ALLEGED REPRESENTATIVES

It's customary for the media when referring to members of Congress to designate them as "Representative" so and so. I think that description is inaccurate.

I have the misfortune to have Jeff Denham as the Congressional representative from this district. I don't think Mr. Denham represents me or most of his constituents on much of anything. He's anti-choice, anti-worker, anti-environment, but very pro corporation and pro top 1%.

I think a better designation for Mr. Denham and others in Congress is alleged Representative. It's what the media use to describe people accused of crimes, but who haven't been convicted yet. The word "alleged" isn't totally accurate, of course, because the crimes of people in Congress are already evident, but we also don't get the benefit of a trial.

CREDIT RATING DOWNGRADED THANKS TO REPUBLICANS

Yeah, I can't tell you how impressed I am with those wonderful Tea Party Republicans in Congress. Standard and Poor just lowered the U. S. credit rating from AAA to AA, which means higher interest rates for everyone. Is there anything these cretins aren't destroying?

This is a direct result of the ridiculous obfuscation on raising the debt limit. None of this was necessary.

A SARCASTIC THANK YOU TO THE TEA PARTY

The stock market plummeted over 500 points today. I don't have any stock, but it's interesting that the sacrosanct markets are reacting to the lousy economy created by Republicans.

The Tea Party yahoos didn't learn anything from history. They froth at the mouth about deficits and falsely call any government spending "socialism" or some other such drivel. They even try to revise history to claim that FDR's New Deal didn't get us out of the Great Depression created by that other great Republican president, Herbert Hoover, and the Republican economic policies of the 1920's.

So people whose 401K's are taking hits can thank the Republicans and their Tea Party allies. People who will see all kinds of services slashed at the local and state levels can thank the Republicans and the Tea Party too. This is real "trickle down," the trickle down of misery that is created by the politics of greed and short-sighted ideological zealotry. So, thanks a lot, Republicans.

RIGHT WING MYTHOLOGY

The Fresno Bee may have the most right wing letters page of any major newspaper in the country. I can't say that absolutely without taking a survey, but every venture into the Bee's letters page is a trip through the right wing sewer.

It's not enough to have the usual ignorance, greed, stupidity, racism, jingoism, and hate that characterizes right-wingers in actual letters, but you get "treated" to more right wing commentary in the comments section they have in response to other letters.

Any letter that attacks the gross inequality in this country is "class warfare." There are frequent comments that suggest that anyone who is poor is there because of "bad life decisions" or some other such drivel. A frequent suggestion is that taxes of any kind are "theft." Never mind that taxes have been necessary to maintain any civilized society in all of human history. There are attacks on immigrants because right-wingers must always make themselves look morally superior and bashing the "other" is necessary to prop up their fragile egos.