Category: Wing Nuts

I guess it depends on who “Stands Their Ground.”

~ Boohunney ~ 1 Comment

Things have been quiet on the “Stand Your Ground” rants by my Wingnut debating friends that was spurred by the Trayvon Martin case down here in the sunny South.

It will be a while until the case comes to court, so, that will give those “Patriots” time to study their talking points regarding this, peppered with quotes from the Federalist Papers and revised Jeffersonian wisdom.

I did some quick surfing yesterday and found this very sad story about Marissa Alexander of Florida serving 20 years for shooting at her husband, her abusive husband. She has been denied a new trial.

I posted this story on the Social Media to see if any of my Right of the Dial debate friends would speak up about this mother of 2 “standing her ground” and the justice she deserves.

****CRICKETS****

No comments. None.

Oh, yeah. Trials for Talledega NASCAR were yesterday.

Trickle-down lies about economy

~ odd man out ~ 1 Comment

Austerity zealots are like Christian fundamentalists — the more evidence you show them that their basic assumptions are wrong, the more fervently they express their faith. Paul Krugman touches on this point, and on the success of right-wing propaganda campaigns, in a recent Rolling Stone interview:

Part of it is that if you’ve been brought up to believe that capitalism is wonderful and perfect then the notion that it could use some help every now and then becomes alien to you, and there are a lot of people who are so deep into that mindset that it’s very hard for them to get out. And then, a lot of conventional wisdom is shaped; it doesn’t just come from nowhere. It comes from the long-term operation of a lavishly funded propaganda operation. When you’ve had 40 years of [right-wing mega-donor Richard Mellon] Scaife and the Koch brothers and the Heritage Foundation and so on pushing a line about the perfection of markets and the evil of doing anything that encroaches upon the unfettered right of billionaires to do what they like, that is coloring the way people think about economics, even people who’ve never heard anything directly from any of these think tanks.

But Krugman thinks the Congressional ringleaders who are pushing austerity — i.e., cutbacks on aid to the poor, job creation, and so on — will eventually have to slink away from the party line:

I don’t think John Boehner is going to announce next week that Republicans were wrong and we need more government spending, but I do think that some time next year we might be able to have a discussion that turns around at least some of the mistakes that were made in the past few years.

Facepalms on social media…..

~ Boohunney ~ 5 Comments

It has been a crazy week down here in Spruill County. It seems those on the Right of the dial have really turned up the irrelevant noise machine around here. Looking through the posts on the Social Media this week has convinced me that it is going to a very long election season. Here are some samplings of comments posted by some very concerned citizens…..

I did not say all liberals – just the Godless ones, which, I guess, would mean, most liberals. In all honesty, I do not see how someone can be a liberal and be a Christian. It’s just incompatible.

 

Liberals are like slinky’s, they put a smile on your face and make you laugh when you push them down the stairs…..

 

Sure, in Barack Hussein’s America, if you smoke weed and watch basketball all day, then “government” is going to pay for your Section 8 housing, food stamps, and even some welfare cash to spend, so if you are a job-less pot head, of course you’ll vote for Hussein again.

 

Kagan accepted $20 million grant from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal – a noted Sharia Law proponent – to implement an “Islamic Studies” program at Harvard Law School when she was the Dean. Elena Kagen has exhibited a bias that may affect future decisions, particularly on any matter concerning Sharia Law.

 

Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and you lose a Democrat voter.

 

Obama and his like-minded followers – just like the brown shirts who followed Hitler leading up to WWII – are destroying the country that I love.

 

If Pig-losi was being tried for treason as she should be, she wouldn’t be able to finish destroying this country, unfortunately we are too stupid and cowardly to stop her.

 

Why is the DREAM Act being promoted by Congress? They are prostituting themselves for illegal votes.

 

What’s next for our President – having a yard sale at the White House to prove he is a regular guy? Maybe washing the Presidential limo in the White House drive in a white t-shirt with a pack of Marlboros rolled in the sleeve? A baby-daddy appearance on Maury, making orange jello on the food channel….. what depths will he sink to in order to convince you and me he is a real average joe and not a racist Marxist….

 

I heard outside the MSM, that Obama is really Bari Shabazz

Sometimes, I really don’t know how to respond to some of this.

I am glad that folks are looking into the issues and are willing to bring something “constructive” to the conversation.

 

Less Trayvon, more Kim Kardashian!

~ odd man out

There’s a good reason why the media ought to keep shining a light on the Trayvon Martin story — the man who killed Trayvon still hasn’t been arrested, despite a busload of evidence that suggests he should be. But now we’ve reached the inevitable point where the usual suspects, as it were, are complaining they’ve heard enough and want the media to to drop the story:

According to a recently released poll, a majority of Republicans and many whites want the media to stop talking about Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Florida teen who was gunned down by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman.

A Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey found that 56 percent of Republicans and 43 percent of whites said that there had been “too much” coverage of Martin’s killing, compared with 25 percent of Democrats (including 33 percent of white Democrats) and 16 percent of African Americans who thought the media had gone too far.

The racial subtext of the story makes many people feel uncomfortable, as it should, given the fact that police in Sanford, FL, tried to close the book on the incident, as if they’d concluded the killer had acted within the law. As if they think police should handle this case they way they would have a half-century ago.

Who’d pay for sick and uninsured?

~ odd man out ~ 3 Comments

by Odd Man Out
Justice Scalia’s clownish show of contempt and Justice Alito’s skeptical questions during oral arguments regarding “Obamacare” don’t necessarily mean the reactionary contingent of SCOTUS is ready to overturn the law. As TPM noted yesterday:

A similar scene took place last fall, when the D.C. Court of Appeals took up the case. As news outlets reported at the time, Judge Laurence Silberman — a Reagan appointee who was elevated by President George W. Bush — was among those hammering the administration’s lawyer with questions about the individual mandate and the limits of power.

Forbes declared, “D.C. Appeals Court Points the Way to the Defeat of Obamacare’s Individual Mandate.” Conservatives then sounded triumphant too…

Less than two months later, Silberman cast the deciding vote to uphold “Obamacare.”

In his majority opinion, Silberman located the “limiting principle” he was looking for on his own, and knocked down the heart of the conservative argument. The judge declared that not buying health insurance was hardly an economic “inactivity” because the uninsured directly impact the system regardless.

Meaning that somebody ultimately must pay for the medical care of the uninsured. There’s no way around that fact. This week Chief Justice Roberts actually conceded, “Everybody is in this market. So that makes it very different than the market for cars or the other hypotheticals that you came up with, and all [the Obama administration] is regulating is how you pay for it.”

Can the SCOTUS right-wingers kill the mandate without creating chaos? Roberts will have to answer that question soon.

Letter to my “Social Network” debating friends…..

~ Boohunney ~ 4 Comments

by Boohunney
Dear Social Network friends,

30 years have past and the Right has been dominate in our political structure. These trickle down policies and alleged free market policies have placed the country in the worst state since the Great Depression. I have seen ketchup become a vegetable. I have seen the Geneva Convention ignored. I have watched our local police departments become militarized. Now, I am seeing from the Right workers demonized. Vocations that were once honorable and considered public service like firefighters, teachers and gubmit employees being treated like money hungry ingrates. I’ve heard “achievers” whine because an economic downturn was not supposed to have effect on them. (Boo buckskin’ hoo.) Oh, I guess the free market is for what some may describe as the losers…..

Of course, I was born and raised in this area steeped in Right wing rhetoric. Yes, I KNOW Lester Maddox and J.B. Stoner were Dixiecrats, were on the old South Democrat ticket. That’s not why I am a liberal. Quit trying to rewrite history for me. I am NOT THAT STUPID. Somehow, even being immersed in the South, the crazy can’t take me. Might be I wasn’t “raised right” or something silly like that. I guess I just couldn’t get into Nixon, either. Maybe, I was indoctrinated by watching the evening news when I was young. You know, liberal media.

Most of us that spar on “Social Media” together, with exception of the few young ones and our experienced elders that chime in, are of middle age. I remember some of us being young participants of the College Republicans or Young Democrats. Some of us didn’t even go to school at the same time and went out and just got it all, from zero, with no help, raised by wolves or no family or support. Whatever. But, for the most part, all of us that participate in what I call “Master Debaters” theater here are individually good people. I don’t know some of y’all face to face, you are virtual friends. Some of you, I’ll stay in touch and talk about other things like our families and our hobbies.

Now, we have come into discussing “red meat” politics. Women’s health care, really? Why are we revisiting this? Voting rights? Why are we revisiting this? Gas prices? It seems that some folks think we have all the natural resources for energy, meaning oil, here in the US and drilling will make $2.50 gas. Some are proposing gas price controls. If you want cheap gas we will have to nationalize it. Cheap gas days are OVER. Dry your tears and get a more efficient car. That’s the free market. Even if we drilled EVERY SINGLE resource of petro, we’d be out soon. This country cannot drill itself out of dependency. We have had 30 plus years to work this one out.

The young adults of the Reagan years that we were are now the elders and have FAILED miserably in leading this country. Look what the predominate “conservative think” of the past 30 years has given us. A generation fed on the innovation, sacrifice and dedication of our elders, the true go getters, that gave us all the pop culture we can eat. And all kinds of other problems.

For me, conversation with the conservative base has become futile. I cannot believe some of you Ladies on the conservative side didn’t plan your families with health care insurance. Puleeeze! You were all virgins when you married, I am sure. (My apologies to those who actually saved it for marriage. If that’s what you believe there is nothing wrong with that. My own mother did.) I can throw a rock in the county north of me (a conservative hot bed) and hit a woman that is conservative and has used birth control, happily. They LOVE sex up there and WHY not? And all you guys, Viagra is a recreational sex medication. Use it! What the hell is wrong with SEX??? These conversations are so STUPID.

We have people out of work. We have people that are out of work that are skilled and experienced, there are no positions open for them. We have a financial and business structure designed to keep most middle class people in perpetual debt. We have a health care system that can easily bankrupt a middle class family with one health episode and the efforts to reform are met with the most insane challenges. We have people that can’t go to the doctor or even afford primary care. We have a compromised food and water supply. We have kids that can’t pass the Presidential Fitness Test. Or do we even DO that anymore? We have kids that have no critical thinking skills, but, only study for the CRCT. But, no one on the Right offers a real alternative. Fer Gawds sake, Nixon was for Universal Health Care. Geesh.

Anyway, we seem to just recycle the same old same old.

So, after about a year of all this, I am moving on. It was my choice to get into this fray. I have learned a lot from it. And, yes, a few of my notions have been dispelled. Maybe, I am trying to think of an example. I have been threatened by some people with a lynching, called an idiot, called a “stupid piece of shit,” a libtard, a communist, a fascist, a socialist, a bolshevik, a lover of Lenin, a feminist (!) and had many assumptions made about my character that are “right out of the conservative handbook.” Oh, I was called anti Semitic by someone. My friends I grew up with in Atlanta and many of my current friends may disagree. Whatever.

But, Buddha is calling me in a different direction.

I’ll keep in touch. But, I doubt I’ll get into this Social Media fray much anymore….

Futility is just not my thing.

But, bowling? Let get it on!

Regards, Boohunney

 

Pa voter ID battle not over

~ odd man out ~ 2 Comments

by Odd Man Out
Pennsylvania legislators on Wednesday pushed through a bill requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls. Gov. Tom Corbett quickly signed the bill into law, and said it sets a “simple and clear standard to protect the integrity of our elections.”

Yes, integrity. Everybody knows this sneaky corporate stooge, this governor who is despised in all parts of the state not dominated by crackers, signed the bill to block as many Democrats as possible from voting, and that the bill was part of a voter suppression campaign fueled by rich Republicans and aimed at Republican-governed states.

On the bright side, passage of the bill was only Round One in the battle over voter rights in PA. From Reuters:

Pennsylvania joined several Republican-governed states, including Texas, Kansas and Wisconsin, that have adopted stricter voter identification laws, arguing they were needed to prevent ballot box fraud. Supporters say the laws are no different from needing identification to board an airplane or obtain a library card.

But some civil rights groups say such laws discriminate against the poor who may not be able to pay fees for copies of legal documents such as birth certificates, and that they could suppress minority votes. Democrats say voter identification measures are aimed at squeezing out university students and senior citizens who tend to vote for Democrats…

Other states have encountered setbacks trying to impose voter identification requirements. A judge issued an injunction earlier this week against Wisconsin’s law, and the U.S. Justice Department blocked a new voter identification law in Texas.

The Justice Department, which also blocked a voter identification law in South Carolina from taking effect, said the Texas law could harm Hispanic voters who lack identification documents.

“Our legal team is currently mapping a strategy for overturning this voter suppression bill,” ACLU of Pennsylvania Executive Director Reggie Shuford said in a statement…

Footnote: It’s interesting that the proudly penny-pinching Corbett eagerly backed a scheme that would cost the state so much money:

The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center estimated the legislation would cost $11 million. In order to withstand legal challenges, the state must provide photo IDs for free, notify and educate voters about the new voting restrictions, hire more election staff, and purchase additional photo ID equipment.