Category: GOP Pandering

Donald Trump, Fear Monger

In almost every possible way, Donald Trump is the worst U.S. politician in more than a generation. He lies about everything, literally on a daily basis. In previous posts I’ve pointed out that independent fact checkers tell us that only around 10% of what he says is fully true.

What’s worse, he lies about things in a deliberate effort to instill fear. A few days ago he sent out this Tweet:

Inner-city crime is reaching record levels. African-Americans will vote for Trump because they know I will stop the slaughter going on!

Did you know there was a “slaughter” going on? And it’s happening at “record levels”!

Frightening … and false.

FBI statistics only go up to 2014, and there has been a slight uptick in violence recently, but we are nowhere near “record levels” of crime, not in the inner-cities nor elsewhere. PolitiFact rates this Tweet as a “Pants on Fire” lie. (Just one of many of his statements to receive that rating.)

crime stats

By the way, he never discloses exactly how he plans on making us “safe again.”  He just tells us, with a straight face, that he is “the only one” who can do it.

How do people fall for this nonsense?

Trump understands that he cannot win on the merits of his positions (what are his positions?), nor his experience. So he screams that we are a third-rate country teeming with crime and violence. And of course on a daily basis he pushes the fear buttons when it comes to immigrants. Listen to his speeches and you apparently should be scared to walk out your front door because some Mexican or Muslim is lurking out there, waiting to kill you.

He is truly disgusting.

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

Obama’s Stock Market

Obama’s Stock Market

Remember all the horrifying predictions about what would happen if Obama became president? Millions more will lose their jobs! Runaway inflation will destroy your savings, and gasoline would hit $7 a gallon – or more! And the stock market would surely crash!  Obama, (and Obamacare) they said with certainty, is anti-business and the whole economy will tank.

You don’t remember? Well, I do, because those predictions were made daily and vociferously during the 2008 and then again for the 2012 re-election campaigns. Perhaps you don’t recall them because not one of them came true, causing the GOP soothsayers to now “forget” their own words.

This NY Times article focuses on just one aspect of Obama’s success, the U.S. stock market.

“The facts are inescapable: The Obama years have been among the best of times to be a stock investor, going all the way back to the dawn of the 20th century.

“Consider that had you been prescient enough to buy shares of a low-cost stock index fund on Mr. Obama’s first inauguration day, on Jan. 20, 2009, you would now have tripled your money. Stock market performance of this level has rarely been surpassed.”

Indeed. The facts are inescapable. You could have tripled your money!

I’m well aware that a president has limited impact on the economy in general, and the stock market in particular. Nonetheless, the scare tactics of the past have been proven wrong. Again.  Keep that in mind for the coming election.

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

SHAMEFUL: Zika and the GOP

Here’s a story you probably don’t know. It’s sickening.

You do know that the destructive Zika virus is here. It’s infecting many thousands of people in South America and now it’s spreading in the U.S. There is no cure for the devastating problems it causes for mothers and their babies.

President Obama and Democrats in Congress wanted to act quickly. They put together a bill to combat this encroaching disease — a pure, Zika-fighting bill.

Republicans agreed, apparently, that action was necessary.  But instead of agreeing on a bi-partisan compromise, they tacked on poison-pill provisions that they KNEW the Dems could never swallow. Their version blocked funds for Planned Parenthood and loosened environmental protections! As a result, they can now run TV ads saying “Senator So-and-So voted against protecting babies.”

So now there is no bill at all!

This is outrageous, and once again, the Democrats have done a lousy job of getting the public riled up about this grievous offense against women’s and children’s health.

Yes, a few media outlets have covered this shameful episode. This editorial from Columbus, Ohio (originally in the LA Times) makes the story quite clear and I hope you read it.

Republicans repeatedly play political games with people’s lives. Why do we stand for it?

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

 

Takin’ It Back

In the past week Sarah Palin, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio have each shouted, “It’s time to TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK!” That phrase, “take our country back,” has been a favorite of GOP candidates for several years, and it certainly picked up steam when Barack Hussein Obama moved into the White House.

But the phrase begs the question; take our country back from whom?

Keep in mind that Obama was elected by a majority of American voters, twice, so they’re saying they want a minority to take it back from the majority. Then too, in the last presidential election a million more Americans voted for Democrats than Republicans in Congressional races but thanks to gerrymandering the House is firmly under GOP control.

So who are they talking about? From whom must they wrest control? Here, in no particular order, are some of the nefarious groups who need to hand back the country to the Real Americans.

• Blacks
• Hispanics
• Muslims
• Jews
• Women
• Gays
• Unions
• Progressives (who used to be called liberals)
• Teachers
• Journalists and others in “the mainstream news media.”
• Hollywood
• Scientists
• College students
• College professors
• The unemployed
• The working poor
• The lower middle-class

As a member of two of those groups, Liberal Jew, I find it deeply disturbing when Republicans say they want to take my country from me! Take our country back is dark, divisive language. Why aren’t the pundits calling it out?

Democrats campaign with equal vigor but they don’t paint their opponents with such a broad brush. Hillary and Bernie’s ire is targeted to special interest lobbyists, polluters, billionaires whose “dark money” attempts to control elections, climate change deniers, war mongers and so on.

So the next time you hear some right-leaning blowhard spout “take our country back!,” understand that they just might be talking about you.

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

Obamacare and Jobs

The U.S. unemployment has stayed at 5.0% for a few months now. That’s very close to what economists consider “full employment.” Yet as recently as yesterday’s Republican debate, we heard several of their leading candidates say, again, that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is “a proven job killer.” They say it despite all evidence to the contrary. They say it with a straight face. They say it knowing it’s a lie.

Here are the facts in a nice easy to grasp picture.

ACA and jobs

That eye-opening chart is from an article published by the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. It’s accurate. But for those who might be suspicious, and since this blog is all about verifiable facts, check out all the amazing details from the Wall Street Journal, 1/8/16.

Here are a few highlights from the Journal.

  • Last year was the second-best year of job growth since 1999. The best year was 2014.
  • The share of Americans with jobs, known as the employment-to-population ratio, improved to 59.5%, the highest since May 2009.
  • As of December, the median jobless worker has been unemployed for 10.5 weeks, the shortest period since 2008 and a substantial improvement from 2010 when the typical jobless spell lasted 25 weeks.

And for those who say the jobs are part-time jobs, nope. “The economy has recovered all of the full-time jobs lost since the last recession hit eight years ago.”

Yes, the recovery could have been faster – and if the GOP had agreed to a bigger stimulus package years ago it would have been faster.

But now, whenever you hear a Republican complain about the ACA, or anything else under the Obama administration related to jobs, you know they are flat-out wrong!

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

“Hijacked by Crazy, Stupid People.”

Well, after a long hiatus, I’m back. I could not sit around without commenting on the outrageous conduct of Congressional Republicans.

First, some quick background.  The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was

  1. passed by the Congress,
  2. signed into law by the President,
  3. upheld by the Supreme Court.

Then in the 2012 election, the American electorate was given a choice between a candidate who supported the law, obviously, and one who said he would shut down Obamacare “on day one.” That candidate, Mitt Romney, was soundly defeated.  So “the American people” had spoken, clearly, about what they wanted, and the ACA is the law of the land.

The role of the opposition party, if they are not happy with this or any other law, is to work through the normal channels to bring about change. But in this case, a small band of radical Republicans threw a temper tantrum and threatened to deeply wound the American economy.

And they did. Yesterday, Standard & Poor’s estimated that the GOP-forced government shutdown sucked around $24 billion out of the economy – and the meter is still running. (Remember when the GOP was the party of “fiscal responsibility”?)

Sen. John McCain called the actions of the House Republicans a “fool’s errand.”  He knew there was zero chance they could get what they wanted – the defunding of the ACA. Yet this small group of crazies persisted, and we will all feel the effects as the damage ripples through the U.S. economy and beyond, forcing interest rates up and holding GDP down.

As egregious as the shutdown was, even worse was the threat to allow the U.S., for the first time ever, to default on its obligations.  Some radical righties argued that a default would not be harmful. They are idiots.  Not one mainstream economist (and that covers a wide swath of economic thought and theory) agreed with that stance. Not one.  Economists were, and are, horrified by the thought of a default. 

But where were the “moderate” Republicans during all this? Almost all were strangely silent. That’s not merely my opinion. Listen to what one conservative thinker, Bruce Bartlett, a former advisor to both President Reagan and the first President Bush, thinks about the current situation:

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/53310099#53310099

As he said, the Republican Party has been “hijacked by crazy people, stupid people” and he cannot understand why more of his fellow party members are not standing up to them. (The whole 14 minute video clip is excellent. I hope you will watch it.)

What is my opinion is this: I don’t think it’s mere coincidence that the dumbing down of the Grand Old Party aligns with the rise of Fox News. That organization, watched religiously by millions, stokes paranoia and is not encumbered by facts and rational thought. And the rest of us pay the price.

 Thanks for caring about the truth.

Who Are YOU Aligned With?

OK, one last shot.

Let me be blunt — If you vote for the GOP you are aligning yourself with some of the most radical, hateful, and ill-informed people in our country. Here is just one TINY example. Today I received an email from the Traditional Values Coalition (I have no idea how I got on their list, but I’m glad I am). And here are a few choice quotes from the frantic email…

I won’t bore you with the details of the last four years — you know them all too well: Obamacare, the HHS mandate, “religious toleration” replacing religious liberty, the bombshell discovery of how the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funds and fuels the radical left, four years where Islamists have been able to freely build radical mosques and entrench shariah in our neighborhoods and communities, the suspension of “don’t ask don’t tell” and the crackdown on our military chaplains.

A few paragraphs later…

Nowhere does the issue of friendly liberal judges have greater momentum within the homosexual and transgender left than with the Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

This pet bill would — at a stroke — put transgenders in the classroom, in our small businesses, and in our government as a legally protected class… taking the legal protections for disadvantaged minorities such as women or African-Americans and appropriating them for when Marvin decides he wants to become “Mary.”

Got that? Forget about fixing the economy, protecting women’s rights, ensuring clean air and water, ending wars and helping veterans.  Ignore our failing infrastructure, growing income inequality, protecting Israel and stopping Iran from getting the bomb.

You fools! Don’t you see that our really big problem is … transgenders in the classroom! Oh, how could I have been so blind?!

Dear readers, that ridiculous email is the smallest tip of a massive iceberg. The GOP depends on “low-information voters.”  Vote for the GOP and you reward their massive campaign deceptions, widespread and despicable efforts to suppress voter turnout (in Democratic strongholds), and you are voting, absolutely, to turn back the clock to the disasters of the Bush years.

And you align yourself with climate change deniers, virulent and violent anti-choice groups, gay bashers, covert and overt racists, and proponents of “creationism” and other hard-core anti-science belief systems.

Why in the world would you do that?

Please vote with your head, and please urge other to do the same.

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

Abortion Weirdness

Of all the political issues that separate Democrats from Republicans, few make the GOP look wackier than the discussion about abortion. The specifics in a moment.

First, let’s get the terminology right.

The battle over abortion is divided into two camps: pro-choice and anti-choice. No Democrat should ever use the term “pro-life.” Everyone is pro-life. Those who want to mandate what a woman can do inside her own body are “anti-choice.”

Next, let’s accept the fact that unintended pregnancies will always be with us. No contraception method is 100% effective, and not everyone uses contraception regularly and correctly.  As a result, studies show that an astonishing 4 in 10 pregnancies are unintended.

Children whose births were unintended are (from Wikipedia, with links to sources):

  • likely to be less mentally and physically healthy during childhood,[11]
  • at higher risk of child abuse and neglect,[1][12]
  • less likely to succeed in school,[13]
  • more likely to live in poverty,[13]
  • more likely to need public assistance,[13]
  • more likely to have delinquent and criminal behavior.[13)

Pretty depressing, don’t you think?

The solution, of course, is to provide women (and men) with practical sex education, make contraception affordable and easily obtainable, and, as a last resort, make abortion services, as Bill Clinton used to say, “safe, legal, and rare.”

Now here’s the wacky part: the GOP is not only against abortions, they also want to reduce or eliminate the laws and agencies that help prevent unintended pregnancies. What could be dumber?

Mitt Romney and most of the GOP proudly proclaim they would eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood. Why? Isn’t preventing unintended pregnancies – which is the main purpose of Planned Parenthood – the smartest way to prevent abortions?

Romney also says he would seek to overturn Roe v. Wade. He says abortion is a “states’ rights” issue. That is frightening nonsense. (The last time we heard about “states’ rights” was during the fight against segregation.)  Can you imagine 50 states debating a woman’s right to choose?  At best, it would take many years to resolve and hundreds of thousands of women would be forced to bear children they don’t want!

Women of means will always be able to get abortions, so outlawing them drives the less wealthy to take desperate measures. In the days prior to Roe vs. Wade, thousands of women suffered injury or death when they put themselves in the hands of “back street butchers,” or tried to induce the abortion themselves.

Perhaps worst of all, Republicans don’t care about fetuses after they are born (aka children). Their mantra is that we are a nation of individualists. “You’re on your own, kid. Too bad about being born into a low-income family with five other kids. You should have thought of that before being born. Good luck getting medical care, dental checkups, or a nutritious meal at school.”

The best that can be said about the GOP on this issue is that they are pro-birth. It’s the Democrats who fight to give women a choice about abortion, and to give children of unintended pregnancies a good life. Democrats, by that yardstick, are the true pro-lifeparty.

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

 

Obama, Israel and Jews

Well, everyone knows Barack Obama hates Israel.  Ask any Republican. Ask any right-wing Israeli. Ask former NYC Mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat who endorsed a Republican (who was running against an Orthodox Jew!) in that special election to fill Anthony Weiner’s Congressional seat.  Koch said it was his way to “send a message” to Obama on his policies toward Israel. And of course, you can ask that Murdoch-controlled rag, the NY Post, whose editorial board wrote of “Obama’s radically anti-Israel stance.”

Except for one thing – Obama is flat out pro-Israel.  He does not kowtow to the hardline conservatives who dominate the current Israel government, nor should he.  Within days after Obama’s May 20th speech on his vision for the area, a full-page ad ran in the NY Times in support of his plan. It was signed by dozens of Israel’s most highly honored citizens. Are they “radically anti-Israel” as well?

Is every American president supposed to rubber stamp whatever any Israeli government demands? What happens when the next Israeli government comes into power?

Obama’s proposals are an amalgam of proposals from previous Israeli governments. His (their) vision may be right or wrong. But labeling him as anti-Israel because he doesn’t agree with Netanyahu is as silly as claiming that an Israeli who supports, say, Rick Perry, is anti-American.

New York Magazine’s Sept. 26th cover shows a close-up of the back of Obama’s head, covered with a white yarmulke. The headline: “The First Jewish President.” The sub-head is, “The truth? Barack Obama is the best friend Israel has right now.” And when you go inside to the story, it begins,

“Barack Obama is the best thing Israel has going for it right now. Why is that so difficult for Netanyahu and his American Jewish allies to understand?”

The writer of the piece, John Heilman, goes into great detail to back up those claims. And if you need further details of Obama staunch pro-Israel actions (along with some fair criticism), check out this editorial from the NY Times.

Personally, I am saddened and slightly disgusted by American Jews who vote based on what they perceive is best for Israel. If that’s their major concern, they should make aliyah and move there. While you live here, you should vote based on what’s best for America! Every U.S. president will strongly support Israel – they just may not do it in a way that suits every Jew everywhere.

And finally, as a close friend reminded me, the Christian religious right supports Israel not because of any love of the country or Jews but because Israel’s statehood fits their Biblical prophesies for the coming “End of Days.”

So the next time you hear Rick Perry profess his love for Israel, please keep that in mind.

L’shona tova.

“Poor.” Another reason to hate Fox News.

If you make less than around $22,000 per year for a family of four you are officially poor, according to the U.S. Government. But not according to Fox News.

Take a look at this segment from The Daily Show (There are unavoidable commercials at the start and in the middle of the segment; you may need to click here to get to the second half.)

I could write an essay about every 15 second slice of that funny – and infuriating – video essay. But for now, let’s just focus on what happens towards the last part of the video, when Jon Stewart shows a slew of Foxies mocking the “poor” in our country. Yes, they put the word in quotes, clearly signifying maybe you whose family makes less than $22,350 really might be well off.

Are you? Right now you can buy a name brand dishwasher for $170. But perhaps you already have one, bought say, five or six years ago, when you and your spouse were both working. Whatever, you are among the 25% of “poor” who own a dishwasher. That, for Foxies, is outrageous. Clearly, you and your ”moocher” friends with your dishwashers and $59 microwaves and $29 coffee makers are just fine and in fact, YOU need to pay more taxes!

Think I’m kidding? Watch the clips. The bottom 50% of the U.S. population controls a whopping 2.5% of the country’s wealth, but the GOP says don’t ask the top two percent to pay even one dollar more in taxes.

I watch the fools on Fox News and I just want to slap them.