Happy Thanksgiving

(Repost)

Thanksgiving is the closest we come to having a national religious holiday.  No matter what religion you follow in your lives, we all celebrate.Thanksgiving.  My own family is made up of Lutherans, Jews, Presbyterians, atheists and probably a few other denominations I forgot.  The celebration of Thanksgiving, and its meaning is something we all have in common.

During the eating, parades, more eating, football, drinking, and even more eating, please take time out to give thanks.

Jason Altmire is Correct

Congressman Altmire has taken a lot of heat lately from the left for not backing Nancy Pelosi for House Minority Leader.  This posting from Crooks and Liars is an example.  The interview with Chris Matthews is worth seeing.

Much of  the criticism is coming from people who know nothing about our district.  Altmire is a lone Democrat and voice of reason in an area represented mostly by right wingers:

• My Republican State Representative is Mike Turzai who is Tommey-like in his beliefs.
• My Republican State Senator, Jane Orie, is under indictment and still easily won re-election.  Unlike Christine O'Donnell, she looks like and may actually be a witch.  She at least believes in the occult, and may have cast a spell on her voters for all we know.
• My Republican McCandless town councilman told me that it is too bad that we can't open North Park up for commercial development when I mentioned to him that I was surprised at how big McCandless Crossings is.  This was after Jason Altmire fought for the much needed renovations to North Park Lake after years of neglect.
• Just north of us is Cranberry, the home of State Representative Daryl Metcalfe, who makes Sharon Angle sound rational.
• Altmire's district went overwhelmingly for John McCain and probably supported Toomey over Sestak as well.
• Altmire's far right-wing opponent, Keith Rothfus, ran commercials that criticized Altmire simply for voting for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.  

The House and Senate Democrats need new leadership and a fresh start.  This is not to take away from their accomplishments which I posted about before.  I look at it similar to how a coaching change can turn around a team by bringing in a new perspective.  The Penguins won the Stanley Cup after bringing in Dan Bylsma.  New Democratic leadership in the House and Senate could bring about a similar change.

We need fresh new leaders in these positions that can inspire not only the Democratic Party, but the American people.  I think the House and Senate Democrats need to look beyond the normal seniority-based leadership structure to people that can inspire us that we may not have even heard of yet.

Looking back at the election

The primary reason why the Democrats lost was because they allowed the Republicans to define them:

• Health care reform is based on open market concepts that Republicans have favored for years.  However, the Republicans morphed it into the dreaded Obamacare complete with death panels.  There is no government takeover.  A government takeover would be publicly run health care like the Medicare program that seniors have depended upon for 45 years.

• The stimulus package which is the textbook method for restarting the economy was vilified as a waste of money.  The stimulus is kind of like pulling the cord to start your lawn mower.  Once the engine is started, you just let it run.  The problem really is, as Joe Sestak correctly said, that it wasn't big enough.  The engine that President Bush left President Obama with was so cold that they really needed to give it a good pull.  What happens when you don't give it a strong enough pull is that the engine sputters.  That is exactly what is happening.   This isn't politics, but a simple economic fact.

• A significant part of the stimulus was a tax cut. Instead of wasting taxpayer money sending out checks with President Obama's name on them like President Bush did, they simply had more money taken out of our paychecks.  The Republicans convinced many that not only did President Obama not cut taxes, but he increased them instead.

• The other problem with the stimulus was that it followed the bank bailout enacted by President Bush, and was followed by the auto bailout.  The Republicans were so good at tying President Obama to the bank bailout, that I forgot for a while that it was done under President Bush.  Both bailouts will end up costing the government relatively little in the end, but that message is getting lost as well.

• The Republicans were very effective at making President Obama seem foreign, illegitimate, and "Socialist".  Vote Republican to stop Obama!

•  I still don't understand why the Democrats didn't extend the Bush tax cuts for everyone making under $250,000 before the election.  That made no sense to me.  I equally don't understand why we need to extend the tax cuts for everyone.  The Republicans claim that it will hurt small business.  The truth is that this is a 4 percent increase on the net profits above $250,000.  How that will hurt a small business is beyond me.  Again, basic economics will tell you this will not stimulate the economy at all.

Jane Orie raised your taxes 420%!!!!!!

Unless you live in Ross Township.

According to Orie logic, Ross Township Commissioner Dan DeMarco voted to raise taxes 150%.  Thanks to North Pittsburgh Politics, this was the occupation tax.

Using Orie logic, she voted to raise this tax 420% for just about all of us as most municipalities couldn't wait to raise this tax.  This includes the Republican McCandless Town Council where both she and I live.

The tax increase was originally intended to help the City of Pittsburgh, but instead of just applying it to Pittsburgh, Jane Orie voted to increase the tax state wide.  My wife and I do not work in Pittsburgh, and yet she raised our tax 420%.

Dan DeMarco could have taken the full $52 as well in Ross Township, but they only took what they felt they needed and left $27 on the table.  Would it be a stretch of Orie logic to claim that  Dan DeMarco actually cut the tax by 52% from $52 to $25?

Keith Rothfus wants to defund Supreme Court decisions he disagrees with

In case you had not heard...

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/21/rothfus-defund-scotus/

Add this to the current list:

• Wants to repeal health care reform rather than fix it.  This means that we all lose out on the benefits that some are already enjoying.
• Doesn't believe global warning is real.
• Criticized the stimulus bill, because it should have cut taxes instead.  I guess he didn't realize that a significant portion of the stimulus bill was a tax cut.

The list of wackiness is starting to grow.  I can't imagine what else he is hiding.

North Pittsburgh Politics: Jane Orie/Dan DeMarco mail wars

North Pittsburgh Politics wrote a great series of posts on Jane Orie's mailings that have been cluttering our mail boxes since September along with Dan DeMarco's responses:

Sen. Jane Orie's shameful mailing
Jane Orie's Fantasy World
Will these mailers convince you that Jane Orie didn't abuse tax payer's money?
Dan DeMarco Mailers
Rest of Jane Orie mailers so far
Why did Jane Orie get indicted? Hmmm
Dan DeMarco Mailers

You can certainly see a pattern in Jane Orie's mailers.  As time goes on, she goes further and further off the deep end.  I can't wait to check my mail for the next one.  The Zapalla's are out to get her!  She is fighting the "Good Old Boy" network!  Never mind that you don't get to be Senate Majority Whip unless you are one of those "Good Old Boys" that you are allegedly fighting against.

The only reason that Zapalla brought the charges is because, unlike Attorney General Corbett, he was doing his job.  The whistle blower went to Corbett's office first and his office blew her off.  It also wasn't like Zapalla did it on his own.  He convened two Grand Juries that brought the charges to her and her family (Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin may be getting indicted as well.).  I guess the Grand Juries are out to get Orie as well.

I have met Dan DeMarco and he is everything in person that his mailers show.  He is very personable and sincere.  He will be a fine State Senator.

The choice on November 2nd between Dan DeMarco's sincerity and Jane Orie's insanity is a pretty easy one.

Post-Gazette Endorses Jason Altmire

4th U.S. House: Altmire is the better choice for Congress

It is a pretty normal endorsement, but a few things stood out to me:

• "He favors repeal of the federal health insurance law, calling it unconstitutional and unprecedented in expanding government power."  Jason Altmire didn't vote for the law as well, but is taking the common sense approach that we need to fix what is wrong with it rather than just repeal it and replace it with nothing.  If Rothfus had said something similar rather than just parroting the Republican talking point, I might have taken him seriously.  Rothfus is also forgetting to mention that the health care law was based more on Republican ideas and proposals than "Government Run Healthcare" that progressives would have preferred.  As with many, many Republican ideas like Cap and Trade, if Obama supports it, it is suddenly socialist and evil.

• "He called the $787 billion stimulus "an abject failure" and said Congress should have cut taxes to stimulate growth." A large portion of the stimulus was a tax cut that we all enjoyed. Keith Rothfus didn't know this?  The problem with the tax cut was that we got it through reduced withholding taxes rather than wasting our tax dollars like Bush did by sending out physical checks, so no one noticed.  Most economics also agree that the stimulus also prevented a depression.

• "Mr. Rothfus is not convinced that human activity is causing climate change." So he is a climate change denier as well. He is probably also in support of global warming as well, because it is opening up shipping lanes through the Arctic Circle.

I met Mr. Rothfus and he is a nice enough person.  The problem is that he is nice, and will simply be John Boehner's lap dog (I picture him as a little white terrier.).  He will be a reliable 100% yes vote for the Republican agenda with little ability to make a difference.  His campaign is a boilerplate Republican campaign that Melissa Hart used twice and lost.  He brings nothing new to the table, and simply echos the Republican talking points.  Has he said anything original?

If you want someone who will vote 100% of the time for the Republican agenda even if his district is against the Republican policies that will increase the deficit by trillions of dollars go ahead and vote for Keith Rothfus.