Trump Supporters

The Real Eric Greitens, Part IV

And this may be one of my, to date, favorite "real Eric Greitens" videos out there. It's not good quality video since it's video of a video on someone's television but it gets the message across.


To borrow a phrase, "I'm lovin' it."

2016: The Year Guns Took Over Election Campaigns

It really does seem as though this campaign year, 2016, has been the year guns, somehow, inexplicably, took over in our election campaigns. They've nothing whatever to do with the office the candidate is running for but there they are, the men, the boys and their guns.

This was the first one I was aware of locally, here in Missouri. Mr. Eric Greitens, former Navy Seal--he wants to make sure you know--goes out in the countryside and "blows things up real good."


As if that weren't enough, unfortunately, a candidate I'm for very recently--just this week, I believe--released this video.


I ask you, what does assembling an automatic weapon, especially one meant for the battlefield, have to do with running a government, a bureacracy efficiently, intelligently and at small a cost as possible?  The boys seem to have to have their guns and show them off.

Tell me we're not getting more stupid.

This seems to be further proof, further reason More Women Need to Lead the World.

The Real Eric Greitens, Part I

I'm loving all the "real Eric Greitens" ads that are coming out. Here's the first.



I love this spoof.

Another Scary, Right Wing Republican Candidate, Part II

There doesn't seem to be a shortage, especially this election year, of very, again, scary Right Wing Republican candidates running for office both statewide and nationally. Here, absolutely, is yet one more.


If he isn't a former military pretty boy who wants to wear--and is--his scary, nationalistic patriotism on his sleeve, then I don't breath air. He makes vague promises of "change" in his ads and that he will help us "take America back" but makes no specific policy stands whatever in all the ads of his I've seen.


Check out this headline from Mr. "I'm Going To Do Things Differently":

Eric Greitens Nabs Single Largest 

Campaign Contribution in Missouri History

And then check out this little beauty. He frequently describes himself as a government "outsider." Yeah, he's outside government, all right. Heck, he's outside Missouri.

Greitens' campaign mostly funded 

by non-Missouri donors

What's scary is that, besides being obviously handsome which, unfortunately, can get people like him votes, he's also a Rhodes Scholar, so he's clearly bright, but also, as mentioned a million times, at least, a former Navy Seal. That's one Hell of a package for an opposing candidate to go up against.

Vote blue, Missouri. Vote blue but vote.

On the Death of the Republican Party (Guest Post)

From Professor/economist/commentator/writer Robert Reich and his Facebook page today:

I’m writing to you today to announce the death of the Republican Party. It is no longer a living, vital, animate organization. It has been replaced by warring tribes of rightwing zealots – evangelicals opposed to abortion, gay marriage, and science; libertarians opposed to any government constraint on private behavior; market fundamentalists convinced the “free market” can do no wrong; corporate and Wall Street titans seeking bailouts, corporate welfare, tax cuts, and deregulation; right-wing billionaires wanting more of the nation’s wealth than they own already; and white working-class Trumpoids who love Donald and hate Muslims, blacks, and Mexicans.

Each tribe has its own organization, its own sources of campaign funding, its own ideology, and its own candidates. What’s left is a lifeless shell called the Republican Party, but the Grand Old Party inside the shell is no more.

I, for one, regrets its passing. Our nation needs political parties to connect up different groups of Americans and to sift through prospective candidates. Without a Republican Party, there’s nothing standing between us and a bunch of liars, bigots, egomaniacs, and creeps who decide on their own to seek the Republican nomination president.

___________________________________

What I resent most about the groups Professor Reich mentions above are the "...right-wing billionaires wanting more of the nation’s wealth than they own already..."    

They're the worst.  As I've written before, on people like the Koch brothers:  born millionaires, now billionaires.      And they want more.

What concerns me most, as we see the Republican Party self-destruct before our very eyes, is the political and power vacuum it will surely create.

We wouldn't want what comes after to be worse than the mess the Republican Party is and has been since around the end of our Civil War.

Right Wing Crazy From Last Weekend

The following things were spewed just this last weekend from these 6 Right Wing crazies.

Do me a favor.  Don't tell me the 2 political parties are the same.

Obama's Coming to Take Our Guns!

From Phoenix this week:

2008: Obama's coming to take our guns!

2009: Obama's coming to take our guns!

2010: Obama's coming to take our guns!

2011: Obama's coming to take our guns!

2012: Obama's coming to take our guns!

2013: Obama's coming to take our guns!

2014: Obama's coming to take our guns!

2015: Obama's coming to take our guns!

It got tiresome the second year they said it.

We knew it was stupid the first year, the first time they said it. The second year, it was already old.

Important Article on Race Today

Columnist/economist Paul Krugman penned an excellent, even important article in the New York Times that was released today.

Slavery's Long Shadow

...racial hatred is still a potent force in our society, as we’ve just been reminded to our horror. And I’m sorry to say this, but the racial divide is still a defining feature of our political economy, the reason America is unique among advanced nations in its harsh treatment of the less fortunate and its willingness to tolerate unnecessary suffering among its citizens. 

Of course, saying this brings angry denials from many conservatives, so let me try to be cool and careful here, and cite some of the overwhelming evidence for the continuing centrality of race in our national politics. 

My own understanding of the role of race in U.S. exceptionalism was largely shaped by two academic papers. 

The first, by the political scientist Larry Bartels, analyzed the move of the white working class away from Democrats, a move made famous in Thomas Frank’s “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” Mr. Frank argued that working-class whites were being induced to vote against their own interests by the right’s exploitation of cultural issues. But Mr. Bartels showed that the working-class turn against Democrats wasn’t a national phenomenon — it was entirely restricted to the South, where whites turned overwhelmingly Republican after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Richard Nixon’s adoption of the so-called Southern strategy

And this party-switching, in turn, was what drove the rightward swing of American politics after 1980. Race made Reaganism possible. And to this day Southern whites overwhelmingly vote Republican, to the tune of 85 or even 90 percent in the deep South. 

The second paper, by the economists Alberto Alesina, Edward Glaeser, and Bruce Sacerdote, was titled “Why Doesn’t the United States Have a European-style Welfare State?” Its authors — who are not, by the way, especially liberal — explored a number of hypotheses, but eventually concluded that race is central, because in America programs that help the needy are all too often seen as programs that help Those People: “Within the United States, race is the single most important predictor of support for welfare. America’s troubled race relations are clearly a major reason for the absence of an American welfare state.”

Just this, above, a portion of the article points out truths, sure, but also ends up being quite an indictment of Republicans in general, the Republican Party itself and much of the Right Wing in this country.

I believe there will be 3 reactions to the article.

First, there will be the Right Wingers and Republicans who deny it completely, out of hand, immediately.

The second group will never see or so, be able to consider these points.

Finally, there will be a small, tiny, even number of these people who read the article and accept its truths.

We have a long, long way to go in America, regarding race and wealth and poverty, that's certain.

Quote of the Day -- Sunday Edition

People Who Should Just Go Away

I don't mean anything bad or awful should happen to them but honestly, they should just go away.

Mitt Romney

George W. Bush

Dick Cheney (should have happened years ago)

Both Koch brothers

Donald Trump

All the Walton siblings

Chris Christie

Carly Fiorina

Rand Paul.

Rick Perry

Ted Cruz (see a trend here?)

Mike Huckabee (from Arkansas)

Senator Tom Cotton (also from Arkansas)

Bill O'Reilly.

Rush Limbaugh.

Sean Hannity.

Steve Doofus. Doocy. Whatever.

Ray Romano (just because he's so incredibly dull)

I'd say Jay Leno but thankfully, he did go away

Climate change deniers

Obama haters

Haters, period

NRA President Wayne LaPierre

Racists (but that's an easy one)

People who scream, fixatedly, about the nation's deficit

Single-issue people (again, this could be people fixated on the national deficit or abortion or whatever)

The overly emotional

The icy cold, eartless bastards of the world

All the Kardashians (there's more than one, right?)

Kanye West

Anne Coulter (absolutlely)

Rudy Giuliani

Sheriff Joe Arapaio

Megyn Kelly

Rupert Murdoch

Pat Robertson (the crazy, greedy, rich old bastard)

Anyone who doesn't bring intelligence or laughter or kindness--at least one--to the world

Quote of the day -- and a Warning

On Hillary Rodham Clinton and Her Likely Juggernaut

Suddenly, all of a sudden, the foregone conclusion that Hillary Rodham Clinton is going to run for the presidency of the United States is here and done and the game is in play.

And even though it was a foregone conclusion, suddenly, I have to say, I am excited.

Hillary Clinton Laid a Clever Trap For Republicans

Also foregone is that the Republicans are going nuts and they are going to continue to do so.

And here's the big fact on Hillary's run for the presidency--and what the Republicans are going to do until November, 2016:

"Instead of coming back with their own positive vision for America and actually arguing issues, Republicans will come back with attacks."

And sure, Hillary is no Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders but she's smart, she's tested and she's electable.

She's also not one of these guys:

And then, to make it better, you see some headlines like this:

Bill Kristol floats Dick Cheney as “the most promising” of possible 2016 GOP candidates

And then there's beauties like this:

Mike Huckabee: ‘God’s blessing’ will make me president

It just keeps getting better and better.

Far too many in the Right Wing and US

Three Country Western Stars, on President Obama

First, Tim McGraw:

“It’s innate in me to be a blue-dog Democrat. I’m not saying I’m right or wrong, but that’s what I am,” he told People. “My wife and I and our family will do everything we can to support Obama. I like his ideas, I like his energy, and I like the statement he would make for our country to the world.”

Then there's Republican Garth Brooks:

"Yeah, I think what President Obama is finding out is all that we want to do, the system kind of doesn't allow the most powerful guy in the world to kind of do his job and I'm sure nobody's more frustrated than him to complete those promises that he did and I think he's trying his heart out. I love him to death and I fully support him and I just wish him well because it's got to be hell in that office."

And then, finally, for those "of a certain age" or who just know their country music, there's Merle "Okee from Muskogee" Haggard:

It’s really almost criminal what they do with our President. There seems to be no shame or anything. They call him all kinds of names all day long, saying he’s doing certain things that he’s not. It’s just a big old political game that I don’t want to be part of. There are people spending their lives putting him down. I’m sure some of it’s true and some of it’s not. I was very surprised to find the man very humble and he had a nice handshake. His wife was very cordial to the guests and especially me. They made a special effort to make me feel welcome. It was not at all the way the media described him to be.

A Warning to this new Congress

Wait for it...

OMG: The Tea Party and I Agree On Something?

I didn't think this could, let alone would happen. I ran across something the Tea Party and I agree on:

Tea party fumes over campaign finance plan

Activists see high dollar limits as a power grab by GOP establishment

From the article: 

Tea party activists are attacking a campaign finance rider in the $1.1 trillion spending bill that they view as a sneaky power grab by establishment Republicans designed to undermine outside conservative groups.

The provision would increase the amount of money a single donor could give to national party committees each year from $97,200 to as much as $777,600 by allowing them to set up different funds for certain expenses. The change would be a huge boost for party committees that have faced steep challenges in recent years from well-funded outside groups.

Yes, it surprised me. But actually, it shouldn't. I have said for a long time, in my campaign to educate Americans on campaign contributions, that we need to  Get the Big, Ugly Money Out of Our Election System and Government and that the only way to do so was/is to kill campaign contributions. Unequivocally. And I've always thought and said most all Americans agree on this, too. Well, unless they're fatcat Republicans. Or wealthy. Or someone high up and well paid in a corporation.

But the Republicans see the big money as on their side since, as we've seen in the last 50 years, they consistently and repeatedly write and propose legislation that is for the wealthy and corporations---their donors---and not for the American people, not for the nation. They don't do any of the sort for the middle class, the lower class or the working people of the country. They just don't. Heck, there's no big money in it.

So rather than cut campaign contributions, or even keep them the same, they keep opening more and yet more floodgates of cash. All for themselves. What was the Citizens United ruling but just one more example? And that came from the US Supreme Court, not Congress.

The Tea Party grew out of the Republican Party and they've been a nightmare, let there be no mistake about it. Too often, they've been seen and shown to be racist, in public, with their signs and they are the extreme of the extreme in the Right Wing of the nation. But on this, they--we--see clearly. The Republicans are trying still more to have it all their way or the highway, especially with cash, especially with money, the big money, in campaign contributions.

And these Republicans don't want anyone to get in their way. Not the other political party, not the current, sitting president, not even the Right Wing of their own party.

Heck, they don't even want the nation to get in the way of their own needs and wants.

America be damned.

One of America's Biggest Political Problems

I've subconsciously thought and felt this about us, about America and Americans for some time. I got to thinking about it this past Sunday afternoon and put it in words. We read about the polarization of the nation, politically and economically and it seems our minds are already made up. We have our opinions, facts be damned, and we're extremely sincere and even emotional about these opinions. The "other side"--or really, anyone who doesn't agree with us---are only to be dismissed or even demonized.

We used to talk to one another. We used to discuss. We used to try to both recognize and evaluate problems and then go further and come to shared conclusions and solutions.

We don't do that any more.

And this is no way to run a country.

We need to get back to being Americans.

All of us.


The hippies were right.

Pressure Building for the Nation's Infrastructure--and Maybe for the People

It does seem as if finally,finally pressure may be building in our media for some kind of infrastructure bill from this Congress.

And let's face it, the only way this is going to happen is if the people are for it and if it's reflected in our media.

Here's the first indicator. I saw it yesterday:

America's rotting empire: Billionaires galore and a crumbling infrastructure

More proof we're in rapid decline: Not a single U.S. city currently ranks among the world's most livable

America has the most billionaires in the world, but not a single U.S. city ranks among the world’s most livable cities. Not a single U.S. airport is among the top 100 airports in the world. Our bridges, road and rail are falling apart, and our middle class is being guttered out thanks to three decades of stagnant wages, while the top 1 percent enjoys 95 percent of all economic gains.

A rigged tax code and a bloated military budget are starving the federal and state governments of the revenue it needs to invest in infrastructure, which means today America looks increasingly like a second rate nation, and now new data shows America’s intellectual resources are also in decline.

For the past three decades, the Republican Party has waged a dangerous assault on the very idea of public education. Tax cuts for the rich have been balanced with spending cuts to education. During the New Deal era of the 1940s to 1970s, public schools were the great leveler of America. They were our great achievement. It was universal education for all, but today it’s education for those fortunate enough to be born into wealthy families or live in wealthy school districts. The right’s strategy of defunding public education leaves parents with the option of sending their kids to a for-profit school or a theological school that teaches kids our ancestors kept dinosaurs as pets.

“What kind of future society the defectors from the public school rolls envision I cannot say. However, having spent some time in the Democratic Republic of Congo—a war-torn hellhole with one of those much coveted limited central governments, and, not coincidentally, a country in which fewer than half the school-age population goes to public school—I can say with certainty that I don’t want to live there,” writes Chuck Thompson in Better off Without Em.

Then, this Sunday evening, CBS News' "60 Minutes" is doing a segment, thank goodness, on America's crumbling infrastructure. However long overdue, at least they're finally doing it now:

Is the United States falling apart? Roads and bridges are crumbling, airports are out of date, and the vast majority of seaports are in danger of becoming obsolete. All the result of decades of neglect. Tune in Sunday for Steve Kroft's #60Minutes report on America's infrastructure:

Preview: Falling Apart - 60 Minutes Videos

60 Minutes Video - The roads and bridges Americns drive

So here's to hope. Here's to the idea that we're coming to a time and place where we, the people "get it" and so, demand more, far more, from our government and representative in government.

Hopefully we can get these jobs, the improvements and updates to our infrastructure and the boost the economy needs, all three. And naturally, the sooner the better (from this do-nothing, "sue the President" Congress).

It shouldn't all just be for the wealthy and corporations.