Observations

I don't often do this but I saw this photo today and I had to share it. I can't tell for sure who took the shot so I can't give proper credit but I'll post a link to the article. I'm not posting it because it's a technically perfect shot or because it's anything different. Really there isn't anything at all special about it other than the content itself.

While I admittedly owned a gun at one time and I am a fan of good combat/war photography I am in no way a fan of guns nor am I pro-war. I am far from either and actually the older I get the more anti-gun I become. I am posting it because I looked at this photo of a woman on the far side of the globe and I was proud of her. I have no idea who she is and I doubt very much we would agree on anything at all but I am proud of her. I think that In her own way she is doing as much for equality in this country as the first gay couple to be married in New York.

Other than that I'll let the photo speak for itself.

Female Special Operators Now in Combat

Observations from the Coffee Shop 7.7

Today are the debt ceiling and budget talks between President Obama and Congressional leaders but I don't think anything will come of it yet. The Republicans seem to be itching to take the country over the proverbial cliff just to prove Obama is a lousy president and make sure he doesn't get re-elected. They don't seem to mind the prospect of taking the rest of the world's economy along down for the ride.

What I don't understand is why we don't see more in any mass media about a constitutional answer to the debt ceiling game of chicken they seem to be playing. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution states “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” Many leading economists, the Treasury Secretary, and even a few Republican Senators think this gives the President the authority to do anything necessary to ensure the nation's debts are paid. Basically he could say the Congress won’t pay the bills so I will, yet we don't hear a thing about it in any of the major media outlets.

This might not sound good, and I'm sorry if it pisses anybody off, but one thing I'm totally tired of is seeing and hearing rich white men with perfect teeth and tans tell us that we all have to sacrifice while they hand the richest Americans bigger and bigger tax cuts. I saw last night that some schools will be going to 4 day school weeks this year because they can't afford to keep the schools open for 5 days a week and yet we hand billions and billions to oil companies, corporate farms, and banks.

Honestly I don't know why some people just can't wake up and see what is happening before we end up a third world country taking handouts wherever we can. Below is a kind of CliffNote of The Rachel Maddow Show from June 27th that for me says it best.

"In 2005, four Republican senators decided to bring back something called PAYGO, basically a rule that says if the government spends something, it has to compensate for that somewhere else in the budget....
And even though four Republican senators, including John McCain, had supported legislation to do that in the past, when President Obama said, “OK, I will do this thing that you want,” those same Republicans decided that they did not want PAYGO anymore....
The idea of Congress setting up a bipartisan blue ribbon panel to work on bringing down the deficit was an idea Republicans had signed on for. Seven Republican senators co-sponsored legislation to establish that sort of commission last year....
And then when President Obama said "I like this idea of yours, let‘s go forward with this" those same seven Republicans decided they were against it....
Same thing on cap and trade. Democrats wanted to just ban certain levels of pollution in the air, but Republicans said, no, no, no, we have to use the market, Cap and trade was the Republican idea. Republicans were for it. Then, so was President Obama. So, now, Republicans are against it....
Democrats wanted to require that businesses cover all of their employees. Republicans said, no, no, we Republicans, we like bumper stickers about individual responsibility.
So, their counterproposal, the Republican idea on health reform was that business would be required to cover all their employees, but individuals, individual responsible, individuals would be required to get insurance.
The individuals mandate, Republicans were for it. Then so was President Obama. So, now, Republicans are against it....
Republicans were for terrorism trials in the United States when George W. Bush was president. Then so was President Obama, so now Republicans are against it.....
During the Bush presidency, the current Republican leaders in Congress voted 19 times to increase the debt ceiling by a total of $4 trillion. But now, they have discovered a desire to take a stand on this issue....
The kind way to understand this is shameless, craven, unprincipled partisan hackery."
She finished with, "Given the choice between thinking of them as that evil and thinking of them as just disgusting, I would rather think of them as just disgusting."