By Rich Miles
I wrote the following on a Facebook post today, in answer to a question posted there, to wit:
"Should the Republican Governors who are refusing to implement the Affordable Care Act lose their taxpayer-funded health insurance?"
Pretty much all the posts, including mine, said yes, that the governors have no right to make such decisions, on at least a moral if not a legal basis. There was not even one that said no.
But after I said that, the following occurred to me. See what you think:
Ya know, this brings up an overarching point: The main problem in this country today - and I mean the MAIN problem, from which so many other problems spring - is that politicians believe they are infallible. They don't think they can be called to task for their errors and stupidity, for their obstructionism and malfeasances. And so far, they have been right for the most part.
What we need to do is impeach a couple thousand of the worst of them, at all levels of government, put a thousand or so of them in jail, and then wag our fingers at the rest, and say, "Let this be a lesson to you. We can do this whenever we want if you don't serve us! We hired ya, we can fire ya." Are we brave enough, as individuals and as a nation, to do this? I mean, I can count on my fingers and toes ALL the "good" politicians I've ever known or heard of. The rest are arrogant shitbags who need to be reminded who they work for. So I ask again, are we brave enough?
Whattaya think? Are we?
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Thursday, January 24, 2013
This could be huge!!
Post by Rich Miles; text by John Tomasic at Colorado Independent
========================================
Update #2 - March 18, 2013 - not much of an update, but nonetheless.
Update #1: This thought just occurred to me: If the US Supreme Court decides to take the case (see last paragraph here), then they too will be in the position of deciding whether fetuses are people or not. If they give the win to Catholic Health Initiatives, they will in effect be agreeing that CHI is correct, and that fetuses are NOT people. Kinda hard to go any higher in US jurisprudence than that.
My guess is SCOTUS , or at least the conservative majority thereof, will be too cowardly to even touch the case, or at least Chief Justice Roberts will try everything he knows to keep it from happening.
I wonder if this law firm will ever represent any Catholic organization again.
Naaaah!
Yes, huge. In an argument that had seemed likely to continue well into the next millennium, and may yet, one side has, intentionally or otherwise, defected to the other side.
A legal representative of the Catholic Church has argued officially in a Colorado court of law that FETUSES ARE NOT PEOPLE!!
I was going to provide a link for you to read about this for yourself, but read about it here instead. Here it is.
Geez, this is just amazing. There seems no other way to interpret the following except that fetuses are only people to the Catholic Church when it doesn't cost them anything to say so. Talk about your legal precedents:
Lori Stodghill was 31-one years old, seven-months pregnant with twin boys and feeling sick when she arrived at St. Thomas More hospital in Cañon City on New Year’s Day 2006. She was vomiting and short of breath and she passed out as she was being wheeled into an examination room. Medical staff tried to resuscitate her but, as became clear only later, a main artery feeding her lungs was clogged and the clog led to a massive heart attack. Stodghill’s obstetrician, Dr. Pelham Staples, who also happened to be the obstetrician on call for emergencies that night, never answered a page. His patient died at the hospital less than an hour after she arrived and her twins died in her womb.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, Stodghill’s husband Jeremy, a prison guard, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit on behalf of himself and the couple’s then-two-year-old daughter Elizabeth. Staples should have made it to the hospital, his lawyers argued, or at least instructed the frantic emergency room staff to perform a caesarian-section. The procedure likely would not have saved the mother, a testifying expert said, but it may have saved the twins.
The lead defendant in the case is Catholic Health Initiatives, the Englewood-based nonprofit that runs St. Thomas More Hospital as well as roughly 170 other health facilities in 17 states. Last year, the hospital chain reported national assets of $15 billion. The organization’s mission, according to its promotional literature, is to “nurture the healing ministry of the Church” and to be guided by “fidelity to the Gospel.” Toward those ends, Catholic Health facilities seek to follow the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church authored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Those rules have stirred controversy for decades, mainly for forbidding non-natural birth control and abortions. “Catholic health care ministry witnesses to the sanctity of life ‘from the moment of conception until death,’” the directives state. “The Church’s defense of life encompasses the unborn.”
The directives can complicate business deals for Catholic Health, as they can for other Catholic health care providers, partly by spurring political resistance. In 2011, the Kentucky attorney general and governor nixed a plan in which Catholic Health sought to merge with and ultimately gain control of publicly funded hospitals in Louisville. The officials were reacting to citizen concerns that access to reproductive and end-of-life services would be curtailed. According to The Denver Post, similar fears slowed the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth’s plan over the last few years to buy out Exempla Lutheran Medical Center and Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center in the Denver metro area.
But when it came to mounting a defense in the Stodghill case, Catholic Health’s lawyers effectively turned the Church directives on their head. Catholic organizations have for decades fought to change federal and state laws that fail to protect “unborn persons,” and Catholic Health’s lawyers in this case had the chance to set precedent bolstering anti-abortion legal arguments. Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.
As Jason Langley, an attorney with Denver-based Kennedy Childs, argued in one of the briefs he filed for the defense, the court “should not overturn the long-standing rule in Colorado that the term ‘person,’ as is used in the Wrongful Death Act, encompasses only individuals born alive. Colorado state courts define ‘person’ under the Act to include only those born alive. Therefore Plaintiffs cannot maintain wrongful death claims based on two unborn fetuses.”
The Catholic Health attorneys have so far won decisions from Fremont County District Court Judge David M. Thorson and now-retired Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Arthur Roy.
In September, the Stodghills’ Aspen-based attorney Beth Krulewitch working with Denver-based attorney Dan Gerash appealed the case to the state Supreme Court. In their petition they argued that Judges Thorson and Roy overlooked key facts and set bad legal precedent that would open loopholes in Colorado’s malpractice law, relieving doctors of responsibility to patients whose viable fetuses are at risk.
Whether the high court decides to take the case, kick it back down to the appellate court for a second review or accept the decisions as they stand, the details of the arguments the lawyers involved have already mounted will likely renew debate about Church health care directives and trigger sharp reaction from activists on both sides of the debate looking to underline the apparent hypocrisy of Catholic Health’s defense.
At press time, Colorado Health did not return messages seeking comment. The Stodghills’ attorneys declined to comment while the case was still being considered for appeal.
The Supreme Court is set to decide whether to take the case in the next few weeks.
========================================
Update #2 - March 18, 2013 - not much of an update, but nonetheless.
Update #1: This thought just occurred to me: If the US Supreme Court decides to take the case (see last paragraph here), then they too will be in the position of deciding whether fetuses are people or not. If they give the win to Catholic Health Initiatives, they will in effect be agreeing that CHI is correct, and that fetuses are NOT people. Kinda hard to go any higher in US jurisprudence than that.
My guess is SCOTUS , or at least the conservative majority thereof, will be too cowardly to even touch the case, or at least Chief Justice Roberts will try everything he knows to keep it from happening.
I wonder if this law firm will ever represent any Catholic organization again.
Naaaah!
Yes, huge. In an argument that had seemed likely to continue well into the next millennium, and may yet, one side has, intentionally or otherwise, defected to the other side.
A legal representative of the Catholic Church has argued officially in a Colorado court of law that FETUSES ARE NOT PEOPLE!!
I was going to provide a link for you to read about this for yourself, but read about it here instead. Here it is.
Geez, this is just amazing. There seems no other way to interpret the following except that fetuses are only people to the Catholic Church when it doesn't cost them anything to say so. Talk about your legal precedents:
Catholic Hospital Argues Fetuses Are Not People In Malpractice Suit
From The Colorado Independent's John TomasicLori Stodghill was 31-one years old, seven-months pregnant with twin boys and feeling sick when she arrived at St. Thomas More hospital in Cañon City on New Year’s Day 2006. She was vomiting and short of breath and she passed out as she was being wheeled into an examination room. Medical staff tried to resuscitate her but, as became clear only later, a main artery feeding her lungs was clogged and the clog led to a massive heart attack. Stodghill’s obstetrician, Dr. Pelham Staples, who also happened to be the obstetrician on call for emergencies that night, never answered a page. His patient died at the hospital less than an hour after she arrived and her twins died in her womb.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, Stodghill’s husband Jeremy, a prison guard, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit on behalf of himself and the couple’s then-two-year-old daughter Elizabeth. Staples should have made it to the hospital, his lawyers argued, or at least instructed the frantic emergency room staff to perform a caesarian-section. The procedure likely would not have saved the mother, a testifying expert said, but it may have saved the twins.
The lead defendant in the case is Catholic Health Initiatives, the Englewood-based nonprofit that runs St. Thomas More Hospital as well as roughly 170 other health facilities in 17 states. Last year, the hospital chain reported national assets of $15 billion. The organization’s mission, according to its promotional literature, is to “nurture the healing ministry of the Church” and to be guided by “fidelity to the Gospel.” Toward those ends, Catholic Health facilities seek to follow the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church authored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Those rules have stirred controversy for decades, mainly for forbidding non-natural birth control and abortions. “Catholic health care ministry witnesses to the sanctity of life ‘from the moment of conception until death,’” the directives state. “The Church’s defense of life encompasses the unborn.”
The directives can complicate business deals for Catholic Health, as they can for other Catholic health care providers, partly by spurring political resistance. In 2011, the Kentucky attorney general and governor nixed a plan in which Catholic Health sought to merge with and ultimately gain control of publicly funded hospitals in Louisville. The officials were reacting to citizen concerns that access to reproductive and end-of-life services would be curtailed. According to The Denver Post, similar fears slowed the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth’s plan over the last few years to buy out Exempla Lutheran Medical Center and Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center in the Denver metro area.
But when it came to mounting a defense in the Stodghill case, Catholic Health’s lawyers effectively turned the Church directives on their head. Catholic organizations have for decades fought to change federal and state laws that fail to protect “unborn persons,” and Catholic Health’s lawyers in this case had the chance to set precedent bolstering anti-abortion legal arguments. Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.
As Jason Langley, an attorney with Denver-based Kennedy Childs, argued in one of the briefs he filed for the defense, the court “should not overturn the long-standing rule in Colorado that the term ‘person,’ as is used in the Wrongful Death Act, encompasses only individuals born alive. Colorado state courts define ‘person’ under the Act to include only those born alive. Therefore Plaintiffs cannot maintain wrongful death claims based on two unborn fetuses.”
The Catholic Health attorneys have so far won decisions from Fremont County District Court Judge David M. Thorson and now-retired Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Arthur Roy.
In September, the Stodghills’ Aspen-based attorney Beth Krulewitch working with Denver-based attorney Dan Gerash appealed the case to the state Supreme Court. In their petition they argued that Judges Thorson and Roy overlooked key facts and set bad legal precedent that would open loopholes in Colorado’s malpractice law, relieving doctors of responsibility to patients whose viable fetuses are at risk.
Whether the high court decides to take the case, kick it back down to the appellate court for a second review or accept the decisions as they stand, the details of the arguments the lawyers involved have already mounted will likely renew debate about Church health care directives and trigger sharp reaction from activists on both sides of the debate looking to underline the apparent hypocrisy of Catholic Health’s defense.
At press time, Colorado Health did not return messages seeking comment. The Stodghills’ attorneys declined to comment while the case was still being considered for appeal.
The Supreme Court is set to decide whether to take the case in the next few weeks.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
The Angels Have Been Taken From Us
by Rich Miles
I have wanted, since last Friday night, to say something about the tragedy in Newtown CT, but I have not been able to because I have been deeply in mourning - as we all have, or at least all of us who hold any humanity in our hearts.
But en fin, I must say something: As is often the case, it may not be original, someone else may have gotten to these thoughts before me, but they are my thoughts. I hope they will speak to you somehow.
Never mind how the sick bastard who did this came to such action. He is dead, he deserves to be dead, and if there is a Heaven and Hell, I sincerely hope he is already roasting in Hell, for eternity if there is any divine justice. But I don't really believe in Heaven or Hell, so the shit bag is just - dead, I guess.
I keep being confronted with the pictures of those beautiful little children on TV. Of course I can avoid them by simply turning off the set. But something makes me keep looking, despite the pain it causes me. And of course, my pain is nothing compared to the parents and siblings and friends and families of those lovely babies. They had not truly lived at all yet. Who can even reasonably speculate on what any of those children would have become in future years?
See, that is what always occurs to me when I hear of death among young people: what would they have become? How might the planet have become a better place, or at least an altogether different place, if they had been allowed to live to as much of their full potential as any of us ever do? How much will NOT happen now, what children of theirs will now never be born? No one can say of course, but it always makes me wonder. As perhaps it does you.
The worthless piece of shit who committed this heinous act deserves none of our sympathy - perhaps one could speculate that he too was a beautiful child once, but circumstances conspired to create of him a monster killer, and he took all those lovely babies from their parents and friends - from their lives. I will not even mention his name once, because I want him to be forgotten forever, I do not want him to garner any fame or immortality from these acts.
I am unable to be as profound on this topic as I might have been, because the tears keep getting in the way - I am not exaggerating, every time I think of the pain and fear those sweet children must have suffered just before the end, I can't keep it together any longer. Tears fill my eyes, and my heart hurts almost to stopping.
I cannot say "god bless them", because I cannot believe in a god who would allow this to happen to these innocents. I certainly do not believe in the god of Mike Huckabee - if that is the god who rules this universe, I wish he'd go away and leave us - including the sweet innocents - alone to manage it ourselves. As Garry Trudeau once said, he sure is stinking the place out. If there is a god, I certainly hope he skewers Huckabee and leaves him dangling there for all eternity, perhaps with a copy of his inhuman words dangling right in front of him so he will know why he is there. Forever.
I have lots more to say, but the rest would just be some sort of repetition of what I've said above.
The real sadness of this, aside from the killing sadness of the deaths of these babies, is that there will never be justice done for this. If you think about it, what justice could there be? What justice would make it better? Nothing I can think of.
Merry Christmas. Not for its religious significance, but for its importance as a time for us to love one another and be together in peace.
"Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky." - John Lennon, another beautiful victim of gun violence by a mentally ill asshole.
I think he wanted us to be responsible for ourselves, and not expect god to fix everything for us. That's just my opinion, of course. If I'm wrong, boy am I in trouble after I'm gone. Especially if Huckabee's bloodthirsty god is in charge.
But do me a favor - don't even THINK about telling me so. It won't change anything. And one last thing: Huckabee tried to back off of his remarks several days after the massacre. Apology most definitely NOT accepted. You moron. And that's putting it nicely.
I have wanted, since last Friday night, to say something about the tragedy in Newtown CT, but I have not been able to because I have been deeply in mourning - as we all have, or at least all of us who hold any humanity in our hearts.
But en fin, I must say something: As is often the case, it may not be original, someone else may have gotten to these thoughts before me, but they are my thoughts. I hope they will speak to you somehow.
Never mind how the sick bastard who did this came to such action. He is dead, he deserves to be dead, and if there is a Heaven and Hell, I sincerely hope he is already roasting in Hell, for eternity if there is any divine justice. But I don't really believe in Heaven or Hell, so the shit bag is just - dead, I guess.
I keep being confronted with the pictures of those beautiful little children on TV. Of course I can avoid them by simply turning off the set. But something makes me keep looking, despite the pain it causes me. And of course, my pain is nothing compared to the parents and siblings and friends and families of those lovely babies. They had not truly lived at all yet. Who can even reasonably speculate on what any of those children would have become in future years?
See, that is what always occurs to me when I hear of death among young people: what would they have become? How might the planet have become a better place, or at least an altogether different place, if they had been allowed to live to as much of their full potential as any of us ever do? How much will NOT happen now, what children of theirs will now never be born? No one can say of course, but it always makes me wonder. As perhaps it does you.
The worthless piece of shit who committed this heinous act deserves none of our sympathy - perhaps one could speculate that he too was a beautiful child once, but circumstances conspired to create of him a monster killer, and he took all those lovely babies from their parents and friends - from their lives. I will not even mention his name once, because I want him to be forgotten forever, I do not want him to garner any fame or immortality from these acts.
I am unable to be as profound on this topic as I might have been, because the tears keep getting in the way - I am not exaggerating, every time I think of the pain and fear those sweet children must have suffered just before the end, I can't keep it together any longer. Tears fill my eyes, and my heart hurts almost to stopping.
I cannot say "god bless them", because I cannot believe in a god who would allow this to happen to these innocents. I certainly do not believe in the god of Mike Huckabee - if that is the god who rules this universe, I wish he'd go away and leave us - including the sweet innocents - alone to manage it ourselves. As Garry Trudeau once said, he sure is stinking the place out. If there is a god, I certainly hope he skewers Huckabee and leaves him dangling there for all eternity, perhaps with a copy of his inhuman words dangling right in front of him so he will know why he is there. Forever.
I have lots more to say, but the rest would just be some sort of repetition of what I've said above.
The real sadness of this, aside from the killing sadness of the deaths of these babies, is that there will never be justice done for this. If you think about it, what justice could there be? What justice would make it better? Nothing I can think of.
Merry Christmas. Not for its religious significance, but for its importance as a time for us to love one another and be together in peace.
"Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky." - John Lennon, another beautiful victim of gun violence by a mentally ill asshole.
I think he wanted us to be responsible for ourselves, and not expect god to fix everything for us. That's just my opinion, of course. If I'm wrong, boy am I in trouble after I'm gone. Especially if Huckabee's bloodthirsty god is in charge.
But do me a favor - don't even THINK about telling me so. It won't change anything. And one last thing: Huckabee tried to back off of his remarks several days after the massacre. Apology most definitely NOT accepted. You moron. And that's putting it nicely.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
This makes my heart hurt
by Rich Miles
UPDATE 12/19: I have written a more cogent piece on this topic, or so I believe. It is right after this one.
Yesterday, Dec. 14, 2012, 20 FIRST-GRADERS, and 7 adults died in Newtown, CT, the result of a shooting rampage by a total loser of a young man, who had no chance of ever being remembered for anything except murdering children. His guns had quite a range on them, because the murdering bastard killed my soul as well, and no doubt that of millions of others across our nation. FIRST-GRADERS!!! Children who had barely lived, in fact in some sense had NOT lived at all yet - gunned down. What else can one call it, but gunned down?
Our nation, with the exception of the worthless piece of shit Mike Huckabee and some few who agree with him, mourns. Huckabee said that god allowed this massacre to take place because god had been removed from the classrooms of our nation's schools - that's a paraphrase of what the unconscionably cruel bastard said. And the thing that really wounds my heart and makes me angry is that there are almost certainly some people - hopefully, few of them - who agree with him. Who agree that god, that the supposed supreme deity who controls the entire universe, allowed LITTLE CHILDREN, all of them 7 or under, to DIE because his vanity had not been assuaged by being worshiped with a short rote prayer every day. Children DIED because of this, says Huckabee the Hitlerian shitbag!! Can he ever be taken seriously again?
I can only hope not!
I wish peace for the parents of Newtown, and those all across our country. I will NOT say may god bless them. According to Mike Huckabee the walking sack of useless pus, such a blessing is no blessing at all.
UPDATE 12/19: I have written a more cogent piece on this topic, or so I believe. It is right after this one.
Yesterday, Dec. 14, 2012, 20 FIRST-GRADERS, and 7 adults died in Newtown, CT, the result of a shooting rampage by a total loser of a young man, who had no chance of ever being remembered for anything except murdering children. His guns had quite a range on them, because the murdering bastard killed my soul as well, and no doubt that of millions of others across our nation. FIRST-GRADERS!!! Children who had barely lived, in fact in some sense had NOT lived at all yet - gunned down. What else can one call it, but gunned down?
Our nation, with the exception of the worthless piece of shit Mike Huckabee and some few who agree with him, mourns. Huckabee said that god allowed this massacre to take place because god had been removed from the classrooms of our nation's schools - that's a paraphrase of what the unconscionably cruel bastard said. And the thing that really wounds my heart and makes me angry is that there are almost certainly some people - hopefully, few of them - who agree with him. Who agree that god, that the supposed supreme deity who controls the entire universe, allowed LITTLE CHILDREN, all of them 7 or under, to DIE because his vanity had not been assuaged by being worshiped with a short rote prayer every day. Children DIED because of this, says Huckabee the Hitlerian shitbag!! Can he ever be taken seriously again?
I can only hope not!
I wish peace for the parents of Newtown, and those all across our country. I will NOT say may god bless them. According to Mike Huckabee the walking sack of useless pus, such a blessing is no blessing at all.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Rachel Maddow shows us a thing or two about Republicans
by Rich Miles
http://front.moveon.org/rachel-maddow-on-how-the-republican-party-hasnt-learned-one-damned-thing/
Rachel Maddow has rapidly become my favorite lesbian. Her lesbianism has little or nothing to do with why I like her. Mostly, I like her because she has a perspective on American politics that is similar to mine - she doesn't go after the mainstream thought. She goes after the odd thought (usually), and wears it out like a pit bull going after a rat.
So it is with the link at the top of the page. It's listed online as "Rachel Maddow on how the Republican Party hasn't learned one damned thing. '' In the video, she spends about 7 minutes discussing how the Republicans, who in case you didn't hear LOST the bulk of the last national elections including the Preznitcy, have decided that the reason they lost was that they weren't Republican ENOUGH, and should be more so in order to win in the future.
So that's what they're going to do. Doubling down, eff. immediately, on being even more controlling, anti-female, etc. Repug assholes than they already are.
Watch the video and see what Rachel means. And whether you're Republican or Democrat, write a comment to this post, and tell me if you think this is an effective electoral strategy.
As if.
http://front.moveon.org/rachel-maddow-on-how-the-republican-party-hasnt-learned-one-damned-thing/
Rachel Maddow has rapidly become my favorite lesbian. Her lesbianism has little or nothing to do with why I like her. Mostly, I like her because she has a perspective on American politics that is similar to mine - she doesn't go after the mainstream thought. She goes after the odd thought (usually), and wears it out like a pit bull going after a rat.
So it is with the link at the top of the page. It's listed online as "Rachel Maddow on how the Republican Party hasn't learned one damned thing. '' In the video, she spends about 7 minutes discussing how the Republicans, who in case you didn't hear LOST the bulk of the last national elections including the Preznitcy, have decided that the reason they lost was that they weren't Republican ENOUGH, and should be more so in order to win in the future.
So that's what they're going to do. Doubling down, eff. immediately, on being even more controlling, anti-female, etc. Repug assholes than they already are.
Watch the video and see what Rachel means. And whether you're Republican or Democrat, write a comment to this post, and tell me if you think this is an effective electoral strategy.
As if.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Repugs engage in cannibalism
by Rich Miles
Update below: It's not really cannibalism. It's just being a whiny-ass titty baby loser.
Not gonna go into detail on this, because the details are easily available if you're interested, but: The repugnican party is on a wild and hairy hunt for who to blame for the loss to President Obama a couple weeks ago. So far, they've come up with: Romoney's aides, and most recently, Fox News. I mean, the very news strategy that has been in operation since at least 2000 is now - not a good electoral strategy.
What total whores these people are. If they had won, Fox News would have been the golden source of all wisdom. But since Romoney bit the big one, it simply HAS to be someone else's fault. It just can't be that Mittens was simply an unconvincing candidate to lead a country in such financial straits as we are. It has to be something else.
I am sincerely hoping that, as predictions have it these days, all the old farts who make up the base of the Repug party these days will indeed die off. Unfortunately, it will probably be another 40-60 years or more until they're all gone - but we can hope, can't we?
UPDATE: Comes today, 11/18, the news that Romoney is whining that the Repug primary debates were too many, and exposed the candidates to "gaffes" and other awful stuff that could be used against them to prove them stupid asses later. OK, he didn't say that last bit, but it was the gist of what he said.
Also, CNN and PBS were liberal networks that "beat the heck out of" Repug candidates, including of course, him.
Big stupid pussy. Is no part of his internal dialogue or public statements that HE was a big, disgusting plutocrat? And that eventually, even Repugs figure out that they are voting against their own interests, financial and otherwise?
Aren't you glad he didn't win? He would have spent 4 years whining like this every time something went wrong, count on it. If you go back and listen to his speeches, you'll hear the tone that would have led to it. Listen especially to his direct criticisms of Obama - THAT is whiny-ass titty baby stuff!
My only regret from this election is that he didn't lose by a far larger margin. I mean, 59 million Americans were just plain stupid enough not to see through the bastard.
My advice to the former governor: Shut up. Nobody cares why YOU think you lost. You are irrelevant and useless now. And don't even THINK about 2016, unless Pres. Obama shits himself on the White House lawn, and bombs Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. And maybe even Houston. And even then, you'll be running against the next Dem, NOT Obama.
Update below: It's not really cannibalism. It's just being a whiny-ass titty baby loser.
Not gonna go into detail on this, because the details are easily available if you're interested, but: The repugnican party is on a wild and hairy hunt for who to blame for the loss to President Obama a couple weeks ago. So far, they've come up with: Romoney's aides, and most recently, Fox News. I mean, the very news strategy that has been in operation since at least 2000 is now - not a good electoral strategy.
What total whores these people are. If they had won, Fox News would have been the golden source of all wisdom. But since Romoney bit the big one, it simply HAS to be someone else's fault. It just can't be that Mittens was simply an unconvincing candidate to lead a country in such financial straits as we are. It has to be something else.
I am sincerely hoping that, as predictions have it these days, all the old farts who make up the base of the Repug party these days will indeed die off. Unfortunately, it will probably be another 40-60 years or more until they're all gone - but we can hope, can't we?
UPDATE: Comes today, 11/18, the news that Romoney is whining that the Repug primary debates were too many, and exposed the candidates to "gaffes" and other awful stuff that could be used against them to prove them stupid asses later. OK, he didn't say that last bit, but it was the gist of what he said.
Also, CNN and PBS were liberal networks that "beat the heck out of" Repug candidates, including of course, him.
Big stupid pussy. Is no part of his internal dialogue or public statements that HE was a big, disgusting plutocrat? And that eventually, even Repugs figure out that they are voting against their own interests, financial and otherwise?
Aren't you glad he didn't win? He would have spent 4 years whining like this every time something went wrong, count on it. If you go back and listen to his speeches, you'll hear the tone that would have led to it. Listen especially to his direct criticisms of Obama - THAT is whiny-ass titty baby stuff!
My only regret from this election is that he didn't lose by a far larger margin. I mean, 59 million Americans were just plain stupid enough not to see through the bastard.
My advice to the former governor: Shut up. Nobody cares why YOU think you lost. You are irrelevant and useless now. And don't even THINK about 2016, unless Pres. Obama shits himself on the White House lawn, and bombs Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. And maybe even Houston. And even then, you'll be running against the next Dem, NOT Obama.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
How Republicans Lost
I've been trying to write something that said adequately how I feel about Republicans, both before and since the recent election. And come to find out, this guy Ellsworth has already written it. IMHO, this piece should be spread all over the Internet, and copied and distributed to every right-wing radical in the country. But probably, just reading it and living in its philosophies is enough for now. If the following does not make you proud to be a Democrat and an American, then I don't know what will. Oh, and BTW, I knew this was going to happen. I even predicted it in past posts. I'm just a little surprised it happened this soon. I thought 2016, maybe 2020 might be the year for it. Perhaps this earlier date will allow for a little more healing before we do it all again in '16.
In essence, this piece says "Shut up, radical righties". And rightly so.
Get it? Rightly so...oh never mind.
Enjoy.
Rich Miles
====================
Cry Babies And Sore Losers
by Rob Ellsworth
I’m
seeing Americans post photos of our Flag hung upside down because the
President won reelection. They’re defending this action as a “Naval sign
of distress”. Let me tell you something: you are not on a battleship,
you are a manager at McDonalds in Follansbee, WV, and you are in fact, a
lunatic.I’ve avoided “spiking the football” over a great night for the President and for common sense in the Senate – Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin deserved more than a loss. But I’ve held off, because I respect, am friends with, and on certain issues agree with, many patriotic Republicans who work hard to make this country a better place and simply disagreed with who should be Commander in Chief. That’s fair and healthy.
And, I also didn’t spike the football because I’ve lost elections before and I know how terrible it feels.
It’s called maturity and not enough people in either party have it.
The
following jaw punch is not directed at common sense Republicans, nor
does it condone radicals on the Left. It is directed at the right wing
fanatics who put party before country, conspiracy before reality, and
ideology before science and intellect.
To Tea Party Patriots and hardcore Religious Engineers:
Republicans lost because their party leadership and most candidates feared you, listened to you, and looked the other way on important issues as you picked the dumbest, craziest nominees in key primaries (Murdock and Akin), or converted otherwise sensible, experienced candidates to Crazy Town (Romney).
There’s nothing wrong with wanting limited government. I do.
There’s nothing wrong with believing in God, the Golden Rule, or wanting to reduce abortions. I do, too. But you’ve taken it too damn far and scare the shit out of people you could otherwise persuade.
Yes, the message and messenger matter (you’re failing at both, BTW), but no Madison Avenue P.R. firm, K Street lobbying firm, Fox News “analyst”, or local chapter of “Freedom Works” can sell the flaming dung you’re slinging.
Smart people can lose. But smart people always learn.
You didn’t lose because you “weren’t conservative enough” or because the country has become full of lazy “takers” who don’t want to earn a living or just want America to “turn in to Europe”.
You didn’t lose because of Hurricane Sandy or because Chris Christie hugged the President on TV – they were both doing their jobs.
You didn’t lose because of a liberal media, liberal college campuses, liberal polls that were “weighted to Democrats” (mostly because they were accurate), or because of “election fraud”… actually, that probably benefited you this time.
No. You lost because your policies, tone, conspiracies, rigid inflexibility and irrational rhetoric helped align enough moderates, swing voters, and minority groups whom otherwise could be persuaded by Republicans, to align with Democrats and a beatable incumbent.
It’s not that you didn’t get your message out, it’s that we all actually heard it and threw up a little in our mouths.
There isn’t a mandate for Democrats in this election. Liberalism wasn’t rewarded in this election. However, calm pragmatism, compassion, working together, compromise and sincerity were rewarded. People may not have agreed with President Obama, but more felt he was sincere and that he understood their daily problems, fears, and dreams. If you don’t trust what the polls say, take a look at who is sworn in on January 20th. I thought you’d at least believe in Math when it came to counting to 270.
Sincerity is the only thing in politics you can’t fake. You can’t teach it. No matter how shiny a candidate’s bio is, how smooth he is, or how perfect the gray hairs rest on his temples — any average Joe on the street can spot a bullshitter.
Mitt is a generous and good man, but he didn’t know who he was or “needed” to be at any given time in that campaign. That’s largely his fault for lacking core convictions or personal toughness (Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush possessed both traits – that’s why they won).
But you, the right wing base of the party, who drove so many of us moderate republicans out the door years ago, were the main catalyst. Your inability to reason, compromise, or let new facts and evidence challenge your predetermined outcomes led millions of moderates to no longer be able to stand on stage with you.
Frankly, you’re embarrassing – more so than a crazy family member at dinner, or having your mom drop you off at a high school dance.
You say stupid shit and look stupid saying it.
You pass amendments to ban flag burning and then hang it upside down and post it on Facebook when you lose.
You preach limited government in the economy when Democrats are in charge and then look the other way when you’re in charge.
You want a government small enough to stay out of corporations and banks but big enough for bedrooms and hospital respirators (see Schiavo, Terri).
There’s a hatred inside of you that burns in a way that scares normal people.
You made unlikely allies in large corporations who are more interested in tax breaks and loopholes even if the government has to cut your Medicare and Social Security or cut education to a point where states and local governments have no financial choice but to educate your children in portable trailer classrooms with 35 other students.
Would these corporations do this just to help pad their quarterly earnings reports with certain tax and regulatory policies? You bet your sweet ass they do. And you better believe they’re happy to have you make the “freedom” argument as “concerned citizen patriots” on their behalf.
Yet, after those corporations spent billions on TV ads and herded you like sheep over the last half decade to discredit Barack Obama for everything from being a “Godless communist” — to his “being born in Kenya and hatching a secret plot to take down America” — to Obamacare’s “death panels and job killing regulations” -
YOU still lost.
After having a Senate Republican Leader state that his party’s top priority in Congress was to make “Obama a one term President” and a House of Representatives that blocked everything he tried to do and then had the brass to criticize him for “not getting anything done” -
YOU still lost.
After attacking gay people who want equal protection under the law (BTW, I’m referring to the 14th amendment to the constitution, I know you forget most of the amendments after the 2nd one) -
YOU still lost.
After attacking the Hispanic community who’s tired of being spoken “at” like criminals, attacking low income women who rely on Planned Parenthood for services of which 98% have nothing to do with abortion, and attacking relatively trivial things like PBS that children and adults enjoy as “1″ damn television channel that doesn’t include Honey Boo Boo or a “Fox News Breaking Alert” announcing Obama’s latest “Czar” appointment -
YOU still lost.
And after throwing all the red meat in your warped political base out to the rest of the country to eat, the majority of Americans weren’t hungry for it and didn’t trust ordering from your unhealthy, de-regulated menu -
YOU still lost.
You can read me the constitution, but you clearly don’t have a practical understanding of what you’ve read, heard on television, or forwarded to your entire email list of like minded xenophobes.
This country is great because our founders were smart enough to limit the government’s power and give the people enough freedom and authority to correct their own mistakes in pursuit of a “more perfect union” (it’s in the first damn line of the Preamble, in case you can’t find it in your Tea Party Constitution Cliffs Notes).
Our founders were utterly brilliant and sophisticated. I don’t like to speak for them, but I doubt they would have been friends with Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin. Nah, they wouldn’t have made the guest list at Mt. Vernon or Monticello.
But let’s be clear, our founders weren’t perfect. They owned slaves. Only White male property owners had a say in things. Women, blacks, native Americans, and other constituencies had to wait for an American dream and in many cases, are still waiting and working for it. Speaking of work, children were working 12-16 hour days with zero safety protections in statute. Zero.
The constitution, subsequent amendments and Supreme Court rulings and opinions since 1800 aren’t perfectly clear (those who think they are tend to have had a healthy serving of Kool-Aid and have never watched oral arguments at the Supreme Court).
The founders knew that they, and the constitution they drafted, weren’t perfect. This is why they added a Bill of Rights and why they created a Supreme Court and a process that has allowed us to add 27 amendments to their work of art.
Their imperfection is what led to a Civil War to prove that human and civil rights aren’t a “states’ rights issue” – they’re endowed by our creator, not by legislatures in Mississippi or Alabama, and they’re protected equally in our constitution, but also in our democratically passed laws.
I run from the Capitol steps to the Lincoln Memorial most mornings that I’m in Washington. I may not be fast or smart, but I can read what’s carved in stone.
Please. I welcome a challenge to what I’ve said. If you think because I voted for President Obama that I’m a socialist or that I don’t want a better America, I’m happy to take time from running a business I’ve co-founded and time from money I’m trying to raise for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America to pause and give you a fresh one. At no charge.
But I do ask this: be a real Patriot. Look at that flag you’ve hung upside down. Look at what you’ve done to it and what that means. Thousands of our bravest men and women, braver than me, just lost limbs and in many cases their lives so that Iraqis and Afghanis could vote however they see fit. I did that on Tuesday and so did you. That’s what that flag stands for – equal access to a process, not a guarantee for any of our desired outcomes.
A country that defeated Hitler, Mussolini, and bin Laden won’t crumble because the guy you wanted to be President got beat.
You lost. Now learn from it.
Sincerely,
Guest Contributor, Rob Ellsworth, “A Proud American
It’s called maturity and not enough people in either party have it.
The
following jaw punch is not directed at common sense Republicans, nor
does it condone radicals on the Left. It is directed at the right wing
fanatics who put party before country, conspiracy before reality, and
ideology before science and intellect.To Tea Party Patriots and hardcore Religious Engineers:
Republicans lost because their party leadership and most candidates feared you, listened to you, and looked the other way on important issues as you picked the dumbest, craziest nominees in key primaries (Murdock and Akin), or converted otherwise sensible, experienced candidates to Crazy Town (Romney).
There’s nothing wrong with wanting limited government. I do.
There’s nothing wrong with believing in God, the Golden Rule, or wanting to reduce abortions. I do, too. But you’ve taken it too damn far and scare the shit out of people you could otherwise persuade.
Yes, the message and messenger matter (you’re failing at both, BTW), but no Madison Avenue P.R. firm, K Street lobbying firm, Fox News “analyst”, or local chapter of “Freedom Works” can sell the flaming dung you’re slinging.
Smart people can lose. But smart people always learn.
You didn’t lose because you “weren’t conservative enough” or because the country has become full of lazy “takers” who don’t want to earn a living or just want America to “turn in to Europe”.
You didn’t lose because of Hurricane Sandy or because Chris Christie hugged the President on TV – they were both doing their jobs.
You didn’t lose because of a liberal media, liberal college campuses, liberal polls that were “weighted to Democrats” (mostly because they were accurate), or because of “election fraud”… actually, that probably benefited you this time.
No. You lost because your policies, tone, conspiracies, rigid inflexibility and irrational rhetoric helped align enough moderates, swing voters, and minority groups whom otherwise could be persuaded by Republicans, to align with Democrats and a beatable incumbent.
It’s not that you didn’t get your message out, it’s that we all actually heard it and threw up a little in our mouths.
There isn’t a mandate for Democrats in this election. Liberalism wasn’t rewarded in this election. However, calm pragmatism, compassion, working together, compromise and sincerity were rewarded. People may not have agreed with President Obama, but more felt he was sincere and that he understood their daily problems, fears, and dreams. If you don’t trust what the polls say, take a look at who is sworn in on January 20th. I thought you’d at least believe in Math when it came to counting to 270.
Sincerity is the only thing in politics you can’t fake. You can’t teach it. No matter how shiny a candidate’s bio is, how smooth he is, or how perfect the gray hairs rest on his temples — any average Joe on the street can spot a bullshitter.
Mitt is a generous and good man, but he didn’t know who he was or “needed” to be at any given time in that campaign. That’s largely his fault for lacking core convictions or personal toughness (Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush possessed both traits – that’s why they won).
But you, the right wing base of the party, who drove so many of us moderate republicans out the door years ago, were the main catalyst. Your inability to reason, compromise, or let new facts and evidence challenge your predetermined outcomes led millions of moderates to no longer be able to stand on stage with you.
Frankly, you’re embarrassing – more so than a crazy family member at dinner, or having your mom drop you off at a high school dance.
You say stupid shit and look stupid saying it.
You pass amendments to ban flag burning and then hang it upside down and post it on Facebook when you lose.
You preach limited government in the economy when Democrats are in charge and then look the other way when you’re in charge.
You want a government small enough to stay out of corporations and banks but big enough for bedrooms and hospital respirators (see Schiavo, Terri).
There’s a hatred inside of you that burns in a way that scares normal people.
You made unlikely allies in large corporations who are more interested in tax breaks and loopholes even if the government has to cut your Medicare and Social Security or cut education to a point where states and local governments have no financial choice but to educate your children in portable trailer classrooms with 35 other students.
Would these corporations do this just to help pad their quarterly earnings reports with certain tax and regulatory policies? You bet your sweet ass they do. And you better believe they’re happy to have you make the “freedom” argument as “concerned citizen patriots” on their behalf.
Yet, after those corporations spent billions on TV ads and herded you like sheep over the last half decade to discredit Barack Obama for everything from being a “Godless communist” — to his “being born in Kenya and hatching a secret plot to take down America” — to Obamacare’s “death panels and job killing regulations” -
YOU still lost.
After having a Senate Republican Leader state that his party’s top priority in Congress was to make “Obama a one term President” and a House of Representatives that blocked everything he tried to do and then had the brass to criticize him for “not getting anything done” -
YOU still lost.
After attacking gay people who want equal protection under the law (BTW, I’m referring to the 14th amendment to the constitution, I know you forget most of the amendments after the 2nd one) -
YOU still lost.
After attacking the Hispanic community who’s tired of being spoken “at” like criminals, attacking low income women who rely on Planned Parenthood for services of which 98% have nothing to do with abortion, and attacking relatively trivial things like PBS that children and adults enjoy as “1″ damn television channel that doesn’t include Honey Boo Boo or a “Fox News Breaking Alert” announcing Obama’s latest “Czar” appointment -
YOU still lost.
And after throwing all the red meat in your warped political base out to the rest of the country to eat, the majority of Americans weren’t hungry for it and didn’t trust ordering from your unhealthy, de-regulated menu -
YOU still lost.
You can read me the constitution, but you clearly don’t have a practical understanding of what you’ve read, heard on television, or forwarded to your entire email list of like minded xenophobes.
This country is great because our founders were smart enough to limit the government’s power and give the people enough freedom and authority to correct their own mistakes in pursuit of a “more perfect union” (it’s in the first damn line of the Preamble, in case you can’t find it in your Tea Party Constitution Cliffs Notes).
Our founders were utterly brilliant and sophisticated. I don’t like to speak for them, but I doubt they would have been friends with Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin. Nah, they wouldn’t have made the guest list at Mt. Vernon or Monticello.
But let’s be clear, our founders weren’t perfect. They owned slaves. Only White male property owners had a say in things. Women, blacks, native Americans, and other constituencies had to wait for an American dream and in many cases, are still waiting and working for it. Speaking of work, children were working 12-16 hour days with zero safety protections in statute. Zero.
The constitution, subsequent amendments and Supreme Court rulings and opinions since 1800 aren’t perfectly clear (those who think they are tend to have had a healthy serving of Kool-Aid and have never watched oral arguments at the Supreme Court).
The founders knew that they, and the constitution they drafted, weren’t perfect. This is why they added a Bill of Rights and why they created a Supreme Court and a process that has allowed us to add 27 amendments to their work of art.
Their imperfection is what led to a Civil War to prove that human and civil rights aren’t a “states’ rights issue” – they’re endowed by our creator, not by legislatures in Mississippi or Alabama, and they’re protected equally in our constitution, but also in our democratically passed laws.
I run from the Capitol steps to the Lincoln Memorial most mornings that I’m in Washington. I may not be fast or smart, but I can read what’s carved in stone.
Please. I welcome a challenge to what I’ve said. If you think because I voted for President Obama that I’m a socialist or that I don’t want a better America, I’m happy to take time from running a business I’ve co-founded and time from money I’m trying to raise for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America to pause and give you a fresh one. At no charge.
But I do ask this: be a real Patriot. Look at that flag you’ve hung upside down. Look at what you’ve done to it and what that means. Thousands of our bravest men and women, braver than me, just lost limbs and in many cases their lives so that Iraqis and Afghanis could vote however they see fit. I did that on Tuesday and so did you. That’s what that flag stands for – equal access to a process, not a guarantee for any of our desired outcomes.
A country that defeated Hitler, Mussolini, and bin Laden won’t crumble because the guy you wanted to be President got beat.
You lost. Now learn from it.
Sincerely,
Saturday, November 03, 2012
This guy will say ANYthing!!
by Rich Miles
I haven't written much in the past few months. That's unusual for me in a presidential election year. It's just that I really couldn't get inside the head of anyone who is planning to vote for the Mittster. It's just such an illogical fallacy to vote for him that I found it impossible to address remarks to such a person.
I remember back in 2004, when John Kerry was accused of, among other things, being willing to "say anything" to get votes. It wasn't true, of course, Kerry was relatively honest compared to most pols, and especially compared to Bush - but as was the common tactic with Karl Rove, they attacked Kerry at his strongest point, not his weakest - he's a fairly honest guy? said Rove, good, then let's call him a liar. Remember all the people at the Repug National Convention carrying flipflop sandals with Kerry's face on them? Cute, but inaccurate. Kerry mixed up a few facts, but most of the time when he did he admitted it and tried to fix it. But the Repug outrage knew no bounds when they caught him at something - never mind that their candidate couldn't open his mouth without lying.
And now we have a candidate who really will say anything, and has - he's reversed positions he's held publicly for his entire political life, and expects that no one will remember, or notice that he's lying, and that people will thus vote for him because he's saying all the right things.
And while I find it difficult to picture, there really do seem to be a lot of people who are going to vote for the SOB. Enough to make it a close race, when it should be about a 70-30 rout for Obama, and Romoney only gets the 30% because some people will vote their party no matter how crooked the candidate clearly is.
But the thing that really frightens me - and I can't figure out for what reason - is that he might actually get elected! And I don't know if I fear that because he is evil, or because he is simply incompetent. Because he (Romoney) is most assuredly both. He almost totally lacks compassion for his fellow man. Now prove me wrong.
Let me wrap this up with one small observation: Romoney was governor of Massachusetts. And up there where they know him best, he is losing by a margin of 63-33% (3% undecided, however that may be) according to a recent poll. It ain't just a little margin, you see. Massachusetts is admittedly a fairly liberal state, but they elected HIM! And now, they hate him by 30 percentage points.
Still thinking about voting for him?
I haven't written much in the past few months. That's unusual for me in a presidential election year. It's just that I really couldn't get inside the head of anyone who is planning to vote for the Mittster. It's just such an illogical fallacy to vote for him that I found it impossible to address remarks to such a person.
I remember back in 2004, when John Kerry was accused of, among other things, being willing to "say anything" to get votes. It wasn't true, of course, Kerry was relatively honest compared to most pols, and especially compared to Bush - but as was the common tactic with Karl Rove, they attacked Kerry at his strongest point, not his weakest - he's a fairly honest guy? said Rove, good, then let's call him a liar. Remember all the people at the Repug National Convention carrying flipflop sandals with Kerry's face on them? Cute, but inaccurate. Kerry mixed up a few facts, but most of the time when he did he admitted it and tried to fix it. But the Repug outrage knew no bounds when they caught him at something - never mind that their candidate couldn't open his mouth without lying.
And now we have a candidate who really will say anything, and has - he's reversed positions he's held publicly for his entire political life, and expects that no one will remember, or notice that he's lying, and that people will thus vote for him because he's saying all the right things.
And while I find it difficult to picture, there really do seem to be a lot of people who are going to vote for the SOB. Enough to make it a close race, when it should be about a 70-30 rout for Obama, and Romoney only gets the 30% because some people will vote their party no matter how crooked the candidate clearly is.
But the thing that really frightens me - and I can't figure out for what reason - is that he might actually get elected! And I don't know if I fear that because he is evil, or because he is simply incompetent. Because he (Romoney) is most assuredly both. He almost totally lacks compassion for his fellow man. Now prove me wrong.
Let me wrap this up with one small observation: Romoney was governor of Massachusetts. And up there where they know him best, he is losing by a margin of 63-33% (3% undecided, however that may be) according to a recent poll. It ain't just a little margin, you see. Massachusetts is admittedly a fairly liberal state, but they elected HIM! And now, they hate him by 30 percentage points.
Still thinking about voting for him?
Friday, October 19, 2012
Sundance has a few words for us
Why I'm Supporting President Obama
Posted: 10/19/2012 8:04 am
I was in the early days of my acting career in 1962, when Rachel Carson's Silent Spring made its way onto best-seller lists and college campuses and into living rooms across America and sowed the seeds of today's environmental movement. The story of that movement still represents for me who we are as a country: a people dedicated to something greater than ourselves, and a nation that recognizes our responsibility to each other.
In this election, only President Obama shares those values and the belief that our kids and grandkids should grow up with living, natural places to explore. Yosemite, the Great Lakes and the Everglades should always be places we can visit and wonders that inspire -- not just photos of what used to be.
Shortly after taking office, President Obama signed one of the largest expansions of wilderness protection in a generation, setting aside more than 2 million acres as protected wilderness, conserving more than 1,000 miles of rivers, authorizing a 26-million-acre conservation system of historically significant landscapes and adding thousands of miles of trails. He's helping restore treasured landscapes from coast to coast that support local economies and communities through tourism and outdoor recreation.
The President has set historic standards that by 2025 will double the distance our cars and trucks will be able to go on a tank of gas, reducing our reliance on foreign oil by 2.2 million barrels per day and saving each of us thousands of dollars at the pump.
He made the single largest investment in clean energy of any other president, helping to double the amount of electricity we generate from wind and solar, strengthening our global economic competitiveness and supporting nearly a quarter of a million American jobs.
And that's one of the biggest differences in an election brimming with them. While President Obama is moving us forward, Mitt Romney would take us back. He'd roll back every step of progress we've made -- not just in the last four years, but the last 40 years.
We've seen in the last stretch of this campaign that Romney will say anything to win, even if it's flat-out false. But we know what the real Mitt Romney would do. He'd gut investments in renewable energy -- including the wind production tax credit that 37,000 American jobs depend on -- while giving $4 billion a year in wasteful taxpayer subsidies to Big Oil, even as they reap near-record profits. It's no coincidence that those same special interests have donated nearly $11 million to Romney's campaign and the super PACs behind it.
Even more revealing, Romney would undermine President Obama's commitment to our national parks and undo the crucial steps the President has taken to reduce toxic pollutants like mercury and address carbon pollution -- change that protects the health and prosperity of our children now and for generations to come.
We simply can't let Mitt Romney buy the keys to the White House and let the special interests write our nation's energy plan behind closed doors, like it did in the previous administration. That old saw didn't work then, and it won't work now.
I hope you'll join me in supporting President Obama and stopping others from reversing our progress. If you care about Great Lakes restoration in Ohio, or the Everglades in Florida, wind energy in Iowa or Colorado, vote. All of those states, and many others, have early voting -- don't wait until Election Day. Check out vote.barackobama.com and head over to the polls now.
This is one of the most important campaigns in our lifetime. The choice is clear, and it's up to all of us to join with President Obama to fight for continuing the significant progress he's made.
But don't take my word for it, watch this video about President Obama's environmental accomplishments and see for yourself our progress that's at stake:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-redford/obama-energy-policy_b_1985714.html
(NOTE: The above link is to the entire article plus the video, because I don't know how to cut and paste only the video. If you've read the article, scroll down to the bottom and view the video. Sorry, I'll try to upgrade my tech skills ASAP.)
In this election, only President Obama shares those values and the belief that our kids and grandkids should grow up with living, natural places to explore. Yosemite, the Great Lakes and the Everglades should always be places we can visit and wonders that inspire -- not just photos of what used to be.
Shortly after taking office, President Obama signed one of the largest expansions of wilderness protection in a generation, setting aside more than 2 million acres as protected wilderness, conserving more than 1,000 miles of rivers, authorizing a 26-million-acre conservation system of historically significant landscapes and adding thousands of miles of trails. He's helping restore treasured landscapes from coast to coast that support local economies and communities through tourism and outdoor recreation.
The President has set historic standards that by 2025 will double the distance our cars and trucks will be able to go on a tank of gas, reducing our reliance on foreign oil by 2.2 million barrels per day and saving each of us thousands of dollars at the pump.
He made the single largest investment in clean energy of any other president, helping to double the amount of electricity we generate from wind and solar, strengthening our global economic competitiveness and supporting nearly a quarter of a million American jobs.
And that's one of the biggest differences in an election brimming with them. While President Obama is moving us forward, Mitt Romney would take us back. He'd roll back every step of progress we've made -- not just in the last four years, but the last 40 years.
We've seen in the last stretch of this campaign that Romney will say anything to win, even if it's flat-out false. But we know what the real Mitt Romney would do. He'd gut investments in renewable energy -- including the wind production tax credit that 37,000 American jobs depend on -- while giving $4 billion a year in wasteful taxpayer subsidies to Big Oil, even as they reap near-record profits. It's no coincidence that those same special interests have donated nearly $11 million to Romney's campaign and the super PACs behind it.
Even more revealing, Romney would undermine President Obama's commitment to our national parks and undo the crucial steps the President has taken to reduce toxic pollutants like mercury and address carbon pollution -- change that protects the health and prosperity of our children now and for generations to come.
We simply can't let Mitt Romney buy the keys to the White House and let the special interests write our nation's energy plan behind closed doors, like it did in the previous administration. That old saw didn't work then, and it won't work now.
I hope you'll join me in supporting President Obama and stopping others from reversing our progress. If you care about Great Lakes restoration in Ohio, or the Everglades in Florida, wind energy in Iowa or Colorado, vote. All of those states, and many others, have early voting -- don't wait until Election Day. Check out vote.barackobama.com and head over to the polls now.
This is one of the most important campaigns in our lifetime. The choice is clear, and it's up to all of us to join with President Obama to fight for continuing the significant progress he's made.
But don't take my word for it, watch this video about President Obama's environmental accomplishments and see for yourself our progress that's at stake:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-redford/obama-energy-policy_b_1985714.html
(NOTE: The above link is to the entire article plus the video, because I don't know how to cut and paste only the video. If you've read the article, scroll down to the bottom and view the video. Sorry, I'll try to upgrade my tech skills ASAP.)
Friday, September 07, 2012
Now About this 'Citizens United' thing
Just in case there is one uninformed boob in this country who does not yet know what 'Citizens United' refers to, here's a tip: it's nothing less than the downfall of democracy as we've always thought we've known it here in the United States. It's a Supreme Court decision from January 2010 that held, in essence, that corporations are permitted to contribute virtually unlimited funds to the election campaigns of whoever the hell they want. That's not actually what the decision held - but it was the net effect of the decision.
The net result has been that literally huuuuge amounts of money have been flowing from these corporate coffers into the campaigns of - you guessed it - Republican candidates who will bend over and grease up on any issue their corporate sponsors instruct them to. It has taken the democratic process out of our democratic process, and has in essence given a number of elections to candidates who have the most money, regardless of qualification, simply because those candidates can afford to buy far more advertising than their opponents, and because many of us remain stupid enough to sell our votes to the most-advertised.
I trust I have made myself perfectly vague.
No, seriously, boiled down to its essence, Citizens United means that our democracy has been bought and sold to he (or more rarely, she) who has the most money. Which should scare, and in reality, anger any person who still believes in "one person, one vote". Yeah, you know who you are, all 477 of you.
So anyway, why am I telling you all this? Well, I'm glad you asked me that question.
Remember Roseanne Barr? She of the scratched crotch while mangling "The Star-Spangled Banner" some years ago at an MLB game? Or of the eponymous comedy series, if you want to go back that far.
Well guess what? She's become something of a political commentator, and truth be told, she ain't half-bad at it. So what follows is a commentary she published on Sept. 6, 2012. It has a few things to say to us. And is at least mildly funny, too. Here it is:
I Approve This Message...
by Roseanne BarrPosted: 09/06/2012 9:24 am
(Italics mine - RM)
I'm glad I have a chance to say a few words about money in Politics, because this issue is really at the heart of it all, like a clogged, throbbing artery. More than ever, freedom of speech has become freedom to buy enough media to drown out just about everybody else's freedom of speech. I was driving, yesterday, and as I clicked past one Right Wing radio show after another, for some reason it all was drowned out by a voice in my head that kept repeating the words, "Liberal Media." It seemed sad and funny at the same time. Maybe that's because I am, among other things, a comedian. A fair amount of the time I'm a pissed-off comedian. Why? Because an old quote also pops into my head, more than I'd like it to. It goes: "There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can't remember what the second one is."
I found out that it's a quote from a super-rich guy named Mark Hanna who managed the campaign of William McKinley back in the dark ages of Media. He strong-armed his loaded industrialist pals and raised enough bank to outspend Democrat, William Jennings Bryan, by ten to one. Guess who got to be President? It still works like that, and, in fact, it's getting worse because of a recent development known as Citizens United. "Citizens United," it sounds a lot better than "A handful of the mega-rich who own politicians and can swing some Supreme Court Justices." The real takeaway here is that we've turned the word bribery into the more respectable word, contribution. Now that we've been force-fed the bizarre idea that a corporation is basically a person, I hope Haliburton and Blackwater and Lockheed-Martin don't get upset stomachs if they're denied their God-given right to attack Iran. Poor rich guys, all they want is a little free market opportunity, a chance to work the same magic they used to transform Iraq into the peaceful, democratic wonderland it is today.
I have to admit: It really takes some world class bullshitting skills to claim that handing politicians gigantic checks in return for favors is simply free speech. I'll tell you what's not bullshit, though: they actually rammed it through with a straight face. It's one more slap in the face for the 99%, but the Romneys of the world don't see it that way. They don't see it as arrogance and/or hubris or whatever word you can use to better describe their arrogance and hubris. No, they see it like, "Look, God doesn't make mistakes -- he's 'blessed' me with five-hundred million dollars, and if that doesn't prove that I'm qualified and deserve to wear the pants around here, I don't know what does!"
In the same category as Romney and hateful uber-nerds like the Koch brothers, we have Sheldon Adelson, casinos-in-China magnate and who knows what else, who can casually toss an extra hundred million bucks at the Romney machine so it can buy ads telling people that they're going to Hell along with what's left of America if they don't kick the Black Communist from Kenya out of the Lily White House. Unfortunately, Adelson also thinks that America exists primarily to provide money and muscle to Israel and do the bidding of Benjamin Netanyahu. Jeez, you'd think Israel had oil the way our "leaders" keep their/our lips on its ass. What they do have is a sweetheart Foreign Aid deal with supposedly cash-strapped America whereby we give them money and they buy weapons from us so they can remain the sheriff in town in the part of the world that does have oil. They're our special friends, like Saudi Arabia, only they're Jewish, and they don't have oil. Get it? Me either, but they both buy tons of weapons from American Arms merchants, because, after all, all God's children need expensive, high-tech weapons. But don't get me started on The Middle East. My point is that Sheldon Adelson has about a million times more freedom of speech than you or anybody you know. And, he can affect decisions like who we attack next or who becomes President. That's just plain crazy, and that's the problem with big money in Politics. It's making more and more people feel like powerless strangers in their own country, and I don't mean that in a good way.
Campaign Finance Reform may not sound like a burning, hot-button issue, but it is, and all of us citizens better get united behind that, or pretty soon there won't be anything left worth fighting for. That's why I'm running for president and that's why I approved this message.
I found out that it's a quote from a super-rich guy named Mark Hanna who managed the campaign of William McKinley back in the dark ages of Media. He strong-armed his loaded industrialist pals and raised enough bank to outspend Democrat, William Jennings Bryan, by ten to one. Guess who got to be President? It still works like that, and, in fact, it's getting worse because of a recent development known as Citizens United. "Citizens United," it sounds a lot better than "A handful of the mega-rich who own politicians and can swing some Supreme Court Justices." The real takeaway here is that we've turned the word bribery into the more respectable word, contribution. Now that we've been force-fed the bizarre idea that a corporation is basically a person, I hope Haliburton and Blackwater and Lockheed-Martin don't get upset stomachs if they're denied their God-given right to attack Iran. Poor rich guys, all they want is a little free market opportunity, a chance to work the same magic they used to transform Iraq into the peaceful, democratic wonderland it is today.
I have to admit: It really takes some world class bullshitting skills to claim that handing politicians gigantic checks in return for favors is simply free speech. I'll tell you what's not bullshit, though: they actually rammed it through with a straight face. It's one more slap in the face for the 99%, but the Romneys of the world don't see it that way. They don't see it as arrogance and/or hubris or whatever word you can use to better describe their arrogance and hubris. No, they see it like, "Look, God doesn't make mistakes -- he's 'blessed' me with five-hundred million dollars, and if that doesn't prove that I'm qualified and deserve to wear the pants around here, I don't know what does!"
In the same category as Romney and hateful uber-nerds like the Koch brothers, we have Sheldon Adelson, casinos-in-China magnate and who knows what else, who can casually toss an extra hundred million bucks at the Romney machine so it can buy ads telling people that they're going to Hell along with what's left of America if they don't kick the Black Communist from Kenya out of the Lily White House. Unfortunately, Adelson also thinks that America exists primarily to provide money and muscle to Israel and do the bidding of Benjamin Netanyahu. Jeez, you'd think Israel had oil the way our "leaders" keep their/our lips on its ass. What they do have is a sweetheart Foreign Aid deal with supposedly cash-strapped America whereby we give them money and they buy weapons from us so they can remain the sheriff in town in the part of the world that does have oil. They're our special friends, like Saudi Arabia, only they're Jewish, and they don't have oil. Get it? Me either, but they both buy tons of weapons from American Arms merchants, because, after all, all God's children need expensive, high-tech weapons. But don't get me started on The Middle East. My point is that Sheldon Adelson has about a million times more freedom of speech than you or anybody you know. And, he can affect decisions like who we attack next or who becomes President. That's just plain crazy, and that's the problem with big money in Politics. It's making more and more people feel like powerless strangers in their own country, and I don't mean that in a good way.
Campaign Finance Reform may not sound like a burning, hot-button issue, but it is, and all of us citizens better get united behind that, or pretty soon there won't be anything left worth fighting for. That's why I'm running for president and that's why I approved this message.
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