More Rape-Related Word Parsing

I was going to post something a little more fun today, recommendation of a few good short films – maybe I’ll get to it later – but instead I’m taking on Ron Paul for fiddling around with the definition of rape.

 

Yes, we have been over this before. Not with Representative Paul in particular, but with his party as a whole about a year ago when the House tried (and failed) to pass legislation (H.R. 3) restricting federal funding of abortions for low-income women beyond the exceptions in the Hyde Amendment (rape, incest, and protecting the life of the mother) to cover only forcible rape, incest involving a minor, and protecting the life of the mother.  I wrote three separate posts on the topic and also wrote to my congresswoman. Now we’re on the same topic a year later because once again rape alone is not enough of a reason to allow a woman to decide what goes on within her own body. Here’s the clip.

Ron Paul’s position on abortion itself, as expressed here, is actually more about biological facts – that within a few hours or a few days conception may very well not have taken place and that there is no way to tell that early on – is a very reasonable one for a pro-lifer and something I would expect since he is an obstetrician. So what is this bit about “honest rape” then? Is there such a thing? Rape in general is regarded as pretty dishonest and dishonorable. Frankly, this sounds like bit of pandering to me. There is apparently some theory floating around on the right that merely being raped is not enough to warrant a woman not being mandated by the government to bear the resulting child. First  the rape had to be “forcible”,but that didn’t pass. Now with Rep. Paul the rape has to be “honest”. It’s as if they’d like to parse it out of existence. There is also more than a little implied victim blaming here too. The whole idea of women “asking for it” in any number of ways and thus making a senseless act of violence seem more like a deserved punishment for not being a “good girl” was one of those baseless, archaic notions I though we had finally excised from our cultural thought process. I had hoped it was locked away in the same place our society has exiled beliefs that a woman could not sign a contract without a male co-signer and should be discouraged at every turn from pursuing a career because  her place was to be in the home tending to the needs of her children and the whims of her husband. Oh how silly of me.

The real problem I have with The Congressman’s statement isn’t the fact that he’s talking about limiting a woman’s right to choose. He’s an anti-abortion candidate and I’m pro-choice – we’re going to disagree on that. That’s why we have different political parties. My problem is with the this pattern we are seeing more of now in which someone whose sole dominion over her own body has already been violated once has the personal autonomy violated again by the government telling her that her attack did not meet the criteria necessary for the powers that be to just leave her alone and let her make her medical decisions for herself. If it wasn’t an “honest rape”, whatever that is,  the woman (Would they even call her a victim? I don’t know.) should just accept what has befallen her and begin blissfully preparing for her forced motherhood like a “good girl”. When  the argument can be made that some sexual assaults do not qualify the victim to terminate a very much unwanted pregnancy, would that then have an effect on the sentencing of the rapist? If we can begin to dissect the crime of rape into degrees, what stops someone from insisting that some domestic violence cases should also be treated as less of a crime because the victim or victims somehow had it coming? What about hate crimes? Given some of the statements and incidents on the campaign trail I would wonder if crimes against groups that some find it acceptable, even patriotic, to disparage would be treated the same as those  against other segments of the population which it is more taboo to voice a prejudice against? In short it isn’t Congressman Paul’s views on abortion that compelled me to write about his comment, but this idea that not all rape victims deserve to make decision about their bodies.

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Newt Gingrich – The Man in the Moon

I’ve posted a lot of long, more technical posts as of late, but I could not pass this up. This is what went through my head when I heard about Newt Gingrich’s plans for the moon and I couldn’t resist working in out in iMovie. So, without further adieu, I present to you Newt Gingrich – Space Oddity.

The Sense Behind the Buffet Rule

That grandfatherly guy with ukulele in the video is Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and he is a very wealthy fellow. He’s also never made a secret of who he supported politically, most recently President Barack Obama. Last August he publicly weighed in on matters of policy when he wrote an op-ed in the New York Times which got him a lot of media attention. In it he made the argument for a higher tax rate on the capital gains (currently taxed at 15%) which are the main source of income for many wealthy folks meaning that many of those who would be paying the top rate end up paying a rate that is more on par with those at the lowest end of the taxable income spectrum. The White House took the idea which they had also showed support for and ran with it eventually crafting the Buffett Rule – a proposal which would establish a minimum tax rate of 30% on all those earning over a million dollars no matter how they earn their money. This idea resurfaced at Tuesday’s State of the Union address.

Like any other proposal made by anyone at any level of government, it’s something to fight over. The argument against the Buffett Rule is broken into two factions. Some feel that increasing the rate on capital gains for wealthy investors from 15% to 30% would discourage investment because people wouldn’t invest if they had to split their profits 70-30 with Uncle Sam. They also suggest that the downturn in investing would hurt the job market because if people aren’t investing in companies, then those companies can’t grow and that means no job creation, no hiring, and a stagnation of unemployment at our current painful level. I’m not an economics wiz, but I think that sounds a little off and I’m in good company. Mr. Buffett addressed this in his op-ed.

<blockquote>Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends.

I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.</blockquote>

To put into an average American context, nobody refuses a promotion because they looked at their pay stub, saw all of the deductions that are taken out every week, and calculated how much more would be taken out if they took a higher paying position. Certainly each of us has grumbled about those deductions from time to time, but in the end we would rather make more money and so we would take the promotion and the associated increase in salary. Why would someone who makes money through investing be any different. Why pass up a profitable investment opportunity because of a 15% increase in the tax rate on that investment? They will still be making money and that is the draw of investments.

Other opponents of the Buffett Rule are opponents of the capital gains tax in general and these  critics are further subdivided. Some say that it is double taxation arguing that people invest their money after they pay taxes so to tax capital gains is to tax the same money twice and that is grossly unfair. It would indeed be very unfair if that were the case but it’s not because capital gains are just that – gains, profits, new money, income and thus subject to taxes. The principle investment is not a part of the equation so they aren’t being taxed on the same money twice, just on the money their investment brought in.

Others say that because capital gains have already been taxed as part of that company’s income and therefore should not be taxed once it goes to the investor. There is no gentle way for me to say this, that argument is completely illogical. The money that company pays the people who work for them also comes from corporate revenue which is subject to corporate income tax, yet those workers are taxed on that money and nobody (except the Ron Paul supporters who want no taxes, I guess) complains a bit about it. Investors may not “work” for these companies per se, but they do provide a service – they supply capital – so why should the profits they make from their contributions to the running of a particular company not be taxed while the wages earned by the person whose contribution to that same company earn them a paycheck when it’s all paid out of the company’s (taxed) profits? If you extrapolate this theory out further, almost no person or business would ever pay any taxes. In our current system, our money gets taxed when it’s our income whether or not it has been someone else’s income beforehand. Sorry.

I side with Warren Buffett. Taxing the investments of millionaires at the same rate as the income of a person who works 40 hours a week and takes home, at most, $17 in taxable income an hour is ridiculous. It makes the whole “class warfare” argument a farce when some of the very wealthy are simultaneously lamenting the top tax rate and not paying it. They pay, at most, the same rate as an individual making between $8,700 and $35,350 a year according to the IRS. I don’t begrudge them their success, but I’m certainly not feeling their pain. A millionaire making the majority of their annual income from capital gains should pay a tax rate closer to the rate millionaires who collect a paycheck are paying. How is that class warfare and not just common sense?

Gabrielle Giffords Will Resign From Congress

I’m sure you’ve already heard, Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Congresswoman who was shot by a mentally ill man last January, has announced that she will resign from Congress this week to focus on her recovery. I’m going to join in with everyone else and say that I wish her continued speed in that recovery. In her video, which I have embedded below, she says she will return. That is, of course entirely up to her, but I would love to see it happen.

Good luck, Representative Giffords.

It Isn’t Envy, Mr. Romney, and It Isn’t a War on Capitalism Either

Mitt Romney is the former governor of Massachusetts, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at his campaign presentation. Rather than pointing out his experience in the actually process of governing, Mr. Romney has chosen to campaign on his career in the private sector as a “conservative businessman” and “job creator”, as he often describes himself at campaign stops and in debates. After winning the New Hampshire primary, he gave a victory speech that bypassed his primary opponents and blasted the President for engaging in “the bitter politics of envy”. On Wednesday morning, NBC’s Today Show host Matt Lauer asked specifically about that choice of phrase.

So, if you dare to raise questions about Mr. Romney’s business decisions, it’s just because you’re so jealous of him. Can you possibly get a more self-absorbed sound byte? It made me think of Gordon Gekko’s “Greed Is Good” speech from the movie Wall Street.

No, Mr. Romney, everyone who whats to see proof of your claims of net job creation and wants to know whether your decisions regarding the leveraging of debt and the mass layoffs were the actions of a shrewd businessman or a corporate profiteer is not envious of you. They are vetting you, sir. That is what happens in a campaign. You make claims that you’ve done fabulous things, people say “Oh yeah, prove it,” and then you either give them the proof they’re asking for or they will go off and find it on their own. Also, the more time it takes you to prove your claims – the more you squirm, and hedge, and try to explain why no proof should be needed because you’re such a nice guy or whatever your excuses are – the more people will start to wonder if you’re trying to hide something from them. Running for president is, after all, a candidate applying to the American public for the job of running the country. Asking for more in-depth information on the business practices of the man running for office under the banner of “the business guy” is not anything I see as questionable. To return to my job application analogy, it can be likened to a potential employer asking for references at a job interview. The more cagey an applicant about supplying the references, the more the employer will no doubt wonder if there is something that this applicant might be misrepresenting. Does the “scheduling conflict ” they listed as their reason for leaving Company X really mean that it clashed with their grad school courses, or could it be that this person’s definition of “lunch break” more closely resembled the rest of the world’s definition of “afternoon off?”, the prospective boss might think and questions like those floating around in potential employer’s mind doesn’t bode well for the bumbling applicant. The best thing Mr. Romney could do for himself right now is open up about his Bane Capitol days. It’s not like Democrats won’t be asking these questions in the general election if he makes it to the next round.

My other issue with Mr. Romney and his supporters is that while they condemn those to there left for using what they deem to be the rhetoric of class warfare, they are waging a pretty good battle on that front themselves by labeling those who would criticize predatory capitalism, what most would consider unethical, “bad” business practices, as trying to destroy capitalism in general. That argument make absolutely no sense at all and yet it is everywhere. This becomes crystal clear if you use this logic outside the realm of election year economic policy. For example, if I say that I don’t like a particular painting, then using, this thought process, I am against painting as an art form and trying to engineer its demise. If I don’t like a particular book, then I am obviously crusading against all of literature. If I eat brussels sprouts and say “yuck,”, then I am really saying “DOWN WITH VEGETABLES!” In every other context this line of pseudo-reasoning is quickly and easily identifiable as a heap of bullfunky, but apparently if you’re talking about how big money people make big money when one of them want to be President, such talk is apparently tantamount to heresy in this country and particularly in this country’s Republican party.

There is nothing wrong with examining our economic system to see if it is working effectively and doing a little routine maintenance when it’s needed to keep the country moving. You can have vibrant and competitive capitalism without allowing it to become predatory. It’s all in how the game is played and what the rules are. Many people have a problem with the practice of outsourcing, for example, and it has been stripping the country of  jobs since the eighties, yet there are tax incentives for companies that outsource and business organizations support this practice and lobby to keep it as an accepted way to do business in America, but not really in America. Until the incentives to send jobs overseas are eliminated and perhaps there are even incentives set up to bring jobs back here, we will continue to be bled of every job it is possible to outsource because that makes these companies the greatest profit. That’s not a criticism or a compliment, it’s math.

That brings me to another point – corporations are not people. The best analogy I can come up with is that corporations are like robots. They have a few things in common with people – they can be sued, etc – but they are basically computers running on a yes/no system (hello, binary) which analyzes whether or not a given circumstance is profitable. If the answer is yes, that options chosen. That’s it. There are no emotions involved. Workers don’t matter beyond their productivity to cost ratio. You can’t be angry about it not having feelings or empathy – it’s just a machine after all – so if you want to change its behavior, you have to alter the program it runs on. We have a minimum wage, so even though it would be more profitable to pay American workers a dollar an hour, the robot of an American business, let’s call it RoboCorp, won’t do that because the program it runs on tell’s it that it can’t.  RoboCorps large and small run off of the same basic program – the rules our economy runs on. We have to engage in a national discussion about the economy to decide if changing laws is necessary and if so, then what needs to be changed.

That is the discussion that is being derided as anti-business by Mitt Romney and his surrogates. In that video Mr. Romney says that talk of the economy should take place in “quiet rooms” and that brings to mind images of the Gilded Age when the titans of industry would meet in private clubs and decide what the rules were among themselves and far away from the little people who worked for them. Those workers could vote, well, as long as they were male citizens over the age of 21 and in some places they kind of had to be white too, but, voters or not, they couldn’t be part of any serious economic dialogue because they didn’t have enough power or money. They didn’t know the right people in the right context, they didn’t belong to the right clubs, etc. That’s not how things are supposed to work now a century later. I’m not naive enough to think that power and money don’t buy influence in this day and age, but everyone should be able, and is able, to discuss economic policy just as they do foreign policy and social issues. No quiet rooms required.

The Rachel Maddow show Thursday night brought up another point last night and I thought it was worth a mention. (The video is long, it wouldn’t embed, and there is a somewhat related story about a dog and his bodily functions. Sorry.)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As mentioned in the clip, in 1992, times were tough and George H.W. Bush had an image problem. He was seen as an out of touch rich guy who just couldn’t understand what kind of problems the country was facing and he lost the election at least in part because of that. Somebody needs to knock on the door of the quiet room  Mr. Romney likes to work on economic issues in and remind of that.

Humor – Political Style

It’s an election year and that means that there are a ton of people whom I can no longer discuss politics with at what is possibly the best time to discuss politics because they are now too infatuated with a particular candidate to debate sensibly. Everything is a shouting match, or IN ALL CAPS if the conversation is online, because their chosen one is 100% right all of the time and if you disagree, then you are not a true American. End. Of. Story.

*Sigh.*

I’ve said before that political fandom is not my thing so this level of devotion to someone whom they build up to be more myth than human makes no sense to me. These people always end up disappointed even if their candidate is elected because, sooner or later, something makes them realize that the one they believed to be flawless is merely human like the rest of us and has to compromise and is occasionally wrong just like the rest of us. This political possession process has begun again and I needed a laugh so I’ve found some campaign signs for fandoms which I do support.

RuPaul, not to be confused with Ron Paul. Very, very different.

Maybe one day I will be so taken by a candidate that I will fall into fandom myself, but for now this is as close as I get.

The Logic Behind the “Vice President Clinton” Meme

Happy New Year, now let’s talk politics, specifically that long forgotten subject – Democratic politics.

Ok, maybe forgotten is pushing it a bit too far, but with the Republican primary process well and truly underway and the incumbent Democratic president running unchallenged, there’s not much for us on the left to do politically except remark on the dog and pony show of ultra-conservatism that’s bumbling its way around the country. I suppose that it’s that kind of party boredom that’s mostly to blame for this kind of story, but there might just be more to it. The latest incarnation of the “Hillary for VP” meme comes from a New York Times opinion piece by Bill Keller published Monday and another in the Washington Post by Suzi Parker from yesterday. The points they makes are much the same as in most of the other renditions of this tune that’s been playing off and on almost since this administration began, but there has been a decidedly different reaction to the notion of Secretary Clinton and Vice President Biden switching places this time around. It’s no longer treated as some crazy idea being floated by Clinton diehards (highly unlikely) or desperate Obama fans (also ridiculous) that has no basis in reality let alone fact. Monday night this opinion piece was discussed all over the place on cable news in spite of it being the day before the New Hampshire primary and discussed with some degree of seriousness albeit prefaced by numerous “this will never happen”-type comments. The truth is that, no matter how unlikely the scenario, you never know. I mean, did you think that the question of whether or no states can ban contraception would be a question in this year’s presidential primary debates at this time four years ago?

“Ok, so it’s a thing, but why and how would it work?” you ask. Well, even though I’m in no way involved in national politics or punditry (Not that I wouldn’t like to be, in case anyone in those fields is looking to hire. 🙂 ), I have just as good an imagination as the rest of them, so, if you would like, let’s take a stroll around Speculationville. We’ll start with the “why”.

2008 was the year of Hope and Change. The nation was weary of war and increasingly unnerved by the steepening decline in our economy. People were looking for something fresh and optimistic – a feel good candidate – and they found that in the calm persona of “No Drama Obama”. There is, however, a downside to being seen as Mr. Cool and that’s running the risk of looking too ‘on point’ and scripted. Obama needed a foil that brought a more approachable, down to earth ‘average Joe’ quality to the ticket and they got just that in an ever likable, if chronically gaffe-prone, senator from Delaware by the name of Joe Biden. The rest, as they say, is history.

In the past four years, the mood of the country has shifted. Our idealistic search for something new has given way to old cries, from the eighties and even earlier, of “fat cats” and “corporate greed” versus a shrinking middle class and growing number of people on some form of government assistance leading some candidates to insinuate that these lower-income people are lazy. It’s all remarkably similar to the Reagan era arguments about “welfare Queens” and the financial culture of hostile takeovers and Gordon Gekko types running the show on Wall St. At the same time we have seen the rise of the Tea Party culminating in the Great Butt-Kicking of 2010 which flipped the balance of power in the House of Representatives and shifted the political dialogue of the entire country well to the right of anywhere I’ve ever seen it. The moderates, Republican and Democrat alike, were excised in favor of more partisan candidates and the resulting Congress has been deadlocked ever since. I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve almost-but-not-quite shut down the government. Is it four times now? Six? I don’t remember.

So this year is shaping up to be a Smackdown election worthy of a Pay Per View cage match and the respective political parties are looking for prize fighters. The Republicans are looking for a defender of tax cuts and a champion of smaller government and business interests. The Democrats are looking for fighter for workers and the middle class and a protector of programs that they see as vital. What Democrats have is a very mellow, professorial president with an affable everyman as his VP. The Republicans are searching and re-searching their candidate field in the vain hope that one of their potential nominees is the much longed for second coming of Ronald Reagan and Democrats are kind of left to pine for their second coming of FDR.

The Democratic presidential candidate is decided by default, or should I say incumbency, but there is still that unfulfilled desire for a fighter. Someone who will have no problem going a couple of rounds with the Republicans on the Hill, conservative pundits, or maybe both at once without flinching. Joe Biden, as likable as he is, doesn’t strike most people as a tough guy, so regardless of the good job he’s done, he’s not necessarily what a lot of Democrats are looking for this time around. If there is one thing that Hillary Clinton is known for, it is her strength and her tenacity and throughout her time as both a political spouse and a political figure in her own right she has never, ever had any problems with taking it to Republicans at all. There was one instance during one of her husband’s gubernatorial races when she crashed a press conference his opponent was holding to criticize the then Governor for being out of state and Mrs. Governor Clinton took him on herself. I don’t think anyone has any doubt that she’d know how to handle these tea folk and that’s why I think this rumor never quite goes away. The fact that she’s the most popular government figure in the country right now doesn’t hurt either.

The mechanics of how a Biden/Clinton switch would happen takes us deeper into the realm of completely unsubstantiated guessing games. It’s worth noting that removing Biden from the ticket does have some serious drawbacks. Just look at the coverage the replacement of White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley got even though it was primary time in New Hampshire. That would increase exponentially if it were Joe Biden that was on his way out, even if it was just to head down to Foggy Bottom. Coverage like that is rarely a net positive. It would look bad to demote someone who has been such a loyal and hardworking member of the administration. It could also be spun out as a sort of Hail Mary play by a desperate candidate and put the new Obama/Clinton campaign on the defensive from the get go.

For the sake of argument, let’s pretend that the administration had weighed their options and decided that the switch was both possible and worth the risk. Hillary Clinton would have to leave the State Department before the swap was announced because, by law, a Secretary of State can not play a role in domestic politics. Her pretext for doing so is anyone’s guess, but it would not be due to any difference of opinion between her and the White House, obviously. She’s mentioned retirement enough that an announcement to that effect might be the way she’d go, take a couple of months off to rally her people, and then, on some beautiful afternoon in the Rose Garden, there she’d be – as Barack Obama’s new running mate. Immediately the question would be raised – the question that is always raised where Hillary Clinton is concerned. What about Bill?

In the years since he left office, Bill Clinton has become an elder statesman par excellence. His foundation is involved in numerous charitable endeavors the world over and his annual Clinton Global Initiative event is such a big deal that he has to hold it on the same week as the UN General Assembly so as to be more convenient for his international attendees who are going to the UN anyway. He also has a Global Initiative specifically for undergrad and graduate students interested in NGO work which his daughter play a significant role in. He was named the Obama Administration’s Special Envoy to Haiti after that country was decimated by an earthquake. He has appeared several times in support of the President’s economic agenda and has proven to be a rather good surrogate seeming to have learned from his mistakes in his wife’s presidential bid. He has also written two books. In short, he’s got a lot going on and some of that work might present a conflict of interest if his wife was the vice presidential nominee. He had to make significant changes in order for her to become Secretary of State and I imagine that he would have to make more if she was second in line to run the country. My feeling is that he’d leave most of the foundation’s operations in someone else’s hands. In addition to getting rid of any perceived conflicts, it would also be a sort of trial run for the organization to see how it would operate when Bill Clinton retires. During this time the foundation could be prepared to run for decades and become a part of Bill Clinton’s legacy as opposed to his pet project. So it wouldn’t surprise me if the globe-trotting former president held a press conference, heaped praise upon his wife, headed out on the campaign trail, and then to DC. His elder statesman skills might come in handy and he could prove to be an asset to the administration, a kind of Eleanor Roosevelt to Hillary’s FDR.

I’ll end my completely amateur, uninformed, armchair analysis by saying that this whole thing is about as likely as me appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition… or voting Republican. It’s all conjecture and the conjecture of someone with no inside information, but I’ve heard too much about this idea being entirely bogus and it’s not. It’s certainly unlikely, but it’s not bogus and that’s why I sketched it out this way. Hillary Clinton would be good for Barack Obama in the same way that New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie is such a good surrogate for Mitt Romney, another “Mr. Cool, Calm, and Collected”. She is a veteran of many partisan fights and would make a good “Iron Lady for the Middle Class” if that’s what the administration thinks they need in 2012. I think this issue is hinged on what the traveling circus that is the Republican primary constructs for a message and a ticket. If it’s something like Romney/Christie, there might be a new, and yet very familiar, running mate for the President.

Negative Political Ads Done Right

As much as the political process interests me, there is one inevitable part of any election season that I cannot stand – those obnoxious, negative ads that just whack away at the candidate that the group who paid for the ad doesn’t like. Around a week prior to the election it’s practically raining negative ads – they’re on the internet, the radio, and they are all over TV – to the point that at the end of your day, unless you are either working on the campaign for, or personally close to one of the candidates,  you’ve heard so much about lies told and dirty deals hatched that you don’t want to vote for either of them. They both look like dishonest, cheating, morons and, frankly, they do that to themselves.

We hear this every couple of years. “Everybody hates these attack ads,” and yet the attacks return when the elections do. They come back because, as much as everyone says they don’t like them, studies have shown that they work. They get remembered and they get results. My father told me that he still remembers a negative ad run by Lyndon Johnson against Barry Goldwater in 1964 and that it played a role in his voting for LBJ. That ad is known as the “Daisy” ad and insinuated that Goldwater’s A-bomb friendly attitudes could lead to World War III if his itchy trigger finger was in control of the red button. Just as Ronald Reagan’s “It’s Morning Again in America” ad defined his 1984 re-election bid, the “Daisy” ad came to define Barry Goldwater’s candidacy and did a lot to lose that election for him.

It seems like every campaign enters in a race to come up with the next “Daisy” ad – the next attack that so effectively vilifies their opponent that it goes down in political history and is referenced in poli-sci classes (and in the writings of political geeks) for decades to come. That makes for some very unpalatable advertisements invading our every information source. It’s already well underway for the poor souls who live in early primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire. Thankfully, amid all the allegations and insinuations, one can occasionally find a bit of a humor. This is from Texas Democrats and is aimed at Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry. It made me chuckle and I wanted to share it.

And you know what, for any more Republican leaning individuals that have kept reading this post and made it this far, I have something for you, too. It is from the campaign of Roger Williams a Republican running for the US House of Representatives from Texas.

Now, obviously I don’t agree with Mr. Williams’ characterization of Democrats, but I have to admit the ad is clever. I wish we had more of these kind of negative ads. Cute, snarky ads get the message across without leaving people pondering whether or not they want to vote at all. These are attack ads done right. Politicos, take note.

She’s In!

I’ve never had much of a desire to live in Massachusetts. It’s not that I don’t like the place – my cousin used to live there and one of my aunts lives there with her husband – it’s just never had the same appeal that New York or DC have for me. That said, tonight I wish I lived in Massachusetts because then I would be able to cast a vote for Elizabeth Warren. Today Dr. Warren formally announced her candidacy for United States Senator from Massachusetts. Elizabeth Warren has been an advocate for middle and lower-income people and workers for a long time. She was the architect of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but Republicans made it clear that they would fight her confirmation so President Obama never nominated her to run the agency she put together. Since the end of her service in the administration that wouldn’t bother to defend her in the confirmation process the question of whether or not she would run for the Senate has been out there. Today she gave her answer – she’s in. I wish she were running in the great state of Connecticut so I could not only vote for her but maybe even work for her campaign, but alas, all I can do is put a link to her website  – elizabethwarren.com – up one my blog and wish her the best of luck.

Michelle Obama, You Were Right

I’ve been trying to watch at least part of the Republican debates in the name of remaining well-informed. Frankly,the fact that one of these people might be president disturbs me, but their audience disturbs me more. Last week, in response to a question about the 234 executions carried out during Rick Perry’s tenure as governor of Texas, the crowd broke into cheers. Cheers?!

My issue is not over the death penalty itself. I have my opinions on the issue and I think responsible people can intelligently debate its pros and cons all day long. What I found so jarring was the raucous applause and whoops from the audience. We’re talking about killing people, not a great football play. Whether or not you believe a criminal deserves to die for their crimes, I think we can all agree that executions aren’t exactly cause for celebration.

Last night I had another of those “what country are these people living in” moments. A hypothetical question was posed to Texas Representative Ron Paul about what should happen to an individual who is uninsured and suddenly needs expensive medical care. Ron Paul tends to get a little long-winded, so the moderator pushed him asking if society should just let the man die which lead to several calls of “Yeah!” from the audience. Not as much glee as the death penalty mention some days before, but still creepy.

It isn’t just the fact that the idea of someone dying really pleases a few of these audience members. The thing that blows my mind is that not one of the candidates stepped up to say one of our strengths as a nation is our compassionate nature and that there would be something out there to keep citizens unable to afford insurance from being forced to go without necessary care. Looking out for one another doesn’t mean the “nanny state” is taking over. It means that we are part of a community – local, state, and national. Remember? “E Pluribus Unum”  – out of many, one. It’s on the national seal. (That was our motto before the 1950’s when “god” was added to our pledge to the flag and our money and the national motto became “In god we trust.”) A conservative can still have a soul, but you’d never know it. Empathy is apparently a facet of godless, socialistic, liberalism which must be abandoned as quickly and completely as possible.

In early 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama’s wife Michelle was taken to task by Republicans (and supporters of Hillary Clinton) for saying that America could be a mean country. Well, Mrs. Obama, I have to say that you were at least partially correct. A country which cheers execution, calls for those can’t afford that which will save their lives to lose their lives, and lacks any feeling for those who don’t plump up some corporation’s bottom line is a mean, mean place. The thing is, that mean place is not where I grew up. I don’t even recognize it. When I was growing up, if someone lost their job due to downsizing, lay-offs, and etc they weren’t the problem, whatever lead to their job going away was. A social security check, and the check and medical benefits of a union pension were the well-earned reward my grandmother and many others of the “greatest generation” received for decades of hard, honest work building our modern society. No one ever said they didn’t deserve it or were stealing from their children and grandchildren. Times have gotten harder, but I don’t think getting meaner as a society will solve anything. I’m hoping that logic will overcome whatever makes seemingly ordinary people cheer death and view compassion as a curse.