The Democratic Party is very diverse. We welcome all flavors of voters, liberal, “progressive”, moderates…even conservative Democrats. We work together to get things done. It’s always the outsiders, the independents, that like to throw wedges into the party and try to divide us up.
We will not be divided.
We will stand strong against those that try to apply a purity test to our diverse, inclusive party.
Start your own political party if you want to be pure.
We want to move forward.
If there has ever been a better example of someone being given a national platform who has no business being in the role, it is Sarah Palin. Watch this clip, if you can, or read the transcript courtesy of Steve M. at Booman’s Tribune.
“SARAH PALIN: … He is bringing us back, Sean, to days that — you can hearken back to days before the Civil War, when, unfortunately, too many Americans mistakenly believed that not all men were created equal, and it was the Civil War that began the codification of the truth that here in America, yes, we are equal and we all have equal opportunities, not based on the color of your skin. You have equal opportunity to work hard and to succeed and to embrace the opportunities, God-given opportunities, to develop resources and work extremely hard and, as I say, to succeed. Now, it has taken all these years for many Americans to understand that gravity, that mistake, that took place before the Civil War, and why the Civil War had to really start changing America. What Barack Obama seems to want to do is go back to before those days, when we were in different classes, based on income, based on color of skin. Why are we allowing our country to move backwards instead of moving forward with that understanding that, as our charters of liberty spell out for us, we are all created equal?”
Cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles
I’m sure most of you have seen this story about the summer camp for young Tea Party children, but for those of you who haven’t, I thought I must share. In some ways, it scares the hell out of me, because it shows just how crazy and determined those people are and what extremes they will go to in order to grow their numbers. But when you look at what they are doing, it gets pretty funny. From Tampabay.com (St. Petersburg Times)…
The organization, which falls under the tea party umbrella, hopes to introduce kids ages 8 to 12 to principles that include “America is good,” “I believe in God,” and “I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.“
That last sentence speaks volumes to me about this group. Yesterday’s post about Ayn Rand and her warped, fictional ideas touched on the idea that selfishness is a virtue to be embraced. To me, that shows exactly how far American culture has fallen. When a group actually comes right out and encourages people to not be charitable, I can’t help but think that our culture is in need of some soul searching. More from the Times article…
One example at Liberty: Children will win hard, wrapped candies to use as currency for a store, symbolizing the gold standard. On the second day, the “banker” will issue paper money instead. Over time, students will realize their paper money buys less and less, while the candies retain their value.
“Some of the kids will fall for it,” Lukens said. “Others kids will wise up.”
Another example: Starting in an austere room where they are made to sit quietly, symbolizing Europe, the children will pass through an obstacle course to arrive at a brightly decorated party room (the New World).
Red-white-and-blue confetti will be thrown. But afterward the kids will have to clean up the confetti, learning that with freedom comes responsibility.
I guess I don’t even understand what they are trying to say with the “austere” room vs. the “party” room. I guess it is, “Europe bad, America fun”. But then after the fun, the kids have to clean up after the party. Is that really sending the signal they want to? Sitting quietly might look pretty good after they have to pick up thousands of pieces of confetti, that shit gets everywhere. Something tells me that kids 8 – 12 aren’t really going to internalize these games and activities the way the “adults” who designed them want them to. I wonder if they will punish kids who are generous and learned to share at daycare or paid attention at Sunday school and learned some of Christ’s teachings. I can just hear them saying, “No, little Johnny, don’t give Petey a piece of candy, he’s a parasite”.
Still another example: Children will blow bubbles from a single container of soapy solution, and then pop each other’s bubbles with squirt guns in an arrangement that mimics socialism. They are to count how many bubbles they pop. Then they will work with individual bottles of solution and pop their own bubbles.
“What they will find out is that you can do a lot more with individual freedom,” Lukens said.
Sure, individual freedom is what they will learn from that. That’s going to be “funner” than shit. In fact, I think I’ll get my wife to play that game with me this weekend. I’m sure as they are squirting bubbles, laughing and getting each other wet, they’re going to be thinking about individual freedom. Sure they are. And really, do they think children playing by themselves is going to be more fun than playing with the other children?
I’m not exactly worried about this little stunt having a major impact on anything. As of Monday, 8 children had signed up.
If you needed one more example of why the Republican Party is morally bankrupt and hates women, here it is. From the Washington Examiner…(emphasis mine)
About two-dozen abortion rights proponents, including many legislators, gathered on the Statehouse grounds to express their anger over comments made last month by Republican Rep. Pete DeGraaf, of Mulvane.
[…]
During that House debate, Rep. Barbara Bollier, a Mission Hills Republican who supports abortion rights, questioned whether women would buy abortion-only policies long before they have crisis pregnancies or are rape victims.
DeGraaf (Republican Pete DeGraaf ) told her: “We do need to plan ahead, don’t we, in life?”
Bollier asked him, “And so women need to plan ahead for issues that they have no control over with a pregnancy?”
DeGraaf then drew groans of protest from some House members when he responded, “I have a spare tire on my car.”
Has anyone else noticed that there are no longer any adults in the Republican Party. That man, and I use the term loosely, is implying that women need to get used to being raped and even should plan ahead for it. It almost makes me wonder if the man has raped himself, if he can treat it so nonchalantly. I can’t even fathom how someone can think that way, let alone an elected politician in a supposedly legitimate political party. And that’s the rub, I guess. It’s a free-for-all in the Republican party now, anything goes. They clearly hate women, except the ones that have been brainwashed to believe their misogynistic horseshit. They’re really sticking it to the senior citizens, so they must not have living parents or they are so rich, they don’t have to worry about the future. They really dislike children and don’t give a flying fuck whether they are educated, my theory is that they want to keep them stupid so they vote Republican. They despise anyone who isn’t pasty white, with a few exceptions that they trot out as examples of their black friends. Clarence Thomas would be one example. Go read Allan Brauer’s excellent piece about our crooked Supreme Court Justice. So, basically, the Republican Party has become the party that welcomes all bigots and every kind of despicable person, come one, come all.
Hat Tip to ThinkProgress
I started writing this post about a week ago, having no idea that the two subjects of the post, dumb and dumber, would meet up and chow on some pizza. If you added up their IQ’s, you still wouldn’t reach 100. I imagine there was a lot of grunting and pointing going on at this meeting of the stupids.
Cable news and even broadcast news have become vehicles for con artists, egomaniacs and narcissists to make lots of money. There are way too many examples of this in the last few years, but I will just pick a few to focus on. The most recent and blatant example is Donald Trump. He used the guise of “possibly” running for president to promote his NBC show “Celebrity Apprentice”. It was so over the top and obvious, that some in the media even said they knew he was just trying to get publicity and then they would “roll tape” or say “we’ll talk to the Donald right after the break.” So even after admitting that they were being used, they just kept doing it. There were a few days on MSNBC where he was camped out in their studio and they put him on every half hour to spew his bullshit, mostly unchallenged. And he always dropped in several mentions of his TV show, without fail. I watched as MSNBC anchors just sat there speechless as he vomited out his racist, elitist bullshit and in my opinion, did great harm to our society. They helped to perpetuate the underlying racism behind his birth certificate claims and towards the end of his media blitz, the President’s educational accomplishments. That all came to a halt with the complete shellacking of Donald Trump at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. And then the next day, the killing of Osama bin Laden.
I called for a boycott of NBC until they fire him. I am still not watching that network until his ass is gone. It doesn’t look like it will be anytime soon, so NBC can count on one less viewer and one less consumer buying their advertisers products. I will not watch that network until he is off the air, period. I have also switched over to CNN as my daytime news network. Fuck MSNBC during the day, they simply take the latest meme from the “Morning Meme Generator with Joe” and repeat it on the half hour and then bring on Jane Hamsher or some other firebagger to beat up on the President and ignore his latest accomplishments. They usually have a Republican there to beat up on the president too, their idea of being bi-partisan. I do still watch Lawrence O’Donnell, Rachel Maddow and sometimes Ed Schultz. What else is there for a liberal to watch these days, until I get my cable network off the ground. (Only half joking)
The other example of the cable networks being willing vehicles for con artists is Sarah Palin. She has a documentary coming out and is on a bus tour. She has a fire in her belly, you know. I take Prilosec for mine. But once again, she is teasing the media into thinking she is running for president, when almost everyone says they know she will not. But that isn’t any reason to not pretend like she is and give her all the oxygen in the room. Who gives a shit about Joplin MO, or the radiation in Japan that has dropped off the radar, or the other communities torn apart by tornadoes or flooding. Instead, they are pimping for Sarah Palin and putting money directly into her greedy little, crib-noted hands. They are completely unabashed in giving her all the time she wants. And I’m not just talking about Fox News, this is all the cable networks, broadcast networks and the freakin internet too. I personally have grown tired of laughing at her half-witted sayings and screeching voice.
Mark my words, the next few weeks will be the Sarah Palin chronicles on cable news, they will have well paid reporters following her around, clinging to every word and tweet she spews, speculating about her run for president, blah, blah, fucking blah. And there is no way in hell she is running for president, that’s way too much work. Shit, she couldn’t handle being the governor of Alaska and cashed in while the getting was good.
I’ve been calling this phenomenon the “Balloon Boy Syndrome”, in honor of Richard and Mayumi Heene, the reality show folks who missed the limelight of being reality stars and had to jump up and down to get people to pay attention to them. This syndrome is very contagious, as soon as one network goes with a story, the others follow right along. Long gone are the days of checking sources or confirming stories, that’s for wimps. Run with it, what the hell, they can always spend 20 seconds saying they were wrong, after having beat the dead horse into the ground or followed the empty balloon half way across the country. They wait for the next ding and head off like salivating dogs to the next media created 15 minute fame whore.
The effect of the “Balloon Boy Syndrome” is that it just encourages others to do the same. At one point, I referred to the Republican primary as simply auditions for Fox News. Just today, I saw that Gov. Rick Scott of Florida and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas are both toying with the idea of throwing their hats in the ring. Who can blame them, all they have to do is say a few crazy things, watch the media descend upon them, they get built up, form a PAC, raise a bunch of money, write a book and collect the loot. And these cable outlets and news organizations just play right along with it, no shame, no apologies and no honor obviously. Is it any wonder the media ranks below child molesters in polls. (That may be a slight exaggeration, but who’s going to check on it?)
The current Republican Party has proven in many ways that they don’t have the maturity to lead this country. They cavalierly play around with important issues to many people as if they are children on a playground. Just this week, they have proven there adolescence in many ways.
The Republican’s defense authorization bill, Deaniac83 from The People’s View breaks down this little game of the GOP…
The White House is threatening a veto of the House committee version of the defense authorization bill over Republican attempts to launch a worldwide war without specific targets or reasons, block detainee transfer from Guantanamo, and mess with the president’s efforts to reduce active nuclear warheads under the new START treaty. It is also warning Congress against complicating the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Not that you would have heard about this if you read Glenn Greenwald, self-proclaimed Constitutional hero of the anti-war movement.
So once again, Republicans are playing games and purposely adding provisions to bills that they know the President will not support. It’s all one big fucking game to these people. For the last two and a half years, they (mostly white men) have been playing all sorts of games with women’s reproductive rights, even though Roe vs. Wade is “established law” and the federal government already doesn’t allow federal funding for abortions. But that hasn’t stopped them from introducing countless bills almost daily since the children were handed the keys to the car. Rachel Maddow has a great clip that spells out the priorities of these children…
Vodpod videos no longer available.
And for all those victims and families in Joplin Missouri, well they have a game for them too, it’s called “Screw You, Unless We Can Screw Someone Else Too”. Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) showed just how caring he is towards the people who just had nearly their entire town blown away by a tornado. Here’s a little bit from ThinkProgress…
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), however, said that before Congress approved federal funds for disaster relief, it had to offset the spending with cuts to other programs. The Washington Times reports:
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Monday that if Congress passes an emergency spending bill to help Missouri’s tornado victims, the extra money will have to be cut from somewhere else.
“If there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental,” Mr. Cantor, Virginia Republican, told reporters at the Capitol. The term “pay-fors” is used by lawmakers to signal cuts or tax increases used to pay for new spending.
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