Election 2012: The Second Republican Debate

Brought to us by CNN this time (in their never ending effort to be the Igor to Fox News' Dr. Frankenstein)

Here's what you missed in 4 Minutes:

The 4 Minute version highlights just how stupid this debate became (especially with those "this or that" questions.  Come on CNN, this isn't a Miss America Pageant, it's the race for leader of the free world.  you might take it a little more seriously?).  Anyway, here is the full debate:

As expected the media tried to boil down the entire debate into the question of "who won?"  Obviously this is a gross (and I mean patently offensive to all well reasoned individuals) oversimplification, but let's see how it plays out:

CNN response was, with one exception, basically "Bachmann won because she showed up, spoke in clean sentences, and people saw her."  Wow CNN, thanks for that incredibly deep analysis of the issues.  I'm sorry but the fact that Bachmann didn't make a complete fool of herself is not a "win" in my book.  Leave it to CNN to completely ignore the issues, in favor of the politically safe "image win."  JFK would be so proud.

FOX NEWS responded with an article quoting Pawlenty's refusal to take a pot shot at Romney.  John King's attempts to bait him into reiterating his "Obam-ney-care" comment apparently failed to produce the political theatre for which both CNN and FOX were hoping.  Tragedy...

MSNBC does the best job of responding to the debate in a substantive manner (though obviously they have the audience to appreciate it).  Unfortunately, it was still couched in the terms of winners and losers.  Thankfully, they explained their reasoning a little bit, so it wasn't a complete waste.  They thought Romney and Bachmann were the winners (bachmann, again, because she showed up, and Romney because he didn't step on any landmines), while they down played Pawlenty's performance because (like FOX and CNN) they were disappointed that he didn't turn the debate into a fist fight by taking shots at Romney.  Nothing especially surprising there.  Though they did add that they thought the TEA Party won because all the candidates were talking from their play book.  A good point, that illustrates just how far the GOP has gone down the wrong road.  They also pointed out that the Economy was a loser last night because of how little time was spent on a substantive discussion.  Well said MSNBC.

UPDATE: Jon Stewart responded the next day in classic, hilarious John Stewart fashion.  Well played, as always, sir!

My Thoughts (Issue by Issue):

The Economy

Assuming for a moment that the economy will actually matter in 2012 (people almost never cast a vote based on their economic interests or based on an economic plan, which is how Pawlenty can get away with basing his entire plan on cutting taxes by more than 10% - 15% across the board... yeah right.), economics was basically a let's-bash-Obama-fest.  Not a single candidate talked about their economic plan, they just pilled up criticism on Obama.  Apparently he didn't do a single thing right (at least Ron Paul couldn't think of anything).  Pawlenty alluded to his plan, but we've already talked about what that was above, and it's not very detailed.  Bachmann whined about Obama's failings, while Cain tried to leverage his "I ran a company" cred.  Cain appeared to be the most thoughtful on the topic, but Pawlenty and Romney were in close pursuit.  The remaining candidates, as movement conservatives with little or no experience, just talked a lot of sweet conservative talking points, and wasted their time on the issue.

Bailouts were a mini-issue in the economy discussion (limited as it was).  All of the candidates expressed their rage against the Bush-Obama bailouts.  Romney patted himself on the back for an op-ed he wrote in 2008 criticizing the bailouts and recommending they go through normal bankruptsy instead.  Romney then got miffed when John King brought up another op-ed in which he predicted the auto-industry would implode under government control.  Ron Paul also jumped on bailouts, but added a criticism of the housing market.  He claimed, that we should let housing prices fall rather than artificially propping them up, so that we can "clear out" the market.  I agree, but I think we should have done that 3 years ago before people spent their life savings to survive this long.  At this point doing something like that might do more harm than good.  Either way, Ron Paul came out as the only sensible one on this discussion.  Everyone else just played the bailouts-bad card.

Another interesting side issue was NASA.  Gingrich spent a few minutes talking about how he wanted to privatize NASA, then when Pawlenty chimed in to say he supported keeping NASA as a federal program, Gingrich interrupted for an about-face that gave John King whiplash.

Finally, Romney got a question about FEMA, which he answered by saying "If we can drop a program down to the states, that's the right way to go, and if we can send it to the private sector even better."  Then he rambled on despite John King's mumbling attempts to first get him to actually talk about FEMA, and then finally to get him to shut up.  I agree with his position in so far as he recommends having the states do more disaster relief, however, there should still be a way for other states to help out.  It is also worth noting that states like CA (Earthquakes), Florida (Hurricanes), and Tornado Alley (Tornados) will end up having to spend more than states like Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, etc. who don't have natural disasters like that (or at least of the same magnitude).  The question is then, "is that fair or should other states have to help out?"  I think each state should have to pay for themselves, but that's just me.  As for dropping it to private industry, surely he isn't suggesting that insurance companies foot the bill is he?  they are not always reliable, don't always cover natural disasters, and no one likes them.  Thus, I'm not sure I agree with that part.

Health Care

Half of the candidates supported and defended the Ryan plan to cut medicare, while the other half, just kinda rolled on the issue.  No one liked the Obama plan, not even Romney who was for the plan before he was against it.  Gingrich back tracked on his criticism of the Ryan plan, in a long rant of gobbledegook.  Santorum and Bachmann (being the most conservative candidates) jumped on the Paul Ryan bandwagon without much fanfare.

The only candidates to do much talking about Health Care were Cain and Paul who both talked about needing to "restructure" the system.  Cain was at least honest about it.  He told someone in the audience "you're not gonna get everything we promised."  He doesn't want to JUST raise the retirement age, he also wants to restructure the system.  Paul did his usual Ron Paul dance criticizing big brother.

Perhaps the most shocking revelation came from Santorum, who criticized critics of the Ryan plan by stating "we want to replace medicare with something that is essentially the same."  How exactly you are going to fix a plan by replacing it with something "essentially" the same is not explained (I guess John King thought it was best to "leave it there").  This seems to be the usual Republican refrain.  "We hate Obamacare, but we either can't come up with anything better or we want to replace it with something basically the same but with our name on it."  Neither of those options seems to make much sense, but all the Conservative base seems to want to hear is anti-obama rhetoric, so the substantive plans don't seem to matter much.

Abortion

I love the new Republican talking point "I support the sanctity and dignity of life from conception to natural death."  I mean once you get past the fact that it's basically a pledge to kill mothers to save their fetuses and let people die horribly painful deaths rather than giving them the dignity of a painless death, it sounds just positively wonderful!  Bachmann, waffled the most on this point.  She was asked "do you support an exception for the health and safety of the mother or in the case of rape/incest?"  her response was to repeat the phrase "I am pro-life" in as many different combinations as possible (I support the sanctity of life, I support the dignity of life, I have lots of babies, I believe in adoption, etc.)  Of course, John King, in classic "we'll have to leave it there" CNN fashion, didn't press her to actually answer the question.  Pawlenty again pointed to his record "I have the most pro-life record in this field of candidates."  I didn't like the stuff he talked about, but at least he had something to say other than "I believe in the sanctity of human life."  Therefore, I think Pawlenty wins this topic, and Michele loses.

DADT

John King, in a rather shocking question, asked whether the candidates would seek to repeal the DADT repeal (starting to get dizzy on this issue?).  Most of the candidates dodged with the "I'd do what the generals tell me."  Gingrich made a complete fool of himself by saying, "I'd support repeal, because the generals were against the repeal in the first place."  Sorry Mr. Former Speaker.  They were, in fact, in favor of the repeal, because they thought the law was stupid.  In fact, more than 80% of the country thought the law was stupid.  Who exactly are you pandering to?  20% isn't a winning majority... Bachmann also jumped on that landmine by saying she supported a repeal of the repeal, though she at least had the decency of not lying. just just said she supported repeal. 

I'd like to take a moment and wonder what the F*** CNN was thinking when they asked this question.  This issue is more or less dead.  Polls show that more than 80% of respondents didn't think DADT was a good thing, and most politicians have jumped on board that bandwagon.  VERY few people at this point actually even think this is an issue.  So, why would you insert it into a campaign where it hasn't been an issue?  Are you trying to create controversy?  Are you trying to point out bad apples in the Republican field?  What exactly was your purpose?  It just came off as stupid to bring up such a politically dead issue.  That's all I'm saying.

DOMA/Gay Marriage

You can't have a Republican debate without throwing in a little fearmongering about the terrifying "gay agenda."  CNN jump right on board that joke of an issue by bringing up the Marriage Protection Amendment (which hasn't actually been an issue since I think 2005).  They even went so far as to ask Michele Bachmann if she would go into Massechussetts and try to overturn their law.  WTF?  Half the first appeared to want to leave the issue alone (to the states), while the other half wanted a federal amendment.  Obviously this is kinda ironic coming from the people who believe in small government.  obviously their small government rhetoric doesn't apply to social issues where they think we need a big government to act as the morality police.  Obviously this is a stupid issue, and thank your favorite heavenly deity that this issues is slowly becoming a non-issue.  CNN, please take the hint and stop bringing it up.  There are more important issues out there than fearmongering about the gays.

I was thoroughly impressed with Ron Paul's answer.  Ron Paul said "we shouldn't have group rights, gay rights, we should be talking about individual rights."  I couldn't agree more Mr. Paul.  The reverse is also true though, we should not be denied rights based on group affiliation either.  Individual rights should be just that, individual.  We should get them no matter what you don't like about us.  Now try explaining that to your party.  

Religion
This was pretty much a freebee.  John King asked about repigion and every candidate just spouted the same old crap.  Republicans want to be able to practice their religion in public and impose it on others while their doing so.  Ron Paul had an interesting take on it, but I don't think he went as far as I would have liked to see from a Libertarian.  He stated that the constitution doesn't allow a theocracy (duh) and something about freedom of religion and then something about christians being free to practice their religion in public, but I wanted him to talk about everyone being free to practice, not just christians.  Almost there Mr. Paul.

WHO WON?

Even though I hate this, and realistically I think all these candidates would make terrible presidents, I was most impressed with Pawlenty and Ron Paul.

Pawlenty: He proved that he is the only candidate (other than Romney) who has any experience whatsoever.  He answered every question with "I did that in Minnesota." I may not have liked what he did (like appointing conservatives to the SC of MN, or passing anti-choice legislation), but the guy does have experience and he proved it in this debate.  The guy also sounded like someone who could compete on the national level.  He wasn't talking in stories (like Gingrich), in abstractions (like most everyone else), or even in I-ran-a-business-isms (like Romney and Cain).  He was the one candidate who could honestly talk about the issues and point to a record.

Ron Paul: I find that the more I hear from this guy the more I like him.  He doesn't play games and he doesn't dance around issues for political gain.  He says what he thinks.  I like his "leave it to the states" mentality throughout the debate, and I was especially pleased with his comments about "I'm the commander-in-chief, I tell the generals what to do."  It may not placate the war-hawks of the far left, but thank god someone had the balls to say it.  If Ron Paul makes it to the Minnesota Primary I might register as a Republican just to vote for him.  He'd be the first Republican I ever voted for.

WHO LOST?

Bachmann: She didn't really answer a single question, and just showing up isn't enough to win anything.  Without something substantive, I would never vote for this candidate (even if I was foolish enough to vote Republican).

Cain: He got called out on a number of instances were he put his foot in his mouth (particularly with the whole Muslim issue) and he garbled out an answer that just didn't satisfy.  Then when John King moved on, he tried to correct himself, but that failed just as miserably and it made him look like a fool.

Gingrich: You lose automatically when you blatantly LIE in a debate! (The "generals" thought DADT was stupid and supported an repeal if Obama/Congress ordered it).  That was well covered in the media before the repeal.  You can't rewrite history in a debate, and attempting to do so makes you a LOSER!

Santorum: Santorum is a religious extremist and he reiterated that with his support of an "Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment."  While all the other candidates wanted to leave it primarily to the states, he sided unequivocally with federal intervention in marriage.  At least the rest of the field had the dignity of equivocating on the issue.

I give Romney a "neutral" for this debate.  He didn't do anything good, but he also didn't do anything stupid.  He was just kinda there... and unlike the media outlets I don't give points just for showing up.

So there you have it.  Everything you missed from the Republican debate, and unlike the media, you now have at least a basic understanding of what issues were discussed and how the candidates responded.  Congratulations!  you are now more informed than the 4 million people who watch the 3 major media outlets.

Common Sense

Neo-Con Agenda: Mount Vernon Statement

Today conservatives reaffirmed their fundamental belief in constitutional principles which they have spent the past 50 years undermining at every chance.  The truly ironic part of the Mount Vernon Statement is that only two of the 5 principles they present can actually be located in the constitution.  The remaining three are neo-con principles that have evolved over the past 50 years as today's republicans rested control of their party away from classical conservatives and limited government conservatives.

Here are the "Constitutional Principles" that the neo-cons have decided to stand for:

(1) It applies the principle of limited government based on the rule of law to every proposal.
(2) It honors the central place of individual liberty in American politics and life.
(3) It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and economic reforms grounded in market solutions.
(4) It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that end.
(5) It informs conservatism’s firm defense of family, neighborhood, community, and faith.

Alright, so to be fair the first two are definitely constitutional principles, but lets not pretend the republicans EVER respected those principles.  Republicans have been all to happy to expand the size and role of government under their rule.  Take for instance George Bush.  On the economic front, he used to tax policy to pump money directly into the bank accounts of the rich, which by all realistic measures caused the enormous over-growth of our economy that resulted in the enormity of the economic crash of the past 2 years.  on the social front, he was happy to support the regulation of sexual practices (sodomy, which was only overthrown thanks to the liberal leanings of the court) and marriage.

As for individual liberty, I'm not sure who gets the liberty.  Certainly not gays, minorities (who are being denied higher education thanks to conservative intervention in admissions policies), women (who may soon lose control of their bodies), or the non-religious.  So who exactly gets liberty in conservative america?  oh yeah, straight white religious men.  That doesn't really sound like a good thing to me.

The second three are not even constitutional principles.  The free market was always separate from the constitution, because economic policies are irrelevant.  It was only in the 1950s during the Red Scare that liberty, democracy, and free markets were associated as a means of alienating the communists.  There is nothing necessary about Free Markets, it simply happens to be the most fitting form for our economy and also the most effective, but that is irrelevant to a discussion of constitutional principles.

Advancing freedom is also found no where in the constitution and involving ourselves in the affairs of others has ALWAYS been a suspect practice and one that has hurt us in the past.

I don't think I even need to note why family, community and neighborhoods would be irrelevant to the framers of the constitution.  As for faith, the government was never meant to defend faith it was meant to stay out of it and defend itself from faith.

Notice how the last three look a whole lot like a laundry list of policy pandering to the three powerful constituents of the republican party: Social conservatives, economic conservatives, and war hawks.  Republicans, lets not pretend that this has anything to do with going back to constitutional principles, it is a bold faced attempted to pander to your base.  Nothing more.

The results of today's declaration are nothing more than a reaffirmation that Republicans will continue to abuse the constitution to push their power-hungry agenda of religious extremist, military domination and oppression of the world, and economic incompetence.

Common Sense

Neo-Con Agenda: Why it's too early to count out the Dems

Let's be frank, a lot can happen in the next 7 months before the elections and the republicans are not up by THAT much in most districts.

I watched a show on MSNBC, and they have all but given the house to the GOP (I would remind you that it's still 7 months away).  However they were squabbling over whether the Senate would stay in Democratic hands.  They even put Nevada, home of the Majority Leader, as a likely GOP take over.  I've seen those polls.  Reid is down by 9 points to either challenger, but again, lets be frank, he's been busy.  He hasn't rolled out a robust re-election campaign yet, so lets assume when he does that he picks up 5 points.  that makes a a 4 point game, which is most polls falls just shy of the margin of error.  The real question becomes can the democrats change the message in time to make up those 4 points and then grab some extras to spare.  I say, yes, they will.  and here is why:

(1) In the past 7 months the economy has gone from bad to worse and then from worse to still bad but not spirally out of control.  Taking my cues from the most recent economic news, everyone was bummed out that we lost 20,000 jobs instead of the 5,000 we expected.  come on!  20,000 is still better than 700,000 losses.  At the same time we went from 10.2% unemployment to 9.7%, a drop of half a percent.  Not bad, huh?  well don't expect the media to catch onto that.

The reality is that the economy is poised for a rebound.  The Dow is on solid ground compared to where it was last year, the employment numbers suggest we are on the brink of job growth, and every economist worth their expensive degrees is saying the worst is behind us.  Me prediction:  Unemployment will drop slowly until May/June, when it will fall sharply (if most companies are like my university than that will mark the end of their current hiring freeze, and they will begin to take some chances).  I tentatively suggest that by August we are at 7.5 to 8.0% unemployment.  Guess who is going to get the credit for that?  And don't forget the president's new job plan.

(2) Health care will be yesterday's news.  Assuming the democrats take care of health care immediately, by the time the elections role around people wont be as angry about it.  The Republicans will still try to use it as a weapon, but it wont make a lot of sense since most of it wont take effect until 2011, well after the elections.  So the facts wont support the republican position and lets all remember that the public ha about a 3 month memory when it comes to politics.  Prediction: Health care won't be a big issue on election night 2010.  Exit polls will say that the economy, jobs, and social issues will be the big issues, because that is always what people say, despite the fact that statistics show Republicans often vote against their economic interests.

(3) Incumbent democrats haven't started "running" yet.  Republicans have been running for 2010 since November 5, 2008.  Democrats have been trying to govern.  Just as Reid will pick up points when he kicks his campaign into high gear, so too will other democrats.  Between now and the summer, I would expect some small changes in the numbers with republican leads shrinking but staying solidly outside the margin of error, but starting in June I would be very surprised if those leads don't disappear with at least a few Democrats pulling into the lead.

So here is my over-all predictions:

(1) Democrats will hold both houses

(2) Republicans will pick up 2 seats in the senate (57-43)

(3) Republicans will pick up between 10 and 20 seats on the house (246/236-188/198)

This election is NOT 1994.  Will the republicans win back some seats, yes of course.  The only reason the congress swung so far to the left was because Democrats were VERY motivated in 2008.  That and Obama managed to pull a lot of informed moderates and uninformed fair-weather voters toward the democrats who were seen as the inevitable victors.  The Republicans will pick up seats because the congress will be working it's way back toward a comfortable equilibrium, not because their policies win over any credibility.  How could they?

Common Sense

Neo-Con Agenda: Louisiana Watergate!

Remember the guy and gal who decided it would be a good idea to dress up as a pimp and a prostitute so they could trick ACORN into helping them get money to start a brothel?  That embarrassingly obvious example of neo-con entrapment and political theatre resulted in a GOP witch hunt against this organization.  One can imagine the GOP needed someone on whom to take out their anger after being squashed in the 2008 elections, so they took it out on this grass-roots organization, and even managed to go so far as to cut their federal funding (a matter which the courts will no doubt take issue with).

Since then Mr. James O'Keefe (the Pimp) has become a conservative media darling, making appearances on Fox News (sometimes even dressed in his pimp outfit) and is a regular contributor to the ironically named "news" site, Big Government.

Well Mr. O'Keefe got himself into a little bit of trouble recently when he entered the Louisiana offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu and attempted to bug her phone.  For those individuals old enough or educated enough, yes, this should ring eerily familiar to another neo-con attempt at political espionage at a certain hotel in Washington D.C.  No one is really sure what they were looking for or why they chose to pull such a stupid stunt, but the results in the media are hardly surprising.

The neo-con noise machine at fox news and their surrogate neo-con contributors on MSNBC and CNN seem down right melancholy over the whole ordeal.  They have managed to come up with only stall tactics and innuendo where they were so eager to hang ACORN out to dry only a few short months ago.  My the right has a short memory, or perhaps its another example of political favoritism/cronyism that we have come to expect from the fringe of the american right-flank.

On Fox News, Fox and Friends couldn't bring themselves to mention anything about this incident other than "This story probably needs a lot of context."  This after immediately dubbing O'Keefe their "power player of the week" for his actions at ACORN and anointing him an "investigating journalist."  Perhaps next time they wont be so quick to commend faux-journalists for damn near criminal activities.  They might end up being criminals.

On MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan even went so far as to blame Mary Landrieu.  Mr. Buchanan openly wondered why James was there in the first place if there was nothing suspicious going on, as if the attempt of criminal neo-con political espionage was reason enough to conclude that Mary Landrieu must be doing something bad.  He suggested that people should be looking into Sen. Landrieu to find out what James was seeking to find in her phone conversations.

As far as I'm concerned this guy got what was coming to him.  He pushed his brand of vigilante, entrapment faux-journalism too far and he got nailed for it.  I hope he gets a hefty fine and I wouldn't be opposed to seeing him get a few months in prison.  Maybe someone can find a chalk board on which he can write "I will not commit illegal political espionage."

Common Sense

Neo-Con Agenda: The GOP's Medicare Problem (Hypocrisy)

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has made a rather embarrassing series of press releases the past two days.  Apparently, he has taken both a pro- AND anti-Medicare stance.

Media Matters for America first reported this story this morning.

On December 6th, Mitch McConnell was the defender of Medicare and seniors against the onslaught of the Democratic chopping block.

However, the very next day, his conservative animosity toward government programs takes over and he is attacking the government program as a financial disaster.









It's enough to make you wonder what exactly his goal is.  My analysis is that he's attempting to have his cake and eat it too.  he wants the democrats to do nothing to reinforce good policies so that he can continue to destroy our country when the republicans eventually re-take power through a campaign of fear and lies.  Republicans want power so they can have power, Democrats actually want to do something for people.  who would you want in power?

Common Sense

Tea Baggers: It's Official!

So, normally I would just chalk up the Tea Bagger Movement (TBM) to a neo-con attempt at derailing the president, but it has taken on a life of it's own.  That's right, somehow the extreme right neo-cons have managed to spawn something even further right than they are.  The TBM (does that make it sound like an STI? hehe) has begun to border on anarchist with their plethora of anti-tax slogans, pro-Glenn Beck psychosis, and open hostility toward those who disagree with them.

I find myself asking how long it will be before they become violent?  This fear is drawn from two examples from the most recent rally at the capital.  First, the sign comparing health care to the holocaust.  Does that mean you are planning a Tea Bagger D-Day (or T-Day, pun intended)?  are you going to "liberate" the capital through the violent overthrow of the democratically elected Democratic party?  Perhaps a round of Defenestration just for good measure?  Second, Keith Olberman did a pretty good job of covering the hated of these people.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Pretty scary right.

Well thats not entirely what I want to cover.  The hateful, anti-american, anti-government, anti-responsibility protesters are now an official PARTY!  The Tea Beggers are now a recognized party in the state of Florida.  They are promising to run a candidate against the democrats and republicans in the next election.

Aside from this being a little nutty and sad, is it necessarily a bad thing for Democrats or even Republicans?  I don't think so.  For Democrats it is an opportunity to split the Republican party into two parties, and it also alienates candidates from their extremist base.  For Republicans it might help to free them from the right-wing extremist who have taken over their party.  So, to me it seems like a win-win situation.  If anything this will just help us focus our scorn on the Tea Baggers.

P.S. It isn't live now, but the website for this group is http://www.floridateaparty.us/

Please ridicule at your leisure.

Common Sense

Neo-Con Agenda: The Real Loser in the House Health Care Vote

There will be a lot of speculation about who lost in Saturday's major health care vote in the house.  Some people will say that the republicans were handed a defeat when they were unable to stop the Health Care Reform agenda of the Nancy Pelosi and the Public Option.  Others will claim that the Democrats were handed a hearty defeat because their party was split on the vote, giving the opposition the appearance of a stronger bipartisan agreement.

But in reality it was neither of these groups that lost.  The real loser in Saturday's vote was women.

Even though most of their scare tactics managed to only widen the chasm between liberals and neo-cons across the country and further alienate traditional conservatives, Republicans were successful in on one issue: Abortion.  Is anyone surprised?  No.  Once again, women are served up to the neo-cons as a sacrifice in order to get a democratic bill passed.

I'm curious, when democrats say that they are the champions of a woman's right to choose, where they planning on backing that up with action when it counts?  If so, they failed miserably on Saturday, and the entire caucus should be ashamed.  That is all I have to say on the matter.

Common Sense

Neo-Con Agenda: "I Object!"

Rudeness overtook the capital again today as the healthcare reform debate rages in Congress.  It's interesting to track the most recent methods the republicans have used to fight the Democratic control of congress.  here is a brief review:

Stage One: The Party of No -  they became the "party of no."  you might remember their things like "this will be Obama's Waterloo.  It became clear at this point that the Republican party was committed to opposing everything the democrats did simply because it was "liberal" policy.

Stage Two: Make Shit Up - Having realized that they weren't going to win on a platform of "No" they decided, instead, we'll spread rumors and lies through the media to try and derail policy.  For instance, Republicans were making "death panel" claims, prior to a bill being produced.  The House version was only prepared with in the last two weeks, yet this debate as been raging for months.  where did all that information come from?  well of course it came from the Republicans try to sew fear, so they could oppose the bill once it arrived.

Stage Two and a Half: Get Angry - This stage is epitomized by Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst in the middle of Obama's address to both houses of Congress.  When nothing you've tried works, get angry about it and yell at the President of the United States.  Sadly, it worked.  However, it did come with negative publicity as well, so probably not something you want to use too often.

Stage Three: Provide an Alternative - I think this stage was particularly satisfying for me and other liberals, because it proved that Republicans are, in fact, just as stupid as their policies.  The republicans attempted to respond to Obama's "show me what YOU'VE got" challenge by presenting their own $61 Billion solution to the health care issue.  The problem is that while they were spending a fraction of the price, they were not solving the problem Obama has identified.  The Democratic plan will cover another 36 Million people (the goal of the Obama administration was to cover all 50 Million uninsured, but this is a good start, right?).  The Republican plan would apparently push another 6 Million into the ranks of the uninsured.  yeah, you heard that right.  The media didn't really criticize them on this point, but let me repeat this point.  The Republican plan would leave 6 Million MORE people uninsured.  Yikes!

Stage Four: Don't Show Up - So their last strategy failed pretty miserably.  So they needed something else.  In true elementary school fashion, their next plan was to object to the Climate Bill, making its way through the committees, by simply not coming to work.  Some call this a boycott.  Well, if it was, it was pretty ineffective, because Barbara Boxer pushed right on by them and passed the bill out of committee without the Republicans even showing up.

Stage Five: Get Angry (Part 2) - Well, nothing seems to be working so this week we saw the resurgence of  the get mad strategy.  Michele Bachmann, neo-con nutjob extraordinaire, and her Republican colleagues sponsored a sparsely attended rally to oppose Health Care Reform.  At this rally were the usual signs comparing Obama to hitler, the joker, etc.  just the usual racism I suppose.  What was really disturbing was the picture comparing health care reform to the holocaust.  Rep. Boehner, who was standing right in front of the sign, claimed not to notice.  Pretty sad.  Well things got worse today when Republican members of congress shouted down the women's caucus, as they tried to make statements.  Watch here:



Kinda sad that this what the political process has devolved into.

Common Sense

Neo-Con Agenda: Anti-Health Care Protester

I couldn't help but comment on some of the stuff from this "rally."

I'll share just a couple of the things that went on at the GOP sponsored event.

First, it was sponsored by none other than my favorite psycho-talking, abortion obsessed, wrist slicing, Minnesota congresswoman, Michele Bachmann.  As such, this was destined to be a doozy.

Second, did anybody else notice the Rep. Boehner (R-Ohio) misquote the constitution while he was apparently reading directly from it?  Sorry buddy, but "we hold these truths" is some a different document that neo-cons like to quote because it says "under god."  You really should figure out the different because one declares freedom, and the other sets up the government.  Those are not really the same thing.  And just to make this point even more ironic, there was apparently a woman holding up a sign saying "Is the Constitution another thing you haven't read?"  Wasn't it Michele Bachman who said she couldn't read?  and didn't Rep. Boehner just prove he had not read the constitution in a while?  *sigh* it must be hard being so hypocritical.

Third, there were about 5,000 people there, not 25,000-30,000 as reported by FreedomWorks (although who is surprised that they are inflating statistics for personal gain?).  Perhaps if Republicans were not so angry with education, they would have gotten enough of it to recognize that their estimate was about 5-6 times larger than the more realistic accounts.   There were even some brilliant neo-cons claiming that there were "about a million" people there.  WTF?  thats pushing it.  put who knows, I wasn't there, so lets compare some pictures and get some perspective.

When Barack Obama was Inaugurated as president there were about 1.5 million people present.  Here are some pictures.

Ok, so you would expect the Anti-Health Care rally to look something like that.  lets see some of those pictures.

Now, I could be completely wrong here, but that doesn't LOOK like it's anywhere near 1 million people.  In fact, I don't think it even looks like ten thousand.  I kinda think the 5,000 is a better estimate, don't you?  oh well, it was prolly just a simple mistake, couldn't have possibly been a purposeful attempt to overstate their numbers to try and influence policy makers.  That would just be unethical.

Finally, you simply can't pay for irony like this.  Sometimes the universe just drop these beauties in your lap.  Apparently, a man at the Anti-Health Care rally suffered a heart attack, and had to be resuscitated by government health officials.  That doesn't strike anyone else as kind of awkward?  A man benefits from government health care while rally against it.  Rep. Boehner managed to corral that cameras away from the ironic image by reading aloud from the constitution and screwing it up.  I guess something like that might be misconstrued by the media as meaningful when really that guy was just inconvenient for Republicans trying to make a point.  it's almost as though they were saying "Seriously, how dare he have a heart attack right now, and if you are going to have one, could he possibly just die quickly so we can get on with our rally?"  Didn't somebody say something just like that not too long ago about the republican plan?

Common Sense

Neo-Con Agenda: The "Ship" of State and Anti-Christianity

Oh boy, here's a fun article written by Charles LiMandri (pictured left) from National Organization for Marriage.  Before reading please take a moment to enjoy the flowery, over-the-top title.

The Ship of State is Being Steered Toward a Maelstrom of Anti-Christianity

How do these guys get their Law Degrees?  Please take a moment to reflect on how he quotes a number of different people, but then doesn't really talk about why what they say is bad.  I would assume he doesn't because he doesn't think he has to.  Based on the simple-minded reliosity of his likely readers I'm guessing they don't need an explanation.  For the rest of us, he is basically saying we should continue heterosexual indocrination, because he claims (but provides no justification) that it works...

I think it is somewhat amusing that the author quotes a person who debunks the "heterosexual indocrination" argument, and then goes on to endorse it as though he did not realize the person he quoted had debunked it.

Lets move beyond the whining about Obama actually doing something about discrimination in this country and get to the whole "extremist" argument he promotes.  Is Obama extremist?  Is he out of touch with the average person?  THIS is a legitimate question and one which is worth exploring.

Here are some statistics:
Should homosexuality be accepted by society?
United States: Yes: 49%, No: 41% (Pew Global Attitudes Project)

Here's a couple things you can take away from this:
1) Obama is not only NOT extremist, he is actually in the majority
2) Charles LiMandri's view seems to be in the minority.  If he would like to live in a place where Obama would be extremist he should move to Pelestinian Territories (Yes 9%, No 58%), Kuwait (Yes 6%, No 85%), Jordan (Yes 6%, No 89%), Egypt (1%, 95%), of an African nation.

Here is another study by the Kaiser Family Foundation:
Of the general population (presumably heterosexual):
88% would accept a gay or lesbian family member or friend
88% believe that society should not restrict sexual activity between consenting adults
78% would be comfortable working with someone who is gay
76% support employment non-discrimination policies
74% support housing non-discrimination policies
73% support the inclusion of gays and lesbians in Hate Crime Legislation!
73% believe same sex partners should have inheritance rights
71% would send their children to a high school with a gay or lesbian teacher
70% believe same sex partners should have employer provided health insurance
68% believe same sex partners should have social security benefits
68% of youth believe that sexual orientation should be included in sex ed (61% of seniors)
68% of youth support same-sex unions (Yes 47%, No 46% in the general population)
66% believe that homosexual behavior is normal
61% would send their children to an elementary school with a gay or lesbian teacher
60% of youth support same sex marriage (39% in the general population)
60% would see a gay or lesbian doctor
58% would vote for a gay or lesbian political candidate
56% believe gays and lesbians should be able to serve openly in the military
56% believe that gay couples can be good parents
55% of youth support adoption by gay and lesbian parents (46% in the general population)
47% support legal unions (42% oppose)

here is an interesting statistic I want to point out.  66% of people believe that homosexuality is natural, but 51% believe it is immoral.  Which means there are people out there who truly believe a natural act is immoral... isn't the whole point of that natural law mentality that all those things that are natural are moral.  or from the religious view, if god made something natural, than he wouldn't have made it immoral?  it astounds me how rediculous people are sometimes.

so, based on all this information who is really out of touch and extremist?  I think you know my answer to that question.

Common Sense

Fox Noise: Cash 4 Clunkers = Spread the Wealth

Today Fox News reported that the Cash 4 Clunkers program cost taxpayers $24,000 per vehicle.  Interesting.  Most of the comments express anger at how they are paying for this program and their money is being given to others.  I decided to do a little research, but I decided in order to be fair to Fox News' limited resources and competence I would just use their numbers.

Facts:
Cash 4 Clunkers cost: $3B
Number of Taxpayers in 2008: 154M (2008 IRS Data Book, see Page 4)
Number of Car sales that benefited from C4C: 125,000 (Conservative estimate provided by Fox News)

So,
Average Cost Per Taxpayer = $3B/154M = $19.48

Average Cost Per Taxpayer Per Car = $19.48/125K = $.0001
(again note that this is a conservative estimate.  For an estimate based on the total number of cars sold during the program replace 125K with 690K)

Congratulations Obama you have successfully spread the wealth by $.0001, Mao would be proud.

This is me laughing at how stupid people are.

Common Sense

Fox Noise: Is it "News" or "Opinion?"

I'll let you be the judge on that question, but here is some food for thought from Media Matters for America.



The News and Opinion segments sound pretty similar... hmmm...

Common Sense

Fox Noise: Fox News vs. The White House

here is a wonderful little clip by Media Matters for America.

Here's a little background for those who haven't been following the news.  The Fox News channel has been engaged in an all out war with the Obama administration since day one (actually even prior to that).  They have accused him of everything from socialism, to murdering old people, to condoning child rape.  Now, the Obama administration is fighting back.  Yet for some unknown reason people are surprised by this!  In my opinion, it's about bloody time!

Here is what Fox has been doing for the past 8 months:


Doesn't sound like news to me.  It sounds like slander, but who am I to judge.

P.S. can we just take a moment to appreciate how pathetic Sean Hannity is if he truly believes that Fox, Talk Radio, and the Drudge report are the only news organizations left?  First of all, Talk Radio and Drudge are opinion.  Second, Fox news on its best day is poorly researched reporting on conservative pet issues laced with neo-con propaganda.  On it's worse days it sounds more like a bunch of howler monkeys looking for conspiracy theories (Glen Beck all the time).

Common Sense

Fox Noise: Top 10 Fox News Distortions

This is actually a series of clips from the Huffington Post, but I thought it was worth reposting them here, with a little of my commentary in between.  I have posted them in the same order as HuffPo and they do not correspond to the ratings

#1 Bill Hemmer Accuses Kevin Jennings of Condoning Statutory Rape:
Average Visitor Rating: Very Biased (9/10)
My Rating: "Please Check Your Facts" with a dash of "Homophobe Much?"


What happened to fact checking?  I put this on my blog as soon as I found out about it and I was able to easily find support for Jennings.  Not only that, I found information that debunked this whole controversy, and here is Fox News going off on how this guys is condoning rape?  come on, a little fact checking please, don't just accept it because it comes from a Conservative source.  Oh and did I just hear the anchor claim that it would have been different for a girl????  suddenly he's getting off easy because it was a gay student?  what a B***H!!

#2 Martha MacCallum Misquotes VP Biden to Prove a Point:
Average Visitor Rating: Very Biased (9.4/10)
My Rating: "Just Plain Unethical" with a sprinkle of "Please Check Your Facts"


Here is the full VP Biden quote:


Oops, someone screwed up!  It's too bad Fox News is too corrupt to fire anyone over something that stupid.  Oh well, guess we'll just have to mock them instead. =)

#3 Obama Wants a European Health Care System?
Average Visitor Rating: Very Biased (9.4/10)
My Rating: "Can You Play That Tape a Little Longer?"


Since he wasn't making a statement about Obama wanting a European health care system I'm willing to let this one slide as coincidental and not underhanded subliminal propaganda (and not very good).  However, if that is the case, the guy who put this together is kinda stupid.

#4 Accusations of "Reverse Racism" toward Justice Sotomayor:
Average Visitor Rating: Pretty Biased (8.4/10)
My Rating: "Can you play that tape a little longer?" with a dash of "Was that Racist?"


A Savvy move?  That's what you're going to say about the motivation to appoint a latina woman??  it couldn't possibly be because she is over qualified, well educated, well regarded, and brings a wonderfully diverse background to the court?  If that's not bias, I don't know what is.  But lets get back to the meat, shall we.  Are we noticing that the same person is asking the same question over and over?  is she maybe trying to stroke the flames?

And since when is it racist to suggest that racism might still exist?  Yes, a Latina woman is going to see the law differently than a white man, if for no other reason than white men, most of whom have never experienced oppression, probably see the law as a set of rules, while the Litina woman sees it as a vehicle that has been used to oppress minorities and women, and continues to be used in that fashion today.  you don't think that is a pretty big difference?

#5 Fox News Uses GOP Talking Points:
Average Visitor Rating: (9.4/10)
My Rating: Two parts "Please Check Your Facts," one part "Oops!"


Wow, ok, so that sounds like legit news right?  well actually, check out the date on this slide:

Would you like to know WHY that typo is there?  because the copied and pasted it right out of the GOP talking points.  Shouldn't people get fired for this garbage?

#6 Democrats want to dismantle PATRIOT ACT:

Average Visitor Rating: Very Biased (9.1/10)

My Rating: equal parts "Just Plain Unethical" and "Just because you say it loud and with gusto doesn't make it true."

Again, just because you yell it at the screen doesn't make it true.  What is wrong with these people, is it so hard to check your facts????

#7 The "Death Book":

Average Visitor Rating: Very Biased (9.3/10)

My Rating: This isn't just normal stupid, this is "Sarah Palin" stupid

Someone please spare me this mockery of that facts.  Since when is end of life counseling is a bad thing?  oh yeah, since we started talking about health care and we can play on people's fears of death.  Get over it people, you are going to die one day.  When you do, face up to it and do it with a little dignity.  I want to hear all my options when I'm close to my end, please don't deny me that option just because you are scared shitless of death.

#8 Fist Bump = Terrorist Fist Jab?

Average Visitor Rating: VERY Biased (9.5/10)

My Rating: It'll be easier for you if you play the "moron" card.

This is just so stupid that she should just claim momentary stupidity (or perhaps permanent stupidity) and move on.  It's not clear from the clip whether she is using it or saying that is what others call it, but either way she never should have said it or she should have immediately clarified her words.  That is unless she was trying to suggest that he might be a terrorist and if that is the case, then well done lady, well done.

#9 Math is hard for News Anchors:

Average Visitor Rating: VERY Biased (9.5/10)

My Rating: "Please Check Your Facts"

This is just depressing.  These people should go check into a high school somewhere and do some serious reviewing.  Click here to read two of Bush's budget requests asking for $2.9 Billion in 2007 and $3.1 Billion in 2008.  Oops!  someone didn't do their homework.  And a quick note on why it was so expensive.  Obama included the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in his budgets, Bush didn't (those were separate requests).  So who really spent more?

#10 Teabagging Parties represent the American People:

Average Visitor Rating: The Most Biased of All (9.6/10)

My Rating: It doesn't get more biased than claiming 20,000 nutjobs on the mall represent the opinions of the other 300,000,000 people in the country.

Are you kidding me with this?  I mean really, these people are a bunch of selfish nutjobs who think that they can get something (services, national security, representation, and a COUTRY) for nothing (not paying taxes).  You do not get much stupider than these people, and they represent America?  I think not, but nice try.  Oh yeah, and by the way if those 20,000 people represent America, what about that other equally large protest that happened a few months later?  you know the one with all the rainbow flags?  oh you conveniently missed that one huh?  big f***ing surprise.

For your amusement:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Queer and Loathing in D.C.
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Fair and Balanced?  Yeah Right!

Common Sense

Neo-Con Agenda: Mainstreaming Extremism

Here is an interesting article I found today.  Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) was asked at the Western Conservative Political Action Conference whether he agreed with the impeachement efforts of Floyd Brown (a truly nutty neo-conservative extremist).  Floyd has been arguing that President Obama is a very dangerous man who is threatening our liberties and should thus be impeached.  What exactly is he guilty of you ask?  why, the high crime of being "liberal" of course.  (for anyone with half a brain it should be obvious that this is a far FAR cry from the required "high crimes and misdemeanors" required by the constitution for an impeachment to happen.

Anyway, the Republican congressman from California was asked what he thought and he responded that while he did recognize Obama's "Marxist background," he did not think this was enough to impecah the guy.

Watch:


So, here's my problem with this.  Everyone calls out people who are more extreme than themselves, but what happened here is that when you ask an extremist to comment on an ultra-extremist, you make the extremist look more moderate than they really are.  Everyone is jumping off the deep end talking about how EVEN this nut job thinks Floyd Brown is crazy.  Well, no one is talking about that little justifier Rep. Rohrabacher snuck under the radar.

Obama is NOT a Marxist, nor has he ever been, nor will he ever be.  Any person who truly in their heart of hearts believes that Obama is a Marxist should go back to their high school and demand a refund of their tuition or tax dollars because you are an idiot.  The most liberal of all democrats in this country don't even come close to Marxism.  Even our ONE socialist in the House of Representatives would be a VERY conservative Marxist, if he was at all.  Why?  Because Obama is not killing off all his opponants and the wealthy people for their money.  Obama is not advocating a revolt by the working class.  He is recommending that maybe rich people should go back to paying their fair share of the tax burden.

So here is a quiz on your knowledge of Obama's economic plan:
Option A (Liberalism): Obama raises taxes on the top 5% of Americans by no more than 10% so that rich people are paying 1/3 of what they used to pay in taxes instead of 1/4 like they did under Reagan and Bush 2.
Option B (Socialism): Obama takes ALL of your money no matter who you are and redistributes it according to need.
Option C (Marxism): Obama sparks a working class revolt, where the working class rises up and takes the money from the rich and then takes over the government.
Option D (Communism/Lenonism): Obama kills off all Republican politicians and any person who advocates republicans ideology will be killed by the Obama death squads or sent to Alaskan labor camps.  Obama then kill off all liberal democrats who disagree with him and installs himself as the sole ruler of the country instituting a massive suppression of anyone else who dissagrees with him.  He then dictates to the people what jobs they will work and how much they will get paid based on need and job skills.

If you chose anything except "Option A" you are an idiot who needs a history lesson.

I find myself continuing to ask, how can anyone be so stupid and uneducated as to believe that Obama is anything further left than a traditional American Democrat?  Once again I can only assume it is the result of the neo-conservative campaign to destroy education and further scare people into voting for them.  Un-american would be an understatement I think.

Common Sense