Four more years or apocalypse, you decide

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.
     –Richard Bach

As expected the freakout on the right has begun.  Last night Karl Rove lost his potato-shaped mind on national TV when FOX News called the election, Trump embarrassed himself further via Twitter (wasn’t sure that was possible), conservative bloggers and commenters are saying American’s don’t deserve liberty and others are calling for open revolt.   Today even the MSM is getting into the “fear-stoking”….our so-called liberal press is already starting  to frame stories to please their corporate overlords regarding supposed tax hikes, divisiveness in D.C., etc,etc.

However, as many liberals and moderates predicted locusts have not descended our crops, roving gangs are not breaking into homes raping, pillaging and murdering, and we have not heard the trumpet of Michael.  Nor will we.  The world will continue revolving and things  will be okay.  At least they will be as okay as any rational person can reasonably expect.  Apparently for some reasonableness isn’t in their repertoire.

Nothing more dangerous than…..

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

Here’s the full transcript of the debate if you want to see the entire thing.  Let me start off with this:  The President spanked Mitt into next week.  Now to the details.

• Right wings hacks at The Blaze, The Daily Caller, Fox pundits  and all the usual suspects are actually fact checking the “Bayonets and Horses statement”.  The President didn’t say we don’t have any Bayonets and Horses, just less of them.  The military still does use them but mostly for ceremonial purposes.  So don’t get distracted by the desperate attempts by Faux News and others to cover for Romney’s stupidity.  Do get distracted, briefly, with some funnies…..For your viewing enjoyment, http://horsesandbayonets.tumblr.com/  BTW, I loved the this is “not a game of Battleship” comment too.
• The President listed, very precisely, the various ways that Mitt has changed his foreign policy plans just within the last few weeks. Mitt even contradicted himself during the debate.
  • A few months ago, Romney was saying that Russia was the biggest geopolitical threat and in the debate at one point Romney said it was Al Qaeda and another time said it was a nuclear Iran.  Which is it?
  • First Romney said he was against having a timeline in Afghanistan and now he says he is for the timeline and then during the debate, he said it depends.  Wavering on the timeline is not what the American people want.  We want the troops out of there.
  • Romney initially said we were right to go into Iraq, even if there weren’t any WMD’s.  A few weeks ago he said that there should be more troops in Iraq right now but then during the debate, Romney said he’s not interested in duplicating what we did in Iraq.   And if you don’t want to duplicate Iraq, why are 17 out of 24 of your foreign policy advisers neocons, the ones who advised GWB into Iraq?!
  • A few years ago Romney said he would never endorse applying diplomatic pressure and bilateral talks with Iran.  During the debate he said he did support it.
• In regards to Al Qaeda, Romney praised the President for killing Osama Bin Laden then followed it up with “ But we can’t kill our way out of this mess.”   Then later said, the drones are effective at killing Al Qaeda leaders.  Sounds like you’re advocating killing our way out of the situation since it seems to be working so well.  Mitt haz a confused.
• Romney said, we can partner with China, we don’t have to be an adversary but also said, day one he would label them a currency manipulator….you can’t have it both ways here.  Putting a crimp into our trade relations with China right now would be plain stupid.
• President countered the accusation that he had been too lenient on China that his administration has filed more legal cases against China for trade violations than GWB did in two terms.  And they’ve won most of them with good effect on our economy (e.g., U.S. steel plants can now sell steel to China).
• Romney started harping on about the repeatedly debunked by factcheckers “Apology Tour”.  As evidence he pointed out that during that Middle East trip the President didn’t go to Israel.  The President responded with, what I felt, was one of the best moments of the night:
  

  ….when I was a candidate for office, first trip I took was to visit our troops.   And when I went to Israel as a candidate, I didn’t take donors, I didn’t attend fundraisers, I went to Yad Vashem, the — the Holocaust museum there, to remind myself the — the nature of evil and why our bond with Israel will be unbreakable.  And then I went down to the border towns of Sderot, which had experienced missiles raining down from Hamas. And I saw families there who showed me where missiles had come down near their children’s bedrooms, and I was reminded of — of what that would mean if those were my kids, which is why, as president, we funded an Iron Dome program to stop those missiles.  So that’s how I’ve used my travels when I travel to Israel and when I travel to the region.

  The President is correct about Romney’s trip to Israel…it was a sop to his wealthy donors and there was lots of schmoozing and visiting holy sites, but none of that means a hill of beans if you don’t understand on a very visceral level the threat that Israel faces and how real people (both Israelis and Palestinians) suffer daily as a result of that conflict. The President’s tone was perfect…similar to his “I am offended” rejoinder regarding Libya in the second debate.

• The President made a nice link between Romney’s waffling and how that affects negotiating credibility with players in the region.  In other words, waffley Romney wouldn’t be (and isn’t) perceived as being credible by countries like Iran. They won’t want to talk to him at all if they can’t believe him.
• President did a good job transitioning from our wind down in Iraq and Afghanistan to how that allows us to do some nation building at home.  This not only took away Romney’s chance to attack on the domestic issues but it’s a crowd pleaser.  Americans have been angry for years now about the WMD lies that lead us into Iraq and the bungling by Bush and Co in Afghanistan and how that has sucked our coffers dry.  So dry, in fact, that we couldn’t do as much as was needed to recover from the Recession.  We all know it but the GOP doesn’t want to talk about it because it points out just how bad their foreign policy stance is and how it hurts us domestically.
• The President could have really hammered home Romney’s Chinese investments while at Bain every time he brought up sanctions on China for unfair trade practices.  However the President only did so once.  Even so, it was effective (and a fact that I didn’t know–Romney didn’t counter the statement at all –here’s an article on it, it’s true)
  

  And when it comes to tightening sanctions, look, as I said before, we’ve put in the toughest, most crippling sanctions ever. And the fact is while we were coordinating an international coalition to make sure these sanctions were effective, you were still invested in a Chinese state oil company that was doing business with the Iranian oil sector. So I’ll let the American people decide, judge who’s going to be more effective and more credible when it comes to imposing crippling sanctions.

• Also on the China issue, Romney accused them of stealing intellectual property.  Um, Mittens, a couple of the Chinese companies that Romney invested in have been charged and/or convicted of theft (of copyrighted material and patents).  If Romney really wants to put an end to it, maybe he should stop investing in them.  What a hypocrite!
• Romney said, “Secondly, Syria’s an opportunity for us because Syria plays an important role in the Middle East, particularly right now. Syria is Iran’s only ally in the Arab world. It’s their route to the sea.”  Um, my 9 year old can look at a map and see that is clearly not the case.  I expect my President to know geography, particularly in a region that is chock full of enemies and problems.
  

  Syria is Iran’s route to water????? (screen grab from Google Maps)

• I watched all three debates on CNN and paid close attention to the “dialometer” (or whatever the heck you call that device).  There are definite pattern differences between the genders.  Every single time, in all three debates, when the President went into attack mode, i.e., started to point out where Romney had lied, was wrong, or discuss anything that Romney proposed even, the male line would dip down into the negative.  I’ve looked all over and can’t find out what the demographics were for the CNN undecided voters.  I am betting they were predominantly white, particularly the males.  I am inclined to think that this pattern I noticed is due to the white male dislike of “uppityness”.  However, that being said, they responded to many of the President’s positive points much higher on average than they responded to Romney on any points (positive or attacking).  In fact, I noticed a lot of “flat lining” during several of Romney’s answers.  The stuttering and staccato delivery of his answers hurt Romney.  It made him look uncomfortable with the subject matter (which we now know to be true).  Ultimately, I don’t really care what the male undecided voters think.  Women tend to vote more and if they liked the President significantly more (and it was pretty obvious they did) then it will be to the President’s benefit come election day.
• One final point, you will notice a lot of the media saying that the race is a “dead heat”.  There’s a lot of poll data out there that says it isn’t as close as the MSM wants it to be and that the President probably has more than enough Electoral Votes in hand to project that he will be the winner.  Nate Silver has correctly predicted quite a few things and that is what he is saying.  But why would the MSM lie?  If it’s not close, then people won’t watch the news and the big new corps are fighting tooth and nail for every single viewer.  Never mind that their lies might actually affect real world events.  Never mind that there job isn’t to lie to but to report facts.  Never mind that they are so focused on entertainment that reality gets short shrift.  Never mind that without a Fourth Estate to investigate and uncover the truth the country is doomed.  The MSM wants a horse race so that’s what we’ll get until the day after the Election.  No wonder so many conservatives are confused when their candidate doesn’t win and then accuse Dems of cheating.  They get told that their candidate is ahead or at least tied…then election day the results are so one-sided that they just can’t reconcile what they were told before the election and then what happened.  They never think to question the media, which they should.  I”m not saying the President has it in the bag…we should be working our butts off until the final poll is closed.  This election is just too important for me personally and for so many other people not to give it 110% through to the end.  So ignore the Horse Race reports from the MSM and get out there and register people, help them find out where the polling places are, help them get ID’s if they need them, donate if you can, make phone calls, just do something helpful.  Let’s win this thing!

Ramblings of a Troubled Mind

No, not the kind where I am off my meds, but more of the kind where I am thinking WTF?!  So here are some things that made say WTF recently.

1.  Candy Crowley on her execrable show on CNN called State of the Union had a segment this past Sunday where she used the segue of “Is the President bad for business?” She didn’t use a neutral segue such as “How has the President affected business?”, which would have made one think that actual journalism was going to occur.  And she didn’t use the liberal phrasing, which would have been “Is the President good for business?” No, she used the conservative (Fox  News) phrasing¹.  So any viewer who might already be thinking that about the President needed nothing more than to hear the segue before nodding their heads and changing the channel to something equally informative like The Kardashians or NASCAR².

2. If you were unfortunate enough to continue watching Crowley as I was, you would have seen Carly Fiorina, former failed Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate and failed business executive of Lucent Technologies, being presented as an expert on the economy. Really Candy!? Why for the love of all that is holy can’t you have a REAL expert? One who hasn’t failed in everything they’ve done³, or one who wasn’t given everything they have or one who wasn’t given a really good head start and then vulturized_TM healthy companies to gain profits….you see where I am going with this, right? How about have a REAL FRIGGING economic expert with both experience, education and a historical track record of being right?! The reason Fiorina was on was for the sake of faux balance. She was the only Republican financial-sort of person that Crowley could find in her incredibly limited contact list. The truth is Crowley couldn’t find very many REAL economic experts who wanted to come on TV and peddle GOP bullshit so she had to rely on somebody like a Fiorina. Trump was probably her next in line if Fiorina said no.

2.  Several Governors are refusing to implement, and several more are considering refusal of, the expansion of Medicaid enacted by the ACA in their state  in spite of the fact that the first three years they would receive 100% reimbursement from the Federal Government.  Mainly because a) the Supreme Court said they could, b) thumbing their noses at President Obama is oh so much fun, and c) because campaigning against non-existent welfare queens is so much more newsworthy than campaigning on behalf of real people with real problems.  The whole welfare queen argument is a dog whistle so Why TF are we still seeing this crap in 2012?

3.  Probably because asshats like Mitt “vote for me because I am as white as Karl Rove’s shiny bare ass” Romney keeps putting out ads that say things like,

Under Obama’s plan you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job.  They just send you a welfare check.

This ad is based on a blatant lie that you won’t see anyone in the MSM actually call him on because evidently the establishment media must have had to turn in their testicles  (or ovaries as the case may be) when they signed a contract to work for a major television news channel.  The truth is that the President granted an exception to two Republican Governors who requested the exception⁴.  Yeah, this is a definite WTF moment.  So do me a favor, count and make note of the number of times you see anyone in the MSM mention the fact that Mitt Romney is a lying sack of pooh on this issue, and send me an email or comment.  I’m betting the wires will be very, very silent.

4.  Another thought on current news….let the example of Lt. Brian Murphy serve as the ultimate cautionary tale. Lt. Murphy is a 21-year law enforcement veteran who was the first to arrive at the Sikh Temple this weekend. He was and is highly trained for just such situations, and of course, he was armed. Lt. Murphy ended up being shot 8 or 9 times and remains in critical condition. It wasn’t until reinforcements showed up that the perpetrator was killed. So to all those online conservative posters who were SO certain that if THEY or SOMEONE had been in the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado and had a weapon they would have been able to stop the full body-armored perpetrator in the midst of a dark, tear gas-filled theater full of the noise of the movie soundtrack and screaming, scrambling moviegoers, I say bullcrap.  You would have a) crapped your pants, b) run for the hills or cowered on the floor c) shot more innocents, d) made yourself a really fine target by your own muzzle flash, and/or e) ended up full of lead like Lt. Murphy.  The perp always has the  advantage of surprise and the confusion that results in any crowded area⁵.  If you don’t know that, you shouldn’t be allowed to wear in a gun in public because you’re an untrained, dangerously overconfident braggart.

5. And finally, Pat Robertson, the Christian televangelist that had the nerve to say that 9/11 happened because we tolerated homosexuals had to put his two cents in this weekend and say that the perp who killed many innocents over the weekend at a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin was an atheist who hated God.  No, no, no, no!  You stupid, ignorant, blind idiot!  The perp was a Christian, specifically a White Supremacist.  You know those Aryan lovin’ brothers who all claim to be Christians?  Robertson, just shut up, really…..if you’re going to say anything at all, pray for the victims. Otherwise, just shut up.

NOTES:

1.  Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Race to the bottom”, as in ratings CNN.

2. Not that reality TV or NASCAR or any other popular television phenomena isn’t informative, it just isn’t all that informative about what really matters….like choosing the Leader of the supposedly Free World.

3. And no, Fiorina managing to stay rich in the face of failure isn’t a qualification of an economic expert. Once you’re rich it’s pretty damn hard not to continue to be rich. Hell, all you have to do is invest your money at a relatively low-level of risk, sit back, and watch it grow. My 9-year old could do that. The point is, you can destroy a company, hell even an economy, and still keep your personal wealth. After that, everything else is a cakewalk. But that hardly makes you an economic expert. Still not convinced that if you have money, you can make more than enough money to stay rich even though you have no worth as a human being whatsoever? Two words–Paris Hilton.

4.  BTW this is one of the many compromises the President has made that the MSM loves to ignore while the other party NEVER EVER compromises in any way shape or form but somehow it’s the President’s fault he hasn’t changed the climate in Washington.   For the love of God people, get  a clue!  Candy Crowley, I’m looking at you, you over-privileged useless excuse for a journalist.

5. You have to go down to the comments to see my back and forth with at least one of the braggarts.

SOURCES:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1208/05/sotu.01.html

http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/why-cnn-treating-fiorina-expert-econo

http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/07/13145392-falling-through-cracks-if-states-dont-expand-medicaid?lite

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0709/Texas-Perry-rejects-Medicaid-expansion.-What-now-video

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/07/cop-critical-after-being-shot-nine-times-while-trying-to-stop-sikh-temple/

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/08/07/there-he-goes-again/

http://news.yahoo.com/aurora-dark-knight-shooting-suspect-identified-james-holmes-115717096–abc-news-topstories.html

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/falwell.asp

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/pat-robertson-suggests-atheists-blame-sikh-t

Updated: Let the purging begin!

Update:  Now Huma Abedin needs protection from threats to her safety.  Congratulations, Rep. Bachmann, you win the asshole of the month award for putting an innocent person’s life in jeopardy so you can get media attention and more money out of your deluded Tea Party followers.  I don’t know if it is possible or not, but if Mrs. Abedin can sue for her defamation, she should.  BTW, if you’re interested, such behavior is not unknown and it has a name:  Stochastic Terrorism

Well, I have to admit, a long-time target of my vitriol finally did something that I approve.  Sen. John McCain stood up for an American Muslim woman,
Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was being maligned by GOP Congressional members. Abedin, a deputy chief of staff at the State Department and wife to former Congressman Anthony Weiner (yes, that guy who sent pics of his, well, wiener to his online lovers), has been incredibly quiet throughout all the hubbub around her.  Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn) along with 4 others [Reps. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.)] accused Abedin of having ties to a group called the Muslim Brotherhood and implying that she is some kind of undercover representative for the group. Notice, that one of those idjits is from Arizona–sigh.

The Muslim Brotherhood, while apparently influential in the Middle East, has no power whatsoever in the U.S.  Just in case you don’t know who that group is, the Brotherhood had a relatively moderate candidate just win the first democratic (supposedly) presidential election ever held in Egypt.   Furthermore, Abedin while undoubtedly Muslim is also undoubtedly liberal–she married a Jewish man, she works for Hillary Clinton, she is very educated and accomplished in her own right which is completely against the philosophy of the Muslim Brotherhood, a conservative group advocating for the imposition of Sharia laws in Muslim countries. Even if she wanted to advocate for the Brotherhood, they wouldn’t let her. And if she lived in a country with Sharia Law, she wouldn’t live very long. And finally, anyone who is as high up in our power structure as Abedin is would not have gotten there without a VERY thorough background check. The Feds probably have a report so detailed they know how many times she’s farted in her life.  Seriously.  So, the accusation against this poor woman is absurd.

This is just a witch hunt that is so like the McCarthyism of the 1950′s it is disturbing.  Let’s face it, the GOP has been blatantly fear mongering since 9/11.  One of the things that allowed us to believe Pres. G.W. Bush regarding Iraq and weapons of mass destruction was fear.   And we’ve learned, the hard way (no WMD’s, about 37,000 U.S. soldiers dead or injured, an estimated 200,000 Iraqi civilian casualties at a cost of $3 trillion) that making major decisions based on fear is not only stupid but the long-term consequences are infinitely more destructive in ways we have yet to comprehend.

However, since a blackity-black man entered the race for the White House in 2008, the fear mongering has reached a whole new level.   Think about it.   When we went into Iraq we had information, misinterpreted information as we discovered later, that there were WMD’s in Iraq and that Hussein wouldn’t hesitate to use them.  But the recent fear mongering have been based on outright lies and repeated over and over and over again by the MSM and political candidates specifically for the purpose of manipulation.  How many stories have you heard or read since 2008 about any of following topics:

• imposition of Sharia Law in the U.S.,
• Manchurian candidates
• Death Panels (‘soshulism’,  i.e., foreign)
• Redistribution of Wealth (‘soshulism’, ditto)
• Drones used in the U.S. against citizens
• Mosques allowing an infiltration of terrorists (also see Sharia law above, remember the hullabaloo about the Mosque at Ground Zero, the Mosque being built in TN?)
• “Palling” around with people who hate America

To date, the people that have suffered from these stories have been average people–American Muslim shopkeepers, religious congregations, etc.–who have little or no voice in the larger political body.  They certainly don’t command the resources that the conservative wing of the GOP now enjoys.  After all, the GOP has their own network and billions of unlimited money from donors in the oil, banking and casino industries.   The attack on average Americans is bad enough and we should all be ashamed that it has happened.  However, this accusation of Abedin is an attempt to purge her from her position–it is an outright power play.  Purging for the sake of gaining more power is a bad, bad sign.  And Bachmann and her nutbag colleagues aren’t backing down.  I hope that Sen. McCain keeps opposing her and encourages other colleagues on the right to stand up against this escalation in fear mongering.  Otherwise, I think in another 50 years my grandchildren will be blogging about the “Bachmann Hearings of 2012″.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-mccain-abedin-20120719,0,5383238.story

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/nov/07/local/me-31153

http://www.loonwatch.com/2011/04/upset-over-nothing-salon-com-debunks-latest-sharia-scare/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302200.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/world/middleeast/mohamed-morsi-of-muslim-brotherhood-declared-as-egypts-president.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/world/middleeast/10casualties.html?pagewanted=all

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war

http://rescuetruth.com/politics/debunking-misleading-republican-ideas/

http://mediamatters.org/research/2009/08/15/report-the-media-have-debunked-the-death-panels/153367

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/how-to-interview-donald-trump-the-birther-debunkers-guide-to-the-universe/

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/05/fact-check-is-obama-palling-around-with-terrorists/

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-02-21/super-pac-donors/53196658/1

Ms. D. Ranged is in Motion Pictures

Well, not really a movie, a vlog to be precise. This is a new feature. I plan to post one new video per week on my new Youtube channel.  The entire thing is probably about 45 minutes if you listen to the entire thing but if you want to view just parts of it at a time, you can do that as I have divided it into somewhat topical sections (see individual links below).

Mostly I will be simply commenting on the past week’s events, public and private, but hope to supplement with some pre-scripted, more polished videos that will give you a good chuckle.

Let me know what y’all think!

June 16, 2012 Weekly Vlog Parts

Introduction:  I Promise I Am Not Homeless

Part 1:  Hot Time in the City

Part 2:  The Funny and the Bizarre

Part 3:  Why the MSM sucks

Part 4:  Vagina, Boo!

Part 5:  There is no line

Part 6:  Respect, Can We Get Some?

Conclusion:  Happy Stuff