During the past several weeks we've visited friends in Germany, Denmark and now London. A couple days ago, David received an e-mail from a friend back in Baltimore that led to a discovery...
David finally found out how one of my images of him was used...on a Republican gubernatorial candidate's Web site. It goes without saying that David is a Democrat. When he found out how his picture was used, he said, "I'm an equal opportunity face. Democrats can buy me, too."
It’s hard to break old habits. George W. Bush was a great leader...when it came to division. Not exactly something to be proud of. Now the Republicans seem to be in a deep rut created by the habit of Republican politics...the habit of wearing blinders that allow only an us vs. them perspective.
Why are they against the stimulus bill? Have they even read it? Can they read? It seems not when you look at the claims they’re making about the bill. And when will they stop their lies?
Here’s a quick summary of GOP stimulus myths listed by FactCheck.Org today:
Summary
Many claims of Democrats slipping in earmarks for frivolous projects aren't true.
Do some of the Republican claims you've heard about the stimulus bill sound too awful to be true? We find a few that are wildly exaggerated or downright false.
·It's not true that the bill contains spending for "golf carts." It has $300 million to buy fuel-efficient vehicles, some of which may be electric cart-like utility vehicles.
·Money claimed to be for "remodeled federal offices" is mostly designated for upgrading buildings to "green" status through such things as thicker insulation and highly efficient lighting, not new drapes or paneling.
·A widely repeated claim that $8 billion is set aside for a "levitating train" to Disneyland is untrue. That total is for unspecified high-speed rail projects, and some of it may or may not end up going to a proposed 300-mph "maglev" train connecting Anaheim, Calif., with Las Vegas.
·There's no money in the bill specified for butterfly parks, Frisbee golf courses or water slides, despite a GOP congressman's claim that the bill "will fund" those projects. He culled those silly-sounding items from a list of 18,750 city projects that the U.S. Conference of Mayors cobbled together in January as examples of "shovel-ready" projects.
Let's hope that the President can pull the Republicans out of their rut.
(The picture at the top shows President Obama's speech tonight configured as a Word Cloud. )
Bonnie J. Schupp (1944-2021) was raised in Baltimore and graduated from old Eastern High School in Feb. 1963. She earned a bachelor's degree from Frostburg State College, her master's from Johns Hopkins University, and, at age 60, a doctorate in communications design from the University of Baltimore. She was over the years a public school teacher, camera store owner, writer and award-winning photographer, and mother of two daughters,. She self-published half a dozen books combining her writing and photographs, notable among them "Dog Tag Poetry" (2012, Blurb Books), "365 Gifts on Turning 70" (2016, Amazon), and, posthumously, her memoir "Curious Possibilities" (2021, Amazon) edited by her husband, David M. Ettlin.
