By BobbiV

Glenn Beck has lost one third of his audience since January.  Is it because of the boycott by his sponsors?  Or, dare we hope that this imbeciles fifteen minutes are just about up?  Whatever the reason, this does not bode well for Beck or Fox News because they bank on him so heavily.

I personally think, he has just about reached the maximum he can as far as viewership and there is no where to go from there but down.  After his disastrous interview of Democratic House Member Eric Massa where Beck thought he would embarrass the Democratic Party and ended up only embarrassing himself, I think maybe some of his viewers saw the light.

Another thing is Beck’s heavy involvement with the tea baggers and his idiocy about showing everyone the plan that God gave only to him.  The tea baggers, the wing nuts from both sides and the Republican Party in general are losing steam.  Maybe they are tired of Beck.

From Media Matters;

Prior to the Massa Moment, Glenn Beck was averaging 2.6 million viewers each week, and the show was still flying high. And in the short term, the wildly hyped Massa episode produced ratings gold, generating 3.4 million viewers that night, thank you very much. Long-term though, the effects have proven to be disastrous.

As I noted two weeks ago, Glenn Beck’s ratings are down this spring. Now it’s clear those declines are accelerating and there are no signs of a rebound. So what does that mean for Beck, Fox News, and the Tea Party movement?

First, the latest Nielsen low: Glenn Beck just posted another ratings low for this year. The new mark was set last Thursday when the show attracted 1.82 million viewers. The host’s previous, non-vacation low for 2010 had been 1.97 million viewers. That low-ebb mark was set on April 9.

Read the rest here.

Lets hope the trend continues for both Glenn Beck and the tea baggers he loves so much.

Glenn is not taking this well at all.

By BobbiV

It seems the Gulf Coast oil spill is moving from major to monumental environmental disaster.  Now we have been told the leak is five times greater than previously thought which makes about 200,000 gallons of crude pouring into the ocean every day.

This leak comes at nesting time for rare birds in the sanctuaries along the coast and at the time sea turtles are coming in to lay their eggs.  Add to this the Blue Fin Tuna that are spawning in the Gulf  and numerous baby animals being born because it is Spring and…well, you can see the problem and get the idea.

You can go here to see a list of the wildlife at risk.  But I warn you, it will take your breath away.  When you read it, please note the number of endangered and/or extremely rare species on the list.  Remember too, this does not take into account sea life like whales, turtles, dolphins, shrimp, oysters, tuna , trout, crabs, drum, flounder, snapper…..you get that idea too.

We must remember when this is over that it happened and not let our Senators, Congressmen or President Obama off the hook.  We must keep on them to get an energy bill to end our dependence on oil and we must push them about a climate bill to address global warming.  They must be told we want strong laws put in place for worker safety and the environment too.

None of these things can wait for very long.  It should make no difference if you are Democratic or Republican, conservative or liberal, we all have to live on this planet.

Blue Heron in Louisiana. We really want to keep these birds safe.

By BobbiV

Once again, I am really not surprised about this.  The truth is, we are told time and time again by large corporations that they know what they are doing and everything is safe.  Besides, in the unlikely event of an accident, they have all the latest technology to take care of it.  No one will be hurt, the environment will be protected and we all will live happily ever after.

That is until the unlikely event happens.  Then these people don’t give a frig if anyone is hurt or the environment is ruined.  Their first calls ares to their public relations people and their attorneys, not necessarily in that order.

Halliburton (yes the Cheney Halliburton), BP and all the other corporate vandals involved in the explosion of an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that produced a huge oil slick. are now in full cover your ass mode.  Every public statement yields another excuse.  Not a reason, mind you, an excuse.

I’d be very willing to bet that the more oil washes up on pristine shores, the wilder the excuses will become.  I’d also bet the Republican Senators will be right there defending their corporate masters.

Watch a video from The Ed Schultz Show yesterday.  I wish it gave more hope.  I think this will get much worse before it gets any better.

By BobbiV

I must say I am really not surprised to find that big oil fought off new safety rules before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion last week.  Big corporations in general, do not think of their workers as anything more than a means to an end and that end is lining their pockets.

The Bush/Cheney Administration was , to say he least, sympathetic to the coal and oil industries.  They were both oil men and did their best, with the help of their Senate and House Republican cohorts, to dismantle regulations and defund  agencies that could curtail any business connected to the energy industry.

Workers rights, safety and heath simply do not matter to these people.  Do not be fooled by their flowery campaign speeches.  Just look at a large corporation’s financial statement.  You will see workers listed as assets.  Not workers, people or even employees, just simply assets.  The same as the chair they sit upon or the desk they plop their Italian leather clad feet upon.  Assets.  By dehumanizing workers they don’t have to face the fact that these are people like them.  It is easier in the corporate executives mind to just think of them as things.  Assets.  Lord knows, we must make things easier for these self important twits.

This country has seen two huge explosions in the work place within this month.  We have lost at least forty fellow hard working citizens.  All because of the greed and hypocrisy of a bunch of ego inflated, whiny, rich, uncaring a**h*!*s.  We need to show these people, and I use the term loosely, that the assets they ignored were very valuable.  In fact, far more valuable than most of their other possessions.

We must push harder for more workplace reform and actual getting back to at least where we were at the end of the Democratic Clinton Administration.  Along with that, perhaps the best and most lasting memorial we can give our fellow American workers is to bring back strong unions.

From the Huffington Post;

The massive $600 million rig, which holds the record for boring the deepest oil and gas well in the world — at 35,050 feet – had passed three recent federal inspections, the most recent on April 1, since it moved to its current location in January. The cause of the explosion has not been determined.

Yet relatives of workers who are presumed dead claim that the oil behemoth BP and rig owner TransOcean violated “numerous statutes and regulations” issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard, according to a lawsuit filed by Natalie Roshto, whose husband Shane, a deck floor hand, was thrown overboard by the force of the explosion and whose body has not yet been located.

Both companies failed to provide a competent crew, failed to properly supervise its employees and failed to provide Rushto with a safe place to work, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The lawsuit also names oil-services giant Halliburton as a defendant, claiming that the company “prior to the explosion, was engaged in cementing operations of the well and well cap and, upon information and belief, improperly and negligently performed these duties, which was a cause of the explosion.”

BP and TransOcean have also aggressively opposed new safety regulations proposed last year by a federal agency that oversees offshore drilling — which were prompted by a study that found many accidents in the industry.

Read the rest here.

That shaking you felt was the result of corporate executives and their paid for politicians fainting to the floor as they read the  word unions.  Oh! they is vewy afwaid of unions.  They should have thought of that before they were negligent enough to let workers die for no good reason.

This little plastic hard hat is simply not enough. Big corporations will have to do much, much better.

By BobbiV

The Party of no today has said they will allow a vote on debate of the financial reform bill to come to the floor of the Senate.  Isn’t that big of them?

Of course, the Senate Republicans are acting like this is a win for them, it is not.  Republican Minority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky put it this way “The time afforded by my Republican colleagues and Senator Ben Nelson was instrumental in gaining assurances from the Chairman that changes will be made….”

Silly me, I thought bringing the debate to the floor and then bringing amendments to vote on was the way they made changes to a bill after it comes out of committee.  Is Mitch trying to say they want changes so major they can’t be handled on the Senate floor through the amendment and voting process?  Republicans have never been shy about adding major amendments before, like on the recent health care bill, so why now?

Why can’t McConnell just sack up and admit his group wasn’t willing to stay all night to get the bill to floor debate like Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said he intended?  Why can’t the hybrid man-tortoise just admit his side was crumbling and he couldn’t hold them in lockstep on this issue any longer?  Why am I even asking?

At this time there is no word as to exactly when  the bill will be debated, but at least we now know it will be, and soon.

Before leaving this subject, I will post a video of Democratic Senator Al Franken of Minnesota speaking about the intransigence of his Republican colleagues and trying to convince them to see the light.  It is from the Senate floor yesterday and is titled ‘fueled by unbridled greed and love of risking other peoples money’.  That about sums it all up.

It has been a bit since we visited the rantings and ravings of the ‘fat bastard’ himself, Rush Limbaugh.  Not that he has not been saying stupid, crazy, demented lies, just we have not paid much attention to him lately.  Honestly, he really hasn’t counted for much in my opinion but he has now raved his way back onto the LunaCanus radar.  Today’s pile of sewage that came out of his mouth is monumental even for a septic tank as large as Rush.

Today the drug addled brain of the fat bastard once again overrode his common sense and his big fat mouth.  Today he stooped to calling the President of The United States a racist!

Why, you ask?

What could President Obama have done or said to cause the biggest tea bagger and conservative Republican of all to condemn him as a racist?

The President’s major crime was to ask people to vote in the next election.  Yes, voting, according to the septic tank in black is now a racist agenda in the United States Of America.

Maybe Rush was offended by who the President asked to once again vote.  He called on those who are more likely to let their voices go unheard in elections to vote.  He asked for blacks, Hispanics, young people and women to vote once more.

For shame Mr. President, for shame.  Asking for American citizens to vote!  What could you be thinking?

I suppose Rush would even find some reason to spew sewage if President Obama would have called on fat, bald, bigoted, drug addicted, loud mouthed, often divorced, closeted gay, illegal immigrant employing, rich white men who happen to host radio talk shows to get out and vote.

Seems like the septic tank is full and needs service once more.  The only problem is that when he blows sewage we are all forced to listen to it.  Find a maid willing to smuggle him some oxy and viagra so he will shut the f**k up.

Rush is getting even less relevant than Glenn Beck but he can be just as irritating.

Many today are crying and moaning, shedding tears, tearing hair and rending garments over something they call “my America”.  They claim to “want it back” and for some reason think that Barack Obama, the nations first black President, is basically carjacking the nation from them.

Many on the left today will scorn and mock these God fearing wealthy white right wing American Christians, but I can see where they are coming from.  After all they and their ilk used, abused and drained this country for their own gain long before the United States of America was a hope or a dream.

Their wealth and power, their feeling of supremacy and entitlement was gained by walking over anything and anyone that stood in their collective way.  If it is one of their God’s creations in the form of the land or an animal, they have had no problems killing and destroying it.  If it is a fellow human being who is different in any way they have had no problem using, enslaving, exploiting or making an enemy of them.

Today, thanks to the modern media we can see these seekers of “our lost America” in all their tear stained, tri-corner hat glory.  We all are free to read their misspelled signs and are left to ponder just what nation their forefathers came from.

You can rest assured of one thing, the “lost America” they seek is not from very long ago.  If you were to ask them if they wanted the America of old, where the dear and antelope played, where buffalo herds stretched for days, where the air and water were pure and clean and where white men were confined to starving little groups on one distant shore they would flat out say no!

Are they seeking the America of “We The People in Order to Form a More Perfect Union”?  Obviously not, when they object to the first free and fair Presidential election our nation has held since the year 1996.  Is it merely coincidence that that election was so one sided that they lost?  In a landslide victory little things like confusing ballots, rigged computer voting machines, suspicious breakdowns of multiple voting machines in some districts and the Supreme Court stepping in could not put their man in office.  So now they cry.

Do they seek the America of December 6th, 1944?  An America recovering from depression, willfully ignorant of the world?  An America that saw the problems of the rest of the world as none of their business.  An America that could have done so much more to help the free peoples of the world but hid from the world.  An America that paid with blood over the next half decade to put right what was wrong.  I think not.

Do they seek the America of “Give us Your Poor, Your  Weak, Your Huddled Masses, Yearning to be Free”?  Oh, hell no!  They do not want that!  Their weak, poor family came here long enough ago to make their citizenship assured, why should they share it?  These groups who are paranoid about a national police force or ‘one world’ government ask no less than we all carry more identification than is required by law.  Where are we going to send all the tea baggers when they do not have their birth certificate or passport on them?  What nation would take them?  Oh, but wait, tea baggers will be wearing the correct shoes.  That will keep them from being subjected to this violation of our civil liberties!

Maybe they seek solace in the second amendment.  They group themselves with the militias and gun nuts.  I have been hearing all the propaganda from the NRA since childhood about how the government was coming for gun owners.  In forty years I have yet to see it happen except when the gun nuts go… well, nuts!  The parts of the Constitution that these wing nuts always forget to mention is how these militias will be “well regulated” and how they will be placed under the command of the President of The United States Of America during national crises.  The moment you ignore part of the Constitution you are no longer a militia group, you are a domestic terrorist group.  If you do not recognize the President’s authority over you then you violate the principle you stand for and show you are not an American living by our laws but a terrorist seeking to overthrow the United States Government.

Seriously, if any tea baggers read this, please let me know when or where your lost America was, what you liked about it and why you want it back.

The reason I ask this is because I am confused by your movement and your rallies.  I see Revolutionary war clothing and banners alongside Civil War clothing and banners.  You call for education cuts when you obviously cannot spell a simple protest sign.  Your support for the common man is offset by who pays for your tour buses and rallies.  Your leaders are morally bankrupt while claiming to be just.  You cling to disproved beliefs like they are talisman protecting you from some sort of boogieman and regardless of  what you claim you are a vastly older white movement.

If you are so honest, why do you lie so much?

If you are so independent, why be sponsored by the big corporations you decry?

If you are so American, why call for violence against our government?

If you are so inclusive, why insult minorities?

If you are supposedly so patriotic then how can you act so Un American?

If you are so Christian, how can you deny health care to a fellow human being?

The Waaaambulance picks up an old white tea bagger from a rally.

What is it you really want? If you don't like our government, get off our sidewalks and streets.

By BobbiV

It really appears Arizona Republicans have bitten off more than they bargained for with their new Papers Please Illegal Immigration Law.  But really, what did they expect?

Even George W. Bush and Karl Rove, just to name two prominent Republicans don’t think this law is a good idea.  Granted, neither one of these guys put a lot of logical thought into much of anything, so I have to think they are reacting purely from the standpoint of politics.

I have given some thought as to how exactly you prove you are not here illegally.  What papers would you show?  After all, a Birth Certificate (regardless of what the birthers may say) only proves you are carrying a certificate of a person who could be you.  There is no picture that accompanies it unless it is that of a newborn, so really it proves nothing.  A Drivers License is too easily obtained to be proof of citizenship.  In fact, you could use your fake Birth Certificate to get your phony Drivers License.

The more I thought about it the more I realized there really are no papers I could show to prove I am here legally unless I was a naturalized citizen and those papers might prove it.  A passport is the same as a Drivers License because you could use your fake Birth Certificate to get it.

I know this draconian law comes from deep seeded racism on the part of the people who wrote it and signed it into law.  It is also a desperate attempt to discourage and maybe lower the Hispanic vote in Arizona.  I think it will have the opposite result.

Watch Rachel Maddow as she gives a comprehensive report on the background of the racism behind Arizona’s madness.  As usual Maddow is the best of the press.

After a little more thinking and the help of a cartoon from a Kansas City newspaper, I realized the papers everyone should carry.  They are a copy of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  But keep that Drivers License, Birth Certificate and Passport handy, just in case.