Category Archives: Presidential Politics

Fact Checking Factcheck.org 3

by • Health, Politics, Presidential Politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Factcheck has released yet another ridiculous truth-o-meter on the President and how he is selling the newly Constitutional PPACA. I think their points are worth refuting.

Fact Check States in their summary: Obama reiterated his “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” refrain, despite the fact that at least a few million workers won’t keep their employer-sponsored plans, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Really? You are suggesting that below average plans which leave subscribers underinsured, is definitely a product sentient beings want for their families. Three cheers for substandard insurance! PPACA is in part a regulation that mandates what a basic health plan must cover. It’s already that way for federal employees. There are two levels of health insurance, the standard, which has somewhat higher co-pays and high-options which cost more and cover more services. Previous to the law standards vary wildly state by state. Governments are supposed to regulate services that can affect the general wellbeing of the citizenry. I realize Republicans have made the claim over and over again that government is only to wage war and make it so businesses can rip off whomever they choose to rip off. American citizens deserve standardized insurance coverage that basic minimum requirements, and if an insurance company for some odd reason does not comply they will go out of business, does anyone see that happening? Nope. It isn’t as simple as Fact Check states, and it certainly isn’t a negative for the President for people to have standard and not substandard health services coverage. They have tried to twist it into a negative.

One more point, employers switch health plan providers every time they get a better deal. I mean you can’t be serious on that critique; currently no one can stop your employer from taking his business elsewhere. I am not sure why that fact works against the President and brings what he said into doubt.

Fact check states: The president also exaggerated the benefits of the law, such as the number of young adults who were able to join their parents’ plans.

Coverage for Young Adults:
Factcheck cited the Los Angeles Times claiming it refutes the claim that 6.6 million young adults have insurance because of ACA. Unfortunately for factcheck, the LA Times and the Commonwealth Fund, from the outset they actually misstate ACA, the passage in the times says this:

Not all of the estimated 6.6 million young adults who joined or stayed on their parents’ plans would have otherwise been uninsured, according to officials at the Commonwealth Fund, which is a leading source of healthcare research. At least some probably moved to their parents’ plans from other health insurance plans because the family plans were less costly or more comprehensive.

Take special note of the part I bolded, both not only is factcheck, because this is the Republican talking point of their argument and is a misstatement of the legislation
This is important: Young adults have the right to stay in a parent’s plan—or to get back into that plan—if they meet the following conditions:

1. Their parent has coverage through an employer or buys family coverage in the individual market.
2. Their parent’s health plan provides “dependent coverage”—that is, it covers children, spouses, or other family members.
In the past, some plans required children and young adults to be “dependents” for tax purposes before they could qualify for coverage on their parents’ plans. Under the new law, this is no longer the case. Nor does it matter whether or not the young adult is a student, lives with the parent, or receives financial support from the parent.
3. Insurance companies are only required to provide access to insurance for young adult children if the child does not have access to insurance through their employer.
But then factcheck states:

The White House told us that the president’s statement is correct because all 6.6 million benefited from the law, but some more than others. True.

What?

Factcheck claims the President has overstated the number of people affected by the preventive care coverage regulation.

Obama: [Insurance companies] are required to provide free preventive care like checkups and mammograms, a provision that’s already helped 54 million Americans with private insurance.

Fact Check’s complaint is: Obama would have been on safer ground if he had said the provision potentially helped 54 million.

This is a distinction without a difference. It has more than a potential to impact those 54 million people, it is a regulation, it is required by law that insurers implement these reforms. It is hard to tell what fact is distorted here, it directly affects those 54 million people why the word game? Is it to appear more balanced to Republicans, so factcheck has apparently decided to go full Orwellian Newspeak to twist their critique to appear legitimate, even when it isn’t.

Finally, factcheck goes all in and makes the claim that because the vast majority of those tax rebates are going to employers, people aren’t really getting a rebate. But it does mean the cost of their insurance will go down, and their premiums will reflect that fact. Not every savings will be in the form of a direct rebate for each and every person. But he isn’t exaggerating either, because rebate checks are going out. Costs will begin to stabilize across the country and that is positive news.

So factcheck, could you get anymore dramatic using the term overreach to describe the Presidents attempts to explain this law to people? Overreach is such an overused Republican word, they use it all the time, wasn’t Jim DeMint just claiming Overreach here and threatening nullification once again as their ultimate solution. I wonder how many times Sheldon Adelson is going to use your half-assed work to attack ACA and the President. I guess as many times as his money can purchase.

Crossposted @ DAGBlog and LittleGreenFootballs

Weasel Words 5

by • Politics, Presidential Politics, Women • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

“Those aren’t the words I would have used.”

Wait, what? Yes that was Romney’s response to a reporter when asked about the Limbaugh controversy. Really Mitt? I say those are Weasel Words!  Mitt don’t you understand that saying that is worse than not saying anything at all! Dude seriously. Basically Mitt, you seem to be saying that you fundamentally agree with Rush, Inevitable Mitt is an inevitably weak candidate.

I don’t much listen to anything Rush Limbaugh says, he’s been this way for more than 20 years. To this day I still believe it was worse when he referred to a young girl maybe she was 12 the way he did Chelsey Clinton. That was so much worse than this, he has never in his entire career discontinued the use of misogyny in the name of comedy for his act.  I even figured his apology if there ever was one would be half-assed, he wouldn’t mean it and he would use his own form of weasel words to obfuscate the issue at hand. All that was predictable, and expected. I didn’t expect Mitt Romney to basically support the premise of the Limbaugh attack on Fluke, that she was just a promiscuous person who should be discounted and excoriated for exercising her right to testify before congress as an American citizen.

He and his staff can only be described as tone deaf to the issue at hand. Does Mr. Romney agree to the 46  other personal attacks on Fluke? Limbaugh spent an inordinate amount of time attacking Flukes parents, what is up with that? (OMG, OMG I linked to mmfa, it’s a conspiracy) Wow Mitt, do you really agree with the Rush when he said that Fluke just wanted to be paid to have sex? Wait, you would have said it with different words or something, what words would you be using exactly anyway?  Just asking, cause maybe you should not have said anything at all if you weren’t going to be as clear as the advertisers that have taken the opportunity to deliver the Karmic bitch-slap he so richly deserved. Do you also not know how contraception in the form of the pill works?

Yes, Mitt Romney is the classic Eddie Haskell style weasel, he will tell you anything you want to hear if you are a Limbaugh conservative, ( i.e. deeply angry older white guy, who sees himself as a tough guy, who is fairly well off but for some reason wants to hold the mantle of the victim).

On any number of occasions the entire country has witnesses the weasel behavior of flip flopping Mitt Romney. The quickest flip we’ve seen so far is the Blunt-Rubio flip, that one lasted a full 25 minutes I think before he flipped and made the claim that he is an idiot and he simply didn’t understand the guy who asked him about Blunt-Rubio. I read somewhere that the McCain campaign had 200 pages of Mitt’s flips. It isn’t rocket science, everyone knows this, Mitt Romney has an opinion, if you would like to know what his opinion is, please  tell him what it ought to be. That is the word on Mitt, he he fundamentally has no real conviction other than he wants to be President. Therefore he is more than willing to be who you want him to be.

Want him to be a chickenhawk, he will tell you he is ready to go to war against Iran. Want him to tell you the Massachusetts health care plan sucks x one million, no problem and he will deny that he ever said any different even if there is irrefutable evidence proving otherwise.

Mitt is a  master weasel wordsmith, his  failure to differentiate himself from Limbaugh might just make women believe he doesn’t like women either, just like Rush Limbaugh and further that he thinks Ms. Fluke deserved to be attacked for accepting an invitation to testify before congress on reproductive health. He just would not have referred to Fluke as a slut or prostitute. Well then, thanks for clarifying it Mitt, most women are going to remember this come November.

Crossposted @DAGBlog

Overreach 4

by • Politics, Presidential Politics, Women • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I thought we might be finished, I thought Republicans might retreat from some from their extremist anti-womyn, anti-contraception, anti-human medieval belief that females are chattle. Did they, nope, they doubled down dug themselves a trench of quicksand. It is unbelievable what these dudes are willing to do to destroy their party with their public jihad against womyn.  In their massive opposition to prescription drug coverage for womyn they remind  me of the old story of Bison following each other mindlessly off a cliff, this cliff being the cliff of fair and equal access to  prescription drug coverage for womyn.

Yesterday began with Daryl Issa’s, Chairman of House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, holding a hearing hilariously and ironically titled:  “Lines Crossed:  Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?” It was great because of course Congressman Issa had no womyn on his original panel of dudes he called to testify on behalf of Issa’s conclusion which came long before he called this hearing,  It is obvious that for Issa and his pals in congress that hearing on contraceptive coverage was held to find a way to get to no, using whatever possible including banning womyn who are pro-choice from testifying at the hearing.

That is how the day began, but as we moved quickly into afternoon we heard Rick Santorums SuperPac guy Mr. Foster Friese. Friese stunned Andrea Mitchell when he made the statement that womyn in his era used and asprin between their legs as their form of contraception, which I guess explains all those teenagers getting married in the 1950’s and early 60’s.  He was doing what all those old guys do, he was inferring that womyn who use  contraception are sluts. Yikes, and all Santorum’s staff can say, is that Friese doesn’t work for the campaign. Umm, Okay.

Overreach is the word of the day, Republicans are carrying on in Newt’s footsteps, they love overreach, although they don’t see it as overreach. Issa and his crew make excuses, THIS ISN’T ABOUT CONTRACEPTION, they scream, no, no, this is about RELIGIOUS FREEDUMB. You stick with that dudes, and you will see your party shrink enough for us to drown it in the bathtub, to quote your leader Grover Norquist.

This is part and parcel of what Julian Sanchez , David Frum, Jon Chait were discussing all last year, the Epistemic Closure of the Republican Party. It isn’t only the case that Republicans are purging some of their best thinkers from their club, David Frum from the American Enterprise Institute or Andrew Sullivan a man who was once considered a “good conservative” and Bruce Bartlett, who was fired by a right wing think tank called the National Center for Policy Analysis in 2005 for writing a book critical of George W. Bush’s policies, who has written that he even lost a great many friends and been shunned by conservative society in Washington, DC after his book came out, sacrilege!

And then of course there is this little piece of information from a survey conducted by Democracy Corps, which finds the Republican brand:

“is in a state of collapse — over 50 percent of voters give the Republican Party a cool, negative rating. The presidential race and the congressional battles are interacting with each other to drive down their lead candidate, the party, and perceptions of the congressional Republicans.”

According to that survey those voters who gave Democrats victories in 2006 and 2008 are back, in a big way, in particular among unmarried womyn.  Their direct assault on our rights is going to kill off their chances in the fall, it will mostly likely affect those running down ticket as well, this issue alone will relegate Republicans to a smaller and smaller slice of the electorate.  And they don’t seem to care one bit.

Distorting Reproductive Health: The Anti-Woman Beltway Media 2

by • Politics, Presidential Politics, Women • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

There has been a frenzy of media discussion about a recent Health and Human Services decision regarding birth control. Let’s go over some facts:

The regulation:

Requires employer who offer health insurance with prescription drug coverage that contraception would be required coverage. If and only if the insurance offered already covers prescription drugs. What they were saying is that contraception is one of those drugs that must be covered. This had nothing to do with a co-pay or any other media driven distortion of the issue. This is a fact.

The other fact that has been ignored by the majority male beltway media is this:

In December of 2000, the US EEOC made it clear that an employer’s failure to provide coverage of contraception, when it covers other prescription drugs and preventive care, is a violation of protections against sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act; those protections for employees’ benefits include no exemption for religious employers.

Beltway pundits continue to present this issue as an argument about co-pays and that all religious organizations will have to buy insurance that covers birth control and that is all a lie, a huge god damned lie that those beltway pundits have deliberately twisted this issue, even though the issues is about prescription drub coverage. When we make the analogy that those plans cover Viagra but not contraception it is the truth, no matter how much yelling those men do, no matter how much they twist the issue, this is about prescription drug coverage, why the hell does no program on cable present this issue correctly?  It angers me. We also know this, cable tv shock jock shows are deliberately leaving women out of this conversation.

What happened? Why did the media grab this story and distort it until they controlled every aspect of it. They were fresh off the highs of the Komen Story, lots of people paid attention to that story and they realized how important and divisive is the issue of Reproductive Health, and how it is so damn good for ratings. This is a better issue than abortion which is like arguing religion, can’t.be.done.These kinds of media frenzies most often give the Republicans an advantage. They are always able to ragify their crowds. The president has a quieter group, far more enraged than those Republicans and this issue is going to bury Republicans in the fall. Sen. Roy Blunt (R) Mo is expected to offer an amendment that would permit any employer or insurance plan to exclude any health service, no matter how essential, from coverage if they morally object to it. This Think Progress report has the language of the bill. Suffice it to say it is Roy’s attempt to get some publicity for himself, knowing full well that this amendment is DOA.

We womyn can see exactly what is going on here. Another Think Progress report after analyzing guests on this issue on the cable shock-jock shows they prefer not to have women on their shows. The Think Progress report Of the 146 guests who have come on cable news shows to discuss the decision between Monday and Thursday, 91 were men. Congressmen, and I mean men went nuts, all over the beltway. Joe Scarborough and Mika couldn’t even be bothered to have a woman on their show to  balance the views, no, they took the dive into all the anti-woman rhetoric they could, they began the lie that this was about convents having to carry insurance coverage for birth control, whey convents are explicitly exempt. I expect Faux Gnus to distort and lie about the issue, but MSNBC let those men carry on the, allowed those men to distort the issue. It is disgusting what they did, they are supposed to report issues fairly, they are not supposed to control the trajectory of legislation or regulation over the American people, in particular over womyn. I never see them protesting the coverage of Viagra, Cialis, but women get the short-shrift because everyone seems to believe our bodies are not our own, but our bodies can be controlled by society at large.

To than attitude I say Fuck You very much Beltway Media and the rest of you anti-woman asshats, you’ve been pwned by the President. Here is the message you should take from our anger, we will not let this happen again. You will not create a political football with our bodies again without us (we womyn) banding together fiercely fighting back against the misinformation you willingly and happily spread.

Chris Matthews Constitutional Lawyer(?) Vs. David Boies 4

by • Politics, Presidential Politics, Women • Tags: , , , , ,

Well I had the displeasure of watching Chris Matthews have a complete meltdown over this Health and Human Services regulation requiring church-affiliated employers to cover birth control. I really mostly like Matthews because he usually has a pretty lively show, but there are times well he sure does insist he knows things he simply doesn’t know. Like today, when he insisted he knew this regulation would be struck down by the Supreme Court because it is a definite limit on First Amendment rights of religious people. Well let’s go to the tape!

One thing we know for sure, Sister Carol Keehan, President of the Catholic Health Association in Washington has talked to innumerable Catholic Reporters in DC, because to a person, when they are ranting about this regulation they mention her, those Reporters mention her name. She above all has made a huge issue of something she and many of those Catholic Hospitals she presides over already must comply, according to a 2000 EEOC decision.

First Chris introduces us to the old white guy, Catholic brigade in Congress who insist this is the worst thing that has ever happened to the country and to religious entities. As you can hear him insist, he is advancing the idea from some senators and men in the house of representatives that this is for sure not Constitutional.

Let’s be clear  in December of 2000, the US EEOC made it clear that an employer’s failure to provide coverage of contraception, when it covers other prescription drugs and preventive care, is a violation of protections against sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act; those protections for employees’ benefits include no exemption for religious employers.

This is very important and all the regulation HHS is requiring simply codifies that EEOC ruling. Chris Matthew is completely wrong and  he has worked hard to distort this issue. When you listen to him rant, you can see he has no comprehension of what exactly is going on here. He wrongly insists that convents will have to cover nuns with contraception. Sorry  Chris, wrong, wrong, wrong, you are completely wrong. But he rants on, even so far as making the claim that David Boies would lose if this goes to the Supreme Court, hahaha, I guess because Chris knows the law better than David Boies! I wonder how many cases Chris has had before the Supreme Court of the United States? hahahah… right NONE.  Does he want to stick with that? Hmm it made him look like and utter fool.   Boies is fairly knowledgeable about the law! Hahahaha, I know that is an understatment. Chris simply rants and rages about this terrible, horrible awful thing. David Boies, what does he know about the Constitution, Chris Matthews knows more about the Constitution than some damn Constitutional Lawyer. Take that Boies.

Chris meltdown is epic near the end, where he yells at John Heilemann and basically calls him a shill for the administration! Of course Heilemann was ill prepared to offer proof to Matthews and no-one has mentioned the 2000 EEOC ruling. Why didn’t Heilemann know this, but why is Chris freaking out about this, does he miss his days as Bill Clinton’s executioner?  The study of state regulations on this issue was not done by the administration of course but it was done by the Guttmacher Institute. They are not an shill of this administration. Their Mission:

The Guttmacher Institute advances sexual and reproductive health and rights through an interrelated program of research, policy analysis and public education designed to generate new ideas, encourage enlightened public debate and promote sound policy and program development. The Institute’s overarching goal is to ensure the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health for all people worldwide.

Chris of course gets the issue completely wrong, and makes the claim that the administration is lying about those 28 states who already have this regulation, he made  the claim this is propaganda, and yet according to the Guttmacher study, Heilemann is completely correct.  Chris deliberate distorts the issues of course, I think because he likes to hear his own voice and is convinced he is always correct. He tipifies all that is wrong with cable-tv shock jockery, as they ascribe to the theory that the louder one yells the more right you are. So even though he seems to think this rule will require convents to have this kind of health coverage but of course they are one of the exemptions. Duh Chris! Holy Crap dude.

David Boies is a reasonable person, with a quiet demeanor, he doesn’t believe this would go to the Supreme Court, ever, because of the 2000 EEOC rule. It is amazing to me the media has been allowed to blow this issue up out of proportion, they have been allowed to make it some sort of scandal, some sort of first amendment issue.  Matthews is out in front of the political distortion making false claims and yelling anyone down who doesn’t accept his false claims.  Most of those pundits on the east coast are Catholics it seems and they are towing the line of those repulsive cardinals and bishops who covered up child abuse for all those  years, these men have no relationship with an actual god or with being close to god, or purporting to know God’s will, they ignore God’s will when they want too.  But when it comes to women, as usual, the Church, it used to be my church too, shows just how much they do not respect women, but that has been going on for centuries. Their willingness as usual to involve themselves and their institution in politics should spell the end of their non-profit status.

This episode should be another link to the power of cable tv shock-jockery and how they pull the political strings by making an issue out of something that has been in existence since December of 2000. When they decide to make an issue out of a non-issue politicians respond, no matter what the majority of Americans believe.

This time we need to place the blame for this compromise that is coming not because of congress or the President but cable tv shock-jock BS, they actively decided to control this issue and effect change. I am so tired of us allowing them to control the US through this kind of faux-news.

Chris Matthews Vs. David Boies

I may re-splice this a later today and will include it in an update.

The Lies of Donald Trump & Mitt Romney 1

by • Politics, Presidential Politics • Tags: , , , ,

Donald Trump has endorsed Mitt Romney and while he did he completely misrepresented what the CBO’s Tuesday announcement on economic outlook over the the next year.

Trump either deliberately or as a result of piss-poor comprehension skills  misrepresented a new report just released by the Congressional Budget Office which said the economic outlook will improve dramatically “but only if Congress can resist enacting budget-busting laws like another extension of the Bush tax cuts, which would more than double the projected deficit.” Trump left that part out though, wow shocker.

Why does Mitt Romney think that Donald Trump can help him in this election or in any election or even as a reference for a job as a janitor, Donald Trump is a publicity hungry joke. Does he really have any credibility among the general population? Come on, no way, everyone sees what kind of man Donald Trump is, he is a self-aggrandizing megalomaniac, and and he well known to exploit the stupidity of people, i.e. his birther shtick, anyone who has ever invested properties, believing he was going to run for President, etc and so on, mostly we know  Trump doesn’t have much of a relationship with the truth.

I don’t know how this endorsement is going to help Mitt Romney. Let’s talk about how Trump’s inflammatory introduction talking about how “those people” in the world are laughing at us, presumably because of our President and that they are somehow taking advantage of us because of the President. Donald is the true TBag isn’t he, but this is The Donalds segue into misrepresenting what the CBO report said. Somewhat breathlessly he tells Mitt, Mitt’s wife and the Press that he didn’t mention this to Mitt but that the CBO director said unemployment has really gone up and is above 9% and will continue to go up and that that the economic growth outlook will only be 1%.  He looks excited, like he is  going to impart some amazing information that only he has access too, too bad he didn’t seem to understand what he’d read! Did he really graduate from Wharton? With skills like that I think he went to

But why on earth has Romney decided that he needs the endorsement of Donald Trump, is he that afraid of Newt Gingrich? Really? Are the TBaggies in that much control of the Republican Party that one must seek the endorsement of the irrelevant orange skinned birther with a second rate the reality show, and myriad of business bankruptcies?

I don’t know but Mitt doesn’t seem to be very confident in his own ability to win.

Carry On Republicans, this is just great, you are becoming irrelevant.

Misrepresenting Liberty: Private Property Rights, Oppression and Ron Paul 2

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Try to leave this place a little better than when you got here.

I can’t remember if it was the debate this morning or last nights debate when Ron Paul blurted out; “I’m for Liberty!” I hate it when politicians deliberately talk in slogans and sound bites. But leave it to Ron Paul to have that as his slogan, and it was certainly different than every other Republican at their 38th debate.

Let’s face it Ron Paul is an old style demagogue who covers his demagoguery in a pseudo-legal analysis of our Constitution. Now I am no legal scholar, but neither is Dr. Ron Paul, and I am pretty sick of that guy, because I think as a civilization we have moved beyond the glib analysis that all rights stem from property rights. Let me just say, even John Locke himself, if he were living, would have moved beyond such a limiting anti-progressive view of how humans organize and distribute power, seriously! He was a bigger thinker than that, as evidenced in his writing. We most certainly have evolved past 1787, and that is a good thing. You can see from Paul’s beliefs he doesn’t believe we should have evolved past that time.

I have some serious questions for Ron Paul supporters, how is it you can tolerate a guy who makes claims like: “Lincoln shouldn’t have fought the Civil War, he should have simply purchased those slaves from slave owners”. Does anyone else see how fucked up that is, in that it indicates he believes people can legitimately be owned by others, and you must purchase them to set them free.  To a person who has lived in the 20th and now 21st century, that line of reasoning makes no sense. It also occurs to me how little sense it makes to continually second guess past events, and make specious claims about what should have been done at that time. Pretty easy to talk shit like that, when it’s irrelevant since the Tardis isn’t available and even that Hitler thing kind of backfired on the good Doctor. Seriously, Ron Paul does the same thing when he talks about WWII, but here is the deal, who cares, he didn’t get to make that decision, this kind of half-assed I could have done it better, BS should be unacceptable to  a sentient being. How anyone can take that seriously leaves me incredulous. If Barack Obama said shit like that, he would  be living next door to Alvin Green in South Carolina. Sorry, but it’s a fact.

It isn’t just that he hangs with the likes of Alex Jones either, but that certainly doesn’t make him more appealing to a woman, a minority or a normal person who doesn’t revel in hatred.

Unfortunately, Ron Paul’s own beliefs and statements make me believe if Ron Paul could he would return us to an era where oppression was wrapped in the guise of  the catch-all phrase “property rights”. I don’t think that should be acceptable once again.

Ron Paul is wrong morally and probably legally when it comes to his glib pronouncement that the Civil Rights Act destroyed privacy.  What on earth does Ron Paul mean by that? He is basically saying business owners have the ultimate right to discriminate, because only they have the right to make decisions about what happens on their property? Answer this please Paululons,  can a civil society exist if we all were to simply shrug our shoulders and say; “oh well, if that cafe owner refuses to allow black people into that restaurant, no biggie we will just move on to the next restaurant” “Or oh well, too bad you can’t use that bathroom or that hospital or go to that school”. Come on, we all know those are dog whistle statements which are used to attract a certain kind of voter.

Ron Paul also said this: “[T]he forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.” But we need to critically unpack that statement.Is he really sure about that? He is saying of course integration wasn’t worth it, but let’s look around us people, I’d say it was totally worth it, we  have many many gains in the past 40+ years, and many things have changed in the attitudes of the majority of Americans. These things are good, and I think it was totally a worthwhile cause, just as it was worth it to integrate aka mainstream all kinds of students, as exposure to difference leads to tolerance and the ability to live together, more peacefully. Ron Paul is wrong, things are better, how on earth can he not see that?

It kind of bugs me though that so many people are willing to throw women and minorities under the bus for that kind of dude. Seriously, this guy is at best a relic, at worst he believes as women, we continue not to be full members of society and we are unable to make decisions for and about our own bodies. He is not a civil libertarian in the truest form as he favors government legislation that limits our access to health care. What right does he or anyone else have to intervene in a conversation we might be having with our personal physician?  I don’t necessarily want to have the abortion argument, but my opinion is this, it simply isn’t your business what goes on between a woman and her physician. You don’t have to like it, you can believe it is against god or whatever, but since we are not a theocracy then you don’t get a say in our bodies.

Ron Paul isn’t just against abortion he is also against birth control.  He made the claim that “Greater Access to birth control makes a mockery of Christianity”. Is this really a guy who should be getting 20% of any electorate anywhere? How is this possible?

So officially Ron Paul was once the sponsor of a bill to outlaw Roe V Wade, in his eyes we simply don’t have the same rights as men to make decisions about our lives. He makes the excuse of course that states should get to determine what individual rights a woman has over her body and essentially allows a state to determine what kind of medical discussions a woman is allowed to have with her physician.   It rubs me the wrong way though, I just don’t get how this guy has so many hard core followers?

Some people seem to think that Ron Paul is entirely different than your run of the mill Bircher, but he isn’t. Don’t ever forget that. Ron Paul doesn’t know what liberty is and if you vote for him, you are voting for that.

Ron Paul and those Unconstitutional Gold Medals 3

by • Politics, Presidential Politics • Tags: , , , , , ,

There are so many reasons not to vote for Ron Paul. His most ardent followers, (men on the interwebz)

Ron Paul doesn’t care about Civil liberties as evidenced by his medieval view of women and the rights they do not have over their uterine killing fields.

Ron Paul cares about what all teen boys care about, being allowed to smoke a spliff anywhere whenever they feel like it,  instead of just the basement of their parents houses, and the right to do anything you damn well please.

Ron Paul’s is:

  • anti-labor rights,
  • he opposes a minimum wage,
  • he opposes access to education for all, he opposes student loans, (No higher ed for the poors! Suck it up and go back to your profession of waiting tables and assisting the rich in other ways.)
  • he opposes environmental protection legislation,
  • he opposes our National Park system, Sell it all!
  • he opposes Medicare,
  • he opposes Medicaid,
  • he opposes Social Security,
  • he opposes FEMA,
  • in 2006, Paul joined 32 other members of Congress in opposing the renewal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act,
  • Opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964:

    “not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business’s workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge’s defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife” (obviously what he has written here makes no sense what-so-ever, is he saying the Jim Crow was A-OK, oppression was just fine, that businesses should be able to discriminate, that states could allow discrimination until the end of time, water fountains, bathrooms, busses, schools, hospitals etc and so on would always be segregated?)

  • Wants to Repeal the 17th Amendment (which seems utterly strange why shouldn’t Senators be directly elected by the people they purport to represent, how can it be more democratic to allow state legislatures to select Senators) and yet he opposed the electoral college, how very bizarre to believe the electoral college should be eliminated but to also believe the 17th amendment should be eliminated… ironies
  • he would dismantle the system of VA hospitals
  • He voted against 2004 and 2005 provisions that would shield makers from liability for MTBE, a possibly cancer-causing gasoline additive that seeped into New England groundwater. The proposal included $1.8 billion to fund cleanup and another $2 billion to fund companies’ phaseout programs

Ron Paul is a 19th century dude, in that he basically opposes America in her current form. Face it Ron Paul wants to return the county the what it was under the Articles of Confederation.  Ron Paul is nothing more than a felony free Lyndon LaRouche, he is a crank, a nut, and he isn’t a lefty and can never be considered one, not ever.

But let’s get to the issue of the Congressional Gold Medals, Ron Paul voted against many citing the Constitution and the $30,000 expense, but then he went a flip-flopped on his principles except I’ve been told by the Paululon hordes that he never dumps his principles.

Ron Paul has voted for these gold medals for other people:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2009-595

To authorize the President, in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of the historic and first lunar landing by humans in 1969, to award gold medals on behalf of the United States Congress to Neil A. Armstrong, the first human to walk on the moon; Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr., the pilot of the lunar module and second person to walk on the moon; Michael Collins, the pilot of their Apollo 11 mission’s command module; and, the first American to orbit the Earth, John Herschel Glenn, Jr.

That’s his pure voting record for the awarding of a Congressional Gold Medal to four people.  OMG at $30K *each* somehow was suddenly a good thing I guess.  One medal in 1999 to a very famous African-American civil rights pioneer which would naturally be publicized heavily, would also be very controversial if one were to vote against it, and the press would jump on it.  You know he used his tried and true excuse,  “authorizing $30,000 of taxpayer money is [not] constitutional.”  Yet a few years later, Paul voted in the affirmative to spend not just 30,000 but $120,000 on unconstitutional Medals. Hmm, I am not getting this at all.

Oh, and here’s another one, still less than two years after Paul cited his “continuing and uncompromising opposition.”  This one’s specific to the 110th IB, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, To grant the congressional gold medal, collectively, to the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, United States Army, in recognition of their dedicated service during World War II.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2009-266

Huh? Where is the purity on “cost of medals” to taxpayers?

Well then it is surprising to see that in April 2006, Congressman Paul voted…in favor of a Congressional Gold Medal – the same medal that he refused to award Rosa Parks on the basis of taxpayer cost and Constitutionality three years later, citing his “continuing and uncompromising opposition to appropriations not authorized within the enumerated powers of the Constitution,” to…The Tuskegee Airmen

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-1259

That isn’t controversial though, so it was an easy vote, it indicates a very murky record on his purity on the issue of “cost to taxpayers” & “constitutional” especially since George Washington himself received one! What??? The Horror!

And now I get it too, when he plays the “be scared of the black man” card he isn’t so much being a racist he is using racism to scare certain kind of people into voting for him and his issues. Most of his no votes against those of medals took place between 1998-99, and they were very controversial at the time.

The question has to be asked, was voting against those other medals for publicity? I think the Libertarian philosopher queen Ayn would be so proud of his ability to fool some of the people all of the time!  In light of this, it indicates to me Dr. Paul is little more than a cheap “all publicity is good publicity” famewhore!

Don’t Google The Santorum Surge 1

by • Politics, Presidential Politics • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

And so it goes, it is time for the Santorum Surge in the GOP Primary as each of the not-Mitt former front-runners flame out like candles in a typhoon. We should review what has happened in this season of Republican’s vying for the Presidency.

The Rise and Fall of Pre-Perry was great wasn’t it? Before Perry actually got into the primary race he was the greatest thing since moonshine and mason jars. But then the Rickster opened his mouth, and all that fell apart. His debate performances left people wondering if he was drunk and his refusal to prepare even for a debate sealed his fate as a a guy who will never-be-President.  He doesn’t seem to realize it though, but he should formally withdraw soon, he is just wasting his money now. And Pre-Perry was over with lightning bug speed.

Then there was the Christy Co-opt, which happened after Perry’s plummet. Chris Christy became a dream of the Republicans and he told them to stuff it. Wow, that ended before it began.

Then we had the Cain Mutiny! Oh it was grand, but then as quickly as he rose, his legs were cut out from under him, as women came out of the woodwork to end his campaign of selling books.

Then we had the longer lasting Newt Reformed, which had powered up the not-Mitt machine for what seemed like a lengthy political period of time, but then everyone remembered why the hell they hated Newt Gingrich in the first place!

The Paul Rocket has been building for quite sometime, I don’t know why. He is just another flash in the pan, because there is just too much negative information out there for him to be taken seriously as a candidate for President of the United States. Sorry Libertarians that is simply the truth. Google it.

So the next not-Mitt candidate is Rick “no one can have an abortion for any reason unless they are married to me” Santorum, he is moving up in Iowa like a dead fish floats to the top of the water. My prediction is, he too will be gone quickly. However, my advice to you all is to not google his name, and for that you can thank Dan Savage. Hah!

And that just leaves Mitt doesn’t it, my god, how is he going to be able to turn himself into the next not-Mitt candidate? I don’t know, but we are going to find out I am quite sure!

CrossPosted @ DAGBlog

A Newt Burns White Hot And Crashes with Silence 1

by • Media, Politics, Presidential Politics • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

The White Hot rise of Newt Gingrich in the polls was unexpected for sure. Who’d thunk it, the biggest demagogue to inhabit a congressional seat since Sen. Joe (no relation to me) McCarthy, but  Newt the master manipulator has burned out quickly and without a major mistake! Who’d a thunk that? Not me for sure, having witnessed his man flame outs in the past.  What hurts Newt the most, is himself!

Newt Gingrich, that vile, contemptible, loathsome, odious man, a cynical hypocrite who never met a principle he couldn’t abandon or an ethical precept he couldn’t trample upon is a man with a big ugly history. What kind of man signs a no adultery pledge, after committing adultery at least twice! Only an egotistical narcissist, and that guy is Newt Gingrich.    How loathsome is it to have enlisted your own daughter to refute her mother’s tale of divorce, to make him appear to be a nice guy, a good guy. But what kind of man enlists his own daughter to do that anyway?   Newt loves the preemptive personal attack, he has mastered the art of the personal attack in fact, he seems so exciting.  As Joe Scarborough put it ” (Newt) has mastered the dark art of dehumanizing political opponents.” Newt certainly has very few political friends, perhaps that is the result of him burning every bridge that got in his way.

There isn’t a soul our there who doesn’t see what kind of man Newt Gingrich has become. His life story is well established even though it seems for the moment people have forgotten his many transgressions. If by some chance he were to win the nomination, that would be a disaster for the Republican party, and they know it too. When people remember everything there is to remember about Newt, it should finish any chance he had to become the nominee, if he somehow holds on and wins this thing, OMG, we will know for certain TBaggies are in tight control of the party.

A partial list of Newts many Epic Fails:

  • While he was Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich suggested solving some of the country’s welfare problems by taking dependent children from their parents and putting them in orphanages, certainly this was an old idea and one that went away with poor houses. But Newt he is always thinking ahead, and like people said, he has ideas lots and lots of ideas. Thing about Newt, he rarely comes up with a good idea.
  • His newest idea about children of the poor, well that we fire their parents from their jobs and give them to the kids! Kids from poor families should be working in the schools, cleaning the toilets, and the kids from middle class and rich families should never raise a finger as this is why we have ‘the poors” to do our dirty work.
  • Fined as Speaker of the House. The House voted overwhelmingly  to reprimand House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). They also ordered him to pay an unprecedented $300,000 penalty, the first time in the House’s 208-year history it has disciplined a speaker for ethical wrongdoing.
  • Even Steve Chapman a writer for Reason Magazine says Newt Gingrich will stop at nothing to demonize political opponents.
  • His newest EPIC FAIL came just a day ago when he said, “just vote for Obama then gay man!”
  • The Freddie – Fannie Historian Debacle

If I were to attempt list the many EPIC FAILS of Newt, this blog would be too long to read.

At this point I am amazed his 15 minutes isn’t over. How long ’til the next not-Mitt candidate takes his place?

Crossposted at DAGBlog