Kipuka

Who really get's shallacked

Voting doesn't seem to make a difference. Under both Democrats and Republicans the wealthy among us will always win and everyone else takes a 'shallacking'.

The debt commission has come up with plans that only really affect the working class. The rich get off scott free, as usual. The commission proposes to decimate Social Security, raise gas taxes, raise fees for veterans' health care, add fees for Medicare recipients and screw with student loans.

A Democratic Senator's chief of staff tells us the Democrats won't fight to end the Bush tax cuts. Will they fight this debt commission's proposals? They better.

Bible teaching in public school?

I agree with teaching the Bible in public schools provided that we also teach The Koran, The Bhagavad Gita, The Bardo Thodol, the Book of Mormon, Native American creation myth, the Tao Te Ching,  The Tao of Pooh, Scientology and any other great [and not so great] religious texts.

Get it? All or none.

India trip a bargain...

We’ve heard now from the right wing blow hard machine [and craaaazy Michele Bachmann] that Obama’s trip to India will cost $200 million a day.
WTF?
According to Snopes and PoliFact this isn’t even possible.

 Sure it will cost some money. But what trip by a head-of-state doesn’t? 
 
However, let's do a comparison for perspective shall we? Bush's Iraq war cost us billions [9 billion a month] for 8 years [and counting], killed thousands as well as damaged our credibility in the region. While Obama spends far, far, far less on a short trip to shore up relations and give us credibility.

I call that a bargain.

Election perspective

Let’s put Tuesday’s election in perspective. Please!

Two years ago the Democrats swept into the White House by a landslide, they took more House seats and more Senate seats. The Progressives were cheering for what they thought would be a revolution from which we would never turn back. Now two years later the GOP takes back the House by storm, inches closer to taking the Senate with high hopes to carry it into a White House takeover in 2012.
But hold up.
Everyone is reading the tea leaves from their own perspective. The Conservatives think the election was a repudiation [refudiation] of all things the Democrats stand for. The Progressives think it is because the President and the Democrats were not progressive enough and it turned voters off therefore keeping liberals at home. Both views are dead wrong. The bottom line is the economy is still in the tank and people want it fixed. History shows us that the party in power always takes the blame for a bad economy. Bush took the blame two years ago and Obama is taking the heat now. History also shows us that the party that holds the White House almost always takes a hit in the mid terms. Nothing new there.
And so I hate to be the one to break it too all the partisans out there [of which I am one] but voters are not now against everything Obama and the Democrats stand for nor are they ready to embrace all things Republican [or Tea Party]. They just want a job or to know their money will last a little longer and get them to retirement. In short, they want economic security.
James Carville was right in 1992 and he is correct now. It’s the economy, stupid.
I don’t expect the economy to come back in two years. But now that the GOP has the House they can share some of the blame. And maybe [just maybe] these clowns in Washington can begin to work together for the benefit of the American people rather than for the narrow partisans they think represent all of us.

Polls show...

Poll shows [many] voters are dumber than bricks.

Here's the key info. Obama has not raised taxes on the middle class!

The Obama administration cut taxes for middle-class Americans, expects to make a profit on the hundreds of billions of dollars spent to rescue Wall Street banks and has overseen an economy that has grown for the past five quarters.

[But...]

A Bloomberg National Poll conducted Oct. 24-26 finds that by a two-to-one margin, likely voters in the Nov. 2 midterm elections think taxes have gone up, the economy has shrunk, and the billions lent to banks as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program won’t be recovered.

This is crazy. I'd blame the Obama Administration for not getting out the word but actually they have. It's just the GOP bullhorn has been a lot louder and a whopping number of voters either don't bother to follow the news, follow the wrong news [FOX] or are clueless about the taxes they are paying. Goodness gracious.

Tipping

Are Democrats better tippers?

According to this study, yes. For both good service and bad.

People who consider themselves independents were the worst tippers. Would that be the tea party crowd?

[Actually it's rather statistically negligible. But I suspect that part of it is because Democrats tend to live in bigger cities where restaurants are more expensive and tipping is considered part of the bill. While in smaller communities a tip is an after thought.]

Alabama...Evolve

Gubernatorial candidate attacked for supporting evolution.

It's amazing to me that a candidate running for office not only refuses to distance himself from the southern stereotype of being nothing but an uneducated hick but actually endorses it. What's more the candidate in question has attempted to deny he believes in evolution.

And note too that the candidate is attacked for believing the Bible is only partially true.

It’s like an campaign from 1910 not 2010.

 

Health care passes

This is a good bill - which actually is not that progressive. It's pretty moderate. In fact the bill that President Nixon proposed in 1971 was more progressive than this one. You wouldn't know it from the GOP talking heads who think this bill is communism. But Micheal Moore, who made a pretty good film on Health Care in this country, realizes that ultimately this bill is for everyone. Even those who oppose it.

Yes, my Republican friends, even though you have opposed this health care bill, we've made sure it is going to cover you, too, in your time of need. I know you're upset right now. I know you probably think that if you did get wiped out by an illness, or thrown out of your home because of a medical bankruptcy, that you would somehow pull yourself up by your bootstraps and survive. I know that's a comforting story to tell yourself, and if John Wayne were still alive I'm sure he could make that into a movie for you.

GOP Hypocrisy be thy name

I hate the absurd hypocrisy more than the Conservative perspective. Such as when Sarah Palin excoriates Rahm Emanuel for using the 'R' word but shrugs when Rush Limbaugh uses it. Or when Newt says reading Miranda rights for the shoe bomber was OK [under the Bush Admin] but now it's not OK to read it to the underwear bomber [because now the country is headed by the Obama Admin]. Or when a GOP Senator or House member criticizes the Obama stimulus package but gets in line first to receive it so they can claim they were the ones who created jobs.

The list goes on....

Visit my other Blogs

VOX doesn't work so well as a blog format at this point. Rather slow running and also a closed community.
So, for now, most of my stuff [non-political] is over at these two blogs:

Rashomon - art blog

Bunuel - film blog