So fine: Cuba to be off the terrorist list

Says Dick Durbin: "opening up the island to American ideas, vibrancy, and trade is the most effective way to see a more open and tolerant Cuba." 

The only problem with his brilliant* belief (and it is only that: a belief) is that CUBA HAS BEEN CLOSED, WE'VE ALWAYS BEEN WILLING TO SHARE OUR IDEAS AND 'VIBRANCY'! As for trade, guess who sets the prices in Cuba? It's not the market! It's the state! 

Dick Durbin, you numb nuts! 



j Ruse 
aka @AirFarceOne (twitter)

*sarcasm

Lamestream media? Yeah, ABC, lame.



So, which is it., ABC? Is five years or life in prison the maximum? 


--

J Ruse 

Like, Totally Political, Dude! 
The LTPD blog on Blogger
Follow on Twitter: @airfarceone

WHAT'S FAIR: Minimum Skills Earning Minimum Wages

Are you worth $30,000 a year?
For those fast food employees, and their nannies in public office, thinking they deserve $15 an hour, or more, let's do some math.
> At $15 an hour, someone slinging burgers would make $31,200 annually.
> An E1 (Private) in the military makes $18,378.
> An E5 (Sergeant) with 8 years of service only makes $35,067 annually.
So you're telling me, Woody Likefrieswithat , that you deserve as much as those kids getting shot at, deploying for months in hostile environments, and putting their collective asses on the line every day protecting the rights of YOUR unskilled butt!?
Here's the deal, Frank Andbeans: you are working in a job designed for a teenager in high school or working his way through trade school or college. It's a job for someone who is learning how to work. Have you thoroughly learned how to work? These jobs are designed for those looking to earn enough for shared rent, beer, and some food and gas, and hanging out with their equally goofy young pals.
If you have CHOSEN this basic means of making a living as your lifelong profession, you have not planned very well. Time to accept the consequences or to firm up, work your way out of the lower rungs, and rely on yourself, not count on foul promises of a few rise from low wages to high with little or no stops to learn skills that deserve a higher wage. It is a tough lesson, but you either learn it, or you stay where you are. The ones misleading you into believing you deserve higher pay for the same minimum role in life might sound like your hero, but they are only your big talking "better." They are fooling you. Wake up!
Here's what is fair to everyone: If you don't want minimum wage, don't settle on your minimum skills,  don't put forward minimum effort, be the example of a great employee that can move past the minimum job. And please don't expect someone else to pave your way, without you advancing your skills, for a smooth ride to $30k and better in earnings. That's how it might work in your dreams, but in real life, a solid person seeks rewards for effort, not for whining.
I revised this considerably. A version of this, no doubt a chain email, was sent to me by a retired person. He understands what working means. No one promised him a cake walk to a better life.
- J Ruse

Obama, the tough guy, offers more self-important posing after election losses

If he didn't prove it already to everyone who isn't fully enamored with him, the other day Obama showed that he is the narcissistic supermodel of politics: a major poser. 

Obama said he heard the two-thirds of registered voters who didn't vote, in the most extraordinarily arrogant example of a self-serving political interpretation of the citizenry he's ever given. This was only the day after the sting of a Senate control shift to Republicans, and additions to the House and governors' mansions for the opposition party. 

Funny, I thought I heard those registered voters who didn't vote, too. Though for me, they said nothing. Because that's what not voting is. Saying NOTHING. A non-vote, or "if you choose not to decide" as the Rush song goes, is the freedom to abandon the process. Did Obama also hear the many voting age Americans who don't register? A non-vote is not a clear message to one side or the other of an election, as Obama absurdly pretended it was. Not voting is a sign that people need to wake up and participate. That's it. It's on those people who did not vote to resist their functional apathy next time, and vote. And to do more within the system than only vote. Learn about the items on the ballot, not just assume what they are, for instance. 

What's more, Obama's self-important claim that he heard this silence was an open ended claim. He didn't really explain what he claimed he heard. Well, that's convenient for him, isn't it? I don't buy into it. 

The silence is not Obama's to interpret now any more than it was anyone's to interpret his intentions when he voted present in Illinois state senate

If it were Obama's place to interpret the election acts of inaction, then perhaps now that Congress is fully in opposition hands, that branch of our federal government should be free to interpret his empty promises as non-votes in their own way and proceed as they see fit, despite him. After all, talking tough,  Obama has said that he intends to behave similarly -- to disregard Congress -- on immigration "reform." 

Thank the president, once again, for setting the wrong tone. And hope that somehow less stiff and autocratic thinking can prevail, despite Obama, during the next two years.


- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Hi, I'm Charlie Crist, and I am running for US Senate

In a few hours, if the voting gods are merciful to me, Charlie Crist will be making a concession speech in the Florida governor's race.

Here's why I don't like the man, despite believing that, loosely, his time as governor the first time around wasn't so bad. (You cannot lay much blame on Crist for the recession, for instance.)

Crist, in 2010, exited the guv's mansion after one fairly successful term, thinking he could walk into the US Senate that year. He SHOULD have run for a second governor's term at that time, and he likely would have won. INSTEAD, he seemed to have proven (to those who paid attention) what his real colors were. By the end of the 2010 Senate campaign, his behavior showed he was a MERE career politician who would say anything, and take any position, simply to gain that power he lusts for like a 14-year-old hormone-raging boy in a Victoria's Secret store. 

He was a nasty SOB up against the far cooler-headed, more principled and unpretentious Marco Rubio in 2010. And Crist kept coming, and looking worse each time: When Crist lost the Republican primary to Rubio, he turned independent to try and earn his rightful place (in his mind) at the high seat of power he so richly deserved. Then he got really nasty.

Crist lost, and did it attacking the same positions he claimed to hold only months prior. Plus, he called Marco Rubio a dangerous extremist, a radical, part of that dangerous Tea Party, yadda yadda. Rubio: an EXTREMIST?! CRIST proved himself a political merchant only. THEN, after all his shrill maneuvering didn't work in 2010, Crist became a Democrat. And he ran for governor, again. As he should have in 2010, but this time with a new party affiliation. Why they took him, I don't know. 

If he wins the governor's race, I would like to begin selling bumper stickers that say "I'm Governor Charlie Crist, and I am running for Senate."

That's why I don't want Crist: he's only a politician. He's got nothing else to offer. We have enough career politicians.



- J Ruse