Randy Paul's astute analysis of the "war on women" last weekend was actually a nice sleight of hand, a subtle obfuscation, or pretty much the lie of the moment in the ongoing effort by the entrenched monied interests to keep anything at all from changing their comfy situation. I kept waiting for somebody to point this out, but I never heard it. Thing is, the "war on women" was not a war with women, nor is it a war on men by women. Much of the right, which is centered demographically on white, middle-aged white men and the women who depend on them for their protection and comfort, likes to imagine that it's a war with women. So, says Mr. Paul, "they" won.
This, in a word, pretty much justifies the actual war on women that's continuing apace in Republican Party policy at every level of government. The women who get with the program get gold stars. Otherwise, they continue to be diminished and pilloried at every turn. Look at how the current Democratic candidate for governor in Texas is characterized by the right. I didn't hear Randy stand up for her, an obvious example of a "winner."
Last night I couldn't bear to watch the State of the Union. I certainly hope Mr. Obama will manage to achieve some of his laudable goals. If the country could manage to raise the minimum wage to something approaching what it was in 1960 when adjusted for the gigantic changes in the value of our currency, that would probably be a boon to the general economy, and to all of us who must live with it. Even the few who are surfing the wave, such as Mr. Tom Perkins, would probably do pretty well. Oh, maybe Mr. Perkins wouldn't be able to build a private submarine, or at least wouldn't find it sufficiently prudent. Or maybe he would, who knows. It's strange that these super rich people have become so comfortable with their opulence that they can't bear to let any tiny crumb of it go except on exactly their own terms. Many of them perform various philanthropies, large and small. They are utterly cowed by the idea of our government raising their taxes--an act which would be out of their control.
Mr. Perkins is apparently so afraid of any adjustment in his tax rate that he will not even admit, in a live interview, that he is in fact a billionaire.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/leave-poor-billionaires-aloooooone.html
That, gentlemen and ladies, is unreasoning fear. Here on the home front the driveway is snowed under, and the steep hill we have to get up to get out is impassible. There's one vehicle "out." Probably all we need until warmer temps arrive in a day or two. I expect I'll get in to work tomorrow, and in the process get to the cat food and coffee store. We have lots of firewood, and I cut a whole truckload on Sunday, which Libby got all stacked up and covered before the snow started yesterday--dead standing oak which is pretty much ready to burn the instant it hits the turf. And if worse comes to worse, there's the burn pile. I've never done a burn in the snow. It'd certainly be plenty safe as long as the wind is still.
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Thursday Update. Before testing the roads today I happened to find this:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/republican-responses-to-state-of-the-union-012914
One advantage to the fragmented Republican response to the State of the Union speech is that there's so much to bedazzle that it's hard to actually fix on any particular craziness. Ms Maddow picked the low-hanging fruit with Huelscamp and his tweeter attack. The Right Hon. Michael Grimm obscured nearly everything the GOP might have wanted to say by threatening to toss a mild-mannered reporter plumb over a three story balcony--the railing of which the reporter was leaning against at the moment. So who could blame the general press from missing the detail Mr. Pierce discovers at the link above: that Mrs. Rodgers benefits from government health care even as she battles like all the other brethren to destroy the effort to get the rest of the citizens on the boat. I also noticed the absolutely perfect poise and posture exhibited by Mrs. Rodgers. This is a Republican winner woman, ain't no doubt:
[Melinda Mara,Getty Images via Washington Post via Charles Pierce]
This is one Republican reason why Mrs Bachmann has decided to retire I reckon:
Hey, styles change.
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