Huffington Post: Maegan Carberry: ‘A State of The Union Guide For Socialists and Racists’

Source:Maegan Carberry- columnist for The Huffington Post.

Source:FreeState MD 

“These terms that mean so much to passionate ideologues, like “privilege” or “personal responsibility,” do not really belong to either side. Being a liberal does not make a person a socialist, and being conservative does not make someone a racist.

After every State of the Union and rebuttal, operatives and journalists go on a noble mission to “fact-check” what’s been said. As these convenient “facts” become easier for anyone to Tweet in reinforcement of their particular worldview, we Americans observing at home are asked to buy into the platform outlined by either side for another year. In a special year like this one, we even get to vote the liars out of office if they don’t live up to their promises.

What happens, though, when thoughtful people acknowledge that this model of assessing the health of our nation and setting its agenda is crumbling apart? Furthermore, what would happen if instead of dissecting the disses and assertions, we stepped back beyond The Jobs Narrative we’re being told is the most important thing at stake this Election Cycle and considered what is really going on in 2012?”

Read the rest of Maegan Carberry's article at The Huffington Post. Or not, the decision is completely up to you. 

Maegan Carberry is right: being a Liberal doesn’t make someone a Socialist. And being a Conservati­ve doesn’t make someone a racist. But that should go without saying to anyone out there in the universe who actually understands liberalism, socialism, conservatism, and racism. I admit, that’s a very small club that you could fit into a phone both and still have room left over.

But the question is why being a Liberal or Conservative, doesn’t make those people Socialists or racists. Because both liberalism and conservatism are based on individual liberty and limited government­. Liberals and Conservati­ves both believe, going from Jack Kennedy to Ron Reagan, that people should be judge as individual­s, not members of groups.

What gets stereotype­d today as liberalism and conservatism, aren’t liberalism and conservatism. But in liberalism­’s case, sort of looks like neo-communism or democratic socialism: wanting government to take care of people with a King Kong sized superstate there to manage our economic and personal lives for us. Managing our education, health care, health insurance, diet and exercise, what we can watch and how we can talk to people. Socialists tend to believe that the world is too complicated and big of a place to let individuals manage their own lives for themselves.

In conservatism’s case, it’s really Christian-Theocracy and Protestant-Fundamentalism: a mixture of a warped interpretation of Christianity, that you would think would’ve been made up in some Hollywood script, but that there are Americans who take this theocratic ideology seriously and treat it as its real. Mixed in with martial law, where personal freedom, things like to the right to privacy, Freedom of Speech that so-called Christian-Conservatives (Protestant-Theocrats, in actuality) disagree with, where property rights are essentially outlawed, in the name of protecting the moral fiber, character, and security of the superstate. Big government authoritarian nanny statist ideology when it comes personal issues and freedom.

Liberalism is not socialism or communism. And conservatism is not Christian-Theocracy, which is a theocratic and military authoritarian ideology. Liberalism and conservatism are both anti-statism. Not anti-state, but that the state needs to be limited to doing the things that the only the state can do. Which doesn’t include managing the lives of the people.

Russia Today: The Alyona Show: 'Michele Bachmann Wants To Ban Porn’

Source:Russia Today- Alyona Minkovski on U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann. (Republican, Minnesota) I guess President Vladimir Putin doesn't like Michele either.

Source:The Daily Journal

“Michele is the first 2012 Presidential Candidate to sign the “The Marriage Vow: a Declaration of Dependence upon Marriage and Family.” In it there are several issues when it comes to protecting the Institute of Marriage, you must always be against same sex marriage. And no one is for sexual abuse or slavery, or forced anything. But she’s for total banning of porn?! All forms of it?! Take a look.”

From The Alyona Show 

“RT (formerly Russia Today) is a Russian state-controlled[1] international television network funded by the federal tax budget of the Russian government.[15][16] It operates pay television channels directed to audiences outside of Russia, as well as providing Internet content in English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, and Russian.

RT is a brand of TV-Novosti, an “autonomous non-profit organization” founded by the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti in April 2005.[10][17] During the economic crisis in December 2008, the Russian government, headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, included ANO “TV-Novosti” on its list of core organizations of strategic importance to Russia.[18][19][20] RT operates as a multilingual service with channels in five languages: the original English-language channel was launched in 2005, the Arabic-language channel in 2007, Spanish in 2009, German in 2014 and French in 2017. RT America (since 2010),[21] RT UK (since 2014) and other regional channels also produce local content. RT is the parent company of the Ruptly video agency,[5][6][7] which owns the Redfish video channel and the Maffick digital media company.[8][9]

RT has been described as a major propaganda outlet for the Russian government and its foreign policy.[2] Academics, fact-checkers, and news reporters (including some current and former RT reporters) have identified RT as a purveyor of disinformation[42] and conspiracy theories.[48] UK media regulator Ofcom has repeatedly found RT to have breached its rules on impartiality, including multiple instances in which RT broadcast “materially misleading” content.[55] RT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan compared the channel to the Ministry of Defence and stated that it was “waging an information war, and with the entire Western world”.[16][56] In September 2017, RT America was ordered to register as a “foreign agent” with the United States Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.[57] RT has been banned in Ukraine since 2014,[58] and in Latvia[59] and Lithuania[60] since 2020.”

From Wikipedia 

In other Onion worthy news, I actually agree with the Alyona Minkovski on something. Which tells me, it’s time for another head examination. I generally only listen to Alyona to see what Far-Left conspiracy theorists are up to. And if there’s anything I can do to help them. Suggest certain medicine, a good shrink, perhaps a mental institution.

But from time to time (about as often as oceans are dry and Lindsay Lohan is sober) the Alyona produces a good story that’s actually worth listening to and watching (and not just for entertainment value) and should be taken seriously. Actually, I tend to like and respect Alyona. It’s her politics where we tend to differ.

Back in July when Michelle Bachmann (perhaps better known as the Iron Lady at her mental Hospital)  made pornography and same-sex marriage her key issues. That is what happens when she is off her medicine.

Hopefully Michele is back now getting the help she badly needs at her institution. And perhaps she is now running for President and away inside her mental hospital, where she’s a resident. But during her time (as an escaped mental patient) she and Rick Santorum took the same pledge, to outlaw pornography. If the Pope were to convert to Islam and Ron Paul were to declare himself now as a Socialist and only then would Michele or Rick might have an ice balls chance in hell of winning the presidency.

Michele and Rick both argued over who singed the pledge first to outlaw pornography and same-sex marriage and return America to the 1950s. Michele Bachmann finally won the debate, by saying: “Ha! I Signed it first” Nanny, nanny, boo, boo, stick your head in dog doo.” How you come back from that? This is the state of the Republican Party right now. This is what you have to do to be nominated for president there.

These are the issues that drive the modern Republican Party right now, like cabbies drive car: Yeah, we might have 8.5% unemployment, a 15T$ national debt and budget deficit approaching 2T$ and rising costs of living, but it’s your positions on these that are the issues that only 10% of the country cares about, that the Far-Right of the Republican Party cares about.

The Far-Right-Wing of the Republican Party, a small percentage of the country at large, but big enough that the Republicans still needs them to win, because of their inability to bring voters from outside of this small community into the party. These issues won’t put anyone back to work, except for people who fight against these things like on the Christian-Right, but lay off more people or put more people in prison that currently work in the adult entertainment industry. And Republicans will just drive up our national debt and put more people out of work in the process.

Governor Gary Johnson & Sheriff Joe Arpaio: 'Prison Industrial Complex'

Source:Randy 7845- Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

"This is a clip from the film "American Drug War: The Last White Hope"

From Randy 7845

I think two things that we know that really don't work when it comes to prison reform, is locking up drug addicts for simple drug possession or usage, thinking that if we just take their freedom away, they will get their act together and quit illegal narcotics all together. And with all due respect to Governor Gary Johnson who I respect as a Classical Liberal myself, we know that prisons don't work either.

40 years after President Richard Nixon declared the so-called War On Drugs, we have the most drug addicts, even on a per-capita basis, of any country in the developed world. So we know treating drug addicts who are guilty of nothing other than illegal possession or usage or illegal narcotics, like common felons, doesn't work. 

We know private prisons doesn't work, because the private prison industry is a for-profit industry. Nothing wrong with for-profit, for the most part, but when you incentivize private companies to lock people up, even if they're no real threat to society, they're going to try to lock up as many people as possible, to get as much money as possible. And, they're going to try to extend the prison sentences of their current inmates, to get more money from taxpayers to pay for their prisons. As well as lobby legislatures and executives for more laws and harsher sanctions for people who commit felonies.

The Young Turks: Ana Kasparian & Cenk Uygur: '1 in 4 Americans Have Criminal Record'

Source:The Young Turks- under arrest in America.

"Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss statistics from the National Employment Law Center showing that 1 in 4 adults in the United States has a criminal record.  The ACLU argues that employers are discriminating against employees on this bases because a disproportionate number of those with records are African American (and non-violent drug offenders)." 

From The Young Turks

I agree for the most part with Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur here. (Maybe it does snow in San Diego in August) The so-called war on drugs (thanks, President Nixon) is the main culprit to why we have so many people in prison in America, which is supposed to be the greatest liberal democracy in the world. And I believe America is, but our criminal justice system or lack or a quality criminal justice system, makes us seem like less than the great liberal democracy that we actually are. 

Arresting drug addicts and then sending to prison for simply possessing and using illegal narcotics, or being addicted to them, is never a good idea and is always a costly idea. You send those folks to drug rehab and later halfway houses, at their complete expense and put the illegal narcotics dealers in prison instead. 

We should also stop arresting adults for simply possessing or using marijuana or gambling their own money or selling their sex, as we could literally end the war on freedom in America and not have so many people in prison, simply for what they to themselves, not what they do to others.

President John F. Kennedy: 1962 Speech on Tax Cuts

Source:Spectator 1828- Classical Liberal  President John F. Kennedy.

"An excerpt from John F Kennedy's address to the Economic Club of New York on 14 December 1962. Text & audio of the full speech here: American Rhetoric"

From Spectator 

“General Royall, Mr. Trippe, Mr. Rockefeller, General Clay, gentlemen:

I feel tonight somewhat like I felt when I addressed in 1960 the Houston Ministers Conference on the separation of church and state. But I am glad to have a chance to talk to you tonight about the advantages of the free enterprise system.

Less than a month ago, this nation reminded the world that it possessed both the will and the weapons to meet any threat to the security of free men. The gains we have made will not be given up and the course that we have pursued will not be abandoned. But in the long run, that security will not be determined by military or diplomatic moves alone. It will be affected by the decisions of finance ministers, as well as by the decisions of Secretaries of State and Secretaries of Defense; by the deployment of fiscal and monetary weapons, as well as by military weapons; and, above all, by the strength of this nation’s economy, as well as by the strength of our defenses.”

Source:American Rhetoric- President John F. Kennedy (Democrat, Massachusetts) talking about his tax reform plan in 1962.

From American Rhetoric

First of all, I want to thank my friend and one of my subscribers Brendan Owens from Facebook for giving me the inspiration to write this blog post about tax cuts. Parts of the last two nights we've been debating tax cuts on Facebook as good friends can do in a respectful way. He's a self-described Democratic Socialist. I don't say that to be insulting, but thats how he describes his politics. I'm a self-described Liberal Democrat, so we have plenty to debate about outside of social issues, where we tend to agree. At least so far, we haven't discussed gun rights yet, but maybe in the future.

Jack Kennedy, a political hero of mine and I know I've said this many times, but it's definitely true. Inherited a recession, or a weak economy when he became President in 1961. The economy boomed for the most part in the 1950s under the Eisenhower Administration. But went into recession in I believe in 1958. It cost the Republican Party a bunch of seats in Congress that year. As Congressional Democrats added to their majorities, thanks to the Southern Conservative Caucus and others. And proposed an Economic Recovery Act that had I believe at the time the largest tax cut in American history.

Back then, we had tax rates ranging from 25-90%. Thank God for all of the tax deductions! Or our economy would be like Russia, with basically no property rights. Basically the Federal Government would take most of your money from you in income and payroll taxes and then let you decide how much of it you could get back in order to pay your bills. It was redistribution of your own wealth through high tax rates.

President Kennedy, recognized that those high tax rates were slowing down economic growth and economic incentive for people to work hard and make a good living. Because the Federal Government would collect so much of the money. Those high tax rates didn't make much sense even from a socialist point of view other than to hold down the rich or something. Because America still didn't have much of a safety net. This was right before the Great Society.

The 1960s, was one of the best decades we've ever had economically at least in the 20th Century. With high economic and job growth for most of that decade and low unemployment. One of the reasons why President Johnson was elected in a landslide in 1964 and if it wasn't for the Vietnam War, he probably would've been reelected in a landslide as well. The Kennedy tax cuts by the way: we ain't talking about Goldwater-Reagan or Kemp-Roth, but Jack Kennedy a Liberal Democrat, was a big part for the 1960s economic expansion. And it wasn't a supply side tax cut, but they paid for it by eliminating tax loopholes.

The Kennedy tax cuts, had tax reform in it. Lower tax rates while eliminating tax loopholes. Letting people keep more of their money for them to decide how to spend it. Encouraging people to be more productive, because they would get to keep more of their money as a result. Instead of the Federal Government taking most of it from them. The Kennedy tax cuts plus the Vietnam War with the boom in the military industry as well as people being sent to Vietnam opening up more jobs at home, are reasons for the economic expansion of the 1960s.

In 1978 Representative Jack Kemp and Senator Bill Roth, two Conservative Republican members of Congress, proposed their own tax cuts that later became the 1981 Economic Recovery Act that President Reagan singed into law. It did help jump start the economy and lead to the economic boom of the 1980s. But the difference being President Reagan didn't pay for his tax cuts, or even propose to do so. He didn't propose on balanced budget plan to Congress his entire eight years. He had a Republican Senate for six years. His theory was that supply side tax cuts pay for themselves. He was wrong if you look at the mountain of debt as a result in his government expansion and tax cuts. But President Kennedy was an inspiration for their tax cuts.

You can also see this post on WordPress. 

Michael Moore: 'America is a Liberal Nation'

Source:FORA-TV- Filmmaker and New-Left political activist Michael Moore.

"Filmmaker Michael Moore cites Americans' positions on several issues to support his claim that America is a predominantly liberal nation. 

Here Comes Trouble: Stories from My Life is an unflinchingly honest, take-no-prisoners ride through the life of Oscar-winning filmmaker and bestselling author Michael Moore. Moore shares far-ranging, irreverent, and stranger-than-fiction vignettes from his early life. One moment he's an 11-year-old boy lost in the Senate and found by Bobby Kennedy; and in the next, he's inside the Bitburg cemetery with Ronald Reagan. At 17, he goes to get a snack and ends up on the news, creating a firestorm that helps eliminate racial discrimination at private establishments across America. Funny, eye-opening, and moving, it's the book he has been writing and living his entire life. - Sixth & I Historic Synagogue

Michael Moore is an Academy Award-winning American filmmaker, author and liberal political commentator. He is the director and producer of Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Sicko, three of the top five highest-grossing documentaries of all time. In September 2008, he released his first free movie on the Internet, Slacker Uprising, documenting his personal crusade to encourage more Americans to vote in presidential elections. He has also written and starred in the TV shows "TV Nation" and "The Awful Truth." Moore is a self-described liberal who has criticized globalization, large corporations, assault weapon ownership, the Iraq War, U.S. President George W. Bush and the American health care system in his written and cinematic works. In 2005, Time magazine named him one of the world's 100 most influential people." 

From FORA-TV 

"Michael Moore announced the release date of and showed off footage from his upcoming documentary focused on President Donald Trump during his appearance on ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.’" 

Source:The Hollywood Reporter- Filmmaker and New-Left political activist Michael Moore, on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

From The Hollywood Reporter 

I don't mean to sound wishy-wash here, or some type of establishment Democrat whose scared for their political life about offending both their left-wing, as well as Center-Left and Independent voters that have voted from them in the past, but it depends on what you mean by a Liberal when it comes to whether America is a liberal nation or not.  

Americans tend to believe in both personal freedom and economic freedom, which is what liberal democracy is about. We don't tend to be antigovernment, but we don't want government trying to run our lives for us and trying to make the very same economic and personal decisions that most Americans have been making for most of their adult lives. 

Americans tend to want government to: 

Protect our streets 

Defend our borders 

Prevent foreign invaders from attacking 

Pay for the infrastructure that we all use 

Pay for good schools and teachers 

Help people who've fallen on hard times get back on their own feet

Regulate the private market to protect workers and consumers from predators, but not try to run private businesses.  

What I've just laid out are some basic not just liberal or American, but common sense values of people tend to want government to do for them and are willing to pay government to do for them. So if that's what your idea of a Liberal is, then I guess we are a liberal nation. 

But if you believe that Liberals believe private, for-profit, corporations, by definition are bad things, or that independent wealth is a bad thing, that the world is too big and complicated a place to let individuals manage their own affairs for themselves and you need big government to do that for them, or capitalism is racist, personal freedom is dangerous, free speech is bigoted, then no, we're not a liberal nation. But those aren't liberal values. 

Liberal values are the values that come from liberal democracy, which is based around individual rights, equal rights and justice, limited government, and the rule of law. Not social democracy or communism.  

You can also see this post on WordPress. 

Hoover Institution: Uncommon Knowledge With Peter Robinson: 'The Great Depression With Amity Shlaes'

Source:Hoover Institution- right-wing presidential historian Amity Shlaes on Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson.

"Amity Shlaes challenges the received wisdom that the Great Depression occurred because capitalism broke and that it ended because FDR, and government in general, came to the rescue. According to Shlaes, it was the government that made the Great Depression worse. And was FDRs progressivism, as evident in the New Deal, really all that new, or was it a step along a progressive continuum that already had been established?" 

From the Hoover Institution

Anyone whose familiar with this blog, knows I'm not a big fan of the New Deal and knows I don't think it was a perfect economic agenda. It obviously didn't get us out of the Great Depression. Unemployment was still around 20% by the time we entered World War II in 1941-42. But to argue that the Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal made the Great Depression even worst, my question would be: compared with what? 

To understand the Great Depression, you have to know about the New Deal, but also what the alternatives to the New Deal. The real Socialists (not the FDR Progressives) were talking about nationalizing private industries to prevent a future Great Depression. 

The Conservatives of the time were talking about doing nothing. They were literally talking about doing nothing in response to the Great Depression and let the so-called free market (as if there's such a thing as a free market) would automatically fix the problems of the New Deal. They were literally arguing a negative, since we have no evidence and history of doing nothing to respond to economic crisis's, actually works.  If you look at the New Deal objectively, (which might might be hard to do) it was actually the middle approach to what the Conservatives wanted to do and what the Socialists and Communists wanted to do to deal with the Great Depression.

Again, the New Deal was obviously not perfect, but to argue that it made the Great Depression worst, I mean we were back to economic growth by 1934-35 and people did go back to work. Millions of Americans were getting economic assistance to help them get through the Great Depression, like Unemployment Insurance. "The New Deal made the Great Depression worst" sounds like good right-wing talking points, but that's about it.

Hardball With Chris Matthews: U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner: Health Care (2009)

Source:MSNBC- U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner (Democrat, New York) in 2009.

"You Tube the name " Wendell Potter " and see what you are supporting if you are opposed to reform.

Health Care For Patients, NOT For Profit because Health Care For Profit is Health Care DENIED.

Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should an insurance middleman come between a patient and his/her doctor - particularly, if the insurance middleman stands to gain from it.

To put it simply, IT'S A CONFLICT OF INTEREST.

Insurance has no business being in Health Care. They contribute nothing towards it. NOTHING!" 

From Robb 1031 

Back in 2009/10, there was a block of left-wing House Democrats who said they wouldn't vote for any health care reform bill, that didn't have a public option in it. Representative Anthony Weiner (Democrat, New York) was part of that left-wing block in the House. They're argument was that they wanted single payer and government-run, health insurance (if not health care reform) was their position and the public option and allowing non-seniors to pay into Medicare and use that as their own health insurance. The fact is the Affordable Care Act was passed in March, 2010 and it didn't have a public option in it. It had subsides for lower middle class workers, as well as a Patient Bill of Rights for everyone. 

I've never been a fan of Anthony Weiner to begin with, but this is probably the main reason. Forget the fact that he's a left-wing, closeted Democratic Socialist, I could live with that, if I didn't have to vote for him and he didn't officially represent me. It's the: "Do it might way, or we don't it at all." approach to American politics, especially in a Democratic Party that's so diverse and large, that has both a Far-Left and Center-Right, as well as Center-Left, where you have to be able to work with members of your own party, just to get anything done in this country.