Starbucks hates Shutdowns

On Oct 10, Starbucks CEO requested its patrons to sign a petition asking Congress to open the Government, pay debt and all that good stuff.

IMHO, Starbucks should stick to selling overpriced coffee, drop this false equivalency and leave the political activism to the informed public. (Starbucks fanatics, don't get angry. I'm also a patron!)

One small... sorry Tall Cafe Vanilla Frappucino Lite please!

Reason I'm angry is, Howard Schultz wants us to petition to whole congress to do it's job. Only part of Republican House Members are refusing to do their jobs and holding country hostage every few months. It's not the whole Republican party either. I call bullshit on this false equivalency.

If you look at what starbucks is asking patrons to petition, that's exactly  President pleaded Tea Party and they refused. So instead of calling out Tea Party, Starbucks CEO was telling people that Congress isn't working, which isn't true. So why not just stay quiet and President and House settle this.
 

Problem with these me too campaigns is, people fail to notice that a faction of Republicans asked for this and caused this. What Tea party blames as the threat to American Way is the ObamaCare. The healthcare law passed by Congress, upheld by Supreme Court and based on which Obama got relected. And now Congress refuses to pass budget unless healtcare law is defunded. If you look back, Democrats got majority in house in 2006. Even though they hated Iraq war, they didn't force Bush to defund that war to keep the government running. For one one thing, ObamaCare is self-funded, Congress can't defund it. Once people realized that, TeaParty changed their demand to an 1 year delay.

Surprisingly President refused to negotiate, held his ground. As there's no leverage left, Tea party backed off and Republicans potty trained adults cleaned up the mess. Government will be open until jan 15th , debt ceiling extended until Feb 7th. Mark my words, we'll be here again, sooner than we think. You might ask why? That's cause 2010 and '12 elections bought so many Tea Party freshmen into house who wouldn't even listen to their Speaker. They'd voted for repeal of ObamaCare, 46 times. Needless to say, the mandate from their districts is to rescue the country from the jaws of socialism. In their hatred for President, they're weakening the country with these shutdown threats and debt ceiling fights. So much for patriotism. Not every republican is responsible for this, only the Tea party caucus refuses to be reasonable. Below is the voting pattern in the last CR vote which ended shutdown, you can see which house member is sane and otherwise.

Fl-22, a typical gerrymandered district.
Allen West won this in 2010, but lost in 2012.

You might be wondering, don't these wingnuts fear for re-election. No they don't fear general election, they fear primaries. If they don't vote based on these party lines, PACs and Tea Party groups like Senate Conservatives Fund and Club for Growth will draft a challenger and defeat the member in primaries. Their districts are safe cause of Gerrymandering. It's a process in which state governments carefully redraw electoral district lines to remove demographics which might vote for other party. This makes these districts very safe in General elections for the parties which're in power in States.

See how bad few districts are drawn. There's no way the other party can win in these districsts. Redistricting happens every 10 years based on census. Make no mistake, both the parties does this but in 2010 Republicans pushed the envelope too far. And it's helping them. You'll be surprised how extreme it became.

Healthcare bill opponents say that we've the world's finest health care system and it doesn't require any change. We all knew it's a lie, we've read and heard many stories about pricey healthcare is in our country. Ours is the only developed country without universal healthcare. And then, we all have a personal experience or two about how insurance companies try to nickel and dime us.

The U.S. stands almost entirely alone among developed nations that lack universal health care.

Tea Party people oppose the healthcare just cause of  ideology. On a second thought no, they just hate president. Health care bill is based on personal responsibility, preached by Republicans. As I mentioned many times here, Heritage foundation is the one who invented this Individual mandate. Romney adapted it successfully in Mass. Now the same Heritage foundation opposes it as the individual mandate infringes on our Liberties. Consider it a dog whistle.

Also not to be forgotten, the billionaires who're behind this Defund ObamaCare movement. Koch Brothers. They're the one who funded this. They grew up with Libertarian ideas, nothing wrong with it. But they're also trying shape the government as per their dreams by pumping millions of dollars into elections and primaries. Small government (read as Weak government) is good for their business as they routinely run into trouble with EPA and other regulatory agencies. Not just the Tea party, they fund think tanks, opinion journalists and universities to get legitimacy to their Small Government/Free Market ideas. So far it's working.

And if you think tempers raised, Tea party Congress men wanted to please voters in their districts, it's not true. It's a process deliberated and orchestrated by outside groups for months. While the people and corporations are suffering with shutdown, Ted Cruz raised used huge haul of cash by scaring people. There're two primary Public figures in this shutdown. Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz is the self serving Canadian born, half Cuban half Caucasian Senator from Texas. He's the one who pushed the house members into this shutdown. Then there's former Senator of South Carolina, Jim DeMint. Senate didn't provide him the platform big enough to spread his Small government message, so he resigned and took the job of Heritage Foundation's President. Once a respected conservative think tank with few ideas, is now sending emails to support the United States Government to shutdown under his direction.

 

If you stop and think, it's not about deficits or saving country for next generation. If they care for Liberty and privacy, they'll be protesting NSA. If they want an accountable government they'll be fighting to stop Obama's drone program which had granted itself  legitimacy to kill American citizens without trial. This is the seething anger that a African-American president. Few days ago, a Tea party protestor showed up at the White House with Confederate flag. That indicates that South is in control of Tea party and this isn't about Health Care. They're still bitter about loosing Civil War and they still haven't gotten over it.

So what's the end game, I don't know.  We'll be back into this by end of this year. House will be with Republicans for atleast 7 more years. But cause of changing demographics Democrats will have more chances to retain majority seats in senate. If they don't screw up, may be White house also. But again Dems know a thing or two about pulling  Defeat out of the jaws of Victory. So get used to this.

There's a glimmer of hope, US chamber of Commerce is now disappointed with Tea Party congressmen whom they supported, funded and sent to Washington. It's repenting now and is planning to support less crazy candidates in the 2014. House might still be under Republicans control, but with people who're smarter than batshit crazy Tea party members who're in control now.

They say elections have consequences, these are the consequences. Call you voter friends in South Carolina and Texas and thank them for sending these traitors to Washington.

Few things I worry about..

People who know me personally can definitely tell that I'm saddened by midterm poll results cause of my liberal leanings. The verdict isn't a surprise and in a way it didn't hurt as much as I expected. Politics aside, looking at the demographic and landscape there're few things which are really detrimental for America's progress and prosperity in the next decade.

Contempt of educated people
One trend among voting demographic which I think disturbing is the contempt of educated people. They call them and deride them as elitists. As per this demographic, a common man with common sense will be a better legislator than a college educated person. I've a message for people with no High school diploma or GEDs. If you had completed your education, then you 'd have better judgment of people. You might also have learnt about evolution, climate change and also realized that medicare is a govt run organization. Yes, your legislator might be a corrupt man, but sending a person who dropped out of college or high school wouldn't do any better. Sarah Palin serves a good example for this.

Lack of Science and Math Education
When I first came to this country, one of the things which astonished me is the choice of majors available for college students which do not exist in India. Apart from Science, Engineering, Medicine, Business and Law there're so many liberal arts majors like advanced communications, linguistics, anthropology, sports medicine, event management et al. In a good economy, all these graduates landed in a job. But now there're no jobs. Don't get me wrong, schools need teachers with liberal art degrees to teach languages, history et al. But in this economy who exactly needs a fresh Graduate with 'Advanced Communications' major.

Mean while India and other countries are producing engineering graduates like an assembly line All of them might not make quality tech employees, but US is loosing a competitive edge which made it a superior power.

There's a facebook group by name '87x/59(1+x)=(18*7x)*(67-x)...fuck this, I'm going to be a stripper'. This shows how many kids are afraid of math and hate it. The way these kids are taught at school should change. Math and science can be made interesting and these two are vital for nations' supremacy in the knowledge based economy.

Xenophobia
SB 1070 bill of Arizona was partially blocked by federal judge luckily. If not it would've became mandatory for AZ police stop any person for a 'reasonable doubt' and ask for proof of residence. With that Jan Brewer got elected as governor in this election. I wonder how many of AZ citizens saw her only debate on TV. And how many people might realize that this SB 1070 draft was first written at a prison industry conference.

Yes illegal immigration is a problem, no body denied it. Republicans enjoyed the cheap labor for two decades and now they're crying foul. US is a land of immigrants and they contributed to country's prosperity as much a citizens. Remember how many European scientists immigrated to USA and put the Science and Technology on fast track. Problem with this anti immigrant rhetoric is that legal and aspiring immigrants like me are suffering with excess scrutiny and constant visa hassles. I'm not gonna quote any numbers but it's fact that legal immigrants contribute to the economy like any other citizen.

As I mentioned above, not enough US students are graduating with Science and Tech majors. If country drive away smart immigrants, it's a loss for country and gain for India and China. But myopic senators like Grassley are on a mission to pass bills to drive away non-immigrant tech workers from the country.

Welfare
Last week I read this new article about black women with 72% unwed rate. It seems that black women couldn't find a ideal black man to marry and settle down.

To quote a line from the article 'The drug epidemic sent disproportionate numbers of black men to prison, and crushed the job opportunities for those who served their time. Women don't want to marry men who can't provide for their families, and welfare laws created a financial incentive for poor mothers to stay single.'

This welfare should stop. I don't want to pick any race but this is a menace. Again from the article 'Children of unmarried mothers of any race are more likely to perform poorly in school, go to prison, use drugs, be poor as adults, and have their own children out of wedlock.' As you can see, this is a vicious cycle and it should be stopped. If not, this changes the social fabric of the whole next generation.

Women's perception should be changed about two things.
-->It's OK to live on welfare.
-->It's necessary to have kids to even if you don't have means to support them.

Homophobia
By any measure, US respects it's fallen soldiers than any other in the world irrespective of their religion and color. The other day I saw a news report about a hate group 'Westboro Baptist Church' who protest at soldiers funerals. They say, God is killing U.S. troops because our country tolerates homosexuals. This just blew my mind. I'm not sure, how exactly these groups come to these conclusions and where they get funding. Their home page is 'godhatesfags.com'

There's another story of this creepy Asst Attorney General of Michigan who just got fired. Andrew Shirvell stalked and bullied Chris Armstrong, student body president of Univ of Michigan. Andrew started a blog by chrisarmstrong-watch.com. To his defense, this tool says that he's just exercising his first amendment rights. Attorney General Cox didn't fire him for a while as he's a afraid of alienating his conservative base and donors. Just think about it for a second, a state's asst Attorney General bullying a college kid just cause he happened to be gay. As I see it, I think it's just matter of time when Shirvell comes out of his closet.

People like Sarah Palin
Apart from posting (who's the actual writer) fear mongering and mind numbing notes on her facebook page Sarah Palin is also good at throwing red meat to her base. Last week I saw Sarah addressing a christian school on TV. It's pretty much usual fare with her power dressing (read seductive), DWTS with Bristol Palin, inauguration (not necessarily her) yawn... Then she started talking about a state legislation which bans sweets at school and how that law is a totalitarian. As per Sarah, parents should decide what kids should eat and not the government.

I'm no fan of government, but in this case government knows better than many oblivious parents. I've seen parents smoking inside their car with kids and I can assume that what happens at their homes. Obese parents who weigh 450 lbs and get drunk in the morning don't know better than government.

Sarah if you'd known better, your under age daughter wouldn't have got knocked up. It could be a reason that you might've taught her 'abstinence only education' rather than safe sex. And we would've been saved from this on and off wedding drama from Alaskan soap opera.

Women like michele bachmann, christine o'donnell and sharron angle (who didn't get elected fortunately) are other examples of leaders on wrong path with huge following. Their base thinks that these women represent them, the common people of America.

With all these tea party candidates in Senate and house, it's interesting and frightening to see what kind of bills they'll legislate.

Peace