The Observation Post

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