Displaying 1,351 To 1,380 Of 5,146 Comments Yup – apparently when politics are on the line, even Billy can be bought. The RIGHT has no standards on any issue at all. Oh, lots of RULES, but absolutely NO standards. » Posted By choicelady On October 23, 2012 @ 5:01 pm He can’t – it’s the Honey Badger refuge. Or th eHoney Badger itself. Only good thing The Donald ever did. » Posted By choicelady On October 23, 2012 @ 4:59 pm I had worked on political campaigns a lot as a kid, but this was the first where I got to be real staff – ran two assembly district races and WON them. He was so impressive and not distant from working people either. Pity was a lot of blue collar people did not understand him, and I fear we young’uns did not do a good job of building bridges between them and him. There was a lot of disappointment in the older Dems who wanted Humphrey. I wonder who and where we’d be now if McGovern had won. RIP Senator. You defined our nation as it might have been. Thank you for your service. We will treaure our memories of you. » Posted By choicelady On October 21, 2012 @ 6:59 pm Great you got to talk with Sanders! He’s super. But I will say he’s not alone in the Constitutional Amendment work – Sherrod Brown is also sponsoring an amendmentment to overturn Citizens United. I think there are others. ANY of them would be worth supporting if we could end 1. corporations are fictitious persons and 2. money is free speech. And someone – PLEASE start talking sense to the ACLU about #2 since they were on this sice that won in the SCOTUS ruling. There may not be such a thing as too much free speech, but there IS such a thing as bought and paid for free speech trumping any other. » Posted By choicelady On October 21, 2012 @ 6:47 pm Unfortunately, SCOTUS saves his butt saying it cannot be made a crime to lie about your war record – free speech and all that stuff. I’m quite serious – that ruling came down at the end of the last session. So nothing can be done to Brown, and his bill would not be legal. Maybe he was just undone by the SCOTUS ruling, too overwhelmed by how awful it is and he just is lying about his own service to PROVE how necessary his bill is. You know – throwing himself on his sword. If he had one. » Posted By choicelady On October 21, 2012 @ 6:43 pm Yikes. Was that when Candy Crowley affirmed the president’s truthfulness on calling out th Benghazi acts as “terrorist”? Mitt thought he had Obama. Moving in for the kill – only to learn he had been reading RW blogs and sneering lies and got hoist on his own petard for his ignorance. Mitt is not a well person. I’ve seen all manner of creepy powermongers including Nixon, and I’ve NEVER seen anyone, not even Reagan, so totally convinced of his own entitlement as Romney. A friend of mine once described the errant second and following generations of first generation power and wealth as “the product of tired loins”. Apparently not even polygamous diversity in that family prevented the weakening of overbred Mitt’s constitution. He lacks key components of humanity – compassion, empathy, interest, motivation. He really is just an empty suit. Or would be if he were not so horrifyingly MEAN. » Posted By choicelady On October 17, 2012 @ 10:40 pm Kalima – that’s fascinating about Romney pere. I don’t really remember any of it, so I’m as big a sucker as anyone for the revisionist history. I know I was quite appalled to discover the family meme about George coming back from Mexico and “living on welfare” – without thinking clearly that such things DID NOT EXIST in those days of George Romney’s youth. Nope. There was a special bill passed exclusively FOR Mormons returning from exile – they got help no one else in REALLY dire straits ever received. Even then, they were special (said in my best “churchlady” voice…) However, it leads me to a much larger question, and that is why mythology blooms so large around Republicans when, on the opposite end, the desire to destroy Dems is the norm. I keep trying to wrap my mind around the economic disaster that was Reagan’s administration – the stock market crash of 1987, the 10.7% unemployment, the S&L disaster ALL of which are omitted in discussions of the “great communicator” – the guy who stood there speechless for 20 minutes when his telepompters went out. Why do we think he was a success, cut taxes to promote growth, when he raised taxes and killed the economy – along with Iran hostages, Sandinistas, and created Al Q’aeda thanks to the ’83 bombings of Lebanon. What, exactly did he do that was GOOD??? Nixon did NOT try for universal health coverage – he derided the plan and laughed at its supporters. It’s all on tape. Trying to rehab him on China etc. is really over the top – the man was a crook and liar since the 1940s. But we keep going back to “oh, but he did THIS (fill in the blank) really well.” Yeah – and Mussolini had the trains running on time. So now we find the rehab of George is a lie, too. Is that the GOP hallmark? Lying about ALL their torch bearers, large and small? Then, God forbid – does this mean someday in the NOT too distant future we will have someone spiffing up Mitt’s lies and shockingly erratic behavior? OMG. » Posted By choicelady On October 15, 2012 @ 4:42 pm Kalima – I regret I no longer think I believe in unfettered free speech. The effort to define “fighting words” and “true threat” in American speech, never mind malice and deliberate falsehoods, has been almost impossible to achieve, and people have died because of it. I WANT to believe all speech is valuable. I no longer do. In the age of mass communication, I see rampant disregard for the simplest standards – we DO permit shouting “fire” in a crowded theater then stand back and pretend it had nothing to do with people being trampled. I don’t have the wisdom to define limits, but I am seriously questioning if we any longer have the capacity to entertain vile and despicable slander and libel that can cause others to act in deadly ways. Other democracies have some apparently reasonable limits – and they don’t seem to feel apologetic about it either. In Canada it’s a crime to deny the Holocaust. That is a biased view. It works to prevent anti-Semitism and the propagation of fascism. So what? The UK acts to keep Terry out of its borders. Again – so what? Hate speech does not have to be protected if it causes real harm. I guess however that I’d question whether the US has the maturity to make these decisions. With this SCOTUS and the GOP we now have, bones through the nose are not only protected speech but a social norm. So maybe this is NOT a good time to be discussing limits – they’d probably be on our speech, NOT on this crap we’re discussing. Sigh. » Posted By choicelady On October 13, 2012 @ 7:42 pm I spent some months in Sidney, Nova Scotia where many of these men once worked. The conservative Canadian government of the time decided that Cape Breton would be far better as a tourist haven, depopulated, deindustrialized. They were rendered superfluous as the mines, steel mills, and even fishing was cut back, then closed. There are many other amazing performances by Men of the Deeps. My fave is “It’s a Working Man I Am” that Rita McNeil sings with them. She often starts in a dark theater – and they walk in with their just their headlamps on. It makes me cry, every time. I knew some of the steel workers, too – it’s a sad loss of skill and productivity that has swept this area. Bless Rita for honoring them and making Men of the Deeps a household name in Canada. » Posted By choicelady On October 13, 2012 @ 12:13 pm Wow – does she have standing since she’s the GG Granddaughter? Or, because she’s a woman, is she irrelevant to her faith leaders and to Mitt? This, for the rest of us, is critical information. Absolute WOW as an eye opener. » Posted By choicelady On October 13, 2012 @ 10:13 am kes – from Reagan’s 10.7% unemployement in the 80s to now, we do indeed count ONLY those people receiving unemployment compensation. There is a separate number – U7 I believe it’s called (anyone remember. I don’t.) that shows the REAL unemployment figure. We never used it for Reagan or Bush(es) so no fair trotting it out NOW! It’s probably much worse than we state in the official news, and it’s undoubtedly BETTER than when the crash came and people were decimated in 2009. Just now, at the end of this year, people are ending their ability to collect unemployment compensation – it was part of the agreement last year. So if they’re not actively on unemployment, and that benefits Obama’s numbers, who the hell’s fault is it? This was a GOP demand. Shoulda thought it through… But think where we’d be with McCain or where we will go with Romney and Ryan. By the end of 2013, we would be in full DEPRESSION since they believe in the policies that benefit the 1% but that destabilize America. Seriously – they haven’t a clue how to run a nation since they bring private, focused, selfish deal making rules to the table. It’s all they know. » Posted By choicelady On October 5, 2012 @ 4:56 pm You’d still have to have a pipeline to move the refined product to ports. Truck shipping would be horrendously expensive. Obama does not opposed Keystone – neither do I on the principle of a pipeline. As a Nebraskan by birth, I DO oppose its being over the endangered Ogallala aquifer. Thank you PBO for demanding that the pipeline be rerouted and made really safe. I do have major reservations about oil shale and tar sands use. It’s horribly polluting I think. I’m still trying to read up on it all. So the pipeline MAY be the least of our concerns? » Posted By choicelady On October 5, 2012 @ 4:48 pm You know, when you hit that bottom note as a high point, this nation is in real trouble! Nice call out Nirek! I’d almost forgotten the “Palm Pilot”. » Posted By choicelady On October 5, 2012 @ 4:42 pm My viewing of the taped moments is that he takes notes out of his pocket and puts them on the lectern. He DOES have a hanky, too. I think this is real. However, we need to see if he picks it up from the lectern or out of his pocket – we don’t see that. At the very end – VERY end – he walks back over to the lectern and picks up his 8 x 11 starched hanky, folds it and puts it in his pocket. Yeah right. He manages to get it cleaned, starched, and pressed by the end of the 90 minutes. Sweet Fanny Adams he did. Those were notes. When he wipes his face he has a real hanky rather ostentatiously shown in a weirdly Nixon-like move. (Nixon tried to hide it – he did NOT have notes. For those too young to remember, wiping your face in a debate is NEVER good.) Nope – Bush had an invisible ear piece (an Indonesian translator said he’d used it early in 2001 at a meeting where he was translating.) Mitt uses notes since he’s NOT the president and does not yet have access to such high falutin’ tekkie stuff. My big question – why do these guys have to cheat, and doesn’t it embarrass them? And yes, friends, using the standards used by and for all our presidents past and present, the unemployment rate now is 7.8 percent. Take THAT cheater Romney! » Posted By choicelady On October 5, 2012 @ 4:40 pm It’s hard to put up a fight against someone who has just changed every position. Can’t fight a buzzsaw on short notice. Can’t wrap your arms around a phantom. NEXT time Obama will be far better prepared. And there is great harm Romney is doing to himself in lying about his own record AGAIN. He got almost NO bounce (within the statistical error) from this – those impressed with his bullying and hyperventillation were the mainstream media or already his supporters. ABC News has been playing “Romney then and now” stories – ABC for crying out loud!!! That’s excellent for the longer term – showing what a liar this man is. » Posted By choicelady On October 5, 2012 @ 8:25 am Mighty! So glad to hear from you. You SHOULD be watching the election with apprehension. If Romney wins, we’re all moving to PEI (or NS – I lived in Sidney once) and relying on YOU to show us the ropes. Thanks for posting this – it’s very funny! I had to go to YouTube for it, but it’s worth chasing down. I am over the moon that a JEWISH committee did this – oh that my Protestant gang would have the cojones! The passivity of progressives and liberals is infuriating, the easy dismissal of policy differences (“they’re all the same”) enraging, and the notion that somehow affluent white people will be fine and don’t have to care? MAKES ME NUTS! By the time the smug and self-righteous left figures out the Right is not playing games, it will be too late. We have to keep on keepin’ on. This video does a GREAT job of telling the idiotic indifferent non-voter – WTFU! (And I’m SURE the RW is calling child protective services for their letting the little girl use the F word. After all – when the GOP puts her to work at age 9, they don’t want her using that kind of language in the workplace. No incipient Norma Raes for them…) So keep the faith, Mighty! We’re keeping on keeping on – just so we don’t have to come sleep on your floor if nothing else! » Posted By choicelady On October 1, 2012 @ 7:57 pm Nirek – my folks were married 62 years, and their closest friends about the same. They had rough times indeed, but hung in. I’ve not been so lucky, but I respect commitment in marriage and any other relationship, and that all seems pretty iffy these days. I am not and never have been a fan of Billy Graham. His is not my perspective on faith. But I always liked Ruth Graham’s down to earth view of marriage. Someone asked her once if she’d every considered divorce from this man who was often absent from home. She said, “Divorce? Never. Murder, yes, but not divorce.” I think that is very funny and is actually quite true of most devoted people. » Posted By choicelady On September 23, 2012 @ 2:40 pm Hi- Well it wouldn’t actually surprise me, but I was under the impression C-14 dating had been done linking at least the papyrus to the 2nd century CE. What cracked me up was the frantic response from those who cannot even remotely entertain the notion Jesus was fully human was the “No! It’s not about a woman! His “wife” was the CHURCH!!!!” Nowhere in scripture does that remotely appear, and the insistence that Jesus was different from us – perfect and holy and pure – is actually very off putting. Well, if it’s a fake, so be it, but it was a very interesting wedge into an entirely new discussion about faith based on ideas not some kind of mystical existence. Oh, well. » Posted By choicelady On September 23, 2012 @ 2:35 pm Hi- Yes 30 is the Governor’s plan that restores funds to schools while 38 creates all new programs. The latter is Molly Munger’s plan – she is a millionaire with her own agenda. Prop. 30 will also fund other issues and could stop the destruction of health and human services programs. 38 funds only new progams K-12 and sets up a new preschool program but restores NOTHING to basic K-12 funding. It’s very arrogant, IMHO. » Posted By choicelady On September 23, 2012 @ 7:55 am Nirek – I think you fit the mainstream of thoughtful faith people. With all the focus on the fundamentalists (everywhere!) or the opposition from atheists, the artificial division of faith VS science continues to assault us. I once, not realizing with whom I was debating, got into a discussion online with Sam Harris who insists ALL people of faith are anti-science. That is based on scientifically inaccurate sampling – you either go to church at LEAST once a week (person of faith) or you’re a non-believer. So by employing fallacious premises, it skews the outcome into this either-or division. Mainline Protestants on the whole believe in science and see no threat to faith. So Harris, a scientists of sorts, engages in an ecological statistical fallacy to make HIS point! The foundation of science is making a hypothesis, testing it, and finding a theory that, in light of further testing, either stands or changes. Faith matters are actually not all that different. And at the core of our understanding lies 2000 years of rewriting, interpreting, whatever. In “Misquoting Jesus” Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman notes that there are 400,000 VERSIONS of the Bible – not editions, versions. Most differ in punctuation (those monks weren’t perfect) but there are some huge alterations that have occurred over the centuries – and the politics therein are worth note. With this new scrap of parchment that comes from the second century and has Jesus refer to his wife, the whole world is again trying to make sense of it within their comfort zone. Like heliocentrism, if Jesus had been married to a real woman, that would completely upend centuries of belief. For those of us who follow the teachings, there is no need for disillusion. For those who have rules and regulations based on the mythology – major crisis. I think you and I will survive whatever comes. It makes the journey exciting not fearful. I wish that for everyone who is “Christian” but think it won’t be so. Too bad. » Posted By choicelady On September 23, 2012 @ 7:42 am …and a spray on personality. » Posted By choicelady On September 21, 2012 @ 7:13 pm I would recommend YES on 31 even though a lot of groups don’t like it. The reason is that they will lose power (that includes health and human services advocates) via realignment to the county levels) and that it doesn’t get rid of the 2/3 requirement to raise taxes. However it DOES help direct the maximum amounts of money to direct services and away from bureaucracy that we can do under this current system. It’s quite thoughtful and well done, and the hair on fire opposition is actually quite misplaced. NO on Prop. 32 – this is SO cynical! It seeks to end LABOR unions’ ability to fund campaigns while protecting that right for major coporations. Under the guise of “political reform” it chastises corporations that take campaign money from their employees – all two of them – while ignoring the Citizens United role of corporate money overall. It is trying to make corporate money the ONLY game in town. Unions are democratic institutions. If members seriously don’t like what the unions spend money to support, they can vote the officers OUT. In corporations good luck changing the Palace Guard. You just get your dividend money spent however the corporation likes. NO on 32 is critical to keep people’s voices in the mix. NO on 35. I think human trafficking is the MOST despicable thing that has ever occurred in the modern era. That said, this proposition is itself despicable. It UNDERMINES the current law which covers human sex trafficking AND labor and domestic slavery. It eliminates the latter two directives and makes law enforcement personnel NOT able to act on these two aspects of slavery. It also screws up the ways that it would be enforced and means that men of color – pimps – who are NOT the big issue in trafficking will now serve longer sentences and be labeled as sex offenders. It will swell the prison population and do no other good. It is a bad proposition even if it seeks a good cause. YES on 37 – it’s good to know what you eat. Good proposition, fair and balanced in its efforts. I like the “right to know” aspect of it all. NO on 38 – this “education funding” is for only NEW programs and not for basic education. It’s regressive, starting the taxation at the $7000 level of income – and it solves nothing with respect to cuts and shortfalls in basic programs. It’s all shiny new peripheral programs but not one blessed cent goes to the core issues of education. It’s a rich woman’s fantasy – NO is all it deserves. Those are my considered opinions on the other issues. I concur with AdLib on his presentation. It’s nice when people come together! » Posted By choicelady On September 21, 2012 @ 7:11 pm Hi all – just saw a very brief reference to some new book on Obama claiming that a Black labor activist was his real father. I had to laugh – that takes ALL the wind out of the birther movement! If it were true, then there is NO Kenyan connection at all. Don’t these people have a shred of sense about their own lies? » Posted By choicelady On September 17, 2012 @ 10:36 am Kes – that’s what I saw even in SE Ohio back in 2008. A few Obama/Biden signs and NO Bush signs. Of course in Salem I saw a young woman decked out SO much like Sarah that I did a double take, but other than that, nothing. And the vote did go heavily toward Obama even in that conservative part of the state. I think your observation is a good bellwether! » Posted By choicelady On September 17, 2012 @ 10:34 am And made a joke about how contractors had not finished the security – you know, like how your home remodel contractors never finish on time. And to cover his butt, he invaded Granada. Big man in revisionist RW history but one of the worst presidents EVER. He looks good today only because his two Bush successors were even worse. » Posted By choicelady On September 17, 2012 @ 10:31 am And may they and the government win another. This film was produced and distributed precisely to cause this kind of violent upheaval. However much I detest the actions of Islamic fundamentalists, I detest the perpetrators more. They caused the deaths of many people and wanted that to occur. May they rot behind bars all their remaining days. » Posted By choicelady On September 17, 2012 @ 10:29 am I remember in the dramatization of Watson and Crick trying to assemble DNA that their models all were ugly, and that fact alone caused them to keep searching. They knew it would be beautiful. Rosalind Franklin got the basics down upon which Watson and Crick figured out the double helix which, all agreed, was indeed beautiful. » Posted By choicelady On September 17, 2012 @ 10:27 am Who knew the world looked like a pomegranate at the core of all existence? Wow. Beautiful, KQ – thanks for sharing! » Posted By choicelady On September 17, 2012 @ 10:21 am kes – I’d have to agree. The Civil Right/Vietnam protests were about the last to effect changes, and that had much to do with the linkages the protesters made to changing legislation and getting court rulings. It is not a coincidence that in the mid-1970s most of my mother’s peers who taught became shocked at the low quality of student teachers coming through the system. These were white, middle class people by and large, but they knew NOTHING. Simultaneously, changes in curricula were omitting serious subjects such as Civics and replacing them withe “Social Studies” that taught no one anything. Do I think this just happened? Hell no. I think the dumbing of America and Americans is absolutely deliberate. Those who had been challenged by the radicals of the 60s and early 70s and who had to listen to them vowed NEVER to let that happen again. What makes this so nasty is that it was so freaking easy. It is easy to dumb down and soften everything – students love it. Knowledge is seen as some kind of elitest plot, a theme that resonates from within some Black communities and many Bagger ones. The idea that knowledge is power is pretty much gone. The idea that you have to be well educated to stand up to authorities has been shown false – screaming and berating and browbeating do just fine, thank you . We have embraced stupid. We LOVE stupid. We think stupid is “real” and education is phony. And we never ever see that while we’re free to shout, scream, and demonize – we have yet to make a single change, a single dent, any kind of lasting impact at all. Oh for the smarts of the 60s and 70s – without the narcissism – so we could once again challenge the one percent and REALLY “speak truth to power”. Sigh. » Posted By choicelady On September 3, 2012 @ 8:58 pm Sally – there are way too many privileged white people who have a romance of revolution never having seen death and destruction in their lives. They see the glorious images from the barricades of the French Revolution, the images of Che (who is dead, may I remind everyone) etc. and never count the costs of revolution. My whole life is counting the costs. From the mid 1970s on, too many people I cared for were slaughtered by the RW extremists. I will NOT pretend revolution is glorious. It is sometimes necessary. It is NOT EVER glorious. Blood and death and fear and pain are not noble. They are, again, sometimes necessary. But they are not things to be courted. And in America? It is so far from being a repressive regime under this president!!! You cannot get an answer from those who say we have lost our freedoms to specify WHAT FREEDOMS HAVE BEEN LOST? And that is both the Right and the Left who cannot answer their own hype. Bah! » Posted By choicelady On September 3, 2012 @ 7:49 pmComments Posted By choicelady
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