Saturday, August 20, 2011
God's own poohbahs (the GOP) corrupted by cold, hard cash
In the latest issue of Sierra magazine (September/October 2011), Carl Pope, the former executive director of the Sierra Club, writes the following in an article titled "Hostile Takeover of the GOP - Polluter cash sets the Republican environmental agenda."
After eviscerating several of the so-called GOP candidates for the Republican nomination for president in 2012, he says:
"The sad fact is that the GOP has been subjected to a hostile takeover by the oil-and-gas industry--and particularly by Koch Industries, the conglomerate owned by ultra-right-wing brothers Charles and David Koch. It wasn't grassroots fear of solar cells that turned Republican candidates into boosters for climate change. Instead, think tanks funded by the Koch brothers, ExxonMobil, and others took advantage of the decline of fact-based media to transform climate change into a partisan issue.
"The virus that has undermined the GOP and is weakening U.S. democracy is corruption. Our Supreme Court has made the United States the only democratic nation where bribery is constitutionally protected, where corporations have the privileges of citizens but none of the obligations, and where money is equated with speech. Dirty Energy has bought the party of Lincoln and now calls the shots."
I agree with Mr. Pope but would argue that the GOP was not so much corrupted in a hostile takeover by the oil and gas industry, as it was a willing participant, offering its soul for the cold, hard cash that slithered into its bank accounts.
In addition, I would say that while the Democratic Party remains the only standing member of the
Decency and Common Sense Club in Washington, too many of its adherents have also succumbed to the wiles of filthy lucre.
Change is desperately needed. Change can come only when money is removed from the political equation. Unfortunately, that's likely to happen only when an imaginary hell freezes over!
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
The Scary Pastor Perry: Texas maniac
Mr. Bernanke was appointed by Georgi Buski. The stimulus money was to provide assistance to our struggling population. Rickie Perry used stimulus money in Texas even while he was railing against it (as did Bachmann in Minnesota)! And does Perry understand the meaning of "treasonous"?
This is over-the-top even for a maniac from Texas.
Pastor Rickie Perry, the Texas maniac, is just another Repugnican hypocrite. But you knew that! According to Teagan Goddard's Political Wire, Perry has now reversed himself on requiring girls to be vaccinated against HPV.
That was in 2007. Perry must have received instructions from God because he was absolutely certain he was doing the right thing by issuing an executive order in February of 2007 requiring all girls entering the 6th grade to receive the vaccine "unless their parents completed a conscientious objection affidavit form."
It's always interesting when these wingnuts holler about "freedom" and as soon as they get some power they attempt to stifle the freedom of their constituents. All in the name of their god, of course!
Now, Mr. Perry doesn't say he was wrong, but rather that he was "ill-informed" and shouldn't have made that decision on behalf of all 6th-grade girls and their families in Texas. You think? I think God better be very clear when talking with Perry as Perry seems to think God says what Perry wants to hear!
The hypocrisy of Perry, the Texas maniac, continues. Perry thinks spending is "out of control" in Washington (meaning, of course, those damn Democrats just have no fiscal sense). Because Perry thinks thusly, he opposes federal subsidies to the agriculture industry. Ah, but it wasn't always so.
Nope. As Salon reports, the Feds gave $9,624 to keep Perry from farming his 40 acres in Haskell Country in the 1990s. In addition, Perry's "tax returns from when he was in the [Texas] Legislature show he received $72,687 in agricultural program payments between 1987 and 1989, when he was farming his land." Perry's father also received federal monies. "As for his 40-acre farm, Perry sold it in 1998. Perry claimed a $17,693 loss on his federal income taxes for that year."
I think that Mr. Perry ought to return all federal subsidies and other monies that he has received personally and all federal subsidies that the state of Texas has received since he has been governor. We want a president who is consistent in his beliefs and willing to take the consequences of his actions.
Not so long ago, the governor of Texas, Pastor Rick Perry, urged his constituents to pray for rain. Pray, pray, pray! God has promised He will hear the prayers of his people. We desperately need rain, cried Perry, so pray! Well, hell, God didn't answer those prayers. Half of Texas burned to the ground and the state is currently in the midst of one of the worst droughts in history! Shame on God!
But Pastor Perry is undeterred. If God didn't answer with rain, well maybe he'll help our nation recover from the terrible beating it took under George W. Bush, er, Barack Obama. Perry seems to think the mess we're in is Obama's fault and that his old Texas sidekick, Georgi Bushki, had nothing to do with it.
Thus, Perry called for a Texas-size prayer rally (that means really beeg!) to be held in Reliant Stadium in Houston. Coincidentally, by the time the rally was held Perry was well on his way to become a candidate for the GOP nomination for president. That worked out fine, 'cause most folks don't question god's failures, and so Perry got about 30,000 Texas plus assorted religious freaks from across the country and spent a day haranguing the good Lord to do something, please, about the state of affairs in their beloved ol' U.S. of A.
Try to imagine Pastor Perry at the podium, eyes closed, but pointing skyward, where his god lives, pleading with his imaginary deity: "Father, our heart breaks for America...We have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us, and for that, we cry out for your forgiveness." Pastor Perry thinks that if the country becomes truly "christian" God will fix everything that's wrong. That's why Pastor Perry wants to be president; so he can personally roll in the golden age!
Well, sorry Charlie, but Perry's piddly-ass little deity didn't do anything about the much-needed rain, but rather increased the drought and you can be sure as a Texas thunderstorm he ain't gonna bother hisself trying to fix America when it was Perry and his ilk that brought the country to its knees in the first place! What's frightening (if you believe in this stuff) is that Perry's god may make conditions worse in the U.S.
We're going to be looking very closely at Perry's so-called accomplishments and the real state of affairs in the state of Texas, but a note should be made about Perry's claim of economic success. Right now, he's claiming that Texas is leading the nation in job creation. Well, maybe. But almost all of those jobs are crap jobs!
Time magazine put it this way: "...lurking behind Perry's record of job creation are substantial caveats. Perry largely inherited from George W. Bush the state's business-friendly environment [and that's another story in itself!], with no income tax, an abundant energy supply and a steady influx of cheap labor. And the state is hardly a workers' paradise. Nationally, Texas ranks at the bottom in terms of health-insurance coverage; many of the jobs he has created are low-wage positions, and many of the jobs he has lured from other states have required public money and tax subsidies. Moreover, Perry has made fiscal missteps. He had to scramble to close a $27 billion budget shortfall earlier this year. A superhighway he proposed was killed after howls of protest state-wide, and he created a public-private business-development fund that has opened him up to charges of cronyism."
Perry is a teapot crackpot, and sometimes really stupid. It was a couple of years ago at a Teapot rally in Austin that he threatened secession "if Washington couldn't get its act together." Secession sounds "treacherous" or even "treasonous" don't you think? This was said by a guy who has a habit of hanging around folks who still cling to the treasonous convictions of the Confederacy!
Finally, one has to wonder how many people are going to vote for a man who lies as a matter of course, and truly believes that God has called him to run for the presidency. And, if God has indeed called him to run for the presidency, that must mean God wants him to become president.
Oh, wait. Georgi Buski lies as a matter of course and he also said God called him to become president. And how many poor, deluded souls voted for him? I guess it didn't matter much the first time around. The Supreme Court voted him in as president even though the majority of the voters wanted Al Gore!
It's scary, though!
More on the scary Pastor Perry later!
Rachel Maddow - Iowa straw poll irrelevant...
...Michele Bachmann won because she bought the most votes (at $30 a crack!).
But Rachel has more to say about Rick Perry. Perry is scary! Does he think Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional? YES!
Sunday, August 14, 2011
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