So Long Environment, We Hardly Knew Ye

In a move that is unsurprising to anyone that pays attention to the current administration, President Obama has dropped his support for stronger environmental standards on ozone emissions. Citing the current economic climate, the president doesn't think that it is necessary to try to do something that would make a difference when it comes to pollutants that cause serious health problems.

This move is coupled with the president and the State Department putting their full support behind a new pipeline that will run from Canada to Oklahoma and Texas that will transport tarsands crude for refinement. This pipeline will run through the "heartland" of the United States and, more importantly, a major waterway where millions of people receive drinking water.  According to the State Department the Keystone XL pipeline will safely carry this crude oil because, you know, oil companies have such a stellar record of transporting oil without spills.

I fail to see how anyone serious about the environment can support this president. If this is a bad time to enact regulations that will actually do something to curb our destruction of the environment then when is a good time? It is going to be hard to create jobs in a country that is uninhabitable.

More promises from the Obama administration that have been refined to the point of non-existence.

National Debt: FIXED! Crisis: AVERTED! Non-Rich: SCREWED!

Capitulation. Is there anything our president does better? A deal has been reached and passed through both houses of Congress and signed by the president to extend the debt ceiling. Well, problem solved! Crisis averted! All accept the part where the president gave the Republicans nearly everything they wanted and got nothing in return.

The compromise deal to persuade GOP lawmakers to raise the federal debt limit — U.S. borrowing was to collide with it at midnight — will cut federal spending by $2.1 trillion or more over the next decade. But Obama immediately challenged Republicans to accept higher taxes on the wealthy in a second round of deficit cuts this fall. They adamantly refused to accept that idea during the past months' dispute.

What is it with this guy and making demands after a “deal” has already been capitulated to? The president brokered a deal with the Republicans for $2.1 trillion in cuts and the president got was an “I Fucked the American People” t-shirt. Sounds like a good deal.

Challenging the Republicans to accept higher taxes after they have already won is like asking a bank robber to return the money after he has already gotten away with the crime. This guy has to be the absolute worst when it comes to negotiations. Either that or his heart was never in to fighting for the people that put him in office.

"We've got to do everything in our power to grow this economy and put America back to work," the president said, arguing forcefully for including revenue increases as well as spending cuts in the next round of efforts to trim huge government deficits.

You don’t accomplish growing the economy and creating jobs by cutting money out from under the American people. Austerity measures are going to do nothing here but send us back into a recession and possibly into a depression. I am sure that the economy will shrink when the people who were being supported by social programs are all dead.

I had more sources to add to this article and more to say, but honestly I am so tired of being surprised at the level of stupidity/complicity of this administration. Every time the Republicans fight the Democrats (and especially the President) lay down and take the beat like the good little cowards that they are.

What the president has done since day one is worse than anything a Republican president could have done. Obama gave us hope and then rubbed our face in being stupid enough to vote for him. At least with a Republican president we all know what we are getting. There are no surprises when a Republican president fights to attempt to balance the budget with tax cuts and social program cuts.

Take it from me: if you are stupid enough to vote for this dickhole next year then you deserve to lose everything in the coming depression.

Other Sources:

Washington Post

Associated Press - 1

Associated Press - 2

Threatened By Somalia

Oh no. We have been warned.

A leader of Somalia's Islamist insurgency threatened to attack America during a broadcast speech.

"We tell the American President Barack Obama to embrace Islam before we come to his country," Fuad Mohamed "Shongole" Qalaf said Monday.

Well, I guess we should all get on that. I am surprised that the right-wing hasn't lost their mind about this yet. Isn't Obama supposed to be a Muslim already? I guess this would just be further proof that he isn't, and we know how the right-wing feels about proof.

Seriously, I think this threat should be taken seriously. We can make fun of Somalia all we want and ask questions like “How large is your Air Force” and all, but remember, it only took 19 dirt worshipers to take down the World Trade Center.

America Isn't A Secular Nation, Unless You Believe In Facts

I wish this article were true. I think the country would be better off if the president was actively pushing for a secular nation. However, anything posted on NewsMax should be treated as if it were a truck load of bullshit, even if it were true. I am, of course, talking about the article titled “Historian Kidd: Obama Pushes US to Secularism.” If only I could dream of such a president.

The article is a stream of consciousness from Thomas Kidd, who is a crazy Christian historian at Baylor University. I am just surprised this guy isn’t at Bob Jones University, as if Baylor is any better. (Note: a quote from Thomas Kidd from the Baylor University website - "I came to Baylor because of the balance the university offered me between teaching and research, and because of the appeal of working at a university with a Christian commitment.") The article amounts to a lot of half-truths or outright falsehoods. What I was most interested in was this niblet:

“This has fueled a concern that many people have that President Obama is at least quietly trying to construe America as a secular nation instead of a nation based on important religious principles like the idea that all men are created equal,” Kidd said. “That principle is, I think, the most important idea that comes out of the American Revolution, and it is an explicitly religious principle, even though it’s a very general religious principle, and I don’t think it’s something that we should give up intentionally or unintentionally.”

Trying to construe America as a secular nation? Oh, the horror! I fail to see how any principle from this guys beloved Christianity, or any religion for that matter, puts forth the idea that all men are created equally. As I recall, in the Bible all men were created equally, unless they weren’t Jews. Women and non-Jews need not apply. What about the explicit endorsement of slavery? It should also be added that this nation was founded on the institution of slavery and was endorsed for a very long time. Women and non-whites need not apply.

This article is also a little confusing. I thought Obama was a secret Muslim. I guess this proves that anyone can be a historian.

A History Of Weakness

Two years ago we had just elected Barack Obama as President. The nation was elated because they thought that finally we would have someone who would change the way the government runs and how we do business as a nation. I, like many people at the time, was fully on board with the President coming into office and getting us back on some sort of reasonable course, a course that had been shifted so far to the right that Reagan started to seem like a left-of-center Democrat. As of this week, what little confidence I had in the President to do the right thing came to a halt.

My discontent had been growing with this administration since the health care debate. I was angry enough to declare that I would not be voting for him again, with good reason. The health care bill gave us so little change that it may as well have not even been passed. Health care costs continue to rise, health insurance companies who are forced to cover preexisting conditions in children are just refusing to cover children at all, and the bill as a whole won't start to take a real effect until 2014. In 2014, the bill will have been gutted because it wasn't strong and it wasn't immediate. This entire episode would have been attributed to a new administration trying to find their way. Things would surely get better after this. Right?

Since the health care debate the President has been cowering in a corner, or more precisely he has been on his knees under Mitch McConnell's and John Boehner's desks. He collapses under any kind of pressure from the right and them throws his arms in the air and says “What could I have done? I had to compromise.” I haven't seen compromise, all I have seen is capitulation. There is a lot of big talk coming from this guy. He says he would love to fight the Republicans on every piece of major legislation that he can. When the opportunity presents itself, he runs and hides behind the curtains in the oval office.

Then there are the areas that he has stood up to fight which is a long list of right-wing goals. He failed to close Guantanamo Bay, he continues to policy of warrantless wiretapping, and seems to be apathetic to the issue of Net Neutrality. The only conclusion I can draw from any of these issues is that he doesn't care. If you do not take a stand against a bad idea than you may as well be a supporter of the bad idea. There is no room for compromise when it comes to failed or bad ideas from the Bush Administration.

Now comes to two issues that the President could have redeemed himself on: Repeal of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” and repeal of the Bush tax cuts. On the issue of DADT, how can he expect anything to get done while he is doing nothing but sitting on his hands waiting for the turtle of congress to take action? I agree that the bill has to be repealed through congress, but there is the option of enacting a stop-loss in the mean time. Then you start to tighten the screws on congress until they scream for mercy. The public is for the repeal of DADT and so is most of congress, minus John McCain who should be treated like a child and told to go stand in the corner until he calms down. Instead, we get a President who pays great lip service but does nothing in the end. Gays are still being discharged under DADT and congress has still not taken up the issue. You know why? Weak leadership, which also applies to Pelosi and Reed.

On the second issue, why is the President making the case for the Republicans? It doesn't make any sense at all. He went out as he usually does and crumbled at the first sign of pressure from the right. Not only did he crumble, but he gave away all of his bargaining chips before negotiations even started. As with DADT, the repeal of the Bush tax cuts was supported by a majority of the nation. The middle class should get to keep their tax cuts (that's anyone making less than $250,000 a year, which is too high in my opinion) and the wealthiest 2% of the nation has to go back to what their taxes were under Clinton (which is way too low in my opinion). However this President can't seem to wrap his mind around standing on principle. He actually thinks that he lost the House in 2010 because he wasn't enough of a Republican. What really happened was people started to wake up to his bullshit and realize that he has no back bone. The people voted for the Republicans because they had no other choice. Why would they vote for a spineless Democrat?

I can only urge the Democrats to run a primary against the President. After he stood on stage and blamed all of his problems on the liberals (his base, you know the ones who support him most) and said that we were being sanctimonious, the entire party should have started the process of finding someone who wasn't going to be a weakling who cowers in fear every time a Republican walks into the room.

I stick by my decision to never vote for this guy again. He is a lost cause at best and a Republican at worst. The question now is who is going to challenge him? Who can beat him for the nomination or who could run as a viable third-party candidate? I'm looking at you Russ Feingold.

Like Father, Like Son

I think this video says more about Christians than I ever could. Enjoy Donnie Swaggart, son of Jimmy Swaggart.



Violence, homophobia, racism... sounds like Christianity to me!

Obama: Progressive Joke -- Rant

When certain situations occur, I usually try to reserve judgment until there is enough information to form an opinion. I think the oil leak has reached that point.

First off, we should have never been drilling in the ocean. We get so little oil from the area that it hardley makes a difference in the world production. Also, it's not like the oils is sucked up out of the Gulf and poured right into your local gas station. It actually hits the world market and ends up going to somewhere other than the US. It is hard enough to contain spills on land. When you add water and more than a mile in between the rig and the tap into the equation, you are asking for something bad to happen. Well guess what, something disastrous happened.

So you may ask why I am calling Obama a joke in this whole debacle. It all comes down to one reason: he is as much of a corporate shill as the last president, and the guy before that, and the guy before that, etc.

As soon as this leaking started pumping out thousand of gallons of oil into the Gulf, the president should have been slamming heads together around BP and getting every engineer and physicist in the world together to stop the leak. Instead, he sat back with a frown and let BP handle their mess. Great idea!

I love the stories of Obama getting angry and yelling at the CEO of BP. Yet, as soon as he is done, he lets this bastard go back to doing the same thing he was doing before. Then, he says he is going to stop any new drilling in the Gulf while almost simultaneously telling the oil companies “Sure, do whatever you want.” Yelling at someone and then allowing the same practices to continue is not genuine, it is as fake as Heidi Montag's nose.

Now today we hear that Obama has yelled at BP and the republicans, scolding them for being bad kids. In the same speech, he talks about expecting accidents when drilling for oil and essentially says we are going to continue drilling for oil. How about this, grow a pair of balls and actually do something other than acting like you are pissed off.

Don't get me wrong, pissed off is good. As a matter of fact, I think he needs to be pissed off more often. But when you get all pissy and then do nothing, you just look like a Doberman that has had his lower jaw removed. I'll go ahead and say it here and now: I think Obama is too much of a coward to actually penalize BP. He I too much of a coward to force the republicans to vote for legislation against the oil industry or to stand with the oil industry whilst they sink into the gulf along with all of the wildlife the oil leak is killing.

We saw the same thing during health care and financial “reform”. Obama comes out with strong words and marshmallow action. I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong, but if history is any indicator, we can expect a TARP-style response: privatized gains and socialized losses. We are already going to loose the fishing industry and the coastal states along with it, so lets see how much we end up having to pay BP, TransOcean, and Halliburton to clean up their mess.

Palin/Bachmann O-Twelve

Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann have been touring the country, not sure why really, except to work up the frenzied base and see if they can get any more people killed. Their tour consists of appearing before screeching, rabid fans by day and cuddling up in penthouse suites by night to paint each other's toenails. Here's a rundown of the tour from a cuddly lesbian: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2QZiTVsbkM Oh, and if you need to laugh for a while, and then cry, there's this: http://wonkette.com/tag/pt-scissor-me-timbers/ Oh, to be a fly on the wall, or the bumpit in Palin's hair!

And now, Ms. Palin, who is an expert in everything, is really pissed off at Obama's idea to, you know, try not to burn babies off the face of the earth with nuclear weapons. He is such a hippie sissy asshole. http://hotpoliticians.com/2010/04/08/palin-obama-nuke-strategy-is-like-kid-saying-%E2%80%98punch-me-in-the-face%E2%80%99/

This woman. I could go point by point with individual issues that are serious problems with Palin, but the common theme is that she is the modern symbol of anti-intellectualism. She represents fear and brazen rejection of education, and pride in fundamentalist dogma. I'm sure this is preaching to the choir here. But as much as I'd love to discount the woman and let her go back to populating the northern part of the country with little Truks and Lugz and Talladegas, there are too many people---people I know, in fact---who not only don't find her batshit crazy, they agree with her. They like her. Back when it was first announced that she would be McCain's running mate, I remember asking my mom (a Christian conservative) one day what she thought of Sarah Palin. She smiled at me and said, "I think she's gonna win it for the Republicans!" That kind of blatant disconnect with reality is prevalent around here.

Palin consistently trips up, says dumb things, and contradicts herself, yet when time after time it's pointed out, she spins it to her faithful as the media being unfairly fixated on her. And they buy it. I'm not sure whether the problem is more the Sarah Palins of the world, or the Sarah Palin admirers. And sometimes I wonder if she really is an evil genius---last week, when giving a response to the accusation that her supporters are becoming violent, she replied, "Anyone who uses threats of violence will be in my crosshairs." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/palin-warns-anyone-who-th_b_515764.html Seriously? (this coming shortly after a map on her facebook page marking Democrat senators with actual crosshair icons http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/palin-uses-crosshairs-to-identify-dems-who-voted-for-health-care-reform.php )

She also made the really awesome suggestion that Obama haters, when they see stupid commie douchebags driving around in their fuel-efficient cars with their Obama stickers, to go yell in their faces and start political arguments in the middle of traffic. What a real American! Sarah Palin loves to be divisive; when I watch video of her running through her zingers, you can see the glimmer in her eyes. She was a Mean Girl in school for sure, snarking on freshman thighs and delivering fatal one-liners in her now infamous nasal honk. She lives for getting in front of a crowd and really giving it to those gosh-darn liberals. I'd love to see her actually talking with people who don't support her---you know, fake America, gay people, poor people, anybody who's not white, anybody who's not a Republican, people who don't shoot things, etc. Now that would be good teevee.

I Knew This Was Coming...

The healthcare bill has passed. Teabaggers have screamed, spit has flown, tears have been shed, and although most of the bill's provisions won't go into effect until 2012, there have been some starts and stops already. Last week we learned that the insurance companies found a loophole allowing them not to insure children until the 2012 deadline. I've personally already spoken to people who have never bought insurance who are losing their shit over the mandate (which admittedly does sound scary when you only get your information about it from Fox News). The bill is not perfect, and there could be more problems. I hope it's a step in the right direction in overhauling our healthcare system, which is broken beyond belief.

When I say it's broken, I speak from experience, as someone who not only does not make a lot of money, but who has only had insurance---really, really shitty insurance---for the past few years. I won't go into a long breakdown of how my health has been negatively impacted by the insurance industry, but I am not the only one who believes the system to be in need of serious changes.

But this is the thing, and it may get me some flack. I don't care, I work in fucking retail, I hear that shit all day.

Thanks to Bush II, there have been a lot of wealthy businesses and people who have never paid their fair share of taxes. For those people, taxes will go up. I do not give a shit. Cry about it all you want. There are still others who have long enjoyed the privileges of the good life, Cadillac healthcare plans, great jobs at awesome companies who treat them well. That's all fine and good; there's nothing wrong with succeeding, or working for a company that is good to their employees (that's what we all want).

But if you lose some of your benefits, or suddenly become subject to cutbacks, remember that there are people who were much worse off who will now be able to go to the doctor. Real hardship is losing your job, losing your health coverage, or suffering a catastrophic illness. Having to pay more, or getting less shit for free than you used to, does not count as a real hardship. Yes, it sucks. But if you still have a roof over your head, food on the table, and a steady check in the mail, then that is actually pretty good these days. Also, I would wonder if your boss, or your boss's boss, had any of his benefits cut. Oh that's right, he's still in Acapulco.

It's not that I'm unsympathetic to people's hardships. It's just that here in America, there seems to be this tendency of people who have it really good to start bitching the second there's not a spoon in their mouth. Do you realize there are people who struggle, and often fail, to pay the power bill? Who literally have to scrape together change to buy their medication?

And for the record, my insurance has gotten shittier, my benefits lessened and my payments more. I fault the insurance companies, not the healthcare bill. They are the heartless money-grubbing assholes who fuck up everybody's healthcare, charging high premiums and then denying coverage. Hopefully Obama will not let them get away with more murder between now and 2012.

Right-Wing Violence

Giving Her the Ol' Dick Cheney

This morning, I had a fun facebook interaction with one of my in-laws. Ahh, facebook. Without you, how else would I know these people were crazy?

Cell phone etiquette, dental work touched by the Lard, and Healthcare reform

This week, I had my camera at the shop and ranted in my downtime. I talk about cell phones, tell a short story from the good ol' days at MorningStar Ministries, and touch on the healthcare vote which will be happening today. Yes, I have ADHD. No, I will not be uploading a video every day, I promise. As much as I hate humanity, I will not inflict my videos on you poor suckers every single day.

Does anybody watch these? And what would you guys like to see?