Leftovers from the cave

The past week's leftovers:

With so many hawkish wingers who won't shave a budgetary dime in protecting the lives of Americans from terrorists overseas, it does seem odd that the very same hawkish wingers on the right  continue to hack at Obamacare that protects the lives of millions of uninsured Americans at home.

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That was another of Gov.Kasich's sunny performances in his CNN interview by Gloria Borger.  It could have ended quickly after he said that all of his options were on the table, or at least after he again mentioned  Matthew 25 (the part about feeding the poor!). He also shrugged off any interest in the vice presidency , cheerily saying he's been on the veep list since he was 35. He also called for an unspecified "battle plan"against ISIS and claimed to be  "worried about America".  He dismissed any thoughts about  conservative opposition  if he decides to run for the presidency (which at this very moment is an idea that controls every lobe of his brain) because right-wingers do not represent the culture of Ohio. You'd be better off if you didn't allow any of the above Kasichisms burden your lobes.

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Re Matthew 25,  do you think the guv might start showing up with John 3:16 on a placard in his public appearances - the way they do it at baseball games?

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Hope you saw the angry letter in Monday's Beacon Journal from Brian Williams defending Common Pleas Judge Tammy O'Brien   for recusing herself from more than 60 cases after her bailiff threatened to quit because the bailiff didn't like the assistant county procesutor assigned to the court.  "Mercilessly vilified," Williams complained.  But it does seem that a judge at the common pleas level should have weighed  the consequences of her behavior.  Indeed, she finally did by saying she would now preside over all of the cases from now on.

If you do crossword puzzles (as I do) Rep. Darrell Issa, the toothy mega-millionaire Republican from California, is manning the battlements against the army of Giuliani  critics by asking us to thank the New York City mayor.  But he also tests all of us to know the difference between "believe" and 'wasn't".

Here's Issa:

"Rudy Giuliani said he didn't 'believe'  [that Obama doesn't love America]  He didn't say the president 'wasn't'."

Yeah.  Me, too.

Palin: Low minimum wage a roadmap to brighter future

Reposted from Plunderbund

May we pause for a moment to give thanks to the presence  in our midst of comic opera diva Sarah Palin, who brightens each day with cheerful lyrics that sustain us in the rush of awful news from around the world.

 Her latest aria, voiced from a truck stop north of Fairbanks, and played quite broadly, told us there is a brighter  future for people who work for minimum wages - or less. Reaching a high C, she reminded all of us  that such jobs are not lifetime endeavors  but rather "stepping stones" to something quite  more rewarding. Another controversy happily settled!

Speaking of Palin, whom John McCain assumed would be his light to the end of the tunnel, CNN's Candy Crowley gave us some flickering gaslight as to why he appears on so many of her programs.  Listen to this Crowley gem, class:

"Senator McCain, lots of people, when we have you on, often say, why do you have him on so often.  And we say  because he answers our questions,  because he expresses his views quite clearly."

Oh? Still unanswered by him is how he dared risk the nation with a daffy woman a heartbeat away from the presidency."  Fortunately, the voters didn't wait for the answer.  




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The sad public meltdown of John McCain

From CNN comes this sign-of-the-times testy response by John McCain to a CNN reporter who asked him why he missed a briefing on Benghazi:

"I have no comment about my schedule and I'm not going to comment on how I spend my time to the media," McCain said.
Asked why he wouldn't  comment, McCain grew agitated:  "Because I have the right as a senator to have no comment and who the hell are you to tell me I can or not?"

Sadly for the old soldier who insists on making a fool of himself with his bitter post-election rants  against the President, his meltdown continues in full view of the public.  Maybe it would help if his friends removed the mood ring from around his brain.  After all, no one has appeared more on TV as a guest than...McCain.

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Why do we need   to know that Paula Broadwell, Gen. Petraeus' paramour, has only 13 pct. body fat?

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Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican known for his colorful exercise of the English  language, insists the GOP ought to search seriously for answers to its defeat by beginning with a proctologist.  The party can use a few laughs these days in its darkest hour.

Another bottom-feeder for the files

MAY I HAVE your attention please to alert you to another political bottom feeder turned up by a reader. He is Indiana State Rep. Bob Morris, a Republican to the marrow who has found a terrorist plot in....in...the Girl Scouts of America. He has, for a few moments at least, even upstaged McNewt Gingrich, a.k.a. Crazy Guggenheim, who is warning his audiences that Barack Obama is "the most dangerous president in modern American history."

I am finding it harder and harder these days to separate the chaff from the chaff as raffish Pulcinella-like characters keep romping across the stage.

But back to Rep. Morris. According to a CNN report, Morris asserted his opposition to celebrating the centennial anniversary of the Girl Scouts of America (mercifully, the only lawmaker to do so). He accused the annual cookie-bearing group of promoting "homosexual lifestyles" and didn't think it at all wise to "endorse a group that has been subverted in the name of liberal progressive politics and the destruction of traditional American family values".

Not only that, mind you. He further accused the organization of becoming a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood whose agenda includes "sexualizing" young girls.

Somehow we knew that Morris would come around to slandering Planned Parenthood, which I believe is doing quite well these stormy days.

His family-value remedy is to extricate his two daughters from the scouts and place them in an outfit called American Heritage Girls Little Flowers., whose provenance I decided not to Google.

Had enough of this guy? Yeah. Me, too. Quack, quack.

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To an oil-friendly Oklahoma audience, Gingrich sniffed at fuel-saving small cars, and complained about Chevy's latest: "You can't put a gun rack in a Volt."

I know. He said What?!?!

When this rich man speaks of the poor...

The morning after his aniticipated big victory in Florida, Mitt Romney made his own pitch for the middle class that has been President Obama's narrative for a long, long time. But as he is prone to do when he's out on the range, he stumbled badly by leaving the impression on CNN that the poor should be of much less concern than...eh...the middle class.

It was pure McMitt Lite, and his take on the poor immediately flashed across the sound waves 0f TV and radio - so harshly at times that an aide conceded that although his candidate meant well, he could have worded it in a little better English.

Insisting that "there's no question it's not good being poor", Romney explained: "My focus is on middle income Americans...We a have a very ample safety net and we can talk about whether it needs to be strengthened or whether there are holes in it, but we have food stamps, we have Medicaid,, we have housing vouchers, we have programs to help the poor....You can focus on the rich - that's not my focus - You can focus on the poor - that's not my focus. My focus is on middle-income Americans." (Talk about it? In a quiet room?)

Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, he doesn't have to focus on the rich, who are focussing on his welfare with enormous personal contributions of six and seven figures.

At this stage of the long campaign, it does appear that the only safety net he will need is one that can spare him of the fallout from his own mindless comments. Anybody want to bet $10,000 that this won't be a learning experience for him?

When everybody agrees, where's the debate?

I CHECKED OUT of the two-hour Republican presidential candidate debate on CNN at 8:19 tonight. Without revealing it to me, Nancy had predicted that it would be 8:24. Close enough. She knows my patience level too well. Nineteen minutes was long enough.

These events usually reveal nothing. From a distance, the eager and powdered candidates, as an erect phalanx in dark suits, appeared to be a bar code on a Wheaties box. And with 30 seconds to answer a question on the mysteries of the universe, they raced beyond their limits as CNN's John King served as a speed bump to remind them of their excesses.

Besides, it wasn't close to a debate, but rather what the boys back in my old neighborhood called a "gang bang", in this instance, of President Obama. Ron Paul, the Republicans' Harold Stassen, said he coudn't think of a single thing that Obama did right, and would you believe that nobody disagreed with him! Everyone promised to repeal the health care reform law, cut taxes and deliver us from liberal evil. Obama, Mitt Romney assured us, was a failure, so there.

Everyone told us how many children he or she had and how much they loved America. The air was heavy with sincerity.

And Michele Bachmann, just in the nick of time for the collegial symposium, announced to King that she was officially running for president. She wanted CNN to be the first with the scoop.

By the way, what was Newt Gingrich doing up there on the stage in New Hampshire anyway? He looked none the worse (nor none the better) for the exodus of his entire campaign staff. Maybe his recent Mediterranean cruise did him some good even if his former staff didn't.

And how about the woman in the audience who said she was a freelance "journalist" for corporate publications and wanted a pledge that we would all be freed from the oppressive health care law ASAP. Can you imagine that with that hostile point of view what industry publishes her stuff. You're right.

All of this in 19 minutes, folks. Would that their campaigns would last no longer than that.