What's Good for the Goose

According to the state of Hawaii, two newspapers in Honolulu, the U.S. State Department and the woman who was in the maternity ward at the same time as Ann and saw Barack lying in the bassinet next to her own son, Barack Obama was born in the United States.

But, according to the "birthers", Barack was not eligible to be president of the United States because they claimed 1.) he was not born in the United States and 2.) according to the Liberty Legal Foundation, he was not eligible because his father wasn't born in the United States as they claim that both parents must be U.S. citizens at the time of the birth.

"Birthers" have been very adament about this throughout President Obama's presidency - that he was not legitimately the president because he was not a natural born citizen.

Which makes today's announcement from CPAC all the more interesting.  It's their announcement of the straw poll for president in 2016.  This is the list of people that they were willing to consider as viable presidential contenders carrying forward the Republican flag.

Check out who came in #6 in the running. Ted Cruz.

Ted Cruz who was born in Calgary, CANADA. Rafael Cruz, Ted's father, was born in Cuba and did not become a citizen until 2005. Thus, at the time of Ted Cruz's birth he was born outside of the United States and had only one parent who was an American citizen.

Given their vehemence concerning their concept of natural-born citizens, it's kind of amazing that Cruz would be on the list at all, let along as high on the voting ranks.

It would be interesting to ask them if they have finally realized their mistake and are willing to apologize to the president or if they are willing to admit that the importance of whether the candidate is natural-born is only important to them if the candidate is a black Democrat.

Would I vote for Ted Cruz, not in a million years. But that's because I disagree with his stand on issues not on his right to be called an American.

What Price A Life?

There are times when you hear Republican pundits say something and you have to ask yourself, "Do they really know what just came out of their mouth?"

Today was one of those days.

Mike Huckabee in trying to explain why health insurance is a terrible idea equated people with pre-existing conditions to burnt out buildings or totaled cars.  Yeah, according to this former minister of the Gospel if you have a heart condition, tough. Diabetes, forget about it. Arthritis, you are condemned.  In Huckabee's eyes you have no right to ask for health insurance because you are damaged goods. Your life isn't worth protecting.

And it gets worse.  He goes on to say that if you have a life threatening illness like cancer and the cost of treatment would be expensive, then your life isn't worth saving as it would lower the stock-holders of the insurance companies dividends.

Since Rev. Huckabee has established that, at least in his religious conservative mind, there is a price on human life, I'd like to know who decides how much a human life is worth? The stock-holders of the insurance companies? The politicians? Political pundits, like himself - does he get to decide how much is too much? Who should live and who should die based on what's best for stock-holders?  Who sits on that death panel and makes that decision?

I wonder if during Rev. Huckabee's studies of the Gospel he might have gotten hold of a bad translation, as I see no comment from Jesus saying that the man with the withered hand could not be helped because he had a pre-existing condition. (Mark 3:3-5) He did not turn away from the man with leprosy because he had no money. (Matthew 8:3) He did not turn from the paralyzed man because his was a life threatening illness.(Luke 5:18-19)

It's a shame that Rev. Huckabee didn't pay attention to Matthew 25:41-46:

  41“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;42for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink;43I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’44“Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’45“Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’46“These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Mike Huckabee suggested that health assistance is for the healthy, not the sick.  If he's paid attention to Mark 2:17, he would know that "it is not the healthy that need the doctor, but the sick."  But then again, Jesus wasn't trying to make a profit.  Huckabee apparently has forgotten all that he knew about how precious each person in this world is in favor of the income.  You'd think he would remember that selling out another for 30 coins of silver never really profited anyone.

Respect: Knowing When To Give, And When To Get

If I were going to list all the reasons that I had an issue with Ted Nugent being at the State of the Union address, it would take all day.  Most are pretty self-evident.  It's just poor manners to invite someone who has made threats against the life of the president.

But there was one thing that really got to me about Nugent last night.

It wasn't that he out and out lied about previous threats he has made against the president, the vice president and the secretary of state. Ted's never really understood that the comments he makes for attention can and will come back to haunt him.

No, it was that he didn't stand to acknowledge the troops.  ( I expected him not to stand for the president, the man was never taught that in polite society you show respect for the office even if you have no respect for the person in the office.) It was that he didn't even attempt to stand to show respect. The 102 year old woman did but not Ted.  And when he was confronted about it, he whined and claimed that his legs were shattered and that he was supposed to be having double knee replacement but came to the SOTU instead.  Problem with that excuse is there are videos of him after the SOTU getting around just fine - no cane, no walker, nolimping, nothing.

This man who was too big a coward to fight for his country when called and forced another to go in his place couldn't even rise out of his seat to show respect for members of our armed forces who placed their lives on the line.

Ted likes to shoot off his mouth and his firearms and act like he's a big guy but when the rubber meets the road, he's just sitting there like always in his own excrement.

I guess in a way he was right - he said that his legs were shattered - what he should have said was he doesn't have a leg to stand on and hasn't for a very long time.

Frum Here To Mendacity

It’s been interesting to watch the Republican pundits move through the stages of grief since Obama’s overwhelming re-election.

We’ve seen Karl Rove’s utter denial, Ted Nugent’s anger, Victoria Jackson’s depression and Allen West’s bargaining.  Each has been its own special type of political schadenfruede.

But today we actually got to laugh out loud as we read of David Frum’s reaction to the slap down of the Party of No and its Tea Party sideshow, because in reading his explanation, we moved from performance art to parody and farce.

Frum, speechwriter for President George W. Bush, states that it’s all so clear to him now – it’s all Fox News’ fault!

“Republicans have been fleeced and exploited, and lied to by a conservative entertainment complex,” he exclaims in his interview. As I read this I immediately harkened to the wonderful scene in Casablanca when Captain Renault announces that he is shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here.

For the second time in less than a year that he has acknowledged the obvious, that Fox News is and has always been nothing more than a propaganda tool for the far right but what makes his book teaser disingenuous is that instead of blaming those who pointed and wielded the tool, he merely continues to blame the tool. 

Recognizing that the media has been used to turn countryman against countryman, neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother is only half the battle because this action has cost this country American lives, those who authorized and utilized such propaganda should be brought to justice before their peers for inciting the domestic turmoil for their personal/political gain as they are no different than those foreign adversaries who train and teach others to hate our government and kill our citizens.

While it makes perfect sense to call Fox News on its slanted views, spurious use and editing of fake videos and hate mongering, it is even more legitimate to denounce those who supply them with talking points, those who furnish them with incorrect information, those who profit from the lying and the hate and who daily stand by silently as they have lead the foolish, the ignorant and the bigot towards easy, innocent marks for their frustration.

When moderates on the right are willing to open their eyes to that reality, that’s when they will have reached a level of acceptance.

Romney Charged With Ethics Violation: The Mitt Has Hit The Fan

So much for the days of the October surprise, this may prove to be the November bomb.

We have just discovered at least a few of the reasons why he refused to release his records before 2010.

In 2009, Ann Romney, along with one of Mitt’s key donors, Paul Singer, bought controlling interest in Delphi Auto, the former GM parts division.  Singer’s company, Elliott Management, then threatened to cut off GM's supply of steering columns unless GM and the government's TARP auto bail-out fund provided Delphi with huge payments.  Although the US Treasury balked at the concept, referring to it as extortion, ultimately, GM paid $12.9 billion. Now let’s put this in perspective, the auto industry which had made their family rich almost goes bankrupted and what do the Romneys do, they extort them to get some of that TARP money, money that he later told the media that GM shouldn’t have received.

That’s not going to make voters in auto making states happy and I can’t imagine those who resented TARP in the first place appreciating the idea that Mitt made sure he got his slice of the pie.

The Romneys made at least $15 million off the deal, which was then placed in an off-shore account in a limited partnership inside a trust. (For those of us in the ‘you people’ category, that’s like taking your extortion money to your sister-in-law’s house, placing the money in a teddy bear and placing it underneath the floor boards in the basement. Not, like you are trying to hiding anything, mind you.  Just keeping  it safe.) Then, interestingly enough, when it came time to fill out his Public Financial Disclosure Report to the Office of Government Ethics Mitt and Ann simply forgot to mention this windfall because they didn’t disclose the underlying holdings of their private equity and limited partnership funds.  (Because we’ve all forgotten where we left $15 million in our time, haven’t we?  Tell me the truth, if a man can claim that he forgot that he had $15 million dollars and forgot where he put it, do we really want him running the country?)

You see the reason this is important, by law, presidential candidates may not have major investments which could be affected by the candidate should be become president.  And owning a controlling interest in a company that can extort the largest automobile company in America definitely qualifies as having an effect.  And, as we are now aware that he has lied about one, we have to wonder what other financial investments he has that would be a conflict of interest.

Yesterday a formal complaint was made with the Office of Governmental Ethics charging Mitt Romney with an ethics violation, specifically of having a conflict of interest and demanding that he turn over his financial records in order to determine just that.

One has to wonder how the Republican Party and its voters are willing to hold up to the concept of a potential president who has ethics charges against him even before the polls open.

It was one thing when Mitt lied like a normal politician but as this campaign has gone on we have discovered that he may also be willing to perjure himself and “conveniently forget” to include information on financial disclosure forms.  We have to wonder if Mitt Romney is capable of telling the truth about anything. Does the American people believe him when he claims that he wants to help America or do we question if the vulture capitalist is looking at the United States as just another company to plunder for his own profit?

Campaign 2012: The Two Faces of Sandy

If you want to know a man's character, put him under pressure.  That's what my grandfather used to tell me.

Well, I think a major natural disaster right before a presidential election covers it.

With multiple states incurring billion dollar devastation, we are getting a clear picture of the leadership skills of both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.




Barack Obama put his campaign on hold so that he could be hands on in dealing with the emergency management. "The election will take care of itself next week. Right now, our number one priority is to make sure that we are saving lives, that our search and rescue teams are going to be in place, that people are going to get the food, the water, the shelter that they need in case of emergency, and that we respond as quickly as possible to get the economy back on track."

Even die-hard Republicans have appreciated Barack's on the ground leadership. Chris Christie commented on the Today Show, "The President has been all over this and he deserves great credit." and "I was on the phone at midnight again last night with the President, personally, he has expedited the designation of New Jersey as a major disaster area."



So, President Obama put aside the campaign and not only did the job he was hired to do, he did it well and worked with people who have in the past attacked him politically.

What was Mitt Romney doing?  Since he lauds his business acumen he could have stopped his campaign and made fundraising phone calls to his fellow corporate 1%'ers and raised millions to help utilizing private money as opposed to federal money proving the Republicans' small government theory worked.

He didn't.

He merely renamed his campaign rallies "storm relief events" which were nothing more than regular rallies in unaffected areas. When asked why political rally videos touting the candidate were played at an event which was supposed to be non-political, Stuart Stevens, a major strategist for Romney, could only say, "I don't know how that could have happened."  Apparently, even a Republican strategist knows when you've crossed the decency line.

When asked by reporters if  he would still consider eliminating FEMA as he has claimed in the past, Romney refused to answer.



Mitt had the perfect chance to show what he could do for the people.  Instead, he showed that he continues to be all about what is best for Mitt Romney.  Any assistance for the 99% is merely window dressing.

The choice could not be any clearer.

GOP and the Will of G-d

Once again a Tea Party/GOP candidate pronounced from on high that he was aware on the will of the Lord in the lives of the people.  In this case, it was Richard Mourdock from Indiana.

"I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that G-d intended to happen."

Interesting.  Given that mind-set, doesn't it logically follow then that he believes that the rapist was doing
G-d's will?  Under this religious dogma, would this not become a form of defense, that since a baby resulted, he was only following the will of G-d?

And if a woman shouldn't receive medical assistance to prevent medical issues after a rape, would it not then follow that a man should not have a bullet removed from his body after he's been assaulted since under Mr. Mourdock's theory, that's where G-d intended it to be?  That whatever occurs, be it disability, crippling infection or death, it was G-d's will?

It is truly disturbing to me that these Dominionists claim to know the will of G-d and it somehow always allows for sexual and domestic violence against women.

What's even more disturbing is that Mitt Romney supports this man in his bid for Senate.  If this is the type of man he wants making laws that would effect women, imagine what he would do with the Supreme Court Judges he could appoint.