I enjoyed going to the Tour Players Championship Final Round on Sunday and watching Phil Mickelson. Turns out he won the tournament. Very cool.

I get tired of seeing Repubs on TV and the internet trying to convince everyone that what they have to say is important. They keep running polls and saying, "See how Obama has fallen in the polls? Americans don't want his policies. We must go back to doing things the Repub way."

Talk about being out of touch. Since they have put themselves in such a weak position that they can't even slow down legislation in the House of Representatives or the Senate, (nor do they have any influence with the Whitehouse), they are trying to con Americans by ruling the media wars. But the only poll that matters, last November's election, didn't come out the way they were hoping.

How far out of power are they?
In the house of representatives they have 78 fewer voices than the Democratic Party: 256 to 178 (59% Democratic 41% Repub*)
In the senate they trail 60 to 40, obviously by the same percentages.
It is surprising that there is that consistency in percentages whether you figure it by states or by congressional districts.

On all the TV shows we get a representative of the Repubs and one from the Democrats. The Democrat answers questions and the Repub shouts down his/her answers. Civility and logic are lost characteristics for Repubs. But that distribution of voices isn't fair. It doesn't represent the country. There should be 3 Democratic voices for every 2 Republican. That would represent America.

Now the Democratic Party has been trying to play nice with the Repubs, accomplishing little and winning over only Olympia Snow on any issue, but the time has come to push the noisy bums out of the way and vote in the new Democratic agenda. It is what the people voted for. Change. Without regard to the haranging, threatening voices of the right, it is time to vote in change. They are threatening to withdraw from the Union (Uh, that's already been tried and didn't work). They are threatening to kill the president (the secret service stands directly in their way on this one). They are threatening to march on Washington (Did you see their pitiful march? About 70,000, heavily financed by big oil and the health insurance industry and that's all they could rally. 100 times that many Americans went to a ball game this week.)

The polls are irrelevant. Change is now coming. If they do it well it will steer America into safe waters for the next 50 years. Be fearless Democrats. Legislate.

*(I'll remind you that I've taken to calling the GOP "Repubs" because of the slanderous way they chosen to call the Democratic Party the "Democrat" party, as though it were some evil undemocratic entity).

The end of civil discourse.

I've long thought that the Republican method of argument was to call names rather than offer a reasoned response of any kind. Rep. Wilson, now celebrated as a hero by the right for screaming out at our President, calling him a name, a liar, was either making a desperate attempt to call attention to himself, or having a temper tantrum. As always, the President was gracious.

I wish there had been more coverage of the tea-party convention last Saturday. I watched in vain for a shot from the air of teeming thousands covering the national mall (the million man march came to mind). The crowd was called alternately "thousands" and "tens of thousands." So how many were there? Apparently not that many. I was distressed by what they looked like. They were old. They were fat. (Older and fatter than me even). When interviewed they seemed confused. They didn't even have talking points. Maybe that was the liberal media trying to make them look bad. They were name callers.

If someone says something you disagree with, don't bother to explain your position, simply call them a name. Any name will do. A Nazi. A Communist. (Does any conservative know that those ideologies are extreme examples of right and left? Is there anyway to represent both at the same time?) An Indonesian Welfare Thug? Say that one is a discussion ender.

The conservatives could not elect a President. They cannot organize a march on Washington. Is there any reasonable person that can put together an argument against any initiative by the Democratic Party. I'd love to see ideas, discourse, and argument replace, ranting, posters, and tantrums.

I feel that the current political situation can be summed up as the party of ideas versus the party of temper tantrums. (It is almost the debate of reason against emotion). I pray that reason wins.

No "argument" that I have heard so far against a national healthcare coverage plan has been a serious idea for discussion. The right wing won't discuss healthcare for everyone as a possibility. They are fearful of the redistribution of the pie. Years and years ago, I sat in chapel at Southern Seminary listening to Duke McCall speak. I can't remember what he was talking about exactly, but he used a profound example that I remember often. It was an example that was about pie. He said that many people fear that if the poor are going to have pie, then they will take a portion of their pie. They have worked hard and earned their pie. They feel they deserve their pie. They do not wish to share with drug addicts, no accounts, thieves, and rascals who could have pie if they would just straighten up and fly right for a change. Duke said the answer was not to redistribute the pie. The answer was to make more pie. He was of the "more pie" philosophy and so am I.

The right tells us that we have the best healthcare in the world, yet thousands die every year, deaths that would have been preventable if the person had any health care. Our system is not the best in the world. No one but right wing Americans rank it as the best. Capitalism and healthcare have not mixed well except for drug company and insurance company executives.

Socialized medicine will be a disaster. They will kill Grandma.

I suppose socialized fire protection has been a disaster? Would it be much better if we all had our own fire insurance companies to call when our house was ablaze? Of course some fires would not be covered and no one would respond. And fire insurance execs would make 15 million a year.

I suppose socialized police protection has been a disaster too. Everyone knows that crime would be much lower if we all hired our own personal police. Everyone's policy would cost a different amount. Many people couldn't get coverage because their neighborhoods would just be too dangerous.

I suppose it would be terrible if we had socialized road building. That would be a disaster. Roads wouldn't go anywhere and they'd all be falling apart if they were socialized. Lucky we can have capitalism driven roads paid for by the people who live on each street. Oh wait, that's how it was in pioneer days when they were up to their axles in mud. It was that old rightwinger Eisenhower who thought up the interstate highway system. I always thought of him as a commie.

I sure hope we don't ever go to socialized emergency response. The government would totally mess that up. A single responder idea! What a joke. Like just dial 911 and someone would come immediately to help. No way we could afford something like that. Ridiculous.

And socialized healthcare would surely fail too. It would be the end of us all. Just look at how poorly medicare is run now. Oh wait. Medicare is rated higher by its participants than private health insurance, higher by 20% than private insurance.

So all of this stuff in the media is for show. Scare the people and maybe they'll vote Republicans back to power to steal more of America's treasures for the rich. That's what happened in '94. The Republicans are still crooks and liars, America. Don't listen to them.