Score One For The Gipper - Death To America

Score One For The Gipper - Death To America

Well finally, I say. America's greatest president is getting the recognition he deserves! On this President's day we get to see who America sees as the greatest president of all time...

Americans Say Reagan Is the Greatest U.S. President
Lincoln and Clinton next on the list; Washington fifth
by Frank Newport

PRINCETON, NJ -- Ahead of Presidents Day 2011, Americans are most likely to say Ronald Reagan was the nation's greatest president -- slightly ahead of Abraham Lincoln and Bill Clinton. Reagan, Lincoln, or John F. Kennedy has been at the top of this "greatest president" list each time this question has been asked in eight surveys over the last 12 years.

Presidents Day, celebrated on the third Monday of February each year, officially commemorates the Feb. 22 birthday of George Washington. The country's first president is not regarded by Americans as the nation's greatest president, however. Gallup's Feb. 2-5 update shows that Washington comes in fifth on the list, behind Reagan, Lincoln, Clinton, and Kennedy.

In the eight times Gallup has asked this same "greatest president" question over the last 12 years, one of three presidents -- Lincoln, Reagan, and Kennedy -- has topped the list each time. Reagan was the top vote getter in 2001, 2005, and now 2011. Lincoln won in 1999, in two 2003 surveys, and in 2007. Kennedy was on top in 2000, and tied with Lincoln in November 2003.

Americans as a group have a propensity to mention recent presidents, not surprising given that the average American constantly hears about and from presidents in office during their lifetime, and comparatively little about historical presidents long dead. Four of the five most recent presidents are in the top 10 greatest presidents list this year -- Obama, George W. Bush, Clinton, and Reagan.

Reagan Tops Among Republicans, Clinton Among Democrats

Americans clearly evaluate presidents through partisan lenses -- with Democrats and Republicans each most likely to choose a greatest president within their own party. Republicans name Reagan substantially more than anyone else, followed by Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy, and then George W. Bush. Democrats are most likely to say that Clinton was the greatest U.S. president, followed by Kennedy, Barack Obama, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lincoln. Independents name Lincoln and then Reagan as top choices.


Roosevelt on Top 55 Years Ago

The results of a Gallup poll conducted some 55 years ago show how these rankings can change over time. In 1956, Gallup asked Americans to name the top three greatest presidents. The top vote getter at that time was Franklin Roosevelt, who had died only 11 years previously. Roosevelt was followed by Lincoln, Washington, and Dwight Eisenhower, the incumbent president at the time of that poll.

Implications

Americans' views on the topic of great presidents appear to have coalesced around three presidents: Lincoln, Reagan, and Kennedy. One of these three has been at the top of the list in each of eight surveys conducted since 1999.

This "greatest president" question is open-ended, meaning that respondents are asked to name a president off the top of their head. This type of measurement tends to increase the mention of recent presidents. Democrats, for example, are most likely to name Clinton -- the most recent Democratic president not currently in office -- as greatest. Republicans, in slightly different fashion, tend to skip over the two most recent Republican presidents, the two Bushes, and instead are most likely to choose Reagan.

god bless Americ...... Ah, what the fuck! I mean, really? Reagan? Not this shit again. Though, if anything this is yet another poll that has the results showing that Americans are idiots. Either that or propaganda works and I shouldn't be shocked by any of it.



He had all the faults and none of the virtues of the fascist: malice without frankness; cruelty without courage; pomp without dignity. And if all 285 million of you fools are willing to sit there and let the jerks lie about him to your face, then you deserve him. He really was your kind of man.

It just goes to show you that following him are Lincoln and Clinton. Washington doesn't come in till 5th? Ha! Ah yes, Obama and Clinto, clearly superior to Roosevelt to our dear friends the Liberal. Everyone knows that the last good president was Richard Nixon.

What? You think I'm crazy for bringing up that crook yet again? Oh, believe me, I do it every time Reagan is mentioned and for good reason. What makes Nixon a good president? Let's see:

-Saved America's environment by creating the environmental protection agency and clean air act while approving the most sweeping environmental legislation in history.

-Simultaneously reformed welfare and brought in serious new civil-rights laws and agencies for minorities, women, the handicapped and children.

-Proclaimed the first official U.S. Earth Day/Earth Week in 1971

-Totally reformed the government's relationship with Native Americans, bringing new self-determination and civil rights to U.S. tribes while saving such Indian natural wonders as Pyramid Lake - the tribe even renamed its capital "Nixon."

-Was even described as "the Abraham Lincoln of the Indian people."

-Loved those Chinese communists.

-Spent more on social programs than defense.

-Fathered screaming ex-socialist lunatic Mojo Nixon.

See! There you have it, hippies. Nixon was more liberal than Clinton.

In fact, both Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, America's greatest presidents, both were conquered by preening pretty boy morons after their first terms. Nixon was beaten by Kennedy, whose outstanding characteristic was that he was handsome. Carter was beaten by Reagan, whose outstanding characteristic was that people remembered him from the movie pictures.

During the televised debate between Nixon and JFK, Nixon was all sweaty and nervous looking while JFK was pretty smooth and precious looking. JFK was weasely and didn't give a shit about civil rights and was mainly concerned more with being a celebrity than being a political figure.

And then he died. Even if it's true that Nixon was one of the JFK conspirators, I actually hope that's true. JFK was total shit and if he had lived, we'd all see how awful of a president he really was. Oh wait, no. If you morons think Reagan is the best president, JFK getting us into worse problems than the bay of pigs would just cement him as an awesome prez.

So want to see what your dear favorite president was like? How about these:

10 Oct 1965 California gubernatorial candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in the Fresno Bee as saying: "We should declare war on North Vietnam... It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking strips on it, and be home by Christmas."

Damn. Well, I guess that is considered a foreign policy of some kind.

20 Oct 1965 California gubernatorial candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying: "I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at the point of a bayonet, if necessary."

Well, isn't that good that he was for it.....

17 Jun 1966 California gubernatorial candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying: "I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964."

I thought you just said you were for it!??

16 Oct 1967 Ronald Reagan is quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying: "I have a feeling that we are doing better in the (Vietnam) war than the people have been told."

We're doing swell in the jungle, we probably should have just bombed it till it was parking lot, huh?

15 May 1969 Regarding the ongoing student protests at UC Berkeley, California governor Ronald Reagan is quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle as saying: "If there has to be a bloodbath, then let's get it over with."

..... Well then, nothing like shooting our own citizens, even if they are just protesting.

17 May 1976 Ronald Reagan tells Time magazine: "Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal. It was Mussolini's success in Italy, with his government-directed economy, that led the early New Dealers to say 'But Mussolini keeps the trains running on time.'"

And we elected him... How the fuck did that happen?

1979 Ronald Reagan: "The American Petroleum Institute filed suit against the EPA [and] charged that the agency was suppressing a scientific study for fear it might be misinterpreted... The suppressed study reveals that 80 percent of air pollution comes not from chimneys and auto exhaust pipes, but from plants and trees."

Where's the study, EPA? Where's the study!?!?

1980 During an interview with televangelist Jim Bakker on the PTL network, presidential candidate Ronald Reagan predicts that "We may be the generation that sees Armageddon."

Well duh. We have a person who is only half there with his finger on the button. This is like a sports team beating against themselves.

15 Feb 1980 Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in the Burlington Free Press as saying: "All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk." The claim is provably false.

Oh gipper, you so crazy.

14 Apr 1980 Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in Time magazine as saying: "History shows that when the taxes of a nation approach about 20 percent of the people's income, there begins to be a lack of respect for government... When it reaches 25 percent, there comes an increase in lawlessness." The claim is provably false.

Besides, if they do get upset and start up some lawlessness, we could always shoot them protesters. Right?

21 Apr 1980 Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in Newsweek magazine as saying: "Because Vietnam was not a declared war, the veterans are not even eligible for the G.I. Bill of Rights with respect to education or anything." The claim is provably false.

Well then, what a dick! Hey folks, you technically didn't fight a war.. no benefits for you!

10 May 1980 Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in the Chicago Tribune as saying: "Trains are not any more energy efficient than the average automobile, with both getting about 48 passenger miles to the gallon." The claim is provably false.

I loved how he claimed that we should have just bought everyone a limo instead of investing in trains.

10 Sep 1980 Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in Sierra magazine as saying: "Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation. So let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emissions standards from man-made sources." The claim is provably false.

Oct 1980 Ronald Reagan is quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying: "Growing and decaying vegetation in this land are responsible for 93% of the oxides of nitrogen." The claim is provably false.

I mean, this man really hated his vegetables, didn't he?

20 Oct 1980 Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is quoted in Time magazine as saying: "I have flown twice over Mount St. Helens. I'm not a scientist and I don't know the figures, but I have a suspicion that one little mountain out there, in these last several months, has probably released more sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere than has been released in the last ten years of automobile driving or things of that kind." The claim is provably false.

And I guess mountains as well.

24 Oct 1980 During a nationally-televised campaign speech, Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan declares: "Mr. Carter is acting as if he hasn't been in charge for the past three and a half years; as if someone else was responsible for the largest deficit in American history." (Carter's total deficit: $252 billion; Reagan's: $1.4 trillion)

And yet we don't give Carter ANY respect? Hell, Carter put up solar panels on the roof of the white house. Reagan's first move was to say "Mr. Roofer, TEAR DOWN THOSE PANELS!"

6 Mar 1981 Ronald Reagan's second press conference held, in which names of reporters are drawn out of a jellybean jar. Those not chosen (including Associated Press and two of the Big Three TV networks) mostly boycott the conference in disgust.

The man sure loved his fucking Jellybeans.

23 Nov 1981 After President Reagan vetoes an emergency spending bill which would have prevented a shutdown of the federal government, House Speaker Tip O'Neill tells a reporter: "He knows less about the budget than any president in my lifetime. He can't even carry on a conversation about the budget. It's an absolute and utter disgrace."

Pretty much sums his experience up there.

May 1982 President Ronald Reagan declares: "In England, if a criminal carried a gun, even though he didn't use it, he was tried for first-degree murder and hung if he was found guilty."

7 Mar 1983 President Ronald Reagan tells a group of ultraconservatives that "this country is compelled by scripture and the Lord Jesus Christ to oppose Russia with all military and political means."

How the hell did this man win with the gun nuts in this country? I mean, seriously. Yeah, thank goodness we're not in England. Otherwise we wouldn't have won the revolution if we maintained their laws.

21 Sep 1983 Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, describes his staff's racial diversity to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: "We have every mixture you can have. I have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple. And we have talent." Watt is forced to resign 18 days later over these comments.

The cripple he was referring to was Reagan.

31 Jan 1984 President Ronald Reagan tells Good Morning America: "What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice."

Yeah, they sleep their by choice. Mainly because you kicked them out of the mental hospitals and wards by closing them all down.

30 Apr 1984 When a student at Shanghai's University of Fudan asks which life experiences best prepared him for being President of the United States, Ronald Reagan replies: "You'd be surprised how much being a good actor pays off."

Yes, act like you're one of them. Fool them some more.

17 Feb 1987 Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev reveals Reagan's preoccupation with space aliens: "At our meeting in Geneva, the U.S. President said that if the earth faced an invasion by extraterrestials, the United States and the Soviet Union would join forces to repel such an invasion. I shall not dispute the hypothesis, though I think it's early yet to worry about such an intrusion..."

Star Wars program finally explained. Either that or we could blame Lucas for this waste of tax dollars.

May 1987 According to his authorized biography (published in 2000), Reagan wonders aloud about the AIDS pandemic: "Maybe the Lord brought down this plague... [because] illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments." [Dutch, p. 458]

And since the lord brought down this plague, it's every reason for Reagan NOT to do shit about the epidemic

15 Sep 1987 During a luncheon with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnatze in the White House, President Reagan once again wondered what would happen if the Earth were under attack from an external threat: "Don't you think the United States and the Soviet Union would be together?"

Soon after, he brought down the Russian bastards. I guess he figured he could take those alien fuckers out himself.

4 May 1988 During a question-and-answer session in Chicago, President Reagan revisits his 'invaders from space' notion: "I've often wondered, what if all of us in the world discovered that we were threatened by an outer -- a power from outer space, from another planet. Wouldn't we all of a sudden find that we didn't have any differences between us at all, we were all human beings, citizens of the world, and wouldn't we come together to fight that particular threat?"

Reagan really was pretty hardcore about these Aliens, wasn't he? I guess it would give conspiracy theorist something to run with if it wasn't for the fact that Reagan was mentally checked out.

But maybe all this does show that Reagan was clearly a great president whether I agree with his policies or not. I mean, the function of the American president isn't "good policy" or sound thinking, it's the ability to absorb, reflect and materialize the character of the people. To be their representative to the world. And lord knows Americans as a whole are generally fucking stupid.

Over all he made people feel good about themselves, optimistic and free about the shitty times happening around him. The results of polls like this just speak for themselves in terms of the view point of the people.

Maybe it's just that I need to stop giving a fuck about the opinion held by the US-American population. Maybe then I'll be a happier person for it.

Congress Put In Surveyor's Marks

Congress Put in Cross Hair Surveyor's Marks

Well, no doubt you're still recovering from the whole Arizona congress shooting. That was some crazy shit. I mean, woah. Though I have to say there was many things about that incident and the few days after that blow my mind..... okay, that was an awful and uncalled for pun that I didn't realize I did till after my fingers left the keyboard to that last part of the sentence.



Anyway, I would like to point out what CNN was reporting shortly after news broke:

CNN reports that al-Qaeda is not a suspect at the moment.

Way to go CNN. I know I make fun of you for being such a shitty news source, but here you are somehow finding a way to show how you're becoming more worthless every year. How exactly do you achieve that with such ease?

Why not just point out that the local ABC affiliate in Tucson is called KGUN. That should show you how much of a nation of laxed gun regulations we really are.

It would also be worth noting, if you are CNN, that there's a certain bit of irony in a shooting happening outside of a SAFEWAY. And in the event that you are wondering what happened with business the rest of the day you only need to look towards the hard hitting online journalist for that.



You know, when they broke with the back story on the guy, I mean, they gave out his name, Jared Laughner of Arizona, and really that's all the internet needed to spark a massive fire that was digging up every bit of information about him that our modern age of computers allowed possible.

And believe me, they found a lot of shit. It's really a sign of how mighty our modern fake journalist in the blogosphere when they're able to dig up shit long before the media news outlets ever catch of a whiff of this. It's really sort of powerful when you think about it.



Within hours they were able to dig up his Youtube channel You have to admit that you can't say you didn't see it coming in this instance. The kid was a nut job. I'm sure if I ever start ranting about stupid shit, you have my permission to call the cops on me. At least I write a blog on a blog and not on a youtube channel. I mean, who would even vote for that? Get with the times kid, you need to put way more ball punching or kitten videos if you want to be taken seriously on the internets.

Sadly though, his Myspace had been taken down. I'm pretty sure that Rupert Murdoch got his money's worth in that 2 billion spent for that company now that he's able to pull up anyone's name and myspace profile at the drop of the hat and hide them from the world.



His videos really are just some bizarre shit about his dreaming and ability to use mind control. I mean, it's pretty clear that any defense attorney is going to have fun with the insanity card on this one. The punk left all the markings behind to prove that he is literally bat shit insane. Just take a look at the shooter's yearbook photo.



You do have to give this kid credit. He sure knows how to fire a bullet. The thing went in her temple and then went straight out side of her head. That's some marksmanship. Wait, he wasn't trying to do that and was hoping for an instant kill ala a video game? Well then. He just found out that video games lied and not all head shots are instant kills.

But we should stop for a moment to point out that this was some miraculous trajectory going on in the bullet. If only the JFK bullet had been fired by someone with a shitty Youtube channel. Then again, he was hiding out in a book storage place. So in a sense, L. Harvey Ozwald is this guy of the past.



But it shouldn't surprise anyone that the internet is much faster at digging up information on a person than the media. The media has always been slow as hell for shit like this. You can tell whenever there's an earthquake in L.A. It's a good 20 minutes of the news casters just sitting in front of a camera pulling shit out of their asses without any clear idea on what they should be saying and without any official word, that's the best they're going to do.

It's really the only time to ever watch the local news. That is to say that it's comedy in itself to look at news casters just winging it clearly showing how little talent they actually have without the words written on a teleprompter spoon feeding them everything they need to sound educated.

It's always up to the video tech guys to pull this shit out into the spot light. Also something else to take notice of -You would think that this sort of news would spark folks to.. you know, not want to own a gun. The opposite is true in fact..

After a Glock-wielding gunman killed six people at a Tucson shopping center on Jan. 8, Greg Wolff, the owner of two Arizona gun shops, told his manager to get ready for a stampede of new customers.

Wolff was right. Instead of hurting sales, the massacre had the $499 semi-automatic pistols -- popular with police, sport shooters and gangsters -- flying out the doors of his Glockmeister stores in Mesa and Phoenix.

“We’re at double our volume over what we usually do,” Wolff said two days after the shooting spree that also left 14 wounded, including Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who remains in critical condition.

I would have thought that a pistol like that would be more than $499. They're normally more like $900. The funny thing is that they don't have built in safety's. HA! Talk about responsible gun ownership. This is an accidental shooting waiting to happen. But hey, if only the congress woman had a gun, then none of this would have happened.



As for the dude. Worse than being crazy and actually carrying out his plan it looks like he also did this because he hates Jewish people.

THE suspect being held over Saturday's shooting of US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords may have links to anti-Semitic race hate group American Renaissance.

An internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo quoted by FOX News Channel revealed the gunman - named by the media as Jared Loughner, 22 - is "possibly linked" to American Renaissance.+

I just have to wonder why isn't the actually dead federal judge getting any amount of television coverage that the congress woman who is actually still alive and showing progress of potentially coming out of this with a big thumbs up. I mean, the dude did actually die.

To sum up all the strange shit that has happened for those of you who decided to get blitzed out of their mind over the weekend and are just waking up in a pile of your own puke, let's do a run down. A dude shoots a congresswoman and it turns out that he's a schizo ron paul gold freak who probably has Alex Jones on speed dial. At the same time Sarah Palin was forced to take down a website where she had a map of congress people from this past election with cross hairs over each one asking the voters to take them out.



Then the local sheriff holds a press conference where he calls out right wing assholes for promoting violence in the way they have. Siting that their encouragement of shit like "Don't retreat, reload!" really sends out the wrong message.

I mean, how can you really say that? It certainly can't be a fair assessment of the republican extreme right, right? Right........

"I tell people don't kill all the liberals, leave enough around so we can have two on every campus; living fossils, so we will never forget what these people stood for."

--Rush Limbaugh

Let's stop for a moment to take a second look at what Glen Beck has been saying... specifically the strange do as I say and not as I show in the picture on the side bar.



I just.. I'm not even sure what the hell to say. The text reads one thing and yet right there an inch away Beck has that 24 inspired image. What was he thinking? Perhaps something along the lines that he was going to look so tough in that picture with his gun pointed down. Just like in Die Hard. Oh how he has no idea how to hold a gun.

This next part is a bit long but I encourage you to at least skim it. I'm not going to bold any of this. Just read it all. It's a fucking good article.

Crazy Talk
We're too quick to use "mental illness" as an explanation for violence.
By Vaughan Bell
Posted Sunday, Jan. 9, 2011, at 12:52 AM ET

Shortly after Jared Lee Loughner had been identified as the alleged shooter of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, online sleuths turned up pages of rambling text and videos he had created. A wave of amateur diagnoses soon followed, most of which concluded that Loughner was not so much a political extremist as a man suffering from "paranoid schizophrenia."

For many, the investigation will stop there. No need to explore personal motives, out-of-control grievances or distorted political anger. The mere mention of mental illness is explanation enough. This presumed link between psychiatric disorders and violence has become so entrenched in the public consciousness that the entire weight of the medical evidence is unable to shift it. Severe mental illness, on its own, is not an explanation for violence, but don't expect to hear that from the media in the coming weeks.

Seena Fazel is an Oxford University psychiatrist who has led the most extensive scientific studies to date of the links between violence and two of the most serious psychiatric diagnoses—schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, either of which can lead to delusions, hallucinations, or some other loss of contact with reality. Rather than looking at individual cases, or even single studies, Fazel's team analyzed all the scientific findings they could find. As a result, they can say with confidence that psychiatric diagnoses tell us next to nothing about someone's propensity or motive for violence.

A 2009 analysis of nearly 20,000 individuals concluded that increased risk of violence was associated with drug and alcohol problems, regardless of whether the person had schizophrenia. Two similar analyses on bipolar patients showed, along similar lines, that the risk of violent crime is fractionally increased by the illness, while it goes up substantially among those who are dependent on intoxicating substances. In other words, it's likely that some of the people in your local bar are at greater risk of committing murder than your average person with mental illness.

Of course, like the rest of the population, some people with mental illness do become violent, and some may be riskier when they're experiencing delusions and hallucinations. But these infrequent cases do not make "schizophrenia" or "bipolar" a helpful general-purpose explanation for criminal behavior. If that doesn't make sense to you, here's an analogy: Soccer hooligans are much more likely to be violent when they attend a match, but if you tell me that your friend has gone to a soccer match, I'll know nothing about how violent a person he is. Similarly, if you tell me your friend punched someone, the fact that he goes to soccer matches tells me nothing about what caused the confrontation. This puts recent speculation about the Arizona suspect in a distinctly different light: If you found evidence on the Web that Jared Lee Loughner or some other suspected killer was obsessed with soccer or football or hockey and suggested it might be an explanation for his crime, you'd be laughed at. But do the same with "schizophrenia" and people nod in solemn agreement. This is despite the fact that your chance of being murdered by a stranger with schizophrenia is so vanishingly small that a recent study of four Western countries put the figure at one in 14.3 million. To put it in perspective, statistics show you are about three times more likely to be killed by a lightning strike.

The fact that mental illness is so often used to explain violent acts despite the evidence to the contrary almost certainly flows from how such cases are handled in the media. Numerous studies show that crimes by people with psychiatric problems are over-reported, usually with gross inaccuracies that give a false impression of risk. With this constant misrepresentation, it's not surprising that the public sees mental illness as an easy explanation for heartbreaking events. We haven't yet learned all the details of the tragic shooting in Arizona, but I suspect mental illness will be falsely accused many times over.

Like Slate on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.
Vaughan Bell is a clinical and neuropsychologist at the Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia, and King's College London.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2280619/

Now I leave you with a great example on how any group will latch on to any aspect of this

The only certain fact about the motivation of Arizona killer Jared Loughner is that, like the lunatic who opened fire on the Pentagon last March, he is a pothead. Several people who knew Loughner say that he was a serious abuser of the drug and “liked to smoke pot.” What’s more, Loughner had been arrested in 2007 for possessing drug paraphernalia.

The use of marijuana has been linked to mental illness, including psychosis, and increases the kind of paranoia exhibited by Loughner in his writings.

Words escape me. I mean... really? You're going to try to blame this one on weed? I mean.. I don't recall weed having the effect of shooting up local elected officials. In fact, it's the opposite. If you're stone then you're not even going to know who your elected officials are. Shit, unless there's a proposition to legalize pot, they're more than likely not even going to vote anyway.



Yup, pot is not what made this dude attempt to kill a congress woman and shoot up others. That was the crazies. The weed, if anything, was something he should have had more of. Then he'd probably still be at home playing Xbox and posting stupid shit on youtube while visiting those crazy conspiracy internet websites.

I mean, does marijuana-induced psychosis have any credibility as a diagnosis?

Obama, I Don't Know What To Do About You Anymore

Obama, I Don't Know What To Do About You Anymore

By this point I really shouldn't be surprised by how little change and hope Obama has delivered on. I mean yes, he is faced with a lot of hardships and a bill from the last 8 years of fucked up shit Bush has left behind for him, but it's pretty clear that a certain someone really wants to lose in 2012....

Bush Tax-Cut Deal With Jobless Aid Said to Be Near
Published: December 5, 2010

WASHINGTON — White House officials and Congressional Republicans said Sunday they were closing in on a deal to temporarily continue the Bush-era tax cuts at all income levels, while bitterly frustrated Democratic Congressional leaders began exploring whether they would have the votes for such a package.

A day after the Senate rejected President Obama’s preferred tax plan, officials said the broad contours of a compromise were in focus.

Rather than extending the tax rates only on income described by Democrats as middle class — up to $250,000 a year for couples and $200,000 for individuals — the deal would also keep the rates for higher earners, probably for two years. In return, Republicans said they would probably agree to extend jobless aid for the long-term unemployed.]

Senior Democrats on Sunday said that they were resigned to defeat in the highly charged tax debate, and they voiced dismay.

“We’re moving in that direction,” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat said dejectedly when Bob Schieffer, host of “Face the Nation” on CBS, asked him if the 2001 and 2003 tax rates would be extended even for the wealthy. “And we’re only moving there against my judgment,” Mr. Durbin added.

In meetings with administration officials after the Senate votes, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and many other House and Senate Democrats voiced deep unhappiness at the prospect of extending all the tax cuts and also expressed their belief that the White House did not appear to be getting enough for such a big concession, officials said.

That sort of anger raised the likelihood that Republicans would have to generate large numbers of votes to advance any deal in Congress, much as they did to help approve the big financial system bailout at President George W. Bush’s request in 2008.

White House officials, meanwhile, expressed hope of sealing a deal swiftly, perhaps by midweek, and clearing the Congressional calendar for a long list of other priorities that they aim to accomplish by the end of the year, including ratification of the New Start arms treaty with Russia and the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gay service members as part of a wider Pentagon policy bill.

Administration officials said the negotiations were focused on the question of extending the tax rates for one or two years, with a three-year extension highly unlikely, even though that time frame would probably eliminate the tax fight as an urgent issue in the 2012 elections.

Well shit, who the fuck didn't see this ass fucking coming. I'm sorry for the harsh language but I mean, come on. He isn't even trying anymore. Yeah, I guess the silver lining in all this is that they're extending unemployment, so at least there's some positive....

Oh wait, the key word in talks was probably extending unemployment benefits.... That's the same way I'll probably win a million dollars tomorrow and then be able to take advantage of the republican tax cut.

I really worry that if the tax cut and unemployment extension aren't part of one bill, then they'll just take the tax cuts and when it comes time for the vote for the unemployment benefits... hee, yeah, the Dems will be in for a surprise.

Here's what I don't get - You trade in a few weeks of fiscal soundness for years to come of death and uncertainty. When it's time to renew the unemployment benefits we won't have anything to pay for it because we'll still be knees deep in a massive tax cut. It's not difficult to realize that the money needs to come from somewhere.

But hey, at least with these new massive tax cuts, they'll be able to hire more people... right? Right?! Ha, yeah... I'm sure once they get their tax cuts they will just bitch about how there's no money for any of that. Let's not forget that cutting taxes on the rich was found to be the worse method to stimulate the economy.



What a bunch of worthless cowards, they didn't try for one second to spin this against the republicans for holding the unemployment benefits/relief ransom in exchange for the tax cuts to be kept by the wealthy.

For someone who constantly said "We have some hard decisions to make", he sure as fuck finds every possible easy way out of everything without even pretending to think about doing anything remotely close to being unpopular.

The worse aspect of this is that 2% payroll tax. Isn't that going towards Social Security and Medicare? Man, I really think that those social services are in for some serious problems down the line. For a socialist, he sure doesn't like to do anything to help social services.

But back to the 2% payroll tax cut, which is really a 1/6 cut for social security. It really shouldn't go unnoticed in all this. Social security is about a 12% tax on your paycheck, up to a maximum or so. Yeah, it's a flat tax with extra regressive flavor. If you're employed, your employer pays half of that, so both you and the capitalist scum directly oppressing you pay a 6% of your paycheck.



So by cutting the social security tax by 2%, you're hacking out 16% of its income with literally no planning or reasoning or even anything close to a budgetary reason for doing so other than because the republicans said so. This really a big deal when you think that their defense for not doing the unemployment benefits was to not put a hardship on the deficit and not pass the bill to our future generations. But what you're doing by cutting this is making sure that social security doesn't have anything left in it down the line.

I'm sure many of you are already operating on the assumption that you wont ever see a dime of what you're paying into social security, so fuck it, right? You also shouldn't forget that you're also allowing businesses to write off all their capital investments for tax purposes during 2011.



But also this quick band-aid on the problem does nothing to help the issue of who gets coverage on this unemployment benefits. This deal only extends the 99 week window for unemployment. It doesn't actually increase it beyond that initial 99 weeks. So if you were going to run out of unemployment benefits, you're still faced with that harsh reality under this new deal.

Why would you need to be on unemployment for 99 weeks? You know, the time span of two years? Well, you could be an American living in 2010. While there would be people who just label those without a job for two years as bums, there's a harsh reality mixed in there.

The inability to find a job in your field and at an income level equal to or promising to soon be equal to what you were getting on unemployment is a real motivator. You really can't blame people for refusing to get a shit job for a shitty hourly wage when they are well qualified professionals with lots of lie expenses and experience. You shouldn't expect them to take a job at McDonalds that will pay the same, if not a little less than unemployment benefits.

These jobs don't even remotely pay a living wage. It's not even a matter of "not paying the same" factoring into it. Most of these places don't even offer that many hours. And have you've worked retail lately? They'll do anything possible to make sure you don't go over the hours that would require them giving you any sort of benefits.



They want to make sure you're under 34 hours a week so you can avoid ever being a "full-time employee". In much of the rural south and mid-south, Walmart gets away with paying new hires minimum wage and leaving them there until they quit or die. How else do you think you're goods are so cheap? There are literally no other jobs around, so you take it or you starve.

With federal min. being $7.25, after social security and medicare withholding, you will be taking home $428.52 every two weeks... or a grand total of $11k a year. There's really no reason why you should lower yourself to doing this work if unemployment is willing to give you close to that without having to deal with stupid Walmart customers.

Let's not forget, these people already put into the unemployment insurance, you saying they shouldn't take advantage of them is like telling someone who got into a car accident that they shouldn't use the insurance they pay monthly to fix the car.

At least one person isn't laying down as easy as the President. Bernie Sanders is threatening to bust out the filibuster.



I really can't stress how much I want to see Bernie up there holding the floor all day and night like a democrat during the civil rights struggle. Of course, we haven't had a democrat like that for a long time and I find it hard to dig up enough hope to ever see something like that again.

In my view, it is a moral outrage that at a time when this country has a $13.8 trillion national debt, a collapsing middle class and a growing gap between the very rich and everybody else that the Republicans would deny extended unemployment benefits to 2 million workers who are desperately struggling to pay their bills and maintain their dignity. It is also beyond comprehension that the Republicans would hold hostage the entire middle class of this country so that millionaires and billionaires would receive huge tax breaks. In my view, that is not what this country is about and it is not what the American people want to see. Our job is to save the disappearing middle class, not lower taxes for people who are already extraordinarily wealthy and increase the national debt that our children and grandchildren would have to pay.

It's pretty sad when "middle class" is used instead of pointing out that there's people literally starving because of the gap between the rich and those even considered "middle class".

Still, even with this lone spark in an otherwise dark room, I'm all done getting my hopes up for any sort of logic or common sense... or anything but corruption in our government. Maybe a few of you haven't had your heart blackened all the way yet.

I'm sure many of you are thinking that everyone should be in favor of this tax cut. After all, who in America likes to pay taxes? There shouldn't be a reason to give your money to the U.S. Government, am I right, guys?

Only, that's not the point nor is it how money works. I'd much rather have some new roads, maintained pot holes and unemployment for the poor than our capital overlords seeing an extra 9 figure bonus in their paycheck because they re-invested their tax breaks into some untouchable bond.



You know, Nixon was considering the guaranteed minimum income for all Americans. He was seriously the most socialist president we would ever have. Just looking at that Obama clip has me mad. He keeps on talking about all the many campaign promises, how about mentioning the ones he already broken?

Maybe I'm too hard on him. I don't realize how hard it must have been for him to give in to the thieves on the GOP side who would prefer to protect the upper 2% with a bailout instead of delivering $700 billion over ten years to pay for the deficit that the GOP constantly brings up as the reason we can't afford social services.

Did you know that the US treasury lost out on $16 billion from simply 4 people dying during a year with a 0% estate tax? One of those fuckers was Steinbrenner. How about the reminder that last quarter American businesses recorded the highest ever profits since records have been kept. Seven consecutive quarters at some of the highest growth rates in history and yet they can't create jobs without some tax breaks and more subsidies.

Yup, fuck this gay world.

Obama - What Have You've Done For Me Lately?

Obama - What Have You've Done For Me Lately?

The democratic party really needs to fire their PR company. I mean, do you seriously want to highlight the fact that Obama has done things with a "What have you've done for me lately" mentality? You're not even giving those disenfranchised Obama voters the benefit of the doubt that they have an attention span of a gnat

But sure enough, while the tea party has been out there converting the standard sheeple disenfranchised GOP right wingers, the democratic left has created this:

What The Fuck Has Obama Done So Far?

This shit is fucking terrible and it's nothing really to be proud of. Especially if you're a democrat, there's no reason to be proud of your party for coming up with this witty and yet 'In-you-face' promotion to show those republiCANTs that Obama actually has done a lot of shit. But you see, I have a bit of a problem with this whole concept. It just doesn't cover everything.

I kept clicking to see if "Won Nobel Peace Prize and then Bombed the shit out of Pakistan and Yemen" would come up, but no luck on that one so far.

I'm also wondering why "Increased military spending when he suggested he would decrease it" didn't make the list. Though maybe it's just a problem with their random generator as it's a fairly important Obama achievement to not highlight.

How about Issuing an executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay... Whoooops! That one's on the to-do list.

"Ended Bush administration's CIA program of 'enhanced interrogations methods' by requiring that the Army field manual be used as a guide for terrorism interrogations"

How awesome and progressive. So now we're just torturing them under different standards! Oh wait, no. We just started letting the Iraqi and Syrian soldiers torture and do all of the heavy lifting while we turn a blind eye on all that we taught them.

Increased average fuel economy standards from 27.5mpg to 35.5mpg, starting in 2016.. Though by then the newly elected republican President will take the credit for that.

Significantly increasing funding for the Violence Against Women Act. is something that only 51% of the population will care about. But still, it's good none the less.

I'm a little unsure on what "Increased minority access to capital" means though. He did also appoint more openly gay officials than any other president in US history. And in case you're wondering, yes this does include Kagan.

But again, it's only been two fucking years. I like to think that we, as a people, would be a little more patient in how much one man can do in two years to make up for 8 years of total shit getting tossed in the fan. But as we can see from the mid-term elections, the American public is fucking idiots.

Though, I'm not going to be surprised in two years when the republicans are scrapping together their own "What the fuck have the republicans done so far?" in attempt to overlook the fact that two years of back and forth circles with Obama did nothing to help the country. All this hope and change sure hasn't amounted for much.

So the answer to what the fuck has Obama done so far? Not even a fraction of what the American public hoped for in some sort of miracle turn around and in some instances, some seriously fucked up shit - Which I guess just goes to show you that once you become President, you're let inside the circle of knowledge of some seriously fucked up shit that keeps you doing the status quo.

It's A Dead Man's Political Party

It's A Dead Man's Political Party

Who could ask for more? Leave your punched hole card at the election stall. I have to say that this story, it's something else. It's like that episode of twilight zone where the guy made his heirs wear masks, only not really.

Described by family as lively, humorous and politically conservative, Mr. Unsworth's newspaper obituary reflected all those qualities with the following request:

"In lieu of flowers the family respectfully asks that donations be sent to the American Cancer Society, or to the campaign of anybody who is running against President Barack Obama in 2012."

"He was not really a big Obama fan," said his daughter Donna Barnes.

and then some other dead guy did something similar back in July. Clearly these folks are just more victims of Obama's death panels, I hope they get the justice they were seeking for. You have to realize, it's as if the dead have risen up out of their grave an are carrying comically grammatically wrong signs like any other tea bagger.

But I've come to realize that this isn't that uncommon of a thing. Political parties actually get a lot of money from estates. I bet you can guess which one gets more. So in a sense, it's like an estates tax but to one evil organization instead of another (The US Government)

I'm not sure how one of these folks can really do this with a straight face. "When I die, please donate to self-serving rich people." I guess they just want to die the way they lived, scratching the backs of their rich friends on the suffering of the poor. Though, this could be said for just about every charity. "Fuck you, get mine!"

Maybe I should stop complaining and just join them. My lack of money shall be donated to the socialist party USA candidate! God knows they'll need it. Especially when weed is legalized. Once that happens the student socialist clubs and the student libertarian clubs will lose 2/3 of their members.

Like, literally 3/4ths of the self described socialist I've met say they totally support communism but don't think it'll work so they vote libertarian instead. So what I'm trying to say is that when you die, just bury your mass amounts of money with you.

Babies Don't Make For Good Paper Weights....

Babies Don't Make For Good Paper Weights....

But they make for excellent anchors! I'm not sure I have words to describe how shocked I am that "anchor baby" is used in serious political discussion in this country. God damn, it makes me feel ashamed. I mean, really? Anchor baby? ANCHOR BABY? Fuck.

In another 50 years Anchor baby is going to be as worse, it not far worse than Porch Monkey and Tar Baby. Maybe the preferred term is now going to be Swoop and Squat or Drop and leave... how about First and ten?

But sure enough, the republicans hate anyone from the Southern hemisphere according to The Guardian

Republicans move to block US citizenship for children of illegal aliens

Senators plan to halt 'invasion by birth canal' by overturning constitutional guarantee for anyone born on US soil



Senior Republicans have escalated the increasingly bitter fight over immigration with proposals to rewrite the US constitution to block the children of illegal aliens from obtaining citizenship.

In the latest move to inflame the racially tinged issue ahead of November's congressional and state elections, Republican senators say they intend to call hearings on overturning the 14th amendment to the constitution, which grants citizenship to anyone born in the US. Leading Republicans have denounced the provision as outdated, saying it encourages "invasion by birth canal" in which illegal immigrants smuggle themselves into the US to have "anchor babies".

The change is being pushed by the Republican whip in the Senate, John Kyl, and senator Lindsey Graham, who said that "birthright citizenship is a mistake".

"People come here to have babies," said Graham. "They come here to drop a child. It's called drop and leave. To have a child in America, they cross the border, they go to the emergency room, have a child, and that child is automatically an American citizen. That shouldn't be the case. That attracts people here for all the wrong reasons."

Kyl and Graham support changing the 14th amendment to specifically bar the children of illegal immigrants from citizenship.

"If both parents are here illegally, should there be a reward for their illegal behaviour?" said Kyl.The move has been given added momentum by the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, who has thrown his weight behind the proposal for hearings on the issue.

Lamar Smith, the senior Republican on the House of Representatives judiciary committee, has introduced legislation to deny citizenship to children of illegal immigrants. More than 90 members of the House are co-sponsoring the bill.

Advocates of tighter restrictions, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform , estimate that more than 425,000 children are born to illegal aliens in the US each year.

"The funds that state and local governments must provide to anchor babies amounts to a virtual tax on US citizens to subsidise illegal aliens," the group claimed. "The anchor baby problem has grown to such large proportions that the United States can no longer afford to ignore it. The logical first step for correcting the problem is for Congress to adopt legislation clarifying the meaning of the 14th amendment."

The 14th amendment was adopted in 1868 after the civil war to block laws that prevented former slaves from becoming US citizens. Reform must be approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress and ratified by three-quarters of US states or by calling a convention by the states.The Obama administration won a court injunction last week against key parts of Arizona's legislation that requires police to check the immigration status of suspected illegal aliens.

Virginia's Republican leadership has announced that the state police will check the immigration status of anyone they stop. Previously, the Virginia authorities investigated the legal status only of those who were charged with a crime or imprisoned.

Finally we get a solution to all those illegal aliens tossing their illegal babies across the border like they were rag dolls. You see everyone in that picture above? They're all descendants of an illegal immigrant. Their couldn't be a bigger picture of "Fuck you, got mine" than that.

When the contractions started, I told Jose "It's time. Drive me to the border crossing."

If you're not offended to your core, as an America, by the idea of this proposed change in the constitution, just kill yourself now. At least we're just going for the heart of the matter. The republicans want to repeal the 14th amendment, undo black citizenship, reinstate pre-civil war legal system. There is no better way to yell "I'M RACIST!" without actually yelling out thoe exact words.

So what does this bill actually say? Here's the text of the bill:

A BILL

To amend section 301 of the Immigration and Nationality Act to clarify those classes of individuals born in the United States who are nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Birthright Citizenship Act of 2009'.

SEC. 2. CITIZENSHIP AT BIRTH FOR CERTAIN PERSONS BORN IN THE UNITED STATES.

(a) In General- Section 301 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1401) is amended--

(1) by inserting `(a) IN GENERAL- ' before `The following';

(2) by redesignating paragraphs (a) through (h) as paragraphs (1) through (8); and

(3) by adding at the end the following:

`(b) Definition- Acknowledging the right of birthright citizenship established by section 1 of the 14th amendment to the Constitution, a person born in the United States shall be considered `subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States for purposes of subsection (a)(1) if the person is born in the United States of parents, one of whom is--

`(1) a citizen or national of the United States;

`(2) an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States whose residence is in the United States; or

`(3) an alien performing active service in the armed forces (as defined in section 101 of title 10, United States Code).'.

(b) Applicability- The amendment made by subsection (a)(3) shall not be construed to affect the citizenship or nationality status of any person born before the date of the enactment of this Act.

You see, the constitution is a sacred document that is perfect as is. Except for this part. Yeah, this part right here. The rest are cool though. No queers too please. In short we want to protect the Constitution, a Holy Text inspired by Jesus, except the parts that benefit browns.

Just don't touch the 2nd amendment, all right? When it comes to the republican party it's all about the constitution, except for the parts we don't like. We might as well tweak a couple more of the four father's fine work;

Bearing in mind that the 14th Amendment explicitly grants citizenship to anyone born on US soil, we hereby declare and interpret that Amendment as saying that being born on US does not grant citizenship..

Bearing in mind that the 13th Amendment explicitly forbids involuntary servitude, we hereby declare and interpret that Amendment as allowing involuntary servitude.

The whole thing is hilariously ironic because it all started when people pointed out that parents were being separated from their children due to bad policy in an attempt to humanize immigrants, but instead they became even more terrible.

Sure does sound like something Americans would do with full knowledge. Perhaps the only amendment that should ever be repealed is the 22nd so we can re-elect George Walker Bush indefinitely. At least he was good to laugh at.

While our policy is a lot more loose than others, it's still our system. Did you know that you can only be born a German citizen if at least one of your parents has had a permanent residency permit for three years and has been in the country 8 years?

If neither of your parents have citizenship in Denmark, you must wait until you're 18 to apply for one, even if you were born there. You must also pass an error-ridden test that most Danes probably couldn't pass since the majority of high school kids couldn't in a recent survey. Answering such culturally and politically significant questions as "When did Denmark win the European football championship?", "When did Denmark win the wold handball championship?" and "Who directed the 'olsen gang' series of movies?". A true test of citizenship worthiness.

Just a little reminder that Europe is more racist than America... but not by much.

Good luck enforcing the law with any seemingly legitimate authority if The People withdraw their consent to be governed. They're making a mountain out of a molehill with this whole thing.

In order to revoke birthright citizenship, you'd have to amend the Constitution. The chances of the military budget getting gutted, and all US troops being withdrawn back to the Fatherland has a higher chance of happening than this whole thing.

It's just a show to look tough on Mexicans. There's no way it comes close to 3/4 of states ratifying such a thing. And it shouldn't be news to anyone that it wont past, but it's still a goddamn heinous thing to do. Perhaps we should have just annexed Mexico in 1848, problem would have been solved a long time ago.

And if it's any matter to you, here's a list of congressmen who can be put on the black list for when the revolution comes. For they will be the first with their backs against the wall;

http://www.redmassgroup.com/diary/9...hip-act-of-2009

In short, this entire nation is predicated upon this idea. Half of those fucking names on that list are some Scots/Irish/German/Italian bullshit they're forefathers would have been kicked out under this law.

Your June 8th California Primary Voter's Guide

Your June 8th California Primary Voter's Guide

Wait, did you forget that today is a Primary? Oh, don't worry, when I worked the polling booth no one remembered the primaries either. But now that you're informed that today we have a civic duty to vote early and vote often, it's your chance to.. um.. well, um. do something. Yeah, it's a Primary. Those fuckers get like 1/3rd the voter turn out than a normal election. In fact, I'm pretty sure most of my readers are those who would vote no on everything, every election, except weed.

So I'm just going to tell you what to vote for. Don't bother looking any of this shit up or getting informed. Ha! Not like you would anyway. But just vote exactly like this and you should be A-okay and happy with your "I voted" sticker.

Proposition 13, Laws on Property Tax Assessment: It would make it so that if you're getting your building earthquake-proofed, someone from the city/county/state won't stop by as part of the inspections and decide to bump up your property and increase your property tax.

You should vote no on 13 if you want to see asshole landlords gamble on crushing their tenants to death in exchange for a slight lower tax bill.

Proposition 14, Vote for this if you want to fuck up CA's electoral process even more/reinforce the two-party system: Nope.

Proposition 15, California Fair Elections Act: Hell yeah. If only to stick it to lobbyists.

Proposition 16, PG&E's Fuck-you-in-the-ass/Fuck-socialism Prop: Ahahahahaha. No.

Proposition 17, Poor people don't need inexpensive car insurance: Fuck no.

Everything else is only district-wide so if you an independent just vote for whoever looks most commie, if you're green or socialist vote for whoever looks the least crazy, and if you're registered democrat hahahah. yeah...

After I broke up with that one ex girlfriend I don't even acknowledge the Santa Clara area, so I wont post that shit.

I guess if you want ot be ironic you should vote NO, YES, NO, YES, YES... simply to fuck California more than it's already fucked. I mean, why not. it's the comedy option!

As for Meg Whitman... I just want to punch her in the face. I think the most comical thing about the election is all those god damn ads by Meg Whitman and Pozner accusing each other of the exact same thing. Whitman is soft on illegals! Poizner is soft on illegals! Poizner supports amnesty! Whitman supports amnesty! Whitman is too liberal for California! Poizner is too liberal for California.

Given the facts that I'm not registered for that lame party, I don't get to vote for her, now do I? So yeah, go ahead and ignore the fact that today you're suppose to vote on something. Peace!

Six Years Ago Today Ronald Reagan Died

Six Years Ago Today Ronald Reagan Died

CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES, COME ON!


FUCK REAGAN! FUCK THAT DOUCHE! I grew up thinking Ronald Reagan literally held the universal together. He was the first president that I could remember growing up. My god, what a moron I was growing up. When I realized what his stance on the issues was and how he used the time in office I realized how much of a monster he actually was.

The only joy I take in this dark world is knowing that his death was slow and painful and that he spent a decade being reduced to a gibbering mess. A broken shell of a human being trapped in his worthless decaying body. Just imagine Nancy having to witness his decline into mindlessness. But fuck her too. Her war on drugs was the largest advance in institutional racism since Jim Crow.



I will always hate you Ronald Reagan, I'm glad you died. Though ever since his funeral, when people had to pretend to like him, he's been increasingly sanctified and people are ascribing all kinds of nutty heroic shit to him. It's true that Americans think highly of Reagan..

A Gallup poll about presidential greatness, taken February 9–11, 2007, asked 1006 adults in the US, "Who do you regard as the greatest United States president?"[13]

1. Abraham Lincoln (18%)
2. Ronald Reagan (16%)
3. John F. Kennedy (14%)
4. Bill Clinton (13%)
5. Franklin Roosevelt (9%)
6. Other/None/No opinion (8%)
7. George Washington (7%)
8. Harry Truman (3%)
9. George W. Bush (2%)
10. Theodore Roosevelt (2%)
11. Dwight Eisenhower (2%)
12. Thomas Jefferson (2%)
13. Jimmy Carter (2%)
14. Gerald Ford (1%)
15. George H.W. Bush (1%)
16. Richard Nixon (0%)

A Washington College poll about presidential greatness, taken February 11, 2005, asked 800 adults in the US, "Thinking about all the presidents of the United States throughout history to the present, who would you say was America's greatest president?"[14]

1. Abraham Lincoln (20%)
2. Ronald Reagan (15%)
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt (12%)
4. John F. Kennedy (11%)
5. Bill Clinton (10%)
6. Other/Don't Know (9%)
7. George W. Bush (8%)
8. George Washington (6%)
9. Theodore Roosevelt (3%)
10. Dwight Eisenhower (3%)
11. Jimmy Carter (2%)
12. Thomas Jefferson (2%)
13. Richard Nixon (1%)
14. John Adams (<1%)>

If only he was still alive today. People wouldn't be praying for his return. After looking at that poll, I really don't know what the fuck. Yes, the average American is completely ignorant of their own country's history. I mean, I could find out a thing or two about this Reagan guy but on the other hand, if he wasn't great there wouldn't be a bunch of things named after him. So I could probably skip any personal research into the matter and just roll with everyone else in thinking that he was just that awesome of a president.



There's many reasons to hate the Gipper. In a blog recently that I put up about traveling through time, I suggested I would have saved the Gipper from the ol' gun shot that a Jodie Foster stalker inflicted. Truth is, it doesn't matter. Ronald forgot all about that gun shot long before he died anyway. A confused look on his face every morning after a shower and seeing the scar. You want to know other reasons why to hate Reagan?

-He may in fact have been Satan.

-He hated Carl Sagan

-He inadvertently created Gangsta rap.

-He LITERALLY trained Osama Bin Laden how to be a terrorist.

- No one fucked over the African American community post-civil rights as brazenly as Reagan did.

-He criticized Metrorail when it was finished in 1985, saying "It would have been cheaper to buy everyone a limousine."

If you're homeless or ever annoyed with hobos begging for chain, blame Reagan. He slashed the government mental hospital funding and basically created the homeless insane as we know them. With that budget slashing the mental hospitals just let loose the crazy onto the streets.



I get that sometimes parents do that thing sometimes where they call each other "Mother" and "Father" because the kids do, but Nancy called him "Ronnie" and he called her "Mommy".. In hindsight with the fact that he was senile that really makes you think. Then really make you feel icky.

If you ever look back at old interviews of him during his presidency you'll notice that he would wax nostalgic about his life as a young man and tell the press corps about it, but it turned out he was confusing things that happened in movie for things that happened to him but he couldn't tell because he was literally senile and also, at the same time, the MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD!

Just look at some of these interviews he gave to different news reporters;

12/09/82
"Sometimes I look out there at Pennsylvania Avenue and see people bustling along, and it suddenly dawns on me that probably never again can I just say "Hey, I'm going down to the drugstore to look at the magazines,'" - President Reagan discussing his feelings of confinement with a People reporter (see 12/16/82)

12/16/82
"Sometimes I look out the window at Pennsylvania Avenue and wonder what it would be like to be able to just walk down the street to the corner drugstore and look at the magazines. I can't do that anymore." - President Reagan conveying one of his regrets to The Washington Post (see 12/18/82) ... See More

12/18/82
"Sometimes I look out the window at Pennsylvania Avenue and wonder what it would be like to be able to just walk down the street to the corner drugstore and look at the magazines. I can't do that anymore." - President Reagan sharing a sudden thought with a radio interviewer

1/27/84
"You find yourself remembering what it was like when on the spur of the moment you could just yell to your wife that you were going down to the drugstore and get a magazine. You can't do that anymore." - President Reagan telling Time magazine about being President.

The dude just really wanted to buy a magazine, alright. Hasn't he ever heard about magazine subscriptions?



Maybe the biggest thing was the fact that he didn't give a shit about the health of the people. He just let AIDS grow into a disease that millions of people had via neglect and indifference. He has to be blamed to some degree and held responsible for everyone who dies from HIV forever as a result.

He somehow convinced the poor people that taxes helped not them but some other less hard working, browner poor and therefor was given the go ahead to stop those tax cuts. Then he spent more money on uniforms for military marching bands than the national endowment for the arts.

He was a racist who was against the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and making MLK Day a national holiday. He supported apartheid in South Africa and kicked off his 1980 Presidential campaign in a town known for only one thing: The lynching of 3 civil rights workers in the 60's(Philadelphia, Miss.)

The speech was about "State's Rights"



Oh, and I'll tackle the biggest praise that Reagan gets.. the taking down of the USSR and the end of the cold war. Such utter bullshit. Reagan taking down the USSR is the equivalent of me going to a building schedule for demolition and yelling at it to give up. USSR was done. Communism didn't work. Sadly, we're just realizing in this last big recession that neither does Capitalism.

Then on top of all that the fucker cut every government program he could and somehow doubled the national debt. Yes, my friends.. this was REAGANOMICS! It was probably around this time that he closed all the mental institutions, but I'm sure I already said that because it needs to be said again. You know, this is why those mentally affected person are homeless and on the streets, and mistreated by the youth and most of all, themselves.



How about some more choice quotes from the man;

"Sometimes when I'm faced with an atheist, I am tempted to invite him to the greatest gourmet dinner that one could ever serve, and when we have finished eating that magnificent dinner, to ask him if he believes there's a cook." - Ronald Reagan

Well then.. FUCK YOU, REAGAN! Oh wait, I already said that.

"I've noticed everyone who is for abortion has already been born." — Ronald Reagan

Ha, this one is ironic considering that Reagan is pretty much the poster boy for the "FUCK YOU, GOT MINE" conservative fucks. The scary thing is that all of these things I'm writing are actually the exact reasons conservatives adore Reagan.



Why has there not been anyone to write a good book that debunks Reagan as the greatest president narrative that we constantly get in the media today?

You also have to remember that Nixon thought he was an idiot who should never be allowed in the same room as Gorbachev. When he was allowed in the same room as Gorbachev he proceeded to tell Soviet jokes to him instead of talking diplomacy.

So today, on this day that Ronald Reagan died, we celebrate like if the wicked witch of the west just got smashed.

We Got Some Health Care Now!

We Got Some Health Care Now!

Sure, it's the most regressive UHC in the world, but it's UHC god dammit. Though I hate to be the bearer of bad news but we're all gonna die regardless of whether we have UHC or not. On the flip side, I'm just happy republicans are furious. I mean, they're steamed! I think the real plan behind all this is to freak out conservatives so much that they die of heart attacks, thus making real health care reform possible. Think about it for a second.

The only way you could possibly piss them off more is by going up to a rich person and say that you're going to break your leg just so they have to pay for it. I mean, there's not actually anything in this guaranteeing people health care, right? It's essentially just a tax on people who couldn't afford it in the first place given that you now have to have health insurance.



You folks do realize that this bill just made getting insurance cost a lot more, right? I guess it's a small price we're willing to pay for republican tears. I can hear those republicans talking now. Trying to find a way to know if black people will not just hang out in ER rooms all day because it's better than their houses. Easy solution for that is to make conditions in emergency rooms worse than in their homes. Maybe it'll get to the level of public schools.

I also wonder how many people are going to think this is in effect and will visit a hospital tomorrow for badly needed medical care. I guess we're also going to be paying for the healthcare of that one chick whose goal it is to be 1000 pounds. Ha!

I mean, when do we officially start the clock on our socialist society? Isn't that what the republicans want you to believe? That socialism is going into effect soon. When do I get to live on commune and elect a soviet. I mean, what next? Do you want me to pay for a FIRE DEPARTMENT?!? But my house is CLEARLY not on fire right now. How dare we live in a socialist inspired dream!



Glenn beck is going to flip the fuck out today and I can't wait to see Fox News all but gloss over any mention of this Health Care.. or, at best rage so hard against its. And not even the good "Well, what did we get into?" sort of introspective sort of look at it, but the "ARRGH, THESE SOCIALIST FUCKS, YARRRRG!"

While I'm democratic, this is America, so I'm obviously not very optimistic we actually got anything that will improve the piss poor system we pass as health care. And from skimming through articles online, here's what I found;

From the Christian Science Monitor

The $940 billion bill will cover 32 million uninsured Americans and ban the denial of coverage for preexisting conditions, phasing in taxes on the rich to pay for this expansion of coverage.

Taxes on the rich, coverage, hmmmm, this has potential.. Thanks a lot shitty news article, but how exactly do you define "cover" and what are the details on these rich taxes? Let's dig deeper before we start dancing on Reagan's grave. From CSM

Most people will be required to buy health coverage under the healthcare bill now before the House. About 20 million American households will qualify for subsidized insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

And there's the kicker. Do we see the problem here? Requiring everybody to buy a piece of shit health care plan isn't much reform. Yeah, that's going to cover 32 million uninsured Americans. It's not like they're currently uninsured for...you know... maybe not being able to afford any sort of health insurance to begin with. Let's get more details before I rage too much against said machine.

Beginning in 2014 (that’s right, this is four years away), these people would be able to shop for coverage in new “health exchanges,” a sort of online bazaar in which insurers would hawk different kinds of plans.

Sweet! Now we're treating peoples' lives like they're a fucking shopping mall. At least the term "Uniquely American" has legitimacy when applied to Health Care. While I'm grateful for the win, the next sentence just makes me feel like this was a bittersweet victory.

The federal subsidy would go straight to the insurer. It would look like a discount on the policy to the customer.

We're paying taxes to keep these worthless middlemen "insurance companies" in business. Why not just get rid of these fuckers entirely?

we're paying taxes to keep these worthless middlemen "insurance companies" in business... why not just get rid of these fuckers entirely? oh wait, that would make too much sense. That alone just means the pockets of these insurance companies are getting lined no matter what.



So the bill has an individual mandate without a public option, which is the most evil thing I can imagine. While I'm all for something actually happening in our elected government, I'm sure a lot of people stopped following this health care bill for the sake of their own sanity. Yeah, there's still good things in the bill and it's nice that the blue team won this time, I think to jump for joy on all this is a little premature.

You young healthy adults out there who are just out of college and not in a full time gig.. You'll be effected by this most. Even though you're healthy and all that jazz, you now face penalties up to $700 a year for not getting health insurance that you don't want and you probably think you don't need. I mean, you're indestructible after all, right?

While I have health insurance through a very old system of paying dues and fighting "da man" with my union, it's not really a "great" one. So at least I don't have to pay that $700 amount, but I'm sure those without health care had literally nothing changed for them with this passing. If they were smart, though, they would jump into the field of playing the stock market. Anyone who wants to learn about the wonderful world of stock buying, you should get yourself introduced with this bill.



One could wonder at this point on how bad will insurance rates skyrocket, since there are no price controls or mechanisms to keep them in line? Or you could look at this bottle half full and ask how much of your portfolio should you dump into insurance companies as soon as the market was open today. If you did.. way to go, champ. You're ahead of the curb.

The health bill, if I understand this correctly:

Pre-existing conditions and children blah blah blah, can no longer be denied insurance by writ of the government. So the government is forcing a new group of people (because of moral reasons) into the insurance pool, which will costs the insurance companies a lot of money.

Obama's logic in response to this is to have a universal federal mandate to have SOME type of insurance coverage, thereby getting in the pre-existing conditions folk and keeping premiums at a reasonable level. However, if you "can't afford to buy it", the government is going to subsidize it, correct? But the government doesn't control the prices... the market does. And the insurance companies do.


Are you my mommy?

So isn't this just going to cause the insurance companies to go, "Why look, new customers with lots of money, Let's raise prices, cause we know you can afford it now." And there's no reason why to lower the prices because you have a vast larger group now that HAS to buy it.

I'm not interested in the "Amerikkka values" or unconstitutionality of a federal mandate, but artifically driving up cost of insurance, like they did with education, isn't exactly a great idea or that much of a progressive thing to do regardless of whatever Glenn Beck says. This bill, on some respects, seems like a 900 billion dollar handout to the insurance industry, and in the end doesn't really solve the real problems that lie in Health Care reform.



This was the political capital Obama was saving up for all year. Now that it's getting passed he's gonna pull out all the breaks and promote a homo-fascist atheist police state where you're required to smoke weed all day. Just you wait and see! JUST YOU WAIT AND SEE! YOU MADE YOUR BED, NOW SLEEP IN IT... WITH A BLACK MAN!!!!!

Have to say though, as shitty as this is, republican tears make this bill so much better than what the reality of it is.

Besides, any small, incremental change is better than none at all. It is a logical and pragmatic stance, also reasonable. Change takes time. Look at the long term and rid yourself of the desire for instant gratification, right? Take the victories you can but continue to fight the war. Like when woman and black people got the right to vote. It took time. First we had to give them the right to leave their homes, and then to think for themselves, and then after they proved they were worthy, we decided they could vote...



I have to say that I'm simply amazed that in this post-feminist world that comes down hard on harassment in the work place, that we're still having the discussion on who has a right to someone's own body and this health care reform is proof of that. In the form of no federal funds for abortion so the bill greatly restricts abortion coverage. It's a tiny step forward to getting people insured, made in the most backward way possible.

As anyone taking out an insurance plan that covers abortion needs to have a separate fund for any subsidies they receive so there's no mixing of taxpayer money with abortion money. Insurance companies not required to cover abortions and States can pass legislation forbidding insurance companies from offering plans that fund abortion via their state exchanges.



68,000 women die annually as a result of having an unsafe abortion, mostly in developing countries. 220,000 children are left without a mother every year because she received an unsafe abortion. 2 to 8 million women each year suffer horrendous consequences after receiving an unsafe abortion, ranging from sepsis to uterine perforation. Many of these women go on to become permanently infertile.

Maternal mortality in the 52 countries that permit abortion is a median of 2 per 1,000 women of reproductive age. In the 82 countries that restrict or ban abortion, maternal mortality averages 23 per 1,000 women of the same age. For every 100,000 live births there are 34 deaths due to unsafe abortion in those 82 countries. In the 52 civilized countries, there's less than one death per 100,000 live births.



Ceausescu's Romania provides a natural history of the effect of restricting abortion: abortion mortality was 20 per 100,000 live births prior to his rule in 1960. By 1989 this had risen to 148 deaths per 100,000, with unsafe abortion accounting for 87% of those deaths. Within one year of the law being reversed to permit free access to safe abortion, the mortality ration fell to 68 per 100,000. In South Africa maternal mortality fell 91% within 4 years thanks to a reduction in the number of unsafe abortions.

Restricting access to abortion will not change abortion rates in any way. The Netherlands has the lowest abortion rate in the world but also has the most liberalized and freest access to abortion in the world. When Barbados, Canada, South Africa, Tunisia, Turkey and others liberalized their abortion laws, there was no concomitant increase in the number of abortions.

What's more, providing free and safe access to abortion lowers health care costs. Tanzania spends 7 times more per woman treating post-abortion complications than their annual budget per head of population. In North Carolina they found that post-abortion care costs 10 times as much as the cost of a safe abortion.

How dare we try to fund something that all private health insurance covers and is legal! That's not the America I KNOW! So really, you real Feminist out there should be up in arms that you still don't have the right for your own bodies to do so what you wish with them.



And that's the many reasons why this bill sucks but I'm still happy it passed. As we all know, nothing gets done in America without corporations getting theirs. And here I thought organized crime was illegal.