Category: Politics

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Ahhh Bliss…

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I turned off Twitter, the TV, and am not reading or looking at any “News” sources.

After watching President Obamas brief speech this morning I simply couldn’t take any more.

The silence has been very nice. The more I’ve heard over the past week the madder I’ve gotten. After a couple of hours of peace & quiet I’m feeling much better.

I have been thinking it’s funny that the tin foil hat wearing crowd may have been vindicated!

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I’ve also been enjoying the thought that the most rabid of the Democrats must be twitching in apoplectic fits that their “Savior” seems to be at the center of a maelstrom of  scandals.

Somehow thinking of those Democrats (including one who told me I was a moron in my own home after accepting my hospitality) drinking themselves into a stupor over all of this, is somewhat satisfying.

Make no mistake. 

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The last Republican administration wasn’t any better. 

But the haughty arrogance that so many of the Democratic representatives have exhibited and that their rabid constituents have leveled directly at people like me, is deserving of a humbling.

More often than not I happen to agree with the Republican stance on issues.

I don’t agree with the Republicans about DOMA, and didn’t agree with them about DADT. I have a serious problem with the ultra fundamentalists injecting God into the government and then being shown as hypocrites when they’re caught with their pants down porking or being porked by some sweet young congressional page. I’d love to tell the hypocritical Republicans that Defense of Marriage starts at home. If they can’t live up to their vows, then how can they possibly be defenders of the institution.

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I most often don’t agree with the Democrats, about anything. I don’t think endless government agencies and intervention is the way. I don’t think that outrageous spending is going to help do much of anything except put our country further into debt.

But I work pretty hard to see both sides of an issue. 

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I can honestly say I’ve never told someone I disagreed with on twitter “Fuck off”, “I hope you get cancer”, “I hope you get shot”, “I’m sure that the natural disaster that has leveled your town is karmic payback for your beliefs.”, “Gee you seem like you want to learn perhaps you should go to a real school and learn the right information.” 

All of these curses/comments have been leveled at me for no other reason than I didn’t agree with the Democratic perspective. Or I committed the horrific affront of asking for facts. Just because I don’t drink the Democratic Kool-Aid doesn’t mean I’ve been smoking the Republican bong.

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What I really want is that simplest most elusive of Human states. Freedom!

I want to be free from religion, interference, hatred, hostility, and rhetoric.

I want to marry who I want to, and be left the hell alone to live my life MY WAY without 10,000 busybodies telling me that I’m wrong or trying to control every moment of my existence.

What I want is to tell Washington, and Sacramento;

“You’re not living my life, I am. You don’t have a fucking clue about what’s best for me so let me marry the consenting adult of my choice, get your hands out of my pocket, your regulations out of my face and keep your noses out of my business.“

And one more thing Government… 

I look at our relationship as a contract. One that you’ve not delivered on… If I were to have broken a contract as thoroughly and intentionally as you have, I’d be in jail.

Time for you Government, to realize you’re not above the law, you’re as bound by it as I am. 

So Start acting like it!

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Dang! This is amazing to me.

There’s a lot of people who are obviously upset about the scandals keeping the Obama staff up at night.

I stumbled across these pieces yesterday and I was honestly gobsmacked. (I love the British… some of their terms are so colorful.)

The first piece I found was this one from Representative Jim Bridenstine

The next piece was from Mike Kelly

The last piece is Paul Ryan rebutting comments made by McDermott that implied the victims of the IRS targeting were somehow deserving of IRS abuse.

Honestly, I haven’t seen a President disparaged on the house floor since Nixon. I don’t remember if Clinton ever had anything so directly said against him during his hearings.

As to the IRS Scandal I honestly can’t believe what I’m hearing.

This is not a partisan issue. That the IRS has been implicated in this kind of corruption is frightening to the American people.

It should have the members of both parties quaking in their boots. After all what happens when the Republicans are in control? Payback is a bitch and the Republican party has a lot of axes to grind with the Democrats.

Instead of sniping at each other, and instead of the Democrats apparently circling the wagons concerning themselves only with this Presidency they should be hopping mad at being forced into this awkward position in the first place.

Both parties should be demanding that heads roll from the top to the bottom of the IRS. They should be working together to ferret out the corruption no matter where it leads.

Oh I’m not deluding myself, they wouldn’t be extinguishing corruption for reasons of Country, Oaths of Office, or The People. No they would be hunting down the corruption for no purpose other than enlightened self interest.

Whoever started this mess was sloppy. That can’t be tolerated… It hurts the Members of Congress chances at re-election. Heads on platters from the White House Staff, on the other hand would play very nicely in the 2014 & 2016 election cycle.

Cynical? Hell Yes! Plausible? Pragmatic? Expedient? Yes, Yes, & Yes!

The saddest part is that the members of Congress are so short sighted that they can’t see it. Given that shortsightedness can we really rely upon them to run this country?

Sorry, but in my book the answer is Nope.

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From the Believe none of what you see category…

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This image was tweeted the other day.

I’m posting it full size so that you can see what I’m talking about..

At first glance you think Oh Hell NO!

Anyone would because it’s just so obviously wrong.

This is not what America is about. Most people would agree that America.. ie the American Tax payers don’t owe anybody anything. 

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Certainly not Houses and certainly not under threat of force.

I didn’t look at the image at full size and so didn’t notice the artifacts that indicate the picture has been altered.

It wasn’t until I was discussing the implications of the photo that I wondered if it was for real.

Well I thought… I’ve got that shiny new copy of PhotoShop let’s take a look.

I downloaded the image, then I started really looking at it.

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The artifacts were popping out all over the place. I zoomed in on the area in the red circle so I could show the evidence better.

See the smooth looking area? Thats where someone wiped out the rest of the text after House & Food

The grainy appearance around the letters is what should be there. It has to do with the jpg compression in the camera that took the original image.

The smoothing is evidence of an image editing tool like Photoshop being used.

Unfortunately without knowing where the image came from, there is no way to tell what the original sign said.

There’s another artifact visible in the image if you look at the lower sign. 

I’m really not sure what’s going on there. It looks like a bleed through of something else but i’m completely in the dark on that one.

The point is… 

Even though you see something, in the paper but especially images on the internet. Take them with a grain of salt. 

I reacted retweeting and commenting on this photo before I really thought about it.

It was so damn offensive I went off like a shot.

10 minutes later when I thought about it and realized I had the tools necessary to evaluate the image. After I really looked at it, I realized that I’d been fooled.

I reacted exactly as the creator of this image wanted me to… I got angry!

So the rule is “Take a deep breath, try to confirm what you’re seeing or reading, and then if you’ve come to believe the data is accurate take action.“

I guess if all of us did that more often we might be communicating with each other better.

Have a great day and remember…

“Believe none of what you hear, and only half of what you see.” – Benjamin Franklin