So, Mitch McConnell has appointed Arizona's junior Senator, Jon Kyl, to the Super Committee. Whoopee! I imagine we'll hear a lot of remarks from the Senator about how homeless people cause "90 percent of the deficit." Naturally, his office will remind us later that this "was not intended to be a factual statement." Expect a lot of unintended nonfactual bullshit from the best friend banks and the healthcare industry ever had in the US Senate. Or one of the worst friends civil rights ever had, considering this is the numbskull who:
• cosponsored amending the Constitution to ban same-sex marriages
• voted to ban Affirmative Action
• voted no on prohibiting job discrimination for sexual orientation
• voted yes to end funding for women and minority businesses
• voted yes to loosen regulations on wiretapping
• voted no to add sexual orientation to hate crimes definition
There's more, you get the picture. Like every other Arizona Republican Congressmen, Kyl has also signed Grover Norquist's No Tax pledge, so he's got perfect GOP credentials for their brand of compromise.
Arizona is a veritable Norquist jamboree. You'll find Maverick Man John McCain on the pledge roster, as well as House wingers who've been around for a while, like Crazy Man Trent Franks®. All of our newbies in the House also succumbed to Norquist's threat: Paul Gosar, Ben Quayle, and David Schweikert. Quayle, the sex website artist formerly known as Brock Landers, stepped into piss ant John Shadegg's district. Both Gosar and Schweikert beat Blue Dog Dems who ran namby-pamby campaigns that political science students will someday study in "How To Lose an Election" textbooks, the 2010 edition. (Lesson #1: Try to look like a Republican.)
Then I read last week that Tim Pawlenty has signed some other group's pledge, which commits him to supporting an amendment to the US Constitution that would prohibit same-sex marriages, like the one Kyl cosponsored in 2008. The pledge business seems to be one of the few bright spots on the economic horizon. I wonder if they're hiring. Heck, that shit stain Norquist has his pledge, even pea-brained homophobes have theirs. What's next, a Fred Phelps' pledge to dishonor dead soldiers? "God Hates the Pledgeless!"
Here I thought we sent representatives to Washington to serve constituents. Silly me, Senator Kyl and the rest of Arizona's Republican delegation (not that they're flying solo) have done very little to serve me because I'm not:
• an international conglomerate that wants to mine near the Grand Canyon,
• a healthcare insurance company that wants to spend less on services and more on compensation, perks, marketing, and shareholder dividends,
• a for-profit prison that could use more undocumented immigrants,
• a weapons manufacturer that wants anyone to be able to buy a dozen AK47s a day,
• an oil company that hates spending money on additional safety measures,
• a cattlemen's association just aching to eradicate wolves from the state,
• a lumber company that wants to use Arizona's recent fires as an excuse to increase clear-cutting,
• a military supplier that doesn't want its bids to be open to the public,
• a banking and investment firm that doesn't want a federal agency monitoring its activities,
• the top 2 percent.
Maybe Kyl and the others forgot why we sent them to DC. Or maybe we just need another pledge! So, as the Senator prepares for his Super Duper Committee meetings, I'll ask him to sign my pledge. Unlike Norquist's model, which says what they won't do, I'd like to know what they will do for constituents.
THE 10-POINT READY-FOR-PRIMETIME CONSTITUENT PLEDGE
I Jon Kyl pledge to:
1. spend as much time with out-of-work constituents as I do with lobbyists.
2. give up my congressional healthcare program and pay for a replacement plan on the open market.
3. take an unwed mother who works for minimum wage to every high-ticket fund raiser I attend.
4. volunteer at a free medical clinic or VA hospital.
5. work for a week as a 6th grade public school teacher.
6. hold a monthly open house for the families of men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
7. volunteer at a homeless shelter every week.
8. spend a year living on $22,500, which is above the poverty level for a family of four.
9. make a list of every government grant, paycheck, subsidy, scholarship, and other payment or benefit I and my family have received, post them on my office door, and read them aloud to staff every morning.
10. never open my mouth and utter a statement that somebody has paid me to say.
Try that Senator before you hunker down with your Committee to slash services and benefits for seniors, schools, hospitals, veterans, students, and anyone not in your corporate Rolodex.