BECKY AND STAN'S EXCELLENT ADVANTURE

GOP presidential contender Herman Cain offered up his credentials on foreign policy by telling Christian Broadcasting Network reporter David Brody the following in response to Brody's inquiry as to how Cain will handle questions about his lack of foreign policy experience:

"When they ask me who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan I’m going to say, you know, I don’t know. Do you know?”

I have a hunch that "Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan" refers to a region of Cain's brain where his delusional and non-sensical thinking originates. I'm more concerned, however, about the Republican primary voters, who have listened to the nonsense Cain has been peddling.....and have vaulted him to the head of the GOP presidential field. It's enough to make this non-theist start praying again.

WITH APOLOGIES TO THE BARD

Friends, Tea partiers, Republicans, listen up;
I come to praise Romney, not to bury him.
The flip flops that men do live after them;
The rigid opinions are oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Romney.

The noble Perry
Hath told you Romney was a flip flopper:
If it were so, it would not be a grievous fault;
And grievously hath Romney answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Perry and the rest, --
For Perry is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men and one woman --
Strange creature though she is,
Come I to speak in Romney's defense

He was for Romneycare before it became Obamacare,
now he doth vow to smite it on his first day as Emperor.
But Perry says he was just ambitious;
And Perry is an honourable man.

He hath many women cheering his love of Roe and Wade
Till the Evangelicals have cried No! Romney has wept
And cried: "Out with this noxious pair!
No child shall be untimely ripped!"
But Perry says he was just ambitious;
And Perry is an honorable man.

Whose job outsourcings did the Romney coffers fill:
Upwards of three hundred millions in gold,
And thousands of flesh shorn from their labors;
Did this in Romney seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Romney hath not wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Perry says he was ambitious;
And Perry is an honourable man.

You all did see that on the Detroit factories
I thrice presented him an auto bailout
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Perry says he was ambitious;
And, sure, Perry is an honourable man.

I speak not to disprove what Romney spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
He first said, "I doth support stimulus economus",
Till wondrous one percent said "Fie on false gifts".

You all did love him once, --not without cause:
What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?
O judgement, thou art fled to brutish candidates,
And men have lost their reason over tea and sophistry
--Bear with me;
My heart is in the ring there with Romney's hat
And I must pause till it comes back to me.

THE 1% SOLUTION

Congressman Peter Roskam, (6th District, IL) is one of America's hardest working and dynamic Congressmen. He is everywhere.

In four short years, he has risen to Chief Deputy Whip of the majority House Republican leadership. When House Majority Leader Eric Cantor steps to the microphone to announce that Republicans will not allow a House vote on President Obama's jobs bill, there is Congressman Roskam standing close by. Tune on cable news and you might catch the Congressman talking about how governmental regulation is causing economic "uncertainty". Pick up your ringing telephone and there is Peter himself asking you to join in his telephone town hall meeting to discuss onerous taxes on the "job creators". Check the roll of proposed legislation and Roskam's contribution is his "Tax Hike Prevention & Business Certainty Act", which would permanently set the Capital Gains and Dividend Tax Rates at the current 15%.

Scratch the surface of all this racing around and rhetoric and you discover that most of Roskam's time is devoted to the interests and agenda of the wealthiest 1% of Americans.

And just what does this tiny but enormously wealthy and powerful group stand to lose if the Congressman fails to fulfill their agenda?

The top 1% own 40% of America's wealth, up from 33% a quarter century ago
The top 1% take home 24% of national income, nearly tripling their 9% share since 1976
The top 1% own half of America's stocks, bonds and mutual funds
The top 1% are taking in more of the nation's income and their overall share is greater than at any time since just before the Great Depression

The lure of a lifetime job serving the upper 1%, with their gargantuan wealth, power, prestige has become a common temptation to anyone given the privilege of serving in Congress. Regardless of what plays out in the other 434 Congressional districts, the 700,000 residents of the Illinois 6th deserve better that a Congressman spending nearly 100% of his time working on the 1% solution.

FOR A MOB LOOK IN THE MIRROR MR. CANTOR

"I for one am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country. And believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans.” Eric Cantor, GOP House Majority Leader (Rep. VA) speaking at the conservative Value Voters Summit about the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in NYC and around the country.

Those thousands of peaceful Americans, exercising their First Amendment right to peaceable assembly to express their their grievances against the financial industry for the enormous damage it has done to the middle class and the country as a whole, are anything but a mob. They are peaceful, even in the face of unwarranted NY police pepper spray. They are protesting in the finest tradition of people throughout our history who have worked for and inspired change by peaceably assembling to air political needs not being met by Congress or the Administration.

Close your eyes, listen to Cantor's words, and you can imagine fifty years ago the same inflammatory and dismissive and false statements hurled at the peaceful anti Vietnam war protesters and the peaceful black civil rights protesters, some of whom suffered grievous injuries and even death for their courageous efforts.

Cantor may be one of our highest ranking political figures, but he should be sent back to a grammar school civics class to brush up on the meaning of the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment of which states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances

When Congressman Cantor denigrates groups exercising that First Amendment freedom because it terrifies him that his political agenda is being threatened, not by the opposition party, but by the people at large, he ceases to function as a reputable and responsible public servant.

Cantor has for years now, served the interests of the upper 1% of the wealthy who have managed to decimate the middle class and shatter the American Dream for the vast majority of us. If the Congressman wants to see a real mob, he should merely hold a mirror up to himself and his caucus.

ANYTHING BUT SWEETNESS

Da' Coach, Mike Ditka says he'd spit on Jeff Pearlman, author of "Sweetness: the enigmatic life of Walter Payton", for demystifying possibly the greatest all around football player ever.

That kind of talk is, sadly, not unexpected from a crude, crass sports celebrity who has made millions from his skill as a player, coach and entertaining pitch man for numerous products. Instead of congering up an unpleasant word picture involving violent use of his bodily fluids, Ditka should focus on correcting his family history of DUI's, including his own. Ditka won't have to worry about a posthumous tell all biography fleshing out the all too human details of his life. It's right there on the front page during his work-in-progress.

Originally published in the Daily Herald, October 9, 2011