Chart: Tea Party vs. Occupywallstreet

I found this chart by @LasVegasJessica via Twitter and had to share:

Why is Anyone Surprised by Crazy GOP Candidates?

I find it truly amazing that anyone is surprised by this year's GOP crop of presidential candidates.  Come on, we all, (those living in the non Fox filled reality world), know Ronald Reagan lowered the bar just a bit in 1980.  While Georgie Bush Jr. just threw that bar on the ground and stomped on it..  In other words, there is no bar when it comes to GOP candidates since Dwight D. Eisenhower, (congressional or even presidential).  In 2010, the Republicans gave us deadbeat dad Joe Walsh, another guy who liked to dress up in Nazi uniforms, Joe, "you lie", Wilson, Michelle, those founders did a great job getting rid of slavery, Bachman, Steve " gotta stop those baby terrorist, King,  Allen, "I have a higher security clearance than the President and like to put guns to the heads of prisoners, West and on and on crazy crazy, crazy (and/or stupid).  So those gentlemen and one lady certainly represent exactly what the Republican party has become.  They either have no sense of history, no intellectual curiosity, no integrity, or a combination of all or some of these undesirable personality traits.  And why shouldn't they?  They are the leaders of a group of people who are exactly like them.  They cheer for the death penalty being performed as much as possible withour losing a wink of sleep over the possibility of killing an innocent man.  They cheer for the death of a 30 year old man, dying because he had no health insurance.  And they showed their true colors when they jeered a gay marine while he was still stationed in Iraq.  Some have referred to the Republican primary as looking like a circus. I think it looks more and more like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

This Country May Not Survive Another Republican Rule

It's a an old but true cliche: "The more things change, the more they stay the same".  Those of us old enough to have been in these United States pre the George W. Bush regime know conservatives have been attempting to dismantle the New Deal and anything in the way of "their free market ideals" for decades.  And they will use any means possible, (and anyone who temporarily serves this purpose), to complete their single minded task.  This includes the Christian right (whatever you may be calling yourselves these days), the "right to lifers", the pro gun lobby, the racists and the religious and sexual orientation bigots, etc..  If a particular issue can be used like a shiny trinket to make you turn away from the real issues that do affect what we now (correctly) refer to as The 99% it will be, time after time.  Because until now (perhaps), this has worked superbly.  I am happy to see the Occupy Wall Street movement finally come to being.  I just wish it had started just a little earlier (like a least a decade ago when Wabya was lying us into wars and getting elected without being able to complete a coherent sentence).  This may have been going on for decades,   [dismantling of the New Deal], but Bush sure put it into supersonic overdrive.  He and his cohorts messed up this country like a bunch of freshmen college drunks, bent on burning down the whole freshmen dorm on a dare.  Only these weren't college kids, these were leaders of the most powerful country on earth. And they weren't burning down a single campus dorm but a whole country.  They destroyed our financial system. They destroyed our environment and allowed an infrastructure which had been envied worldwide to become close to obsolete.  They destroyed the reputation of the world's once most respected nation.  They destroyed our public education system.  They tore through every thing they could get their greedy, powerful hands into. They took away some of our very constitutional rights, in the guise of national security.  And they are all very wealthy now thank you.  Thousands of men and women died in that war they lied us into.  Many more were sent home injured.  Bush nor any of his Republican cronies probably can't name even one of them.  Thousands and thousands more innocent Iraqi civilians died.  When Bush left office one American city had been almost completely destroyed. Other cities and towns are left crumbling.  Bridges are literally falling, mines are collapsing and oil pipes are bursting, devastating our Gulf and it's wildlife.  States no longer have the financial resources to help them if they wanted. So although I wish OWS might have started much sooner at least someone is finally speaking up.  Cleaning up decades of debris, especially all the financial debris, won't be easy and it will take time.  It will be messy.  We've already seen that.  Their will be those who will fight us 99%', tooth and nail for nothing but another buck off our back.  Fighting will mean never giving up and never getting so comfortable as to allow this to happen again.  We must fight the way they fought us only without the dirty tricks of the Karl Roves.  We must fight politically. From the school boards to the White House, we must elect REAL DEMOCRATS.  But like President Obama has learned we must learn, some will use every dirty evil trick conceived of to fight even the smallest steps we may make.  And finally, we can not win fighting each other.  We may not agree on everything and we certainly won't agree on every way to get there.  But I truly believe this country cannot survive another Republican rule.  So we better get it together or perish together.