It's been a long time since I've posted anything on this blog. There's been a lot of garbage going on in politics, especially the advent of the Tea-Party movement or as I call it the Tea-Bag movement. My own state of Kentucky is a battleground for that movement with our U.S. Senate race between Democrat Jack Conway and Republican Dr. Rand Paul, backed by the Tea-Baggers and son of Ron Paul, libertarian Republican from Texas.

They're calling for the tax reductions to apply to the wealthiest . The problem roads have to get paved, schools have to be built the military has to be maintained etc. The Republicans want to put into play tax cuts for the wealthier members of our nation, stating that this money can be used to create more jobs. The trickle down or supply side economics theory doesn't work, regardless of what the Reaganites said. Heck, even Reagan's chief economic advisor later said it was trickle down economics.

If one follows our nation's history, one can see, when similar paths are followed economically, speaking, it pushes our country into recessions, depressions and panics. Will Rogers described it "money was all appropriated for the top in hopes that it would trickle down to the needy." The problem is that over the last 10 years, the people living at or below the poverty level has increase substantially, they're less jobs available, people who are working are making less money and the wealthiest 5% or so still control about 80-90% of the resources in this country. That's a massive disconnect that's getting worse.

A quote mentioned in wikipedia reference is quite relevant today, "There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests up on them." This was from William Jennings Bryan during his legendary "Cross of Gold" speech.

What continues to compound this problem is President Obama continues to rely on private industry to bring our country out of the recession and it's not going to work that way. Roosevelt didn't bring us out of the Great Depression by waiting for businesses to bail us out. He got people working with the various programs. Obama, as do many people in Washington need to realize they need to work on the lowest rungs economically if they wish to strengthen the country and society as a whole. It's the only way we'll fly and history supports this.

I'm going to start posting again because I just can't sit idly by and continue to see our country turn even more into a nation of "Every Man For Himself."

Labels: economics, Mitch McConnell, politics, Rand Paul, tax reductions, Tea Party

posted by Stithmeister @ 5:56 PM
 

posted by Stithmeister @ 8:08 AM
 

I'm going to restart things here for the coming year. My posting will mostly be limited to Thurs, Fri. and Sat. for the moment, I will be posting regularly after a long hiatus. In honor of the New Year, here's Auld Lang Syne by Robert Burns

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?
And days of auld lang syne, my dear,
And days of auld lang syne.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?
We twa hae run aboot the braes
And pu'd the gowans fine.
We've wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin' auld lang syne.
Sin' auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin' auld lang syne,
We've wondered mony a weary foot,
Sin' auld ang syne.
We twa hae sported i' the burn,
From morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin' auld lang syne.
Sin' auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin' auld lang syne.
But seas between us braid hae roare
Sin' auld lang syne.
And ther's a hand, my trusty friend,
And gie's a hand o' thine;
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

Technorati Tags: Robert Burns, . New Years Eve, Auld Lang Syne

posted by Stithmeister @ 2:14 AM
 

The political party that has long represented the "moral" compass of our nation has reached another high. I've not written in a while so I need to rebuild things a bit(which I'm going to do) but this thing with Rep Mark Foley, R-FL, has given me a case of the redass.

I guess what bugs me the most about this is that the Repugs sat on this for months. Now today, Repug leadership came out and said Foley needs to be thoroughly investigated. The point is, they tried to keep it quiet and would've not doubt pushed it under the rug if some groups hadn't begun pushing.

_Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., chairman of the Page Board that oversees the congressional work-study program for high schoolers, said he did investigate but Foley falsely assured him he was only mentoring the boy. Pages are high school students who attend classes under congressional supervision and work as messengers.

Certainly, I understand giving someone the benefit of the doubt, however, in some cases like accusations of sexually harassing teenagers, it's best to heed caution and be thorough. Obviously Shimkus and others thought this would go away.

Just as Shimkus' explanation was released, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California proposed to the House that its ethics committee investigate and make a preliminary report in 10 days. She demanded to know who knew of the messages, whether Foley had other contacts with pages and when the Republican leadership was notified of Foley's conduct.

Foley needs to be thoroughly investigated. If these accusations are anywhere close to being true, then he needs to be locked away. Of course NAMBLA might be having a pledge drive right now.

Technorati Tags: Mark Foley, John Shimkus, Dennis Hastert, Nancy Pelosi

posted by Stithmeister @ 12:44 AM
 

The Connecticut Democratic primary also known as the Liebernan-Lamond brawl is in full swing.The Connecticut Senate race is one of the most contentious in the country and it's between Democrats. The most recent Quinnipiac poll shows Lieberman has closed the gap, now only trailing by 6%, 51 to 46. In most polls, figuring in the margin of error, Lieberman could pull this out.

The wonderful lady at Majikthise is blogging events as they happen over at Lamont's campaign HQ.

Lamont's campaign has been built around opposing the war in Iraq, something Lieberman didn't do. Much of Lamont's support has been from progressive bloggers who resented Lieberman for his hawkish stance. If Lamont wins, upsetting a 3-term incumbant U.S. senator, the blogger movement will pick up incredible power, especially those affilliated with groups like DailyKos.

Stephen Elliott of The Progressive had a good article in this month's issue discussing the YealyKos convention. He also discusses this election and what will happen if Lamont wins:

Still, they are making a difference and they are growing exponentially and they are here to stay. The biggest test case is forthcoming when Joe Lieberman faces off against Ned Lamont in the Connecticut primary. The Netroots community is vehemently anti-Lieberman. The bloggers call him Bush’s favorite Democrat. Markos, in his keynote speech on opening night, promised that Ned Lamont would win the primary. If he does, it will fundamentally change everything. If the Netroots can unseat a sitting Democratic Senator, they will assume control of the party. And control of the party will forever change the Netroots.

So... what happens when the "NetRoots" becomes the group in power in the party. Will they become the same as the others in power. As much as some would like to believe that would be the case, very few survive gaining those levels of power with their integrity intact. I would submit that this will be the same thing. But that's another post.

Technorati Tags: Lamont, Lieberman, Connecticut, Democrat, primary, Senate, DailyKos, MajikThise

posted by Stithmeister @ 3:11 PM
 

It looks like oil prices are in the tank after BP announced yesterday they would be shutting down oil production in the Alaskan North Slope region. The resulting production loss accounts for about 400,000 barrels a day or roughly 8% of the total U.S. output. It will also account for about 2.5% of BP's total worldwide production. Considering oil prices were already high, this will force them to rally even further.

As of this posting, prices were hanging around $77.05 a barrel and climbing on the Nymex and gas prices were around $2.26.

The Wall Street Journal reported:

The average U.S. retail price of a gallon of unleaded, regular gasoline was $3.036 on Monday -- near its all-time high of $3.057, reached Sept. 5 after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. "I suspect that record will fall in the next 48 hours,'' said Tom Kloza, an analyst at Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J., noting that pump prices around the country are likely to rise 5 to 10 cents a gallon.

BP new this area was having problems though as these pipelines were corroding and they had huge problems about 6 mos. ago Again from the WSJ:

In March, a BP transit line in the North Slope spilled 267,000 gallons of oil. It was a month before BP was able to install a bypass on that line to resume operations. BP is currently under criminal investigation for that spill. "It makes you wonder, if this time the pipeline will be shut down longer than it was in March because inspection will be more stringent,'' said Phil Flynn, analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago.

This is in addition to all the other "normal" things that kick fuel prices up like war in the Middle East, hurricanes, people driving the cars, etc.

This is just one more reason these folks need to kick up our fuel prices. I'd say oil will probably hit $80 a barrel before the week's out and gas maybe $3.30 a gallon fore unleaded. I'd hate to be an incumbant right now.

I will say the Energy Dept. is prepared to dump some oil onto the market but this announcement doesn't seem to have calmed the market much. There's no timetable on how long fixing this problem might take either.

Technorati Tags: BP, oil prices, Alaska, oil shortage

posted by Stithmeister @ 2:49 PM
 

It looks like Senator Clinton (D-NY) took the time to ream the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld over his handling of the Iraq offensive. She claimed the whole thing was an incompetent mess and called for Rummy to resign.

I agree wholeheartedly. With thousands of American soldiers dead over a bogus war. Then we figure in the rough average quoted last week by Tim Russert on the Today show of roughly 100 Iraqis a day. Doing the math on this doesn't take brilliance. It would seem, based on the numbers, we've got our own little genocide going, with the U.S. being responsible directly or indirectly for the deaths of well over 36,000 people per year. This is 3 years AFTER the the major combat is over. How is this better than what Saddam Hussein did?

All this goes on while our troops are sorely needed elsewhere. We're creating our own war for the future.

I'm beginning to think Bush and Rumsfeld should go on trial for war crimes.

Technorati Tags: Hillary Clinton, Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq War, genocide

posted by Stithmeister @ 10:35 PM
 

Unfortunately, it's been a while since I've posted. I've a number of personal issues going on and those needed to be resolved, to some extent. While they're not solved completely, I plan on getting back to the posting every day stuff I was doing before. The political world is hotter than ever, with a corrupt White House and a corrupt governor in the Frankfort. It seems like there's plenty to be done and lots to talk about.

One thing I will mention is WLAP 630's new morning talk show host, Ferrell Wellman. Dave Baker quit and Wellman took over. I'd say he's probably as good as it gets for this kind of thing. He's got nearly 2 decades as reporter in Frankfort and while his show may have conservative leanings, I'd say he'll give a fair shake to whatever comes down the pike. I also like him because he was one of my professors in college. He was certainly one of the best.

I'll see you tomorrow.

posted by Stithmeister @ 10:33 PM