Friday, November 30, 2012

I Do Hate Conservatives, But I Welcome Reformed Sinners With Open Arms

That really is how it should be. Conservatives in power mean the slow death of a civilized society. You cannot be in love with a venomous snake that is threatening to kill you. You just can't.

But when one of them wises up and has a change of heart, I feel you must

Bruce Bartlett appears to be one such example. Allow me to summarize this article - it is a partial, de facto autobiography by a long time Conservative activist named Bruce Bartlett. He goes through his credentials, namely who he has worked for, and his contributions to the Conservative cause. Then he lists examples of where people on the Right betrayed him (like when Fox News squashed one of his books) and his journeys of discovery of how corrupt and inept Bush Jr. was. Then he gets into the fundamental flaws that he has discovered in Conservative thinking, and ultimately, how Keynesian economics (a major pillar of liberalism) was right after all. He even offers a sort of apology for his criticisms of Paul Krugman.

Here's a fellow who was a loyal soldier for the Right. His creds as a Conservative are sterling. This is to be celebrated, considering the magnitude of his heel-face turn.

If he ever reads this blog for some reason all I have to say is: stay independent, sir. The same intolerance and corruption you saw among Republicans and Conservatives, is present among Liberals. Granted, liberals lack the kind of knuckle dragging, boneheaded stupidity of the Right, but we have plenty of people here willing to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Some people on our side will spit venom at you for not being a Leftist even though you see the relevance of Keynes and the fact that Krugman has been right more than he has been wrong. Don't let yourself ever become loyal to any group again. Be your own person and for God's sake, the next time you write a book, do think of self publishing!



Revenge of the Reality-Based Community

My life on the Republican right—and how I saw it all go wrong.

Conservative Family Values At Work Again!

Woman Fired For Bineg Pregnant

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (CN) - In a pregnancy discrimination complaint, a worker claims her company "accommodated" her morning sickness by offering her a bigger wastebasket so she could vomit at her desk instead of losing time by running to the bathroom.

     April Roller sued National Processing of America, in Federal Court.

     Roller claims National Processing, an inbound and outbound call center, promoted her to management in January 2011, less than a year before it fired her.

     Roller claims National Processing fired her because of her high-risk pregnancy.

     She says National Processing harassed throughout her pregnancy, including delaying paperwork for taking leave under the Family Medical Leave Act writing her up for frequent bathroom visits due to morning sickness.

Ever So Often, You Meet a Good Cop.

It's a pity that they're so rare nowadays. Which makes it all the more important to give praise to a good cop when you meet one. This is one such cop.



Larry DePrimo, NYPD Cop, Buys Homeless Man Boots (PHOTO)

You have to like what NYPD Officer Larry DePrimo did for a barefoot man in Manhattan one frigid night this month. In fact, more than 260,000 Facebook users have "liked" DePrimo's actions, a number that's growing every day.
After a tourist from Arizona snapped a photo of DePrimo, of Holbrook, giving the man socks and boots to ward off the cold, the image became an instant hit on the NYPD's Facebook page.
"I had two pairs of wool winter socks and combat boots, and I was cold," DePrimo, 25, said Wednesday, recalling the night of Nov. 14, when he encountered an unidentified, shoeless man on the sidewalk on Seventh Avenue near 44th Street.
DePrimo offered to get him socks and shoes.

Iceland's Message to America and Europe


Thursday, November 29, 2012

Want to know what a limited Government looks like? Or a Plutonomy, for that matter? Well, it kinda looks like this.



Mexico's drug war bright spot hides dark underbelly



CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - Inside a notorious Mexican prison where armed convicts used to roam freely, selling drugs and deciding who was allowed in, the state is in control again. Prisoners are back in their cells and the once overcrowded complex sparkles with cleanliness.

But outside on the dusty streets of Ciudad Juarez, store owners lock themselves behind their doors, fearful of police and carefully vetting customers to avoid becoming the next victims of still rampant crime.

For four years, the city on the border with Texas was convulsed by daily slaughter, becoming the murder capital of the world and a shocking illustration of the Mexican government's failure to contain violence among warring drug cartels.

Once best known as a party town for Americans hopping across the border for cheap thrills, Ciudad Juarez fell into chaos with about one in every six of the 60,000 victims of Mexico's bloody drug war over the last six years dying here.

It's About DAMNED Time! Bipartisan Opposition to Obama's Drone Strikes

Now that Obama has won re-election the time for waiting to get on his case about drone strikes is past. And a mini-coalition has arisen to do just that.

It's about time we put an end to this. The only reason we Americans (and many Democrats) support this is because it's happening to scary brown people overseas. For now, that is.


Kucinich, Paul and Holt Introduce Bipartisan Resolution to Compel White House to Release Legal Justification for Drone Strikes

Washington, Nov 28 -
Congressmen Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Ron Paul (R-TX) and Rush Holt Jr. (D-NJ) today introduced H. Res. 819, a resolution of inquiry to compel the Administration to release documents which it reportedly uses as the legal justification for the use of drones to assassinate people abroad, including United States citizens, without trial. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, our drone strikes have killed more than 3,000 people including as many as 1,105 innocent civilians since 2002.

“We must reject the notion that protecting our national security requires revoking the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens.  No President can act as judge, jury and executioner, and any attempt to do so is in direct violation of our Constitution which gives our citizens a right to life and a fair trial. 

“According to a memorandum prepared by the White House Office of Legal Counsel, when the United States conducts such an attack it is legal. The Congress and the American people have a right to know this legal framework. Congress has an obligation as the sole authority under the Constitution to declare war to know how the use of force abroad is being used, especially against U.S. citizens,” said Kucinich.

Well Guess What, You're Not in Kansas Anymore!


So here's the rundown. President Obama, after the Democrats counter-stomped the GOP in a humiliating November 6 election rout, is talking about picking a Republican named Chuck Hagel for a job in Obama's administration. A fucking Republican. Now, mind you, Chuck Hagel says the GOP is too extreme for him. He left office and backed Democratic Senatorial Candidate Bob Kerrey in his unsuccessful 2012 bid in Nebraska. But the guy is still a moderately conservative Republican and most certainly not in line with Democratic, much less liberal, goals.

So on the Democratic Underground there has been considerable support for this moderately Conservatarded (LOL) excuse for a human being to join the Obama administration. One person finally speaks up in protest against this giant lemming march toward the cliff of epic fail: "Well, fuck me. I thought I was on a DEMOCRATIC forum." Sorry, MotherPetrie, but you ain't in Kansas anymore! The Democrats went Incredible Hulk on the GOP for a while and are now going right back to their weak, spineless compromising ways. First with putting Medicare cuts on the table and now this.

It's going to be a sad 2-4 years watching the Democratic Party forget its lessons from 2010 and 2012.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Ohio Man Goes to Jail for Mocking a Disabled Girl... WTF.

Republicanism is a severe mental illness, which one could call a disability. If you go around imitating and mocking them, could you wind up in jail?

I jest, of course. But this law does have me scratching my head. Although ONLY A FUCKING PSYCHOPATH OF AN ADULT MOCKS A CHILD* (and that's before we get to the fact that she's disabled) and the man deserves all kinds of public censure if he actually did do this, we do have freedom of speech in this country. He didn't threaten or touch her as far as I can tell. His actions may have been taken out of context, and much as I despise what he was accused of doing, hitting him with these kinds of charges could leave us all open to problems. And I'm not just talking about mocking kids, which is in fact psychopathic behavior. This could go way beyond just kids. You could get slapped with "disorderly conduct" and "aggravated menacing" for mocking an adult. Where's the line with this kind of "law"?

Oh and did I mention that our jails are too fucking full as it is, and filling them with psychopaths who mock kids is a big fat waste of my taxpayer dollars?

* Oh but wait, the guy even apologized to the girl and her family. So if he did do it, he in fact apologized for it. That leaves me conflicted. If you apologize sincerely for a sick deed that didn't cause harm to person or property and you never do it again, IMO that takes it down from psychopathic behavior to a disgusting moment of indiscretion. We can go on all day long about what kind of censure he should still get for this, but jail? That's utterly ridiculous. That idiot overzealous judge needs to be retired from the bench. I can still say that in America, right?


Ohio man gets jail for mocking disabled girl

CANTON, Ohio (AP) - A northeast Ohio man accused of making fun of a young girl with cerebral palsy has been sentenced to a month in jail.
Canton Municipal Judge John A. Poulos ordered the maximum sentence for 43-year-old William Bailey, who pleaded no contest Tuesday to reduced misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and aggravated menacing.
The (Canton) Repository (http://bit.ly/10Um7Zd ) reports that Bailey was caught on cellphone video at a school bus stop in October making fun of how the 10-year-old disabled girl walks. The video of him seemingly imitating her limp was disseminated online and on local TV news. Bailey denied he was mocking the girl, saying he was reacting to name-calling directed at his 9-year-old son.
Bailey apologized to the girl and her family in a statement Tuesday.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Why America in 2012 is Like France in 1789 (And Why You Should Care)

This article by bluntandcranky clearly gets what is going on. Here's an excerpt of the blog post:

Why America in 2012 is Like France in 1789 (And Why You Should Care)

Mr. Blunt and Cranky was made to study entirely too much history in his youth, and after reading Twain and Dumas chose to study the French Revolution in more depth. Recent events in our own country have brought that bloody, mindless, and savage period back to mind: and the parallels are eerie. A few examples:
Number A:  Poverty and malnutrition were increasingly common due to economic instability, governmental ineffectiveness and a distribution network that failed to deliver food to those who needed it. Indeed, the nation’s overall  infrastructure was antiquated and crumbling, and no one was willing or able to take the needed steps to update and repair it.
Letter 2: Previous wars of choice had left the French government deeply in debt, and the dire economic situation led to a steep drop in revenues, effectively bankrupting the national treasury.  There was a huge wealth gap between the very small percentage of the nobility (and other rich folk) and the rest of the population. The legislature spent its time taking potshots at the head of state (and each other) instead of addressing the problems of the nation.
Thirdly: Those who had wealth and power were disconnected from the vast majority of the nation.  While Marie Antoinette did not exactly say “let them eat cake”, the aristocracy did express such sentiments: this further inflamed the anger of a population who were already frustrated by the actions of disinterested royals, priests and plutocrats.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Supermarket Owner Gives His Company to His Employees

Note: Emphasis mine.

Need I say more? This is one of the few good Capitalists out there. I wish him the best of luck!

Supermarket Owner Gives Away Stores to his 400 Employees | Trending Now - Yahoo! News

'Tis the season of giving, and a grocery-store owner is doing just that. Joe Lueken, who owns and manages two grocery stores in Bemidji, Minnesota, and one in Wahpeton, North Dakota, is retiring at age 70. Instead of selling his stores to the highest bidder, though, he will transfer ownership to the stores' 400 or so employees.

The employees will participate in an employee stock ownership program, receiving shares of Lueken's Village Foods based on length of service and salary -- and at no cost to them. The program to transfer ownership from the Lueken family to the employees will begin on January 1, 2013.

He explained his reason for turning over ownership to his employees: "My employees are largely responsible for any success I've had, and they deserve to get some of the benefits of that." He says he received a number of lucrative offers for his business, but he and his family realize what the supermarkets do for the community, and they believe this will be a better deal for them and the 13,000 residents of Bemidji. "You can't always take," Lueken says. "You also have to give back."

Some Idiot at the American Thinker Whines About the "Decline" of Old White Men


'Shut Up, Grandpa' 
is an article by the American Thinker e-zine that bemoans the decline of the power and prestige of old white men. You know how these things go - old white men made America great, old white men are under attack from leftism, they're being dismissed, poor put upon old white men, America is doomed to decline if we don't listen to these old white men...


(Excerpt)
But even accepting the Washington establishment's new, post-modern definition of the term, it is undeniable that we old white men are in the minority worldwide. Having so marginalized us at last, the young, female, minority majority is eager to mock and ridicule us, to break our will, to push us into giving up. If they get their way, we old white men will die alone and cold, in a house stripped of all its valuables, as they divvy up the loot, conscience-free, hardly realizing or caring what a waste they have made of good men's legacies.

And check the knuckle dragging readers' comments, too.
Connor:
The Feminist have ridden their minority pony about as far as it is going to go. Black men of course have been so brianwashed most of them will never side with White males but the Hispanic men actually went for Romney by almost 35%. Not much growth but it was up from McCain's.
When the Minority coalition begins seriously fighting over the ever shrinking pie they will turn on themselves and then we will see just who they come running to for help.
 And then there was this:
First of all, as a "girl", I want to say "poor White men". White People, also known as People who risked everything to take a chance, are the ones who founded the United States of America.
It wasn't easy to cross an ocean, and many White people died in that crossing. These first people came from England, Spain, Italy. They were, for the most part, White People.
These "White People" were the cream of the crop of humans. They rejected the notion that a King should be able to tell them what their religious belief should be. This was extraordinary that thinking White, humans, would reject the idea that the Earth was flat, and that they would fall off the edge.

And these people wonder why they are being marginalized and despised? Their whole message is "only the white man can save you". Does that "girl" even realize that without liberalism, she would be some man's property? Of course she doesn't. None of them can think past the nose on their inbred faces.

What hurts these losers the most is that white people are turning against their Troglodyte ways as well.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Prey Logic Infests the DU


47 Rec's for this eyepopping example of sissified spinelessness. Oh, and of course, I would have been too worried about being punished for calling this exactly what it is, as a member of that forum.

It is my belief that Rachel Maddow had it correct. Progress in our Democracy is dependent on the strength of BOTH Conservative and Liberal ideas. It is simple Hegelian dialectic: Thesis meets Antithesis and creates Synthesis. We must strongly present our best arguments, hear their best arguments, debate, compromise and then reach a new level. Progress. I am just as concerned about unchecked Liberal Future Dreams as I am about Conservative knuckle-dragging.
I refuse to give into the temptation to lump all of my fellow Americans who hold Conservative values with Ted Nugent, Mitt Romney and Pat Robertson. It is false.
I refuse to adopt the hateful tactics of RedState, Rush Limbaugh, Faux News and Newt Gingrich. Propaganda and name-calling are not Ideas. They are not the product they are the marketing.
I refuse to be an ideologue, frozen in my opinion, unable to risk thinking outside my box. I choose to grow through adversity, courage and love.
(Bold emphasis mine) This is the kind of gullible weakling that gets routinely used as target practice or gets bent over by the Conservitards. This is Prey Logic, demonstrated, rather than merely defined.

If you are a Conservative who voted for Mitt Romney you are not worthy of respect. You have a mental disease that is beyond treatment and which will routinely flare up like Herpes, to the expense of everyone around you. You voted for a madman and you should be called out for it, and held responsible for it. You should be shunned and avoided by sane people. Period.

Deport Everyone Who Signed a Secession Petition


Best
Petition
Ever.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/deport-everyone-signed-petition-withdraw-their-state-united-states-america/dmQl1bXL

Why Charter Schools Were a BAAAD Idea From the Start.

Follow the link and read the whole thing. The story gets much, much worse than it appears here.

Minnesota School Of Science Will Not Welcome Back Students With Special Needs

Last week, the families of 40 Minneapolis students with special needs were informed their children would not be welcomed back to the one-year-old charter Minnesota School of Science, which replaced Cityview Elementary School in August 2011 due to poor standardized test scores, the Twin Cities Daily Planet reports.
Originally, the arrangement stipulated that special education classrooms would remain in the building, and their occupants would remain Minneapolis Public School students in name. A one-year contract required the new charter school to provide opportunities for the special education students -- who have autism and Down syndrome, among others -- to interact with mainstream peers.
The arrangement represented the first of its kind in the country, reports the online paper. It meant Cityview’s high-needs students would not have their schooling disrupted, and the district wouldn’t need to locate space for more classrooms in already-crowded schools.
On July 9, however, the charter school’s board notified the district they would not re-sign a contract to mainstream MPS students this coming fall.

An Epic DU Post About Wealth Inequality... and Only 5 Recs?


Only 5 people liked this post? Yet it is one of the most comprehensive things you will ever read about the history of wealth inequality and the way it destroys civilizations.

Wealth Inequality and Societal Collapse

Economic inequality in the United States has been growing now for several decades – since the late 1980s. It has been fueled by right wing economic philosophy, which can be summed up by the phrase “trickle down economics”, which purports that the best way to grow an economy is to shower the rich with advantages that allow them to become ever wealthier. The theory behind that is that the rich know what’s best for us, so the more opportunities we give them to make more money, the more they will be incentivized to utilize their tremendous intelligence and abilities to benefit society. A phrase that encompasses this theory today is “job creators”. The rich are our job creators. Give them more tax breaks, subsidies, and deregulation, and they will create more jobs for us.
But the reality is that nothing could be further from the truth.

America's Police Only Exist to Serve the Plutocracy

The Democratic Underground posters hated to hear this. Now I'm free to showcase all the examples of police brutality, unjust and unnecessary arrests, and the many, many times that they fail - no, epically fail, that is - to protect the public.

From CommonDreams:
One of the largest of Black Friday's 100 actions at WalMarts nationwide was in Paramount, Ca., where 1,000 union supporters rallied and police arrested nine protesters for civil disobedience, including three workers and retired pastor William Miller of the United Methodist Church. A round-up of other strikes and actions here.

And now I want to educate you about another fact: the police aren't required to protect you.




Justices Rule Police Do Not Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect Someone

WASHINGTON, June 27 - The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm, even a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband making an arrest mandatory for a violation.
The decision, with an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia and dissents from Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, overturned a ruling by a federal appeals court in Colorado. The appeals court had permitted a lawsuit to proceed against a Colorado town, Castle Rock, for the failure of the police to respond to a woman's pleas for help after her estranged husband violated a protective order by kidnapping their three young daughters, whom he eventually killed. 

From the Democratic Underground: Someone Else Who TRULY Gets It

You will never be able to win these people's hearts, and you will never find common ground with Conservatives, because there is no reason behind their madness.

What do you do with a viper that is hissing in your kitchen? That is the lesson to be learned here.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002732425

I've reached the conclusion that we - that is, DU and the Left community at large - have made a pretty big error regarding these people. You think they're bad? I've discovered that they're much worse. 
....
We're wrong. Dead wrong. Our assumption - that no matter how odd or self-destructive the behavior, conservatives have some rationale for it - is completely misbegotten. There is no "conservative plan." There is no agenda. There's no over-arching narrative from the right. if the Democrats are "playing chess," as the phrase goes, then I am absolutely certain it's a solo game, because there's nobody home on the other side of the board. 
Let me be blunt. The conservatives are driven exclusively by hatred. There's nothing rational about it. Their only goal (if it can be called that) is to cause pain and distress, because they enjoy it. Even if it's their own. Sometimes especially if it's their own. Theirs is a worldview based around sadism. At every turn, they will with 100% certainly take the action that causes the most injury to the most people. They can always be counted on to say and do the things that will cause the deepest offense and pain. Not because they're clueless. Not because they're misguided. Not because they're "trolls." There is no "lol u mad bro?" at the end of what a conservative does. They're perfectly sincere in their desire to inflict and enjoy suffering. 
....
We need to reconsider our approach. There really is no educating conservatives at this point. There's no way to engage in meaningful debate with a person who has defined their existence by expressing hatred. There's no way to compromise with someone whose only goal is to hurt you. They're lost causes, and we need to work around, rather than trying to engage.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

You Know, At Some Point, We Liberals Need To Play Hard Ball And Take It To THEM.


The Democratic Underground hid this post and made up lies about inciting violence. Not this time around. Censorship can go kiss my ass.

Let's talk about reality here. The GOP and their street thugs have committed legions of escalating atrocities against freedom in this country, and particularly against liberals. I'm talking about bringing assault rifles to town hall meetings, shouting down speakers, harassing and driving away speakers in public places (and in one case, even driving up to their houses when they flee back home) andeven punching people who disagree with them.

They talk about waging war, they hurl racial slurs, blow dog whistles... I could go on all day with this. We liberals tolerate this shit and then retreat to forums to grumble about it. I've had enough of that crap.
I was there screaming back at the Teabaggers in 2009 when they crawled out of their holes like rats fleeing the NYC subways. There weren't many Democrats at my side. The Teabaggers STEAMROLLED us in 2010, scoring record-smashing GOP victories coast to coast.

Let's face the truth here. Americans go for an outright ass whupping. The GOP and their zombie thugs have been handing us just that - a Great American Ass Whupping, from Ronald "there you go again" Reagan to Mitt "Gish Gallop" Romney. They can't win debates and they can't win on ideas, so they resort to brute force tactics. Romney should come out of this today with ZERO electoral votes, but as you know, Obama has had to fight every step of the way for his victory, and so have the rest of us.

This shouldn't be. It doesn't have to be.

We've got to get brutal. We've got to show some spine. We've got to snarl right back in their faces, and adopt a ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY to match their zero tolerance policy against us. No Republican bullshit yapping in my presence. Keep it to your own damned self. And if one of these GOP/tea thugs put their hands on ANY DEMOCRAT, they better expect to have it broken off and bronzed before they get it back again. Make use of your right to self-defense, and don't let liberal pansy instincts stop you. Stop being a victim of right-wing violence.  That's the only way these violent savages are going to get the message. Verbally abuse the rest of them at every possible chance. That's the only way these right wing savages are going to get the message.

Like for like. Toe to toe. From here on it's our duty to make America as inhospitable and intolerant of their bullshit as possible.

Every Republican has to know they're walking into the SHARK TANK when they raise up at us. That's how you talk to bullies - intimidate, harass and challenge them right back. Like for like.

RKBA Democrats, maybe it's time we came UNARMED THIS TIME to their rallies. Or maybe even bring some unloaded carbines. Like for fucking like. They did it, and it was legal, and so should we.

I'm sick of these monsters. Been sick of them. Terminally sick to the point of not being able to see straight. What I REALLY want I can't say here; DU rules and all. I'm done with these animals. I will never, ever refer to them as human beings again,not even at gunpoint.

Free Republotards: Did the Blind Squirrels Finally Find Their Acorn?


Back in the 1990s I used to be a lone voice against the offshoring of American jobs. Back then everyone  except for Ross Perot's followers were mesmerized at the idea of cheaper goods and the promise of job retraining for workers displaced by "trade".

Fast forward 20 years and not too many people are drinking the kool-aid anymore. Instead of driving America toward the "newer, better economy", a handful of people have gotten new, better jobs, while America's middle class has been decimated - with most of the losses contributing to the ranks of the poor, and only a chosen few rising beyond the middle class. Americans are now all but excluded from the global labor market - as evidenced by the fact that we have a big trade deficit with every nation on Earth.

The sheer inescapable magnitude of the failure of free trade makes it little wonder that Democratic and Republican voters alike now not only oppose offshoring, but downright despise it.

And now we get to the Free Republic. One half-awake Freeper decided to post an article about foreign outsourcing in protest of the bleeding out of American jobs. So did the blinds squirrel find their acorn? Yes, one squirrel in the bunch stumbled upon the acorn of intelligence, but its compadres knocked its acorn right out of its hands. Like so:
Buy Obamamerican? no thanks. I’m not paying more of my hard earned dollars and reducing my standard of living to support lavish lifestyles for union thugs.
With this election I noticed it seems to be every man for himself. So, why buy American? I mean, most of the jobs that can be outsourced are Obama voter type of jobs. It would please me to find more of them out of work. Heck, I am already paying for most of their care as it is since many of them don’t pay income taxes and I pay more taxes than they make. So, who cares if they get hurt? We’re doomed anyway and if I need final preps at a low cost I will seek the best price. American “workers” be damned. Besides, those workers were the ones places like Wal-Mart targeted with cheap imports in the first place years ago. It hurt their own jobs but they were too stupid to see that.
Conservatards will fight tooth and nail for a country where they're paid as little as possible. These guys are huge fans of Gina "$2 a day" Rinehart.

Shame on You, Mother Jones...


for buying into the meme of California being broke because of Prop 13. Prop 13 was meant to save seniors from being kicked out of their houses due to skyrocketing land taxes. While anyone can debate the effects of Prop 13, the fact is that seniors on fixed incomes were much more vulnerable to this than before. Prop 13 should remain in spirit, even if it needs to be reformed, and any tax law that old would likely need to be reformed.

I would dare suggest a progressive land tax, where millionaires and people who own multiple properties pay a higher rate.

However, this isn't the problem California has. The problem we have is the same that the rest of the world has: money fleeing offshore to the tune of $21 trillion. Some of that money obviously came from California. Then there was the huge economic damage inflicted by Enron which Governor Schwarzenegger settled for pennies on the dollar. The other, big problem for California was the real estate meltdown that hit us in 2007-2008. Property tax losses from the 2008 crash might have actually hit California even harder had we been reliant upon high property taxes - which would likely be the case without Prop 13.

Anyway, here's the MoJo article I'm talking about:
For the past few decades, making fun of California has been a favorite pastime of conservatives and, for that matter, just about everybody. We're either the Libertine State (Ganja! Gays!), the Nanny State (Eat your fruit before you get your Happy Meal toy!), or a redoubt of ecofascism. (AB 32: the horror!) But more than anything, we're just perpetually broke—the governmental equivalent of Annie Liebovitz or Mike Tyson. And regarding that Ann Coulter actually speaks the truth. Well, except for the part about blaming government by Democrats.
.
Anyone passingly familiar with the nation's most populous state knows that our budget woes trace back to Proposition 13, a ballot initiative that cut and capped property taxes and required a two-thirds vote to pass any future tax increases. This, in turn, kicked off a nationwide tax revolt that ended up installing former California Gov. Ronald Reagan in the White House. Since then, California has trended more Democratic than the rest of the country, but that hasn't mattered: A minority of Republicans in the state legislature have held up all efforts to patch the gaping revenue hole left by Prop. 13—and more recently the foreclosure crisis and recession. As Kevin Drum noted yesterday, in 2007 California spent $3,100 per resident out of its general fund. Today that's down to $2,400.
MoJo usually does more in-depth research than this. They should know it was more than about Prop 13. Prop 30 is a great law but we've got problems in California that are larger than California. People slam California's finances without good reason. If we're at fault for anything it's electing Arnold Schwarzenegger. We had little control over the offshore tax havens, housing speculators and Enron, all of which were the real causes of our debt.

Site Change in Effect

My old blog site on blog.com is stricken with constant blog.com outages. The last one went on for the better part of a day. I'm in the process of moving to a new site that should have less downtime. What's the point of even BLOGGING if you keep getting an error even trying to access the site? ARGH.

A Sore Winner? You Betcha.


Prelude: I am formerly of the Democratic Underground. They didn't like this speech, which I posted in the short form. They called it violence. I say that's bullshit. I can also say thanks for that PPR you gave me - it was a wake-up call that being fearful of being banned for speaking your mind is a chickenshit existence.

And now, the long version of the message that the DU didn't want anyone to read.

Why am I in such a bad mood even though my side won big on the election of November 6 of 2012? Because, basically, all we did was hold the line.

Against what, you ask? Great question. What did we hold the line against? Well, let me give you a few examples.

Right Wing Nutjobbery: Let Them Eat Cake

First, let's take a look at the now all-too-famous video of Mitt Romney bashing 47% of the American population. Not just any ol' 47%, mind you, but the poor and retirees out there who depend on Government benefits to survive.



Here’s another example. Here’s a video of people who say that those who don’t buy insurance and who get sick, should be left to die.


Libertarian Ron Paul said, in essence, that freedom is achieved when a society isn’trequired to take care of everybody. When asked whether this means society should just let this hypothetical person die, the Tea Party audience in the background screamed “Yeah!”

More Examples of "Let Them Eat Cake"

Then we go back to Paul Ryan, a Congressman, former Vice Presidential candidate and running mate for Mitt Romney. This idiot called for PRIVATIZING SOCIAL SECURITY.
Lawmakers yesterday approved 228-191 a $3.5 trillion plan to overhaul Medicare, slash food stamps, Pell grants and other programs for the poor, boost defense spending and reduce taxes on high earners. No Democrats voted for Ryan’s plan; 10 Republicans opposed it.

 Now let’s look at one of the GOP Presidential candidates, a Herman Cain. This man represented the absolute purity of Conservatism. He was completely consistent in his views and didn’t flip flop like Mitt Romney did. He was eventually shot down because of accusations about sexual harassment. But before he went down in flames, he told it like it was in the eyes of Conservatism: if you’re poor, it’s because it’s your own fault. Not because there’s simply not enough jobs to go around, no, if there are 99 jobs and 150 people fighting for those jobs, it’s the fault of those 51 people that they couldn’t find what doesn’t exist. Yes, this guy was that crazy. See the video.




Then, going back to 2009, there was this scene at the start of the Tea Party movement. During a giant rally in Ohio, they mocked an apparent victim of Parkinson’s Disease.

Oh But It Gets Worse: Feudalism on the Horizon

These pro-corporate state idiots are also quietly involved in the mass privatization of America’s public services, including our roads, schools, and in the case of Governor Rick Snyder in Michigan, entire cities! It’s called the Shock Doctrine. Naomi Klein wrote a book about this, if you value an America of, by and for the People, you really should read it. Let me give you an example of the Shock Doctrine: in Michigan, Gov Snyder created a new system in which hand-picked, non-elected officials were sent into various distressed cities to run these cities, effectively nullifying the authority of the cities’ elected officials. These autocrats are called “Emergency Managers“. What does this mean for you? It means that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, they will be taken out of power by a handful hand-picked people that you did not vote for. Public education will go away, and you will pay through the nose to send your kid to school, and if your kid isn’t one of the top students, they won’t be admitted… anywhere, because private schools don’t have to accept any students except the ones they pick. Can we say Balkanization? Oh and roads? You think today’s toll roads are bad? Yeah, you’ll be paying a toll every 10 miles that you drive. Unless one corporation eventually buys up all the roads, in which case you may be paying by the intersection. What are you going to do, refuse to drive? They’ll ding you for walking, too. In Conservative America, it’s their property, they can do whatever they want. That’s the end game for mass privatization. Conservatives want to see this, nationwide. They are fighting hard to see this happen. Privatization of the military is slowly creeping along with “private military companies“, aka mercenary groups, taking over the fringes of traditional government-run military roles. You can expect to see privatized, armed police taking over distressed cities soon, once entire cities start getting bought up. We haven’t gotten there quite yet, so perhaps we should tell ourselves it can’t ever happen.
For those of us who won’t just live in denial of what’s coming, however, you do know what it’s called when one person owns a whole city and hires a private police force to administer law? This has in fact happened before in history. It’s called Feudalism.

And They're Violent Savages, Too

Now let’s discuss how violent these nutjobs are. Mind you, union workers have retaliated to Teabagger violence and both sides are willing to duke it out, but this example I’m about to show is as low as you can get, and it is something I’ve never seen a liberal do. Take a look at this Ron Paul supporter stomping on the head of a woman protester. Notice the gun in her hand?


What? You didn’t notice the gun in her hand, either? That’s probably because she didn’t have one. She was completely unarmed and yet this beast from the jungle went and stomped on that woman’s head. An unarmed woman. On a side note: How much do you want to bet that this uncivilized savage never went to prison for aggravated assault and battery?
Take note of all of these barbaric events. All ideological (and in one case physical) atrocities committed by Conservatives. These are some of the sickest, sociopathic people since the days of the Gilded Age. They have no regard for the sick and poor, and no regard for the working class. Their creed is survival of the richest, and I got mine, fuck you.

But Wait!!! There's more!!! These Knuckle-Draggers DESPISE Women.

Here is Missouri Congressman Todd Akin,  talking about rape and the pregnancies that might result. Really, it speaks for itself. Put on your space helmet, folks, we’re about to enter… the TWILIGHT ZONE.

Oh, but it gets worse than that. Here’s Richard Mourdoch, the defeated (HOORAH!) Republican candidate for Indiana’s US Senate seat in 2012.

Both of these men attempted to ascend to the U.S. Senate this year and lost, probably because of their rape comments.
I could go on with examples of how twisted Conservatism has become, but there’s only so much bandwidth available in a blog. The point is, America voted 233 of these knuckle-dragging savages back into power in the 435-member United States House of Representatives and 58 million people voted for Mitt Romney’s failed bid for the US Presidency. That’s almost as much as the 59 million who voted for John McCain and his nutjob running mate Sarah Palin in 2008! Todd Akin and Richard Mourdoch, of course, didn’t win their bids for the US Senate, but 39% of voters went for Todd Akin in Missouri and 44% of voters went for Richard Mourdoch in Indiana. Do you know what this means?It means that 1 out of 3 voters that you meet in Missouri felt that Todd Akin wasn’t a raging nutjob for his “legitimate rape” rant. Almost 1 out of 2 in Indiana supported Richard Mourdoch despite his whole “pregnancy from rape is a gift from God” remarks. This should scare you into sleeping with a night light. No matter where you are, you might meet or even know someone who agrees with these demons.
Let me say this in an unambiguous fashion: those who voted for Mitt Romney, knowing all of this, those who thought Akin or Mourdoch should have won, have something horribly, frighteningly wrong with them, mentally speaking. It’s not that the mainstream media didn’t broadcast these atrocities: they did, repeatedly. Every last one of these things I talked about here, was shown on the three major networks and all the major cable networks, during prime time. They appeared in newspapers, and all over the Internet. Of course the media is going to play this – they know nutjobbery when they see it, and nutjobbery like what you saw above was big money. People tuned in. Lots of people. And you know what? About half of them didn’t give a flying frak.
Which half? The knuckle-dragging savages that call themselves “free market” or “religious” Conservatives. The bunch that Chuck Norris was addressing in this video.

The Point

And so I get to what this entire blog is really about: the fact that these “people” who infested Congress with the Tea Party, NEARLY gave us Senators Todd Akin and Richard Mourdoch, and who NEARLY saddled America with President (hahah NOT!!) Mitt Romney, are still with us.
Romney, Ryan, Mourdoch and Akin are mere symptoms of the real problem. The real problem is the hordes of right-wing savages who keep putting their champions of derangement and rabid nutjobbery up for election. If you step back and look at it, it’s unreal. These people are voting for policies that will destroy their livelihoods and leave them as helpless prey for the Plutocracy to feed upon them at will. Their war against unionization has resulted in CEO pay skyrocketing while worker pay has stagnated, but these people don’t care. They blame it on liberals, and they always will. They think global warming is a myth, and they hate pollution controls. They’d rather choke on London Fog and see more droughts like what we saw in 2012 than let there be an Environmental Protection Agency that can prevent it. Record dry seasons and fire outbreaks? Let it burn rather than raise taxes! Oh, wait, but when it all burns, come whining to the evil Federal Government for help!
You can tell the wisdom or stupidity of a belief system by its results. You want to know what the end results of Conservatism is? States where Conservatism runs rampant are among the poorest in the country. They use more welfare dollars than they contribute. That’s right, folks, the states that preach the hardest about eliminating welfare for the poor, use more nanny state resources than they contribute. Now in a stunning example of their racism, the most common counter argument these savages offer to this is that the welfare-sucking states have large populations of black people. Uh, yeah, does that include North and South Dakota, or Alaska?
Now do I need to cite for you how much these Conservatives badmouth us liberals, despite the fact that they depend on us for their livelihoods? I think anyone who has come to this site knows how much these guys deride us as un-American, Communists, nanny-state Socialists, and so on. This hate has been going on for decades. Their hate for organized labor (matched only by their love for organized corporate lobbyists and organized management) should also be well-known. There are also the militia that are out there perpetually preparing for a “civil war”.
A few of these savages even want to secede from the Union. One of these people who calls for secession is Texas Governor Rick Perry. Few make the case for nutjobbery clearer than this video:

Notice how this call for secession refers to President Obama as “the Kenyan”? Yeah, most of the recent ones are racist like that. See my point? These same people who rely on us “socialists” , the ones who consume more welfare dollars than they contribute, want to depart. Like that video above said, “WE QUIT!!!”
Let me be the next person to say, I QUIT!!! I quit being civil to these savages. Their world is, without exception, a world of survival of the fittest, a world without civilization, a world that looks a lot like a jungle where the strong live and the less fortunate get eaten. With only notable exception, their world is also a racist and sexist world which sees women and all non-whites as a perpetual underclass. Which is why the Republican Party, the Tea Party and the Libertarian Party – what I call the Axis of (right-wing) Savagery – has almost no support among any of the non-white voting groups.
These people deserve to be scorned just as much as they scorn us. And we certainly have a God-given and legal right to intervene in the physical defense of our own when one of these right wing knuckle draggers starts stomping an unarmed woman. These monsters got gun licenses and brought unloaded carbine semi-auto rifles to Town Hall meetings, slung over their shoulders but in plain, intimidating sight. Isn’t it time that Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA) Democrats did the same? It is perfectly legal, after all.
Conservatives are savage people unworthy of living in a civilized society. Period. You’re a fool to be married to one who went so far as to vote for McCain and Palin in 2008, much less Romney and Ryan in 2012. You are married to someone who doesn’t give a shit if both of you go on the streets if you get poor. He’ll just blame Obama or some liberal and keep fighting for the very Plutocrats who put you in that situation. Or worse, he’ll blame the two of you. After all, as Presidential candidate Herman Cain said and the rest of those GOP candidates honestly believe, if you’re poor, it’s your own fault. A vote for Romney was an endorsement of this nonsense, and all the other nonsense that Romney stood for.
Moreover, you should keep eyes in the back of your head and your resume perpetually updated if you are unfortunate enough to work for a conservative employer. Some of these people act charitable today, but they can turn on you on a dime. Just ask the coal mine workers of Murray Energy’s Century in Beallsville, Ohio. I’m not saying you should leave your job – in this economy that’s crazy, and there’s a hell of a lot of these Conservative savages running businesses. What I’m saying is, wear your career life preserver and be prepared to catch waves to the next job; these two-legged animals could suddenly pull something stupid on you in a fit of rage.
We can’t push these knuckle draggers out of our lives overnight. They live among us, like the proverbial infected. Many of them are the high-functioning type of crazy, capable of changing a liberal’s tire if they get a flat, or walking your dog for you, or whatever. But within them lurks a deadly mental disease which only needs the right catalyst to manifest itself openly like a canker sore. That catalyst, in the last 4 years, has been a scary black man elected President of the United States. And, worst of all, some of these savages are even related to us. You know what I’m talking about… the kindly ol’ father in law who, at the unfortunate conjunction of an Obama speech during a full moon, transforms into hairy right wing savage werewolf howling his ignorance and rage about Liberalism, while pledging undying fealty to his bloodsucking vampire Plutocrat masters aka the GOP at the dinner table.
No, pushing them out of our midst is a slow, often painful process. You don’t just turn cold shoulder to your coworker overnight. What you should do, after hours and on your own property, is proclaim loudly and often your disdain for runaway Capitalism and Right Wing nutjobbery. Show as much intolerance as your neighbor does. Put up signs and, if you can afford it, slap a camera out front to catch any idiot defacing your property. Put them on Youtube and report it to the cops without delay. Make them know they will face legal troubles for harassing you, and if they punch you? HIT BACK, HARD. Remember, starting a fight will land you in jail, but SELF DEFENSE IS PERFECTLY LEGAL!!! Be mean to them whenever you can. Be harsh. Give them no mercy, give them no quarter. Make your half of America as inhospitable and unbearable to them as you can possibly get away with. Be subtle if you must, but always, always retaliate in kind.
Force these bastards to get themselves away from us, into their own bastions, where they can choke to death on their pollution. Eventually we should work toward cutting them off from welfare since they want to end it so badly, and let them starve. It’s come to that. They want total war. They want to secede. Let us at least grant them their de facto “soft secession” – a secession that is spiritual and demographic, instead of violent and illegal. They don’t typically welcome us among them, we shouldn’t welcome them among us.
What I hope to see happen is the greater growth of Asians, blacks, Hispanics and white Liberals, until the right wing savages give up California and all the Northern states and congregate down south. Not white flight, but rather Conservative flight, baby. Concentrate down south so we can mass boycott you (since most official sanctions would probably violate the Commerce Clause of the Constitution) like we did Arizona. It would be my greatest dream to see Conservatives whining about how verbally abusive Liberals are to them and why won’t anyone play nice with them? Awww, poor babies. You deserve your own little Right Wing paradise where you can pollute to your heart’s content, risk your lives in unsafe workplaces, and otherwise metaphorically defecate where you eat. What you don’t deserve is to screw things up for the rest of us. Find your own little sandbox and play in your own political and economic feces.
To the rest of you: A large number of readers will be thinking, DAMN, this guy is way over the top. Of course I am. But look at America now. We have two Americas now. The soft secession is already in progress. You have but two choices to take to determine our country’s future: to let your Conservative neighbors (with their lurking insanity waiting to burst out at the drop of  a hat) continue to poison your world on a city-wide and state-wide level, or work to push them out so when they shit where they eat, the effects won’t manifest in your punch bowl.
It’s not the feel-good way out. But this is about survival. Either ostracize these monstersor they will make us all suffer the consequences. Option #3 – reconciliation – sailed away in 2008 and hit an iceberg this year.