Tag: Commentary

Random Thoughts

This is a regular feature on Info Ink, it is notes that I have made but that did not necessarily make it into a post.

To begin with, it is Thanksgiving and I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a joyous day; enjoy the fun, food and family and I will see you the day after.  Thanx for the visits and the comments they are much appreciated.

And now for something completely different (to quote Monty Python)

1–Do you realiuze that $33 trillion worth of wealth has been lost since the first of the year?

2–Could Bowflex have found a more pretentious bunch to hawk their product?

3–Just what the hell does “Economic Patriotism” mean?

4–Tiger Woods gets dumped from Buick–about a $7 million cut in pay

5–Without China and the Saudis the US economy would not exist.

6–How many times can the politicos in the media say the word “transparency”?  22 times in a 5 minute interview.

7–Anne Coulter has had to have her mouth wired shut–see!  there is a GOD!

8–Question?  If gas is falling like a lead balloon, how much has an airline ticket dropped?

9–On T/giving day a group will be running “Thank you, Sarah Palin” ad.  Is that a good idea?  I mean she was interviewed in front of a turkey killing machine in action.  Would that not remind people just how callous this woman is?

That is all for now…Peace….Out

Where To Put Your Trust

Recently I wrote an offensive post, which I warned everyone about, and got very few people that are upset as I am. That leads me to believe that of all the people who read this post somehow trust the government to fix the problem of the tanking economy. Thinking…….. Trust? These guys? Are you smoking dope?

You trusted these people on Iraq and it got over 5000 Americans killed. You trusted these people to act in the best interest of the people and they gave a war that is crippling people and the economy. You trusted these people to go get Osama and he still operates in Afghanistan. You trusted these people to be civil and they gave you Abu Ghreb. You trusted them to be the stewards of the economy and they gave you a deepening recession. You trusted these people with $700 billion to fix the economy and it got worse. You trust them to represent the interests in Washington and they give you corruption and scandal. Why I God’s name would you continue to trust them? They have failed you at every turn. They have chosen big corporations over the taxpayer time and time again. Why would you continue to trust these people?

I was always told that trust had to be earned and yet the American people blindly put there trust in people that have NO proven trust record. Why? Is it the belief that they cannot be any worse than their predecessors? If so, that has not been the case in 50 years.

Who do you trust? Apparently the people cannot trust their judgement. That has been flawed on so many levels in the last 50+ years. What about the people that lead us, that would make us trust them? Questions. So many questions. Answers. Not so many.

That brings us back to the original question: Where to put your trust? The only answer I have is the saying, “Stupidity is the deliberate cultivation of Ignorance”. What is your answer?

The Roof Is On Fire–Warning: Post May Be offensive!

Before I begin I would like to apologize to any readers that this post may offend.  I am angry and I have about had enough, so if four letter words disturb you–DO NOT READ THIS POST!

The roof is on fire–Let the mother fucker burn!

Am I the only person that is this angry at the way the government is playing this damn stupid bailout?  $700 billion and who has it fucking helped?  Goldman Sachs, AIG, the rest of the big corporate cocksuckers.  American people are fucking stupid!  They allow this shit to continue and they still believe that the governm,ent is working in their best interest.  Wake up stupid!  If you are not a CEO or a large financial institution, you are getting NOTHING except a good fucking and since we are so meek about it–WE DESERVE THE FUCKING WE GET!

Look at the news–AIG gets another bailout on to the one they have–AIG has another luxury week trip to a resort in Phoenix, this time.  American Express is becoming a bank so they can rip off some of the taxpayers fucking money.  The shit sucking banks, the large ones, are milking the taxpayer of everything they are worth, literally and physically.  And the best fucking part, is they, the taxpayer, know they are fucked and they smile and give them more money.

Just how fucking stupid do you have to be?  The goddamn bailout was NEVER about helping Main Street it was always about what is good for Wall Street and FUCK THE PEOPLE!  In the rush to save a parasitic system the government is acting as an agent of Wall Street not the representative of the people.  Is this what those “Founding Fathers” had in mind?  Probably since all those cocksuckers were rich assholes from the “colonies”.

Do you feel like a cheap whore?  You should!

The American people ever find their spine, they should demand that the government back off and let the mother fuckers crash and burn.  Fuck the assholes–they made their own beds–Let them lie in them for awhile.  But first Americans must find if they have the balls to stand up for what is right–My guess is they are fucking wimps and will allow this shit to continue.  You will confront some asshole that scratches you car, but are a pussy at confronting a government that is butt fucking you silly.  One person cannot do it!  It must be the people that decide when enough is enough.  Personally that time has long past!

So you think I am being a prick?  That is cool, but name me one individual family that has been helped out by the bailout……(I will give you a moment for reflection)……Nothing, huh?

If the reader is offended, I apologize, but you know the old saying, “The truth hurts”.  If your feelings are hurt–then good–YOU WERE WARNED!

Did McCain Have A Chance?

An Info Ink Commentary.

The Fat Lady has sung.  The last vote counted.  Well crap!  The maverick must return to the drudgery of the Senate, McCain has lost.

McCain above all was a maverick–at least that is how the saga was playing–but was he?  Or was it a carefully orchestrated life?

He ran on a shoe string budget during the primaries–so how did he beat the monied boys?  Mitt was a Mormon–and that while no one will admit it played into his defeat.  Giuliani was a hollow shell with nothing but 9/11 to offer the voter and that did not play well in 2008.  Most of the others were one issue candidates–not good.

So as the race went on McCain became the logical choice.  He was an American hero–at least in the tag lines.  His military service played well with vets and his age played well in Florida.

He, McCain, became the logical nominee, so how did he lose the election?  The best answer is tactics.  He and his campaign were full of tactics, but they were devoid of any measurable strategy.  No depth, no game plan, they thought that the “hero” label would usher him into the White House.  They were sadly wrong.  He never had a substantial message other than war hero and national security.  He and his campaign flailed around trying to find a hook for the people , but sadly they had none.

The tactic was to hit Obama on his experience, they peed on that tactic when they picked Palin.  They then tried the celebrity attack and Palin crapped on that also.  The original tactic was to hit Obama on the national security thing and then the economy went in the toilet.  Unfortunately, McCain had no idea how the handle the economy and he struggled for 2 months before the election to find a hook that would work with the voter.  He failed.

Then the dumbest tactic was tried, attack Obama as a socialist, Marxist and his “redistribution of wealth” statement.  That was not so good either, because only old farts even knew what socialism was, at least the term, maybe not the definition.

And then along came Joe, the plumber that is.  The campaign tried, in vain, to turn this poor guy into a symbol of the struggling middle class.  The sad part was that it was shown that Joe would pay less taxes under the Obama plan.

The campaign kept throwing negative attacks at Obama trying to get him to respond and he would not.  Made him appear to have the moral high ground.  Obama stayed on his message of how tpo save the economy and McCain spent all his time telling voters how bad Obama was, but never offered a comprehensive plan of his own.  McCain appeared to be confused and out of touch at the start of the economic crisis and it continued until the last day of the campaign.

IMO, McCain was NEVER ready to be the nominee.  Yes, he would become the loveable underdog, but not ready for the party nomination.  He had a couple of really good speeches, but after that he and his once popular VP feel flat on their butts.  Neither one could make a case for them to run the country.  His BS strategy did not work on the voters and then he once again became the bitter old man.

McCain in the closing days of the election has told people they need to look at history, maybe he should have not said that because there are several like things in his candidacy as to that of McGovern.  And unfortunately, McGovern was a loser too.  In 1972 McGovern was the party reformer, just as McCain has been labeled that and we know how disastrous that label can be in the election.  McGovern’s VP candidate was not all that he was cracked up to be, sound familiar?  Will McCain’s campaign synonymous with lost causes just as McGovern’s did?

Just as he had NO strategy in the primaries; he had none in the election.  He may even go down in history as one of the worse presidential candidates to ever run of the office.

He was NEVER ready to be a presidential candidate.

Open Letter To The American Voter

Next week you, the American voter, will be asked to go to your polling place and cast your vote for a candidate for the office of president of the United States Of America. This is one of your civic duties as a member of this society. But if you go to vote for a personality instead of an ideal then you are the one wasting your vote. Personalities have put us in the position we find ourselves in the world.

I ask you to go to the websites of ALL candidates in your area, read stands of the issues, make notes and then make the decision based on who you think will best serve the country and its people. Do not labels make your decision for you. Name calling is just a lame attempt to scare you into doing something you know is not productive. This country is facing many crises and they must be handled properly by the next president, but you must decide if the candidate is capable of making needed decisions.

Yes there are others wanting to be president besides the traditional Republican and Democrat. Parties like the Libertarians, Greens, Independents all are seeking the chance to run this country. Are they capable? That is the question you must ask yourself before you cast your vote. THat is why you must be armed with information on each candidate regardless of the party affliation. If you do not then you are lazy and taking the easy way out. Because of this laziness we have had about twenty years of horrible leadership. And over 60 years of leadership that cares little of the plight of the average American, it has been about making the country a world leader in global trade and finance, all the while many Americans have been forced into stark poverty. All in the name of democracy.

Now is the time to either look to the future or glance back to the past. Your vote will move the United States into a bright future for your fellow Americans or we can just remain in the past and suffer the slings and arrows of our choice. We are facing two wars that seem to have NO end, we are in the middle of a horrible economic crisis and a crumbling infrastructure; your vote will decide where the country will go and how it will face the growing number of problems.

By all means–get out and vote! This is your ONLY chance to influence the direction of the country. Make It Count!

Info Ink: Election Comment

People realize that I am a political junkie, I live for this stuff and I guess that in some circles that makes me about a boring as watching flies mate. But to me this stuff is fascinating watching the chess game that is politics.

I entered into this year with the promise of something new and a good feeling about the future of this country. Ever so slowly that warm fuzzy feeling began to wane. I liked the idea that there were populists on both sides of the stage. I liked the idea that there was a real life maverick in the fray. I was also amazed to see that there were a couple of real honest to god progressives in the contest. I even found the appearance of bored business men that wanted to play presidential politics rather amusing.

Yes but slowly the ones that made the primaries interesting began to drop like flies, either because of money problems or lack of support. They just could not break the vote barrier to stay in the race. Their messages did not play to the public and they became also rans. Finally we were down to the two eventual nominees.

The messages of something new for Washington got drowned out by the shouts of partisanship. The situation in the United States just begs for new thinking, but the candidates smack of old school. We will go to the polls and cast our votes then sit back and wait to see if anyone can pull the country out of a tail spin.

In November, someone will win the election and someone will be the runner up. In the end, the loser will be the American people. I fear that no matter which party wins it will be business as usual in Washington with minor adjustments to appear productive.

Go out and vote! Please vote for the good of the country, not for the massage of some guys overinflated ego.

YOU HAVE THE POWER—CHOOSE WISELY!

Olbermann On Palin

I have been writing against the whole label of socialist/Marxist/communist/un-American thing that has become ever popular in the conservative circles.  Finally, someone has come out with a critical look at it.

This is from Countdown with Keith Olbermann on 28 Oct 08.

Finally tonight, the Campaign Comment, and the real danger when you run a presidential candidate who thinks he’s Joe six-pack the Plumber, and a Vice Presidential candidate who thinks she’s Huey Long.

It’s not that the rhetoric in a desperate flailing last week on the stump can get hyperbolic and dangerous. It’s that each person on that campaign hears some of that giddying hyperbolic and dangerous rhetoric and tries to top it.

This has ended up, as it usually does, with one of the desperate candidates going so far to the right that they meet themselves coming back in the other direction.

That’d be you, Gov. Palin. You’ve finally done it. You’ve accused Obama of doing something wrong, of being something evil, something you boasted of doing, and being, yourself, just two months ago.

You try to figure out what this might have been, while I go back and talk to those good people over there. The Republicans called Obama a neophyte and then they picked a V.P. nominee with a tenth of Obama’s experience.

The Republicans called Obama a celebrity and then they bought that nominee $150,000 in designer clothes. The Republicans called Obama a terrorist sympathizer and then McCain said he was proud to be a friend of Gordon Liddy.

It’s like they’ve been unknowingly endowed with ESP and have been telling their own futures. And now the GOP has selected its last drum-thump for the remainder of the campaign although they said that about the last 17 “last drum-thumps.”Obama is a socialist!

Missouri Congressman Todd Akin, speaking near St. Louis:

“This campaign in the next couple of weeks is about one thing It’s a referendum on socialism.”

Arizona Sen. John McCain, who is apparently still running for President, at Dayton Ohio yesterday:

“Barack the Redistributor.”

Then he realized that sounded like an auto part, so, John McCain at Pottsville, Pennsylvania, later yesterday:

“Sen. Obama is running to be Redistributionist in Chief.”

No, no, go back to the first one.

Nobody you’re talking to, even understands what socialism means, Senator.

“Re-dis-tri-bu-shun-ist”is six syllables, and it sounds more like he’s recycling newspapers or something. Go simpler, like Michelle Bachmann’s only rival for “least stable member of the House of Representatives:” Steve King, R-Iowa, 5th District and 17th Century.

Warming up a crowd at a high school in Sioux City, for Gov. Palin on Saturday, King, who is amazingly still let out of the house each day without adult supervision, said of the Obama candidacy:

“When you take a lurch to the left you end up in a totalitarian dictatorship.”

“There is no freedom to the left. It’s always to our side of the aisle.”

“We choose freedom and liberty.”

Presumably that’s why the Congressman’s party was good enough to torture prisoners, eavesdrop on Americans, suspend Habeas Corpus, demonize dissent, pay news organizations to run favorable stories, and generally come as close to a totalitarian dictatorship as any American president ever has.

To choose freedom and liberty. For Congressman King and invited guests. Not for the country. Can you tell I’m stalling?

I’m trying to give Gov. Palin out there, a couple more seconds to figure out how she managed to get herself, as Shakespeare wrote of people destroyed by their own evil plans, “hoist with her own petard.”

Got it yet, Gov?

Okay, you remember Sen. Obama telling J.T. Plumber that it would help the country to “share the wealth”—a sentiment with which anybody not receiving $150,000 in free clothes would probably agree?

So you went off in Des Moines, remember this?

“See, under a big government, more tax agenda, what you thought was yours would really start belonging to somebody else, to everybody else. If you thought your income, your property, your inventory, your investments were, were yours, they would really collectively belong to everybody. Higher taxes, more government, misusing the power to tax leads to government moving into the role of some believing that government then has to take care of us. And government kind of moving into the role as the other half of our family, making decisions for us. Now, they do this in other countries where the people are not free.”

So Gov., Obama’s not just a socialist? Not just a re-distributionist re-distributor? Maybe not just a totalitarian? Maybe not just a dictator, he may be a communist?

To paraphrase you in Des Moines, Governor, Obama wants to set up, unlike other candidates, collectively owning the resources. By sharing that wealth and those resources. Collectivist sharing’ the wealth socialist communism, I’d say.

And still none of that sounds familiar to you, Governor?

“And Alaska – we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.”

Who said that, Governor?

Who was the collectivist share-the-wealther, who was boasting to the reporter visiting from “The New Yorker Magazine,”of having been able to send a check for $1,200 to every man, woman and child in the state since, quote “Alaska is sometimes described as America’s socialist state, because of its collective ownership of resources?”

Why, you said that, Governor! You’re a share-the-wealth, collectivist, Almost-Socialist-Governor, Governor! Who also believes that income, property, inventory and investments, collectively belonging to everybody else, leads to a misuse of power, and government making decisions for us, turning countries into places where the people are not free.

Places like,  Sarah Palin’s America! Governor, all sorts of choice words apply here: hypocrite, double-talker, snake-oil seller, socialist. But let me stick with just one, with which to bid you goodbye. You, governor, are a fraud.

Well said, Keith!

This Just Sucks!

I am a political junkie and do very little reading of fiction, but when I do it is a Hillerman novel.

This is a story in AP.

Tony Hillerman, author of the acclaimed Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels and creator of two of the unlikeliest of literary heroes — Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee — died Sunday of pulmonary failure. He was 83.

Hillerman’s daughter, Anne Hillerman, said her father’s health had been declining in the last couple years and that he was at Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque when he died at about 3 p.m.

Hillerman lived through two heart attacks and surgeries for prostate and bladder cancer. He kept tapping at his keyboard even as his eyes began to dim, as his hearing faded, as rheumatoid arthritis turned his hands into claws.

Lt. Joe Leaphorn, introduced in “The Blessing Way” in 1970, was an experienced police officer who understood, but did not share, his people’s traditional belief in a rich spirit world. Officer Jim Chee, introduced in “People of Darkness” in 1978, was a younger officer studying to become a “hathaali” — Navajo for “shaman.”

Together, they struggled daily to bridge the cultural divide between the dominant Anglo society and the impoverished people who call themselves the Dineh.

Hillerman’s commercial breakthrough was “Skinwalkers,” published in 1987 — the first time he put both characters and their divergent world views in the same book. It sold 430,000 hardcover copies, paving the way for “A Thief of Time,” which made several best seller lists. In all, he wrote 18 books in the Navajo series, the most recent titled “The Shape Shifter.”

Each is characterized by an unadorned writing style, intricate plotting, memorable characterization and vivid descriptions of Indian rituals and of the vast plateau of the Navajo reservation in the Four Corners region of the Southwest.

Glenn Beck Joins FOX News

Good bye and good……..sorry cannot say it!

Beck has signed a multi-year agreement to host a weekday program on Fox News

He will continue to host his daily radio show, “The Glenn Beck Program,” syndicated by Clear Channel Communications’ Premiere Radio Networks to more than 300 stations and XM Satellite Radio.

CNN hired him back in 2006 and was just away to try and gain more low information voters to view the network.  I knew from the beginning he was a typical piece of ……..(use your imagination)….he did a story about the come back of business in Iraq and he showed a pic of an American soldier talking with a kid and the soldier was holding an Afghani flag…..and it was a story about Iraq…..see?

He is full of crap and FOX is where he belongs, he will be among friends and the same low life species of people who make up news to fit the situation.

The Palin Page #2

These are notes on the saga that is Palin that never made it to post….just wanted to share with my readers and get their thoughts.

1–Palin said in an interview, “it is not negative, the American people need to know the truth”.  I ask does that also include the truth on:

a–Vogler of the AIP b) Keating, c) Singlaub, d) Lobbyist Rick Davis, e) trooper-gate, f) the Wasilla sports-plex, just o mention a few.

2–At a rally Palin chastised a protester with, “thank the vets for giving you the right to protest”.  First that is not a right to be given by the military, it is to be protected by the military.  Second, those protesters were fans that were asking hewr to speak up, they could not hear her.

3–Palin told Rush in an interview on his show, “she has nothing to lose by attacking Obama”.  Did she just concede defeat in November?

4–trooper-gate, she has said that she was cleared of wrong doing…now I read the report and I missed that part…they found her breaking a state statute.  She cannot be that ignorant.

5–Again she and her running mate do not hear the threats of violence against Obama, but they sure hear any protesters and set about chastising them openly.

6–Her campaign is pushing the baby’s daddy hard, is that something the people need to know.  Plus he has said that the myspace page was not his but a few friends did it as a joke.  If so, why not bring that out in the beginning?