Article 1, Section 1 of the United States Constitutions states:

All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

And under Section 7:

All Bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.

What this means is that under the US Constitution, all legislation, especially legislation regarding taxing or spending by the Federal Government must originate in the United States House of Representatives.

From there, the Senate can take up those bills, add amendments and pass them. If the two Bills do not match, under the rules of the Senate and House, a conference committee is convened where the differences are ironed out and then the Bills return to both bodies to be voted upon again. If both bodies vote in the affirmative, then and only then is the Bill submitted to the Executive for signature or Veto.

That is how it has worked for well over 200 years. Despite the misconception of many, the Executive Branch, otherwise known as the President does not have the ability to raise taxes, pay for anything, or enact any new legislation not already provided to him by the Congress from legislation that begins in the House of Representatives.

Neither Obama nor any president before him has raised or cut your taxes, that happens in the Congress.

Neither Obama nor any president before him have increased federal spending, that happens in the Congress.

The President has no powers outside of those given him in the Constitution of the United States and previous legislation passed in Congress and signed by the Executive. Again, despite the misconception of many, especially those on the far right, President Obama has not taxed, spend or has taken on any addition powers already granted him and previous presidents by previous Congresses.

Anyone from any side of the political aisle telling you different is either unfamiliar with basic Civics or are lying through their teeth, or both. However, since 2010 the legislative process in our Congress has changed placing what has worked for Congresses and Presidents for over 200 years on its head, almost making the process untenable. That problem has been the Tea Party, but it didn’t begin there.

When Barack Obama won in 2008 becoming the first Black President of the United States, the Republican Party already had issues with Democratic Presidents. In 1994 the extreme right wing conservatives lead by Newt Gingrich began changing what was for over 200 years a working relationship between the two parties in Congress and their interaction with the Executive. Though the two always fought, the nation always came first and the party not in power was considered the “loyal opposition”, opposed to those in the ruling party but not doing anything for personal power that would harm the nation as a whole.

Both parties had their share of liberals, moderates and conservatives but the Republican Party under Newt started marginalizing those who weren’t conservative. Further, Republicans in the House were forbidden to vote with Democrats on key issues. The best example of this was Bill Clinton’s tax increase that was passed in his first term while the Democrats controlled the House and Senate. Not a single Republican voted for the increase saying it would “destroy the economy.” Actually it ended up accelerating the nations’ prosperity and we had our greatest peace time economic boom in our history. Newt took control of the House in 1994 and began to work on marginalizing the Democratic President going so far as to impeaching him after orchestrating a government shutdown.

Now this is not to say there wasn’t cooperation between the Democrats and Republicans at this time between the Congress and Executive. Actually the nation did come first, but the areas of agreement were getting fewer and fewer as the Republicans more and more marginalized and removed the liberals and moderates from their party.

When George Bush became president in 2000, he and his Republican House and Senate cut taxes for the wealthy while increasing Federal Spending to fund two “undeclared” wars and two major Republican “entitlement” programs that were unfunded, namely “No Child Left Behind” and Medicare Part D. This resulted in the budget surplus left Bush quickly becoming a bigger and deeper budget deficit and increasing national debt. Keep in mind, Democrats joined in with Republicans in Congress for many of these votes.

In 2006 the Democrats took back the House and had control of the Senate. Despite having a Republican President, they worked with George Bush; they just slowed him down a bit. Bush was still able to get his foreign policy funded and though they complained about how he was handling the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they still stood with him at the “water’s edge” and backed him because he was our Commander in Chief.

So Obama is elected and on his inauguration night, several key Republican Leaders met to discuss how the GOP would be working with the president over the next four years. What they decided was that even though we were in the worst recession in our history, though we were still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, this president was not going to get any cooperation from the Republican Party at all.

This link discussed what happened that night:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/robert-draper-anti-obama-campaign_n_1452899.html

Nothing in Draper’s book regarding this has been denied by any of the participants at that meeting. They were clear; they would make the Obama Presidency a failure regardless of what it could do to the nation so they could take power back in Congress two years later and the Presidency back in four. That was their plan and they stuck to it.

Fortunately the Democrats still controlled the House, but there were enough Republicans in the Senate to filibuster and block many key votes needed to help get this nation out of the recession and improve jobs and our economy. The Senate began raking up record number of filibusters. Were it not for a 30 day or so window when the Democrats had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, ACA would have never passed.

So in 2010, due to a still depressed economy and low voter turnout, coupled with anger from the left against Obama for not being “liberal” enough, the Republicans with their new “Tea Party” support took the House, though they were unable to take the Senate.

Now as I mentioned at the beginning of this rant, the House of Representatives is where all legislation to include taxation and spending originates. With the Tea Party running the show and despite John Boehner running the House campaign on the pledge “Jobs First” they didn’t put up any job Bills for consideration. Instead they started a long series of “repeal ObamaCare” votes. No Bills were put up for a vote in the Tea Party Controlled House beginning in 2011 that was designed to do anything to improve our economy. In fact, they began toying with the idea of defaulting on our National Debt and by doing so dragging this country and the entire World into another Depression.

While this was going on, Mitch McConnell and his Republicans who were in lock step with the Tea Party faction, began a new record series of filibusters to block passage of any bills from the Democrats who controlled the Senate being passed that would aid in the recovery of the nation’s economy.

None of the Bills passed in the House had any chance of passage in the Senate let alone the chance of being signed by Obama.

The 112th Congress became famous for being the least productive Congress in our nation’s history. They passed fewer Bills on to the President than any previous Congress. More and more, the President had to rely on the powers already granted him by the Constitution and previous Congressional Acts just to keep the country moving.

In 2012, despite what the GOP leaders had hoped for during Obama’s inauguration, President Obama won a second term. Further, due to the harm the Republicans were seen doing to the nation, the Democrats were able to take seats back in the House, but not enough to regain control due to the gerrymandering of districts after the 2010 Census.

So after this loss of power and rebuke by the nation, did the Republicans decide to put the nation first and work to govern with the Democrats and the President for the best interests of the nation? No, they doubled down. They shutdown the government, threaten default again, the House passed even more Bills to repeal ObamaCare as well as other Bills dead on arrival in the Senate.

Republicans in the Senate increased yet again the number of filibusters to the point where Harry Reid had to change the Senate Rules to simply get important Federal positions on the Courts and Government offices filled so government could do it work.

As bad as the 112th Congress was, the 113th was passing fewer Bills than before. Again, Obama was left with no choice but to use Executive Orders to get things done for the nation. Keep in mind; he still has signed fewer executive orders than any of his predecessors going back to before Roosevelt.

How did the Tea Party Republicans in the House respond to this? Instead of going to work as they were sent to do, they filed a lawsuit against the president for doing the people’s business without them.

Despite what you may be told, not a single executive order the President has signed is in violation of the law, the constitution or prior legislative acts of Congress. Everything he has done is legal.

Further, despite the obstruction of the Tea Party in Congress, slowly but surely the nation is doing better. The thing is if the Republicans would place the nation’s need before their own, our situation would be even better.

To date, because the Congress won’t act and rather obstruct due to Tea Party influence:

No comprehensive immigration reform Bills

No infrastructure repair Bills creating millions of needed good jobs

No National minimum wage increase Bill

No equal pay Bills

No campaign finance reform Bills

Though the Senate will occasionally get a Bill passed, the Tea Party Controlled House will not allow it for an up or down vote, even though the votes are there for passage.

Further, very few if any of the Bills passed through the House have any chance of passage in the Senate or signature by the President.

They only legislate for show, not for governance.

This is what the Tea Party has done to our Congress resulting in unstable governance and in the process is harming a nation still teetering close to falling back into recession if important job Bills aren’t passed.

President Obama has two more years and needs a Congress that will work with each other and him for the best interests of this nation.

The Tea Party has clearly demonstrated they are not interested in governing, only obstructing and causing more harm to the nation. Further, if the last four or more years are a guide, you know this will not change with the Republicans as long as they cater to the extreme right wing fringe that manifests themselves as the Tea Party. The only hope this nation has to make the lives of the majority of her people better in the future is a working Congress made up of mature and dedicated patriots and that isn’t the GOP

Register and Vote in November. The nation and your own economic stability depend on it.

This is a departure from my usual subject matter, but this being my blog and my rules, please indulge me.

A little over two years ago, we brought home a rescue puppy. She was about two months old and was found wandering the streets of West Phoenix. She suffered from some bladder infection, had some abrasions to her fur, but was lively and lovable. We were not quite sure of her breed. Obviously some Rottweiler in her, but also some Hound, Dachshund, and a few other breeds. Our three-year Border Collie Zoe tolerated her as she kept licking and trying to play with her. We named her Cloe.

Cloe was unique from any other dog we have ever taken home. Though difficult to house train, she eventually learned the routine. She never showed any fear, was sure of herself at all times, and always wanted to cuddle with any human being she came in contact with. Her disorders were quickly cleared up by our vet and she grew to be about 45 pounds though the size of her paws would indicate she could have been easily another 30 pounds on top of that.

She loved to walk on the back of the couch like a cat, loved to gaze in your eyes with an intense stare before licking your face with her spotted tongue. She played rough, loved to growl while playing with you but would immediately stop with the simple command, “kisses” where she would stop and lick your face. She hated having her nails clipped. Fought that at every turn. But other than that she brought a sparkle into the lives of me, my wife and Zoe.

Five months ago in the middle of the night Cloe went into her first seizure. She slept on the bed with us and the sound startled me. Not being quite awake and aware of what to do, as I saw her apparently ready to choke on her tongue and stuck my hand in there only to have her bite off the end of my ring finger. She tore out the nail base, lacerated the end, and broke the bone. After my trip to the emergency room we took her to the vet and they did all the tests. They could find nothing wrong and we decided that as long as she didn’t have too many seizures, she would be fine.

Over the next several months she would average about one seizure every other week. They would last about 3 minutes; she would be stunned, but would quickly get back into her regular routine. She remained active, loving and attentive to our needs as we were to hers.

Four weeks ago she after a vet visit where she was found to be in good health, she had four seizures in one hour. We called the vet and Cloe was prescribed Phenobarbital. We started to give her the medication and everything was fine for three weeks.

Last week at around midnight on Tuesday she went into another seizure. The first one we had noticed in three weeks. She calmed down and we went back to sleep. An hour later she had another, then another having a seizure every hour. These were more severe and lasted longer than any previous episodes. We took her to the vet and they sedated her and kept her for observations. It was determined that the Phenobarbital was in a proper dosage so it was decided to also place her on Potassium Bromide in addition to the Phenobarbital. We were also given valium suppositories in case of any future severe seizure. At 5:30 that day, I was told I could take her home. She was recovered and was back to wagging her tail. When I picked her up though, she didn’t seem quite the same. We got home, we gave her the medication and one half hour later she went back into a seizure followed by another one 10 minutes later. We gave her the valium but it didn’t help. She ended up having 4 seizures in an hour so I took her to an emergency animal clinic. This dog who loved to get in the car for rides was literally screaming and was showing fear she never showed before.

At the clinic they took her back and stabilized her. We were there for five hours and they advised that she was calm and could go home or stay there for observations, whatever I decided. Either way it was advised she be taken back to the vet the next day. I decided to take her home. Just before leaving, she had another seizure. I knew this wasn’t going to get better. I did take her home where she had seizures all through the night and into the morning despite the valium she was given. The sparkle of her life was gone. She did not recognize where she was and was scared. I had been up for 36 hours at this time.

We took her to the vet and she was examined. She was suffering from intractable seizure disorder. Though they were sure they could sedate her, it was also certain than the sedation would take all of what this dog was away. Further, the underlining cause of the seizure would still need to be determined. It was possibly a brain tumor, meningitis, valley fever in the brain, they couldn’t tell. But each possibility meant our dog was gone and we would only be prolonging her life of misery.

We had her put down. A dog perfectly normal, active, and loving only 48 hours before had a terrible 36 hours of utter misery that left her scared and confused.

Many don’t understand why pet owners are so involved with the lives of their pets. Well, they’re family and like they say, they give unconditional love. We will miss Cloe who at not quite three years of age, is gone but will always be in our hearts. If you have a pet, enjoy all the time with them as you can.

I’m getting more amazed and bewildered as this campaign goes forth. The recent matter of the murder of our Libyan Ambassador and three other American diplomats in years past would bring universal American outrage, anger and support for our administration from both sides of the aisle in the days that followed the act. This time it was just majority outrage and coming together.

Though conservatives and former Bush administration personnel condemned the act and admonished Mitt Romney for blatantly lying and misleading Americans in his statements, he still had support from those like DeMint and Rumsfeld. Despite being told he was wrong, Mitt refused to acknowledge his mistake, refused to take anything back and simply doubled down.

And now more people are not only allowing him to double down, they are finding ways to make his statements acceptable. Granted, they are stretching the truth to new limits, finding new definitions of false equivalency, and adding just pure stupidity to top it off, but mainstream media is allowing this to go more and more unchallenged. Why?

I do have some fundamental disagreements with our President. I think he should have vetoed NDAA, even though it was passed with a veto proof majority in both the House and Senate, to send a message that this President honors rights over fear.

I thought he was too timid in not fighting for single payer.

I think he’s been too consiliatory with those who he knows want him to fail and as a result, the nation has suffered.

Only now is he fighting back and its good to see, but I think if he showed this strength early on and placed the GOP on the defensive sooner, we would have his Jobs Act passed, because the American people would be holding the GOP accountable. My issues with Obama are for things I can show he’s done or not done. But those who complain the loudest about him do so for things easily proven to be total fantasy and fact-less. And these people get a free pass in doing so.

The book and movie “2016” by Dinesh D’Souza is totally based on impressions and conjecture on D’Souza’s part. He even admits it. Bill Maher really laid into this guy who could only come up with false equivalencys to support his claims. He has no facts, no taped interviews, nothing. Yet he gets play and people are seeing his movie and saying it must be true because people acted out D’Souza’s conjectures on the big screen. Why?

I’m left with only one explanation. People are still racist in this nation. They are racist and are afraid to admit it, so they grasp at anything they can to justify lack of any support or credence to what the president has done or what he wants to do.

The facts are clear.

In terms of National Defense, the President has more effectively done what Republicans and Conservatives have always advocated. He’s killed more terrorist leaders in less than three years than Bush did in eight. He killed bin Laden and a whole host of “number 2’s”. He’s maintained a military force in Afghanistan, that has left those on the left in anger. He’s permitting military spending at levels unheard of and totally unjustified by reality, just not as high as the right would want.

In terms of border security, the border has never been more secured. He’s deported far more undocumented aliens than Bush ever did. He’s deployed more resources and money to the border. He’s done so much in this regard, he’s angered the Hispanic Community. Yet the right gives him no credit for it. It’s only been his recent embrace of Dream Act immigrants that’s given the right (legitimate from their point of view) cause to despise the President. Til recently, the left had more reason to despise the president regarding border security than the right.

In terms of Wall Street, well the stock market is at record highs. The 1% continue to do better than ever before, even better than under Bush. Corporations have less new regulations under Obama than under Bush. It’s true. Income disparity between rich and poor continues to grow. I did not support the President extending the Bush tax cuts. I was willing to pay more as long and the wealthiest also paid more. Yet he did. That angered me. Only recently is he standing firm against the right regarding allowing them to be extended even more for the rich. Again, he’s done more for the right than the left in terms of finances, yet he gets no credit for it. Only complaints from people complaining all the way to the bank.

President Obama is a centrist, not a socialist. As Bill Maher pointed out, “if he was a Socialist, he’s a bad one.” His policies have clearly been right of center. He’s more like Reagan in implementation of Republican Ideas than Bush, yet he gets no credit and people continue to call him a Marxist Socialist and can only point to Obamacare as a factor supporting that.

Obamacare, based on Romneycare, based on Republican ideas presented by the Conservative Heritage Foundation in response to Clinton and HillaryCare. Get real people. Obamacare still gives more to insurance companies than the 35 million newly insured. This isn’t left-wing, it’s center right.

So why does the right continue to call him a Socialist Marxist?  Because he’s black. Many still continue to say he’s Muslim, he’s Kenyan, whatever. They have no, zero evidence to support their claims. Nothing that passes the smell, let alone the laugh test to stand up in Court. It’s ridiculous, it’s racist. If not racist, it’s clearly stupid.

They hate Obama for racist and stupid ideas. And in response support a man who everyday is proven to be dishonest, arrogant and insensitive to Americans. The record is clear. Anyone can pull tapes off of the Internet and YouTube of Mitt Romney telling every side of every story he can. He has no core convictions. He says that corporations are people, he has outsourced American Jobs overseas. He keeps his money in the Cayman Islands and Swiss Bank Accounts. He won’t release his taxes. He blunders with foreign Policy. He advocates staying in Afghanistan indefinitely and waging war in Iran, he want to lower his taxes while raising yours and still not balance the budget. All of the above is provable.

None of his plans and proposals have passed the smell, let alone laugh test. He’s a fool, an idiot. It’s provable, yet people will support this man over Obama who has clearly demonstrated more conservative merits than Mitt ever has. Mitt talks, Obama has acted. The facts are there. Obama is a centrist. That is clear. That is why he still has problems from the left. He is black, that is why he still has problems from the right.

Romney is an ass, liar and fool, but he is not black, he is not Obama, that is why he has support from the right.

Sad state of affairs in the country.

Don Eugene Siegelman is an American Democratic Party politician who held numerous offices in Alabama. He was the 51st Governor of Alabama for one term from 1999 to 2003. Siegelman is the only person in the history of Alabama to be elected to serve in all four of the top statewide elected offices: Secretary of State, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor and Governor. He served in Alabama politics for 26 years.

After the expiration of his governorship, two of Alabama’s United States Attorneys from the Bush camp with unique ties to Karl Rove began a criminal investigation against him on accusations of corruption while in office. Indictments came in 2004 and again in 2005, and in 2006 he was convicted on corruption charges. Since then there have been counter-accusations by various former attorneys general and officials that his prosecution was intentionally wrongful. On March 6, 2009, the Conservative 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld key bribery, conspiracy and obstruction counts against Siegelman and refused his request for a new trial, finding no evidence that the conviction was unjust. The Court struck down two of the seven original charges however, Siegelman was ordered to serve out a 78 month prison sentence that began today.

There is this story from Crooks and Liars:

http://crooksandliars.com/2008/02/25/60-minutes-the-prosecution-of-don-siegelman

And these two interesting YouTube stories:

Objections raised against the prosecutors and the court proceedings

Testimony of the star witness

Witness Nick Bailey, who provided the cornerstone testimony upon which the conviction was based, was subsequently convicted of extortion; upon being given 10 years in prison Bailey cooperated with prosecutors to lighten his own sentence. Although he engaged in over 70 interviews with the prosecution against Siegelman, none of the notes detailing these interviews were shared with the defense. In addition, after the case was tried it was confirmed that the check he testified he saw Richard M Scrushy write for Siegelman was actually written days later, when he was not actually present.

Partiality of the jury

Documents indicated that prosecutors interviewed two jurors while the court was reviewing charges of juror misconduct, in violation of the judge’s instruction that no contact with jurors should occur without his permission.

Karl Rove connection

Allegations that Siegelman was prosecuted at the insistence of Bush-appointed officials at the Justice Department, as well as the insistence of Leura Canary, a U.S. Attorney in Montgomery whose husband was Alabama’s top Republican operative and who had for years worked closely with Karl Rove, led federal courts to release the accused on bail. In June 2007, a Republican lawyer, Dana Jill Simpson of Rainsville, Alabama, signed a sworn statement that, five years earlier, she had heard that Karl Rove was preparing to neutralize Siegelman politically with an investigation headed by the U.S. Department of Justice. Simpson later told The Birmingham News that her affidavit’s wording could be interpreted in two ways, and stated that she had written her affidavit herself, whereas in her Congressional testimony she had admitted to having help from a Siegelman supporter.

According to Simpson’s statement, she was on a Republican campaign conference call in 2002 when she heard Bill Canary tell other campaign workers not to worry about Siegelman because Canary’s “girls” and “Karl” would make sure the Justice Department pursued the Democrat so he was not a political threat in the future. “Canary’s girls” supposedly included his wife, Leura Canary, who is United States Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, and United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama Alice Martin. Leura Canary did not submit voluntary recusal paperwork until two months after Siegelman attorney David Cromwell Johnson’s press conference in March 2002.

In interviews with the press, Simpson has emphasized that she heard Rove’s name mentioned in a phone conversation in which the discussion turned to Siegelman, clarified that she heard someone involved in a 2002 conference call refer to a meeting between Mr. Rove and Justice Department officials on the subject of Siegelman, and revealed that Karl Rove ordered her to “catch Siegelman cheating on his wife.”The Anniston Star published an editorial stating that, “If that’s his story, then Rove should not hesitate to go under oath and answer questions before a congressional committee.”

Despite claims to 60 Minutes about having met and spoken with Rove repeatedly over the previous several years, in her sworn testimony to Congress in 2007 Simpson did not mention having spoken with him or met with him. Nor has she produced any phone records, pay stubs, receipts or other documentation to prove that she worked for either Karl Rove or the Republican Party. On the other hand, Raw Story reports that Karl Rove advised Bill Canary on managing Republican Bob Riley’s gubernatorial campaign against Siegelman in the election fraud controversy of 2002, based on the testimony of “two Republican lawyers who have asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation,” one of whom is close to Alabama’s Republican National Committee.

Simpson’s house burned down soon after she began whistleblowing, and Simpson’s car was driven off the road by a private investigator and wrecked. Investigations of the fire and the wreck found no foul play. As a result of the timing of these incidents, Simpson said, “Anytime you speak truth to power, there are great risks. I’ve been attacked,” explaining she felt a “moral obligation” to speak up.

Alleged Misconduct by Attorney General

In November 2008, new documents revealed alleged misconduct by the Bush-appointed U.S. attorney and other prosecutors in the case. Extensive and unusual contact between the prosecution and the jury were alleged to have occurred. According to Time, a Department of Justice Staffer furnished the new documents at the risk of losing her job. The documents included e-mails written by Canary, long after her recusal, offering legal advice to subordinates handling the case. At the time Canary wrote the e-mails, her husband was publicly supporting the state’s Republican governor, Bob Riley. In one of Leura Canary’s e-mails made public by Time, dated September 19, 2005, she forwarded senior prosecutors on the Siegelman case a three-page political commentary by Siegelman. Canary highlighted a single passage which, she told her subordinates, “Ya’ll need to read, because he refers to a ‘survey’ which allegedly shows that 67% of Alabamans believe the investigation of him to be politically motivated … Perhaps [this is] grounds not to let [Siegelman] discuss court activities in the media!” At Siegleman’s sentencing, the prosecutors urged the judge to use these public statements by Siegelman as grounds for increasing his prison sentence.

By all accounts this is a miscarriage of justice. It has politics written all over it and has ties to the man who we all know, along with Dick Cheney, outed an undercover CIA Operative in a time of War. And this man, Karl Rove is still funneling money in fraudulent campaign ads, not disclosing who his donors are, and as of yet, still isn’t in prison. Why didn’t President Obama and AG Eric Holder fire all the Bush-era U.S. Attorneys as all previous administrations due upon taking office? Why hasn’t President Obama granted Siegelman Clemency or a Pardon?

Don’t get me wrong, I do still support President Obama, but that is not to say I agree with everything he has done, or has failed to have done. This is a case that concerns me greatly and needs to be discussed more in the open and resolved soon while this political prisoner sits in a Federal Prison and the pompous white asswipe still is allowed to roam the streets free.

Check out this link to show your support for Governor Siegelman:

http://donsiegelman.org/

Still being new to blogging I want to try something here. Not sure if there will be sufficient interest or not or how it will go, but I’m going to at least give it a try.

Today, before his campaign took it back, Mitt Romney stated what he would keep from Obamacare. Specifically the pre-existing conditions. Well, now that more people have experienced some provisions of the Affordable Care Act, more people seem to be liking it and though they still hate “ObamaCare” they like most if not all of the provisions.

At the bottom is a “Leave A Reply” Box. Add your comment about what you like about ObamaCare and forward this to your friends. Let’s see what people like and send a message (at least to those who view this blog) about what is liked about the Affordable Care Act.

I’ll start. Being someone who suffer from Type 1 Diabetes for the past 41 years and still being too young for Medicare, I like the provision preventing insurance companies from excluding me from coverage and elimination of the lifetime caps.

I have more, but I want to hear from you.

Please participate. Be patient if your reply isn’t immediately posted. I have to allow the post and I’m not always near a computer that allows me to authorize the reply.

Thanks.

This rant requires little to no research, it’s all anecdotal and comes from what I’ve experienced in recent months and from what I’ve been told.

We like to rail against the right-wing for being rude, obnoxious and uncivil to those of us who support a position that they don’t. Those who know my history know that I registered as a Republican in 1979 when I turned 18. Although I never voted a straight GOP ticket (opting to vote for those I thought were the most qualified) I did in fact vote for many Republicans over the years. Truth be told, they were the more moderate, intellectual and sincere Republicans who like me, were more interested in solving the country’s problems than maintaining some power for the party. In short, they placed city, county, state and nation before party. That feeling of mine has never changed.

Of course over the years, the Republican party has moved ever farther to the right to the point of insanity. More and more they started developing a litmus test about what “a true Republican” was. The liberal, moderate, and intellectual conservatives have more and more been marginalized, ridiculed and forced out of office. Many times they have been forced out of the party. There is truth to the saying “I didn’t leave the Republican party, it left me.”

So after 2010 when I saw the most extreme elements of the American Taliban (The Tea Party) not only take over the Republican Party, but took over the House of Representatives and many Governorships and State legislatures spouting racist and provably wrong rhetoric, I decided enough was enough and I left the Republican Party. However in my early days on Twitter I was still part of the GOP and stated so on my bio. This of course resulted in right-wing trolls gunning for me and gleefully exclaiming that I was a RINO (Republican In Name Only). As the McAvoy character in “The Newsroom” so brilliantly pointed out in one episode, those in the Tea Party (the American Taliban) are the true RINOs. However, not wanting them to consider themselves liars, I left the party.

Over time, even Andrew Breitbart himself went after me, bringing in all his Twitter buddies to harass and insult me saying that I “was no moderate” that in fact I was a bleeding heart liberal for the simple reason I didn’t see things the way they did. Well as many like to point out, Reagan, Goldwater, Nixon, and a whole host of other successful Republican Conservatives would today be called liberal. My views never changed, I have some admittedly liberal views on some issues, some conservative views on others, and I see nothing wrong with having liberal views because we all know honestly, when questioned enough on enough issues, everybody has what can be considered a liberal view on some facet of life somewhere.

So the right-wing insults, harass, and ridicules me. So guess what? I return the favor and do the same to them. Turnabout is fair play and I like to think I play pretty good. I still have a lot of GOP still in me and I know how they think and how they operate so it’s not problem to handle them, if I chose. Best thing to do as I posted a while back with Right Wing Trolls is to simply ignore and block. Communicating with them is what they want because then they get posted to your time-line and followers and get more exposure than they deserve. Odd thing is, it’s now a rare day I get assaulted on Twitter by a RWNJ anymore. Maybe they gave up? Who knows.

So we all enjoy being uncivil to those on the other side because they are uncivil by nature. So uncivil they have attacked and assaulted their own kind resulting in many leaving the party. Their Big Tent is more and more becoming a Pup Tent by their use of litmus tests for “true conservative Republicans” and in doing so have driven out blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, Women, Homosexuals, the list goes on. Many of these people either switch to the Democratic Party, go Independent or remain Republican with the intent of voting against their party.

But now to why this rant. Those of us on this side of the aisle are not immune to the behavior of those on the right. I’m starting to see it more and more. Many on the extreme edges of the left’s ideology and establishing criteria for membership. There was the argument regarding the “Professional Left” that went way out of hand and resulted in depressing moderate and left-wing voter turn-out in 2010 that helped the American Taliban take over so many offices. And it continues.

Soon after I started this blog, I did a post regarding what is an American. I opined that I honestly believe that the only criteria of being American is being here. We are too diverse on so many levels. Well, a follower who had followed me from nearly the beginning took exception to that blog. Although we had both RT each other’s posts over the years, the mere fact that I mentioned that even those on the right who opine their views are Americans insulted him that he felt a need to insult me back. I tried to remain reasonable, above the fray as he became more and more angry with me. It ended up with him unfollowing and blocking me. This is what those on the other side do, and sadly we’re starting to do the same.

A good friend of mine on Twitter DM’d me over some issues involving those who have left-wing blogs recently that resulted in quite frankly childish behavior, unfollows, blocks and very hard feelings. I know each and every one of these people. Overall they are on the same page, they fight for the same goals, yet they are now not talking to each other and slam each other on posts.

Perhaps this is human nature, but it is also self-defeating for our cause to have and maintain a Big Tent. Strength comes from diversity and tolerance of that diversity. You don’t have to agree on each and every issue, but you can agree to be civil with each other, allow each other to express their views and shake hands and agree to disagree. That is what makes any society stronger and more welcoming to others.

I am not a journalist, I never took any classes in college regarding journalism. I do not produce anything remotely covered by the traditional ethics and morals of journalism. I am merely someone who tweets his opinions on Twitter and has this blog.

This blog, by the way is as amateur as it gets. It has no board of ethics, no advertisers, nothing but what I believe needs to be said. I’m a citizen expressing his views to anyone who cares to read them. They are not forced upon anyone and if you don’t like what you read here, then don’t read it. I swore no oath or signed any contract saying that I should give equal time or thought to differing opinions.

If I do print up differing opinions, it’s out of the kindness of my heart or more to the point, to try to be fair in presenting my views. Again, I’m not under any ethical requirement to be completely factually correct and fair to both sides. This is a Blog, no rules apply.

The problem is Mainstream Media in recent years have become for lack of a better term, corporate blogs with the same lack of integrity. Considering their money and influence, they control the narrative, and the rest of us must listen without the opportunity to hear opposing views presented in the same venue with the same aura of authority that the corporate mainstream media has. Why is that?

Let us begin at the beginning (makes sense doesn’t it). After the failings of the “Articles of Confederation” the Congress felt it was necessary to create a document that would create a more cohesive and mutually dependant form of government between the states. They began the Constitutional Convention to correct the weaknesses the Articles of Confederation created. It looked at codifying rights into government of and by the people so that the people controlled the government, not the other way around. And by people, they meant of course White Male Property Owners. At the time, minorities, women, indigent people, let alone Corporations weren’t considered actual people with the intellect, morals or intellect to decide how the country should go. So they installed these rights into the new Constitution.

One of those rights they wanted to instill was actually placed in the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of
the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
Government for a redress of grievances.

People often forget the line here saying that Congress shall not prohibit the free exercise of freedom of speech or of the press. The concept of a free and unobstructed press was so important to inform the people of what was happening so they could have an educated base to make decisions on, that the US Postal Service was required to mail such newspapers and pamphlets essentially free of charge. An informed public is a necessity if you are to have government of the people. If the people are not informed enough to make decisions, then a hierarchy of nobility, wealth and influence become the rulers of government, not the people.

Thing is, in the beginning all views were presented to the people because government couldn’t abridge those views. Although Conservative President John Adams actually tried to do it by having James Callender, a man who was printing complaints about his administration, arrested and charge for violation of the Alien and Sedition Acts. He was fined $200.00 and jailed for nine months. In all, twenty-five people were arrested, eleven tried and ten convicted for expressing their political views in the open.

It caused such an outrage that Thomas Jefferson used it as a campaign plank to win his election to the Presidency for himself and his newly formed political party the “Democratic-Republicans” who still exist today and are known simply as the Democratic Party. The Acts were repealed and safeguards were codified into law to protect “freedom of the press.”

So protections to freedom of the press (expression) from government and government officials were codified. However, something the founders didn’t expect began to occur. it became easier, faster and more profitable to print out newspapers and pamphlets and as a result, the publishers who owned these papers began to become very wealthy. As they became wealthy their audience began to grow as did their influence. So instead of worrying about undue influence from government in getting all the facts out to the people for an educated and informed public to make decisions about governance, corporations began to rule the information machinery of the country. This brings us to William Randolph Hearst.

In 1887 Hearst entered the publishing field. In time he created the world’s largest newspaper and magazine business. He was able to influence government by influencing the people with his stories.

As Martin Lee and Norman Solomon noted in their 1990 book Unreliable Sources, Hearst “routinely invented sensational stories, faked interviews, ran phony pictures and distorted real events.” This approach came to be known as “yellow journalism.”

Hearst’s use of yellow journalism techniques in his New York Journal to whip up popular support for U.S. military adventurism in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898 was also criticized in Upton Sincair’s 1919 book, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism. According to Sinclair, Hearst’s newspaper employees were “willing by deliberate and shameful lies, made out of whole cloth, to stir nations to enmity and drive them to murderous war.” Sinclair also asserted that in the early 20th century Hearst’s newspapers lied “remorselessly about radicals,” excluded “the word Socialist from their columns” and obeyed “a standing order in all Hearst offices that American Socialism shall never be mentioned favorably.” In addition, Sinclair charged that Hearst’s “Universal News Bureau” re-wrote the news of the London morning papers in the Hearst office in New York and then fraudulently sent it out to American afternoon newspapers under the by-lines of imaginary names of non-existent “Hearst correspondents” in London, Paris, Venice, Rome, Berlin, etc. Another critic, Ferdinand Lundberg, extended the criticism in Imperial Hearst (1936), charging that Hearst papers accepted payments from abroad to slant the news. After the war, a further critic, George Seldes, repeated the charges in Facts and Fascism (1947).

Does this sound familiar today? Any similarities between the Hearst Newspaper Empire and Rupert Murdoch’s Media Empire are completely intentional.

So government was being influenced by those who controlled the media and those concerned about this influence and concerned that with the growing influence of the new growing media of Radio and later Television, broadcasted on the airwaves owned by the people and maintained by government, certain safeguards were put into place to avoid only one side of the story being told. They knew that the new mass media via airwaves would have a much greater impact than people reading newspapers. So we come to “The Fairness Doctrine.”

The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, that required the holders of broadcast licenses to both present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was, in the Commission’s view, honest, equitable and balanced. The FCC decided to eliminate the Doctrine in 1987, and in August 2011 the FCC formally removed the language that implemented the Doctrine.

The Fairness Doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. Stations were given wide latitude as to how to provide contrasting views: It could be done through news segments, public affairs shows, or editorials. The doctrine did not require equal time for opposing views but required that contrasting viewpoints be presented.

The main agenda for the doctrine was to ensure that viewers were exposed to a diversity of viewpoints. In 1969 the United States Supreme Court upheld the FCC’s general right to enforce the Fairness Doctrine where channels were limited. But the courts did not rule that the FCC was obliged to do so. The courts reasoned that the scarcity of the broadcast spectrum, which limited the opportunity for access to the airwaves, created a need for the Doctrine. However, the proliferation of cable television, multiple channels within cable, public-access channels, and the Internet have eroded this argument, since there are plenty of places for ordinary individuals to make public comments on controversial issues at low or no cost.

The Fairness Doctrine should not be confused with the Equal Time rule. The Fairness Doctrine deals with discussion of controversial issues, while the Equal Time rule deals only with political candidates.

The Fairness Doctrine was put in place to meet the requirement of media companies using the public airwaves to “serve the public interest.” Over the years, the public interest standard has been slowly eroded away by broadcasters who do not take these obligations seriously and by policymakers who do not realize how deeply Americans care about these issues. Here’s a timeline I came across while researching for this rant that you may find of interest (let alone that I actually do research for these rants)

• In 1981, broadcasters abandoned their voluntary code of conduct, which had established programming and advertising standards through industry self-regulation.
• In 1981, The FCC created a “postcard renewal process,” throwing aside a more detailed review of whether broadcasters are meeting their obligations.
• In 1984, the FCC eliminated the ascertainment requirements whereby broadcasters had to reach out to the public, determine local community needs, address those needs through programming, and defend those choices in their license renewal process.
• In 1987, the FCC repealed provisions of the Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcasters to provide reasonable opportunities for contrasting and dissenting views on controversial topics.
• In 1996, Congress passed a telecommunications deregulation bill that allowed further consolidation in radio and television markets.
• In 2003, the FCC eliminated a wide range of media concentration protections, allowing a single company to own eight radio stations, three television stations, the only daily newspaper, the dominant cable TV provider, and the largest Internet Service Provider in a single community. It also effectively allows media conglomerates to control TV stations that serve up to 90% of all Americans.

This is stunning. Beginning with Reagan and the growth of Conservative views in governance of the airwaves and information media,( and with help from Democrats mind you) Corporations now have nearly full control on what is provided as fact to the American people so as to fit their narrative and control what government does. If Hearst was alive today, he would die in his orgasmic response to what has happened. Freedom of the Press has become freedom to control the people, what they hear, what they think and as a result, controls government.

The move to the conservative right in terms of governing, social morals, ethics, racial views all started under Reagan and has hit critical mass as we speak today. Most of it could be controlled if the American people were to get the full story again to make an educated and informed decision if we still had the “Fairness Doctrine” requiring media to show both sides of the issue. But today, they don’t.

I decided to do this rant based on the Meet the Press Romney Campaign Ad disguised and David Gregory interviewing Mitt Romney. Corporations control the traditional media and as a result, the messaging, the narrative getting out to the American people. They only want people to hear their side of issues, not the others because they know that if more information about the other side came out, they would no longer have the influence they do. What’s more, they are successfully working on the last refuge for the voice of the other side to get out to the people, the internet via social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, etc. Once they go, there will only be one voice being heard. We will no longer have the informed, educated people the founders knew we needed in order to self govern. We will instead need to be led by those in the higher economic, or possibly social classes. Dare I say, a new monarchy. We lose the means of information, we lose democracy.

These are perilous times for The United States.

As a native Arizonan, or Zonie as some of us are called, I’ve tweeted and blogged about some unique Arizona issues. Jan Brewer, Joe Arpaio, Jan Brewer again, some more stuff on Joe Arpaio, you get the idea. What hasn’t been getting much play in the Main Stream Media (who continue to say Arizona is still solidly Red) is that Arizona Senator Jon Kyl retires from the Senate in January and his seat is open. You know who Jon Kyl is. He was the one who so confidently said in the Well of the Senate in April 2011 while debating funding for Planned Parenthood that “Well over 90% of Planned Parenthood funding goes towards abortions” and when confronted with the facts (something most GOP Representatives really hate) that it’s actually around 3% (see chart below). To which a spokesman for Jon Kyl said it “was not intended to be meant as a factual statement.” Well of course not, the only facts you can lay on Republicans these days is that nothing they say or do is factual. But I promise you, that’s another rant.

It wouldn’t be so bad if that one line was the only example of Jon Kyl’s disconnection from reality and the facts. Like most right-wing nut jobs Arizona elects to County, State and National Office, Kyl has been obsessed with the evils of immigration, the evils of any sort of compromise, the evils of negotiating with pharmaceutical companies for best price of drugs for Seniors on Medicare Part D, (that he left unfunded and allowed for the infamous Donut Hole for Seniors that is only now being eliminated thanks to ObamaCare) and most recently has said that President Obama should be impeached over his handling of immigration law. He’s upset that the Supreme Court ruled most of SB1070 as Unconstitutional and that as a result the Justice Department would suspend the 287(g) program that allowed I.C.E. to deputize local law enforcement to handle immigration matters, and that he would suspend deportation of “Dream Act” children who did not come to this country on their own and only know this country. He feels that a President who ignores certain aspects of a law should be impeached. However, he supports a Maricopa County Sheriff who only enforces laws against low-end, low-risk offenders while ignoring 40,000 plus felony warrants or investigation of sexual assaults against minority children. (My Arpaio slam for this post). It’s nice to know that Kyl fully supports Joe Arpaio as he did Ben Quayle who got his ass kicked in our primary here.

So in January, Jon Kyl, the man who slept through civics and law during law school at the University of Arizona will be gone. The money says that he will be replaced by Congressman Jeff Flake who just finished up a bloody primary battle with fellow conservative Will Cardon. Both were trying to out conservative each other while also claiming the other was too liberal. It was nasty and got almost no attention outside of Arizona. What also doesn’t get attention in nationally is that Jeff Flake does in fact has a Democratic challenger. His name is Richard Carmona. In my humble opinion, this man can easily take Kyl’s seat and help the Democrats not only keep the Senate, but expand their control. So who are these two candidates?

Flake was born in Snowflake, Arizona, the son of Nerita (née Hock) and Dean Maeser Flake. His birth town was named in part for his great-great-grandfather, Mormon pioneer William J. Flake. Flake was educated at Brigham Young University and was a Mormon missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to South Africa in the early 1980s. He worked in the public affairs sector after college and served as Executive Director of the Foundation for Democracy in Namibia and Executive Director of the Goldwater Institute before entering the House of Representatives for Congressional District 6 in 2001. He lobbied against economic sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid regime in the 1980s.

He ran saying he would serve no more than three terms but changed his mind saying it was a mistake to term-limit himself and is currently serving his 6th term. In his favor, he doesn’t bring “pork barrel” projects back to his district. He’s always won because the Democrats never placed anyone in opposition to him. He only had one real battle against a Libertarian candidate. In Arizona, the Democratic Party tends to be stingy and weak-willed in placing viable candidates up against entrenched and wealthy Republican candidates. He is true to his “fiscal conservative” views being one of the few GOP House members to vote against spending bills submitted by the Republicans that added to the National Debt to include TARP. Actually, he sounds pretty good. However, he also opposes all tax increases and votes for additional tax cuts for the wealthy and does little to cut spending already in place. He holds true to Grover Norquist’s attempt to starve the federal government out of existence so the rich can be richer and everyone else can fend for themselves.

On immigration, Flake does go against the Party hardliners (to include Kyl) by supporting immigration reform to allow a path to citizenship and a watered down version of the Dream Act. However, in foreign policy, he supported going into Iraq, he just voted against paying for it. He voted against troop surges in Afghanistan. He’s for lifting the Cuban economic embargo and is for renewal of the Patriot Act.

He’s Pro-Life and though he voted to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, he also wants a constitutional ban on Gay Marriage. He tends to be schizophrenic regarding privacy rights in our country.

So why would this make Jeff Flake weak? Well though he’s very much in bed with the mainstream right wind GOP Tea Party on key issues of No taxes, No spending, No abortions and No Gay marriage, he’s also for immigration reform, normalizing relations with Cuba, he’s for some Gay rights (just not marriage). As mentioned above, he does tend to get schizophrenic on Core Conservative views. This is why he was bloodied up in the primary against Will Cardon. Though Cardon is a moron in every sense of the word, he laid some good punches on Flake.

So now let’s examine Flake’s Democratic opponent, Richard Carmona.

http://www.carmonaforarizona.com/

Richard Carmona is the former Surgeon General under George W. Bush from 2002 through 2006.

Carmona was born in New York City and raised in Harlem.  After dropping out of High School at age 16, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1967. While enlisted, he received his GED and joined the Army Special Forces and became a combat-decorated Vietnam veteran, and began his career in medicine as a Special Forces medic. He was awarded the Purple Heart with one Oak Leaf Cluster, the Bronze Star, Presidential Unit Citation, as well as several meritorious duty award, commendations, citations and ribbons.

After leaving active duty, Carmona attended community college where he earned his associate of arts degree in nursing. In 1977, he graduated from the University of California, San Francisco, with a bachelor of science degree; in 1979, he received his medical degree from UCSF, where he was awarded the prestigious gold-headed cane as the top graduate. In 1998, he earned a Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Arizona.

He worked for the Pima County Sheriff’s Office in Tucson since 1986. He eventually worked his way up to deputy sheriff. He served as medical director of the county’s police and fire departments. He was a peace officer leader of the SWAT division, with expertise in special operations and emergency preparedness, including weapons of mass destruction.

In 1999, he confronted a mentally ill person who was assaulting someone else at a car accident. After the person would not step out of his car, he shot at Carmona, grazing his head, and the Deputy Sheriff shot back seven times, killing him. The deceased was an ex-convict who had shot and killed his own father that day. In 2000, he was honored at the National Association of Police Organizations TOP COPS award ceremony.

On July 10, 2007, Carmona, along with former Surgeons General C. Everett Koop and David Satcher, testified before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about political and ideological interference with the Surgeon General’s mission. Carmona accused the Bush Administration of preventing him from speaking out on certain public health issues such as embryonic stem cell research, global climate change, emergency contraception, and abstinence-only sex education, where the Administration’s political stance conflicted with scientific and medical opinion.

Carmona also testified that the Bush Administration had attempted for years to “water down” his report on the dangers of secondhand smoke and pressured him not to testify in the tobacco industry’s racketeering trial: “Anything that doesn’t fit into the political appointees’ ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried.” According to Carmona, he was even ordered not to attend the Special Olympics because the event was sponsored by the Kennedy family, and was told to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. The Washington Post subsequently identified William R. Steiger as the Bush Administration official who had blocked release of Carmona’s report on global health because it conflicted with the Administration’s political priorities.

Reuters reported that Carmona’s predecessors as Surgeon General had acknowledged the high level of political interference he experienced, saying: “We have never seen it as partisan, as malicious, as vindictive, as mean-spirited as it is today, and you clearly have worse than anyone’s had.”

Carmona has been endorsed by Veteran Groups, Fraternal Order of Police, AFL-CIO, and most recently by Joanne Goldwater, Barry Goldwater’s eldest daughter. Carmona has asked Flake to disavow outside money in this campaign in keeping with Jeff’s rhetoric, but to date, no response. Carmona and Flake in a recent poll were tied. Flake is at best a flakey conservative with the hardliner’s in Arizona due to the revelations of his stance on immigration. Carmona is a decorated war veteran, law-enforcement officer and former Federal Official under a Republican President. His resume is somewhat stronger than that of Flakes. The two have yet to debate, but the day is coming. Considering the growing dissatisfaction with the GOP by women and Hispanics across the country, but particularly in Arizona, Carmona stands a good chance of winning. Maybe after that, the Main Stream Media will pay us some attention for something other than nut jobs like Brewer, Arpaio, and Kyl.

Keep you fingers crossed and if you’re a Zonie like me, you know what you need to do.

Well we’ve had two weeks of political conventions and now that they are over, the talking heads on Main Stream Media are placing everything in perspective. When I say perspective, more times than not, the perspective of Main Stream Media corporate Ownership. But that’s another rant.

What have we learned about both Conventions?

Well from the RNC Convention we learned that the truth is in short supply from the people who came on stage, especially from the two candidates. Even FOX had issues with Paul Ryan’s diatribe that lacked anything resembling the truth. They lied about Medicare, they lied about Welfare, they lied about what the President said about any number of issues from his original campaign through his presidency.

They decided to make no mention on the war in Afghanistan let alone our soldiers and Marines who still serve in harm’s way or who have returned to the country needing jobs, medical and mental health care for themselves and their families. They neglected to talk about tax returns, vouchers for medicare.

The only thing they continued to talk about was repealing Obamacare. However, they said nothing about what it would be replaced with, or why it is better to allow insurance companies:

To set life-time limits on coverage.

Pull coverage for people who end up getting sick.

Denying coverage or increasing costs for pre-existing conditions including being a woman.

To set up corporate “death panels”.

To allow insurance companies to spend more than 20% of incoming premiums on things not related to healthcare like CEO bonuses and perks for their friends and staff.

To allow insurance companies to drop children from their parent’s plans after they are age 18.

Although they had spots for Hurricane relief from the Red Cross, they neglected to talk about their plans to cut even more funding to the states, thus firing first responders, and how they want to privatize FEMA.

So a lot of lies, a lot of missing information and a narrative that our country really has problems right now and it’s Obama’s fault. They mentioned that there are not enough jobs going around (while neglecting to mention that GOP Congress has blocked every job bill submitted) and that our country owes too much money (neglecting to mention that two-thirds of the national debt came from the Bush administration with help from GOP).

They want more tax cuts for the wealthy (while neglecting to mention that it means higher taxes for everyone else and still won’t do anything to pay down the debt).  And they want to stay in Afghanistan, possibly go back to Iraq, attack Iran, and threaten the real enemy Russia (?).

But they all have families that they love, as they love themselves (especially Chris Christie). It was humbling to hear how Romney had to sell stocks so they could entertain friends while living in a basement apartment (Mitt has this thing with basements).

So in a nut shell, the country really sucks, it’s all Obama’s fault and it has nothing to do with the House Republicans refusing to allow any economic relief bills be heard, let alone pass and sent to the Senate for consideration and the President’s signature because they are too busy outlawing abortion and contraceptives, oh and repealing and not replacing Obamacare.

Then came the DNC Convention. What did we learn there?

Well, after each speech heard on the floor, we heard from FOX that they “swung and miss” without really explaining why. We learned that the sounds of cheering and enthusiasm from the delegates (according to FOX) was because they were in a smaller venue than the RNC. Really? We learned that Michelle Obama didn’t have to do a speech to humanize her husband, because we already knew that, but it was an awesome speech none-the-less. We learned that the Democrats have no problems talking about war, the veterans and what is right about the country.

They focused on their accomplishments and how we are doing better than when the President took office. Were some facts skewed, embellished? Well to be honest, I’ve caught a few. I heard one talk about how insurance companies had to return premium money back to the customer if they paid more than 50% towards non medical related costs. It was actually 20%. So not so much a lie than a misstatement.

We learned that Obama never claimed he could change things, that if there was change, it had to come from us. Well, can’t argue with that but I suspect it was more bad messaging on his part than purposeful misleading.

Oh, and right out of “The American President” we learned that Barack Hussein Obama IS the president.

To compare the two conventions, as I tweeted last night, The RNC Convention belittled the Country, the DNC Convention Inspired the Country.

Oh, and I also learned that even though as Dr. Gregory House quite appropriately points out “Everybody Lies” just some people lie far more than others and they are usually Republicans.