Gee, That's Too Bad...

I really liked Red Lobster.

 

I liked their specials.

 

I liked their cheesy biscuits.

 

Not as much as I like Tony's on the Redondo Beach pier in Redondo Beach, California. But when you can't have the real thing (great seafood), Red Lobster will do as a fair substitute.

 

But now they are out. I cannot in good conscience patronize Red Lobster again. Not until, and not unless they do a complete about face on their treatment of one of their Tennessee employees, a Ms. Tori Jenkins, an African-American waitress who works at a Franklin, Tennessee instance of the Red Lobster restaurant chain.

 

Ms. Jenkins had the misfortune to serve dinner to bigoted racists who objected to having their food handled by a black woman. And they made this fact obvious by including a tip of "None" and a total of "N****r" on the restaurant receipt.

As posted on her father's Facebook page.

 

And it caught fire and spread across the internet tubes.

 

So what does Red Lobster do? They suspended this woman with pay for "violating company policy." The spokesman for Red Lobster said that it was against company policy of "publicly posting a receipt."

 

A thing that Ms. Jenkins did not do. Her father did it. He probably posted from his phone with or without her knowledge or consent. Now if Ms. Jenkins' father worked for Red Lobster, I can see how he would be suspended, but the child should not receive the punishment due to the parent. And mark me, she is being punished. Suspending a waitress "with pay" is an insult. One cannot live on what a waitress gets paid. They make their living wages from tips. No work, no living wage.

 

No, Ms. Jenkins was not suspended for a violation of policy, she was suspended for serving bigoted racists. She was suspended because she is a black woman working for a company that does not like to get this kind of publicity. So they suspended her and made matters even worse.

 

No, I will not eat at Red Lobster ever again.

 

I don't even like the color red.

2E6 Bikers

Two Million Harley-mounted bikers were supposed to show up in DC yesterday to mark the 12th anniversary of 9/11 (or nine one one, as Congresstwit Bachmann says). That's a two with six zeroes behind it. That's 2 x 10^6 or 2E6 in scientific notation shorthand.

 

And they ended up being about 1.999E6 short of their goal.

 

They applied for permits with the National Park Service to close some intersections around the capitol for their observance, but the NPS refused, citing the huge traffic snarls that might result, which in the end, was their intent.

 

And the bikers got their way anyway. An accident closed traffic lanes on the Outer Loop in Bethseda, causing traffic to back up for miles. Another rear-ended a pedicab.

 

I was wondering what the point of it all is, and I finally got my answer when I read this article at NBC. It seems that bikers fear change. Here's the quote:

"On their Facebook page, in all caps, the group said they will stand by the Constitution and Bill of Rights, adding that they're "against any fundamental transformation of America."

 

I know that 9/11 is a date to remember for the lives lost. But what has that got to do with opposition to transformational change that can and must happen in this country?

 

Could it be all tied in with the incipient transformational change of Obamacare which will go live in less than 3 weeks? I know it's subtle, and I know it's coincidental, but I really don't believe in coincidence.

 

Bikers Against Obamacare.

Bachmann, Gohmert and King on Muslim Brotherhood: What Could Go Wrong?

Michele “Bigot” Bachmann, Steve King “Kong” and Looney Louie Gomert have all doubled down on the Muslim Brotherhood in their unified support of the Egyptian People who are throwing off the yoke of the Brotherhood’s brutal oppression by their newfound freedom fighters, the … er…Egyptian Army.

 

After all, the Muslim Brotherhood has been our sworn enemy since they attacked the Pentagon and New York’s World Trade Center back on “Nine One One.”

And are we ever thankful that Bachmann drew that fine line of distinction that she is speaking as a member of the United States Congress of the United States of America.

We clearly could have mistaken her as a member of some other country’s United States Congress.

Oh yes, there is video

The Thing About Syria is...

There are no correct choices.

 

And there are no good outcomes

Irony

I love irony.

 

Two news items came across the internet tubes in the past couple of days about outcomes after a trial.

 

Ariel Castro was tried and convicted of all manner of crimes and sentenced to multiple life sentences.

 

And he lost his life.

 

George Zimmerman was tried and acquitted of killing another human being.

 

And he lost his wife.

 

Couldn't happen to a better pair of fellows.

On the Trainwreck Comment

OK I have one more thing to say about Pete Olson's Town Hall meeting the other night in Sugar Land, Texas and then I'll go and look for other fish to barbecue (because frying fish undoes all of the good things about that food).

 

I videoed Sneaky Pete over some intervals hoping to catch him talking about the AARP. It didn't happen naturally, but I did get this one short clip of him talking about Obamacare.

 

He talked about Obamacare a whole darn lot.

Get that? He asked his audience what they knew about Obamacare and some people correctly responded. Then he dismissed the whole thing with "no one knows." Guess he wasn't ready for correct answers to his question.

 

His thesis is that because news of the onset of Obamacare's open enrollment beginning on October 1st the program is doomed to failure. This is something that Senator Max Baucus brought up awhile back, that there was a dearth of information out there about how the ACA (Obamacare) is going to be implemented. The curiosity is how Sneaky Pete twisted Baucus' words when he cited Senator Baucus as being the senator who was now against Obamacare, and he was one of its chief proponents.

 

Pete cited Baucus' words that "Obamacare will be a trainwreck," quoting him out of context. The context was that if the ACA is not actively promoted to the citizenry, "I just see a huge train wreck coming down." Baucus still supports Obamacare. He just has concerns about promotion.

 

But that is how Sneaky Pete rolls. Lies and quotes out of context are his absolute strengths.

 

Now here is the truth. News of implementation of Obamacare is scheduled. It just hasn't happened yet. Someone down in DC rightly concluded that Americans have limited long-term memory. They do. And the proof is, if this is not true Republicanism would be a long-forgotten fancy. Timing is crucial. People are going to be informed, just not right now.

 

Take a look at this. They plan on spending millions in promotional ads.

 

Just not now.

 

But if you do want to know well in advance of what to do to enroll in the national healthcare insurance program, all you have to do is this: CLICK HERE.

 

I did. You can pre-register. Millions have already done this.

 

Thank you Pete Olson for reminding me to promote Obamacare to my 6 readers. I clean forgot about doing it.

 

(I can't believe this guy is a 3-term congressman. Wait, there was Kesha Rogers, twice. Of course I can believe he is a 3-term congressman)

Sneaky Pete on Obamacare

Just wanted to update my viewers about what their congresscritter has decided to do about your health care.

Screw you.

This needs to be the Republican Party Emblem. If you want to have equal access to health care, well then SCREW YOU. If you want an endlife plan and you are not yet 65, well then SCREW YOU. If you have a brother, an uncle, a mother who does not yet have Medicare or Medicaid benefits, and are slowly dying, well then screw you and the horse you came in on.

That is what Pete Olson, a Texan CD 22 congressman has for his message to his constituents.

SCREW YOU!!!!

The ACA, otherwise as Obamacare will help people. Pete Olson has no interest in that. The only trouble is, Pete Olson lives in a district of like-minded people.

I took a long shower when I got home last night after the Olson Town Hall.

The comments I heard were just horrible. These people are mean and nasty.

And Pete Olson represents them. But not me.

Service Guarantees Citizenship

Guess what Congressman Pete Olson did tonight? He conducted a straw poll. What he wanted to know is what his constituents - you know, a sampling from the broad spectrum of constituents who bother to show up to his Town Halls - what his constituents thought about how we should grant citizenship to illegal DREAMERS who are in the country illegally through no fault of their own. Their parents brought them.

 

He wanted to know what his constituents thought about how the United States should treat these people who are haplessly caught between two countries. What a concept.

 

And the throng of over 200 CD 22 constituents responded. (I withheld my opinion so as not to legitimize his so-called poll).

 

It was a multiple choice question.

 

Here were the answer choices.

 

A. Provide an automatic path to citizenship with no requirements

B. Provide a path for those with military service.

C. Provide a path for those who have excelled in school and plan to go to college.

D. Send them back to their original country.

 

Guess what got last place?

 

Answer choice A. 13% and change. That was the Democratic audience.

 

Note that the answer choice in the Immigration bill was not included. A path to citizenship that includes paying penalties, back taxes and getting in line. Why sully this poll with actual reality?

 

Guess what got 2nd from the top? Answer choice D. Screw 'em. Send them back to a country they never knew. That's my Town Hall attending audience that I have come to know and hate.

 

Guess which one got El Numero Uno? Answer choice B. Only military inductees shall have citizenship. 26% of the respondents chose answer choice B. Twice that of those who chose A.

 

I love it when Republicans are caught out in the open being Republicans. And I love it how they have totally bought in on the concept of citizenship only for those who serve in the military. What does this remind me of? A futuresque sci-fi movie about killing spiders on the planet Klendathu? Is it that easy?

 

Yes it is.

No Fur Flew....(Sigh)

OK just so you know, at Pete Olson's purported exercise of our 1st Amendment rights tonight, no fur flew.

 

As expected.

 

Pete Olson runs a tightly controlled Town Hall as previously noted. So he gets to pick and choose which questions will be answered and which ones are destined for the "round file." The AARP matter never came up. Never. And how this occurred with an audience full of grey hair, white people gray hair, cannot be left up to chance.

 

Now Obamacare did come up, make no mistake about that. The entire Republican audience was so fired up about Obamacare that their questions were nonstop about it, enough to inspire one participant to complain about it.

 

But not one question on the AARP being "a tool of the Democrat Party", and clearly all you have to do is follow the money on that one. Retirees have disposable income. They do. And they vote, and they donate campaign lucre. So I see this bullet dodging as an acknowledgement of that fact.

 

So no fun was had by me. I got no memorable video footage.

 

Oh and just so you know, Pete Olson won't vote for a cruise missile response to Assad's use of chemical weapons. He won't give the president, quote, a blank check for war in Syria.

 

I continue to be impressed by Sneaky Pete's ability to obfuscate the truth. He is a master at it.

Let the Fur Fly

I'm actually looking forward to attending a Town Hall tomorrow. Pete Olson has scheduled one at one of the Fort Bend ISD high schools tomorrow night and I need to go and watch, especially to see if there will be any fur flying around.

 

I have large thumbs.

Pete Olson angered local elderly people recently by sending out an email blast accusing the AARP of being a tool of the Democratic Party. They supported Obamacare, you see, and anyone who supports health care for everyone must be a radical liberal.

 

So he is coming to their own backyard, so to speak, and I am going to assume that it will be well-attended by the blue-hairs who were avid supporters of Tom DeLay way back when, but are now looking askance at Sneaky Pete.

 

Olson runs his Town Halls with his overly large thumb pressed down on his constituents' 1st Amendment rights and only allows questions from the floor to be filled out on index cards beforehand. Cards that are then filtered for content by his minions.

 

Yes, Pete Olson is somewhat of a tool, and yes he has a very large thumb to suppress free speech at what he calls a Town Hall. But I am going to see this spectacle anyway. If it comes off with slick crowd control I'll let you know.

 

If it doesn't, I'll definitely let you know.

It’s Labor Day

Happy Labor Day everyone. Let’s all thank the unions for this day off.

And the 40 hour work week.

And weekends.

And benefits packages

And this really, really, clever video.

Syria: You Can Do A Lot...

I like our president's "go slow" approach in his persistent saber rattling against Syria's Assad regime. I like it because it tells me that not only does President Obama not want to embroil this country in another Middle East conflict, he also doesn't want to help the rebels overthrow their government - something that didn't work out so well in Iran in the 1970's.

 

It's not to influence the civil war's outcome. It IS, however, to punish Assad for stepping across a line that we all follow when he used chemical weapons on civilian populations.

 

That, in the end, is why Obama is calling on Congress to approve any military strike. That is why he is mentioning the sorts of targets that will be attacked. That is why he is giving Assad's army plenty of time to get out of the way.

 

Syria is on its own. If they want to have a civil war, that's their business. Not ours. But both parties need to know that the world has only one rule when it comes to warfare - which is unfortunately inevitable: don't use chemical weapons on civilians. It is a lose-lose proposition.

 

A few cruise missiles should be sufficient to remind Assad that in war, you can do a lot, but you can't do that.

Sorry

Hey.

 

Sorry for the absence. My computer is having fits and I have "stuff " going on in my life. Lots of good stuff to come. Congressman Pete Olson's town hall next week to name one. I love me a town hall.

 

It brings out the crazies.

 

And they vote.

Just Say No to Big Macs on Thursday

Tomorrow, Thursday August 29th,is a national day of protest of the minimum wage - also known as starvation wages - and will even be celebrated in Texas as thousands of fast food workers develop simultaneous cases of influenza.

 

Minimum wage workers are demanding a national raise in the minimum wage from the present $7.25 per hour to $15.

 

And the time has come. The time is right.

 

Case in point: McDonald's, the iconic fast food chain that employs hundreds of thousands of minimum wage workers through its franchises showed a net profit of $6.81 billion in 2012. That's NET profit. And that is an 11% rise over the previous year.

 

Astounding when you consider that we are just recovering from a colossal economic meltdown. Well, if you believe this article, the meltdown is feeding into the profit increase. Economically strapped families are still eating out, but spending more money on Big Macs than T-bones. Profits are up at McDonalds because times are hard.

 

So they can afford to slide a few more bucks over to their franchisees so they in turn can pay their employees a living wage, can't they?

 

As has occurred in the past, every time talk of raising the minimum wage is bandied about, businessmen are tearing their clothes decrying the loss of jobs and shuttering of businesses that will surely result should a new minimum wage go into effect.

 

But as I indicated above, the time is right. The time is right because this time, using proper economic modeling that factor out trends that were already there, economists now see that contrary to popular belief, raising the minimum wage does no such thing. We have all sorts of data now for every minimum wage hikes in history, and guess what: all that stuff that businessmen are warning us about has never happened.

 

From an article in Bloomberg News from April of last year:

 

"[A] wave of new economic research is disproving those arguments about job losses and youth employment. Previous studies tended not to control for regional economic trends that were already affecting employment levels, such as a manufacturing-dependent state that was shedding jobs. The new research looks at micro-level employment patterns for a more accurate employment picture. The studies find minimum-wage increases even provide an economic boost, albeit a small one, as strapped workers immediately spend their raises."

I like how this quote parallels the McDonalds story how their profits go up in an economic downturn because one could argue that McDonalds faces reduced profits when it pays its employees a living wage, so people can go back to having T-bone steaks.

 

If I were McDonalds, I would be considering some menu changes when the minimum wage does go up, as it inevitably will. They might have to consider selling better/higher quality nutritious food instead of chicken feet and pig snouts.

 

Heck. Maybe even I might spend a few bucks at a McDonalds again.

 

Rightwing Radio Host Fakes an Assassination of a Black Congressman

Laura Ingraham, an amazingly evil woman, just doctored an audio file to make it seem like someone fired a single bullet at a US congressman as he was delivering a speech.

 

The congressman? Congressman John Lewis. The issue? Immigration and "those people."

 

Racism sells. Racism sells. And so does a faked assassination of a prominent public servant.

 

I went to You Tube to hear it and had to sit through it for over 4 minutes listening to Laura Ingraham's shockingly bad voice - she makes Ann Coulter's voice sound pleasant - before it arrived at the part where she infamously edits in the sound of a gun going off in the middle of Congressman Lewis's speech that he gave at the Lincoln Memorial this past weekend. It cuts off the congressman in mid-sentence, and is followed by a brief "OK" and then dead air for a few seconds.

 

And then she drones on for another 4 minutes.

 

So I did you all a favor and edited the clip down to less than a minute so you can hear just the outrageously evil part that Ingraham must now own for the rest of her life.

He Healed the Sick, Why Don't They Agree With That Concept?

Why do Christians hate the ACA (Affordable Care Act) - also known as Obamacare? I just cannot figure it out. Unless I am uninformed in these matters, Jesus healed the sick. He took great stock in working His miracles on mortals. They were His calling card, if you will. Proof positive that He was the one and only Savior of the World.

 

Back when Jesus walked the earth, healthcare didn't exist. He was the only existing embodiment of healthcare. No, He didn't heal everyone, but He never denied healthcare to anyone either (well, once maybe - but he was tired that day).

 

Quite unlike the evangelical Christians. There are Christian leaders everywhere who actively oppose Obamacare, and in so doing, are actively working to deny healthcare to 32 million Americans whose lives would quickly improve with full implementation of ACA.

 

We are verged on full implementation of ACA, and the anti-healthcare rhetoric is ratcheting up to a level of frenzy unsurpassed in recent history. Now I can understand politicians being opposed. Their hands are securely in the pockets of the health insurance company lobbyists and Big Pharma. Their opposition is understandable. What I don't get is why are the evangelical preachers getting in on the action? It's maddening because people listen to their pastors and believe everything they say because they are saying it.

 

And it is such an anti-Christian position.

 

Would Jesus oppose Obamacare? In truth, I doubt He would want to say anything about it because it is all about "rendering unto Caesar." But here is what the Holy Bible says about healthcare:

3 John 1:2: "Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul."

 

James 5:14-15: "Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven."

 

Psalm 103:2-3: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases."

 

Acts 19: 11-12: "And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them."

 

Jeremiah 33:6: "Behold, I will bring to it health and healing, and I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security."

 

Sounds like providing healthcare to 32 million people who would not ordinarily be able to have it is something good.

 

Sounds like these pastors all need to shut up and get out of the way. The modern-day miracle of Obamacare may quite possibly be one of His works.

Oh My, What a Great Idea!

 

What could possibly go wrong?

On Immigration (and Voter Suppression)

The antics of Ted Cruz, are again in the news. This time it’s how he is addressing his citizenship status. As it turns out citizenship status is quite a study and it led me to some very unlikely places.

 

To review, all of this emerged out of a question to birther-of-the-first-order Donald Trump over whether Ted Cruz could legally be president. Trump garnered some fame, or should I say infamy, over his repeated demands to see President Obama’s long form birth certificate because he couldn’t possibly be president because he was black Kenyan having a Kenyan father and being born in Kenya.

Given that Ted Cruz was born in Canada, Trump was asked whether this disqualified him from ever being president and Trump answered that he was “perhaps not eligible” to be president.

And all of this attention is because Donald Trump is the world authority over who can, and who cannot be President of the United States I suppose.

But rather than just laughing it off, as we should do every time Donald Trump opens his mouth, it caused people to talk and Ted Cruz produced his Canadian birth certificate, but rightly claimed his American citizenship because his mother was an American.

Then Canada spoke up. Canadian law says that anyone born inside their national boundaries automatically becomes a natural born citizen of Canada. And because Canada and the United States both recognize dual citizenship, Ted Cruz is legally a dual citizen of both Canada and America.

Now does that status eliminate Cruz from eligibility according to the Constitution?

Maybe.

In truth, the Constitution says nothing about dual citizenship, maybe because the concept would have been foreign to the Founders (pun intended). But the meaning is clear – the Founders did not want someone with allegiance to another country to be President, and having someone with dual citizenship in the office of the President is problematic.

So because Ted Cruz is most definitely running for President in 2016, he announced last week that he would be renouncing his Canadian citizenship, making it all copasetic.

Interesting stuff. The original statute governing all of this is the Naturalization Law of 1790. Only this law deals with exactly what a “natural born citizen” is. The definition is, naturally, a white person born within the boundaries of the US (oops, sorry Mr. President) but also included children born abroad of American citizens to also be citizens.

But my research took a strange turn as I found that this law was superseded by subsequent laws that tweeked and adjusted things, most notably the Naturalization Law of 1798. This law extended the time period that an immigrant would have to reside in-country before becoming a citizen, extending it from  the original 2 year waiting period to 14 years.

Why do that?

Voter suppression.

It turns out that most of the people who would vote for Republican Party candidates, Thomas Jefferson being the most prominent at the time, and not for Federalist candidates were newly naturalized immigrants – former citizens of Ireland and France. What better way to keep them from voting for Jefferson than to prevent them from becoming citizens?

Voter Suppression!!!

But it didn’t work. Eventually Jefferson’s party took power anyway.

Then as now, voter suppression only serves the party whose adherents are suppressed.

Playing a Game of Texas Holder

Just out today is news that the Department of Justice has filed suit against the state of Texas over its Voter ID law. The law enacted that requires a voter to show a photo ID in order to vote in Texas.

 

The one passed by a Republican supermajority so that it can remain a supermajority even when the state has a majority of Democrats living inside its borders.

Said Attorney General Eric Holder of the action:

“We will not allow the Supreme Court's recent decision to be interpreted as open season for states to pursue measures that suppress voting rights. We will keep fighting aggressively to prevent voter disenfranchisement. ... This represents the department's latest action to protect voting rights, but it will not be our last.”

 

Greg Abbott, Texas’ AG is all over this like a duck on a June Bug.

“Voter IDs have nothing to do with race, and they are free to anyone who needs one.”

 

And that would be right. Abbott has already admitted that Voter ID has nothing to do with race. It has to do with being a minority while simultaneously being a Democrat. It’s OK to be African-American or Hispanic and vote. That’s OK. It’s being the Democrat that Abbot has a problem with.

Surprisingly honest? No, this is Greg Abbott we are talking about. Gall is what this man is made of.

Racial Discrimination = Bad.     Rigged Elections = Good.

Are Republicans Gearing Up for Another 1964?

One would think so.
 

Continuing with the same theme as yesterday’s blog where a discussion of the 13 Republican Party activists in Maine have quit the party for its tax and spending ways took place, we now see, in this article, all of the other similar actions in the Republican Party that – taken together – indicate things are going to go very poorly for them in 2016, if not 2014:

 

• Ted Cruz, darling of the tea party movement is going to renounce his Canadian citizenship. Clearly he is running for president in 2016.

 

• Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander wrote an op-ed defending himself against tea party attacks.

• Radio ads are being run against Republican Senators Richard Burr and Lindsey Graham criticizing them for being soft on Obama.

•  A major party official in the Iowa Republican Party resigned, saying  “I find it increasingly difficult to defend issues and statements made by Party leaders” .

What this is telling us, along with the fact that neither John McCain not Mitt Romney could move the ball against Barack Obama, is that conservatives are going rogue on their establishment and will in all probability nominate another Barry Goldwater to run for president in 2016. What they do in 2014 is anyone’s guess but I would expect some more loses even after the election-rigging gerrymandering that took place after the 2010 debacle.

Conservatives, as opined in yesterday’s blog, would rather be right than be in power.