Passing Means Testing 43 Times

According to Kaiser, as reported by ABC, at least three federal agencies were already set to check all ACA applications, including the IRS, which has begun to verify the applicants' incomes. Of course. Of course. I have no idea why means testing was added to means testing in the stuff that congress passed yesterday. Maybe it was repetition or maybe a refinement. The point is that the Republican "win" on means testing, which everyone supports, seems a lot like passing 43 bills defunding the ACA. It's awesome. . . .

The Lindberghs

People keep asking me how many families the famous flyer Charles Lindbergh had, as if I would know. He was married to Anne Lindbergh, historians tell us, and they had six children, if memory serves. Along with that family, he had three German families, in which he fathered seven additional children, as established by DNA tests. Two of the women involved were sisters. That brings the total to 13,  but what about the many delightful if short encounters he had with women on darker continents? Lindbergh flew from place to place. He was a great joker who used false names, so he might have had another 10 or 12 children we haven't heard from. The important thing is that Lindbergh was a great hero, much like John Wayne. Anne Lindbergh wrote books and had an affair with her doctor, but the two had no issue.

Remaining Dead

According to the AP, Donald Miller went to court this week to ask a judge in Ohio to declare him alive. He had been declared dead after deserting his wife and children and vanishing for many years. "You're still deceased according to the law," the judge told him. And then things got odd. While the judge was following the statutes in Ohio, he was also doing the right thing. Miller's wife and children had lived on Social Security benefits during his death. If Miller is declared alive, his wife will have to pay back those benefits. (I think this is what my mother called "a good death.")

Wall Street Takes Command

I've been waiting for the tea party to crumble for some time now. In my lifetime, the Republican Party has always belonged--ultimately-- to the 1% of America that is unimaginably rich and greedy. Let's call them Wall Street, although of course it is not that simple. Wall Street decided which Presidential candidate the party would back: Dewey, Eisenhower, etc. Goldwater was the exception. The genuine Republicans might be small town bankers and Episcopalian grocery store managers, but their choices for President (with names like Bricker and Taft) seldom won the nomination. That is why I have not believed that the Republicans would refuse to raise the debt limit. Wall Street would not like that. But I was beginning to get nervous.

Today the billionaire Koch Brothers, primary financial backers of the tea party degenerates and neo-confederates, gave up on enforcing the debt limit, which they were supporting yesterday. I think there were two factors involved. (1) Although rich beyond measure, the Koch Brothers could not afford to alienate Wall Street, whose terrible swift sword they had reason to fear. (2) Enforcing the debt limit would crash the economy and reduce the holdings of Koch boys. Although they sponsor the John Birch Society (which means they are nuts), they now had to decide between ideology and greed. In that situation, greed usually wins. It might take a few more days, but Wall Street has taken command. And, yes, the President saw this coming months ago. 

An American Story

My Cousin Mary was visiting on Saturday. Our county sponsors a yearly bike ride called the Gran Fondo that draws nearly 8,000 people from all over the world; and we hold our annual family reunion around that event. Most of us ride bikes. At dinner Cousin Mary, who lives somewhat rustically on the edge of a national forest in Orange County, retold the turkey story. This is, unfortunately, a true story. Her husband, a retired fire fighter, is a nice guy, very handy with tools, and one of a kind.  He sometimes feeds the abundant wild life and so on, but some years back he decided to raise turkeys for food. A few weeks later he was carrying a young turkey around and accidentally dropped it, breaking its leg. After some thought, he decided that the leg was not going to mend, so he cut it off and  replaced it with a wooden leg he made from Popsicle sticks. As you might suspect, this story does not end well. The next morning the turkey was found drowned in an inch of water.  Mary claims it was suicide.

Great Books

I have never believed that reading ANNA KARENINA would make you a better person. I've known too many asshats who've read great literature. My friend Marlene took the opposite view, and at last she has been proved right. In an article in SCIENCE  researchers conducted a series of experiments (having subjects read a short piece of literature, pop fiction or non-fiction and then take a test designed to measure empathy and understanding of others). Those lucky enough to read the lit scored markedly higher in the good things. And there you go. Those like me who read popular fiction did not score well. . . . 

Let The Negotiations Begin!

You have probably noticed that Republican drones on TV have been calling for President Obama to show leadership. By that they mean that he should open negotiations with the neo-Confederate congressional terrorists. He should give them something, anything, so their countless attempts to scare us won't look foolish. The Democrats, on the other hand, see firm leadership in the fact that President has taken a no-negotiation stance on Obamacare. Can these opposing positions find a compromise in which both sides agree that the President is a leader? According to a local Letter-To-The-Editor writer, the answer is yes.

The Republicans have a demand they want to discuss. The problem is that the Democrats have put no demands on the table. If we hold a negotiating session, the Republicans can demand, as they currently do, that the Affordable Care Act be postponed for one year. The Democrats can demand that the Glass-Steagall Act be reinstituted, that private funding for political campaigns be banned, that gun owners be registered, that oil and coal companies be taxed to fund green energy, that we return to the tax rates we had under Eisenhower and that the force of gravity be weakened by 9% over the next two years.

I say, let the negotiations begin. 

The Lilly-White Districts.

Today's Republican party has become neo-Confederate, Christian fundamentalist, and John Bircher, financed by a Birch founding family, the Kochs. And another large faction owes its heart to Wall Street. In an effort to keep power, Republicans have successfully Gerrymandered a majority of the congressional districts in America, rinsing all the color from them. In short, the Republicans represent lily-white districts. Meanwhile the country is becoming multi-ethnic and multi-racial. In California white voters no longer constitute an absolute majority. Soon that will be true for the nation as a whole. You can see the problem. Republican congress members live in white bubbles that are out of touch with the cities developing around them.

Classic Koch, Pronounced like Coke

If you are like me, you may have wondered where the Koch brothers dedication to sociopathic nuttery came from. Tim Porges had the answer. You can find it by checking out the John Birch Society. Fred Koch, the family patriarch, was, according to Forbes Magazine, a "founding member (1958)." Fred financed the Birchers, and his sons have financed the Birchers-Grown-Huge, aka the teabaggers. 

What was once the radical right 
Is now the Kochs' delight.