Why can't we do that?

By Rich Miles

On June 1, 2012, an Egyptian court sentenced former president Hosni Mubarak to life in prison for failing to stop the killing of protestors in a demonstration last year.

Got that? Not for killing anyone - but for failing to stop the killings.

Now I ask you: why can't we do that here in America?

I mean, God knows we had a much worse criminal in the White House for 8 years. Just the short list of his crimes include election fraud and stealing at least one, possibly two national elections; nearly bankrupting the national budget to the tune of trillions of dollars, and then blaming it on his successor; and last but by no means least, the killing of over 4000 American soldiers and countless Iraqi soldiers and civilians, and maiming even more thousands on both sides, in an unnecessary and pointless war designed to a) avenge one man, his father, who was not even injured by any Iraqi, and b) get himself re-elected, on the belief that the American people would not vote out even the most incompetent leadership in wartime. Remember "Don't change horses in the middle of a stream", Lincoln's campaign slogan? I am virtually certain that the overweeningly stupid American electorate has never done that, voted out a president in wartime since then, and probably not before. Nixon took over for LBJ in Vietnam, but that was voluntary. Johnson quit.

So why can't WE try and convict the criminal who was in the White House for 8 years, and who has put this country in such a bloody-awful mess in so many ways? Why can't we avenge our national shame in electing him twice, and put the sumbitch in prison for the rest of his life? He's only 65 years old, and if we put him in prison for life, he'll likely stay there to serve as a national example for many more years than Mubarak, who is 84 and reportedly in poor health.

Look, I've said this so many times before, but it will serve my thesis to say it again: we must nail some of these people, most egregiously Bush, who by now is firmly established as the worst president in U.S. history - we must ensure that there are CONSEQUENCES to heinous acts like Bush's, or politicians will keep doing this kind of crap in the future, assured in the knowledge that they can GET AWAY WITH IT, to their own and their friends' enrichment (see tax breaks for the wealthy, over and over again, among other things).

I mean it, people - we all complain about what a bunch of crooks we have in Washington, and our respective statehouses and city halls, and I think it would not be overstating to say that it's gone on for hundreds of years and will continue for hundreds more, if we don't take steps to curtail it!

And really, the only steps that will have any HOPE of curtailing such behavior is to PUT THE BASTARDS IN JAIL!!! Or even, in extreme cases, execute a bunch of 'em. What more fitting judgment for GWB, who used US military personnel like his own personal game pieces in a war NO ONE wanted, except him and his coterie of war criminals? Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, and many, many more?

I mean, am I wrong? Do you think the sumbitches will reform themselves on their own? There are politicians like Alan Grayson, Russ Feingold (sadly voted out of office), Dennis Kucinich, John Yarmuth, and a few more, who are not only honest, but will continue to be honest even to their own political detriment. Even after nearly 4 years, I can't say I'm sure where our current president falls on this continuum. I think he's more honest than not - but I don't know if I can call him honest.

But at any rate, the overwhelming majority of elected officers in this country are thieving, lying, say-anything-to-get-elected bastards! They craft and pass legislation that exempts themselves from the broader laws of the land, and they take bribes and let themselves be bought every day of the year. And yet there is no punishment, no consequences, nothing to HURT the bastards into stopping this crap. They are using taxpayer money to screw and hurt the taxpayers - you and me!

So will we keep believing that they are all assholes except OUR guy, and keep electing our guy, no matter how corrupt he obviously is? Or will we wake up to the reality that MOST, almost ALL of them are corrupt, and we have to clean house across the board - perhaps ousting even the few who are honest, just to avoid even the appearance that we're going to keep any of the bad ones?

Anti-incumbency!!! Say it loud, we're mad and proud!

Gotta get rid of the bad guys - AND do it in a way that will let their replacements know that it can happen again! That never again will we be arm-twisted into keeping the assholes for years and years and years - viz., the proud racist Strom Thurmond, who was in the U.S. Senate and other office for over 50 years. And just by the way, died an incompetent and addled old man, still in the Senate at the age of 100.

Public office is not supposed to be a lifetime profession. And getting rich off the taxpayer's nickel is NOT an honorable means to personal wealth. Why is that so hard for politicians to understand? Why is it so hard for US to understand, such that when the fools screw up, we know to get rid of them?

When does GWB's trial on the above charges and more begin? I want it televised, including the hanging. OK, he won't be hanged, no matter how much he may deserve it - but can he go to prison? Please? Can we watch?

I remain, sir or madam, your obt. svt.,
Rich Miles

Equal taxation - Why is this so hard?

 by Rich Miles

Why is this such a difficult issue to resolve? Why isn't it axiomatic that all taxpayers should pay the same percentage of taxable income? Why did ANYONE, even the Bush "administration", ever believe that the rich should pay a lower percentage? And screw all that "class warfare" nonsense. If we were really engaged in class warfare, there would be dead rich people littering every street in the country.

Here's the reason why this issue is so difficult to resolve:  Because the morons in our government who are charged with debating it and fixing it are almost ALL  - are you ready for it? - RICH PEOPLE!!

Rich people who want all the money they can get more than they want to cure our nation's ills. Rich people who are so effin' greedy that they will use whatever ludicrous rhetoric they can choke out in debate rather than pay their fair share of taxes, who sincerely DO NOT CARE what a mess our government's budget is in, as long as they get theirs.

I don't know why this point has not been made more often. I do a lot of political reading, and I don't think I've ever seen it brought up before - the operant word in this issue is GREED!!!

Nothing else. Not national pride. Not class warfare. Not budgetary considerations. GREED. Primarily but not exclusively Republican greed. Exclusively the greed of our public servants. People WE elected to administer our government.

And instead of doing what we elected them for, they are serving almost exclusively their own GREED!!!

And dodging and weaving and making it someone else's fault. And completely ignoring the fact that we elected them to serve us.

GREED!! That is all it is on both sides of the aisle, though mostly the Republicans, simply by nature.

And the people who would be responsible for changing our laws so as to make this sort of thing less possible are THE SAME RICH, GREEDY, THIEVING ASSES who can't even admit that they're selling our nation down the river.

There aren't 10 members of the two houses of Congress who are worth the powder it would take to blow them up. Not 10 out of 535!! That's my estimate, but can you deny it? I don't think so.

And this is - most certainly and undeniably - what is causing our national debt to pierce the sky. What causes it to be counted in numbers bigger than any of us can even fathom: TRILLIONS!!! Well on the way to QUADRILLIONS.

And until we get rid of them, they'll keep doing it. The only thing that has even a chance of working is a massive anti-incumbent movement that is used in not one election cycle, not two, but THREE times running, until we have convinced our servants that we can do it - that we can get rid of them, and will. Even the very few who are doing their jobs must be dumped. Because we have to take our nation back.

We really have to. Otherwise it won't BE our nation any more.

Obama Innocent of International Intrigue

by Rich Miles

ATTN: All blithering idiots and Republicans (oops, sorry, that's redundant): George Clooney's arrest (and his dad Nick's, and several Dem congressdogs as well) in front of the Sudanese embassy in Washington DC on Friday Mar. 16 had nothing whatever to do with President Obama cracking down on peaceful protests. I would not be surprised to learn that the President had little or no knowledge of the incident until long after its conclusion. So please, spare us the baring of your lack of understanding of such things. Pres. Obama did NOT crack down on peaceful protests. And Clooney was released about an hour later on $100 bail. OK? Stop being so knee-jerk stupid. Something even mildly negative happening in Wash., DC does NOT mean Obama orchestrated it. Any more than it did when your darling GWB was there.

What if? Part XXVIII

by Rich Miles

UPDATE 3/14: Santorum won Alabama and Mississippi, extending his streak of states that are filled pretty much UP with morons. I mean, how many lists of various accomplishments and standards find the states that Santorum won - pretty much ALL of them - near the bottom of those various lists? But hey, they know who they want for preznit. Don't even think otherwise!
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Original Post:

Remember Thomas Frank's excellent book, and Laura Cohen's very fine documentary film of the same name, "What's the Matter with Kansas"?

Well, I'm here to tell you, whatever WAS the matter back in 2004 is still the matter. Because today, Kansas gave Rick "The Loony" Santorum a victory, one of his few in this primary campaign season. Among his other high points were Tennessee and Oklahoma, those two bastions of high-mindedness.

Now look, folks - let's get this clear. I don't think any of the Republican candidates are worth the powder it would take to blow them up. But Santorum is a particularly nasty piece of work. A fundamentalist raver, denier of global warming, hater of women, and on and on - and these folks in the above named states want him to represent their party in a national election against incumbent Barack Obama.

Well, as a Democrat, I can actually applaud the choice of Santorum, because I believe he will be easier to beat in the general election than most of the rest of Republicans. But the thing I simply can't let go of is, what if he wins?

What if all odds are tipped, and an entire country goes mad - again - don't forget that we elected Geo. W. Shrub TWICE not too long ago. So then we will end up with at least 4 and possibly 8 years of medievalism in our nation's highest office. And while I probably overreacted to GWB, because he simply didn't have the power I attributed to him, I don't want to spend those 4 or 8 years wondering when the damn fool is going to plunge us into World War III.

Because that is what is to fear from a Santorum presidency, among other things. Another war, centered in but not exclusive to the Middle East, avenging imagined wrongs to Christianity going back to the original Crusades and beyond. And our exhausted armed forces will be called up again, and become even more exhausted.

Or perhaps he will do what I would almost bet he is just dying to do, and force an Armageddon by dropping the Big One, the atom bomb, on our real or perceived adversaries. In fact, I won't just say I would ALMOST bet on such an eventuality. The mushroom cloud of an American bomb would be suitably biblical for a man of Santorum's overweening ambition and limited intellect and thoughtfulness. And he is a little man, in spirit for certain, and for all I can tell, physicality. But definitely in spirit. And an atom bomb would work better than a pair of 4" lifts to raise his prospects, figuratively speaking.

So I keep asking myself - no matter how unlikely it is, it is not impossible. So what if he wins in the general?

Can you imagine an America under such a limited and bellicose leader?

I can, and it makes me very, very afraid.

Ignorance is easier to control than intelligence

by Rich Miles

In today's (March 9, 2012) New York Times, my old pal Paul Krugman (I never really met him, but I FEEL like I know him) wrote a piece that he (or the NYT headline writer) titled "Ignorance is Strength",   in which he posits that the Republican Party has come to oppose higher education, because an educated electorate is a product of "indoctrination mills" that destroy religious faith.

Now, it's hard to interpret such a thought as anything but a statement that smart, educated people don't believe in the fundamentalist booshwah that people like Santorum and Romney and other morons of their ilk put out.

It is probably provable that this is true - the smarter and more educated one is, the less likely to believe in religious/superstitious claptrap. But as Krugman points out, that's just a happy side effect of being a generally educated person. The anti-religious "indoctrin- ation" that Santorum et al. fear so much is not intentional.

But again, Krugman sums up the intelligent thinking on the matter at hand by closing his column thus:

"After all, over the past 30 years, there has been a stunning disconnect between huge income gains at the top and the struggles of ordinary workers. You can make the case that the self-interest of America’s elite is best served by making sure that this disconnect continues, which means keeping taxes on high incomes low at all costs, never mind the consequences in terms of poor infrastructure and an undertrained work force. 

And if underfunding public education leaves many children of the less affluent shut out from upward mobility, well, did you really believe that stuff about creating equality of opportunity? 

So whenever you hear Republicans say that they are the party of traditional values, bear in mind that they have actually made a radical break with America’s tradition of valuing education. And they have made this break because they believe that what you don’t know can’t hurt them."

IOW, keep 'em poor and stupid, and they'll keep voting for the Republicans. Because they don't know any better. And because the Republicans are the party of willful ignorance.

Amen, Brother Krugman. Amen!!

Could we be a little less stupid, please?

by Rich Miles

America has gotten beyond the place of respectful disagreement. We have in our country an entire political party that regularly and robustly lies its ASS off to us all. I mean, we're not talking about people who see available facts, and interpret them differently from the opposition. We're talking about an entire group of people, roughly half of our populus, that simply has no regard whatever for the truth. And really, the worst thing about this fact is that there are a LOT of people - again, nearly half the people here, who either approve and subscribe to these lies, or are too fuckin' stupid to recognize that they're being lied to. And we call these congenital liars - wait for it - Republicans. I mean, my mom and dad taught me that lying was wrong. I bet yours did too. But somehow, it seems undeniable that Republican parents did NOT teach their kids that lying is wrong, or if they did teach it, it didn't take.

Because those who register as Republicans, or who call themselves so, simply do not care what they say, do not have the slightest regard for the veracity or lack thereof of what they say or write, and further, have no regard for the damage to individuals or the nation that their untrue utterances cause. It's really that simple, and there is no room for equivocation any longer.

Let me give you some examples. This is a list from an article I ran across this morning at this website: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cf8_1311352141

1. Republican Leaders Agree U.S. Default Would Be a "Financial Disaster"
2. Ronald Reagan Tripled the National Debt
3. George W. Bush Doubled the National Debt
4. Republicans Voted Seven Times to Raise Debt Ceiling for President Bush
5. Federal Taxes Are Now at a 60 Year Low
6. Bush Tax Cuts Didn't Pay for Themselves or Spur "Job Creators"
7. Ryan Budget Delivers Another Tax Cut Windfall for Wealthy
8. Ryan Budget Will Require Raising Debt Ceiling - Repeatedly
9. Tax Cuts Drive the Next Decade of Debt
10. $3 Trillion Tab for Unfunded Wars Remains Unpaid

Ya see, faithful reader, there are NO Republican fiscal conservatives currently in office on a Federal level. They are too busy shovelling billions and trillions of federal dollars (read "your money") into the pockets of their reactionary right-wing contributors to be fiscally conservative.

And that is indeed where the money goes - to wars (who gets the bulk of the money that's spent on wars?), and to exTREMEly expensive stuff that the government does actually need, but not at those prices!!. We're being financially raped, repeatedly, and the lying Republicans are perpetuating the violation. I mean sure, Democrats want to spend money too - but by and large, Democrats want to spend it on the American people, most specifically those who need help.

Do you realize that Reagan nearly tripled the national debt. And the two Bushes combined nearly tripled it again. Obama has increased the national debt by a definable percentage, but with the Stonewall Congress of Mitch McConnell, he has been unable to do it to anywhere near the degree of the other three.

And yet, the Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility!!

Ya see, Americans, this is just the most blatant example of how the Repubs get away with such lies: they simply say the opposite of the truth SO MANY TIMES, that the lie becomes so ingrained in our thinking that it becomes widely viewed as the truth.

And lots of our fellow citizens - and perhaps even YOU!!! - cooperate in this self-throat-cutting!

So I ask you: could we be a little less stupid about these matters? Not only this one, but this is a supremely important one. If we learn nothing else from Greece's pain these days, can't we learn that it is indeed possible for an ENTIRE COUNTRY to default on its debts. And as they used to say back in the old communist-scare movies in the 40's and 50's, IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU!!!

And to me, and to all of us.

And the first thing we need to do to prevent it is just totally humiliate and remove the Republican party. And then the Tea-Partiers. And then after that, if the truth be told, we probably need to get rid of the Democrats as well, and start over with new political parties with clearer goals and ideologies.

And we need to make sure these new parties are not so run by money, and not so beholden to the monied interests that now own them all.

Good luck on that, sez I.

But we can try, can't we?  I mean, doesn't a little bit of hope still spring eternal?

Bill Moyers is Back! Yay!! Etc.

 by Rich Miles

It's only been 20 months since Bill Moyers, that voice of reason and the underprivileged, announced his retirement, well-earned and not surprising, from his PBS television show Bill Moyers' Journal, on which he had hosted and rabbleroused for some 4-5 years. This was, as near as I can calculate, his fourth or fifth retirement from American television. His other TV efforts included Bill Moyers on America, NOW with Bill Moyers, In Search of the Constitution, The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis, The Power of Myth, the original Bill Moyers' Journal, and that only takes us back to 1971. He worked in print journalism for 4 or 5 years before that.

So now that I've given you the precis version of Moyers' resume, let me urge you to watch his newest program, Bill Moyers & Company. His first guests are the co-authors of another one of those books that I think everyone should read, Winner-Take-All Politics, by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson. In an approximately 40-minute interview, the discussion of how our country ended up in such a place of income and wealth inequality will make you raise an eyebrow or two, but all three participants present their theses so clearly and without undue passion that it is hard to dispute any portion of what they say. I suspect those who will dispute the most will be those very 1%-ers who are discussed at some length in the interview, and who are benefitting the most from the situation.

I have to say, if there is any person in America who does not know that the wealth in America is tipping toward the top severely, that person is probably one of the beneficiaries of the tipping, and is not taking notice so much.


Folks, America is in trouble. The rich are becoming richer, and the poor are becoming poorer. The middle class, of which I s claim membership, is dwindling down to almost nothing, both in influence and in sheer numbers. And the rich are unrepentant, as one might expect them to be, but they are short-sighted! As I have asked several times in the past, perhaps slightly jokingly, but not now, if the rich take EVERYTHING (Winner-take-all), what will happen to the rest of us, and what will the rich do without us to cook for them, clean for them, wipe their noses and their asses?

Do they propose to own us, so that the expense of our services is minimized? Because there is NO way I will believe that these overstuffed bags of shit are simply going to do without. That's the beauty of being obscenely wealthy - you don't have to do without anything, and you don't have to do anything unpleasant for yourself.

It sounds like an unlikely sequence of events, but we're moving toward it even now! I mean, at the current rate of events, we could reach a place where the top 1% of the population will be taking 70-80% of the resources available to the nation. They're already taking over 40% of those resources - that is a stat mentioned in the Moyers program today.

So - as the band Chicago asked in a song of the same name some years ago - Where do we go from here?

Well, I suggest you join the Occupy folks. No telling where that's going, but someone has to speak out against this insufferable greed and theft. And if I am to be perfectly frank, the so-far illogical, but moving toward making perfect sense conclusion to this is - Revolution!

 Like the French Revolution - Let them eat cake, indeed!

There is more to say on this topic - I'd like to let you say at least some of it. Send your comments. I promise, all those that are not TOTALLY insane will get published.

Vive la revolution!!!
r

The only answer to the problem

by Rich Miles

Well, finally - I mean, fucking finally!!! A guy with a national voice actually says something that I've been saying off and on for YEARS!!

Guy named Jeffrey Sachs, frequent NPR commentator if I am remembering correctly, said in an on-air rant the other day that virtually all Congressdogs, both houses, are owned by their business and industry handlers, and what the voters of this country must do is to make being voted out of office a real fear for these scumbags.


There have been discussions along these lines for decades: term limits for Congress,scaring the bastards with anti-incumbency movements, etc. But nothing ever took hold - and since the Congressdogs themselves were responsible for any legislation that might put the fear of God into them, there was little chance of anything happening on the floor-vote level. This remains true today.

So the only way we can take back control of Congress (as if we ever had control in the past) is to get serious about making moves toward either term limits - vote out any 'Dog who won't support them - or simply organize for anti-incumbency. And we have to be serious about it.

Can we do it? So far, the main move has been for us to say that all Congress is a bunch of thieving bastards EXCEPT our guy - which makes anti-incumbency worth about a half a bucket of warm spit.

I mean, C'MON, people - we have to vote 'em ALL out - even the few that might actually be reasonably decent public servants. Every 4-6 years in the House, and every 12 years in the Senate, there has to be a complete turnover - all new guys.

And if we ever want our country back, and to relieve that simply unfathomable debt, we HAVE to do it. There's no other way.

He is the very model of a modern Repug asshole

by Rich Miles

UPDATE BELOW

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Dishonorable Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI*)- who just last evening had the indecent and unmitigated gall to comment on the ass of the First Lady of the United States.

That's right, he referred to Michelle Obama's backside as a "large posterior".

Now tell me, is there a ruder or bigger piece of shit anywhere in the United States than James Sensenbrenner?

Just as a point of information, African (not necessarily African AMERICAN, though sometimes it is so) women are prone to a condition known as stertopygia, or large buttocks. It's a racial characteristic, and the closer the woman is generationally to Africa, the more likely she is to suffer this condition. Or so I am told by a medical man who is supposed to know these things.

But A) Michelle Obama does NOT suffer it to a large degree, and B) she is the First Lady of the United States and thus due some greater respect than Assh. Sensenbrenner has afforded her, and C)  Jim Sensenbrenner is an unrequited asshole whose momma must not have taught him any manners.

Oh, I'm sorry - Sensenbrenner is a Republican. None of the above, therefore, may or should come as a surprise to anyone. ANYone. I mean it. God, these people make me want to throw up.

And I'd love to see the President call Mr. SenSen out, and thrash the crap out of him for insulting Obama's wife.

Sadly, we don't do things that way anymore. But maybe sometimes we should.

UPDATE : Assh. Sensenbrenner apologized for this incident. Doesn't count. He knew he never
should have said it in the first place. It is the height of arrogant racism that he ever said it in the first place. And yes, racism is what it was. If our First Lady were white, this incident would never - NEVER! - have occurred.
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Office of Congressional Child Supervision

by Rich Miles

Man, I'm tellin' ya, the new formatting on Blogger has given me fits!! I've been trying to make some minor alterations to the following article for over 24 hours, and finally had to delete the whole thing and repost it. Where's the instruction sheet for this bitch?

I'm sorry I've been so long between postings - I've been unwell. I'm a little better, but not what I'd call back to normal. After my stroke - NOT Hashimoto's Encephalopathy, as previously diagnosed - I am a little better, but not totally back to normal. Not sure I ever will be, but at least I'm better than I was right after the event.

Anyway, unwell or no, there are a few matters I want to point up, to wit:

Republicans are an entire herd of one-trick ponies, whose only trick is tax cuts. I mean really, when was the last time you heard of a Republican in Congress proposing, pushing and passing anything BUT tax cuts?

Republicans have gotten away with that trick long enough - since the first few months of Shrub's first term, or approximately 10 years - they've pushed almost literally nothing but tax cuts. And we - the American electorate - have let them get away with it. They've shown their wholesale lack of respect for the intelligence of the American people by behaving as if it were just inconceivable that any American would ever vote against a candidate who was instrumental in the creation of a tax cut.

And with few exceptions, until the last couple of election cycles, they've been RIGHT. We have been just that stupid, to let the Republicans dangle the shiny beads of tax cuts in front of us, and we've followed the Republicans over the cliff of tax cuts.

And now the country is in an absolutely inconceivable deficit mess at almost every level, and America is on the verge of bankruptcy. And because we have a Democratic president, the Republicans are getting away with blaming Obama for debt that could not possibly be his fault.

 And ya know what? I am almost positive that this entire mess is intentional on the part of the Repugnicans.

The song goes like this: tax cut, deficit, reasoning for cutting social services, more tax cuts, bigger deficits, etc., etc.

And we keep letting the bastards do it!!

What America needs to do is to turn its attitudes toward its legislators around: they're not big important men who should be listened to. They're our employees, who should damn well do what we tell them to do!! How do you think that would play, us telling them that they work for us and that there will be no more perks, no more legislative skullduggery, no more insider trading, no more lack of oversight etc. etc.

Because it's true - they work for us, and they must be forced to do what their bosses want them to do!!!

With computers capable of doing feats of data crunching unheard of as recently as 10 years ago, I would favor a system of national referenda counted by computer, and supervised by a Cabinet-level Office of Supervision of the Children in Congress.

In other words, every time a vote comes up in Congress, Americans would express their opinions via national computer poll. And that way, Congress would know what to do. How to vote, how to speak on the Floor, When to jump and how high. You know, stuff like that. And in order to be hired to the Cabinet-level office that oversees all this, one would have to prove that one is capable of really BEING non-partisan!

So if all this went into action, we'd be at our home computers, voting for legislation, once or twice a day or more. Then we'd know what the will of the people really is!

No more leaving these assholes to their own devices, to get the country into all manner of messes. We'd know what they were doing, maybe even be able to reduce the instances of sexual misconduct and insider trading. And maybe the sort of men and women attracted to run for Congress would improve a bit, as having a seat in the House or Senate ceased to be like one big frat party, with occasional classes to interrupt the nonstop partying.

And the beauty of this plan is that, as I have conceived it, it wouldn't even require a constitutional amendment. Floor votes, certainly, but not an amendment.

Of course, all this is so unlikely to happen, because just as with congressional labor laws, and congressional health coverage, and congressional child labor laws, the foxes are the ones running the hen coop. I'm afraid I can't even offer a hint of a solution to that.

But I say again, it needs to be done. Congress is a bloody mess, and no longer serves the American people in any but the most rudimentary fashion. Think it over. Then write me with any addendum to this solution that occurs to you. Hey, I'm enough of an optimist to believe that this could at least become a topic of discussion in our nation's capital.