Six Angry Men (And One Crazy Lady)

In the last three weeks, I've had two separate dreams about the sun being destroyed.  Once by terrorists during a war, and the other time I woke up before we found out exactly what happened.  First of all, I appreciate my brain trying to generate sci-fi movie ideas, but I'll be needing more plausible scenarios if we're going to move forward.  More importantly, it seems like the possibility of one of these Republicans occupying the White House is making my subconscious more than a little nervous. 

I think it's important, if you're watching these debates and realizing how insanely entertaining four years of any of these people might be (not including Mitt Romney, whose whole existence is the antithesis of entertaining), to also realize that the President sometimes actually has to do things and know stuff.  I'm not saying a Herman Cain Presidency would inevitably end in the destruction of the sun, I'm just saying you couldn't rule it out. 

Anyway, live from the fourth circle of hell, it's the 112th Republican debate!

8:04PM: 2011 Newt Gingrich looks like he ate 1994 Newt Gingrich.

8:05PM: After noticing he was absent from the introductions, I used the internets to find out that Jon Huntsman is boycotting tonight's debate to suck up to New Hampshire voters.  Ya know, every time I think one of these people might not be a moron, something like this happens.

8:07PM: Anderson Cooper is tonight's moderator.  We'll have to try not to get too distracted by his handsomeness.  Anderson says he's hoping everyone will leave tonight's debate knowing more about the candidates.  Good luck with that Coop.

8:09PM: Herman Cain says he "solves problems for a living".  If elected, he'll know exactly what to do if the country runs out of pepperoni.

8:10PM: Newt Gingrich says when he's elected he'll "replace class warfare with cooperation".  That's right! Rich people are gonna keep all the money, and the rest of you motherfuckers better cooperate!

8:13PM: Herman Cain repeatedly says, if you just accept his analysis of his 999 plan, instead of, ya know, thinking and stuff, you'll see it's a great plan.  Seriously Herman, even Rick Santorum knows your plan is stupid.  Even Michele Bachmann is smarter than Herman Cain.  Michele Bachmann!

8:16PM: Rick Perry is laying out his own plan "at the end of the week."  Ohhh!  I can't wait to camp out in front of the tax plan store all night on Thursday waiting for Rick's plan to come out.

8:17PM: Cain - "a loaf of bread has five taxes in it right now".  That's a Herman Cain metaphor, I like to call them Cainaphors.

8:19PM: Cain invites families to do their own math on his 999 plan.  Quick note for Herman...Americans do not like math.

8:21PM: Going on roughly 15 minutes of everyone hammering Herman's plan.  The referee needs to step in and stop this fight.

8:22PM: Newt says the 999 plan is more complex than Cain lets on.  I can't tell if he meant that as a compliment or an insult.

8:23PM: Cooper just got Bachmann to admit she's in favor of raising taxes on the 47% of people who pay no federal income tax.  I could have sworn Republicans were against raising taxes.  I'm so confused.

8:24PM: Finally moving on to Romney's plan.  Someone get Herman Cain an ice pack and a drink.

8:26PM: Rick Perry has a tendency to start sentences without knowing where they're going to end.

8:29PM: Santorum and Romney are just yelling at each other now.  Well, Rick's yelling.  The Mittron 3000 is smirking and calmly responding.

8:34PM: Bachmann ends the debate on health care by shouting about repealing "Obamacare".  If anything sums up the Republican view of health care better than a poorly informed person shouting nonsense, I haven't seen it.

8:39PM: I may have been hallucinating, but I think Ron Paul just said we have "too much health care" in this country.  You have to pay attention when Ron's talking, because he'll slip stuff like that in there when you're not listening.

8:41PM: Perry says Texas has one of the finest health care systems in the world.  For the last time, executing everyone who catches a cold is not "health care".

8:41PM: Perry just accused Romney of hiring illegal immigrants to work in his house.  As Romney tried to respond, Perry pulls the same trick Santorum pulled by interrupting him before he could finish.  Romney eventually got so mad he almost short-circuited. 

8:45PM: Finally, Mitt defended himself by saying that if you hire contractors to work at your home, it's hard to know who those contractors are employing.  So true, and such a common problem.  Most Americans have no idea what the company they hired to mow their lawn is doing.

8:47PM: Perry wants to use predator drones to secure the Mexican border.  I may be underestimating the entertainment value of a Perry Presidency.

8:48PM: Bachmann (who appears to be dressed like a Navy Admiral) attacks President Obama for having illegal immigrant family members (kind of disgusting, even for her).  Then she proposes building a double fence.  Oh! Double fence!  That's twice as much fence!

8:51PM: Romney says everyone on the stage "loves legal immigration".  Santorum doesn't look so sure.

8:52PM: Pretty pro-Mitt crowd tonight.  There are more mormons in Las Vegas than you think.

8:54PM: Ron Paul is being extra nice tonight, so allow me to translate what he just said about the idea of a border fence.  Ron can understand why stupid people would be pacified by building a fence, but it wouldn't work and the rest of these people are morons for supporting it.

8:56PM: Cain refuses to answer Cooper's question about repealing or changing the 14th amendment, so Anderson moves on to Rick Perry, who also refuses to answer the question until slipping in a quiet "no" at the end.

8:58PM: We were talking about Latinos, and somehow Santorum jumped into faith and family and found his way to suggesting that same sex marriage is destroying families (ya know, somehow).  Rick Santorum is destroying my sanity.

9:02PM: They're talking about Yucca Mountain now.  Welcome to primary politics.  Mitt Romney has always been against burying nuclear waste in Nevada, ever since three hours ago when he got to Nevada.  And he'll always be against it, for as long as he's in Nevada.

9:06PM: Mitt Romney believes in free markets.  They've certainly worked for Mitt.  Free markets are a lot like casinos, in that, if you go in with billions of dollars, you'll probably leave with billions of dollars, but if you go in poor, you'll probably leave poor.

9:08PM: Michele Bachmann is against women losing their homes.  No mention of men, but she's strongly against women losing their homes.  That was kind of weird.

9:09PM: Coop is asking them about Occupy Wall Street.  This should be good.

9:09PM: Cain defends his idea that, if you aren't rich, it's your own damn fault.  The crowd eats it up.  Welcome to the Republican party.

9:11PM: Ron Paul lays out as good an explanation of why people are angry at Wall Street as you'll hear from anyone.  I mean, he just nailed it.  It really is too bad he's so crazy sometimes.

9:12PM: Herman Cain says he doesn't understand what these people on Wall Street want.  I think that pretty much sums it up.

9:13PM: These guys literally can't bring themselves to say banks did anything wrong.  Romney honestly looked like he was trying to say it and the words just wouldn't come out.

9:19PM: Uh oh, Cooper just specifically asked Santorum about faith.  I thought I was going to need a new TV, but Rick actually reigned it in a bit.  He almost sounded reasonable.  He didn't even call mormonism a cult (good call there if he wants to get out of Nevada alive).

9:22PM: Gingrich - "how can you have judgment if you have no faith?"  Yes Newt, blind belief in your invisible friend is the height of good judgment.

9:23PM: In the discussion of faith, Perry just said the American people have lost faith in the resident of the White House.  Zing!  Rick likes to have fun with words.

9:27PM: Bachmann says cutting defense spending is on the table, as long as we're not talking about actual dollar amounts.

9:28PM: Gingrich - "I'm a hawk, but I'm a cheap hawk".  In related news, Newt's a whore, but he's an expensive whore.

9:29PM: There goes crazy Ron Paul again, talking about how our empire is costing too much money and how that's what killed every empire in history and how maybe we don't need troops in Germany anymore.  Ol' crazy Ron.

9:32PM: Santorum would "absolutely not cut one penny" of defense spending.  I could construct a clever joke here, but it's easier to just say Rick Santorum is an idiot.

9:34PM: Some dope in the audience just asked about the foreign aid budget.  I wonder if any of these people will tell her how insignificant it is.  I'm gonna guess no (I was right).

9:35PM: I should be more surprised to hear that none of these alleged christians will defend humanitarian aid to other countries, but I'm not.

9:37PM: Bachmann, of course, wouldn't cut foreign aid to Israel, because Israel is special.  Not because she actually cares about Israelis, but because "you know who" can't come back unless Israel is all squared away.

9:44PM: On the question of electability, Santorum points out that he won Pennsylvania twice.  Yeah, but then he lost it that one time and pretty much went down in flames.  I wonder if he remembers that.

9:47PM: Not surprisingly, the discussion of electability has devolved into attack Mitt Romney time.  I think we can all agree that none of these people are electable.

9:48PM: Romney keeps picking fights with Perry.  Careful Mitt, Rick is pretty unstable and may be armed.  Also, Nevada loves them some Romney.  It's crazy.

9:50PM: Cain says he'll be "the problem solver who fixes stuff".  Oh! I want him! The guy who will "fix stuff"!  My biggest concern about Herman Cain is that we might actually be stupid enough to vote for him.

9:51PM: Gingrich, for about the 5th time in these debates, admonishes the moderator for, ya know, asking tough questions and making the candidates defend things they've previously said.  So unfair.

I guess that's it.  No closing statements.  CNN really knows how to put on a crappy debate.  Cooper had no control all night and then it just kind of ended suddenly. 

There are way too many debates for any one debate to really matter, but I think Herman Cain got roughed up pretty good tonight, probably the beginning of the end for him.  I'll miss the Pizza Man.  On the other hand, Mitt Romney appeared to almost have an emotion at one point in tonight's debate, so that's something.  Only 50 debates to go.

Herman Cain Keeps It Simple

The Republican nomination for 2012 is up for grabs, and for at least the 5th time this year, someone new has jumped to the front of the line.  Herman Cain is surging in the polls, and it isn't just because Mitt Romney is most likely a robot sent from the future to bore us all to death so the robots can take over.  Herman gets it.  People like things simple.  Like Herman's 999 tax plan (an idea stolen, quite obviously, from one of my favorite bands http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bimNMiz250). 

That's 9% taxes, sales tax, income tax, whatever.  Sure, it doesn't "make economic sense" and it couldn't "get any votes in Congress", but that's not what Mr. Cain cares about.  He's not one of those political types who wants to "do realistic things" or "govern the country properly".  He just wants to keep it simple.  And he's soooo right you guys.  In America, everything we do to run the country should be so simple a drunk toddler can understand it. 

And that's not all.  Herman Cain is the same guy who once suggested that Congress shouldn't pass any legislation longer than three pages.  That was a while ago now, and I'm hearing that Herman is refining this plan so that, under a Cain Presidency, all laws must be constructed in tweet form.  If it's more than 140 characters, Herman Cain won't sign it!

But why stop there?  Why just fix the tax code and Congress when we have so many other problems?  Well, I have an inside source and I'm here to tell you, Herman isn't stopping there.  Here are some of the other plans you can expect to hear from Mr. Cain in the coming weeks and months.

Law Enforcement: The Super 12 Plan
Anyone who is convicted of a crime, no matter what they did, goes to jail for exactly 12 years.  Jaywalking?  12 years.  Arrested for occupying Wall St.?  12 years.  Beat a mime to death with a pogo stick?  12 years.  Our criminal justice systems spends way to much time and taxpayer money trying to figure out "fair" sentences and when someone should be allowed to get out of jail.  And if 12 years wasn't enough for you, you can just kill another mime and go right back for 12 more years.

Foreign Policy: The Law of Threes
We must always be in three wars at any given time, no more, no less.  And any war we enter must last exactly three years.  See, this way, there's no messy and confusing public debate about whether or not we should go to war with another country.  It's simple!  How many wars are we in right now?  If it's three, than sorry, no new wars today, but we'll put it on the waiting list.  But if it's less than three, everybody in Yemen better run because it's bombin' time! 

Additionally, no more hard decisions about when to leave a country we've reduced to rubble.  Three years and we're done...and you're welcome.  You wouldn't leave a pizza in the oven after the timer went off, right?

Health Care: The NyQuil Plan
We all know trying to get people affordable access to health care is socialism.  And who needs all those fancy-pants doctors anyway?  They're always using big words nobody can understand like "myocardial" and "kidney".  If you're not feeling well in President Cain's America, just go to the store and get yourself some NyQuil.  You don't need to "know" what's wrong, NyQuil will fix it, or put you to sleep until it goes away on it's own. 

They don't all have to be about numbers.  This isn't about numbers, it's about keeping it simple.

Energy: Drill Baby Drill
We all know the two biggest problems with energy.  Number one, we're just not drilling enough.  We all know that god has placed an infinite amount of oil in the Earth for us to use (well, not infinite, but enough so that we'll have some until whenever Jesus comes back).  Unfortunately, godless hippies keep complaining about how we're "running out of oil" and how we need to "plan for the future".  Stupid jerks.  What we need to do is drill more.  And we need to be able to do it without interference from the second problem, regulation.

So here's the two-part plan.  First, everybody gets a drill.  On day one of a Cain Presidency, you'll come downstairs in the morning and, just like Christmas, you'll find your livingroom full of oil drilling equipment.  Drill in your backyard, your front yard, the street in front of your house, under your basement, anywhere you think oil might be.  More drilling=more oil, so if we're all drilling, then we'll have all the oil we'll ever need.  Of course, once you find the oil, you have to give the property you found it under to a big oil company.  Herman won't jeopardize profits, he's not insane. 

As for part two, we have to find a way around these environmentalists and their government regulation, so here's the deal.  Let's say you're visiting the Gulf of Mexico, or ANWR.  As a good American, you've got your drilling supplies with you.  Let's say you come across a little piece of land you think might have some oil under it and you'd like to drill and find out.  No problem.  Just yell OIL! really loud and wait 15 minutes.  If Al Gore doesn't show up to complain, start drilling baby. 

What about alternative energy?  What about it?  Herman Cain doesn't buy into liberal myths like "wind" or "the sun".  Having more than one energy source is super complicated.  We're sticking with what we know.

The Economy: Lucky Sevens
Cain's 999 plan is a start, but that's not all.  To fix this economy and put America back to work, Cain has a seven point economic plan which is sure to do the trick.

1) Right now, unemployment insurance can last up to 99 weeks.  Republicans know that's way too long, and people need incentive to get back to work.  Under a Cain Presidency, unemployment will last for 7 days, plenty of time to find a new job and get back to work.

2) Drop the minimum wage down to 7 cents an hour.  Listen people, we need to compete with China.  Do you want to move all the way to China for a job?  Or do you just want to live like a Chinese worker right here in America?  I thought so.

3) Get rid of unions until there's only 7 left in the country.  And by 7, I mean 0.

4) Once a week, President Cain will pick the names of seven poor families out of a hat (hat's gonna be pretty full most weeks with the new minimum wage).  He'll send the 7 lucky winners a pizza.  There's no free lunches in America, so they'll have to pay him back once they decide to stop being poor.

5) TBD

7) 9+9+9=7 (right?)

Only 6 points, you say?  Listen, Herman Cain isn't worried about counting to seven, he's worried about America.  He's gonna build a 20-foot electric border fence with an alligator moat, he's gonna keep things simple and he's gonna fix the country...or maybe he's just gonna go on a book tour and endorse Rick Perry.  Who the hell knows?

OK, this was fun, but the truth is, Cain's recent surge in popularity points to a more serious problem.  It's not a surprise that the tea people have suddenly latched onto Herman and his promise to make everything simple enough for them to understand.  This is what happens when one party's message and platform get overrun by the misinformed masses. 

It's easy to dismiss Cain as the new flavor of the week and say he'll be back down at 5% a month from now.  But what if that doesn't happen?  Cain is just crazy enough to go through all of the remaining 349 debates without saying anything rational enough to get him in trouble with the tea people.  And what if Romney stumbles?  What if Cain somehow gets the nomination?  The President is vulnerable, the economy doesn't look to be turning around anytime soon.  There are perfectly realistic scenarios in which any Republican nominee beats the President.  President Cain?  Certainly not likely, but it's hard to say, at this point, that's it's impossible.  This is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.

The Invisible Debate

Much has changed since we last saw the Republican candidates.  Rick Perry's campaign seems to have completely fallen apart.  Media people will have you believe Perry is losing ground because he looked kinda silly toward the end of the last couple of debates, but it's actually because the tea people found out that, as Governor, he sometimes had to do things that made sense.  That's just not how the tea people roll. 

Replacing Rick as this week's flavor of the week is The Pizza Man himself, Herman Cain.  I hope he enjoys his brief time at the top, before Republicans decide he's a little too..um.."urban" to be President. 

Tonight's debate is only being televised on Bloomberg TV, which means I'm the only one watching.  I expect to be pandered to pretty heavily.  The Bloomberg people start by telling me that tonight's debate will be different and special, and boy were they right.  The candidates are sitting down.  Consider my mind blown.

8:03PM: Herman Cain jumps right in by mentioning his awesome 999 plan.  That's three 9-inch personal pan pizzas for just nine dollars each, all day on the 9th day of every month.

8:05PM: Perry already looks like he's getting sleepy.  Not a good sign.

8:06PM: Romney - "you have to stand by your principles".  Excuse me?  Mitt Romney wouldn't know principles if you wrote them in permanent marker on his face.

8:10PM: Bachmann blames the financial meltdown entirely on the Federal government...Gingrich doubles down by suggesting Barney Frank and Chris Dodd should go to jail.  Newt's one of those people who I'd be willing to pay to shut up.

8:13PM: It's funny to watch the other candidates' eyes glaze over whenever Ron Paul starts using big words.  Ron correctly points to the bubble and burst economic cycle as a huge part of the problem.  Of course, he fails to point out that FDR was able to moderate the boom and bust cycle that had plagued the country before his Presidency, and things were pretty good for about 50 years until Ronald Reagan came along and ruined everything.

8:16PM: Huntsman - "Washington DC is the gas capital of the country".  Zing!

8:18PM: Newt Gingrich is very anti prostate cancer.  Still pro cervical cancer though, as far as I know.  He's a puzzle.

8:23PM: Huntsman stole my joke about Cain's 999 plan being related to pizza prices.  Then he proposed what is, at this table, a modest 10% corporate tax cut.  That basically makes him the socialist of this crowd.

8:25PM: Cain claims to have a number of economists who have worked with him on his 999 plan.  When pressed, he names one...Rich Lowry out of Cleveland, TX or Cleveland, OH.  OK then.

8:27PM: Romney objects to being asked a hypothetical question.  Isn't the whole Presidential campaign about what these people would hypothetically do as President?  Then Romney defends the 2008 Wall Street bailout and ducks.

8:29PM:  Two minutes later, Romney says "you don't wanna bail out anybody...that's a terrible idea".  Mitt appears to have a new strategy.  Instead of saying something now and flip-flopping later, he's just going to say both things at the same time from now on. 

8:31PM:  The moderator just asked Ron Paul if he would get the federal government out of housing.  Has he ever met or heard of Ron Paul?  Is there anything Ron wouldn't get the federal government out of?  That's like asking Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry if they think Jesus is swell.

8:37PM: There's a picture of Teddy Roosevelt on the wall of the debate arena.  Some of the candidates were actively booing at it during the commercial break (that may have only happened in my head). 

8:38PM: Video clip of Saint Reagan making the exact same "fair share" argument that the President's been making for two months.  They threw the question at Perry and he parlayed it into a talking point about a balanced budget amendment. 

8:40PM: Romney - "get Americans back to work so they can pay taxes."  So, just to be clear, Republicans want to stop making corporations pay taxes so the American people can get back to work and start paying taxes again. 

8:41PM: These candidates are climbing all over each other to jump in and say they'll never ever ever agree to any tax increase ever.  Still no comment from anyone on the Reagan clip.

8:44PM: Can we just get a show of hands from anyone who thinks we need to cut spending and move on? 

8:45PM: Cain says Bloomberg's analysis of his 999 plan is incorrect because it assumes that the plan would happen in reality.  If they would just look at his plan in Herman Cain's imagination, they'd see that it's an awesome idea.

8:48PM: Bachmann points out that 999 upside-down is 666.  She's not saying Herman Cain is the anti-christ, she's just saying...ya know...666.

8:49PM: Huntsman, the former ambassador to China, is talking about how we have to find a way to work with China.  Romney, who may or may not be able to find China on a map, makes faces at him.  Romney promises to pick a fight with China over currency on day one. 

8:52PM: Perry - "we don't need any plan."  You might think I'm unfairly quoting him out of context, but not really.  He was basically saying that we don't need plans and policies, just leadership and talking points. 

8:54PM: Santorum doubles down on Mitt's plan.  He doesn't want to have a trade war with China, he wants to win a trade war with China. 

8:57PM: We're having a hard time agreeing on what kind of war we want to have with China, but we can all agree that Obamacare (passed in 2010) is what killed the economy (which happened in 2008).

9:06PM:  This should be fun, the candidates get to question each other.  First up, Bachmann slams Perry for supporting Al Gore in 1988, overspending as a Governor and running up debt in Texas.  Perry responds by saying that Texas has the 2nd lowest debt per capita in the U.S.  He failed to mention that, since nobody in Texas knows how to count, we really don't know if that's true.

9:08PM: Cain asks Romney if he can name all 59 points in his economic plan.  Cain's basic point is that Romney's plan isn't simple enough.  Romney points out that simple answers aren't always good ones.  Good for him.  That's really the problem with the whole Cain campaign, if you can't fit it on a t-shirt, Cain doesn't want to know about it.

9:10PM: Romney - "I'm not worried about rich people, they're doing just fine".  Who is this guy and what has he done with Mitt Romney?

9:11PM: Good joke from Hunstman, promising Romney his question "won't be about religion".  Clever. Obviously, it flew over the other candidates' heads, and most of the audience too.  Huntsman is like 10 IQ points too smart for the current Republican party.

9:14PM: Ron Paul asked Herman Cain if he supports auditing the Fed.  Cain says if someone wants to do that, they can go ahead, it doesn't bother him.  There you go..."Cain 2012 - Do Whatever The Fuck You Want!"

9:17PM: Romney says the problem with Obamacare is that it raises taxes.  He really emphasized that.  He's right.  What kind of monster would propose a modest tax increase just to get health care to millions of people?

9:18PM:  Santorum knows that R comes before S in the alphabet.  Frankly, that's more than I thought he knew.

9:19PM: Romney asks Bachmann how she'd get people back to work.  Doesn't he know no one cares what she thinks anymore?  Michele Bachmann is sooo two months ago.  Anyway, Bachmann took it as an opportunity to plug her website...twice.

9:22PM: Santorum attacks four of his opponents for supporting TARP in 2008.  Santorum, of course, was off googling his name somewhere in 2008 because he was unemployed at the time.  Weren't we all happier with Rick Santorum just being gone?  Why is he back?  Have we done something wrong?

9:27PM: Perry just tried and failed to pronounce the names of a few different people, including fellow Republican Governor Bobby Jindal.  He definitely reminds me of someone.  Perry keeps ending his statements by hitting applause lines and then waiting for the applause that never come as it slowly dawns on him that his campaign is about 99% over.

9:31PM: Herman Cain apparently has two candidates already picked as Fed chairman.  Since there's no chance he wins, and since he's refusing to name them, I'm going to assume they're fictional characters.  Batman would make a good Fed chair, I think.

9:32PM: Ron Paul (after Herman Cain praised Alan Greenspan as the best Fed chairman in the last 40 years) - "Alan Greenspan was a disaster!"  Ron's the best.  He went on to hammer away at Greenspan for about 90 seconds.  I think, when this campaign is over and Ron finishes 5th, someone needs to give him his own TV show.

9:37PM: Ron Paul points out how it's so misleading to suggest that all these problems have happened in the last two years.  I think I heard a collective "shhhhhh" from the rest of the candidates.

9:39PM: Bloomberg shows the Republican candidates a clip of George W. Bush.  That's a low blow.  These people have all agreed to pretend they've never met George W. Bush, OK?  Just leave it alone.  It never happened.  There was Clinton, and then we all passed out, and when we woke up, Obama was getting socialism all over everything and ruining the country. 

9:44PM: Perry is asked about the income gap that's been widening in America for the last 30 years.  His answer, it's Obama's fault. 

9:45PM: Santorum takes the discussion of poverty as an opportunity to suggest women should just cook and raise the kids and let the men work.  You can always count on Rick to say the stupidest thing of the night, and that's really saying something.

Closing Statements (on how they can connect with people's pain right now)
Bachmann: "I used to be poor"
Cain: "Me too!"
Newtster: "I'm related to some poor people"
Ron Paul: "Liberty will fix poverty"
Santorum: Rick theorizes that our economic struggles might have something to do with all the manufacturing jobs we've lost.  Wow...what a theory!  Someone should really look into that.
Huntsman: "Life is sad"...and something about the dignity of a job.
Perry: "make America America again"
Mittster: Give Mitt some credit, he didn't even try to pretend he understands what it's like to be poor.

The Wrong Argument

I don't know if I can do this.  Since I found out Governor Fatpants from New Jersey isn't running for President, I can barely muster the will to get out of bed in the morning, let alone write anything.  Now who will save us from the scourge of socialism and health care?  Did the Republican party really try hard enough to get him to run?  I hope they at least offered him a lifetime supply of pudding.  But, alas, I push on, with hope that this futile exercise in creative writing will somehow heal my wounded heart.

Speaking of socialism, the President is smack in the middle of his nationwide "Pass this Jobs Bill" tour.  It's like he's a kindergarten teacher..."See these unemployed people right here in front of me?  They can have jobs working on this crappy bridge right there behind me.  Does everyone understand, children?  People (points to people) can have jobs fixing bridges (points to the bridge), and then we get better bridges and more jobs.  See?  It's like if you were sitting there with nothing to do, and there was a pile of Lincoln Logs next to you.  If you started building something with the Lincoln Logs, then you'd have something to do AND you'd get a Lincoln Log cabin.  Does that make sense?" 

But there's a problem (spoiler alert!)...Republicans don't want to do the jobs bill thing.  I'm tired of being mean to Republicans.  They're jerks and most of them don't appear to have working brains, but there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about that.  On the other hand, I think the President could be better at this because I think he's making the wrong argument. 

I felt the same way about health care.  Liberals kept arguing that health care is some kind of inalienable human right.  I'm not sure I even believe in inalienable rights.  We get the rights we earn, there's no space god up there handing out inalienable rights like Halloween candy.  We need universal health care because it's an embarrassment for the wealthiest nation in the world to have millions of citizens who can't afford basic health coverage.  We should be ashamed of ourselves, but our leaders don't really feel shame.

I feel the same way about energy.  Energy innovation isn't about growing a green economy and creating jobs.  Where did we get the idea that everything has to be profitable all the time? It's about being a world leader in figuring out what we're supposed to do when we run out of oil.  Ideally, before we actually run out of oil. 

Just like health care and energy, infrastructure spending is about doing the things we should be doing if we fancy ourselves the greatest, most awesomest, most amazingest nation in the history of the Universe.  But then there's the question of how we pay for it all.

A corollary to this jobs bill debate is the debate about raising taxes on the rich, and again I think I'm hearing the wrong argument.  The President and liberals keep saying the rich and corporations need to pay their fair share.  That's nonsense.  I don't know what a "fair" tax rate is for a millionaire, and neither does anyone else.  Life's not fair, and even if it was, taxes aren't about fairness.  Taxes are about paying for the society we want, which we currently don't have enough money to support.

Republicans and the tea people say we just need to cut spending to balance the budget, but that's nonsense too.  No serious person has a real proposal to balance the federal budget, and even if we did get a balanced budget for a year or two, it wouldn't last.  We'd have some new big disaster, or start another war (what are you looking at, Iran? You got a problem!?!) and then we'd be right back to deficit spending. 

We need more money.  The truth is, we may all eventually have to pay higher taxes, but the wealthy have to go first, because they have all the money and contrary to what stupid people think, you can't grow the economy by robbing from the poor to give to the rich. 

That's my argument to the tea people, Republicans, the wealthy and anyone else who responds to everything by telling me they "believe in lower taxes" (as if lower taxes are something you believe in like a fucking Nostradamus prophecy).  You can live in a garbage dump and pay no taxes, or you can live in America.  But if you want to live in America, you have to pay the toll and stop bitching about it.