Category Archives: Current Events

The Politics of “Oh Yeh?”

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Remember when you were a child?  Remember when somebody said something bad about you or someone you cared about?  Remember how you too often responded with something that started, “Oh yeh?  Well, you’re a…?”  Or maybe you repeated the ever popular, “I’m rubber and you’re glue.  Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”

This childish behavior now extends to the highest levels of our government.  And nobody is better at it than Teapublicans.  It’s as if they’re forever adolescents mentally frozen in the fifth grade.  Witness the Teapublican response to Democrats’ call for freezing interest rates on student loans.  The House passed a student loan bill that was amended to take money from the budget intended for health care. Then, in the Senate, Teapublicans filibustered a student loan bill that didn’t include the budget trick.

“Oh yeh, Democrats, take that!”  No honest debate.  No compromise.  Just another gotcha.

And how about the Teapublican reaction to the anniversary of the attack on Osama bin Laden?  As soon as President Obama posted a commercial commemorating the event on the Internet, Mitt Romney tried to diminish the gravity of the event by saying, “Of course I would have made the same decision.  Even Jimmy Carter would have.”  And the Teapublican megaphone, aka Fox News Channel, was turned up to full volume with all the hosts reading the following Teapublican talking point from their teleprompters:  “It’s as if President Obama is spiking the football in the endzone.”

Really?  That’s the game you want to play?  Ignoring the fact that President Bush played the 9/11 card for almost every event, couldn’t you think of a more adult response to President Obama?  Wouldn’t a grown-up admit that the president made a good decision, congratulate him and simply move on to another issue? 

Apparently, that’s not an option for Teapublicans. 

It seems that as soon as you register as a Teapublican, the Party bosses automatically rewind the way back clock…in your mind.

As Long As We’re Telling The Truth…

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A recent editorial in The Washington Post was headlined, “Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.”  The writers go on to say, “We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.”

This is not coming from the so-called “liberal media.”  It’s from one of the most respected and unbiased newspapers in the land; the newspaper that covers both sides of politics from our nation’s capitol. When The Washington Post makes such a statement, everyone needs to pay attention.

This amazing admonishment of the right, follows the revelation of a meeting that took place the night of President Obama’s inauguration.  With the nation having just experienced the collapse of the housing industry, the freefall of the entire global economy, the loss of 4.4 million jobs, the loss of billions or trillions in tax revenues, a bankrupt financial system, huge deficits adding to our national debt and two wars (one unnecessary), all caused by the decisions of an 8-year Republican administration, these “patriots” seemed concerned with only one thing:  How could they cause the Obama administration to fail?

Unaware of the plot against him, President Obama began his administration by trying to accomplish the goals of his campaign – to repair the fractures in our nation by working with Republicans. He asked several Republicans to join his cabinet in order to heal the nation.  Most declined.  Instead of accepting the president’s hand, Republicans claimed he was not an American citizen and, therefore, not a legitimate president. When the administration and Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and offered loans to the failing auto industry, Republicans cried “Socialist” and organized the “Tea Party” from their most right wing supporters. They appeared at Presidential speeches with guns. They carried signs calling him a Fascist, a modern-day Hitler and threatening to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights.

Republican Senators filibustered almost every initiative to create jobs in the hopes that the struggling economy would benefit them politically.  They filibustered and obstructed legislation that would prevent a repeat of our economic collapse.  They refused to allow votes on a record number of presidential appointments, including federal judges and heads of government agencies.  A Republican Congressman even broke long-standing decorum by shouting “You lie” during a State of the Union address.

The stalemate caused by the Teapublican obstruction worked.  Teapublicans took control of the House in 2010.  Still, President Obama reached out to find compromise with the right.  In response, the Republican House Speaker said he didn’t believe in compromise; that he didn’t even know what the word meant.  Since then, Teapublicans have only become more obstructionist, more unyielding and more uncivil.

Now we’re approaching yet another election.  No thanks to Teapublicans, more than a million auto industry jobs have been saved, we’re digging out of the economic abyss, we’ve ended one war and placed an end date on the other, we’ve eliminated the leadership of al Qaeda, and we’ve greatly improved our reputation throughout the world.

By almost every measure, President Obama deserves to be re-elected.  Teapublicans, on the other hand, have earned a place in the very darkest corners of our history.

Still Gutless After All These Years!

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For many years, Teapublicans have cowed Democrats into compromising their ideals.  In fact, Democrats have become so accustomed to withering under partisan attacks many now give up their principles willingly.  Witness the news from just the past two days.

Yesterday, the Obama administration dropped controversial new safety standards for children who are hired to work on farms.  Apparently, the lies and misinformation circulated by Teapublicans that the new standards would negatively affect family farms was enough to make the administration’s testicles shrivel to 2009 size.

Then today it was announced that, with the help of 13 Democrats, the Republican-led House passed a student loan bill that includes cutting the Prevention and Public Health Fund; part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  The end result is to reduce funding for women’s and children’s health programs.

Who needs the Supreme Court?  It would seem that some Democrats are willing to help Teapublicans kill “Obamacare” themselves.

Also today, former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi stated that she was willing to embrace cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare as part of the Simpson-Bowles Plan to reduce the national debt.  Say what?  Whatever happened to protecting safety nets from the Teapublican ax?  What happened to ending tax breaks for the wealthy?  What happened to fairness in opportunity and income distribution?

The events of these past two days capsulize one of the greatest problems with our government.  Teapublicans whine and bully and threaten to get their way without concern for the welfare of our citizens and our nation.  They can count on Democrats to drop to their knees and metaphorically pee their pants.  And Democrats seldom disappoint them.

Damn, it’s difficult to be a Democrat!

The Legacy of Trayvon Martin.

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Following his tragic murder, the circumstances of Trayvon Martin’s death have focused national attention on Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law authored by ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council).  It’s not as if the law is unique to Florida.  Like most of the thousands of bills ALEC has authored over the past 30 years, it was peddled to conservative legislators all over the country.  More than two dozen states have some version of the law.

Now that the publicity generated by Martin’s death has shone a bright light on ALEC, a growing number of the organization’s sponsors have severed ties with the group.  Coca-Cola, the Gates Foundation, Kraft Foods, McDonald’s, Pepsico, Wendy’s and Yum! Brands (A&W, KFC, Long John Silver’s and Taco Bell) have all announced they will no longer donate money to ALEC.

But we need to starve ALEC of all the funds it needs to control our legislatures.  We must keep writing ALEC sponsors. We must tell them that we will not support them as long as they support ALEC.  Ending ALEC, the Goldwater Institute and dozens of other such undemocratic organizations would be a great first step in taking back our government. 

And it would be a fitting tribute to the young man who was the victim of a senseless killing.

Latest Vatican Reprimand Says It All.

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On Wednesday, the Vatican stepped into the fray between the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the American bishops.  Not surprisingly, it came down hard on the side of the bishops.  Saying the group, which claims to represent 80 percent of the 57,000 nuns in the US, had failed to make the “Biblical view of family life and human sexuality” the centerpoint of its teachings, the Holy See and company accused the group of promoting “certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

In other words, in the opinion of the Vatican, the nuns were spending too much time worrying about poverty and social justice, and not enough time spewing anti-feminst, anti-gay propaganda.  (Imagine that…women not attacking the rights of other women!)

This latest reprimand comes from an out-of-touch group of unmarried old men who apparently believe the only proper role for women is to be subserviant to their husbands and almost continuously pregnant.  It’s a group of arrogant men who believe there is no acceptable role in society for gays, except maybe as priests. 

This is the same unbroken chain of clueless old farts who called for the slaughter of the “heretics” who left the Church, such as my Huguenot ancestors.  It’s a group whose predecessors virtually invented torture in order to make their victims admit to “crimes against the Church.”  A group of men who, to this day, refuses to acknowledge that the Inquisition was a mistake.  The very same group of men who allowed their subordinates to molest children for hundreds of years and then turned a blind eye to the victims who had the courage to step forward.

At this point, I should say that I have enjoyed the friendship of many devoted Catholic priests, nuns and parishioners over the years. For the most part, I find them to be joyful, caring and compassionate people. I don’t blame the majority of Catholics for the anti-feminist, anti-gay, out-of-touch political action group that the heirarchy of Church has become.  I blame the Vatican.  And I blame those who use their positions and pulpits to push their political views like the nitwit Bishop Daniel Jenky who recently used his homily to compare President Barack Obama to Hitler!

Is it any wonder that the Catholic Church has been losing members faster than any other religion? 

Taking Back Our Government.

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Over the past 30 years, no organization or group of individuals has had a more negative impact on our nation than ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council).  Sponsored by many of the world’s largest corporations, ALEC’s membership consists of the most partisan conservative legislators.  It maintains an ideological staff that writes legislation and peddles it to its members in every state legislature.  In turn, those legislators sponsor the bills, often without even reading them. 

ALEC’s website brags that, each year, nearly 1,000 ALEC-authored bills are introduced in legislatures throughout the US. ALEC has given us some of the nation’s most extreme bills, including the “Stand Your Ground” law that is at the center of the Trayvon Martin murder, Arizona’s infamous SB 1070 anti-Latino bill, anti-union bills and many others designed to promote an extreme ideology and to serve ALEC’s corporate masters.  And its legislation becomes more divisive every year.

How can we stop it?

Last week, several former sponsors showed us the way to defeat this insidious group.  Due to the public attention focused on the “Stand Your Ground” law, Coca-Cola, the Gates Foundation, Intuit, Kraft Foods, McDonald’s, Pepsico and Wendy’s announced they would no longer sponsor ALEC. 

We need to remind the other sponsors that they, too, are vulnerable to public backlash over ALEC’s extreme ideology.  Following is a partial list of the organization’s corporate sponsors according to www.SourceWatch.org.  Contact them and tell them that you will hold them responsible for extreme legislation such as the “Stand Your Ground” law.  If we’re successful, we can starve ALEC of the funds it needs to continue to make a mess of our political system.

Amazon.com, American Express, Amway, Anheuser-Busch, Arby’s, ARCO, AT&T, Bank of America, Bankers Insurance Co., Bayer Corp., Bell Atlantic, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, BP America, Bristol-Myers Squibb, CenturyLink, Chevron, Chrysler Corporation, Coldwell Banker, Comcast, ConocoPhillips, Cox Communications, Deere & Company, Dell Inc., Del Webb Corp., Dow Chemical, DuPont, Eli Lilly, Excel Telecommunications, ExxonMobil, Farmers Group Inc., FedEx, Fidelity Investments, Ford Motor Co., Frito-Lay, Fruit of the Loom, GEICO, General Electric, General Mills Restaurants, General Motors, Georgia-Pacific, Gerber Products, Harris Bank, Henkel, Honeywell, HP, Humana Corp., IBM, International Paper, JC Penney Co., Johnson & Johnson, Koch Industries, LaSalle National Bank, Liberty Mutual Insurance, Long Term Care, Inc., Marathon Oil, Mars Inc., Mary Kay Cosmetics, Microsoft, MillerCoors, Monsanto, Motorola, Nationwide Insurance, Nestlé USA, Northern Telecom, Novartis, Outback Steak House, Pennzoil, Pfizer Inc., Procter & Gamble, Prudential Financial, Reynolds American, Ryder Systems, Salt River Project, Sara Lee Corp., Schwan’s Sales Enterprises, Shell Oil, Sony Corp., Sprint Nextel, State Farm Insurance, Texaco, TicketMaster, Time Warner, The Traveler’s Companies, Unilever, United Airlines, UnitedHealthcare, UPS, VALIC, Verizon, Visa, Walgreens, Wall Street Journal, Wal-Mart, Washington Times, Wausau Insurance, WellPoint, Xcel Energy, and YUM! Brands (owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver’s and A&W).

The Politicization Of Everything.

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The publicity for the Trayvon Martin killing served to emphasize the depths of our culture.  When the Samford, Florida Police Department announced that the killer, George Zimmerman, would not be charged, Martin’s family was understandably outraged.  They asked MSNBC’s Rev. Al Sharpton to pick up the case and publicize it nationally.  Of course, that meant that Fox News Channel and right-wing radio had to take the side of George Zimmerman.

If a travesty such as the Martin case can be politicized, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that every other part of our culture is viewed through the same divisive lenses.  We have politicized science, education, health care, contraception, religion, race, women’s rights, the environment, the military, our judiciary, veteran’s affairs, Social Security, Medicare, guns, energy, agriculture, sports and, of course, journalism.

That hasn’t always been the case.  Prior to the early 80s, evolution was considered settled science.  Few questioned our education system.  Religion did not intrude in the classroom, except in parochial schools.  Outside of our military, no one carried guns except police and criminals.  And the media were bound by high standards of objectivity.

What changed?

Following the debacle of Watergate, the moribund Republican Party made an unholy alliance with evangelical leaders. Later, the Fairness Doctrine was repealed unleashing conspiracy talk radio.  Evangelists flooded radio and cable television with conservative politics and the message that Christianity was under attack.  Greedy right-wing mouthpieces like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck filled the airwaves with their theories of a New World Order.  Rupert Murdoch built a media empire on hate and Teapublican talking points.  And worst of all, the National Rifle Association and American Legislative Exchange Council began writing legislation and recruiting state legislators to serve their ideological agendas.

And our conservative-leaning populace sucked it all in.

So here we are…arguing about racism, judicial “activism,” contraception, the origin of “personhood,” immigration, Bible studies and prayer in the classroom, religious messages in government buildings, cutting taxes for the rich, guns on campus, etc., etc., etc.

And all the while we’re arguing, the real problems such as a crumbling infrastructure, economic inequality, the exodus of high-paying jobs, too-big-to-fail corporations, climate change, the extinction of wildlife, an increasingly inaccessible and unaffordable health care system, and massive national debt are only getting worse.

Where’s The War On Human Trafficking?

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This week, Yuri Fedetov, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, told the UN General Assembly that 2.4 million people around the globe are victims of human trafficking.  Although some are exploited for manual labor, most are sex slaves. 

Let me repeat.  2.4 million women, men and children are being held as slaves at any one time!  And only 1 in 100 is ever rescued!

So what is the world doing to stop this $32 billion/year industry?  Not much.  We sometimes revictimize the women by arresting them as prostitutes.  We sometimes arrest the “Johns” who use the victims and are largely unaware of their circumstances.  But comparitively little effort is expended toward disrupting the flow of traffickers.  And virtually no effort is made to arrest the heads of this international crime industry.

We take the same approach to drugs.  We have imprisoned tens of thousands for drug use and as small time dealers.  But we have had little success in bringing the large dealers and industry leaders to justice.  And when we arrest one leader, another quickly takes his place.

Could the fact that these industries control billions of dollars have something to do with the fact that we seem unable to stop the illegal trafficking?  We’ve seen the Mexican drug cartels use their money to buy politicians, police and the courts, and to intimidate the populace.  And these tactics are not unique to Mexico.  There’s little doubt that traffickers of humans and arms in other countries (including the US) do the same things.

Likely, the people at the very top of these industries do not appear to be criminals.  They are people of great wealth and influence.   They have built a network of powerful friends which makes them seem invincible.

So what can we do to stop them?  For one thing, we can make sure that our family and friends are aware of the problem.  We can tell our state and federal representatives that these industries need to be stopped.  We can demand that our governments change their approach to these crimes and, instead of attacking the victims and the lowest levels of these enterprises, use our resources to track down and attack the very highest levels.

We have the capability to end human trafficking.  The question is:  Do we have the will?

What If Teapublicans Get Their Way In 2012?

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After watching their debates and reading the conservative legislation being pushed through Congress and our state legislatures, it’s clear that Teapublicans will not be satisfied until they:

– Replace Social Security with retirement accounts based on volatile stock markets.
– Replace Medicare with vouchers leaving seniors at the mercy of private insurers.
– Repeal “Obamacare” making health care unaffordable for 60 million people.
– Eliminate insurance coverage for contraception.
– Eliminate all forms of public assistance for the poor.
– Eliminate unemployment insurance.
– Replace progressive taxes with a flat tax to benefit the wealthy.
– Reduce or eliminate taxes for corporations.
– Eliminate the EPA allowing corporations to foul our air and water.
– Eliminate oil and gas regulations leading to more environmental disasters.
– Open national park lands, such as the Grand Canyon, to mining.
– Eliminate Wall Street regulations designed to prevent economic collapses.
– Eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that regulates credit cards.
– Eliminate the Federal Reserve.
– Eliminate the Department of Labor along with labor unions.
– Eliminate pensions and benefits for public employees.
– Eliminate the Department of Education along with public schools.
– Mandate that schools ban the teaching of evolution.
– Eliminate the US Postal Service.
– Eliminate funding for women’s health care through Planned Parenthood.
– Eliminate all subsidies for the development of alternative energy.
– Eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.
– Eliminate funding for National Public Radio and Public Television.
– Privatize prisons, roads, parks and virtually every other public entity.
– Eliminate all restrictions on firearms and ammunition.
– Eliminate all restrictions on hunting.
– Repeal the Constitution’s establishment clause that prevents a state-sponsored religion.

Seriously, is this the kind of country you want?

A Truly Momentous Court Decision.

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With the US Supreme Court poised to decide on the insurance mandate of “Obamacare,” there are a few things to keep in mind.

First, the idea of the mandate that Teapublicans now oppose was originated by…you guessed it…Teapublicans!

Second, the federal government already mandates that our citizens and businesses purchase insurance…even health insurance.  You are currently mandated to pay for Social Security insurance and Medicare, and employers are mandated to pay for unemployment insurance.

What’s different about the federal government mandating that we pay for health insurance?

If the Court rules that the insurance mandate is unconstitutional, will we then see lawsuits claiming that the other mandates are unconstitutional as well?  Will we no longer have Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance?  Teapublicans have already tried to dismantle these safety nets.

And what will happen to our health care system?  Since Congress has previously passed legislation mandating hospitals to provide emergency medical treatment to anyone, regardless of their ability to pay, those costs will continue to be passed along to the insured through higher fees.  Given the fact that more than 60 million Americans will be left uninsured, health care costs will continue to rise at a rate more than 10 times that of inflation.

Moreover, the rising cost of health care will continue to push multi-national corporations to send jobs overseas.  The number of uninsured will continue to increase, unemployment will remain high, and quality health care will eventually become affordable only to the wealthy.

It’s no exaggeration to state that this decision is the most important in the Court’s history.  The political implications will be even greater than the conservative majority voting to give the 2000 election to George W. Bush and voting to permit corporations to buy our elections.