Connecting…presidentially

MoonHowler

 

 

 

Much is being made on TV this morning about how Mitt Romney really just doesn’t relate to the average Joe.  He makes awkward remarks about his wife’s Cadillacs, fakes a southern accent and makes references to grits.  It  just makes you wince.  Comparisons are made to Bill Clinton and George Bush.  Does it matter?

People seem to want a president who is just like them.  To wit, look at the wild popularity of George Bush and Bill Clinton.  Those who liked both of these men, really liked them and overlooked some glaring character flaws and glaring mistakes made while in office.  Both Bush and Clinton could connect with others and make them feel like they were just like them.

Contrast the Bush/Clinton phenomena to others who have run for office.  Gore, the wooden candidate. John  Kerry? Would you really want to have to go drink a beer with him?  He just wasn’t like us.   Daddy Bush?  His wife, yes.  Him?  Not so much.  Nice guy.  Bubba gets along with him but Bubba gets along with everyone.  Mitt Romney seems to suffer the same fate.  He isn’t like us.  He knows he isn’t like us and he tries to fake it.  It isn’t working. 

For all we laughed at George Bush’s inability to publicly speak and called Clinton Bubba, these were endearing traits.  These traits made us over-look a lot.  Both Clinton and Bush know how to do people-speak and they know how to work a crowd. 

Does it really matter?  In the long run, no.  What are our chances of having to relate to Bush or Clinton?  They could both have the personality of a stump but its the impression they leave.  And its what gets them elected.  Getting elected is the hard part.  The rest is easier.  Presidents are removed from the masses.   I am not sure Mitt is ever going to connect.  He just isn’t one of the masses.

Open Thread……………………………………………..Friday, March 9

MoonHowler
Aurora in Russia
 
 
A huge CME on Wednesday set off an eletromagnetic frenzy.  Wouldn’t it just be wonderful to see the Aurora Borialis just once?  This one was taken in the past day or so, and looks like green smoke is rising up out of the snow. 
 
 
It looks like winter passed us by.  Is anyone interested in a Moonhowlings Meet Up at Mama Mia’s in the next couple of weeks?  We can ask Steve to scout it out again.  Maybe we can get some folks out we still haven’t met and of course we can extend an invitation to Cargo.  Maybe we can even get another red velvet cake out of Chris. 
 
Another CME is incoming.  The picture on the right was taken in Iceland. 

The Lights are On but Nobody is Home

MoonHowler

 

 

Tonight there was a candle light vigil complete with song at the Governor’s Mansion.  The demonstrators held candles, sang, had copies of petitions signed by thousands of women to be delivered to Gov. McDonald.  Their song must have fallen on deaf ears as much as their protests of the last month did.

Richmond Times Dispatch:

A handful of uniformed Capitol police officers are present. There is no sign of officers in riot gear, as in Saturday’s protest in which 30 demonstrators were arrested after they refused to leave the Capitol’s steps.

Organizers of this evening’s vigil say they did not need a permit because they are not on Capitol grounds, but on the street behind the mansion.

McDonnell is not in town this evening. He is attending a fundraiser in Northern Virginia for Rep. Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican.

So McDonnell signs an bill into law that requires an unnecessary medical procedure and then leaves town?   Why is he meeting in Northern Virginia with Mike Pence?  Is McDonnell trying to find some more repressive laws to pass onto Virginia women?  Mike Pence is best known for his war of misinformation on Planned Parenthood. 

Does that mean that Gov. McDonnell is now turning pro-abortion?  Ewwww.  Bob.  I assume anyone against contraception is in favor of abortion.  It’s so much better to prevent unwanted pregnancy in the first place.

Continuing Contract safe for another year

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell’s bill to eliminate tenure-style job protections for public school teachers died Thursday at the hands of the Republican-led Senate.

After delaying a decision on the contentious bill for eight days straight, the Senate voted 23 to 17 to send it back to committee, effectively killing it for the year.

Three Republicans joined all 20 Democrats in voting to recommit the bill, which has been vigorously opposed by the Virginia Education Association.

The move was a political defeat for McDonnell, who had made overhauling teacher contracts a key part of his education agenda.

“This bill does nothing but kick teachers in the teeth,” said Sen. Philip Puckett (D-Russell), a former teacher and principal.

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Law Enforcement: Fallujah, Va.?

MoonHowler

Editorial from the Richmond Times Dispatch:

“Over the last 25 years, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement,” said the Cato Institute in its 2006 report, Overkill, “along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units … for routine police work.” Virginians have witnessed the phenomenon in action recently in their state capital — particularly last Saturday, when officers of the State Police dressed in combat gear squared off against protesters who were peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights.

A number of those protesters later were arrested for refusing to clear the steps of the Capitol. The protesters had a permit to protest at the Bell Tower, but not the Capitol steps. Although the courts have upheld restrictions on the time, place and manner of public demonstrations, those restrictions ought to be as lax as possible. Giving demonstrators broad latitude is more in keeping with the First Amendment than rigid enforcement of arbitrary constraints.

That said, the protesters’ refusal to obey a lawful order was unwise. They already had made their point, and did not advance their arguments by provoking a confrontation that distracts from their message. The politically motivated debate over the arrests that has followed — complete with utterly ridiculous comparisons to the era of segregation and Massive Resistance — has now overshadowed the issue to which the protesters were trying to bring attention.

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McDonnell signs controversial ultra-sound abortion bill

MoonHowler

 

Gestational Sac size = 6 to 12mm The Embryo is too small to be seen early

Richmond Times Dispatch:

Gov. Bob McDonnell on Wednesday signed legislation mandating that a woman undergo an ultrasound before an abortion, acting on the bill amid a scorching debate that has thrust Virginia into the national spotlight and sparked protests at the state Capitol.

The approval came despite persistent pressure from women’s rights demonstrators to spike the legislation, which in its original form could have required some women to undergo an ultrasound with a vaginal probe.

Once the details of the procedure were discussed publicly, McDonnell urged amendments that still would require an abdominal ultrasound but allow a woman to reject the more invasive procedure.

Predictably, he signed.  Predictably, the women of Virginia will make sure this violation of women’s rights sticks to him like stench.   Hopefully McDonnell wants to carry this invasion into his quest for higher national office. 

What has not been explained is how an external ultra sound is going to determine gestational age.  At any rate, McDonnell has ignored  the women of Virginia. 

From Planned Parenthood:

Gov. McDonnell just signed into law HB 462, mandating that women seeking abortion care in Virginia undergo and pay for an ultrasound and make two-trips to the health center. This law is nothing but an attempt to shame and place barriers for women seeking legal abortion care in Virginia.

Make no mistake about it.  This new law is a ruse to make abortion more inaccessible and more expensive.    McDonnell is done.  Fork him.

Contraception: Some facts and figures

MoonHowler

The Guttmacher Institute:

WHO NEEDS CONTRACEPTIVES?

• There are 62 million U.S. women in their childbearing years (15–44).[1]

• Seven in 10 women of reproductive age (43 million women) are sexually active and do not want to become pregnant, but could become pregnant if they and their partners fail to use a contraceptive method.[2]

• The typical U.S. woman wants only two children. To achieve this goal, she must use contraceptives for roughly three decades.[3]

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EpiPens headed to Virginia Schools

MoonHowler

 

 

Richmond Times Dispatch:

Senate approves school EpiPen requirement

The Senate on Tuesday approved legislation that would require local school boards to adopt policies to have EpiPens on hand and for a school nurse or employee to administer to students believed to be having an allergic reaction.

The amended Senate Bill 656 easily cleared the chamber and now heads to Gov. Bob McDonnell for consideration. The legislation, sponsored by Sen. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico, was drafted in part as a response to the case of a Chesterfield County elementary school student who died after being exposed to peanuts at school.

It looks like the State is once again involved in medical decisions.  Is this a bad bill?  What are the dangers of this drug?  How do schools get mass doses of a prescription drug?  Can a student carry an IpiPen on their person?   I don’t know these answers. 

Allergies can be run from being annoying to being deadly.  The danger with some allergies is that you don’t know if you are dealing with annoyance or if this time it is going to kill.   I worked with a man who went down to his apple tree to spray a hornet’s nest.  He got stung.   He went back to the house, got a Benadryl was at the sink and dropped dead before he could get the pill through his system.  His throat simply closed.  He knew he was allergic to bees.  He couldn’t convince his doctor that he was really allergic.  No EpiPen.

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Manassas Council Candidate “Rushed” by local blogger

adultgirl

Krystal Ball of MSNBC is sponsoring a website to boycott Rush.

http://boycotrush.org/

You might remember Krystal Ball who got her start right here in Prince William County.  She was the young woman that Greg and Riley decided to embarrass by displaying pictures of Krystal and her first husband  playing  naughty reindeer games at a Christmas party when she was first out of college. Krystal gained a great deal of notoriety over the pictures which were a little racy and she handled it with grace. Did I fail to say she was running for the 1st Congressional District?  The blog posts were definitely political strikes. 

She should be sending both men a fruit basket and a bottle of wine. She was a fairly low key candidate in a district where she had little chance of winning. The men who tried to “Rush” her by making all sorts of insinuation about her moral character catapulted her into a new spotlight and she is now a regular commentator on MSNBC.

It looks like Greg might be trying to get the new Manassas City democratic candidate a job with MSNBC also. He is vilifying Patricia Richie-Folks because she friended KKs. He linked another friend of KKs to her and now has what *I* consider pornography on his website to make Patricia look unacceptable as a candidate because of who has friended whom on Facebook. This is just another trashy attempt to invalidate women by besmirching their character and reputation. 

Greg, with his flair for the dramatic,  has some sort of exchange going with some alternative lifestyle person, complete with insults and threats to go along with his pornographic images.  Is that really how the good people of Manassas want to decide their elections?  Unseemly is really too mild of a word.  What on earth is wrong with people that they continue to accept this trash instead of good political debate?

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A message from Joe Scarborough on Republican missteps

MoonHowler

 

(From an opinion piece from Joe Scarborough posted in Politico)

Politico:

Perhaps a political party that promotes state-ordered vaginal probes, re-litigates contraception, mocks higher education, attacks JFK and runs down rabbit trails irrelevant to most Americans’ lives is best suited to win back the White House.

But I doubt it.

I think it is more likely that Republicans are staying competitive against President Obama in spite of themselves. After all, the economy is still weak, the president appears emotionally aloof and Americans remain suspicious of big government.

But the Republican Party has candidates who are flawed, a message that is mush and a front-runner who is so weak that he struggled to win his home state last Tuesday.

As this long winter winds down, a cynic could be excused for calling the likely campaign between Obama and Romney a political race to the bottom. But I suspect Romney’s win in Michigan will set in place a political showdown that will take us late into the night on the first Tuesday in November. Then history will happen again and whoever loses will be left asking the great historical question Rick Santorum should be asking himself right now: What if?

Actually, Scarborough wrote this commentary about Santorum specifically.  However, it speaks to the entire sideshow that has occupied our fall and winter.  We have had one unlikely candidate after the other paraded before us as the next Rrepublican candidate, only to have one’s hopes on that candidate smashed to smitherines before the nation.   Perry, Bachmann, Huntington, Caine, Johnson and some other ‘also rans’  were paraded out only to fall by the wayside.  They affectionately got labeled the flavor of the week. 

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Bob McDonnell’s Virginia

MoonHowler

 

 From www.the-richmonder.com

A group of about thirty or forty peaceful protesters on the stairs of the Capitol were cut off when the riot police shoved the rest of the demonstrators back. The cordoned off protesters were then arrested and dragged away. Riot police literally trampled on the Great Seal of Virginia’s motto “Sic Semper Tyrannis” as they forced peaceful protesters off the plaza in front of the Capitol Thomas Jefferson designed as a temple to Democracy.

 

I can’t tell you how this sickens me.  The protesters look like they are sitting on the steps waiting for a class picture.  Then whoosh!  The Powers That Be order them arrested.   Peaceful protest is no longer legal?  Were they threatening anyone? 

 

An Opportunity to help your fellow Prince William citizens!

Elena

This is a wonderful opportunity to help those families in need!  Erick Finley is sponsoring this event.  Even if you can’t make it to bowl, any donation to SERVE is appreciated.

 

 

For many years now Finley Asphalt has sponsored the annual ”Strikes for SERVE”  Bowlathon to support the SERVE campus of the Northern Virginia Family Service. This year’s event will be held on Saturday March 10th at the Bowl America in Manassas.  In addition to Finley Asphalt’s sponsorship I will also be bowling with my wife Lisa and my two sons Jonathon and Nick. While my bowling skills are quite embarrassing, it is for a great cause and we have a lot of fun. I am reaching out to you to raise money for this event. Last year our team (“Team Finley”) was the top fundraiser for this annual event. Please assist me by donating as much as you can to do your part in “Striking” Out Hunger and Homelessness!  I realize that the economy has not been great for the past several years. We all wish that things would return to the boom days that we all experienced.  However, we are all still doing okay. There are many people out there who are far from okay.

 

Here are just a few things that SERVE provides to the community.

 

•   900 families each month are receiving food assistance

•   Over 65,000 meals were served to 400 people, including over 200 families, at our emergency shelter last year.

•   The need for emergency housing is so great that SERVE maintains a waiting list of 150 people who have no place else to stay.

 

Please make all checks payable to “Strikes For SERVE” and mail to:

Finley Asphalt and Sealing, Inc.-Attention Erick

P.O. Box 1710

Manassas, VA  20108

 

I need to collect the donations prior to the march 10th event. My goal is to raise $5,000.00. Finley Asphalt will match all donations dollar for dollar up to $5,000.00.  A reminder e-mail will be sent out  one week prior to the event.

 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

 

Controlling others by financial ruin

MoonHowler

The current Rush Limbaugh controversy brings up some issues that might be considered ethical questions. How far should the American public go to control its talking heads and entertainers? Should we ‘vote with our remote?’ Should we boycott movies. TV and radio shows, and products that sponsor people and shows we do not like? Obviously the answer here is yes. It isn’t just a simple yes but a yes with all sorts of ramifications and considerations.

Obviously if a movie or recording is offensive, lame or just unappealing, not buying the product is a good way to send a signal. Movies that have poor attendance obviously make no money. That cuts out the middle man pretty much. Some entertainment is far less direct and obvious. What do you do if a TV show becomes dull, offensive, or unacceptable in some other way? For starters, you can call your cable company and complain. I expect that is probably a fairly slow and ineffective way to get someone’s attention.

A more direct and effect way to voice your displeasure is find out the sponsors of the show and write to the sponsor. Tell them you simply will not buy their product present or future. The fact that you don’t, never have and never will varies with product. Let’s take Carbonite, the latest company to defect from the Rush Limbaugh Show.

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