Category Archives: Politics

The wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America…

Well…not sure how long this one is going to be since I just started thinking about it about 10 seconds ago…so, let’s see where it goes and if it’s worthwhile. As you know, I have been an outspoken critic of the cozy relationship that the repubs have with business interests here in the US, at most times, looking like they are the governing arm of the corporations; giving them whatever they want in the guise of “job creation” and getting government “out of the way”….themes that they still parrot and push even with the financial meltdown that was largely caused by the deregulation of the industry by the repubs. I will say that the dems were complicit in this nonsense either by stupidity or political expediency and they share the blame…but let’s not let false equivilency muddy the waters here…by and large, it was the repubs doing. So, where is this going? Oh, I just read that businesses and billionaires are planning to try to buy this election with over 1 billion dollars of advertising attacking the dems and pushing the hard right agenda….I fear for our democracy if this nonsense is allowed to continue…and I fault the American people for listening to the nonsense and not doing their duty as Americans to find out the facts before they vote….geez…

How about a politcal one?

Well…there are more and more lies coming out of Romney again today..or maybe it was yesterday…who knows other than when he opens his mouth, you have a better than even chance to bet that it will be another lie…I still can’t understand that he doesn’t understand that there is videotape on all of this crap he is saying…I think he is counting on the fact that the media has gotten lazy and only a few reporters are trying to call him on this nonsense. The specific speech in the last couple of days took Obama to task; saying that the government stimulus actually held back the economy…spouting some weird, right wing propaganda that has no basis in economic fact. But the big lie is that, in 2009, he was on board with stimulus and the need for it in a severe downturn and made plenty of speeches that supported it….instead of an etch a sketch…people should be bringing flip flops to his rallies and waving them in the air…this man has no core…he learned nothing from that ivy league education…or he is just the worse sort of pandering liar that litters our political landscape these days…someone who would have been laughed off the stage 30 years ago…geez…

Obama is the most divisive politician?

Well…the repubs have a new talking point that they have been trying out over the past week or so and it makes me laugh it is so ridiculous…they now assert that Obama is the most divisive politician in Washington today…okay, just writing that made me laugh. More divisive than the liar Romney? More divisive than the turtle McConnell who stated that his whole purpose in life and politics was to make sure Obama failed and with it the country? How about Paul Ryan and the other tea baggers who shut down the government over the debt ceiling? I have to remind the repubs yet again that in the world that is based on facts, just saying something is so does not make it true…it might to their base but to the rest of us, we say “show us” and prove your assertions…geez…

One last thing…and one that shows that idiocy is alive and well in Arizona…the repub secretary of state there is “not sure” if he will allow Obama to be on the ballot there since he is “not sure” if Obama was born here in the US….stupidity runs rampant on the right from the bottom to the top….

More Wisconsin shenanigans…

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…

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….