(On a recent Thursday, 42 of us gathered in Newtown, PA in front of one of the nation's largest banks. We were there to protest the Supreme Court's Citizen's United ruling which allows unlimited campaign contributions without disclosure of these monies by "corporations who are 'people'". Some of us individuals see this as an erosion of Democracy as we know it in these United States. We were also there to object to this particular bank's unfair foreclosure practices which is evicting people from their homes in many cases without legitimate grounds.
Our local newspaper reporter couldn't make it. Nor, when we had 30. He did catch the one when only nine of us could be there. (Some of us do work, have kids, other obligations.) That's how it goes.
A woman shouted at my husband, who's 69. "Get a job!" Been there. Done that. 37 years. But, we get more thumbs up and honks to the good that remind us of the informed, who appreciate why we're standing here in 20 degree cold.
We watched the president's State of the Union speech. I turned to another news media outlet to hear what people were saying. Surely it was positive.
Wrong.
What did they not see that we did? And vice versa? Eight years of disastrous Bush vs. the Obama "disaster"?
We say, Clinton left money that could have strengthened Medicare, etc. Surely, they knew this day would come. They say it's because Obama increased the debt that we must forfeit Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, education, cops, firefighters, funding of programs and creation of jobs that help the working/middle class.
We say, Bush started wars that he and Cheney shouldn't have and gave away huge sums of money. They say it's because of Obama's policies.
It's long past the time to stop the lies about the economy's recovery, domestic and foreign policies, and Obama's personal life.
There are 130 ads by Republican legislators disparaging the stimulus money despite economists' and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office agreement that "the stimulus increased employment by between 1.4 and 3.3 million people, compared with what employment would have been otherwise".
It took guts for Obama to ignore the objections by many and invest in the failing U.S. automakers. This business that job losses would have surely destroyed more of the economy - down to the deli around the corner from the plant, to the department store where workers buy their long johns, to machinists who make small parts.
GM is coming back and pensions and jobs were saved. And, they're creating cars that use almost no gas! GM added 4,000 American jobs and invested $2 Billion in 17 plants in the U.S., and Chrysler/Fiat paid off it's remaining debt to the U.S. Treasury last year.
In spite of the obstruction by the Republican Congress, the unemployment numbers - though slow, are going down. Yet, Republicans such as John Boehner continue to dismiss the truth with no shame, stating that the economy is "getting worse".
If anyone took time to examine the facts, the diversion of Obama as a "poor leader" couldn't be farther from the truth. Just for starters, his foreign policies have taken out Bin Laden and many other influential al-Qaeda.
Although the brave Navy Seals deserve - and received - huge applause, had it not been for Obama's courage to give the go-ahead, the Seal attack would not have gone down the way it did, and would not have proved a dead Bin Laden. Obama risked his entire leadership-reputation on something going wrong and so much could easily have. If that wasn't strength of character and leadership, I don't know what to call that!
I won't even bother to go into the personal attacks. They do not merit words or list.
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