All posts by James DeVol

Misc

Gotta stop watching Keith…

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Well…this one is going to be written tomorrow too, and I do need to stop watching Keith…just like reading “Bushwhacked”, I am quickly losing my faith in this administration with their decision to fight the decision of one of the appeals courts to allow a lawsuit against John Ashcroft for unlawful detention and breaking a bunch of other laws…geez…

Well…the gist of my anger with Obama and his administration is their decisions to allow people to blatantly break the law and then do nothing to hold the perpetrators accountable..the latest one has to do with John Ashcroft, as I said above, but it is a pattern of political calculation that goes back to their decision to not prosecute anyone in the Bush administration for their outright admission that they authorized torture; in direct violation of international and American law. Just think if this mindset was in use when Watergate was going on…the same ideas and actions would have let John Mitchell walk free…along with everyone else that was involved. What has happened to us? Why have we stopped holding criminals accountable? This latest action puts me about an inch away from giving up on Obama and withdrawing from the political process. I thought this country was a country of laws, a country that everyone from the president on down was subject to these laws…but I guess politics now trumps the law…and we are so the worse for it…geez…

Politics

Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican…

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Okay…has there ever been a more hypocritical bunch of folks than the current crop of Republicans? If you’ve been watching television at all over the last couple of months, you’ve no doubt seen the political ads that state with ominous certainty that the stimulus package has failed. It is a staple of the ads here in Michigan; second only to the repugs use of Nancy Pelosi as the scariest thing since Dracula, but, there is a little glitch in those attacks…it seems while McConnel, Bachmann, and Sessions hammer on their fake facts that the stimulus didn’t work, they have written letters to the agencies that are administering these funds touting the effectiveness of the spending in creating and preserving jobs in their districts. Now, what is it? Did the stimulus not work or did it add jobs? I am so tired of the American people believing this blatant hypocrisy…and I am just as tired of the “mainstream media” not running these inconvenient facts on the front pages of newspapers across the country. When did lies and hypocrisy become acceptable? Now I know you’re going to say that everyone lies and the Dems are just as culpable…but that in itself is not true…the repugs have raised it to an art form because they know that people just don’t care, that the American public lives in a world of sound bites and superficiality that will allow them to take back control of the country….and finish killing it. Geez…

Politics

Molly Ivins was right…

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Well…started reading the book ‘Bushwhacked” by Molly Ivins, the late columnist for the New York Times and all I can say is my depression has returned with the realization that she was right…not just about the “Shrub”, but about how business has bought this country…from the Supreme Court down through the state legislatures. The book is nominally about ole GW, but I see it as more an example of how pernicious the effect of money is in our election process, but not only that, it is a succinct indictment of the power that business wields in out society. And now I see that some of you that voted for Obama and change away from the wholesale theft of America, are leaning toward voting for the crooks that are rigging the game against you…that are using the secret money that is flowing into the repubs hands to steal this election. I now see this fight as one where we won a round in 2008, where we started to take the country back from the rampant business interests, but it was only one round…we need to be in this fight for the entire bout, until we can take the thumb of business off the scale and run this country for “we the people” again. But, we can’t do it if you fall for the lies of the right and big business…it is not better to have 50 million Americans without health insurance, it is not better to continue to give tax breaks to companies that move our jobs overseas, it is not better to have our elections stolen by secret money that is buying the legislators they are supporting. It’s up to us….

I think this is going to be a serial as I get deeper into the book and try to connect things that have happened like Enron, Adephia, Harken Oil, and others, to what you can expect if you vote for these guys again.

My Life

October 18th

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Well…it did end up to be a bore of a day yesterday..but I guess that’s my fault since I invested time in watching the Lions instead of putting the bike on the back of the car and doing something….the weather was nice anyway….it’s kind of weird that I have been quite happy for a couple of weeks and then it just goes away…not doing anything differently either…I was even going to write a post about being happy…good thing I waited…and things are back to normal so that post won’t happen…don’t have a lot to do today but I do have things to do at G’s today so the bike ride will have to wait until later….I am going to go out for coffee since I really do need that…and I also need to start finding more things to do…yep, that will include fishing, Tom, but I have a bunch of stuff to do this week…going to buy a cable modem so I can dump the dsl and get service that I’ll be able to use to watch Neflix online…but the son has to come over before he moves to set up the wireless router and I think that looks like Wed…it will be weird to have web pages load faster than 15 seconds…that’s about it…I do have a topic for later that is quite depressing but reading “Bushwhacked” by Molly Ivins has crystallized some thoughts that have been brewing for a while…more later…

My Life

October 17th

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Well…an okay day yesterday but fighting the boredom is getting a little harder…especially when Michigan looks so bad..but the Wings broke the 2 game losing streak (well, a loss and a tie) so that’s a plus..still can’t see the games here but when they get back to the normal 7 or 7:30 starting time, I’ll have to go out to watch a few. It’s only 7:48 and I have almost everything done I wanted to do today..I do need to clean this joint up some since the maint guys are coming tues to work on the furnace so I don’t die of carbon monoxide…not a lot else to do today…might have a short SF but am waiting to hear from K about it…and there is the Lions, I may need to watch to see if last week was a fluke…yeah, we all know it was but there’s that damn Lions optimism coming back again…almost delusional in it’s scope I’ll admit. No races since it was run last night…and I have a comment on Nascar and the half-full Charlotte track…boring, boring race…I wonder if it’s the races or just me that finds it boring…especially when racing used to be one of my favorite things in the world and now I can take it or leave it….so, look in sports later and I’ll solve all of the ills of the sports world…in one fell swoop…I’m going to go back and read the paper again like I used to since the morning run through is usually just a skim…but, you know it’s quite rare that I have a topic for Sunday….more later…

My Life

No outrage, not now, anyway…

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Well…it’s been kind of a long day even though I haven’t really done anything except cook, eat, and watch football…the Sate game was a good one once they got going but Michigan is stinking up the place through the first half. I did make a new rib recipe that was just great and I had about a pound and a half of them…have been sitting here kind of uncomfortable ever since…but damn, they were good. Might have to go back out on the bike to work them off but probably not…don’t I get a day off? Don’t know if I’ll watch much more of the game…have been flicking back and forth to the movie “Giant” and I think it has more attraction with how badly Michigan is playing. Might even start a book from the new bag I got from T this week…who knows?

Just wanted to let you know that there will not be any other postings today unless there is a miracle and I get an idea…but that can wait until tomorrow…I am leaning toward going out to get the makings for a manhattan since I can feel some boredom coming on…maybe not….I am getting used to feeling good in the morning…

My Life

October 16th

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Well…I know, I’m late this morning but I had to go out to FF to get some barbecue sauce and newspapers…making a new rib recipe that I got from G and forgot to get the sauce thurs. So, I’m sitting here waiting for the coffee to get done so I can read the papers and just relax until it gets warm enough to go out on the bike…and caffeine fueled bike riding is kind of fun…like I have a supercharger for my legs and, If I have too much, I’ll need to ride to burn off the excess. On the trip over to G’s this morning, there were some trees that were the reddest things I have seen in quite a few years..I may have to put the bike on the back of the car tomorrow and go out to do some color touring north of Lowell at the Fallasburg and Townsend parks…I think they even have a bar out by Townsend that might be fun…but I don’t like to have beers on the bike….makes it too much work. Not much to do today…I’ll bet you thought I wasn’t going to get that in, but I did and there really isn’t much to do but watch football…since Michigan isn’t playing Michigan State today, I can root for both of them…that’s about it….more later….no, really, more later…

Politics

What’s wrong with being an elite?

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Well…I’ve been listening to some of the repub candidates and the new, or not so new, talking point has to do with the class warfare they want to foment between themselves, the just regular folks, and the “East coast or political elites” that they say have screwed up this country. Let’s take the statement by Carly Fiorina, the fired ex-head of Hewlett Packard who ran the company into the ground and then parachuted out with a 50 million dollar severance which has powered her race in California. A race that she has spent almost 40 million dollars of her own money on to get elected, and that has for one of the main themes the attacks on the “elites” that run this country. Now, I think that someone who can spend 40 million dollars of their own money on a political campaign pretty elite, don’t you? And yet, the people that follow her are eating this stuff up. Are they too stupid or are they too blinded by rage to do the thinking that would make this assertion by Carly laughable at best?

Then, we have the anti intellectual Christine O’Donnell making fun of the fact and bursting her chest with pride that she didn’t go to Yale like her opponent; that she doesn’t have an advanced degree but is “just like you” and asserts that her lack of accomplishment either educationally or in life in general makes her the most qualified person for the senate seat from Delaware. When did the great accomplishment of graduating from college and going on to graduate school become a bad thing? It used to be that it was a great pride of America that these things could happen; and that the people that did the work and made the sacrifice to earn those advanced degrees were somehow special, and were to be emulated. But, the repubs have made it an asset to be the least educated, least capable, and least self-aware of any of the candidates…and their followers howl with derision at anyone who can think and make them think. I think what this is going to guarantee as the years pass is that we get people elected that truly don’t believe that we need to support education, that it is not really important for the “Real Americans” and will accelerate our slide to second class nation status.

But, this doesn’t need to happen, we can ensure that we continue to go forward as a nation by finding the smart people to elect, that have shown that they have the toughness to get into the trenches to fight for a better America…who won’t quit when the going gets tough (yep, that’s for you Sister Sarah) and who realizes that compromise is what makes a democracy work; not slash and burn…geez…

My Life

October 15th

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Well…it was a busy day yesterday and that was kind of nice for a change….and it looks like more of the same today, have to do the dreaded grocery shopping before the coffee shop but that’s okay since they have finished the construction on Kalamazoo and it will be easier to get there. Okay, I know it’s a boring life…I do have a movie from Netflix coming and with no booze yesterday, I feel good again today…I think I’ll do the no booze thing all weekend…but G is giving me a blender so I may have to make some frozen drinks to test it out….a margarita might be fun for later…I guess I’ll have to look for some recipes…but the grocery tab is so much lower without booze….I told you these would be kind of rambling for a couple of days…but, I do have a topic about the “elites” that the repubs are always harping on for later…or maybe something else if it strikes me….

Politics

Like a monkey with a loaded pistol…

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Well…finally getting to the topic of the influx of “silent” money that has come as a result of the Citizens United decision by the Supreme court. Doesn’t anyone see a problem or conflict of interest when a Republican organization brings a suit to the right-wing supreme Court and then gets a ruling that allows republican leaning business to donate as much money to the repubs as they want without any disclosure whatsoever? If you don’t think this as a concerted plan to aid their business buddies, you just have to look at the efforts of the Repubs in congress to filibuster the bill that would have made the small requirement that these funds report where the money was coming from. When I was growing up, these “donations” were called slush funds and more than one politician was booted out of office for running one…and doesn’t it seem to you that this money comes with a quid pro quo that will buy these donating corporations favorable legislation that will again squash the hopes and dreams of the regular folks? It’s something the I have championed for the time I’ve been writing this thing… that government is supposed to be the referee between big business and the people…government is supposed to be the protector of the middle class against this unlimited money and influence…can any of you give 10 million dollars to get your pet legislation through the congress that will give you tax free income in perpetuity? Didn’t think so…but the repubs are intent on rigging the game since they can’t win fair and square; with ideas that will make this country greater, that will grow the middle class, that will allow the normal folks like you and me to at least have a chance…but you know the repubs don’t want you to have a chance…the only thing they know is to steal more and more of this country for their rich buddies. Is this your vision of America? Nope, not mine either.

Now…to get to the title…our old buddy, Karl Rove is at the center of all of this slush money…his “fund” has almost 50 million dollars in it (from his business buddies from the Bushie years) that he is going to use to defeat Democrats in the November elections. Does anyone other than me think this is a bad idea? This is the criminal who was behind the outing of Valarie Plame, the firings of federal attorneys who wouldn’t pursue his political vendettas, and the big one, the selling of the Iraq war on the blatantly false assumption that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. When I heard about his founding his slush fund, the first thing that came to mind was it was like giving a monkey a loaded pistol….there’s no predicting the damage that will be done, and I’d rather give the 50 mil to a monkey than Karl….geez…