What a satisfying feeling it was on Tuesday night to FINALLY see the
Republican LIARS, BULLIES, and THIEVES (of taxpayers' money &
votes) riddled with anxiety and anger that their elaborate game plan to
STEAL the Presidency and the Senate failed.
Scumbags like Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, Rush Limbaugh, and yes,
Mitt Romney & Scott Brown in Massachusetts, did not get to see their
usual punching bags cower before them. It was especially heartening to
see progressive women, like Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin,
overcome non-stop personal attack campaigns by sexist men, Scott
Brown and Tommy Thompson. This year the Republicans stooped to
new lows, even for them, in almost all campaigns, with blatant sexist,
racist, and homophobic comments, leveled not only against their
opponents but the groups of people that they represent.
Those of us on the left are known for our openness, our sensitivity, and
our non-aggression. But I think the time has been reached this year when
we have to "kick the bully in the balls." That bully, of course, is the
Republicans who, as I said in past posts, live by the creed that
George W. Bush made public for all to see, beginning with his theft of the
2000, and later 2004 Presidencies. The creed is, "The End Justifies ALL
Means." That means they will have no conscience or qualms about lying,
stealing, cheating, torturing, starving, or killing ANYONE who gets in the
way of their self-identified ends. We saw ALL of those things from
George W. Bush himself during the most disgraceful 8 years of this country's
history. But the LYING, CHEATING, and STEALING part was still
topped by the Republicans this Election year.
Therefore, we as progressives must use our influence to encourage any
center-left Democrats newly elected, or re-elected, to set the example for
the all too many spineless Democrats who want to compromise with the
Republicans from the get-go! We must expose the fact that all the
"bi-partisan" bullshit from Republicans does NOT mean that THEY want
to compromise. Elizabeth Warren in her Massachusetts campaign learned
that the Republican, Scott Brown, who was always claiming to be
"bi-partisan" and "independent" was nothing of the kind, which became
very evident not only from his VERY partisan voting record, but from
the millions of dollars he received from Election Buyers & Thieves like
Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, and the Koch brothers.
Within minutes after Barack Obama was declared a re-elected President,
the Republican Speaker of the House was tweeting how the Republicans
would "not budge" for him. Therefore, Obama and the Democrats need
to find ways to "go around" or "do an end run" past the Republicans
to get things done these next four years. Obama whittled away his first two
years in office when the Democrats controlled Congress by worrying
about what Republicans wanted or thought. Well, they had told him the
ONLY thing they wanted on his first day in office in January 2009:
his removal from the Presidency! Now it is time to let the goddamn
Republicans whine and shout all they want when they block something
that is necessary to better the lot of all Americans who are suffering!
I emailed Elizabeth Warren with a list of key things that I believe she
should immediately start pressing the President to deliver. Here is part
of that email:
"Dear Elizabeth,
Thank YOU for being an HONEST, CANDID Senator-Elect! It was
a pleasure to meet you.
I DO want to tell you a few things that I hope you WILL pursue as you
go to Washington, which are extremely important to PROGRESSIVES
AS A WHOLE:
1) Press the President on honoring his pledge to let the TAX CUTS FOR
THOSE EARNING OVER $200,000 PER YEAR EXPIRE at the end
of this year.
2) Press the President on making the mandatory cuts to the defense budget
NON-NEGOTIABLE. The TOTAL budget for defense related expenditures
is now OVER $1 TRILLION per year! This is a disgrace when as much as
possible of that money should be kept home for HEALING the millions of
Americans suffering from lack of essentials: food, clothing, housing, medical
care; rather than being used for KILLING and provoking hatred against
America throughout the world.
3) Press the President to honor his promise to CLOSE the infamous prison
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The U.S. should PULL OUT of Cuba entirely,
as that base area was just a colonial conquest & should revert back to
the Cuban people.
4) Following on the above point...press the President to END the embargo
against Cuba. Cuba poses NO threat to the United States or any other
country and indeed has been very helpful to many other countries by sending
medical personnel to disaster stricken areas or where there are a lack of rural
physicians.... And press him to reach out to President Hugo Chavez, who
was reelected again in Venezuela in a free, fair, and peaceful democratic
election, and who in 2008, expressed admiration for President Obama.
Chavez would respond favorably to an invitation to meet. Threats and
underhanded CIA actions towards Venezuela only "blow back" to hurt
America!
5) Press the President to ACKNOWLEDGE the human rights violations
against the Palestinian people, and their RIGHT to freely control Gaza
and the West Bank; to have Israel "tear down this wall" & to allow
non-aligned countries (i.e. Brazil, India) to be involved in the Middle East
peace process.
6) Press the President to end "the war on drugs," which has utterly failed,
and to go on record for marijuana to become legal & taxed.
7) Press the President to END a Bush notion of an endless "war on terror,"
specifically by curtailing the ever expanding drone assassination program,
and the domestic spying on American citizens; as well as the continuing
abridgment of the rights of free speech and assembly; and to condemn
police brutality against demonstrators exercising their first amendment rights.
8) Press the President to spend LESS time trying to please Republican
intransients and MORE time pleasing the PROGRESSIVE POLITICAL
COMMUNITY this time around, since it is the latter that has given him the
power of the Presidency BOTH TIMES. FAILURE to stand WITH his
base a second time, will again result in a huge midterm loss (2014) for
Democrats ... because MILLIONS did NOT show up at the polls ...
and were it not for a late comeback, would have cost him the Presidency
this second time!
9) Press the President to Attend Future Conferences on Global Warming
or Climate Change & in the mean time impose with or without the
Congress some specific goals that will be met by the time his 2nd term
ends in January 2017. In that time period also, pressure him to SIGN an
agreement with other industrial nations that will set SPECIFIC deadlines
for the reduction of carbon emissions; a SPECIFIC timetable on fossil
fuel use reductions, coupled with increases in renewable energy use; and a
SPECIFIC plan to clean up the many toxic waste sites in the country,
largely using military personnel, since the Pentagon is largely responsible
for such sites.
10) Press the President to push The Dream Act through quickly, to give
young undocumented immigrants who have already been in the U.S. for
5 years or more a chance to attend schools, work, and thrive in a foreign
culture, without the fear of suddenly being thrown in jail ... and with that,
end the privitization of jails and prisons so that the prison industry will not
be anyone's "cash cow;" while drastically reducing the use of prisons by
funding more "halfway" facilities where skills, jobs, and personal
responsibility and reinforcement of a positive self-image can be what
inmates find; not demeaning, degrading, brutal, and inhumane conditions,
as they now find.
To use Obama's campaign slogan: FORWARD... and don't back down
from the bullies: Republicans!"
Republican LIARS, BULLIES, and THIEVES (of taxpayers' money &
votes) riddled with anxiety and anger that their elaborate game plan to
STEAL the Presidency and the Senate failed.
Scumbags like Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, Rush Limbaugh, and yes,
Mitt Romney & Scott Brown in Massachusetts, did not get to see their
usual punching bags cower before them. It was especially heartening to
see progressive women, like Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin,
overcome non-stop personal attack campaigns by sexist men, Scott
Brown and Tommy Thompson. This year the Republicans stooped to
new lows, even for them, in almost all campaigns, with blatant sexist,
racist, and homophobic comments, leveled not only against their
opponents but the groups of people that they represent.
Those of us on the left are known for our openness, our sensitivity, and
our non-aggression. But I think the time has been reached this year when
we have to "kick the bully in the balls." That bully, of course, is the
Republicans who, as I said in past posts, live by the creed that
George W. Bush made public for all to see, beginning with his theft of the
2000, and later 2004 Presidencies. The creed is, "The End Justifies ALL
Means." That means they will have no conscience or qualms about lying,
stealing, cheating, torturing, starving, or killing ANYONE who gets in the
way of their self-identified ends. We saw ALL of those things from
George W. Bush himself during the most disgraceful 8 years of this country's
history. But the LYING, CHEATING, and STEALING part was still
topped by the Republicans this Election year.
Therefore, we as progressives must use our influence to encourage any
center-left Democrats newly elected, or re-elected, to set the example for
the all too many spineless Democrats who want to compromise with the
Republicans from the get-go! We must expose the fact that all the
"bi-partisan" bullshit from Republicans does NOT mean that THEY want
to compromise. Elizabeth Warren in her Massachusetts campaign learned
that the Republican, Scott Brown, who was always claiming to be
"bi-partisan" and "independent" was nothing of the kind, which became
very evident not only from his VERY partisan voting record, but from
the millions of dollars he received from Election Buyers & Thieves like
Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, and the Koch brothers.
Within minutes after Barack Obama was declared a re-elected President,
the Republican Speaker of the House was tweeting how the Republicans
would "not budge" for him. Therefore, Obama and the Democrats need
to find ways to "go around" or "do an end run" past the Republicans
to get things done these next four years. Obama whittled away his first two
years in office when the Democrats controlled Congress by worrying
about what Republicans wanted or thought. Well, they had told him the
ONLY thing they wanted on his first day in office in January 2009:
his removal from the Presidency! Now it is time to let the goddamn
Republicans whine and shout all they want when they block something
that is necessary to better the lot of all Americans who are suffering!
I emailed Elizabeth Warren with a list of key things that I believe she
should immediately start pressing the President to deliver. Here is part
of that email:
"Dear Elizabeth,
Thank YOU for being an HONEST, CANDID Senator-Elect! It was
a pleasure to meet you.
I DO want to tell you a few things that I hope you WILL pursue as you
go to Washington, which are extremely important to PROGRESSIVES
AS A WHOLE:
1) Press the President on honoring his pledge to let the TAX CUTS FOR
THOSE EARNING OVER $200,000 PER YEAR EXPIRE at the end
of this year.
2) Press the President on making the mandatory cuts to the defense budget
NON-NEGOTIABLE. The TOTAL budget for defense related expenditures
is now OVER $1 TRILLION per year! This is a disgrace when as much as
possible of that money should be kept home for HEALING the millions of
Americans suffering from lack of essentials: food, clothing, housing, medical
care; rather than being used for KILLING and provoking hatred against
America throughout the world.
3) Press the President to honor his promise to CLOSE the infamous prison
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The U.S. should PULL OUT of Cuba entirely,
as that base area was just a colonial conquest & should revert back to
the Cuban people.
4) Following on the above point...press the President to END the embargo
against Cuba. Cuba poses NO threat to the United States or any other
country and indeed has been very helpful to many other countries by sending
medical personnel to disaster stricken areas or where there are a lack of rural
physicians.... And press him to reach out to President Hugo Chavez, who
was reelected again in Venezuela in a free, fair, and peaceful democratic
election, and who in 2008, expressed admiration for President Obama.
Chavez would respond favorably to an invitation to meet. Threats and
underhanded CIA actions towards Venezuela only "blow back" to hurt
America!
5) Press the President to ACKNOWLEDGE the human rights violations
against the Palestinian people, and their RIGHT to freely control Gaza
and the West Bank; to have Israel "tear down this wall" & to allow
non-aligned countries (i.e. Brazil, India) to be involved in the Middle East
peace process.
6) Press the President to end "the war on drugs," which has utterly failed,
and to go on record for marijuana to become legal & taxed.
7) Press the President to END a Bush notion of an endless "war on terror,"
specifically by curtailing the ever expanding drone assassination program,
and the domestic spying on American citizens; as well as the continuing
abridgment of the rights of free speech and assembly; and to condemn
police brutality against demonstrators exercising their first amendment rights.
8) Press the President to spend LESS time trying to please Republican
intransients and MORE time pleasing the PROGRESSIVE POLITICAL
COMMUNITY this time around, since it is the latter that has given him the
power of the Presidency BOTH TIMES. FAILURE to stand WITH his
base a second time, will again result in a huge midterm loss (2014) for
Democrats ... because MILLIONS did NOT show up at the polls ...
and were it not for a late comeback, would have cost him the Presidency
this second time!
9) Press the President to Attend Future Conferences on Global Warming
or Climate Change & in the mean time impose with or without the
Congress some specific goals that will be met by the time his 2nd term
ends in January 2017. In that time period also, pressure him to SIGN an
agreement with other industrial nations that will set SPECIFIC deadlines
for the reduction of carbon emissions; a SPECIFIC timetable on fossil
fuel use reductions, coupled with increases in renewable energy use; and a
SPECIFIC plan to clean up the many toxic waste sites in the country,
largely using military personnel, since the Pentagon is largely responsible
for such sites.
10) Press the President to push The Dream Act through quickly, to give
young undocumented immigrants who have already been in the U.S. for
5 years or more a chance to attend schools, work, and thrive in a foreign
culture, without the fear of suddenly being thrown in jail ... and with that,
end the privitization of jails and prisons so that the prison industry will not
be anyone's "cash cow;" while drastically reducing the use of prisons by
funding more "halfway" facilities where skills, jobs, and personal
responsibility and reinforcement of a positive self-image can be what
inmates find; not demeaning, degrading, brutal, and inhumane conditions,
as they now find.
To use Obama's campaign slogan: FORWARD... and don't back down
from the bullies: Republicans!"
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