America Got Dick Roll'd

Cheney will also shoot you in the face.

Conservative Mouthpieces and Hate Mongers

In a New York Times commentary, Mr. Krugman makes the observation that when the Republicans are in power right-wing hate groups are complacent, and when the Democrats are in power right-wing hate groups shorten their fuses while conservative talk-show hosts happily strike the match.

A recent DHS report brought this fact to light and conservatives, taking it way too personally, denounced it, saying the Obama administration is attempting to label all conservatives as terrorists.

But the one constant that validates the basic tenet of this report is the very conservative talk-show hosts themselves. Fox News’ group of conservative hate-mongers, led by Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck espouse, if not outright endorses, the action of anyone willing to ‘Fight for the Right’ by underscoring their views through violence.

Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and all the others, as well as conservative print media, seem to keep themselves giddy by denigrating anything and everything the Democrats do without any thought whatsoever about helping this nation of taxpayers who are caught in the middle.

These platforms could be put to much better use by conservatives if they would present their party’s ideas, build on them in a positive way and condemn violence as the act of weak-minded zealots.

Escape from the tyranny of hatred. Conservatives hate Democrats so much that they are turning away from doing anything positive and it is doing a grave disservice to themselves.

I am calling on the Republican party to get its act together and formulate a solid, positive platform for the purpose of benefiting the whole country, not just yourselves, to run against the Democratic party of 2012 so we, the voters, can have a solid contest, without vitriol and the underhanded, backstabbing, negativity that so often accompanies the political election process. Don’t leave voters with the choice of the ‘lesser of two evils’. Make yourself a positive force.

'Mafia Cops' Get Life, and Their Pensions

There is something terribly wrong with anyone convicted of these heinous crimes receiving government pensions.

Despite having retired before being accused they committed the crimes as city employees, this alone should automatically negate their pensions.

The same goes for any government employee. There are instances of federal congressmen in prison receiving pensions. The latest most notable is Randy Cunningham: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/pretty_pensions.html

My research shows talk of banning this practice over the past several years, and Congress has unanimously passed legislation several times but nothing has changed.

How do politicians justify allowing a dishonored fellow politician or government employee to continue to reap the benefits of their position after bringing such dishonor to those positions?

clipped from www.nytimes.com two retired police detectives, Stephen Caracappa and Louis J. Eppolito, were convicted of serving as assassins and spies for the Mafia while they were employed as detectives for the Police Department Mr. Eppolito to life plus 100 years, and fined him $4.75 million Mr. Caracappa got life plus 80 years, and a fine of $4.25 million Both men have been drawing tax-free disability pensions from the city since they left the Police Department, according to city records Because they retired before they were accused of crimes, their pensions will continue Moreover, the pensions are not subject to seizure for payment of the fines, . The Daily News reported last year that 450 corrupt former officials, judges and police officers were receiving pensions

Porn and Politics

Dusty Storm, a ‘personality’ in the porn business, is being considered to run for political office in the state of Louisiana. Has the state of our political system gotten so distorted and fallen to such a low level of respect that this proposal can be entertained as serious? As if to say, “people we have elected to political office exhibit the same low-moral character of the porn industry so why not elect a person whose only qualifications are that she ‘rose to the top of her profession’.

Who are these fans but a bunch a men in a perpetual state of arousal.

If the political arena was not so riddled with corruption and ineffective personalities then candidates like this could never be considered. We have done this to ourselves.

Her backers say her ”real world experience and special understanding of the economic hardships facing Louisianans and Americans make her uniquely qualified to take on the tough challenges we face.” What a load of hogwash! Special understanding? Uniquely qualified? Please enlighten us as to what special understanding and unique qualities does having sex with anyone who breathes makes her think she is more capable than someone engaged in legitimate employment facing the daily struggle of putting food on their table and keeping a roof over their head.

Her backers claim she has a wide political spectrum of followers (I’ll bet she does) who think her philosophy of personal responsibility and the promotion of individual enterprise are enough to get her elected. This is the same philosophy of personal responsibility that pushes every law-abiding, tax-paying, blue-collar worker in America to trade their time for an increasingly diminishing paycheck in hopes of providing for their family. And these are the lucky ones who managed to hang on to their jobs after their corporate leadership has taken everything they can get first.

There is a dangerous undercurrent here that promotes promiscuity and breaks down family values. Let’s find out what her parents think of "her determination and talents to the professional level, becoming a featured performer in the adult entertainment industry."

Political careers have crumbled over promiscuous behavior. Families dissolve over promiscuous behavior. Is this symbol of an entire industry that considers monogamy as passé and turns the act of making love into a money making enterprise really a champion of family values or an example of morality and ethics? Have we become so jaded that we now expect so little of the process of writing our laws and protecting our rights that we can elect a porn star to take on these responsibilities?

Perhaps the time is right for porn to get into politics. Politicians have screwed us out of everything else we hold dear.

Enough Attacks, Show Us What You Got

Voters want straight answers. We don’t want to stand by watching the mud fly while waiting for substance. We are tired of witnessing our potential presidential leaders behave as lame backstreet bullies trying their best to convince us that their opponent will be worse for this country than they will be.

Voting is supposed to be based on choosing the best candidate for the job based on that candidates qualifications, not on the other person’s lack thereof. We are tired of choosing the lesser of two evils. Character assassination is beneath grown mature adults. This stuff has no place in the realm of ethical politics or adulthood. Throwing dirt and mud at each other trying to convince us, the voting public, that the other person is somehow evil serves only to lessen the attackers image. The voting public can make the decision on our own as to whether or not one of the candidates lied, or is acting unethically, is abusing our trust, or is avoiding questions. We are intelligent enough to see these diversionary tactics for ourselves.

As we grow older, in our daily interactions with people, we learn to pick up clues as to a person’s character. These sometimes subtle clues warn us to be wary of a certain individual. The more lies, cover-up attempts, and mis-direction a person engages in the more we are convinced that the person cannot be trusted. Likewise, if one candidate spends an inordinate amount of energy attacking the other candidate, then we become convinced that the attacker does not believe in himself. When a person looses faith in himself, that person becomes very dangerous, because he will stoop to any level to get what he wants. These are life’s lessons. These clues, collectively, are called ‘gut instinct’ and we ignore these instincts at our own peril.

The republican party is choosing to increase its attacks on Obama’s character by rehashing old associations. They have decided to do this because they see their popularity in the polls fading. The country has been made aware of Obama’s past acquaintances. Just as we have been made aware of his educational achievements. Our ‘gut-instinct’ tells us that Obama is not so weak-minded as to be swayed by these arguably ill-advised friendships.

The backgrounds of McCain and Obama could not be more dissimilar. McCain comes from a life of privilege where his road to adulthood was paved with well-heeled connections. Obama comes from a broken home, where his road to adulthood was on the ‘other side of the tracks’, where there is a far greater chance of running with the ‘wrong’ crowd.

John McCain was guaranteed access to higher education and, as is often the case with privileged kids, nearly threw it away. He graduated 894 out of 899 from the U.S. Naval Academy (his father and grandfather were both U.S. Navy admirals). Barack Obama had insurmountable odds against him of even finishing high school, and yet reached the pinnacle of a higher education by graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and becoming the first black man to become president of the Harvard Law Review. Which outcome defines the better character?

Because of these two very different backgrounds, I believe Obama has met a much broader spectrum of personalities, and this greater diversity can only lead to a better understanding of people.

The republican party leaders realize that their party has been severely damaged by the policies and lies instituted by the Bush/Cheney team, and are therefore attempting to paint McCain/Palin as ‘mavericks’, still members of the republican party but not the same as Bush/Cheney.

Again, we the people are intelligent enough to see through this smoke screen and see that these two are exactly like Bush/Cheney in enough ways that we know nothing will change if these two get elected.

McCain’s continued attacks on Obama shows a lack of faith in what he himself stands for. Palin’s ‘folksiness’ shows a general lack of understanding about what is going on, let alone what to do about it. The team itself is an act of desperation to hold onto the republicans waning political power.

Obama’s defensive attacks against McCain’s policies are born of trying to defend against the republican party’s attempts to undermine his policies.

To the republican party leaders, I say, we don’t want you to take us by the hand like children and have you tell us that Obama is a bad person that cannot be trusted. When you try to manipulate us to see the world through your paranoid and distrustful eyes, and ignore our ability to see these things for ourselves, you not only subtract from your own credibility, you disrespect us. That is a fatal mistake.

Please, Senator McCain, if you have it in you, grow up, stop the lame attempts at humor, stop the character assassination, own up to your record of flip-flopping on the issues. Show us the respect we deserve, and allow us to form our own opinion concerning Obama’s character. Instead of constantly telling us why we should not vote for him, convince us why we should vote for you.

Sarah Palin: Maverick American or Snow Job?

The typical American does not keep abreast of current events until it affects them directly, such as a natural disaster, or a gas shortage, or a tax increase. For whatever reason. Maybe they feel that after struggling all day to make ends meet they want to shut reality out and numb their minds with the cultural wasteland that is television. Maybe they feel their opinion doesn’t amount to much on the local, national or international stage, so why bother? Maybe they simply just don’t have the time or don’t want to make the time. How many people actually pick up a newspaper or news magazine to learn details of current events? How many people actually seek out political blogs or websites to learn about what their representatives are doing in Congress? Aside from the previously mentioned major events, more often than not it is the ‘sensational’ that captures the attention, such as, the school bus crash that killed all children onboard, or the bridge collapse that killed x number of people, or the maniac that decided to kill a bunch of people before killing himself.

We expect our elected officials to be well versed concerning their sphere of influence. We trust them to maintain a level of understanding in these matters in order to do their job effectively. Likewise, the American public should keep ourselves well enough informed in these same matters so that we can hold politicians to account for their occasional bonehead decision and to give proper recognition when they make the right choices. Since the media is the conduit through which the public learns details of events and individuals running for public office we expect the media to dig deep into these matters and to present their findings in an unbiased presentation so that the public can make informed decisions concerning how to proceed.

When it comes to learning about who is running for public office, we want to know everything about our candidates. When a candidate throws up a curtain to shroud his/her past, the American public becomes suspicious. This is what is happening with Sarah Palin. Her unwillingness to participate in investigations and her attempt to embellish her past accomplishments are smoke screens designed to hide the real Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin is part of that group of individuals who do not keep up with current events, international or national. Katie Couric recently asked her what periodicals she reads in order to keep up to date on world and national events. Palin did not answer the question. She employed her usual smoke screen and took off on a tangent, several, in fact. Despite repeated attempts by Ms. Couric, Palin would not answer the question. She didn’t want to answer the question because she doesn’t keep herself informed. To not keep abreast of current events is unforgivable for a candidate for national public office. The fact that she tried to hide this fact proves she places herself above this nation’s needs.

It is the media’s job to bring this type of selfish and disingenuous character to light so the public can see that the candidate is a fraud. Once we see Sarah Palin is a fraud we then see that the republican party is a fraud by association and McCain’s refusal to drop his running mate proves that neither of these people put the nation first. To them, winning is the only thing that matters.

We have only to listen to Palin speak to see that she has no tangible recognition of what dangers this nation faces. In another recent interview with Katie Couric, Palin makes this fact very clear. When asked her thoughts on whether the economy would be better served by giving the bailout money directly to the people rather than to Wall Street, she fumbled. We cannot deny that this current economic situation is a complex topic, but it was clearly too ‘hardball’ for Palin. Her convoluted and rambling answer, full of republican talking points, clearly showed that Palin does not have the ability to formulate a coherent and educated response, and is more focused on towing the party line, and requires cue cards even to pull this off. Given the fact that she is vying for Vice President and “just a heartbeat away” from President of the United States, she is a pitiful choice for this position.

For someone who is being dressed-up and sold to the American public as being a maverick, Sarah Palin looks and sounds like every other run-of-the-mill American not suited to hold public office. She delivers one-liners and personal jabs that seems to appeal to the sarcastic and competitive side of many Americans, but there is no substance.

Being able to relate to the every day American has its merits, but when a person aspires to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world and faces the deepest and most profound problems we face today, I personally don’t want some run-of-the-mill, sarcastic person off the street who relies on populism instead of policy and parrots the party mantra as my leader.

The American people deserves a leader with ethics, someone with the leadership skills to bring people together instead of cleaning house of all who oppose, someone with an understanding of foreign affairs well beyond believing that living in close proximity of a foreign country is a qualification, someone who has a grasp of domestic issues outside of what books should be made available in the local library, someone who can answer straight forward questions with straight forward meaningful and insightful answers without trying to misdirect the issue.

During the vice presidential debate this coming Thursday, we will finally see the real Sarah Palin, raw and without cue cards. Rest assured, she will be highly coached, but we will have irrefutable proof that Sarah Palin is not the maverick she has been purported to be. We will see, once and for all, that Sarah Palin is way out of her league. Unfortunately, her ability to connect with the audience on a personal level will serve her and the Republican party in overshadowing substance in favor of leading her followers around like the sheep they have become.

Offshore Drilling Will Not Help Struggling American Families

Republicans threaten to shut down the federal government in order to force a vote on lifting the ban on offshore drilling. They are using the plight of struggling American families to get this ban lifted. They are convinced that by allowing more offshore drilling would force prices at the gas pumps to go down. This of course is a fallacy by our own government's admission and is an abominable interpretation of supply and demand in America today.

Recent statistics show that by decreasing the number of miles that American's drive decreases the price at the pump. This is the effect of supply and demand in actual practice. Another side of economic politics is that by simply threatening to lift the ban on offshore oil drilling OPEC lowered their price for crude.

Opening up new drilling will take several years before we extract the first drop of oil, and given that the life expectancy of the oil fields is around 20 or 30 years we are looking at an average of 700 million barrels per year. It is expected that we will consume 7.45 billion barrels of oil this year, so 700 million is only about 9%. Not much chance of that amount affecting gas pump prices.

Opening up offshore drilling serves American oil companies by increasing their lucrative subsidies. The more oil they produce = the more subsidy they receive. Oil industry subsidies further our dangerous dependence on foreign oil supplies and burden taxpayers with unacceptable costs to human health, the environment, and the economy. This energy policy also discourages private investments in new, cleaner technologies such as electric vehicles. Furthermore, hidden subsidies waste taxpayer dollars by undermining government programs to promote fuel efficiency, alternative fuels, and environmental protection.

So, republicans want to throw a tantrum in order to grant more money for their oil buddies and are willing to hold the federal government as hostage in order to do so.

President Bush and his crew purposefully lifted the 26-year-old offshore drilling ban at a time when it was common knowledge that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is refusing to vote on it, the House of Representatives would break for an August recess, and certain spending bills are coming up for vote by the end of the fiscal year which ends in September. This is political maneuvering at its most selfish level.

Now, republicans have called on Newt Gingrich to dust off his old tactics of political chicken, that he made famous in the late 1990's, to threaten a shutdown of the federal government if House republicans don't get their way.

They claim that lifting the ban leads to an environmentally sound domestic production of oil and natural gas, will improve energy efficiency and encourage the development of alternative energy technologies. This of course is all bogus as well. Oil and gas companies have seen alternative energy sources as a threat to their profits. See here and here. But some are slowly coming around to realize they can be a part of it, that is of course as long as there is profit to be made.

Lifting this ban is only a band-aid fix at best and cannot possibly meet all of the high expectations that backers claim. If they truly want to encourage the development of alternative energy technologies then vote to fund these technologies. Don't throw even more money at big oil to build more oil wells that hold no real promise of easing American families financial woes.

If you truly want to improve energy efficiency, then push legislation that will force American automakers to build more fuel efficient vehicles (under much stronger measures than the baby steps you recently took), enforce stricter vehicle and industrial emissions standards (you may have to replace EPA Chief Johnson to get this done), develop better mass transit systems, design an energy infrastructure based on alternative fuel use, and force American oil companies to spend their windfall subsidies and obscenely huge profits on alternative energy research. They don't have to lose their standings as providers of energy for America, it just should not be in pollution-generating fossil-fuel use.

We need leaders who will do something more than just talk about the need to improve our energy situation and pass band-aid legislation that provides little temporary relief at best.

If you truly cared about the financial situation of the American taxpayer, then you would stop buying oversized mansions (sometimes more than one) while many Americans live in humble homes or are losing them due to your lack of regulatory attention, you would stop flying around in energy inefficient private jets while Americans are herded and stuffed like cattle onto increasingly more expensive commercial airliners, you would stop buying gas guzzling houseboats and yachts while expecting us to conserve, and most important of all you would return all of that money from special interest groups that amounts to nothing more than blatant attempts to buy your favor for their pet projects that benefit themselves and do nothing about easing the plight of the struggling American family.

If I am painting a picture of you politicians growing out of touch with the American citizen then I have made my point.

To “Fix the problem”: quit

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales claims he will ‘fix the problems’. The ‘problems’ he refers to involve using politics as a basis for hiring and firing prosecutors in his office.

He claims he is opposed to politics in decision-making in his office. Yet it is commonly understood that this is exactly the basis for his firing of eight U.S. attorneys. When he faced the Senate Judiciary Committee, in April of this year, to answer these charges his favorite answer to almost every question was “I cannot recall”. This in itself is a very poor response for someone in such a position as his. And to hide behind this transparent stalling technique shows him to be as guilty as anyone sitting in any witness box of every courtroom in this nation.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, sent Gonzales a list of 12 questions that he promises to ask Gonzales today. Senator Leahy, D-Vermont, decided to present these questions to Gonzales before hand so that Gonzales will have time to prepare his answers instead of hiding behind his supposed faulty memory.

It will be interesting to see what ‘facts’ he will hide behind to try to get the heat off of him.

Alberto Gonzales is not qualified for his position. He does not have enough experience to be in this position. No one can convince me that politics did not get him this position. No one can convince me that politics did not play a part in the firing of those eight prosecutors.

Politics is the only game this person knows, he is not fooling anyone.

The only way Alberto Gonzales can ‘fix the problems’ is to step down.

The U.S. Attorneys Office commands better respect and prestige than this man can provide.