An Open Letter to Congressman Phil Gingrey

Re: A Better Way Forward

Mr. Gingrey, in your newsletter this week you slammed President Obama and the rest of the Democrats in light of the new report released by the United States Department of Labor. Yes, the unemployment rate did rise from 9.7% to 9.9% but as the AP points out, that’s because people who had given up on finding work are gaining confidence to go out and look for work. And the Wall Street Journal, hardly a liberal bastion, goes on to say that, “when people re-enter the market to begin a job hunt again, they boost the number of the unemployed until they find a new position, boosting the overall unemployment rate.” In Your little tirade you ask, “Where are the jobs?” Well Phil, as it turns out there were 290,000 created in April, the biggest monthly total in four years! Should we be out dancing in the streets? No but the economy has clearly been brought back from the brink and your latest diatribe completely misrepresents the facts. As an elected official you owe your constituents better.

But guess what Phil? We don’t disagree on everything. In your email you mention the current economic crisis in Greece and its effect on Wall Street. I absolutely agree with your contention that this should all “serve as a stark reminder and a lesson to Washington of the precariousness of growing debt and its devastating global consequences.” So I’m sure we can count on you to reign in Wall Street by voting on a strong financial reform bill that regulates big banks like Goldman Sachs (who played a big role in both the U.S. & Greek economic disasters) and creates a Consumer Protection Agency. But that’s not all we agree on! You go on to say that, “we need to ensure we are on better fiscal footing, with a balanced budget and a reduced federal debt.” Yes! I could not agree more! Then I guess we can also count on you to begin reigning in our bloated military budget, because how could anyone who’s really serious about cutting spending and reducing the deficit not do so? It’s very encouraging to see your support on these issues.

Lastly, in your newsletter you bring up your visit to Guantanamo Bay. As you point out, “the Obama Administration has been trying to close down Guantanamo Bay to ‘improve’ our world standing,” and after your third visit you say you are even more convinced that this is the wrong decision. I agree, in fact I think since you like it so much, you should stay! I’m sure it’s very quiet, so you can probably get a lot of work done. I mean what other congressman gets to have an office on the beach? And I hear that help is cheap and easy to come by. It’s just a thought Phil. Let me know what you decide, I’ll even help you pack!

Truly,

Your constituent in the 11^th district of GA,

Chris McDaniel

May 8, 2010

A Beer With RJ Hadley

It’s a beautiful Friday afternoon and as always, whenever I’m meeting someone for an interview, I’m so worried about being late that I end up arriving entirely too early. Today I’m meeting RJ Hadley, who’s looking to sew up the Democratic nomination for the U.S senate, and I have an hour to kill inside the Brick Store Pub before he gets here. The server comes over and asks if he can start me out with a drink. Well this is a working lunch, I thought to myself, so I better take it easy. “I’ll have two shots of whisky and a beer,” I tell the young lad. “Oh and a dozen raw oysters.”

“We don’t have oysters sir.”

“What! Well, what’s the closest thing you’ve got?”

“Tuna steak?”

“All right, lay it on me but make it rare god damn it!”

The kid was back in no time with the drinks and I felt a little bad for giving him such a hard time about the shellfish. But I had a real lust that day for raw oysters, I explained to him, and when I get like that I can be a little crazy. The whisky and beer calmed me down and the Tuna was a little done for my taste but still pretty good all the same. I looked at the clock and it was nearly two, Jesus Christ! Hadley’s going to be here any minute and I’ve spent the last hour arguing about raw oysters; I haven’t even looked at my notes! No sooner than I get my notebook out, do I see RJ walk through the door. I quickly skimmed over my notes, which were written in something similar to the English language and would only make sense to me but to my surprise they were actually pretty good. I may get through this after all. Hadley picked me out the crowd pretty easily. RJ is a big guy with a bear grip of a handshake. He is not intimidating in the least but I had the feeling he could be if wanted to. Hadley ordered water and a turkey sandwich. I had another beer with the fish and chips and we got down to business.

Wait a minute; let’s back up to how I got this interview in the first place. A few weeks ago I was wondering who, if anyone, would be challenging our loathsome incumbent Senator Johnny Isakson (R) in the good ole’ red state of Georgia. And low and behold the only person I could find who was balls crazy enough to take on Johnny boy was the former Chief of Staff from Rockdale county; RJ Hadley (GA Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond announced his candidacy a few days after this interview took place). I started following RJ on Twitter to keep abreast of what he was up to and the first tweet I saw from him was a plug for his online store. Now bare in mind that I had been following Hadley for a week or so and this was the first thing that I saw him post and it pissed me off. I wanted to know how he was going to beat Isakson, not how much an RJ Hadley Snuggy was going to set me back. So I tweeted something close to what I just said above and this cheeky bastard not only replied to me, he offered to give me an interview! From that point on, without even meeting the guy, I liked him. It took moxie to call me on my shit and moxie is something that is greatly lacking in the 21^st century politician.

Now where were we? Oh yeah, the pub and the nitty-gritty on RJ. As a child in rural New Jersey Hadley’s family lost their home to foreclosure, so even from a young age he was no stranger to hard times. To rise above the hard times, RJ’s family always taught him that “education was key” and through support from his family, church, scholarships, and a lot of hard work Hadley would eventually attend Dartmouth. Next it was on to law school at the University of Tennessee but RJ’s time there was cut short due to a family illness. Hadley would also excel in several IT ventures but it was in Atlantic City, as a social worker, that he found his passion for public service.

Public service “has a lot to do with the kind of candidate I am,” says Hadley.” “I know it’s kind of a catch word now but I am about the people. I can get wonky if you want to and we can sit down and get into the meat of it but that’s not my real interest. I’m interested in the policy issues as they relate to the guy that’s on the ground.” “Public Service,” he says. It’s right in there in the words “serve-the-public.”

RJ cut his political teeth as a volunteer on the Obama campaign and would eventually become an Obama delegate at the 08 Convention in Denver. After the Convention RJ ran the campaign for Rockdale’s first African American Chairman of the County, Richard Oden. “It was one of those not gonna happen, never gonna happen in Rockdale County” kind of races. “My kind of race,” RJ says. After they won, Hadley was brought on as the Chief of Staff. There were those in Rockdale who were skeptical about RJ in his new role but then after about a month on the job “I wrote a grant for some foreclosure stabilization money and got the grant. It was about 2.7 million dollars, after that we were fine,” RJ says laughing. A lot of those same naysayers would end up becoming some of RJ’s most enthusiastic supporters for his senate bid. “Rockdale County has been very supportive.”

“So what encouraged you to run for the Senate,” I ask.

“A mix of things, I think the incumbent encouraged me just because of his approach and his attitude to things; just the overall environment and wanting to see things get better.” Make no mistake, Hadley does NOT want to be a career politician; in fact he thinks that’s part of the problem in Washington. “I think you go, you do the best job you can, and then you come home.” RJ rejects the notion of term limits though. Instead he seems to take the tact that, if elected, the voters will let him know when it’s time to hang things up.

All right, enough with the background stuff, let’s “wonky” and find out where RJ stands on the issues.

Financial Reform: Hadley is basically on board with the Volker plan but stopped short of saying if he would vote on the bill as it stands right now in the Senate. “I don’t necessarily have a problem with big banks,” he says, but “My concern is what are those banks allowed to do.” RJ thinks that “banks should get back to being banks” and that other institutions should handle things like credit default swaps. Hadley went on to say that, “We need to establish again the guidelines of what a bank should be doing” and that he would support a return to Glass Steagall.

When asked about healthcare reform the first thing RJ said was, “I really wanted to see a public option” and that he “believe(s) in healthcare as a right.” And what about Georgia Governor Perdue’s effort to sue the federal government over the healthcare mandate? “I feel like it’s a little disingenuous” and that it “just seems like political posturing.” Hadley dismisses the argument that all of this won’t cost anything and seems to think it’s kind of a waste of time, “It’s almost like the leadership, they pick these other things that they can focus on,” rather than focusing on the issues that matter; jobs, clean energy, and other things that are going to “create some new opportunities for Georgia.”

Shifting gears, I really try to get RJ to come out for legalizing Marijuana but couldn’t get him to budge. He pretty much sees it as a gateway drug and worries about easier access of the drug to our youth, “That’s the social worker part of me” says Hadley.

“Do you think there is a legitimate medicinal use for it?” I ask.

“That I don’t know,” says RJ, “I mean, I’ve never used it myself. I don’t really have any experience with…”

“Never?”

“No. Never.”

“Never, ever smoked pot?” I say.

“Never.”

“Never, wow.”

“I know, I know,” says RJ. “I’ve lost a number of jobs over that because…”

“Because you haven’t smoked pot?”

“Yeah because it’s like,” ‘no you must be lying,’ he says laughing.

But as far as medicinal use, RJ seems agnostic at best. “I guess if it deadens pain, which I guess is what they’re saying, it’s like hey I’m in pain and I smoke this pot and it takes the pain away; I guess there’s value there.” He doesn’t come off as judgmental about the whole thing but at the end of the day Hadley just worries about “any public policy initiative that’s going to make this drug possibly more accessible to our youth.” I guess that’s just the social worker coming out of him again. “But the economic argument,” for legalization he admits with a smile, “is hard to ignore.”

So what about “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?”

“End it,” RJ says, without nuance, then goes on to say that one-day, maybe not in our lifetime, we’ll look back on that policy as “silly.”

“What about gay marriage,” I ask.

“I’m a Christian ok.”

Uh-oh.

“I’m for it.”

Oh! Phew, He’s for it!

“I’m married, I want people to have the same rights that I have. It’s just that in my Christian belief there is no such thing as gay marriage, per say.”

Wait what? “Let’s leave the spiritual aspect out it,” I say. “In the eyes of the government is it okay for two gay people to be married?”

“Yes!” RJ says. When it comes to transferring property and being covered on your spouses health insurance, and all the other LEGAL benefits that come with getting married; “Why not?” he asks. “It’s just pure judgment,” to say that, “I don’t agree with your lifestyle, you’re a sinner,” that shouldn’t be in the argument at all, he says. There’s a “governmental realm and a spiritual realm” and RJ sees the importance of separating them. And when it comes to the argument against gay marriage, “If you take the spiritual aspect out of it?” Hadley asks. “What’s your argument? You-have-no-argument.”

Okay fair enough, “What about the War on Terror?”

“We spent $125 billion last year,” on both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” and “$160 billion this year,” for something that is still questionable as to whether or not it’s, “making us safer.” RJ fully understands that there are people out there who want “to harm us, I get that” but he thinks that our money and resources could be spent better by “boosting foreign intelligence” and bringing in other diplomatic partners such as China and Russia. “This is a world issue, we can’t afford to be the ‘911’ for the world as much anymore.”

Should we bring home the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan?

“As a start, yes.” But the next part, according to Hadley, is bettering intelligence work through our various agencies and carrying out more strategic strikes. RJ believes that this is not a conventional war and can’t be fought as such.

“This isn’t us storming the beaches at Normandy,” I say.

“No, I think those days are behind us.”

But just as important as how we fight the War on Terror is what we do with our troops when we finally get them home. RJ thinks that the $160 billion we’ve already spent this year on the wars could be better spent on “getting our VA hospitals up to snuff” so we don’t have these “horror stories,” like Walter Reed. Then there’s the issue of destitute veterans; “why are there over a million of these vets,” he asks, “that are homeless on the streets?” Hadley suggests that a more robust GI Bill and a government jobs program could help alleviate these problems. “It’s one thing,” he says when the Republicans cry out for a strong national defense, “when you’re over there but when you come home” and “you need services and support;” the GOP changes their tact to “well we’re not so much behind you anymore, you know, because now your taxing the system. You’re taking money out of my pocket.”

“Climate change,” I ask next, “is it a problem and what do we need to do about it?”

“I think it’s a problem,” says RJ and “I believe that our actions are altering our world and environment.” Hadley says he would like to see us “have a bold vision toward clean energy” not only because of the environmental issues but also for national security reasons and the potential for jobs created by an influx of green technology. So how do we achieve all of this? Is a Carbon tax the answer? “I don’t know,” he says, “because that’s going to be a real big blow to Georgia,” and it’s agricultural economy. RJ does, however, see opportunities for wind and solar power in Georgia but is skeptical about nuclear, “my problem with nuclear is that, I just think we haven’t solved what we’re going to do with the waste.” Hadley’s not too crazy about Cap and Trade either, “I think for Georgia it’s going be a real strain,” if we go to Cap and Trade. In my opinion RJ sees the scope of the problem here but like most of us doesn’t know what the hell we should do about it.

So that’s how it went down at the Brick Store Pub. And how do I feel after sitting down with the prospective senator for an hour? A little buzzed, the beer was rather strong, and Jesus Christ I’m stuffed! A tuna steak and an order of fish and chips, what was I thinking? But oh yeah about Hadley, he hasn’t been in politics long enough to be poisoned by it and in my book that’s a big plus. He wants to bring the troops home, also a big plus. He’s for repealing “Don’t ask Don’t Tell” and is pro gay marriage (at least in the legal terms and for me that’s the whole argument), which is another plus. He wants universal healthcare; plus, plus! I would liked to have seen him take a stronger stance on financial reform but he did say he was on board with a return to Glass Steagall and that’s a hell of a lot more than you would get out of most politicians. I disagree with him on Marijuana but he makes a reasonable argument. My biggest disagreement with him though is his views on what to do on climate change, specifically on a carbon tax. I understand a tax is never popular but we can’t truly begin to combat climate change until we start to ask people to make sacrifices and some of those sacrifices will have to come out of our wallet. But the real question is would I vote for him? In a heartbeat! Compared to anyone else running for the senate (especially the reigning douche bag Isakson) RJ is a welcomed breath of fresh air. So come next fall, if I have anything to say about it, he’ll be on his way to Washington.

ObamaCare: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

There’s a lot of good things about ObamaCare and some bad too, like the fact that it puts us on a slippery slope heading towards Soviet era Russia! Well, not really but there are some bad things about our new healthcare plan and some that are just plain ugly.

THE GOOD: 32 million uninsured Americans will now be covered! That is very good or as Joe Biden would say, “A big fucking deal!” Another boon for the average American is that Insurance companies will no longer be able to discriminate for pre-existing conditions and according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office the plan will reduce the national deficit! More good news comes in the form of tax credits for families making up to $88,000 a year and the expansion of Medicaid for the poor. Finally insurance companies will no longer be able to place lifetime caps on coverage and must report how much money they spend on medical care versus administrative costs. That last bit is a step that will be followed up by tighter government evaluation of premium increases. Now lets talk about my favorite part of the bill, and that’s who is going to pay for the bulk of this thing: THE RICH! Higher Medicare taxes on individuals making more than $200,000 and couples clearing more than $250,000 a year will pay for a huge chunk of this bill. And for the first time ever a new tax will be levied on investment income from the same high earners mentioned above. The new tax (3.8%) will apply to capital gains, dividends, and interest. It will NOT apply to 401(k) accounts and other retirement plans until the funds are withdrawn. And remember this is only for households making over $250,000 a year. When the new tax rates go into effect in 2013 the New York Times reports from a study by the Tax Policy Center that on average $1 million plus earners will contribute $46,000 in taxes to Obama’s evil Commie healthcare that will destroy the middle class! I’m paraphrasing a little but the numbers are solid I swear! The Good can be summed like this: a lot of people who did not have insurance are going to get it and the rich are going to pay for it. This is a clear reversal of the trickle up deregulate philosophy of Reaganomics and that is why the Republicans, i.e. the elite are so bent out of shape about this. Oh yeah, there is one last bit of good I want to pass on here and this is especially for those of you who think that the mandate violates your civil rights. There is a LOOPHOLE! That’s right, if you can convince the government that you practice Christian Science or some other religion that does not believe in medical treatment you can be exempted from the mandate!

Now on to…

THE BAD: No public option! That is my least favorite thing about this. Healthcare will not be truly reformed until it’s taken out of the for profit mind set. Which leads me to my next point; this is a giveaway to the insurance companies! While we’re giving people easier access to healthcare, we are in effect subsidizing the insurance industry and I’m not too crazy about that. I think the Republicans are just mad that they didn’t think of this thing first! Another problem with the legislation is that, thanks to President Obama’s sweetheart deal with PHARMA, the government will not have the power to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs or be able to import cheaper ones from Canada. Lastly, there’s the timeline. The majority of this stuff, the insurance exchanges for one, don’t go into effect until 2014. And the 40% tax on insurance companies that offer the so-called Cadillac Plans? That does not go into effect until 2018! The wheels are moving entirely to slow on this thing.

THE UGLY: Within days of Obama signing the healthcare bill into law, officials from 14 states announced they would sue the federal government, deeming it unconstitutional to require all citizens to purchase a healthcare plan. Think that’s ugly? We’re just getting warmed up; last week Senate Republicans, through invoking an obscure rule, refused to work past 2pm. This pettiness resulted in the shut down of the Veteran Affairs Committee’s hearing on helping homeless veterans. Then came the threats of violence; Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) received a cryptic voice mail, “You’re dead. We know where you live. We will get you.” And a gas line was severed at the home of Rep. Tom Perriello’s (D-VA) brother, after a Tea Party website posted what they believed to be the congressman’s address. In all at least 10 Democratic lawmakers have reported threats of violence or acts of vandalism. But the most ugly thing to come out of all this is that the Republicans have once again tricked the middle class (I’m talking to you Tea Baggers) into voting against their own interests. It seems that the people who are the most vehemently against this are the ones who could benefit the most from ObamaCare.

It’s been nice to see Obama finally grow a pair and it seems that the Dems are poised to use the momentum from their healthcare victory on reigning in the financial sector and taking action on climate change. I could be wrong but that guy in the White House is starting to look more and more like the guy he campaigned to be.

FUN WITH GUNS: AN INSIDER ACCOUNT OF AMERICAS TORRID LOVE AFFAIR WITH FIREARMS

The Gun Show was at Jim Miller Park in Marietta GA. I was edgy being there, I thought for certain this place would be filled with gun toting lunatics who would surely spot me for the flaming commie liberal that I am but my fears were somewhat put at ease when I read the sign at the front:

CHECK ALL FIREARMS AND LOOSE AMMO AT DOOR

Well I guess that made me feel a little better, at least when I’m found out for who I really am these ignorant bastards will be a little less likely to mow me down in a hail of bullets. But the further I got into the show I found that I was the one being ignorant. I mean don’t get me wrong, there were a couple of scary looking people walking around, but to my surprise I found the crowd to be very nice and sociable. Turns out that a Gun Show is basically a flea market with guns and this one had a little bit of everything: assault rifles, swords, tasers, jewelry, and even Snuggies! I can only imagine how comforting it must be to clean your brand new double barreled shot gun while cozily wrapped up in a warm toasty Snuggy.

What surprised me more than the warmness of the people there was the ease in which one can buy a gun in Georgia. Whether you’re buying a .38 Snub Nose Revolver or an M4 Carbine Semi-Automatic Assault rifle, all it takes is a simple phone call and, providing that you’re not a felon, you can walk out of the Gun Show with your Great Equalizer that very same day!

Next on the hit parade I came upon author, former Marine, and self proclaimed professional irritant Tom Baugh. Tom was pimping his book Starving The Monkeys. The Monkeys in that ominous sounding title are not what you might think. According to a review of the book on freerepublic.com “Monkeys are the looters and moochers who essentially dine from the plates of the producers through the tax and legal structures they have put in place.” When I asked Tom what his book was about he called it a modern day Atlas Shrugged. From what I can gather the book seems to advocate that productive members of society “starve” the Monkeys by withholding their productive efforts. The “Producers” as Baugh likes to call them should not do this by refusing to pay taxes but by “…temporarily throttling back on their productive output, and thereby hastening the fall of the Monkey collective.” I’m not sure that America can throttle back anymore than it already has but maybe I’m just surrounded by Monkeys all the time!

Further weirdness came in the form of families selling guns. I saw a Mother, Father, and two daughters eerily sitting in front of a table of rifles all pointing at them like some kind of bizarre self induced firing squad. Creepier still were all the toy guns to get junior indoctrinated early on. Don’t get me wrong I believe in the right to bare arms but I just don’t understand the enthusiasm part of being a Gun Enthusiast. But then I’ve never shot a gun.

If I was intimated at the Gun Show just imagine how I felt when I entered Nick’s Guns, a gun store and shooting range. But just like the gun show I was in for another surprise. Nick’s is a family owned and operated joint and the people working there put me at ease immediately. I had never shot a gun before and they wanted to set me up with a .22 but I said, “Fuck That, give me a real gun!” So the guy laid a 9mm on me and showed me how the puppy worked. It was a pretty quick demo and to be honest I was little nervous but I figured as long as I didn’t point it at myself or anyone else I’d be fine. Now in case no one has told you, a gun range is loud, I mean really loud, the only thing louder is maybe Kiss in concert. I was nervous on my first clip, I was afraid the fucker was gonna knock me backwards through the wall but I held it like the guy showed me, gritted my teeth and pulled the trigger. You wanna know what it feels like to shoot a gun? You know how your Xbox controller vibrates when your playing Call Of Duty? Multiply that feeling by like a million and soak the controller in LSD and you might be close. It’s shocking, and thrilling at the same time but kinda scary too. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I went through about 50 rounds of ammo which took me about 20 minutes and I had no desire to shoot anymore. It wasn’t that I was disgusted or anything, to be honest I’ll probably do it again, but I was just done. It was very similar to the feeling you have after 20 minutes of insane and dirty sex; you just wanna smoke a cigarette and have a nap.

So after my brief stint in the gun world do I understand America’s obsession with guns? Kinda. I absolutely believe that people should have the right to firearms and it is without a doubt FUN to shoot a gun but having said all that I feel that it’s entirely too easy to obtain a gun. I mean we make people get a license to drive a car. Surely a gun is just as dangerous, if not more so, than an automobile. Now I know my Gun Enthusiast friends will say a gun is a right and driving a car is a privilege. I disagree, just as there are some people who should not be able to drive a car (any given day on the connector down town will prove my point on that) there are some who should not be able to go anywhere near a gun. I don’t wanna take away your guns I just don’t want every idiot with a pulse to be able to own one. So until next time, keep your powder dry and your steel clean and the next time you’re at the range that sweaty beady eyed, adrenaline fueled brute in the next lane just might be me!

2013: A Blog From The Future

It's the year 2013 and we have discovered how to send messages back through time via a nifty new iphone app but we still can't figure out how to get people health insurance in this country. If I've timed this whole thing right then you should be reading this soon after the Health Care Reform moves into the Senate. The current version of the bill, current meaning 2009, is a big sloppy wet dream for the insurance companies and it only gets worse from here on out. The public option is totally stripped and the mandate that people who cannot afford insurance purchase a private plan or face a fine stays in with a vengeance. Yes, the insurance companies are no longer able to refuse coverage based on preexisting conditions but premiums have gone through the roof to compensate. Plans are so expensive that the government's subsidies to help those who cannot afford insurance have done little more than help increase the profits of BlueCignEta, oh yeah I forgot to mention that in the future all health insurance is provided by one giant corporation which is a subsidiary of Halliburton which is now owned by Wal-Mart. Sound bad? You haven't heard anything yet. Voters in 2012 were so frustrated with Obama and the rest of the Democrats for bungling healthcare that they elected Sara Palin. In her campaign Palin promised to do away with Obamacare but once everything went to effect in early 2013 and she realized what a boon it was for the insurance industry she kept it! And it was Vice President Michelle Bachmann who came up with the idea of making it a federal crime to go uninsured. So now the prison population is overflowing, which is good for Wal-Mart since they own all the prisons, and poverty is at an all time high. We're also in a full fledged war with, no not Iran, Canada! It's a really long story that I can't get into now but it all started with the bacon shortage of 2011 and then things got really out of hand.

So as you can see things are really bad. But there is hope. With the help of my rag tag band of friends here in the future we've managed to trace everything back to the one moment in time when everything turned sour and it's right now. This very moment as you read this our elected leaders are putting the finishing touches on the future of our health care system and if you want to avoid the dystopian society that I currently live in you have to let them know you are not ok with the way things are going. First of all things are taking too long. We need health care reform now, not in 2013, now! We managed to bail out the banks in a weekend I think we can in act at least some kind of meaningful healthcare reform in less than four years. Secondly, the provision to fine people who cannot afford healthcare is asinine and should be removed. Lastly, we need a public option, which would cancel out the formerly mentioned fines. So tell it to your elected leaders, tell it to your friends, tell it to your family and anyone else who will listen or doesn't want to listen and save the future! And for God's sake please start conserving your bacon!

Hey America, SODA IS NOT A STAPLE!

The airwaves have been bombarded as of late with and ad from Americans Against Food Taxes that warns of Washington's secret evil plan to tax us on the sugar laden goo we pour down our collective fat ass diabetic throats everyday. The commercial is narrated by a struggling single mother who is "counting pennies," but apparently not calories, to get through this economy. The proposed soda tax is a measure to fund health care reform and curb America's growing-pun intended-obesity epidemic. The plan for a penny per ounce tax on soda and other sugary beverages could raise as much as $150 billion annually over the next ten years but to our struggling mom in the ad from AAGT, a front group for the soda industry, those "pennies add up" when your trying to feed your roly-poly family! The average American drinks 50 gallons of sugared beverages annually, that's the average American, I'm pretty sure I've seen people walking out of Quick Trip with a 50 gallon fountain drink just to hold them over until lunch. So what's the consequence of slurping down all that sugary slime? Besides thousands of dollars wasted, there's the fact that soda has absolutely no nutritional value at all and that a high consumption of sugary beverages has been linked not only to obesity and diabetes, but to kidney disease and osteoporosis.

But the big beverage companies complain that it's unfair to pick on soda when there are so many other factors that contribute to America's miserable health. And in a strategy straight out of the big tobacco playbook, big soda is claiming that a beverage tax would disproportionately affect the poor; when in fact the poor tend to suffer from ailments brought on by heavy amounts of sugar, such as diabetes, and would benefit the most from programs, like universal health care, that could be at least be partially funded through revenue generated from a soda tax. As for the "other factors" that contribute to our deteriorating health? We already tax booze, cigarettes, and even porn for some reason (though I have discovered through my own tireless research that pornography is actually beneficial to ones health) and soda is not any different from those afore mentioned vices (with the exception of porn of course) in that it has no nutritional value. We need to start putting soda and all the other crap that passes for food these days into the same category as alcohol and tobacco. Is the super-sized extra value double bypass cheeseburger meal as bad as a pack of smokes? Probably not, but it's definitely in the same ball park and if paying a few extra CENTS for the vices we all love, and should only indulge in occasionally, can encourage us to eat better and pay for beneficial social programs such as universal health care, I say bring it on. And to all my paranoid friends out there: a soda tax is not Big Brother coming after our food supply, soda is NOT food anyway, but that's not what Big Soda and their front groups would have you believe. And to all my fiscally conservative friends out there who want REAL CHANGE: if you want change sometimes you have to pay for it, literally. So America don't be fooled by these corporate pricks, they're not interested in saving you money only they're bottom line. And stop wining about the cost of your favorite corn syrup loaded treat. It won't kill you to drink a glass of water every now and then but that Big Gulp just might.

An Hour with Glenn Beck

On Monday September 21, 2009

I forced myself to watch an entire episode

of Glenn Beck.

Here's, more or less, what happened:

First things first, if I'm going to get through this I need to be in the right frame of mind. That's why I've got a fifth of Canadian whisky. I've also unplugged my DVR because if I give myself the ability to pause the program I'll never get through this and I figure I'm going to need those commercial breaks to cleanse my palette of Beck. When five o'clock rolls around I pour myself a glass of Crown and ready myself for the insanity. The theme of the show today is "President Obama in His Own Words" an exclusive with Glenn Beck. Wait I haven't drank nearly enough whisky to hear something that crazy! The President is going to be on Beck's show? Well, it could be true, he did make one hell of a blitz on the Sunday programs this week and he is trying to win over that special breed of people that actually enjoy Glenn's show. But then Beck let's me and the rest of the viewers in on the joke; President Obama will not in fact be on the show. Instead Glenn will be playing a bunch of clips of Obama and then giving his take on them. Well Goddamn it that's not an exclusive! Isn't that what all these pundit shows do every night? I'm not even five minutes into this thing and Beck has already pissed me off! But that's what I got the booze for. So I pour another glass of whisky and try to relax.

Next Glenn unveils a bizarre looking flow chart on a chalk board which seems to indicate an Axis of Evil between the Organizations of SOROS, TIDES, Health Care for Americans Now, The Apollo Alliance, SEIU, and of course the notorious ACORN group. Now I don't know a lot about these groups but from what Glenn Beck is telling me, and mind you I'm heavily into the Crown by now, they are apparently working together on a secret evil plan to ram a single payer health care system down our throats! I knew those bastards were up to something and I'm sure ACORN wants to work in a brothel for teenage girls as well. At least they'll have good health care, but I digress, next comes one of Glenn's favorites: the Czars! Many of the so called Czars have worked with some of the afore mentioned groups, and I say so called Czars because the title of Czar does not actually apply to two of Beck's targets in this segment; former Green Jobs Czar Van Jones and FCC Czar Mark Lloyd. Van Jones' job description was that of Special Advisor to the White House Council on Environmental Quality and Mark Lloyd's official title at the FCC is Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer. Glenn just likes to throw around words like "Czar" to scare the shit out of his viewers into believing that President Obama is trying to turn our country into something resembling a love child between Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. But I'm getting off track again. What Beck is trying to get across here is that there is a very cozy relationship between organizations such as the Apollo Alliance, whom Van Jones' served on, and the Czars. To really drive home his point Glenn plays a few clips of the evil Czars and the President using words like "Re-distribute" and "Wealth" in the same sentence and it immediately comes apparent to me and the rest of the audience that these fuckers are trying to indoctrinate the nation with socialism! The worst "Ism" of them all! Thank God a commercial drink, I mean break.

If there's anything more creepy than Beck and his program, it's his sponsors. I've had quite a bit to drink by now, in fact I'm watching the TV with one eye closed just to keep from seeing double, but I swear I just saw a commercial with G. Gordon Liddy trying to get me to invest in gold! I never thought I could be so glad to see Glenn's doughy face when the show finally comes back on, I mean anything's better than watching a vampire like Liddy trying to sell me on gold; that's enough to sober anyone up. Out of the break Beck plays a clip of President Obama repudiating former President Jimmy Carter's contention that much of the criticism as of late is based on racism. In response to this Glenn says, "Good, thank you," as if Obama were talking directly to him. Then I start to wonder does this loon actually believe that he is interviewing the President? Maybe he likes to have a little whisky during his show too! Or maybe he's just a really emotional guy because next Glenn's voice gets all soft, and his eyes get that misty on the verge of tears look and he starts to profess how much he loves this country and how he is scared that Obama is going to fundamentally change the entire system; which brings us back to our Axis of Evil from earlier. You see it's this "Coalition," as Beck likes to call it, that will allow Obama to bring about a, "Re-Distribution," of wealth. So we better watch the fuck out and invest in Gold like Liddy says before Obama, ACORN, and Van Jones take all of our money! And not only do these commie bastards want all of our money; they want to take over what Glenn calls, "the best health care system in the world." Don't believe we have the best health care in the world? Just listen to these glowing reviews he gave our health care system when he had surgery in 2008: "phenomenally bad," and one of the, "darker moments in my life." It was so good that he claimed he even became, "suicidal." Our current health care system has flaws yes, but it's still the best in the world, even if it makes you want to kill yourself. Just when I think Beck cannot possibly top himself he really puts the icing on the cake by exonerating Joe Wilson (R-SC). In a speech to a joint session of congress President Obama stated that his health care plan would not insure illegal immigrants and Congressman Wilson Shouted out, "You lie!" on live television. Wilson was later ridiculed by both parties but then the President made the mistake of calling for immigration reform which in Glenn Beck's tiny mind is tantamount to flat out amnesty; ergo Wilson was right. The President is a dirty liar!

Glenn goes on a bit of a rant now; scolding the President for treating us like "morons" and how he needs to stop listening to "the media, the celebrities and the elite!" Obama might be taking cues from the elite, and that may or may not be a bad thing, depending on your definition of "the elite" but I don't think he's getting advice from Angelina Jolie and Wolf Blitzer. Well maybe he's getting advice from Blitzer's beard but that's it. As for treating us like morons, well here's the thing; every night these pundits and so called journalists make outrageous claims about the President and he is forced to defend himself from their absurd accusations. Beck himself has implied on more than one occasion that the President is a socialist and even a racist, and these are the least of the crazy things that are said about him. Don't even get me started on the Death Panels and the Birthers. Look, this is going to be tough for you to hear America but If you believe half of what comes out of someone like Glenn Beck's mouth, YOU ARE A MORON, and you should be treated accordingly. But it's not entirely your fault, Beck can be pretty manipulative, in fact I feel a little more stupid myself after watching him for an hour. Wait, has it been an hour? Sweet Christ I can't believe I made it through the entire show! Well if this isn't an excuse to have a drink I don't know what is but to my horror I've found my bottle of Crown is bone dry! Not only has Glenn raped me emotionally and intellectually for the past hour; the bastard made me drink all my booze! Oh God, Liddy is back and this time he's pimping Cialis, I gotta get to the liquor store!