Sean Hannity, holder of the #2 spot on my Top 10 Ass-wipes of Fox News, recently stepped out on a limb and defended Mike Rice Jr. and Old Fashioned Discipline  by stating  “My Father hit me with a belt and I turned out OK.”

Did he?  Have you seen the vitriol that spews from this guy’s mouth?

Why does learning that his father whacked him with a belt not surprise me?

The blogging experience has so far not changed my perspective about the total breakdown of public discourse.

A blog reader “Jack”, one of three people to comment on my blog since its inception ( wow, this thing is really taking off! ), didn’t care much for my post more on Ryan’s Budget , so he drew some conclusions and checked out.  Adios.  See ‘ya, I’m outta here.

I had high hopes for Jack.  He seems like a well educated guy.  His first reply seemed sincere, unlike many of the loons I run into when debating politics.  He made a strong appeal to have an open mind about Ryan’s budget plan as a legitimate proposal that deserved consideration just like any other proposal out there.  Let the process run its course and don’t discount the guy right off the smacker just because he’s a member of the Tea Party.  Okay, fair enough.  I agree with the “let the process run its course” part of that sentiment, and I’m sure it will.

So I got busy during the week and didn’t get a chance to reply until the weekend when I penned a few snarky comments and let my favorite liberal commentators do most of the talking for me.  Limited on time, I reckoned I couldn’t say it much better than Krugman had said it himself so I took the easy way out and linked to Krugman and sprinkled the post with some of my own snarky-ness.

Jack took offense to my left leaning comments and wrote me off as a closed minded lib with poor listening skills “too deeply invested emotionally in your ideology to carry on a reasoned & logical debate.”

Dang, that’s a fast conclusion!  All of that from two blog posts about Paul Ryan’s Budget?

I think it might be time for some self evaluation here to test if this is true.

Let’s see… let’s start with the fact that I’m an Independent.  I’ve been an independent voter since the start of the first Gulf War when I noticed that card-carrying Baath Party members were getting rounded up and shot for well, being card-carrying Baath Party members.  Can’t happen in this country?  Probably not but I decided not to risk it by affiliation to either party.  I couldn’t see any benefit what-so-ever to party affiliation and besides, I like to think I’m capable of making up my own mind and don’t need a party to speak for me.

What else?  Oh,  I think Nancy Pelosi should resign for her alleged involvement in insider trading.  That’s not very partisan, is it?

I think Fox News and MSNBC are each partisan hack networks that basically offset each other, one from the right, the other from the left.  The big difference being that Fox advertises itself as “Fair and Balanced”.  Hardly.

I think there should be a review of entitlements programs each and every year, identifying and eliminating waste where-ever it’s found.  Same thing with Tax Auditors.  That should be a simple mathematical equation, right?  For every auditor hired we get money back until that number reaches the point of diminishing returns?

I think elections start too soon, cost too much, and don’t provide us with real choices.  I’d like to see real spending caps on donations similar to what Jerry Brown committed to in California, only on a national level.  I heard a good quote this time around.  “This isn’t an election, it’s an auction.”  So true.

I’m beginning to think I’ve been mis-labeled prematurely here.  But that’s is what tends to happen these days if we examine the sad state of our public discourse.

One of the reasons I started blogging was to get away from pontificating political opinions on Facebook.  In some instances, decent discussions were had, but I think most people tended to just hide the blow-hard ( me ), and as I came to realize that, I reckoned it was the wrong forum, so here I am.  ( Now I can piss people off here, instead of on Facebook ).

But I’d like to take this opportunity to share a few of the characteristics of people I’ve run across in the course of public debate.  Nothing to do with Jack, like I said, he seems like a well educated guy with different opinions than mine.  The fact that he drew a quick conclusion reminded me of so many other ‘public discussions’ gone south for various reasons.  So here’s what I run into:

• People are sore losers.  Romney lost.  Get over it.
• I get emotional responses like you would not believe, especially if the topic has anything to do with guns.  I can’t get half a sentence out before the other side is TYPING IN ALL CAPS ABOUT THE CONSTITUTION, even though nobody mentioned a ban on guns at any point in time.
• There’s a propensity to “never give an inch”.  Does anyone ever say “I see your point” anymore?  I try.  I honestly do.
• There’s a total comfort in spreading half-truths and lies.  In my opinion, Fox News is the worst offender but MSNBC is just as partisan.
• People parrot their “News” channels like Fox.  That’s why I watch Fox.  To see if someone is just channeling O’Reilly or Hannity.   Worst of all, Glenn Beck.

Funny enough, there seems to be a strong correlation between the loudest voices and raw ignorance on both sides.  But alas we have the internet now and everyone gets their say, including @pithyopine.

If there happen to be any conservatives out there reading this, good for you for getting this far!  I congratulate you on that.

It’s risky for me to give this advice, and probably arrogant too, but that’s never stopped me before.  It’s no secret the Republican party is in a shambles.  Witness this past week’s CPAC conference where individuals like Donald Trump and Sarah Palin get air-time.  Do Republicans know that every time they give the mic to one of these Tea Party loons that the Dems throw a banquet celebration while cheering “More!  More!”

I recently found myself 100% in agreement with something that Newt Gingrich said.  He said “look, we can’t just be the anti-Obama party”.

At the end of the day I think it comes down to demonstrating that the party is inclusive and promotes policies that will actually help grow the middle class.  Obama was re-elected with close to 8% unemployment.  That just doesn’t happen.  Not since FDR anyway.  Statistically speaking, all the Republicans had to do was find a reasonable candidate with a pulse and he should have won.  But they chose Romney instead.  So why did Romney lose?  In a word, money.

Romney went on the campaign trail touting the benefits of the Bush Tax cuts and how awesome they were ( despite the evidence that the job creators were indeed not creating jobs with those Tax Cuts ).  People didn’t buy it this time around.  So he defended the 1% and lost the election.  But what choice did he have?  He was funded in large part by the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson.  The poor guy was caught between a rock and a hard place.  As is the Republican party now.

I’m for whatever policies grow the middle class.  I am not a believer in trickle down economics and never will be.  I remember all too well the amount of money I gained with the first “Tax Cut” I received during Ronald Reagan’s first term.  $32.  That’s it.  Go stimulate the economy with that, will ‘ya?  C’mon!

I’m not for over taxing either.  It’s true that Kennedy lowered tax rates.  What were they at the time though?  90% for the top bracket?  Well of course that’s too high.  But the Republican’s this time around were running around like chicken little promoting the idea that the sky was falling.  Apparently capitalism fails somewhere between 36 and 39% ( okay, I stole that quote from my cousin, Jim Eady.  But it was brilliant, just the same ).

It’s my belief that Republicans stand firm with big business and big money whereas the Democrats tend to do a little better job ( not much ), of fighting for the little guy.  Hey, I only get two choices, give me a break here!   And remember, I’m an Independent!

Circling back to Public Discourse — it reminds me of this joke.

Harry from Boston was visiting Jerusalem. Each day his walk would take him past the Wailing Wall. Standing and praying at the wall each time he passed was a neighbor Sam. It didn’t matter if Harry walked by at 7AM, Noon, 4PM even later, he would always see Sam praying. Finally Harry approached Sam and asked him what he was praying for. Sam said that he only prayed for good things. He prayed that there will be peace on earth. He prayed that he will be good to his children and that his children will be good to him. 

Harry asked Sam if all that prayer was working.
Sam replied, “It’s like talking to a fucking wall!”

I don’t profess to be an economist or anything close to it.  Without question, it’s a very complex field of study.  The best we can do is try to listen to those who are well-educated on the subject and look for political bias while doing so.

Recently, I posted a sarcastic criticism of Paul Ryan and his latest budget proposal which, as one of its tenets is a repeal of Obamacare.  From what I’d been reading, it sounded like the intent was to not just revert to a tax structure that benefits the uber-wealthy as was the case under G.W. Bush, but to take it the madness a few steps further and lower the marginal rate to 25% while paying for it with cuts to entitlements.

This blog being new, I don’t often get a lot of comments yet, but recently I had a thoughtful reply to the post challenging me to get out of the mode of simply launching criticisms at Republicans, and proffer up some of my own solutions.  Fair enough.

Not being an economist, it’s not like I’m going to sit down and study the budget line for line and come up with theories about how to fix it.  Instead I must rely on what I can learn from credible sources.  Since the original post, there have been two compelling articles that caught my attention and seem worth repeating.

The first is an article by E.J. Dionne from the Washington Post.  In a nutshell, Ryan proposes reduces the top tax bracket from 39.6% to 25% and pays for it through steep cuts to Medicare and a repeal of Obamacare.  In other words, it’s Reagan’s “trickle down” economics on steroids.  I’m not sure why this plan would see the light of day given the abysmal failure of the US to control its trillion dollar annual deficits under 12 years of testing this bizarre theory in the form of the Bush Tax cuts.  Cutting rates for the top 2% of income earners stimulated some growth in the yacht building industry, but that’s about it.  The whole premise was that the to wage earners are the “job creators”, and thusly, if we line their pockets with tax breaks, they will create jobs right and left, morning, noon, and night.

My point is, how much more data do we need?  We had 12 years of the Bush tax cuts in place and ended up with unemployment at 9% at the end of the experiment and a shrinking middle class.

Ryan’s budget is paternalistic.  He professes to know “what’s best” for the people of this country because his proposal would force many of the poor off of welfare and he reckons they will all go out and find jobs and then send him a thank-you note later on.

The process of creating a budget appears to be approaching some middle ground with the Dems, led by Patty Murray of Washington State having provided a very specific proposal for how to create true job growth and reduce the deficit at the same time.  In large part, it’s based on closing tax loop-holes for the top 1% as well as corporations who have gotten away with tax evasion for years.  Look no farther than Nike in my home state for a company that threatens to take its jobs outside the state unless it gets huge passes on the tax front.

Another source I follow religiously, Nobel Prize winning author Paul Krugman had an article recently that exposed the cruelty and hypocrisy of the Ryan budget.  Krugman frequently points out the real data from the European austerity experiment, which has failed miserably.  Ryan’s budget would take us down this same path, completely ignoring what the experts say is a winning approach to improve job growth and get people believing in the economy again — enough to let go of some of their money.  Just like it was during the Great Depression, it’s about confidence.  This is no different.  The New Deal was all about restoring confidence and the government, as FDR knew well, had a key role in restoring confidence.  Consequently it stepped in and created public works projects and kept people in the work-force who would otherwise have been out in the cold.

As I mentioned earlier, I rely heavily on the experts is these matters and I’ll take John Maynard Keynes and Paul Krugman (Ph.D in economics) over a self proclaimed policy wonk proffering up the same old Reagan re-tread ideas that have failed us for 30 years.

I was just wondering if Paul Ryan had knowledge of the fact that we have three branches of government including a Supreme Court.

Since the recent Ryan budget is based off of the assumption that the Affordable Health Care Act will be repealed, I was just wondering if anyone told him about justice Roberts’ historic vote.  Maybe I’ll send him a tweet, just in case he’s not informed.

I just moved Bill O’Reilly up a notch on my Top 10 Ass-Wipes of Fox News list for this outburst.  It’s too bad he didn’t have his facts straight when shouting down Alan Colmes.  Alan should have walked out on that little temper tantrum.

Can’t think of a more deserving recipient for the #3 spot behind only Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity.

The following is a guest blog from Robby Toner.

The first thing that went through my head when I read what the CEO of Titan Tire Corporation said about the French and their work ethic was “yep, that’s exactly why the rest of the world thinks we’re such ignorant assholes.”  It’s because we are.  The thing is, it’s not even what Maurice Taylor is saying that’s the issue, it’s how he’s saying it.  He doesn’t qualify his words or make any attempt to show some type of compassion or understanding about French culture before he leads into his objective argument.  He simply tosses cultural differences aside as if his technical college never forced him to take one of those silly “arts and humanities” classes to round out their degrees.

The French aren’t interested in your arguments about work ethic and 40 hour work weeks.  They’ve been there, they know what that reality is like, and they’ve chosen a different path.  What I’d really be interested in is how much Maurice Taylor could be persuaded that the French have got this one right by spending a little time in their country and working by their rules.  I spent nine months in France teaching English to elementary children.  I didn’t work much, about 20 hours per week or so, a bit less than even the French standard (the French work week is actually 35 hours).  The mindset is different there.  They give you extra time for lunch, and people fill up the tables outside local cafes and restaurants since they have adequate time for a sit down meal.  It’s a remarkable act of community engagement that breaks up the work day.

The French believe that you should work to live, not live to work.  That doesn’t mean you can’t be passionate about what you do and make an impact in fewer hours, it just means a slightly different idea of exactly how many hours with and away your family is reasonable.  Once the entire economy is forced to obey by these rules, it levels the playing field in all domestic markets and the population enjoys extra time off.  Is this at a loss in production?  The numbers show no, and that that might be changing, but even if it does, who cares?  Why are we so obsessed with working?  Are we really meant to work ourselves into a state where our bodies no longer function ideally and then see what we’ve got left in us?  Forget that.

You can say what you want about the French, but they’re healthier, more educated, more visited, and more devoted to the things in life that really matter than we are.  I find that humbling, and I think it’s sad that our immediate reaction involves cynicism and cultural ignorance.

My favorite part is when people think that the French are doing all of these things at a huge expense to their debt ratio.  Here’s a list of the top countries’ debt to GDP ratioshttp://www.economicshelp.org/blog/774/economics/list-of-national-debt-by-country/

… look who’s higher up than France?  AMERICA.  The French are doing more with less, their country is less in debt than ours is yet they are afforded more time off and more access to quality healthcare and services than just about any other place.

Instead of criticizing the French way of life maybe Maurice Taylor should be asking for tips on how relieve stress of his employees and maintain profitability.  This is America, though, and we don’t ask for help, we lend it.

Republicans have a huge problem.  They desperately want to be the party of fiscal restraint, but have no idea how to get there without losing even more of their dwindling piece of the electorate pie.  The latest tactic employed by more senior members of Congress is to publicly go on the warpath for programs that really don’t make any sort of a dent in the budget what-so-ever, just so they can be on the record as “wanting cuts”.  They are also not shy about “wanting cuts” to entitlements yet refuse to get specific about which ones.  Doing so would risk being held accountable by seniors and the poor during the next election cycle.

Case in point.  Eric Cantor recently lamented on twitter a $4M spend on IRS TV.  Mitt Romney went way out on the limb with 100 times this amount, $445M for killing Big Bird and PBS.

Here’s where we need Ross Perot to step in with some PIE charts and explain to the American people what these suggestions actually mean.

Even Mitt’s commitment to defund PBS  amounts to 0.014% of the 17 Trillion dollar federal budget.  Maybe that’s what it is.  Trillion is just too big of a unit to comprehend.  Million, Billion, Trillion.  What’s the diff?

I can’t even show the impact of this on the above chart because it would not be visible to the naked eye.

As the PIE chart shows, 60% of the budget goes towards Medicare, Social Security, and Labor, and 18% to the Pentagon.  This is where the real meat is.

The dilemma they have is getting specific about the meaty parts.  That’s tricky business.  The usual tactic is to offer up vague proposals for spending cuts and then point the finger at the other guy for not having a specific proposal.  Both sides engage in this.

I think the American people would be okay with the labor spend if we could actually have something to show for it.  Where’s our Mt. Rushmore?  Where’s our Timberline Lodge?  Where’s our Hoover dam?  I’m not seeing it or anything close to it.  I understand Obama inherited a leaky ship and QE I and II were just about trying to keep the ship from sinking.  But still, we don’t have much of anything to show for it and that’s unsettling and opens up the door for massive criticism about where did the money go?

I just wanted to take time out this morning and thank Eric and Mitt for their detailed suggestions and then see if I could put them in perspective with an actual PIE chart.  Turns out it’s not possible.

I can’t stop watching the O’Reilly factor.  In the past I’ve had the opposite problem — I couldn’t watch for more than 5 minutes without becoming extremely irritated at the right wing bias, segment after segment.  But now, I’m irritated if I miss the Talking Points.  So what’s the diff?

The difference is I look forward to watching O’Reilly pound sand.  He complains about the left and the hypocrisy of the drones.  He complains the main stream media is in bed with Obama.  He whines that the country has gone to hell in a hand-basket and I’m loving every minute of it.  And it’s only just beginning.  As long as the Dems hold the white house, the whining will continue ad-nauseum.

The biggest challenge I have now is keeping from grabbing the remote when Dennis Miller comes on.  I’ve always wondered if O’Reilly realized just how not funny Miller is.  He reckons himself the king of the witty analogy.  The producers at the show however overlooked the necessity for a laugh-track to go along with his commentary.  The guy is simply … not funny.  That part’s a challenge, but today I endured.

But I’m a rank amateur at pointing out the hypocrisy of O’Reilly.  If you want high entertainment, I highly recommend any of Al Franken’s books, especially The Truth, with Jokes and Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them.  He goes off on O’Reilly with the kid gloves off and it’s hysterical.

O’Reilly can’t hold a candle to exposing hypocrisy like Al Franken does in his books.