Sunday, May 15, 2011

Rancid Fake Mayonnaise on the Table

In the Spirit of Bipartisanship, which Washington politicians cluelessly seem to think is the nirvana of every unemployed, underemployed, uninsured, underinsured, struggling shlub in these United States, the two Senate Whips are going to sit down. At a table. With everything on it. Like adults. Let the nation rejoice while they feast, because just watching them stuff themselves on their own egos is reward enough for us, the little people.





They Put Excitement Back in the Baloney Sandwich!
 
Here is how it went down in what Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace called a moment of Television Diplomacy. Senator Dick Majority Durbin told Jon Minority Kyl (pronounced Kyle, not Kill, but don't ask me why) that he would discuss not only "improving"  Medicare and Social Security and keeping all the Mexicans behind the border fence where they belong, if only his "friend across the aisle" would agree to talk about the DREAM Act. And Jon said OK, the two of them can have a visit, a prelude to a dreamy conversation.

Never mind that Kyl helped stop the DREAM Act (which would give amnesty to young undocumented immigrants who have lived, worked and studied here for at least five years) in the Senate last year. Never mind that he railed against Obama's "moat joke" during his El Paso visit last week. He called it "mocking demagoguery." 

 Let's face it-- Kyl knows how it feels to be mocked.  Everybody made fun of his own little bit of mendacious demagoguery last month, about that 97 percent of Planned Parenthood abortion business. And still being the junior senator from Arizona at the advanced age of 69? That has got to hurt. So he is taking a premature retirement.  In the Senate, few people have the grace to retire until they die, or are indicted. 

But, mind you, the retirement is only from the Senate. Kyl has taken the unprecedented (and some would say presumptuous) step of announcing he will be a candidate for Vice President in 2012. He is obviously thinking ahead and realizes that whoever gets the nomination is going to be a supreme lightweight. And if by some miracle a Republican nutjob actually wins the election, Mr. Miracle Whip will become de facto president. Dick Cheney proved that this could be done. Junior Senator is demeaning, Vice P not so much. 

Moreover, despite being an semi-lame duck senator, Kyl not only retains his power --  he is increasing it. He was tapped for a new job in current VP Joe Biden's Debt Ceiling Panic Room, which involves walking across the street every day in front of cameras, saying everything is on the table, and that they are having an adult conversation. Nobody is really telling the truth and calling out the "negotiations" for what they truly are: a blatant threat by Republicans to default on the national debt unless the New Deal is dismantled. The mainstream press still deems it politically incorrect to call the GOP an extortionist criminal mob, just as it used to be politically incorrect to call enhanced interrogation techniques torture. This might take a few years, and then there's always revisionist history to contend with.

  Poor Dick Durbin, on the other hand, is the sole token "progressive" on the boring old "Gang of Six." Those senators have been meeting forever, in secret, at Gazillionaire Mark Warner's posh Virginia townhouse over dinners at a very expensive table. From all indications, those discussions are just plain tabled, although they were very, very serious and adult. 

Durbin's sole function these days appears to be placing entitlement programs on rickety back room tables in imminent danger of collapse. They're pretending to improve the recipe after the goose has already been cooked. He sure doesn't sound like such a big major whip to me. Of course, all this talk of bipartisan slashing and lashing makes me wince anyway, especially since the regular people are the ones in chains.

Time to throw out the rotten phony mayonnaise and whip up a new batch from some new, fresh and nontoxic ingredients. These senatorial food byproducts are way past their sell-by dates.

10 comments:

4Runner said...

Excellent! Today Sardonicky goes SardonicKYL.

Valerie Long Tweedie said...

How much MORE are the Democrats going to give away of the Middle Class in the spirit of bipartisanship? We just had a similar showdown in December/January over the budget. Now it is the debt ceiling. After that it will be something else. When is the Democratic leadership going to say, enough is enough! Yes! President Obama! I am talking to YOU!

Isn't there one Democrat who can explain what has been going on - where all the money has been going and to whom? President Obama! Yes, I am talking to YOU!

Why isn't the Democratic leadership talking - that would be YOU Barack - about how much these wars and subsidies to mega corporations and huge industries like agriculture and oil are costing this country? Why isn’t someone saying that if our government wasn’t paying FULL PRICE for prescriptions that Medicare and Medicaid wouldn’t cost so much!

All this bullshit about going through the private sector to save money is just an opportunity for private industries with all their lobbyists to set up sweet deals for themselves and then rake in the money from the taxpayer.

Karen Garcia said...

Yeah! Keep the outrage coming, people. Remember the Latin root word for private is "privare", meaning to deprive. Deprivation for the bottom 98 percent is their mantra, both Republican and Republican-Lite (aka Democrats).

Kate Madison said...

Sadly, it is not just the Republican Party that is made up of corporate sponsored elitists. The Democrats do very well for themselves--in fact, the Senate includes more millionaires (both parties) than any other branch of government. This includes Dick Durbin, who otherwise seems to be a nice guy. Simply said, none of these guys wants to lose money or power. Start putting things in the public domain (i.e, single payer) and "poof," there go the big bucks. The only unrich guy in the Senate I know is Jeff Merkeley, Oregon's junior senator. And he acts more like a congressman--actually puts on town halls in small districts (mine) and asks questions of his constituents! What a concept.

I think we see more honesty and sincerity in the House of Representatives, because there are many who are not richey rich. And they are more directly responsible to their constituencies. Oh yeah, there are a few mega-rich districts around the country, and a fair number of crazoid religious right-wingers. But overall, I think our representatives have more ability to act on their good intentions.

That is why we must work hard to get progressive congressmen and women elected in 2012. That will do more to raise the morale (and morality) of our sad country than trying to change Obama's mind!

Gang of Six--indeed! Whatta buncha crap.

Valerie Long Tweedie said...

Maybe so. I find myself feeling really hopeless these last couple of days. I think it is finally sinking in that there will be no progressive challenger in the Democratic Primary. I had so hoped to be able to teach the Obama Democratic machine a lesson for ignoring their constituency. Now it looks like our choices are going to be "Really Bad" and "Worse" - How did this happen? The two party system stinks!

Jon Jost (I hope it is OK to quote him without his permission) made a comment in the NY Times in response to Krugman's excellent piece: (He was #12)

"Frankly it would be perhaps the best thing to hit the debt ceiling, start closing down elements of the government, and producing the mess Mr Krugman suggests would happen: collapsing "markets" (just what and who is this composed of), closure of essential services, etc. This would likely lead to a catastrophic rout of the Republicans in the next election, and.... "

I am wondering what others have to say about this.

We adults in the room understand that not raising the debt ceiling, like not bailing out the banks, will cause a lot of suffering. Yet, the elementary teacher in me wonders if we haven't been protecting these spoiled children from the natural consequences of their bad behaviour long enough. People, like my mother who relies on Social Security and Medicare, faithfully watch FOX every night and quote the Republican Party line. They vote exclusively Republican and are totally against extending any kind of safety net for the unemployed (those lazy freeloaders) and universal health care. Maybe people like my mother need a wake-up call so that they finally understand that all the anti-tax rhetoric might affect THEM.

I know it is a radical idea – to just let the Republicans deal with the consequences of their idiotic policies and legislation – but maybe that is our only hope for getting Americans to wake up. Our apathy, selfishness and inability to tell fact from fiction is slowly killing us as a nation.

Meanwhile, I will continue to hound Norm Dicks, my Rep in Congress and my two senators. I don't even bother writing to Obama anymore. I used to write a letter twice a week - what a waste of time!

Anonymous said...

It's interesting that on one here has commented on the fact that yet another Big Goverment Socalist and a Banker to boot turns out to be nothing more than a common abuser of women. This individual apparently has a reputation for this sort of behavior and yet he was found acceptable by his peers to control a large part of the world's money supply. This is yet further proof that big government is corrupt government no matter who runs it.

Richard

Karen Garcia said...

Kate,
You are right that only the lower House members are true representatives of the people. That is why they call it the lower house. I think we should rename the Senate the House of Lords while we are at it. Most of them are millionaires and most are out of touch. I suggest lower their current six year terms to at least four, preferably less, and limit them to two terms. Some of them become so entrenched as to become corrupt.
And Valerie, Paul Krugman has suggested just what you are -- that is, let the whole system come close to crashing. Obama should not cave but I am afraid he will. Will write more about this soon, the times dumped my comment today and I did not save it to post to RealityChex.
Richard, I don't think the French lecher banker case has much to do with the US govt per se, but it does have to do with the global ruling class elite, of which members of our own govt are a big part. Lots of reasons to feel disgusted today, for sure.

Janet Camp said...

Well, it happened again. Anything over a couple of paragraphs seems not to post here for me. Anybody else have this problem?

Karen Garcia said...

Sorry Janet. The comment feature seems to be temperamental. Sometimes I have to push "post comment" several times before my own comment goes through. And if you do "Preview" first the system seems to like that. The whole system actually went down for an entire day last week when Google was trying to "improve" it. But it's free, so I feel silly complaining.

Janet Camp said...

Thanks, Karen. I just have to bother to copy before I try to post I guess. I quit using "Preview" because that seemed to be what was causing the problem, but now it seems more extensive. Ahhh, the vagaries of cyberspace. I'm using Chrome, so you'd think they'd be compatible, but I'm wondering if that's part of the problem? Anyway, yes, it's free and we all appreciate that.