Governor Scott Walker
is a very ripe target to be defeated in the next election this year. His lady opponent however is polling only 41%
to Walker’s 47%. It is believed that
people did not vote for the recall less on the substance of the arguments but
more because somebody had slipped them the notion “recalls are bad and unfair”. Apparently those opposed to the recall
outspent those in favor of the recall seven to one. This is what Ed Schultz said. And there was an awful lot of out of state
participation. However clearly there are
issues where Governor Walker is quite vulnerable. First of all he has raised the sales tax so
that people are going to neighboring states to make large purchases, depressing
commerce. It is said that Wisconsin’s
unemployment rate is higher than surround states in the region, though they
cited no numbers. Also the tourist
industry has suffered. One caller to Ed’s
show said he will not vacation in Wisconsin, something he used to do both for
summer and for winter, because he doesn’t want any revenues to somehow help
Scott Walker. The “Absentee Governor”
charge could be easily made because Governor Walker is forever off on fund
raising junkets and campaigning for President.
People are seeing him as “Christie II” oddly as the “next up and coming
moderate” even though he has severely sabotaged teachers and labor unions, and
according to Ed, “All but wiped out the public school system in Wisconsin”. On the national scene- - I recommend that
you vote for anybody who calls himself a democrat running for Congress no
matter what his specific beliefs or how he chooses to distant himself from the
President. We democrats need to take
back the House of Representatives by hook or by crook, or else we are all doomed.
There are a whole lot
of things the media isn’t reporting on.
It seems they either have had or are having a major Protest in North
Carolina, something they’ve been calling “Moral Monday” to protest Voter
surpression and other repressive measures.
80,000 people showed up at the latest rally and not one reporter from
the Media covered it – not even from MSNBC.
If it had been a Glen Beck rally you’d be seeing it shown over and over
again on TV. It’s been pointed out that
this “talking point” of “Not trusting the president to enforce the law” on
immigration may be just another “dog whistle” code for “He’s Black, and you
know you can’t trust a Negro”. We then move to the actual origens of the Tea
Party name for Taxed Enough Already.
Apparently they were interviewing Wall Street traders. As you know there used to be a quarter
percent stock traders tax but it was allowed to expire during the Johnson
administration. There was talk in 2009
of perhaps bringing it back. It may be
this fear that was played on – or the idea (roomer going around) that President
Obama had plans to bail out home owners who got these bad loans with their
balloon payments and the like. And the
cry went up “We don’t want to reward all these - - Minority - - home owners for
their stupidity. (As you know Bush
pitched these loans to minorities largely Latino) Thom
Hartman made the fantastic allegation that the biggest expenditure out of a tax
bill of the median American earning $55,000 a year - - goes to none other than
Corporate and Billionaire subsedies.
Four thousand goes to corporate subsedies. I’ve never seen any kind of graph or table
that was anything like this but perhaps this is ‘off the record” money. As to the other stuff like Welfare Queens
driving Cadillac’s, it was pointed out
that only seven of those tax dollars from that $50,000 income goes to Welfare
in the traditional sense of the word.
$22.00 goes for unemployment- - and you dare not raise it to 24, and
then you have $35.00 going for Food Stamps.
$250,00 of that money - - one quarter of a grand each, for defense
spending and Medicare. The Medicare
quote seems really high. Finally let’s
discuss this whole question of the Post Office insolvency. As you know they have retirement reserves for
the next seventy five years. This is a
fact Judy never seems to consider when she forever charges “The Post Office is
out of money”. This “Post office
strengthening bill” was passed in the dead of night on New Years Eve of 2005
and signed quickly into law by George Bush.
Democrats went along with the bill because they didn’t even read this “rider”
that was slipped in the conference committee at the last minute. Ironically it’s the one time you can “slip
something into a bill” that doesn’t have to undergo the scrutiny of any checks
and balances.
I would repeat my allegation that most people
who vote these jerk-offs into Power today - - don’t think about politics except
maybe the weekend before the election and then they call on their collected “dis-informed”
thoughts put there by the Media and especially FOX news. They won’t take up “left wing talking points”
if you insist on calling them that.
People only hear a very carefully crafted presentation of the Political
Right. I think if the commercials on
Free Speech TV were more generally circulated, it would be a whole different
story. Take the one on food production
and how we grow enough food now to feed eleven billion people- - but most of
that goes “to feed our meat habit” or else for that great boondoggle of
ethanol, which actually gives you a net LOSS in energy, and contributes to
global warming, and has jacked up crop prices worldwide. Then there
is the one about the importance of a twelve year old girl visiting a doctor and
getting the proper sex education and information.
And now we come to the
more Organic side of the news. Thom
Hartman does a regular radiation report and below 100 is considered safe,
however is Hartman often says “No amount of radiation is safe”. A few places back east have spikes
approaching one hundred, but overall most places seem to range around in the
thirties. Then we have the one good
thing that came out of the Farm Bill signed by Obama last week. They are doing industrial hemp research, as
an alternative to fossile fuels, and may I suggest an alternate to cutting down
trees for paper, and if you must use ethanol- - it s good substitute for corn,
which people can eat. It is stressed
that hemp production won’t be going into production for quite some time- - of
all those fabrics that used to be routinely made out of hemp before the petroleum
industry came in in the thirties. I
think the best bill Congress could pass is an outright ban on lobbying
contributions and I would be very stringent about that. No three martini lunches, no prostitutes, no
nothing. Then we’d begin to see some
real action as to repealing bad bills and instituting good bills. They
have made it official. There is nothing
TO the whole Bermuda triangle myth. I
haven’t believed that one in a long time.
It’s all just anecdotal hysteria.
Russia has banned those internet
coin things that you use as “cash” with commerce on the internet. It’s for the usual reasons of suspecting they
will largely be used for drug trade and illicit mafia payments. My take on this of course is that cash – no matter
how ethereal- is a superior way of conducting commerce.
Dr Levy’s timing can be
strange at times. But he never had his
surgery and he may not be going to Israel either because he only gets a week
off for spring break from College. I
didn’t know that. Dr Levy told me he did
get my letter and responded to it. Dr
Levy fell off his bicycle just after Christmas in what had to be a jinxy
accident. He messed up his whole right
side with - - was it “road rash” - - or just one big contusion all over his
body. At any rate the doctor who was to
perform the surgery said his knee was too infected for operating on at this
time. We went around the room with our
usual Check In. I talked more than I
should have. I wanted to talk about
troublesome relationships and people who gossip about you and appear to despize
you for no reason. Maybe Dr Levy picked
up on my apprehension. People were
continually arriving into the room. We
broke just before lunch. I told Dr Levy
I was thinking of quitting smoking – and when I said this it had been close to
two hours since I’d smoked a cigarette.
The trouble is when this escatelates up to nearly six hours without so
much as a single cigarette- - and even butts are almost non existant- - then my
will to quit was snapped. He also showed
us the front and back covers of his book of poetry from the residents at
Founders, which is in excess of two hundred pages. That’s pretty good. It also has select pieces of Arleen’s art in
it. It would seem to be a book worth
buying. Next week we may be eating right
after breakfast and Dr Levy had said something about bringing snacks. He also spoke of “getting that monetary
grant’ soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment