In nearly every respect, President Obama is nothing like the
tax-and-spend liberal Ronald Reagan was, and is not even close to the
gun control crusader Reagan proved to be …
An icon is a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol of
something worthy of respect and admiration, and for conservatives their
icon of choice is one-time B-movie actor turned politician Ronald
Reagan. Reagan was in the news again when it was reported
that Wisconsin governor Scott Walker apparently claimed he voted for
conservative man-god Reagan when he was 13 and then again when he was 17
years old. It is not that Walker “misspoke” about voting for Reagan
before he was old enough to vote, it is that he follows a long line of repugicans identifying themselves as the resurrected Reagan. This is
despite the fact that repugicans would attack their paragon of
conservatism as a tax-and-spend liberal coward who handed America to
illegal immigrants in a socialist plot to destroy the economy and
eviscerate white America’s purity if Reagan was alive today.
It never fails to amaze that repugicans hold up Ronald Reagan as the
anti-Obama icon, although in many respects they would be completely
correct, but not in the manner they will ever admit or the people might
remember. For Americans grounded in reality and the nation’s historical
record, Reagan is responsible for America’s thirty year slide into a
corporatocracy to enrich the already wealthy at the expense of the
masses, and is the rat-bastard who ushered in America’s march toward
theocracy by opening government to the religious right to enact laws “
respecting the establishment of religion” in violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment.
It is safe to categorically state that Americans suffering the income
inequality crushing the economic life out of the middle class and
creating a nation of peasants owe their economic plight to Reagan’s
embrace of the trickle-down scam founded on taking from the masses to
enrich corporations and the rich. Reagan also pioneered the current
Republican mantra that “
government is evil” and responsible for
what neo-Reaganites claim is Americans’ loss of liberty. However, for
all Reagan’s assertions that government was evil, he spent more on
growing the government that today’s repugicans refuse to acknowledge
was probably a major accomplishment during his tenure as president.
Reagan eschewed reining in the deficit and, like the shrub,
championed deficit spending that, despite a steady diet of tax hikes,
tripled the national debt for the first time since World War II. In fact Reagan
was the “
big spending repugican”
until the shrub was handed the presidency by the wingnut
Supreme Court. About the only thing Reagan did that repugicans still
cling to as “
true wingnuts” is create the plutocracy
strangling America and pander to the religio-wingnuts; everything else
Reagan supported was precisely what repugicans accuse President Obama
of even though he is the polar opposite of their chosen tax-and-spend wingnut icon; it leads one to wonder why nearly all repugican cabal
presidential hopefuls aspire to emulate Reagan.
Barack Obama has never
raised taxes like Reagan and, despite repugican assertions, he has cut
spending and the national debt at its fastest rate since World War II.
Deficit spending Reagan, like the shrub, would likely be impeached
by repugicans for violating their anathema of increasing government
spending and raising taxes with no regard for the nation’s deficit.
While tripling the national debt, Reagan
raised income taxes in 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987 for a total of eleven tax hikes including
four substantial increases; President Obama
cut
taxes by $654 billion in 2011 and 2012 alone, and has not raised them
at all. It is important to remember that the Bush tax cuts are still in
effect including for the extremely wealthy up to $450,000 of their
income. It is true the President raised the debt initially through
stimulus spending to create jobs and encourage economic recovery, but it
was a departure from the shrub-repugicans bailing out Wall Street, banks,
and corporations that were every bit as responsible for the Great
Depression as Republicans emulating Reagan’s “
get government out of the way” mantra that drove repugican cabal deregulation.
The repugicans have spent no small amount of time criticizing President
Obama’s push for immigration reform as a massive amnesty program that
will decimate the economy and endanger America’s Caucasian purity, but
it was Reagan who
said, “
I
believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and
lived here even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.” President Obama said in 2010 and subsequently that “
No matter how decent they are, no matter their reasons, the 11 million who broke these laws should be held accountable.”
The President’s proposals for immigration reform requires undocumented
immigrants to pay fines, get in the back of the immigration line, and
follow a clear path to citizenship unlike Reagan who granted
unconditional amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants without “
securing the border” like today’s repugicans demand from the African American President.
Reagan was also directly responsible for propping up Iraqi president Sadam Hussein,
armed Osama bin Laden and the
future Taliban, and gave bin Laden the impression that America was a “
paper tiger that would cut and run if attacked”
after a Marine barracks in Libya was blown up. Barack Obama disabused
Osama bin Laden of the America as a “paper tiger” portrayal when he
ordered the military to kill the terrorist Reagan spent taxpayer dollars
training, arming, and funding along with Islamists in Afghanistan this
nation is still fighting. The repugicans have spent five years assailing
Obama for “
coddling Muslim terrorists” and yet he has killed
more of America’s enemies than Reagan funded or the shrub killed.
There are myriad examples of why it is a mystery that repugicans
cling to a fantastical portrayal of Ronald Reagan’s alleged wingnut
bona fides, and except for his anti-government, corporatocracy, and
religious right pandering the man would not be allowed to register as a repugican in today’s environment. In many respects, President Barack
Obama is the man repugicans dream Ronald Reagan was and is arguably to
the right of Reagan on many policies Reagan espoused; it is really the
point repugicans will never admit. In nearly every respect, President
Obama is nothing like the tax-and-spend liberal Ronald Reagan was, and
is
not even close to the
gun control crusader
Reagan proved to be. Reagan would have assailed this President’s
stance on immigration, railed against his austerity to rein in the shrub-repugicans’ deficit, and criticized his opposition to raising
taxes to bring in much-needed revenue.
The repugicans are either historically challenged or liars in propping
up the wingnut man-god Reagan’s iconic conservative status, and
likely only because the second-rate actor-turned-politician ushered in
the destructive economic policies choking the life out of the middle
class. They probably celebrate Reagan for opening the religio-wingnut
floodgates that provided the repugican cabal with a reliable voting bloc and welcome
the democracy-ending theocracy that Reagan would have opposed. If the
corporate-controlled media were not firmly in the repugican camp, they
would remind repugican cabal candidates that Reagan was a tax-and-spend liberal, an
amnesty-loving socialist, and gun control freak, but that would be too
much akin to doing their jobs as journalists as well as force them to
portray Barack Obama in the light he belongs; a left-leaning Centrist
who in many ways is to the right of wingnut icon Ronald Reagan.
Today is - World Radio Day
This
teahouse is at the top of the southern summit of Mount Hua, in China’s
Shaanxi province. It sits at an elevation of over 7,000 feet. Getting
there is an intimidating ordeal.
Through
most of the 20th century, divorce was rather difficult. Not only was
it socially unacceptable, but laws in most states made it an onerous
ordeal. But like anything else, someone, somewhere, will find a way to
make it profitable. For divorce (as well as gambling), that was Nevada.
Give people what they want, and they will come from all over to get it
-and spend their money along the way. Nevada's six-month residency
requirement was half that of other states in the 1920s, and several
high-profile divorces among the Hollywood elite drew attention to Reno
as a solution to an unhappy marriage.
Chandre Oraon, of West Bengal, has a slew of worshipers because he reportedly was born with a tail. According to 
