Posts by jason330

Diogenes wandered the streets of Athens with a lamp in search of an honest man. Similarly, John Carney seems to have devoted his tenure in the House to searching out a rational Republican. He feels that the Delaware electorate is really looking for a guy with he tenacity to keep searching for rationality among Republicans in spite of everything we know about the Lunatic Party. Well, you can knock me over with a feather because a rational Republican may have just emerged.

If the GOP's Leader, Grover Norquist, is right - taxes will reset to the pre-Bush tax cuts rates. Republicans talking about possible deals are full of it according to Norquist. Why? because they are imagining deals in which $1.00 of tax increases is matched by $10.00 in cuts to Medicaid.

Only in the US Congress is the notion of raising taxes on the wealthy controversial. And similarly, only in Congress is the idea of raising the Medicare age looked at as a good idea.

The proposal to raise taxes on those earning more than $250,000 annually — one of President Obama's central campaign pitches — continues to be popular among a large majority of Americans, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll out Wednesday. Sixty percent of those surveyed support the proposal, compared with just 37 percent who are opposed. The debate over raising taxes on the high-income earners was one of the defining issues of the 2012 campaign, although polls have consistently shown broad support for the proposal backed by Obama and the Democrats. Meanwhile, an even larger portion of Americans — 67 percent — are opposed to raising the age for Medicare coverage from 65 to 67. via TPM

I am new to this AMC series 'The Walking Dead', but I've noticed a leitmotif. There seems to be an element of ongoing tension between people who have completely written off the zombies as non-human, and the people who continue to think (in spite of all the evidence) that zombies must retain some bit of humanity. Exactly the type of tension that arises among Democrats. Some of whom see reality as it is, and know that Republicans have become ideological zombies, totally bereft of humanity. Others of whom would like to continue to pretend that there must be some humanity somewhere under the ideological zombie flesh.

Back story: Mike Castle was this moderate Congressman from Delaware until George W. Bush was elected. Then Castle had to pretend to be moderate while voting for every bit of George Bush's lunatic agenda. That (the pretending to be moderate) pissed off a bunch of easily pissed off people in his lunatic political party. I lay that bit of the story out in Castle's political obituary running in this month's 'Delaware Today' magazine:

The Democratic Agenda Rahm Emanuel: "Too much post-election analysis has focused on voter demographics and campaign mechanics, leaving Democrats in danger of drawing the wrong lessons from our electoral success." "Demographics alone are not destiny....

State Legislature: "Tell me about it." If you read that NJ story, Atkins is revealed to be a total idiot and an irresponsible dick. He put guards in danger, gets them in trouble with their superiors and mocks them - just for good measure.

Is she running for something else already? Is she waiting for a "sign removal" grant to come through from the nanny state? Don't campaign's have a deadline for getting down the signs?

Of all the minor emergencies that float through ones mind as you prepare to host relatives for Thanksgiving dinner, a collapsing sink is not one of them.

Having failed to invalidate the Affordable Care Act at the Supreme Court, and having just lost big at the ballot box in their attempts to de-legitimize and hobble President Obama, Wingnut Republican Governors are now dedicating their efforts to botching the ACA's implementation at the state level. Meanwhile, in congress, John Boehner initially declared Obamacare the “law of the land” and expressed a willingness to compromise on "revenue" but quickly walked those positions back and re-affirmed his party's commitment obstruction and general mayhem. Listen to Mitch McConnell, one of the main architects of the GOP's comeback in 2010 through outright obstruction...

I'm not a big fixer or repairer of things, so this "Fixer's Manifesto" is very aspirational for me. I have some jeans that I was getting ready to toss out, so maybe I'll start with those. 1. IF IT'S BROKEN, FIX IT! BECAUSE EVERYDAY PRACTICAL PROBLEM SOLVING IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FORM OF CREATIVITY THERE IS. 2. IF IT'S NOT BROKEN, IMPROVE IT. A SMALL, CLEVER TWEAK CAN IMPROVE HOW SOMETHING WORKS FOR YEARS TO COME. 3. GIVE YOUR PRODUCTS A LONGER LIFE. IF WE DOUBLE THE LIFE OF OUR STUFF, WE HALVE WHAT GOES TO LANDFILL. ...