Please don't get me going on neocons! Our two most popular these days are "Little Billy" Kristol whose daddy bought him the Neocon Bible, The Weekly Standard and Obama hater extraordinaire "Lipless" Charlie Krauthammer. Every time I see either one of them I want to put them in a headlock and give them a knuckle rubbie until they shut up.
The influence of the neocons got us into both our present wars and are caused the death of more Americans than 911 and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (who don't count). These too yo-yos have replaced the old school of neocons who were in the Bush Administration making the calls: Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Scooter Libby, John Bolton, Eliot Abrams and not to forget "Joey the Jowls" Liebermann. All now disgraced by one thing or another. The
Youngsters of Zion, The Neocons
Some of the biggest issues we face are kept under wraps. Some of these we are well aware of; like racism, reliance upon invisible sky creatures and being the least taxed nation in the civilized world the dishonest American acclimation that we over taxed.
But there is an even more sinister universal truth at work which we all accept without comment. That for economic reasons (share), the media has a corporate bias that keeps it from calling ignorant bigoted intolerant selfish Republicans - ignorant bigoted intolerant selfish Republicans. Which is why we have to do it here.
[Let me also remind everyone that people who drink too much Bud will buy anything from talking lizards, angry cavemen, failed pirate bands and whoever drops a ton of bricks in the bed of a pickup truck.]
I happened upon this letter to the editor today in the Houston Chronicle putting this into a calmer and more publishable (main stream media) context. Though Diane will receive just as many filthy threatening emails from Tea Baggers no matter...
In regard to “Plenty of blame in Clinton vs. Starr feud” (Zest, Page 11, Sunday), do we all need to be beat about the head to wake up to the fact that the primary agenda of the Republican Party for the past 20 years has been to bring down any Democratic president? The reasons for this don’t even have to do with ideology; there was no outrage from Republicans when George W. Bush ran up the deficit and expanded government. These people simply do not accept our constitutionally elected leader if he is not Republican. That’s not going to change soon.
Republicans are not interested in working for the good of the country; their interest is in the good of the party.
Bill Clinton was certainly flawed in his personal life. Many politicians are, and the Republican Party was as relentless in its quest to bring him down as they are now with President Barack Obama. The media like to say that both parties are at fault for the hyperpartisanship paralyzing our country: both parties are power-hungry, both parties are hypocritical. But there was no equivalent effort to delegitimize a presidency by Democrats — even with Bush, whom history will surely show presided over the events that brought our country to its knees.
I’m not saying Democrats are blameless, but I’m sick of seeing the national media showing their supposed lack of bias by equating the actions of the two parties. It’s clear Republicans will say and do just about anything to gain power and keep it.
The scale of their actions to obstruct Congress and undermine the presidency is unprecedented in my lifetime and has absolutely no equivalent on the Democratic side.
The Mammoth in the room of American politics is of course taxes. They have to be lowered every day. Jesus has removed the specter of death which leaves us with only the one real problem, having to pay taxes which may benefit the KINDS of people we don't like.
A recent TIME MAGAZINE did a long spread on how to deal with the deficit. Though very long, very complicated and very boring there is something in it, unintended or not, that makes this all seem less complicated than it really is. How to Tame the Budget Deficit. Especially when one studies the graphic which accompanied the article below.
First off we must remove the flat out lies the Republicans tell about taxes. Sure it is expected that they lie on Fox News and AM radio, but far too many of these lies come from the Well of Congress claiming our tax rate is over 50% or that we work until September for Uncle Sam and that we are the most taxed nation on Earth.
Well those are all LIES told by Republicans who are LIARS. Our tax rate, whether it's crunched from GDP or what you and I actually pay, averages out to about 30%. All kinds of taxes. all added together. This even includes Social Security and Medicare. We can all easily do the math each April and see this is the case. We all know it, even those who lie about it.
We are also the LEAST taxed nation on Earth not the MOST taxes.
In Europe - which Republicans not only discount but despise - the average tax rates are bout 40% of GDP. This includes Japan, Australia, New Zealand... So it's not just Europe, it could be said the 40% tax rate is what civilized societies pay.
What do these civilized nations get for that extra 10%? They have better education systems, affordable health care for all and no wars draining their coffers. But most importantly, UNLIKE AMERICA, they have a contract with each other that draws a line to keep tens of millions of their people from falling into abject hopelessness that causes family failure, violence, overflowing punishment prisons and the need to have a couple guns just to go out at night. From free market barbarianism to free market civilization with just an extra 10% paid in taxes.
So we could easily solve all our problems, deficit, health care, social security, education and crime by just finding a way to raise taxes 10% with the least pain.
Okay? Got myself rolling on the floor here in the United States of DON'T TREAD ON MY MONEY/PROPERTY. Though it is all fine and well to tread on due process, search and seizure, reading our email, looking up our butts, listening to our phone calls, denying Miranda [Republicans especially hate that Miranda crap hey?] Wow!
Police Blog, Seattle: A particularly violent and unique strain of teabagger has emerged. It is impossible to discern whether a connection to the pseudo political Tea Party, Teabagging group led by such luminaries as Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck exists, or these 'baggers are simply hooligans, acting independently, possibly under the influence of Teabag Crack. Both the former and latter are known to cause hostile dementia, unthinking actions, and bullying.
Just the facts ma'am. Victim waiting for bus, a hellish experience in and of itself, when the perpetrators began lobbing a barrage of teabags at him from across the street. The victim foolishly threatened to call police on his cell. We all know police should be on speed dial, and never to threaten a bully. Enraged 21-yr-old, teabag slinger, Liam Raymond O'Bryan (who should have more respect for teabags), then charged across the street to administer a beating, before strolling off with the purloined cell phone.
Police picked up O'Bryan, and the two others, one of whom claimed he had taken O'Bryan's jacket "in order to change O'Bryan's appearance." The teabag strings hanging from the pockets might have been a dead give away....I'm just guessing. Held on $35,000 and $50,000 bail, if they don't use the grey matter to formulate a better story in response to the question "What are ya in for kid" than "I threw teabags", and "I held his jacket" they'll be more popular than the prettiest girls in a Russian Bride catalog.
Seattle 911, Teabagging Tossers take violent turn,lobbing wet teabags
"I am trusting God to reveal all truth and that we will be released and exonerated of charges... God is good." Laura Silsby.
As you may have noticed, Laura Silsby's trouble can only get worse as she has called on God with a substandard "good" rather than "Great". Not even a capital letter "good"! Let's face it, a "good" God doesn't do Great things, while a Great God wins Super Bowls and helps blow the crap of thousands of people. What was she thinking? Gosh... Duh... Laura Silsby Child Trafficking
Initially this story was presented as a matter of good Christian intentions foiled by Voodoo red tape. Big Government is very bad you know.
To recap, Laura Silsby along with 8 other members for the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho are being held in jail by Haitian officials for trafficking in children.
Up front we find two elephants in the room. Not only are we dealing with Baptists but Idaho as well. Neither of which bodes well for rationality or any resulting common good.
As we learned more over time we found that Ms Silsby is a rather loose cannon within the Central Valley Baptist Church who took this mission upon herself. She is also a small time crook with 14 lawsuits pending against her from unpaid employees and businesses, also half a dozen low end criminal charges usually reserved for Blacks and Mexicans [no car insurance and registration]. In Idaho there are more retired cops who were thrown off police forces around the nation for racism than there are either Blacks or Mexicans.
We also learned that the 33 children were picked up by sight and loaded into vans without any paperwork or if indeed they were indeed orphans. Some are known to have parents.
The kicker here is not only that every international help organization says the people were wrong and stupid for this, but that recently divorced Silsby is in deep financial trouble, deep legal trouble and just had her $350,000 home foreclosed on by the bank just a little over a month ago. While... While Haitian authorities are well aware that this very kind of child trafficking goes on all the time and brings in about $10,000 profit per child. Idaho Statesman on Laura Silsby
I am sure the NAACP and every other African American organization knows they are next on this Republican hit list.
With this video showing Fox News, Chris Wallace and the Republican Party so gleefully - and wet your pants joyously - making superheros of these two nastyass wingnuts, I have to wonder if indeed that so profound are our differences that it is genetic.
The Nature of the Beast.
Even taking the obvious low road of racism out of this, what is left is a political ideology claiming the moral high ground because it not only could care less about the least of us, but actively blames them, tries to take away what little they have and goes this far out of their way to give them that extra kick in the mouth. Brings back the very words I founded this website on 15 years ago:
I suppose I can understand Republicans' selfish callous disregard for others, it's their pride in it that passes me by.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now was formed in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1970. Its charter was to push for free school lunches for poor grade school children, help Vietnam Veterans home from the war, and getting more emergency rooms available in the inner city. It is now funded primarily by half a million dues paying members and supports 1000 employees. Well it seems it is now 995 as a few of the dumbest were recently let go. Who could not smell that scam is beyond me. I guess the reasoning was be nice to eveyone, which has been the failure of Liberals for... For... about a million years...
ACORN is now the largest community organization in America. It is based in the inner cities of 40 states to help the poor deal with issues of housing, predatory credit, minimum wage, unemployment - and of course the reason behind all this - getting African Americans out to vote. It is responsible for getting 1.3 million new voters out in 2008. The words "community organizer" are Republican code for unsavory black people who cause white people trouble.
Barack Obama was a community organizer in Chicago and a law firm he worked for defended ACORN in a few cases.
Though voting fraud accusations against ACORN abound, they are for the most part propaganda games played by talk radio hosts. What few there have been do not matter a wit or a nit, were dealt with by ACORN itself and there have been no indictments or convictions.
Remember Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Turdblossom Karl Rove in trouble for politicizing the Dept of Justice? Well this was the issue, they were trying to depress the minority vote which ACORN was the leader in.
Enter the Pimp James O'Keefe. A mostly unemployed conservative activist who presently distributes Right-wing literature to college campuses. He made a name for himself at Rutgers University with a silly Lucky Charms lawsuit pretending that what the Irish suffer is no different that what African Americans suffer. A reach so far into such insane crap it absolutely is racism. It is what the guy is mostly about, kicking Negroes down...
Enter the Whore Hannah Giles a right-wing Florida preacher's daughter who spent the Summer training at the National Journalism Center which was also the training ground for Ann Coulter.
Enter conservative columnist Andrew Breitbart an especially angry Right-winger who writes for the conservative newspaper the Washington Times. Breitbart was about to kick off his new website blasting Hollywood Liberals - Big Hollywood - and O'Keefe appeared at his doorstep with these tapes, and here we are.
Other bit players in this the beyond the pale looneybin The Cato Institute, the almost as crazy Leadership Institute, Fox News, Fox News Sunday, Clash Church, Washington Times, Townhall.com and of course the standard gang of talk radio players Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and Glenn Beck.
Republican wingnuts - who this year became just plain Republicans - have gone to such extremes of late they conjure visions of the classic Monty Python skit, The Silly Party.
The center of their silliness is that our First Black President is a communist Hitlarian Marxist fascist socialist totalitarian dictator and illegal immigrant from Africa. Oh, and a liar...
One of the now central issues this gang of silly people play comes from the silly Glenn Beck Show on the silly Fox News Network. It is one of their many word games, this one using the word "CZAR" which proves that our President is indeed a fascist totalitarian dictator.
The real words for such appointees are "White House Advisers". They have been part of the system from Teddy Roosevelt on up. In fact, let me put this in red...
George W. Bush had 37 White House "Czars", 5 less than Barack Obama's 42. And 6 of those so called Obama Czars were appointed to deal with the unique economic failure of George W. Bush and the GOP.
Of all the White House Advisers one stands out as the Czar of Czars! Our first national celebrity Drug Czar Billy "Jackboot" Bennett!
After gaining weight being Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Education - a Department he believed should not even exist - Bennett went on to gain even more weight to become our much popularized DRUG CZAR under George Herbert Bush.
At the time Republicans loved the use of the word which denoted their core outlook of kickass authority driven no nonsense law and order! It was a beloved moniker which fit the wearer and the Party well.
True to being a Czar Bennett gained weight and often belched out some real heavy duty Czarist Czingers. They need some red too.
"Casual drug users should be shot." William Bennett
"Drug dealers should be be headed! I have no moral problem with be headings." William Bennett
Mr Bennett - who these days gains weight as a right-wing radio talk show host - took no offense for his first quote but has angrily responded to the second explaining that he was speaking of those who sell drugs to children.
With about 90% of children getting their drugs from other children, it can be honestly said that William Bennett has no moral problem be heading children. The Billy Jackboot Bennett page on Kick
So, we are going to move our war from Iraq to Afghanistan. Where live the poorest, least educated, stone age religious fundamentalist drug dealers in the world. Sounds like a plan!
So, do we acknowledge that relativity thing? Let's go over what the Soviet Union did there.
Like we did in Vietnam - though on their border rather than halfway across the world - the Russians tried to bring Afghanistan into the 20th Century. They went to war with what was then called the mujahideen. The mujahideen were the Taliban of the day. They were led by Osama Bin Laden who we befriended, funded and armed. The Russians fought for 10 years but finally give up after we gave Osama bin Laden and the mujahideen surface to air missiles. We did so because it was fair and good. Those missiles caused so much loss of Russian personal and helicopters that the Russians had to quit and go home. That resulted in internal war for years, the ascendency of the Taliban, al Queda, and our friend Osama bin Laden killing 3000 Americans on 911. The Russians failed like all invaders in the past have failed.
So, does this mean that if Iran befriends, funds and arms the Taliban, and gives them surface to air missiles to shoot down our aircraft that... It is fair and good?
Or when it comes to foreign policy are our double standards so absurd that we really are The United Buffoons of America? Taking the high moral ground of preemptive war, torture, denial of habeas corpus, due process and double standards going beyond the pale.
The Libertarian Party rose to prominence on the heels of Ronald Reagan and his most infamous silly quote. "Government is not the solution, government is the problem." With Ron Paul as their candidate the LP gained 1.2% of the vote in the 1988 presidential election. And with the rise of the Right, the libertarian think tank Cato Institute became a central player in the GOP.
The Libertarian Party is peopled by what are often called Looneytarians, has only had two celebrity politicians to call their own.
Racist and anti-environmentalist Congressman Helen Chenowith from Idaho (she refused to be addressed as congresswoman). Chenowith retired from Congress in 2000 realizing she was too far right for even Idaho! While following her libertarian ideals in 2006 - she was holding a baby and not wearing a seatbelt and was ejected from a jeep, broke her neck, and is no longer intent upon chopping down every tree and eating the last Salmon in Idaho. More on Helen Chenowith
Texas Congressman and abortion foe, Ron Paul left the Republican Party to run as the LP candidate for President in 1988. He soon came back into the GOP pushing his States Rights positions that only lightly hide his Christian Fundamentalist intolerance. Paul is a racist though he has spoken out against slavery (the 13th amendment he says puts that out of reach for Texas), but individual states re instituting Jim Crow or executing doctors and women regards abortions is all fun stuff for Ron.
The Libertarian Party is made up of very white relatively young males who are most exclusively single, never married, childless, unattractive to women and driven by only two things, love of guns and themselves.
The Libertarian Party is the official offshoot of Ayn Rand and all she stands for, though they take the deregulation far beyond her economics. The elimination of taxes and the IRS. Elimination of financial, environmental, civil rights and health regulations. The total destruction of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Workman's Comp, Unemployment Insurance, Disaster Relief and above all gun controls! You want a full field of fire swivel .50 caliber machine gun mounted on the top of your Hummer? The LP is the party for you! Oh and legally do all the meth you want while shooting whatever it is that needs shooting.
There are many spokesman for the Libertarian Party, most importantly is the Cato Institute, a far right think tank whose main purpose is to destroy Social Security and anything else they consider FDR New Dealism.
Though there are too many spokesman for the libertarians [small "l" means not in the party] to name here, the most well known is conservative columnist George Will who does not like seatbelts and believes everyone should carry an assault rifle - like in Somalia. He is a good example of the unloved nerd area of libertarianism while the Hell's Angels typify the more hardcore side of it.
All this looneytarian unregulated free market, no taxes, hate the government stuff we have suffered since 28 years ago when a silly old man with better hair than brains became President to made it palatable with his homespun charisma is now mostly over. For the time being anyway. For as we have learned over those past 28 years: God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that the powerful and wealthy shall not perish from this Earth and have everlasting life.
The Gang of Four who helped lead us into the worst Recession in History with an ideology that government must be weak and step aside for unregulated free market capitalism, and generate wealth by eliminating taxes on the unearned income of the wealthy. You know, unearned as in not going to work like you do. Spotting the hardcore ideological descendents of these people is mostly a matter of counting the amount of times they use the terms statism or classical liberal in a sentence.
Ayn Rand - Author or Atlas Shrugged - the story of the perpetual motion machine (free energy) and how it was suppressed by the greatest evil in human history, The Government.
Rand is also the author of The Virtue of Selfishness which presents the fundamental principles which permeate her entire body of work - that self interest is the be-all and end-all of human existence, while any form of altruism (helping people) is evil and immoral. Really! No kidding! Funny hat and cigarette holder aside...
Her followers today are right-wing extremists. Mostly members of the Libertarian Party who have found Nirvana in trying to make Mad Max movies our future. Her political philosophy has taken root in conservative circles and the Republican Party, but her true followers - under the auspices of Reason and Objectivity - are often insanely intense.
An example of this can be found at Modern Library top 100 list where the people vote for the greatest books. In the top ten books ever written, Ayn Rand beats L. Ron Hubbard four to three. 7 of the top 10 books in the world are by Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard! It doesn't get much sillier than that! Beware the Freeper
Milton Friedman - Author of the 1962 best seller, Capitalism and Freedom that catapulted him far above his head. Following Ayn Rand he put her philosophy into studies and formulas at the University of Chicago. Again it is the same theme as Ayn Rand, greed is the ideal, the individual wallet always trumps the common good.
Pluralism, a system where the best economic and political ideals are mixed together is out of the question for these laissez faire dogs.
Since the economy tanked - by following Milt's studies and formulas - the University of Chicago has deferred naming a new building after him. After all, Rand, Friedman and the next character listed has lost us (the world), just this year, $40 trillion dollars. And it will get a lot worse.
Alan Greenspan - Appointed as the Federal Reserve Chairman by President Ronald Reagan, Greenspan - another follower of Ayn Rand - lorded over the agency for 20 years. Columnist and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman claims that Alan Greenspan - under his central belief in a self regulating market - is most to blame for our current Recession. Even Greenspan himself had to take some responsibility when he said on Oct 22, 2008:
"I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organizations, specifically banks and others, was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders."
Ronald Reagan - Special mention to our 40th President Ronald Reagan who with his nice hair, well written q-cards and homespun dialog managed to put the ideologies of all three of these losers into one small sentence.
"Government is not the solution, government is the problem."
That nice sounding lie reverberated throughout the world and the construction of the house of cards began.
The world of financial tricks and treats. Built upon massive credit and cascading fees as incentive to push out more loans, the bigger the better.
In their hearts all four of these people knew the house of cards they built would one day fall, but not until they and theirs had snorted it up and took their limos to their shiney city on the hill.
A moment of silence please to all the multi Billionaires who have been reduced to Billionaires... You have to be there to understand the pain.
With the Right once again doing their semantic drivel concerning homophobe and bigot Reverend Rick Warren being the recipient of the intolerance while the gay community who actually suffer it are the intolerant bigots, I had go dig this one out of the archives.
The above convoluted semantic argument is often used to berate liberals for accusing conservatives of various forms of prejudice, bigotry, sexism, homophobia and racism. Though so absurd it seems unworthy of comment, it is still a debate they are winning through every area of the media, for this is the central theme regarding the issue of political correctness.
Years before political correctness had a name, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. arrived at a way of expressing the absurdity of all this. I paraphrase...
Intolerance was an important issue of debate between my parents. Father was of course, a good fascist, and was intolerant of just about everything, except of course, Nazi's. Mother would ask that he not bring any of the uniformed, swastika laden soldiers into her home. My father would then accuse her of gross intolerance. My mother, rather than play the semantic game, would get out pencil and paper and begin her list.
Things Mother is intolerant of:
Nazis
Things Father is Intolerant of:
Jews
Communists
Queers
Buddhists
Lesbians
Chinamen
Negroes
Hindus
Japs
Muslims
Unionists
Pollocks
Environmentalists
Arabs
Catholics
Mexicans
Moslems
Liberals
Socialists
Feminists
Albanians
Russians
Then Mother would search around for more paper. Mother always made a big thing out of searching around for more paper.
Rather than me do this for you and be charged with bias, do it yourself. Get a sheet of paper and a pencil. Draw a vertical line down the center. Label one side Liberal and the other side Conservative. Add the following words to the column the words best represent.
Abortion - Individual Choice
Abortion - State Control
Altruism
Art
Bigotry
The Blues
Callousness
Canning
Classical Music
Help the poor
Help the rich
Civil Rights
Collective bargaining
Compassion
Conservation
Country Western
Corporal Punishment
Creationism
Dogma
Environment
Equal Rights
Evolution
Exclusion
Execution
Freedom from Religion
Guns
Hate Radio
Hillbillies
Hitting
Homophobia
Human Rights
Humor
Inclusion
Intolerance
Jazz
Jingoism
Journalism
Law and Order
Literature
Mercy
Militarism
Movies
Nationalism
Pacifism
Peace
Possum Stew
Pre emptive War
Reason
Rock & Roll
Racism
Science
Sculpture
Selfishness
Sexual Freedom
Sexual prohibition
Slapping
Shooting
State Religion
Teaching
Theater
Tolerance
Universities
Violence
War mongering
War
Now sign your name to the bottom of one side or the other, tear off the other side, laminate it, and nail it to your forehead.
By voting down the bailout bill the conservative wing of the Republican Party today pushed the Dow Jones down 777 points, the biggest drop in American history. They did it they say, because Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said mean things about what their unregulated free market ideology has wrought, the biggest financial melt down since 1929. Conservatives who exist on a plane of self admitted mean nastyness don't like it when people are mean and nasty to them. It is that very hypocrisy which drives the radio shows they listen to.
The argument has been corrupted by ideologues from both sides screeching either SOCIALISM or BAILING OUT WALL STREET. Both are in error.
It is neither about the much dreaded word "socialism" nor is it about bailing out bankers and brokers, but rather it is to bail us all out of a fix created by Republican economic ideology, and admitedly, what many Democrats have had to go along with to get elected over the past 30 years.
It is a $2500 investment from each of us, not to bail out those who sold us this sorryass Republican bill of goods, but those who bought the goods. That includes those of us with a mortgage, an IRA account, a 401K account, who have money in the market or are even holding money market accounts for Chrissake.
It is also meant to keep fear at bay so the stock market won't push us from the Recession Republicans refuse to admit we are in, to a full fledged Depression.
It too is meant to reduce the credit crunch, for as it stands credit is now so tight people cannot get loans to buy homes, fix their homes, buy cars, appliances or computers which is causing unemployment to rise.
The bailout may seem to be taking the risk from those REPUBLICANS who caused it, but it is necessary to keep the rest of us in our homes and jobs, and is especially important to the elderly on retirement plans.
I just know he will continue to do us proud at the important G8 Summit in Japan. In a recent interview on Japan's Fuji Television, I wish I could say that he commented on what he proposed to accomplish on the world front.
While Japan and the world waited, he told Fuji Television that he:"Will try not to fall off of his mountain bike." Further commenting, that he was looking forward to it.
"I think they've got some beautiful trails, I've just got to be careful not to fall off."
Apparently there is reason for his concern, if not ours.
During the G8 Summit in 2005 in Gleneagles, Scotland, he crashed into a local police officer. Yes, a POLICE officer.
He also suffered cuts and bruises in 2004 when he crashed his bike at his Texas ranch.
In 2003, he had a one "vehicle" incident on a Segway stand-on scooter...think about that one, and be very frightened. It does make me yearn to see "Cowboy George" on an actual horse. Who knows what perils an enormous creature with a mind of it's own could cause the "Drugstore Cowboy."
I just put down the Sunday morning Chicago Tribune. What a difference from the Houston Chronicle. Gosh... No one named Jaun was shot outside a club. No one named Jerome was shot inside a club. No one named Biker Bob died over a quarter on a pool table. No old women were mauled by pitbulls. Nobody was running around with big signs saying WETBACKS GO HOME. No immigration articles at all, no air pollution articles at all, no worst schools in America articles, no one was shot stepping onto someone elses property. But one hell of a lot about Barack Obama and Resko and Barack Obama and the Jewish vote. It's also not 90.
A recent Houston poll by Rice University showed that the overall angst
directed at Mexican immigration has risen by 50% since 2004. In almost perfect correlation to the economic crisis caused by the Republican
Bush Administration. The same historic scapegoating that has been going for eons, placing the blame upon the least of us who are also the least responsible rather than where it belongs, upon those in charge. It would seem that those in charge are the ones who get it all going. Rice University Immigration Survey
This is a local town meeting held for PBS here in Houston on May 26th, 2008. For the full hour go to Houston PBS Have Your Say
Play this while you read
This issue has been much discussed here by the Houston Chronicle and the Houston PBS station. Both of which show that most all the angst directed at Hispanics is driven by the same old crowd, what Arianna Huffington in her new book calls the Lunatic Fringe but is really just The Republican Base. It is primarily made up of Right-wing radio talk show hosts, conservative preachers, and racist organizations like the Minutemen and other vigilante border patrol groups. With the Klan politically incorrect of late, old members have found new groups to join under a the more conservatively correct banner of Nativist rather than the old unfair word Racist. If you have been watching cable news of late, you know that there are no white racists in America anymore, all the racists are African American now.
In the video you will see recently elected State Senator Dan Patrick
who is Houston's loudest voice on the matter. Patrick is a hardcore evangelical fundamentalist Christian who for many years was the owner of Houston's premier Right Wing talk radio station and the lead in host before Rush Limbaugh. Patrick is so far out on the lunatic fringe that
he once called for the executions of both President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton over some crazyass conspiracy theory. He contended that the first couple had started wild fires in New Mexico to cover up sending hard drives full of nuclear bomb information to the Chinese Communists. Treason! Execution! No lie! Patrick is an example of what drives this kind of low ball xenophobic crap which is at the core of the anti-immigration fervor at play these days.
"Many of the problems we are dealing with tonight wouldn't exist if we didn't have so many illegals coming into the country. We are in a downward spiral economically in this country, is it just coincidence it is occurring now that we had the large rush of illegals trying to get
into this country? Any immigrants that want to come into this country legally I give my support. Many of us are products of parents, grandparents, great grandparents that came here many years ago as legal immigrants. What was the first thing they did when the came here they learned to speak English if that wasn't their native language, the reason was that was the only way they could succeed in this country by speaking the lauguage of this country." Ed Henderson VP Texas Border Volunteers
In that little speech taken from the video above lies the ignorance and endemic bigotry that is not only what drives this anti-immigration issue, but is at the very heart of what is most wrong with this country. It is what needs to be changed. AND GOOD LUCK WITH THAT BARACK!
Bigots can't spell either
The five fallacies of Illegal immigration:
Terrorist are going to come across the border and nuke Chicago (from the Tom Clancey book)! Islamic Jihadists are not going to wade across the Rio Grande with a 35% chance of getting caught. They are going to fly into O'Hare with impeccable papers or they are already here.
They don't learn English like historic immigrants of the past! Hispanics learn English much faster than any other historic immigrant group.
They don't pay taxes! They pay in about $10 billion a year in Social Security which they never reclaim for fear of deportation. Most pay federal withholding taxes which again they do not reclaim for the same reason. They pay sales taxes, property taxes, licensing, fees and stimulate the economy with their presence.
They are a criminal element! Illegal Immigrants are no more criminal than documented immigrants and less so than African Americans.
They depress wages! The only wages they depress are close to minimum wage and nationally it is about a nickel an hour.
The five reasons why the anti-immigration movement wants to deport 12 million illegal aliens which has nothing at all to do with paperwork.
They are foreigners! They are not Protestants! They are not white! They don't speak English properly! They have funny names like Wan and Jesus!
The five reasons to give them green cards.
When this same issue came up in 1986 Ronald Reagan used the bully pulpit to help pass legislation to give green cards to 4 million illegal aliens. Ronald Reagan, Lord of Conservatives, is never wrong.
They do the jobs the rest of us REALLY refuse to do and are needed for our economy to work. As soon as Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs and Tom Trancedo - in their three piece suits with flag lapel pins glittering in the noonday Sun - become lettuce pickers in the San Joaquin Valley we can discard this one.
They are especially good workers who always show up, show up on time, work harder than we do and do what they are told without lip or lawsuits.
Their reasonable religious beliefs and moral foundations, along with their superior work ethic and family values make this country a better place for the rest of us to live. After all, if it were not for the influx of hispanics here over the past 150 years, Texas would probably still be a slave state.
It is what Jesus would do. After all, if there had been a fence around Bethlehem, God only knows what may have happened to Mary and Joesph.
The Frontline documentary Sick Around the World hosted by T.R. Reid is a must watch. A trip around the world to see how other nations manage to succeed with health care systems while we come in 38th. The documentary Sick Around the World
This was like short version of the Michael Moore movie Sicko without the propaganda, though it too arrives at the same conclusion.
Reid manages to get the issue down to four simple points that all successful health care plans must begin with. Though nations can still choose between private and public implementation.
Mandate health insurance payments from everyone (or tax increases to cover it).
Cover everyone no matter condition or income.
Mandate that health insurance be non profit.
Standardize cost of proceedures and drugs.
BANG! Everyone covered under a better system at half the price.
All we have to do is get his wrong headed notion that all human endeavor should be taken care of by the peck and call of the market. As we are finally finding out of late, the market is not the solution, it is the problem. We must move from a pure market health care system to a human health care system.
The base of our profit driven system has insurers piling on those already suffering most, punishing them for a bad tumble of the die. Don't have enough to pay your bills because you don't have enough insurance or have no insurance at all? Our answer... Then we will then take your car, your house, your childrens' college fund and give you an added fuckyou boot out the door you loser. A system that adds hurt to pain. It is unfair, cruel, uncivilized, unchristian, unAmerican and stupid.
The documentary has a running hook. Looking at five successful systems the host asks each the same question. "Has anyone in your country every gone bankrupt for a health bill?" The answers were universal, "Of course not." With an unspoken facial expressing the notion that they are a civilized society. And there's the rub...
It's what wearing a flag decal on your lapel means. We need not seek knowledge from other countries because we are smarter and better than everyone else. What any damn fererners do is just a bunch of crap that cannot even be discussed here, by either Republicans or Democrats. I also noticed that this documentary did not mention what is considered the nation with the best health care system of all, France. A politician - or even a PBS documentary it seems - saying something good about France will find themselves on the bad end of an American ugly stick
I am again reminded how back in 2003 the media helped pound on George's war drum getting us into this mess. Wussies who did not bother looking for the truth because they were more concerned about what some dickwad wearing a flag lapel may say about them.
Here we are again. I am seeing the editorials in the New York Times and the Washington Post. Republicans or Democrats, it doesn't matter. It is the less humorous version of John McCain's Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb-bomb-Iran. It's everywhere and building, war with the biggest player in the Middle East which would bring in Nuclear armed Pakistan and World War 3. Iranians are bad, rotten, evil and a threat, that's what the fence down here in Texas is for.
I just saw a little blurb on a man who wants every school student to carry a gun, to make it fair and safe. Can we apply that to the nations? I guess not. Some problems are a step deeper than what we choose to talk about.
Iran is doing nothing we haven't done or are presently doing. Iran has not overreached its regional empire anymore than we have. Iran is just as patriotic and Lord Loving as we are. In fact they may be even more Lord Loving than we are, and ya can't argue with Lord Loving! We have 7,865 nuclear warheads, Iran has 7,865 less than that. And come to think of it, Iran never used atomic weapons on population centers.
On it goes... I can't come up with anything Iran is doing that we have not done, are presently doing or would not do in their place. So whats the problem? And there is the rub, you can't get anywhere with this until this underlying problem is addressed.
We do not have the best Health Care system in the world, we have the 28th best.
The major failing with enacting a national single payer health care plan - which the majority of Americans want - is two fold. First that it's presentation is far too complicated for the short attention spans of the average American.
Secondly the Republicans refuse to do anything about the problem other than handing it over to Wall Street. After all, they already have good coverage and don't give a rat's ass about your coverage - which is what makes them Republicans - it is the nature of the Beast.
If Democrats can make the presentation simple enough to get the populace behind it, the GOP will have the choice of either accepting it and trying to make it as meaningless as they can, or getting voted out of office and having no say at all.
So to make it easy Democrats have to knock this issue down into a few simple sound bites.
National Health care should be modeled after Social Security which is cost effective to run, understood, accepted, mandated and successful. The only problem with it was the serendipity of far too many WW2 veterans coming home and going on a 15 year long celebration of unprotected sex.
Next get the numbers down to just one or two. Pick a reasonable number, say $3000 a year deducted from everyone's check to pay for it. This will be offset by two factors.
First, as the plan will replace Medicare, that payment will no longer be deducted creating a big savings on withholding taxes. Secondly, with employers no longer having to pay their workers health care benefits, they WILL give that $3000 a year back to their employees in salaries and wages. So we are close to being even.
Insurance companies will do fine as they will immediately find everything that the national plan does not cover and fill the holes, while the buying power of employers will be able to offer similar plans including the dentist.
Congress will have long debates upon what the benefits will be and how doctors are paid - which is how all things are accomplished - all that is needed is the starting point.
Here are the big four:
Preventative care free across the board.
Basic health care with co pay.
Perscriptions with co-pay.
Catastrophic coverage.
Let's begin this long overdue project January 21, 2009.
Politics made easy - no need for a WIKI entry at Wikipedia:
Boutros-Ghali is Egyptian. Benazir Bhutto was Pakastani. Boutros was UN Secretary General in 1992 through 1996. Butto was Pakistan's Prime Minister from 1993 to 1996. Boutro Butros Ghali is still alive. PM Bhutto is dead.
While Political Correctness concerns administrative reprimands for publicly expressing various forms of bigotry, Conservative Correctness concerns the click of safeties and jail cell doors for saying unpatriotic, irreligious and naughty things.
Over the years I have written extensively on this issue, here is a political correctness chapter of the book. Let us begin by going back to 1979 when we had what so many wish for these days, an honest Born Again Christian President who is now known as the Failed President. What happened was a triple whammy; President Jimmy Carter's infamous "malaise" speech which the conservative PR machine jumped on to for evermore define liberals as what Spiro Agnew a decade earlier had called The Nattering Nabobs of Negativism. Add to that the taking of hostages in Iran and the failed rescue attempt it lent "weak" and "loser" to the formula. Within a year a new term was added to our American lexicon, Reagan Democrats.
After Walter Mondale was so soundly trounced by Ronald Reagan who won 49 states in the 1984 election, "loser" was added to the definition of "liberal" (tolerance) and the word soon embraced such a negative context it became the kiss of death for any politician to be so labeled, as such another phrase was written into our language, The L Wordwhich expressed such angst that it could no longer be spoken out loud in mixed company.
During Reagan's second term a little known disc jocky in Sacramento, California was making a name for himself by reading off the names of gay men who had died from AIDS each week while pushing the applause button and laughing (Character Matters.) The success of taking so much joy in so much innocent suffering made Rush Limbaugh the most popular voice on California radio. Limbaugh rode the low road to then take on local lesbian groups, he sparred with GLADD up in San Francisco and soon expanded his mysigony to include all women who wore shoes and were not pregnant. As luck would have it, the spokesman for NOW (The National Organization for Women) at the time was an old, often nasty unattractive woman named Molly Yard, an easy mark for Limbaugh. A caller to his show tossed out the phrase "feminazi"and Limbaugh ran with it to syndication in New York a few months after the Fairness Doctrine was rescinded. Almost instantly he became the top radio personality in America which put feminazi into the dictionary. Within a few years AM Radio had become the most ubiquitous Right-wing propaganda machine in the world.
With Republican control of AM radio began the most successful public relations campaign in American History began with the advent of the phrase,Political Correctness. From the late 1980's through today the variations of PC whether; political correctness, political incorrectness, politically correct, or politically incorrect flowed through radio, television and print thousands of times a day, everyday for most of 20 years. By incorporating the term feminazi and defining tolerance or concern for minorities as McCathyism, PC became universally equated to Nazism.
An example of how entrenched this has become note that Richard Melon Scaife has for many years been pouring money into David Horowitz's organization that is the clearing house for moving political correctness into the mainstream media. Across American campuses both Horowitz and the Cato Institute use Right-wing student groups to search out any and all examples of PC they come across, which they send to Horowitz who exaggerates them and moves them on to Right-wing AM radio. Thousands of conservative radio hosts grab hold, exaggerate it further and push it for weeks until the main stream media has to pick up on it or be labeled... Remember, it can't be said where children may overhear... The L Word.
Over the past generation working class people pull straight Republican tickets against their own self interest as this emotional issue of Politicial Correctness causes more damage to the Democratic Party than abortion, guns, flags, queers, and God combined (those people are going to vote straight GOP tickets anyway). Down here in my exburb of Dumbass, Texas I have heard the refrain that has been driving it everyday for twenty years. It may be a little different depending on region but it's the same angry toot.
"No friggin' uppity Yankee elitest know-it-all nazi liberals are going to wag their finger in my face telling me what to do or how to think. I will shoot them or myself before that happens." And there you have it, the political dynamic of a generation.
What is it that drives such passion in Ron Paul followers to work so hard online to raise money and his profile?
To the uninformed masses it would seem his popularity is driven by being the only Republican to decry the war in Iraq. But that is not what he is about. His followers care little about that war other than what it costs them in out of pocket silver. Rather his base is the most extreme right-wing constituency in America. It is not only driven by the Libertarian Party, but encompasses the vast array of racist organizations, right-wing militias, NRA Life Members, and above all, those who hate paying taxes so much it should scare the Hell out of you. After all, without taxes where would we find the money to put all the bad Negroes in jail, or build a wall across Texas or bomb the crap out of people with funny names?
Though not having to pay any taxes, elimination of government services, relief from environmental, economic and civil rights regulation, and a machine gun in every hand go along well with the legalization of crystal meth, it is his issue of States' Rights Today, States' Rights Tomorrow and States' Rights Forever that drives the passion.
Ron Paul's interpretation of the constitution leaves out the Judaical branch, to him Marbury versus Madison was just a bad dream. He believes that each state should be able to pick and choose what Supreme Court decisions they will or will not accept as law. This of course sends us not only back to 150 years of Jim Crow, but back to pre Civil War days.
White Only bathrooms in Florida? Death penalty for women who have abortions in Texas? Creationism in Biology class in Kansas? Brothers marrying their sisters in Kentucky? 200 wives in Utah? Slavery in Mississippi? Up to 20 years in jail for a BJ in Georgia? (opps, we already have that one). In Ron Paul World, whatever horror you can imagine can become reality.
His game is to hide his true beliefs behind the old racist canard of States' Rights. Rather than express his rabid beliefs on abortion, gays, African Americans, a gun in every hand and tearing asunder the Separation of Church and State, he simply utters his standard response. "I would allow each state to decide that." Those of us nearby him or who have followed his antics since his run for President as a Libertarian in 1988 are not fooled.
In the world of Right-wing lunacy, Ron Paul has no peer.
UPDATE: It has been brought to my attention by not a few people that the majority of his supporters are not a cabal of the most radical right-wingers in America (they are of course his core), but rather his present surge is from stupid ill informed clueless children. The DUH Generation. Okay, I agree.
I just know he will continue to do us proud at the important G8 Summit in Japan. In a recent interview on Japan's Fuji Television, I wish I could say that he commented on what he proposed to accomplish on the world front.
The only ones debating Creationism or Intelligent Design would do better arguing if babies come from the cabbage patch or the stork.
"Many of the problems we are dealing with tonight wouldn't exist if we didn't have so many illegals coming into the country. We are in a downward spiral economically in this country, is it just coincidence it is occurring now that we had the large rush of illegals trying to get
into this country? Any immigrants that want to come into this country legally I give my support. Many of us are products of parents, grandparents, great grandparents that came here many years ago as legal immigrants. What was the first thing they did when the came here they learned to speak English if that wasn't their native language, the reason was that was the only way they could succeed in this country by speaking the lauguage of this country." Ed Henderson VP Texas Border Volunteers 
Over the years I have written extensively on this issue, here is a political correctness chapter of the book. Let us begin by going back to 1979 when we had what so many wish for these days, an honest Born Again Christian President who is now known as the Failed President. What happened was a triple whammy; President Jimmy Carter's infamous "malaise" speech which the conservative PR machine jumped on to for evermore define liberals as what Spiro Agnew a decade earlier had called The Nattering Nabobs of Negativism. Add to that the taking of hostages in Iran and the failed rescue attempt it lent "weak" and "loser" to the formula. Within a year a new term was added to our American lexicon, Reagan Democrats. 
After Walter Mondale was so soundly trounced by Ronald Reagan who won 49 states in the 1984 election, "loser" was added to the definition of "liberal" (tolerance) and the word soon embraced such a negative context it became the kiss of death for any politician to be so labeled, as such another phrase was written into our language, The L Word which expressed such angst that it could no longer be spoken out loud in mixed company.
During Reagan's second term a little known disc jocky in Sacramento, California was making a name for himself by reading off the names of gay men who had died from AIDS each week while pushing the applause button and laughing (Character Matters.) The success of taking so much joy in so much innocent suffering made Rush Limbaugh the most popular voice on California radio. Limbaugh rode the low road to then take on local lesbian groups, he sparred with GLADD up in San Francisco and soon expanded his mysigony to include all women who wore shoes and were not pregnant. As luck would have it, the spokesman for NOW (The National Organization for Women) at the time was an old, often nasty unattractive woman named Molly Yard, an easy mark for Limbaugh. A caller to his show tossed out the phrase "feminazi" and Limbaugh ran with it to syndication in New York a few months after the Fairness Doctrine was rescinded. Almost instantly he became the top radio personality in America which put feminazi into the dictionary. Within a few years AM Radio had become the most ubiquitous Right-wing propaganda machine in the world.
With Republican control of AM radio began the most successful public relations campaign in American History began with the advent of the phrase, Political Correctness. From the late 1980's through today the variations of PC whether; political correctness, political incorrectness, politically correct, or politically incorrect flowed through radio, television and print thousands of times a day, everyday for most of 20 years. By incorporating the term feminazi and defining tolerance or concern for minorities as McCathyism, PC became universally equated to Nazism.
Dumbutt, Texas
The Sixties
With this video showing Fox News, Chris Wallace and the Republican Party so gleefully - and wet your pants joyously - making superheros of these two nastyass wingnuts, I have to wonder if indeed that so profound are our differences that it is genetic. 
Enter the Pimp James O'Keefe. A mostly unemployed conservative activist who presently distributes Right-wing literature to college campuses. He made a name for himself at Rutgers University with a silly Lucky Charms lawsuit pretending that what the Irish suffer is no different that what African Americans suffer. A reach so far into such insane crap it absolutely is racism. It is what the guy is mostly about, kicking Negroes down... 
Republican wingnuts - who this year became just plain Republicans - have gone to such extremes of late they conjure visions of the classic Monty Python skit, 
After gaining weight being Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Education - a Department he believed should not even exist - Bennett went on to gain even more weight to become our much popularized DRUG CZAR under George Herbert Bush. 
Mr Bennett - who these days gains weight as a right-wing radio talk show host - took no offense for his first quote but has angrily responded to the second explaining that he was speaking of those who sell drugs to children.
So, we are going to move our war from Iraq to Afghanistan. Where live the poorest, least educated, stone age religious fundamentalist drug dealers in the world. Sounds like a plan!
Racist and anti-environmentalist 
Texas Congressman and abortion foe, 
There are many spokesman for the Libertarian Party, most importantly is the Cato Institute, a far right think tank whose main purpose is to destroy Social Security and anything else they consider FDR New Dealism. 
Ayn Rand - Author or Atlas Shrugged - the story of the perpetual motion machine (free energy) and how it was suppressed by the greatest evil in human history, The Government. 
Milton Friedman - Author of the 1962 best seller, 
Alan Greenspan - Appointed as the Federal Reserve Chairman by President Ronald Reagan, Greenspan - another follower of Ayn Rand - lorded over the agency for 20 years. Columnist and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman claims that Alan Greenspan - under his central belief in a self regulating market - is most to blame for our current Recession. Even Greenspan himself had to take some responsibility when he said on Oct 22, 2008:
Ronald Reagan - Special mention to our 40th President Ronald Reagan who with his nice hair, well written q-cards and homespun dialog managed to put the ideologies of all three of these losers into one small sentence. 
Join Recent Comments