I know I come across as a skeptical bastard on this blog. And often times with good reason. The fights get ugly, and people’s lives come to harm far to often as a result of poor decisions made in various city halls and county council chambers, in Olympia, and in DC. Yet for all of the problems, for all the bullshit, for all the fights and arguments, I love politics because they’re a way to improve people’s lives.
Really, we fight so hard because this matters. I mean holy shit, we get to help chose the president, and on and on down. We get to influence the direction of our country and our state. And critically, we get to complain when things don’t live up to our standards.
We get to complain about the people on the other side of the aisle. We get to complain that the people supposedly on our side far too often acting mealy mouthed and pathetic. We get to complain about the influence of money. We get to complain about the operatives on the other side and the apologists for mediocrity on our own side.
So if it looks like I’m buried in snark and in skepticism, well I probably am. But I’m also so glad to be able to have this platform. I really approach it joyfully.
One of the things I like about this forum is that it gives me advance notice of the right-wing dis-information campaigns, so I can do some investigation and prepare a response. Before I started reading this forum, I would often get blind-sided by someone throwing some so-called “fact” at me which they got from Limbaugh or Hannity or whomever, and I didn’t have the slightest idea from where that came.
Now if it’s not the subject of a humorous post here, we can usually count on the trolls to bring it up.
“•I killed eight gophers last year and a purebred Tennessee walking horse that was looking at me funny.” Dick Cheney
Yes, politics matters, because when Republicans run things innocent people die. Take, for example, the GOP’s attitude that guns should be widely availble to everyone:
“At least one person was shot dead by a man outside a county courthouse in Beaumont, Texas, local media reported Wednesday. An elderly woman was killed and at least three others were shot, including two rushed to the hospital with several gunshot wounds, KFDM TV reported. The shootings took place outside the courthouse, in the basement of the county clerk’s office and at a bus station.”
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_n.....courthouse
“A 3-year-old boy accidentally killed himself with a gun as another child sat next to him in a car, police in Tacoma reported Wednesday, the third recent shooting of a child in Washington state. The car was parked at a gas station just after midnight Wednesday when the boy’s mom got out to buy some items and her boyfriend went to fuel the car, leaving his gun inside, NBC affiliate KING5 TV reported.”
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_n.....inside-car
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Madmen and dumbasses shouldn’t have guns.
Heh. Right wingers really believe that when a rich person gets a tax cut that amounts to many times an average working joe’s annual income and the not so well off right winger’s own tax cut allows them to replace their sputtering refigerator – oh wow.. The right winger feels reeeal good…
When a teacher is laid off due to republican spending cuts and she loses her house and has to take a minimum wage job and class sizes get bigger as a result, right wingers think yeah things are getting better.
Gee us lefties think if we could only manage to raise taxes to say where Germany is which is about HALF the rate THIS COUNTRY levied in the freaking 50’s, then maybe we could reduce class sizes, increase access to education for job re-training and improve access to health care for people who’ve been visiting emergency rooms, shore up failing infrastructure, give people jobs that promote economic growth AND reduce deficit spending, yeah that would make people’s lives better..
Very different views of how politics make people’s lives better.
# 3: If nothing else, the 2000 and 2004 elections proved that (a) it really DOES matter who is President; and (b) it better not be a Republican.
It’s really hard to document all the things which went wrong during the Bush years. His Presidency impacted all of our lives, and not in a good way.
He was given the last, best warning of Osama Bin Laden’s intentions to attack America, and he was perturbed that his vacation was being interrupted. He started a war against a country whose’s leader was a brutal dictator but which was contained and had nothing to do with 9/11. His campaign to break apart FEMA and rely upon contractors to perform disaster services was, well, an unmitigated disaster. His “hands off” attitude toward banking, investment firms, and business in general led to a whole host of problems, of which the 2007-2009 Great Depression affected all of us in some way or another, destroying 1/4 of U.S. net worth and eliminating the financial security of many Americans for at least the next decade. His policy of crony capitalism led to lax regulation of offshore drilling, resulting in the Gulf Horizon disaster.
And the only thing the Republicans saw wrong with the idological basis for any of this was the almost-too-late bailout under TARP I.
You wouldn’t hire a manager who says he hates your business and wants to destroy it. Why should you vote for a Republican who hates government and does everything possible to prevent it from working for the benefit of anyone other than the very wealthy?
@4
Hey, every time a rich person gets a tax cut an angel get it’s wings. Besides you’re just angry and hating because you’re not rich enough to qualify.
@6
I think I covered all the bases in that one, didn’t I?
I just read on kos that there are only two national advertisers left supporting Limbaugh’s show.
One of them is LifeLock, an identity theft protection racket, er, company.
A quick wikipedia search yielded this about the principals/founders:
I think I’ll amend my default response regarding Republicans from ‘lying or stupid’ to ‘lying and stupid’!
# 8: It figures. The Republican standard SOP in business and government is to use fear and greed to motivate people let down their guard and let Republican businesses take control of their lives. In this case, it is the fear of identitity theft, in which the fearful mark unwittingly gives the company access to (a) all their personal information and authority to access accounts in their name, and (b) charges the mark a fee, to boot.
It looks like some folks have a joyful enthusiasm for court house shootings.
The article also mentions a court house shooting in Tulsa last week.
Was the daughter the victim?
Intentionally shooting your daughter is cold and inexcusable.
Shooting your daughter, then running over her is so bad I can’t think of words to describe it. Then shooting a 79 year old grandma????
I guess this is why they have the death penalty in Texas – I can’t think of a more appropriate penalty.
@11
The dude was on trial for sexual assault, his wife and daughter were witnesses against him. He shot his daughter and then ran her over with his truck.
Goldy has a friend in Spokane! State Rep. Andy Billig’s posted a couple of Goldy’s stories on his FB page. Including this one:
Yes Please, take on the NRA, and Please do it in this election cycle. It will assure that we have a great discussion on the subjet before people cast their votes in 2012.
Limbaugh Blowback Grows Hotter
The body county of Limbaugh national ex-advertisers is now up to 141.
“The idea that the recent controversy could actually become ‘the end of talk radio’ is a comment from Rush Limbaugh himself.”
He should have called it “hate-talk radio” because that’s what it is.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/46731446/