Alaska

Allen West And Sarah Palin: Quite A Team On Impeachment!

Former one term Florida Congressman Allen West and former Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin are leading the charge to impeach President Obama!

These two are such a comedy team!

West was pushed out of the military for his reprehensible behavior with a prisoner of war in the Iraq conflict, and has shown definite delusional behavior, a mentally ill man, who served only one term in Congress, but has gained a following from the extremist right wing, with his reckless, loony statements about many issues, but focusing his attention on the President.

Palin has been an embarrassment since John McCain picked her out of obscurity to run for Vice President, and she guaranteed that he had no chance to win the Presidency, because it was immediately clear that this woman has no knowledge base, is a total fool, and an annoyance for many Americans to listen to and watch as part of the news. She has never made any contributions in any form to public discourse, and is an embarrassment not only to herself, but to the Republican Party and womanhood itself!

A new poll shows that 54 percent want Sarah Palin to go away, and only conspiracy theorists and lunatics admire Allen West.

Each served for just a couple of years in public office, and one would wish that both would simply disappear from the political scene, as they will be condemned in history as whackos, and they both undermine the concept of public service!

And what they want, the impeachment of Barack Obama, is based on no credible case; will cost the taxpayers lots of wasted money; will undermine the Republican Party legitimacy; and will end up with Obama staying in office, standing strong against hate and prejudice unseen since the time of Abraham Lincoln!

And, as has been stated before, even if West and Palin and their ilk accomplished their goal of kicking Obama out of the Oval Office, he would be replaced by Vice President Joe Biden, who would proceed to be elected to one of two terms of his own, following similar policies and ideas of his boss, so what is gained by this caper, except the elevation of Joe Biden to the Presidency?

It is clear that West and Palin, and all those other whackos who want impeachment, have no clue or understanding as to what they are doing, and its implications! Ignorance and stupidity reign instead, in the brains of these two characters and those who follow and believe in them!

Family Names And Connections Matter In Politics And Will Affect 2014 Senate Races!

Many prognosticators have, seemingly, forgotten the role of family names and connections in politics, and how it will help to affect Senate races in 2014.

Mark Begich in Alaska is the son of a former Congressman.

Mary Landrieu in Louisiana is the daughter and sister of former Mayors of New Orleans.

Mark Pryor in Arkansas is the son of a former Senator.

Michelle Nunn in Georgia is the daughter of a former Senator.

These four races are likely to see Democratic wins, which means the saving of the seats in Alaska, Louisiana, and Arkansas, and the gaining of a seat in Georgia!

Do Not Believe Polls Which Predict GOP Senate Majority!

So many polls are now predicting that the Republican Party will win control of the US Senate. But polls have been proved wrong before, and the Democrats should not run scared, just run aggressively against the Do Nothing Republicans, similar to what Harry Truman did in 1948!

The Republican Party is wrong on immigration reform; is wrong on the right of workers; is wrong on the treatment of women at work and in their private lives; is wrong on the environment and climate change; is wrong on the need for gun regulation; is wrong on the use of the race card; is wrong on its refusal to promote infrastructure spending; is wrong on its decision to oppose more expenditures on veterans; is wrong in its opposition to ObamaCare; is wrong in its attacks on Social Security and Medicare; is wrong in its efforts to deny voting rights; is wrong in its advocacy of wars everywhere, rather than pursuing diplomacy and peace; is wrong in their anti intellectual, anti science agenda; is wrong in its promotion of theocracy, rather than separation of church and state; and is wrong in its planned strategy to obstruct all judicial and executive nominations and therefore to cripple operation of the courts and government agencies.

The Democrats are likely to keep the following Senators–Mark Pryor of Arkansas; Mary Landrieu of Louisiana; Kay Hagan of North Carolina; Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire; Mark Warner of Virginia; and Mark Begich of Alaska.

They have a good chance of defeating Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, with their nominee Alison Lundergan Grimes; win the open Senate seat in Georgia with Michelle Nunn; win the open Senate seat in Iowa with Bruce Braley; win the open Senate seat in Michigan with Gary Peters; and an even chance to win the open West Virginia seat with Natalie Tennant over Republican Shelley Moore Capito.

The only seats seen likely to switch from D to R are: South Dakota and Montana; while the Democrats have a good shot at winning Kentucky and Georgia. With West Virginia possibly going Republican with Capito, and Maine having a chance that Republican Susan Collins loses to Democrat Shanna Bellows, if such happens, it is no gain by the Republicans.

The best prediction is that the Republicans MIGHT gain two seats, falling four states short of the six needed to make Mitch McConnell Majority Leader, with him likely to lose to Grimes in Kentucky, in any case.

The worst case scenario for the Democrats is the loss of South Dakota and Montana; and the loss of West Virginia, therefore meaning a Republican gain of three seats!

And in 2016, with two thirds of the seats being Republicans, the Democrats are sure, in an election where their Democratic Presidential nominee will be heavily favored, to win a large number of additional seats, nearing up to 60 from a possible low of 52 in 2014!

Republican Senators And The Minimum Wage Law

The Republican Party has effectively written off those workers who are paid the minimum wage, not caring about how they are to survive in an economy with the situation stacked against them.

It has been nearly a decade since the minimum wage was raised, and people forget that the minimum wage was never raised during the 1980’s, and so the cost of living is way beyond what the minimum wage should be.

Originally established at 25 cents an hour in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. the minimum wage should now be about $15 an hour based on inflation, but instead is, nationally at $7.25 an hour for nearly a decade, although some states have raised the limit.

The bill that failed to get to a vote in the Senate, due to the filibuster tactic, would have raised the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour in stages until 2016, but NOT one GOP Senator, not even Senator Susan Collins of Maine, or Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, or a few others thought to have some “moderate” tendencies, voted for the rise in the minimum wage.

Many of the minimum wage workers are breadwinners for their families, and the stress of having too little income also affects their physical and mental health, but obviously Republicans and conservatives do not give a damn about those realities!

Today’s minimum wage is 25 percent below what it was in 1968, an absolute atrocity! Putting extra money in the hands of the working poor would make life easier, add to business profits, and would certainly all be put back into the economy, but the Republicans are determined to punish the poor for being poor, and in so doing, harm children and women, even more than men.

If this is not the new “Gilded Age”, what is it, not only for the poor, but for the dwindling middle class?

This is Scrooge at its best!

Paul Ryan Self Destructs Any Chance To Run For President!

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, who this blogger spent a lot of time working to undermine his Vice Presidential candidacy in 2012, and got blasted for it by right wing websites and bloggers, has again shown further evidence of what a terrible choice Mitt Romney made in his Presidential race, in selecting Ryan to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency!

Ryan, who knows nothing about budgets, except that the poor, the elderly, the disabled, veterans, and the young should see cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and other social programs; and there should be no extension of unemployment compensation for desperately unemployed people; and there should be no rise in the minimum wage, now has gone off the “deep end” with his assertion that those who live in the “inner cities” have no sense of the importance of work, and have not worked for generations!

This is a direct and racist assault on African Americans in particular, but also on Hispanics and Latinos, who are a majority of the poor in the urban areas of our nation.

But Ryan acts as if it is only minorities who are poor, and are unemployed, and in some cases, have not worked in a long time. From this statement, one would think that whites are not poor, that they all work, that they all have a heritage of understanding the point of work, and nothing could be further from the truth!

It is a fact, and always has been, that the vast majority of the poor do not live in cities, and are not minorities, although one would think so from a stereotype!

The fact is that there are millions of whites who live in the rural and suburban areas of the nation, and many are them do not work, have no hope of work, and live in depressed conditions often worse than urban slums. Many of these people are living in “Red” states, where Republicans vote to hurt their own constituents, while making it seem as if only minorities do not work, or have no work ethic. They live in Appalachia, the Great Plains, the Rockies, in comparatively sparsely populated areas, as compared to the urban areas on the East and West Coasts.

More whites receive food stamps, and the level of poverty percentage wise is higher in such places as Kentucky, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska.

It is the lack of education; the tendency to have large families which are also dysfunctional; the reality of drugs and alcohol; the refusal of these state governments to give a damn about their white poor, along with minority poor; and the tendency to turn poor whites against poor minorities so that the GOP can keep power in the House and in the state legislatures, which is destroying generation after generation of deprived people of all races!

Only when there is a REAL war on poverty, instead of exploiting the issue based upon race, as Paul Ryan has now done, will we ever be able to guarantee a good future for millions of whites, as well as African Americans and Latinos!

And Paul Ryan, your potential Presidential candidacy is dead in the water, and while you might run, you have forfeited any realistic chance to be President of the United States, but that was clear, anyway, in 2012!

Senator John McCain: Please Be A Profile In Courage And Denounce Sarah Palin Once And For All!

Senator John McCain is an honorable man, who has often showed courage and principle in his life, both when he was in the military, and a prisoner of war, and in his political career.

Senator McCain has been inconsistent at times, but yet comes across, somehow, as basically decent and fair minded, at least most of the time.

It seems impossible to believe that Senator McCain has not had second thoughts on his selection of then Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate in 2008.

How can Senator McCain see what a nightmare Sarah Palin has become, and somehow, remain silent for five long years?

Sarah Palin has contributed absolutely nothing to political discourse, other than to prove how stupid and ill informed she really is! She is an embarrassment to herself, her family, her party, and the nation! It seems hard to imagine that, privately, McCain has not held his head in his hands and moaned: “what hath I wrought!”

But Senator McCain has been a gentleman, refusing to comment on anything Sarah Palin has said or done since 2008, but knowing she has been a total disaster in every way!

It is time for Senator McCain, who is nearing the end of his career, to show guts and courage and denounce the behavior of Sarah Palin to the American people!

If he does that, he will go down as admitting a mistake, and contributing to the total demise of this gold seeker, who will say or do anything to convince gullible people to buy her totally inane books, and watch her moronic cable shows, past and future.

Sarah Palin is as much interested in the American people as it will bring her good fortune, nothing more. She has demonstrated, once again, that she is willing to use the race card against President Obama, and in so doing, divide America ever more, and cause more death threats on a constant basis against our President, a reprehensible act. She refuses to realize that she incites lunatics every time she spews forth her poison and invective!

And think about it, what could Sarah Palin say if John McCain denounced her? IF she chose to criticize him, she would seem totally ungrateful, as it is McCain who has allowed her to bamboozle the American people, and to promote hate and division, instead of unity!

More likely, she would ignore what he said, and attempt to move on in her constant quest for money, saying whatever will convince people to buy her books and watch her shows. But a true denunciation would likely lead to her rapid decline, and the media would stop paying attention, something long overdue!

The Top Political Comedians Of 2013

Most political observers are well aware of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and the Comedy Channel, and find their political humor engaging.

But really, both Stewart and Colbert, and other comedians who do politics, including on Saturday Night Live, have so much material due to the fact that there are people in politics who make total fools of themselves, and seem to have no shame.
https://www.theprogressiveprofessor.com/
Below are listed the author’s top choices for “Political Comedians of the Year 2013”, but in no special order.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R) of Minnesota
Congressman Steve King (R) of Iowa
Congressman Louie Gohmert (R) of Texas
Congressman Steve Stockman (R) of Texas
Congressman Paul Broun (R) of Georgia
Congressman Tom Price (R) of Georgia
Senator Ted Cruz (R) of Texas
Senator Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky
Mayoral contender and former Congressman Anthony Weiner (D) of New York
Mayor and former Congressman Bob Filner (D) of San Diego
Former Governor Sarah Palin (R) of Alaska

Sarah Palin In The US Senate? And We Thought We Were Finally Rid Of Sarah In Politics?

Hard to believe, but Sarah Palin, former Alaska part term Governor and 2008 GOP Vice Presidential nominee (thanks to the poor judgment of John McCain), has announced she is considering running for the US Senate seat of Democrat Mark Begich in 2014.

This, coming on the heels of the possibility of Liz Cheney running for a Senate seat in Wyoming already occupied by a conservative Republican, makes one want to drink, even if one is not a drinker! LOL

At least Liz Cheney has a brain and intelligence, although she is a very mean spirited and an overly aggressive and presumptuous woman, who has ambitions for the Presidency over the long haul, if not immediately!

But Sarah Palin? Is this for real? Or is it simply another way for Sarah to make money, gain publicity, and take advantage of her supporters who are as clueless about everything as much as she is?

This woman, who did not even know what the role of the Vice President was constitutionally, now wishes to grace the Senate, and bring the quality of the Senate, already much lower than it was in the 1960s and 1970s, to a new all time low! Can one imagine her in debate, giving speeches on important issues which she has no knowledge of, and never will? She would make the Senate a circus atmosphere, which is the last thing that the upper body of Congress needs!

The fact that polls indicate her popularity is at an all time low makes one think Palin would not find it easy to defeat primary opposition, let alone Senator Begich.

But this woman needs attention, and to live off her fans, and so she will continue to be an annoyance, and if, by some chance she were to win the Senate seat, you can add Sarah to the 2016 mix of potential Republican Presidential candidates, and this would only add to the circus atmosphere already mentioned by this author just yesterday!

Texas Governor Rick Perry: The “Pro Life” Governor? NO, A Tragedy For Texas!

Texas Governor Rick Perry was a massive embarrassment when he ran for the Republican nomination for President in 2012.

He is the longest serving Governor in America, having succeeded George W. Bush as the executive leader of the Lone Star State at the end of 2000.

He has become infamous for ridiculous, insensitive, and moronic statements, and outrageous actions in office, including suggesting that Texas secede from the Union, as it did in the Civil War.

He has a reputation as a “Pro Life” Governor, but that appellation is a mockery of reality!

This is a man who refuses to accept Medicaid expansion that is fully covered by ObamaCare, and therefore, denies millions of poor Texans, many of them Latinos, any access to health care, and this is out of spite, not wanting to accept federal aid that would cost the state of Texas NOTHING!

Here is a man who has the record for the most death warrants and executions occurring under his regime, and brags about the massive use of the death penalty, setting a record for executions in American history, and having no doubts as to the innocence of any of the people on Death Row, who face death, with the state government resistant to reconsideration of cases, even with new evidence!

Here is a state where any suggestion of background checks or other protections against gun violence are ignored and ridiculed, with any Texan able to carry firearms into public places, including schools, bars, and restaurants, and the gun violence level is one of the worst in the nation!

Here is a man who vetoes a bill passed overwhelmingly by a GOP legislature, mandating equal pay for women, many of whom are single mothers who need to support their children!

And here is a man who wants, with his party, to destroy Planned Parenthood in Texas, and shut down nearly all abortion clinics in a state with 26 million people, and the largest state in area, with the exception of sparsely populated Alaska!

And here is a man who forces State Senator Wendy Davis of Fort Worth, opposed to this legislation, to conduct a filibuster under inhumane conditions, with no food, water, bathroom break, or ability to lean against or sit down over nearly a dozen hours, and her filibuster ended early, but opposition of supporters in the Texas State Senate galleries and halls of the legislature the only way to stop this massive assault on women’s rights, including control of their bodies! And now, Perry is forcing another confrontation, determined to ram through this despicable legislation, and in so doing, lecturing Wendy Davis and showing total disdain and lack of respect for her and Texas women!

This man is an excuse for a human being, and will go down over history as a true tragedy for the Lone Star State, and Wendy Davis or Julian Castro (Mayor of San Antonio), or some other Democrat needs to run against him in 2014, and end the Reign of Rick Perry over the destiny of Texas!

Michele Bachmann To Leave Congress: Goodbye, Good Riddance, And Please No More Public Appearances Once You Leave (Fat Chance)!

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, arguably the most infuriating Republican House member, although there are others who could certainly compete for that honor, has announced she is not going to run for a fifth term in her Congressional district, and everyone should celebrate this news!

Bachmann will go down as one of the most reckless, most irresponsible members of the US House of Representatives in its entire history!

She said stupid, inane things on a regular basis; worked at character assassination of Democrats and progressives; and her husband added to the embarrassment of her public appearances and speeches, both on the floor of the House and off!

She contributed NOTHING positive to American politics, working at dividing Americans, rather than unite them on anything!

She was also an embarrassment to the advancement of women in politics, and her Presidential campaign was a disgrace, that she even thought she was qualified to serve in the Oval Office!

To believe that she is a tax attorney is hard to conceptualize, as he came across as brain dead, having no understanding of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and rejected science totally, and accepting mythology and hearsay as fact!

To believe that this dumb moron was on the Intelligence Committee of the House demonstrates what a mockery the Republican Party has become in the House of Representatives, accomplishing the least legislative action of any Congress in 70 years!

Bachmann claims that she was not worried about losing her seat, even though her margins of victory were smaller each time, and the last round, she won by one percent.

Bachmann also claims that she is not concerned about the investigation of her Presidential campaign funding by the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but an active pursuit of information about likely corruption is in process, and do not be surprised that she could be indicted, and could, in theory, face expulsion from the House if the investigation develops quickly enough over the next 18 months.

It would be fitting for Bachmann to be repudiated and forced out, as she is a a literal nightmare that brought out the ugliest side of the American right wing!

And the Tea Party Movement, of which she was the leading member, is also in trouble, and hopefully, there will be a repudiation of that hateful, backward, movement that promoted selfishness and greed, and condemns people who are not part of the elite upper class white establishment that put us into the Great Recession!

Meanwhile, we have rid ourselves of Florida Congressman Allen West, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, other morons and threats to a stable future in America, so we do have some things, as progressives, to be happy about!