Oil Boom or Bust

So we are in the middle of yet another boom.  Fracking, as declared by oil companies, is saving the planet.

This comes at considerable cost, with a consumer base who seemingly is capable of spending unlimited amounts on a gallon of gas, fracking is spreading in the United States.  Fracking is saving us?

And the news is good.  Fracking has resulted in American import  energy switching back to domestic supplies; at least for a few years.

Americans meanwhile buy the bullshit from Exxon and others that what is mined in America stays in America.  The truth is the only reason it stays in America is if Americans  pays staggering prices for it, versus the rest of the world.

Why is that, you might ask?  Simple economics.  Americans do not tolerate high taxes on energy.  The gasoline tax has remained constant for many years.  In Europe, almost half of the price of a gallon of diesel or gas is tax.  These taxes have, for decades, gone into mass transportation.  Europe, and much of Asia, have, as a result, a massively superior mass transportation system compared to the United States.

For example,  California is struggling against nay-sayers, trying in  a sea of lawsuits,  to build the nations FIRST high speed train.  Recently, a judge temporarily halted the program, and the oil company backed  opponents to the train cheered.

Asia and Europe have had high speed rail for decades.

Now, the oil companies are trumpeting that fracking will save us all.  There are huge oil reserves, they tell us, trapped in rock formations that will mean an oil glut.

What they are not telling us, is that Peak Oil, the economic point of view based on the fact that oil and gas reserves are finite, has told us for year that this could happen.

You see, oil companies have known  for decades about this.  In the 1970s, during the oil embargo, attempts were made to extract oil from shale in the Dakotas.  This expensive and dangerous procedure was abandoned when the oil embargo ended, because Americans refused to pay more than a dollar for a gallon of gas.

In Europe, even in the 70s, consumers were paying over a dollar, with at least half of it going through taxes into mass transportation and infrastructure.

Peak Oil experts have long known that for an old well, for example, 50% of the oil is still there, trapped in the surrounding shale and rock.  It was just too expensive to mine it; until now.

The difference is we are willing to pay way more for it; and tragically with still a relatively low tax load per gallon.

This has resulted in a temporary oil and gas glut, but at core prices that American consumers (still enslaved to a commuter lifestyle) that do not allow higher  taxes.

So, the United States may not have to import as much gasoline as in the last decade, and can purchase more expensive (than sweet crude) oil, even from the shale oil of Canada, with very little room for the taxation that could change us from a commuter transportation system to an energy efficient mass transportation one.

This failure to switch, which also affects failing to change to green energy, means America will be the first to have its economy destroyed when the inevitable, and irreversible decline in oil and gas occurs in 2050 and beyond.  There will be no fracking boom then to save us, and we will literally have to walk away from our cars, with no trains or buses as a fall back.

We are doing this to ourselves.  We should demand more taxes on gasoline and natural gas.  We should demand more mass transportation, and make the investment in our grandchildrens' futures to see that it happens.

We won't.  We will do what America has always done, exploit natural resources completely, then go try to conquer somebody else to get it.

Only this time, there will be no fracking to save us...We are running out of gas!  And this time, it is forever.

Partisanship on the Right Gone Nuts

Many in the international community greeted the tentative agreement with Iran with a mixture of positive and negative comments.  Certainly, Iran's past includes making statements that are either not true, or designed for propaganda effect that is so transparent anyone can see through them.  Iran does not deceive very well.  

But, the six month agreement is so transparently a first step and not a solution, than anyone can see its limitations.  There is no deception.  

Two areas of the international community apparently are so jaded and politicized they purposefully cannot see it.  One is Israel.  The other is the Republican Party.

Israel reacted with skepticism off the scale.  They even oppose the six month limited agreement completely.  

And the Republlican Party.  Well, they reacted with several comments that claim the agreement is a cover to divert the American Public's attention from the "train wreck" of the ACA.

What!?  Really!?

I can understand Israel's opposition.  After all, the United States almost plunged the world into nuclear war, with its opposition to nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1963.  Of course, the fact there were hundreds others targeted on the U.S. from Russia did not seem to be as deep an afront.  

Israel, who probably has a nuclear weapon already, can not abide an Arab State being so armed next to them.  The double standard of that non-withstanding, Israel's position at least understandable.  

Ok, we can get that.  But Israel also has not yet launced a pre-emptive strike, like American witless Neocons  want to do RIGHT NOW.  

The same idiots that got us trapped into Iraq, now want war as the only answer to this international dilemma.  No sanctions either, just attack.  

Luckily this time, they are not running a similarly witless administration.

George Bush was so devious, and inexperienced in international affairs, he relied on te Neocons to advise him about Iraq; plunged the United States into a mindless and fruitless war.

This is where Israel and the Republicans are right now.  In refusing to negotiate, in relying on military action first last and always, they virtually insure war, and destabilization of the Middle East for years to come.

And it all has NOTHING to do with the ACA.

The good news about Republicans is they are so partisan and reactive, that we can predict their behavior.   And, with an ACA that is having implementation troubles, the cons keep messing up.

And the neocons, many who should be in jail for war crimes, keep their stupidity flowing.

Thank God these guys are so politially witless, it doesn't take much effort to keep them on the defensive....

And Now the Pope!

The Pope has been popping off lately.  There is little doubt that cons will have to challenge him in a primary.  The Pope is speaking foolishness and is dangerous.

The Pope is daring to say that there is a culture of waste in the world lead by unfettered and greedy capitalism.  He criticizes the greed, the inhumanity of those who make money with no regard to the environmental and human cost.

In America we meanwhile have cut food stamps, while many areas of our country are still caught in deep unemployment and poverty.  The ACA is being implemented in rich states, who are cooperating, but not well in poor states, whose Republican governors and legislature refused Medicaid assistance and now are hamstringing  implementation.

The Farm Bill is being held hostage by fanatical free market types, resulting in $8.00 gallons of milk!

This is result in two Americas:  one with health care for all, the other with rationed care for the few; one for the rich, one for the poor.

And meanwhile, the Republicans, the Party of business, are on a crusade to repeal the health  law completely.  Greedy insurance companies quietly stand behind these efforts, wanting to return to when they could do anything they wanted, stealing money and providing no protection.

Capitalism kills.  It kills people when it is unregulated, untaxed and runs the show.  This has been the case for hundreds of years  Capitalism gave us slavery and Civil War.

Now, I am not advocating socialism.  But I am advocating control of capitalism, and most of all, ethics and morality in the "captains of industry".  Government regulation is not enough, it is what lies in the hearts of men and women, CEOs of Wal Mart; et al, that will make the difference.

Capitalists need to be reminded, as the Pope just did, that they have eternal souls too.

I have never understood why how Christian Conservatives could fight for the rights of the unborn, yet vote to cut food stamps for children.  How a church going conservative could read Matthew 25, and turn right around and attack Health Care for the poor.

Capitalism creates unfair competition; it always has.  It needs regulation to function.  It needs laws to protect those who lose.

And the Pope sees that everyday.  He came from a developing country.  He knows where the world is headed, with capitalism caused global warming threatening millions every day.  The gap between rich and war will eventually cause war and conflict.  It always has!

And now the Pope speaks out and on this eve of Thanksgiving reminds us all of what being a Christian should mean.

Attacking the ACA for Fun and Profit

The noise just keeps going on and on.  Republicans, after their own disastrous shut down the government fiasco, are attacking the ACA with renewed fervor.

Sometimes, as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.

Let's play this out.  It will take months if not years for the Republicans to repeal the ACA.  It certainly will not be repealed during the Obama Administration.  so this is three years at least.

In that three years, all the good that the ACA was written to do will be well on its way. 

Remember, if you can through all the bullshit, why the ACA was written and passed for good reason: we desperately need health care reform in this country. 

One, the United States has the most expensive and one of the least efficient and cost effective system in the industrialized world.  In short, we pay for health care, with the least result.

Recently, it was divulged that many U.S. citizens are going to Mexico for medical treatment, because it is not only cheaper, but BETTER!

Secondly, we had the least regulated health care system, especially insurance wise, in the industrialized world.  This means junk insurance policies, with lots of small print, not covering pre-existing conditions, excluding many conditions, lifetime maximums, etc.  Everyone in the country has a horror story of people who thought they were covered, but weren't. 

This has led to bankruptcy and worse for many people.

The ACA was written to stop these abuses.  THE REASON WHY POLICIES HAVE BEEN CANCELLED, IS BECAUSE THERE IS NOW A STANDARD OF COVERAGE TO PROTECT CONSUMERS.

Yes, some of these junk policies are cheaper, you usually get cheap when you pay cheap.  The ACA basically mandates common sense and competitive policies on insurance companies.

The ACA also tries to use the free enterprise system and competition to drive costs down.  Heretofore, this has not been the case, as the insurance industry has been regulated by state's with wide variability between regulations.  A policy bought in California for example, for the same family, could vary markedly. 

The facts are the Exchanges were set up to use the power of the market place to drive down costs and bring quality affordable health care to millions more.  The 30 to 50 million Americans with no or little effective insurance are being finally addressed.

So let's play this out.  Let's say in three years millions now have effective and cheaper health insurance and along come the Republicans to repeal the act.

Who will be held responsible? 

This is why the Republicans are so afraid that the law will be allowed to operate.  That is why they tried to shut the government down, and may do so again.

The ultimate irony is the Affordable Care Act is exactly the same law that currently exists in Massachusetts, passed by the Republican candidate for President in 2012, which should have been a showcase of private enterprise solving a public problem. 

Instead, Republicans decided to take the position that will deny millions adequate health care.

They still have time, to quietly take ownership of what really is their philosophical position, that private markets (the exchanges; et al), can solve the health care crisis in the United States.

The smart position is to make the Democrats own the messed up roll out, and then move to support the ACA as their idea, based on the Massachusetts' example. 

But they steadfastly refuse to do this!

Be careful what you wish for! 

Sick and Tired

OK, just for those of you who might be flagging a bit in support of the President. 

Do you remember 2009?  The President began the effort to reform Health Care Insurance.  The Democrats had a solid majority in the House and Senate.  The Single Payer was in the working bill, that was moving briskly through the House and Senate. 

Then Teddy Kennedy died.  The archaic and manipulated filibuster rule,  already was allowing the Republicans to block much of what the President was trying to do from 2008 to 2009.  But when Kennedy died, this played right into their hands, giving them with Scott Brown's unfortunate election to the Senate, 41 votes, that could stop Democrats from getting the 60 needed to end the filibusters in the Senate.

Remember?  Remember how we all could not believe that a Party with only 41 votes out of 100 could virtually stop much needed reform.

And they did.  A version of the bill had been passed earlier in both the House and the Senate, without the Single Payer option in it.  So, in desperation to save the Bill, Democrats reconciled the two bills, legally avoiding the certain Senate filibuster that would have killed it, and succeeded in getting the Affordable Care Act into law.

This was without the single payer option, which would have set up the federal government as a virtual insurance company, who could have offered health insurance plans similar to Medicare, that definitely would have kept private insurance companies honest, spurred competition, and more that likely, made the law an easy  success.

But, it had been almost a hundred years trying, for a "universal health care law" to be passed into law in the United States; so Democrats gambled that the ACA without the single payer would work.  After all, it worked in Massachusetts. 

Our country was and is being bankrupted by greedy insurance companies, a health care industry out of control, resulting in sky high costs, 50 million uninsured, and a mess of health care; ranking as the most expensive in the world, and the least effective among all the industrialized nations.

And, the law that finally was signed, was almost exactly like the plan in Massachusetts, that ironically the 2012 Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, had compromised into existence in a liberal state.  In fact, Teddy Kennedy had worked with Romney in accomplishing the feat of the first comprehensive health care reform in history in the United States.

Then, the Republican Party went nuts.  Greedy insurance companies, who for once had actually failed to lobby universal health care coverage away, fought back, with a publicity campaign oriented around the "Tea Party", a quasi-grass roots organization, that fought to repeal the ACA.

This has been going on now for two years, BEFORE the law goes into effect in January 2014. 

And it has been a excruciating battle, with the Republican Party losing the 2012 presidential election in a kamikaze effort to repeal the law, costing Mitt Romney any chance to win the Presidency.

Recently we have witnessed a governmental shutdown, in a desperate attempt to stop the law.  And now, as the law in implemented, EVERY bump in the road is seized up as proof that it is a "disaster" and "train wreck"; etc.

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, who has virtually the same law, 97 percent of the state's population now are  covered by affordable health care insurance, using the private enterprise system as the delivery modality, with no public option.

In short, it works. 

Now, will it work in the long run, under constant attack from greedy insurance companies who fight governmental regulation at every turn?  This remains to be seen.

What is certain, is  a political party has staked its future on repealing the federal law, at all costs. 

The Republican Party will not quit until it is either destroyed, or destroys the  ACA; and may destroy the nation in the process.   

This is Civil War type obsession, and I am sick and tired of it.  So sick and tired that I find myself saying, thinking selfishly since I am now covered by Medicare, the hell with it. 

But then I think of my daughter's family, who will be covered under the ACA and right now do not have health insurance.  This is a young family of four, who are rolling the dice every day that nobody gets sick. This is a family, whose grandmother died early of breast cancer.

This ends my sick and tired feeling.  This makes me willing to fight, even physically if need be, to get a universal health care system either kept, and certainly improved in this country.

I have and will in the future lose friends over this; I don't care.  The greedy, selfishness of my fellow Americans that the endless ACA debate uncovers, makes me sick. 

Our country is ill.  It is afflicted with a me first attitude, crystallized in the Republican Party disaster of non-leadership, that supports the fat cat insurance industry, who does not care if people live or die.

So I will continue fighting the bastards who are working so hard to destroy our country. 

Redskins then, Redskins now, Redskins Forever?

Redskins then, Redskins now, Redskins forever...the Sports Pages of major Washington D.C. papers, proclaim once again that Native American mascots are not an affront to Native Americans, and are harmless.   In fact, the Seminoles of Florida State, and other mascots names are in fact testimonials to the traditions and history of indigenous Americans, and should remain according to conservative viewpoints.  

We always stood in the tunnel before the games.  The Band had a cannon that boomed when we stormed on the field.  Leading us was "Prince Lightfoot" a Native American Chief from what was left of the California tribe that once inhabited San Francisco.  

The Prince wore a full headdress, and was dressed in Sioux war dress, with face paint to match.  Never mind that California Native Americans never dressed like that, he was Stanford's mascot.  We stormed out of the tunnel, following Prince Lightfoot, through the smoke of a 19th century cannon.  In fact, the cannon was a replica of cavalry cannons, used to rid the Great Plains of Redskins.   Prince Lightfoot always stormed through its smoke, emerging triumphant on the other side.

History proved otherwise.  

Pretty thrilling stuff for a young sophomore from Redding, California.  We even had, my sophomore year, a real  Indian as quarterback, Dave Lewis.  I remember he posed for publicity pictures with a war bonnet on.  Dave was good natured about it all, after all he was playing for the Indians!   

We were colorful for sure.  Our "Song Dollies" wore Indian Dress, with feathers of course, and much of the Band's music had a tom tom sound to it.  We even had a cheer, that I can still hear, starting with "Give them the Axe...right in the neck" and so on, coupled with the tom tom drumming.

I must say, it was thrilling.  It certainly got the blood flowing, as we stormed on the field, to do battle with the Ducks, the Trojans, the Beavers; etc.  You got axes for your helmet for good plays to go along with stars and such.  

We were the Indians.

In the mid-70s, Stanford stopped being the Indians.  The political correctness of "Wounded Knee" and various Native American protests, forced Stanford to reconsider their mascot, and typical of a liberal college (according to conservatives) Stanford reverted to its original mascot, the color Cardinal, with a Tree of all things as its mascot.  My conservative friends still introduce this topic with, "That was the worst thing Stanford ever did, stop being the Indians".  I usually remain silent.  

The team still storms out on the field, but are led by large Stanford flags, no cannon, no Prince Lightfoot.  The Prince himself, actually considered suing Stanford when he lost his position, but nothing came of it.  He wanted the Indian to remain as the mascot.  Many Native Americans did not.  Stanford, to its credit, listened to them.  

The screams cut through the cold darkness of that Texas night.  The screams were of a woman and her young child.

My great grandmother had been snatched from her bed.  She was seven years old.  She was thrown into a wagon with her mother, and rode about three miles to the hanging tree.

The screams started when she and her mother recognized who was sitting on the horse, with a hanging noose draped around his neck.  

It was her father, the Redskin Cherokee, William Pitman.  He looked at the two of them, with pleading yet stoic eyes.  He knew he was going to die, but he didn't want them to see.

He spoke to the vigilantes around him, all with hoods over their head.  He cried, "Please not my children, not my wife, send them away".  One of the vigilantes reached over and smacked him along the side of his face, and shouted, "Shut up Redskin, you are a horse thief, you will die".

The same man then turned to the woman and small child, and smirked, "And they will watch you hang.  Your white whore, and your half breed bitch need to see what we do to Redskins that steal horses".

My great grandmother screamed at him,"He is no horse thief, he is a blacksmith, he had a shod horse because he is a blacksmith for God's sake".

"Shut up whore", one of the vigilantes shouted, and walked up to the woman and slapped her flush in the face.  She fell to the ground, being a very small woman, with blood sprouting from the nose.  The little girl screamed in fear, and held tight to her mother.

They were alone with the vigilantes and her father.  There was nothing or no one to help them.  They were at the white Texans' mercy.  

And the vigilantes made sure they knew this.  They repeated many times, to no one in particular, that the law demanded they hang this Redskin, for the law in Texas held that a Redskin with a shod horse, was guilty of a capital offense, and could be hanged without trial.

They had blood in their eyes, and vengeance in their hearts.  Some of them had lost friends and family to the Comanches, who were terrorizing that part of Texas in 1859.  Some of them wore the confederate flag even then, with the Civil War scarcely a year away.  Racism dripped from their lips.  

The law was what they said it was, and "the only good Indian (Redskin), was a dead Indian.

The leader spoke next.  He read from a handwritten letter, that William  Pitman was guilty as a horse thief, was a Cherokee Indian caught with a shod horse, and deserved to be hanged by his neck until he died.  "The Redskin and his whore should both go also", one of the men shouted.  

The leader hesitated, looked at the woman, and said,  "No let her and her vermin live, so they can warn other half-breeds that we will not tolerate this.    A woman marries a nigger or a Redskin, they deserve this."  

And with that, he slapped the rump of the horse, and William Pitman swung suddenly in the darkness.  

The light of the torches illuminated his struggle.  It was quickly obvious that his neck had not broken.  He was struggling for air, and the weight of his body slowly suffocated him.  He gurgled and even mumbled, "Help me", as  he dangled back and forth.

The woman screamed again as did her daughter.  They attempted to turn away, as William messed his pants, and continued to twitch and swing to and fro.  The men grabbed their heads and forced them to face the horror, even forcing their eyes open.  The little girl was now crying uncontrollably, shouting "Daddy, Daddy", as her daddy slowly died.

After about five minutes, that seemed like an hour, William Pitman's face turned blue, his eyes began to fix, the twitching slowed, as the rope swung methodically back and forth, slowing as his struggle ended.  

Finally, after about twenty minutes, they cut him down.  

Then, they took his body to the bonfire that had illuminated the horror, and threw him into it.  The fire crackled and sizzled, and William  Pitman (my great great grandfather) cooked in the Texas darkness.

The mother and her daughter could stand it now longer, and passed out.  They were left where they fell, and, after quite an argument that they should also be hanged, were left alone, next to the fire, to shift for themselves.  It was a long way back to town, the wolves or Comanches probably would get them, the vigilantes hoped.

But they did not die that night.  In fact my great great grandmother lived into the twentieth century, and her daughter lived to give birth to my grandfather, Charlie Beale.    

Charlie Beale was a drunk.  He had a weakness for alcohol.  His father was an Indian Agent, worked at Fort Sill, where my grandfather actually saw Geronimo, who was imprisoned there after he ran the United States Cavalry ragged for months in the southwest.

I do remember my grandfather telling me about Geronimo's eyes.  "They went right through you", he said.  "When he moved around outside his cell, they had twenty men around him, so much did they respect and fear his fighting spirit".  

"But he was a dirty Indian to everyone else, a  worthless Redskin", that deserved nothing."  

This was coming from my grandfather, who as it works out, was 1/4 Cherokee.

I knew I had "Indian blood" when I was at Stanford.  I never really gave it much thought.    

At the time, there were cowboys and there were Indians.  The cowboys were the good guys, the Indians were bad.  In our  hometown, Redding, my dad used to tell me how he would go out into the back alley behind the shop where he worked, and see the sheriff's deputies beat the drunken Indians by handcuffing their hands behind their backs, then knock them over forewards, smashing their faces into the pavement.  

"Not so funny now, you fucking Redskin", the deputies would yell, and the blood flew, and pieces of broken bone would fly from their noses into the mud and grease on the alley floor.  Many of the Indians bore old scars from previous beatings, because like my grandfather, they were drunks, this wasn't the first time in the alley for them.  

But Charlie Beale was much more than a drunk.  He stopped drinking when I was about two, because my mother told him he couldn't be around me anymore if he was drunk.  He almost dropped me once when he was drunk, and that did it for my mother.  And he stopped  drinking, cold.

He died young, from a cancer that was directly tied to his job; railroad conductor.  Many Southern Pacific railroad workers died of cancer, because they breathed decades of fumes from the engines, with no pollution standards. 

Charlie Beale was one of the funniest men, I have ever known.  He died when I was twelve, but I still remember that he could entertain for hours, with joke after joke.  He reduced our dinners at grandpa's to laughter every time, with his abundant sense of humor.  I loved my grandpa Beale, I did not know of his drinking problem until much later.  He always loved me back.

But something else has always bothered me.  

There is a darkness to our family.  My grandmother, not of Native American background, was a neurotic person, depressed and moody.  Apparently her mother committed suicide.  I loved my grandmother too, but she was a very negative person, even to a child's perspective.

My father, about ten years ago, told me the whole story.  He told me about William Pitman, he told me about the hanging.  

He told me about my great grandmother, going up the steps of the courthouse in Oklahoma City, intent on registering her children under the Dawes Act, as half breed Cherokees, and stopping, turning around and saying, "I would rather you be called niggers that Redskins".  She walked down the steps.  

With that decision, my great grandmother ended any legal rights my family would ever have to "Indian Rights".  

But that's alright as far as I am concerned. Since I never knew I might qualify, I never thought about it, even though I was a Stanford Indian, lettered in football as an Indian and represented the University as a "Redskin" for four years.

But the darkness bothers me.  Again, I am not sure how much comes from my grandmother, who was not Native American, or from my grandfather, who most assuredly was.

My father tells me his grandmother (the little girl who watched William Pitman hang), never got over it.  She would not talk about it much, but toward the end of her life, she did open up about that horrible night in Texas.  She was deeply hateful and resentful all of her life.  She had an  aura about her, according to my father.  "You just didn't mess with her", he tells me.  She would go after you, all 100 pounds of her, if you crossed her.  

My aunt  was depressed most of her life.  Her three daughters all married men of color; I never could understand that then, I do now.  

When my great grandmother  died, my father remembers they took all of her pictures, notes, and personal belongings out to the front yard in Chico, California, and burned them.  

As a historian, that kills me!   All of the history, save a few pictures that survived,  was burned.  

Apparently, that is a Cherokee tradition, burning the dead's records, so the spirit can go free.  

Regardless, much of the written record of that horrible night is gone, save the oral history that I include here.

Redskins then, Redskins now, Redskins forever.  That haunts me now.

Now that I know.  Now that part of me is a partner in tragedy with African Americans who were savaged by slavery and lynchings, the Redskin "controversy" is in a totally different light.    

Lynching does lasting damage to families and to traditions.  It truly sears generational souls.  It won't leave your subconscious, always lurking in the background as a personal injustice.  Families who have lost loved ones to racial injustice, are like holocaust survivors; they never never forget!  

It happened to my great great grandfather; its personal.  

It leaves me, in the latter part of my life, wondering if I have done enough to stop injustice; if  we as a nation are trying enough, if  we leave the Washington Redskins to keep their mascot,  with a name that was used as a racial and murderous epitaph in the not so distant past.

And sometimes in the dead of night, in its creepy stillness, I hear a little girl screaming in the Texas wilderness, as her Daddy swings at the end of a rope...

   

No President? Yeah right!

In the San Jose Mercury News this morning, believe it or not in  a left leaning newspaper, there was an article by an Obama hater, that the United States is without a President.

In the same edition, there was a headline that once again, the Senate has used arcane fillibuster rules to deny two Predential appointments, one to a judgeship, the other to an agency in need of leadership.

The Senate has set a record for fillibusters and for denying Presidnential appointments.  Th Bureau of Tobacco and Firearms went for years without a leader, Republicans in the Senate refused to approve anyone to the leadership, using fillibuster after fillibuster to deny the President's candidates.

And, a couple weeks ago, we saw the Republicans in the House of Representatives  lead the nation into a disasterous governmental shutdown, in a failed attempt to scuttle the Affordable Care Act.

And now, another hater writes an ariticle that we are without a President.

Even the most vocal opponents to the Democratic President has to see a pattern here.  Conservatives, especailly racist ones, decided a long time ago to block everything they could by President Obama.

  This first became apparent early, when the Affordable Care Act barely missed getting the key component of single payor alternative,  when Massachusetts stupidly elected a Republican to take Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, taking away the 60 seat super majority the Democrats had, and leading to endless fillibusters.  

In fact, the ACA was approved narrowly, with legislative manuvers that were necessary because the Senate fillibuster had the bill locked down.  Even though Democrats had sizable majorities in both houses, the fillibuster almost stopped the ACA.  

This, course, cause faux outrage with Republicans, who to a man/woman refused to vote for the ACA, and declared war on the bill from that day on.

Today, Ted Cruz is obviously using the ACA as a vehicle to run, as the first openly fascist candidate for President in history.

The Republican Party has split, in  supposedly a death spiral, but still  is united in its hatred of President Obama.  The Speaker of the House, keeps tap dancing around, acting like he can be "reasonable" but then calling the ACA every name in the book, and going for the President's throat.

The facts are not in dispute.  We have a President, contrary to the haters.  We just don't have the President they wanted.  Mitt Romney, tragically who led the ACA inception in Massachusetts (its the same f....bill!), was forced to run against himself, could not take credit for the health care reform he led, and lost big to the President, who basically copied Romneycare.  

And conservatives hate the President for it.  But they hate him for another reason, that they barely veil...he is half black!

When articles are written claiming the United States does not have a President, while Republicans block everything, setting up the President for such outlandish claims, with no cooperation offerred ever,  it is for one reason;   a moderate President, who championed a conservative idea for health care reform, is hated and resisted for the simple reason that he is black!

But do not be too happy conservatives.  You may ruin Obama's Presidency, but we will never forget.  And if you ever do elect a President, I am hereby declaring war on you and yours.  No cooperation, no bipartisanship, WAR!   We will never forget the chickenshit approach you and yours have adopted.

And if you somehow elect Cruz, it will be more than political war, it will have to be the real thing, because fascism will come to our great country.  

And fascism never wins.