I haven't written since October of last year. As always happens, the last few months of the year are incredibly busy for me, and this year was no exception. Doesn't mean I didn't have something to say, just that I didn't have time to say it.

But I'm back, and I'm pissed, I've got some things to put in writing, and I'd love to hear how you feel about them.

1/20/2010:   The following is what the Libertarian Party has published as the "Top 10 disasters of the 2009 Obama administration":

Logic. Not as prevalent as you wish it was...

Okay, let's review:

Cash for Clunkers. Helped the American auto industry, even though it helped the Japanese auto industry more. Hey, what do you want, they make better cars...

War escalation in Afghanistan. Necessary since leaving it as a defunct country with no real police or army will result in the Taliban, which already holds the entire country again with the exception of the capitol, taking over and allowing Al Qaeda to stage operations from there again.

Giant government health care expansion bill. Only a disaster insofar as the Republicans have raped the healthcare reform effort, to the detriment of the American people and the delight of the insurance industry.

Post office loses money hand over fist. Yeah, so? The highway system isn't a money making venture either, but you don't hear anyone whining about that, do you?

Stimulus package. Stimulated the economy and avoided an outright depression. Success. Get over it.

Expansion of "state secrets" doctrine. No argument here. Point for them.

Big increase in unemployment. The nice thing about disasters is they can be disastrous without being the fault of the person standing there. See, that one was courtesy of Gee Dub Bush. Not Obama's fault, even if it is his problem to solve.

"Bailout" Geithner as Treasury Secretary. Okay, that's another point for them.

Skyrocketing federal spending. See "Big increase in unemployment" and "Stimulus packages".

Huge federal deficits. Now you're just repeating yourself. Does that mean you couldn't actually come up with 10 things, even if they were wrong?

And then there was this gem which immediately followed, called, "Top 10 disasters of the 2001-2008 Bush administration":

Cash for Car Companies. I'll give them a point here only because, unlike the money loaned to banks by the Obama industry and, for the most part, paid back already, this was just a cash giveaway. Obscene, irritating, and baldly non-conservative. I think this exposed Bush more than anything else as being just another money-grubbing Republican to his "base."

War in Iraq. Three words, and easily the biggest betrayal of the American people ever. Thousands of our soldiers expended like cheap pawns, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed, millions displaced, and all because Gee Dub got a shiver up his leg about invading an oil rich country we had under our thumb.

Giant Medicare expansion bill. That's a disaster? Expanding health coverage to include thousands of poor elderly and kids that couldn't afford health coverage otherwise? That's a bad thing? That's one of the only things that Bush did that I didn't hate his guts for.

Post office loses money hand over fist. You guys are just idiots...

Stimulus "rebate" checks. Yup, downright insulting and useless. Should have used that money to put poor kids through college. Point for them.

PATRIOT Act. I have to give this one a point and a bonus point. The PATRIOT Act was GOP treason. That and the FISA "reform" act that stripped Americans of their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights.

Big increase in unemployment. Well, duh. Bushie defanged regulatory bodies, spent the surplus on tax cuts for the uber-wealthy, and then lied to get us into the most expensive war in history, and then ignored the warnings he was getting from his finance policy advisors. When the economy started tanking, he just stood there with his junk in his hand and a bamboozled look on his face. Another point for them.

"Bailout" Paulson as Treasury Secretary. Yes, correct again. Point.

Skyrocketing federal spending & Huge federal deficits. Yeah, I'm going to combine these and say, again, well duh. Iraq, anyone? Tax cuts for the uber-wealthy, anyone? Stupid "tax rebates" anyone? One point, even thought they're just being repetitive again.

Okay, so let's see... The libertarians scored 10 out of 20 possible points. That's a resounding "F". You guys pretend to be more Constitutional than thou, but your "superior" intellects can't even come up with the correct disasters of the current and past administration. What about Katrina? What about Ike? What about climate change? What about alternative energy sources? What about FISA? What about warrantless wiretapping? What about torture? In a target rich environment, the libertarians are blindfolded and holding the gun between their knees...

And *that* is why I'm not a libertarian. Look, I'm a logical, critical thinking, educated, intelligent, Golden Rule Progressive. I can't ignore the weak and the indigent. I can't stand watching someone take away the rights guaranteed me by men who gave their lives to secure those rights, I can't tolerate crimes, especially those committed in my name. I can't abide specious arguments designed to wear down the opposition simple because you don't agree with them and can't cogently explain why. I don't buy religious tradition as a viable measure of righteousness. An icky feeling isn't enough. Labels aren't enough. I respect the minority as well as the majority. I don't trust organizations to have souls, especially corporations. And organized idiots are still idiots. Having a following doesn't make you right, it makes you charismatic or possibly just entertaining. And I find the Libertarian Party's website to be boring, boorish, illogical, ideological, and pathetic. Reading their site, it's clear that they are not in fact about honoring the intent of the Constitution so much as they are about garnering power through labels, sound bites, and superstitious fears.

No, thank you.

1/20/2010:   Screw the Democrats. I'm an independent now. The House health care bill was pathetic, the Senate bill was insulting, and neither is going to pass on their own.

There is exactly one way to salvage this and make the Democrats look like they have a spine again. Obama needs to address Congress and ask Reid (spineless little wimp) and Pelosi (spineless little wimpette) to throw out both bills, pull out the original bill, pass it with no changes using Reconciliation, and push the Republitards and Blue Dogcrap Democants faces in the mud.

The healthcare bill is not complete unless it includes the following:

This should have been a no brainer. Instead, it's been a HUMONGOUS waste of time, money, and political currency. But if they turn it around and slap the GOP down, I'll be a Democrat once more.

Before I leave this, let me just say that I would prefer a single-payer system. Yes, "socialized" medicine. Sorry, but I don't see socialism as the boogey man. I see it as a lesser system of government, but it has it's superior points, and one of them is the medical systems that arise in countries where the medical industry does not employ unfettered corporate capitalism, Our government is, in principle, of, by, and for the people. Therefore, if the government runs the healthcare system, then the people are dictating how they are to be taken care of. Easy.

1/20/2010:   Obama has achieved a number of things in his first year, but what he didn't do, and what the Democrat Party hasn't done, and even some of things that the Obama administration has done since January of 2009 is enough to make me ready to switch parties.

No justice for the Bush administration. Bush, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Rove and Gonzales, among others, committed high crimes against this nation. That cannot be argued. What was missing, thanks to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, was the prosecution of those crimes. They still stand unprosecuted, and that itself sets a dangerous and hurtful precedent. You're not done until Cheney, Rove, and Wolfowitz are in prison and Bush is either likewise trading cigarettes for his life or at least officially and permanently acknowledged as the treasonous lump of crap he is.

Torture. You're for it or you're against it. Pick, but be sure you choose correctly -- if you're for it, you're a rat bastard and you're on your way out. And if you choose right, don't just close down Guantanamo and the CIA's off-shore rendition sites, punish the people in the previous administration's DOJ for giving the green light to torture.

Wire-tapping, PATRIOT Act, FISA. Undo the damage, repeal laws that strip away our rights and punish those that broke the law regardless of the rationale.

Limp on equal rights. The gay marriage issue isn't about gay marriage. It's about equal rights. Get it straight (pardon the pun) and tell the religious whack jobs to go to hell.

Deficit spending. You had to do what you had to do, but at some point you express a plan to end the deficit spending and state a clear plan for paying down those deficits. And make it clear that the majority of this nation's deficits were rung up by the two Bushs and Reagan, not the Democrats.

Healthcare. Throw out the steaming pile of crap that it's turned into, reinstate the stuff you had to pull because of GOP-powered popular stupidity, and give the majority of the American public what it needs and wants, public option, full health care coverage without pre-existing condition restrictions and without trust law exemptions for insurance companies.

Climate change. Stop being wussies about it. The science is in. Yeah, there were a couple of gaffes and mistakes, but all the studies by accredited climatologists prove that the heat budget for the planet has experienced an extreme shift that will affect climate in a negative way.

Spine. The Democrat Party is enjoying, even after Dan Brown's election in Massachusetts, a large majority in Congress. It's time to accept that the high road has been cut off by the GOP and to start taking, perhaps not the low road, but middle road. The road that says, "We're going to try to do this with, but if you can't at least negotiate and compromise, then we're going to resort to good old-fashioned screw-you politics an leave you crying in the corner -- you know, kind of like you used to do to us on every single issue when you had a majority."

I'm not bitter, and I'm not angry. I'm fed up. I'm tired of watching stupid people steer what should be the party of intelligence, reason, and right. If it's not that party, then I need to find the one that is.

1/20/2010:   Republican Scott Brown won the seat left vacant by the demise of the political giant, Ted Kennedy. The GOP are screaming and jumping up and down at the first political victory they've had in a year that didn't involve directly hurting the American people.

So what's it mean?

I think it means that the GOP spend a truckload of money and Brown ran a good campaign. Like Obama said, it comes down to the campaigns and the candidates.

I think the independents fired a shot across the bow of the spineless Democrat Party.

And I think it means that the majority in Congress better stop being passive and start pulling out the dirty tricks to get things done. It's time to stand up, roll their sleeves, and bloody the GOPs nose.

The following people voted against the Constitution, against the Fourth Amendment, against your rights, freedoms, liberties, and protections. A version of the FISA reform bill that grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that broke the law at the president's behest and gives the president the ability to grant immunity without oversight or further authorization, has passed the United States House of Representatives on Friday, June 20th, 2008. These are the people that voted for that measure. Included among them are Democrats that have betrayed their constituencies, including my own Jerry McNerney. Let us not forget these traitors at election time.