Day: October 5, 2011

The Arrogance And Gall Of Rush Limbaugh, Donald Trump, And Herman Cain Toward The “Occupy Wall Street” Movement!

When the Tea Party Movement, a right wing reactionary group with fascist tendencies, formed in 2009, the Republican Party, conservative talk radio, Fox News Channel, and wealthy people on Wall Street embraced it, and they set out to further harm the middle class and the poor, and are still in the process of doing so on Capitol Hill and in the state governments!

Now that the outraged “99 percent” have decided to march and demonstrate and occupy Wall Street, but also march and demonstrate in dozens of cities all across America, demanding action to make our government deal with the corruption on Wall Street, the mortgage debacle, the unemployment crisis, the health denials to millions of citizens, the pension disaster, the long term student loan mess, and the homelessness and poverty of millions of children, we are being told by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Donald Trump, and Herman Cain that these people are “losers”, or as Cain says, if one is unemployed or not rich, don’t blame anyone, blame yourself!

For an African American candidate to ignore totally the reality of his own race being in worse condition than ever due to the Great Recession and its supposed aftermath, is a total disgrace, and shows how becoming wealthy can totally corrupt a person’s judgment and make him look down on those who are less fortunate, not only of his race, but across the board, despite the worst unemployment since the Great Depression, and caused by Wall Street and the corporations!

These right wing fascists should be warned that if nothing is done to deal with the economic crisis in this country, there is the terrifying danger of real bloodshed and violence breaking out, and that would be a total tragedy!

Just as in the Middle East with the “Arab Spring”, we are now seeing the extension of what began in the state of Wisconsin and elsewhere earlier this year, and the government cannot ignore this, as that is a danger to the future of the nation!

The Death Of A Technology Genius At 56: Steve Jobs Of Apple, Inc.

Tonight, it was announced that one of the technology geniuses of modern times, Steve Jobs, who co-founded Apple, Inc, has passed away at age 56 of pancreatic cancer.

The man who introduced Macintosh Computers in 1984, and later the IPod, the IPhone, and the IPad, left active work a couple of months ago, after battling cancer since 2004,

For a brief period, Apple, Inc. became the number one company in total value, this year surpassing Exxon Mobil.

The world is much enriched by his contributions, and will mourn his death and its impact for a very long time! May he rest in peace!

The Phony Manipulator Opts Out: Sarah Palin NOT Running For President! Is Anyone Surprised?

Well, finally, at the last possible moment before the window to enter the Republican Presidential race closes, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin declared today that she is NOT running for the GOP Presidential nomination!

Is anyone really surprised? Supposedly, her loyal supporters, (who have to be considered mentally deranged), are disappointed!

But one can be sure that the Republican Party is NOT disappointed, as it was clear that they considered her a major headache and problem, a mistake made by John McCain in the 2008 Presidential Election bringing constant troubles to the party!

Just imagine if McCain had won, and we would have had Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the Presidency! If John McCain survives to January 20, 2017, it will mean that horrible nightmares about a President Palin will have been unnecessary! But If McCain leaves the scene, it will be a fresh reminder of how close we came to being faced with a total moron, a deceptive person, a phony, a manipulator, who was only out to enrich herself by exploiting stupid people who saw her as a savior, and was indeed very successful in enriching herself with her books (probably ghost written), her reality show, and her numerous highly paid speeches, all designed to DIVIDE the American people, rather than help unify the nation!

The thought of this woman in power and making economic and foreign policy and defense decisions is enough to cause one to wretch and vomit! Never has the country been so threatened by a totally unqualified candidate for national office as Sarah Palin!

Since she quit the Governorship in mid stream, and now has decided not to take on the challenge of debating fellow Republicans, an event which would prove just how empty headed she really is, we will, hopefully, never see her gain the kind of publicity she has been seeking for the past three years! She has proved just how LAZY she is, turning down the challenge of doing a REAL JOB for the first time in her life, without copping out!

Goodbye, Sarah, and GOOD RIDDANCE! Don’t come back!

A Great Campaign Line For Barack Obama In 2012: The “Romney Rule”!

A great idea that is developing as a likely campaign slogan for President Obama and the Democrats in 2012 is to use the “Buffett Rule”, also known as the “Reagan Rule”, against Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts Governor, if he ends up as the Republican nominee for President!

Romney is by far the wealthiest candidate, worth at least $250 million, and he has made it clear that he is opposed to the “Buffett Rule”, which would make millionaires and billionaires pay more than their staff members, and would be based on capital gains, not just income!

Romney, who laid off many employees as the head of Bain Capital, and has joked about being unemployed, having many Cadillacs, and boasted about increasing the size of his mansion, is against any more taxation of his wealth. despite the fact the he has paid a very low level of taxation and has seen his wealth multiply due to the Bush tax cuts.

He has also come out against the “Occupy Wall Street” movement as something dangerous, refusing to understand the purpose of the growing movement against corporate greed, which has decimated the middle class, exploiting home owners, pensioners, college students, and millions of people unemployed by the crooked, corrupt actions of Wall Street bankers and corporations!

Romney is really the exemplar of the GILDED AGE mentality, and Barack Obama is the PROGRESSIVE ERA, NEW DEAL and GREAT SOCIETY representative, and despite many who think that the Tea Party Movement, which wishes to take us back to the 19th century, is growing, in actual fact, the “Occupy Wall Street” movement could very well be the challenger to that reactionary group!

It could be the beginning of a new reform movement determined to take back the nation for the middle and lower classes, and out of the hands of the rich and powerful who have been exploiting us since the 1980s!

So utilizing what could be called the “Romney Rule” against Romney or any other Republican in the Presidential race of 2012, could be very effective as a political weapon!

Very Revealing Poll After Ten Years Of War: Many Vets Doubt Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Were Worth It!

A new poll shows that one out of three veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan doubt that the wars were worth it, and many feel it is time to cut back on foreign involvement and focus instead on our domestic problems.

This past ten years of war, marked two days from now when we first sent military forces into Afghanistan, caused the loss of 4,500 soldiers in Iraq and 1,700 in Afghanistan, $1 trillion and more in costs, and approximately 35-40 thousand wounded, many seriously!

It also allowed the corporations which engaged in the wars to make hundreds of billions of dollars on the backs of American taxpayers, and to create the budgetary crisis which helped to lead to the Great Recession, and now is being blamed by many solely on the inheritor of the problems, Barack Obama, rather than placing it where it belongs, on the backs of Republicans who controlled the government, and President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who was personally enriched by his connections to Halliburton!

The future lives of the severely wounded veterans will be a tax burden on us for the next 50-75 years, and there will be many, who while not physically injured, are emotionally and mentally harmed, and that will be a great burden on them and us as well for the long term! Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is common, and veterans feel the average American has no real understanding of what they went through and the problems they face when they come home.

With only one half of one percent of the population serving in the military, as compared to 9 percent in World War II, there is a gap in how Americans see war when they are comfortably at home, compared to those who serve.

Interestingly, half the veterans in the Pew Research Center survey express doubt that fighting terrorism with military force works, as many think it promotes hate and more terrorism!

So the longest war in US history (Afghanistan) continues, and the final withdrawal of troops from Iraq, our second longest war ever, awaits final developments!

Republican State Governments Attempting To Create Hurdles For Voting In 2012

One of the manifestations of the election in 2010 of Republican Governors and state legislatures around the nation is that they have been busy passing restrictions and hurdles on the basic right to vote, in order to discourage or prevent likely Democratic voters from being able to participate in the Presidential and Congressional races of 2012.

More than a dozen states, including Florida, have passed laws requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls, cutting down early voting periods, and putting new restrictions on voter registration drives.

About five million voters could be affected, mostly poor, young, college students, and African American, but also disabled, rural, elderly and homeless, all of whom tend to vote Democratic.

The claims of voter fraud, of people voting who are not who they say they are, has been shown to be almost totally untrue, and to have had no effect on elections, but making it more difficult to vote WILL have the effect of deciding close elections!

The Department of Justice is investigating these laws, in order to determine if they violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and it seems likely some will be overturned by such investigation, as well as by some referendums being conducted in this fall’s election.

It is not a good sign when governments try to cut back on the right to vote, particularly when it is promoted by one party against likely voters of the other party!