Oh where have you gone Joe DiMaggio... I mean... Phil Donahue

 What would the “Father of Modern Talk Shows” think about the Jerry Springer-like atmosphere manifesting itself at the Republican Presidential debates? 

Last September during one of the GOP debates the crowd gave the loudest cheer of the night for Rick Perry at the mention of his record number of executions.  Yee doogie.
 – Look whether you are for or against the death penalty you don’t cheer it like a *&^^%$% overtime game winning field goal.  (Unless you are Billy Cundiff).
Want to take a guess at the percentage of people at that debate that would classify themselves as Christians?  
I guess that would be the "eye for an eye" Christians  (Old school).   Luckily we do have the New age JC followers  -  he overruled the old man with "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also."  Thank God eh?  We could use a few more of them at the debates.


But I had better be careful here as I am walking on thin ice.  Not my expertise and I digress. 
Newt Gingrich says he won’t “allow” the moderators of future GOP presidential debates to keep the crowd out of it.  
No noise - No Newt – REALLY?  When did crowd participation become an integral part of presidential debates???
I went back and at looked at the video of the first televised presidential debate – 1960 Richard Nixon and John Kennedy.  I didn’t hear any hooting and hollering – nobody yelling “Git er done or hang him, or you’re the man Tiger”.  What the hell – Walter Cronkite would have gone all Dan Rather on 'em.

The debate is …. well it’s a debate, not a talk show or MMA match.  Come on!  That’s why I didn’t run for class president in high school.  Running against the hot shot quarterback  - I would have looked like John King after he opened the debate with that question for Newt about his second wife's claims against him.  Man - Newt jumped up the corner turnbuckle, walked on the top rope and jumped down on King's chest, knocking the wind out of him and whipping the crowd into a frenzy.  
Now, should King have led off with that question – I don’t think so.  Was it worth asking – I don’t know but…….

Gingrich performs the Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka on an unsuspecting  John King

Newt was appalled and the dogs were let loose – and Mitt was cooked.  Listen to the video and hear the crowd chant, hoot and holler.  Newt has been masterful at whipping the crowd up and feigning shock at the depravity the media is capable of sinking to (not a bad play for a serial cheater who was reprimanded when he served as the House Speaker.  He was ordered to pay an unprecedented $300,000 penalty; the first time in the House's 208-year history it has disciplined a speaker for ethical wrongdoing.)  But Newt’s double barrel blast of the media contributed to his come from behind victory in South Carolina over a gob-smacked Romney. 
In the Florida debate that followed the audience was not allowed to spontaneously channel a box car of hillbillies and Romney (in debate style) carved up Newt who looked lost without his cheerleaders.

Following that debacle Gingrich took the opportunity to blast the media. 
 “I wish in retrospect I had protested when Brian Williams took [the crowd] out of it because I think it’s wrong,” he said. “I think he took them out of it because the media is terrified that the audience is going to side with the candidates against the media, which is what they’ve done in every debate.”
The crowd was asked to hold their applause until the breaks, and moderator Brian Williams did not pull a "John King".  Newt didn’t get the Springer-bounce from his supporters as he did in S.C.  He was lost.

“We’re going to serve notice on future debates that we won’t tolerate — we’re just not going to allow that to happen,” Gingrich continued. “That’s wrong — the media doesn’t control free speech. People ought to be able to applaud if they want to.  It was almost silly.”  Free Speech huh?  Ever see anyone start yelling critica l things at presidential candidates?
How about we go retro on this and everyone shut their pie hole –  Maybe it won’t be exciting but we have plenty of other outlets for that behavior – like executions. 
So what happens if Newt becomes president – imagine he’s on the phone with the Russian Prime Minister who is kicking Newt’s ass like nobody’s business.  Gingrich feeling he needs to feed off the energy of his followers snaps his fingers and into the oval office walks the South Carolina audience (now working as Newt’s private full time entourage).  Newt now energized jumps up on the table and metamorphoses  into a woman guest of Jerry Springer show telling  Vladimir Putin

"OH NO YOU DI-INT!!!!!” 

The trouble with unemployment is that the minute you wake up in the morning you're on the job.

 - Comedian Slappy White

Is everything old new again?  Is the current rhetoric coming from the Republican presidential candidates about unemployment and comments about Americans aversion to work something new?  From my perspective I don’t seem to recall hearing that kind of sentiment in presidential campaigns past.

People like Herman Cain - "Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself. It is not someone's fault if they succeeded, it is someone's fault if they failed,".

Or Erick Erickson, the blogger for the right-wing Red State Americans Don't Want to Work in talking about extending unemployment benefits  he refered to them as the Ones who are able to collect unemployment longer instead of looking for work.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was asked what he would do about unemployment insurance, particularly in regard to those unemployed workers who had exhausted their 99 weeks of benefits.  The former speaker suggested that benefits were being abused by people who were more interested in living off the government dime than in finding actual work. "It is fundamentally wrong to give people money for 99 weeks for doing nothing,".

Sharron Angle, Republican candidate for senator of Nevada in the 2010 election. said during a speech, "We did those things growing up that Americans don't do. We cleaned bathrooms and made beds. Swept floors. Did laundry." But now, according to Angle, Americans won't do those jobs, and unemployment benefits, specifically Harry Reid's vote to extend them, are to blame. 

Getting back to Gingrich who recently said that child labor laws are "truly stupid:  told an Iowa audience that children in poor neighborhoods have "no habits of working" nor getting paid for their endeavors "unless it's illegal.  "And so I'm prepared if the NAACP invites me, I'll go to their convention and talk about why the African American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps," Gingrich said earlier today in Plymouth, N.H.

Most studies of unemployment insurance have showed that lethargy is not a side effect of providing help to the unemployed. The money that is being distributed simply doesn't cover the salary lost from not having a job. The more cynical minded would argue that Gingrich's condemnation of welfare insurance resembles the type of class warfare that Republicans are often deriding... only in reverse.

Unemployment levels in the last two years have spiked as high as 10% and currently hover around at 8%.  In 2001the unemployment rate was at  a low of 4%.  It seemed when the jobs were available people worked but in this current environment there are currently 4.3 applicants per job .

Reality is a little different than the picture being painted "Workers receiving the last 20 weeks of benefits – Extended Benefits – have no choice about what job they’ll take.  The law says their benefits are cut off if they refuse even a minimum wage job, so they aren’ doing what they have been accused of by  holding out for what “really high-paying jobs.”

It seems the message is that the unemployed are responsible for their fate, and that the mass of Americans are just looking for handouts from the “hardworking engines of society”??

Like I said in the beginning - I don’t remember that kind of sentiment being said by Politicians twenty years ago.  Do you?

Looking back in time  I will quote an article by Tim Dickinson

“The nation is still recovering from a crushing recession that sent unemployment hovering above nine percent for two straight years. The president, mindful of soaring deficits, is pushing bold action to shore up the nation's balance sheet. Cloaking himself in the language of class warfare, he calls on a hostile Congress to end wasteful tax breaks for the rich. "We're going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share," he thunders to a crowd in Georgia. Such tax loopholes, he adds, "sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary – and that's crazy”

Preacherlike, the president draws the crowd into a call-and-response. "Do you think the millionaire ought to pay more in taxes than the bus driver," he demands, "or less?"

The crowd, sounding every bit like the protesters from Occupy Wall Street, roars back: "MORE!"

The year was 1985. The president was Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-gop-became-the-party-of-the-rich-20111109#ixzz1kQgow3sA

Shoeless Jon Huntsman

Ever since I saw “Field of Dreams” I have had a fantasy about going to Iowa and walking the baseball field immortalized in that classic movie.  But something tells me since Shoeless Joe Jackson walked out of that cornfield he took Iowa’s brains with him.  Seriously – have you seen the results from the Iowa Caucus?

 Of course that guy that has no chance of winning because he’s a Mormon (and they either sacrifice children or wear magic underwear I can’t remember which) came in first but it’s the rest of results that are just surprising.  Iowa LOVES CRAZY – they were all over that beloved gang of social conservative, evangelical, loves America more than we do, and vaccines make you retarded candidates or as most of America sees them (check the polls I’m not lying – well, maybe a little) your "GOP Loons Of the Month" – Santorum, Bachmann, and Perry.

 But how does a guy like Jon Huntsman get so little love - former governor of Utah, worked in four presidents administrations - with the Gipper for Christ's sake - you should anoint him for that alone.   Huntsman was appointed by George H.W. Bush as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce and later as United States Ambassador to Singapore from 1992–1993. Served as Deputy United States Trade Representative under George W. Bush, launching global trade negotiations in Doha, Qatar in 2001 and guiding the accession of China and Taiwan into the World Trade Organization.
He was the CEO of his family's Huntsman Corporation!!!  He is Romney on steroids man!.  He served as chairman of the Western Governors Association and as a member of the Executive Committee of the National Governors Association. Huntsman was appointed by Obama as the United States Ambassador to the People's Republic of China.  He can say Chinese words - I want to have take-out with him.....
He got  0.6% of the vote??????  745 people (for every 1 Huntsman supporter they are 8.15 Bachmann supporters or 402.69 Santorum supporters or as most of know 402.69 of disgusting name for a foul act if you google Santorum.  You don't want any of that.

Look I understand the knock on Huntsman – he served in the Obama administration as the ambassador to China, he supports civil unions for gays and lesbians and his moderate tone on the campaign trail.  I got it – he doesn’t sell pizzas and he ain’t crazy. 

I’m for Obama (another blog might cover how disappointed I am in him or how I think Hillary would have done a better job but that is for another time). I want him to win but come on Iowa - New Hampshire is laughing at you. What's with the Republican death wish – don't you want to win?

You continued fascination with crazy – America ain’t buying it guys – you need to let go.  I wouldn’t be surprised if your other fancies -  the Tea Party doesn’t get its ass handed to them for being obstructionist during the recent debt ceiling crises.

Let’s look at your GOP-LOMs eh? -

Santorum – a guy who was voted out in his own state and so pissed off the gay community by stating that  mutually consenting adults do not have a constitutional right to privacy with respect to sexual acts and comparing consensual homosexual acts to  adultery, polygamy, child molestation, incest, sodomy, and bestiality that they turned his name into a Google minefield (go ahead google “Santorum”. I'll wait - just make sure you put your browser in the private mode - you won't want your kids to see what you have been up to and take a airline sickness bag - you have one don't you?.)

Bachmann - she suggested at a presidential campaign event in Florida that the 2011 East Coast earthquake and hurricane was a message from God, or telling a story of a woman who claims that her little daughter took a vaccine and suffered from mental retardation thereafter, or that she tried to channel long-dead Senator Joe McCarthy when she wished the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out: Are they pro-America or anti-America???

Perry - Texas’ smarter Bush - he managed with his despicable gay bashing video to displace Justin Bieber as the most hated video on youtube.  No small task there.

Hell.... Cain who dropped out of the race got 1/12  of the votes of Jon Huntsman – 9.99 that!  Huntsman's best quote - "To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy"
Well call me crazy too Jon - I don't get the lack of GOP love...

What’s even crazier is that according to polling sites (http://www.realclearpolitics.com and http://www.rasmussenreports.com  ) Obama loses to a generic Republican but when you plug in your LOM Obama beats them all – What’s that all about????  What does that say about your candidates?

Look don’t listen to me – I want you to lose – but I would really like to respect you in the morning and right now I can’t.

And the final word – in recent Rasmussen report poll 76% of people “ Say Wealthy Like Kim Kardashian Already Pay Enough in State Taxes” – I don’t know about you but I think the Kardashians can’t pay enough……

Ahhh..... Senator – your fly is open.

I know Fergie doesn't have anything
to do with this but her fly was open.

That’s right – remember to zip up after your drug test Mr. Lawmaker – if drug testing welfare recipients is your polarizing hot topic then by all means grab your cup and endure what you create.

  The past year has seen an unprecedented wave of Republican bills to drug test the poor and jobless. According to the National Association of State Workforce Agencies Twelve (12) states saw legislative activity around drug testing for UI benefits in 2010 and 2011, and one state (Indiana) enacted a law.  You have nut jobs like S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley claiming that  that fifty percent of recent job applicants at the Savannah River Site (SRS) failed drug tests while the other half “couldn’t read and write properly.”

Drug testing welfare recipients is just one of those polarizing issues that reeks of class warfare and does nothing positive for the people that most need our help – can we do no better than this while slashing other social programs that raise people up instead of isolating and reinforcing stereotypes?

Finally the Democrats have shown some balls and fought back against the blatant class warfare of those whose main emphasis is on drug testing welfare recipients while slashing social programs that support education, childcare and counseling.  One of the most recent retorts comes from Georgia, where last month Democratic state Rep. Scott Holcomb introduced a bill requiring members of the local legislature to prove they're not Legislating Under the Influence.

Democrats in Florida, Ohio and Tennessee have done the same thing. Tennessee state representative G.A. Hardaway said his bill to test lawmakers was inspired by constituents annoyed with a Republican welfare-drug-testing bill. "They said to me, 'how do we know y'all aren't on drugs?'" Hardaway told local TV station WMC-TV. "I thought, well, you don't."

Regardless of results (and if you do look at them you will find a low percentage of positive tests and that the programs are losing money).  Instead I say let’s look at the causes rather than the symptoms of welfare dependence – poverty, lack of education, childcare, and transportation.  Fund those solutions rather than drug testing. 

There are additional causes for welfare dependence - mental and behavioral health problem that prevent them from finding and keeping jobs .  Wouldn’t the money spend on ineffective drug testing (low % of positive tests) be better spent on the real causes?  Wouldn’t counseling and education help make some of these people’s lives better?  Perhaps even begin to reduce their dependence on welfare?  At the other extreme, chemical testing will identify some casual drug users who do not have clinically significant abuse or dependence, and who have no employment or parenting problems.

Meanwhile states like Florida who implemented drug testing (at $30 bucks a test costing the state 28,000 – 30,000/month) are cutting Healthy Start services supports  more than 14,000 women and children that are expected to lose free access to a litany of, such as prenatal care, mental health and substance abuse counseling and parenting education.  Oh and by the way according to several news sources in Florida - One of the more popular services at Solantic, the urgent care chain co-founded by Florida Gov. Rick Scott, is drug testing, according to Solantic CEO Karen Bowling.  Given Solantic's role in that marketplace, critics are again asking whether Scott's policy initiatives - this time, requiring drug testing of state employees and welfare recipients - are designed to benefit Scott's bottom line. The Palm Beach Post reported in an exclusive story two weeks ago that while Scott divested his interest in Solantic in January, the controlling shares went to a trust in his wife's name.

And if you noted in this post – I didn’t even bring up the number of lawmakers who have been arrested in drug or alcohol incidents – so Mr. Lawmaker grab a cup and be sure to wash your hands when you are done.

Check out some of these resources

Substance Abuse Policy Research Program (SAPRP) http://www.saprp.org/pm_keyResFind.cfm

Drug Testing Welfare Recipients – False Positives, False Negatives , Unanticipated Opportunities by Harold Pollack Department of Health Management and Policy http://www.fordschool.umich.edu/research/pdf/drugtest.pdf