Well…don’t really have a long form topic for today so I think I’ll just take a few things and add them into this one just to see where it goes…first, let’s look at the unintended consequences that are coming from many of the laws that the Koch brothers have sponsored through the right wing legislative organization called ALEC, whose sole purpose is to push the right wing agenda by writing laws that they hand to captive repub legislators across the US who then ram them through state legislatures. One of these laws is the “stand your ground” law in Florida that has been copied across 17 other states that says that people can’t be prosecuted if they shoot someone and claim self defense…the most recent case in Florida concerns an unarmed young black man that was chased by an armed citizen and shot and killed…with the killer claiming self defense…now, I’ve never seen anyone who thought they were in mortal danger run toward the person they felt was threatening…the NRA, ALEC, and the Florida legislators who passed this bill are as responsible for this young man’s death as the shooter. Okay….after that, the rest of the things I wanted to talk about seem pretty trivial so I’ll just leave it here….how can this happen in 2012 in the US?
Tag Archives: republicans
This is growth of government?
Well…haven’t been able to write much lately and I’m not sure what the cause is just yet….it could be spring fever…who knows? What I did want to talk about today is the misconception that the repubs are trying to sell that the Obama administration has expanded government regulation more that any president in history and is taking away our freedoms and strangling business…blah, blah, blah…when the opposite is true. Just compare the the costs of the last three years of ole GW’s to the first three years of Obama’s and you’ll see that the regulatory costs and the sheer number of new regulations was significantly higher under ole GW…costing business and individuals billions of dollars and piling on the red tape. I know that none of this means anything to the fact-challenged repubs…they think lies repeated often enough magically turn into the truth….and how can you argue with that?
Arizona is the model if the Republicans win…
Well…just a short one to comment on the jaw-dropping new bill that is being passed in Arizona concerning women’s access to birth control….this new bill would make women prove they are not using birth control for non-medical reasons…like for contraception before their medical plans would cover this necessary medicine….and the worst part is that it would allow all employers to not cover birth control without any reason….and, depending on the interpretation, may allow employers to fire women who use it….I’m not making this up people….this is what the US is going to look like if the repubs win the White House this fall….I just have nothing more to add to this one…just can’t believe we are still talking about this nonsense in 2012…geez…
Finishing up the placholders…
Well…I promised I’d get back to take on the placeholders from last night..the first one is the repubs going into full attack mode on the proposed release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to bring down oil prices…and, of course, the repubs don’t want to hear it, trying to tar this attempt to relieve prices for the middle class “just politics” and vowing to fight it….but, I have a different take on the whole thing…first, what’s wrong with spanking the speculators that are driving up the price? Every analyst says there is plenty of supply and the Saudi’s have said that there isn’t anyplace to put any increased output….so, the only reason that oil prices are soaring is the speculators are betting there will be a rise in prices which fuels the rise in prices…pretty neat for the speculators, huh? Second…why not sell of oil that was purchased at 20-70 dollars a barrel for 128 dollars? It wouldn’t hurt to sell off 10 million of the 177 million barrels in the reserve and even using the top price of 70 dollars, that would make a profit of almost 500 million dollars that could be used to reduce the deficit….I threw that last part in kind of tongue in cheek…500 million would be smaller than a drop in the bucket against the deficit but I wanted to say it before some politician. The only reason the repubs don’t want this release is that their oil company masters love it when prices soar…just more profits for the oil companies and campaign contributions for the repubs…geez…
A little known fact on Keystone…
Well…just a short one on some little known developments in the Keystone pipeline dustup…with the repubs continuing lies on where the oil coming through the pipeline is going to go; making the statement over and over that it will help reduce our dependence on foreign oil and all of the other nonsense they continue to shout, we had Ron Wyden, the senator from Oregon offer to help get the pipeline approved if the repubs would agree to legislation that would mandate that any oil that comes through the pipeline would be sold in the US. Seems to me to be a reasonable compromise, but the repubs went nuts and started their normal screeds that the government shouldn’t interfere in business, yada, yada, yada…..to any thinking person, what this means is that the repubs are lying again…even the pipeline company has said that most of the oil will be sold into the world market and will be used to “correct” the oversupply in the midwest; resulting in higher prices there. So, anytime you hear the repubs talking about Keystone (or Exxon for that matter in the new ads they have out), they are lying…lying about where the oil is going to go and lying about how many jobs the pipeline will bring….geez…
This is interesting…
Well… just a short one on politics since the NCAA tournament is on…I’m not usually a basketball fan but who can resist right now? Okay… read a really interesting article this morning in some paper..not sure which one but the interesting part is that as the repubs tack further and further to the right, they are becoming the party of angry, old, white people, that feel that their time has passed and who will do anything to try to maintain their privileged place in the world. And, it does nothing but get worse for the repubs as the changing demographics of the population is taken into account; with their harsh rhetoric against immigrants, they have alienated the fastest growing segment of the population. The article was interesting in describing the groups that the repubs have offended in this campaign…starting with women, Hispanics, independents, and basically everyone other than their base…and the stupid thing is that appealing only to their base to get through the primaries, they are limiting themselves to about 30% of the electorate in the general election. But, it couldn’t happen to a better bunch…who would vote for ole Mitt when he stated the other day “oh, Planned Parenthood, we’ll get rid of that”….an organization that does more for women’s health needs than any other in the US….this pandering to the hard right, hate everyone but themselves group is going to guarantee a loss this fall…keep it up, guys…
Voters may still have rights…
Well…it has been a heartening week if you believe that the right of the people to vote should not be able to be abridged by the lunatics on the right who believe that taking away basic rights is a justified tactic to steal elections. In three cases this week, the courts, both state and federal, have invalidated laws put in place by the repubs requiring that some sort of ID is necessary for people to vote; invariably affecting the poor and minorities and suppressing the vote that normally goes to the dems. In Texas, the repubs there cited the “rampant” voter fraud as the justification for disenfranchising over 600,000 poor people who don’t have the required ID’s, but, this “rampant” fraud was actually 50 cases over the span of 10 years…yep, 5 cases a year shows that this was a blatant attempt to fix the elections for the repubs but the court saw through this nonsense and stopped it….the same for a law in Virgina whose purpose was to do the same thing…keep the poor from voting by instituting what was, in effect, a poll tax, by charging these poor folks 22 bucks for these id’s…something that was outlawed with the end of the Jim Crow era…but these guys just can’t give up trying to discriminate and fix elections since it is becoming more evident all the time that it will be the only way they can win. In Wisconsin, the repubs tried to do the same thing with another of these laws that was written by ALEC…the Koch brothers legislative arm who have been writing legislation for the repubs that will further their radical, right-wing agenda and that the lazy repubs can pass to mollify their base. I’m just glad that the checks and balances that are built into our system worked this time….but, remember, this is more of the illegal nonsense you will see if these thugs get returned to office or if you vote for the repub in the presidential election…geez….
Republicans “war” on the TelePrompter….
Well….just a short one to take on the latest, ongoing ridiculousness that is the repub party these days….this one has come to a head with ole Rick Santorum saying yesterday that the use of teleprompters by any candidate should be illegal….nevermind that in the same breath he attacks government interference, and that ole Newt has challenged Obama to three hour debates where no teleprompters would be allowed….Ignoring the fact that teleprompters have never been used in any debate….but the real nugget here is the fact that the repubs think that having the ability to memorize is the same thing as intelligence, and the fact that the dems have complex, nuanced, ideas that they want to get right is now a bad thing? I guess it would be easy to not need a teleprompter if your most complex ideas are “drill baby drill, or bomb, bomb Iran”….geez….
Here’s one last thought on gas prices….since the repubs are the largest beneficiaries of the oil companies campaign donations and they would benefit mightily by the repubs taking the presidency….wouldn’t you do everything in your power, if you were an oil company, to make sure prices continue to rise…like shut down two oil refineries this year along with restricting oil production? They’ve tried this nonsense before…and they will try it again…
Either you are for capitalism or not…
This is a placeholder of the idea that the repubs can’t have it both ways…you can’t tout capitalism on one hand and then want the president to intervene in the economy to bring down gas prices….
Okay..it’s really early in the morning but I feel obligated to finish this one since placeholders guilt me pretty well…first…we have the repubs actually making the case in the press and on fox news that the president can intervene to lower oil and gas prices…the clips on Keith’s show last night from 2008 were just hilarious where we had the usual suspects at fox falling all over themselves protecting ole GW from gas prices that were higher than they are now….going on and on how the market will correct the prices and that the president couldn’t and shouldn’t intervene….then the cut comes to all of the repub candidates repudiating the free market by saying they would all promote more drilling, etc. etc…..to bring prices down…and that the president now has the magical powers to lower prices…..let’s get few things straight first….the oil companies are wallowing in profits with things just the way they are….why would they drill more, even in the leases that are open and they hold, that are not being used if to do so would increase supply and lower prices? How would approving the Keystone pipeline lower prices when all of it’s output would be sold into the world market? How would approving more refinery construction lower prices of gas when two of them have been closed in the past year by the oil companies to “support prices”? Short of nationalizing the oil companies holdings here in the US, there is just not much that any sitting president can do on oil or gas prices in the increasingly globalized market….any repub that says anything different is either ignorant or a liar…you choose which…geez…
Another short one on tax cuts…
Well…while cruising my online papers for the second time today, a thought came to me that should put the “tax cuts make tax revenues grow” nonsense that is still a staple of all of the economic plans of the repubs across the country to rest. If that is the case, why did the Bush tax cuts take the economy from the surplus that he was handed when “elected”, to the huge deficits that we now see? Shouldn’t those cuts have driven tax revenues so high that even today there would be no deficits? Just asking….