Two Ways To Learn

"A man learns by two things. One is reading. The other is association with smarter people."
- Will Rogers

Rogers was a staunch Democrat, but he also supported Republican Calvin Coolidge.     Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt was his favorite.     Although he supported Roosevelt's New Deal, he could just as easily joke about it:

                                    FDR

" Lord, the money we do spend on Government and it’s not one bit better than the government we got for one-third the money twenty years ago."          Will Rogers

Rogers served as a goodwill ambassador to Mexico, and a brief stint as mayor of Beverly Hills.     During the depths of the Great Depression, angered by Washington's inability to feed the people, he embarked on a cross country fund raising tour for the Red Cross.

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Presidential campaign, 1928

Rogers thought all campaigning was bunk.    To prove the point he mounted a mock campaign in 1928 for the presidency.    His only vehicle was the pages of Life, a weekly humor magazine.    Rogers ran as the "bunkless candidate" of the Anti-Bunk Party.    His only campaign promise was that, if elected, he would resign.    Every week, from Memorial Day through Election Day, Rogers caricatured the farcical humors of grave campaign politics.    On election day he declared victory and resigned.

Asked what issues would motivate voters? Prohibition: "What's on your hip is bound to be on your mind" (July 26).


Asked if there should be presidential debates? Yes: "Joint debate--in any joint you name" (August 9).


How about appeals to the common man? Easy: "You can't make any commoner appeal than I can" (August 16).


What does the farmer need? Obvious: "He needs a punch in the jaw if he believes that either of the parties cares a damn about him after the election" (August 23).

Can voters be fooled? Darn tootin': "Of all the bunk handed out during a campaign the biggest one of all is to try and compliment the knowledge of the voter" (September 21).


What about a candidate's image? Ballyhoo: "I hope there is some sane people who will appreciate dignity and not showmanship in their choice for the presidency" (October 5).


What of ugly campaign rumors? Don't worry: "The things they whisper aren't as bad as what they say out loud" (October 12).

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Don't allow yourself to be too upset by elections and politics.     Its not any worse now than it was in the 1920's.     It has always been BS and Show.

George W Bush and Sarah Palin didn't read and the brillance of the people they hung out with is debatable.    Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), reads less now than he did as a football player and he spends lots of time with politicians so his run for Speaker of the House should come as no surprise.     Neither should the outcome.
 
Back in November of last year after the Democrats took a terrible whipping in the mid-terms Blue Dog Demo-rat Heath Shuler appeared on CNN's State of the Union and said he would challenge Nancy Pelosi for leadership post in the House if she doesn't step aside.     How did that work out?


Nominated for the speaker's post by the Democrats was Pelosi, who became speaker in 2007 following a Democratic victory in the November 2006 midterm elections.     Some Democratic conservatives and moderates in the Blue Dog Coalition voted for other candidates, notably Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), as a way of registering their disapproval of Pelosi, although no formal alternative nomination was presented.


The vote for Boehner over Pelosi was 241 to 173.    Nineteen Democratic lawmakers (their connection to and membership in the democratic party is tentative at best) withheld their support from Pelosi, instead voting present or for other candidates.     Heath Shuler garnered 11 of those votes.    Two lawmakers - Boehner and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) - did not vote, according to an official tally.

Heath Shuler and his crew of Malcontents are the ones republicans will turn to  when they try to gut and disassemble the gains the democrats made in the 111th Congress, cut Medicare and Social Security and generally attempt to give the country to the upper 2% of wage earners.  

Jason Altmire from western Pennsylvania was the first of the Schuler Malcontents.    He stood, from behind Pelosi and to her left, and called out his vote: “Heath Shuler!”


Dan Boren of Oklahoma, the most conservative Demo-rat in the House, voted for Shuler.    In all, 11 Demo-rats (including Schuler) voted for Shuler.    

In addition to Boren, Shuler and Altmire, the eight others who voted for Shuler were Cooper, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Tim Holden of Pennsylvania, Larry Kissell of North Carolina, Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, Jim Matheson of Utah, Michael Michaud of Maine and Mike Ross of Arkansas. 

Over the next two years look for these names every time the Democratic Agenda gets trampeled on.     These are the weak links in the democratic chain.    These are Shuler's Malcontents,  rats with their hands out for a little under the table sweetness.

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Fox News' Tucker Carlson calls for Execution of Michael Vick

When President Barack Obama praised the NFL's Eagles for giving quarterback Michael Vick a second chance, it was inevitable that the pundits at Fox News would feign outrage.     But no one could have predicted that one Fox News host would go as far as to call for Vick's death.


"President Obama -- it has been confirmed by the White House -- called the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles and during the course of their conversation, thanked him for giving Michael Vick a second chance," Fox News' Tucker Carlson reported Tuesday while filling in for Sean Hannity.

"Now, I'm a Christian.     I've made mistakes myself.     I believe fervently in second chances but Michael Vick killed dogs and he did it in a heartless and cruel way and I think, personally, he should have been executed for that,"  

Tucker will have his own permanent Fox Show soon.    Vick served a year and a half in prison and lost all his money and his job and had to start over with nothing and Tuckers not satisfied?    I'd like to hear Tuckers views on the Wall Street Big Shots and Bankers who destroyed our nations economy and left millions unemployed.

Tucker has been a jerk for a long time and has worked for short periods of time at just about any place that broadcasts a signal or has a camera.     He never lasts too long anywhere but seems finally to have found a home with Fox.     Last September he attacked President Obama for having family photos on his desk.


Fox News’ Tucker Carlson complained that Obama was exploiting his family by putting their photos behind his desk.     "I objected to the pictures of his kids in the background.    I felt it was taking advantage of them and their images.”    Can there be any doubt that if Obama had no photos of his family behind his desk that he’d be attacked for being heartless?


Fox is responsible for putting this idiot on the air and it is hard to believe that even the viewers who watch Fox will put up with this kind of craziness.

Two things are infinite:  the universe and human stupidity;   and I'm not sure about the universe.
-- Albert Einstein

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The Tears

Of A Clown

Please, Get this man some help, he is not stable.

In September, future House Speaker John Boehner unveiled the GOP Pledge to America, which among its other warmed-over


Republican nostrums promised to save "at least $100 billion in the first year alone" from the federal budget.     On the eve of the election, Boehner doubled down, claiming the GOP Pledge would quickly lead to "saving taxpayers $100 billiion almost immediately."


In December, incoming House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) repeated the GOP guarantee that "a good $100 billion" would be trimmed.    Now, after months of cowardly refusing to specify what those draconian cuts to discretionary spending might be, Republicans are acknowledging their tough-talk was merely "hypothetical."


As Boehner grabbed the Speaker's gavel on Wednesday, the New York Times confirmed that among his first acts would be both
the betrayal of the Republican base and his word to American voters:


Republican leaders are scaling back that number by as much as half, aides say, because the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, will be nearly half over before spending cuts could become law.


While House Republicans were never expected to succeed in enacting cuts of that scale, given opposition in the Senate from the Democratic majority and some Republicans, and from President Obama, a House vote would put potentially vulnerable Republican lawmakers on record supporting deep reductions of up to 30 percent in education, research, law enforcement, transportation and more.


Now aides say that the $100 billion figure was hypothetical, and that the objective is to get annual spending for programs other than those for the military, veterans and domestic security back to the levels of 2008, before Democrats approved stimulus spending to end the recession.


Of course, there was nothing hypothetical about the budget ax Republicans promised to wield in the actual text of their
Pledge to America last fall:


With common-sense exceptions for seniors, veterans, and our troops, we will roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving us at least $100 billion in the first year alone and putting us on a path to balance the budget and pay down the debt.     We will also establish strict budget caps to limit federal spending from this point forward.


A quick glance at the numbers, however, showed the Republican pledge came with an expiration date designed to come due on
Election Day.     As the New York Times and Bloomberg explained at the time, the GOP's promise to immediately return to pre-recession FY 2008 levels for "non-security discretionary spending" with would result in devastating cuts to popular and needed programs.     With the Pentagon, Social Security and Medicare off the table, those draconian cutbacks would slash more than 20 percent of spending by departments like Education, Transportation, Interior, Commerce and Energy:


U.S. House Republicans' pledge to cut $100 billion from the federal budget next year would slash spending for education, cancer research and aid to local police and firefighters.


Keeping the midterm-campaign promise would require a Republican-led Congress to cut 21 percent of the $477 billion
lawmakers have earmarked for domestic discretionary spending.


Which is why Republicans before the midterm elections and since steadfastly refused to say what cuts they would actually make.


Republican Politicians are BS Artist who lie every time their lips move and think for a moment what that says for the people who vote for them.     Republican voters must have memories about 39 seconds long.     Every election the GOP talks about what they are going to do and then 39 seconds after the election ends it is never mentioned again and the republican voters and supporters are dumb and happy and hold no one accountable for anything.     No one that is, sporting an R after their name.     The party of fiscal responsibility, what a joke.    Republicans look out for big business and get tax breaks for the rich and feed the military all the tax money they can lay hands on and Nothing Else.    That is all republicans do other than talk.



During the lame-duck session of Congress, Republicans delivered on their budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthy.     But when it comes to those spending reductions, the rest is silence.
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ACVDN Hopes Your 2011 is a Great Year.