Tag Archives: Republican

~ my 2cents ...

TGIF &some News


just another rant … long

The word of the day is stifling … It is winter yet the first week of January brought the NW 50degrees and some sun shine then a lot of sleet, wind and more wind to last me a while.  Our temps had been 30degrees since October and gotta say this warm, cold and or freezing thing one day here there only to have 3″ of rain sun and 50 on the other days is just odd …and as if somebody said hey … It’s winter the temp dropped and we are back down into the 3o’s …Can we just All accept that global warming exists. Therefore, we will call this Climate Change.

Anyway, it is a good time to breathe in slowly, reach up to the sky, and breathe out through your nose very slowly while letting your arms lower to your sides. Repeat as needed …

Yes, there is a lot of stuff going on all over the World that could and probably will ultimately affect us all and it is not just climate change -dang, and it is only the first week of January.  It is sad to say nothing is going on in Congress, the place where lawmakers …make laws that help keep our Democracy functioning but has been somewhat of a failure lately.  I know i am not alone in saying … thank goodness President Obama has ALL Americans in his mind and heart and was willing to do what was right, what we all used to believe was the job of Congress but Teapublican members of both Chambers have misused abused and probably signed a Pledge with the decision to slow down progress with less time spent Session.

Americans are not stupid, we see what Teapublicans are doing …limiting and tying the hands of our Elected President and governing Party that 53% voted them in to do….Govern

 Some folks say it is about time President Obama used his executive powers while others said yeah sure but he did not go far enough or why did he wait for so long. I like to think there are more folks like me  who have stayed tuned in and see a verbal and paper trail that needed to be laid out given the brinksmanship that broke out say the 1st day President Obama took office.  Can’t lie, I wanted the Democratic Party to hit the ground running , be bold be brave move some stuff through both Chambers of Congress but here we are three years later and I’m still wondering where when and why they have yet to go bold. Hell, who are these people is more like it; who knew our own party was strange.  I will also admit I take quite personally what happened prior to the midterm elections and afterward.  What I saw was a bunch of members so distracted by the possibilities of losing their seats that they left just elected President Obama blowing in the wind, some still holding onto Hilliary grudges, others race issues and some just on the extreme side period. I blame Congress for not getting our economy back on track sooner but what better way to be slapped into a rude awakening after Mitch McConnell shocked us all and told the truth … That his job was to make Barack Obama a one term President.  Reality … “they want their country back”    ok, 53% voted for Barack Obama and  excuse me but who exactly are “they” who want “their country back” and what the hell does that mean anyway … ok, i know but hey i am still ranting about that and FYI lefties he is not a King though if you listen to matt damon and some others he wants his mandate implemented  …or he will oh wait he had the melt down right … where is that school house rock vid when you need it …  … oh wait … enjoy …matt damon should watcht this  O ;

    http://youtu.be/3eeOwPoayOk

 <<< click on link for  … school house rock i’m just a bill

 So, the journey toward progress has been slow but not impossible and as the months went by and Teapublicans filibustered more and more people began to have some sort of distorted view of just exactly what a President does and how he does it.   I had this … go big go bold or go home attitude toward Congress because 53% wanted big bold changes for all Americans. I still have the audacity to have hope to make big changes but I have realized that our diverse group of dems can also self-sabotage our progress and this is so sad. The Democratic Party even with all the filibusters has accomplished some great stuff in Congress …

This week, President Obama has made some executive orders that will help consumers  and has been absent for at least a year because Teapublicans have managed to block the nomination 2 Obama Admin Agency heads for the CFPB for almost if not longer than a year, appointing nominees to the NLRB and 180,000 summer job programs for our youth. We all know President Obama, ridiculed by the left for not using his executive powers and by the right for being in power period.  Thankfully, he has decided to use his executive power by exercising his right to recess appointments for Mr. Cordray, in charge of the CFPB and three NLRB board members to take care of worker rights, which is a no brainer while Teapublicans have come out in outrage. I wonder if their staff is telling them to stand down because y’all words can be played back and expose the truth … That union; women, children, minorities, vets, worker, and gay rights are and would be at risk if we let Teapublicans gain control. I guess my attitude upset some people.

I received a comment on my blog some time ago, which I totally love and hope others will as well but I wanted to share the question because it was a good one …I am no expert I just have a lot to say… good bad and sometimes really bad; Anyway here it is: what is wrong with capitalism? People want to start companies and make money and be profitable, and people like you have a problem with that, why? You also have a problem with people wanting to limit government spending and ending socialized programs. They are trying to do smart things to make this country prosperous again, and yet you think they are extremists. If you can explain this to me, I would appreciate it.

My response was that I have absolutely nothing against capitalism with a small c but the big C and D that brought us this economic crisis represents Capitalism and Deregulation that was so out of control gotta wonder what was their definition of good  “self-regulating.”  How can anyone accept what happened as par for the course as Teapublicans seem to , if  Wall Street, the oil, insurance and gas companies lack of regulation led to dabbling and or using other people’s money to bet on stocks that had no value. Teapublicans bet and lost most if not all of our $$ and here we are. I believe that people invest their earnings with the idea of trusting folks who say they know what they are doing…example a 401k and yes it is a risk but that risk is or should not be corrupted. In addition, as far as having a problem with people wanting limited government.  I think having limited government depends on the status of our economy and who is governing it. I know that before President Obama was elected we all found  out the house of Bush had a financial crisis and instead of cooperating with the governing power Teapublicans decided to throw Americans under the bus vote NO on legislation that probably would have made a significant impact on the state of our economy. We the people wanted to do big things hoping Congress would throw $$ at a big problem but again Teapublicans and conservadems said NO to the notion and or idea of big government programs or stimulus while behind the scenes they were all asking for more stimulus money.

I am still trying to understand how Republicans were able to get away with not just threatening or saying they will not help unless you give us what we want but our Democratic Party seemed to have a passive aggressive reaction. Clearly ,it was reckless behavior and if it weren’t for government programs the Gulf Coast would not exist; and what would your neighborhood look like without Teachers, Cops, Emts, First responders because they are all government jobs; Republicans keep doing whatever they can to ruin President Obama  by offering up no solutions no viable plans of substance no details. People act like all this spending would happen whether the economy collapse or not …that is just not so -and it is sad offensive and typical that the Media and folks on the right are promoting this nonsense. The problem we had needed a huge sum of money thrown at it but the Republican Tea Party has been the spoiler…the obstacle and the blame if things get worse and I will admit there are some conservadems to blame as well. I wanted someone to ask … when Bush knew we were headed for an economic collapse and why Bush did not head off the collapse off at the pass before the 2008 election can be debated. The other questions we should all ask are … why not pay for the 2wars waged and the 2tax cuts. The last guy screwed us and the fix takes both sides of the aisle and that is not happening … I blame Republicans.
As far as ending socialized programs or limiting government.

 I believe a woman should have the right to choose and if a law is needed, the Hyde amendment is the current law and should be enough for everyone.  Yet, most conservatives believe they have the right to tell me what to do with my body and yes, I believe that the people who are able and willing to build an Islamic center should be given the chance to help the community and just to remind you, not all Muslim Americans are terrorist, they can be Caucasian, African American, and Asian too. The new attacks on women, children, and worker rights are a great warning to all and any notion to manipulate the 14th Amendment should scare those of us with dark skin or who look reasonable suspicious …oh and don’t forget gays or straights who support gay marriage and religious freedom.

Makes you wonder what year it is.

 Other News …

Pres. Obama, Top Defense Leaders Release Military Strategy Report

Commerce Secretary John Bryson on the Economy

House Dems Discuss Payroll Tax Conference Committee

CFPB Director Richard Cordray in His First Day on the Job

Wisc. Governor Discusses Budget Reforms

Sen. McCain Endorses Mitt Romney

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

This race is officially on — Jim Messina, BarackObama.com


2012

Friend —

These Republican candidates spent in some cases more than a year — in Mitt Romney‘s case seven years — campaigning in Iowa to be the next president.

But tonight, GOP voters there couldn’t decisively get behind anyone.

Who exactly leads the Republican race going forward isn’t clear, but we do know two things:

1) The extremist Tea Party agenda won a clear victory. No matter who the Republicans nominate, we’ll be running against someone who has embraced that agenda in order to win — vowing to let Wall Street write its own rules, end Medicare as we know it, roll back gay rights, leave the troops in Iraq indefinitely, restrict a woman’s right to choose, and gut Social Security to pay for more tax cuts for millionaires and corporations.

2) We’ll be facing an onslaught of unprecedented spending from outside groups funded by corporations and anonymous donors. In Iowa alone, so-called “super PACs” spent $12.9 million on almost exclusively negative ads. These groups will turn their fire even more directly on us in the weeks ahead to prove that their candidate is the most anti-Obama.

This race is officially on — and if we want to win, the only way is to out-organize them on the ground.

Sign up to volunteer your time now, and one of our organizers in your community will give you a call by the end of next week to talk about how you can help.

Many observers still think Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee. If he is, we will be prepared. But it’s curious that no one can really explain how, when or why the 70-plus percent of Republicans saying in polls and in Iowa that Mitt Romney’s not their candidate will suddenly come around.

So the path ahead for Romney — or whichever of the Republican candidates is going to emerge from this process — is sadly and starkly very clear: to run even further to the extreme right, and make even more dangerous promises that threaten not only the progress we’ve made but the fundamental fabric of American society.

We also know that candidates who take these extreme positions can, in the right circumstances, win not only a primary but also a general election in just about any state.

Just ask the Tea Party senators from Pennsylvania and Kentucky, and the Tea Party governors in Florida and Wisconsin.

Watching the circus on TV, it’s tempting to think it’s almost funny — but this is not a joke.

We’ve got to be ready.

What you decide to do next will determine which kind of politics wins this election:

http://my.barackobama.com/After-Iowa

More soon.

Messina

Jim Messina
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

a message from Nancy Pelosi … incredible news


Because of generous and committed supporters like you, we made history.

For the first time ever, we are entering the election year with 500,000 grassroots contributors standing behind us.

 It’s clear that Democrats are more united and determined than ever before in our fight to win the House Majority, re-elect President Obama, and respond to House Republicans’ extreme and reckless agenda.

 Your generous contributions helped us shatter our year-end $1 million Republican Accountability Fund goal. We will put your dollars to work immediately in our effort to hold Republicans accountable with targeted advertising, rapid response research, and grassroots organizing.

 Thank you for your generous, record-breaking support. Onward to more Democratic victories in 2012!

 Nancy Pelosi

~ my 2cents ...

towrah Tuesday &some News


just another rant … revived

Failed Promises

Like what we are experiencing under the Republican controlled House of Representatives versus change to or a redirection of promises that President Obama has had to make on numerous occasions. It is obvious the two situations are quite different. The first two years of the Obama Admin the Republican Tea Party spent most of their time on the floor of Congress saying no, blocking, making the Democratic Party scale back or run away from legitimate bills that party of NO attached felonious amendments to that no member of Congress could in good conscious vote for. In the weeks and months following these just say no votes,  Americans in Public Service began losing jobs and the unemployment rate increased and will continue; Republicans without remorse started calling the unemployed lazy, unmotivated and if all else failed they should ask for charity. We have 2012 candidates running for President that are even less compassionate for those who are unemployed underemployed or in that 99%. Corporations are people too and if you are not rich? Well, that is on you.

 The ultimate show of privileged behavior is when Republicans decided to hold the middle class hostage while demanding the bush bonus dollars be made permanent, under the guise of that top 2% being the job creators.  The campaign for the midterm elections considered an off year usually gets few voters out to vote though in what definitely is a first of many firsts in the Obama’s Presidency, the midterms were important to all Americans looking back. Yet, folks did the same ole same, some opted out on purpose and even more voted right of center on purpose. That is beyond my understanding but the whole notion of teaching a President a lesson is the one of the worse reasons to vote against your best interest. While most know the outcome of the midterm elections, I think that many people do not understand what truly happened. President Obama said he got shellacked and would try to make a move to be more bipartisan, though senator McConnell said if he wants us to consider compromise he would have to do, say and act like we want him to and on conservative airwaves McConnell said his job was to make Obama a one term President. The midterm elections were bad for everyone and as the months moved along buyer’s remorse set in though it took way too long for me. For the last three years, Americans have been hearing Republicans say that we need to create jobs. Mr. Boehner and his comrades definitely used the jobs, jobs, jobs slogan to win the House of Representatives in 2010. Sadly, these carpetbaggers have been waving one hand in the air while using the other to attack, slash, cut, and burn every effort to get our economy back on track.

Yes, President Obama did promise change and he has kept over half of them, he also stated that he could not make changes alone … we all would have to participate. That comment is a hard reality given the crap that the Republican Tea Party keeps pulling out of somewhere disguised with them saying they are listening to what Americans want. That claim is a proven falsehood, the promises the Republican Tea Party has made repeatedly has or …could put us at risk.

I certainly feel our country is at risk with failed promises, reckless and or provocative rhetoric but contrary to what we hear in the news …  it is definitely coming from Teapublican members of Congress and Governors.

 I still have the Audacity of hope and change …

Other News …

C-SPAN’s Coverage of Iowa Caucuses Begins at 7pm ET

Rick Perry Ends Campaign Day in Perry, Iowa

Rick Santorum Ends Day Before Caucuses in Altoona, Iowa

Mitt Romney Holds Final Rally on Day Before Caucuses

Ron Paul Tours 5 Cities on Last Day of Iowa Campaign

Newt Gingrich Works for Final Votes in Iowa

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Talks About Military Cuts

DHS Secretary Napolitano Discusses International Partnerships

Mitt Romney Interviewed by Iowa Newspaper

Rick Perry Interviewed by Iowa Newspaper

White House Briefing with Jay Carney

Panel on Obama Is a “Teflon President”

House GOP Discuss Payroll Tax

Rep. Nancy Pelosi News Conference

~ pop culture

The worst of 2011 Top 10 TV Shows Movies and Songs … Pop Culture


AlterNet / ByJulianne Escobedo Shepherd

 

10 Pop Monstrosities That Almost Destroyed Our Culture in 2011

Here are the worst TV shows, movies, and songs of 2011.
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 Every year, things go down in pop culture that seem to signal the coming armageddon — like offensive and popular reality shows, for instance — and we wonder, could it possibly get worse? And every year, it does. We could list 2011 terrible things in American culture this year and not even come close to completing the list, so for brevity’s sake, here are the top 10 worst things that happened in pop culture this year. May 2012 have fewer of them.

 

 

1. Movie: Atlas Shrugged, Part 1

Even if this movie wasn’t predicated on dismal Rand-worship and probably the most tedious/annoying book of her career, it’s bad based on sheer artistry. Set in the dystopian near-future of 2016, it bumps up against every dramatic action film cliche imaginable, a Tea Party fingerpainting of corporate greed. That said, this movie is AMAZING in its hilarity, possibly the best unintentionally humorous American film since National Treasure, with all the requisite deep melodrama and overacting that is somehow also stiff. It’s terrible but a pleasure to watch, particularly when you consider that with all the rich libertarians in the world, no one could pool their money for better talent! Haha.

2. Documentary: The Undefeated

If Sarah Palin’s fawning, lionizing documentary weren’t crafted for the sole purpose of revising her career and casting her in a noble light, the tale of how it came to be might have been funny: gleaming fanboy Stephen K. Bannon piles compliments on his feckless heroine, his love blinding him to her mishaps. It almost deserves a Mel Brooks script—only it’s real, and the Palin faithful brought in around $75k the first week in only 10 theaters. The Palin hustle has quieted down a bit, but expect this to be trotted out as evidence of her wondrousness closer to the election (and as absurd GOP candidates mention her as a potential running mate). It’s just depressing that it requires actual political propaganda to get her there.

3. TV Miniseries: “The Kennedys”

What was up with propagandist revisionism this year? The intensely reviled recasting of the Camelot era was so full of historical inaccuracies that Brave New Films launched a successful effort to keep the History Channel from airing it. With Greg Kinnear as JFK and Katie Holmes as Jackie, the whole piece was criticized as wholesale character assassination, hand in hand with the strange conservative impulse to cast JFK as somehow evil. And they didn’t even use the incriminating Jackie tapes!

4. Reality Show: “Toddlers and Tiaras”

Hitfix called it “a clarion call for a Social Services intervention,” and was it ever. Eager and often deluded moms entering their mostly reluctant tiny, tiny daughters into beauty pageants and stage-momming them into internalizing the princess premium before they can really utter words with three syllables. If the ghost of JonBenet Ramsey doesn’t loom over this show for you in a disturbing way, perhaps some of the choice things moms say to their children will, such as one mom telling her eight-year-old to shake her butt around, but not too much “like a stripper.” Ugh.

5. Novel: Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris

It’s unfortunate that an author with the imagination of Charlaine Harris can apparently only make her work more interesting by adding an endless stream of fantastical characters, rather than making said characters do more interesting things. The creator of Sookie Stackhouse, upon which HBO’s popular “True Blood” is based, Harris is up to book 11 in the series, and it might be time to pack it in (or at least create a spin-off). Add this to tossed-off and confusing plot elements that mess around with continunity and logic (many longtime fans have accused Harris of not actually reading the books in her own series), and you have a beach read that’s more frustrating and convoluted than light and fun.

6. Song (and video!): Bruno Mars, “The Lazy Song”

Stumbling over himself to be viewed as America’s least threatening nice guy, Bruno Mars reached the point of pure banality with “The Lazy Song,” which sounds delivered straight from a can. An accomplishment, at least, in that he became the most innocuous person of the year, but even the tempo was boring with “The Lazy Song.” Add a cutesy and inexplicable band of monkeys wearing Wayfarers in the video and it’s like a pipe bomb that, upon explosion, politely delivers a full-scale affront to the senses.

7. Musical Group: Lady Antebellum

Aside from the obvious—that the group’s name fetishizes an era in which black people were enslaved—this year the Nashville trio released Own the Night, an album that was completely offensive in its non-offensiveness. Ciphoning any semblance of personality until it was an opaque wisp of music, it thrived on cliche lyrics, boring harmonies, terrible interludes and completely generic everything. The musical equivalent of being inside a shopping mall, the place that varies only slightly no matter where you are in the world, Own the Night is an attempt to whitewash its own world into empty vertigo. Horrifying.

8. Twilight Movie: Breaking Dawn, Part 1

Going into the movie adaptations of Stephenie Meyer’s ridiculously popular vampire love stories, we knew they were highly Christian, but Breaking Dawn is too much: an entire (pretty long!) treatise that basically says sex is 1) only for married people; and 2) for the sole purpose of procreation and abortion is never, ever an option, even if it means the mother is going to die. Pro-life to the point of squeamishness, and even the gorgeous visage of Rob Pattinson couldn’t take away the sting.

9. Non-Reality Television Show: “Last Man Standing” (ABC)

There was a lot of competition for this category in 2011: The short-lived, regressive Playboy Club; the incredibly racist and blogger-cutesy 2 Broke Girls; the ridiculous bro-show Man Up, which reached the infantilized nadir of the Peter Pan syndrome comedy wrought by Judd Apatow and his ilk. But nothing was more offensive, less funny, and more harmful to every gender and sexual orientation than Last Man Standing, the Tim Allen vehicle based on the premise that traditional masculinity is being bled out by independent women and femme-y men, whose proliferation is ripping apart the fabric of tradition and ruining a world where manly (white) men rule.

When he’s not trying to decipher the arcane and impenetrable language of women, he’s ascribing his masculinity to things that are frankly unisex (such as sports) and mocking as somehow emasculated men who prefer, for instance, Mel Gibson’s romantic movies over his violent ones. Aside from the feeling that the misogynists writing this show are of the he-man, woman-haters club variety, they also seem not funny at all.

10. Dramatic Moment of Outrage from Right-Wingers: Parents Television Council on Janet Jackson Nipplegate

The Parents Television Council is a source of endless, paranoid hilarity of handwringing over relatively minor infractions on TV, but one point was the funniest this year: when it responded in outrage over the accidental exposure of Janet Jackson’s breast on the 2004 Superbowl halftime. In November, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a fine was not necessary for the incident, which as anyone who’s seen it knows, was clearly an accident (unless Jackson and Justin Timberlake are such exceptional actors they can register pure horror before an entire stadium midway through a strenuous performance). But of course, the PTC called it a “striptease” (which is repulsive, sexualized and racialized) and called for an appeal to the appeal.

 Let’s hope 2012 brings less of this stuff.