“A Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican”

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.

All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn’t think he should loose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.

Joe is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dads; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republican’s would still be sitting in the dark)

He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home.

He turns on a radio talk show, the host’s keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn’t tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day) Joe agrees, “We don’t need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, I’m a self made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have”.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/thom-hartmann-day-life-joe-middle-class-re

Every time someone walked by handing – or throwing – candy to the crowds standing along the streets, kids would literally go bonkers.

While one particular snake in the grass Republican candidate (list of them here: http://clarkcountygop.org/content.htm?area=cand) walked by trying to shmooze the kidlets, my heart swelled with pride when kids literally starting throwing the candy BACK – ANGRILY – at the candidate. Now this was really, really weird. Not because there was a weird collection of candidates running for local seats that all had last names that sounded like the f-word (last names like “Heck”, “Vick”, “Peck”, etc). The name of the candidate who got pelted with candies from local kids was none other than ED ORCUTT.

This little hamlet of Battle Ground showed a lot of signs during the parade that it was changing its stripes and broadening its horizons. The literally clapped and cheered for Democratic candidates. And I saw the candidates actually engaging with people in the crowds to talk about issues.

Pretty neat.

My husband and I were visiting some friends in Bella Vista, Arkansas, where they had just bought a home.

During this trip, we decided to visit a popular local cave and mill.

During the tour of the cave, the leader of tour – our humble guide, decided to tell some stories to entertain us all, while we were waiting to start a particular part of the tour.  There were some stragglers, and he was waiting for them to catch up.  He seemed like a likeable person who loved to talk about what a bad job Texas was doing educating its kids.  One example he gave was how, for a long time, it was not a requirement to take U.S. history in order to graduate high school, but you needed to take Texas state history instead in order to fulfill the requirement of being versed in “U.S.” History.  The stories were funny, but it was at that point when things got weird…

When the rest of the group caught up with us, we all gathered to hear more about the cave.  We were directed by the group leader to look up at the ceiling of the cave (which was only a foot or so above our heads) as he described what we were looking at.  We could see clearly fossil imprints of shells, exotic underwater aquatics and plants.  (Very cool, I thought to myself) Then he said, “by looking at these imprints, we can guage exactly how old this cave is”.  Can anyone here give me their own estimate as to how old this cave might be?”

Right away, some girls in front of us  enthusiastically answered,  “I know, I know! This cave was created during the time of the Great Flood!”.

I was FLOORED by how stupid and uneducated these people were around me.

I couldn’t believe my ears, as I was about the say that it had happened many millions of years ago.

The leader of the group responded to these girls with an enthusiastic “Correct!  You are correct!  It happened during the Great Flood of Noah’s Ark!  Ladies and Gentlemen, this cave has been dated to be as old as 3,000 years!”

Not less than five minutes ago, we were all joking about how screwed up the education system is in Texas.  And now these same folks are nodding in agreement about using a *biblical* age in dating a cave with fossils in it!

Yes, indeed, our kids is learnin’!

This turned into an interesting reading.

The question placed before the cards was:

What will be the result to Obama — of his response to the handling of the BP oil disaster.

The answers in cards came – from left to right:

1) Ace of Cups – Reversed:  Loss of faith, respect, and disappointment

2) Cups – The Page – Reversed: Bad news received, tempers flared, outbursts.

3) The Fool – Reversed:  Innocence and image of naivete lost; can also be read as possible warning against rash decisions.

The first card is a 4 of Pentacles:   This card signifies greed, stinginess, and also signifies a fear of risk, change and bureaucracy.

The second card is a Four of Cups-Reversed. It signifies broken or lost expectations, exhaustion, over-indulgence, and poor health.

The last card is a major arcana card, No. 14, Temperance – in the reversed position. This sign signifies impatience or lack of time, poor handling of a situation that is volatile.

Funny how truthful this was, huh?

I will do more on this later today – check back again!

Basically, Rand Paul is arguing for the rights of private business owners to discriminate – even though he claims he’s not a racist.

But he keeps claiming that discrimination by private businesses should be allowed if it is desired.

So, let me see – I should have the protected right to say “I hate niggers” and make hate speech legal?? I should have the right to hang a sign in front of my business that says “Whites Only”?

Rand Paul compared it to carrying a weapon inside a private business, and that a store owner has the right to  discriminate against a gun owner. Rachel correctly  pointed out that carrying a gun into a private business is a choice – and a store owner can ban your gun from coming inside. But people of color don’t have a choice – they don’t get to choose their color – nor should they be banned from a private business because of it.  She explained to Rand Paul that blacks had their heads bashed in for sitting in”whites only” seats.  That private businesses were allowed to institutionalize racist practices, which led to violent confrontations with blacks.

Rand Paul basically claims he’d march arm in arm with Martin Luther King, Jr. if he were alive today. Maybe so – but I don’t think anyone in their right mind would think he’d be a welcomed guest.

Intolerance isn’t a right. Intolerance is hate. I’m not going to tolerate intolerance – and the whole idea of making “tolerance of intolerance” a right is simply bat-shit crazy.