Hmm...reminds me of Voltaire's concerns on religious intolerance. It always leads to fanaticism and savage, inhuman action. If only people could stick to simple human kindness and loving their neighbor...
Showing posts with label Barack X. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack X. Show all posts
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Saturday, February 09, 2013
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
We Are Drilling, Baby, Drilling
From AP News yesterday...
US may soon become world's top oil producer.
Driven by high prices and new drilling methods, U.S. production of crude and other liquid hydrocarbons is on track to rise 7 percent this year to an average of 10.9 million barrels per day. This will be the fourth straight year of crude increases and the biggest single-year gain since 1951.
Fourth straight year...wait a minute! I thought the president was blocking oil drilling. Well, there goes another lie. Speaking of BS...
The increase in production hasn't translated to cheaper gasoline at the pump, and prices are expected to stay high relatively high for the next few years because of growing demand for oil in developing nations and political instability in the Middle East and North Africa. Still, producing more oil domestically, and importing less, gives the economy a significant boost.
That's right. And how is it helping the economy again?
Businesses that serve the oil industry, such as steel companies that supply drilling pipe and railroads that transport oil, aren't the only ones benefiting. Homebuilders, auto dealers and retailers in energy-producing states are also getting a lift.
But I thought the president was destroying our economy. It's getting better?
Hmm....
US may soon become world's top oil producer.
Driven by high prices and new drilling methods, U.S. production of crude and other liquid hydrocarbons is on track to rise 7 percent this year to an average of 10.9 million barrels per day. This will be the fourth straight year of crude increases and the biggest single-year gain since 1951.
Fourth straight year...wait a minute! I thought the president was blocking oil drilling. Well, there goes another lie. Speaking of BS...
The increase in production hasn't translated to cheaper gasoline at the pump, and prices are expected to stay high relatively high for the next few years because of growing demand for oil in developing nations and political instability in the Middle East and North Africa. Still, producing more oil domestically, and importing less, gives the economy a significant boost.
That's right. And how is it helping the economy again?
Businesses that serve the oil industry, such as steel companies that supply drilling pipe and railroads that transport oil, aren't the only ones benefiting. Homebuilders, auto dealers and retailers in energy-producing states are also getting a lift.
But I thought the president was destroying our economy. It's getting better?
Hmm....
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Why Again?
Gene Lyons has a great piece on why exactly the Right hates Obama so much. It echoes some of the recent writings of Andrew Sullivan. First, of course, we have to define the problem.
To an awful lot of white Protestant evangelicals across the Deep South especially, President Obama has become no less than a secular stand-in for the Antichrist — a smooth-talking deceiver representing liberal cosmopolitanism in its most treacherous disguise. Dislike of Obama has grown to cult-like proportions across the region.
But it's not really racial because they'd vote for Allen West or Condi Rice in a minute. So what is it again?
Nor, however, are their fears entirely irrational. Because if the polls are right — and a disinterested observer would have to say that professional pollsters have grown increasingly accurate at predicting recent contests — the 2012 presidential election may not bring about “The Rapture,” but it could definitely mark the definitive end of a political era.
Hmm...do go on, Gene.
Should he prevail in most of the nine “swing states” where everybody agrees that the contest will be decided, and where Obama currently appears to lead by strong majorities, the white, GOP-accented South will find itself politically marooned. Again.Richard M. Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” will have been dismantled and a new, moderately center-left Democratic coalition built by President Obama. For the first time since 1972, the Rush Limbaugh/Mike Huckabee wing of the GOP will find itself with no clear path to power.
I think this will happen even if the president loses. A GOP presidential candidate hasn't gotten above 300 electoral votes since 1988 when George HW "RINO" Bush got elected. Should Romney win, he will get nowhere near 300 EVs. But this is what happens when your party is populated by extremists.
Moreover, should Obama be successful in rebuilding the U.S. economy during a second term, and once voters grasp that “Obamacare” has liberated them from the fear of being driven into bankruptcy by medical emergencies, the new Democratic coalition could prove to have a kind of staying power not seen since FDR and Truman. Indeed, it’s been Republican anxiety over that very possibility in the wake of George W. Bush’s spectacular failures that led to the GOP’s Washington version of massive resistance during Obama’s first-term. Or, to put it another way, if President Obama can win in this economy, how could any talented Democratic candidate lose?
The economy is going to add 12 million new jobs in the next four years even by conservative estimates. So when Mitt Romney says he is going to do this, he's basically taking credit for the recovery that Obama and the Democrats implemented.
Lyons ends with why their reality has become unhinged.
The temptation for Southern Republicans would be to double down on the crazy, because “conservatism,” so-called, can never fail, only be failed. Also because religious melodrama is really what an awful lot of them are really about. That, and Koch Brothers money. They’re not actually conservatives at all, in the classical sense, but sentimental fanatics seeking to purge the nation of sin; adepts of “limited government” with their noses buried in women’s panty drawers; apostles of a lost Utopia located in a non-existent past, most often in 60s sitcoms like “The Andy Griffith Show.”
Yep.
To an awful lot of white Protestant evangelicals across the Deep South especially, President Obama has become no less than a secular stand-in for the Antichrist — a smooth-talking deceiver representing liberal cosmopolitanism in its most treacherous disguise. Dislike of Obama has grown to cult-like proportions across the region.
But it's not really racial because they'd vote for Allen West or Condi Rice in a minute. So what is it again?
Nor, however, are their fears entirely irrational. Because if the polls are right — and a disinterested observer would have to say that professional pollsters have grown increasingly accurate at predicting recent contests — the 2012 presidential election may not bring about “The Rapture,” but it could definitely mark the definitive end of a political era.
Hmm...do go on, Gene.
Should he prevail in most of the nine “swing states” where everybody agrees that the contest will be decided, and where Obama currently appears to lead by strong majorities, the white, GOP-accented South will find itself politically marooned. Again.Richard M. Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” will have been dismantled and a new, moderately center-left Democratic coalition built by President Obama. For the first time since 1972, the Rush Limbaugh/Mike Huckabee wing of the GOP will find itself with no clear path to power.
I think this will happen even if the president loses. A GOP presidential candidate hasn't gotten above 300 electoral votes since 1988 when George HW "RINO" Bush got elected. Should Romney win, he will get nowhere near 300 EVs. But this is what happens when your party is populated by extremists.
Moreover, should Obama be successful in rebuilding the U.S. economy during a second term, and once voters grasp that “Obamacare” has liberated them from the fear of being driven into bankruptcy by medical emergencies, the new Democratic coalition could prove to have a kind of staying power not seen since FDR and Truman. Indeed, it’s been Republican anxiety over that very possibility in the wake of George W. Bush’s spectacular failures that led to the GOP’s Washington version of massive resistance during Obama’s first-term. Or, to put it another way, if President Obama can win in this economy, how could any talented Democratic candidate lose?
The economy is going to add 12 million new jobs in the next four years even by conservative estimates. So when Mitt Romney says he is going to do this, he's basically taking credit for the recovery that Obama and the Democrats implemented.
Lyons ends with why their reality has become unhinged.
The temptation for Southern Republicans would be to double down on the crazy, because “conservatism,” so-called, can never fail, only be failed. Also because religious melodrama is really what an awful lot of them are really about. That, and Koch Brothers money. They’re not actually conservatives at all, in the classical sense, but sentimental fanatics seeking to purge the nation of sin; adepts of “limited government” with their noses buried in women’s panty drawers; apostles of a lost Utopia located in a non-existent past, most often in 60s sitcoms like “The Andy Griffith Show.”
Yep.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
With Friends Like These...
The subject of the Keystone Pipeline came up in last night's debate and Mitt Romney fell back on that very false talking point that the president has "blocked it." This has been shown time and again to not be true.
But Governor Romney might want to be careful about how vigorously he champions the pipeline. He might seriously tick off a very large group of heavily armed people who don't take kindly to foreigners ordering them around: Texans.
As the company pursues construction of a controversial 1,179-mile-long cross-country pipeline meant to bring Canadian tar sands oil to South Texas refineries, it's finding opposition in the unlikeliest of places: oil-friendly Texas, a state that has more pipelines snaking through the ground than any other.
In the minds of some landowners approached by TransCanada for land, the company has broken an unspoken code.
"This is a foreign company," Crawford said. "Most people believe that as this product gets to the Houston area and is refined, it's probably then going to be shipped outside the United States. So if this product is not going to wind up as gasoline or diesel fuel in your vehicles or mine then what kind of energy independence is that creating for us?"
Hmm...who else has been saying that for quite some time now?
TransCanada's pipeline, some landowners say, is more worrisome than those built by other companies because of the tar sands oil the company wants to transport. They point to an 800,000-gallon spill of mostly tar sands oil in Michigan's Kalamazoo River in 2010. It took Enbridge, the company that owns that pipeline, 17 hours to detect the rupture, and the cleanup is still incomplete.
Ah, those landowners in Texas are just a bunch of fucking tree hugger hippie communists...fuckers...what right do they have?
Nearly half the steel TransCanada is using is not American-made and the company won't promise to use local workers exclusively; it can't guarantee the oil will remain in the United States. It has snatched land. Possibly most egregious: They've behaved like arrogant foreigners, unworthy of operating in Texas.
Oh, there's that, of course.
I seem to recall a few people on here expressing unqualified support for the Keystone Pipeline and accusing those who didn't of being traitors. So, this story from AP begs the question...are Texas landowners anti-American because they won't let a Canadian company drill for oil on their land?
But Governor Romney might want to be careful about how vigorously he champions the pipeline. He might seriously tick off a very large group of heavily armed people who don't take kindly to foreigners ordering them around: Texans.
As the company pursues construction of a controversial 1,179-mile-long cross-country pipeline meant to bring Canadian tar sands oil to South Texas refineries, it's finding opposition in the unlikeliest of places: oil-friendly Texas, a state that has more pipelines snaking through the ground than any other.
In the minds of some landowners approached by TransCanada for land, the company has broken an unspoken code.
"This is a foreign company," Crawford said. "Most people believe that as this product gets to the Houston area and is refined, it's probably then going to be shipped outside the United States. So if this product is not going to wind up as gasoline or diesel fuel in your vehicles or mine then what kind of energy independence is that creating for us?"
Hmm...who else has been saying that for quite some time now?
TransCanada's pipeline, some landowners say, is more worrisome than those built by other companies because of the tar sands oil the company wants to transport. They point to an 800,000-gallon spill of mostly tar sands oil in Michigan's Kalamazoo River in 2010. It took Enbridge, the company that owns that pipeline, 17 hours to detect the rupture, and the cleanup is still incomplete.
Ah, those landowners in Texas are just a bunch of fucking tree hugger hippie communists...fuckers...what right do they have?
Nearly half the steel TransCanada is using is not American-made and the company won't promise to use local workers exclusively; it can't guarantee the oil will remain in the United States. It has snatched land. Possibly most egregious: They've behaved like arrogant foreigners, unworthy of operating in Texas.
Oh, there's that, of course.
I seem to recall a few people on here expressing unqualified support for the Keystone Pipeline and accusing those who didn't of being traitors. So, this story from AP begs the question...are Texas landowners anti-American because they won't let a Canadian company drill for oil on their land?
Monday, October 15, 2012
How Much Longer?
It's things like this that sadly make me realize just how much of a challenge we have with education in this country. How much longer will paranoia, hatred and anger rule the day and make people this irrational?
Saturday, October 13, 2012
They Are Going To Have To Change
For all of the drama queen in Andrew Sullivan, he really nailed it the other day in regards to the current political landscape.
Obama's record is immensely impressive as I argued at some length here. He inherited an economy in free-fall; he put a bottom on it and over 4 million private sector jobs have been created since and the unemployment rate is actually lower than when he took office. It would be much lower if Republican governors had not been slashing government payrolls. He ended the war in Iraq; he has brought the Iranian economy to its knees; he decimated al Qaeda and found and killed Osama bin Laden; he enacted universal healthcare - an historic change that eluded even that political master, Bill Clinton.
What he didn't imagine and what I didn't imagine (and that Peter doesn't mention) is that the party that drove this country into the biggest fiscal, moral, diplomatic and military ditch since the 1970s would immediately turn around and, instead of constructively attempting to help in the worst recession since the 1930s, opted for total obstructionism and party before country. I think the GOP recognized the profound threat Obama represented, the magnitude of their failure, and have done all they could to stop him getting the second term he always needed to fulfill his promise and check them for a generation. They have failed, by and large. Which is why, of course, I felt so crushed after last week's debate. Obama allowed them to reset the narrative with lies that were left hanging as if unrebuttable. I've beaten him up enough. We all screw up. What matters is acknowledging the fuck-up and remembering to buck up. It's not any single failure that defines you, however great. It's how you respond.
I didn't think that the Republican Party would behave the way they have either. They don't want to do what's best for this country because they don't want to be proved wrong.
This is the threat that the Right faces and they know that even the president somehow manages to lose this election, the writing is on the wall, demographically speaking. As Senator Lindsey Graham recently said, "The demographics race we’re losing badly. We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.."
In short, they are going to have to change.
Obama's record is immensely impressive as I argued at some length here. He inherited an economy in free-fall; he put a bottom on it and over 4 million private sector jobs have been created since and the unemployment rate is actually lower than when he took office. It would be much lower if Republican governors had not been slashing government payrolls. He ended the war in Iraq; he has brought the Iranian economy to its knees; he decimated al Qaeda and found and killed Osama bin Laden; he enacted universal healthcare - an historic change that eluded even that political master, Bill Clinton.
What he didn't imagine and what I didn't imagine (and that Peter doesn't mention) is that the party that drove this country into the biggest fiscal, moral, diplomatic and military ditch since the 1970s would immediately turn around and, instead of constructively attempting to help in the worst recession since the 1930s, opted for total obstructionism and party before country. I think the GOP recognized the profound threat Obama represented, the magnitude of their failure, and have done all they could to stop him getting the second term he always needed to fulfill his promise and check them for a generation. They have failed, by and large. Which is why, of course, I felt so crushed after last week's debate. Obama allowed them to reset the narrative with lies that were left hanging as if unrebuttable. I've beaten him up enough. We all screw up. What matters is acknowledging the fuck-up and remembering to buck up. It's not any single failure that defines you, however great. It's how you respond.
I didn't think that the Republican Party would behave the way they have either. They don't want to do what's best for this country because they don't want to be proved wrong.
This is the threat that the Right faces and they know that even the president somehow manages to lose this election, the writing is on the wall, demographically speaking. As Senator Lindsey Graham recently said, "The demographics race we’re losing badly. We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.."
In short, they are going to have to change.
A Perfect Illustration
I don't think I've seen such a perfect illustration of the contrast in this year's election.
Wednesday, October 03, 2012
Deep Inside The Bubble
To give you an idea of how incredibly fictional the world is that the Right has created, take a look at this.
It is illegal for private citizens to own guns for selfdefense in eight states, and the number is growing with increasing Democratic control of state legislatures and governorships.
The excerpt above is from a letter sent "back in time" from 2012 to 2008 letting all the folks know exactly what would happen in the president's first term. Here are some other predictions..
then in May 2010, Al-Qaida operatives from Syria and Iran poured into Iraq and completely overwhelmed the Iraqi security forces. A Taliban-like oppression has taken over in Iraq, and hundreds of thousands of “American sympathizers” have been labeled as traitors, imprisoned, tortured, and killed. The number put to death may soon reach the millions.
Since 2009, terrorist bombs have exploded in two large and two small U.S. cities, killing hundreds, and the entire country is fearful, for no place seems safe. President Obama in each case has vowed “to pursue and arrest and prosecute those responsible,” but no arrests have been made.
President Obama directed U.S. intelligence services to cease all wiretapping of alleged terrorist phone calls unless they first obtained a warrant for each case. Terrorists captured overseas, instead of being tried in military tribunals, are given full trials in the U.S. court system, and they have to be allowed access to a number of government secrets to prepare their defense.
What a strange world they live in...it's almost as if they are unmoved by facts, undeterred by new information, and have a hostile fear of progress..hmm...
I wonder how many of these predictions will simply be carried over to 2016. Oh wait, didn't they make a film about that? That would be the one where the companion book says the following...
Ann's sexual adventuring may seem a little surprising in view of the fact that she was a large woman who kept getting larger.
And they wonder why they are losing this election...
It is illegal for private citizens to own guns for selfdefense in eight states, and the number is growing with increasing Democratic control of state legislatures and governorships.
The excerpt above is from a letter sent "back in time" from 2012 to 2008 letting all the folks know exactly what would happen in the president's first term. Here are some other predictions..
then in May 2010, Al-Qaida operatives from Syria and Iran poured into Iraq and completely overwhelmed the Iraqi security forces. A Taliban-like oppression has taken over in Iraq, and hundreds of thousands of “American sympathizers” have been labeled as traitors, imprisoned, tortured, and killed. The number put to death may soon reach the millions.
Since 2009, terrorist bombs have exploded in two large and two small U.S. cities, killing hundreds, and the entire country is fearful, for no place seems safe. President Obama in each case has vowed “to pursue and arrest and prosecute those responsible,” but no arrests have been made.
President Obama directed U.S. intelligence services to cease all wiretapping of alleged terrorist phone calls unless they first obtained a warrant for each case. Terrorists captured overseas, instead of being tried in military tribunals, are given full trials in the U.S. court system, and they have to be allowed access to a number of government secrets to prepare their defense.
What a strange world they live in...it's almost as if they are unmoved by facts, undeterred by new information, and have a hostile fear of progress..hmm...
I wonder how many of these predictions will simply be carried over to 2016. Oh wait, didn't they make a film about that? That would be the one where the companion book says the following...
Ann's sexual adventuring may seem a little surprising in view of the fact that she was a large woman who kept getting larger.
And they wonder why they are losing this election...
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Good Grief
Floridians Want to Know: Is This Onion Article Real?
Many local inboxes and Facebook pages received versions of a viral email saying that Obama's rarely seen son Luther, "a shy slightly overweight teen who has lived all of his life with his mother in central Illinois," appeared with the president on the convention stage. The relationship between the two is described in the email as "somewhat distant and occasionally strained."
Like I said, they are going to get worse...
Like I said, they are going to get worse...
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Doing His Part
I take solace in the fact that if the president wins re-election in November, he will have done a major favor to this market in our economy. See? He is adding jobs:)
Remember when they all rushed out to buy guns before he took office the first time?
Fool me once...
Remember when they all rushed out to buy guns before he took office the first time?
Fool me once...
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Wishful Thinking?
I get a lot of grief from my ol' buddy last in line when I speak of the end of the Republican party. He chuckles and reminds me of how I am thinking wishfully.
But what about when his hero, Rush Limbaugh, says the same thing?
Before I get to why is he right, I'm happy to see that he as finally put a date on when our country is going to collapse. It's going to be sometime in the middle of 2014. Rest assured, I will be holding him to it.
But he is right. And so is Laura Ingraham. Of course, it's not for the reason they think they are right. Rush thinks it's because the party hasn't gone conservative enough and that we will then see a third, farther right party. That may happen and nothing would make me more pleased. What America needs is to hear more of how the Democrats are all communists and to see more old men yelling at empty chairs.
Laura thinks it's because the president has done a terrible job and people are just stupid. If only their messaging and delivery was better, conservatives would win. The deafness of tone here is staggering. Their message and delivery aren't working because what they are saying isn't real. Their policies have not worked and they have nothing else left except lunacy. It's not that people are stupid. It's that they are smarter than we give them credit for and can recognize how similar the Right is behaving these days to the guy on street having a conversation with an imaginary person.
I'm not saying we have a nation of geniuses. Anyone that spends any length of time on the teacher side of a parent-teacher conference knows of what I speak. But they are smart enough to know that the president was born in the United States, is not a Muslim, is not a socialist, and has done a decent job, given what he was handed. This is why he is up on the polls at present and is the favorite.
Recently, though, I have learned the hard way that it's like walking on eggshells when you fuck with someone's fiction. The hate for the president has gone far beyond Krauthammer's Bush Derangement Syndrome. At least there, people were dying in Iraq so one can see why there might be some folks upset. With Obama Complete Mental Meltdown Syndrome, it's a post apocalyptic delusion that has absolutely no basis in reality and is, hands down, the finest piece of destructive fiction since Goebbels.
Unlike Goebbels, these lies are not taking root with the majority of Americans. Yet there are still many who believe these things to be true and are acting even more crazy. Why?
The answer to this question is perfectly summed up in one of the last scenes in the film, Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt. Pitt plays Billy Beane, the GM of the Oakland Athletics, who takes a ragtag team of players, gathered because of their statistical ability to get on base, and manages them to a playoff berth, including a 20 game record setting win streak.
In one of the last scenes, the character of Beane meets with the owner of the Boston Red Sox, John W. Henry (played by Arliss Howard) for a job interview. As they are talking about Beane's incredible season, Henry says
I know you are taking it through the teeth out there but the first guy through the wall always gets bloody. Always. It's a threat, not just in doing business but in their minds...it's threatening the game....really, what it's threatening is their livelihoods. It's threatening their jobs. It's threatening the way they do things. And every time that happens...whether it's the government or a way of doing business or whatever it is...the people who are holding the reins...that have their hands on the switch...they go batshit crazy. I mean, anyone who is not tearing their team down and using your model...their dinosaurs. They're going to be sitting on their ass on the sofa..come October...watching the Boston Red Sox win the World Series.
I can't think of a better way to sum up the Right's mouth foaming about this election.
The way they think, the way they do business, the way they want to implement policy, their ideology...all of it...it's not working anymore.
There is no doubt in my mind that in the next 45 days they are going to get worse. Heaven help us if the president wins again.
But what about when his hero, Rush Limbaugh, says the same thing?
Before I get to why is he right, I'm happy to see that he as finally put a date on when our country is going to collapse. It's going to be sometime in the middle of 2014. Rest assured, I will be holding him to it.
But he is right. And so is Laura Ingraham. Of course, it's not for the reason they think they are right. Rush thinks it's because the party hasn't gone conservative enough and that we will then see a third, farther right party. That may happen and nothing would make me more pleased. What America needs is to hear more of how the Democrats are all communists and to see more old men yelling at empty chairs.
Laura thinks it's because the president has done a terrible job and people are just stupid. If only their messaging and delivery was better, conservatives would win. The deafness of tone here is staggering. Their message and delivery aren't working because what they are saying isn't real. Their policies have not worked and they have nothing else left except lunacy. It's not that people are stupid. It's that they are smarter than we give them credit for and can recognize how similar the Right is behaving these days to the guy on street having a conversation with an imaginary person.
I'm not saying we have a nation of geniuses. Anyone that spends any length of time on the teacher side of a parent-teacher conference knows of what I speak. But they are smart enough to know that the president was born in the United States, is not a Muslim, is not a socialist, and has done a decent job, given what he was handed. This is why he is up on the polls at present and is the favorite.
Recently, though, I have learned the hard way that it's like walking on eggshells when you fuck with someone's fiction. The hate for the president has gone far beyond Krauthammer's Bush Derangement Syndrome. At least there, people were dying in Iraq so one can see why there might be some folks upset. With Obama Complete Mental Meltdown Syndrome, it's a post apocalyptic delusion that has absolutely no basis in reality and is, hands down, the finest piece of destructive fiction since Goebbels.
Unlike Goebbels, these lies are not taking root with the majority of Americans. Yet there are still many who believe these things to be true and are acting even more crazy. Why?
The answer to this question is perfectly summed up in one of the last scenes in the film, Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt. Pitt plays Billy Beane, the GM of the Oakland Athletics, who takes a ragtag team of players, gathered because of their statistical ability to get on base, and manages them to a playoff berth, including a 20 game record setting win streak.
In one of the last scenes, the character of Beane meets with the owner of the Boston Red Sox, John W. Henry (played by Arliss Howard) for a job interview. As they are talking about Beane's incredible season, Henry says
I know you are taking it through the teeth out there but the first guy through the wall always gets bloody. Always. It's a threat, not just in doing business but in their minds...it's threatening the game....really, what it's threatening is their livelihoods. It's threatening their jobs. It's threatening the way they do things. And every time that happens...whether it's the government or a way of doing business or whatever it is...the people who are holding the reins...that have their hands on the switch...they go batshit crazy. I mean, anyone who is not tearing their team down and using your model...their dinosaurs. They're going to be sitting on their ass on the sofa..come October...watching the Boston Red Sox win the World Series.
I can't think of a better way to sum up the Right's mouth foaming about this election.
The way they think, the way they do business, the way they want to implement policy, their ideology...all of it...it's not working anymore.
There is no doubt in my mind that in the next 45 days they are going to get worse. Heaven help us if the president wins again.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
The Redistribution Canard
As a response to Mitt Romney's 47 percent video, the Right has pointed to the video below as proof that Barack Obama is a communist.
Let's take note of a couple of things. First of all, this video is not newly discovered nor was it hidden. This was a public conference, not a private fundraising gathering.
More importantly, take note of how the last part of the clip about markets and innovation was conveniently left off of the version on YouTube. Taken in context, what he is saying isn't any different than what Bill Clinton was saying in 1998 as well.
I also don't think this is a gotcha! moment because the only people who are going to be pissed off about this are people that aren't going to vote for him anyway.
I guess what I don't understand about this video is the apoplectic reaction to the word "redistribution." Somehow it means communism. Or fascism. Or socialism. Or anti-colonial Kenyanism. Pick one and I guess it's right for whatever day it is.
But there's nothing wrong with redistribution when you consider that every organization (public or private) redistributes wealth when you think about it. The NFL operates under a profit sharing model where teams like Green Bay (owned by the city of Green Bay, a public entity) share profits through redistribution of wealth from larger market teams like the New York Giants or the Chicago Bears. This begs the question...are the owners of the NFL communists?
When we pay our taxes, that money is redistributed to the various sectors in public life that need it. These would include defense, b to the w. I hardly think anyone will argue that a member of our armed services not paying federal taxes because he or is she is in a combat zone is taking advantage of wealth redistribution or a moocher off of the government.
Of course, this doesn't mean that wealth redistribution isn't going on nor does it mean that there are ill effects from it. It most certainly is going on and we can clearly see by the inequality in this country that it is being redistributed upwards, not downwards, and this is the fault of the federal government to a large degree.
Let's take note of a couple of things. First of all, this video is not newly discovered nor was it hidden. This was a public conference, not a private fundraising gathering.
More importantly, take note of how the last part of the clip about markets and innovation was conveniently left off of the version on YouTube. Taken in context, what he is saying isn't any different than what Bill Clinton was saying in 1998 as well.
I also don't think this is a gotcha! moment because the only people who are going to be pissed off about this are people that aren't going to vote for him anyway.
I guess what I don't understand about this video is the apoplectic reaction to the word "redistribution." Somehow it means communism. Or fascism. Or socialism. Or anti-colonial Kenyanism. Pick one and I guess it's right for whatever day it is.
But there's nothing wrong with redistribution when you consider that every organization (public or private) redistributes wealth when you think about it. The NFL operates under a profit sharing model where teams like Green Bay (owned by the city of Green Bay, a public entity) share profits through redistribution of wealth from larger market teams like the New York Giants or the Chicago Bears. This begs the question...are the owners of the NFL communists?
When we pay our taxes, that money is redistributed to the various sectors in public life that need it. These would include defense, b to the w. I hardly think anyone will argue that a member of our armed services not paying federal taxes because he or is she is in a combat zone is taking advantage of wealth redistribution or a moocher off of the government.
Of course, this doesn't mean that wealth redistribution isn't going on nor does it mean that there are ill effects from it. It most certainly is going on and we can clearly see by the inequality in this country that it is being redistributed upwards, not downwards, and this is the fault of the federal government to a large degree.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
A Complete Ignorance of Facts
Well, Mitt Romney has really stepped in it now. Take a look at this video.
There are many levels in which his statement is completely wrong.
The 47 percent of which he speaks (it's actually 46.4 percent) has to be examined more closely. Of those 46.4 percent, 28.3 percent pay a payroll tax while 18.1 percent pay no payroll tax. This remaining 18.1 percent does pay other taxes (sales tax, state tax, city and local taxes) so to intimate that they aren't paying taxes and are freeloading/dependent is ridiculous.
It's also important to note here that the majority in the 18.1 percent are on EITC are on it for less than two years. This is not a permanent situation for these people as many of them are working. In fact, Mitt here (along with the many others on the Right) are under the mistaken impression that people on government assistance aren't working. Most are. In fact, the working poor rate (calculated through 2010) is at its highest since 1987.
It's also very dishonest to place so much emphasis on poor people which brings me to a recent conversation at the gym with a very wealthy (and very conservative) acquaintance of mine. He owns a manufacturing concern in Minnesota that supplies equipment for people with disabilities. He corners me constantly to yell about Obama and how he is __________ (you can fill in whatever you like here). Yet a few simple questions put to him reveal that he himself is a massive rent seeker who pays very little in the way of income tax or corporate tax due to the amount of money he makes and the nature of his business (obviously, heavily subsidized by the government).
Ironically, he is part of the 47 percent of which Mitt speaks! He made $2, 178, 866 in 2011 so he paid no federal income taxes. And he's certainly not going to vote for the president. In looking at who else comprises Mitt's 47 percent, we see the other main reasons why Mitt's comment is completely wrong (and, politically, very dangerous for him).
Many of these dependents are elderly who worked their whole lives (paying into Social Security and Medicare) and are now collecting their benefits. In addition to not being freeloaders, many of them are going to vote for Mitt Romney. At least they were:)
Many of the very poor in Mitt's 47 percent hail from red states.Of the 10 states with the highest percentage of people who pay no income tax, eight are solid red states. In fact, blue states like Connecticut, Vermont, Maryland, Massechussits, and my home state of Minnesota that are on the bottom of the list have taxpayers that are essentially paying for those folks in red states. That's OK with us, though, we don't have a problem with social welfare programs:) Here's that study from the Times again that backs this up.
Are the people in these eight red states going to vote for the President? Some will, obviously, but some won't because of abortion or other faith issues. Again, I wonder how many of these folks will change their vote based on this comment.
One can also look at government employees, soldiers, veterans, people who have gotten Small Business Administration loans, people who work for government contractors or companies the government bailed out (like banks and GM) are at least somewhat dependent on government. GE paid no taxes in 2010. Are they part of the 47 percent? How about defense contractors? How about oil? They get subsidies and are obviously dependent on the government for increase profit yet no one complains about them. Nope, it's just the poor people who are all lazy, don't work and sit around playing Xbox and eating Cheetos all day long.
Now, ol' Mittens was obviously trying to convince some fairly deep pocketed folks that he can win so maybe we should give him a break. After all, he was telling them what they wanted to hear. No one really knows if he believes what he is saying but what he is saying is a complete a total myth. There are not 47 percent of Americans who pay no income tax and those 47 percent are not all going to vote for Barack Obama.
To me, the larger discussion is much more interesting. In breaking apart this myth, we can clearly see the integral role that government plays in our society. Those who want to lessen the role of it seem to completely ignore the clear benefits that it provides, not only in their lives but the lives of millions of Americans. The practical application of such an exercise (shrinking government) seems much more unrealistic given the facts listed above.
Simply put, our economy is bigger than it was at its founding so our government has to be big as well. There's nothing wrong with this and it's certainly not communism, fascism or socialism. It's what we have always done and done very well, given the challenges.
Welfare capitalism.
There are many levels in which his statement is completely wrong.
The 47 percent of which he speaks (it's actually 46.4 percent) has to be examined more closely. Of those 46.4 percent, 28.3 percent pay a payroll tax while 18.1 percent pay no payroll tax. This remaining 18.1 percent does pay other taxes (sales tax, state tax, city and local taxes) so to intimate that they aren't paying taxes and are freeloading/dependent is ridiculous.
It's also important to note here that the majority in the 18.1 percent are on EITC are on it for less than two years. This is not a permanent situation for these people as many of them are working. In fact, Mitt here (along with the many others on the Right) are under the mistaken impression that people on government assistance aren't working. Most are. In fact, the working poor rate (calculated through 2010) is at its highest since 1987.
It's also very dishonest to place so much emphasis on poor people which brings me to a recent conversation at the gym with a very wealthy (and very conservative) acquaintance of mine. He owns a manufacturing concern in Minnesota that supplies equipment for people with disabilities. He corners me constantly to yell about Obama and how he is __________ (you can fill in whatever you like here). Yet a few simple questions put to him reveal that he himself is a massive rent seeker who pays very little in the way of income tax or corporate tax due to the amount of money he makes and the nature of his business (obviously, heavily subsidized by the government).
Ironically, he is part of the 47 percent of which Mitt speaks! He made $2, 178, 866 in 2011 so he paid no federal income taxes. And he's certainly not going to vote for the president. In looking at who else comprises Mitt's 47 percent, we see the other main reasons why Mitt's comment is completely wrong (and, politically, very dangerous for him).
Many of these dependents are elderly who worked their whole lives (paying into Social Security and Medicare) and are now collecting their benefits. In addition to not being freeloaders, many of them are going to vote for Mitt Romney. At least they were:)
Many of the very poor in Mitt's 47 percent hail from red states.Of the 10 states with the highest percentage of people who pay no income tax, eight are solid red states. In fact, blue states like Connecticut, Vermont, Maryland, Massechussits, and my home state of Minnesota that are on the bottom of the list have taxpayers that are essentially paying for those folks in red states. That's OK with us, though, we don't have a problem with social welfare programs:) Here's that study from the Times again that backs this up.
Are the people in these eight red states going to vote for the President? Some will, obviously, but some won't because of abortion or other faith issues. Again, I wonder how many of these folks will change their vote based on this comment.
One can also look at government employees, soldiers, veterans, people who have gotten Small Business Administration loans, people who work for government contractors or companies the government bailed out (like banks and GM) are at least somewhat dependent on government. GE paid no taxes in 2010. Are they part of the 47 percent? How about defense contractors? How about oil? They get subsidies and are obviously dependent on the government for increase profit yet no one complains about them. Nope, it's just the poor people who are all lazy, don't work and sit around playing Xbox and eating Cheetos all day long.
Now, ol' Mittens was obviously trying to convince some fairly deep pocketed folks that he can win so maybe we should give him a break. After all, he was telling them what they wanted to hear. No one really knows if he believes what he is saying but what he is saying is a complete a total myth. There are not 47 percent of Americans who pay no income tax and those 47 percent are not all going to vote for Barack Obama.
To me, the larger discussion is much more interesting. In breaking apart this myth, we can clearly see the integral role that government plays in our society. Those who want to lessen the role of it seem to completely ignore the clear benefits that it provides, not only in their lives but the lives of millions of Americans. The practical application of such an exercise (shrinking government) seems much more unrealistic given the facts listed above.
Simply put, our economy is bigger than it was at its founding so our government has to be big as well. There's nothing wrong with this and it's certainly not communism, fascism or socialism. It's what we have always done and done very well, given the challenges.
Welfare capitalism.
Friday, September 14, 2012
The Question No One Is Asking
The question no one seems to be asking Mitt Romney is this: what are the values the president is "apologizing" for? Values that directly contradict respecting someone else's freedom to worship as they choose without fear of punishment? Values of a man who has been convicted of fraud and selling drugs? Values of mouth foaming bigotry?
These values that I mention are the ones inherent in the maker of the anti-Islamic video that started all the problems we have right now at embassies in the Middle East. This is what Mitt Romney is defending? I don't get it.
In addition, Mitt Romney seems to be living in some sort of time warp, as eloquently explained by Andy over at electoral-vote.com.
Mr. Romney lives in either 1958 or 1985. I can't tell which, to be honest. He has very little understanding of what the world is like today and, so naturally, it must be (cue Made Up World) the president that really doesn't understand. Yeah, that's it...
I get why Governor Romney is saying what he is saying. His guys are telling him the only way he can win now is to go hard right and get out the base. They loathe the president to the core and will believe anything that is said about him. The bigger the lie, the more they believe.
It makes me sad because I wish we would have had a country where this would have happened after this horrible tragedy.
Wishful thinking, I know. But that's what you get when you have to deal with juveniles.
These values that I mention are the ones inherent in the maker of the anti-Islamic video that started all the problems we have right now at embassies in the Middle East. This is what Mitt Romney is defending? I don't get it.
In addition, Mitt Romney seems to be living in some sort of time warp, as eloquently explained by Andy over at electoral-vote.com.
What Obama didn't say is that Romney's model of the world no longer holds. In the past, wars and attacks were governmental affairs. Country A invaded country B and then country B could send its army or air force to wreak havoc with country A. But like so many other government functions, in parts of the world, war has largely been turned over to the private sector. Al Qaeda, other terrorist groups, and jihadists who killed the American ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, are all private sector organizations, not government ones. As a result, you can't just bomb them because you can't find them.
Mr. Romney lives in either 1958 or 1985. I can't tell which, to be honest. He has very little understanding of what the world is like today and, so naturally, it must be (cue Made Up World) the president that really doesn't understand. Yeah, that's it...
I get why Governor Romney is saying what he is saying. His guys are telling him the only way he can win now is to go hard right and get out the base. They loathe the president to the core and will believe anything that is said about him. The bigger the lie, the more they believe.
It makes me sad because I wish we would have had a country where this would have happened after this horrible tragedy.
"Imagine if Romney had called President Obama, asked how he could be of assistance in this time of crisis, offered to appear at his side at a press conference to demonstrate that, when American lives are at risk, politics stop at the water's edge." Romney would have appeared presidential and Obama's equal at a joint press conference. Instead, he appears to be trying to profit from a tragedy.
Wishful thinking, I know. But that's what you get when you have to deal with juveniles.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Lyin' Ryan
Paul Ryan unleashed a giant load of wordy squirts last night that truly bring new meaning to breaking the ninth commandment. From FactCheck.org
And this is they guy who the right thinks is thoughtful and intelligent?
Well, at least the "liberal" media has decided not to fall asleep on this one.
- Accused President Obama’s health care law of funneling money away from Medicare “at the expense of the elderly.” In fact, Medicare’s chief actuary says the law “substantially improves” the system’s finances, and Ryan himself has embraced the same savings.
- Accused Obama of doing “exactly nothing” about recommendations of a bipartisan deficit commission — which Ryan himself helped scuttle.
- Claimed the American people were “cut out” of stimulus spending. Actually, more than a quarter of all stimulus dollars went for tax relief for workers.
- Faulted Obama for failing to deliver a 2008 campaign promise to keep a Wisconsin plant open. It closed less than a month before Obama took office.
- Blamed Obama for the loss of a AAA credit rating for the U.S. Actually, Standard & Poor’s blamed the downgrade on the uncompromising stands of both Republicans and Democrats.
And this is they guy who the right thinks is thoughtful and intelligent?
Well, at least the "liberal" media has decided not to fall asleep on this one.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Civil War?
Well, another one of those right wingers has gone a little funny in the head.
Lubbock Country Judge Tom Head (no, I am not making up the name) said that President Obama will "try to give the sovereignty of the United States away to the United Nations. What do you think the public's going to do when that happens? We are talking civil unrest, civil disobedience, possibly, possibly civil war. ... I'm not talking just talking riots here and there. I'm talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms, get rid of the dictator. OK, what do you think he is going to do when that happens? He is going to call in the U.N. troops, personnel carriers, tanks and whatever."
I haven't heard a good mouth foam about the UN in a while so this was certainly a breath of fresh air. I wonder if he is one of Kevin Baker's regular commenters?
Lubbock Country Judge Tom Head (no, I am not making up the name) said that President Obama will "try to give the sovereignty of the United States away to the United Nations. What do you think the public's going to do when that happens? We are talking civil unrest, civil disobedience, possibly, possibly civil war. ... I'm not talking just talking riots here and there. I'm talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms, get rid of the dictator. OK, what do you think he is going to do when that happens? He is going to call in the U.N. troops, personnel carriers, tanks and whatever."
I haven't heard a good mouth foam about the UN in a while so this was certainly a breath of fresh air. I wonder if he is one of Kevin Baker's regular commenters?
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