FINALLY, Voters See Through Republican LIES & THEFT! (& 10 Things Obama Should Do In His 2nd Term)!

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!"

Why All Americans Who Are NOT Rich Should Vote For Obama

Our opinion: Obama for president Berkshire Eagle Posted:

BerkshireEagle.com

Thursday November 1, 2012

When President Barack Obama took office four years ago, the United States was on the verge of economic disaster and burdened by two divisive and financially crippling foreign wars. Today, the economy is on the rebound, the war in Iraq is over and the war in Afghanistan is winding down. The nation has challenges but it is in a better place now than it was in January 2009 and we urge voters to continue on this path when they go to the polls to elect a president on Tuesday.

While it is difficult to pin down Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, whose campaign strategy is to be all things to all people, his speech before Boca Raton high-rollers in which he disparaged 47 percent of the electorate is revealing because it wasn't for public consumption. This was the real Romney. Austerity for the middle class and tax breaks for the wealthy were a recipe for economic failure under George W. Bush (the man who cannot be named in GOP circles) and will be again if repeated under Mr. Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan. Until recently, Mr. Romney's belligerent statements on foreign policy recalled those of Mr. Bush, whose cowboy policies brought the Iraq nightmare down upon the nation.

Mr. Romney offers the prospect of more of what has already catastrophically failed. Worse, his party is determined to reopen old wounds on women's rights and other social policies that will only further divide a nation that needs to work together to meet the challenges ahead.

Presidents don't get credit for what doesn't happen, which is why Mr. Obama did not get the credit he richly deserved for averting what could have been a second Great Depression upon taking office. His $840 billion stimulus package gave a critical boost to the economy and his bail-out of the automobile industry saved jobs not only in Detroit but wherever else that industry reaches, including Berkshire County.

The president demonstrated how government can strengthen the nation, which Mr. Romney, a prisoner of calcified Republican ideology, is forced to deny. He is left to advocate for long-discredited "trickle down" economic theories, in which more tax cuts and loopholes for multi-millionaires like himself will magically grow the economy from the top down. He preaches government austerity even though economic retrenchment is causing joblessness and dragging down the economy all across Europe and will do so here if put into practice.

The unemployment rate remains too high but would be lower if House Republicans had not rejected a job creation program offered by the president a year ago. Washington Republicans regularly blocked the president's programs out of a transparent desire to hurt him politically even if their actions also hurt the nation's economy. That said, Mr. Obama's biggest failure has been his refusal to fight for his economic programs with the same energy his opponents have employed in fighting against them.

The president did fight successfully for health care reform, and passage of the Affordable Care Act means, among other improvements, that insurance companies will not be able to deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions, and immunizations and mammograms will be guaranteed to all. Although "Obamacare" with its many reforms is based on "Romney care" from Mr. Romney's tenure as Massachusetts governor, Mr. Romney wants to repeal it and says the uninsured should go to emergency rooms, which will expand the health care costs Obamacare will reduce. The voucher program that is at the core of Mr. Ryan's health "reform" would make Medicare more costly for seniors.

President Obama ended the war in Iraq and is ending the war in Afghanistan, although too slowly. He brought Osama bin Laden to justice and has weakened al-Qaida. His selection of former rival Hillary Clinton as secretary of state was brilliant, and together they have forged a foreign policy centered around diplomacy, with military action employed when necessary and only after careful thought.

Mr. Romney's interventionist stance on foreign policy early in the campaign was so reckless it was as if Iraq had never happened. He has since flip-flopped to a less aggressive approach but he has shown not only a willingness to trigger another conflict but a disconcerting ignorance about and indifference toward world events that affect America.

The president was slow to come around on gay rights issues, but his support of same-sex marriage may lead to the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which undermines the rights of gay couples even in states like Massachusetts, where they can legally marry. The military's hypocritical "don't ask, don't tell" rule disappeared on his watch. Mr. Romney opposes same-sex marriage and defends DoMA, a law that exemplifies the kind of big government interference in the lives of individuals that Republicans pay lip service to opposing.

Along those lines, Republicans across the country have filed and passed proposals to criminalize abortion and put women seeking legal abortions through invasive procedures, demonized Planned Parent hood, tried to deny access to contraceptives, and come up with horrific new definitions of what constitutes rape. Mr. Romney has disavowed some of these plans and claims, tap-danced around others, but as president it is unlikely that he will stand against his own party's onerous views on women's rights, views advocated by his arch-conservative running mate. In contrast, Mr. Obama has been a principled defender of the rights of women and all minorities, including the Hispanics targeted by discriminatory laws passed in the states under the guise of a crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Women's rights, including those guaranteed by Roe v. Wade, which ended the era of illegal, back alley abortions, could be in jeopardy if a vacancy on the Supreme Court emerges in the next four years. Mr. Romney would likely nominate another far-right judicial activist who would vote with those on the court who have not only proven weak on civil rights but gave us the Citizens United decision enabling corporations to further corrupt the electoral process with cash. In Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama chose eminently qualified moderates to the Supreme Court who understand that the court should defend established civil rights not weaken them.

Mitt Romney has certainly come a long way from the days in which he successfully campaigned for governor of Massa chusetts as a pro-abortion rights, pro-gay rights moderate Republican. In his evolution into a "severe conservative," he demonstrated that there is no principle he won't abandon, no position he won't compromise to get elected. Winning office is all he is passionate about.

He demonstrated his ruthlessness in pushing acting Governor Jane Swift of Williamstown out of the way in his pursuit of the Republican nomination for governor in 2002. That ruthlessness was certainly demonstrated during his tenure as CEO of Bain Capital, whose impact was felt in Pittsfield with the demise of KB Toys. Bain Capital made fortunes for Mr. Romney and its investors while bleeding companies dry and putting people out of work. This is no way to run a business, and as Mr. Romney cites his business acumen in his campaign for president, it is no way to run a country. His "47 percent" speech exposed him as a plutocrat who contemptuously dismisses millions of Americans (including some who support him) as burdens upon the nation.

President Obama's aloofness and leadership failings frustrate his allies, but he has always sought to govern for the whole nation, not a favored few, and in the process he has stood up for the poor, who need government the most, and middle class Americans, who will suffer if the proposals of Mr. Romney and the retrograde policies of Mr. Ryan as a congressional leader are enacted. America has moved forward under President Obama and we fear it will regress if he is denied a second term. The Berkshire Eagle endorses Barack Obama for re-election as president.

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The Berkshire Eagle of Pittsfield, MA also had a wonderful endorsement of Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, who ran an honorable campaign against a

lying Republican incumbant, Scott Brown, who spent his whole campaign attacking Warren and then claiming that he would be best to work with Democrats! His right-wing record in both the MA Senate and the U.S. Senate exposes his lies.

The prospect of having a "Bush II" for another 4 to 8 years is scary enough, not only for all but the wealthiest Americans, but for the rest of the world, where Romney has already been threatening Iran and China, and anybody else that doesn't agree with his American world domination rhetoric. But the very real possibility of having a right-wing Republican Congress with a Romney victory is devastating to anyone who has "moral values" beyond saying "no" to sex! With the trivialization of rape and "47%" of the American people from these right-wing demogogues, "collateral damage" will become an everyday affair from them.

Therefore, I urge you to VOTE for Obama and your Democratic Senate and House candidates, and THEN WORK during the next four years in getting them to stop "kissing Republican asses," but instead, fulfilling progressive promises that bring more healing to both the earth and the earth's people.

Daniel Strong