True to his Bush genes Jeb has just uttered what is not only the table prize of all Bush out-of- touch commentaries but ignores the true problem of our economy---substandard growth caused by the misguided austerity policies of his own Republican party.

His comment was, reportedly, when asked about how to achieve 4% growth---"It means that people need to work longer hours and, through their productivity, gain more income for their families."  Joseph and Mary, the Pope and Lucifer, where do you start?

Work longer hours, who the heck is he kidding? Americans already work longer hours than most any other developed country. How far out of touch do you have to be from the average worker in this country to utter such nonsense?

Could the OXI vote on the Greek referendum on Sunday be the beginning of something big? I mean a kind of beneficial contagion, a world wide movement, something which would impact nations and continents, that would reverse wealth concentration and focus on the problems of slow growth and unemployment of the youth---not to mention address abject poverty in many parts of the world? Howard Fineman thinks something's afoot in the Greek referendum---as he writes in an article today, The beginning of the Great Austerity Backlash.

Regarding the Senate committee's unanimous vote yesterday to "condition the President's power" on negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran, I was irate before I had my coffee, on the fence during breakfast, and surprisingly I now have decided not to allow perceived insults to the President ruin my day. I'm not gloriously happy, but I'm o.k with with the unanimous vote.

Within the vast offensiveness of the Indiana, and now Arkansas, Enshrine Christians (and Bigots) legislation what is being downplayed by progenitors is the leniency shown religious folk---who wish to refuse service to certain patrons---in providing proof that their refusal of service is central to their faith.

Folks like the Tea Party/Christians---who are the one's being pandered to with the recent odious legislation---are first in line to force welfare recipients to pee into cups or force the poor and elderly to provide voting I.D. that isn't necessary. But there is scant to no provision in these new laws requiring Christians to prove the sincerity and honesty of their own behavior.

It would be going too far to call Cotton a traitor, or even a saboteur because both those terms imply a subversive action which has disastrous real world impact---it doesn't take much imagination to conjure up real acts of monstrosity. But Cotton's open letter to Iran, signed by most of the Republican senators, does classify him as an impetuous, ambitious, running-off-at-both-ends backbencher who has just soiled the national nest.

The elephants in the room were quite visible in this week's Supreme Court hearings on the latest Republican attempt to destroy the signature legislation of America's first black President.

Justice Thomas---often incorrectly called a "sphinx" due to the absence of any oral questions from him since 2006---is, not by any stretch of the imagination, not an elephant. But for Thomas, apparently, asking questions is a bitch.

If our current political deadlock, amplified by the market forces of technology and capitalism are projected without modification into the future, a world of extreme inequality, overwhelming local taxes and religiously contrived restrictions on personal behavior awaits us. The invention of cheap and home made weapons including drones, 3-D printed guns, and cyber blackouts will make an ever angry electorate turn more violent.

"Are you the plumber printer?", Maggie, the bar tender, asked.

"Yeah, where are the restrooms?"

"Down the hall, on the left side", Maggie said, "We need four new plungers."

"They told me two plungers. I've gotta go back to the shop and get more resin."

As the printer plumber waddled back to his truck Maggie and I looked at each other and laughed at the vestigial human ethos in a manufactured worker.

"I have to remember that these machines are not real", she said, and touched my arm with the intent of reassurance. Reduced to a life of basic existence in this dystopian society on the banks of the Mississippi we humans latched onto any morsel of feeling or behavior that might remind us of the distant society we had enjoyed prior to the Missouri Printed Gun and Sex Bot Compromise.

There is a current meme in political commentary---can Hillary, Democrats, win back the white working class vote which was not particularly good in 2012, and seemed to deteriorate even more in 2014? My first response is, for a lot of reasons, I don't like the term "working class" because it is meant to describe whites---with little college education who work with their hands and who are in the lower half, or less, of the economic stratus---as less than or low than. This group describes a lot of friends, relatives and workers with whom I mostly interact. If I must categorize these folks analytically I would rather use a term like heartlander,  working stiff, or as a last resort, Walmart Mom. They run our infrastructure. And they are numerous. There are, for example, far more white working class folks than black working class folks---hang on, I want to google that---black working class....