What has happened to the Republican Party?

It wasn't that many years ago that the "Republican Party" and "Ronald Reagan" were synonymous.  Conservatives were proud to say they were "Reagan Republicans".  He would bend and compromise if necessary, but NEVER when it came to the Soviet Union.  He stood firm, gave them no quarter, worked with and within NATO, and eventually backed them down.  Ronald Reagan was tough!

The USSR officially collapsed on December 26, 1991, on GHW Bush's watch, but it was all due to Reagan's perseverance.  Reagan very famously said, when talking about our arms control treaty with the Soviets, "Trust, but verify."  He did not say, "Well, they said they were abiding by the treaty, and that's good enough for me."

Early in his Presidential term a very naive George Dubya Bush once met with Vladimir Putin and said, "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy....I was able to get a sense of his soul."  Later, a much more experienced and worldly Sec Defense Robert Gates said after he met V Putin, "I....looked into Putin’s eyes and I saw a stone cold killer."

It's now said the GOP has become Donald Trump's party as [brilliantly] designed by former advisor Steve Bannon.  Rank and file Republicans rarely say anything negative about Trump.  His brag, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters" has been proven essentially true.  President Trump met with Putin in Helsinki recently and fawned all over him.  He had just been briefed on the 12 Russian intelligence officers who were indicted for meddling in our 2016 election with Vladimir Putin's express approval, but said he believed Putin's denial instead.  

Republicans began to stir uncomfortably, Trump backpedaled his sweetness weakly, and his faithful seem to have gone compliant again.  Their stock, canned comeback to any criticism is "well, Hillary did a lot worse."  For the record, Hillary's emails, Watergate, Teapot Dome, etc, were all criminal scandals, no doubt, but none of that has anything to do with the way Donald Trump is behaving today.  A bank robber can't use as his defense, "well, I only got $500....Hillary got $1,000."

I have many very intelligent, good friends who resemble the description of the Trump Republican I just described.  I encourage them to continue to present their positions on health care, immigration, tax reform, etc.  Those are all things we can reasonably debate.  Kowtowing to Russia and the thug-killer Vladimir Putin should be beyond debate.

I suggest you refresh yourself with the Steele Dossier (here) that was in the news last year.  The jest of it was that the Russians/Putin had some incriminating evidence on Donald Trump that they could someday use to blackmail the new President.  Given the recent strangely cozy US/Russian relations, I expect you'll see this topic soon re-enter the news.

S

Why have Republicans gone all weak-kneed?

Back in the bad old Cold War days the terms "Russia" and "Communist" and "Soviet Union" were commonly interchanged.  By the time the Soviet Union officially collapsed in 1991, communism as a social movement had long since died.  Even the Soviet leaders knew communism was a failed economic philosophy, even though they couldn't say it out loud.  At the end they were just trying desperately to hold on to power, and they couldn't.

Russia's current President, ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin, has never forgotten the power the old Soviet Union once wielded, and is obsessed with seeing Russia regain its lost prestige in the world.  Today Russia is essentially a vast organized crime family.  Putin is the "Don", and he enables Russia's rich oligarchs, and they in turn support him. They're old school thugs.

Back in the Cold War days America's preeminent anti-communists were Republicans.  They were the hard-line hawks and the Democrats were considered the doves.  Any time "Russia" was uttered, Republicans sat up straight and clenched their fists.  They were itching for a fight, looking for an excuse to slap down the despised Russians.

So what happened?  Republicans have gone soft.  Today all our intelligence agencies, as well as foreign intelligence agencies, 100% agree the Russians are doing everything they can to weaken the cohesiveness and the will of the west.  They've pulled out all the stops in their effort to harm us, short of a hot war.  They use our social media to clandestinely foment social unrest here.  We've caught them red handed doing it.  

We know for a fact they have at least tried to reach out to candidate Donald Trump's campaign in 2016, hoping to influence our election.  Yet today's Republicans are showing no teeth, no backbone, no willingness to stand up to Russia.  Yes, Republicans voted for more sanctions against Russia, and President Trump signed it under protest....and then never implemented it.  They all just say, "Nope...nope...no Russians in here.  There's no story.  Everyone go home."  And if anyone calls them out, they threaten them with a lawsuit.  Republicans seem more concerned about punishing who said it than pursuing what they said.


Why are Republicans, our former hawks, our most vicious protectors of American democracy, now so willing to look the other way at Putin's shenanigans?  I don't get it.

S

War criminals can't be trusted to police each other

I've studied this mess in Syria for a long time now and what I've learned is that it is, even though the diplomats won't say it out loud, a giant "cluster fuck".  You really need a program to figure out who are the bad guys and who are the....umm....badder guys.

We seem to think of those involved as the guys in the black hats vs the guys in the white hats, and of course we're for the guys in the white hats.  But there really are no white hats.  The black hat guys are definitely Syrian dictator Turd al Assad and his allies Russia, Iran and the Hezbollah militia Iran sponsors.  Then the....let's call them the very dirty gray hat guys....are the "rebels".  Except there is no one united rebel group, but instead a bunch of other a-holes who sometimes fight against Assad & Friends whenever they aren't fighting each other.

According to this BBC article from several years ago there were no less than 20 different groups fighting in Syria.  Since then Russia and Turkey have gotten involved, too.  And lets not forget, what we today know as ISIS began as one of those rebel groups fighting Assad.  Are one of these other rebel sub-groups likely to be the Son of ISIS next year?  If we side with one or even a few of these groups, we'll just piss off the others.  It's like a giant, never ending game of whack-a-mole.

I personally have no problem with Prez Trump striking the Syrian airfield last week as punishment for them using internationally outlawed chemical weapons.  But for those who want us to get more involved I must ask, what's the desired outcome?  If it's to see Turd al Assad abdicate his dictatorship, who's going to replace him?  Will he be any better than Assad was?  Will he be able to pull his opponents together in a big coalition for the benefit of all the Syrian people?  Haha!  Don't hold your breath.  Look for more of the same, or even worse.  The age-old tribes and sects there are just born to fight....they're hopelessly savage.  And the poor, average Syrian family is just caught in the crossfire.  :(

The one thing I hope we've learned is that RUSSIA CAN NOT BE TRUSTED TO KEEP ITS WORD.  Russia's Putin brokered an agreement 4 (?) years ago whereby they would see to it Assad turned over ALL their chemical weapons.  Russia / Putin lied!  They made a good show of it, but they DIDN'T disarm the Syrians of their chemical weapons.  There is no way Turd al Assad would have disobeyed his Russian benefactors....they're the only reason he's avoided being lynched....and used chem weapons without Putin's knowledge.

Ronald Reagan got it right 30 years ago when, speaking of the Russians, he said, "Trust, but verify."  Today Russia has shown that they can hide from us anything they want, therefore there is no sense even pretending to trust them.

Regarding Russia and Syria today, we simply can't trust these war criminals to police each other.

S

Whatcha gonna do?

Life's a bitch.  Everyone feels stress of one degree or another on a regular basis.  The single mom wonders how she's going to feed her kids with payday still a week away.  The owner of a small business hopes he can make payroll on the 1st.  Any of us would probably freak if we got a hospital bill or a "tuition due" notice demanding tens of thousands of dollars by Friday.

Can you imagine the stress a President of the United States feels when his country is attacked on his watch, or when the world's economy is crumbling and everyone is looking to him to fix it?  Just look at these President's before and after photos.  Talk about stress!  Yikes!  

There have been times in history when the President was unable to continue in his job due to illness or injury.  Woodrow Wilson, for example, suffered a stroke, and Dwight D. Eisenhower had a heart attack.  In 1965 our Constitution was amended to spell out who would take over in such an emergency.

When Ronald Reagan was the victim of an assassination attempt in 1981, the 25th Amendment kicked in and VP George H.W. Bush took over temporarily until the President recovered and could return to work.  

It's pretty easy to see when a President is disabled when he/she has bullet holes in them or is in a full body cast, but how can we tell when a President is MENTALLY incapable of performing the duties of the office?

The 25th Amendment says the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet can simply declare a President disabled and the Veep takes over.  If the President contests this, Congress decides with a 2/3 vote required to turn the country over to the VP.  But how can we tell if someone has gone "nucking futs"?  A CAT scan can't see it.  An X-ray can't see it.  A blood test won't show anything.  It's only the OPINION of a mental health expert.  It's a very inexact science.

Does a judge get a say if the President is to be declared mentally incompetent, as in the civilian world?  (The 25th Amendment doesn't mention it.)  If so, which judge?  The Supreme Court?  How long might that take?  Who runs our country in the interim?  Who has control of our nuclear codes until it's decided?  If it's a decision outside judicial review, does that mean we're putting it all in the hands of the 535 most distinguished *snort* scoundrels in the land?  (Now that should cause a spike in Imodium sales!)

I believe this is something we need to give serious thought to.   As they say, "Plan for the worst, hope for the best".

S

OK, I've got nuthin'

Watching the Vice-Presidential debate last night I had an epiphany:  the Democrats and Republicans have both made jobs and the economy the number one issue this election year.  The Democrats want to do this by raising taxes on the wealthy, then using that additional revenue to hire new workers to build/repair new roads and bridges, subsidize a solar power initiative, etc, making our economy more competitive and efficient.

The Republicans want to cut taxes, mostly to the wealthy (who I'll call the "investor class") so they can then start new businesses and fund the expansion of existing ones.  They say these tax cuts would create millions of new workers who would then pay taxes themselves, more than making up for the tax cut that "primed the pump" to begin the process.  This is what is commonly known as "trickle down" economics.

Here's the problem:  Trump's running mate Mike Pence pointed out this tax cut theme worked well for JFK back in the 1960's, and for Ronald Reagan in the 1980's, and it will work for us now in 2016, too.  Call me a skeptic....

First of all, for this to work today you would have to assume there was a shortage of capital available to start/expand new businesses.  All of the worthy, cash-starved entrepreneurs desperate for funding would benefit from this "investor class" infusion of new capital due to a tax cut.

But that simply isn't the reality of today.  There is no shortage of investment capital.  With just a little research you can see for yourself there is approximately $1.7 TRILLION (one source: WSJ) of wealth in the hands of individuals and corporations available for investment....if they could find a safe, lucrative place to invest it.  A lack of money to invest is NOT our problem today!

Think about it....interest rates are still at/near record lows.  If there was ample loan demand, and a shortage of money to loan, interest rates would be HIGH.  It's the classic supply/demand conundrum:  too much supply, not enough (worthy) demand.  A tax cut won't change that at all.

The housing bubble that burst catastrophically back in '08 was the result of the investor class trying to create demand where there wasn't any.  They were desperately looking for a safe place to invest their wealth and they thought housing would be it.  They guessed wrong.

Wealthy individuals and companies today are actually flush with cash.  In fact they're using their excess $$$ to buy/merge with competitors, or just buy back their own stock.   Look at Delta/Northwest Airlines, United/Continental Airlines, the pharmaceutical giants buying up each other, the health insurance giants merging, and all the buying up of new innovative technology by Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, etc.  We're swimming in liquidity!

And it's likely to get worse, too.  For several decades the investor class was enamored with the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) as places to put their money.  Get in on the ground floor as these countries began to rapidly develop, the theory went, and then ride the wave to HUGE profits.  Never mind they were helping to create new jobs there, not here.

Now the BRICS are stalled or at least slowing considerably, so the investor class is once again looking for a safe, lucrative place to invest their cash.  Giving them a tax cut today would just give them a larger pile of cash to park somewhere, and that might turn out to be somewhere outside the US.  And now those from many other parts of the world are depositing their money here, too, because we're seen as a safe, if not terribly lucrative, haven.  It seems we have an embarrassment of riches. 

In Ronald Reagan's time we were on the cusp of an incredible new (internet based) technological revolution, and a tax cut then probably helped to fund it.  We'll have another radical technology revolution some day, too, but it's not here now.  A tax cut to the well-to-do now will likely just exacerbate the current "income inequality", possibly leading to the wrong kind of "revolution".  *yikes*

So then the Democrats are right, right?  The government should raise taxes, and then wisely spend that money on new projects that will create jobs, and we'll all live happily ever after.  WRONG!  Modern history has shown us that you can't use "government" and "spend money wisely" in the same sentence.  It's the ultimate oxymoron.

Just something for you to think about.  Rebuttals welcome.

S

Where have all the Good Guys gone?

Does anyone remember these two guys?  That's President Ronald Reagan on the right (naturally) and House Speaker Tip O'Neal on the left (both literally and figuratively).  

Mr. Conservative and Mr. Liberal they were.  They had sharply different political philosophies, visions for the future, and constituencies, yet they also had respect for each other.  When one had the opportunity to completely crush the other, to politically destroy the other, he didn't do it.  They realized they needed each other.  

Sometimes Tip had to swallow hard and give in to something Reagan wanted, and sometimes their roles were reversed.  They both knew they couldn't just dump on a large part of the American population in order to get their way.  That would be what is called "winning the battle, but losing the war"....a long-term bad thing for the country, and they knew it.

Contrast them to the "leaders" (more like "hired guns") that we have today.  Reid, Pelosi, McConnell, Ryan, Clinton, and lets not forget the Tea Party faction led by Ted Cruz....they would rather eat s__t than give an inch to the other.  The Republicans, for example, recently agreed to a budget deal only because elections are upcoming and they knew polls showed the public held them responsible for past government shutdowns that harmed millions of people.  It was self-preservation, pure and simple.

They gave in not for the good of the country, but for their own political gain.  And under similar circumstances the Democrats would do the same.  They care about themselves, and no one else.  You and I are just pawns to them.

Bernie Sanders is saying a political revolution is coming, and he may be right.  I'm wondering if it will be limited to just being "political"?  Think about that.

S

GOP debate recap

This is actually what I tuned in to see, but it was a bit more restrained.  Pity.  ;)

For those of you who are vaguely interested in politics, but not enough so to actually watch 2 hours of their regularly televised sit-com, I offer this debate recap:  Mark O. Rubio seemed cool and above the fray, Dr. Ben Carson, always the polite gentleman, showed....umm....good posture, The Donald seemed to have ratcheted down his mouth a couple of notches, Chris Christie was once again the 8-to-5 working guy's guy, Mike Huckleberry showed he was still the best orator, Ted Cruz had a memorable line, John Kasich seemed to be desperately struggling to keep his head above water, Carly Fiorina was chomping at the bit for a cat fight with Hillary C,  and Jeb Bush and Rand Paul rode off into the sunset (they just don't know it yet).

And the CNBC moderators were assholes.  What the hell was wrong with those folks?  Every question they asked was little more than "have you stopped beating your wife?"

For the life of me I can't understand why Dr. Carson is now the front-runner. Is he smart?  Yes, he's brilliant.  Does he act like an adult when the opportunity is there for a sleazy attack?  Yes, he's a class guy.  But IMHO his demeanor is more that of a statistical actuary than a leader.

I expect my leaders to be able to inspire, to work a crowd up into a force for action.  Such as....

"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall NEVER surrender."  Winston Churchill

or "Mr. Gorbachev, TEAR...DOWN...THIS...WALL!"  Ronald Reagan

or "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."  FDR

Dr. Carson has a soft-spoken demeanor that is [to me] reminiscent of Jimmah Carter, and we all know how THAT turned out!  (He was absolutely run over by the scum-bag Washington professional politicians.)

Several of the candidates (Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie) seemed almost like they were "Democrat Lite" when they spoke of entitlements.  "Workers have BOUGHT their 'entitlements', they were not just given to them."  Gov. Christie even slapped us with the truth:  The money we put into our Social Security Trust Fund is GONE.  Over the past 50 years our "leaders" have STOLEN it.   We're not EVER going to see it again.   Fact!  

And Christie wants to jail the crooked bankers who almost imploded the world back in '08.  YES!

There was almost unanimity over how unhealthy our income inequality is.  This from Republicans?  Whoa!

Poor Jeb.  If you're a Jeb Bush fan, I'm sorry, but it's over for him.  The Bush dynasty has obviously ended with Dubyah.  Give Jeb a nice dinner and a gold watch and retire him.  Now.

Even Ted Cruz got a well-deserved round of applause from the audience when he called out the moderators for being unfair beyond belief.

And Donald Trump.  *sigh*  I think he'll lumber along for a while longer as a legitimate contender, but voters seem to be getting a little lot more serious about the issues, and The Donald hasn't really told us much yet about how he's going to do what he's promised.  I'm not sure if he can.  

My chuckle moment was when Trump skewered PAC's as the scourge of politics.  Ha!   So true!  But as he was the only one there not accepting PAC money, he was a lonely voice of one.  Touche Donald!

I think Mark O. will get a bounce from this debate.  Something about him, though, troubles me.  I'm just not sure exactly what.  I'm sure if there's anything there it will surface in time.

There you have it....my opinion, which ranks right up there with a big bowl of cold oatmeal.  ;)

S

We have the wrong people in charge!

I sometimes feel like I'm in political "no-mans land".  My conservative friends think I'm a liberal, and my liberal friends think I'm a conservative.  Sheesh, y'all gimme a break, OK?

Here's how it really is:  I'm a conservative, somewhere a bit to the right of dead-center.  I usually vote for Republicans, but sometimes for a Democrat who might share my disdain of Big Bankers and want to impose some reforms on them.  But increasingly, I simply pass up voting for either candidate in a particular race because I find "my guy" to be disgusting.  (Ted Cruz immediately comes to mind.)

Last night after our customary Friday evening dinner out K and I stopped at the bookstore.  There I saw this book by Chris Matthews that got me to thinking.  (I didn't buy it because, frankly, I've always found Chris Matthews to be pretty obnoxious.)  Still, the topic made me smile.  THIS is what we need today.  

Here were President Ronald Reagan, the consummate conservative, and Tip O'Neil, the crusty old liberal Speaker of the House, pictured on the cover in a cordial, collegial embrace.  Two pragmatists.  I've heard stories of how they would get together, cuss and discuss for hours or days, do some horse trading, and eventually arrive at a position that both could live with.  Neither got all they wanted, but neither crushed the other, either.  They both lived to fight another day.  And we were all better off for it.   America worked.

I have friends, both on-line and in the real world, who are just a bit to the left of dead center.  I have absolutely no doubt we could get together, discuss the country's mess, perhaps share an adult beverage or two, and arrive at a reasonable position we could all abide by.  But we never hear about people like us in the news.

It's always the ideologues from the extreme fringes of our two parties (tell me again why we can't have three parties?) who seem to be in control.  I swear they'd argue with a stop sign!  Before one side can even get the words out of their mouth, the other side is condemning it as likely to cause our country's immediate and complete collapse. 

I'm ready for a REVOLUTION!  No, I don't mean where we pick up guns and pitchforks and go killing anyone who even looks like they might disagree with us.  I only want to pick up guns and pitchforks and go after the extreme ideologues.  (Relax....I'm just kidding.  Maybe.  :)

Those who disagree with me in a civilized, open-minded way....pull up a chair.  Let's talk some football, who brews the best beer, and maybe a little health care.  We'll figure it out.

Give and take.  Compromise.  That's how our Founding Fathers did it.  You know, those old guys we always put up on a pedestal as if they were saints?  

S

Well played, Pootie-Pooh

It should show up on YouTube any second now and is sure to go viral....Russia's Vladimir Putin tap dancing all over Barack Obama's face.  Admit it Barack.  Students for years to come will be doing their Doctoral Dissertations on the many ways you botched your handling of the Syrian mess, and in contrast how Putin aced his opportunity.

Surely Barack understands the American people are tired of 10+ years of war, throwing our youth and our money into efforts to civilize those Heathens of the East.  There was no way in hell we were going to look kindly on picking a fight with Syria.  

If he had really wanted to punish Syria for their use of chemical weapons he would have just cold-cocked them like Presidents Reagan and Clinton did when they found someone kicking them in the shins:  Executive Order....no telegraphing your intentions....no hand-holding with Congress....just BAM!  Some quick strikes, done.

Instead President Obama popped off and drew a line in the sand, then realized he couldn't cash the check his mouth had written.  "Aw, come on Congress.  Jump in with me.  Then when it all hits the fan I can say, 'Hey, they said it was OK.'"

By contrast Vladimir Putin has pulled a rabbit out of his hat, coming across as a peacemaker.  Imagine that!  Pootie-Pooh, a man of peace.  Ha!  Not only is he getting Syria to put their chemical weapons under international control (really?), but he's putting some of his elite Spetsnaz commandos in to "advise" / fight the Syrian rebels.  That civil war is FINIS.  No one is going to back the rebels now....they're a losing cause.  Assad wins.

Vladimir Putin has effectively baled out Barack Obama.  He doesn't have to press for a vote in Congress that he would have lost anyway.  And we don't have to throw another few hundred million dollars (BILLION dollars?) that we don't have into that sewer we call the Mid-East. 

A lame-duck President has just become even more lame.  Don't look for anything else of importance to come out of his administration for the remainder of his term in office.  He'll take credit for a gradually improving economy, but really he's just along for the ride.   That will be his last hurrah.  He's spent.

Game, set, match;  Pootie-Pooh. 

S

What a difference trashing 1,400 downloads makes

Wanna have your laugh for the day?

My computer, an iMac Warp Speed VI, had slowed to a crawl.  On rare occasion K used my computer and complained about how something was waaaay wrong with it, this from a woman who has a Hewlett Packard, which of course runs Windows.  (Can you tell I'm not a HP or Windows fan?)

Yesterday I was looking at all the little symbols on the screen of my Warp Speed VI (by then more like a Molasses Drip II) and saw there was one marked "downloads", which I assumed was just an inverted "upload".  (Hey, to my little Neanderthal brain that makes perfect sense!)  I've opened email attachments from friends and contracts and such from work, but never thought about where they went after I read them.

I clicked on that icon and lo and behold there were "downloads" on there from years ago!  Over 1,400 of them to be exact.  I figured if I hadn't looked at them in years I probably wouldn't look at them again in the future, so I whacked 'em all.  Pffffft!  Gone.  And now my 'puter is back to running at Warp Speed again.

^already more tech savvy than me

Who knew?  *Besides every other adult and most kids over the age of 2 in the civilized world.*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I see the Defense Department will soon remove the restriction that prohibits women in combat.  The social media is abuzz with the question, "Is this a good idea?"

My answer is a resounding YES!  I say this because years ago as a married man with a wife, three daughters and a female dog in the house, I knew without doubt on certain days of the month they could have gone toe-to-toe with the Warsaw Pact and put some serious whup-ass on them.  

Ronald Reagan didn't bring Communism down.  It was the threat of having to face my female warriors that made them unfurl the white flag.  ;)

S

Talk about "mixed signals"!

I thought I understood where both parties stood on the state of our economy:  Both agreed job creation was #1.  Both were for lowering taxes, for the middle class at least, in order to spur consumer spending.  This would create demand, production, hiring, and eventually MORE tax revenue.  We would "grow" our economy out of the mess we're in.  Textbook simple.

But now I read that neither party is too keen on extending the Bush tax cuts set to expire January 1st.

"Independent analysts say that the expiration of the tax cut could shave as much as a percentage point off economic output in 2013, and cost the economy as many as one million jobs."  NYT, Oct. 1, 2012

Now we're being told that our economy can take the hit.  One hundred sixty million Americans would see their taxes go up an average of around $1,000 next year.  But....I thought....??

I understand why the whack-o ultra-right / Tea Party wants to stir the pot.  Their style since they got to Washington is to follow, ironically, the old Leninist credo, "Worse is Better".  The worse things get on their opponents watch, the more "the people" will demand their leadership (and I use the term leadership loosely).  But now the Democrats are throwing us under the bus, too?

We, you and I, the middle class, are being played for chumps this election year.  Where are our responsible REAL leaders?  Ronald Reagan, the darling of the Tea Party, I'm sure would be the first to slap down his party's Young Guns today.  

He and his responsible opponents across the aisle would be working night and day* to get our economy back on track, not sabotaging the entire country in order to make themselves look good.  Why do I think that?  Because that's exactly what they did.  They got RESULTS.  All we're getting today is SCREWED!

S

*BTW...Did you know the House of Representatives has been in session only three (3) days since August 1st?  Or that their salary is $174,000 a year?  Are ya feelin' the love?  

Extremists

I find it ironic that the Tea Party folks put Ronald Reagan on a pedestal and revere him.  Ronald Reagan was a pragmatic conservative and will probably go down in history as a consensus Great President.  I think if Reagan was alive and in good mental health today he would put a lot of distance between himself and the in-your-face, no-compromise-no-way Tea Party.

Things extreme seldom work out well....

What we need is more....

I'm "S", and I approved this message.