Leftista

President Obama will always have our respect for doing that which the terminally ball-less GOP could not bring themselves to do:  kill our #1 enemy.

“It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.”
- Willard Romney, 2007

“I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.”
- George Bush, 2002

“Justice has been done.” – President Obama, 2011

Justice before oil; justice before money

We do not need to imagine bin Laden’s fate if left to the GOP; they have stated it clearly.

We all know Bush was quick to look the other way, drops of slippery oil slythering through his fingers.

Romney – instead of demanding some much needed varmint hunting -  rather felt the pain of potential lost dollars…as if spending any amount of money could negate the need to kill bin Laden.

Romney and Bush should be ashamed.

The kill order is a tough call to make.  It’s powerful.  It requires making a decision, not etch-a-sketching a talking point.   It’s about as real as you can get.  And – thank you Barack – it feels good.  Really, really good.

Bin Laden is dead.  For real and for good.  Justice – over a decade in the making – has been done.

Yet the GOP didn’t care.  Fact.  Their words, not ours. 

Thank you, again, Mr. President.

We here at Leftista feel this event should be sacred to all Americans.  It is to us.  We will never forget.

It’s true.  We have a bully amongst us. And he wants to be your president.

It’s easy to picture the young Willard Romney as a truculent Draco Malfoy, a spoiled prep school child-of-fortune who not only believes he is better than everyone else, but deems it his rightful privilegium to use whatever means necessary to prove it (including the administering of unrequested haircuts).

Just as Draco’s prep school bullying was a defining characteristic, so indeed was Mitt’s.  Just as Draco’s bullying continued as a personality trait after prep school, so indeed has Mitt’s.  In fact, the classic bullying traits fit Willard Romney perfectly:

1. Bullying almost always begins in childhood but as a trait extends into adulthood
2. Those who bully tend to do it, not occasionally, not sporadically, but consistently
3. Bullies prey upon the weak (and weakened corporations)
4. They enjoy inflicting pain (and firing people)
5. They don’t see their victims as real people (“I’m not concerned about the very poor.”)
6. They believe in the precept of revenge as acceptable form of behavior (think attack ads)
   
7. Bullies view themselves favorably, never quite understanding why others don’t (why don’t they like me?)
   

So what career path naturally fits that of this prep school bully later on in life?  Hmmm.  Vulture capitalism, perhaps?

That’s right.  Bain Capital. (Is it just us, or does the name alone leave you feeling in need of a quick shower?)

The bully mentality is precisely the same set of values that propelled Mr. Romney to the top of the vulture capital world at Bain Capital where they specialize in preying upon the weak:

“Mitt Romney and Bain Capital were involved with what I call vulture capitalism. And they walked into Gaffney and took over that photo album company for no other reason than to basically pick the bones clean. And those people lost their jobs.”  –GOP Governor Rick Perry

Romney’s Bain Capital descends as a pack upon its prey, holds it down, and metaphorically cuts off its hair.  And when they’re done with one they move onto the next. And the next after that… Like a pack of bullies chasing down a lone, misbegotten student in a hallway.

Want this guy as your president?    Didn’t think so… You know who does?   The GOP.

In all things, there is a starting point at which definition begins.

This is so in arguments.  This is so in debates.  This is so in political parties.

One attempts to define one’s opposition – render those borders in stark colors – thus making it easier to illustrate existing distinctions.

Sometimes, however, the opposition does this for you.  Just like the GOP has done in their ongoing War on Women.

The GOP's ongoing War on Women

The GOP’s War on Women is nothing new.  This defining characteristic of the GOP has been years in the making.  Legally-mandated transvaginal probes are simply their latest volley….something that self-illustrates the GOP’s position yet more clearly.

The GOP’s War on Women really began with their initial attempts to outlaw abortion.  After all, your uterus is just yours in name alone, right?  Ugh.

It’s one thing to have an opinion, quite another to aspire to make law of one’s opinion.  The plain fact is that no one likes abortion.  No one digs it. No one sits around hoping to get pregnant just so they can experience that great abortive joy one more time.  Just doesn’t happen, people.

And for the GOP to suggest that women are not the deciders of their own uteri is outrageous.

Lex non scripta clearly shows that there is only one person who controls a uterus and it is the owner of said uterus.

And yet the GOP continues their attempt to assert domain over the female uterus.  This – The Abortion Wars – is truly the birthplace of the GOP’s War on Women.

They can’t “walk back” this one.

They can’t suggest that it’s the equivalent of a war on caterpillars.

They can’t suggest that, on the contrary, it’s Obama who wages this war.

No, indeed.

The GOP self-rendered their own anti-women portraiture early on.

American Women get this. They see it clearly: the GOP have been waging this war for far too long. 

Let, then, their War on Women define them…and cost them.

It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver. ~Mahatma Gandhi

If Americans traveled more, they’d expect more. ~Jim, American expat living in Pátzcuaro

In nuce, we here at Leftista are fans of Obamacare.  We just are.  Largely because any attempt to fix the massive wrong that exists right now in the for-profit world of healthcare insurance must by definition be better than ignoring the problem (widely known as the GOP Healthcare Solution).

Countries around the world have already dealt with the problem that we as a country have ignored for so long.

Solutions abound. (Some even very close to home, such as the socialist healthcare model we currently employ in our military.)

Healthcare models, that we as a country could quite easily mirror, exist in every industrialized country:

As a test, conduct the following experiment: Ask your friendly random Canadian, phht, whether he or she would happily give up their current access to healthcare in favor of our wonderful insurance-driven free-market model.  Go ahead, ask.  When you’re done with your lovely Canadian, then ask your friendly random Mexican, whose access to public healthcare is constitutionally guaranteed via Article 4 of the Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos.   Other nations get this.

Like most Americans, we have listened with bent ear to the healthcare debate raging from street corners everywhere all the way to the White House, Congress, and the hallowed halls of the Supreme Court:

50 million of our own living without access to healthcare is not acceptable.
The highest of praise to Mr. Obama for having the gumption to address this.

Not unlike most Americans, we understand that it lies beyond the charter of  the existing for-profit healthcare industry to provide a solution. (After all, their business is making money, not provisioning for those in need.)

Therefore, when in the course of human events, it becomes clear that our existing healthcare insurance mala fides cannot and will not provide a solution, such is the time for government to actively work in its stead.  Such is the time for government to provide a real, workable solution for its 50 million non-covered citizens.  When the free-market fails, government steps up to the plate.

So what’s wrong with Obamacare?  Where does Obamacare fail? In requiring a buy-in, both conceptually and literally, to a healthcare model of which insurance should have no part. Obamacare would reward the very industry that left so many of us abandoned, forsaken.  It would fatten an already obese system that fails 50 million citizens on a daily basis.   Instead, what is needed is a non-insurance-based, not-for-profit single-payer alternative.  Mr Obama: use the identical model we currently have in place for the US military. Works great.

Go ahead and mandate that.   We here at Leftista are on board.

“It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute.” – Rush Limbaugh, Feb 29 2012

“So, Ms. Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here’s the deal: If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. And I’ll tell you what it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.” – Rush Limbaugh, Feb 29 2012

“I’ll just say this, which is it’s not the language I would have used.” – Mitt Romney, when queried as to Limbaugh’s statements

Limbaugh calls women "sluts"

Mitt Romney.  Coward.

Gosh, Mitt, thanks for taking such a vigorously tough stance on this.

Let’s get this straight, Mitt: “Slut” is not the word you would have used?  Which word would have been more appropriate, then?  “Prostitute”? “Skank”? “Whore”?  Are we getting close, Mitt?

Not only did Rush Limbaugh publicly defame Sandra Fluke on February 29th 2012, he insulted, berated and denigrated our sisters and daughters all across America.

Our sisters…

Our daughters…

And Mitt Romney couldn’t find the cojones to tell Rush anything more than he’d used the wrong words?

Nothing even remotely human such as “Hell, I’da taken a bat’leth to the boy“.

Sweet christ on that very alien Kolobian stick, people.

GOP Idiocy has so far distanced itself from mainstream America that it approaches the painfully preposterous.

And people like Mitt who don’t recognize right from wrong shouldn’t be in politics.

And people like Limbaugh shouldn’t have a radio program.

We encourage you to contact Clear Channel Communications (parent company of Premier Radio Networks, pushers of Limbaugh’s crap) and let your voice be heard: (210) 822-2828.

Seriously: Pick up the phone now and call them.  Just do it.

Congratulations to the USA Men’s National Team on their truly stunning victory over the Azzurri!

USMNT defeat the Azzurri

There are few things more patriotic than following our USA Men’s National Team as they foray into far away lands to seek victory on the pitch.  And as anyone who knows football can tell you, beating Italy on Italian soil is beyond difficult.

And it’s rarely done.

But that’s exactly what the USMNT did on a balmy, cloudless evening in Genoa, Feb. 29th 2012.

Our USMNT stunned Italy:

…Beginning with a sweet cross out on the left flank by Fabian Johnson…

…followed by some neat holding play and a deft touch by Altidore…

…Dempsey did what Dempsey does…

…and fired home the winning goal past the outstretched arms of the Italian keeper.

Klinsmann’s men should be deservedly proud.  They collectively achieved something that we as a nation have never done before, something that in fact few other countries can boast to having done.

Beating Italy in Italy is huge.  And incredibly awesome.

And the Leap Year winnings didn’t stop there:  USA Women’s Team trounced Denmark 5-0 and Men’s Sub-23 defeated Mexico handily 2-0.

All around excellent football results.

Sure, the win against Italy was technically a friendly.  But with Italy facing summer’s upcoming Euro 2012, and coming off their previous loss to Uruguay, rest assured this was no friendly.  You can bet Italy wanted – and expected – a win out of this.

Congrats again to the USMNT for the excellent football result. 

Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there. -Robert A. Heinlein

We here at Leftista believe ardently that theology has no place in government.

It just doesn’t.

Especially in a country comprised of so many divergent and fustian faiths.

And let us not forget another burgeoning demographic:  We of No Faith, a quite massive and steadily growing non-associative group of American citizens who quite literally have had enough of the excessive religiosity spewed without thought from the mouths of politicians and theologians alike.

Not that we necessarily enjoy our continued attack on the feckless GOP (admittedly, though, we do), but honestly:

Whence do you see theology rearing its ugly head in politics these days?

That’s right. 

The GOP.

We’ve said for many years now that they are the crazies of the crazy, the miscreants of the misguided.

Their words prove us right.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church,  nor by any Church that I know of.  Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all. ~Thomas Paine, Founding Father

What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition. ~Christopher Hitchens

We on the Rational Left have long suffered in quiet indignation those on the Right who would theocratize our wonderfully secular republic.

And it’s getting annoying.

Now we’ve got the GOP frontrunners each trying to out-gun the other on all things religious.  Gingrich, the converted Catholic.  Santorum, the “devout” follower of Ratzinger.  Romney…he of planet Kolob.

The GOP front-runners are certainly no better than the Allah-fearing goat herders of the Taliban (who, we’re sure, the GOP frontrunners look down upon as religious zealots).  Troth,  there is scant difference amongst followers of the supernatural; the follower of one religion is indeed much the same as the follower of another:

Change one impregnated virgin to 72 virgins…

Change eating the body of christ to sucking goat teat…

Change Sharia Law to Santorum Law…

and religions are pretty much the same,

and interchangeably silly.

What possible motivation could exist that would compel We of Reason to vote for someone who actually believes this shit?  Seriously.

We here at Leftista believe it is time to have a leader who intelligently and rationally rejects all religious nonsense and who has the guts to stand up and say it out loud, just like our Founding Fathers did.

A leader who cedes that, while religion has a place in the lives of those lesser individuals – those of blind faith, tiny brains, and serious blinders – it is he with feet planted firmly in the rational world who is best capable of managing it.

And right now we need well-grounded government, folks.  Led by men and women who understand, appreciate, and accept the rational while rejecting the supernatural and all its inherent goofiness.

It is in this spirit that we of Leftista.com issue a public call for an atheist leader.

Its time has come.

One can’t change the channel today without being bombarded by images of Whitney Houston.

As if that weren’t enough, even her funeral is being broadcast live.

Now, don’t get this wrong:  We’ll miss her too.  Her voice was strong, clear, and wonderful.

In all measures, however, this will be another death overdone.

This causes us here at Leftista to ponder just what it is that the mourners believe they are mourning, in their enduring 15 minutes of grief… and it compels us to consider the audacity of the still-living.

The audacity of the living is that they somehow believe they will be spared the same fate.  Or that their shared fate is so far in the future that it’s really not real.

So they feel bad and they cry and they swoon and they thank the baby jesus for his role in…something.

They mourn the freshly fallen Whitney while never quite realizing that they are but a very tiny half-step behind her.

Geologically speaking, our time here is short, people.  Let the dead pass.

Don’t mourn them.  (They don’t care.)

Don’t dwell on them.  (They won’t care.)

And most of all, don’t talk ceaselessly about them.  (We don’t care.)

Simply remember them.

We here at Leftista applaud the hell out of free-enterprise.  In fact, we are without doubt free-enterprisistas (now there’s a wonderful portmanteau for you).  Let it be known, however, that we are free-enterprisistas but not capitalistas.

Free-enterprise has been around for thousands and thousands of years.  It is nothing new.  It existed long before Keynes, long before Milton and the Chicago School, long before Reagan and Thatcher.  Additionally, saying that you either like free-enterprise or not means little… free-enterprise just doesn’t care one way or the other.

Most Americans still do not understand the difference between free-enterprise and capitalism.  The great majority have been told repeatedly that the two concepts are interchangeable, when in fact they are not.

In the days of your father, and his father before him, and his father before him, one ventured forth in the world to learn a trade; after having learnt said trade, one opened his/her own practice.   In other words, one sought the job as a precursor to setting up your own shop or trade.  This has been the way of things for literally thousands of years.   This is free-enterprise:   The ability to practice your craft or trade and through such activity provide for your own welfare.  Brought down to lo picaresco, it is your right to raise chickens and sell them in order to buy your daily bread.

It is good, basic stuff.  Been around for millennia.

But guess what?

Free-enterprise scares the hell out of most Americans.

What? You ask.  We thought Americans loved free-enterprise.

Americans actually love the idea of free-enterprise. What they really love, in this new economy, is a job.

Okay.  So why is it that Americans favor a job over free-enterprise?  After all, it was never that way in the past.

The answer is simple:  Health care coverage.

Americans know that the very first thing they give up – should they choose to hang their own shingle – is health care coverage.   If you are a father or mother with a family, it is almost borderline irresponsible to consider a working option that does not include healthcare.  So unless you are the rare individual who possesses the funds to both 1) start your own business and 2) buy private healthcare insurance, you literally cannot afford to open your own business.  You just can’t.  The logical need for healthcare prevents this as a viable option.

Which leads us to our very real point: Healthcare insurance has no business being intertwined in employment.  Historically it never was.  In this sense, there truly is a war on free-enterprise, and it is being waged by Big Money.  They want you to stay in your cubicle and be the good consumer they need you to be….and providing healthcare insurance is their best way of doing this.

If America is wondering why fewer and fewer individuals are starting their own businesses, it need look no further than the issue of healthcare. Indeed, free-enterprise is the first casualty of today’s new healthcare-driven economy.

So how can America re-launch an inspired focus on free-enterprise for all?  Remove employers from the provisioning of healthcare insurance…a position in which they never, ever belonged.

Following this logic, a single payer healthcare system would at once release thousands upon thousands of job-workers from their Kafkaesque cubicles and allow them to pursue free-enterprise exactly like their fathers and grand-fathers did before them.   Ergo, a single payer healthcare system = boost in free-enterprise. Take it from us, the free-enterprisistas at Leftista.