Gratitude

The World thanks @Rosie for very fittingly naming @realDonaldTrump #OrangeShitStain pic.twitter.com/UVzxOfr0gu

— Bock McMillan (@BockMcMillan) May 27, 2016

Donald J Trump, the reality tv-star and presumptive Republican candidate for the president election in the U.S.A, has made insults and name calling one of his most notable traits.

Today one of his fiercest and most longstanding enemies, Ms Rosie McDonald, got back at him. 

"Republicans May Vote For Bock", Laird Says

If you ever needed final proof that The Much Honored Bock McMillan, laird of Southern Charm etc. etc, is a softy, you got it today when the Laird's Household released the following statement. 

"My heart goes out to my Republican friends in the United States of America as they must choose a presidential candidate  among the bigoted, neo-fascist and despicable losers that have offered their names for consideration. They face the choice between pestilence and cholera, and there is no lesser evil among them.

After much contemplation and soul searching I have come to the firmly held belief that I must act to give the G.O.P. a reasonable and sane candidate at the upcoming convention. 

Although I do not share the usual Republican belief that economical issues and taxes are more important than human rights, I still feel they need to offer ya'll a better lineup to choose from.

Here are my positions on a couple of the issues in this year's political conversation. 

I am for

• equal rights and opportunities for all human beings

• a separation of state and church (incl. the removal of references to God on money)

• a woman's right to choose anything that concerns her body

• universal and comprehensive health care and expanding the ACA further

• very strict gun control

• same-sex marriage and adoptions

• a photo ID being required to vote

• continued government funding of Planned Parenthood

• health control providers being required to offer free birth control 

• requiring that businesses have both women and men on their board of directors

• the military allowing both women and men to serve in combat roles 

• legalization of marijuana

• raising the debt ceiling

• raising the minimum wage

• businesses being required to provide paid maternity leave for full-time employees

• trade unions

• affirmative actions

• increased government environmental regulations to prevent global warming

• the U.S. remaining in the United Nations

• declaring war on ISIS

• increased foreign aid spending

• government funding of stem cell research

I am against

• the death penalty

• secular business being able to deny service due to their religious beliefs

• states displaying the racist Confederate flag on government property

• cuts in public spending to reduce national debt

• juveniles being sent to prison and the use of solitary confinement for them

I believe in 

• the theory of evolution

---

To avoid any "birther issues", please let me refer you to Second Life, who can attest to the fact that Bock McMillan was born on March 11th, 1997, on a server placed in California, U.S.A. I am therefore a "natural born citizen" of the United States of America. 

I offer my name with pride and confidence that you will do that right thing! Now the ball is in your court. It's easy peasy, just write me in next time you vote!

Yours always,

Bock McMillan

Laird of Southern Charm etc. etc. 

Extortion, Not Stalemate

I am still lingering on the shutdown of the American federal government, because I simply cannot wrap my mind around how something like this can occur in a democratic country with a healthy economy.

Time Magazine's cover for October 14, 2013

I think I may have stumbled upon a great article by US Political Commentator Brian Normoyle on Huffington Post's political pages. The article is entitled This Shutdown Is About Extortion, Not Stalemates.

"Those following or reporting on the U.S. government shutdown should refrain from using terms like "impasse" or "stalemate." These words imply two honest parties negotiating in good faith have arrived at a temporary but surmountable deadlock. That's not even remotely the case here.

Instead, two parties--the Senate Democrats and the House Republicans -- each passed divergent budgets earlier this year. The latter, propelled by a very small yet ideologically rigid minority of its members, made the calculated decision from the start not to negotiate.

Democrats made 18 requests since April to go to conference and compromise on a budget bill; Republicans blocked every single one of them. And now they are using a manufactured crisis to extract policy concessions on duly passed legislation they don't like and cannot repeal through the normal democratic processes: elections, legislative votes, and litigation.

Meanwhile, House Republicans continue to insist they're doing the will of the American people despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. While a plurality or small majority of Americans remain confused about or opposed to the Affordable Care Act, a strong majoritywant a budget approved without conditions to repeal, defund, or delay it -- mainly because they see the law as a settled issue.

And so it is. Republicans lost this fight repeatedly:

• in the 2008 election in which this was a primary issue;

• in a year-long debate in the halls of congress, media, and the public square, after which the law was passed by both chambers of congress and signed by the president;

• in the Supreme Court--the final arbiter of the constitutionality of a law;

• in the 2012 presidential election, which 2/3rds of Americans now see as a referendum on Obamacare;

• in the 2012 congressional election, in which the GOP failed to take the Senate, lost seats in the House, and lost the popular vote in that chamber by more than 1,000,000 votes;

• in the 46 House votes to repeal, defund, or delay Obamacare that were dead on arrival in the Senate and had no chance of becoming law.

Most curiously, Republicans now have the votes to end the shutdown immediately by putting a clean resolution on the House floor with no riders or conditions. Such a bill certainly would pass, and 800,000 Americans could return to work tomorrow, but Boehner doesn't do it.

The evidence suggests the GOP intentionally put these workers out of a job by using a historically routine budget resolution to undo the outcome of three lost elections. And they now have the hubris to demand Senate Democrats and President Obama negotiate with that extremist position. As Republicans continually shift the political goal posts ever further to the hard right, negotiating now requires meeting them somewhere between extreme and preposterously irrational. Democrats justifiably have declined to do so here.

This is not an "impasse" or a "stalemate." It's an attempt at extortion that was prevented."

---

I believe I finally understand what has happened in the US after reading this article. We have a bunch of lousy losers who cannot accept that they lost and now are trying to shove their point-of-view down everyone else's throats to make them accept it. It's no new tactic, I have seen it before in both my lives, although never on such a dramatic scale.

From Children and Fools...

There is a Swedish saying that goes, "From children and fools you get to hear the truth". I thought of it when I was reading about the United States federal government shutdown today and came across a quote from Michele Bachmann in an interview with World Net Daily (via Joe.My.God.) 

The federal shutdown was brought about by the Republicans in the House of Representatives. Michele Bachmann is an American Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Minnesota's 6th congressional district.

The whole shutdown of the federal government of the greatest democracy in the world is extremely bewildering and totally offsetting for most of us not from the United States. We cannot imagine anyone going to these lengths, and to do so repeatedly is surely not helpful for the image of the United States abroad. 

Today I atleast, thanks to Ms. Bachmann, got an inkling of why the House Republicans were prepared to go so far.

“I think the reason is because President Obama can’t wait to get Americans addicted to the crack cocaine of dependency on more government health care. Because, once they enroll millions of more individual Americans it will be virtually impossible for us to pull these benefits back from people.”

The fact that American Republicans are afraid that the American public will get used to a universal. affordable, efficient and decent health care system, that all the other civilized and democratic countries in the world already offer their citizens, is scary and makes one (i.e. me) wonder why anyone in the world would vote for such people.