Penny-Pinching Teapublicans Kill more Taxpayers. (Amtrak Edition)

Their response? “Pinch MORE pennies”. As witness the recent deadly Amtrak derailment, caused by “republican” budget cuts. Said budget cuts have slowed down improvements that could have prevented the accident:

One key safety feature was missing from the stretch of tracks where an Amtrak passenger train going more than 100 mph derailed and killed seven people.

Investigators say that if positive train control had been installed on that stretch, the technology could have automatically slowed the train down and perhaps saved lives.

Another GOP budget-cutting spree resulted in engineers being forced to work more and sleep less.

Accident investigators have been unwilling to speculate on whether operator error or mechanical problems led to Tuesday’s deadly Amtrak derailment. But for months, members of the labor union representing locomotive engineers have complained that recent reductions in rest and downtime could lead to tragedy. “You need to be able to have some kind of chance to get off the equipment, turn your mind off for a while,” said Fritz Edler, a veteran engineer who wrote a scathing letter last December to Amtrak managers on behalf the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. 

The letter accused Amtrak of forcing “dangerous changes” in the scheduling of engineers that have had the effect of reducing rest time in between trips to Washington, D.C. and New York City. 

“Forcing shorter breaks, day after day, between runs increases fatigue related risk and the potential for loss of focus,” the letter warned. 

But do the Elephants care? Nope. Within a few hours of the deaths that they helped cause, they passed even bigger budget cuts. Yes. They really did. Boehner and Co. are so blase’ about killing people, they stole even MORE taxpayer money to give to their fat-cat buddies, before their victims’ bodies had yet been given a decent burial.

Gentle Reader, we all know that stuff costs money. Trains, tracks, engineers, safety equipment, all of these things COST MONEY. Congress steals money from Amtrak just to hand it to a load of their billionaire cronies, regardless of whether or not the people whose taxes they stole live or die. Those budget cuts aren’t just numbers on a spreadsheet: they are actions that have consequences. Consequences such as dead people.

“Republicans” Do. Not. Care. Not about anything but themeselves and the bastards who have bought them. Greedy, murderous motherf***ing Teapublicans.

Get on out, and vote them out. Before they kill you or yours with budget cuts, like they did those commuters on Amtrak.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Ebola to Republicans: “Thank you!”

Mr. Ebola Virus held a surprise press conference yesterday, as you all know by now. Speaking and secreting to a room full of reporters, many of them sketchily covered in makeshift protective gear, Ebola lauded the American “Republican” party for their assistance in spreading himself across multiple countries in a short period of time. But enough of me yakkin’, let’s hear what the Virus himself had to say:

“Thank you all for coming on such short notice, I appreciate it. I gotta say, I am getting too much credit for the death and mayhem I have wrought upon West Africa, and now America too. It’s unfair of you to not give props to those awesome Teapublicans in America. Their budget cuts in the past helped degrade the world’s ability to fight me, and even better for me, they are still refusing to spend money to fight me.

It’s helping me, no question about it. They throw money at terrorists and such, but leave me free to murder and terrorize at will. It’s not bragging to predict that I will kill thousands more people this year than those pathetic loons in ISIS and Al-Qaida put together, and I couldn’t do it without pig-ignorant, medieval morons like Boehner, Inhofe and Vitter shafting the CDC, NIH, WHO, and everybody else who needed resources to prepare for my assault on the human race.

That’s all I had to say, really. Please keep ignoring me, don’t listen to experts, panic all you want, I live for that. And vote Republican, they are my biggest supporters!”

Sounds like “mission accomplished” once again, doesn’t it?

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

How the Budget Ceiling is SUPPOSED to work, and why it doesn’t.

Here is how the process actually works:
Step One: Congress decides how much money to spend and passes bills so the rest of the government can spend it.
Step Two: since Congress rarely considers whether or not we can afford all of the spending they authorize, there is usually a budget deficit, which increases the national debt.
Step Three: the Congress allows the treasury to borrow more money to cover the spending that Congress ordered. That is called “raising the debt ceiling”.

Pretty simple, and you may have noticed something: the word “President” appeared nowhere in the process. That is because the Executive cannot and does not allocate the vast majority of Federal funding. The Prexy has damn-all to do with the funding levels established by Congress. All he can do is execute the funding (which is why it is called the “Executive Branch”).

So why does Congress ask the Prexy for “concessions” or “reforms”, whenever the debt ceiling need lifting? The answer, Gentle Reader, is this: Congress is too scared to admit that they are responsible for our massive budget and the resulting red ink, so they play “pin the blame on Obama”. If the taxpaying public knew that Congress was to blame, they might vote their legislators out of office.

And the one thing no Senator or Congresscritter can bear is the idea of having to actually work for a living. So they pretend that it is the eeeeevil Obaminator who is responsible for the deficit. And the “News” media plays chorus to the Teapublican lies.

Remember this when you next cast your ballot. Congress owns the budget, the deficit and the debt. It’s time for those lazy, cowardly millionaires on Capitol Hill to nut up and accept responsibility for their actions, and to stop lying to us about who is to blame for the consequences of said actions.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

President Washington Warned Us. We Didn’t Listen. Now the Government has been Shut Down.

A pplitical party,  acting solely for its own selfish interests, is causing great and lasting harm to the people of the United States of America.  The “Republican” party, in order to raise campaign funds and dominate those interests that oppose it, chose to damage the entire country, just so it could gain even more power than it already had. This is bad, Gentle Reader, very bad indeed.

Here is what President Washington (remember him? War hero? Father of our country? Right, THAT George Washington) said about political parties, way back in 1769:

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

“It serves always to distract the public councils, and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection.”

“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual, and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.”

Sounds pretty familiar, doesn’t it? What he predicted is exactly what Speaker Cruz Boehner  and their political party are doing right now. The “Republican” party, even though it has lost two straight Presidential elections, multiple Senate elections, lost the popular vote for the House, and got its collective nuts kicked in time and again by the Supreme Court, is still trying to take over the government. What they could not do via the will of the people, they are attempting to do via corrupt and extra-Constitutional means.

America, listen to your Father. It is past time that We the People settled things with those partisans who are trying to overthrow our very system of government. The “Republican” party needs its wings clipped. In truth, all parties might need this treatment, but the Repubs are a clear and present danger.

It’s time to honor our founders. The best way to do that is to listen to their wisdom, and act on it.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Once Again, A Democratic President Cuts a Republican Deficit. Almost No One Notices.

This showed up on a friend’s feed, and the Cranky One just had to post it here. Because with all the Benghazi/IRS/NSA brouhahi, it’s a good bet you haven’t heard about it. In less than four years, Obama has cut the budget deficit he inherited from the Shrub in half. That’s right, a “tax and spend Democrat” is a better money manager than a “conservative Republican”. Don’t believe it? Tough rocks, pal, here are the numbers: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.html

Nor is it the first time. Clinton did the same thing to another Bush deficit, if you’ll bother to remember.

It is time for us to throw away the old labels and advertising slogans, and look at the facts. And the facts say, without equivocation, that modern Democrats spend less and tax less than do modern “Republicans”. Shocking, yes. But true. You want to pay less in taxes? Vote for Dems. Believe it or not.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Ohio Republicans Now Have the Legal Right to Order your Rape (Or that of your Wife/Daughter/Mother/Etc.)

You can try to use weasel words if you want, but inserting something into a woman’s body by force or coercion is rape. And that is only part of what Ohio’s one-party government (100% controlled by “Republicans”, no influence by the weak and wimpy Democrats) gave itself the right to do last month.

You see, in addition to an unconstitutional abortion ban, a reduction in available health care providers, and a requirement that Doctors tell lies to women, the new budget requires women to submit to the forcible/coerced insertion of an ultrasound device into their vaginas as part of the abortion process.

That means rape victims who become pregnant would get raped again by order of the state government. Women whose lives would be endangered by pregnancy would be raped by order of the state government. Women carrying babies who would die at birth would be raped by order of the state government.

That woman could be you. Your daughter. Your wife. Your sister, mother, girfriend, grandadughter, pretty much any woman in the state could wind up being raped with the state’s sanction, because of the law just signed by John Kasich.

And people who don’t trust the government with their money are evidently willing to allow the government to order the rape of their womenfolk (or themselves, depending on the gender of the supporter).

Once again: John Kasich now has the legal right to order rape. And he has done so. Click the links below if you don’t believe it.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

http://www.policymic.com/articles/52391/ohio-budget-say-hello-to-the-return-of-transvaginal-ultrasounds

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/07/01/ohio-republicans-deny-women-their-constitutional-rights/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/06/27/first-texas-now-ohio-for-anti-abortion-battle.html

Tough S*** Ohio, You Voted For These A**Hats

“Elections have consequences”. Trite but true, and Ohio is the latest example. In 2010, a lot of Fundagelicals, Raging Righties and other “Republican” voters went to the polls, while a lot of Lefties, Progressives and other Democrats sat it out, or just kinda sorta showed up and voted. The result?

Ohio turned into a Red State. 100% “Republican” controlled, in all three branches of state government. And like all modern “Republicans”, they are doing what they do. Witness the most recent budget signed by The Kasich, containing (among other atrocities):

• a number of unconstitutional anti-abortion laws,
• a huge tax increase on the middle and lower classes,
• a huge tax cut for the upper classes,
• near-elimination of health care services for women,
• more stealing of taxpayer dollars for his cronies at JobsOhio,
• even more stealing of taxpayer dollars for unaccountable charter schools, and
• further cuts to the poor and working poor.

News flash, fellow Buckeyes: it’s our f***ing fault. We voted a bunch of right-wing demagogues into office and handed them complete and total control of all aspects of our lives. And if you didn’t vote for them, most of you either didn’t vote against them, or didn’t do much besides show up and lethargically push the little buttons on the touch-screen device.

Think back a wee bit:

• In 2008, massive and enthusiastic participation by the Left, Progressives and Centrists: Right Winguts got their asses beat like drums.
• In 2010, massive and enthusiastic participation by the Right Wingnuts; Lefties, Progressives and Centrists got their asses beat like drums.
• In 2012, massive and enthusiastic participation by the Left, Progressives and Centrists: Right Wingnuts got their asses beat like drums.

See a pattern here, people?

Kudos to those few Ohioans who actually did some activism during the 2010 election. But to the rest of us, shut your pie-holes: this is what happens when you let a bunch of batsh***-crazy lunatic wingnuts run things.

Yep, that means we all lose. Own it, learn from it, and do better next time.

And if you’re not from Ohio, learn from our mistakes.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

 

While America was distracted by Snowden, You Likely Missed These Important Things

Mr. Blunt and Cranky has friends who do card tricks and carnival magic, and he knows the techniques they use: misdirection, sleight of hand, and so on. He also knows that our “representatives” and “news media” do much the same whenever they want to put one over on us. So it has been with the Snowden “scandal”.

While you were all aghast and agog at the NSA/PRISM/Verizon/Greenwald imbroglio, the following events also occurred, but you probably missed them:

The Supreme Court made it easier to deny your right to vote.

The Supreme Court also took away your right to remain silent and made it easier for your boss to abuse you on the job.

In Michigan, one unelected man is about to steal the pensions and other retirement bennies from retirees, and will also steal from investors .

In Ohio, extreme anti-woman legislation is being advanced along with a tax hike on everyone but the rich, who will get a tax cut. And these are just a few of the events that were being downplayed by the media while they hyped a series of BS scandals, each of which turned out to be nothing when they were looked at closely.

Get the picture, Cranky Nation? We. Are. Being. Conned. A load of cheap carnies and tricksters are getting us to “look over there” at these successive faux scandals while they screw the lot of us with their other hands. It’s time to stop paying attention to these con jobs, at least until we know if there is any fire beneath the smoke.

ALWAYS pay attention to the man behind the curtain. He’s hiding back there for a reason, after all. And if he asks you to look at something amazing, you’d be well advised to look at anything BUT what he’s trying to distract you with.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Romney/Ryan – Out to Steal Nearly Four Decades’ Worth of Our Money

As you’ll recall, the Ryan Budget (which Romney’s people say he’d have signed) would have turned Medicare into a voucher system for people in Mr. Blunt and Cranky’s age group. In other words, if these yahoos win, he will be f***ed out of the Medicare benefits for which he has been paying over the past 38 years.

Do they care? No. These are not people who honor contracts or deals that do not profit them personally. Look at their records and you can see that self-interest is their M.O. They are going to steal  (or perhaps we should say “harvest”?) our money and give us nothing in return. That allows them to shift more money to themselves, their buddies and paymasters; a re-distribution of wealth that would make Nottingham jealous.

You have been warned –  if you are under the magic cutoff age, the money you have sent to Washington in exchange for Medicare will be gone. Stolen by Ryan/Romney and the rest of the “Republican” party. Stolen in broad daylight, and no cops available to arrest them for the crime: because the crime will have been committed by the lawmakers, hence it would be a “legal robbery”. Tens of thousands of dollars of YOUR HARD-EARNED CASH, stolen by the GOP.

Tell me again why you’re voting for these crooks, please.

Mr. B & C

Barack Obama, You Friggin’ Cheapskate

Mr. Blunt and Cranky loves to write, but knows that sometimes someone else’s article is so well-written that it needs little elaboration.  This being one of those time, he encourages all y’all to click this link and read this article: published by those notorious liberals at Forbes, written by a pundit who is a regular on that  commie network Fox News, and backed up by socialists like the Heritage Foundation:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/

Be sure to follow the links used by the author, and if you can take the time, the comments thread is actually worth a glance for a change.  The gist: Obama isn’t as big a spender as the lazy-arsed media would have us believe.  Enjoy.

Mr. B & C

P.S.: As an Eisenhower fan, this writer finds the historical comparison a bit of a giggle, given the current level of irrational anti-Obama screeching in the media and around the country.