This site focuses on Republican politicians and conservatives that rip off their constituency. We have the Tea Party, fundamentalist churches, the corruption of ALEC and other special interests groups. But the site also supports progressive Democrats and the local Democratic Socialist of America. We must have ideas on how to replace regressive and corrupt politicians with something better. For comments steveotto2001@yahoo.com or ottozero2001@yahoo.com.
Act One: Donald Trump fumbles his phone from the
nightstand, pressing hard on buttons that seem enormous to his stubby fingers
as he squints to watch each letter spill from his stream of
unconsciousness onto the tiny, glowing screen.
Melania, our great and
very hard working First Lady, who truly loves what she is doing, always thought
that “if you run, you will win.” She would tell everyone that, “no doubt, he
will win.” I also felt I would win (or I would not have run) - and Country is
doing great!
Act Two: A keen observer reads these signals and
recognizes in them the sounds of a confused child who has never known love,
desperately clinging to an illusion of happiness while knowing it is all a lie.
The latest trend among conservatives is to berate a college
education. Not unlike the good ol' boys in the 1800s who believed that
education was just not necessary to getting a job or leading a practical life,
good ol' boy rednecks today are encouraging people to seek out practical
education, devoid of such "crybaby" subjects as philosophy. They have
been ridiculing the idea of a "liberal arts education." According to
these conservatives, there is no reason to try and understand the world around
us. There is no reason to try and understand the culture we live in or its history
of development. There's no need to have a well rounded education. There is no
need to understand basic ideology. In other words they are promoting pragmatic
basic skills to operate in a work environment and nothing more. I would seem
they are trying to create autonotrons.
"Why does a kid go to a major
university these days?" said Frank Antenori, 51, a former Green Beret who
served in the Arizona
state legislature, interviewed by Reading
Eagle. "A lot of Republicans would say they go there to get
brainwashed and learn how to become activists and basically go out in the world
and cause trouble."
Antenori is part of an
increasingly vocal campaign to transform higher education in America. Though
U.S.
universities are envied around the world, he and other conservatives want to
reduce the flow of government cash to what they see as elitist, politically
correct institutions that often fail to provide practical skills for the job
market."
As we can tell from Antenori, he doesn't like the idea that
University professors often hold liberal views, or at least not conservative
beliefs. Of course there are conservative Professors, but he is willing to
throw "the baby out with the bath water" as they say.
He admits that he got a lot of his skills from being a Green
Beret in the military.
"Antenori shot the head off a
rattlesnake at his back door last summer - a deadeye pistol blast from 20 feet.
No college professor taught him that. The U.S. Army trained him, as a marksman
and a medic, on the "two-way rifle range" of Afghanistan and Iraq."
Rather than understanding his countries culture or history
he values being able to shoot the head off of a rattle snake. The important
skills he learned were marksmanship and being a medic. I suppose being a medic
could come in handing if Antenori wanted to be a paramedic, but the only thing
useful about being a Marksman is his past job as a member of the Arizona state
legislature. Marksman skills are essential to being a conservative legislator.
It is not surprising this man values the military. Right-wing
leaders today have far more interest in defending
the US Empire overseas than studying ways to make this country operate more
fairly. Antenori is not alone in his opinion. Conservatives across the country
are trying to trash universities. They are having some success. According to Reading
Eagle:
"To the alarm of many
educators, nearly every state has cut funding to public colleges and
universities since the 2008 financial crisis. Adjusted for inflation, states
spent $5.7 billion less on public higher education last year than in 2008, even
though they were educating more than 800,000 additional students, according to
the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association."
And why are such school's funding being cut? Because the Republican
Party runs almost 80 percent of this country's state legislators. All kinds
of big shots are getting into the act of short changing the universities. Again
from the Reading
Eagle:
"Schools in Arizona and across the nation are welcoming
private donors, including the conservative Koch brothers. In nearly every
state, the Charles Koch Foundation funds generally conservative-leaning
scholars and programs in politics, economics, law and other subjects."
Here in Wichita we have seen
all the blatant corruption
of the Koch Brothers trying to control the content of classes and the
actual teachers who work at WichitaStateUniversity.
There is noting unusual about conservatives wanting to struggle over who's
ideology gets taught in our universities. Of course they want more conservative
professors at work in our schools. But trying to dumb down education is
something that needs to be fought on all levels.
Ever since Donald Trump got elected president we have been
told by many pundits that we have to drop our elite attitudes. They say we
should try to understand the views of those who actually elected Trump. That
means getting away from those who are highly educated to understand the average
working class voter who isn't well educated.
"But worse than the people
who didn't get the joke, the mainstream pooh-bahs decided to take a swipe at
the president's people by suggesting they were the only ones who fell for the
tweetstorm. How stupid, they implied, that these idiots actually didn't
recognize the handiwork of Thomas Jefferson, delivered up in 140-character
servings.
Sniff, gawd, bring on the brie
and Chablis.
The assumption that only Trump
supporters were boondoggled into believing that NPR was calling for the
overthrow of government is the same type of pretentious arrogance that caused
so many people to react violently when President Barack Obama talked about the
poor folks who "cling to their guns and their religion." It is the
sort of progressive put-down that made a lot of
people vote for Trump as a big "F U" to the establishment, without
actually considering the consequences of their act of defiance."
Most of us on the left don't like elitism. We don't believe
that we are better than others. But we might be better educated than others.
And being anti-elite does not mean allowing the less educated to put ignorant
and dangerous politicians in important positions of power.
It has been years, decades and maybe even a century since
people argued that the American worker should be less well educated. For years
our country's leaders have encouraged students to go to college. Now that is
changing.
Are Republicans seriously implying that they need a less
educated population in order to get their people elected? That almost seems to
be their argument.
We need to fight against those who want to dumb down our
educational institutions. A well rounded education has both value and need. We
need well educate citizens who can understand the system and how it works.
Let's stop conservatives from wrecking our higher education.
What a wonderful
world - James Taylor, Simon & Garfunkel
Black Friday has become an embarrassment of capitalism and excessive consumerism. But this year
Daily Kos is joining our friends at The Collective to #ReclaimBlackFriday.
White people hold 90% of elected officials while making up only about 60% of
the national population. The Collective is committed to increasing the number
of Black people in public office.
People of color made amazing gains during the November 8th election, giving us
incredible momentum for 2018 midterm elections. Today, let's change the
narrative of Black Friday to one that uplifts racial justice and Black
political leadership.
All across the country, the next Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, or
Maxine Waters is gearing up for a 2018 run for office. Daily Kos-endorsed
gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is ready to turn Georgia blue.
Each year I write about Black Friday, that fabricated
holiday that corporate and capitalist leaders came up with to promote an orgy
over gift buying. To be honest, many people take part in Christmas mostly out
of a combination of tradition and religion. I have nothing against tradition.
I'm not a Christian, although I do like to celebrate the day of Christmas but
as an Epicurean and I
celebrate Winter
Solstice rather than Christmas. For me that is a holiday that allows for
the same traditions. (they were taken from early Pagans and the official
religion of the Roman Empire). Christians adopted these holidays for a
number of reasons and It made sense to combine the holidays of their new
religion with present traditions. Today my only request is that these religions
respect those of us who do not believe in the Christian religion. But the
massive holiday shopping is another story.
Gift giving has been a part of the Christmas traditions
almost since the Roman Empire established the
holiday more than 1,500 years ago. As a child, I understand the joy of getting
new toys on Christmas day. Many of us do. But as I get older I realize that
trying to fulfill my needs, wants and desires from this season are mostly good
for the capitalists who make all the money providing these things. And
let's be serious folks. A lot of what we are enticed to buy is useless
crap that most people don't need and may not even really want.
As American capitalism developed, (the nation and the
economic system) the ability to use the tradition of gift giving has gone from
a quaint little custom to an orgy of greed, ostentatious putting on airs and a
way to make a lot of money for the various businesses that exist in the US and
other predominately Christian countries. People by iphones, computers, cars and
luxury items that way exceed the simple gift giving traditions. I'm sure many
people who but the cheap bargains early on Black Friday are actually buying a
lot of it for themselves. The basics of Christianity do not include the idea of
greed and exorbitant gifts to impress our friends and relatives. The
reality is that capitalism really isn't totally compatible with Christianity.
But our corporate leaders encourage this orgy of buying and spending. This tradition is totally rooted in retail sails and is not part of any kind of Christian tradition.
It becomes spiritually frivolous. Rather than promote
brotherly love and a spirit of giving, it promotes greed and a need for
opulence and extravagant showing off.
Each year my family and I spend less time on shopping and
gift giving. We all give to our children because they deserve a few pleasures
on this holiday. But as adults such buying just contributes to the crass
commercialism and the profit margins of this holiday.
I'm not a fan of Black Friday and I don't take part in it at
all. It's the day after Thanksgiving. I sit back, drink a few beers and take it
easy.
So this Black Friday keep in mind that this is a holiday
designed specifically to make a few capitalists rich. And they get that by
manipulating the public through the mainstream news media and commercials on
the radio, TV and print media. Stay home, sleep in and find more meaningful
things to do this Friday.
The campaign of Roy Moore trying to be elected as a Senator
from Alabama,
is a contest by one of the most outwardly crooked politicians to run for office
in many years. He is an obvious child molester and yet Most of the Republican
Party and many of his fellow Alabaman's want to elect him to the Senate.
This guy is ultra-conservative and that includes taking
stands on issues of Christian sexual morality.
About 10 women have come forward so far to accuse the 70
year old pervert of sexual assault. That includes rumors and testimony that he
hung around malls in his 30s trying and pick up young girls, many of who were
said to be under age.
It seems like more and more women are coming foreword to
accuse this man of sexual assault. And yet, he retains a base of supporters in Alabama among voters and
Republican Party elites. It seems like a Republican can do ANY THING and still
get elected.
A retired Alabama police officer said she and her
colleagues were told decades ago to “make sure” Roy Moore “didn’t hang around”
high school cheerleaders, and confirmed previous reports that the Republican
Senate candidate was banned at the time from a local mall for predatory
behavior toward teenage girls.
According to Wikipedia,When Moore's tenure as circuit judge began, he brought
his wooden Ten Commandments plaque with him, hanging it on the walls of his
courtroom behind his bench. Moore
told the Montgomery Advertiser that
his intention in hanging the plaque was to fill up the bare space on the
courtroom walls and to indicate the importance of the Ten Commandments. He
states that it was not his intention to generate controversy; still, as he told
the Atlantic, he understood that the
potential for controversy was there, but "I wanted to establish the moral
foundation of our law."
This is one guy who talks morality out of the side of his
mouth, but acts as if those rules
are for someone else—certainly not him.
This phony is one of the worst hypocrites the Republican
Party has produced in a long time. If he wins this election, it should be a
major embarrassment for the Republicans and the normal thinking people in Alabama.
Those who want him elected want so he can help President
Trump with his far-far-far-far right agenda which includes a pogrom on the
poor, attempting to deprive all poor and lower income workers of any kind of
health care or insurance for it.
He also wants to force his far right religious views on the
whole of society. This man sees no need for a separation of church and state.
And on top of all of that he is a no good sex offender—a
sleazy sexual child predator who may believe in sexual morality, but he sure
doesn't behave in a morally justifiable way.
Anyone who supports this man either with financial
contributions or just voting for him, is as guilty of sexual assault as he is.
This says allot about the Republican Party, our phony
president, the far right in general and the moral flimsiness of the state of
this nation. This is one more breakdown of the so called democracy here in the US. Make no
mistake about it—our democracy is seriously broken. We will see if the US public can
stomach a sex criminal in the senate.
We are about the only industrialized country in the world
that does not have a health care system for all of its people. Not only that,
we have politicians trying to restrict poor people from getting health care. If
I were a Christian I would believe that there is a special place in Hell for
politicians who work so hard to destroy health care for poor people. These
leaders are mean-spirited, spiteful and just down right cruel.
Here are some of the policies they have used to stop our
poorest citizens from getting badly needed healthcare.
Work requirements-
These are already a apart of many welfare requirements for food or cash assistance.
Kansas is a state
that has some of the most restrictive requirements
for any welfare. But people here and around the world believe that health care is
a right. People have a right to be well and be treated when they are sick.
In Kansas
as it is in many states, people are calling for expanding Medicaid, as is
suggested by Obamacare (Affordable Care Act). Governor Sam Brownback is working
the other direction. He wants
work requirements for able bodied people who apply for Medicaid (which in Kansas is actually a
privatized version called KanCare).
Drug Testing-
This is something that Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin is proud of. He wants to make his
state a model for refusing
people from Medicaid if they have a drug problem. It is like he wants those
who use drugs to die off. This and other restrictions are like a pogrom against
our country's poor. If anyone needs medical treatment it is people on drugs. We
have an opioid epidemic and this guy wants to keep the victims from getting any
treatment or any other kind of medical care. People like him don't mind
spending money putting poor people in jail, but not any public medicine.
Three to five year
limits- The idea is being passed around for a three year lifetime limit to receiving
Medicaid. I heard this announced on NPR Radio that Brownback wants a three year
life time cap for able bodied people who make use of Medicaid. Again, this
equates Medicaid with other welfare benefits. But health care is a right and
not some privilege. Treating health care the same as free money for poor people
is a violation of basic human dignity.
Privatization-
Has been done by Brownback, in an attempt to keep up his ideology that all
government functions are some how evil. He has created
KanCare which allows three companies to try and profit from the sickness of
the poor, disabled and people with severe chronic illnesses. The big difference
here is that he is not just restricting poor people, but also disabled people
as well. The efficiency of KanCare is dismal. It is a huge failure and yet
Brownback keeps it going.
Trump kills
healthcare on the Federal level- Our President, Donald Trump, has worked hard
to dismantle Obamacare. He works at the Federal level to help the pogrom
against the poor. This should surprise no one. He is a hero and advocate of the
wealthy.
There are ways to
fight these ass holes. In Mainthey
recently voted to expand Medicaid over a Republicangovernor,
Paul LePage, who has fought kicking and screaming in a battle to
prevent the poor from getting health care. We may not be able to get these scum
bags out of office, but we can work hard to get these issues passed into law. I
is past time to stop the pogrom to kill off poor people.
Today,
Thanksgiving is seen by many as a "politically incorrect" holiday.
The pilgrim forefathers took advantage of the Indians. And some people believe
that it is barbaric to plan a holiday over killing a turkey. Still there are my
relatives and I probably won't tell them how bad their holiday is, at least not
until after we all eat. So I print this so all may know the truth.
There was a
“first Thanksgiving” dinner, but not likely turkey or the fixings we see today.
The original meat was fish and deer. The turkey became part of
Thanksgiving about 1857. It is
supposed to be of foods native to the New World. It became a
national holiday in 1941. The traditional fixings came from a women’s magazine
in the 1850s.
However, many
of us will go to a holiday feast with the intention of celebrating time with
our families and/or friends. We are thankful in life for some things. Most of
us have either accomplished something of success in our lives or we may like
our relatives—spouses—or our friends and lovers. Since I’m anEpicurean and
don’t believe in praying to god, I will simply be thankful. I also won’t dump a
guilt trip on my relatives for the sins of their ancestors or the fact that
they are eating a murdered animal.
Each
year Black Friday, that crass commercial kick off to the Christmas shopping season,
starts at different times. This year they want to start it tomorrow a full week
before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the usual kick off holiday to the shopping
holiday. Thanksgiving is its own holiday with its
own traditions. It is usually hi-jacked by Corporate America, which
uses this tradition to make huge profits. This year retail shopping outlets want to
start a week early. This is the most important shopping day to US corporations
that want to make their top-line of profits for the holiday seasons. The
holidays have their own meanings, but Corporate America wants and feels the
need to make a huge profit this year and every year. It is capitalisms most
disgusting display of greed and it happens every year in the US.
May
dad just passed away and that means it's time to look back on our relation
ship, which at times was strained and at times was very happy. My dad was born
in 1926, an early part of the 20th Century, in St. Louis MO. He
was about 27 years old when I was born. He went on to have five other sons. We
all lived in St. Louis until I was 13. Then we moved to Wichita KS where
I have lived most of my life.
My
dad grew up in the generation that witnessed World War II. The war ended a few
months before their plans to ship him off to the Pacific theater. One of the
things we have in common is that we both missed fighting in combat. The draft
for the Vietnam War ended less than a year before my 18th birthday. One
difference is that dad fully intended to fight the Japanese when called on. I
on the other hand wasn't sure what I would do about the Vietnam War. I had
mixed feelings and if I really wanted to get out it, I believe I could have. My
dad was glad he didn't see any action. As with me he had no love for the idea
of shooting at other people while they try and shoot back.
My
dad and I represent a clean break from one generation to the other. My dad
liked music by Tommy
Dorsey, Henry Mancini and he liked Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. He
liked the big band sound. He grew up in a time when that kind of music was very
popular. I grow up as a rock and roll child. That is the music I grew up with
and my culture was very different from my dad’s. His culture had actors such
as Sammy Davis Jr.,
Henry Fonda and Kirk Douglas. Most of those actors and musicians are dead now,
as my father is. My dad and his generation drank alcohol and avoided any other
kind of recreational drug use. My generation adopted pot and LSD. So his
culture differed greatly from that of mine which was mostly set by the 1970s.
I
have spent a lot of years in the peace movement trying to stop most of the US wars.
My dad worked with military secrets. He helped design the B-1 Bomber.
My
dad was a Republican in his younger years. He became a follower of that party
back when most of my other relatives, including my mother, were Democrats. That
doesn’t mean they were all that left-wing. The Democratic Party at the time was
more of a middle of the political spectrum party. At times the Democrats were
quite conservative. As a child, both my parents admired John F. Kennedy and as
with most people of that time period, he was anti-communist and anti-socialist.
I was
always to the left. As a high school student I was interested in both socialism
and anarchy. Much of socialist inspiration came from Salvador Allende. In
my 20s I was a liberal. I slowly drifted in to socialism as I got older. My dad
will never understand my fondness for the socialist left. But he is way more
liberal than he used to be. I can remember having lots of arguments with dear
old dad over many different things, from life style choices, (such as my first
wife and how we lived together before marriage) politics and such things as
using his property when I still lived at home. I used his 22 riffle once
without permission—boy was he MAD!
I was
a practicing Catholic until my 30s. That was one thing dad and I had in common.
But I broke with that religion over political reasons and Christianity as well.
I adopted agnosticism and I now consider myself an Epicurean.
My dad stayed a life-long Catholic. His funeral will take place in a Catholic
Church. Ironically none of my brothers are practicing Catholics. Some of us are
Catholic but don’t practice the religion and others simply don’t value religion
at all, (agnosticism or atheism). He may be the last of us to be buried in a coffin
and the last to have a funeral in a Catholic Church. At times I feel sorry for
both my mom and my dad that their religion of choice, which we all grew up in,
is dying out in this family.
A
point to much of this is that we represented two separate generations. Still,
there were times when we had plenty of things in common.
As
the years passed by my dad and I mellowed out and in the last 30 years we
hardly ever argued things, even politics. We had found more in common with each
other and my dad moved farther to the left. He is not a socialist, but he is
liberal and supports a lot of liberal positions. By the time he died we had way
more things in common.
Not
long ago my dad told me that I was more of a pro-family person—that is someone
who takes an active roll in supporting various family members, than his other
sons. I took that as a compliment. I do think that family is important. I do
try to be supportive of other family members. I feel family is maybe the most
important aspects of our lives. After all we can’t count on the government or
society in general to support us. So maybe family is all we have that we can
count on when we need help. As the mother of that show “The Middle” says—“you
do for family.”
Politicians
such as Donald Trump have helped bring my family together. My dad hated Trump,
as does my wife and brothers. My dad and I have that in common.
My
dad was 91 years old, so he got a lot out of life. He had a supportive wife,
Joan, who is now deceased, had has six sons, of which Paul is now deceased and
most of us have been fairly successful in life.
He
had a good life. We can all be grateful for that. As with my favorite dead
person quote:
"Living
is transformed into dying, lifeless matter is transformed into living beings. I
propose that when people over the age of 50 die, a party should be held to
celebrate, for it is in inevitable that men should die- this is natural
law."[1]
And
here is a good song about dying:
Elvis Costello-God's Comic
[1]"INSTANT WISDOM: BEYOND THE LITTLE RED BOOK,"Time, 20 September
1976, Vol. 108, No. 12, p. 38.
As I watch TV I notice more and more and
more commercials that claim to honour our vets. The news media, radio, TV, especially, and
our newspapers
all glorify or cover people who glorify our vets.
I work in the Wichita School System and
they have pro-vet signs all over the school, many that encourage our kids to
“say thank you to a vet.”
I don’t mean to disrespect vets, but I
won’t be thanking them. Here are specific things that I won’t be thanking them
for—>
Stealing and ivading people’s countries
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I don’t appreciate that we illegally occupy two countries. We are vettting those
who enter the political elections in those countries that we
laughingly lable as “democraies.”
Ripping off
the Kurds who bravely fought against ISIS
for us and then found out the US and its allies have no inentions of giving
them any more autonomy then they already have.
Cheap oil
and other resources that we get first, before the people who live in
those countries.
A greater standard of living that people in
this country take for grated, but those in foreign countries, as in
Bangladesh, live as if they are stuck in the 1800s.
As far as I’m concerned this country has
robbed people of their dignity and respect so that the US can play god.
The only people defending our freedoms
are the American
Civil Libery Union and a few other groups who are the ones who
really fight for our freedom. Not the soldiers who defend the US Empire.
When ever I want to get a
conservative’s view on an event I go to Yahoo
News. The conservative trolls seem to swarm all over Yahoo News. So I went there and saw this article, “Texas
shooting suspect's father: 'We are grieving, our family is grieving.” I
looked at the comments and saw several like this one:
What is really scary is
- "like father like son!" This man blames the media...why can't he
fess up and say something like, "I am so sorry that MY son did what he
did...". Instead he blames the media for his current state of affairs and
shows no sorrow or remorse for the families that have been destroyed because his
sperm and total lack of parental control during his son's younger life created
a monster!!!
Let’s face it. Conservatives are not the forgiving type. They
avoid any understanding of people in this kind of situation. Almost all of the
comments I found blamed the father of this man for the killings. They ignored
any feelings this man might have for the victims and just assumed he had something
to do with his son’s actions. I guess conservatives believe most people are
guilty of something. Maybe that is why they are so pro-cop and pro-law-and-order.
Here are more examples below.
The media circus has not
destroyed his family's life, his son did. I know they loved him but again, had
to have seen signs of his latest level of behavior. He lived on their property
and had been shooting and testing his weapons on their place. Put that together
with his past behavior, how could you possibly have ignored as a parent?
Chris Almighty, Mr.
Michael Kelly...that sure is very comforting. "I don't want our lives, our
grandchildren's lives, destroyed by this media circus," Michael Kelly
said, adding that the family has nothing else to say at the moment. Why not
just meet with EVERY one of the victims' family, and apologize for giving the
sperm that produced this monster? Media Circus? omg, sorry for the tremendous
inconvenience to you and your family, of the murderer of men, women, children,
and babies...inside a Church of Worship! Exscuuuuuse... ME!
You watched your son
become aggressive and troubled throughout his high school years and apparently
the kid didn't get the help he needed before becoming a monster. I would say
part of your life as a parent should be judged for not doing something long ago.
If that was all he said
he should have saved his breath. Unreal he didn't express how sorry he was to
the families of the victims. It just came across as narcissistic, in my
opinion. I could go further but probably shouldn't.
If his father put him in
an institution where he belonged none of this would have happened. Wake up old
man your 'son' has been a problem child for a long time.
Feminists swept battleground states and districts this
election night–proving just how strong TheResistance can be.
We’re thrilled that Virginia
and New Jersey will be led by Ralph Northam and Phil Murphy–candidates who will
champion feminist policies as governors. Virginia voters elected progressives
up and down the ballot, and we are especially proud to congratulate NOW leader
Hala Ayala on her election to the Virginia House of Delegates.
Tonight’s message is clear: the
time to elect feminists is NOW! NOW members and grassroots activists rolled up
their sleeves, and got out the vote for the candidates who care about women’s
rights–and their hard work paid off.
This is just a taste of what’s
to come. We know that NOW activists will keep working hard, and keep winning–on
November 6, 2018 and beyond.
