Complaint to YouTube-BRING BACK COLLECTIONS

Politics as Religion - Can't Fight Right Wingnuts Belief

Check out Neal Gabler's Op-Ed at:

latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gabler2-2009oct02,0,7817347.story

This direction is really scary to me.  When you can't reason with people, and you can't if they base everything on "faith", then society suffers.  What can you do?  If they are standing on the mountain waiting for the rapture from their 6000 year old earth...you can only walk past them and continue with 21st century enlightenment.  Leave them behind along with the centuries of backwards, unsophisticated, flat-earth, tin-foil hat wearing peoples.

Hopefully, our society will continue to grow and evolve in spite of them.

Right Wingnut Hysteria Over Schoolchildren "Chant"

OK…there has been some right wingnut hysteria over video of school children “chanting” about President Obama. The escaped asylum inmates (Liz Cheney, Glenn Beck, etc.) are breathlessly proclaiming the kids were being “indoctrinated”!!!

Trouble is…this video is from last February AND was part of an event during Black History Month!! It should be OK to celebrate the fact that we have evolved enough as a country and a society to elect a black president.

Obviously, not everybody has evolved - as evidenced by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Liz Cheney, et al.
And for the topper…Let‘s go back to 2006. A group of schoolchildren who survived Hurricane Katrina went to the White House and sang a song praising President Bush and FEMA, if you can believe it. Now, I didn‘t hear the righties complaining about indoctrinating children back them. I didn’t hear anyone right or left screaming about THAT.
It‘s not like the kids are out there pushing President Obama‘s political agenda. They‘re talking about equality, AND Obama didn‘t have anything to do with the performance!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

A Public Health Insurance Option – Medicare!

An op-ed appeared September 22, 2009 in the “LA Times” written by Theodore Roszak and titled, “Medicare for all”. His idea was very thought provoking and, I think, worth passing along to your representatives in Congress.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-roszak22-2009sep22,0,2423855.story

What's amazing to me is that those geniuses in Washington haven’t thought of this as the “public option”.  Well, I guess, I’m not really that amazed…
Here’s just a sample:

“Liberal defenders of President Obama's campaign for healthcare reform have tried to allay the fear that the "public option" is a scary government "takeover" of the health insurance industry by citing Medicare as a benign example of a government-funded and administered program.

One might have hoped that was common knowledge, but apparently even among those on Medicare, there are many who have no idea who's paying for their healthcare. Do they think there is a company called Medicare Inc. that has bestowed affordable healthcare on them as an act of charity?

Angry seniors rail against the government, but they cling to their Medicare with no fear that it will hire "death panels" to kill them off. Even when it is called to their attention that Medicare is a socialistic program, that fact fails to tar it as a nefarious liberal plot.

So why has it not occurred to the champions of reform that instead of telling people that the public option is "like Medicare," we might simply let the public option be Medicare? That would reduce all the complexities to one clear-cut public-option solution: Amend Medicare so that it will be available to everyone regardless of age.”

Sounds pretty logical to me…hear that Congress? Obama?

Glenn Beck of Fox News – Dangerous Rodeo Clown

At a recent social event in the community where I live, a neighbor came to me to engage in a conversation about “taking back our country”. I was speechless for several seconds (a miracle for blabber-mouth me) and responded to her comment with a question, “Why do you think our country is lost? Is it because you are not happy with having a black president?” She was quick to assure me this wasn’t it (but a few minutes later indicated she was one of those who think he may not be a legal American citizen or aka…a BIRTHER!!!) My neighbor is a lovely, educated woman and was so earnest in her concern that I didn’t have the heart to grab her and scream, “Are you nuts?” I tried to explain the birth certificate thing has been debunked and debunked and debunked and she can see it all over the web if she doesn’t believe me. It was, like Congressman Barney Frank said recently, engaging my dining room table in conversation – pointless. She went on to say she was concerned about all the big businesses and lobbyists who seem to have taken over Washington. I agreed with her take on this issue, but pointed out that Conservative Republicans are the party of big business and part of their platform is “less Government”, thus are one of the main reasons we ended up in the horrible financial meltdown mess last year due to the lack of regulations in financial markets. Of course, she didn’t see it that way. (the dining room table again?) Then she said something that explained a whole lot about our conversation. She made a comment about Glenn Beck and how she didn’t agree with everything he said, he was a very intelligent man and usually made very good points. SERIOUSLY???? I looked at her with my mouth hanging open…”He’s certifiably crazy – just like Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, etc.”, I responded. She wasn’t having any of it. (dining room table!)

People – Glenn Beck is a self-described “rodeo clown”, as quoted in an interview in the “New York Times”:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/business/media/30beck.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

"Mr. Beck says he believes every word he says on his TV show, and the radio show that he still hosts from 9  a.m. to noon each weekday.

He says that America is “on the road to socialism” and that “God and religion are under attack in the U.S.”  He recently wondered aloud whether FEMA was setting up concentration camps, calling it a rumor that he as unable to debunk.

At the same time, though, he says he is an entertainer. “I’m a rodeo clown,” he said in an interview,  adding with a coy smile, “It takes great skill.”

And like a rodeo clown, Mr. Beck incites critics to attack by dancing in front of them."

However, unlike a rodeo clown, whose job is to protect the cowboy from the angry bull, Beck waves a red flag in front of the bull to stir it up for the purpose of having the bull attack the cowboy. I think, in my humble opinion, he goes home at night and laughs his ass off about how stupid people are to believe the crap he’s spewing. He’s like some of those evangelical televangelists (without the moussed, Aqua Net sprayed pompadoured hair and gold thrones). He stands up and spews his unsubstantiated, unproved, unsupported rhetoric, gets people all riled up, including some of our most vulnerable – our senior citizens, and then rubs his hands together in glee at the high ratings and excessive money he’s making! The under-informed and Fox News obsessed are like sheep. They never question any of this crap. Beck will, however, back away and run screaming in denial, if some nutcase out there takes his garbage as truth and takes to the streets with guns. Witness the crazies carrying weapons to healthcare reform events! I’m a second amendment supporter and think we all should be allowed to own weapons, but in a responsible way.

When are the grown-up conservative Republicans going to come out from under their beds and start calling these nut cases out? Maybe there aren’t any “grown up” Republicans left.

Should the Nielson TV Rating System be Scrapped?

The Nielson TV rating system stinks. I’ve thought this for years. All anyone has to do is check out what is passing for entertainment on TV today: The Bachelor, Bridezilla, Wipeout, etc. Whenever there are good, thoughtful and entertaining shows…they die. Case in point…there was a show called “The Unusuals”. It was terrific. Funny, great characters, interesting plots…and it died after one season. Of course, I think part of the problem on this particular show was its title.

Finally, there was a recent column in the LA Times about this. Apparently there are 14 major media companies, advertisers and agencies that are teaming up in a effort to develop new methods to measure how people watch television. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-ratings11-2009sep11,0,1221042.story

I used to wonder who the heck Nielson was polling because it seemed like good shows disappeared and crap stayed on. Recently, I’ve thought they weren’t talking to those of us who watch TV via our DVR/TIVO. Besides, with something like 216 million people living in the US and they are polling only a few thousand…how accurate could they be? I know they use all sorts of mathematical gyrations to come up with their numbers, but I also know data can be manipulated any way you want it. Anyone whose taken a Marketing or Statistics class in college knows this.
Maybe it’s time to change the way this is done.

Republicans - Take Back Your Party

For full disclosure (particularly to my liberal Democrat friends), I was once a registered Republican. That’s right…me…a Republican. However, I began to disagree with the party direction while in college and my views became more liberal, so I moved to the left.

That said, I’m going to continue my comments about what is happening to the Republican party today. I’ve begun to notice that I am not alone in my belief that party is being taken over by their loudest, most extreme and paranoid elements. Case in point, in just the last couple of days I have come across comments by several others with bigger voices than mine. It’s not just from the left, but now true conservatives and GOP strategists are starting to complain about this direction. Here is just a small sampling of what I’ve discovered:

David Frum (George W’s speech writer and conservative author) has said, “There are wild accusations and the paranoid delusions coming from the fever swamps.”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gop-fringe14-2009sep14,0,940651.story

Jon Henke (GOP strategist) has begun a campaign against WorldNetDaily, which has published numerous articles giving credence to the birthplace issues. One WorldNetDaily article, which Henke called “hideously embarrassing” to conservatives, said that a Democratic proposal to create civilan emergency centers at military installations is the beginnings of concentration camps.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gop-fringe14-2009sep14,0,940651.story

Tim Rutten (columnist) wrote on the Joe Wilson rant. He said, in part, that if the talk-show/tea-party right has its way, it will convert the GOP into an almost exclusively white, zealously religious, mostly Southern party.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten12-2009sep12,0,1567292.column 

At least my little voice (or big mouth depending on who you talk to) isn’t alone in the liberal wilderness.

It's healthy for our republic to have differing voices and for our Government to run with mainly two parties. Even hair-on-fire liberals like me agree that debate is necessary for our nation to move forward. However, it's NOT debate when a South Carolina Congressman (wrong-way Joe Wilson) calls the President a liar during an address to Congress. (South Carolinians...what the hell is in your drinking water lately? Jim (Obama's Waterloo) DeMint and Governor (Don’t cry for me Argentina) Mark Sanford???) Nor is it productive. If Republicans really want to regain power in the future, they need to start marginalizing the crazy screaming paranoids (fueled by Fox Noise).

The South is hijacking the rest of the country

From the crazies crying and screaming at town hall meetings about how they want their country back - whatever THAT means - to the young woman bursting into tears on national TV at the thought that the President of the United States may actually talk to HER children about staying in school and studying hard – to governors advocating succession from the US, it's beginning to feel like the lunatics have finally taken over the asylum!!!

Birthers – Deathers – 10thers…Has anyone else noticed that a lot of these nuts seem to be mostly from the South? What IS it about that part of the country? Is it a lack of education, sophistication, knowledge outside their little neighborhoods or just their gullibility to the likes of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, who don’t give a fig about them or this country and only about their ratings and money. People only have to watch a couple of episodes of Bridezillas to see the kind of people that believe this crap. A good example is the Birther thing…Obama’s birth certificate has been shown on national TV, been authenticated by the State of Hawaii (a Republican no less), two Hawaii newspapers announced his birth, and Snopes.com and TruthDig.com among other fact-checking websites have debunked this notion. But none of these crazies will let the TRUTH get in the way of their ignorance.

This is true of the healthcare debate also. Illegal’s will get healthcare under Obama’s program is one of the lies being tossed around out there by the Fox Noise bunch and, of course, rudely shouted out by that jerk Joe Wilson during the last Presidential address to Congress!

BUT THE TRUTH IS… House Bill 3200 specifically says, in language made precise and binding — in section 246 —under the heading: “NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS." All capital letters! For the benefit of the factually-challenged! "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."

Under a limited provision of Medicaid, the national health program for the poor, the federal government permits emergency coverage for illegal immigrants and other noncitizens and this is PAID FOR BY ALL OF US.

But the ill-informed again don’t let the truth get in the way…and most of it is coming from the South – and they’re proud of it – even if it goes against their own self interest. The rest of us need to quit letting a few loud-mouths who get the most media attention to drive this ship!! Otherwise they will drive it into an iceberg.

Remember folks…you are one job away from losing your healthcare benefit (unless you’re on Medicare or VA – both Government programs) and if you lose your insurance you are one serious illness away from complete financial ruin!

My new blog! Yeah!

Today is the start of my first blog and I’ll begin with why I really, really needed to do this.

I've been driving my friends and family crazy with my "hair-on-fire" rantings about anything and everything, especially when it comes to political stupidity. I'm a liberal Democrat (except when it comes to guns - I'm all for them) and ever since the pre-election months, I've been appalled at the nonsense coming from the right-wing (OMG we have a Black President and we can't stand it) Republican bat-crap crazy, Fox Noise watching wing-nuts. My dog is going to have a nervous breakdown if I don’t quit screaming at my TV when I see and hear these idiots.

There is nothing wrong with social discourse, even passionate discourse. But when people start screaming at town hall meetings JUST to keep others from exercising their right to free speech, it becomes too much.

I despised George Bush and was furious when he took us into an unnecessary war, but I never called him Hitler or tried to infer he wasn’t born in this country. Nor would I have supported any member of Congress who would have done so. Now we have people who are suppose to be running our country agreeing with their constituents when they claim Obama was born in Kenya (HELLO!!! Hawaii folks…Hawaii) and lying about what is in health care reform legislation. It’s obscene. Free speech is great, but a lie is a lie is a lie. Every time I see and hear these people doing this (think Sarah Palin and her “death panels”, I want to scream. So from now on, I will call them out in this blog (among other musings).

So this is the start of a new endevour...