Archive for the ‘politicians’ Tag
But first a quick announcement:
Another year has come and gone and it’s again time to give the big one-fingered salute to our old friend “Phil” sitting comfortably atop Gobbler’s Knob in Punxatawney, PA. A second salute also goes out to each and every one of the political hacks, suck-ups, and talking heads trying to make a splash on the local media. For me it doesn’t take a stupid groundhog to tell me there’ll be six more weeks of winter. I have a dumb-ass cat that can figure that one out.
Now back to the trivia answers:
Some of you and I won’t mention any names (Sylvia) made a valiant attempt to coerce some trivia answers out of me yesterday. I may be cheap but I’m not easy but nice try anyway. Here they are.
Answers
1. 123 1/2 Sesame Street.
2. Four.
3. The Church of What’s Happening Now.
4. A policeman, a minor role.
5. John Wayne, who then recommended his little known actor friend James Arness for the role.
6. Happy Days.
7. From it’s star, Redd Foxx, who was born John Elroy Sanford.
8. The USS Yorktown.
9. Billie Jo, Bobbie Jo, Betty Jo, and uncle Joe.
10. Perry Masonry.
BONUS ANSWER – At age 30, after 12 years as a platinum blonde and 18 as a natural brunette.
I hope you had fun trying to figure these out. The next list will be posted in a week or so and I’ll make sure they’re as just as difficult.
HAPPY EFFING GROUNDHOG DAY
As much as I’ve tried I’m still unsuccessful in eliminating politics from my long list of topics of conversation on this blog. To say I’m disgusted would be a huge understatement. I’m seeing things happening these days in this country that are impossible to believe. On top of that we’re being lead by a President who is an absolute disgrace to both the political system and to the country itself. The only disappointment greater than his presidency are the millions of people in this country who listened to his BS, bought it hook line and sinker, and voted for him twice.
‘U . . S . . A!, U . . S . . A! , U . . S . . A!’
The downfall of any successful enterprise is having an uncaring or uneducated group of people in places of responsibility. With that thought in mind maybe we should once again listen to the men who helped create this nation instead of ones who are trying to damage it as much as possible. It could take a new generation of intelligent and caring people to undo the damage caused by this man and his administration in a short eight years. The real problem in my mind is an electorate that seems willing to give total control of their lives to a group of elitist fools concerned only with their own wants and desires instead of those of the country.
I again sincerely apologize for talking about politics on this blog. Maybe these gentlemen can explain it better than I.
‘George Washington’
“Precedents are dangerous things; let the rein of government then be braced and held with a steady hand.”
‘John Adams’
“The most sensible and jealous people are so little attentive to government that there are no instances of resistance until repeated, multiplied oppressions have placed it beyond a doubt that their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of it.”
‘Thomas Jefferson’
“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
‘Abraham Lincoln’
“Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but, leave him when he is wrong.”
Pick the group you want responsible for you and your families future.
One of the reason I love living in southern Maine is the peace and quiet. There are days when the quiet is absolute except for a few cars occasionally whizzing by. This road we live on has been a nightmare for years and in the winter accidents occur in and around our home quite often. It has quite the collection of potholes of every size and shape along with frost heaves to make things really interesting. For those of you that don’t know, a frost heave is a large mound that erupts beneath the road when the ground begins to freeze in the Fall. Our normal flat potholed road turns into a an amusement park ride. Living here requires that we develop and maintain a good relationship with a competent mechanic. I average a front-end wheel alignment every two years and that doesn’t include the costs for damage to wheel rims and tires. Once Spring arrives the road immediately returns to normal.
I was awakened this morning when my bed and house began vibrating and shaking. At first I thought we were having one of our occasional earthquakes but a glance out the front window explained everything. There was a gigantic machine rolling down the road, spitting smoke in every direction, chewing up asphalt and spitting out a fine black powder.
Apparently the town fathers finally decided to pave our road and of course never notified anyone who lives here. Just one big noisy machine after another beginning a 7 am and lasting the entire day. For most of the day I was forced to stay at home because my driveway was blocked at first by a dump truck and then later by a huge ten ton roller. I was thrilled to see my tax dollars working for me for the first time in a long while. Since Maine is known for it’s over the top approach to spending taxes on welfare for illegals, I never thought it would ever happen so I was stunned. I had finally won the tax lottery.
Here are a series of photos of the big project from start to finish.
Here’s my reward for you for being made to look at my boring pictures. It’s a limerick I wrote with all of the liberals politicians in mind who are determined to oust Republican governor LePage. It would be oh so sweet if LePage was reelected. It would make them crazy and hopefully send them right over the edge once again.
There once were politicians from Maine
Who in truth were a liberal pain.
They smile and they lie
But as hard as they try,
They’re too dumb to get out of the rain.
I’ve been fairly consistent over the years in my criticism of all politicians and liberals even more so. It’s my opinion that all politicians usually do more harm than good once they start passing inane laws and even more so with liberals.
For a long time I felt I was alone in my opinions until I started doing what I tell everyone else to do, “Know Your Past”. I’ve always loved history and read as much of it as I can. The following quotes are from a variety of sources over a span of almost a hundred years and I found them more than a little interesting. I hope you do as well.
* * *
“A liberal is a man who leaves the room when the fight starts” – Heywood Broun (1888-1939)
“Limousine Liberal: one who takes up hunger as a cause but has never felt a pang; who will talk at length about the public school system but sends his children to private schools.” – William Safire (1929-2009)
“A liberal will hang you from a lower branch.” – Adlai E. Stevenson (1900-1965)
“The modern, liberal-scientific ethic: if it’s bad for you, it should be prohibited; if it’s good for you, it should be required.” – Thomas S. Szasz (1920-2012)
“Liberal: Someone who believes crime is the fault of society until he’s robbed.” – Jerry Tucker (1941- )
“In a pinch the liberals can always be counted on to back up the principles of the established order.” – Scott Nearing (1883-1983) Jul 1950
* * *
I won’t be slamming our liberal friends today but I will let the quotes do it for me. It’s nice to know that my opinion of liberals and other politicians was held by many and varied people of note for decades.
As much as I dislike writing about politicians and politics, I do love reading information from noteworthy individuals who were either famous or infamous. When I see good quotations I squirrel them away for later use on this blog. With a beautiful weekend looming I’ve decided to keep things light and to pass a few of them along for your amusement. In these quotations attempts have been made to explain exactly what a politician is all about. My answer for that question is much harsher than theirs and quite possibly harsher than yours. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did because they seem to have the right idea explained in a more pleasing fashion.
* * *
“Successful . . . politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies.”
Walter Lippman, The Public Philosophy, 1955
“A politician is . . . trained in the art of inexactitude. His words tend to be blunt or rounded, because if they have a cutting edge they may later return to wound him.”
Edward R. Morrow, Address, London Guildhall, 10/19/59
“A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the new generation.”
James Freeman Clark, Sermon, 1888
“The “press conference” is a politician’s way of being informative without saying anything. Should he accidentally say something, he has at his side a “press officer” who immediately explains it away by “clarifying” it.”
Emery Kelen, Platypus at Large, 1960
* * *
Does any of this remind you of anyone currently holding office. I’ll just bet it does. As much as each generation thinks that everything it does or says is groundbreaking and earth shattering, they’re wrong. It’s all been done many times before but called something else by the more imaginative politicians and their speechwriters.
KNOW YOUR PAST
I’ve spent the last week listening to and hearing about all the wonderful things the politicians and government are proposing to resolve and fix all of our countries problems. I’ve been a constant critic of this country’s politicians for some time now and if you know me at all that should be an red flag. I’ve always been a patriotic citizen well schooled by my father and grandfather and proud of their service to this country as well my own. To have me bitching and complaining about the Unites States is something I always knew was expected but never thought would be necessary. With the asinine proposals I’ve been listening to about the handling of illegal immigration and border control, I think I need to speak up once again.
We now exist as a “nanny nation” in an atmosphere of give-away’s. Pay farmers not to grow crops, entitlements out of control with no one even attempting to slow them down, and full benefits for every illegal immigrant who can find his/her way illegally from any where. Close to thirty percent of the population is collecting food stamps and almost an equal number are on some sort of disability. In my humble opinion any person who believes that drug addiction and alcoholism are disabilities that require government subsidies, needs to buy a ticket on the next boat to any other country they’d like to live in. I‘d vote a big “Yes” for temporary government subsidies to help all of those folks pay for their relocation. Maybe Europe would be the place for them to settle. They went down this road themselves over the past forty years and are now suffering the obvious consequences.
Taxing the money-makers and giving that money to alleged needy people and illegal immigrants is insane. I hate to tell you but when the number of people collecting entitlements out numbers the money-makers, the end is near. Socialism can destroy any nation if permitted to flourish and if you don’t believe that ask anyone from the former Soviet Union. You can also check in with any number of the European countries currently on the verge of default. I’ll bet anything if they could go back and make a change they would.
I guess my question is this. Is drifting into socialism a logical progression when certain groups attempt to demonize hard work as a problem to be dealt with rather than a goal to be reached? I don’t have all of the answers but as any damn fool can see, the leaders of this country don’t either.
Is it too late to stop this madness? Unfortunately I think it probably is. This insidious propaganda has been fed to use for decades and it appears a majority of citizens are just going along to get along. The old statement about “inmates running the asylum” has more meaning now than ever before.
I love history and looking back at this country’s politics. It’s my attempt to learn how the system could have deteriorated to where it is today. It doesn’t take a genius to watch and listen to today’s representatives and senators to identify the issues that are driving us crazy. Bad habits are usually a learned response and our current gang of politicians have learned their lessons well. Many of these bad habits have been passed down over the years from one group of politicians to another and been finely tuned.
It seems obvious to me that there are three main priorities; money, re-election, and power. They raise huge amounts of money to accomplish priority number one which in turn helps them to accomplish priority number two. Once re-elected they can pursue their third priority, power, which they all seem to crave. The fact that most of the money spent for reelections eventually works it’s way back into the hands of corporate America must must be a fortunate happenstance. Yeah right!
One of my major criticisms is that they all seem to be concerned only with getting on TV first with a cutesy “sound bite” before their competitors. It doesn’t seem to faze them that they never have anything of consequence to say just ten second quips for those ever-present media cameras.
Since I agree whole-heartedly with this criticism I decided to determine exactly when and where it all started. The use of campaign slogans began well before the current Media became so powerful and demanding. Back in the day they reported what was occurring in the country in an unbiased fashion. They weren’t involved in creating the news as they are today. The “straw that broke the camels back” for me was when big corporate American began buying up the most influential media organizations. The unbiased history of the Media was for the most part a thing of the past. As I searched around I found the following campaign slogans in use going all the way back to 1840. They started out cutesy and entertaining but slowly became hurtful and nasty at times. This is just a small sampling of old and new irritating slogans that may have helped kick started the “sound bite” revolution.
Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too – 1840
Fifty-Four Forty or Fight – 1844
Equal Rights to All; Special Privileges to None – 1900
Stand Pat with McKinley – 1900
He Kept Us Out of War – 1916
Back to Normalcy – 1920
Keep Cool With Coolidge – 1924
A Chicken in Every Pot; A Car in Every Garage – 1928
In Hoover We Trusted and Now We Are Busted – 1948
One Good Term Deserves Another – 1934
I’m Just Wild About Harry – 1948
To Err is Truman – 1948
Phooey on Dewey – 1948
I Like Ike – 1952
I Still Like Ike – 1956
In Your Guts You Know He’s Nuts – 1964
Never Been Indicted – 1980
It’s the Economy, Stupid – 1992
Hope and Change – 2008
Apparently we citizens always were always suckers for “sound bites” even when they were just called “campaign slogans”. Maybe it’s time we the voters change how we approach politics. Maybe I’m an idiot if I really believe that’s even possible. I’ve lost most of my faith in the American voter which requires me to remain even more skeptical and critical of anything remotely related to politics.
Today is one of those dead days after the holidays where everyone is dragging ass with the loss of all that holiday adrenaline. I’ve decided I need to talk about politics for a bit after perusing the monthly observances listed for January.
Today is January 6th and I’ve discovered something earth shattering. The politicians must be losing their edge because not only have they chosen not to observe the 6th as Sherlock Holmes’s birthday which almost but not quite pisses me off, they’ve completely ignored the 6th for any type of recognition. While the 6th of January is included in some of the lame ass weekly observances, it doesn’t have a day of it’s own. How could our narcissistic and self-serving politico’s miss an opportunity like that. There’s a day for damn near everything and a few days that have multiple observances, so what the hell is wrong with the 6th of January?
Maybe it’s time for us to help those poor underpaid politicians do their job in a more proper fashion. How about we have the 6th remembered and observed as, “Take Down the Goddamn Christmas Tree Day” or “National Christmas Gift Refund Day”. Being as fair and balanced as I can possibly be I propose we name the 6th as “Take an Effing Liberal to Work Day”. We could show them off to our conservative friends and pass out a few food stamps as a surprise gifts.
The next time I have lunch with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid I’ll make that suggestion. They’ve been avoiding me since I refused that threesome offer over our last lunch. They’re so sensitive when sexually rejected it may take a few months for another invite to come my way (no pun intended).
I can’t wait for next year, it’ll take me that long to choose my liberal work buddy. I have a complicated and fun selection process which will make as many liberals as possible as uncomfortable as possible.
So there!
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