Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Though “Honest” Gil Fulbright claims to be running for Senator Mitch McConnell’s seat in the great state of Kentucky, he isn’t actually on the ballot. McConnell, running in a tight race for reelection this November, can breathe easy.
In fact, Fulbright doesn’t actually exist at all. He’s a fictional candidate played by movie and TV actor Frank Ridley …
Quebec has twice had a referendum on whether to split from Canada.
The proposal was to have a primarily French Canada and a primarily English Canada. Some regions – First Nations, for example – would decide which to join.
There are pros and cons to a separate French Canada.
There are pros and cons to dividing the USA, as well. It wouldn’t be easy, but WHAT IF you suddenly had a Red USA and a Blue USA. The other coloured States would have a referendum as to which they want to join.
Texans might vote to form a 3rd nation.
At any time, a State might vote to move from Blue to Red, or Red to Blue.
Personally, I feel it is an insanely stupid idea where almost everyone would be worse off in a very few years.
In the very near future it will be impossible to win the American Presidency without a majority of Latino voters, yet Republicans are doing a very effective job of alienating Latinos.
For example, this exchange from May 2014:
The GOP’s John Boehner refuses to bring immigration reform to a vote. Pathetically tries to deflect with “Obamacare”.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
That’s Jorge Ramos, the most respected Spanish American journalist. He blames Boehner more than anyone else. I blame Boehner and the Republican Party.
This is where the strategy of “voting against anything Obama” is going to cost the GOP.
The immigration process is broken. Boehner refuses to bring a fix to a vote.
related – NBC – Why immigration reform died in Congress
OK
That’s way overstating.
Still, this is one of the best takedowns of the worst of the self-declared Tea Party activists.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Thanks Bieche.
People ask me why I’m so agitated by the Tea Party and other right wing gasbags. And not nearly as much irked by soft-headed, left wing muddled thinkers.
What makes me mad is disinformation.
Disinformation is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately. It is an act of deception and false statements to convince someone of untruth. Disinformation should not be confused with misinformation, information that is unintentionally false.
The left wing often spreads misinformation. Poorly.
In the USA (but not in Canada) people make money in the right wing media echo chamber.
In media, an echo chamber is a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and repetition inside an “enclosed” system, often drowning out different or competing views. …
One purveyor of information will make a claim, which many like-minded people then repeat, overhear, and repeat again (often in an exaggerated or otherwise distorted form) until most people assume that some extreme variation of the story is true. …
I love seeing Jon Stewart and Colbert call out the disinformers.
One of the worst is Glenn Beck, “with his violent rhetoric, his frequent and absurd fear-mongering, his nasty vitriol, his “jokes” about assassinating government officials, his baseless conspiracy theories, his race-baiting, his flat-out, bald-faced lies, his many hypocrisies … ”
Well said.
Beck left FOX in 2011. But is worth about $90 million today. The more he lies, the more money he makes.
Rush Limbaugh makes around $66 million / year.
The main motivation for those two, Bill O’Reilly and others, is money. I don’t trust a word they say.
FOX and the echo chamber endless repeat daily “talking points“. It’s incredibly boring to count the repetitions of the talking points of the day.
related – NY Times opinion piece 2013 – Suffocating Echo Chamber
Yep.
That’s a no brainer.
The separation of church and state is the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state.
If you value freedom, including religious freedom, you should support the separation of Church & State.
The government should have no involvement in your religion as they should have no involvement in your sex life. So long as you abide by the secular laws of the land.
If your religious practice breaks the law, you go to jail. If you cannot live with that, you must leave the nation. Immigrate to a theocracy, perhaps.
Some American Christians are intolerant.
The kind constantly quoting the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Pledge of Allegiance of the United States is an expression of fealty to the federal flag and the republic of the United States of America, originally composed by Francis Bellamy in 1892 and formally adopted by Congress as the pledge in 1942.
The official name of The Pledge of Allegiance was adopted in 1945. The last change in language came on Flag Day 1954 when the words “under God” were added.
Here’s the original version (1892) of the start of the pledge:
“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
I got on to this topic after seeing right wing Americans irritated and hateful over this incident from Jan 2013.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
A school Cultural club read the Pledge of Allegiance in different languages, one of them Arabic. In that one replacing “God” with “Allah”.
To me the Pledge is just words on paper. Not sacred. Even less a sacred cow than the U.S. Constitution.
Here’s the funniest commentary on the Pledge of Allegiance I’ve seen.
The Whitest Kids U’ Know – Pledge of Allegiance
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
On Facebook I link a lot to information confronting Gundamentalists. And Tea Party Republicans.
Both are generally bad for the USA. Bad for the world.
One of my themes is that Republicans must CHANGE or LOSE, long term.
The GOP needs prominent candidates of colour. Pro science. Fiscal conservatives, not shills for corporations and billionaires. Pro immigration. In support of Gay marriage.
Here’s one who looks promising.
Mia Love clinches Republican nomination at Utah convention
On May 18, 2013, Love announced that she would run again in 2014. If elected, she would be the first Haitian American and first black female Republican ever elected to Congress, as well as the first from the state of Utah. …
Love favors “fiscal discipline, limited government, and personal responsibility.” She has also said that she asks herself three questions whenever she approaches an issue, “Is it affordable? Is it sustainable? Is it my job?” …
I’m sure she’s not perfect. But she gives me hope that Republicans can recover, eventually, from Tea Party insanity.
related – What stupid thing did Sarah Palin say lately?
She is purely an Obama-era novelty. As Obama’s tenure ends, so does the career of Sarah …
Good riddance.
… have wealth equal to that of half the population: report
Just how rich are they? According to a new report by Oxfam, their total fortunes are equal to as much as half of that of the world’s population.
The report, which analyzes a number of studies to highlight the world’s growing economic inequality, was intended as a precursor to the World Economic Forum, which begins in Switzerland this week.
… the wealth of the richest keeps growing, while the bottom 90 per cent (i.e. most of the rest of us) keeps shrinking. …
NOT sustainable.
NOT an efficient use available cash.
Most of those 85 don’t deserve to be more than piddly millionaires.
Our system is not working.
Here’s the original report that came up with that stat — Oxfam – Working for the Few – Political capture and economic inequality
This kind of headline is bad news for the Tea Party crowd. It’s damage control time for the extreme right wing. Drudge linked to a conservative site claiming the actual statistic is that the 85 richest people own about 0.7% of the world’s wealth.
I trust Oxfam.
Ezra Klein:
“a joyous romp through the seedy underbelly of presidential campaigning“.
Though not nearly as good as Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime (2008), I still enjoyed hearing insider anecdotes of the dirty dealings.
Double Down: Game Change 2012 is a book written by political journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin about the 2012 United States presidential election, in which Barack Obama was re-elected as President of the United States, defeating Mitt Romney. …
… a behind-the-scenes narrative of the Obama and Romney campaigns.
The book relies on over 400 sources, most of whom are anonymous. The authors treated their interview subjects with alcohol in a private suite or restaurant to get them to open up …
… Rep. Michele Bachmann‘s belief that as a “branier” Sarah Palin she could win the nomination, only to suffer horrible stage fright and a series of gaffes …
Herman Cain‘s initial appeal deflated by charges of sexual harassment and a poor understanding of U.S. foreign policy
Jon Huntsman‘s campaign collapse due to poor organization and attacks by both the Romney campaign and the Obama White House, each viewing the ambassador as a turncoat …
Gov. Rick Perry‘s gaffe-ridden campaign, apparently the result of painkiller use. …
… Karl Rove‘s role in the primaries, pushing Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee to enter the race, only to have both decline over issues of finance. …
Biggest idiot of all — as usual — was Donald Trump.
Romney was criticized for being an out-of-touch fat cat, beholding to the very rich. I feel that charge was fair. Like George W, if elected, he would have had to do everything he could to make the rich richer.
Chris Christie comes out looking best of the many who might have got the nomination instead of Romney. I do hope he runs in 2016. He’s a heavy weight legit candidate. Smart enough and tough enough to do the job. Sadly, skeletons in the closet could derail.
Paul Ryan was a gutsy choice for VP. He kept arguing to put forward alternative policies to Obama — but Mitt’s people wanted to make few specific promises, sticking with anti-Obama rhetoric. Of the Republicans covered, Ryan’s to my mind the closest to a fiscal conservative. His budget was Micky Mouse, hardly better than Obama. But I was hoping it was a first step in the right direction. For example, this week he defended cuts to military retiree benefits. Ryan’s got balls.
Mitt Romney is a good man. He might have been a good President. Might have been better than a term 2 Obama. We’ll never know.
I supported Romney when he first got the nod, hoping that a business man might better manage the nation. Unfortunately he voiced no platform. Weaseled or flip-flopped out of every question. It was embarrassing to listen to him interviewed.
His best moment was in the 1st presidential debate, Wednesday, October 3rd. Romney was good. Obama was terrible.
There are no scandalous reveals in the book regarding Mitt. He’s just as boring in real life as he was on the campaign trail.
HBO Films, which produced Game Change, the film version of the book, has optioned the rights to Double Down. When asked about casting, Halperin suggested Will Smith or Giancarlo Esposito would be his choices for Obama, while George Clooney or Jon Hamm could play Romney.
I’d love to see Clooney playing a Republican. 🙂
In some ways the respective National Conventions symbolize the respective Presidential campaigns.
The Democrats tightly scripted. Disciplined.
Their celebrity loose cannon the biggest hit of the event. Read the transcript of Bill Clinton’s Speech to the Democratic National Convention.
The Republicans. … Not so good.
No need to read Clint Eastwood‘s GOP convention speech: Full transcript. It was a mess, though I still like Clint personally.
2016?
I can’t see any Republican beating Hillary.
They’ll have to take a shellacking before finally turning to fiscal conservatism, abandoning Tea Party trivialities.
Most Tea Party candidates are no more competent to govern than Occupy Wall Street extremists.
If you are interested in what’s really happening in the campaign war rooms, read this book. You’ll never again believe a word an American politician says.
Rick McCharles 