Obama Has Left the Building

and he is playing golf on Martha's Vineyard. On this return he will resume his road tour of upstate New York and Pennsylvania talking about the middle class.Rick "Frothy Mix" Santorum said in Ames, Iowa that the middle class is a Marxist idea. 

Before he left from Washington, President Obama gave a press conference which covered reforms in the NSA and the FISA court, healthcare,and immigration reform. Depending on your politics, it was either a superb performance (my opinion) or a dismal failure on the subject of surveillance. The more the NSA, Snowden and other subjects are debated,the weirder the conversation. President Obama referred everyone to his Defense College speech on May where he outlined changes in the surveillance regimen and the use of drones but nobody seemed to listen. 

++Flying from Washington, Obama spoke to the veterans with disability and promised them that there would be a cutting of the backlog of care. While there he was greeted with birthers,the Florida doctor who invented Obama as an African medicine man, and other racist reminders of the tea party.

++Yukking it up a Missouri rodeo clown decided to dress as Obama and urged a bull to gore him to the applause of the crowd. Later he was ritually fired and banned from the Missouri State Rodeo for life.

++Florida's Governor Scott began another purge of the voter lists and North Carolina's Pat McCory implemented the most suppressive voting bill in modern times. Today, Hillary Clinton spoke at the ABA Convention about the tsunami of voter ID bills that hit the states who were past violators of the Voting Rights Act before it was gutter by the Supreme Court.

++Mitch McConnell came up with another ingenious way to delay Obamacare. He argued that the threat of cyber attacks and hackers meant that Obamacare should be postponed. Ted Cruz and other Republicans arguing that they want to shut down the government to defund Obamacare have their facts wrong--Obamacare is mandatory spending and would continue on even if the government was shut down.

++Eric Cantor and Rand Paul keep saying the deficit is growing. But today the figures are out that it is shrinking at the fastest rate since just after WWII and the fastest rate in over 5 years. But it doesn't matter because Eric Cantor is saying that beginning in 2016 it will pick up again. 

++The new Washington Post owned by Amazon claims that Republicans have figured out a way to keep funding the government. However, the pre-Amazon Post ran an article that all three of the major Republican staffers who did the gritty detail work in the past have all left Congress, leaving no one left in the GOP side, who knows anything about the budget.

++An Arizona couple who feared the US repression of Christianity and the rise of homosexuality set sail for Kiribati to seek refuge. Their boat was overwhelmed by storms and they were rescued by a Japanese freighter. The couple and their kids were delivered to Chile where the repressive US government paid their way back to Arizona. 

++In Ames, Iowa, the Holy-Rollers of the Religious Right were entertained by Ted Cruz and his father Rev.Rafael, who turned on the crowd with analogies between Fidel Castro and Barack Obama. The Religious Right were commanded the vote against all those who were for same sex marriage, pro choice and against gun rights like Jesus would do.

++For your amusement,check out the Lakers section of the LA Times to see the video of a young Kareem Abdul Jabbar playing against Wilt Chamberlain, the two best centers in NBA history. Wilt actually came to play for a change.

++Mariano Rivera blew three straight saves but won one. He still has 35 saves and 3 wins this year, his last. Watch A-Rod. It will be the last you see him once his appeal to MLB fails. Ichiro Suzuki is nearing 4,000 hits in pro baseball, a combination of Japan and America.

++There are now 6 states who are refusing to enforce the changes to health insurance under Obamacare. Refusing the Medicaid extension and the regulations on the health insurance industry, Texas is now sinking toward 50 in terms of healthcare in the United States. Florida has announced skyrocketing new health insurance premiums but as the Orlando Tribune reports this is because Florida actually passed laws to allow the health insurance industry to ignore all caps.

++The GOP is disturbed that they may fail for the third time to take the Senate. A very messy primary in Georgie between extreme right candidates may favor Sam Nunn's daughter, who is running as a Democrat. In South Carolina, Lindsey Graham now faces two challengers, one of whom called him a Nancy boy. And the Kentucky race with Matt Bevin, Alison Grimes and Mitch McConnell looks like it will be the most expensive in the country.

++Today Democrats vote for whether Cory Booker will be the nominee for Senate. I like Pat Holt, just because he's a scientist. Booker is supposed to win.

++Eric Holder announced yesterday plans to reform our criminal justice system with an emphasis on eliminating mandatory sentencing for drug use and possession. A federal court ruled Stop and Frisk in New York City was unconstitutional because it was racial profiling.