Another round of "Blame President Obama"

I hear so many people attacking the President and that's fine because it's our right to free speech. But what bothers me is that so much of it is generalized falsehood. The ACA is meant to be a way for people to get healthcare when they couldn't before, there are major problems, but it's a first step in a country that generally HATES social programs. The help the immigrants are getting right now is due to a bill that the President Bush (the last one) signed. And with everything, the immigration office is trying to take each immigrant case on an individual basis to make sure that they are not sending people and children back to get killed, which is kind of what the USA has stood for, right? Isn't that what Jesus would do? (for those of you obsessed with calling this a Christian nation).

   You know who are the real enemies of this country? The corporations. Because they outsourced so many jobs, which has caused a huge problem in this country. Factories are empty sites now in so many states. They raise the prices of their items, but not wages and then pay lobbyists to attack anything that would not bring them a huge profit. If they lowered prices and raised wages people would buy more and things would even out.

  There was a news locally about how more women and single mothers with children are becoming homeless, and someone posted that is the President's fault also because of the benefits going to immigrants. Really? This is NYS and benefits here in NYS are going straight to Arizona? It doesn't work that way! Why don't we just blame President Obama for how cold it is, while we're at it. The Arctic Vortex must be his fault!

   I am so sick of these attacks. Here is where I stand, I am for social programs that help people. I am for factories and jobs in the USA, I am for raising minimum wage so it's actually liveable (what a shocker). People once worked in factories for what was once considered the minimum wage, which is so-called because it's supposed to be the minimum wage a person can live on. They worked in factories with pride and the factories took care of their workers. Now no-one cares. Happy freaking holidays. Oh wait, I mean Christmas, heaven forbid I don't say Merry Christmas. Oh wait, or is it that they are being told not to say Merry Christmas, I can't keep it straight.

American Flag Shirts and Merry Christmas vs Happy Holidays

American Flag Shirts
So here I go again, got something in my craw. The sad thing is that this stuff is brought to my attention by non-trolls. You know the type, the people who post things on Facebook and other places just to get a rise out of people (like Fox News :P). This one is about an oldish story, from earlier this year, about kids not being able to wear American Flag tshirts to school on Cinco De Mayo.

  It's going around that now, in America, kids can't wear the American flag on their tshirt at all to school, and this is not what happened at all. It just so happens that this one town in California has a very high percentage of Mexican immigrant kids in the school (something like 70% or more back in 2010), and there are a lot of gang problems in the school. In order to keep the kids from fighting, four white kids were sent home who went to school wearing American Flags on their shirts to prevent violence and it has been upheld that schools have the right to make determinations on this.

   Here's the thing, the day was probably meant to be a day celebrating the heritage of most of the kids to who go there, kind of like the Fourth of July celebrates the USA. So the kids wearing American Flags knew they were going to cause problems, in the way of violence, and went to school anyway, then their parents got pissed that they were sent home to change cause hey, it's America and A) we should be able to wear whatever we want and B) it's the American flag damnit. Normally I would agree with both but A) this is a high school and B) they had realist and serious concerns about gang violence so were probably trying to protect those kids.

   Is it ideal? No. Does it mean that no kid in America can wear the American flag to school? NO!!! This is a very unique situation!! So let's not generalize this incidence to the rest of the country. I mean the USA is HUGE! :D

Merry Christmas vs Happy Holidays
  Then there is the whole Merry Christmas vs Happy Holidays crap going on, just like every year. Here is an example:

  First of all, except for some work locations, no one is going to tell you that you cannot say Merry Christmas. Some places like Walmart have told their folks to say Happy Holidays, but they can also tell you what to wear and to not swear. Happy Holidays encompasses Christmas, in case folks didn't know. So you are very unlikely to be walking around in normal world

  Second of all, just because a large group of people here in the USA are Christian, does not mean that we cannot also be respectful towards other points of views, religiously. I know Christians believe their way is the one true way, and everyone else is going to hell (at least some sects do, wow... how depressing and negative and hateful). But so do some sects of Muslims. And Buddhists just want people to be at peace. I always like to think that it is more about your actions than what religion you say you follow. Maybe you go to church every day, but if you are a horrible person the rest of the week,  you just suck as a person. 

  I refuse to apologize for my level of tolerance for diversity. Get over it.

PEACE! :D

A Perfect Place To Start

So yes, this will be a politically charged blog. I am a liberal, sometimes a democrat, also an independent. I believe in social programs, in education (including college) for all as knowledge is power, in gun background checks (deal with it), and reproduction rights (if at least since historically women will use various forms of birth control unsafely out of desperation, so get with the program).

  That is out of the way. So let's discuss the elections that just finished. Republicans beat the Democrats pretty soundly in this country and let me give you a few reasons of why I believe that happened.

1. Common Core: This is a sore topic even in my house, as I do have a daughter in 2nd grade and the common core math is just ridiculous. But no just for the reasons others are stating about the number of steps a child has to remember on homework, but also because there was not enough done to help parents get on board by educating them with the math and such. The reason this is important is because parent's are part of the teaching team, ideally. But if left out the child will do worse. 
2. Gay marriage: I think there is a little backlash to the growing rights of the LGBT to marry, which pisses me off, but whatever.
3. Affordable Healthcare Act (aka Obamacare): This is one of the bigger reasons why democrats lost out, in my honest opinion. Now, this whole healthcare thing is ironic, because democrats fought tooth and nail to get it passed while republicans fought tooth and nail to screw it up, and I think the republicans won that round. The reason why I say that is because the affordable healthcare act is not affordable, there is a gap between real middle class folks (which is more than 60k a year in all honesty) and the folks who are eligible for social programs. The cost is still too high for folks who were already living paycheck to paycheck and the insurance barely covers anything at the cheaper costs. There are other problems with the healthcare, like a new rule that if a child can get healthcare through a parent (regardless of it being cost prohibitive) they are not eligible for child health care plus as of 2015. This is going to be a HUGE problem next year. 

So those are the three major reasons why I believe the republicans were able to take over as a party.

I will be talking about various items that push my buttons from time to time, but I am not conservative, I am liberal and proud. I believe in helping out the human being's we live with in this country. I believe in a separation of church and state, because I do not believe that the bible should dictate politics and there are many folks who are not christian who have fantastic morals and many people who are Christians who need to shut the hell up and go learn the definition of kindness and compassion.

Later folks! :D