Well…getting ready to go out and shoot pool so I thought I’d better get the second one for today out now since I won’t be motivated to do it later…and, this one will be short so take a minute to take a look…just wanted to comment on the new set of shenanigans that are going on with our old buddy Scott Walker in front of the recall election that is taking place in the early part of June…since the official federal government figures (that everyone uses and trusts as a yardstick to the true growth in jobs) came in not to his liking…and shows that ole Scott’s policies are not working to create jobs, in fact, Wisconsin rates almost last in job creation of all of the states in the past year. So, what does he do? Not what any sane person would do like change what he is doing…nope, ole Scott does what they used to do in the old Soviet Union and make up new facts that better fit his narrative as a “job creator”….and then, he trots out his trolls to try to sell the fact that job growth is okay and then blames the lack of jobs on the “uncertainty” caused by the recall and the unions. Isn’t anyone else getting tired of the repubs not taking responsibility when their failed, crazy policies don’t work? It was like Grover Norquist on Bill Maher’s show last night…where he disparaged stimulus policies as being “Keynesian” and basically said that the repubs had a new type of economics that work much better. What a load of crap….geez…
Category Archives: Politics
How does Romney keep getting away with it?
Well…I know I’ve talked about this at length over the past couple of months…or even longer…the months kind of run together when I’m trying to keep up with the lies coming out of the Romney campaign…but, here we go again with the latest one…in a speech given the other day, ole Mitt has a new talking point that he is trying out called “Obama’s prairie fire of debt” that tries to assert that the deficits and the national debt is all Obama’s fault and his policies will be the cause of much more if he is reelected. But, again, ole Mitt is using the repub playbook and trying to create his own “facts” that have been roundly criticized by all of the non-partisan organizations that look into these economic claims…I just get to the point and call them lies…baldfaced lies that Romney is using to try to dupe the independents that this election will turn on into believing he is not just George Bush…again. First…let’s start with his claim that the deficits will continue to rise under Obama… there are so many experts out there that have no political axe to grind who have looked at the facts and have agreed with me and called this a blunt lie. Then, they go on to score the Romney proposals of more and more tax cuts for the rich and find that his proposals will INCREASE the debt by over 5 trillion dollars over 10 years….now, I do struggle at math at times but no increase in the debt is a better thing than an increase of 5 trillion, right? I am at a loss to why the media just doesn’t post a disclaimer every time that ole Mitt tries these lies…something like “these assertions have been found to be untrue”…instead of treating the lies with the same gravity that should be reserved for the truth. Mitt should be ashamed….geez….
A local show of classlessness…
Well…there has been an interesting development on the local level of politics here in Michigan, and some would say a betrayal of the citizens of Grand Rapids, at least the Democratic ones by state Rep Roy Schmidt who just over the past few days has switched from the dems to the repubs. There are so many ways this tactic hits the ethical rock bottom, even for the repubs, that I have to comment on it…first, there must have been long term talks for this change to happen and all the while, rep Schmidt has been raising money for his reelection from his dem base…yep, that’s right, he is going to use the money from his dem supporters to run as a repub..at the very least, this liar should return every dime that he has gotten from any fundraiser or any other source that is dem affiliated. Second, the timing of the change was planned to ensure that the dems would not have anyone to oppose this turncoat in the election for this newly drawn district…just another instance where the repubs know they can’t win an election fair and square so they have to resort to this kind of shenanigans to manipulate the system to win…just like they are doing with all of the voter suppression measures that have been passed across the country. I say this to rep Schmidt…your whole career is a result of the dems supporting you and you would never have been elected, not once, if you would have run as a repub….this is political opportunism at it’s worst…you will fit right in with your new repub buddies….
A short one about the republican playbook..
Well…this thought just came to me as I have been reading about the vagueness of the economic proposals that are coming out of the Romney camp…it occurs to me that this is the exact same playbook that Scott Walker used to get elected in Wisconsin…lie to the people about your true intentions and make yourself look as innocuous as possible…never revealing your true, radical agenda until after the election…the only problem is that there is no way to recall a president that does that like there are in many of the states. this appears to be in the repub playbook all across the country as we move toward the election….just more of the “bait and switch” that the repubs have done so successfully over the past few years…
One last thing…the repubs have sunk to a new low today in Virginia for rejecting a judicial candidate just because he is gay and supports civil rights for gays and lesbians. While I abhor this kind of conduct by the repubs…I also feel that it is going to hasten the inevitable decline of those troglodytes and we may not have to deal with them anymore by the end of my lifetime….we can hope, anyway…
More republican hypocrisy…
Well…I know it’s been a few time that I have used this title but it just keeps occurring and it just fits so well…this time the hypocrisy comes from an unusual source within the party, the “Log Cabin” republicans; the part of the repub party that is made up of gays and lesbians. So, when they came out the other day (nope, didn’t plan to say that) criticizing the president for his delay on his support of gay rights and marriage, I laughed my butt off…and that laughter was driven by the fact that they have not said anything about Romney’s blanket declaration in opposition of those rights….so, it’s bad to delay but eventually support gay rights if you are a dem but it is okay to continue to oppose them if you are a repub? Just the kind of hypocrisy that makes my job easier and shows that the modern repubs have no class or honesty….but, did we expect anything different with these idiots?
A preview of things to come with Romney…
Well…it was an interesting week last week with the revelation of a 2 billion dollar loss at JPMorgan that was caused by trading in the same kind of unregulated derivatives that caused the meltdown in 2008/2009, and the losses might even be bigger once all of dust settles. I find it funny that the companies that have fought the re-regulation of the financial sector the hardest continue to make these types of trades putting the economy at risk with their “trust us” attitudes but little else…and if ole Mitt is elected, he has stated that one of his first goals is to cut the weak regulation that has been passed in the past few years and “get government out of the way” basically letting the banks do whatever they want, including risking the entire economy to make the obscene profits that flow to the 1%; never to anyone else. It’s just another example of the vision that the repubs have for the country…that the lucky and connected few reap all of the rewards and everyone else takes the risk….and the middle class continues to disappear…geez…
Let’s remember this about Mitt…
Well…just a short one to share something that has been troubling me since the “Mitt the bully” story broke earlier this week….while ole Mitt dismisses the attack as just a prank, if it were to happen today, let’s remember that this would be a felony assault and Mitt wouldn’t be running for anything but the president of his cell block….the country has evolved to view these “pranks” as the vicious violence that they are and Mitt can’t just dismiss it with a wave of the hand and an “I don’t remember”….this kind of stuff, that continued to happen as ole Mitt went through college and into his “missionary” work in France and through the Bain years where he had no feeling for the people who he threw out of work for personal gain, is an accurate indicator of the man’s personality that continues to this day…you can imagine what an administration run by a man who “likes to fire people” and thinks that everyone can start a business with loans from their parents would look like…and it’s not pretty…geez….
It’s a matter of priorities…
Well…if you remember back a few months, there was this long, drawn out negotiation that led to the debt ceiling being raised and the repubs agreed to cuts in the Pentagon budget while the dems agreed to some cuts to the social safety net…a necessary compromise to keep the government from defaulting on its debts. Now, though, we have the repubs in the House reneging on the agreement by proposing that the Pentagon cuts be restored and paying for them by taking an axe to programs like food stamps and others that help support the poor and middle class. When does the military/industrial complex have to sacrifice like the rest of us? And, when are the repubs going to think of the citizens of this country and not just the businesses that buy them their seats? It’s a matter of priorities and I think the repubs have theirs all wrong….cutting a few billion out of a bloated military budget won’t make us less safe…hell, we could save over 10 billion a month just by ending the Afghan war and bringing our troops home…so why don’t we do that instead of asking the poor and middle class to give up what little is left of their safety net? It’s this backwards thinking by the repubs that keeps us from rebuilding our roads and the rest of our country just so these chicken hawks can puff out their chests and scream “we’re number one”…..and you’ll get even more of that if more repubs are elected in the fall….geez…
It’s about time…
Well…just a short comment on the decision by the president to continue to “evolve” his views on gay marriage to the point that he now supports it and all I can say is “it’s about time”. It’s about time that millions of our fellow citizens don’t have to hide anymore…it’s about time that everyone in this country has the same rights as everyone else…and, it’s about time that we tell the homophobes on the right that our gay and lesbian friends are no different than we are…they want the same chance to be happy in a committed relationship with the benefits of marriage…they want to be able to go to the hospital and visit their loved ones and not be shunted aside since they have no legally recognized relationship….especially here in Michigan where this discrimination has been codified into our constitution…and needs to be removed as soon as possible. This is the fundamental difference between the parties in this election; one party wants to continue the historical duty of a democracy to extend the rights of that democracy to more and more people while the other, the repubs, try to do their best to limit the rights of citizenship to only those that agree with them and over the past decade or so, have done their best to disenfranchise everyone but them….I hope that time is over and those of us who believe that deriving the benefits of citizenship should become easier over time…not harder and harder as the repubs do. I know that just having the president come out in favor of this civil right will not automatically tear down the roadblocks the repubs have built…but, I find it heartening that Obama has found a spine finally and has said enough to the right…now it’s up to us to support him at the ballot box to make this a better country…
Ole Mitt is still delusional…
Well…I just have to hand it to ole Mitt and his chutzpah over the past few days, trying to take credit for the success of the auto bailout….yep, the guy who famously said “let them go bankrupt” is now taking credit like he was the one who provided the money and the guts to save 3 million jobs in the auto industry…what a load of crap! What ole Mitt wanted was for the companies to go through what he did to other companies while he was at Bain…that is for them to shed all of the middle class, union jobs, replacing them (or not replacing them) with many, many fewer, low paying jobs so his vulture cronies could come in, destroy the companies while piling up billions in fees that would go to the 1%. So, if ole Mitt can take credit for the bailout, shouldn’t I be able to say the same thing since I advocated some form of restructuring a few years back? Let’s remember one thing here….that restructuring takes money, money that was not even available to high profit companies like GE during the financial meltdown…something that ole Mitt is conveniently forgetting…that the government was the lender of last resort and that there just was NO private money for the process. What a liar…..