thedailywhat:

On Kony 2012: I honestly wanted to stay as far away as possible from KONY 2012, the latest fauxtivist fad sweeping the web (remember “change your Facebook profile pic to stop child abuse”?), but you clearly won’t stop sending me that damn video until I say something about it, so here goes:

Stop sending me that video.

The organization behind Kony 2012 — Invisible Children Inc. — is an extremely shady nonprofit that has been called ”misleading,” “naive,” and “dangerous” by a Yale political science professor, and has been accused by Foreign Affairs of “manipulat[ing] facts for strategic purposes.” They have also been criticized by the Better Business Bureau for refusing to provide information necessary to determine if IC meets the Bureau’s standards.

Additionally, IC has a low two-star rating in accountability from Charity Navigator because they won’t let their financials be independently audited. That’s not a good thing. In fact, it’s a very bad thing, and should make you immediately pause and reflect on where the money you’re sending them is going.

By IC’s own admission, only 31% of all the funds they receive go toward actually helping anyone [pdf]. The rest go to line the pockets of the three people in charge of the organization, to pay for their travel expenses (over $1 million in the last year alone) and to fund their filmmaking business (also over a million) — which is quite an effective way to make more money, as clearly illustrated by the fact that so many can’t seem to stop forwarding their well-engineered emotional blackmail to everyone they’ve ever known.

And as far as what they do with that money:

The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending.

Let’s not get our lines crossed: The Lord’s Resistance Army is bad news. And Joseph Kony is a very bad man, and needs to be stopped. But propping up Uganda’s decades-old dictatorship and its military arm, which has been accused by the UN of committing unspeakable atrocities and itself facilitated the recruitment of child soldiers, is not the way to go about it.

The United States is already plenty involved in helping rout Kony and his band of psycho sycophants. Kony is on the run, having been pushed out of Uganda, and it’s likely he will soon be caught, if he isn’t already dead. But killing Kony won’t fix anything, just as killing Osama bin Laden didn’t end terrorism. The LRA might collapse, but, as Foreign Affairs points out, it is “a relatively small player in all of this — as much a symptom as a cause of the endemic violence.”

Myopically placing the blame for all of central Africa’s woes on Kony — even as a starting point — will only imperil many more people than are already in danger.

Sending money to a nonprofit that wants to muck things up by dousing the flames with fuel is not helping. Want to help? Really want to help? Send your money to nonprofits that are putting more than 31% toward rebuilding the region’s medical and educational infrastructure, so that former child soldiers have something worth coming home to.

Here are just a few of those charities. They all have a sparkling four-star rating from Charity Navigator, and, more importantly, no interest in airdropping American troops armed to the teeth into the middle of a multi-nation tribal war to help one madman catch another.

The bottom line is, research your causes thoroughly. Don’t just forward a random video to a stranger because a mass murderer makes a five-year-old “sad.” Learn a little bit about the complexities of the region’s ongoing strife before advocating for direct military intervention.

There is no black and white in the world. And going about solving important problems like there is just serves to make all those equally troubling shades of gray invisible.

[kony2012.]

First off, before you freak out and call me “UN-patriotic” (which, by the way, isn’t the worst thing I’ve been called.), please take the time to actually READ this post before you pass judgement.

I spent the better part of 5 years in Dallas, and lived in some very lucrative and shady parts of town. Believe me, it was not by choice- Dallas is very expensive and it’s all I could afford.

During my years there, I spent a lot of time with the people in my apartment complex, and built some pretty good friendships with them. Most of them were still involved in selling drugs. I say still, because most of them had spent hard time in prison for selling drugs.

Now, you might wonder WHY I spent time with drug dealers. I ask you this, do you know any actual drug dealers? I do not mean misdemeanor worthy pot dealers, either. I mean, hard time, hard drug selling drug dealers. Yes, I thought not.

Our society, whether right or wrong, has a VERY negative view on people involved in the selling, making, and manufacturing of narcotics. Nobody ever stops to get to know them, or hear their stories.

One of the men I knew built a very close bond with me, and his street name was “Blue”. This is his story, which sadly, is like so many others.

Blue was in his late 40’s, and had spent most of his life in prison. He was currently living with his disabled sister, because he was unable to get his own housing. He had to take the bus to go anywhere, and could not operate his own vehicle, because in the state of Texas, felons are not allowed to obtain a driver’s license. He was living well below the poverty line, but nobody would hire him with his long list of criminal offenses, and he couldn’t get government help because of drug related offenses.

He had a daughter that was my age and she wouldn’t speak to him, so he took to me in a very close way. Due to my naivety from living in small towns my whole life, people tried to rip me off all the time. He protected me from break ins, car theft, buying stolen property, and allowing the dangerous people in my home. He encouraged me to keep my door locked all the time and once my apartment had gotten broken into, he slept on my couch for a week to make me feel secure. He believed in God and Jesus, and we often spent time reading the Bible and talking about scripture. He was a good man. So, how had his life gotten so bad? I decided to ask him that one day.

He told me how he had gotten involved with a bad group of people when he was around my age (I was 19 at the time). He started selling crack cocaine and made a lot of money. He was caught and went to prison for 3 years. When he got out, as a convicted felon, he wanted to get his life straight. He was unable to get housing, a job, a drivers license, or government help. Even McDonald’s wouldn’t hire him with a felony conviction. His daughter had just been born, and he was court ordered to pay $100 a week in child support, even with no job or source of income. His family wouldn’t take him in, his friend’s had abandoned him due to his arrest, and his ex-girlfriend wanted nothing to do with him. So, what did he do? Started selling drugs again. This pattern repeated itself until the last time he had been in prison. He was firm in his resolve to not go back to prison. His sister finally allowed him to stay with her, so he had someplace to live. He had earned a bachelors degree in prison, but it did him no good. He was doomed to a cycle of drug dealing and prison time or a life of poverty but no prison.

How is it that in this country, non violent felons can’t lead a normal life even after they have turned their life around?

Please do not think this is an “abnormal” story. Plenty of the people I met in Dallas had almost the exact same story, but many of them grew up dirt poor and refused to live that way or have their children live that way. So, they turned to selling drugs again.

Our own “system” is creating drug dealers- daily!

Urge your congress to pass laws to HELP non-violent felons get back on their feet after prison! Your tax dollars are paying for their time in prison, wouldn’t they be better spent rehabilitating these people OUTSIDE of prison? This is not a republican/democratic argument, this is a human rights issue and should be treated as such. Any American, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, political party or gender should be given the opportunity to turn their life around and become a responsible citizen. I am not suggesting felony rapists, murderers, child molesters, or other VIOLENT related felons get the same treatment. But NON-violent criminals should be given the opportunity to have another chance.

Comment, Ask Away, and follow! :)

This is a topic that when I (a modern female) say around most other females, heads turn and eyes roll. I get the occasional shocked grunt as well. Unfortunately for them, I could truly care less.

So, this is one of my more conservative theories but if you read through my entire reasoning, I hope you will also see WHY I feel this way.

Disclaimer: I am not bashing single parents, alternative families, or any other form of family unit. I support all forms of the American family, as long as a child is truly loved. Just please note, this is strictly my opinion on the AVERAGE family.

First and foremost, let’s do a little American history. In the 1930’s and 1940’s, an average American household consisted of a mom and dad and a few kids. The dad went to work, the mom stayed home and raised her children. They went to church on Sunday, ate home cooked meals every night, and the mom was the rock in the household. She cooked, cleaned, tended to injuries and illness, sewed up holes in clothes, budgeted the grocery bill and shopped wisely. They helped the little ones learn their abc’s, helped the bigger kids with homework, and showed love and affection because that was their job. The divorce rates were less than 10% overall, children with mental, emotional, and psychological disorders rates were less than 3% overall, violence in school consisted of a few kids fighting in the playground, and productivity rates (between the 30’s and 50’s) at corporate offices were considered some of the highest we’ve ever seen.

Now, let’s flash forward a bit to the 60’s and 70’s. Feminism broke like an unrelenting force that had been coming for years. A lot of what these women fought for were good things. Equal opportunity at work, equal pay at work, the right to go to college and seek after a career, but one of the biggest arguments was that this is the first time that women were demanding the right to not stay home and be forced into a life of being a housewife. Divorce rates skyrocketed, more and more women were leaving their homes and entering the workforce, leaving their husbands, and sometimes children behind.

Today, the average divorce rate is between 50-70%. Children diagnosed with emotional, mental, and psychological disorders is on average about 30%, and it is becoming more and more frequent that we see extremely violent acts at schools all across the country.

I have been in childcare off and on for the last 9 years, and many of these years I have spent my time raising other people’s children. The child was dropped off shortly after waking, and picked up right before bedtime anywhere from 5-7 nights a week. Most of the time, the married parents were spending more money in their childcare costs than they were actually earning with their 2nd income.

I mentioned this fact to one of the mothers I worked for and she said and I quote, “I know but I can’t imagine being with them all day! Good lord, what would I do with myself if I had to spend all day with them?” The women who said this was 31, married to a great husband with a great job, had a great house in the suburbs, and had 3 children all under the age of 5. She worked part time at a spa as a front desk girl, and spent the rest of her time that I was caring for the children grocery shopping, visiting friends, going to museum exhibits, and getting her hair and nails done. She also occasionally audited a class at the local community college.

Here’s my biggest problem with feminism. I fully support independence in women, being able to provide and support themselves, and being able to start and maintain a career. What I DO NOT support is getting married and having children yet expecting other people (whether it be daycare, a nanny, or the school system) to raise your children while you go “chase your dreams”. If you want to be a career woman, then be a career woman…you ABSOLUTELY have that right. You should not, however, bring children into the world if you have no desire to stay home with them.

Children raised by a stay at home parent tend to be more mature, loving, stable, independent, and overall carry better qualities than those raised by a variety of staff and teachers.

Look, I understand that single parents do the best they can with what they have. Again, this is not a bash on single mothers. I know what you do every day to care for your child, and hats off to you! You have my support!

All I am saying is that if you are married, please make the choice to have children once you have secured the fact that you actually have the ability to love and care for them. Stop pawning your kids off to every tom dick and harry you meet that seems decent enough and then end up shocked when they turn out to be juvenile delinquents.

Comment, follow, ask away…I love a good debate! :)

Ok, I’m going to briefly counter to the fact that people believe you can “pray the gay away”. People have been saying for GENERATIONS that being gay is a “choice”, not a biological makeup. This is simply not true.

The Exodus Project, a center for “praying the gay away” and has been in business for about 10 years, says that their best cases, where people renounce the homosexual lifestyle and live as a straight person, say that “you never get rid of the attraction, the urges, or the feelings…you just choose to not accept them”.

If it was a choice, and not a biological makeup, then if people were CHOOSING to be straight and were even living a heterosexual lifestyle, would they not stop having feelings and attractions towards those of the same sex?

Yes, you can choose how to live your life, but if you are-by nature- attracted to those of the same sex you cannot suddenly change that because of choice.

Video of Rick Santorum being a discriminatory bigot. I pray he doesn’t end up with a homosexual child…I’m fairly certain he would commit suicide.

(Election 2012 Pt. 2)

It might seem like a very brash statement to say that if Rick Santorum magically ending up with the Republican nomination, I would be packing my bags to go to Canada, but it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to. :)

What’s wrong with the Republican candidate you might ask? Besides the fact that he’s a total bigot? Ok, sure, I can lay out my reasons for you. Feel free to challenge me on any statement but be warned- it could change my opinion about you!!

As I said, he is a complete bigot.

Now, a little background on me. I was raised in an oober conservative family and not only were homosexuals considered “bad”, but so was interracial marriage, single mothers, divorce, and a number of other sins. Now, I will back my parent’s defense and say I also disagree with divorce unless we are dealing with an abusive situation or a cheating spouse. Those are exceptions that I believe to be totally acceptable. As I grew older, and spread my own wings, (23 hours away from the family I might add) I began to form my own opinions about these issues. Both on a political level and a personal level. I do not think my parents are “biggots”, because most of their beliefs are spiritual, personal, and due to the generation that they were raised in. (They are both baby boomers.) At this day and age, my parents understand that I have some different beliefs than them, and they don’t hate me for it. It’s my right to feel a different way than them.

Back to this nut-job. He has stated ON NUMEROUS OCCASIONS that he not only believes that homosexuals should be federally mandated to not be allowed to wed, he also agrees with re-instating “don’t ask, don’t tell”, and has made statements implying that people who are gay are not biologically gay, but they are simply “choosing” this lifestyle.

He stated that marriage is a PRIVILEGE and not a right under the constitution. Now, here’s where my mama claws come out and I’m going to state my opinions on the issue. If you are reading this, and you disagree with gay marriage please read through it.

Although we live in country that was founded by Christian fore-fathers, we also live in a country where anyone with any belief system can practice their belief without persecution. One of the biggest arguments with gay marriage is that it is a “religious ceremony” and allowing gay marriage “will tear down the American family”.

I am going to counter both of those statements right now. First of all, if marriage was ONLY a religious ceremony, this wouldn’t even be a legal issue. People would go down to a church, get married, and be done with it. Answer me this- what about atheists and agnostics? They don’t even believe in God, yet they get married every day and there is no laws preventing them from doing so. As a Christian, marriage is a religious ceremony AND a legal ceremony for me. However, the RIGHT to get married is not about religious beliefs, it is about having the same rights as others who are married. Filing joint taxes, buying a home, having hospital visitation rights, and if-God forbid- something happened to your spouse that they needed consent to perform surgery or go to extreme measures to save their life, you would have to BY LAW be married to sign those forms. What about pension rights? Social security? Power of attorney if the other became ill? The legal aspects of marriage are so much greater than the spiritual aspects in today’s culture.

Also, to be blunt, we ruined the sanctity of marriage in this country a long time ago. Divorce rates among heterosexual couples in America is 63%, and although the divorce rates of gay marriage are not available in America due to it’s constant legal battle, here’s an interested statistic for you. In the United Kingdom, where gay marriage has been legal since 2008, the divorce rate among same-sex couples is less than 1%. Yet, they’re the ones destroying the sanctity of marriage?

Look, I’m totally ok with civil unions. It satisfies everyone as far as I’m concerned. Same rights, different name…whatever. It’s progress.

Back to Rick Santorum, he stated on an interview on Fox News that gay men should not be allowed in the military due to the close proximity that they are living with other men. Now, forgive me here, but do you as a straight man, desire to jump the bones of every woman you come across? So what would make you think gay men do? I’m going to post the video, which everyone reading should watch, because his statements are so discriminatory it’s ridiculous.

Do I think his stance on this is enough to call him a bigot? YES.

And frankly, I am aware that many,not all, republican candidates oppose gay marriage. However, his opinions on the issue are so blinded and discriminatory that I pray we never get an American president this stupid.

In a poll done recently, 68% of American’s think that homosexuals should be issued the same rights as heterosexuals. So, why not have a candidate that gives the people what they want? Is that not what a “democracy” is supposed to do?

Regardless of your opinions of same sex marriage, what if it was your son or daughter? In a committed relationship with a partner of the same sex for, let’s say, 10 years and unable to gain the same civil liberties as you? It’s just not right. Period.

First of all, thanks for the question! Second, it is not that the 1% have more money, it is that all of the countries wealth is only controlled by 1% of the population, not because some don’t work very hard, but that too many of the corporate monopolies in existence do not allow for certain business ventures. In addition, I agree that the majority of people on welfare and living off of “government cheese” should just get out there and get a job. I am thankful that we live in a country where the poor can get help when they need it, however, this should not be as easily abused as it currently is. Also, my biggest problem with the “1%” is that they actually get more tax breaks than some of the poor…how is this right? Shouldn’t they be paying more into taxes to help the country prosper? Just something to think about. ;)

After spending the evening watching Law and Order:SVU, and watching an episode about a 14 year old runaway who was picked up by a pimp and starting hooking.I decided to touch on this issue in today’s rant, because it’s a significantly bigger problem than most people know.

According to the department of health and human services, it is estimated that 600,000 children between the ages of 11-16 in the United States are involved in sex trafficking. Most of the victims are forced into prostitution by someone known as a “pimp”, which has wildly become a “cultural icon” in the hip-hop world.

Many young girls who enter into the prostitution world are around the age of 14, and many will never get out of prostitution until they are finally killed or die of infections, diseases, or other sex-related deaths. These women (and men, but the statics on men are very unclear) have been forced into a life of degradation by men who collect all the money and hold all of the power. Yet, in this country, women are arrested for prostitution and charged as a criminal, even though most did not choose this path freely.

Since many of these women are brainwashed by their pimp(s) to not “rat” them out, many law enforcement agencies will arrest and prosecute the women being trafficked instead of searching for the real criminal, the pimp who forced them into this life to begin with.

There are an average of 100,000 arrests per year for female prostitutes in this country, 43% of these arrests are on girls UNDER 18. Yet since 2007, there have been only 238 convictions of sex traffickers (the pimps).

Why is this acceptable? What if it was your daughter, niece, grandchild, or friend who had been forced into this lifestyle yet was criminalized for it?

This rant is pretty cut and dry. Regardless of political party, race, age, religion, or gender this should be taken very seriously. Please urge your local government to put laws in place PROTECTING the victims of sex trafficking and PROSECUTING the pimps.

Some interested websites on this topic:

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/usa.htm

http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/07/humantrafficking/litrev/

http://www.gems-girls.org/

http://www.veronicasvoice.org/statistics.html

I <3 this. Definitely helped the cheeks calm down from their previous beet red state.

I just found this on facebook. Angered me quite a bit so I figured it was well deserving of a rant:

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A…. (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little..
The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.
Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you’ll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

There are so many things wrong with this post I am literally not even sure where to start.

First of all, it is a complete fake. It’s not real because if it was, it would quote the professors name, the school, and it would have made media.

Second of all, speaking as a NON-democrat, this is complete conservative propaganda bullshit.

Third, nobody is promoting total socialism. However, stating that and let me quote “You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.” is so incorrect. Ok, NO we shouldn’t hand out money to the poor and take money from the wealthy HOWEVER the fact that the entire countries wealth is being controlled by 1% of the country is a problem. And the fact that these millionaires and billionaires can write off a million charity donations and pay less taxes is a joke. Please do me a favor and do not argue that these people have “earned” their wealth. Most of the current high rolling wealthy are generations past the person who ACTUALLY had to work to earn a living. Yet, trust fund babies somehow avoid paying an excess of taxes even though they didn’t earn a penny of those millions, other than by being born.

I feel like I’m getting off topic, but let’s get back to the “anti socialism” issue. So, I take it the writer opposes our public school system, public health clinics, police departments, fire fighters, libraries, and post offices? Because if not he has stated that he (or she) actually does enjoy our SOCIALIZED standards in this country.

Am I a supporter of full socialism? Hell no. But let’s stop pretending that this country is a true democracy. It’s a parliamentary system, and that’s me being nice. Our entire government’s policy is NOT based on what’s best for the people, or even what the people want, it’s about which corporation paid the most money to which congressmen to get bills passed in their favor.

But there certainly shouldn’t be any legislation making it illegal to pay congressmen corporate money, or any legislation making the supremely wealthy pay a little more into the country that “made all their dreams come true”. Of course not. This would be insanity.

Ok, as I stated in my first post- I am neither Republican nor Democratic. I am an independent thinker who looks at the candidate’s not the party.

I would also like to state from the start of this rant that I DO NOT buy into presidential campaign hype and I am more than aware that 99% of what candidates, regardless of party, promise to do they rarely ACTUALLY do. Not to say that some of the candidates would not try, but politicians in this country would rather sit back and bitch at each other than actually solve the problems we’re facing.

So, I decided to dig deep into some of our candidates on the Republican side and look at Obama’s “plan” for the country if re-elected. I am not going to talk about all of them in this post. I will do them one or two at a time.

Today, I am going to talk about Newt. The reason I chose him for today’s rant is because he recently broke ahead of the polls for the republican nomination. Mind you, he is ahead by ONE but still, he’s beating Romney.

I looked into his stances on some of the big issues. You know, the one’s we’re all talking about and have been talking about for years. Healthcare, immigration, jobs, the economy, the abortion debate, and the energy crisis.

Due to the fact that I’m feeling rather peppy this morning (the coffee has me on a happy trip), I’m going to start with what I LIKE about this guy.

His immigration reform policy is one of the most reasonable I’ve seen in a long time. He wants to change our current policies of granting visa’s to be more reasonable and within reach to foreigners who want to enter the country LEGALLY to work and be a tax paying resident. He also brought up allowing people who have been in the country illegally for a long period of time TEMPORARY legal status while each case is reviewed and people who have established ties within the community, can support themselves without welfare, and have no criminal record could be granted legal status after paying a $5,000 fine for entering the country illegally. Question: Am I missing something or is this the first person who came up with a win-win for immigration? I am aware that due to our congress never being able to agree about…well, anything, this bill if put before congress would likely not pass. However, I would support a bill outlining these new strategies completely.

He is pro-life, which always wins favor in my book. He wants to completely cut out government funding of abortion clinics. AMEN! Look, I am at least reasonable enough to realize that this country will never outlaw abortion. Even pro-lifers like myself will admit that at least we aren’t dealing with thousands of deaths each year through back alley abortions performed on desperate girls who feel they have no option. I am aware that in a country where people see abortion as a solution to a “problem”, outlawing it isn’t practical. Do I wish it was illegal to kill an unborn child? Yes. Do I see it happening anytime soon? Nope. I do, however, feel that the government should not be funding the “freedom of choice”.

He supports the 2nd amendment. Now, do I feel that firearms should be easy to possess and given to anyone? Hell no. I am smart enough to realize that the black market for firearms in this country is obscene and I personally feel that if gang bangers are allowed to run wild with fully automatic weapons, I (as a responsible, tax paying citizen) should be allowed to own a firearm and defend myself. Outlawing guns in the hands of the law-abiding gives the criminals and the government all the power, how is that fair?

Ok, coffee is wearing off and I definitely have some negatives to rant about. If you are a super conservative republican, I will give you a fair warning to press the little “x” in the upper right hand corner of your screen.

Still here? Ok, here we go.

Jobs and the economy. I am going to quote him on how he plans on bringing jobs. I am only quoting a few key points.

Make the United States the most desirable location for new business investment

He claims he can do this through a series of tax cuts, which include LOWERING corporate taxes. I’m sorry, were the CEO’s of major corporations not the one’s who got us into this HUGE recession? These are the people who begged the government for bailout money but flew in on their private jets wearing their $5,000 suits. Do corporations employ a lot of Americans? Yes. Will lowering the taxes give them a reason to hire more people? No. Here’s why I feel this way. You are dealing with large corporations who’s main priority is filling THEIR OWN pockets. You are simply giving them yet another reason to give themselves a raise and continue putting mom and pop companies out of business. Why not lower small business taxes? The corporations have the money, give the tax cuts to the companies that deserve it, not the ones who spend a large portion of their budget paying lobbyists to pay off members of congress to pass bills LIKE LOWERING CORPORATE TAXES.

Strengthen the dollar

Now here’s one of those campaign promises I keep talking about. Excuse me, Mr. Gingrich, how do you plan to strengthen the dollar when frankly, regardless of what budget cuts you make, we aren’t getting out of national debt anytime soon? Good try, but you know you can’t do it. Please, citizens, don’t buy into this bullshit. Because that’s all that this is.

Remove obstacles to job creation imposed by destructive and ineffective regulations, programs and bureaucracies.

Although this post is not about Obama, I am going to bring up the fact that Obama created a tax credit for every new hire that a company made. Companies aren’t hiring because business is slow because people can’t afford to spend because they aren’t earning what they used to. It’s a cycle, that won’t be broken until people start spending, which they can’t do if they don’t have money. So as you see, we have a predicament. Unless he intends to create additional tax credits for new hires, and proposes an increase of the minimum wage (because nobody can support their family on $7.25 an hour) we aren’t getting out of this cycle anytime soon. 

Moving on to his healthcare reform. I really do not want to get into the serious problems with our healthcare system on this post, but will make a separate post about it later. I will say, he bashes socialized healthcare, which I am 100% supportive of. Sure, say that American’s can just “buy insurance”, but are you forgetting about the fact that most working-class American’s today are struggling to put food on the table and pay their rent, yet you want them to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars a year on insurance when you give low-life junkies with 20 kids by 20 men free healthcare? Yeah..I think not.

So there’s Claire’s rant for the day. Comment, follow, ask away. I’d love to hear from you! :)

1. I am addicted to my xbox 360.(Hit me up-PinkGenocide)

2. I am 100% pro-life.

3. I believe anyone should be allowed to get married, regardless of sexual orientation.

4. Legalize weed already…I mean come on…it’s 2012.

5. I am a Christian. I respect everyone’s right to believe whatever they want and will never persuade someone to believe as I do, HOWEVER, if you try to challenge what I believe I will back up my beliefs with Bible verses, historical evidence, scientific evidence, etc. So please…don’t even try….you will lose.

6. I lived in a group home for 4 years of my life and it was both the best and worst experience I’ve ever had.

7. I was adopted when I was 12 days old.

8. I run a gaming community and love it. (www.TGcommunity.com)

9. People who go on about presidential candidates annoy me. They seem to forget about the fact that the congress does way more than the president and they ALWAYS buy into the campaign speech hype and later get so angry when whoever they voted for doesn’t do what they said they would do.

10. Feminism began the fall of the American family.

11. Cigarettes and caffeine are 2 things that consume way too much of my time and money.

12. I lost 39 pounds in 4 months by going vegan for 2 months and vegetarian for 2 months.

13. I am neither republican nor democratic, I am an independent thinker who looks at the candidate, not the party.

14. Child molesters should be taken out back and shot.

15. Parents who blame society, school, music, and media on their bad children are ignorant. It’s your fault, you dumb ass, not the worlds.

16. Parents who let their 13 year old daughter dress like a club hopping whore and then get shocked when they are knocked up by 15 piss me off.

17. I like all types of music and respect the artist as long as there is true talent and not dubbed over crap.

18. I drive an old truck and love it.

19. I grew up in the country but my friend’s say I have “hood” in me. Whatever the hell that means.

20. I don’t take people’s crap. Have something nasty to say expect a response. Turning the other cheek is not my strong suit.

21. I will fight and die for someone I love, even if you are just a friend.

22. ADD/ADHD diagnoses are usually incorrect in children. Discipline your kid and stop feeding them processed, refined sugar and PERHAPS they’ll calm down.

23. Even when I don’t agree with the war, I will always support the soldiers who fight for us.

24. My two favorite hobbies (besides gaming, of course) are writing and cooking.

25. I really could care less if you like what I have to say. This is America, sweetheart, and I’ll say what I want. Don’t like it? Stop stalking my blog then.