Category Archives: Politics

Politics

Truth is not truth anymore….

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Have been reading a bunch about how many of the righty politicians have been able to build careers on saying whatever they want without regard for the truth and their followers are so thick (to coin the English slight) that they will just believe it without any critical thought…takes me back to the Bush years that had us listening to Cheney who thought that truth was what he said it was and it could be created by repeating lies over and over and louder and louder….geez….

Oh, one other thing, how many times do politicians that Sarah Palin backs have to lose before the Repubs start to run away from her as fast as they can?

Politics

Same old story…same old song and dance…

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Well…I have to say something about what many of the righty commentators have been spouting for quite a while…when Obama tries to figure out how we got into the messes of the Wall street meltdown and the gulf oil spill to name just a couple, it is a character flaw that he doesn’t take responsibility for what’s happening but tries to blame everything on the Bushies. The character flaw to me is from the righties who, throughout the Bush years, chanted the mantra “so what if we lied to get the US into war…it’s over and let’s move on”. This crap from the party of personal responsibility that made avoiding responsibility in government an art form. How do you know to not make the same mistakes if you don’t know what happened? And how can Obama know everything that was done by the Bushies to damage the governments ability to do it’s job; to protect it’s citizens. They had 8 years to screw it up and did…it’s easy to slam a car into a brick wall…it’s not so easy to fix the damage caused by the wreck…and a wreck of that magnitude takes more than 16 months to repair…geez…

Politics

Okay, had to comment on Rand Paul….

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Well…I guess this shows you where the tea-partiers are coming from once the skin is peeled away. Rand Paul, the Repub nominee for senate from Kentucky, in an interview with Rachael Maddow on her show, stated that the federal government has no place in halting workplace or public discrimination based on race. He feels that the marketplace would take care of those types of things; if someone discriminates based on race, gender etc. even in a public restaurant or any other business, that no one would patronize those businesses once the discrimination is revealed. What planet is this guy living on? What does he want next, the Klan coming back? The laws against discrimination were a response to people doing exactly what Paul says won’t happen. Then, to make his Republicanness even clearer, he comes out today criticizing Obama for leaning on BP after their negligence led to 11 people dying and the biggest environment disaster in decades; calling it “Un-American” to criticize them. He says that sometimes no one is to blame…that it was just an accident that is no one’s fault.

You remember what “Un-American” meant in the last Presidential election and what the crazy birthers are still apoplectic about.

Can you imagine an administration that completely defers to business and cuts them loose to do whatever they want with no regard for their responsibilities? Oh…we just had one of those…you remember…run by Ole GW…Geez…

Politics

Beware of Krauthammer…

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I have only one word of advice for the Obama administration, when Charles Krauthammer agrees with one of your trial balloons; specifically shrinking the use of or modifying the Miranda warnings, you’ve got it all wrong just like he does most of the time. I just marvel at these guys who are so inconsistent that they howl about government intrusion in healthcare, then want government powers increased by the gutting of Miranda. Shame on Obama and Holder for even considering changing what has worked over many decades and that has resulted in much more actionable intelligence than any person held without trial at Guantanamo.

I am going to continue pointing out this blatant pandering to the base on both sides in an effort to force some honesty on the national conversation about these important issues.

One other example that I have to point out was some repub bitching about healthcare (again), and his premise was that since he has polls showing that the majority of Americans don’t want the changes, they shouldn’t happen. Where was he when the majority wanted Al Gore to be president and the Supreme Court installed Bush? If you look at history, public opinion sometimes is not right on these issues; look at the violence that came with the repeal of the Jim Crow laws. Geez…

Politics

Had to say this….

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Well…this whole idea of the gulf oil spill being “Obama’s Katrina” that is being pushed by the delusional righties is so egregiously political that I have to add a few more comments before I let it go. First, the idea of comparing a natural disaster to a man-made one is a false analogy at best; and at worst a blatant attempt to re-write history and minimize the failures of the Bushies to do what government is supposed to do…take care of it’s citizens in the event of natural disaster. The role of government is not to go around cleaning up after companies that have made world record profits on the backs of Americans, and then, just like the banks, move the costs for their mistakes to the government. Why are the righties screaming that Obama is not doing enough when they yell out of the other side of their mouth that government is too big and we are on the path to socialism. YOU CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS….or I guess you can when all of the their followers only watch Fox news…Geez….

Politics

Okay, here’s some outrage, finally…

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Well….I have to point out this new set of hypocrisies coming out of the righties and their attempts to paint the Obama administration as a failure. Throughout the Bush administration, even when their policies were objectively abject failures, (read that Katrina, lies to get us into Iraq, etc.) the supporters of Bush and his cronies, and Bush himself, had not one word to say on the failures or even a word of criticism of his dilution of civil liberties that the courts have since ruled were illegal.

So what do we see happening now from the right wing attack machine? They have now taken to comparing the oil spill in the gulf as Obama’s Katrina, now trying to make the point that Bush’s handling of Katrina was a failure. Well guys, you can’t have it both ways, your beloved GW was incompetent (which most of the evidence points to as being true) or the comparison could not be made. I’ve had it with these supposed “experts” whose only claim to fame is that they have been the upholders of a failed philosophy; not unlike the southern apologists who are still revering the south’s role in the civil war. Geez…

Politics

False equality in the news

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Well….I am fed up with the tendency of commentators and of the righties to push the proposition that there is an equality in the bias that runs through the reporting of the cable news networks. I want to make this as clear as possible…Fox news is the Pravda of the American news channels and the others that are held up for comparison, i.e. MSNBC, NBC,and CBS are in no way close to being the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party as Fox news is to the Republicans. I hope you remember the bad old days of the Soviet Union when Pravda (ironically, Pravda means truth in Russian) would print blatant lies that were used to keep the populace stirred up and in line; but one of the sad things that is different about these two organizations is that the Russians had no choice but to read Pravda, it was the only news the Soviet rulers would allow. In America, the righties choose to listen to the propaganda that spews from Fox…but the result is the same; a significant part of the population that has abdicated their responsibility to think; succumbing to the visceral hatred of all things Obama or Democrat that makes them feel good but bodes I’ll for the continuing success of our society. Geez….

Politics

News and how we get it..

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This is just a placeholder for now. I want to talk about how people get their news and what I think we’re missing by limiting our exposure to opposing ideas.

Back later for more…well, I’m back and to elaborate on the title…and try to make sense to both you and me. This post was in response to the news of the week that the news magazine “Newsweek” has been put up for sale with a future that looks like what has happened to other icons of the American news scene; it’s eventual closure. This has made me somewhat nostalgic for the news environment that I grew up in…that included Life, Look, and other magazines where we could get an unbiased, in-depth type of news that exists in few places today. But, I think I’m using nostalgia not as a wistfulness for what was, but more to point out the differences in the news and it’s reporting from my youth and what it is today; a partisan tool that is used for distraction or political gain.

I think I was really fortunate to grow up in my time, where you could trust the media to report the facts but that has handicapped me somewhat for today…I still trust some outlets to report facts and I am well-read and intelligent enough to be able to see those that don’t. As I talk to my youngster friends and others, I see a large problem that has arisen from this polarization of media and government in general…the public been taught over the past 20 years not to trust anyone; and that their analysis of the news etc. no matter how puerile or shallow , has the same value as someone who is an expert in the field. In this environment, opinion has taken on the same weight as fact, and facts seem to be changeable related to how many times you repeat falsehoods.

As more and more of the truth-tellers in the media fail and disappear since the appetite for truth has been replaced by polemic, the opportunity for a person to get to the truth is drowned out by the loudest, most well-funded voices. Geez….

Politics

Delusional Trust Fund Babies

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Well…have to comment on the recent speech by Eric Prince (founder of Blackwater) in Holland and the coverage that the comments have been given in the Grand Rapids Press. Let’s be clear, Prince is the founder of a mercenary organization that is still under investigation for the murder of Iraqi citizens and has damaged the U.S.’s reputation in the world with it’s cowboy antics and lawless behavior. It’s sins were so egregious that Prince changed the name to XE services to try to hide in plain sight, knowing that the activities of his organization had irreparably damaged the name Blackwater.

But now to the comments that were quoted in the Press that ranged from “he’s a wonderful man” to “this country would be a better place if there were more people like Mr. Prince”. More people that were born on third base in life and was taught that he hit a triple? More people that used his daddy’s money and connections to feed at the public trough? More people that have lived the life of privilege and feel that the rules don’t apply to him? He went so far as to impose a condition for his speaking that there would be no press at the luncheon; he did relent to allow press but still would not allow any audio or video recording of his speech.

Mr. Prince is just another of the class of GW Bush and others who, without his family connections or money, would have ended up managing a McDonalds somewhere and no one would be listening to them. I’m tired of these types that have never had to work a day in their lives telling me what is best for me or the middle class. Geez…