Tag Archives: Elections

Weiner, Vitter, Spitzer, Ensign, Edwards, Tobias: One of These Is Not Like the Others : Ms Magazine Blog

Great article, from Jodi Jacobson at MS Magazine Blog, about the differences between Anthony Weiner and the other recent sexcapades…

I could not agree more with this article….

Weiner’s mistakes were nothing compared to the other guys.

I’m frankly tired of this story and ready to move on, but our Puritanical country and the hypocrites in Washington have to ride this a while longer…

Anthony Weiner is a very ambitious man who has taken a big hit to his career and his ego.  But he is a good Congressman.

He is going to have enough to do to save his marriage and his career.  This has hit him hard and he’s going to have to pay a lot of penance and eat a lot of crow.  Let’s leave him alone to work through this so he can get back to doing the work he was elected to do.

This is all really none of our business….

Hat tip to Pam Spaulding at Pam’s House Blend where I originally saw the link to this:

 

Is it dumb and poor personal judgment for a politician to send photos of himself in various stages of undress and arousal to women who are not his wife? In my opinion, yes. Is it my business? Not really, unless he has, for example, been railing against “sexting,” faulting women, contraception, abortion, and gay people with the downfall of America and earthquakes in far-off places, or has been seeking to restrict people’s rights based on a bastardized version of morality. Is it even dumber to go on an “I-did-not-send-pictures-to-[that]-woman” pity tour to make himself look like the victim of hacking? Oh, yeah. He may yet be forced to resign for his stupidity.

But, I don’t necessarily think he should have to do so. As I have said here before, I really do not care in what sexual practices consenting adults engage or what agreements are forged between two consenting adults, especially if the spouse of a given Twitterer knows about and lives with her or his spouse’s preferences.

What I do care about is the “holier-than-thou” moralizing in which so many of these philanderers engage, and the fact that they both pretend to be better than the rest of us, and, even worse, attempt to legislate our private lives.

Weiner did none of this.

The others did.

via Weiner, Vitter, Spitzer, Ensign, Edwards, Tobias: One of These Is Not Like the Others : Ms Magazine Blog.

Leave a comment

Filed under Congress, Elections

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.

Leave a comment

Filed under Congress, Elections, Politics, Uncategorized

House Republicans Propose Social Security Opt Out/Privatization

They really are coming out of the closet…

First they wanted to destroy Medicare and Medicaid…

Now, they want to destroy Social Security.

I don’t know about you, but I would much rather have Social Security than trust Wall Street to manage my retirement money.  And not everyone has the skills to manage their own investments.

I keep saying it:  Remove the earnings cap on Social Security contributions and we have no Social Security issues anymore.  It’s a small, easy fix and no one has to ever worry about Social Security being insolvent again.

But that’s not what the GOP wants.  They don’t want to save Social Security.  They  just want an excuse to kill it.

If the Democrats will just stand up to them and protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid- which is consistent with the Party’s core beliefs- they could take back the House and keep the Senate.  And the Presidency if the President will stand up also…

From The Hill:

House Republicans on Friday introduced legislation that would allow workers to partially opt out of Social Security immediately, and fully opt out after 15 years.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, and several other Republicans introduced the Savings Account for Every American (SAFE) Act. Under the bill, workers would immediately have 6.2 percent of their wages sent to a “SAFE” account each year.

That would take the place of the 6.2 percent the workers now contributed to Social Security.

Another 6.2% is sent to Social Security by employers. Under the Sessions bill, employers would continue to make this matching contribution to Social Security, but after 15 years, employers could also send that amount to the employee’s SAFE account.

Sessions said this transition to a private retirement savings option is needed because Social Security last year began paying out more money than it took in.

via House Republicans propose Social Security opt-out – The Hill’s Floor Action.

Leave a comment

Filed under Congress, Politics

Anthony Weiner Admits He Tweeted Lewd Photos, Will Not Resign

Personally, I think this is much ado about nothing…

Not a real bright move, but no big deal since this was between consenting adults…

I also think Anthony Weiner is an incredibly effective Progressive politician, with an unfortunate name, who is going to be drug through the mud over this…

The Right Wing wants him out of the fight and they’re going to do all they can to bring him down.

To me, this is an issue to be handled between him and his wife.  This is the type of foolishness that, in the good old days, would not even have been reported.  (Remember JFK, among others….)

He needs to take the heat for a while and ride this out…

Thank god, he a represents New York City district and they’ll probably shrug this off…

Remember, Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana broke the law by playing with hookers and he is still in office….

There are also two probable side effects to this:

1.  This will put an end to the Gay rumors and innuendoes about Congressman Wiener-which I always thought were wishful thinking.

and

2.  Sarah Palin is probably standing in front of a web cam right now taking topless shots and sending them to Glenn Beck to get the media back to paying attention to her….

From Talking Points Memo:

Anthony Weiner admitted to lying about a lewd photo he sent to a college student in Washington state, telling reporters at a press conference in New York that he concocted a phony hacking story in a panic after deleting the public message.

“Last Friday night i tweeted a photograph of myself that I intended to send as a direct message as part of a joke to a woman in Seattle,” he said, fighting back tears. “Once I realized I had posted to Twitter, I panicked, I took it down and said I had been hacked. I then continued to stick to that story which was a hugely regrettable mistake.”

He added: “To be clear, the picture was of me and I sent this. I am deeply sorry for the pain this has caused my wife Huma and our family and my constituents, friends, supporters and staff.”

As for his own future, Weiner pledged to remain in Congress, saying he had not broken any law to his knowledge. “I am not resigning,” Weiner said, telling reporters he would try to convince his constituents this was a “personal failing” and did not alter his record.

via Anthony Weiner Admits He Tweeted Lewd Photos, Will Not Resign | TPMDC.

Leave a comment

Filed under Congress, Elections, New York, Politics

Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show Ratings Soar, Fox News Slumps in May Ratings

Good news from the Media world…

Maybe Fox News’ audience is dying off faster than anticipated…or people are finally getting wise.

And Jon Stewart has been at the top of his game this year…

Another good trend for next year’s elections if it holds….

From Rawstory.com:

Comedy Central and “The Daily Show” both surged in the May Nielsen ratings, posting their best numbers yet. “The Daily Show” dominated its time slot across all of television, cable and broadcast, and boasted a very impressive 19 percent increase in viewership in May alone.

Meanwhile, according to Mediabistro’s TV Newser, Fox News suffered an overall decline in viewers in the highly sought-after 25-to-54-year old demographic for May, with total ratings down 10 percent. Bill O’Reilly’s viewership dropped 9 percent, Sean Hannity’s 6 percent, with Greta Van Susteren and Glenn Beck suffering the steepest losses with Van Susteren’s “On the Record” losing 12 percent of its audience and Glenn Beck sliding a whopping 17 percent.

Some of the fall-off in Beck’s numbers may be attributable to the fact that his show is going off the air, but it has been a consistent loser in the ratings for several months. The drop in public interest is echoed in ratings for radio shows hosted by Beck and Rush Limbaugh, which have each lost a third of their listenership in the last year, according to the radio polling group Arbitron.

The new Nielsen numbers show that “The Daily Show” averaged 2.3 million viewers, beating every program on Fox except Bill O’Reilly’s average of 2.8 million. “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” beat all other cable and broadcast programming in a number of categories, including having the most affluent viewers and the most active web-sties.

via Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show ratings soar, Fox News slumps in May numbers | The Raw Story.

Leave a comment

Filed under Elections, Media, Politics, Television

Sarah Palin On Paul Revere Ride: I Didn’t Get History Wrong

Uh, yes she did…

It’s so hard to post this without an outburst of profanity…

She was WRONG and she can’t even admit it.

Facts are facts and she doesn’t know hers.

She is an ignorant simpleton who wants all the media coverage she can get, but only on her own terms.

I can’t believe people take her seriously.  Her being accepted as a “legitimate” candidate for President of the United States is just ridiculous.  It makes the entire country look bad.

That sounds so much nicer than what I’m really thinking….

WASHINGTON (AP/The Huffington Post) — Sarah Palin says she didn’t mess up her history on Paul Revere.

The potential 2012 presidential candidate was in Boston on Thursday as part of her bus tour when she was asked about the Revolutionary War hero.

Palin said Revere “warned the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms.”

Palin, a paid Fox News contributor, told “Fox News Sunday” that she was correct. She says there were British soldiers in the area for years before Revere’s legendary ride, and that he was warning them, as well as his fellow colonists.

“Part of his ride was to warn the British that were already there that ‘hey, you’re not going to take American arms, you are not going to beat our own well-armed persons individual private militia that we have.'”

She blamed her previous answer on the media, saying it was a “gotcha question.”

The Paul Revere House’s website says that on April 18, 1775, Dr. Joseph Warren instructed Revere to ride to Lexington, Mass., to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that British troops were marching to arrest them.

via Sarah Palin On Paul Revere Ride: I Didn’t Get History Wrong (VIDEO).

2 Comments

Filed under Elections, Politics, Uncategorized

Prison Sentence Doomed John Edwards Plea Deal

Fascinating article from the News and Observer about the behind-the-scenes negotiations relating to John Edwards’ indictment…

Just before John Edwards was indicted Friday, prosecutors made a final offer: They would accept his guilty plea to three misdemeanor campaign finance law violations in the $925,000 cover-up of his affair.With the deal, the former Democratic vice-presidential nominee would avoid a felony conviction – and almost certainly keep the law license that had made him wealthy.But there was a catch.The government wanted to dictate a sentence that would result in up to six months of prison for Edwards, even with the plea to lesser charges.Edwards and his lawyers were concerned. They wanted the ability to at least argue to a judge for alternatives, such as a halfway house, weekend releases, home arrest or some arrangement that would allow Edwards to be with his school-age children. He is a single parent after the death of his wife, Elizabeth, in December.But the way the possible plea deal was structured, the Edwards lawyers believed they would be muzzled from advocating at all about Edwards confinement before a judge, according to multiple people who were involved in the negotiations. Those sources described the plea negotiations in detail on a condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing.It was the last significant issue to be resolved for a plea. If Edwards didnt agree, he would be indicted on multiple felony charges.Edwards, 57, understood the risk. As a trial lawyer, he had sometimes spurned offers of settlements to take his chances with a jury, often winning big judgments. Would he do that again?The clock was ticking.

MORE:   Prison sentence doomed Edwards plea deal – John Edwards case – NewsObserver.com.

Leave a comment

Filed under Elections, North Carolina, Politics

The Bin Laden Decade

Great article from Thomas Friedman in today’s New York Times is worth reading in its entirety.

I especially like his assertion that governments only govern based on either Fear or Trust.

The Arab world is losing it’s fear of government and we have lost our trust in government.

That makes for a scary and complicated time ahead….

Here is a brief excerpt from the middle of the column:

In America, President George W. Bush used the post-9/11 economic dip to push through a second tax cut we could not afford. He followed that with a Medicare prescription drug entitlement we cannot afford and started two wars in the wake of 9/11 without raising taxes to pay for them — all at a time when we should have been saving money in anticipation of the baby boomers’ imminent retirement. As such, our nation’s fiscal hole is deeper than ever and Republicans and Democrats — rather than coming together and generating the political authority needed for us to take our castor oil to compensate for our binge — are just demonizing one another.

As the Israeli political theorist Yaron Ezrahi points out, governance is based on authority “that is generated in one of two ways — by trust or by fear. Both of those sources of authority are disintegrating right now.” The Arab leaders governed by fear, and their people are not afraid anymore. And the Western democracies governed by generating trust, but their societies today are more splintered than ever.

via The Bin Laden Decade – NYTimes.com.

Leave a comment

Filed under Elections, Politics, Uncategorized

Poll: GOP Medicare-Ending Budget Bigger Political Fumble Than First Thought

Like I’ve said, the Democrats are known for shooting themselves in the foot. But luckily the GOP just shot themselves in the head….

From TalkingPointsMemo.com:

It doesn’t take much political savvy to note that Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) Medicare-destroying budget plan hasn’t panned out all that well for the GOP. But a new poll out from advocates for the Democratic health care law shows that the Ryan budget fail goes even deeper than embarrassed presidential candidates and special election upsets.

Not only does the poll show huge opposition to Ryan’s plan to replace Medicare with a voucher system, the poll shows Democrats winning the credibility war when it comes to Medicare and “protecting the middle class.” And — in a jolt of good news for the White House and Democrats — the numbers show that when voters are given Ryan budget messaging from opponents, support for the Democratic health care law actually goes up slightly in response.

I’ve seen the same types of responses in several other polls today…..

Now, if the Dems just don’t cave in during the negotiations over the debt ceiling, they have a-  probably the- winning issue for the 2012 elections.

And the GOP has got to agree to increase the debt ceiling or Wall Street-who owns most of the government-  will have a nervous breakdown.

They really have no bargaining legs to stand on….

But that’s not stopped the Dems from caving in the past…

via Poll: GOP Medicare-Ending Budget Bigger Political Fumble Than First Thought | TPMDC.

Leave a comment

Filed under Congress, Elections

Against Learned Helplessness – NYTimes.com

More wisdom from Paul Krugman…

He’s right…

As usual…

The voice of common sense in the wilderness.

Bear in mind that the unemployed aren’t jobless because they don’t want to work, or because they lack the necessary skills. There’s nothing wrong with our workers — remember, just four years ago the unemployment rate was below 5 percent.

The core of our economic problem is, instead, the debt — mainly mortgage debt — that households ran up during the bubble years of the last decade. Now that the bubble has burst, that debt is acting as a persistent drag on the economy, preventing any real recovery in employment. And once you realize that the overhang of private debt is the problem, you realize that there are a number of things that could be done about it.

For example, we could have W.P.A.-type programs putting the unemployed to work doing useful things like repairing roads — which would also, by raising incomes, make it easier for households to pay down debt. We could have a serious program of mortgage modification, reducing the debts of troubled homeowners. We could try to get inflation back up to the 4 percent rate that prevailed during Ronald Reagan’s second term, which would help to reduce the real burden of debt.

So there are policies we could be pursuing to bring unemployment down. These policies would be unorthodox — but so are the economic problems we face. And those who warn about the risks of action must explain why these risks should worry us more than the certainty of continued mass suffering if we do nothing.

In pointing out that we could be doing much more about unemployment, I recognize, of course, the political obstacles to actually pursuing any of the policies that might work. In the United States, in particular, any effort to tackle unemployment will run into a stone wall of Republican opposition. Yet that’s not a reason to stop talking about the issue. In fact, looking back at my own writings over the past year or so, it’s clear that I too have sinned: political realism is all very well, but I have said far too little about what we really should be doing to deal with our most important problem.

As I see it, policy makers are sinking into a condition of learned helplessness on the jobs issue: the more they fail to do anything about the problem, the more they convince themselves that there’s nothing they could do. And those of us who know better should be doing all we can to break that vicious circle.

via Against Learned Helplessness – NYTimes.com.

1 Comment

Filed under Elections, Politics, The Economy, Uncategorized