Today...From My Senator and My Congressman

Senator Corker is a pro gun vote in the Senate. He and his other pro gun compatriots were asked to appear on Meet The Press yesterday and discuss things in light of the massacre of 20 six and seven year old children at their school by a crazy person with assault weapons. Senator Corker refused. At the same time the Nation was going into shock and despair at what had happened, Senator Corker showed his sensitivity by attempting to talk about cutting social security and Medicare in order to reduce the national debt. Sent me an email.  Brave man, that Corker.   Here is a bit of his gun record

I just received a push poll call asking if Congressman Fleischman should vote for a bipartisan bill that would cut spending and reduce the debt. The nice person making the call seemed glad to hear me ask why the call wasn't asking if medicare and social security should be cut to reduce the debt instead of raising taxes on high income brackets? Are you doing a poll on guns at the same time? "No" he said. Then I think he went off script and said, "We need your opinions on this too. Thanks for not just hanging up. "

The Congressman has refused to address specifics on nearly every issue. His record is somewhat that of a weasel.

I accept whatever side of this you happen to have arrived at as long as you don't spout nonsense at me. It is time for us to reason together. The assault weapons ban was quite effective and we are not safer with more guns. I've owned weapons all of my life. I see no reason for assault type weapons, or large capacity magazines, or any reason for there to be loop holes in background checks. You have a record of mental instability, violent or felonious crimes...No gun. No exceptions.

The status quo is both insane and untenable. We have to do something. It is time for our leaders to come out from behind their shields if rhetoric and evasion and grow some courage.

 Let me repeat myself: It is time for us to put aside nonsense and reason together.

From Our "The Truth Will Set You Un-Free" Department

The number of journalists incarcerated for publishing embarrassing truth has reached an all time high.

...the world’s worst jailers of the press, each made extensive use of vague anti-state laws to silence dissenting political views, including those expressed by ethnic minorities. Worldwide, anti-state charges such as terrorism, treason, and subversion were the most common allegations brought against journalists in 2012.

The crusading journalist may be on the endangered species list. This is not good for the future of mankind. more

Since voters want to see compromise, Obama Should Give It To Them

Mr. President, may I suggest trying something like, "Ok, Boehner, since you lost the election we're going to start with expanding Medicare to everyone who wants to buy in and raising the top tax brackets back to the Reagan years." See, if I may be so bold, sir, it's called negotiating.

Cartoonish Treatment of What's Happening Now

This is pretty danged good...

The False Equivalency Fallacy That Has Destroyed Our Media and Threatens the Existance of America

How many times have you been talking politics and pointed out a flat out lie that a candidate has told and heard the retort, "They all do it"? Well first off they don't. That retort is often justified with false equivalency. For instance, The Romney campaign put out a falsely edited video to made it appear that Obama had said business owners, "Didn't build that." He actually said nothing of the sort. The video was a bald faced premeditated lie. This is often compared to the Obama lie that he promised to close Guantanamo and get us out of Iraq in a year. He actually did promise to close Guantanamo but was thwarted by direct intervention of House Republicans who made it illegal to use funds to close the place. This hardly qualifies as an intent to deceive. As for ending the Iraq war in a year, He didn't actually specify that time table and that turned into a longer process but it is mostly done, sort of. There was no intent to deceive. Nothing the Obama camaign did or said ever reached the level of the outright deception of the falsely edited "You didn't build that" video. In a just America with a functioning media the campaign would have been over at that point. Obama would have received 77% of the vote with Romney retaining the 23% that comprise the right wing nut job faction of the Republican party. But the media is wallowing in the throws of the false equivalency disease and the election went down to the wire, again because the media consistently quoted bad polls to make us believe the race was close. It wasn't and grows more of a trouncing every day as the votes are fully counted and certified. Now go read this and think about it. America must have a functioning media if it is to survive. This is serious stuff. Froomkin has the essay on the essay.

The Sunday Sermon From Our "Wow, I Wish I'd Written That" Dept

Corporate profits and the wealth of the wealthy are not the reasons we have an economy, and are certainly not the definition of economy: They are luxuries, unlike education, transportation, communications, law enforcement, environmental protection, healthcare programs of every stripe, and Social Security - all things that conservatives are insisting need to be cut in order to facilitate the continued explosion of the former. This is literally an attempt by a vanishingly small group of people to turn an entire national economy and its government into their private property and everyone else into second-class citizens completely dependent on their voluntary largesse to even survive. That's insane and anti-American...

The question isn't why should we not let the Bush tax cuts expire but rather, "Why aren't we raising tax brackets up by far more than that? Why aren't we EXPANDING Social Security and Medicare?

Santa's Helpers Cause Uproar in Netherlands

OMG! Another Christmas outrage...Santa's Dutch helper is a little white guy painted black. I can see how this might possibly offend, but then doesn't the elf caricature offend little people? I guess you can't dress up as a elf if you are as tall as say, Will Ferrel. Black Pete