Politics is one of the dirtiest types of warfare, nothing is off the table. Politicians and their people will apparently say or do anything for an advantage, this is not a good thing since many influential people back various office seekers purely for their own gain. This backing uses the force of $ along with innuendo and the prejudices of the voters. There may come a time when the voters see the real truth behind campaign rhetoric and understand that their  current (and aspiring) elected officials are human with skeletons that anyone of them could have in their own closet.  What is required from the voters (all voters) is to read the various political writers to get a clearer and wider view of the issues. It is less important to agree with these writers than to understand what they are writing, it takes more effort to take in the information without the coloring of our own biases. This is not an easy task but it is necessary to offset the browbeating we receive from the numerous and often erroneous ad campaigns. It is very easy to allow the rantings and biases of well known people to take over our thinking but we must resist and make our own informed decisions on who to elect. The uninformed candidates can easily attack the incumbent until they get into the office and learn what the job entails. The current White House resident has been assailed for not being a citizen, for creating a healthcare morass and for being African-American yet no one looks at the facts that show he has spent less than his predecessors, saved a few of this country’s major manufacturers (the associated jobs) while fighting with a resistive Congress who have the idea that they are beholding to no one including we the people. Our real issues are with the misinformation put out by the campaign staffers and our holier than thou Congress. Our job is simply to read enough to get the facts that will allow us to make an informed choice regardless of what is reported in the media and aired in campaign ads .

How big a deal is it that An American President is willing to follow protocol to help heal the largely hidden rifts between our nation and others in the world? It is certainly easy to point
fingers at the President and yell fowl or we are weak. Yet we are still looked upon as a leader on the world stage and should set an example that we can also be gracious and humble. At this
stage we are hard pressed to gain military support from other world leaders because we are seen as arrogant and possibly unwise. When you pundits can stand up publicly and speak
with some sincerity and truth you may begin to be worth the paper used to print your nonsense. The idea that because a leader can address another in the manner of that
country is weak is more weak-minded on your part. It is just this type of reporting that has created some of the issues we see now, there is too much time spent on “snipe hunts”
rather than truth hunts and this has caused people to believe lies rather than truth. Take a look around the world and see that more people want to come to America than other
countries and not because we are weak. If you look back into American history, you will see we have already left a trail of bodies that belie our so called strength and we have had to
come back “hat in Hand” to these very same people we considered weak. How about some real truth for a change? In many places the truth is not out there.

Local and national news has brought nothing new. The items we call news should be reclassified
as information as that is what it is. Once you see or read it then it is no longer “new”. This may be why we
tend to ignore it the second time from another source. This unintentional closing off may be the reason we
vote as we do. I believe  the people who run for office have used this tactic to lull or prod us into voting
in their favor almost against our will. The load of information is so huge as to shut down our brains and stop
any close examination of their track records, background and what they really stand for. This has been the
case for years and accelerated when TV became the mass media and in every home. We have become like
chickens who have been hypnotized by a line in the dirt. The media in all of its forms gives us poor, watery thin gruel in the guise of good hearty soup. We have allowed it to become entertainment. The “exploiticians” have used this to great effect in getting re-elected time after time. They have been dishing up the same poor fare for years and we have taken it without a whimper because it sounds good. I use food
references because we all have to eat so consider the artichoke-you have to peel it to get at the heart. Lets
start peeling these politicians who have run this country in to the ground from the local level to the Federal
level and made us pay for it. Do not believe the media blitzes, get the facts or if nothing else vote for
someone new. We put them in and we can put them out. There are no “honest politicians”. There are once
honest men and women who are jockeying for power and making deals to ultimately enhance themselves.
Oxymoron:”Honest Politician”

Angry About High Gas Prices? Blame Shuttered Oil Refineries

The U.S. has lost nearly 5 percent of its refining capacity in the past three months, as a handful of old refineries have shut down.

 Most Americans as usual want to blame some one for the gas prices and most of the time its the Government. The President has no control over gas prices and cannot mandate a price decrease or regulation.
 The Government can investigate price gouging but cannot necessarily dictate pricing. There has been shouts that the Strategic oil Reserves should be tapped but that does not solve the problem and remember replacing those reserves will cost more now since they were purchased when prices were lower.
 The problem is oil production and these facilities have been shut down due to under production and reduction of revenue to the producers. This is like stores that do not have enough customers- they close!
There is nothing the government can do beyond attempting to insure that drilling in sensitive areas is monitored so that the natural balance is preserved. You may notice That I said "attempting". We as voters at once want the government to protect us and the environment the issue with that is we cannot have both.
 A balance has to be struck, in order to achieve that balance is first stop contacting our Congress for help, these mopes are in this for themselves period! The "scamocrats and Dupublicans have had us over a barrel (no pun intended) for years because we trusted them.
That trust has led us down the path of economic crisis that exists now. The erstwhile Congress has attempted to blame the Chief Executive, since that office has a limited term while they remain in office due to our own naivete.

Recently I grilled and ate a “cheese” hot dog, this the product that has the cheese built into it. When the meat is cooked the cheese inside is melted. This ordinarily is no big deal as I like hot dogs . The next morning the extreme urge to “empty” came upon me and then I remembered that years ago (A lot of them)  I ate one of these and the same thing occurred. Needless to say as much as I like hot dogs, cheese filled ones are no longer on my menu.

An Arizona official is still looking for The president’s birth certificate in order to put him on the ballot, even Dumo Trump has tacitly acknowledged the sailing of that ship. This is yet another political side bar to the real issues of partisan politics which serve no good to any of us. It is of no importance to prove this already public and proven fact again so this latest dust up is merely a way to get the Arizona Secretary of State’s name in the news and confuse the  voters(this is Romney’s campaign co-chairman). Could this be retaliation of the examination of Sheriff Arpaio’s tactics in that state? In another Dupublican pot shot the young Congressional Republicans have thrown down their mini gauntlet in wanting to call Attorney General Holder to Congress to answer questions about an operation called “Fast and Furious”. This a part of John Boehner’s reply”

“We want to hold everyone at the Department of Justice and the administration accountable for what happened or what didn’t happen in ‘Fast and Furious.’ All options are on the table,” Boehner said today in an interview for “This Week” to air in full this Sunday.

The House GOP leadership sent a letter to Holder today that cited a “lack of full cooperation from the Department of Justice” in terms of the current investigation. ABC News’ John Parkinson reported that the letter was sent after a group of freshmen GOP representatives urged Speaker Boehner to bring a Contempt of Congress resolution to the House floor for a vote.”

Are we really willing to allow our meager resources to be used in pursuit non productive issues that serve only to enrage and confuse the voters? It is important to note that we are the real bosses’ here and as such we need to get the correct information on all issues and vote as informed owners rather than single issues that benefit us individually, remember we all benefit equally from the good as we suffer from the bad.

Since we elected a former Mayor on the promise of  correcting the prodigious problems facing the city, we have seen a small percent of his promises bear fruit. It seems that promises get votes but no action. We have elected Presidents, Congressional officers (Federal and Local) because they “promised” to do a better job than their predecessors. We have got to stop believing the “sound bites, innuendos and slight truths when we vote for someone. We have  to understand that no one knows the depth of the problems they will have to overcome when seeking an office and all are quite surprised when they get the whole picture. The measure of a newly elected official can be summed up as honest when that person , after getting in to the big chair can state that “this is going to be tougher than they thought”. We have yet to see anyone do this but we have seen many covert operations committed to keep us uninformed and hopefully happy. These covert “ops” become known to us after the fact and sometimes not at all, usually when it goes wrong. We now have a complete package, a Novernor, a Nayor and in the  “Northern Springfield” a potential King.

This recent report on planned attacks on the President over what was said in 2007 by Rev Jeremiah Wright is at once ludicrous and disingenuous. We need to be better than this but there are many groups who seem to have no compunction in issuing information that is defamatory and erroneous to achieve a goal. Do we want some one in office who will ride this tide of garbage?  If Mr. Romney allows this to be a part of his campaign then shame on him.

G.O.P. ‘Super PAC’ Weighs Hard-Line Attack on Obama

WASHINGTON — A group of high-profile Republican strategists is working with a conservative billionaire on a proposal to mount one of the most provocative campaigns of the “super PAC” era and attack President Obama in ways that Republicans have so far shied away from.

Multimedia

• Document: ‘Super PAC’ Plan to Link Obama to Rev. Wright

Related

• The Caucus: Romney Campaign Rejects Using the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Against Obama (May 17, 2012)

.

Timed to upend the Democratic National Convention in September, the plan would “do exactly what John McCain would not let us do,” the strategists wrote.

The plan, which is awaiting approval, calls for running commercials linking Mr. Obama to incendiary comments by his former spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose race-related sermons made him a highly charged figure in the 2008 campaign.

“The world is about to see Jeremiah Wright and understand his influence on Barack Obama for the first time in a big, attention-arresting way,” says the proposal, which was overseen by Fred Davis and commissioned by Joe Ricketts, the founder of the brokerage firm TD Ameritrade. Mr. Ricketts is increasingly putting his fortune to work in conservative politics.

The $10 million plan, one of several being studied by Mr. Ricketts, includes preparations for how to respond to the charges of race-baiting it envisions if it highlights Mr. Obama’s former ties to Mr. Wright, who espouses what is known as “black liberation theology.”

The group suggested hiring as a spokesman an “extremely literate conservative African-American” who can argue that Mr. Obama misled the nation by presenting himself as what the proposal calls a “metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln.”

A copy of a detailed advertising plan was obtained by The New York Times through a person not connected to the proposal who was alarmed by its tone. It is titled “The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: The Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good.”

The proposal was presented last week in Chicago to associates and family members of Mr. Ricketts, who is also the patriarch of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs.

Brian Baker, president and general counsel of a super PAC called the Ending Spending Action Fund, said Mr. Ricketts had studied several advertising proposals in recent months and had not signed off on a specific approach to taking on Mr. Obama.

“Joe Ricketts is prepared to spend significant resources in the 2012 election in both the presidential race and Congressional races,” Mr. Baker said in an interview Wednesday. “He is very concerned about the future direction of the country and plans to take a stand.”

The document makes clear that the effort is only in the planning stages and awaiting full approval from Mr. Ricketts. People involved in the planning said the publicity now certain to surround it could send the strategists back to the drawing board.

But it serves as a rare, detailed look at the birth of the sort of political sneak attack that has traditionally been hatched in the shadows and has become a staple of presidential politics.

It also shows how a single individual can create his own movement and spend unlimited sums to have major influence on a presidential election in a campaign finance environment in which groups operating independently of candidates are flourishing.

Should the plan proceed, it would run counter to the strategy being employed by Mitt Romney’s team, which has so far avoided such attacks. The Romney campaign has sought to focus attention on the economy, and has concluded that personal attacks on Mr. Obama, who is still well liked personally by most independent voters surveyed for polls, could backfire.

Mr. Ricketts has become an increasingly active player in Republican politics through several political action committees, including Ending Spending. He has a son, Pete, who is a member of the Republican National Committee from Nebraska and a daughter, Laura, who is a top contributor to Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign. She has not been involved in her father’s political efforts.

The 54-page proposal was professionally bound and illustrated with color photographs, indicating that it is far beyond a mere discussion. The strategists have already contacted Larry Elder, a black conservative radio host in Los Angeles, about serving as a spokesman, and the plan calls for a group of black business leaders to endorse the effort. The strategists have also registered a domain name, Character Matters.