Fools and Frauds

Is there fundamentally a difference between the mainstream media (left or right), the paparazzi and the scandal sheets with headlines such as "Woman gives birth to 20 pound alien gorilla,"? Maybe, but I don’t think so. For instance, look at the last several weeks before The Earthquake in Haiti. What has been one of the major stories obsessing our so-called free and unfettered press - why Tiger Woods and his penis, of course. We have followed, identified and cataloged his various mistresses, acquaintances and one night stands. We have speculated endlessly about the effect of his catastrophic infidelity on his extraordinarily important career in medicine? no - law? oh no - education? hell no - in golf. To say that we are a nation gone gaga over the trivial and prone to elevate mediocrity to the level of the legendary is to grossly underestimate our group psychosis. However, the Tiger Woods business during a fight for health care reform, an attempt to clean up Wall Street and to curb double digit unemployment, not to mention the need for some hard hitting commentary on the Democrat’s determination to toss Ted Kennedy’s seat to Republicans, is insipid and embarrassing.
The same geniuses that orchestrated the Tiger Wood’s fetish are now, in the wake of the Massachusetts’ defeat, determined to convince the American people that the Democrats are no longer in power in the Senate. This is ludicrous, lurid crap. The Democrats have 59 Senators and the Republicans 41. It is not higher math to figure out who has the majority.
Now, the only thing that has been harped on more than Tiger Woods’ penis is the Senatorial lunacy known as the Super Majority of 60 Votes. Each has been over exposed - no pun intended. The Democrats don’t need 60 votes to pass a bill. They need 60 votes to prevent a filibuster. The filibuster is basically a gimmick to wear out the other party. That is to say, the Republicans can stand up for five or six or eight days and read the phone book or The Complete Edgar Allen Poe or The Life and Times of Glenn Beck, if there is such a publication, anything to delay a vote. In the last year Mitch McConnell and his tribe of conservatives have used the filibuster like a pair of well worn running shoes to halt the Obama agenda. The filibuster was never designed to be used this way, and it needs to be terminated as a legislative option. It is a damn waste of time, and one of the reasons why nothing is ever done.
Extortionists like Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson used the threat of voting with the Republicans to filibuster in order to get what they wanted out of the White House during the Senate health care negotiations. With God in their mouth and blackmail on their minds Lieberman cost the American people the Medicare Expansion that would have covered millions of people 55 and over, while Nelson held A Woman’s Right to Choose for ransom until he was given a great deal of money for his state. Sickening! I don’t understand why Obama didn’t trot over to the Secretary of State’s Office, borrow Hillary Clinton’s balls, come back to the Senate and say the following: "You want to have a filibuster. Come on down. You can filibuster in one room, and I will explain the health care bill in the other. We will all be on CNN." Not even the Republicans can run off at the mouth forever. Sooner or later they need to shut up. Put them on T.V. wasting the taxpayers time and money and my guess will be sooner.

Why would members of the Senate go out of their way to destroy with a filibuster something such as health care reform that we need so badly? Because they are being paid to protect someone else’s interests.

I have said before that the media does the American people no good by ignoring the influence pedaling on Capitol Hill. Just today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that a hundred years worth of laws and restrictions on corporate political contributions are to be set aside. Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority - Justices Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito - held basically that money is a form of free speech. In a country where money talks and everything else walks, that’s a good one, Mr. Justice. It is interesting to note that Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican Minority Leader, filed the opening law suit in the process that ended with today’s decision. If you have any doubt that your government is for sale, now more than ever, think again. If you think this serves you well, remember you don’t have enough money to matter.

I believe it is time for a third political party. I believe that it is time to tell the McConnells and the Obamas that most politicians of both parties are alike in our estimation. Their first priority is to promote themselves. Their second is to rub the tit that yields the money. They wouldn’t know the truth if it ran over them with a truck, and they are not to be trusted with the welfare of the Republic.
I believe it is time to boycott the arrogant, salacious, condescending mainstream media. There is plenty of good reading and watching online whether you are a liberal or a conservative, a Democrat or a Republican.
 
Above all, I believe that we can send a message to the nine wise men and women of the U.S. Supreme Court who serve for life and apparently have no interest in or fiduciary responsibility to the American people. We must show them that we will not allow money to run our government, because we won’t allow money to control our minds. Whenever there is a great deal of corporate cash on the table for a candidate or a cause, the game is rigged - this is a given. Until the elitists on the Supreme Court decide that only corporations can vote, we have the ultimate currency in the franchise. We sell it at our own risk.