Friday, December 28, 2012
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Bang, Bang Crazy Part Three...
Jim Wright, an Alaskan blogger I follow, has written one of the best pieces on the subject of guns that I have run across. Jim blogs at Stonekettle Station. He is spirited, informed, irreverent, funny and a damn good writer.
He has the experience, the intelligence and the ability to get right to the heart of the matter when it comes to guns...anything guns. I hope you will read what he has to say...and you might even want to go back and read his original posts on Bang, Bang Crazy and Bang, Bang Crazy Part Two. Then if you want to discuss this topic in a civil manner we have a place to start.
Here is his excellent blog post... http://www.stonekettle.com/2012/12/bang-bang-crazy-part-three.html
I look forward to your comments.
He has the experience, the intelligence and the ability to get right to the heart of the matter when it comes to guns...anything guns. I hope you will read what he has to say...and you might even want to go back and read his original posts on Bang, Bang Crazy and Bang, Bang Crazy Part Two. Then if you want to discuss this topic in a civil manner we have a place to start.
Here is his excellent blog post... http://www.stonekettle.com/2012/12/bang-bang-crazy-part-three.html
I look forward to your comments.
Friday, December 21, 2012
NRA: "The Answer to Gun Violence Is Gun Fights"
Gun Fetishism IS a mental illness
Up is down. War is peace.
NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre just went on national television to tell the country that “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” In other words, the only solution to gun violence is gun fights. LaPierre also said, “I call on Congress, today, to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation.” What LaPierre and all of the other gun fetishists out there are saying to America is that their freakish desire to own and shoot assault weapons that can fire countless rounds without reloading must be preserved at any cost and their solution to the gun violence that results from the presence of these weapons in our communities is to turn our schools into armed camps with armed guards. Every. Single. School. As so many gun fetishists do, he blamed it on mental illness. Putting aside for a moment that the very people protecting the gun fetishists “rights” have been the ones to eliminate funding for mental health services around the country, why are we not talking about the real mental illness here? Why is it not considered a mental illness to get obscene pleasure from owning and shooting weapon that has only one purpose: to injure or kill human beings. THAT, I would argue, is a clear sign of mental illness. One wonders what the impact of having our kids seeing armed people in their schools every single day will have. Does it not send them the message that the world is a dangerous place and that they should be afraid wherever they go? Will that not create even more unstable adults in the long term? Of course it will. The NRA is losing this battle of ideas in American. The vast majority of us see nothing of value from assault weapons. We don’t need to have our “man card reissued” by owning a gun. We don’t get pleasure from shooting guns. We don’t strive to be Rambo or Dirty Harry. We see guns as something to be diminished in our society, not worshipped or held as more important than our right to safety and freedom from fear. If you want to argue that the core problem here is mental illness, go right ahead. But never forget this one important fact: Gun fetishism IS a mental illness. Adding… The National Center for Education Statistics says that, in the 2009-2010 school year, there were 132,183 public and private K-12 schools in this country. Leave it to the NRA to come up with a solution to gun violence that involves putting over 132,000 new guns into our communities. The mind, it boggles. By Eclectablog on December 21, 2012 in Conservatives
Up is down. War is peace.
NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre just went on national television to tell the country that “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” In other words, the only solution to gun violence is gun fights. LaPierre also said, “I call on Congress, today, to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation.” What LaPierre and all of the other gun fetishists out there are saying to America is that their freakish desire to own and shoot assault weapons that can fire countless rounds without reloading must be preserved at any cost and their solution to the gun violence that results from the presence of these weapons in our communities is to turn our schools into armed camps with armed guards. Every. Single. School. As so many gun fetishists do, he blamed it on mental illness. Putting aside for a moment that the very people protecting the gun fetishists “rights” have been the ones to eliminate funding for mental health services around the country, why are we not talking about the real mental illness here? Why is it not considered a mental illness to get obscene pleasure from owning and shooting weapon that has only one purpose: to injure or kill human beings. THAT, I would argue, is a clear sign of mental illness. One wonders what the impact of having our kids seeing armed people in their schools every single day will have. Does it not send them the message that the world is a dangerous place and that they should be afraid wherever they go? Will that not create even more unstable adults in the long term? Of course it will. The NRA is losing this battle of ideas in American. The vast majority of us see nothing of value from assault weapons. We don’t need to have our “man card reissued” by owning a gun. We don’t get pleasure from shooting guns. We don’t strive to be Rambo or Dirty Harry. We see guns as something to be diminished in our society, not worshipped or held as more important than our right to safety and freedom from fear. If you want to argue that the core problem here is mental illness, go right ahead. But never forget this one important fact: Gun fetishism IS a mental illness. Adding… The National Center for Education Statistics says that, in the 2009-2010 school year, there were 132,183 public and private K-12 schools in this country. Leave it to the NRA to come up with a solution to gun violence that involves putting over 132,000 new guns into our communities. The mind, it boggles. By Eclectablog on December 21, 2012 in Conservatives
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
"Won Direction" by Bill Mahre
New Rule: Now that he's been reelected, President Obama must get back at all those right wing hacks who tried to paint him as an angry black man pushing a liberal agenda by becoming an angry black man who's pushing a liberal agenda.
Now, I have been mostly holding my tongue about the president this past season, because I didn't want to muddy the waters in a country where you only get two choices, but Mr. President, there are two ways to look at your 51 to 48 percent victory: One is, we love you. The other is, we like you three percent better than Mitt Romney. And by the way, let us never speak that name again... Mitt... let it be a dark and buried memory of a close call with a creature equal parts pure evil and excellent posture, like getting dry humped in a crowded subway by Roger Moore.
I like this president. In all those secret strategy meetings we had, with me and him and George Soros and The New Black Panthers, I found him to be very agreeable, Allah be praised. But it's now the job of progressives to hold his feet to the fire for causes important to us. If not now, when?
There's no third term, Mr. President, so you may as well throw caution to the wind, 'cause it's not like we're using it to produce energy. Yes, clean energy, that's just one of many issues, like civil liberties, the drug war, the drone war, the war war, gun control -- that have been on my mind these last four years, and let's just say I've been waiting to exhale.
And by that I mean, I've been holding my nose. But you're free now -- with no more elections to win, you are free to never again have to kiss the ass of coal miners and say the words "clean coal." There is no such thing as "clean coal." It's like saying "Internet Privacy" or "Tea Party Intellectual." Or "Fox News Journalist."
Another priority should be cutting the defense budget -- we're the home of the brave, let's prove it by getting by with one less submarine. Yes, we were involved in a struggle against a radical enemy bent on our destruction -- but the election is over, and we need to recognize that America has the same problem with the defense budget that Mrs. Petraeus has with her husband's penis: it's swollen, and we can't bring ourselves to touch it. And as far as Afghanistan goes, I know you said we're leaving in 2014, but look at it this way: enemies are always on guard for a surprise attack, but they'd never suspect a surprise retreat. Really. We can leave right away. Because we've figured out something the Afghans haven't: air travel. And as long as we're ending wars, how about the War on Drugs? Two states, Colorado and Washington, have actually legalized pot now, which gives you as president the rare opportunity to improve the world by doing... absolutely nothing. Just tell Eric Holder to stay the hell out of Boulder, and if the conservatives bitch about it, throw states' rights back in their face -- isn't that their big theme, send it back to the states, the will of the people? Well, this is the people who, in those two states on election day, got up off the couch and drove their 1987 Toyota Tercel with the "Visualize World Peace" sticker on the back to the polls, and voted to stop the drug war. And then drove home and got back on the couch. And finally, instead of rewriting Social Security, how about rewriting the Patriot Act? How about another look at rendition, and warrantless searches and wire taps? And how about stop listening in on our phone calls and reading our e-mails. I'm not a teenager and you're not my mom, ok? And besides, there's a better way to confirm your suspicions that I'm smoking weed and hanging around the wrong people: just watch my show.
Now, I have been mostly holding my tongue about the president this past season, because I didn't want to muddy the waters in a country where you only get two choices, but Mr. President, there are two ways to look at your 51 to 48 percent victory: One is, we love you. The other is, we like you three percent better than Mitt Romney. And by the way, let us never speak that name again... Mitt... let it be a dark and buried memory of a close call with a creature equal parts pure evil and excellent posture, like getting dry humped in a crowded subway by Roger Moore.
I like this president. In all those secret strategy meetings we had, with me and him and George Soros and The New Black Panthers, I found him to be very agreeable, Allah be praised. But it's now the job of progressives to hold his feet to the fire for causes important to us. If not now, when?
There's no third term, Mr. President, so you may as well throw caution to the wind, 'cause it's not like we're using it to produce energy. Yes, clean energy, that's just one of many issues, like civil liberties, the drug war, the drone war, the war war, gun control -- that have been on my mind these last four years, and let's just say I've been waiting to exhale.
And by that I mean, I've been holding my nose. But you're free now -- with no more elections to win, you are free to never again have to kiss the ass of coal miners and say the words "clean coal." There is no such thing as "clean coal." It's like saying "Internet Privacy" or "Tea Party Intellectual." Or "Fox News Journalist."
Another priority should be cutting the defense budget -- we're the home of the brave, let's prove it by getting by with one less submarine. Yes, we were involved in a struggle against a radical enemy bent on our destruction -- but the election is over, and we need to recognize that America has the same problem with the defense budget that Mrs. Petraeus has with her husband's penis: it's swollen, and we can't bring ourselves to touch it. And as far as Afghanistan goes, I know you said we're leaving in 2014, but look at it this way: enemies are always on guard for a surprise attack, but they'd never suspect a surprise retreat. Really. We can leave right away. Because we've figured out something the Afghans haven't: air travel. And as long as we're ending wars, how about the War on Drugs? Two states, Colorado and Washington, have actually legalized pot now, which gives you as president the rare opportunity to improve the world by doing... absolutely nothing. Just tell Eric Holder to stay the hell out of Boulder, and if the conservatives bitch about it, throw states' rights back in their face -- isn't that their big theme, send it back to the states, the will of the people? Well, this is the people who, in those two states on election day, got up off the couch and drove their 1987 Toyota Tercel with the "Visualize World Peace" sticker on the back to the polls, and voted to stop the drug war. And then drove home and got back on the couch. And finally, instead of rewriting Social Security, how about rewriting the Patriot Act? How about another look at rendition, and warrantless searches and wire taps? And how about stop listening in on our phone calls and reading our e-mails. I'm not a teenager and you're not my mom, ok? And besides, there's a better way to confirm your suspicions that I'm smoking weed and hanging around the wrong people: just watch my show.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Rachel Maddow... We Can Fix That
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Mitt Romney Is The Executioner Who Is Leading His Supporters To The Gallows
October 21, 2012
This article was published today over at Politicususa.com and was written by Rmuse. I have no idea who this writer is, but this is the best article I have read lately that describes my frustration about the people I know and love who will be voting for Mitt Romney this election. I just don't understand how they could do it to all of us. Here it is...
In the Aesop fable, “The Ass and His Purchaser,” the moral of the story is that you are known by the company you keep, and it suggests that an adult is apt to be judged by their friends, associates, and heroes, but it does not mean they have to choose to be like them. It is related to another message in “The Farmer and the Stork” whose moral is “birds of a feather flock together,” and it is apropos to who one supports in the upcoming general election. The choice Americans make in November informs they either identify as associates of warmongers, racists, corrupt corporatists, and phony Christians, or as citizens of a country founded on equality and fairness.
At this late date in the campaign, it is unfathomable that any American would associate themselves with Republicans or Willard Romney. Romney promises to lead the GOP in cementing their reputation as enemies of the people and friends of corporations and the wealthy elite, and the idea that half of America yearns to cede government control to corruption and religion is beyond the pale. However, the past eleven years have proven that a large segment of the population is stupid enough to wildly cheer as their executioners lead them to the gallows, and defines the sad state of affairs America appears unlikely to escape.
There is no demographic that supports Romney that is not inexorably linked to their own destruction and unfortunately, to their family members, friends, and this country’s future. Republicans have panted to turn government over to corporations, religion, and the wealthy since their man-turned-god, Ronald Reagan, was president. For three-and-a-half years, Republicans actively and with malice aforethought worked to retard economic recovery and keep millions of Americans unemployed and hungry while they fought to increase entitlements to the wealthy, oil industry, and Israel. One hoped Republican supporters were not willing participants in inflicting damage to their fellow citizens and this country, but the 2010 midterm elections were proof positive that a majority of Americans thought so little of their countrymen and government, that they elected the most vindictive and incompetent representatives in the nation’s history.
What boggles the mind is the groups supporting Republicans and Romney know exactly what awaits them if they are victorious in November. Senior citizens who support Romney and Ryan know they intend on ending Medicare in its present form, and guarantee its insolvency by 2016. Veterans who support the current Republican ticket know the Veteran’s Health Administration faces steep cuts as Romney promotes giving them a coupon to buy private healthcare insurance as well as cutting their benefits. Women supporting Republicans are crying out for lower pay, discrimination, allowing Christian men to dictate their reproductive health, and to become birth machines producing cannon fodder for perpetual Middle East wars.
One might think that Romney supporters forgot the devastation their champions caused this country during the Bush presidency, but it is highly unlikely because it has only been two years since Republicans toured the nation promising their focus was creating jobs, jobs, jobs, only to begin the 112th Congress attacking women, women, women. Despite high unemployment and several jobs bills sitting idle on John Boehner’s desk, he led House Republicans on a campaign to ban contraception, drastically slash social safety nets, and strive to make America number one with the highest child poverty rate in the entire world. It must make Republican supporters proud that they are associated with harsh overlords influenced by religious fanatics and corporate cash. However, it is the number of Americans identifying with Willard Romney that associates them with racism, religious extremism, and corruption.
Willard Romney is a pathological liar with a business history steeped in corruption and fraud as he destroyed entire companies and consorted with the likes of disgraced junk bond king Michael Milken, his son Tagg’s Ponzi schemers, and foreign countries he contends are enemies of the state. Americans love a success story, but Romney’s support informs that they also love his un-American tactics that raided employees’ pensions, shipped jobs to China, and sent his ill-gained wealth offshore to avoid paying taxes. Romney’s supporters claim accusations of his malfeasance are historical, but how many corruption accusations does it take before intelligent human beings think, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire?” The only conclusion one can make is that a large segment of the population loves associating with liars, economic traitors, and tax evaders and still call themselves “real Americans.”
Read more here...
This article was published today over at Politicususa.com and was written by Rmuse. I have no idea who this writer is, but this is the best article I have read lately that describes my frustration about the people I know and love who will be voting for Mitt Romney this election. I just don't understand how they could do it to all of us. Here it is...
In the Aesop fable, “The Ass and His Purchaser,” the moral of the story is that you are known by the company you keep, and it suggests that an adult is apt to be judged by their friends, associates, and heroes, but it does not mean they have to choose to be like them. It is related to another message in “The Farmer and the Stork” whose moral is “birds of a feather flock together,” and it is apropos to who one supports in the upcoming general election. The choice Americans make in November informs they either identify as associates of warmongers, racists, corrupt corporatists, and phony Christians, or as citizens of a country founded on equality and fairness.
At this late date in the campaign, it is unfathomable that any American would associate themselves with Republicans or Willard Romney. Romney promises to lead the GOP in cementing their reputation as enemies of the people and friends of corporations and the wealthy elite, and the idea that half of America yearns to cede government control to corruption and religion is beyond the pale. However, the past eleven years have proven that a large segment of the population is stupid enough to wildly cheer as their executioners lead them to the gallows, and defines the sad state of affairs America appears unlikely to escape.
There is no demographic that supports Romney that is not inexorably linked to their own destruction and unfortunately, to their family members, friends, and this country’s future. Republicans have panted to turn government over to corporations, religion, and the wealthy since their man-turned-god, Ronald Reagan, was president. For three-and-a-half years, Republicans actively and with malice aforethought worked to retard economic recovery and keep millions of Americans unemployed and hungry while they fought to increase entitlements to the wealthy, oil industry, and Israel. One hoped Republican supporters were not willing participants in inflicting damage to their fellow citizens and this country, but the 2010 midterm elections were proof positive that a majority of Americans thought so little of their countrymen and government, that they elected the most vindictive and incompetent representatives in the nation’s history.
What boggles the mind is the groups supporting Republicans and Romney know exactly what awaits them if they are victorious in November. Senior citizens who support Romney and Ryan know they intend on ending Medicare in its present form, and guarantee its insolvency by 2016. Veterans who support the current Republican ticket know the Veteran’s Health Administration faces steep cuts as Romney promotes giving them a coupon to buy private healthcare insurance as well as cutting their benefits. Women supporting Republicans are crying out for lower pay, discrimination, allowing Christian men to dictate their reproductive health, and to become birth machines producing cannon fodder for perpetual Middle East wars.
One might think that Romney supporters forgot the devastation their champions caused this country during the Bush presidency, but it is highly unlikely because it has only been two years since Republicans toured the nation promising their focus was creating jobs, jobs, jobs, only to begin the 112th Congress attacking women, women, women. Despite high unemployment and several jobs bills sitting idle on John Boehner’s desk, he led House Republicans on a campaign to ban contraception, drastically slash social safety nets, and strive to make America number one with the highest child poverty rate in the entire world. It must make Republican supporters proud that they are associated with harsh overlords influenced by religious fanatics and corporate cash. However, it is the number of Americans identifying with Willard Romney that associates them with racism, religious extremism, and corruption.Willard Romney is a pathological liar with a business history steeped in corruption and fraud as he destroyed entire companies and consorted with the likes of disgraced junk bond king Michael Milken, his son Tagg’s Ponzi schemers, and foreign countries he contends are enemies of the state. Americans love a success story, but Romney’s support informs that they also love his un-American tactics that raided employees’ pensions, shipped jobs to China, and sent his ill-gained wealth offshore to avoid paying taxes. Romney’s supporters claim accusations of his malfeasance are historical, but how many corruption accusations does it take before intelligent human beings think, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire?” The only conclusion one can make is that a large segment of the population loves associating with liars, economic traitors, and tax evaders and still call themselves “real Americans.”
Read more here...
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