Well…if you are a regular reader here, you might have seen me do a post on the shady dealings here in GR (that’s Grand Rapids to those of you that aren’t from around here) where a long time Democratic rep Roy Schmidt waited until it the last few minutes of the filing deadline to switch parties, ensuring that the dems would not be able to register anyone to oppose him; leaving the dems to the arduous task of a write in campaign for their candidate. This sleazy nonsense has had some details put to it over the past couple of days, and it is even worse than was reported a few months back. It appears that rep Schmidt and the speaker of the house Jase Bolger, both repubs, put together a nasty little plan that tried to place one of rep Schmidt’s sons friends on the ballot as a dem with the stipulation that this young man not run any campaign so that rep Schmidt would have no opposition and would fix the election for him. Rep Schmidt even went so far as to pay this young man $1,000 dollars if he would register and even had his chief of staff file the paperwork…even though the young man didn’t live in the district. Then, we have the prosecutor for Kent County saying that while the move was sleazy, it didn’t break any laws. But, this is not true…if you prompt someone to make a false statement in court or on a political filing…it is called suborning perjury and it is certainly against the law. There is enough evidence here to charge both Schmidt and Bolger with this crime, this voter fraud that they say they are so opposed to and are so afraid of. At the very least, these two should immediately resign so a fair election can take place…after all, it’s what the repubs say they want….geez…
Category Archives: Politics
Mitt is now a liar and a time traveler…
Well…had to get this one down before I forget it…the latest bit of nonsense coming out of ole Mitt’s campaign made me laugh out loud for the audacity of it…this weekend, one of ole Mitt’s advisers went on a Sunday talk show to try to explain why SEC filings show that Mitt was still the head honcho at Bain until 2002, not 1999, the date that Mitt has used to try to say he had no role in the outsourcing of jobs that Bain pioneered….and the adviser used the phrase “retroactively retired” to explain the discrepancy…You gotta hand it to these folks, creating their own reality that bears no resemblance to the truth and hoping that no one will notice….I am awestruck with the new ways they have found to lie…but, Mitt is such an expert that I shouldn’t be surprised…geez…
Oh, one last thing we should remember about these dates, most of the job creation that ole Mitt is taking credit for happened after 1999 when ole Mitt said he was no longer running Bain…so, he takes credit for jobs when he says he was retired but won’t take responsibility for outsourcing in the same time frame? Just more lies from the king of them…
Mitt is still a liar…
Well…I have been trying to winnow out the happenings of the day to get to one that I want to write about, and have decided to go back to that gift that just keeps on giving…ole Mitt. Today, the story of Mitt not being responsible for all of the reprehensible behavior at Bain Capital fell apart with the disclosure that his assertion that he had left Bain in 1999 is not true…SEC filings show that he was still the CEO of Bain until 2002; well into the bad days of gutting companies for profit and throwing thousands and thousands of people out of work. But, this is just more of the same for ole Mitt who feels (like most repubs) that the truth is what he says it is, not what it really is…and goes along with the latest revelations that he has hidden large amounts of income in havens like the Cayman Islands so he doesn’t have to pay taxes on it…not something available to normal folks and a good indicator of what his administration would look like…more privilege for those that have money and connections and everyone else can go to hell. Coupled with his weird assed speech to the NCAAP the other day where he tried to convince the delegates there that he would be better for black people because he would end “Obamacare” and give more tax cuts to the rich, it is abundantly clear that ole Mitt is so out of touch with the 99% of us that have to work for a living that he should just go back to his house with the car elevator and leave the rest of us alone…geez…
Is the 33rd time the charm?
Well…you need to look no farther than the repub controlled house to see why the unemployment rate is not improving here in the US. Today marks the 33rd time that the repubs have brought bills to the floor of the House to repeal the ACA…a lesson in political futility that has many in this country wondering if they have lost their minds…after all, one of the great philosophers said that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” but that is just what we see from these guys…the senate will never even take up the bills and the president will veto it if it ever got to his desk. So, why are they wasting the country’s time when there are still 50 million people without health care and over 8 percent unemployment? Where are the job creation bills? Where are the infrastructure restoration bills? This is just another example where it is clear that the repubs don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves and their wealthy backers…geez….
If you had any delusions about Mitt…
Well…just a short one on some new revelations on who is trying to buy the election for ole Mitt…an article in one of the papers this morning lists 30 billionaires who make up the bulk of the giving so far with one saying he plans to give Mitt over 100 million dollars to defeat Obama. Now, I don’t care if it looks like I’m against rich people even though I’m not, but 30 people out of 330 million deciding the election? Do you think Sheldon Adelson is giving the 100 million out of the goodness of his heart? No, he is giving the money so he can get laws passed that will help him make back the 100 million in a couple of months if Romney is elected…an investment that anyone in the US would love to be able to do but that is restricted to those that can help the repubs buy the election…what happened to free and fair elections…after all, that is what the repubs used to favor but now all they want to do is rig them like some third world country…people, we need to defeat this money…if we do, and there is no return on investment for these billionaires, they will stop trying to buy elections…geez….
Let’s tackle voter fraud again…
Well…with the heating up of the controversy over the repub sponsored voter I.D. laws across the country, I thought I’d throw a few new facts that have surfaced over the past couple of days. First, let’s remember what the purpose of these laws are…they are to suppress the votes of people that are likely to vote for the dems…the poor, minorities, and college students, and, in Pennsylvania, that leads to almost 800,000 people (almost 10% of the voters in the state) that will not be able to vote under the law signed by their thug governor Chris Christie…and, if you are at all confused by the repubs public cries of widespread voter fraud, you just have to listen to Romney’s campaign chair from Pennsylvania who crowed to a crowd of Romney supporters that the voter I.D. law will ensure a Romney victory in the fall. I want people to remember what the truth is behind the numbers of recognized mis-voting….the Bushies did a study looking at 5 years of elections across the country and only found 86 cases…yep, 86 cases in the hundreds of millions of votes cast and even some of those were just people who voted that were not eligible for that election. So, the facts are that there is no voter fraud in the US and these laws are just another example of the repubs trying to rig another election that they can’t win on merit or ideas…when are we going to wake up to this nonsense and toss these un-American bums out? Geez…
Just some musings…
Well…it has been a nice day so far with having a surprise lunch with T…but that’s not what I wanted to talk about…what do I want to talk about? Oh…are Americans getting more stupid every day or have they always been this way? that little question was spurred by an article that I just read saying that the percentage of people that believe in global warming here in the US has jumped by almost 20% since the weather has gone screwy this year…no, I’m not sure if any of these events is a harbinger of climate change; some of it may be but it strikes me that this is like the naysayers who point to blizzards as say “where’s your global warming now?”. Hmmm….oh, I want to deal with the conspiracy theory that says that business won’t hire until Obama is defeated and that is what is driving the poor employment numbers. You may remember that I proposed the same theory a while back (somewhat tongue in cheek), but it was supposed to be taken as comedy….but now, it appears that the idea is getting some traction in the media…I hope not, since it is demand, demand, demand….that drives hiring and until demand increases, or the forecast of demand increases, you would be an idiot to hire anyone…so, let’s keep to the science of economics, not to wild speculation…even if wild speculation is much more fun….
More Mitt….
Well…just a little short one on an article that was reported the other day that goes to how ethically challenged ole Mitt is….and how he has no problem lying about anything if it will further his political prospects…a few days back it was revealed that in his days as a job killer at Bain, he instructed one of his subordinates to lie to obtain information about a competitor…a great example to set for people who work for you and not a trait that anyone should want in a president. Except the right, that is, who have absolutely no problem lying, cheating, and stealing to shove their warped vision of the US down our throats. It looks like the people are starting to get an idea of who the real Mitt is and the polls are reflecting it finally….if you haven’t seen it, there was a funny arc in “Doonesberry” this week that took ole Mitt’s job creation claims to task…he created lots of jobs but those jobs were in China and the Chinese government sent a representative to give him a plaque for it…funny stuff…
Something weird and surprising here in Michigan….
Well….I have been vegging it out today in the heat but I do have to comment on a weird occurrence that happened a couple of days ago here…as you probably know, across the country the repubs have been passing new laws aimed at “voter fraud” but whose true purpose is to suppress the votes of those Americans that tend to vote for the dems since the repubs can’t win on their ideas. That same thing was happening here in Michigan using the model laws that have been dreamed up by ALEC…the extreme right wing organization that gave us the “stand your ground” laws that have been responsible for hundreds of deaths across the country. But, there was surprising thing that happened here after the repubs passed bills to do the same thing…our governor vetoed them…yep, my jaw dropped too when I read about it….it is the first time that a repub governor had the guts to go against the party lockstep and lies that led to those laws. I am starting to get a grudging respect for Governor Snyder…even though he has gone along with the righties many times since he was elected and I don’t agree with any of them….this time he did what was right for all of the people of Michigan, not just those who voted for him. So, thank you Mr. Snyder…keep doing what is right…not just for the political right….
Another day…some hope…
Well….it has been a hot one and I didn’t get the bike fixed yet…broken welder and all that but should have it back by the weekend…there have been some developments that I did want to comment on…first…I am laughing to watch the repubs twist and turn and try to take political advantage of the ACA ruling…but, there are new polls that show the almost 60% of the people want to move on to try to fix the rest of the countries problems…not go back to re-legislate and litigate the health care battle. So, keep it up repubs, your opposition will work well with your base but the rest of the country is moving on and is going to leave you behind in November. Oh, other polls out today show that Obama is taking the lead in many of the swing states and among independents…so, again repubs, keep it up, whatever you are doing is working for us…I have glimmers of hope that the 1% may not be able to buy this election after all….yay!
One last thing…I just about gagged when tea party darling rep Joe Walsh started whining that his opponent…the veteran Tammy Duckworth, who lost both of her legs to an RPG in Iraq, talks about her war record saying that it’s unseemly that she trots out her injuries when she talks about her experiences….get over it Joe…she served, you didn’t and she gets to talk about her sacrifice any time she wants….last I saw, you still had all of your limbs….