Thank You Tom

Tom Carper came out publicly for the end of DOMA and the support of same sex marriage.

Although some may snipe it is politically motivated, it isn’t.  It just is what is right.  Period.

Courtesy of Tom:

“As our society has changed and evolved, so too has the public’s opinion on gay marriage – and so has mine. I pray every day for God to grant me the wisdom to do what is right. Through my prayers and conversations with my family and countless friends and Delawareans, I’ve been reminded of the power of one of my core values: the Golden Rule. It calls on us to treat others as we want to be treated. That means, to me, that all Americans ultimately should be free to marry the people they love and intend to share their lives with, regardless of their sexual orientation, and that’s why today, after a great deal of soul searching, I’m endorsing marriage equality.”

Going against the platitudes one has been brought up under is always hard.  It takes great courage to step out into nothing but air and hope the bridge forms under ones feet……

Thank you Tom for taking that step.

Editors Note:  John C arney came out in support the day before.  The entire Delaware Congressional Delegation is now anti- Conservative on this issue.  Since  fewer Conservatives exist today then there were domestic Marxists in the 1960′s, this should be interpreted as simply the mainstreaming of our current delegation.

“Black People Don’t Belong At No Republican Convention…”

This was lost, and then CNN put it back on… I guess as it became known that it was out of the bag……

We don’t know exactly how many Republicans feel this way, I would say two, to be nice… But we do know, no democrat would do a thing like that. Instead they would taunt a billionaire….

(In case someone out there does not already know, the Republican Party Leadership removed the perpetrators, throwing them permanently out of the convention, so this was not a sanctioned event… it was just two drunks, who happened to be two average Republicans who actually thought they were being hilarious, and everybody would put them on a pedestal and worship them until the end of time. Too much “Jack”, I guess, will do that to a person….. )

Trust Versus Privacy

TVP… When the first partisan clamors erupted deriding Romney for not releasing tax returns, I defended him. The election should be on values, on what affects us the voters, and not be sidetracked on the details of where a person makes their money. To be honest, that question of where we make our money, keeps a lot of us out of the ring.

Personally I wouldn’t want people intent on trying to ruin me, to have access to my tax information…. It’s a battle no one can win. Either one makes too much money and pays too little taxes, or one makes too little money, and look at the fool, he could have done this and paid far less… Personal is private, and should be so…..

But over time, the question of trust inserted itself. And to use marriage as an example, it is kind this question being asked to a future spouse… “You say you want a relationship and you want to marry me for life, but even though it is happening in less than 100 days, you still won’t explain to me, why you disappear every Friday and come back Monday morning…..”

Maybe they are helping the homeless. Maybe they are volunteering at a group home, Maybe they are cleaning up rivers across the country. Maybe they are fighting forest fires… All good reasons not to break off an engagement….

But the silence also begs these questions. Maybe they already have a spouse, a weekend relationship kind of thing. Maybe they have a lover, and are cheating on me the very moment I’m sending a love text to them. Maybe they are bi sexual, and a disease may infect me off one of that person’s partners. Maybe they are robbing banks, crystallizing meth, or doing activities I simply will never know.

So you see my dilemma as a voter. I, like the engaged spouse in the example above, have to decide if I love this person enough to deal with this errant behavior and secrecy that follows it, or if not knowing the answer to his disappearance, I should cut my losses and begin my search of lifelong happiness anew….. .

If you approach this from the realm of relationship counseling, you will see the warning behaviors sticking up rather vividly.

One: he trusted John McCain, but he doesn’t trust the American people. In a relationship, when a partner withholds secrets, it is rarely for that other partners good. It is an attempt to distance oneself, an attempt to minimize the importance of the other, and an attempt to mislead the other partner, while they are being undercut financially. All not good.

Two: insisting you don’t have the right to know. The broader picture is what is at stake here. The attitude of: I’m in charge; you are not; stop bothering me; and let me get on with my business; is a pretty clear sign of where this relationship will end up and who is going to be the one hurt. One partner is in if for himself, and is looking for followers to provide him with certain needs. As soon as the followers are not needed, they are dismissed. Because of this self absorption, every gift comes without a price. Every sacrifice made, is not appreciated, but instead, is deemed the normal pattern that events should follow…. The first time you have a problem, “look I need help with this”, he will look at you like “how dare you come to me with YOUR problems. I’ve got enough of my own….”

Three: Acting shocked that knowing these things is even important to you… Well, the president has a very emotional place in the hearts of his countrymen. Knowing whether or not to trust a partner is a very important piece of the puzzle. It is actually key to our survival. The question of while you are away, have you been helping me or hurting me, is the critical personal issue at stake in this campaign….

And guessing from the reactions of the Romney Camp, there is evidence within these documents that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, that over the time they were away, they were occupied with actions that were hurting us, not helping.

If all this time they’d been helping us, don’t you think in a campaign season where Romney was way behind, someone would have pulled those out to say, “look, look, he is such a great guy that he has been helping you all this time”….. of course they would…

Since they haven’t, the answer is pretty obvious what they don’t want us to see.. And that is not good for us. We are being rushed into a marriage with someone who doesn’t like us, doesn’t trust us, and doesn’t work for us.
That person is the wrong man….

There is another suitor, one who is for the Middle Class, one who developed the Middle Class Task Force to move Washington in the direction to make the Middle Class again the economic force that drives our nation. There is another suitor, one who we know what he’s been up to, and it was always to make our lives better, to make us happier, to enable us to live a fuller, more prosperous life…

The evil suitor knows this. And when possible blocks the truth so we never hear how wonderful life could be, if we just taxed Corporations more, so they would pay us more in salaries, so they would expand, so they would again invest in America.

The secrets he is planning for after our marriage, are buried in those tax returns. He won’t let us see them… The relationship between him and us, is doomed from the start… Pull the Plug on Romney… Pull the plug, Honey.

You can’t trust someone who can’t trust you…….

For Those Who Follow DelawarePolitics.Net

I’m trying to put all your ideas together into one package. So, let me get this right… All you are asking is for, is a country where:

1) There is no universal healthcare.
2) Few entitlement programs.
3) Low Flat Tax System.
4) Faith based Government.
5) A deep reverence for God.
6) Extremely strict rules against abortion.
7) Marriage has already been strictly defined as between man and woman.
8) Homosexuality is a sin, and illegal.
9) Dress Codes are strictly enforced.
10) Tattoos, piercings, baggy pants, are banned.
11) Has the Death Penalty which they aren’t shy about using.
12) Strong private school system with religious focus.
13) Widespread dependency on oil and natural gas drilling.
14) Growing nuclear program
15) Nonexistent environmental nuisances
16) Culture that promotes family and stereotyped roles for men and women.

I’ve endeavored to put all your values on one page. I share your frustration because today, ever since 2008, it seems like America is moving further and further away from these values.

But you don’t have to be frustrated anymore. I have looked far and wide and have discovered a place already in existence that has those values in place, and more. If you sorely long for those values above, it is sincerely a place where you and your family would be very happy.

It is Iran.

You don’t have to pay me. I don’t need any commission. Just glad to help a fellow Delawarean out…. No problem.

Republicans Just Cost Me $1000 A Year!

They cost you too…

The drop in payroll tax from 6.2% to 4.2% results in a savings of about $1000 a year to every wage earner.

(If truth were widely known, that tax cut is actually a bad idea. It hemorrhages a dying social security fund, requiring the eventual death of the program or an expensive emergency last ditch surgery in the future.)

But it is hard not to give a $1000 present to every voter. Even if it only comes out as $19 dollars and change each week… But, still again, if your electric bill is $198 and you only have $189 in your account, that additional amount is, well, a lifesaver…..

But, Republicans in the House, even after Republicans in the Senate voted passage, overwhelmingly voted….. not to vote on the measure…

They didn’t vote against it… THEY VOTED NOT TO VOTE ON IT……
(speculation is that they lacked the votes to keep it from passing)..

So, how does that relate to you?

House Republicans (read Tea Party) just voted NOT TO VOTE on whether or not you will be losing an extra $20 a month out of your next paycheck.

Imagine what this is doing to payroll clerks around the country?
Imagine what this is doing to family budgets around the country?
Imagine what this is doing to businesses who rely on consumer spending around the country?
Imagine what this is doing to businesses heavily involved in the financial sector, around this country?

So what would normally happen?

Normally a group that can’t find agreement, acknowledges the sad fact, and long before the deadline, announces that they failed to reach agreement and that things would continue as they were on a temporary basis, to unfortunately allow for more time to solve differences.

But NOOOOOOOOOOOO, …. WE ARE STUCK WITH A TEA PARTY THAT FUCKS THINGS UP.

Instead, we have a vote not-to-vote, then get all sorts of very lame excuses from those who are delaying, none of which apply to the real problem that Social Security is doomed unless drastic action gets taken (higher rates, not lower), and we get nothing….

The tax cut will expire…

It is like sequestering a jury in a room, where everyone after much fact-covering argument has agreed to a judgment, except for one person who’s been bought off. And nothing, nothing, logic, emotional appeal, bullying, snuggling up to, befriending, produces any change. And you go years, every working day, to the same court house, the same jury room, they same chair at the same table, hear the same arguments, hoping against all odds, that today, he will see the light and switch. You go the next day.

That is today’s Congress. Held hostage by Tea Party Republicans who live in a dream world untouched by the reality of living under $185,000 a year. Like that bought-out juror, every day, they hold up progress with the unjustified belief that, if they wait long enough, the other 11 jurors will give up and sway over to the sole juror’s way….

Two things can happen… 1) return to the public and announce a hung jury, and do a complete retrial.. or 2) sneak up to that one juror, put a gun to his head, say nothing, pull the trigger, clean up the mess, dispose of the body, then go out to the public and announce what the 11 of you have decided…..

One is the nice way, sanctioned to due process of law. The other is the American Way.

It’s time to initiate the kavipsian policy of expression or what is otherwise known as “Show Us How You Really Feel”… Who knows? It could become the next great movement? The next time someone you know (or don’t), says anything about how millionaires should keep their tax cuts and the poor should pay, nod your head in agreement, smile a little bit, then hit them as hard as you can in their mouth, I mean as hard as you can! Put them flat on the ground holding their jaw… Then loudly say, “Don’t every talk that stupid way to me again!” Who knows, if 99% or all 303,930,000 would respond that way to our fellow congressional delegates, and the other 3.9 million of their like who advocate such madness, we might actually get the very progress we need, not because of intimidation, but because such policy is right….

For those who argue expression of violence is un-American, I’ll remind them that tonight, is John Wayne Night on AMC: view it!… I argue that such action is VERY American and perhaps it has been the lack of such spontaneous expressions of frustration from working American people, that has caused the logjam where nothing gets done because of one holdout, who thinks he can sway the world to his opinion and face no consequences… ….

Practice now, by punching brick walls.

Then There’s Newt Gingrich….

Again, lifted from Der Spiegal

The current favorite? He’s a political dinosaur, dishonored and discredited. Or so we thought. Yet just because he studied history and speaks in more complex sentences than his rivals, the US media now reflexively hails him as a “Man of Ideas” (The Washington Post) — even though most of these ideas are lousy if not downright offensive, such as firing unionized school janitors, so poor children could do their jobs.

Pompous and blustering, Gingrich gets away with this humdinger as well as with selling himself as a Washington outsider — despite having made millions of dollars as a lobbyist in Washington. At least the man’s got chutzpah.

The hypocrisy doesn’t end here. Gingrich claims moral authority on issues such as the “sanctity of marriage,” yet he’s been divorced twice. He sprang the divorce on his first wife while she was sick with cancer. (His supporters’ excuse: It’s been 31 years, and she’s still alive.) He cheated on his second wife just as he was pressing ahead with Bill Clinton’s impeachment during the Monica Lewinsky affair, unaware of the irony. The woman he cheated with, by the way, was one of his House aides and 23 years his junior — and is now his perpetually smiling third wife.

Americans have a short memory. They forget, too, that Gingrich was driven out of Congress in disgrace, the first speaker of the house to be disciplined for ethical wrongdoing. Or that he consistently flirts with racism when he speaks of Barack Obama. Or that he enjoyed a $500,000 credit line at Tiffany’s just as his campaign was financially in the toilet and he ranted about the national debt. Chutzpah, indeed.

Yet the US media rewards him with a daily kowtow. And the Republicans reward him too, by having put him on top in the latest polls. Mr. Hypocrisy, the bearer of his party’s hope.

“I think he’s doing well just because he’s thinking,” former President Clinton told the conservative online magazine NewsMax. “People are hungry for ideas that make some sense.” Sense? Apparently it’s not just the Republicans who have lost their minds here.

Facts About UC Davis Pepperspraying

This blog is a must read before anyone writes that the students “deserved” it.. My right wing friends, you know who your are… So you don’t look too stupid later, read this before trying to write something witty…..

1. The protest at which UC Davis police officers used pepper spray and batons against unresisting demonstrators was an entirely nonviolent one.

2. The unauthorized tent encampment was dismantled before the pepper spraying began.

3. Students did not restrict the movement of police at any time during the demonstration.

4. Lt. Pike was not in fear for his safety when he sprayed the students. Chief Spicuzza told reporters on Thursday that her officers had been concerned for their safety when they began spraying. But again, multiple videos show this claim to be groundless.

The most widely distributed video of the incident (viewed, as I write this, by nearly 700,000 people on YouTube) begins just moments before Lt. Pike begain spraying, but another video, which starts a few minutes earlier, shows Pike chatting amiably with one activist, even patting him casually on the back.

(The pat on the back occurs just two minutes and nineteen seconds before Pike pepper sprayed the student he had just been chatting with and all of his friends.)

5. University of California Police are not authorized to use pepper spray except in circumstances in which it is necessary to prevent physical injury to themselves or others.

6. UC police are not authorized to use physical force except to control violent offenders or keep suspects from escaping.

7. The UC Davis Police made no effort to remove the student demonstrators from the walkway peacefully before using pepper spray against them.

8. Use of pepper spray and other physical force continued after the students’ minimal obstruction of the area around the police ended.

9. Even after police began using unprovoked and unlawful violence against the students, they remained peaceful.

10. The students’ commitment to nonviolence extended to their use of language.

Now, lets compare their composure with that of the Tea Party….

Teabagger Violence Mars Tax Day Rally With Sen. Marco Rubio

Tea Party Violence: Teabagger Tries To Kill Man With Obama Bumper Sticker

How Teabaggers Would Deal With America’s Tired, Their Poor, Their Huddled Masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teaming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Who YOU Beating Up Now? Huh?

Here is the blog that has been quoted recently by the mainstream press, especially after the video went viral, and they had to scramble to cover up the fact they originally tried to whitewash the incident.

“DUMB COLLEGE KIDS”, the right wing pundits squeal…

Not so…

Try an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, who organized the peaceful demonstration.

Or try an Associate Professor of English, who was grabbed by her hair, thrown on the ground.

Or try Associate Professor Geoffrey O’Brien who was injured by baton blows.

or try Professor Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, who was also struck with a baton.

I wonder how this child’s mom feels right now: One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

Or the dad who was there, bedside, to welcome this bundle of joy into the world.

Or the Grandparents of these children… When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats.

What’s the point? What were you trying to prove, Mr Rogue Policeman? Ohhhhh, that you were sooooooooo tough… I bet all the women flock to you now, don’t they?

What were you trying to prove, Chancellor Katehi? That you have an iron will? Or that you didn’t care? You had to appease the wealthy donors. The tents were such an eyesore and had to be removed, even with the potential for a loss of life?

What were you trying to prove, Republicans? Cutting taxes. Underfunding institutions of learning. Trimming school budgets so the wealthy wouldn’t have to pay their fair share of the cost of living in American society…

Go ahead. Save them a couple of pennies…. Beat the student’s senseless.. Fill their lungs with pepper spray… Ram their lower abdomens with your batons. Make them unable to ever bear children…. Do it for your wealthy master. All so millionaires can save one more penny on the dollar they’ve already taken from us…

Oh, no… Wait… Why didn’t we think of that before… If you kill us all off now, you won’t get back your student loans we borrowed from you at those exorbitant amounts of interest you so graciously parted your money for….

Republicans And Cancer

When your mom gets cancer. You don’t hate your mom. You hate the cancer.

Likewise, it was hard not to like the German people during WWII. It was easy to hate the fact that they were trying to kill you.

And so it is with Republicans… 99% of them are just like us. They too love their country; they too want it fixed; they too are angry, frustrated that events are not moving at fast-forward..

They are wonderful people; who also, happen to be Americans. We can never forget that if we were together in a bar with beer, wine, and spirits flowing like milk and honey, we’d all have a “gay ole time” (Flintstones’ reference) …

We want the same things, and we should be working together on fixing America… but we can’t….

Because of the Cancer…..

That cancer is not necessarily the Republican Party, but it is, the force that IS currently manipulating the Republican Party. That cancer is not a single person in the Republican hierarchy… It is instead that revision of the old cancer, that originally was against recognizing new states into the Federal Union. It is that old cancer that kept slavery legal for thirty years beyond when it should have been eliminated. It is the revision of that old cancer that kept blacks as second class citizens across the South. It is the cancer that fought against giving the Negro their Civil Rights. It is that cancer that denied Tobacco caused cancer. It was the same cancer that encouraged the killing of 4 students at Kent State, to teach those dirty hippies who listened to the Doors, a lesson they wouldn’t forget. It is the same cancer that denied the process of evolution, denied birth control, denied NPR, and ran rampant against all evidence of global warming…… Each time; they were wrong.

It is the same cancer that blew up a building in Oklahoma City.

It is the same cancer that fired bullets into working men and women who were refusing to work, until they got a raise…

It is the same cancer that took out Gabby Gifford……

With all these offenses, it is easy to point your finger and say, “Damn you Republicans..” It is in fact, way too easy.

But is not the people voting Republican who are to blame… They, like the German people, are bystanders. often gaping wide eyed when shown the truth, of what their support for the force of evil did to innocent men and women.

It is easy to turn all Republicans into demons if you don’t talk to them. But listening to them talk, (and we’re talking real people here, not their David Korsch’s) it is very easy to find common ground.

That common ground is this: sure, you tax the wealthy, and we’ll cut spending and together we’ll have high revenue with less expense, and be out of this mess in no time….

This is what every card carrying Republican is telling me, that is of course, if they don’t subscribe to the “cult-like” Republican meetings…. They say: “tax the fuckin’ wealthy; it won’t affect me; Just make sure that extra money is not wasted but is used to pay down the waste we already spent!”

Democrats have already offered to cut Medicare, Social Security, Defense Spending, all those things dear to their heart… So the problem isn’t them.

The problem is with the Republicans, who have balked on the tax issue, especially when it comes to raising taxes on millionaires… yet they have no qualms raising taxes on the middle class and poor. Republicans have shut down the Federal Government four times this year. Four times! They did so each time because the obvious was about to happen. WE were about to get a consensus among the rational members of both parties on how we were going to raise taxes and cut expenses (at the same time) which would bring us into line.

They pulled out of negotiations and said: we will not raise taxes one penny… and also, we will not do any business either in the House or Senate, until the Bush Tax Cuts are permanent.

And that,in one sentence, is why nothing gets done.

It’s as if a terrorist broke into your workplace. Under gunpoint he straps C4 to several of your firm’s employees, and starts firing his gun out the window to get everyone’s attention….

Rule Number 1: You don’t negotiate with terrorists.

That is the problem Obama and the rest of America is faced with, raising this question:

Do we attack (shut down government) and later clean up, or do we negotiate something we can both live with?

What do you do with cancer… Leave it? live with it?

There’s your answer to today’s political gridlock.

Removing all Democrats will be like having the Brits flee France across the channel, leaving the Nazi’s to run France without contention….

Removing all Republicans will be like marching triumphantly into Berlin.

It is pretty obvious who is the cancer and who is not. WE, THE PEOPLE, can’t let it linger any longer. The cancer must go, preferably without killing its host in the process…

Calling For the Capture of All Electronic Data In And Out of Standard & Poors Leading Up To and Through the Present Crises

It is an event of national security.

Did Standard and Poors deliberately downgrade the U. S Rating to profit from selling the market short?

We capture all electronic data. We have every phone call, every electronic signal that was ever sent to or from inside of Standard and Poors…

We just need to save it, and investigate

It is an issue of national security; if such a motive exists, it is criminal and treasonous…

Was this done in good faith by some really, really stupid people, or…. is their a sinister motive underlying this very shady outcome?

Or it might be a case where perhaps their “Beers” went to their head?

Have the NSC pull up the files and let’s find out for sure…. Everyone who didn’t hear the tip and sell short, should get a little piece of him, don’t you think?