be fact.

(3) Blame progressive institutions and programs for these shortfalls. That includes everything from public schools to Social Security to women’s health initiatives. It includes government agencies that advocate for poor and middle class Americans, such as the SEC, the EPA, the Dept. of Education, welfare, Medicare, Medicaid and now even the weak kneed Affordable Health Care Act.

It is all shit for the flowers. But don’t expect Barack Obama to come on his liberation horse to save you. Obama is with the enemy. He has shown his true colors repeatedly by allowing a public option health care system become a bonanza for private health care companies, by extending tax cuts for the super rich, by agreeing to and implementing reductions in Social Security taxes to further weaken and place in jeopardy the crown jewel of liberal-left politics.

For instance, the federal deficit, daunting as it seems, could almost instantly be ‘vaporized’, to borrow a Chris Christie phrase meant to castigate Social Security, by a) departing militarily from Afghanistan, Iraq, Germany and about 20 other locations throughout the world. Then cut the defense budget in half. That’s still about 4 times more than China spends on its defense budget. Ten year savings: in excess of 10 trillion dollars.

b) Stop subsidies (welfare) to oil companies, banks, big agriculture, and multi-national corporations. Ten year savings: something north of 5 trillion dollars

c) Regulate aggressively insurance companies of all varieties and pass legislation mandating that all corporations in this country pay a minimum 15% tax on profits. Total ten year revenues: at least 10 trillion dollars

d) Completely reverse every move made by the Bush administration, including his tax cuts. Total 10 year savings: at least 900 billion dollars

e) Force all federally elected officials to pay at least 50% of their health insurance. This won’t realize a lot of revenue, but it will sure make me happy.

See? Wasn’t that easy? Don’t be so easily led down the path of terror by the imbeciles of the right. Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh collectively don’t have the education of a single public school teacher.

John Boehner has never voted for an issue unless there was a lobbyist or corporate check dangled at the end of it. He is not concerned about you or America. If there is an anti-Christ, Beck, here he is!!!!

The Democratic Party has so little backbone it couldn’t thrive even when it controlled both houses and the Presidency. Don’t you find that suspicious?

The Supreme Court harbors a member who has never asked a question in five terms, and another that thinks the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment doesn’t apply to women or minorities. Don’t you find that suspicious?

Blue Dog democrats advocate for Corporatists, deregulation, Christianity and military expansion. Don’t you find that a bit disconcerting?

The Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court has just delivered democracy to the Corporatists. That means they decide who runs for office and who wins. Isn’t that cozy?
What part of the Constitution promotes that philosophy?

50% of the country is so poor it can’t even pay taxes and the rich complain that they are carrying so much of the load. What a joke! Give them a frigging job and then they can help and your taxes will be lowered. You may have to forego the buying of your third yacht, of course.

Currently I hate all Republicans and most Democrats. They are part and parcel of the same scam to attract corporate money and then use it to flog the poor and middle class.

I have a short list of Presidential contenders that I’d like to proffer for your consideration.
Kirsten Gillibrand (Dem., NY)
Olympia Snowe (Rep., Me.)
Bernie Sanders (Ind., Vt.)
Arianna Huffington (Huffington Post)
Michelle Obama (First Lady)

Obviously, Olympia Snowe doesn’t fit with the other three, but she intrigues me and might actually be a bridge between dumb and dumber. I actually think that Michelle Obama dwarfs her husband both intellectually and in terms of real human compassion.

In the meanwhile, we are a nation with real problems and only nitwits to peer down the “road not taken.” How did we get in here? And, more importantly, how will we ever get out?

So, Tim Scott, whose payroll are you on? Your bill, as advertised in your op-ed in the Myrtle Beach Sun-Times (02/06) is a profligate gift to corporations, the seriously rich and the reigning plutocracy which has already shown precious little ability to create jobs, protect our “freedoms,” reduce the deficit or anything the quagmire on the right claims to defend.

Tim Scott is delusional, but that seems to be a South Carolina-wide phenomena when it comes to politics. I was taught that doing the same thing over and over expecting different results was the measure of insanity, not brilliance.
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Secondly, listening to Sarah Palin expound on Egypt is a lot like listening to a graduate of a third tier community college question the abilities of a constitutional scholar from Harvard. Wait! Oh! I seriously don’t believe she could identify Egypt on a map (apparently Pox News can’t either). Her knowledge of Ronald Reagan was superficial at best and benighted at worst. And her conclusion that the Soviet Republic collapsed because of Sputnik is problematic. Run, Sarah, Run.
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Has anyone else noticed that the “fair and balanced” minions over at Pox News seem to hire right wing politicos who, being otherwise unemployed, intend to run for President in 2012? This would include Mike Hucklebee, John Bolton, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, with plenty of financial considerations to Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney.
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I’ve been trying to find some bill that John Boehner has either voted for or against that didn’t come with a lobbyist’s check attached to it. It’s amazing that a man with no principles other than to fatten his own wallet can be re-elected so frequently by an electorate that he’s been screwing on a regular and unpretentious manner for so long. Results, so far, are zilch. Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, Big Corporate, Big Money interests. That’s the range of the man’s gilded vision.
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The Rapture has already arrived in Arizona. The Chosen Ones have spoken that the seriously ill on Medicaid must die. That guns be available to all, criminals, mental rejects, zip heads, all. The Constitution should be suspended out of “respect” for it in case Arizona decides to secede without seceding. It is already against the law to teach courses in culture. Nice. Hey, Tim Scott, if you can’t get re-elected in SC (which would shock me) Arizona would recruit you.

The incessant criticism leveled at the teaching profession accuses teachers, administrators and support personnel of everything from grossly shirking their duties to advocating bullies and allowing recalcitrant students to dominate classrooms amidst a declining quality of education. And what is their answer to these perceived failures? Radically reduced funding, much larger classroom size, massive numbers of pink slips for teachers, rejection of requests for new textbooks to replace texts that should have been retired ten years prior, more scrutiny of teachers, more scrutiny of every penny spent by school systems, demand for ever more accountability and a pernicious call to end public pensions and benefits (like health insurance and retirement).

In return, for the basic license to teach, most states require a master’s degree, passing a national teacher test and several versions of state exams all geared to eliminate a sizable portion of the teacher pool without ever personally evaluating a teaching candidate’s ability to actually teach. For many teachers have the wits and intellect to successfully instruct, but totally lack the ability to discipline and maintain classroom order.

Yes, when President Obama called for 100,000 new teachers because “your country needs you”, what he failed to tell us is that after six years of schooling, paying inordinate amounts of money to take mandated tests that are predictors of absolutely nothing, a college loan debt of proportions that no teacher could ever hope to repay, you will be truly fortunate to find a job in an economic recession that for teachers never ends.

That’s right! The odds are that you will never find a job. And even if you do, from day one you will be besieged by administrators, parents, politicos and tax haters to do ever more with ever less. No amount of accomplishment will suffice. And the more you stick your neck out to, say, coach, tutor, offer enhancement classes, stay late to counsel disturbed children (of which the numbers are staggering), the more ammunition you give your detractors to cut it off.

And then there are the politically deluded, who see you as a scourge on the patriotic American taxpayer. They want you to starve, literally. They find public education a plague on the landscape. They vehemently resent paying taxes to fund schools. They use statistics as a means to vilify the system. They call for reform but they are ever busy tearing down the foundation upon which education is built. As the system folds beneath the teacher, he/she finds the vultures closing in making the teacher’s life a living hell.

As a retired teacher with over 32 years of experience, I know what these predators want. They want to exacerbate a problem until it becomes unsustainable, not unlike our present deficit woes, and then move in for the kill. In their wake will be thousands upon thousands of hard working teachers left without a job, a pension or health benefits.

This is the stated goal of such luminaries as Glenn Beck, who unabashedly calls for parents to home school their kids, and for those who can’t, get the kids’ retired grandparents “off the golf courses to do something useful with (their) lives.”

I suggest to every parent of a child considering a career in the teaching field today to seriously consider what they might gain from such an endeavor to what might be lost. I never had classroom management difficulties and I always attempted to bring my students to the levels I found necessary for their later success. But I also frequently broke up fights in the cafeteria, monitored school buses, spent hours at night grading papers and doing lesson plans, played mom and pop for more disturbed children than I could count and listened to poorly educated but arrogant parents fume at me for the failures of their children.

No other job requires that kind of scrutiny. The stress is sometimes unbearable and probably contributed to the fact that I suffered a serious heart attack at the tender age of 48. If that’s the kind of career you seek, then have at it. Personally, I loved teaching and coaching. I loved the kids and the challenges we often tossed at each other and from which we ultimately grew socially and personally.

But this other ideological crap. . . This is a whole new ballgame and I fear it will not end well for schools and the dedicated professionals who struggle every day to make it work.

Before we do that, lets first realize that if your biggest issue is anti-Gun Control then you have just that, big issues. While I’m not demeaning the idea of personal liberty but I’d assume that owning a gun isn’t the only indicator of freedoms being gained or restricted. So take a deep breath and relax the hostility as it’d be nice to approach this reasonably.

1. Owning a gun for protection.
First let us examine this circumstance as it might occur in a couple scenarios.

- Home break-ins, for one, would require a potential armed robber to forcefully break into your house while you are in it. The likelihood that you saw this person coming down the street to prepare for their inevitable break-in is predictably small. Thus your reaction time to the scenario would start at the point at which they break in. Then you will need to go to your gun cabinet, locked box, or wherever store your gun to keep it from being misused by children or other family members. Those of you who keep it under your pillow.. well you have your own problems and I’ll dismiss that as a option.

Now, if you happen to be in the room where your guns are stored (if you have only 2 rooms in your house/apartment/condo then you are looking at around a 50% chance) you still need to enter the combo or find and use the key. If you can unlock the cabinet, get your gun, and load it before the robber spots you, then you will be in the arguably desirable position (considering the situation) of a shootout between you and the robber.

Likely you will not be in the room where your guns are stored which means that the probability that you can even get to your gun is less than the probability that you’ll be shot going to get it.

- Even more insane, and yes I’ve heard this as an argument, is that you own a gun because there is a chance that the potential robber knows you and, hence, knows you have a gun. Thus, they’ll likely rob someone else (like say, your neighbor). I don’t know what kind of friends you keep but the probability that the robber knows you at all has to be small by comparison. Lets assume that could be the case. Then I would also assume that they wouldn’t be a close friend (highly unlikely) and if that’s true, then you must wear a pin on your t-shirt that indicates you have a gun in your house so that anyone who briefly meets you knows you are armed at home.

- If your primary interest is self-protection in public then maybe you need to hang out in new neighborhoods. Open carrying in restaurants, bars, parks, and/or school yards is insane (not to mention scary). It takes one protracted argument and the simple thought that the other guy may pull his/her weapon that may prompt even a sane individual to do the same and you can imagine how horribly that could escalate.

- You have a small penis. If this is the case, a weapon won’t make it grow anymore than Austin Power’s penis pump. In fact, it is merely a sign indicating that you do have a small penis.

2. Owning a gun to help form a militia vs a tyrannical government.

While back in colonial times, when armies shot at each other arrayed in a line formation and used muskets, this may have been plausible. How do you expect this situation to roll out? Your 30’6 will not protect you from a military of automatic weapons and bombs. Even if you had an automatic weapon it is unlikely that you or a group of citizens could dismantle a governing body’s military with the technology and organization they have today. Barring any of that, it will be hard to retaliate against planes and/or nuclear weapons.

Looking at the political divide in this country I’d suggest that its far more likely that a civil war would break out much before a tyrannical government could ever take over.

3. Owning a gun for hunting
There is no issue with this idea except that you do not need a assault weapon for this ‘sport’.

Overall, this is not an argument against owning a gun albeit my points suggest that the logistics are skewed for the most part. I understand the overall concept of “Rights” and that I am in favor of that aspect.

It seems the Republicans are opposed to any common ground (go figure). Nobody is going to take away your guns, but it seems a logical approach to the tragedies of late that some control may help reduce the probability of it happening again. Clearly easy access for everyone has caused our country to have the most gun related deaths world-wide. I think that is a very clear direct correlation.

My solution isn’t to take away guns or, conversely, to allow everyone to walk around with them in the streets. The solution is to find middle ground that provides control and careful consideration to whom receives a gun or assault weapons (if at all) and for what reason. Since reasons for owning a gun (much less open carrying) are, beyond the boundaries of sport, unfounded. Thus there is no real reason to reject providing preventative and customary social measures for the protection of the innocent. Despite the irrationality of cats like Tom Delay, seeing a congress convene where all members are packing heat, it seems to me, would only represent a further decline in our self-professed advancement as a society.

In episode 44 of our podcast, we talk about the misleading claim from Republicans that the health care law is a job-killer. Plus, we caught Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid offering his own exaggerations on the economy and the tea party, and Sen. Rand Paul distorting a well-worn quote from Rahm Emanuel.

For more on the claims discussed in this episode, see:

A ‘Job-Killing’ Law? Jan. 7

Reid Wrong on Jobs, Tea Party Jan. 10

Bum Rap for Rahm Jan. 13

Read more: Health Care Repeal, Tea Party and Political Discourse

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But, in reality, there are five conditions that might give birth to this sort of person and no one person needs to possess more than one of these conditions (although they often share several).

1. You are super rich. You are a bona fide member of the nouveau riche, admittedly a meritocrat, but nevertheless part of the one or two percent of the global population with resources the other 99 percent can only imagine (and not fully). You are globally financed and hardly nationalistic. You see four people climbing out of abject poverty in India and one American falling out of the increasingly fragile middle class due to chronic unemployment and see this as acceptable. In reality, you have moved the sources of your sickening wealth to countries where the government knows how to control its workers. It is 21st century exploitation but you define it as competitive market and blame the exploited worker for his failures.

2. You are a devout Christian. This means that you are so full of religious dogma and superstition that it consumes you from your ass to your eyeballs. You can no longer perceive cause from consequence and obliterate the lines separating facts from fiction. Socially this translates into an inability to recognize human suffering whenever your church (or personal belief system) decides it is anti-god. Abortion, contraception, homosexuality, legalization of pot, the so called “war” against Christmas, liberals, progressives, Marxists, Nazis, socialists, anti marriage groups, ACLUs are just some of the issues and beliefs that cause you to froth at the political and social mouth. You are a climate change denier but you see transubstantiation as “proof” that god exists. Often, you can wax poetic about creationism because magic is a far superior alternative to accident.

3. You vehemently oppose social programs. Welfare is the bane of your existence. You see this as a program that guarantees poverty and is responsible for crime, reprehensible social values and slums. It is only given to the poor. Welfare given to the rich is called subsidies and is not the same thing. Head start and education in general leave you suspicious because you know only socialists are teaching these days. This leads to trouble later on. Social Security and Medicare fall into the category of social programs, too. Of course, you realize that these programs may one day (or perhaps already are) vital to your own survival. But you know these benefits are extended to illegal immigrants and people who have never worked a day in their lives. Even when shown that this isn’t the case you revert to # 2. The lines between fact and fiction are indecipherable and you tend to believe the hate mongers at Fox News.

4. Your own educational background is suspect. This means that even if you attended a school of higher education it was probably a trade school. Literature, philosophy, humanities, social and political science are foreign subjects. Your defense for this is to talk louder, wrap yourself in a flag and blame everything on liberals in government. At night, you sit down to mindless sitcoms or reality shows. If you’ve read a book since high school it was either romantic fluff or it was written by Bill O’Reilly or Sarah Palin (and then you skipped huge parts in the middle). If I went to the bathroom in your house I would find nothing to read except the toothpaste box. Your dearth of education is palpable and leads to prejudices such as the one implicit with # 5.

5. You are a white supremacist. This doesn’t mean that you run around with a sheet over your head (but it might!), it means that you tend to distrust people of color, latinos, even white foreigners with accents. You are highly suspicious of languages other than English and demand that people in this country speak English. You believe that “native” born Americans are exceptional (ask Karl Rove) and that god put you here in the US because you are exceptional. Illegal immigrants should be shot as they cross over our borders. President Obama, in Rush Limbaugh’s tortured lexicon is a “half-ican”. Limbaugh is your natural hero as he fits into every category presented here.

Somewhere in here stands the issue of guns and a perky, if misconstrued understanding of the Constitution. Yesterday I read a conservative who felt that constitutionally our government should not fix roads or bridges or worry about infrastructure because it isn’t in the great writ. He goes on to say that “James Madison wrote in 1817. . .” I’d already read enough.

Ron Paul claims that guns are necessary to prevent our government from becoming tyrannical. That’s why our founders wrote the second amendment. Obviously he sees this as superior, or at least equal to, the ballot box. Sharron Angle, who but through the grace of a poorly organized Republican effort, was defeated in Nevada, suggested that the second amendment was an acceptable route to take when the ballot box doesn’t yield acceptable results. Conversely, and tongue in cheek, Rachel Maddow suggests that if redress of grievances (ie tyranny) is the real objective interpretation of the second amendment, then everything should be on the table. That means from machine guns to privately owned nukes.

Antonin Scalia interprets the “equal protection clause” to pertain to white men only. Samuel Alito (and others) interpret corporations as people. The Republicans proposed 42 amendments to the constitution last year alone, leaving one to wonder precisely which constitution these people revere? The spirit and intention of the real one or the religiously tainted, plutocratic, white supremacist mush that pollutes the air waves and the printed page all too often.

I hear there’s an auction next door with assault weapons and religious icons, really cheap. But first I have to accost my children for not having given their children good christian names and for not voting for a real American hero like John McCain. Satire is a wonderful gift and should be shared.

In episode 33 of our podcast, we talk about Democrats’ evidence-free allegation about the Chamber of Commerce and foreign money. Plus, we look at ads in the Missouri Senate race and explain why dead people got stimulus checks.

For more on the stories discussed in this episode, see: