Monthly Archives: January 2012

Mitt Romney Thinks $360,000 Is “Not Very Much” Money

Willard isn’t one of us.

I mean, we already knew that, but he won’t tell us how much he makes so it doesn’t have a definite mark.

However, we DO know he made almost $400k in speaking fees, a number he has now said is not very much.

His “not very much” is enough, by itself, to put him into the top 1% of American earners.

It is certainly more than my family has pulled in together over a year. Hell, over a few years to be honest. Prior to our move, we were doing okay, or so we thought.

We were barely making a down payment on what Romney thinks is “not very much”.

Heritage Foundation comes out against SOPA | Marketplace from American Public Media

We Americans may not agree on what we will use our freedom for, but even the bigots at the Heritage Foundation are against SOPA.

Of course, they likely see it as a pro-Hollywood gimme and I just see it as propping up a dead and dying industry, like tax breaks for oil companies.

Either way, thanks for picking freedom of expression for once. Can I interest you in supporting marriage equality?

Protect IP/ SOPA explained

I called my senators and representative. I signed a couple petitions online.

It doesn’t seem to be enough.

I’m broke so there isn’t anyone I can realistically punish economically.

My local politicos seem mostly, if not completely, on board with listening to the idea of not passing these crude laws.

Mostly, it just shows how uneducated our leaders are. And, oh, term limiting them and replacing them every election isn’t going to fix that.

Anyway, here’s a look at the dangers inherent in these laws:

What we learned (or already knew) from last night’s debate

I have no business watching a GOP debate so I only know what I’ve read. So, yeah, some of the message may be jaded.

That said, none of those folks seriously have a chance of earning my vote. A corporate raider, a lobbyist in all but name, the ick that is Santorum, Traitor Rick, and Ron the Racist. Um, no thanks.

After 8 years of Bush the Lesser and the GOP *still* has two Texans in the running? Including Bush’s understudy? Wow.

Anyway, the highlights I gathered this much are that Gingrich is (still) advocating for child labor. Yes, Newt, it IS good to earn a buck and to learn the lessons of money management, savings, and responsibility. However, you do not coach it that way. You want to fire a (often union) janitorial staff, tell kids not to worry about studying or extracurricular activities, and do what is, frankly, some pretty hard work.

Oh, and probably get mocked relentlessly by your peers if not handled properly.

The lesson here really is, bust a union or two, tell kids not to worry about their dreams and get ready for a low wage job.

Oh, and got a standing ovation for telling a black moderator to basically remember his place. Nice job, Juan Williams. Are you finally figuring out that you sided with the wrong people?

Rick Perry still wants to fight the federal government. This time he wants the feds to stop trying to stop him from disenfranchising elderly voters, college age kids, and minorities. So he’s either FOR mass-vaccinating little girls (which, frankly, isn’t that what we already do for polio and a host of other ills?) or he is actively trying to stop people who disagree with him from voting at all.

How a secessionist is trying to win control over the whole United States and isn’t laughed off the stage still amuses and befuddles me.

And people consider the Republican party a viable option in this country.

Gingrich’s Racial Doubletalk On Food Stamps | Mother Jones

Gingrich, and the rest of the GOP, want you to believe that the only people on food stamps are black and lazy. Or at least minorities. And only Democrats.

And for some weird reason, they think people are proud of taking welfare. I have never understood that argument. Then again, I don’t get capital gains tax cuts, farm subsidies or pay a pittance to dig out federal resources and then overcharge consumers, the way most of the GOP’s biggest contributors do. THOSE guys are VERY proud of their government handouts.

So maybe that is where the get the idea.

foodstampuse.png

Marketplace covers the truth on this. Many of these folks are elderly or under 18, but also many of them actually have jobs, just not great ones.

Barack Obama is Not That Hard to Understand | Mother Jones

I can’t wait for the future, when we put away the Birther BS and the angry progressive BS, which in the end kind of sound the same, and look back at this time as consider ourselves so very, very lucky we had this man in office instead of Palin.

And if you think McCain would have survived under this kind of pressure, you’re nuts. I think even he would agree if his most honest, quiet moments.

I could hand out a laundry list of things that definitely would NOT have happened in a GOP presidency, but you have your own angry list, part truth, part fiction, of how you’ve been disappointed.

I read Andrew Sullivan’s conservative defense of Obama, and – given its bias – agree with the premise if not quite the details.

I have a bias too.

Frankly, if I had secessionist nitwits from Palin to Perry questioning my patriotism, much less my status as a citizen, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my cool. If I had every abortion clinic bomber cheering for me to die and for the right to carry guns to national parks and to shut the whole country down because they can’t handle the color of my skin, I’d have given their fondest dreams a reality and built those damn FEMA camps they have wet dreams about.

Which is why I’m not president. I would not allow these “Christians” to abuse my wife, mock my children, hell, insult my dog the way this guy has.

I would have, literally, grabbed the nearest FOXNews git and choked them out. Or at least have spent WAY too much time fantasizing about it.

So, temperament alone, after the Age of Bush, I give the man credit. It doesn’t hurt that he genuinely seems to give a damn about this country to boot. Seriously, he doesn’t care what you think. It shows. And he’ll get to smirk quietly in his dotage as all his work pays off over the decades.

That said, I’ll thank him now. And hope he gets a second term where he really, genuinely can ignore the traitors. By that I mean the writers who fill the bookshelves with them standing in front of waving American flags with titles about how America is finished.

Seriously, they have had the reins of power for much of the past three decades. If America has failed, I place the blame at their feet.