Once again it's the fiftieth anniversary of President Johnson's 1964 State of the Union message where he launched his War on Poverty. The miracle is just about everything he proposed that evening eventually got passed. According to Randy Rhodes the War On Poverty was in force till the second year of the Nixon administration. I remember at that time Nixon began torquing to the Right, perhaps at the urging of Speech Writer Pat Buchannon and others, who thought he wasn't being partisan enough. But now the FOX media is abuzz with the new book by former Secretary of Defense Gates, who was a holdover from the Bush administration. No wonder the Republicans didn't want to vote for Chuck Hagel because that would be a man of Obama's own choosing. Gates in his book accuses President Obama of micro managing the military and not letting them do their jobs, and he says "I've never seen anything like it". However Gates also has unkind words for this Republican congress who he regards as "almost entirely to a man, unfit for their jobs" and is bent on getting nothing done. But FOX isn't going too report that. Gates was against going after Bin Laden in the spring of 2011. Perhaps it's my paranoid nature but it could be Gates was still loyal to Bush and he didn't want this new guy showing up his old boss. I look forward to researching this topic further on the internet.
Nancy Pelosi was all sweetness and light today at her press conference. She said how wonderful it was to begin a new legislative year and was looking forward to getting a lot done. However the unemployment extension bill only passed muster to be able to even DEBATE the thing. Even THAT now is considered a major hurdle for any bill these days, particularly one sponsored by democrats. I am not confident at all that things will "turn around' by the end of the year either politically or even with the economy. The Republicans will "move heaven and earth" to keep that from happening no matter how brazen they have to be to wipe old people and minorities and the poor off the voter registration polls. Rush Limbaugh once said "These democrats won't even accept the fact that Al Gore lost the 2004 election". That's because he won. We never counted the votes but the President was chosen by nine men in black robes with no accountability to anyone, except for God, if they even believe in him. Some may say to me "Its strange that you would say this. You've seem how glum and downright desperate the Tea Party people have been. You've seen how incoherent Rush Limbaugh's program has been lately. You've heard the rosey reports of the economy for this year. You've listened to Nancy Pelosi and heard Randy Rhodes and all the others talk about how the Tea Party forces are falling apart. Why are you so glum?" Well, I'm not sure any of that will matters. It's just "pumping sunshine up our skirts" to use that expression again. People don't know whether it's really realistic Hope they are filled with, or they just got around to refilling their Prozac prescription. Rush Limbaugh has even fancied the idea that a Republican would win in 2016 and that President Obama would stay in Washington DC as sort of a "shadow president' and the Media would listen to every word he said. This to me is really a pipe dream, and Rush has been smoking something funny. If President Obama is still in town then they'll be reviving those old signs 'Get out of town Nigger before sundown or suffer the penalty of stoning". That's more likely than what Rush Limbaugh envisions.
I'm entertaining thoughts once again of moving out of here. Trying to get anything fixed around here has always been just short of impossible. It's like talking to yourself. The heat still isn't what it should be and yesterday the dining room was freezing at breakfast. In the past year and a half, and less, loss of property incidences have risen markedly. Just since December first I've lost two clothing items in the laundry. I was telling Paul today that not that long ago a whole white T shirt was stolen, right from the package. I've lost three CD's and a book in the past sixteen months. I've had several bad encounters with one particular resident around here, and have debated reporting it. In the first part of December I had a substantial illness that lasted two and a half weeks. They've eliminted monthly birthday celebrations where each resident born that month received a birthday gift. They've begun skipping a few Residents council meetings at the end of each month, including last month. I've had more paranoid thoughts in general. We have not had a regular class meeting with Dr Levy since the week before December 15th. I thought Dr Messina the psychiatrist wanted to see me more often, but I've listened on Wednesday afternoons and my name hasn't been called. The food table service has been really bad since Labor Day of 2011. I pay for all sorts of "medical extras" that I seldom use, and one wonders why I don't just get back on Housing, or else find a roommate I get along with and move out together and split expenses. The family thinks I should be off psych meds entirely anyhow. But if anything I think they've already been withholding psych medication- - - . There are objects that I haven't even missed yet that have suddenly "appeared" in strange places. Other people routinely report major thefts on an almost regular basis, so I've kind of gotten off easy. Of course they conthiscated all of our coffee makers and can't make coffee now. And there are roomers that they will be trippling taxes on cigarettes because "That's the most effective way of getting people to quit smoking". There was that fire in another facility- - and I'm wondering when they will "Drop the hammer' on smoking around here.
The Republicans are continuing to report that the Affordable Care Act had reaped a net hardship on the majority of Americans with skyrocketing premiums and deductables, and not even being able to keep your same doctor, whom you like. President Obama has this personality flaw, and in a politician it's a fatal one, of vastly overestamating his own abilities to "Accomplish what he wants to". I wish, by way of repudiation, that Obama would repudiate his own book "The Audacity of Hope". It will be his political Tombstone, as is the whole Obama Care thing is to begin with his Albitros that has kept him from accomplishing one thing in the past six years, for all practical purposes. It may not be "Fair" that Republicans want to sabotage the economy and America herself all to get back at Obama for being elected- - Twice. But that's the reality of the situation, and Obama will have to endure three more years of this nightmare of not accomplishing anything for the final three years of his Presidency. He will leave Office as the most unpopular President since Ulises Grant. That was a almost a hundred and fifty years ago. Rush Limbaugh is so in love with fossel fuels that while some people marry their St Bernards or their Television Set, Rush would like to marry a gas pump. They drag in "Christian values" at the drop of a hat, and yet their actual knowledge of what the Bible actually says, in the old or new testaments, is from vague to non existent. It used to be that humanitarian proposed bills would be met with apolause. Today it's the "Meat Axe" or bust for Republicans. They aren't even making pretence any more that spending should be for anything besides cutting taxes for the richest among us and paying corporations to relocate off shore- - and boosting defense and oil profits. It's the pervasive reality that Lyndon Johnson knew nothing of, but is as common is water in the Amazon rain forest today.
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