Deepwater Horizon type incidents likely to increase under Republican control

Photo byUSCGLantAreaPA

It is a fact that that Halliburton knew weeks before the explosion that killed 11 workers that the cement mixture being used to seal the well was not stable. But they used it just the same in the Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill. This was confirmed by a presidential commission investigating the accident. There have also been several House and cabinet level investigations launched.

Time will tell but at least the foundation has been laid to find the faulty party(s). That is…until January when the GOP takes over the House, and this body reverts to its philosophy that big business can do no wrong. Especially a company like Halliburton once run by former Vice President Dick Cheney, which was also part of a defense scandal during the Bush administration.

It is even harder to imagine what could happen if Republicans take over the Senate and White House in 2012.

Read more here.

Someone should talk about the good the Democrats have done…They are

Froma Harrop of the Providence Journal reports in a Rodney Dangerfield sort of way, “Democrats don’t get no respect.” But there’s a reason. They didn’t have the courage in the midterms to appreciate what their party had done for the country. Like leading us out of sure economic disaster. Or making healthcare available to ordinary Americans. Or saving General Motors from going down the tube.

It’s a fact that Republicans, with the help of a few Democrats, deregulated Wall Street to the point that it almost put this country in the tank. In addition to coming to the rescue of the uninsured, Healthcare Reform will help improve employers’ medical costs, and make them more competitive with foreign firms.

This ultra right-wing and Tea Party nonsense of touting absolutely no government is getting old. How many of them have Medicare and are on Social Security? Would they give either up? I think not.

Read more here.

What’s wrong with a little “hyper-liberalism”?

I am not exactly sure just what he means by the term, “hyper-liberalism” in his recent piece in The Washington Post, but Charles Krauthammer does make it clear that President Obama’s two-year experiment in it didn’t work. Proof of that was the scathing defeat taken by progressives and the Democratic Party in the 2010 midterm election. It is not clear to me if the vote was actually against the legislation, or just Obama and liberalism in general.

As an example, one of the policies in contention is Cap and Trade, which places a mandatory cap on emissions to help the environment. Another, the Health Care Reform bill that many experts agree has promise, probably needing fine tuning, but despised by the GOP. These are some of the things progressives and liberals do, for the good of others and the world. Krauthammer quotes someone as saying, “…this wasn’t an election so much as a restraining order.”

Isn’t that just what Republicans have been doing the entire two years of the Obama administration?

Read more here.

Rush Limbaugh should take his act to Hollywood



Photo by Belltown Messenger

 Imagine my surprise when strolling down the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Blvd., I spied a star with Rush Limbaugh’s name on it. Well, it was pretty far down the street from all the important celebrities, and it was laid somewhat crooked in the sidewalk. But it was there. My hero, in all his glory finally being recognized for what he is, an entertainer, and not a very good one at that. This is satire, of course…and tragic.

Newsweek did a piece recently about Limbaugh that should scare any sane and informed American to death. In it, this maniac even dreams of replacing William F. Buckley, a conservative I had a great deal of respect for, in right wing thinking. That’s like comparing a moron to a genius, and believing you have a match. But you can’t argue with his audience of between 15 and 20 million.

What you can question is whether they really believe him, or just turn on their radio for a good old-fashioned laugh. Like the old “Jack Benny Show.” But, oh no, that really was entertainment.

Read more here.

Running numbers on the midterms

Harold Myerson of The Washington Post did an interesting take on the November elections using certain numbers to define results. It’s his way of explaining what happened. As an example, “zero” is for the number of newly elected Republican senators in competitive races who got the 18 to 29 age vote. “One” represents the number of white democrats in the next Congress from the Deep South.

Here’s an interesting one, “twenty-two,” the percentage of Hispanic voters in California compared to 18 percent in 2008. This overwhelmingly carried Democrats like Governor-elect Jerry Brown, and Senator Barbara Boxer to victory. It points out what could have been for Democratic candidates in other states with a heavy Latino population like Arizona. It also illustrates that the Sunshine State is more advanced in their political thinking than most other states.

There are more “number” comparisons you can read about here.

How do U.S. drug costs compare with other forms of universal health care?

Photo by Fibonacci Blue

Our neighbor to the north is the best example, and the comparison is very unfavorable when it comes to U.S. citizens. In Canada, the per capita spending on drugs is $509, in contrast with $728 in this country. Drug prices in Canada average from 35 percent to 45 percent lower than here, which has prompted Americans to spend around $1 billion per year north of the border. One of the reasons is a system of centralized buying that controls costs. The GOP has made sure so far that this doesn’t happen here.

In conversations with two Canadian families that have recently left that country to resettle in the U.S., I hear nothing but admiration for their form of socialized medicine. They agree it is not perfect, but it does exceed U.S. health care in both costs and full coverage of its citizens. Also, the Canadian Patented Medicine Prices Review Board has the authority to set fair and reasonable prices on patented drugs.

Our new health care law does provide saving for seniors in dealing with the “doughnut hole, which could translate to all citizens in the long term. Of course, if you are flush and don’t worry about the costs of your medications, or you don’t really care if your fellow Americans have medical coverage, go ahead and bash President Obama’s health care reform.

Read more here.

Read earlier posts, “Drug makers desert public over profits 1 and 2.”

This is what you heard but probably didn’t understand re. the midterms

Photo by Lord Jim

Thanks to the Supreme Court, there was a frenzy of spending by outside Republican and Democrat special interest groups with their source of income the right-leaning large corporations. It was highly organized with one of its chief coordinators on the GOP side Karl Rove and his organizations American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. Republican groups outspent the Democrats by $54 million for a total of $245 million.

Since the GOP are the masters of attack ads, compliments of old crafty Karl, and because of their outspending the Dems, the focus here is on their groups. Rove’s Crossroads spent over $38 million, followed by the Chamber of Commerce, $31 million. The American Action Network, chaired by the infamous Fred Malek, another questionable conservative, spent $14 million. All this on attack ads.

In all likelihood this election was decided by smear tactics incorporated into negative campaigning, and it is entirely possible that many voters made their decision based on not the issues, but an antagonistic response to the repugnant ads. It was so effective, that plans are afoot to use these same methods by the same groups for the 2012 Presidential election. It is a political system completely out of hand.

Read more here.

Voter intimidation in Wisconsin. By Republicans, who else?

The Center for Media and Democracy is reporting a plan uncovered by the group, One Wisconsin Now, accusing the Wisconsin Republican Party, Americans for Prosperity and the Tea Party for suppressing votes in the 2010 midterms. The charge stems from the discovery of right-wing groups training “election observers” to challenge people suspected of fraudulent voting.

These groups also mailed into “communities of color” to try and determine ineligible voters through undeliverable mail. In most cases the undelivered mail was due to wrong or lack of an apartment number, or the person had simply moved.


Photo by Dutchlad



Wisconsin’s body overseeing elections cried there was nothing illicit going on, and those making the charges were simply delusional about minorities voting more than once. And it was also found that right-wing assertions over fraudulent votes in Minnesota’s last Senate race were grossly exaggerated, as well as in Wisconsin’s 2004 elections. Karl Rove politics on the go.

Read more here.

The fight ahead for progressives – Part 3

Photo by DanPerry

In additional midterm history, 1978 saw the Democrats retain control of Congress, but Jimmy Carter’s Panama Canal Treaties ended up defeating some Dems in the election. It also spawned the young republicans from the South espousing confrontation rather than compromise. In the same year California Governor Jerry Brown boldly opposed Prop. 13, which capped local property taxes, requiring a two-thirds majority in the legislature to raise state taxes.

When Prop. 13 passed with 65 percent of the vote, Brown promptly turned into a crusader for tax cuts. Now that’s compromise.

Photo by DBKing

But in 1994 the GOP did take over the House and Senate after a Dem monopoly for all but 6 years since 1954. And these were dedicated right-siders that were responsible for implementing the conservative revolution on Capitol Hill. Enter Bill Clinton on the concession express announcing that big government was over. One of the big questions before the 2010 November elections was whether they would be a 1994 or 1946, when Dewey didn’t beat Truman. Now we know.

Read more here.

The fight ahead for progressives - Part 2

George Santayana, a philosopher from Madrid, Spain, said: “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” The progressive movement has a lot to learn from the past ten years, and even before. In 1946 Republicans also took over the House with a screaming crusade that Democrats were soft on communism. This jolt moved Harry Truman to the right on national-security issues.

In 1966 the midterms brought Lyndon Johnson’s efforts to build a Great Society to an end. The GOP then had the Vietnam War, inflation and race relations to work with. A Republican coalition was emerging that would continue easily into the Nixon administration. Although “Tricky Dick” subscribed to the GOP’s fiscal responsibility, he did accept that there was a need for government's expanded role and accepted the basic need for a welfare state.

At least there was compromise…something that is missing in the recent behavior of Republicans, particularly the intolerance of the Tea Party and the religious right. Santayana also said: “Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.”

Read more here.

More to come.

The fight ahead for progressives

President Obama told the Democrats not to be apathetic. They were. If Republicans do win, the next two years will be fraught with the same nonsense the GOP has been pushing for the last ten years. They won. And it won’t be an easy battle, as evidenced from the history of midterm elections for the last one-hundred years. There are already signs of this from the mouths of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.

In 1938, even after his landslide reelection victory in 1936, FDR suffered a setback after overestimating his persuasive powers when attempting a “court packing” scheme that even Democrats opposed. He was going for a “Third New Deal" when the economy took a big downturn, while at the same time he was unsuccessfully trying to purge conservative Democrats from his party who were fighting his policies.

While Obama hasn’t taken the latter approach yet, the Democratic Party did desert many of its own in the midterms when it was obvious they couldn’t win.

Read more here.

More history to come.

Mitch McConnell leads GOP “bickering as usual” drive

No doubt McConnell is ticked off since Senator Harry Reid of Nevada won his election, as did other Democratic Senate candidates to keep control of that body. McConnell must have been dreaming of becoming the next Senate Majority leader so he could cause more congressional gridlock for the Democrats. It is the continuation of this style of politics that voters on Tuesday saddled this country with.

Boondoggling Boehner’s top priority was to repeal Obama’s Health Care Reform. The misguided McConnell’s top priority is to repeal President Obama, in 2012. The latter is just further indication of a Republican electorate that has no idea how to address the major issues of this country…other than oppose everything the President does, including the man himself. McConnell is even counting on the 23 Democrats up for reelection in 2012 to support him.

Progressives have never had a better opportunity to prove their ideology than in the next two years.

Read more here.

NRA makes it impossible to trace gun ownership effectively – Part 3

Mexican Border

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says the difficult task of manually tracing guns has slowed the process in this country as well as Mexico. The ATF confirms that most of the weapons seized south of the border come from U.S. gun dealers. Traces are most helpful within the first few days but due to the hand-operated system they are stuck with, it takes an average of two weeks.

To further compound matters, in thirty-eight years, the ATF has not added a single agent. It had 2,500 in 1972 and it has 2,500 today. Since that same early date, the FBI went from 8,700 agents to 13,000, the DEA from 1,500 to 5,000, and U.S. Marshals from 1,900 to 3,300. The ATF has only 600 inspectors to cover more than 115,000 gun retailers, or one for each 191 dealers. A former agent said “It is easier to close a restaurant kitchen than a gun store.”

There is something wrong with this reasoning and it is spelled NRA.

Read more here.

NRA makes it impossible to trace gun ownership effectively – Part 2

The National Rifle Assn.’s 4 million members say the ATF should concentrate on prosecuting the bad guys and not harassing gun dealers and owners. Poor babies. This results from the fact that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives simply wants to create a computer database of gun owners for quick tracing in a crime.

Chris Cox of the NRA makes the brilliant statement: “The only reason to register products is either to tax ‘em or to take ‘em.” It couldn’t possibly be to trace a gun to an owner who has committed a crime, even murder. Of course not, says the NRA. [my words]

Gun dealers are forced to report to the ATF within five business days when more than one handgun is purchased. The NRA has been successful in fighting this same ruling for rifles and shotguns, which includes automatic rifles like AK-47s. Just one more reason so many of these weapons move out of U.S. gun stores into Mexico to support drug cartel warfare.

John C. Frazier of the NRA comes up with yet another dazzling statement: “[AK-47s are] less likely to be used in crime.”

Read more here.

More to come.

NRA makes it impossible to trace gun ownership effectively

The only place in this country authorized to trace gun sales is The National Tracing Center in Martinsburg, W. Virginia. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives works frantically in an environment that doesn’t have to be. They are doing it by hand, searching through thousands of pieces of paper and an equal number of phone calls. And why don’t they have the computer technology of the day like DNA techniques and digital fingerprinting?

The National Rifle Assn. lobby.

The NRA’s lobbying efforts have resulted in the government being prohibited from putting gun ownership records into an accessible database. The NRA and their gun totin’ bubbas are afraid of any type of registration, which they fear could lead to confiscation. If they have the damn guns legally, why are they so afraid the government will take them away? The ATF is supposed to regulate the gun industry, but many within this bureau say it is the other way around.

Read more here.

More to come.

The people have given a mandate

The mandate is not so much a vote for the Republicans…rather a vote against the Democrats. But it is a vote for the President and Congress to fix this country, and stop the partisan bickering that has gone on for the last ten years. That includes Democrats, as well as the GOP. The first thing every new, and old, member of Congress should do is poll his constituency to see what they really think about the major issues in front of this country.

To name a few, they are taxes, the economy, jobs, health care, Social Security, Medicare, the housing market, immigration reform and the environment. I am not convinced this mandate has drawn clear lines on where the public stands on these issues. As an example, new anticipated Speaker of the House, Republican blowhard John Boehner, comes out today with the statement that Obama’s health care reform is a “monstrosity.” He plans to repeal it.

In an October poll, 42 percent of Americans expressed a favorable view of the plan; 44 percent against.

It would appear the practice of offing anything President Obama does will continue. Since the GOP is held in lower esteem that the Democrats in another recent poll, Boehner and his conservative cronies should watch their step.

Midterm political distortions of the facts - Part 2

More from FactCheck.org as compiled by Newsweek.

Taxes – Republicans said Democrats are going to assess a “huge” tax increase on the “typical family” or small-business owners. Pathetic Palin calls it the largest in U.S. history. In fact, the Dems would let some of the 2001 and 2003 tax cut expire—those for the rich—and only 3 percent of small business would show an increase.

The Stimulus – The GOP widely claims the economic stimulus has failed to create jobs. In fact, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the stimulus added or retained from1.4 million to 3.3 million people on payrolls.

Outside Group Contributions – These groups are funded by undisclosed sources, including corporations, primarily attacking Democrats. The ads, thanks to a business-prone Supreme Court, are often misleading, some of which are covered in the Newsweek article.

And the king of GOP misinformation, Karl Rove, is a part of one of the largest of these purveyors of trash falsely that claimed labor unions weren’t disclosing the millions they were spending. The truth is, the money comes from dues and most everyone knows it. Indicating business as usual no matter the outcome of the election.

Read more here.

Midterm political distortions of the facts



How wrong can you be?

 If you haven’t visited FactCheck.org, you should, if only to experience the wide array of subjects covered on this site. Their 2010 FactCheck Awards were published today and the political ads they cover are a cross between the bizarre and the ridiculous. From the use of dog excrement to make a point, to the Alabama Tea Party hillbilly candidate that clearly doesn’t know his Tea Party history. They are worth an after-election laugh or two.

At the same time, Newsweek did an excellent article on midterm “misstatements” that is a must-read. One of their quotes is that, due to undisclosed, unaccountable sources of campaign financing from corporations, “…the amount of deceit in political advertising is at least as high as we’ve ever seen.”

Health Care – Misrepresentations by Republicans on this issue have been common throughout the campaign with false claims like: Medicare patients would lose their doctors, or that the Dems favored giving Viagra to sex offenders, or Seniors would lose some of their benefits.

Social Security – Democrats in certain states claim that Republicans want to abolish or “privatize” Social Security. Mostly a serious overstatement since what the GOP has really said was to allow younger workers to invest a portion of their payroll tax in the stock market.

Read the Newsweek article here.

More to come.

VOTE TODAY!

                  

                        Where do I vote?

Is today’s election a repeat of the Truman/Dewey fiasco of 1948? Part 3

Truman was able to take advantage of a Dewey gaffe in Illinois, when the train he was speaking from the back of started backing up. Although no one was injured, Dewey said the engineer “should probably be shot at sunrise…” Truman’s retort, “He doesn’t mention that under that great engineer, Hoover, we backed up into the worst depression in history.” Things like this, plus the connections made in his 31,000 mile train trip, helped him gain the following of the people.

A milestone in the 1948 election was the first-ever televised Republican Convention. This exposed the pollsters to a national, even international, audience of viewers who were eager and gullible for the numbers. The Truman upset prompted organizations like Gallup, Roper and others to search for what went wrong. The media had relied almost entirely on the polls which turned out to be their downfall. The legend of “Give ‘Em Hell Harry!” was born.

Read more here.

GIVE ‘EM HELL DEMOCRATS!

Is today’s election a repeat of the Truman/Dewey fiasco of 1948? Part 2

In the 1948 election, The New York Times also made the statement: “The Democratic Party might as well immediately concede the election to Dewey and save the wear and tear of campaigning.” At the time, a Gallup poll reported that Truman had only a 36 percent support of the people. It seems the nation was frustrated with taxes and the rising cost of living. The Republican prospects seemed excellent.

Another setback for Democrats in the 1948 election was the emergence of the Progressive Party which really appealed to liberals. They were critical of Truman for not doing enough on his domestic agenda, and didn’t like him standing up to the Soviet Union. Thomas E. Dewey, smelling victory, proceeded with a subdued campaign. Truman, assuming he had nothing to lose, embarked on a 31,000-mile train trip across the U.S.

Read more here.

More to come.

Is today’s election a repeat of the Truman/Dewey fiasco of 1948?

In November of 1948, The New York Times emblazoned the headline: “Thomas E. Dewey’s Election as President is a Foregone Conclusion.” On November 1, 2010, Newsweek gives Democratic candidates a manual to know when to fold ‘em. If this looks like a reasonable similarity, there is more. President Harry Truman, at the time, was running his campaign against the Eightieth Congress, rather than Dewey.

Truman had also proposed a very unpopular bill—even with his own party—that would guarantee the rights of Blacks. This caused a clash in the Democratic Party resulting in a split that led to the forming of the Dixiecrats. During the convention, all Mississippi delegates, half of Alabama, for a total 35 walked out. They in turn ran their own candidate, South Carolina Senator, Strom Thurmond, for President.

The odds against Truman could not have been worse.

Read more here.

More to come.

Tired of Obama bashing? Here are answers for the hate-mongers – Part 9

This is a special post on Obama Bashing from The Dunning Letter and will appear daily until the November 2 elections



Photo by John Thompson



President Obama would say…GO VOTE TOMORROW. Sure, he hopes you will vote for Democrats, but so does The Dunning Letter, and lots of others who are scared to death of returning to the George W. Bush policies of before plus other fanatics like Tea Party candidates. But you must vote, because if you don’t, you do not have the right to complain when the conservative Republicans drag us back into the same ditch we are just now beginning to emerge from.



So put all of your concerns over the state of the nation today on hold just long enough to GO OUT AND VOTE tomorrow for the state of the nation you want in the next two to six years.



Tired of Obama bashing? Here are answers for the hate-mongers – Part 8

This is a special post on Obama Bashing from The Dunning Letter and will appear daily until the November 2 elections



Photo by Jurvetson

 Israeli Relations - President Obama renewed loan guarantees for Israel.

Infrastructure rebuilding – Increased infrastructure spending on roads, bridges, power plants; former Bush administration first since Herbert Hoover to make this a priority.

Wall Street Reform Bill – Obama signed the historic Wall Street reform bill to regulate the industry and provide consumer protections.

Environment – Ended Bush-era policy of not regulating and labeling carbon dioxide emissions.

Travel – Signed order to limit delays on airport tarmacs including the time passengers must sit in the planes during those delays.

Comments are welcome.

Tired of Obama bashing? Here are answers for the hate-mongers – Part 7

This is a special post on Obama Bashing from The Dunning Letter and will appear daily until the November 2 elections

Medicare Drugs – Ended a prior practice of forbidding Medicare from negotiating with drug manufacturers for reducing the price of drugs.
Military Personnel – Increased the benefits of military personnel, improved their housing, and established new policy promoting the hiring of military spouses.
Cyber Security – Established a new cyber security office.

Photo by Half-Blood Prince



Iraq/Afghanistan Wars – Ended Bush-era policy of keeping soldiers fighting in the wars longer than their enlistment dates.

Defense Spending – Ended Bush-era policy of awarding “no-bid” contracts.

Comments are welcome.