A lie repeated often enough, soon becomes the truth: Republican candidates for 2012 office

Ronald Reagan: Jan. 20, 1981-Jan. 20, 1989

George H.W. Bush: Jan 20, 1989-Jan. 20, 1993

William J. Clinton: Jan. 20, 1993-Jan. 20, 2001

George W. Bush: Jan. 20, 2001-Jan. 20, 2009

So, let's add it up:

• Reagan, 8 years & ran up a $1.8 Trillion national debt, Supply-side economics
• George H.W. Bush, who called Supply-side economics "Voodoo economics" during Republican primary campaigning, 4 years and ran up another $1.4 Trillion national debt.
• Wm Clinton, 8 years & lowered the national debt by a full $1 Trillion. He is the only Democrat in over a decade.
• George W. Bush, 8 years and increased the national debt by a whopping $4 Trillion through tax cuts and wars in 2 countries.
• Barack Obama, inheriting the largest national debt in history, including the largest economic meltdown since the depression in the 1930s, is under fire for doing what the previous 3 Republican administrations have been doing with impunity for 3 decades, minus the 8 years Clinton was in office.

Too far in the past you say? Let's look at newer figures...

Elizabeth Warren Quote...

If you add this thought to this one...

Now, take a look at one's 401K account, not to mention blue chip stocks like GM one might have purchased, and take a look at who is profiting while I see my retirement age slide into my 80's...

A year after the fact, and folks in San Bruno are still waiting for restitution, yet a golden parachute was given to PG&E's erstwhile CEO that was worth millions...All the money spent in lawsuits against this utility will be paid by you and I, and the next CEO will make more money in a year than you and I will see in our lifetimes.


Oh, and as an added insult, PG&E has more rights than you--not only is PG&E a person under law, but they have a hell of a lot more money so can buy legislation and stays of judgements at a far greater rate than you and I...

Standard & Poor's blackmail of US government...

I think it ironic that one of the architects of the mortgage meltdown, under investigation by congress, sees fit to thumb its nose at regulations and attempt to blackmail the US government. There was a comic back in 2006 that sums up part of the problem:

Better than Danforth Quayle...

Sarah Palin: Obama 'Inexperienced' In Private Sector & Government  03/ 5/11
    During an appearance on "America's Nightly Scoreboard" on Fox Business on Friday night, she said, "See because our president is so inexperienced in the private sector and in government and in actually running anything and making any kind of budget that inexperience has really made manifest in some of the statements he makes."
    Palin went on to take issue with the president's handling of the economy and said he should be "engaging in free-market principles that work" such as reducing taxes. The Fox News contributor added, "His naive and destructive and terrifying anti-oil agenda is going to bring our nation to our knees and his agenda must be stopped."

     Sarah is becoming a much better target than former Vice President Dan Quayle, seeing as she appears to be barely literate or is just a poor extemporaneous speaker. Her main point, Obama's inexperience, is not supported by anything resembling proof or reasoning. Instead, her main point is stated first so that the listener's attention is garnered and she just reiterates her point that he is inexperienced because his inexperience is obvious because of the statements he makes. What exactly these statements are, and how they prove his inexperience, are never specifically quoted.
    Her second point, that Obama is not adhering to "free market principles" such as reducing taxes, ignores the fact that such tax cuts put in place by the prior Republican administration have been extended by Obama. It is also the opinion of many economists that these tax cuts have played a large role in the present fiscal crisis. In addition, Herbert Hoover believed in free market principles and acted in support of the idea that the free market, left to it's own devices, would correct itself. He was wrong.

   Her last point, Obama's "naive and destructive and terrifying anti-oil agenda" being harmful to America, is unsubstantiated. The term "anti-oil agenda" is vague, meaningless and acts as window dressing to her idea that Obama is going to bring America to it's knees with his agenda. Again, an unsupported allegation that states he is harming America because it is her opinion that America is being harmed by him.



Other Republican hopefuls...

   "During the past few weeks, the play of American politics has been particularly disturbing. Consider the willful ignorance of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, trying to convince his supporters that President Obama is "not one of us." To that end, he suggested that President Obama's worldview was shaped by his childhood in Kenya -- or maybe it was, Indonesia -- and by radical movements like the Kenyan Mau-Mau revolt. Huckabee, a potential Republican candidate for president, went on to say that President Obama's father and grandfather molded his "foreign" ideas about how the world works. It doesn't matter that President Obama hardly knew his father or his paternal grandfather, or that the Mau-Mau rebellion took place far from the Obama homestead in Kenya, a country President Obama first visited when he was 26 years old. Governor Huckabee also failed to mention the "inconvenient truths" that President Obama was raised by his mother and his maternal grandparents who grew up in Kansas or that President Obama's maternal grandfather fought with Patton in Europe during World War II."
Paul Stoller-Professor of Anthropology, West Chester University;
Author, The Power of the BetweenPosted: March 5, 2011 05:40 PM

   The willful and slanderous misinterpretation of facts, whether it be about Obama's heritage or public employees being the cause of our current financial woes, seem to be a hallmark of the Republican party as it currently does business. I do not know if either Democrats or Republicans have a monopoly on truth or sleazeball tactics, but it seems to me that the most blatant of all lies are being perpetrated by the Republican candidates who are jockeying for position in the primaries.

 

Newt 2, the movie...

Huffington Post February 27, 2011
    Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said Friday that President Obama had overstepped his constitutional authority with his recent decision to order his administration to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act. While the move didn't immediately open Obama up to impeachment, Gingrich claimed, it did raise his worry about a future constitutional crisis.
In an interview with Newsmax, Gingrich characterized the president's latest announcement regarding DOMA, a law that allows states to not honor gay marriages, as "a dereliction of duty and a violation of his constitutional oath" that "cannot be allowed to stand."
     On Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said Obama had determined that his administration would no longer defend a law defining marriage as only between a man and a woman, but that it would continue to be enforced pending an actual legislative overturn.
Gingrich on Friday said that this plan of action was unacceptable.
    "He swore an oath on the Bible to become president that he would uphold the Constitution and enforce the laws of the United States," Gingrich said. "He is not a one-person Supreme Court. The idea that we now have the rule of Obama instead of the rule of law should frighten everybody."

I would like to draw the readers attention to the ridiculous position that the Newt has taken. Obama did indeed take an oath to uphold the Constitution and enforce laws. The second paragraph states that this law banning same-sex marriage would continue to be enforced. What the Obama administration will not do is pay lip service to the notion that this sort of law is defensable, and seems to be counting on either the legislature or the courts to issue further instructions on either the mechanism of enforcement or the constitutionality of such a law. Since the executive branch is not the legislative branch, the current administration is continuing to enforce the law. Since the executive branch is not the judicial, the current administration is continuing to enforce the law.

That Mr. Gingrich cannot understand this renders him unfit for office in this country, and proves that what he is engaged in is simply rabble-rousing nonsense designed to appeal to those who have forgotten that Newt Gingrich was convicted by Congress for criminal malfeasance regarding money and lying about it to the ethics committee, composed of his peers in Congress.

Gingrich, from 1997...

House Reprimands, Penalizes Speaker
By John E. Yang
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 22 1997; Page A01

The House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to reprimand House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and order him to pay an unprecedented $300,000 penalty, the first time in the House's 208-year history it has disciplined a speaker for ethical wrongdoing.


The ethics case and its resolution leave Gingrich with little leeway for future personal controversies, House Republicans said. Exactly one month before yesterday's vote, Gingrich admitted that he brought discredit to the House and broke its rules by failing to ensure that financing for two projects would not violate federal tax law and by giving the House ethics committee false information.
"Newt has done some things that have embarrassed House Republicans and embarrassed the House," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.). "If [the voters] see more of that, they will question our judgment."

I read this morning that the Newt is forming a committee to explore the possibility of running for president. His political ambitions are shrewdly timed, as he no doubt feels America is open to his brand of Conservatism, and his former political career's ignominious end has no doubt been forgotten by his erstwhile political base of salt-of-the-earth, mainstream Conservatives. Let us hope their morals extend past the last decade when the Newt perpetrated and admitted an egregious failing of not only financial irresponsibility but also lying to his peers in Congress about it.

ADDENDUM dated May 15, 2011
Now Newt has announced he is running for President, and those who feel that he would make a good president ignore the fact that his 1997 crime would be an enhanced felony had he not been granted "immunity" due to his Representative status...

Is this what Marx meant by the classless society?

Rush Limbaugh recently blasted first lady Michelle Obama about her size and body image. Apparently, according to Limbaugh, Michelle Obama is eating way too much and not looking thin enough. He said: "It doesn't look like Michelle Obama follows her own nutrition, dietary advice. I'm trying to say that our first lady does not project the image of women that you might see on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue."  Debbie Hines, Legal/Political Commentator, Lawyer February 24, 2011 07:51 PM

Let's get a little background to this diatribe of the man you love to hate:

Rush Limbaugh Turns Himself In On Fraud Charge In Rx Drug Probe

By Peter Whoriskey

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 29, 2006

MIAMI, April 28 -- Talk radio icon Rush Limbaugh surrendered to authorities Friday on a charge of committing fraud to obtain prescription drugs, concluding an investigation that for more than two years has hovered over the law-and-order conservative.

Rush is overweight and out of shape.  It is his insecurity and his own lack of self-control that more than likely drives him to attack  a healthy lifestyle. Obviously, Rush Limbaugh is not a health and fitness expert.

http://fatthenfitnow.wordpress.com 01/30/11  Could Rush Limbaugh be contributing to childhood Obesity?

Here is what Rush has to say about an American fitness icon:

"Healthy" Eating and Other Myths January 24, 2011

With great fanfare, it was reported last week that the current health advice about eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day is outdated, and that scientists now believe that eight portions is more beneficial." And with no more than that, people will believe it because it shows up in the media.  And scientists wouldn't lie about this, why would they anyway?  Jack LaLanne was a vegetarian, look what happened to him?  He died. 

With this kind of scintillating logic, it would be useless to bathe because one will just get dirty again quickly enough...

Conservative or Preservative? Corporate influence is pervasive...

    The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class – pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don’t believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.
   By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans want Americans to believe that we can no longer afford to do what we need to do as a nation. They hope to deflect attention from the increasing share of total income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish.—Robert Reich,  The Republican Strategy

    Mr. Reich makes a strong case for opposing the current Republican outcry against the Obama administration, and does so in a way that puts so-called Conservatives into the role of preservers of a lop-sided status quo which profits only a few at the expense of the American Dream. My idea of this American Dream consists of working hard for your retirement as well as being honest about paying for the services we do indeed receive from state and federal government, which means admitting that Americans pay less in taxes than most of the world and receive more. In addition, expecting those who are elected to serve the interests of those who elect them is bedrock to any notion of representative democracy.
   This last notion takes on a new meaning when combined with Supreme Court rulings that erode individual liberty at the expense of granting corporations more rights than any one individual. The same laws allow corporate abnegation of responsibility not permitted to any one individual. The same laws give corporations the ability to donate more to any political campaign than can any one individual, unless that person is Bill Gates or some other billionaire. The Supreme Court has done this by taking a few 19th Century notions about corporate rights that are not healthy for our way of life currently, and allow corporate influence into all areas of our lives.
    President Eisenhower, one of the nations greatest military minds, stated in his 1961 farewell address as President about such corporate influence:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

He ends by stating,
   "Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."

Poker and the Art of Folding, a short monograph...

Poker is a game
of mostly folding, few bets.
All in when you do.

Edmund Burke speaks of tolerance & the limits of forbearance...

I take toleration to be a part of religion. I do not know which I would sacrifice; I would keep them both: it is not necessary that I should sacrifice either.

Speech on the Bill for the Relief of Protestant Dissenters (1773)

   I have noticed that many people are experts when it comes to someone else's behavior or life. I think it important to learn to treat such opinions with a spirit of tolerance, but have trouble knowing the point at which it becomes necessary to engage in refuting opinions that are intolerant of opposing points of view. Indeed, how far one should go in exposing and refuting intolerance without oneself being laid open to the charge of intolerance is quite a puzzle.

   While I subscribe to the view that "an eye for an eye leaves the world blind," I cannot subscribe to the view that forever turning the other cheek is indeed a prudent strategy. Dealing with those who demonstrate their intolerance by forcing compliance through legal or bullying tactics, claiming the right to do so on religious or political beliefs, cannot and will not depend on passive strategies.
   I would like to point out that non-violence is not by definition passive, nor do good manners dictate smiling fatuously while rudeness is perpetrated. But as a person who strives for tolerance and good behavior, I feel I am left with few good replies when confronted with certain types of behavior, such as the picture below. It is all wrong on so many levels, yet...

There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation (1769)

Ten Years After...



Again, trotting out some old material that is still relevant today. As a friend of mine posted recently, it's too bad that all my friends feel the same way—meaning that I am still preaching to the choir. Still, I think it noteworthy that 10 years after the WTC destruction, we still have a presence in Afghanistan as well as Iraq.

Prove the Mayans right—vote for Palin in 2012

Stay tuned for a series of mishaps that masquerade as interviews from a number of newscasters, and even Ralph Nader in a spoof ad—as George H. W. Bush said back in 1991, "Stay the course!"

   Some of these interviews go back a few years, but as Sarah Palin continues to gain adherents politically, I thought it prudent to trot them out again. Perhaps I am preaching to the choir, but in the last week we have seen many tributes to Ronald Reagan who ran up the largest national debt in history. As his proponents state, he rid the world of the "Soviet menace," but the price paid then was higher than the current national debt in terms of the buying power of the US dollar.
   Yet the last election saw many Republican candidates gain office, mostly on the campaign platform that Obama is not doing enough, fast enough. Odd, because these same Republicans have succeeded in putting up so many roadblocks that action is nigh impossible, yet the same Americans who voted these Republicans into office may indeed support Sarah Palin and continue to sing the praises of the Great Communicator.

"My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." http://www.msu.edu/~owensma1/rrbomb.wav

Spin Dry...

People often ask, "What's it like being a drug & alcohol counselor?"