Time for a Rant

I haven’t had a good rant about US politics for months so here goes.

President Obama in his Thanksgiving address has called for bipartisan support to get things done in government.

Good luck with that. He got zero support when he had control of Congress so I think the chances of the Republicans rallying around now are a bit slim.

The Republicans have already refused to consider the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty – because you can never have too many nuclear weapons – and because they are not going to give President Obama ANY wins between now and the next election.

Last week Republicans in the House of Representatives refused to consider fast-track legislation to extend federally funded unemployment insurance benefits, virtually guaranteeing that the program will expire November 30. That’s right – in 5 days time the long term unemployed in America will cease getting benefits. Happy Thanksgiving!

Why? Because the Republicans say that these costs cannot be afforded and have to be paid for with budget reductions.

But they will probably pass the legislation if they get an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the really, really rich – and no these tax cuts don’t have to be paid for because they are Republican tax cuts (Only democrats are required to pay for things – as evidenced  by George Bush spending money like a drunken sailor in Rio on New Year’s Eve). 

Next year in April the Republicans will get their big grandstanding chance when they get to shut down the government  again – and they will - because they can. 

They will also prevent any more stimulus funding and do what they can to kill the Health Care Legislation. They have a vested interest in pushing the country as far as they can into recession before the next election because – hey – it’s not our fault – Obama is President. But we can fix it if you elect a Republican President!

But on a much more cheerful note - Frank Rich has written a compelling piece in the New York Times  explaining how Sarah Palin can be President. 

I admit I was wrong about this and six months ago I said it could not happen because Ms Palin was unacceptable to the bigwigs in the Republican Party. But guess what – they have lost control of Sarah and she is now bigger than that are. Oh Dear!

Importantly – she now appears to be Rupert Murdoch’s nominee for the Presidency and has her own TV show on Fox – plus a nature documentary series and that is creating new viewing records – plus books she has her name on – plus ghost written economic pieces in Murdoch’s paper – The Wall Street Journal. (What a sad piece of shit that has become with Murdoch the Barbarian in charge). 

You should read the article – it will scare the Bejesus out of you.

What will be the acronym for the First Dude? FDOTUS does not work. I think just DOTUS will do it for me.