Sunday, October 31, 2010

This Town, I Swear

What is it with this village and fireworks? Because it's Halloween? Seriously?
Ohhhh, Squirrels!

t r u t h o u t | Eight False Things the Public "Knows" Prior to Election Day

t r u t h o u t Eight False Things the Public "Knows" Prior to Election Day

Good Lord, Another Week and They Still Suck

Broncos. Suck. Need Shatner.


 

‘Tis the Season

321143227_b90206a149_tTumbleweed season. Right in time for Halloween, the wind is blowing and sand and tumbleweeds are reinstalling themselves against the garage we removed them from yesterday. When I was growing up in Denver, Halloween always seemed to bring the first heavy snow, so Cinderella and princess costumes were covered up with hats, parkas and boots for trick-or-treating. If the outfit your mom bought you at the grocery store came with a mask, you could console yourself that you still had a bit of costume on.

Stupid snow hadn’t ruined everything. Until you get home and see that most of what was in your pillowcase collection of candy were Bit-o-Honeys and those stupid Smartees. (Back in my day, chocolate was a rarity). Smartees were tart and if you licked them long enough they made your tongue bleed.  Smartees were what you put in the family candy bowl, and they sat there until Christmas, untouched. Or you could bring them to school and give them to that one weird kid that loved them. You know that kid, the asthmatic who also ate paste.

Tumbleweed season also brings us voting season, and I am getting carpal thumb from hitting the mute button every six minutes to avoid the campaign ads and, as a side effect, my head exploding. Attack ads aren’t that annoying if you are pointing out the opponents proven record on voting, or a position he espouses. When you take a YouTube video out of context, you are lying. As the campaign season progresses, the ads become a jumble of mindless jargon and keywords designed to get the ‘hell, nobody knows what the truth is” vote. (Note again to Ken FBuck: nobody is talking about repealing the 2nd Amendment).

See, all a Republicon needs to do to win is throw out phrases that will get your vote. If you fall for the ‘tax-and-spend Liberals’, ‘Big government take-over’, ‘failed stimulus’  etc. you are falling for rich white guys funded by corporations that want to tax you but not themselves. Under the Bush tax cuts, the top 1% of the wealthiest people in this country pay no tax at all. That’s cost us a lot. If we let the tax cuts expire, people making over $250,000 a year will go from 36% back to 39%, what the rate was before Bush.

If you are like 95% of Americans, you got a tax cut. You did. I almost missed it on my taxes last year until my preparer pointed out the ‘Making Work Pay’ deduction was mine to take and courtesy of the islamofacistmuslim in the White House.

Big business creates jobs? Really? Like the big international tax firm I recently worked for that outsourced jobs to India for the tax break they got under Bush and later laid off workers en masse? The big businesses that right now are sitting on more cash than ever before, and still not hiring? Here’s some fun facts: the largest employer in the U.S. is the government, including the armed forces. The second largest employer are small businesses. Under Bush, they gutted the coffers of the Small Business Administration and gave the money to ….wait for it…Citibank.

The Republicon party is not for you, the little guy. They have stated that their goals are to: keep tax breaks for big business, the very wealthy and keep over 450 multi-national corporations tax free; dismantle the Department of Education; privatize Social Security; gut Medicare (like they started under Bush with Medicaid Part D and voted to refuse Medicaid the right to bargain with Big Pharma) do away with the government student loan program; repeal “Obamacare”. And on that last one, think about this: they want let a health insurance company deny coverage to your sick child. These companies now have to spend 80% of their income on your care, not bonuses for their executives. Repubs want to stop that. Repubs want you to pay all your premiums and deductibles and still get denied coverage for a pre-existing condition because you forgot to tell them you were treated for acne as a teenager.

Oh, the horror! The health insurance industry is the only industry not subject to anti-trust laws. And they are certainly enjoying that status.

So stop being concerned that some undeserving brown person might game the system to get a Medicare dollar (most fraud occurs by thieves stealing the social security number of a deceased person, as happened in my family) and look at what theft is planned for you, little frog in warm water.

So vote on Tuesday, You don’t make a statement by not voting. Don’t vote based on who’s wearing a flag pin, or who screams ‘Freedom' the loudest, or who you’d most like to have a beer with.  Don’t vote against your own best interests. It will make your tongue bleed.
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Caturday and Halloween!

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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Doghouse Riley on Dems

Because he's such a good writer and nails it in this piece (as usual). Click the linky and read the whole thing.

Bats Left/Throws Right: "And that reason is they're still running from Ronald Reagan thirty years later. They're afraid to propose the United States of America spend money on programs that benefit anyone other than the wealthiest 5%, for fear of being called Tax n' Spenders, and they're afraid to cut the astronomically absurd 'Defense' budget for fear of being called unpatriotic. They're afraid to make corporations pay fairly, and in full, for their benefits and for the sound operation of a free and just society, and they're afraid to make them pay for shipping American jobs overseas."

Monday, October 25, 2010

Saturday, October 23, 2010

“I Demand That You Apologize For Being Treated Inappropriately By My Husband”

The phone call from Clarence Thomas' wife to Anita Hill happened a few days ago, but still being discussed because it's so damn bizarre. I thought she was drunk until I read a comment that it wasn't a breakfast Cosmo that sparked the message, but the tossing, turning and fuming about all the injustices you've endured and the people you hate at 4:00 A.M.

Makes more sense and this blog title says it all:

“I Demand That You Apologize For Being Treated Inappropriately By My Husband” : Lawyers, Guns & Money

Meanwhile, the kitties are starting their Fall Fur Ritual, demanding more lap time, holding, petting and Fancy Feast. Skeeter is still crunching delicious baby tumbleweeds and Gracie continues with her goal of shedding on every dining room chair.


Other Prairie bits: it's Mute Button Season - it's not bad enough that we have to see the same campaign ads at every commercial break from 3:00 to 8:00, but why in God's name does Ken FBuck think the 2nd Amendment is under attack? From whom? From where? Who has said anything about taking my gun away??? First rule of winning an election: use jargon and buzzwords that attract the TeaTards. They won't notice anything else you have to offer.

I haven't checked the Pueblo Chiefly for other news as 1. there probably isn't any and 2. if there is, it involves a pedestrian getting hit by a car.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Barking Prairie Dog Awards

A little glitch in the Pueblo Council 30 years ago resended the law against exchanging money for sex which they quickly made illegal again, as David ("lisp? what lisp?") Ortiz at NewsFirst5 tells me. And all this time I've been trying to get that minimum wage position at Wendy's.

Baby tumbleweeds are in season and blowing into our garage, much to the delight of formerly-feral cat, Skeeter. For some reason, he finds them the perfect breakfast treat.

A Barking Prairie Dog award to Andrea of "Clean Jeans and Coffee Beans" at 323 W. Northern. Go show her some suds and love. Pick up a latte and listen to the Native American Drum Circle while you're at it.

Michael Bennet was the last vote yes for "Obamacare"? Oh, the humanity! You've got my vote, dude, and no bitching about how Health Insurance Reform did not go far enough. Have a Barking Prairie Dog award, and thank youfor responding to my atta-boy phone calls.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Awwww

funny pictures-but i liak this bed i dun wunna sleep wit da dog
see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I-70 Drivers: It Could Happen Here

New Billboard on I-70 near Ft. Riley
I know, I know. Something new, something different, is evil, scary and anti-American. The fact that nothing has occurred that is all that really different or new doesn't matter. It's what could happen that keeps you awake at night and at Tea Party rallies in the day. It keeps you focused on FOX  as your only source of news, and Glenn Beck as your history professor in 6th period study hall. Let the government offer a public insurance exchange that you could use or not, depending on whether you liked the price better than your present coverage and it's the fast track to Socialism.You didn't have a government take over of health care; you got laws that say children that can't be denied for a pre-existing condition. Well, that's just Marxist. If children were allowed to game the system like that, how will the poor insurance companies survive?
You worry about the government take over of health care, but you don't mind if your health care is governed by corporations making huge profits on your ever-rising premiums and narrowing coverage. And you know what could happen? You get cancer and they deny coverage because you forgot to tell them you had a mole removed in 1979. 

Oh, wait...that did happen.

You know what else could happen? You get to age 70 when you can finally take Social Security (the new standard the Republicons want) and you need Medicare to cover that chemo, but that's been gutted by the Republicans you voted for to protect you against Socialism.

Let's privatize the police and fire departments while we're at it, what with their crazy salaries and ridiculous pensions.  You know what could happen? You can't pay your fee so when your house catches fire, the firemen let it burn.

Oh, wait...that did happen.
You know what else could happen? You get to age 70 when you can finally take Social Security (the new standard the Republicons want) and you need Medicare to cover that chemo, but that's been gutted by the Republicans you voted for to protect you against Socialism. But hey - if you can't pay for medical care, it's your appointed time, right? When you meet the Lord, he'll be proud that you voted against that Marxist in the White House because someone undeserving might have had health care out of your tax dollars.

Cuz that could happen.
billboard photo along I-70: flickr


Friday, October 15, 2010

Why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is Not Your Buddy, Part 2

Like I was sayin' yesterday:


Hullabaloo: "And Glenn Beck is calling on his hardworking listeners to donate money to the Chamber. He is literally asking American workers to give their hard-earned wages back to their employers, so their employers can use that money to advocate a public policy agenda that benefits the rich at the (again: literal) expense of everyone else. It’s incredible. It’s such a twisted scheme that it’s easier to believe as a piece of performance art meant to mock right-wing pseudo-populism. Though if it was art, it would be dismissed as overly broad and heavy-handed."

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Why the U.S. Chamber of Commerece is Not Your Buddy

V.P. Biden asked the Chamber to pony up their books to prove they were not taking foreign money to finance their Republicon attack ads. Rather than show their math, they said, "No foreign money here, thanks for asking."

Oops:


ThinkProgress » Exclusive: Chamber Receives At Least $885,000 From Over 80 Foreign Companies In Disclosed Donations Alone

US Economy: Half a Million Americans Denied Health Coverage - CNBC

I know you are smarter than to vote for people like Ken Buck who want to repeal 'Obamacare". In 2014, Insurance companies will not be able to deny you coverage for pre-existing conditions. Note in this link that over 212,000 people denied already had insurance, i.e., paying premiums the whole time:

US Economy: Half a Million Americans Denied Health Coverage - CNBC

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Magic Numbers



As usual, Americablog's articles are researched, frequently with charts and graphs and fact-y stuff. Check out the link.
AMERICAblog News: Portrait of the Bush economy.

Gah - I still can't get a screen grab of Caturday kitties for you. BRB.

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