Etch-A-Sketch

Political Cartoon is by Cameron (Cam) Cardow in The Ottawa Citizen.

Who Could They Hurt ?

Yellowdog Granny joins me in wondering just who could possibly be hurt by allowing these two lovely people to marry? The answer, of course, is no one.

Louisiana GOP Votes Today

Today, Louisiana will become the 29th state to vote their preferences in the Republican presidential nomination race. Wall Street Willie (aka Willard Mitt Romney) won the last primary (last Tuesday in Illinois), but it is unlikely he can repeat that in Louisiana -- a state with a lot of teabaggers and evangelicals (groups Romney has had trouble with).

And the terrible gaffe by Romney's own campaign advisor last week -- where he compared Romney to an Etch-A-Sketch (who could rewrite his political views at any time) certainly won't help. The teabaggers and evangelicals already mistrust Romney's conservative credentials. They consider him a flip-flopper, who will abandon them once he gets the nomination. The Etch-A-Sketch comparison just verifies their suspicions.

The Louisiana primary is the last primary in March. The next primaries are in Maryland, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia on April 3rd. That's 10 days for the Etch-A-Sketch comparison to burn itself into the minds of voters in those states -- enough time for those who were ready to grudgingly accept Romney to change their minds.

Meanwhile, two new polls were released yesterday on the race in Louisiana. Both of them show Mr. Frothy (aka Rick Santorum) has a substantial lead there. Here are the numbers:

PUBLIC POLICY POLLING (Louisiana)
Rick Santorum...............42%
Mitt Romney...............28%
Newt Gingrich...............18%
Ron Paul...............8%
Buddy Roemer...............2%

AMERICAN RESEARCH GROUP POLL (Louisiana)
Rick Santorum...............43%
Mitt Romney...............27%
Newt Gingrich...............20%
Ron Paul...............6%
Other/Undecided...............4%

Clueless

Political Cartoon is by Pat Bagley in the Salt Lake Tribune.

"Global Warming" Is Cause Of Texas Drought

It's no big secret that Texas suffered it's worst drought in more than a hundred years in 2011. It was so severe that not only were wildfires rampant across the state, but the state's agricultural industry lost at least $7.62 billion in damages to farming and ranching operations. That's a huge loss, and you can bet it will be felt by consumers across the country when they go to the grocery store. Unfortunately, the Texas winter was also a dry one and rainfall levels are already down significantly from normal for 2012 -- a sign that the drought is probably not over.

Some may think that Texas is just beginning to reap what it has sown. It is an established fact that Texas is a much bigger polluter than any other state in the nation. In fact, if Texas was still a country it would be the seventh biggest polluting country in the world. And Texas leads the nation not only in the poisonous pollutants it is dumping into the nation's air, but it also leads in the amount of greenhouse gases it produces (which over 95% of the world's scientists say is the primary cause of global climate change).

But the Republicans who lead the government in Texas (holding all statewide elected offices, huge majorities in both houses of the legislature, and most appointed positions on the state's boards and commissions) are corporate-owned, and would do nothing that might result in corporations having to clean up their act and stop polluting. They deny that their malfeasance has contributed to "global warming". To them, the drought was just bad luck and if we pray hard enough it will end.

But while the state's political leaders are "global warming" deniers, the state's scientists are not. They know that humans (and especially energy producers) have at the very least significantly added to the problem of global climate change, and are probably the main cause of it. Listen to what some of these Texas scientists have to say:

John Nielson-Gammon, Texas State Climatologist
"Warmer temperatures lead to greater water demand, faster evaporation, and greater drying-out of potential fuels for fire. Thus, the impacts of the drought were enhanced by global warming, much of which has been caused by man."

James Hanson, NASA climatologist
Texas drought was “a consequence of global warming because their likelihood was negligible prior to the recent rapid global warming.”

Andrew Dessler, Texas A&M climate scientist
“There is absolutely no way you can conclude that climate change is not playing a role here. I’m quite surprised that anyone would even suggest that.”

Katherine Hayhoe, Texas climatologist
“Our natural variability is now occurring on top of, and interacting with, background conditions that have already been altered by long-term climate change.”

Dr. Jeff Masters, Weather Underground
“It is highly unlikely the warmth of the current ‘Summer in March’ heat wave could have occurred unless the climate was warming."

Tootsie Roll !!!

Political Cartoon is by John Cole in the Scranton Times-Tribune.

The "War On Women" Hurts The U.S.

(The cartoon above is by Adam Zyglis in The Buffalo News.)

While most nations (especially the developed nations) are trying hard to extend women's rights and assure they are equal to the rights given to men, this country seems to be trying to move in the opposite direction. One of our two major political parties, the Republican Party, has made it clear that they don't think women should have the same rights as men. Using religion as their tool, they are doing their best to take rights away from women.

And much of the rest of the world is wondering what has gone wrong in America -- the country that once stood as a bastion of freedom and equality to the rest of the world. They think we've gone crazy!

Soraya Chemaly has written a good post for The Huffington Post, in which she blasts the Republican "war on women" and it's white male leaders. It's an excellent post and you should go read it if you believe in equality. I bring you just a part of it -- the 10 reasons she gives for why the rest of the world thinks we're nuts (the things Republicans are trying to do to the women of America):


The rest of the civilized world thinks this country has lost its mind. It's no wonder. Look at this list of frenzied misogyny:

1. Making women carry still-born fetuses to full term because cows and pigs do. This week, Mr England, you supported a bill, the net effect of which, taken tandem with other restrictions, will result in doctors and women being unable to make private, medically-based, critical care decisions and some women being effectively forced to carry their dead or dying fetuses. Women are different from farm animals, Mr. England, and this bill, requiring a woman to carry a dead or dying fetus is inhumane and unethical. By forcing a woman to do this, you are violating her right not to be subjected to inhuman treatment and tortured. And, yes, involuntarily carrying a dead fetus to term, although not torture to you or to a pig, is torture for a woman. It is also a violation of her bodily integrity and a threat to her life and as such violates her right to life.

2. Consigning women to death to save a fetus. Abortions save women's lives. "Let women die" bills are happening all over the country. There is no simple or pretty way to put this. Every day, all over the world, women die because they do not have access to safe abortions. Yet, here we are, returning to the dark ages of maternal sacrifice. Do really have to type this sentence: this is a violation of women's fundamental right to life.

3. Criminalizing pregnancy and miscarriages and arresting, imprisoning and charging women who miscarry with murder, like Rennie Gibbs in Mississippi or at least 40 other similar cases in Alabama or like Bei Bei Shuai, a woman who is now imprisoned, is charged with murder after trying to commit suicide while pregnant. Pregnant women are becoming a special class subject to "special" laws that infringe on their fundamental rights.

4. Forcing women to undergo involuntary vaginal penetration (otherwise called rape) with a condom-covered, six- to eight-inch ultrasound probe. Pennsylvania is currently considering that option along with 11 other states. Trans-vaginal ultrasounds undertaken without a woman's consent are rape according to the legal definition of the word. This violates a woman's bodily integrity and also constitutes torture when used, as states are suggesting, as a form of control and oppression. Women have the right not to be raped by the state.

5. Disabling women or sacrificing their lives by either withholding medical treatment or forcing women to undergo involuntary medical procedures. We impose an unequal obligation on women to sacrifice their bodily integrity for another. For example, as in Tysiac v. Poland, in which a mother of two, became blind after her doctor refused to perform an abortion that she wanted that would have halted the course of a degenerative eye disease. If my newborn baby is in need of a kidney and you have a spare matching one, can I enact legislation that says the state can take yours and give it to her? No. We do not force people to donate their organs to benefit others, even those who have already been born. One of the most fundamental of all human rights is that humans be treated equally before the law. Denying a woman this right is a violation of her equal right to this protection.

6. Giving zygotes "personhood" rights while systematically stripping women of their fundamental rights. There is too much to say about the danger of personhood ideas creeping into health policy to do it here. But, consider what happens to a woman whose womb is not considered the "best" environment for a gestating fetus in a world of personhood-for-zygote legislation: who decides the best environment -- the state, her insurance company, her employer, her rapist who decides he really, really wants to be a father? Anyone but a woman.

7. Inhibiting, humiliating and punishing women for their choices to have an abortion for any reason by levying taxes specifically on abortion, including abortions sought by rape victims to end their involuntary insemination, imposing restrictive requirements like 24 hour wait periods and empowering doctors to lie to female patients about their fetuses in order to avoid prosecution. In Arizona, Kansas, Texas, Virginia, Colorado, Arkansas and other states around the country bills that make women "pay" for their choices are abounding.

8. Allowing employers to delve into women's private lives and only pay for insurance when they agree, for religious reasons, with how she choses to use birth control. In Arizona, which introduced such a bill this week, this means covering payment for birth control as a benefit only when a woman has proven that she will not use it to control her own reproduction (ie. as birth control). As much as I am worried about women and families in Arizona though, I am more worried about those in Alabama. You see, as recently revealed in a public policy poll in Alabama, conservative, evangelicals who support "personhood" related "pro-life" legislation and are fighting for their "religious liberty" -- 21 percent think interracial marriage should be illegal. So, what if they decide that an employee involved in an interracial marriage should not, by divine mandate, reproduce? Do they switch and provide birth control for this employee? Do they make contraception a necessary term of employment for people in interracial marriages? This violates a woman's right to privacy. My womb is one million times more private than your bedrooms, gentlemen.

9. Sacrificing women's overall health and the well-being of their families in order to stop them from exercising their fundamental human right to control their own bodies and reproduction. Texas just did that when it turned down $35million dollars in federal funds thereby ensuring that 300,000 low-income and uninsured Texas women will have no or greatly-reduced access to basic preventive and reproductive health care.

10. Depriving women of their ability to earn a living and support themselves and their families. Bills, like this one in Arizona, allow employers to fire women for using contraception. Women like these are being fired for not.

We must stand together and stop this nonsense the Republicans are trying to impose on women. This doesn't move our country forward -- it takes it back to a time when women were little more than chattel -- the property of men. I don't want to go back to that terrible time, and I don't think most decent Americans do either. Rights are not given -- they must be fought for, and generations have fought for women's rights. We must not dishonor them by giving in to the Republicans. It's not about religion. It's about the equal rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

Corporate Pigs

Unfair doesn't even begin to describe this economic injustice. Graphic found at the excellent blog Thurman's Notebook.

Gaffe-Prone Campaign Does It Again (Twice)

(The picture above is from the photostream of the prolific DonkeyHotey.)

Old Wall Street Willie (aka Willard Mitt Romney) sometimes acts like he doesn't have a clue as to what's important to the average voter (or even the base GOP voter). It's not that he doesn't try to make himself look like an ordinary American -- but somehow, when he tries it just seems to emphasize the fact that he has spent his whole life as a rich man with special privileges.

For example, he tried to tell a Florida crowd that he understood what they felt being unemployed because he was also unemployed. It didn't register on him that he was still making over $21 million a year while not working, while they were worrying about how they would pay their bills and put food on the table for their families. His situation and that of most unemployed people are certainly far from comparable.

Then he comes up with the statement that he "likes to fire people". he was trying to make a point about insurance companies and choice, but it was an extremely stupid statement to make in a country where 13 to 20 million people are either unemployed or underemployed (and with little prospect to improve their situation anytime soon). The statement also seemed to highlight his actions at Bain Capital (when he destroyed many jobs) and made him look like a hard-hearted person.

Those are just a couple of examples of Romney campaign gaffes, and they should have been enough to convince him (and his campaign aides) that talking without thinking through what was being said was a problem that they needed to address. But evidently it wasn't. Just this last week the campaign did it again -- twice.

First it was Romney himself, as he told a crowd that it was George Bush (not Barack Obama) who prevented a depression with his actions in 2008. This fails on a couple of levels. First, a large majority of Americans still justifiably blame Bush for creating the recession. Second, the only thing Bush did was spend $700 billion to bail out Wall Street banks. Romney may think that bailout was great, but that's not a statement that will help him with the teabaggers in the GOP base (who were passionately opposed to the bailout).

They are still mad at Bush for bailing out Wall Street while millions of jobs were being lost (and ordinary Americans got nothing). With that statement, he also ties himself even closer the failed economic policies of George Bush and Wall Street. That's a move guaranteed to drive away Independents, who are looking for solutions -- not a return to the policies of the past.

Then Romney's advisor, Eric Fehrnstrom, goes on CNN and assures Americans that Romney is indeed a flip-flopper. When asked if Romney had moved too far to the right to appeal to most voters in the coming general election, Fehrnstrom said, "Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You kind of shake it up and restart all over again."

It's my understanding that one of the major reasons the Republican base has not climbed on the Romney bandwagon is because they consider him a flip-flopper (who is just acting like a conservative to get the nomination, and will dump those conservative beliefs once he gets it). Fehrnstrom just told them their worst fears were true -- not smart with Romney only having half the delegates he needs to be nominated. The statement can also be taken by Independents to mean Romney is a candidate without any real views, who will say whatever he thinks will get him votes.

It was bad enough when it was just Romney saying stupid things. He certainly didn't need his campaign advisors to join him in that.

Romney Just Doesn't Get It

Political Cartoon is by Jim Morin in The Miami Herald.

It's Wall Street Willie's Turn To Lose One

Last Tuesday Wall Street Willie (aka Willard Mitt Romney) won the primary in Illinois rather easily. Judging from how this year's Republican presidential nominating race has been going, that means it is now his turn to lose. And the Pelican State is poised to deliver on that promise on Saturday.

Yesterday I posted a Louisiana poll that showed Mr. Frothy (aka Rick Santorum) had a double-digit lead in that state. Yesterday another poll was released regarding the race in Louisiana, and it showed the same thing -- Santorum has a comfortable lead. Here are those poll numbers:

RASMUSSEN POLL (Louisiana)
Rick Santorum...............43%
Mitt Romney...............31%
Newt Gingrich...............16%
Ron Paul...............5%
Other/Undecided...............6%

If Louisiana does go to Santorum as expected, it's just one more step toward a long campaign -- and possibly a brokered convention.

GOP Con Game

Political Cartoon is by Joel Pett in the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Why ?

Found at the excellent blog of Yellowdog Granny.

They Never Learn

As the above chart shows, the Congress is still very unpopular -- probably more unpopular than any other governmental institution in this country (on any level). The American people are not happy with the refusal of Congress to do anything to fix the economy or put large amounts of people back to work. This approval of Congress hit rock bottom last year when Rep. Paul Ryan and his Republican cohorts came up with a budget plan to eliminate Medicare, cut social programs, and give massive tax cuts to rich people and corporations.

The plan didn't pass, but it did make the Republicans very unpopular. But the GOP congress vermin never seem to learn. They have now come up with a "new" budget plan -- one that looks very similar to the unpopular plan that failed last year. Here is what the new plan will do:

* Eliminate Medicare and put the elderly at the mercy of private insurance companies. They will give old people a government subsidy, but it will not completely cover the cost of the private insurance. Any elderly people who can't afford to pay the new private premiums will be put of Medicaid (a far worse program than Medicare, which is not even accepted by most doctors). And they raise the eligibilty age for Medicare (while they eliminate the program, they keep the name).
* Makes massive cuts in education and social programs that actually work to help hurting Americans.
* Contains no job creation programs.
* Keeps the government subsidies in place for the Big Oil companies and other corporations.
* Gives the rich massive new tax cuts.
* Raises the military budget.

Sound familiar? It should. It's the same budget they proposed last year (with only very minor changes). The Republicans claim this budget must be passed because it is critical to cut the deficit and debt. That's laughable. While they claim their budget will cut the deficit and debt, the truth is that it will raise both (largely due to the tax cuts for the rich and the increase in the military budget -- neither of which is necessary).

We already knew the Republicans were waging war on homosexuals and women. Now we see they also want to wage war on the elderly, children, and the poor. I hope they spread the news of their new budget proposal far and wide. It's a sure vote-killer. Have they forgotten there's an election coming up?