Category Archives: Politics

June 11, 2011 · 5:00 pm

How to Sabotage a Recovery – The Great Recession – Salon.com

I think History will identify this as the key mistake of the Obama Presidency:  Letting the GOP set the debate on cost cutting during a time we needed the government to invest to grow jobs and the economy.  It’s the same mistake FDR initially made…not to mention Herbert Hoover.  But FDR recovered and I’m still hopeful Obama will, too.

I’ve also finally decided the Republicans are nothing short of evil and are certainly unpatriotic.  They are almost reaching the point of treason in their quest to destroy the Middle Class.

Their goal really is to sabotage the Economic Recovery in order to gain Political Power- then to use that power only to serve the Rich and the Corporate Elite.  The GOP certainly isn’t focused on what is good for the Country as a whole…

And I don’t know what President Obama is thinking to let them get away with this…

I think he should start by listening less to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and more to Nobel-Prize-Winning Economist Paul Krugman….

Or maybe do something novel, for Washington, like listen to the people.

Polls show the people want jobs, safe Social Security and Medicare and most don’t really give a damn about the deficits right now…

Only the GOP and the Tea Party are talking deficits…

From Salon.com:

Regarding the economy, Obama has let his opponents set the terms of debate, resulting in widespread public confusion. Consider, for example, the following two paragraphs from a recent Newsweek/Daily Beast article called “America the Angry”:

“By almost 4-to-1, Americans say our economy is not delivering the jobs we need, 81 percent to 12 percent.

“And Obama isn’t helping. Fifty percent of respondents think the president has no real plan to balance the budget; 40 percent say he does.”

Balance the budget during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression? Should Obama repeat Franklin D. Roosevelt’s bad mistake of 1937, when “budget hawks” prevailed, very nearly stifling the New Deal?

That’s certainly what the GOP wants. Whether leading Republicans actually believe that returning to the economic practices of the 1920s would be good for the nation is hard to say. Some may be pretending.

The House’s freshman contingent appears sincerely misguided. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof asks sarcastically if what Tea Partyers want is a low-tax, limited government haven of conservative religious values like … Pakistan.

Not really. What most have in mind is something more like the Deep South of the 1950s — an imagined paradise with comfortable “aristocrats,” a timid middle class, and beaten-down peasants at each other’s throats.

Many of them probably saw “The Andy Griffith Show” as a documentary.

via How to sabotage a recovery – Great Recession | Economic Recession, Economic Crisis – Salon.com.

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June 11, 2011 · 3:00 pm

The GOP’s CIA Playbook: Destabilize Country to Sweep Back Into Power

For a Party that talks incessantly about Patriotism, this is a pretty sick political philosophy.  But, most of us know by now, “Hypocrisy, they name is Republicans.”

I can’t agree with AlterNet.com more on this article:

Modern Republicans have a simple approach to politics when they are not in the White House: Make America as ungovernable as possible by using almost any means available, from challenging the legitimacy of opponents to spreading lies and disinformation to sabotaging the economy.

Over the past four decades or so, the Republicans have simply not played by the old give-and-take rules of politics. Indeed, if one were to step back and assess this Republican approach, what you would see is something akin to how the CIA has destabilized target countries, especially those that seek to organize themselves in defiance of capitalist orthodoxy.

via .AlterNet.com

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June 9, 2011 · 10:37 pm

U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Fights Regulations On Penis-Deforming Chemicals

Today’s Penis Post…

Seems to be the Theme of the Week.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce really has come out of the closet.  They used to be a respected organization, but they are really destroying that image quickly as they aggressively and openly push their far right agenda.

Their moto seems to be Corporations First, People Last….

At least it’s getting easier to call attention to their blatant disregard for average people.  Or people period.  Unless they are Rich.  Or a Corporation.

Remember:  Thanks to the Roberts Supreme Court, Corporations are people, too, now…

Very Important People.  They’ve pretty much bought the government with the Chamber of Commerce in the vanguard.

From ThinkProgress.org:

As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — one of the largest and most influential big business lobbying groups in the world — fired a letter off to Cass Sunstein, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, telling him to block the regulation of extremely toxic chemicals in consumer plastics. Despite the overwhelming evidence of the dangers of such chemicals, the chamber letter declares that that EPA “lacks the sound regulatory science needed to meet the statutory threshold for a restriction or ban of the targeted chemicals.”

A wide body of scientific research has linked these chemicals, including phthalates and Bisphenol A (BPA), to declining birth rates, stillbirths, and an increasing number of birth defects. Many of the chemicals under review for increased regulation have already been banned in Europe and Canada.

In fact, studies have shown that these plastic chemicals are directly linked to an alarming rate of male genital birth defects such as hypospadias, a condition in which the opening of the urethra is on the underside, rather than at the end, of the penis. A report by the Center for American Progress’ Reese Rushing details many other risks associated with the chemicals slated for regulation.

The Chamber letter to Sunstein is signed by chief lobbyist Bill Kovacs. Why is Kovacs fighting so aggressively to continue to allow birth defect and miscarriage-causing chemicals to be used in household items and food containers? Perhaps it is because the Chamber is heavily funded by some of the largest plastics manufacturers in America. According to investigations by the New York Times and ThinkProgress, Dow Chemical and Proctor & Gamble have contributed millions to the Chamber’s war chest in recent years.

via U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Fights Regulations On Penis-Deforming Chemicals | ThinkProgress.

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June 9, 2011 · 8:50 pm

Anthony Weiner Scandal: In Congressman’s District, A Chorus Of Support

I kind of thought this would roll off his back in New York….New Yorkers aren’t easily shocked by sexual affairs without sex.

And remember, Anthony Weiner wasn’t a  Republican”Family Values”  hypocrite having an affair like Republican Senators David Vitter and John Ensign were…

Weiner just might survive this if he listens to his Constituents and not to the press and the DC insiders.

The question is:  Does he really want to?  Especially  now that his fast-track political career will be stalled for the foreseeable future.

What he really wanted was to be mayor of New York and the Democratic Establishment has lined up against him- even if his constituents haven’t.  Is he content to stay a Congressman for several terms? Or does he resign and try to change careers to the Media, like Eliot Spitzer.

Time will tell….

Thursday (and for anyone not keeping track, it’s exactly two weeks into the saga known as Weinergate), a 64-year-old woman named Ann Oniszko stood in the lobby of one of the buildings of the Queens Community House and expressed undiminished admiration for her congressman. Wearing a specially-made gold pendant, her first name molded into a Star of David, she said, “I hope this doesn’t kill his political career. People just have little bad habits.”

“They just have to use technology better,” said Steve Pullano, the director of the teen program at the center.

“I just hope he salvages and builds himself up again,” said Onizsko.

Even as Weiner’s fellow Congressional Democrats have called for his resignation, the residents of New York’s Ninth District appear to stand behind their congressman in solid formation.

According to a recent poll by Marist and NY1, 56 percent of those interviewed said that Weiner shouldn’t resign, while only 33 percent said he should (12 percent said they hadn’t made up their minds).

In the Queens and Brooklyn neighborhoods that make up Weiner’s jigsaw-puzzle district, the congressman has long enjoyed the kind of poll numbers generally reserved for authoritarian rulers. He won 60 percent of votes in the last election, actually a significant drop-off from the previous election, in which his constituents chose him by a ratio of 93 votes to six.

Even now, he doesn’t seem much in danger of losing local support, and nowhere is that support more evident than at the Queens Community House, a sprawling network of project buildings and community-service centers based in the Queens neighborhood Kew Gardens.

via Anthony Weiner Scandal: In Congressman’s District, A Chorus Of Cheers.

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June 9, 2011 · 6:26 pm

Democratic Party Affiliation Grows

See what happens when the GOP declares War on Medicare?

If the Dems will only hold fast in defending Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security while the Republicans continue to try to destroy them, they will become the majority Party for the foreseeable future…..

As long as the economy doesn’t crash…

From Taegen Goddard’s Political Wire:

A new Gallup poll finds 45% of Americans identified as Democrats last month as compared to 39% who identified as Republicans.

The six-point Democratic edge is the largest measured since October 2009, when the gap was seven points.

via Democratic Party Affiliation Grows.

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June 8, 2011 · 9:54 pm

Dynasty 2012: The Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin Cat Fight

Sounds like they are going to try to play this like a dumber version of “Dynasty” with Palin and Bachmann trying to be dime store versions of Crystal and Alexis….

Linda Evans and Joan Collins, they ain’t…

And smart they ain’t either….

Still, “Dynasty’s” been gone for many years.  I guess it’s time for a pale imitation to emerge as the TV Remake:  “Dynasty 2012”.

Everything else is starting to look like the 1980’s (See Wall Street -the Movie), so why not redo this too?

Isn’t that how the entertainment world works?  Wait a few years then remake good, original ideas into a second rate remake?  Or is that GOP Politics I’m thinking of?

Since Reagan, it’s so hard to separate the two worlds.  But, god knows these two women are entertainers and not real politicians….

From Salon.com:

Poor Michele Bachmann! She’d been working the divisive culture warrior routine for years, to great success, when suddenly John McCain transforms a low-profile Alaska governor into the Queen of the Tea Parties. It’s enough to make anyone resentful. So it’s not too surprising that the Bachmann presidential campaign has begun its war with the Sarah Palin pseudo-campaign.

We live in a society that expects and sometimes demands that ambitious women battle each other for the limited number of slots available to them at the top of power structures, so the story of Bachmann “taking on” Palin would’ve been inevitable even if Bachmann strategist Ed Rollins hadn’t begun directly drawing contrasts between the two. (Yes, we also live in a society where Ed Rollins is working to get Michele Bachmann elected president and we just have to deal with that.)

The problem is, as Steve Kornacki explained, Bachmann’s campaign began gearing up when it looked like there was no chance of Palin entering the race. But Palin’s riding a bus across the country now for some reason, so Bachmann’s people need to make sure she remains a pseudo-candidate.

First, Rollins accused Palin of being unserious on talk radio yesterday, and he pointed out that Palin quit her job, while Bachmann is still an elected official. In an interview with Politico’s Ben Smith, Rollins laid out the Bachmann campaign’s official anti-Palin message: Bachmann is smarter than Palin but just as adorable:

Bachmann will “be so much more substantive,” Rollins said. “People are going to say, ‘I gotta make a choice and go with the intelligent woman who’s every bit as attractive.'” (See also: Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann size each other up)

“I’m not afraid of Palin,” he said, adding the strategy would have been the same for Mike Huckabee. (See also: Ed Rollins hops on Michele Bachmann bandwagon)

via Oh no, Bachmann and Palin are fighting – 2012 Elections – Salon.com.

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June 8, 2011 · 7:55 pm

Breitbart Leaks Photo of Weiner’s Naked Penis

For once, Andrew Breitbart may have been right…

But he’s still pond scum…

Don’t even think this was accidental…

Most college fraternities are more mature than these guys….

And, as a Gay Man I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m so tired of hearing about penises…

From RawStory.com:

Although conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart initially promised to keep the most explicit picture of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) to himself — barring certain actions by Weiner — an alleged picture of Weiner’s naked, erect penis nonetheless leaked out this morning.

During an appearance on Sirius XM Radio’s notoriously raunchy program The Opie and Anthony Show Wednesday, Breitbart reportedly showed the radio shock jocks the image that was saved on his iPhone. Though they now claim that they retrieved a still of the phone from a videotape of the show and that Breitbart didn’t allow them to photograph it, the original image, now removed from Yfrog, showed a thumb in the corner of the lens, as though it was taken from a cell phone camera. Yfrog was the image-sharing service to which Weiner sent the “joke” photo of him in his boxers that started the entire scandal.

The show Tweeted the photo to its official account and brought it to the attention of the gossip sites Gawker and WWTDD. The now-removed image [NSFW] is still available at Gawker.

At a press conference called by Weiner Monday, Breitbart admitted that he had been given a more explicit photo of Weiner, but said he was trying to do the “right thing” by not releasing it.

The conservative provocateur told NBC’s Matt Lauer Tuesday that he would release the photo “if Anthony Weiner decides to make it a jihad against me.”

“I don’t think I want to put his family through that type of thing,” Breitbart said. “I could put that out there and his career would have been over today.”

For his part, Weiner has thus far refused to resign, but has not commented on the release of the latest photo.

 

via Breitbart leaks photo of Weiner’s naked penis | The Raw Story.

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June 8, 2011 · 5:50 pm

Decline and Fall of the American Empire

A fascinating article in The Guardian from the UK  that is worth reading in it’s entirety.

Being a student of History, I have often wondered if we were at the beginning of the end of the American Empire.  Or maybe in the middle of it….

Like people, Empires have a finite life span.  Neither the Roman nor the British Empire lasted forever.  On my bad days, I wonder if we aren’t all living in a declining democracy on the way to being a third world country.

I particularly have this feeling when I travel by air or read too much about the Republican positions….

Don’t go screeching USA! USA! USA! at me…

Read the article and think if there are ways we can reverse this- or is it already  too late?

Talk amongst yourselves…

 

Let me put an alternative hypothesis. America in 2011 is Rome in 200AD or Britain on the eve of the first world war: an empire at the zenith of its power but with cracks beginning to show.

The experience of both Rome and Britain suggests that it is hard to stop the rot once it has set in, so here are the a few of the warning signs of trouble ahead: military overstretch, a widening gulf between rich and poor, a hollowed-out economy, citizens using debt to live beyond their means, and once-effective policies no longer working. The high levels of violent crime, epidemic of obesity, addiction to pornography and excessive use of energy may be telling us something: the US is in an advanced state of cultural decadence.

Empires decline for many different reasons but certain factors recur. There is an initial reluctance to admit that there is much to fret about, and there is the arrival of a challenger (or several challengers) to the settled international order. In Spain’s case, the rival was Britain. In Britain’s case, it was America. In America’s case, the threat comes from China.

Britain’s decline was extremely rapid after 1914. By 1945, the UK was a bit player in the bipolar world dominated by the US and the Soviet Union, and sterling – the heart of the 19th-century gold standard – was rapidly losing its lustre as a reserve currency. There had been concerns, voiced as far back as the 1851 Great Exhibition, that the hungrier, more efficient producers in Germany and the US threatened Britain’s industrial hegemony. But no serious policy action was taken. In the second half of the 19th century there was a subtle shift in the economy, from the north of England to the south, from manufacturing to finance, from making things to living off investment income. By 1914, the writing was on the wall.

In two important respects, the US today differs from Britain a century ago. It is much bigger, which means that it benefits from continent-wide economies of scale, and it has a presence in the industries that will be strategically important in the first half of the 21st century. Britain in 1914 was over-reliant on coal and shipbuilding, industries that struggled between the world wars, and had failed to grasp early enough the importance of emerging new technologies.

Even so, there are parallels. There has been a long-term shift of emphasis in the US economy away from manufacturing and towards finance. There is a growing challenge from producers in other parts of the world.

via Decline and fall of the American empire | Business | The Guardian.

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June 7, 2011 · 11:30 pm

Heartless Hypocrite Eric Cantor Calls On Weiner To Resign

There are a lot of despicable politicians, but right now I can’t think of one worse than Eric Cantor, Republican Congressman of Virginia…

First he wants to destroy Medicaid and Medicare.

Then he only wants to help tornado victims in Missouri if he can cut money somewhere else in the budget.

Now, he’s jumping into the Anthony Weiner story and saying he should resign.

Funny, he didn’t say that about David Vitter or John Ensign.  But then, they were Republicans…

I don’t know how this man sleeps at night. Or how anyone sleeps with him….

He really should be left alone under a bridge like the troll he is…

From TalkingPointsMemo.com:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is now calling on Democratic New York Rep. Anthony Weiner to resign, in the wake of Weiner’s admission on Monday that he has engaged in online sexual exchanges with younger women, and that he had lied about the matter for the past week after accidentally posting a public Tweet, intended to have been a direct message to a college student, of a photo of his underwear-clad crotch.

“I don’t condone his activity. And I think he should resign,” Cantor said after a Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Louisa, Virginia, the Charlottesville Daily Progress reports.

“We’ve got a lot of serious challenges in this country and a lot of work for Congress to do,” Cantor also added. “The last thing we need to do is get enmeshed in a discussion about Congressman Weiner and his Twitter activities.”

via Cantor Calls On Weiner To Resign | TPMDC.

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June 7, 2011 · 9:30 pm

The GOP’s Dangerous Arrogance

Great article up at YahooNews…

Even I- no political innocent- am still shocked at how callous and blatantly Political the GOP is…

They really don’t seem to care about the Country, only about their political power and their wealthy campaign contributors.

Defaulting on the national debt is just unthinkable.  If they do not raise the debt ceiling, the entire economy will be thrown into chaos and Wall Street will go crazy.  I hope their Corporate owners force the Republicans to do the right thing, but I’m afraid they are too out of control right now even for the Wall Street moneymen to bring them into line.  This is scary stuff….

The Republicans have done everything they can to slow the recovery just so the economy will either collapse into crisis again or be so weak they can use it politically.

They have no interest in Statesmanship or in what is best for the Country.  All they care about is what is best for the GOP, the Rich and the Corporations who fund them…

I just hope the Rich and the Corporations still have enough control to stop the GOP from destroying the economy just for Political gain.  If they do play politics with the debt ceiling, even the Rich and the Corporations will feel the hurt.  But the Middle Class will feel it more.  As usual….

 

Nationally and globally, the economy is at a tipping point. The GOP, driven by invincible ignorance or cynical design – and perhaps both – is working overtime to trash the recovery with budget cuts that would drain demand from the economy – or a debt ceiling vote that could trigger a financial collapse equal to 2008, or perhaps unpredictably graver. For proof, all you had to do was listen to Mitt Romney’s announcement speech today. In it, he made a smarmy attempt to blame Barack Obama for the economic pain actually caused by the dereliction of duty by George W. Bush & Co., pain that was then prolonged by the obstruction of congressional Republicans. Those legislators contrived successfully to limit the stimulus package, block a second one, and forthwith blame the stimulus that saved us from another Great Depression for the slow climb out of the Great Recession. Never, of course, did they mention that the America’s deep deficits were generated by the fraudulent Bush war in Iraq and the unfair Bush tax cuts, which were founded on the false premise that they would pay for themselves.

The same tawdry spectacle has played out for two years and more in America’s capitol, a place that is still, despite recently fashionable worries about its destiny, the indispensible engine of the world economy. Indeed, the future of billions of human beings is determined by our elections, in which most of them have no vote. JFK once noted that the proudest boast of the ancient world was the boast of democratic citizenship: Civis Romanus sum: ‘I am a Roman citizen.’ The inescapable reality of the present world, for better or worse, is that people everywhere have to say, Civis Americanus sum. That’s strikingly clear here in Europe, in good times and bad. President Obama is a more popular, hope-giving figure than the leaders he recently visited; he’s the counterpoint to Bush and the redeemer of an American image carelessly disfigured during the first decade of the century.

And now the GOP that has moved decidedly to the right of Bush would compound his errors. Congressional Republicans could shatter the restored credibility of the United States by refusing to protect its full faith and credit by raising the national debt ceiling or by holding that essential measure hostage to the repeal of the New Deal – something that never even occurred to Ronald Reagan or either Bush president. In those Oval Offices, they regularly signed debt-ceiling increases.

via The GOP’s dangerous arrogance – Yahoo! News.

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