Life Lesson On Gambling - How NOT to Teach Your Kids

So there we were me and my little family (wife, 2 sons 1 daughter), the Denny’s lunch did leave a little something to be desired but hey, when kids eat free and you have 3 kids who cares. Though I’m on to you Denny’s. Kid’s eat free my ass I like how you conveniently leave out the drinks…Tell me good sirs how do you, in good conscious charge 2.99 for an 8 ounce glass of OJ? $57 dollars later and we’re sitting around talking, joking and just spending some time together as a family.

When we first walked in we noticed the bane of every fiscally responsible parent looming in the corner, that talon of tattered dreams,  those pincers of parental demise, those hooks of hopes lost, the claw game designed by Satan himself:

Now my custom with this game had been to completely say no when the kids would ask for money. Historically this worked, why then did I say OK to the kids on this day? That question will haunt me for years I suspect. Now my two sons burned through their dollar each in under 2 minutes. At 50 cents a game that was 2 games a kid, more than enough to scratch the itch by my reckoning. My daughter though decided to perform a more intense information recon with the claw game. Let me back up a minute in the story. Let it be known that I did put up “the good fight”. My initial response was “no, it’s a waste of money, save your money and spend it on something you KNOW you’re going to get.” After a little begging and daddy being full of food and in a good mood I caved, BUT, I did preface each dollar with “if you lose you can never ask me to play again” along with a speech about saving your money. See when I said this I ran the numbers in my head and clearly the odds were in my favor, as a parent you want to teach your kids lessons when you can, the lesson I had in mind was that if you gamble with a shark you lose no matter what. In my mind I’d painted myself as the shark, giving unfair odds and unrealistic terms (NEVER). How could I lose, the kids would play, get what they wanted, and also learn that they’d wasted money, add to that the agreement that they’d NEVER be able to ask me to play again. What a smart dad, I should write a book. Not only that but the following commercial (click here for youtube video) more than inspired me on this topic. So in recap I had:

Logic, Odds, Statistics and even a commercial in my corner….

So there I sat talking to my wife. Son #1 comes back from the claw emptied handed, I smile. I say, “Now you see what I was saying, what a waste of a dollar and look, you have nothing to show for it.” “I know daddy you were right, I should have saved it,” my son says. Mission accomplished. *Pat self on back*

Son #2 comes back from the claw…empty handed, again I smile. I say,“See what I was saying, it’s a waste.” “You’re right daddy, next time I’ll save it,” my son says.

Phase two of “Operation Save Your Money” is going as planned. “Hey where’s your sister?” I say. “Go back and wait for her.” See what I did there, I am showing them to be responsible for each other and look after one another. I’m batting 1000 on this “teach your kids life lessons” afternoon.

About 3 minutes later my daughter comes around the table. She has a large stuffed bear in a NY Yankee’s hat along with the biggest most beautiful eyes full of excitement. The sense of accomplishment on her face is rivaled in enormity only by the size of her smile.  

Shit, Crap, damn it all to hell.

“Look daddy, I TOLD YOU IT WASN’T A WASTE.

.

.

.

Son of a biotch.

I say, “Good job princess, but you got lucky love, normally you lose.” OK now I know this SOUNDS like I’m being an ass about the situation but I really tried to play up the “Good job princess” at the same time I recognize that I’m standing on the edge of knife here so I have to highlight that it was luck.

She says, “no daddy I knew what I was doing, I’m going to go back and use my other money” (she was 5 so don’t fault the improper grammer)

YES!!! I think to myself. She’ll play, lose her 50 cents, and realize the first try was luck. “Operation Save Your Money” is back on track. Damn it I’m a great dad, I should write a book.

I hear a distant, “woohoo”, “YES!!!”, “cool”

Fuk

There’s no way right? I tell myself maybe they found a dollar, perhaps one of them found a stranger handing out candy…god let it be a stranger handing out candy.

Around comes my daughter. Now she has a Diamondback Teddy bear.

First off who the hell puts a Yankee bear in the same box you put a D-Back bear, that’s just wrong on so many levels.

Second, wtf was the “box stuffer” doing? Certainly not his job. Whichever cut rate carny class he took on proper box stuffing needs to be investigated. I mean seriously 2 bears 1 dollar you can’t sustain a claw game business with that type of turn over. I want answers.

In one afternoon I think I pushed my daughter into gambling. This can’t be life.

Since this day “the crane game”, as my daughter calls it, is now used as a positive reinforcement (when she aces a spelling test for instance) and I’ve at least been able to make her see that overall it is a loss. But I swear this girl wins more stuffed animals than any one single person I’ve ever known. She has a gift.

As a final thought….

Never underestimate your children’s ability to defy Logic, Odds, Statistics and even a commercial. And more importantly never try to teach your kids about gambling by gambling, you make sure those games are completely fixed before you go making wild bets with your kids. :)

Romneyism - Planes With Sliding Glass Windows

I really try to hold myself above poking fun at people for saying silly things…wait no I don’t its sorta “what I do.”

When George W Bush (G-Dub) was president we were privy to what was known as “Bushism” a loose definition of a “Bushism” is when president Bush would open his mouth and say something so profoundly stupid that you began to question the viability of the human race. Keep in mind that prior to Bush’s exposure to the world a word had not been coined to truly encompass the ignorance of some of the shyt coming out of G-Dub’s mouth, enter “Bushism”

Then Obama was elected, and while he has certainly said some silly things one could hardly attribute a new word to describe the fukkery and ignorance of his gaffes, in fact we already have a word for those gaffes, the word is gaffe…*shrug*

Now Romney is having his turn and I really have to question whether we’ll need a new word

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-beverly-hills-fundraiser-20120922,0,2317962.story

Romney said. “When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous. “

We learn 2 things from this comment.

1. You NEVER want to fly in a plane designed by Romney

2. Romney has the potential to really take Bushism to that “next level”

So was this a Romney Gaffe or a Romneyism?

When Bush was president I always anticipated his speeches, not because I thought he was going to say something insightful, but because I knew he was going to step in it, after his 47% comment and the last week in general in a sick way I’m sort of excited to here this guy speak now.

Arizona Cardinals 3-0 - The End is Near

It's been a awhile since I read through Revelations in the bible but i'm pretty sure the Cardinals going 3-0 is one of the signs of the Apocalypse, I planning on staying inside next weekend because if my calculations are correct a 3rd of the stars will be falling from the sky.

Two weekends ago against the Patriots were all but dominated the whole game, Patriots held to 6 points the first half. The game was close because of the surge by the Pats in the 4th. Here's the thing though, it's not really uncommon for Arizona to start out hot and fizzle towards the end, our last 11 games, prior to the prison style rape fest the Cardinals put on the Eagles, were all decided by a single goal, many of those being field goals.

Which is why at the start of the 4th I told my son, now watch as we completely screw up this ginormous lead, he laughed... 2 minutes left in the game and I'm sitting there with the "told you so" look on my face. I'm an Arizona native so if there's one thing most Arizonans know is that if there's a way to fuk up a good lead the Cardinals will find it, and find it they did.

Ironically I let my guard down for a moment as we had the ball late in the 4th and really needed to just run out the clock. I say to myself, "surely even the Cards cant screw this one up..." FUMBLE.

Honestly I had to laugh, I should have known better. Fast forward a couple plays and
it's 20-18 Pats are in field goal range, their kicker is 4-0 on the day and he needs to just chip one in. "Just as I suspected."

OMG wtf. LOL.

That's pretty much the though process I went through as I saw the ball scream to the right.
Wow, the Cardinals lucked out.

Week 3.
"The Eagles, Mike Vick. 2-1, still not a bad start", that's what I tell myself. Then the Cards proceed to manhandle the Eagles. I'm not talking, slight edge/competitive man handle, I'm talking highschool jv squad vs seasoned NFL team. It was horrible.

Here's the thing though, the beat down on the Eagles was just that, a beat down. What's not reflected in the "beat down" on the Pats is the fact that really the Cards dominated most of that game as well. So really the Cards have shown they can dominate powerhouse types teams.

So I'm not quite on the bandwagon, but let's just say I'm cautiously optimistic that there may or may not be a potential statistical chance that the cards may make a move this year in post season (imagine that we're talking post season after 3 weeks).

The only thing that can stop the Cards not is Kolb's big toe...

Mitt Romney's Take on 47% of Americans: Screw Them

Have you ever stuck your foot so far down your own throat that you literally kicked your own ass. If you want to know what that feels like just ask Mittens “No Chance” Romney.

Wow....just wow there's really no other way to express the ...wow...

"[My role]is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives." ~ Mitt Romney (runner up 2012 presidential election)

So basically if you're voting for Obama, OR you're receiving any federal or state assistance you are not only devoid of taking personal responsibility for your own life (which you don't care for), you are also beyond being convinced too. 

Romney does realize he's trying to run an election right? 

Why Occupy Wall Street Failed

America hates biotches. It’s in our blood I think. We don’t like to see whiney kids, we hate that guy in front of us complaining because he was shorted 2 pennies, we cringe when Kobe goes up and comes down sobbing about someone breathing on his neck, when our kids get hurt we tell them to rub some dirt on it (or leaves when it’s in the eye region)…the bottom line is that by and large we don’t like people complaining, crying or biotching. We are a nation of “doers” and go getters.

Watch this, Quick test.

You see a guy on the side of the street, he’s asking for money. He’s just standing there. Next to him there’s a guy asking for money, he has a bottle of windex and a squeegee…which guy are you giving your buck to?

Most are going to help the guy trying to work. That’s us.

Now with those “work-colored” eyes let talk about Occupy Wall Street. It’s been about a year since they first steam rolled into a political capital near you. At first with the noble cause of representing 99%  in a place where only the 1% was being heard. SO wtf happened then? Where are they now and why does it look like the 1% is still the only group being heard?

I have a couple of theories.

Why Occupy Wall Street Failed Theory 1…

As it turns out you can’t just biotch about your problems, see the first sentence of this post, and if the 99% did nothing at all they biotched a good heap. The sad thing is they were actually biotching over important things and as it turns out their message (I’m going to go high level hear and stick with “things are fukked up and need to change”) is 100% valid and was representative of what most people felt and still feel…”things are fukked up and need to change.”

Why Occupy Wall Street Failed Theory 2

THIS IS NOT YOU

.

Nor is this

Or this.

Or is it?

Imagine you’re at work. Your boss comes in calls a meeting of your department and tells you that your whole department is having a salary reduction of 50%, you’ll be required to work weekends and you’ll not be paid overtime. You’re most likely pissed, as is everyone in your department, but hey, you have a mortgage to pay and kids to feed. You grin and bear it, you don’t say shyt. You know who doesn’t grin and bear it? The pink haired new guy with the way to tight jeans and gaping holes in his ears. He speaks up. In fact he’s pissed. He says something.  You don’t say shyt. You think it. You silently nod, but you don’t say shyt. He starts to try to organize a meeting, you don’t say shyt. He posts meeting times in the break room, you don’t say shyt. He meets with the boss, then gets fired... You don’t say shyt.

Why, because he didn’t look like you? Forget the fact that you agreed with him 100% he didn’t look like you so when it came time to join up you couldn’t because he wasn’t you…or so you though. Truth is he’s EXACTLY you (minus the hair, jeans and holes). He has a family, he has a mortgage, he even shared the same job as you. The difference was he wasn’t a biotch, re-read the first sentence of this post again. Now you may be asking, “if he wasn’t a bitoch and America doesn’t like biotches, AND he still failed then what’s the problem?”

The answer: “you’re a little biotch”. The problem wasn’t him, he did the right thing. The problem was you. YOU. YOU saw what was going on, YOU had every opportunity to help change things, YOU didn’t…because you’re a biotch...

Now multiply this on a national level and well it turns out America is full of biotches, approximately 98%.

1% - A group of go getters viciously screwing over the other 99%

1% - A group of go getters trying to fight that other 1%

98% - A group of biotches.

I have another theory but seriously theory 2 has me thinking that it’s more or less the right theory, Occupy Wall Street didn’t fail, Americans failed.

I mean just look at our country, literally 1% owns damn near everything. And the rest sit idly by and we, yes we, don’t do or say a damn thing.

Your goal then should NOT be to become a 99%er, the majority of that group is full of  biotches, you should aspire to be a 1%er.

To recap.

-        Occupy Wall Street was/is a good cause

-        It represented you

-        You’re a biotch.

I suggest changing that last one.

Gay Marriage - The compromise

Wedge Issues

I had an interesting discussion with a few of my boys over lunch the other day regarding everyone’s favorite wedge issue…Gay marriage.

Keep in mind these two friends are staunch republicans and Christians, needless to say the phrase, “I’m really not opposed, nor do I care, too much about a lot of the issues, but what gets me is their [Romney and Obama] stance on gay marriage.”

For a little background information both my friends are between 26-30 years of age, one Hispanic and one Caucasian, one has 2 children, the other has non and both are married.  Both are college educated professionals and both have voted republican since age 18.

The discussion took what I’ve learned to be the normal course for this topic, that’s to say we hit the following topics:

1. The sanctity of marriage

2. The country was founded on Christian principles which do not support gay marriage.

3. God wanted it to be man and woman (Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve).

4. I just don’t understand it.

5. Are you gay?

I normally counter these arguments by outlining the distinction between laws and religion. For me this has always been at the heart of the matter and really what I wanted to talk about and ultimate what I was able to show at least two people over the course of about an hour.

First let me say it’s scary as all hell to think that there are people who almost BLINDLY vote a particular way based on issues that have NOTHING to do with law, but rather religious opinion, I’d also point out that I’m a Christian, and while I personally don’t believe in gay marriage, I also understand that it’s really not my place to try to enforce laws on grown adults when they harm no one, but also deny them rights afforded to other citizens.

 Let’s get on with outlining the distinction between religion and law and how things apply when one discusses “gay marriage”.

The concept of marriage is a funny one. On one hand we have the religious institution, I say religious because almost ALL religious have some form of marriage. On the other hand we have the “legal” term of marriage, which is when two people state that they’d like the law to recognize the “couple” as one. There are a myriad of LEGAL (re: LAW) “benefits” people get for being married; taxes, social security benefits for their spouse, housing classifications (family only), estate planning benefits, FMLA, death benefits, medical benefits, etc, etc, etc…the list goes on and on. (http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/marriage-rights-benefits-30190.html - here is a good site that quickly points out some of the benefits). The list of benefits received from RELIGIOUS marriage really depend on the religion, some include fulfillment of a commandment, a “oneness” with your spouse…aside from that I really can’t think of any to be honest with you, outside of the “rules” that apply to marriage the benefits really don’t amount to much, after all priests don’t get married so we can’t really say it’s “required” by god. To be more accurate we could say IF you decided to marry, God asks that you do XYZ.

The issue with applying the “RELIGIOUS” version of marriage to everyone is pretty self-evident…for those of you who missed the boat NOT EVERYONE IS RELIGIOUS. As Americans we’ve established that people can practice whatever religion they want, even NO religion, I think most people would agree this is a GREAT IDEA. In fact the few places that FORCE religion on their people are places we typically blow up from time to time. If we cannot really apply “religion” to everyone fairly and equally then we really have only one way to look at marriage FOR EVERYONE and that’s through a legal lens.

In order to look at marriage in a purely legal sense we have to remove ALL religious connotations from the discussion, so for that I’m going to replace “Marriage” (as seen in the eyes of the law) with the term “legal union”.  In America we believe in freedoms applied equally to everyone (even if we don’t always practice this,  I’m working the angle that we WANT this to happen and we want to practice it). Give that we WANT freedom and the laws applied equally to everyone when you start talking about legal unions and NOT allowing certain people equal rights you start to run headlong into the problem with NOT allowing homosexuals access to “legal unions.” The truth of the matter is that if you want to prevent someone from having access to legal unions you are denying them a basic rights that everyone else has access to and you’re doing it based on a religious belief. The problem with this is that your religious belief, like it or not, are NOT to be applied to laws. (consider also that not all religions share the same beliefs so who’s beliefs do we apply to the law? (Muslim, Christian, Sikhs, Buddhists???)

Shoving religion into a legal institution such as a legal union would be the same thing as saying muslims can’t get driver’s licenses because they are muslims. Or Mormons can’t get married because they don’t believe what you believe. When you start to pump religion into civil rights you start limiting who has access to those rights and that is the exact opposite of what America stands for.

THE COMPROMISE

Back to the conversation with my two friends.

What I was able to eventually arrive at was that the marriage of two men offended their religious sensibilities, more to the point they thought that the TERM Marriage should not lose it’s Man and a woman status but they had no problem with the term “legal union/civil union” which would allow gays to marry through the government (they agreed that to apply the laws fairy you had to grant the same legal protections to everyone). They held steadfast to their guns saying marriage was between a man and a woman, but agreed that a legal union was only fair for everyone.

The point I’m making with what I was able to get at with my friends is simple. I believe the argument of marriage is a semantic one. It’s a word game. What I think would work best for everyone involved is if we completely removed the legal term MARRIAGE from the law books and replaced it with the more accurate term (legal union). Marriage would still have its place, that place would be in the walls of churches, synagogues, mosques and temples. Ironically enough my two friends agreed…they’ll still vote Romney, though they don’t know why now… *shrug*

Here’s my questions to you.

1. Do you belive marriage to be between a man and woman only.

2. Do you find “THE COMPROMISE” suiting to your wishes

3. Why or why not?

Did Torture Lead to Osama Bin Laden

So while the world sings praises to the death of arguably the most evil man since Hitler, a silent yet crucial bit of information is being thrown around as gospel and as is custom in far to many American circles the “truth” as it’s been portrayed is not necessarily “The Truth”.

The question then is, did torture lead to the capture of Osama Bin Laden? The answer, No. No it did not.

Interrogation? Yes. Boots on the ground, nose to the grindstone information gathering? Yes.

What’s being reported:
“Enhanced interrogation techniques lead to Osama Bin Laden’s capture”
“Torture Lead us to Osama Bin Laden”
“Water boarding led us to Osama Bin Laden”

The Truth:
TORTURE DID NOT LEAD US TO OSAMA BIN LADEN.

Don’t take my word for it, ask Donald Rumsfeld. Donald, "The United States Department of Defense did not do waterboarding for interrogation purposes to anyone. It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding."

There you have it, contrary to what’s being spew about on the news and in certain circles.

So to be clear torture didn’t do it. A question worth asking though, “if it did, would you be ok with it?”

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/the-republican-spin.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/05/03/obama_adviser_brennan_waterboarding_did_not_lead_to_osamas_location.html

No Class Action For The People - AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion

While the USA was busy determining Obamas citizenship...again, the Supreme Court was busy robbing the people in an effort to protect those poor defense massive corporations. The court ruled in the favor of AT&T in the case of AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion.


In a nutshell Vincent and Liza Concepcion were bilked out of $30.22 when they were charged sales tax for free phones. The Concepcions essentially sued AT&T in a class action law suite.

Here’s where things get silly. For Vincent and Liza to sue AT&T for $30.22 is down right crazy talk. Court filing fees are generally triple that, not to mention the costs of hiring a lawyer. Imagine going into a lawyer’s office and telling him you want to sue someone for $30.22, even if they take 90% of the winnings it’s not all that hot of a deal for the lawyer. No lawyer in their right mind is going to pick that case up, as was the comment from dissenting judge Breyer, “What rational lawyer would have signed on to represent the Concepcions in litigation for the possibility of fees stemming from a $30.22 claim?”

Instead of taking on one of the largest telecom companies in the world for $30.22 a class action lawsuit was filed. Wait because the plot thickens right here.

When you sign one of those god forsaken phone contracts somewhere down in small letters you agree to handle all issues via arbitration, giving up your right to take matters to the courts. The idea is semi-sound in that it appears to have the best interests of all parties involved, what’s often left out is who is going to arbitrate, typically someone AT&T gets. When the Concepcions filed, AT&T responded by saying the Vincent and Liza had given up their right to class action lawsuit. The long and short of it all is that in the end the Supreme Court said AT&T could require people to give up their right to sue in a class action case.

Well what does this all mean then?

Well let’s take this $30.22 dollars for instance. Let’s assume for a second AT&T did this to 1 million people, basically stole $30.22 from them. That’s roughly 30 million dollars of stolen money. With this new ruling there is no real way for the people to go after that money from AT&T. Quit literally AT&T could completely ignore people complaining about the $30.22 and say, “so sue me.” Which again is NOT going to happen because no lawyer in their right mind is going to fight for $30.22. Even if you found 1 lawyer to do this, or 10 or 1000 or 10,000 the benefit for AT&T to rip off millions far outweighs the cost of paying 10000 court cases.

Well what about arbitration then? Sounds good still right? No actually, “In 34,000 California arbitration cases filed with the National Arbitration Forum between 2003 and 2007 and studied by Public Citizen, consumers prevailed only 4 percent of the time.” (http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/27/6544896-advocates-consumers-betrayed-by-high-court-ruling-on-class-action-suits)

Yeah 4% of the time in arbitration the consumer wins. See where big business really is winning now.

One only really needs to ask the following question, “When is it ever a good idea to give up your rights?” or even better yet, “When is it a good idea to be FORCED into giving up your rights”

I say forced because now that companies know they have a 96% chance of getting away if they screw you over you can bet your bottom that damn near EVERYTHING that doesn’t already have clauses like these in contracts soon will. Want to rent a car, gotta give up your rights. Get a Phone, wash with water, use electricity, loans, AC repair men how about getting a job, etc, etc, etc, be prepared to toss your rights in the trash in order to protect the pockets of the newest citizens—corporations.

Some argue that tort lawyers were making money off of this so it was bad. “Those sleezy lawyers” you know, the ones who help hold accountable corporations who dump poison into water supplies (A La Erin Brockovich), whether we like it or not, are the reason companies stay at least somewhat honest. To be fair someone spilling coffee on themselves and getting millions doesn’t help paint lawyers in a good light but neither does your kid getting cancer because some company wanted to cut corners. We have the choice then, Some lawyers bilking the system and companies having to pay a little while treating consumers as humans; or some corporations treating people like humans while many take advantage with no repercussions. I know which I’d prefer.

The big issue here is that once again our current supreme court has ruled in a massive way In favor of corporations, such as when they turned corporations into people by giving them the same rights as real flesh and blood humans. There’s hope on the horizon as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created by the Dodd-Frank act, which was designed to regulate the financial industry, has recently been tasked with reviewing arbitration clauses and there’s a strong possibility the CFPB will ban such clauses. Hold the phones just a minute though. Now that corporations are PEOPLE and PEOPLE can donate to politicians and lobby politicians guess who is most likely going to be shoving crap loads of money down congresses throat to keep things in their favor. (Hint: It’s not the Concepcions with their $30.22)

Obama Officially an American – To Most

What should hardly be considered news worthy is taking the spotlight today; Obama has released his long form birth certificate putting an end to the debate on his legitimacy as an American and his eligibility for the Presidency of the USA. Let’s for a moment disregard the fact that his eligibility was made clear before his first day as president, let’s disregard his short form birth certificate, let’s toss aside the assumption that someone in one of our many intelligence agencies already checked and verified where the leader of the free world was born, toss pragmatism to the wind and strap on your tin foil hat (or over priced hair piece in some cases *cough Trump*); is this really what the single super power in the world has denigrated into? Debating things already proven? Should we expect to see a new debate on the earth revolving around the sun next week?

There’s no way to say this nicely so I’m just going to come out and say it. Birthers...are bat shyt crazy; conspiracy theorists at their finest; basically the political polar opposite of the 9/11 inside job group. So if you find you agreed with the Birthers, just know where you stand.

The Birthers wanted proof, in spite of already provided proof and now they have it... so we can finally put this to rest right.

If only... :(

Now a typical human, when faced with facts, specifically the facts they specifically requested, is capable of coming to terms with the truth and moving on. It takes a special breed of moron to take “the facts” and dig a hole deeper and deeper into dumbassedness and that’s just what the Birthers are doing. Rather than saying something like, “well there it is I guess we can move on now” many a Birther are now throwing up the “it’s a fake” walls as a last ditch effort to keep the shield they’ve been using to mask their hatred and in many cases racism. (Yeah, I pulled the card but you know it’s true as much as I do.) Clearly there are just some people who, regardless of what they see, will NOT believe the truth. Short of Marty and Doc swinging by the trailer to whisk some of these people back to Obama’s day of birth NOTHING can be provided as proof.

We need to all come to terms with the harsh reality that some people are just idiots.

A quick welcome back

Frequent updates of the site will now pick up. Time constraints left The Middle Aisle short of content for a little over a year. With a little more time and a lot to say on the current state of the nation you can expect a near DAILY update.

Reconciliation: The Not So Nuclear Option & The Reconciliation Record

Reconciliation, the nuclear option, to understand it better let’s get a view of what the procedure of reconciliation actually means. For a loose definition we’ll turn to wiki - Reconcilation


“Reconciliation is a legislative process in the United States Senate intended to allow consideration of a contentious budget bill without the threat of filibuster. Introduced in 1974, reconciliation limits debate and amendment, and therefore favors the majority party.


A reconciliation instruction (Budget Reconciliation) is a provision in a budget resolution directing one or more committees to submit legislation changing existing law in order to bring spending, revenues, or the debt-limit into conformity with the budget resolution. The instructions specify the committees to which they apply, indicate the appropriate dollar changes to be achieved, and usually provide a deadline by which the legislation is to be reported or submitted."

In other words reconciliation is a means to take a budget issue that is already largely agreed upon and work out the differences without fear of a filibuster making a call to vote require 2/3 of a majority. In a few small words it’s a way to pass a budget item without fear of filibuster and with only 51 votes.

Now that we know what reconciliation is let’s examine why the Republican Party has begun grandstanding with terms like “the nuclear option” when referencing reconciliation and the healthcare bill and why their actions are, at best, extremely confusing, and ,at worst, down right hypocritical.

Let’s look at a few quotes from prominent republicans on reconciliation.

Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) – “In this post-partisan time of Barack Obama, we’re seeing a little Chicago politics. They steamroller those who disagree with them, then, I guess in Chicago, they coat them in cement and drop them in the river?

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) – Gregg said use of reconciliation to pass the healthcare bill would be “regarded as an act of violence”

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) – Called reconciliation, “a purely partisan exercise”

Sen. Mitch McConnel (R-KY) – “"it appears as if the administration has already made up their mind to go forward with a beefed up Senate version and to try to jam it through under a seldom-used process that we commonly refer to around here as reconciliation."

In the past (3/26/2009) Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) once said:
“I fully recognize that Republicans have in the past engaged in using reconciliation to further the party’s agenda. I wish it had not been done then, and I hope it will not be done now that the groundwork has been laid.”

Unfortunately when asked his opinion on an “obscure senate rule” (reconciliation) he had the following to say, “I am unalterably opposed to that. It would be a drastic change in the way that the United States Senate does business, and I hope that if you see something like that coming, you would not allow that to happen.”

So which is it; Obscure, nuclear, business changing, drastic, seldom used, violent?

So what is the record on reconciliation usage?

Again simply put out of the 21 times it’s been used since 1981, 16 have been when republicans have held the majority, only 5 being done under democratic majorities.

So there you have it, reconciliation of the healthcare bill with a little perspective and insight into how it’s been used and who’s been using it.

Obama's Healthcare Plan

If you haven’t had a chance to take a look at the Obama’s health care plan then you can find it here

In a nut shell his plan is a small step towards a much better healthcare plan for the United States of America. Contrary to popular myth this bill is will not be communism, it will not be fascism either.

Obama’s healthcare plan will...set up a competitive new healthcare insurance market. This new market will grant people the same insurance choices as Congress
Obama’s healthcare plan will...put an end to pre-existing conditions prohibiting people from getting insurance
Obama’s healthcare plan will...reduce the deficit by $100 billon over the next ten years.
Obama’s healthcare plan will...Get rid of the Nebraska deal (which was very wrong of Obama to do in the first place)
Obama’s healthcare plan will...create the Health Insurance Rate Authority, which will have the power to prevent insurance companies from unfairly increasing insurance rates.
Obama’s healthcare plan will...crack down on fraud and abuse.

In a nut shell as a middle class American there is NOTHING in this bill, in Obama’s healthcare plan that should be cause for concern.