big on love, tolerance, and the human potential
As in previous years, politicians are bottom of the rankings and their approval rating continues to fall.
To have the welfare and the lives of millions placed at our disposal, is a sort of warrant, a challenge to squander them without mercy. —William Hazlitt, 1823
“He spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes. On several occasions, Thomas told me graphically of his own sexual prowess.” —Anita Hill
In late 1998, when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to impeach President Bill Clinton for lying under oath about a sexual affair, many on the Right insisted that the issue wasn’t the sex but the perjury.
They are now confronted with a parallel case in which U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas quite clearly perjured himself to get his seat on the bench.
Beyond the seemingly obvious point that Thomas committed perjury to gain his seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, there is also the ugliness of how the Republicans and the Right sought to victimize the women who already had been victims of Thomas’s predatory behavior.
How is it possible, you ask, that the very rightwing party whose policies helped create the current mess may very well take control of the House of Representatives and conceivably the Senate as well, in the upcoming November elections?
“Conservatives accept that equality for blacks and women is a good thing and that real social and legal progress has been made on these fronts. Conservatives freely admit those on the losing side of these civil rights struggles were in the wrong.
“What they resist is the admission that theirs was the losing side.”
It’s critically important to comply to America’s history. Please be on the lookout for any case in which liberals or progressives have gone too far in the pursuit of justice and their relentless pandering to human rights.
“The past is the one thing we are not prisoners of. We can do with the past exactly what we wish. What we can’t do is to change its consequences.” – John Berger
The Republican Party over the last couple of decades has been a coalition between powerful businessmen, who often didn’t care that much about social issues, but did care about reducing regulation, getting handouts etc, and conservatives, a not-insubstantial portion of whom are batshit crazy. The businessmen provided the money, while the conservatives (crazy and non-crazy) provided the shock troops.
from the burning fields.
There are no whole men
in the village. She throws the last
of the rice beneath the tree, but the bird is waiting
for insects driven inland by the fire.
Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument [do] not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we’re hard-wired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country is scared. —Barack Obama
via humorozo
fine finder of wisdom & wit
Funding the right, tea parties, wingnuts and a’that:
| Name(s) | Industry | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Jack and Rose Marie Anderson | Finance | Culver Corp, Rose Marie and Jack R. Anderson Foundation- Financial Advisor |
| Neil Anderson and Amy Fisher-Smith | Runs Rose Marie and Jack R. Anderson Foundation | |
| Phil and Nancy Anschutz | Investment | Industrialist, Owner, Weekly Standard, Examiner newspapers |
| Cliff Asness | Investment | AQR Capital Management |
| Nate and Lynda Bachman | Finance | The Bachman Group-Financial Advisor |
| Whitney Ball | Think Tank | Owner of a firm that helps corporations give anonymous gifts to front groups |
| Michael Barone | Media | Fox News |
| Frank and Kathy Baxter | Banking | Ambassador Frank E. Baxter is Chairman Emeritus of Jefferies and Company, Inc., a global investment bank focusing on mid-cap companies. |
| Steve and Betty Bechtel | Engineering | Owns the Bechtel Group (Corporation), Largest engineering company in United States |
| Glenn Beck | Media | Fox News |
| Bernard and Margaret Blasingame | Manufacturing | President and owner of Aqua Dynamics Systems, Inc |
| Alan and Lisa Boeckmann | Oil | CEO Fluor Corporation |
| Boysie Bollinger | Shipping/Commerce | Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Bollinger Shipyards |
| Patrick and Paula Broe | Real Estate | Founder and CEO of Denver-based real estate asset management firm, The Broe Group |
| Arthur Brooks | Think Tank | President, American Enterprise Institute |
| David and Ann Brown | Think Tank | Heritage Foundation |
| John Bryan | ||
| Bob and Martha Buford | Oil | C. Robert Buford has been President and owner of Zenith Drilling Corporation |
| Tim Busch | ||
| Shelby and Nell Bush | Energy | Vice President, Legal and Administration – Hillwood Energy |
| Tim Carney | Media | Political Columnist, Washington Examiner |
| Charlies and Marla Chandler | ||
| David Chavern | Lobbyist | Executive Vice President and COO at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce |
| John Childs | Insurance | Chairman and CEO of J.W. Childs and Associates |
| Paul and Lea Clifton | Runs Robert and Marie Hansen Family Foundation | |
| Susie Coelhoe | Media | founder and CEO of Susie Coelho Enterprises Inc. |
| Bill Cooper and Kristin Tollefson | Finance/Banking | CEO of TCF Financial |
| Dino and Joan Cortopassi | ||
| Joe Craft | Coal | Joseph W. Craft III is president, chief executive officer and director of Alliance Resource Partners LP |
| Alex Cranberg | Energy | Aspect Holdings, LLC – Chairman |
| Jeff Crank | Americans For Prosperity / Radio Pundit | AFP State Director |
| Karl Crow | Policy Analyst | Capital Research Center |
| Eric Crown and Isabella King | Technology Sales | Sell Technology Equipment |
| Kevin Crutchfield | Coal | Kevin S. Crutchfield serves as Chief Executive Officer of Alpha Coal Sales Co., LLC. |
| Ravenell and Beth Curry | ||
| Jim and Shirley Dannenbaum | Engineering | Mr. Dannenbaum, Chairman of Dannenbaum Engineering Corporation |
| Veronique de Rugy | Think Tank | Senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center |
| Rich and Helen DeVos | Business | Founder and CEO of Amway |
| Annie Dickerson | Business | CBRE analyst |
| Ned and Nancy Diefenthal | ||
| Jim and Dorothy Patterson | Oil | Gulf Stream Petroleum |
| Dan and Kellie Peters | Non-for Profit | Daniel S. Peters is president of the Ruth and Lovett Peters Foundation in Cincinnati, Ohio |
| Tom Petrie | Banking | Co-founder of BofA Merrill Lynch Petrie Divestiture Advisors |
| Dixon and Carol Doll | Technology | Co-Founder and General Partner of DCM |
| Karl and Stevie Eller | Advertising | |
| Ron and Kris Erickson | Retail | Ronald A. Erickson is the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Holiday Companies |
| Melvyn and Suellen Estrin | Natural Gas | Director of WGL Holdings INC |
| Dick Farmer | ||
| Peter Farrell | Biomed | Founder of Resmed |
| Jim and Zibbie Ferrell | Fuel Oil | Ferrellgas Partners, L.P. engages in the distribution and sale of propane and related equipment primarily in the United States. |
| Dave Fettig | Natural Gas | Tank Craft, Duracraft Fuel energy |
| Bob Fettig | Natural Gas | Tank Craft, Duracraft Fuel energy |
| Steve Fettig | Natural Gas | Tank Craft, Duracraft Fuel energy |
| Jerry and Nanette Finger | Banking | Managing Partner, Finger Interests LTD |
| Richard Fink | Koch Industries | Director of Georgia-Pacific, EVP of Koch Industries |
| Budd and Lauri Florkiewicz | Manufacturing | Foam Fabricators |
| Charlie and Kaye Lynn Fote | Finance | Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fotec Group LLC |
| Randy and Jean Foutch | Oil | Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Laredo Petroleum, Inc. |
| Foster Friess | Investment | Mr. Foster Stephen Friess is the Founder and Chairman of Friess Associates, LLC |
| Steve and Polly Friess | ||
| Jerry and Leah Fullinwider | Energy/Petroleum | Vice Chairman, Hillwood International Energy, L.P. |
| Richard and Leslie Gilliam | Coal | Richard Gilliam has been President of Cumberland Resources Corporation since 1993. |
| Susan Gore | Think Tank | Founder, Wyoming Liberty Group |
| Oliver and Carolyn Grace Jr. | Med and Telecom | President and chief executive officer of Anderson Group, Inc., |
| Judson and Joyce Green | Energy and Med | Mr. Judson C. Green is the President and Chief Executive Officer of NAVTEQ Corp. |
| Ken and Anne Griffin | Investment Banking | Founder and CEO of Citadel Investment Group |
| Gretchen Hamel | ||
| Fred and Jane Hamilton | Oil | Mr. Frederic C. Hamilton served as the President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of BHP Petroleum, Hamilton Oil Company and various Hamilton Oil Corporation subsidiaries and affiliates |
| Bob and Mary Sue Hawk | Communications | President of Hawk Communications |
| Dick and Ethie Haworth | Retail | Head of Haworth Furniture, Multi-national corporation, 3rd largest corporate furniture company in US |
| Robin and Barbara Hayes | Government | Former NC Congressman |
| Dan and Carolyn Heard | Manufacturing | Executive Officer of John H. Carter Co., |
| Diane Hendricks | Manufacturing | Husband of Ken Hendricks |
| Steve and Regina Hennessy | Auto Sales | Auto Sales |
| James and Heather Higgins | Think Tank | Independent Women’s Forum |
| Paul Hill | Oil | Paul J. Hill serves as the Chief Executive Officer and has been President of Harvard Developments Inc. since 1978. Mr. Hill serves as the Chief Executive Officer and President of The Hill Companies. |
| John and Joan Hotchkis | Education | Board of Directors for Teach for America UC Berkley |
| Allan and Kathy Hubbard | Chemicals and Manufacturing | Founder and Chief Executive Officer, E & A Industries, Inc. |
| Stan and Karen Hubbard | Communications | Executive Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President, Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc. |
| Ethelmae Humphreys | Think Tank | Cato Institute |
| Manley and Mary Johnson | Political Consultant | |
| Merritt Johnson | ||
| Gerry and Priscilla O’Shaughnessy | Oil | Gerald Eugene O’Shaughnessy Co-founded Geopark Holding Limited in 2002. |
| Michael O’Shaunessy | Technology | Petters Consumer Brands, LLC develops consumer electronics and appliances. |
| Tim O’Shaughnessy | Media | Hungry Machine, Inc., doing business as LivingSocial.com, is a social discovery and cataloging network. |
| Marshall Johnson | ||
| Kyle and Kirsten Johnstone | ||
| Mike and Beth Kasser | Real Estate | President, Holualoa Inc |
| Ken and Randy Kendrick | Education/Technology | Chairman, Datatel |
| Phil and Joanna Kerpen | Advocacy Group/Think Tank | VP of Policy, Americans for Prosperity |
| Gerry and Kathryn Kingen | Restauranteur | Red Robin, Happy Guests Int’ll |
| Scott Kirkpatrick | Investor | Teton Capital |
| Charles and Liz Koch | Koch Industries | |
| Chase and Annie Koch | Koch Industries | |
| David and Julia Koch | Koch Industries | |
| Elizabeth Koch | Koch Industries | |
| Bob and Cindy Koch | Koch Industries | |
| Bob Kohlhepp | Manufacturing/Services | Vice Chairman, Cintas Corp. |
| Dennis Kuester | Banking | Retired CEO of M&I Bank |
| Andrew Kupersmith | Consultant | MD, Cardiology Consultants |
| Andre Lacy | Investment | Chairman, Lacy Diversified Industries |
| Ken and Elaine Langone | Retail | Invemed, Home Depot |
| Jay and Sally Lapeyre | Services | Laitram Corp |
| Ken and Frayda Levy | Investment | JLM Investment Mgmt |
| Tom Love | Retail | CEO, President, Love’s Country Stores |
| Bob Luddy | Manufacturing | President, Captive Aire Systems |
| Fred and Marlene Malek | Investment Management | Thayer Capital Partners |
| Elaine Marshall | Homemaker | |
| Pierce Marshall | Administrative Management | MAROPCO |
| Preston Marshall | ||
| Bill Mayer | Health Care | MD, Mayer & Cope Family Practice |
| Glen and Diane Meakem | Business Solutions | CEO, Freemarkets Inc. |
| Ed Meese | Think Tank | Heritage Foundation |
| Lew and Suzy Meibergen | Goods/Services | President, Johnston Enterprises/WG Johnston Grain Co |
| Don and Deede Meyers | Attorney | Self Employed |
| Jerry and Caroline Milbank | Investment Management | CEO/Principal, Milbank Winthrop & Co. |
| Jack and Goldie Miller | Retail | CEO/President, Quill Corp. |
| Mark Mix | Advocacy Group | President, National Right to Work Committee |
| Joe and Mary Moeller | Koch Industries | Vice Chairman |
| Steve Moore | Media | member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board |
| David Murfin | Energy | President, Murfin Drilling Co. |
| Walter and Suzette Negley | ||
| Mina Nguyen | ||
| Larry and Polly Nichols | Energy | Executive Chairman, Devon Energy Corp |
| Sean Noble | Front Group | Americans for Prosperity |
| Tim and Teresa Oelke | Advocacy Group/Construction | Teresa – State Director of Americans for Prosperity, Tim – Crossland Construction Corp |
| Eric O’Keefe | Front Group | Sam Adams Alliance |
| Kurt and Nancy Pfotenhauer | Media | President of MediaSpeak Strategies/former political commentator on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC and former Senior Policy Advisor and National Spokesperson with the 2008 John McCain presidential campaign |
| Tim Phillips | Advocacy Group | president, Americans for Prosperity |
| Ramesh Ponnuru | Media | National Review magazine |
| Art and Kathy Pope | Goods/Services | Senior Exec, Variety Wholesaler |
| Russ Roberts | Attorney | Roberts, Ashby & Parrish |
| Corbin and Barbara Robertson | Energy | President, Quintana Minerals Corp |
| Richard Roder and Karin Hsu | Construction Management | CEO, Cmt-Construction Management |
| Gary and Kathleen Rogers | Goods | Former CEO, Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream |
| Durk Rorie | Manufacturing | United Air Specialists |
| Chris Rufer | Goods/Manufacturing | Morningstar Company |
| Peter Schiff and Martha O’Brien | Investor | Schiff: Euro Pacific Capital Inc., |
| Steve and Christine Schwarzman | Financial Services | CEO/founder, Blackstone Group |
| Rick and Sherry Sharp | Retail | Former CEO, Circuit City |
| Mike and Lin Simmonds | Services | CEO, Simmonds Restaurant Mgmt |
| Peter Smith | Services | CEO, Service Group of America |
| Dick Strong | Investment Services | Strong/Corneliuson Capital Mgmt |
| Michael Sullivan | Investment Services | CR Intrinsic Investors |
| Ray and Ladeline Thompson | Manufacturing | President/CEO, Semitool |
| Lynn Tilton | Investment Management | CEO, Patriarch Partners LLC |
| Dave and Melanie True | Oil | Partner |
| Steve Twist | Consultant | Rose & Allyn PR Consultants |
| Jim and Gayla Von Ehr | Research/Development | CEO, Zyvex Corp |
| Rick and Debra Waller | Manufacturing | Owner, Rollmeister Inc |
| Peter Wallison | Think Tank | Fellow, American Enterprise Institute |
| Bill and Sarah Walton | Real Estate | Allied Capital Corp |
| Lew and Myra Ward | Oil | Ward Petroleum Corporation owns and operates wells. It engages in oil and gas exploration and production. The company was founded in 1963 and is based in Enid, Oklahoma. |
| Dick Weekley | Real Estate | Weekley Properties |
| Fred and Susie Wehba | Real Estate | Bentley Forbes Real Estate |
| Nestor Weigand and Darcy Buehler | Real Estate | JP Weigand & Sons Real Estate |
| Dick and Mary Beth Weiss | Life Insurance | Wells Fargo, Hawthorne Rances |
| Howard and Rhonda Wilkins | Insurance | Diversified Insurance |
| Don and Sue Wills | Oil | |
| Larry and Lorraine Winnerman | Real Estate | Win Win Enterprises |
| Joe Woodford | ||
| Earl Wright | Finance | AMG Natinal Trust |
| Karen Wright and Tom Rastin | Energy/Manufacturing | Tom Rastin, vice president of marketing and engineering, Ariel Corp – Karen Wright, Ariel CEO |
| Cliff and Susan Yonce | Investment Banking | Goldman Sachs |
| Fred and Sandra Young | Services | Diversified Search, LLC provides senior-level executive and corporate board search services in the United States and internationally. It provides recruitment services for various organizations in consumer and industrial, education, not-for-profit, arts and culture, financial and professional services, business, healthcare and human services, life sciences, media and entertainment, sports and leisure, energy and utilities, private equity, retail, and technology and communications industries. |
Rand Paul at college:
“He and Randy came to my house, they knocked on my door, and then they blindfolded me, tied me up, and put me in their car. They took me to their apartment and tried to force me to take bong hits. They’d been smoking pot.”
After the woman refused to smoke with them, Paul and his friend put her back in their car and drove to the countryside outside of Waco, where they stopped near a creek. “They told me their god was ‘Aqua Buddha’ and that I needed to bow down and worship him,” the woman recalls. “They blindfolded me and made me bow down to ‘Aqua Buddha’ in the creek.
Jerry Brown’s latest TV ad.
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said this is “One of the best ads I’ve ever seen.”
Bill Moyers:
The conservative movement, once embodied in Goldwater, found its new hero in Ronald Reagan, and launched a campaign to bring back radical laissez-faire, when there was no social contract and all but the privileged and powerful were left to forage on their own.
Freedom in America would come to mean the freedom of the rich to buy the government they wanted and to write the rules to their advantage, even if it meant leaving millions of Americans behind.
There is a class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that is making war, and we are winning. —Warren Buffet
When you want to go forward, you put it in ‘D’. When you want to go back, you put it in ‘R’. —President Obama
Joe Miller, candidate for US Senate, held a town hall meeting at a middle school in Anchorage. When asked about illegal immigration, Miller offered up: Build a wall! “If the East Germans could do it, so can we!”
And gee whiz: Miller’s private security guards handcuffed and detained a local magazine editor ‘for asking Alaskan senator candidate questions’. Alarmed Brits have published this arrogance in the Daily Mail.
Why did Miller’s guards strong arm the reporter into handcuffs? Miller announced he would no longer be taking questions about his past:
‘We’ve drawn a line in the sand. You can ask me about background, you can ask me about personal issues, I’m not going to answer them. I’m not.’
More on the story here, including the headquarters of Miller’s private militia. Gallery of the sheer volume of Wingnuttery and Demagoguery here. List of Obama’s first term achievements here.
Not to worry.
Merely our traditional ethical traits, people with their interests at heart, the standard spiel, the dreck while the situation snowballs.
Why? Because we’re Sutured To Chaos !
This becomes more apparent on the simpler level of a pile of sand. As grains are added to a pile of sand the pile will grow bigger, until predictably, it collapses under its own weight and instability.
Not so predictable, however, is precisely when the pile will collapse. Predicting this turns out to be almost impossible. This self-organized criticality – in which there is a fluctuation between stable and instable states – is also found in wildfires, earthquakes and avalanches.
It turns out that ‘sand avalanches’ have an analogue in the brain’s ‘neural avalanches’ (that is, in the way that neurons communicate with each other). Even further, it is precisely at this critical border of disorder and chaos that the brain functions.
That is to say, the brain is always on the edge of chaos.
We need to learn a few things first.
1. Produce your birth certificate.
2. Produce your school papers from Indonesia
3. Produce your passport for your world tour in the 1980s.
4. Produce your Selective Service registration.
5. Produce you college scholarship documents.
From the comments section:
It’s unfortunate, you know… my philosophy and perspective is FAR closer to the republican side than it is to the democrat side – but I reject the republican party because they really come across like a bunch of idiots.
Prominent republican leaders and their supporters alike seem to have a total inability to argue things in a straightforward and/or rational way. Instead they simply pick up some insane, impotent point or another and repeat it endlessly.
They also appear to hold beliefs and attitudes that most of the civilized world finds disgusting, including myself. Undercurrents of racism, blind hatred and fear of muslims, blatant homophobia, threats of violence, intense christian fundamentalism, constant invocations of the boogeyman (commies, terrorists, whatever)… it’s all so… gross.
What I would give to see the republican party truly stand up for the respectable conservative ideals… fiscal responsibility and individual freedom. Instead we see them talk loudly about these things, all the while spending amazing amounts of money killing people in the middle east, prosecuting Americans for victimless crimes like prostitution and pot-smoking, pushing to reverse the separation of church and state, denying marriage rights to gays, and backing fools like Palin and Bush who display no intelligence, no tact, and zero curiosity about foreign policy.
I really don’t know what that party is doing.
You can either get serious and have a real debate with people you don’t agree with… or you can try to claim that BO is Hitler because he pushed for health care reform. One is politics, and the other is schoolyard nonsense.
Reminds me of the endless bellyaching about BO’s farking birth certificate. Republicans’ time/effort would be better spent coming up with convincing, sensible arguments about public policy. I’d be listening for sure.
HA!
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” – Bertrand Russell
German Historical Museum… NYTimes story here.
How was Hitler’s rise possible?
The dictatorship rested on mass enthusiasm and approval…
“This is what we call self-mobilization of society.”
How could Hitler and National Socialism, which were responsible for war, crimes and genocide, count on widespread acceptance by German society until the very end?
Why were so many Germans willing to align their conduct with the »Führer« and thus actively support the Nazi dictatorship?
There was nothing about him that seemed to predestine him to rise to power.
Nonetheless he was soon surrounded by devout followers and came to be the most powerful man in Europe. His power can therefore not be explained simply on the basis of his personal characteristics.
More important are the socio-political conditions and the mindset of the German people at this time. He mobilized their social fears and hopes and utilized them for his own purposes.
I guess that I feel, of all the human evils, of which we have thousands of years of record and our own contemporary experiences, the most horrible evil of all is hypocrisy.
It’s this idea that there are those who do bad and there are those who do good, when, in fact, even the people who supposedly do good are saying they do good to mask the fact that they do evil.
Without thinking about it in terms of the things I might be interested in, I’m constantly struck with how do-gooders are, in the end, doing evil, and it’s masked by the fact that they lie about it.
Pro-lifers, people who love life, who believe in the sanctity of the life of a child, they’ll go and murder a man, or that people devoted to religion and goodliness can abuse children, that our politicians who say one thing are really doing another.
So this human aspect of hypocrisy fascinates me because if one could eliminate the lie, and one could eliminate hypocrisy, then you could be on the road to eliminating so many terrible things that plague people.
“I hate the stench of a lie.” – J. Conrad
“The truth is, they want you, you see, to be poor,” Aristophanes wrote in his play ‘The Wasps’. “If you don’t know the reason, I’ll tell you. It’s to train you to know who your tamer is. Then, whenever he gives you a whistle and sets you against an opponent of his, you jump out and tear them to pieces.”
Shut up. Really? We can’t detect a hypocrite?
So it turns out that, one after another, Tea Party candidates in one way or another mooch off the government.
The latest series of hilarious disclosures center around Alaska’s GI-Joe-bearded windbag Senatorial candidate, Joe Miller, who appears to have run virtually the entire gamut of government aid en route to becoming a staunch, fist-shaking opponent of the welfare state.
Quelle surprise !
Lede from the New York Times:
A new study has come up with the monetary cost of a single murder: $17.25 million. Can we really afford not to invest in preventative measures?
Some snippets of reader comments:
“They could cut the cost a lot if they would just find him or her guilty in the morning and hang them in the afternoon.
“Don’t let Obama and the Dems take away your gun.
“If the ACLU had never come to the USA in the first place…
“They shoot mad dogs don’t they?
“Welfare leeches. More crime was perpetrated by such people, not less.
“Do away with radical liberal judges and you could reduce the cost by 99%.”
I freak when I browse troll comments on social and moral issues. My heart throbs. It’s beyond me how brutal and judgmental, the petty superiority, the tiny dominance, the… I don’t have the words.
There’s crime in the USA that stuns the world. There’s also a culture of bitter incivility with an extremely poor grasp. “Sufficient unto the day, is the evil thereof.”
By their estimates, more than 18,000 homicides that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded in 2007 alone will cost us roughly $300 billion.
That’s about as much as we’ve spent over nine years fighting the war in Afghanistan.
A Contract With America. A Pledge to America. Mission Accomplished. For goodness sakes how many times are we going to fall for this prank?
I pledge that I will actually read the Constitution before pledging to uphold it. And I pledge that if I am too stupid to understand its intent, I won’t become a politician.
I pledge not to start two wars, give tax breaks to millionaires, ruin the economy and then get mad when someone shows me the bill.
I pledge not to be a hypocrite or a Tea Party Republican – whichever comes first.
I pledge to remember that religious freedoms apply to all religions including the lack of a religion. And I pledge to remember that no matter how much I believe in my religion, I will remember that my neighbor believes in his religion just as much. And finally, I pledge that if I believe in my religion too much I will keep it to myself.
I pledge to stop calling Sarah Palin a stupid bitch when she finally admits that she is too stupid to run this country. At that point I will simply call her a bitch and let the stupid speak for itself.
I pledge that I won’t hate gay people in public and then sleep with them in private.
I pledge to accept the fact that John McCain really can’t pull his head out of his ass at this point. It’s in too deep.
I pledge not to be shocked when Rick Sanchez announces his new show on Fox News.
I pledge to remember that there are 6 billion people in the world and only 300 million of them live in the United States . And with 300 million Americans to choose from, we can’t do better than John Boehner? Really?
Robert Reich, former cabinet secretary, is on fire lately:
Not only is income and wealth in America more concentrated in fewer hands than it’s been in 80 years, but those hands are buying our democracy as never before – and they’re doing it behind closed doors.
Hundreds of millions of secret dollars are pouring into congressional and state races in this election cycle.
These false people became rich ?
Moralist Dobbs…known for tirades against ‘illegal aliens’ and those who employ them has been found to have employed undocumented workers himself. The Nation discovers that Lou Dobbs has relied on undocumented labor for years for upkeep of vast and costly estates and horses he keeps.
Whitman’s truthfulness and character have taken a beating. She’s cluttered over her undocumented housekeeper by making excuses, not admitting it and blaming others. Saying illegal status isn’t a big deal, that’s why she didn’t bring it up. “She needs to go on eBay and buy a clue.” (CNN)
Oh the sweat and labor required to be President.
CBSNews reporting from the Mudflats:
During a Sept. 19 appearance on Fox News Sunday with Neil Cavuto, Joe Miller was asked whether Palin was qualified to be president.
His response was less than enthusiastic, saying that there were “a number of great candidates out there.”
That apparently didn’t sit well with husband Todd who apparently sent a testy e-mail hours later to Miller, Tim Crawford, the treasurer of SarahPAC, and Thomas Van Flein, the personal attorney for both the Palins and Miller:
And imagine the diplomacy if this crowd is elected. Facebook couldn’t handle the traffic.
Republicans claim US is now firmly center-right.
Third Way, an organization of centrist Democrats, produced a study showing that liberals are the smallest share of the electorate and not enough to keep Congress in Democratic hands.
Citing Gallup polling data, the study said self-described conservatives made up 42 percent of the electorate, compared with moderates who make up 35 percent and liberals who make up 20 percent, a shift of several points to the right in the last two years.
Washington is coin-operated, conducted largely in the shadows. Polls hide the issues. It’s neither right nor left except in ballot frenzy.
The Robert’s Supreme Court triggered by George Bush favors corporate influence. Election spending is up 500% from 2006. The trends amount to a spending frenzy conducted largely in the shadows. Favoring Republicans 7 to 1 in recent weeks.
Many sources are secret. But of all things, Murdoch and Fox News are spending $75 million on the midterm 2010 election while broadcasting right wing positions 24 hours a day. According to Bloomberg News, News Corp. is the “Republicans’ biggest corporate donor” this year.
Colonizing is such an old thing:
When the wealthy get into politics, it’s not about ideology, it’s about business.
So think of those paychecks to Sarah Palin and others as smart investments… “…a network of organizations that may seem independent on the surface but are largely financed by a handful of ultrawealthy families.”
Mother Jones tabulates who owns Congress. It’s not pretty.
What if members of Congress were seated not by party but according to their major business sponsors? We gave it a try. —Dave Gilson
Folks have no bloody idea what a billion dollars can do. When billionaires fund electioneering, what’s democracy?
Snippet:
The idea that Americans are rational in their opposition to redistribution is ludicrous.
Otherwise they’d have been screaming bloody murder for the past 30 years as incomes have been distributed up. You have to be able to explain the change that occurred between, say, the 50’s and the 80’s. We went from steeply progressive redistributive tax rates to nearly flat rates, from high to low taxes on capital, usury laws overturned, etc.
Something happened to the American psyche in the interim. I think it was a result of deliberate manipulation by the plutocrats, but I suppose other explanations are possible —floridation of the water supply maybe or a brain virus placed in our flu vaccines.
We had more than a modicum of fairness in the earlier era. We had an extreme level of fairness, at least relative to what we have today.
From the 40s to the early 70s, average incomes of all five income quintiles went up almost exactly equally, roughly doubling in real terms over that period; right in line with productivity growth. The rising tide lifted all boats; the classic analogy for ‘fair’. Today, in contrast, all but the yachts are taking on water.
Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt says laws are written by lobbyists. Politicians are merely preserving a wealth preference. Shame on us.
Lawrence Lessig says corporations spend unlimited amounts to promote political candidates. Shame on us.
Canada has already reacted. Bill C-24 enacted in 2003 says corporations can’t donate over $1000 to a party and no person may donate over $5000.
Tom Junod says,
“Barack Obama, then, is not the agent of change; he’s the fulfillment of a change that is already occurring culture-wide, in every place but politics.
That’s why the Republicans fear him so much; why, while waiting for him to fail, they just come off as the political party for people who want to hit their kids.”
“A man learns by two things. One is reading. The other is association with smarter people.”- Will Rogers
Indiana University has launched Truthy.indiana.edu, a sophisticated new tool that combines data mining, social network analysis and crowdsourcing to uncover deceptive tactics and misinformation. FastCompany calls it a ‘Swiftboat Torpedo’.
Mainstream folks turned out in high numbers to the One Nation Rally despite slack media coverage. Satellite shots confirm a greater turnout than Glen Beck’s Whitestock Tea Party —275,000 vs 87,000. Only C-Span detailed the event’s variety of people and its depth of focus on jobs and education. Wingnuts label the attendees as Communists.
Snippet:
What’s attacked? Check out academics, elites, bureaucrats, scientists, the ivory tower, advocates, radicals, muckrakers, ‘community organizers’…. And please note that they are only under attack if they are seeing and warning of hazards to the people.
Where’s Our Billions of dollars going? And when spent?
2000 —371,000,000,000
2001 —393,000,000,000
2002 —430,000,000,000
2003 —498,000,000,000
2004 —551,000,000,000
2005 —589,000,000,000
2006 —625,000,000,000
2007 —662,000,000,000
2008 —737,000,000,000
2009 —772,000,000,000
