Little Ricky Rains On The Obama-Rama Parade

Yep, it’s Thursday, and that means it’s time again for another steaming, stinking helping of right-wing blather from former Senator Man-On-Dog in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer (here).

See, to hear PA’s former senator from northern Virginia tell it, the soon-to-be 44th President of the United States will either lead or be led by that bad “li-bu-ruul Democrat Congress”…

(If Obama is led, he) would reduce productivity, slow economic growth and increase unemployment.

By the way (as noted here), productivity “grew” in this country by 1.1 percent in the July-September quarter (and as the story also tells us, “the number of out-of-work Americans continuing to draw unemployment benefits has surged to a 25-year high”).

He would sign bills to eliminate the secret ballot in union elections, raise the minimum wage, require businesses to provide paid family medical leave, and legalize millions of illegal immigrants.

I’ll tell you what; take a look at this and tell me where it states that Obama will “require businesses to provide paid family medical leave,” OK?

What you will find, however, are proposals for the following: a new Small Business Health Tax Credit to help small businesses provide affordable health insurance to their employees, covering a portion of the catastrophic health costs they pay in return for lower premiums for employees, and a National Health Insurance Exchange with a range of private insurance options as well as a new public plan based on benefits available to members of Congress that will allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health coverage, among other good stuff.

Also, this tells you that “Obama and Biden support a system that requires undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens.“

And unlike well-to-do Repugs living in McMansions, I would venture to guess that most Americans are interested in raising the minimum wage (and it is a continual source of hilarity to me to read about Repugs who supposedly care about the integrity of workers’ “secret ballot” in votes regarding union membership, when in reality they oppose card check and the Employee Free Choice Act because it would greatly hinder the ability of employers to secretly intimidate their workers into opposing unions in their workplace).

Little Ricky also conjures up all kinds of scary liberal “Oooga Booga!” nonsense, such as a likely increase in abortions under Obama and “a boost to same-sex marriage” (interesting because, based on this odious development, the state of California obviously didn’t “get the memo”). Also, “Senator Sanitarium” asks us…

Will (Obama) govern as a screen on which Congress' liberal Democratic majority will project its views, like President Bill Clinton in 1993 and 1994? Or will the views of center-left America fill the screen, as happened with Clinton from 1995 to 2000?

Gee, former Senator “Eye Of Mordor,” it looks like you have to brush up on your right-wing talking points; don’t you know we’re supposedly a “center-right” country now?

Finally…

If (Obama) is led, our economy will struggle under greater taxes on investors and higher-income workers. Government would take ownership of automakers.

I’ve been meaning to speak to this matter for some time now, and finally I have a good opportunity.

If Obama can provide funding for the automakers by signing off on legislation or enhancing an existing loan program through the Energy Department (as noted in this story), I’m fine with that.

However, I will never support a bailout of the automakers. I only went along with it for the financial institutions because it was vitally important that we started freeing up credit to make this country work again. And I know there are enormous political considerations here for the Dems and Obama in particular.

But as far as I’m concerned, the automakers had years to retool themselves to produce lower-mileage vehicles using alternative sources of energy, and they didn’t do it. They should be punished for their sloth and ignorance (and I’m not unsympathetic to the auto workers, but speaking as someone who works in IT, I have to live with the everyday reality of what you might call “disposable employment” – besides, I’m sure creative partnerships can be forged between labor and management to ensure their mutual survival here).

And speaking of “disposable employment,” one can only hope that, if Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. is forced to cut payroll again (as noted here), a certain right-wing ideologue hack pundit would be one of the first to go.