Obama Re-elected

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Congratulations to President Obama on his re-election to the presidency of the US

If And When Those Preachers Get Control

Mark my word; if and when those preachers get control of the (Republican) party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem.  Frankly those people frighten me.  Politics and governing demand compromise.  But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise.  I know. I’ve tried to deal with them.
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Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.

Arizona Republican Senator Barry Goldwater (1909-1998)

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Orwell Was/Is Right Of Course

This Is Not A Difficult Concept

Republicans Vote Against American Jobs

The Republicans are just out to totally screw over the middle class in America.  They have arguably completely aligned themselves with the large corporations and the billionaires and against the common man, and plot to bring all of America under the thumb of the ruling elite.

“The Republicans didn’t just vote against “American jobs,” they literally filibustered them. While the GOP presidential candidates debated their plans to further screw the American economy Tuesday night, every single Republican senator approved the filibuster and overwhelmingly blocked The American Jobs Act from even coming to a vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate.”

It seems they are doing all they can to destroy our democracy and our country.  They have been against everything the president has proposed and the conservative radio personalities constantly berate and belittle him, and spew so much hatred that I am embarrassed for my country. I don’t think this is something they would try on a white man.  They are so totally evil and malevolent.

“Unemployment is stuck at 9.1 percent. Corporations are sitting on $2 trillion in cash, in fact, the largest pile of liquid assets since 1959, and they aren’t spending that money on anything, much less new jobs since they’ve convinced their existing employees to do twice the work for lower pay and dwindling benefits. Simultaneously, corporate profits are at an all-time high, corporate taxes are at an all-time low and middle class wages have been stagnant for decades. The political discourse is aired on cable as though it was a football game, while real Americans lose their homes and corporate criminals sashay between the rain drops unpunished — many of them failing up to better gigs.”  Go here for full story.  My bold emphasis

Used to be in our country that the Republicans and Democrats were civil to each other and America was passably livable no matter which party was in power.  Sure there were differences and sometimes very big disagreements, but now, to listen to the Republicans if we don’t bow down and cater to what they want our country is doomed.  They insist that we keep taxes lower for billionaires and humongous corporations then for middle class, we need to lower support for unessential things like…Oh I don’t know, like Social Security, Medicare (most seniors can’t afford the cost of drugs anymore), Schools and Teacher salaries and support for WIC (women and infant children)…and you know there are some REAL poor people out there, now that so many people are out of jobs, who could use a little help.

Contrary to what the Tea-Party/Republicans believe, not everyone is capable of pulling down $100,000 a year and have big health insurance coverage and retirement benefits.  It’s a nice dream, but sadly we don’t all qualify.  There are many many working poor in this country and it’s only getting worse…especially if we have to follow republican policies and practices.

Most Americans asked were for the bill by the way…here.

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America Held Hostage

America Held Hostage to Two-Party Failure: Government of, by and for the Corporations
Thursday 28 July 2011
by: Michele Swenson, Truthout | Op-Ed

Washington rhetoric waxes Orwellian in proportion to inside-the-Beltway disconnect around cause and effect of the US economic crisis. Ranging from the Ryan Budget – “kill Medicare to save it” – and some Democrats – “cut Medicare and Social Security to save them” – to claims that deficit reduction (not jobs) is “what the people want,” to the “greed is good” creed that assigns entitlements in the form of taxpayer bailouts to wealthy financial institutions that take for granted the ability to shift risk for their liar’s loans and speculative transactions. “Austerity” and “shared sacrifice” are Washington code for preserving tax advantages and privilege for the wealthiest, while transferring private debt and risk to the public, onto the backs of the working/middle class.

Phil Angelides, chair of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, notes that 24 million Americans lack work and nearly $9 trillion in household wealth has vanished since the 2008 economic crisis. The commission’s January report detailed “the recklessness of the financial industry and the abject failures of policymakers and regulators that brought our economy to its knees in late 2008.”

Writes Angelides, there is “no correlation between who drove the crisis and who is paying the price.” The disparity of wealth is stark, as “compensation at publicly traded Wall St. firms hit a record $135 billion in 2010.” He notes that, in the face of overwhelming evidence of the causes of economic catastrophe, Wall Street and its allies are revising history, e.g., Republicans like Paul Ryan ignore the fact that “our federal budget deficit has ballooned more than $1 trillion annually since the financial collapse.” Instead of confronting the real causes of the deficit, budget shortfalls are conflated with “the long-term challenges of Medicare” as an excuse to shred the social safety net. Rather than rein in widespread lending abuses, Republicans seek to weaken the authority of the new consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Economist Joseph Stiglitz calls out the titans of finance, who continue to make mega bonuses for their companies’ mega losses, even after they set the global economy in a tailspin and shifted all risks for their unregulated credit default swaps onto taxpayers. He describes a nation of, by and for the 1 percent that enjoys 25 percent of economic benefits, largely purchased by Washington lobbyists. The Republican (Ryan) budget plan would cut $5.8 trillion from government spending over the next decade and reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 percent, while increasing next year’s Pentagon budget by $17 billion. The highly touted Bowles-Simpson proposal for deficit reduction is a recipe for a weaker economy, warns Stiglitz, as it will decrease jobs, and in turn, decrease revenues. A primary means to decrease the deficit is to increase jobs, a goal that ultraconservatives wrongly equate with large tax breaks for the wealthy – so-called “job creators” – never mind that the Bush tax cuts failed to provide jobs over a decade.

It is easier to destroy than to build democracy. Concerted assaults on democracy over four decades serve the ends of those who deem it their right to rule and reign: Republican religious ideologues and acolytes of Milton Friedman economics. Disaster capitalists precipitate crises by running up huge deficits (during the Reagan and Bush one and two regimes), followed by demands for balanced budgets and deficit reduction, as a means of drastically cutting domestic spending and gutting public education, government jobs and public pensions and shifting all wealth upward.

The political right has laid waste to democratic principles by sabotaging elections and the economy and auctioning government to the highest bidder. Some rightists deem it a “citizen’s duty” to challenge the legitimacy of the “ruling regime” by refusing to obey the law – i.e., “destroy the nation to save it.” Certain issues should be advanced “for the purpose of prompting a constitutional crisis,” pronounced law professor Russell Hittinger. The 2000 Supreme Court majority selection of George W. Bush reset the bar for challenges to the constitution, as did Citizens United vs. FEC in 2010.

The 1994 Gingrich revolution ushered in the large-scale sell-off of government to corporate interest groups. Corporate lobbyists were invited to write legislation to eradicate regulations for worker safety, labor rights and environmental protections – the so-called “Project Relief” part of the Republican agenda. Simultaneously, Republican House Whip Tom DeLay (“The Hammer”) pressured corporate political action committees (PACs) to contribute solely to the GOP, reasoning, “People that are pro-free enterprise should support people who are pro-free enterprise.”

In 1995, then-GOP Conference Chair John Boehner handed out tobacco PAC money checks to Republicans on the floor of the House, even as Newt Gingrich warned lobbyists, “For anyone who’s not on board now it’s going to be the two coldest years in Washington.” Republican leaders in a private 1997 meeting with 200 top corporate executives of the Business Roundtable demanded that all contributions to Democrats cease, or corporations would forfeit access to the Republican Congressional majority. Grover Norquist, riding herd over the “K Street Project,” demanded that big business hire GOP-credentialed lobbyists and fire those with Democratic connections. By the 108th Congress, it fell to Sen. Rick Santorum to reward party loyalty by vetting the hiring decisions of major lobbyists. “If you want to play in our revolution, you have to live by our rules,” pronounced  DeLay.

The “defund-the-left” campaign was abetted by Virginia Lamp Thomas, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, and a key staff member for then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who compiled a hit list of liberal groups and nonprofit groups. More recently, Virginia Thomas reportedly received hundreds of thousands of dollars from groups that had expressed direct interest in the outcome of cases that came before her husband, including Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, which struck down any limitations on corporate contributions to elections, sealing the Republican deal to crush democracy.

In the ’90s, Democratic leadership, reinforced by such corporate-backed groups as the Democratic Leadership Council, turned increasingly to corporate money, away from working people. With both major parties in thrall to corporate money and influence, “we the people” has effectively become “the silenced majority,” discounted voices sought out only for votes during election years, an increasingly futile exercise as big money buys candidates and outcomes.

The majority (53 percent) of Americans who opposed the 2010 extension of the Bush tax cuts watched in dismay as President Obama started with compromise and met his Republican hostage-takers more than half way. Neither did majority popular support result in passage of strong financial regulation, importation of lower-cost drugs or government-payer universal health care.

The fatal flaw of Barack Obama’s presidency seems to be the compulsion to compromise with the likes of Norquist, bent on destroying democracy by “drowning government in a bathtub.” The deficit in public investment imperils us more than the budget deficit, observes former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, citing tax revenues that are less than 15 percent of the total economy, the lowest in 60 years. Large reductions in federal taxes affect state and local revenues, placing more locales on the brink of bankruptcy – thus fulfilling Norquist’s fondest wish for state bankruptcies and “bitter nastiness and partisanship” in state capitals.

The president’s failure to lead by using the bully pulpit to educate about the true nature of economic crisis and recovery has resulted in Democrats’ surrender to Republicans of the economic narrative around deficits, spending, taxes, health care etc. More than the Tea Party corporate shills, disingenuous rhetoric around the economy and the lack of any counter-narrative by the president discouraged voters from going to the polls in 2010 and will likely discourage them again in 2012.

In 1995, a highly secretive umbrella group of America’s right-wing leaders, the little known
Council for National Policy Action, circulated a confidential memo urging members to push for a governmental shutdown in order to force President Clinton to cave to their budget demands. Rep. Mark Souder (R-Indiana) was quoted: “This is our maximum point of leverage to insist that parts of the revolution are executed.” The brief government shutdown that followed failed to achieve their goals. Republicans have willingly upped the ante, holding the country hostage to the threat of economic catastrophe in order to achieve their long-time goal of gutting all New Deal and Great Society programs, while codifying tax cuts for the wealthy. Americans are again being held for ransom in a naked high-stakes grab for total wealth and power.

The majority of people are hungry for a truth teller/leader, like Sen. Bernie Sanders. Instead, corporate media reloops the one-note deficit propaganda of the right-wing sound machine, not seeing fit to even mention The People’s Budget, written by the Progressive Caucus. The People’s Budget would eliminate the deficit sooner than either the proposed Obama or Ryan Budgets and raise a $31 billion surplus in ten years. It would end the main budget deficit drivers – the Bush tax cuts and Middle East wars; restore progressive income and estate taxes; add negotiation of bulk drug rates to Medicare and preserve Medicare, Medicaid Social Security; eliminate tax subsidies for oil, gas and coal companies; close loopholes for multinational corporations; and tax speculative financial transactions. All are goals supported by the majority of people.

Likewise, Medicare-for-All would contribute substantially to economic recovery. Reich writes that expanding the Medicare risk pool to include all healthy young and sick elderly would save $58 billion to $400 billion annually and sharply reduce the budget crisis, while also permitting negotiation of lower rates with hospitals, doctors and pharmaceutical companies. Payment reform to reward quality not quantity care would provide additional savings.

Circular talk around the deficit short circuits meaningful action around the creation of jobs and financial and election reforms. Sorely needed to counter the corruption of money in elections are the Fair Campaigns Now Act, free media time for all serious candidates and other remedies such as instant runoff voting and reversing the notion of corporate “personhood.” Humboldt County, California, passed a county ordinance in 2006 to prohibit nonlocal corporate contributions to elections and also asserting that corporations cannot claim the First Amendment right to free speech. Counties nationwide should follow the lead of a number of counties that have drafted ordinances to deny corporate personhood.

The two main political parties are failing to serve the people, both locked in a dance of dysfunctional political posturing in service of power. In a candid moment this spring, speaking to Charlie Rose, some New York Times correspondents acknowledged the sorry state of our politics: Tom Friedman remarked that we are trapped in a “corrupt duopoly.” Crony capitalism is the norm in Washington, lamented David Brooks. Both expressed the wish for a reputable third party to break the Washington gridlock.

Now is the moment for voices that have been willfully ignored in recent years to come together to form a true grassroots movement to advocate for progressive change. Sponsored by over 100 groups led by MoveOn.org, “Rebuild the American Dream” house meetings across the country convened starting July 16 and 17, providing the opportunity for participants to begin writing a “Contract for the American Dream” to serve the people.

The time is a now or never to restore the promise of democracy stolen by the oligarchs.

http://www.truth-out.org/america-held-hostage-two-party-failure-government-and-corporations/1311345019

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
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Debt Ceiling

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If Pregnant Don’t Go To A Catholic Hospital

“Would you ask someone else to die for your religious beliefs? A new proposal moving through Congress makes clear that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops apparently expects everyone to die for theirs. The same members of Congress who last week attempted to dial back the definition of rape to the nineteenth century now propose another change to federal law that is just as shocking: in a move long sought by the political arm of the Catholic clergy, hospitals would be permitted to refuse to treat women with life-threatening emergencies.”  Nancy Northup/HuffPo

If your pregnant and are having problems with your pregnancy, do not, under any circumstances, go to a Catholic hospital.  If you are the husband of a pregnant woman having problems, do not take her to a Catholic hospital.

And:

Last week Sierra Vista Hospital, in rural Southeast Arizona, abandoned its affiliation with the Catholic Carondelet Health Systems. One year into a 2-year trial period, reality apparently hit home. The hospital board could no longer ignore daily picketing by concerned citizens, growing discontent of physicians barred from delivering high quality medical care and mounting evidence that strict doctrinal enforcement undermines a community’s trust in its medical provider.
Barbara Coombs/HuffPo

It needs to be said again; if pregnant and having problems with that pregnancy…do not, under any circumstances, check into a Catholic hospital.  They dispense their medical care by reference to the Catholic Dogma…and the mother is a very second class person in case of problems.  Just like in the Church, the woman doesn’t count.

Remember, to the Catholics it’s Church dogma over Science and womanhood.
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Democracy Killed in Michigan

From the Utne Reader

“The very essence of democratic rule may be about to die in Michigan.

If Gov. Rick Snyder (R) gets his way soon he will have the ability to unilaterally declare a “fiscal emergency.” Once such an emergency is declared he would then have the power to dissolve the entire municipal government of wherever this “emergency” exists, dismiss the elected officials with no replacement election to follow, seize control of local civil services and, last but certainly not least, cede control of taxpayer money, services and powers to private corporations.

Anyone else sense the Koch brothers lurking in the shadows?”

So begins the scary story of the poor people of Michigan and their descent into Fascism courtesy of the Tea Party Republicans.

From Forbes Magazine:

” The governor simply has to declare a financial emergency to invoke these powers – or he can hire a private company to declare financial emergency and take over oversight of the city. That’s right, a private corporation can declare your city in a state of financial emergency and send in its Emergency Manager, fire your elected officials, and reap the benefits of the ensuing state contracts.”

I think the Republicans are trying to take over the country…very quietly, in a way that we should be very worried about.
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South Dakota Legislators Ponder Legalizing Murder

South Dakota is contemplating a law that would legalize the killing of abortion doctors, providers, or enablers.  Here

“The law that would legalize killing abortion providers is just one of several measures under consideration in the state that would create more obstacles for a woman seeking an abortion. Another proposed law, House Bill 1217, would force women to undergo counseling at a Crisis Pregnancy Center (CPC) before they can obtain an abortion. CPCs are not regulated and are generally run by anti-abortion Christian groups and staffed by volunteers—not doctors or nurses—with the goal of discouraging women from having abortions.”   (My emphasis)

Of course this outrageous and plainly crazy attempt to stop abortion is from the religious right and the Republican Party (who are actually controlled by the religious right).  The Republican Party is just batspit crazy anymore…all of them.  I am ashamed to admit that I voted it for over 40 years. They are driving our country into the ground and blaming it on the Democrats.

They would rather spend trillions of dollars (nearly bankrupting us) on an un-winnable war than assist our own citizens and help the poor and elderly (a thing that Jesus was explicitly for).  They don’t care about our children’s education…they are the first to cut funding to schools and research, but totally fund all war efforts and all the illegal no-bid contracts that is making multi-billionaires of a few favored political contributors (think Halliburton and the like).

What totally bewilders me is how they are able to make the average Joe believe that it’s in HIS own best interest to not support healthcare…in essence to keep the heavy contributors to republican political campaigns (HMO’s, PPA’s) as middle men and allow them to suck up billions of dollars from OUR pockets and return only mediocre or inferior service.

Look up where America stands in healthcare, infant mortality, delivery of services, etc., Look up where we stand in services to the handicapped, the impaired, elderly care, education of our youngsters.  We should all be ashamed.  And for God’s sake keep the government out of women’s decisions on motherhood…this is not a proper place for government to be.
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