Friday Rap-2010 Election Edition

VOTE ON NOVEMBER 2ND!

I Remember....

The GOP does not care about women...

He was elected for 4 years, not just for 2....YES WE CAN....YES WE MUST!

Vote!

Strickland/Brown

Driehaus...1st District

Surya Yalamanchili....2nd District

Justin Coussoule....8^th District

Lee Fisher for US Senate

Kevin Boyce

Eric Kearney

GOP/Tea Party Cincinnati

Making the world safe for Bernie Madoff, Carl Lindner and Harry Yeaggy, but not the rest of us..

Unless you've lived the past 50 years under a rock, you already know that Carl Linder is one of the richest and most influential men in the country let alone Cincinnati and the tristate. He owns United Dairy Farmers, American Financial Group and at one time owned Chiquita Banana and part of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Mr. Lindner is known for his political generosity. He sprinkles his money on all sides of the political fence to gain maximum bang for his buck. Every politico around here is beholden to Uncle Carl regardless of party affiliation.

Everybody knows Bernie, but you might not be too familiar with Cincinnatian Harry Yeaggy. He owns a small classic car museum and last night bought the James Bond 1965 Goldfinger Aston Martin for 4.1 million dollars.

Cincinnati is just full of both infamous and anonymous rich people who quietly live here among the buckeye and walnut trees in neighborhoods like Indian Hill or Hyde Park or Madeira. At one point in this nation's recent past, there were more millionaires per capita living in Cincinnati than anywhere else in America.

And the Tea Party/GOP is working hard to keep these guys and others in their tax bracket happy and content. So much so, that they're even willing to spite the rest of us just to keep these guys swimming in greenbacks.

But I didn't mention these two men to knock them or to bad mouth them. I actually like the idea that a Cincinnatian went all the way to Europe with a pocket full of money and bought the Goldfinger car and is bringing it back to Ohio.

Carl Lindner is one of the good guys. He does a lot for this area. Never talks. Just lets his money do the walking. I'm not mad at him. I respect him.

My beef is with the Tea Party/GOP which claims to represent the American people, but is going above and beyond the call of duty to protect people who don't need protecting
while ignoring those who do.

The Cincinnnati Enquirer has endorsed these hybrid teabag-republicans, namely Jean Scmidt in the Second Congressional District, Steve Chabot in the First Congressional District, and John Boehner in the 8^th District.

Schmidt is running for a third term. Yet if you listen to her campaign commercials, you'd be hard pressed to understand that she is actually one of the Washington insiders that she is running against. She's been there for two terms already.

She voted for the Bush tax cuts, which will increase the deficit by 3 trillion dollars if allowed to go forward. She voted against the CHIP program which gives health care to indigent children.

She voted in favor of the two illegal wars. She voted for the 2006 Military Commissions Act which for the first time ever in the history of America, stations American troops
on American soil to be used against American citizens at the whim of the President. Think about that for a minute...

She supports FISA which allows the government to spy on American citizens at will. I'll Give ya another minute on that one, too.

She voted against health care reform and wall street financial reform. She wants to deregulate banking.

She recently made headlines for lecturing six year olds at school, without parents present, about abortion.

Six Year Olds?! WTF!

Schmidt votes the GOP/teabag line 95% of the time, so it would be safe to assume that girlfriend will vote to cut social security, repeal health care, gut medicare and defund
medicaid, since those are the current party stances.

It is also safe to say that Steve Chabot is also in support of these measures, if he is returned to Congress. He lost two years ago after seven terms, having ridden in with Newt Gingrich and the Contract on America, for the first time back in 1994. He lost primarily because he is an ineffective representative, known more for his comb-over sartorial splendor than generating substantive legislation for his district.

Despite his dismal record, the Enquirer issued its endorsement by stating that his record is better than it reads on paper. Really?! I mean really?! What changed besides him getting booted out of office?

Chabot votes just like Schmidt. In other words, whatever the party bosses tell him to do, he will do it. He favors privatizing social security, cutting off medicare and medicaid,  repealing health care...supports two illegal wars and funding for such.

Chabot's campaign ads are full of vague unsubstantiated allegations and talking points with no basis in fact and no solutions for problems. And again, he wants you to believe
that he is a “newby” when actually he was part of team "Screw America."

Chabot is a multi- term Congressman, a professional politican, whose votes helped take down this country, yet he wants to duck complicity in the Big fail, like every other GOP/teabagger running for office.

And then, there is the Boss. No, not Bruce, John Boehner, he who would be Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Enquirer endorses him because it says “we” the people need to see what he can do in a leadership role.

NO WE DON'T! I don't need to feel the fire to know it burns. I don't need to jump off a cliff to know that my fat ass won't bounce when I hit bottom. I don't need to stand in front of a 357 magnum and have a stupid friend pull the trigger to understand that getting shot, gets me dead.

John Boehner wants to be Dean Martin. He apparently likes the idea of being a leader with all the trappings...it's that work thingey that trips him up.

The West Chester Congressman is on record about what he intends to do, if he should win re election again. Here is another of the major players in the near destruction of America. Here is a man who was complicit in destroying the  Ohio middle class, shipping jobs overseas and favoring tax breaks for the very corporations who are hurting this country.

Boehner is their bag man passing out the bucks to buy their votes on the very floor of Congress.

Even while endorsing him the Enquirer slapped him for ignoring his constituents in favor of national interests. Question....If he is screwing up now in his representation...what's gonna happen to the shrinking West Chester middle class, if he is given the national role.

What's he gonna say...”Oh wait...gotta see what my folks back O hy O think about this first..” Please!

Vote on November 2^nd to keep our country going forward.

These guys deserve your vote...

Surya Yalamanchili in the 2^nd District

Steve Driehaus in the 1^st District

Justin Coussoule in the 8^th District

Why I Won't Vote for Steve Chabot

He's a republican running against Steve Driehaus, who is seeking re-election this year, having defeated Chabot two years ago, to represent the first district of Ohio.

Chabot is anti woman. He is anti affirmative action. He's not a racist, just against anything that helps Black people. He is anti gay.  He favors the do nothing politics of the GOP that has this country in trouble. In fact, during the Bush Administration, Steve Chabot played a big part in wreaking economic havoc on this country.

While in office the last time, Chabot voted against legislation designed to end discrimination against the LGBT community. He supports DOMA or the Defense of Marriage Act. Chabot says there should be a constitutional amendment mandating the marriage only exists between a man and a woman. He voted to enact a ban on gay people to prevent them from adopting children in DC, in 1999.

Chabot wanted a constitutional amendment to criminalize desecration of the flag.

Chabot is anti civil rights in nearly all votes.

However, he likes his corporations and has a 90% record of upholding the rights of overpaid CEOs and those on Wall Street.

On crime, Chabot favors more prisons, more enforcement less prisoner rehabilitation services and a stiffer death penalty.

On drugs, he voted against giving Mexico more funding to battle the drug cartels, while favoring using the military on the Mexican border. He voted against needle exchange programs and medical marijuana in DC, while voting for random drug testing of all federal employees.

As far as education goes, Chabot likes charter schools which is little more than privatizing education for the masses, but he doesn't like public school education nor grants and federal funding of historically black colleges and universities or hispanic colleges. He voted against 84 million dollars in this type of funding in 2006.

Steve Chabot hasn't seen a green energy project that he likes, having voted against most alternatives that don't include foreign oil or domestic oil, for that matter. It's safe to say he is not an environmentalist either.

Chabot would be right at home in Arizona with its current anti immigrant stance. Chabot favors building a fence on the Mexican border. However he has no problem with the Canadian border. He wants to make english the official language of America.

Steve Chabot is pro birth (my term)...not pro life...like his pro life cronies...Chabot doesn't care about the child once it's born, only that it gets born, thereby controlling women, relegating them to birth machines. This is my main point of contention with his opponent Steve Driehaus, too. However, Driehaus voted for health care reform, which is a start for equalizing health care for women.

Chabot is against health care reform and wants to repeal the law.

Chabot also favors privatizing social security and wants to keep the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%.

Open Letter to Steve Driehaus

Dear Congressman,

As the vote on health care reform approaches, I am writing today to ask you to carefully consider your vote and its future repercussions. It has been widely reported by the media that you favor health care reform as long as it does not violate your pro-life principles. In other words, you are backing the demands of Congressman Bart Stupak and the Stupak Pitts Amendment which calls for additional constraints on federal money, to prevent women from obtaining an abortion, should she so choose to have one.

The Stupak maneuver that you so vocally support, bars women from buying health care with their own personal funds, if it contains a clause allowing them to choose an abortion, should it ever become necessary. Your stance goes above and beyond the constraints already imposed upon women by the Hyde Amendment ratified in 1976.

The current health care reform bill has been written to abide by the Hyde Amendment restrictions. Regardless of the vote set to take place in a few days, the Hyde Amendment remains in place. Women cannot use federal or taxpayer funds to get an abortion. It is the law of the land and, right or wrong, has been in place, as I said since 1976.

So, I have to ask you Congressman, what is your problem? Why have you chosen to draw your line in the sand etched on the backs of women?

Refusing to vote for health care reform, continues the practice of relegating women to second class citizenship in the greatest country in the world.

Refusing to support health care reform continues the wrong headed tradition of viewing all pregnancies as a pre-existing condition, regardless of how that pregnancy came about.

Today, women who find themselves pregnant without insurance, cannot get health insurance to help them through a dangerous time in their life, that is a threat to not only their own health, but the health of the very fetus that you say you are protecting.

And, yes, pregnancy, even in these enlightened times, is a health danger, because it still kills more women than any other cause except murder. These deaths come because women cannot get prenatal or post natal health care.

Postpartum depression is barely recognized as an illness, or the treatment for it, paid for by insurance companies. How many more times do we have to sit through trials of obviously sick women who drown their kids in the bathtub, because they can't handle motherhood, or throw them off the Golden Gate Bridge, or strap them into their tiny back seat carriers while releasing the handbrake and watching the car slide under the water.

The current societal answer is to medicate them, lock them away in prison for life, while allowing their husband or lover to shirk any guilt or responsibility in the situation, free to marry the next woman who crosses his path.

Many of these deaths come because men act out and kill their sex partners, either because they don't want the woman, or the children or because they are hiding the fact that they raped and abused a female relative or neighbor.

And the children that you purport to protect by your stance...what about them? The current health care system refuses to help the babies, invitro or after birth, if parents...but let's be real honest. here, their mother can't afford it.

How is this a principled pro life stance?

Just this week, here in Cincinnati, a man was locked up for beating to death, a 17 month old baby girl, who, for some reason was given by her mother to a friend, who left the baby with this man, who was not related to the child.

I guess she must have ticked him off, somehow. 17 month old babies can do that...maybe she cried too much and disturbed his sleep or interrupted him while he watched TV. Maybe this little girl might have lived had her mother put her up for adoption, which has its own built in hazards for unwanted children.

Surely you remember the Marcus Feisel case, here in very conservative Buckeye land. Little Marcus, unwanted by anyone, even by his foster parents, who locked him in a closet while they went on vacation. He died and they went to jail after authorities were led to his burned and disposed of body.

Simply put, Congressman, your so called principled stance is not correct. It is not pro life, pro women, nor is it pro family. Your stance is quasi religious at best. Your narrowly focused pro life principles do not and never have addressed the varied ramifications and repercussions of this very broken corporate run health care system.

One thing that it is, is political.

You seem to think that you are correctly representing the first district. You appear to think that the first district is monolithic-that the thinking of your “identified” majority is the way everybody thinks in the first district.

This identified majority did not vote for you in 2008. If polls are correct, they are not going to vote for you this year either regardless of what you do. If the polls are correct they are going back to the other Steve, Steve Chabot, another long term GOP yes man cut from the same cloth as John Boehner and Rob Portman, all those guys who followed Bush/Cheney to the brink and are still ready willing and able to drive this country over the cliff right now.

The real majority in the First District elected you, Congressman. The real majority desperately needs health care reform not the status quo. If that means an option for choice, then so be it.

The God you claim to listen to, does not even support your stance, and you know this.

You were sent to Congress to help people, period, not vote your personal principles or the principles of some of your District. You were sent to do what is right and what is right is not always what the so called identified majority wants.

Question- were you in Congress in 1964 and 1965...would you have voted for Civil rights legislation? The so called majority of the First District in Cincinnati, was overwhelmingly against the Civil Rights Act. What would you do-stand on principle assuming your principle was different and just..or would you satisfy your so called identified majority constituents, knowing they were wrong and bigoted in their opinions.

Like it or not, Roe v Wade saves many, many more lives, then you and your like minded Congressman are willing to admit. However, the number of deaths resulting from America's inability to adequately address women's health care is staggering and way too high.

Prevention, real talk and action about contraception and sex education for kids are the best way to combat unwanted pregnancies and would go a long way in cutting back on the need to choose.

There is no woman on the face of this earth who makes that decision lightly. It is gut wrenching with the effects of that decision lasting a lifetime.

I have spent way too much time on the right to choose. Health care reform is not really about the right to choose. It is about instilling more equity in an unequal system for women. This reform is not the one I wanted. But it is one that I and others like me desperately need.

It is a first step toward true change, change that you promised to initiate or support, when you came into my First District neighborhood asking me to vote for you.

I am actually glad that you are a man of principle. However, principles should be coupled with what is just, what is moral and what is right.

Any principle that goes against the well being of a single human being, class, color or gender is bigotry pure and simple.

I hope that when the time comes, you will do the right and just thing and help fix a corrupted and biased health care system.

Respectfully yours

Friday Rap

Tea Party Convention

Underway with no American Flag and no Pledge of Allegiance to open the session and they call themselves patriots...please! Where are the flag pins? Where is the Lord's Prayer? Where the Black people at?

One thing's for sure about this Convention...Sarah Palin is going to show up and she's going to make out a like a bandit...

She says she is going to put her $100,000 speaking fee back into the movement...no specifics...just another blind promise like always..

And she has some company....Orangeman otherwise known as Ohio Congressman John Boehner (and no, I didn't vote for this fool), finally admits to being a tea bagger..says he's one of them....also said yesterday that Wall Street should give him some money so he can bury Obama....hmmm

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GOP Extortion Plot

Word out of DC this morning that one GOP fool of a lawmaker has put a hold on every Obama nominee for whatever....

Now, that's not very bipartisan, nor is it an attempt to represent the people. Blanket holds are for one reason only and that is to mess with the other party, period..

Certainly not about governance of the people, by the people or for the people..

Maybe O needs to conjure up LBJ...you remember him Lynchin' Baines Johnson, one of the best Congressman ever at twisting arms and getting legislation passed on Capital Hill...and that's before he took the White House away from JFK....but that's another story altogether.

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DADT

Despite how wrongly they've been treated...many LGBT military want back in...That's what you call patriotism and love of country.

I never see any tea baggers, Dick Cheney relatives or fake god and country people calling for a reinstitution of the draft...Clearly, our country needs help on the war front.....

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Terror trial in NY

When are Americans going to understand that citizens have to shoulder some responsibility. You want a a war on terror...but you don't want the inconvenience or necessary sacrifice in your life or a terror trial in your backyard....when the bad guys are caught........that's called white flight...or “don't bring em to my neighborhood”

You want the military to find and kill Bin Laden...yet you're not willing to support a draft to give the military enough people to fight a real war or to find the terrorist....

You continue to demand solutions from the government....yet continue to return the obstructionists to the Hill to keep progress from happening..

The problem with white flight is that eventually the problem comes to you...(ever notice the meths labs and drug busts are all in the burbs and rural areas these days, and not in the ghettos).... and you've got no where else to run...

Obama's canceled the moon program a couple of days ago...now what cha gon do?

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Driehaus

Heard from my Congressman yesterday....calling me “Jo” like he knows me..Thank you Congressman for addressing my concern. But I'm still not voting for you next time around.

I mean what I say. If you can talk to me when we agree...you should also talk to me when we don't. That is what I call representation. It's a dialogue between representative and constituent...not a happy sleepover, where we play games and tell each other how pretty we are.

You respect me, I respect you.

Ya know what, sometimes I may not like you, but honesty and respect, will get my vote every time.

You lost this one.

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GAY-TV!

I don't know about the rest of the country, but here in Ohio, 7AM to Noon is the queerest block on television....starting with GMA or Gay-M-A, as some call it.....Wendy Williams...Ellen...and The View.......Love it!

This block is the background noise for my writing, five days a week..

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Superbowl....Saint or Colts

My heart is with the Saints.....My head and money are on the Colts....Go Peyton!

Considering where Peyton lives and grew up...New Orleans is the winner no matter who takes home the trophy..

And....I saw a sneak preview of somebody doing the Bears Super Bowl shuffle again...I need a dose of my Bears....That was my favorite superbowl!

Obama's Rope-a-Dope

A closer look at the Stupak Amendment

What the first part of the legal mandate that the Stupak Amendment would impose is not new. It echoes the law laid down back in 1976 by the Hyde Amendment, which already forbids the use of federal funds to pay for most abortions. The exceptions are for rape and incest or when the woman's life is threatened if the pregnancy proceeds.

It's the second part of the amendment that really ticks me off. The second graf of this travesty severely limits the availability of private insurance that does cover the procedure. In other words, the Stupak Amendment doesn't just apply to the public option, which is the low cost government plan. It affects the proposed health care exchange plans as well, by forcing insurers to drop abortion coverage that they already offer, right now, to any new customers who may want to sign up with them through the proposed exchanges.

This means that if you have a health plan and want to switch to another plan under the proposed health exchange... that may provide better coverage at a lower price, and your old policy has abortion coverage and you're okay with that...then you will lose that option under the law...when you switch.

The reach of the Stupak Amendment goes well beyond the law in violating the rights of choice for women.

A little known fact is that nearly 90% of all insurance plans offered in America, cover abortion. The problem is that employers and corporations opt out of that part of the policy for their female employees. In case you didn't know, your employer chooses what coverage you get on plans as they are written now.

The way it is structured, thanks to Stupak is that even if a woman wants to take her own money and purchase a plan with an option for abortion, in the private sector, she will not be able to do so.

If the goal is to put everyone in a lower priced exchange of more affordable coverage..this is a back assward way to do it. It won't happen...The insurance companies win again..

According to Stupak, women will always be free to buy an optional rider out of their own pocket if they want the coverage. But once again there is that catch 22..

Most people don't think about medical procedures until they need to undergo them...Who plans for an unplanned pregnancy?

But I guess if you're used to thinking of all pregnancies as pre-existing conditions...then the Stupak Amendment makes perfect sense.

Those who favored the Stupak Amendment like my ex Congressman Driehaus say they are merely upholding the noxious Hyde Amendment...when actually they are expanding exponentially to the detriment of women.

Let's be real about the situation. Laws of this type hurt poor women...those living in poverty...

The women who live, love and screw Congressman...will never have to worry about the Hyde Amendment or Stupak Amendment.... since their powerful men are paid their salaries with taxpayer money...to protect them and to give them the best coverage that taxpayer money can buy..

Well, that sounds like a government subsidized abortion to me...using government money to end a pregnancy....But blocked for those who can't fight back..

Rich white women have never had to worry about ending a pregnancy or anything else....racist? maybe....but did I lie?

64 Democrats voted in support of the Stupak Amendment....23 of them voted against the health care bill.

The good news is that this bill now goes to the Senate for more work and compromise amid my hopes that the Stupak Amendment will not make it into the bill that lands on Obama's desk..

I am not at ease with this, because while I know that Obama says he supports a woman's right to choose..... he elected to fund the Hyde Amendment in the budget...when he could have effectively killed it like Clinton did, and maybe circumvented this Stupak Amendment stupidity.

Obama's handling of the health care debate puts me in mind of Muhammed Ali's famous rope a dope technique.

Everyone including me, thought Ali was crazy to lay on the ropes and let big George Foreman rain punches on him for round after round after round...Ali just duckin' and weavin'...resting on the ropes...

Along comes the 9^th round, I think..and George's arms are tired...His muscles are at fail...he can't throw a punch...and Ali comes off the ropes and whups his ass....Knock Out!

Ali wins again...

I hated the rope a dope because I wanted Ali to just go in there blastin and kickin ass...I wanted him to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee and go home til the next fight..

I would like for my President to do the same thing...float in...get it done and float on to the next crisis...

However...he seems to like the rope a dope...I had to learn to trust Ali's instincts...

I am still learning to trust Obama's...

Hope he's resting readying the knockout punch when it's time...

Until it comes...I am not resting easy...

Driehaus Still Won't Get My Vote!

My ex Congressman voted for the health care reform bill last night and today I get a letter from the Obama Administration telling me I should thank Driehaus for acting courageously...

Well pardon me, but I define courageous a bit differently. Courageous is a vote that would have passed without selling out half the population and half of his constiuency. Courageous is a vote that would have shown respect for all women and their rights to make decisions about their lives...Courageous is the vote cast by GOP Congressman Ahn Cao...for his constituency and against his party....that's how you spell courageous...

Driehaus didn't stand up for women.....He didn't want to stand up for women...He approved of an amendment that is the most restrictive anti abortion measure since the Hyde Amendment...

Women deserve good health care just like men....there is no gray area here....The right to choose is an integral part of that..

The unborn are potential voters.....Women....we're here....some of us are queer...some of us are straight.... and yes, we do vote......

All of us deserve the right to decide what we do with our bodies without interference from anyone else...

Men don't have that problem...ever.....and neither should we...

Looking at the big picture...We need health care reform....However, screwing over half the population is a no win situation for everybody...