Personal day today. Taking care of the S.O.'s shopping list-she always has one when I come to the US. Going out to the house and checking on it-especially since I will probably be coming back to it. As a drive around here-I am reminding myself of the fact that every place has good things about it, and I will need to come to terms with that if I do end up moving back here. If I can find a job that will allow me to pay down my bills, and build equity in the house, and give me the benefits I need-then that's a good thing. Life is about compromises.
I've been watching all the political coverage of the last two days. It is kind of scary how Chris Christie is being annointed as the next Ronald Reagan. The guy is a plain speaker and I can see him riding , just like Reagan, on white horse up Pennsylvania Ave. My big fear is that, just like Reagan, Christie will lay the seeds of our own destruction. Its only now in the view of hindsight-we can see what a disaster Reagan's policies were for America. Remember he is the guy who got the GOP to worship at the supply side altar. Go back and carefully read the history of the era-it was not the tax cuts that jump started the economy. It was a technological revolution combined with huge defense spending. But the Reagan era awakened the worst instincts of Americans and 20 years later led to the worthless people who make up teabagger land.
As for the Virginia race, I refer you to Mr. Pierce:
Face facts. In a sane political world. Ken Cuccinelli should have lost by 12 points. Bishop Jackson should have lost by 98. These are two guys who have to dial 1 just to place a call to "extreme." Instead, this morning, Cuccinelli can argue fairly convincingly that he got sold out by his national party, that his ideas were not rejected, and that the destruction of the Affordable Care Act is a winning issue, provided the moneymen get behind it and push. McAuliffe even acknowledged this in his looonnnnnng acceptance speech last night, where he spent a lot of time thanking the Republicans who supported his campaign, as if most of them won't go back to the business of undermining him by, at the latest, Friday afternoon. In all of this, Ken Cuccinelli won.
That it was a close race at all is a testament to the stupidity of both the Virginia voter and the Democratic party. And yes, Virginia, a lot of you are stupid.
And I have been watching the national blame game about the health care law. Just like with the wars-no one ever puts the blame where it belongs. In Iraq the blame lay with the Iraqi people, who proved and continue to prove every stereotype I ever had about Arabs. In the case of the health care law-so many people refuse to blame the people deserve the blame. The insurance companies who created the current mess we have-and by their recent actions-remind us again why they are greedy and way, way, too rich. "You can keep you policy" was based on an expectation that insurance companies would do what the law required, and upgrade the policies to where they should have been. Juan Williams finally had the gumption to point it out:
Time to get moving.