Well…with all of the posturing and bigotry by the repubs here regarding the Syrian refugees and their repeated attempts to make it harder for them to settle here, we only have to look to our north to see how the refugee crisis should be handled. You know I’ve talked about the Canadians before and how much I like and respect them for their good nature and resonableness…and yesterday was no exception. When the Syrian refugees that are going to settle in Canada arrived there yesterday, guess what he response was….not fear, not loathing, not bigotry like they see here in the US but a welcome from the prime minister in person who said “you are home” as he met them. This is the newly elected liberal PM Trudeau not the conservative ass that held the office before. What the hell is wrong with us when we can’t do that? Where is the “American exceptionalism” that the right goes on and on about? For a country with a 10th of our population and economy the Canadians are taking on more than double the refugees that we have committed to and that is just shameful…what would be a better way to show the world we care about something more than war than to do everything we can to help refugees from around the world? I salute our neighbors to the north for showing us what it means to be human at a time where we appear to have lost our way.
Category Archives: Politics
This IS the republican party…
Well…it is too laugh when all of the so called “establishment” repubs run to the media to complain about the Donald’s racist, homophobic, idiotic rhetoric…nope, can’t even call it rhetoric, since that would imply that there is some logic there…when there is only a foaming pit of hate. But, this is just what the repubs have been fomenting for the past 30 years but doing it in a “nicer” form with the dog whistles of “states rights” and “religious liberty” which translated mean institutional, government sponsored bigotry against anyone that doesn’t believe as they do…that every Muslim is a terrorist and every gay should be stoned to death since being gay is against “god’s law”. Now, we see the distilled essence of the repub brand being exposed by the Donald and supported by this base of ignorant haters who have been whipped into a frenzy for so long that it had to blow at some point. I really do hope the Donald gets the nomination…and we crush this nastiness that is the repubs into the dirt….it is just so un-American to want to do harm to you fellow citizens…oh, not for the repubs, I forgot…they don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves…geez…
The money is there…
Well….just watched the Daily Show with Jon Stewart as guest where he was visiting the senate to try to get them to re-approve the funding for healthcare for the 9/11 first responders…now, you know how I feel about the hero worship that cops and firemen get in this country…some deserved, some not, but when they are injured on the job, it is our duty to take care of them especially when there is clear data that connects the cancers and respiratory disease they are experiencing to their work at the WTC. The thing that just galled me when they talked to Rob Portman, a senator from Ohio, was that he talked about paying for the bill, that they needed to offset the costs by cuts elsewhere….hey, Rob, I got a cut for you….take a few billions out of the bloated military budget…you know, one frickin destroyer less would pay for it…and then some…the most poignant thing from that show was the panel that was there 5 years ago trying to get this funding passed…which had 4 first responders and Jon on it….now has three empty chairs for the guys that have died or whose health has deteriorated so much they couldn’t travel….what the hell is wrong with us? Billions to bomb but no money to take care of our own? This is the modern republican, folks…geez…
An adult in the White House…
Well….not sure if you saw Obama’s news conference last night…it was a nice, measured response to a complex problem that is still unfolding daily…but, to hear those on the right comment, he just gave the country to ISIS and surrendered….not sure what they wanted but the adult in the WH did what was necessary with a thoughtful speech that was devoid of the posturing and spittle spewing that the right takes for action…I wonder if they wanted him to unfurl a “Mission Accomplished” banner behind him or to use the “bring it on” rhetoric that ole GW used for red meat to his rabid followers? The only thing we need to remember about all of those on the right that are criticizing not putting more “boots on the ground” in Syria is that they are always wrong…wrong to invade Iraq, wrong on weapons of mass destruction there, wrong on tax cuts, wrong on disbanding the Iraqi army….wrong on fricking everything….and I am happy to have an adult in the WH that doesn’t posture and shout and act agitated…that’s leading……not that the right would recognize that…geez…
My idea for gun control…
Well…with all of the shootings that continue to happen all across the country, I have an idea for gun control that dovetails quite well with the repubs continued insistence that the constitution be read and interpreted as it was written with no exceptions for the 2nd amendment especially. But, as you know, they are selective when it comes to the rest of it…ignoring the first and 14th with the latest row about Muslims and gays. Given this insistence, I propose that, if they want to live with an 18th century interpretation of the 2nd, they need to go back to the 18th century’s interpretation of arms. So, the only weapons that should be allowed for anyone would be a smooth bore, flintlock musket or pistol since they are the only guns that were available back then. So, let’s get right on that repubs, since you just frickin love living in the past, live there with your weapons too….geez…
I’m tired or writing about these….
Well…another day, another mass shooting here in the US and I really don’t know what to say…that is 355 of these this year…that’s right, more than one a day so far this year and the only thing we get out of the repubs is more sympathy for the victims…you know what? I’m tired of sympathy and treating this crap as if it is inevitable….there is something to be done if the repubs will just get off their asses and do it…from background checks to limiting the kinds of guns that can be bought to buybacks of guns to get them off the street. Something needs to be done and that is not more hand wringing….it not “more guns everywhere” it is not a “good guy with a gun”….it is admitting that there are just too many damn guns that have no purpose other than kill other people…and I have had enough….geez…
More Walmart extortion….
Well…another day goes by, and we have another case of Walmart trying to extort another city into not raising it’s minimum wage. the city of Desert Hot springs California is considering raising the city’s minimum wage to $10.20 an hour with a dollar an hour increase for the next two years and then indexing it to inflation…not an unreasonable way to ensure that people make enough to eat and pay their rent. But, that’s just too much for Walmart who owns land in the city and has told the city council that if they pass the wage changes, the store will not be built…going so far at to take out a full page ad opposing the council saying that their 300 jobs would not happen if the ordinance is passed. Other than the fact that this is corporate thuggery at it’s worst…I’d say to them “good, keep your damn 300 jobs”….especially in light of the studies that have been done that find that every time a Walmart is built and opened it leads to a net loss of jobs in the community…and this has been shown all across the country…..and this goes along with other economic studies that peg the cost of each Walmart to the taxpayers of a million dollars a year….since they don’t pay enough for people to live on, most of their employees are on food stamps and Medicaid…so, I’d say to Walmart from any city across this country…keep your damn, poor paying jobs and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out….geez…
A new worst person in the world…
Well…as you know, I’ve stolen this bit from Keith Olbermann and I think it still serves a purpose, especially after the murders at PP this past week. As a recap, the guy that murdered three people and wounded many more told the cops that he did it to stop them from ‘selling baby parts” the false narrative that was set in motion by a rabid anti abortion group and which has been picked up by the repubs in many “investigations” they have done since then which has found no wrongdoing at all. But, the truth doesn’t matter to the right and to Ted Cruz in particular who stated this weekend that the killer was a “transgender, liberal activist” and said he had proof since one of the crazy assed right wing websites said they had a voter registration that listed this guy as female. I think ole Ted deserves an award here for working three of the right’s dogwhistles into a sentence and that award would be the worst person in the world…three people are dead, the shooter told you what his reasons were, and you have to take this tragedy and turn it into more of the same stoking of hatred that you expect to ride into the presidency….if that’s not the worst person in the world, I don’t know who is…geez…
They just don’t get to do this…
Well….wih the murders at PP in Colorado the other day, the hypocrisy of the right to life movement was on full display with the comments that were made by the guys that made the fake video of PP…these idiots came out with their sympathy for the people killed when they are the cause of it but they never once condemned the actions of the criminals that continue to do this terrorism…the killer even going so far as to say that he was spurred on about the thought of “baby parts” being sold…a direct reference to what these asses did with their fake video. Even the repub candidates for president didn’t condemn the actions of this murderer…just putting out mushy condolences to the first responder that was killed since they all agree with the idea of closing PP by any method necessary. Let’s call this what it is…domestic terrorism aimed at scaring women away from getting their healthcare since they just don’t think women should have any rights to control their own bodies…the new, modern repub party…this is it folks….geez…
Searching for a motive?
Well…another day and more violence directed at Planned Parenthood and the only thing that the media can say is the authorities are still “looking for a motive”….but, you don’t have to look too far to find it…with the almost constant demonizing of the organization, what the hell do they expect? When the repubs use fake “evidence” to excoriate PP at every turn, when they call everyone that works there murderers, and when it seems that the one thing that is on the repubs minds is shutting PP down and stirring up their base, what the hell do they expect? Especially from a base that is none too sane to start with, and with all of their candidates saying that they don’t have to obey laws they don’t agree with, what the hell do they expect? The sick thing here is that they will not learn anything from this, they won’t learn that stoking the anger of their followers to a fever pitch is not a good thing to do…and next week there will be another attack and more dead…all just to try to take away the control that women have over their own bodies…these people are just the most sick excuses for human beings I have ever seen….geez…