Even in the Dark, All Cats Aren't the Same!

A young friend  recently suggested that the Democrat "fat cats" were digging deeper to (apparently) try to buy the midterm elections, so I decided to look into just who gives and to whom.

The following are from the top 50 largest lobbying donors as of 2014.  

The name in parentheses is the largest single individual  recipient from the group.

AARP - 57% to Republicans (Boehner, R-Oh)

Health Pros/healthcare orgs - 61% to Republicans (Cassidy, R-La)

Insurance Industry - 63% to Republicans (Boehner, R-Oh)

Oil and Gas industry - 85% to Republicans (Coryn, R-Tx)

Big Pharma -57% to Republicans (McConnell, R-Ky)

Electric utilities - 63% to Republicans (Boehner, R-Oh)

Commercial Banking - 69% to Republicans  (Hensarling, R-Tx)

Misc mfg/Distribution - 68% to Republicans (Boehner, R-Oh)

General Contractors - 74% to Republicans (Boehner, R-Oh)

Defense Aerospace - 62% to Republicans (Thornberry, R-Tx)

Automotive - 76% to Republicans (Boehner, R-Oh)

Health Services - 59% to Republicans (McConnell,

R-Ky)

Beer, Wine and Liquor - 56% to Republicans (Boehner, R-Oh)

Food and Beverage - 67% to Republicans-(Boehner, R-Oh)

Mining - 93% to Republicans (Boehner, R-Oh)

Chemical Industry - 73% to Republicans (Boehner, R-oh)

Food Processing /Sales - 68% to Republicans - (Boehner, R-Oh)

Speaker John Boehner is the top Republican beneficiary, getting the most from 11 of these. In fact, Boehner gets the most money of anyone in both parties and both houses of Congress.

 Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is the poster child for 3 to Harry Reid's one.

John Boehner is prime recipient from a slew of the groups with the most money to spend, and takes in far more than any member of congress, however, there is one Senator who is the largest "donee" from 9 smaller groups such as Retail Sales, Accountants, Computers and Tech, Securities/Investment,  and other much smaller groups - Cory Booker!    

The list goes on, but this FACT is crystal clear: Of the top 50 industrial contributors/lobbies  by industry, 36 of them (72%) contribute more to Republicans than Democrats, most of them a lot more. So yes, the fat cats are digging deep, but they are almost 3/4 Republican fat cats. Isn't it interesting what you can show with real data and facts? Good night.  

Ronnie, we Hardly Knew Ye

My bro posted this pic and quote of one of the finest men Hollywood has ever produced: 

Another one of those pesky "acquaintances posted the following: "And he was suffering from Alzheimer's the entire two terms. Yes, Republicans, go ahead and continue to worship the best Republican President since Eisenhower!" I responded as follows:

In the first place, Steve and I lost our dad to Alzheimers, so don't you dare try to "school" either of us on the subject. Secondly even those who worked for him are on record numerous times regarding his behavior and general dullness of mind even in his late 40s (as Jim Garner did), so ____ this is for you!

 "xxxx",  you would have to try hard to be more incorrect. Reagan was SAG president between 1947 and 1959, which means he was only 48 when he left the job! In her press release following "Ronnie's"  death, Nancy Reagan said, "We have lost him at 93 after ten years of suffering with Alzheimer's disease." That means he was diagnosed at 83, six years after leaving the White House. It seems to me that the behavior described by Garner (for whom I admittedly have far higher regard then I ever did for Reagan) is a consistent life pattern. To believe that Reagan had Alzheimer's in  the White House for eight years when his behavior was essentially the same as Garner noted when he was 48, would imply he had Alzheimer's disease for 45 years. Moreover, if you were even remotely correct regarding him suffering in his first term, how morally bankrupt does that make his sycophants to allow him to run again? 

This indecisive, sometimes bewildered behavior was been described by former UN ambassador and national security advisor Jeane Kirkpatrick , thusly, (paraphrasing for clarity....) " Someone would raise an issue and we would sit, waiting for any indication of any kind from President Reagan that he understood or had an opinion."

Pierre Rinfret was an economic advisor to Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and to an extent, Reagan. He was a lifelong Republican and former Gubernatorial candidate in New York. He was asked, prior to Reagan's 1980 campaign, to try to talk some sense into the man regarding his insistence that supply side economics  ("Reagonomics") was a valid model for the nation.

Rinfret obliged and flew to California to meet with Reagan. After several hours, he left and described the meeting thusly, (again paraphrased for brevity, meaning unchanged) "After several hours in which I attempted to convey that Supply side theory simply wouldn't work, I finally asked him why he thought it would. He thumped his chest and said 'because I just know it!'" Rinfret left, unable to shake Reagan from an opinion, only he and several rogue economists held to be true. Rinfret later  told Reagan's handlers,   "Lowering taxes without pain or costs is the ultimate Economic Utopia."

 It should be noted that the carefully constructed image, far brighter than the man, succeeded in bullshitting even many in the media, Carl Rowan stating, "How did we get into this mess? Because the press, during the 1980s committed one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century. The media took a dive, caved in, and did not tell the American people the price they would eventually pay for Reaganomics." In 1988, David Stockman, former Reagan budget director leveled an even more scorching attack along the same economic lines.

Former Reagan Press Secretary Larry Speakes was more  personal. From his vantage points as a Reagan White House insider, Although Speakes had spent nearly six years enhancing the President's image, his own unhedged assessment of the First Couple undid much of that work. Reagan, he writes, was an "inexperienced and sometimes downright disinterested President." Nancy was a back stabber, obsessed to the point of absurdity with guarding her husband's reputation.

It is amazing how little of the real Reagan ever came to light, stage managed as the entire presidency was. Don Regan (former Reagan Chief of Staff, said that he (Reagan) needed marks (on the floor as in a play) and scripts, to portray the great communicator. When he went off script, which he rarely did, he sometimes alluded to events which he portrayed as factual which were in fact, from movie roles of his "b" actor career. 

The events and occurrences of the Reagan years mostly happened around him, not because of him. So go ahead with your hero worship if you must, but be advised the man you think was the "greatest Republican President since Eisenhower", couldn't have carried Ike's lunch box. In truth, the Nixon legacy legislatively far outshines Reagan's!

As a final "proof", allow me to a brief meoment of humor, courtesy of The Onion "According to current Republican National Committee chair, Reince Preeibus, 'When I heard about Eisenhower's presidential accomplishments—holding down the national debt, keeping inflation in check, and fighting for balanced budgets—it hit me that we'd clearly gotten their names mixed up at some point,' Priebus told reporters. 'I couldn't believe we'd been associating terms like 'visionary,' 'principled,' and 'bold' with President Reagan. That wasn't him at all—that was Ike.' "We deeply regret misattributing such a distinguished and patriotic legacy to Mr. Reagan,' Priebus added. 'We really screwed up.'  Following his discovery, Priebus directed RNC staffers to inform top Republicans of the error and explain that it was Eisenhower, not Reagan, who carefully managed the nation's prosperity, warned citizens of the military-industrial complex's growing influence, and led the country with a mix of firm resolve and humble compassion.  (This is from "The Onion" but so spot on I just had to include it!)

At last, even Republicans can see that the emperor was naked all along. To be fair, some of us knew that 34 years ago!   

So Much Ignorance in One so Young

     An acquaintance of my brother, with whom he politically differs, recently wrote the following:

     "Watch it Sarge, a lot of people, including me, think Obama has done a lousy job. Reduced the deficit? Our country is at least 17 trillion in debt. How about border security and foreign affairs! What about the IRS and NSA issues? He's incompetent in my opinion. Do you remember what the gasoline price was when he took office? $1.86 a gallon. What happened? Obama has taken more vacations and played more golf (on the taxpayers money) than all the other Presidents combined! He's a joke!"

     Sometimes it's better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open one's mouth and prove it.  Let's deconstruct this puerile rant and do something different: state facts, not biased junk e-mail mythology.

1. Reduced the deficit? First, the writer seems not to understand the difference between deficit and national debt. The first year in office, President Obama was working with Bush 43's budget, passed by Congress, and not in any fashion related to him or his policies. The deficit that year was 9.9%. Why am I not outraged? It's simple, the economy had tanked in 2008-09 and God himself could not have paid the bills without deficit. While it is true that the massive TARP spending was under Bush's watch, blaming him would, from my standpoint, be just as ludicrous as blaming, him for bad weather. Now, as to the current deficit (not the debt, stupid, that's total amount owed, not the annual shortfall): For fiscal year 2013, the last complete year the deficit was 4.1% (for the math challenged, that's less than half of the bush budget for 2009) a decrease from the previous year of 37%.  This is the first sub-$1 trillion and sub-5 percent of GDP deficit since the 2008 fiscal year, which ended the very month that Lehman Brothers fell and a deep crisis set in. So, the deficit is markedly lower, not higher.

2.  Border security and Foreign affairs? Taking the first (question, allegation, noun??) "foreign affairs."  For the record, President Obama hasn't attacked Gaza, shot down a plane, participated in terrorism or attacked an embassy, so I'm left to guess what the hell you mean. I'm going to pick one at random....Benghazi?  leaving all the posturing of the right aside for a moment, just know this: the late ambassador was offered additional security not once , but twice, by General Carter Ham, Commander of US Africa Command, in the weeks just prior to the attack on the embassy. He rejected the offers. He wasn't ordered to, he just did. You will hear all sorts of allegations leveled at then SecState Clinton because of the likelihood of her candidacy.  Nowhere in all the public witch trial did you hear the administration blame the ambassador for refusing more security. Why? Because as Clinton stated and was beat up for it, "what does it matter now?"

2a. Border security. My blog of two days ago has several pages on this, but the short version is that the current flood of illegal attempts is unique because it is children and that they are not principally Mexican. The facts: prior to the Clinton administration attempts to enter illegally, if the person was apprehended at the border, resulted in a pat on the butt and a turn around. This resulted in numerous repeat offenders, many of whom tried until they succeeded. Clinton ordered the current process of apprehending, processing and returning without possibility of ever obtaining legal citizenship. Yes it takes longer, yes it is currently straining the system, but what has slipped through the huge cracks in the truth, is the fact that more than twice as many were apprehended during the Reagan years (on average) and allowed to return, than are being apprehended today and being processed for deportation. Additionally, the number of illegals added to the population annually is also about half of the Reagan numbers. Suck it, Rick Perry.  

3. The IRS and NSA. off the bat, Congress knew - both houses have intelligence committees, so the NSA thing, which of course arose out of Homeland Security, remember, 9/11/2001. These are Bush initiatives. Of course, I know, you think the Pres. leaked it!  As regards the IRS, no one has yet even suggested the Obama White House "sic'd" the IRS on anyone, unlike in 1972 when Richard Nixon is on tape telling H.R. Haldeman to use the IRS to harass persons on his enemies list. The director of the IRS has wide scope in who is audited, but... no smoking calculator here!

4. "He's incompetent in my opinion"... noted, but considering how wrong you've been so far, what is your opinion worth?

      

5. The price of gasoline: Out of the gate - the President has zero to do with the price of gasoline in a free market economy; not a little, not a smidgen - zero! It frightens me for the future of the republic that any high school graduate could even think otherwise. Just because you're so easy, I'll play show and tell. in July 2008 (remember who was president?)  gasoline nationally averaged $4.10 per gallon. In fact, (remember "facts?") the price of regular gasoline was above the $3.00 mark from April 2006, to November 2008. When Barack Obama was inaugurated, the price of gas, nationwide was just over $2.50 per gallon. You have a poor memory. Because I like you, and I think you have potential, I'm gonna school ya on gas. Out of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline selling at  $3.27 per gallon,  18.4 cents is federal tax, and that number is unchanged since 1996! State taxes are another matter, and fluctuate by about 50 cents per gallon. So stop blaming the President.... stop it!

6.  Obama has played more golf than any president in history

This isn't even close to being true. Now, there's no question that he plays on a regular basis: 104 rounds from January 2009 through Aug. 4 of this year, the last time he played, according to Mark Knoller, the longtime White House correspondent for CBS Radio. That puts him about in the middle when compared with other duffers-in-chief. It's less than Bill Clinton, and a lot less than Dwight Eisenhower, who played more than 800 rounds over eight years — four times as often as Obama plays. Woodrow Wilson played 1200 times  and there was a war going on! And why is it an outrage if the president, who heads one of three branches of government, golfs 104 times in three-and-a-half-years, but the head of another branch of government, the Speaker of the House, plays four times as much? You heard correctly: John Boehner once told Golf Digest that he plays upwards of 100 rounds a year. Seems like a double standard, no? Not only does Boehner play more, he has a complimentary membership at Burning Tree, a good old boys club where he and lobbyists can escape the pressure of, oh you know, being honest and open? Of course this multi thousand dollar perk is paid for by the RNC! Think he'd let ya caddy for him?

7. Vacations: You allege that President Obama has taken  too much vacation time. I assume you believe he takes more than most recent Presidents?  This isn't even remotely accurate either, but first, some context from Nancy Reagan: "Presidents don't get vacations — they just get a change of scenery. The job goes with you." The responsibilities, the pressure, the officer with the "nuclear football" — it's all with a commander-in-chief at all times. No exceptions.

But how much time away from the White House has President Obama spent, and how does this compare with predecessors?

POTUS Tracker, compiled by The Washington Post, shows that from January 2009 to October 31, 2012, Obama spent all or part of 72 vacation days in a variety of places, mostly Hawaii in the winter and Martha's Vineyard in the summer. That's about 10 weeks away in three-and-a-half years, hardly extravagant. Through May 18, according to data from CBS's Knoller, he also visited Camp David 22 times, spending all of part of 54 days there.

But what about their predecessors:  In 1798, President John Adams left the capital for seven months to care for his ailing wife Abigail; his enemies said he practically relinquished his office.   Thomas Jefferson and James Madison routinely went away for three- and four-month stretches.  Abraham Lincoln, during the Civil War, was blasted for spending about 25 percent of his time away from the White House.

 In this century,   Dwight Eisenhower took long summer breaks in Denver and spent almost every single weekend at Camp David.  John F. Kennedy rarely spent a weekend in the White House, staying at family homes in Palm Beach, Hyannis Port, and the Virginia countryside.   Lyndon Johnson spent 484 days in five and a half years at his Texas ranch.  Ronald Reagan was away for 436 days, usually at Rancho del Cielo (his mountaintop retreat in California) or Camp David.  Bill Clinton, who didn't own a vacation home, loved to party with his elite friends in Martha's Vineyard and the Hamptons.  

     George W. Bush spent 32 months at his ranch (490 days) or Camp David (487 days) — an average of four months away every year.  Make sure you get that - Dubya vacationed 1/3 of his time in the job.  The truth is, time off doesn't mean goofing off. President Bush, for example, met with a variety of foreign leaders at his ranch. President Obama held a G-8 summit at Camp David. Modern Presidents never really unplug. But if anyone deserves a vacation, it is the person who serves in the world's most stressful and demanding job.

So. let's recap. How did you do? Well, Sparky, (and don't call me "Sarge", because I'm a master Chief petty Officer") if I were mean spirited, I'd say that  you don't know shit. But since I'm a nice person deep inside (very deep) suffice it to say that there seem to be gaps in your knowledge. Big wide gaps, which appear to have been filled with spam e-mails, Faux News drivel and hatred. It makes me sad.     

"I Ain't got Time to Play Fair!"

     A friend recently posted to Facebook some remarks critical of Jesse Ventura in the wake of a recent civil court decision in which he was awarded $1.8 million as compensation for lost income due to what amounts to libel. This seems to stem from the writer's idol worship of the recently deceased libelor, Christopher Kyle, author of the bestselling book, American Sniper. 

     Allow me to assure you, I have thought of Jesse ("the body" -his 'rasslin' name) Ventura as mainly an interesting speed bump in the political parking lot. He has always projected a larger than life, outspoken persona. Even when overshadowed by Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator and portraying a mortally wounded hero, his "I ain't got time to bleed" is a classic line.

    As a politician his four years as Minnesota governor were far superior to many.  Ventura entered politics as Mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, at 77,000 +, the sixth largest city in the state, from 1991 to 1995. He was the successful mayor of a city more than ten times the size of Wasilla, Alaska, home of Faux News calendar girl, Sarah Palin.  He ran, four years after his mayoral term ended,  in the Minnesota gubernatorial election of 1998, running a low-budget campaign centered on grassroots events and unusual ads that urged citizens not to "vote for politics as usual". Ventura's campaign was successful, with him narrowly and unexpectedly defeating both the Democratic and Republican candidates. Ventura is the highest elected official to ever win an election on a Reform Party ticket.

     As governor, Ventura oversaw reforms of Minnesota's property tax as well as the state's first sales tax rebate. Other initiatives taken under Ventura included construction of the METRO Blue Line light rail in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, and cuts in income taxes.

     Ventura left office in 2003, deciding not to run for re-election and  became a visiting fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 2004. He has since also hosted a number of television shows and has written several political books. Ventura remains politically active and currently hosts a show on Ora TV called Off the Grid.   

     So who cares? I do; because while both men , as members of UDT/Seal teams served honorably, only Kyle felt the need to slander a colleague for alleged incidents which , a jury agreed, never happened. The fact that Chris Kyle was capable of killing people over very long distances doesn't entitle him to destroy the reputation of another for money and/or book sales. I get that there are some Americans, usually those who haven't deployed in the military, who idolize those who have.  In any case, the soldier, sailor, airman  or marine is doing his job as assigned. In Kyle's case, this entailed the ability to kill people in a nice sanitary manner from a great distance, (in one case 2,100 yards). At 2100 yards, no one is shooting back. Kyle's proven slander of Jesse Ventura violates the spirit of UDT/Seal culture, in any case.

     What is worse, is that Kyle's allegations, barely noted in most media at the time, were flaunted publically by Faux News, the whore of all airwaves, in a typical ratings ploy. Why, you ask, would Faux News do this? Could it have to do with Ventura/Faux conflicts having nothing to do with the current issue? You bet it does.  Could it have to do with Ventura's outspoken criticism of the Bush '43 presidency?  You bet it does. When you run Faux News and your cousin "W"  is (was) President, as is the case with (Fox CEO) Roger Ailes, you just might kick honesty and objectivity to the curb and leave it there,

    For years, Ventura and various Faux "newspersons"  have gone head to head on various topics. In very few of these cases, by the way, am I and Ventura in agreement.  The problem for me is, that even if I disagree with Ventura's personal viewpoint in some area, that shouldn't result in me (or Faux News) marshalling all available resources to portray him in such a negative way based on slanderous statements by a third party as to cause him a loss of reputation and/or income. Faux hosted Kyle several times prior to his death on the subject of the civil suit filed against him (and later, his estate) by Ventura. As with most Faux events, these were carefully stage managed to make Kyle appear almost Christ-like with Ventura cast as Judas. Understand, this was the trained killer being given favored moral support by a major "news" outlet in what was, at best, a case of "he said-he said."  

     The verdict is in, Ventura has been awarded $1.8 million, which is just about how much income he has lost in the wake of Kyle's libel. Now Faux is appalled at the result of the furor they helped hype, even to the point of one talking head (or whatever part of his anatomy he discourses with) saying that "If Ventura was a real man, he'd refuse the money from Kyle's estate."   

    Like him, or don't like him, Jesse Ventura was entitled to sue for Chris Kyle's libelous statements. He was entitled to a fair hearing in court without being tried both before and after the case by a phony news outlet with an axe to grind.  Just because people like Christopher Kyle are the subject of one's private midnight fantasies shouldn't mean that logic, reason and critical thinking are thrown out the window.   

Immigration for Dummies, Part Deux

     Saw these numbers, had to pass them along. Don Imus's  20 year younger trophy wife,  Dierdre, a Faux News contributor, was engaging in Faux's favorite sport, lying about the Obama Administration.

      Invoking the name of Saint Ronald Reagan, she alleged that the current border spate of "illegals" couldn't/wouldn't/ didn't  happen on the "Gipper's" watch. So what do you think? Was she right? We all "know" (if we believe Faux News) everything bad is worse under the current President than any Republican administration, don't we?

     Specifically, Mrs. Imus stated on her hubby's (formerly funny and now practically unlistenable) radio show, "What has happened under President (Barack) Obama, is people thinking they can come here, especially unaccompanied minors, thinking they are getting amnesty."  Of course, such a statement has all the Faux talking heads nodding in agreement, but there is a problem. Not only is Mrs. Imus incorrect, she is incorrect by a huge amount. I will say this, when she is wrong, she stands by her falsehood.

     The actual exchange between Dierdre Imus and Lis Wiehl, believe it or not also a Faux News business analyst, but apparently one with a conscience, went like this: after Imus' initial  statement, quoted above, , Ms. Wiehl stated that this had been going on a long time and in fact, it was no different under Reagan. Imus was nonplussed.

Imus: "They were not pouring in like that, Lis. Are you really going to say that?"

Wiehl: "Yes, they were. They were pouring in. Yes, they were." 

Imus: "No, they weren’t. No, they were not."     

     Well, were they? What is the truth (a murky construct at Faux) of the matter?  Never fear, that's why I'm here. There are two ways to evaluate the number of illegals entering the country, the first is by the number apprehended by the U.S. border patrol each year, the second by the increase in illegal population each year. Apprehensions is the more realistic tool for evaluation, because many illegals aren't eager participants in the census process, even when reassured that it won't result in deportation.  

     Considering data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, we see some rather interesting numbers. In 1986, halfway through Reagan's second term, 1,615, 844 illegals were apprehended and returned, the highest in his eight years in office. During Reagan's eight years, the annual average of apprehensions was 1,056,500.  

During the Obama years to date, the worst year wasn't even this year or last year, but in 2009, his first year in office, during which there were 540,856 apprehensions, just over half of the Reagan highest!

     "But, Mike," you say, "Surely the population increase figures will set this straight and prove Saint Ronnie was tougher on illegals, won't they?"  

      It’s worth noting that apprehensions include everyone who is caught in the United States illegally. This would include the unaccompanied minors who have stirred such concern recently. We know the number of these young people has been rising rapidly and the data in this table only run through 2013. So it is probably  fair to ask if the exponential growth among children would be enough to change the results of this comparison if we had a complete count for 2014. The answer is, probably not.  In 2013, unaccompanied children represented about 6 percent of the total. While they might be the focus of the current debate, even if they continue to grow dramatically, they have a limited impact on the overall numbers.

     There is another issue. There has been a paradigm shift in how attempts to enter illegally are handled since the Reagan/Bush years (1980 -1992), according to Susan Martin, a migration policy expert at Georgetown University, who emphasizes that border patrol tactics changed between the 1980s and today. "The basic strategy in the 1980s, and before, was to apprehend and then return people immediately back to Mexico," Martin said. "A substantial number attempted re-entry until they were successful. It was, in effect, a revolving door. Beginning in the Clinton administration, the strategy shifted to deterrence." Let me reemphasize: it was a Democrat, Bill Clinton who forced a change in policy resulting  in more permanent deportations,

     For a while, that deterrence strategy, which included fingerprinting and a hardened border, tended to push the numbers down as persons apprehended were on record and banned from immigration, legal or otherwise.

Simply put, there were far more apprehensions during the Reagan administration than during the Obama administration, even though efforts are much more stringent now than then.

     The other, previously mentioned method for estimating the scale and numbers of persons illegally entering the U.S. is by   estimating the undocumented population. Measuring the number of undocumented people during most of the Reagan years is difficult. Before 1986, the Census Bureau made no allowance for people who were in the country without authorization. The bureau’s best estimate was that starting in 1980, about 200,000 undocumented people entered the country each year.

     In 1986, the Census Bureau began tracking these numbers, by much more significant than survey methods, in 1986 President Reagan signed  a major immigration reform law that offered amnesty to people who had been in the country continuously since 1982. In short order, more than 1.5 million people applied for and gained legal status.

    Jeffrey Passel is a senior demographer with the Pew Research Center and a leading authority on immigration statistics. Allowing for the people who changed their status, Passel finds "a net increase of about 1.6 million" during the Reagan years. To put that in annual terms, while the flow might have gone up and down, the average rate of 200,000 per year held true throughout Reagan’s administration.

    For Obama however, , Passel said the numbers are "far less than under Reagan." (this, of course in spite of the oft criticized "Dream Act!!) Passel said there was a net increase of 370,000 undocumented people and the average annual change was 120,000 from 2009-12. Not only that, but data from the Department of Homeland Security show an actual decline. The estimated undocumented population in 2010 was 11.6 million. For 2011, it was 11.5 million, and in 2012, it was 11.4 million.

By definition, estimating is not an exact science and so Homeland Security summarized the trend as "little to no change."

    So what does it all mean? For starters, it means that Republican pundits and fellow dittoheads are willing to ascribe almost anything they dislike to the Obama Administration. Truth is always the first casualty in such an instance. Mrs Imus' outraged rant turns out to be much like Karl Rove's 2012 election night meltdown, a tantrum caused by an unpleasant, one might even say, "inconvenient " truth.    

Generalities and other lies:

               Does BP really stand for Bullshit                    Propaganda?

   

     British Petroleum is currently running a series of ads trumpeting the "fact" that oil and gas from Alaska creates jobs all over America. This would seem to be part of their continued efforts to atone for the Gulf Deepwater Horizon disaster of years past. A significant part of the commercial is the  shot of a ship being constructed, from  CAD drawing to the completed hull in a slipway. The obvious message here is that BP is good for American shipbuilders. That is a blatant lie. All of (every last one of!!!) BP's tanker fleet, oil, gas, lubricants, KY jelly, you name it, is/was built and overhauled by either Japanese or, increasingly, Korean shipyards! Topping it all off, the port of registry on essentially the whole fleet is Douglas, Isle of Man, which with its semi-autonomous economy, means that even Great Britain doesn't realize much if any income  (port fees, registry fees, etc) from the fleet.

                      Skeletor Scott and the Blame Game 

    Florida governor Rick Scott's campaign is running a series of scurrilous ads citing economic numbers aimed at making it appear that former governor Charlie Crist was personally responsible for significant drops in state revenues and jobs while he served from 2007 to 2011. Of course this is phrased as "Charlie Crist 'lost'  X number of jobs, whole Rick Scott 'created' X number of jobs." Is anyone interested in the facts?  well, you won't get them from Scott, so here they are. It should be noted that I am not a huge Crist fan, but I hate liars.  

     Governor Crist  took office at the same time as the Former governor's brother, George W. Bush was leaving - a time of national recession, triggered, in part, by a nationwide housing bubble collapse, which in turn spread throughout the banking world, introducing us to the term "too big to fail."  the problem in Florida to a large extent is that the state's economic structural house of cards , a slave to sales tax and high real estate fees, suffered disproportionately,   causing many home buyers who had been encouraged by reckless lending practices to buy homes they couldn't afford with payments they couldn't make if unemployed.  This perfect storm triggered a shortfall in tourism, again disproportionately affecting Florida.

    The next paragraphs cite data from the Graph below

     Ignoring national trends, and focusing on Florida, Governor Crist faced a drop in state revenues , symptomatic of job losses and decreased tourism, domestic and international, of from $150 billion in 2007, the last year of the Jeb Bush administration,  to $125 billion in 2008, to $95 billion in 2009, which just happens to be the data set the Scott campaign is using, as it was the low point. Summarizing, Charlie Crist inherited a 40% drop in state revenues. did this require state budget cuts? Of course. Was it Governor Crists's fault, and could he have avoided it? Hardly, with a Republican controlled state House and Senate. are those Republican lawmakers taking any responsibility? Of course not, nor should they.  

     According to Scott, he has "created" some hundred thousands of jobs and we are to ignore the fact that the decrease in  unemployment reflects an upswing in the national economy and huge jump in tourism spurring hiring in Florida's booming "attractions" economy. The current year's direct revenue is almost exactly the same as the year Crist left office, numbers, by the way, which Scott won't cite, since jobs and revenues had gradually improved from the 2008 nadir. What Scott also won't point out  is the revenue drop in the two years after he took office. Much of Scott's job creation has come at a price - the loss of corporate tax revenue, as he rewards his, already rich,  social peers with even more tax breaks and incentives. We now have a Governor (who narrowly escaped conviction for massive Medicare fraud by "taking the fifth" numerous times in his trial regarding billions in  fraudulent  billing) who is trying to convince us he's honest and trustworthy, while he signs gas pipeline authorization for a company in which his "blind" (wanna bet?) trust holds large interest!    

     As an afterthought, while Crist and the legislature were dealing with the 40% decrease in revenues in 2009, State Medicaid spending zoomed up by 7.4%, reflecting the loss of health care insurance accompanying job losses. By the way, an examination of national unemployment trends over the same span (2007-2014) shows that Florida has mirrored the nation almost exactly. In simplest terms, Rick Scott has done nothing more than would have happened if he had done nothing! 

     Meanwhile Scott has said nothing of the Republican controlled legislatures (all 4 years of Crist's term) who submitted the budgets which Crist approved! Blaming Crist for education cuts necessitated by this double whammy is, like Rick Scott's campaign ads and the man himself, specious, devious and mean spirited.      

An Uncomfortable (for some) Truth

A quick quiz: Note, the information herein comes from multiple unimpeachable sources, I have simply collated and tried to hide the surprise to the end.

Who was a professed friend of the brutal Hatian dictator , Jean-Claude Duvalier, visiting them in person in 1981 and praised the Duvaliers and their regime as “friends” of the poor, their testimony on Duvalier's  behalf shown on state-owned television for weeks?  who also lauded the  Nicaraguan Contras and brutal Albanian Communist dictator,  Enver Hoxha?  Who was a beneficiary  of convicted S &L fraudster Charles Keating's efforts to cleanse his soul, having received $1.25 million in donations , refusing to return any of it, even when it was pointed out that it had been looted?

Who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize, prompting many realists to note that,  " Few people had the poor taste to ask what (they)  had ever done, or even claimed to do, for the cause of peace”?

Any ideas?

Who campaigned in Ireland " “Let us promise Our Lady who loves Ireland so much that we will never allow in this country a single abortion. And no contraceptives, ” and  also campaigned in Ireland to oppose the successful 1995 referendum to legalize divorce in that predominantly Catholic country ?

Who routinely squirreled away multi-millions in donations in Swiss bank accounts  and rebuffed all efforts ever over 25 years to audit these mega-millions ?

The  free clinics provided care that was at best rudimentary and haphazard and at worst unsanitary and dangerous, despite the enormous amounts of donations  received. Multiple volunteers at these  clinics,  have testified to the inadequate care provided to the dying. Despite routinely receiving millions of dollars in donations, the clinics were kept  barren and austere, lacking all but the most rudimentary and haphazard care.

Volunteers such as Briton Mary Loudon, and Western doctors such as Robin Fox of the Lancet, wrote with shock of what they found.  No tests were performed to determine the patients’ ailments. No modern medical equipment was available. Even people dying of cancer, suffering terrible agony, were given no painkillers other than aspirin. Needles were simply rinsed and reused, without proper sterilization. No one was ever sent to the hospital, even people in clear need of emergency surgery or other treatment.

Again, it is important to note that these conditions were not the unavoidable result of triage. Their  organization routinely received multimillion-dollar donations which were squirreled away in bank accounts, while volunteers were told to beg donors for more money and plead extreme poverty and desperate need. The huge amount of money  received could easily have built half a dozen fully equipped modern hospitals and clinics, but was never used for that purpose. No, this negligent and rudimentary care was deliberate – about which, see the next point. However, despite their praise for poverty, our subject  hypocritically sought out the most advanced care possible in the Western world when  personally in need of it.

Got an idea yet?

Despite the widespread perception that  the object was  to relieve the suffering of the poor, the truth was anything but, they  actually considered suffering to be beneficial. This is why  clinics were so rudimentary – not so that sick people could be cured, but so they could get closer to God through their suffering. As one critic said, “(they) were thoroughly saturated with a primitive fundamentalist religious worldview that sees pain, hardship, and suffering as ennobling experiences and a beautiful expression of affiliation with Jesus Christ and his ordeal on the cross.”

But, of course, suffering like Christ was of no benefit if the sufferer did not actually accept Christ. To this end,   clinics were run as conversion factories.  Ex-volunteers have testified that they  followers were taught to secretly baptize the dying – people who could not resist, or were not aware of what was happening to them – without their consent. As ex-volunteer Susan Shields wrote, “Material aid was a means of reaching their souls, … Secrecy was important so that it would not come to be known that (their) helpers  were baptizing Hindus and Muslims”.

By now many readers have already tumbled to the fact that the subject is one of the great frauds of the 20th century, Mother Teresa.