IRS Profiling. Scandal? I Think Not.

Republicans are so transparent, so self-centered, so clueless, yet so stupid, that everything they do in Washington is getting to be…so tiresome. Now we have another minor administrative, bureaucratic glitch in one agency of Washington, and the dumb R’s are flogging it like they flog all the other dead horses they dig up, in the hopes that unlike all the other scandals that come and go, these will be remembered in the elections of November, 2014.  It turns out the election of Obama in 2008 ignited a  flurry of so-called patriotism. We elected a black man to the White House.

A Couple of Thoughts on the Newtown Tragedy

I have a couple of thoughts, by no means exclusive or comprehensive.

1. We definitely need a dialogue on how best to handle mental illness. There is such a societal stigma attached to it, and then we seem to only want to touch it with kid gloves, by making light of it, or joking (have you ever called a psychiatrist a “shrink”?). We are far more educated about the workings of the human brain than we were even 50 years ago, but we are light years away from understanding it completely. We have no problem running off to a doctor for the slightest physical ailment, yet despite the fact that the brain is far more complicated than all the other organs in the body combined, we hesitate to do something when things “aren’t right”. Often mental illness is left to the parents, or families, and society simply ignores it. We need to change our attitudes about it. In the process, we’ll not only have a better understanding of what makes the Adam Lanza’s of the world tick, but we’ll make great strides in dealing with other societal ills, such as homelessness, suicide, drug addiction, etc.

My Endorsement

Here’s the moment you’ve been waiting for. Both of you. Who will SI endorse for President of the United States? I’m sure that if you’re a regular reader, you really have no idea, because I’m so obviously impartial in my politics,  and I clearly lean in both directions depending on the issue, that you are all scratching your heads, trying to tease some sense of who I will ultimately pick. Let me ease the suspense, and give it to you straight.

{drum roll}

Barack Obama.

Obamacare,Taxes and Hatred

For my 500th post (yes, an auspicious post it is!) I’m going to reprint a piece of ignorance and vitriol I was involved with on Facebook, with the follow up comment I made. Some people seem to go out of their way to find fault with Obama, and his favored policies. They really have latched onto Obamacare with a certain amount of irrationality that bespeaks some un-articulated motivation. I can think of nothing that would cause such nonsense  other than pure and simple bigotry.

Obamacare Upheld

Well, The Supreme Court has upheld the Affordable Care Act as constitutional, so we can all now proceed to the elections in November with a sigh of relief. Opinion here.

The Opinion was surprisingly written, for the most part, by Chief Justice Roberts, joined in various parts by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Breyer and Ginsburg (the latter of who wrote the concurring opinion. Roberts opinion said:

The Affordable Care Act is constitutional in part and unconstitutional in part. The individual mandate cannot be upheld as an exercise of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause. That Clause authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce, not to order individuals to engage in it. In this case, however, it is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but choose to go without health insurance. Such legislation is within Congress’s power to tax.

Maybe It’s Just Me…

…but does this story remind you of a bad movie plot?

The American authorities have arrested four Georgia men accused of plotting to buy explosives and produce a deadly biological toxin to attack US citizens and government officials.

OK, that sounds pretty serious, but it’s the characters that make this sound like something out of Hollywood.

Heck of a Job, Craig.

Sound familiar? After the debacle we remember as Katrina, Bush 2 complimented his buddy, Michael Brown, who he gave what he thought was a plum job as head of FEMA . He said, as people were dying in the flooded waters of New Orleans, or suffering through their hellish stay at the Super Dome, “Heck of a job, Brownie!”.

It’s Hard To Take Her Seriously

She says some of the dumbest (not darnedest) things supposedly coming out of the mouth of an intelligent, well educated public servant. Irreconcilable things. Completely hypocritical statements. Self serving beliefs masked as facts. Utter nonsense.

What A Great Idea!

The Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, has written a letter to the heads of major corporations on the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ asking them to join him in boycotting all political donations to all politicians in Washington, until they “get the country’s economic circulatory system flowing again.” Spend political money creating jobs, not buying politicians, he says.

The Economy In About 2 Minutes.

It’s probably a bit facile to say one could understand the reasons for the problems in the US economy in under three minutes, but Robert Reich does a nice job of supplying the basic starting points for research.

Check it out.