Monday, March 12, 2012

At the Intersection of Hope, and Change

I got so distracted by my pink slime investigative report

motus,cub reporter

that I forgot to tell you about Lady M’s sacrifices last Friday while servicing our country.

mo Dr. Susan Lynch flonhDr. Susan Lynch, First Lady of New Hampshire, at Lady M’s photo-op

Unlike Dr. Jill, Dr. Susan is a real doctor – a pediatrician and lipid specialist. She’s an advocate against childhood obesity and created a Walk New Hampshire! program that encourages family physical activity in the state.

Wait a minute -- that sounds suspiciously familiar; like maybe she just cheesed in on Lady M’s ideas and initiatives and stole the whole thing!

What? Oh, Dr. Susan’s been FLONH since 2005? The program’s been in place since 2007? Okay, never mind. Apparently really big brains think alike.

So let’s start with Lady M’s drop-by at the Penacook Community Center in Concord N. H. with Dr. Lynch to inspire the little children to eat more veggies and get moving. The photo-op with the cute little props – the veggies, not the children  - went really well.

here have a carrot moHere Lady M, do you want a carrot for your bunny dance?

 

“I can see you’re all eating healthy foods,” the first lady congratulated them.

“Those are toys!” one child responding, laughing.

Silly FLOTUS, toys are for kids. Veggies are for adults - acting like rabbits.

      welcome to seussville mohands over your head mo

Lady M,  impersonating a rabbit doing the bunny hop

Of course we couldn’t stay and play long. We had to head off to Boston to pick up a little loose change for the Obama Victory Fund, aka WTF, at the Institute of Contemporary Art. There were 2 fundraisers, a “cheap seats” one in the afternoon attended by 350 marks folks followed by a much pricier dinner for 100 local liberal luminaries like Joseph P. Kennedy III,  (running for Barney Frank’s Congressional); Boston Mayor Thomas Menino; and Big Guy’s former Harvard law professor and Derrick Bell apologist and video concealer, Charles Ogletree.

As always, Lady M was a huge hit with the choir:

She has been the ideological muscle behind the president, pushing him to champion what may be politically unpopular, but in her view worthy, causes like universal health care. It is a role some historians and political observers liken to that of Eleanor Roosevelt, who campaigned for antilynching laws, civil rights, and indoor toilets in public housing.

“She has a view of the world that is all about equity and fairness, and when she sees any violation of those values, she reacts with passion,’’ said Philip Johnston, former chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, who plans to attend Friday’s fund-raiser. “She is a progressive and she feels the government should be there for poor people, for children, for people of color, and for women.’’

And by “be there” Johnston means, be there: no excuses.

Amanda%20Clayton

24 year old Michigan woman wins”Make Me Rich” lottery, continues taking food stamps:

"I thought that they would cut me off, but since they didn't, I thought, maybe, it was OK because I'm not working," Clayton said. "It's hard. I am struggling."

She added, "I feel that it's okay because I mean, I have no income and I have bills to pay. I have two houses."

Oh, and she wants free contraceptives too.

reproductive rights activist sandra flukeMs. Fluke “testifying” on the government’s responsibility to “be there” for women

So your choice is clear: Vote for Big Guy to be there for women, or vote for the R-words who are waging a War on Women.

game_changeHBO’s Game Changer: Being there. Now it’s officially ok to trash conservative women

Oh, and Big Guy? He’s been hitting the trail to raise some coin for WTF too. Last week he was in Houston, promising more change in return for, well, a little more change. 

bo  fansMeet and greet with the cheap seats: maybe next time you guys can afford to give a little bit more.

If you are willing to work as hard in this election as you did in the last one [ed. open your wallet as wide], change will come!"

After standing around for 4 hours waiting for Big Guy’s normal storm-delayed appearance, approximately 600 attendees got to hear, for $500 each, all the usual stump speech stuff directly from the horse’s patoot mouth:

The President stuck to familiar themes including promoting health reform, a reduction in the rate of interest students pay for loans and increased taxes on the nation's wealthy population. 
"If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay a lower rate than your secretary. Most folks who've done well agree," said the President.

It seems to me – although I’m not a campaign expert - that we need to work on that open wallet meme a little more: 600 people at Minute Maid Park? The Huston Astro’s ball park that seats over 40,000? We only sold 600 tickets!?  How are we going to WTF with box offices like that? That’s only half as many as the 1200 people Romney had in the Detroit Lion’s Ford Field that everyone laughed at:

Romney_ford fieldRomney in Ford Field: oddly, no crowd shots of Big Guy at the Lemonade stadium were available

Although – and like I said I’m not a campaign expert, so I don’t claim to understand these things – it doesn’t strike me as particularly wise to come to the heart of oil country and say things like:

Having at least temporarily scuttled the Keystone XL pipeline, Pres. Obama took a shot at Houston's bread and butter, the oil and gas industry.

 
"We don't need to subsidize oil companies when they are doing this well. Rather than continue 100 years of taxpayer subsidies to an industry that's very profitable lets double down on our investments in clean energy,"

Anyway, after the disappointing cheap seats fundraiser at Lemonade Park, Big Guy attended a second big-ticket fundraising dinner in Houston where the price of admission was a more reasonable $38,000 per head. No mention of the “100 years of taxpayer subsidies to the oil industry” at that event.

Butt that “doubling down on clean energy” theme? Now there’s your “winner,winner chicken dinner!” strategy! Let’s do more of that!

lab-grown-algae-in-jarsBig Guy’s vision for America: An algae in every pot

So don’t worry: everything in our economic symbols book is starting to turn around, and we are now forecasting that “America will thrive again” - according to Big Guy.

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