Lies Are Facts, And Facts Are…Um…

As we all know Cain has been trying to play the blame game every time a new sexual harassment accusation came up. Recently, more and more Republicans across the board are blatantly lying, creating facts and twisting words all in the name of politics. Yes, politics has always been a dirty game, but the Republican party of the 21^st century has become a political monster if ever I have seen one.

Claims of Newt Gingrich’s consulting firm, The Gingrich Group (how quaint), receiving up to $1.8 million from mortgage lender Freddie Mac came to light recently came to light. When the media first became aware of the payment and started asking questions, Gingrich did what every modern conniving politician does and tried to soften up the facts and blame the government. During the CNBC debate on November 9^th, Gingrich claimed that Freddie Mac came to him for his “advice as a historian.” Funny thing is that his PhD dissertation in history was “Belgian Education Policy in the Congo: 1945-1960.” How Freddie Mac could have used a history lesson on colonial Belgian educational policies in the Congo during the Cold War is just beyond me.

During the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii President Obama had a Q&A session where the moderator, Boeing Co.’s CEO James McNerney Jr., asked about impediments to foreign investment in the US. Obama answered by saying that the US is still the world’s largest recipient of foreign investments, but that the US has also “been a bit lazy…over the last couple of decades.” Despite the fact that Obama was talking about the lack of US investors trying to bring in foreign trade, the Republican party has jumped in the saddle and started playing with sound bites. Rick Perry has now brought the lazy comment to the limelight in a new ad that has recently aired (video at the end of the article).

On Friday, Herman Cain suggested that the Taliban are involved in Libya’s new government. Even after his flub on Monday when he was asked if he supported Obama’s foreign policy in Libya, he tried to pull another rabbit out of the hat and pulled out a pigeon instead. Since the US invasion of Afghanistan the Taliban have been disorganized and scattered throughout parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is no evidence that the Taliban have spread out past this area especially into Libya.

And in other news, more of the same old claims about Obama’s healthcare law are now featuring celebrities. Pop and gospel singer Pat Boone, the national spokesperson for the conservative 60 Plus Association, is now the headlining voice in Ohio in the Republican’s campaign against Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown. The ad claims that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act involves a board of “unaccountable bureaucrats”, can “ration and deny certain Medicare treatments”, and “cuts $500 billion from Medicare.” The truth is that the 15 voting members of the Independent Payment Advisory Board will consist of doctors and other medical professionals, economists and health care management experts, and representatives for consumers and seniors. The law cannot ration health care or restrict benefits and the $500 billion cut is a cut in the overall growth of Medicare over the next 10 years, not a cut from any current Medicare spending.

Now lets see how lazy Rick Perry has been by not being able to put together a decent ad without having to use someone elses words:

Waterboarding Is No Surfboarding

Previously posted 11/15/11

Saturday’s CBS News/National Journal debate in South Carolina brought up some interesting facts about how the GOP candidates view personal liberties. We all know how they view abortion and anything related to women’s reproductive rights. Saturday brought out a new topic of interest: waterboarding.

President Obama has outright banned waterboarding as a form of interrogation sighting not only human rights violations but also the views of many top military officials who agree that waterboarding is a form of torture, and torture doesn’t make people sing.

Some of the most memorable comments include Hermain Cain’s support of “enhanced interrogation” techniques but didn’t specifically include waterboarding, which as everybody knows has been one of the most debated forms of said techniques. "I will trust the judgment of our military to determine what is torture and what is not torture," Cain said. Asked about waterboarding in particular, he replied, "I would return to that policy. I don't see it as torture, I see it as an enhanced interrogation technique" (Joshua Hersh, Huffington Post 11/14). As with almost all of the GOP “torture” and “enhanced interrogation” are not synonyms for one another, rather they are two completely separate entities.

Michelle Bachman made some very risqué comments concerning Obama’s oversight of the CIA. She told NBC’s “Meet The Press” that the President” is allowing the ACLU to run the CIA” in concerns to waterboarding (Huffington Post, 11/13). She argued in the debate that Obama’s ban on waterboarding was depriving our intelligence services from gaining needed information concerning the continued war on terrorism. And for all the times the GOP candidates have cited high-ranking military officials on topics such as these neither Cain nor Bachman ever mentioned the military’s thoughts on waterboarding.

Despite my Democratic, liberal views on politics I must applaud John Huntsman and Ron Paul on this topic. They were the only two candidates who are outspokenly against waterboarding. They both agree that it is not only a thoroughly ineffective form of interrogation but it also is detrimental to our country’s standing in the eyes of the world. "We diminish our standing in the world and the values that we project, which include liberty, democracy, human rights and open markets, when we torture," Huntsman said. "Waterboarding is torture. We shouldn't torture." (Joshua Hersh, Huffington Post, 11/13) Even Senator John McCain tweeted his dismay over the candidate’s views. “Very disappointed by statements at SC GOP debate supporting waterboarding. Waterboarding is torture.” (Rachel Weiner, Washington Post 11/14))

It seems that the GOP is not only the Party of the Rich (which will be discussed in a future post) but also the Party of Me Myself and I. They were willing to bring the country to its financial and economic knees just so they could give more money to themselves and the overly wealthy, without any concern for the rest of the country and its standing in the international market. If they were willing to do that, maybe we should all look more stringently at what our country may become if one of them becomes the leader of the world’s leading superpower.

And God Said, “Let There Be Pizza”

Previously posted 11/13/11

Everyone knows that hearing voices can be a bad thing. So how can Herman Cain explain how he heard God and he told him that he should run for President? How seriously should we take him? Say you heard a voice and believed it was God, and he told you to run for President, would you?

The man has had no political experience what-so-ever and here he is stating to a bunch of young Republicans in Georgia that the only reason he is doing this is because God told him to do it. He even compared himself to Moses! (http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_6775/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=kRuLxTt4) So did God give him the idea for his “9-9-9” tax plan? Because if he did, that is one of the largest loads any of the candidates has put forth as a potential tax reform. And if that’s the best that God can come up with, well then we should stop listening to him now because he seems to be losing his creative touch.

Sex, the GOP vs. Obama and Sharia Law

Previously posted 11/12/11


It looks like the November 8^th debate can’t be close enough for Herman Cain. That will be the next chance for him to talk about something other than his former restaurant association dealings. It will also be another chance for all of the GOP candidates to repeat for the umpteenth time that they will repeal Obama’s healthcare overhaul.

Michele Bachman has also been bringing back the concept of Sharia Law somehow making its way to become the law of the land, saying that it "would usurp, and put Sharia law over the Constitution, and that would be wrong" (Huffington Post 11/03/11 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/03/michele-bachmann-sharia-law-constitution_n_1074009.html) if it were ever considered in court. The case she was referring to was the recent ruling by a Florida appeals court allowing a conservative Republican judge (yes, a conservative Republican judge) to use Islamic law to decide an issue in a lawsuit between a Tampa mosque and some ousted trustees. Of all the things that the candidates have been complaining about this is the least of anyone’s problems.

Before we get back to The Hermanator, lets mention a few more examples of how the Republican Party needs to learn how to really connect with the country’s population. This past week, all 47 Republicans in the Senate voted against closing debate and voting on a part of Obama’s recent $447 billion plan that would help construction workers. According to the Labor Department, construction workers have a jobless rate of 13.3 percent. In addition, Republicans rejected a plan last month that was designed to create or maintain more than 400,000 jobs for teachers, firefighters and police officers (Rachelle Younglai and John Crawley, Reuters 11/03/11 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/03/us-usa-congress-jobs-idUSTRE7A27QY20111103?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&ca=moto).

Now, back to The Hermanator. Since the second sexual harassment accusation was reported, Cain has had some trouble keeping his footing on this issue. First he vehemently denied any misconduct, which is perfectly acceptable for a man running for president. Then, after giving varying remarks on the topic, he decided to accuse Rick Perry’s campaign advisor, Curt Anderson, who was his advisor in a 2004 senate campaign, of leaking the accusations to Politico, who first reported the scandal. Cain also said he would consider legal action against Politico for starting what he has called a “smear campaign” (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/67194_Page2.html). Now Herman, how about you put on your big-boy pants and play politics like all of the other candidates.