Lyin' Ryan Sticks to the Broken Script.

What do you do when you have no legitimate issues to put forth with your campaign?  You lie.

And what do you do when your lies have been thoroughly debunked?  If you're Paul Ryan, you repeat the lie.  At least, that's what he was doing in Tampa yesterday.

“Here’s the dirty little secret about Medicare they don’t want you to know,” he said. “The  biggest threat to Medicare is Obamacare.”
--Tampa Bay Times, September 16, 2012

Of course, the truth about the Affordable Care Act is that it extends Medicare funding by eight years. 

It’s worth noting that there’s one area these cuts don’t touch: Medicare benefits. The  Affordable Care Act rolls back payment rates for hospitals and insurers. It does not,  however, change the basket of benefits that patients have access to.
-- The Washington Post, August 14, 2012

That's not entirely accurate: it also adds new benefits to to seniors currently enrolled in the program.  That's right; thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Medicare costs less, provides more benefits, and the funding lasts longer. Which is exactly the opposite of what Paul Ryan is claiming.

You see, back in 2003, the Medicare Modernization Act was passed, which underwrote the costs of many prescription drugs for seniors, and paid to put a number of seniors into private insurance plans, the theory being that by enrolling seniors in various private health plans, competition and market forces would lower the costs of care.  But costs for seniors in the private health plans rose, costing taxpayers an average of 117% compared to standard Medicare costs. 

The Affordable Care Act eliminates these over-payments to bring them in line with the rest of Medicare coverage costs by re-negotiating reimbursement rates to the insurance companies.  It also negotiated savings from health care providers, further lowering costs.  So there aren't any cuts in coverage, only cuts in costs; what you and I would actually call "savings" instead of "cuts."

The real "dirty secret" that the Romney campaign doesn't want you to know is that Paul Ryan  proposed to make exactly the same cuts in expenses.

...deciding who is cutting Medicare by $700 billion just requires looking at who is cutting Medicare by $700 billion. And at the moment, that’s both Obama and the Republican  budget.
-- The Washington Post, August 14, 2012

Well, not the only dirty secret.  They also don't want you to realize this:

What Romney/Ryan are saying is that they then take the money saved from their cuts to Medicare and put it toward deficit reduction while Obama takes that money and spends it on health care for poor people... But Romney/Ryan also add a trillion dollars to the defense budget. And they have trillions of dollars in tax cuts they haven’t explained how they’re going to pay for. So those decisions make future cuts to Medicare more likely.
-- The Washington Post, August 14, 2012

But this might be the most important thing Ryan has said so far:

"We're not going to spend the next four years blaming everything on everybody else. We're going to take responsibility," Ryan said.
--Tampa Bay Times, September 16, 2012

I have a great idea for you, Paul; why wait for the election?  Why don't you take responsibility for what Republicans have done to this country now?  Admit to three years of obstructing our economic recovery, own up to the damage done by the Bush administration and its record expansion of the national debt, accept that our current financial straits are the direct result of all the deregulation that the GOP has fostered over the last thirty years.

Why wait to take responsibility?  If you're truly proud of what Republicans have accomplished, start bragging - truthfully - about what you and your party have really been doing.

The Problem with "Anyone But..." Part 2

In a discussion about the Republican Party and its tendency to bolster its positions with whopping lies, the other party confessed that they didn't particularly care for Mitt Romney.  "But anyone but Obama will be a better choice."

This is a flawed argument, one only held by those too lazy to actually think it through.  So let's continue to examine the folly of voting for "Anyone But."  We've examined some of the fallout from Florida's gubernatorial election when people voted for "anyone but Alex Sink."  Now it's time to look at the bigger picture.

Anyone But Obama

"Anyone but" Obama is another disaster waiting to happen.

"...voting Republicans is not necessarily a vote for all of the above, it's simply a vote AGAINST Obama. I am in favor of women's right, prescription contraception, etc..."
 - my right-wing relative

Here's the thing; in the United States, we do not have a mechanism for "voting against" a candidate.  You can only vote FOR candidates. 

And when you vote FOR a candidate, you are not only indicating that you support that candidate, you are standing behind their party, and their party's platform.  All of it.  There's no cherry picking; when you vote for a turd, you're getting in bed with it. You are stating implicitly that your ideals are those of the turd. That's the system.

For now, we won't discuss the merits of Obama - and yes, he does have a list of accomplishments that should qualify him for a second term.  After all, Republicans are not actually repudiating any of them, they're just ignoring them and pretending they don't exist.  And for now, so will I.  And we'll save an examination of the Republican candidate for later; after all, the convention hasn't happened yet: it's remotely possible that they won't select Romney after all.



But let's take a look at what you're really getting with "anyone but Obama;" the Republican Party itself. Let's look at what the Republican Party REALLY stands for, not by listening to Romney spout off his nonsense, not by reading what they've put up on their website, but by looking at what they've actually been doing.



What The Republican Party Really Stands For:

Increasing the Deficit
Catches you by surprise, doesn't it?  They all keep saying that they're fighting the deficit.  But in fact, while they didn't create it, they've been supporting it since the 1970s. They call it "starving the beast," and the theory is that rather than reduce spending to save money, reduce revenue to force less spending.

"Let us remember that the basic purpose of any tax cut program in today's environment is to reduce the momentum of expenditure growth by restraining the amount of revenue available and trust that there is a political limit to deficit spending."
- Alan Greenspan to Senate Finance Comittee, July 14, 1978

"The focus of the fight to restrain government has shifted from limiting government spending to limiting government receipts..."
George Will, July 27, 1978

Think of it as a diet plan; the GOP was going to force America to reduce its deficit by starving it of revenue.  After all, you can't spend what you don't have, right?

Well, no.  As we've found, spending has continued.  Ronald Reagan, who rolled "starve the beast" into his Reaganomics package, embraced the cuts, but didn't curtail spending.  In fact, in his first term, federal spending ballooned to 23.5% of GDP.  By the end of his term, Reagan had realized that the approach wasn't working, and raised taxes through the rest of his administration, but the damage had been done.  Republicans have become programmed to believe that reducing revenue will lower the deficit, even though this is clearly not the case. 

We can demonstrate the fallacy of the approach; the Clinton administration pushed through a big tax increase, resulting in a drop in federal spending to 18.2% of GDP by the end of his second term, clearly disproving the notion that higher taxes lead to more spending.  But that didn't stop George W. Bush from slashing taxes, driving spending up 20.7%.  Other studies have since confirmed that lower tax rates actually increase spending and spending costs.

And before you blame the Democrats for not decreasing spending, you should be aware that the Republican Party has rejected Pentagon proposals to retire unnecessary aircraft and ships.  In other words, the military doesn't have a use for these vehicles, but the GOP wants them to remain in service anyway.  In fact, the Republican controlled House Armed Services Committee is pushing a budget $4 billion more than the Pentagon itself says it needs!

From Defense News, May 10, 2012:

Asked about the proposed missile defense site during the briefing, U.S. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “I don’t see a need beyond what we submitted in the last budget” and the current “suite of ground-based and sea-based interceptors” is sufficient.

At the same time, the House Appropriations defense subcommittee chairman C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., has developed a 2013 defense spending bill that comes in $3.1 billion above the Pentagon’s request.

So clearly the Republicans aren't trying to cut down on spending.  If the GOP was really serious about reducing the deficit, they'd raise taxes, agree to budget cuts proposed by government agencies, and raise or remove the $100,000 cap on the Social Security contribution.  They'd also seriously consider ending the expensive and wholly ineffective War on Drugs.  By de-criminalizing drugs, we'd save the money spent trying to stop them, and gain revenue from new taxes on the production.  It worked for alcohol, there's no reason it couldn't work for drugs.

But the GOP isn't considering any of these things, therefore we can conclude that they are not interested in reducing the deficit, even though they claim they are.  Actions speak louder than words, and the actions are damning.

Government Intrusion
While they claim to believe that government must be limited, the Grand Old Party sure has put a lot of effort into pushing government into the most private moments of our lives.

A prime example of this are all the initiatives mandating invasive ultrasound procedures on women.  These procedures serve no medical purpose whatsoever.  They are intended solely to shame women out of having abortions, a private decision that is already difficult and painful enough for most women.  But the Republican Party has pushed laws in several states requiring that before they can undergo an abortion, they have to have a plastic wand shoved up into their vagina and view the resultant image.

Isn't this just what you want to have done to you following a rape?

It just doesn't get much more intrusive than being penetrated against your will in order to force you to see something you already know is there and have already decided to remove, in my humble opinion.  But it doesn't end there; Republicans in several state legislatures have been pushing "personhood," which defines human life beginning not at the moment a fertilized ova implants itself in a woman's placenta, but at the moment of fertilization.  Unstated is the fact that since most oral contraceptives work by preventing the ova from attaching to the placenta, most forms of female oral contraception could be declared illegal.

The GOP is getting right into our bedrooms, and literally forcing their way into a woman's private parts.

Limiting Equal Rights - They're Not For Everyone
Shockingly, 40 years after John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, which mandated that someone doing the same job should receive the same pay, Senate Republicans blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act, intended to strengthen protections against pay inequities.  It's hard to believe that anyone could reject the concept of equal pay in this day and age, but there it is.

“We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”
― Thomas Jefferson

Republicans have also been working hard to disenfranchise voters.  In Florida, Governor Scott has been pushing for clerks to purge voters from the rolls using a badly flawed list of suspects; so far, less than 1% of the supposedly illegal voters have turned out to be actually illegal voters.  But that hasn't slowed him down any.  He's ignoring cease and desist orders from the Department of Justice, and has ordered a legal defense of his purge.

To date, 22 statutes and 2 executive actions have been approved in 17 states since 2011, and as many as 74 similar bills are pending around the country. 

As noted in the Washington Post, April 30 2012:

If photo ID laws were going to be the solution, though, Republicans had to invent a problem. The best they could come up with was The Menace of Widespread Voter Fraud.

It’s a stretch. Actually, it’s a lie. There is no Widespread Voter Fraud. All available evidence indicates that fraudulent voting of the kind that photo ID laws would presumably prevent — someone shows up at the polls and votes in someone else’s name — just doesn’t happen.

This is born out time and again; in Florida, for example, out of a list of about 1,600 suspected ineligible voters, only 13 were found to have actually been ineligible to be on the voters' rolls, and only 8 of those people had ever actually voted.

Republicans are also firmly opposed to the rights of gays to marry.  They call it The Defense of Marriage Act, but it does little to defend anything; all it does is prevent some people from enjoying rights enjoyed by millions of other Americans.  Worse, there are moves to amend the constitution to make gay marriage illegal in the handful of states that do allow it. 

The thing about our bill of rights; any amendment is supposed do one of two things, and preferably both: 1. It must protect a citizen from harm.  2. It must improve the life of a citizen, or allow them greater opportunities to have justice, domestic tranquility, safety, and improve their general welfare.  A ban against gay marriage does none of these things.  The only purpose of such an amendment would be to stop someone from having rights.  That is about as great an assault on American values as I can imagine; an amendment that exists for the purpose of preventing some people from having rights granted to others. 

"The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it."
--Thomas Jefferson to M. van der Kemp, 1812.

Fuck the Constitution, Let's Have a State Religion
Another problem with this movement is that the "traditional definition" the GOP adheres to is on derived from a religion; specifically Christianity.  Other religions have other definition; for example, they permit multiple spouses.  That means that in order to define marriage as "a union between one man and one woman," the state must adapt a specific religious view, a de facto violation of the First Amendment, which clearly states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

If we are to follow a strict Constitutional approach to the matter, the State should treat all marriages in the same manner as any contract under contract law; they should simply record the fact of it.

Time and again, Republicans seek to sneak Creationism, that is, the biblical story of where everything came from, into our educations system.  They feel that evolution, the scientific explanation of how life developed from simpler forms into the myriad organisms we have now, should be downplayed in favor of their religious views. 

Their tactics are actually as pathetic as they are blatant; try to diminish evolution by emphasizing that it's "only a theory" and elevate Creationism by claiming, well, let's quote Republican Senator Stephen Wise:

"If you're going to teach evolution, then you have to teach the other side so you can have critical thinking."

The flaw in this reasoning is that creationism isn't "another side."  It's a religious conviction, period.  It has no place in science, even if you substitute "creationism" with "intelligent design."  It's similar to insisting that children be taught the parable of the loaves and fishes as an alternative to "2+2=4".

Fuck Science, Too.
Here is what qualifies Evolution as a valid scientific theory; first, we can devise experiments to test it, and second, we can make predictions based on it.  You can't do that with Creationism. 

Evolution predicts that organisms adapt over time so they can survive; an example of that is the flu virus.  Each year, the Centers for Disease Control have to update flu vaccines because the various strains of the flu evolve so that they are not affected by prior versions.  We're having a minor crisis with infection due to the over-use of anti-biotics.  Dish soap may kill 99.9% of bacteria initially, but that leave room for the .01% to breed.  And sure enough, we're now seeing strains of bacteria that aren't affected by our current inventory of anti-biotics.

Creationism can't be tested in this manner; no predictions can be made using it, not even if you call it "Intelligent Design."  That's because it's not science, it's a religious conviction.

Republicans have expanded their pro-religion anti-science stance to the weather: I'm talking of course about Global Warming.  When a state appointed science panel issued a report warning that sea levels could rise as much as 3 feet, North Carolina Republicans responded by introducing legislation that would mandate that flood rates could only be calculated by a single state agency, and that that agency could only use the historical record back to 1900 to calculate those rates and would be forbidden from referring to the best current data on the subject.

Not since the Pope excommunicated Galileo for stating that the earth revolves around the sun have we seen such a misguided attack on science. 

Preventing effective Government
Politics has been described as "the art of the compromise." And in fact, Congress itself is the result of a compromise; half the founding fathers wanted representation based on the population of each state, which would result in states with larger populations having more sway than smaller states. The other half wanted each state to have an equal voice, allotting each state the same number of representatives, regardless of population.  In the end, both sides compromised, adopting both plans.

Larry David described compromise as "a solution leaving both parties equally dissatisfied."

But so-called Tea Party Republicans have deadlocked our government by refusing any compromise.  In years past, Democrats and Republicans would work with each other to come up with bi-partisan solutions, where each side compromised so that effective legislation could be enacted.

Of course, many Republicans will state that it's the Democrats who haven't compromised; but this is largely because Republicans aren't using the same definition as everyone else.

Republican Tea Party Senator Richard Mourdock is a clear illustration of this.  His take on what it means to be "bi-partisan" is intriguing, to say the least:

"I hope... that bipartisanship becomes Democrats joining Republicans to roll back the size of government, reduce the bureaucracy, lower taxes  ..."

Demanding that the other side adopt your point of view is  not bipartisanship, and it's certainly not compromise. 

As self-proclaimed conservative David Brooks noted, Democrats have compromised:

"The Democrats have agreed to tie budget cuts to the debt ceiling bill. They have agreed not to raise tax rates. They have agreed to a roughly 3-to-1 rate of spending cuts to revenue increases, an astonishing concession.
...
Moreover, many important Democrats are open to a truly large budget
deal. President Obama has a strong incentive to reach a deal so he can
campaign in 2012 as a moderate. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid,
has talked about supporting a debt reduction measure of $3 trillion or
even $4 trillion if the Republicans meet him part way.
...
But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.

The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no. "
-- The New York Times, July 5 2011

The Washington Post was even blunter:

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.
-- The Washington Post, April 27, 2012

What "Anyone But Obama" Means For Us

So to sum it up, here's what a vote for "Anyone But Obama" is actually supporting:

• No end to the deficit.
• Government intruding into our personal lives.
  
• Renewed abuses of our civil rights.
• A de facto end to freedom of religion by advancing the causes of one religion over others.
• Stifling scientific achievement if it contradicts currently held views of the reigning party
• Ensuring that effective governance can't occur by refusing to work with the opposition.
  

Maybe this won't change your mind; maybe you even approve of the actual agenda of the Republican Party.  But one thing is certain; if you vote for "anyone but Obama," you'll be contributing to this glorious mess.

No, he's not sitting.

The Problem with "Anyone But..." Part 1

In a discussion about the Republican Party and its tendency to bolsterits positions with whopping lies, the other party confessed that they didn't particularly care for Mitt Romney.  "But anyone but Obama will be a better choice."

This is a flawed argument, one only held by those too lazy to actually think it through.  So let's  examine the folly of voting for "Anyone But."

"Anyone But Alex Sink"

In 2010, Florida elected Republican Rick Scott to governor.  Although implicated in a Medicare fraud that resulted in the largest criminal fine in US history, and even though many of his own party  believed that he may have had a part in that fraud (no charges were filed because his underlings  wouldn't rat him out), he beat out his squeaky clean opponent, Democrat Alex Sink, a banker with a solid record of success in the private sector.

As quoted in the Miami Herald on November 3, 2010:

"I wouldn't have voted for him if I had another Republican to choose from,'' said Frank Paruas, a 38-year-old Kendall Republican. "I think Alex Sink isn't a bad person. But I just couldn't vote for anyone in the Democratic party right now.''

He didn't vote for Rick Scott, per se.  He voted for "anyone but" the other party's candidate.

Florida has paid the price since.  And I mean that literally. 

"My egregious blunders only stack this high!"

Right off the bat, he rejected the popular high-speed rail project that was going to begin with a stretch from Tampa to Orlando as the first link.  It would have been paid for with  $2.4 billion in Federal stimulus funding with matching funds from the private sector, and would have resulted in thousands of jobs, with no Florida tax dollars coming out of the state budget.  And since it was only the first stretch of a rail from Miami to Tallahassee, we'd have continued to have return on the investment for decades to come.

To add injury to insult, just a few months later, he approved a 61 mile commuter rail project at a cost of $500 million to state taxpayers.  He slashed other budgets to fund this one train line that would only serve its 61 mile  stretch.

So that's $2.9 billion before the end of his first year.  But there's so much more.

He signed off on a law imposing mandatory drug testing on welfare applicants, even though studies shows that less than two percent of applicants use drugs.  And in fact, the program produced no savings, instead adding another $45,780 to cover the cost of reimbursing the 98% of applicants who passed the test.  And in fact, similar laws had already been struck down.  And so to, was this one. 

At least one lawsuit is still pending, so we don't know how much this turkey will end up costing Florida.  To add insult to injury, he tried to pass a similar law for state workers, which courts quickly swatted down.

Rick Scott has also signed off on legislation that violates the Constitution of the United States.  The most recent example is the voters purge; while the idea isn't a bad one, Florida is required to submit any changes to voter eligibility to the courts, due to the state's egregious civil rights violations in the past.  They didn't.  

Scott is now squandering tax dollars to fight a battle he's already  lost.  Is the purge necessary?  Apparently not; so far, less than one percent of the voters in question have turned out to be ineligible.  Earlier in the year, a judge declared an earlier attack on voters' rights to be unconstitutional.

Scott also approved a law that penalizes any firm that does business with Cuba, a clear violation of Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution, which states unequivocally that only Congress has the right to regulate commerce with foreign nations. More tax dollars wasted to fight for a bad law he should have

vetoed.

That's somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.5 billion dollars wasted because voters chose "anyone  but" the other candidate.

But we mustn't forget his "other" accomplishments.

• he gutted education funding by $500 million, and that's not including the millions pulled out to fund "charter" schools.
• attempted to remove the state's prescription drug database, which was successfully showing which doctors were issuing too many prescriptions and which pharmacists were buying more pills than were being dispensed in prescriptions.  He claimed it was to "save money," but it relied on no state funding.
• attempted to privatize prisons over the objections of his hand-picked Secretary of the Department of Corrections, who resigned in protest.  The Florida Legislature ultimately rejected Scott's plans.
• made crippling cuts to programs that serve the severely disabled, potentially risking the lives of thousands of Floridians.
• oversaw the creation of the nation's worst unemployment program, making it extremely difficult for the unemployed to apply for the paltry benefits available; denials for procedural reasons (forms incorrectly filled out) skyrocketed by 200%.
• passed a new PIP auto insurance law that does little to protect drivers, and less to reduce Florida's exorbitant insurance rate.
• is attempting to remove Citizen's Property Insurance Corporation, a state run insurance company created in the wake of Hurricane Andrew that is the only option available to thousands of homeowners.  The group can't turn anyone down, and must charge the highest rate in the market.
  

By the end of his first year, polls showed that voters would then elect Democrat Alex Sink by a wide margin if given an opportunity to do so.  In a more recent Republican Party poll, Scott lost out to an obscure state representative who, ironically, was selected because he was "anyone but Rick Scott."

Newt Gingrich Caught Lying About Romney's Lying

OK, I wasn't going to start in on the race to select the next Republican candidate for President.  I figured I'd wait until they select one.  First, because none of the candidates are very good choices, and second, I figure "why not let them select the worst of the lot and make Obama's campaign a slam-dunk?"

Of course, I'm less confident of that since shitheads like Frank Paruas elected Rick Scott as Florida's governer, even though they thought he probably really was guilty of the largest Medicare fraud in the nation's history, because "he was the Republican candidate."

But now Newt Gingrich of all people is questioning someone else's honesty. That's right, Mr. "Sorry you're fighting for your life against cancer but I'm leaving you for this woman I've been cheating on you with" thinks he has some moral high-ground in this campaign.

From the CNN article:

In particular, Gingrich cited claims in Romney ads that he resigned in disgrace from the House in 1999 after being cited two years earlier for an ethics violation.

"I did not resign in disgrace," Gingrich declared, and he also rejected the assertion that the $300,000 he paid to cover the cost of the investigation against him was a fine.

Oh, really.  So I suppose Newt would have us believe he resigned in victory.

ABC News also spoke with Gingrich:

“It’s fundamentally false,” Gingrich told me Sunday on “This Week.”  “It’s typical of [Romney's] whole campaign.  He knows… that this is a purely phony charge.”
- Jake Tapper's ABC News Blog

What a shame that we can't go back in time, back to 1998, to see what... wait a minute - WE CAN!

Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the charismatic soul of the Republican Revolution whose members turned on him after unexpected losses in Tuesday's election, announced yesterday he will quit as speaker of the House.
- Washington Post, November 7, 1998

I guess they "turned on him" in adulation, huh?

Sources say Gingrich made the choice when he was told that as many as 30 Republicans would refuse to vote for him on the floor of the House. A close associate of Gingrich said the speaker did not want to be the center of attention and distract his party for the next two years.

Earlier Friday, Oklahoma Rep. Steve Largent announced he is seeking to replace House Majority Leader Dick Armey in the No. 2 House leadership post.

"On November 3rd the Republican Party hit an iceberg. And I think the question that is before our conference today is whether we retain the crew of the Titanic," said Largent, an ex-pro football player and member of the Hall of Fame.  "Clearly the last two years are nothing to be proud of."
- CNN, November 6, 1998

It seems that Newt wants us to believe that Largent was comparing Gingrich to the team responsible for the worst shipwreck in recorded history in a good way.

 "At least Newt didn't kill 1,517 people"

But those are his jealous co-workers; members of his own party that Newt could reasonably argue had an agenda to frame his resignation in negative terms.  What did the American people think of his untimely resignation?

Americans overwhelmingly gave a thumbs up to Newt Gingrich's resignation...

The poll showed 70% of respondents favor Gingrich's departure... Ninety per cent said Republicans should find a speaker who tries harder than Gingrich did to work with the Democrats, not against them.
- NY Daily News, November 9, 1998

I dunno, when everyone is glad you're gone, comparing your leadership to that of the Titanic's, I don't see how you can say there isn't some element of shame in there.

Oh, wait, what about the $300,000?  Was it a "fine," or merely a "reimbursement" as he claims?

First, let's determine what a "fine" actually consists of:

fine (noun);
3 a: a sum imposed as punishment for an offense
   b: a forfeiture or penalty paid to an injured party in a civil action
- Merriam-Webster.com

OK, so a fine is a sum imposed as a punishment, or a penalty paid to an injured party.  What did the media say about it at the time?

The House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to reprimand House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and order him to pay an unprecedented $300,000 penalty, the first time in the House's 208-year history it has disciplined a speaker for ethical wrongdoing.

In addition, five Democrats voted "present," many of them saying they believed the sanction was not severe enough. "If Newt Gingrich did what they said he did, he should have been censured," said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), one of the five who voted "present." A censure, second only in severity to expulsion, would have threatened Gingrich's speakership.

The speaker was barely visible yesterday, staying away from the House floor during the 90-minute debate and vote on his punishment.
- Washington Post, January 22, 1997

So Newt is lying his cheating little ass off when he claims that he wasn't fined for his ethics violations.  And he's lying when he says that Romney is lying about it.

When you examine the facts, when you look at the history, it's clear that Newt Gingrich was found guilty by his Congressional peers, that he was charged a massive penalty - which he did pay, by the way - and that he did resign in shame a year later.

Everything that Gingrich claimed was "fundamentally false" is in reality "factually correct."

Fact - his Congressional peers found him guilty of ethics violations.
Fact - the $300,000 was a fine intended to punish him.
Fact - he did resign under a cloud that would have shamed any man of conscience.

Gingrich said something else:

"You cannot be president of the United States if you cannot be honest and candid with the American people," Gingrich said.
- CNN, January 29, 2012

Well, I hate to say it, but I agree with Newt on this one.  Newt, I expect you to withdraw from the campaign by the end of the week. It's the honorable thing to do.

Which is why I won't hold my breath waiting for you to do it.

Scott Isn't Increasing Education Budget.

If you're following the story in the news, you might believe that Governor Rick Scott is increasing the education budget by a whopping one billion dollars.  And there's a reason you might believe that; it's what The Miami Herald is reporting:

TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Rick Scott opened the annual legislative session Tuesday with a State of the State address punctuated by a vow to not sign a new budget unless it increases school spending by $1 billion next year.

But in fact, he's not increasing spending.  He's only restoring most - but not all - of the money he cut away from the education budget last year.  And in fact, The Herald does include this information, but sort of blows past it as it re-affirms the fictional increase:

Scott last spring signed a budget that cut school spending by $1.3 billion. But in a series of meetings with parents across the state, he said they resoundingly favored more money for schools...

Are you doing the math?  Just in case you can't slip your shoes off to count your toes, if the legislature gives Scott what he wants, he will have reduced the education budget by 300 million dollars since he's taken office.

The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel did a better job of reporting the matter:

With anti-Scott protestors crowding the Capitol halls, the Republican governor used his 34-minute State of the State speech to a joint session of the Legislature to reiterate his demand that lawmakers boost classroom spending by roughly $1 billion – after cutting $1.35 billion last year.

Makes it a little easier to see the chicanery in action, doesn't it?  And look, they didn't round down an additional $50 million like The Herald did.

The bottom line is that Rick Scott is spending $350 million less on education than his predecessor did.

And how is Governor Scott getting this $1 billion dollars, since he's slashed taxes and other sources of revenue  in order to give tax breaks to corporations and a thousand or so of the wealthiest Floridians?

He's taking it from the poor.

Scott's budget calls for cutting $1.9 billion from the $21 billion Medicaid program that treats nearly 3 million poor, sick and elderly.

I guess the ran the company that committed the largest Medicare fraud in history figures that if you're poor, sick, and dying, what's a little more pain and suffering matter?  Or perhaps this is a clever attempt to lower the unemployment rate; dead people don't show up as unemployed!

Nah, I'm sure that's just a happily opportunistic coincidence.

At least some Democrats are paying attention:

"To say we're adding money is disingenuous," said Senate Minority Leader Nan Rich, a Weston Democrat who complained cutting health care to fund schools was a bait-and-switch. "The same people are ending up paying the cost of what he's asking for."   - The Sun-Sentinel

So under Rick Scott's plan, Dick and Jane might still be able to go to school, but Mom and Dad might be too sick to help them with their homework, and might even die. 

Maybe then Dick and Jane can get into foster care!  They might not be among the thousands of children who are abused and neglected, and there hasn't been a case of foster parents killing their wards in months!

Oh, wait, Govenor Scott gutted THAT agency, too.  He fired 14% of the DCF workforce in order to create more jobs.  So how is an agency that was already overwhelmed supposed to improve?

“I believe in the protective power and prayer and hope,” Governor Rick Scott’s Department of Children and Families Secretary David Wilkins said at a stop in Miami last week. - CBS4 Miami

Dick and Jane are so boned.

And we have Frank Paruas to thank.

Let's Settle This Fairly

There's a lot of talk going around about how unpopular Rick Scott, the governor of  Florida, has become since taking office.  His current approval rating is a record low 27%, which supposedly led The Orlando Sentinel to declare that only hemorrhoids where more unpopular.

I have to admit, this delights me no end.

So I thought I'd put it to the test and find out how unpopular he really is:

I figure there's nothing like a good poll to sort this out once and for all.  Remember, vote early - and often!

(poll closed)

Maybe after this, I'll see what we think of Frank Paruas, who is responsible for electing Rick Scott in the first place.

Well, Now We Know.

Back during the election, when Rick Scott was swearing up, down, and sideways that he had no idea his company was committing fraud even though he signed paperwork that flatly stated that they were, I said that either he was bald-faced liar, or incompetent.

Well, good news, everybody;  he's incompetent!

As reported in the Sun-Sentinel, more than 400 state bureaucrats that had been told to resign so Scott could replace them with cronies stooges minions people of his own have now been asked to stay on, so he can fire them later.

So we call relax; Scott is not a morally bankrupt thug intent on sucking us dry, he's an incompetent dithering idiot who will surround himself with morally bankrupt thugs intent on sucking us dry.

Remember, you can thank Frank Paraus and thousands of other mouth-breathing partisan zombies for voting the Party link instead of voting for someone they felt would be  a quality governor.

Blame it on Frank

 George Washington warned us.
 

"I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally."

 "The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty."

"Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it."

 "One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to ...render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection."

"They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

-- from George Washington's Final Address as President, 1796

Why do I bring this up?  Because 214 years later, partisan politics is as ugly as Washington warned, and perhaps more twisted and vile than he could have imagined.

Check out this little tidbit, from today's Miami Herald:

Even Republicans who voted for Scott were wary of him.

``I wouldn't have voted for him if I had another Republican to choose from,'' said Frank Paruas, a 38-year-old Kendall Republican. ``I think Alex Sink isn't a bad person. But I just couldn't vote for anyone in the Democratic party right now.''

You are reading this correctly: even though, like most informed  people, he believed that Rick Scott probably committed Medicare fraud, Frank Paruas voted for a probable criminal rather than vote for a competent executive with a clean record who belonged to the other party.

We should have listened to George.

And Frank - in the coming years, remember this: it's all your fault.  And I will never, ever let you forget it.  Every time Scott is caught playing fast and loose, I will remind the world that you , Frank Paruas, voted for Scott.  Every time one of his appointees is investigated for fraud or corruption, I'll be gloating "Frank's boy does it again!"

You see, I've learned that simply telling the world at large the truth doesn't make a damned bit of difference. So from now on, it's all aimed at you, Frank.

Welcome to the Hell that you made by voting for a criminal.