Tag Archives: Politics

Follow The Money Trail

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Image courtesy of Raquel Baranow via flickr

Joe Scarborough recently wrote a piece in which he pointed out, rightly so, that Barack Obama received more donations “from Wall Street” than “any politician in American history.”

Joe is being deceptive.

Goldman Sachs, as a corporate entity, has donated nearly 6.5 times more money to Mitt Romney than Barack Obama. Romney has received $290,750 so far during the 2011-2012 election season. Obama has received $44,750 (just slightly more than the $43,000 they have given to Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican here in Florida).

Goldman Sachs employees, however, contributed significantly to Obama’s 2008 campaign. As a matter of fact they were the second largest contributor. This is a VERY important distinction. I quote from the page I just linked to at OpenSecrets.org:

This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2008 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization’s PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals’ immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

In other words, the rank-and-file support the Democrats. The corporate entity itself supports the Republicans.

Where is the disconnect? Seems pretty typical to me.

Live Blog – Republican Western Debate (Las Vegas)

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Here we go again, kids! Time for another fun edition of “Mike makes a bunch of inane comments while watching people he’s not likely to ever vote for.”

It will be interesting to see how Cain performs tonight. His 9-9-9 plan has come under a lot of fire in the last few weeks. I ran the numbers based on my own finances and it looks like I, personally, would come out ahead. There’s a lot of people out there who think they won’t be so lucky. So far he’s gotten by on a lot of vague statements, but it’s likely that tonight the other candidates are going to try and nail him on the specifics.

I realize they are in Vegas and all…I wonder what the odds are that Santorum will actually break into tears this time around?

I’m eating a big old bowl of baked beans to get ready. I figure I’ll be as full of gas as the candidates.

Let’s do this!

[liveblog]

[sociable]

I’m Tired (Or, Blog Post Necromancy)

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Michael C. McGreevy pictured at the New World Brewery

Photo by David M. Jenkins

I decided to peruse through my Drafts folder this morning and I stumbled across a post I began writing over a year ago and never finished. I don’t know if I’d say it was my best work, but I don’t think it sucks so I’ve cleaned it up a bit, tacked on an ending, and am setting it free to roam the wild internets as an independent post free from the safe confines of the Draft folder. I hope you enjoy.

One of my Uncles sent me an email with a link to this article (note – I’ve updated the link to point to a blog post that has the full text of the article. The original piece, along with the blog associated with it, appears to have been pulled down by the owner) earlier today. It was written by a sixty-three year old retired Marine and former state senator from Massachusetts.

When I get these kind of things I tend to ignore them. I know I’m not going to convince the more Conservative members of my family to see my point of view, so I generally don’t even bother trying. That said, it’s hard for me not to read something like this and not have the desire to respond, so I figured the best place for me to do so was here.

With all of that out of the way, this is likely to be a rather political post. If you’re not in the mood to read that kind of thing I suggest you ignore the cut tag below.

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Republican Presidential Debate – Now With Drinking Game!

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Ok, so I’ve gone through all the trouble to get the Live Blogging plugin working the way I wanted to on my site, so I guess I’m going to have to go through with my plans to live blog yet another GOP Presidential Debate

The things I do for you people, I swear.

So here’s the deal – For one, I’m likely to be broadcasting from a Google+ Hangout while I watch. You’re welcome to join me if you like by visiting my wall over there. If you’re following me on Twitter or Facebook you’ll get notifications whenever I update this post for as long as the API lets me do so before it breaks (I killed the Twitter to Facebook link about half way through the last debate). If you really want to stay up to the minute on the updates the best thing to do is monitor this page. There is a script running in the background that will automatically feed new posts to the parent.

Now, on to the fun part…

If you want to play along with my debate drinking game, the rules are pretty simple. I will announce it is time to drink whenever any of the following events happen:

  • Any candidate says “Obamacare”
  • Any candidate mentions Class Warfare
  • Any candidate uses the phrase “The American People”
  • Any candidate mentions Ronald Reagan
  • Any candidate mentions 9/11. Finish the whole drink if the candidate says we were attacked because “they” hate the American way of life.
  • Rick Santorum complains about his “Google Problem”
  • Ron Paul hungrily lips his lips while staring at another candidate.
  • Newt Gingrich says anything that makes him seem like he’s done anything at all relevant in the last 15 years.
  • Mitt Romney’s hair moves.
  • Gary Johnson…wait, holy crap! Gary Johnson is actually there? Dude, I like that guy! He was on Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me! He gets an honorary toast the first time he answers a question.
  • If any candidate compares Herman Cain to the Noid finish the whole bottle. Every time Herman Cain actually proves he has a sense of humor, drink.
  • If John Huntsman…I can’t think of anything funny about John Huntsman, which is probably a good thing…least as far as I’m concerned. Dunno how well that works for him. I wanna say to drink if he actually face palms over being forced to try and make sense next to the rest of the lunatics up on the stage.
  • Every time Michelle Bachman…Flying Spaghetti Monster, save me…Every time she’s on the screen stop me from slitting my wrists or throwing the bottle through my television.

If you guys have any suggestions for the drinking game let me know in the comments and I’ll modify accordingly.

[liveblog]

[sociable]

The Rainbow Hippie Argument

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Love the trees!

Image courtesy of mendhak via flickr

Back in the Summer of 1992 I was working my one, and only, renaissance festival. What is amusing about this is that the show was not, in fact, the one I had grown up around. Despite being closely tied to the Bay Area Renaissance Festival for many years, the only gig I’ve ever actually been an official cast member at was Scarborough Faire in Waxahachie, Texas.

Like many folks who traveled and worked with the renaissance festival circuit, I set up a tent in the woods back behind the festival grounds to live in during the time I was employed at the show. The small section I “lived” in during that time was populated by myself, my friends Holly and Donnie, and a Rainbow Hippie.

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I’m afraid of Americans

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It is currently 7:30 AM on Tuesday, August 31st, 2010. I am on vacation, and will be until next Thursday. Krystalle, Rafe and I will be leaving very early Thursday morning to drive to Atlanta for Dragon*Con, but for now I am simply taking some time off and generally trying to relax.

I am…restless.

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Gross Generalizations (Not A Lot Of Truth Here)

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One of my former High School classmates recently posted a note on her Facebook page that was titled “A Lot Of Truth Here.” The post was a laundry lists of “truths” about Liberals vs. Conservatives, and it was clearly written by someone who sympathized with the Right side of that particular battle.

I didn’t respond in depth to that particular post. For one it was pretty clear that she agreed with it and nothing I could say was going to convince her otherwise. Two, she very clearly didn’t write it herself. Lastly, however, was due to the fact that the post ended with a “Oh ha-ha, this is just a joke and if it offends you clearly that means you’re a liberal and everything that is written here is true” kind of statement.

As I said to her there, it didn’t offend me. It was just wrong.

At the time I pretty much tried to leave it at that, but it has stuck with me since reading it so I’ve gone back and grabbed the post so that I can respond on my turf. My thoughts are behind the cut.

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Hidden treasures

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Sinfest is Copyright 2008 by Tatsuya Ishida/Museworks

Moments before I sat down to start writing this post President Barack Obama signed the America’s Affordable Health Care Choices Act into law. Like most of you, I have not actually read the entirety of the bill. Truth be told, up until this morning I had not read any of it myself. Whether you are a supporter of the bill or not, though, you can’t deny that if it actually makes it over the administrative and legal hurdles that will undoubtedly be thrown in front of it in the next few months there are going to be some radical changes the landscape of American health care. While I’m sure that most Americans are familiar with the major provisions that are set forth in the bill (no denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions, children able to stay on their parents health insurance until the age of 26, etc…), like any piece of legislation that makes it through the House of Representatives there are a great number of changes that aren’t necessarily getting as much press.

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The letter I wrote to Representative C.W. Bill Young

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Representative Young,

Unless I miss my guess, this email is likely to be screened through one of your aides and would not be likely to impact your decision to vote against the Health Care Reform bill that should be introduced in the House today. This makes me sad, but unlike Don Quixote I have no interest in tilting against windmills by trying to convince you to change your mind.

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Freedom of religion and expression

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There’s a guy who hangs out in Ybor City on the weekends that stands in the middle of crowded night clubs preaching about Jesus.  At least, there used to be.  I really haven’t been clubbing in a long time so I couldn’t say whether or not he’s still doing it, but to be honest I kind of hope he is.  You see, I kind of admire this guy.  I think he’s a little crazy, of course, and I know he’s made some friends of mine uncomfortable on more than one occasion, but really…you have to kind of give it up for a man who willingly puts himself into what is almost certainly going to be an uncomfortable situation because he believes that doing so will help him save someone’s immortal soul.

There’s another reason why I like this guy, though.

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