How Can This Be?

A recent poll (If they are accurate, unbiased I don't know) indicated the President's approval rating is at 36-37%.  How can this be?  I don't understand why it's still so high......  I do remember when the last President's ratings fell and fell and fell (and rightly so), it wasn't kept a secret by the LameStreams.

According to an e-mail from my US Congressman, the House has sent 26 bills regarding the Shutdown to the Senate for consideration.  None have received a vote there.  And, the President has threatened to veto them.  So, who's obstructionist?  Well, we all know, though, because unbiased LameStreams have told us.

The President insists the CR be passed by the House before any negotiations over ObamaCare, the debt ceiling, etc. will be considered.  Hmmm......  This seems to me to be a little like a constantly truant student insisting, "Let me skip one more time without penalty.  Then we'll discuss my absences."  Maybe not.

So the military academies' football games this weekend will be played, as usual, despite the shutdown.  That's according to the Sec of Def.  Yet, payments to the families of a few dozen soldiers killed have stopped?  I guess we have a difference of opinion on what is "essential" and "nonessential."   I have little doubt I'm in the minority here--"Football is God!"

I wonder if the NPS ranger was truthful in telling the Washington Post/Times that federal employees (at least within the NPS) were instructed to make the shutdown cuts as painful as possible to the American people.  I believe he was, but don't know for certain.  Remember the White House strategy during the last sequesters?  Same thing.  Was it R. Emmanuel who said never to let a crisis go to waste?  How petty/small if, indeed (and I believe it is), this is the case.  BTW, in my view, the IRS is "nonessential."  I wouldn't mind the Dept of Education being closed, either, permanently.

Dishonesty can come in many forms.  What was it Mark Twain wrote, "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics?"  One of my buddies said politicians use the word "spin" instead of "lie" so they won't have to go to confession.  Maybe so.  And there are half-truths, telling part of the truth, but only part, so as to mislead or deceive.  "Hey, I didn't lie!"  One of my US Senators sent an e-mail using this technique.  Clever.

I heard the other day, but the impact didn't dawn on me until this AM.  Twenty-eight years is a long time!  That's how long Kwame Kilpatrick's sentence was.  28 years!  I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it, just that it's a loooong time.  I guess his partner in crime received 21 years.  Will that deter future politicians from criminal activity?  Why do I doubt that?  I think we all can name politicians who are currently sitting in their seats despite committing acts that would have landed you and me in the slammer.  Well, one good thing, for them at least...lying isn't a crime, just a sin.

I was listening to a Temptations song the other day, Ball of Confusion.  (Oh, how I love the Temps!  I found myself humming and singing their songs all day yesterday!)  Some of the lyrics, certainly not the most profound ones, go "Chick-a-boom, Chick-a-boom, Chick-a-boom-boom-boom."  OK, not real profound, but they sound cool when the Temps sing them.  I was reminded of another song, from the late '60s or early '70s, back when I was in college.  It was titled, Chick-a-Boom, Chick-a-Boom.  It went, much less soulfully than the Temps' version (and a completely different song), "Chick-a-Boom, Chick-a-Boom, don't you just love it."  I don't remember any of the rest, thankfully.  One of my friends just hated the song; she just hated it!  And, worse, she often said, "I get in in my head and can't get it out."  Hmmm......  Maybe that's what Hell is like?