Government

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Love it or leave it!

It’s our Independence Day, and mindless patriots are popping up all over the internet bragging about how much they love America while hating a majority of the people in America.cropped-cropped-us_flag_header.jpg

Usually, these “patriots” rant about how we need to protect America from immigrants and liberals and those who would change America from its original greatness. They proclaim their love for America and see any criticism of it as treasonous. “Love it or leave it!” they scream. (Let’s set aside for a moment the fact that many of these people never see their own criticism of liberal Presidents as treason.)

That’s the exact opposite of true patriotism. Our country was not founded on the idea that we should never challenge our government.

So let’s be true patriots. Let’s work to make America better. Replace “Love it or leave it” with “Love it and improve it.”

As (now-Senator) Al Franken once said, “Conservatives love America like a child loves his mommy, and mommy can do no wrong. Whereas we [liberals] love America like an adult loves someone, recognizing our mate has faults and taking the good with the bad, and always working to appreciate what’s there, being critical of what’s wrong and trying to help and make it better.”

That’s patriotism.

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The cost of the immigration bill

And now, another in my series of impressions of Republicans.

Ahem.

“We cannot afford Obama’s Stimulus! I don’t care if it will fix our roads and bridges and bring jobs, we just don’t have the money. And a national health care program? We can’t afford to give health care to our citizens!

What’s that? You want to spend $38 billion on a wall that will have very little impact on illegal immigration? A cost that even conservative Forbes magazine calls a “Bonanza for Defense Contractors”? You say that the money we’d be spending per illegal immigrant would provide health care for millions? Your point is?

Oh, while we’re at it, let’s buy a few more tanks and planes the military doesn’t want or need, too.”

uncle sam money

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Patriot Act Hypocrites

When it comes to the Patriot Act, there are just too many hypocrites to deal with.

The Patriot Act allows the NSA to listen to phone conversations and emails for certain key words, at which time they can get a subpoena to get all the records (a subpoena which has never been denied by the court — great oversight, huh?). It certainly appears to be a complete violation of the 4th Amendment to me and many Constitutional scholars, but until the Supreme Court says so, it’s the law and allowed.

For some reason, this is now a big issue, even though it’s been going on for about ten years. This has brought out a gaggle of hypocrites.

First, you have the ones on the right, who defended George W. Bush when he did this but call Obama’s use of the same law a gross violation of their rights. (These pundits and politicians, centered mostly at Fox News, are part of the same gang that said criticizing GWB during wartime was “treason” but doing the same to Obama during wartime is their patriotic duty.)

The clip below is a great example, showing Fox’s Sean Hannity’s position flipping 180 degrees based on whether this was done by a President Fox supported or one they oppose.

But this is not limited to the right. There are hypocrites on the left as well (though not as many) who opposed this under Bush but approve it under Obama.

The biggest hypocrite on the left is Obama himself. He’s ignored his campaign promises in this regard.

His view is apparently that he is against the abuse that can come from the Patriot Act — but doesn’t see that he is abusing it. In other words, he thinks “In the hands of a bad President, this would be a huge violation of our rights, but I’m not a bad President, and I have used it for good.” I think he is feeling some guilt over this and has recently began to talk about getting rid of it (again) because he is worried about who might hold that office after him.

So he doesn’t see himself as a hypocrite; he sees his position as changed based on the circumstances. How very convenient for him.

The good news is that there are those on both the right and the left who have been consistent in their views on this issue, and they should be congratulated and acknowledged.

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Scandalicious!

There’s been a lot of debate lately about scandals, with different sides proclaiming or denying said scandals exist.

I’ve been thinking about it and I’ve come to the realization that it all depends on your definition of scandal.

If you think there has to be actual wrongdoing before there is a scandal, then you may be in the minority. The way the word keeps getting used, it seems most people consider anything they don’t like to be a “scandal.”

Take Benghazi. There is no evidence that there was any wrongdoing, even though there may have been mistakes and bad decisions made. I don’t consider that a scandal.

Or the IRS. Apparently the people who made the decision to investigate groups that are against taxes to make sure they really are non-profit were conservative Republican Bush appointees. Has there been any evidence to show that this was done for political reasons? None whatsoever, and the people involved have said as much. Were there any laws broken? Doesn’t seem so. Does it look bad? Oh, absolutely. Does that make it a scandal?

Then there’s the NSA phone and email situation. It appears that this is all allowed under the Patriot Act, has been approved by Congress many times, and has been in existence since the Bush administration. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence any laws were broken. If there is a scandal, it’s that Obama broke his promise to stop doing this.

For that matter, it appears that the seizing of AP phone records was done properly under law, too.

So I’m having difficulty finding “scandal.” I certainly don’t like the situation with the NSA and the AP and am against these kinds of intrusions on privacy and freedom of the press, but the solution is to change the laws so that this is not allowed and to hold Obama responsible for doing these things in the first place.

But that doesn’t make them scandals.

I am open to evidence, however. If you have proof that laws were broken or actual wrongdoing took place, let me know. I am certainly willing to acknowledge it when it happens.

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OK, I take back what I said about Christie

I still admire him for speaking his mind, but his decision to have a special election is completely political in nature after all. I have to pull back my statements from before. Silly me, I thought better of him.

You see, he scheduled the special election to fill the empty New Jersey Senate seat for a few weeks before the regular election in November. This will cost the state millions of dollars, and has the express purpose of making sure that all of Cory Booker’s Democratic supporters who will turn out to elect him in October aren’t necessarily going to be there in November when Christie himself faces a Democratic challenger. His worry was that Booker’s supporters would turn out and, while in the booth, also vote for Christie’s opponent. Can’t have that now, can we? So a separate election it is.

Would a Democrat do the same thing? Sure, probably. Doesn’t mean it’s right, and doesn’t mean I’d support it — but then again, who am I to be surprised that there are politics in politics?

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Good riddance, Michelle Bachmann

She’s just so damn clueless, isn’t she? If someone acted the way she did and said the things she said in a movie about politics, people would laugh it off as being too absurd, too ridiculous to be real.

Bachmann’s not running for re-election and is giving a lame-ass excuse about how important it is for politicians to have term limits they set for themselves, despite having never once mentioned anything of the sort before. MICHELE-BACHMANN-300x290 It’s pure coincidence that she is being investigated for violating campaign finance laws.

The judge may be giving her a new term in the near future.

This is, after all, a completely awful woman, full of hate and ignorance yet convinced she is right because of her unwavering religious belief — just like the Muslim extremists she hates. Liberals are all saying terrible things about her now, but if anyone deserves it, it’s her. Look at some of the things she has said over the years:

“I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?'” Here, she’s suggesting that we’re all damn stupid for not realizing that natural disasters are God telling us we need to balance the budget. Seriously, that was her point.

“But we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States. … I think it is high time that we recognize the contribution of our forbearers who worked tirelessly — men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country.” Um, no they didn’t. You’d think someone who was elected to government would, you know, have a basic knowledge of these things, wouldn’t you? By the time slavery was ended, these guys were long dead. Plus John Quincy Adams was a child when the country was formed.

“In some ways, to believe in evolution is almost like a following; a cult following — if you don’t believe in evolution, you’re considered completely backward. That seems to me very indicative of bias as well.” Or knowledge. One of the two. I always get those mixed up.

“I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out: Are they pro-America or anti-America?” This was when she called for new McCarthy-like hearings to weed out politicians she thinks are anti-American. Because, you know, if you have a different political opinion than she does, there is no way you can be in favor of America.

“What I want them to know is just like, John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That’s the kind of spirit that I have, too.” During the campaign trail, in order to suck up to Iowa voters, she said this, but mixed up John Wayne and John Wayne Gacy, the child murderer.

“The bank bailout cost taxpayers $700 billion!” Um, no, it was $19 billion, and it’s all been paid back. But hey, she was only off by $681 billion.

“I will tell you that I had a mother last night come up to me here in Tampa, Florida, after the debate. She told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter.” She used this anecdote to vote against child vaccinations. Forget peer-reviewed scientific studies; some lady I don’t know told me it was bad!

“Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.” The ignorance of and hatred of science is one of her hallmarks, after all.

“I am not here bashing people who are homosexuals, who are lesbians, who are bisexual, who are transgender. We need to have profound compassion for people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life and sexual identity disorders.” (Insert joke about her husband here) But seriously, she’s once more ignoring science and projecting her hate and ignorance on us.

“If we took away the minimum wage — if conceivably it was gone — we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.” Hell, let’s get rid of child labor laws too! That would help. This is not only stupid but unsupported by any evidence whatsoever.

These are just a few I found with a quick search, but her ignorance could fill books. Good riddance to her and her attempts to install a theocracy in America.

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It’s all a matter of perspective

On September 11, 2001, nearly 3000 innocent Americans died due to the greatest attack on American soil ever seen. Later, over 60 others were killed at various embassies.

So what does Dick Cheney, who was Vice President during these attacks, have to say is the “worst disaster in his lifetime”?

Why, Benghazi, of course.

There’s no comparison!

I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit there.

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The latest IRS scandal

Let me if I can figure this out from the information currently available…

After the Citizen’s United decision, a huge amount of new political groups popped up and claimed tax exempt status. The large chunk of these were inspired by Karl Rove and carried names like “Tea Party Against Taxes” and other such things.

The head of the IRS is a non-political position that is appointed by the President for a 6 year term. It is fairly independent of the Presidency after that. George W. Bush, in one of his last actions before leaving, appointed Douglas Shulman to be Chair, and Obama was stuck with him for his entire first administration.

When Shulman saw the doubling of applications for tax exempt status, he opened an office in Cleveland with the responsibility of reviewing them. This office then decided “Hey, you know, groups that are anti-tax probably are the ones most likely to file false claims for tax exemption.” While that is probably true, what they did next was wrong: They targeted any group with the words “Tea Party” or similar right-wing key words, looking for applications that should be denied. (And, as an aside, they did find some.)

Still, targeting groups based on the position they hold clearly violates the 1st Amendment and was absolutely wrong.

Everyone agrees on that point, including Obama, who has called the action “outrageous.”

This has not appeased the right-wing conspiracy buffs who are sure that this was an edict from Obama in the first place — as if the President decided to order the head of the IRS — a Bush appointee — to stupidly target groups and the Bush appointee went along with it without a word. And people are buying it. They’re actually believing that happened.

As we all know from the Benghazi hearings, the lack of evidence has never stood in the way of a good witch hunt.

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How to be a Tea Party hypocrite

It’s really easy. Some of our best Tea Party politicians are experts at it. If you can say these things with a straight face, you may be a Tea Partier:

“The government should respect my right to be left alone to make my own decisions! Also, abortion should be completely illegal.”

“The 10th Amendment allows for state’s rights so states can pass their own laws without federal interference, so the feds should not be telling us what our local gun laws should be. And the feds should stop states from allowing gay marriage and should prohibit New York city from enacting laws limiting drink sizes or smoking!”

“The 2nd amendment is absolute and there can be no exceptions! And we should ignore the 4th amendment’s clear prohibition against people being arrested without probable cause or the 5th’s against self-incrimination when it applies to people we don’t like, because those exceptions are perfectly allowable.”

“The government should not be telling us that we can’t have our religion in their schools. And they should do everything they can to stop this creeping Sharia law infringing upon us!”

“We have to cut the budget to save money no matter how much it may hurt. But not if it means my plane is late or that we have to stop building tanks in my district that the army doesn’t need.”

“We can’t give money to poor people, because that would kill their incentive. We need to give money to rich corporations to give them an incentive to expand and build the economy.”

I’ll stop there, but I’m sure you can think of other great examples…

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The 11th Commandment in South Carolina

South Carolina proved how much they love the Bible and Christianity last night by electing Mark Sanford, the adulturing liar, whose slogan was “He’s still got 8 Commandments left he ain’t violated!”

You may remember him as the fellow who used to be governor, cheated on his wife, went “hiking on the Appalachian Trail” to be with his lover in Argentina, and used taxpayer money to do it all.

Upon being elected, he said “I thank the people of South Carolina for their trust.” He then wrung his hands, threw back his head, and emitted an evil laugh.

But you know, his opponent was a Democrat. A clean, honest, decent Democrat but that’s not enough for South Carolina. If Jesus himself came back as a Democrat, he’d lose in South Carolina.

This is the state, just to remind everyone, who also kept re-electing Strom Thurmond, a man who was once a member of the KKK and who fathered an out-of-wedlock child with a black woman and then never told anyone until the child was grown. Ten Commandments? Who cares, his opponent was a Democrat!

It wouldn’t be quite as ironic if they were equally forgiving, but when Bill Clinton had an affair, these same people voted to have him impeached and removed from office. So apparently the Bible only applies to the people they don’t like, and not to them personally.

“Do as I say, not as I do” is now the 11th Commandment in South Carolina.