Category Archives: Politics

Politics

It’s now the party of the Know-nothings..

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Well…after the victories of the tea party candidates on Tuesday, it’s official, the Republican party is now the party of the know nothings with no place left for the moderates that are necessary for the country’s political life to function. I have never seen a slate of less qualified people than then ones the tea party is proffering as the “saviors” of the country. I blame John McCain for unleashing this plague on America with his elevation of the chief idiot Sarah Palin; who would have been laughed off the stage when I started to follow politics or would have been the mainstay of the John Birch society…the far-right loonies whose policies look like they have been resurrected in the guise of the new populism on the right.

Don’t believe the pundits that have proposed the false equivalency that the left has made the same type of lurch toward extremism…do you see anyone on the left carrying signs that advocate the overthrow of the government? It’s that increasingly crazy right turn that makes the moderate policies of the Obama Administration look like they fall way to the left of the spectrum…but these policies have many aspects of repub ideas from just a few years ago and are centrist in nature.

We used to want our politicians to be smarter than us but with the rise of the tea party, ideology has trumped intelligence as the litmus test for inclusion…geez…

Politics

Let’s end the Republican lies on the tax cuts…

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Well…it’s pretty early and I could say that this burning issue has kept me awake all night…and part of it is true, I was awake part of the night….and it is early…oh, said that already. I did want to get into deflating the bullshit that the repubs have been pedaling about the continuation of the Bush tax cuts and how they are asserting that we need to renew those for the rich to get the economy going again. First, do they still think that anyone believes “trickle down” economics work? They have tried this little gem in every administration they’ve controlled since Reagan and the only results have been larger deficits and rewards for the least productive part of our economy. Let’s get to the lies next, that not extending the tax cuts for those making over 250K will hurt small business. Well…eliminating those tax cuts will affect only about 3 percent of what they call small business, but their definition of small business, includes some Fortune 100 companies….Fortune 100 means they are in the top 100 largest companies in America and includes some of the huge Wall Street firms and many of the super rich like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. It’s just another instance of the repubs protecting their own and lying to cover it up. Another little fact that they don’t want you to understand is that the 700 billion cost of continuing the cuts for the rich will need to be borrowed…yep, and pushed on to yours and my kids and increasing the deficit that they now seem so concerned about…

Then, we have the spectacle of Mitch McConnell yesterday saying that he will filibuster the tax cuts that Obama proposes for the other 98 percent of Americans, lying on the floor of the Senate that most of the American people support extending the cuts for the rich when it is just not true…polls show that from 52 to 65 percent of the public want them to expire…so, if you’re looking for true class warfare..look no further than the repubs…

Yeah, I’m still going to get to the Keynes stuff later…maybe not today but it is still something that I feel the need to comment on…

Politics

Listening to Fareed Zakaria…

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Well…an interesting article today by Fareed, who feels that we are giving way too much credibility to the 400 or so hard core terrorists that are left in bin Laden’s organization and spending way to much of our psychic energy on them; not to mention how many dollars it takes to maintain the armies that are chasing him. I agree with his assessment and have said that in a few earlier posts, but I take it a little further and ask this question: “who benefits from continuing the fear and overstating their capability?” It hasn’t been hard to see that the right has been the ones to manipulate this issue for political gain and continue to use it as a political ploy; they would be loath to say that the threat is greatly reduced since some of the credit would have to be shared with Obama, and their buddies in the military/industrial complex would see their profits plunge. Something their strategy of obstruction and demonization will not allow them to do.

So, what do we do about it? I’ve always been one to think that skepticism is a powerful weapon and to ask a politician to prove their baseless assertions is a good start; but, then to continue to ask the questions and teach people that is their right and duty to question these folks and hold them accountable…the founding fathers believed it, and I do to…

Politics

More labor bashing from the right…

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“haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words, and most of them are lies…” Was listening to Pink Floyd on the bike ride and this line struck up a thought that connected with the concerted push by the right here in Michigan to destroy the unions abetted by their propaganda paper for west Michigan “the Grand Rapids Press”. For the past couple of weeks, the Press has been running a series whose purpose is to push the repubs continued attack on the unions; now cloaked in the right to work flag. The theme of the series is that if Michigan didn’t have unions, there would be many more auto jobs and the state would be more competitive in the race for new manufacturing plants that have generally been won by the low wage southern states. Their star example is the new Kia plant in Georgia and everyone they interviewed kept to the right’s line that the only reason it was built in Georgia instead of Michigan was Georgia’s right to work status.

Well…in the fine print, they mention what I think is the key, and it isn’t the right to work laws….it IS the fact that Georgia built Kia a $410 million, yep, that’s a $410 million dollar manufacturing plant and handed them the keys…and, while this plant was being built, all of the repub southern legislators were screaming socialism when the Obama administration was helping the unionized, American manufacturers survive. Why do the Republicans want the US worker to win the race to the bottom? Why aren’t they rejoicing that the unions are protecting the middle class with wages high enough so they can buy a house, a new car, put their kids through college, and save a little for their retirement? Again, I think it’s the unholy alliance of the repubs and business, now including even foreign manufacturers whose goal it is to accelerate the redistribution of wealth up the the rich…with the American worker paying the price. Geez….

Politics

9/11 is not a politcal prop…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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?

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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….

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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…