It's Called a Ten Year Hangover Thing

Dear America,

so we don't have much time.

and when I say, "we" -- I mean, me.

But I have just enough time to drop a teaser into our next conversation,  which begins going a little something like this:

I think I need to throw up.

620 billion over ten years -- with virtually nothing on spending -- when, in fact, we are running OVER One Trillion dollars in deficits and sitting at 16 Trillion in debt and realizing we have OVER a hundred trillion in unfunded liabilities facing the nation?

How can anyone -- especially republicans -- figure out a way to cave while standing on a cliff?

Oh, and to you who think Obama and his minions deserve a congratulatory pat on the back?  I would hold up on that -- just keep your arm up for awhile without making contact -- then after you have lost all feeling in your upper extremities, we can talk about what just happened.

Oh, and what's up with all that talk about Bush this, Bush that in the campaign and over the last four years -- when, in fact, this administration just re-enacted another round of BUSH tax cuts for 98% of the taxpayers -- albeit just on their federal income taxes, but details, schmeetails, right?

You think you have all come to the edge of the cliff and have lived to see another day? -- think again.

Oh, and wake up and smell the payroll taxes -- can you say, "up"; take a big whiff of the capital gains rise -- up; estate taxes -- up     Where did the incentives go?  TO green energy companies, for starters; and we sure know how that works out, don't we.  Then of course, in the little itty bitty fine print, we see Obamacare surcharges, added to things that you would think have absolutely no relation.

Oh, to the latest dis-enchantment with everyday life...

We are all behaving stupidly to put up with this kind of nonsense.

Oh the places we will go; our future is smacking us upside the head and we still don't get it

And yet, this is where I must leave it. 
But let me direct you to some of my favorite haunts to save you from idling over the proverbial edge of sanity --  The Heritage Foundation, here; The Patriot Post, here.

Happy New Year.
yayyy.

This hangover is gonna stay with us for quite some time, that you can be sure (and brace yourself, it's gonna hurt...recovery requires swallowing a bitter, jagged pill).  Have a super spark-ly day!

Make it a Good Day, G

It's a New Year Thing

Dear America,

happy new year...I guess.

And on that note,  let me preface whatever it is I have to say today with this:   this is G just going through the motions.

It's called getting my feet wet -- fully recognizing this girl is still half stuck in the remains of 2012.  Completely overwrought with how it all came to a close, it seems rather useless to think we can start the year with any semblance of a new attitude.  And yet, we try.

The ability to keep trying, striving to give life our very best, is what we do as human beings (at least for the upright, decent, accountable, and good ones, right).  And really, when we really think about it, there seems to be little value to a life that comes too easily; as though it is only through adversity, challenges, and the testing of one's soul that we discover who we really are deep down inside.

And with that, sometimes, what shocks a peaceful neck of the woods far, far away ricochets off the back of the universe, bouncing from the edge of reason and through the heart of everyone in it's wake, settling in to stay with us for some time to come.  Is it fair for me to have had such a blessed Christmas when the entire community of Newtown, Connecticut was brought to it's knees?

It's not even fair to answer.

And then there are things that happen worlds away -- every     single    day.

Did you happen to see the story out of Oregon over the past week, after the discovery of a plea for help from a Chinese labor camp?   It was a message in a box of Halloween decorations, click here.

"If you occasionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization,” the unsigned letter read. “Thousands people here who are under the persicution [sic] of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever."

Noted in the article on Fox News.com,

"The writer said the product was made in Masanjia Labor Camp in Shenyang, China, where laborers work for 15 hours a day without time off on the weekends and holidays, making only 10 yuan ($1.61) per month.

The China director at Human Rights Watch, Sophie Richardson, told The Oregonian that the organization could not confirm the origin or authenticity of the letter."

Really?  

Doesn't something like this just scream look into it anyway?

A nearby link to another article, "In 2013, don't count on UN to lead on human rights" goes something like this:

"UN Secretary General Kofi Annan reminded the world that the very idea of the United Nations emerged from the ashes of World War II and the Nazi Holocaust. The ashes of the dead can inspire progress towards peace. They can also serve to diminish the value of being human, evidenced by the wanton butchery in Syria and a heartless artist in Sweden."

The article was written by a rabbi -- Rabbi Abraham Cooper.   About mid-stream he gave us this little tidbit of wisdom:

"Let's start with what do we mean by the “human” in human rights. Do we still believe that there is something so special, so different in the human condition, that we see a kind of divinity to the life of every man, woman and child on the face of the globe? If we do, we need to respect and protect the specialness of the human condition."

and immediately adding,

"But not everyone does."

No.  Not everyone does.

But for the rest of us -- through adversity --  our heart and soul teaches us to respond as one human being to another; it's the kind of knee-jerk reaction God looks for in all of us, to fix what is broken, to protect those who can't protect themselves.

What has to take precedence within any upstanding society then becomes very simple; it begins with teaching the divinity of being human and builds a foundation upon the principles that fully support the value of being human in every way possible, for everyones protection.

What happened in America just over two hundred years ago gave us the footprint to fill, to follow through the meandering mountains and valleys, in good times and bad.  The founders declared that our rights -- what's commonly referred to as our "universal rights," as part of the human condition -- came directly from God.   We, as a people, recognized with every fiber of our being, that each and every right to live, prosper and find our happiness came from Something far greater than man.  And to that end, government -- as limited as we could ever make it --  has absolutely nothing to do with it.

We continued to follow this path for quite some time -- taking time out of our busy lives to worship on Sundays, taking a moment of prayer or silence in schools, waking up to be of service to humanity in the every day. 

With respect to the now in the every day, the clear and present danger of the disconnection to the divinity of life and where it comes, is showing.

A great many of us are losing all perspective.  

Come to think of it, Biden couldn't have given us a better example.

When asked -- in the wake of the 11th-hour lame duck solution that legislates absolutely nothing of real value to the people --  what made all the difference?   He reportedly said -- and I kid you not --  "me."

Oh the cockiness of a Vice President, a President, a Congress, a Senate, believing salvation of the collective comes from within the confines of Washington.   Such small minds, these men and women beholden to the un-limitedness and overwhelming expanse of a truly misguided government, so chock-full of their own humanity they are choking on it.   [For more on the audacity of politics agenda, go here for full replay of the president from yesterday, just hours before Biden saved us from ruin.]

Does it always have to end this way?

I know, I know, the year has only just begun.

...and a big fat happy new year to you, too -- and you, and you, and you sitting over there in the corner 'wondering what kind of difference could little old me ever make?'

There is possibly a letter to write -- maybe even risking life and limb to stuff it into a box -- so that one day somebody clear across the other side of the world could find it and plaster it all over the world-wide-web for all to see.  For in this day, we all see you Shenyang, China.

Will it be a new year, same people, same as the last or same as the first?  It's a good question.

In this new year, let us do everything in our own power to put our best foot forward for the betterment of all of humanity, shall we?  All of us.  It's just an all-round good way to start, doncha think?

Make it a Good Day, G

It's About the Way the World Can Stop As We Know It Thing

Dear America,

good morning

it's 12 - 21 - 12 and the world has ended as we know it.

For an added personal bonus, last time I heard this very phrase was right about this time of day on 9 - 11 - 01, as I was about to take my girl to Kindergarten.

It happened to be the first words uttered on the other end of the line upon a morning that started just like every other...until it wasn't.   And then there was my first word.......... what?  as I turned on the television.

Something wicked this way comes -- that was then and this is now.

But this time, the earth shattering is more like happening under the naked eye; it's merely the expectation and strange anticipation of something maybe, maybe not, in a rather morbid 'What If' sort of way.

For the Mayans predicted it, you know.

Little do we all realize 'it' happened already.

Yep, happy Friday, it's time to wake up and smell the Peruvian coffee. Can I get you a cup?

Just as the Left works in nudges and impulses upon human nature -- and by all evidence, pretty much having it down to a science -- there is something else at play.

Something else Not of this World -- and every bit as much Being of this world --  works in the same manner.  It's called God, Divine Providence -- the Universe of All-Knowing, Abundance and Love; it's the Thing that surrounds us and nudges us and divines our every move (if we let it), working with whatever it's got to work with ----- us.

We would have to be living under a rock not to recognize that both human nature and mother nature has left us in pieces over the last several months; and yet, depending upon our own personal gauge, set of  circumstances and environment, maybe we're talking more like years, decades even.

So living of this world -- let's face the facts, good and evil exists; matter of fact, if talking facts, it's the co-existence of good and evil that we wrestle with every single day, be it individually or collectively.

But for the sake of this conversation, let us be as current as we possibly can and simply look to this day, and with laser beam focus look upon just one aspect of this, shall we?

Plan B bombed.

The man-made fiscal cliff is here.

The greatest experiment of mankind is about to be thrown asunder and ripped into a 310 million jagged pieces.  

It's been more like a slow death, really, no Hollywood-esque bombs bursting in air or asteroids blowing up the city of Los Angeles altogether. No.  It's more like a frog being thrown into a pot of cold water and slowly bringing it up to a rolling boil; it's cooked before it knows it.  [And this just so happens to be one of my favorite episodes of the Glenn Beck program on Fox News...aired way back in the golden days, of course]

"There is a package to be shaped, and I'm confident that parties -- folks of goodwill in both parties can make that happen...But what I'm not going to do is to extend Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent that we can't afford and, according to economists, will have the least positive impact on our economy."  Obama, 11 -14 -12

so let's all go over the cliff.

all I really want for Christmas is more of the people's money to spend.

"...For any income over this amount [250k], the tax rates would go back to what they were under President Clinton. This isn't to punish folks who are better off -- God bless them -- it is because we can't afford the $700 billion price tag."  Obama, 9 - 8 - 10

because the government has a spending problem...and I've been given a mandate to feed it.
 

[um,  if the government can't afford a $700 Billion "price tag" -- then it can't afford obamacare -- a little something something that started out at around 700 billion and is now, even before full implementation, positioned to actually cost three times that (according to the CBO).  How about we give Obamacare the first pink-slip, Mr. President?]

[and here's just another reality check...because we have so many "millionaires and billionaires" ...Fewer than 1 percent of the U.S. population have annual income of more than $1 million].

[regarding that so-called "700 billion price tag" -- fascinating how the president refers to our money as if the federal government actually spends money when it can't get it's hands on our money to pay the programs it can't afford (grants, subsidies, bailouts, overzealous budgets, voting blocks).

Each year, since 1969 -- our government has spent MORE money than it takes in.  We borrow, to cover an asinine amount of debt; anyone interested in the amount we spend on interest?

And all this is just in regards to the economic end of the end of times --- hardly do we have enough time and space today to get into all the other ways we are falling apart.

ya see, a slow death.

The Mayan's were absolutely right on target.

Humans can be so daft sometimes.

America, the last frontier for the hope of all mankind is crumbling... some of us just don't want to look.

Oh the world can stop in so many little tiny ways; it all adds up.

A few weeks back, we started with some Christmas wishes:

Americans to be 'ALL-In'...More men like Thoreau...G in charge of the GOP for a day...World Peace...Just move the fiscal cliff (to 9 -22 -13)...wishing we never started things like social security...Wishing Michelle Obama did something about that fat in Washington...a trivial pursuit -- getting a copy of The Women, by Clare Boothe Luce...and quickly adding her to the list of "if I could have anyone over for dinner"...to giving States back the power...They were all there -- day after day -- lining up so nicely; ten in all.

My intention was to get to twelve for the twelve days of Christmas.

But then, Sandy Hook happened, and the world stopped as we know it (again).

How could I even think of making any more wishes? 

And on that note, G will be going dark all next week...the world according to a day in the life for an American girl will stop and catch her breath among family and friends and the baby Jesus.

So, until we meet again, may you and yours have yourselves a merry little Christmas.

Make it a Good Day, G

It's Thirty Two Thousand Years Times One Hundred Trillion Divided by Three Hundred Million Thing

Dear America,

you know what I'm thinking this morning, I'm thinking -- for the majority of us -- we are so involved with our own concerns in the re-establishment of everyday life (not just this week, but every week), someone could tell us the government is considering a deal that includes 1.6 trillion dollars in "revenues" (new taxes) with 400 billion dollars in spending cuts ...all over TEN YEARS (aka the punchline)....with 50 billion dollars in additional stimulus thrown in.... and we, allowing the majority to do the talking -- would all say, wow, that sounds really good, pass the gravy.

you know what else I'm thinking this morning, I'm thinking -- for the majority of us -- we hear gossip of our presidential family taking another twenty day vacation over the Christmas holiday in Hawaii, costing the American taxpayers FOUR MILLION dollars (biggest chunk of it for planes, limos and entourage) at a time when our country is knee deep in an economic-stand-down holding all of us hostage....and we -- again, allowing the majority to do the talking -- would all poke our heads up and say, cool, cowabunga Barack.

the majority not being you and me, but the 51% who re-elected the Obama regime...

[I caught a few minutes with Mark Levin last night -- it's a secret pleasure of mine while sipping my evening cocktail, interrupting the making of dinner for just a wee bit -- when I heard the most stunning analogy:  the vacation fit for a king costs more than 99.9% of the American people make. Or something like that...for some reason, my instant recall button isn't as responsive as it used to be.]

but just think about it for a moment, if you will....

Hey, remember that story about the French diplomat, Strauss-Kahn, and the hotel maid?  The incident included two interpretations of the real thing, one saying it was just something about nothing -- the other saying, it was a sexual assault.  Well the case was just settled for ...wait for it....wait for it...SIX MILLION dollars.   This hotel maid, Nafissatou Diallo,  can now take a 'presidential size vacation' costing more than most people ever make in a lifetime and still have money left over.   And well, Strauss-Kahn, he's now referring to it as a "moral failure." 

but that's just a little more perspective for you about how we look at money.

We abuse our wealth and prosperity -- we don't treat it right; we don't honor it; we don't guard it with our life; we don't even earn it sometimes.  We have no respect for wealth whatsoever. 

We have lost all perspective of what is reasonable and what is not.

We no longer make the connection between decent, honest to goodness hard work and good day's dollar, and more important, how we serve ourselves, take care of our families and our communities for the greater good with that hard-earned, well-deserved, dollar, year in and year out.  As if the life force of the dollar, itself, has been snuffed right out from under it.

The freedom to honor that principle has been lost in the shuffle across the board in everyday life; what flourished under our founding principles coveting our free enterprising spirit, along with the underlying philosophy sheltering self-reliance and independence that goes with it, as we grow wealth and acquire property -- has been attacked from all sides.  Progressives, with their hearts set on making the American Utopia, have methodically destroyed the methodology -- the methodology that re-creates America from the ground up, inside and out, generation after generation, year in and year out.

A trillion dollars.

What's a trillion dollars these days, right?

We no longer recognize just how MUCH!  a trillion dollars is, let alone recognize it's true value.

How about this angle -- if we took a dollar bill and threw it out the car window every second of the day, it would take  THIRTY TWO THOUSAND years to throw out a trillion dollars. For more brain-iac back up on the subject, go here.

[one million seconds is eleven and a half days; a billion seconds, 32 years...a four million dollar vacation equals throwing a buck out the window for every second of the day for a month and a half...]

SO suddenly we are looking at a multiple of 32 THOUSAND years times sixteen simply to pay off our national debt.  That is, only if government stopped accruing debt right this second and not a second more.

Cocktails, anyone?

We spend 10 billion dollars a day as things stand, or fall,  right now.

Cutting 400 billion dollars?  What does that do?

Taxing "the wealthy" 1.6 Trillion dollars OVER TEN YEARS, when we accrue deficits of 1.3 trillion every year like clockwork?   What does that do?

THE UN-funded liabilities -- an area we haven't talked about for many moons here on the old g thing -- is staggering; this reality, in real numbers, settles in at horrendous multiples of trillions of dollars.  This is for commitments made for things like Medicare and Social Security... and currently this number looks like this: 84 trillion dollars.

Last year, it looked like this.
Next year, it will be over a hundred...trillion.

That's a whole helluva-lot of moral failure, don't ya think?

How about this thought:  32 thousand years times [84 trillion plus 16 trillion debt = 100 trillion] divided by 300 million caretakers.

Merry Christmas, baby.

Here's a perspective ripe for ridicule -- and it's the viewpoint of a president, and one that he repeats over and over and over again, sounding like a nincompoop:  "we can take the trillion dollars we save from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and put it towards our debt...or pay for grandma's hip surgery...or fund another fifty years of electric car research..."  or something like that.

[Mr. President -- you are speaking in terms of funny-money and sound like you're twelve and playing Monopoly.  Collecting money when landing on "free parking" only happens when making up our own rules as we go along (and only Monopoly aficionados would get that).  Are you trying to break the bank?]

But let's all rush out at midnight on Thanksgiving night and buy, on credit, a big screen TV, or three!   It's such a great deal, why stop at one.       yeah, yeah, that's  a good idea. 


Every day we borrow 4 billion dollars just to keep afloat.   And the president's idea of correcting our fiscal cliff -- talks about curbing a mere 400 billion dollars, taxing "the rich" 1.6 trillion dollars, and spreading it out over ten years -- without even addressing the 84 TRILLION dollars in unfunded liabilities we have gathered over the years -- oh, and lest we forget, throwing in a 50 Billion dollar stimulus just for good measure...

we are so screwed.

we are so stupid.


we are so screwed.

we are so stupid.

It's been a rough couple  of days for G -- I threw out my back some time Wednesday and haven't been the same since.   In a perfect world, I would like to simply fault the fiscal cliff straddling my shoulders.  But, if being honest with myself, I am equally to blame.  The weight of the world is one thing, but surely I did something; I contributed directly with the circumstances thrust upon me.  I zigged, quite possibly, when I should have zagged; looking back, maybe I should have been paying more attention to what I was doing in the moment...  It could just be I took my eye off the power ball and something had to give....or something like that.

Oooh speaking of which -- go here.  Isn't that beautiful -- a mechanic, his wife, and their adopted daughter, get to play with nearly 200 million dollars, if they take it all in one fell swoop.

...that's fifty Hawaiian vacations, in presidential terms, if taken back to back; or in other terms, what the president spent in a day on his trip to Mumbai.   Speaking of India, according to a good spot on The Heritage Foundation's website --  "the Department of Agriculture’s Market Access Program spends $200 million a year to help U.S. agricultural trade associations and cooperatives advertise their products in foreign markets. In 2011, it funded a reality TV show in India that advertised U.S. cotton."  You know, over five years, that 200 million is ONE BILLION DOLLARS.

For a WHOLE lot more, go to Heritage, here, for the full breakdown by the numbers for 2012.
And for another perspective, go to The Patriot Post, here.

So all of a sudden all of this is making me cranky; and the pill, a hard one to swallow.

All in all, a violating set of circumstances weighs me down while NO ONE in authority seems to recognize the gravity of the atrocities underway; and all of it happening in broad daylight -- with a little over half of the nation's populace looking the other way.

How can we keep this up?

Think about it.

Answer to that is WE CAN'T...even when the re-establishment of everyday life demands it.

Let's go over the cliff; how could it hurt us any more than what we have already done to ourselves. At the rate we are going, destiny for the good Ole US of A is already cruising for a bruising -- scratch that, total obliteration.

Make it a Good Day, G

One million seconds comes out to be about 11½ days. A billion seconds is 32 years. And a trillion seconds is 32,000 years. I like to say that I have a pretty good idea what I'll be doing a million seconds from now, no idea what I'll be doing a billion seconds from now, and an excellent idea of what I'll be doing a trillion seconds from now.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1870699,00.html#ixzz2DjGRQ2ki

Wish Six:  

Wish we never started Social Security, for one... 

Plucked from an interview on NPR many moons ago:  

"You mentioned that those threat of socialism 

and I was reading about 

when the labor secretary, Frances Perkins, 

went before Congress, 

a senator asked her: 

isn't this socialism? 

And she said, no. 

And then he said: 

Isn't this a teeny-weeny bit of socialism?

It's Simply a Re-Establishment of the Fiscal Cliff Thing

Dear America,

this is what he does...he demands Washington to step up to the fiscal cliff and do the right thing and then he walks away.

oh and now, he's not just walking away, he's back on the campaign trail.

As IF!

As if, Mr. President; as if we need YOU to spell it out for us; as if we need YOU to tell us how much the falling off the fiscal cliff is gonna hurt.

So first things first today on this happy tuesday -- put down the cheese-steak and get back to Washington.

Now I usually have only unkind thoughts about Mitch McConnell, but today, this girl is quite pleased when I hear him say:

"In other words, rather than sitting down with lawmakers of both parties and working out an agreement, he's back out on the campaign trail, presumably with the same old talking points we're all familiar with," McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor. "Look: we already know the President is a very good campaigner. What we don't know is whether he has the leadership qualities necessary to lead his party to a bipartisan agreement on a big issue likes this."

um.  We already know he doesn't have the leadership abilities to reach a decent bi-partisan agreement...just look at Obamacare...but we digress.

Of course, the real question is whether or not Milquetoast McConnell has the constitution to hold this position until the bitter end, demanding more from this president.  All I  wanna do is get up in his face and say, "don't blink, don't blink, don't blink!"

If only he also recognized the so-called doomsday reality -- happening fortunately a good ten days after the Mayan prediction comes to pass -- works in the GOP favor.  Ooooh, now come to think of it, perhaps we should wait until after 12-21-12 to decide anything ...just in case... easily saving us a whole lot of extra worries in this holiday season. Who needs more of that, right?

But seriously, I have no idea why republicans are so concerned about the people's perceptions right now.  This is Obama's cliff!  Say so!  This is Obama's tax increase!  Say so!  Just as it is Obama's brand-spanking new health care entitlement that is STILL wholly, fully, unadulteratedly illegitimate. [nice touch, little miss oxymoron's-r-us]

What?
How can you say that, G?

Well let me tell you how:  Because the Supreme Court RE-DEFINED the Affordable Care Act in order to make it constitutional -- making it quite clear, if you all recall, this piece of partisan trash, I mean,  legislation, is a tax.   Congress did NOT approve it as a tax.  If they had to do that --  it NEVER would have seen the light of day in a recession!  It's a 2.4 trillion dollar tax.

Obamacare MUST be re-litigated in the people's house, or it becomes the shining example of  total corruption of the law of the land.

Honestly, I may not always be the sharpest eye pencil in the drawer [in midnight blue], but this makes me wonder -- just who is in charge of all of us right now? All the king's men are seeming a little daft, no? Let me put it another way, this ridiculous oversight is blinding me in neon lights reading unfukeenbelievable.

say it with me, now, unfeenbelievable!   LOUDER!   UNFUKEENBELIEVABLE!

How does that feel?

Feel better?

I feel better.

Alright, alright, this digression is now getting a little unladylike. let me get back on point...

What would it hurt to just put the decision on hold?
Think about it.
Considering nobody seems to have the juevos rancheros to make fiscal solvency a thing worthy of real discussion IN Washington --  just postpone ANY changes for six months or so.  Take the decision out from under the wings of the lame-daffy-duck session, and give it to the new congress -- the 113th, beginning some time after the first of the year.

It's simply a re-establishment of the fiscal cliff.  Done. [It falls right under the Raising of the Debt Ceiling, if searching for precedence and legitimacy...]

Leave the high crimes and fiscal dimes to another day...what could it hurt?

Just picture it -- the holidays could come and go in peace and quiet and good tidings and all.    [You all DO remember the Christmas sponsored by Obamacare, right?  This congress doesn't do Last Holiday Minute well, why give it to them?]

Ahhh just imagine it -- we can dream about nutcrackers and sugar plum fairies again; we can drink hot toddies by the fire with Silver Bells playing on the wi-fi; we can put our heads in the sand for one more chorus of Auld Lang Syne...

Then TOGETHER,

we can ring in the new congress, the new year, a new day, a new commitment to exercise more and eat less,  all at the same time.  Isn't that just beautiful...

And yes, indeed...It is my fifth wish [not to be confused with yesterday's "fifth" but was really only the fourth...who can really keep track of the silly dizzy details these days, right.  But don't you worry that pretty little head, when things like that are caught early enough, it's easily fixed.... hmmm there's another lesson there somewhere... oh well, no matter...]

So then, it's settled:

WISH #5:   

Just say No to the Cliff.

Let's move 'the cliff' to the first day of autumn,  
September 22, 2013.
Oh it's a good day.

For one reason, it's synonymous with fall and I just think that's funny.

And two, it's a day hardly complicated with any major holiday that would dramatically frame the decision with foolish compromises under the gun, like usual.  The closest we get to that is possibly 'back to school' night -- but that works, too, doesn't it...

And three, with any luck, it may force the new 113th congress to work all next summer.

And last, but surely not least, it's a good ten days before the happy presidential couple's 21st wedding anniversary -- pretty sure they have already made plans given the timing of their twentieth was debate night 2012.   Not to mention,  asserting a political win in their future -- it gives them something to celebrate   --saving America, what's not to love? (strike up the band with an evil laugh)

so. my work is done here for one day.
Considering I know my limitations.... all ideas with no follow through  -- here's hoping, through the wonder of mental telepathy and crazy dumb-ass luck, this message gets to Mitch right away.  yeah, right...

Make it a Good Day, G

just fyi -- we'll postpone discussion of leadership changes in the house and senate for later (insert smiley face here).