Iowa Caucus Results Totally Muddled

"No reason to get excited"
The Thief he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us -
who feel that life is but a Joke.
But you and I we've been through that
And this is not our Fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The Hour is getting Late


Two things that Money can't buy or guarentee, and that is either the honesty of the person receiving the money, nor the person giving it.


Jesus once said "What profit is there is a man gains the Whole World and loses his own soul".  Well, Jesus should be able to answer his own question.  His Church, his "body" ruled the World from 3 12 AD till the middle of the fifteenth century when Constenople fell.  So, what in all that time did he accomplish?


"If you sacrifice Civil Liberties in the name of Security, you will end up having Neither"
-Benjamin Franklin


"One Man plus the Truth equals a Majority"


Chris Matthews is crying in his beer because Mitt Romney decided to give him a taste of his own medicine by exposing the truth about him for the people of Iowa to see.  And so it is written that he who lives by the political attack will die by the political attack.  (Selah)


Some people charish people and use money.  Other people, who will go unnamed, charish money and use People


The KKK official worships a blonde haired blue eyed Jesus.  The tea party Christian has a big picture of Ronald Reagan hanging up in his living room.  The Roman Cardinal bows at the feet of the Pope whom he refers to as the Vicar of Christ.  But of all these examples, it's the lonely G I far from home with a pin up picture of Jennifer Lopez who most likely will be the one accused of Idolitry.


Some people like Newt Gingrich believe its preferable to be strong and wrong, as opposed to weak and right.  My biggest failing as a Christian was that I made God the center of what I was saying.  I preached God rather than myself.  This was a fatal mistake.  As such I admit too often "My Best" was not good enough, but in the words of Captain Queeg, 'Was only a maximum of inefficiency".  I failed when I was a Christian at being an oppertunistic, manipulative hypocrite devoid of any moral compass.

It would seem that we have something almost unheard of in any recent political primary and that is a three way tie between Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney.  But the concencus is that neither Paul nor Santorum have the staying power or deep roots organization to stay in it for the long haul.  I think for any same person with a gun to his head and forced to chose one, Mitt Romney is your choice.  He doesn't want to slash taxes as deeply as any of the others.  Clearly some of the lurid details described by Thom Hartman and other liberals just aren't borne out in fact as far as bankrupting five corporations or any of those other financial slip shod guimics Romney is accused of employing.  Clearly Romney has helped certain corporations such as Dominos Pizza, Staples, and Dunkin Donuts.  Also clearly that when any business is in trouble cuts are necessarily going to be made and employees laid off.  It's a tribute to Mitt Romney to do as well in Iowa as he has done since sixty percent of the people are Evangelicals and 39% are over age sixty or something awful like that.  Prejudice even in this day against Mormons is enormous.  Personally if forced to choose ten random times between a Mormon and an Evangelical, I'd pick the Mormon every time even if my brain were subjected to a "memory wipe" after each prior choice.  Mormons have the sort of human compassion and personal credibility that other religions sorely lack.  Utah also scores high on Hartman's demographc income tally with less disparity between the rich and poor and a lower incidence of social ills of all sort.

Rick Santorum is a man who has voted for certain boondoggles such as the "Bridge to Nowhere".  Like Gingrich he seems to believe that somehow losing his last election somehow especially qualifies him to hold the office of President.  Santorum has really strong anti gay credentials.  I'll give him that.  Rick Santorum believes Griswald verses Conn. was wrongly decided in 1965 and that nobody has an inherent right to “privacy” to commit illegal acts.  I see nowhere in the constitution that allows a cloak of privacy for illegal acts.  Neither do I find the unqualified “right to contract” some Courts say exists.  Often the two go hand in hand.  You will remember from history that the "right to contract" Justices say was in the US Constitution was used as a justification for things like permitting child labor, banning minimum wages, and saying that any sort of labor union was illegal.  Some Christians have said we should "trust our employers to do right by us because they are decent people".   Certain Christians will get downright indignent about this whole topic.   If there is anything we have learned that laws based on "trust" just don't work in certain circumstances.   Barry Goldwater said we should "trust" southern businesses to admit blacks.  That didn't happen.  That Griswald case opened the door for the abortion ruling to follow.  Still I think Santorum is going to find it a hard call that women cant use birth control pills or that men can’t use condoms in having sex even in the confines of their own bedrooms with their wives.  But if he wants to be a dingbat on this issue, then who am I to stop the self destruction of yet another Presidential candidate?  I just watched Santorum on Meet the Press.  He personally favors banning abortions even in case of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother.  But he’s willing to “compromise” on these issues if it promotes a bigger conservative program.  Santorum has pointed out that just about anything even a little bit liberal he’s voted for was to further a bigger conservative agenda.  I agree with Santorum for criticizing the President in not supporting the Democracy movement in Iran or not speaking up after that fradulant election they had in June of 2009 where bogus figures said that Amadenajad won by 62%   Democrats should be really happy at this point that Rick Santorum is the best the other side can come up with.  It will give me enormous pleasure to listen to Newt Gingrich’s withdrawal speech tomorrow.


Mitt Romney at least gives a tip of the hat to the theory of global warming.  It is my hope that if he ever becomes president he will return to his former senses on this issue.  Clearly things that are occurring now are not normal such as tornadoes in the dead of winter, or chunks of ice the size of Rhode Island breaking off into the Atlantic, or even the flookish warm weather many people in the midwest and east enjoyed up till a few days ago when temperatures suddenly dropped thirty degrees "back to normal" for this time of year.  I observed in looking at record highs and lows just in Los Angeles that one can generalize that the record High's generally occurred within the past few years, whereas the record Lows occurred earlier in the last century.  Today there was a 4.0 earthquake in Ohio that is directly attributable to the "fracking" that is going on there.  Now there is talk about people's drinking water catching fire.  This whole Canadian to Texas pipeline will transport crude oil of the most dirty sort.  By the time it gets completed the oil will be obsolete because by then we will have developed other energy sources that are fast coming on line even as we speak.  I think fundamentalists distrust Romney because they darkly suspect that while he may have one eye on the tea party the other eye is on the Future and the interests and necessities of modern America in the 21st Century.  Also either Santorum or Gingrich would in the end have a really tough sell to convince anybody that they are somehow NOT "Washington insiders".  At least if they are going to put up a candidate, he should at least have some vestage of sanity, and Romney has this.

The big scene in the soap opera still remains Marlena and grandson Will.  Marlena is making a big mistake in defending Sammy the way she is.  Sammy has screwed up her life at every turn and hurt a lot of people, and every time she’s had a choice she has made the wrong one, including today’s choice of criminal espionage, when it’s right there in a previous contract she won’t steal information.  Let’s restate the narrative here.  Sammy had disappeared right in the middle of a crisis involving her missing son and she had turned her cell phone off.  (Which is strange behavior for someone awaiting news about a lost boy)  She then goes to E J’s house and they have passionate sex and she dreams about it every night.  Will goes to E J’s house to tell him that his son was found alive, and steps in the door and sees his mother and E J engaged in passionate love making.  They never even know he’s there.  .Forget about Marlena’s rationalization about her daughter and Will’s mother for a moment.  First of all short of a Vulcan mind meld, objectively - there is no way Marlena could possibly know what was going on in Samantha’s mind.  Has she pondered the effect of her “apologetic” attitude (what a misuse of the word!) tword her daughter’s affair with E J will have on Will.  He came to her because he had a secret and needed to confide it and needed a friend to take up his side.  This affair wasn’t some case of a strange “emotional lapse” caused by stress or something.  Neither was it some quiet thing where the two are just lying down nest to each other and before you know it they have their arms around each other and nature takes its course.  Rather – this was passionate “rip your clothes off” sex with a lot of pent up sexual desire.  Marlena denied him that and in turn was almost saying “Go ahead Will, do something desperate”.  The first person I’d go to is my father, Lucas.  Secondly I would confront my mother directly and put the fear of God into her.  But the biggest bucket of crap Marlena dumped on will was when she said “if you won’t forgive her, you’re no better than she is”.  That’s such theological Christian crap, and personally I know it’s damaging to be exposed to that kind of blatant blame shifting.  Marlena it seems will forgive (or deny altogether) Samantha’s sin, but she won’t forgive Will unless he ignores the entire things and pretends it never happened.

Judy was carrying on the whole time ponthicating about her "Values" we should all adopt.  There are four that are almost burned into my psyche by now and these are "Never desire something from someone else that you didn't Earn" - "Always be responsible for the consequences of your own actions"  "People are always in it for the Profit to see how much they can earn, and this is natural and normal" and "Never be in a position of owing anybody anything".    While I may agree with these principles to a point, I believe Judy developes extreme "tunnel vision" on these matters.  For instance I believe there are certain things money can't buy, and among these are love, respect, just and above all Moral Character.  Here is where Judy would seem to disagree.  She still regards Newt Gingrich as the most supremely qualified man to be President in the whole country.   Clearly there are things money should NEVER be able to buy such as the subberting on justice, and whether a certain law gets passed or not.  Judy even attacks these "Buy American" slogans because she says they are contrary to the "human profit motive".   Mom and I were attacked when we spoke of the virtues of thinking positively about the economy and America.  I got to thinking about things money shouldn't be able to buy, like someone taking your SAT test for you.  But I'm wondering if these Principles are really sacrosanct with Judy, where does that leave Jesus and Christianity?  Jesus said if your rich it would be very hard to get into heaven.  Jesus said "Blessed are the poor".  He didn't curse them as a bunch of unwashed hippies and closet Marxists who want what isn't theirs, the way Judy does.  As for Jesus dying for our sins- - what is THAT for if not to somehow "buy" us a way out of the consequences of our own actions.  And by the way speaking of things money shouldn't be able to buy- - what about this guy being paid to take other people's SAT tests?  There is "capitalism" at work.  But you never think about the students that didn't get in to college because others cheated.  And personally I don't look foreward to one bit arriving at the Pearly Gates of Heaven, only to be told by St. Peter that my place in heaven has been taken up by Tex Watson or Ted Bundy because they had more faith than I did.  Also in the parable of the Workers of the Vinyard, is Rick Perry equally determined to bring Jesus up on charges of Treason because he put "printing press money" in circulation and inflated the economy?  What about Harvard or these universities where you are favored if your father or grandfather attended there?  What court will rule against that?   And if the decision of the Court a hundred years ago about "the right to contract for labor" is sacrosanct, does that mean that drugs, prostitution, and mafia neckties are now OK in America?  And if Clarence Thomas is so down on the idea of racial quotas now after having beneted from them in his Youth- - if he were really a man of character, he would step down from the Supreme Court as a man who had demonstrated repeatedly in MY oppinion that he is NOT qualified for that post and LACKS what they refer to as a "Judicial temperment".  Some would protest "Well gee it would take an awful lot of Character for someone to volentarily do that on his own?  Well guess what.  I would EXPECT supreme court justices to HAVE just such character?   The problem with Judy is she's suffering from an extreme form of moral Tunnel Vision, and in Dr. Phil terms - - he criticizes Teenagers for NOT being able to forecast the consequences of their own decisions if he did A or did B. We the voters have to reason these things out for ourselves, for now we are the ones "who have to be the adult in the room"  (Selah)

Getting Perspective on Things

It's difficult to overstate the degree of detatchment these right wingers have become from reality.  Two weeks ago one individual told me when I asked about the Clinton economic robustness said, "Well back then we were still profitting from all the investments business had done during the Ronald Reagan era.  They say that business investments typically last twenty years".  I don't know who "they" is but I never heard that.  This statement ignored the fact that Bush lost the election in 1992 because the country then was not emerging quickly enough from a lengthly recession.  Rush Limbaugh back then was bemoaning all the doom and gloomsters.  In his book he even mentions "I'm tired of every Thanksgiving hearing how they don't expect this Christmas season to be a good one for confsumers".  Interestingly Rush also said in his first book "the middle class of over-taxed".  He's sure not saying that now.  Rush in his book, "The Way Things Ought to Be" said the national symbol for this country ought to be a pig with all the little piglets sucking at the government teats, referring to the poor.  Rush hated the poor back then.  There are numerous references in his book to the news of the day such as Anita Hill, and Rodney King, and Magic Johnson and AIDS.  Rush wasn't at all sympathetic twords people with AIDS.  He also advocated strongly in his book Against condom use.  There was the usual hatred of animal rights people and environmentalists in general.  And of course his feminist update song back then was that Sandy Posey song of "If you're born a woman, you're born to be Hurt", and Rush wanted to make you understand the word was indeed "Hurt".  Oddly there wasn't that much in his book about cutting taxes and particularly cutting taxes on the rich.  Now things are so strange that people remember  the economy improving under Clinton because Newt Gingrich got Clinton to cut business taxes and taxes in general.  Of course Clinton RAISED the top income tax level just Before the economic revovery began.  Rush a year or so Before the recovery began, was predicting a Clinton recession.  How many times can one man be wrong and still be listened to?  Last Saturday at my Mom's at the table my Mom said "If you ask me what I believe, I feel that the economy is picking up right now and that it will continue to pick up more".  I amplified on these sentaments saying that people would have money to spend, and therefore buy more things and therefore those who produce the things would hire on new workers, would have more money.  You have seldom seen Judy more insensed than this doctrine of Hope that I espoused this day.  To her America is doomed.  Of course she had predicted dire things in our future.  I asked her 'How does Newt Gingrich or any nominee propose to sell this notion of gloom and doom to the nation".  Judy just said, "The American people will understand because Newt Gingrich is a man who inspires confidence.  Judy prefers Newt because he has more experianced leadership and is a more carismatic speaker than Santaurum.  The reality that Newt is going down in flames in Iowa even as we speak and is in fact in fourth or fifth place now doesn't bother her.  Judy says there is a vast conspiracy in the media both to attack Newt Gingrich, and also to make President Obama look good and to prime him for reelection by planting all of these bogus favorable economic stories in the news.  I don't even think she realises the utter lunacy of what she is proposing is happening.  If these sorts of explanations are all the tea party can muster, then the movement is indeed doomed.  Some have tried to rationalize that "every Presidential year has good news".  1992 didn't have good news.  2000 was looking a little green around the gills by year's end.  The so called dot com bubble may have been the first biproduct of the recent laxing of Wall Street regulations.  And 2008 certainly did not look good.  So this argument just won't fly.  The reason why the media is saying things look better is because they ARE improving.  Saturday I came out and said the Right is hoping and praying for some crisis, like in Iran, to styfle this economy.  And I also said that I don't believe it's psychologically healthy to rout for your own country's demise.

Rick Santaurum may win Iowa now since he has risen so metiorically in the polls these past few weeks.  Right now it looks like a three way tie between Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santaurum.  However Romney appears to be fading just a bit.  Of course Michelle Bachman's chief campaign aid jumped ship and went over to Bachman, and so this may turn the tide in Paul's favor.  This is on top of the fact that Democrats can switch parties to vote in the caucuses and the libertarian democrats will turn out to vote for Ron Paul, and I think this factor will propel him to first place.  None of the other Republicans will like that but it's going to be something they will have to live with.

In case you are wondering, Glen Beck is gone but his beliefs live on.  The tea party right is still sticking to the marritive that President Obama has secretly surrounded himself with redicals such as Bill Ayres, whom he has secretly appointed to influencial positions without congress' concent.  The plan is still to "wreck" this economy and foment riots in the streets and utter chaos, and the outcome of that will be that "the people" will demand economic Socialism, which will be instituted.  They still to President Obama's speech in Kansas as a "Marxist manifesto".  They regard labor unions as evil.  They regard Teddy Roosevelt as a radical, despite the fact that conservative Taft, who followed him into the White House, pressed just as hard to break up corporate Trusts.  I also reminded Judy that bond yields actually went DOWN after the attempted debt crisis instigated by the republicans.  She didn't get it.  To her Down is Up.  There is continued talk of how the United States has always been a Christian nation and "National Days of Prayer" used to be called by government all the time, and that Congress used to be in the business of printing of Bibles.  Of course they believe that this country has a covenent with God and if we break that covenent with God, then God will punish us with all the plagues enumerated in Deuteronomy.  Of course I don't need to tell you what they think of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  They continue to talk about President Obama and the Occupy people of "Stealing from the real producers in this country".  There was talk about how   C E O's are worth every penny of their high salaries because they are such rare and tallented people who are exceptionally hard workers and bear an enormous responsability, for which they should receive just compensation.  Rush Limbaugh in his book predicted that Abortion would be the next big issue to come to the fore in this land and that it would become the basis of "The next Civil War".  At some point I asked why it was that President Obama is so hated above any and all other US Presidents.  I didn't date even broach the idea that it's because he's Black.

There was talk about the Supreme Court having too much power, and it does.  The Supreme Court was never intended to have the power to render laws passed by Congress as Unconstitutional.  Oddly Rush in his book saves some of his worth wrath for congress.  If Rush read his constitution he would realize that congress and particularly the House was meant to have the most direct power in that all 435 House members have to go before the voters for approval every two years.  But I know enough about the right to realize if they ever found that they agreed with Thom Hartman on anything, they would alter their position so that they did NOT agree with him.  My guess is that Ron Paul would be sympathetic to some sort of move to prohibit the Supreme Court from declaring laws passed by Congress in accordance with constitutional procedure- - as themselves Unconstitutional.  Judy says that property is an extension of People and therefore Corporations are people, and the Supreme Court agrees.  But no congress or any executive has ever agreed with this radical view that flies in the face of one hundred years of their own decisions.  (Selah)