Candidate Romney plans to escalate defense spending to record highs

MoonHowler

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Apparently Mitt Romney’s lack of understanding of  foreign policy  is making him look more and more foolish.

According to that chart, even with a pull out from Afghanistan planned,  Romney would escalate defense spending to levels greater than during the Korean War.  Is there a reason for this?  Perhaps this is the time for folks to start demanding WHY?  Haven’t we accumulated enough war debt?

He needs to sit down with his coaches and get a full course on foreign policy and the defense goals of the United States.  I repeat, he is just woefully unprepared.  He called the President a disgrace in the middle of a crisis where American lives were in jeopardy, he lied repeatedly to the students at VMI, and he disregards discussion of terrorism.   He made a fool of himself in front of a bunch of retired generals.  What next?

Rep. Issa ignores the rules of irony: Money talks and what walks–yet another probe

MoonHowler

Washington Post:
Dana Milbank tells us in his Wednesday column that the Republicans are going to have to tap dance around some self-fulfilling prophecy about cutting budget where security is concerned.  Fear not.  their object will be to frame the Obama Administration.

“Human lives are at stake.

As if to remind us of this, Rep. Darrell Issa, the indefatigable Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has called a hearing for noon Wednesday even though Congress is in a weeks-long recess. The emergency cause for the hearing? Probing “The Security Failures of Benghazi” — lapses in diplomatic security that led to the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Libya.

The purpose of the pre-election hearing, presumably, is to embarrass the administration for inadequate diplomatic security. But Issa seems unaware of the irony that diplomatic security is inadequate partly because of budget cuts forced by his fellow Republicans in Congress.

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Praying for Coal

MoonHowler

Insidenova.com:

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — Coal country is hurting, and the people who live there want the whole nation to know it.

Thousands of miners have been laid off this year across Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia, many with little hope of getting their jobs back as power plants and the coal mines that once fed them shut down. Now the families, friends and business operators who depend on those miners are planning a multi-state show of solidarity they hope will be heard in Washington, D.C., and beyond.

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Sesame Street: Some things just say it all

MoonHowler

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Faux News says that Sesame Street is corrupting your children. It must be true. Is it the name? Sesame Street sounds awfully middle eastern. How is Sesame Street corrupting children. Please leave specific details.

That darn sharing. We have to do something about it. Brainwashing in its most obvious form?  It must not be so obvious because I missed it.  Ah wait, it was Che Grovera!
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‘Great Shakeout’ earthquake drill set for Oct. 18

MoonHowler

Drop, cover, and hold on.  How many folks knew what to do here in Virginia in Augus 22t, 2011, the day of OUR big earthquake?  I sure didn’t so I sat there yelling ” earthquake!!!!”  Probably not as dumb of an idea as what some people did but not real productive.

What I do remember afterwards is all the people who insisted that you were supposed to run outside.  Probably 75% of the people I talked to swore on a stack of bibles the “getting outside” thing was right off the earthquake civil defense how-to page.  Well, not so.

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Metro ordered to display incendiary pro-Israel ads

MoonHowler

Washington Post:

A federal judge has ordered Metro to begin displaying controversial advertisements on Monday, even though the transit agency has worried the ads might incite violence.

The decision came Friday in a one-page order granting an injunction to a pro-Israel group that sought to force Metro to display provocative posters in four stations. The posters, purchased by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), will say: “In Any War Between the Civilized Man and the Savage, Support the Civilized Man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”

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Deadly Meningitis Outbreak, a Question of Oversight: The war on people?

MoonHowler

The deadly outbreak of meningitis that has left 30 ill and 5 dead has been traced  to spinal steroid injections, given as an epidural.  This announcement put my family on red alert because my husband has gotten spinal injections in the past, given in epidural form, as an outpatient.

What is the most shocking here is the description of what went wrong.  According to the New York Times:

The outbreak, with 5 people dead and 30 ill in six states, is thought to have been caused by a steroid drug contaminated by a fungus. The steroid solution was not made by a major drug company, but was concocted by a pharmacy in Framingham, Mass., called the New England Compounding Center. Compounding pharmacies make their own drug products, which are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

On Monday, federal inspectors at the New England center found a sealed vial of the steroid afloat with so much foreign matter that it could be seen with the naked eye, Food and Drug Administration officials said Thursday. Under the microscope, the particles were a fungus.

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Open Thread…………………………………………………Friday, October 5

MoonHowler

County and City personal property taxes are due today! Avoid that penalty and make sure they are in on time.

A big chill is coming in this weekend.  Time for those sweaters and and for the furnace to come on.

The City of Manassas celebrates  its  30th  Fall Jubilee this Saturday, October 6, 2012 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

A good time is always had by ALL.

 

The Romney War on Big Bird

MoonHowler

For 43 years Big Bird has been the  symbol of Sesame Street, the beloved childrens show featured on PBS that really made PBS America’s classroom.  Many a child learned his or her colors, letters, and how to count from friends like Cookie Monster, the Count, Oscar the Grouch, Elmo and Big Bird.  These colorful characters also taught some life lessons like not picking on the kid who wore classes and how to go get a police man or woman if you were in trouble.  Sesame Street founds itself on the chopping blog during last night’s debates, in front of 50 million Americans.

Once again the PBS has been targeted by conservatives and is being plucked and defeathered for the old defunding stew pot in the sky.  In fact, Mitt Romney ironically told the moderator, Jim Lehrer, a long time PBS anchor, that he would defund PBS during the debate.

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Cutting the debt with health care and Big Bird? Noooooooooo

MoonHowler

Two different plans-killing AHA and Big Bird or reducing programs and asking the very wealthy to pay a little more?

Which would you chose?

What will all those young people coming off their parents’ policies do?  What about those wo have pre-existing conditions?  Will those people be dropped?

If financial burdens are dumped back on the states, as suggested by Mr. Romney, who pays then?  How about the poorer states?  You and I will pay.  Pay me now or pay me later.  You heard Mr. Romney–these responsibilities will be returned to the states.  I ask, should the pay come from the big national pot of the smaller state pot?  It sounds like an invitation for the states to go bankrupt.

It sounds real good, especially to those states rights people.  You might want to check with some of  Civil War records and all that money.  Where did it go?  In my family it was all Gone with the Wind.

Michael Stafford: To a climate change denier

MoonHowler

Guest Post:  Michael Stafford

Disclaimer: All guest posts are the opinion of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views of moonhowlings.net administration.

M-H

To a climate change denier

Humanity, are you grieving, over global ice retreating? This summer, the sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean shrunk to just 1.3 million square miles, a record low. Worse, as ocean temperatures rise, the Arctic’s summer ice covering will continue to contract- more “record lows” can be expected to follow in quick succession. If this trend continues, the Arctic could be ice-free in the summer before the end of the decade.

An Arctic Ocean devoid of summer sea ice would be a catastrophe for humanity. Ice reflects solar radiation back into space; open water absorbs it. As a result, without summer sea ice, the Arctic’s water temperature will rise, further fueling global warming in a vicious feedback cycle and playing havoc with existing weather patterns.

And it’s not just Arctic ice that’s melting. Glaciers are retreating across the planet- a phenomenon poignantly documented by the Glacier Research Imaging Project, the Extreme Ice Survey, and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Repeat Photography Project at Glacier National Park in Montana. Indeed, scientists predict the latter will be glacierless by 2030.

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Todd Akin has more voo doo medicine up his sleeve

MoonHowler
Akin claims that abortions are given to women who aren’t pregnant.  Isn’t that impossible?
According to the Huffingtonpost:
“It is no big surprise that we fight the terrorists because they are fundamentally un-American, and yet we have terrorists in our own culture called abortionists. One of the good pieces of news why we are winning this war is because there are not enough heartless doctors being graduated from medical schools. There is a real shortage of abortionists. Who wants to be at the very bottom of the food chain of medical profession? And what sort of places do these bottom-of-the-food-chain doctors work in? Places that are really a pit. You find that along with the culture of death go all kinds of other law-breaking: not following good sanitary procedure, giving abortions to women who are not actually pregnant, cheating on taxes, all these kinds of things, misuse of anesthetics so that people die or almost die.”
To think….this guy could end up as a U.S. Senator.   Plenty of people have objections to abortion especially if the procedure is performed later into pregnancy.  However, if someone isn’t pregnant it isn’t possible, by definition, to perform an abortion.
Akin talks about bottom feeding doctors.  How about bottom feeding politicians?  He certainly would qualify.

The Great Debate

MoonHowler

 

Topic: Domestic policy

Air Time: 9:00-10:30 p.m. Eastern Time

Location: University of Denver in Denver, Colorado (Tickets)

Sponsor: Commission on Presidential Debates

Participants: President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney

Moderator: Jim Lehrer (Host of NewsHour on PBS)

 The debate will focus on domestic policy and be divided into six time segments of approximately 15 minutes each on topics to be selected by the moderator and announced several weeks before the debate.

 The moderator will open each segment with a question, after which each candidate will have two minutes to respond. The moderator will use the balance of the time in the segment for a discussion of the topic.

As Americans await the first debate between the presidential candidates, several comments and questions come to mine.  First off, what we will see tonight is not a real ‘debate.’  That leaves the question, well, what is it?

How do we determine who won the debate?  It seems to me that the person we like the best will “win.”  Who decides who wins and what is the criteria?

Will the winner have zapped  the most zingers?  Will the winner have the cutest answers?  The quickest answers?   How will you determine who won?

The debate will be on all major channels.

 

 

Republicans fire their voter registration company in 5 swing states

MoonHowler

One bad apple can spoil the entire batch, apparently.  So that’s it.  No more last minute voter registration.

The danger of fraudulent registration isn’t when you have Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck signed up to vote .  Obviously Mickey and Donald aren’t going to show up and vote.  They aren’t real people.  Someone has cheated the firm but the voting process is still uncompromised.  Not so if someone thinks they are registered to vote and they are not.

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