Putting Mitt in Perspective: PBS

For fiscal year 2012, PBS received $442 million dollars from the federal government.  That's an "m" in there. $442 million for the entire year.

That constitutes .012% of the entire Federal budget.  That's POINT zero one two percent, or less than 1/8 of 1%.


"But it's $400 million dollars" you say.  OK. Let's put that in perspective.

We're spending $300 million dollars PER DAY on the war in Afghanistan.  Obama is trying to remove our troops from Afghanistan in a safe and responsible manner.  Mitt says we shouldn't pull our troops out of Afghanistan just because it's expensive.

It seems to me that Mitt is saying we have to take Sesame Street away from inner city kids because we need to kill people on the other side of the planet.

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.

Jon Stewart: Eastwood fits GOP

Jon Stewart shows us that  Eastwood is actually a great spokesman for the GOP; not just because he's verging on senility.  Well, mostly that.

Part 1:

The Daily Show
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Part 2:

The Daily Show
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Dictionary Fun with Rob Moore.

Yes, it's time for another round of Dictionary Fun!  Today, we'll be checking out the vocabulary skills of Rob Moore.

Rob Moore is the CFO for Murray Energy, a company that operates coal mines in West Virginia.  He's also a fucking thug colossal prick and a miserable excuse for a human being an uncaring company stooge a cold-hearted business man, as we'll see.


Mr. Moore came to our attention after a friend posted this photo on Facebook:

Hard to believe, isn't it?  But some research lead us to recorded talk radio show on West Virginia's WWVA 1170 AM. If you don't have the 20 minutes to listen to the program, The Raw Story gives us a thorough good recap of the story.

A group of coal miners in Ohio feel they would have been fired if they did not attend an Aug. 14 event with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and contribute to his campaign — and to make matters worse, they lost of day of pay for their trouble.

“Yes, we were in fact told that the Romney event was mandatory and would be without pay, that the hours spent there would need to be made up my non-salaried employees outside of regular working hours, with the only other option being to take a pay cut for the equivalent time,” the employees told Blomquist. “Yes, letters have gone around with lists of names of employees who have not attended or donated to political events.”

What did the company have to say about it?

Murray Energy Chief Financial Officer Rob Moore told Blomquist that the charges were untrue.

“There were no workers that were forced to attend the event,” Moore said. “We had managers that communicated to our work force that the attendance at the Romney event was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend the event..."

Hmmm. Attendance was mandatory.  But the employees weren't forced.  But if it was mandatory, doesn't that mean that they had to go?  Isn't that what "mandatory" means?

Let's see what Merriam-Webster has to say about the word "mandatory:"

MANDATORY (adjective)  1: required by a law or rule : obligatory <the mandatory retirement age>

So, yes, if attendance was mandatory, they were indeed expected to go.  That was the, um, mandate they were given.

Moore did have more to say about the attendance:

"... but no one was forced to attend the event. We had a pre-registration list. And employees were asked to put their names on a pre-registration list because they could not get into the event unless they were pre-registered and had a name tag to enter the premises.”

Then why did you just say it was mandatory?  If there is confusion, Mr. Moore, it was created by Murray Energy, who told employees they had to attend, not the employees who are pissed that they were told they had to attend a political rally for someone whose record for labor is pretty dismal.

But to add insult to injury:

“Our management people wanted to attend the event..."

We have cause to suspect that the fact that their boss told them they'd better be there had something to do with it, but heck, we'll play the game that they were all willing volunteers who not coerced in any way by the owner of the company who has donated over $900,000 to the Republican Party over the last year or so.

So what's the problem with all the manager going to the rally?  Because there were no managers on site, the mine had to be closed for a day.  Or more precisely, because management closed the mine to attend a political rally, every miner working for them lost that day's wages.

The radio host asked them why the workers had to be punished for their management team's decision to close for the day:

I’m not saying pay then to attend the event, I’m saying, ‘Hey look, we have to close down the mine, if you want to attend this event, that’s fine, but you’re still going to get a day’s pay for the work that you would have done,’” Blomquist pointed out. “Why not do that?”

“As a private employer, it was our decision and we made the decision not to pay the people,” the Murray chief financial officer said.

A responsible company would have ensured that operations continued.  A company that gave a shit about its employees would have declared "it's great that everyone wants to meet Mr. Romney, but we're a business first, and there are people depending on their paycheck to pay their bills, to put food on the table, so we need to have enough managers on site to continue operations."

A truly benevolent company would have paid the employees for the day's wages; after all, there is no good reason for them NOT to be working other than the fact that the managers and administration of Murray Energy are selfish pricks who don't give a shit about their workers decided not to show up to work so they could do something else.

They could have done either of those things, and everyone would have been happy, and there'd be no reason for me and the rest of the blogosphere to rip Mr. Moore a new one.

But sadly, that's not what Murray Energy did:

“We’re talking about an event that was in the best interest of anyone that’s related to the coal industry,” Moore added. “I do not believe that missing an eight-hour day, when you put it into perspective, when you think about how critical — critical this next election is, and how critical it is that we get someone in this office that supports coal — to give up eight hours for a career, I just don’t believe that there is anything negative about that.”

Well, Mr. Moore, that's because you are a steaming turd of a person.

While I certainly can see that if you don't want to run your mine with all the proper safety protocols to keep your workers safe, and if you're an owner whose income puts you in the top 2% tax bracket, attending Mr. Romney's rally makes perfect sense.  But if you're one of the workers who's going to wind up paying a big tax increase so the owner can pay an even lower tax rate than his employees, if you're a worker whose safety depends on the regulations that Mr. Romney has promised to repeal, if you're an hourly employee whose wages have been lowered because of Republican policies over the last few years, the last thing you want to do is lose a day's pay to support the candidate who is doing everything in his power to reduce you to living in poverty.

And if you think I'm being too hard on Murray Energy, consider this; the last time they made the news was 2009.  That's when a mine they owned in Utah collapsed and killed six miners and 3 rescue workers.  This was after receiving 325 citations in five years for exactly the kind of safety violations that resulted in the collapse.  That's an average of one citation every week.   Once a week for five years.

Charles Dickens wrote of greed-driven men like Moore, and his sleazy boss Robert Murray, nearly 170 years ago:

"I wear the chain I forged in life,'' replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?''

Scrooge trembled more and more.

"Or would you know,'' pursued the Ghost, ``the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You  have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!''

The Ghost... set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.

"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,'' cried the phantom, "Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!''

"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,'' faultered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

"Business!'' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!''

It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.

But I'm expecting too much of someone who doesn't even know what the word "mandatory" means.  These money-grubbing turds don't even own a dictionary, it's unlikely that they are bright enough to see how the parable of A Christmas Carol might apply to them.

George Washington on Government

A people who ignore their history are doomed to repeat it; we're already repeating parts of it, and not for the first time.  But all that means is that the words of our founding fathers are still relevant, if not merely "relevant again."

George Washington boast of our nation's liberalism in his letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, 1790:

If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good government, to become a great and happy people.

The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy — a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.

He also spoke of the importance of working together in his Farewell Address, 1796:

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth...

We haven't had any unity of government in the last two congresses; when the GOP got control of the House, the Republican leadership announced to its constituents that the party would no longer be working towards unity of purpose, but focusing solely on preventing the incumbent president from being re-elected.

To that end, the Republican Party has been flat-out demonizing the Democratic Party, and any who support it.  And Washington warned us of this, too:

...you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union... you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it... discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country... The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.

In Washington's times, factionalism was divided along regional origin; citizens tended to identify themselves by their state affiliation rather than Americans.  But the basic problem is still with us, even if we call ourselves "Democrats" and "Republicans" or "Liberals" or "Conservatives."  Washington was very clear that true patriots are Americans first, above and beyond any other affiliation.

He was also insistent that we must work together, and that facts must be considered over insinuations:

These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope that a proper organization of the whole with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands.

And in particular, we can't emphasize enough how dangerous he considered political parties:

One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other(s). 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.

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. 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...

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.

Doesn't this ring familiar in the light of Citizens' United and the Koch Brothers? A small and well-financed group manages to subvert existing laws to flood the airwaves with patently false information, drowning out the truth in the cacophony of blaring commercials.

This election is a damning testament to the accuracy of George Washington's warning.

Don't Jump On The GOP Bandwagon

...especially while we're trying to pull its wheels off.

People, when we embrace the methods of our enemy to win the goal, winning becomes pointless.  If the Democrats have to lie like Republicans to win the election, they've already lost everything that matters.

Lookin' good, but time to wash her mouth out with soap

While it will be a cold day in hell before I vote for Romney, he himself has always supported an exception for rape to any of the medieval anti-abortion laws his party has endorsed.  And he still does. Deborah Wasserman Schultz is indeed lying to voters when she insists otherwise. 

Does that mean that the GOP won't try to keep women barefoot and pregnant if we're stupid enough to elect him?  Of course not.  But we don't need to lie about Romney's stance on the matter.

Instead, we should be dissecting some of his ACTUAL stupid stances; like how he argued against the ACA's mandate that all health insurance plans offer birth control to women at no cost by claiming it violated the First Amendment. 

"I don't need facts while I carry this!"

And while Romney indeed made a joke about no one asking for his birth certificate during is visit to his home town, it's not the same thing as Sherrif Joe "I'm A Fucking Idiot" Arpaio insisting that the State of Hawaii was wrong when it verified the authenticity of a birth certificate issued by the Stage of Hawaii.  

Yes, Romney is strangely attractive to birthers.  But it seems he has never questioned Obama's citizenship, even while courting the lunatic fringe.

It was a joke.  Romney was joking, or trying to. Nobody accused him of jumping on the birther bandwagon last time,   so lighten up.

The only way we can change the tone of these damaging excuses for elections is to actually change the tone of them; we must turn our backs on lies and deception; for every whopping fib they tell, we must counter with a truth.  We must dazzle them with honesty.

We can't afford to keep having our leadership win by the expedience of telling more lies - or more credible lies - than the opposition; we need leaders who win by being better, not more devious.

Lyin' Ryan Protests Himself

Paul Ryan just can't seem to avoid lying to the American people.  This time, he's chastising President Obama for the budget cuts that automatically kick in if Congress doesn't stop its inane bickering in order to pass a proper budget.

The Romney campaign is up at arms, and posted a press release detailing the dire consequences of the plan.

President Obama Signed Legislation That Could Lead To More Than $500 Billion In Defense Cuts In 2013.
-- mittromney.com, August 23. 2012

While the memo mentions that President Obama signed a bill that had passed both houses of Congress, the real cheek is Rep. Ryan blaming the President for doing so.

“President Obama’s reckless defense cuts that are hanging over our cloud, hanging over the horizon..."
-- CNN. 8/22/2012

President Obama's "reckless defense cuts" that were voted on and approved in both houses of Congress.  Since there's only one President, and there are a total of 547 members of Congress, doesn't that really make it Congress' reckless defense cuts?

But Mr. Ryan doesn't stop there. ThinkProgress has posted a video of Mr. Ryan speaking before a crowd.

"We opposed it then; we oppose it now."
-- ThinkProgress.org, 8/23/2012

Except that he didn't oppose it.  He voted for it. 

Paul Ryan is blaming Barack Obama for signing a bill that Ryan voted for.  Mr. Ryan is lying his ass off when he says he opposed it. You don't oppose things by voting for them, you oppose them by voting against them.  That's the entire point of being able to vote against things.

And he wasn't alone; 174 of his fellow Republicans also voted IN FAVOR OF the same bill that RYAN ALSO VOTED FOR.

Surely, one way to keep Mr. Obama from signing a bill into law would be to vote against it so that it never made it to his desk.  But Mr. Ryan did not vote against it, he voted for it, which means that he approved of the bill, because when you approve of something you vote for it, which is what Ryan did.

GOP Takes Stupid to New Levels

It's bad enough that Representative Todd Akin (R, Missouri) was so poorly educated that he believed that women who are raped can't get pregnant because "everything shuts down" and his defense was "I misspoke" instead of a retraction, an apology, and withdrawal from the congressional race.  Anyone who sits on a committee overseeing Science ought to know some science.

Now we have a choice; we can believe Bryan Fischer, speaking for the American Family Association, when he insists that Akin was right.  Fischer holds degrees in Philosophy and Theology.

Or, we can believe the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), who call Akin's remarks "medically inaccurate, offensive, and dangerous."  ACOG is the nation’s leading group of physicians providing health care for women.

So here it is, theology versus science.

A doctor of bible studies:

When you have a real, genuine rape, a case of forcible rape, a case of assault rape, where a woman has been violated against her will, through the use of physical force, there’s a very delicate and complex mix of hormones that take place that are released in a woman’s body and if that gets interfered with it may make it impossible for her or difficult in that particular circumstance to conceive a child.

Doctors specializing in women's reproductive health:

There is absolutely no veracity to the claim that “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down.” A woman who is raped has no control over ovulation, fertilization, or implantation of a fertilized egg (ie, pregnancy). To suggest otherwise contradicts basic biological truths.

Personally, I have to go with the ACOG and science, because it's based on, you know, reality.

Paul Ryan's So-Called "Record"

You might have seen a version of this latest meme making the rounds.  Basically, the claim is that Paul Ryan has only had two bills passed into law during the entire 13 years he's been in Congress.  Since that works out to .15 bills passed per year, that would be a truly lousy average, if it's true.

With Republicans slamming Obama so much about his "lack of experience" and claiming that he didn't get much done, it would be stunning hypocrisy if they selected a vice president with a less impressive record.

Which means it stands a good chance of being true.

We'd better check it out.

We'll start with Obama's record, just so we have a good idea of what the Republicans consider an inadequate measure.

Obama serve in the Senate from January 2005 through November 2008; or just over a month shy of four years.

He served on five committees, and eleven sub-committees, and an ad-hoc committee. 

He sponsored and/or co-sponsored the following bills that were passed into law:

1. the Secure Fence Act (signed into law)
2. The Lugar-Obama Initiative, an expansion of Nunn-Lugar (signed into law)
3. The Coburn-Obama Transparency Act (signed into law)
4. the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act (introduced by Obama) (signed into law)
5. the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (signed into law)
6. A resolution commemorating the 44th anniversary of the deaths of civil rights workersPassed (passed - Simple Resolution)

That's about 1.5 bills into law per year.  So that's our metric.  If you only manage to pass 1.5 bills into law, you are an ineffective legislator, according to the Grand Ol' Party.

Let's see how Representative Ryan compares:

He was elected to the House in 1998.

In that time, he served on two committees, one sub-committee, and five caucuses; that's about half the number of groups that Obama participated in. 

He sponsored or co-sponsored the following bills that were passed into law:

1. An Amendment to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the taxation of arrow components. (signed into law)
2. To Designate the "Les Aspin Post Office Building"  (signed into law)
   

Shit.  I thought that was bullshit.  But he really has only gotten two bills passed in 13 years. That works out to .15 bills into law per year.

   Ryan: 0.15
Obama: 1.5

OK, that looks bad.  But let's see if Ryan looks better when you summarize what their bills accomplished:  After all, quality, not quantity, is what we should value in a legislator.

• Paul Ryan made hunting arrows cheaper and got a post office named after the man who installed the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy into the armed forces.
• Barack Obama secured our borders, reduced the number of nuclear warheads on the planet, made government procurement procedures available to public scrutiny, help feed starving people,  forced elected and appointed officials to wait several years before they could become lobbyists, and honored civilians who died fighting for our rights.

So it looks like Mitt Romney has left no stone turned to find the best possible person to be a heartbeat away from running the country.

A Tale of Two Republicans

One set of facts, and two Republican politicians need them to prove different points.

Romney, who is the presumptive Republican candidate for President of the United States, needs to show that Florida's economy is a mess that needs cleaning up. Scott, the Republican governor of Florida with the lowest approval ratings in history, needs to show that Florida's economy is making a strong comeback.

A Romney campaign missive, for example, lists the statistics that make up “Obama’s Florida Record.” The list includes: “795,432 Unemployed Floridians Seeking Work; 676,535 Floridians Who Have Fallen Into Poverty; 105,000 Florida Jobs Lost; $3,369 Decline In Florida’s Median Income; and 45 Percent of All Mortgaged Florida Homes Underwater.”
-- The Miami Herald, August 12, 2012

The governor... tells audiences that “the number of unemployed has gone from 568,000 to 320,000,” “median home prices are up,” and Florida’s job growth rate “has been positive for 23 consecutive months.”
-- The Miami Herald, August 12, 2012

But we're doubtful about the ability to pull one set of facts into two directions.  In the end, what Romney and Scott are creating is the legendary Pushmi-Pulyu. 

And while they are struggling to distort the facts, it will force us to take a closer look at them, to discern the truth that exists beyond partisan politics:

When Obama took office in January 2009, Florida’s unemployment was at 8.7 percent, nearly identical to where it is today. It rose to 11.4 percent in January 2010, had dropped to 10.9 percent by the time Rick Scott took office in January 2011 and has been dropping somewhat steadily since.
-- The Miami Herald, August 12, 2012

So Romney is wrong, and Scott is right; things are getting better in Florida.  But it seems they've been improving in spite of Scott, not because of him.

The Latest Tea Party ''Tempest in a Teapot"

Apparently, the Tea Party's latest wholly manufactured scandal is "the fact that President Obama won't unseal his college transcripts."

In case you're wondering why they want these records unsealed, it's because people are clamoring for Mitt Romney to release more of his tax returns.  It's making him look bad.  And of course, there's Harry Reid claiming that Romney isn't releasing them because he hasn't actually paid taxes because of the nature of his income, which makes him look worse.

Since Mitt stubbornly won't release the information that would completely prove whether or not he paid taxes, that means the only thing left for his supporters to do is to make Obama look bad for not releasing his.  Which is problematic, because he's released decades of tax returns, and so has his running mate.

Obama has also released more copies of his birth certificate - both long and short - than Romney has released tax returns, so they have to come up with something else point at and accuse him of hiding.

But the fact is that we know a great deal about his performance in college from what is public record.

Here are the salient points we know about Obama's education; he transferred from Occidental to Columbia University, a tremendous step up academically. After his first year at Harvard Law School, he was selected as editor of the Harvard Law Review, a position of great prestige that must be earned through academic excellence and superior writing skills. During his second year at Harvard, he was selected to be President of the Review. There is no question that he was an excellent student; that is the only way he could have gained those positions.

"Demanding" his records isn't a search for the truth, it's just another pathetic attempt to make up a scandal where none exists. It's Birtherism 2.0.

We Coulda Been Talking about Tax Returns

A couple of weeks ago, you may recall Ann Romney said that she and her husband wouldn't be releasing any more of his tax returns;

"You know, you should really look at where Mitt has led his life, and where he’s been financially," she said in her interview with Robin Roberts. "He’s a very generous person. We give 10 percent of our income to our church every year. Do you think that is the kind of person that is trying to hide things, or do things?"
-- ABC News

Of course, this led me to ponder other things, since there weren't decades of financial disclosures to analyze.  And I mused about the secret goings-on of his religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

When the South Florida Daily Blog linked the story, some anonymous commenter tried to paint me as some kind of latter-day Nazi.

Anonymous said...

Man or maniac sounds just like the nazis did in the twenties and thirties. I'll bet he won't attack Islam like he attacks the LDS.

July 23, 2012 11:15 AM

And I replied to that remark, and in that reply I made an offer;

C.L.J said...

...I'll be glad to post more information regarding their activities that they don't want the general public worrying about. Like why they're so interested in Genealogy.

July 23, 2012 7:30 PM

But by pro-active use of procrastination (put off a task long enough, and it will finish itself), I find that other outlets have picked up the story.

Romney Keeps Mum on Mormon Baptism of Jews
Pressure builds to respond to baptism of Nazi-hunter's parents
A researcher discovered that the late parents of famed Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal were baptized in Mormon ceremonies in Utah and Arizona last month. "Can you believe it?" a stunned Wiesel asked on MSNBC yesterday. Wiesel was also placed on the Mormon to-be-baptized list.

That's right; the Mormons are baptizing dead people into their faith.  The story continues:

The Mormons believe people can be baptized after death, and baptized hundreds of thousands of Holocaust victims until they agreed to stop the practice in 1995. They have also baptized Anne Frank, Josef Stalin, and Adolph Hitler, notes MSNBC.

Technically, Mormons are only supposed to baptize ancestors, but obviously that has been loosely interpreted.

This is why they are so interested in Genealogy; once someone has been accepted into the faith, they trace that person's entire lineage so they can baptize every single one of their ancestors to make everyone in the family a member of their religion.

From  Mormon.org:

We learn in the New Testament that baptisms for the dead were done during the Apostle Paul’s time (see 1Corinthians 15:29). This practice has been restored with the establishment of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Because all who have lived on the earth have not had the opportunity to be baptized by proper authority during life on earth, baptisms may be performed by proxy...

Baptisms for the dead are performed by Church members in temples throughout the world.

Now, if you don't have any religious convictions, this probable sounds like much ado about nothing.  It's not like they're digging up graves, or desecrating tombs.

But if you take your religion seriously, then this is an inexcusable attack on the sacred dead.  It's nothing less than spiritual abduction; the dead are not consulted, they are simply taken.  It's kidnapping.  It's rape.

The church insists the deceased have "the right to choose" whether to accept Jesus Christ as their savior.
-- The Huffington post

Do they really?  I can't recall the last time a dead person actually made any informed decision outside of their Last Will and Testament. 

Tell you what, let's ask Harry Houdini, the great magician and close friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Doyle, as you may know, was an avid spiritualist, while Houdini was a skeptic who spent the last years of his life debunking Spiritualism and exposing the trickery used by mediums and mentalists to con their patrons.

"I've said everything I intended to say from beyond the grave to Arthur Conan Doyle."

"But Harry - you didn't say anything!"

"EXACTLY!"

Dead men tell no tales, and they certainly can't ask to be baptized into the secretive Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Nor can the dead tell the Mormons to stop what they're doing.  That's part of the whole "being dead" thing. But that won't stop Mormons from doing it anyway.  After all, the dead are also very poor at holding public demonstrations.

Until the zombie apocalypse, that is.  
At which point, feel free to baptize as many as you can.

Right about now, I'll bet the Romneys are wishing they'd distracted us with two decades of tax documents instead of leaving us all this time to wonder about other stuff.

"All" that "You People Need To Know"

During a recent interview on ABC News, Mitt Romney's wife, Ann, had heard enough questions about her family's tax returns.

"You know, you should really look at where Mitt has led his life, and where he’s been financially," she said in her interview with Robin Roberts. "He’s a very generous person. We give 10 percent of our income to our church every year. Do you think that is the kind of person that is trying to hide things, or do things?"

"We've given you people all you need to know" she concluded. 

It seems that the Romneys are afraid that if we saw more tax returns, we'd come up with things that we could attack them on.  Of course, we already have reasons to question this.  She just told us something in this interview.

Ann wants us to remember that Mitt gives ten percent of his income - whatever it is - to his church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The Mormon church. 

"He’s a very generous person. We give 10 percent of our income to our church every year."

That sounds impressive, doesn't it?  So much more than the handful of bills that most members of the real ^those other^ Christian denominations throw into the collection basket when it's passed around the church; I doubt it's anywhere near 10%. 

it's still cheaper than a movie ticket.

But she's kind of glossing over the fact that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints requires its members to tithe 10% of their income to the church. So that 10% isn't, as Mrs. Romney would have us believe, due to his charitable nature.  It's a commandment of his religion, not a philanthropic act.  This isn't a demonstration of his generous nature, it's adherence to the dictates of his religion.

His is a secretive religion, doing secretive things with the 10% of whatever Romney earns in a year.  They build huge temples that look like Disney had a hand in designing, fairy-tale palaces forbidden to the likes of you and I. 

"Someday My Prince Will Come - and I will be one of his brides!"

They are forbidden to unclean outsiders like us because of the secrets they house.  Secret rooms, holding the secret golden tablets that Joseph Smith says he plowed up out of the ground, written in a secret language.  A secret language that issues secret commandments.

They even have secret underwear.  I am not making this up; the Mormons have secret underwear they put on while performing their secret rituals in secret places you and I will never get to see.

Even the pope doesn't have secret underwear.

He wears tighty-whiteys, of course.
No, really, that's what he wears.

Of course, if you go to the LDS website, they have this on their FAQ.  "It's not secret," the website reports.  "It's just sacred.  Not secret.  Sacred.  Like a yarmulke.  It's just a sacred garment worn during certain rituals"

Of course, they don't explain or describe the garments, or where to get them. They don't even allow pictures of the garments.

...unlike Yarmulkes, the totally not-secret sacred head-wear of the Jews.
And Muslims.  And some Catholics.

Thanks, Mrs. Romney, I'm glad you called our attention to your husband's ongoing financial contributions to underwrite the secret goings-on of your strange church that is so full of so many secrets.  I'm sure my fellow Americans will rest easy now that they understand that just because you're keeping some things secret, it doesn't mean there aren't a lot more creepy secrets about you that we didn't even think about before.

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."

Fox News: High Gas Prices Not President's Fault.

No less a source than Fox News says that the President of the United States is powerless to lower gasoline prices.

Cal Thomas:

"...the facts are... no President has the power to increase or to lower gas prices; those are market forces."

Cheryl Casone:

"...it really is tough for this president, I have to be honest with you- because he really does not have any control over what will happen, with the markets and with the economy; and with oil prices and supply and demand and gasoline, it really is out of this president's hands."

Bill O'Reilly:

"...gasoline has hit a record high, and politicians can't do a thing about it...  so the next time you hear a politician say he or she will bring down oil prices, understand it's complete BS.  If Americans want lower gas prices, cut back... that's what the candidates should be saying."

Greta Van Susteren:

"...one statistic I was given was that if we drilled in ANWAR, we would get 4% of our daily consumption of oil... it looks like we need to curb our appetite..."

Don't believe me?  Here's video to prove it:

Oh, did I forget to mention they said this four years ago?  Well, it doesn't matter; the facts haven't changed.  If it was true in 2008, it's true now.

Birthers Redux; Three Strikes

My conservative relative who will remain nameless sent me another in a long line of easily exposed right-wing propaganda; it seems that the Birthers have renewed their efforts to "prove" that Barack Obama wasn't actually born in the United States.

And like every other attempt, this three step "exposé" does not stand up under scrutiny.  It's even more lame than their original thoroughly fraudulent theory.

This new failed attempt is called:

“Very Interesting Bit Of Detective Work”

That really should read "defective".   Sorry, didn't mean to cut in this soon.

STRIKE ONE:

“Very Interesting Bit Of Detective Work”

1. Back in 1961 people of color were called 'Negroes.' So how can the Obama 'birth certificate' state he is 'African-American' when the term wasn't even used at that time?

Ah, just as the Swift-boaters determined a font was wrong, these "detectives" have determined that because a modern term was used, it's obvious that the document is fake.

There's only one problem with this "fact."  It's completely false.  Not about the usage of the term; about the birth certificate.  I found a copy of it on the Huffington Post.  And here's what it actually says about his father's race:

AFRICAN.  Not "African-American".  Since Barack Obama's father was from Africa, this is the correct usage for the time period.  Africans were black people from Africa, Negroes were black people from the United States.

And this one didn't take any research.  I just had to read the damned certificate.

So much for glaringly obvious lie number one.

STRIKE TWO:

2. The birth certificate that the White House released lists Obama's birth as August 4, 1961. It also lists Barack Hussein Obama as his father. No big deal, right? At the time of Obama's birth, it also shows that his father is aged 25 years old, and that Obama's father was born in "Kenya , East Africa ". This wouldn't seem like anything of concern, except the fact that Kenya did not even exist until 1963, two whole years after Obama's birth, and 27 years after his father's birth. How could Obama's father have been born in a country that did not yet exist? Up and until Kenya was formed in 1963, it was known then as the “British East Africa Protectorate".

Wow.  So Kenya didn't exist until 1963, huh?  That would be a compelling piece of evidence, if it were true.

But it's not true.

Let's turn to the front page of the Toronto Daily Star for February 6, 1952:

Let's zoom in on that date:

It's a little messy, but it reads Wednesday, February 6, 1952.  Of course, feel free to look up the death of King George IV to confirm the dates.

So, at least as far as Canada was concerned, there was in fact a place called "Kenya" nine years prior to 1961.  Princess Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, were called back from Kenya (and not the "British East Africa Protectorate") so Elizabeth could be crowned queen. 

And while this piece of information alone is enough to completely savage the riotously insane notion that Kenya didn't exist in 1961, I don't want to waste the research I did before I found this lovely image.

The British East Africa Protectorate was created in 1888.

Kenya was, in fact, a part of the British East Africa Protectorate, which consisted of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and parts of Somalia (then known as Jubaland).

Kenya was the part known as KENYA.

In 1895, the British East Africa Protectorate was reorganized into the East Africa Protectorate, or simply East Africa.

Kenya became a formal colony, the Kenya Colony, in 1920.  Kenya, East Africa.

Which, hey, is EXACTLY what is on the Birth Certificate!

So much for glaringly obvious lie number two.

STRIKE THREE:

3. On the birth certificate released by the White House, the listed place of birth is "Kapi'olani Maternity Gynecological Hospital". This cannot be, because the hospital(s) in question in 1961 were called "KauiKeolani Children's Hospital" and "Kapi'olani Maternity Home", respectively. The name did not change to Kapi'olani Maternity Gynecological Hospital until 1978, when these two hospitals merged. How can this particular name of the hospital be on a birth certificate dated 1961 if this name had not yet been applied to it until 1978?

How could it be?  Because that's what its name actually was in 1961.

SacredHealing.com has a service called TriAdoption.

TRIADOPTION® was formed as an information center in 1978 to gather and dispense data to assist adoptees, birthparents, siblings and others in locating family members.... We began with a very important work by Reg Niles where he documented hundreds of adoption agencies, orphanages and maternity homes that cropped up in the 20th century and in many cases closed, moved or disappeared. For adoptees and birth families seeking their information, this is a valuable resource.

They've scanned and uploaded Reg Nile's book: Adoption Agencies, Orphanages and Maternity Homes:An Historical Directory - Volumes 1 & 2, ©1981.  This book was culled from records of state governments; from licenses issued and articles of incorporation filed through the years.

And it has a chapter on Hawaii.

Here's the entry for the hospital Barack Obama was born in:

024  KAPIOLANI HOSPITAL. 1979 TO 1973: KAPIOLANI HOSPITAL,  1319  PUNAHOU  ST., 96826.  1972:  SAME NAME.  1611 BINGHAM ST.. 96814;  USED FOR  DELIVERY OF PATIENTS FROM THE SALVATION ARMY  BOOTH UN-WED PARENTS PROGRAMS  [SEE  ENTRY  0151.] 1958:  KAPIOLANI MATERNITY  AND  GYNECOLOGICAL  HOSPITAL,  1611 BlNGHAM ST.;  115 BEDS.  1937:  SAME  NAME,  PUNAHOU  AND BINGHAM  STS.;  687  BIRTHS IN  1935;  PRIOR TO 1931, IT WAS CALLED THE KAPIOLANI MATERNITY HOME;  ESTABLISHED IN 1891. 1925: KAPlOLANI MATERNITY HOME, 1538 BERETANIA AYE.; 25 BEDS. NAMESAKE: THE DOWAGER QUEEN KAPIOLANI, WHO HELPED ESTABLISH THE HOME.

So, according to state of Hawaii records, the name "Kapiolani Maternity Gynecological Hospital" goes back to 1937, and was still the name of the hospital when Barack Obama was born there in 1961.

Three strikes, you're out of the game. So all you pathetic birthers can put on your tinfoil hats and run home to drink the green Kool-aid.