Category Archives: Politics

Politics

Alaska again…

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Well…I could do the easy one here and just make jokes about sister Sarah….since Alaska, that last bastion of individuality, and independence (if you don’t count that it is the biggest welfare state in the union) is in the middle of another attempt by the righties to steal an election. If you liked Bush v. Gore, you’ll love what ole Joe Miller has in mind for Alaska. Where did he go to law school anyway…Bob Jones University? As you know, ole Joe is irritated that since about 20 thousand people voted for him in the primary, he wasn’t just anointed as the new senator….earlier, when it looked like he may win the election..he was all about counting all the votes to make sure no one is disenfranchised. But, as with all of these pseudo patriots, when the system and the people reject them, there must be something wrong and they call in all the lawyers. They have even gone so far to cite Bush v. Gore as the precedent for the challenges…did they even read the decision? It is stated in Bush v. Gore that it can NEVER be used as precedent in any other case…and it only applies to the one-off of the 2000 election.

But this doesn’t matter to the righties…they hate frivolous lawsuits unless they can gain political advantage from them…all I can say to ole Joe is “man up” and admit that your crazy beliefs and only passing familiarity with the truth is what is costing you this election…not any conspiracy that you dream up in that addled brain of yours…

Politics

No more compromise…

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Well…a thought has been coming to me over the past couple of days…yep, just one…so it must be a big one, huh? I think it is…and I know I’ve been pushing reasonableness in politics, that there is always room for compromise…but I think I may have been wrong. When I see the chicanery that the repubs have been doing since the election, with the instant rejection of anything Obama, with no mention of the people that are hurting in this country…but just payback and investigations of the normal workings of any government…where were these guys when Cheney was letting the oil companies write energy legislation? But that is not the point, the point to me is that even though the election was a setback, we progressives need to say stop, that we have already moved way too far to the right..just for the look of compromise that the repubs never really cared about. So, we need to use the power that is left to us, frame the consequences of the repubs agenda better…so they want to repeal the healthcare law? So they want a tax increase on small businesses by eliminating the subsidies that are included in the law? Let’s shout it from the rooftops. So, they want to allow insurance companies to cancel your insurance when you get sick? Let’s take out billboards that shout that fact. So they want to allow big banks to bet the economy on their obscene profits again? Let’s make sure that everyone knows that is what they want to do. I know, I know…that’s not reasonableness but I think the term needs to be redefined…is it reasonable to let the extreme right-wing agenda ruin this country in the name of compromise…not in my world it’s not….

Politics

Some questions..

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Well…I’m really glad the election is over but there was one thing (there was more than one thing but this is what I want to deal with right now) that disappointed me so much about the media and it’s reporting on the people and ideas that were part of it. It seems to me that this election was one of “narratives” that took on a life of their own and were aided by a lazy media that was all too eager to use this shorthand in lieu of real reporting. The greatest example of this lack of rigor was the theme that this was a change election and the people were revolting against the Obama Administration’s policies when that was only true on the right…the real reason for the change that happened was that we progressives were lazy getting out to vote and somewhat smug in the fact that we believed our message was the best one and needed no explanation. This, along with the shortcuts of the media, allowed the right to dominate the story of the election that continues even after the data is available to refute this bundle of lies and wishful thinking.

This lack of rigor on the part of the media was evident in the vetting of the candidates like Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle whose lack of qualifications were glossed over by the media who were only interested in being right in projecting the Republican “tidal wave” even though their job is to do the hard work and provide the unbiased information that the people need to make informed decisions. What happened to the story on O’Donnell’s reported income of only $9,000 for the past two years? I know it’s hard for me to live on significantly more than $4,500 a year and I have no expenses. But, this story would make people think and the media have the wrongheaded idea that people won’t understand or think…that everything has to be a soundbite. I, for one, want the various forms of media to go back to the era where the facts are just reported without the thoughts of what the impact of the facts are. These days, it’s all too common that people don’t have the guts to have “the chips fall where they may” and shed some light on the dark corners of politics that money and ideology don’t want known. I hope the media do better in the next one…or they can start today…that would be a good way to return them to the importance that the founders knew…geez…

Politics

Compromise as a political weapon….

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Well…there is a new narrative coming out of the repubs that the reason that the dems lost the house in the mid-terms was that they didn’t compromise enough on their agenda, that they jammed the healthcare bill down the throats of America without talking to their repub counterparts. Okay, is anyone laughing as much as I am? Especially when related to healthcare, the dems went from their proposal for a single-payer system to the bastardized one that was passed…and the majority of the bill were things that the repubs had proposed just a few years earlier…so, the repubs get everything they want and then still run against the bill? But, you know their idea of compromise is that they get everything they want and then still bitch about it. They are so spineless that they won’t even support financial regulation of the guys that screwed up the economy if their idiot fringe (who doesn’t understand any of it…just listen to Michelle Bachmann) starts to howl. How can you, or why should you compromise when the only thing these guys want is a return to the robberbaron times of the early 1900’s? They’ve shown they have no good ideas and to give their stupid ones like tax cuts for the rich validity by compromising on them is the height of folly that the dems will have to get over…geez…

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…