Fact Versus Fiction

…The Idiocy of non-logic In Social/Legal Applications

In America calculated, intentional fear-based panic has taken over thoughtful, rational thinking. We’ve become a nation where educated, intelligent thought and rational problem-solving has given way to manipulative disinformation designed to further restrict or remove our rights as citizens. We’ve now allowed the powers-that-be to convince us it is ok to allow our so-called ‘legal, justice and criminal system’ to incarcerate otherwise innocent citizens who, among other things, merely create artwork, possess photographs, movies, books, personal writings and firearms. It isn’t ok and it isn’t right.

Knife ownership is the latest target.

As Old Blue over at The Psyplex points out so eloquently and correctly, they are going after our knives, not because it is necessary and logical but because they do not possess the necessary problem solving skills to solve the real problem, criminals.

“…the reason knives are demonized by idiots is because they woefully lack problem solving skills that, if they had those skills, they'd easily figure out that knives, like guns are inanimate objects, totally incapable of killing. They have to be manipulated by a person with ill intent. One should think that these idiots would be smart enough to figure out that criminals cause the crime, not the inanimate object chosen by the criminal…”

Welcome To My War

President Obama is about to accept the dirty little war in Afghanistan (and by extention, Pakistan) that was started, botched and bungled by eight years of Bush/Cheney greed, incompetence and ineptitude. According to theplumline, that’s exactly what’s probably coming Tuesday of this week when the President attempts to sell us on another ten years (minimum) of murderous, expensive and unnecessary war. Not one American soldier who has died in that land has helped keep America safe. That’s a fact. A sad but true statement. A waste of our nation’s bravest. A waste of our nation’s resources. A waste. Not one more American soldier should die there ever again. The President is about to make a major mistake by trusting the current batch of G.W. Bush’s military generals running our military—they need to be fired, America needs to leave Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Obama, The Dems And Slipping Popularity

...Twelve-steps to weed the Democrat’s popularity garden.

Despite the numerous significant, positive milestones already achieved by President Obama and the Democratic Congress, the popularity ratings for the President and the Dems in the Congress are slipping among their base. Like the White House vegetable garden, the field of popularity can be weeded; the good things nurtured and encouraged to grow, the bad things removed. With positive attitude and positive action, this downward, slipping trend can be turned around before it becomes less than awesome for this Democratic administration and the Dems in Congress.

In no particular order, here are some of the awful weeds that need to be pulled from the garden; ideas on how they can turn this downward trend around and bring a significant portion (if not all) of the base and many others along. Yes, the obstructionists will wring their hands, scream, cry, threaten, regurgitate propaganda and protest loudly but don’t worry about it, they’re doing that already.

1. Terminate our military activity in Iraq and bring our troops home.

2. Stop the war in Afghanistan and bring our troops home.

3. Terminate all government contracts with civilian paramilitary, police and security companies operating in Iraq and Afghanistan such as the old BlackwaterUSA and launch investigations into any and all wrong-doing and criminal activities.

4. Remove Larry Summers from any and all positions, advisory and otherwise, with the government.

5. Remove Tim Geithner from any and all positions, advisory and otherwise, with the government.

6. Order the Department of Justice to begin an in-depth investigation into all those involved in the Bush administration that authorized or carried out war crimes, from G.W. Bush on down. Encourage the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague to instigate a parallel investigation and fully cooperate with them to bring war criminals to justice.

7. Remove and ban Senator Lieberman from all committee positions and Congressional caucus authority with Democrats.

8. Remove all committee positions from Democrats who refuse to vote for the Healthcare Reform Bill and who do not fully support the Democratic Party Platform.

9. Move rapidly to get money to local lending institutions for small business owners and closely monitor those institutions to ensure they are actually lending the money and carry out severe sanctions against those who do not comply.

10. Launch a significant jobs creation program.

11. Terminate the so-called ‘Patriot Act’ and illegal government wiretapping and restore Constitutional rights taken away under the eight years of the Bush regimes.

12. Instigate strong, effective legal over-sight on Wall Street firms and banks.

The Governor Who Quits

…A Brief Review Of Her Un-qualifications

Sarah Palin is a liar. She is a quitter. She lacks positive moral and ethical standards. She is unqualified to hold any position of trust in any elected public office. Period. Let’s review.

She possesses an erratic, eccentric, rebellious nature that does not serve her well. She attended and quit five colleges (one of them twice) before she finally hounded (or paid off) one enough they actually granted her a degree.

Her disruptive, unconventional and perverse inclinations allowed her to condone her underage, unmarried daughter having sex with an underage male and allowed her to condone her daughter’s pregnancy. She perpetuated the lie that her daughter and the sperm donor where going to be married in order to play the media and the public for fools during the Presidential campaign. This lie was promptly dropped after the campaign because it no longer served Palin’s selfish purpose; hardly a shining, acceptable conservative ‘family values’ example.

Speaking of perverse, she delights in the slaughter of animals in the Alaska wild, hunting them from helicopters. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with hunting as long as you need the meat to survive. That’s not what is going on with Palin and her vicious need to kill. Warning: if you are easily offended by pictures of helpless, slaughtered animals don’t click on this site.

As a leader, she’s incompetent and unconcerned with legalities. She’s been accused of and found guilty of numerous ethical and legal violations. She unlawfully abused her power as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper. And she got slammed with a violation of ethics laws relating to the misuse of funds and private donations to pay her legal bills.

Through all these charges of improper and illegal behavior, she displayed an incredible tactlessness and disregard for her constituents. Instead of facing up to the charges, she bolted and ran, resigning her position as governor after serving only half her term. This act of cowardice left the distinct impression she was guilty on all counts, on all charges. With that resignation she revealed both her lack of fortitude and concern for those in Alaska who voted for and supported her. She’s a quitter.

On the world stage, Palin has no competent understanding of basic geography or political history or political science and—to her detriment—she is unsociably fixed in her opinions—opinions that are formed on the slightest of incomplete and false information. Sure a small part of Russia can be seen from a certain part of Alaska but that doesn’t suffice as accepted knowledge of Russian social/geo-political behaviors but it is evidently enough for Palin. She displays even more incompetence, idiocy and ill-informed, irrational thinking in her interviews with Katie Couric.

The untalented Palin’s newly published a book was, of course, written by someone else for her. In fact, it was authored by ghostwriter Lynn Vincent the co-author of a book with white supremacist blogger Robert Stacy McCain. No surprise the work is full of lies, distortions and less than factual content. Palin continued telling more lies to Oprah Winfrey on Oprah’s syndicated talk show.

All of Sara Palin’s life seems to have been and is currently designed to mislead and deceive others into believing that she actually has a positive set of values, morals and ethics. She does not. She perpetuates the illusion that she is a competent, well-informed, compassionate leader. She is nothing of the sort.

She’s uniquely unqualified.

She is, after all, a liar who quit when the going got tough.

Senator Lincoln (D-Arkansas)

…Time To Do The Right Thing

Someone has finally figured out and outlined Senator Blanche Lincoln’s healthcare dilemma and a path to put her back on track with her progressive, Democratic supporters here in Arkansas. Check out Political Animal (Steve Benen) at The Washington Monthly. It’s a good read, well-written and contains some great advice for Blanche. Here’s an excerpt:

I'd become the biggest champion of bold, progressive health care reform in the Senate. I'd show some major leadership, get out way in front, and position myself as a Kennedy-like guardian of those suffering under the status quo.

Look, Lincoln isn't going to out-conservative the Republican candidates in Arkansas. No matter how she votes on reform, the entire Attack Machine is going after her as some kind of radical leftist. It doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense, and it certainly doesn't matter if she votes with Republicans on the big issues of the day for the next year.

So why not go big? Why not announce that too many Arkansas families are being screwed right now by a dysfunctional health care system and Blanche Lincoln has decided to do something about it? Why not run ads saying, "I don't care what the insurance companies and their candidates say: I'm fighting for the families who can't afford their premiums, the workers who can't get coverage, the Arkansans with pre-existing conditions, the small businesses that can't afford insurance for the employees...."?

In other words, show some confidence. Voters can recognize fear, so stop being defensive. Arkansas has a high percentage of low-income families, struggling to get by, who are terrified of their health care situation. They're not going to vote Democratic on cultural and/or social issues, but they're open to the Democratic message on economic policy -- looking out for working families' interests. A candidate who positions herself as a populist people's champion has a better shot than an apologetic Democrat who hopes Republicans won't mind her party affiliation.

Good advice, Senator Lincoln. I hope you take it.

Veterans Day

A salute of honor, respect and thanks to all veterans for their service, sacrifice and dedication to duty.

The United States government and its military needs to get out of the ‘god’ business.

The United States government and its military needs to get out of the ‘god’ business, totally and completely. Religious belief and religious preference is a function of the individual, not the government, not the military. In the venue of the government and the military, religion becomes a weapon.

The government and the military needs to stop sanctioning religion and religious services and ceremonies on government property.

It needs to institute a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy on religious preference that allows all service members and government employees to continue to worship whatever religion they choose, or worship nothing at all but have the guarantee they will be free from negative on-the-job consequences of either choice. They need to forbid officers, non-commissioned officers, enlisted personnel, and Department of Defense civilians from asking about or discussing religion while on duty and in uniform. They need to make it a crime to harass, ridicule or intimidate personnel for religious beliefs or the lack-thereof.

They need to disband the chaplain’s service and close down all religious buildings, remove all religious groups from military bases, remove all religious symbols and forbid religious organizations from ‘recruiting’ and proselytizing our military personnel on government property. Until they take these steps, religion will continue to be used as a weapon.

Healthcare For All

…Isn’t Affordable

That’s the loud mantra of the corporate lackeys: the wrong-wingers, teabaggers and blue dog DINOs (Democrats In Name Only). “We can’t afford to fund a single-payer, Medicare system for all…the cost would break us….the cost would bankrupt us…it is something we can’t afford to do…it would drain the Treasury...blah, blah, blah.”

The cost for Medicare single-payer program for all citizens is estimated at around $100 billion per year. Something we can’t afford? Baloney. Too expensive for our country to provide much-needed healthcare? A Lie. Of course we can afford it.

Considering the United States military appropriations for this year alone was $660 billion to feed the corporate military-industrial complex and the greedy, murderous leeches that feed off it, I don’t think $100 billion per year is too much. Better $100 billion spent on healthcare for all citizens each year than $600 billion for the mega-corporate welfare elites.

Idiot Watch:

…Pete Sessions (Sexist-Texas)

Texas seems to have some problems with politicians who aren’t exactly wrapped tight--two incompetent, hateful, idiotic Governors in a row—Bush and now Perry. Then there’s Pete Sessions from the Texas 32nd District.

In the House of Representatives yesterday he displayed an incredible (and Republican predictable) inability to think rationally and clearly about important issues.

What did he do? In a pathetic display of Looney Toons lunacy Pete equated being a woman to being a smoker. Seems Pete thinks women are nothing more than a dangerous, deadly habit and taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for their medical problems. Why does this guy hate females?

Senator Orin Hatch

…Hypocritical Handwringing

Seems Orin thinks that if the Democrats give Americans viable, robust healthcare reform, the Republican Party will be finished—at least that’s what he was whining about in an interview he gave to the CNS News folks.

Orin, Orin, poor thing. Listen up. The healthcare system in this country needs serious reform and the majority of Americans want it. Instead of you and your obstructionist, ‘just say NO to everything” buds in the Republican Party trying to block what America needs and wants, try getting on-board, get with the program and support the Democrats and get a good healthcare reform bill passed that will benefit all Americans. That way, the big bad Democrats can’t take all the glory with voters on passing healthcare reform.

You say you can’t sign on to any ‘socialist’ healthcare program? Good, glad to hear it. Everyone knows you’re an honest man, Mr. Hatch and now we know you can’t tolerate ‘socialized’ medicine. We get that. Just one question then: When are you going to give up your current ‘socialist’ government run healthcare plan that you enjoy in the Senate—a government ‘socialist’ plan you will enjoy for life? When are you giving that up? Oh, I see. You got yours, to hell with every other American, is that it? Looks that way. Until you are ready to walk the walk on this whole ‘socialism’ boogeyman you and your fear-freaks are shouting about, shut up already about ‘socialized, government controlled healthcare’. As it sits now, you’re nothing but a blathering hypocrite on the subject.

Reprehensible Joe Wilson (Liar-SC)

…Tells Another One

South Carolina’s Joe “The Liar” Wilson says President Obama is “solely” at fault for the H1N1 vaccine shortage in the U.S.A. The truth, of course, is something else.

The real culprits in the vaccine shortage are the obvious. Wilson and 95% of his Republican regressive flat-earthers voted against a bill containing special funding to combat H1N1 both domestically and internationally.

Evidently, you have to be a consummate liar to hold membership in the Republican Party.