The Morning After by Tom Degan

The Morning After

On Sunday evening the American people set their clocks back one hour. Last evening they set them back two centuries. Ain't politics oodles of fun?

Rick Scott - reelected

I was tempted to call this piece "Stupid Fucking Americans", then thought better of the idea. The sad truth of the matter is that I know quite a few people - a heck of a lot smarter than I - who voted the straight GOP line yesterday. While it would be grossly inaccurate for me to imply that all Republicans are idiots, it is beyond dispute that most idiots are Republicans. You don't believe that? I'll tell you what: The next time someone in your general proximity says something rib-ticklingly stupid, ask him or her what political party they're registered with. Get back to me. 

No, in many cases it has a lot less to do with stupidity and a whole lot to do with a deplorable lack of information. If the electorate had so-much-as a remedial knowledge of American history, they wouldn't be casting their lots with that disgusting party. Consider these unconscionable facts: There were more Republicans elected yesterday than any Election Day since 1946. Come January, there will be more Republican representatives in Washington than at any time since 1928! Is that a kicker or what?

Early in the evening when the trending was pitifully obvious, I had a couple of very strong drinks and went to bed. What would be the use of waiting up to view the political carnage? When I woke up at 2:30 and got the official word from broadcast news, I went outside for a smoke. Noticing the little flag that I fly to the left of my doorway, I quietly and unceremoniously took it down. Even at that late hour, in the dark of night, I was a embarrassed having it there. I'm not kidding.

There were pockets of good news here and there. My representative, Sean Maloney, barely squeaked by in a close race against former congresswoman and Tea Party robot, Nan Hayworth. As of this hour poor old Nan has yet to concede. She wants to wait until all of the absentee ballots are counted. Fine, let her wait. But other than that and a handful of other little oases in the national desert, most of the news this morning was devastatingly bad. One Republican congressman - under felony indictment - was able to keep his seat. What does that tell you?

Hideous Mitch

Most depressing of all was in my ancestral homeland, Kentucky. I've written before how proud-as-freaking-peacock I was to be connected with the place. Those days are over. A people moronic enough to send a corrupt, hideous gasbag like Mitch McConnell back to Washington as their representative deserve everything that happens to them. For thirty years Mitch has been nothing more than a handmaiden to corporate wealth and plutocratic greed. You would think - you would hope and pray - that his utterly clueless constituency would have caught on by now, wouldn't you? They haven't. It really is kinda funny when you think about it - a dark comedy.

I'm not going to lose any sleep over what transpired yesterday. In fact, I have been handed - on a silver platter - at least two years worth of dynamite material - possibly as many as six years! I'll be fine. As I've mentioned too many times to count, for people who blog about politics and politicians, these extremist freaks are the gift that won't stop giving. There is most definitely a silver lining behind this horrifically dark cloud. To tell you the awful truth, I can't believe my luck.

Hunter

"There is no such thing as paranoia. Your worst fears can come true at any moment."

-Hunter Thompson

It sure is sad. Any possibility of Barack Obama having a successful administration went into the toilet evening last. My prediction of a Democratic victory in two years are now "inoperative" (as Nixon's press secretary would have said). Between January and the election of 2016 you can count on them passing more-and-more restrictive voter suppression laws that will seal their power for possibly decades. Kiss this country goodbye....and get used to living in a nation in ruins.

Mah! Mah! The ol' plantation sho' has changed!

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

The Sun

America gets the government for which it votes and then deserves.  Thank God for the blue Houses of the Massachusetts delegation with sterling senators and representatives and thank God for the President.  One hopes it is a veto proof Congress which I think it is.

Some good things occurred last night if one is a strong Democrat:  The concession speech of the charlatan carpetbagger Brown was ear music, the all blue Congress especially Seth Moulton in the Congressional 6th District whom I adore makes my love for Massachusetts stronger.  Watch Representative-elect Seth Moulton and help keep him in office. He is brilliant, his military record is spotless with two medals of valor, he is humble, and his Harvard academic record is excellent.  For the cameras (excuse the looksist comment) he is handsome!  He has it all and I call him Kennedyesque except he does not have the personal destructive baggage so many Kennedys had.

Two other good things: Republican governor Corbett of Pennsylvania was unseated and Mark Warner won the Senate in Virginia.  I am sure there are some more good things but I cannot think of them and, clearly, the bad at this moment with a 7 seat pickup by Republicans in the Senate and an increase of 12 Republican seats from 2010 in the House prevails.

A quote from NECN:

A majority of Americans who took to the ballot box Tuesday disapprove of Congress and of President Barack Obama, an initial wave of national exit polling suggests. Exit polls showed 54 percent of voters disapprove of Obama, while 44 percent approve. A whopping 79 percent of voters say they disapprove of the job Congress is doing, with just 19 percent saying they "somewhat" or "strongly" approve of the job performance of lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Just 31 percent of voters say they believe the nation is headed in the right direction, versus 65 percent who say the country is on the wrong track.

How voters can disapprove of Congress so thoroughly and then elect more of those responsible for its obstruction and impotence I will never on planet earth know.  I can only conclude that the American memory is shorter than I ever before thought and its understanding of national history is perilously flawed.

Michael Moore in his documentary “Bowling for Columbine” tried to assess the difference in levels of violence between Canada and the US when Canadians possess just as many guns but the US death rate from them reaches the heights of Everest.  In his documentary "Sicko" Canadian single payer health care is reality.  His conclusion, I think, in part, was that Canadians have the feeling that government cares and its people care about each other.  They care whether one lives or dies, that it is not a sink or swim nation and in times of national peril they will unite.  Its neighbor to the south, us, has an Ayn Randian spirit of selfishness that courses through our body politic–almost tribal isolationist in nature.  It makes for a very violent, lonely and insecure nation where each of us plays a survival-of-the-fittest game and military might takes the place of social safety nets to protect us as there is little else that will.

Howard Zinn said change comes from the bottom up and Noam Chomsky asked me if there is an alternative to action.  No, I suppose there is not and the Nirvana election of 2008 showed good through people power can happen here.

We keep on going, play the ball where it lies and know there are decent people who, in our nation, care. As Little Orphan Annie the musical said: "The sun will come out tomorrow."  It has come out before in times of great national peril and we simply hope it will again but as President Kennedy said “God's work must truly be our own!”

Rigged

The predictions are dire right down to Brown the carpetbagger who is not even from New Hampshire winning and Shaheen who is such a good candidate and a native NH person losing and Baker with his fake crying winning. If a dem did what he did they would be blown out of the water.

It is why I think the whole goddamn thing is bought, rigged and we don't have a chance....it cannot be possible that an electorate which does not like the intractable congress and it's obstructionist division would think it a good idea to elect the gd party that is responsible for the obstruction. It's the Party that shut down the government for Christ's sake. It would be like a person having an obstructed intestine blocked by a rock and so to unobstructed it the surgeon puts more rocks in.

I am an inconsolable person. I just cannot stand the injustice that billionaires control it all and fix elections. They got more personable candidates than Sharon Engel in say Jodi Ernst who LOOKS better but is selling the same poison times 10. These Republicrats are utterly right wing extremist on the political scale next to fascist. They are wolves dressed in the proverbial sheep's clothing -- a Trojan Horse!

As to foreign policy where Obama lost his base let's hold Bush's feet to the fire and indict him. If Obama did what he did conduct a phoney war killing hundreds of thousands and destabilizing the entire Middle East he would have been impeached in a heart beat.

It's got to be that it is fixed the whole goddamn thing is rigged. It's got to be no one who is in th 98% could think Republicans give a shit about them. I am speechless for the first time in my life.

ONE MORE TIME -- BIG!

If you want to keep Social Security, Medicare, Healthcare and so many other vital social programs INCLUDING action on climate change and if you do not want ad nauseam waste of time and money investigations by Republicans and a possible impeachment of the President then you MUST vote DEMOCRAT ACROSS THE LAND AND GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE!

SEND THIS TO ANYONE YOU CHOOSE.

My Migraines

I am prone to migraine headaches that make me very ill.  Sometimes politics gives me one.  I had one at work, I remember, in 2000 as Bush was poised to take the presidency.  It made me sick.

Yesterday, while at Coakley campaign headquarters awaiting her appearance, I was asking a politico why Democrats do not pounce on Republicans when they are so (forgive the newly created word) pounceable.  He said because Democrats do not do that.  I felt my blood pressure soar and anger fill my veins and guess who that hurt?  Well, it did NOT hurt Charlie Baker.  It hurt me.  After 2 years of being migraine free I had one and never did get to see the, I HOPE, next governor of Massachusetts, Martha Coakley.

I am vowing this election cycle will not make me sick again.  I cannot do that to myself because no one is getting any younger and some point, I could make myself very ill. 

My final opinion until after the Tuesday possible Republican Senate take over will, I hope, show you what the President has done for us and what a Republican control of the Senate and the House will mean.

There is a lot to lose if Democrats do not win and if you do not mind losing every social safety net, every scientific advancement forged by a government agency and every help that our government has given to sustain all of us then you will love a Republican win.  The truth is WE ALL HAVE A LOT TO LOSE IF DEMOCRATS LOSE ON NOVEMBER 4, 2014. If you do not think so here is a lot-to-lose list I have drawn up:

The President with the Democrats has:

·        Expanded health care coverage for millions;      

·        The President and Democrats have pulled the country out of the Great Recession and reduced the deficit; 

·        They have reduced unemployment to 4.9% from a Republican induced high of nearly 10.0%;

·        The Democrats and the President have Repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell;

·        The Democrats and the President have passed the Lilly Ledbetter Act for women;

·        The Democrats and the President support a woman’s freedom to her own healthcare and birth control;

·        The Democrats and the President have repealed DOMA

·        The president has tried to end two wars;

·        The president has captured and killed Bin Laden

·        The President has taken nearly 30 Executive Actions favoring prevention of gun violence;

·        The President and the Democrats have supported a huge boost to Science, Technology & Engineering;

·        The President has taken landmark action on environmental protection and climate change;

·        The President has nominated and the Senate confirmed two women and progressives to the Supreme Court;

·        The President WANTS the “Dream Act” to pass and for the undocumented to have a path to citizenship;

·       Hispanics should know if the President could get a Congress with which he could work instead of Congressional Republicans obstructing everything against him, he would do MORE for immigrants and the children of them who have come to this nation and made a life. The Dream Act would pass!

The president did all of this DESPITE the obstructionist Republicans in the Senate & the House by their heinous agreement with each other, before the President ever took the oath of office, to block him to make his presidency fail.

Here is what Republicans have done: 

Shut down the government, threatened to not pay the nation’s bills which would have sent the nation and the world into convulsions and, finally, voted to sue President Obama over healthcare.

How much more evidence does one need to know TO ENSURE THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE BY GETTING OUT TO VOTE DEMOCRATIC BOTH HERE AND ACROSS THE NATION?

If Republican lies on Obamacare win it all for the Republicans and if the Koch Brothers with other bottomless money pits wrest control of the entire country for them and if Republicans take it all and you do not mind losing your rights to an endurable life making the 1% richer and the 98% poorer then pay no attention to the 2014 election and simply let Republicans win. 

Here is what Republicans will do to you if they win:

Eradication of the Affordable Care Act which is bringing health insurance to those who had none and saving lives Republicans do not care to save;

Privatization of Social Security, begun by FDR and a program most love;

They will deform Medicare with vouchers—kiss your life saving health care goodbye;

The eradication of Medicaid;

Private Enterprise rights over civil rights—they want each state to decide if they want to discriminate even if it means not serving minorities at a lunch counter or restaurant with the ultimate elimination of the 1965 Civil Rights Act;

The reversal of Roe v. Wade eliminating a woman’s right to choose her own family planning and medical fate relegating them to the back alley butchers of yesteryear that killed thousands and reduced women sometimes even to sterility;

Returning Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy to the military so gays must live in fear of Putin-like policy and, yes, even elimination from society at large by imprisonment;

Codifying Constitutionally-based discrimination;

Re-instituting the Defense of Marriage Act;

Capturing the judiciary with extremist right wing judges;

Promoting a culture of guns even for 5 year olds and even in our schools;

Ad infinitum eternal war and a bloated military budget;

Relegating women to second class pay status;

Eradicating unions that protect workers;

More tax cuts for the rich which will NEVER trickle down to you;

Deregulating the economy-crushing Wall Street and returning business to a pre Great Depression and Great Recession status;

Never passing a minimum wage;

Eradicating unemployment benefits;

Denying science, climate change and the catastrophes we already have suffered from man-induced global climate change including severe drought, severe storms, tornadoes, floods, fire, ice and snow;

Denying the fact of evolution so that new biological discoveries which will save lives will not happen; teaching the mythological creationism as fact-based non science;

Severe cuts to the NIH eliminating government’s disease fighting and disease tracking efforts;

Diminishing regulatory agencies like the EPA;

Eliminating mental health government-sponsored studies;

Proliferating dirty oil and fracking that have polluted so much of the nation and setting it literally on fire;

De-emphasizing alternative clean energy;

Negligence in repairing Infrastructure that has decayed all over the nation.

Our nation, if Republicans are given total power, will end programs that have helped sustain it over decades even centuries.  They have done so in states where Republicans reign.

We MUST work hard to tell the Koch Brothers and their ilk that they CANNOT buy America.  We must work HARD to elect, contribute to and advocate for Democrats everywhere.  MOST OF ALL GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE in every state and for each branch of Congress in 2014 and beyond!

OF COURSE SEND THIS TO ANYONE YOU CHOOSE.

ONWARD!

IF

anyone has Hispanic friends, knows Hispanic people who are in positions of power email, smoke signal, shout -- i do not care what you do -- tell them if they are disillusioned by the president they should SEE what is going to happen under Republican power.  Hispanics who are here undocumented, who have children born here will be targeted and not just a few but ALL. And if it's a Republican presidency it's ALL over for them, for African Americans, for the poor, for the elderly, for the sick and the disabled. ALL safety social nets will be repealed and yes, many of us WILL die. 

I am not not being I think too histrionic.  This is sad but more than that it is dangerous.  Everything FDR did SO many years ago to help millions out of poverty will be erased.  Everything gotten with blood, sweat and tears in 1965 will and actually is now being erased.

There will be No more EPA, no more Department of Education, no more admission of climate change and policy to address it.  You name the departments that save lives and they WILL be gone. 

Hispanics will be amazed at what Republican policies will do to them and it is not pretty!

SPREAD THIS EMAIL AND THE LAST ONE TO ANYONE YOU KNOW.

GET THE HISPANIC VOTE OUT TO VOTE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4!

This is SERIOUS -- READ IT ALL

This is SERIOUS -- READ IT ALL AND SEE WHAT THEY WANT TO HAPPEN!

Forecast: Right Turn Ahead

The newest Senate Republicans will cement the party's conservative consensus.

By Ronald Brownstein

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(Shutterstock)

October 30, 2014 GUTHRIE CENTER, Iowa—In her campaign appearances, GOP Senate candidate Joni Ernst is composed, courteous, and emphatically unthreatening.

Her speeches focus less on ideology than biography, especially her experience commanding a transport company for the Iowa Army National Guard in the second Iraq War. Now a state senator, she talks less about Washington's failures than the success of what she calls "the Iowa way." Her grandest rhetorical flourish comes when she promises "common sense … good government … working for the people of Iowa."

And yet Ernst is proposing policies that would massively retrench and reshape the federal government, from eliminating the Education Department to partially privatizing Social Security. In the contrast between her mild manner and sweepingly ambitious agenda, Ernst embodies the pattern for the GOP Senate candidates most likely to join the upper chamber after next week's election.

In the Republican class of 2014, gone is the belligerence and rhetorical recklessness that doomed such Senate tea-party challengers as Sharron Angle in 2010 and Todd Akin in 2012. Yet a look at the candidates' agendas this year finds an almost indivisible consensus behind deeply conservative positions among the 14 nonincumbent Senate Republican contenders with a plausible chance of winning. (The 14 include the challengers for the 11 most threatened Democratic seats and the GOP nominees for Republican open seats in Georgia, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.)

In this uniformly right-leaning group, Ernst may be the most conservative of all. Many Republicans have shifted into opposition toward the Common Core education standards; Ernst would shut down the entire Education Department. While virtually all Republicans oppose raising the federal minimum wage as President Obama has urged, Ernst trumps them by proposing to repeal it completely. ("I don't believe the federal government should be involved in setting the minimum wage," she said flatly this spring.) And while all 14 GOP contenders promise to fight the proposed Environmental Protection Agency climate regulations limiting power-plant carbon emissions, Ernst would eliminate the EPA itself—a position rarely heard.

Ernst may hold the pole position on conservative aspiration, but the other Republicans racing toward the Senate are not far behind. With only slight nuance, all have pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act (except West Virginia's Shelley Moore Capito, who says the issue is largely settled). Other than Terri Lynn Land in Michigan, who is the least likely to win, none of the 14 has endorsed the scientific consensus that carbon emissions are driving global climate change. Of the 14, only Land and New Hampshire's Scott Brown have left open any possibility of supporting expanded background checks for gun purchases, such as the plan Senate Republicans blocked with a filibuster last year. All 14 personally oppose gay marriage, though in a sign of shifting attitudes about half say they would let states decide.

On immigration reform, which passed the Senate but died in the GOP-controlled House, the group's unity slightly splinters. Ernst and Reps. Cory Gardner and James Lankford, the party's nominees in Colorado and Oklahoma, respectively, indicate they would allow young people brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents to remain (though Gardner voted once and Lankford twice to revoke President Obama's executive action providing such protection).

A few have suggested they might eventually support some legal status for the larger group of 11 million undocumented immigrants. But none has endorsed the pathway to citizenship for that group included in the bipartisan 2013 Senate immigration bill—and most have loudly condemned it as "amnesty." Even campaigning last week with GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the Senate legislation's architects, Ernst was unequivocal in insisting on "no path to citizenship."

While some analysts have theorized that a GOP Senate takeover would encourage the party to cut more deals with President Obama, the unswervingly conservative tilt of the Republicans likely to join the upper chamber points instead toward continued—even heightened—confrontation. This powerful ideological infusion could also intimidate potential 2016 GOP presidential candidates looking to broaden the party's appeal by rethinking its positions on issues like immigration or climate.

In this year of electoral silver linings for Republicans, that's the cloud concerning Graham. "In 2015, if we don't show progress as a party on immigration … I think we continue to dig a hole with the fastest-growing demographic in America, and our chances of winning the White House are virtually zero," he told me in Iowa. Likewise a Republican alternative on climate, he says, "is something lacking in the party for a demographic that we're doing poorly with: young people."

The common message for the contenders likely to join him in the Senate, Graham says, is to keep their eyes on a finish line beyond their own victories. "If we don't do well in 2015 and 2016, the goal of obtaining the White House becomes less likely," he says. "So to those who get elected, I hope you realize that the ultimate prize for the Republican Party would be to have the White House. And what we do in Congress determines whether or not that's possible."

Extremism in the face of liberty IS a vice

PA cop killer and survivalist Frein on the run for 62 days is the extension of right wing extremism at its worst. This ultra nationalistic militaristic violent man who hates government is part of a larger group that empathizes with his views. It is chilling. While most in this nation, I believe, are not like that there are many who have embraced the government hating violent overthrow of it as their choice for social change.

Liberals, progressives and conservatives alike MUST put a governor on the boundaries of one's philosophic speech and the behavior that emanates from it. We ALL, I believe, do better when we work with each other and have at least a degree of empathy for those who occupy the nation and the planet with us.

While agnostic, still, I have always had a love for what I think is the essence of Christianity. Some of Jesus' teachings are as Judaism instructs. Jesus having been a Jew shows its influence on him. In Matthew 22:34 Jesus is asked: "Teacher which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Deuteronomy 10:12.) This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

I offer my own mea culpas as my anger against those I perceive in opposition to my thoughts sometimes prevails. I, too, pay not enough attention to my own verbal boundaries because I so fervently think my cause just. Most, though, think their cause just as well.

Words have power. I will try to remember my own first commandment and that is to use my words for humanitarian good. Unlike Republican Barry Goldwater in his 1964 convention speech I DO think extremism in the face of liberty IS a vice.

We are, I believe, in the end, our brother's keeper and as Jesus is alleged to have said in Matthew 25:40: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." To those words, I concur and can only hope others do too.

In keeping with this I believe the Democratic Party in this nation is the more diverse of our two Party system. It has, at its core, humanitarian beliefs. Human beings are imperfect but our nation, the most powerful on earth, must present the better angels of what I know its nature to be. I urge you to get out the Democratic vote both here and across the nation to do just that!

The Charlie Baker Hoax -- Crocodile tears? Please read

If you click on The Rachel Maddow Show for tonight's show she reported on the Charlie Baker cry out during last night's debate. It more accurately, in my opinion, should be called The Charlie Baker Hoax.  Let me explain:

In an effort to appear less wooden he was asked a softball question it almost seems to me that the station carrying the debate purposefully stuck the question in to give Charlie a chance to seem more human -- just a supposition on my part.  He was asked if he ever had an occasion to cry.  He warned us that by answering the question he probably would break down.  Did I see any tears?  No.  I simply saw Charlie covering his face, turning red SEEMING to cry. I can do that too. That, though, is not the crux of the whole story.

The story delivered by Charlie was about a fisherman to the north of Boston who told him the sad story of his two boys offered football scholarships.  The fisherman, Charlie said, told the boys no he would not let them play football because he needed their efforts to fish at home.  They were fishermen, after all, for generations.  Why those boys could not have accepted the scholarships to go to school I do not know.  I'm sure Charlie had a method to his madness though I know not what it was. Reminded me of the story when a kid as the Lone Ranger came to visit sick children in a hospital.  I asked him for a silver bullet the trademark of the Lone Ranger.  He said "Sorry, I need them for the trail."  Even a 6 year old could tell it was not true and I suggest anyone can tell Charlie Baker's story is made up -- unless, of course, we find the sons.  It almost sounds Biblical.  I digress.

The Charlie Baker crocodile crying seemed to work as voters wrote in their empathy with it and for him UNTIL it did NOT work.  Why you may ask?  Because reporters, praise God, began to ask questions.  No one but no one still can find this elusive fisherman or his sons nor does anyone in the community Charlie Baker was talking about know anything about that fisherman OR his sons either.

Charlie's explanation began to crack.  Well, he said "maybe it was a few years ago I don't know maybe five years ago.  I meet so many on the campaign trail they get fused together." Yeah right and if I believe that one I would believe the Lone Ranger too.  The Republican gubernatorial candidate lies.  Now that's a big surprise -- NOT.  He lied when he said he was not on the corporate board when Christie invested pension funds of New Jersey to the tune of 15 million bucks but we have the proof that he was on the board.  Has anyone talked about that further?  No, silence.  What is true and what isn't?  Charlie is never pinned down ... EXCEPT now.  No one can find the missing fisherman, the object of Charlie's story, nor can they find his sons.

I kid you not.  If anyone knows the whereabouts of that fisherman or his sons missing in the action of Charlie Baker's emotional story please do tell.  Nothing short of a gubernatorial election could ride on it.

YET ANOTHER REASON TO GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE FOR MARTHA COAKLEY AND OTHER DEMOCRATS.  WHY?  BECAUSE REPUBLICANS LIE AND THEY LIE ALL THE TIME BECAUSE THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU.  THEY CARE ABOUT THEMSELVES AND ALL THE BUCKS THEY CAN MAKE BEFORE AND ESPECIALLY AFTER THEY SERVE.  REPUBLICANS ARE MASTERS AT USING MONEY TO BUY ELECTIONS AND YOU CAN BET CHARLIE BAKER HAS OUTSPENT MARTHA.  MARTHA DESERVES OUR SUPPORT.  PROVE MONEY CAN TAKE ONE JUST SO FAR.  SO IT'S SIMPLE.  VOTE DEMOCRATIC AND YOU WILL NOT BE SORRY YOU DID!

The Man who NEVER EVER will be president

In case you not have heard the latest from that vile brute tub of lard Chris Christie I paste this number for your enjoyment:

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/New-York-New-Jersey-Superstorm-Sandy-Anniversary-2-Years-Later-Rebuild-Build-it-Back-FEMA-280752672.html?fb_action_ids=10152504106452075&fb_action_types=og.comments

A bigger JERK than Christie you will NEVER find. Chris Hayes (kudos to him) had on the holder of the sign in protest of Christie. The sign holder was BRILLIANT, articulate and knew EXACTLY what he was talking about unlike the BLOWHARD who will NEVER be president, Chris Liar-in-Chief Christie.

He told the sign holder to try working at the Sandy site like he did. Oh sure, Christie worked on the site. We know he worked the cones! The sign holder actually DID work for MONTHS on housing at the Sandy site and was an Independent on City Counsel at one time to boot. Christie as usual does not know what he is talking about.

The sign holder had a simple question out of the 1 BILLION that that sicko bully was given: What happened to the $800 MILLION that is left? Did he put he aside for his cronies, MAYBE?

Christie is a rude insult to this nation and he is a man who NEVER EVER will be president. He's a bully and a Republican liar just like the rest of that evil Party. They are an albatross on our nation's neck. NO ONE EVER SHOULD vote for Republican for ANYTHING not even dog catcher!

NOW GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE OR THE SENATE WILL BE FILLED WITH OVER 50 OF THESE INSULTING BEASTS!

Pass this to anyone you choose. MAKE SURE THEY VOTE -- DEMOCRAT of course!

Dust to Dust

Headline: "White House Hit With What Appears To Be Sustained Cyberattack."  What the hell else could befall this president? I do not know how he takes it. I love him still and I do not care about those who do not. He inherited a beast in world and domestic politics from the know-nothing Bush. Everywhere this man turns there is a huge problem a day with a sidecar of life and death consequences.  He encounters an opposition, the Republicans, who want him to fail and by extension we will fail in a nuclearized world. 

The president KNOWS what to do but is foiled at every corner and cannot get even his most benign nominees to important positions approved by a cement-like Congress. I'm white and I say racism is a large part of his opposition; so endemic to this nation that it is a cancer eating away at our body politic.  It is the true etiology of the Republican obstructionism which will not allow him do his job.  It is their Revelation's attempt to gain power encouraging a politically biblical Armageddon.

George W. Bush gets this nation entangled in the worst foreign policy catastrophes of all time and I hear nary a word of recall against the one who ruined it all so Obama has to clean up a dump-heap mess. 

Bush's puerile assessment that "Puty Pute is a good guy and I know what is in his heart" falls flat.  Puty Pute decides he doesn't like us anymore.  Both China and Russia see the weakened position in which the opposition has placed this president and move in for the kill while Snowden betrays his own country exposing its classified secrets to the world entire. He does not know the world is NOT as our Founders knew their world to be.  The wet-behind-the-ears Snowden knows NOT what he has done.

LEAVE OUR PRESIDENT ALONE to do his job and then Democrats KNOW where the real problem lies. GET OUT THE VOTE and unseat these obstructionist Republican unpatriotic excuses for leadership and cut out their Ebolic virus from the veins of our nation. 

DEMOCRATS GET OUT THE VOTE AND THEN DO SO IN HUGE numbers. If you don't vote then don't complain when you get Armageddon Bush's spawn times 10 on steroids giving credence to the words found in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer -- "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust and to dust all of us will return" well before our time!

Two Cheers for Martha - Deconstructing the Globe Endorsement of Charlie Baker

GREAT editorial and exactly right.

Good on social issues this Charlies Baker is?  We'll see.  If the big boys in the RNC cash guzzeling creeps in Kochville say jump to Charlie Baker I think he might say how high?  Would he?  Who knows, he allegedly gave Chris the blowhard Christie 15 grand and allegedly got 15 mill in investment returns in a corporation he said he did not run but we know it says in black and white that he lied and did run it.  The Globe never pursued that story.  I wonder why.

Vote for a Republican?  I say, why take the chance and I surely NEVER will!

VOTE DEMOCRATIC BLUE EVERYWHERE AND GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE

Subject: Two Cheers for Martha - Deconstructing the Globe Endorsement of Charlie Baker

 Read on -

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Two_Cheers_For_Martha

Note: Stole this from Harmony !!

Reminder:

When: TODAY October 28th at 1:00PM

Where: The Nashoba Brook Bakery at 152 Commonwealth Ave, Concord, MA 01742

Who: Governor Deval Patrick and Don Berwick 

What: An event rallying folks for GOTV and election day for MA Democrats!

Thank You !!
Dhruba Grassroots Organization = Self-Organizing Teams Facilitated by Servant-Leader.

Coakley UP 45-41 - New York Times - Today's Poll

An email from my Democratic campaign friend (see email below) evoked a response.  Thank you Dhruba, for the email.  I have been walking around all day as if I were stun gunned by the Globe's endorsement of Baker. It is UNTHINKABLE in this state known for its usual smart blue slant to all of a sudden lose its brain and think that a Republican is going to trickle down the state to economic health. What WILL happen under Republican rule is a heretofore healthy blue state will turn Ebola sickly red!

We above all know the utter failure of Republican politics most especially economic political policy.  Why do we know this?  Because Republican economic policy has been given a 30 year try not to mention the 1929 Depression under Republican do nothing presidents. Remember the Great Recession under Bush. It came from Republican policy.

In almost every case Republicans who now control the governor's office have run their state into not only political red but economic red as well.  Chris overrule-science-blowhard-faker Christie has sent New Jersey's credit rating into the latrine.  Scott has run roughshod over Florida as has Walker in Wisconsin, LePage in Maine, Brownback in Kansas and it goes on and on and on and on. So now according to the Glob, yes, I do mean Glob, Baker is going to save some towns that are not so prosperous in Massachusetts with his what cutting the corporate tax rate and slashing social programs for the sick, the elderly and the poor?

Oh I forgot it said he could work with Democrats.  My posterior he can.  Do NOT believe it. 
Massachusetts, my proudly heralded state, think twice before you EVER on planet earth think of pulling the lever for any Republican.  They have defined their party and it is NOT the party of most of you or really anyone else in this country. 

I read Red Sox owner John millionaire or maybe billionaire Henry owns the Globe so its Republican slant should be of no surprise.   If the Red Sox finishing in the cellar is a metaphor for the Globe's endorsement of Baker's success it has an ominous running the state into the red Republican glow!

GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE PURE AND SIMPLE EVERYWHERE!

-----Original Message-----
From: 'Dhruba Sen' via FraminghamForObama <framinghamforobama@googlegroups.com>
To: framinghamforobama <framinghamforobama@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Mon, Oct 27, 2014 6:02 pm
Subject: Coakley UP 45-41 - New York Times - Today's Poll

What it is worth ...

That is why some say - don't pay attention to polls - unless across the board. SocialSphere looks manipulative.

 

Thank You !!

Dhruba

Grassroots Organization = Self-Organizing Teams Facilitated by Servant-Leader.

A Message to My Peeps

Here is an email I received from a fellow hard working Democrat.  My response is the following and then read and heed his letter below it.  What Obama has done for us!

Dhruba, thank you again for all your work and in this case you are
100% CORRECT in all you say.  No make that 150% correct in all you say. Read
and heed, do not sow the seeds to step on your own toes and play into Republican hands.  It is up to us GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE EVERYWHERE.  You should send this around to all  you know.

Dhruba knows what he is talking about and has worked SO very hard for good Democratic candidates.  GET OUT THE VOTE FOR YOU, FOR ME and FOR OUR NATION!!

Send this to anyone you choose! I will post it on my own Facebook, and Blog and send an email out to my own peeps.  GET OUT THE VOTE IF YOU LOVE OUR NATION!

-----Original Message-----

From: 'Dhruba Sen'

My humble $0.02

Come election time, we see venom-spitting competition against Dem leaders and candidates from a section of “Democrats”.
This year is no exception.

The anti-Obama propaganda machine is ON.
What is the big picture?

Obama won the election twice – reelected during a very bad year for Democrats.

I don’t want to list all his achievements – but just a few 1) Healthcare Act 2) Withdrawal from Iraq/Afghanistan 3) Repeal of DOMA 4) Nearly 30 Executive Actions favoring prevention of gun violence 5) A huge boost to Science, Technology & Engineering. 6) Landmark action on environment protection and climate change.
And all these IN SPITE of the obstructionist Republicans in the Senate & the House.
So instead of spitting venom against President Obama I think we should take a positive approach. In our communications we should highlight Obama’s achievements (who is not only the President but also the leader of the Democratic Party), that more could have been done but for the obstructionist Republicans.

In this election cycle we need maximum mobilization of our supporters. By spitting venom against Obama- the leader of the Democratic Party – is that achieved? Or are our supporters discouraged and demoralized? Who will such venom-spitting help?

People have two years after each election to build powerful mass movements to influence the Government. Instead of doing that I see some people – mostly quiet during this period – become hyper active when elections draw near and start spitting venom against our leaders. This is a lose-lose strategy.

At the State level, the same applies. Martha Coakley is now OUR candidate. In an earlier post I had warned about SocialSphere – the company hired by Globe to conduct polls. I think they are just way off in the statistical techniques they employ and the inferences they draw. So the latest poll result of Baker leading by 9 points should not surprise you.
Also – we need to mobilize all Democrats and build a coalition to defeat Baker. Venom spitting against either Don Berwick or Steve Grossman turns off those activists who were/are passionate about them. Continued act of vilification of Steve Grossman or Don Berwick is an act of support for Charlie Baker.

MY 2 CENTS

BE WISE AND VOTE YOUR INTERESTS AND FOR MOST OF YOU UNESS YOU ARE A PART OF THE 1% ARE WITH THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY THE ONLY ONE THAT GIVES ONE THOUGHT ABOUT US.

Baker oversaw firm where pension funds were invested -- PLEASE GET THIS IN AN AD!!!!

This Appeared in May why hasn't the Coakley campaign 

advertised this?

Baker oversaw firm where pension funds were invested

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/05/13/baker-campaign-acknowledges-pension-fund-money-was-invested-company-oversees/z1e4ywJpF2oVr5DjaopQEL/story.html

Oh Canada, Oh Ottawa

The words to the Canadian national anthem and a few words after it:

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Our great friends to the north in Ottawa and all of Canada I know my sentiments are like so many in the beloved nation to your south even with the discord that exists within it.

We stand with you as you stand with us for human rights sketched with much blood over centuries. We see how important the rights of man are -- the right of free speech, of a free press, the right to believe in a supreme being, a God, a creator as we choose even if it is not to believe at all.

We empathize for those who receive that which the worst evils of our nature bestow. We reject violence as an expression of disagreement no matter how strong the inclination is to it as we reject all inhumanity that is uncivilized and extreme.

We defend those precious rights that can disappear on a whim. We defend them even to the loss of our own life. Why? Because they are the gift that those who came before bestowed upon us and so that their lives will not have been in vain.

Oh, Canada we, indeed, stand on guard for you and for ourselves!

A Short History Lesson

The Republicon CON Began in 1968 when Johnson would not run -- Vietnam blunder so Humphrey took the Democratic nomination but was albatrossed by the war; Republicon Nixon with his "moral (mental) majority" saw the white entire south flip from Dixicrat Dem to solid Republican. The law and order crowd went with them too.  It stands today. 

So there is power in a BUNCH of red small states.  Republicon strategy even until this day is to win a LOT of the small electoral states PLUS Texas and leave the big NE states Democratic and capturing a few.  It means now for Dems to win THEY must get the black minority, Hispanic, women and other minorities' vote registered and turn out.  To defeat that Republicrats have to voter suppress.  They are utterly loathsome.  Democrats, REGISTER despite Republicons vile attempts at suppression of the black and Hispanic vote.

The president is a human being after all and look at what the nincompoop the man who never should have been president Bush handed this president. He handed him a can of worms and the problem in the American memory is it is ever ever so short. They just do not remember even the Great Recession.  They think it was Obama's fault.  It WASN'T is was honed after 30 years of Republican economic policy for the rich that saw social programs cut while they cut the corporate tax rate. The megga rich NEVER created jobs.  They shipped them overseas.

Obamacare works, Bin Laden by his order is dead, and DOMA is dead, the economy is better and would be better still with more stimulus and unemployment compensation and without the OBSTRUCTIONIST Republican Party wanting to gum up everything this president did. Even Ebola is doing just what the experts predicted WITHOUT shutting down the borders. Dallas Presbyterian Hospital go kick Republicrats in the posterior for cutting social programs like the CDC and NIH which was making an Ebola vaccine but had to stop because of the Repbulicon cuts. Republicans closed down the government and nearly did not pay the nation's debs everything for Republicans over sized zeal to get power, return to a white racist nation and damn the American public in the process. 

The president's blunder was trying to reach across the isle to compromise with a racist white Party of Republicons who could not stand to see a black man in that ever so white house. Everyone after the 2008 horror Great Recession should get down on their knees and be thankful our nation survives.  NOW GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE and DO NOT under any circumstances let REPUBLIcrats rule. You will get rule by the 1% megga rich, they will ship jobs overseas and we the 98% will be up s ____ 's creek without the proverbial paddle yet again!   REMEMBER Republicans do not give a damn about most of you.

NOW GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE ACROSS THE NATION!

A Welcoming Pope/a Synod of Hypocrites

The headline of the story pasted below my post: "Catholic Bishops Scrap Welcome To Gays."

I dismiss the Vatican Synod of Bishops as old men out of touch with science and reality. I, a Jew, love this Pope. I have never said that about a Pope or the Catholic Church in my life!

Pope Francis, though, is a good man having to work with a bunch of Phrases-like hypocrites, the essence of what Christ was alleged to loathe. The words of Christ are humane and good but heretofore the institutions formed from them have been corrupt, cruel, uncompromising and extreme. This pope like no other, however, speaks the essence of his faith. I commend him for that.

The fact that even divorced Catholics (many in number) still must obtain an "annulment" to have the divorce recognized by the Church is mind numbing. The Church figured out a way to slither around this Catholic tenet surrounding divorce which Jesus ACTUALLY condemned unlike homosexuality in which Jesus said nothing. Some of those "annulled" Catholic marriages though acceptable to the Church show offspring from the former marriage to boot. How is that not considered a marriage? How is this an acceptable practice? Oh, I get it big bucks have to be coughed up for the "annulment." thereby netting the Church a lot of cash. Always, follow the money.

We know those who advocate advancement whether cultural, scientific or theological become the sacrificial lambs. Like Galileo this Pope, in the end, probably long after he is gone, will be proven RIGHT and the venomous hypocrites in that Church which hid pedophiles for centuries but now will not recognize the love relationships of divorced or homosexual Catholics will be proven wrong. Bishops, shame on you for overruling this Pope. I love the Christianity the Pope preaches. He is right and those who oppose him consummately wrong! A synod of hypocrites will, in my opinion, eventually not have the last word.


Catholic Bishops Scrap Welcome To Gays



Posted: 10/18/2014 2:04 pm EDT Updated: 10/18/2014 3:59 pm EDT


VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Catholic bishops scrapped their landmark welcome to gays Saturday, showing deep divisions at the end of a two-week meeting sought by Pope Francis to chart a more merciful approach to ministering to Catholic families.






The bishops failed to approve even a watered-down section on ministering to homosexuals that stripped away the welcoming tone of acceptance contained in a draft document earlier in the week.


Rather than considering gays as individuals who had gifts to offer the church, the revised paragraph referred to homosexuality as one of the problems Catholic families have to confront. It said "people with homosexual tendencies must be welcomed with respect and delicacy," but repeated church teaching that marriage is only between man and woman. The paragraph failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to pass.



Two other paragraphs concerning the other hot-button issue at the synod of bishops - whether divorced and civilly remarried Catholics can receive Communion - also failed to pass.


The outcome showed a deeply divided church on some of the most pressing issues facing Catholic families.


It appeared that the 118-62 vote on the gay section might have been a protest vote by progressive bishops who refused to back the watered-down wording. The original draft had said gays had gifts to offer the church and that their partnerships, while morally problematic, provided gay couples with "precious" support.


New Ways Ministry, a Catholic gay rights group, said it was "very disappointing" that the final report had backtracked from the welcoming words contained in the draft.

Nevertheless, it said the synod's process "and openness to discussion provides hope for further development down the road, particularly at next year's synod, where the makeup of the participants will be larger and more diverse, including many more pastorally-oriented bishops."


The draft had been written by a Francis appointee, Monsignor Bruno Forte, a theologian known for pushing the pastoral envelope on ministering to people in "irregular" unions. The draft was supposed to have been a synopsis of the bishops' interventions, but many conservatives complained that it reflected a minority and overly progressive view.


Francis insisted in the name of transparency that the full document - including the paragraphs that failed to pass - be published along with the voting tally. The document will serve as the basis for future debate leading up to another meeting of bishops next October that will produce a final report to be sent to Francis.


"Personally I would have been very worried and saddened if there hadn't been these ... animated discussions ... or if everyone had been in agreement or silent in a false and acquiescent peace," Francis told the synod hall after the vote.


Conservatives had harshly criticized the draft and proposed extensive revisions to restate church doctrine, which holds that gay sex is "intrinsically disordered," but that gays themselves are to be respected, and that marriage is only between a man and woman.
"We could see that there were different viewpoints," said Cardinal Oswald Gracis of India, when asked about the most contentious sections of the report on homosexuals and divorced and remarried Catholics.


German Cardinal Walter Kasper, the leader of the progressive camp, said he was "realistic" about the outcome.


In an unexpected gesture after the voting, Francis approached a group of journalists waiting outside the synod hall to thank them for their work covering the synod.
"Thanks to you and your colleagues for the work you have done," he said. "Grazie tante." Conservative bishops had harshly criticized journalists for reporting on the dramatic shift in tone in the draft, even though the media reports merely reflected the document's content.
Francis' gesture, and his words inside the synod hall chastising bishops who were overly wed to doctrine and were guided by "hostile rigidity," as well as those bishops who showed a "destructive goody-goodiness," indicated that he was well aware of the divisions the debate had sparked. His speech received a four-minute standing ovation, participants said.


Over the past week, the bishops split themselves up into working groups to draft amendments to the text. They were nearly unanimous in insisting that church doctrine on family life be more fully asserted and that faithful Catholic families should be held up as models and encouraged rather than focus on family problems and "irregular" unions.
The bishops signaled a similar tone in a separate message directed at Christian families released Saturday. There was no mention whatsoever of families with gay children, much less gay parents, and it spoke of the "complex and problematic" issues that arise when marriages fail and new relationships begin.


"Christ wanted his church to be a house with the door always open to welcome everyone, without excluding anyone," the message read. (Oddly, the English translation was less welcoming than the official Italian, ending the sentence after `everyone.')
Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier of South Africa, who helped draft the revised final report, told Vatican Radio the final document showed a "common vision" that was lacking in the draft.


He said the key areas for concern were "presenting homosexual unions as if they were a very positive thing" and the suggestion that divorced and remarried Catholics should be able to receive Communion without an annulment.


He complained that the draft was presented as the opinion of the whole synod, when it was "one or two people." "And that made people very angry," he said.