Bathing in the warm glow of last night’s descent into glaring insanity, otherwise known as a GOP Debate (applause for killing hundreds of people, border fences will imprison Americans in their own country, the only way to help the poor is to stop helping them), we now swing the spotlight away from the Children of the Damned’s Table to the Adult Table…President Obama’s speech before Congress on a new jobs program.

His speech begins at 4:00 pm PDT/7:00 PM EDT. A video feed is below at the bottom of this article (it will appear blank until the speech is about to begin). Best practice is to keep one window open to watch and listen to the speech uninterrupted and use another window to live blog with us. If you’re watching on tv, best to mute your computer.

To the disappointment of Republicans, Pres. Obama’s speech is not expected to contain such phrases as “Abject Liar”, “Ponzi Scheme” or “To Serve the Poor…it’s a cookbook!” so some Republicans have chosen not to attend and instead will be catching up on correspondence with Nazi re-enactment groups in their districts.

What Pres. Obama is expected to detail is a $300 billion jobs plan which includes an extension of unemployment benefits, a continued waiving of payroll taxes for workers, an infrastructure rebuilding plan and more.

It sounds like Obama is trying to make Repubs a deal that they can’t refuse. From all signs, it doesn’t look to be a huge, ambitious plan but a collection of familiar and helpful initiatives. The concept may be that putting smaller and reasonable ideas on the table could get at least something passed before the 2012 campaign begins and at least make things a little better.  If Repubs reject them, they will look even worse for it.

Just imagining now but I could see how rolling out a modest and seemingly no-brainer plan right now and pulling out in the campaign a more ambitious and bold approach could touch all the bases. Going too big now could make him look less interested in trying to help and more interested in getting re-elected. Using bigger ideas to campaign on and expressing that only with a Dem Congress could such plans come true, he could re-ignite Hope and Change in many and bigger changes could take place if he and Dems win in 2012.

As for tonight, Pres. Obama does need to come off genuine and compassionate but most importantly, resolved. If he is stonewalled by the Repubs he should use this as a battle cry for change, clear cause for the urgent need to replace them with Dems.

The national argument needs to be made. Change can’t happen with Tea Baggers threatening economic destruction at every turn and Repubs smothering a recovery because it brings Obama’s numbers down. I agree that the time hasn’t quite come yet to go there but after we see what happens with the Super Committee and his Jobs Bill, if cooperation doesn’t occur, it’s time to suit up and take this fight to The People and 2012.

The GOP has been very cocky in their delusional bubble, threatening our economy, millions of those who get government checks, etc. all to extort from Obama all their demands. They have not succeeded at that though they have done a great deal of harm to the nation and its economy in the process.

Why should Obama try once again to negotiate with people who are of such ill will? Perhaps…after returning to their states and getting hammered in town halls…or intentionally avoiding their constituency’s anger by not holding town halls…and after seeing Congress’ approval ratings plummet to the lowest in history, 12%…maybe at least for some, the bubble they’ve been living in has popped. Maybe they now see that re-election and keeping the House is greatly at risk if they don’t work with Obama on a bipartisan jobs deal.

All the Republicans seem to care about is having power and legislating to help corporations…so if the public is getting angrier at them…maybe they realize that in 2012 they could lose all that power and legislation they crave.

Maybe not, maybe they’re smugly sitting back in their DC bubble, confident that Koch and Rove money and new election laws will tilt the election to them and against popular sentiment…but maybe not.

In any case, this would be a great time for Pres. Obama to hit one out of the ballpark rhetorically, capturing lightning in a bottle once again in this speech and renewing hope in people that things are really going to get better. We’ll find out tonight, hope you’ll join us live blogging during his speech but in the meantime, please feel free to comment about your thoughts on what he should say, what we should do to get our economy back on track and how all of this connects with the 2012 elections.

UPDATE: (Video removed after speech)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmvR_p7b2zQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5pbfD0WSqg

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BnAC2K0-gw

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMHqZ-KrdQQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=amq6fcCESBk

Two sides of the same coin. Hot air.

Update:  Actually, I learned something from this exercise that shouldn’t have surprised me, but which sparked a memory: Rush Limbaugh, expostulating about MSNBC, is positively astounded at the change in Chris Matthews.

Chris Matthews! Seems that Chris, at one time, was an acceptable substitute host for Rush’s program, whenever Rush was on a sex tourist vacation.

And then I remembered that before Chris was getting tingles up his leg from Obamalove, he was head honcho cheerleader for George W Bush. (Who remembers Chris and the “Mission Accomplished” moment?)

Or maybe Matthews is just a salesman? After all, there was a time that MSNBC tried to outflank Fox on the Right (in the wake of patriotism engendered by 9/11). I guess maybe that might explain Chris’s flag-waving fervour, but it doesn’t explain the part he played in getting television talkshow icon, Phil Donahue, the sack:-

Despite the network’s emphasis on flag waving, MSNBC showed how little it understood the Fox model when, with Griffin as MSNBC’s prime time head, it hired the liberal Phil Donahue, who’d been Griffin’s childhood idol, out of retirement in April 2002 to anchor an 8 p.m. prime-time talk show that would challenge O’Reilly. The show debuted with the highest ratings ever for an MSNBC program, attracting more than a million viewers in its first night. But within a month, the audience was cut in half. At the same time, executives expressed increasing unease about his vocal opposition to the looming war in Iraq. At a time when red-meat patriotism prevailed, Donahue booked antiwar guests like Michael Moore, Rosie O’Donnell, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins. Soon the Donahue problem threatened Griffin’s job. In a tense phone conversation, Shapiro told MSNBC president Erik Sorenson to fire Griffin, but Sorenson pushed back.

“I’m not going to do that,” he told Shapiro. “No. 1: Phil’s been loyal to me for a long time. I don’t think it’s right. And No. 2: We’re short-handed. We have all this talent, and he’s the one who’s managing it.”

As a compromise, Griffin’s job was spared but he was stripped of responsibility for the show. The new producer insisted on a precise numerical balance between liberals and conservatives. Donahue’s problems only increased when Chris Matthews let it be known that he wanted Donahue off the air. Matthews was a rising force at the network, with a reported salary of $5 million. He cultivated former G.E. CEO Jack Welch and had the ear of NBC CEO Bob Wright (the two summered together on Nantucket). Matthews saw himself as MSNBC’s biggest star, and he was upset that the network was pumping significant resources into Donahue’s show. In the fall of 2002, U.S. News & World Report ran a gossip item that had Matthews saying over lunch in Washington that if Donahue stays on the air, he could bring down the network.

After the item was published, Matthews showed up at Donahue’s office and apologized. “He didn’t deny it,” Donahue remembers.

As much as it pains me to admit any agreement with Limbaugh, I also wonder what the hell happened to Chris Matthews. Like a lot of other talking heads, he started souring on Bush only when it was safe to do so. He slated the Clintons remorselessly during the Lewinsky scandal, yet visibly chokes up and constantly mistakenly refers to Bill Clinton as “the President.” He’s recently just come off a massive hard-on for Michele Bachmann, calling her his “hero.”

The Spanish have a proverb, Dime con quien andas y te dire’ quien eres -- which, basically, means that you’re judge by the company you keep. In Chris’s case, as he tends to pal around with the likes of Howard Fineman and Bill Maher, I’d have no compunction in calling him a hack.

And as for the last clip shown above, you can well imagine a debate between Rush Limbaugh and his former protege’, Ed Schultz. There’d be an hour of posturing, screaming, name-calling and near-myocardial infarctioned red faces … and then the Drugster and Mr Ed would retire to the nearest bar to laugh all the way to bank, at their dittoes’ expense.

This is the man responsible for introducing the likes of Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Grover Norquist and Christine O’Donnell into mainstream America. He counts Coulter amongst his best friends – one of two, I imagine, because media whore and Queen Ratfucker, Arianna Huffington is the other one. He lambasts the corporatocracy which has taken over America, yet bows from the waist in open admiration at Huffington’s defection to that realm of power and glory (not that she ever left off trying to break down the doors anyway).

He describes himself as a Progressive, but he openly supports the death penalty and racial profiling. He is anti-union and crossed the picket lines during the writers’ strike to carry on with his show. After the strike ended, he made it a stipulation that any writer working on his Real Time show not belong to a union. He is virulently against the National Endowment for the Arts. Whilst he was vocal in his criticism of George W Bush, he lauded him for the Iraqi surge. He’s a fervent defender of Israel.

If any other self-proclaimed “Progressive” openly claimed those credentials, he’d be immediately lambasted as a Blue Dog Dem, and that’s being kind. Those credentials are solidly Republican.

During the health care debates throughout 2009, Bill pushed the envelope in favour of the fashionable “public option,” even advocating Medicare-for-All when he interviewed Congresscritturs pushing that meme; but at the end of that season, in a lengthy interview with Bill Frist, he blurted out that he didn’t trust the government to administer any sort of health program, before launching into an anti-vaccine argument with Frist, a practicing physician, that belied his self-promoted reputation as a secular ratiionalist worshipping at the altar of science. The week before that episode, he engaged himself in a totally ludicrous argument with Jeff Toobin, criticizing what he called “Western medicine” and insisting that people left the United States dying of cancer for alternative treatments and lived to tell the tale.

In fact, Bill seems far cozier in the company of some of the most notorious conservative politicians and commentators, Frist included. Coulter, as mentioned, is his BFF; and the criminally-challenged Congressman, Darrell Issa is a frequent guest on Real Time, as is Dana Loesch, Matthew Continetti and the infamous Andrew Breitbart, whom he fails to challenge on any point and actually appears to protect.

In fact, it was the conservative writer, S E Cupp, who perspicaciously sussed that Bill’s strident atheism didn’t really appear to be non-belief at all, but rather, an anger at God. In fact, it’s only recently that Bill’s actually outed himself as an atheist. Until 2009, when Richard Dawkins awarded him his coveted Atheist of the Year award, Maher identified himself more as a questioning agnostic, saying that atheists were just as uncertain in their non-belief as fundamentalist Christians were in theirs. He actually admitted to believing in a higher power, just one which wasn’t the traditional view of God as the ultimate father figure.

The “Progressive” Bill Maher has shown himself openly queasy about Islam and Muslims, in general. In an interview with Anderson Cooper, in 2010, he quipped that, of course, Islam was a religion of peace. “There’s a piece of you over there and another piece over there, and that’s after the suicide bombers have struck.”

He was openly rude and blatantly disrespectful to Congressman Keith Ellison, one is Muslim.

And then, there are the remarks about the current President of the United States, referring to him disparagingly as “President Sanford and Son,” and lamenting the fact that Barack Obama wasn’t his idea of a real black President, one who would use ghetto-style language and intimidation techniques, even to the point of showing his Cabinet and Congress a gun tucked inside his suit jacket.

I’m positing that Bill Maher is a fraud, and anyone who looks at him either as an intelligent and fearless voice in the pundit community or an equally brilliant satirist, needs to wake up, smell the coffee and learn to think for themselves.

This is a man who follows the fashion of the easy money trail, rather than owning up to common sense principles that he’s afraid to avow publically because it would mean swimming against whatever the currently fashionable tide is concerning a popular topic of discussion or criticism.

He’s proven this with his attitude toward President Obama.

Bill was raised in a Democratic household, although now he doesn’t describe himself as a Democrat, and he’s too afraid to admit that he is, at heart, probably more of an old-style moderate Republican. It’s not unusual for someone to start life as a Democrat and then become a Republican – like John Boehner. Conversely, Hillary Clinton was formerly a Republican who switched parties along the way.

No, Bill’s a political starfucker. He leans Democratic when it’s cool to do so, and punches the Republicans when it’s the flavour of the moment to do that as well. And when the radical chic, whom he emulates and longs to join, find a trendy independent with a bone to pick, they push his meme too. Hence, Bill, along with those other two politically astute self-promoters, Michael Moore and Katrina vanden Heuvel, sold their followers on the message that it was all too hip to back Ralph Nader in 2000, because Bush and Gore represented the same corporate animal.

There you go. Bill enabled George W Bush, but then Bush gave him some great comedy moments and, no doubt, lined his pockets with money to ferret away from the California tax authorities, so who’s complaining? Not Bill.

Now we’re seeing Bill sell his dismay about Obama with everyone from Piers Morgan to Lawrence O’Donnell. I remember when he started this meme, and I remember the background to it, and it’s the background which, I believe, is sincere and incongruent to the undermining message he’s promoted on and off since then, which has done enough harm to the President, but serves only to enhance Maher’s own publicity. I don’t have any problem with self-promoting hacks, but I do have a problem with people who hang on their every word and follow them to the point that they convolute themselves in contradiction.

At the end of Bill’s 2008 season, the week after the Election, Bill – who was genuinely pleased with an Obama triumph – sat at his panel’s table and discussed with Jon Meacham how exactly they thought Obama would govern as President. Bill acknowledged that Candidate Obama had run as a centre-Left pragmatist and admonished Progressives not to get caught up in the hope that he would be able to pursue an exclusively Progressive agenda. He even warned that the Republican party, although defeated, was anything but down and out and would be an obstructive force with which to reckon.

He and Meacham then agreed that Obama would have no recourse but to govern from the centre and would have to seek bipartisan support from the GOP for certain measures. Bill even cited Mario Cuomo’s famous quote about politicians campaigning in poetry and governing in prose.

So far, ao astute. So sensible.

Fast forward to February 2009, and Bill’s first program after his hiatus. He took a break from comedy in his monologue, to remind his audience of the immense obstacles, especially with the economy, facing this President. He was right in saying that Obama was essentially the black man brought in to clean up the mess made by the entitled white man. He was actually facing  the worst economic situation since Roosevelt’s first term, but then Bill reminded people about the public in Roosevelt’s time, the so-called Greatest Generation, of which Bill’s parents (and mine) were a part.

Bill reminded his llisteners that the President had said that this would take time, that he couldn’t do it without the public’s help, and that was reasonable.

“I hope,” he said, “that now we’ve got our man in the White House, that people are just going to sit back and expect him to perform miracles and right this situation right away, because that’s not the way it’s done. It’s gonna take some time, and we all have to tighten our belts. But, you know, I’m not so sure this generation is able to do that, not like our parents’ generation.”

He went on to explain how his parents had lived through a Depression and a World War. They were suffering when Roosevelt asked them to tighten their belts even more during a real Depression, and they came off that, only to be asked to make sacrifices during a war. They got on with it and did what was asked; but he was right to single out the immaturity of people in present times. He actually ended his spiel by wryly reminding people that this wasn’t a matter of just cleaning house, and the President wasn’t that sort of servant.

Again, brilliant summation.

By the third week in June, he was castigating the Republican party for moaning about Obama always being on television; by the fourth week in June, 2009, Bill abruptly changed tack, in one week: Now he was moaning about Obama being on television so much that he’d done nothing since he’d become President. He seemed to enjoy being in front of the camera too much. Why, the only thing he’d accomplished in the first 100 days was getting a dog. Where were the WPA-style jobs’ programs, where was healthcare? And then the killer line: Why couldn’t Obama be more like Bush in ramming legislation through? Why couldn’t he have more of the Bush swagger?

Such bodacity garnered Bill umpteen appearances on talk show after talk show and the floodgates on Obama-bashing opened in earnest. As time went by, Bill loved to remind people that he was the first political commentator who dared to criticize the President. By the end of that year, he was snarkily referring to him as “Barry,” emulating the pithy and petty old white men of the Tea Party he disdained. When the President fulfilled a campaign promise of implementing a surge in Afghanistan, Bill tweeted indignantly that Obama was now “just like Bush.”

This carried on to a lesser degree – racist comments aside – during 2010. At least Bill had retained enough of his integrity to realise that 2010 was a Midterm election year, and that the Democrats were in danger of losing out. But in the aftermath of the Midterms and after the tax cut compromise, he took to the airwaves on Fareed Zakaria’s program to label the President a “pussy.” He’s since called him that once again in recent weeks.

In fact, the only time the President has received any approbation from Bill Maher this year was when Osama bin Laden was killed.

Since then, his constant meme has been “caving” or wishing that Obama had pushed Democratic principles, and insinuating that Obama is a Republican at heart.

Singularly oxymoronic from a man who openly supports the death penalty, who’s on record as being anti-union (please, the attention paid by Maher to the Wisconsin debacle was fashion-following only), who’s against the NEA, who defends Israel in every corner, who starfucks Bibi Netanyahu, and who doesn’t have a problem with American citizens getting assassinated without due process.

Bill Maher says Obama is a Republican at heart.

As for the President not promoting Democratic principles, I presume Bill hasn’t heard about the following:-

• - The Lily Ledbetter Act (ensuring equal pay for women doing the same work as men – but wait! Bill Maher’s got a sexist problem with women).

• - The Matthew Shepherd Hate Crime Act (but wait! In 2007, no less than Alan Simpson, ripped Bill a new asshole, when he made an untimely gay joke, to which Simpson took offense)

• - The Dodd-Frank Act (but wait! Bill wholeheartedly approves of BFF’s Arianna Huffington’s entry into the Wall Street arena)

• - The Affordable Care Act (but wait! Bill’s on record as being against anything like a Congressional Act which regulates healthcare)

• - Repeal of DADT (enacted by the man Bill would crawl over broken glass to interview, Bill Clinton)

• - Pushing for the repeal of DOMA (another Clinton accomplishment)

There are other things. Bill, like most of his ilk, failed to see that the compromise secured by agreeing to extend the Bush tax cuts for 2 years, contained many valuable benefits for the unemployed, the poor, the working poor and small businesses. But Bill wouldn’t see these things, simply because he has no occasion to think about them. He simply isn’t concerned. And, by the way, just to detract from Bill’s constant meme of Obama being a bad negotiator, the tax cut compromise was negotiated by Joe Biden.

And this week he’s back, singing the same old song of Obama disappointment on Lawrence O’Donnell’s MSNBC show, when in reality, he was conflicted to the point of confusion. On the one hand, Bill understands very well that the President has to react the way he does at various times because he’s contending with an Opposition who’ve made no secret of the fact that their aim is to destroy Barack Obama – as a President, as a politician and as a man. And yet, he undermines the President in the next breath, by insinuating that he was naive to want bipartisan cooperation, that he was needy in “wanting the Republicans to like him,” that he was a bad negotiator (yet again) and was caving to their demands by not demanding revenues in exchange for spending cuts (when it was Harry Reid, who famously caved in this instance, after the Republicans had walked out on the Presidential negotiations).

Finally, by beginning his interview with O’Donnell with such an infamous qualitative statement as “I like Obama BUT …” he simply reveals that he doesn’t like the President at all, which indicates that Maher is either stupid enough not to have listened to the President at all during either the campaign or his early months in office or that he’s enough of a shallow starfucker to herd-follow the Professional Left shills who gratuitously criticize absolutely everything this President does or doesn’t do which doesn’t meet with their high purist standards, in an attempt to grift a spare buck and some free publicity.

Because I’ve heard him speak eloquently and intelligently in defence of this President and because he was still astute enough to realise that something as straightforward as increasing the debt ceiling (a procedure in which  no President in recent history has had to involve himself directly) is a manouevre to destroy the country’s economy in an attempt to bring down one man, I believe the latter.

Like his mommy-figure, Huffinton, Bill’s all about self-promotion and getting as much attention as possible. And he wants to play with the big kids, be in with the in crowd. It’s cool in Bill’s world to be a Progressive hating on the black man in the White House, and when Bill derides the stupidity of Americans and manages to convince the dittoes who follow him religiously that he’s a Progressive who’s OK with the death penalty and who’s not ok with defending labour through unions, then he’s laughing all the way to the bank at such singular inability to think critically; but he’s not going to complain if it makes him some money.

At the end of his interview with O’Donnell this week, Lawrence asked Bill if there were even a remote part of him who was hoping for a default on the national debt for comedic purposes. Bill replied that he had money; even he wouldn’t want to see that happen. But I have a sneaking suspicion that he’d like to see this President fail and a Republican in Office in 2012.

After all, a Republican in the White House is just so much better for comedy.

Love At First Sight

Is there a person who hasn’t visited a zoo, or watched a documentary, and said “Oh, How adorable, how cool, how awesome…I want one!

That would be me! I love giraffes, (and I’m 5’ tall -go figure!! ) I love tigers, manatees, lions, leopards, panthers, cheetahs, jaguars, and meerkats.

Would I Really bring one home? Never. That being said- there are those who will- and do.

“Fatal Attractions” is a ‘reality‘ show based on people who do, and pay the ultimate price.

If you have an aversion to ‘reenactments’ or occasionally, actual footage that illustrates encounters by people who have forgotten, discarded or refused the Laws of Nature, this is probably one series you’ll want to avoid.

‘Lions, Tigers and Bears, Oh My’ – is just the beginning.

There is no explaining the animals people ‘adopt’. No holds are barred. If it walks,  slithers, roars, snarls, howls, growls, stings, squeezes, bites, dismembers, or decapitates- it is someone’s pet.

Here in Florida, we have a huge problem with ‘non-native’ species. People buy exotic ‘pets’ and when they outgrow the owners’ ability or capacity to contain, or feed them, they drive to the Everglades or swamp and dump them.

To really understand our problem you can refer to this website:

http://www.bornfreeusa.org/b4a2_exotic_animals_state.php?s=fl#68A-6.002

I don’t know if the heat affects people’s minds, or if they are just unwilling to develop normal relationships, but Floridians- and transplants, seem to feel that if they ‘love’ it, it will ‘love back’ no matter what the ‘nature of the beast’ actually is.

One genius even imported hissing cockroaches: one of the largest species of cockroach, reaching 2–4 inches at maturity. They are from the island of Madagascar off the African coast, where they can be found in rotting logs. They have a lifespan of 5 years in captivity. Anyone who has ever been to Florida knows there is no shortage of cockroaches, however we have politely renamed them ‘Palmetto Bugs’.

Cultures also contribute to animal issues. There is seemingly no limit to types of “religions” and ethnicities who use animals in ‘worship,’ or practices of a more sinister nature. Florida is rife with witch doctors, voodoo practitioners, snake handlers (religious and non-religious), alligator wrestlers- and other odd homosapien/animal beliefs. Carl Hiaasen has several humorous books on the subject. I highly recommend any of them.

Non-native snakes, lizards and monitors are so rampant in the Everglades they are actually affecting native wildlife- even gators! Florida Fish and Wildlife has organized groups of snake wranglers to try to get a grip on the exploding populations. Rarely a week goes by without some creepy story about a non-native animal creating havoc in a neighborhood.

Now, before you shake your head and mutter something about wierd people in Florida, just know We aren’t alone!

Fatal Attractions has chronicled people everywhere who have this skewed outlook. Probably some even live in your state- maybe your neighborhood!

For those of you who refuse to watch television, Animal Planet has conveniently placed the episodes on their website. You can watch your favorites in private, and keep the kids, (and ferrets!) from being exposed to shows they definitely should not see.

Check out: http://animal.discovery.com/videos/fatal-attractions/ (You might not want to watch them alone, however. A strange noise in the house could turn you into a quivering lump of chicken!)