It's been a bad week for anyone out there with a brain. Is it just me of is the entire world losing their mind? I swear it's like ninety percent of the planet got dosed with LSD and no one bothered to invite me. The obvious winner in the insane train was obviously deranged loon James Holmes whose court appearance should waylay any thoughts about the rationality of this man. From the moment he was caught, I felt he would be a paranoid schizophrenic, a disease I have seen up close and personal.
I used to date a girl back in college whose mom had the affliction. According to her mom, she had a demon named Joe that sat on her shoulder and told her what to do and was usually heavily medicated on lithium every time I met her. Her daughter was showing signs of becoming like her mom in her early twenties, which is the age schizophrenia usually manifests. She died of a drug overdose soon after. I was one of the last people to hear from her before she OD'd. It's a horrible disease which I truly hope only the most deserving bastards get. My ex certainly didn't.
Experts have confirmed, such as Professor Jack Levin a crime writer and teacher at Northwestern, that Holmes is almost certainly delusional, and if he is faking it, there are sophisticated ways of making sure he isn't. From his court appearance alone, as well as his studies which may have been influenced by his fracturing mental state, suggest a true mental illness. This does not excuse his behavior mind you as many schizophrenics are harmless, like my ex-girlfriend's mom. I still think he deserves the death penalty, sick or not as there is no cure for his disease and he will never be a productive member of society. The court is likely to agree with me as public sentiment will overshadow any medical diagnosis. The bright orange hair didn't help and neither did his crazed look mug shot. This kid's screwed.
The MSM has been all over this and wrong about most of it from the start. In the rush to be the first on any story, every major news network is tripping over the integrity to get there. Both CNN and Fox got hammered when they incorrectly reported that Obamacare had been overturned by the Supreme Court, with CNN going on more than seven minutes on air before realizing their error.
What is worse is that some are deliberately fixing the narrative. Fox news has been doing this for years with shows like Hannity and Fox and Friends leading the charge for wrong info that is being spun for purely political purposes. Now comes the fact that other networks have started to adopt this dangerously stupid tactic. NBC was caught recently altering the George Zimmerman 911 calls to make him look racist. ABC first calls Holmes a Tea Party follower, with absolutely zero confirmation, which turns out to be false, albeit not until hours later. Tea Party people were rightly pissed at being lumped in with this nutbag. They have enough of their own crazies to have this loon tied to their platform. Now comes word that the ABC call with Holmes' mom might not have played out the way they said, where she conforms her son is the likely shooter. As no recording exists (WTF? As a former reporter, one of the cardinal rules of an interview is to tape everything), it becomes a he said she said situation. Considering the level networks will stoop to lately to get a story, I'm not entirely sure she isn't telling the truth.
And the conspiracy theories abound, none of which hold any weight. The placement of the gas mask and gun outside the theater, the "second shooter" (this is apparently the norm for any attack anywhere as there is always a second shooter seen and almost never exists), and other nonsense is clouding the real issue. The only story that was any basis of fact is that most shooters over the past few decades have all been on anti-depressants. Whether it was the medication or their insanity that caused the mayhem is a debate for another day.
The MSM is not helping. In fact, it is this kind of yellow journalism that is getting people killed. It was recently found that Whooping Cough is back and the main reason for this 19th century scourge resurgence is the MSM constantly reporting about suspect studies about the safety of vaccinations. I have a science degree and I read scientific studies on a daily basis, most of which a pure bunk. The level of problems with half of the studies today are an alarming amount of unsupported conjecture and idiotic hypotheses. There is no evidence that vaccinations are making us sick but as our level of mistrust has risen to historic levels, and with good reason, nobody trusts anyone, including doctors. With millions not being vaccinated, outbreaks of measles, mumps and whooping cough are becoming more and more frequent. I got my vaccination updated a few months ago, and I am just fine, just as the real studies show. Don't be afraid of this idiotic conspiracy theories when there are others that WILL kill you.
Voting for the GOP is a good start. For new readers, let me be clear: I hate both parties and feel our government has been overtaken by a fascist corporate state. However, the entire GOP seems hell bent on destroying this country a hell of a lot quicker than the democrats, and I'd rather have a slow painful death that maybe can be reversed than getting my head cut off and not recover at all. Voting for the GOP means voting for an end to unemployment, health care, Medicare, Medicade, food stamps and Social Security. What rational person is for this? No one, yet idiots across the nation are voting against their self interests, one that will bite than hard in the ass when their policies go into affect, should they regain complete control just like the 2000's. Remember that when they had total control, they drove the country off a cliff. What makes you think they won't do that again?
Now comes word of another "jobs bill" that the GOP is touting as better than Obama's. They are constantly crowing about the 30 job bills that the House passed and now dying in the Senate. John Boehner now carries around a 4 by 8 card which lists off the job bills which he flashes at campaign events. This is from the Huffington post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/24/republican-jobs-bills_n_1687647.html?1343129695&icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl9%7Csec3_lnk2%26pLid%3D183346
"President [Barack] Obama and Democrats here in Congress have shown us what doesn't work: more government, more spending, more taxes don't create more jobs," Boehner said at a recent weekly briefing. "We've passed more than 30 jobs bills, including bipartisan bills expanding energy production and projects like the Keystone pipeline."
"House Republicans are committed to bold, pro-growth policies and have passed dozens of bills to create jobs," Erid Cantor said in a statement. "We've begun to right the ship, but we will not be able to achieve long-term growth without willing partners in the White House and Senate."
They are using these bills to show that they are not obstructionists but not having a willing partner in the Democrat controlled Senate and if only they had the power, unemployment would drop dramatically. There's only one problem: the bills don't create jobs in any significant number and in some cases, may lead to job losses. Figures.
Here's what some economists had to say:
Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody's Analytics, agreed that the bills would have almost no effect on job creation in the short term, though he was slightly more optimistic about their long-term prospects.
"These kind of changes will matter over a period of three to five years," Zandi said. "It takes that long before businesses can digest changes and respond to them."
He noted, though, that legislation as narrowly targeted as the Republican package is unlikely to do much for real job creation.
"For it to show up in a meaningful way in the natural economy, you can make specific changes that could affect a specific industry or a few companies, but it's not going to make a big difference in terms of the monthly job numbers," Zandi said. "It takes some very significant changes across lots of different industries to really make a big difference."
Carl Riccadonna, a senior economist at Deutsche Bank, said some of the bills could create jobs, but that they would amount to more of an afterthought in terms of achieving broader policy goals.
"They are very narrowly targeted, and it gives the impression that maybe some of this is special interest really pursuing these, not really taking a macro view but a very, very micro focus in what the impact would be," Riccadonna said. For most of the bills in the package, "jobs are a second- or third-order effect, not the main priority."
At the heart of the GOP jobs package is a push for rolling back regulations -- and gutting environmental laws that regulate clean air and water -- to spur job growth. The House Republican Conference website makes the argument that deregulation will "remove onerous federal regulations that are redundant, harmful to small businesses, and impede private sector investment and job creation."
But economists told The Huffington Post that regulation has had a minimal impact on the unemployment rate. Their claim is backed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which shows that just under 16,000 jobs, or 0.4 percent, were lost because of "government regulations/intervention."
"It's just hard to believe that the paperwork requirements to starting a business represent a major impediment to starting businesses right now," Burtless said. "That's not why we had lots more business creation in the late '90s."
Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, warned that any potential job creation from environmental deregulation could be offset by health concerns.
"If you increase employment but you have a lot more sick people, you have to ask yourself, 'What's the trade-off?'" he said. "The highest level of GDP is not necessarily the highest level of national satisfaction or national health."
Indeed, environmental advocates argue that many of the GOP proposals are more likely to kill people than create jobs.
"It won't save them jobs, it won't even save them that much money, but it is going to cause illnesses, deaths, more hospital stays or days lost because of illness,” said Scott Slesinger, legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “That's why we have all these environmental laws.”
So if the GOP gets their way, chances our your children are going to pay a heavy, perhaps even the ultimate price, for their parents stupidity. Chances are if the GOP wins control of the Senate and the presidency, environmental laws will be gutted, a true police state will form and the US we knew will be a distant memory. So go ahead and vote for some Republican douchebag and then go dig your own grave. Just don't forget to make one for your wife and kids as well while your at it.
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