GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES PRODUCE NOTHING

Ray Merrick a Kansas legislator and a “Legislator of the Year” according to the American Legislative Exchange Council ( ALEC). He was addressing the disaster that they call the Kansas budget.  His answer was to cut some more. He stated that “Government employees produce nothing.” That means the public employee's in Kansas can expect to bare the brunt of the next round of cuts.  I hope Merrick is not a product of the public school system, because it's obvious he's an idiot.  He doesn't seem to understand that he is a Government employee. If he wants to help out Kansas he should resign his job and go into chicken farming, of course, that may be a stretch, because the chickens might out -smart him on a regular basis.
I was at the Minnesota State Capitol a few years ago after the Republicans had taken control of the capitol.  I was in a meeting with some legislators when a women walked in and tried to take control.  She stated that public employee jobs weren't real jobs and seen no use for them.  It just so happened that there were several public employee's in the group, one was a prison guard who spoke up and said if his job wasn't real then he wanted to know who the people were that were threatening him everyday.  This women got up and left the meeting without answering any questions. It came to light later that she thought she was in a meeting with her supporters.  The point is these people care nothing about people that can't push there careers forward, or offer them some incentive. If this country is not careful were going to  go back to bread lines and huge  unemployment, because the Republican's have every intention of gutting all safety net programs.

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ELIZABETH WARREN FOR PRESIDENT, I DON'T THINK SO.

I like Elizabeth Warren. I would like it if she were my Senator.  That being said, this call for her to run for President is disturbing.  In my opinion she is not qualified to be President at this time, maybe in the future she would be.  The same goes for Senator Bernie Sanders.  I voted twice for President Obama, but I would have liked someone a little more battle hardened.  The Republicans have gone down the path of exclusion in recent years.  Senator Warren, from the get-go would alienate many many people, and make them feel excluded.  Her manner is that of college professor, she goes into the I am the teacher and you are the student mode, much to often for my likening. She would have the problem of trying to get along with Congress. When I say Congress I mean her own party in Congress.
President Obama has had the same problem, and you can see where that has gotten us.
Erica Sagrans the campaign manager for Ready for Warren   says that Warren “is the kind of Democrat that the Democrats have been yearning for.”  This may be true to a point. She may say all the right things, but I don't think the electorate would buy into it. The problem is, I think, she will be perceived as a egghead with no back bone when it comes to foreign policy. There was a woman Martha Coakly from Elizabeth Warren's very own liberal state of Massachusetts who lost the Governors race, and who in my opinion,  Elizabeth Warren would be looked at the same way by the country as a whole. This is the same problem President Obama faces. Of course, it isn't true, but the people in this country are constantly hearing this from the media in this country.   I think she would make a terrific Secretary of the Treasury.  This is her strong suit, and a perfect fit.
Hillary Clinton would not be my first choice for President, but I am more amenable to her.  She does have experience. She was a Senator, and a Secretary of State. I am pretty sure she could stand up to all the criticisms she would receive.  She is tough, and not afraid of taking on her opponents.  I do have problems with her, but I can't think of any person that I wouldn't have problems with.  Bill Clinton's Presidency restored our economy and did a lot to make us a better country.  Except for the NAFTA treaty I was on board with him.  Hillary is her own person, but I think she actually wants what's best for this country unlike the Republicans.
The main problem with the Democrats is that they don't appeal to the whites in this country. This is a topic that most people shy away from, but it has to be addressed.  I think I understand why the party doesn't appeal to whites.  If you listen to the Democrats talk, what do you hear coming out of their months? They constantly talk about immigration;  minimum wage, student loan reform, gun-control, and abortion. These are all good things that should be talked about, with the exception of the minimum wage none of this appeals to the white working class in this country. The working class who doesn't have a lot of time to analyze every issue hear that Democrats want to take their guns away, and raise taxes to support people who are sitting around doing nothing, and getting government checks.  This isn't right, but look at the recent past.  Wisconsin had huge labor issues with the Republican Governor. The national Democratic party mostly ignored them.  The same goes for Ohio, and Michigan. The Democratic party is perceived by most of the working class in this country as a party of give me something for nothing.  This isn't true, but the democrats have to make themselves heard about issues that mean something to them. There are Democratic politicians that do this, but on a much smaller scale. The national party should take their cues from this people.

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CONSERVATIVE MEDIA?

Stanley Hubbard owns Hubbard broadcasting.  He owns the station in Minneapolis KSTP-TV that aired the picture of the mayor of Minneapolis Betsy Hodges and a black individual pointing.  The claim was that the mayor was making a gang sign. The station has come under fire for the story, rightfully so. What people have to understand Hubbard broadcasting is the same group that refused to air certain political ads by Democratic Congressman Rick Nolan in the recent election. They decided that there were factual errors in the ad.  No other stations in the state seemed to find a problem with them. I have written before about this.  In the recent episode Mr. Hubbard was asked to apologize for the story. His answer was that the people upset have “been sucked in” by the media coverage.  He said he wouldn't give an on-air apology “No, of course not, that's ridiculous” Hubbard a well known conservative has decided that his opinion is the only one that matters. The conservatives in this country claim there is a liberal bias in the media, well if a liberal station,(if there are any left) did this, the outrage from the conservatives would be deafening.  So far I haven't heard anything from Fox News, and I don't expect to. A side note to this story is Hubbard said that “multiple law enforcement” officials put him on to the picture and the gang signs. The Mayor and the police have a strained relationship do to the fact the Mayor said “some officers abuse the trust that is afforded to them, and take advantage of their roles to do harm rather than prevent it.”

SCOTT WALKER'S WARPED SENSE OF GOVERNMENT

The newly re-elected Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin has decided he wants to drug test people who get government aid.  This is not a new idea, Florida tried it, and it was found unconstitutional. This won't stop Walker. He has some dubious ways of looking at laws.  This idea puts his name in the national spotlight. My problem with this whole thing is that he wants to pick and choose who gets tested.  He leaves out all the other people who get money from the Government, and since corporations are people now according to the Supreme Court I guess they should be tested to.  The Congress who recently cut money to the food stamp program, but left in subsidies to farmers some of which went to the same disgusting politicians who voted to cut the food stamp program. They don't consider that a government handout.  How about all the money that goes out to assist businesses relocate or move into an area? That is tax payer money.  Public employees will have to be tested. This includes elected officials because they are public employees, even though they claim to despise public employees. Most of these government haters sell their souls to get a public employee job. In my mind they don't care about the country, but how much they can serve their real masters, and how much money they can accumulate in their time in office.  Of course they also get a great pension and medical care. That is so different than the regular working people, because in their minds they deserve it because they are special.  These people don't see themselves as public employee's, they see themselves as the anointed ones who are going to save us from the great unwashed hordes who threaten our way of life. 

THE POPES LONG ROAD AHEAD

The Pope has demoted the  Cardinal  Raymond Burke who is  the highest ranking United States Cardinal at the Vatican.  This Cardinal is a strict conservative, and doesn't really believe in what the Pope is trying to do, namely move the Catholic Church into the 21st century.
Let me say from the start that I am a Catholic, or at least raised a Catholic.  I have an on-going discussion with a Catholic Priest in my area who is constantly comparing Democrats to Nazi's, Communists, and Socialists, he never seems to get his insults straight.  When the issue of the pedophile priests come up he makes all the excuses that you hear from the church.  He always says it was such a small number and he actually doesn't believe that those figures are even true.  The point I try to get across to him unsuccessfully is that my problem with the church isn't the priests themselves.  People make mistakes, and none of us are immune.  The problem is with the cover up the church has employed, and to some degree are still perpetrating.  William Donohue who was the head of the Catholic League tried to justify the abuse by saying that most of the abused were not children, but 15 or 16 years old. I guess it's alright to abuse someone when they become teenagers. This Priest found out where I lived and sent me a letter telling me I was ignorant and needed to make a good confession.  I had to laugh because in his mind a good confession would make everything all right.
The Pope has a tough road ahead of him with these kind of Priests; Bishops, and Cardinals.  Hopefully he will stick with it and get rid of the malcontents.
Too bad for the conservative clergy they don't have the same system as our government.  They could just threaten to impeach him, because they don't agree.

THE REASON DEM'S GOT CRUSHED

 

   

The main reason the Dems got crushed was that the voters they rely on are not reliable.
We have the young and minorities who only seem to vote in great numbers during Presidential elections.  The reliable voters are labor who have been successfully demonized by the right with the help of the media.  Newspapers run articles like this one awhile back on Labor Day.  “Are unions evil”  Unions are blamed for the downfall of cities and the debt that states have.  The Democratic party doesn't fight back on these issues.  In Wisconsin where the Governor stripped public unions of most of their rights, very few national Democrats spoke out or came to Wisconsin to stand with the workers.
President Obama should have shown up in Wisconsin, but of course he didn't want to take sides.
The media which has been painted by the right as a liberal bastion is a fantasy that people have bought into.  The networks, and newspapers are owned by corporations who are dictating editorial policy. All you have to do is watch any so-called news program on any network especially on the weekend and who do you see?  John McCain, or Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, or Ted Cruz  Another example of this is the paper in Duluth Mn.  Duluth is a relatively liberal area.  The paper endorsed almost all Republicans during the recent election.  Of course if you look at the actual endorsements none of them came from the local editorial staff.  They all were from the corporate owners from out of the state. The paper is doing a disservice to the community. One of the states television channels wouldn't run some ads by the Democrat in a congressional district claiming there were  false claims made.  The thing is the owner of that television station was a supporter of the Dems opponent, and a dyed in the wool conservative who only believes in fairness if it benefits him.  Basically he was picking and choosing which ads to air  based on his political bent.
Finally the democrats have some really bad candidates.  We had Grimes in Kentucky who refused to say who she voted for in the previous Presidential election. We had a candidate for Governor in Massachusetts who was an embarrassment and this was not the first time she screwed up an election. Who are the people nominating this person.  The list goes on and on.  The Democrats let the Republicans define them. They use gun-rights or abortion as a gun to their head.  They can't seem to refute that background checks are not gun control.  They never mention the fact that abortion will not go away even if it is repealed.  Back alley abortions will kill more women like it used to. They never push the Republicans on their warped reading of the Bible.
Democrats have to get tougher and quit trying to placate the Republicans

RIGHT-WING PROPAGANDA MACHINE

The right-wing propaganda machine is out in full force.  Today in the newspaper an op-ed article was written by Jay Ambrose.  He's extolling the virtues of Republican Governors who stripped union rights from public employee's.  He especially thinks Scott Walker from Wisconsin is a hero.  He according to Ambrose reduced the “union's bullying powers,” even though the unions fought back by being “dirty as dirty gets.” The unions also according to Ambrose   had immovable power “to distort democracy, devastate finances, render government operations less efficient and even, in some cases, cheat children out  of the kind of education necessary for them to have a decent future.”  He goes on to state that unions spent huge amounts of money to try and get elected people who supported them. I almost got a tear in my eye when I read that. The Republican party's outlay in the recent election dwarfs any money spent by the unions.  The real reason for the attack on unions has nothing to do with what these fact twisters like Ambrose say. It has everything to do with the fact that unions are one of the last organizations that have any chance of competing with big business and billionaire donations to the Republicans.
To see Ambrose in proper perspective you have to look at some of his past propaganda.  He thinks campus rape is an epidemic of hyperbole.  He thinks global warming is not happening.  He wants to restructure Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. We all know what that means he wants to privatize them. He conveniently forgets the fact that working people contribute to them through out their working lifetimes. He defends George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin killing.  If you have been paying attention, you know Zimmerman has been in one scrap after another, and  one of his big defenders now thinks Zimmerman targeted Martin because he was black.  The list goes on-and-on, but you get the gist of where this guys head is.
The question that needs to be asked is why we are continually subjected to these rants from guys like Ambrose in this so-called liberal media?

HALEY BARBOUR BIGOT

Haley Barbour used the term tar baby when talking to his GOP cronies. He apologized if anyone took offense. I know, and you should know he isn't sorry about using that term, he's sorry because it became public. Barbour has a history with racism. He is the same guy who defended the Citizen Councils of the 50's and 60's. He said he doesn't remember it being bad in those years for the minorities in his southern bastion where blacks were kept in the shadows. Barbour is a bigot and always will be a bigot, but he would like you to believe that he is sorry when he says things like tar baby. The problem is he keeps saying those things over and over.