Spending...

The picture is worth a bunch of words analogy applies here.  The right likes to give out the talking point, that is completely without foundation, that the Obama administration is spending us into some new hole.  Let's have a restructuring of tax law.  Let's have a real conversation about single payor health care.  Let's have a fresh look at sending jobs over seas.

There is just so much to do to fix the real ills of the country.  Get off the talking points and start to actually talk with each other rather than AT each other.

This smells and sounds more like a hoax leak... a fabrication of the Right than any sort of Democratic party reality.  There is a lot more to this than meets the eye and I can't wait for the follow up to this "story".

Obama in sights of the Righties

Look at a crazy opinion that the Right has put out there:

An Idiotic View

A very lame and uninformed opinion.  The War on Women is real enough but it is NOT centered on pay issues.  The studies cited are fairly bogus but the real issue is the war on reproductive rights and generally making obstacles where none should exist.  It is NOT an Obama point nor it is a 99% issue to say that the focus is pay.  The misdirection at the end of the piece is a problem that doesn't even exist in THIS country... introduce a bill for a problem that doesn't exist?!?!  That's the long game for Republicans and Righties, in general, it is replete with such misinformation.

The suppression of voters has been the near permanent province of the right not the Obama administration.  Yet another problem that doesn't actually exist... more misdirection and disinformation fomented by the right not the left.  There is a problem with the suspicion that there has been electoral misconduct but thus far there is no prosecution on this either.  There is no voter fraud but there may be electoral fraud. 

The 99% Movement is NOT saying THEY represent or speak for the 99% but rather they are pointing out that those in politics are not speaking for us very well any more.  To say that this opinion piece is ill informed and poorly written is to fall short of how bad it really is.

Occupy & Demand

It's time to Occupy again.  This is the season for more protest.  Need to start a sign factory?  Here are some starts for bringing things back in line:

It's time to make demands!

Keeping up with the crazies.

Climbing the road out of Mexico to rejoin the throngs of political debaters in the U.S.A. for the summer I am reminded that by November I will be ready to go back to Mexico!!  Even the few TV ads I have seen in the last few days tell me this is going to be a no-holds-barred election process.

Stupid is as stupid does.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Tie of M to Anything?

One of the many things that have been politicized for awhile is the legalization of marijuana coupled with the current drug war issue.  Actually, there does not seem to be much issue here... we have been TOLD it (marijuana) is bad and that it (marijuana) will continue to be illegal.  Yet more and more states find the question on the ballot and more often than not medical marijuana is finding favor with the voters.

The big scary that has been put out there, over and over, is that M leads to other harsher drugs.  While that was debunked long ago it remains one of the large bugaboos perpetually paraded out to warn us of M's legalization in any way.

ANNUAL AMERICAN DEATHS CAUSED BY DRUGS

TOBACCO - 400,000

ALCOHOL - 100,000

ALL LEGAL DRUGS - 20,000

ALL ILLEGAL DRUGS - 15,000

CAFFEINE - 2,000

ASPIRIN - 500

MARIJUANA - 0

----------------------------------------

Source: United States government...

National Institute on Drug Abuse,

Bureau of Mortality Statistics

The more we study (to death) M's action and potential the clearer it is that there must have been some other motivation to the banning of M.  I don't now recall exactly where I saw a presentation on the political history of M in America but I recall the essence of the presentation.  It was that the ban was instituted to control "certain" people in the population and to arrest with impunity those the authorities "needed" a reason to arrest where no other reason existed.  Think racial over & under tones.

For another take on all this:

Legalizing Marijuana

Villification

A recent FB exchange after I posted the above:

• Jeffrey Craig Simon Almost ALL of the media is owned by a few mega-huge corporations. They of course have a "right" bias. The GOP strategy is to tell a lie, then repeat it over and over and over again, until people begin to think it must be true....but it is still a lie. Tons of research shows the media has a center to right bias.
  

  Monday at 12:10pm ·
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  Cleat Edmonson Yes!! That's it exactly. It just gets harder to talk to the brainwashed bunch when they repeat this particular lie over and over again.
  

  Monday at 4:40pm ·
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  Michael Dodd You guys really think that the GOP is despicable don't you? Does that mean that individual Republicans are despicable or just ignorant fools?
  

  18 hours ago ·
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  Cleat Edmonson It means there is a trade off that we are no longer willing to ignore. Your straw argument is not real... there are always more than two choices. And, yes, for the most part what the "party" has become IS despicable, Mike, since there is no longer a willingness to work with or actually negotiate with others. That's pretty much why I can no longer be a Republican.
  

  17 hours ago ·
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  Michael Dodd
  

  What I am saying is that I am offended by your lumping most Republicans together (and I certainly am a Republican) as a brainwashed bunch (your words). Whatever, to mention a few things that the "liberal media" didn't bother to cover much, was Obama's ties with Ayers and Wright and Alinsky's book. Is that all a bunch of lies? You should be specific when you refer to the lies. Remember what Wittgenstein always said: "examples, we need examples." When you say that the GOP won't negotiate with the Democrat party, you should, if possible, give the point of view of the GOP, as certainly the GOP should do when giving their opponents point of view. I grant you that my argument was a straw man, something Obama uses quite frequently. You may despise George Bush but at least he gave his political opponents credit for honestly disagreeing with him, rather than do as Obama always does, accuse his opponents of playing politics when they don't agree with him, always putting hiimself in the position of the righteous one, the serious one. I believe it can be difficult to talk about politics; passions run high, and there is good reason for that. We disagree about some really important things: what the nature and aims of our country should be, how government should function, whether liberty or security is more important, or how we can balance those two ideas. I don't think Democrats or liberals or progressives are despicable by nature. I've known you for more than 30 years now, and have always esteemed you for quite a few reasons. You surprise me by your political views but I know you can do a lot better than sound so intemperate. 
  15 hours ago ·
  
  
  
  

   

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    Cleat Edmonson
    

    Mike, so much of what you say is untrue!! It is hard to start... especially in this venue. Your take on Obama is seriously flawed. It has consistently been the Repub's who have twisted the who did what to whom in the current wranglings. Obama often cites the differences and acknowledges those differences saying that the Repub's need to offer a solution not simply attack an offered plan or, worse, an offered compromise. GWB and his crowd turned evil... but the worst of the offenders are Tea Party thugs. And, yes, I do say evil. The agenda there is pathetically linked to that of a libertarian (that would be antithetical to traditional republican values) run Koch brothers agenda. The most distorted view of how the country should run is from the likes of the Fox newsers and I have been pummeled into an intolerant view of how much of that sort of nonsense I can listen to. Remember, here we started with Noam Chomsky's exposure of the myth of the liberal media. Really?? It has been demonstrated over and over that the media is not particularly liberal. It is equally demonstrable that the media IS tilted to the right. Republicans aren't despicable individually... but, republican commentators are projecting despicable values and the tea party group are not part of any republican party I can be part of. You are correct that we have known each other for a long time and I am saddened that you are offended by what I think. I will save examples for the blog when I restart it in a bit.
    
    

    So, here is where the rubber meets the road.  Examples: is it examples of right leaning media that is called for?  Is it examples of Republican lies that are in need of examples?

    
    

    From where I sit it is a problem of where to start... there are so many examples of both.  Just yesterday the House Speaker, John Boehner (R), called on the President to solve the dead lock in Congress!!  Can we say, "It is not within the powers of the office of President to do that"??  At every opportunity Senator Mitch McConnell (R) has said that there cannot be a win for anything that the President has asked for from the Legislative branch.  Generally deflecting from their inactivity to pronounce any problem an Obama problem.  This is not just politics.  More later.