Pants on Fire? You betcha!

Taken a look at the playing field of Republican Candidates jarring for the chance to run against Barack Obama?  If you answer yes, then you must be concerned about the path this country is taking.  And before you say it can't happen, remember we almost elected George W. Bush to his first term and really did it for his second term.  That being said, I am terrified.

So the line up is - Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Gary Johnson, Fred Karger, Andy Martin, Jimmy McMillan, Tom Miller, Ron Paul, Buddy Roemer, Rick Santorum and Vern Wuensche.

Haven't heard of a few names here? Don't feel bad, most haven't, and to be honest, most of them don't stand a chance.  You've got one guy that runs in every election he can qualify for from "The Rent is Too Damn High" Party, another that is a career flight attendant and yet another running as a Republican from a Gay Rights Activist standpoint.  None of these are going to catch the eye of the Republican stage in a good way.

So for the rest, the actual contenders, we'll say the top three, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann (even though she comes in behind the "undecided" vote).

Mitt Romney ran for the GOP nod in 2008 but lost.  Somehow coming back as the new and improved Mitt means changing all of your views, maybe because his old ones didn't get him elected, but if you ask me, those kind of major views don't change over night and this man is hiding something.  He even said at one of the debates, "There are a lot of reasons not to vote for me"!  One of my favorite websites is politifact.org and out of the 65 statements that he has made and have been checked, 23 fall into the "false" category with 7 of those being "pants on fire" meaning blatant lies.

Rick Perry, the governor of Texas (like we need another one of those), came in to the running a little late but has done well in the polls, very well in fact.  Out of his 86 statements rated by Politifact, 34 have fallen in the "false" area and 10 were "pants on fire".

Michele Bachmann.  Well, what is there to say about this lady? (I use that term loosely)  Pandering just as much to the Tea Party as any of the rest, there is something we Palin-ish about her.  Out of her 36 rated statements, 29 have rated false, 9 are "pants on fire" and ONLY 2 are actually the full truth.

How is it that these folks can continue to lie to us, yet we continue to buy what their selling?  I know that all politicians lie, and that is very unfortunate.  We are forced to take the lesser of evils in our political system.  So with that in mind, I thought it would only be fair to include the Presidents stats in this blog.  Out of 320 statements rated, 94 fall into that false category but only 4 in the pants on fire and 226 fall into some category of "truth".

So lets compare a little simpler.  Mitt Romney - 10.76% pants on fire, Rick Perry - 11.63% pants on fire, Michele Bachmann - 25% pants on fire and Barack Obama - 1.25% pants on fire.

Why is there still any question about the next Presidential race?  It's one thing to point out the things your opponent is doing or has done, but not if they are straight out lies.  Not if your entire campaign is based on some fairy tale Karl Rove dreamt up for you.

GOP, you need to find some actual candidates to run.  This is just sad.

Oil is more important than education......... evidently.

While Republicans work tirelessly to slash the budget with cuts to government programs such as the EPA, NOAA, Education, Endowment for the Arts and Amtrak, they simultaneously opt to extend/renew tax breaks for Big Oil.  Yes, I'll say it again, they want to bolster Big Oil and cripple the EPA.  If that doesn't send a clear signal to BP and the like, I'm not sure what does.

I know we're all heard it, maybe even said it, what's wrong with kids these day and what is this world coming to?  I think I've found the answer.  When you decide to invest in Big Oil, the same ones that supply fuel that pollutes our air, water and marshes and spend less and less on education, what do you expect?

I for one agree that we need to cut spending.  We need to spend less than we tax, that is smart economics in its simplest form.  But we need smart cuts.  With profits in the 10's of billions for Big Oil companies, I'm sure they have no problem paying their taxes.  Tax money that our education system, among other programs, desperately need.

So my question is when we elected these Republicans to office with the expectation that they would get government spending under control, are these the programs we thought they would cut?