This Isn’t Really That Hard

Lost of wailing and gnashing of teeth (and crowing from the NeoConfederates) about MSNBC’s ratings drop post-election, and much confusion as to why it is so.

This comment from piratedan cleared THAT right up:

“well part of the lack of passion has to be attributed to the constant barrage of immediacy to everything…namely…

I dislike being asked for cash for each and every outrage as if I’m some pavlovian domestic who can be counted upon to tap my wallet each time there’s a new Republican outrage and let me tell you, those damn things (both the Republican boondoggle and the attempt to lighten my wallet) can be counted upon to show up about twice a week. Sorry, but that’s tiring.

The second item is the fact that the R’s do a very good job at keeping the outrage meter at 11, there is a seemingly bottomless well of duplicity, falsehoods, lies, asshattery and plain simple spite in their arsenal. They are fucking relentless in their hatred, they must be using the Uruk-Hai model and I can sympathize with King Theoden and wondering where the fuck is Gandalf, much less that unexpected force from Lorien. They are quite adept at tearing down our society in their forlorn hope to re-establish Little House on the Prairie with a side helping of Mandingo and The Name of The Rose. Christ one week it’s depriving poor kids of food or medical care, the next it’s womens rights and after that, we’re hamstringing the government by blocking any and all legislation. Then they’re kicking gun safety reform to the curb or ginning up some foreign policy nothingburger and when they have free time, they fall back and claim that the current presidency doesn’t have enough minstrel show for them while they’re still; attempting to repeal the ACA and fuck over the recovery with their lack of understanding about how a government is run. For a bunch of asshats who aren’t doing anything, they’re remarkably busy doing whatever they can to redistribute the wealth to themselves and those that write the checks to their campaigns. Everybody else can simply fuck off and please don’t die where I can see you.

While that shitburger is taking place inside the district federale, the media is making sure that we all understand that black people are scary and doing their best to tell Mom and Pop and Uncle Joe that R’s have had their fee-fee’s trampled upon when the President doesn’t simply disavow everything that he’s stood for politically and cave into their wishes because he got more votes than Mannequin Mitt, despite their very best efforts to keep poors, blacks and wimmins from voting. After all, Obama has invited them to his place for chow, for drinks and even taking them golfing, but lets face it, these guys aren’t putting out and they’re still not even going to wear the really cute dress until Obama takes them someplace special, like PaulRyanLand Amusement Park (Grandma gets in free, but you can’t ever ever let her leave). But hell, they don’t let his type in, so I’m thinking that’s not gonna happen. Lets not talk about anything else unless it has the Country Club Corporate spin and hey lookie there, another white girl was killed and all of our collective attention must focus on that, see you in two to three weeks when the next one happens.

So maybe I’m tired and don’t really care that drones are killing brown people instead of our troops, mercenaries or proxies doing it in person or the fact that no matter what the President does, no matter how reasonable he sounds, no matter how much support his policies may have with the majority of Americans, Republicans could give a fuck and they’ll burn it all down if it’s all the same to them, because they have more than you and I, so they’re betting that odds are they’ll do just fine.

So maybe, just maybe, some of us are taking a breather, watching some baseball and cleaning up around the house before we come back to girding our collective loins about the 2014 elections.”

That about sums it up, all right.

They Love Free Markets – Until They Don’t

Republicans worship the free market and rely on it to solve all manner of problems – until…

How far will state car-dealer associations go to prevent Tesla Motors from opening its electric-car showrooms and selling cars over the Internet?

A long, long way.

In North Carolina, a new law passed by the state Senate would apparently make it illegal for Tesla to e-mail its customers.

In other words, if you’re a North Carolina resident who has a question about Tesla, the new law may prohibit Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] from responding to your question via e-mail.

The specific wording of the law bars automakers from “using a computer or other communications facilities, hardware, or equipment” to sell or lease acar to anyone in North Carolina.

***

Diarmuid O’Connell, vice president of business development for Tesla, told ABC News the bill was a “fundamentally protectionist effort to lock down the market and force us to sell through the middle man.”

The bill must be sent to the state’s House of Representatives by today, and would have to be passed by that body and signed into law by governor Pat McCrory to take effect.

There is some good news – it appears that consumers in the state are not going to take it lying down:

Tesla and its products are not without supporters in the Tar Heel State. There are 49 Tesla cars registered in North Carolina, and the company operates a service center in Raleigh, but it currently has no stores.

Citizens dismayed at the law…actually set up a private website, called Tesla Motors NC, to rally efforts around preventing passage of the law.

(h/t Dolly Llama at Balloon-Juice)

Bitter Harvest

It would appear that the GOP’s Hispanic outreach offensive (and boy was it!) has borne some fruit, albeit not the kind they intended:

Presumably few Republican operatives have a better handle on the national Republican party’s efforts to court Hispanic voters than Pablo Pantoja, a native of Puerto Rico, and Florida State University alum appointed by the Republican National Committee to oversee Hispanic outreach in Florida last year. He also worked as a field director in the 2010 midterm elections.

Now – amid another debate over immigration reform and a widely touted Heritage foundation study on immigrants touted by a fellow who used to argue that Hispanics have a lower IQ than non-Hispanic immigrants – Pantojo has decided he’s more comfortable joining the Democratic party.

So Marco Rubio isn’t the be-all and end-all for the NeoConfederate party’s brown folks woes?  Who could have imagined such a thing?

“Friend,

Yes, I have changed my political affiliation to the Democratic Party.

It doesn’t take much to see the culture of intolerance surrounding the Republican Party today. I have wondered before about the seemingly harsh undertones about immigrants and others. Look no further; a well-known organization recently confirms the intolerance of that which seems different or strange to them.

Studies geared towards making – human beings – viewed as less because of their immigrant status to outright unacceptable claims, are at the center of the immigration debate. Without going too deep on everything surrounding immigration today, the more resounding example this past week was reported by several media outlets.

A researcher included as part of a past dissertation his theory that “the totality of the evidence suggests a genetic component to group differences in IQ.” The researcher reinforces these views by saying “No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against.”

Although the organization distanced themselves from those assertions, other immigration-related research is still padded with the same racist and eugenics-based innuendo. Some Republican leaders have blandly (if at all) denied and distanced themselves from this but it doesn’t take away from the culture within the ranks of intolerance. The pseudo-apologies appear to be a quick fix to deep-rooted issues in the Republican Party in hopes that it will soon pass and be forgotten.

The complete disregard of those who are in disadvantage is also palpable. We are not looking at an isolated incident of rhetoric or research. Others subscribe to motivating people to action by stating, “In California, a majority of all Hispanic births are illegitimate. That’s a lot of Democratic voters coming.” The discourse that moves the Republican Party is filled with this anti-immigrant movement and overall radicalization that is far removed from reality.  Another quick example beyond the immigration debate happened during CPAC this year when a supporter shouted ““For giving him shelter and food for all those years?” while a moderator explained how Frederick Douglass had written a letter to his slave master saying that he forgave him for “all the things you did to me”. I think you get the idea.

When the political discourse resorts to intolerance and hate, we all lose in what makes America great and the progress made in society.

Although I was born an American citizen, I feel that my experience, and that of many from Puerto Rico, is intertwined with those who are referred to as illegal. My grandfather served in an all-Puerto Rican segregated Army unit, the 65th Infantry Regiment. He then helped, along my grandmother, shatter glass ceilings for Puerto Rican women raising my aunt to become the first Puerto Rican woman astronomer with a PhD in astrophysics (an IQ of a genius as far as I’m concerned). Puerto Ricans, as many other Americans still today have to face issues of discrimination in voting and civil rights.

Regardless of what political affiliation people choose, my respect for some remains. I don’t expect all Hispanics to do the same (although I would hope so) but I’m taking a stand against this culture of intolerance.

I am also making a modest contribution (here: http://bit.ly/12uF3g8) to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for the efforts in helping protect the rights of immigrants and civil liberties in general.

With warm regards,

-pablo”

Estas personas están mal de la cabeza!