Category Archives: Politics

Politics

Excuses, excuses…

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Well…have been reading some of the postmortems of the recent election and there are a couple of things that I find striking about the election here in Michigan. First is the turnout…where only about 50% of the people in Kent country voted versus about 66% in the 2008 election…a drop that is significantly larger than normal for a mid-term. But, the second thing are the excuses and rationalizations that are being offered by the non-voters on why they didn’t vote this time. “It doesn’t matter who is in charge”, “I was turned off by the negative ads”, “I had too much to do”, “I forgot about it”….were just a few of the excuses that were offered in the Press this morning…and what this says to me is that apathy, not the repubs message is what lost this election for the dems.

But, what is more important than voting? What is more important than keeping this country on the path back to equality in economic possibilities…what is more important than voting in your own self-interest? What these excuses have done is to make certain that income inequality will get worse, that the richest one percent will continue to steal more an more of the economic pie that should go to the people that make the profits possible. We are now in an experiment here in Michigan where we go back to the bad old Engler days of unbridled capitalism and the god-like reverence that the repubs have for the “free market”…a market that is always rigged for their rich buddies while the middle class disappears with a whimper and not a bang…geez…

Politics

I think it was worth it…

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Well…have been reading a lot of newspapers today, and over the last few days and a new idea has popped into my head…that whatever the cost in seats that the Dems paid in this election, it was worth it to get the legislative victories that they got in this congress. It was worth it to get started on reforming healthcare…and I don’t believe that the law as enacted is perfect by any means, but it is a good basis where the normal process of implementation and change that almost all legislation goes through can begin. It was worth it to get consumer protection where there was only big business dictates before….and it was worth it to get some little financial regulation back in place on the banks that ruined our economy.

Now, I don’t know if that was a political calculation on the Dems part; I’m sure no party wants to lose seats and give up control of any part of government they used to get these accomplishments, but, to me, it was certainly worth it to push the balance of power just a little ways back towards you and me….and lets hope that the repubs don’t waste the country’s precious time with the nonsense they are promising..or we’ll have the house back in 2012…

Politics

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…

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Well…I have to thank the Who for the title of this one…and I hope I don’t get sued…but it fits the new political landscape here in Michigan so well that I just had to use it. This idea was spurred by the headlines in the Michigan newspapers since the Tuesday election that are trumpeting that governor-elect Snyder is bringing in “top aides’ from the Engler administration to run his transition to governor. You have got to be kidding me…we threw those idiots out 8 years ago after they screwed up Michigan so badly that we still haven’t climbed out of the mess.

These are the same folks that tried to kill public education here just because they hated the teachers unions with such blinding rage that they didn’t give a damn about the collateral damage they were doing to our children. A legacy that we still see today with decaying schools and huge class sizes that are necessary along with the wide-spread layoffs of teachers to balance the budgets of tax limited school systems. And now, Snyder has already said that one of his first priorities is to cut taxes even more for businesses that already have the highest retained profits in the history of the world. Does that sound like they are overtaxed? When did it become necessary to bribe companies with tax cuts or they’ll take their ball and go home?

Now…this isn’t my last word on the subject….and I’ll give these new guys exactly the two years that was given to Obama…if unemployment isn’t down to 5 % or less by 2012, these guys should be sent back to their country clubs and out of our lives.

Politics

Had to get to Rand Paul….

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Well…after getting out to Kava I feel quite a bit better and might even be lucid enough to make some sense so I’m going to give it a try. I just have to comment on Rand Paul’s speech last night…where the true colors of the Tea Party have finally been allowed to come out. The gist of the speech was that Paul was going to personally block any legislation that he doesn’t like…no talk of moving the country forward, no talk of creating jobs, just a screed that stakes out the position that his vision is government of, by and for Rand Paul. If it wasn’t so dangerous, I would just laugh at this kind of thing…of the tea party’s supposed reverence for the Constitution until it get’s in the way of their radical right-wing agenda. I, for one, don’t want the senator from Kentucky setting the direction for this country, when he has stated his hatred for anything progressive…including the Civil rights act…Social Security, and basically anything that the government does. They want to go back to the days of child labor, industrial poisoning of workers, and sweatshops…the time that these nuts revere.

A thought came to me as I was mourning today…with Michigan going back to the bad old days of the repubs…that the Red Wings will still play, that it could have been worse and the Senate could have fallen, too. But, it didn’t and it may be a pretty interesting couple of years…and I know it’s going to give me a lot to write about and some of it is going to include “I told you so”, but I’m going to try to maintain the reasonableness that has been a goal…so, go about your lives…I’m going to try….more later…

Oh, one last thing, it made me feel good when I saw that the richies that tried to buy elections in many places generally failed to do it…especially in Cali where Meg Whitman lost after spending 140 million of her own dollars…and Carly Fiorina also lost…but the best news was that the know-nothings queen, Sharron Angle lost to Harry Reid in Nevada….silver linings in the cloud that now covers this country…

Politics

A running commentary…* *

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Well…I think I’ll keep going with a running stream-of-consciousness commentary on the day since it is an important one…I did get out to vote and it only took about 15 minutes even though my polling precinct had changed….and I have to thank the people that man the polling places and keep a smile on their faces through the crushes and the boredom. I forgot that I had finally updated my address…but the new precinct is in sight of my place so that is really convenient. I have to thank T for setting lunch for today and I think that will offset the gloom that I am feeling…but I will still believe that we can come through this as a nation…but the question is: “will it be better for folks like you and me?” If we can go by history, we are in for at least two years of gridlock and posturing where the repubs highest stated purpose is to defeat Obama in 2012. Is that any plan for governance? Nope, and we have seen they don’t care about that…my hope is that the dems (or some middle of the road third party) will take the next two years to sharpen their message that will further define what the repubs really are….and if all goes well…the repub leadership will anger the tea partiers and drive them away. The knives have already come out against Palin from the repub establishment but is Karl Rove any better? Questions, questions, questions…more later…but I may just edit this one..look in the title for stars…if you see one, I’ve added or edited…

I think a kind of resignation has set in this afternoon but the lunch and talk with T got me down off the ledge….it’s going to be a bad night so the BV will flow later and I may have to just turn the tv off and watch a couple of movies on the computer, but, being the political animal that I am, I don’t think I’ll be able to completely avoid all of the political stuff. If they lose badly….I think the Dems should scrap the healthcare plan they passed and go for broke in the lame duck session..to a single payer system that cuts the parasite insurance companies out of the loop and pays them back for the unlimited money they spent buying the government through the repubs. And, a disclosure law that forces this money to be identified…then we in the middle can make them pay in their profits; since it is the only thing they understand. More later…

Okay…here’s the last one for the day….I will say this…I like the BV…it’s one of those things that I told my kids and I have to remember….don’t worry about things until they happen…I know it’s been predicted that it will be a bloodbath for the Dems…but, I’m going to take the rest of the night off from thinking about the election…since the losses haven’t happened yet…I think the sun will still come up tomorrow…but I’m not sure…

Politics

Go vote…

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Well…another election day has come and I feel the way I did in 2004 when the whole world couldn’t figure out how we could re-elect ole GW. And now, we are poised to give the house back to the guys that ruined the economy for ruined economy part two. But the bad thing is that the work that the Dems did to keep the economy from falling off a cliff is starting to have some results…that the repubs will take credit for and attribute it to their new round of tax cuts for the rich. But, you should know that…and I don’t know what I can do to make people believe the truth.

I’ll keep this one short for now since the message I want to get across to all of you progressives and anyone else that may be sitting on the fence at this late date…”Get out and Vote”….I hope we’ll survive this mess…

Politics

Throttling back my dismay…

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Well…I know that some of these over the past month or so have been extremely strident and they have not lived up to my call for reasonableness in our political discourse. But, I’m human and seriously flawed so what did you expect? As I said a couple of days ago, I have to remember to not take this stuff so personally…but, if I do that, I won’t have anything to write about but flowers and puppies and I don’t think you’ll come back. It’s like taking antidepressants…yeah, they work, kinda, but the edges get taken off so you look like Iowa…really flat. So, I’m going to continue to rail about the things that are not right, that are not for the benefit of ALL of the people, not just the rich and powerful. And, one promise that I will make that none of the outlets and bloggers on the right will do, I will stick to the facts…there will never be any lies that will come out of this site, and if something good happens, I don’t care whose idea it is…if something gets this country moving again and proves me wrong in my opinions…I will freely admit it and tip my hat.

I only want one thing from the citizens of America…hold the new guys accountable this time…just as you have held Obama accountable (even if it is for things he didn’t do)…open your eyes and ears to the lies and really see when inequality is being sold as fairness and infringement of your rights is being sold as safety..after all, we are Americans, and we are tough and fair, let’s not let money scare us into voting against our own self interest. See you on the other side…of the election…

Politics

The haters are back…

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Well…I don’t know if you caught any of the “Rally to Restore Sanity” that Comedy Central, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert put on today, but I found it to be funny at times (they are comedians after all), but more than that it seemed to be a friendly, reasonable response to all of the hate and venom coming from the right. And, the smiles on the faces reminded me that America can be a good place, one where there are reasonable people that can still want better for their country without having it be the all or nothing warfare that the right wants it to be. But, as you can probably predict, the right has been apoplectic that the middle would come together especially led by “entertainers” that, to them, have no right to their own opinions…conveniently forgetting that the right is led by two “entertainers”…named Beck and Limbaugh.

To get to the title…was just reading the message boards on Yahoo that followed a story about today’s event and the pure, unblinking, hatred of the right for anyone but themselves surprised even me….but do you expect any different? What kind of lives do these people have that they need to squat on these boards and spew their hate at any one that is different or thinks differently than them? Does it make them feel better to hate? I think the real problem is that the republicans have made it okay to hate again, no, have made it a requirement for their followers to hate…all Jon Stewart was trying to do was give a voice to those of us that want a return to reasonableness and compromise. Is that a reason to hate him and us? Geez…

Politics

Ignorance still amazes me…

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Well…I don’t know about you but I think that the instances of just breathtaking stupidity are on the rise in our society…and it still amazes me when I hear ignorance being sold as gravitas…and the hard headed refusal to see that the lies they have been sold are not true. This little bit of revelation was spurred by an article I read in the Post this morning where one of their reporters went into one of the strong bastions of repub support…an area of Kentucky where only 14% of the voters went for Obama in 2008 and asked them why they are so angry; why they think America id going in the wrong direction. Of course, their responses were straight out of the 4 o’clock hour of Fox news…they are forcing socialism down our throats and taking away our freedom. Every time I hear that crap I just want to shout “HOW?”…how is your freedom less now than when the Bushies were wiretapping everyone in the country? Give me an example…maybe the healthcare law that doesn’t take effect until 2014? And no one seems to care that federal taxes are lower for most of the country than they were two years ago…not higher as the repub lies would have us believe…300 billion of the stimulus was TAX CUTS! Are you really so dense out there that you think that tax cuts mean higher taxes?

Let’s deal with the idea of socialism…first I think most of the people they interviewed don’t even know what socialism is…but they are sure that it is bad because they have been told that by Fox…but this whole socialism argument is trumped by the statistics of the area of Kentucky where the questions were asked..that almost 80 % of the people there live on some kind of government assistance…another case of the know-nothings shouting “keep your government hands off our Medicare”. Ignorance rules again…but with the republican party being based on ignorance, do you expect anything else? Geez….

Politics

Another one I said I’d get to…

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Well…this is the second in the series of what you have to look forward to with the probable election of the repubs next week…this one deals with their promise to repeal the financial regulation bill that was passed this year. Really, they are going to go back to the wild west, free for all unregulated financial industry that cost everyone in this country but the rich and the perpetrators. Are you listening? they are going to go back to what caused the meltdown that cost almost 10 million jobs. But, hey, it only affected the middle class and the poor so why should they care? They never have so why start now?

Now let’s look at what this means..it means a return to their wonderful little world where when they bet right, they get rich, and when they bet wrong, you and I pay for it. A pretty sweet deal, huh? I’ll be you’d like to have that kind of a rigged market to take advantage of. How will this create jobs? How will this raise the wages of workers so they can share in the profits and benefits that the rich are stealing? The short answer is…it won’t…because the repubs are there for one thing and one thing only…to make themselves and their business buddies richer…that’s the simple bottom line and anything else they say is just lies…and they must be pretty good ones since a lot of people believe them. Or have people just gotten dumber over the last two years?

I have to agree with Paul Krugman…if you think things are bad now…just wait and hold your breath for the next two years…