It’s true, I celebrate Christmas. In fact I had to get stern with a cynical Workout Girl and explain to her that “We celebrate Christmas in this house!” I also like Halloween even though I don’t believe in witchcraft and I used to get hammered on Saint Patty’s Day despite being skeptical about holy flutes that round up snakes. So, yes, I do. And I’m checking my snail mail, I’m checkin it twice … but so far no gifts from Obama even though I have been quite nice. Maybe I’m not on the Obama Christmas gift list, which makes me sad knowing that goodies are being handed out to other Obama supporters. At least according to Mitt Romney. What the hell did I do wrong?
TPM — Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) strongly condemned Mitt Romney Wednesday night for remarks the former Republican nominee made blaming President Obama’s re-election on “big gifts” for minorities and women.
“That is absolutely wrong,” Jindal told reporters in Las Vegas at the Republican Governors Association meeting. “Two points on that. One, we have got to stop dividing American voters. We need to go after 100 percent of the votes, not 53 percent — we need to go after every single vote. And second, we need to continue to show that our policies help every voter out there achieve the American dream, which is to be in the middle class, which is to be able to give their children the opportunity to get a great education, which is for their children to have even better-paying jobs than their parents.”
In all honesty I did want Obama to win partly to preserve my gifts. For starters I’ve put about a quarter mill into Social Security and Medicare over one score and a half plus five years starting at age 15. It’d be nice, if I live long enough, to collect at least a little on that promise. I can make a promise of my own that somebody’s going to, even if I have to marry a random homeless person on my deathbed.
As long as air pumps through my lungs I’d prefer it to be as free as possible of heavy metals and carcinogens not of my choosing. I guess clean air and water is a gift of sorts, or at least a thoughtful stocking stuffer. Hell, I’d even consider higher amounts of pollution if I got something out of it besides emphysema and higher flood insurance premiums. Maybe a quarterly dividend check? But alas, the profits are always privatized, only the losses are socialized.
I like driving on smooth asphalt at 70 MPH, it’s better in lots of ways than overgrown wagon trails or footpaths. The supplies roads bring and the emergency responders they deliver are also nice, beats sleeping naked and starving in the mud after a hurricane anyway. Let’s call them a gift.
Speaking highways, the Internet Al Gore never said he invented is helping me out. It’s true it grew up as an alternate form of hard-wired communication when the air ways are clogged with angry fizzing nuclei in the aftermath of World War III. But that was then and this is now and Amazon has holiday prices on select items! Talk about a gift that keeps on giving.
I like having two days off out of a forty hour shift and I like time and half and holiday pay for working longer hours on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Worker’s comp has never had to pay off for me, but it could, and I like not having to compete for trickled-down crumbs with 8 year-olds and prisoners handcuffed to a workstation. Imagine if that were taken away — think of the jobs!
Then there are the intangible gifts. Cost of wasting truckloads of money on conservative grifters, billions of dollars; cost of Iraq War, over one trillion dollars; seeing maimed veterans of foreign fuck ups and victims of climate change taken care of thanks to the Kochwhores and the Bainies of the world paying a few more shekels in taxes? FUCKING priceless.
So yes indeedy Mr Romney, tis the season. And for anyone who’se thinking of a gift idea for me, the best present for me would be a job that pays a living wage (I won our version of employee of the year in my current, low paying dead end job, but there was no envelope involved). I haven’t had one of those since your last conservative man-child left White House grounds. And as an aging middle-aged geezer I have big hopes for space medicine, stem cell research, genetic engineering, somatic cell transfer and cybernetics. Not to mention basic contraception and a whole bunch of other things the angel Moroni neglected to include in the divine gospel of the Church of Latter Day Saints and which Romney and his traditional godbot partners in mass delusion would like to deny the entire human race.
But I’m still checking my mailbox …
That was the real Romney all right. The 47% remark was no fluke, no “poorly worded” statement. It came right from his cold, black, entitled, heart.
… the American dream, which is to be in the middle class, …
I would enjoy seeing Mr. and Mrs Romney and all the little Romnettes in the middle class, worrying about debts and jobs and insurance. Put some cams in their one and only double-mortgaged suburban split-level with the leaky basement: it would make a great “reality” show.
I wonder if Mr. Jindal’s school vouchers can be cashed in another state? Surely he doesn’t mean a Louisiana education.
“Maybe I’m not on the Obama Christmas gift list”
Since the cynical part of me immediately went “wow, that’s a dark euphemism for a drone strike kill list”, I contend that that may be a very good thing.
The thing I don’t quite get about the drone strikes — aside from the fire and the blast and the shrapnel and the being buried barely alive part — is how they’re considered worse by some of my more passionate progressive allies than good old fashioned human-piloted bombing. It seems to me they are safer in the sense that the pilot doesn’t have to risk being killed or captured which sounds like a good thing to me. Again with the understanding that being on the receiving end of either one is no joking matter.
Big and long-winded explanations aside, my short take for greater dislike of drone strikes is this: Because of the possibility of aircraft being shot down and pilots killed/captured, bombing strikes are typically okayed after some level of deep thought: do we want to risk the crew for this. Drone strikes don’t have that (as you pointed out) so are used a) more often, and b) more indiscriminately, with less control and greater chance of injury/death to civilians.
When I first heard the “voted for Obama because of stuff”, I couldn’t help but think, “Didn’t rich people vote for Romney because of all the stuff he promised to give them?”
But…you’re an ATHEIST! You don’t have anybody to be thankful TO!
I think you folks are missing a simple thing with this Mitt ‘gift’ gaffe.
It was not a gaffe:
http://www.themindisaterriblething.com/2012/11/bad-copgood-cop.html
Whoops! Poor Romney didn’t realize it was after midnight. His chariot has turned back into a pumpkin and his brilliant insights have transformed back into stupid gaffes.