Night Rant

++D.C. is dead. Political Washington is off until September. And September they can began destroying things again.

++Today Social Security is 80 years old. Medicare had celebrated 50 years recently. These are programs that have benefited millions and still need supporters because they are constantly attacked.

++But what has Congress done for you lately? They have attempted to cripple Social Security Disability,end federal funding for Planned Parenthood,eliminate the Export-Import Bank,defund the Highway Trust Fund, still seek to end the Affordable Care Act,crippled the IRS with budget cuts,cut funding to EPA and eliminate the Consumer Protection Agency and repeal Dodd-Frank.

++Is this a substitute for war? The Republican Congress will not debate,let alone vote on a war resolution against ISIS. But it is all to willing to cut social programs and eliminate agencies without any debate about the consequences.

++I've looked at this with lens about the GOP trying to eliminate anything President Obama has done. But the depth of this destructiveness goes beyond simply their obstructionism during the Obama years. It also goes beyond ideology. It is something akin to nihilism.

++When was the last time you heard a conservative express the desire to build something. The Donald wants to build his wall,the same--BUT BETTER--than John McCain's wall. But look at the other GOP candidates. Walker tries to get bragging right for busting unions and gutting a superb school system that didn't have to be gutted. Jindal is a joke with the destruction he has wrought on Louisiana. He's a walking Katrina. Chris Christie decided not to modernize the tunnels to New York for partisan reasons and the federal government was going to pay for it. Marco Rubio bragged about staying away from new Hampshire because he was trying to defund Planned Parenthood

++One of the reasons I think Americans are frustrated is that no political figures are offering to strengthen institutions or build things in the national interest. The financial sectors of the society are rightfully perceived as controlling the political economy simply for gain. 

++I go back to the idea I expressed in this blog at its beginning. We no longer have an idea of the public good or common cause. I explored the authoritarian mind behind the right-wing reaction to Obama and Occupy Wall Street's grassroots appeal against financial and political elites. I laugh at my Link-in rating as an expert--that's precisely what has become devalued as a term and ignored in the truest sense in policy discussions. I've complained that I have to be the accountant, the lawyer and now with automatic banking, the banking, for all those specialists whom I pay. In the political sphere we simply are not interested in policies or solutions based on science or the expertise of real experts. 

++I could understand this if skepticism about expertise and policy was a organic check on excesses but it is a deeper illness that corrodes any positive solutions to deeper problems. 

++When Congress returns and the Presidential elections go into high gear,watch for this. Congress has to deal with raising the credit limit--something under all previous Presidents was automatic. Congress has to deal with the Iranian Nuclear Deal, which should be a no-brainer. Congress has to grapple with the budget and is now scheming to use this as a way to repeal Obamacare. They haven't given up. Congress still but will probably avoid declaring war on ISIS, while we have spent billions to bomb Syria and Iraq. 

++It's not who can break the gridlock. It's how to change the mentality of our politicians. I believe simply blaming the money in politics and that lobbyists dictate legislation is too easy. I think the problem goes much deeper.

++I am still of the believe that President Obama is our last democratically elected President--for a long time.