Category Archives: Politics

Should comment a little on Michigan…

Well…with the passing of the repub primary yesterday, I thought I should comment a little on the event since I live here…first thing I want to say is “what were they thinking?” when both of the candidates bashed the auto bailouts and unions as they crossed the state…are they trying to lose the general election? One of the things that I think the repubs have lost sight of is the fact that the people in Michigan (even republicans) liked the auto bailouts and the hundreds of thousands of jobs they saved and the repubs slide to the right to unbridled and unregulated capitalism is not going to play well in the general…and ole Rick’s anti womens rights screeds and his lying attack on Obama for being a “snob” backfired to ensure his loss. Now, he is trying to soften his stand as the pope in chief and moralizer but, while it may work with the tiny sliver of the repub party that votes in the primary, it has caused the repub establishment to basically write off Michigan for the general election since even Romney has been dragged so far to the right that he won’t be able to repair the damage if he wins the nomination. But, let’s not cheer too much right now…as much as I love to see these idiots pummel each other, I never underestimate the ignorance of the electorate as evidenced by all of the lower middle class folks voting against their own economic self interest in the last election and putting the repubs in charge of the House…where did that get you? Where are the jobs plans and the plans to get the income of the workers growing again? Nowhere, since the repubs in control always revert back to the culture war when they are in power since they don’t even believe that there is anything that can or should be done by government to help the economy grow…geez…

Okay, here’s more nonsense from ole Rick…

Well…just wanted to weigh in one more time on the “snob” comment that ole Rick has been using to appeal to the repub primary voters where he lied about what President Obama said about everyone going to college:

“And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country — and this country needs and values the talents of every American.”

That last statement was from Obama…here’s one from ole Rick in 2009:

“There’s technical schools. There’s additional training, vocational training. There’s skills and apprenticeships. There’s all sorts of things that people can do to upgrade their skills, to be very productive and great workers here in America who provide for their families and build their community.”

So…the two of them are saying exactly the same thing here…and not once did Obama say that ‘everyone should go to college” as ole Rick has repeatedly stated on the campaign trail….so we have our most religious candidate breaking another commandment…make you wonder if his purported faith is just another in the lies he will tell to be elected…geez…

Oh, I do have to attribute where the quotes came from…a great article from the Washington Post from this morning…

More hypocritcal nonsense from the right…..

Well…with all of the uproar on the right about the supposed violation of first amendment rights by the Obama administration in the contraception controversy, we have another bit of hypocritical nonsense coming from the right in Tennessee where the repub controlled legislature is trying to make it illegal for any teacher to ever discuss anything about gays or lesbians…they would not even be allowed to mention that gays or lesbians exist. How would this type of law help the two gay teenagers that killed themselves after being the subject of bullying for their sexual orientation? How can the party that wraps itself in the constitution every day basically eliminate the first amendment rights of every teacher in the state while legislating discrimination against gays and lesbians in that state? If you need to see what the country will look like if the repubs win in November…just take a look at the nonsense in Tennessee…this one bill does more to eliminate the guaranteed rights of the people than anything the dems have done…ever…

Okay…I just had to comment on Santorum…

Well…just got back to reading some of the papers and this little gem by ole Rick popped out at me for it’s stupidity…in case you hadn’t read, ole Rick came out a few days back and called Obama a snob for wanting every person to be able to go to college, faking outrage at this supposedly elitist comment. But, this wasn’t even the one that made me laugh the most…it was the comment that conservatives are “singled out” at colleges across the nation and that most people lose their faith under the indoctrination that happens there. As always, ole Rick is wrong again…I would think that Rick was singled out for his rigidity and contempt for anyone that doesn’t think just like him…just like the majority of the “conservatives” that wrap themselves in the flag and religion and shout down anyone who thinks for themselves. In the many years that I spent in higher education…not once was I singled out because I was a conservative…which I was at the time…I even voted republican in every election from Nixon to Bush 1…but I also was not an ass that thought I knew everything and what was right for everyone like ole Rick. One last thing on Rick’s faith claims…that indoctrination in college is making people lose their faith? I think it’s more that they are leaning to think for themselves and the childhood indoctrination in religiosity is being broken for the nonsense that it is….just my opinion, of course….

Do we want five guys to decide the election?

Well…just a short one on some statistics that I find quite troubling…with the Citizens United decision and the unlimited money that it brings to the election cycle, another statistic caught my eye and emphasizes how the balance of power has shifted in the two years since. In the FEC filings that were released earlier this week, it was revealed the 5 guys gave over 25% of the money that that was raised for the repub primaries…that’s right folks, what used to be small donations from many, many people has become 5 guys attempting to buy an election…do you think they are doing this for fun? Not on your life…they are doing this to buy influence with their chosen candidate…do you think the candidates will listen to you when you can’t muster a 10 million dollar check to them? This corrosive effect has got to stop…or we are going to lose our democracy…maybe we already have…

A bunch of jumbled thoughts…

Well…just sat down here again without any big topic to write about so I thought I’d just get started and see where it takes me…this is a political one if that’s what your here for…if not, stay anyway, it’s always a crap shoot if any of this is going to make sense but sometimes I do…let’s go…..the first thing I want to talk about is the headlong rush to attack Iran that is happening on the right…I just can’t understand why anyone would champion doing that after so many years of war and a debilitated military that has resulted…can’t we just give our military a rest for a while? Maybe we can sell peace to the repubs by saying that we can give a tax cut to everyone if we don’t attack…and the idea that Iran would use a nuclear bomb even if they had one is almost as crazy as the idea of attacking is…Iraq would be turned into glass by the Israelis if they ever did so what would be the point of it? Let’s cool down for a while and let the sanctions work….

Man..to see how far the repubs have driven off the cliff to the right, all you have to do is look at the debate the other night where the candidates were attacking ole GW…it made me smile but shake my head at the same time…these guys are just crazier than hell and I just can’t believe it….and then we have Santorum saying that Satan is responsible for all of the problems in the US and his wife has said that it was a “call from god” that got her husband into the race…I don’t even know what to say about that….another reason to eliminate religion from the world…okay, that’s a little harsh but how can people believe this stuff? Oh, and for a religous person, Santorum doesn’t take the commandments too seriously…he’s lying away again today about his endorsement of Arlen Spector and the quid pro quo on Supreme Court justices….Okay….need to go put lunch on so I’ll go…pretty mediocre..but at least I got to it…counts for something doesn’t it?

This is just too funny…

Well…just wanted to get a quick one in here before I get to the races so I won’t be thinking about it during the race…I find the latest non-partisan scoring of the competing tax bills that have come out of the White House and the repub candidates just so damn funny that I had to write about it…in it, the economists agree that the plans of the repub candidates, to a man, will end up being worse for the economy and will increase, not decrease the deficits…and they all show to be much worse that the one proposed by the White House that will be DOA in the House. One of the telling things that was buried in the articles that I’ve read is the fact the ole Mitt’s plan will give massive tax cuts to the rich and raise taxes on everyone else….even the president of Bank of America has said that taxes should be raised on those making over a million dollars a year and should be even higher for those making 10 million a year, and the Murdoch owned right wing Wall Street Journal agreed this week. When the repubs are losing the banks and the Journal, who do they have left that thinks they know what they are doing? Not many, I hope…

A short one for those of us that see irony in history..

Well…I’m not sure what is going on in my head today but I’ve had quite a few ideas that I wanted to get down…and that is unusual to say the least, but bear with me…this one might just be worth it…I’m one of the people left in the US that still sees the importance of at least knowing history to make useful connections or see the irony that is frequently contained in it. I say this because I’m old enough to remember the furor over John Kennedy’s faith in the 1960 election; people then were concerned then that Rome and the Pope would call the shots through a Catholic president and the repubs used his Catholicism to try to paint Kennedy as a scary person who would check every decision with the Pope. Then, fast forward to today where we have ole Rick Santorum saying that all of his governance, if elected, would conform to his Catholic faith and the hard right that supports him cheers….ah….irony is lost on the idiots on the right…but it sure makes me laugh at times….

Rick Santorum is just a liar…

Well…I’m not going to write this one just yet…but, your jaw will drop when I get back from the bike ride, get lunch on, and come back to finish this one….okay, I’m back and I am just astounded on how the media is allowing ole Rick to just spout utter nonsense on the campaign trail without calling him out on it….let’s forget about his insinuation that Obama is like Hitler for the time being and focus on his latest outrage that states that Obama and his health care plan will result in active killing of elderly people who are ill and don’t want to die…and he cites the experience of the Netherlands since they passed a law allow for doctors to help people in the end stages of their lives to die with dignity. Santorum goes on to cite statistics and “facts” that are completely false that were sourced from extremely dubious sources that feed the right wing lie machine like tens of thousands of the elderly there wearing bracelets that say “don’t kill me”. First, there is no connection between the Netherlands and the US and there never has been other than they have better health care there that is a single payer system….and second, every source in the Netherlands that has been contacted to try to find one of these bracelets has come up empty…not one has been found…and not one person has been put do death against his will…not one, Rick….go back to your lobbying and feeding on the misery of others to make your millions…we don’t need to elect a pope that lies to America every time you open your mouth….

Oh….I tried to do this one justice but to get a better take on it, and one of my many sources for this one came from Glenn Kessler in the “Fact Checker” column in the Washington Post…he has all of the stats that Santorum lied about…and it is even worse how Glen describes….geez….

Gas prices are the GOP’s silver bullet?

Well…I’m not sure if this one is going to be the good one that I promised this morning but it bears repeating since the repubs seem to be making gas prices a centerpiece of their attacks on Obama…let’s just remind everyone of one thing when the talk starts to move to the Keystone pipeline and drilling in ANWR…consumption of oil and its products continue to decline while production is at a 6year high…but, what the repubs don’t mention is that we have become a net exporter of refined oil products…what does this mean to you and me? It means that any new capacity coming from the tar sands in Canada will never be used in the US…it will all be exported with the risks of spills and environmental degradation absorbed by the US public while the profits will all go to the repubs best friends, the oil companies. The reason that gas prices are rising have nothing to do with supply and demand…in the new global economy where oil is an investment to be flipped…the commodity traders can manipulate to market to ensure that no matter what happens, they will make obscene profits by using the same fear, gloom and doom tactics that the repubs use to win elections….I hope that day is coming to a close….and it can be hastened by applying transaction fees to every trade and raising the margin dollars required to make those trades…something the oil company purchased repubs will never do…

One last thing…where are the jobs plans from the repub controlled House? They have controlled the House for over a year and nothing from them other than the normal nonsense on social issues…the last I heard, limiting contraception for women hasn’t created one job….