Yeah, me too.
I mean, what’s going on?
- The ‘scandal’ over dress codes still plagues us, but that doesn’t interest me too much.
- There’s talk of CIA torture, but really, is there anything new there?
- Bullock got appointed to the position everyone thought he would, but it’ll only be for a year, not two.
- The press room on the 3rd floor of the Capitol will stay open.
And…what else?
None of those things seems terribly important. And what ever happened to Obamacare, or the ACA, or whatever you want to call it? Kind of seems like now that the election is over everyone just gave up on that, everyone’s safe for another two years.
Well, I’m not safe, and plenty of other poor schmucks just like me aren’t safe. We’re expected to pay out an extra $250 a month or more…or get new plans that cost more…or pay a fine.
Democrats get real angry when you talk about this kind of stuff. See, many Democrats are the type that don’t want any little blemish or problem or dust on the mantle pointed out. They’d rather have it sit there, festering, growing, collecting, until one day it’s too much and BOOM! – someone’s head explodes.
Of course people’s heads don’t explode in Montana, they just get smashed against the steering column during a head-on or tree-on or ditch-on or whatever. People have to let off their frustrations, and drinking is the best route for that.
But let’s not talk about mental health, or funding it; or substance abuse issues, or funding it; or education funding early on so we don’t have to deal with a lot of this bullshit later.
Let’s just not talk about that.
- Boosting the average wages of our workers up from poverty-level to median-level. There’s no plan for this, no mention of it, just accept the ‘nickel insult’ on January 1 when we get a bit more. There’s just no way you can live on that, though.
- Oil and the falling prices and what they mean for that infrastructure spending in eastern Montana. You don’t hear a whole lot about that, or budget projections being thrown off by those lower prices, you don’t hear about that either.
- Ideas are not discussed and the old way of doing things will continue, even though we know it’s bad. I see this a lot with prisons and our willingness to spend $35,000 a year on average for each person in our state prison system.
It would be really nice if we did in fact have ideas to address some of these things, but we don’t.
I would like to mention that it’s good to have faith in some people in power, wherever they are. Maybe it’s Tester at national or Bullock’s boys here at state, but someone got a big $10 million grant today to fund early childhood education and development.
That’s a big deal. I wish we could get some support for our teachers as well, the ones teaching at that level, but they’re out of the purview of MEA-MFT, so they don’t really matter, er…don’t qualify for benefits or support.
I was reading in Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism that early childhood education was quite the frowned upon thing back in the late 19th-century.
“In the 1880s, Ohio laws had forbidden public funding of education for children younger than six,” Goodwin writes. “Public kindergartens would eventually be established, but meanwhile Louise and a group of her friends helped raise money to open a series of charity kindergartens. (p 103).
Wow, it was forbidden to spend money to educate young kids. But then, why did they need to be educated? Those little fingers worked just fine in the factory for 14 hours a day, ignorant or not.
Why do they need that money so much? What are they going to do with it? What is the plan of the Republicans?
Is there a 2015 GOP plan?
There isn’t…is there?
God, what the hell are we gonna do? We’re letting a group of bozos with no plan lead us around by the nose. How could this every possibly end well?
It’ll end well by identifying and then peeling off those moderate Republicans, giving them enticements and inducements to act with us. Give them money for their districts! Give them assurances that they’ll be secure politically! Give them the damn Johnson touch!
I dunno, do something, but please…don’t keep talking about clothes. That’s a terrible idea, in my opinion. Keep the pressure on the radical Republicans while offering the carrot to the moderates behind the scenes.
I’m afraid if that isn’t done, the political landscape going forward will be shit.