What's on Katie's Mind? Katie: The artist, teacher, and social commentator.

So my brother was offended by a piece I wrote a few days ago and he said I should look up the word “diatribe”.  To humor him I did and decided I would write a real “diatribe”.  (As a noun:  A forceful bitter verbal attack against someone or something.)  Well, hello Representative John Boehner!  Welcome to my version of a diatribe about you!  If you don’t know who John Boehner is he is a representative from the 8^th district in Ohio and he is the current House Minority Leader.  If the Republicans have their way in November he is expected to become Speaker of the House.

Now to the juicy stuff!  This is something “snarky” (Oh there’s that word again.) that Lynn Samuels said about him on Sirius left radio the other day.  I thought it was hilarious.  She was talking about Area 51 and Roswell.  Someone phoned into her show and they were saying how some people think there are aliens living among us.  She referred to Rep. John Boehner and his eerily non human form and skin color.  For all of you that haven’t noticed he has the strangest tan around, sometimes he appears quite orange on the talk show circuit.  He’s the current threat to the Democrats.  You know he’s a threat when the next talk show I’m listening to is “Big Eddy” and he’s talking about John as well.  “Big Eddy” is my loving term for Ed Schultz.  Big Eddy played a commercial on his program against Boehner that was pretty funny.  Big Eddy said he was thinking of playing it every day.  This was on the radio so I thought I’d find that commercial on You Tube to see what it was like.

The commercial is put up on You Tube by the Blue America Pac.  It is “priceless”!  When I was listening to Big Eddy he went on to talk about golfing and Boehner’s huge amount of time devoted to it.  Big Eddy loves golf himself so I know much of what he was saying is probably true.  He said for a guy to play golf a hundred or so times a year means he must be thinking about it all the time.  He’s talking about it with his friends and frankly he isn’t doing the work of the American people.  I frankly can’t see how Boehner’s constituents continue to vote for him.  Here is another commercial by the National Sierra Club.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QStk3fahKdU

If you look at his votes for 2010 you can see why many people have labeled the Republican Party the party of “No” as most his votes are “NO”.  However, I did notice that he voted “Yes” for a “Congressional Cost of Living Pay Increase” in April of this year.  I wish I could vote myself a cost of living pay increase.  Don’t you?  By the way, the Ohio unemployed might like to know that he voted against extending unemployment benefits in the same year he voted to increase his own pay.  In the same month he voted for his pay raise he had a “NV” which means not voting for extending unemployment benefits.  He made sure he was there to vote for his own pay but either skipped voting or wasn’t even present to vote for his unemployed constituents!  Some of us would call that a “Dick Move”!  Wow, if you look closer, you will notice he used to vote “Yes” a lot until the Democrats came into power.  So, it is obvious that he is an obstructionist although he does vote for defense spending under the Democrats and Republicans.  There doesn’t seem to be a defense bill he doesn’t like.  Even though we all know there is a lot of waste in defense spending.   Here is Rumsfeld once again looking for that defense money!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rRqeJcuK-A&feature=player_embedded

John also has gone all out in his attempts to raise the Social Security retirement age to 70.  He’s wealthy what does he care?  He can golf a hundred times a year as though he is already “retired”!  While he’s off golfing the work of the American people isn’t getting done!  Raising the retirement age to 70 basically means that you will get less for Social Security because most people aren’t going to be teaching school, policing our towns, or doing any of their jobs until they’re 70.  They will be forced out of their jobs before that and eventually apply for Social Security early and take a big cut.  It’s not hard to see what this is really all about.  John Boehner, like many politicians, doesn’t have to worry about money.  He is a millionaire.  Strangely enough if you look at this chart he is pretty much “average” among house members in income.  That should be telling us something about all of these politicians not just this man.  http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/CIDsummary.php?CID=N00003675&year=2008

I share John’s Catholicism but we are worlds apart in our politics.  John, as a Catholic, could never speak for me but it does explain his abortion issue voting.  It doesn’t necessarily explain his defense record as Catholics are taught social justice and solving things in a manner like Jesus which involves making peace.

Most of his voting record is tied to business, corporations and special interests.  He is continually pushing to extend the tax cuts while calling for cutting the deficit.  His thinking isn’t truly logical as it is a proven fact that the tax cuts for the wealthy haven’t helped our country.  If they had helped, we probably wouldn’t be in the shape we are in right now.  Those tax cuts came in with Bush and are earmarked to go out at the end of this year.  Many might want to ask themselves that age old question.  Are you better off today than you were in 2000?  Some people may be better off.  Many are obviously not as they fight foreclosures on their homes and battle to keep their jobs.  The extension of these tax cuts will probably only lead to a higher deficit unless we cut something else.

Boehner never saw a defense bill he didn’t like, so I expect he would cut any entitlement program he can get his hands on.  This can include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and even things like unemployment benefits.  It can also include things like school lunches, aid to public schools, financial aid to college students but trust me it won’t include tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.  If John gets to be Speaker of the House while most of us will be balancing our budgets deciding what to do in the coming year, John will be busy dismantling health care reform, extending the Bush tax cuts and cutting programs for the least among us.

Ohio voters from Boehner’s district need to think long and hard about voting for this man that takes care of himself by voting for increased pay to himself as well as golfing more than any man I know.  In Sturgis there are plenty of golfers.  I don’t know anyone that has the time to get out and golf like John unless they are super wealthy or are retired and live on a golf course!

If you consider yourself to be middle class and you want someone to vote for your best interests check out this website.   http://www.themiddleclass.org/legislator/john-boehner-31?gclid=COub1_ud1aMCFUcz5wodQQHXuQ

He has an 8% rating based on his votes from 2009.  Now all of us know that 8% is failing.  If he is failing the middle class, he’s probably failing you and me or at least his constituents in Ohio!  It’s time for people to stop listening to the rhetoric this man puts out on the TV news talk show circuit and really look at the man.  He hasn’t lived up to the hype.  It’s time to give a Democrat a chance to do something for Ohio.

Boehner recently called for the resignation of Obama’s economic team.  I have my own problems with Obama’s team as well.  However, it is disingenuous of Boehner to conclude that the current problem is generated by Obama’s team alone.  It was the Republicans that brought us to the brink of disaster but this disease has infected both parties.  No one has said it better than George Carlin (May he rest in peace.) in this clip from one of his stand up routines.  George has colorful language so if that is offensive to you take more offense to the politicians that are “sticking” it to you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GseyaEibb_4

So, when you are thinking about voting, try voting out the money and start with Representative John Boehner.  If you aren’t convinced how to vote, just check out this post on politico.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29881.html

The politician/golfer is busy spending his PAC money on none other than GOLFING!