Liberty and Justice for All!

A recent poll states that only 8% of Americans want Congress to be reelected. This is just about as dumb as the congressional approval rating polls. Why are such polls meaningless? Because at the end of the day, incumbents typically have a 85%+ reelection rate for Congress.
Usually people disapprove of Congress as a whole. However, they love their own Congressman for “bringing home the bacon needed economic development funds”.  Pork is often defined as tax dollars that Congressmen who don’t represent you bring home to their districts. This is why Republicans can get away with bashing the stimulus while using the funds from the stimulus bill to promote what a good job they are doing as an elected official.

I find it likely that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the GOP will use this poll as “proof” that America is unhappy with the Democratic ran congress. I also find it likely that many conservatives will believe them without thinking about what the poll actually says (which is nothing).

I guess Tim Tebow was so impatient to be seen in the Superbowl that he couldn’t wait to get drafted and take his team there. Apparently, he will be staring in a commercial sponsored by Focus on your own damned the Family. Word has it that Tim will be reading a thank you note to his mother for not aborting her pregnancy when she fell ill (even though her doctors told her that it was dangerous to remain pregnant).

Now, that decision was her choice to make and she was free to either take that risk or not because of Roe v Wade. Women’s rights groups are taking the angle that CBS should not be helping to promote a group that they feel is anti-woman and anti-gay. I would take a different approach though. The choice to have an abortion is one that I will never have to face and it is a choice that I would not wish on anyone. Women who have to make that decision are likely having a hard enough time of it as it is, they do not need people telling them what choice they should make… pro or con.

The only people that should be giving advice on a medical procedure, unsolicited, are doctors. Any other advice on abortion should be given when requested only. And to encourage women to not obtain abortions when their lives are in danger is absolutely and 100% irresponsible!  Imagine a woman who is given false hope of life from a Superbowl commercial. She goes against her doctors recommendations and decides to not abort her pregnancy. She then dies because Tebow thanked Mommy and her family (perhaps her other children) have to go on without her… all because some extremist conservatives decided that it was a good idea to guilt women into the choice that was not best for them or their families.

Instead of calling for the commercial to be pulled, perhaps a counter-commercial should be aired to confront this one instead. A commercial both proclaiming the support of the ability of Tim Tebow’s mother to make that choice and showing how irresponsible it is for people without medical degrees to be convincing sick people to not get treatment.

Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling just handed our government over to huge corporations and will prevent the ability of any real meaningful candidacy to oppose the candidates selected by the corporations.

In 2007, Exxon Mobile made over $40 billion in profit. There are typically 33-34 Senatorial elections every 2 years. If they set aside just over $1.5 billion per year for Senatorial elections, they could literally fund $80 million of advertising per hand selected candidate in each election year.

Between 2005 and 2010, Senator Harry Reid spent just over $5 million. In the same time period Senator DeMint spent just over $2 million. Even Senator Landrieu in a swing state spent only $10 million in that time period. Senator Hutchinson spent $14 million during that time as well. The hand picked candidates of Exxon Mobile would be able to have $80 million of advertising ran for each them over that same time period (or over $17 million a year).

Before this decision, the RCCC only had $2 million on hand to support candidates this year. Now, big oil can put up $3 billion every 2 years and pay for $10 million in advertising for 300 GOP congressional candidates, more than enough to control the House of Representatives.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi spent just over $1 million on her election. Republican Eric Cantor spent just over $1.5 million on his election.

Sure, that assumes that Exxon Mobile would spend $3 billion of its net profits a year on elections. But why wouldn’t they if they would then own Congress and our their Government.

Anyone who claims that only liberal courts can be “activists” is an idiot. And what the hell ever happened to the idea of Stare Decisis that Justice Alito supposedly respected?

The election over the open Massachusetts Senate seat is coming into the final stretch and it is closer than perhaps many people would have thought. Conventional wisdom would seem to favor the Democrat (Martha Coakley) but Massachusetts has elected Republicans in statewide elections before (Mitt Romney anyone?). I believe that all of the Governors between Dukakis and Patrick have been Republicans.

Democrats in that election are making one huge mistake and I fear it could be costing them votes, if not the election*. They are trying to paint the seat as “Teddy’s Senate Seat” and that we cannot let the Republicans take it away so they can kill healthcare reform.

The Democrats seem to forget that Ted Kennedy did not have very long coattails. Besides all the GOP governors who won while he was in the Senate, Kennedy also endorsed Obama in the primaries and Clinton took the seat. While Senator Kennedy may have been very popular in Massachusetts, it doesn’t seem that he was really ever able to share that popularity with others. So what makes the Democratic Party think that it will be able to do what Teddy Kennedy could never do, which is to use the luster of Teddy Kennedy to help others win in Massachusetts?

Furthermore, Massachusetts is a state that already has healthcare reform with  universal coverage. Telling them that they need to support a Democrat to help with healthcare reform for other people doesn’t seem very smart at all. Perhaps they should have focused on Cap and Trade, or the Employee Free Choice Act, or that he once voted to allow for religious exemptions so that pro-life doctors and nurses could deny access to the morning after pill for women in the ER. (They did put that vote in an ad, but that is not the focus of the campaign).

Instead of trying to label this as being “Teddy’s seat”, perhaps the Democrats should be claiming that this is the “people’s seat” and that only by supporting the Democratic Candidate in this election will you elect someone who will stand up and fight for the people of Massachusetts in Washington D.C.

Just sayin…

*I really do think Coakley will win, but I really think the Democrats are not fighting this election in the right way.

I just watched WWL and they interviewed Bobby Jindal on his two year mark as governor. It is really sad that WWL will continue to not question Governor Jindal on his claims. See, Governor Jindal said that one of the reason we are doing better than other states in the union is that our unemployment rate is lower. WWL didn’t ask why.See, when Bobby Jindal rejected the stimulus funds meant to increase the length of time that someone can collect unemployment payments, he made it so people would stop receiving payments sooner, especially when compared to states that accept the funds. When people stop getting unemployment payments because their benefits run out, they are no longer counted as being part of the workforce. This makes Louisiana have an artificially low unemployment rate as compared to the rest of the country.So why is our unemployment rate as low as it is? It is because Bobby Jindal manipulated the system so it would be that way. Yet WWL allows him to tout himself and how wonderful he wants people to think he is. Why should we take them seriously?

Rep. Akin (R - Mo.)  screws up the pledge!

I find it quite ironic that a Republican would skip the word indivisible. Kinda reveals how the teabaggers want us divided.

Link 

There is a movement going on called PASS. It stands for Parent Approved Skip School day. Conservatives have a letter ready to go to their principal in Mandeville telling her that they intend to keep their child home from school on this coming Tuesday because  they want to “make it clear to you, your staff, other parents, and (most importantly) our child, that we do not support this President or his his radical leftist agenda.”

So they are keeping their kids home from school in an act of  “civil disobedience”. But it seems they have forgotten an important part of the act of civil disobedience. And that is when you commit an act of civil disobedience, you must also be willing to deal with the consequences of that act.

They write in that letter: “Our son, __________ will be prepared to make up any classwork he has missed. We expect he will be given an opportunity to make up any tests as well.”

I say nay nay!  Of all the horrible lessons that they are teaching their kids (that you should skip school if you disagree with the subject matter or that you should not listen to people who disagree with you), this may very well be the worst lesson that they can teach their children… that your actions do not have consequences. If they want to keep their kids home from school then that is their call. But this should not count as an excused absence and if there are tests on that day, too bad. Little Johnny gets a 0. After all, that is the consequence of missing school with an unexcused absence. I hope their kids grow up and when they are late for curfew say “but that’s ok Dad, I was practicing ‘civil disobedience’ and as you showed me when I was younger, acts of civil disobedience require no punishment”.

I also want to point out, as others have pointed out so far, the absolute hypocrisy of the arguments made by these conservatives. They claim that the President should not use children to push his agenda. But Ronald Reagan did just that by explaining why we should cut taxes. They claim that President Obama is awful for asking kids to write and tell him how they can help Obama “achieve his goals”. Even if that was the case (which it isn’t, the Department of Education was talking about students achieving their own goals) it shouldn’t matter because President George H. W. Bush asked students: “Write me a letter on ways you can help us achieve our goals”

Obama is doing a good thing by suggesting that kids should stay in school and by telling them how important an education can be. But people hate him so much that they just have to turn every positive Obama does into a negative, even if it means that they are hypocritical when they likely supported their former GOP presidents while they did the same thing. With all that, and with their teaching their children terrible lessons (that their actions should have no consequences), this is why conservatives who are against Obama speaking to the schools should be constantly mocked and ridiculed for their foolish behavior. It is time we drew a line in the sand and said “no more” to this foolishness.

A little slow there, huh? I remember discussing the redistricting issue back in January of this year and in November of last year.

The real story should be “How will the Democrats in the Louisiana Legislature handing over the leadership of the State House to a Republican effect redistricting”.

They voted for Proposition 2, a bill that gives chickens and pigs better living conditions.

However, the also voted for Proposition 8, a bill banning gay marriage in California.

So let me get this straight. It was the position of the California voters this year that chickens and pigs deserve more rights, but gay people deserve less rights? Am I getting that right? Isn’t there something completely wrong with this picture?

Anyone who voted for Prop 8 in California should be ashamed of themselves.