Oregon Catalyst is just...sad.

Carla Axtman

I'm not going to bless Oregon Catalyst blog with a link that might boost their traffic, so you'll have to figure it out if you really want to see this.

They currently have a post up that has three photos, side-by-side: Reagan with a chainsaw clearing brush, George W. Bush clearing brush and Obama standing on a ladder hanging a curtain at what appears to be a community center or church hall. The clear implication is that Reagan and Bush are manly-men, while Obama is just a little too girly.

They can't beat Obama with better ideas. So the next best thing is to do the playground bully 4th grade "girl" crap?

And the GOP wonders why they're down to 20%. Pathetic.

  • The Chinuk (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Since you didn't link (and I understand why; I try not to trouble my beautiful mind nor blog with links to such tripe), I risked crying and dying inside to look.

    It's lame even as conservative smears go. However, a slow burn on OC was delivered by commenter number three, who opined (I add a sarcastic tone):

    I hear you dudes. Bush is such a macho cowboy and was clearly the best president ever and Regan was a lumberjack if I ever saw one. The picture of Obama shows that he is volunteering in the inner city to help the undeserving poor right before he became president.

    At least, I think "Big Macho"'s comment was meant as sarcasm.

    Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was.

  • Richard (unverified)
    (Show?)

    It's obvious that thread is humor Carla.

    It has nothing to do with your spin that it is a substitute for your other spin "They can't beat Obama with better ideas."

    And for you, of all people, to be casting stones at the supposed "playground bully 4th grade crap" is even funnier.

  • dartagnan (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Of all the dumb bumper stickers I've ever seen, there's none dumber than the one that shows pictures of Reagan and Bush in cowboy hats above the sentence: "All of my heroes have been cowboys."

    Neither Chimpy Boy nor Reagan was a cowboy. Reagan impersonated a cowboy in movies and Chimpy impersonated a cowboy for photo ops on his stage-set "ranch." At least Reagan could ride a horse -- Chimpy was afraid to get on one.

    Republicans are so dumb they think sticking a cowboy hat on a politician makes him a cowboy.

  • Admiral Naismith (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Why Obama is tougher than Chuck Norris.

    Chuck Norris's hands are registered deadly weapons. Barack Obama's hands have the nuclear code.

    Like Chuck Norris, BARACK OBAMA can cure cancer with his tears. Unlike Chuck Norris, Barack Obama is willing to do what it takes to cure cancer, without regard for any effect it has on his stupid macho image!

    Chuck Norris sells home gyms to rightwing nutjobs. Barack Obama saves our homes, rights and jobs.

    Chuck Norris can carry his weight in ammo. Barack Obama can carry 28 American states and the District of Columbia.

    When Dick Cheney crawls into bed at his undisclosed location, he checks the closet to see if BARACK OBAMA is hiding in there!

    BARACK OBAMA doesn't do pushups. He pushes the Earth away from him with his arms! (So does Michelle, if you believe Maureen Dowd)

    It is better to give than to receive...as Chuck Norris is about to discover when he finally receives a roundhouse kick...from BARACK OBAMA!

    Chuck Norris is in a Texas backwater, leading a ragtag bunch of morons who hate America. BARACK OBAMA is leading the Free World.

    Chuck Norris may have been "Walker, Texas Ranger", but BARACK OBAMA actually RAN...and won!

    Chuck Norris has a license to kill...but watch out, BARACK OBAMA got his learner's permit in January, and is he pissed!

    When Chuck Norris went to Chicago's South Side, he proved he was tough by scaring a bunch of poor people and breaking something useful. BARACK OBAMA went there and proved he was tough by FIXING it!

    Chuck Norris tries to stare books down to get the information he wants. BARACK OBAMA actually learned to read!

    And my favorite...

    Chuck Norris can kill a mall full of zombies...but BARACK OBAMA can talk them down!

  • Bill R. (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Barack Obama has the public face of a leader for out times. He is right for the psychology of the country. This was noted strongly on the panel interview with Charlie Rose on Wed. night. His no-drama, common sense reassuring style connects with a public that is hungry for someone who treats them like adults and speaks with clarity and logic, about the common good, and pragmatic approaches to support the common good. One commentator noted that in another time he might be criticized for not having enough passion, or enough folksiness, or macho baloney, but for this present time and our present national crisis, he is the right face of leadership. So let the crazy crowd idiots worship their pseudo-cowboys. In a time of national crisis when multiple complex problems face our nation, who the heck wants a reckless, brainless idiot with swagger, playing cowboy?

    As a further addendum public opinion sampling in times past revealed that many people thought Ronald Reagan was a war hero, when in actuality he spent WWII in Hollywood, starring in war bond propaganda films. So he was what people wanted him to be. As one commentator said, "Being president was the best acting role Reagan ever played." In a similar vein many people to this day believe John Wayne was a war hero, even though he sat out the good war, WWII. Somehow people have trouble sorting out film fiction from reality.

  • jamie (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Republicans are so dumb they think sticking a cowboy hat on a politician makes him a cowboy. Democrats are so dumb they ignore Al Gore's admission of lying and swallow Al's climate lies hook line and sinker.

    Libertarians just want to be left alone from this crap.

  • Old Ducker (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Other than the emergent Fascism, i.e. government control of private businesses (which began under Dubya), I don't see any differences of significance between Obama, either Bush's and Reagan. All of them give (gave) lip service to traditional american values and policy. All of them pursued foreign wars and adventures and general imperialism. All of them raised the federal debt and all of them increased the size and scope of the federal government.

    Of course neither of the majority of Republicans OR Democrats really see that, and what it means about who really runs the country.

    As far as bullshit goes, from a quality standpoint, I give the nod to Reagan. At least he could mesmerize an audience without the need for a teleprompter...

  • rw (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Ducker: I've forgotten. What is a traditional American value? What is the traditional Murrican value set? And to whom does this value/set apply?

    The way our folks used to live is labeled "socialism" and "communism", and the way they went about healing and curing also now the bogey of profiteers.

    I just have to say that Regulations only SEEM clear and non-interpretive. Just so "values". It is uninformative to discuss such without extensive interpetive context.

    Do have to say Reagan was a consummate actor. Just right for what politics has become.

  • mp97303 (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Save me this Libertarian crap. You are just as big of an ideology whore as anyone else. Dem/Lib/Rep = idiots who long ago gave up their right to think for themselves.

  • rw (unverified)
    (Show?)

    MP: you say "whore" like it's a bad thing!

    :).............

  • Old Ducker (unverified)
    (Show?)

    rw - the tradional american values I mention concern lip service to individual rights. Most americans don't understand rights, but in brief, they are derived from property. If there is no higher authority, you have a "right." If you need permission, license or pay a tax, you have a "privilege."

    Everything else springs from that fundamental concept, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. This was our birthright that "we the people" have ceded back to the King, for whatever reason.

    As for me, Libertarian - definately. Whore - an unrealized aspiration. :)

  • Tehanu (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Omigosh, Admiral Naismith, I want to bear your babies! Mrs. Naismith would probably object, though. ;-)

  • (Show?)

    I never understood the fetishism associated with the claim of Bush as "a man." He visibly shrank away from Gore in their debate, and that stunt with the codpiece screamed overcompensation. I grew up in a household of Idaho hunters, and Bush always reminded me of the guy who would show up every year--someone's friend--with expensive boots and a firerbeathing bloodlust. We knew these would be the guys whining about fatigue, cold, and general discomfort--probably by noon the first day. You could spot them a mile away. I instantly got that sense from Bush.

    The whole manly-man thing is such a crock.

  • LT (unverified)
    (Show?)

    On the subject of "better ideas", a friend just sent me Rep. Dennis Richardson's email where he says,

    "The extreme ends of the earnings chart reveal differences that are even more dramatic. Oregon’s lowest wage earners are not only exempt from paying taxes, the state sends them $20 million in total cash payments."

    He then goes on to criticize the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Working Families Child Care Credit.

    But business-friendly tax breaks are OK?

    Seems to me it would be more intellectually honest to say "We can't afford the Earned Income Tax Credit" than to say "Oregon’s lowest wage earners are not only exempt from paying taxes, the state sends them $20 million in total cash payments."

    But maybe there are still true believers out there who are convinced construction workers, retail sales people, child care workers, food service workers, etc. are not "hard working people" because hard work always equals high income.

    Have the people who say such things ever worked in a physically demanding job with low pay?

    Jack Roberts was once Labor Comm. I wonder what he has to say on this issue.

  • rw (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Thank you Ducker for a substantive (and, probably, partial) response to what was, at heart, a serious question. I appreciate that you did not bridle at my 200 mph typing tone that typically sounds punctilious, if not downright bitchy and querulous. I often bait for the hell of it and from sheer laziness... but often, too, I am serious about what I'm asking, and probing for REAL response instead of positional reaction, the typical fare.

    That is a good start on "values". Economics. You old Marxist fool you!

    I work as a servant of Regulatory in medical care. I've learned what every ConLaw appasionato knows: there are no constants, few universals. All is interpretive.

    Spoze my religion is phenomenology, if you push me.

    The so-called values as expressed by the political bugles of the Rightest of the Right tend to be values that translate to all we know of the genocidal parts of our history. And there are vast swaths of cultural groups whose lives and futures have been affected to this day by those values. So there are more than a few sets of values operant on this continent. It is simply that there are a couple of mainstream parties espousing ideology as if it is more than merely the dominant/mainstream winnings.

    I have to respect one thing about Repubs - they have it all on the surface and claim it loud and proud. We so-called Liberals are denying our bourgeous value set. But scratch us deep enough, and we too will fight you to the ground for our individualized gains no matter where they came from. And never question that perhaps ultimately they were not really ours to keep. I'm as guilty of expansionism as the next heap of bones. Cringe.

    And: the rest of your post -- yah... aspirations are good to hold onto. We all should cherish them, ehhhhh. :)

  • Jim H (unverified)
    (Show?)

    I'm getting a kick out of this image over at Daily Kos.

  • Old Ducker (unverified)
    (Show?)

    rw: That was an entertaining and thoughtful post. You wrote:

    "Spoze my religion is phenomenology, if you push me.'

    That is probably an honest self-appraisal and is common among modern intellectuals; however it's an illusion. There ARE indeed absolutes, as the King is well aware since all and everyone are his allodial property. It also serves his interest if his subjects are persuaded to think otherwise...

  • rw (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Ducker is a Feudalist.

    Big sprize.

    ;)>.....hehehehehe.

  • Old Ducker (unverified)
    (Show?)

    rw, let me try to explain how feudalism is alive and well in the contemporary world.

    You own a car, right? You know you own it because you have a title. However if you are pulled over by a cop and lack the proper documents (license, registration, insurance, etc.) your car will be impounded and if you fail to meet the state's demands, it will be auctioned off.

    Well that's fine, you say. Those fees go to thinks like road and park maintainance and court costs. Society has a compelling interest in regulating the use of your property, right?

    Well, actually, that isn't the way it is...

    You don't actually have a title. You have a "certificate" of title, which isn't the same thing. The state is a co-owner and demands compensation for it's share of ownership in the form of rent. Oh bullshit, you say...

    Nope. The fifth amendment states that you cannot be deprived of your property without due compensation of law. Is the cop the judge and jury. The cop swore an oath when he became an officer to uphold the constitution of the united states. Does this mean the constitution is a "living" document and the bill of rights are amended to suit the public good in occasions such as this?

    No!

    When you purchase a new car, it comes with a true allodial title, called a Manufacturer's Statement of Origin (MSO). This goes to the lender until the vehicle is paid for and then to the state, or directly to the state if you pay in cash. In return the state issue a certificate that represents the MSO which is the actual title.

    When the cop impounds your vehicle, he is asserting the rights of the state to ITS property because you have violated your rental agreement.

    Therefore, if you cross state lines to purchase your car and pay in cash, you "may" be able to persuade the dealer to hand you the MSO. There is no law prohibiting this. If you have the MSO, you have actual title and therefore are under no obligation to pay registration fees (or even display a license plate). In some states you don't even need a driver's license, because it's YOUR car do do with as you wish, providing you violate no laws.

    There are persons who actually do this; I know a few. Yes they are hassled by cops (most of whom have no more understanding of the constitution than most citizens), but they prevail. As the old saying goes, "freedom isn't free." Retaining your rights isn't easy and the state will go out of it's way to make it as difficult as possible; yet it can be done.

  • rw (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Ducker: you are preaching to the choir, dear. Really.

  • Old Ducker (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Lots of typos in my prior post, sry. One reason I avoid lengthy blog posts. I tend to push buttons. Go figure...

    :)

  • Chuck Butcher (unverified)
    (Show?)

    ducker plays the con, Libs love it and do it all the time, park that sombitch in your damn garage and tell me how much control the state has of your car property. You're a liar, like most of your ilk. Oh, building codes on that garage? Your neighbors don't want it falling in their yard, burning their house, and you will sell it one day. Me me me me me me...

    Screw you - I got mine, until somebody sticks a gun in your face and takes it because you've left nothing.

  • Old Ducker (unverified)
    (Show?)

    That was a very informed post, Chuck.

    LOL

  • (Show?)

    Chuck raises a fair point. My right to do whatever I want exists up until the point that my actions impact other people and their rights.

    Driving a car on a public road is not a right, it is a privilege.

    The reason I can't drive at any speed I want through a school zone is that doing so endangers other people. Similarly, if you are driving drunk, using your vehicle to transport narcotics, or using your vehicle to get away after robbing a bank, etc. you are abusing that privilege.

    In such cases, the act of impounding your vehicle is not an assertion of ownership rights on the part of the state, but rather an assertion of the state's right to take enforcement action in response to the commission of one or more criminal acts.

    The reason why the state assigns title to houses and cars is to establish and associate a clear bundle of rights and chain of ownership to the property in question.

    The point of a certificate of title is to clearly articulate the status of a piece of property including any easements, incumberances, information about the owner of the property, as well as any claims that are currently against the property. It is intended to ensure that buyers, sellers, and lenders have accurate information about the legal status of the property.

    In other words, the point of a certificate of title is to ensure that the rights of all parties involved in a given transaction are protected.

  • (Show?)

    One other point: These rights were are speaking of are protected by nothing more than the sovereignty of the state.

    If Klingons landed tomorrow and through an overwhelming use of force colonized this planet and established their own government and rules, then my right to own a half acre of the 4.6 billion-year old piece of land that my house currently sits on would be worth nothing more than the paper it is written on.

    Many of the libertarians I know tend to forget that.

  • rw (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Yes, Sal.

    And: the Klingons HAVE landed. Ask the tribes. Present tense, not past.

  • (Show?)

    Fair point, rw. But I didn't want to open that can of worms. Besides, my ancestors really were klingons.

  • Eric (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Has anyone ever done a study on the relationship between doing manly things and being an idiot?

  • rw (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Yes, Sal, good one. :)..... on a serious note, the 1970's laws of the Klingons are propagating lawlessness and predatory violence in the land tract ghettos my relatives are to be happy in.

    CF NPR this morning, a two year follow up on a story about the 1:3 rape ratios on reservations across the entire nation. It has gone unchanged. It affects children in child abuse too. And domestic violence. Native violencers get away with these crimes because Federal courts aren't going to prosecute teh vicious beating and gang rape of one little dead woman - they are too busy with terrorism. And if it's a white predator (which is the most-frequent attack scenario), natives cannot prosecute them at all. Only other natives.

    I did not fully understand this. And there's more. It's a worthwhile story to listen to on NPR.org.

    I would encourage folks to listen to it. And think about the women you know and love, forget that these are "historic" or "exotic" or any other stereotype monikers ... people. Just hear the anguish in these women's voices and then follow the thread of explanation as to why most rapes/batterings on the reservations are never even investigated. In fact, listening, I understood, anew, one of the strategies for white governments giving Cherokee ppl access to lands in severalty and all checkerboarded: it was to wipe out any way for native people to have effective law enforcement of any kind, as you could not tell if you were on native land one acre or white land the next acre..... think gerrymandering for those of you who only care about pure machinery of politics. So they gerrymandered the law enforcement picture for Western Cherokee. There were other reasons why they did it too - but this morning I suddenly understood this as well -- if you take away a measurable, bounded territory within which the People may be assured they are enforcing what little law is available to them, they are enabled in enforcement if that is their will. If you make it so that every twenty minutes the jurisdiction is changed, you can forget about it. And now I understand more about why we as a family never COULD get that child molesting boyfriend of our mentally ill sister arrested for raping the three children the family rescued from her. It was, doubtless, jurisdictional in its entirety.

  • Ten Bears (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Neither one of those squaws - Reagan or Bush - would last an hour in the woods with real saw, and a real logger.

  • Chuck Butcher (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Ducker assumes I see some point in doing something other than mocking his shit. I don't see any at all. That junk will appeal to exactly the choir he's singing to. At one point in my life I was silly enough to be polite and reaason with that crowd, as Sal just did. His point is very little different than mine other than in length and politeness and will get exactly as much consideration as my shorter and considerably less polite one did.

    Screw these guys, they're Republicanism greed on steroids, just as much chest beating and fake rationals covered up by a hint more fake intellectualism. Please, Go Galt, you won't be missed.

  • Old Ducker (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Chuck, I was simply trying to illustrate a principle that isn't ideology, just truth:

    ALL RIGHTS DERIVE FROM PROPERTY

    Now you can just publicly declare that you don't give a rat's ass about rights and that's fine with me. In fact I'd appreciate the honesty. What I will challenge is the lie that you can have collectivism and personal liberty. It just ain't happening because it is inherently contradictory.

  • (Show?)

    Old Ducker: ALL RIGHTS DERIVE FROM PROPERTY

    Scratch a Libertarian and underneath you'll find an utterly innocent three-year-old. A whiny three year old who thinks everything she can grab is hers.

    The concept of "rights" derive from a social convention. All social conventions, ultimately, are enforced by power, which is to say the business end of a gun.

    Strangely, Old Ducker, I don't see you leaving the U.S. If you actually believed that "rights derived from property", you might actually respect the property rights of Native Americans. But you don't, because deep down you're a hypocrite. What you really mean is "Mine! Mine!! Mine!!! It's mine because I saw it!", which is kind of cute for a three year old, but not so cute on a grown man.

    Maybe you should take remedial kindergarten. This time, try to pay attention to the part about getting along.

  • Old Ducker (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Steve, that's a lot of ignorance there. Too much for me to address in a blog. However I am confident that once we abolish the Dept. of Education, schools in the US will begin turning out better informed individuals.

  • rw (unverified)
    (Show?)

    "bears", that is a disgusting term, do not use it. Use the N word too if you are going to use the S word. Or can you take the heat you will immediately get for the former?

    PLEASE be a little thoughtful in your fake identity.

  • rw (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Actually Steve, rights did indeed originate in property here in the US. Antebellum, of course. And humans were chattel on the whole. Today it still is so tho as a social construct embodied in complex laws that favor the ones holding.

    CF the other thread about cramdowns: protecting rich folks vacation hovels.

    Don't know that I agree with Duckie's take on things, but the point I mull is that he who's got the goods gets teh goods, in the USA.

  • Old Ducker (unverified)
    (Show?)

    rw wrote.

    "Actually Steve, rights did indeed originate in property here in the US. Antebellum, of course."

    Two sentences, both completely correct, in more ways than I could say in such brevity. Salute, sir.

  • Ten Bears (unverified)
    (Show?)

    rw - I don't say anything unless I know exactly what it is I'm saying, and why.

  • rw (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Yes, and so, you arsehole, either be clear about why you pull out that nasty word, or think about who you hurt even saying it. That sentence you wrote is the last refuge of the callous.

  • (Show?)

    I've got three better pics:

    Reagan coming out of a limo at a move premiere; Bush with a cigar in the owner's suite at Texas Stadium; Obama in a church basement, educating folks in their rights

  • dan (unverified)
    (Show?)

    ive seen worse drivel on blueoregon.

    much worse

    most of it has actually come out of you carla

connect with blueoregon