The Winkest Link

By Wink

You have heard about the $16 muffins, haven’t you?

Some government organization somewhere held a conference at a nearby hotel, and they were charged $16 for each and every muffin that they ate. Sixteen dollar muffins! Horrible!

This is a classic story of how all government is wasteful, and all tax dollars are wasted.

Rush, Fox and the Teabaggers have had a field day with the $16 muffins.

This would be a good story, maybe a great story, were it true.

Sadly, it is not true, but since when has ‘not true’ prevented Rush/Fox from blaring a story over and over?

I am tempted to say ‘there are no journalists anymore.’ This story would have been easy enough to research and get corrected.

Here is the problem with that. I would rather ‘real’ journalists not waste time on muffin stories, or any of the usual stuff Rush makes up and throws out to his horde of believers.

It would be time-consuming and ineffective to rebut all the purposeful inaccuracies he spews, since Rush followers believe journalists are all liberal blah-blah-blah…anyway .

The conserve-o-sphere blared this for weeks. Will we get weeks of retractions? No. Will we get at least ‘headline’ style retractions (toward the top of any FOX newscast)? No.

The real gist of the ‘muffin’ report was this: “Government conference expenditures must be managed carefully.”

Well, Duh. We don’t want anyone wasting taxpayer dollars.

Rush/Fox are not really talking about ‘muffins.’ This is just part of the pattern to paint all government as ‘evil’ and ‘wasteful.’ It is just a game. They never stop…

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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By Wink

Forty-two years ago Moammar Gadhafi began his ruthless rule of Libya.

Forty-three years ago the Basque ‘ETA’ movement in Spain began a violent campaign for sovereignty.

The ETA has been decreed a terrorist group by Spain, the European Union and the United States.

This is well-deserved.

Since the late 60’s, in an attempt to gain independence, the ETA has staged hundreds of shootings of police and politicians, and occasionally even bombed civilians. They have killed 829 people.

The untimely (in this case meaning ‘too delayed’) death of Gadhafi garnered big headlines world-wide. Because of this, on the very same day, important news regarding the Basque ETA movement was shoved to the back pages.

After declaring a cease-fire a year ago, they now have officially called an end to all hostilities.

This can only be described as a victory for humanity. While the rest of the world focused on Gadhafi, the Spanish headlines regarding the ETA were certainly banner-width.

Peace breaking out anywhere is cause for real celebration.

By Wink

In the October 5 W-L post I tried to explain why President Obama is not Hitler, and governor Rick Perry is not a racist.

A reader felt obligated to respond, by forwarding something from the conservative blogosphere. The ‘surprise’ ending is that all the below info is really about Hitler. HITLER !!!

Feel free to spot-check for factual errors. I changed none of the wording, but emphasized the more obvious slanted comments by making them bold, and added question marks after one weird analogy.

Again with the ‘birth certificate’ thing…

But I do love the ending … “be very scared!”

Note: Many of the below statements could be applied to ANY political candidate, including Republicans, unless no politician has EVER said …

”together we could change our country and the world” or “I have a really good plan on how we could do better”…

The whole thing reeks of Glenn Beck, and it wasn’t sent to me to share a laugh. It was sent in all sincerity, to alert me….

Enjoy….

—————————-

I was born in one country, raised in another.

My father was born in another country. I was not his only child.

He fathered several children with numerous women.

I became very close to my mother, as my father showed no interest in me.

My mother died at an early age from cancer.

Although my father deserted me and my mother raised me, I later wrote a book idolizing my father not my mother.

Later in life, questions arose over my real name.

My birth records were sketchy. No one was able to produce a legitimate, reliable birth certificate.

I grew up practicing one faith but converted to Christianity, as it was widely accepted in my new country, but I practiced non-traditional beliefs and didn’t follow Christianity, except in the public eye under scrutiny.

I worked and lived among lower-class people (1) as a young adult, disguising myself as someone who really cared about them.

That was before I decided it was time to get serious about my life and embarked on a new career.

I wrote a book about my struggles growing up.

It was clear to those who read my memoirs, that I had difficulties accepting that my father abandoned me as a child.

I became active in local politics in my 30′s then, with help behind the scenes, I literally burst onto the scene as a candidate for national office in my 40s.

They said I had a golden tongue and could talk anyone into anything.

I had a virtually non-existent resume, little work history, and no experience in leading a single organization.

Yet I was a powerful speaker and citizens were drawn to me, as though I were a magnet and they were small roofing tacks. (????????)

I drew incredibly large crowds during my public appearances. This bolstered my ego.

At first, my political campaign focused on my country’s foreign policy…

I was very critical of my country in the last war, and seized every opportunity to bash my country.

But what launched my rise to national prominence were my views on the country’s economy.

I pretended to have a really good plan on how we could do better, and every poor person would be fed and housed for free.

I knew which group was responsible for getting us into this mess. It was the free market, banks and corporations.

I decided to start making citizens hate them and, if they became envious of others who did well, the plan was clinched tight.

I called mine “A People’s Campaign”. That sounded good to all people.

I was the surprise candidate because I emerged from outside the traditional path of politics and was able to gain widespread popular support.

I knew that, if I merely offered the people ‘hope’, together we could change our country and the world.

So, I started to make my speeches sound like they were on behalf of the downtrodden, poor, ignorant to include “persecuted minorities”.

My true views were not widely known and I kept them unknown, until after I became my nation’s leader.

I had to carefully guard reality, as anybody could have easily found out what I really believed, if they had simply read my writings and examined those people I associated with. I’m glad they didn’t.

Then I became the most powerful man in the world.

And then the world learned the truth.

Who am I?
ADOLPH HITLER (2)

If you were thinking of SOMEONE ELSE, you should be scared, very scared

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(1) I love the comment about ‘lower class’ people, presumably meaning the poor.
(2) Can I add a “dun-dun-dun!” sound effect here?

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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By Wink

Can we stop with the name-calling already? This is seventh-grade stuff…

On ‘Fox and Friends’ Hank Williams Jr. recently called President Obama ‘Hitler.’

Really Hank, Hitler? Do you know who Hitler was? What he did?

Pull your head out.

You have the right to free speech, Hank. You won’t go to jail for saying ‘Obama is Hitler.’ You have to understand, though, that people will see you for the moron you obviously are.

————–

Similarly, it was recently discovered that, long ago, Texas governor Rick Perry leased a hunting ranch with a racist name…a very racist name.

There is no other indication, anywhere, that Rick Perry is racist. People who have known him a very long time, even political opponents, say they have never seen Perry give any racist views.

It is an overreach, and morally wrong, to try to paint him that way.

There are plenty of racists out there, and racism is alive and strong, but we can’t be flippant about branding people that way. The charge is significant enough that you really need to gather a lot of facts before you apply the ‘racist’ label.

‘Chicken-Little’-type idiots do it regularly, which devalues the term. We need to preserve the term ‘racist’ and be willing to apply it for the truly despicable, not just as a ‘close enough’ moniker for those we happen to disagree with politically.

————–

C’mon people, stop throwing around these names. Hitler was a horrendous monster. His actions led to tens of millions of deaths. Feel free to compare Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot to Hitler. Those are apt, but precious few people alive today would fall into that category…

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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By Wink

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad loves conspiracies. Like many bigots, he says the Holocaust never happened.

He has also purported that 9/11 was not really an Al-Qaeda plan, but that the U.S. government orchestrated it.

This view has really ticked off some people. Among them, Al-Qaeda.

Yep, Al-Qaeda is mad at Iran, and they are demanding that Ahmadinejad stop his efforts to discredit 9/11. The exact quote from Al-Qaeda:

“So we may ask the question: Why would Iran ascribe to such a ridiculous belief that stands in the face of all logic and evidence?”

Al-Qaeda vs Iran. I don’t even know where to begin. Do I laugh at the lunacy of this? I guess I will leave all analysis to you…

(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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By Wink

High school is over. Your child has now grown wings and is headed off to college. This is a sad, necessary step in life.

Letting your metaphorical butterfly go free is never easy. It is even less easy because said butterfly will need stuff. Lots of stuff.

Don’t forget to send all of the following:

Bike
Towels & linens
Chairs
Table
TV
Gaming system
Games
Clothes
Weather-related clothes
School-related clothes (go team!)
Food (especially pizza and, for variety, pizza rolls)
Basketball
Tennis racket
Frisbee
Printer paper (loads)
Ironic t-shirts
Laundry basket
Lifetime supply of ramen noodles
Ipod
Gator Aid (really?)
Car (not)
Books?

Cleaning supplies (don’t worry, these will be returned at end of the year – unused)

And finally, the things that go with them, whether you like it or not…..

Childhood
Youthful optimism
Innocence

Good luck parent. This will be harder for you than for your child…

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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By Wink

Do you think I am full of it? It is okay if you do. Conservatives who read Winkest Link will point out how I am always railing about how the GOP seems to be off base on a number of issues. Maybe I am just a liberal wacko.

I don’t think of myself as a liberal wacko. I don’t even think of myself as especially liberal at all. I believe in the free market and a strong military. I believe America is a uniquely outstanding country.

I am liberal on some things, conservative on others. I try to let facts and logic dictate which views I take. I try (really) to leave emotion out of my decision-making.

Regular liberal readers might be disappointed in how conservative I can be on certain issues.

I don’t ‘like’ taxes. In that way I am conservative. I do, however, understand why tax is necessary: To maintain an orderly society, we need a strong central government, which requires tax. We need good roads and bridges. We need to educate our children. We need military and police and firefighters to protect us.

So we need tax.

In a pure economic sense there are times to lower corporate tax rates, and there are times to raise them.

Many conservatives, and especially teabaggers, hate tax. They don’t believe there is EVER a good time to raise tax. Naturally they accept the fallacy that all corporate tax just falls back on to the consumer.

The GOP, as it is currently constituted, preaches only one tax theory: Lower taxes create more jobs. The more money corporations have, the more they share!

Nope. Sometimes corporations just have more money than they know what to do with. Let us test the theory…

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, in the second quarter of 2011 American Corporations made $1.94 trillion in profits. Record profits.

That number is not operating expense. It is not gross income. It is profit. And that amount is after tax. (It is also after unimaginable executive salaries, and after those ‘horrible’ union wages.)

I repeat: $1.94 trillion profit after tax. Record profits. So apparently the tax they pay is not such a horrible drain.

BUT, the unemployment rate did not improve. Why? Because ‘More jobs’ is not a corporate goal. ‘More money’ is the only goal. And they already have more money than they know what to do with.

If making profits created jobs, we would be swimming in jobs right now.

So, if the corporations refuse to hire, now is the time for the government to do it. Private industry is sitting on trillions of dollars. (Remember, the $1.94 trillion profit mentioned above is for ONE QUARTER.)

Time to raise the corporate tax rate and/or remove loopholes.

This will help our whole economy. Bridges and roads are in desperate need of repair. We need more teachers and more police. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. These are jobs that will create more jobs.

Notably, this will also help the industries that are being taxed. People with jobs will buy the products/services they produce. More jobs help everybody, even the wealthy!

————————

But let us, for a moment, take the Republican technique, and apply it to the 2nd quarter. Instead of $1.94 trillion profit, let’s say taxes were lower and these companies netted $2.5 trillion profit. Would that have created more jobs?

Rhetorical Answer: Why didn’t $1.94 trillion profit create more jobs? What difference would another half a trillion make?

It just becomes more and more profit, not more and more jobs.

Obviously more profit does NOT equal more jobs. These companies already have MORE PROFIT. More than ever. Ever.

Republicans (except for the stupider among them) know this. They just use the phrase ‘more jobs’ to convince you to give more money to the already wealthy.

———————–

When companies are struggling, taxes should be lowered. When companies are robust (and ‘robust’ does not begin to describe $1.94 trillion profit in three months time) we have to look at the big picture.

Big-picture circumstances have now converged to swing to pro-tax.

• Companies are flush
• Unemployment is high
• Infrastructure has aged to a dangerous point

Lowering tax will fix none of America’s problems.

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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By Wink

Do you care about government waste? Republicans do. Or they say they do. Are they screaming about $31 billion to $60 billion disappearing?

The bipartisan Wartime Contraction Commission is asking Congress to quickly enact recommendations to overhaul the contracting process and increase accountability.

Why? According to the commission, the Iraq / Afghanistan wars are rife with…

• Lax oversight of contractors
• Poor planning
• Inadequate competition
• Corruption

The total cost of the wars now approaches $1 trillion. In waste alone, the U.S. has lost between $31 billion and $60 billion.

The GOP will scream about a $100,000 research grant. They will rail that a $45,000 teacher is grossly overpaid. Anything that goes to public broadcasting or to protect the environment or student loans – all waste, all killing America.

But when $31 billion to $60 billion disappears? Do you hear the crickets?

Remember, sometimes what one man sees as ‘government waste’ is really just luxurious retirement packages for hundreds of corporate execs.

I bet Halliburton knows where a good chunk of that went.

Does the name “Halliburton’ mean anything to you? That is where Dick Cheney worked before he became Vice President.

It was Cheney who orchestrated us getting into a war in Iraq. It was Cheney who orchestrated Halliburton getting no-bid, name-your-price contracts to provide services in Iraq.

‘No-bid, name-your-price’ is an invitation to insane pricing, and a good way to throw away $31 billion and $60 billion in taxpayer money.

Now you know why Dick Cheney has that big, albeit crooked, smile on his face. Surely Halliburton is rewarding him handsomely for his fealty.

(I still don’t understand why he likes torturing people so much, since there is no money in it. Maybe the idea of torture just humors him.)

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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By Wink

The Libyan overthrow of Gadhafi is worth celebrating. Anytime a ruthless dictator is deposed the world has a chance to become a better place. A chance.

It is better when a country overthrows its own dictator, like Libya did, than when an outside country does this, like the U.S. did in Iraq.

Why is it better? Let us examine the partial cost to the U.S. of the Iraq War…

• 4,477 U.S. Soldiers Killed
• 32,130 U.S. Soldiers Seriously Wounded
• $900 billion dollars (through November 2010)
• Ten years of the two longest wars in U.S. history (including Afghanistan)
• Iraq is no longer a balancing weight to long-time antagonist Iran
• Iraq is being overrun by terrorists again

This war of choice also cost the U.S. much international credibility.

We did it right in Libya. We let the Libyans, with some international help, take control of their own country. Now they have a stake in their future. Our minor role assured there would be no American soldiers killed and very little cost.

It is far too soon to predict the end result. Libyans have no practice at normal governance, and the idea of a conventional democracy might be more ‘wish’ than reality.

War criminals must be dealt with, beginning with Gadhafi and his family. It would be a good sign if Libya sent their former tormentors off to international courts to be tried for their crimes. To have them tried and executed in Libya would feel good, but may not unify the country.

What Libya needs now are advisors, historian/political ones to teach the ins-and-outs of setting up a democracy, and economic advisors, so they don’t waste resources (specifically oil) that can help finance a fledgling democracy.

Most of all, what a new government needs is security. There is unprotected oil. There are unguarded weapons. These should not fall into the hands of anarchist/militants who would keep the country unstable…

Do what it takes to limit revenge killings, despite the temptations.

Establish the rule of law, and begin elections that allow all groups to be represented.

A healthy future is not impossible, but is not guaranteed. Some supremely dedicated leaders, and a little luck, are needed.

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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By Wink

The GOP talking-points machine is always well-oiled. Every Republican gets a regular memo, and dutifully spits out the same sh**, to magnify the ‘seriousness’ of some alleged problem.

I call these YAPI – Yet Another Phony Issue.

And what is today’s YAPI, you may ask? Vacation. Too much vacation.

Barack Obama has been in office for 31 months. He has taken 61 vacation days. This equals 23.6 vacation days per year, and is more than Bill Clinton took in the same amount of time in office. Yep, more than Bill Clinton.

Maybe this is why Sarah Palin (among others) has decided to make an issue out of it. Anybody who is worse than Bill Clinton must be a pretty awful president.

Hey, the economy is in bad shape, and people are out of work. There is no way Obama should be taking vacation now…

I am sure when she ‘writes’ her next book she will also rip into …

- Ronald Reagan, who took 112 vacation days in his first 31 months (43.4 per year).

- George W. Bush, who took 180 vacation days in his first 31 months (69.7 per year).

“W” took 10 weeks of vacation per year! His term should be called the ‘Vacant Presidency.’

It was okay that he was gone so frequently though, because there were no pressing issues during W’s first 31 months, if you leave out that ‘9-11’ thing,

And Sarah has plenty of room to criticize others for their lack of dedication, since she resigned as governor of Alaska after two years of a four-year term.

————————

YAPI ‘issue’ number two, now flying back and forth around the conserve-o-sphere: The Bus!

President Obama is now travelling around the country in a $1 million bus.

Two important details about the bus:

- President Obama did not order the bus, the U.S. Secret Service did. They are very happy with the level of security it provides.
- There are actually two buses. The other bus is for the Republican presidential candidate, whenever that issue is settled. I am sure the GOP candidate will decline the use of this extravagant waste of taxpayer money.

————

This is all just more YAPI from Rush & Fox and all the others. Remember ‘Michele Obama is trying to indoctrinate our kids’ by suggesting they grow and eat more vegetables!! Horrors!

Keep flinging it GOP. Your poll-testers have shown you that this junk will chip-chip-chip away at the credibility of anyone you wish to destroy.

You care not whether the issue is true or relevant.

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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