Faxed to: Todd Young, IN-09; Indiana Senators Dick Lugar and Daniel Coats; President Obama, The White House; House Speaker John Boehner; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi; Rep. Paul Ryan, R-WI; Eric Cantor, R-VA

Emailed to: Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

Here is how this will work.

The Republicans will accept the cuts in Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid.

Then they will run against the Democrats and Obama in 2012 using the fact that they cut these programs as a reason to vote against the Democrats and for the Republicans

I am just surprised as h*ll I have to explain this to anyone.

I think the statement in a diary on DailyKos discussing rumors Obama is putting Social Security and Medicare cuts on the table sums up what my and many Democrats’ reaction to this latest caving to insanity by Obama will do:

If this report turns out to be true, I predict there well be much weeping and gnashing of teeth in the Democratic Party, and even here at Daily Kos very soon.

A reversal of this magnitude has the potential to rip our Party apart. I hope it is not true.

Obama Puts Social Security and Medicare On the Table Says Washington Post

Frankly, I have never seen a President like Obama, whose concept of hard ball negotiation seems to consist of handing his stark raving mad drooling opponents a hardened aluminum bat, and asking them to hit him again.

What is particularly galling is the total disconnect between reality of causes of the deficit, and those being single out to bear the pain and sacrifice. A recent study pointed out that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid costs, when adjusted for inflation, have remained neutral for the past 15 years. They are not the cause of the deficit. The reduction of revenue through unwarranted massive tax cuts to the super rich; bailouts of Wall Street, the criminal hedge fund and mortgage industry; and running two major wars off the books for nearly a decade: those are the true causes of the current financial problems.

Let the Bush era tax cuts expire. NOW! Get our troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq. NOW! Tax capital gains and hedge fund profiteers and corporations, ending the massive loopholes, ending rates that are lower than what the poor and middle class pay; end the subsidies for big oil, sugar, and all the other industries that are making massive profits, and enjoying capitalist welfare for the rich. Do these things NOW!

I will grit my teeth and vote for him next year assuming he gets the re-nomination, but I will not donate or spend any time like I did last cycle. I am too busy trying to save every dime as I am recently retired, and would like to continue eating and paying for health care if possible.

I wish to $DEITY someone like Russ Feingold, or some REAL Democrat, who was willing to fight to uphold the principles of the party, would run against him in the primary. H*ll, at the moment, Joe Biden is out there talking more like a Democrat than the president.

As for the Republican field, I mean really. Such a field of batsh*t crazy ideologues, theocrats, racists, and in the case of Romney empty suited flip-flopping sell-his-soul and lie thru his teeth and change his position within the same sentence daily idiot I have never seen. I read that David Duke is considering tossing his hat in the ring, I guess he thinks the Circus and the clown car needs a fourth ring.

This nation is going insane. I am not kidding when I say we have seriously discussed expatriation to Europe.

I was reading an article this morning about the 100 mile wide, mile high dust storm that swept over Phoenix two days ago. Someone with the weather service was quoted as saying, “Wow, this is something people will be talking about for a couple of weeks”.

And I think that right there sums up the culmination of know-nothing, short term memory, militant ignorance fueled by Astroturf false political movements funded by the Koch brothers and the corporate oligarchy that is turning America into a third world country, even as we speak.

For something a little more soothing and awe inspiring to the spirit, I offer this photograph.

OMG. The Stars! The Southern Cross in a Star Filled Sky Seen from the South Pole

I was reading last night about the South Pole Observatory and station. Six months of darkness at 100 degrees F below zero, with air that is so dry it classifies as a desert. This means it is just about the best spot on earth to observe 80-300 mm wavelength radiation, observation of which is hindered because water vapor absorbs and deflects those wavelengths. Scientists there are searching for galaxies and clues to the posited dark energy and dark matter that have got to be out there somewhere to explain the expansion of the universe. I found the observatory’s site online, and it has a great time lapse video from their web cam, and a section with incredible photos set up as postcards from the south pole.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/obop/spo/index.html