Tag Archives: Democrats

Posted on by

Bullies, Bashing and the GOP

Let’s get this straight right up front: What someone does as a teen is not necessarily a reflection of how they are 50-60 years later. there may be clues, but to flat out extrapolate from one to the other is just plain silly. That’s what folks are trying to do with this latest Mitt Romney flap. As written in a Washington Post article, Romney was apparently part of a bullying incident during high school where he and others pinned down another student and cut his hair, ostensibly because they believed he was effeminate and didn’t fit in. They were going to teach him a lesson.

This behavior is, without a doubt, reprehensible. But making the case that since he did it then, he’d do the same now – or even have similar tendencies – is simply ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Romney fan. But fair is fair.

If you want to see how the man’s character has developed, you need to look at more than just his high school years. He protested in favor of the Vietnam War, then got himself moved to France to avoid the draft. His time at Bain Capital, where he made his money buying, then dismantling businesses, pocketing the profits while moving jobs offshore and putting Americans out of work. Or his battle with and elimination of a Massachusetts state-sponsored group that worked to educate against gay bullying. You can look at his current focus at cutting the taxes on the wealthy, while increasing them on the poor. There are plenty of things you can point to that show where his thinking has “evolved”. You don’t need to extrapolate it from his behavior as a teen.

But there is a pattern here. And in that sense, there is some value to knowing about this incident. Romney has always been couched in privilege. And from that privilege comes arrogance and a sense of entitlement. It comes with the perception that those who are different must be made to toe the line. And that getting ahead, getting your own way, takes precedence over the welfare of others. In other words, he acts like a bully.

Today, that bullying is in the form of money. He will spend as much as it takes to get himself the nomination, and if he can, the Presidency. It doesn’t matter how awful things in his past might be, nor what the consequence to the average person is. This isn’t about class warfare, because Romney doesn’t recognize a different class. You can tell by his speeches, his statements – he truly believes that he is average, that everyone has the same opportunities he did. So he believes he is doing the best. And anyone who doesn’t have what he has is just lazy, doesn’t need help. Remember his statement about not being worried about the very poor? He thinks they’re ok. He thinks the fact that they have fallen into a safety net shows that the system works. Never mind the fact that they need a safety net is a prime example that the system isn’t working, and that he is supportive of removing that safety net and letting them fall. Same attitude as “Let Detroit Fail”. If it doesn’t affect him or his cronies directly, he really doesn’t care. But take away a penny of their income in taxes, and they scream of lost freedoms and war on the rich.

It’s the entitlement of bullies. They’ll bash everything around them if they are allowed. It gives them a sense of power, a sense of control. It’s the GOP brand. Case in point – today’s vote in the House on a Republican measure to restore military funding that they gave up in the debt ceiling deal. You’ll remember that in the deal, Republicans agreed that if a debt reduction deal was not passed by November of last year, there would be automatic cuts to the military. They agreed to that because Democrats agreed to cuts on the programs they favor as well.

Now, however, Republicans want to renege. They want to turn back the clock and not cut a penny out of the military. Instead, they want to make further cuts to social programs, like school lunches, health care subsidies, child tax credits and food stamps, on top of the cuts already agreed to. Typical bully behavior. Make the deal, then try to bash your way out of it when it starts going south.

Of course, this deal has no chance in the Senate, and even if it did, it would not get past the President. They made a deal, and they’re going to have to stick to it. But the reality is, they don’t care. How could they? Politically, in an election year, do you really want to pit the poor, children and the elderly against military spending? Do you want to remind folks that you made a deal, in an effort to reduce spending, and that you don’t want to keep your word?

Bullies don’t care.

Again, this isn’t about class warfare. This is about entitlement. They have the money, they want to keep it, and they don’t intend to give any of it away. So they’ll beat up whoever they have to toward that end.

So, no, Romney’s high school activities aren’t indicative of what he would do today. But they are a piece of a puzzle that shows that his sense of entitlement, his willingness to bully those he doesn’t agree with, has a clear progression from then until now.

Posted on by

The Wrong Day To Mess With Me

I’m not in a good mood. My congestive heart failure symptoms are giving me fits today. Weight is up, chest hurts, didn’t sleep. I thought I’d take it easy, not write any political posts, just kind of unplug.

I even, for the most part, just blew off the right-wing posts I was seeing, regardless of how near-sighted, self-centered or just plain stupid they were.

And it was working just fine, until someone decided to turn a post about how to fix Facebook settings into an attack on the left, and Christians on the left in particular.

Don’t ask me why, but it set me off. Maybe my filters are just off today. Maybe I’m just tired of the hypocrisy. Maybe my inner asshole decided it needed to come up for air. Whatever it was, I had a rage come up that made my blood boil. Not a great idea for a guy with a bad ticker.

I let loose on the individual in question, but the anger, the rage is still there. And since writing is my way of making sure I don’t go looking for a bar fight, I decided to get it out. So, if you’re still reading, be prepared – I’m about to vent. As in radioactive steam release vent.

I’m usually fairly mild mannered in my writing. I don’t usually drop the f-bomb. So if that word offends you, feel free to go look for cute kitten pictures now. Because I’m fucking pissed.

Why? Let’s start a little list, shall we?

For example, don’t rail against sharia law, and how Muslims are going to somehow circumvent the Constitution and how you have to pass laws to ensure it never happens, then turn around and tell us that the country should be ruled by your God’s law first, and the Constitution second.

Don’t tell me you defend the Constitution then work to dismantle every bit of it you don’t like.

Don’t find some reason to turn any discussion, no matter how mundane, into an attack on your religion, then turn around and try to tell me you know the difference between a “Christian” and a Christian, just because they don’t agree with everything you say. Or question the faith of the President of the United States.

Don’t tell me you’re all for the civil rights and equality for everyone and then argue against women’s reproductive rights, the rights of homosexuals to marry, or the right of a Muslim church to build a mosque in which to pray.

Don’t rail against Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and the rest of the right-wing blowhards and then ignore it when Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson or Bill Maher say something equally as offensive.

And don’t dare bring me the fucking “They do it too” excuse. Don’t. It only shows how stupid you are and how stupid you think I am.

Don’t talk to me about how you represent “the 99%” and then break into buildings. Here’s a clue genius – 99% of people don’t think someone who is breaking the law represents them. Peaceful, persistent protest, yes. Doing shit that is intended to aggravate “the man”, like hurling things at the police or through windows? Not a chance.

Here’s another clue: There really is supposed to be a separation of church and state. You deciding there isn’t doesn’t change history or the Constitution. I’m an agnostic, have been for most of my life. Your ardor for your faith does not give you the right to force me to bend to your beliefs. See “sharia law”.

Oh, and by the way, the 1st Amendment protects you from the government stifling your free speech. It doesn’t protect you from the consequences of voicing your asinine beliefs.

For those who haven’t figured it out, things like Unemployment Insurance and Social Security aren’t “entitlements”. If I paid my money into the system, they were an investment. If your investments are so fucking precious, how about treating these investments with the same amount of care, rather than raid them to fatten your damned offshore Cayman Islands bank accounts.

Don’t tell me it’s too easy to get welfare or assistance, then tell me that I can’t get any medical insurance or food assistance because my disability insurance pays me too much. And my rent is more than half of what I get.

Don’t rail against the President about gas prices (regardless of political stripe) but tell me oil companies need continued subsidies. And don’t tell me gas prices are about supply and demand when we have a surplus and prices are still climbing. Meanwhile, speculators are laughing their asses off as we have to make decisions about whether we eat or put gas in the car. Think that’s an exaggeration? I made that exact decision yesterday.

Don’t tell me that climate change and evolution are “controversial theories”, but insist that “creationism” or “intelligent design” are sound scientific hypotheses.

Don’t tell me about defunding organizations like Planned Parenthood and remove access to birth control, then rail against abortion because of unwanted pregnancies. And when you talk about womens’ pregnancies in terms of barnyard animals I have two words for you: Fuck. Off.

Don’t talk to me about how a racist can’t be a racist because he’s not actually a caucasian while a family buries their young son because he had the temerity to walk back from 7-Eleven with Skittles and iced tea. And don’t even defend the very same racist  who is heard saying “fucking coons” on a 911 tape when the kid he followed, who he vastly outweighed ended up with a hole in his chest from the gun that was fired in “self-defense”.

And you better not try to tell me that “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. No, stupid fucking people with access to guns kill people. And no, genius, that doesn’t mean I want to take away your guns. It means there are responsible ways to control who has a gun and when they can have it on them, and if your excuse for carrying it is the Second Amendment, your reading comprehension in terms of the Constitution is embarrassingly low. Look up the definition of “well-regulated militia”, and I’m pretty sure you ain’t it. And it doesn’t give you the right to carry a bazooka like an extension of your johnson. You don’t need a fucking AK-47 to hunt rabbits, moron.

The next person who uses the term “race card” in my presence may get a well-placed fist in the puss. Racism is racism, and I don’t care who is guilty of it. And guess what? It’s out there, uglier than ever. And if you’re black, and you see something that was racist against a black, it’s ok to call it out. And I expect you’ll call out racism against whites, hispanics and Asians. Just like I expect all of them to do the same. Same with anti-Semitism. I don’t care the race, creed or religion of the person being racist. If it’s wrong it’s wrong.

And don’t – don’t - defend a racist remark by trying to redefine it. The word “nigger” is not defined as someone who is lazy or slothful. It’s a derogatory term derived from the mispronunciation of “negro”. So using your definition of it to excuse a bumper sticker that says “Don’t Re-Nig in 2012″ isn’t fooling anyone. If you’re going to be racist, at least have the decency of wearing your fucking hood so we can see you more easily.

Speaking of hoods, wearing a hoodie and jeans isn’t supposed to be a death sentence. And then turning around and saying that the reason a kid got killed was his choice in clothing is the epitome of stupidity and blatant idiocy. Maybe the problem is the perception that someone wearing a hoodie is automatically a thug, you fucking gasbag.

And no, there isn’t a “liberal media bias”. There is a bias to what makes money. Fox is focused on the right because Murdoch realized he could make a buck there. Liberals don’t watch as much TV. If they did, he’d try to suck that market dry too. CNN, MSNBC, and all the rest – they aren’t journalism anymore. They are reporters. They repeat what they’re told and fuck the truth. It’s waht they can get you to watch that’s importannt. How the hell else do you justify nearly 30 Republican debates with the same questions asked over and over and over again, like there was any real chance of the answer changing.

Another clue for some of you – just because Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul call it “gotcha journalism”, it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t answer the damned question. If you are asked a question about something you said, it’s your own damn fault for saying it. Blaming the person asking the question and calling it a gotcha question means you realize you opened your fucking mouth when you shouldn’t have, and now you don’t want to have to answer for it. Shut up, and either back your statement or recant it. But asking you about something you said isn’t “gotcha journalism”. It’s follow-up.

Oh, and you rocket scientists on the “professional left”… Just because you had some unrealistic fantasy that the President would fix eight years of backward, destructive policies within 90 seconds of taking office doesn’t mean the rest of us had the same stupid expectation. And the most ridiculous thing you do is then decide you’re going to punish the one guy who actually has gotten things moving in the right direction by not voting for him, or trying to weaken him. Result? You allowed the guys who fucked things up for eight years to gain back the House so they could proceed to spend two years doing nothing but get in the way. Awesome plan. What’s next? Tell folks on the left they should vote for Romney ’cause he’s no different? Oh, right, some of you have already done that. Idiots.

Here’s another thing – shut the fuck up about family values while you’re on your third wife, screwing hookers while you’re in diapers, having sex with Congressional pages or trying to have an illicit homosexual hookup in an airport bathroom while claiming you’re straight. You’re all bunch of hypocrites. And don’t give me the bullshit that the media only covers the screwups on the right because of the bias. They cover the screwups on the right because the right claims to be the arbiters of what are “true family values”. The left doesn’t make that claim, so when they screw up, it’s less of a deal. If the right didn’t spend so much time acting like they were the pristine vestal virgins they want everybody to believe they are, it wouldn’t be as big a deal when they screw up. Bill Clinton got blowjobs in the Oval Office, and they moved to impeachment. Vitter does hookers while wearing a diaper, and he’s still getting voted in. Gingrich is on his third wife – having cheated on the first two – and he’s still running for office. So tell me again, where’s the bias?

I also can’t fathom how the guys who are so concerned about voter fraud can’t even count votes properly in their own caucuses.  They can’t complete a simple primary without accusations of voter fraud within their own people. Maybe that’s why they’re so afraid someone else will do it, even though there is no credible evidence that it happens.

But probably the one thing that really, really pisses me off is the willful, even spiteful ignorance of facts. As the saying goes, you are entitled to your own opinion, even your own conclusion. But you are not entitled to your own facts. Rather than pursue fact and deal with issues based on those facts, there is a culture of simply throwing out conjecture and outright falsehoods and treating them as fact. That’s the willful ignorance. But the spiteful ignorance is when you present the facts, and instead of addressing the facts, the subject gets changed. Can’t win with your argument? Change the argument!

Along a similar line is the incessant use of a straw man argument, based on nothing but hot air. Sure, we all occasionally make an argument based on a misunderstanding of information. But in those cases, most of us, when presented with contradictory facts, will at least concede that we need to do more investigation. That’s perfectly ok – we all have the right to change our minds or be more educated. No, what I get really torqued about are the people who make stuff up out of thin air, and when you call them on it – ask for proof – they move on to the next lie, the next fabrication. They never retract a thing, they never acknowledge the facts in front of them. They just move on to the next piece of bullshit. So why does this piss me off the most? Because these people are the same ones that will demand an unending chain of proof for anything you say, and when you provide it, they’ll still call you the liar, and complain the truth is “manufactured”.

Just stop. Please. It’s bad for my heart to get this pissed off. And you guys are working too hard at it.

There. I got it off my chest. Do I feel better? No. But I’ll have to deal with the fact that sometimes, you can’t fix stupid.

Posted on by

This Time, It’s A Boneheaded Democrat Making Up Numbers In San Jose

Image © 2012 Leo Soderman - Creative Commons Non-Commercial

Yes, Democrats Can Be Idiots Too - Image © Leo Soderman - Creative Commons Non-Commercial

My conservative friends claim I only look at one side of the fence when finding stories. It’s just not true. It’s just that Republicans and conservatives have a tendency to act holier-than-thou, so their gaffes and missteps are that much more egregious.

But when someone on the left is an idiot – or worse, a flat-out liar – I have no problem calling them out. Like this guy, San Jose, CA mayor Chuck Reed. And yes, he’s a Democrat.

Reed used a made up number to trump up a “problem” with the city’s pensions. Claiming that the cost was $650 million, he proposed legislation for cuts to the city’s pensions. But the number is over estimated by more than $200 million.

So where’d he get the number? The director of retirement services made it up off the top of his head, and told Reed not to use it. Apparently, that advice wasn’t heeded.

via San Jose Mayor Uses Made-Up Budget Number to Assault City Pensions | Crooks and Liars.

Affected San Jose workers and citizens have already given up pay and benefits that will save the city more than $340 million over the next four years. They have already proposed a solution that would save the city nearly half a billion dollars more. Reed and the city council are ignoring the proposed solution and Reed has refused to back down from his support for the $650 million lie. Instead they are focused on a ballot initiative that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees say is unconstitutional. Reed and the council can withdraw the initiative at their March 6 meeting.

The workers and citizens, including police officers and firefighters have already proposed solutions, and yet Reed sticks to his bogus number.

Yes, sometimes Democrats are just as ridiculous as the GOP. Boneheadedness knows no political boundaries.

Posted on by

Politics And Poker: Why The GOP Keeps Getting Backed Into Corners

I used to run poker rooms in Las Vegas. Even taught beginners how to play, mainly so they could have fun, not lose too much, and maybe make a few bucks. So when I make comparisons to poker, I actually have a bit of experience to back me up.

The GOP keeps backing into corner after corner of late, trying to make political hay out of non-controversies. And each time they do, it reveals their motives for what they really are – keeping money in the hands of the rich, making life more difficult for the poor, and doing everything they can to get in the way of any progress.

To be fair, they were able to do it for years. In poker jargon, they were running over the table. They had figured out how to get the other guys at the table to tip their hands or fold early. It didn’t matter how good a hand the Democrats had, the Republicans would simply shove all their chips into the middle of the table, and force the Democrats to call the bluff or fold. Most often, they folded.

What happened in 2008 was that Republicans ran into a better player.

One thing you teach a beginning player is to try to read their opponent. You try to figure out what’s in their hand, and see if they have a weakness, like making the same play over and over again. And this is exactly where the GOP has gotten themselves caught in the wringer.

Their standard play has been to go all in, to make a huge play as a bluff. They never got called before. They would shove their chips in and take the pot. But now, they’ve run into President Obama, who plays the long game very well. Let’s look at some of that game.

From the get-go, Republicans made it plain that their number one political priority was to make sure the President only served one-term. Not jobs, not fixing the things that were broken in the system. Just getting rid of this new guy. Here is the first problem. It’s like sitting at the poker table, pointing at the guy across the table and saying “I don’t care if me or anyone else loses as long as I take your money”. Sound contradictory? It is. And yet, I’ve seen plenty of real poker players do it. Guess what? It never works against the good players. Why? They now know your motivation, and can use it against you time and again.

So what was the President’s first big hand to play? Healthcare. But you have to think about why this was such a great hand to start with. First, the President knew he had a fairly good hand, a good chance of winning this battle. He also knew that Republicans would throw a lot of chips onto the table, but didn’t have as good a chance at winning. But what made this a really great hand to start was the long game. It wasn’t just that Republicans stood to lose on this issue. It was that their stated mission was to block this kind of legislation and get rid of the President. For them, losing this issue meant they would have to go deeper into obstruction. They lost, and they shut down. Nothing would pass if they had anything to do with it.

In poker, patience isn’t just a virtue. It’s critical. The best starting hand in Texas Hold ‘Em is a pair of Aces. The next two are pairs of Kings and pairs of Queens. The combined probability of receiving one of these three hands is about 1 in 40. That’s it. A pair of Aces alone is 1 in 121. That means that you need to pick your hands carefully to have the best chance of winning. Sometimes, you’ll play a lesser hand because you might actually win with it. But most of the time, you’re throwing away your hand before it costs you anything.

But, you’re not wasting time either. You watch what the other players do, examine their play to see if there are any patterns, so that when you do have a hand, you can maximize your play.

Fast forward to last year’s debt ceiling battle. Republicans, as usual, overplayed their hand. They demanded heavy cuts, reduction in spending and deficit before they would even vote on a proposal. No proposal put forward by the Democrats was enough. Republicans kept pushing chips into the middle of the table. But another player was in the hand. The President called their bluff, offering a deal that had more spending cuts than the Republicans demanded. The Republicans folded. They tried to offer up smaller deals, but got no traction. Finally, they agreed to a deal that put a time constraint on more cuts. The first hand set up a second hand.

You see, the Republicans can’t seem to change up their game. They play every hand the same way – all or nothing. So when the debt ceiling deal was announced, folks on the left were up in arms that the Republicans got their way. Instead, they were sucked into a trap play. In poker, you trap another player by misrepresenting your hand, usually soft playing a very strong hand against someone you know will bluff. In this case, it was obvious that the “supercommittee” created would get nowhere, and that additional cuts would become automatic. These included cuts to the defense budget, something the Republicans are generally loathe to do. But they didn’t have the political will to make the cuts necessary to meet the December deadline for the supercommittee. So, the automatic cuts kicked in. Another hand won, with the Republicans looking bad again.

Next hand? XL Pipeline. The left hates it, the right reveres it. Despite pushes by Republicans, the President makes his play, softly, saying that more time is needed to study. Republicans push all in, again, and force an arbitrary 60-day deadline that can’t possibly be met. They think the President will fold and close the deal. Instead, the President calls their bluff, again, and rejects the deal. Republicans lose their stake again.

Now, it’s birth control. The President announces enforcement of a policy that has been in existence since the Bush administration. It boils down to this – if a church, Catholic or otherwise, has a business entity that serves the general public (not the church itself or a non-profit), they are required to offer health insurance that provides birth control. Approximately 98% of Catholics use or have used some form of birth control.

Mind you, this isn’t about making the church force birth control on anyone. If they choose not to use it, no one is going to force them to take it. No, this is about a business entity offering health insurance that includes coverage of birth control. Just like any other business. Again, it doesn’t affect the church itself or any affiliated non-profits. Generally, it affects businesses like hospitals that are operated as for-profit, serve the general public, pay taxes, etc.

And yup, Republicans have overplayed this hand as well. They are jumping in with the Catholic church, claiming that the President’s administration is attacking freedom of religion by enforcing this statute.

Sounds like the President miscalculated, right? Nope.

See, this law is already enforced in 28 states at the state level, not the federal level. It was already on the books at the federal level. There is no real controversy here. So why the announcement, if it’s already a law? Because the Republicans can’t wait to pick a fight. Even a really bad one. The majority of voters believe birth control should  be part of health care coverage, regardless of the employer. Of course, women have an even higher percentage than the populace in general. But even a majority of Catholics feel this way. The Republicans are on the wrong side of the table on this, and are playing a vastly weaker hand. And they don’t have the chips to back it up. But they can’t stay away from trying to take on the President, no matter what.

So, now they’re pushing their chips in on a stone cold, blatantly obvious bluff.

The old Kenny Rogers Gambler cliche is “You gotta know when to hold ‘em, now when to fold ‘em”. Republicans just can’t seem to learn that lesson. Another poker axiom is that it is virtually a moral imperative to separate an idiot from his money. Republicans are on the wrong side of that lesson as well.

Posted on by

THIS Is Voter Fraud

via Jury convicts Indiana elections chief | Reuters.

(Reuters) – An Indiana jury convicted embattled Republican Secretary of State Charlie White in the early hours of Saturday on six out of seven felony charges including perjury, theft and voter fraud.

So, despite all the folks on the right wanting to make sure they stamp out voter fraud, the guys getting convicted are…

Republicans.

This guy was in charge of certifying votes, and he was found guilty of committing voter fraud himself. I don’t know about you, but I think I’d be worried less about people with phony IDs and more about guy a like this that lied about his address so he could retain a $1,000 stipend.

If you are thinking of voting Republican, just do a quick Google search for “Republican voter fraud”, and then “Democrat voter fraud”. Then note one thing. How many stories about convictions – or even investigations – do you find in each? Then ask yourself – who do I trust with my votes?

 

Posted on by

What’s Good For The Goose Redux

A few days ago, we wrote about the Indiana bill that was intended to require drug testing of welfare recipients. It was pulled when an amendment was added to require the same of legislators. That bill has now been re-amended and may be passed today.

The new version includes random drug testing of 1/2 the legislature each session. If a legislator refuses, their refusal will be made public. Refusal will result in the loss of parking space, state-supplied laptops, and mailing privileges.

They also modified the penalties for welfare recipients if they should fail the drug test. In the previous version, those testing positive for drug use would lose all benefits. In the version that has now passed, recipients will retain benefits if they go into a treatment program and subsequent tests show they have stayed off drugs.

Personally, I think this is a much better solution, and reasonable. Without having read all the details, the broad strokes sound right. The goal shouldn’t be to exclude people from welfare, but to ensure that if you are receiving assistance, you are doing everything you can to improve your situation. Letting someone keep their benefits as long as they get help seems like a reasonable way to handle it.

This solution would not have happened had it not been for Democrats who pushed for the legislature to be tested. Kudos to them, and kudos to the Indiana legislature for a compromise on a bill actually has some sense in it.

Posted on by

“Isolated Incident” Waiting To Happen

 

Image is a capture from Facebook by Phoenix New Times

This story out of Phoenix today crossed my sight. It seems a police officer in Peoria, AZ Police Department posted a picture on his Facebook page showing a group of teens with weapons, proudly holding up a bullet-hole ridden Obama t-shirt.

In an interview with Sergeant Shearer, the officer in question, he says “I don’t think that the shooting of that T-shirt is that big of a deal.” …”It was more of a political statement.” He added, “It’s not like they were going to go out and shoot the president.”

Really? I wonder how many targets Jared Loughner used before he took aim and killed 9 last year? How does this police officer know that all of these kids were “just making a political statement”?

And when, just when, did this become something we’re expected to accept? Let’s look at just the last week, shall we? Crosshairs left on the offices of Democratic senators in Missouri. A Democratic campaign manager comes home with his family to find the family cat mutilated with the word “Liberal” painted on it. The governor of the state of Arizona shows the lack of respect we’d expect to see on Jerry Springer wagging her finger at the President, then lies about what happened (per the two mayors who were standing there). And this.

In one week.

The rhetoric is getting worse, and instead of figuring out how to cool it off, these kids are being featured on a cop’s Facebook page.

When the next nutjob goes after a Democrat, or kills innocent citizens because he’s afraid his guns are being taken away, it won’t be an “isolated incident”. We’ve seen it coming from a long way away.

Posted on by

Lawmakers Work 30 Min., Get Paid For The Day

From ABC News 10:

SACRAMENTO, CA – Lawmakers met for less than an hour on Friday so they could avoid losing their per diem.

Members of the legislature receive $141.86 a day for daily expenses. But if they go three days without meeting, they lose that stipend.

So on Friday, which is usually a work day, the state senate met for less than 30 minutes and the assembly for a little over an hour.

Yup. They showed up, spent less than an hour bloviating on Martin Luther King Jr., and collected a full day’s pay. Don’t misunderstand me, there is plenty of praise and honor to be given to Dr. King. But that’s not why these guys showed up.

Schools in CA, because of cutbacks, often turn three-day weekends into four-day weekends because they have to use a furlough day. So, at least the teachers get a long weekend out of being forced to take a day off. But up in Sacramento, they make sure they get paid for the day off by coming in for a whole half hour.

This is a prime example of why “we the people” don’t trust politicians. Their excuse is that they need the extra income to keep up two households. All the while, they make $95k a year.

This isn’t a left/right thing. They’re all in it. Meanwhile, non-political folks struggle to pay bills and feed their kids. Shame on all of them.

Posted on by

Congressional Approval Rating In the Single Digits

A new New York Times/CBS Poll reveals that Americans have the lowest opinion of Congress than any time since they have issued the poll, with only 9% approving of the job Congress is doing.

Of course, the first question that comes to mind is – What is wrong with those 9%?

But there are a whole bunch of numbers in this poll that reflect how much mistrust Americans have for their elected representatives. Seven in ten think Republicans favor the wealthy and two-thirds object to tax breaks for corporations. A similar number favors increasing taxes on millionaires.

In the poll, 89% distrust that government will do the right thing. And then there’s this nugget…

With the nation’s unemployment rate at 9.1 percent, income inequality remains a palpable issue for Americans. Nearly 9 in 10 Democrats, two-thirds of independents and just over one-third of all Republicans say that the distribution of wealth in the country should be more equitable, even as a majority of Republicans said they think it is fair.

Much as the Republicans want to rail against it, these numbers mean that the majority of Americans believe that wealth distribution in this country is out of whack.

Look for these numbers to be used by both sides to bolster their cases, but Republicans will be reaching for straws. Theres not much here for them to be positive about.

There is one analysis I haven’t seen yet, and perhaps might be an interesting thing to look at. That is the relationship of presidential approval rating to Congress’. While the POTUS is hovering in mid 40′s, Congress is below 10%. How often has there been that large a delta between the two? And what have been the outcomes? The gut feeling I have is that when that delta has been bigger, the POTUS is much more likely to be re-elected, but Congress may be in deep trouble – on both sides of the aisle.

Posted on by

Miss the 10/4/11 Show? Watch It On Replay!

This week, we talk about the economy and how it can change, and just what those “little people” are doing occupying a park in NYC.

Watch live streaming video from editedforclarity at livestream.com