Recent Comments

1. about 5 hours ago on Steve Kelley

   Hmmmm. Let’s see … which party had two easy wins in two Georgia senate runoffs that everyone was sure they would win (especially since Democrats have an abysmal record in Georgia runoffs that were designed for that purpose)?

   And which party’s president then told his party’s voters that their votes wouldn’t count?

   And which party’s president then told his party’s voters that their REPUBLICAN governor and secretary of state, both of whom had voter for, campaigned for and donated to Trump, had rigged the election against Republicans?

   And which party’s president’s representatives [referring to Trump lawyer Lin Wood] then told his party’s voters to boycott the election to punish the traitors and “destroy the Republican party”?

   And which party’s president then was caught in a recorded phone call pressuring the Georgia secretary of state to FIBricate exactly the number of votes needed to win the state by one vote [which would not have even changed the final outcome of the election since no one state in question had enough electoral votes to change the outcome]?

   IT IS TRUMP AND HIS PARTY WHO SHOT THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT.

   It is not the Democrats who are crying; it is not the Democrats who have that big “L” for LOSER tattooed on their foreheads.

   Does Steve Kelley really not know this

   IS IT GASLIGHTING OR IGNORANCE?

   But have at it Steve Kelley; have at it, TrumpubliCONs.

   When the other side starts to form a circular firing squad, it is time to just stand back and let the shooting commence.

2. about 11 hours ago on Lisa Benson

   Well, now there was a deeply-thought out, well-reasoned, point-by-point response to actual issues … NOT!

   ::: rolling eyes :::

3. about 14 hours ago on Steve Breen

   Mike Pence portrays himself as this calm, measured straight shooter, but he is also one of the worst gaslighters. He had a lot of NERVE to try to blame the shooting death of a Black police officer on #BlackLivesMatter in his RNC speech.

   The actual murderer, who has been identified and arrested, is from the WHITE SUPREMACIST BOOGALOO BOIS. He was NOT a #BlackLivesMatter protester; he was a Trumper.

   https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-16/suspects-charged-killing-santa-cruz-cop-and-oakland-federal-officer

   Going back even before the whole George Floyd thing, FBI Director Christopher Wray, a TRUMP APPOINTEE, warned last year that white supremacists are fueling most domestic terrorism. Trump’s hand-picked FBI director also testified last September that “Antifa” DOES NOT EXIST AS AN ORGANIZATION (it is a viewpoint of being ANTIFAscist) and that most of the actual violence that occurred was NOT FROM THE PROTESTERS but from the racist, white supremacist counterprotesters.

   https://www.newsweek.com/domestic-terrorism-white-supremacy-violence-fbi-director-1450748

4. about 14 hours ago on Steve Breen

   Uhm, yes, there is a huge difference between a street riot and TRYING TO OVERTHROW THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT and prevent a CONSTITUTIONALLY-MANDATED joint session of congress from completing a CONSTITUTIONALLY-MANDATED pro-forma administrative function.

   But that is apart from the fact that you are dishonestly misrepresenting who has been breaking the glass in most of the unrest we saw last summer.

   In the unrest last summer, there are many videos of white supremacists throwing bricks and inciting violence while blaming peaceful protesters for their outside agitation, and a WHITE SUPREMACIST group, Identity Evropa, POSING AS ANTIFA (not an actual organization, as Wray explained, but a viewpoint opposing fascism) calling for violence. To oppose being ANTIFAscist is to be PROFAscist. Our Greatest Generation literally had a war against fascism and those who literally wave its flags in support of Trump.

   This is pure gaslighting — or tear gaslighting — violent outside agitators trying to make people think the good guys are the bad guys.

   https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/twitter-takes-down-washington-protest-disinformation-bot-behavior-n1221456

   Reports of right-wing, white supremacist, Trump-supporting VIOLENT vigilante groups such as “Proud Boys,” “Boogaloo Bois,” Patriot Prayer,” “Identity Evropa,” “Oath Keepers” and “Michigan Militia” who plotted to kidnap and assassinate two governors.

   The “Michigan Militia” is also where Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols got their start, and is now stirring up violence in multiple cities with the stated goal of starting a new civil war.

   https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/three-men-connected-boogaloo-movement-tried-provoke-violence-protests-feds-n1224231

5. about 14 hours ago on Steve Breen

   Creating a new third party would be the best gift Donald Trump could give to the Democrats:

   • It would split Republicans and ensure no Republican would win an election in a competitive race for a generation

   • It bolsters the case for Senate conviction on the House impeachment and motivates the more traditional Republicans to join Democrats in making sure Trump can never run for public office again, which would put a damper on the whole reason for creating his own new third party (though he could still do so with the idea that he would remain its kingmaker, even if he could not run himself … maybe set up a run for Ivanka)

   Trump is now angry with the Republicans he feels were insufficiently loyal in trying to help him overturn the election (I mean, overthrow the elected government of the United States), and this would be his ultimate revenge — to divide and destroy the party. It is like his marriages — he rides them as long as he is getting what he wants, then dumps them and ruins their lives.

   And the name, Patriot party?

   Well it definitely puts the RIOT in “PATRIOT.”

6. 2 days ago on Steve Kelley

   Adam Smith introduced us to the “invisible hand” of market economics based on the balanced interplay of supply and demand. He also understood that it was necessary to have regulatory oversight to protect against the extremes.

   Smith understood that appropriate regulations do not impede free markets. On the contrary, it makes them possible.

   Regulation no more impedes commerce than rules of the road prevent you from getting in your car and driving anywhere your heart desires, or rules of sports prevent an infinitely unlimited combination of strategies, plays and outcomes such that no two games of any sport have ever been exactly the same. Regulatory oversight does not impede, it enables and makes possible.

   If Adam Smith were to come back today, modern conservatives would no doubt call the “father of Capitalism” a Commie Pinko.

   #MoscowBill is just another uneducated economic illiterate who has no concept of what the original version of capitalism even meant, or what terms like “socialism,” or “communism” actually mean, so he just flails about and anything he doesn’t like? He just yells, “SOCIALIST” or “COMMUNIST”! Someone wants to put up a stop sign in his neighborhood he doesn’t like? “SOCIALIST”! “COMMUNIST”!

   The liberals’ model is not Cuba, Soviet-era Russia, Venezuela or North Korea. Our model is countries such as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand, Netherlands or Iceland that are extremely successful and prosperous.

   These countries are not socialist. In those countries, there is plenty of free enterprise and successful private business, from small Mom-and-Pop shops to huge for-profit corporations such as IKEA, Nokia, Volvo, Skype, Ericsson, Saab and many others.

   What they have is NOT “socialism,” but rather an FDR-style Keynesian “New Deal” REGULATED market economy, in which competition thrives, but oversight is strong, coupled with a strong social safety net.

7. 2 days ago on Steve Kelley

   I have (and have read) the full five-volume work of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. FIVE VOLUMES. 750+ pages (though this may vary depending on formatting and type size). It doesn’t take FIVE VOLUMES to say, “get the government off my back” and that is not what Smith said.

   What most conservatives fail to understand is that Adam Smith, the father of Capitalism, who promulgated the theory in his classic work, “Wealth of Nations,” supported many aspects of regulatory oversight that are opposed today by those who invoke his name the loudest, including:

   Progressive tax rate structures (Book V, Chapter 2, Article I)

   Reasonable proportionality of profits (Book I, Chapter 6)

   Regulation of financial, investment and capital markets (Book II, Chapter 2)

   Public spending for infrastructure, social justice; public order (Book IV, Chapter 9)

   Public spending for public education (before it was widely practiced) (Book V Part III)

   Adam Smith did NOT support deregulation, nor did he once use the expression laissez faire, a FRENCH term (remember, Smith was BRITISH and the French and British were long-time enemies) that goes back to a 1736 speech by René de Voyer, Marquis d’Argenson (40 years before Wealth of Nations,”) which a man of Smith’s education would surely be familiar with and, in his silence, tacitly rejected.  

   The invisible hand of the market may guide the economic playing field, but Smith understood that every playing field needs rules and boundaries within which a range of choices can be made.

8. 2 days ago on Steve Kelley

   I am suggesting something along the lines of Adam Smith, who #MoscowBill has obviously never heard of, or if he heard the name, has not idea what the guy actually wrote. So let me try to educate Bill a little, though that seems like an improbably hopeless endeavor.

   For Bill’s information, Adam Smith was known as the “Father of Capitalism.” His 1776 masterpiece, Wealth of Nations, outlined his theories of market-driven economics.

   Far be it from me to defend a work written by an upper class British aristocrat and proud supporter of King George III in London in 1776 against our Founders, writing about a pre-industrial mostly agrarian economy of the butcher, baker and candlestick maker of mom-and-pop mercantile shops, but PLEASE, it is important to point out how utterly misrepresented the capitalism of Adam Smith, for all its flaws and imperfections, written in an agrarian and pre-industrial age, is distorted by the TrumpubliCONS who spew the name of Adam Smith and the concept of “capitalism” when they know absolutely nothing of either, and try to equate it with unregulated laissez-faire, which ADAM SMITH REJECTED.

   Despite its many imperfections, true market capitalism as introduced by Adam Smith, the “Father of Capitalism,” in “Wealth of Nations,” is far closer to liberalism than today’s conservatism. While I certainly find plenty to reject from this royalist, it is also important to note that today’s elitist conservatives who give lip service to him obviously have no real understanding of capitalism other than what they heard on Faux “News.” When updated for the modern technological and digital ages such as with the models of Keynesian market economics that got us out of the Great Depression, market economics work quite well within the protective boundaries of regulatory public policy oversight.

9. 2 days ago on Steve Kelley

   And as usual, #MoscowBill guesses and gets it wrong when, addressing to me, says, “Since you obviously haven’t run a real business…”

   Actually, I have owned and run a business for 36 years and, frankly, while I would not call myself rich by any means, I am financially secure and comfortable only, unlike Bill, I appreciate the advantages I had growing up in the liberal bastion of the 50’s and 60’s and want to make sure others continue to enjoy them.

   And yeah, Bill, I fully recognize that we had a “far different economy now that it had in the 1950’s.” THAT WAS MY POINT. When we had strong labor unions, strong consumer protection and strong wage policy we had greater broad-based prosperity and a strong middle class. It is called “cause and effect.

   And #MoscowBill argues against points I have never made when he says (implying I have said something I have not), “You seem to love government deciding what someone’s income should be, whether it be for the lowest or the highest. That strategy has worked, where?” No, Bill, I am not suggesting anything of the sort. I am suggesting things THAT HAVE WORKED GREAT WHEREVER THEY HAVE BEEN DONE, such as the United States in the 50’s and 60’s, and Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand of today. I am suggesting a FRAMEWORK of public policies within which a broad range of business decisions can be made.

10. 3 days ago on Clay Jones

    — It is not just one or the other.

    The products are NOT selling well, because customers don’t like the politicization of merchandising, and especially when it comes to things like calling for martial law.

    Also, crappy products with heavy P.R. may get some early sales, but word eventually gets out that, for all the hype, they are still crappy, overpriced junk and that does tend to reduce how well merchandise “performs” at the cash register.