Category Archives: Politics

Politics

9/11 is not a politcal prop…

Leave a comment

Well…since it’s 9/11 today, I have a few thoughts about how the right has used their fake reverence for the losses on that day to score political points at every turn. If they had any true feelings, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin wouldn’t be staging political rallies in Alaska today to further their crazy brand of patriotism that cynically uses the wrongheaded fear of Islam to stoke the fires of hatred for their own financial gain. If the right’s feelings were true, you wouldn’t have had Giuliani running for president with his only stump speeches consisting of a noun, a verb, and 9/11. Of course, you’d have to be a hermit to have missed the pandering the right has done to score political points with the opposition to the Park 51 project in Manhattan…and before you say it, no, the left has not been involved to any comparable degree.

What has happened to the integrity of the Republican Party? Of course when you have people like Newt, Palin, and Beck considered leaders, this is what you get. What happened to the GOP of old that didn’t protest the building of Shinto shrines in Hawaii where the sneak attacks by Japan on December 7th killed almost 4,000 soldiers and sailors?

Who is going to restore the reverence for a day that is still fresh in the collective memory of our country? Don’t count on it being the right….and every time they sow dissension using the 9/11 attacks, they are giving Osama bin Laden just what he wanted; disruption in our society and moving it toward his vision of the world. Is this what they want? Geez….

Politics

I don’t get the media…

Leave a comment

Well…as you are aware, the narrative that the media has taken up about the mid-term elections is that it is going to be a landslide for the repubs and Boehner is already working with lobbying groups since it is all but assured that he will be speaker of the house when the election is over. Let’s just wait a minute before we anoint the tanned one as the winner….what the media is reporting was the Gallup poll from last week that showed that a general repub candidate was almost 11% ahead of the general Dem one. But where is the reporting on the same Gallup poll from this week that shows the two general candidates in a dead heat at 46% each? Where are the stories about the erosion of this huge repub lead? Where are the stories that the ideas that Obama has set forth in speeches in the last week have started to gain traction with the electorate? Why has the media become so lazy that once they have a story they can lead with, they stay with that story and it becomes the general wisdom that is unchanging?

We all have to remember that in August of 2008, McCain led Obama by about the same 11% as the general repub candidate led by last week…and that McCain’s lead started to evaporate just as quickly. So let’s not write the epitaph for the Dems just yet; you and I still have to vote and if we all get out I think there can be a surprise for the conventional wisdom in November.

Politics

Finally some fire…

Leave a comment

Well…just a short comment on the speeches that Obama gave over the last week…it’s about damn time! It’s about time he finally stood up and said enough to the repub smear machine and called them out on the economy. What was Boehner’s response? More tax cuts and slashing spending is all the economy needs to get going again…and believes that the policies that did not work for the 8 years when the Bushies were in power have magically changed and will work now. If the Dems can’t beat these know nothings, they deserve to lose and if Obama can’t clearly relate the differences between the Dems and repubs and highlight the good work that has been done; maybe he doesn’t deserve our support anymore. But, then, I put my thinking hat back on, tamp down the emotions, and remember what this country was like when the repubs were running the show and objectively see that the Dems couldn’t screw this country up as much as the repubs if they try….and, at least they have the integrity to not try….geez…

Politics

I just don’t understand…

Leave a comment

Well…have been reading the polls lately and one thing strikes me as a great example of the schizophrenia that the US electorate suffers. Why is it that the Democrats are always held responsible for everything, even things that are out of their control when the repubs can screw the whole country and preside over the greatest redistribution of wealth upwards in history and no one cares? I think it may just be ignorance since the leaders of the repubs proudly display the lack of “book learnin’” and exhort their followers to demonize those who have advanced degrees and who can think. If they could, think that is, they would remember their 11th grade economics that taught that employment is a lagging indicator in any recession; especially one this severe. I am kind of hoping that the repubs take control of the House so people will have their memories refreshed on how bad their policies are for the working people of this country…geez….

Politics

Why are they rooting for the US to fail?

Leave a comment

Well…a thought came to me this morning when I was at the coffee shop reading the newspapers. That’s not the only place thoughts come to me but it seems that way sometimes…and it was not really a thought but a question. Why are everyone on the right rooting for the US economy to fail? Whenever more bad news is reported, the commentators that call themselves patriots on the right gleefully gloat that it’s all Obama’s fault and that nothing he has or will do will have any effect. This has been true for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, too, and I wonder why no one on the left is calling them on this ghoulish behavior.

I know why they are doing it, it’s just more of the scorched earth policy that the right has used since the early 90′s; led by the same guys, our old buddies Newt and Karl. When are we going to start recognizing that these two are responsible for most of the rancor that passes for politics these days? But it doesn’t have to be that way…we can change it if we just stop listening.

Politics

Charles Krauthhammer drives off the deep end….again….

Leave a comment

Well…Chuck has done it again with his column in the Detroit News today. How can he, with a straight face make this assertion: that the Dems have presided over a huge expansion of government power, intrusiveness and debt and that is why the people are angry. How many time do I have to keep comparing what the repubs did when Bush was in power? How many times can these guys just outright lie and people will keep listening? Let’s look at the facts; expansion of government power? How about the Bushies assertion of the unitary executive branch when Cheney and his Ilk brought back the saying from the Nixon days that if the president does it, it’s not against the law. And then proceeded to usurp the Senates power to ratify treaties by ignoring the Geneva Convention’s sanctions on torture? A truly egregious expansion of executive power that was outside the system of checks and balances. But okay if the repubs do it.

Let’s talk about intrusiveness next. What can be more intrusive and against the constitution than spying on the entire country without the warrants that are required by the fourth amendment? I’m sure ole Chuck is linking his point about intrusiveness to the new healthcare law but the analogy is flawed since there are many things that Americans are required to do by law.

I cannot believe that ole Chuck wants to talk about debt. Let’s just take a dive down the rabbit hole where he lives and rebut that whole assertion. Where did 30% of the structural deficit come from that the repubs have now taken to heart as their major issue? The Bush tax cuts, and when we take into account two unfunded wars, the huge medicare drug benefit, and the TARP program, the repubs must have no shame to call the current digging out from under their pile of crap “socialism”.

To the last point Chuck makes, that because the popular opinion opposes any policy, it should be abandoned and the progressives are on the wrong side of popular opinion. It’s because the progressives are ahead of popular opinion that makes them progressive. In the 60′s public opinion opposed the Civil Rights Act…so, according to Chuck, it shouldn’t have been enacted. Now public opinion has turned against the Afghan war. So, Chuck, should we be bringing the troops home? Public opinion supported racial segregation; should we have kept it?

I don’t know why they keep paying this guy to spout his simplistic, prejudiced crap….geez…

Politics

Hell freezes over….I agree with Kathleen Parker…

Leave a comment

Well…it was a nice morning out at GH..huge waves and warm water made me grin like an idiot and got a bunch of good rides in body surfing. But, that’s not the topic as you can see from the title. I’m sure you know Kathleen Parker…the well-known conservative columnist, her column today is a mirror of what I have said on many occasions; that we need to start trying to reclaim what it means to be an American and start talking to each other again. I also agree when she she puts some tenets down on paper…be considerate, mind your own business, and don’t talk about religion…one of the things that I was told when I was younger was to never talk either politics or religion; something that I had lost for a while and wasted so much sound, light, and fury on it….I have become more calm since following that simple dictate.

What really heartens me about Kathleen’s column, along with some from others on the right like David Brooks, is that there are thinking people on both sides of the aisle that can see that the current course this country is on is unsustainable and we long for the time that lies and inflaming of passions will make way for reasonableness. I just hope the demagogues don’t win….geez…

Politics

August 29th part two…

Leave a comment

Well…there was a Sunday Funday after all…but I don’t think there will more topics today since I just don’t have anything itching in my head…I do have an idea about the need for everyone (including me) to stop calling people names…but there are times when you need to do that to get your point across but, only when it is the truth…sometimes, idiots are idiots and liars are liars and need to be labeled as such…and there are so many more of them on the right…another thing that just popped into my head as I’m writing this…do we progressives lose elections while adhering to our principles or do we get down in the swamp with the righties? I lean toward principles, as you know, but it is hard to sit and watch while lies and race-baiting dupe the American people into voting for the righties. If they win this time using these tactics, I’ll probably just fold up the tent and just try to survive..but I reserve the right to say I told you so when the repubs screw everything up and give even more of the country to the rich…geez…

Only three more of these and this will be my most prolific month ever….can I say yay?

Politics

Boehner’s still an idiot…

Leave a comment

Well…who is the right and their point man, John Boehner, going to attack next? Mom? Apple Pie? The latest in his daily string of craziness was to go off on federal workers; spouting the lies that federal employees make more than ones with comparable jobs in the private sector. When do the lies stop working? When are we as a country going to stand up and tell these guys that they have to have more in their heads than their warped opinions, that we will no longer listen to the demagogues when they blatantly distort the facts for political gain. The facts in the case are that many non-partisan studies have been done comparing private and public sector pay and invariably find that the private sector workers make more.

Why this attack on his fellow Americans? People who just want to do their jobs don’t need to be demonized by this idiot and his fellow repubs and their lie that federal workers are overpaid is a direct extension of their tactics over the years to attack the middle class. The ironic thing here is that this moron IS a federal employee and the 195K+ he makes makes him one of the highest paid of them all…geez….

Politics

It’s extortion by any other name…

Leave a comment

Well…John Boehner has sunk to a new low even for him and the rest of the repubs….in a speech he gave a few days ago, this idiot put forth the proposition that the reason that business is sitting on the sidelines in the faltering recovery is the uncertainty about what regulations my be imposed in the future. He even suggested that Obama fire his entire economic team because of the lagging pace of job creation since they’ve had a whole 19 months to do it. Really, John? After you and your repub buddies had 8 years to screw it up and had a net job creation when you were in control of zero…that’s right…zero net jobs added. And now you’re urging your business cronies to sit on their hands unless you get what you want…that is to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich and less regulation for business. By anyone’s definition this is just a blatant case of extortion and you should be ashamed that you put your status as a lap dog for business ahead of a nation that is suffering.

What do you offer that is new; that is different than your policies that ruined the economy? Why are you waiting to do something until after the election? If this crisis is so urgent, (and I believe it is) why aren’t you working with the administration to help get the jobs engine going again? Why aren’t you talking to your business cronies and asking them to help get the engine going? Stop the political posturing and tanning and get your butt to work helping America get going again…until you do, shut the hell up and leave us alone….geez…