Headline, September22, 2013

''' !!! AMEN TO ALL THAT !!! '''

By an ''overwhelming'' margin, Americans believe that;

'' !!! God Loves us !!! ''

Which seems to raise the question:

''' ! ?Why is there heavy metal ?! '''

In their new book,  It's Even Worse than It Looks,   two of Washington's leading congressional scholars, Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, put it this way:

''The Democrats have become the more status-quo oriented, central protectors of government, willing to revamp programs and trim retirement and health benefits in order to maintain the government's central commitments.''

Nearly 80 years after the New Deal ushered in a new understanding of the government's basic obligations, the current breed of Republican seems determined to re-litigate the consensus understanding of the social impact that has prevailed for generations, forcing Democrats to fight simply to stay in the same place.

The Big Flip is the central political of this era. Another is that the connecting tissue between the parties has disappeared. For much of the 20th century, ideological affinities between southern Democrats and conservative Republicans, on the one hand, and between urban and northern Democrats and moderate and liberal Republicans, on the other, not only allowed but effectively required cross-party cooperation to get anything important done.

Today there are no such cross-party incentives for cooperation. In congress, George W. Bush got a good number of Democratic votes for his signature tax cuts, but nearly 10  years later Barrack Obama received not a single Republican vote for his health-care initiative. 

An analysis by National Journal of roll-call votes in the 111th congress, which ended some three years ago, found that, in the Senate, the most conservative Democrat was slightly more liberal than the most liberal Republican, and nearly the same was true in the House. That is another way of saying that the extent of the common ground between the parties is virtually nil.

 Amen To All That!  For sure, Americans are divided politically and generally buffeted by these tumultuous times in a terribly, terribly troubled world and in an unfathomable universe. So they are sticking to their comfort zones and clinging to their eternal verities.

For instance, in one poll : three-quarters of Democrats think Rush Limbaugh is ''offensive and usually wrong''  (Amen!), while half of Republicans find him ''entertaining and usually right''  -(Duh).

Similarly, the music genre Americans have the most trouble enjoying is, far and away, heavy metal, and the European country that Republicans  -and only Republicans-  would most likely skip on a vacation is France.

And in the same poll: on the same hand, it could only come as universe-spending surprise to Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer that in a hypothetical  Whose Tweet Would You Most Like To Follow? popularity contest he finished in a dead heat for last with Ashton Kutcher:

{ Well,  not so duh at all }

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors, Teachers of  Sudan; See Ya all on the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless :

'' !! To Changing Expectations  !! ''

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless