Obama stepped over the line

I have been working on a new web site. Well, not me myself…but a designer who seems to know a whole lot more about the world of social media and electrons than I ever will. But the process has shown me that we are in the midst of an ever-increasing dilution of our privacy. And this worries me.

Beside the fact that I have to keep up with a a trillion id’s and passwords for accounts that don’t make much sense to me, each of those accounts wants some vital information about my life. And when taken in total, it is a real load of information. By aggregate, it is not so much. But lose a password or have a site cracked and your whole world could start to fall apart.

There was an article in the newspaper the other day about a woman in Seattle who had her Facebook, Twitter and some other social site compromised, which led the hackers to her bank account. Talk about Sleepless in Seattle! That would keep me wide awake. Lucky for her the bank’s security and fraud division caught the activity before it had gone too far.  It seems the hackers were high-schoolers, tired of their video and computer games and decided to have some fun on the web.  Fun? How does about fifteen years of hard labor sound like fun, huh kids?  And that is what the DA in King County is trying to get. And I am all for him getting it, too.

This world in which we live forces us to register and enter all kinds of stuff about ourselves, just to get basic service. And if it can’t be protected, (a la, BankAmerica,  Facebook, Chase and Visa) then there is a huge lack of trust on the part of the public. And if that trust continues to be eroded, then suddenly the web’s functionality may be called into question.

Now add on top of this, the President’s signing into law the emergency power of taking over the Internet by Homeland Security in the case of “National emergency” and you have the making of a great, big horrific scandal. It will happen.  It will come out that at some time the law enforcement agencies of this country went in and got information they should not have using this horrible law. It is one thing to have teenage hackers or Belarus hackers staking my accounts, but to give Homeland Security the means to take control of the entire system is a frightening thing. If Thomas Jefferson were alive today, he would no doubt be shouting from the highest pinnacle he could find that this is exactly why the first ten amendments were passed to begin with: to keep the government out of the business of invading our privacy.

To be sure, they have not crashed the web– not brought it down– and as far as we know not invaded your information. But this law is only three days old. Not long as statutes and law go. So this is my warning. It will happen. They will say it was a mistake. Or they will claim some kind of national emergency. Not the Obama administration and perhaps not the one which follows his. But someday soon, there will be a bureaucrat who slips up and starts a collection process of people making certain acts on the web. It will get discovered and the department behind the break in liberty and security will stand up and point to this new law and say, “Says we can. We did. So there.”

Many of you, who read this column every day, know that I am a supporter of President Obama. But mainly because I so dislike what the Republicans stand for right now and am so averse to the candidate that they have given us. Had the GOP not been so far to the extreme right and had their candidate not been a flip-flop artist, this action by Obama, along with resigning the Patriot Act, is enough to make me move away from the Democratic ticket. 

It is that foul smelling in my political nostrils.

I would have sent this out sooner, but I lost my password. I hate technology when it becomes such a rotten playground.

Mitt has it all wrong.

Mitt, you just don't get it. We don't trust you.

Why?

Because you are two faced. In Texas we call that being  a liar. In Mitt's case i just think it is cowardice.

Mitt Romney passed an extensive Affordable Healthcare Plan (just like Obama’s…)in the state of Massachusetts, which he campaigned as part of his wider, more “progressive’ world view” in the earlier stages of the race, before the Cock Brothers got to him. He was also scared of Ron Paul, Newt and the Bozo from Pennsylvania. 

Now he says it was a huge mistake. Really?

Mitt Romney passed and signed into law an extensive education finance package in Massachusetts that helped make higher education more affordable for thousands. He now, thanks to folks like Karl Rove, thinks it was a huge mistake. 

Really?

Romney as governor, also put together a works package affectively raising the minimum wage in his state, as well as rewarding business who hired people in this plan and put them to work. It increased employment in Massachusetts. Now Romney with the urging of Hannity, Limbaugh, the Chamber of Commerce committee on the sky-is-falling and God knows who else, sees this as a down right socialistic act and would never support it again. By the way, the Democratic plan for jobs takes several important parts of the legislation from Massachusetts signed into law by Mitt as key ingredients in the Jobs Bill that Republicans continue to block in Washington. And Mitt salutes the Tea Baggers in Congress, calling them courageous to stand up to run away government spending. (He also wants to nearly double military spending in his first five years. I love that FIVE. Mitt, you only get four at a time. Remember?)

Then there is indigent care, increased hospitalization coverage for workers on worker’s comp and a law to effectively subsidize the Federal commitment for returning veterans wounded in our nation’s service. An act that gives to veterans in Mitt's state a chance for continued education and job placement. All wonderful acts that show a man with a quick mind and a big heart.  A man, I thought as late as last May. I might could see as President of the United States; a man who I believed to be bigger than the small minds that run his political party. But he has turned his back on these fine pieces of legislation, which he signed into law on his watch. Some on the far right didn’t like them, either. Really!

It seems that Mitt doesn’t recognize or believe in anything he has ever done…both good and bad.   

He was president of Baine when massive layoff and overseas outsourcing occurred, even though he has tried to deny that he was involved – he was only the president of the company. Duh! And the progressive legislative history he has, he has turned his back on all of it, saying that it was all a big mistake.

I think the mistake is thinking that Mitt can stand for anything. He has no moral compass. He doesn’t even have the balls to stand by his own record – a public record at that.

This is NOT the man we need as the leader of the free world’s greatest country. I’m sure that Obama is not the best President the USA has ever had. But he is so much stronger and smarter that Mitt, it is not even comparable. And to have Chaney say that Mitt is the only man capable of leading a country through a 9-11 situation is laughable.  He can’t even lead his own party without changing his direction 180 degrees about a dozen times. To lead you need integrity. To have integrity you must stand for something. He can’t even stand up for his own past.

Mitt, you want to be President? Stand up with your record and say, “I am proud of the public service I have offered citizens of this country thus far and I will continue to deliver that kind of thinking and leadership in the future. And you can’t buy me off.”

Oops…I put that last one in there and realized Mitt Romney is always for sale. He’s from Wall Street. They don’t make anything on Wall Street. They just buy and sell money, you know like the guys Christ ran from the Temple with a bullwhip. No, Mitt is always for sale. 

Not the kind of guy I want leading my country.

The Big Dick is Back

Mitt?  What are you thinking? Do you really believe the way to the future is back through the halls of the Bush/Caney White House?

Everyone seems so surprised that Dick Chaney would host a fundraiser for Mitt Romney, or put another way, that Romney would accept. Why is this surprising?  The same failed policies of Bush/Chaney are being espoused by Mitt and company.

Trickle down, cut taxes on the most wealthy and deregulation of financial institutions, increase military spending while eliminating social programs. That’s just to name a few. And you see where that agenda got us last time?  Double digit failure of the economy, a huge national deficit and finally the collapse of the real estate and banking markets.

To be fair, it wasn’t all Bush/Chaney’s policies that lead to the real estate debacle – Clinton’s ‘lets get a house for everyone’ policies certainly aided the down fall of the home mortgage market. But it would not have been so devastating, if the W and his Veep had not taken off the regulatory gloves.

And that is just where Mitt stands.  Get Washington out of Wall Street’s hair.  Cut back on regulations. Let us be freewheeling again. Can you say 2008? How about 1929?

This man scares me. Mitt I am talking about. (I had hoped we were through with Chaney, after his government-paid for heart transplant, but I guess we will have to endure some more of the Little Number 2.) But the fact that Mitt will turn his own campaign into any direction he can for support tells me he is lacking a true moral compass. Talk about buying an election? How about buying a candidate off?

So America, here are your options again.  More of the Bush agenda with Mitt in the driver’s seat, or a President that bucked the ludicrous system of trickle-down economics and tried to turn the country around. Not everything that President Obama has done has worked. Not by a long shot. But at least he is trying for ALL Americans and not just the glorified 2%.

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/07/12/515297/romney-on-naacp-booers-theyre-freeloaders/

By the way, Mr. Romney, I do not belong to the NCAAP, but if you spoke to a group of my friends, we’d boo you, too for trying to dismantle the Affordable Healthcare Act. And we find you a big hypocrite when you consider you launched the exact same plan in Massachusetts as governor there and carried it around as a badge of honor and accomplishment until your right wing buddies started to whisper to you, “not such a good thing, Mitt.” But not to worry, Chaney endured a lot of booing in his eight years. He probably hasn’t heard the end of it either. Nor have you.

American, you get what you deserve. If you have become a small-minded, hate-filled society, if that is what America stands for now, then you deserve Mitt and company. If you believe that big money and big business should run the country, Mitt is the perfect candidate for you. But, if you believe in individual rights and freedom and root for the small guy, the underdog, then Obama is your man. Very simple distinction, really. Big business versus big ideas.

Just remember, Mitt is getting funding now from the Vice President who lied to America to get us into the War in Iran.  And then convinced the W to slash taxes. “Why should we pay for this?” Want more of this type of government?  Vote for Romney/Chaney ticket. 

The reason I can't trust the Republican party any more.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I'll save the time writing them then. This says it all.

Perry must go!

I leave the state for one week and while driving back into this dry and parched piece of real estate, I hear that our numskull governor has once again bent over and inserted his head right up his ass. And he performed this act again on national TV. I can hardly wait for the talk show hosts to have a field day with this.

We are not going to expand Medicade even with the U.S. government paying for it and we are not going to have an on-line, competitive insurance marketplace for lower costs health insurance for millions of Texans.

 

Regardless of what you think of Obama, the insurance package the government is offering will do two things right off the bat. One: It will take people not paying for coverage right now – that you and I are paying for – and it will force them to either get insurance or pay a fine (Tax if you are a GOP pundit.) Two:  It will get over three million Texans coverage who do not have it today. That’s three million people off our tax dole and onto an insurance policy for coverage. That’s three million people you and I don’t have to end up paying for. Just do the math.

And your Governor, Rick “I Wish I Had A Brain” Perry is against both of those things.

Why?  Because he wants he and his hairdo on TV – on FOX TV– sounding really smart and really conservative and very Tea Partyish.  In reality, he is making Texas sound small-minded (which in many ways it is) and mean (ditto.)

It is time for Rick to go.  And I don’t mean go to Washington. I mean for him to go to Horseshoe Bay and disappear from public service.  We don’t need him any longer. What we do need is someone with some intelligence to help us get better health care in the Lone Star State.  We currently have the poorest health system out of all 50 states.

Let me repeat that for my fellow Texans…Texas…this proud and strong land…we have the worst healthcare system in all the U.S.   It just came out of research this week.  Made headlines that embarrassed the Perrymobile and its ride down re-election road, so he struck back by saying he wasn’t going to play the game anymore. He was going to take his state and leave the table of health care reform once and for all. Screw anybody who tried to stop him.  He probably already talked to Jesus about this move.

As long as you have this nitwit running the ship, you’re in big trouble and have high odds of hitting the rocks or the icebergs. Good luck, Texas. Governor Rick is speaking for you. No healthcare coverage and lower costs for the Lone Star state…instead we are going to all get re-election post cards from uncle Rick and the GOP.  Hope you don’t get sick in Texas.

Dr. Perry doesn’t make house calls….except to ask for your vote.

 

God's mouthpeice has bad breath.

I enjoyed a fishing outing this weekend in deep East Texas. Getting out into the wilderness was good for the soul – can’t speak for the fish – but I had fun.

But while out there, you run into a peculiar situation: there is little radio to choose from as you drive. In between Tyler and Shreveport there is a fall-off in the number of FM stations one can get. At least FM stations playing music recorded since the Civil War.  So I switched the car radio to something called AM and listen to some country preacher who was ranting about how in America, his flock’s religious freedoms were under attack. He had a sidekick on the show who was from California, and he too confirmed that the new-testament evangelical church was under attack and that their freedoms were being eroded drastically fast, so much so, that soon they would not be able to worship at all. (He, of course, blamed the current administration, Satan and main-stream “Christian” churches for this loss of religious freedom. He also added in secular scientists and other socialists to that list.) Not quite sure how he worked that out in his demented little mind, but he did.

It got me to thinking. If there was one group in the USA who is not under persecution or one who is not losing their freedom, especially their freedom to espouse their beliefs on every subject under God’s yellow sun as loudly as they want to, it is the evangelical right-wing churches of America. They are everywhere, preaching all kinds of hate-filled doctrine about why we, as a country, are all going to hell.

The church in the United States is very safe. In fact, it is so safe it is ridiculous.  But the radio preacher quoted some facts (not sure if they are real, but here goes.)  Attendance to Christian churches is down almost in half since the early 1960’s. Giving – that is donations– is also way down. The next generation almost entirely doesn’t know Christ as its Savior. If this trend continues there will be less than a million born-again believers in America. (Really?)Again he blames secular education for this one. No one is teaching our children about God's Holy word. And I thought that was the church's job all along.

I had to cry bullshit on this one. All of my children go to or have gone to state-run, state-sponsored universities and I can tell you the Christian youth movements are larger and more vocal now than at anytime since I was in school back in the 1970’s. This pastor doesn’t know of what he speaks. Christ is BIG on America’s campuses. Not just big but HUGE. 25,000+ fill Kyle Field in College Station for a prayer meeting. (Hey that’s a state facility and people are worshiping God there.)  And in Austin, too. And Tuscaloosa and Birmingham…the list goes on and on. Christ has reclaimed the campus as His.

So where is the persecution? Where are the lost liberties these believers claim to have given up to the heathen Obama and his evil empire?

Of course, you can never call into these prerecorded diatribes that run incessantly on the air in the Piney Woods and other backward watering holes across the South, and because of such, their claims can never be challenged.

I see major, mega churches springing up everywhere in almost every city I visit and it is across the geographic spectrum. North, south, east and west – the big churches are growing. Their parking lots are filled week-in and week-out with SUV’s and sedans and families, as well as singles, all coming to worship their lord and savior, Jesus Christ.  And they are doing it in huge numbers. 

Even mainstream denominations have seen an uptick in Sunday attendance, after years of falling numbers.  Only the Catholic Church is seeing a slippage, and that mostly from the Rust Belt, where many in their flocks are moving away from in record numbers. Not really the church’s fault. In many areas of the country the Catholic Church can’t recruit enough men to the priesthood to fill the vacant pulpits. (Maybe if they could marry like normal people… just saying.)

But Brother Billy Bob from KGOD-AM, wants you and me to think that he and his flock and other believers are about to be driven from the face of the Earth by the secular, humanistic, Hollywood sex-perverted, imperialistic, hedonistic, non-believers who have taken over our country. And oh yeah, Obamacare is the end of civilization as we know it. Swear to God this man of God said that. Maybe that’s why his church is losing members. Maybe, just maybe, they can sniff out a nutcase and don’t want to follow him.

If the church in America is in trouble, it is because nitwits like this goober are at the helm. And if they’ve got their hands on the tiller of the boat, lookout, we may have a capsize any moment. And of course, if we do, it will be Washington’s fault. Democrats will be blamed. And the Right Reverend Billy Bob Big Mouth will continue to accuse people who do not look like him nor think like him of being evil incarnate.

Maybe we are. Because if he represents what heaven is all about, it is going to be one hell of a mess.

Amen.

This is the last blog for a few weeks. Going to tour the country, talk with people and throw a hook or two into some cool, fresh streams. I will be back soon. Until then, don’t get Lost in the Lone Star State. It is a dangerous place to be without a guide.

Behind bars.

It is a beautiful (and relatively cool) Sunday morning. The birds are chirping and the dogs barking and an occasional squirrel joins the cacophony. I sit on the back porch (it is not so much a porch as a spot next to the pool that is covered. Patio, I guess you’d call it, but it doesn’t seem like a patio) and I let the delicious sounds of a peaceful morning in Dallas wash over me.

But for about 300 men in Texas the morning is just one more day closer to their awaiting execution.  That’s right, 300.  That’s a fairly big number. Not sure what percentage of the incarcerated population (or the entire population for that matter) this represents. And I am not concerning myself this morning with the guilt or innocence of these people.

I am wondering about killing machine that Texas has become with our penal system. Again, I know some, if not most, of these prisoners have committed heinous crimes. Crimes that would repulse the normal human. But is it our job, as a society to take their lives? That is the big debate. There are days I fall squarely on one side, and then the next day I waffle. It is a struggle.

But here’s what worries me. Of those 300, there is a real good chance, considering Texas’s track record with truly stupid juries and unscrupulous prosecutors, (not to mention police that will do ANYTHING for a conviction) that there are a few mistakes sitting behind bars in our state waiting for the prick of the needle.

And lets say one of those innocent men gets to the gurney and gets the juice before anything can be done to save him – just one – what are we, as a society, who has killed a man wrongfully?  Is it societal manslaughter? Do we all have to serve a day or two behind bars? Does it go on your record or on mine?

All it takes is one innocent man killed on our watch and their blood is on our hands– their life has been taken by you and by me.

It is a troubling thought as I sit here and listen to the birds and the dogs and an occasional squirrel. So as you enjoy your holiday weekend, remember there are those waiting to die at our hands. Some of them for no fault of their own.

Have a great weekend and happy Independence Day.