DeRosaWorld

Speaking Of The Working Class...

Nick Hanauer's Ted Talk that was originally banned: 

A Working Class Hero Is Something To Be

Your Legacy Is In Tatters, You Asshole

From The Chicago Tribune interview:

It was Bush v. Gore, which ended the Florida recount and decided the 2000 presidential election.

Looking back, O'Connor said, she isn't sure the high court should have taken the case.

"It took the case and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue," O'Connor said during a talk Friday with the Tribune editorial board. "Maybe the court should have said, 'We're not going to take it, goodbye.'"

The case, she said, "stirred up the public" and "gave the court a less-than-perfect reputation."

"Obviously the court did reach a decision and thought it had to reach a decision," she said. "It turned out the election authorities in Florida hadn't done a real good job there and kind of messed it up. And probably the Supreme Court added to the problem at the end of the day."

The Trouble With Young People Today... Old People

I’m really feeling the ‘Generation Gap’ since I turned 50. I have young people who work with me and I just don’t understand them when they talk. Our cultural references are so different. Even Stars Wars doesn’t bind us, which was at least something I could share with people born in the 1980s. But it seems that those 25 years old and under are lost to me and frankly, I’m not interested.

I used to like to have some young people in the mix at work for their fresh outlook on things and their nature ability with the ever increasing technological updates that my line of work entails. But kids are not smart anymore. They may know the difference between mobile phones, and can even program them, but that doesn't make them intelligent, or interesting, it make them employable.

As for young people like the brothers who blew up the finish line at the Boston Marathon, I feel little human connection or empathy. At first I was struck by a pang of sadness when I saw how young the one boy was, but that left me the more he ran and rampaged. And now as we find out more about where they came from and the religious, political and social backgrounds of their homeland and their life in America, I know I will grow less attached and not care what happens to him. Sad for him and sad for me.

There is a violence in the air that surrounds young men, not only boys from foreign countries, but here in America and that violence goes along with an increasing lack of intelligence or maybe its common sense,  or a sense of common decency handed down and taught by the generation before them.

Something is not being passed down to this generation of young people that was always a given in human civilization. Young people today, and this includes Americans, will not have it better than their parents. They may have a better quality TV or more interesting phones, but they have no hope for a better world. That is something given to them by their parents and family and community. That is what is gone.

The education we are offering is bad; in schools, at home and in life. There is more information available to young people but there is no one editing it and explaining it and filtering it through a prism of social norms that will lift them up and allow them to becoming function adults and take over the reins of society themselves someday.  They just strike out and blow shit up. Well that can’t last.

The Mystery, Company, and Fellowship of Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of Regions, Dominions, Islands, and Places Unknown

Isn't that name cute? One of the planets first corporations. Of course it reeked havoc, ended badly, merged and was renamed... no harm, no foul and fuck you.

It's a strange thing to write about an American President from the Democratic Party who is probably the best Republican President ever. Better than Hoover, Reagan and Bush, Jr. combined. Corporations must love him. How could they not?

The Monsanto Protection Act

The Affordable Care Act (Nixon/Gov. Romney)

Free Trade Agreement Part One (with the EU)

Free Trade Agreement Part Two (with the Pacific Rim)

Oil Pipelines (a variety... here is one example)

This last listing is especially interesting because the Federal Aviation Administration seems to have given a corporation control over US airspace.

The list is long and the betrayal is deep and confusing coming from our Nobel Peace Prize winning, first black and Democratic President... a former U.S. Senator and community organizer and a guy who has a degree in the U.S. Constitution.

WTF!

I voted for this guy in 2012 (it didn't count of course because when I got to the polling place, I was told there was a problem with my former address... not my current address... and I had to fill out a provisional ballot)... but my intention to vote against the Romney/Ryan ticket was strong and acted on... it just didn't count.

I don't understand where the hate from the right comes from for President Obama. Republicans should be in my face every time he signs a corporate sponsored bill or bends so far over backwards for bipartisanship that he snaps his spine... oh, wait... maybe he has no spine!

Here is a video the Federal Government says we are not allowed to make:

Supreme Court - What Jefferson Said:

You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.

Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps....

Their power is the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.                                                                                                     -Thomas Jefferson

Where's My 25¢ A Gallon Gas? 10 Years Since The Bush, Jr. Invasion of Iraq

President Obama is spending the 10 anniversary of the Bush, Jr./Cheney invasion of Iraq visiting Israel. I don’t blame him for wanting to be out of the country. At least he is not in Oslo, Norway reminiscing about his Nobel Peace Prize.

If we think back and try to write an accurate history of the war, we will be lost in a quagmire similar to trying to explain the Vietnam War to ourselves. For the most part, Americans don’t want to hear it. And for those that do, it is very difficult to research the truth, because American foreign policy has very rarely been about the truth.

So, as your typical spoiled American, I ask:  Where is my 25¢ a gallon gas?  If that was a benefit I could see and feel in my wallet, then maybe I would be okay. But instead, I don’t pay 25¢ a gallon. I don’t pay $1 or $2 or $3 or $4 a gallon.

And all I am sure about is that somewhere between the collapse of the World Trade Centers in 2001 and now, I have lost most of the Bill of Rights under the Constitution.  The Federal Government can do whatever it wants, to whomever it wants, whenever it wants and doesn’t have to tell justify it or even tell anyone about it… and this includes killing Americans.

So what do I have ten years after the start of the Iraq War? Not much and a lot less of it.

Al Gore Asks Us: How Do You Feel About Our Hyper-Connect Future?

When Big Al talks, people listen. They may not admit it in public, like when we don't order a rare steak in a restaurant in front of a bunch of people we don't know... but people listen.

And who in America has actually asked what you think, lately?

Thanks for asking.

I love how the iPhone has allowed me to work from home or just not from the office. However, I don't love how people now assume they can reach me with work questions any time of the day or night... globally. I can work with people in Chicago, New York, London, Germany... but I do have to sleep and watch SMASH at some point without interruption. (see how easily we can get distracted on line)

I connect with my family, even the grandkids, from three thousand miles away. The kids are more interested in the technology than any real communication, but I would be missing them growing up if I didn't FaceTime with them.

Of course there is the parental worry that who else are their kids are facetiming with and why. It's all so instant and though a little less anonymous, still being able to connect with anyone, anywhere, anytime is not the same as wanting to or even being allowed to... or being able to.

And as for permission. That is an interesting concept when one is connected. Who am I allowed to connect with? Do I have a right to total privacy? Do the network’s corporate interests have a right to sensor me or what I look at? Is it their network? It is anybody's network? Is the network a 'Commons'? And if it is, is it national or international?

And should everyone, even if you are too poor to afford the network, have a right to connect?

FISA court rulings certainly muddy the waters of this issue on a whole other level.

What, for example does one do with information found on the network that reveals criminal behavior? Can I even read or watch it?

What if it is criminal behavior of my network carrier? Or my government? What if we found proof one Presidential candidate planned and successfully stole an election from the rightful winner... in China, or Venezuela or here in the Untitled States? What is our duty as citizens of this country or citizens of the world?

We may have to start clarifying or even re-defining words like Citizen and Commons, Rights and Freedom.

There is also the good side of Law & Order. How do we fight cyber-theft? The Banks have no answer when identity theft occurs.

What of patent rights and copyrights? Should I be able to pass on an electronic book I just read? I shared plenty of paperback books with family and friends over the years.

How do I feel about our hyper-connected future?

Let's start, like Al Gore is encouraging us to, by asking questions. Then maybe when we understand the questions we can begin to answer them together and share the results.

Too Big For Their Britches

So, no one is going to jail.

No one is heating up the tar, plucking the feathers off chickens and gathering the rails, either.

Oh, and no Corporate Person is paying taxes this year, including our national addiction, Facebook.

But you are.

This is the tinder for barricades, brothers and sisters.

A bon-bon from The Atlantic: "U.S. banks celebrated their second-most-profitable year in 2012 with a whopping $141 billion in net income last year. That's scarcely smaller than the record, $145 billion, set just before the crash, in 2006, according to the FDIC."

Just wait 'til the sequestration kicks in. Won't that be an "Aha!" moment.

See you at the polls in 2014!

Oh, And We're All Going To Die

"Nearly a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere’s land surface is covered in permanently frozen soil, or permafrost, which is filled with carbon-rich plant debris — enough to double the amount of heat-trapping carbon in the atmosphere if the permafrost all melted and the organic matter decomposed.

According to a paper published Thursday in Science, that melting could come sooner, and be more widespread, than experts previously believed. If global average temperature were to rise another 2.5°F (1.5°C), say earth scientist Anton Vaks of Oxford University, and an international team of collaborators, permafrost across much of northern Canada and Siberia could start to weaken and decay. And since climate scientists project at least that much warming by the middle of the 21st century, global warming could begin to accelerate as a result, in what’s known as a feedback mechanism..."

Wow, so basically Twenty-something couples who are starting families... your grandchildren will be fighting with wild animals for what water is left on the surface of the planet.... and we were warned.

Oh My God, President Obama Made Paul Ryan Sad

Fuck Paul Ryan.

Watch "Poisoning the Well" on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Truth or Dare: Conspiracy Theories Take a Hit

You don't get more progressive than KPFA in Berkeley or KPFK in Los Angeles. So when those radio stations stopped begging for money for an hour and broadcast Peter Staudenmaier flapping his mouth about the harm conspiracy theorist do to the liberal and progressive agenda, I felt he was in need of a response.

It took the self proclaimed anarchist a while to get to his main point. He doesn't like Michael Moore documentaries, especially Fahrenheit 9/11. This in itself fires off a conspiracy theory: Any negative media about 9/11 must get beat down. Even our liberal icons must pay the piper and insult and, not try to refute, but mock any 9/11 conspiracy theory.

Mr. Staudenmaier warms us up to his theory with some really bad examples: The Reichstag Fire was a government conspiracy, you asshole. The Nazi Party was caught and called out, so it wasn't the Jews after all.

The Assassination of President Kennedy was not a random act of some 24 year old loner who decided to bring a rifle to work and shot the President as he drove down Main Street.

Lee Harvey Oswald was proven to be on the CIA payroll. He was a Marine who defected to the Soviet Union, changed his mind and moved back to the United States with a Russian wife, no questions asked. AND... the Dallas newspaper published the Presidential parade routed , unbeknownst to any loner who worked in the Texas School Book Depository, that routed was changed from whisking the President safely on to the Stemsons Freeway to making the right turn  and left turn down a little side street and stopping directly in the line of fire… whatever  that may have been.

50 witnesses said the bullets came from behind them on the infamous grassy knoll… 50 is a lot of people. (Mr. Staudenmaier really hates when conspiracy theorists use …)

Staudenmaier mumbles insults at Michael Moore's film and conspiracy theorists in general and says we are all simplistic and think the world would be a better place if the 'cabal' could be stopped.

Well, I do believe the world would be a better place if the conspiracy to steal the election of 2000 did not work and Bush, Jr. /Cheney did not enter the White House. Any arguments from the left?

I also think the nation would be a better place if Bush, Sr. never got anywhere near the White House and was not allowed to take part in any secret hostage negotiations with the Iranian Fanatical Islamic Government in 1979…

And yes, I believe the entire world would have been better served had JFK not been assassinated.

History is on the side of those labeled conspiracy theorists. It is amusing that even these liberal, left-wing radio stations felt obliged or were 'tricked' into broadcasting Mr. Staudenmaier's self immolation.

In Other Words: Paul Krugman Disagrees With Every Word I Just Said

I hope Krugman is the one who is right: (from the NYT)

"On the day President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, an exuberant Vice President Biden famously pronounced the reform a “big something deal” — except that he didn’t use the word “something.” And he was right.

In fact, I’d suggest using this phrase to describe the Obama administration as a whole. F.D.R. had his New Deal; well, Mr. Obama has his Big Deal..."

Musings On a Second Term

President Obama causes hysteria in over-reported fringe circles in this country, those force fed on FOX News and hate radio. He is a President that wanted to stop the divisive politics in America. He wanted to be transformational.  He didn’t know what he was up against. But he does now.

A conspiracy about the events in Sandy Hook can be aired on radio, TV and on the internet, but a conspiracy about 911 and the Government can’t be discussed on even Pacifica Radio or Bill Maher’s Show; and that was from a President who stole his elections and lied our nation into war… but Obama is the one who can’t be trusted… he wants our guns to make us a socialist state.

Even this blog post gives too much credence to the right-wing fools, but they are dangerous fools.  They were slightly diminished in the 2012 elections, but not destroyed. They will continue to try to wreck our Republic and lynch President Obama. They are evil, racist and wrong about everything. The ills of the America economic system started with the election of President Reagan and that spectacular failure culminated in President Bush, Jr.’s disastrous power grab. Republicans are evil.

President Obama inherited the American Nightmare. Unfortunately, he didn’t know how to react. He listened to the bankers and to Wall Street. They told him to be careful how he tread or the entire system could collapse….but it had already collapsed and President Obama’s inability to see that is his great failure.  FDR closed the banks and opened them back up when he was good and ready and when the banks were good and ready… the American economic system, capitalism survived. Our nation came through the Great Depression and fought a two front World War… and that was followed by an economic system, guided on the principals of fairness set up during the New Deal that led us to our only true economic boom last century… ending in the 1980s with the Reagan Administration and the Republican takeover of Congress.
So Obama kept the thieves in his cabinet and in charge on Wall Street. No one went to jail. No lessons learned.

President Obama also listened too closely to the tired, old military industrial complex and kept some of the same players from previous times in his administration, who whispered in his ear all kinds of bad things only a President can hear about American security.  President Obama was not equipped to understand what was being said to him and so he continued and expanded the military direction and drive that has gone around in circles since 911. No lessons learned.

As for Health Care, that is a story still unfolding, an example of what President Obama called his ‘long game’. What does that mean…? We will eventually be fooled into single payer national health care by this brilliant Affordable Care Act? Once again, I believe President Obama wasn’t equipped to understand and take on such an endeavor as national health care, so he listened to the experts… the Insurance Industry… check-mate.

And like the Sandy Hook conspiracy theories, the loonies and traitors in our society are just not going to cooperate and they will throw sand in the gears of the Obama Administration… waiting for 2016.
So as for the Second Term, I am worried because now we know President Obama and there is no game plan. He will not stop war. He will not stop Wall Street. He will not stop quibbling with the Republicans in Congress and before you know it… 2016.

Progressives, middle of the road Democrats, left-wing kooks all voted for President Obama, not because they believed in his policies, and wanted his First Term to continue, but because we were scared shitless of a Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan Administration.  We knew instinctively that we wouldn’t have survived it.
The Second Term will be the same as the First. President Obama had his moment; his magic moment during his first 100 Days to change America for the better, be transformative and his actions spoke much louder than his words. The moment passed.  I dread 2016.

Now That's The Long Game, Mr. President

A nice companion piece to Spielberg's Lincoln.

...During the next nine months, however, the thrust of national strategy shifted away from conciliating the border states and anti-emancipation Democrats. The antislavery Republican constituency grew louder and more demanding. The argument that slavery had brought on the war and that reunion with slavery would only sow the seeds of another war became more insistent. The evidence that slave labor sustained the Confederate economy and the logistics of Confederate armies grew stronger. Counteroffensives by Southern armies in the summer of 1862 wiped out many of the Union gains of the winter and spring. Many northerners, including Lincoln, became convinced that bolder steps were necessary. To win the war over an enemy fighting for and sustained by slavery, the North must strike at slavery.

In July 1862, Lincoln decided on a major change in national strategy. Instead of deferring to the border states and Northern Democrats, he would activate the Northern antislavery majority that had elected him and mobilize the potential of black manpower by issuing a proclamation of freedom for slaves in rebellious states—the Emancipation Proclamation. "Decisive and extreme measures must be adopted," Lincoln told members of his cabinet, according to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. Emancipation was "a military necessity, absolutely necessary to the preservation of the Union. We must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued."

By trying to convert a Confederate resource to Union advantage, emancipation thus became a crucial part of the North's national strategy. But the idea of putting arms in the hands of black men provoked even greater hostility among Democrats and border state Unionists than emancipation itself. In August 1862, Lincoln told delegates from Indiana who offered to raise two black regiments that "the nation could not afford to lose Kentucky at this crisis" and that "to arm the negroes would turn 50,000 bayonets from the loyal border States against us that were for us."

-----

And it was time to call in General Grant to kick some ass.

President Obama's two major achievements so far has been to keep us from a a McCain/Palin Presidency and a Romney/Ryan Presidency.

It looks like his long game is going to be more of his mind-boggling attempts at bipartisanship with Evil.

We Love It...

Seems Like Enough Smoke To Light A Congressional Hearing Fire... And Maybe A Few Subpoenas

Did Anonymous save President Obama's Second Term?

Did Karl Rove get caught this time, committing treason? Congressional Hearing should be called and subpoenas should go out.

It is President Obama's duty to uphold the Constitution for future Presidents and the People of the Untied States of America.

If Anonymous is wrong or just plain lying... let's prove it.

Hostess Bankruptcy Is What The 2012 Election Was About - So Get To Work Mr. President, Your Second Honeymoon Is Over.

Only Silver Point and Monarch could have kept Hostess out of liquidation and kept the Twinkie bakery ovens firing. But they were, ultimately, unable to reach a deal with the unions that represents the workers who make and deliver products like Twinkies, Wonderbread and Ding Dongs. Without large union concessions—what some would say, total union capitulation—the hedge funds decided Hostess would have to die.

This is America 2012.

We relected Presidnet Obama, not becasue we loved the job he did during his Nobel Peace Prize winning first term... it is becasue we needed to stop Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and the raging lunatics on the corporate right from destroying the American Dream.

Well, they are still at it after the election. It is time for President Obama to step up and actually do something, not just say something for all the people that sent him back to the White House for another four years.

It is because of stories like this Hostess scandal... this treasonous corporate behavior... that I hoped Richard Trumka or someone from the progressive left had ran a Democratic Primary challenge against Presiden Obama.

You know there are no Twinkies in Malia's and Sasha's lunch box.

Auguste Rodin

Auguste Rodin is celebrating a birthtday today. He looks good for his age. The Hand of God is one of my favorite works of art.

Post-2012 Election Musings: Entrepreneurial Implosions

Post Election internet surfing has been so much fun. 

Watching the realization that they have drunk their own poison at FOX News and in the Conservative Pundit world on Election Night is worth hitting the ‘Replay’ at least a dozen times.

What makes it so delicious is watching the poor conservative foot soldiers stunned that the heavens above America have not opened and  God himself has not stolen the election for the 65 year old, rich, Mormon Mitt Romney and police sketch of a date rapist, Little Pauly Ryan.

The Republican Party and their Entrepreneurial Master Class have just spent four years hating women, poor folk, unions, seniors, veterans, scientists, doctors, nurses, teachers, anyone with Latino blood in them no matter what country they are from…including this one, African-Americans, college students, smart people… and did I mention WOMEN.

So if they are wondering why, how, when and where did they lose this election… look in the mirror. Turn on the TV. Read The Drudge Report… then kill yourselves; one massive serial kill.

Some clear simple sentences:

-President Clinton left the country with a surplus.

-President Bush, Jr. left the country bankrupt.

-President Obama has been trying to clean the Republican Entrepreneurs mess up.

-The Republicans in Congress have been trying to stop President Obama from cleaning the mess up.

-Mitt Romney lied his ass off all summer sucking up to Republican voters and spewing hate.

-Then Mitt Romney lied his ass off to the American Electorate in general and stopped spewing hate.

-FOX News helped Mitt Romney lie and spewed hate for him.

-FOX News viewers voted for Mitt Romney.

-Everyone else voted for President Obama.

And if you doubt what I say and want to see for yourself not only WHY Mitt Romney and the Entrepreneurs lost... but why I say Thank God! Mitt Romney and the Entrepreneurs lost... just watch this precious video.

 

Four More Years

I don't like that I gave in to the fear and paranoia on Election Day. As I walked to the polling place, I was filled with dread that it was really a matter of Republicans being able to steal the election that was going to decide our country's fate more than my vote.

As I stood in line at the grade school library at the end of my street, a young, white guy insisted two books, sitting on the shelves that featured President Obama on their covers be removed from the site of the election booths.

Then I was given a Provisional Ballot because my name was not on the Voter List.

I had a sinking feeling as I walked away from the Election booth. I grew depressed throughout the day thinking that maybe this was going to be the last American Election and that the People were actually going to vote away the Republic and let Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan into the White House. We were going to do it ourselves... National suicide... Capitalist Dictatorship.

But that did not happen. Americans, real Americans turned out at the polls and despite the treasonous attempts in Florida and Pennsylvania and Ohio, President Obama won big.

Real Americans in the weather ravaged States of New Jersey and New York showed up at the polls and re-elected President Obama... in numbers that could not be stolen.

I was never out there during the campaign singing the praises of President Obama. My car did not have an Obama/Biden bumper sticker on it.  But I hate what Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan stand for. I fear it and I believe it needs to be stopped. And it was.

Good job America.

I Was Voter Purged In California

Not matter what hoops I jumped through and verification process I completed... I was not on the voter rolls this morning at my local polling place.

I was handed a Provisional Ballot and told to check back in 45 days to see if my vote counted.

That... on top of President Obama's concession speech in Des Moines last night.

DeRosaWorld predicts it is Romney/Ryan in a landslide.

Saturday Musings: Another Election Day Is Upon Us, Choose Well

I was listening to some swing-State political ads and the Republican commercials were blatantly playing to the racist, undereducated white American. I guess there are a lot of those because this Presidential race should not be close at all.

I have major problems with where President Obama decided to make his stand on the Conservative/Progressive scale.  Progressives didn’t know anything about him and it seems we paid a big price for our blind support and his victory in 2008.

President Obama is the best Republican President since Teddy Roosevelt. His stands on Wall Street regulators, drone warfare, health insurance companies, oil drilling and global warming… the list is long… are all disappointments to this liberal.

The Republican opposition is treasonous and sinful, so I am not disappointed that McCain/Palin are not running the country… and Romney/Ryan are an even bigger insulting choice to lead this great nation.

I am not, however voting for a lesser of two evils.

There is only one evil in this election, the Republican Ticket.  President Obama, in a better land and a more enlightened time, would not deserve a second term. I wanted a liberal primary challenge for him, but there is no hesitancy on my part to support and vote for the Obama/Biden ticket in 2012. It is a moral imperative.

The swing-State political ads the Republicans are running underlie the basic fault in 21st Century America.  We are not an intellectual nation and the corporate sponsored Republican Party and mass media have misinformed the American people so completely and for so long now, that a large portion of the electorate proudly vote against, not only their best financial, social and community interests, They have Americans voting against their own spiritual, moral and physical wellbeing.

Folks who want to be part of a social conservative movement have no idea that abortion is not the only moral compass human beings can be judged on. The life of a child in the womb seems more important than the long life in this world.

If a child has a right to be born after the moment of conception, do we as a society have a right to guarantee a healthy, well educated, youth and a meaningful employed adult life with healthcare and social security waiting for them out here in their America?

Do morally good people pay taxes to godlike military budgets?

Do morally good people even play the stock market? It seems Jesus would be very interested in, god forbid socialism… but at least The New Deal.

America needed a strong, leftwing Democratic President in 2008. We didn’t get one, but we had the good sense to know the Republican alternative was wrong.

The pressure is on in American society. Our importance to anyone on this planet but ourselves is hanging in the balance.  There is a clear choice between any Democratic candidate and any Republican candidate.

It is not a choice between two evils.  It is a choice between a vote for common sense survival versus an evil that can only bring doom to us all.

The Changeling vs. The President

Shorter debate #3:

Obama: I love Isreal.

Mitt: I love Isreal more.

Obama: I love Bibi Netanyahu

Mitt: I fucked Bibi Netanyahu

Obama:  Tehehe... on an aircraft carrier with a bayonet and a donkey.

Mitt: Check the facts, I said horses.

50 Years Ago Today: JFK Addresses The Nation On The Cuban Missle Crisis

Once again, the young President shows the world how to be President of the United States of America.

He had little more than one year to live... but during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he kept the Military Industrial Complex from taking over our government... at the time.

Debate #2: If Shemp Was The Moderator, We Would Have A Reunion of The Three Stooges

Shorter Debate #2:

Senior Citizen, Mormon, former Governor of Massachusetts and date-rapist look-a-like, Mitt Romney made shit up and lied and walked around the stage like a creepy, drunk Prep-School Dean at the Senior Prom.

President Obama did his best to win the white, male vote and failed miserably. He assumes Democrats will vote for him, but as we all know, assuming anything only makes an ASS out of U and ME. But at least this time he did call "Bullshit" when he heard it.

Look, Barack Obama seems like a guy who wants to help. Now that's not saying much after four years in the Office... but Mitt Romney is just a lying sack of shit and he does mean us harm... and Romney/Ryan armed with a majority in Congress... not an America I want to see.

Shorter VP Debate: "Republicans Are Full of Shit!"

Vice President Joe Biden dragged that lipless, faux-zealot, half-man from one end of the political spectrum to the other. I just wish Joe had actually made little Pauly cry.

To Get To Big Bird, You Got To Get Through Us, Mittens.

Shorter Debate #1: Obama still wants the rich white guys to like him... They still don't.

Was Barry O too Presidential to mention the 47% of Americans Romney doesn't worry about? Hell, talk about magic underwear and the Book of Mormon!

Obama supportes wanted to be defended last night.

The Space Shuttle Visited Our Neighborhood

The Space Shuttle Endeavour flew over my street Friday afternoon on its way to the Los Angeles airport.

The shuttle did a farewell tour of California and cruised around the skies over Los Angeles, sometimes as low as 300 yards off the ground, giving us all a great view.

Our local TV news covered it live, so we had a good warning when it would be over our neighborhood... the skies were cleared of all other air traffic and at about 12:30, me and some neighbors were out in the street looking up into the sky and suddenly Endeavour appeared, getting a piggy-back ride.

Some friends were on the 405 Freeway at the time, which is next to LAX, and traffic stopped (not an uncommon event) and watched the landing.

It was quite something to see and experience. A nice moment with the neighbors as well.

Los Angeles does have its moments.

"My job is not to worry about those people." - Romney Should Step Down If He Does Not Intend To Represent What He States Is Half The Population of this Country

"My job is not to worry about those people."

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what," Romney said.

It is sickening to hear Mitt Romney speak like this. He should step down as the Republican Party Presidential Nominee. He can not put his hand on a Book of Mormon and take the oath of office at this point.

I don't know what the procedure would be... Would Paul Ryan be elevated to Presidential Nominee and then appoint another Vice-Presidential nominee?

In 1972 George McGovern replaced his Vice-Presidential running mate, Senator Eagleton with Sargent Shriver, so there is some precedent for such a high-level maneuver.

An Imperial Presidency Doesn't Really Work For Us

Cokie (Coked-Up) Roberts was pitching for the Romney/Ryan ticket this morning on NPR, continuing the Jimmy Carter comparisons to President Obama’s first term. 

She left out the treasonous trip George Bush, Sr. made on behalf of the Reagan campaign to keep the American Hostages until after Election Day, although the Iranians were trying to give them back in exchange for the freeing up of their financial assets so they could fight the Iran/Iraq war... but maybe the segment didn't have enough time to cover that with her.

Our Imperial Presidency is partly to blame for our Republic's demise, especially when we chose bad Presidents.

For future historians, the end of the Republic can probably be traced back to the assassination of President John Kennedy almost 50 years ago at the hands of his friends, yes Caesar-like.  Is Ed Lansdale that different from Brutus?

Who set that motorcade route in Dallas?

Lyndon Johnson followed, a man whose internal corruption betrayed his dreams of being a noble imperial president like FDR, and instead transformed into a Caligula-creature, on his knees, mouth wide open to the assassins of his predecessor.

LBJ was followed by Richard Nixon, just five short years after JFK was shot in Dallas, and five months after Robert Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles.  His political comeback corroded the office, taking good men like George McGovern and Sargent Shriver out of play.  Nixon’s resignation fooled us into believing that our Constitution’s Checks & Balances were working. They were not.  Nixon was the first, worst example of the Imperial Presidency gone wrong... but he wouldn't be our last.

Gerald Ford carried the football of deception as far down field as he was able before fumbling the ball to Jimmy Carter.  Carter was a decent man, becoming aware of his imperial powers too late, and betrayed by the forces that never seem to leave our Republic's corridors of power... forces very jealous of usurpers to the thrown.

Then of course we had Ronald Reagan and the parade of ghouls, marching down Pennsylvania Avenue to a Hollywood soundtrack. He was the most imperial of the Imperial Presidents, leaving us torn and frayed after eight long years of bad policy, deregulation and an exhausted economy.  The Imperial Presidency seemed to have a big stick again, and was using it to bludgeon, not our enemies, but us.

History becomes blurry at this point... I don’t understand how George Bush, Sr. let go of the Presidency. Did democracy actually work in 1992?  Poor George Bush, Sr. who somehow was taken down by Bill Clinton before being able to manifest into the Anti-Christ.

When it was George, Sr.'s time to unlock the Gates of Hell, did his hand quiver, as it did so many times in his life during moments that required great personal courage, moral fortitude and a steady hand? He let the Ship of State be taken by that pirate, Bill Clinton.

But I remember below $1 gasoline and a huge Federal Budget Surplus…Gone now of course as is the stupid son, George Bush, Jr. and the king of the Horribles, Dick Cheney, who stole the White House and all the money, as America yawned… oh what horrors they unleashed as they finally brought the Republic crumbling to its knees in a smoking heap of lies and thievery and betrayal... Imperial indeed.

Now we have our second Happy Warrior, Barack Obama, a man of whom the press loves to print and repeat every vile slur his enemies can dare call him. He bailed out the banks and Wall Street. He saved the automotive industry. He tried to give us Health Care; he even hedged his bets and gave the next generation of Presidential assassins everything they asked for, two, decades-long wars, drones, torture chambers and fuck habeas corpus...and he killed Osama Bin Laden... It doesn't get more imperial than that!

But the evil eye of Mordor is upon President Obama now, the Republicans have staggered to their feet once again, Pheonix-like from the ashes…  and Cokie Roberts wants to talk about Jimmy Carter.

Obama = Carter...

We need a new Reagan...

Embassy attacks...

Free Markets...

Let the free market stampede down the narrow streets of  Lower Manhattan once again, like the explosive, collapsing dust of the World Trade Centers (including Building Seven), engulfing everyone and everything it meets in its grey, pungent, blinding cloud of death and dishonor.

The enemies of the Republic do not believe a few American lives are a small price to pay for just four more years of demagoguery.  Four more years of war and corruption and economic suicide. They hate Americans. They hate you and me. They hate the Greatest Generation most of all for allowing an Imperial Presidency to save the nation and foil their free market dreams of an American Century of Corporate Facism.

They love money and power and greed.  They believe corporations are people. They hate unions and the middle and lower classes who should not be allowed to gather in large crowds, or vote.  Arbeit Macht Frei.

October Surprise Redux?

Are the Republicans and their supporters setting up America and President Obama for an October Surprise before Election Day?

Jimmy Carter comparisons repeated at the Republican National Convention and U.S. Embassy attacks. .. the foul political winds of desperate Republican politics are on the rise.

I fear for America. Who will stop the debris falling from the crumbling Republic?  There is an October Surprise in the air...

Our Party's second Happy Warrior, Barack Obama, a man of whom the press loves to print and repeat every vile slur his enemies can think to call him. He bailed out the banks and Wall Street. He saved the automotive industry. He tried to give us Health Care; he even hedged his bets and gave the the bad guys everything they asked for, two decades-long wars, drones, torture chambers and fuck habeas corpus...

But the evil eye of Mordor is upon President Obama now, the Republicans have staggered to their feet once again and a new October is approaching.

Obama = Carter...

We need a new Reagan...

Embassy attacks...

Let the free market stampede down the narrow streets of  Lower Manhattan once again, like the explosive, collapsing dust of the World Trade Centers (including Building Seven), engulfing everyone and everything it meets in its grey, pungent, blinding cloud of death and dishonor.

The enemies of the Republic do not believe a few American lives are too high a price to pay for just four more years of demagoguery.  Four more years of war and corruption and economic suicide. They hate you and me. They love money and power and greed.

There is something evil hidden in the wind blowing through the streets of our Nation’s Capital this fall and I fear it will bring forth an October Surprise.

President Obama Is STILL Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places

A last-ditch effort by federal and state law enforcement authorities to hold Wall Street accountable for nearly bringing down the U.S. economy is unlikely to lead to any criminal charges against big bank executives, according to a source close to the investigation.

Barring a "hail mary pass," said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is still ongoing, the members of a task force President Barack Obama formed in January to investigate fraud in the residential mortgage bond industry will instead most likely bring civil lawsuits against some of the banks involved, though it isn't clear when these cases might come.

That means any penalties for those accused of fraud or other misconduct would be measured in dollars, not jail terms..."

The Banksters you bailed out are not going to vote for you. They plan an Election Day celebration as they cast their ballots for Mitt Romney.

And your plan to turn Arizona 'blue' with your Department Of Justice's Sheriff Joe Arpaio strategy... not good... they are voting against you in November, too.

You should be practicing a little voter suppression of your own by having your DOJ putting these Enemies of the State in jail.

Oh, and then there was this... strike three... "Well, that’s that. The Justice Department has just formally ended their investigation into CIA “enhanced interrogations” without bringing any charges...

Labor Day? We Still Do That?

Here is a description of Labor Day from Forbes:

1.) Labor Day in Canada began in 1872 in Toronto but quickly made its way south to the U.S.  Originally it began as a significant demonstration demanding rights for workers.

2.)  The first U.S. Labor Day was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, planned by the Central Labor Union.  The Labor Day parade of about 10,000 workers took unpaid leave and marched from City Hall past Union Square uptown to 42nd street, and ended in Wendel’s Elm Park at 92nd Street and 9th Avenue for a concert, speeches, and a picnic.

3.)  Oregon was the first state to make Labor Day a holiday in 1887.

4.) On June 28, 1894, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

5.) What are we celebrating? The contributions and achievements of the 155 million men and women who are in the U.S. workforce.

6.) In the late 1800s the average American worked 12-hour days and seven-day weeks to eke out a basic living.  Children as young as 5-6 years old worked in factories and mines.

7.)  The year in which the 8-hour day was firmly established was 1916 with the passage of the Adamson Act.  This was the first federal law regulating hours of workers in private companies.

8.)  Traditionally people did not wear white or seersucker clothes after Labor Day as it unofficially marked the end of summer.

9.)  The football season starts on or around Labor Day and many teams play their first game of the year during Labor Day weekend.

10.)  Labor Day is viewed as the unofficial last day of vacation before the start of the new school year (and mourned my students all over).  Stated differently, it is the Back-to-School kickoff (cheered by parents all over!).

Just One Thing, Mitt

Wouldn't it be a better America and a better world if Ronald Reagan was not elected President in 1980 and Jimmy Carter got a second term? It seems all our county's problems, especially the economic ones stem from the Reagan Revolution.

It's kind of like, in the light of history, George McGovern was the choice in 1972.

Al Gore in 2000.

So, in the light of history, Mitt, get your resume' together.

Keep Pennsylvania North of The Mason/Dixon Line

This is how revolutionary wars start:

...Voters now have 10 weeks to get the cards. There are 71 DMVs serving Pennsylvania, and 13 of them are open only once a week. And in addition, voters requiring the ID will probably need to make more than one trip to the DMV. So for those without transportation, those who have difficulty speaking English, the disabled, the elderly, etc., there are still hurdles to overcome...

And We've Been There All This Time... Why?

...Many Afghans and international observers have expressed worries that the Taliban's brutal interpretation of Islamic justice will return as international forces withdraw. Under the Taliban, who ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, all music and film was banned as un-Islamic, and women were barred from leaving their homes without a male family member as an escort.

Helmand is one of the areas seeing the largest reduction in U.S. troops, as the force increase ordered up by President Barack Obama departs. The U.S. started drawing down forces from a peak of nearly 103,000 last year, and plans to have decreased to 68,000 troops in country by October...

If You Are Writing Your Memoirs Come November... Remember This Quote

"...I’m prepared to make a whole range of compromises, some of which I get criticized from the Democratic Party on, in order to make progress. But we’re going to need compromise on your side as well. And the days of viewing compromise as a dirty word need to be over because the American people are tired of it..."  - President Obama, 08/25/2012

Have you not been paying attention the last 4 years?

Best Piece of Writing On The Internet This Week... And It Starts In Pennsylvania

From The Politics Blog by Charlie Pierce at Esquire.com

The Republican Party is shot through now with an impulse to disunion that is almost an autonomic reflex at this point. Every solution they can offer has behind it the iron certainty that we are better off as individuals, that the nation best operates as a simple, loose framework within which those individuals can operate, and not as something we create together so that our individual achievements can be rooted in something greater than ourselves...

I Want My FDIC Fee Money Back, Mother Fuckers

If the Banks said 'suck it on Wall Street at rush hour', President Obama would be on his knees in the middle of the intersection at 9am.

The Democrats biggest error: Forgetting FDR.

Romney Made A 'Birther' Joke... Unleash The Kraken - Mormonism & Mexican Defection

The walking, talking asshole, Mitt Romney, a man who incorporates everything wrong and horrible that Americans can become, has made a 'Birther" comment in Michigan... his Home State... but not the Home State of his father... and what is the reason for that? Why was Mitt Romney's father born in Mexico...?! and how exactly does a Mormon Bishop serve his Church and his Government?

Time to unleash the Kraken on this cracker's ass.

Rough Week For Women So Far... Especially Republican Women

Republican Todd Akin's beliefs about women lifted the rock that Republicans live under as regards to their attitudes towards women.

Paul Ryan is right down there in the mud with Akin. Ryan can't hide behind FOX News and the conservative pundits when it comes to his public record.

Republicans are evil.

Ladies, if you think you are a Republican or someone near to you is a Republican, get help immediately.

The Republican Party is extremely dangerous to the health of you, your daughters and grand daughters.

 

An Asshole and A Douche Bag, Not A Good Combination

With the intellectual power of Ayn Rand and the full faith of the Latter Day Saints, the Republican Party ticket was announced in the dead of night... on a Friday... The Romney/Ryan ticket is very, very FOX News-American.  That is... insane. Every election cycle, it just gets worse.

The mainstream media's dream ticket has been created.

I thought I would never see a more dangerous Presidential ticket than Reagan/Bush, Sr... much damage was done to our Nation by them, but we seemed to survive it, barely... then came Bush, Jr./Cheney... so I thought... well end-times... and folks we haven't necessarily survived them, yet... but this 2012 abomination is just the last straw.

The Republican Party is out to destroy America and most registered Republicans are unwitting accomplices to the treason.

I don't know what will happen in November. We Democrats have a weak incumbent. Our best chance may be the slime factor that is on the Romney/Ryan ticket being so strong that the majority of Americans whose votes are counted on Election Day, vote for Obama/Biden again.

At least I believe President Obama means me no harm. That cannot be said of his opponents.

America Needs Closure: Rethink The Pitchforks

Goldman Sachs, the nation's fifth-largest bank by assets, systematically misled clients, sold them financial instruments it knew to be junk, bet against them and profited off of their losses, according to a Senate report released this week.

The report, the product of a two-year investigation, paints the firm as Exhibit A of Wall Street's evolution from a place that raises and deploys capital to worthy businesses into a vulturous creature that preys on unwitting investors.

HOWEVER....

After a yearlong investigation, the Justice Department said Thursday that it won't bring charges against Goldman Sachs Group Inc. or any of its employees for financial fraud related to the mortgage crisis.

In a statement, the Justice Department said "the burden of proof" couldn't be met to prosecute Goldman criminally based on claims made in an extensive report prepared by a U.S. Senate panel that investigated the financial crisis.

"Based on the law and evidence as they exist at this time, there is not a viable basis to bring a criminal prosecution with respect to Goldman Sachs or its employees in regard to the allegations set forth in the report," the statement read...

This was President Obama's biggest mistake.

What's Next For Willard Massengill Romney? 'Blockhead' Jokes in Poland?

England hates Mitt...

Palestine hates Mitt...

Mitt loves Jerusalem...

Mitt hates kosher food...

Mitt loves Socialized Medicine...

Bibi Hates Mitt...

On to Poland... the heart of old new Europe. Someone throw this poor bastard a rope.

An Anglo-Saxon Farewell To Mittens

America's unofficial Ambasssador to Anglo-Saxony. Willard Massengill Romney.

Hitchcock and Marnie

To Have and Have Shot
From a February 22, 1953, letter from Ernest Hemingway
to his close friend Gianfranco Ivancich.

Dear Gianfranco:
Just after I finished writing you and was putting
the letter in the envelope Mary came down from
the Torre and said, “Something terrible has happened
to Willie.” I went out and found Willie with
both his right legs broken: one at the hip, the other
below the knee. A car must have run over him or
somebody hit him with a club. He had come all the
way home on the two feet of one side. It was a
multiple compound fracture with much dirt in the
wound and fragments protruding. But he purred
and seemed sure that I could fix it.

I had René get a bowl of milk for him and René
held him and caressed him and Willie was drinking
the milk while I shot him through the head.
I don’t think he could have suffered and the
nerves had been crushed so his legs had not begun
to really hurt. Monstruo wished to shoot him
for me, but I could not delegate the responsibility
or leave a chance of Will knowing anybody
was killing him.

Afterwards I was crying when a Cadillac came
to the door with a worse psycho than that big one
I had to hit. With him was his keeper. I still had
the rifle and I explained to them they had come at
a bad time and to please understand and go away.
But the rich Cadillac psycho said, “We have come
at a most interesting time. Just in time to see the
great Hemingway cry because he has to kill a cat.”

They were inside the house and so I locked
both the doors and sent their chauffeur away.
The one said, “You have a gun. There is always
someone with a gun.”

So I gave him the gun (cocked) and then he
started to make compliments. So I took his
horned-rim spectacles off and took the gun away
from him and put it away in Mary’s room. Then
I humiliated him as he should be humiliated,
omit details, and then the awful thing happened.
He thanked me and his keeper thanked me and
said that was what he needed and what he came for.
What sort of people are these?

He was a rich boy, officer in 11th Airborne
Div., which never jumped in combat (not their
fault); they would have made the assault in Japan
if we had not used the atomic bomb and I
suppose they never got over it.

Certainly missed you. Miss Uncle Willie. Have
had to shoot people but never anyone I knew and
loved for eleven years. Nor anyone that purred
with two broken legs.

Guns and History and Lone Gunman and Television

Fuck You, Christopher Nolan

The director and writer of the last three Batman films has released a statement on the shootings in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorada during a midnight screening of his latest: The Dark Knight Rises:

Speaking on behalf of the cast and crew of The Dark Knight Rises, I would like to express our profound sorrow at the senseless tragedy that has befallen the entire Aurora community. I would not presume to know anything about the victims of the shooting but that they were there last night to watch a movie. I believe movies are one of the great American art forms and the shared experience of watching a story unfold on screen is an important and joyful pastime. The movie theatre is my home, and the idea that someone would violate that innocent and hopeful place in such an unbearably savage way is devastating to me. Nothing any of us can say could ever adequately express our feelings for the innocent victims of this appalling crime, but our thoughts are with them and their families.

I was hoping to close my eyes and ears to the latest massacre of innocents at the hands of an incredibly armed lunatic who appears at a random place and time and unleashes the fury that such weapons possess.

This time it was a movie theater, but if I changed the channel, there the story was, everywhere... wiping all other stories off the screen, including the daily massacre of innocents in Syria at the hands of their government. I wondered what thoughts the teenaged boys of Syria had for the shooting victims in Colorado? 

I too, at one point in my life, considered the movie theater my home, my sanctuary, a place to escape and enjoy the magic images and sounds projected onto a giant screen in the dark.  I loved movies and learned from them.  At some point, and maybe it was just age, movies stopped being enjoyable for me, they certainly stopped be challenging. How many Batman movies am I expected to see? When the first round of Batman films stopped bringing in the crowds, they ''rebooted' the series with a more violent storyline and characters. Christopher Nolan was a director who was going to transform the Batman brand and bring the crowds back into the theaters. He was going to give us a grown-up Batman.

Mt. Nolan glorified the psychopath wilh all the tools of his craft.

It isn't all Mr. Nolan's fault, but he is one of the modern filmmakers who made me lose interest in the movies and certianly stopped that feeling I once had that the movie theater was my home. My home is my home.

I had no intention of commenting on the 'Batman Shootings', but Mr. Nolan's press statement made me angry..

...The movie theatre is my home, and the idea that someone would violate that innocent and hopeful place in such an unbearably savage way is devastating to me...

Did Mr. Nolan stop to think about the images on the screen behind the man dressed in riot gear and gas mask, firing automatic weapons into the smoke filled aisles, back-lit by the projected moving images of men dressed in riot gear, killing one another?  It must have been one hell of a spectacular example of reflexivity.

What The Fuck Is This Woman Talking About?

Real Americans?

 

A good example of the total failure and uselessness of our news media.