And the Lion Roared

Tags

Barack Obama, convention, Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Obama, Ted Kennedy

 

He may indeed be gone (but then again, maybe not) but surely he is not forgotten. Last night the Old Lion raised his head once more and roared out his approval of Barack Obama, and did one of the greatest slap downs of Mitt Romney ever witnessed.

The transcript of their debate in ’94 revealed this gem:

Romney: I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years, we should sustain and support it, and I sustain and support that law and the right of a woman to make that choice.

Kennedy: On the question of the choice issue, I have supported Roe v. Wade, I am pro-choice. My opponent is multiple choice. … When, Mr. Romney, are you going to tell the people of Massachusetts which health care program you favor?

Romney: I have a plan, I have a position paper on health care, I’m happy to show it to you, senator, any time you like.

Kennedy: Mr. Romney, it isn’t a question of showing me your paper, it’s a question of showing all of the people in here that are watching the program this paper. They ought to have an opportunity to know.

Romney: I think it’s a wonderful idea to take it through piece by piece …

Kennedy: That’s what you have to do as a legislator.

Romney: I understand — I understand.

Of course, today the GOP is howling–“my God, the lowliness of using a dead guy,” they moan. Yeah remembered a great man and all that he did for his country and we reminded ourselves that he dealt with the likes of the Willard many years before. It was classic!

Willard attempted to inform us that the greatest day in our life was the day we voted for Barack Obama. Everything since then has been down hill. A mother with a sick child set Willard straight.

Stacy Linn said this:

“Governor Romney says people like me were most excited about President Obama the day we voted for him. But that’s not true. Not even close. For me, there was the day the Affordable Care Act passed, and I no longer had to worry about getting Zoe the care she needed. There was a day the letter arrived from the insurance company saying our daughter’s lifetime cap had been lifted. There was the day the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare… And like so many moms with sick kids, I shed tears.”

Speaker after speaker applauded women, women’s rights, gay rights, and the rights of workers. They celebrated hard work and the ability to rise up to the middle class. Mostly they applauded fairness. Lilly Ledbetter spoke and wowed the audience with her first hand account of what the corporate world and the US Supreme Court did to her and how Obama made sure that it would not happen again.

Julius Castro, the Mayor of San Antonio, spoke with deep feeling about his grandmother, who came here as an orphan, speaking no English, and how through her hard work and her daughters, the twin grandsons went to Stanford and then on to Harvard.

And then our beautiful and brilliant First Lady, Michelle Obama took to the stage and simply brought the house down. With anecdotes of their lives together and her initial fears that the White House would impact her girls in a negative way, and change her husband, she uttered one of the most memorable lines

Being President doesn’t change you, it reveals who you really are.

And what is revealed in President Obama is a man who cares deeply about people, who relates personally to the struggles of all of us. Without ever mentioning his name, Mrs. Obama destroyed Mitt Romney.

If you wish to watch the entire tribute to Ted Kennedy, please watch:

It truly was moving.

You can watch all of Michelle Obama’s speech (30 min or so) as well.

Related articles

• Dems recall Ted Kennedy defeating Mitt Romney in Senate race (latimes.com)
• A Tribute to Kennedy and a Tweak for Romney (thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Michelle Obama pays tribute to her husband in convention speech (latimes.com)
• Republicans Immediately Express Outrage Over DNC’s Ted Kennedy Tribute Video (mediaite.com)
• 6 Things Michelle Obama Did Right (usnews.com)

 

Adventures in Living

Tags

2nd Amendment, cartoons, convention, Election 2012, gun control, Humor, life in the foothills, Mitt Romney, New Mexico

This is the header for the blog, but I just love it. It was taken by my smart phone a few days ago as Diego and I walked in this direction, watching the first rays of sunlight just begin to creep up the east side of the Organ mountains.

Diego and I have had our adventures for sure. We started running into a hunter early in the morning, hunting we know not what. Either jackrabbits, quail or hopefully not, coyotes. Yes coyotes.

Our handyman’s son’, Ernest Jr., claims that the coyotes are coming down into the foothills in search of food. Mostly they prey on the calves in the cattle herds. I have not seen any that is for sure, nor have we heard any howling at night, which I certainly would recognize. He tells us that the bear and mountain lions do not venture down. Thank goodness for small pluses.

A few days ago, we were coming down the homestretch, down a barely discernible home-made “road” when we spotted a pick-up coming west on the service road was cut for the city trucks that maintain the wells. As it drew near in the early morning sun, I saw a horse, bridled and saddled, and trotting alongside the truck. The driver had a good grip on the reins and the equine was getting a good workout, though I would have thought it much more fun to ride the animal myself.

Every day is unique in its presentation of new things to do. Yesterday, Diego had to go to the shelter for his shots, a prelude to his being “fixed” in a couple of weeks. Well, we learned that the dear thing is adamant that he wants nothing to do with getting in a car. I guess he was too confused when we loaded him aboard the first time, but we had quite a time getting him inside. Once there, he sat quietly if seemingly quite frightened. We have no idea what in his past may have led to this.

Today, having finally gotten all the “stuff” for our landscaping done (save actually buying plants and planting them), we went out to move things around, create little vignettes that tickled the eye and warmed the heart. The Contrarian is busy painting a huge wooden chair that we brought from Iowa. It has long since lost it “patina” of green. All the algae has died in the hot dry sun. It is just dull now. So it’s getting a coat of primer and then a turquoise overcoat. We have a chaise lounge I want to get yet, but mostly we just need to buy the plants now.

So the refried beans are done, the enchilada sauce made, and the laundry washed and folded, so hey, let’s see what cartoons were filed this week.

This pretty much says it all doesn’t it?

Ya know the thing that griped me most is Romney claiming now that “I wanted this president to succeed”, just not succeed with his policies–which is not success is it? The freakin’ truth is that Romney started running for 2012 the minute he dropped out in 2008 and everybody knows it.

He banked on this president failing, he prayed for it, and he worked for it in every way that he could. And EVERYBODY knows that.

But lying is second nature to him and his ilk.

I guess it begs the question why there is even a platform to begin with since the Willard brigade has done its damnest to ignore it and not talk about it.

The funniest piece I saw was on the Daily Show where Samantha Bee was interviewing delegates and asking them wasn’t it true that Romney’s position was not the same as Ryan’s on abortion, nor the same as the party platform.

Over and over, each delegate pointed out, that “everyone doesn’t think the same, believe the same things, and differences of opinion were just fine. After all, we have freedom of choice in this country.”

Most of them, nay, all of them were too brain dead to see that this kind of conflicts with their refusal to allow the same “difference of opinion” as regards abortion itself. It is too sad.

Was it lost on everyone that all the people were wounded at the Empire State shooting, were shot by stray bullets from police weapons?

The people who argue that we all need to be armed have no clue the havoc and mayhem they would cause.

When are we going to give up our love affair with guns?

Why do we glorify all this so much? It seems to me only people who ought to be “up in arms” about the 2nd Amendment are the gun toters. Most of us are not. So why is this impossible to do something about?

Let us not be deceived.

The Ryan budget will screw the poor and the elderly. It will. And no amount of lies will change that.

No amount of fake promises.

No amount of innuendo that the poor are really just lazy.

No amount of claims that the vouchers will enable the elderly to “buy” health care of equal value.

No, it’s pure and simple. They don’t believe we are in this together. They believe they are in it alone, but of course, they aren’t.

This is all the people who made it happen for them.

This is what it takes to build a business. As much as the acumen and capital of the rich.

But of course, they can make even more money without unions and their pesky desire for fair wages and benefits so that retirement came be ENJOYED and not ENDURED.

They think they have made their case.

The world was perfect in the 1950’s when Willard was young.

And he wants to return to that time, as he remembers it from his mansion and his prep school.

But then along came Dirty Harry:

And the world went on tilt.

And we scratched out heads.

And the elderly shrugged in embarrassment.

And the young giggled.

And the GOP, gulped and tried to find the off switch.

And Clint, why he stumbled and mumbled, and confused even more.

And he really thought that President Obama was there next to him.

And Ann Romney shriveled, and Willard threw up, and Chris Christie ate another donut and smiled—“Hey Jeb, bring it on!”

And the beat goes on, and the City of Carmel tweets–“he was our Mayor once upon a time, in the land of Lilliput!”

Related articles

• Daily Show Asks Convention-Goers What They Think Of Romney’s ‘Choice’ On Abortion (mediaite.com)
• RNC attendees explain why they are all about choice because liberty and stuff (dailykos.com)

To Love Or Not to Love: Dat Be Da Question

Tags

Ann Romney, Bain Capital, Chris Christie, convention, Election 2012, GOP, Mitt Romney, racism

 

 

Okays here. Ya gotcher choice heres. You can have yer warm and fuzzy or you can has your tough streets. It don’t make me no matter whichs one you chooses.

The party of old white wrinkled up dudes with their trophy wimmen of the Stepford variety is being generous. You know what I mean?

There is nice Annie with her red dress on, telling you that Mittens is just squeezably squishy soft and cuddly, or you can have yer bloated bully with his wise guy crackin’ ways, telling you that, well, RESPECT is better than all that love junk.

Choice is yers, as I say.

Much like the party itself, the message was coming in two different directions. Not a good beginning.

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I picked this up from Moe over at Whatever Works. This is simply unbelievable. A Puerto Rican Delegate was introduced to speak yesterday at the convention and was literally screamed down with chanting of “USA”. Rinsed Penis had to step in and actually beg the delegates to show her common respect. And they think they will pick up Latino votes? I doubt it. Good grief, these people are simply appalling.

£

Steven Benen at The Maddow Blog has a rather scathing and well-deserved critique of the Christie speech. Not only was it bizarre, it seemed to focus mostly on Christie and then talked about courage when if you know anything about Willard, you know courage is not what he is about, not even in business was he a risk taker.

£

If you think the Puerto Rican incident was isolated, think again. Another two delegates was forcibly removed from the convention floor after throwing peanuts at a black camerawoman working for CNN, shouting “this is how we feed animals.”

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This cartoon from Squatlo Rant was just too funny not to include:

Can you just feel the inclusive love?

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Matt Taibbi has a great story about Willard and Bain. It is one of the more ironic stories of this election cycle.  How a man campaigns on reducing the debt of the country when it was the manner in which he made his fortune. He never risked his own money. Be borrowed it from others and plunged companies deep into debt, then told them who they had to fire and how they had to cut in order to pay off the debt he saddled them with, all the while collecting massive fees for doing so.

You see, in reality Willard has spent his life being a high-handed con artist and he automatically thinks that he can continue to con the American people.

£

Aww, lucky us. It seems the GOP is pulling ads in New Mexico against Heinrich given that he’s pulling ahead and in Missouri for obvious reasons as well. They are putting money into North Dakota where things are unexpectedly not going well. Senate contests may have also tightened up in Ohio and Florida forcing them to put more money in them as well. It seems that the GOP message is not making the electorate feel too happy. And that is a good thing.  And Dan Quayle’s son, who claimed that President Obama was the “worst president ever” was defeated in his primary. Ahhh, so sweet.

Well, I’ve walked, swam and shopped. Now it’s time to cook. So be good, and if you can manage a smile, give one to someone you don’t know.

Related articles

• Maine GOP delegates walk out of convention, plan to boycott (democraticunderground.com)
• Dan Quayle: Republican Party “Is A Minority Party” (dekerivers.wordpress.com)
• You Just Can’t Take the Tea Party Anywhere: More Successful GOP Outreach to the Latino Community (mikethemadbiologist.com)
• The Republican Convention was a badly managed Circus with a Klan-like mob mentality (freakoutnation.com)

 

What Time is It?

Tags

Congress, convention, cosmology, Election 2012, GOP, Mitt Romney, science, Texas insanity, time

 

 

If you want to start a fight in my house, just mention TIME. Yes, you heard me, I said time.

While neither the Contrarian nor myself have a degree in astrophysics or quantum physics or even the Dummies Diploma of Basic Astronomy, just mention the issue of whether time is real or not, and the feathers start to fly. (or fur)

Now Einstein said time was relative–it moved faster or slower depending on how close one approached the speed of light. And time slows down at the event horizon of a black hole. Every knows that. Steven Hawking wrote a book called the History of Time, though I’m not sure which side of the fence he sits on regarding the reality of the concept.

I would suggest that the Contrarian lacks the imagination to see the possibility that time is a human construct. It is a way of measuring change and movement in sequential bits. Before the Big Bang, (if you posit the non-existence of parallel or multiple universes), there was NOTHING, so no way to measure it.

Think of it this way: You die. In ten years you are dead. In three million years you are dead. To you, it is irrelevant. You are just as dead.

So to me, it seems realistic to imagine a “time” of no time, and a future of “no time” when our universe ceases to exist. I don’t have any problem with it.

The Contrarian, on the contrary, (*snicker*) sees time as independent of anything, and that it goes blithely on regardless of whether there is anyone there to notice.

Now scientists of the physicist persuasion, differ on this issue themselves. Some see an infinite growth of universes, such that time is eternal. Others see it the right way, as I do. No judgment of course.

So anyways that is my take on the issue. I want to be sure that my opinion is noted for the future when all this is sorted out. I’m sure that it will matter which side you are on.

∩

It appears that when you take the stupidity of your constituents for granted, that well, you might as well go all the way.

If you recall, the Willard and his merry men of mincemeat, decided to take a Obama remark completely out of context a few weeks ago. “You didn’t build this” was said in the context of reminding us all, that the infrastructure that supports us all in our daily lives from roads and bridges to sewers, water pipes and so forth were things that helped business owners in their growth and prosperity. Most businesses could not in fact have built their businesses if they had to pay for roads to carry their goods, and sewer systems and so forth.

Willard, dependent as he is on lies, distorted that and claims that Obama actually said, that people didn’t in fact build their own businesses, but others built it for them. Of course that’s not true, and would be a ludicrous thing to claim. But no matter.

The GOP has decided to use “We Built This” as their theme. Of course the stadium they are going to do this in, was . . . wait for it. . .built by government funds.

Dontcha just love the irony?

∩

It pretty much defies explanation. Why in all the world would sensible people want to hand the reins of governing over to a group of people who deliberately and with malice aforethought, set out to destroy a presidency before it even was sworn in?

“. . . secret meetings led by House GOPWhip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) where they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular president-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.”

And we elect these people for what reason?

∩

Gosh, I almost forgot the other wingnut of the day. This one from Texas, big surprise. You see, if you take a map of the US and you circle it on itself to create a funnel, well, as it is well known that stupid is heavier than intelligence, stupid slides southward into you know where–TEXAS. This is all a pain in the keister to regular Texans who find their state infested with vermin who should all be shipped to Alaska, where there is more room for idiots, and frankly, idiots seem more or less welcome there anyway.

So, where was I?

Yes. Texas. Lubbock County Judge, Tom Head (the surname is an old English one denoting lack of brains–play on words ya see), he figures that if President Obama is re-elected, good folks like himself cannot sit still.

He would like the good people (there must be some) of Lubbock to drop some money in the county coffers to beef up law enforcement.

Why you ask? To combat lawless protestors?

No, no. This is Texas remember, where Longhorns are more plentiful than IQ points.

Good ole Judge Tom says that beefin’ up is necessary, because he’s quite sure that civil war will ensue–Lexington and Concord kinda violence to “take this guy out”, and he is also quite sure that the President will hand over sovereignty to the UN. When the peacekeeping forces are sent in, Judge Tom swears he will be on the front lines to oppose them, musket in hand.

After receiving assurances by the PO-lice chief that he would “back him” Judge Tom advised that he wanted some “seasoned veterans” who were well armed, hence the need for a new property tax.

Yes, and you thought that fairy tales were only for children. Welcome to America–Land of the seriously stupid.

∩

Now go out there and do something good for your fellow sane person.

Related articles

• Lubbock County Judge Predicts Civil War if Obama is Re-elected, Proposes Tax Hike (blogs.dallasobserver.com)
• Lubbock County Texas Judge Tom Head: “Obama reelection means civil war” (amarillo.com)
• Texas judge thwarted in civil war preparations (salon.com)
• Dumbshit GOP Judge in Texas asks for tax increase to ‘fight back’ against Obama’s ‘U.N. army’! (dangerousminds.net)
• The Party of No: New Details on the GOP Plot to Obstruct Obama (swampland.time.com)
• George Voinovich on Grover Norquist, Citizens United, and the American Dream (communities.washingtontimes.com)
• Obama Tax Cuts Fail To Get Senate Vote After Republicans Balk (huffingtonpost.com)