Personal Musings for Public Consumption - Politics

Video: Angle not so sharp outside media bubble

nospam@example.com (Rachel Maddow) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:47:09 -0700

Debate? What's that? Opposing views? This was a good little bit. Click image I think to view.

Rachel Maddow reviews some of the answers by Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle in her first interview outside the right wing media bubble. (msnbc.com)

Deficit Spending....

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 19:40:58 -0700

This caught my eye. Thanks Logan!

Everything you need to know about taxes and deficit spending.

Left and Right politics explained

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:00:00 -0800

One of my favorite visualizations of politics.

Coffee Party

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:19:57 -0800

Here's a nugget from Facebook/Twitter than I'm keen on. The Vet in the second video does a pretty good job of summing up my present attitude. I'll be interested to see where this goes.

http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/

Head Strong: Sorry, but for me, the party is over

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 11:27:29 -0800

Was going through my daily news troll and stumbled across a very well written OpEd in The Philadelphia Inquirer that had a few choice paragraphs that bear repeating, at which point you should dump over to the original: Head Strong: Sorry, but for me, the party is over.

Where political parties once existed to create coalitions and win elections, now they seek to advance strict ideological agendas. In today's terms, it's hard to imagine the GOP tent once housing such disparate figures as conservative Barry Goldwater and liberal New Yorker Jacob Javits, while John Stennis of Mississippi and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts coexisted as Democratic contemporaries.

Followed by:

Collegiality is nonexistent today, and any outreach across an aisle is castigated as weakness by the talking heads who constantly stir a pot of discontent. So vicious is the political climate that within two years, Sen. John McCain has gone from GOP standard-bearer to its endangered-species list. All of which leaves homeless those of us with views that don't stack up neatly in any ideological box the way we're told they should.

And:

I think President Obama is earnest, smart, and much more centrist than his tea party caricature suggests. He has never been given a fair chance to succeed by those who openly crow about their desire to see him fail (while somehow congratulating one another on their relative patriotism). I know he was born in America, isn't a socialist, and doesn't worship in a mosque. I get that he inherited a minefield. Still, the level of federal spending concerns me. And he never closed the deal with me that health insurance is a right, not a privilege. But I'm not folding the tent on him. Not now. Not with the nation fighting two wars while its economy still teeters on the brink of collapse.

Continue reading "Head Strong: Sorry, but for me, the party is over"

Video: Sen. Durbin on Malpractice Reform...

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:53:34 -0800

Well said.

Continue reading "Video: Sen. Durbin on Malpractice Reform..."

Video: Republicans lie about reconciliation

nospam@example.com (Rachel Maddow) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:00:57 -0800

Senator Barbara Boxer joins Rachel Madddow to set the record straight on the difference between the so-called "nuclear option" and the Congressional process known as reconciliation, and call out Republicans for deliberately using those terms interchangeably to cause confusion.

The short term memory of both the media and the public astounds me. Stewart takes on Cramer, and Maddow's got the Hill. Excellent. Good thing there's that internet thingy that can be referenced for information. This actually reminds me of a favorite video: The Machine is Us/ing us.

Voting machine evil

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:00:00 -0700

No sooner than I say that I have nothing to write about, than suddenly something fundamentally evil comes along and compels me to soak up some of them bits on that intarweb. Taken from Bradblog, here are some choice excerpts:

Circuit court judge, county clerk, and election officials among eight indicted for gaming elections in 2002, 2004, 2006 -- Brad Blog

And a good summary from Slashdot:

The election officials divvied up money intended to buy votes and then changed votes on the county's (popular, unverifiable) ES&S touch-screen voting systems, affecting the outcome of elections at the local, state, and federal levels.

W

nospam@example.com (Sean Chittenden) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:00:00 -0700

Yeah, gunna go see this. I think the back story of one of the more controversial Presidents in the history of the United States will be quite entertaining. Besides, Oliver Stone has a track record of turning out good movies that other film makers aren't interested in.