my God I live in a state that wants to keep dead women alive so they can give birth to deformed babies

Unfortunately I live in Texas- which at one point I would have been proud of- after all LBJ started the war on poverty and gave us the civil rights laws (though the Viet Nam war was a huge mistake). And we were blessed with the humor of Molly Ivins.

I made the mistake of trying to watch the debates for Lt. governor the other night. In the Dallas Morning News someone suggested that we stop having these televised debates because it just makes the candidates look like idiots.

I disagree Texans get very few chances to actually see how idiotic their elected officials are. Or to hear from their own mouths that all 4 of them thought the judge who allowed Marlise Munoz to be taken off of life support was wrong. They are going to change the law and make it clear that a dead woman can be kept on life support in order to deliver a badly deformed fetus that will be a lifetime financial burden to the family. All the while making sure that medicare will not be available to them even though it was the state that forced the birth. It seems freedom only applies to men when you come from the Lone Star state.

One of the candidates had filed for bankruptcy but claimed that wasn't relevant any more and it was mean of people to bring it up. I guess I do not understand why a businessman should get away with stiffing his creditors when someone with student debt or medical debt can't do the same anymore?

And how many voters are aware that their politicians are double dipping, including the current governor by taking both a salary and their retirement pay. Wish I had the same privledge. Perhaps if these kinds of debates were required on a monthly basis we would actually get better governance and these weak candidates would be weeded out.

I won't hold my breath- after all this is the state that thinks it's legislators should be protected by making sure you pass through an x-ray machine in order to enter the building to see them but that it is a good idea for guns to be on all our college campuses in the hands of testosterone addled 18-22 year olds doing shots. Idiotic doesn't come close to describing what these guys are. Maybe brain dead is a better description.

PS- Interestingly, if you have a concealed handgun license you can bypass all the silly security at the capital and go right in. I can't wait until some terrorist figures this out, gets in, and shoots one of them. Wonder how they will react to that?

Time to get rid of google as your search engine

So turns out google is starting to fund far right republicans including Ted Cruz?!#@, ALEC the group that brought us all kinds of state bills that take away our rights as individuals and give them in spades to corporations, and Grover Norquist's group (you remember- he's the one who said he wanted to reduce government so much that you could drown it in bathtub).

See "The Googlization of the Far Right" for details.

If you are a progressive ( or even a person who cares about democracy ) you need to stop using google. I just switched to duckduckgo and using firefox both of which are steps in the right direction to stop corporations from following your online activity.

Goodbye Google!

I'mmm Back!!

Haven't posted in a ages - too busy. Since I just joined the ranks of the unemployed I will try and use some of my time wisely - ok maybe this is not wisely but you get my drift. Any how a distraction from the job hunt. Glad to see Harry Reid finally grew some and eliminated the filibuster for at least the judicial appointments. Now lets see if O-blah blah can actually fill all his vacancies in a timely manner.

I am not a fan of Obama-care - would have much preferred single payer and all the benefits that would have brought. Having said that, it is way better than nothing at all. What I fail to understand is how if obama-care already existed in Massachusetts and presumably used a computer based exchange that the federal government did not use that as a template? I understand that they are dealing with a larger number of people but that is just scaling or failing that why didn't they set them up state by state with the idea that they could turn them over when the states came to their senses?

Congratulations Libya!!

If you listen to the news and even NPR you would be told that the revolution in Libya is faltering/winning/teetering in rapid succession with the constant drumbeat of why haven't they won yet??? American public schools must be a huge failure since these news agency/journalists seem to have missed the fact that the American revolution is listed as lasting from 1775-1783. By my calculation that is 8 years and the libyan revolution has lasted barely 7 months. Could we please shut up now about how long it is taking and get behind their real accomplishments?

Join the throw the bums out party

I am now in the “throw the bums out- every time” party. If you have a repug -throw him out in 2010. If you have a dem throw him out. Then in 2012 throw them both out again and if it takes through 2014 to get the attention of the powers that be throw them out again. As long as incumbents win most of the time we voters have very little impact and they are only beholden to their corporate /money bosses. If they can’t get re-elected no matter how much money they spend they will have to pass public financing for campaigns and we are one step closer to taking back our democracy.

Public financing for campaigns is a two-fer. If they rely on public financing we get real candidates with real beliefs and they do not spend their days fundraising they spend it working for us and (hopefully ) good government.

This is easy here in Texas because most of the bums are repugs but it has to be done in dem states as well. After all they are all bums any way having voted for the junk insurance mandate and giveaway to the corrupt insurance companies. If they can’t stay in they do less harm. Now this is not to say that we don’t try to get back to real reps that can pass real laws but for the next 4 years of more we need to give that up to reach our goals.

Join me in the “throw the bums out – every time” party

HOPE for CHANGE eventually

Tom Tomorrow's cartoon sums up the obama presidency perfectly

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2009/08/04/tomo/index.html

this says it all

The Onion Headline
Obama Revises Campaign Promise Of 'Change' To 'Relatively Minor Readjustments In Certain Favorable Policy Areas