This morning as I was watching last night’s Craig Ferguson Show that we tape since we can’t stay up that late, his monologue struck a chord with me.

He stated that he’s been feeling rather depressed lately, and I have to admit that so have I, and I wonder if anyone else has been feeling the same.

I find it depressing to read the news every day and every day the news seems to be nothing but doom and gloom.

If it’s not articles about the Party of NO, it’s stories about Limbaugh’s and Beck’s latest bloviations, Sarah Palin’s Charismatic Apostolic Warriors taking over our government, the 244% increase in hate groups, unemployment, foreclosures, Americans suffering without health care, earthquakes in Haiti and Chile.

I’ve been thinking about the typical platitude of counting my blessings, and I do have innumerable blessings in my life, and focusing on the positives rather than negatives, and then I log onto the Internet and the depressing cycle starts again.

So, I started thinking of what I can do in my every day life to get around the blues and decided that I need an attitude adjustment.

Today is the day that I am starting my personal movement to cheer up, by finding at least one good news story every single day.

I have also decided to stop playing into the negativity by referring to Tea Party people as teabaggers, and instead calling them, well, Tea Party People or referring to the group as the Tea Party Movement.

I am going to try very hard to speak about Republicans, Palin, Limbaugh and Beck, et all, in a respectful manner, taking a cue from Van Jones and his graciousness in telling Beck that he loves him, even if it was tongue in cheek, but I think the man really meant it.

In other words, I’m going to try to play nice and not lower myself to the opposition’s level.

Have you ever gotten really angry with someone and blew up and told them off?

How did it make you feel afterward?

I’ve done that a few times in my life, and every single time I’ve regretted it afterward and I felt horrible and worse than I did about whatever offense occurred to bring on my anger or hurt feelings.

I’m taking the high road, or going to try my damnedest to do that, as it is healthier for my frame of mind.

My feel good story of the day is this one –

Veterinarian Wins Pay It Forward

The 6 hour gathering is today discussing the future of OUR health and lives.

If you are watching and want to add your thoughts, enter here.

This is a very troubling story that will not leave you happy. I have to warn you, it is a little heartbreaking. It left me with a really bad taste in my mouth.

A few weeks ago in Montana, there was a horrible story about an abused kitten named Mercy. Someone had kicked him, stomped him in the head, and tried to drown him. He had apparently abused this kitten for hours. He was taken to a vet with numerous broken bones. He was then sent to an animal hospital in Spokane where they were forced to put him to sleep because his spine was fractured in several places.

Very sad story.

Wait, it gets sadder.

When a newspaper ran a front-page story on the incident, it predictably created a firestorm of a reaction. There were dozens of posts on that newspapers’ Web site saying the guy should be strung up, etc. Several people demanded to know where the person lived because they wanted to beat the hell out of him.

The guy was not arrested immediately. He apparently told the police he was suffering from clinical depression, but then he also claimed someone else beat and tortured the kitten. The police didn’t arrest him immediately. For two or three days, people apparently showed up at this guy’s door. He apparently received a number of threatening calls. After the kitten died, the police showed up at his door with an arrest warrant for cruelty to animals. With the police standing at the front door, he shot himself.

I hope the whole incident left some of those people posting threats on the Internet thinking long and hard about their actions. The incident has sparked a wide range of reactions. Some people are still saying, “Good. I’m glad he offed himself.” While others say, “people care more about animals than people.” Still others say people care more about kittens than aborted babies.

I have torn feelings about the whole thing. Honestly, I feel more sympathy for the kitten than I do the abuser, I guess because of its pure innocence, but I’m not without any sympathy for the abuser. This was not simply just a jerk. He was a victim in his own way. He was obviously a deeply troubled and ill person who badly needed help and didn‘t get it. He got threats. He didn’t deserve death. He deserved a couple of years in prison — and therapy and treatment.

I think a number of people blew it here. The cops blew it by not taking the guy in for observation when the abuse first happened. He told them he was seriously depressed. The people posting comments online threatening him were blowing it. Their anger was understandable, anyone reading the story felt it, but the online rhetoric got completely out of control. It turned into a weird kind of online mob rule. I have no doubt the abuser was reading those comments and threats.

And frankly, in my opinion, while I think the newspaper was correct to cover the incident the way it did — like I said it predictably got a big reaction from the community and even across the country — I think the paper did blow it by allowing those threatening comments to be posted on its Web site.

There is one hint of silver lining that came out of this. Because so many people felt so badly about Mercy, the local animal shelter received tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from across the country. And at a local “cat day” at the Humane Society, the shelter was swarmed by people adopting cats and kittens because they were touched by the Mercy story.

There was some silver lining. When the story of Mercy first came I out, I posted something on Facebook saying everyone should give their dogs and cats a big hug. I did that day.

We need to start a movement, a splinter group from the Democratic Party.

I am not talking about “media” or “profits” but am talking about starting a movement that somehow forms and takes off.

Heck, I think we’ll even get folks that consider themselves Teabaggers, because not all Teabaggers are the racist bigots from the Palin Convention in Nashville.

Even folks who consider themselves Teabaggers were turned off by that convention and are turned off by the racism.

We have to make the time.
We have to learn to take it step by step.
But we have to figure out what the steps are.

There would be plenty of drawbacks, because we would favor labor, meaning unions, and working class Americans.

Why couldn’t we at PPOV figure it out?

Why couldn’t we be the leader in figuring it out?

There has to be a way.

There are so many disillusioned, angry, fearful and disenfranchised Americans, and shouldn’t there be a way to get the message out and bring us all together and then work for change?

Real change, without corporate influence?

Just regular Americans that UNITE and . . . what?
How?
There has to be a way.

Back in the 60’s there were causes that united people enough to protest so many things and change did happen.

I just hate feeling as though there’s nothing we can do.

I can’t think of anything to do – a solution other than organizing a movement, similar to the Teabaggers, but for the Democratic Party.

We’re more open, tolerant, and no offense to the Teabaggers, well – but we could formulate a course of action and outline actual paradigms for change rather than rhetoric.

Oh, maybe I am far too naive and maybe it is impossible, but geeze-o-peete’s, it’s got to start somewhere.

I’m tired of our voices not being heard or taken seriously.

But this site is a GROUP THINK TANK.

It would take time, and we’d have to outline exactly what it is we want.

We know the broad basics, but we would need to work on laying it all out in specifics and then laying out how we get there.

We would have to be rational, because we can’t get everything we want, or our desires for the greater good, but – well, it would be a very complicated thing to do, but would it be impossible?

And once a movement took off, and it would, we would be so powerful of a voice of “Americans United” – maybe that could be our splinter group name instead of Teabaggers, and the MSM, and better yet, the politicians could not ignore us any longer.

We should talk about it at the very least because that would be the start.

The MSM only covers the RWs, including the Teabaggers, and ignores the Democrats and Progressives.

We need a movement similar to the Teabaggers, but on the left, and on the side of the working middle class and poor Americans.

A group that would work to elect representatives that would work for the middle class and not the corporations.

Reps that would fight for health care reform, true reform, and would fight for wages – you know, we’re tired of taking pay-cuts and having to work longer hours with less benefits so the CEOs can make bigger profits and be rewarded bigger bonuses.

We need Reps to STOP corporate welfare and obnoxious bonuses while Americans are losing their homes and health insurance.

The left needs a splinter group that would work to cleanse the Democratic Party of the corporate-bought-and-paid-for Dems and blue-dog Dems, and bring in Reps that actually represent middle America.

I’m so damn tired of working to elect Democrats, only to have them work for the corporations.

I can’t think of any other solution than to form a splinter group and search for candidates and support candidates that will work for “We The People.”

I wonder how a person or group goes about starting a movement.

The teabaggers had FOX and the health insurance companies, but I wonder how regular people can start a movement, a genuine grassroots movement made up of working class and middle class and poor Americans.

I’m so discouraged by everything that’s happening in our country, and PPOV is a think tank, so maybe we could think about actually forming a splinter group of the Democratic Party.

Or is that too naive and impossible?

It has to start somewhere, and I wonder how we could get it started or if it’s even possible.

Corporations should share their profits with their employees.

That’s my first suggestion on a mission statement for starting a movement, a splinter movement of the Democratic Party, which would include everyone – mainly middle class Americans.

I’m suggesting we work on starting a movement to combat the corruption of our elected officials – we have the best bought and paid for Reps and we’ve got them on both sides of aisle.

I’m writing about real change without corporate influence.

We Planeteers, every single one of us, can work on a movement.

But before we even attempt a movement, we have to work out the mission statement and then figure out the way to achieve it.

Choice under new attack from Operation Rescue, led by Troy Newman, the president of the organization.

Operation Rescue has launched a new anti-choice campaign by offering $10,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of OB/GYN doctors that perform abortions.

Operation Rescue has begun an advertising blitz on the radio, over the Internet and by mailings for the latest campaign against choice.

“We have never found an abortion clinic that completely follows the law,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “Specifically, we are looking for information about fraud, including billing fraud, Medicaid fraud, overbilling, double-billing, and things of that nature that defraud the public. We have seen a number of abortionists charged with these kinds of crimes over the years.”
“We are also looking into other violations that directly endanger the lives of women, including sex crimes, the concealment of child sex abuse, unlicensed workers, improper handling of controlled substances, chemical impairment, illegal abortions, falsification of medical records, and other abuses,” said Newman.

http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/1277112809.html

With the conservative SCOTUS, women must never take for granted their right to choose.

Anti-Choice groups have been working steadfastly in overturning Roe vs Wade and those of us who believe in choice must counteract those who wish to force their will on women.

On a side note, CBS is also running a second anti-choice Tebow ad four times during the Super Bowl pre-game show.

I am not against CBS running the deceptive, anti-choice ads, but I am concerned that CBS continues to deny left-wing ads, including two pro-choice ads to counter the Tebow ads.

And it is very disturbing that CBS actually worked with Focus on the Family on their anti-choice Tebow ad, which is something that they’ve never done with other advertisers.

This week, Dana Goldstein of the Daily Beast reported that CBS executives collaborated with Focus on the Family on making the ad fit for airing, giving the group guidance that other advertisers don’t receive. Yesterday, Planned Parenthood posted a pro-choice response ad featuring former college and professional football player Sean James and Olympic gold medalist Al Joyner.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/05/focus-pregame/

We must remain vigilant in tracking those who wish to take away the control that women have over their own bodies.

As everyone probably knows by now, the great Tea Party Convention is in full swing this weekend in Nashville.

A whopping 600 teabaggers are gathered to hear their leaders, and are especially excited to hear Sarah Palin.

The convention kicked off to a great start with notable speaker Tom Tancredo –

Tancredo told the audience that the country had elected “a committed socialist ideologue in the White House” because “we do not have a civics, literary test before people can vote in this country“:

The opening-night speaker at the first National Tea Party Convention ripped into President Obama, Sen. John McCain and “the cult of multiculturalism,” asserting that Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

The speaker, former Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., told about 600 delegates in a Nashville, Tenn., ballroom that in the 2008 election, America “put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House … Barack Hussein Obama.”

Tancredo says Obama won because we lack a ‘literacy test before people can vote in this country.’

Another speaker was Steven Millroy who claimed –

President Obama is not a U.S. socialist. He’s an international socialist. He envisions one world government. That’s what his whole plan is.

How Dare You Say We Believe This Stuff!

And there were these words of wisdom from Joseph Farah –

My dream is that IF Barack Obama even seeks re-election as president in 2012, he won’t be able to go to any city, any town, any hamlet in America without seeing signs that ask, “Where’s the birth certificate?”

What I’ll say today at 1st Tea Party Convention

The Tea Party Movement is claiming victory for Scott Brown winning Senator Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts and Brown’s win has bolstered the movement.

The Tea Party Express PAC spent $285,000 for Brown’s campaign, and there are reportedly several other smaller Tea Party PACs from Tennessee to California, which are working on campaigns for Tea Party candidates.

The Tea Party is looking to corporations, since the SCOTUS ruling –

Tea party looking for corporate donations

The US Supreme Court’s recent decision to scale back part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms could also come to play a role. Tea party organizers gathered in Nashville, Tenn., say corporations are welcome to donate.

The establishment of various tea-party-related campaign funds is part of a rush by genuine organizers, K Street lobbyists, established party operatives, and even hucksters to cash in on the tea party moniker – a criticism that has been leveled from both outside and inside the movement against Tea Party Nation, the for-profit group that’s bringing former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to Nashville for a speech Saturday night.

New Tea Party PAC: Can it raise $10 million for midterm revolt?

But there are problems within the Tea Party Movement itself, with protests from within.
A splinter group has emerged due to the price of the convention and the feeling of being scammed by the Tea Party leaders.

Meanwhile, a splinter group plans to stage a guerilla press conference on the grounds of the Opryland Resort to denounce the convention for its cost and failure to represent the tea party spirit.

Harnessing ‘tea party’ spirit won’t be easy. Convention is proof.

Can Sarah Palin unite her loyal teabaggers or will her appearance divide the movement further?

Stay tuned.

This morning I happened upon an article dated January 21st, 2010 from the East Valley Tribune about a meeting of religious leaders regarding immigration.

The Arizona Interfaith Network is hosting the event, which will begin with a prayer service, followed by a press conference and panel discussion. The intent is to “urge Congress to enact legislation which will protect workers and help with economic recovery, create millions of new taxpayers, keep families together, and protect the due process rights of all.”

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/149784

The comments following the article drew my attention and ire.

Those commenting were spouting “Separation of Church and State!” since the religious leaders were sympathetic in regards to illegal immigration, which is an exceptionally hot topic in Arizona.

These are most likely the same people who scream that America was founded on Christian beliefs and that homosexuality is a threat to Christianity and a sin against God.

Odds are, these are the same people who shout about Liberals, Progressives and Democrats being anti-God!
Christians who demand the right to hang the Ten Commandments on state buildings, have prayer in public schools, and are anti-choice because of religious beliefs.

Christians have no problem when religious institutions step in to ban gay marriage and using religion to defend those who murder doctors, but when religion steps into the immigration debate, they scream for Separation of Church and State!

Arizona, as most states, is struggling financially and cutting services that help the poor. They’ve cut the funds that help poor families with health care, they are closing state run mental institutions casting severely mental patients into the streets, and closing state funded hospices that care for the sick and dying.

Residents support the cuts for the poor by rationalizing that most of the funds help illegal immigrants.

Christians, fueled by the likes of Bill O’Reilly, scream about the discrimination in this country against Christians, spurring the annual ‘War on Christmas’.

Christians and their Christian pundits use religion rather conveniently for their agendas, but when a group of Christian leaders hold meetings about the plight of immigrants, the same Christians shouting about discrimination because of religion, demand that their Christian leaders and churches stay out of politics.
Separation of Church and State?

Only when convenient.

I have a suggestion for President Obama. Times are hard. We’re winding down one war and ratcheting up another. Terrorist cells may be closeted on the domestic front as well. Everyone knows that corporations and insurance companies are that unsayable word in the woodpile and need extermination forthwith.

Let’s back up on that one … corporations. Just exactly which of all the dire and disastrous corporations whose tentacles are inching ever more rapidly along the hallowed halls and portals of Congress and our democracy is the worst?

Short answer? The media. The media is the biggest collective whorehouse corporation of them all, because not only does the media control the government, it also controls us. It forms our opinions and cleverly seduces us into thinking we believe something that we really know is a crock of it, but we believe it because … because it’s the fashion, innit (as they say in Britain)?

I mean, everyone else believes it, so we should too … or do they? And should we?

Around this time last year, Rush Limbaugh was asked by a media group to record his one wish for our then-new President Obama. Rush used his daily broadcast as a platform to utter the infamous line, ‘I hope he fails.’

That’s become the singular wish for this Presidency, and – like a cancer – it’s spread to encompass the Progressive base as well. David Sirota snarks about this man all the time. Mayhill Fowler, a parvenu elevated to the pseudo-sophisticated title of ‘editor’ based on the publication of an off-the-record remark spews hate-filled and poorly written rhetoric. Naomi Klein, who – as a Canadian – has no business weighing in on American politics – is another shill. Ed Schultz and Cenk Uygur weigh in all the time – Schultz even bragging in public how he schooled Robert Gibbs, the Press Secretary, telling him he was ‘full of shit.’ Nice one, Ed. Classy. Keith Olbermann regularly bashes the President. Dylan Ratigan shouts down anyone even giving marginal support.

Bill Maher refers to Obama as ‘Barry’ and is making a staple part of his latest stand-up tour an eternal wail about Obama being worse than Cheney.

Who ARE these people?

Have we regressed to the point that, like spoiled adolescents who haven’t received instant gratification, we follow the fashionable lead of people who work for a corporation, who’s sole ethos is ego- and ratings-driven?

The most laughable of all is the Queen Mother, herself, Arianna Huffington – former ueber Rightwing neocon and anti-immigration supporter (rich, that one), Damascenely and serenely converted to the Progressive cause … for a quick buck and a flash on the screen. She’s the self-appointed voice of the suffering middle-class. Isn’t that kinda like Hitler making himself a spokesman for Israel?

A few months back, prior to the President making a decision on Afghanistan, Huffington jumped the gun and demanded that Joe Biden resign to lead a grassroots revolt against Obama’s policies and wrest the White House from him in 2012.

She’s at it again, with one of her bloggers:-

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/will-bower/an-open-letter-to-secreta_b_432274.html

Our second President, John Adams, suffered a great deal at the hands of an irresponsible press, goaded from behind by no less than his own Vice-President, Thomas Jefferson. (OK, Jefferson was one of my heroes and the founder of my alma mater, but that doesn’t mean he was above a bit of political skullduggery, himself – he WAS a politician, after all.

In response to all these shenanigans, Adams passed The Alien and Sedition Act, which, effectively, amounted to a curtailment of that most precious of amendments, the First one. Freedom of Speech.

So shamed was he at having to do so, Adams never enforced this act and, to this day, it hasn’t been enforced.

What Huffington is doing and what she’s promoting, more and more, on that site and beyond, is pure sedition – openly undermining the workings of a Presidential Administration with a view to bringing it down and causing chaos.

It’s still a federal offense.

I say, it’s time for a test case.

It’s a fantasy, but I’d pay money I didn’t have to see her served with a sentence, stripped of her naturalised citizenship and her feta cheesed ass thrown on a non-stop flight back to Athens, with her papers stamped: Seditionist/Deported.

A girl can dream, can’t she?

I thought it might be fun to talk about our wish list for Mr. Obama’s State of the Union Address tomorrow.

(1) What would you Mr. Obama to talk about?

(2) What’s your dream phrase you’d like to hear the president say?

(3) What do you EXPECT to hear?

(4) Do you think you’ll be encouraged or disappointed?

For me:

1. I want to hear him talk about jobs, gay rights, health care, energy
2. My dream phrase — “We’re going to do away with the filibuster and overturn the recent Supreme Court decision in congress.”
3. I expect a lot of talk about the economy and some encouraging words about health care.
4. I’m expecting to feel, overall, disappointed — but I’m hopeful!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/state-of-the-union-is-oba_b_436045.html

It seems Whoreanna has become the self-appointed spokesperson on the plight of the middle class in our country. As if. She’s an ueber-right idealogue, who married a fortune and sucked up a mega divorce deal (along with a lot of other things along the way) and suddenly converted from slightly Right of the Teabag Party to saintly Progressive overnight in November 2004 … for a price. (No surprise there).

She’s second-guessing and threatening this President again. No doubt tomorrow she’ll be all over MSNBC, causing Ed’s blood pressure to rise, eliciting more syllable-strangling mixed metaphors from Keith, or else she’ll be over on The Situation Room, causing Wolf Blitzer to cream his knickers.

She is a corporate whore doing the job of the corporations and people are stupid enough to drink her toxic koolaid. And for someone who’s championing freedom of speech, she sure as hell doesn’t practice it.

I would love to issue her the challenge of living for a MONTH on an average middle class salary and living in an average middle class home, juggling bills, mortgage payments, car expenses etc. She simply couldn’t do it. She’d be out of that house so fast, the front door wouldn’t hit her feta-cheesed ass. I don’t know what makes me angrier – idiots like Huffington getting kudos and credits for being clever or the dumbasses who follow her religiously.

Right … I’m going to the dark room now.

I must admit, I’m not well-versed when it comes to Matt Taibbi.  However, I am familiar with David Brooks because he appears frequently on “The PBSNewshour.” Brooks’ column in last Sunday’s NYT put him directly in Taibbi’s crosshairs on Monday.

Not many writers would have the courage to use a tragic event like a 50,000-fatality earthquake to volubly address the problem of nonwhite laziness and why it sometimes makes natural disasters seem timely, but then again, David Brooks isn’t just any writer.

Full article here: Translating David Brooks

We’re approaching the anniversary of Obama’s first year in Office. Some of us, real Progressives who understand that the path of government is slow and torturous, think he’s accomplished a great deal. We’re on the threshold of having a national healthcare program – not ideal, but a start, and something – like Social Security – upon which we can build into the Third Rail that Social Security became in time. Most reasonable politicians in the Progressive mold, like Jay Rockefeller, Chuck Schumer and James Webb, understand this. Killing the bill, as Howard Dean, a Democratic grandee with as much of an axe to grind as Joe Lieberman, will play right into the hands of the Republicans and show our party as being weak, divided and unfit to govern.

The economy is healing, although job growth is slow; but jobs are usually the last piece of the puzzle that goes into helping an ailing economy,

Obama’s recently announced a tax on those banks who’ve taken the most of the TARP funds, in order that Americans be reimbursed … ‘every last dime’ were the President’s exact words.

Yes, he’s escalated Afghanistan, and no one’s easy about that, nor was it an easy decision for the President to make. And, no, Bill Maher, he didn’t sound like Bush at all in that instance. That he took six weeks to deliberate what action to take makes him more unlike Bush than not. So enough of that posturing, Bill. You know better than that. We see you and your show’s back on air soon. Take it for granted and use that common sense I so admire to rationalise the fact that Obama’s got an exit strategy all lined up. That he’s probably told Karzai in no uncertain terms that if the t’s aren’t crossed and the i’s aren’t dotted to Obama’s specifications by such-and-such a date, we are out of there. Wham, bam and thank you, ma’am … gone.

Use your common sense again, Bill, and you’ll come to know that sometimes, ‘we the people’ aren’t supposed to know everything that goes on behind closed doors in our own government. Sometimes, it’s better that way. In summoning up the World War II spirits of our respective fathers, remember

Or to put it in words you and I would better comprehend:-

We could all do with a bit of that!

But what I wanted to know, precisely, is who exactly these sheeple of the Left are? Because that’s exactly what they are: sheeple – as incapable of rational or critical thinking as their counterparts on the extreme Right. They watch opinionator programs which cherry-pick news items and give them a slant, and they think they’re watching a news and information program whose talking head is marginally more entertaining than either Brian Williams or Katie Couric. Williams and Couric deal in fact – a great deal of the sort that doesn’t merit network news’ attention, but fact, nonetheless. Olbermann and Co deal in infotainment.

These sheeple read The Huffington Post and reckon it’s an online newspaper. It’s an aggregate, filled with cribbed news items from reputable sources, along with pithy, anonymously-sourced bylines by their own cub reporters, steeped in suppostion and innuendo. It’s a tabloid. End of.

And whilst we’re on the subject of stupidity, I want to go on record to say, as a New Year’s resolution, that let’s have a little less ad nauseam ad hominem attacks on American stupidity. I’m as guilty of saying this as a certain, well-known celebrity fundit:-

Bill, I know you mean well, when you say that Americans are stupid. You’re using reverse psychology, trying to gee us all up into actually proving we’re not stupid. But it’s not working, because those to whom you’re directing your rant, are simply agreeing in tandem, and living with the fact that we, as a nation, are stupid, are hopelessly inferior to any and all of our European, Canadian and Antepodean cousins (mostly, because we don’t have healthcare), and we’re hopelessly doomed.

In short, the sheeple of the Progressive base seem to have given up.

And they’re thanking you for that, Bill. Really. Now, when you or I say that, do we ever stop to think that we, too, are Americans? I don’t consider myself stupid,and I know you don’t; yet when we say ‘Americans are stupid,’ do we ever stop to think that we still carry American passports?

When you say that America is a stupid country, do you ever stop to think that … you live there? Do I ever stop to think that, after 28 years of living in the UK, I still want to be American?

If we haven’t, we should. And I admonish you with love, William. In fact, stupidity isn’t a concept which limits itself to one nationality. In fact, stupidity knows no geographical boundaries; and I deal with it on a daily basis in four different languages.

We’re coming up to the first anniversary of the Obama Presidency, and there are people still whining that this man hasn’t done or accomplished anything in one year. People are judging him harshly, Bill, because he hasn’t righted the economy, given us single-payer health insurance, ended both wars, quelled Al Qaeda, found everyone jobs with six-figure salaries and built new homes for all those repossessed. Even you, Bill, have been harsh on this man, and I know you know, far better than the legions of your fans, how slow and cumbersome government can be. You know about democracy comprising debate and compromise

Yet you propagate the rumour that in the first 100 days, all Obama achieved was the purchase of a puppy.

What about the closing of Gitmo? (Not Obama’s fault if that’s proving difficult).

What about the Lily Ledbetter Act, ensuring that women are paid equally to men for doing the same job?

What about putting a date to withdrawal for the troops in Iraq? That’s supposed to be this May.

All accomplished during the first 100 days.

On the eve of Obama’s first anniversary, it’s ironic to think that on Tuesday night, we’ll all be focused on the special election in Massachusetts to determine the successor to Teddy Kennedy’s legacy. At this point in time, the Democrat Martha Coakley is fighting for her political life. And pundits, Right and Left are using this election as a litmus test for the Obama Presidency.

Sometimes, I have a hard time figuring out exactly who it is in this country who wants Obama to fail.

Coakley’s Republican opponent, Scott Brown, is a rabid Rightwinger in the Tea Partier tradition, running on a ticket of morality and family values. He boasts that if he wins the election, he’ll be the ‘number 41′ necessary to defeat healthcare reform.

And if he wins, it’s clear that his eyes are really on the big prize of the Big Chair in 2012.

Scott Brown has also been a nude centrefold for Cosmopolitan magazine. So, when you think of the dignity of the office of POTUS, who would better grace it? This man …

Or this?

That’s a no-brainer, much less a no-boner.

I happened to be speaking online with a noted political voice recently, when I bemoaned the lack of critical thinking ability amongst the Progressive base. I was worried to the point that I thought they would be the key that would unlock the door of the Oval Office to the Republicans.

My source opined that these sheeple were really mostly young first-time voters, aged between 18 and 24, with no sense of immediate history, and no recollection of the Clinton era, except of material wealth. Their only experience of government was the quasi-dictatorship of the Bush regime. They perceive America as weak at the moment, as failing and as falling behind. Rather than shoulder a burden, it’s all too easy to sit back on the sofa, plug in the Ipod, and plug out the world, or rant and rail at Obama as the source of blame for not giving everyone everything that they want and now.

For that, they reckon, he deserves to fail.

So … maybe it’s time we channelled a little bit of JFK attitude, in asking not what one’s country can do for one, but what one can do for one’s country:-

Bill paraphrased this best, when he admonished his viewing audiences not to sit back and expect President Obama to do everything for YOU; rather buck up, tighten your belt and work with the man and for him to better our situation as a whole.

I hope Bill remembers that. If he doesn’t, I’ll keep reminding him of that.

Otherwise, the sheeple of the Left have another option … and that’s to come out of the political closet and admit their true identity. A couple of weeks ago, I happened to catch an interview with John Le Boutillier, an ex-GOP congressman, on The Lionel Show on Air America. Le Boutillier stated (and I learned something here), that the neocon movement was really comprised of lapsed and disaffected liberals. So, Sheeple of the Progressive Base, if you’re that disaffected, take a hike to the Right, because remaining static, will only result in the said circular firing squad:-

That’s reminded me, in closing, of another of my father’s most fervent political philosophies:-

If you move too far to the Left, you’ll always come out on the Right.

Huffy is doing it again.  Any good news that does not fit their narrative must be instantly spun to the negative.

Case in point a recent poll by ABC News, the BBC and ARD German TV that attitudes are improving towards the West in Afghanistan.  Rachel Maddow even touted this poll as good news on her show.  Huffy now has “experts” (their spin machine) refuting the results of the poll.  Polls have errors and I am not defending the results of the poll specifically because I do not have enough info but I do ask,

Why challenge this poll Huffy when there are hundreds of polls?

The answer is simple on any subject where Huffy is trying to create a narrative all contrary evidence must be refuted.  There is no reason to question the news services that conducted the poll.   They have no reason to push poll to skew the results.  Spinning news to fit memes is exactly what Republicans do when results are contrary to their intentions.