Sorry for my absence. I have had an incredibly full schedule in terms of both work and social commitments. On Saturday, I returned from my Florida travels and went straight to the White House to see the Christmas decorations there. I found that the wily Kenyan socialist usurper has outdone himself in his continued attempt to fool the American public -- not only were there Christmas trees and decorations in abundance, there was even a manger scene, captured above, albeit in somewhat tiny fashion. This President will stop at nothing in his attempts to trick the nation into believing that he is one of us.
- I remain convinced that there will not be a fiscal cliff deal or a debt ceiling deal until into the new year and that there will be serious brinksmanship before either of those things are accomplished. I think all of the talk of an even moderately chastened Republican Party are just that -- empty talk. And I think Obama is determined to hold his ground, having seen the kind of people with whom he is supposed to deal. Let's hope that the economic fall out is not too serious from all of this.
- The Michigan right to work for less law -- or right to shirk as I like to call it -- discussed by l-t c below, strikes me as a deeply serious blow against an already reeling labor movement. The off year election losses in 2010 are proving to be a disaster for progressive causes, notwithstanding our strong showing in 2012. The election of these hard core right wingers is likely to continue to reverberate even if their stays in office end up being relatively brief. It is hard to overstate how important it is to get our electorate out and voting in 2014 to see if we can undo some of the worst of what these radical governors and legislatures have wrought.
- Speaking of elections, the final vote tallies continue to roll in and Obama's margin continues to increase slowly but steadily. He is now at 50.97% of the popular vote to Romney's 47.29%, with a margin of 4,736,633 votes. It looks like he will end up with just under 66 million votes and a margin of about 5 million. Not too shabby really. And turnout is now down by only 2%, despite earlier misinformation indicating that it was substantially lower than in 2008.
What's on your minds?
