Well…just a quick one on the daily gaffes that have been flowing out of the repub candidates and I’m not sure to laugh about them or just roll my eyes…is this shooting fish in a barrel? Yeah, it kind of is but it’s such a hanging curve ball I’m going to take a swing. Okay, I recognize that those last two were bad….Let’s start with ole Rick again, when asked about the unemployment rate, he answered that he “didn’t care about the unemployment rate” and his candidacy is about ‘freedom” and bigger issues than unemployment…how many ways is this one wrong? The one that I want to highlight is the fact that by this statement, Santorum has said that ideology and his right wing agenda is going to trump all of the rest of the problems the country faces…and there are issues that most of us think are more important than his war on everyone but conservative white people. Then, I have to say thanks to ole Mitt for another “let them eat cake” moment that came from questions about his desire to “get rid” of Planned Parenthood. When asked where poor women would go to get the health services that Planned Parenthood provides that they can’t afford to get anywhere else, the wonderfully obtuse Mitt replied “they can go anywhere, it a free country”….I really do wish I was making these up but I’m not…this is the quality of the field from the repubs and these are their ideas….so don’t let them dance around these issues…
Category Archives: Politics
Before I have lunch…
Well…just got back from the ride and thought I’d do this one before I get to making lunch…I guess I’ve never seen such a truth challenged bunch like the current crop of repub candidates…starting with ole Rick in Puerto Rico last week saying that for them to get statehood, they would have to comply with federal law that says they have to speak English…I don’t know if it ignorance or just stupidity but there is no such federal law on the books..nowhere…so that still leaves us with the fact that ole Rick is either ignorant of federal law, a great thing for a president, or he is just another of the repubs who are showing they are just not too bright. That brings us to the main event and the attack that ole Mitt made on Obama this week saying that is Obama’s regulatory overreach that is phasing out the incandescent light bulbs that are such energy wasters. First, Mitt, the law that is resulting in the demise of the old fashioned bulbs is contained in a law that was written and passed by a repub controlled congress and signed into law by ole GW himself…long before Obama even took office and long before any regulations on these bulbs could have been made by him. So, here we have supposedly the two best that the repubs have to offer both either showing their stupidity or deliberately lying just to mollify their base…what kind of governance should we expect from these guys? Geez…
This is growth of government?
Well…haven’t been able to write much lately and I’m not sure what the cause is just yet….it could be spring fever…who knows? What I did want to talk about today is the misconception that the repubs are trying to sell that the Obama administration has expanded government regulation more that any president in history and is taking away our freedoms and strangling business…blah, blah, blah…when the opposite is true. Just compare the the costs of the last three years of ole GW’s to the first three years of Obama’s and you’ll see that the regulatory costs and the sheer number of new regulations was significantly higher under ole GW…costing business and individuals billions of dollars and piling on the red tape. I know that none of this means anything to the fact-challenged repubs…they think lies repeated often enough magically turn into the truth….and how can you argue with that?
Arizona is the model if the Republicans win…
Well…just a short one to comment on the jaw-dropping new bill that is being passed in Arizona concerning women’s access to birth control….this new bill would make women prove they are not using birth control for non-medical reasons…like for contraception before their medical plans would cover this necessary medicine….and the worst part is that it would allow all employers to not cover birth control without any reason….and, depending on the interpretation, may allow employers to fire women who use it….I’m not making this up people….this is what the US is going to look like if the repubs win the White House this fall….I just have nothing more to add to this one…just can’t believe we are still talking about this nonsense in 2012…geez…
Finishing up the placholders…
Well…I promised I’d get back to take on the placeholders from last night..the first one is the repubs going into full attack mode on the proposed release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to bring down oil prices…and, of course, the repubs don’t want to hear it, trying to tar this attempt to relieve prices for the middle class “just politics” and vowing to fight it….but, I have a different take on the whole thing…first, what’s wrong with spanking the speculators that are driving up the price? Every analyst says there is plenty of supply and the Saudi’s have said that there isn’t anyplace to put any increased output….so, the only reason that oil prices are soaring is the speculators are betting there will be a rise in prices which fuels the rise in prices…pretty neat for the speculators, huh? Second…why not sell of oil that was purchased at 20-70 dollars a barrel for 128 dollars? It wouldn’t hurt to sell off 10 million of the 177 million barrels in the reserve and even using the top price of 70 dollars, that would make a profit of almost 500 million dollars that could be used to reduce the deficit….I threw that last part in kind of tongue in cheek…500 million would be smaller than a drop in the bucket against the deficit but I wanted to say it before some politician. The only reason the repubs don’t want this release is that their oil company masters love it when prices soar…just more profits for the oil companies and campaign contributions for the repubs…geez…
A little known fact on Keystone…
Well…just a short one on some little known developments in the Keystone pipeline dustup…with the repubs continuing lies on where the oil coming through the pipeline is going to go; making the statement over and over that it will help reduce our dependence on foreign oil and all of the other nonsense they continue to shout, we had Ron Wyden, the senator from Oregon offer to help get the pipeline approved if the repubs would agree to legislation that would mandate that any oil that comes through the pipeline would be sold in the US. Seems to me to be a reasonable compromise, but the repubs went nuts and started their normal screeds that the government shouldn’t interfere in business, yada, yada, yada…..to any thinking person, what this means is that the repubs are lying again…even the pipeline company has said that most of the oil will be sold into the world market and will be used to “correct” the oversupply in the midwest; resulting in higher prices there. So, anytime you hear the repubs talking about Keystone (or Exxon for that matter in the new ads they have out), they are lying…lying about where the oil is going to go and lying about how many jobs the pipeline will bring….geez…
This is interesting…
Well… just a short one on politics since the NCAA tournament is on…I’m not usually a basketball fan but who can resist right now? Okay… read a really interesting article this morning in some paper..not sure which one but the interesting part is that as the repubs tack further and further to the right, they are becoming the party of angry, old, white people, that feel that their time has passed and who will do anything to try to maintain their privileged place in the world. And, it does nothing but get worse for the repubs as the changing demographics of the population is taken into account; with their harsh rhetoric against immigrants, they have alienated the fastest growing segment of the population. The article was interesting in describing the groups that the repubs have offended in this campaign…starting with women, Hispanics, independents, and basically everyone other than their base…and the stupid thing is that appealing only to their base to get through the primaries, they are limiting themselves to about 30% of the electorate in the general election. But, it couldn’t happen to a better bunch…who would vote for ole Mitt when he stated the other day “oh, Planned Parenthood, we’ll get rid of that”….an organization that does more for women’s health needs than any other in the US….this pandering to the hard right, hate everyone but themselves group is going to guarantee a loss this fall…keep it up, guys…
A few thoughts on ole Mitt…
Well…after watching the gaffe filled campaign of ole Mitt stumble along to the repub nomination, one of the things that stuck me is that he just doesn’t seem that bright when he talks…like ole GW looked whenever he talked and I just made a connection in my head that explained Mitts and GW’s success…they are the poster children for crony capitalism and the bad results that come from removing merit from the economy and replacing it with the connections and advantages that come from being born into the right family…something that is accepted in Europe, but is not supposed to happen here in the US. Does anyone think that ole Mitt would be anything more than a middle manager somewhere without the family and political connections he has? Connections that he was born to…and just another example of having the world handed to you and deluding yourself into thinking you “earned” it….geez…
Voters may still have rights…
Well…it has been a heartening week if you believe that the right of the people to vote should not be able to be abridged by the lunatics on the right who believe that taking away basic rights is a justified tactic to steal elections. In three cases this week, the courts, both state and federal, have invalidated laws put in place by the repubs requiring that some sort of ID is necessary for people to vote; invariably affecting the poor and minorities and suppressing the vote that normally goes to the dems. In Texas, the repubs there cited the “rampant” voter fraud as the justification for disenfranchising over 600,000 poor people who don’t have the required ID’s, but, this “rampant” fraud was actually 50 cases over the span of 10 years…yep, 5 cases a year shows that this was a blatant attempt to fix the elections for the repubs but the court saw through this nonsense and stopped it….the same for a law in Virgina whose purpose was to do the same thing…keep the poor from voting by instituting what was, in effect, a poll tax, by charging these poor folks 22 bucks for these id’s…something that was outlawed with the end of the Jim Crow era…but these guys just can’t give up trying to discriminate and fix elections since it is becoming more evident all the time that it will be the only way they can win. In Wisconsin, the repubs tried to do the same thing with another of these laws that was written by ALEC…the Koch brothers legislative arm who have been writing legislation for the repubs that will further their radical, right-wing agenda and that the lazy repubs can pass to mollify their base. I’m just glad that the checks and balances that are built into our system worked this time….but, remember, this is more of the illegal nonsense you will see if these thugs get returned to office or if you vote for the repub in the presidential election…geez….
Republicans “war” on the TelePrompter….
Well….just a short one to take on the latest, ongoing ridiculousness that is the repub party these days….this one has come to a head with ole Rick Santorum saying yesterday that the use of teleprompters by any candidate should be illegal….nevermind that in the same breath he attacks government interference, and that ole Newt has challenged Obama to three hour debates where no teleprompters would be allowed….Ignoring the fact that teleprompters have never been used in any debate….but the real nugget here is the fact that the repubs think that having the ability to memorize is the same thing as intelligence, and the fact that the dems have complex, nuanced, ideas that they want to get right is now a bad thing? I guess it would be easy to not need a teleprompter if your most complex ideas are “drill baby drill, or bomb, bomb Iran”….geez….
Here’s one last thought on gas prices….since the repubs are the largest beneficiaries of the oil companies campaign donations and they would benefit mightily by the repubs taking the presidency….wouldn’t you do everything in your power, if you were an oil company, to make sure prices continue to rise…like shut down two oil refineries this year along with restricting oil production? They’ve tried this nonsense before…and they will try it again…