Observations on the 2012 Election

CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, was last week and it was highlighted by current wingnut tard in chief Andrew Breitbart being dragged away by aides as he screamed “animals” at Occupy protesters outside the DC Marriot. Speakers inside the hall described Democrats, liberals, and President Obama as racists, animals, radicals, freaks, and parasites, who were stupid and arrogant. We use racial division, class warfare, religious bigotry, and hate to divide the country creating a climate of fear. Fascinating coming from those who say the Democrats are the name callers.

Fox News talking head and wingnut columnist Cal Thomas was down right effing ugly. After the Heritage’s Genevieve Wood played a quote of Rachel Maddow debunking the conservative argument on contraception Thomas said, “I’m glad that you played the Rachel Maddow clip because I think she is the best argument in favor of her parents using contraception. I would be all for that.” Thomas later apologized.

CPAC also marked the return to the national stage of Sarah Palin, but enough said on that subject.

One of those arrogant liberals, Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation, had a good quote today when talking about Obama's proposed budget and the GOP plan to attack it on MSNBC's Now with Alex Wagner. She said Social Security is not an entitlement but a right Americans pay for all their lives. Very true but I have never heard put quite like that before.

At the final GOP debate in Florida Rick Santorum, always my personal fav, insisted that he should be the nominee of the party because he'd caught on earlier than Newt or Willard to the global warming hoax. This as North America is in the middle of the driest winter in history. NASA recently updated its “Blue Marble” photo which was originally taken in 1972. In this new version North America is almost completely snow and cloud free, in the middle of January. I know it's a lot to ask but I pray to the political gods every night hoping Santorum will be the GOP nominee. I can only imagine how entertaining a debate between that man and President Obama would be.

I'll end this with a simple question. Does the GOP have any plan at all other than defeating President Obama in November? All else seems to take a back seat to that goal. The economy, health care, you, me, the country, the human race. Other than that they only care about corporations and the gilded barons that run them. Those barons that fill their pockets with dollars that come from the tax cuts they are given in return.

Happy Valentine's Day

I was trying to think of something to write today but Valentine's Day isn't one of my best topics. Than I saw something a friend posted on Flickr and there is no way in hell I can top this so I'm going to borrow it. I hope she doesn't mind.

"In 1958, Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, who lived in Virginia, were married in the District of Columbia to avoid Virginia’s ‘Racial Integrity’ law which outlawed marriage between different races. After returning home, Virginia police broke into their house and found them sleeping in bed together, for which they were arrested. In 1959 they were sentenced to one year in prison. The judge in the trial invoked religious arguments, stating that since God had created the races on different continents, He clearly did not mean for them to marry. The Lovings chose a 25 year suspended sentence on the condition they moved out of their home state of Virginia. In 1963 The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Lovings, which wound its way to the Supreme Court of the United States, which unanimously ruled the Virginia law unconstitutional (Loving v Virginia, 1967).

The Court wrote “Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes … is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law.”
In 1945, after the US had helped win the right of freedom from oppression for people around the world, people of different races could not marry in 30 of 48 states (www.lovingday.org/legal-map).
Luckily, progress happens

My point on this Valentine’s Day? Governor Christie of New Jersey (and others), positive change is happening - don’t be on the wrong side of history."

Happy Valentine's Day