Politico: GOP cancer: Party could lose 20 more seats
...the GOP has the political equivalent of cancer that has spread throughout the body.The GOP shed any pretense of representing the interests of the American people a while back. The party became a weird three headed monster of neo-cons, ultra-right wing x-tian conservatives, and corporate teat sucking greedy SOB's.
Combined with the 30 seats that the GOP lost in 2006, that would leave the party facing a 70-vote deficit against Democrats in the House...
The NRCC has now spent about $3 million to defend three House seats in the most conservative parts...lost all three of them...That $3 million total is about 42 percent of all cash on hand the committee reported at the end of March...
This monster gets topped with the seriously deficient, incapable, and policy phobic guiding backhand of G W Bush.
In return for this bad, corrupt, ideologically screwy, and militant crap storm, the American people get stagflation, endless war based on bad policy and lies, a long series of hypocritical scandals, a broken infrastructure, increased unemployment, loss of credibility in the world, and a president bent on rediscovering the legacy of Nero. That's only half of it.
All of this is topped with the nastiest bunch of loud mouth shit head propagandists to ever poison the ears of a population and pollute the air waves.
Maybe people are finally wising up. At least somebody is beginning to think that maybe there is something better.
6 comments:
Sande,
Voters have short memories.
Every so often, Americans need to put Democrats (aka Socialists) back in power in order to remember just how bad things get when they do.
All the woes which so-called “Liberals” are currently lamenting have come about since Democrats took control of the Congress in 2006.
If you want to return to the good old days of the Jimmy Carter “misery index”, Obama’s your man.
The highest “misery index” on record was 21.98, under Carter.
By contrast, the misery index for April, 2008 was 8.94 (59% lower than under Carter).
Be careful what you ask for.
sbvor thanks for posting.
I don't blame you for the socialist reference, my words were harsh. You must remember that many are extremely upset with Bush and his neo-conservative agenda.
I can assure you, Democrats are not socialists. No president of any party will undo the market system and replace it with socialism.
On the other hand, many progressives find the corporate welfare system to be far more disastrous than entitlement spending, as well as being hidden from public view. I personally do not recall voting on a proposal to bail out Bear Stearns.
Both corporate and social welfare need limits.
The problem with the misery index in the context of your comment seems two fold. First, giving credence to the index, one immediately notices the "misery" of Ford. It is equivalent to Carter's. Also the "misery" of Clinton is equal to the best of the moderns.
The second problem is that the index does not account for many other miseries. For example - stagnant wages, trade deficits, and perhaps the worst of all the budget deficit. All have become more pronounced under Bush.
It is easy to obtain a minimum wage job, McDonalds is always hiring, but try living on the minimum wage.
Inflation becomes less than relevant because you simply can't afford anything.
Fascism which is characterised by jingoism, and the seamless link between corporate entities and political power is dangerously close in the present administration - for example the link between Blackwater, Haliburton, Republican sponsorship and Cheney respectively. Both companies have made massive profit through governmental projects while having unusually close political connections.
Sande,
1) Democrats are Socialists. That’s just a fact. One need not nationalize all businesses overnight in order to be a Socialist.
2) Regarding Ford’s “Misery Index” which was high, but was not “equivalent to Carter's”:
Nixon, behaving like a Democrat, foolishly implemented wage and price controls in August of 1971 (his worst ever Presidential blunder). Six months later, right on queue, the misery index began to rise. By April of 1974, these foolish wage and price controls were “mostly dismantled”. The misery index continued to rise for another 9 months before the economy finally recovered from this foolishness which is usually more typical of Democrats than Republicans.
So, blame Nixon, not Ford. But, yes. Republicans are not immune to the sort of economic stupidity which is far more typical of Democrats.
3) The Fed did not fund any bailout of Bear Stearns, they simply backed the loan required to purchase Bear Stearns. Backing that loan will not cost the tax payer one dime. That said, it is debatable whether that was a proper move or not. There are reasonable arguments both ways.
“Corporate Welfare” is a catchy phrase that makes for good anti-Capitalist emotional rhetoric. But, Farm Subsidies aside (which I do not favor), show me just one example of “Corporate Welfare” on the tax payer dime.
4) Clinton benefited from a Republican Congress which passed some Free Trade legislation.
5) Continued growth in personal income belies your silly workin’ at McDonald’s straw man.
6) For the facts on Entitlement Spending, see the charts at the bottom of this post.
7) Fascism? Read the book. If you’re playing the tired old Halliburton card, read the facts. Clinton was the only President who ever gave Halliburton a “no bid contract”.
So-called “Progressives” are nothing more than blindly and self-destructively anti-Capitalist.
P.S.) Recommended reading:
================================
If it Feels Good, Do it
================================
I read section section 1 of too complex.
There is supply and demand, the economies of China and India are growing, some say 10%. Many investors are keen on this.
No one believes that energy corporations are going out of business soon. Gas and oil will remain for some time. I do not share the notion that there is an infinite supply of oil.
Consequently, the best strategy at present appears to be maximizing efficiency. Less than 20% of the power within gasoline is utilized in the modern combustible engine. There is a lot of headroom available but not tapped into - efficient car designs at the minimum. At present in the USA there are 2 or 3 cars that get in the over 40 mpg zone. We lag behind Europe. There's supply and demand but then there's plain old excessive waste.
So fine charge $6 per gallon, $10 per gallon, its coming like it or not, complain or not, blame or not,but let's at least have cars that run better than 10 to 20 mpg. Cutting down of carbon emissions simply for breathing better quality air in the city alone is worth it.
Every single person in the USA who holds something as simple as an interest generating savings or checking account is invested in big oil. Even investment firms that produce SRI's will still gladly put your funds into BP. We are invested in oil up to our ears, as am I, and probably you.
I personally am exploring the companies that produce wind turbines, like Vestas, Siemens, and GE. Incidentally a 10,000 investment in Vestas in 2003 would be worth about 100,000 now.
As far as the worn out hippy thing, who cares. Every generation fortunately or unfortunately retains vestiges of their youth in the form of adornments to appearance. There's plenty of conservatives who still retain the scintillating sharpness of William Kristol or Newt Gingrich, or Trent Lott throughtout their adult life. Appearances are deceiving and appearances are relatively insignificant once one is out of the running so to speak. There's going to be a massive crowd of 50 and 60 and 70 year old people coming up who are tatooed beyond recognition, fortunately or unfortunately.
Liberalism is problematic, make no mistake. Liberals can be intensely egocentric surrounding preferred ideology. Liberals will point that out. There's nothing worse than a convocation of liberals from the point of view of attempting to unify around a singular point.
As far as retaining the ideologies that we learn as youth and changing them as we age - some people do, some change a little, some change a great deal. The goal here I believe would be to become more human in the sense of the best human qualities. The degree to which we do that is not something that any conservative can codify.
Sande,
First, I have a grand total of $0.00 invested in any sort of energy company. I am not now and never have been employed by an energy company.
Nobody said there was an “infinite supply of oil”, but:
1) There is no climate crisis associated with burning fossil fuels and we are continually improving air qualities. Examine this chart from this EPA report.
The countries we import crude oil from have essentially no environmental regulations. Hence, if the environment is your concern, you should want as much crude oil produced by The United States as possible.
2) In the Outer Continental Shelf alone, we have enough domestic resources to allow us to completely eliminate all oil imports from the entire Persian Gulf for “as much as 137 years”.
We need that buffer to buy us time to develop viable alternative energy sources. We are not even remotely close to having viable alternatives. And, allowing energy prices to go through the roof might prevent us from getting there by destroying the economic growth that would otherwise provide the funds needed for the private sector to get us there.
3) Remaining dependent upon Persian Gulf oil puts both our economy and our National Security in grave danger. The al Qaeda strategy for destroying Western Civilization is to destroy our economy.
A) As I have documented, our defense spending is extremely sustainable:
According to The Washington Post, these are the trends in defense spending as a percentage of GDP:
World War II - “nearly 40 percent”
Korean War - “15 percent”
Vietnam War - “10 percent”
Currently - “less than 5 percent”
B) The risk comes in allowing, for purely ideological purposes, energy costs to drag down our economy. Doing so could spell the end of Western Civilization when all we needed to do was make use of the energy available in our own backyard for only so long as is required to allow the private sector to provide viable alternative energy sources.
I suggest you review my newly revised post and all associated links.
Post a Comment