“Even if you’ve never been a member of a Union, YOU BENEFIT everyday from what Unions have done.”

“Even if you’ve never been a member of a Union, YOU BENEFIT everyday from what Unions have done.”

What Have the Republicants Accomplished in the last 30 years?

Well, let's see.  Reagan raised taxes 11 times and he raised the deficit to an all time high.  Reagan turned our status from a creditor nation to a debtor nation.  Remember Iran-Contra during Reagan's reign and the wholesale firing of the air traffic controllers and the declaration that ketchup is a vegetable?  Reagan did not ever submit a balanced budget; the highest unemployment rate during his terms was 9.8% and stayed that way for a few years.  Trickle-down?  How'd that work for you?

Then there is G.W. Bush: How about the tax cuts for the wealthy, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan in a nonsensical war ("Mission Accomplished"), the screwing with the Constitution under Bush by stripping liberties, warrantless wiretapping, invasion of privacy.  The Bush administration kept us safe except for 9/11, Katrina's wipeout of New Orleans was a shining example of Republican help ("Brownie, you're doin' a heck of a job!").  Bin Laden is still around ("We're going to hunt him down like a dog.")

The Repugs promise everything under the sun but never deliver.  There hasn't been anything they've actually accomplished in the last 30 years that they can point to as having been really good for the middle, working class of this nation. 

Why go on?  Repugs accomplishments:  0, nada, nothing, zero, bubkes.

Some opinionated musings

Palin enrages me.  And so do her followers.  I just cannot wrap my mind around the fact that ANY credence is given to what slurps out of her mouth.  In my opinion, she is so utterly stupid, so lacking in basic intelligence, has no understanding of world affairs, hasn't got a clue as to what the word diplomacy means, is so creepy, so dangerous in her influence and so undeserving of the publicity she gets.  She has NO redeeming value.

So, Rep. Jeff Flake will now run for Sen. Kyle's seat.  Just what we need: another flake in Congress!

Republicants love to shout out about their love for their country.  Usually, they mean the United States of America, as in One Nation, under G-d.  But here in Arizona, the legislators want to pick and choose which parts of the Constitution and Federal laws they will discard in favor of their own interpretation.  To any normally intelligent person, that means they want to secede from the UNITED States of America.  Secede means to break away from, split with, separate, disaffiliate with.  Yup, that's what the AZ legislators want to do.  They do not have a clue what it would mean to go it alone.  Is AZ going to decide it's own foreign policy?  Who to trade with?  How to pay for all the stuff the Feds do now (like infrastructure?)  What an idiotic bunch we have running this state (again, my opinion.)

If you have really legitimate gripes, a civil discourse is in order.  But when Republicants and the Tea party people get all blustery and scream actual lies and spew (proven) false information they have been fed, the gripes get lost in the vomit of their mudslinging, the lies get repeated until the minds of the lesser intelligent begin to believe (and we, apparently, do have more of the lesser intelligent among the ranks of the Right, in my opinion) and their cacophony of voices drowns out the rational,  common-sense, prudent and practical who are the rest of us.  So, it must be that "he who screams the loudest gets to make the rules of the game (and to hell with everyone else.")

Republicants:  We want less government.  We don't want the government to tell us what to do.  But we're going to make damn sure women don't have control over their own bodies via rape or abortion.  We'll make sure sick people will just have to die if they can't afford those huge health insurance premiums.  We'll make sure our kids have the worst education in the world because we don't want to fund public eduction.  We'll make sure Social Security and Medicare will be decimated so the old folks will die off.  We'll support the big corporations who shovel money into our hands while they send all the jobs overseas because the rich, you know, they've been discriminated against! Job creation?  We're too busy sticking our noses into everyone's private business and sucking up to Big Business. Health care....hell, no..., everyone for himself. 

Am I being too harsh here?  Not by a long shot.

The End of a Generation

My Aunt Ethel would have been 102 years old in April.  She passed away a few days ago, the last of the oldest generation on my mother's side of the family. Aunt Ethel had been married to my mother's brother, Morris, or as we affectionately called him, Uncle Mossie. 

My mother and all her siblings have been long gone but Aunt Ethel remained, an avid tennis, golf and bridge player, active in and savvy about politics, energized by her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who all adored her, a vibrant individual who played basketball in high school, climbed the Great Wall of China when it was opened for American travel and snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

I have great memories of the wonderful times we spent at her house which was always filled with wonderful food, games in the back yard, Passover seders, and so many 4th of July parties to celebrate Uncle Mossie's Independence Day birthday.

Her passing now makes my cousins and me part of the family's oldest generation.  It's a sobering thought but Aunt Ethel's example of a life well lived should provide inspiration to do the same.

Aunt Ethel, you will be sorely missed but the loving memories will sustain us.