Well…since I watched through the entire debate (with a few flicks over to see how the Wings were doing), I think it’s a good idea to do a postmortem on what I thought of it…to get this first thing out of the way…that the media thought that it would not be interesting and that no one would watch was just plain wrong…15 million people tuned in and what they got was an interesting debate that certainly clarified where each candidate stands on the issues…I was a little disappointed that there were some attacks by the candidates on each other…something they should just leave to the repubs…but, for the most part, they stuck to the issues and really clarified how they are different from the repubs…from gun control, to income equality, to infrastructure, these candidates set out what is different between them and the repubs…the dems think of what is possible and made it clear that the repubs only think in terms that everything that should be done to make the US a better is impossible…that we can’t afford it…when every other industrialized country can afford paid family leave…healthcare for all, and keeping their infrastructure current…and the only reason we don’t do it is that the repubs are giving the country away to the rich…there was not a more stark difference between the two parties that could have been shown and I am glad these candidates had the guts to say it…they are never going to get the right to vote for them so why pander to the crazies on the right? I will say that there are two of the five that were ont he stage that should not make the next debate…Jim Webb showed that he is basically a republican that is calling himself a democrat and is way too far to the right for the progressives…and Lincoln Chaffee who is just too mild mannered with no fire that you need to get through the general. As you know, Bernie Sanders is my favorite here..whose populist ideas to me are just what this country needs right now…but, Hillary Clinton did well, too and would eat any of the repubs alive in a debate…the surprise of the night was Martin O’Malley who started to show that he deserved to be there and would be viable alternative to the two frontrunners. All in all, it was a good night for the dems and I look forward to debate number two…more substance forAmerica is just what we need.
Category Archives: Politics
Circular logic on Climate change…
Well…just read a little article about climate change in Alaska that I just had to comment on since it made me shake my head in disbelief….the governor of Alaska came out in the past few days in favor of accelerated drilling for oil basically everywhere in Alaska…wildlife refuges, offshore, anywhere there may be oil…and your jaw will drop when you hear the reason for this drilling…he wants to drill and burn more oil so that Alaska will have the money to cope with climate change…he said that some villages have to be moved from thawing permafrost and the only way he can see to do that is to make climate change worse…and this is the flaw of not having a national policy on climate change…the states will be left to make the world problem worse to deal with it’s local effects…what a bit of circular logic…and I really am shaking my head…geez…
The Democratic debate…
Well…have been waiting a while for the first dem debate and I am a little excited to have them get started…it will be cool to see the adults on our side talk about policy and how they will make the average American’s lives better versus the attacks and the lies that came out of the repub debates…I still can’t believe that the moderators didn’t call ole Carly on her PP lies or really any of the others since the majority of the repub debaters lied through their teeth the entire night. If you ever have wondered if the corporate media is in the tank for the right…all you have to do is listen to the themes that are running through the reporting on the dem debate…that it is going to be boring since the dems are going to talk about policy and not personal attacks….and that the ratings are going to be small since it won’t be entertaining….well, folks, debates are not supposed to be “entertaining” they are supposed to give the voting public information about the candidates and the policies they will push when they are elected…contrary to the repubs whose only policy is to give more tax cuts to corporations and the rich and to hate on government and ensure that it is not successful…if you doubt that, just take a look at the House under repub control…they have done nothing to make the country a better place for our average citizens and have not dealt with any problem that affects them….we will see who the adults are after tonight…and it won’t be the Donald live tweeting the event……
Need to do some political stuff…
Well…have been getting behind on the political stuff lately so here goes…I have been watching with interest (actually with popcorn) the daily slow motion disintegration of the repub party in the House over the past month or so and it would be funny if it didn’t have such dire consequences for all of us…with the debt ceiling fight coming up, the crazy assed righties of the GOP are perfectly willing to do everything in their power to destroy the world’s economy since Obama, something, something….and they are so delusional even John Boehner had enough and resigned and they have not been able to find anyone else to do the job…and the crux of the whole thing is the fact that these righties believe that if they only got rid of Boehner…the 54th vote to repeal Obamacare would work….either not knowing or willfully ignoring the fact that any bill doing that would be vetoed and if it was attached to the debt ceiling bill, that would still be vetoed and the country’s economy would crater…but that doesn’t matter to these asses…they have their jobs and just don’t care if millions are put out of work by their shenanigans. This is what happens when you let children run the show…wishful thinking replaces facts and the country suffers….geez…
Poisoning our children for tax cuts for the rich…
Well…I have been trying to work up some outrage over the shenanigans of the repubs for a while but their trashing of the country for profit has gotten so brazen that I just have to say something. Right here in Michigan we see the results of all these giveaways to the rich with the lead poisoning of the people of Flint, caused by the emergency manager there making the decision to disconnect from the Detroit water system and to start pumping water from the Flint River since it would save the city 12 million dollars a year. For 16 months now, since the switch, the people of Flint have not had any water that is safe to drink since the EPA and Michigan DEQ says that there are no safe levels of lead in water…none, that means that any lead makes the water unsafe…but, Snyder and his cronies knew that and just kept doing study after study and dragging their feet since to do something might mean they would have to raise some taxes to pay for the fix…and the result is we have many of our fellow citizens that are permanently damaged since lead poisoning never goes away…it can’t be treated, and the results will be felt by the poorest of us for the rest of their lives…all just to keep cutting taxes for the rich. This is how the repubs govern folks…it’s all bottom line to them…balance the budget with no thought to what that kind of nonsense does to the people…you have seen it time and time again here in Michigan and across the country from the repubs..ideology before the people and to hell with who it hurts…I just hate these guys…geez…
The VRA and JEB!
Well…as you probably already know, the repubs on the supreme court gutted the Voting Rights Act by allowing states to make changes to their voting laws without any supervision by the federal government since “racism in voting is over”…and yesterday, ole JEB! agreed saying he wouldn’t approve the reinstatement of all of the parts of the VRA since “the problems were 60 years ago and are not happening now”. Well…whether JEB! is lying or he is so ignorant of what is going on in this country he should be disqualified from even running for president. As soon as the VRA was gutted, every repub controlled state started to put plans into action to disenfranchise the poor and minorities since they know that the time is coming that they can’t win any elections other than by cheating. No one likes their ideas other than the rich and racists so they institute voter ID, limit when people can vote, and the newest one, where the repubs move the polling places around up until the elections so no one in a majority minority precinct even knows where to vote…all to suppress the voters that will never vote for them. I hate to tell you this JEB! but your party is still doing the same old crap they did 60 years ago and the VRA was needed then since your party has no morals, and it is needed now since they still have no morals…open your frickin eyes, you idiot…geez…
Here’s the flaw, NRA….
Well..I’m sure you’ve heard the nonsense that keeps being pushed by the NRA that says: “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun..” …and they try to use that to get people desensitized to people carrying guns all over the place where they shouldn’t…and you’ve heard me rant about the fact that I don’t want to be around people carry guns..after all, who the hell can tell who the “good guy with a gun” is? That little fact that showed the fallacy of the NRA’s contention was on display at the latest mass shooting where 9 Americans were murdered in a classroom…again…you heard the gun fetishists scream that the school was a “gun free zone” and that is why no “good guy with a gun” was there to stop this murderer…all lies, and more lies…this school was not a gun free zone…in fact there were many people on that campus that were carrying guns that day…but, one of the carriers explained the nonsense of the NRA’s contention, a former military man trained in use of guns…this guy said there was no way he was going to take his gun out and get involved since “how can the swat team tell that I’m a good guy with a gun?” Pulling out his gun and getting involved would have probably meant this guy would be dead right now with some lame apologies for it….so, the next time you hear the NRA’s crap, you know it is a fallacy, a lie just to get people more scared and get them to buy more guns…don’t believe it…geez…
This is just sick…
Well…if you’ve been here before, you’ve heard me talk about the need to keep religion where it belongs; in churches and not forced down the throats of people who may be of another religion or of no religion at all…and the people here in the US who are the perpetrators of that force are the supposed “Christians” who have the delusional notion that the US is a “Christian” country. Even now, in 2015 we still have this crap going on all across the country, but mainly in the south where even elementary school children are being coerced into illegal prayer in school. In this particular case, a public elementary school in Georgia was forcing the entire school to engage in Christian prayers to start the day, clearly an unconstitutional act but it gets even worse…when two kids whose parents told the school district that it was unconstitutional said they wouldn’t pray, they were yelled at by their teachers and told to go sit in the hallway while the rest of the class prayed…and later, other teachers tried to get the kids to go against their parents teaching and pray with the class just to “get along”. Finally, the parents had had enough and sued the school district to get them to cease and desist their illegal acts. While the parents won the case, what kind of reprisals will that mean for their kids? One of the kids was pulled from the school because she was uncomfortable with how she was treated…and the other, older child is trying to stick it out under the daily, subtle threats she is undergoing. Now, this whole sordid episode just shows why religion should be put back in churches where it belongs….but the teachers and administrators who set up this forced adherence to Christianity should also have been fired…but, they are still there, waiting for their next chance to break the law and push their religious beliefs on others…geez…
Lyndsey Graham is such a hypocrite…
Well….when I think of repubs these days, all I can think of is how they are such hypocrites…and you’ve seen me write about this before but this latest example from the senator from South Carolina just ices that cake and puts a cherry on top. If you remember back a couple of years when hurricane Sandy hit the northeast and did monumental damage to the coastline, the repub talking point at the time was that any aid that was to go to repair the damage had to be offset by spending cuts in other areas of the government…and this crap was led by ole Lyndsey who voted against any aid for the people who were devastated by that storm…let’s fast forward to this week when a hurricane hits his state with the worst flooding in history there…I wonder what ole Lyndsey’s reaction is…not to offset any help for his state, but to be the first to “feed at the trough of the federal government” as the repubs always say when regular people need some help from their government. Now, I have no problem with helping the people of South Carolina or any other state where there is s natural disaster…that is what a society is for…but I do have a problem with this idiot playing politics with disaster aid when it’s not his state…the rank hypocrisy here makes me sick…but, that’s the modern repubs for you…nothing for you unless I approve….what a load of crap…
Stuff happens?
Well…another week, another mass shooting leaves more Americans dead…I’m not sure what to think about these things that just keep happening over, and over, and over….but, my reaction is not “stuff happens” which is exactly what ole JEB! responded when asked about the tragedy. Stuff happens?…9 people are dead and JEB! repsonds “stuff happens”…I don’t know what to think about that…a person running for president asked about 9 dead and he just dismisses it with “stuff happens”? I have a theory why he would react that way…he just doesn’t give a damn about anyone but himself and the rest of people who have allowed him to go through his life detached from reality….just like his brother before him and the rest of the crowd he runs with…they just don’t give a damn…and I am tired of them…and of people dying…I’m just tired….geez…