2022 Election Republican Extremists

 

The nation's focus is on Arizona because the experts say that if the radical slate of extremist candidates win, democracy is lost in the state. The concern is over a select five including Kari Lake, running for governor, Mark Finchem for Sec. State, Blake Masters, U.S. Senate and incumbent House members Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs. All 2020 election deniers. Gosar's family even says do not vote for him. There are more not on the current active list which I will cover later.

What can I say about Kari Lake?...She's a misinformation lunatic and possibly the next train wreck to hit Arizona unless she is stopped. If you go to "Search," above, and type in her name, there are numerous posts that express the need to defeat her. One of my favorites is "Kari Lake, Potentially Most Dangerous Politician in America," It recounts one of her latest lies saying she has won the election...

"Lake boasted that recent polls showed her up 11 points and 9 points just before Fox News flashed a graphic of the latest New York Times/Siena College poll showing the race tied at 48 to 48 percent." 

You cannot believe Kari Lake so why would anyone but an idiot want her for the next governor of Arizona? VOTE FOR KATIE HOBBS (D) TOMORROW!

Mark Finchem is a devout 2020 election denier, but his most serious downside is the fact that he has said, if elected, he wants to do away with 'vote by mail' in Arizona and will make changes to the state's voting system that will make it harder to go to the polls in the future. In a debate this whacko admitted 'the big lie" is a fraud. Duties of the Arizona Secretary of State include serving as the state's chief election officer. So, VOTE FOR ADRIAN FONTES (D) TOMORROW!

Blake Masters, another avid believer that the 2020 election was won by Donald Trump, not Joe Biden. Masters is not alone...

"Election deniers will be on the ballot in 48 of 50 states and make up more than half of all Republicans running for congressional and state offices in the midterm elections. Nearly 300 Republicans seeking those offices this November have denied or questioned the outcome of the last presidential election, according to a Washington Post analysis."

This is unconscionable as is Masters' position in Arizona. VOTE FOR INCUMBENT SENATOR MARK KELLY TOMORROW! 

Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, two Arizona House members that should have been voted out years ago. My blog on February 9, of this year, following the Republican insurrection of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, "ARIZONA: Home of Insurrectionists." pretty much labels Biggs and Gosar the anarchists they are. Added to that...

Leading Phoenix columnist E.J. Montini says it all in his headline, "Arizona's Jan. 6 insurrectionists should be barred from holding office."

The same should apply, of course, to the other 2020 deniers mentioned above. But it all comes down to the 14th Amendment; here is Section 3...

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

And the other non-active Arizona election participants are Karen Fann, Kelli

Ward and Wendy Rogers. Fann, as Arizona Senate Pres. ordered an audit of the election results in Maricopa County, hiring a firm that was founded by a pro-Trump conspiracy theorist who promoted false claims of fraud. And Ward, after losing three Arizona elections, was chosen as chair of the Arizona Republican Party and who filed lawsuits seeking to nullify the state's (AZ) 2020 election results.

Finally, Wendy Rogers, the Arizona state Senator who was the focus of an ethics investigation by her own party for a comment on the Buffalo gun massacre...

“Of course I condemn the violence in Buffalo, who doesn’t?” Rogers tweeted on Monday morning – two days after suggesting it was a false flag attack by a federal agent.

 Could it get any hotter? Many political pundits are exclaiming, 'so goes Arizona, so goes the rest of the U.S. The local newspaper, The Arizona Republic, a conservative publication said this...

"Don't sit out this election. The stakes are too high"

VOTE TOMORROW AND MAKE THIS A BLUE TSUNAMI! 

JOE BIDEN: A government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth

 

Borrowing from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the headline should be an awakener for this country that has repercussions for all political beliefs. The primary take-away is that in Lincoln's statement, there is an emphasis on the "people" and their place in the running of the government. What Honest Abe didn't speculate on are the kind of people today on the fringes, attempting to destroy the democracy our 16th President fought so hard to preserve.

It is the founder of the "big lie" who is the abhorrent challenger to Lincoln's words, Donald Trump, 45th in a line of leaders of the United States, who turned out to be anything but a leader, but I have never been able to bring myself to call him...that. Trump's authoritarian reign is over but the singular oligarch continues to rule with thousands of mentally depraved followers. Here is an example of a couple who should know better from election law guru Richard L. Hasen...

two supposedly “responsible” Republicans, Sens. Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina and Mike Lee of Utah, had reviewed the disgraced former president’s fraud claims in January and confirmed they were total bunk. Despite this, the senators have refused to separate their party from the instigator of the Jan. 6 insurrection and voted against a bipartisan commission to review the violent day.

Pres. elect Joe Biden's "Soul of the Nation" address from Gettysburg...

  It's the election, stupid, and the year 2020 will be forever remembered as the one where American began to take its plunge from democracy. In a Washingon Post opinion coumn, Eugene Robinson said...

T.S. Eliot wrote that the world ends "not with a bang but a whimper,” but I fear our great nation is careening toward a third manner of demise: descent into lip-blubbering, self-destructive idiocy.

Robinson goes on to chide a pathetic gang of blockheads mimicking politicians that fashion themselves  “the world’s greatest deliberative body,” which is, in effect, the world's greatest collection of, yes, idiots. Take Moscow Mitch McConnell,known to all as the drim reaper since he is against all...democracy. We needn't go any further to identify a source of the root source in this country's problems but there is

also now the lunatic group of Republicans...

Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, WI Sen. Ron Johnson, TX Gov. Greg Abbott, Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis, S.D. Gov. Kristi Noem...and the list goes on.

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post labeled this group the "evil lunacy" conjecturing its home is the GOP and not a good place to be. Chas. M. Blow in the New York Times gives America one last chance to save democracy. Preserve the basic right that has made this nation great, the right to vote. Pass the Freedom to Vote Act...

The bill would set national standards for early voting, expand voting by mail, allow the use of more forms of voter identification, make Election Day a federal holiday and institute measures to counter voter suppression tactics. It would also automate voter registration, force states to give voters the option to register on Election Day and offer safeguards against voter purges. Finally, it would overhaul portions of the campaign finance system, prohibit partisan gerrymandering and prevent the politicized removal of election officials, among other changes.

There's more on Joe Biden's fight to defend our democracy in a later blog.

READ MORE:  What if Things Are About to Get Better?

                          David Shor Is Telling Democrats What They Don’t Want to Hear

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's destruction of the state of Texas

 

To say the least, Texas is an undemocratic state with a ruthless authoritarian ruling over a coronavirus pandemic that has killed 57,921 Texans. Today there were 18,573 new cases and 297 deaths. Yet lamebrain Greg Abbott keeps telling his constituents he has everything under control. And apparently they believe him since there is no robust recall in progress. More from Change.org...

"Governor Greg Abbott is getting Texans killed daily in record numbers because he has failed to listen to the scientists in regards to the Covid-19 Pandemic."

It's a sign of the new "Republican Times" that you stick your head in the sand and ignore science from every angle possible, just to appease some moronic supporters. Here's the Washington Post's take on how Abbott's Texas is showing us what post-democracy America would look like...

"Thanks to a series of actions by the Texas legislature and governor, we now see exactly what the Trumpified Republican Party wants: to take us to an America where women cannot get abortions, even in cases of rape and incest; an America where almost everybody can openly carry a gun in public, without license, without permit, without safety training and without fingerprinting; and an America where law-abiding Black and Latino citizens are disproportionately denied the right to vote."

Neither I nor most all of my liberal friends want an America as described above. If

you are a balanced, intelligent, fair-minded individual, you consider these dictatorial attributes right out of the dark ages. But not Greg Abbott who seems to have returned to that period in the way he is running the state of Texas. The new abortion law will certainly be challenged since it is, in effect, illegal according to Roe. v Wade. Pres. Biden has stepped in and said as much.

Change.org is on the attack to remove Greg Abbott with a petition you can sign here...

"By signing this petition, you are urging the Texas Senate to investigate and remove Governor Abbott based on the Chapter 665 of the Texas Government Code."

You can add to the above a new gun law that is perhaps one of the most positive in the U.S. allowing literally anyone to buy a gun with virtually no restrictions on the purchase. Finally, the state passed a bill restricting the voting rights of people of color and others in general when it comes to voting by mail. I like to view the latter with the observation that the only way Republicans can win an election is to control it with ridiculous laws like this.

Right now Joe Biden doesn't have the horsepower with a close Senate and House to do damage on the Republicans. Add to that "supposed Democrats" like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, misguided mavericks in the Senate who have their own agenda, one that isn't compatible with the Democrats' mission. But, if--and I say this "if" optimistically-- 2022 yields the results that will solidify the left, it could be the time to change the GOP to the FOP, Former Old Party. Peace 

Here's an example of Texas's idiot governor in a statement late Thursday: "'things are looking good' in the Lone Star State when it comes to battling COVID-19." This is freaking unbelievable! Abbott is certifiably insane.

Read more here: "The Case for the Second Amendment"

How to make sure your November mail-in vote is counted

The U.S. Postal Service, under the control of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, was appointed because he is a big supporter and donor to Donald Trump's campaign. He is single handedly dismantling the Post Office for the sole purpose of preventing the mail-in votes to arrive on time. As an example, DeJoy has started removing sorting machines from several locations, the lifeblood of these facilities to direct mail to the right people on time.

Remember the guy at the New York post office hand-sorting mail when he found the letter to Santa Claus. Without sorting machines all offices revert to this method which drastically slows down the process. In keeping with his changes, DeJoy has notified 46 states that their mail-in ballots may not arrive on time to be counted. Just what Trump ordered. I did a post yesterday with my solution to beating Donald Trump and Republicans on this issue...

"States must send out the mail-in ballots earlier than normal to compensate for slow mail delivery. I would suggest you contact both your Senator and representative, using the following sites:
U.S. SenateU.S. House of Representatives
In keeping with sending ballots out early, states should extend the date for receiving them, again, to compensate for a slowed down postal system. Put this in your note to your Senator and Congress person."

CNN reports that Pennsylvania is already considering extending mail-in ballot receipt by three days. Of course, Pennsylvania's governor, Tom Wolf, is a Democrat, but states with Republican governors can be pressured, or as I said in my earlier post, shamed into doing the right thing. Also, RepresentUS has a site, "How to Vote by Mail this November," with information on each state. Give them your email and they'll keep you updated. BE SURE AND VOTE IN NOV.

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How to beat Trump/Moscow Mitch at their own game

Pariah of the Senate Moscow Mitch McConnell

As I indicated, the miscreants we are up against are Donald Trump, who is double-jeopardy right now by fighting the stimulus program along with trying to gut the U.S. Postal Service for the sole purpose of preventing a mail-in vote. The other is Senate leader Moscow Mitch McConnell, who is against everything from the left, plus he has recessed the Senate until September 8. Contrary to this stupid move, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has cancelled the House recess.

The question is what do we do about it. Assuming the American public could be codified to the point of shaming the Trump administration to back off (he has done it before if he thought it would benefit him) the new Postmaster General could be forced to stop his bulldozing of the Post Office. Because Moscow Mitch is running a tight Senate race in Kentucky against Amy McGrath, McConnell could be enticed to cooperate.

In case none of this works, the next move is a huge decision. Should we just vote in person? In view of the COVID-19 situation, that is a tough decision for some, especially the older seniors, particularly the elderly. There is one more option, and it is somewhat simple. States must send out the mail-in ballots earlier than normal to compensate for slow mail delivery. I would suggest you contact both your Senator and representative, using the following sites:

U.S. Senate
U.S. House of Representatives

In keeping with sending ballots out early, states should extend the date for receiving them, again, to compensate for a slowed down postal system. Put this in your note to your Senator and Congress person. And I realize these ideas won't fly with Republican governors, so the pressure on Congress must be the max to get anything done. Donald Trump and Republicans will do anything within their power to thwart this election in their favor. Those on the left must do more.

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Donald Trump knows he's had it

Here's the scenario from salon's Amanda Marcotte...

"The parallels between the situation of many abuse victims and the nation’s dilemma when it comes to removing Donald Trump from power have not been lost on feminists. As sex educator Twanna Hines noted on Twitter on Friday, Trump “knows his time is up.' She predicted that he will lash out the way that abusers do “when the relationship is ending.'”

He's hard at work trying to sabotage the stimulus programs presented by both sides, and he gave up long ago in the fight against COVID-19. Now he is doing his best to destroy the U.S. Postal Service making his crony, supporter and large donor Louis DeJoy Postmaster. According to Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.)...

"he's worried that 'the postmaster general is working with the president to make it a problem so he can argue he doesn't like vote by mail.'"

In a major move, DeJoy has started removing mail sorting machines out of postal facilities, for what reason no one knows, except to delay the mail-in voting in November. From my experience in the junk mail business, there is nothing more important to the USPS than mail sorting machines that speed up the process while making it more accurate. Somehow this kind of action must be halted immediately and what's been done reversed. This can't wait until November!

LOOK FOR ME ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK AND PINTEREST 

Noam Chomsky: 2020 election tampering for real

Noam Chomsky

Vote for Joe Biden, Noam Chomsky is telling Progressives. We cannot afford another four years of Donald Trump, nor can we afford to let down our guard now because Trump and other Republicans cannot be trusted until the last vote is counted. They're corrupt, all of them, and will do anything to thwart the election from Joe Biden. Chomsky wants Biden to stay on track to support Progressive issues and hopefully Kamala Harris will help insure that.

Chomsky cautions...

"despite all the polls showing Biden ahead, a Biden victory is 'anything but a sure thing.'”

And...

“Election tampering is a huge industry. Massive campaign funding in the last days can have a major effect, as seems to have happened in 2016. The leading specialist on campaign funding, Tom Ferguson, found that a ‘dual wave of money’ for both president and Senate had a substantial and probably decisive impact in the final days of the ’16 campaign.”

Already Trump has been fighting the mail-in vote since it has a tendency to include more Democrats. I have heard figures that at least 75% of the country is eligible to vote by mail, which could produce 80 million ballots to count. And another example of Trump's dirty hands meddling in the 2020 vote, his new Postmaster General, Louis Dejoy, is purposely slowing down the mail. Add to that the regular GOP voter suppression of the left to round off their efforts.

Here's a shocker for me, Noam Chomsky warned that...

“'popular support for autocracy runs disturbingly high.'” in the U.S., and he made his point by citing an Ipsos poll that was released last week and addressed 'Americans’ views on the media.'”

The latter would explain at least some of those poor souls that support Donald Trump with his autocratic power hold on the U.S. government. It would seem that these misfits are just begging for a 1984 society, welcoming Big Brother into their homes. These are the same double-digits who scream about too much government control, refusing to vaccinate their children and wear face masks and socially distance in the COVID-19 pandemic. Pathetic!

SUNDAY NEWS LATEST

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The culprit, Wm. Barr

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Hackers will get politicians web history and have a field day

If they can break into the National Security Council, they can find out what Senators and House members are doing online. It's just a matter of time and who has the bucks to pay for it. I choose Anonymous because of its known presence in the U.S. and the fact that they easily hacked into a security firm for charity donations which could translate into a budget to coop with other hackers to buy what they cannot hack themselves. Nothing is secure against these people when they make up their minds to do something. They lean left and would consider Republicans fair game.

ISP's are professing the fact that they will not sell our private information, but what if they don't have a choice? Suppose someone takes it?  And then there's the question of whether or not the two GoFundMe campaigns would buy the data from an illegal source. But it's really not important that there is a buyer if an organization like Anonymous has the information in hand. If they do, you can bet that it will soon become public. And you can bet that the GOP Congress, backed by Donald John, will make it impossible for anything to be obtained legally.

PC World reports...

"Still, providers of so-called marketing cloud services—think Salesforce and Oracle—track web users and develop extensive profiles based on shopping and web-browsing habits, said privacy advocate Jeffery Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy."
"It’s likely possible to buy the web marketing profile of individual politicians from a marketing cloud provider, if not an ISP, including the kinds of websites they like to visit, by targeting them using their general location and other publicly available information," he said.

 And then Chester added, “Let the web monitoring and surveillance of the politicians begin.”

But the recent congressional action makes it impossible for consumers to now opt-out in sharing, "...sensitive personal information, including web-browsing history, geolocation, and financial details with third parties." What this means is that the banks can now make hay with not only your money market account where the interest is paltry, but the Republicans have made it possible to sell everything they know about you. Both privacy advocates and one actor are attempting to raise the money to buy congressional names...

"In an effort to strike back against the Republican-led legislation to roll back the FCC privacy rules, advocate Adam McElhaney has raised more than $205,000 since March 25 to buy the personal history of top politicians supporting the resolution."

"Actor Misha Collins has raised more than $86,000 in the last six days in a similar GoFundMe campaign, although he’s well short of his $500 million goal."

What all this says is that the general public does not like the republican Congress.

Back in 2012 I did a piece on supplementing Social Security with junk mail. That year the industry was grossing over $4 billion on the names and personal data of American citizens, which I felt the individual should at least share in. Well, even privacy advocates wouldn't support me because some of their efforts were funded by the people I targeted. My point here is, if it was a $4 billion business years ago, it has grown since then. And the sale of financial data attached to a person is significantly more valuable just by its nature. The banks stand to make even more millions off this data.

Advocate Adam McElhaney, who has already raised $205,000 since March 25 to buy the personal history of top politicians, allows supporters to vote on whose web browsing histories they want to see. Number one is Paul Ryan, two is House member Marsha Blackburn with Mitch McConnell coming in third. The campaign is in its infancy and it's anyone's guess how much these people might raise. There is one down-side to this and that is the possibility this information could get in the hands of either Russian or Chinese hackers where the wheels come off as far as honor.

And of course there is the group that sponsored Richard Snowden, Tailored Access Operations who has 600 employees in the main NSA complex in Fort Mead, Maryland. If that's the case, they could literally embed their people in every ISP in the world. The site TurboFuture lists the ten "Most Powerful (Known) Active Hacking Groups" in the world and a reading of these makes one wonder if there is any reason to protect anything private. With the protection of secrecy and the tools available to these people, you have to believe 1984 is here...again.

Trump Internet privacy action spells doom called BIG BROTHER

I worked in the junk mail industry for over 35 years and can vouch for the fact that your personal data is neither private nor is it protected to the extent it should be. So, it comes as no surprise to me that the Congress has just sent Donald Trump legislation that literally obliterates any advances in privacy that former President Obama was able to get passed. Here's the Washington Post's coverage of that milestone by the Federal Communications Commission. It blocked many of the plans of...

"...AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, which had hoped to use their privileged access to user data to build lucrative businesses by targeting advertising across multiple devices."

The greed for data is never-ending and many people ask me, why do you keep harping over the loss of more personal information like this if you claim that most of it is already out there...all over the world? My answer is the same when questioned about my advocacy for gun control, stating that putting more guns on the street won't help the problem like the NRA claims. It just results in more violent deaths as we've seen. Likewise, putting more personal data out there is a huge benefit to businesses wanting to track your personal data, but can end up resulting in more identity theft.

The simplest amount of private information can benefit the identity thieves in finding your most personal and exclusive data, like bank records, passwords, investments, etc. That small need is no more than name and date of birth. That's right, that small measure of data can be matched to your address, which is available everywhere including Facebook, which turns the crooks on to all the bells and whistles they use to walk right into your bank account. If you have never been to the Internet Underground take a look. You'll find your Social security number there if you look hard enough.

So, the Republican morons of Congress, because they want no obstacles in the way of corporate profit, have opened the door to "...what companies could do with information such as customer browsing habits, app usage history, location data and Social Security numbers..." by freeing the likes of AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from earlier restrictions. Here's more from the Senate...

"The Senate has already voted to nullify those measures, which were set to take effect at the end of this year. If Trump signs the legislation as expected, providers will be able to monitor their customers’ behavior online and, without their permission, use their personal and financial information to sell highly targeted ads — making them rivals to Google and Facebook in the $83 billion online advertising market."

Your personal data is sold to junk mail companies for solo offers and their catalog mailings which are in the billions every year. It also goes to other marketers and the financial industry, providing all of them the information necessary to come up with a profile of you that is so scary, it challenges the imagination. It's called targeting, and companies are getting so good that they can very accurately predict the results from any advertising campaign. And get this...

""...the Federal Communications Commission, which initially drafted the protections, will be forbidden from issuing similar rules in the future."

In other words, you no longer have even the minimum of protections, and I would make a bet right now, identity theft incidences will start climbing and 2017 could be a banner year.

Want to know what happens the minute you open your browser and start searching? How-To Geek explains the whole process...

"...your web browser stores data about your browsing history. When you visit a website, your browser logs that visit in your browser history, saves cookies from the website, and stores form data it can autocomplete later. It also saves other information, such as a history of files you’ve downloaded, passwords you’ve chosen to save, searches you’ve entered in your browser’s address bar, and bits of web pages to speed page load times in the future (also known as the cache)."

After reading this, think all is lost? Not really if you choose to use Chrome's "Incognito" window, or Private Browsing, or InPrivate Browsing, sites that will improve your ability to stay private, but are not proof positive. As an example, here is Incognito's caveat...

"Pages you view in incognito tabs won’t stick around in your browser’s history, cookie store, or search history after you’ve closed all of your incognito tabs. Any files you download or bookmarks you create will be kept.
However, you aren’t invisible. Going incognito doesn’t hide your browsing from your employer, your internet service provider, or the websites you visit."

So, with Donald Trump in the White House and as long as Republicans have control of Congress, my advice to you, and also from the top privacy advocates, GO INCOGNITO OR PRIVATE! 

If you're not completely sure yet, read this admonition from Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy...

“Today’s vote means that Americans will never be safe online from having their most personal details stealthily scrutinized and sold to the highest bidder.”

Privacy advocates have been attempting to convince the public for years to be careful who they give their private information to, especially things like your Social Security number and driver license number. Either of those numbers plus a name and address is an invitation for identity thieves to come in and help themselves to everything personal about you. Of course there is some credibility to the fact that the use of this data could help marketers to better target your needs. The problem with these people is, they never know when enough is enough. And the consumer is always the one who suffers.

By the way, the changes in the privacy rules were brought to you by none other than our do-willie Arizona Senator, Jeff Flake, who certainly lives up to his last name. He has been in office for three years and was polled as the most unpopular Senator in Washington, replacing Mitch McConnell. Now, in my opinion, anyone who could replace this asshole must be lower than the bottom of the barrel. Contact Jeff Flake and tell him what you think: AZscheduling@flake.senate.gov Tell him we're all sick of Congress letting big business trample our rights.

Bernie Sanders Sayings

{In getting out the vote} Oregon has shown us another possible route: In that state, voting can be done by mail over a period of up to four weeks, and as a consequence voter turnout has risen.

NOTE: Oregon, along with Washington state and Colorado conduct all elections by mail.

GOP "PARTY OF STUPID" BY ONE OF ITS OWN

I knew Richard (never call him Dick) Viguerie years ago when I was in the junk mail business. He was a simple broker of mailing lists consisting of conservative donors to various causes over the years. One of his employees told me once that Viguerie had exclaimed early-on that he had found a political hotbed of data that would someday help sway history. He was right. Using his names to fight what he considered the mainstream media then, Republicans were able to reach individuals that supported conservative causes and win elections. In my early days of junk mail, fund raising, as it was called then, was looked on as a step child and Viguerie was just another philanthropic data broker trying to make a living.

Richard began to put all those right-wing mailing lists together in a database that grew gradually in the beginning and then, once the GOP discovered the gold mine that Viguerie was creating, got on the band wagon while at the same time making the man very rich. Viguerie was one of the earliest in junk mail to discover just how valuable personal data could be in targeting the right household. Things like age, income, job description, where you lived as only a few. By using several of these selection factors, you could determine how much a person would give, when was the best time to reach them and how many times you could come back asking for more money.

But now he is taking on the mainstream Republican Party similar to how the Tea Party has reacted to House Speaker John Boehner and his gang of misfits. He claims their Presidential strategy is "insanity" and calls the GOP "the Party of Stupid." Rave on Richard and take the Grand Old Party down with you in 2016. Hey, 2014 was not a win for Republicans, rather a vote for change when no other choice was available. And Mr. Viguerie, who do you think Fox News supports, liberals? No matter that a majority of what they spew out is without fact, they are a huge voice in the media world. Did you forget them?

The conservative guru whines over Jim Lehrer's handling of the 2012 Presidential debates as if Mitt Romney would have been a debating challenger for Barack Obama under any circumstances. Viguerie has a new book out I will not help promote, thus, this new found publicity. It is noteworthy that a big promoter of the book is Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder and president of Tea Party Patriots. Now that does it for me and the millions of progressive thinking Americans who want this kind of political garbage placed in the landfill. With a brief spurt of fame Richard (not Dick) Viguerie will go back to fund raising obscurity.

 

DEMOCRATS CAN WIN TOMORROW AND HERE'S HOW

YOU HAVE TO VOTE. That's right, you have to get off your duffs and go to the polls tomorrow and vote. That is if you haven't already sent a mail-in ballot. I am a pessimist when it comes to Congress doing the right thing for the country, but whatever happens, the U.S. will be in much better hands with a Democratic Senate. Some surprises in the House would be nice to help put John Boehner in his place. It is beyond me how an American public can make its decisions on who to vote for with all the negative advertising backed by dark money. Of course the more sophisticated voters can see beyond this trash but most of us need some hard facts to decide and we're not getting them. Rome didn't fall in a day but I'll bet there are several similarities here in its decline.

RELIGION: How will evangelicals affect the vote in November 2012?



Thou shalt not not conceive



If the Catholic Church outburst over President Obama’s healthcare bill order for religious companies to provide birth control protection, joined now by evangelicals across the country, is any indication of the level of their impact on 2012 voting, it would appear that the White House and Democrats have a fight on their hands.  Add to this the fact that Rick Santorum is not only a Catholic but also an evangelical. 

The question remains just how much reaction there will be from voting religious beliefs if they aren’t necessarily good for the country.

California megachurch pastor Rick Warren said "I'm not a Catholic but I stand in 100% solidarity with my brothers & sisters to practice their belief against govt pressure."  I hate to break this to both Warren and the Pope but 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women practice birth control and those same figures apply to evangelicals and other Protestants.  This comes from a recent report by the Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit sexual health research organization.

What it appears the Obama administration is trying to do is keep certain factions from taking away a right for women who opt for contraception, not simply exert government pressure.

The following Bill Maher video is hilarious:



Southern Baptist minister Phil DaCosta from Atlanta says, “I vote on Jesus first.”  He is a Tea Party member whose priorities are Israel, abortion and marriage.  As a TPer he does want lower taxes and smaller government.  But these people invariably miss the point completely when their emphasis is based on their religious beliefs with no outright concern for the economy and its problems like the jobless, foreclosures, Afghan war, the state of U.S. education and the pitiable Congress some of which the religious right stuck us with.

Jaweed Kaleem, writing in the Huff Post, says DaCosta is just what Ralph Reed, a political strategist and former Christian Coalition director, is looking for.  Reed’s new organization, Faith and Freedom Coalition, wants to “…unite under his relatively new organization that aims to fuse the Bible-based value voting of traditional social conservatives with the grassroots momentum of the Tea Party to form a bloc of voters big enough to influence state and national elections.”

Ralph Reed buddy Jack Abramoff

According to Wikipedia, “in 1996, the Christian Coalition's chief financial officer, Judy Liebert, ‘went to federal prosecutors with her suspicions of overbilling by Ben Hart, a direct-mail vendor with close ties to Reed, then the coalition's executive director.’"  Ralph Reed resigned later during an investigation.  Reed wasn’t charged but the Christian Coalition later sued Hart's firm. 

In June 2005 it was revealed that Reed secretly accepted payments from Jack Abramoff to lobby against Indian casino gambling and oppose an Alabama education lottery.  Abramoff pled guilty to three felony counts in federal court.  So you have to wonder why the Tea Party would want to get mixed up with Reed unless you consider the fact that the Tea Party itself is a fraud.  The Huff Post exposes the “ugly underbelly” of the tea party movement” and the deceit of its stands on taxes and government tyranny.

Rick Santorum branded "Loser"

According to a survey from Reed’s faith and Freedom Coalition, “…32 percent of all voters in 2010 were Christian conservatives, and 72 percent of them voted Republican.”   They helped the GOP gain 63 seats to control the House.  Reed himself asks, “So it is that a presidential campaign that is largely about the economy is nevertheless deeply shaped by issues of faith and morality.”  He adds that the evangelical vote made up 44 percent of Republican primary voters in 2008.

Now enter Catholic evangelical Rick Santorum who appears to have put Mitt Romney on the defensive with his recent wins in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado.  The comment was made that Santorum made them “swoon” at the Conservative Political Action committee (CPAC) meeting recently, even though Romney also delivered an outstanding speech. 

But one political analyst says Santorum won’t survive and the conservative crowd will eventually end up falling in behind Romney.

The GOP may very well end up tossing a coin for the nomination.

UPDATE: Romney wins Maine caucuses and CPAC straw vote.

Can Republican HATE politics bring this country down?

GOP Hate and Fear

Daily Kos posted a piece recently, “Why Does The GOP Hate (everything sane)?” that is the best I’ve seen for putting Republican hate-mongering in perspective with its biggest supporter, the Tea Party.  It said, “The GOP has such an easy task when it comes to adapting people's minds to vote for them; Spread hate and they will be yours…”  Sounds like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the master, Karl Rove.  Also reminds me of George Orwell’s 1984 but more on that later.

I Googled “GOP hate” and “Republican hate” and was able to formulate a list of what some pretty influential sites and organizations think Republicans hate, as follows:

Taxes, the poor and hungry, gays, Hispanics, liberals, gun control, animal rights, the truth, women, even those pregnant, the Occupy Movement, Barack Obama, science (as in stem cell research), public education, environmentalism, veterans, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, teachers, unions, and, yes, even other Republicans (as in Newt Gingrich)

There are probably more that I have missed but this will get the ball rolling and I encourage you to add to the list with your comments. 



Norman Lear



Many of us—all but the very young—remember Norman Lear’s TV sitcom All in the Family, starring Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker and Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers as the rest of the family.  Archie was a “nice” bigot and was constantly chastised by his son-in-law “Meathead” played by Rob Reiner.  Many thought this character was patterned after Lear who abhorred bigotry.  Because of its insightful humor the show lasted for nine years on CBS.

Lear was concerned over how the religious right could repeatedly disgorge sermons that reeked of politics so he, through his organization People for the American Way, complained to a Los Angeles television station about one of Pat Robertson’s TV program.  Robertson responded with a threat of God’s wrath against him.  Jerry Falwell told his followers, “I am about to name the man that some people believe to be the greatest threat to the American family in our generation: Norman Lear!"

Falwell’s “threat” comment garnered Lear hate mail and death threats, one so threatening that the TV producer had to get protection.  Since most of this religious pack are Republican, it is astonishing that their religion—if that’s what it really is—would allow them to do such a thing, although it is commonplace they would as a right-wing extremist, particularly Tea Partiers.  Lear’s position is that “Our founders clearly intended that there be a level of separation between church and state.”



And as promised, the Orwellian connection between hate and the Republican Party.  In 1984, Emmanuel Goldstein is the face of the “Two Minutes Hate” which the citizens of Oceania were subjected to on a regular basis.  They were whipped up into a tremendous frenzy to hate Goldstein and anything else that didn’t agree with the Party.  What Goldstein said made perfect sense in defying this extremely hellish atmosphere and no matter how much hatred was directed against him and his leftist beliefs, his influence never seemed to grow less.

Sound familiar?  George Orwell was a novelist and political writer who was well acquainted with social injustice in the world.  The proles of Oceania represent the poor and out of work people in the U.S. today who are completely ignored by the GOP in favor of supporting the wealthy and large corporations.  (See the poor and hungry and those on Medicaid in the list above.) 

The difference is, where Goldstein’s followers, above, could only look on in the “Two Minute Hate” but could not take action, the progressive movement has begun to rebut the Republican hate messages with responses of hope.  There is no hope in hate, and the American public is beginning to see through the GOP façade.  And to answer the original question, the answer is NO, the Republican HATE politics will not bring this country down.

If you haven’t already, please check out Norman Lear’s People for the

American Way

.