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GOP Death Spiral
Author: BobR    Date: 06/03/2011 12:26:09

In 2004, the Republicans were riding high. They had the White House and both houses of Congress. Their ineffectivity and corruption finally wore down the electorate, though, and the Democrats took the House and Senate in 2006. In 2008, they increased their margins in Congress (admittedly by running conservative Dems in conservative states) and took the White House. Their inability to quickly fix the jobs situation resulted in a voter backlash in 2010 that gave the Republicans back the House, with a "mandate" to fix the jobs situation and balance the budget.

Instead, the Republicans seem insistent on legislating their conservative social ideology, and cutting wildly popular programs rather than raise taxes on the rich, or restore tax rates to Reagan-era levels. The backlash against their plans has been loud and obvious, but rather than reflect and moderate their approach, they are doubling down on it. It seems both quixotic and suicidal.
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48 comments (Latest Comment: 06/03/2011 21:19:16 by Raine)

Stupid Season, again.
Author: Raine    Date: 06/02/2011 12:50:17

With a year and a half to go before the 2012 elections, we have officially entered stupid season. I think I am getting burnt out on stupid, be it Chris Christie using a state helicopter to show up at his child's baseball game, anything associated with Sarah Palin, Herman Cain, Rick Scott, Eric Cantor, Pawlenty, -- right now I just have little patience trying to talk of the stupidity of what is going on. I don't want to talk about them. I do anyway because I believe an informed people makes for a healthy government. I still care. We are in our fourth year here on this blog, with another few spent at our former home, it's been more than a half a decade that we've been doing this, and yes I still care. Sometimes, I just get tired.

What floors me most is the fact that so few people seem to care. So few people seem to be curious about what is being done to the middle and lower class in America. We try to educate here on this blog. There are many places on the internet that do the same. Sometimes it feels more like a fight against disinformation rather than for enlightenment.
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65 comments (Latest Comment: 06/02/2011 21:02:59 by Raine)

Hacktivism
Author: BobR    Date: 2011-06-01 10:13:42


Hacktivism:
(a portmanteau of hack and activism) is "the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends. These tools include web site defacements, redirects, denial-of-service attacks, information theft, web site parodies, virtual sit-ins, virtual sabotage, and software development."
-- From SensAgent


At the risk of sounding like a luddite, let me reminisce about the good old days. People used to buy newspapers and read them for their news (which supported jobs like reporters and fact-checkers). People used to actually talk to each other face-to-face, or occasionally on the phone. And when a political statement needed to be made, people showed up in droves with hand-made signs and protested... and they didn't expend more energy recording it on their phones to post online than they did actually participating.
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62 comments (Latest Comment: 06/02/2011 03:45:34 by Raine)

Ask a Vet
Author: TriSec    Date: 05/31/2011 10:29:27

Good Morning.

Today is our 2,995th day in Iraq, and our 3,511th day in Afghanistan.

We'll start this morning as we always do; with the latest casualty figures from our ongoing wars, courtesy of Antiwar.com:

American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03): 4454 3511
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03): 4313
Since Handover (6/29/04): 3595
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 226
Since Operation New Dawn: 36

Other Coalition Troops - Iraq: 318
US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 1,598
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 891
Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq: 1,487
Journalists - Iraq: 348
Academics Killed - Iraq: 448

We find this morning's cost of war passing through:

$ 1, 202, 126, 250, 000. 00



Well, it was all over the news yesterday. Perhaps that preacher in California just missed the date, because if the KKK counter-protesting Westboro Baptist isn't one of the signs of the Apocalypse....I don't know what is.
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64 comments (Latest Comment: 06/01/2011 02:47:08 by livingonli)

...
Author: Raine    Date: 05/30/2011 13:01:09



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1 comments (Latest Comment: 05/30/2011 16:04:42 by livingonli)

Go at it
Author: velveeta jones    Date: 05/29/2011 12:46:08

Open Blog today whilst I deal with some drama.
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2 comments (Latest Comment: 05/29/2011 23:46:36 by TriSec)

Got Gas?
Author: TriSec    Date: 05/28/2011 10:35:50

Good Morning!

I've got to buy gas today. Thankfully, the price has dropped by about 15 cents and is back down under $4/gallon in these parts. But was it the market, or the oil companies?

I've got a pet theory about that. Think back a while. Do you remember $3 gas? how about $2 or even $1?
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3 comments (Latest Comment: 05/28/2011 16:21:50 by trojanrabbit)

Friday, Finally.
Author: Raine    Date: 05/27/2011 12:40:06

It's been a personally challenging week and thankfully, it's Friday on a holiday weekend!

So, in light of that, let's just have a free and easy blog.

Have a wonderful weekend.

and
Raine
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54 comments (Latest Comment: 05/28/2011 03:57:20 by Will in Chicago)

Bad Manners
Author: BobR    Date: 2011-05-26 10:30:46

Sometimes it seems that the only behavior more crass than TV sitcoms is that of our elected officials. Discussions of policy and plans for our nations future start of with vague generalities and end up with pointed insults and namecalling of opponents. The saying goes that "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel"; it seems that too often our elected officials prove that to be true. Sometimes, they leave out the patriotism part altogether.
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36 comments (Latest Comment: 05/27/2011 02:22:52 by Raine)

Is the messsage recieved?
Author: Raine    Date: 05/25/2011 12:45:34

Yesterday, the Dems won a seat in the House of Representatives, NY-26. It was the seat vacated by Representative Chris Lee, also known as the shirtless Craigslist guy. It should be noted that this is a heavily Republican-leaning district and has only had 3 or 4 Democrats representing it since the 1870s

Is this a referendum on the Paul Ryan Medicare plan?
With 75% of precincts reporting, Democrat Kathy Hochul was leading Republican Jane Corwin 48% to 42%, with the tea party candidate Jack Davis getting 8%, and news outlets were calling the race for the Democrat.
Most analysts say so.Many people believe that this is backlash. People LIKE Medicare regardless of political affiliation Just don't tell the GOP that.
"This race is about the fact that it's a three-way race," Cantor told reporters. "I do not think it can be seen as a signal as to the role of the budget reforms that we have proposed, including Medicare."

Republicans could take some solace from the fact that it was a three-way race, making it a more ambiguous indicator than a pure head-to-head contest.

But it couldn’t be anything other than unsettling for Republicans to lose what had been a GOP seat since Jack Kemp held it in the 1970s.

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45 comments (Latest Comment: 05/25/2011 19:56:22 by TriSec)

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