Dear America,

"Weldon told CNN that in addition to Gadhafi stepping down, he is proposing a cease-fire on both sides; a withdrawal of government forces from key cities; no further advances by rebel forces; a joint interim government run by Libya's current prime minister and the an opposition leader; unfettered humanitarian access; and the establishment of a parliamentary commission that would include American, Middle Eastern, European and African politicians helping to establish a new parliament in Libya."  per CNN -- referencing overtures made by Rep. Curt Weldon (ret) -- sent by the Obama Administration/NATO/UN/One Nation, y'll/what's it really matter...

but we're not meddling. we are leaving it up to the Libyan people to decide their fate.

And in other news, we not only expect to hit the debt ceiling some time in May -- envisioning a favorite scene out of Willy Wonka, picturing Charlie and Grandpa Joe's demise after drinking the "fizzy lifting drinks" (and only wishing burping will save us) --  but we also have a looming deadline fast approaching.  As expected with my juvenile imagination this morning, if only our debt and deficits could be resolved with a spin through the  "Hsawaknow" -- otherwise known as the "wonkawash" spelled backwards.

For those lost in my fantasy world today, the wonka-mobile runs on anything with carbonation and gas...

WONKA: Oh, ginger ale, ginger pop, ginger beer, beer 
bubbles, bubble-ade, bubble cola, double cola, double bubble 
burp-a-cola, and all the crazy carbonated stuff that tickles 
your nose.  Few people realize what tremendous power there 
is in one of those things.

 
After the wonka-mobile reached full intoxication...it began to spit bubbles, foam, gaseous clouds of puffiness all over...everyone (except Wonka) begins to panic...and ignoring their screams he calmly wanders off into his own little world quibbling...

WONKA: (continuous)
 AH, MEIN GLUCK NAHMST DU MIT DIR
 [MY HAPPINESS YOU TAKE WITH YOU]

It is mayhem.
Then the Hsawaknow squeezes everyone, and the entire scene, through something much like a time warp/washing machine, arriving at a place as if nothing ever happened.

[and G finding her lines courtesy of wonkadotcom...danke shein]

In our dreams.  In our dreams.

If it could only be that easy, right?  But it's not; and we gotta snap out of it right quick...

So the rebel forces are out en masse, and I'm not talking about Libya again, I'm referring to the bevy of critics lining up to punch holes in America's last great hope:  Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity."

With Ryan having the audacity to propose a whopping 6.2 Trillion Dollars in cuts/changes over the course of the next ten years -- he keeps right on going; chartering new territory, never seen the likes before, Ryan sets in motion demonstrable, fearless, mind blowing feats of civil service.  Shoring up America's foundation.  Recalibrating America's engine.  Reforming the more controversial entitlement and popular benefit programs.

And then, finding a cliff to dangle his feet over and sit a spell, he pops open his carton of milk and settles into his peanut butter and jelly sandwich...looking up and taking in a view that could make you speechless...deep breath... ahhhh....for a responsible fiscal future is right there!   He can almost reach out and touch it.  There is no panic in his voice; he is as calm as the morning light; go ahead critics, have at it.

I heard something really cool yesterday from Alan Simpson (not someone I normally associate myself with, but I gotta say, he is growing on me)...he said: "a critic is a product of success that's not his own."  Don't you just love that?

And don't you wonder why the president didn't just jump on board the scaffolding raised by his own Debt Commission?  He had a chance to lead this country, in very much a bi-partisan way, towards a new world and he didn't take it.  It would have been so easy for him just to accept it and move on (dot org), for not everybody was happy with it, but it worked.   It had muscle.   It had all the right stuff to forge a brand new day. But our middle of the road, spineless, gut less, reckless leader didn't take it.  why?

"In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared minds."

Louis Pasteur

Simpson also sheds light on a major crack, "...we're always talking about the couple at the kitchen table--well, here it is: For every buck we spend, we borrow forty cents. If that isn't stupid--we've got a country that is stupid, a government that is stupid, to borrow forty cents, not from your good old uncle Henry, but from the world." (another CNN story)

We are so tuned in to the world of make believe, hampered by happy trails and puppy dog tails -- with tales complete with story book endings --  we fail to recognize the ugly truth when we see it.  We don't want to. We just keep skipping along, singing a silly song in our head,

     OOMPA LOOMPA DOOMPADEE DOO
     I'VE GOT A PERFECT PUZZLE FOR YOU
     OOMPA LOOMPA, DOOMPADAH DEE
     IF YOU ARE WISE YOU'LL LISTEN ME

     WHAT DO YOU GET WHEN YOU GUZZLE DOWN SWEETS
     EATING AS MUCH AS AN ELEPHANT EATS
     WHAT ARE YOU AT GETTING TERRIBLY FAT
     WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL COME OF THAT
     I DON'T LIKE THE LOOK OF IT

     OOMPA LOOMPA DOOMPADEE DAH
     IF YOU'RE NOT GREEDY YOU WILL GO FAR
     YOU WILL LIVE IN HAPPINESS TOO
     LIKE THE OOMPA LOOMPA DOOMPADEE DO
     DOOMPADEE DOO

and step right into it.

Obama told us (congress) to act more like grown ups yesterday..."I think what they’re looking from me is the same thing that they’re looking from Speaker Boehner and Harry Reid and everybody else, and that is, is that we act like grownups, and when we are in negotiations like this, that everybody gives a little bit, compromises a little bit in order to do the people’s business."

Wonka:  I can't go on forever, and I don't really want to 
try.  So, who can I trust to run the factory when I leave 
and take care of the Oompa Loompas for me?  Not a grownup.  
A grownup would want to do everything his own way, not mine.  
That's why I decided a long time ago I had to find a child.  
A very honest, loving child to whom I can tell all my most 
precious candy making secrets.

wonka vision, isn't it fabulous?

At the rate we are going, America will be thirty trillion in debt (a.k.a. bankrupt) in ten years IF we stay on this path, chartered by the Obama Administration [and by the way, that ten years is assuming the dollar doesn't fall out of the sky within six months].  And THAT is a fact,  not memorex -- it is real.  Do the math.  Real people do it all the time...real, live people sitting around a kitchen table realizing we will go belly up into the pool of a chocolate river if we don't do something about THIS now.

We run over 200 billion in deficits each and every month -- facing an astronomical, incomprehensible, 1.65 Trillion dollars added to our national debt for this year alone. (how can making measly cuts of 61 billion be so threatening? and they're not, it's the riders added on in principle that have the left all cross-eyed and scared to death)

But back to one of my favorite critics, Pelosi responds [all deer in the headlights like, getting rather excited about things, you know]

"Is middle ground three million seniors not getting meals??!!"

And now back to Ryan, "Washington has not been telling you the truth." Whoa dude, settle down now, will ya?  That is just crazy talk.  You're on the verge of fanaticism...jumping off a cliff even...or is it taking a real, honest to goodness leap of faith into the wild blue yonder?

Flash drawkcab (that's 'backward' in Wonkish) --  picture Wonka talking to Paul Ryan, someday in the future (and don't be silly, a conversation only in our heads, mind you):

WONKA: I had to test you, Charlie [I mean, Paul].  And you passed the test.  
You won!

Make it a Good Day, G

Dear America,

Happy St. Valentine's Day xx


So, now that the "worst part" is over, now that democracy can have it's day in Egypt, Leon Panetta is going to get right on it -- you know, organizing a Task Force (of 35), to try to figure out...just what the "triggers" may be, to cause events (like in Tahrir Square) to take place, to take shape, to just explode and burst upon the square like that, right out of the blue.

Which is weird;  if events such as the uprising in Tahrir Square are good for democracy, what exactly needs to be figured out?  Isn't it just another day in a freedom loving town square, ripe with enthusiasm, honest debate, of sound principles and mind, simply organizing in order to form a more perfect union? What could be so bad?

But it's just odd really, for just by the sound of it alone -- Task Force (of 35) -- aren't we way beyond that?

Could have sworn we were beyond that, considering we started brand spankin' new arms of authority and security levels to prevent another 9/11 from happening, to protect Americans, to venture off into foreign lands figuring out just what triggers remain alive and well and ready to get us (Americans) all over the place --

We started the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (in 2005) just for this purpose, no?  And thanks to people like James Clapper, we know that one is on top of things...

And what about the United States Department of Homeland Security, formed in 2003?  Isn't this sort of thing right up their alley, too?

I find myself dazed and confused wondering just how many departments and directors do we really need -- but more than that -- and I am addressing Leon directly here -- exactly what will a task force (of 35) do that these guys, mentioned above, should already be doing?  If this isn't already being seriously redundant, just another bureaucratic layer, doesn't all of this just provide us with another loving spoonful of just how much our federal government is broken?

A Task Force (of 35)?  seriously?  Keeping it real, we're not simply talking about product development here, if you know what I mean -- and again, what's the worry? If what has happened in Tahrir doesn't stay in Tahrir, isn't that a good thing?   you know, for the sake of democracy, and freedom and liberty for all...

A Task Force (of 35) doesn't seem to be lining up with the reality on the ground, something seems off the mark, or is it just me?  Why do we need to understand the conditions that created the uprising at all?  It's all good in the hood, for brotherhood, unless we misunderstood...

And gotta love Joe (Biden) jumping out on Friday with his mating call for reform (slinging his arrow towards Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) --

"Let your people march, 

let your people speak,

release your people from jail, 

let your people have a voice..."

Where was all this love when the Iranians were actually in the streets, in what, 2009?

Throwing in a sidenote: Do we dare wonder if  there is a task force looking into the newly appointed atomic chief over there, in Tehran, just yesterday?  talk about something not quite right...they just keep building and balking at any thought, let alone serious consideration, of holding nuclear weaponry capability, and the intent to use it...


Whatever.

Perhaps it is just a chemistry thing, or something; maybe Leon is feeling a wee bit off, needing to take some time to look into things a little deeper, hoping to justify feeling more secure moving forward in relationship to the new world order, which seems to be changing by the minute, it's a wonder anyone can keep up.

But what happened in the streets of Cairo, make no mistake, was a peaceful, non-violent, protest and should be commended as the president pointed out -- "for very few moments...history takes place...people in Egypt have spoken...never be the same."

Even though, at the start (Jan 25-26),  riot police responded in the first couple of days, firing tear gas and rubber bullets to clear the square -- according to accounts, six people died in the first two days; the Muslim Brotherhood stepped in by January 27th, calling upon it's supporters to join the protest, the next day the government arrested some of these guys, turned off the internet, and called in the army.  All in all, media was attacked, roughly 300 people were killed over the course of two weeks, and it all ended with the military staging a coup to take Mubarak down, and out, for all we know, flying him off to the riviera for long overdue vacation, drop kicking him with a staunch warning never to show his face again. 

and today, sweet charity, peace at last in Tahrir Square, more or less; what's not to love?

So, in review:


Egypt will never be the same.
One more American Ally is in limbo.
Israel's future is in question.
America's future is "ours to win"
even though we've got plenty of doubts --
but rest assured,
a task force is on it already.


Thank God we have a day filled with chocolate and sweet nothings to cling to for the moment -- so to all my friends and frenemies, kiss kiss.

Make it a Good Day, G


And with regard to the biggest news of the morning, only Obama could unveil his 2012 budget 1.1 trillion dollars short  -- you would think he would start with it balanced, considering the 1.6 TRILLION dollar deficit for this year alone, and the 14 Trillion in national debt! 

Our president is proposing a 3.73 TRILLION dollar budget, with revenue of only 2.6 Trillion; going into another year of trillion dollar deficits.   Are you kidding me?   Between the Chosen One and the rest of us -- we don't need no stinkin' task force to tell us, one of us is utterly clueless; and it ain't us.  

Very few moments... in history...come with such clarity...thanks to your agenda...this gawd awful budget... and the fumbling of this administration... our love and devotion wanes...rest assured, as you ponder all the reasons why, my long lost love lost -- it's not you, it's me (even though we both know it's all you, just little ole G hasn't got the heart to tell you)...fair thee well, my dear.


ABC Poison Arrow playing on Dear America..."who broke my heart, you did, you did"... cupid is just a click away.