Day: October 5, 2010

Is Glenn Beck The New Joseph McCarthy? :(

Talk show host Glenn Beck spoke yesterday about the Progressive rally on the Washington Mall last Saturday, and he introduced an element of McCarthyism to the vicious attack that he has been delivering for the past two years against President Barack Obama!

The fact that a small element of the mass of people who showed up for the rally happened to be identifiable as “Communists” led Beck to claim that President Obama is being given advice by “Communists”, a totally preposterous charge!

There is absolutely no evidence of such an accusation, but it sounds suspiciously like Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who ran rampant for almost five years from early 1950 to late 1954, accusing everyone within reach of being either a “Communist” or “soft on Communism”, including President Harry Truman! ๐Ÿ™

One would think that such a ridiculous charge was long gone as a dirty tactic, but it looks as if Glenn Beck has no limits in his character assassination of President Obama! ๐Ÿ™

It just adds to Glenn Beck’s image as an irresponsible, reckless demagogue of the first order! ๐Ÿ™

Joe Miller’s Hypocrisy: Unemployment Compensation!

Alaska’s Republican Senate nominee, Joe Miller, a favorite of the Tea Party Movement, has made it known that he opposes the continuation or expansion of unemployment compensation because it promotes an “entitlement” mentality!

This is his view despite the fact that we have had the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression for the past two and a half years!

And yet while he now enunciates this hard hearted view, it turns out that his own wife received unemployment compensation recently, even though Joe Miller is a successful attorney and therefore did not need for his wife to take such an “entitlement” to make ends meet! ๐Ÿ™

But Joe Miller has no shame at “taking” government money, but wishes to deny it to those who desperately need it!

What hypocrisy and gall on Joe Miller’s part, and another reason for the voters of Alaska to repudiate his candidacy for the US Senate this November!

Senator Jim DeMint, Teachers, And Sex!

Conservative Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina has called for the banning of gay people and sexually active single women from the profession of teaching! ๐Ÿ™

Apparently, sexually active heterosexual single men and married men and women who cheat on their mates should have the right to teach, however!

So Senator DeMint wants to tell people they cannot enter a field because of their personal lives in their off time, although he conveniently leaves out the reality of sham marriages and divorces that demonstrate just how much heterosexual men and married couples are engaged in similar behavior to those groups he wants to ban from the profession!

Should we have the right to interfere in the lives of gay people and single women, and treat them as special cases that should not have the same right to private lives that heterosexuals and single men have? ๐Ÿ™

Is this not a new form of discrimination that is again connected to the religious right which wants to impose its beliefs and narrow minded ideas on all of us? ๐Ÿ™

What a nerve Jim DeMint has to wish to promote discrimination and take away a person’s right to privacy! ๐Ÿ™

As long as a teacher at any level performs his or her profession in a proper way, his or her private life should be off limits to any intervention by Senator DeMint or anyone else!

Reality: The New Deal And The Great Society Have Saved America Again!

Conservatives and Republicans love to attack the idea of big national government, but it is just that–government intervention since the New Deal–which has sustained us through economic downturns since World War II!

The Recession of 1973-1975 under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford avoided being even worse because of FDR and the New Deal!

The most severe recession, in terms of unemployment percentage, under Ronald Reagan in 1982-1983, was less severe than it might have been because of FDR and the New Deal!

And now the Great Recession since December 2007 has been less severe, as bad as it is, because of FDR and the New Deal!

It is unemployment compensation which has sustained many people in this horrible recession!

It is also food stamps, promoted during the Great Society by Lyndon Johnson, and expanded under Richard Nixon, which has allowed people to feed themselves during the toughest of times since then!

And yet, Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House, and prospective GOP candidate for the 2012 Presidential nomination, wishes to trash unemployment compensation and food stamps, which only adds to the Republican image of not caring about ordinary people who are victims of this recession, as well as earlier recessions!

What Gingrich is promoting is absolutely despicable and disgraceful! ๐Ÿ™

The Wall Street Rally: Will It Affect The Midterm Election?

The standard viewpoint of late has been that since the economy has not recovered adequately from The Great Recession, the Democrats will suffer massive losses in the midterm elections coming up in November.

But the recent Wall Street rally in September, the best September since 1939, and the improvement in the market in the early days of October, have to make one wonder if that is a sign of economic expansion!

If it is seen as such, then it might just affect the attitude of many Americans who have soured on the Obama Administration!

Psychology is a very important part of politics, and it is well known that people’s memories are short, so the increased economic activity might just turn the tide for the Democrats, and they may lose fewer seats than often expected!

It just makes the waiting for the election results four weeks from tonight even more interesting and significant!