Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Tragedy brings change?

Many times in our society, change only comes after a tragedy that shakes the populace in a way that most tragedies don't.

A couple of examples:

Fire codes were unheard of until 147 were killed at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City in 1911. Main cause of the deaths was the lack of sufficient exiting and what exits that were available were locked during working hours.

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/snpim3.htm

Nearly 500 people died in a fire at the Coconut Grove nightclub in Boston MA on November 28, 1942. The club was designed to accommodate around 500 patrons. The night of the fire, there were around 1000 patrons inside the club. When the fire broke out and became serious, the crush of panicked people trying to get to the limited exits.

http://bostinno.com/2012/10/31/boston-public-library-cocoanut-grove-nightclub-fire-anniversary/#ss__252416_1_0__ss


These fire tragedies and others over the years, have been the catalyst for new fire codes, exiting requirements, fire sprinklers and limiting flammable building/decorative materials used in public buildings.

Bottom line: People have to die for change to be undertaken.

Now we have another tragic shooting in a string of shooting incidents that have become common across the U.S. Shootings by enraged or mentally unstable people are not uncommon, and are almost becoming a monthly event in America. This shooting however, involved the most innocent. Children at an elementary school.

Shootings of politicians and her constituents (Gabby Gifford's incident) didn't bring change.

Mass assault by disturbed high school students against their fellow high school students didn't bring change at Columbine HS in Colorado.

Virginia Tech university was the scene of another mass shooting

A theatre shooting by a mentally disturbed person didn't bring change.

Those deaths of innocent people ranging from high school age to university age to the various ages of theatre and mall goers didn't ring the bell that this recent shooting has.

Sadly it took the mass shooting of elementary school children to make the public sit up and take notice, and start clamoring for some sort of control on assault weapons, high ammo clips and automatic firing weapons.

The time has come for some sort of gun control against the weapons of mass killing. These weapons are not "sport" guns used for hunting or simple target practice. These weapons are military grade killing tools for use on the battle field.

When people counter gun control laws with the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" line or that "we should outlaw cars too, because they kill people", the response should be that cars are must be considered STREET LEGAL and meet certain standards before they are allowed on public roads..............we have controls on drugs, we have controls on food inspection, we have driving laws and even who can drive. It's time to put some controls on guns that are only made for massive killing intent.

The time has come and it's time for congress to act.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Dean Heller fails on vote

Yesterday in the senate, there was a vote on a treaty. A treaty for multiple nations to agree to abide with laws that promote accessibility for disable people.

In 1990 President George HW Bush signed the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law. This act rewrote the laws concerning accessibility issues that disabled persons face in everyday life.

Supporters of the treaty argued that the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities would simply require the rest of the world to meet the standards that Americans already enjoy under the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act.
http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/un-treaties/270831-senate-rejects-un-treaty-for-disabled-rights-in-vote

This treaty was initially signed by President George W Bush and re-signed by President Obama in 2009. Approximately 153 countries have signed off on the treaty. The treaty was mainly advisory in nature only and not binding. The treaty does not change US law.

Yet, because there was a United Nations element to the treaty, some republicans saw a hidden boogie man in the treaty. As usual over reactions and plain stupidity on the part of republicans played a part in the defeat of this vote, which fell 61-38 (needed a 2/3rds majority since it was a "treaty" vote) just 5 votes short of passage.

Former Senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole was on board literally and firgurativly. Dole a disabled former World War II veteran was on the senate floor in his wheel chair to lend support to and watch the vote take place. Unfortuanely republicans ignored Dole and took the cowardly way out to vote against equal access for disabled people around the world.

Here in Nevada, newly elected Senator Dean heller solidified his position and the republicans party's position that average people mean nothing to them.

Diasbled and need a little access? NO! Dean Heller must have been mighty proud to walk by a disabled Bob Dole sitting in his wheel chair knowing he just willingly voted to DISCRIMINATE against anyone in a similar disabled situation.

Heller will probably spout off how he's a great champion of returning veterans. Well, Mr. Heller just turned his back on those veterans, and all disabled people with his callous, uncaring vote.

Is it any wonder people view the republicaqn party as the party that only protects the wealthy and well off? At every turn the republican party craps on working people, minorities, women and now people with disablities.

Shame on Dean Heller and shame on the republican party.

Friday, November 9, 2012

2012 Election thoughts - Nevada Congressional Edition

Nevada had four congressional races. Two were competitive and two were pretty easy skates for candidates where their party affiliation dominates their district.

District 1) CD1 is a district dominated be democratic voters and former state legislator & former congresswoman (held CD3 for one term 2008-10) Dina Titus (D) cruised to an easy victory in a seat that should be a gimme for democrats in the coming years.

Titus won in a rout more than doubling up on opponent Chris Edwards 113,377 to 56,357. This race was never really in question and there was little news coming from this race. It's good to have an excellent representative like Dina Titus going back to DC and  repping for her district and Nevada!

District 2) This district in most years should lean republican. It has a good portion of GOP voting rural Nevada and covers the northern urban areas of Reno, Sparks, Carson City, Lake Tahoe and Douglas County.

This was the other gimme race, where incumbent Mark Amodei had little trouble winning 161,915 - 101,594 over an absolute unknown (D) in Sam Koepnick. The only interesting aspect to this races was that Koepnick never accepted any democratic assistance at all. In fact some northern democrats wondered if he was a "planted" candidate who got past a more established democrat in the primary. Once the race started Koepnick was little seen and basically garnered what votes he did get on his supposed democratic party affiliation on the ballot.

The thing to look at here is the final vote numbers: Even though Koepnick was virtually invisible, spent no money, took few if any donations and had almost no advertising, he still managed to garner over 100k votes. I think northern Nevada democrats could look at this result and think that if there was a legitimate viable name recognized candidate, that this district could be won by a democrat.

The key here is the primary. Do not let a repeat of the 2012 primary happen where an unknown entity knocks out a real viable candidate.

District 3) CD3 lies totally within the boundary of Clark County encompassing the southern half of the county, down to Laughlin. This is the quintessential swing district as the voter roles are almost evenly split. This is also a suburban Las Vegas area district, with middle to upper class neighborhoods.

The race matched incumbent Joe Heck (R) (who beat Dina Titus in 2008) vs long time state legislator John Oceguera. This race was another that was (and always should be) tightly contested. Heck came out the winner 136,905 to 116, 385, with two IAP candidates siphoning off 18,367 votes, but not enough to say they factored in the outcome of this race.

This race was one of the two (CD4 being the other) that really got the advertising and mailers going. As this is a swing district targeted by both parties, there was local money and a lot of out of state money in this race, with each camp hammering the other. In the end incumbency might have been a bit much to overcome in a centrist district, where there were a good number of Romney signs in certain neighborhoods.

This district should always be a good fight for whoever wants to take the plunge.

District 4) This is the new district in Nevada, added after redistricting in 2011. This is a lean democratic seat voter registration wise, but it is also the most interesting seat because it encompasses the northern half of Clark County (Las Vegas metro area) and the other half of rural Nevada that CD2 doesn't cover.

This race featured state senator Steven Horsford (D) vs Danny Tarkanian (R). Horsford was behind in polling, but when the voters actually cast ballots, Horsford wound up with a surprising margin of victory (120,096 to 101,136, with two minor party candidates combining for 18,684 votes).

This is the race where pollsters erred the most. I think the Obama coat tails helped dramatically in this race, when African Americans showed up to vote in greater numbers than probably expected and that turn out helped Horsford win.

The rural counties all went republican by good percentages (68.9% to 30.7%) but the rural numbers were small enough that a good result in Clark County carried the day. Consider that Tarkanian won the rurals by 9,901 votes and Horsford won the urban area by 28,861 votes. Horsford will be making his first trip to DC as congressman!!

Rural Nevada is and probably always will be the domain of republican votes, but fortunately Clark County is trending democratic with Washoe County becoming a true battle ground.

2012 Election thoughts - Nevada Senate Edition

The 2012 Nevada Senate race thoughts:

 In the senatorial race between appointed incumbent Dean Heller (R) and challenger, current congresswoman Shelley Berkely (D) came down to the late results from Washoe County (Reno-Sparks area). Early in the evening as numbers came in, Berkely had a nice lead with Clark County (Las Vegas metro area) going to Berkely, but as the evening moved along the voted came in from Washoe County, which has been more Heller territory and it proved to be the difference in this race.

Final numbers: Heller 456,640 Berkely 444,513

The weird thing in this race was that the 3rd party candidate (IAP David Vanderbeek) (48,588), along with Nevada ballot oddity "None of these candidates" (44,907) took enough votes (93,495 total) that had those votes been spread to the two main candidates the outcome might have been different since the margin between Heller and Berkely was only 12,127.

To show how much Clark County can dominate Nevada politics, Berkely lost by only 12,127, yet won only one (Clark County) of Nevada's 17 total counties. It also seemed that Obama coat tails didn't come through for Berkely like she needed, as enough Obama voters crossed over and voted Heller, especially in Washoe County.

Part of this cross over vote could stem from the north south rivalry/split/fear that exists in northern Nevada. Historically the Reno area & Washoe, Carson, Storey, Douglas, Churchill & Lyon counties were the population center in Nevada and they held all the cards economically & politically. Since the 1950's the southern end of Nevada began a population boom and Clark County, with Las Vegas, North Las Vegas & Henderson began a growth spurt that would make it the main population center.

Now in 2012, Clark County holds 70+% of Nevada's population and redistricting has shifted more seats to southern Nevada away from northern and rural Nevada. This political shift should mean more power for southern Nevada in state politics. But this could also be the reason we saw Washoe County voters cross over and support Obama and Heller, as Heller is a northern Nevada guy and it's very possible they wanted one of their own in DC, rather than have two southern Nevada based senators (Harry Reid is from Searchlight/Boulder City/Henderson). And with the recent political power shift, knocking off a northerner might have been too much to risk, as if Heller had lost, when might another northern Nevada candidate hold that senate seat?

Post Election thoughts - presidential edition

Election 2012 is in the books!

Democrats came out faring pretty well over all!

In the presidential race, Obama bested Romney fairly easily 332 (I'm giving Obama the 29 Florida electoral votes since Obama has the lead) to 206. Obama won 27 states to Romney's 23 states, and Obama won the overall popular vote 61,217,568  vs 58,205,105 a 51% - 48% split. (these vote total still subject to change, as not all votes are in yet).

In winning the popular vote, it eliminates the republicans from claiming that Romney, and his polices were more popular and the Obama victory was just a matter of electoral vote totals. Had Obama lost the popular vote it would have been more ammunition for the GOP to continue their recent strategy of obstruction to any type of action President Obama wanted to pursue, as the GOP would make the argument that the majority of voters rejected Obama in favor of Romney.

This win by President Obama totally caught the republicans off guard. My thinking was that the GOP was counting on the much ballyhooed and publicized angst surrounding health care reform and other Obama policies, that Fox News and tea party types opposed with such vocal vigor.

With the noise inside the "conservative bubble" of right wing radio (Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Levin, etc etc.) and the 24 hour propaganda of Fox News, I really think conservatives were blinded in a bubble of their own making and never really looked outside the 365 24/7 static that conservatives listen to. They mistakenly thought that the entire country agreed with their warped thinking, and that there was no way that Obama could win when it came time to cast ballots across the country.

Now the GOP is left to search through the debris of their own political hurricane that was the 2012 election!

Good job to all involved in making a second term for President Obama a reality!!!

 
 

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Another GOP candidate makes idiotic comment

Seems there is no limit or end to the continuing flow of idiocy and ignorance from republicans and republican candidates over the last few years. As the tea party candidates take hold of what were normal republican offices, or win over normal GOP candidates in primaries, the propensity for asinine, stupid, ignorant and outlandish comments rises.

Usually we have GOP stalwarts Michelle Bachmann (R MN), Louie Gohmert (R TX), Virginia Foxx (R NC) and Alan West (R FL) making the idiotic comments, but not this time!

Yesterday Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock chimed in with a doozy of a comment during a Indiana senate debate. Mourdock said: ""I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is a gift from God, and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen"".

Of course this follows Missouri senate candidate Tod Akins dumb ass comments a month ago.

These types of comments keep coming from GOP candidates and politicians, so this isn't an isolated incident of one person misspeaking or being quoted out of context. These are a monthly to weekly occurrence and that leads me to think it exposes a deeper ideology that permeates republican thinking.

Mourdock defeated longtime Indiana senator Richard Lugar in the primary. This isn't the first time a "tea party" backed candidate has won over established mainline republicans, leaving the GOP in a difficult situation where the choice is to vote for a certifiable loon or to support the democrat.

Unfortunately in many house races, where the district is smaller and more polarized to lean GOP, the loony candidate ends up the winner, well because the republicans who make up the majority of those districts would rather send a straight-jacket ready idiot to congress over a democrat.

As long as these type of morons and loons get put into office by republican leaning districts, you can kiss any bi-partisan chances of getting bills passed, because these loons are not going to work with anyone not mirroring their ideology of lunacy.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Nevada voting numbers

Anyone can look up these numbers here: http://nvsos.gov/index.aspx?page=1195 Which is a link to the Nevada Secretary of State site.

But since I was taking a peek at the numbers, I figured I would do a post showing the numbers through 3 days of early voting in Nevada!

The 3 days are: Saturday, October 20; Sunday October 21; Monday, October 22.

Total votes cast:

Clark County 10/20) 33,204 10/21) 25,999 10/22) 30,598 Total 80,801
Washoe County 10/20) 9,638 10/21) 4,837 10/22) 6,773 Total 21,248
Statewide 10/20) 49,980 10/21) 31,324 10/22) 44,008 Total 125,312

Clark County has accounted for 64.5% of the state total.

Vote by party affiliation:

Clark County
Democrat: 46,416 GOP: 28,321 Other:15,064

Washoe County
Democrat: 9,700 GOP: 8,314 Other: 3,234

Statewide:
Democrat: 60,389 GOP: 44,343 Other: 20,580

Statewide Democrats have cast 48.2% of total votes cast, GOP have 35.4% and Others have 16.4%

Absentee ballots returned:

Clark County: Dems 10,456 GOP 8,877 Other 3,524

Washoe County: Dems 2,905 GOP 2,967 Other 1,177

Statewide: Dems 15,525 GOP 15,460 Other 5,801

So far so good for the Democrats getting the vote out and getting to the polls!

Of course not every Democrat voter will vote for Obama and not every GOP will vote for Romney, but if you want to take a good thing away from these numbers (at this moment) it's that the total number of Democrats voting is only 4,534 behind the combined total of GOP and Other votes..........which means if a good percentage of Other votes go to Obama then (so far), Obama looks good for carrying Nevada!

Let's play pure politics with these numbers!

Let's say every Dem vote went to Obama and that all GOP votes went to Romney, then that 4,534 difference between the total of Dems and GOP/Other means if 22% of Other voters choose Obama the race is tied 50-50...........which means Obama can win Nevada if he probably gets 35% of the "Other" vote to go to Obama or to another candidate besides Romney.

Stay tuned and stay on course, two weeks to go, and every vote will count in Nevada, it could be THAT CLOSE!!

The final debate !

Well folks, the last debate is over and done with and from everything I can find, President Obama came out ahead in every poll & focus group (that wasn't stacked or fixed!)!!

I personally don't think Obama winning the the last two debates will have a huge impact on the polls, maybe a small percent or two bump at best. The country seems pretty set on who they will vote for and the "undecideds" are a small percentage of the electorate this year.

Obama was clearly more effective in this debate and, honestly, foreign policy is not a strong area for Romney, unless it's international banking. Romney appeared to be playing it safe, not saying too much, and trying hard to avoid any really gaffs or outlandish (for Romney's standards) comments. One big surprise was how much Romney agreed with Obama on various issues, and the right wing punditry noticed also, wondering why Romney wasn't more aggressive and attacking like in the previous two debates. Again I think the calmer Romney was his camps strategy to play it down the middle and not fumble the ball.

Obama was clearly more aggressive in the last two debates, and I can't help but wonder if the current poll margins might be a little wider in Obama's favor had he come out in the first debate like he did in the last two debates. From what I gathered, the first debate was the most watched of the three, and I can't say Obama won undecideds over with the "first impression" factor of the first debate.

I, for one, am glad the debate season is behind us. I still think while Obama has done good things with the economy, it's still a sore subject with the "casual" voter, who might not know or realize the extent of Republican obstruction and therefore unknowingly put the full blame on Obama for the slow recovery.

So with 14 days (as of this writing), it now comes down to the turn out. There is enough "Obama hate" out there that no Democrat or Obama supporter should take this election lightly or think they don't need to vote. Democrats have to turn out in big numbers, especially in the 7 or 8 "swing" states that will decide this election.

So far, here in Nevada, the democrats have been heading to the polls in very good numbers since early voting opened on October 20th !!!

Get out and vote, regardless of your location, and make your voice heard!!!

Friday, October 19, 2012

Romney spurned by his own!?!?

Seems Mitt Romney is not having much success picking up votes or endorsements from area's one might think Romney would be well received!?!?

In Massachusetts, where Romney served as governor, Romney is losing big in various polls.

Snap shot of October poll numbers show Obama running away in Romney's "home state" of Massachusetts.

Western NE University poll: Obama +30%
WBUR/MassINC poll: Obama +16
Public Policy Polling: Obama +14
Rasmussen Reports: Obama +15

So what does it say about a candidate (Romney) that's the very state where he served as governor is rejecting him by such large decisive margins?!?!

These Massachusetts pools have been in Obama's favor throughout the campaign, and we know Massachusetts general leans democratic, but still getting beat by such margins has to say something about Romney.

Now Today, Friday October 19, 2012, we get this shocker from the Salt Lake Tribune:
Obama has earned another term

In considering which candidate to endorse, The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board had hoped that Romney would exhibit the same talents for organization, pragmatic problem-solving and inspired leadership that he displayed here more than a decade ago. Instead, we have watched him morph into a friend of the far right, then tack toward the center with breathtaking aplomb. Through a pair of presidential debates, Romney’s domestic agenda remains bereft of detail and worthy of mistrust.
 

Therefore, our endorsement must go to the incumbent, a competent leader who, against tough odds, has guided the country through catastrophe and set a course that, while rocky, is pointing toward a brighter day. The president has earned a second term. Romney, in whatever guise, does not deserve a first.
 
For full text of the endorsement:
 
Very telling that the Salt Lake Tribune, a major paper in the major city/market in the state of Utah would endorse Obama over Romney.
 
This is no small slight.
 
1)  Mitt Romney is LDS (Mormon). Salt Lake City is the headquarters of the LDS Church.
2) Salt Lake City hosted the winter Olympics in 2002. Mitt Romney was called in to supposedly "rescue the Salt Lake Olympics.
 
Fist off, don't think for once second that the state of Utah won't go for Romney by large margins in this election, but this endorsement from one of the major newspapers in what is LDS central is quite stunning.
 
It's a major coup for an LDS politician to get to this point in a presidential race and 99.99% would think that every entity that is associated with LDS leanings would stand in support of Romney's run. It's not like an LDS candidate gets this close very often, so one would think that all the available tools would be put to use in Romney's favor.
 
And Romney is seen and noted as the saviour of the 2002 Winter Olympics. Saving the state and region from possible world wide embarrassment should the Olympics have bombed.
 
This Obama endorsement basically calls out Romney for his multiple stances on various issues and his complete lack of specifics on his tax plan deductions and medicare policy.
 
I have to give the Salt Lake Tribune major credit for calling out Romney for what he has become: A multiple stance flip-flopper, who will basically say anything to get elected and offers no specifics on what he would do if he gets elected.
 
 
 
 

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Presidential debate # 2

The second presidential debate is in the books and my feeling is progressives/liberals can easily say that THIS is the Obama we wanted to see!

President Obama was engaged, brought the facts, and most importantly countered the lies of Mitt Romney. This sowing by the president was a nice turnaround from the first debate where Romney's many lies went unchallenged.

This time Obama countered and countered strong, with the top moment being the back and forth over the Rose Garden press conference and what term Obama supposedly used. Romney insisted that Obama never said terrorism and it took a week or more to use the word. Romney doubled down and stared at Obama quizzically and asked again "for the record" what did you say? The president calmly looked Romney in the eye and said "look at the transcript". This was the a spot where Romney thought he had Obama nailed, and it backfired miserable as even debate moderator Candy Crowley (CNN) said Romney was wrong!!
Romney tried to bully the moderator a bit at the beginning, and for a short time I thought "here he (Romney) goes again in taking over the debate", but Crowley quickly took back here position of moderator and pretty much kept both debaters in line for the rest of the debate. You could sense the angst from Romney as he really wanted to takeover the debate and make it similar to the first debate, but Crowley held her ground.

Over all a good showing by the president, no major damage and he made ground by countering the Romney lies!

Another ares which went big on Twitter was the Romney reference to "Binders full of women" when addressing the women in the workplace and fair pay act (Lilly Ledbetter Act). That term trended on twitter, which means it was so active it was all over in peoples tweets!

The president also had a good moment on the Lilly Ledbetter Act by saying Romney would not support it and referencing that the Romney campaign had no idea what it was. Journalist Sam Stein is on tape calling the Romney campaign and asking if they support the Lilly Ledbetter Act, and there was a moment of stunned silence and then a quick "We'll get back to you on that" response.......an obvious admission that the Romney campaign had no idea about the new law.

So two debates down, one to go next Monday. The next debate will focus on foreign policy, so look for Romney to once again hammer the Libya Embassy issue and middle east strife.

I think any progressive/liberal/democratic angst over the president's debate performance was greatly eased by last nights showing! Obama now needs to take the third debate and then we need to get out and VOTE !!!!

OBAMA-BIDEN 2012!!

Friday, October 12, 2012

VP Debate thoughts

Last night's Vice Presidential debate was pretty good overall by all parties involved.

The moderator ABC's foreign policy correspondent Martha Raddatz was good, in that her questions were specific, and she held the debaters to the subject and also questioned suspect answers to her initial question. She kept the pace of the debate going without allowing run on answers and moved from topic to topic therefore halting any "I have to respond to that last item..." type of thing from the debaters.

Some areas were left uncovered in this debate just as they were in the first presidential debate, such as immigration and women's issues.

I thought Joe Biden did well in countering Ryan's suspect "facts" such as the $716 billion taken from Medicare lie that Romney and Ryan have been telling at every opportunity. Also Biden called out Ryan on the stimulus bill by pointing out that as much as Ryan says the stimulus was bad, and didn't work (another fabrication!) that Ryan wrote TWO letters requesting stimulus funding for his district in Wisconsin..............nothing like pointing out a bit of GOP hypocrisy!

Biden did well in clarifying the differences between the Romney/Ryan vs Obama/Biden when it comes to protecting Medicare, Social Security and the new tax plans.

Ryan did his part for the Romney team, this debate was no rout, but it did show a difference between an experienced Joe Biden and a younger policy wonkish Paul Ryan.

I give Joe Biden the edge in this debate -  He was strong, forceful, caring and had answers to every claim put forth by Ryan.

Overall it was a good debate and I didn't see one candidate making big gains on the other, but this performance by Joe Biden should buoy hopes of democrats and Progressives after a less than scintillating showing by President Obama in the first debate.

I think this showing by Biden is a bit of what we might see from Obama in the coming presidential debates. Obama needs to counter the lies that Romney will surely throw out, after all it's been his campaign strategy for better than a month, so the President would know the lies will be coming from Romney.

Obama needs to hit Romney like Biden did with references to the 47% comment. That needs to be hammered home by Obama as it was the single factor that gave Obama a bump in the polls heading into the first debate...........and Obama needs to hammer home the flip-flopping of Romney on various issues. Romney has changed stances over and over, almost on a daily basis, Obama needs to make that a negative on Romney's lack of conviction and his wavering style won't be good if he becomes president.

Good job Joe! Now on to the next debate and a big Obama rally!!

Another republican makes moronic comment

The republican party has become a fountain of epically moronic comments in the last few years. Not sure if the increase in lunacy among republicans is a product of the teaparty influence or the new found resurgance of the religious right/evangelicals. Either way the republican party is being pulled to the weird side by the influence of those two groups and the republican desire to appeal to those groups.

In todays example of GOP idiocy we have a Wisconsin state representative in the spotlight.

Taken from Current TV website:
Commenting on a rape case involving two high school students, Wisconsin state Rep. Roger Rivard told a local newspaper last year that his father had once given him the advice, "some girls rape easy."

http://current.com/groups/news-blog/93927037_wisconsin-republican-some-girls-just-rape-easy.htm


Stay tuned people, because this type of lunacy from replublicans will keep coming!!

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Romney lies from Debate #1

Quite a few pundits mentioned, noted and commented on the number of lies and flashoods Mitt Romney told during the first presidential debate. Even the fact checkers chimed in with their analysis of the Romney truth stretching.

Now to put it all in one easy simple location, with supporting data and commentary, I suggest you take a look at the following video:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9r6TA1PNG_M" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Monday, October 8, 2012

Republican lunacy raise's it's head again

Two quick items in what is becoming a long list of lunacy within the republican party:

First we have Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) who says:

“All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell,” Broun said. “And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior.”

“You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth,” he said. “I don’t believe that the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.”

My point here is not to belittle Mr. Broun's belief in the bible, but his literal interpretation that the earth is 9,000 years old (or 6,000 something for other bible time liner's). Anyone with any modicum of knowledge of the workings of the solar system, galaxy and the universe would realize 9,000 years is not going to be enough time to create what we see. I guess if you have the "magician in the sky" theory of thinking, anyone can conceive of everything being created in mere moments by the wizard, magician or deity of your choice.

I have a hard time grasping why a person of Mr. Broun's thinking can actually sit on the House Science Committee, when he basically has no reason to believe in science and therefore probably discounts any scientific evidence as witchcraft.

To read more on Mr. Broun's imaginary friend theory: http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/10/rep-paul-broun-r-ga-evolution-big-bang-lies-straight-from-the-pit-of-hell.php

Secondly we have a disturbing item from the state of Arkansas where a Mr. Charlie Fuqua had this gem in his book:

The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellious children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21.

In the same book, Fuqua advocated for expelling Muslims from the U.S., saying it would solve what he described as the "Muslim problem."

For more on Mr. Fuqua's version of Old Testament parenting:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/08/charlie-fuqua-arkansas-candidate-death-penalty-rebellious-children_n_1948490.html

If these are the type of candidates the republican party is going to trot out for public office, the party is in deep trouble.

I personally can't see normal, thinking people taking to these extreme odd ball beliefs. If the GOP wants to continue down the path of running idiots for office, I can't help but to think the GOP might face extinction as a major political party. Sure there are areas, regions and pockets of people who will support full fledged American Taliban type candidates, but to most of America these loons are just that LOONS and they bring the republican party to the edge of becoming a fringe party of extremists, ruled by nothing more than the bible and 12th century thinking. To these types of candidates, science and fact have no place in policy making. To them it all boils down to some obscure bible passage or "teaching" and all else be considered blasphemy.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Take away from the 1st debate

In the previous posting, I linked to a few articles that analyzed the debate, as I was going through the limitless web pages, it came down to the point I could endlessly post links, but I think as the day goes on anyone who cares will be able to find thousands of various avenues to break down and fact check last nights debate.

So as a secondary posting today, I thought I would just opine myself on the events of last night and how I saw the debate and the aftermath going forward to the election.

As I mentioned in today's earlier post I saw two glaring things:

  •  Romney was prattling off as many falsehoods and lies as he could, even taking over the debate and sort of shoving moderator Jim Lehrer aside.........Romney obviously was coached to be the aggressor, and he pulled it off.

  • Obama seemed complacent and not as intense as many wanted him to be. He was looking at his notes more than he probably should have while Romney was rattling off rapid fire statements, and Obama let Romney off the hook in many cases where Romney was blatantly lying.

The one big thing that stood out was Romney's multiple claims of Obama cutting $716 billion from Medicare - A claim that has been debunked by just about every fact checker out there - yet Obama did little to challenge or counter the claim.

The Ryan budget takes the exact same amount out of Medicare and does it in a way that harms patients much more than the Obama reduction does, yet Obama failed to point out that Romney was claiming Obama was doing something THAT ROMNEY'S OWN VICE PRESIDENTIAL PICK PUT IN THE REPUBLICAN BUDGET!!

Obama NEVER mentioned Romney's Bain Capital when the "Tax breaks for jobs to China" portion of the debate came along. Why didn't Obama counter with the vulture capitalistic ways of Bain Capital and the jobs that Bain shipped overseas?

Obama never once mentioned the 47% comment that the Obama campaign has used extensively in advertising since the recording became public.

Obama never once mentioned anything about the GOP war on women.

Obama even went as far as to say he agreed with Romney on Social Security needing tweaking!?!? This is a hot button issue that the democrats have been using to hit the republicans on, and Obama comes and and says he "agrees with Romney"!?!?

There just seemed to be a complacency on the Obama side and he did not retort or engage Romney when Romney was factually wrong.

This was a golden chance for Obama and the democrats to come out and punch Romney on his lies, (many were the same lies he tells on the campaign trail) and strengthen the lead Obama has been showing in recent polling and put some distance between himself and Romney going into the final 30 days of the campaign.

Had Obama come out fighting and countering Romney in this debate, Obama and the democrats could have given a swift blow to the Romney campaign which was faltering entering the debate.

Now it looks like the GOP & Romney campaign have been energized. Money from big donors might have evaporated, diminished or been transferred to senate and house races and away from Romney.

This wasn't the deciding moment for either campaign, but it was a chance for Obama to really seize the lead going into the final 30 days and a good showing could have been a blow to Romney's campaign and changed the dynamics.

To use a sports metaphor: Obama played not to lose, rather than playing to win...........not sure this was the time for that type of debate strategy, if it was a strategy, but this close to the election, with Romney stumbling in the last 3 weeks, this was the time to go for the throat and crush what was left of the Romney campaign.............instead Romney now has new life, his base and republicans are energized and they see a glimmer of hope for a November win........a strong debate performance by Obama might have wiped that out and been in a stronger position 30 days out..............this was an big opportunity lost by the Obama camp.

Debate wrap up

Well the first presidential debate is in the books and it was full of items that can be disected by pundits, experts, spinmeisters, etc........and apparently they have as the post debate reports and commentary is fully underway.

My take from last nights debate was mainly the two glaring things that stood out to me:

1) Mitt Romney basically said "debate rules and facts be damned, I'm plowing ahead regardless"

2) Obama was fairly passive and nonconfrontational.

Lets go to the first item, which is the lack of facts put forth by Mitt Romney. The "fact checking" organizations and media outlets are chiming in on the way Romney played loose with the facts.

Here is a sampling with links to the falsehoods from Romney:

ROLLINGSTONE Magazine listed the top 5 Romney lies:

1. "I don't have a $5 trillion tax cut." Romney flatly lied about the cost of his proposal to cut income-tax rates across the board by another 20 percent (undercutting even the low rates of the Bush tax cuts). Independent economists at the Tax Policy Center have shown that the price tag for those cuts is $360 billion in the first year, a cost that extrapolates to $5 trillion over a decade.

2. "I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans." Romney has claimed that he will pay for his tax cuts by closing a variety of loopholes and deductions. The factual problem? Romney hasn't named a single loophole he's willing to close; worse, there's no way to offset $5 trillion in tax cuts even if you get rid of the entire universe of deductions for the wealthy that Romney has not put off the table (like the carried interest loophole or the 15 percent capital gains rate.) The Tax Policy Center report concludes that Romney's proposal would create a "net tax cut for high-income tax payers and a net tax increase for lower- and or middle-income taxpayers." Moreover, some of Romney's tax cuts are micro-targeted at American dynasties, particularly his proposal to eliminate the estate tax, which would reduce his own sons' tax burden by tens of millions of dollars.

3. "We've got 23 million people out of work or [who have] stopped looking for work in this country." Romney is lying for effect. The nation's crisis of joblessness is bad, but not 23 million bad. The official figure is 12.5 million unemployed. An additional 2.6 million Americans have stopped looking for jobs. How does Romney gin up his eye-popping 23 million figure? He counts more than 8 million wage earners who hold part-time jobs as also being "out of work."

4. Obamacare "puts in place an unelected board that's going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have." Romney is reviving Sarah Palin's old death panels lie here. Obamacare does establish an Independent Payment Advisory Board to help constrain the growth of Medicare spending. The body has no authority to dictate the practices of the private insurance marketplace. And the law also makes explicit that this body is banned from rationing care or limiting medical benefits to seniors.

5. "Pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan." In the biggest whopper of the night, Romney suggested that his health care proposal would guarantee coverage to Americans with pre-existing conditions. This is just not true. Under Romney, if you have a pre-existing condition and have been unable to obtain insurance coverage or if you have had to drop coverage for more than 90 days because you lost your job or couldn't afford the premiums, you would be shit out of luck. Insurance companies could continue to discriminate and deny you coverage, as even Romney's top adviser conceded after the debate was over.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-first-debate-mitt-romneys-five-biggest-lies-20121004#ixzz28LmBR5td

We found exaggerations and false claims flying thick and fast during the first debate between President Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.
  • Obama accused Romney of proposing a $5 trillion tax cut. Not true. Romney proposes to offset his rate cuts and promises he won’t add to the deficit.
  • Romney again promised to “not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans” and also to “lower taxes on middle-income families,” but didn’t say how he could possibly accomplish that without also increasing the deficit.
  • Obama oversold his health care law, claiming that health care premiums have “gone up slower than any time in the last 50 years.” That’s true of health care spending, but not premiums. And the health care law had little to do with the slowdown in overall spending.
  • Romney claimed a new board established by the Affordable Care Act is “going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have.” Not true. The board only recommends cost-saving measures for Medicare, and is legally forbidden to ration care or reduce benefits.
  • Obama said 5 million private-sector jobs had been created in the past 30 months. Perhaps so, but that counts jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics won’t add to the official monthly tallies until next year. For now, the official tally is a bit over 4.6 million.
  • Romney accused Obama of doubling the federal deficit. Not true. The annual deficit was already running at $1.2 trillion when Obama took office.
  • Obama again said he’d raise taxes on upper-income persons only to the “rates that we had when Bill Clinton was president.” Actually, many high-income persons would pay more than they did then, because of new taxes in Obama’s health care law.
  • Romney claimed that middle-income Americans have “seen their income come down by $4,300.” That’s too high. Census figures show the decline in median household income during Obama’s first three years was $2,492, even after adjusting for inflation.
  • Obama again touted his “$4 trillion” deficit reduction plan, which includes $1 trillion from winding down wars that are coming to an end in any event.
Romney sometimes came off as a serial exaggerator. He said “up to” 20 million might lose health insurance under the new law, citing a Congressional Budget Office study that actually put the likely number who would lose employer-sponsored coverage at between 3 million and 5 million. He said 23 million Americans are “out of work” when the actual number of jobless is much lower. He claimed half of all college grads this year can’t find work, when, in fact, an AP story said half either were jobless or underemployed. And he again said Obama “cut” $716 billion from Medicare, a figure that actually reflects a 10-year target for slowing Medicare spending, which will continue to grow.

http://factcheck.org/2012/10/dubious-denver-debate-declarations/

Now lets look at a good write on how Obama let Romney get away with his lies & the frustration it has caused across progressive circles:

Romney lied brazenly about everything—notably on taxes—yet over and over again an honest but listless and meandering Obama failed to effectively challenge him.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/03/obama-allowed-mitt-romney-to-get-away-with-lies-in-debate-showdown.html

Presidential Debate: Mitt Romney Shines By Pushing Lies, Obama Misses Mark By Not Calling Him Out

Much like the criticism Sen. Obama faced back when he was debating Hillary Clinton, some will argue that Obama was far too gracious in dealing with his overly abrasive challenger.
Issues of style are one thing, but Obama failing to challenge Romney on some of his more blatant lies was particularly problematic.

This includes the repeated accusation that Obama wants to make $716 billion in cuts to Medicare despite it often being highlighted in the media that Romney’s own running mate has the same amount of cuts in his own plan. Unfortunately, Romney repeated this falsehood several times throughout the debate without a direct challenge from the President.

http://newsone.com/2053227/the-presidential-debate-2/

Thursday, August 30, 2012

#LyinRyan

The title to this posting is preceded by #. The symbol # is used in the twitter world and is called a "hashtag". When one posts on twitter with the # symbol preceding a run of words (ex: #GOPComedy, #RNC2012) then that "hashtag can be followed as a continuous list of twitter posts containing that particular "hashtag", therefore you can follow a particular event/happening tied to that "hashtag".

Well, last night after the much anticipated speech by republican Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan, the "hashtag" #LyinRyan was trending (meaning it was quite a popular hashtag & being used a lot during a certain time frame) big time on Twitter.

Not long after the speech, which contained obvious falsehoods, fabrications and outright lies, the country and the media were fact checking Ryan's speech for it's accuracy or lack thereof.

The main opinion is that Ryan's speech was chock full of lies, untruths & fabrications, which you can find in these media links below.

First up Fox News, which even dips it's toes into factual fantasies had to chime in on the Ryan speech

..........to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/30/paul-ryans-speech-in-three-words/#ixzz253VNwnqo

From PoliticusUSA

Paul Ryan took the stage in Tampa and peppered his speech with lies, falsehoods distortions and exaggerations.

http://www.politicususa.com/5-biggest-lies-paul-ryans-rnc-acceptance-speech.html

From USA TODAY

Paul Ryan's acceptance speech at the Republican convention contained several false claims and misleading statements.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-08-30/paul-ryan-fact-check-republican-convention/57432326/1

From the NY Times opinion page

An army of fact-checkers swarmed around Paul Ryan’s acceptance speech last night, and the verdict was swift and unanimous: lies, omissions, a sweeping rewrite of recent history.

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/30/beyond-factual-dishonesty/?ref=opinion

From FACTCheck.org

Paul Ryan’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention contained several false claims and misleading statements. Delegates cheered as the vice presidential nominee:
  • Accused President Obama’s health care law of funneling money away from Medicare “at the expense of the elderly.” In fact, Medicare’s chief actuary says the law “substantially improves” the system’s finances, and Ryan himself has embraced the same savings.
  • Accused Obama of doing “exactly nothing” about recommendations of a bipartisan deficit commission — which Ryan himself helped scuttle.
  • Claimed the American people were “cut out” of stimulus spending. Actually, more than a quarter of all stimulus dollars went for tax relief for workers.
  • Faulted Obama for failing to deliver a 2008 campaign promise to keep a Wisconsin plant open. It closed less than a month before Obama took office.
  • Blamed Obama for the loss of a AAA credit rating for the U.S. Actually, Standard & Poor’s blamed the downgrade on the uncompromising stands of both Republicans and Democrats.
http://factcheck.org/2012/08/ryans-vp-spin/

Friday, August 3, 2012

Reid vs Romney the Tax Return Standoff

Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) called out Mitt Romney on the Senate floor the other day with a claim that "Romney paid no taxes....."

As we all know, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has released on one year of past tax returns, and is adamant that, the one tax return will be the only one Romney releases. During past presidential runs in the modern era, most every candidate has released multiple years of tax returns in a good faith effort to expose the financials of those who are seeking the country's highest office. This is not done under the rule of law, it is done as a means of transparency.

Here in 2012, we have Mitt Romney, who admittedly is worth multiple millions and has financial interests inside the United States and outside the United States. Fine and dandy, he isn't the only person of wealth who has his finances in off shore accounts.

The above is all legal and Romney has violated no laws or election rules, so why the caterwauling about Romney's tax returns? Why the indignation from some that Harry Reid has "crossed the line", with some even making the accusation that Reid has determined Romney to be some sort of FELON!

Here's the reality:

1) The American people are due the simple respect of seeing Mitt Romney's taxes over a number of years

2) Harry Reid simply said Romney paid no taxes.

3) Romney has made claims that his tax returns might be able to clear up.

The bottom line is if there is nothing in Romney's Tax returns that shows illegalities then produce them and put this issue to rest.

As a side not to those who have taken great offense to Harry Reid, claiming Reid has called Romney GUILTY before any evidence/proof has been produced..........let's not forget that for 3 years, there has been a constant crescendo coming from the right about President Obama's birth certificate, which has been made public many times, even the "long form".

Again, if Romney has nothing to hide, produce multiple years to tax returns and all this goes away........but as long as Mitt Romney balks at releasing the returns, the questions will always remain and the question of: "What is Mitt Romney hiding?" will be on peoples minds.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Louie Gohmert is stupid again (Part 2)

Republican representative Louie Gohmert, makes no effort to hide the fact he's a loon, and today Louie makes another stunning effort in his race to be the top ranked moron in the House GOP!

Here is the text of Mr. Gohmert's comment: Well, it’s obvious that John McCain didn’t even read the letter because of what he said in accusing Michele and us of making these horrible accusations. There were five letters and there were many things that are stated that are facts in each letter. And I wish some of these numb nuts would go out and read the letter before they make these horrible allegations about the horrible accusations we’re making. But we also know that John McCain himself had said back in the early stages of stuff going on in Egypt that he was, in his words, “unalterably opposed to helping the Muslim Brotherhood.” Well, obviously the unalterable person has been altered, so he is okay with it now.

Full article with audio feed available here: http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/07/24/576071/tea-party-congressman-calls-mccain-numb-nuts-for-criticizing-bachmanns-anti-muslim-witch-hunt/?mobile=nc

It appears Mr. Ghomert is allying himself with fellow house loon Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) in their two person crusade against Muslims. Recall it was Gohmert who, in the not too distant past, came up with the "terror babies" theory, where Muslim babies being born in the US are really a sleeper cell, that will be programmed to carry out terrorist attacks in the distant future. Ms. Bachmann has been making news (of the weird) with here attacks on a Muslim person in the Secretary of States Office who is a senior aide Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

With what we have seen from the republican party, this is one major tactic they use as an offensive weapon; that is distract with wild accusations and inane theories dealing with a "scary" threat to US and American freedom. In the 1950's republican Joseph McCarthy (WI) stirred up the country with his witch hunt for communists inside the US government, and here we have in 2012 a similar situation where fear mongering about Muslims inside the US government.

Again this begs the question: Just HOW do candidates like Louie Gohmert and Michelle Bachmann manage to get elected..............it really boggles the mind that anyone with any resemblance or sanity could actually walk into a voting booth and cast a ballot for candidates like Gohmert and Bachmann.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Louie Gohmert is stupid again!

In the wake of the tragic shootings last night in Aurora, Colorado, during a midnight showing of the new Batman movie, most politicians took time to denounce random acts of violence.

But not Louie Gohmert (R-TX) who used this insane incident to make yet another idiotic statement on the reasons behind the shooting by saying: "You know what really gets me, a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and then some senseless crazy act of a derelict takes place."

"Some of us happen to believe that when our founders talked about guarding our virtue of freedom, that was important," he said on the show, "People say...where was God in all of this? We've threatened high school graduation participation's if they use God''s name, they're going to be jailed... I mean that kind of stuff. Where was God? What have we done with God? We don't want him around."

Gohmert also criticized why no one in the theater struck back.

"It does make me wonder, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying a gun that could have stopped this guy more quickly?" he said.


Full article here: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/07/20/congressman-gohmert-says-colorado-shooting-linked-to-attacks-on-christianity

Now ol' Louie G is no stranger to making asinine comments and this example further entrenches his position as one of of Congresses looniest members. it's a tight race for looniest Republican between Michelle Bachmann (R MN), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Alan West (R-FL) & Joe Walsh (R-IL)...........any one of these certifiable morons can pop off an idiotic statement at any given time.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Actual Mitt Romney quotes! Was he a Democrat?

We know the Mitt Romney of today is not the same Mitt Romney who said the following in previous campaigns............wonder how these quotes would play with his supporters of 2012?!?!

1) "I believe abortion should be safe and legal in this country"

2) "I believe that, since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years, we should sustain and support it"

3) "Look, I was an independent during the time or Reagan/Bush, I'm not trying to return to Reagan/Bush"

4) "I want universal coverage, I want everyone in Massachusetts and this country to have insurance"

5) "I'll be better than Ted Kennedy for gay rights"

From looking at the above quotes, it's pretty safe to say most DEMOCRATS would be happy to make the exact same claims!!

Now we all know people can change. Republican hero Ronald Reagan was himself, a Democrat before making big money in movies, and switching over to Republican, well, because he knew Republicans would better serve his new found wealth.

Are opinions on Health Care act changing?

Pew Research recently released new poll numbers on various issues surrounding the 2012 elections:

Over the last 4 Pew polls the numbers of pepole approving of the health care law (ACA) have yo-yo'ed back and forth. Seemed from 2009 through late 2011 every poll had more people in disapproval of the ACA.

Four recent polls Pew released from March 2012 through June 2012 shows the law gaining the edge with more people approving of the ACA in two of their four polls.

March 2012: 44% against vs 40% for
April 2012: 47% for vs 45% against
May 2012: 49% against vs 41% for
June 2012: 47% for vs 43% against.

Link to Pew results: http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/7-12-12%20Political%20Release.pdf

So the populace seems to be finding a middle ground on the health care act with equal numbers on each side.

Now that the Supreme Court has made their ruling, that removes the technical "constitutionality" aspect of the law (though some will still remain adamant the law is unconstitutional). With the SC ruling out of the way and on record, it now comes down to the law itself. There is a huge amount of misinformation, misunderstanding and outright lies being tossed around regarding the law. However, if the real iron clad truth of the law gets through to people, I think we will see future polls slide to showing more people in favor of the law.

Once people see that there are benefits and that the law is not a government take over, not a tax on the middle class, does not cut from Medicare, does not ration health care and there are no "death panels", people should be seeing the positives that this law will bring to the people.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower?

Here is a fact you absolutely, 100%, will not hear from republicans, right-wing pundits or Fox News:

In fiscal 2010 (the first Obama budget) spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.

In fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion.

The above information seems to refute the claims of republicans & the common mantra that "Obama is spending like a wild man".

For more info, see this link from of all sources FORBES?!?! Yep, that FORBES. The Forbes magazine who's publisher and founders son was a candidate for the GOP nomination in past election cycles.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/

Those who insist Obama is a wild spender will point to the 2009 budget, which did, indeed increase 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. But this is erroneous as every presidents first year in office is served under the previous administrations budget, in this case the increase was the budget proposed by George W Bush, which congress approved.

Therefore, the first "Obama" budget was the 2010 budget which actually cut spending from 2009 levels.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The Health Care Law - The Govt takeover Lie

Now that the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled on the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (ACA) and validated the laws constitutionality, we can now sit back and brace ourselves for the endless streams of misinformation, myths and outright lies that will be foisted on the public from those who oppose the ACA.

Let's look at a few of the main misinformation, myths and lies that will ensue:

1) Calling the bill a “government takeover of health care” - This will be the biggest lie used to continue the Republican mantra that President Obama is a socialist and this ACA is the zenith of a huge government takeover of the country's Health Care system.

Nothing could be farther from the truth than this LIE. This law is a boon for PRIVATE Insurance companies as it brings in new customers that before might have avoided health insurance.

Not one doctor will switch from private practice to a government salary, not one medical clinic will be switched from private practice to government control and not one hospital will go from private/public (local municipality) ownership to a federally run operation. The only hospitals that are government run are the various VA (Veterans Administration) Hospitals.

This LIE was given the 2010 LIE OF THE YEAR award by PolitiFact: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/dec/16/lie-year-government-takeover-health-care/

2) " ‘Obamacare’ puts the federal government between you and your doctor." - This is a favorite of Republicans was was used by Mitt Romney on the very day the Supreme Court issued their ruling.

Obviously Mitt Romney is taking the Fox News route/strategy, which is to keep saying and pounding away with the same LIE, to the point it becomes part of the national psyche. Similar to the Sarah Palin LIE about "Death Panels", she said it enough and with the aid of the mis-information machine that is Fox News, people actually bought into the falsehood that death panels were included in the law.

Things will remain the same under the ACA as they were before, because you will still be dealing with your private insurance provider.

The following is from PolitiFact: The overarching fact about the law is that it relies on the private sector. Employers still buy private health insurance for their workers. The law doesn’t change how much doctors are paid or what services they can provide, though it does create incentives and penalties to promote better care. (One example: It penalizes hospitals if patients are re-admitted soon after being discharged.)

It establishes a minimum benefits package for insurance plans and fosters competition among health insurance companies by creating shopping websites. These sites, called exchanges, will allow customers to pick insurance plans the same way they might buy other things online, such as refrigerators or airplane tickets.The law also gives subsidies to people of limited means so they can buy their own insurance.

If the health care law did get between doctors and patients, you would think most doctors would complain loudly. While some do, the leading physician advocacy group, the American Medical Association, does not. On the contrary, the AMA supports the law.


See full PolitiFact article here: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jul/09/mitt-romney/health-law-puts-government-between-patients-and-do/

3) "The health care law rations care, like systems in Canada and Great Britain." - This is the third Lie in the republican trifecta of mis-information against the ACA.

From Media Matters:  Insurance companies already ration care. Insurance companies acknowledge that they ration care, restricting coverage of procedures and tests like MRIs and CAT scans and denying coverage for pre-existing medical conditions.

I myself was limited by insurance to 1 of 3 tests my physician wanted me to undergo, because my insurance did not cover the stress test or colon-oscopy.

More from Media Matters: Insurance companies ration care by rescinding coverage. As former senior executive at CIGNA health insurance company Wendell Potter explained in June 24 Senate testimony, insurance companies restrict or deny coverage by rescinding health insurance policies on the grounds that people had undisclosed pre-existing conditions. President Obama recently cited one such example, noting that "[a] woman from Texas was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, was scheduled for a double mastectomy. Three days before surgery ... the insurance company canceled the policy, in part because she forgot to declare a case of acne. ... By the time she had her insurance reinstated, the cancer had more than doubled in size."

From AARP:
Fact: None of the health reform proposals being considered would stand between individuals and their doctors or prevent any American from choosing the best possible care.
Fact: Health care reform will NOT give the government the power to make life or death decisions for anyone regardless of their age. Those decisions will be made by an individual, their doctor and their family.
Fact: Health care reform will help ensure doctors are paid fairly so they will continue to treat Medicare patients.
Bottom Line: Health reform isn't about rationing; it's about giving people the peace of mind of knowing that they will be able to keep their doctors and that they will always have a choice of affordable health plans.
For more from AARP: http://aarp.convio.net/site/PageNavigator/Myths_vs_Facts





Wednesday, May 23, 2012

The republican river of stupid comments

On the heels of the lunacy that Arizona provides with Secretary of State Ken Bennett getting involved in an e-mail volleyball game with the state of Hawaii over President Obama's birth certificate, we now have another less than intelligent republican from Colorado who is jumping on the birther bandwagon!

Today we have US Rep Mike Coffman making asinine comments, which were caught on tape..........then when confronted by a TV reporter, Coffman went into full clam up mode (see video http://ed.msnbc.msn.com/ ) uttering the same answer multiple times.

The only utterance to the reporters questions were to reply multiple times with the same idiotic: "I stand by my statement that I mispoke and I appologize"!

Now Mr. Coffman also says: "I don’t believe the president shares my belief in American Exceptionalism. His policies reflect a philosophy that America is but one nation among many equals."

If Mr. Coffman is an example of Exceptionalism, then he must have extremely low standards & his voters/supporters must have equally low standards if this is what they chose to represent them.

After this idiotic comment, it brings to mind the question: What is it about the republican party that brings these lunatic rantings to the surface? If it was just one over the top loon in the GOP who regularly made iditoic comment's it could be explained off as just the one person with a weird way of expressing things, but this isn;t limited to just one person in the GOP. It's more than a few that generally toss out comments that makes people question the speakers mindest.

To name a few in the GOP off the top of my head who are regularly uttering stupid comments:

1) Michelle Bachmann (MN) - She's pretty wacky, and doesn't mind going on the record to make sure the public knows she's wacky.

2) Virginia Foxx (NC) - This might be a symptom of getting on in years, but Ms. Foxx has crossed the nutjob line more than a few times with utterances that boggle the thinking mind.

3) Stephen King (IA) - Mr. King is one who's not afraid to say what's on his mind, regardless of how utterly asinine it might be or how it comes across.

4)  Louie Gohmert (TX) - Mr. Gohemert came out with the "terror basbies" comment a few months back, and just in the annals of stupid utterances he might be the winner.

Stay tuned, because these four aren't the only loons in the GOP, there are others who, during this election season will pull out all the stops to make sure they can say something as incredibly stupid as the last republican.

One last thought, if this is the level of thinking that comes from these elected officials, what is the mental state and capacity of those that vote these clowns into office?!?!

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Birth pains in Arizona

Since 2009 when President Obama was sworn into office, Arizona, "the Grand Canyon State" has been one of the top sources for GOP STUPIDITY.

Governor Jan Brewer has provided endless idiocy & of course Maricopa County (Phoenix area) Sheriff Joe Arpaio is well known for his asinine antics.

But this week we have a first timer from Arizona in Secretary of State Ken Bennett, who, with election year heating up has jumped on the "birther" bandwagon! Yes, Mr. Bennett wasted valuable taxpayer time & office hours playing e-mail volleyball with the state of Hawaii over the Presidents birth certificate!


http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/ken_bennett_birther_hawaii_arizona_emails.php

Friday, May 11, 2012

Some quick notes from this Friday's news sources about GOP skull drudgery:

1) Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (regressive Republican) has been caught on camera explaining his "divide & conquer" strategy in his efforts to dismantle collective bargaining in WI. It's just more proof of the GOP agenda that resulted from the 2010 elections where the GOP took over the governor's mansion...........that mission is a concerted effort to rid the nation of collective bargaining.

2) The GOP led House of Representatives in pure "protect the rich" fashion passed a budget measure that cuts health care, food stamps, elder care, but maintains huge funding for defense. And this is the party that claims to be on the "Christian" side of things. I think anyone who actually knows the Jesus era Bible would see that the Republican actions are anything but "Christian".

3) The freedom loving, less government Republicans in North Carolina voted to limit freedom for a certain segment of their population. You can find GOP hypocrisy at almost every turn.

And to end on a good note, out in the extreme conditions & climate of Death Valley wild flowers can still be seen! DeathValleyNP

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Everyone else is pontificating on the Internet, so why not me?

With this blog I hereby take my place in cyberspace!

Stay tuned for snippets from the world of Nevada politics & US politics.