Republican Rhetorical Disconnect

What's wrong with these three sentences:

1. "We need businesses to start hiring and investing again."
2. "We should run government more like a business."
3. "During a recession, the people have to tighten their belts, so government should too."

That's right, they are wildly inconsistent.

During this recession, businesses are sitting on the sidelines. The problem is that businesses are tightening their belts: they are not hiring or investing. In order to get the economy going again, somebody needs to start hiring and investing. Money is cheap: interest rates are next to zero, so now is the time to invest. But nothing is happening in the private sector.

We want business to start hiring and investing, not to lay off more people. And, there are many who want to run government like a business. Yet, rather than advocating government hiring and investing, which would be consistent with that desire, they preach government tightening its belt -- i.e. lay off more people.

It is so obviously inconsistent an argument that it is safe to say nobody who says those three things actually believes them. They are liars and frauds. And they are about to take over Congress.

Seems to me, much of the south and the mid-west has lost touch with reality. They hunker down with guns and booze, and vote themselves out of existence. Sad.

Who gets hurt when Republicans run Congress? Not the Bankers, not the CEOs, not the Oil Men or the insurance industry, and not the Corporate Lawyers. No, it is the little guy that gets hurt, every time. Yet the "little guy" in the south and the mid-west votes Republican, not as the result of honest thinking -- if they can't see the flaw in those three statements above, they aren't thinking honestly -- but out of some tribalist rage. Sad indeed.

What Harry Reid should have said

So, Murdock's media (Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the NY Post and all those other shining examples of propaganda) are playing over and over Sharon Angle's challenge to Harry Reid to "man up."

By "man up" Angle apparently means he should thump his chest a bit more, be more of an ass, and maybe use his brain a bit less. Loud mouthed, small minded bad boys, that's what floats Angle's boat.

Reid's response was less than desirable: "no one has questioned my manhood." Wrong!

Here's how you respond to such a childish statement:

1. "Sharon, that is childish. Maybe someone should send you to your room without supper."

or

2. "Sharon, you're not my type. I have no interest in being the kind of 'man' you find attactive. I understand you prefer the 'bad boys' with big mouths and small minds, who beat their chests constantly, and approach every problem by pounding their fists and yelling at it. I don't think that's a good way to govern, and I don't think that is particularly manly."

When somebody bullies you, as Angle and all the Republican, robot, Fox-funded candidates seem want to do, you don't respond to their taunts as if they are actual thoughts. You do a judo move, and flop them on their ass.

Corporate Bosses Direct Votes to their Republican Stooges

To all you supposed Tea-Partiers out there, thinking you're voting Republican because that somehow goes against the flow of power, read this article.

That's right, your "Tea-Party" Republicans are funded and controlled by Dow Chemical, Goldman Sachs, Chevron Texaco, and Aegon. Of course, so is much of the "news" you listen to: controlled by corporate interests (and not the good corporate interests) to manufacture outrage and turn you against the few people out there still willing to stand up for the common folk against the multi-national corporations.

As Joe Manchin recently said, time and again, when the chips are down, it is the Democrats that come through to help the people. Nobody has been able to say that about the Republicans since the 1860s. Would be nice of people could wake up, but I'm not holding my breath.

Joe Manchin Gets it Right

Joe Manchin, Democratic Senate Candidate in West Virginia, got it right: "Every time this country has hit the bottom, it's the Democrats who have stood up and helped people."

There's simply no debate there. For at least the last one hundred and thirty years, it is the Democrats that step forward when the people need help. Republicans have long been hell-bent on destroying the social safety net and letting the people starve during troubled times. Why? More money for Republican fat-cat patrons. It really is that simple.

Top Ten Reasons to Vote Republican

Top Ten Reasons to Vote Republican

1. If you believe regulators should defer to the corporations they regulate, vote Republican.

2. If you believe courts should always side with the powerful, because this promotes stability, vote Republican.

3. If you believe the government should be able to strip you of your citizenship because they don’t agree with your politics, vote Republican.

4. If you believe that environmental policy should be set by the oil, mining and chemical companies, vote Republican.

5. If you believe tax policy should be set to force the rest of the country to pay to protect the rights and privileges of the super-rich, vote Republican.

6. If you believe everyone should have a right to purchase and carry assault weapons, vote Republican.

7. If you believe chest-thumping and intimidation are the mature ways to get ahead, vote Republican.

8. If you believe the rest of the country owes you good schools, smooth roads, police and fire services, safe foods and drugs, social security, medicate and military protection, but that you shouldn’t have to pay for any of it, ‘cause you’re special, vote Republican.

9. If you believe slogans and shouting should trump evidence every time, vote Republican.

10. If you believe bankers, oil magnates, mine owners and military contractors have your best interests at heart, but that the thinkers, artists, scientists, and inventors are all out to get you, vote Republican.

Sure, there are many more reasons to vote Republican. These are just the top ten.

Those Liberal San Franciscans do Love Their Blue Angels

This week is Fleet Week in the San Francisco Bay Area. That fact brings me to an oft-stated, but entirely false, assertion: that liberals hate the military.

Completely false. The claim serves the right wing purpose of casting liberals as weak-kneed elitists, but the facts don't support the charge. If you have any doubt, just scan the rooftops of San Francisco -- that most liberal of cities -- during the Blue Angels' show over the Golden Gate on Fleet Week. What you will find is thousands of liberals cheering and waving and relishing the noblest aspects of our military.

Liberals may dislike needless bloodshed or killing for profit, but that's a far cry from any anti-military zealotry. On the contrary, a citizen-headed military, as we have here, is one of the most liberal notions ever put into practice anywhere in the world. A military by, of and for the people. That's what we have, and we cherish it.

Don't let anybody tell you different.