One of my stereotypes of Republicans, and I am a believer that there is a lot of truth in stereotypes, is that they like to think of things in terms of black and white/with us or against us/good vs evil. And further that the reason for this is a less advanced process of thought where everything is simplified and the answers are more easily explained and attained. Things all sort of fit into a neat package and there is always some omniscient interpreter, such as Rush Limbaugh or Fox News who are there to explain how and where everything neatly fits. That is why so many R's are more likely than progressives to be of the evangelical strain where the Bible, and God, have all the answers, not just for life on earth, but potentially more perplexingly, what happens after we die.
And they are in opposition to us hand-wringing, discerning and threshing, left-wing-types who are always trying to see every possible permutation of a problem, every corner of grey, taking care not to step on anyone's toes or hurt their feelings or making anyone feel emotionally or economically less healthy.
And all this is leading up to one paradox, which is to wonder why we progressives are more willing to let government have more of a say in our lives, giving us the answers, providing for us economically and to some affiliated extent, emotionally as well.
So to totally oversimplify, for those on the right, they think God has all the answers and for those of us on the left, we think government will provide for us.
And in the end, I think both are wrong - we the people can, should and generally do provide for ourselves...and most important, for each other.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
Put that in your belly and smoke it!
I used to hear stories about people dying of lung cancer who couldn't give up smoking, and I thought it pretty stupid. That was until recently when I happened to walk past a mirror while I was eating a cupcake.
The first response to my letter to the editor last week and my response to him
A different take on Obama's policies
Published: Sunday, June 05, 2011
Jamie McVickar needs to do a better job checking some facts before he displays abject ignorance presented recently in these pages. He also needs a lesson in the rights of creditors as they related to the so-called bailouts of GM and Chrysler.
Obama thwarted long established bankruptcy proceedings and gave his union buddies favored treatment over more deserving creditors. His statement that GM and Chrysler repaid their taxpayer funded loans is wrong. They merely took taxpayer money out of other government grants and applied them to loan payments. Result: We taxpayers are still owed the money.
His "clear majority of Americans" that approve of Obama's performance is also wrong, and the only reason Obama enjoys his current favorability is attributable to his being dragged kicking and screaming into finding Osama bin Laden, thanks to the Bush interrogation policies Obama so violently opposed.
Last week we witnessed Obama's duplicity when he urged Netanyahu to negotiate with a terrorist just after Obama ordered the killing of another one, quite probably in violation of U.S. law. Even Saddam Hussein had his day in court.
Mr. McVickar tells us more untruths about the Paul Ryan budget plan that he claims will add to the national debt. This has as much credibility as the Democrats ad showing "grandma" being pushed off a cliff. After all, it is Obamacare that steals Medicare funds.
Let's face some unpleasant facts: Obama's "hope and change" has turned out to be a magnified version of the worst of Bush policies, not the least of which are uncontrolled spending and yet another involvement in a Mideast war. To claim that Obama policies work is insanity.
Paul Linsen
Chadds Ford
Here is what I am saying in return, in a letter, hopefully to be submitted by someone else:
Hidden among the usual personal attacks in the recent letter by Paul Linsen, there are very few facts, as he himself proves. He says there is no clear majority of Americans who support President Obama and then goes on to say why there is a clear majority who support him. He takes Jamie McVickar’s point that Chrysler has paid back all the government loans, which is true, and lumps them in with GM, who, despite a miraculous turn-around, now finally posting billion dollar profits, has not yet paid back all the loans, although they are ahead of schedule. Obama helped the workers in the government loans, because his focus is on creating and saving jobs, something the Republicans, despite their successes last November, have yet to propose a single bill to address. Every credible, objective analysis of Paul Ryan’s budget shows that while he tried to get people all excited about gutting Medicare, the bill in the end does more economic harm than good. At least Linsen got one thing right in his letter when he became one of the first right-wingers to acknowledge that it was President Bush’s policies that put us in this whole mess that President Obama has done such an incredible job turning around.
In further evidence of the great job Obama is doing is an article in the New York Times, and echoed in Forbes magazine over the weekend pointing out that “federal taxes are at their lowest level in more than 60 years. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that federal taxes would consume just 14.8 percent of G.D.P. this year. The last year in which revenues were lower was 1950 according to the Office of Management and Budget.” The current tax rates, cut by Obama as part of the stimulus package and again at the end of 2010 for the current year, are lower than under the Republican deity, President Reagan. The article goes on to point out that the United States has the lowest corporate tax burden of any of the nations who are a part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, including every European country, as well as Japan, South Korea and many others. Oh, and who wrote the column in the New York Times, pointing out that tax rates under President Obama are lower than those of Reagan’s? Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan and a top treasury official in the George H.W. Bush administration. The answer to our annual debt has never been more obvious. It is time to increase the tax rate for the wealthiest Americans back to where they were the last time our budget ran a surplus, which was during the Bill Clinton administration.
Published: Sunday, June 05, 2011
Jamie McVickar needs to do a better job checking some facts before he displays abject ignorance presented recently in these pages. He also needs a lesson in the rights of creditors as they related to the so-called bailouts of GM and Chrysler.
Obama thwarted long established bankruptcy proceedings and gave his union buddies favored treatment over more deserving creditors. His statement that GM and Chrysler repaid their taxpayer funded loans is wrong. They merely took taxpayer money out of other government grants and applied them to loan payments. Result: We taxpayers are still owed the money.
His "clear majority of Americans" that approve of Obama's performance is also wrong, and the only reason Obama enjoys his current favorability is attributable to his being dragged kicking and screaming into finding Osama bin Laden, thanks to the Bush interrogation policies Obama so violently opposed.
Last week we witnessed Obama's duplicity when he urged Netanyahu to negotiate with a terrorist just after Obama ordered the killing of another one, quite probably in violation of U.S. law. Even Saddam Hussein had his day in court.
Mr. McVickar tells us more untruths about the Paul Ryan budget plan that he claims will add to the national debt. This has as much credibility as the Democrats ad showing "grandma" being pushed off a cliff. After all, it is Obamacare that steals Medicare funds.
Let's face some unpleasant facts: Obama's "hope and change" has turned out to be a magnified version of the worst of Bush policies, not the least of which are uncontrolled spending and yet another involvement in a Mideast war. To claim that Obama policies work is insanity.
Paul Linsen
Chadds Ford
Here is what I am saying in return, in a letter, hopefully to be submitted by someone else:
Hidden among the usual personal attacks in the recent letter by Paul Linsen, there are very few facts, as he himself proves. He says there is no clear majority of Americans who support President Obama and then goes on to say why there is a clear majority who support him. He takes Jamie McVickar’s point that Chrysler has paid back all the government loans, which is true, and lumps them in with GM, who, despite a miraculous turn-around, now finally posting billion dollar profits, has not yet paid back all the loans, although they are ahead of schedule. Obama helped the workers in the government loans, because his focus is on creating and saving jobs, something the Republicans, despite their successes last November, have yet to propose a single bill to address. Every credible, objective analysis of Paul Ryan’s budget shows that while he tried to get people all excited about gutting Medicare, the bill in the end does more economic harm than good. At least Linsen got one thing right in his letter when he became one of the first right-wingers to acknowledge that it was President Bush’s policies that put us in this whole mess that President Obama has done such an incredible job turning around.
In further evidence of the great job Obama is doing is an article in the New York Times, and echoed in Forbes magazine over the weekend pointing out that “federal taxes are at their lowest level in more than 60 years. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that federal taxes would consume just 14.8 percent of G.D.P. this year. The last year in which revenues were lower was 1950 according to the Office of Management and Budget.” The current tax rates, cut by Obama as part of the stimulus package and again at the end of 2010 for the current year, are lower than under the Republican deity, President Reagan. The article goes on to point out that the United States has the lowest corporate tax burden of any of the nations who are a part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, including every European country, as well as Japan, South Korea and many others. Oh, and who wrote the column in the New York Times, pointing out that tax rates under President Obama are lower than those of Reagan’s? Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan and a top treasury official in the George H.W. Bush administration. The answer to our annual debt has never been more obvious. It is time to increase the tax rate for the wealthiest Americans back to where they were the last time our budget ran a surplus, which was during the Bill Clinton administration.
Wow - 2 intelligent comments below
I tried to post this in response to the two great comments by Charlie and Anonymous to my Letter to the Editor post, but it wouldn't accept me commenting on my own post for some reason, so I'll do it here:
Great points by both of you, and Charlie, as you suggest, the R's are missing a great opportunity in 2012. They could nominate a pragmatist - someone who speaks to the middle, acknowledges past successes and failures, without regard to party, and similarly, can make proposals, involving tax increases and obvious areas for spending cuts and I think he or she could win. But the R's are so impacted by the far right, it's hard to see an electable candidate emerging. I don't think the tea party is as strong as the press and the Rs in general think they are and if someone would stand up to them, it would help them as a candidate in the short and long run. The one guy I think may be able to do it is John Huntsman.
Great points by both of you, and Charlie, as you suggest, the R's are missing a great opportunity in 2012. They could nominate a pragmatist - someone who speaks to the middle, acknowledges past successes and failures, without regard to party, and similarly, can make proposals, involving tax increases and obvious areas for spending cuts and I think he or she could win. But the R's are so impacted by the far right, it's hard to see an electable candidate emerging. I don't think the tea party is as strong as the press and the Rs in general think they are and if someone would stand up to them, it would help them as a candidate in the short and long run. The one guy I think may be able to do it is John Huntsman.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Articles that make me wonder why I still go to The Huffington Post
Headlines on one random day on Huffington Post - May 31, 2011:
- In Badminton, Pants Are Back
- Snooki In Custody After Cop-Car Crash
- WATCH: Mika HITS Joe
- WATCH: Tennis Player Infuriated After 12-Year Old Ball Boy Disrupts Point
- Woman Allegedly Wheeled Around Trash Can Full Of Body Parts
- PHOTO: Naomi Campbell Fuming Over 'Racist' Candy Ad
- Real Housewife Reveals Truth About 'Fights' On The Show
- WATCH: Giant Prehistoric Shrimp Was A Killer, Scientists Say
- Oh, Boy: Giant Baby Born In California
At this rate, here's my predicted headline upcoming:
- In Badminton, Pants Are Back
- Snooki In Custody After Cop-Car Crash
- WATCH: Mika HITS Joe
- WATCH: Tennis Player Infuriated After 12-Year Old Ball Boy Disrupts Point
- Woman Allegedly Wheeled Around Trash Can Full Of Body Parts
- PHOTO: Naomi Campbell Fuming Over 'Racist' Candy Ad
- Real Housewife Reveals Truth About 'Fights' On The Show
- WATCH: Giant Prehistoric Shrimp Was A Killer, Scientists Say
- Oh, Boy: Giant Baby Born In California
At this rate, here's my predicted headline upcoming:
AOL re-thinking their offer to buy Huffingtonpost.com for $315 million
Obama Poll Numbers
Opinion Research Corporation for CNN (PDF) (5/24-26, adult Americans):
Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president?
Approve: 54%
Disapprove: 45%
Now compare this to his numbers in early April, according to the same polling firm:
Approve: 48%
Disapprove: 50%
That's a net swing of 11 points in the positive direction in a little less than two months. Notably, much of that shift has come from independents and Republicans. Here's the net swing by party:
Democrats: -4
Independents: +23
Republicans: +24
Interesting that we Dems like him less now than everyone else, though not statistically signifigantly. Doesn't seem to be any policy reason, so maybe it's just because R's are starting to like him that we are changing our minds. For the record, I haven't changed mind.
Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president?
Approve: 54%
Disapprove: 45%
Now compare this to his numbers in early April, according to the same polling firm:
Approve: 48%
Disapprove: 50%
That's a net swing of 11 points in the positive direction in a little less than two months. Notably, much of that shift has come from independents and Republicans. Here's the net swing by party:
Democrats: -4
Independents: +23
Republicans: +24
Interesting that we Dems like him less now than everyone else, though not statistically signifigantly. Doesn't seem to be any policy reason, so maybe it's just because R's are starting to like him that we are changing our minds. For the record, I haven't changed mind.
Friday, May 27, 2011
NBA Finals
I doubt I'll watch much, but like 90% of the rest of the country, I will loudly say: "GO MAVS!"
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