Category Archives: War

The Etch-A-Sketch Debate.

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We should have seen it coming.  For months, Mitt Romney ran further and further to the right.  Then during last night’s debate with President Obama, Romney did an about face.  Living up to the Etch-A-Sketch strategy that Mitt’s campaign manager promised following the Teapublican primaries, he abandoned most of the right wing rhetoric and ideas he promoted in the primaries and promised to be a moderate healer, instead.

Defying arithmetic, he promised to increase spending for the military, cut taxes for everybody, cut healthcare costs while repealing Obamacare, increase spending for education and student loans, increase spending for Medicare and Medicaid, maintain Social Security and create 12 million jobs.

Whew!

And, of course, while doing all that, he promises to cut the deficit and the national debt – all without revealing a single detail or plan other than to say he would cut funding for PBS and Big Bird.

Disregarding the fact that there is no possible way to pay for his promises, has he forgotten that he’s living in the 21st century?  We have an endless number of video recordings which show him saying that he will privatize Social Security, voucherize Medicare, slash Medicaid spending, eliminate the Department of Education, cut taxes for the wealthy, cut taxes for businesses, eliminate tax deductions for the middle class, cut Pell grants for students and turn back the clock on healthcare.

About the only thing consistent with his statements in previous speeches and debates was the promise to increase defense spending even more than the Department of Defense has asked for.

Of course, political pundits have already concluded that Romney won the first debate.  If so, it was only because President Obama couldn’t tell who he was debating.  It wasn’t Mitt.  It was some guy who looks like Mitt but who was espousing a completely different platform from the plutocrat who won the Teapublican nomination.  That Mitt was decidedly anti-middle class, anti-woman, anti-health reform, anti-green energy, anti-small business, anti-entitlement, anti-education, anti-government, anti-environment, and pro-war.

It’s not easy debating someone who’s willing to lie about absolutely anything and everything to get elected.

A License To Sin.

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As I passed by a church recently, I spotted the following on its bulletin board:  “It is by grace that you will be saved.  Not by works, but by faith.”

This highly questionable translation of Ephesians 2:8 is a great excuse for people to do whatever they want.

Want to steal from someone?  Go ahead.  Want to lie, cheat and steal to win an election?   That’s okay.  Want to fabricate evidence to take your nation to war?  You can simply pray your sins away.  Have faith and ye will be saved.

What ever happened to the 10 Commandments?  And the Golden Rule?

If this is what many of our Christian brethern now believe, is it any wonder that there is so much anger and violence in the world?  Is it any wonder that much of the Christian right is now armed to the teeth?  Is it any wonder that so many Christian televangelists have run off with their congregation’s hard-earned money? Is it any wonder the Bible is being used to justify the denial of rights to gays, lesbians and others?  Is it any wonder that the so-called faithful have memorized Bible verses to justify their own narrow-minded agenda. 

In doing so, they’ve overlooked the core teachings of their savior.

That’s the very convenient thing about the Bible.  You can find a verse to justify almost anything you want to do or believe.

In The Public Interest?

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In 1934, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was given the power to license wire and broadcast communications, demanding that licensees prove they operate “in the public interest.” Not long afterward, the FCC implemented The Fairness Doctrine, which required licensees to present issues of public importance and do so in a manner that was deemed “honest, equitable and balanced.”

Unfortunately, the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated in 1987, following years of attacks by the political right beginning with Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. Since then, our media has failed on almost every level…except for generating massive amounts of money.

It’s no coincidence that, following the end of the Fairness Doctrine, broadcast stations and networks have been swallowed up by large media conglomerates.  To maximize profits, the new owners diminished long-established news-gathering organizations, such as the once-proud CBS News which was home to legendary newsmen like Edward R. Murrow, Douglas Edwards, Walter Cronkite, Eric Severeid, and far too many others to mention.

At the same time, radio was hijacked by blathering, angry wingnuts such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.  And the newspaper industry has been virtually replaced by on-line “news” sites that provide a few headlines with little depth or context.

The result of all this is that we no longer have in-depth reporting, especially with regard to politics.  TV networks are filled with “human interest” and are almost devoid of “public interest.”  The most popular cable news network is little more than a megaphone for Teapublican talking points.  Radio is filled with conservative lies.  And newspapers have redirected their efforts toward local news gathering.

(Ironically, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones and Vanity Fair, which were once special interest magazines, are now doing more in-depth investigative reporting on national and international issues than nearly all of the so-called “news” media combined.)

It is precisely this news void that has allowed the Republican Party, the Tea Party and its unscrupulous candidates, such as George W. Bush, Richard “The Dick” Cheney, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to become serial liars. And we’re all paying a price for it through tax cuts for billionaires and tax subsidies for large corporations, resulting in enormous deficits and endless wars of choice.

What can you do about it?

For one thing, you can ask your Congressional Representative and Senators to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. You can demand your state universities teach students that journalism is more than mere reporting; it’s a never-ending search for the truth. You can call out candidates whenever you hear them lie. And you can support the few media left that actually practice real journalism.

Are We Better Off Than 4 Years Ago? Let Me Count The Ways.

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What an utterly ridiculous question!  As a campaign technique, it may have worked in 1980 against Jimmy Carter and in 1984 against Walter Mondale.  But it’s completely absurd now.

At the end of the Bush administration, the US was losing 800,000 jobs a month.  Since President Obama took office, those losses have stopped and our economy has added private sector jobs for 29 straight months.

On December 31, 2008, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 8,776, resulting in devastating losses for pension funds and Individual Retirement Accounts.  Today, the Dow has soared to more than 13,300.

When President Obama took office, General Motors and Chrysler were on the verge of bankruptcy, jeopardizing more than a million jobs. Now both automakers are thriving, and General Motors has reclaimed the title of world’s largest automaker.

Four years ago, we were immersed in two lengthy and costly wars.  Since then, President Obama has ended the war in Iraq, ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden, and placed an end date on the war in Afghanistan.

In 2008, healthcare costs were soaring out of control, sending many American families into bankruptcy and costing those who could not afford insurance their lives.  In 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act which has stemmed the rising cost of healthcare and given more than 30 million people access to health insurance.

I could go on.  But, seriously, do I really need to?

If you can’t see that our nation is a whole lot better off since the beginning of the Obama administration, you’ve been spending far too much time watching the Fox News Channel and listening to conservative hate radio.

America’s Collective Amnesia.

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It seems many Americans have forgotten what happened in 2008.  They can’t remember who was at the wheel when our economy was driven into a ditch.  They can’t remember who led us into an unnecessary and unfunded war.  They’ve blanked out the memory of the second-largest stock market crash in history.  They can no longer picture the deer-in-the-headlights look of the Bush administration when the housing bubble burst.

As a result, many Americans seem to accept the latest assortment of conservative lies.

Despite the fact that President Obama rescued our economy from the abyss, many voters seem to accept Teapublican claims that his policies have failed.  Despite unprecedented obstruction by Teapublicans, voters seem inclined to reward them for their disgusting behavior.

Nevermind that it was decades of “conservative” policies that resulted in the loss of American jobs and growing disparity between the rich and the middle class.  Nevermind that Republicans squandered the surpluses of the Clinton administration in order to give tax breaks to the wealthy.  Nevermind that Romney intends to reinstate many Bush administration policies, voters are considering giving him a chance to repeat the same failures.

(Sure, trickle-down economics and free-market ideologies have repeatedly failed in the past, but maybe they’ll work this time.)

President Obama has not only guided our nation back to solid economic footing.  He has restored America’s reputation throughout the world.  He has earned another four year term.

Indeed, if voters sought the truth, this coming election wouldn’t even be close.  But Teapublican lies seem to have placed the outcome in doubt.  Teapublicans seem to have convinced voters that the path to prosperity isn’t the high road after all.  It’s back through the same ditch they drove us into more than four years ago.

Why You Should Hate Teapublicans. Let Me Count The Reasons.

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1 – Richard Nixon’s Watergate break-in intended to literally steal an election. 

2 – The “Southern strategy” in which the GOP embraced racists. 

3 – The “Moral Majority” in which the Party embraced “social” issues. 

4 – Reagan’s union-busting. 

5 – Elimination of loan interest deductions resulting in huge tax increases for the middle class.

6 – Cuts to capital gains taxes and estate taxes on the wealthy. 

7 – Reagan’s Iran-Contra plan which financed Central American death squads.

8 – Deregulation of Savings and Loan institutions resulting in the loss of billions.  

9 – Gun laws putting military-style weapons in the hands of millions. 

10 – $60 million witch hunt and impeachment of President Clinton. 

11 – Massive voter suppression giving the 2000 election to George W. Bush. 

12 – Bush’s failure to act on warnings of a 2001 terrorist attack. 

13 – The Bush tax cuts.

14 – The unnecessary and completely unfunded war in Iraq. 

15 – “Swift-boating” of Vietnam War Hero, Sen. John Kerry. 

16 – Richard “The Dick” Cheney. 

17 – The outsourcing of our military to corporations. 

18 – Awarding government contracts to corporations with offshore “headquarters.” 

19 – Deregulation of banks resulting in mortgage fraud.

20 – The Great Recession.

21 – Subsidies and tax breaks for corporations that send jobs offshore.

22 – Fox News Channel and right-wing hate radio. 

23 – Unsubstantiated claims about President Obama’s birthplace and religion. 

24 – The Tea Party.

25 – Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, Steve King and Paul Ryan. 

26 – Attacks on women’s rights. 

27 – Attacks on the LGBT community. 

28 – Plans to repeal The Affordable Care Act. 

29 – Assaults on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. 

30 – Obstruction of hundreds of President Obama’s appointments. 

31 – Filibusters. 

32 – Buckley v. Valeo resulting in a ruling that money is free speech.

33 – Citizen’s United which gave corporations the same rights as people.  

34 – Voter ID laws intended to steal the coming election.

35 – Attacks on Public Broadcasting, education and the environment.

36 – Blaming the poor and the unemployed for our deficit.

37 – Blaming teachers and first responders for our deficit.

38 – Trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor.

39 – Vilifying immigrants to get votes.

40 – The debt ceiling debate.

41 – Embrace of Ayn Rand’s self-centered philosophy.

42 – Lies, lies and more lies.

Learn more in The Teapublican Book of Lies available from Amazon.com and other on-line bookstores

When Did It Become Patriotic To Avoid Paying Income Taxes?

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Mitt Romney has been smart and very lucky.  The son of a famous father, he has used his privileged childhood and education to make millions – often by bankrupting companies and offshoring American jobs.  To make himself even wealthier, he also offshored his money in Switzerland, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg.

That allowed Romney to pay income taxes at a rate of less than 15 percent in 2010. Now insiders from Bain Capital claim that Romney didn’t pay any income taxes at all for at least 10 years before that!

No wonder he doesn’t want to release those tax forms.

But Teapublicans don’t see anything wrong with such behavior.  Many even claim that it’s patriotic to avoid paying taxes.  Seriously?  That’s your definition of patriotism?

You can ignore the sacrifice of soldiers who have served 5, 6 or more tours of duty in a war zone?  You can ignore those who take less than they deserve to serve soldiers in Veteran’s hospitals?  You can diminish those who work long hours for little money to teach children?  You can ignore those who risk their lives to save others as first responders?

None of that is patriotic according to Romney’s supporters.

According to them, true patriotism is squeezing every possible dime from your tax form.  It’s cutting food stamps for the poor.  It’s turning your back on homeless veterans and homeless children.  It’s allowing thousands to die each year for lack of access to healthcare so you can buy another vacation home or a bigger yacht.

If this is the Republican definition of American patriotism, it’s time for the party to crawl into the deepest recesses of history.

McCain’s Accusation Only Confirms Our Choice In 2008.

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Today, Senator John McNasty accused the Obama administration of leaking national security information in order to make President Obama look strong as we near the election.

First, why would the White House want to commit leaks to make the president look strong?  He doesn’t need any help with his national security credentials.  President Obama is the man who ordered the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden.  He has done far more to damage al Qaeda in 4 years than President Bush did in 8 years.  His credibility on this issue is above reproach.

Second, McCain wouldn’t accuse another of such a traitorous act for political gain if he wouldn’t consider it himself if the roles were reversed.

Kind of makes you feel even better about the choice we made in 2008, doesn’t it?

The Teapublican Book of Lies.

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You know those things Teapublicans present as facts that just never quite make sense?  The ones that are repeated day after day on Fox News Channel and right wing radio?  The conservative ideas that have been tried and failed, but keep coming back?

I’ve taken 50 of those so-called “facts,” researched them, and presented my findings in a new book:  The Teapublican Book of Lies.  It’s a sort of handbook for debates with your conservative friends and family members.

Pardon the shameless self-promotion, but you can buy the book from Amazon.