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Time For A Reality Check For House Republicans

If your brain is frazzled as much as mine after listening to election results and the cheerleaders from both sides spinning their predictable garble, consider this:

As of Oct. 17, there were 420 House bills stalled in the Senate.

Need I remind you that was achieved by a large Democratic majority in the House and 59 that caucused as Democrats in the Senate.

Now, with at least 239 Republicans and 185 Democrats in the House, anyone who thinks John Boehner and his crew will do better than Nancy Pelosi in getting House bills passed in the Senate is living in a world of fantasy. The only difference is the Democratic bills were more liberal than what the Republican House most likely will propose.

I don’t care what the party numbers are in the Senate, it is the chamber where the populace-driven legislation reflected in 435 congressional districts is sent to be bent, folded and mutilated.

In his press conference Wednesday, President Obama acted more like an outside elitist playing Chicago law professor than leader of his political party not to mention President of the United States.
Obama said all the right things such as a willingness to work with the Democrats on legislation both sides can find common ground.

He showed some desire to compromise by saying the required 1040 filings by businesses in the health care reform law seemed burdensome and should be fixed, that throwing a business expansion depreciation morsel into the Bush tax cut argument may help reach a solution and conceding the cap and trade energy proposal is dead although there are other ways to skin that cat that just maybe the Republicans may accept. (Political Note: Cap and trade originally was a Republican idea.)

At the end of the presser, he offered a sound bite that as president, he took a “shellacking” in the midterm election results of Tuesday night. Unfortunately, that will get more play and buzz than what it’s worth by opponents who make a living parsing every word the president utters. It no more amused me than George Bush saying “we took a thumpin’” after the 2006 midterms. In both cases, the same dish of reality.

With all the posturing by Republicans and call for repealing the health reform act, the chances of two more years of legislative gridlock does not escape my political bones.

The focus the next two years will be on jobs and boosting the economy. At least the priorities will be headed in the right direction.

The biggest message I got from the returns was the influential role played by those saying they identify with the Tea Party movement.

What influence the new Republicans owing allegiance to the extremer conservatives will have on legislation through the Tea Party caucuses will be fun to watch. Voters did weed out some of the flakiest of that ilk in Christine McDonnell and Sharron Angle.

During the campaign, I restrained myself from bitch slapping  some of the absurd, ignorant candidates who believe unemployment insurance is unconstitutional, laws should be based on the Ten Commandments and the country should be returned to some undisclosed period in time.

For those strict constructionists, I wondered if in cutting government programs not referred in the constitution whether that would include the U.S. Air Force. I mean I can be as goofy as them when pressed.

This election was an expression people have of their politicians and fear of their own shrinking pocket books, returned a majority of Republicans to one chamber in Congress and hope something will happen that helps them more than ejactulating  over a political loss or victory.

Oh, there was a mandate in this election. It’s the economy, stupid. Fix it or perish. I hope they don’t destroy it worse than it now is. Again, the devil is in the details.

Mark my word. A conservative Republican House is no better or worse than a liberal House. The trick is getting the Senate to pass anything and avoiding a presidential veto on the most contentious items.

Cross posted on The Remmers Report

Comments are welcome. Link to my blogsite or go to my email address at temeculakid@gmail.com . Remmers’ varied career spans 26 years in the newspaper business.

 

Rand Paul’s Road To Fiscal Sanity Or World Chaos

Forget the others ones, the projected election of Kentucky Republican Tea Party candidate Rand Paul should drive major concerns into the heart of America.

Rand in his victory speech offers speculation he could on his own kill the normally routine approval of raising the nation’s debt ceiling.

Before the cheers echo in your ears from Rand’s followers, consider that such an action could crash not only America’s but the global economy.

It would mean shutting down government as House Speaker Newt Gingrich did in 1995 appear as a minor blip on the radar screen.

The panel of MSNBC political analysts led by Lawrence O’Donnell who knows what he’s talking about as a former chief staff member in the Senate went ballistic.

It was culled from Paul’s  victory speech captured on this You Tube video.

O’Donnell maintains Paul is the only new Senator who has the intelligence, grit and stubborn desire to do what he says he will do if it means placing holds on legislation or forcing filibuster votes.

Already Paul has signaled to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky, and to Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, his new best mentor, he is happy to take their campaign money of $1 million or more but will be his own man as senator.

The question remains is whether Rand Paul is posturing as so many elected officials do before voting on the debt ceiling issue.
Of all the six or more new Republican senators, Paul is the least likely to waiver between politics and principle.

By failing to increase the debt ceiling, the government will no longer be able to borrow and pay its bills and risk its credit rating to drop to unaffordable interest rates.

This may or may not be a doomsday scenario, but it is not an exhilarating example of democracy in action when one man elected by 100,000 or so people in a small state affecting the lives of 330 million Americans if not the major industrial nations in the world.

Paul’s insurgency — good or bad — will be a headache for Republican Senate leaders and he could provide the cover for a group of conservative ditto heads to follow his lead  whether to the gallows or wingnut heaven.

Don’t take my word for it. Read it from the Tea Party itself

My position is capping the debt at this point of time in economic recovery  is the same as amputating the arm because one finger has a blister.  You don’t start at the end before you fix the front. Certainly it is a worthy goal towards fiscal sanity — done in incremental fashion.

Voting Early In California Expecting A Tsunami

I voted this morning. Riding my power chair into the senior apartment complex recreation room is election central for my precinct.

I glanced over the crowd of 16 precinct volunteers and observers. None of my compatriots were in the voting booth. So, I decided to announce my grand entrance.

“Where’s the redneck desk?”

A young precinct worker giggled. The others snarled.

In this section of southern Riverside County, Calif., a registered Democrat is an endangered species and about as popular as our resident Muslims.

The county Registrar of Voters came prepared. Three old ladies manned the Democratic registration sign up desk. Eight held fort at the Republican table.

When I signed the dotted line, I noted I was voter No. 18. It was 10 a.m. and the polls opened at 7. There are 442 tenants in my senior apartment house of laughs and daily ambulance calls and I suspect a thousand or more in the nearby neighborhoods within the precinct. It must be a diverse lot because the signs in front of the palace for seniors announced “Vota Aqui.”

As the 18th voter, naturally my political instincts kicked in, reminding myself of the Republican tsunami about to take place.

My precinct and my congressional district is so gerrymandered that a Democrat has as much chance of winning as he does the megabucks lotto. Being that what is may, the Democratic challengers are not the brightest bulbs in the room.

Now, I take my voting franchise seriously. I vote the top of the ticket down but stop at the city and special district races which I neither care or know anything about. I’m only a visitor and don’t care to intrude.

After voting for governor and U.S. Senator, the choices become bizarre. I mean we have people from both parties running for secretary of state and treasurer who campaigned for jobs jobs jobs. Those two elected positions have as much impact on the job market as the coyote catching the road runner. Beep beep. But, I digress.

The incumbent congressman in my district is Darrell Issa, a hard worker and major pest for his robo calls to constituents and first in line to launch investigations against the Democrats in Congress in his expected new role as chairman of the government oversight committee. His Democratic challenger must have had a campaign budget of three cents. Never heard from him or of him and it possibly could have been a she for all I know.

California’s bevy of state propositions are always fun. I voted for the marijuana initiative just for the joy of watching it play out. I say if we are going to tax, by golly tax the potheads.

Only in California are propositions in November that would nullify/ratify propositions approved by voters in the June Primary. That would be Props 20 and 27.

But the one I found a true test of voter I.Q. testing is Prop. 24 which was sold as the jobs initiative by giving tax breaks to a selected small group of large corporations at the expense of every other business in the state. I voted no, for what’s that worth.

Unlike more than two thirds of all registered voters in the United States, I can make the claim I voted. Think about it. Less than one third of us can dictate the future for all.

That’s sick.

No Tax Proponents Are Delusional — Reagan’s Budget Director

David Stockman, President Reagan’s budget director, is my early winner for “Biggest Cojones” award for telling the American people the truth.

That is, lowering taxes as a way out to stimulate the economy is a big lie perpetuated by politicians from both parties. And, he is especially critical of the crying jag tears produced by the wealthiest who can afford to pay the freight.

Stockman’s latest rant was aired on 60 Minutes Sunday night in a segment in connection with a tax increase for the super rich on Tuesday’s election ballot in Washington state.

I don’t want to misinterpret Stockman, but I think his message is that tax increases are literally off the table in political policy discussions and this is a big mistake for it represents only one part of the equation for economic recovery.

Here’s one account from his 60 Minutes appearance;

Cutting taxes has become “in a sense, an absolute … something embedded into the catechism” of the GOP, Stockman tells (CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl. “Scratch the average Republican today, and he’ll say ‘tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts.’ ”

Stockman brands that approach “rank demagoguery.”

“If these people were all put in a room on penalty of death to come up with how much they could cut, they couldn’t come up with $50 billion, when the problem is $1.3 trillion,” Stockman complains. “So to stand before the public and rub raw this anti-tax sentiment, the Republican Party, as much as it pains me to say this, they should be ashamed of themselves.”

But Stockman says the Democrats are going the same route and cites the example of President Barack Obama advocating a permanent tax cut for the middle class.

“We have now got both parties essentially telling a big lie with a capital B and a capital L to the public,” Stockman tells Stahl. “And that is that we can have all this government, 24% of GDP, this huge entitlement program, all of the bailouts and yet, we don’t have to tax ourselves and pay our bills. That’s delusional.”

And this from a more biased news outlet:

Stockman cites a remarkable statistic: “In 1985, the top 5% of the households – the wealthiest 5% – had net worth of $8 trillion – which is a lot. Today, after serial bubble after serial bubble, the top 5% have net worth of $40 trillion. The top 5% have gained more wealth than the whole human race had created prior to 1980.”

Stockman thinks there should be a special 15% surtax on the wealthiest Americans to help pay down the deficit.

I am certain my Republican friends, even the poorer ones, would not take kindly to what Stockman has to say. Forgive them, for they are delusional, and have drunken the nectar.

The spinmeisters — CNBC’s Larry Kudlow in particular — may have plenty to say about this. Just a guess.

As I have said many times before in these columns, taxes is a four-letter word.

I think the rich are winning this con game. Some day, as the middle wage earners realize their annual income is stagnant if not lower, that they cannot afford their homes or send their children to college, that their quality of life is not as bright as their parents, the time will come to assess blame not on the politicians but the rich who own them.

Our nation is sliding into various degrees of an economic caste system. Is that really what the Tea Party Republicans mean when the few zealots among them are already suggesting second amendment remedies?

Meek And Sestak: Politics Behind Closed Doors

When you stop and think about it, what’s the fuss about political party leaders telling a struggling candidate to butt out of an election race. Happens more often than a political neophyte might think.

Since I’m usually broke, I would bet my last dollar that almost every serious candidate forming an exploratory committee is told by some fat cat with ties to the party’s purse strings that he stands a snowball chance in hell of winning.

The reasons run the political gamut — lack of identity, clueless on critical issues, inexperienced, hasn’t paid his dues, lacks charisma, fails to articulate or is too fat, bald and ugly.

That is  the case but a month late and my dollar short with two U.S. Senate candidates, both Democrats, in races in Pennsylvania and Florida. And, in both cases, the bearer of bad news points to the party’s mastermind, cheerleader and hatchet man, none other than former President Bill Clinton, revered as the greatest Democratic political campaigner since the invention of birth control pills.

We are led to believe it was Clinton who urged Rep. Joe Sestak to return to Washington the easy way by accepting a cabinet appointment rather than butting heads against Arlen Specter, the party leadership’s favorite by default apparently for promises of switching parties from Republican to Democrat. Sestak beat Specter in the Democratic Senate primary and now stands a chance of defeating an overrated but formidable Republican Tea Party congressional veteran, Pat Toomey.

I understand the Sestak example but think it was stupid timing and cavalier on behalf of the Obama political team and figured Clinton was smarter than just being a good soldier carrying out orders I doubt he believed in.

The Kendrick Meek fuss over word play also was dumb and impolitic but still typical under the heading “good for the Democratic Party.”

The Florida Senatorial candidate, a good man with a bucket full of political experience as an Obama liberal Democrat, is trailing so far behind in a three-way race you need the Palomar Observatory telescope to find him.

The Meek case is strictly politics. No Democrat with a pea for a brain thinks he can beat Gov. Charlie Crist or Republican Marco Rubio, a man with Tea Party support I think they will regret once he is elected for being too reasonable.

The political know-it-all geniuses have this bizarre notion that if Meek opts out of the race five days before the election voters will swarm behind the Independent and former Republican Crist. The right-wing turned against Crist for physically embracing the president at a rally touting the stimulus which Crist favored as crucial for his state. There is also the notion that if elected, Crist would join the Democratic caucus, an idea conveyed behind closed doors perhaps but not in any open forum.

Meek is no fool and I suspect his account of discussions with Clinton are true but that doesn’t matter. The die is cast. Meek saves face by staying in the race but the signal sent is you better vote for Crist as a practical manner to defeat Rubio.

Don’t feel sorry for Sestak or Meek or any politician that reaches the national stage. They have thick skin and ego almost the size of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly which are humongous.

Bill Clinton is not the villain in this movie. He’s doing what’s best for the Democratic Party from the vantage points of its leadership. But he’s wheeling and dealing in a world of leaks and believes what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas which in today’s world of media paparazzi exists only in the minds of ego-inflated former smoke-filled backroom pols.

(Bill Clinton photo courtesy postonpolitics.com; Joe Sestak therightperspective.org; Kendrick Meek, sun-sentinel.co,)

Thank God The Polling Ends And The Voters Speak For Better Or Worse

Oh, what fools we are predicting midterm election races. I honestly don’t know how much valid methodology goes into these polling results. I do know you can ask questions slanted for particular responses and prove what your preconceived notions are statistically.

I am not a numbers guy nor a statistical freak. I am a political observer and take the polls for what they are — a broad trend of the public mood at a very precise point in time.

As a resource tool, I randomly selected The Daily Beast — Tina Brown’s journal of as much hot air as any — for a capsule glance of Tuesday’s elections which I don’t think will be the end of the world as we know it as some might suggest.

What caught my attention was the Beast’s Election Oracle which is so off the wall I am convinced it is an accommodation of someone’s wishful thinking.

With that in mind, let’s look at some interesting races what the polling data shows followed by my observations which are based on not really giving a damn who wins but what they may mean when they step into the corridors of Congress.

Nevada. The polling aggregate consensus shows Majority Leader Harry Reid at 50%, tied with Republican Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle. The Beast has Angle by 60% and leads Reid in these categories by 61% for most on-line discussion, 68% for positive buzz, 54% on immigration, 53% on jobs, 57% on health care and 52% on war.

Oh, come now, Nevada voters cannot be that dumb. I think the Oracle is polling the choir. Angle is a disaster until she is cured of foot in mouth disease. Beyond that I simply disagree with her positions which I don’t think she has thought out clearly. In the Senate she will be the gift that keeps on giving for her critics.

California. The aggregate consensus has Democrat Jerry Brown leading Republican Meg Whitman by 52% for governor. The Beast has Brown leading by 60% but close on the power issues except the deficit which has Brown leading by a whopping 71%.

I doubt Whitman has tanked that much. California is a blue state but anyone who thinks Brown has a 71% advantage fixing the deficit (I presume California’s) is smoking that funny stuff that Proposition 19 in that state is trying to legalize. My prediction: Brown will win, another proposition lowering the state budget approval to a simple majority vote will win, and a year from now Brown will face a recall election.

Alaska. The aggregate has Republican nominee Joe Miller at 37% and Republican write-in Independent Lisa Murkowski at 36% with what’s his name the Democrat toast. The Beast’s Oracle has Miller by 70%. The buzz and power figures all have Murkowski leading by insignificant, meaningless margins.

Sorry, but polling in Alaska is as reliable as shooting moose from a small aircraft blindfolded. May I suggest when Miller goes to Washington, his first best buddy should be Scott Brown of Massachusetts to redirect his focus on governing and bag some of the crappy ideas he has said on the campaign trail or he, too, will be toast.

Delaware. The Daily Beast is not big on witchcraft. It has Democrat Chris Coons by 90% while the aggregate consensus shows his lead over Republican Tea Party Christine O’Donnell by 60%.

Coons, although dull even by Harry Reid standards, may be one of the few grownups elected to the Senate this session.

Arkansas. Outside of this state, no one seems to care. Democratic incumbent Sen. Blanche is trailing Republican John Boozman at 42% in the aggregate polls and only mustering 20% favor from the Daily Beast. What is striking is that in the issues polling, it’s Lincoln by off-the-chart margins ranging in the 80+ factors. What gives?

I think moderates like Lincoln will be missed. She was good for her state but the progressive wing of the party killed her.

Pennsylvania. I think this is the most competitive senate races of all. The aggregate consensus has conservative Republican Pat Toomey leading by 51% and the Beast has Democrat Joe Sestak down at 40%.

Say it ain’t so, Joe. I will be crucified by my more progressive friends, but I don’t consider Toomey and Florida’s Marco Rubio crackpots wanting to bring government to a halt with gridlock. I think they will be closer to the Scott Brown camp who seems to exert a modicum of responsibility on the issues. So far.

Kentucky. Republican Tea Party Senate candidate Rand Paul leads in the aggregate consensus by 52% while the Oracle puts Democratic challenger Jack Conway with only a 20% chance.

The problem I have with Rand as senator is that he is not as smart as his father and unlike his father, his votes in the upper chamber will count, especially if he gets cantankerous like his predecessor Jim Bunning on “holds” and joining the minority filibuster crowd.

New York. Republican primary voters deserve what they get for governor which will not be Carl Paladino. And, to think I thought California lead the nation in kooks.

Forget the polls. Let the voters have the last word. My gut feeling (and it’s rather large, I say sheepishly) is that the Republicans take a majority in the House and if were not for some airheads from the Tea Party could have won the Senate.

This does not bode well for President Obama winning a second term unless he steps down from Mt. Olympus and pulls a Bill Clinton with that triangulation trick I think is what Dick Morris called it.

My biggest fear: Two more years of legislative gridlock and a whole lot of House oversight inquiries designed to embarrass the Obama administration to the delight of a select few of ultra conservative zealots.

Good theater. Bad governance.

Left Turns Mitch McConnell Into A Pinata For Truth Gaffe

Every election cycle campaign amounts to silly season of candidates caught in gaffes saying not only stupid things with the resultant backstepping and coverups or media end runs, but occasionally an utterance of unguarded honesty.

It is those rare gems of truth that resonate in my mind.

In the case of Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, it seems the left wing echo chamber led by MSNBC’s three apologists Keith Olbermann, Rachael Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell whom I have documented in my mind simply by watching their slows — well, as Jack Nicholson in the movie said:

“You can’t handle the truth.”

Here’s what McConnell said as quoted by the National Review and cited here by one of hundreds of followup stories, this one by the Los Angeles Times:

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

I ask you, who in the hell on the Republican minority would not work for that goal? That’s what the two party system does. The name of the game is power. The American people play second fiddle in this orchestra.

The liberal cable and left wing blogs have jumped on the McConnell statement and kicked it around for the past week as if it were a greased pig chase.

Here’s The Times version of reaction when asked of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:

…Gibbs said the last thing voters will want after this hard-fought campaign is more non-stop politics in Washington.

“There’s time for a political campaign now, and there will be time in two years for a presidential campaign. But in the days, in the weeks, in the months after this campaign, the message that voters are going to send and the message that we as elected officials should take is that of working together,” he said.

Gibbs noted that in an interview with the same publication, Obama talked about wanting to work cooperatively with Republicans next year.

“I can assure you that when the political and election season has passed and we get … back into the governing of this country, that this is a president that will reach out to, as he did, and try as best as he can to work with the Republican Party,” Gibbs said.

And more reaction:

In an interview with MSNBC, senior White House advisor David Axelrod linked McConnell’s comment to unspecified statements from other Republicans, that he said were in support of gridlock in Congress.

“I don’t think that’s what the American people are voting for,” he said.

Okay, the Democrats disapprove of how the Republicans go about their business of defeating the sitting president with a legislative strategy of gridlock.

But we have seen this movie before. The Democrats will play the same tricks when a Republican is sitting in the Oval Office.

The end justifies the means to achieve that goal.

The Democratic media machine just doesn’t get it. They spend and waste their time bashing Republican Tea Party airheads for being witches, crafting a fifth-grade interpretation of the constitution and turning the clock back to a time that exists only in their Glenn Beck fantasies.

I hate the phrase “man up” and women governors showing their “cojones” but there is a message in that call: Democratic elected officials stand up and defend their agendas and stop acting like wusses.

If the Democrats cannot defend the stimulus plan, the health reform act and financial institutional regulations to prevent Wall Street from driving us into the ditch again, well, as Harry Truman said, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

(McConnell photo courtesy hubpages.com)

MediCal Is My Fountain Of Youth

Flushed with a resolve to write a pertinent, precise and profane column this morning, I ran into what we in the wordsmith profession call writers cramp. Brain lock.

Thing is, I been there. Done that. It is one of those days you see crystal clear and when fingers trip the light fantastic across your computer keyboard, it comes out mush. Garbage.

In the old days, it would drive me to drink. No kidding. It is amazing how a slight buzz of a hangover clears the cobwebs, lays waste the minutiae and goes for the gold.

Frankly, I have run out of gimmicks to get the creative juices flowing in what some idiot coined the golden years.

This morning I thought I had one of those “gotcha” stories, an account of still another Republican blasting the Obama administration stimulus program as an utter failure.

Yet this same woman, Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Palm Springs) was first out of the shoot praising the Interior Department for allowing a company to build the largest solar plant in the world on federal land in the Mojave Desert near Blythe, Calif.

Nothing wrong with that. Except she left a tiny detail out of her press release: The project was fast tracked to qualify for 30% of the $6 billion cost to be paid by taxpayer stimulus funds of which Bono Mack voted against.

It occurred to me Bono Mack is no fool. The Blythe solar project will create 1,500 construction jobs, 240 permanent jobs upon completion in three years and provide electricity for 300,000 homes. Just a little forgetful.

And then the story fell apart and I threw my hands up in disgust. No where did it say if the sun-powered project would reduce costs for energy users which in my naivete believed was the whole purpose.

The story didn’t merit a word from the two largest daily newspaper on-line versions — The Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune –  when I checked at dawn today. They must have allowed the local outlets all the crumbs.

Maybe they were right, I thought. Green jobs don’t mean squat no matter how many times we are told the contrary here in California. Probably because so many of these green enterprises fizzle before they start.

I looked at what I wrote and decided it was unadulterated crap. Man, I lost it. I can’t write.

My downer continued until the mail arrived. A letter from the Health and Human Services Agency of the California Department of Health Care Services — in the old days we simply called it “welfare” — informed me I was re certified for MediCal.

But here’s the best part and explanation that made my day:

“Jerry K. Remmers is not age 65 or older and is no longer blind or disabled.”

I kid you not. Those welfare people have a way with words that inspire me to new writing horizons.

The government decrees I’m at least seven years younger than this morning and I have regained my eyesight which I have had for ever.

But I do walk with a cane.

Reinvigorated, I am now convinced I can out write a government form letter, which, upon reflection as a much younger lad, is not exactly setting the bar very high.

(Solar panel diagram courtesy 027ws.com; Mary Bono Mack courtesy teapartyplayingcards.com)

I Am Dead Man Walking

Today, Oct. 25, the 72nd year and 331st day of my life, the hammer dropped. I have 3rd stage cancer of the lungs and surrounding lymph nodes, colon cancer, a cancerous skin lesion and an aggravated congestive heart disease compounded by the fickle ravages over the years by diabetes.

Did I mention I recently had a cataract removed on the left eye? Laser surgery on the right eye is scheduled next month.

I am dead man walking but at least I will see clearly and in focus.

All this came as news I expected this morning in my first consultation visit with an oncologist. More blood work and a biopsy on a nodule on my other lung is scheduled to determine if the lung cancers are related to the colon cancer.

Compounding this is a spat of early morning blackouts spanning several seconds each I mistakenly believed were caused by high blood sugars. On Saturday, a real “event” occurred when I blacked out for two hours. That’s why a cardiologist will get involved after the oncologist heard that horror story for the first time and equipped with no supporting medical records for clues as to why.

Finally, an earlier consultation with the colon surgeon — a real straight, up-front guy — I learned that my body was in no condition to survive aggressive chemo therapy and radiation treatment for the lungs and was worried I would even survive the intrusive surgery to remove a section of the cancerous colon.

As I said, the course of action to treat all of the above laundry list of ailments is pending until more data is obtained.

I am in no physical pain. I have shortness of breath when I walk just a few feet. My anxiety is high every morning until I read the glucose meter whether my blood sugars are in the normal range. The rest of the day is smooth sailing except I tire easily. I sleep with my CPAP oxygen mask to combat sleep apnea but I still need to sleep 10 hours to feel rested.

That is my quality of life of which I have adapted.

My brother had colon surgery and mild chemo in which his cancer is in remission. From him and what little research I have done, unless there is some wonder drug out there I doubt I could qualify for, the cure most likely will be as fatal as the diseases.

I told my family I feel like the guy who entered the bar, spilled all his troubles to the bartender who asks “So what else is new, Jer?”

My way of coping with adversity is poking fun at my dilemmas. I did it as a newspaper reporter and in my second career as a landscape contractor. President Reagan had that same capacity, joking to emergency room personnel that the gunman missed him by that much when the bullet barely missed his heart.

It is easy for me to say now that under the circumstances most treatments would, if not kill me, at least make my quality of life unbearable. My preference, again with the final verdict still in limbo, is to wait it out and do nothing more than the additional tests on the second lung and my heart.

The colon surgeon said that cancer is slow moving and I would have no ill effect until the tumor blocked the colon passage of human waste.

I have to wait for the additional tests on the lung and heart before any time frame can be established on those fronts.

The entire sky-is-falling scenario has not darkened my mind as of today. Meanwhile, each new day is a new awakening. It is out of my control whether it lasts one day, one month, one year or one decade. The sins that may have committed to my condition today is ancient history and can

I have lived a rich life, done what I planned to do with no regrets. What I do regret is not seeing my grandchildren, now ages 8 and 10, mature into productive adults. To observe them develop the first years of their lives has been the greatest single pleasure of my 72 years and 331 days.

The ‘Best Political TV Ad Ever’ Changed My Mind

This won’t exactly strike fear in the heart of the Meg Whitman for Governor campaign in California but I think I will change my earlier announcement I would vote for her.

I figured since her nomination she was worth a try compared to the Democrats’ old warhorse Jerry Brown. So much for preconceived notions.

The tipping point in my mind has been a work in progress because of Whitman gaffes on the campaign trail and a total collapse in memory of what a great campaigner and skilled politician Jerry Brown is when he focuses.

That doesn’t mean either can govern this unruly, schizophrenic state of constituents called voters who in past years have proven themselves idiots for voting in favor of ballot propositions they lived to regret or cannot afford.

Believe it or not, what caught my attention was a Jerry Brown television ad showing unpopular Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger mouthing governances that Whitman has repeated almost verbatim these past months.

Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s Hardball show, never bashful in political hyperboles, said it was the most powerful, effective TV ad he has ever seen. I won’t go that far, but it was a winner.

That ad got me to thinking like I suspect millions of other Golden State voters, that we have a rerun of a millionaire buying an election, promising results and failing (not entirely by reasons of policy).

That does not mean Brown would do any better. But he does know where the skeletons are buried in Sacramento, he should have a Democratic Assembly and Senate and if one of the key propositions on the Nov . 2 ballot is passed, it will only take a simple majority vote of the legislature to pass a budget.

I also would feel more comfortable with the Democrats when they are charged with redistricting our state’s congressional districts based on 2010 Census results.

Of course the Democrats controlling all branches of government is not a cake walk. Just ask recalled Gov. Gray Davis.

I knew from early years and knowing Jerry Brown that at least you know what you are getting in a governor. Whitman is a female version of the Guvernator and that’s not exactly a rewarding experience. (Even the right wing base of the party thinks both are too liberal). It would be a rude awakening for her when she learns she cannot manipulate the Democratic majority in the capitol that she did with her EBay board of directors.

There’s another recent development that I suspected all along about Whitman was her penchant for blaming others for her mistakes. Her handling of an undocumented housekeeper for nine years was bungled in which she either lied or had a convenient bout of amnesia.

Personally, Brown is as frugal as his Jesuit upbringing suggests even though he and and wife are millionaires.

I am not concerned Brown would approve a budget that would enact massive tax increases as much as the question how he can manage taking away some of the benefits from the government and teachers unions that are bankrupting the state more than anything else.

Of course, Brown could get lucky as Ronald Reagan enjoyed as California governor. The national economy along with the state’s could rebound and Jerry could take credit for it just as Reagan did in his day.

These are my clumsy efforts to explain away a change in heart for a political candidate.

A more academic reason is found by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. The survey showed the GOP to be highly unpopular in my state. I knew that. But you might find it pertinent in how voters in a blue state think.

(Whitman photo courtesy joemygod.blogspot.com; Brown photo courtesy houguenews.com)