The Observation Post

Nicki Haley, putting the party before her constituents, helping herself by screwing the people. http://www.politicususa.com/en/inquiry-governor-haley-misuse-fund The point is that she took federal money that was intended for research on how to set up a health exchange for her state, and instead used that money to pay for a report on how NOT to set up a health exchange! from the article- "The Health Planning Committee’s eventual report mirrored Haley’s directive in a March email that “the whole point of this commission should be to figure out how to opt out and how to avoid a federal takeover, NOT create a state exchange.” This is not new, the Mafia has done this for years, taken money to build something, then NOT doing it. But when they get caught, they go to prison.  

The GOPTEA's are waterboarding the US economy in hopes we will give in and give them the keys to the car. They don't care about casualties,as they can blame that on Obama. Once they get back in power, their corporate ov ... erlords can let some money out to let people think the 'right' people are in power. They will continue to dismantle government, kill regulations, kill pensions,social security, and worker protection laws. Jobs available will be thousands of low wage crap jobs that that they will tell us to shut the fuck up and enjoy, regardless of whether or not it's enough to live on.

Do you believe in ghosts? Apparently the GOP and the NRA do. They both live off scaring the crap out of people in order to get us to buy stuff or buy their policies. The Gun companies must be running a little slow these days as the NRA is trying to scare people into spending their limited funds on guns and ammo. WHY? Because there is a really scary ghost out there(didn't know you could shoot ghosts, but that's another matter). The head of the NRA is saying that the fact that the Obama administration has done nothing to limit gun ownership (and has, in fact, expanded rights for gun owners) is really an insidious plot. He says that it's a ploy to make the gun owners relax and fall asleep and then elect him for a second term. THEN he will sweep in and take their guns. No, really! I think Mr LaPierre is either filling his pockets with money from Smith and Wesson to cause a run on gun shops, or his brain is exhibiting symptoms of lead poisoning from fondling bullets. Of course

All the commentary on the news about budget 'negotiations' is bunk. Who has the courage to point out that the whole mess is from years of GOP 'business first' policies that funneled money to the rich at the expense of the rest of us?  Money was not lost, it went into a small number of pockets and accounts, making some people even richer.  Now the Republicans want more of the same, and will NOT negotiate anything other than their corporatist policies. Remember Ross Perot's 'giant sucking sound' phrase? Well, the giant sucking sound was Wall street, bank CEO's and rich speculators sucking money out of the majority of Americans. Now they are sitting on their money, waiting for their GOP puppets to continue to dismantle any restrictions so they can continue to feed on us. "job creators'= BS. If they can make billions by destroying the lives of the rest of us, 'so be it'. They are nothing better than parasites. I have those on m

We can all get caught up in shaking our heads at the increase in what appears to be mental illness pervading politics and the common discourse. We can focus on individuals, organizations, so-called 'think tanks', secretive funding groups, and organizations with eagles, freedom and flags in their name or logos. If we focus on one, another pops up, like super cockroaches. What they are really doing is spreading fear. This is a list of what they want you to be afraid of-- muslims environmentalists, socialists, Sharia law, godless liberals, elites (not elite by wealth, but usually elite because they're in Hollywood), communists, global warming 'advocates', abortion birth control government workers unions government programs teachers professors intellectuals artists actors comedians Mexicans Blacks Europeans- "we don't want to be like France!" COMPROMISE Compassion I could go on, but this behavior is called conditioning.

There are a number of women out there who will defend Michelle Bachman just because she is a woman. I think if you were to poll the women who show up for Palin or Bachman events, you would find a percentage who are there because she is a woman, add the religiofascist nonsense and her reductio ad absurdum comments on issues and you pull in the DumFux Noooz grannies who want to do something to stop the 'evil liberal red menace'. And she's a nice white woman who can chase the evil black man out the back door. Why do people not want to admit that there are racist women too? I find that in a lot of comment threads there are women who come forward to angrily attack any man who badmouths Sorry Pale One (palin) or Bachman, even when those comments are about something stupid they did or said, not an overt sexist comment. Hopefully, liberal women will be more disgusted by this airhead, but I think a percentage of them won't vote at all because 'politics has just gotten t

I get sick of people saying 'government doesn't have the right to tell me what to do'. I say 'government' is representative of our collective needs. It is us. It helps maintain the common compact. Without a common compact, then I can sell heroin, young girls, toxic products, raise pigs in my yard and dump their shit in the street. I can steal your car, your wife, your child or burn your house down and what are YOU gonna do about it? Shoot me? I have more guns. Let's see these 'leave us alone' idiots get along without public energy, sewage, clean water, clean air standards, educated workers, pothole repair, bridge and other infrastructure maintenance etc. When someone says 'those lazy asses don't deserve X" in reference to poor, unemployed or elderly, ask how they would react when those people in need revert to theft, cooking meth, or other ways to 'survive'. Who ya gonna call then? the local militia? But then...the local

Part of the problem with the openness and ubiquity of the web is that you get to share in the dumbshit antics of teens. Stuff that used to be done in private or with a small group. Stuff that most of us here grew out of long ago. You might not know you are arguing with a partially formed young mind. Before I started skipping over the trolls I had an argument going with some schmuck on Facebook, who kept attacking me in a thread, pulling the conversation away from the original topic. I tried to move on, to steer him back on track and he ranted that I should leave HIS country!!! I clicked on his name, went to his page and saw I had been arguing with a teenager! I was a teen once, thought I had the world figured out. I did read a lot, but I think I would not want to get in a pissing match with the younger me. I couldn't have dreamed then that there would be spokespeople/experts on all sorts of topics, being given a platform to share their embryonic thoughts with the masses

Fright wing pundits and GOPTea partiers love to say 'stop picking on Bush...Obama's destroying America. But they are part of the big neo-conjob perpetrated by Bush and his handlers in the corporate world. Their whole MO was to dismantle government and turn it over to corporations. Security by Blackwater anyone? Notice how Haliburton slithered out from scrutiny by moving their HQ to another country as soon as the Dems got a few more seats? They took axes to Attorney's general,used a list from Rove and a flunky who just graduated from a low ranked 'christian' college to root out anyone who wouldn't kowtow to corporations. In other words, neutral. When it was exposed, she just quit...no repercussions. -Whenever anyone was caught (except Rove and Cheney), at doing anything that was out of line, illegal or just downright fucked up for us, they would put their hands up and walk away, sometimes just moving over to a lobbying firm instead of prison. -Brought cronyism

I constantly hear people saying 'buy American' and it will be allright. Then they point to lead paint on some toys from China. But as in many things, the answer is not that simple. I also get pissed when I read about contaminated goods sold here from anywhere, but I blame greed, not a nationality. Someone here is buying and distributing those contaminated or lead painted items without inspection. I really do think there are jobbers here who really don't give a crap about the quality of the stuff they distribute, as long as it makes them money. We also have a dark side of sending our electronic waste and even some of our other garbage, like tons of paper, to be processed in China and India. There, unscrupulous bastards oversee poor families breaking down the components with hammers and open melting, while breathing in all sorts of toxic crap. We don't see it, just the shiny PC or ipod. We used to send lead batteries to Mexico, where people were paid to store them in th

Remember the last Presidential race, where the Repugnican'ts had 10 candidates all frothing at the mouth to channel Ronald Reagan? It felt like a quiz show...including holding up hands to show you don't believe in global warming, evolution or gravity. First to go in the elimination round...Alan Keyes...crazy comes in all colors! After all the other dogs kept biting each other's tails, McCain, like the grizzled old hound, came up to the front. I seem to remember the other re-pugs didn't like him, even the fright wing 'pundints' had dismissed him until the poll numbers went up. I was also thoroughly disgusted when practically from the day Obama won the election, Pale One was being asked if she was going to run in 2012! Show some real frigging respect and just a tiny smidgen of real patriotism and pride in America. Not that jingoistic, flag-waving, bumper sticker, fake, 'america first' crap. A man won the election with 63.4 million votes! NEVER FORGET THAT!

1/16/11 In response to a comment by someone on FB; Their post- “ The USA is the only industrialized country in the world that allows a for-profit health insurance industry to exist and force it's citizens into bankruptcy due to exorbitant medical bills!! And the Republicans insist on repealing Healthcare Reform to return the status quo.” My response-- One big lie that keeps getting repeated without challenge is "we already have 'free' medical care, it's called the emergency room". But I have not heard anyone talk about the fact that when you go to the emergency room, you get BILLED!  YOU are responsible for the bloated fees that they charge,which are usually much higher than if you had a regular doctor, or even a consulting nurse to talk to. If you own anything bigger than a toaster, you might lose it to a collection agency. 60 Minutes once did a report on how, over a few years, hospitals turned over emergency room billing to collection agencies. It used to

1/17/11 In response to a comment thread on the issue of high capacity gun magazines from ON POINT facebook page  ' How much is too much firepower? Here's some of the logic of some gun owners- I own guns I am a reasonable/intelligent/conscientious gun owner millions own guns therefore millions are reasonable/intelligent/and conscientious. In response to this comment - “ Blaming inanimate objects for criminal actions is no answer. Did we ban sports cars after high speed crashes? Alcohol after DUIs? Knives after stabbings? And none of those are mentioned in the Constitution. Living in a free society means we have to punish the guilty for their actions, not punish the innocent for their choices.” My response - If you crash a sports car, you don't back up and crash it repeatedly. You don't carry it in your pocket. You'd have to work really hard to use it to kill a bunch of people and when you do, you usually don't get to walk away from it. More faulty l

Some say that we must get tougher in the world market, because other countries subsidize their industries. They say that we need a level playing field, or that consumers need to 'buy American'. I think it's all a diversion. Why invoke the past when the 'playing field' is more like a constantly shifting ocean? We also subsidize our businesses.  We give them all sorts of tax breaks and allow them to shelter their incomes in foreign repositories. Why vilify your fellow citizens who had nothing to do with these upper level policies and idiocy? Examples; Steel We gave our steel industry away, and it had NOTHING to do with consumers. The dinosaur steel industry whined to their political hacks through their lobbyists to get subsidies and suppots to stay alive and squeeze out a few more dollars out of the old machinery, when in reality they should have died out. There were innovators who wanted to develop leaner, more modern steel factories but could not