A tremendous malaise has settled across this great land of ours -- and not even the "euphoria" celebrated in some quarters regarding the demise of OBL can lift it.
America is like a car that just can't get out of The Rut.
Even more bothersome, those who we've elected to represent us, at all levels of government, have either failed a vast majority of us or they're about to do so.
I heard a longish interview on NPR recently during which the author of a book called "The Tangled Web" asserted, with full confidence, that to tell lies -- at every conceivable level of civil discourse -- is now the New American Normal.
Think Bernie Medoff ...
Having gotten the above off my chest, your humble scribe would like to shift a few gears and begin venting about the pall that presently hangs over Congress.
First, the basic rights of women are under seige -- luckily, we have a President and Senate readly, willing and able to derail this travesty.
Second, Medicaid Entitlements for the weakest members of our society are the next under attack. I cannot conceive of anything more mean-spirited than to slash the pittance-level funding maintaining the elderly, the infirmed, and the demented in their subsistence situations in nursing homes.
Did I also mention that, Third, an even worse slash-the-funding attack has been mounted by House Republicans? They're planning to cut program funding for mothers with infants next!
Think Paul Ryan ...
But enough about Capitol Hill. Let's move on to the White House.
Barack Obama was elected almost three years ago on his Campaign For Change: chief among his promises was his pledge to end the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Remember that one?
Thousands of casualties later, both countries are no closer to "Democracy" than they were 10 years ago -- plus our Nation's Treasury is just about down to its Last Dollar to pay for these wars.
Then there was Obama's Promise to Put America Back To Work -- at decent, family-supporting-wage paying occupations based upon The New Economy.
Almost three years later, the Jobless Rate still holds at nearly 10 percent -- and one in seven American Citizens is getting Food Stamps.
Where's RFK when we really, really need leadership?...
As we ponder this unpleasantness, it's on to the States!
Twenty-six of them -- mostly congregated in the South -- are heading into Federal Appeals Court in Atlanta to block implementation of the new National Health Care Plan.
It's all about States Rights, you see.
Nobody but Nobody is gonna tell Alabamans, Floridians, Mississippians, Georgians, and Taxans how to run their states, by Dog!
Nobody, that is, except Big Insurance, which is working and spending its Proverbial Ass Off to prevent affordable health care from becoming the Law of the Land.
You see, Big I covets the Status Quo -- didn't you know that it's in your best interest for Big I to maintain its Monopoly on Health Care as the exclusive Preserve for only those who can pay through the nose for it?
The lone, sane exception to this Legal Madness is the Great State of Vermont -- the first state in the Union to enact a Single Payer Health Care System. Note to the Neo-Cons: everyone in Vermont -- and I mean everyone -- likes this!
Then there are sordid matters by which state teachers, state employees, first responders, prison guards and health care providers are being pillaged for having the audacity to demand fair wages and safe working conditions for a hard day's work.
Who can blame them for threatening to leave state service, like Lemmings?
But where would they go?
There just aren't any jobs out there for them, in the Private Sector ... unless they want to fall squarely into the Biggest Neo-Con Trap of All: independent contracting with its own Badge of Honor: Tax Form 1099.
Think "The Alien" Rick Scott ...
Finally, I'm sure you're as Pissed-Purple as the next guy about the way Big Oil has ginned the gasoline pump price.
Big Oil will continue concoct all the Bazonga it wants in order to "justify" charging $5 per gallon at the pump -- and I'll let Big Oil get away with it so long as it surrenders all the Tax Breaks and pays an Excessive Profits Tax on windfall, multi-billion dollar, quarterly earnings.
One quick way to stabilize this High Act of Piracy is for Obama to announce that he's going to release about 100 million barrels of crude into the market, from the Strategic Oil Reserve.
I'm thinking Jimmy Carter on this one ...
Anyway, let's see if The Prez has the cuhones (or is it cujones?).
Is is just me, or does this Fog Bank have a tea-ish tint to it?
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