My response to the state of the union address

First of all the overall tone of the speech was good, I felt that the mixed seating gave it a good bi-partisan feel.
There was a lot that I liked, I thought it was important to bring up education and to talk about alternative energy.
I have to say though that Obama in my view made a big mistake by not coming out with a more detailed description of the spending freeze and how much it would reduce the deficit by. A lot of people wanted to hear it and by not putting it out there he has just encouraged a new herd of Tea Party "patriots" to run for office. That is not good for anyone.
I thought it was ill timed to ask for more spending, first of all it's not going to happen, and secondly it puts the new health care reforms in jeopardy. The way he asked for money for infrastructure and then effectively threw Medicaid under the bus was uncalled for. You cant tell me that a 5% spending freeze is only a cut to Medicaid. If Obama thinks that by leaving the under-insured high and dry is going to help reign in these Tea Parties he is mistaken. The Tea Party rallies will continue because they only want two things, for him to fail and to keep health care in the hands of the privileged.
As for the Republican response. What can I say Paul Ryan is a douche box. This guy spent the whole rebuttal talking about repealing health care reform and comparing us to Greece. Someone should explain to him that Greece has twice the social program spending as we do and a retirement age that is lower than ours. He said that the private sector has historically done more for the poor than government. I don't think even he could believe this bull shit. I would ask him to look at Ireland, who adopted the U.S. free trade system when the ecconomy went south the poor there had nothing. Maybe I shouldn't have been so hard on the president, after all the only thing these Republicans want to hear is a repeal of health care.
The Tea Party response was weird and of course made reference to WWII but it was to the point and short.

Arizona health plan

Some of you may have heard about those 98 people on a waiting list for organ transplants in Arizona. If you haven't let me explain. The state of Arizona had a program that helped people who needed organ transplants and could not afford them. I say had because Jan Brewer recently cut all funding to the program. After the story broke on national news a Republican from Illinois went through the Arizona state budget to see what could be done to save the program, he found 27 possible solutions. Jan Brewer didn't use any of them. Instead she unveiled her own plan.
She would cut all Medicaid benefits to 280,000 childless adults in her state, some of whom are severely mentally ill.
She says that the money saved would go to fund the transplant program and save the lives of the now 96 people on the list.
I think this is the most disgusting display of robbing Peter to pay Paul. As if the concept of stealing health benefits from half a million people were not horrid enough, the money would not benefit those on the transplant list until July.
Another major flaw in this plan is that the Medicaid money would not be enough to pay for all of the surgeries and the likelihood of finding a doctor willing to do surgery for pennies on the dollar is slim. The other major flaw is this. Under the old program the government gave the state a grant of three million dollars to help pay for the transplants, now that it is gone so is that money.
Finally Governor Brewer seems to be counting on the fact that none of these 280,000 people who would now have no insurance will get sick. Does she think that these people will remain healthy because they can no longer see a doctor?
So, why be concerned? For one thing this plan is horribly misguided, there are some who are saying that Brewer is using the transplants as an excuse to cut benefits that she would have cut anyway. That doesn't seem to be a bad assumption.
I care because these are people who are the most vulnerable, adults who don't have children and persons who are mentally ill have very few resources that they can count on for help.
The other reason is that as of last year, the state of Utah has looked to Arizona for guidance. I shudder to think that our legislature might pick up on this idea and write a bill of their own just like it. Make sure you know how to contact your representatives this is one idea that fails everyone.

And Lo Glenn Beck did speak in parables.

It has been awhile since I have spoken of our Lord Beck. The truth is I have discovered that not only does his logic defy reason, reason cannot be applied to him. I just happened to flip to Fox this afternoon and heard a lovely parable that Beck was preaching to the conservative, or is that converted?
Beck's story begins with a tree, and a very close neighborhood. See there is this cottonwood that grows near a river in the back yard of this family, and everyone in the neighborhood sits under this tree. See that is the first problem with the story, who is going to let all the people in town hang out in their back yard, but I digress.
I will skip the flowery language, no doubt it will be taken down in an illuminated manuscript for you to buy on his web site.
The end of the story is this; the tree falls down in a horrible storm because it lived by a river and the owners of the tree cared for it so it's roots were just beneath the surface of the earth.
As Glenn sums up, the tree didn't have to go far to find water, it had life to easy so when the storm came it died.
The tree is of coarse America and the roots are us the citizens and the water is "social programs"
So if we follow Glenn's logic, countries that take good care of their people fail because they have nothing to cling to.
Well lets see if this bears out. According to Beck countries that fell did so because their citizens had access to "life giving water". Yeah that sounds like Sierra Leon, oh wait it doesn't. Okay how about France, oh wait people were out of work and starving, well that doesn't make any sense. Beck said that if we have to struggle to survive we become stronger. I beg of you Beck, name one nation that has fallen as a direct result of taking care of it's people. Name one rebellion caused by people who had good jobs.
Aside from being a perfectly lovely story Becks parable simply does not make sense. If giving citizens access to food, shelter and health care causes collapse than why is Canada doing all right. The housing collapse of 2007 hurt many countries, but none of them are gone. Finland and Sweden are still here, and they(gasp) give workers lots of vacation time.
So sorry Beck Jesus you are not.

Clearfield rep proposes killing cats

There is a bill to be discussed in the Utah legislature that would exempt people from prosecution if they "humanely" kill a "feral" animal. This was sponsored by the Republican representative of Clearfield UT. Apparently there are massive groups of feral dogs and cats in his district.
What this bill means is that if any citizen in Utah sees a cat or dog they have the right to shoot it and claim that they thought it was feral. Is this a stupid idea? Hell yes it is. Look I have a cat who likes to go outside in the spring and summer if this passes I could never let him out. In Utah most landlords have a negative attitude about pets, a law like this gives them permission to shoot that annoying dog or pesky cat. This is the worst act of animal cruelty that I have ever heard of. The idea that shooting an animal can be thought of as humane, depending on where that animal is shot it could take hours for them to die.

The right to bear arms

Any time there is a mass shooting the country reexamines gun laws. This is normal, after Virginia tech and Columbine it happened. My views have changed over the years but not much. When the media was content to blame Columbine on video games and guns, I was pissed. Those children were the victims of relentless bullying by classmates. This idea that we can pick one cause for something and that if we changed one thing shootings would never happen again is untrue. Having said that, there is no reason that we need magazines that hold 30 bullets. It has been said before and it still holds true, the only reason for that kind of firepower is to kill as many people as possible. I find it hard to believe that any person needs to protect his family from a mob of attackers.
In countries where owning a gun is a privilege that you have to earn less people die. In Germany an angry student attacked his classmates, he couldn't get a gun so he used a hatchet. Not one person died.
Rights should come with some restrictions and certainly some responsibilities. if you are unwilling to secure your weapons you shouldn't have them. If you are a parent and you refuse to teach your children about gun safety you shouldn't have that gun.
The argument that the NRA and their ilk use is that car's are dangerous as well. This is true, but cars have a lot of restrictions on them also. Everyone would agree that someone with several DUI' s shouldn't be allowed to drive, but these same people stay silent while citizens stockpile military grade weapons. Nobody buys a gun that can fire 30 times unless he plans to use it.

Civil debate

Like most people I was horrified by what happened in Tuscan Arizona. The fact that someone would feel so afraid for either themselves or for others that they would feel killing people was the only solution. It cannot be denied that with the rise of the tea party movement civility has all but left the political debate. Although I do not wish to place blame, I cannot forget that Sharon Angle said that if the election did not go your way that you should use "second amendment solutions". In our fervor to protect free speech I think that we forget just how powerful words are.
Words can change the way a person sees themselves, they can raise people up. They can also be the catalyst that drives an angry or unstable person to commit horrible acts of violence.
During the recent health care debate my husband was the victim of death threats from people who called themselves Christians. These same "God fearing" men posted slogans such as "they can have their change, I'll cling to my God and my guns" Statements like these are not "non violent" in nature, in fact they can have frightening costs.
So I have come up with a simple list of things not to do when you are discussing politics or campaigning for office.
1. Stay away from gun references, for example "re-load" "second amendment solutions" "take out" "target" exc.
2. Avoid using violent imagery such as riffle cross hairs
3. Avoid statements such as "someone should take out/kill so and so"
4. Make sure that your arguments are well thought out and include sound reasoning.
5. Never forget that people are involved, all government programs involve real human beings who use them. Do not make the mistake of thinking that this is not so.
6. Speak out, but be nice.
7. Just to reiterate STAY AWAY from gun and or hunting references, there are people in this world with more fire power than sense.
And finally Love one another, we may not agree but we are all family.

Tea Party bash

Well here they are the new Tea Party Conservatives. They came to Washington to stop "out of control" spending, but wait, they needed to have a party first. A private concert with Leanne Rhymes the seating was $50,000 per 8 people So by cutting spending they did not mean for themselves. When asked about this Louis XVI behavior they responded that it was fine no big deal and a great way to raise money. Someone should tell them that the election is over, its time to stop throwing "fund raisers" and do some work. Or better yet, keep throwing lavish parties and leave the politics to those who know something about it.