🙂
I’m embarrassed for any dufus still trotting out this line. Seems I’ve been mocking this line of argument (and Trump) for many years.
Thanks Dana.
Category: GOP USA
Presidents Koch are pissed
David and Charles Koch are pissed. They orchestrated the spending of a lot of money to influence the American government. Yet Romney lost.
Americans for Prosperity, the most prominent arm of the Koch brothers’ organization, put Republican lawmakers on notice …
Tim Phillips, president of AFP, said at a Washington press conference that congressional Republicans “failed miserably” a decade ago, especially on cutting the federal budget. “They’ve been given a second chance by the American people,” he said, “and we’re going to hold them accountable. …
NPR – Conservative Koch Brothers’ Group Puts Congressional GOP On Notice
The Presidents Koch agenda covers three areas:
1. taxes including repeal of the estate or death tax
2. energy headlined by a call to build the Keystone XL pipeline
3. health care, which includes repealing the Affordable Care Act
I’m slightly in favour of Keystone. But I’m against unelected rich guys having so much influence on legislation. In backrooms I have no doubt they discuss which politicians can be bought. And which are a bad investment.
That’s what the term “accountable” means. 😦
The Koch brothers invested $400 million because they expected to get far more than $400 million back. You cannot trust them.
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The Koch’s “labyrinthine network of political groups — none of which reveal the names of their donors — showed that the coalition raised more than $400 million during the 2012 election.”
why the USA must QUIT the Middle East
President Barack Obama said on Sunday the longest war in American history was coming to a responsible conclusion.
Obama was welcoming the end of US combat operations in Afghanistan, which was marked with a ceremony in Kabul. …
Obama honored the more than 2,200 Americans who have died in Afghanistan since the war started 13 years ago. Obama said those years had tested the US and its military. From a peak 140,000 troops in 2010, the US and Nato plan to leave just 13,500 behind. …
Obama heralds formal end of war in Afghanistan after 13 years
The Taliban immediately declared they’d ‘defeated’ Nato:
A Taliban statement said the US-led force had “rolled up its flag” without having achieved “anything substantial”. …
Like every other Afghan invader, the costs NATO paid far outweighed anything gained. 😦
Afghanis must decide their own fate.
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On December 12th, 2013 a wedding convoy, outside the town of Radda in the al-Baydah province of Yemen, was struck by a US drone.
Following the attack, Yemeni officials claimed that around ‘14 innocent civilians were killed, 22 injured and 9 were in critical condition.’
According to the US government, the attack had intended to strike a known AQ militant Shawqi Ali Ahmad al Badani. The US government denied the deaths of civilians, claiming that they had killed militants associated with al Badani.
The U.S. government lied, as they do often.
Most of those killed were innocent.
This is an example of why so many people distrust and fear the U.S. military overseas. This is an example of an incident which inspires and motivates terrorists. Ultimately making the USA and the world less safe.
If the U.S., which claims the strike was clean and justified, didn’t pony up the $800,000 in cash and guns as reparations, then who did?
Nothing Says “Sorry Our Drones Hit Your Wedding Party” Like $800,000 And Some Guns
Update Dec 2014 – The Unspoken Truth Of The US War Against Terrorism in Yemen
Officially, the money awarded in Yemen came from the Yemeni government. But the human rights group Reprieve says the funds must have come from Washington …
gun safety in the USA
A slight majority of Americans still defend the rights of everyone, including the mentally ill, to own and even stockpile firearms with a minimum of regulation.
That will change, I believe.
Tea Party extremists and other gundamentalists are less and less vocal on public social media. They don’t like answering questions like this:
The New York Cop Killer Was Arrested 19 Times. Why Was He Able to Get a Gun?
Washington State is the most progressive.
Two years after the Newtown shooting, the gun-rights lobby still holds the edge when it comes to gun policy in America.
On the federal level, gun-rights groups, led by the National Rifle Association (NRA), spent roughly twice what gun-control groups spent on national political campaigns and nine times what they paid to lobby Congress, according to data from the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics. …
Don’t Call It “Gun Control”
Advocates have also started to rethink the way they talk about their goals. Today, none of them actually use the term “gun control.” “That’s a phrase that was pointed to as divisive, or didn’t have the right tone or implications,” said Shannon Watts, who founded Moms Demand Action.
They talk instead about “gun safety,” “common-sense gun laws,” or more simply, “keeping guns out of the wrong hands.” They underscore that even as Americans support firearm ownership, 91 percent also want mandatory background checks.
“This framing of pro-gun versus anti-gun, or pro-restriction versus Second Amendment rights, is not a healthy way of looking at this issue if our goal is to save lives,” said Dan Gross, head of the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence. “We need to look at the opportunities that clearly exist to prevent gun deaths and crime while being consistent with the Second Amendment and the desire of law-abiding citizens to own guns.”
“Stolen guns account for only about 10% to 15% of guns used in crimes,” Wachtel said. …
extremists
Holly Fisher is a right-wing online agitator who posted the photo on the left above last week after a similarly in-your-face image taken in front of a Hobby Lobby went viral.
Her pose was soon compared to the image at right of Reem Riyashi, a mother of two from Gaza who killed four people and herself with a suicide bomb in 2004. (It’s not clear who first put together the side-by-side comparison, which has been widely distributed on social media.)
Holly Fisher isn’t a suicide bomber, and the online commentary about her photo is—as far as I can tell—exclusively an unconstructive, sarcastic, ad hominem back-and-forth between extreme partisans. …
Slate – Defiant Hobby Lobby Supporter Inadvertently Recreates Iconic Gaza Jihadist Image
USA spent $10 trillion in the Middle East
Are U.S. taxpayers getting good value for that expenditure?
NO. The USA should QUIT the Middle East.
The U.S. gets only around 10% of its net oil and natural gas from the region.
David Vine:
With the launch of a new US-led war in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State (IS), the United States has engaged in aggressive military action in at least 13 countries in the Greater Middle East since 1980. In that time, every American president has invaded, occupied, bombed, or gone to war in at least one country in the region. …
As in prior military operations in the Greater Middle East, US forces fighting IS have been aided by access to and the use of an unprecedented collection of military bases. …
In the Persian Gulf alone, the US has major bases in every country save Iran. …
Members of Congress spend billions of dollars on base construction and maintenance every year in the region, but ask few questions about where the money is going, why there are so many bases, and what role they really serve. By one estimate, the United States has spent $10 trillion protecting Persian Gulf oil supplies over the past four decades. …
On their own, the existence of these bases has helped generate radicalism and anti-American sentiment. …
Mother Jones – America Still Has Hundreds of Military Bases Worldwide. Have They Made Us Any Safer?
David Vine, associate professor of anthropology at American University in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Island of Shame: The Secret History of the US Military Base on Diego Garcia.
The USA has about an $18 trillion dollar debt. Canada, by comparison, will run a surplus budget this year,
All in the Family – far, far ahead of its time
All in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. …
Produced by Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin and starring Carroll O’Connor, Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner, and Sally Struthers, All in the Family revolves around the life of a working class bigot and his family.
The show broke ground in its depiction of issues previously considered unsuitable for U.S. network television comedy, such as racism, homosexuality, women’s liberation, rape, miscarriage, abortion, breast cancer, the Vietnam War, menopause, and impotence. Through depicting these controversial issues, the series became arguably one of television’s most influential comedic programs, as it injected the sitcom format with more realistic and topical conflicts.
The show ranked number-one in the yearly Nielsen ratings from 1971 to 1976. …
This is one of my favourite scenes.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Norman Lear, age-92, just published his autobiography – Even this I get to experience.
Lear is extremely liberal, the opposite of Archie. Actually, Normal Lear had Maude, Bea Arthur, represent his personal views.
In some ways Archie still symbolizes the old white male conservative dinosaur. Carroll O’Connor died 2001.
Archie Bunker’s ideas should have died with him.
Gay marriage in Idaho
Idaho is one of the most Republican States.
Yet …
The Supreme Court on Friday allowed same-sex marriages to proceed in Idaho, lifting a temporary stay issued two days earlier by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.
The developments capped a busy week for gay rights. It started with the court’s refusal on Monday to hear appeals from decisions striking down same-sex marriage bans in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin. The next day, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, struck down bans in Idaho and Nevada.
I’d say the battle for same sex marriage in the USA is pretty much decided.
Here’s a list of prominent American opponents of same sex marriage. I’m looking forward to those politicians flip-flopping on the issue.
Cruz and Huckabee are two who will stay the course.
I’m stunned that the U.S. of A., normally so slow to change anything has changed so quickly. Where is the Tea Party of 10 years ago?
Where are the Christian Righteous?
Where is the Pope?
… Oh right. We have a reform Pope. A new report by a top-level Vatican panel on the family calls for a more positive view of homosexuals.
Congratulations to my Gay friends and advocates for the dramatic turnaround in American public opinion. I do feel it’s for the best.
On the other hand, I completely understand the argument by opponents that the word “marriage” has traditionally meant a legal contract between one man and one woman. That’s true.
Seems the definition of a word can change over time.
In addition, fewer adults in the USA are married than ever before. More people will never marry. Will decline in marriage result in a less stable society? I doubt it.
related – FOX News – Is gay marriage battle over? The silence on the right is deafening
Paul Ryan – specific proposals
The main reason I gave up on Romney was that he had no specific platform.
Ryan’s not perfect, but at least he’s got the guts to put a plan forward.
Rep. Paul Ryan said Friday that Republicans must do more than criticize President Barack Obama to succeed politically, saying they must become the “proposition party” to become an alternative to Democrats. …
Last month Ryan released a new anti-poverty plan, calling for reforms to the nation’s welfare, education, and criminal justice systems. …
On the other hand …
Asked whether he supports the military action authorized by Obama in Iraq on Thursday, Ryan told a reporter “Yeah, nah, call my office. I don’t want to give you a flippant, walking-through-the-halls thing. It’s something I’d rather think through.
Republicans are two faced. Saying one thing, doing the opposite if it’s in their own benefit. I’m hoping Ryan is slightly better than the rest of the Presidential contenders.
For a Republican, he’s no Tea Party nut.
Ryan was one of 32 Republicans in the House to vote for the auto industry bailout.
related – Tea Party steers GOP right — away from White House
Rick McCharles 