Yesterday I reported on The Twitter popularity of Candidates. Today I decided to investigate other candidates and pundits and personalities and their corresponding twitter popularity

This is what I found:

President Obama https://twitter.com/#!/barackobama is the champion of the politicians with over 12 million followers:  12, 276, 394

But perhaps to put the president’s 12, 276, 394 into perspective.  We might note that Kim Kardashian beats him by almost 700,000 followers.  Ms. Kardashian has 12, 928,641 twitter  followers.  http://twitter.com/kimkardashian.  Does that mean that she should be our next president?

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Newt Gingrich https://twitter.com/#!/newtgingrich has 1,433,224 followers

Sarah Palin https://twitter.com/#!/sarahpalin has 728, 895 followers

Jon Stewart http://twitter.com/thedailyshow has 622, 147 followers.

Mitt Romney https://twitter.com/#!/mittromney has 313, 472 followers (half as many as Palin and more than four times less than Gingrich.

Speaker Boehner http://twitter.com/speakerboehner has 272,846 followers.

Ron Paul http://twitter.com/ronpaul has 223, 309 followers

Nancy Pelosi http://twitter.com/nancypelosi has 152, 676 followers.

Bill O’Reilly http://twitter.com/oreillyfactor has 133,288 followers.

Bernie Sanders http://twitter.com/senatorsanders has 89,045 followers

Eric Cantor http://twitter.com/EricCantor has 58,054 followers.

Rachel Maddow http://twitter.com/maddowblog has 55,300 followers

Rick Perry https://twitter.com/#!/teamrickperry has 25,190 followers

Alan Grayson http://twitter.com/alangrayson has 24,404 followers

Harry Reid http://twitter.com/HarryReid has 7,553 followers

Chris Matthews http://twitter.com/MSNBC_CMatthews has 6,003 followers.

Green Party USA http://twitter.com/gpus has 2,462 followers

Jill Stein http://twitter.com/jillstein2012 has 1,866 followers

Justice Party USA http://twitter.com/justicepartyusa has 461 followers

It’s interesting to see who these people follow as well.  While most of them follow several hundred people, there are some such as Eric Cantor, who only follow 20 people—what does that say about them?

OOPS!   There goes another Republican myth! They don’t balance the budget.  They just claim they balance the budget!  They rob social security and the working class to make it appear as if they balance the budget.

Last night we learned what the Republicans REALLY mean when they say they “balanced” the budget.  They mean they took money out of Social Security–a fully funded entitlement by the American workers that should be hands off.   Anything but making the investor class pay a fair percentage of income tax–that the way of the investor class, Democrats and Republicans alike who are currently in Washington DC.

In spite of his other short-comings, the American people owe Ron Paul a cheer for calling the public’s attention to what Gingrich really meant when he said he “balanced” the budget.

Newt has been claiming that he “balanced the budget four times when he was Speaker.  Ron Paul pointed out last night that Gingrich didn’t balance the budget.  What the Republicans did was to take money out of Social Security.  Borrowing money is not balancing a budget.  Ron Paul even attacked the party’s sacred cow–Ronald Reagan whose administration did the same thing.

Ron Paul pointed out that the national debt during those four years Newt brags about actually went up about a trillion dollars. He pointed out that Gingrich doesn’t count the money he took out of Social Security.  Paul said. “So neither Reagan nor you had a truly balanced budget, because the national debt goes up and that’s what we pay the interest on.”

Gingrich responded: “Under the system that was used, we were $405 billion in balance.”  [What a lying weasel.]

At this point, the audience booed Gingrich.   I’m glad the point of Gingrich’s dishonest wasn’t missed on them.

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It’s not just the Republican brand that’s coming apart at the seams!

THEY ALL MUST GO!   WASHINGTON ENTRENCHED DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS ALIKE! Vote for anyone but a Democrat or a Republican in 2012.

If you are thinking that this is all about the Republicans, it is not.  The Washington leadership of BOTH parties are to blame!  Many of the same jackasses who were in Congress when Gingrich was in Congress and robbing Social Security are still there today.  In case you have forgotten, Bill Clinton, the president who turned the American people over to the Wall Street financial institutions was the guy in charge of balancing the budget.  Clinton worked hand in glove with Gingrich on that one.

If you will remember the ‘bipartisan’ Deficit Commission that President Obama appointed to reduce the deficit, you will remember that the first thing those jackasses went after was Social Security. You will realize that the more things “change” with the entrenched investor class, the more things remain the same.

Deficits are created by budget items–things that we purchase like war munitions for example.  Social Security is not a budget item because it is a totally funded and self-sustaining program.  But that didn’t stop the investor class a-holes who were hand-selected by President Obama from going after Social Security the first thing.  Social Security as a fully funded program was not even in the scope of this group’s discussions.  If  Obama were a leader, he would have pointed that out to the committee instead of giving them free reign to ride rough shod over the American people with his silence.

BUT FOR NOW FLORIDIANS:  VOTE FOR GINGRICH TO KEEP THE CONVERSATION GOING FOR AMERICA!  This is the best education the American people have ever had regarding the criminal behavior of BOTH parties.

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Note on Social Security and the investor class:  Since they robbed the coffers of the working class, they should be required to return that money and here is how:

ALL Americans should pay Social Security tax on all of their income.  Currently, only the majority of Americans, those of us who earn less than $106,000 a year, are required to pay Social Security on 100% of our income.  Any American earning more than $106,000 doesn’t pay a cent of social security tax on amounts earned above that.

In other words, the members of the US Congress don’t pay Social Security taxes on at least half of their annual income.

The Irony of who these two jerks really are seems to be missed on a lot of people–especially the base of the Republican Party

They are  the real austerity candidates, these guys will be the water boys for the banksters who are crippling Europe, and a lot of Europeans, with economic strategies that keep themselves afloat while children die of preventable diseases.

They accuse President Obama of wanting to turn the USA into a Socialist state.

President Obama and his administration have actually created 2 million jobs. [They could have/should have done better--and maybe they would have with a little more cooperation from the Republicans.  But Obama has helped to create more jobs in three years than the Republican leadership created in 8 years and that's a fact.]

The Republican leadership under Bush, while chomping at the bit to bail out Wall Street financial institutions wanted to let the American Automotive industry go to hell in a bankruptcy hand basket–which surely would have happened to GM if Obama had not stood up for them. Today GM provides jobs to 5,000 Americans.

And here is the Irony:  While they accuse Obama,  it is the Republican leadership who are imitating the socialistic European lead–not the President.

Just listen to them and their pitches for austerity:  ”cut taxes, austerity for the working people, cut public services, etc.”

Doesn’t that sound familiar?  Well it should because that’s what Europe has been hollering for the past year!  Look at what they did to Greece.  Look at their austerity program for Spain and Ireland.

And how well have these austerity programs worked?  About as well as the George Bush tax cuts for the rich have worked in the USA.  Almost a year now after the austerity measures in Ireland, they stand at 14% unemployment.  Spain? After its austerity programs have been enacted, the unemployment among their youth have risen to almost 50%.

TURN IT OFF!  THROW IT IN THE JUNKYARD!

They are all the same.  It is the business of the corporate sponsored media to make them appear as if they are not.

still from “The Twonky “(1953)

“Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely . . . Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen.” – from 1984 by George Orwell

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The Corporate Owned Pundits Are Buffers and all the Candidates they feature are cut from the same corporate cloth.

The role of the corporate owned, sponsored and managed media is to provide a buffer zone between the American people and the candidates that the king pins of the corporate state  select for the two-party side show they present every 2 and 4 years.  The last thing that any of the candidates and their handlers want is for some citizen to come out of left field and ask a question that really matters.

The millionaire pundits like John King, George Stephanopoulos, Brian Williams, Bill O’Reilly, etc. who lead the presidential “debates” are there to ensure that the really important questions don’t get asked.  They are there to keep the focus on the irrelevant, the titillating gossip.  They are there to manage the impression that a debate has taken place when in fact, what has really taken place is no debate.  It is a set up and the show we watch is about as relevant to the lives of most Americans as what the Kardashians do or who wins American Idol.

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But the Deck was Stacked Long before the Primary Debates

The deck was stacked in favor of the corporate state in the USA long before the television political “debates.”  Furthermore, the deck has been stacked for almost 25 years.

In 1987 the corporate leadership of the Democrat and Republican parties got together and formed a corporation called “the Commission on Presidential Debates“.  The purpose of this commission is to choose and control the topics of the debates.  THEY along with their  corporate sponsors choose what is “important” to discuss–not the American people.

Furthermore, they decided that it is best to limit the “official” debates to the two “major” parties so as to not  confuse the American people with too many choices–aren’t they thoughtful?

Furthermore, since Wall Street corporations and corporate media outlets such as GE, the largest war contractor in the world who also happen to own the NBC networks, fund this corporation (“the Commission on Presidential Debates”) they have a heavy hand in saying who can and cannot participate even within this limited membership requirement of the two parties.  We saw a perfect example of this in the fall of 2007 when MSNBC’s Chuck Todd informed Mike Gravel (a Democrat candidate) that he could not participate in the debate because he had not raised a million dollars. That’s how the corporate world measures the value of a person–by how much money they have.

Then during the Iowa caucus in early 2008 Gannett Corporation (who own the Des Moines Register) applied an arbitrary and actually nonexistent rule to kick Dennis Kucinich out of those debates.  They claimed  they had a rule that candidates were required to have a store front established in Iowa by October 10, 2007 in order to participate in the debate.  [Oct 10 just happened to be the date that the last of the other Democratic candidates, Dodd, had put up a store front.]  What we all should be asking is:  ”Who died and gave corporations the right to control state election laws regarding who can and cannot participate in presidential debates?

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We do not have a two-party system in the USA.

We have a one-party corporate state system that is controlled by Wall Street king pins.bThe purpose of BOTH parties is to grind to a halt the passage of any meaningful legislation for the majority.  The leadership of BOTH parties are experts at managing impressions.

Other Democratic nations have many different parties represented in their government.  In our Senate we are represented by the two corporate sponsored parties and one Independent. This is ridiculous and needs to change.

The only way to change it is to stop voting for either a Democrat OR a Republican.  You will not change things by voting for either a Democrat or a Republican.  If you want better, you will have to vote for better.  You will have to become better yourself.

That is our POWER.  If we continue to vote for a Democrat or a Republican NOTHING.  N-O-T-H-I-N-G will change because they are all part of the same corporate state machine—all of them:  Obama, Boehner, Gingrich, Romney, etc.

TWINS SEPARATED AT BIRTH?*

In addition to an exaggerated sense of self-worth, they are both quitters who chose personal profit over service to the people.

Gingrich cares more about making money than he cares about serving the people.  In that aspect he is a Sarah Palin junior. In 1998 Republicans lost five seats in the House in the 1998 elections—the worst midterm performance in 64 years for a party that didn’t hold the presidency. Polls showed that the attempt to remove President Clinton from office, by Gingrich and the Republican Party, was deeply unpopular among voters. (Considering their campaign these last three years against President Obama , it doesn’t look like they have learned anything.  But  President Obama has his own unpopularity issues to deal with.)

Gingrich suffered much of the blame for the election loss. Facing a rebellion in the Republican caucus, he announced on November 5, 1998, that he would not only stand down as Speaker, but would leave the House as well.  Gingrich made this announcement only a day after being elected to an 11th term from his district. Commenting on his departure, Gingrich said, “I’m willing to lead but I’m not willing to preside over people who are cannibals.  Do you wonder why the leadership of the Republican party hate Gingrich?

Sarah Palin, was elected Governor of Alaska in 2006.  In July of  2009, 18 months before the end of her term as governor, she left office.  It was a great choice for her in terms of personal profit.  Palin’s salary as governor of Alaska was $68,000 a year.  It’s not likely that she would have been re-elected in 2010.  Palin would have been forgotten by the end of 2010 had she stayed in Alaska.  Her total earnings for that time period from the state of Alaska would have been about $102,000.  Sarah Palin’s net worth in 2011 was reported at $14million.  There is no way that Palin could have stayed down on the farm in Alaska with the people who elected her to serve them and garnered that kind of money.

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*The difference in their years would explain a lot in regard to the younger twin–what with oxygen deprivation from having been in the birth canal for 21 years.  However, it certainly did not dull her ability to add 2+2 when it comes to her own personal profitability.

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ILWQ PREDICTION:

Look  for the Romney Team to label Gingrich a “quitter”.  Republicans hate quitters–regardless how deep the rut.

“. . .Not like a Sunday School!”  It is Nasty, Nasty and more Nasty

South Carolina Republican primary voters in 2008 were overwhelmingly protestant, conservative and religious. Exit polls showed nearly two-thirds attended church at least once a week and seven in 10 believed abortion should be illegal.  Ironic, isn’t it, that the  primaries of a such a religiously-defined demographic have a reputation for being so nasty but  they do. In fact, they even boast of it.  A Republican official from SC was recently quoted:  “If you like your politics to be Sunday-school nice and polite, this isn’t the place for you,” said Republican strategist David Woodard, who teaches at Clemson University in South Carolina.”  Source LOL  They even use their religion in metaphors to define their meanness. Now that’s about the level of a skunk in some parts of the country.

South Carolina’s unemployment rate of 9.9 percent – higher than the national average and worse than all but seven other states.  Some say this could make voters more receptive to Romney’s pitch that as a former businessman he knows how to create jobs.  I say it won’t after a week of Newt telling the good people of South Carolina the truth about Mitt Romney and his Bain Capital.  He is not a job creator.  Romney is a job cremator. Once they learn all about what Bain Capital is, Romney is a cooked goose.  Perry actually has the best record for job creation of all the candidates.  Unemployment in Texas is 8.4% an unarguable fact which is likely to sound pretty good to the folks in South Carolina.

Newt  could finish at the top of the heap for South Carolina.  Perry could be second and Romney third.  Ron Paul and Rick Santorum will be somewhere near the bottom of the heap.  Santorum might surprise me, but I doubt it. Catholics are almost as suspect as Mormons in South Carolina.  Huntsman, an unknown Mormon, will be at the bottom of the heap.  Even with his anti-abortion stance, Santorum is a Catholic yankee running in a state that is 4% Catholic and very fundamental protestant.

All bets are off for South Carolina.  If we were strictly profiling it by the books,  Perry would have the best chance for a win in South Carolina: He is white, protestant, and from a poor rural background (South Carolina ranks 13 in the USA for rural population) and unlike Romney, he does have a history of creating jobs.  He is a match–at least on paper.  AND he has millions of dollars backing him from the same people who bankrolled the swiftboat ad campaign against Kerry.   His stance on immigrants doesn’t mean much for the folks of South Carolina (and in Florida it could even be an advantage).

If he can just stop saying ignorant things like calling Obama a ‘socialist’, he might make it.  I know it sounds crazy as hell, but so did the idea of George Bush and look what happened there.  We had that imbecile for two terms.  South Carolina is Perry’s last ditch chance as it is for Gingrich.  It will be very interesting to see what these two.  We don’t have to wait long for Gingrich, his first whack at Romney comes tonight with the Bain Capital ad.

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In the final analysis what does the Republican South Carolina Primary mean for the majority of Americans?

It means almost* nothing.  The outcome of the South Carolina means nothing.  The outcome of any of the Republican primaries means nothing in terms of who wins. Regardless what the cat drags up as the nominee for the Republican Party and/or whether  he or Obama wins the  election in November–if either party is able to get a candidate elected nothing of any significance (unless its’ more of bad) will happen to the people of the USA unless we change the faces in Congress.  Anyone who expects some different outcome after the last 20 years of their demonstrated history is a fool.

*Almost — because the ads on Bain Capital on mainstream media in South Carolina that the Gingrich campaign promise to roll out tonight (Jan 9) could possibly educate the American public regarding how private equity corporations make their money (destroying jobs and running up debt).  They will be one more chink in the armor of corporate greed.  Such an ad will do a great deal more than harm Romney’s campaign.  It may become a shot fired–not around the world, but in the foot.

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In the final analysis, what will make a difference?  Answer:  The following action and in this order of importance.

1. Replace the majority of the House of Representatives with 99% people who do nor derive their wealth from their investments in publicly traded stock.  We can do this by November of 2012.  We can.

2. Replace the President of the United States with a non-Democrat and a non-Republican–a person who better represents the 99%.  The leadership of BOTH parties is corrupt to the core.  Currently, in my opinion, the best person for the position of president is Jill Stein.  We do this, this year if the people will unite.

3. Replace the majority of the Senate with 99% people who do nor derive their wealth from their investments in publicly traded stock.  This will likely not be accomplished in 2012 simply due to the staggering of their terms.  One way to speed that up is if the other 8 states with the ability to recall federal officials will follow Montana’s example. If so, we might be able to recall 18 senators even BEFORE the election.  Then with those up for election we could conceivably end up replacing close to half of them.  However, the difference in cost between running a Senatorial race and House race is usually quite different AND the larger the state the more cost involved.

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The first critical factor in the elections of 2012 is changing the majority of the House of Representatives to members of the 99% who do not personally profit from the current Congressional legitimized crimes of Wall Street Institutions.  These are the people who make the laws.  Little will change until they do.  Since some may not be exactly clear as to exactly who I mean: These “institutions” include private equity or Hedge Fund Groups; and financial corporations such as Goldman Sachs or any of the too big to fail banks; any war contractor corporations such as Lockheed Martin or General Electric; any mining companies (such as those Ron Paul owns stock in); natural gas or oil companies who have a proven record of ignoring the safety of their workers for profit time and again (BP is an example that comes to mind here).  And there are others.  Go here for a fuller, although not complete list.

Even if the 99% were to lose in the Presidential and Senatorial  races, if the people win the House, we could make massive changes to business as usual.

Imagine a House that writes bills that are limited to 25 pages and one topic.

Imagine a House that does not take money from professional lobbyists.

Imagine a House that does not even talk to professional lobbyists

Imagine what a different world with a Congress that actually represented the 99%

It is possible and we can make it happen in 2012.

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However, Goethe said something of equal importance.  This quote is from his Faust;

Update on the Antics of the Tawdry Circus known as the American Presidential Primaries

I smiled when I read about Gingrich falling off his perch.

All it takes for Perry to steal a lead is just a crack in the door and he will wedge his foot in and before you know it, he is the biggest elephant in the room. He has done this at least 10 times in his long career. As I’ve said before, Perry is the only one of the R candidates with snowballs chance to win because of 1) he has the Latino vote (Texas is the only state in the Union with a version of the Dream Act, Perry has criticized the border fence AND his fellow Republicans for being hard-hearted to Mexicans. All they have from Obama are broken promises along with the fact that his administration as deported more Latinos than any prior administration.) 2)Perry has the evangelical vote and 3) he is rural America’s native son.

ProPublica is even promoting Perry.  They recently published an article telling us indirectly that Perry is kinder than Mitt Romney. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney refused to grant a single pardon while Perry currently rivals the record of Ma Ferguson for handing out pardons. So far Perry has granted 178.  Bush only pardoned 21.  We can’t compare Perry to Romney’s stance on the death penalty executions since capital punishment is against the law in Massachusetts.

“Kinder” is and will continue to be a winning issue for candidates in 2012.  Kindness may very well be the wedge that Perry needs (but he will have to work very hard to overcome that execution record–still if you compare Perry’s executions to those carried out in Iraq and elsewhere in the world by Obama. . . ).

More than anything else it was Gingrich’s record of being a harsh meanie–not only to his wives, but to poor children that did him in.  Gingrich’s uncharitable remarks about putting poor children to work cleaning toilets dealt a huge blow to his campaign.  Now Romney, with his comments regarding not offering welfare to poor children promises to do the same for him. Are these people nuts?  In these hard times, what makes any candidate in their right mind think that they are going to win the hearts and minds of the American people by insulting poor children?  That might have worked in the 1980′s or even the 1990′s but not today.  What part of populist don’t they understand?

One thing’s for certain.  This observation is not missed by Perry and you can expect his campaign to be making the most of kindness in the coming days before Iowa.

Perry is not the most articulate candidate on the block.  In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that he is the least articulate candidate on the block.  But do I have to remind anyone of George Bush?  Has the American public so quickly forgotten all the Bushisms?  If so–My, what short memories.

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ILWQ PREDICTION FOR REPUBLICAN RACE

Perry will place 1, 2 or 3 in Iowa and will continue to limp along.

The Republican nomination will be a nail biter of a contest all the way to the Republican convention.  Perry will win some and other candidates will win other states.  However, when the dust settles, it is most likely that Perry will be the victor–even if it is by a hair, even if it sends some Republicans to their sister party, the Democrats.

After all, since there will be no Democrat challenger, mainstream media will need some kind of drama to sell all that corporate advertising and make the American people continue to believe that there is a difference between the Democrats and the Republicans for almost an entire year.