I am done, for now!

Okay, I'm done with the whole crappy mess.  The damage is done. And it is damage. The Republicans tore our country apart, piece by piece. They're very good at it. And if you think I'm being partisan here, I don't give a crap.  They went LOW.  No matter how you feel on each side, there is no doubt that the Republican mind is filled with racist, bigoted, misogynistic, convoluted thinking that hatred of Muslims, Blacks, Latinos, the growing LBGTQ community, Jews, women, the old and infirm is normal. Why else would the vitriolic epithets hurled at all these groups come so readily to the lips of so many GOP (read 'Trump') supporters?

If you think we should give the guy a chance, I'm not anywhere near ready. Again, the damage has been done. The outright lies, the obvious lack of intelligence, the stirring up of hatred, the complete putdown of so many, the snide remarks resulting in his opponent being marked for physical jeopardy (don't think that wasn't meant), the secretiveness, the refusal to show his tax returns, the myriad of lawsuits, his vile language and actions with and toward women. Vilifying your opponent with lies (and she has been vilified for decades because she is a woman) just cements the pettiness and viciousness with which Trump will always be known.  He is a piece of work and it's not good.

Both candidates have flaws. But some flaws are WAY OVER THE TOP.  When you run for the highest office in the land, you don't go for the miserly, boorish, garish, uneducated, least ever qualified or fit for the job, who thinks it's okay to stiff people who work for you and bankruptcies are good business practice as long as he doesn't lose any money.  You go for the most qualified, educated, intelligent person who has a proven dedicated life of service to so many others; who has a wealth of experience dealing with those who were across the aisle in Congress, world leaders and whose foundation has helped millions around the world.

Planning to dismantle all the good that President Obama accomplished during eight years of the most vitriolic assaults on his (and his whole family's) character while stifling his ability to  move this country toward a more humane and good world, is the proof that the GOP doesn't give a damn about most Americans, only their religious, bigoted and uneducated agenda and their desire to take away so many rights that Americans hold dear.

I don't tolerate unbelievable stupidity well at all. The next four years will be filled with that, I fear. An ignoramus doesn't become a genius. Trump will remain what he is: a self-centered, power-grabbing, money-grubbing zhlob (isn't Yiddish terrific?) surrounded by people (mostly men) who have designs to make this country what it was back when White men were the only ones who mattered.  This does not bode well for so many and I cry when I anticipate the damage that will be done.

But, it is what it is. I will do whatever I am able to do to combat the stupidity and hatefulness by speaking out or writing about it or signing petitions or whatever I can do. I am encouraged by all the people who want something better for this country than what will be offered for the next four years. And no matter how much damage the Republicans will inflict on us, it will be undone in years to come.  

This country is already in Hell, courtesy of the GOP!

I'm at the point where I want a large number of people to disappear from the face of the earth, recede into the woodwork permanently, be forever silenced, be exiled and never to be heard from again.  How many different ways can I say this?   All of these people I want silenced are Republicans.

I'm just totally and completely fed up with the hatred, stupidity, fear-mongering, war-mongering, lying, greedy, racist, misogynistic, bigoted sons of bitches who think internment, identifying badges, Christians only, God above the Constitution, denigrate and silence women and minorities, feed the rich and starve the poor shit is what the United States is all about.  Where the hell did they come from?

Every day, some more crap slithers out of their lying, frothy mouths. Who, in their right mind, would say the drivel, the swill that they come up with?  Is there some sort of contest among these crazies to see who can think up the most outrageous, non-sensical, claptrap utterances with the prize being a seat at the White House?

Not one of the current load of crazies running for the GOP presidential nomination has enough mental ability - intellectual acuity to run a sewage plant. They play to the worst rage in humans and feed it until it explodes.

I just can't stand that this country is so full of idiots in the form of gun nuts, tea baggers, right wing Christian lunatics, all of them filled with intense hatred of those who are not like them and don't mind  unloading that hatred on the rest of us.

My anger runneth over and under and around and through.  Honestly, a deathly plague on all their houses.

It doesn't affect me much so why do I care?

My children are grown so I have none in school.

I'm past childbearing age.  No worries there.

My husband and I are both professionals.  We each have/had great jobs throughout our working lives.

We've always had a nice home to live in, enough food and clothing.

We've always had what passes for health insurance in this country (I have other words for this) so, thank goodness we've enjoyed good health for the most part.

I've never had a personal need to go to a women's shelter, a food kitchen or a charity for help.

With the exception of one incident decades ago, I've never been the object of religious hate.

I've never been the object of hate because of the color of my skin or my sexual orientation.

I've never been denied to right to vote.

I'm able to live my life with never having to worry about the myriad of hateful things that millions of people all over the world are subjected to.... and especially the millions who reside in the United States, that bastion of democracy that is supposed to be the land of the free and home of the brave where freedom and equality are supposed to apply to every citizen.

So, the Ferguson, Missouri horror; the denial of the right to vote for so many that just occurred; the laws passed regulating women's health issues by men who shouldn't be sticking their noses in where they don't belong; the gerrymandering; the decimating of social services; the defunding of all the things that help the poor, the disabled, women, veterans, education, and children; the privatization of prisons and schools; the dumbing down of education in America and replacing facts with religious fiction; and the drive to make this country a right-wing Christian nation should really have no affect on me but yet, IT DOES!

It does because I have a heart, a brain and I understand what a democracy is supposed to be.  What we have now is an oligarchy, a form of government with power vested in a few, not a government of, by and for the people. The Republican/Tea Party faction in this country doesn't want a government to benefit the populace.  They want control of our lives, the country's assets and a population of uninformed puppets doing their bidding. Our Congress is populated by a plethora of absolutely the most stupid and crass individuals, filled with hate for those unlike them

How can I stand by and watch this country sink into a quagmire of never-ending greed, hostility, intense hatred, racism, bigotry, misogyny, corporate greed and disregard of civil rights?  I can't.  I'm choking on my rage. So I write to my Washington Congressional representatives and senators, to my local politicians; I sign petitions and add my own comments; I email to these same people; I make my opinions and positions known; I support organizations who believe in equality and civil rights for everyone; and I BLOG because I have to have a place to vent my frustration with what passes for a society in this country.  It's not civilized.  It's simply crazy.

If this country doesn't change into a humane, caring country that welcomes diversity and offers equality and civil rights to all and offers ways everyone can live without fear (of so many things and people), this country will go down in flames and we'll have the vicious Republicans and Tea Party to thank for the demise of the United States.  They will cause the death of this country. And no one wants to see the younger generation put up with that.

So, yes I care and I do what I can do.  And anyone who reads this should be doing something, anything to combat the viciousness and stupidity so prevalent in this country now.  Perhaps it will take another couple of decades when these nuts will have died off for progress to be made.  But rage against the Republican machine needs to begin now before there is nothing to save and nothing to care about.

We, the who?

I am a consumer of many things.  I use commodities and services.  I pay for what I consume and it doesn't matter how much I pay for what I consume.  The fact remains, I do pay.

Some of the things I pay or have paid for come from the government like social security and Medicare.  I paid for those things all my working life and I have a right to get those services for which I paid.  I also have paid or continue to pay for the US government to work so that ALL CITIZENS BENEFIT from the laws passed in the US Congress.   However, I'm not getting my money's worth.

I, and many tens of millions of my fellow citizens, are getting the shaft.  We are paying for wars we do not approve of, for environmental disasters occurring with regularity, for laws strangling women's rights, for laws being pushed through that favor the Christian religion over all others, for laws that restrict freedom of speech and assembly, for laws that counter the Constitution.  I and the rest of the 99% are NOT getting the roads or the infrastructure repaired, the air and water cleaned up, the research and development for eradicating diseases funded enough, the superior PUBLIC education everyone is entitled to receive, the exceptional health care seen offered in other countries but not here, the reasonable prices for medications, the assurance that all people will be treated fairly regardless of race, origin, gender, or age.  Ah, yes, I could go on but you get the idea.  There is no "liberty and justice for all," only for some as long s they are white, male, very rich and mostly Christian.

Through taxes, my money and the money from my fellow citizens (read the 99%), pays the salaries of 535 individuals who are supposed to be working for (the collective) me.  They do not.  Most of them are sick, greedy bastards who come to Washington with their hands out, ready to do the bidding of and work for the likes of the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Warren Buffet, Big Business, Big Pharma, the polluters, the sneaky, dishonorable, disreputable businesses who line pockets of Congress with bushels of money.

I'm not getting my money's worth because I'm not a gazillionaire.  The money I pay won't get me an audience with any of my congress people.  They don't listen to anyone other than those who find a way to funnel huge sums of cash into their offshore bank accounts.   So yes, I'm saying that many in Congress take bribes although they wouldn't call it that.  I would suggest that Congress has become peopled with high-priced prostitutes.  So, I write to my Senators and Legislators on all kinds of issues.  What I get back is the work of an underling who emails a stock answer that has nothing to do with what I commented on or had concerns about.  Just a nondescript "thank you" for contacting the office.

My voice is not being heard because I don't have the money to buy anyone in Congress.  I would bet that the majority of people who run for seats in Congress start out with decent intentions but it doesn't take long before the bigger picture standing in front of them is that of a bulging bank account which gets bigger the longer they manage to keep their Congressional seats.

And then there is the partisanship of politics.  When did compromise become a dirty word? Sane intelligent people who have differences of opinion usually discuss, consider, examine, reason and explore solutions that will benefit as many people as possible without kicking an opposite view down a hellhole.  And doing so without resorting to lying, bribery, stupidity, denying established facts or being influenced by money-grubbing corporations, businesses or individuals who want special privileges or special laws made for just them.

Democracy is supposed to be government with power vested in the people. We keep electing people who have lost sight of that. What we have is not democracy anymore.  We have a plutocracy with government power invested in the few, the 1%, the ones with the multitudes of money, the gazillionaires who want more money, power and act as if this country belongs to them personally. This country has become ruled by the wealthy.  Which one of the Kochs will claim to be THE KING when the GOP/TP get their way?  Will they fight over the crown?  Will Sheldon Adelson muscle his way in with his corpulent, elephantine body and claim the throne?

So, the Preamble to the Constitution starts with, We the People of the United States.  That is no longer true.  I ask:  We the who?  The answer now is: We the Corporations.  We the rich, white, privileged .....

We are the laughing stock of the world.  Will there be another revolution?  Perhaps there will come a time when the 99% will be so fed up with being treated like second-class citizens or worse that they will be willing to take that stand against the mostly Republican greedy bastards who have destroyed what the United States is supposed to be.  And just to make it abundantly clear:  THIS IS NOT PRESIDENT OBAMA'S FAULT.  I lay the fault at the feet of the GOP and their particularly stupid friends from the Tea Party.  They are a war-mongering, illiterate, lying, intellectually-deficent bunch of religious fanatics who are happily led around by the rings in their noses as long as the money keeps flowing.  I hope someday soon they'll fall into that hellhole they've dug for everyone else.

A caveat:  I do have some wonderfully bright GOP friends who ARE NOT part of the group I have assailed above.

(Thanks to Politics USA for the meme.)

The stupid and nasty sector of America is growing.

Here is just a small sampling of the increasing stupidity effecting the United States.  How do these people know how to put one foot in front of the other while breathing?


A North Carolina Republican compares gays to pedophiles.

And the Lt. Governor of North Carolina wants the country to be ruled as a theocracy and to hell with the Constitution.

Senator Charles Grassley blames President Obama for something that his own staffer did.

Now Boehner is thinking up stuff to file  a lawsuit against President Obama for "not faithfully executing the laws of this country.  How about we file a lawsuit against Boehner for dereliction of duty?

A Pennsylvania school director wants kids to learn the Tea Party science of global warming denial.

Louie Gohmert says the kids coming over the border are "vermin ridden."  Perhaps his brain is riddled with vermin!

And who could forget Todd Akin of "legitimate rape rarely leads to conception" fame?

Now Rick Santorum told listeners during a radio interview that anti-gay marriage Christian business owners were being sent to re-education camps for refusing to provide their services to gay customers.  This guy is certifiably crazy!

Ann Coulter.  What can you say about a COMPLETE moron?  The vitriolic hate-monger deserves a special place in hell for the bitterness, prejudice, repulsiveness and malevolence  she continually spews.

Oh yes, Fox news resident doctor moron, Keith Ablow, says the World Cup is President Obama's plot to distract people from the issues of the day.  Ah, like Benghazi?

And poor Maine, saddled with an addlepated governor who says Social Security and Medicare are welfare.

Well, there are so many more examples of such hatred, stupidity, vitriol, abhorrence, and loathing expressed by so many Republicans, especially tea party members.  As long as people like these are spotlighted in the media and continue to denigrate anyone who isn't like them, this country has no chance to be what it is supposed to be:  a land of equality and opportunity for all, peopled by those with compassion, intelligence and an understanding of what's right.  It will continue to be a war-mongering nation which steps on the rights of all who are not white and Christian, who are old, sick, poor, female, and every other minority.  This is not the great nation it is supposed to be.  The crazy Right wing is killing it.

We appear to be heading to third world status.  I don't know if there is hope that this can be turned around.  But if something isn't done soon to turn this around, our demise as a respected country will be faster than the blink of an eye.

If I sound quite negative, it's because I'm pragmatic...realistic about what's happening.  I know there are a lot of good, intelligent people who really care about what happens here but somehow their voices always seem to get drowned out.

So, what do you think?  Got any hope to give?

Okay, my head just exploded

With the latest crapola from The Supreme Court, you know, the decision that allows the uber rich to buy Congress which will now be referred to as "the Koch-sucking groveling wretches," I'm hearing the sound of democracy swirling down the toilet.  This decision makes the United States no better than all those countries with moneyed, despotic rulers and slave laborers.  We are less than a third world country now.  The citizens of the US have been sold down the river.  Bribery has been made legal.

And now, the Human Rights Committee of the U. N. issued a report that has labeled the United States as "cruel, inhumane and degrading" to those who are poor and homeless.  Being poor and homeless has been criminalized here so now we are in the same company as many of the countries we, ourselves, denigrate and berate for the same reason.

We have never witnesses such vile, heartless and dishonorable individuals as the Republicans.  It's not Democrats, Progressives, or Liberals (or for that matter anyone with a heart and a working brain) who want to get rid of every program designed to help the working poor (and who blame people just for being poor) by getting rid of unemployment compensation, food stamps, Medicare, Social Security, pensions and unions.  It's not the Democrats who insist on feeding the huge corporations, Wall Street and the military with billions of our tax dollars, giving the rich tax breaks allowing them to pay NO taxes while the rest of us bear the brunt of making up what the rich don't pay!  Enough already!  And it's not the Democrats who spit on anyone who isn't white and male.  Every single issue that favors the average citizen is spat upon by the GOP.

It seems that evil has triumphed, courtesy of the Republicans.

I believe that Senator Bernie Sanders said it best:  "The great political struggle that we now face is whether the United States retains its democratic heritage or whether we move toward an oligarchic form of society where the real power rests with a handful of billionaires, not ordinary Americans."

I don't want to live under an oligarchy.  And the United States will become one soon if ordinary citizens don't revolt against a Republican Tea Party hell bent on destroying democracy as we have known it.

A bit of this and a bit of that

1.  It seems to me that every utterance that comes out of a Republican mouth is simply mean or astoundingly stupid or vindictive or condescending or misinformed or racist, or misogynist.

2.  I haven't heard one kind word about anything from the Right.

3.  It appears that it is a requirement, when applying for a job at Fox news, that one must leave their brains outside.

4.  Christmas is not my holiday, consequently I save a LOT of money not going crazy buying STUFF.  It's really become a huge mercantile event.

5.  How much money do rich people need before they get a conscience?  Is someone whispering INFINITE?

6.  I can't stand being waited on in a restaurant by someone with a tongue piercing.  It makes me want to vomit.  I almost have the same feeling when I see those huge black things making big holes in earlobes.

7.  I dislike people who declare their religion publicly every chance they get.  It's usually Christians because I don't see, read about or hear Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Baha'is, Sikhs, Wiccans, atheists, etc., yelling about the war on WHATEVER, or yelling that this is a WHATEVER nation and trying to legislate their point of view for the rest of us.  I prefer religion to be a private affair.

8.  So, I'm not a six year old kid anymore.  I grunt when I have to bend down to pick something up off the floor!

9.

     Yes, I was.  It is good to be a New England sports fan!  And that includes UCONN Women's basketball, too!

10.  I wish someone would tell the crazy gun nuts that the correct way to hold a gun is with the barrel pointed at their stomachs. I was going to write hearts but they don't have any!

11.  Why does my passion for chocolate never subside????

12.  We are such a war-mongering nation.  And it all comes down to GREED.  War is a money-maker.  They fact that it snuffs out so many young lives is of no consequence to those who supply the war machine.

13.  Women are still second class citizens in the United States.  Just ask any fr***** white, male Republican member of Congress or any white, male, Republican a**h*** elected to state office.

14.   The ads asking for everyone to give money, food, gifts for kids at this time of year are legion.  So what happens during the rest of the year?  Do people think the poor disappear until the next holiday season?  And my point is why do we have so many really poor people needing life-sustaining help in what is supposed to be a very prosperous country?  It's crazy, it's a shame and it's unconscionable.  We have to do better by RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE to a decent living wage.  

15.  I have never seen The Nutcracker ballet and frankly, don't have any great desire to see it.

16.  Years ago I decried the lack of intelligence in public life.  Alas, it has gotten so much worse.  And I don't want to be represented by people with such low IQs!  Have you read the crazy, meshaguss coming out of the mouths of members of Congress?  Did they all snort themselves throughout their formative years?  Most of them are Republicans.  Do they have a diseased gene in their pool?  Sigh............  They are meshugeh ahf toit (crazy as loons).  It sounds better in Yiddish. 

17.  Best job I ever had: radio talk show host in Connecticut.  Had different guests on every day: authors, politicians-state and Congressional, entertainers, people involved in every social service agency in the area, an inventor, musicians, a Native American sculptress.  I had so much fun interviewing the myriad guests who came on the show.   It was lively, funny, entertaining and informative and a joy to do.  Interviewing, asking the right questions and getting interesting information is something I do really well.  Wish I could do it again.

18.  I wish I could just twitch my nose and make everything right with the world.

19.  It remains to be seen.  Will the bad guys ever really get their comeuppance?

20.  Does anyone want the ice scrapers I still have?  I don't need them here in Arizona's Valley of the Sun!!!!

Hey, if you're reading this, please leave a comment at the bottom where it says: post a comment. I'd really appreciate that.  Thanks.

Screwing America, the GOP way.

"I support the troops."  These have become empty words with no real meaning anymore.   We have the Republicans to thank for that.

This phrase has no meaning at all to most Congressional Republicans and the Tea Party. It's just a slogan, a propaganda piece.  What support?  Our troops are not paid a living wage yet they are away from their families for months at a time, living in the worst of conditions, worrying about their families, worrying about their comrades in arms, worried about getting seriously injured or killed.

Now, with the GOP shut down of the government, supporting the troops has given way to "screwing the troops".  And not just the troops.  Screwing the country is what the GOP is after.  And make no mistake, this IS the fault of Congressional Republicans.

From the moment President Obama was elected, to this very minute, their goal was to take down the United States Government (and the Black guy in the White House), trash the Constitution they profess to believe in (but have no idea what it actually says and means) and place a "jackboot" on the necks of all those who are not white, Christian and European-descended.

Republicans' actions amount to sedition, a stirring up of rebellion against the government and that's a crime.  It is subversion of the Constitution. In my view, what the GOP is doing is plain and simple:  domestic terrorism.

Anyone with a working brain understands that the GOP hates the fact that they lost the last two elections to President Obama, that the ACA was part of that victory, and that Americans want that affordable health care.  They just can't stand that the deficit is going down, the economy is improving after the trashing G. W. Bush gave it.

The GOP-Tea Party:  whiny, kvetching bullies, filled with intense hatred for our elected President, inhumane, racist, bigoted, liars, utterly ignorant, anti-science, anti-education, anti-elderly, the sick and the poor, anti-women, anti anything that isn't just like them, narrow-minded religious fanatics intent on making this a Christian nation, easily duped, devoid of critical thinking skills.  They are all mamzers (Yiddish for untrustworthy bastards).

Ah, there are so many more descriptive words I could use but if you're not a right-wing Republican, you already know what they are.  What we need to do is get these Tea Party crazies out of Congress, out of any elected office and out of our hair.  They are killing the American dream and killing the reputation of the United States.  They are the worst of humanity because they don't care for humanity. As my sainted mother would say to these mamzers: Ich hob dich in bod! (Use your imagination)!

What the hell are we celebrating today?

What, exactly, are we celebrating today?  That women's rights are being decimated?  Women are becoming second-class citizens? That Christian religious beliefs are being shoved down our throats? That the right to privacy has eroded?  That the US is becoming Taliban-like? That Republicans have never found a war they didn't like? That Republican politicians even exist to make lives miserable?  That the cloud of utter stupidity, imbecility, and viciousness has surrounded and engulfed the GOP?  There is nothing to celebrate when homophobia, misogyny, bigotry, racism, religious scapegoating, gerrymandering, and new Jim Crow laws are engulfing this country. 

I've been around awhile and I've been through the fight for women's rights.  I am more than enraged when Republicans, especially MEN, stick their noses where it doesn't belong, practice medicine without a license, denigrating everyone who doesn't agree with them or look like them (read white males), changing the rules to wipe away the voting rights of those they look down on, chuckling as they wipe away help for the downtrodden, enriching their own pockets with blood money from corporations who take obscene profits by sending their operations overseas.

This is, indeed, a horrible country when the Republican/Tea Party is allowed to even exist since their only reason to be is to dominate every aspect of our lives, private or otherwise and to return this country to the 18th century when women were treated like property, blacks were enslaved, and white men had all the rights.  Insanity reigns supreme in this country now because the Republicans/Teabaggers are full of intense hatred of President Obama (read the black man) and everyone (read Democrats) who doesn't agree with them.  Their hatred, though they think it's disguised, is plain to see by those with critical thinking skills. The GOP doesn't believe in great education for everyone, they don't believe in science, technology, women's equality, freedom of/from religion or the Constitution.  They are bound and determined to kick this country into oblivion.  And they're doing a damn good job of it.

But, GOP, be warned.  You will rue the day you think you have won.  The time is coming when your craziness will be stopped and your party will implode.  It can't come too soon for me and every single person in this country who has a good heart and a working brain.

So, what are we celebrating today? Nothing but a good time. And I am celebrating the promise of kicking the hell out of the GOP in 2014.  I have two words for you, GOP, that will make you shudder:  Hillary Clinton!  2016 - She'll beat the crap out of you!

ANOTHER GUN RANT

I can tell you as a former teacher I would do anything to protect the pupils in my care. But if I was a teacher now and was expected to protect them with a gun, you'd have to pay me, at the very least, the salary of a police officer in addition to my teacher's salary. If I had to be someone who works two professions, I better be paid that way!  And of course the multimillion dollar NRA would never put up the money to pay for all the security they're proposing for schools.

Given my background regarding how I feel about guns, (see my previous post of January 22nd) never in a million years would I take up a gun thinking that I would really be able to shoot the damn thing straight enough to take the bad guy out.  So, arming teachers, most of whom don't want to be armed, is the answer?

And then after we arm teachers, what's the next place to be armed and who?  How about arming the ticket takers, ushers and concessionaires at theaters, the cabana people at resorts, waitresses and waiters in all restaurants, all members of sports teams (they'd have to be extra careful not to bump into each other while they carry) T.V. news camera operators while they're filming reporters doing their jobs on scene, cashiers and stock people at grocery stores, all the seniors who walk the halls of the local mall, every medical person in hospitals and clinics, every student in high school and college, everyone in all office buildings from janitors to secretaries to the business people, : in other words, let's make EVERY SINGLE PERSON living in the country carry a gun.  Will the F***** gun manufacturers and their parasitic NRA be happy then?????

In light of all the guns then being carried by literally everyone, how many tourists would want to come here?  How many scientists, exchange students, business people?  When the thought of everyone you pass on the street or in buildings in the United States is carrying and given the huge amount of nut jobs, gang members and generally pissed off assholes who think (and I use that term loosely) the "guvmint" is coming for their guns and stamping on their "rights" roaming the streets who are also carrying (because the NRA is against background checks and closing the gun show loopholes), why would anyone come here?  There are other countries to visit that are just as beautiful.  There are other ways to do business without actually stepping foot on US soil.  There are other universities in other countries just as good as what we have to offer here.  There is nothing here in the United States that is not offered by other countries.

And please don't start yelling that we have a democracy..... and freedom..... and rights..... That's a bunch of bullshit.  With the crap dished out by the Republican/Tea Party, women's freedom and rights are going down the toilet, along with voting rights, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  What we have is a desperate war for the very soul of this country and it's being stolen by the rich who don't give a rat's ass for those who are not in their sphere of society.  Those bastards must be stopped but given the bazillion dollars being poured into Republican coffers it's an uphill battle.  If we have any students left in the coming years who haven't been blown away and haven't been infected by the dumbing down of all things taught in those schools which disdain math, science and critical thinking, maybe, just maybe the future can be saved for the good, the intelligent, the caring, the  people who have hearts and souls.

Marco Rubio isn't the one

Marco Rubio looks nice, speaks well but still tells the lies the GOP has been spouting for years. He doesn't offer much by way of original thought.  He relies on GOP sound bites and marches to the GOP handbook, despite its not being relevant to the 21st century. The GOP position is to damn everything President Obama, Democrats and non-Christians say and their narrow-minded, backward thinking will sink them.

Repeating lies long enough doesn't make them true. Bashing the middle class constantly doesn't endear you to them.  Trying to pass laws that hurt the middle class, the elderly, the infirm, children, women and generally most of the citizens in this country won't convince them you're looking out for their best interests. Up is not down and right is not left.  Right is not even right, in this instance.  How can one party be so 'against' everything that helps the majority of Americans?

The tragedy of the Republican Party is that it has become the party of rabid Christian, bible-thumping white men who pick and choose the parts of their bible which they think authenticates their perverse, misogynistic view of the world.  Those GOP women who agree with them are from a different era when women still "had their place."

The Republicans are not even a whole party anymore.  They are populated by so many Tea Party members, people who are hell bent on destroying the government, people who believe that most, if not all, of government is useless and has no place in a free society. 

The Republicans/Tea Party are not interested in what's good for the country.  Marco Rubio, no matter how he is packaged, can't salvage the savage attacks on President Obama, immigrants, women, the old, the young, the middle class.  He just can't make it all go away, regardless of how well he speaks Spanish or tries to appear as if he cares.  It's just too obvious the he and the rest of his party care only for their billionaire handlers, big corporations and getting the rest of us to pay their way.

Marco Rubio isn't the great hope for the GOP in 2016.  They are just wrong for America.

YIDDISH CURSES FOR REPUBLICAN JEWS

I didn't write these.  Someone sent them to me via email but I thought they were funny enough to share.  If anyone knows who put this together please let me know so I can properly attribute this piece and thank her/him profusely!



YIDDISH CURSES FOR REPUBLICAN JEWS

May your insurance company decide constipation is a pre-existing condition.

May you live to a hundred and twenty without Social Security or Medicare.

May you be reunited in the world to come with your ancestors,
who were all socialist garment workers.

May you find yourself lost and stranded in a village of Palestinian Muslims,
and may you be treated only with dignity, kindness and respect.

May you grow like an onion with your head in the ground,
and then may the ground be fracked.

May you grow so rich that your widow’s second husband is thrilled
they repealed the estate tax.

May God give you a daughter-in-law who is as kind as she is beautiful, as patient
as she is rich, as wise as she is devoted, a virtuous woman in every way. And then
may a ballot initiative invalidate her marriage to your fat lump Rebecca.

May the secretary your husband is schtupping depend on Planned Parenthood
for her birth control.

May you feast every day on chopped liver with onions, chicken soup with dumplings,
baked carp with horseradish, braised meat with vegetable stew, latkes, and may
every bite of it be contaminated with E. Coli, because the government gutted the FDA.

May your state outlaw the morning-after pill the day before your daughter
comes home from the NFTY convention.

May your child give his Bar Mitzvah speech on the genius of Ayn Rand.

May you spend your whole life supporting and voting for and sending money
to Israel, and may you one day be actually forced to move there.

May you have a rare disease and need an operation that only one surgeon
in the world, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine, is able to perform.
And may he be unable to perform it because he doesn’t take your insurance.
And may that Nobel Laureate be your son.

May your son be elected President, and may you have no idea what you did
with his g-ddamn birth certificate.

May you find yourself insisting to a roomful of skeptics that your great-grandmother
was "legitimately" raped by Cossacks.

May you have a large store, and have it all dismantled by vulture capitalists.

May you have a hundred houses, and in every house a hundred rooms, and in every
room twenty beds, and then may you fall behind on just one of your mortgage
payments and have the bank repossess everything.

May you live to a ripe old age, and may the only people who come visit
you be Mormon missionaries.

May you make a fortune, and lose it all in one of Sheldon Adelson's casinos.

May your grandchildren baptize you after you’re dead.

May the state of Arizona expand their definition of "suspected illegal immigrants"
to "anyone who doesn't hunt."

May your son the doctor introduce you to his fiancée, Bristol Palin.

May you sell everything and retire to Florida just as global warming makes
it uninhabitable.

I may be liberal but...

I may be liberal but I'm not crazy.  Democrats, liberals, and progressives, for the most part, have not gone off the deep left end of the political spectrum.  We are patriots, we are intelligent, we think things through, we analyze. We understand that this is a country blessed by people who have come here for better lives, lives that give them  freedom from tyranny and fear.  America is indeed a smorgasbord of ideas, of individuals who bring their hopes, their dreams, their traditions and beliefs, their skills and abilities.  But mostly, they bring their desire to live in a country which values individual rights, justice for all its citizens and the freedom to be heard, respected and valued.  We were a country which produced the best and the brightest.

But, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.  Thanks to the Republican Party which has been taken over by the Tea Party, the ideals that I thought described what the United States was all about are systematically and deliberately being sabotaged, state by state, and through the obstinate and narrow mindedness of a group of people intent on denigrating our first black President at every turn.  The vitriol, the venomous comments, the intent to thwart everything Democrats propose, regardless of whether it benefits the country is beyond reason.  They have decimated every program that benefits the elderly, the young, and the infirm. The twisting of words, the outright lies, the breaking of unions, the disparaging of teachers, police officers, and firefighters, the  attempt to dismantle the government's ability to protect the environment, to educate every child, the effort to privatize everything so that corporations can squeeze humongous profits , using race-based politics, the gutting of regulations insuring the safety of of our citizens, the insertion of Christian-based beliefs into law contrary to the separation of church and state, insisting that this is a "Christian" nation when it most definitely is not, denying healthcare to millions of Americans...this is the Republican way.

It is the road to Fascism, led by a selfish, self-absorbed, bible-thumping cadre of insolent, contemptuous, disrespectful, homophobic, racist, and bigoted people from a segment of the American populace who have become the most intolerant human beings the United States has ever experienced. It is criminal, it is shameful, it is unpatriotic, it is un-American, and it is a disgrace.   And they must not be allowed to strip this country of its claims to democracy, freedom, opportunity for all and the pursuit of happiness for every citizen.  We must not let anyone "take our country back."  We must take our country forward, ensuring equal rights for everyone, a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people", not run by the rich and their corporate friends.   Republicans are against a real democracy; Democrats are for a real democracy.  It's an easy decision for those who really care about the welfare of the citizens of the United States.

What the GOP is about

1.  Scott Walker's quiet repeal of equal pay for women;
2.  Denying full health benefits, i.e. contraception, for women under the guise of "religious freedom";
3.  Not extending the Violence Against Women Act;
4.  Pulling federal dollars from Planned Parenthood;
5.  Voter ID laws designed to discourage the elderly, blacks, college kids, etc. from voting, all because of bogus concerns about bogus voting fraud.
6.  The GOP decimating everything that helps most Americans: wages, unemployment, Medicare, Social Security, healthcare, education, environmental protection, etc.;
7.  The GOP's gift of much lower taxes for oil companies, pharmaceuticals, corporations and the rich, placing a larger tax burden on the average American;
8.  Paul Ryan's incredibly awful budget which would elevate the deficit on the backs of the poor;
9.  Denigrating science and public education;
10.  Blaming teachers, police officers, firefighters, and their unions for the ills of the country;
11.  Still believing in the fable of trickle-down economics which never worked;
12.  Cherry-picking which parts of the Constitution to uphold and which parts to throw out;
13.  Still thinking that somewhere in the Constitution it says this country was founded as a "Christian Nation".............
14.  Reveling in their complete and utter lack of honest intellectualism about science, women, what this country is supposed to stand for, diversity, kindness, compassion, humanity, honesty;
15.  The GOP: the political party bound and determined to bring this country back to the 1930's;
16.  The GOP: a party that has no forward vision for the good of the country, only tired, old ideas from the past that don't work;
17.  Making the United States in a fascist oligarchy;
18.  GOP candidates who flip-flop on issues to pander to the right wing;
19.  GOP candidates who lie continually;
20.  GOP Congressional members who HATE President Obama and don't hide that hatred;
21.  Republicans who publicly disrespect the office of the President of the United States because there is a black man as President;
22.  Stating that their only goal is to get Barack Obama out of office.
23.  The stupidity and audacity of questioning President Obama's birthplace and his religion.
24.  Wanting to "take our country back"..from who?  the Native Peoples from whom you stole the lands???
25.  Conservative:  limit change, preserve existing conditions, inflexible, unchanging, controlling, unimaginative, uncreative, old guard, right wing........... all unflattering definitions.

Why would anyone want to be part of such a horrendous group of miserably mean, stupid, intellectually challenged, unpatriotic and vicious people?

REPUBLICANS ARE NOTHING BUT COWARDS

 What more proof do you need that the Republican/Conservative/Tea Party/Moron Party is quaking in its boots at its total lack of balls to go after one of their own.  That Rush Limbaugh, or as I prefer to call him, Rushing Limpballs, can open that pisshole of a mouth, trash someone he doesn't know over the airwaves and expect his Republican henchmen to jump on that potty-mouthed bandwagon is beyond comprehension.

But, sure enough, his army of asshole stooges not only jumped but asked "how high."  Here are some of the detestable, ugly, drooling drippings that came out of their disgusting, smelly mouths (courtesy of Eric Boehlert of Huffington Post):

-Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin denounced Fluke as a "femme-agogu tool."
-The right-wing site Jawa Report illustrated a post about Fluke with a picture of a tattoo that reads "Semen Demon."
-Pam Geller wrote that Fluke is "banging it five times a day" and that "calling this whore a slut was a softball."
-Accuracy in Media's Don Irvine called her a "skank."
-Former CPAC Blogger of The Year, Ace of Spades, called Fluke a "shiftless rent-a-cooch from East Whoreville."
-Michelle Malkin guest blogger Doug Ross used "Got Slut?" in a headline and suggested Fluke suffered from "nymphomania."
-Dana Loesch complained the controversy surrounding Limbaugh's three-day "slut" campaign represented a "manufactured" story. (This, before Limbaugh responded to the "manufactured" story by issuing a rare public statement.)

And then there are the feeble, idiotic responses of the Republican so-called leadership: Romney apparently would have used other words to convey the same message, Boehner said it was "inappropriate," thereby proving what a wuss he is, Santorum-Cantor ....anything????   Too scared to beat the shit out of Limpballs and tell him where to go.  They cower before him, all doing his bidding.  They are cowards of the first order.

The whole Republican gang is just that:  a gang of backward, nasty, mean, vicious, haters of everything and everyone who isn't white, male, and Christian.  They are a bunch of old farts belching their stinkin' wind and trying to suck the life blood out of all those who don't think as they do.  Perhaps their collective belching and farting of their scare tactics, their lies, their creepiness, and their idiocy will shortly bring them down into the sewers they like to wallow in.  And with some luck they will never rise again out of the muck and the mire they have created.

ARE WE IN A TIME WARP?

As time goes by in this political season that I can only describe as being incendiary, I wonder why Republicans and Tea Party members have become so unbelievably unsound, so out of touch with the 21st century, unreasonable, unbalanced, unrealistic, backward, vulgar, and just genuinely miserable human beings. 

When did they become the advocates for blind hatred toward all those who either are not like them or who don't believe or agree with them?  How do they reconcile their professed belief in a small government while at the same time sticking their noses in the most private affairs of women? How can their Christian religious beliefs take precedence over everyone else's beliefs.  Why do they think theirs is the only belief system that must be followed?

On one hand, they profess to want to adhere to the Constitution.  On the other, they want to rip out the parts they think don't follow their warped beliefs.  They apparently want this country ruled as a theocracy.  I also think they don't understand what the word means.

Their disdain for education is beyond belief.  Their disdain for the rights of average Americans is beyond belief.  Their war on women is incomprehensible.  Their war on laws that keep us safe is incomprehensible.  Their war on the sick, the young and the elderly is incomprehensible.  Their war on science is incomprehensible.  They badmouth everything good that the Obama administration does

Everything that the Republican party stands for is detested by those who really love this country.  The Republican party seems hell bent on rolling back all the gains Americans have made in the last 60 years.  Women will become chattel, education and health care will only be for the rich, minorities will be discriminated against just as they had been so many years ago.  It is the way Republicans think.  It is what they want.  It is a devastating plan for the United States. 

They have twisted the meaning of much of what this country stands for:  freedom, patriotism, liberty, opportunity, equality, diversity, cooperation.  They are bigots, racists, 

We are heading toward a Taliban-like state if they ever take the reins of government.  They are a depressing group of hypocritical, misogynist nutjobs.  This country will not be a good place to live in if they get the power they seek.  It will be like living in the United States of Iran. 

Even with all this, I have hope that the American people won't let the Republicans ride roughshod over them, take away their rights, stomp on their ideas or their dreams or allow this country to go down the path to a theocracy or oligarchy.  I hope this will become a country for "the people", by "the people", and not run by the corporate masters who pull the strings of most Republican politicians.  

This Pack of Nit Wits

The incredible viciousness being tossed back and forth between Romney and Gingrich makes me laugh, albeit through my disgust.  Each has a really big problem with something they should have learned when they were kids........ telling the truth.  I understand this "is politics."  But lying just shouldn't be acceptable in any venue.  The lies are legion, nonsensical, blatant, hypocritical, malicious, reprehensible, groundless and erroneous.  The two of them sound like immature, emotionally undeveloped, nasty little boys intent on outdoing the other in name calling.  Neither is Presidential material.

Each has enormous detrimental baggage.  One clearly is lacking in character and integrity and has honed his lying to a very high degree.  The other pads his answers to mean whatever will pass muster to the particular audience he speaks to.  He has no idea what he believes because those beliefs change so frequently depending on the audience he is speaking in front of at the time.

Both take credit for things they were never really involved in.  Gingrich  says he is the successor to Ronald Reagan even though Reagan did so many things Gingrich is against, like raising taxes more than a dozen times.  Romney takes credit for creating thousands of jobs, citing, as an example, the success of Staples.  Romney was with Bain Capital, not Bain, a completely different company which was involved with Staples.  Romney wasn't a job creator, he was a job destroyer.  He and his cronies took over companies, took out the money, left the companies with debt, sent jobs overseas and left the companies to collapse, thereby putting an awful lot of people out of work.

Gingrich had to leave his position as Speaker of the House in disgrace; he is an adulterer as is his current third wife, is a race-baiting bigot who thinks Latinos and Blacks are somehow lesser human beings.  He is bombastic, pompous, ungracious and histrionic.  He is hardly presidential.  He makes a mockery of the Constitution and all that is good in this country.  He has no empathy for the working people of the United States...the ones who help make this country great.

Romney has no idea what most Americans struggle with in living day to day, trying to survive job losses, house losses, paying ungodly amounts for health insurance, having no health insurance, taking jobs that pay very little.  He inherited his obscenely huge amount of money.  He was a one-term governor of Massachusetts who, apparently, did so lousy a job that he wasn't re-elected.  The only good thing he did was pass "Romneycare" which is much like the Affordable Health Care Act that President Obama passed and which Romney rails against.  Every position he takes changes with the wind.  He flip-flops faster and more often than a beached fish.  He apparently hasn't heard that there is audio and video of him everywhere voicing all his changing positions.

And then there is Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.  What is there to say.  One is surely a self-centered crackpot, the other a right wing Christian, mindless, bible-thumping, tactless stooge who wants to take the country back to the 19th century.

None of the 9 cretins running for the GOP presidential nomination has ever talked about what they would do to create jobs in this country.  They had no idea how to.  They only knew how to bash President Obama.  The GOP is the party of hate, class warfare, backwardness.  They look back instead of forward.  They want things to be as they were, no matter how bad it was.  They want to eliminate all the gains this country has made in education, health, environmental safety, food safety, equitable pay, equal rights, personal rights and on and on and on.  They want to take this country back, all right, back to the time when women and minorities were second class citizens.

This pack of nit wits is the best the Republican party has?  When G-d said, "All those who want brains, come forth," the Republicans came fifth.  Those left running are a very sorry lot.  They just need to go away and leave the country in the hands of people who care for EVERYONE living here, not just the ultra-rich 1%.  The rest of us, the 99% need our voices heard.  We'll have that chance by re-electing President Obama.

Values mean something

When I was a child I was raised in a home by parents who valued many things.  My dad told my brother and me, time and time again, that "Your word is your bond."  He always believed that if you promise anything, if you give someone your word, it was something you were bound by and you must follow through with whatever was promised.  Keeping your word was a principled, morally correct and ethical thing to do.  My dad lived by those words.

Doing goods things for other people was a very big part of my mom's life.  Every day I was able to observe my mom doing things that not only enriched people's lives but literally saved some lives.  She raised money for charities (the March of Dimes was her special charity), she secured housing, household goods, groceries & jobs for refugees from the Holocaust, she provided an ear for listening to others' tales of woe (and there were many.) And she did all this anonymously.

So, through the years I observed how my parents lived and the good that they were able to do.  My parents didn't have much but they cared about others who had even less. 

Now, the bombshell:  they were Republicans.

If they were alive today they would be horrified at what the Republican party has become:  the party of greed, deceit, fear, hunger for power and money; a party that can be bought, a party with no scruples, the party of exclusion, a party that wants complete control of everyone's lives even though they profess otherwise, a Christian party with all other religions or beliefs delegated to inferior status, a party filled with double-talking hypocrites, a party who hates liberals, homosexuals, immigrants, poor people, people with no jobs, those who have lost their homes, the elderly, the sick, the homeless.  They have no compassion.  They are without a soul.

Yes, my parents, the Republicans, would be horrified.  And if they were alive today, they would be proud Democrats.

Why, in G-d's name, don't they get it?

The imbecilic Republican House of Representatives is considering reducing Social Security raises, putting future increases in veterans' benefits and pensions for federal workers and military personnel in jeopardy.  Less people would qualify for Medicaid, Head Start, heating assistance, school lunches, food stamps, etc.  See a pattern here?  All these things benefit those in the U.S. who, without the help, will live life in misery, abject poverty, hunger and completely without dignity.

Since when has Social Security become an entitlement?  Those of us who paid into it all our working lives don't even get back that money.  The government owes it to us plus interest and what we get is a pittance.  Screwing with Social Security by reducing its benefits is theft, pure and simple.

Reducing the deficit is one thing.  Reducing it on the backs of those least able to afford it is just cruel, hateful disgusting and obnoxious.

Republicans only look out for the fat cats, the corporations, the very rich who grease the palms of Congress with so much money, that amount could probably erase the deficit.

Republicans:  the lowest common denominator of the human species who don't have a moral, ethical bone in their bodies and whose brains have been replaced with mush, rendering them incapable of understanding how the world works for everyone else.  They are a stupid, disgusting pack of wolves, drunk with power and intent on turning this country back in time, getting rid of women's rights, environmental protections, and all the good that has been accomplished in the last 50 years. 

We are no longer a democracy. Our elected representatives seem to do the bidding of a small group of people (the 1%), not what is in the best interests of ALL their constituents (the 99%). This country is becoming an oligarchy: a small group of people who have control, the money people who own Congress....the best Congress money has bought.  This country is not the best in the world.  It has become a third world country, pandering to the rich and denigrating everyone who is not white, Christian and/or rich.

The actions of Republicans in Congress will insure that the U.S. way of life becomes a tremendous burden for the 99% who don't fall into their favored categories.  Why, in G-d's name, don't they get it?

A DESCRIPTION OF A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION

REPUBLICANS:   The ultra-conservative SCOTUS; Citizens United; ALEC; the unethical Clarence Thomas; the Kochs; the GOP field of candidates; GOP governors; the do-nothing (on purpose) GOP-controlled House; GOP and its class warfare; voter suppression; union-busting; verbally trashing working Americans; denigrating teachers; cutting vital, life-saving services to those most vulnerable; verbally declaring war on President Obama; hating anyone who is not "Christian, white and of European descent"; not understanding the Constitution; not giving a damn about the Constitution except for the 2nd Amendment; no interest in creating jobs; no understanding of how diplomacy works; making this country into an oligarchy; wanting to kill immigrants via an electrified fence; deporting children of immigrants who know no other country-even though they are U.S. citizens; raising taxes on all but the top 1%; eliminating protections for the workplace, the environment, workers, and citizens in general by eliminating the EPA, HHS, HUD, Dept. of Education, etc; downsizing or eliminating services for veterans.

I'm sure I've left out many more parts of the definition.  Please feel free to add to this Republican terrorist list!