RAINY DAY THINGS

A Hiatus

2012-02-21T01:36:00.000-08:00

For anyone who has been reading this blog and not Rainy Day Thoughts, I wanted to let you know that until after our November 2012 election, this blog is more or less going to be closed down with all political thinking moving to Rainy Day Thoughts .

There are several reasons for this but the main one is I feel the coming election is too important to not write about the issues in the blog that gets the most traffic. We in the United States will be looking again at issues we thought we had long ago settled-- at least on the left. They are all back and in full force.

So Things goes on a hiatus until then. If you are interested in my thinking on politics and issues (as well as countless other things) and haven't been there, please bookmark

Rainy Day Thoughts

and not only visit but comment-- agree or disagree with the subjects. I think a healthy discourse is good and that takes openness but also to stay away from nastiness or threats. I have felt we did that here and know anybody coming from here to Thoughts will treat it likewise.

You know we on the left don't always see things the same way; but when we openly share our thinking, I believe it helps strengthen us, and I do believe we need to be strong to keep our country strong.

Likely after the election, I'll be posting here again as I do like to generally keep Thoughts out of politics-- except when it matters so much.

Some might think these issue are only about our country but they really are not. The world is going through a huge transition both economically, climatically and socially. Who knows how it'll all end up but we need to be thinking about these things and the long-range consequences. I really appreciate the regular readers here as mostly you are people who do care about politics a lot. Hope you join me in Thoughts for a lot of discussions between now and November.

Really? You really want to go there???

2012-02-16T10:08:00.000-08:00

At one time I would have thought our country was moving ahead on social issues, with more willingness to let individuals make their own moral choices where it came to sexuality where it didn't harm others (i.e. no rape or sex with those underage). It seems that was wrong. We've regressed to a point that this can happen:

Contraception Hearing

To be honest, no matter how low I thought Republicans had sunk, they keep surprising me by going lower. For a woman like me, born in 1943 and who came of age just as the pill was coming into general use (Right before I got married, I got my first prescription for the pill from Planned Parenthood along with my first pelvic health exam), this group, using the argument of freedom of religion, going after the right for women to easily get birth control, it has me shaking my head. Obviously, since right wingers want power, they somehow think shouting freedom of religion and making birth control questionable morally is a winning issue. When this bunch isn't busy using religion, they turn to patriotism to take away the freedom of others. Fascism at its finest.

If I say that my religion says I should do drugs to talk with my god, will the Republicans back me? You can bet not. How about if my god said I should blow up a building? No way. But somehow where it comes to giving women control over their own bodies, that's an area they must take a stand. Seriously???

Since the same number of Catholic women use birth control as do non-Catholic women (also have abortions) the all male hierarchy of the Catholic Church has not convinced even women in their church. Yet they want to allow their businesses to deny women contraception as supposedly being about religious freedom (obviously theirs not the women who might want to buy it). And this is about right wing religious fanatic businesses which has included pharmacies refusing to sell contraceptives.

Religious freedom means you can choose to not use a contraceptive if you want. You can have twenty kids if you want. But it doesn't mean you can deny your children insulin if they are diabetic. There are limits to how we see religious freedom. When someone's religion dictates bigotry toward another race or gender, it's no longer just about religious freedom.

Religious freedom should mean freedom for and from religion.

The Republicans, wanting power, think Americans will buy this religious angle as a way to deny women contraceptives and push the Catholic Church's religious rules onto all of us. They see it as a winner to hurt Obama with religious folks. If it turns out it is, which I find unlikely, what does that mean we are as Americans? Are we heading back to a Puritan era where religious leaders dictate all of our choices under threat of law?

When Obama compromised on the birth control by saying the church didn't have to pay for the contraceptives, but an insurance company still did, that wasn't enough to satisfy those like Issa, who is having a hearing on the subject, hearing that denies anybody a voice who doesn't take the Catholic Church's position.

Hey, I am fine with people like Santorum and Gingrich to be Catholic. I support their right to gather together with other believers; to believe that wine turned into blood for the communion; believe their Pope is infallible when he puts down edicts like about birth control; for them to believe religious leaders should not be married. I support Mormons to believe they can turn into a god on another planet someday. I wouldn't even care if they wanted to go back to polygamy (if it wasn't forced onto women). It doesn't bother me that Mormons like to baptize dead people because I don't believe it has any meaning that they do it.

What I am not fine with is putting those religious beliefs and rules onto the rest of us or even their own people by force. Then it is no longer about religious freedom. It's a dictatorship run by the same old boys who used to burn witches and stone to death gays. The word freedom doesn't fit when someone wants to force their religious values onto everybody under the law. The only freedom that person values is their own.

how birth control makes religious zealots sad

Social Issues to determine the election?

2012-02-10T09:10:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I get so mad at politics and what I see happening that it is soooo tempting to quit reading about it. Then I remember what is at stake for us as a nation. Here's the latest where Obama supposedly blew it with the religious types over birth control and the Catholic Church.

Huge kerfuffle and a chance for right wing nut jobs to say Obama hates Christianity. He gave in on it in a way that gets what he wants but lets Catholic universities and hospitals pretend they aren't paying for it. Some will say it's another of his sneaky deals, but it makes sense for those who prefer to look idealistic while they look the other way from what is really going on.

The Obama Deal on Birth Control for political advantage for both

Here is the issue and why this matters. Women have for a long time said it's unfair that insurance companies cover Viagra and other such drugs while they do not cover birth control for women. Neither are a disease. One is covered since it's for men. The other hasn't been. The Obama administration said insurance must cover birth control which opened the door for this problem.

The cries that this is about freedom of religion make me so mad I could spit-- and I don't spit. What the Constitution offers is freedom to choose a religion. It does not say that religion then is immune from the laws of the country. You cannot do a lot of things in the name of your religion but many claim you can like say using drugs.

The Catholic Church, of which I legally probably still am a member if a fallen away one, has seen itself above the law in another issue. When the Bishops would discover a priest had been molesting boys, what did they do about it? Turn him into the police to face our laws? Nope, they'd pay off victims and parents, and move him where he could get a new shot at doing it. They considered themselves above the law and who knows in what other ways.

Freedom of religion doesn't mean religions should be able to go into business, which a university, hospital, and insurance company certainly are, and ignore the laws of the land. Well the righties like Santorum would make what the Catholic Church has for moral laws legally binding for the rest of us. That's what he's talking about when he says it should be all right for a state to totally ban birth control if it wants to do that. As president, he'd be just fine with that. Who knows, since the majority of our Supreme Court judges are also Catholics, maybe they'd be fine with that too and not just for a state but the nation.

Obama found a solution that fudged its way into getting what he wanted for women and letting the Catholic Church stand pompous and righteous above the fray. It won't stop the front runners for the presidency from claiming that Obama hates all of Christianity and his trying to get birth control insurance coverage is evidence.

Interestingly enough with the country picking up, the Stimulus actually showing it worked (talk to your own financial planner if you don't believe it), jobs improving, this election turns out it will be about social issues more than economic. The Republicans think that's good news for them. What do you think? Okay with you to block gay marriage, turn abortion back into an illegal act, block people from buying birth control, end any right to die with dignity, and whatever else the Catholic Church dictates to its own members to be part of our legal system under a Santorum presidency? It's what he's got in mind to retrieve the destiny of our country or so he says.

These right wing, religious, supposedly all Christian guys will immediately end health care for all which will be cheers from those who have it and cries from someone with a child who has a chronic condition that will mean they can never buy insurance for themselves. Three of the four appear to feel they should attack Iran. From what I can tell, all want to lower taxes for the rich even further. Environmental or financial regulations-- bad bad bad. Business should have free rein and for Paul that even means blocking a person of another race from eating in your restaurant? Rights of property supersede anything else, right? And as for your private life, well to stay in good with God, the church should dictate those choices-- their church, not yours, of course.

The thing is-- wasn't freedom of religion also meaning freedom from it. Obama didn't interfere with the Catholic Church's dictates that birth control is a sin. In their church they can say what they want. He was trying to make them function as a business when they go into business. The screams of religious outrage were heard all across the nation enhanced by zealots like Santorum and frauds like Perry.

You know, we as a nation, do give churches all kinds of benefits like not taxing their income or buildings. Why we do that is beyond me but we do. So here we have a religion that has gone beyond worship into profit and it wants the country to give it a wash where it comes to rules.. If they don't like the rules, they don't have to go into the business, do they?

Nobody is forcing people to buy birth control devices or pills.

Some good things

2012-02-07T10:25:00.000-08:00

Some good news-- Prop 8 Unconstitutional Now it will head to the Supreme Court and anybody's guess for what that will mean given how that court has done on other issues.

The Komen controversy should not be over even though the veep behind it has resigned. There was a reason that woman was hired. There have been a lot of other questionable things about them not being the best, most effective tool for fighting breast cancer. Their fight to block anybody from using-- for the cure-- is only one example of their desire to make money for their upper management people and gain power more than find a cure for cancer. Find other places to donate for breast cancer research.

The good news there is that Americans cared about Planned Parenthood and maybe are beginning to get what the right will do if they gain power in terms of individual rights. Right wingers talk a lot about how important freedom is-- but it's only their freedoms they respect. I think this is all good for the race for President as even though people are concerned about jobs, they also don't want to go back to the Fifties for back alley abortions.

And I do think Americans support gay rights for marriage. Whether the Supremes decide one way or the other, this is a change that is coming as more and more Americans see it makes sense.

We on the left are not trying to tell people who don't believe in abortion to have one. We are not trying to say they must marry someone of the same sex. We are trying to tell them that their religion should not dictate our choices. Hopefully there are enough of us who do remember the back alley days and do respect that marriage should be between two consenting adults and not someone else's church.

The Reagan Rule

2012-02-04T01:36:00.000-08:00

Part of the time I want to laugh at right wingers for what they buy into. Doesn't it seem funny in a sort of dark sense? The leaders convince their voters to buy into the best advertisement and think they are thinking for themselves. Then they are convinced by the ads and speeches that they did.

So Romney says that Obama doesn't deserve credit for unemployment at 8.3%. On the other hand, when unemployment was at 10%, he did deserve credit. I always want to say to a Republican-- seriously, you take this guy seriously?

The following link was kind of a good look at whether he will do what Republicans most want when he gets in office. And what they most want according to the right wing pundits is end health care for everybody. So like your kid has leukemia and has had good results with the treatment, but if you change jobs or lose your insurance, that child can forever after be denied health insurance based on prior condition. That's a little something the health care law changed. Gone with the whisk of a pen if Romney gets in.

According to the righies, he also will immediately adopt Paul Ryan's plan for SS and Medicare which means if you were counting on it when you get old or frankly even now-- don't.

Finally pro-life rules will finally become national and abortion will once again happen where it should-- in back alleys. That's what the country will get with a Romney presidency.

Well not so fast according to this pundit.

Will Romney owe conservatives if he wins?

Pretty much I'd say there is no clue what he'll do once he gets in office. He has been totally unpredictable all of his political life. As one rightie supposes-- he's used to obeying and that's what he's done best. So who does he obey next January?

Romney said he'll go to war with Iran-- assuming Israel doesn't settle that matter first. Will he? He's also going to balance the budget which makes it hard to see how you fight that enlarged war but then maybe this is back to voodoo economics.

Finally something interesting I heard which if you don't chuckle, you have no sense of humor. It was about capital gains tax rates and how we should stop calling it the Buffett Rule to make sure we have fairness in all tax rates. We actually need to start calling it the Reagan Rule. Republicans are already trying to spin this one:

"We're going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that have allowed some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. In theory, some of those loopholes were understandable, but in practice they sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary, and that's crazy. It's time we stopped it." Ronald Reagan-- 1985

What do you think Romney would say to signing a law that set tax rates so that all income was treated equally? I'll believe he'd might do anything other than deny it for the good of the country the day he reveals the rest of his tax rates back say 10 years and we find out he paid even 15% for all of them...

About the only ones who can do justice to what is happening in this country right now are the comedians like Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert. It's laugh or cry!

Romney's Mask

2012-02-02T11:08:00.000-08:00

What Romney said is he didn't have concern for the poor because they had all these safety net programs. He is trying to walk all the way around that statement now; but IF you read the whole context, it's even worse than the single sentence alone. He simply doesn't get it on a ton of levels.

Romney seems to believe or lied about it that there is a safety net out there that lets people live a life of poverty with dignity. Heck if you have food on the table, scanty though it might be, that's enough, right?

The thing is, many aren't in those so-called safety nets. You hear their stories every day. BUT even if they were, doesn't he get it that it's not a good way to live. We do have a problem in this country with poverty but also with ignorance among the 'haves' who have no compassion for those who don't.

The poor need help to get out of poverty, to find work that enables them to live an independent life. Does he realize how many are living without that today? Living from job to job but without security, with no benefits? Living without enough insurance or any to cover disastrous happenings? Those who are rich or have insurance as part of a good job really don't get it what it's like to live with such insecurity.

Now I won't say he doesn't as a person care about the needy. The thing is what kind of programs does he believe in other than through his religion? He donates a lot, but most of it went to a religion that dictates you must donate.

Andrew Sullivan brought up something interesting on Romney and why he seems so inauthentic to many of us. He said it's referred to as the Mormon Mask. Not every Mormon out there wears it; but those who rise in the church, as Romney has done, they do wear it as you know if you have been around them. It is trained into them; and you do not become a Stake President or a Bishop, as Romney has done, without it. They are basically prototypes for what success must look like.

Reading some of what he did when he was a religious leader in his community, yeah, he was out there with the poor-- dictating what they must do. As Bain did when it would take over a company and demand their values which they saw as the ones that led to success.

The Mormon Mask which is doubtless a human mask also that he uses anywhere he can be observed, probably explains the flip-flops. He will say whatever he must to to be accepted, to fit the role he must, and to gain personal power.

Who knows what he would do once in power except he has said he doesn't believe in entitlements. He had to say that now, of course, since he needs the nomination in a party who doesn't believe in them-- even if they get them themselves.

Rush Limbaugh got the problem from the right with what Romney said, why they don't trust him. Those like Rush do not want a safety net for anybody. They consider it to be the problem in this country. When they don't consider something else to be it--

Marco Rubio supported Romney heavily in Florida probably with the hope he will be selected as his running mate. Here's what Rubio believes about personal freedom-- Marco Rubio-- America cannot fulfill its destiny unless it ends abortion. Basically what he is saying is that American must accept a religion's definition of its destiny (which would probably be Romney's view too even though different religions).

That is what Republicans want to give this country-- the very dictatorship over personal lives they claim is the threat from the left.

Who is Romney behind his mask? Can we take a chance to find out? Independents and dissatisfied lefties better look long and hard at the alternative before they sit this next election out!

Update: I just had to add. *drum roll* Trump just endorsed Romney. So that will give him seven more votes...

Hohum, it's Romney... Big surprise.

2012-02-01T09:14:00.000-08:00

It is hard to have much enthusiasm for writing here because I am mostly disgusted by the whole thing. Florida proved money talks but what does that tell us about the future of politics in this country? The way Gingrich blew the last two debates makes me wonder if he got paid off. It's not as though I am a Gingrich fan. Yeah, I get that he's not reliable but seriously, Romney is?

I do like what I hear about Obama's direction for the military where it's more strategic strikes by groups like SEALs and Delta Force. They go in, go fast, and hit what they want for the most part. There will be failures but a better alternative is to ignore the terrorists and pirates? Or send in our whole military?

It's clear that this direction for the military is not just Obama's idea. It has been used more and more under him though. Is it all pluses? Not necessarily considering this is often very secretive which enables a government to do things the rest of us might not approve. Still the alternatives don't look good to me.

Right now it looks like Romney will be the Republican nominee based on money and backing of the establishment. They have done the same number on Paul and Gingrich that they did on Perot years ago. If anybody looks close to changing the game, there are ways to deal with them. Money comes first. We won't like what comes next.

It doesn't have to work-- the money that is. Americans can quit paying attention to those slick ads. They could but so far, they aren't. Whose fault is that?

For anyone with the energy to read more about who Romney is-- [Romney-- I'm not concerned about the poor]. Yeah, we hear and believe you, Mitt. You're not concerned about the middle either, but they just have more votes!

Oh it's legal-- but is it ethical? Presidential?

2012-01-26T19:22:00.000-08:00

How can Americans seriously think about electing a man who has benefited and wants to be president to benefit even further from unethical tax laws? Seriously, this is okay?

Romney may have paid no taxes in 2009

Pretty much, this is what we figured when he didn't want to declare his returns. And then when he set it up for just the last two years. This man is just as unethical as Newt Gingrich but just a lot slicker and playing on a much higher playing field.

He comes down on Gingrich for working for Freddie and Fannie. Oh that's true. Gingrich did. He's small potatoes though from Romney who benefited from it all and now smirks over it. These men created these laws to supposedly help Americans with jobs while men like Romney underpay their maids and start up companies that enable them to pay everybody minimum wage when before they might've owned the companies or worked for living wages.

Really? How dumb are Americans?

The guys behind Romney are like him, and they want not only these laws continued but increased because the small amount they do pay in taxes, it's still too much for them. Their pure desire is to see the poor suffer while they bask in wealth most people couldn't imagine, wealth they made through manipulations. Seriously, this is the best the Republicans can do?

What is happening to our country, to the working people should be enough to make Americans cry as big companies take over small ones and fire the employees, bringing in new people they can pay less or sending the jobs overseas.

Daniels talks about all the jobs Apple created. Yeah, impressive. 60,000 or so in the USA and overseas-- 400,000. Yes, it's legal. But ethical? And really one of them should be president of this country?

How Bain and its ilk make their money

2012-01-23T12:44:00.000-08:00

For anyone interested in learning more about how private equity companies like Bain have been operating, read this article. Americans need to understand this because it's a factor in what's been going on. How do you fix things if you don't know why they are happening?

from The New Yorker

Don't you think it's interesting how these guys manage to blame government for all our problems while they are raking it in hand over fist by methods they have managed to make legal. Americans stay dumb and ready for the shearing until they start getting an education. We can thank Romney for at least one thing-- Americans might just be waking up. We can hope.

2012-01-22T09:03:00.000-08:00

Something from Farm Boss about what we face in this country.

**************

The link is from Google news, referencing an Obama question to Steve Jobs. The answer is eye opening. For consumer electronics and other items where manual assembly or fast changing product mixes are needed... the jobs will go to the factory warehouses. Nothing is new there. It is a reality for the time being.

This describes the industrial problem completely.. warehouses of trained, low cost, 'happy slaves'. We(Americans) should be very worried or glad to be maids and care takers, because the war is over..America just does not know it at the 'workingman level' For 10,000 units a day and change every 6 weeks products..consumer phones, cameras, etc..China, Korea and Thailand have it ALL

The only hope is small distributed local design and manufacturing.

How the US lost out on the iPhone work

It is not totally different from a GM plant in the Brazilian jungle , with a government built port to export autos and auto parts, with the workers happy to have a "sponsored" apartments to live in.. vs no jobs, or mill towns and company stores in the American south or pacific northwest.

Here's the thing-- the only thing Romney knows how to build for jobs is this way where it's all about investments for the richer among us. How do his solutions fix your jobs?

Two interesting choices for Republicans

2012-01-18T21:03:00.000-08:00

Well this will be an interesting challenge for Republican voters to sort out. Do they want a creepy guy who cheats with women which is clearly Gingrich whose ex-wife is evidently about to blow the lid off how he treated her.

Newt's ex-wife unloads

Or do they want a creepy guy who manipulates their finances to enrich themselves regardless of whether it has basically taken tax revenues from the US government?

Romney parks millions in tax havens

So it comes down to a choice between creep who screws women or screws the rest of us again! Good luck Republican voters with that choice. And I use the word creep because of all the rest of the things these guys say-- as in anything to win over those voters.

Listening to a Republican debate is to be more shocked at the people in their audiences and what they will cheer than it even is the candidates. All I want to know is how big a percentage is that kind of thinking? A clue is Mark Levin, a major creep who will say anything to get listeners and book buyers, has his book at the top of the charts for sales. Of course, some of that is manipulated by give aways but still the question always arises-- who are these people who buy into that thinking? And what kind of country do they want this to be? I am afraid of the answer...

Andrew Sullivan on Obama's 'real' record

2012-01-16T07:13:00.000-08:00

If you are a rightie who hates Obama or a leftie who hates Obama, either way (and both extremes do), please read this link of a defense by Andrew Sullivan with which I agree. And if you read it and don't like it, put out some facts here as to where it's wrong. Bait and switch gets us nowhere. Looking at the facts regarding Sullivan's claims-- which are wrong?

Andrew Sullivan on Obama's 'real' record

president for the 0.001%

2012-01-14T07:43:00.000-08:00

This speaks for itself and is soooooo typical of right wing chicken hawks. What did the average Republican do to leave themselves with this as their best option to be president. Just think where he'll take us if he gets power...

president to the 0.001%

Capitalism

2012-01-12T15:30:00.000-08:00

The Republican guys running for the nomination and trying to point out how what Romney did hurt working class Americans, are being pummeled by the wealthy. The last thing corporate heads want is for people to analyze what capitalism is or what it does, whether our version of it currently works for average Americans; and most especially whether there are areas within it where it's good and areas where government needs to step in with regulations. Those at the top of the food chain do not want these questions even explored by Republican voters. Hence a backlash that supports Mitt Romney and what he did with his Boston Consulting Firm and Bain Capital.

Perry gets a backlash that costs him support

Basically capitalism is a word many don't understand its full meaning, but they want it because it sounds good. It fits right in with Christianity and patriotism as a word that evokes visceral responses from some people.

Capitalism is what came after feudalism and seemed to offer ordinary people a chance to gain money and power. The fact that there are different types of capitalism or that it could be misused under that name, well it's something righties, who want simple answers, simply won't delve into. One thing about the right wing is that most of them simply don't want gray areas or to understand something can be good one place and bad another (and yes I know, not all but enough of a faction in that party to impact their political choices).

At one time in this country there were laws to break up monopolies. Monopolies were seen as bad because they eliminated competition, pushed out the small guy, and eventually led to higher prices. But the rich never have enough money and they have done what they can to consolidate their power by blocking any attempt to stop monopolies-- and there are many ways to get a monopoly. Any attack on monopolies is hence an attack on capitalism, Christianity, and country-- the three Cs.

So we have Romney who used a form of capitalism to take over companies, consolidate then and then fire workers, he's now acting as though this is the free enterprise system. Free for who?

He brags much about his putting together Staples which allows people to buy all their office supplies and computers, etc. in one place. He says that the jobs Staples has means that he created that many jobs. Okay how about all the small stores and suppliers that went out of business as a result of Staples? What about the employees they had? Romney won't be talking about those.

Even on the level of big stores, I remember where there was Office Depot and Office Max. Office Depot is gone in the city nearest me. Office Max is still around but looking iffy for the future. So if Staples outsells them, can have more products (often with sweetheart contracts), and it wins the marketing game, the jobs that were lost don't count?

I understand free enterprise and competition, but what Romney was able to do with taking over companies without the money to actually buy them, basically on credit. Often these were hostile take-overs. Then gutting them, ending jobs, so he could create new companies maybe with less employees, and often at lower wages. These takeovers aren't about free enterprise. They are about the big fish swallowing the small one by manipulation and trickery. It's often crony capitalism which Romney was in a prime position to exploit with a powerful father both from the political and the corporate world.

Romney didn't get his positions as CEOs like even Herman Cain got his. Romney was on the inside as a crony from the start and frankly it doesn't hurt to also be a Mormon as that religions knows about business.

It's amazing to hear him say he worried about a pink slip. The guy doesn't have a clue what that is about. The closest he has come to it has to be from those he knew who got one (assuming he ever knew anybody who did). I've heard Sununu supporting him claiming the last guy hired always worries about being fired. Frankly one of the worst things Romney did is bring us back hacks like Sununu, who is doubtless hoping for a government position if Romney wins. All I can say to that is ugh!

Capitalism means private ownership of the means of product, creation of goods or services for profit, the accumulation of capital, competitive markets, voluntary exchange, and wage labor. Those who say Obama has tried to end it haven't paid attention to anything. GM and Chrysler are still US corporations, making cars, privately owned, and would not be if Romney had been president according to Romney's own words. How would that profit us as a people exactly?

from the debates

2012-01-08T17:53:00.000-08:00

I hope Republicans are paying attention to these debates and the things Romney is saying. Two biggies were when he said only those already well off should run for political office. Isn't it amazing that he is going back to the argument before the Constitution was written that the country should be run by the well off and many thought only landowners should be permitted to vote.

Newt Gingrich nailed Romney

Then there was what he said to Hunstman about the wrongness of him being Ambassador to China under Obama. Hunstman came back with that was how the country is being divided into partisan camps. It's more than that. Romney is declaring you should put the good of your party before your country. Is he thinking at all about what that means?

Huntsman fires back at Romney

Really this is who Republicans want for their president a man who changes his mind according to political convenience, who panders to get votes as he did when he favored Mississippi's Personhood bill before the people in that state had the good sense to reject it, who thinks only the well-off should run for office, and anybody who isn't would evidently cheat, and finally that it matters most what benefits your party-- not what is good for the country. Seriously, this guy??? I am totally amazed he has gotten to the top of the pile.

I really hope Republican voters get their act together and figure out that they need somebody else to jump into this contest. The only one currently who could possibly do a good job as president appears to be Huntsman and he doesn't have charisma, limited or no political savvy (seriously answer a question in Mandarin to appeal to the righties??), won't say nasty things about Democrats and Obama; and so forget him, even though his record is genuinely conservative (which means I wouldn't like him either but at least he doesn't come across as disgusting as Romney).

Two questions for Romney

2012-01-07T07:00:00.000-08:00

Right now it seems the right wing candidates are all about subterfuge. They'll say what the voters want (well not Santorum or Paul who I think both really do say what they believe and that's good or bad depending on how you feel about what they believe) and say it in such a way that it won't have to impact what they do once in office.

Where it comes to Mitt Romney he keeps telling Americans he will bring them jobs but never how he'll do it just he knows how and the proof is he's a rich man and ran a big corporation that did something about jobs (more on that later).

Romney's success also came from his advantage in coming from a wealthy family which always helps with networking. What are the ideas he suggests that really would get jobs for average Americans that would stop the bleeding of jobs overseas? Or would he do anything about regulating the kind of corporations that were part of getting us into the fix we are? When someone makes all their money out of managing money, it can make a lot of dollars for investors but what does it do for jobs?

It's evident that Romney will say anything to get elected including lie-- Romney on Boeing and the truth of it. There are, however two major points on which he doesn't say much if anything.

First one is how will his religion impact his decisions as a president?

We have gone through this before with Roman Catholics (although not Mormons).
The first time we had a Catholic run, it was a big deal. John F. Kennedy said his religion would not impact his decisions. He said the Pope would not run America. We know that although Kennedy attended church, he was not sanctimonious about it (to say the least). Same thing with John Kerry and with the same answers. Neither were fundamentalists. They both however ran as Democrats where being a fundamentalist is no virtue.

Now we have two very religious, fundamentalist Roman Catholics and a Mormon. We know about Santorum. His religion dictates everything and he proudly avows he would allow it to dictate it for the whole country with favoring laws that used religion as their basis. I don't know if Gingrich would do the same thing but he speaks very fundamentalist at the moment at least because that's who he needs to have vote for him.

But Romney, as a Mormon, a very fundamentalist Mormon it would appear since he has served as a ward bishop and stake president, how would his religiosity impact him as President of the United States? Would the President of the Mormon Church be dictating policy positions where it comes to morality? Has Romney even been asked about that?

You know Mormonism has some very odd beliefs that fly in the face of scientific knowledge (as do many fundamentalist religions). Mormonism teaches their male leaders can become gods themselves on other planets. Does Romney believe all that? It would seem impossible that he didn't given how high he has risen in the church. Would it impact his decisions as a president?

Being a god on another planet is a pretty big deal and might even trump being a president on this one; so the pressure to conform to the Mormon faith might be even more powerful than the Roman Catholic pressure which can only offer crowns in heaven.

So shouldn't Romney be asked about his religion and how it would impact his job? Why isn't he being? How much of what Mormonism teaches does he swallow? They have changed some of their beliefs thanks to their God giving the direct word to their president that for instance blacks didn't carry the mark of Cain. Did Romney believe that when it was the church doctrine?

Many years ago I remember arguing with a very nice Mormon young man in Tucson about that. He more or less took the view that whatever he might personally think about its fairness, it was doctrine, came from God that it had to be true, and hence he accepted it as truth.

Does Romney believe that the truth of Jesus and God was lost due to the sins in the religious organizations from the time of Christ. Literally it was lost and required Joseph Smith with his magic glasses and the Book of Mormon to recover it? He would pretty much have to, wouldn't he? I know most fundamentalists ignore facts and science is secondary for what is truth? What does that mean when the President of the United States feels that way?

Okay, second big question has two parts-- how Romney made his money and the related question of why he won't release his federal tax forms. Keep in mind he made most of his fortune from Bain Capital which became a company that managed leveraged buy-outs. Do you know how despicable leveraged buy-outs really are? They use money they don't have to buy up companies which they often then demolish or destroy for their resources.

Big companies even like HP used to have to make sure they had sufficient debt to protect themselves from these vultures. And vultures is what this is with its usual eventual loss of jobs. Tell me how ironic this is that a man who actually savaged jobs now runs as a man who can grow them when what he really grew was stock market profits.

As for the second part of why he won't release his tax returns, it can't really be because he doesn't want us to know how wealthy he is or how he made his money. People do know that. Although they might not have thought how someone who made their money that way will help grow jobs. Anyway I've come up with two possibilities for why he won't release his tax returns.

One is he doesn't want the average voter to realize that with the current tax laws, his payment of taxes is considerably below, rate-wise, what you might expect. Maybe he has this big income and he pays a tiny amount of it in taxes. When you watch him smirk over it, when asked, that seems one excellent possibility. So he's out there wanting lower tax rates when he already maybe has them and doesn't want the country to know it. That's one possibility.

There is a second possibility. Maybe he's not paying the Mormon church the 10% of his gross income that they demand of their members in good standing. I guess he wouldn't want his church to know that, would he? Now if he's a fundamentalist Mormon, he would be paying that full tithe. That relates to the first question regarding how much his religion would impact his job as President.

Why has he been let off the hook on releasing these facts? Usually when people run for the presidency, we do know their religious values and how they will impact their job. We knew that with Lieberman when he ran with Al Gore for Vice-President. He was an orthodox Jew and would observe the Sabbath very faithfully. I think we had a right to know it.

We should know with Romney too but we are not being told what that would do to his work as president. His work as governor of Massachusetts gives us little clue as he claims he has seen the light since then on things like abortion. The longer we aren't told, the more chance that he'll be the nominee before Americans find out, if they do even then, and only really find out once he's President of the United States and it's too late to take back the power. Do we really want to become a theocracy? Some of us do but do the majority?

So two questions he should answer. One is releasing or explaining why he won't release his taxes so Americans can understand how he manages his own money since he's telling us he can manage ours better. The other is what will his religion matter to the rest of us?

Or do those kind of questions only matter when it's a Democrat running?

Wikipedia's short biography of Mitt Romney

Wow, after I wrote this, I was reading through the Daily Beast and came across the following which fits right in. Republicans-- do some research on what you are getting with this guy.

Anti-Romney video attacks Bain Capital work

From Robert Reich on Romney's PACs

2012-01-05T15:10:00.000-08:00

Where it comes to Romney and how many see him as the solution, please read Robert Reich's thoughts on it. Especially any right wingers.

Romney, Frankenstein and a personal confession

I know a lot of right wingers think Romney is on their side. Think about it long and hard based on his background and these PACs which our Supreme Court let give money without having to identify themselves. Surely you guys can do better with a candidate than these guys? Can't you? At this point Gingrich is beginning, even with his apparent bi-polar personality, to look better...

I'm not thrilled with Obama but seriously, this bunch???!!!

Santorum would do what????

2012-01-05T13:07:00.000-08:00

So the pressure will now go onto Santorum, someone so extremely right wing religiously that it's hard to believe he has voters out there ready to support him. But there are. And frankly Romney is not much if any better. The religious, fundamentalist right has taken over the Republican party is how it looks to me, and they have done it based on claiming to be fiscal conservatives.

Santorum on the extreme right

Not only that but Santorum has really been shady on how he profits from his previous political position. Is there anything scarier than religious bigots? I can't think of what.

Romney by a nose

2012-01-04T07:51:00.000-08:00

Spending any time listening to speeches by the current crop of Republican front runners is very depressing. Pretty much if you pay attention to statistics, Romney only started to have a chance to win Iowa (which he barely did by 8 votes when only around 100,000 Republicans bother to spend the night in a caucus), was when he got even nastier about Obama and let his perfect haircut get windblown.

It appears Republicans want casual looking guys until they get in the White House where they better wear suits every time they do anything in the Oval office and they want red meat-- hate talk. It's funny as they say Iowans turn on anybody who uses nasty ads. Maybe that's so but they sure like the nasty speeches against Obama. If they are lies, it seems to work just as well as do they bother to check anywhere on what these guys say?

The further this thing with the Republicans goes the worse it looks. I mean there isn't one of them who would not shaft Americans who have different religious values from theirs. There isn't one of them who has any idea why we have a government and how to make it work better. They all want to take away health coverage help for lower income Americans, and if you happen to have a child born with a serious chronic illness, pffft to you. Except for Ron Paul, their idea of American exceptionalism is fight wars overseas. I am just amazed that this is what Republican voters want anywhere. Yes it doesn't say it is what Iowans want as this was just the Republican party but what has happened to that party?

Andrew Sullivan on Romney

And Santorum, who nearly won, he would let states ban birth control. He would send us back to the 50s or maybe the Dark Ages. There would be no rights for people on the area of sexual morality while he claimed all the rights for the corporations. Honestly these dweebs are the best the right can deliver? Read how Santorum appeals to Iowans on welfare abuse using black people as the main ones who receive it. Santorum on entitlements and black people . Seriously you don't think that is a racist line?

People on the right are worried about Obama as a secret Muslim and wanting to destroy the United States for some hidden agenda of his own; but do they pay any attention to what they are offering as an alternative? They claim they believe in freedom and yet would use fear and religion as a way to take more freedom from Americans than Obama could dream of wanting.

As a leftie, I am depressed that a good alternative isn't being presented from the right. And if anybody tells me that good alternative is Romney, I suggest they look at his record. Gingrich didn't exaggerate it. The more I listen to Romney, the worse he seems. Gingrich isn't wrong. Romney is a ruthless liar. He smiles with a pretty face but he is using his corporate experience as evidence he can run this country when he fired people as his way to gain more money for himself and it appears he's about to do it for Americans as a whole.

Gingrich labels Romney a liar

Some Democrats are thrilled at this mishmash of candidates, because they think this will guarantee a win for Obama; but seriously what if one of these trolls won? Do Americans really want this kind of thinking to run our country? Do they want to go back to the 50s for Civil Rights? Blame others for our problems? Fight a war in Iran (which might come anyway but should it be red meat on a stump speech where Romney virtually guaranteed it without explaining how he'd pay for that one? End all entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, which although not all of them would promise that (Paul would), they all criticize and would make them virtually worthless? Are the right wing Christians so ignorant of their own faith that they think this is what Christ teaches for values?

I am shaking my head and understanding why a lot of people don't want to even read or watch the news right now. This is just plain depressing and not just the candidates but the reason they are there and who is supporting them. Doesn't the right wing have anybody else to run to save the day for us all-- right or left? I realize no rightie will please me with their corporation first attitude, but there are lesser evils among them... aren't there? Or has the far right so taken over that party that there is nothing but what we now see on their debate stages? Seriously? That's all there is?

Is libertarianism inherently racist?

2012-01-03T08:48:00.000-08:00

Here's a good question for anybody who calls themselves a libertarian. Is libertarianism inherently racist?

Andrew Sullivan's on that question

Perhaps those who want to call themselves libertarian might consider making a distinction as to whether they mean culturally or economically. Or whether it's okay to stay out of it when unfairness or bad things are being done to a group of people because they are a minority and others can. Do they favor few or now rules when it benefits them or in general? Questions questions questions... Nothing like an election to rile us all up on them.

How to argue with right wingers

2011-12-30T07:37:00.000-08:00

By now it should be apparent by recent posts here that I am so into other problems (like trying to figure out how to edit or market eBooks) that I simply am not writing a lot of political blogs and not feeling quite as irrationally irate over politics. What will be will be, yada yada yada is kind of my current mantra which will doubtless become less rational as the new year progresses.

But I really liked this article from Salon and consider it worth reading for anyone with right wingers in the family and for all the times I have tried to argue with a rightie and felt like going somewhere I could scream and nobody would hear me or where I could punch pillows for a few hours afterward.

Of course, I am lucky as my friends and family all pretty much see the world as I do; so most of my 'arguments' only happen online-- and frankly can as easily be with left wingers as right wingers which probably means I am an equal opportunity offender. I expect though to become more left wing as this election year progresses. I look at the alternative and it's a no-brainer for me. Anyway if you do have family where you need some good responses or even those emails that often come in uninvited from our rightie friends, read this--

How to argue with right wing relatives

Comment on Doonesbury worth reading

2011-12-27T12:35:00.000-08:00

A comment from one of the readers to Doonesbury. Everybody who is listening to Romney and other Neocons taling tough should keep this in mind for the damage someone like that can do to a nation and the world:

The quote in the first panel of today's strip comes from "Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush," Ron Suskind's terrifying article in the NYT Magazine of October 17, 2004. Here's the full quote, which reveals just how delusional that administration was: "In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency. The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'" My guess is that the senior aide was Karl Rove, but who knows? They were all crazy.

This is what Americans now want? Righties, at least be honest about it. No more talk about doing it for those countries. It's all ego and who is really exceptional...

Wall Street and how we got here

2011-12-26T08:19:00.000-08:00

We have just passed Christmas where spending is a virtue. We have seen an autumn of demonstrations about the evils of our economic system. The question is what comes next? Keep occupying the street? Or something else?

Anybody who reads my blog knows what I think has to come next is running and supporting people for the Senate and House who recognize what went wrong and are willing to fix it. We who call ourselves progressives or liberals must run people with our same set of values as the Tea Party (and the wealth behind them) supported in 2010.

If we succeed and buck the party system with new people (Tea Party pulled it off), they will be at odds with those who are supporting the status quo or want to make government even less able to curb economic evils. It should be an interesting year to say the least. Take a look at the following article for one take on this.

Wall Street has destroyed the Wonder that was America

more on Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-23T07:26:00.000-08:00

Once in awhile I find myself having done so much research for a blog comment elsewhere, that it seems worth bringing back here for readers. Such a case was on the subject of Christopher Hitchens where in discussing one aspect of his thinking, I came across a lot of interesting links that could have had me reading articles by him or watching YouTubes all day (well right up until my memory allotment was used up from the Dish).

For anyone who enjoys knowing more about Hitchens, as others saw him, there has been a lot in Andrew Sullivan's blog, who was a good personal friend even as they disagreed on some big issues like religion. Since I did some work to get the following links, and they might lead another reader to taking it even farther, the following is my comment that grew into the length of a blog.

*********************

Hitchens called his own shots as to what he saw as totalitarian and that didn't please people who wanted him to have theirs. Thus he and even one of my favorites, Andrew Sullivan did favor the Iraq war as it began although not once they saw how it was being carried out. For an enjoyable discussion between two genuinely intelligent and informed men try this one to see how he and Sullivan saw it and the Bush administration in I think 2006-- Sullivan and Hitchens.

One of the wonderful things about our era is we can still listen to those who have died through places like YouTube. Whether I always agreed with Hitchens (and I did not always) for me he was always enjoyable to read or to listen to him speak. For a short one and very apropos for our times, if someone isn't familiar with him-- Hitchens on Ayn Rand.

He was a thinker which means equally he offends this or that side. He did his vivisections with his use of logic and in that cool manner which only rarely rose to an emotional level. That likely didn't make him a sweet person per se, but it always made him worth reading for his view of any issue even when he went after the Kennedy mystique or took on in his writings the saints many people revere such as [Gandhi]. I suppose Hitchens is what some would call a curmudgeon but for me I'd add beloved to it. His viewpoint will be missed by many-- agree or disagree with him on all issues. I really hoped he would beat the cancer, but he was realistic all the way. Evidently he brought on this early death by his lifestyle but that didn't make his mind any less a loss. He did it his way with no apologies.

So often comics nail it

2011-12-22T14:34:00.000-08:00

Wisdom once again from Doonesbury December 12.

The logic of how we got into the Iraqi war, the end result of it, we aren't going to find that from the right wing media. It's all about spin. Yeah, I know. left spins too and a lot of Democrats also let us go into this war. But some would never let us leave-- even as we go bankrupt trying to pay for it.

The thing is Cheney and his ilk want us to stay in Iraq forever to prove they were right. In the beginning, the Neocons claimed it'd be a fast war but now it's the we must stay forever kind. How about we recognize we made a big mistake, trusted the wrong people, and if ten years doesn't solve this problem over there, how would twenty? I think it is good we pulled out our forces (something Bush had also set up to do by this date) especially given the Iraqis not only want us gone but would not promise our troops immunity from prosecution if an error was made or even if someone said we made an error and we didn't.

To me, it is time to leave (past time), and it's up to the Iraqi people to make up their own minds how this is going to be for their people. Likely it won't be a form of government we would choose but we aren't them, are we?

I wish them well but I do not see putting our men and women in harm's way to resolve their religious war. We literally cannot do it nor can we afford it.

Robber Barons or Job Creators?

2011-12-21T06:32:00.000-08:00

One thing I have decided is that Americans have short memories where it comes to history. I have a theory that this comes from having so much information coming at us all the time, that we can only hold so much in our heads.

This is part of why it benefits a certain sector to keep throwing that info fodder out there. It keeps Americans worrying over what team will win the sport's championship or who will be the American Idol champ or Dancing with the Stars big ball winner. keep them thinking about that and whatever smattering they have of history will disappear into the blank morass and what they do know can be easily manipulated.

When Romney came out with calling Obama an appeaser, it amazed a lot of us who know what he's been doing overseas and not necessarily even liking it all. It works though with those who don't have a lot of room in their heads for facts or remembering anything but the latest soundbite. They buy into him being an appeaser because he doesn't go around telling them how exceptional they are. Lovely. Do they realize when you need someone to tell you how exceptional you are, you probably are not? Ah well facts do tend to get in the way of this world of information that really is not.

I got to thinking last night about how Republicans and the Tea Party folk in particular are cheering that the richest Americans get to keep their tax break because they are the job creators; never mind that they aren't creating jobs as that's a fact and facts get in the way of this kind of rhetoric.

Righties apparently are cheering their Congress members who bowed to the Tea Party element who are set on demolishing much of government (except the military or aid to Israel) and protecting the wealth of the richest; so never mind that the average American worker would pay that payroll tax this year that last year they got to keep. Oh the Republicans would have let them keep it too except they didn't want to pay for it by the rich getting a tiny increase.

So I thought maybe it was time to remind people, and I hope anybody who reads this blog will pass on this information, that the way our government was set up with help for the poorest, with tax laws to prevent accumulation of wealth to an obscene level, with programs that helped in job creation was because a certain group of Americans had lived through something today's hasn't yet-- although it's sure coming. It was a time also of accumulation of wealth that led to the Great Depression, breadlines, no jobs, families having to leave their homes to travel for work as migrants. That time coincided with a big drought. Any of this sounding familiar? A refresher course might be had by reading Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

I thought perhaps Americans, with their need to keep track of the latest Farmville game or whatever else is doing so well at Facebook, maybe they might need a reminder about how it was in this country before Reagan came along to recreate it.

Robber barons were what they were called them. Today they are the job creators-- the ones who are sending all the jobs they create overseas, you know like Mitt Romney or even everybody's hero Steve Jobs.

Robber Barons

where some do create jobs and others manipulate political power for their gain

The Industrial Age and Captains of Industry or robber barons?

The Gilded Age

There is more but you get the idea. Many of us grew up in school being taught about that era, we had parents who had lived through the Great Depression and told us about it; but then we grew up before 1980 when a new idea took form called Trickle Down where if the wealthy could gain bigger shares of the economic pie, they would then trickle down something to everybody else. Today the men they would have called robber barons are job creators. That's how cleverly this whole thing has been turned around with shills like Rush Limbaugh to fool Americans into thinking they should be on the side of those who an earlier generation would have called robber barons or despots.

We don't have a political dictatorship in this country; and for those who fear the power of government, fear it most when it's sending more and more resources to the pockets of a few and helping to destroy the middle class which was what has helped so many Americans have homes, jobs, and decent lives with a chance for their children to do better than they did.

So it wasn't always done perfectly or even right-- fix it! There was a reason it was as it was and that reason is being illustrated today.

The reason taxes were as they were, that Social Security was created, it was by people who had seen a world that many today are only now seeing. It wasn't until after these policies set in place by Ronald Reagan, that great golden hope of the right wing, took effect, that I saw the first beggars on my own streets. Now they are everywhere and growing in numbers as even what used to be the middle class is downgraded while those job creators revel in their wealth and power, the power that has them getting the Supreme Court to enable them to donate unlimited funds of money through their PACs without the voters knowing even who they are when they vote.

If you think it's logical that a corporation, made up of many individuals, should be given the status of an ordinary person for donating and amassing power, if you think that, then you aren't likely reading this blog anyway so I am singing to the choir.

My only hope is the choir will get effective and recognize that the Tea Party has blocked the payroll tax break extension because they got in candidates who didn't care what they did to the country and they are united in their purpose. We either do likewise as progressives, or we can kiss off the whole thing as this modern crop of job creators is doing in overseas...

Martial Law

2011-12-19T07:26:00.000-08:00

Please check this out; and if you agree with the concern, if you have not already, take the time to sign the petitions to stop this travesty.

Martial Law in America?

I had previously gotten the email that gave suggested places to go where we can sign we want the president to veto this bill. The Congress seems bent on giving away all of our Bill of Rights. The president has said he does not want to sign it and wants a lot of weight behind his refusal which petitions will give him. Unfortunately when I went to those sites, after a lot of hassle (yes government at its finest) none of them worked; so I'd suggest writing the White House or if you have a petition that does work, please put it here in comments.

Nobody should want this kind of power given into the hands of government, federal, state or local. Make your views known on it. The quiet mouse ends up in a cage or trap and we are heading there step by step. Ron Paul ~~may not always be right~~ hardly ever is right, but I sure think he is on this one!

For anybody who thinks this kind of thing can never go federal and happen to them, I guess they haven't been watching the news with how the OWS demonstrators have been treated. I have made no secret of not agreeing with allowing camping on public property nor blocking streets or business entrances, but the way the police have often dealt with the issue, the way the mayors have not found places the people can demonstrate without being threatened, has been shocking.

Government does NOT need more power to arrest people just because they want to and without due process. Frightening us into remaining silent is not the way to make a democracy work. What we need are legitimate ways to express our disagreement and be sure voting always works without intimidation from those who would take away liberty in the name supposedly of keeping us safer. In this, both the Tea party as well as the OWS protestors should be in agreement as should the rest of us. People fought for our liberties. Some died for it. Will we stand up for that same cause?

Rage for Rage's Sake

2011-12-17T06:39:00.000-08:00

With Christmas almost upon us and so much to do not to mention the other projects of mine with editing and re-editing and re-re-editing, and then my newest project which involves research and new writing, Rainy Day Things has suffered but not for lack of interest in what is going on politically. I find it an amazing time politically and still read from an assortment of sites.

One thing I realized though is that I personally do not read from any furious sites. Not from the right nor the left. If the site is there to inspire my anger, if it's there to ridicule in the nastiest sense, I might have started reading it, but I won't keep at it.

From my own experience, I suspect anger sites are the easiest to write. There is so much out there to inspire rage, and I don't care if it's from the right or the left. Rage for rage's sake is the rage for both ways of thinking politically.

So I am inclined to try and avoid doing that for this blog. If I don't want to read it, do I want to write it? Even though it's easy to use a site like this as a way to vent, I think it's better to use it to inform and inspire. This is not the easiest balance to find. If you read my blog, Rainy Day Thought, you will see more of my thinking on that as I write (when I get around to it) about the film The Tree of Life.

I have more questions than answers right now and that also complicates things. For instance, I have tried to think which Republican would I rather have for president if Obama cannot win and one of them does? Wow, now that is really really tough because by now I find them to all be abominations. The ones that seemed the worst in the beginning now seem less worse but purely by comparison.

At one time I'd have thought Romney, but he's sold out so many ways from Sunday that it's hard to imagine who he'd be selling out to once he got into the office. His concept that he is a successful business man makes you see what is most likely. He was successful based on sending jobs overseas or removing them period which enhanced his own profits but led to big job losses for workers. Where does he send Americans to achieve that same success-- or more accurately who does he look at to determine whether he's been successful?

Then there is this-- to get this job, Romney has had to appeal to the meanest realm of the Republican party which has him, in terms of foreign affairs, calling Obama an appeaser which nobody who looks at what Obama has actually done overseas would call that... Now at home with Republicans maybe but that wasn't what Romney was talking about.

If appeasement is about us removing our military troops from Iraq, how many right wingers understand that if we left them there-- as Cheney is saying we had to do to keep his great victory intact-- and do it forever, I guess, as Cheney lied when he got us into it with a quick war for which he never bothered figuring out how to pay-- if we kept a limited military force there but no promised immunity from prosecution from the Iraqi courts.

For anybody who has forgotten what Colin Powell said about the military-- they are sent in when it's time you need to kill and break things. We have asked a lot of them in Iraq to be peacekeepers but let's not forget that sometimes involves also killing.

So we should leave the troops there to satisfy the red meat bunch and end up with some of them charged in Iraqi courts when a wedding party is accidentally hit as it has been and would be again? You can bet that Cheney doesn't care about that. He never did care about American troops except as cannon fodder. Americans as a whole would care and Obama did. Foxies won't even hear that little detail about withdrawal. Iraqis want us out. It'll all be we should stay there until, I guess, Neocons finally decide it's time to go based on who knows what criteria for any president or presidential candidate to avoid being called an appeaser by the rage contingent.

If someone reads all the right wing hate sites, I suppose you would see Obama that way or be delighted when Gingrich said Obama was Kenyan colonialist which just blows my mind if you think about how either of those two words fit together. I mean he's not a Kenyan to start, wasn't ever there until he was grown, but colonialist? Isn't that what the Neocons are?

Gingrich and Romney didn't say those things though because they likely believed them. They said them because there is a group on the right who feed on hate and if they don't see it, they consider it weakness.

Well it's the same on the left and that's the hard truth where if you don't go along with the harshest rhetoric which can be any of the following: the talk the earth is nearly dead, the earth is greater than ever, the poor ruined this country, the rich ruined this country. Then if you go along with either side and are at an extreme it's okay to use war and terrorist tactics (if it only destroys property in some cases). Rage feeds rage and it escalates and that's the simple truth of it.

Rage for rage's sake is what the media feeds on right now too. I don't know where this all ends up. Both extremes seem to be wanting a civil war, a revolution. One says they want a peaceable revolution. Except, how do you ever get that given Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were adherents of that and you know how that ended for them? Oh yeah, I know... their ideas went on to continue to attract followers-- but their blood was still spilled.

Anyway it's tough right now to write a political column without pointing out that Gingrich is big on not talking ill of other Republicans as he famously quotes their god, Reagan; but if you cannot point out where the other guys are wrong, how do you convince anybody else you are right?

The funny part about Gingrich is he puts himself out there as this great genius (one of the few of them who went so low as to bend over for Donald Trump). He, who now looks like a benevolent little troll with a sweet grandfatherly smile, slices up other people with the meanest of rhetoric before he slips back into the smile and mr. nice guy. I suggest anybody who buys that, the next time he starts talking about anything and I do mean anything, watch his eyes while he talks. They always say the eyes are the windows to the soul-- assuming there is one.

Well the simple truth is Gingrich says these vicious things interspersed into the rest, as I just did above, because he knows there is a rage out there whose votes he can win no other way. (Besides which, it's kind of fun, in a mean sort of way, to do it)!

Christopher Hitchens RIP

2011-12-16T07:39:00.000-08:00

I was sad but not surprised to read this morning that Christopher Hitchens had died. He had no doubts about how this was going to go although he fought to the end to beat the cancer that killed him

As a writer, I admired his style and how he would take on anything irregardless of partisan concerns or what was politically correct. I loved to see him debate Andrew Sullivan, who didn't share his spiritual views. Listening to him on any of the programs like Bill Maher, where subjects were discussed even in such a short time with depth, was always a treat.

He kept writing and thinking right up to the end. I don't know what he found on the other side-- if anything; but he will be missed.

Christopher Hitchens-- writer and orator

A blog to read

2011-12-10T07:54:00.000-08:00

Because I have the following link and its blog on my other blog roll, since it's not always about politics, I want to be sure nobody misses this one by Hal. It's not only right on for our history with the look at Pilgrims and Puritans, dual philosophies still today for our nation, but good questions for our future. From a retired military man came what sounded to me like a good suggestion for a reorganization, which I doubt many of our political leaders would even think of doing due to fear of a powerful part of their base.

Worth Reading

I wish more Americans knew more about history. It might help. To hear history professor Newt Gingrich smugly talking about how Palestinian people were invented-- showing once again his ignorance of history, of ethnicity, and of how conquering a people nor occupying them, none of that erases the existence of the culture who live there. It just means their identity is pushed around by others for awhile (in this case also the British and neighboring nations), but it can't erase their existence as a people (ask Native Americans about that one). I don't know if Gingrich is really ignorant but I do know he panders and reaches out to the lowest and most ignorant denominator to grow his base.

Yes, the story of that region is complex and can't be explained in one quick soundbite but some people vote on those soundbites, and that kind of comment panders to the Rush Limbaugh types. It also shows absolutely, if there was any doubt by anybody, that he didn't get paid that nearly $2 million from Fannie and Freddie for his history knowledge.

He does, however know more than a bit about inventing-- as in himself...

Politifact on Gingrich ethics investigation

2011-12-08T06:43:00.000-08:00

Not surprisingly, some won't want to read the link at the bottom since Politifact is being so disparaged by the right wing-- as is anybody who doesn't say what they want said. Why would they need any organization investigating whether lies are being told? Far righties would rather count on their talk show hosts to do their investigating followed up by Fox news so fair and balanced. You know Fox turned out to be such a good name for that station given the old saw about the fox in the chicken house.

So when I heard that Gingrich was saying his ethics investigation was partisan and flawed when he had been fined and reprimanded during the years he was Speaker of the House, I pretty well assume the far right will never look to see if that's true. They hear the name Pelosi and Gingrich will be right, that's all they need to hear. (Keep in mind though that Pelosi isn't speaking to the far right. If she says anything more, she'll be speaking to the middle. 30% will vote for Gingrich no matter what he has done or lies about. The race won't be won or lost by them but rather by the middle).

For anyone though who actually wants to hear the details of that investigation and has not been frightened out of going to [Politifact] read the link below.

Interestingly enough what Gingrich is talking to Trump about doing with setting up another ~~education~~ apprentice system for kids sounds like he's learned a lot from history. Fascism used the technique in indoctrinating children to the political truth they wanted, and it served to corrupt the minds of a generation enabling Hitler's rise to total control. Anybody who reads this blog knows I see fascism as a lot more of a concern than socialism where most righties don't even know what that political system would entail.

You know, Trump involved in this campaign-- what is that all about? The only thing more amazing than Gingrich rising so high in Republican polls is that it has become necessary to kiss Trump's .... ring to get the nomination from the Republican party. Who would ever imagine an egomaniac, shill, self-aggrandizer, carnival barker, philanderer would ever rise so high and you can take your pick as to which of them I mean.

It will come as no surprise who Trump endorses for the nomination. The only interesting thing will be whether he really runs as a third party candidate if Gingrich doesn't get that nomination as he has claimed he might.

Details of Gingrich's 1990s ethics investigation

What leads to our choices for leaders?

2011-12-07T08:37:00.000-08:00

The weird part about Newt Gingrich's surge in the polls is why it's happening. It makes no sense why this ego maniac, of all the disturbing candidates put forth, would be the one Republicans would decide is worthy to be president with all the power that provides to the possessor.

Gingrich is in love with himself

I hear some democrats still saying they want this as he'll be easy to defeat in the election. How can they know that for sure? I mean why would he appeal to the Republicans who now say they want him? To me it's more about the voter, and it always has been, than the candidate. He's a narcissist for sure but why does that appeal? I have to think it's his hate talk that he intersperses in his speeches. It's the reason a certain group wanted Sarah Palin. What is this really all about?

The depressing part is how someone like Gingrich appears to drag down all around them. They bring out the worst in everybody. I heard Jon Huntsman saying he now doubted global warming science after having said not long ago that it was a science not to be doubted. Is evolution next? Doesn't Huntsman get it that it's too late for him to sell out. Seriously, he thinks he can try to out-Gingrich Gingrich. He's kidding himself and he sold out to try for those votes he will never get anyway.

The Republicans have nobody I could support because of their social stands required to get the nomination. No matter how they tried to sound, I'd never trust any of them in this current poisoned atmosphere. The question is why aren't there quality people to run for the leadership of the most powerful nation in the world. And yes, we are still that but we are sliding down fast because the leaders have forgotten what made us powerful. I doubt Gingrich, with all his arrogant talk of his historic knowledge, ever knew.

Then I got more depressed because I thought if there are no Republicans I'd trust, how about Democrats... Who would I want to have run for the presidency if it wasn't Obama or in 2016? Now that's one to really depress a person.

I am only glad I am doing a lot of research right now and can immerse myself in a different period of history... except you know things really don't change much. Human nature doesn't seem to improve or ever really 'get it' even those who claim to follow a spiritual leader who did 'get it'.

Fraud that makes you wonder

2011-12-06T14:56:00.000-08:00

People like this need more than a fine. It should be jail time for theft as it would be if poor people robbed a 7-11 for a lot less money. There is no excuse for letting white collar crime off with wrist slaps.

And when someone does as they did, they are robbing from the legitimately poor. It's the same thing with the bankers or financiers who have ripped off people and then get a fine. Say what! You have to wonder about the people in charge of the benefits. When I saw this the first time, I thought it couldn't be true, but then saw it again and apparently it is!

So although nobody could use food stamps to pay for a trip to Hawaii as Gingrich claimed, if the system doesn't investigate who is getting help (and why they didn't in this case I don't understand as I know other who get help and they do investigate), then the people could use what they save by this theft of welfare benefits to pay for trips-- not directly but as a result of the lying and cheating. It is not the norm which is why it makes the papers. And it should not be punished by a fine or asking them to pay it back. It's theft and therefore a felony to lie about a need to get money from the charity of others.............

Wealthy couple live in $1.2 million home drive Jag claiming benefits

Who are today's poor--

2011-12-04T13:55:00.000-08:00

Frustratingly I keep hearing from right wingers that the poor are lazy and they believe what Gingrich said about those deeply poor teaching their young to cheat and steal. I thought this article was a good example of who the working poor really are today. It gives us an understanding of why we need regulations on the banking industry.

Poverty in rural Oregon's previous middle class

For a lot of families, this kind of situation is only one illness or loss of a job away. The chart in it explaining how many got food stamps in 2006 until now was shocking to me. You click on the years and can see how people in the state, especially rural counties, have suffered under this recession.

Gingrich was one who used character assassination when he was in the Congress, one of those who encouraged the incivility that we have today in government, and the ultimate in being a hypocrite by doing exactly what he loudly proclaimed was wrong in others. His snide comments are part of why he's risen in the polls-- things like saying the OWS people are all dirty and don't want to work. He doesn't bother me so much though. He's just who he is. Who bothers me are the ones saying they will vote for him-- there are more of them.

Definitely click on the link for how one family is being impacted by choices made by politicians in office who don't care and are blaming the poor instead of themselves and the financial 'geniuses' who set a lot of this in motion for their own greedy purposes!

Gingrich is on Gingrich's side

2011-12-03T09:23:00.000-08:00

After writing the last blog, I thought I wouldn't be writing about Gingrich again for awhile. This is one of the ickiest men to even think about let alone spend time writing about; but he keeps sinking to lower depths and in this case, it's a depth that attacks the innocent and weak-- right up his alley.

Newt's War on Poor Children

This is perfect for the newt-ster. One he probably knows nothing about the poor and two he knows there is a sizable part of his voting base who also don't but lap that kind of talk up. Truly he doesn't know children of the rich might not learn to work either? He likely knows it but that doesn't play to that base he needs. What he said is exactly what they want to think-- the poor are lazy and do not know how to work.

So what better solution than to have children of the poor cleaning schools instead of going home at night to play (like other children) or doing their homework (the kind of thing that could help them succeed in school). Who needs them to succeed in school, the right wants them taught to be janitors. Likely it's part of the agenda where you have the rich and those who serve the rich. Start training them early for that, right?

Then there is his willingness to lie about how the people on Food Stamps can use them to go to Hawaii. Now it's untrue as anybody who knows how Food Stamps work but you know righties won't check that out. It appeals to their certainty it was happening as did Newt's implying Obama was born in Kenya. Newt can't stoop too low is the simple truth of what he'll do to get power.

I think righties see this all as being supportive of them, but in reality it's another example of Newt's totally ruthless willingness to use the weak mindedness of others to gain power for himself, which in the case of the righties is that this whole economic problem is the fault of the poor.

First of all I do know poor people-- genuinely poor-- and in those cases, at least one parent and often both are working. They are still poor. Think for a bit about what people make on minimum wage, and a lot of those jobs don't have benefits attached or full time employment. The kids grow up with parents not there as much as one might wish because they are out at a job. What Newt said about all the poor educating their children to be thieves or pushers fits right into the fear notions of righties he expects will vote for him. It's cynical to admit or even think he's right, but it appears to be working as he rises in Republican polls.

The thing is never forget who this man is. Righties might think he's on their side but he's only on his own side which is what led him to be impeached for improper behavior when in the House (and no that wasn't about the sex). He's putting poor children into the category of what he'd do and does is my guess.

Poor children need to be encouraged to do their homework, to get good grades in classes like every other student. Teaching people to work is fine-- let all students spend some time working at tasks, but don't label it for the poor or those on welfare even. Those kids didn't get themselves there. We need to find ways to get them out of it and being janitors after school is no better for them than the children of the rich. Or if it's good for one, it's good for them all-- but if you know any children today, you know they have a hard time doing the homework they are assigned with the time they have. So we knock off homework for everybody because after all what will those future generations need to know how to do more than being janitors? Truly, this is the world some righties want; and for those who don't, don't encourage people like that toad.

If you can't stand to vote for a Mormon, I'd say Perry would be better than Newt-- not that he has less questionable connections with lobbyists, but he at least wanted the kids of illegal immigrants, who had been raised here but not born here, to be able to go to college like any other student in his state. Wow, now that's radical! And Perry frankly would be nice to look at for four years, has a good sense of humor, and would be fun at least when he's on his pain pills ;) As an added bonus, his First Lady wouldn't be a proven adulteress who needs a lot of expensive jewelry to keep her happy...

holding my nose Gingrich-- seriously-- Gingrich???

2011-11-29T08:47:00.000-08:00

Some Gingrich quotes to think about when someone thinks-- anybody but Romney.

Newt Gingrich quotes that should disqualify him from being president

This is also a good set by someone who has been collecting.

Newt Gingrich quotes

Seriously we are living in one of the nuttiest times I can imagine where a man who divorced one wife while she was getting cancer treatment, betrayed another with the woman he'd now like to present to the United States as First Lady because after their lengthy affair, while he was busy impeaching Clinton (for doing basically the same thing), she held on and he married her.

Gingrich is the ultimate in sleaze and that takes a lot because it's not just about his sex life (wife number three better not get sick and it's not hard to understand why she wears the heavy makeup she does). Gingrich is a hypocrite to the ultimate order and somehow that all led him to rise to the top of the Republican primary polls. Seriously? This is all that Republicans want for their president-- an adulterer (but forgiven in Jesus), a proven liar (but forgiven in Jesus), and someone who says what it takes at any one time while he criticizes someone else for doing the same thing? (not sure how you get forgiven from that one as it's ongoing)

So he went after others for lobbying for organizations like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while he was getting almost $2,000,000 himself for the same thing. Oh wait, I forgot he got it for being an historian. Seriously!!!! Republicans buy that??? Who are those 30% of the Republican voters?

Oh, I know some of them-- the religious right who like it that Gingrich found religion in 2009 since he could afford it given he now had the hot babe he wanted on his arm and is so unattractive and plump that what hotter babe would want him? He has to buy this one half a million in jewelry to keep her happy. Seriously-- this guy??? They will nominate him and vote for him and why again?

Some of it has to be the nutty times in which we live. I have expressed how I feel about the Occupy movement before here but now I read encouragement for California students to basically take over the streets until they get what amounts to free tuition. I read where another pundit is claiming the entitlements will be fought for in the streets.

Let me get this straight-- we are now going to have mob rule because once again one side doesn't like what the other is doing when they win the vote? The answer is rioting which leads to violence being used against the protestors, which leads to more rioting and pretty soon we end up where exactly?

What I see here is what I remember from 2004 when the gays were encouraged to aggressively push for gay marriage ahead of the presidential election. They had an in your face attitude that didn't get them gay marriage, and reelected George W. Bush. Who do you think the current Occupy movement will elect in 2012? Who benefits from it the most as the average American finds a group telling him that he has to do this or that or they will be in his face? Not by the way mentioning how to pay for that free tuition.

That's the problem with most of these in-your-face movements which includes the Tea Party. They never calculate the cost. In the case of Occupy, it's who then will run things; and with the Tea Party it is what about the services you yourself have needed?

I think the rise of the Occupy movement has led to the rise of Gingrich and where that will lead us I have no idea but it looks like a sleazy, smug, man who likes to talk as though he's a big intellectual when what he says doesn't equal it, will be their nominee unless he's been cheating on the little woman which for now I doubt.

Some of this is funny. I mean he basically has Bill Clinton's endorsement which makes total sense. Clinton hates Obama and with Gingrich, we have two philanderers who together brought down Glass-Steagall and gave us imbalanced trade policies leading to a short-term apparent boom and where we are today with manufacturing gone overseas and unemployment skyrocketing. All of this to avoid voting for a Mormon because let's face it, that's the real religious right biggie if they prefer Gingrich, who also switches positions so fast it's hard to know what he believes.

Republicans-- this is the best you can do? How about drafting Mitch Daniels. Tell his wife at least all their laundry is out in public and known (we think) and it didn't involve him but her. It wasn't about hypocrisy but just how life is. She owes it to the country as what we need running opposite Obama is a real conservative. Do Republicans really have one?

Higher education, corporations, power, and football

2011-11-27T07:47:00.000-08:00

Our modern world is so complex and whatever sounds simple, when I first hear about it, likely won't end up that way. So the latest example again involves our Oregon governor who once again stepped in where angels fear to tread-- good thing he wears boots. This time it involves education, power, corporations, and football.

When we were driving up I-5 after the Thanksgiving holiday with our kids, I began spinning the radio dial trying to find talk radio. We came across a Eugene station. The program was called something like raging liberal and the two guests were university professors who were irate over their University of Oregon president being fired for which they were blaming Oregon's governor and the State Board of Higher Education. The host openly said he was also connected to the university, but I forget in what way.

At first it sounded like the president had just been summarily fired and final word would go down on Monday-- which means the people must rise up to demand the state keep this paragon of virtue. Since we had come in midway, we couldn't quite figure out why the abrupt firing, but our first thought was-- is Kitzhaber nuts given this is Civil War week-end with ducks and beavers swarming into Eugene for the big game?

For this being three supposedly very articulate people, the most we got from them was the desire they had to have Oregonians put pressure out there to keep the president because of an important meeting regarding the firing on Monday. These people, and most of their callers, were furious and the governor was taking a lot of their rage; so it was hard to understand the reasons behind the firing. They did a satirical tape comparing it to firing a winning football coach right before the big game.

To them their president was innovative, stretching into the next century for his wonderful ideas, drawing in students from other nations, pulling in so much corporate money that in a time of difficult finances UofO was swimming in money, so much so that they had all unilaterally been given raises this spring. But as they said, this was perfectly fair that the other university systems had not been because everyone knew they were the best of the best, deserved the raises and the other two-bit state universities weren't able to compete with big universities back east like UofO could. On it went and pretty soon our sympathies were changing.

As we drove between Eugene and our turn toward Corvallis, the freeway was literally filled with cars going south to the game (those who weren't probably wondered what the heck was going on). For Oregon, college sports, even now with a few professional teams, is really the only game in town and the fans are rabid. UofO almost always gets into a bowl. OSU never does which means the outcome is normally preordained although there have been those Hail Mary years which infuriates the ducks who blame them for being spoilers.

So when I got home, I started looking for the reasons behind the firing, which turns out to not be a firing but a non-renewal of contract, over which he had been warned the year before that he would only have a one-year extension to improve his non-compliance with the goals the larger system in Oregon has for its university system. He didn't see himself as part of any larger system as it was all about him and his university and he had the power.

I read more material about the complaints going far and wide over this firing [Voices of outrage in Gabon] and [UofO community and students outraged over firing] -- of course, this is a firing that isn't a firing but a non-renewal of a contract where warning was given as to why-- never mind facts when people get their emotions aroused. Perhaps there will now be an Occupy UofO movement to take over the university for those dissatisfied.

So I began thinking about this and what Kitzhaber is saying. In a time where our other state universities are in trouble, UofO can draw in the big corporate bucks. This president is going overseas to draw students who can pay full tuition. Yes, I see the value of multiculturalism, but isn't the first concern supposed to be to our own students and country? No?

And those corporate dollars, they have a right to donate where they want; but when they go only one place, what about the rest of the students in the state? Maybe this president and his students had no concern for the other students but isn't it the job of the governor to care for more than the elites? What Kitzhaber said is when UofO sucks up all the dollars, Oregon's university system is ending up only being about it. His concern is to make all the universities able to give good educations that can get their students jobs. How plebeian a notion.

Listening to these three people talk on the radio was a good example of how they see the other universities-- pffft. Reading about the details of the reasons later, and having listened to these the three people discussing this on the radio are enough to convince me that the State Board of Higher Education wants to do the right thing (if they aren't scared out from doing it) and Kitzhaber is once again right on-- even though he's about to be bombarded by the corporate threats of withdrawing of funds and the elites putting him down for daring to not consider their needs primarily.

The elite (by their own definition) professors said if they didn't get these raises, they would go elsewhere. Hey go for it. And if Phil Knight (Nike) wants to run our state, I suggest he run for office. I am tired of business dictating everything and when it's also our universities, turning one of them into a king and the rest serfs, I think they don't get it that we are about more than elites and the peasants. Oh wait-- that is exactly how they think it is!

Pardon the turkey?

2011-11-24T08:47:00.000-08:00

Governor's bold death penalty stand

Here I go again with an opinion that displeases one-third of the people, but I am cheering Oregon Governor Kitzhaber's nuanced decision to punt ahead Oregon's death penalty to either the legislature or the next governor.

If you read the article, you'll know more details; but his decision not to give a man, next in line to be executed, clemency but also not to allow his exectution while he is governor is excellent and done for the right reasons. I cheer it even when I am one of those, who 27 years ago voted to enact a possible death penalty for certain crimes.

I am not at all sure I'd do the same thing if Oregon again votes on the issue. My courtroom experience this summer, serving on a felony jury trial, even more convinced me of the difficulty of getting truly fair jury trials. So much evidence is not admissible or never gathered leaving many juries with a lot of frustration as they must make a decision that takes into account the victim, the evidence, and under the constraints of the law which might be legalese more than what appears to be practical sense. The death penalty has been way too frequently used with the poor and minorities letting the rich and whites off.

I am proud of my governor and glad we donated to his being elected-- well re-elected as he had been our governor for 8 years then had to give it up as we don't enable governors to run more than 8 years consecutively. Another democrat took it over for the next 8 years, and Kitzhaber was back running in 2010 to my pleasure. I am even more pleased now.

Yes, I don't mind the death penalty being used when the crime is with no doubt, the convicted is sane, the crime particularly heinous, was plotted out, and the miscreant is not someone who likely will ever be turned from violence (no matter how many times he/she goes to the religious altar of fogiveness). The problem is it doesn't work out that way too often.

Oregon evidently based their law on Texas's which enables too many death penalties when the basic criteria (for me) would not be met. In the last few years we have heard of executions other places of the mentally ill as well as where there really was not positive proof but a jury, sometimes for bigoted reasons, decreed it anyway. I don't want to be part of a culture that is cheering at hangings.

On our way to the family Thanksgiving, we listened to talk radio (as usual, all you can get when away from big cities are right wing talkers). The callers were, not surprisingly rabid over this decision. He was standing in the way of the voters.

Well times change and something this important should be reevaluated once in awhile. That conversation can now be had. I think a lot of us also didn't realize that the Supreme Court would decree innocence wasn't a factor in a death penalty verdict. As long as the trial was fair, the fact that an innocent person was about to be executed is okay. Say what!!!!

The right wing host and his callers gave off with the old bromide that a death penalty saves lives because it's a deterrent. That ignores the actual facts but then since when did the right ever let facts such as that murders are actually higher in states with a death penalty [Statistics for states without death penalty and consistently lower murder rates].

Now my original reason for voting for it was one of Oregon's more violent murderers had gotten out on parole and went right out and raped and murdered again. That though can be fixed by penalties that truly mean life in prison with no chance for parole or probation.

The other thing that offends me about this particular murder sentence is that Haugen was in prison for another murder before the death penalty (within the family as so many are) where he and another prisoner murdered (heinously) another inmate with weapons they had evidently forged or had smuggled to them. So that means our prison system was partly responsible for his ability to do what he did, which could have been a crime of passion without forethought (or maybe not) but with weapons the state, which is supposed to run these prisons, right, evidently enabled. So who was most guilty for what happened?

I don't want someone like Haugen, with obviously an uncontrollable and violent temper, ever out of prison. Life in prison does it for me though.

What has infuriated the right, to not see this execution take place December 6, is they say Kitzhaber thwarted the will of the people. Except this was last voted on 27 years ago. Maybe Oregonians will again vote for it or maybe not. We will likely have that chance and can reevaluate what the law actually does.

While we are reconsidering all of this, how about cleaning up the prison system because the idea that prisoners have sharpened screwdrivers and shivs seems all wrong to me. Some people aren't there with a life sentence. It'd be nice that they survived doing their time.

Daily Show Strikes Again

2011-11-21T15:10:00.000-08:00

I'll be back with more to say about politics (probably not OWS though for awhile as I am currently a little burned out on it-- not having a lot of luck with these calls asking us for money or to make phone calls for this or that either). Daily Show though has a way of taking events, showing the hypocrisy within them, the essential nature of human beings-- and getting us to laugh. Hey laughing is good, isn't it? It's funny how we can laugh at others but our own foibles, not so much. Give it a try if you dare :)

Daily Show interviews of OWSers

Occupy Wall Street means what?

2011-11-16T18:00:00.000-08:00

Protesters calling for day of action following loss of camp in Zuccotti Park

Okay did the police get too brutal in various cities across the US as they told protesters the tents had to go? I guess how we see that will depend on which side we stood. It's always easier to tell those who keep the peace or fight our wars to play nice than it is to be out there on the line and trying to face something that could turn deadly-- and no doubt this has always had that possibility.

I read one story criticizing how an 82 year old woman got pepper sprayed in the face in Seattle's crackdown. Now whether that should have happened brings another question-- was she using good judgment being there and not leaving when the police said to do so? Do we get a blank check when we get old and can behave however we want in ignoring the laws? Then there is the lady who was two months pregnant and was there also getting pepper sprayed... When I was pregnant, my first priority was protecting my baby and basically it's hard for me to justify a woman who would go somewhere like that, remain when told to leave, and not first concern herself with the health of that new life within. Her motivations for staying escape me. Maybe they all thought police can't do anything. They should read the newspapers of other incidences where the police must subdue an unruly individual or a mob.

Basically, like a lot of people, I think, when Occupy Wall Street began September 17th, I was in more or less sympathy with the reasons the demonstrators had gathered. I was unsure though about what they had named their movement. Occupy Wall Street means exactly what? Take it over? I also remembered many other anarchist melees where they claimed a lot of the same things but with violence as their answer. Sounds like the media who loves to stir this up with-- oh my what will they do now-- will get their answer and what they want for a bigger story!

I never liked the idea of tent cities being equated with freedom of speech. I don't really get how a demonstration morphs into setting up living quarters on someone else's property. And don't give me that the public parks belong to them. The public parks belong to all of us, not just squatters which is what this movement was evolving into. To me then can homeless people also set up tents downtown? It's not like they don't also have a grievance that the system is keeping them from being successful-- never you mind if it's true.

I think this whole movement got a pass from a lot of ordinary citizens for a long time as we understood the frustration at an economic system that is totally out of whack for fairness. We also want regulations or things to be done to get manufacturing back in this country, tax fairness, and having a government with reasonable policies. The big debate is over how to get such things especially given how our country is divided for what we think should be done by government. We might all see a problem but we don't see the answer the same.

As the mayors began to order the demonstrators to leave I heard statements from these young people (and yes, despite the exceptions, most there or at least arrested have so far been under 40) about how they were going to come back and reclaim what they own. Wait a minute!! They own the park where they're camped? Does that mean any rules about living anywhere have to be thrown out? Sanitation regulations kaput? Squatting is back? Begging is in on a huge scale as these places need somebody else to fund them.

Then I read how Keith Olberman called the mayor of NYC a tyrant. I wasn't there the night of the removal, to know if a polite please leave was going to work, but the mayor was a tyrant for trying to maintain law and order? I wonder how Olberman would feel about it being a tent city to end abortion or from tea party types? Somehow I think his response wouldn't be the same. The mayor was doing his job for the rest of us whether that's what the demonstrators or Olberman want. Everybody can still gather there every single day for their demonstrations. That's their freedom. Living there comes under a different category.

What I don't understand (and I didn't get it when the Supreme Court labeled a corporation a citizen for purposes of giving money) is how does setting up a tent equal freedom of speech? Does freedom of speech mean someone can set up a tent on my farm and say they should have it not me? The Native Americans who were here first might have some basis for doing that.

Some said they think the taking back of the parks will be a benefit for the movement and it might well be if they understand they have to have goals and show their strength in numbers not by disrupting everybody else's lives or threatening violence in a temper tantrum if they don't get what they want. They either evolve into more than a tent city or they are not even a comma in history-- no matter how self-important they want to think they are.

As I wrote earlier, I don't want these occupiers saying they are doing it for me. No, they are doing it for themselves and those who think like them. Even though left wing media is spreading it on thick about how it's for the country, many of us over the age of fifty anyway have a physical stake in Wall Street ourselves. I guess we are the bad guys.

The stock market is where most of our investments are centered. Now if we have been responsible in investing, we didn't put it into shady operations nor things like hedge funds or derivatives. But we are investing and people over forty do have a lot of money there. Even for those who don't have direct accounts, they have pensions funds through government or corporations that are invested there.

To the young (those under forty) that's apparently wrong. Perhaps this is now a war between young and old? Over 60 and you're the enemy if you have anything material at all?

The youth do have a problem because they are at 50% unemployment and it's not hard to see how that's going to lead to protesting or worse. Roving bands of youth who have no job and feel they have been exploited is a good way to have a lot worse violence than downtown encampments. Talk of a mayor being a tyrant won't help.

What we (those of us not demonstrating) don't know is why those kids don't have jobs. Did they go to college and get a degree in theater arts or something where there simply aren't the jobs? Are they part of the sizable population who, even in the past, never went to college, really couldn't and needed manufacturing jobs to build their homes-- and those manufacturing jobs went overseas thanks to elder mismanagement and lack of government vision?

It's not just this youth movement that doesn't have a set of goals. Our country as a whole doesn't have one either if we ever had a unified one (I've been reading a lot of history recently and it's not like this kind of conflict is new.)

We really don't know why so many of the young are unemployed in comparison to the population at large. Believe me with four grandchildren growing up, I am asking myself that question how do mine get jobs when they reach that age? What will it take to get them lives like I had? Will such opportunities even be possible? If it is, it's going to take government working to get manufacturing back here and if that means Wall Street takes a hit in stock values, I am okay with that. It needs to be balanced between investment and jobs with jobs the priority and when it's not, Houston, we have a problem.

Now with these unemployed kids, maybe it's not their doing, but then again maybe they don't want to do a job beneath their dignity and therefore aren't working not because they couldn't but because they can't find one big enough for their egos. We really do not know (their families may); but we know they have very high unemployment numbers and that leaves them with a lot of time to lie around. Doing it in a tent downtown when food is donated and they are told by cable news pundits that they are doing it for the 99% probably sounds good to them-- except they aren't doing it for me and how many others (not in the media) really don't like their method.

My age group believed you played by the rules. We believed in our ability to change the government. Now we are told the government cannot be changed. We evidently are supposed to be donating to a tent camp with no clear goals for how to change anything or else down there ourselves, resisting arrest and being beaten with rubber batons; and if we don't, we evidently are part of the 1%-- even if we are a long way from rich.

When they talk (as the above article clams) about Molotov cocktails for Macy's who is that hitting at? Now I get how 1% own more resources than the whole other 99% but I don't get how that means that 99% all agree with these kids and the pundits behind them. nor what they mean when they say they want income equality. If that's fixing the tax rates, fine it makes sense, but it takes government to do that, doesn't it?

Generally I like left wing media pretty much but about now I've had it with them as my opinion is they are stirring this up for their own ratings. I am for now getting my news from the papers online because to listen to the cable news outlet is to hear pushing of this as though it was justified and had a good purpose to it.

Rachel has been saying that these squatter camps for demonstrating purposes were like Hoovervilles before the New Deal. Well I had to go look that one up as I didn't remember any protest settlements like that. She was wrong or she lied. Hoovervilles were homeless camps where the people built shanties to live in. They were building them on government land though or private property and often did get their villages broken up for being illegally occupied.

Hoovervilles are more like today's homeless camps or really those my grandmother talked about being down in the brush around Portland after WWII. It's not like homelessness is new to after Reagan. It comes and goes. The supposed freedom of speech claim for the tent cities can't be linked to Hoovervilles-- at least until people like Rachel reworked the definitions for her own purposes.

Any city of any size has some kind of homeless camps. I guess if these kids want to go down and join them with their tents, it might be tolerated. It's occupying downtown that turns off people who are actually going to be voting in the next election, who will be turning out to work for the causes these kids ~~claim~~ should claim they want. By the time I get through reading the laundry list of what they want, I see it as the platform at a Democratic Convention.

For the demonstrators, I suggest they get a job. Yes, there are jobs, just not at the wages they want, not with benefits maybe, but there are jobs advertised all the time. Go where they are if required, forget if your degree fits it. Just convince that boss you know how to work, and then work for real change through candidates-- get people to challenge the existing party leaders in the primaries. It can be done. One man-- one vote. It won't be done by whiners.

As for them taking over Wall Street, that pretty near infuriates me. So they want the money average people like me and mine saved and invested? They want what they didn't work for? What they should want is meaningful regulation on Wall Street, a tax on stock trades that would discourage short trading by those who swing the market so badly on any word of crisis. Regulation is what Wall Street needs, not having it taken over by a loud mouthed bunch who disobey the police and consider the park to be theirs because an equally loud-mouthed commentator like Keith Olberman said it should be .................

You know it's things like this that mean I'm not a liberal or part of any one group. I see what I believe is right and it's often not what the extremes want from either side. I am though that middle who actually usually determines what happens. Scream at the police and the likelihood is you will find yourself on the losing side of the next election. Wonder who that benefits!

going against the stream-- as usual

2011-11-14T07:11:00.000-08:00

As usual for me, I am going against the grain for how most liberals appear to see the occupation movement and how I see what needs to be done. I didn't like the tent city approach to it and am not sure what that was supposed to be saying. We don't like our jobs; so will camp downtown until we get better ones? Oh wait, we are the ones without regular jobs and we will stay here until we get a job? How will staying there get you a job? It is vague for how it'd work.

I grew up when demonstrations were common, and for good reasons often. They make total sense to me. You gather up like minded people, get a permit to gather at a city center for a group of speakers, maybe march through the city where the city has the ability to plan for orderly traffic rerouting because you aren't doing this illegally. I see the reason to show strength in numbers and have speakers who can espouse your viewpoint. No doubt about the truth in squeaky wheel gets the oil or out of sight, out of mind; but this occupy thing had a potential, as I saw it, of not getting any satisfaction for the real problems, drawing to it the wrong element (anarchists in short and by the camping the homeless who are always wandering around all our cities), and what about bathroom facilities? Without a concrete suggestion for how to fix what they see as wrong, what is its purpose? How can it gain a purpose if no suggested method is out there? Those are my doubts about it.

So this movement hasn't asked my opinion but I'll give it anyway. I think we need to find candidates who express our viewpoint, donate to them, and do what the tea party did in 2010, effectively taking over one of the seats of power, in our case, if we are lucky, all three with a plan in mind for what that means and what we expect from it.

In my view, the tea party formed and got together candidates to run but they had money and an organization behind them to do that. Big money came in the form of the Koch brothers and other wealthy hedge fund managers who didn't want to take a chance that their gravy train was about to implode.

How do we duplicate that? Well we donate money to those we hear talking like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or Alan Grayson whether they are in our district or state. Personally we began that in 2010 when for the first time we donated to a Congressman, Pete DeFazio, who was not in our district but who we had heard stand up for the things we believe. We also had never donated to a Governor's race before, never felt we had to. Boy was I glad we had when I saw the states that got these radical tea party type governors who started trying to demolish all the rights of the ordinary people in the supposed name of liberty but in reality in the name of their big bucks donors. Donate even if a small amount as it shows numbers behind that person and those ideas.

If we don't have money to donate, we work the phones or sent out mailers or whatever it takes to get people in the House and Senate who are not just democrats in name only. That's what the tea party voters did. They got it that you can call yourself anything but it's how you vote that shows who you really are.

We have plenty of Democrats who vote regularly with the Conservatives, which I wouldn't mind so much of the word conservative hadn't been usurped by a group only interested in supporting the wealthy. Conservative as used by Republicans today has absolutely none of the meaning it used to have.

So we support people to run for office who will actually change things. We pressure them to follow through on their promises. We have big money too who believe in liberal values. We need them to be more active, to put their money out there like George Soros, who is a hated name in right wing circles. Soros doesn't support just causes that line his own wallet but rather ones that he sees as right for the culture. You can disagree with his view on what that means, but you should respect how he works for what won't necessarily make him more money but will help others. You can't say that for the Koch brothers or the hedge fund multimillionaire who tried to take away DeFazio's seat in 2010 and will try again in '12.

I am not averse to big gatherings where people hear speakers and show their numbers; but when it comes time to block streets, to take over a park block and camp there, I think it's wrong-- and potentially unhealthy. Ever read how typhoid is spread or other plagues? Such encampments are providing the opportunity for anarchy to take over-- and without an agenda of what it's about. It can't just be-- I want what they have. That doesn't work for me. How do you propose to get it where I can think about how I feel about it, that works better for me. It's not as dramatic, but it's what democracy is supposed to be about.

When the tea party was first coming together, I heard a lot of the talk of revolution and hear it again now. Do people who use the word so loosely have any idea what that will mean? Violence as a method of achieving change usually ends up with the meanest ones in power and that most of us will not like.

Our American Revolution was an exception-- although we might've also been ahead to try an orderly method of change as when you turn to guns, it seems it's easier to think next time of the same answer and you end up with the Civil War next. The reason the Revolution though did succeed was because a revolution isn't just about winning the battles. It has to have orderly minds at the head. In 1776, they were learned men and had a plan that they could put in place. Luckier even was the toughest, most successful warrior of the lot was a man called George Washington, who resisted being put in place as an Emperor or King. You don't always get that lucky.

I don't know how long the Occupy movement will continue but I hope it evolves into working for the ones who will be able to actually make a change in our system to make taxation more fair. Oh I know the spiel about how the wealthy pay most taxes now. They pay more than 40% of the taxes. Gotcha... but they have over 90% of the wealth. Think about it for a bit and I think you can see how an equitable rate for them where they pay the same rates as everybody who isn't in poverty, that should be the goal. Not to take all they have. That's back to anarchy or like the French Revolution/s which only leads to more revolutions.

Instead aim for fair tax policies that encourage investment, that reward work, that discourage sending manufacturing overseas, that recognize there are good reasons for government and make sure government fulfills those reasons. In my opinion, that's the duty of good citizens-- not camping downtown.

Mottos meaningless... or not?

2011-11-13T01:49:00.000-08:00

Recently with all the problems swirling around the United States, the United States House of Representatives took its time to reestablish the importance of the motto given to the United States in 1956, In God We Trust, for which they voted (except for 9 of them) to reaffirm as our motto. It's not like they had any serious problems to consider; so why not, left and right, pander to their religious base?

Most of us lefties probably haven't thought much about mottos; but now that they brought it up, it appears to me to be the problem the extreme right has today with their attitude toward all problems-- God'll fix it. God justifies it. If I did it (which you haven't proven), God forgives it-- how about a little hymn, folks! And onward it goes with global warming, poverty, dirty air or water, morality, and just about any issue you can think of which a people might face but choose not to because-- in god they trust and who cares about their fellow man. It's likely his/her fault to have such problems anyway.

It also shows the me-too party for the weaklings they are. Can't even vote against something stupid like that? Exactly for what will they stand up? Opposition party my foot. They don't even have enough gumption for that.

What it made me think about is the unofficial motto of the United States from its founding-- [e pluribus unum]. Okay, I do have to admit, it's a pretty communistic thinking-- we are one together. Wow, now that's socialism if I ever heard it (Christ-like too-- socialist that he was). And yet from 1786, it was our suggested motto to encourage our highest ideals. Damned intellectual founders putting another language onto our currency. The general meaning of each Latin word is clear: Pluribus is related to the English word: "plural." Unum is related to the English word: "unit." or "Out of one-- many". Easy to see why the far right would want to ignore that kind of thinking.

What the heck could those founders have been thinking-- that we would consider ourselves one nation, united with each other? Even people different than ourselves??? Caring for our brothers? Seems a little weird when really all we need is a mystical being to take care of all those folks-- except those the being wants to zap, you know, the bad guys those who don't agree with us (this zapping can also include winning certain sporting events).

So the party that claims how it values the Founding Fathers throws out their wisdom for a 1950s view of how life should be and maybe a little occult good luck thrown in. I mean how can that kind of god not reward a people who would say they trust in him totally?

Even though it's been obvious how these people think, I would not have even thought to write about this now had not a tea party type legislator (no, I don't know he was but this is so tea party like in its simplistic, ignore real problems, kind of thinking) thought it so important to revisit the topic rather than coming up with something practical to do about our wars, jobs, environment, budget, or bank regulation. Should I thank him? If they actually started working five days a week, one can only wonder what marvelous ideas they'd think of dealing with next...

Veterans Day

2011-11-11T05:09:00.000-08:00

Senator Jim DeMint from South Carolina exceeded even my low expectations for him by his vote against tax incentives for companies that hire veterans. He said it was a principled stand because to give those incentives was not fair. We all know how fair everything must be. I guess it is fair to ask people to risk their lives, to face the possibility of life-long injuries for serving their country but to suggest we should show our appreciation of that in a material sense-- that's not fair?

DeMint has been one of the spokesmen for the Tea Party bunch. Since they claim to be the real patriots, I hope they are paying attention to his vote when he runs again. Or maybe he plans to retire and get a lobbyist position. The Koch brothers might appreciate what he did.

I don't generally write about holidays in my blogs but Veterans Day seems like a good time to not just talk about appreciating our veterans but to put our voice behind real benefits to show our appreciation. Americans have always done that after all our wars; and if that is favoritism, then great.

I like the idea of showing some favortism to those who sacrificed to serve-- some giving the ultimate sacrifice; but keep in mind when they sign up, they don't know what they will be asked to do. Some have joined because they want an education or can't get a job in the private sector in these times; but a lot did it because they wanted to serve their country. They are a special group and we ought to materially show our appreciation for what they have done. Fortunately most Republican Senators agreed.

When you hear of a member of Congress talking about cutting veteran benefits to lower our deficit, write down their name and remember it when you vote the next time.

Those who gave so much, who are coming back to a country with even less jobs than when they left it, they deserve our thanks and a lot more than yellow ribbons. How about material benefits!

Sexuality and power

2011-11-09T01:24:00.000-08:00

Herman Cain is so good at doing things to rile up a person that it makes it easy to forget there are others running for the Republican presidential nomination in the United States. I mean come on if anybody but him had not known China has had the nuclear bomb since the early 60s, that would have been the end of their campaign. Somehow though his fans give him a pass and maybe they will now on sexual harassment.

Pretty much the last thing I wanted to do this week was to watch either Sharon Bialek or Herman Cain discuss these harassment issues. It's plain icky, but I felt I should because it seemed important not just because of how it might mean Cain sees women but also how he sees power. In the beginning you tend to think such things are about sex. They aren't. They are about power and watching these two people showed that very clearly-- especially his press conference. (I have to look up the definition of megalomaniac as the word came to mind a lot while watching Cain. He strikes me as the kind of person that could lie and fool a lie detector because it's all about him).

But let's start with her. Sharon Bialek accused him not actually of sexual harassment. What she described was an assault; but hey it's just a technicality, right? Rush Limbaugh immediately jumped on her being a babe but implied she was coming forth now for money. If she hadn't been a beauty, he'd have demeaned her looks. As for her getting money from this, she didn't get any but that's another minor technicality. Someone like Rush probably doesn't get it that a woman like her is exactly who men like Cain would hit upon.

Beautiful √

Sexy looking √

Out of work or economically vulnerable √

No power base or strong family behind her √

Every accusation against her (Cain called her a troubled woman which is interesting since he also claimed he didn't know her ever) has only emphasized she would be a prime target and gives excellent examples as to why so many women fear speaking out.

Bottom-line, neither she or Gloria Allred have profited from speaking out; and with all the difficulty that goes with it when it's a powerful man, it's amazing any women ever speak out. I think about what Paula Jones went through when it was Governor Bill Clinton (which I am sure Republicans thought should be prosecuted). The right tends to imply Allred only does this when it's Republicans. No, she's been the voice for vulnerable women hit upon by powerful men and that has included plenty of Democrats.

Bialek didn't come forward years ago because that kind of thing happens to women, and they don't press charges. In my life, I've had such things happen. I sure never asked for it. Women don't go to the law over it unless the inappropriate touch is repeated or more is forced. Bialek said Cain put out the physical gestures, and when she said no, he backed off; but not before making it clear a job might be in the offering if she was 'responsive'.

Clearly Cain can't admit he did this or any of the other inappropriate actions that are coming out. His run for the presidency would be over as would his future big bucks on Fox News. He has to lie and he will. The problem I see is the people who will support him in the lies, who will give him the words to say, who will donate money to his campaign showing they not only don't mind but maybe like him better for what he's done.

That's why it keeps happening because there is no price to pay, and some act as though it's not a big deal. Tell that to women. It's not on a level with rape, but it's an ugly memory that women don't forget-- even if it's not a big deal to the perpetrator to the point he can forget about it. Women don't.

The hits on this woman by the vicious right are just beginning with Cain at the top of the list with what he's put out. What Cain has claimed is exactly what you'd expect from a powerful man who has no conscience, who doesn't really believe the spiritual words he espouses. He says his wife said she doesn't believe it because he hasn't done that around her. What a surprise.

So here comes Cain out to angrily justify himself as he stands there totally sure of himself, claiming he's running for president as a successful businessman which is why somebody is out to get him. Excuse me but first of all, he's been a successful lobbyist. He did run Godfather Pizza, making it successful by closing restaurants and firing employees (shades of Romney) but come on, this is a pizza chain most of us haven't ever even sampled. His work as CEO of the restaurant association was a lobbyist firm based in DC (a contract he left 6 months early).

Since then he's done work for Americans for Prosperity funded by the Koch Brothers [Herman Cain] given speeches, had a radio program as well as worked as a public speaker. His connection to the Koch brothers did not begin this year, and they are major funders of his campaign according to all I have read.

What he has done about his wife, who he brought up in this news conference, is keep her away from his business world, keep that little lady at home; and the man can do what he wants out in the big bad world.This is clearly a pattern of behavior. [Fifth woman comes forward]

When there is a culture out there that encourages men like Cain, that makes women (and boys frankly) fearful of speaking up because of threats which included death threats, from fervent followers against someone like Anita Hill, it's not hard to understand how this kind of thing happens. Anybody who excuses it (and that includes that toad Limbaugh) is part of the culture, and they should think long and hard about what they are doing as it can also happen to women they love.

No, I cannot know for sure that these women are telling the truth. It is he said/she said. But there is a pattern of behavior being illustrated (and observed by others) with a man apparently oblivious to the rules others follow. He has nothing to lose by continuing to deny it all-- unless he has a conscience of which I have seen no evidence on anything else.

Vote

2011-11-07T17:09:00.000-08:00

Be sure you vote Tuesday. It is a privilege that some have given their lives to keep possible. I've heard the argument it doesn't matter. I say if you don't like the choices this election, vote anyway and work for better choices next time. Voting is part of living in a democracy, and I don't buy the arguments from non-voters. To me, it's an unwillingness to be responsible. Considering the price some paid for that, it's enough to make a person cry that they think they can now make a difference by sitting home. Sorry but sitting home satisfies one group and they are the victors in such a choice. Some states have more significant choices than others, like Ohio and Mississippi, but if you are voting for a governor or replacing a legislator who retired, it's critical for you too.

What We Need in Congress

2011-11-06T07:29:00.000-08:00

I don't want this blog to turn into one of links but this is too good to not share as we rapidly approach 2012. I believe very strongly that we have to concentrate on getting Congress fixed no matter who the president is. My guess is if Republicans take control of the Senate, they'll end this ridiculous requirement to need 60 Senators to block the many filibusters. These guys/gals are so lazy that requiring them to actually be there to filibuster, as it used to be, will end the practice except for those feeling very intensely and then let them work for it. Given the way Congress operates, the argument that a real filibuster blocks progress is blown out of the water.

Congress has given itself a sweet deal with its three day work-weeks, and the argument in the link for why that should end makes sense to me. Frankly I'd bet those new tea partiers won't care about making Congress work harder. They just want to block it doing anything by voting down anything that costs money-- except, of course, their own salaries, benefits, and pensions.

The next election should be as much or more about getting people into Congress who have principles as anything else. I think we need to be donating to campaigns not just in our own districts or states because some states will find it hard to get anyone with progressive ideas even into the primaries let alone win. Without those who can think, who learn from history, who understand what logic is, who believe in science, it won't matter who is the president.

And if you are a conservative, I recommend the same thing-- look for logic, not slick slogans. If someone says they are a brother from another mother, look beyond the joke to from where that came and what it means especially if the other brother is out to eviscerate the average working person in this country. If the saying came from a movie, it tells you something also.

The presidency matters and I don't for a moment think it doesn't, but Obama had that 60 vote majority for the Senate for about a year of his term and it didn't help when enough of those Democrats were those in name only and voted against Progressive values. Same thing if someone is a conservative, find out for what that so-called conservative really stands.

Overhaul Congress

Rachel Maddow's theory on Herman Cain

2011-11-05T07:21:00.000-07:00

If you don't regularly see Rachel Maddow or you missed her show November 4, take some time and watch this video. She has an amazing set of facts that she has put together to form a premise that I think everybody should see. What Cain (or whoever is behind him) has decided about the American voter amazes me and makes me wonder-- is he right? Is that the intelligence and emotional level of the average Republican voter? I guess we'll find out. Anyway check this out-- it's awesome. This is the best of the best on reporting, writing and putting together a thesis from a set of facts. Really impressive whatever party you support.

herman-cain-the-practical-joke-no-one-is-getting

Campaign fodder

2011-11-02T15:18:00.000-07:00

I have been having some good laughs lately with the Republican candidates for the presidency. It is kind of funny wondering how many different ways Romney can try to hedge his bet on one issue after another; but then he is a politician, right?

Perry is not a joke but this video is as his speech in New Hampshire went viral with good reason. A stand up comic who was ridiculing presidential candidates could do no better. He claims he wasn't drunk. I believe him; but if he's actually a standup comedian, he's good at it. He's cute. He's silly and he's obviously cutting loose.

Truthfully, I am not really averse to that in a candidate, but his statement that it was right that his state allowed students who had come illegally as a child to get in-state tuition, that finished him with the extreme righties anyway. Still it's worth watching for the fun of this. Jon Stewart had a lot of fun with it.

Perry in the Granite State and ???

I do not consider Cain to be a joke. Until the sexual harassment accusations came forward, I think he could very well have taken the presidential nomination based purely on 9-9-9 and being charming. Sounds like he was a mite too sure of his being charming in the late 90s. Here's the thing though-- even before the accusations-- what does this kind of ad mean?

Cain Campaign-- Yellow Flowers???

Cain is obviously a bright guy but I am having a hard time understanding where he was going with that? Americans like cowboys. Put cowboys in anything and they'll like it?

The sexual harassment charge against Cain is more significant and not funny. As usual his explanation is making it worse. I do not think he's helped either by the usual right wing bad guys (Limbaugh and Coulter) coming out in his defense and implying the charges were only brought because he's black and it was liberals who did it. Liberals would've waited for the main election; so this was by other Republicans. Why does Karl Rove's name come to mind?

First Cain said he didn't remember the incidents at all. That was ridiculous as no man who is successful and accused of such would forget it. It is embarrassing to a man at the least and very frightening at the most to have such an accusation raised and yet he forgot it? Only if there were a LOT of them is that possible.

Then he said he had nothing to do with any settlement-- then that there was money but it was just severance pay-- a full year's severance pay? Give me a break. So far he won't release the Restaurant Association from keeping the details secret. Rush has been in defense in high mode but Rush is just like that and a little nuts himself.

The more Cain talks, the worse this is for him but by now I bet he's talking for his wife more than the campaign. I read the comments from the righties as to how they see it and they blame people like me for the accusation even surfacing. It's not likely as frankly who benefits from it coming up-- Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry probably most or maybe Mitt Romney. The point is Cain was told 10 days ahead of the article surfacing. He wasn't blindsided.

It's not the first time a candidate lied about what he said or did. It won't be the last. But with Cain, it's kind of an ongoing thing. But oh wait, I can't say that because he's black right? Okay to harass Obama for all kinds of sleazy and unproven things, but different when it's a Republican even when there was a real payment to keep the matter quiet. I will believe Cain about this when he lets the Restaurant Association reveal the details. Otherwise, he's just another candidate who wants it both ways!

And yes, he is black but that doesn't give him a free ticket to sexually harass women. Are there false accusations about such behavior? You bet, but this is beginning to sound like an ongoing behavior for the man who likes to keep the little woman at home.

They will drag his wife out to deny it. Like she'd know what he says to other women. I can 'guarandamntee' you that wives often have no clue what men say to other women!

In defense of Obama

2011-11-01T02:12:00.000-07:00

President Obama is about as unpopular with a certain segment of the left as he is of the right. I am not sure totally where this hate-- and it is hate-- comes from but it shows up with cruel cartoons and accusations that everything that goes wrong anywhere is his fault.

Now I have to put in a disclaimer here. I am not thrilled with everything he's been doing either. We gave quite healthily to his campaign in 2008 but have held off on any money so far; but the more I see the characters who represent the alternatives (except Jon Huntsman) or listen to the debates, the more I know eventually we will be donating because I can see it'll be like McCain with Palin. Obama might not be it all but they are so far the other way that for me there is no choice but to support Obama (looking at Mississippi's personhood bill is just one example or the attempt to stop government employees from being able to negotiate as unions). Incidentally, I don't agree with Huntsman either on a lot of important issues, but at least he's a thinking person.

Obama is not as liberal as many would have liked. He's a lot more of a pragmatist but some of what he's being accused of I think is very unfair. For instance some on the left consider the drone killing of the American al Qaeda leader to be murder. They wanted him to have a trial-- except that was obviously not possible given the country he was operating within. The fact that Obama has been continuing to fight the war against terrorists but has used precision tactics is not making the left any happier than when it was all out war with tanks.

Here's how I see it. We are at war but it's not with a country (momentarily). We are at war with a mindset and warriors who are willing to die to attain their ends so long as it scares or kills other people. The American who was recently killed was proud of what he was doing in recruiting more troops for that war, convincing more to be willing to die in a suicide bomb attack. This isn't like he was out there saying he was innocent. He was open that he was a traitor to his own country. He had realigned his allegiance to what he saw as a higher cause-- which was terrorism. To me then the killing of him was self-defense and an act of war. It is the price traitors have always paid.

Obama made it clear he would fight a different kind of war but he would fight it. He has done exactly that with the drone attacks. Scary? You bet but war is scary. These are tactics that are specific and aimed at those who want to or have attacked us. I don't see how we can ignore that they are there.

Torture I see as different. He claims he has not authorized it but will not give up possibly using the act of rendition which might mean transferring prisoners to those who will (although from what I have read of the current US war tactics, it doesn't seem taking prisoners is what they are trying to do. They are instead eliminating the enemy with as little collateral damage as possible.

Most of what I see Obama doing in every issue is step by step to get a goal (which is why Republicans also don't like him-- although they vary from thinking he's a dictator of rare effectiveness to totally bumbling and incapable of doing anything right). Obama's way is not dramatic and it's not showy. In the end though it keeps moving us toward goals that matter to me like getting rid of don't ask don't tell. This is why I think we will eventually get gay marriage if we don't go backward with a Republican presidency led by extremists.

Obama made a lot of liberals mad when he backed off on enforcing the ozone reductions over cities like L.A. Well that had already been set for reevaluation in 2013; so in a lot of ways it was just a tactic which didn't mean anything but because it showed up as backing off infuriated a group of former supporters. It is unfortunate that often what is showy is what gets the attention and inch by inch frustrates everybody.

If liberals do back off from him. If they don't give him donations or volunteer to help, we will get one of the Republicans running for office. Some say it won't matter if we also get a Democratic Senate and House (a long way from givens). I say keep in mind Bush with many of his years having Democratic House and Senate and he still did a lot of damage.

Wouldn't it be better to get that Democratic House and Senate with enough power to pass legislation (In other words no blue dogs-- democrats in name only)? Then if Obama fails us, we know why and we can put pressure on the House and Senate to override him. But what if he really wants what we thought he did and in 2012 we finally get a shot at seeing what Democrats might rule like if they had real power?

Finally he has given us two good, strong liberal Supreme Court Justices. IF we have a Romney or Cain, we know we will get another Alito or Roberts. That would make six, relatively young, strong right wing judges who can overturn laws we have had on the books for years, who preside in the Supreme Court as though they are above laws or precedent. It won't just be abortion that will feel the heat of that kind of Supreme Court. It will be the rights of all of us in every sense except what benefits the wealthy and the corporations who are now considered people. What a Roberts court can do when Ginsburg retires which she says she'll do after 2012, it doesn't bear thinking about. If say Kennedy also resigns or any of the five current extremist justices, if we have Obama and a Senate in Democratic hands, we could even get a Hillary Clinton. Just think about that if nothing else for the heartburn it'd give to Scalia. *s*

There are a lot of issues I'd like to see happen with a strong liberal president but it's possible the country would not vote for that. If Cain gets the Republican nomination with his very strong tea party, corporate and right wing social policy positions, it says this country is a lot further right than a lot of us hoped.

Proud to be a Liberal

2011-10-30T15:44:00.000-07:00

More tax plans to distribute the wealth-- upward.

2011-10-25T11:52:00.000-07:00

Why are Republicans and especially those running for the presidency so determined to make the rich pay less in taxes? Is there a logic to this that I don't get?

The Mayor of Simpleton over his Tax Plan

And why are Republicans so determined to offer us idiots and trolls as their options to Obama for president? What is this about? I read that where Herman Cain is not really competent to be president many are tempted to vote for him simply because they think he's outside the Beltway-- except he was a lobbyist. How does that make him outside? And does it really not matter about competency?

I also read that simple is supposed to be better? Seriously? As in simple minded like Perry who couldn't get higher marks in college than Cs even in PE? Are Americans really going to buy any flat tax rate that helps the rich pay less? Let's say the average American earner figures out they'd pay more and doesn't opt in as Perry says they can do. But the rich, oh hey, they are going for this in a big way-- what does that do for the deficit some claim matters so much?

They say Republican have always offered responsible options for the presidency. Okay, I buy that... but not for the Vice-presidency where they tried to palm Sarah Palin off on the country. Where McCain, whether I agreed with his political agenda or his temperament was competent to be president (as much as anybody is given the huge scope of that job), he picked someone who was not which makes you wonder about his competency.

I keep hoping we will have a real option with a different political agenda next November. It seems unlikely.

Republican candidates and their think-ahead logic

2011-10-23T07:17:00.000-07:00

Republican candidates always amaze me. This kind of 'logic' works with your voters? Or you think it will work? This one, minor though it is, takes the cake for not thinking ahead.

NJ Candidate advice to wives

Okay here's the question-- does that mean he pays for sex? His wife might like to ask this one-- how much experience has he had with whores to know what sex is like with them?

I guess he has no chance to win but still, this has to be funny to right or left-- doesn't it?

I could list off a lot of it from this week's Republican presidential candidates but that's not so funny.

Herman Cain's tax plan

2011-10-20T07:52:00.000-07:00

I think everybody's heard the old joke-- how can you tell when a politician is lying? He opened his mouth.

A lot of people think that's not true when it's someone who loudly proclaims their religiosity. I mean if someone believes in God and the Bible and they tell you that they follow scripture, you can trust them, right? You will know it's not automatically true if you have known and listened to many of them; but what I think religious political types do is try not to know too much. That way they can tell themselves they are not lying. They were just wrong which they also won't admit too quickly.

So I think this applies to Herman Cain and his lovely, simple little tax plan of wealth transfer-- this one transferring more of the wealth from the poor to the rich (the rich never have enough). You know the rich do believe in a kind of communism except not everybody sharing equally. They just want instead everybody beneath them sharing their wealth with them and then themselves sharing less of their own-- as little as possible. Our culture has actually redefined greed, which used to be a bad word in Scripture, as now just simple ambition and 'those who can... do'. We should thank them for the bits they deign to drop down for the rest of us.

Cain has made it quite clear that our country's economic problem is not Wall Street. It's not the ones who trade dollars and stocks around to make money while they create no product. It's not those who cheated people by high interest or lying about who had the ability to pay back a loan. See it wasn't lying. It was they just 'didn't know.' It's not their fault that the property was not appraise accurately or that the people made payments and then lost it back to the loaner.

No, Cain lays the fault all that the feet of the White House and Congress because they... let's see what was it they did that was so bad? How about they regulated at all? No regulations would lead to more manna from uh yeah, heaven. Totally free ability to charge usury rates of interest, to lie to patrons, to not monitor their own practices, and then they'd be set loose to... help everybody. Yeah, that's it and why we can blame Congress and Clinton not for ending Glass Stegall-- not because it was wrong to end it but because they didn't end all regulation on those who push money around.

What scares me most about Cain is that a man with so little ability, who is a good motivational speaker, who ran a pizza company that sold lousy pizza that he convinced everybody was good to buy, it is not that he will be the presidential nominee. I doubt that but I watched this party put up someone totally incapable of being president once before with Sarah Palin for Veep. That's what I suspect they would try to do with Cain. He's out of his depths. He doesn't care as he knows how to talk. He doesn't care about his tax plan, doesn't want to know too much about it except to say it's simple... Yeah right. He doesn't care but Republican voters should.

Cain's 9-9-9 Plan is (roughly) 3 VATs in 1

Herman Cain's 9-9-9 from Tax Policy Center

Politifact-- checking Cain's math

And for heaven's sake, don't allow them to put him up as veep. How about Chris Christie for Veep with Romney on top. Or if you need a minority, Marco Rubio. They both know how to speak words to satisfy the rightie's need for red meat. Just don't put up someone totally inept to be president as we have seen too many times they end up there. The likelihood is Cain never dreamed he'd go this far and really was about selling his book and upping his figures for speaking engagements. If you didn't like Obama, felt he wasn't ready (which might be so), you really want to repeat the experience?

Cain asked for a catchy tax plan idea that revolved around the flat tax that he had liked before. He got this one which would add 18% to everything you buy. Think it wouldn't because companies already pay corporate income taxes? A lot of them don't through deductions of all sorts. Those that don't, will be adding that onto their purchase price.

And all this trouble for what? To take care of the deficit? It won't touch it as he claims it's revenue neutral-- although how a sales tax can have no administration costs attached is beyond me. No, it's all about increasing the transfer of wealth. He doesn't have to lie about what it does. He just has to stay dumb and happy as he gets out in front of people and claims he's such a wise man. And if it didn't work in terms of getting it through Congress where a lot of people (like home buyers) won't much like it, well maybe he'd have another supply side salesman in the backroom to give him something that would.

Do Republican candidates respect Republican voters?

2011-10-19T10:29:00.000-07:00

It might not look that way, but I have tried to even keep this blog free of snark. I wanted to have real debates on issues, but it is nigh unto impossible to write about any Republican today and not find it becoming an issue of disbelief and anger that the best they can provide in terms of candidates are the trolls I saw on the debate stage in Las Vegas. Seriously, this is it, the best they have, their only real options?

Whose fault is this lack of responsible leaders for what used to be considered a conservative party? I blame the voters who elevated them to this position. These trolls represent the best they can bring forth for one reason only-- they are willing to say what their voters want to hear like that all abortion is murder, that gay marriage is evil and going to doom a culture to a Sodom and Gomorrah end.

Taking deep breaths because right about now I am already angry and I haven't even begun with what I wanted to say here. I just read Maureen Dowd's column on what Mormons believe [Baptizing Anne Frank as a Mormon]. Actually I knew quite a lot about Mormonism having studied it early in my adult life and considered converting until I learned what that meant for what I'd have to believe.

Dowd's article was a good reminder that the most reasonable option they are offering as a presidential candidate is a Mormon in high standing. The Mormon who actually thinks for himself, Huntsman, wasn't there and doesn't stand a chance because he's not a fundamentalist; and all that better apply for being the Republican nominee must be fundamentalists. The rest all are of one religion or another.

So we have Herman Cain who says some will pay less in taxes (the rich), some will pay more (poor and middle class), but it's okay because anybody who doesn't have a lot of money has only themselves to blame for it. We have Cain who got his 9-9-9 plan from a supply side adviser where it was picked as being catchy. He does know his voter, doesn't he!

Do Republicans respect those they want to vote for them at all? I get the feeling they do not. They think they are stupid, Listening to Senator McCain attempting to smear Obama for using a tour bus, whose frame was made in Canada, as if it was a destroyer of American jobs to do so, when he had to know his own such bus was also made in Canada as was that of Bachmann. Okay he basically assumes the right winger, who hears him, is not only stupid but too lazy to do research and won't read information from any site other than the right. Is that showing respect for those to whom he is speaking? He has no more respect for their depth than I do.

It goes on and on with this business of lies. Listening to Rush Limbaugh this last week and hearing him talk about how liberals want to damage this country and then hearing Herman Cain say he believed the same thing, really? These guys believe that? Or they simply know the ones who listen to them will never stop to think about what that rhetoric means?

Limbaugh is beyond any liberal or progressive's ability to listen to him anymore. He tweaks facts, distorts consequences and unless he's stupid, which I doubt, he knows exactly what he's doing.

Okay so I give up. This will be a purely snark blog and I can't help it. I want more from Republicans. I want them to quit looking at their hate for Obama and instead think about what they are offering up. Asking too much?

Or do they assume no matter how many times they say that it's government's fault for our mess, but at the same time that they can fix it with their government ideas, and Obama should have, no matter how many times they lie about how we got to where we are, nobody will look at the facts from within their ranks?

I know there are some thinking Republicans. I'd just like to hear from them. I don't want to hear from anybody who listens to Rush Limbaugh or believes Herman Cain is the great black hope. I really see that as self-defeating for them and me. Forget that Cain is black. It should not matter. Listen to his ideas for heaven's sake. Think just a minute about the logic of any of what he says. You didn't like the idea that Obama was a powerful speaker but most of us who voted for Obama voted on his ideas (which by the way he proved to be a disappointment where it came to follow through), but it's still a better way to vote than emotions even when we get disappointed.

Incidentally for those who vote purely on abortion and gay marriage-- nobody else can hurt your marriage, just your own hate can do it. I have become very very intolerant of anybody who doesn't support gay marriage as a human right and can't possibly think anyone who attempts to block it is a free thinker or even a thinker.

Here's something funny. Coming home, on the radio, I listened to Cain say we need to be open to new ideas when he was defending is 9-9-9 shift of the tax burden to the poor and middle from the rich. He's so open to new ideas, isn't he with his rigid fundamentalist religious creed. Oh yeah, free thinker that one!

AND if you want to ban all abortion, as Cain said he did this week-end, on an interview program, to be consistently pro-life, you better be in favor of social programs to help families, public education, and against capital punishment. If a tiny seed has value to the human race, to our culture as a whole so should a child once born; and when it needs help with health care, food, schooling. Anyone who was truly pro life would want to help that baby with all possible to help it reach its potential. IF you don't support that, you are a hypocrite and I don't have time to even read your comments, certainly not your blogs. IF you support ending all abortion as Cain does, then don't call it pro life. It's just pro meddling in someone else's business!

I can respect those who disagree with me about Obama and about good government programs but those non-thinkers, the ones who come at it purely from an antiquated religious set of values that are twisted to suit their current agendas, I am through even reading their comments. I am not speaking to those like ingineer, who come at this from a different perspective, but rather to those who claim a religion, who can read what Cain said about how Jesus was a conservative based on not taking unemployment and not throw up. For people like that they better find another place to read. You won't like this one much for the next year as it's going to be big time pro-Obama, and pushing for Americans to find candidates to run for Congress whether conservative or liberal, who can actually think and won't follow a rigid partisan platform. It will be Obama because he's the only alternative to a bunch of right wing wackos and their direction is not where I want this country going.

There are times I can be sanguine about all this but not right now when it's a battle for the soul of our nation and I see fascists, who have no compassion for anybody but themselves, being at the door. I am very disappointed there isn't a real option from the Republicans for us but the closest I can see from that stage last night was Ron Paul and he's too far out there for me to accept his solutions would really help our country. He is at least honest and sticks to his beliefs which is more than I can say for the rest of them.

Incidentally being a good debater doesn't mean someone would be a good leader! This should all be about ideas, ideas, ideas and right wing ideas right now make me sick!!!

Photo at the top and a lot of other places I was recently at are examples of government setting aside land for future generations to enjoy. That's what I call conservation. Modern Republicans do NOT have a clue what the word even means as it's all about the dollar, themselves, and their religions.

Complicating factors

2011-10-12T07:03:00.000-07:00

One thing or maybe a group of things that I think are making our country have a serious problem right now with governing is who are we and who do we want to be? To say we are divided, is to put it mildly. For a long time people said to have government divided was good as it kept it from doing anything and when it did anything it was bad. Wow what a great idea-- have a huge government where all you expect from them is to do nothing for what you pay them. Wonder how long a corporation would last with that viewpoint.

The thing is half of us want to go one way and the other half the other.

You have the plan from the right that the rich are not only paying a fair rate, they should pay less and there should be no penalty if they want to send their manufacturing overseas. It is good to help the rich get richer. They see the evil here to be in the poor who, as one presidential candidate, Herman Cain said, are only poor because of their own fault. Cain is so in tune with being an average person he went further to say, as a multimillionaire, he would have died if he'd gotten cancer under Obama's health care plan. I guess he has forgotten that if he'd been among the working poor today, that's when he'd have died. Or maybe he just doesn't know. That's pretty much all the right wing candidates-- blame the poor for their state, think we had no health care problem when 50,000,000 people can't afford insurance, and if someone gets sick or has an accident, let them die.

The other half want the tax codes figured out to get the rich to pay a bigger percentage on the top part of their income. They want to balance the budget by getting in more revenue and not hurting those already hurting financially. They also want gay marriage because it's fair and they know it doesn't hurt their marriage to let two women or two men live together with full rights and status to create their own families. They don't maybe personally like abortion but they want it available and when someone does have a baby when they cannot afford it, they want government programs there to help them.

And on it goes for the divide. Many blamed Obama for not doing more his first two years in office and when he had a majority of Democrats in Congress. The thing was that was never a majority of people who thought like I just mentioned above. They were democrat in name only and they voted with Republicans.

Some say Clinton worked with a Republican controlled Congress. Too true and what did he work with them to do-- ship more manufacturing overseas and gut financial regulations like Glass Seagall. Basically they got him to do what they wanted and it made him look successful. He did nothing about gay rights and in fact began DADT which has now been ended under Obama.

To say I am not thrilled with Obama is true. He has done things or let them happen like the big pipeline through the Ogallala Aquifer which will take oil from Canada to Texas to refine it. Research it if you haven't already heard of it. What it could do to environmental damage is scary or should be and yet who did the research on its safety-- those who have as clients the builders. I am impressed-- not and there is a lot like that.

The thing is until we as Americans figure out who we are, until we define ourselves, we will pay a lot for a government that only knows how to support wars and give itself more power and money.

Herman Cain

2011-10-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

Everything I see on Herman Cain makes me think he's naive with a very simplistic view of how he could govern if he got into the office of the President. He is running with popularity in the right because he presents simple programs like 9-9-9 which would evidently do away with all deductions, sounds like for corporations also and have a flat tax for everyone.

It's not as hard on the poor as you might imagine because the payroll tax would not be used anymore. The thing is though can that pay for all we have currently going on? I doubt Cain knows.

People like simplicity and somebody who suggests they can solve all the problems without asking the American people to dig deeply into their thinking bag is likely to be popular with a certain segment who won't bother asking if it works.

His being nominated is probably unlikely after people learn more of his ideas. Right now the one least known has the best chance of winning anything. Any generic Republican can supposedly beat Obama. This means an unknown who jumped into it at the last with no debates, no time to analyze program suggestions, maybe even a draft movement in the Convention, that is most likely going to look like a winner to Republican voters-- the old pig in a poke.

So I want this quote here and easy to find in the future in case he gets the nomination. It should be brought out again and again as I think it's where he shows his naivety as much as anywhere. Doubtless there are more money quotes and you can be sure they'll be in Democratic attack ads if he gets the nomination. For now it'll be Republican candidates bringing them out.

CAIN: "I don’t have facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama administration. Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself! [...] It is not someone’s fault if they succeeded, it is someone’s fault if they failed."

How to achieve fairness

2011-10-03T18:40:00.000-07:00

First of all there is no guarantee about how to achieve fairness. That's just a fact. If you look at history, you see fairness is not an obvious given for human interactions. But we have to try, right? And so the question in a country where there is the vote, how do we get fairness or as close as we can come to it?

Cultural issues are a big deal in our country as we are in a time of transition which threatens many while others see it as hope that we finally, as a culture, are getting it right. We see this in both economic demonstrations and gay rights. We have seen it with the tea partiers who insult anybody who doesn't see it their way. We see it with people like the right wing candidates who talk about protecting marriage by some kind of cockeyed talk about gays threatening it.

We are seeing it finally with the ending of DADT which for people like me is a healthy and logical thing to do. A few on the far right tried to paint this as sexuality run amok, but in the eyes of the majority of Americans, it wasn't about that. It was about gay couples having a right to be recognized by the military when they are gay. It was the right to come out of the closet. It was the right of people to be able to be who they are without lies. It was no more about the right of gays to openly flaunt their sexual practices than it is of straights to do the same thing-- while in the military. In other words no making out or sex in public by either.

Okay so here comes the latest gay rights topic which I admit I skimmed over when I saw it in the papers because I didn't know the truth of exactly what happened and don't like making assumptions based on what I read somewhere. Also it didn't seem like a big deal to me but that's likely because I wasn't impacted by it. Now I am seeing it as a possible issue that could impact more than it and I'll explain why I'd say that.

For anyone who hadn't read of the two lesbians who got kicked off a plane, the general gist of it is that they kissed. They said they kissed only once and not sexually. The stewardess or steward, who knows what the appropriate term is these days, came over and told them this was a family airline, other passengers had complained, and knock it off. The lesbians got angry, admit they used foul language and were kicked off the plane. The airline claims they were kicked off by their angry response, not the kiss.

Now assuming the women told the truth and their kiss was only one and not sexual (and I have never heard the airline say they are lying), the airline appeared to have been totally in the wrong to have said anything to them or to imply that it is not a family thing for couples to kiss once. Or at the least if this is not airline policy, that steward or stewardess, or whatever the right term is today, was out of line.

Now when the women began to swear, they lost the high road but gained cult following among others who sympathize and are wanting a boycott of the airline (fat people are also mad at that airline) or maybe a kissathon on another flight to express their anger and in a joining together against bigotry.

Here's the thing where I probably make gays mad at me. I agree with their anger at anybody daring to say it's not a family thing to see two women or two men kiss. I disagree with their next step to swear or now threaten to react in a way that they would not otherwise behave. I get it. They are frustrated that it's taken so long to get somewhere with this issue but will anger get them rights?

I remember when John Kerry was running for president and somehow gay marriage became an issue with demonstrations that riled up the right and evidently moderates because then state after state put forth laws to ban gay marriage and in the case of Oregon-- constitutionally-- which shocked the heck out of me as that's not Oregon's way-- or wasn't. It may have very well also given us four more years of GW Bush. Only now is Oregon trying again to get this issue on the ballot to undo the damage done by that 2004 vote.

What has happened since that year is by showing the country that being gay is not threatening, that it's normal, that it can be part of family values, that people don't need to fear gayness taking over the schools and youth of the nation, state after state is going the other way and making gay marriage legal. I think that comes because at heart Americans are good people and really don't want to hurt others. I truly believe that. BUT they are as are most humans, easily riled and maneuvered and that's where this story comes in.

IF these women had made what happened to them an issue based purely on the kiss being nonsexual and something many straights do, then they'd have had another issue to make Americans feel to be fair there needs to be more done. That opportunity is lost. And if gays make more out of this, they could end up enraging more people to vote for their idea of protecting marriage (which is about as nuts as anything I can imagine given that what gays want is marriage). We can win a battle and lose a war if we aren't careful by our actions.

People who want to bully their way to rights better be in the majority. Whether that sounds fair or not, minorities gain their rights by convincing the majority they are in the right. That is more true today with the kind of Supreme Court we have than it possibly was in earlier times when the Court might've been more aware of the rights of minorities. What is more important, expressing anger or winning the war?

This is similar to what I am seeing with the demonstrators on Wall Street and various banks which seems to be a mixed bag of people who are there. Okay now I admit this is just me but I don't have much use for people who dress up to express their viewpoint. That was turn off to me with the tea party with their tea bags hanging from their hats and their Revolutionary War uniforms.

It'd be hypocritical to think more highly of seeing a bunch of people parading down the street with zombie make up. And what is with the bare breasted women? That's bound to get coverage on network TV, right? Well it might get on Maher, it did, but it won't even make cable news programs. So why do that? I think it discredits your position. Likewise if crowds block bridges (the demonstrators claim the police forced them onto the Brooklyn Bridge) or do anything illegal, they will be seen as the anarchists who have been trashing cities off and on whenever an economic summit is happening there.

Such behavior makes Americans ignore the real issues being raised as they are distracted by the showy stuff which has nothing to do with what is really being said. I think the cause is helped more when serious economists join the protest and explain what is happening economically to the detriment of us all. Anarchy, in any form, right cause or not, will never win sympathy and it can lead to an opposing reaction.

So I believe making viewpoints known by speaking out, by demonstrating peaceably, by pointing out wrong where it exists, by voting for candidates with a sympathetic view is a fair way to get change. Yes, I recognize in some countries, it does take violent overthrow; but here we vote and I do not want to see the left or right trying to circumvent that process and win their ways through violent responses whether as individuals or as crowds-- right or left wing.

The tea party didn't really win power by their demonstrations or the silly outfits. They won, with the backing of moneyed interests, by the candidates they have been running and who are winning. We on the left must find people like that to support. If they are not out there right now (some are like Elizabeth Warren), we need to find them, talk them into running, and support them.

Choices

2011-09-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

We got this email from one of Oregon's Congressmen and I think it speaks well to what we are facing in our country, what every state has for issues. We, as Americans have to decide who we trust, what we believe. If we want something simple like 9-9-9 when we don't have a clue what it'd do to our economy or government, well it's out there. It can be voted on and then let the chips fall where they may especially if we are pretty sure it won't hurt us personally (not that anybody can know that). If we are willing to look at complex issues and really think what will work for us as a more and more complicated society, then I think what this Congressman said is worth reading and asking our own leaders how they stand on it.

******************************************

With tens of millions of Americans unemployed, underemployed, or worried they will soon be out of work, job creation is the most important issue facing the nation.

One of the most tried and true ways to get people back to work is building and improving infrastructure. Federal investment in infrastructure generates private sector jobs in construction, engineering and design, and manufacturing and supply. Every $1 billion we invest in infrastructure we create or sustain over 34,000 private sector jobs and produces $6.2 billion in economic activity.

There are 150,000 bridges across the nation in need substantial repair or replacement. We have a $70-80 billion backlog in transit maintenance projects. On the Willamette River, the aging flood control systems are operating at 85% capacity because the Army Corps of Engineers needs $100 million for repairs.

We can put millions of people to work if Congress invested adequately in a 21st century transportation system. Insisting on strong "Made in America" requirements would ensure the benefits of these federal projects reached a broad spectrum of the American economy. Our economic competitors are investing billions in state of the art infrastructure. We must do the same.

But the House Republicans are neglecting this opportunity and instead passed a budget that would cut infrastructure funding by 35 percent. This cut in funds will eliminate nearly 500,000 jobs.

Their sole approach to create jobs is to continue on with the mantra that we need more tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, the so-called “job creators.” But tax cuts don't create jobs. We have had the worst job creation numbers since World War II in the ten years the Bush tax cuts have been in place, and these cuts have added $4.9 trillion to the federal budget deficit.

The Social Security payroll tax holiday didn't create jobs either. Extending the payroll tax holiday will surely undermine the long-term solvency of Social Security forcing the federal government to borrow $110 billion to replenish the Social Security Trust Fund.

The Administration is proposing three new free-trade agreements that were negotiated by George Bush. They will do nothing to create jobs for Americans. Past free trade agreements have eroded our manufacturing base, and cost us 5 million manufacturing jobs, including 53,000 in Oregon.

Americans everywhere want to work and contribute to our country by paying taxes, not collecting unemployment or depending on food stamps and social services. They don't want to leave their children and grandchildren a massive debt, or privatize Social Security because Congress depleted the Trust Fund, or cut veterans' benefits to balance the budget. They are worried about outsourcing thousands of additional American jobs and putting higher education out of reach for working families. They are afraid Congress will slash Social Security and Medicare benefits, and they have no patience for more partisan gridlock or the "my way or the highway" attitude of some of the obstinate members of Congress.

I will continue to keep fighting for robust infrastructure investments. If you are interested in getting the unemployment rate down to five percent which would eliminate a quarter of the federal budget deficit, I need your help.

I intend to work tirelessly to repeal the Bush tax cuts. Business leaders, like Warren Buffet, also agree it is time to "stop coddling the billionaires,” and save $5 trillion over 10 years cutting the deficit in half.

I opposed NAFTA and other poorly designed trade deals that have outsourced millions of family wage jobs, and am leading an effort to put a moratorium on "free trade" agreements until Congress adopts new trade policies to bring and keep jobs home.

But to do all of this, I need your support.

Art Robinson will be back in 2012. He is speaking and organizing now throughout the district. I need to be ready to defend myself from the tsunami of negative advertising his campaign and his supporters will unleash.

The billionaire hedge fund manager from New York who spent $760,000 to defeat me last election is back too. He has already contributed the maximum amount an individual can give in the primary cycle to Robinson's campaign. He is bitterly opposed to my Wall Street speculator tax and my support for legislation to make him pay taxes at the rate of working Americans.

The last election demonstrated that my outspoken support for the best interests of working families rather than special interests has earned me some powerful and well-funded enemies during my tenure in the Congress. Your support was vitally important then and will be again. Your contribution of $35, $50, $100, $250, $500, or $2,500 will help me remain an independent voice in Washington, D.C.

You can make a contribution using the enclosed envelop, by using a credit card through my secure website at www.defazioforcongress.org, or by calling my office at (541)485-1622.

Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

Peter A. DeFazio

The Anger Grows-- you bet

2011-09-23T08:31:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get so angry that it's hard to write anything logically here. This is one such time so expect a little chaos ahead. The thing is I see the people in our country on two different paths and not only do I not know how that happened but what will be the end result. There is a lot, for someone on my path, to be angry about but the one that triggered me to write here is said very well by

Andrew Sullivan-- The Anger

The reaction of the crowds going to hear the Republican candidates is totally bizarre to me. Are there a bunch more of them sitting at home and likewise cheering lack of any health care for a thirty-year old man, who has an accident but didn't have insurance? When the guy yelled let him die, were they cheering that too? Who are these people-- in the audiences and at home?

The audience for this last debate was supposed to be tea partiers. They even had on uniforms of the Revolutionary War to proudly assert who they were. So I guess that's what the tea party types think of gay servicemen, those who have the courage to serve their country in harm's way, but happen to have unfortunately (according to the right) have been born gay. Are these the ones we are supposed to believe are nice people when they cheer executions? Have they been honed to this level by Rush Limbaugh and his ilk-- and there are a lot of Limbaugh types out there on right wing radio.

You know I actually know a few tea party type folks in real time. They seem real nice right until you hear what they think of anybody who isn't one of them and then they turn nasty fast. For several years I have heard people tearing at me for my opinion of them. I've been told to ignore their stupid outfits or the tea bags hanging from their hats, and instead see them as the real deal where it comes to Americans. These are the patriots, the ones who talk so easily of revolution again if they don't get their way in the polling booths. Patriots. That's a laugh except it's not funny!

Then comes the next question-- Who are the candidates on that stage who didn't defend that soldier or how about Santorum lying about what DADT was about. It's not about open sexual expression. That's an ugly lie. No soldier, straight or gay has a right to openly have sex in front of others. That is part of their code to behave (at least when around others) properly and if they don't, they are supposed to be booted out. Now how that explains the many cases of rape in the military, rape of female soldiers by males, well that's something else again; but it's not how it is supposed to be and the rules won't change with gays able to admit publicly who they are without fear of losing their careers.

What ending DADT will mean is that a gay partner can be recognized as a life mate. That is a big deal for being notified if something bad happens or allowing them to be with the sick partner. It also enables them to attend social functions together as it should be.

That Santorum would argue about that shows who he is-- a right wing bigot and a panderer. That the other candidates on the stage didn't react with disgust to that audience, that once again acted like a bigoted mob, shows who they are-- cowards.

Okay, taking deep breaths... Then the other thing that got me yesterday was listening to Progressive talk radio when the host got one call after another from people claiming to be rich, those who would be impacted by increasing the tax rate from currently 35% to 39% on the part of their income above a certain level, they claimed this was demonizing them and would destroy their incentive to make money.

Who believes this garbage? I'd really like to know. According to a chart that Rachel Maddow showed on her program last night, the Koch brothers have grown their wealth tremendously during the last 10 years and have less employees now than they had back then. So they got wealthier and they cut jobs. I would not be surprised if many like them want this country to have massive unemployment so people are willing to work for pennies. It's all about them and there is NEVER enough money for somebody like that.

So if the wealthy, who have profited so much by so many services paid for by other people like transportation, police, fire protection, education, if they feel put upon and consider themselves demonized, I say I don't care. They have been demonizing the poor and blaming them for not having more money. They have demonized unions to convince the middle class people to work against their own best interests. Maybe people like that deserve to be demonized.

What I'd like to know is how many people in our country are like this? How many would cheer at executions? How about boo a soldier actually serving in the military for daring to want to be honest about who he is? Who is really supporting the yahoos up on that platform who won't say a word when they know the truth but are afraid of the reaction of that same mob? Who the heck are American people? I hope those in the Republican party who don't think this way will stand up and be counted and that means for the candidates too.

Oh and how come we are being bombarded week after week by these candidates on TV and getting all the coverage for their debates? Is that going to go on for the whole next year until we have the conventions? Good thing I don't watch regular TV but I can't avoid the coverage of it if I watch news. I'll have to think about that one!

Death penalty cases

2011-09-20T11:42:00.000-07:00

Troy Davis denied clemency

Bob Barr writes Davis Ruling Wrong

This is a tough one, not because of what I believe should be done in this case, which is he should not be executed, but because I support the idea of a death penalty, which is not popular with the left wing but I don't support it when there is any doubt at all as to guilt which there clearly is with this case.

When a trial has witnesses who can profit from their testimony (for instance in this case possibly one of the ones testifying against Davis might have actually been the shooter, or with witnesses who get a soft sentence themselves for what they say), I don't think it should ever be a death penalty case. The courts often use witnesses that should not be trusted. Juries are stuck making their judgment based on what evidence they are given, not all they might want.

In this case, where Davis was there, but the question is whether he did the shooting of a police officer in a crime clearly of the moment, I would think life in prison would be the most he should have been given since that would leave a chance someday of finding out the person was innocent. Davis wasn't totally innocent as he was there; but it might be he didn't do the shooting. Should we ever, as a society, take that chance?

Sexuality in today's world

2011-09-15T08:42:00.000-07:00

Since I am kind of exploring issues, which I am reading elsewhere, and because I really don't want to write about Perry or the other right wing candidates for the Republican nomination, because it's just too depressing, here's another what I'd call human interest that impacts our culture for how we see it.

Cheerleader rape saga still unfolds

This is a tough one for me as I am offended that a girl that age would go to a party, get drunk, go off with some boys to a room by herself, go for petting and then yell rape when penetration happens. I am also offended that a boy would get drunk, play with a girl but then not accept no meant no and stop right when the girl said it even if she had been a tease. My viewpoint on this is probably colored by my old age. I can relate to this story more from my experiences in the past than what it might be like in today's culture.

I taught my son, when we were discussing sexuality in his teen years (over 20 years ago now) that if he was to be making out with a girl, going too far, and at any point she said no, that meant stop right there. Never see that girl again if she was playing a game with turning him on and then off; but stop.

I taught my daughter (she's older than him) you do not go into a party and get drunk with a lot of other drunk people as that's just plain not smart. You don't play around with sexuality with any boy unless you mean it and know where it's going. It's mean to go so far and then stop if that hasn't been made clear in the beginning.

My father taught me you don't tease men because it's not only a vicious thing to do, a power game for women, but might lead to consequences you don't want. He always said dressing too provocatively was the same way but remember that was then and today it's hard to find clothing for young women that isn't provocative. His take on that was you might turn a man on by what you wore and it won't be you he goes after; so you use modesty for the sake of all women not just yourself.

Are these antiquated attitudes for today?

It is quite possible this boy would have never had any repercussions if he had not been black, as some are accusing, and she had not been white; but to me this one does not sound like an issue of race. It seems more likely to be one where sports heroes are given more latitude to do things than anybody else. In little towns, those sports teams are everything and the good players are heroes no matter what they do. That viewpoint has created some real monsters in the sports world because they are let get away with anything. That's not okay.

It also seems wrong for the school and community to have tormented the girl after the fact. She used poor judgment but the boys did too. Teaching young people about sexuality is important and unfortunately a lot of righties want it all done in the home but some homes won't teach it-- what then?

Grizzly law vs. common sense

2011-09-13T12:03:00.000-07:00

Here is what turns Americans into tea partiers.

Man charged in killing grizzly near home

Sorry but that is simply nuts. Any grizzly that close to a home is a risk to any family especially one with six children. So this guy should have waited until the grizzly actually killed one of his kids? Maybe was starting to eat him? Sometimes I myself wonder if the federal government is nuts!

Uncuriouser and uncuriouser

2011-09-10T09:30:00.000-07:00

Since I wrote my thoughts about 9/11 in my non-political blog, Rainy Day Thoughts, which I will post tomorrow, I won't repeat them here. My mind is on other things anyway. Like Rick Perry as a serious Republican candidate for the presidency, and the things he said at the recent debate and before.

Perry is like Bush regarding being incurious about anything. Well, maybe they are about something but it's not something like the legal system. His lack of curiosity is why he does not feel guilt regarding sending so many people to their death in Texas. Yes, I know it was the jury system that did it but Perry didn't bother to look at any of it to say he slept great at night even knowing some innocent people might die.

Having just served on a jury, I'd like to let Perry know a little about how that system works; but he probably doesn't read anything that doesn't reinforce what he believes already. Juries give a verdict based on the evidence they are given-- nothing less and nothing more. That evidence is as good as the police and investigators give them and the District Attorney wants to use. When the police don't bother or have time to pursue all possible evidence, it doesn't get entered even by the DA. If the DA wants to withhold some, theoretically they are not supposed to do that, who finds out? Sometimes years later it comes out which can be too late when it's a death penalty.

In the jury on which I served, we wished we had some pieces of information that were never given to us and maybe never gathered. We had to make the verdict without it. Can you imagine doing that when someone's life is at stake? What Perry said is he won't bother to look at it either because he doesn't need to. He is a last resort for justice and showed himself to be clueless and curious-less. This is Bush and more. Does Texas encourage that attitude or just reward it? And what was with that Republican audience cheering that people were executed? Don't they get it that the death penalty is a failure of a culture, not a success!

The other thing Perry went clueless about was Social Security. He called it a Ponzi scheme which pretty well means he doesn't understand how it works either. Social Security is an insurance system for old age. It is supported by premiums and we know when we are paying it that we are paying for current elders with the expectation someday somebody else will be paying for us. The surplus went into a fund until very recently. The checks that are mailed out won't be covering cruises.

Nobody is forced to draw money from SS. The money we have paid in will not determine how much we get out. If we live to be very old, we might get back more than we paid in but we could also die prematurely and get out much less.

All insurance is like this. We pay in premiums to get coverage in case we need it. We aren't looking to get rich. We are looking to have our costs covered in case we get sick. If Social Security is a Ponzi scheme than so is life, health, auto, and home insurance. If too many claims go against any of these, more than covers the premiums that went in, they can go bankrupt. The federal government would have to go bankrupt before SS would be endangered and then it would mean our whole system of government and the military would likewise collapse.

Repeating, although it's not complicated for people who are interested in exploring what it is, the cost for current retirees is paid for out of current premiums or was until the dollar amount began to be less coming in than going out. That has not been helped this year and probably next where the SS premium was reduced for workers. This was done to help the economy but it hurries the day when the reserve fund will run out. That reserve fund, of course, exists as much as US Treasury bonds do. We put money in there and count on that it will be there when we cash them in. It would take the failure of this country to cause our bond to not be worth a certain number of dollars at maturity. For now it's the responsible will of the people to make it be there.

Social Security premiums could cover the future retirees if they upped the dollar amount that workers have to continue to pay it on. Not complicated at all. Up the income on which people pay and the reserve fund grows as well as it covers current retirees.

One other thing with Perry's claim that it won't be there for today's kids. That's an out and out lie or he's just ignorant-- take your pick. Right now it would give them less percentage-wise than they should get but it would still be a monthly check. The only way it would not is if the country collapses totally. It won't amount to much though if it doesn't keep pace with the deflation of our dollars. They can leave it right where it is and if they don't allow for the dollar being worth less and less, it'll be a pittance, but it will be there unless someone like Perry gets it declared unconstitutional. I wonder how tea partiers will like it if that happens. Have they really through through what that would mean? I doubt it.

There was one actual conservative on that debate stage Wednesday night-- Jon Huntsman. He evidently doesn't stand a chance in the primaries for assorted reasons, like maybe that he is curious and does think; but as for the rest of them, sorry but righties are conservatives NOT. They are just, those who support them and those who run for office, incurious and willing to stay ignorant to suit their agenda.

The Democratic Dilemma

2011-09-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

While the right used to be furious at Obama for being too liberal, a borderline socialist who was acting like an emperor and attempting to turn the country into a Muslim nation, they have now hit on another argument which seems to be resonating better with Independents. He's ineffective, helpless and hopeless, in over his head. Instant jump from too much to too little and since it worked with Carter and Gore, they figure it will again. They might be right on it working. Basically until recently, it looked like this race would be decided by the middle. Now I am not so sure.

Obama's bigger problem is he has pretty well lost his base in his attempt to stick to the middle and cater to business as much as he can. He did it through continuing the wars, through not ending rendition. He has worked to please the right, or so it seems when he talks about Social Security being up for weakening and his reluctance to do what he could to get single payer for health insurance. The right thought he was a socialist? The left thinks he didn't go far enough.

What he gained for this, I don't know, but he seems, for having everybody think he was a great communicator, to have lost the ability to communicate any reasons. Which has led to the left turning on him for being an extension of Bush. They are so unhappy that they are ready to consider sitting out 2012 or even vote for an alternative candidate thereby ceding the election to James Richard Perry. They'd rather have someone who wasn't a progressive than someone who claimed to be but worked against every cause in which they believe. It's not a totally illogical stance.

The latest heresy by Obama was stopping the EPA from enforcing stricter ozone rules for LA. This was basically the last straw for environmentalists who really have nowhere to go but feel it hasn't made much difference who gets the presidency if they all do the same thing to the environment.

The EPA decision wasn't as simple as it sounds on the surface. First of all it was going to be evaluated in 2013 regardless of what was done right now. Second if they did change the rules, it is claimed, because the rules were ahead of the technology and the financing, it would have led to rolling blackouts for the city. You think he's unpopular now, imagine that happening in the heat of a summer or cold of a winter. Obama decided to put off the decision on changing the regulations until that 2013 evaluation. Definitely nuanced governing, which it turns out has been what he does a lot, but it pleases nobody.

Now there is no doubt what Perry would do about this decision. The problem for Obama is that doesn't make it okay with his base what he did. They feel betrayed and it wasn't just this but a whole string of things which are being talked about in every left wing political blog.

I don't know if he's weak or just thinks too much. He comes across looking like he's lost his moorings and is operating in a zone where he doesn't have a set of personal values that help him take a stand even when it's unpopular. It is early yet, but is it already too late for him to change the view Americans are coming to have of him.

The problem for Democrats is where does that leave them in 2012? I remember when some voted for Nader in 2000 because they were purists and the end result was Gore lost, and Bush showed us how bad a right wing president can be. We are still suffering for that and have zero reason to believe Perry won't be more of the same or worse. Yes, you can get worse and from everything I have read about Perry's record, about his character, he will be worse.

I don't even know what an alternative left wing candidate would be if the left truly wanted somebody to challenge Obama in the primaries. Certainly Bernie Sanders, likeable as he is, as an avowed socialist and without personal charisma, can't win a national election. Is there anybody else out there on the left who could? Does anybody really believe Hillary would have been farther left than Obama if she had been chosen to run against McCain? She has the Clinton record for us to look at the deals with China, the ruination of financial regulations, and the duplicity behind the scenes. That would be better? She's more hawkish than Obama. Practically speaking I don't think she'd choose to shut down electricity for a major city if it meant people living in it would suffer. Why wasn't the technology developed? Because of the cost of wars she has supported.

There is only a very slim possibility that the right will nominate Huntsman as a candidate for the left to get behind. The articles I have seen and polling seem to show Republicans wanting revenge for Obama and an extremist as their choice. They are in no mood to compromise as is shown by how they are governing in the House and with the governorships they won in 2010. Huntsman is falling far behind. The argument also is he thinks too much and is too soft. Basically he'd be another Obama.

If Americans want bluster and it's all they really respect, if they don't actually like nuances despite saying they do, well it looks to me like it's going to be President Perry and another lesson in what that means to the country when you let a far right winger have that kind of power.

Interestingly they say Republicans aren't asking Perry social questions. There is a reason for that. They don't want him exposed for what he'll do on the social issues and if you look at his rhetoric, there is little doubt what he'll do. Liberals who want to punish Obama for being a disappointment might find it backfires.

I don't hold Obama unaccountable for this mess. Maybe though he just wasn't up to the job. It might be not many people are unless they think black and white and take into account nothing but their partisan agenda. It might be what it takes to at least keep your base happy.

One final thought for Democrats who are discouraged-- Supreme Court.

Bush gave us Alito and Roberts.

Obama gave us Sotomayor and Kagan.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg has announced her plans to retire during the next presidential term.

What do you suppose a Rick Perry will give us?

Be Specific

2011-09-03T06:38:00.000-07:00

The right wing constantly says government cannot do anything right. I was listening to one of the progressive talk radio shows yesterday, while waiting in the truck as Farm Boss picked up cattle corral panels at a farm supply store. I heard a caller, who was conservative, again making that point. He said he was a Texan who ran a business. He said government took two weeks to do what business does in a day.

Since tea partiers are constantly taking this stance as part of why they want to shave government's ability to do anything back to the military, they obviously believe the argument that government should not do what they can do better for themselves. They believe, and were taught to think this from way way back, starve the beast. What they are talking about is the federal government though with this starve the beast (well they don't maybe vote for local school levies either) talk.

Okay, so here is the question: if you either deal with the federal government or have read an article (not one of those floating email lie filled stories) but a real newspaper story about federal government ineffectiveness, I'd like to hear it here.

Now we all know that FEMA blew it after Katrina with using contractors, like Halliburton, who misused funds, lost them and basically totally failed in rapidly reacting to the disaster (including the dikes around the city) as well as the trailers they bought to use which never got used, etc. etc.

But FEMA was being run by heck-of-a-job Brownie, who was the Bush pick to run the agency when he had had zero experience at anything like it. He couldn't have picked say a Red Cross coordinator to nominate for the position? I mean they seem to get their people in and deal with disasters very rapidly. No, he picked someone who was a crony, who had supported him and who he liked. Yes, it failed with Katrina but is FEMA still a failure or is this just one of those stories that never ends for saying all of government is a failure?

Oh right, and I remember ATF too. Not only their most recent debacle with the guns but a lot of their earlier ones. You want to end ATF, you got my support on that one as it seems a scary bunch who in the past have killed people including children with their reckless and feckless raids. Their selling of guns to Mexican cartels supposedly as a sting that ended up just giving them guns, well they would be on my removal list before the National Endowment to the Arts which can do less damage and costs less money.

And oh yeah, there is the disastrously named Homeland Security that chose a Nazi name for their program but that was also under Bush. Whether they are helping us by their naked cameras (which I understand are being discontinued) or their freedom to grope anybody sexually and call it legal, I don't know. I do know that it has been a very invasive program brought in with the excuse of 9/11 but to do a job that should have been done by FBI and local law enforcement.

So, I have just convinced myself that there are some ineffective government programs or have been although I hear FEMA is now ahead of the game in reacting even as they are being denied funding which will make them incapable of responding to future disasters. People who find fault with them might think about that for their own region as nobody is immune to disasters. Yeah, I get it that some people don't need government help after such a thing strikes. And if it doesn't help you, it's not good. I get it.

But what that guy was talking about was specifically dealing with bureaucrats or seeing government workers doing a job that they weren't doing effectively and business could do better. So let's make this specific to running into government types who made everything cost more for no good reason.

AND this must be the ineffective federal government worker. If your experience is local or state, well that's where people like Perry want to send all these jobs. (Coincidentally he is the governor of the state where this caller said he'd had these experiences. Wonder if he was talking state or federal...

Social Security will be history?

2011-08-26T07:05:00.000-07:00

There was a time that I thought Americans remembered why there were pensions and programs like Social Security. I thought they understood that someday they also would be old and that average working people cannot save enough money to retire if they must do it alone. Between rising costs of everything (forget the lies that inflation is low- it's not with basic things people need most) there is no way the average family can hope to retire without either a corporate or government pension, Social Security or two out of the three.

I think a lot of the righties and Independents who have decided Social Security is bad simply don't want to pay for it. They don't remember what it was like for oldsters before it came along. They weren't born then. They listen to fools like Marco Rubio who say it's taken away people's independence. *taking a deep breath to avoid screaming*

Rubio is a baby basically and he's listened to lies from the right as well as knows it's what the right want to hear. So he goes to Reagan's library and says what the right wing wants him to say-- SS has hurt American independence. I guess he only knows people who don't mind the elderly moving in with their family or maybe he thinks for an oldster to work all their lives is what independence means.

Here's the thing-- no pension system is any different than Social Security. They are the same thing. Government, corporate, whatever you want to call them. People pay into them for a future chance to not have to work when they get old. That was the whole idea and those who think it's not needed anymore either are counting on their own pension system to bail them out, or are too young to care and don't like the payroll tax (which Democrats seem determined to end making Social Security fail that much sooner).

There is an easy fix for SS if not for government pensions. With SS, just have everybody pay the tax on all their income. It would take care of the shortfall and then make sure that the country understands, it's not to the advantage of any to have old people in poorhouses or forced to live with family members who don't want them. Remember how it used to be or let me tell you for babies like Rubio.

Some elders would move from one house to another within the family and had no home of their own. Others moved in with one daughter's family. The ones without family faced a very bleak future with old folk homes and dependent on charity which Rubio likes the idea of a lot but it doesn't give independence.

Back then very few had the option of quitting working based on savings to maintain a home. That is why there became Social Security. It was not some evil plot of Democrats but came from evaluating a situation that Americans didn't want to see going on where the elderly were living in poverty unless they came from families that had left them a lot of money.

The photo at the top is of my great grandfather and grandmother. He died at 65, working still for mining companies in Deadwood, South Dakota. My great grandmother then forever after lived with her kids. Is that the future for America? Really, truly, that's what people like Rubio and Perry want so they can save people making over $120,000 a year from paying a payroll tax on all of their income? Truly?

A dissenting view on Christian dominionism

2011-08-20T21:28:00.000-07:00

I thought this was an interesting article on how there is no Christian domination movement out there. The author was involved with Billy Graham's ministries.

A dissenting view on Christian dominionism

Here is the problem, as I see it, with what the author said. He is speaking of what Christians should want who actually follow Jesus Christ's teachings. Is there any evidence that is what Perry and Bachmann are doing? Can we see by their words how say the Sermon on the Mount has influenced their agenda for America? They are good at saying it's who they are; but by their actions, which is what Christ said we should go by, what is the evidence? Feed the poor, heal the sick fits into what part of their political agenda?

The united states of what?

2011-08-19T03:48:00.000-07:00

Here's the thing, as I see it. The right wing with the help of some rich billionaires, has turned government into the bad guy. It's as if government is some evil entity out to take what everybody else has worked to get. The concept that government is what we said we wanted done, that's foreign to the ones who only see a dollar as of value.

So inspecting meat, monitoring pollution, setting standards for what can be put in water, maintaining roads and bridges, public schools, libraries, programs for the handicapped, elders, and the needy, to the right wing, pffft to it all. There was a reason for those programs but a very selfish (plus I think short-sighted) current generation has been led to believe there is not. Because some of them failed or weren't what they should be, they are being told they should be gutted-- except for a mightier and mightier military anyway.

Right wingers talk about cutting the budget but they don't get specific. At least I do admire that about Rick Perry. He's specific. He has shown what it means to follow a right wing agenda for Texas with less high school graduates, less health care for those who cannot afford it, less regulations on pollution, lower wages and his desire to see Social Security and Medicare be declared unconstitutional. He does this all with an arrogant swagger that worked for GW Bush and who knows might again. Palin proved how much righties admire arrogance.

What I wonder is how many people who bemoan tax cuts on those making over one million dollars a year, how many of them who want less government realize what that will look like in twenty more years. It all began under Ronald Reagan to dismantle what earlier generations worked to create with a government that did serve the people. It is coming to a culmination now with a Supreme Court who is totally on the side of corporations and a Republican party that only considers extreme right wing figures as their nominees.

Is this America? Is it what we will find our country looking like if these people take over all power? The righties who support this really don't have a clue that most of them will only lose under it. They are simply into the idea that when the rich get more, they somehow win by that. They like the idea of less freedoms for American people and a dictatorship under someone else's concept of God where you no longer have personal freedoms but corporations can do whatever they want.

Tea party: is it the Christian right in disguise?

We will know in 2012 who Americans really are. Is this really a united states for all the people or every man for himself? Right now I don't have the foggiest idea.

And for anybody who says I am an Obama apologist on this, sorry but you don't know me at all. When we got called, twice now, asking to donate to Obama, we said no soap, not unless he truly becomes the progressive we thought he was. Oh, we'll vote for him. What is the option? Surely nobody could seriously see me voting for a Romney, Perry or Bachmann, but if the Republican party had a real conservative candidate, which they do not, then I don't know what I'd do.

Obama has been a disappointment but not because he went too far left. It's because he didn't fight for the values I believe made this country so powerful and are being threatened-- concern for us all and a belief that it's a ship that the weakest take down if we don't work to make it possible for everybody to have a chance. Damn to the talk that we want everybody to have happiness. This isn't about that. It's about everybody having a real chance to work for it and for the weakest citizens to be protected. College right now is hard for the middle class to get degrees and soon won't be possible for anybody but the wealthy and how long after before a high school diploma will go with it if the Perry mentality keeps growing in this nation.

A view of America's future?

2011-08-17T07:54:00.000-07:00

Pretty much take any Republican candidate and look to what they believe, what they call for having happen, and you see the same thing. Huntsman might be the exception but he doesn't appear to have a chance because he's evidently not a religious fundamentalist as Romney is (yes, Mormons can also be fundamentalists). Is this the America that the right wants for our future?

The real Manchurian Candidate?

Dominionism

2011-08-15T08:17:00.000-07:00

At one time I considered myself a pretty tolerant person. Now to an extreme right winger that means I was bad bad bad as they have equated being tolerant as being liberal, evil, communist, socialist, etc. etc. But to me tolerant means if you don't come knocking on my door to try and impact my life, I don't care much what you waste your money or life on. I have seen too much foolishness to believe I can really impact what other people swallow or how they want to spend their dollars.

BUT that is changing and my tolerance is disappearing as more and more I feel threatened by religiosity that spouts pious phrases (while too often living anything but pious lives) and wants to push that onto me through laws. The desire among some is to go back to Puritanism and here is the kind of thing that makes me worry it just might happen.

Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry's Dangerous Religious Bond

If you have known very many people on a personal level who talk like these two, you know their personal lives often show anything but what they claim in public. Not to say it's true with today's crop of right wing religious leaders; but even if they live those pious lives, what they want to push onto me, the government they want to dismantle to replace with something new of their own invention (of course, actually their concept of god's invention), well that makes me worry.

I hope anyone thinking of voting for those of this mindset (read above article), will consider that no matter what they say, their religious views will be primary in their decisions and right after that will be profiting the rich. I think this should be a very scary time for anybody from either party as when one party becomes the tool of an extreme religious view, the other party feels they need to be less responsible for what they do-- as though, of course, people won't vote for this. Look around the world and through history for how that worked out in the past!

Is this how far the right will take this?

Social Security Unconstitutional?

And if it is, will government pensions be any safer with the current court?

That was then and this is now

2011-08-12T08:19:00.000-07:00

Using the excuses of improving our economy by lowering taxes on our richest segments, likewise that we could ship jobs overseas and somehow improve our lives, that denying some medical care would get more money for others, that we didn't need regulations on anything because corporations would do it wisely themselves, that we should fight wars overseas somehow to keep ourselves safer, that a public education system is bad and we should depend on corporations to educate our children, that universities are hotbeds of wild thinking about things like evolution hence we only need again the corporate system that will yield doctorates to people based on their say so and no idea what education those people actually got, we have gotten into one hell of a mess as a people.

From the looks of it the same thing is happening around the world, with blame easy to put on left and right ideologies for how it got here. There is a very weird illogic system in place with a large segment of our population who listen to someone like Palin when she says she told us that our debt would ruin our credit rating as a people. Excuse me but maybe what impacted that (if we assume the ones at S&P used any logic), was a segment of leaders who said they wouldn't pay their bills and if they became the majority the debts owed would be ignored. But people who listen to Palin could care less about logic. And you can take that to the bank!

Try reasoning with any right wing person and after awhile you get to feeling as though you are talking to someone who had been moon-blinked as described in the stories of the owls of Ga'Hoole. They do not deal with facts or issues and their favorite tactic is insults and sometimes if the discussion is online, it becomes crude.

(Incidentally for anybody from the right who actually reads my words before saying something crude and rude, your disagreeing comment will only make it here if you use logic in the argument. Insults-- pfffft!)

My son came out this week one evening to pick up his two boys, and he asked the question as his frustration was as great as mine about our situation today-- How do we reach people who are not operating from facts but rather from feelings? I have no clue and have been trying for a long time.

When people tell everybody that a president must tell the world and everybody else how exceptional they are, they are demanding lies to satisfy their egos. They don't want any of the programs today that would help us maintain what used to be our exceptionalism. They want, I guess, to ride on the coattails of those who came before and were exceptional, who understood a public education system of superior quality mattered if a nation wanted to be a democracy where the people could vote wisely. This was a population who understood, in sufficient numbers, that the government not only can do good things like maintaining public libraries, but should!

I about go nuts when I hear a rightie put down public education as a way to save money. They do this by saying it doesn't work. Oh and corporate education works so much better when it can produce a doctoroate for someone like Bachmann's husband where he then goes around saying people can pray to change someone's gender and it works. I don't doubt for a second they can brainwash someone into denying their nature. That happens regularly but to change sexual orientation!?! Oh, doubtless, they can pray to get them to ignore what it is, to deny what it is, to even use secret perversions to hide what it is, but change it? No, they cannot but the place he got his degree wasn't teaching facts, and it was able to give a degree based on ideology because we have lost track of what an education means.

The people who put down that public education are likewise those who most likely benefited from one. They were able to attend college at a time where anybody with a B average in high school and who had taken college prep classes in high school could pay their way by part time jobs. That's was then and this is now where a university degree can put someone in hock for years and years. It's not enough that students pay back the loans, Republicans want the interest to begin the moment they get the money, hence multiplying what it will end up costing them. No wonder we hear of kids prostituting themselves to pay tuition. That suits a certain mentality of American, I guess.

My concern for the future of the middle class is obviously becoming stronger as I have grandchildren growing up who will someday be trying to make their own way in a world that seems to value none of what I remember it valuing.

American exceptionalism has to be earned and it cannot be done by saying I only want to pay for what benefits me. It has to be done by seeing us as a whole, seeing government as a valuable tool that must be kept effective and honed, ready to use as well as looking at what programs and tax codes will help us compete in the world.

You cannot fix a bridge by sitting on your hands (and wallet) saying government cannot do anything right. You cannot ignore the history of the situation that if corporations end up maintaining all of our infrastructure (for their profit not ours) with no oversight by anybody else, we will end up with a lot of it crumbling.

We are not exceptional people by just being born here. It's what we do with what we are given when we stepped into life in a very beneficial environment. Destroying that all to prop up some rich people while we ignore the educational system that could let future generations work for what earlier ones got, well that makes me so mad I cannot even write about it without a rise in blood pressure.

I don't deny that we have had programs that didn't work or do what was intended. Fix them. Don't destroy them and don't tell me that all that should matter is what benefits you and then claim to be a patriotic American. You are just a selfish one.

Cut the baby in half

2011-08-01T17:12:00.000-07:00

The deadline for deciding on raising the debt ceiling, almost led to the United States refusing to pay its debts. What would have happened had Obama and Democrats not agreed to compromise is anybody's guess. A certain group of people didn't care what it did to the people in this country, to the world, to anybody; and there is a Bible story that fits this situation quite well.

Solomon was a wise king who basically served as judge and jury over disputes of his people. Two women came to him with such a dispute. Both women claimed a baby was theirs. With no DNA back then, he had to figure it out. Finally he said, he'd cut the baby in half and each woman could have half. One woman said basically-- suits me. The other cried no, don't do it. Let her have the baby. He gave the baby to her as she obviously loved the baby as a true mother would while the other didn't care.

So here we are today with many finding fault with Obama for agreeing to the Republican terms (which were no tax increases on the rich, no increases of revenue, and only spending cuts which mostly will hurt the poor and middle) to prevent the country from going into default. One faction of the Republican party doesn't care. They say let the country go into destruction to avoid them losing any ground at all. So tell me who really loves the country, the whole of the country?

Nobody will deny Obama has made some big mistakes with how he handled the debt ceiling. He could have dealt with it last year before the election when he had a majority. But his biggest mistake has been to believe that a certain segment of Republicans truly do love this country. They talk a good show, flags and all, but when it comes down to it-- cut the baby in half!

A rant

2011-07-30T19:08:00.000-07:00

Right now I am so angry at what the right is trying to do to this country that I simply feel like screaming. What are they really all about? That's what I'd like to know.

The answer for this 'manufactured' debt ceiling crisis, if they want to be honest, is to pass a new budget and not use the device of a spending limit. They are, as usual, putting attention on one thing to avoid responsibility for their choices.

What we are seeing now in the Congress and among their supporters is like the family who go into a department store, buy a lot of stuff and then say they will only pay part of it. That is responsibility?

Balance the budget if people want that, but do it with the budget, not this dishonest and very un-conservative method. I have so little respect right now for the right wing that it is hard to believe. I didn't think it could go lower but it has. I didn't think they could seem more stupid and cruel but they have.

They passed all these budgets, agreed to all the spending, all the projects, with plenty of pork for their own districts (check out if Ron Paul on that). If they want to change that, do it honestly by an up front new budget where they can be on record for voting to end spending for this or that project. Is that too much to ask for from Republicans?

One more thing-- the right has gone out of their way to lower taxes on the rich (part of why they now say we have a crisis). They want to cut SS, Medicare and any program for the poor or middle which would end even public education if some get their way. Has it occurred to any of them what that means for individual spending and businesses?

When the rich get a tax cut, they frankly don't increase their spending as they already have all they want. This happens with people even up the economic chain. When you already can buy all you want, what does the tax cut do for you? It has you putting it in the bank or increasing your stock market investments most probably.

The poor or those on SS get a cut on what is available and they already were spending all they had. Now they won't have as much and there go more businesses into failure. These people in the tea part either don't have a clue or truly do want to destroy our economy and this country. If they destroy it, kill the goose who laid those golden eggs, how long do they think it will work for them? Or is this all about wanting a nation of serfs with the only jobs those that serve their masters?

Yes, some social programs have been abused. Fine. Fix them. Don't go at it like a spoiled child. Act like an adult. They say this is like us with our home budgets. Well in my home budget, I pay for what I bought!

Courage Campaign

2011-07-30T13:07:00.000-07:00

For Progressives, it's worth a try. We know who has the back of the 'other' side.

Courage Campaign

Chicken or the Egg

2011-07-18T05:50:00.001-07:00

One of the frustrations, that a person who pays attention to politics faces, is the political leaders out there to hear and watch. This is directly proportional to whether they suit our agenda or not-- and anybody who pays attention to politics, who votes, does have an agenda which means they are looking for those who voice what they already believe.

I am constantly being attacked from the righties when I defend something Obama has done. This happens whether it's one of the emails they circulate for seemingly forever and appearing mysteriously out of the ether. They send it to me say something about all Democrats/liberals wanting to take away our liberties while all Republicans/conservatives want to give us all the ultimate freedom.

So I write back the freedoms that Republicans want to take away and usually hear back something like I am an Obama apologist or a socialist. You name it, but they won't address what I wrote back nor can they usually defend the email they forwarded at least not to me even though they are basing their political philosophy and vote on the ideas within it.

Same thing can happen if I put a comment into a right wing blog where people who think like me will usually be the minority because like draws like. Almost right at the start it will either be I am not a fair-minded person or am an Obama nut who cannot see the man for what he is.

Well Obama didn't come before my philosophy on what the nation needs to do. I voted for him because he was voicing some of what I wanted to see happen and the other side was voicing none of it. As it turns out, he's been a lot more right wing than I would have chosen, but he was the best of the alternatives available to me. This is likely to happen again in 2012.

Rush Limbaugh often says he didn't create dittoheads. I agree with him. They found him, but they already had that way of wanting to think which is that the rich are the ones who will save our nation, who create jobs, who are the super achievers. The poor are the ones who suck the nation dry, don't care, and won't take a job if they can help it because their job is figuring out all the aid programs they can sign up for. The people who listen to Rush Limbaugh and his ilk (their names are legion) already think like that and he appeals to their sense of logic-- such as it is. If he stopped saying it, he'd be toast.

So if someone likes Bachmann, it's not because she talked them into it. They already like the idea of any woman who says that their husband tells them what to do because that's their understanding of the Christian way. I don't know if they have yet realized that means a shadow presidency with the real power behind the throne, power given to a man who doesn't have to stand out front and face evaluation of his doctorate that he bought from a mail order system, his rather suspicious counseling service that doesn't have to be licensed in Minnesota, or the question of why he's so obsessed with using methods to try and get people from one gender to turn into people of another.

Think about this for a bit why someone becomes obsessed with that kind of thing from a Bachmann or any of the others running from the extreme right who are willing to sign pledges that they will do this or that from a group called FAMiLY because in a family, you are the small i, what you think doesn't matter, only what is good for the FAMiLY and that translates into church or political movement.

Think about voting for anyone who says God speaks to them. A lot of us would think that means schizophrenia but not a particular group in this country. You know, if you weren't already a certain type of person, there is no way under the sun you'd do that. But if you are, she didn't create you and neither did Glenn Beck. She just reinforces you.

For anyone who has accused me of being an Obama apologist, I am not. I see the things he has done that I didn't like. I also though see no alternative coming from the right who will come closer to what I want to see done in this country-- and wanted for many years before Obama came along.

Obama loses to a generic Republican in current polls. That's because he is specific and that right winger is a general idea of 'other than' which is what many want where it comes to any election.

It'll be interesting to see how many Americans are already of the ilk that wants a candidate who will be so numbskulled as to have signed Grover Norquist's pledge (these kind of pledges are very popular among righties for deciding where to cast their votes) for no new taxes period, ever, not under any circumstances. That means no matter what situation arises, these politicians can never vote even to take out loopholes in the tax code because that qualifies as a tax increase to mindless robots, which I have called zombies and still do as those who follow a political agenda with no real knowledge of where it is taking them.

I would not vote for any politician who signed any such pledge. Now that's easier for me as I haven't heard about it from the left wing even happening. Not sure how much success it would have given the mix of beliefs among Democrats-- but it's real popular among Republicans and only the strongest leaders among them resist (or those who still have hope for getting the middle to swing their way).

So I am not an Obama apologist but when someone brings up a particular issue, I will generally be defending the position Obama would defend even if he's been disappointing for what he would do about it. To those who slam Obama from the left, he's not all I want either but take a look at the Supreme Court for whether you want him or a right winger in there appointing the next Justice when Ruth Bader Ginsburg retires as she is saying she will.

Another Clarence Thomas or possibly a Hillary Clinton? That's what the next election will come down to. Obama appointed two women to the court (Elena Kegan and Sonia Sotomayor) who have pretty much pleased me. I don't expect I would be able to say the same thing about an appointee by say President Pawlenty. Give Obama a working majority in the US Senate and we'd have far more likelihood of getting a Hillary Clinton.

I don't know what Obama would do if he got a second term. It's always hard to say. Bush was doctrinaire far right with his first term, but by his second he got more moderate and by the last two years of it he had lost his majority in the House and Senate thereby making him less capable of more big tax cuts with no accompanying spending cuts. Most of the debt with which he saddled the country was from the first term.

These ideas, political ideologies and movements weren't created by those out front of them. No, it's something we do when we hear words and a leader who seems to be heading our way; and we may grow more convinced of our position, but it is because we already wanted that.

The party of no facts needed

2011-07-15T06:16:00.000-07:00

Lately, whenever I listen to any Republican leaders speaking, I want to tear my hair out, except with age it appears to be thinning a bit anyway, so that'd only hurt me. There is an equally strong temptation to not pay any attention to any of what is going on politically-- except I wonder what I'd find when I came back up for air.

Currently the issue that most presses my buttons is talk on the debt ceiling by people who really have no clue about anything including how to pronounce chutzpah while they have the nerve to use the word anyway with their own pronunciation for it (tip, the c is not pronounced). Facts-- not needed.

There is NO logic to why debt ceilings have become such a big issues other than the fact that it works politically and unfortunately both parties try to use it. It is though being debated by people who don't much like facts and pay no attention to economics as a serious study (the party of god-will-take-care-of-it-so-why-do-I-need-to-worry-my-empty-head-about-it). I have heard them talk in interviews and compare their knowledge of budgeting for their family as being all they need to know how to arrange international finances.

Okay let's do that where it comes to the deficit ceiling. This would be like the family who had bought this or that, agreeing to this obligation for themselves, setting up a current budget with so much credit card debt, say an obligation to help their grandmother with her medical expenses, possibly pay their kids' tuition to college and then look at the whole thing and say-- I will only pay so much of this expense. There is now a debt ceiling for our home and I won't pay above it-- forget what I promised to pay.

The debt ceiling debate isn't about the budget. This is about agreeing to a budget and then reneging on it which is why we are seeing this:

Why some Republicans would drive us off a cliff

So basically there is a sector of Americans, who voted in the politicians who are trying to do this, who consider government to be evil. They think it can do nothing right. They don't want to pay taxes and even though theirs have gone down under Obama, they blame him for anything and everything. With this debt ceiling debate, they see it as a chance to strangle government to stop paying for the 'other'. They mostly don't have a clue that they are the 'other'. Their method for accomplishing this strangulation is stop paying for what their own government already either spent or agreed to. They want this even though polls regularly show Americans favor what they are spending it on.

Once upon a time, Americans didn't want kids starving. They didn't want the old unable to go to doctors. They didn't want some dying for the lack of simple medical procedures. They wanted nice freeways. They wanted public schools so everybody's kid had a chance for an education and a good job someday. They wanted clean air. They wanted financial regulations. Now a bunch of politicians have come in, voted for by those same people, and they want to end most of what I wrote above so they can give more tax cuts to people like the Koch brothers.

First of all government does have a paid bureaucracy within it-- government employees and they are from the federal, state and local branches of government. They educate our youth, investigate fraud, fight our fires, protect our cities, protect our food supply, build highways, etc etc. Everything they are doing has been agreed to but new management was voted into the House in 2010 and they looked at what the people had previously agreed to do and they don't like any of it except the mercenaries to the world part (some of them don't like that either).

Do they change the budget then? No, they just say we won't pay for all of it. It is risky to say you want old people to not be able to afford to go to a hospital or buy their blood pressure medication. Debt ceiling is like clean air or no child left behind. A way to get what some want without admitting what the cost will be and who will pay it. It sounds good to those who don't know much about how world economics works-- set an amount above which you will not spend. Except what happens is it ignores naturally growing expenses.

Something is wrong with our economic system. No doubt whatsoever about that. I just went through a lot of books that had been stashed in boxes and in one bookshelf-- three rows deep on many of the shelves. It was interesting to see how the price of these books had changed. I have westerns from when I was a girl with the price of $.35 for the book. You don't need to know one more thing for how much the worth of that dollar in 1955 was worth versus what it's worth today. We don't need $4 a gallon gas to know that we have been swindled in the worst possible way which impacts the poor and profits the rich. Rich invest their dollars (like Romney did by sending jobs overseas and growing the stock market) and they stay even with inflation or in some cases, with a Republican Congress in power, they can grow above inflation. And for the rest of you serfs-- pfffft.

So if you want to stay even with what you offer for services, for what you buy, or can pay, you have to grow above that rate of inflation which these days is calculated in such a way to fool you as to whether it exists. The government likewise has to do that. Guess what a debt ceiling does? It means what you agreed to cover either grows or you end up paying less and less of it. Rich staying ahead of the ball. Poor behind it.

When I get one of those floating Republican emails, read some of the things they say on blogs, I want to scream which is why the temptation is to ignore it and do nothing about it. That's good for somebody, but it's not those people behind the ball.

Republicans are voting in people with an agenda to destroy public education, end any kind of environmental regulations, let the financial institutes do whatever they want. Regulations are bad... well except when they block abortions, when they don't let people commit suicide who are dying anyway, when they block some people from marrying based on their gender, when they block porn based on their definition, etc. Those regulations are good. Regulations on the rich and powerful where it comes to the products the serfs buy, monopolies on their companies, regulations on anything, holding them accountable-- bad.

So we have a group of people voting for power to the richest, power to the corporations and bit by bit taking away the tools that enabled the middle class to exist. The frustrating part is when you tell them that, they bring up death panels... *ARGGGGGGHHHHHH*

GOP Party of Debt and Deficits

2011-07-05T07:19:00.000-07:00

I REALLY liked this article because it's what I have been saying. It might seem to some people that Bush was a failed president for taking a nation that was solvent, where there were jobs and where the deficit was shrinking and turning it into a state with a burgeoning debt and no obvious way out as jobs are disappearing. It might seem that way but it's not the case because he succeeded in what he was sent to do. Read the article for more on what is going on and how it serves a certain group's agenda.

The GOP Party of Debt and Deficits

Republican Candidates

2011-07-01T02:58:00.000-07:00

With all the problems our country faces, the infrastructure crumbling, public education being diminished to favor corporate educating, budgets that favor wars, taxes burdening the middle more than the rich, etc etc., who do the Republicans choose as their guy/gal to fix it all?

I have heard plenty of Democrats say they hope Republicans choose the worst of the worse because they think that will re-elect Obama. I don't buy into that philosophy. Even though a Republican candidate (of any sort) is not going to have policies with which I agree, I want the best of the best. The chances, slim or not, of that worst one winning are why I'd like to see Republicans choose someone competent to at least carry out the policies they claim will fix all the problems we have.

This is where I always find myself amazed and no different today than in past years. Why do they not offer leaders who offer real alternatives? How do they first complain the government does too much and then blame the President for the loss of jobs? Does that make sense?

So I thought it'd be good to consider a few of the possibilities as things stand today, which is way too early to be sure it matters in a year but still is worth looking at.

Even though I start with Newt Gingrich, he probably doesn't have a shot at it. It's not actually his three marriages, but it's how he got them that undermines his newly found claims of religious authority. I do not consider him a non-player though for one big reason.

Newt Gingrich actually gets to be on Rush's show. He might not be actively promoting him (I haven't listened to Rush in a month or two) due to Newt's lack of popularity with the people (for now) but he doesn't have many actually interviewed on his show and that has to count for some degree of popularity with the mainstream of the Republican party. So what else should Republican know about Gingrich?

Newt Gingrich vs. Bob Dornan

The more likely candidate and many Democrats like this idea is Michele Bachmann for her ideological stances which if you've been hearing her lately you are seeing carefully toned down from earlier years. No more of judging others. She's going to be a moderate, at least until she wins, right wing religious extremist.

Michele Bachmann's Holy War

I have written about Bachmann before as in she is the real deal for how she believes the religious things she says. The toning down is carefully selected to reassure the middle but at the same time let the religious faithful know it'll be okay when she wins. This is walking a fine line.

The question has to be what about being a true believer where it comes to another beautiful female favorite, Sarah Palin? Palin might seem out of it by now due to polling numbers, another stop and start operation (her bus tour ended when she supposedly was called to jury duty in Alaska). I wouldn't personally count her out as what she gives Republicans is red meat hate in a sexy body. I really do sometimes wonder who she'd have been if McCain had not picked her way before she was ready for national fame. Not as rich for sure.

Then there's Tim Pawlenty, another tea party firebrand who doesn't seem to have the ability to actually excite his troops as he also doesn't have the physical beauty even as he says all the right things like let the country not pay its bills by using what money there is to cover paying China (can't alienate the corporate interests in our country or the Chinese) and ignore the rest of the debts which means domestic-- ie Social Security, military pay, Medicare, and not sure what else. I would guess he'd pull military out of that list; so he'd pay the bills by not paying the elderly, the sick and the poor.

Pawlenty-- Pay China First

I should cover one other Tea Party favorite (10% right now). Naturally a religious right winger with only business success (pizza and burgers) to show for why he could run the country. Who cares, he's another religious true believer who god has chosen.

Herman Cain's Story of god's healing power

Never underestimate the power of religious zeal when Republicans in particular decide for whom to vote.

God wants them to run

Pawlenty warns country to not turn its back on god

Finally to our two Mormon leaders who have proven they can govern a state (without resigning midway), speak articulately, talk on the issues (even change their minds when convenient) but will Mormonism be a bridge too far for the religious right? I believe that block will determine who gets their party's nomination unless a more moderate wing of the Republican party starts flexing their muscles which isn't happening right now.

The question I would have for the two Mormons, rather than whether they have positions I favor, is how important would what their church leader's position (he is remember appointed by God) be where it came to their policy decisions if they came into power. This was one John Kennedy faced and likewise John Kerry who also followed a religion that believes their leader is chosen directly by god.

The following is a valid question for any candidate who is has a strong religious faith, whether in a church like Catholicism or simply the person who says God told them to run.

Would they do what their earthly leader said they must?
For those who don't have such an earthly leader (other than themselves), would they do what the little voice in their head said to do even if it didn't look logical to them?

They must have the right answer to satisfy the religious types who would vote for them and the rest of us should listen carefully to what it is also. Once they run for president, they will start hedging on it in public speaking (think John Roberts as a modest jurist), but they all have past track records on the subject, worth keeping in mind for what they might do once they got in office.

The American presidency wields some very impressive powers (at least for now) which don't always require approval of Congress. If you look at some of what Bush did that way (blocking funding for any investigation of global warming by the CIA for instance), you want to be sure whoever is in there isn't listening to the wrong tiny still voice!

CIA and Pentagon Declare War on Climate Change

Education in the United States

2011-06-26T01:44:00.000-07:00

Problems and Weaknesses in the American Education System

Education in America-- is it a bird? Is it a plane?

Destroying Public Education in America

This is an issue that brings me right to the border of going linear! I have a lot at stake in this American educational system. Some is my own grandchildren ages 3 to 12. Some is my belief that our future as a nation is only assured through doing the best we can to get an educated populace.

Hey, I benefited from such a system. Today I hear many old folks who did also, but they don't give a damn about the kids of today. They blame the teachers. They blame the lefties. They blame taxes. In the end, they just don't want to pay for a good system and do like the idea of privatizing education for the kids they regard as the elites and to hell with the rest.

When I spend time with my daughter and daughter-in-law, two young women with three children currently in public schools (one in preschool), I hear their stories of what they are seeing in the public schools and feel as though I am hearing from those on the front lines of a battle for our nation's future. They both volunteer and put in long hours in the school systems to try and help more than their own children.

There is a lot of talk, mostly from righties, about how public education isn't worth it and how we should end it by effectively taking tax resources from it. The people who say that often don't work in the schools or even have kids there. They really don't give a damn about anything but themselves. Anyone who tells them they pay too much in taxes, that's their guy/gal.

Without public education, with vouchers where parents can send their children to any private school they choose, our public system is gone; and my tax dollars (yes I do pay taxes) will be going to teach religious concepts I find abominable. For the children who have parents who care, who are smart enough to get their kids into a school that works, it might look like it's a good idea. It leaves behind everybody else, but those who say that is just fine are also the very ones who wave flags about this nation and how great it is. Who do they think this nation is?

Most people who find fault with public education had the benefit of one. They received reasonable prices for college tuition but that's the problem. They got theirs and don't care about anybody else.

In 2001, when Bush began the No Child Left Behind, he had the support of Ted Kennedy; so bi-partisan, right? Well whatever was going through Kennedy's head, that program is a shaft to educating students for a future where they need to be able to use logic. If all they will need to keep jobs is to pass form tests, well maybe it'll be okay but does anybody believe that? This system is built around rote learning, standardized tests, requiring teachers to teach to the test, and then assessing results by a standard. It's just fine if all you want is a future of zombies. Which some do want.

All the teachers I know feel that their time now to really instruct has been reduced. This has worked well for those who hate public education, hate teachers and want to see the system fail. The question is how well does it work for the rest of us?

If we cannot educate future engineers, those who can invent products we can manufacture, if we ignore science as having no value, if we put down intellectuals, and think the only thing that determines someone's value is the size of their investment portfolio, I guess it's just fine.

If you think that, then you aren't thinking because our only hope for a democracy is educating a thinking populace. For some, a lack of educated people is not a bad idea. They just need serfs. You ready to be one or see your grandchild be one? Education used to be the way up for the lower and middle classes. No more?

As for me, I am really angry and hope that a lot of Americans will be also because it isn't about forgetting public education and letting it disappear. It's about making it work! Yes, not every kid can be a doctor, but they can all learn how to read, to understand history and what it takes to get along in our culture. Education is the base for that.

The Company Men

2011-06-22T02:16:00.000-07:00

Since I have been doing a lot of thinking and talking about what is going wrong with our country, what is impacting us to the point of bringing us to where our manufacturing is disappearing, I want to recommend this film from Netflix-- The Company Men.

It's a well done story of the human impact of jobs disappearing, how some are being asked to downsize (which means fired) while others are growing wealthier and wealthier. It stars Tommy Lee Jones, Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner, and Chris Cooper and through the stories of four men (Costner plays a construction boss), it gives us a window into what many are experiencing today. The men who lost their jobs weren't failing at them. It was a constant need to feed the stock market's expectations.

If you aren't someone who has experience in corporate America, don't hear real people talking about what they have had happen, you may not realize how close to life this movie is. It has impacted my life all my marriage and now also has my son in that world.

The thing is some would say well who cares, the guys made too much money. I suggest their caring should come as part of understanding the impact it has to every part of the economy when jobs disappear, when people don't have the money to buy anything including food. When manufacturing disappears in our country, for how long can the stock market be the whole criteria for economic health? Give this movie a try if you aren't in a corporation and haven't really understood what is happening and why.

Conservatives claim they have the best ideas, and the country should do whatever they claim will help it get on its feet-- which is generally lower taxes. What evidence do we have for their claims?

How Conservatism Lost Touch with Reality

Watch the film, read the article above and if you are a Republican, defending Republican values, tell me what you think the party is doing that will help ordinary Americans. Talk is cheap but it's ignorant and stupid to try and claim that all we need is to lower taxes on the wealthiest. That will NOT get jobs in manufacturing back. I'd like any positive examples of Republican politicians showing any evidence at all that they have plans for this problem. Everything I hear from them shows their solutions are to give more to the wealthiest and to hell with everybody else. They don't believe in government and are doing all they can to make it fail.

Someday somebody else will be you and me. All I hear from right wing politicians is some kind of mystical concept that if we just lower taxes on the highest earners, everything will be fine. Eight years of Bush trying it and now Obama extending it should have shown it wasn't working but it's the mantra right wing voters buy. Trickle down. Well I'll tell you what trickles down won't support a family and if we don't value real manufacturing in this country, we are done as the stock market won't stay up forever when it's dependent on financial shenanigans or products made overseas. Who buys the stuff here when they don't have jobs?

Now I can see situations where lowering taxes to encourage manufacturing, encourage investment in certain things, what I would call targeted taxation, that makes sense but blanket lowering them with no plan, no incentive, well do you still believe in the tooth fairy? It has as much chance of being real.

And for Republicans who claim it will work, explain why it didn't? The government still takes too much from the wealthiest is the only answer I have heard during a time when the rich's tax rate is the lowest its ever been, where nations with much higher tax rates are doing better economically. It's time for Republicans to put up or admit that they were wrong and taxes need to be targeted or the rich will only take-- which is where we are now. Here's the truth of tax rates:

How much lower can taxes go?

For those who don't care about anybody but themselves, who maybe have no future generation they care about, it isn't bad to hear government can't do anything right so why should I give them any of my money. The short-sightedness of this bunch is beyond communicating with. What about everybody else?

If people cannot see that a good government is worth paying for and when it's not good, figure out how to fix it, for that bunch, their selfishness is beyond my comprehension. I suggest they quit talking about how much they love this nation because they don't have a clue what it even is and sure aren't willing to sacrifice what earlier generations did. I wash my hands of them!

As for Democrats, the wimps, don't deserve a defense and I won't make one. They had their shot at it and they made it obvious they are either also on the payroll, most likely, or simply cowards.

The illogic of the right

2011-06-19T02:13:00.000-07:00

Right wingers love the following quote from 1770 by Alexander Fraser Tytler (sometimes credited to later interpretations of it byAlexis de Tocqueville specifically about the United States). Righties use it often as a way to prove our country is heading the wrong direction. You have all heard at least a version of it, but have you thought about how those who use it limit their application for it.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over lousy fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world’s great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to Complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage."

Here's the thing that I find amazing. First right wingers want their candidates to constantly tell them how exceptional they are and woe unto the candidate who doesn't do it repeatedly. Once is not enough.

But then they find fault with the very government they claim is weak, unable to do anything right, and should be downsized to the point where it only does the things they particularly like. The United States is exceptional except for half its people (or even more) and not at all its government? It's exceptional for a document written at its beginning which has limited information for today but somehow is nearly gospel to a certain bunch.

Ask a rightie what should be cut in terms of spending and it's easy for them-- anything they don't personally use, know that they benefit from, are ignorant about what it does, and never about something that might hurt them. So nothing about cutting the military and a lot about cutting education for the masses. Why should the masses need educating? And yet the very point by de Tocqueville was that a democracy can only survive with an educated populace-- and that doesn't mean just the elites.

Then comes this paradox. While they see that quote as meaning the rabble, the poor, the weak, they do not appear to see it being about the rich and powerful using their money to influence voters and issues. Hence they don't fight for an end to oil subsidies but will fight for an end to anything for the poor. The poor don't need it but the rich do?

Righties don't see the rich in the above quote. Whatever the rich have, they deserve, and they would never abuse the country or not do what is best for us all *gagging*. The rich value clean air and water, hence need no regulations. They also do not need any financial regulations because the rich, well they'd never take what they didn't deserve; BUT not so where it comes to the poor or even the middle. Those folks don't know what's good for us all. They are the ones who prove it isn't good to have a democracy because they will constantly vote themselves more benefits. The rich, oh no way would they do that!

*taking a deep breath and saying a few ohhhmmmmmsssss* because I am really angry and the more time I spend with my grandchildren, wondering what their future will be, the madder I get!

Does the United States want a theocracy?

2011-06-17T02:01:00.000-07:00

The interesting question for Republican voters in 2012 will be whether they want a right wing religious extremist*, someone who has stated the United States would be better under a theocracy**.

A certain percentage of Americans would agree with that, but others might not be eager for a theocracy but would vote for a candidate who said what they wanted to hear as they ignored that person's religious zeal, or as it was toned down for the campaign.

So how popular will Michele Bachmann be as she runs for the Republican nomination? And if she wins that, how will the numbers play out in a general election-- assuming that Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee (not a given) who also says he is a Christian but at the other end of the religious spectrum***?

Bachman's unrivaled extremism where it comes to religion

Keep in mind, as best I can understand this lady, she is the real deal. She believes this way. This isn't about getting the vote. She has lived her life following the dictates of her religion following teachers like Francis Schaeffer (who I also read back in the days). Bachmann isn't a hypocrite about it. This is her life truth which makes her the logical successor to Mike Huckabee for the religious right.

Palin, who might be more popular, cannot really stand up to Bachmann if there is a debate between them as clearly Bachmann knows her doctrines, is very intelligent, and can argue a viewpoint consistently. None of this you betcha for her.

Now I do not know if she is a christianist or a Christian because I haven't seen enough of her discussion on how she can get past the commands of Jesus for instance to feed the poor or heal the sick; but if a voter is a rock hard, religious fundamentalist, who has their mind set on doctrine put out by religious leaders of the last say 50 years, she's a logical choice.

The issue though is how many Americans do believe the Bible is the absolute last word for what should be done regarding government? The world does seem to be in a time of division with those who have turned totally from religion, such as myself (and yes, that means not New Age either) and then those who believe religion dictates every choice possible (and that's not just Christians). I think the religious types are in far greater numbers-- if you count all religions anyway. I think for an atheist to be elected president is as unlikely as a gay at this point anyway.

A theocracy demands a leader who can govern according to a god's dictates. That leader must either get messages from God or believe all the answers are in a holy scripture written or dictated by god, which they have the ability to interpret. Voters who want someone like that, or have a leader, who claims it, will have to evaluate how close they think that person is to God-- and even if they believe in a god, do they think it's how he/she/it operates?

There are those who want to end Democracy in this country because voters don't use good judgment, and want instead a government that governs more like they think it should be done. A god ruled political force would be right up their alley. How big a percentage of Americans is that? At one time I would not have thought the United States would go for it, but recently I read 92% of Americans believe in God. Where does believing in God lead someone?

For some, a theocracy seems to represent security. If ~~a god~~ their god is running things, won't they go better? For those, who think that way, it might be good to look back on the Bush years where he claimed ~~a god~~ his god was running things. How well did that work?

Notes:

*By extremism, I do not mean someone who is violent but rather who takes their religious views to what I consider an extreme level by denying what they see, what science has proven, and they depend instead on their faith. They will deny evolution, science, not worry about global climate change with a god there to tweak things and a possible rapture before it gets too bad. Current religious leaders often help them form their doctrine using bits from their Scriptures to suit their agenda. To me, it is at the extreme end of believing to think that every word in the Bible or any 'holy' doctrine has to be literally true.

** theocracy-- a form of government in which a state is understood as governed by immediate divine guidance especially a state ruled by clergy, or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided. God is in short recognized as the head of state.

*** the other end of the spectrum where it comes to say Christianity would be one who read the Bible, tried to live as Christ taught, might belong to a church but as with Reagan may not attend regularly, but might still believe in prayer but not as an absolute must happen way.

Health care in the US

2011-06-15T10:13:00.000-07:00

Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann and her ilk are delighting their followers with talk of ending Obamacare. None of this socialized medicine for their people. I am not sure who their people are, but here is an interesting article on what is happening to health care in this country under the do-nothing approach from Republicans.

Life Expectancy in U.S. Counties 2011

Of course, that's not a Republican politician's problem. Their problem is keeping the money flowing from people like the Koch brothers who were responsible for getting oil derivatives as a way to make even more billions for themselves. It's working so well for the average American at the pump and actually for Republican politicians who can blame it on Obama instead of any of the actual causes-- and gambling on oil futures is definitely one of the causes.

The question I have is why do ordinary Americans support a system that means many American have no access to routine health care which so many take for granted if they work for the government or big corporations? Or does being against Obamacare mean you don't really give a damn about anybody but yourself and those who promise you money.

More on the Weiner story

2011-06-13T07:57:00.000-07:00

Although even here, I don't use language that is considered crude, I feel this story requires it; so if such offends you, quit reading right now.

Since the Anthony Weiner story broke, I have had mixed feelings on whether he should resign, have gone back and forth on my opinion, and this article says well why I am not so sure as some about it. One moment I think yeah he should go. The next I ask-- did this reflect on his job?

Anthony Weiner's holier than thou critics

We know Republican politicians and pundits say he should go (no surprise), but many of them don't say the same thing about Senator David Vitter who did more than cyber sex and who broke a law in doing it. They are helping that offender raise more money to run again. They don't even answer if someone asks them about this discrepancy.

The Democrats say he should go because they are afraid it will impact them in 2012. That's more about selfishness than fairness. It is also possibly because some of them fear their own lives might get an inspection that they cannot safely endure.

So this all brings back something I said after the Clinton scandals. You know we, Democrats, elected Clinton twice even though we knew exactly who he was in terms of sexually. So far as I know, only two women claimed he got out of line with them when they didn't consent to it and he didn't rape or molest them just was disgustingly inappropriate. But we elected him anyway. Why was that do you think?

How many women do you think there are who have never had a man put his hand where it didn't belong, who never had a man say uninvited suggestive things? Of those who had that happen, how many brought charges? If nothing more followed, most women let it go and avoid the creep in the future which is what the women that Clinton made a failed pass at did. Should it have meant he not be elected to an office again? Well Republicans would say yes. There is a reason Democrats don't.

It's because of this little saying I had back then. The language is a bit salty possibly and it can get cruder depending on who I am talking to and how well they tolerate certain words. The mildest version is here and it explains why I would vote for a Weiner over a Bush whether one was sexually pure or not.

Democrats attempt to screw certain women but Republicans attempt to screw us all.

You see it time after time where the Republicans cut taxes on the richest to cut programs on the poorest, where they start wars for secretive reasons and send off many, of the same ones they screwed, to fight them. They don't care about our schools, our freeways, our health programs. They screw us over and over through deregulating banks, environmental controls, taking away liberties in the name of their moral code or safety.

So if doing that is where they get their energy and the Weiners of the world get theirs from sexual interactions with women who are of age and consensual (Democrats draw the line at underage and when it's not consensual), then guess who gets the vote.

With many of the right wing voters, it's the opposite. They don't care what a Republican does to the country, just be sexually pure or get religious absolution from proper penance (who knows what they do after that if they don't get caught again).

This is why Gingrich is running again in the Republican race and feels he has a chance to win (well less today than last week probably). He did wrong, but he got religion and begged forgiveness. He has a beautiful wife and is very happy; but I will say one thing to her-- don't get sick, honey!

Bill Moyers is another of my heroes

2011-06-12T13:20:00.000-07:00

Bill Moyers said:

"I think this country is in a very precarious state at the moment. I think, as I say, the escalating, accumulating power of organized wealth is snuffing out everything public, whether it’s public broadcasting, public schools, public unions, public parks, public highways. Everything public has been under assault since the late 1970s, the early years of the Reagan administration, because there is a philosophy that’s been extant in America for a long time that anything public is less desirable than private.

"And I think we’re at a very critical moment in the equilibrium. No society, no human being, can survive without balance, without equilibrium. Nothing in excess, the ancient Greeks said. And Madison, one of the great founders, one of the great framers of our Constitution, built equilibrium into our system. We don’t have equilibrium now. The power of money trumps the power of democracy today, and I’m very worried about it. I said to—and if we don’t address this, if we don’t get a handle on what we were talking about—money in politics—and find a way to thwart it, tame it, we’re in —democracy should be a break on unbridled greed and power, because capitalism, capital, like a fire, can turn from a servant, a good servant, into an evil master. And democracy is the brake on my passions and my appetites and your greed and your wealth. And we have to get that equilibrium back."

I can only add-- Amen!

Soundbites for Idiots

2011-06-10T07:47:00.000-07:00

One of the most frustrating aspects to trying to talk to extreme right wing people (those who used to say they were teabaggers [yes, they did and they had hats with tea bags hanging from them] until they found out that had another meaning they didn't like so much and now call themselves tea partiers even though they don't have much of an idea what that meant either regarding what was behind the Boston Tea Party) anyway the most frustrating part of talking to such people is they do not base anything on facts. They rearrange and use things and they have had an expert guide to doing it in Glenn Beck.

So we have a group of people who deny the science of global climate change using a few oil company paid scientists to refute what hundreds of other scientists have said as well as the evidence of their own eyes. Because Romney dared tell the truth about it, Limbaugh declared his candidacy over.

These people, who happen to also be voters, avoid facing facts whenever it doesn't suit their previous agenda. They are fundamentalists whether religious ones or not. They know all they need to know and Sarah Palin is their hero.

An excellent example of this happened recently with those who would deny history if Palin says they should, who will use whatever bits of history they do know to try and fit some current political agenda.

These same people want public schools ended and it's not hard to see why given their lack of respect for education or intelligence. Private schools will teach their children whatever they decree.

These people cheer when a candidate suggests a three page document is all any should ever be on any issue because he's not going to bother to read more than that. They cheer whatever is said that suits what they already believe and deny the rest. Which is why Paul Revere matters right now.

First there is what Sarah Palin said about him:

"He who warned the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms by ringing those bells, and makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free."

"You know what? I didn't mess up about Paul Revere. Part of his ride was to warn the British that we're already there. That, 'Hey, you're not going to succeed. You're not going to take American arms."

In my opinion, if she had normal type folks as followers, they would laugh it off saying-- there goes Sarah again; and not feel a need to defend whatever she says as gospel. It also would not require that they stop voting for her to laugh it off; but her zombies (brain's not needed minions) get all their information from one source and have to defend their princess. They don't have a choice in their own minds about defending her because it is also defending themselves. She is "who must be right". If someone asks her what she reads for information that becomes a gotcha question to them also. They are zombies not for their political opinions but because they are mind-numbed and fact challenged.

So because this matters, let's look at this from a historic viewpoint, not a pro NRA one. The British, when Paul Revere rode to warn the colonists according to his own writings, were not out to take the arms of the Americans. Paul Revere's purpose was not to warn the British even if he did get captured by them and at that time tell them the Colonists would resist. The British wanted to police the Colonists, control them, get taxes from them, but coming to their homes to take their guns. Where did she get that?

Every one of us who went to school knows what Revere did and maybe she did too (not sure about that), but what she wanted was a political soundbite that would play with those type of people I mentioned above. So this instead became that he was out there to warn the British to back off and leave us our guns.

Most of the country was going -- say what? But not her followers. They were looking for a way to make this true. They were looking for a way to rewrite Wikipedia to fit it. They will defend it every which way they can because to attack her is to attack them. Their reputation rides on hers which sounds crazy to someone like me who doesn't feel I am Barack Obama but it has to be how that weird faction of the right thinks.

Yes, Revere was captured. Yes, he did tell the British that the colonists were ready to fight them but that was his purpose? That was the important part of that ride instead of warning his friends? Give me a break! And keep in mind there are writings out there about what he himself said he was doing that night.

Why does this matter? Well because these people vote. They are about 1/3 of the Republicans who do vote. It isn't just that Palin doesn't make sense when she talks (unless you are one of hers), it's that they will only vote for someone who says what they want to hear. We could laugh about that when it was listening to a hack like Rush Limbaugh, who wouldn't know a fact if it bit him on his fat butt, but we should not laugh because these people vote and if it is not Palin, it'll be someone just like her because that's all they want in power-- ignorant, arrogant and speaking their language.

These are the same people who are denying global climate change, denying evolution and among them are those who believe dinosaurs existed side by side with men. Despite eight years of evidence, they still think that if they cut taxes more on the wealthiest, more jobs will flow in for everybody else (or they don't believe it and are lying about it).

One final point on that time in our history. There was an English Muster Law of 1572 that actually mandated that the colonists have guns and militias. Palin was trying to imply in her original statement that Revere was trying to warn the Colonists that the British were coming for their guns. NRA donations pour in on that kind of talk; but reality people, those who knew history before the Palinbots try to rewrite it, they know Revere's purpose that night.

Now once the war actually started, that is when the British would have been interested in finding secret arms' caches, but for her to imply that was the purpose for Revere's ride, that her own far right element would try to justify it, that's the thing that should scare Republicans as well as people like me. You could give those people the facts but then they'd just insult you because that's how the game works.

This matters that she is ignorant and that she and many others trying to run right now are trying to twist history to suit their own agendas. But there's a more important reason it matters. These people will defend this woman no matter what she says. They and the Rush Limbaugh addicts simply cannot use facts and it's why we are heading to where we are in this country where if they get enough voters to go along with them we will have a government with no need or use for facts on anything.

Why she said what she did was for a soundbite, to put out a political statement that would appeal to the Limbaugh types who are scared to death that Obama secretly wants their AK47s. Despite him saying nothing of the kind, despite all the evidence of more guns and ease of purchasing high powered weapons than ever, she said it for the ignorant, the fearful, the smug and the ones who will insult anybody who dares to tell them the truth.

Update: This is a link about the tour guide and how he thinks Palin mixed up the Paul Revere story. Frankly what I think is she's someone (and her followers) who always hears what she wants to hear. To me anybody can get mixed up but not anybody will then try to rewrite history to prove they were right.

Sarah's History Flub and How it Happened

I heard a bit of Rush Limbaugh as he tried to justify Sarah Palin this last week. He had one of his usual pseudo experts, like David Barton, on his program to discuss the 'truth' of Paul Revere. This is a lot like the 'experts' he gets to discuss science or anything else. The sad part is those who hear Limbaugh and claim they now know more than any history book or reading of Revere's actual papers because the only experts they respect are those who parrot back what they want to hear. I am more disgusted with them than Palin. Frankly they have had a lot to do with creating her.

Would you vote for him again?

2011-06-06T16:44:00.000-07:00

What most of us had come to assume has been admitted by Representative Anthony Weiner. He joins a hall of many many leaders who have done something they are ashamed of and lie to cover it up-- for as long as they can.

If Weiner had told the truth right away, as soon as the photos surfaced, the result of this would be different. He thought he could lie though, somehow thought he could cover it up, and he added that to his list of sins. They often say the cover-up is worse than the crime for these politicians and in a lot of cases, like with Bill Clinton, that turns out to be the case.

Now the question is whether it ends his political career. And that's the question for here. Would you vote for a politician who had done such a thing and lied about it? Some of them resign or say they won't run again. Those who committed a crime particularly, like Eliot Spitzer, pretty much don't have a choice. But what about those that committed a moral sin?

Should he have resigned? Would you vote for someone from your own party, who you had liked very much before you found out he/she had an ego problem like this, was prone to lie when necessary to save his/her bacon or had a sexual addiction? It looks like it was a consensual sort of thing, mutual sexual flirtations with women who were sending him encouragement, BUT it's not nothing. Is it too much in a leader? What should we expect from them in that area? For some, sexual moral behaviors are the most important character issues.

The Ick Factor

2011-06-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

Oh my. How the mighty have fallen. I mean me. I don't generally write about salacious sexual issues... Honest, I don't-- even though I might read about them :) So this week-end when I first saw the articles on Anthony Weiner, I didn't remotely think I'd end up writing about it. I mean it's icky.

I can handle an affair, even a Gingrich level affair, better than this. The idea of men or women sending sexually explicit photos to strangers to evidently entice them, why it's just plain icky and not something I'd like to think any politician I respected would do. It's kind of a twisted ego thing that is beyond me.

Years ago I was exploring people profiles on Yahoo. Maybe you've done it. Maybe not. But anyway it said want it to include adult profiles? Now that didn't even occur to me what that would mean. I thought I am an adult; so I said yes, give me those too. Good Lord... ick and double ick. What on earth would make a man or woman want to put out such photos of just one part of their anatomy. I might add these were not clothed which the one supposedly of Weiner was-- barely.

Anyway I have always found the very idea of such to be as I said-- icky. It's not sexy. It's not free spirited. It's just plain weird to think people value one part of their anatomy more than the rest. Let me say that it's not just men who did that. (making my keyboard feel unclean to even write about it).

So why would I write about it? Well because it's beginning to look weirder and weirder. If you have avoided the story and don't want to know more about it, quit reading right here.

The gist of it is that supposedly he was sending this bulging underwear photo to one woman but goofed and sent it to all 40,000 of his followers on Twitter. Incompetent to say the least. It was quickly taken off the site but not before a Weiner critic had conveniently seen and saved it. What a convenient happening and of course, that guy, who was looking for just such a thing to happen, sent it right to Breitbart (who is also high on my ick factor) and who pretty much guarantees to the left that this is a set up.

Except, not so fast. Why is Weiner not going to the police with what he claims is a hacking? This is serious stuff and yet he hasn't done that. He says he doesn't want to talk about it and his denials are looking a tad strange about now. Why does he follow these young women which includes evidently a porn star?

And what the heck is wrong with men today? *Okay I am laughing*

Anyway the last word on this was Stewart which I didn't see last night but found this link online with a video of Stewart's take on it. Very funny but the photo is there if you really didn't want to see it.

Jon Stewart says

Okay basically I don't vote in New York. If I did, well I have to admit that him doing this, if he did and lying about it, might impact my vote depending on who was running against him.

You know, it's not just the ick factor but the ego thing that would get me. How blindly egotistical would he have to be if, knowing how these things come out (even if it had only gone to the one woman it supposedly was intended for), he'd done such a thing? It doesn't really seem to me he's that kind of person from all I have seen... but then how much do we really know about any of these people?

If it's him in the photo (Stewart doesn't think it can be given he has a long term friendship that went back to being young adults and swimming together), I would guess a divorce might not be too far behind as one person knows for sure who it is...

And there's more-- now Weiner is saying he can't say the photo wasn't him... So he has such photos (who on earth would want to take or have such pictures), but just didn't send it this time to that woman?

Peace in the Middle East?

2011-05-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

A lot of people might feel Israel isn't our problem. There are those who totally side with the Israelis no matter what they do because they see them as like us. The argument goes, for those who are not Christians of the apocalypse sort, that it's a Democracy and an example to the Middle East of what can be done in such a place with Democracy.

Well there might be truth in that although Israel has done much of what it has through being supported by Jews around the world as well as having favored friend status with the United States. But still they are successful and their success could be an example of what education can do for a people.

When Obama suggested taking into account the amount of land that each had before the 1967 war, he suggested land swaps to give each enough land to make for a successful country. That might involved allowing Israelis to keep their illegal settlements since that time by trading for other viable pieces of land.

It would not allow continued illegal (illegal under Jewish law) settlements, not if the Israelis really want peace. You cannot just take what someone else has without having them want to attack you. We would feel the same way and have in this country with what many have felt is happening to us with our own illegal entrants. Wars are fought over land and it's not like the Palestinians are the first ones to want to do it. They are just weak as were our own Native Americans.

I don't know the solution to the problem there. There is a political power beyond the Israelis who don't want peace in that region. Basically you can see it in the Muslim world where they relish the idea of a continuing enemy that they can use to raise money and young people ready to die to make things right even if they have no concept how that will come about from their methods. You can see it among radical Christians who believe Israel is going to be the center of Armageddon and it requires a united Jerusalem and Israel for that to happen.

What I wish is people, who don't like what Obama said, would suggest ideas that they consider better, not just try to attack him as stupid or naive (he's neither) but go for the real suggestions. Why is it a bad idea and if it is, what do they suggest? Do they believe just blowing up all Palestinians would solve the problem there? If they do, they are the naive ones.

I don't blame the Israelis for wanting defendable borders but really it's more important that they find a way to deal with the animosity. There is a chance in the Middle East for it to go either way as more and more of the Arab population is demanding a piece of the pie, a chance for a better life, a democratic state. It all could go so many ways and some of them obviously bad for the world, but others quite possibly good for everybody.

The Arab people actually have a proud tradition in their history of development and advancement. That all came to an end with a religion that didn't respect education or science even the science the Arabs themselves had created. If many of those countries do turn to democracy and not a theocracy, we could see a totally different world in the future. It would be wonderful if the Palestinian and Israeli people were leading the way.

Keep in mind there are a sizable group of people in the world though that profit from war. They don't want peace there or anywhere. Those of us who really do want peace, reasonable peace, who believe negotiating can get it, we better speak up about it because you know the warmongers are all too eager to do that.

A Teaching Moment

2011-05-23T08:47:00.001-07:00

If the media, left and right, would turn this recent bombardment of billboards and interviews predicting the Rapture into an attempt at least for a teaching moment, we would as a people be ahead. They likely won't. They will let it go, and figure it was just one nutcase but it's a lot more than one prophetic failure. It's those who paid for the billboards, who believed in a Rapture and a Biblical end times-- even if not this exact moment. They vote. That's why it matters.

It's not a light thing to believe that there is a god who will pull you out of the fire even though you started it. These kind of beliefs have been here for a long time, maybe from the beginning.

I remember back when James Watts was the Secretary of the Interior under Reagan in the 1980s. He horrified people like me when he basically said that protecting the environment wasn't an issue because the end times were here.

That mentality is why people don't care about global warming, why they don't worry about genuine conservative principles which would mean conserving resources. They don't think they have to. Talk about saving energy and they pity you because they see you on your way to hell for not believing as they do.

I realize the bunch who bought into this latest rapture already are justifying it by-- it's god's will whatever it is. But we shouldn't give up trying to get them to use some logic which means there is NO logic to any belief in any rapture whatever time it might be coming. It won't be. This earth is our home and we should respect it, save what we can of it for future generations, live our own lives as though there are consequences to our actions, and always try to get religious zealots to see what they are actually doing.

If they would stop voting, then I'd not care what they thought; but they are already trying to figure out what religious zealot, who doesn't believe in evolution, can replace Mike Huckabee and be their guy or gal-- people like Michelle Bachmann who doesn't even know US history let alone biological.

These voters were the ones who believed GW Bush when he said he ran his war, with Iraq, not based on asking his dad's wisdom on what he was doing but his father in heaven. They believed that. They probably still believe it even after the basic failure in what we did there, the high cost, the fact that what his own dad said about a civil war turned out to be accurate.

That is why this matters what they, many of them, believed possible again. We should make it a teaching moment but we likely won't.

Incidentally, they are also the ones who think we must take Israel's side in any dispute because of their god being on Israel's side and anybody who doesn't go along with whatever Israel does, fair or unfair to other human beings, will be damned by him. They use Revelations and the early prophets for their scenario there.

They are the ones right now angry at Obama for any attempt to use logic in the Middle East, to get a real dialogue going, because of religious reasons of their own. They don't care about the Jewish people living there, the ones under threat still of terrorists. They think they are going to hell anyway for not having accepted Christ as their savior.

No, what that bunch cares about is a doomsday scenario that demands Israel be at its center-- after their own Rapture. Most of them have believed the countdown began when Israel came into existence and it has to stay intact for them to feel it will work as they have prophesied. That's their Biblical mandate and they can pretend it's concern for Israelis; but for most of them, it's really about themselves. Even in Israel, those that want to see peace are shouted down by zealots. It's not like only Christians have zealots in their midsts.

Incidentally I don't think the Israelis should have to bend over backward with the Palestinians when they don't agree to their right of existence but both will have to compromise or there will be no peace in that region. Some don't want peace there and they are fundamentalists of the extreme side from three religions.

That's why this issue of the Rapture that didn't come matters. Too bad logic doesn't work on religious extremists.

Loyal supporters of...

2011-05-19T15:56:00.000-07:00

My morning started off well when I got a call from one of the polling groups saying because I was a loyal conservative and tea partier, they wanted to poll me. I nearly started to laugh but restrained myself.

Now to stick with it meant I had to listen through a Dick Morris recorded spiel about how much Obama is destroying our country with his socialist policies. Where it comes to Morris, I really consider him to be a bottom-feeder, but I did it because I just couldn't resist.

Then the recording took me back to a real person for the poll. The first question was who in the conservative, Republican party today or in the past would you consider to be a good president or possible president.

I had to think a few seconds on that one but then I had one-- "Dwight Eisenhower."

I could hear the young guy do a kind of double take verbally, but he wrote it down. I am wondering if only Democrats hear the words of Eisenhower. Probably the Republicans aren't spreading around what he said as it doesn't remotely meet the criteria of the Tea Party folks.

So then he said if I would let them use my name on an ad they are placing in USA Today as a petition against Obama, they would mail me a copy of Dick Morris's last book. You can probably imagine how much I wanted that; so at this point I asked, "How did you get this number and our name to be considered loyal Republicans?"

He said, "It's on a list."

I said, "Well, it's a little strange because we have been donators to Obama and are major supporters of him today."

At that point, he got a strange sound to his voice and said, "Thank you, Ma'am. Good bye."

Farm Boss and I had a good laugh about that, but our only possible explanation for being on such a list of loyal Conservative/Tea Party types must be because Farm Boss has a business and is listed as such. Naturally everybody who is a business person must be a Republican, right? Wrong but that's how they operate.

So the next time you see a poll or a list of people who support Conservative causes and dislike Obama, you never know what they got offered to be on that list...

Right wing talk thinkers?

2011-05-14T06:21:00.000-07:00

When on the road, we frequently get a major dose of talk radio as a way to pass the miles as well as keep up on what is being said in the political realm. It often is irritating to us as progressive/liberals because there is very little from the left wing although we got one station once for a stretch of miles before we were thrown back into right wing country only. As usual though it was informative to us but never about issues. It is informative about the kind of information the right wing evidently wants from its entertainer/media types.

So the most offensive, hands down, came from the Phoenix area and some local righties whose names I have no idea but their idea of discussing immigration issues, which they were infuriated over, was to ignore what the issues were and go after personal insults on Obama for his speech on the topic. If, like us, you had not heard the details, you would not have gotten it from them.

The female of the twosome took the prize though as she said Obama was uppity. She said he cannot look down his nose at people because he holds his head too high. Now if you didn't see how racist that was, you should take a moment to consider your own attitude toward the 'other' whoever the 'other' might be. Uppity? Who would you call uppity? Someone who is above their station and doesn't know it? How can a man hold his head too high? I would say a man who you think should have it in a submissive position.

At that point I was so furious that I turned her off; so I never did get beyond her insults at how snarky, another of her terms, Obama had been during his speech on immigration. If she wasn't a racist, she was pandering to them by her whole spiel.

During the time I heard it, those two righties did not say what they thought should be done nor did they give his proposal. I only got that at night reading the newspapers online and found out the details of his actual suggestions which were pretty modest in terms of changes.

What got me though was that rightie listening to it was never presented with an issue to consider. It was all character attack and frankly so racist that the voices saying it should have been ashamed of themselves for so catering to the racists, who are the ONLY ones who would be able to stand listening to that garbage.

Miles went by and a day before I came across Rush Limbaugh. He was disdainful of Obama as usual but again no issue to discuss. No, he was too congratulating of himself for finding a nasty nickname for Michelle Obama which I won't dignify by repeating, but it was grade school level insulting indicating she is too heavy. Isn't amazing that someone as fat as Rush would ridicule a full figured woman simply because she's not anorexic looking? Michelle Obama is NOT fat and when anybody puts down a woman simply because she's not skinny, it is offensive to me but more so when it's someone fat himself!

I didn't hear the Glenn Beck bit where he spent 10 minutes evidently ridiculing John McCain's daughter, for the same thing as he implied he'd throw up if he had to see her naked after she did a photo for one of the public service ads, like so many other, not where she was nude but simply where she looked like she could be. What made Beck go after her since she is such a beautiful woman and his chances of actually seeing her nude are from 0 to -0 even if he was single?

Mostly it is that she doesn't toe the party mark in her philosophy as a conservative. She is an outspoken woman and that can offend some righties if they don't totally agree with them. I don't know why he'd go after her as anybody who sees her can see she has a very curvy little figure and beautiful face. Not enough these days though for the pudgy men like Beck who want their women skinny while they themselves are plump-- at the least.

So after hours of finding various right wing radio media people talk about issues, I got one thing from them-- they love to ridicule the other. They throw around a LOT of insults but if you want to find out the issues of what is actually at stake, look for an NPR program like On Point where a group of commentators discussed real issues from the perspective, in this one case, of right wing commentators who were looking at issues.

Or find yourself one of the new breed righties who actually can discuss the issues intelligently and evidently are finally cutting into the ratings of the screamers. I can only hope that happens for the sake of future long distance drives as I enjoy talk radio and since it appears all that the main part of the country can get is right wing, at least have it be someone who can do other than insult but really can talk about what is at stake and what are the alternatives-- not that the speech was mean.

Rachel Maddow journalism

2011-05-11T19:44:00.000-07:00

Check this out-- to the end. It's worth thinking about for all Americans. If it's true, what do we do?

Rachel Maddow on Ralph Reed and what's going on

from Maureen Dowd

2011-05-08T09:41:00.000-07:00

Here and in Rainy Day Thought blog, I have voiced my opinion about the killing of Osama bin Laden. Because it agreed with my opinion but also because it made sense to me, I especially liked what Maureen Dowd said in today's New York Times and hope nobody misses it.

Killing Evil Doesn't Make Us Evil

aftermath

2011-05-03T07:16:00.000-07:00

I just wrote a whole blog here to have it eaten by a very weird, kind of Pacman type of phenomena-- gobble gobble up the words with dots and only killing it all could stop it (that and switching to a different mouse). I have too many other things to do today to write the whole thing again but will put this link here to something Christopher Hitchens wrote which I thought was (as usual) a good look at the end to the bin Laden story.

Death of a Madman

I did want to add (if Pacman doesn't return first) that I do not believe the people in the streets Sunday night and Monday were celebrating a death as much as a victory-- finally. The United States hasn't had a lot of those. The same kind of thing happened at the end of WWII. It's age old for mankind to want to celebrate when something goes right and it's not death so much as that. Most know that terrorism threats are not finished, but they also know the man who has been behind a lot of the worst terrorist attacks the world has known, he's not going to order another one.

Rachel Maddow captured on her cell phone the singing of the Star Spangled Banner in DC that night. A spontaneous eruption of pride in this country. That's not gladiator time but instead seeing the end of a horror and proud that we have the kind of men and women who can find and take out a mass murderer with the potential at 54 to do it again and again over the years. The United States did something right and people deserved to be able to take joy in that.

There is a lot frustrating about the story given the probability that Pakistan knew where he was or purposely didn't know. They are also the ones who let North Korea have the nuclear bomb. Sorry, but allies? Not so much

Finally, I kept thinking yesterday about a quote from The Long Hot Summer-- "The world belongs to the meat eaters, Miss Clara, and if you have to take it raw, take it raw." It's sad it'd be that way, but I think it is. She replied she couldn't live that way. Some feel like that about the killing of bin Laden. I am not sure what the answer is to it for them as their sensitivity makes this kind of thing a lot tougher than someone like me who has long ago decided sometimes you have to do things you'd rather not.

If I hadn't believed Obama had a toughness to him, I'd not have voted for him because I think it takes that to operate in the world as it is not as we might wish it was.

Proud of Racism

2011-04-29T06:44:00.000-07:00

We, as human beings who live in this country, the United States of America, many of us anyway, keep thinking we are past racism. It's been an ugly blot on the history we claim is so pristine and pure. It's not just blacks we have misused but Native Americans (too weak to hold their land from our thefts, wars, and manipulations), Chinese (yes, do our hard labor but then go home and abusing you is okay because not fully human are you?), Hispanics (ditto to both of above), and many others.

This kind of nature is not unique to Americans but aren't we supposed to be the ones who showed the way? Isn't that what we tell ourselves?

The greatest disgrace here or in any culture is that of slavery and the aftermath of which we in the US are still living today. Does affirmative action help when the attitude is of the heart? Well it at least gets doors open that some would slam closed. But then that self-righteous bunch claim it meant people like Condoleeza Rice weren't really that smart (ignore evidence to the contrary as that's what racists do).

Trump claimed how proud he was that he was able to get Obama to release his long-form birth certificate as though he had made a great accomplishment. Oh he did all right. He brought to light something that usually has been shoved under rocks. He's made it seem respectable to other bigots. Trump is so ignorant that he can't see that he showed his own bigotry in bright shiny letters. The pride that he said he felt should have been in his arrogance and ignorance of which he has plenty.

So he accomplished that but he can't rest until he shows the level to which he has sunk. You know the old joke we already know what you are, we're just debating how low you will go. He's illustrating it.

Now he's onto college scores and who gains admittance into a university. He hit on an earlier hot button racist resentment and now comes another-- affirmative action.

Clearly, he is trying to claim, it should not have been Obama or his ilk. What Trump wants is a world where people like G.W. Bush get into college based on their ancestry or people like Trump's children who should be allowed to buy their way in.

Diversity is an ugly word to those folks. The idea that colleges might take into account grades, civic accomplishments, ethnicity, parts of the country, lifestyle, all of those as factors, that's not good. Money is the valid way to determine it all.

Trump, and he knows those who hang on his words, does not want a world where someone like Obama can get into a good university at all. It works so well when it's all to the rich go the spoils, doesn't it? I mean look at Bush who got in based on mediocre scores, continued to do the same thing at university, and then bragged about it all after he became president which again came to him through parentage.

Obama, whatever his high school scores were, graduated magna cum laude. That is not given to anybody based on race. That means graduating with high marks and praise. He also was editor of the Harvard Law Review which once again isn't handed to people. He went onto a career he earned for himself which is something neither Trump nor his children can claim.

Noblesse oblige is a word Trump should look up. Too bad people like him don't remember or never knew what it meant. It seems for only a few, of our extremely wealthy people today, do they feel a sense of obligation to give back for what they have been blessed. Too few...

What Trump has done and the others like him is remind this country of how far we have to go to reach a point where people like them don't get the microphone. Where we treat them with the disdain they deserve.

This week I watched The Patriot again. It's a good film actually starring Mel Gibson about the Revolutionary War and the high cost of what that war cost some individuals and families. War is horrifying and fortunately this was one of the films that portrayed that strongly which is to Gibson's credit. There was also a subtle reminder in it of the huge mistake we made back then.

The hero, Gibson's character, used black, freed laborers on his farm. They worked for him by choice and he owned no human. But the country as a whole had not done that and when the war was over, when the new country was formed, the slaves remained what they had been even in the home of those like Thomas Jefferson.

What would our country be like today if slavery had been abolished right then and there, if there had never been a need for a Civil War? A lot of Americans back then didn't have the advantage of schooling. If slavery had been ended by our founding fathers, we'd have begun here on equal standing (other than that wealthy class who always start with an advantage from the time they are born).

It's hard to imagine what we might be like today if that had happened because bigotry and greed ruled the decision back then. Their kind couldn't handle freedom. Slave labor was needed to make this country prosperous. It was an opportunity lost.

It took another hundred years for a war to settle the slavery issue, then a hundred more to get civil rights laws enacted, and here we are fifty years later when we can watch a megalomaniac like Trump be given a microphone and say what he did without being booed by the country as a whole. It says we haven't come all that far when a black president must prove to over half the Republicans that he was born in the United States. It is enough to make a caring person cry.

It never works

2011-04-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

So Obama gave up in showing his long form birth certificate, something no white president has ever been asked to do. He did it to get the conversation back on the issues and because so many Americans are stupid.

I think he did the correct thing but it is infuriating to me and I'll bet to him that he had to do this and why? Because he's a half black man. It had become an issue that was distracting from those that mattered with the smug and ugly Mr. Trump constantly beating the drum to gain his own popularity (it works so expect more to follow that path).

What won't work is showing the long form. They, the racists and bigots, will claim it's a forgery. The ignorant Mr. Trump, with the icky hair, has already claimed it should be inspected. By whom? Why Mr. Trump himself doubtless as he has taken credit for it being shown and is already onto the next accusation that Columbia University let Obama in when they should not have.

Doubtless the plot to make Obama president went way back. The idea that more than grades are taken into account for admittance to universities, forget that one. What does the Donald know about any of that.

What the Donald knows is manipulation and exploitation and dishonesty is fine with his game. He has already convinced a large percentage of gullible Republicans that all they really want is a multimillionaire who can make a lot of money, live like a king, has no sense of personal taste, and doesn't mind cheating people. He bragged about that with Gaddafi.

I don't doubt Obama is angry right now and it showed up in an interview where he chided a Texas reporter for never letting him finish an answer. That's what O'Reilly did also. Do these interviewers do this as a way to show their disrespect for him due to his race? Respect the presidency-- not anymore. If Obama didn't resent being disrespected and say as much, they'd call him milquetoast and if he does, he's out of line. He cannot win with a certain percentage of our population; and the sooner he figures that out, the better for the rest of us.

A genuine conservative would run against Obama on the issues. There are plenty to choose between where we have real differences on what should be done in the country. What we are getting from the right currently are pretenders. They are ignorant about history and will use anything to win. The Donald is at the top of that list but only at the moment. I have faith they can dig deeper. They always do!

Matt Taibbi is my hero

2011-04-16T07:56:00.000-07:00

Although I usually like to write something when I post a link, there are exceptions, where the writer of the link has said it so perfectly that I don't have a thing to add. This is the way it is with Matt Taibbi all the time.

I don't have Taibbi linked alongside here because the link ended up taking people to Rolling Stone articles, the most recently posted, and it wasn't always political. I do recommend everybody bookmark him as I do and regularly read his blog at Rolling Stone. He calls it like it is-- whichever party is behind it. In this case, the link is to his last article but hit the first link tere for his research on the real housewives of Wall Street. Always nice to know where our money is going.

Matt Taibbi-- Republicans are only too happy to spend on the rich

Economic Justice and expenses of governing

2011-04-14T07:27:00.001-07:00

Continuing on the subject of economic justice, check out this link which I saw at [Projections]:

9 things the rich don't want you to know about taxes

The lies from the right support a system of economic justice that hurts the majority of Americans but most Americans don't know and believe what they are fed by the mouthpieces of the right.

Another blog I read regularly, [Can it Happen Here?], had several interesting charts on spending to let citizens see how much of the budget is currently about different kinds or programs.

The issue here has to also be whether we are paying just our share of the military expenses for the world. Does the world even appreciate what we do or is this all for the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about?

Can we continue to bear the burden we currently do and have any level or prosperity at home? For those who resent the poor so much, they seem to not mind military expenses at all. They don't even want those looked at. Bush didn't even count the cost of the two wars into the budget.

Ignoring the biggest part of your spending is a good way to head toward bankruptcy. The same people who resent welfare programs likely supported our efforts in Libya. Right or wrong to go there, how do you pay for it? The right hasn't worried about that as they know they can just pass it on down the road as a way to end social programs.

Incidentally you might notice I am not discussing Obama's speech on economics. There is a reason. I am not sure whether his rhetoric will be matched by his actions. With him, it's a wait and see kind of approach that I take. The speech sounded good if a little naive to think that most Americans want a nation of social and economic fairness. For some Americans, their definition of economic justice is protecting what they already have and growing it. Concern for others is kind of a big pffft! I am not sure how big a piece of a pie chart that percentage would be,

RAINY DAY THINGS

A Hiatus

Really? You really want to go there???

Social Issues to determine the election?

Some good things

The Reagan Rule

Romney's Mask

Hohum, it's Romney... Big surprise.

Oh it's legal-- but is it ethical? Presidential?

How Bain and its ilk make their money

Two interesting choices for Republicans

Andrew Sullivan on Obama's 'real' record

president for the 0.001%

Capitalism

from the debates

Two questions for Romney

From Robert Reich on Romney's PACs

Santorum would do what????

Romney by a nose

Is libertarianism inherently racist?

How to argue with right wingers

Comment on Doonesbury worth reading

Wall Street and how we got here

more on Christopher Hitchens

So often comics nail it

Robber Barons or Job Creators?

Martial Law

Rage for Rage's Sake

Christopher Hitchens RIP

A blog to read

Politifact on Gingrich ethics investigation

What leads to our choices for leaders?

Fraud that makes you wonder

Who are today's poor--

Gingrich is on Gingrich's side

*holding my nose* Gingrich-- seriously-- Gingrich???

Higher education, corporations, power, and football

Pardon the turkey?

Daily Show Strikes Again

Occupy Wall Street means what?

going against the stream-- as usual

Mottos meaningless... or not?

Veterans Day

Sexuality and power

Vote

What We Need in Congress

Rachel Maddow's theory on Herman Cain

Campaign fodder

In defense of Obama

Proud to be a Liberal

More tax plans to distribute the wealth-- upward.

Republican candidates and their think-ahead logic

Herman Cain's tax plan

Do Republican candidates respect Republican voters?

Complicating factors

Herman Cain

How to achieve fairness

Choices

The Anger Grows-- you bet

Death penalty cases

Sexuality in today's world

Grizzly law vs. common sense

Uncuriouser and uncuriouser

The Democratic Dilemma

Be Specific

Social Security will be history?

A dissenting view on Christian dominionism

The united states of what?

A view of America's future?

Dominionism

That was then and this is now

Cut the baby in half

A rant

Courage Campaign

Chicken or the Egg

The party of no facts needed

GOP Party of Debt and Deficits

Republican Candidates

Education in the United States

The Company Men

holding my nose Gingrich-- seriously-- Gingrich???