arin's attic | tagged as: elections2008

Tagged as: elections2008

stories that make you go… O.O

sometimes, the only reaction you can have to the news is…

Fla. woman claims ‘Merry Christmas’ got her fired:

PENSACOLA, Fla. – A Christian woman claims she was fired from her job because she greeted callers with “Merry Christmas,” but the vacation rental company says it’s no Scrooge and the woman is just a disgruntled employee.

Tonia Thomas, 35, said she refused to say “Happy Holidays” and was fired, even after offering to use the company’s non-holiday greeting. The Panama City woman filed a federal complaint that accuses the company of religious discrimination. She is seeking compensation for lost wages.

“I hold my core Christian values to a high standard and I absolutely refuse to give in on the basis of values. All I wanted was to be able to say ‘Merry Christmas’ or to acknowledge no holidays,” she said Tuesday. “As a Christian, I don’t recognize any other holidays.”

Thomas said she is Baptist.

exactly what christian “values” require the use of the words “merry christmas”, rather than “happy holidays”? “have a merry christmas and a happy new year” is ok, but “happy holidays” is not? is her god REALLY that shallow?

“as a christian, i don’t recognize any other holidays.” well, guess what, ms. thomas, regardless of whether you “recognize” them or not, they exist. they don’t cease to exist by sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling “lalala, i can’t hear you”. acknowledging reality doesn’t require that you participate in those holidays.

but guess what? there’s a whole “12 days of christmas”, which apparently some ~~“christians”~~ idiots have forgotten. it’s more than just a song! the 12 days count from december 25th clear on through january 6th, the epiphany, which is a ~christian~ holiday, so even if lil ms. thomas’ god is really that shallow, even he should be happy that people would recognize the entire season of holidays.

so can we all get over this “war on christmas” bullshit already? happy fucking holidays >:|

Blogged, Current Events, Politics, election2008, Comments (2)
Tagged as: holidays,religion,politics,racism,news,elections2008,christmas,democrats January 03, 2009 @ 04:30 am

texans, keep your political support in state where it belongs.

from Texas Hispanic Dems blast national party for non-support:

Two prominent Hispanic Democratic officials from Texas harshly criticized an arm of their national party today for skipping over the state when it provided funding muscle for U.S. Senate candidates across the country.

State Sens. Mario Gallegos of Houston and Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio objected to the fact that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee collected contributions from Texans — $1.1 million at an event in San Antonio, for instance — without sending any to the campaign of outgoing state legislator Rick Noriega of Houston.

Noriega lost the Senate race in November to Republican incumbent John Cornyn, who raised $10 million during the campaign to $4 million for Noriega, according to federal records.

The Democratic committee’s decision to spend the money outside Texas “is shameful and disgraceful, and we will do everything we can to prevent this disrespect from happening again,” the two state senators wrote.

“For the face of the U.S. Senate to represent the true face of America, we must all work together to invest in quality candidates such as Rick Noriega, not take a walk when our candidate is not a member of the millionaires’ club,” they added.

Noriega, too, is Hispanic, and Gallegos and Van de Putte implied in their letter that ethnicity figured into the national Democratic strategy.

“Rick Noriega has an impeccable pedigree to run in Texas. He is an old-fashioned Democrat — a family man, a man of faith, a combat-decorated veteran, a legislator, with an Ivy-league education and time spent defending the border,” they wrote. “He has a heart for the people, impeccable Democratic credentials and is an awesome retail campaigner. To some who chose to sit on the sidelines in this election, those characteristics were apparently not enough — he is not wealthy or white. We have always believed Democrats are better than that.”

The pair also wrote, “The heat of election night had not cooled before the speculation began about DSCC support for several Anglo candidates in future races. This is not only disrespectful; it’s shameful.”

Matthew Miller, spokesman for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, said the organization does not comment on its funding decisions.

The DSCC encouraged Noriega to run and considered him a good candidate.

“We supported him to the end,” Miller said.

Noriega said he was unaware of plans by Gallegos and Van de Putte to write the letter.

After being shown a copy, he said, “I am honored by their support and believe that their comments speak to a larger issue than a single election, or one individual, but rather an issue that affects all of Texas.”

The letter was addressed to Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, who recently was replaced as chairman of the DSCC by Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey.

The letter recalled that at a Texas fundraising event last year, Schumer said, “The eyes of Texas are upon us, but the eyes of the DSCC are upon Texas,” and that the national party considered the race against Cornyn a potential win.

Gallegos and Van de Putte also wrote that Latino leaders in Texas did their part to help Noriega and that the growing ranks of Texas Latino voters are key to the outcome of statewide races.

With Texas remaining in the Republican column for decades in presidential races and for about the past 14 years in statewide races, Texas Democrats have complained repeatedly that their contributions to the national party have not flowed back to state candidates in sufficient amounts.

But the complaint by Gallegos and Van de Putte is a rare, sharp public airing of those feelings.

The DSCC gave Noriega’s campaign $20,000 in late 2007 and made no such contributions this year, according to federal records.

While responding to such complaints, national Democratic Party officials repeatedly have said they must distribute the funds across the nation to where they would create the biggest advantage.

“For what it would cost for the DSCC to make a difference in Texas, they could fund three other states,” Jennifer E. Duffy, editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, told the Houston Chronicle this year.

During the campaign, Noriega discussed his campaign funding in person with Schumer and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

“We just have to wake people up to this race,” Noriega said after one such meeting. “They (Schumer and Reid) recognize that the incumbent (Cornyn) is vulnerable and this race is winnable.”

i’ve been saying this over and over and over again, until i just don’t care any more, but… if the democrat national party and it’s committees can’t see fit to invest in and support texas democrats, then why on earth should texas democrats support the national party? keep your money in state. keep your volunteering in state. after all, per obama’s texas campaign chairman, there’s enough enthusiasm in texas, they didn’t need help here… and we see how much that helped noriega… and by extension, the obama administration who has one less democrat in the senate.

Blogged, Politics, Comments (0)
Tagged as: politics,elections2008,obama December 19, 2008 @ 04:57 am

we need change, but will we get it?

from Neoliberalism and Bottom-Line Morality - Notes on Greenspan, Rubin, and the Party of Davos:

From the Reagan era onward I have been impressed with how regularly liberal and left-leaning economists I knew, who went to work in industry and finance, very soon became pro-business, anti-labor, and politically right wing. I think that what got to them was not only the impact of association with businesspeople, but the fact that business profitability became central to their own performance. As business economists, wage increases would seem bad—as encroaching on that profitability and threatening inflation and business growth (and stock prices). Tough environmental rules would also hamper profitability; their relaxation by law or friendly (non-)enforcement would enhance it. It was therefore easy to slide into what we may call “bottom-line morality,” with positions on key issues dictated by prospective bottom line effects, but of course rationalized with an ideology that made this all benevolent—in the long run—and made these bottom-line moralists into Good Samaritans as they collected their fat salaries and bonuses while the vast majority waited for trickle-down.

Getting back to Greenspan morality, it is clear from both his Ayn Rand contributions and his writings and public pronouncements of the past 20 years that he views untrammeled capitalism as a “superlatively moral system” not because of businesspeople’s benevolence but because market operations in business’s self-interest will protect consumers—business will not take on undue risk because that would eventually harm their own welfare. Regulation is thus unnecessary and positively damaging by its arbitrariness and bureaucratic bungling.

we’ve seen how well this played out in the banking industry. :| greenspan was ardently supported by robert rubin and larry summers… both now parts of the obama administration.

Blogged, Politics, election2008, Comments (0)
Tagged as: politics,elections2008,obama December 19, 2008 @ 04:45 am