Showing posts with label 2012 presidential elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2012 presidential elections. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

He's Done, and He KNOWS It.

I'm guessing that Herman Cain is fooling himself by waiting for another 24 to 48 hours to discontinue his campaign.  I doubt anyone believes this is REALLY about saving his family from stress; if that were the case, he wouldn't have been putting his family through the stress of the multiple sexual harassment accusations.  That THOSE were paid off, in at least a couple of cases, suggests strongly to me that they did in fact occur.

Rather this is everything about saving Cain's own face / ass.  This tells me that he really HAS had a 13 year affair, and that there is plenty of proof.  The phone records that show 4 a.m. phone calls rather convincingly belie that his relationship was about financially helping this woman, particularly when the relationship ever so conveniently ended just a week or so before entering the presidential race.  The man is a hypocrite.  That the right wing base in places like Iowa would excuse sexual harassment, but then get bent over a sexual affair, seems to me a questionable moral compass on the part of the right wing / conservatives polled over primary candidates.  Personally, I have no problems believing any of these claims about Cain; all his denials lack the ring of truth.

Stick a fork in yourself Herman; you're done and past done.  And after this.... I can only wonder what your future job prospects are going to be.  Because apparently you're not only stupid about current events in Becky Becky Stan, and Libya, you're not able to keep your private parts in your pants, and your hands off the female employees; and your track record as a CEO is in reality considerably less than distinguished.

But I'm betting some think tank, probably funded by the Koch Brothers, will provide a comfortable niche out of sight of the media for a while.  That seems to be the unofficial golden parachute for failed right wing culture warrior failed politicians.  Maybe they'll give you an office next door to Michele Bachmann, if she doesn't manage a gig over on Faux Nuisance.

The "I didn't do anything wrong, but I have to protect my poor pitiful weak wife and kids from all that stuff I didn't do" line, in my opinion, merely increases what I think of here as the 'sleazy weasel factor'.  In point of fact, I would credit his wife and kids with more moral fiber, courage and strength of character than the asshole candidate Herman Cain.  Taking this tack multiplies the consequences of his failing; it does not mitigate or ameliorate it in any degree whatsoever.

Herman, you're pond scum.

Reassessment= political speak for my re-ASS-essment is grass, and the press and my political adversaries have a lot of lawn mowers.

I have to wonder if a new disappointment and condemnation of Cain over an affair is going to translate into a revived unhappiness with Nut Gingrich and HIS inability to keep his bits in his pants, not to mention HIS hypocrisy in having an affair while condemning Bill Clinton for far less egregious sexual misconduct.  Bill was wrong, Bill was bad, but Bill didn't divorce Hilary, and he didn't go all the way, while Newt rounded all the proverbial bases a few too many times.

So, it's unlikely Nut Gingrich will last; there's too much newt news coming out about him for that to happen.  Who will be the next not-Romney flavor of the month?

From MSNBC.com:



Cain tells staff he's reassessing campaign

Will the newest recent allegations Herman Cain seal his fate?
Herman Cain told senior campaign staff members Tuesday that he's "reassessing" his campaign in the wake of a fresh allegation that he engaged in a 13-year-long extramarital affair.
Steve Grubbs, the candidate's Iowa campaign chairman, confirms to NBC News that Cain said he's taking a step back, much as he did after his finish in the Ames Straw Poll in August, to evaluate the direction of his campaign. The call included Cain's 50 state directors, and the reassessment will occur over the next two days.
This reassessment coincides with a new allegation from Ginger White, an Atlanta woman who says that she and Cain engaged in an affair for well over a decade, one that ended only recently. Cain has denied the affair.
Cain reiterated his claim, made yesterday in reaction to the new allegation, that White was simply a friend who he had sought to help financially, and that nothing inappropriate had happened between the two of them.
The former Godfather's Pizza CEO, who has faced a string of different allegations of sexual harassment, also said that he had no immediate plans to cancel his campaign events; he still intends to deliver a major foreign policy speech tonight in Michigan.
But Cain acknowledged the emotional toll that the claims against him had taken on his family. He said yesterday on CNN that he would stay in the campaign as long as his wife continued to believe he should stay in the race.
In the same interview, though, Cain opened the door to a possible exit from the race.
"It's just the way it is, but I'm not going to allow this sort of thing to cause me to drop out simply because it's tough on me. I don't want it to be tough on my family. And there comes a point that if it's tough on my family, I have to consider that at that particular point in time," he said.
Asked whether he would drop out if the race became too tough, Cain said: "I'll make that decision depending upon the circumstances and how it is impacting my wife and my family. That's my number one concern by all of these accusations."
SLIDESHOW: Herman Cain
***UPDATE*** Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon tells NBC News: "It's a reassessment of where we stand and the road ahead, similar to other times in the campaign's history. We're looking forward to getting back on message tonight with the Foreign Policy and National Security speech at Hillsdale College in Michigan."

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Right Wing Insanity

I gave the television a standing ovation for this one; I think Stewart encapsulated the right wing circus of debates and gaffes and insanity perfectly.  The right doesn't know what it wants, what it THINKS it wants is out of step with the country - AND THIS CENTURY -  and it is NUTS.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Indecision 2012 - The Great Right Hope - The Ideal Candidate
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full EpisodesPolitical Humor & Satire BlogThe Daily Show on Facebook

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Governor Rick Perry SHOULD Care About Executing Innocent People
Wrongly Convicted in Texas!

In recent debates, Texas Governor Rick Perry stated he had no worries about the execution of innocent prisoners. He should have worries; it is a problem in Texas.

 



and



From the Innocence Project, which tries to reverse incorrect death penalty convictions, including an impressive list of convictions overturned because of DNA forensic evidence:

The Causes of Wrongful Conviction

As the pace of DNA exonerations has grown across the country in recent years, wrongful convictions have revealed disturbing fissures and trends in our criminal justice system. Together, these cases show us how the criminal justice system is broken – and how urgently it needs to be fixed.

We should learn from the system’s failures. In each case where DNA has proven innocence beyond doubt, an overlapping array of causes has emerged – from mistakes to misconduct to factors of race and class.

Countless cases

Those exonerated by DNA testing aren’t the only people who have been wrongfully convicted in recent decades. For every case that involves DNA, there are thousands that do not.

Only a fraction of criminal cases involve biological evidence that can be subjected to DNA testing, and even when such evidence exists, it is often lost or destroyed after a conviction. Since they don’t have access to a definitive test like DNA, many wrongfully convicted people have a slim chance of ever proving their innocence.
Common Causes

Here you will find further information about seven of the most common causes of wrongful convictions:
•Eyewitness Misidentification
•Unvalidated or Improper Forensic Science
•False Confessions / Admissions
•Government Misconduct
•Informants or Snitches
•Bad Lawyering

These factors are not the only causes of wrongful conviction. Each case is unique and many include a combination of the above issues. Review our case profiles to learn how the common causes of wrongful convictions have affected real cases and how these injustices could have been prevented.

To stop these wrongful convictions from continuing, we must fix the criminal justice system. Click here to learn about Innocence Commissions, a reform that can help identify and address the fundamental flaws in the criminal justice system that lead to wrongful convictions.

The chart below represents contributing causes confirmed through Innocence Project research. Actual numbers may be higher, and other causes of wrongful convictions include government misconduct and bad lawyering.


and this, the Texas Moratorium Network, which along with the Texas Innocence Project, looks at cases where innocent people are wrongly convicted, and in some cases, executed.  There is no lack of cases where Justice appears to have gone wrong.

Do we really want a man who doesn't acknowledge forensic evidence or the possiblity of innocent people convicted as President?  There are a lot more questions here to be asked - and answered; answered more honestly and with more depth and thought than Governor Perry appears to be giving the questions.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Buhler? Buhler? Perry? Perry?


Cross posted from Penigma.blogspot.com

I disagree with Perry and Ben Stein on cultural issues. I'd expect better of Stein than to share the views of an extremist Right Wing Religious Nut like Perry.  But Stein quite correctly takes Perry to task for his appalling ignorance of basic economics, an ignorance Perry shares with some of the other presidential wannabees - notably Bachmann.  Perry doesn't know enough about economics to be the governor of Texas and do a good job, much less the entire country.  The man is long on talk, and a dimwitted swaggering dummy on substance.  He's taken the thriving economic opportunities of Texas, and trashed the state, turning it into a pit of  pollution and rampant poverty, with the exception of a few wealthy individuals and corporations that pay off people like Perry, for the legalized looting of resources.

When corporations pollute, in effect because they leave the expense of resolving the pollution damage to others, especially tax payers, it effectively transfers the polluters costs of doing business, their liability, to us, instead of fairly pricing their costs of doing business into their product or services costs.  That means that they take more profits, leaving us with the dirty end of the stick.  Those profits increasingly go directly into the pockets of executives, and not into the pockets of the middle and lower level employees of the companies, and increasingly not even to stockholders, the nominal owners.

Further, it is pretty much invariably less costly to prevent pollution than to try to clean it up.  Just one of the ways in which Perry's way of doing business in Texas redistributes wealth away from the middle and lower economic strata into the pockets of the few.

To excerpt again from my comments and expand on them from an earlier post, Texas has among the worst stats of the 50 states for poverty, for ignorance, for suppressed voter participation, and for pollution.

Is this what we want? Does anyone in their right mind believe that this is the way to economic growth and competitiveness?  Texas is:

49th in teacher pay
1st in the percentage of people over 25 without a high school diploma
41st in high school graduation rate
46th in SAT scores

 1st in percentage of uninsured children
 1st in percentage of population uninsured
 1st in percentage of non-elderl­y uninsured
49th in mental health funding

50th in homeowners­' insurance affordabil­ity

 3rd in percentage of people living below the poverty level
49th in average Women Infant and Children benefit payments
1st in teenage birth rate/ unintended pregnancies, and repeat teen unintended pregnancies
50th in average credit scores for loan applicants
50th in percentage of voting age population that votes
1st in annual number of executions

1st in minimum wage jobs

1st in air pollution emissions
1st in volume of volatile organic compounds released into the air
1st in amount of toxic chemicals released into water
1st in amount of recognized cancer-cau­sing carcinogen­s released into air
1st in amount of carbon dioxide emissions

This is Texas. This is what you get with the politics of Rick Perry. This is what you get with far right Republican politics. This is what happens when single issue voters go gaga for gun happy characters who are all bullets and no brains, all fire power, no brain power.

All hail the ignorant, gun toting tea party.