This from my older brother: Yesterday we could not spell third-world country; today we are one.
(I wonder if it’s a joke which has been going around. Regardless, I like it.)
Sphere: Related Content
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Monday, September 05, 2011
Actually, God’s punishment…
Every wonder why God doesn’t punish those people who behave antithetically to the “teachings of the ages?”
For instance, it seems obvious to clear thinkers that the wildfires in Texas are punishment for supporting Rick Perry.
Doesn’t it?
Sphere: Related ContentMonday, May 23, 2011
SCOTUS* vs California Republican Demagoguery
In case you didn’t know it, Dear Gentle Reader(s), the State of California’s prison system is in dire straits. Check out this bit of information provided by the Supreme Court of the United States today:
The degree of overcrowding in California’s prisons is exceptional. California’s prisons are designed to house a population just under 80,000, but at the time of the three-judge court’s decision the population was almost double that. The State’s prisons had operated at around 200% of design capacity for at least 11 years. Prisoners are crammed into spaces neither designed nor intended to house inmates. As many as 200 prisoners may live in a gymnasium, monitored by as few as two or three correctional officers. App. 1337–1338, 1350; see Appendix B, infra. As many as 54 prisoners may share a single toilet.App. 1337.
This court case has been going on since the early 1990’s.
Don’t quote me, but I blame the Republican Party’s draconian misuse of the ballot initiative available to Californians. (OK, these ballot measures passed, which means a majority of voters agreed with them.) Specifically, the three-strikes issue, and the 2/3 majority in the legislature needed for tax increases.
By one vote (*thankfully, Mr. Justice Kennedy provided it, otherwise I’d’ve been forced to call it a SC(r)OTUS decision because it would’ve gone the other way) the Court has upheld a lower 3-member Court’s decision to require California to reduce its prison population by some 40,000 inmates.
That’s a tough number, but it brings home the lesson of the dangers of falling for hyperbole during election cycles. We can’t get away from responsibility by believing those who don’t have our societal best interests at heart.
Sphere: Related ContentFriday, March 25, 2011
Topsy-turvey
Technorati Tags: Republican Party,Politics
Think taxation without representation was bad?
How are we liking no taxation with representation?
Sphere: Related ContentThursday, March 10, 2011
Classic typo
Technorati Tags: The Desert Sun,Michelle Malkin
Here’s one for the books:
Your left-wing choice [E.J. Dionne] sure showed his colors Monday (“GOP's madman strategy”) and I do not have a problem with that.
However, your choices of “right wing” being Michael Gerson and Bill O'Reilly do not equate except in your own left-winged minds. How about some true conservative contributors such as Thomas Sowell, Charles Krauthammer, Michelle Maulkin, Lou Dobbs or Ann Coulter, or are you perhaps afraid readers will actually learn something?
Michelle Maulkin. Gotta love it.
(This comes from a letter to the editor in the virtual right-wing-rag The Desert Sun out of Palm Springs.)
(Can you imagine anyone thinking he could learn from Malkin, Dobbs, Sowell, or Coulter? lol)
Sphere: Related ContentThursday, January 27, 2011
No, but…
Technorati Tags: Mary Whitaker-Bono-Baxley-Mack,Conor Friedersdorf,Barbara Ehrenreich,Political Protests
There’s a mild brouhaha brewing, Dear Gentle Reader(s), over a passage or two by a writer in the the U.S. It seems a woman named Barbara Ehrenreich wrote this:
Why are Americans such wusses? Threaten the Greeks with job losses and benefit cuts and they tie up Athens, but take away Americans' jobs, 401(k)s, even their homes, and they pretty much roll over. Tell British students that their tuition is about to go up and they take to the streets; American students just amp up their doses of Prozac.
In response, Conor Friedersdorf, subbing for Andrew Sullivan this week, wrote this:
Is someone taking away the 401(k)s of Americans? Would street protests somehow salvage the jobs of those who've lost them in the recession? For that matter, have street protests done anything to improve the lives of the Greeks engaged in them?
We’ll probably never know if the lives of the Greeks have been improved by street protests, but we’ll also never know if the very people who caused the mortgage mess here in the U.S., which, arguably, caused the Great Recession, would right now be looking forward to enjoying the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts which they should, in the name of fiscal prudence, never have been given.
We can certainly imagine the scene if the tens of thousands who did not vote for Representative Mary Whitaker-Bono-Baxley-Mack in November of 2010 would’ve shown up in front of her offices in downtown Palm Springs in protest against her promised vote for the tax extension.
Maybe the U.S. would be hundred of billions ahead on deficit reduction today if we’d marched in all the Republican House districts in December.
Sphere: Related ContentTuesday, January 11, 2011
How about that!
Um, the judge who sentenced Tom DeLay to 3 years in prison has “delayed” his incarceration pending appeal.
How many of you think Tom DeLay(ed) will ever serve an hour in prison?
Raise your hands.
Sphere: Related ContentSunday, January 09, 2011
Wake up call?
Perspective: We Americans should remember, in this time of political tension and violence, that our neighbors to the south have been living through something quite similar, but worse, for the past several years, and collectively we bear some responsibility.
Mexico’s violence stems from 1) the U.S. drug habits; 2) the U.S. “war on drugs;” the proliferation of weapons manufacturing in the U.S.; the easy availability of guns which make their way to the Mexican drug cartels.
We do little to prevent violence in our own country; we do virtually nothing to help the Mexican authorities stop the violence there.
Everyone suffers; each democracy is threatened.
Sphere: Related ContentThursday, January 06, 2011
Going, going…
Navy Capt. Owen Honors lost his job this week. Chief David Dominguez, of the Palm Springs Police Department is “retiring.” Touches of politically incorrect references to the gay community played significant roles in both instances.
Cultural atmosphere ain’t your “funny” uncle’s experience any more.
Sphere: Related ContentThursday, December 09, 2010
Repuglicans
DADT fails by 3 votes.
Not much sympathy for Repuglicans for the next few years.
Now if we could only get rid of Boehner’s bitches.
(Do I sound disgruntled? Very well, then, I sound disgruntled.)
Sphere: Related ContentMonday, November 08, 2010
Hmmm…
Is there any thing sadder than watching Fred Thompson shill for reverse mortgages?
50 years ago today I cast my first vote in a presidential election—for John F. Kennedy.
Two senators, two vastly different men.
Tempus fugit.
Sphere: Related ContentFriday, October 22, 2010
Merci, Ciel
Thursday, March 13, 2008
The Geraldine and Andrew Show
OK, Dear Gentle Reader(s), here are a couple of quotes for you.
This is what Geraldine Ferraro said to The Daily Breeze of Torrance, California, a few days ago: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she continued. "And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."
Here is a quote from Andrew Sullivan's blog on the brouhaha which has arisen over the comment: My deeper point is that Obama's virtues as a politician - his ability to unite, his capacity for reason, his solid judgment and even temperament - have nothing to do with race at all...Of course, Obama's race is a salient issue. We're human.
Isn't it possible, DGR(s), that Mrs. Ferraro was speaking of the saliency of Senator Obama's race? It certainly doesn't necessarily follow that she's claiming race is Obama's only strong point. What race does for him is to offer an extra fillip to his other quite strong, and quite equally salient, points.
Sullivan, and those who choose to interpret Mrs. Ferraro negatively, do disservice to Obama's unique talents and the enhancement his mixed-race background give to those talents. That background was interesting enough to afford the senator some extra time to learn to hone his presentation into the effective campaign persona he has become.
Geraldine Ferraro
Andrew Sullivan
Barak Obama
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Friday, June 29, 2007
Beware (Sometimes) the Affable Politician
Waaaaay back in the nineties, some pols in the Republican party decided to push a "good ol' boy" into the national spotlight.
Gingrich was on the rise, due to his success with using C-Span (talking for hours on end to a tv audience in a virtually empty House chamber), but his style was a bit grating, and he had a wandering eye, which could come back to bite him--and the party.
So, by default, the pols decided to place their trust on the first-born of George H. W. and Barbara. He was, by all accounts, eminently electable: good looking, connected, and affable. To top it off, he was easily handled--a schmoozer who could be schmoozed.
Unfortunately, it looked for a while that their boy wouldn't make it. With a little assist from "activist" judges, however, he made it to the prize and we've been taken in with this affableness ever since.
Nice guy. And look how brave he was standing on that rubble. He's so sincere. I'd like to have a beer with him (except he doesn't drink--anymore). So what if he doesn't read the papers? So what if Jesus is his most admired politician? He's a good ol' boy--just look at him. How could you not trust him?
Fast forward. We've been screwed by "sincere" affability.
John Roberts--such a nice lookin' fella. Smart, too. Deferential. Polite to his elders. Clean cut. A real Amurrican boy. Make a fine lookin' Chief Justice. Ol' Sam Alito. Eyetalian, but a hard worker. Pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. Avuncular. Make a fine Associate Justice.
Fast forward. June, 2007. Roberts and Alito siding with the "conservatives" against the consumer, against free speech, against local attempts to fight racian discrimination.
Once more, an affable screwing.
On the other hand--this weekend before the 4th of July, Good ol' boy George will be hosting Vlad the Russian screwer. Since our schmoozer will be in fine fettle--what with using the family compound to impress the erstwhile commie KGB about the rewards of affability. This might be a chance for Gob-George to affably screw Vlad.
It'd be a nice change for us--to get something good for the country out of affability.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
A Madding Mantra...(almost)
Mantra is probably too strong. The repetition of something like "how we got here is not important anymore" by the supporters of Mr. Bush's initial invasion of Iraq and the subsequent questionable management of the occupation is certainly approaching the repetitive, soporific qualities of a mantra; but it might not yet have arrived.
A question arises, though. Why not?
Why isn't it important to keep near in our consciousness the questionable rhetoric used by the administration to lead the American public first to accept the invasion, and then to put up with the questionable policies developed to police occupied Iraq?
Trust in the administration's capabilities led us to where we are. Doesn't the administration have the responsibility to defend, aloud and publicly, its strategies at this point? Does "give it a chance" suffice?
The Islamist fundamentalists are a real threat. What, exactly, is the administration's strategy in this "ideological struggle?"
Republican defense of this president's war policies needs more than "forget" about how we got here.
We would be foolish to forget. We must remember who. We must remember why.
Fool me once...
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Sufficient Troops and Politicians
Waaay back, in 2002, the Chief of Staff for the Pentagon recommended 400,000 to 500,000 thousand U.S. troops be utilized to defeat Hussein and to sustain peace and order in an occupied Iraq.
That recommendation was shot down by a politician, the Secretary of Defense, and that negative was sustained by another politician, the Commander in Chief.
During the early occupation months, calls went out for more troops, but the Commander in Chief constantly told the American people that the generals on the ground did not ask for more troops, so none would be provided--politicians would not second guess the generals on the ground.
After the elections of 2006, after an electoral repudiation of the Commander in Chief's handling of the Iraqi occupation.
When politicians, responding to the electoral desires of the American public began to demand a re-deployment, a lessening of American troop levels in Iraq, all of a sudden the Commander in Chief, responding to a sudden "need" for more troops from the generals, discovered the solution to the problems in Iraqi occupation would be solved, in part, by more troops. This in the face of "politicians" trying to "micromanage" the occupation effort.
So, as long as the Commander in Chief had a compliant Congress, no increase in troops was needed; after a repudiation of the CiC's policies at the polls, there is a desperate need for troops.
Hubris.
America weeps.
All for a tax cut in 2000.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
A bit of selective memory, Dave Boy?
My favorite right-wing pundit is at it again. David Brooks writes of the Republican Party's downward slide in public trust with "No U-Turns." (Times Select)
As usual, Brooks gets most of it correct: the Republican Party is still working, largely, as if Reagan-Goldwater ideas were still "operative." Too much has changed since 1989, the last year of Reagan's presidency. The world and the United States have changed, but not enough of right-wing thinking have undergone the same.
The problem with Brooks' presentation today lies in this: (Postwar planning in Iraq was so poor because many in the G.O.P. were not really alive to the truth that security is a precondition for freedom.)
One begs to differ. In 1991, Bush I refused to continue the war effort in order to depose Hussein because of the strong possibility of sectarian violence and an inability to control an Iraqi leadership crisis--exactly the conditions which have come to pass and are obvious to all, including Mr. Brooks and other early neo-con supporters of the 2003. What would come to pass after April, 2003, was clearly anticipated by a Republican administration in the spring of 1991.
To torture the axiom, Bush II should've repeated the success of Bush I--and not moved to unseat Hussein.
Otherwise, Brooks has some interesting points.
David Brooks
Mr. Bush
Republican Party
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
No Place for Hate
Disappointment. Frustration. Astonishment. Or any other number of descriptions about one's reaction to a particular person's behavior...but not Hate.
Hate denies a person calm, deliberative, rational thought.
The enormity of the Administration's culpability is almost beyond calculation, but hatred will prevent that calculation from occurring. If the calculation cannot occur, it cannot be part of a solution.
Don't hate.
Think.
Mr. Bush
Politics
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