MadAsHellLiberal

A List of the Propaganda Techniques Used by Sarah Palin

2011-01-12T14:00:00.000-08:00

A list of the propaganda techniques used by Sarah Palin in her attempt to shift blame from herself and other propagandists who have used hate speech and propaganda techniques to whip up anger against liberals, progressives and anyone who doesn’t agree with their Neanderthal, theocratic, regressive political ideas.

What is Propaganda?

"Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist."

Quotes from Palin’s videotaped response to the violence in Arizona are followed by an explanation of the techniques utilized in those quotes.

Palin said that “responsibility lies not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election.”

Common Man - The "'plain folks'" or "common man" approach attempts to convince the audience that the propagandist's positions reflect the common sense of the people. It is designed to win the confidence of the audience by communicating in the common manner and style of the target audience. Propagandists use ordinary language and mannerisms (and clothe their message in face-to-face and audiovisual communications) in attempting to identify their point of view with that of the average person.

Glittering Generalities - Glittering generalities are emotionally appealing words applied to a product or idea, but which present no concrete argument or analysis. A famous example is the campaign slogan "Ford has a better idea!"

Half-truth - A half-truth is a deceptive statement which may come in several forms and includes some element of truth. The statement might be partly true, the statement may be totally true but only part of the whole truth, or it may utilize some deceptive element, such as improper punctuation, or double meaning, especially if the intent is to deceive, evade blame or misrepresent the truth.

Intentional vagueness - Generalities are deliberately vague so that the audience may supply its own interpretations. The intention is to move the audience by use of undefined phrases, without analyzing their validity or attempting to determine their reasonableness or application. The intent is to cause people to draw their own interpretations rather than simply being presented with an explicit idea. In trying to "figure out" the propaganda, the audience forgoes judgment of the ideas presented. Their validity, reasonableness and application may still be considered.

“Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”

Appeal to Prejudice - Using loaded or emotive terms to attach value or moral goodness to believing the proposition. For example, the phrase: "Any hard-working taxpayer would have to agree that those who do not work, and who do not support the community do not deserve the community's support through social assistance."

Repetition - This type of propaganda deals with a jingle or word that is repeated over and over again, thus getting it stuck in someones head, so they can buy the product.

Slogans - A slogan is a brief, striking phrase that may include labeling and stereotyping. Although slogans may be enlisted to support reasoned ideas, in practice they tend to act only as emotional appeals. Opponents of the US's invasion and occupation of Iraq use the slogan "blood for oil" to suggest that the invasion and its human losses was done to access Iraq's oil riches. On the other hand, "hawks" who argue that the US should continue to fight in Iraq use the slogan "cut and run" to suggest that it would be cowardly or weak to withdraw from Iraq. Similarly, the names of the military campaigns, such as "enduring freedom" or "just cause", may also be regarded to be slogans, devised to influence people.

Though some “claim political debate has somehow gotten more heated just recently,” Palin said, it has always been “heated… When was it less heated? Back in those ‘calm days’ when political figures literally settled their differences with dueling pistols?” she asked.

Oversimplification - Favorable generalities are used to provide simple answers to complex social, political, economic, or military problems.

Half-Truth - A half-truth is a deceptive statement which may come in several forms and includes some element of truth. The statement might be partly true, the statement may be totally true but only part of the whole truth, or it may utilize some deceptive element, such as improper punctuation, or double meaning, especially if the intent is to deceive, evade blame or misrepresent the truth.

Rationalization - Individuals or groups may use favorable generalities to rationalize questionable acts or beliefs. Vague and pleasant phrases are often used to justify such actions or beliefs.

“We will not be stopped from celebrating the greatness of our country and our foundational freedoms by those who mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion and seeking to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults.”

Jingoism – (or Flag-waving) An attempt to justify an action on the grounds that doing so will make one more patriotic, or in some way benefit a group, country, or idea. The feeling of patriotism which this technique attempts to inspire may not necessarily diminish or entirely omit one's capability for rational examination of the matter in question.

Rationalization –already defined.

Half-Truth – already defined.

Common Man – already defined.

Repetition – already defined.

This is a cursory examination of the statement made by Palin. I am quite sure that further, closer evaluation of the statements would provide a wealth of factual evidence that Palin deals in manipulation and propaganda.

Palin appears to be engaging in psychological projection when she twists the facts to accuse others of inciting hatred when they point out that she has engaged behavior and used phrases and language to incite hatred and anger. Projection is defined below:

Psychological projection or projection bias is a psychological defense mechanism where a person unconsciously denies their own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, such as to the weather, or to other people. Thus, it involves imagining or projecting that others have those feelings.

Projection reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted unconscious impulses or desires without letting the conscious mind recognize them.

Don't Cry for Me, Kathleen Parker

2010-09-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

Propagandist Kathleen Parker writes in today’s Washington Post about a new tv commercial being produced by the same old conservative propagandists that brought us the myth that was Ronald Reagan.

"In 1984, Americans were more optimistic about their future. Now, Americans feel uncertain and are deeply concerned about the direction of the country. . . .” she quotes from the new propaganda peice. Kathleen Parker isn’t quite blaming Obama. She’s just sad. Awww.

Here’s what I am sad about: Since Ronald Reagan came to office in 1981, we have had twenty years of Republican “leadership” in the White House and ten years under Democratic administration. In that period of time, this country has seen a steady loss of jobs, a steady decrease in income as compared to inflation and a steady shrinking of the middle class. Those things have wrought the destruction of the American Dream.

You want to talk about blame?

Let’s see…
Whose policies were so pro-business that they encouraged companies to hide their profits in off-shore accounts and relocate their factories elsewhere?

Which party encouraged the breaking up of unions which eventually contributed to joblessness and the lowering of the American wage?

Which President granted amnesty to illegal immigrants, in turn encouraging more to come and take American jobs?

Which party turned its head while American businesses courted more illegal immigrants to come to this country in order to continue to drive down the wage?

And what President, upon leaving office, took a one million dollar paycheck to stand before an audience in a foreign country and trashtalk the American worker?

Was it Keynesian economic policies that the majority Republican Congress enacted between the years of 1994 and 2000, or was it a new, neo-conservative, free market approach that undid all of the regulation and separations in the financial industry in this country that were put into place to protect the citizenry?

And then Parker dutifully repeats the latest Republican meme:

“Nevertheless, it is probably fair to say that Obama's ideas were too big for America's appetite. It would have been nice had he made a few incremental repairs to the economy and left the transformative events for a less stressful time.”
Yes, poor America. Obama cared more about his socialist agenda than he did about the country and its citizens.

More propaganda from the People For The Status Quo.

How fucked up are things in this country? Very. How much more fucked up can they get? VERY, VERY.

And who continues to benefit from the combined misery of the people of this country? Politicians, yes, but mostly the corporate ownership. Profits are rising again and the recession is over for them. While the rest of us wallow, the machine grows.

And Kathleen Parker is in no danger of becoming destitute tomorrow, unless she tells the truth. So, as a wise man said, “…And so it goes.”

If it is true what the pundits say, and Americans are so lacking in intelligence, knowledge, facts, evidence, and simple common sense that they vote Republicans back into office after the way they have slowly destroyed everything this country once was and once stood for, then woe be to the Republicans and the people of this nation. The Republican Party will bring us more of the elitist, rich-get-richer, trickle-down on the working man policies that have gotten us to where we are today and this nation will continue to suffer.

HOWEVER, if this Republican revolution does not occur, Democrats can take no satisfaction in knowing that their current policies are not innovative enough or progressive enough to turn anything around either. All the time in the world will not heal this economy without change in policy. True progressive economic policies, including more stimulus and a bottom-up approach that stops favoring the corporate/banking power structure and starts empowering true small business, especially manufacturing, is needed to turn this mess around. Obama and the Democrats haven’t brought these things to the table yet, and may missed their only chance.

Oh, and in case I didn't make it clear, if you want to know who is responsible for the mess that we are in -- I BLAME THE CONSERVATIVE POLICIES PUT IN PLACE BY WHOEVER ADVOCATED, WORKED TO ENACT AND ENACTED THEM FOR OUR CURRENT PLIGHT. THIS INCLUDES DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS AND SPINELESS PROPAGANDISTS THAT REPEAT THE MEMES AND MYTHS THAT CONTINUE TO LEAD US AWAY FROM SOLUTIONS AND CONTINUE TO BENEFIT THE WEALTHY AND POWERFUL.

Supreme Hypocrisy

2010-06-22T05:12:00.000-07:00

Money is protected speech when it is lobbyist money paid to politicians in order to procure passage of certain laws and regulations that will benefit corporations, but not protected speech when it goes to certain organizations that have been labeled “terroristic” by the government. Really?

Which does more harm, I wonder, in the big picture and the long run, -- the “terrorist” group or the government that works for corporations rather than the people that fund it and are supposed to be represented by it? Which causes more sickness, disease, pain and death—the “terrorist” group or the laws that allow corporations to freely pollute the planet, sell unsafe products, and treat the world’s citizens as slave labor?

Just who are the terrorists here? And what does it take to make the government’s terrorist list? And is there any recourse for groups that are falsely or erroneously labeled terrorists?

Remember Ronald Reagan’s “Freedom Fighters” that terrorized Nicaragua? Remember the Afghan “Freedom Fighters” that eventually took over the government and became known to the world as the Taliban? One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

Corporations can pay governments to create laws that harm thousands or millions but you and I don’t have the right to support the groups or causes that we believe in. Another example of: a) the hypocrisy of the Supreme Court; and b) the inequality of corporate personhood.

Financial Reform Should Start With Foundation

2010-04-26T11:03:00.000-07:00

Paul Krugman addresses the problem with the financial "reform" in this oped:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/opinion/26krugman.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

The problem with this bill is that there is not enough reform of the credit-rating agencies. If Congress were truly serious about reform, this would be where to start. Not only at the corporate level with Standard & Poors and Fitch's, but with the credit reporting agencies that report on individuals to lenders. Both of these systems are set up to serve the interests of big business, rather than to protect the public or the individual citizen. The purpose of both credit rating agencies and credit reporting agencies have veered off course and are in need of heavy regulation to get them right again.

Credit rating agencies started out as a way to help lenders rate the risk of lending to certain companies, funds or capitalize large business deals. They have become a tool to push through bad business deals.

Credit reporting agencies started out as an unbiased way to rate individual's credit worthiness. It has turned into a tool to allow creditors to charge ridiculous rates of interest and to strongarm people who would otherwise not use credit to do so.

Nobody questions the right of credit reporting agencies to gather sensitive financial information on individuals and then provide that information about individuals to possible creditors (now expanding to employers and insurers). Nobody questions the idea that these agencies have the right to use this information to produce a credit score that we all have to pay to see. Have you ever had erroneous information on your credit report and tried to have it removed? It can be a nightmare multiplied by three. Why do the credit reporting agencies get to decide whether I have enough credit accounts opened? Wouldn't it make more sense for each of US to decide whether we need credit cards or no? And why shouldn't the credit reporting agencies be civilly liable for reporting erroneous information on our credit reports that cause us thousands of dollars on a mortgage or car loan?

We have little or no control over the information that is gathered or reported, the accuracy of the information gathered or reported or the credit score that is created by this information. But the credit score controls the amount of interest we will pay on our mortgages and car loans, how much our insurance premiums will cost and sometimes whether we get a job or not. Who pays these companies to report on us? The lenders. Who benefits if we all have low credit scores? The lenders. There is a built-in motivation for the credit-scoring agencies to adjust their algorithms to keep scores low so that lenders can make more money from credit transactions.

How in the world did we all allow ourselves to become enslaved to something over which we have absolutely no control? And isn't it time that something was done to stop this nonsense?

Credit scoring and credit rating are both the foundations upon which credit is built or destroyed, approved or denied. If there is to be reform, don't you think it makes sense to start with the foundation?

Read This With An Open Mind

2010-02-19T10:31:00.000-08:00

How many people really have an open mind nowadays? Even progressives that generally pride themselves on their open-mindedness are not as open-minded as they believe. One case in point is the progressive view of the Tea Party movement. Progressives are all-too-willing to dismiss these folks as crazies and racists. Although the movement was started by Republican activists, there undoubtedly IS a grassroots component to what the movement has evolved into, but many are ready to dismiss these activists as an 'astroturf' group. And while the foundation of their protestations at first may have been anti-tax, anti-big government and a certain paranoid fear of socialism, if you listen to some of the other things they are saying, WITH AN OPEN MIND, you might be surprised at the amount of issues that you will agree with them on.

If you read the following with an open mind, you might also be surprised to find yourself agreeing with much of it. To CLARIFY: I am in no way, shape or form, supporting or condoning the actions that this individual took in protest. But upon reading his "manifesto" I found myself agreeing with some of what he was saying.

I reprint this here partially for your open-minded consideration and partially because the original post was almost immediately deleted from the site at which it was posted and I oppose censorship.

If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?” The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time. The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken. Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it. I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head. Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”. I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.
While very few working people would say they haven’t had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.
Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.
And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!
How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system? Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. The law “requires” a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.
How did I get here?
My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early ‘80s. Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English. Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.
The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.
That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie. It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.
Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of “paying my dues”), I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.
On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I’m sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father. I realized this at a very young age.
The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had was social security to live on.
In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time. When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me). I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be “healthier” eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread. I couldn’t quite go there, but the impression was made. I decided that I didn’t trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.
Return to the early ‘80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ contract software engineer… and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.
For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section 1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report (http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommitteeReport) regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion here (http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml).
SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL.
(a) IN GENERAL - Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:
(d) EXCEPTION. - This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. - The amendment made by this section shall apply to remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.
Note:
Â• “another person” is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.
Â• “taxpayer” is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.
Â• “individual”, “employee”, or “worker” is you.
Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it’s not very complicated. The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d). Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave. Twenty years later, I still can’t believe my eyes.
During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my ‘pocket change’, and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time. I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity. This, only to discover that our efforts were being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their “freedom”. Oh, and don’t forget, for all of the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn’t bill clients.
After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise. The best we could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren’t going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists). This immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.
Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle. If I had any sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.
Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks. Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s. Our leaders decided that they didn’t need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that. The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco. However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government funds to “shore up” their windfall. Again, I lost my retirement.
Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed. Then came the .COM bust and the 911 nightmare. Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long after that, ‘special’ facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months. This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive. Ironically, after what they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with billions of our tax dollars … as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY! After these events, there went my business but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.
By this time, I’m thinking that it might be good for a change. Bye to California, I’ll try Austin for a while. So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done. I’ve never experienced such a hard time finding work. The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn’t give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.
To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA. This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income. I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn’t have any income there was no need. The sleazy government decided that they disagreed. But they didn’t notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out. Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice.
So now we come to the present. After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I’d never enter another accountant’s office again. But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle. After considerable thought I decided that it would be irresponsible NOT to get professional help; a very big mistake.
When we received the forms back I was very optimistic that they were in order. I had taken all of the years information to XXXX XXXX, and he came back with results very similar to what I was expecting. Except that he had neglected to include the contents of Sheryl’s unreported income; $12,700 worth of it. To make matters worse, XXXX knew all along this was missing and I didn’t have a clue until he pointed it out in the middle of the audit. By that time it had become brutally evident that he was representing himself and not me.
This left me stuck in the middle of this disaster trying to defend transactions that have no relationship to anything tax-related (at least the tax-related transactions were poorly documented). Things I never knew anything about and things my wife had no clue would ever matter to anyone. The end result is… well, just look around.
I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual”. Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn’t that a clever, tidy solution.
As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone. The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government. Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough). In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.
I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.
I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.
I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.
The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.
Joe Stack (1956-2010)
02/18/2010

Statement to the Court

2010-02-11T10:55:00.000-08:00

We Must Demand The Medicare Option Be Put Back In Health Care Bill

2010-01-07T06:31:00.000-08:00

THE FOLLOWING IS REPRINTED FROM AN EMAIL I RECEIVED TODAY. I AGREE 100% WITH EVERYTHING THAT IS SAID HERE AND COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF. THUS, THE REPRINT. PLEASE PASS THIS AROUND.

Don't you think it's time we started DEMANDING what we the people
want, instead of meekly and mutely rolling over while corporate
special interests have their way with us? The only thing that would
make the health care so-called reform bill more of a cruel farce
would be for the NRA to slip in a provision permitting loaded assault
weapons in hospitals.

Anything that might have actually made a real difference has been
systematically excluded or stripped out of the bill, killed off by a
lethal combination of weak-minded liberals too timid to fight for
their constituents and stubbornly corrupt industry quislings on the
other side. And those are just the Democrats. In early December they
were talking for a moment about allowing people younger than 65 to
buy into Medicare. That was before they moved with breathtaking speed
to try to kill off any hope of that either.

The Medicare buy-in option must be put back in the bill. This is
non-negotiable. This is our demand and we're sticking to it. When
will we have more votes? If not now, when?

Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1025.php

For almost an entire year Congress has been lulling us with the
promise that in the end there would be a robust public option. And
for just as long we have been telling you that it was all a knowing
willful LIE. With every alert we told you the so-called public option
was never anything more than a languaging trick, to get people to
stop talking about single payer, a way to get progressives to
preemptively compromise, only to be cheated out of even a feeble
public option in the end.

That's exactly what Nancy Pelosi said today. The senior House
leadership is prepared to surrender any public option of any kind in
exchange for a handful of legislative mumbles, some OTHER way to hold
insurance companies accountable. Oh, please, slap us on the wrist
with a wet noodle. Except that the one and ONLY thing that would
actually hold them to account would be real competition from a
righteous, low overhead public program, just like we have in Medicare
right now!!

To all of those who wrote and argued to us, "No, we have to
compromise our principles, we can't stand up for what we believe in,
we have to surrender now and hope to make it better later," that's
what you said. What has your capitulation got you? What are we left
with now but a total corporate takeover over of our public health
care system, every American forced to buy corporate insurance or pay
a federal penalty. NOW do you believe us?

Well, believe us now also when we tell you that the game is not only
not over, it has not yet even BEGUN. This bill is destined to be the
most DESPISED piece of legislation in American political history, and
woe unto the political future of any member of Congress who does not
jump up howling about this bill. But in the first instance, that is
what we must do ourselves. Jump up howling and keep howling.

Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1025.php

Our singular message is this: Put the Medicare buy in back in the
bill. We will be pumping out the alerts on this as fast as we can all
this month. But somehow YOU folks have got to find a way to generate
at least a million messages to Congress, by mobilizing everyone you
know to speak out like never before. And that's just for openers.

RIPPING APART THE RATIONALIZATIONS FOR PASSING THE CURRENT HEALTH ‘CARE’ BILL INTO LAW

2009-12-30T17:55:00.000-08:00

An unsigned editorial in today’s NY Times set about to list the reasons why we should pass health care reform legislation. Below, I refute their points, one-by-one.

THE HEALTH OF MILLIONS OF AMERICANS The fact that 46 million people in this country have no health insurance should be intolerable.

Wrong. The fact that people in this country cannot afford HEALTH CARE should be intolerable. I know it is hard to think outside of the box, but if we don’t, we end up rewarding the very people who have created this problem. Insurance companies, doctors associations, hospital associations, pharmaceutical corporations and medical supply companies, AMONG OTHERS, have colluded to create a system of ever-rising costs for the consumer. Real reform would cut the waste and fraud from this system. No bill that is currently being considered would begin to do that. It’s not about HEALTH INSURANCE, It’s about HEALTH CARE. Please think about that. It’s important if you want real change instead of a giant corporate giveaway at taxpayer’s expense to stop assuming that we need insurance in order to pay for health care. Other countries don’t.

We consider it a moral obligation and sound policy to provide health insurance to as many people as possible. While the pending bills would fall short of complete coverage, by 2019, the Senate bill would cover 31 million people and the House bill 36 million who would otherwise be uninsured under current trends.

Wrong again. If you look at the bill and the way it intends to go about “covering the uninsured,” it is doing so mainly by forcing people who cannot now afford insurance to purchase insurance. Except that they still can’t afford it. So they aren’t going to buy it. This mandatory insurance clause is based on a premise that the uninsured have the money to buy insurance but are just being irresponsible and not buying it. Even if people who work at places that don’t currently provide insurance for their employees are given the benefit by their employers, it will most likely mean that they have to pay for it somehow. Congress just can’t seem to get it through their heads that PEOPLE CAN’T AFFORD IT.

The argument is that the government will provide SUBSIDIES for people. What is being suggested currently is that the government would subsidize the policies of people making 150% of poverty level according to federal guidelines. Let’s look at those guidelines, shall we?

POVERTY GUIDELINES

The 2009 Poverty Guidelines for the 48 Contiguous States and the District of Columbia*

Persons in family / Poverty guideline
1 / $10,830
2 / 14,570
3 / 18,310
4 / 22,050
5 / 25,790
6 / 29,530
7 / 33,270
8 / 37,010
For families with more than 8 persons, add $3,740 for each additional person.
* Guidelines for Alaska and Hawaii average two to three thousand dollars more per category. SOURCE: Federal Register, Vol. 74, No. 14, January 23, 2009, pp. 4199–4201

So, using these numbers, those that would qualify for subsidies would be those who made less than the following amounts in the following categories (again, the numbers are slightly different in Alaska and Hawaii):
150% of Poverty income for 1 = $16,245.
150% of Poverty income for 2 = $21,885.
150% of Poverty income for 3 = $27, 465.
150% of Poverty income for 4 = $33,075.

The government would have to pay 100% of the premiums for these people in order for them to be able to have insurance because a family of three could simply not afford a penny of insurance if it was trying to live off of $27,465 per year. And what about a family of four that makes $24,000 per year? No subsidies for them? How will they afford the premiums? THEY CAN’T and that doesn’t change under the legislation. So, those folks get to pay a fine. Great; they can’t afford to out-of-control, sky-rocketing health insurance premiums, so now they have to pay a fine. Increasing the burdens on an already overburdened working class; that really solves the problem, doesn’t it?

MORE SECURITY FOR ALL Horror stories abound of people — mainly those who buy individual policies — who were charged exorbitant premiums or rejected because of pre-existing conditions or paid out for years and then had their policies rescinded when they got sick.
Such practices would be prohibited completely in three or four years under the reform bills. Before that, insurers would be barred from rescinding policies retroactively and the bills would establish temporary high-risk pools to cover people with pre-existing conditions.
If reform legislation is approved, employees enrolled in group coverage at work would also be more secure. If workers are laid off — an all too common occurrence these days — and need to buy policies on their own, insurers would be barred from denying them coverage or charging exorbitant premiums for health reasons.

But no mention of how much is “exorbitant.” Where in the bill is the language that defines how much the insurance companies CAN charge these people? Could someone find that language for me??? Probably not because the government is mandating that the insurance companies can’t deny anyone coverage, but they aren’t regulating what the greedy buggers can charge. Oh, yes, THAT’S helpful. Without a government-run program, who will ensure that the premiums for these high-risk pools will be affordable? Does anyone remember that one of the problems that we are trying to solve with this so-called reform is that people won’t have to bankrupt themselves in order to afford the care they need? Where is the guarantee in this legislation that people with pre-existing conditions will be able to afford the insurance that the insurance companies are “being forced” to sell them? There is none. What a relief!

And a brief word about portability of coverage. So you get laid off from work and you no longer have insurance coverage. Well, don’t be sad; you can buy your own and the bad old insurance companies can’t charge you “exorbitant” (a term that is never defined) rates. Lucky you! Except, you don’t have the same income you had before but you still have the same bills. How the hell can you afford to buy insurance?? Ooopps. Guess Congress wasn’t thinking about that one. (My husband and I found ourselves in this very situation just three years ago. COBRA would have cost me over $1000 per month. With both of us laid off, it was a challenge just to pay the bills we had in order to not lose everything we had)

CUTTING COSTS Americans are justifiably concerned about the rising cost of health insurance and of the medical care it covers. The reform bills won’t solve these problems quickly, but they would make a good start.
Despite overheated Republican claims that the reforms would drive up premiums, the Congressional Budget Office projected that under the Senate bill the vast majority of Americans (those covered by employer policies) would see little or no change in their average premiums or even a slight decline. Those who buy their own policies would pay somewhat more — but for greatly improved coverage.

Except that I overheard a closed meeting of interested parties behind the scenes of this health care legislation discussing the “fact” that knowledgeable sources are predicting a rise in the rates of health care premiums over the next three years in advance of this legislation going into effect and some are predicting they could double in that time. How is that handled in the legislation? Congress kindly provides the insurance industry with enough time to rape us all real good before the changes go into effect. Now that’s Change you can believe in!

Most people who would be buying their own policies would qualify for tax subsidies to help pay their premiums, which could reduce their costs by thousands of dollars a year. And small businesses would qualify for tax credits to defray the cost of covering their workers.

Wait—tax subsidies??!! Does that mean that people have to come up with $500 per month for insurance premiums for their family (and I am being conservative with that estimate because I am paying $800 for my employer-sponsored plan) and the government will pay them back at tax time?!! HELLO, CONGRESS? POOR PEOPLE DON’T HAVE $500 PER MONTH TO SPEND ON ANYTHING THAT DOESN’T FEED, CLOTHE, OR HOUSE THEM. Do you understand what it means to be poor? Obviously not. Ditto for small employers-the costs of covering employees could force layoffs or complete shut downs in order to keep cash flow in the black.

The inexorably rising cost of hospital and medical care is the underlying factor that drives up premiums, deductibles and co-payments. No one yet has an answer to the problem.

Oh, so you’re saying that this bill does nothing to solve the biggest problem facing us where health care is concerned—rising costs?? You know, you are right. I can’t argue with you, there, New York Times unnamed editor. The bill could have addressed rising costs by setting allowable costs, but the doctors associations and hospital associations that helped to write the bill didn’t see that as advantageous to their bottom line, so those ideas were scuttled. The “inexorable costs” are rising in order for the shareholders to get a larger profit share at the end of each quarter. Are you telling me that there is no way to fix that problem? Other countries have it licked already.

THE TIME HAS COME For decades, presidents from both parties have tried in vain to reform the health care system and cover the uninsured…If this chance is squandered and Republicans gain seats, as expected, in the midterm elections, it could be a decade or more before reformers have another opportunity. Americans shouldn’t have to wait any longer.

This is the weakest argument of all for passing this lousy legislation that does nothing to solve the problems that were stated at the outset as the reason for reform. The legislation was written by special interests. It is written to benefit them, not to solve any problems that the consumer is having. If all are covered, health insurance companies will see increased business. Good for them. If all are covered, Hospitals and Doctors will be assured payment for their services, no matter how exorbitant those charges may be. Good for them. This bill does nothing to lower the price of medicine, so Pharmaceutical companies are happy. And this bill does nothing to regulate costs for any service or product, so everyone involved with profiting from your illness is happy. Good for them. And it has the added benefit of not solving the problem of unaffordable insurance and health care costs for the working poor of this country, not solving the problem of unaffordable insurance premiums for those with pre-existing conditions and not solving the problem of exponentially-increasing health care costs in the future.

Unnamed New York Times Editor is saying that it’s broke, and although we could have fixed it, this bill doesn’t, but we should support it anyway because it's all we're going to get. That makes no sense at all. And then there is the lingering threat of “pass this bill now or you will get nothing anytime soon.” There is no reason to pass a crappy bill that only benefits the special interests and doesn’t solve the problems because of the possibility that Congress won’t be able to go back to the drawing board and come up with something better. It’s their job and it is up to the American people to force them to do it. If unnamed New York Times Editor wants to be defeatist, that doesn’t mean the rest of us should go along with this charade.

The truth is, since this bill was written by the special interests and has been negotiated all along on a daily basis by and among those special interests, there was never any intent by Congress to fix the problems of the consumer. They only meant to hand more power and money to the people who are plaguing us.

And that is one good reason to NOT vote for or support this fraud.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

2009-12-08T10:50:00.000-08:00

Yes, this is proof that true conservatives and all other sane, thinking people can come together. Andrew Sullivan on the Joy Behar show. Enjoy!

Women Can’t be Trusted to Make Their Own Healthcare Decisions

2009-11-11T12:44:00.000-08:00

It’s a fact of life; women are too stupid to make decisions relating to their own healthcare or reproduction. (Well, except wealthy women, of course.) We should always be told what to do by the government or insurance companies. That is why it was so easy for Nancy Pelosi to sign away reproductive rights for women in the House version of the Healthcare Reform Bill. Society, churches, the government and insurance companies have decreed that only wealthy women have the right and the power to decide whether they will carry a pregnancy to term and bring another child into the world.

Come now, you say, that is surely over-exaggerating the situation.

Surely, it is not. What is a more fundamental fact of life than if you don’t have the money, you can’t have it?? Here is the WaPo analysis of the language in the House Bill:

The amendment would prohibit abortion coverage in the government-run plan and any private plan on the new marketplace that accepts people who are using government subsidies to buy coverage.
Under that language, abortion coverage would be unavailable not only to working-class women buying coverage with government subsidies, but probably also to women buying coverage on the new marketplace without federal assistance. The amendment suggests that women could buy separate "riders" covering abortions, but abortion-rights supporters say it is offensive to require a separate purchase for coverage of a medical procedure that for most women is unexpected.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/08/AR2009110818453.html

If women in this country can’t get abortion coverage on government insurance and they can’t get insurance that funds abortions with a government subsidy, that effectively prevents about half the women in this country from being able to afford an abortion. This is gender discrimination pure and simple. If that is not the case, then I DARE the Senate to add an amendment to their bill preventing coverage for any prescription or service that treats male sexual dysfunction or impotency. After all, if God had intended these men to be able to use their organs, they wouldn’t be having these problems. So, it’s a moral and religious outrage that science is providing these services to men.

Reps. Baron P. Hill (Ind.), elected with the class of 2006 that gave Democrats the House majority, and Dan Maffei (N.Y.), who rode to office with President Obama on a Democratic wave last year, were among the last lawmakers to make up their minds on Saturday's historic health-care vote.
Both voted yes, helping to push the count to a razor-thin majority of 220. Neither viewed the much-hyped furor over the creation of a government-run option to compete with the private insurance industry as a major factor in their decisions. For Hill -- and a couple of dozen other Democrats -- the decision came down to a last-minute compromise that paved the way for an amendment ensuring that no federal funding would go to abortions. For Maffei, it was a long series of discussions with staff, experts, his constituents and Obama.
"I've always wanted to get to yes," Hill, who was part of a conservative Democratic blockade to the legislation in July, said after voting to approve the legislation.
"It's pretty closely divided. Either way, it would have been a profile in courage or a profile in being ordinary," Maffei, a former Capitol Hill staffer, said of public opinion in his Syracuse-based district.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/08/AR2009110818056.html?wpisrc=newsletter

Pelosi sold out women everywhere. You can say whatever you want, but it is a FACT. Shame on every single woman in congress, especially Nancy Pelosi. Women are not second-class citizens. Where would this country be without women?

How would this country function if for just ONE DAY, we all stayed home and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for anyone but ourselves?

Then there is this little nugget on a blog over at Air America Radio’s site:

First things first. An expanded Medicare will do for now. And while the Stupak amendment is a sharp slap in the face for what most of us on the left deem an acceptable outcome, there is the fact that we're seeing legislative movement for the first time in years on the issue of health care reform in America.
http://airamerica.com/politics/11-10-2009/did-kos-jump-shark-tancredo/?p=3

The Stupak Amendment is SO much more than a sharp slap in the face to the women of this country. It ties women’s hands. It codifies discrimination in healthcare. It does to women EXACTLY what conservatives have been screaming about all summer; it gives power to the government to prevent women from making their own healthcare choices. It is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE. It is so much more than what this writer from Air America makes it out to be as he blithely hands MY healthcare decisions to the government and insurance company bureaucrats.

If this bill denied certain healthcare choices to homosexuals, African Americans or other minorities, there would be no question that it would be a non-starter. But it seems that the left has decided that while this is not “deemed” an “acceptable outcome,” they will stand for limiting the rights of women if that is what they have to do to get healthcare reform done.

What other minority would the left sell down the river? I can’t think of one.

Limbaugh’s America

2009-09-21T11:11:00.000-07:00

I understand that Rush Limbaugh has been going on lately about “Obama’s America.” Really? Does America belong to its President? Are we owned by our President? Does the President proscribe our actions and control the social environment in our country? Though that is the way conservatives would like it to be (only with a conservative authority figure controlling society), that is not the way it is.

Truth be known, this is much more Limbaugh’s America than it is Obama’s. When Limbaugh started his radio show in 1988 after the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, the political dialogue in this country, though very imperfect, was not nearly as ugly and lacking in civility as it is now. The following is an excerpt from The Conservative Century: From Reaction to Revolution by Gregory L. Schneider:

“One of the most unheralded parts of the Reagan years was the decision made in 1987 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), established by the New Deal in the 1930’s, to abolish The Fairness Doctrine. The Supreme Court had ruled that the doctrine-which stipulated that broadcasters provide “equal time” during coverage of political events or discussion- was not law, but rather a regulation, freeing the FCC to get rid of it... With the equal time provision ended, talk radio helped catapult conservatives to the forefront of control of the nation’s AM airwaves.”

At that time in this country, there was general Conservative complaint about the state of society. One of their biggest complaints was that Liberals were bullying people into “Political Correctness.” Nobody was allowed to speak their mind and it was impossible to thoroughly discuss and explore any issue because only half of the story could be told, they complained.

Rush Limbaugh was on the front line of that argument. His eventual rise in power and popularity has allowed him the freedom to say whatever he wants no matter how racist, intolerant, insensitive, sexist or just downright ignorant. His popularity and resultant power have given him the opportunity to spout the following gems over time:

"Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society."

"We're not sexists, we're chauvinists -- we're male chauvinist pigs, and we're happy to be because…We think that's what women want."

"Sorry to say this, I don't think he's [Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback Donovan McNabb] been that good from the get-go. I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well."

"The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."

"They oughtta change Black History Month to Black Progress Month and start measuring it."

"Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."

And let's not forget the "Barack the Magic Negro" song he plays on his radio show.

As Rush Limbaugh ascended his throne as the voice of the conservative movement and his listenership increased, his followers delighted in their newly found freedom and proudly proclaimed themselves as “dittoheads,” agreeing with everything he said not just regardless of the naked racism, homophobia, sexism, and intolerance being communicated, but because of it. Many uncivil tongues were freed to spout hate and intolerance, to whine and finger-point when things did not go their way, to paint themselves as victims and to vilify and attack anyone that disagreed.

While pretending to be a patriot, Limbaugh reveled in questioning the patriotism of soldiers who served their country (though he never did) and dared to come home and air their concerns about war. He childishly attempted to accuse actor Michael J. Fox of “shamelessly” faking symptoms of Parkinson’s disease that were actually side effects of the medication that he was taking to combat the disease. Fox’s crime? He disagreed with Limbaugh on a topic of which Limbaugh has neither knowledge nor experience-stem-cell research—and had the nerve to speak out in favor of it. In short, Limbaugh has gradually become the bully that he accused the “liberal elite” of being when he started out. And while doing so, he emboldened all of his dittohead followers to speak their minds without filter as well.

Now that there is no true leader in the Republican Party, some have pointed to Limbaugh as the titular head. Though he has officially rejected the title, he is nonetheless reveling in the power of the role. The recent proof of his role was a steady stream of politicians that rushed to apologize to him for saying anything with which he disagreed. The list includes Congressmen Todd Tiahrt and Phil Gingrey and even the figurehead of the Republican Party, Michael Steele.

This phenomenon became so ridiculous that Democrats created a website where you could create your own apology to Rush using a form letter: http://www.dccc.org/content/sorry

There is no denying that Limbaugh has become the standard to which all other talk radio and right-wing talkers measure themselves. According to Wikipedia,

As of 2006, Arbitron ratings indicated that The Rush Limbaugh Show had a minimum weekly audience of 13.5 million listeners, making it the largest radio talk show audience in the United States.
According to a 2001 article in U.S. News & World Report, Limbaugh had an eight-year contract, at the rate of $31.25 million a year. On July 2, 2008, Matt Drudge reported that Limbaugh signed a contract extension through 2016 that is worth over $400 million, breaking records for any broadcast medium — television or radio. In 2007, Limbaugh earned $33 million.

So Rush is King and has inspired such imitators as Glen Beck, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. They spout the distributed talking points from the conservative propaganda machine and disrupt political discourse on important issues like healthcare, as we have all witnessed this summer. And they reap millions of dollars in reward.

Limbaugh boldly and unabashedly encouraged his followers to interfere in Democratic Caucuses in the 2008 Presidential election in order to disrupt the political process, because the Republican Party employing conservative policies had made such a complete mess out of the country that the only way Republicans had a chance to win was to interfere with Democratic political process. And Limbaugh faces no consequences while he laughs up his sleeve all the way to the bank. From Wikipedia:

In an attempt to undermine the Democratic campaigns, Limbaugh encouraged his listeners to vote for whoever was behind in the vote, an effort dubbed "Operation Chaos". In Ohio, Limbaugh encouraged his listeners to register as Democrats and vote for Hillary Clinton. In Ohio, voters changing their registration must attest that they support the principles of the party to which they switch. About 16,000 Ohio Republicans switched parties for the election. The Ohio Attorney General's office stated that it would be hard to prove any voter's fraudulent intent. Limbaugh said that there is nothing wrong with Republicans voting in Democratic primaries, as Democrats were able to vote for John McCain in Vermont, New Hampshire, Florida, and other states. Limbaugh has said that "The dream end of [Operation Chaos] is that this keeps up to the Convention, and that we have a recreation of Chicago 1968 with burning cars, protests, fire, and literal riots and all of that, that is the objective here."

Fraud, lies, deceit, disruption, intolerance, and an anything-goes-fratboy mentality rules the Limbaugh mob. He is unapologetic about it. He wants to sew chaos and despair, then turn around and blame anyone that is not part of the conservative elite for the consequences. He has stated that he has no interest in seeing government succeed in anything and has shown over and over again that he is willing to label anyone that disagrees with his views as “Socialist,” “Fascist,” or “Marxist” regardless of any evidence to the contrary and regardless of whatever consequences this labeling might bring.

The state of civility in America has decayed considerably since the rise of Limbaugh and his hateful brand of talk radio. It was the conservative movement’s complaint in the 1980’s that there was no respect in public discourse and in society, no tolerance for their religious views, a growing decay and disrespect for authority and decency. The rise of Limbaugh and his ilk has seen discourse, tolerance, respect and common courtesy degrade to nothingness. And Limbaugh’s latest race-baiting tactic is to twist a story of simple bullying into a racist attack against a white child:

It's Obama's America, is it not? Obama's America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. You put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety but in Obama's America the white kids now get beat up ..."

NO, this is Limbaugh’s America where it doesn’t matter how many white kids are the target of white bullies, but if a black kid is the bully, it’s reverse racism.

In his book, The Culture of Complaint, author Robert Hughes posits that "The fraying of America" has come about as a result of excessive polarization and politicization.” He also states “…during the Reagan years conservatives managed to conflate all government intervention in economics with creeping Marxism. Over the past fifteen years, conservatives have succeeded, virtually unopposed, in depicting as left wing, agendas that, in a saner polity, would be regarded as ideologically neutral.”

The conservative machine, lead by it’s propaganda minister Rush Limbaugh, has implemented its strategy of smear tactics, fear tactics and disruptions over and over again, destroying civil discourse and ratcheting up hysteria to a dangerous new level, making it absolutely impossible for American society to function together.

Divide and conquer, slash and burn, lie and smear. This is Limbaugh’s America.

This is Limbaugh’s America where it is perfectly fine for him or one of his minions to bully anyone that disagrees with lockstep conservative ideology, because somehow THEY are the ones that are the victims of oppression.

This is Limbaugh’s America where there is no discussion of the FACT that conservative policy destroyed our economy by allowing runaway capitalism tantamount to gambling, but it is somehow Obama’s “Socialist” policies that have destroyed our economy.

This is Limbaugh’s America where a confused woman stands up at a political rally and is vaguely sure that somehow Obama is somehow not one of us, an Arab or something, she just isn’t sure, but not one of us.

This is Limbaugh’s America where a physically disabled woman is shouted down at a Town Hall Meeting while she practically begs for some relief from the greedy corporate healthcare system that is beggaring her just because she had the misfortune to become ill.

This is Limbaugh’s America where you can’t even have civil public discourse about a vital issue like healthcare reform without name-calling and threats of violence. He has his dittoheads so convinced that they are the oppressed minority about to be interred in a camp or killed by some mythical “Socialist” government that they are packing guns to attend Town Hall Meetings with the President and are busily organizing for some coming revolution.

This is Limbaugh’s America, where a large percentage of the populace is somehow convinced that the media in this country is run by Liberals who are out to destroy our economy and turn the country into a giant Marxist commune. It matters not that conservatives have publicly outed this notion as a lie:
William Kristol (influential Conservative and editor of Weekly Standard) in 1995

“I admit it…The liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures.”
Brent Bozell (head of the right-wing “Media Research Center”)
"…In his lecture to the Heritage Foundation in 1992, Bozell admitted…The “monopoly” liberals held in the media had been “broken” by the “conservative network.”…“We have learned that many in the media are quite open to the conservative perspective if it is presented properly. We provide journalists with the conservative argument on a given issue, lead them to the organization expert in it, and recommend qualified spokesmen…It is amazing how very receptive some journalists are to this assistance…” http://media.eriposte.com/1.htm

This is Limbaugh’s America much more so than it is Obama’s. Rush knows this but it does not serve his interests to admit it. It serves his financial, political, egotistical and personal interests to continue to sew fear, distrust, and hate by smearing and lying and spreading conservative propaganda and whipping people into a hysterical frenzy. Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly and other Fox News disinformationists would not have a podium had he not paved the way. THIS is Limbaugh’s America and he does NOT get to stand aside and pretend that the toxic seed that he helped to sow and its resultant poisoned harvest belongs to anyone else.

Lest you accuse me of being overly biased about the hate speech of Rush Limbaugh and the affect that this hate speech is having on our society, please take a moment to visit the extremely reasonable blog of a self-proclaimed conservative on the very same subject:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/09/rush-limbaugh-hits-racial-bott.html

Finally, one of the reasons that people can be convinced that Limbaugh has any credibility at all is because of the utility of call screeners on talk radio. The call screeners on talk radio now exist to weed out any caller that might have a reasonable argument against any idea that the Host of the show is propagating. Here is an instance where the call screeners on Limbaugh’s show obviously dropped the ball. And, you will notice, that when they realized they had dropped the ball, they then dropped the call, enabling Limbaugh to label and name-call, which is the only recourse of someone without a real defense. Watch:

Rush gets Served

My Man Keith Lays It Down

2009-09-17T06:57:00.000-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Short Film About Cigna; Watch and Learn

2009-09-14T12:34:00.000-07:00

OBAMA’S SCHOOL ADDRESS

2009-09-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

I found this blog from a link on the E&P Pub containing a press release from the Head Moron of the Republican Party in Florida wherein he decries the use of tax dollars by President Obama to indoctrinate the nation’s children to Socialism.

You might be asking yourself, “WHAT THE F---?!”

This latest hysterical fit is the right’s reaction to a planned televised national address to students by President Obama on September 8. From the US Department of Education’s website:

President Obama announced that on September 8 — the first day of school for many children across America — he will deliver a national address directly to students on the importance of education. The President will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning. He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens.

Obama-The New Red Menace (even though he looks more like Arnold Schwartzenegger from Predator)

That is some radical stuff. I can certainly see why Republicans would have a problem with the message. The idea that ANYONE, let alone our children, would take responsibility for their own learning, rather than being spoon-fed what authoritarian demagogues want them to know, is very radical. And we can all see where that “shared responsibility and commitment” stuff is going—we are all going to end up paying for someone else’s kids to be educated! Horrors!! There is no collective good in having educated children; it’s just another liberal boondoggle.

I am of course, being facetious, but Jim Greer, on the other hand, takes the hysteria to a level that I couldn’t even imagine. Check it out:

For Immediate Release Contact: Katie Gordon
September 1, 2009 (850) 339-7087
Greer Condemns Obama’s Attempt to Indoctrinate Students
Tallahassee – Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer today released the following statement condemning President Obama’s use of taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s children to his socialist agenda.

“As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology. The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the President justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other President, is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power.

“While I support educating our children to respect both the office of the American President and the value of community service, I do not support using our children as tools to spread liberal propaganda. The address scheduled for September 8, 2009, does not allow for healthy debate on the President’s agenda, but rather obligates the youngest children in our public school system to agree with our President’s initiatives or be ostracized by their teachers and classmates.

“Public schools can’t teach children to speak out in support of the sanctity of human life or traditional marriage. President Obama and the Democrats wouldn’t dream of allowing prayer in school. Christmas Parties are now Holiday Parties. But, the Democrats have no problem going against the majority of American people and usurping the rights of parents by sending Pied Piper Obama into the American classroom.

The Democrats have clearly lost the battle to maintain control of the message this summer, so now that school is back in session, President Obama has turned to American’s children to spread his liberal lies, indoctrinating American’s youngest children before they have a chance to decide for themselves.”

Irony, thy name is Jim Greer.

O Where to Begin!

Obama’s Socialist Agenda: What socialist agenda? It was during the Bush regime that banks were bailed out by the American middle class after they had been allowed to thoroughly rape the American middle class for at least six years. If Obama were truly a socialist, he would have insisted that the government take control of those banks, fired the inept and corrupt leadership that gambled away the middle class retirement funds they were given charge over and put an end to this capitalist chicanery once and for all. But that’s NOT EVEN CLOSE to what he actually did. And lest you hypocrites and deniers forget, it was because of YOUR PARTY’S INEPT LEADERSHIP that Obama was forced to come to the aid of the automobile manufacturers, this country’s last large manufacturing employers, in order to save hundreds of thousands of jobs. There was NO BAILOUT, there was a LOAN, that is being PAID BACK. I know that it is tough for you to understand these technical financial terms, Mr. Greer. It is obvious that nobody in your party has CLUE ONE about banking and finance.

Using our children as tools to spread liberal propaganda: Even if he WAS preaching liberal propaganda to children, which he is not, why is it that your side has no problem using their children to spread conservative theocratic propaganda? When I see people marching against the freedom of choice, I notice they always bring their children and have them hold the most heinous gory signs. When I witness “Teabagger Rallys” I always see children holding signs with religious and anti-government propaganda slogans. Know what I don’t see? Children being subjected to adult debate on the LEFT side of the argument. Liberals aren’t the ones that believe in indoctrination of children; that would be your side, Mr. Greer.

Obligates the youngest children in our public school system to agree with our President’s initiatives or be ostracized by their teachers and classmates: How funny that you would bring this up since it is the EXACT SAME argument that is used by Liberals to argue against prayer in school. Yet you are still advocating the forcing of your religious beliefs on my child, who must agree and go along with your religious indoctrination or be ostracized by his teacher and classmates. I guess it’s okay when it’s in the name of God. HOWEVER, there is a serious flaw in your argument in that Obama is not asking children to recite a mantra or slogan everyday before class begins in order to brainwash them into submission, he is simply addressing them and asking them to listen. Listening: A difficult concept for a conservative, I realize, but not a radical one.

Pied Piper Obama: I bet you didn’t mean to sound so desperately hysterical when you included this little gem in your “statement.” But that is exactly what you have done by utilizing this phrase. What are you so afraid of? Are you afraid your children might hear what Obama says about education, personal responsibility and community service and THINK FOR THEMSELVES about how they fit in to the bigger picture? Or do you seriously believe that Obama is going to hypnotize them into seeing things his way VIA MONITOR???

President Obama has turned to American’s children to spread his liberal lies, indoctrinating American’s youngest children before they have a chance to decide for themselves. Isn’t that why your conservative brethren home school their children, in order to indoctrinate them into your belief system before they are exposed to dangerous ideas like thinking for themselves? How telling, Mr. Greer that you would include this final salvo. It illuminates for all to see not only the fact that you and your ilk are ruled by fear and endlessly frustrated that you can’t rule the rest of us with fear, but the methods that your side uses to brain wash its youth in order to continue to breed more fearful, ignorant, intolerant, unhappy conservative generations.

So President Obama plans to address the nation’s school children via internet and urge them to take seriously their own responsibility to get an education and the possible rewards of getting an education and THIS IS SOCIALISM?

Obama plans to challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning. Hard work, goal-setting and personal responsibility—the prime tenets of Socialism.

Obama plans to address the shared responsibility and commitment of students, parents and educators to make sure that every child receives the best education possible. Team work - another Socialist philosophy.

Obama wants our children to be able to compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives. Global competition, Good jobs, Rewarding and Productive lives—Common Socialist buzz words.

Will one of you right-wing nut jobs out there please leave your definition of Socialism in the comment section below so that the rest of us can try to understand why you think that everything Obama does is Socialist? (Because knowledge and understanding are two of the many evil tenets of the Liberal philosophy)

UPDATE! Is Jenkins a Slow Reader or a No-Reader?

2009-08-31T14:05:00.000-07:00

Click on the title of this blog to read an article from the Topeka Capital Journal in which it is revealed that shortly before Jenkins used the term "Great White Hope" to describe the search for leadership in the Republican Party, she actually voted on a resolution to honor Jack Johnson that contained the words "Great White Hope."

On July 29th, Ms. Jenkins voted in favor of a resolution granting a posthumous pardon to Jack Johnson, who was imprisoned for transporting a white woman across state lines because he had the unmitigated gall to marry a white woman in those days and times. This was described in the resolution as a "racially motivated abuse of the prosecutorial authority of the Federal Government." The full language of the resolution is printed in the article.

Unfortunately, as explained by Jenkins' spokeswoman, she didn't have time to read the bill before she voted in favor of it. Mary Geiger, Jenkins' very busy press secretary, explained that the resolution passed on a unanimous consent vote rather than a roll call vote.

"The resolution came to the House floor at 5:40 p.m. and was on the floor about three minutes before a vote was taken.

Geiger said it would have been "nearly impossible" for anyone to read the resolution before it was approved."

Quick; read the resolution in the attached article. Time yourself. How long did that take?

Is Jenkins a slow reader or a no-reader?

You Make the Call.

Lynn Jenkins: Racist, Ignorant or Both--You Make the Call

2009-08-28T12:16:00.000-07:00

I don’t know much about boxing. I am not a fan of the “sport.” In fact, I don’t even consider it a sport.

But I know my country’s history of racism and I know my country’s culture. I know enough to know that when Jack Johnson, the first African American boxing champion won the Heavyweight Title almost one hundred years ago, whites in this country lamented that a white man might never own the title again and looked to “a great white hope” to regain the title.

For the record, it was several years later that a white fighter finally managed a win over Johnson in a fight surrounded by controversy. And it was over twenty years later that Joe Louis regained the Heavyweight Title for the African American community when he beat “The Cinderella Man” of recent movie fame.

Apparently, I know more than first term Kansas Republican Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins. This does not surprise me. If she believes half of the things that came out of her mouth during her recent campaign, she is either delusional or seriously ignorant.

At a recent town hall meeting with constituents, Jenkins made the following statement:

"Republicans are struggling right now to find the Great White Hope. I suggest to any of you who are concerned about that, who are Republican, there are some great young Republican minds in Washington." Jenkins reportedly went on to list the names of several young, white Republicans.

Of course, since the media got wind of her statement, she has her staff doing some very quick tap-dancing to try to defend herself against allegations of racism. From the Topeka Capital-Journal:

In response to inquiries by The Topeka Capital-Journal, a Jenkins spokeswoman said Wednesday the congresswoman wanted to apologize for her word choice and to emphasize she had no intention of expressing herself in an offensive manner.

Mary Geiger, a spokeswoman for Jenkins, said the reference to a great white hope wasn't meant to denote a preference by Jenkins for politicians of a particular "race, creed or any background." Jenkins was expressing faith fellow GOP representatives in the House would be key players in returning Republicans to a leadership role in Washington, Geiger said.

"There may be some misunderstanding there when she talked about the great white hope," Geiger said. "What she meant by it is they have a bright future. They're bright lights within the party."

Jenkins wasn't available to comment personally on her presentation in Hiawatha, Geiger said.

Figures. What is the criteria for being a “bright light” within the Republican Party? Who can tell? From where I sit, it appears that the criteria is to be able to deliver party LIES in the most effective manner. If that is the case, woe be to Jenkins because she doesn’t even do that well.

I recently had opportunity to view Lynn Jenkins’ White paper on healthcare reform, in which she supports all the lies and propaganda currently being floated by the insurance/healthcare-industry-owned opposition to reform. I won’t bore you with all the details (if interested, read it here: http://republicanwhip.house.gov/blog/HCDocs/KS02.pdf) but she repeats the lies that you hear being parroted at any Teabagger’s picnic. Specifically, she states that, “If you like what you have, you can’t keep it, health savings accounts will be eliminated, 2 of 3 workers will lose their current coverage, and that a proposal will prevent private insurance companies from selling new policies. Her references for these supposed “facts”?? Kaiser State Health Facts, America’s Health Insurance Plans, and the Lewin Group. Obviously the first two “authorities” have an ulterior motive. But who is this Lewin Group, which Republican politicians continually cite? They describe themselves as a non-partisan consulting group. From their website:

The Lewin Group employs more than 140 consultants drawn from industry, government, academia, and the health professions. Many are national authorities whose strategies for health and human services system improvements come from their personal experience with imperatives for change.

However, a Washington Post article is very enlightening about who they really are:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/22/AR2009072202216.html?hpid=topnews

July 22 Washington Post

Generally left unsaid amid all the citations is that the Lewin Group is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation's largest insurers.

More specifically, the Lewin Group is part of Ingenix, a UnitedHealth subsidiary that was accused by the New York attorney general and the American Medical Association…of helping insurers shift medical expenses to consumers by distributing skewed data. Ingenix supplied its parent company and other insurers with data that allegedly understated the "usual and customary" doctor fees that insurers use to determine how much they will reimburse consumers for out-of-network care. In January, UnitedHealth agreed to a $50 million settlement with the New York attorney general and a $350 million settlement with the AMA, covering conduct going back as far as 1994.

In that article, a representative of the Group explains that there is an APPEARANCE of conflict of interest since the Group was bought out by UnitedHealthcare, but that they retain all editorial control over their reports. If that was meant to comfort me about the unbiased nature of their numbers, the following paragraph disabused me of any notion of lack of bias:

But not all of the firm's reports see the light of day. For example, a study for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association was never released, Sheils said.

"Let's just say, sometimes studies come out that don't show exactly what the client wants to see. And in those instances, they have [the] option to bury the study -- to not release it, rather," Sheils said.

And, sadly, as they so often do, not only are the Republicans citing biased corporate-produced data, they are also cherry-picking what they want from the report that they are currently quoting.

Politicians have argued that the public plan would place bureaucrats between patients and doctors. However, Lewin wrote that, like traditional Medicare, the federal program for the elderly, a public plan would do less than private insurers to restrict medical care.

"People would indeed lose what they have, but they might very well be better off," he said.

The Tax Foundation, which Jenkins also cites in her white paper, could more aptly be called the ANTI-Tax Foundation. The Board members are all engaged in careers that either help others avoid paying taxes, are associated with tax preparation. The commentary page listed articles such as, Higher Cigarette Taxes: Unhealthy and Unfair, and The Tyranny of Taxing Sin. I’d say it’s a good bet that this foundation is not going to be coming out in support of anything that might raise anyone’s taxes anytime soon.

SO

Is Lynn Jenkins lazy?

Is she a liar or just a syncophant?

OR is she actually THAT stupid?

Whatever the case, I sure as hell would not judge her a qualified representative of ME to our Federal Government. Hear that Second District? The Representative you elected is either knowingly lying to you, parroting the Republican Party line, protecting the insurance industry at your expense and probably raking in lots of insurance company lobbying money OR she is lazy and/or lacking the intelligence to properly gather and analyze the FACTS and come to a logical conclusion.

LYNN JENKINS: REPUBLICAN ASSHAT OF THE WEEK

Kansans and Americans: We cannot allow the willfully misinformed and purposefully propagandizing opposition movement to hijack and derail progress for meaningful health care reform in this country. Stand up and Fight Back!

HEALTHCARE POSTER

2009-08-21T11:47:00.000-07:00

This is my healthcare protest flyer/sign. I am fed up with the Democrats on this issue.

Are they weak? No testicular fortitude?

Are they in bed with the insurance industry?

Are they stupid or lacking in vision?

DON'T KNOW---NO LONGER CARE.

I will not settle for anything less than the Public Option. It isn't even the answer, but it is a better band-aid. We need to fight against anyone, from any party, that doesn't have the best interest of the people at heart and isn't willing to stand up and do the right thing, regardless of the political consequences.

I STAND AGAINST THE REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS AND ANYONE ELSE THAT WILL NOT WORK FOR HEALTH CARE FOR ALL.

IT JUST AIN’T SO, JOE: Debunking the Biggest Healthcare Lie Repeated by the Willfully Ignorant Right

2009-08-14T15:43:00.000-07:00

This nation needs healthcare reform badly. In order to reform the current system, we should be having an intelligent debate over new ideas. Unfortunately, this nation isn’t really having a healthcare debate. What we’re having is more of a healthcare war of words, with slurs and slogans tossed about mostly by people who aren’t even aware that there isn’t ONE finished bill on the table and who haven’t bothered to read what HAS been written.

The one slogan that I have heard the syncophant army repeat more than any other was repeated again yesterday morning as a matter of fact by a television talking head. I generally don’t watch this show because I don’t have the time or patience to listen to uninformed, knee-jerk mannequins lacking in the ability to reason and analyze information properly. The offending slogan:

Joe Scarborough: That’s Socialism and It Will Never Work.

This must be the hundredth time I have heard this slogan uttered in response to discussion about the healthcare issue and it continues to go unchallenged. Chuck Todd stammered through a reply to this statement that was so lame that nothing he said even made sense and Scarborough interrupted him with more ignorant untruths.

Well, since Chuck Todd didn’t have an answer for you, Joe, allow me:

No, that’s NOT Socialism and it’s ALREADY working. No matter how many times you repeat your little mantra/lie/propaganda, repeating it will never make it fact. Your brainless fans can eat it up with a large wooden spoon, and it will still not be fact. Here are the facts:

Number one, the bills that are being offered for consideration are not even CLOSE to socialized medicine. They include forcing everyone to buy private insurance or buy into a government insurance plan. Socialized medicine does not involve insurance; it is health care with all the profit motive removed, paid for with government funds. There is no need for insurance in a system of socialized medicine because the costs are controlled by removing the profit, removing unnecessary middlemen and regulating costs. Socialized medicine would be far superior to what has been offered in the existing bills. But then you and the hysterical fringe would have apoplexy if anyone actually tried to implement REAL CHANGE.

Number two, socialized medicine has in the past and currently continues to work very well in those countries which have implemented it. I don’t see anyone in those countries marching in the street to change it. As a matter of fact the UK’s socialized health care system received a ringing endorsement from Steven Hawking just the other day. What do you think, Joe, is he stupid or misinformed about the healthcare system in his country? I wonder how well he would have faired in our healthcare system with the health problems that he has had to bear?

Number three, we currently have government-run healthcare programs that are already working in THIS country. Ever hear of Medicaid or Medicare? You may have your complaints about the programs, but they are working well enough that the elderly in this country would NEVER DREAM of allowing the government to cut their government-run healthcare program. And I have had children on the State healthcare program here in Kansas in the past, and I can attest to the fact that it covered everything needed with less hassle than the private insurance that is currently provided by my employer and costs me $800 in premiums per month for my family.

And here’s a question for you, Joe; why do you want poor people to go without healthcare? Why do you want the working poor to suffer and die young? Why do you want the insurance companies, hospital corporations, healthcare supply corporations, pharmaceutical corporations and various and sundry middleman corporations to keep raking in huge profits while poor people are dying due to lack of insurance and lack of care? Perhaps it is because you suffer from a different kind of lack of care?

We aren’t even dealing with socialized medicine here. All that is being proposed, all that Obama ever suggested in his healthcare plan, is an expansion of current plans so that the uninsured in this country would be covered. Yet wealthy people like Joe Scarborough would begrudge the working poor even that simple helping hand. Why are conservatives so damn stingy? Does Joe Scarborough seriously expect me to believe that he never once benefited from a government program? Every person in this country has benefited from SOME government program at SOME point in their lives.

I have the solution to the impasse. Why don’t those of you that insist that the government can’t properly implement a government-run system just stick with the crappy health care system we have while the rest of us will design a better system for ourselves? And all the senior citizens out there protesting the public option; drop your Medicare today. Call the government and let them know that you are not interested in receiving “Socialized Medicine” anymore and see how you fair in your God-Blessed capitalist “free market” private insurance market. But I’m not siding with the heartless, corporate, pocket-picking insurance companies. So, don’t’ tell me that I can’t have a government option.

And I have one simple question for the lunatic fringe that is capitalizing the airways and trying to intimidate the rest of us into submission: If you think the capitalist free-market system is so perfect, and you truly believe that a government-run system would be so poorly run, why are you afraid to let a government-run insurance plan compete with the private insurance carriers? You are all Hypocrites and Liars.

What’s With All the Douchebags?

2009-08-03T12:39:00.000-07:00

I’m a little confused. What is it with the word “Douchebag”? I have been hearing it all over lately, even on the radio. I thought it was maybe some random midwestern thing, and then I received a link to the following clip from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

So You Think You Can Douche

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Joke of the Day

Just in case you may not know what a douchebag ACTUALLY is—the REAL definition—here is Merriam Webster’s take:

Merriam-Webster Online
Etymology: French, from Italian doccia, from docciare to douche, from doccia water pipe, probably back-formation from doccione conduit, from Latin duction-, ductio means of conveying water, from ducere to lead
Date: 1766
1 a : a jet or current of liquid (as a cleansing solution) directed against or into a bodily part or cavity (as the vagina) b : an act of cleansing with a douche
2 : a device for giving douches
3 British : an abrupt often chastening shock to the nerves, emotions, or awareness --the icy douche (what he said about my work) — John Fowles

Knowing what we all now know, what in the world does it mean when someone calls someone else a douchebag? Since this term is being used in the pejorative, I wonder what is so bad about a bag full of cleansing fluids? Or, to be precise, is the bag empty or full? Is it worse to be an empty douchebag or a full one? Does this matter when using the slang version?

Since knowing the true definition of the word doesn’t help me understand the slang definition any better, I turned to Wikipedia, and this is what I found:

Wikipedia
A douche is a device used to introduce a stream of water into the body for medical or hygienic reasons, or the stream of water itself.

Douche usually refers to vaginal irrigation, the rinsing of the vagina, but it can also refer to the rinsing of any body cavity. A douche bag is a piece of equipment for douching—a bag for holding the fluid used in douching.

Etymology: The word "douche" comes from the French language, in which its principal meaning is a shower (it is thus a notorious “false friend” encountered by non-native speakers of English; the French phrase for vaginal douching is douche vaginale, meaning vaginal shower).

Slang: Douchebag, or simply douche, is considered to be a pejorative term in North America, the United Kingdom and some other English speaking countries. In some English speaking countries the term is not well known. The slang usage of the term dates back to the 1960s. The term implies a variety of negative qualities, specifically arrogance and engaging in obnoxious and/or irritating actions without malicious intent. It is generally used for males only.

Okay, but then how in the world did arrogance or obnoxiousness become associated with either the action of douching or any equipment that might be necessary to perform the activity? I genuinely find that to be very confusing. Thinking that perhaps Wikipedia was ill informed in their definition, I turned to the ultimate slang resource: The Urban Dictionary.

Urban Dictionary
Douche:
1. a word to describe an individual who has shown himself to be very brainless in one way or another, thus comparing him to the cleansing product for vaginas.

3. Actual - (Adj) A person who is a waste of oxygen; an idiot. Also used to describe a male / female (N) that won't let you run your game. To act in a ridiculous manner; embarrassing (V).

So now I need to know, am I douche if I don’t know what it means to “run your game”? I might interfere with your game without even knowing about it because I have no idea what this means. Is it only a purposeful interference with your game that defines a douche or am I a douche even if I am completely innocent with regard to intent? And why would it be embarrassing to ME to prevent you from running your game? This definition leaves me more confused than ever before. And having attempted to digest those definitions, I find that there is a DIFFERENCE between a douche and a douchebag.

douchebag
1. Someone who has surpassed the levels of jerk and asshole, however not yet reached fucker or motherfucker. Not to be confused with douche.

6. An individual who has an over-inflated sense of self worth, compounded by a low level of intelligence, behaving ridiculously in front of colleagues with no sense of how moronic he appears.

And just when I thought that there was a consensus on the whole stupidity/lack of intelligence angle, I came across the following definition (on the same website):

5. What used to be accurate on this site was replaced by a bunch of people who defined it because they really had no clue what it meant. A douchebag is a pretentious, sugar coated prick, but with emphasis on pretentious and sugar coated. It's not an adjective for an asshole, because assholes call other people douchebags, and assholes are more often than not proud of being assholes.

If you know me at all, you will know that I cannot stand to have misspellings or incorrect grammar published to my blog, so I have fixed many incorrect spellings and poor grammar in nearly ALL of the above definitions. This leads me to believe that maybe the folks that are posting entries to this website are not the smartest people in the world. Does that mean that any douchebag can post their definition to The Urban Dictionary? And, if so, does this make the entries douchy? Apparently not, according, again, to the Urban Dictionary:

douchy
1. when someone is being difficult or just plan stank. "Douche bag-ish" if you will.

Whatever. In the end, it comes down to this; I am just not a fan of the word. It doesn’t have the proper connotation in my mind, with one possible exception-

UNACCEPTABLE

2009-07-21T12:32:00.000-07:00

While the people of this country clamor for the Change that We Need (and were promised in the last election), Congress is busy making deals with the very people whose greed and contempt for the American citizenry caused the problems in our current health care system. The healthcare, pharmaceutical and insurance industries are paying up big time to bend ears and rules their way.

This is completely unacceptable and we all have to do something about it. Who cares if they pass any healthcare bill at all? Whatever they pass will not be the right answer to our problems, it will be the right compromise to continue the current unacceptable system.

The people of this country are aware that the system is broken.

We are aware that changes must be made.

We are being bombarded with propaganda from the healthcare and insurance industries about what change will work and what change won’t. And yet, consistently, polls show that the American public supports a government-run system of healthcare over the current proposals in Congress, which focus more on changing insurance regulations.

We know we are about to get screwed when we read articles like the one published in today’s Washington Post, “Industry Cash Flowed To Drafters of Reform.” (The title of this post is a link to the article-just click)

The voice of the people has been excluded from the debate and the new law is being written by private interests with only a profit motive. Unacceptable.

“Health-related companies and their employees gave Baucus's political committees nearly $1.5 million in 2007 and 2008, when he began holding hearings and making preparations for this year's reform debate." Unacceptable.

“During a Senate break in late June, for example, Baucus held his 10th annual fly-fishing and golfing weekend in Big Sky, Mont., for a minimum donation of $2,500. Later this month comes "Camp Baucus," a "trip for the whole family" that adds horseback riding and hiking to the list of activities." Unacceptable.

“…Friends of Max Baucus, and his political-action committee, Glacier PAC…collected $3 million from the health and insurance sectors from 2003 to 2008, about 20 percent of the total, data show. Less than 10 percent of the money came from Montana." Unacceptable.

“Many former Baucus staff members, including two chiefs of staff, lobby on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry and other health-care players and have been closely involved in negotiations on the legislation.” Unacceptable.

“Baucus and his aides strongly dispute any assertion that campaign contributions have an impact on the senator's policy views and proposals…During an interview earlier this year with the Missoulian newspaper, Baucus said that "no one gets special treatment." He added: "Your word is your bond back there." Unacceptable.

Just know this: The American People are not stupid. Members of Congress can SAY whatever they want and conveniently choose to BELIEVE anything they want, but the American people aren’t buying a word of it—not from ANY of these clowns.

And, President Obama, you said that it was the hard work, determination and small donations of people like me that helped you to get elected. If that is true, then here is some advice from someone who worked on your campaign: DANCE WITH THE ONE THAT BROUGHT YOU. You better figure out a way to pull this healthcare bill out of the crapper. Anything less than real change is Unacceptable. (Can you say “one-termer?”)

.

And a little sidenote to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee: Guess what? Blocked your emails. Until you can control your members and start choosing the best interests of the nation over party, you can kiss my small donations good-bye. Oh, I know; you can make up my measley funds with money from your corporate friends, but you risk losing it all again in the next election, don’t you?? YOUR ACTIONS ARE UNACCEPTABLE.

This graft and corruption is not happening behind closed doors, in back rooms or alleys, it is happening RIGHT in front of our eyes and for the television cameras. The news media is reporting it and anyone that is paying attention should be aware that Congress and Senate are FOR SALE. If the current sham of a health care plan gets passed, the people of this country will share some of the blame.

Moyers and Winship Lay it On the Line

2009-07-13T09:36:00.000-07:00

Bill Moyers and Micheal Winship have “Some Choice Words for the ‘Select Few.’” And they lay it out brilliantly. Has anyone read this article? It’s a must-read for anyone that is having trouble grasping the reason for everything that is wrong in this country.*

Blame the illegals, blame the poor, blame the unemployed, blame the liberals, blame the conservatives, blame the religious zealots, blame the godless, blame the blacks, blame the Asians, blame the Hispanics, blame the welfare recipients, blame the younger generations, blame the environmentalists, blame the scientists, blame the feminists, blame Hollywood…have I missed anyone?
All of the above is a con man’s trick to get you to look the wrong way while the real culprits rip you off and make their getaway. BLAME THE SYSTEM.

And so, what is the answer? As with any other very large problem, there are many answers, many actions for us to take on many fronts to constructively confront the problem. But I did find one answer among the comments following this article:

Sun, 07/12/2009 - 18:05 — Damon Neal (not verified)
This problem will not go away until Congress enacts a law that repeals the 1868 Supreme Court ruling that granted "personhood" to corporations. Failing that, a group; perhaps the ACLU or MoveOn.org; could search for a case to reintroduce the issue to the Federal Court system. In 1864, former corporate lawyer Abraham Lincoln wrote, "Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." Remember this was 4 years before the actual decision was handed down. And if you read the history of this decision, there is evidence that a clerk inserted the language and that the Supreme Court itself never actually made the specific ruling. Perhaps a there was some skullduggery at work. However it happened; it's time to de-person the corporations.

If Corporations did not share the same status in the eyes of the law as any other citizen, then the Supreme Court would not be able to find that paid lobbyists for the corporations have free speech rights to flood campaigns with money. It is not even a hidden pay-for-play scheme; it is an open bribery, as the Moyers/Winship article points out. Corporations are not people and they should not have the same rights as people do. This one change in the law could go a long way to fixing our current crisis of government corruption.

A total overhaul of the campaign system could follow on the heels of such a change. Imagine a system where every candidate starts out with the same chance and has access to the same media, etc. We might actually get some decent people with better ideas and the best interest of the country to run for office. And they might actually be able to work the will of the people once inside rather than being forced to play the corrupt system that currently exists.

On a similar note, I recently became aware of the following website. NPR decided to turn the “tables” (or the cameras) on the healthcare industry by taking pictures of the lobbyists and requesting that people identify them. Check it out here:
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/2009/hearing-pano/
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105923744

As many people are aware, Senator Max Baucus is at the center of crafting the supposedly “reformed” health care system. It appears as though very little, if anything, is actually going to change under Mr. Baucus’ leadership. It becomes crystal clear why that is when you take a look at the following chart, created by the Sunlight Foundation and found at the following url: http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2009/06/22/the-max-baucus-health-care-lobbyist-complex/

What I have pasted here is a cropped image of the actual web of bribery and corruption. Please click on the link above to see the full image (and join the Sunlight Foundation if you are so inclined).

Now, for a nice, bone-jarring overview, check out this website that lists the monies paid out by the 250 largest lobbying firms:
http://projects.publicintegrity.org/lobby/top.aspx?act=topfirms

Who can now deny that our federal government is a corrupt organization? Everyone talks about the corruption, journalists, bloggers, interest groups and others have provided the evidence of this corruption. What are the people waiting for?

Who believes that the government will cleanse itself? If you do, please post comment below.

*I am strongly considering cancelling my online subscription to WaPo considering the obvious collusion and perversion of journalistic integrity that is going on there. I don’t pay anything for it so I am not sure that it would send any message meaningful to those in charge at the once-respected news outlet.

Can the US Senate screw up health care any more than it already is? You betcha!

2009-07-01T09:37:00.001-07:00

I read a few articles last week in the NY Times and am finally making the time to respond. This health care debate is really the most important issue that we are facing under this new administration. If we let them get it wrong, we can potentially make things far worse than they already are.

“Senators struggled Wednesday with the possibility that in offering subsidized health insurance to millions of individuals and families, they could inadvertently speed the erosion of employer-provided coverage, which they want to preserve.”

This opening paragraph is puzzling to me. As everyone here knows, one of the PROBLEMS with our health care system is that insurance is offered through our employers. It's a problem because all employers are not mandated to offer it and it is not portable when you leave a job. Employer-sponsored health insurance is also creating a HUGE overhead expense, making it difficult for American companies to compete in an ever-growing global economy. Corporations from most other nations have no health care or insurance overhead costs.

So one would think that the best thing we could do in reforming the health care system in this country would be to move it away from being the responsibility of the employer. Instead, what the Senators have in mind is to FORCE employers to provide insurance for their employees by implementing penalties for those that don’t.

“Higher penalties are more effective in preventing the erosion of employer-sponsored coverage, the bedrock of insurance for more than 150 million Americans, the Congressional Budget Office told lawmakers.”

Won’t this effectively run some of the smaller businesses out of business entirely? Apparently, that is not a problem for our wise Senate.

Small business employs a large percentage of workers in this country and is generally a better employer to those workers than the large corporations that can afford to offer insurance. So why is it that the Senate is not concerned about the effect that this will have on small business?

And just who is the Senate trying to protect with laws like this? Not small business. Not employers in general. Not the citizenry, since employer-sponsored insurance is not portable and takes all control away from the end user and hands it to the employer. No, it is apparent that they are protecting the insurance industry at the expense of all else.

"Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas, said preserving employer-sponsored insurance ‘needs to be a huge objective.’”

But no reason is given for that. Over and over in this article it is repeated like a mantra, but no good reason is EVER given for protecting the employer-sponsored system. And if we maintain that framework, what are we really changing?

“Mr. Baucus said he and other senators wanted to minimize the chance that employees ‘may be enticed to leave their firms in order to get health insurance in the exchange.’”

This is a most cosmetic change that they seem to be fabricating instead of the real reform that we were promised and that we NEED. This kind of change will probably make things worse instead of better, ironically proving the conservative argument that government interference makes things worse. Conservative government interference DOES make things worse because it tends to interfere in the interest of some industry instead of in the best interest of the country or its citizens.

And make no mistake; even if the Congress and Senate are majority Democrats at this time, the changes as currently being discussed for our health care system are CONSERVATIVE ones in that they are based upon retaining the status quo over addressing problems with real progressive change. This article proves it.

“The budget office said: ‘The availability of subsidized coverage in the new insurance exchange would be an attractive option for many lower-income workers. As a result, some employers would decide not to offer their employees health insurance coverage, opting instead to provide other forms of compensation…In a letter to Congress three weeks ago, President Obama said small businesses “should be exempted” from any employer mandate…‘We will give assistance to small business through tax credits,’ Mr. Baucus said Wednesday…(However)…When asked about an exemption for small businesses, Mr. Baucus said: ‘We talked about it. But how much sense does that really make?’”

This is absolute insanity at a time of such high unemployment in this country. It is unbelievable that Congress would dismiss the importance of retaining jobs and small business in this country. It is NONSENSICAL.

“The United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small employers, said the proposed requirement amounted to a new tax and would frustrate the creation of jobs.”

That’s a no-brainer. Why would Congress even be considering this plan? It will not improve our health care system. It will not provide relief to businesses that are hanging on for dear life in this terrible economy. It will not save or create jobs. It will not increase the capability of American companies to compete in the global marketplace. SO WHO BENEFITS FROM THIS PLAN???

In an Op-ed piece titled, The Only Public Health Plan We Need appearing in the same edition of the NY Times, authors David Riemer and Alain Enthoven state:

“Everyone assumes that a public plan means a government-sponsored insurer that makes payments to doctors and hospitals, whether in the form of Medicare or — the latest idea — state-sponsored cooperatives. But Medicare has a dismal record of controlling costs and improving quality, and we lack evidence that co-ops could do any better.”

They go on to give no evidence to support that statement and to advocate “a mechanism” that they claim would use “free market forces” to motivate the insurance industry to provide better policies. Even if you believe in the mythical “free market,” their claims are shaky at best. They claim that a large enough pool would force the industry to increase quality and decrease cost, however that claim is in direct contrast to the one they made earlier in the article that Medicare, which insures a huge pool of people, has a lousy record of controlling prices or improving quality.

“An exchange is a key feature of the public plan we’d like to see, but it’s only one element. Two other features are needed to give an exchange the power to pressure insurers … to hold down prices and improve care.
First, the exchange would need to act on behalf of a critical mass of people — at least 20 percent of the insured population that does not already receive Medicaid or Medicare. Only a pool of this size could attract serious bids from insurers. To amass such a large purchasing pool, Congress might need to require that all government employees, or all employers with fewer than 100 employees, join the pool.
Second, the exchange would need to ensure that no subsidies for health insurance, whether provided by employers or the government (through the tax system), exceed the price submitted by the lowest-bidding qualified insurer and benefit package. All individuals in the pool would be free to join any insurer that submits a bid. But enrollees would have to pay out of pocket — and preferably with after-tax dollars — any amount above the price of the lowest-bidding plan. “

What they are describing is a system that protects the private insurance industry at every turn. They are basing their ideas on the philosophy that there is currently not enough profit being made to enable the insurance industry to cut costs, which we all know is a load of garbage. They also claim that this would in turn force hospitals and doctors to improve the quality of care and lower costs.

"How would insurers lower prices and raise quality? By passing their incentive along to doctors and hospitals. To maximize their revenue from insurance companies, doctors and hospitals would need to provide better care at a lower price — something they can accomplish only by squeezing out error, waste and inefficiency.”

Yes, error, waste and inefficiency are a problem, but some of that error, waste and inefficiency is caused by the much larger problem of corporate greed. Corporations are not people, although they are run by people. However, people who run corporations tend to make decisions based SOLELY upon what is best for the corporation and its shareholders, i.e., the bottom line is profit. If you are looking for ways to improve quality and efficiency in our health care system, you would do well to be working with people who have the same goals in mind. And private insurance companies will NOT be on that page with you because their ultimate goal will always be profit.

The error with Riemer and Enthoven’s foundational philosophy is that they believe that competition will motivate the insurance industry to look for ways to improve quality and efficiency. It won’t. Insurance companies will always have a bottom line, a handful of excuses, fingers to point and absolutely, positively no guilt or shame about what they have to do to achieve their goals. Actually past history of “free market’ in this country shows that companies from the same industries will collude with each other to set prices at a level that will enable them to obtain a substantial profit for their shareholders. So there really is no motivation for them to improve the quality of the product they are selling.

And, finally, there is another subject that pops up regularly when discussing the health care issue: curbing health care-related litigation. Nicholas Kristoff, of whom I am a big fan, while advocating a single-payer system in his column in the same issue of the NY Times, made this statement:

“I don’t mind the A.M.A. lobbying on behalf of doctors in the many areas where physicians and patients have common interests. The association is dead right, for example, in calling for curbs on lawsuits, which raise medical costs for everyone. An excellent study published in 2006 in The New England Journal of Medicine found that for every dollar paid in compensation as a result of lawsuits against doctors, 54 cents goes to legal and administrative costs…Moreover, aggressive law leads to defensive medicine, in the form of extra medical tests that waste everybody’s money. Tort reform should be a part of health reform.”

Accepting the statistic quoted in the New England Journal of Medicine at face value as a valid statistical fact, that fact alone is not enough information upon which to base the conclusion that Mr. Kristoff leaps to, which is that we need to restrict the constitutional right of redress that comes to us from as far back as English Common Law. Mr. Kristoff might be unaware of a few other facts that play into that statistic.

The insurance industry, which we have established as being motivated purely by profit, has set up a system that does not allow doctors to admit medical mistakes, denies all claims of medical error, and is so adamant about NOT paying for ANY error that it is willing to pay lawyers hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to limit any eventual award to a mere few thousand dollars. Because they REFUSE to admit any liability in even the most egregious cases of medical error or negligence, the malpractice industry, NOT MALPRACTICE VICTIMS, are driving up the cost of medicine for everyone.

If insurance companies were willing to admit to and pay for the mistakes that are made, the system would be in better shape. Instead, they protect the doctors and hospitals that make mistakes, freeing them from the consequences of their errors and allowing them to go on and commit more errors. Eventually insurers will drop a doctor if he has enough lawsuits filed against him, but not before many lives are ruined and hundreds of thousands of dollars or more are paid in legal fees to fight the victims.

Doctors are people and hospitals are not perfect and everyone makes mistakes. But most mistakes that you and I make do not result in catastrophic medical bills for someone or in them losing the use of part of their body or brain function. When these mistakes happen, it is only fair that the victim be awarded some financial help in dealing with the consequences of those mistakes. But the current system does not allow doctors to admit mistakes, face their patients and say they are sorry. It does not provide for proper restitution where restitution is necessary. It is an adversarial system that leaves doctors and other treaters feeling guilty or defensive and patients feeling betrayed and angry while insurance companies keep raking in the profits.

If reform is needed in regards to health care litigation, it is malpractice insurance reform, not tort reform. We should mandate that a truly independent review of claims be made and that doctors and hospitals must or be allowed to admit when they have made an error and be given the opportunity to offer restitution in those cases. It should mandate that State Medical Boards take swift and proportional action in cases where doctors are not performing properly, have lost their faculties, etc.

We should not allow the malpractice insurance industry to keep driving health insurance litigation, playing both ends against each other while their profits increase exponentially each year. Don’t take the right to sue away from the victim, take the self-interested profiteer out of the middle of the conflict.

P.S. Check out this article about the healthcare lobbyist that may be bending the reform to the benefit of the insurance industry:

http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2009/06/30/lobbyist_at_center_of_healthcare_overhaul/?page=full

Karen Ignagni

Religious Fanaticism Combined with Self-Serving Politicians and Corruption Cause the Murder of Dr. George Tiller

2009-06-08T12:55:00.000-07:00

I have been in shock ever since I heard that Dr. George Tiller had been murdered. I have struggled with hearing him referred to as “the controversial abortion doctor” and hearing people question whether he somehow deserved to be murdered in the foyer of his church on a Sunday morning. I have not been able to gather my thoughts sufficiently to comment before now. It is past time that I do so.

As a long-time member of NARAL, I have marched, contributed funds and generally opposed the anti-choice brigade in their efforts to force their religious views onto our lawbooks. I remember driving through Wichita during “The Summer of Mercy” and seeing the dazed looks on the citizenry, who had no idea what had hit them. My sister-in-law tells stories of confronting members of the intolerant horde about leaving their children locked in hot cars while they marched. She describes the smug righteousness with which they declared that women who sought abortion were sinners and those that would die would reap what they sowed. Without care for QUALITY of life, only bringing every possible child into the world matters to them. They go so far as to condemn the birth control pill; it is also murder in their eyes.

For a long time, in a misguided attempt at fairness to those with opposing viewpoints, I considered each side of this issue to be extreme. NARAL opposed parental notification laws and I waffled in my support of that. It seemed reasonable that a parent should be notified when a child underwent a medical procedure, although I knew that this would make it harder for many girls to obtain an abortion. I did not oppose NARAL’s policies in this regard, I merely did not support them. NARAL opposed laws creating a waiting period and I waffled again. I did not agree with a waiting period, but, what could it hurt? Again, I did not properly support the position. NARAL’s argument was that each one of these laws was inching us closer to a world in which it would prove impossible for anyone but the most wealthy among us to obtain an abortion. NARAL predicted that they would even go after birth control eventually. I wondered if NARAL wasn’t being a tad extreme. I knew that the anti-choice crowd had a problem with birth control, but did not believe that they would ever be able to move policy or laws in that direction. I have never waivered in my support of NARAL, yet I have waffled in supporting some of their positions. Mea culpa. I take responsibility for my lack of support here.

But I read an article the other day that struck a nerve and I wanted to share it here. Hopefully, those of you who read this, will click on the link in the blog title and will pass this article on to your friends and family and begin a dialogue. In this article, Katha Pollitt offers a point of view so reasonable and yet so radical, I was truly jarred by it. She is absolutely right and I hope that more people will see the reason in her words.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that both sides of the abortion issue are extreme. Ms. Pollitt puts forth a firm argument that illustrates the fundamental incorrectness of that view.

There's only one set of extremists here, the one that uses language like "babykiller," " Nazi," "murderer," and "death mill," kidnaps and murders providers and clinic workers, burns and bombs clinics and drives cars into them, posts pictures of clinic workers and their families on the internet, and harrasses patients on their way to get care…If a desperately ill pregnant woman wants to risk her life to give birth, if she wants to carry an anencephalic fetus to term so it can die in her arms, or have her rapist's baby, or become a mother at 14, or produce octuplets, pro-choicers are not going to compel her to abort. Pro-choicers don't go around lecturing girls and women that they will blame themselves forever if they have a baby they may not be equipped to raise well. They don't paint gory pictures of the horrors and dangers of childbirth to scare pregnant girls and women into ending their pregnancies with a quick and safe termination. They don't tell women Jesus is going to send them to Hell if they sacrifice their futures to the whims of a wayward sperm -- although they might mention from time to time that the Bible nowhere mentions abortion. Pro-choicers don't blow up churches or assassinate the leaders of Operation Rescue…only one side murders and bombs to make its point. Only one side has a terrorist wing.

She goes on to quote a Michigan pastor, Bret McAtee, as saying of the news of Dr. Tiller’s murder, “…I also know joy. Not the shallow type of joy but a deep resonating joy…How could a sane person not feel joy at the death of a mass murderer and a terrorist?”

>

Perhaps you may think that this is a rare point of view. You would be wrong. Our local news interviewed some nutjob from Wichita who said, on camera, unhesitatingly and without pity or sympathy--apparently even for the family of Dr. Tiller--that he got what he deserved for being a baby killer. I find it profoundly ironic that some ugly fat woman would get on tv and say something like that because somewhere in this backwoods state, a man is looking at her and judging her unworthy of decent treatment because she doesn’t look like Barbie. It’s the same sort of rationalization that a rapist uses when he says that he attacked a woman because of the way she was dressed. It is the same sort of rationalization that a country uses to justify kidnapping and torture against people they assume are terrorists because their government says so. It is rationalization without logic, based on personal discriminatory beliefs.

As my esteemed fellow blogger, Tango Daddy, said, they are “domestic terrorists…I say the gloves are off for any and all that condone this form of violence. The so called religious community is more in keeping with radical extremism than any religion I know.”

I predicted immediately that this scumbag that killed Dr. Tiller would receive aid from the Anti-Choice movement. I stand by that prediction. Operation Rescue can PRETEND all they want that they had nothing to do with this, but I will never believe it and neither should any thinking person.

Dr. Tiller was targeted by Operation Rescue for years and years. The nation witnessed this during the summer their members showed up every day to harass poor women who were in need of healthcare. (They didn’t care that some of those women were just there to get their birth control pills; they don’t want women to use those either.) Dr. Tiller was targeted by Operation Rescue when a local candidate that was heavily backed by Anti-Choice groups managed to worm his way into the State Attorney General’s office and wage war against Dr. Tiller, his practice and his patients. Phill Kline illegally seized and possessed and shared with multiple parties the federally protected health records of many women who had been patients at Dr. Tiller’s clinic. Though his efforts to prosecute Dr. Tiller proved unsuccessful, he was never punished and his efforts were further persecution that Dr. Tiller underwent at the hands of the Anti-Choice movement. It has been a scant few months since those charges against Dr. Tiller were dropped. The man that is accused of murdering Dr. Tiller, whose identity was known but not released by the local media, is from the same area where Phill Kline launched his ultimately unsuccessful career in politics. What a coincidence; or is it?

My immediate thought upon hearing that Dr. Tiller had been murdered was that the Anti-Choice movement’s reaction to losing control. They had decided that this was their only remaining option due to their hysterical fear of the Obama presidency and the change that it has brought. They had missed their best chance of getting rid of Dr. Tiller when public momentum was swinging their way. They had been unable to get him using intimidation tactics. They had been unable to get him using corrupt public officials. Now that the Obama administration was supposedly ushering in a new movement toward liberalism, they saw their opportunity disappear. How convenient that a looney steps out from the shadows and effectively puts an end to the activities they had been so offended by for all these years by murdering Dr. Tiller. How many doctors will step up to take his place and take a stand for women and families? My prediction; 0.

Supposedly there is a Federal investigation into whether Roeder was acting alone. He was in contact with high officials of Operation Rescue and has made statements to the Associated Press that more murders are planned. It is my fervent hope that the government will be able to prove the links that do exist between Roeder and Operation Rescue and that Federal Anti-Terror statutes will be used to charge him and them with crimes of terror. An example must be set here. It is high time, past time, that this nation stand up against the wrong-headed, delusional thinking that was born during the Reagan era and has metasticized into the what is currently called “The Religious Right.”

Check out a local "ministry" here:
http://www.ffc.org/index.html

It is high time that we all stop pretending that we are not surrounded by insane people suffering from religion-inspired delusions that are whipped up by self-serving politicians hungry for power and money. It is time for the nation to finally acknowledge that the Religious Right is a group filled with religious extremists on par with those Islamic terrorists that we have all come to fear.

The time is coming when we will need to consider the REAL DANGER of religion and its affect on the weak-minded among us. Many citizens have no idea that churches are run just like corporations these days. They have subsidiary businesses that include financial arms, banks, investment companies, etc. There are millionaire pastors with their own private planes and they keep the money in the family by hiring their family members as employees. They are making money hand over fist and they are not paying any taxes. With all that money and power comes corruption unimaginable to the likes of you and me. It’s time to investigate the churches and their actions and dealings with politicians, business interests and interest groups.

It’s time to examine the link between church finances and political corruption. It’s time to STOP putting up with this insanity and corruption in the name of religious freedom. This murdering and intolerance can’t possibly be what the founding fathers had in mind when they created this nation.

Another excellent article on Dr. Tiller's murder here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-mapes/no-mercy_b_209529.html

And please check out this website as well:
http://iamdrtiller.com/

IRONY THY NAME IS OBAMA

2009-06-05T12:51:00.000-07:00

I had to laugh when I saw the title of the article: “At Death Camp, Obama Says Evil Must Be Confronted”

“What’s funny about that?” you might ask yourself. Well, it isn’t funny at all; it’s actually very sad. Because Obama can talk about confronting evil all day, but that is all it is; talk. As long as he refuses to confront the evils that have occurred in our nation’s recent past and may still be occurring for all we know, his words ring empty.

By making this statement, with the full knowledge of his strong stance against investigating and prosecuting torture, he is either dismissing the suffering and death that was caused in our own torture camps, created using the same racist and inhuman logic as those Nazi death camps he was touring or he is pretending that it did not happen. Either way, his words strike as some sick cosmic joke.

It has been reported that hundreds of “detainees” died in our death camps. Obama doesn’t even want to investigate that, never mind prosecute those involved.

Buchenwald "teaches us that we must be ever-vigilant about the spread of evil in our own time, that we must reject the false comfort that others' suffering is not our problem, and commit ourselves to resisting those who would subjugate others to serve their own interests," Obama said.

Barack Obama is an intelligent man. He is an educated man. I am sure that he is well-acquainted with the concept of irony. So, how can he even make a statement like that with a straight face, knowing, as he definitely does, that his own foot-dragging on the issue of investigating war crimes committed by our government has severely obstructed the efforts of those citizens of this country who have long ago heeded his very words. They were vigilant about the spread of evil and they spoke out against it and they stood up to fight it and they are now fighting for justice, while he does all in his power to stop them from confronting that same evil in our midst.

In response to a question regarding Iran’s President Ahmadinejad, Obama replied, "I have no patience for people who would deny history."

In the words of a famous song, “I Second That Emotion.”

President Obama, I challenge you to walk your talk.

Don't deny our recent history.

Don't stand in the way of those that would seek justice in the hopes of stopping future atrocities.

Support those that would confront the evils that have been committed in their name, against their will.

Reverse your position and stand firm for a full investigation into the Bush Administration's use of torture to illicit "evidence" that supported their desire for an illegal war; purposeful misinformation and propaganda used to lead a nation to believe that Iraq had ANYTHING to do with 9/11; justification for a war they knew was illegal. If you don't think that is evil, maybe you should tour Guantanamo; it's still OPEN FOR BUSINESS.

An Ode To Scrapple

2009-05-20T12:12:00.000-07:00

I am going on vacation soon and wanted to leave on a positive note. It is true that there is much in the world that needs fixing, changing, adjusting or pitching out. But there is at least one perfect thing in this universe; Habbersett’s Scrapple.

If you didn’t grow up in Pennsylvania or Delaware, you may not know that scrapple is the best possible accompaniment to fried eggs on God’s Green Earth. It beats bacon hands down and makes breakfast sausage taste bland in comparison. The lack of knowledge about this thoroughly satisfying breakfast food is widespread; there are some scary myths floating around out there.

Recently, I was again forced to defend the World’s Best Breakfast Meat against ignorant anti-Scrapple propaganda when a local radio personality posited over the airwaves that “scrapple is made from wieners.” If you aren’t in third grade anymore, you may not understand that he was actually stating that scrapple is made from pig genitals. Why would anyone even believe that? It is sad to think that they would, prompting me to set the record straight.

http://blogs.965thebuzz.com/2009/05/page/3/

Being raised outside of Philadelphia, I grew up with scrapple. My mom made a big breakfast after church every Sunday which almost always consisted of scrapple, eggs and toast. Sometimes we had link sausage, but most often it was scrapple and it was a family favorite. As a child, I took it for granted that everyone knew what scrapple was and that you could get it anywhere. Wrong!

Scrapple is a dish that was created by the Pennsylvania Dutch. They were known for their thrift and used everything that was edible. When they made liverwurst or sausage, they used the “scraps” from that to create scrapple. Scrapple DOES contain some parts of the pig that some would normally perhaps not use, such as the liver and the heart. However, people use the gizzards from chicken to make gravy and stock and fried chicken livers are a favorite of many people where I live now.

You can’t find scrapple where I live now and most people don’t know much about it. I find that what they do know about it is as wrong as wrong can be. The following pig parts are NOT USED in any scrapple brand that I have ever heard of: snouts, ears, feet, tail, genitals. Also, scrapple is NOT the same as “Head Cheese” which is something so disgusting-looking that it is beyond belief that anyone would confuse the two! (keep in mind when viewing the picture below that someone went out of their way to make this look appetizing!)

There are only two brands of scrapple worth buying: Jones and Habbersett’s. Habbersett’s is the KING of scrapple. The difference is in the seasonings. Jones comes close, but it cannot match the savory blend of spices that makes Habbersett’s the favorite of scrapple lovers everywhere. It is impossible to get good scrapple where I live now. In the past, I have been able to order Jones scrapple at a local grocery store, but they will not carry it for long because I am the only one that buys it. People here in Kansas just don’t know what they are missing!

Here are some scrapple truths:

Wikipedia: Scrapple or pon haus (Dutch) is a savory mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and flour, often buckwheat flour. The mush is formed into a loaf, and slices of the scrapple are then fried before serving. Scraps of meat left over from butchering, not used or sold elsewhere, were made into scrapple to avoid waste. Scrapple is best known as a regional American food of the Mid-Atlantic States (Delaware, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland).
Scrapple is typically cut into quarter-inch to three-quarter-inch slices, and pan-fried until browned to form a crust. It is sometimes first coated with flour. It may be fried in butter or oil and is sometimes deep-fried.
Scrapple is arguably the first pork food invented in America. The culinary ancestor of scrapple was the Low German dish called Panhas, which was adapted to make use of locally available ingredients, and it is still called "panhoss" or "pannhas" in parts of Pennsylvania. The first recipes were created more than two hundred years ago by German colonists who settled near Philadelphia and Chester County, Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries.

I have never personally tasted a scrapple as good as Habbersett’s, (http://www.habbersettscrapple.com/) which is made in Pennsylvania and not sold at any store even REMOTELY close to where I live. Sadly, the Habbersett’s website is extremely limited and outdated. It doesn’t appear as though it has been updated since 2003. I have tried the email addresses listed there in an attempt to have some scrapple sent to me, but have never received a reply to any email I have sent. If anyone out there has a Habbersett’s connection, will you please hook me UP??? (I’m dying over here!)

The picture above depicts scrapple as it appears after slicing, cooking and then cutting in half (bottom right below the star-shaped bread). The kid that had THAT lunch was one lucky little bug!!

I found this website that has LOTS of recipes containing scrapple. I might even try some myself, if I can ever get my hands on some decent scrapple:

http://www.berksweb.com/pam/scrapple.html

I found this website for a scrapple brand that I never heard of. It is promising in that both the ingredients and the packaging appear very similar to Habbersett’s. HOWEVER, apparently they only ship scrapple during the holidays. BUMMER!!

http://www.rapascrapple.com/

NEVER go to this website to find out more about scrapple; it’s full of inaccuracies!! (Lips and assholes—really???! Who would believe that these parts could even be separated from the carcass, nevermind packaged and sold??) This sort of ignorant raving from an admirer of Scrapple is completely inexcusable.

http://www.weareneverfull.com/dont-pork-this-roll-or-scrap-this-scrapple-the-dirty-culinary-pride-of-south-jerseyphilly/

If you are lucky enough to live in a place where scrapple is sold (particularly Habbersett's or Jones) and have never tasted it; do yourself a favor and get some to cook this weekend. You simply slice it and fry it. Serve it with fried eggs (over medium) and toast. Then, just for me, mash it up and mix it with the eggs and use your toast to mop up every last delicious drop! (At least that way I can live vicariously through your scrapple experience!)

Bob Cesca Puts the Pieces Together at The Huffington Post

2009-05-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

I strongly urge anyone that cares about the issue of investigation and prosecution into US Torture policies to click on the link above. Read what Bob Cesca has to say about the reason these policies were put into place. Finally, it all makes sense!

When terrorists struck on 9/11, the official line from our government was that the reason that terrorists wanted to kill us was because “they hate us for our freedom.” It sounds bad now, but even sounded really stupid at the time. Upon further investigation, it actually appears that they hate us because of our foreign policy, which actually makes sense (THOUGH IT DOESN’T EXCUSE TERRORIST ACTIVITIES, THE MURDER OF INNOCENT PEOPLE, ETC.).

That said, when we initially began to hear that the Bush Administration had invented a torture policy for the prisoners they were holding in Guantanamo, the reasoning that most liberals gave at the time was that the Bush Administration was just evil. While it may contain some truth, it rang hollow. Closet sadists? These are people with enough power and money that they could afford to live out those sort of fantasies anytime they wanted without incurring legal entanglements.

Bob Cesca’s article finally lights a bulb over the whole issue. And it also connects one of the other crimes that the Bush Administration committed against this country: Fraudulently leading us into an illegal war. Things always make more sense when you get a handle on the bigger picture. And if it can be shown that the administration used torture to illicit confessions to back up their phony reasons for the Iraq war, they are doubly damned.

As I see it, this is more reason than ever that those involved should be prosecuted. We don’t need a commission; that would be a partisan enterprise which would eventually be hijacked by conservatives for political gain.

WE NEED A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR. YESTERDAY.

If you are reading this, take a moment to express your support for a special prosecutor to The Justice Department c/o Eric Holder, The President c/o his website and Congress and Senate c/o the representatives of your district.

How Many Police Does It Take To Silence the Voice of the People?

2009-05-11T08:49:00.000-07:00

The following is the text of a newsletter that I received regarding the current health care debate in this country. Though much has been made about real change in our nation’s health care policies, we are in real danger of no change, especially if we leave the decision up to our bought-and-paid-for Senators. Obama’s health care plan never included the kind of REAL CHANGE that this country needs in order to stay viable and healthy (physically and economically). But the small amount of change that he has supported is in danger of being stomped out, too. Please view the video, read below and pass a link to this blog on to your friends, neighbors, co-workers and family members that are concerned about the rising cost of health care and insurance.

How many police does it take to silence the voice of the people? That’s a question a despot might ask in a totalitarian police state.

But this week the Senate Finance Committee thought it was a hilarious joke as they ejected one brave activist after another, for protesting that not even one spokesperson for single payer health care was being allowed to sit at the hearing table. Yes, Senator Max Baucus (MT), who had preemptively declared that consideration of a single payer option was off the table, actually joked, “We need more police [1:58 on video].” And the rest of the Senate panel just laughed their heads off.

Senator Chuck Grassley (IA), the ranking Republican, not to be outdone in his contempt for the people, then asked if there was “somewhere they can watch it on television [2:05 on video],” which elicited additional hearty guffaws. Yes, what a wonderful entertaining show that would be, the spectacle of the will of the people being excluded while corporate special interests, like butchers, carve up our pocketbooks and our bodies.

…It’s time for the U.S. Senate to get the message that We The People are not just a joke to be laughed off. Why is it that not ONE senator on that committee has the integrity to stand up for an even handed debate of health care issues? Why should any of them be elected to public office ever again?

So let’s see a show of hands. How many of you would like to sign up now for a commie Marxist national health care system ... like in Canada, England and other pinko Bolshevik countries like that? How stupid do they think we are, to try to reduce the terms of the debate to such an ignorant level?

Meet the new mass media scare label, “socialized” medicine. As opposed to, like, what? ... the ANTI-social corporate medical insurance industry we have now, where patients have no role except to be cash cows, by design never to be actually cured?

If you or anyone in your family has ever been seriously ill, and as we ALL will be someday, you know the medical industry will pick your bones clean of every dime you ever earned in your life, just in time to drop you into the cheapest possible pine box.

Why are members of Congress fighting so hard to keep single payer health care out of the public debate? Because there are no fat profits in it for their special interest corporate campaign contributors, who maximize their profits the sicker we are. They cannot compete with a low overhead, efficiently-run government program, just like we have NOW with the existing proven Medicare system.

Instead, they will line up a bunch of corporate lobbyists and stooges to tell bald-faced lies. Just like Senator Jim Bunning himself who asserted that Canada and England had tax rate of at LEAST 60% to support single payer. (Not even close)

But they don’t even want anyone around to even have a chance to call them out on their willful and malicious lies. [THIS IS THE KIND OF LIE THAT, ONCE THROWN INTO THE PUBLIC FORUM WILL BE REPEATED OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN IN THE RIGHT WING MEDIA, REGARDLESS OF ITS INACCURACY-WATCH FOR IT.]

Yes, all those who love to preach to the rest of us about the free market and competition are shown to be interested only in a rigged market and a rigged debate. Baucus may put on a face of being slightly chastened, but he STILL will not allow any honest testimony on single payer.

But we can beat them.

This is the pivotal moment. We have been speaking out for HR 676 (Medicare for all) for YEARS. And now 8 incredibly brave activists have been hauled away because they would not remain silent. But in doing so, in putting their own bodies on the line, they have shown up the current “debate” for the total sham that it is.

...submit a one-click action page that we have specially configured to send your message to the Senate Finance Committee as a hard copy pdf that they can’t just laugh off, because it will be part of the permanent record. Plus your message will go to all your regular members of Congress, plus your nearest daily local newspaper as well if that option is selected.

Click on link in Blog Title to be redirected to the Single Payer Action Page or type the following address into your browser window: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum982.php

At 3:20 of the video posted on the action page above you will hear a woman loudly ask, “I wonder how many there are?” Let’s show them.

Let’s show them there are millions and millions of us out here who will no longer be ignored, who will no longer be laughed off. Because they KNOW we can stop them if and only if large numbers of us will raise our voices now.

Let’s just do it.

And here is a list of all Senators on the Finance Committee, including at least a couple who you might have considered to be “liberals”. Where are their voices? Is there not a single one of them who will stand up and say, “No wait a minute, we need to hear what the single payer advocates have to say”? So, especially if one of these is one of YOUR personal Senators, they need to hear from you now. [THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF THE PROCESS THAT WILL EITHER CHANGE HEALTHCARE FOR THE BETTER IN THIS COUNTRY OR LEAVE US AT THE MERCY OF THE GREEDY CORPORATOCRACY.]

No, we don’t need more police. We need fewer Senators with plugs in their ears like Max Baucus. And he and the rest of them need to hear that.

My sixteen cents: (inflation)

For a long time now, we have been hearing about how costly single-payer health insurance would be, all the while watching our private, for-profit health insurance rise precipitously.

We’ve been told that the quality of care we receive would suffer in a single-payer system. Meanwhile, both the quality and the availability of care is decreasing for an ever-increasing number of people who can no longer afford health insurance or are unemployed and have lost their coverage.

We’ve heard that increased enrollment in Medicare would bankrupt the nation and that we would all be taxed at a higher rate to pay for it. News Flash: We are already paying for it. [That’s right, Senator Bunning, if you had been paying attention, the point has already been made in a multitude of studies and articles on the subject, some even by the government you work for, that the costs of the uninsured are being passed on to the rest of us in increased health insurance premiums and increased hospital and physician charges.] The kicker is, if you know anything about the way health insurance works, the hospitals, doctors, medical supply companies and pharmaceutical companies are CHARGING MORE for the care of uninsured people because those with insurance have the benefit of insurance companies bargaining charges down with providers. So, they bargain down charges and fees for those that have insurance and then the hospital charges the increased rates ONLY for those that do not have insurance coverage and, when those fees go uncollected, they then get passed on to the rest of us in the form of rising costs and inflated premiums (And are a nifty loss on the books at tax timewhich results in less taxes, therefore ripping off the taxpayers again).

Nice little racket, isn’t it? I can see how this system would be preferable to one in which the government sets the charges and the hospitals and doctors get paid for all of their charges instead of just some. Right, Senator Bunning???

And to answer the misguided statement again, NO, Senator Baucus, we don’t more police. We need a Senate that listens to WE THE PEOPLE instead of the greedy corporatocracy.

Why We Cannot Look to the Future without Confronting the Past

2009-04-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

Civilized society; what is it?

According to http://www.thefreedictionary.com/civilized

civ·i·lized (sv-lzd)
adj.

1. Having a highly developed society and culture.
2. Showing evidence of moral and intellectual advancement; humane, ethical, and reasonable.
3. Marked by refinement in taste and manners; cultured; polished.

Wikipedia quotes Albert Schweitzer, “one of the main philosophers on the concept of civilization, from his book, The Philosophy of Civilization, outlining the idea that there are dual opinions within society; one regarding civilization as purely material and another regarding civilization as both ethical and material. He stated that the current world crisis was, then in 1923, due to a humanity having lost the ethical conception of civilization. In this same work, he defined civilization, saying:

“It is the sum total of all progress made by man in every sphere of action and from every point of view in so far as the progress helps towards the spiritual perfecting of individuals as the progress of all progress. “

Also from Wikipedia, comes the etymology of the word, “civil” and the term “civilization":

…the etiology of civilization is Latin or Roman, defined above as the application of justice by "civil" means…
In 1388, the word civil appeared in English meaning "of or related to citizens". In 1704, civilization began to mean "a law which makes a criminal process into a civil case."

So, if a civilized society is one based on laws, regarding both material and ethical concerns, then what holds civilized society together is the mutual agreement of the members of that society to observe those rules. We know that there will always be some that will refuse to follow those rules, or occasionally make a bad choice and run afoul of the law, and so we construct a system of “justice” to attend to those instances. Our system of justice attempts to extract payment or punishment from the law breaker, which is designed to serve the dual purpose of righting the adjudged wrong and standing as a deterrent to others that may consider committing the same wrong.

So, what happens in a “civilized society” if the members of the society begin to randomly decide that they no longer have to follow the rules and the rest of society decides not to punish, prosecute or seek redress of grievance for the wrongs that they are committing? Isn’t this an apt description of the unraveling of that civilized society? Is this not the very definition of decline?

This is why this country cannot afford to look past the crimes of torture, perversion of the Constitution, abuse of power and expansion of Presidential power to the detriment of the legislative branch. Because if we do not respect and uphold our laws, we are lawless and our civilized society is destroyed.

You may argue that there are some rules that need to be revisited occasionally. Yes, you would be right and we have systems in place for that; legislatures. Unfortunately, members of the previous administration took it upon themselves to usurp the role of the legislator and just made their own rules as they went. This cannot stand.

And some laws need never be revisited because they are based on the foundational ethics and morals of society that will not and cannot change without destroying the very fabric of society. Look the other way on torture today, tomorrow it could be murder. [And if you are looking the other way on torture now, you are possibly looking the other way on murder already.]

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/18/ex-state-dept-official-hundreds-of-detainees-died-in-us-custody-at-least-25-murdered/"

The Courts have more than one role to play in the legal system. There is a thing called “stare decisis,” which basically means that current law is applied, not just by looking at the code as it is written, but on the basis of previous decisions. That is why lawyers cite court cases as argument in a trial. When a case is decided, the ruling is written and will be used as a legal argument in a future case, so that the case decides current and future law. Legal precedent is set not only through trials, but through the lack thereof. When we fail to prosecute a blatant crime, we set a precedent for future law-breakers.

We cannot look away, lest we endanger our civilized society.

Yes We Can Prosecute the Lawbreakers

2009-04-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

Report Details Pentagon Role in Torture Tactics (TIME)

The article referenced above ends with the following paragraph, but I begin with it because it should have been a clue upon initial consideration of this plan by any logical, thinking person that the road upon which the CIA, US Military, DOD and DOJ were about to embark, was the WRONG WAY.

…the torture techniques around which the SERE training was devised were used by Chinese interrogators during the Korean War, not to gather actionable intelligence but to force false confessions from captured U.S. soldiers - confessions that could then be used in anti-American propaganda.

While much of the controversy over interrogation and detention practices at Guantanamo has centered on the CIA, the SASC [Senate Armed Services Committee] report puts the spotlight firmly on the Pentagon - specifically on former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his DOD lawyer Jim Haynes, his policy chief Douglas Feith, Guantanamo commanders Major General Michael Dunleavy and Major General Geoffrey Miller, and a raft of other DOD officials.

We have some of the names now; let’s get on with it.

Who in the world (well, besides the three stooges that we will discuss later) can possibly object to an investigation and prosecution into the ordering and carrying out of illegal, immoral torture policies? At the outset we must be dealing with CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT STUPIDITY on the part of whoever had this bright notion. Supposedly, the DOD consulted with the “experts” that were running these training programs, but-

…many SERE experts and military lawyers raised concerns about and objections to this reverse engineering of techniques used in courses to train Americans to survive captures by communist regimes.

Obviously, the DOD, and subsequently the DOJ, were either negligently or purposefully misinformed about the supposed advice and consent of the SERE experts. It’s repeated over and over in the DOJ memos that these folks didn’t see a problem with using these methods in our interrogations.

Is it surprising that the objections were never mentioned previously? The fact that there is now evidence of objection to these practices by the very people that DOD and DOJ were citing in support of these practices, indicates the need for further investigation into the matter.

It has been alleged multiple times that a member or members of the Bush Administration “cooked” the intelligence that was the “stated reason” for our war in Iraq. It seems very plausible that this is another instance of asking around until you get the answer you want and going with that, regardless of the objection of others.

…in December 2001,… the DOD's office of general counsel asked the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), which oversees the SERE program, about detainee "exploitation."

According to the Senate Report, this is where the idea was hatched. But whose idea was this to begin with? It seems to have started with Rumsfeld. If the Senate Armed Services Committee has enough evidence to state that it started with the DOD’s office of general counsel, they surely must know who originally ordered this request regarding “exploitation.” Let’s have names, dates and start interviewing witnesses.

The following speaks for itself…

Within a few months, SERE trainers were training military interrogators bound for Gitmo. (The JPRA would also pass on its expertise to the CIA.)

Soon afterward, the first alarms began to sound. Jerald Ogrisseg, an Air Force SERE psychologist, warned JPRA chief of staff Daniel Baumgartner that waterboarding detainees was illegal.

In October 2002, Lieut. Colonel Morgan Banks, an Army SERE psychologist, warned officials at Gitmo of the risks of using SERE techniques for interrogation, pointing out that even with the Army's careful monitoring, injuries and accidents did happen. "The risk with real detainees is increased exponentially," he wrote.

…by then, the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) had already issued two legal opinions, signed by Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, declaring that the techniques did not amount to torture.

JPRA training for Gitmo interrogators was stepped up.

In December 2002, with Rumsfeld's authorization, officials of the Joint Task Force at Gitmo devised a standard operating procedure for the use of many SERE techniques to interrogate detainees.

Rumsfeld would rescind his authorization in a manner of weeks, after the Navy General Counsel, Alberto Mora, raised concerns about many techniques, arguing that they violated U.S. and international laws and constituted, at worst, torture. Mora met Haynes and warned him that the "interrogation policies could threaten [Rumsfeld's] tenure and could even damage the presidency."

Here’s the timeline so far: starting in December 2001, the Department of Defense expressed interest in using “special interrogation techniques” (my terminology) on prisoners captured in Afghanistan. “Within months” specialized training for use of these techniques was put in place in Guantanamo and CIA training began. Shortly thereafter, an Air Force SERE psychologist warned that use of these techniques would constitute torture. In October 2002, an Army SERE psychologist warned that these techniques were dangerous. DOJ had already issued two memos declaring torture legal, so, rather than scaling back, stopping to consider or ending these “enhanced interrogation techniques,” SERE training was stepped up. Within a year of the original request, these techniques were Standard Operating Procedure at Gitmo and were subsequently “went viral” at sites around the world, including Afghanistan and Iraq. Then Navy General Counsel raised concerns and Rummy changed his mind a few weeks later.

It would be very important to see when the first warning was sounded in relation to the first DOJ memo being released. Was the memo a response to this particular warning? And how many more objections were made that we have not heard about yet? By the time Mora raised his objections, it was too late to undo the damage that had been done. And even after Rumsfeld in January 2003 rescinded the authority for the use of SERE techniques at Gitmo, they remained in use in Afghanistan, and later in Iraq.

Since Rumsfeld never declared these techniques illegal, military lawyers down the line were able to cite his original authorization as Pentagon policy. JPRA instructors would eventually travel to Iraq to train military interrogators there.

We need a concrete timeline of when these things took place and under whose orders. If Rumsfeld and the DOD had “rescinded authority” for these techniques in January 2003, anyone employing them after that date has NO STANDING WHATSOEVER.

In the summer of 2004, the JPRA was even considering sending trainers to Afghanistan, prompting another SERE psychologist, Colonel Kenneth Rollins, to warn his colleagues by e-mail: "[W]e need to really stress the difference between what instructors do at SERE school (done to INCREASE RESISTANCE capability in students) versus what is taught at interrogator school (done to gather information). What is done by SERE instructors is by definition ineffective interrogator conduct. Simply stated, SERE school does not train you on how to interrogate, and things you 'learn' there by osmosis about interrogation are probably wrong if copied by interrogators."

In spite of all this new information, the knee-jerk reaction of many conservatives is to bury their head in the sand. They don’t want to examine how this happened, analyze the processes and determine responsibility. The “law and order” crowd isn’t concerned about whether laws were broken. The “mandatory punishment” crowd wants to look the other way. The party of “lying about extra-marital sex is an impeachable offense” wants to forgive and forget; let by-gones be by-gones on this torture thing. After all, they are still buying and selling the lie that this activity kept us safe somehow. I bring you..

THE THREE STOOGES

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090422
/pl_afp/usattacksmilitaryjusticecongressletter_20090422190833

US senators urge no prosecutions for 'torture' memo writers (AFP)

Three US senators urged…in a letter Wednesday not to prosecute Bush-era government lawyers who declared harsh interrogation tactics…
"In the interest of national security, it is the future, rather than the past, on which we believe America’s gaze must be fixed," said Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham, [and] Joseph Lieberman, an independent.

Their reasoning for this lenient posture is weak, at best and barely reasoned. They attempt to twist meticulous analysis, tortured reasoning, criminal negligence and possible fraud into something akin to “a mistake.”

"Pursuing such prosecutions would, we believe, have serious negative effects on the candor with which officials in any administration provide their best advice, and would take our country in a backward-looking direction at a time when our detainee-related challenges demand that we look forward," they said.

The lawmakers, who also opposed the creation of a commission to look into controversial "war on terrorism" tactics of the past eight years, said they opposed the harsh tactics and found some of the legal reasoning to be wrong.

"Providing poor legal advice is always undesirable," they said, "but that is a quite a different matter from making legal advice with which we may disagree into a crime."

First of all, poor legal advice is one thing, but negligence and/or fraud are quite another matter. Considering the law, which the LAWYERS in the Department of Justice were supposed to be doing, almost anyone would have come to the conclusion that these "techniques" could be considered torture.

It was not just the U.S. Constitution, not just the U.S. Code, not just the Military Code, not just the Geneva Conventions, but all of these things taken together that should have given anyone with common sense, nevermind anyone with a LAW degree pause about what was being requested. Case law, they said was lacking, but clearly it was not. These same "techniques" have been litigated within this country and within the international community. Clearly, one would have to be BLIND, STUPID, negligently inept or fraudulently mendacious to come to the conclusions that were stated over and over again in the DOJ memos.

Two of the three stooges belong to a party that performed a government witch hunt into consensual sex which took place in a private area inside the White House between two consenting adults. Lying about extra-marital sex is an impeachable offense but encouraging, supporting, ordering, providing training and permission for torture are not punishable offenses? This is pure hypocrisy and an insult to the intelligence of the American people. How did these three stooges vote on the blow job?

Lieberman voted Not Guilty on impeachment for Clinton, but McCain voted Guilty and Lindsey Graham was a PROSECUTOR on the case for all intents and purposes. We have at least Two major hypocrites here.

Where’s the fresh air? (Or Whatever Happened to that Transparency Obama Promised?)

2009-04-20T12:16:00.000-07:00

Spring has finally arrived, so I walked out the other day and drew in a lungful of air and almost immediately gagged on a foul stench. What can it be, this foul stench that lingers in the air in this country, as spring attempts to bring fresh hope for renewal and wash everything clean with its infamous showers?

Well, what do you know? Here’s the culprit:

“The Obama administration is leaning toward keeping secret some graphic details of tactics allowed in Central Intelligence Agency interrogations, despite a push by some top officials to make the information public...”

The foul stench that lingers over this country is the combined odor of fear, contempt for the law, elitist arrogance, iron-fisted authoritarianism, and complete lack of respect for justice which has resulted in our government creating policies to kidnap, torture, illegally spy on, and violate the privacy of its own citizens and citizens of other countries both here in the U.S. and abroad. Obama denounced these policies during his campaign and has instituted policies that supposedly revoke these policies, but when it comes to justice for those that whose rights were violated, well, he would just like them to forgive and move on.

We are now hearing fresh information straight from those Top Secret Memos that Obama has been so reluctant to release (despite his pledge for transparency in government). Aside from waterboarding and the other disgusting methods of torture that were encouraged by the previous administration, there’s this:

"…head smashing…a technique in which a prisoner's head could be struck against a wall as long as the head was being held and the force of the blow was controlled by the interrogator, according to people familiar with the memos.”

If you are a citizen of this country, you owe it to yourself to seek out these memos and read through them carefully at least once. These are the things that were done in your name. [I will be writing a separate blog on what is contained in these memos in the near future as my stomach stops churning and I am able to think about what they contain without retching.] And think about the fact that these documents still contain redactions (who knows what those parts say) and that these are but four of the many memos that were written during this time. Also consider that these may possibly hold the most harmless information, since Obama did finally end up releasing them and has not released others as requested.

And what possible excuse could Obama have for stating that he would “not prosecute” those “good” men and women in the CIA who were just following orders? First of all, it is not his job to decide who will be prosecuted and who will not. And if he orders the Justice Department to look the other way when there is clear evidence of criminal behavior, not only is he politicizing the Justice Department as much as the Bush Administration did, but he is obstructing justice. Secondly, how “good” were these people who followed such heinous orders? Germans were punished after World War II for similar crimes and it was established that “just following orders” was not a valid defense.

What I would like to know is how many in the intelligence community disobeyed orders, took a stand for logic and decency, quit rather than compromise their morals? Let’s have those folks step up and tell their stories. Maybe we will find that more people than we ever imagined tried to do the right thing. Maybe those people should get a promotion or their jobs back and others eager to condemn and torture should be allowed to leave “the agency.”

“…Top CIA officials and "some in the White House...argue that disclosing such secrets will undermine the agency's credibility with foreign intelligence services."

Maybe they should have thought about that before they decided to act like a bunch of henchmen to a two-bit dictator. Their credibility was shot before any of this became public. The credibility of the government and the people and the whole country is shot to hell in the international community, as it should be. Let’s not keep trying to avoid the consequences of our stupid actions, let’s learn from them. (There’s a revolutionary idea!)

People familiar with the matter said some senior intelligence advisers to the president raised fears that releasing the two most sensitive memos could cause the Obama administration to be alienated from the CIA's rank and file, as happened during the Bush administration when Porter Goss, who was unpopular among CIA officers, headed the agency.

At what other job do the patients run the asylum? If they are ashamed of what they have done, own up to it. If they feel it is mischaracterized, defend it. But you work for WE THE PEOPLE, folks, no matter how important you think you are. You don’t get to decide whether you will cooperate with the boss or not. If you don’t feel that you can follow the leader, get out. Just try to pull that petulant crap at the next job you get, I dare you. Do your job or quit; we aren’t putting up with your primadonna crap.

Mr. Holder and Justice lawyers, along with Mr. Craig, have argued aggressively for releasing operational details…[they argue] the agency shouldn't be in a position of defending practices the new administration has disavowed…[and] releasing the documents would help fulfill the president's promise of greater transparency.

Ah, YEAH. That’s what WE’VE been saying. And these are lawyers making these arguments, but Obama isn’t going to listen to them? Who makes a better argument than a lawyer?

Intelligence officials also believe that making the techniques public would give al Qaeda a propaganda tool just as the administration is stepping up its fight against the terrorist group in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

What a weak argument. Almost anything we do is a propaganda tool. Our government would know about propaganda tools. So F*#@ing what?

Some former administration officials have also argued that releasing all the memos could help terrorists train to endure the most extreme interrogation techniques.

That’s ridiculous for two reasons: (1) they had already been training to endure some of the milder “enhanced techniques” and (2) the more extreme forms of torture have supposedly been discontinued by the Obama Administration. So, that point is moot, and they damn well know it.

Making those details public, one official said, would make CIA officials disinclined to take any risks in the future.

Thank God. Maybe they should not have taken those risks in the first place. Maybe the people who decided that those risks were worth losing our national soul over should be LONG gone and never able to come back, if they aren’t already. They obviously showed a lack of good judgment on this issue.

The very definition of evil:
http://luxmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o10/clients/aclu/olc_08012002_bybee.pdf

The role of medical professionals in torture at Guantanamo includes rape utilizing instrumentality.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/02/hbc-90004409

If you can stomach it, check out the Human Rights project, specifically Brandon Neely’s account of activities at Guantanamo Bay:
http://humanrights.ucdavis.edu/projects/the-guantanamo-testimonials-project/testimonies/testimonies-of-military-guards/testimony-of-brandon-neely

Today’s news from the NY Times is that waterboarding was used on Khalid Sheik Mohammed 183 times and that Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times. “A former CIA officer had told news media he had been subjected to only 35 seconds underwater before talking.” And that liar's name is??
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_usa_security_interrogations

Also from today’s NY Times; it appears as though the initial questioning of Zubaydah was successful WITHOUT the “enhanced techniques” and that CIA operatives DID NOT believe he had any further useful information, but “officials” at CIA Headquarters were hot for trying out their new “techniques,” insisting that Zubaydah was more important in Al Queda than he ever actually was and that he “must” have more information.

“You get a ton of information, but headquarters says, ‘There must be more,’ ” recalled one intelligence officer who was involved in the case. As described in the footnote to the memo, the use of repeated waterboarding against Abu Zubaydah was ordered “at the direction of C.I.A. headquarters,” and officials were dispatched from headquarters “to watch the last waterboard session.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/world/middleeast/18zubaydah.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
I want names, dammit. Who felt the need to go and watch?? Sick bastards.

Also in the same article, “He pleaded for his life,” the official said. “But he gave up no new information. He had no more information to give.” If he was pleading for his life, he obviously felt his life was in jeopardy, which would meet one of the guidelines set forth for torture.

Support John Conyers, who made this statement today (from the NY Times):

“If our leaders are found to have violated the strict laws against torture, either by ordering these techniques without proper legal authority or by knowingly crafting legal fictions to justify torture, they should be criminally prosecuted,” Mr. Conyers said in a written statement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/us/politics/18detain.html?th&emc=th

If you are like me and you want REAL fresh air, and not just air that has been scented to appear fresh, DEMAND JUSTICE!

Sign the Democracy for America petition, sign the ACLU petition, contact Senator Patrick Leahy and/or Senator John Conyers, seek out others who agree that accountability is necessary and band together. We can force our government to do the right thing here. All it takes is a large group of angry and loud people who refuse to take “no” for an answer.

Who’s with me????

Happy Easter (or Spring Celebration)

2009-04-12T10:52:00.001-07:00

A silly stunt gives me some hope that people can come together around an idea. Just put your cares aside for a moment and enjoy...

Sound of Music Train Station @ Yahoo! Video

Michelle Bachmann: More Republicans Disrespect of the Citizenry

2009-03-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

I received this email from my neice in Minnesota. One of Ms. Bachmann's constituents in Minnesota sent her an email in response to her whackjob rant that people need to be "armed and dangerous" against President Obama's supposedly "socialist" policies. Apparently, her constituent thought this was an irresponsible comment to make. One of her flunkies responded with the email that I post below:

Paul,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKjxFJfcrcA

Also:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/metaphor

Jack Tomczak
Political Director
Bachmann for Congress
651-324-9825

If you were to click on the link, you would find yourself watching a clip from Billy Madison wherein a man proceeds to berate the main character as rambling, incoherent and irrational. Then, for good measure, the flunky adds the weblink for a definition of the word "metaphor."

Let me suggest here and now that Republican is a metaphor for "elitist" and that Michelle Bachmann contributes daily to the dumbing down of her constituents, the state of Minnesota and America in general.

Pathetic Bachmann flunky: ask not for whom the dumbass bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

MIGUEL MORALES FOR JCCC TRUSTEE: NOW IS THE TIME

2009-03-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

When we look around at the mess that our country is in right now and examine how it got this way, one of the issues that keeps coming up is lack of citizen involvement. We all got into this mindset that running things was someone else’s job, to the point where many of us even stopped voting. If we have learned anything at all, I hope that we have learned that we all have an impact on everything around us. If we want things to run properly, we have to be informed, actively involved and willing to stand up for what we believe in.

That is why I was so happy when my friend Miguel Morales told me that he was running for a seat on the Board of Trustees at Johnson County Community College. This is obviously his call to service. You have to know some things about Miguel to understand why that is such a great fit.

Miguel has been a student and employee at JCCC for years. He has worked as a reporter and editor at the student newspaper, The Campus Ledger, [http://campusledger.jccc.edu/] and worked at the Billington Library as an aide. He has been involved with various campus groups and is liked and respected by students, faculty and staff. Miguel feels a great debt to the College for all that he has learned during his time there. I don’t know anyone that cares more about the College, its programs and policies, its reputation and future, its students, faculty, administration and staff.

The Board of Trustees oversees the management of the College. They set the budget and vote on policies that affect programs, faculty, students and staff. It is a non-salaried position, but is integral to the day-to-day operations, the classes and programs offered, student and faculty policy and everything that makes JCCC a quality institution.

Miguel has first-hand knowledge of this because he has been a student and employee and has covered the Board meetings closely as a reporter for the Ledger. He broke the story of retired President Charles Carlson’s alleged sexual harassment of a female employee. It was a tough story for Miguel to research and write because the College means so much to him and because he had to stick his neck out to write it. I know he anguished over it and checked and double-checked the facts before he ran it. It was an important story that would impact the College greatly, so it had to be told. And it took integrity and guts for Miguel to run that story in the Campus newspaper, but he did it because he believes in transparency and the people’s right to know.

Some will view his lack of a business background as a weakness, but Miguel has been involved with non-profit organizations and is intelligent and savvy. Having worked his way up from humble beginnings as a migrant worker, he knows how to live on a budget in a way that most of these other candidates haven’t known in a long time (some maybe never). Besides, as a country, haven’t we put to rest this notion that we should be running everything as if it were a business? Governments and schools aren’t businesses; they are institutions that serve the public interest and meet community needs.

Miguel understands the necessity to run the College in a fiscally responsible and financially efficient way in order to keep the focus on quality education. You don’t have to have a business background to understand how to stick to a budget and plan for the future. And if you spent even five minutes talking to Miguel about the challenges that the College is facing in this economic downturn, you would realize that he is the candidate with the most knowledge on these issues.

As a student, employee and concerned citizen, Miguel would bring a unique perspective to the Board that no other candidate can match. He understands better than any of them the direct impact that the Board’s decisions have on students, faculty and staff at the College. And Miguel would bring much needed diversity to a Board of Trustees that has never included a minority member in its 40 year history. The student body and community that the College serves is increasingly ethnically diverse and it is important for the Board of Trustees at the College to reflect that diversity.

Check out this video on YouTube:

This country needs people who care about their communities and institutions to get involved. As many of us learned in typing class, “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.” Miguel Morales wants to serve the College that means so much to him. He is knowledgeable, intelligent, dedicated, passionate, practical and highly qualified. He is a man of the people and has no agenda other than to maintain and improve the quality of education and programs at JCCC.

Please vote for Miguel Morales for Johnson County Community College Board of Trustees on April 7th.

And if you don't live in Johnson County, Kansas, please donate any amount you can to Miguel's campaign. He is running against well-connected business men and politicians and he needs all the help that he can get. http://trustmiguel.wordpress.com/ (There is a donation button at the bottom of the page-secure and easy!)

Check out Miguel's blog: http://latinoreporter.blogspot.com/

ON REVOLUTION- Peaceful or Violent

2009-03-11T12:43:00.000-07:00

Anyone who reads my posts with any regularity and/or anyone that knows me at all, knows that I have been speaking out against various administrations, their policies and the disintegration of the America created by our founding fathers for years now. But no matter how many bad things I noticed and discussed, no matter how many signs and symptoms I observed that we were losing our freedoms and that the ruling classes were gaining unprecedented power and wealth, I could not have believed even six years ago that things would get as bad as they have. The fundamental flaw in my logic was believing that the wealthy and powerful loved this country as I do, valued freedom and democracy as I do, and felt the same allegiance to our founding fathers to maintain what they fought, suffered and died to give to us as I do.

Those of us who have paid attention in the past thirty years have watched as everything that we were taught to value and love, all the precepts and fundamental ideas that this country was built upon, have slowly been eroded and replaced with the kind of system from which our forefathers fled. Opportunity became a thing for the wealthy-- blue collar workers were devalued; manufacturing jobs that paid a living wage disappeared and were replaced with service jobs that were largely minimum wage; public education was defunded and college tuition sky-rocketed. Meanwhile, unions were demonized and busted, attorneys were demonized and civil liberties degraded, the “wall” separating church and state was chipped away, and corporate interests seeped into every corner of our government like toxic waste. Our society began conflating capitalism with democracy, elevating greed over service, equating dissent with treason, and valuing blind nationalism over liberty and freedom. We as a people have been divided by race, religion, social status, financial status and political philosophy. It was under the Bush II Regime that my eyes were fully opened, but this has been coming for a long time.

Many who have been watching this have come to the conclusion that only violent revolution will turn things around. They have given up on the system; they have given up on all leaders. They sit on the sidelines and stew in cynicism. They have good reason to feel the way they do. Many of them have been very aware for many years that America as we know it is slipping away. And they have been active in attempting to change things, to no avail.

Though I understand where they are coming from, I am not there yet. I will not reject the possibility that they might be right, but I am not ready to accept that we cannot change our system using non-violent means. I will continue to advocate for change from within until I see proof that there is no hope.

I am advocating that EVERYONE get involved. Every time you hear a concerned citizen voicing the idea that somehow it is somebody else’s job to turn things around, you should be telling them that nobody else is going to rescue this country, it is up to them. If people want to turn things around, YES THEY CAN, if they will only: Get Informed!, Get Involved!, and Get Active! You are the change that you have been waiting for; you are the only change that you can believe in.

We all know that the media is pure propaganda. From Katie Couric to all of Fox News; you can’t trust them, you can’t believe them and, if you must watch or listen to them, you must do so with extreme prejudice. However, there is an occasional reason to hope and Glenn Greenwald writes about one:

This Fox News interview with Virg Bernero — the Mayor of highly unionized Lansing, Michigan and himself the son of a retired GM worker — is, for several reasons, really worth watching (h/t Brainwrap). The glaring discrepancy he notes — between (a) the consensus of our political class that workers must endlessly give up wage, health and other benefits even as (b) we shovel trillions of dollars in government subsidies to Wall Street for ongoing massive executive bonuses and the like for the very people who caused the collapse — is one that (whether you agree or disagree with it) is rarely heard in our mainstream debate with such clarity and passion.

VIRG

It gives me hope to see that people who are part of government, even local, are thinking this way. They are seeing the same things we are seeing and instead of pulling away, they are getting inside the system. They believe that they can be the change that they are seeking. Others are marching, joining groups, planning protests, speaking out, blogging and getting organized. This is the way that the people of this country have been able to bring about change in the past. I can’t say for certain that it will be successful in these days and times. But I still have hope.

This is not to say that I would not support violent revolution if it comes to that. Our Constitution lays upon us the duty to overthrow authoritarian rule. But it is a tool of last resort and I grow increasingly suspicious of those that are vigorously advocating that tool.

REAL CHANGE MUST COME FROM WITHIN.

Playboy's Got the Scoop on Santelli

2009-03-01T20:22:00.000-08:00

Please click on the link in the title of this blog and go read the full article that is posted there. It connects the dots between the sophomoric Rick Santelli, his idiotic rant on Chicago's Trade floor against Obama's plan to help foreclosure victims and who is really behind this supposed "grass roots" uprising against Obama's budget (Chicago Tea Party-- my ass). The wealthy are acting to protect their millions and they have many pawns in the game. Santelli is merely the jester.

This whole ruse was apparently set up by the Koch family who own the "largest privately held company in America" Koch Industries. [check out this wiki bio on David Koch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Koch] And so, you see, it's no suprise; the free-marketers are not giving up without a war.

Charles Koch, President Koch Industries

It never ceases to amaze me that the richest people in the world can't stand to give up one thin dime of their money. Most of them inherited the money and so it's not like they earned it or anything. It's not like you and I who work hard for our salaries and barely make enough to live on. So what's the big deal; can't they spare a few million? No? WHY IS THAT?

I have my own theory. The rich are afraid of giving any power to the poor because they are afraid that they might have to actually DO something some day. This would be an occurrence for which they would be totally unprepared. Nobody has taught them how to EARN money; they only know how to hang on to it.

So they will spend BILLIONS to hang on to millions. Their only goal is to keep the money and power out of the hands of the poor who could actually really do something with the money. And that something would be to turn this society on its ear.

We've all been lied to for so long now. We were all taught that if we worked hard and played fair, we could get ahead. But the truth is that the rich have never played fair. They have to make it all look fair so that we won't get angry and rebel, in the same way that the powerful also have to make it appear as though this is a democracy so that we don't rebel. If they can just keep us blaming ourselves for all of our misfortune; our fault we can't find jobs, our fault we can't earn more money, our fault we can't afford to send our kids to decent schools or give them proper health care, they can hide behind the curtain of lies and keep pulling the strings in their favor.

As the man once said, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" Indeed; we have met the wizard and the whole thing is a fraud.

Oh, NO he didn't!

2009-02-10T13:25:00.000-08:00

I am not a big fan of many of Obama’s appointees so far. And I don’t know much about Elena Kagan except that she is a product of ivy-league education (how nice for her) and once took a stand against the government’s military recruitment policy (laudatory). So this is not a defense of Kagan or Obama or the Democratic Party.

That said, I read today in an article in WaPo that a Republican Senator is voicing concerns that “Obama planned to turn the (justice) department into a "liberal bastion."

Jeff Sessions; are you f*#@ing kidding me???

No, you Republican Senators that rubber-stamped nominees for Bush and turned a blind eye to obvious political appointments and FAILED in your responsibility to oversee the Executive Branch for the past eight years, you don’t get to say things like that. You get to keep your hypocritical mouth shut now. Because you did what you did during the prior administration, you have NO CREDIBILITY anymore. Obviously, you also lack a sense of shame.

To be fair, we should count the number of unqualified appointees that you and your fellow Republicans rubber-stamped and left unquestioned and you should not be allowed to voice any objection to any nominee until an equal number of Obama appointees has been reached. Surely you can see that this would be only FAIR, given the way you all arrogantly ignored and even ridiculed any sort of Democratic objections at the time you allowed Bush to appoint unqualified campaign supporters to crucial posts.

Oh, I realize that you are being pressured now. In the same WaPo article: “conservative groups have stepped up the pressure on committee Republicans to scrutinize Kagan and other Justice Department picks and criticized what they say are Democratic efforts to move the nominations too quickly.” That is another joke. Nobody but you and your Republican friends are listening to these delusional idealogues anymore. And that is making you look even more foolish than you already do (if that is even possible).

It has become painfully clear to the American people that your party’s whole agenda revolves around attempting to prevent any sort of meaningful change away from the failed policies that your party presided over that have brought our economy to its knees, destroyed our reputation in the world and brought untold misery and suffering to millions of people around the world. It is disgustingly clear that you and your colleagues have, and always will, put your own political ambitions and your party’s ideological agenda ahead of what is good for this country or the world and its people.

MEMO TO JEFF SESSIONS: It’s too late to cover your ass; we’ve already seen it and it is, indeed, an ugly sight. So, sit down, be quiet and take it like a man. While you are sitting there, you might reflect on your past failures, how your party can avoid failing the public in the future, and maybe even how you can atone for the destruction and pain that you have caused.

For those who doubt-Here is a great website to see some charts and graphs of the evidence of what the Republican party does to this country when it manages to get its hands on the reins. Take a look and then tell me that ANY Republican has a right to question anyone else's ideas on how to fix the mess they made.

http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/diary/2605/kick-the-obstructionist-republicans

My New Favorite Word

2009-02-07T09:45:00.000-08:00

There is this mind-bogglingly accurate portrayal of what Senate Republicans are doing on the Stimulus Bill posted at OpEdNews.com. If you click on the title of this blog, you will be taken directly there.

Rob Kall has invented my new favorite word. Economasturbation. Ypu have to read the whole article to really grasp the definition, but here is the gist of it:

The way they are regressing back to the failed tax cut idea. It is so mindless, so right wing reflexive- it is sub-cortical, dead-brained economasturbation.

I kept thinking that the Republicans were fiddling with themselves as the American economy was burning. Rob just gave the terminology to my thoughts.

Representatives MUST Represent

2009-02-05T11:25:00.000-08:00

Recently, I wrote to my Congressman and Senators regarding the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Thanks to my Congressman, but NO THANKS to either of my obstructionist Republican Senators, the bill passed both houses and was signed into law by President Obama. My letter to my representatives appealed to them to support the Fair Pay Act which made it not easier, as the media was reporting, but POSSIBLE for someone who is being discriminated against to file for redress of grievance to the Court. Previous laws which set statutes of limitations did not address the possibility that someone might be unaware for years or decades that they were discriminated against at their place of employment. This law addresses that oversight.

That's the simple fact. Just as laws have been amended to fix the problem that arises with statutes of limitations in criminal cases where a victim is unable bring charges at the time of a crime for whatever reason, this law simply amends statutes of limitations so that people who are unaware that they are being paid less have further opportunity to file for redress. It doesn't help those that don't find out until after they leave a place of employment, though. So, it could have been even tougher.

Unfortunately, at least one of my Senators was either unable to grasp the concept of an amendment to a statute (in which case, he is not competent to hold the office) or he is being purposely obtuse. You decide. The text of his reply to me explaining his NO vote on this bill is pasted below:

Thank you for taking the time to write regarding pay discrimination. I appreciate hearing from you on this issue.
In 2007, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co, Inc., a case that involved questions about the timeliness of claims filed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. This section of the law prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The Court held that the plaintiff had not filed suit in a timely manner of 180 days of her pay being set.
In response to this ruling, multiple bills were introduced in Congress to supercede the Ledbetter decision. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) introduced the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (S. 181). This bill clarifies that every paycheck from an earlier discriminatory pay decision constitutes a violation of the Civil Rights Act. Under this bill, as long as an employee files his or her charge of discrimination within 180 days of any discriminatory paycheck, the charge would be considered timely.
This legislation passed the Senate by a vote of 61-36. It also passed the House and was recently signed into law by President Obama (PL 111-1). I voted against this bill because it would eliminate long standing statutes of limitations in place to ensure disputes are resolved in a timely and fair manner. As a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, I remain committed to supporting anti-discrimination and equal employment laws.
Pat Roberts

Now isn't that a typical Republican thing: to say "I support anti-discrimination and equal employment laws"--but forget to add "Only when I have to avoid looking like a heel and only if they are very WEAK and not constructive."

The question I have for Mr. Roberts is how can you solve a dispute in a timely manner when you don't even know that you have a dispute for years and years? How many years was Lilly Ledbetter paid less than her male co-workers before she found out that she was being paid less due to her gender? So, she's just out of luck because some arbitrary statute of limitation says it's okay for her employer to discriminate against her as long as she doesn't know about it? Mr. Roberts, have you ever heard the phrase "spirit of the law?"

Allow me to explain. Anti-discrimination laws protect people like me and my two daughters from employers who believe they can pay me less because I don't have a penis. That is "the spirit of the law." (Its intention is to protect me from wage discrimination.) But at every single place I have ever worked there have been policies in place that provide that workers are not allowed to discuss salary and wage information with other employees on threat of termination. So, if it is the intention of the law to protect me and my daughters from asshats who think they can get away with paying us less because they don't value the vagina, an employer can break the law with impunity by preventing us from finding out they are doing it. And that's okay with you, Mr. Roberts? You don't have a problem with that, Mr. I-sit-on-the-Committee-that-considers-and-writes-the-laws-that-are-supposed-to-protect-you?

Answer this, Senator Roberts: How is it FAIR to me that I am being paid less, in violation of the law, but I am not allowed access to the information that would reveal this information to me, and, if I do find out somehow, I can't file for redress or monetary damages unless I know about it when I take the job? WOMEN AREN'T STUPID, MR. ROBERTS. If they KNEW they were being screwed over, they wouldn't take less pay in the first place. But you believe it is unfair for me to be able to address the issue when I find out about because of some loophole like a statute of limitations?

Folks, Senator Roberts has a wife and two daughters. I guess it's okay for whoever is currently employing his wife and two daughters (assuming that they actually WORK for a living) to pay them less due to their inferior private parts as long as they don't know about it or can't find out about it in time to file for redress under the statute of limitations.

Can someone tell me why this doesn't disqualify him from sitting on the Senate Committee????

SENATOR PAT ROBERTS--Discriminatory Asshat of the Day

Conservative Republicans are Certifiably Insane: Listen At Your Own Risk and At the Risk of Our Democracy

2009-01-27T09:36:00.001-08:00

My love affair with Bob Herbert continues. The man has a direct link to my brainwaves; he is thinking my thoughts, I swear. In his OpEd in today's NY TIMES he asks the question that I have been asking for quite some time now: Why The HELL is ANYONE Still Listening to Conservative Republicans??? Only he asks it much more nicely. (click the title of this blog to read the column)

I hear Rush Limpballs said on his radio show that he is hoping that Obama's policies will fail. I believe this is one of the few times that Limpballs has spoken from his withered, pathetic little heart.

How predictable it is for the conservative idiocracy to prefer their own failed ideas over the best interests of the rest of the country. That is exactly the kind of stupid, selfish thinking that helped to get us into this mess. Way to go Rush!

On January 21, Reuters quotes House Minority "leader" John Boehner with saying that he does not see the U.S. Nationalizing Banks, but doesn't know how the current crisis can be fixed or if we have the funds to fix it. He stated

"if we don't do something about creating more jobs and preserving more jobs in America, we will not solve the banking crisis with TARP alone; we have to get the economy moving."

SERIOUSLY????
When did Conservative Republicans start caring about whether the American people had jobs? Have they finally realized that what we lowly wage earners do actually affects their pocketbooks? They presided over all sorts of greedy policies--union-busting, corporate banking off-shoring, down-sizing, outsourcing and shipping jobs overseas and kept the minimum wage stagnant to prevent even the lowest wage earners from being able to merely SURVIVE in our economy. Which one of those policies did they intend to help create JOBS?????
Conservative Republicans: This one's for you!

Albert Einstein once said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

This definition makes it clear that Conservative Republicans are certifiably insane. They started to wreck the economy with Bush's tax cuts and they are still singing the same sad song.
Now, when is the media and the rest of this country going to WAKE UP and tell these imbeciles where to stick their opinions?
WAKE UP PEOPLE!!

Change We Need: Financial Regulations

2008-12-31T11:51:00.000-08:00

TODAY THE DCCC SENT ME AN EMAIL ASKING ME TO GIVE THEM SOME FEEDBACK ON THE KIND OF CHANGE WE NEED TO MAKE IN THE COMING YEAR. THIS IS WHAT I TOLD THEM:

Change the banking and finance laws so that credit card companies can no longer charge usurious interest rates and change the terms of agreements capriciously.

Require credit reporting agencies to independently verify the information that they provide for accuracy and to be liable for any incorrect information that they do not remove from a credit report.

Require credit reporting agencies to change their credit scoring algorhithm so as not to unfairly penalize people who do not own credit cards but are responsible about paying their other installment agreements (such as car loans, mortgages and student loans).

Pressure state legislatures to overturn the rule that allows insurance companies to use credit scores to unfairly charge higher premiums to their customers.

Make it illegal for anyone to check my credit information without my written consent unless I maintain a current balance with their company and force the credit reporting agencies to allow me to access my credit report whenever I want.

Barring these changes, outlaw credit reporting agencies entirely as they have unprecedented and unconstitutional powers over the day-to-day lives of the average American citizen and the citizen has absolutely no power over them.

Why should there exist companies who can collect private financial and personal information about me and then proceed to allow people that I don't even know to view that information but regulate whether or how much or how often I can view the same information?

If the information that they provide causes me to have to pay more for rent, prevents me from obtaining employment, causes me to have to pay more for my insurance, causes me to have to pay higher interest rates on my mortgage, car loans or other credit account, they should be financially liable for any wrong information that they provide.

If they are going to collect this information and it is going to affect me so greatly, they should have to be responsible for the accuracy of this information.

It is an OUTRAGE that these credit reporting agencies are allowed to screw the American citizen every day and get away with it. The credit scores they generate are being used as a tool to justify overcharging, unfairly limiting access, and discriminating against the working class American. Ironically, this credit scoring system was developed to make the granting of credit more fair in times when discrimination in lending was rampant. Now it is used as a tool of oppression to discriminate against the very people it was designed to help.

REGULATE IT.

That's one area where you can change some things; go to it.

That is what I told them and I stand by it, but, y'all, don't hold your breath.

Click on the link to find out how the credit reporting agencies are now working within the medical community to exert further control over the American public. Let's get up in arms and put a stop to this NOW, folks.

Bob Herbert Says It All

2008-12-23T11:12:00.000-08:00

People, it's time to change our way of thinking. It's time to stop blaming the American Worker for the ills caused by conservative policies and greedy executives.

For me, it started during the Reagan administration. That is when I started paying attention, so it could have started before then, but that is when I first noticed it--The demonization of the American Worker. Lazy, greedy, making inferior products, unconcerned with quality, more concerned with getting their paid time off. It was when the conservative movement got real about breaking unions in this country and the first salvo in the campaign came when Reagan screwed the Air Traffic Controllers out of their jobs. Screw those air traffic controllers; we can get more, is what he said, in essence.

The message sent was: workers in any industry, at any position, at any level EXCEPT the executive level, are expendable. Workers are a dime dozen; one is just as good as the next. They are all greedy, lazy, untrustworthy slobs.

If you have worked in this country for any amount of time, you may have noticed this philosophy gaining ground in your workplace. Everyone is expendable now. There is no job security, no loyalty (on either side) and hard work is no longer rewarded or valued. A don't-rock-the-boat mentality rules the workplace and people who work too hard are frowned upon by management as too "ambitious." I remember a time when ambition was a positive worker trait.

It seems to me that there was a period of time in which the American worker was valued for the effort he put in, for the VALUE he contributed to the bottom line. People MADE things and they worked hard doing it and companies naturally expected to reward them for their efforts; share the wealth, so to speak. They were considered part of the team, part of the family. This idea seems to have degenerated over time into this current commonly held belief that nobody is important anymore. And people, even the common workers themselves, seem to have fallen into this faulty philosophy.

Which is why it is so easy for conservatives, whose basic economic philosophy has been disproved by recent events, whose policies have utterly and completely FAILED this country, to pass the buck for our woes on the American Worker. Who is questioning the assertion that it was unfair and unreasonable demands by union workers that caused the collapse of the American auto industry? Certainly not conservative politicians. Forcing the autoworkers to take a pay cut, cutting off pensions and benefits for workers who worked their whole LIVES to make profits for the shareholders; one can just see the drool dripping from the mouths of the greedy conservatives who believe they have won something.

Screwing the auto workers is the coup de grace in their war on the American Worker. Thus is the union beast dealt the death blow; and the American worker again takes the blame for all that is wrong instead of the true culprits; the greedy, ignorant, delusional conservatives and powerbrokers that have brought the American worker to his knees in pursuit of increasing profits. The truth is that they have screwed themselves. But it will take YEARS for their myopia to clear so that they can finally see that. Meanwhile the common man will have to endure untold suffering and sacrifice before the American Worker's value will again be acknowledged.

The economy turned away from manufacturing under the Reagan administration and today many jobs are in the service sector. One problem with that is apparent now; when people don't have money, they don't require services. More people lose their jobs. When those people lose their jobs, they can't afford goods any longer, so people in manufacturing lose their jobs. You see where this is going.

We have got to stop blaming this on the worker. It wasn't the worker that got greedy. Wages for middle class workers have been stagnant, while bankers, stock brokers and financiers of all types have reaped historical profits and reached dizzying heights of salary and fringe benefits. Experts have been documenting the growing gap between the rich and the poor for DECADES now. This is not an accident. This is the conservative "free market" philosophy in action.

The worker is ready to make the sacrifices that it may take to get our economy rolling again, as evidenced by the forced sanctions that the UAW has agreed to make in order for the auto giants to get their bridge loans. But what sacrifices are the executives willing to make? Not just in the auto industry; what about the bankers, financiers, insurance executives, stock brokers, etc? When will their day of reckoning come?

Now is the time to stand up for the American Worker. That is YOU and ME. Maybe you aren't an autoworker. Maybe you aren't a member of a union. Maybe you hold a white-collar job and don't consider yourself a part of the "working" classes. THE BELL IS RINGING; it's time to wake up now. If union jobs are at risk, your job could be next. If companies are laying off workers, your job could be next. If whole industries are struggling, your job could be next. The government aid that has been handed out so far has EXCLUDED the worker. It has lined the pockets of corporations at the expense of the American Worker. It's time to stand up and DEMAND accountability from Congress and corporate executives. And stop blaming the American Worker. We have sacrificed enough.

My Contribution to New Healthcare Ideas

2008-12-04T13:36:00.000-08:00

You can go to Change.gov and click on a healthcare link and put your two cents worth in about what kind of changes are needed to effectively reform healthcare in this country. YOU SHOULD go to Change.gov and put in your two cents worth. I did, and this is what I wrote:

I am 45, my husband is 44. We have an 11 year old son. We are all in good health. My son has some birth anomolies that are monitored regularly, but no health problems.

We are lower-middle class wage earners struggling to provide a decent life for ourselves and our son. My husband works in residential construction and is lucky to have a job, though we don't know how long that will last. We live in a small house in a decent neighborhood, but have been trying to get ahead financially for eight years now in order to move our son into a better school district.

I am lucky to receive health insurance benefits through my employer who partially pays for my benefits. Deductions from my paycheck to cover family insurance (health, dental and minimal life coverage for my son) each month equal over $800. This does not include any money that I set aside in a cafeteria plan for things that are not covered by insurance.

We can't go without insurance. The last time I tried that we ended up with $6000 in medical bills on our credit report because I had kidney stones and went to the emergency room for a few hours. We have only recently been able to get that collection removed from our credit reports. (which is another issue that needs to be addressed)

But just imagine how much different our lives would be if we didn't have to pay what amounts to a house payment to ensure that we aren't struggling for the next five years to try to remove medical collections from our credit reports. I have two grown daughters from a previous marriage and one of them has two children. Her husband is out of work again and they are living with a relative. We can't even help them because we don't have room for them. If I had $800 more a month, we could afford a house big enough for them to come and live with us. We could move to a better school district and my son and grandchildren could benefit.

It's not just that we need to reduce the cost of health insurance premiums, but we have to reign in the cost of healthcare. I know that it is a booming business, but the business must be removed or we will all sink. The banking and finance business was so consumed with profit that they sunk us all. Healthcare has a similar problem. If the profit motive is not removed, we will be facing the same sort of crisis again very soon.

We need to regulate the profit motive out of healthcare. We need non-profit hospitals, non-profit clinics and regulations that reasonably fix the price of drugs, supplies and devices.

I hear people say that we need to move toward this change slowly. But they are wrong. We need to move toward this change boldly, with the courage of our convictions and with the knowledge of the benefits that this change will bring. We cannot allow fear to rule this issue as it has for the past twenty five years.

We need REAL healthcare reform and it has to come from the bottom up. The foundation of our new healthcare system must be built on a vision that looks far into the future and addresses the issue from primarily a HEALTH perspective instead of a business perspective. Remove the profit motive. Then those that go into the healthcare field will be there for the right reasons and we will have a higher quality of providers. Then we will not have doctors and hospitals overbooking patients and we will have a higher quality of care. Government regulation would make doctors more accountable and remove the burden of over-priced malpractice insurance from the doctors that are doing a good job. REMOVE THE PROFIT MOTIVE and reintroduce the HUMAN motive in healthcare.

Don't be afraid no matter how some will wail and moan because THEY are afraid of change. Don't give in to the instinct to appease them, even a little bit. They are consumed with their own fear, but it will pass when you change the system and they begin to see the possibilities and the positive differences that result. Don't be afraid to be wrong about some things, because you will be wrong sometimes, but you will recognize your mistakes and you will see how to fix them. At this time in our nations' history, there is a unique opportunity to remake the way things work and put the focus back on THE PEOPLE where it belongs. The only thing that stands in the way is FEAR; your fear, our fear, their fear. Don't give in.

I am willing to support government healthcare with community service hours in whatever skill that I possess which is helpful. I think that could also help to reduce costs. I have people skills and computer skills that I would gladly donate in order to make healthcare available and affordable for all and free up some of my funds to making a better future for my children and grandchildren.

Thanks for listening.

In the Spirit of the Season

2008-12-04T08:20:00.001-08:00

I tried to embed it here, but don't think it will work. So click on the link above to see my snowglobe. Then, make your own--it's FUN!

My NEW RULE

2008-11-03T11:46:00.000-08:00

Since this so-called "Joe the Plumber" is neither named Joe nor is he a licensed plumber;

Since he doesn't appear to have worked at this profession in WEEKS;

Since he now has his own publicist and is intending to embark on some new "celebrity"-type career;

Since he espouses ignorant ideas about Obama and Israel, Socialism, and taxes and still backs McCain DESPITE the fact that he initially said he was worried about the effect of Obama's tax plan on his dream of someday owning his own plumbing business and it has since become clear that Obama's plan would be better for him than McCain's under those circumstances;

Therefore:

NEW RULE: Joe the Plumber must hereby be re-christened "Joe the Ignorant" because he seems to be officially representing that willfully ignorant segment of our society that refuses to see the facts and continues to cling to their ignorant beliefs.

Joe the Ignorant; the official spokesperson of troglodytes* everywhere! Available to speak to your group for a nominal fee

* a person characterized by reclusive habits or outmoded or reactionary attitudes

Sarah Palin: Dangerous Religious Fanatic

2008-10-29T13:35:00.000-07:00

Fresh reason today to despise Sarah Palin and to say a prayer to God, today, right now, that He will see it in His will and best interest to eradicate this person from any position of power in the whole wide world.

As it turns out, Ms. Palin isn’t just your run-of-the-mill “whack job,” as the Republican handlers have leaked in recent days. She is a PRODUCT of an actual movement by some FRIGHTENING whack jobs that are also very well-organized.

I have recently been disgusted to find out that almost every major church in this country and even some of the less-recognized ones, all operate EXACTLY like large corporations. They have administrative arms, financial arms, employment arms, and whatever other kinds of departments you might find at any major corporation. They have their own retirement funds and other financial instruments. If you ever wondered what the deal is with this “prosperity gospel” that many churches are preaching now, well, it is REAL. It’s not wishing for prosperity, it is actually INVESTING in church businesses and financial instruments and getting rich. It may seem counter-intuitive or counter to Jesus’ teachings, but they are all organized beyond imagining and do not see any conflict-of-interest in getting rich off of Jesus.

Though this is enough in itself to turn anyone away from organized religion, there are also legal arms. Many of the evangelical churches have united together toward a common goal of taking over the country and forcing their teachings on us all. This movement is called “Dominionism.” They would like to rewrite the Constitution to conform to what they believe are “God’s Laws.” And they are EXTREMELY well-organized. And they have multiple legal organizations backing them up. It is chilling.

And this is where Ms. Palin comes in. Because, as it turns out, she belongs to a Dominionist church and has been counseled by some of the Dominionist legal organizations. Check out these websites to learn more:

http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/about/Purpose/Default.aspx

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/sep/02/palin-no-stranger-focus-family/

http://www.npr.org/blogs/newsandviews/2008/09
/the_tax_man_cometh_to_church.html

Wikipedia defines Dominionism this way:

Dominionism describes, in several distinct ways, a tendency among some conservative politically-active Christians, especially in the United States of America, to seek influence or control over secular civil government through political action — aiming either at a nation governed by Christians, or a nation governed by a conservative Christian understanding of biblical law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionism

In the same entry, Dominion Theology is defined this way:

Dominion Theology is a grouping of theological systems with the common belief that society should be governed exclusively by the law of God as codified in the Bible, to the exclusion of secular law, a view also known as theonomy. The most prominent modern formulation of Dominion Theology is Christian Reconstructionism, founded by R. J. Rushdoony in the 1970s. Reconstructionists themselves use the word dominionism to refer to their belief that civil government should be controlled by Christians alone and conducted according to Biblical law. Social scientists have used the word "dominionism" to refer to adherence to Dominion Theology as well as to the influence in the broader Christian Right of ideas inspired by Dominion Theology. Although such influence (particularly of Reconstructionism) has been described by many authors, full adherents to Reconstructionism are few and marginalized among conservative Christians.
According to Diamond, the defining concept of dominionism is "that Christians alone are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns". In 1989, Diamond declared that this concept "has become the central unifying ideology for the Christian Right" (p.138, emphasis in original). In 1995, she called it "prevalent on the Christian Right." Journalist Chip Berlet added in 1998 that, although they represent different theological and political ideas, dominionists assert a Christian duty to take "control of a sinful secular society."
In 2005, Clarkson enumerated the following characteristics shared by all forms of dominionism:
1. Dominionists celebrate Christian nationalism, in that they believe that the United States once was, and should once again be, a Christian nation. In this way, they deny the Enlightenment roots of American democracy.
2. Dominionists promote religious supremacy, insofar as they generally do not respect the equality of other religions, or even other versions of Christianity.
3. Dominionists endorse theocratic visions, insofar as they believe that the Ten Commandments, or "biblical law," should be the foundation of American law, and that the U.S. Constitution should be seen as a vehicle for implementing Biblical principles.

A website in Canada had this to say about Dominionism:

Its most common form, Dominionism, represents one of the most extreme forms of Fundamentalist Christianity thought. Its followers, called Dominionists, are attempting to peacefully convert the laws of United States so that they match those of the Hebrew Scriptures. They intend to achieve this by using the freedom of religion in the US to train a generation of children in private Christian religious schools. Later, their graduates will be charged with the responsibility of creating a new Bible-based political, religious and social order. One of the first tasks of this order will be to eliminate religious choice and freedom. Their eventual goal is to achieve the "Kingdom of God" in which much of the world is converted to Christianity. They feel that the power of God's word will bring about this conversion. No armed force or insurrection will be needed; in fact, they believe that there will be little opposition to their plan. People will willingly accept it. All that needs to be done is to properly explain it to them.
All religious organizations, congregations etc. other than strictly Fundamentalist Christianity would be suppressed. Nonconforming Evangelical, main line and liberal Christian religious institutions would no longer be allowed to hold services, organize, proselytize, etc. Society would revert to the laws and punishments of the Hebrew Scriptures. Any person who advocated or practiced other religious beliefs outside of their home would be tried for idolatry and executed. Blasphemy, adultery and homosexual behavior would be criminalized; those found guilty would also be executed. At that time that this essay was originally written, this was the only religious movement in North America of which we were aware which advocates genocide for followers of minority religions and non-conforming members of their own religion. Since then, we have learned of two conservative Christian pastors in Texas who have advocated the execution of all Wiccans. Ralph Reed, the executive director of the conservative public policy group the Christian Coalition has criticized Reconstructionism as "an authoritarian ideology that threatens the most basic civil liberties of a free and democratic society."

http://www.religioustolerance.org/reconstr.htm

For more frightening reading, please check out these two articles which are both well-cited (with links):

http://dogemperor.newsvine.com/_news/2008/08/29/1803647-sarah-palin-dominionist-stalking-horse

http://correntewire.com/palin_dominionist_intimidation_and_actual_witch_hunters

And, for some truly worrisome reading, here is what they are using to brainwash their kids:

http://community.livejournal.com/dark_christian/209138.html

WOW! No wonder Palin draws such nutty crowds and no wonder they adore her with such an unthinking passion. They most likely believe, as they did of Bush, that she is ordained by God. I wish that by losing this election, it would cause some of these folks to question their beliefs. But, these are true fanatics.

We have SO much to worry about for a long time to come in this Country.

May God Bless America (by saving us from these nuts).

More Evidence of the Fascist Wing of the Republican Party

2008-10-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

The Republicans who have stayed in that party are comfortable with all manner of abuse of power, thuggery, justification and excuse-making. Real Republicans should be disgusted enough to take their party back. If they can't wrest control from these neo-fascist bullies, they should start a new party.

Check out the video below.

McCAIN POISON EMAIL

2008-10-23T08:26:00.000-07:00

Okay, I have received a new piece of Obama hate mail today that has not been debunked by snopes.com. It really irritates me that there are still people out there that will believe everything they read in an email. Especially because most of them do not have progressive friends that they can rely on to effectively debunk the lies contained therein. Below is the text of the latest smear campaign. I just wish I knew how to submit this to snopes so that it could receive the thorough debunking needed.

Obama Directly Tied to Voting Fraud Group
By Sher Zieve

In case you — like most of us — have difficulty keeping up with Democrat Presidential candidate Barack Obama's ties to corrupt, terrorist and anti-American groups and individuals a new one has emerged.

The mainstream press — as with Obama's other associations — is working overtime to cover this latest one up. Obama is directly tied to a group that has been both accused of and its members convicted of National Voter Fraud, embezzlement and misuse of tax payer funds — ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now).

What are Obama's direct ties to the voter-fraud group? Let's take a look. Obama was not only ACORN's attorney but, actually trained the group in "community activism!" And, while Obama was Chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, he arranged funding for the voter-fraud group through the CAC. McCauley's Wor ld reports: "In Philadelphia alone ACORN has raised over $800,000 Dollars for Barack Obama's Campaign." In politics, scratching each other's back is always the order of the day.
The voter-fraud group is working almost non-stop — except when its members are arrested and taken into custody — to get Obama elected POTUS.

If Obama is elected, we could actually have the least experienced, most corrupt and first Socialist/Communist POTUS in world history. And the other Obama direct ties to corruption and anti-Americanism? Let's take another look — shall we?.

William Ayers-former head of terrorist group the Weather Underground — was Obama's colleague at the Woods Fund of Chicago and Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Note: Ayers lobbied to have Obama named Chairman of the CAC. Ayers is also a major fundraiser for Obama.

Obama's acknowledged over 20 year minister and mentor, Jeremiah Wright, has made and continues to make anti-American, anti-white and anti-Semitic "sermons".
Obama has direct ties to Saudi Arabian funders and the Black Panthers.
Depending on one's sources, Obama was either the #2 or #3 Fannie Mae (Democrats' personal slush fund) funded politician.

Obama is directly ties to now-convicted felon Antoin Rezko.
Obama wants to work with the very leaders of countries who want to destroy us.
The evidence against this man Continues to mount. But, still Democrats and the Democrats' media want him as POTUS.

Corruption, Recognizes and Supports it's Own, folks.

This could Never Happen in a Sane World.

If you have time to waste, google Sher Zieve; you might get a big kick out of the stuff you find. Or you might be repulsed by it. But how many gullible people out there just forwarded this garbage on without checking into the source of the trash?

Herein lies the difference between the Obama hate mail that you will sometimes receive from well-meaning, uninformed friends and the type of emails that are sent between progressives about McCain. Most of what I receive about McCain is regarding POLICY. Occasionally I will receive an email with an unflattering picture or an unsubstantiated rumor about McCain calling his wife the "c" word. (I know it was in a book, but it is not independently confirmed)

I have never received a negative email from anyone I know full of lies about McCain or Palin. Apparently, Democrats and progressives (and your good old-fashioned liberals) don’t usually just believe everything they read in an email. They don’t send these things out to their friends without investigation. They and their friends tend to go to the source to get their information and don’t rely on emails from friends, Bill O’Reilly (or other FOX talking heads-not journalists), or the “entertainers” on talk radio to get their news.

Secondly, if you had the time, I truly suspect that you could trace some of this stuff all the way back to the Republican Party. I know that the Democrats are imperfect, capable of arrogance and stupidity and prone to excesses of their own. But we all know that it is the Republican Party that has embraced the notion of the ends justifying the means as a political and moral imperative. For me, this became apparent back in the Reagan administration and has been evident in every successive Republican campaign and/or administration.

Lastly, you don’t have to be creative to send a scathing email full of John McCain’s faults, character failings, ties to scandal and corruption or unsuitability to lead. There are plenty of facts and documentable examples of this in existence. All you have to do is READ, copy and paste. Progressives don’t need to send these sort of emails because they are INFORMED already, but maybe we should start sending them back to the people that send us the Obama hatemail. Perhaps it will make them think?

Will Our Votes Be Counted?

2008-10-20T12:17:00.001-07:00

A Primer On How The Republican Party is Fixing Elections:

Part II:

What You Can Do Now:
Go to www.wakeupandsaveyourcountry.com (Click on the title of this blog)
Go to www.stealbackyourvote.org/

ACT.

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. -Albert Einstein

You must do the things you think you cannot do. -Eleanor Roosevelt

Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will. -Frederick Douglass

A Rabbit Story

2008-10-15T07:02:00.001-07:00

"And it has big, sharp teeth...look at the bones, man!"

Does McCain Have Control of his own Campaign?

2008-10-13T12:26:00.000-07:00

The oft-asked question, answered daily, as McCain goes lower and lower: How low will he go? What would John McCain not do to achieve his goal of the Presidency?

Though he has pointed out Obama’s ambitions to become President, he ignores his own obvious ambitions and ignores the lengths that he has gone to in order to achieve those ambitions. His campaign has sunk SO low recently that even Republicans are complaining about the tactics he is using and the hate speech that the campaign is inspiring.

Check out this statement from an article on Yahoo News on Friday, Oct 10:

The raw emotions worry some in the party who believe the broader swath of swing voters are far more focused on their dwindling retirement accounts than on Obama’s background and associations and will be turned off by footage of the McCain events.
John Weaver, McCain’s former top strategist, said top Republicans have a responsibility to temper this behavior.
“People need to understand, for moral reasons and the protection of our civil society, the differences with Sen. Obama are ideological, based on clear differences on policy and a lack of experience compared to Sen. McCain,” Weaver said. “And from a purely practical political vantage point, please find me a swing voter, an undecided independent, or a torn female voter that finds an angry mob mentality attractive.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081010/pl_politico/14445;_ylt=Agc6EwS_vqq.dZJuGSW7yhJWr7sF

After three weeks of ever-heightening accusations, smears and outright lies about Barack Obama made by the campaign during these rallies and “town halls,” even other Republicans were disgusted by the tone and tenor of the statements and the visceral reactions that were occurring daily on the campaign trail. So much so that McCain was finally forced to say something himself to ratchet down the vitriol.

And I assume that we are supposed to be impressed by the fact that he was willing to finally stand up and be decent. But, of course, that ignores the fact that he is the one whose campaign started down this ugly path to begin with. And he only partially ratcheted down the innuendo and continues to lie about Obama. Also, I have yet to see any evidence that Palin is going to do the same. I guess we’ll wait and see whatever it is she has to say at whatever campaign stop she is making today.

Though they are trying to distance themselves now, they are doing so half-heartedly and are not being let off the hook so easily. This from cbsnews.com:

Palin, at a fundraiser in Ohio on Friday, told supporters "it's not negative and it's not mean-spirited" to scrutinize Obama's iffy associations.
But Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania an author of 15 books on politics, says the vitriol has been encouraged by inflammatory words from the stage.
"Red-meat rhetoric elicits emotional responses in those already disposed by ads using words such as 'dangerous' 'dishonorable' and 'risky' to believe that the country would be endangered by election of the opposing candidate," she said.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/10/politics/main4514574.shtml

Having lead his followers down this road, how difficult will it be to turn them around? After all, they booed him when he corrected the folks at the Town Hall that were inferring that Obama was dangerous and an Arab. That is something that he might have considered before this whole mess began. (And perhaps, if any violence does ensue, his campaign and propagandists like Rush Limpballs should be charged with inciting a hate crime.)

Meanwhile, McCain is attempting to distance himself from this whole sordid affair. Déjà vu anyone-- McCain distancing himself?

And today we have a new smear, this time from the head of the republican party in Virginia. Check it out:

The chairman of the Virginia Republican Party has compared Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden because of the Illinois senator's past association with Bill Ayers, who has confessed to domestic bombings as a member of the Vietnam War-era Weather Underground…
According to a report in this week's Time magazine, the Virginia party chairman, Del. Jeffrey M. Frederick (R-Prince William), told Virginia volunteers working for GOP nominee John McCain that Obama and bin Laden "both have friends that bombed the Pentagon."
That is scary," Frederick said while providing talking points to GOP volunteers in western Prince William County as they prepared for a door-to-door canvass.
Yesterday, Frederick said he stood by the comparison, even though bin Laden planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon that killed 184 people and Obama was a child and hadn't met Ayers when the Weather Underground planted a bomb at the Pentagon in 1972. No one was hurt in that blast, in which a bomb exploded in a restroom and caused flooding and damage to computer tapes containing classified information.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/12/AR2008101201956.html

Further along in the same article, we see the pattern that has been established by the campaign; people close to the campaign or members of the Republican party say something nasty, then the campaign “distances” itself from the comment.

Gail Gitcho, a McCain spokeswoman, also denounced Frederick's remarks, calling them "not appropriate."
"While Barack Obama is associated with domestic terrorist William Ayers, the McCain campaign disagrees with the comparison that Jeff Frederick made," Gitcho said.
It was the third time in a little more than a week that Gitcho repudiated something said or written by someone affiliated with McCain's Virginia leadership team. Last week, the head of the McCain campaign in Buchanan County in southwest Virginia was forced to resign after a column surfaced in which he made disparaging remarks about Obama, African Americans and gay people. Last weekend, the McCain campaign distanced itself from McCain's brother, Joe McCain, after he referred to Alexandria and Arlington County as "communist country."

How do you “distance yourself” from your own brother? And am I the only one that noticed the back-handed way that this Gitmo person (Gitcho, whatever) attempted to distance McCain from the Frederick comment? She managed to link Obama with terrorists while denouncing Frederick's linkage of Obama to...terrorists.

Here is the pattern: somebody associated with the campaign says something outrageous that McCain does not have the balls to say himself, but that will appeal to the blood-sucking, salivating mob of ultra-conservative dittoheads. Then the campaign comes out with a message that McCain does not agree with the statement. Then, the next day, or sometimes the same day, somebody else comes out and makes a new outrageous statement.

Is this McCain’s way of having his cake and eating it too? His campaign appeals to the base and he stays above the fray by supposedly repudiating the appeal (obviously with a wink and a nod)?

Or is this evidence that McCain has no control over his campaign?

Either way, it does not instill confidence in his ability to lead a nation.

Please click on the title of this blog to read a beautifully written essay on what the McCain campaign's hate speech has wrought.

Dangerous Times

2008-10-13T07:15:00.000-07:00

The citizens of this democracy have become complacent and taken their democracy for granted. The natural course of things is degrading what was once the beacon of hope for all the world. This nation now more resembles the closed society of Communist USSR that we were taught to fear as children than it does the free and open society of Washington, Jefferson and Franklin. BUT CHANGE IS COMING.

There is an excellent article on OpEdNews that clearly outlines the encroaching danger of the loss of civil liberties in this country. It is a must-read for anyone that questions how bad things have actually become. It may be depressing news, but there is a silver lining.

Change can happen in a good way, if everyone stands together. These are dangerous times, but in dangerous times it is our duty to stand up to tyranny. We can do this; our forefathers risked no more or less than we will and we stand to gain back all that they won. And we owe it to future generations to pass on what was gained so many years ago. If we have allowed it to slip away, it is our responsibility to regain it.

Don't believe that this election will fix anything without the vigilance, sheer force of will and determination by the people to win back all that has been lost. It is OUR government and we have to fight for it. But WE CAN DO IT. And NOW IS THE TIME.

And So It Begins…

2008-10-09T12:33:00.000-07:00

Make sure you are registered to vote. Check out this article from Yahoo News:

Tens of thousands of eligible voters have been removed from rolls or blocked from registering in at least six swing states, and the voters' exclusion appears to violate federal law, according to a published report…The newspaper said it identified apparent problems in Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina. It says some states are improperly using Social Security data to verify new voters' registration applications, and others may have broken rules that govern removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election…Democrats have been more aggressive at registering new voters this year, according to state election officials, so any closer screening of new applications may affect their party's supporters disproportionately, the Times said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081009/ap_on_el_ge/voter_purges

But don't dispair! Bobby Kennedy and Greg Palast can help us all to make sure that our votes are counted this November. Find out how by clicking the title of this blog.

Vote early. Refuse a provisional ballot-know your rights and insist on them!

Understanding the Economic Problem

2008-10-09T11:10:00.000-07:00

Below is the introduction to a WONDERFUL blog that describes the basis of our economic crisis in a way that almost ANYONE can understand. It is important for all of us to be informed, so I hope that anyone who trips on to my blog will click on the title above and read the whole thing.

Something extraordinary is going on with these government bailouts. In March 2008, the Federal Reserve extended a $55 billion loan to JPMorgan to “rescue” investment bank Bear Stearns from bankruptcy, a highly controversial move that tested the limits of the Federal Reserve Act. On September 7, 2008, the U.S. government seized private mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and imposed a conservatorship, a form of bankruptcy; but rather than let the bankruptcy court sort out the assets among the claimants, the Treasury extended an unlimited credit line to the insolvent corporations and said it would exercise its authority to buy their stock, effectively nationalizing them. Now the Federal Reserve has announced that it is giving an $85 billion loan to American International Group (AIG), the world’s largest insurance company, in exchange for a nearly 80% stake in the insurer . . . .

The Fed is buying an insurance company? Where exactly is that covered in the Federal Reserve Act? The Associated Press calls it a “government takeover,” but this is not your ordinary “nationalization” like the purchase of Fannie/Freddie stock by the U.S. Treasury. The Federal Reserve has the power to print the national money supply, but it is not actually a part of the U.S. government. It is a private banking corporation owned by a consortium of private banks. The banking industry just bought the world’s largest insurance company, and they used federal money to do it. Yahoo Finance reported on September 17:

“The Treasury is setting up a temporary financing program at the Fed’s request. The program will auction Treasury bills to raise cash for the Fed’s use. The initiative aims to help the Fed manage its balance sheet following its efforts to enhance its liquidity facilities over the previous few quarters.”

Treasury bills are the I.O.U.s of the federal government. We the taxpayers are on the hook for the Fed’s “enhanced liquidity facilities,” meaning the loans it has been making to everyone in sight, bank or non-bank, exercising obscure provisions in the Federal Reserve Act that may or may not say they can do it. What’s going on here? Why not let the free market work? Bankruptcy courts know how to sort out assets and reorganize companies so they can operate again. Why the extraordinary measures for Fannie, Freddie and AIG?

The answer may have less to do with saving the insurance business, the housing market, or the Chinese investors clamoring for a bailout than with the greatest Ponzi scheme in history, one that is holding up the entire private global banking system. What had to be saved at all costs was not housing or the dollar but the financial derivatives industry; and the precipice from which it had to be saved was an “event of default” that could have collapsed a quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble, a collapse that could take the entire global banking system down with it.

All That Needs to Be Said

2008-10-03T11:35:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Joe Biden, who is intelligent, knowledgable, quick on his feet, down-to-earth, plain-spoken and, yes, even DISCIPLINED. Sir, your passion is not a character flaw, it's a welcome, needed asset, especially in these times.

No BAILOUTS Act

2008-10-03T08:03:00.000-07:00

We have all heard about this Wall Street bailout and NO POLITICIAN in this country today will go on record as a big supporter of it. Nobody likes this bill. They didn't like the initial plan proposed by Hank Paulsen, they did not like the first or second versions of this bill and they don't like the current version, either.

Personally, I believe that the most current version of the bill is the WORST and I hope Congress will fail to pass it AGAIN.

The reason that I say that is because we keep hearing this false choice that we either hold our noses and pass this one or do nothing. But those are not the only two choices that we have. There are other proposals out there, but you are not hearing about them. Now you are.

Below, I am posting a bill in the works from Pete DeFazio and several others are co-sponsoring. It is not a bailout, but it provides for the liquidity that the market is saying they currently lack.

The most immediate crisis that this economy faces is the lack of liquidity in lending. Banks are not lending money to other banks and businesses are facing the possiblity of not being able to get capital loans to make payroll and pay their vendors. This is what could break our whole economy. The answer is not to pay Wall Street but to ensure that banks will regain their ability to continue the inter-bank loans that enable businesses to run. DeFazio's bill addresses this need and some other important issues, without handing Wall Street a blank check.

I ask you to read this proposal and click on the title of this blog to read an article about this bill. Then please pass this on to your friends. We all need to get behind this sort of RESPONSIBLE legislation and make sure Congress does the right thing to fix the problem. Call your Congressperson and him/her to support a Responsible Solution to the current crisis.

Bringing Accounting, Increased Liquidity, Oversight and Upholding Taxpayer Security

1) Require the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to require an economic value standard to measure the capital of financial institutions.

This bill will require SEC to implement a rule to suspend the application of fair value accounting standards to financial institutions, which marks assets to the market value, no matter the conditions of the market. When no meaningful market exists, as is the current market for mortgage backed securities, this standard requires institutions to value assets at fire-sale prices. This creates a capital shortfall on paper. Using the economic value standard as bank examines have traditionally done will immediately correct the capital shortfalls experienced by many institutions.

2) Require the Securities and Exchange Commission to restricting naked short sells permanently.

This bill will require SEC to implement a rule that blocks naked selling, selling a stock short without first borrowing the shares or ensuring the shares can be borrowed. Such practices many times harm the companies represented in the sales and hurt their efforts to raise capital. There is no economic value produced by naked short sales, but significant negative effects.

3) Require the Securities and Exchange Commission to restore the up-tick rule permanently.

This bill will require SEC to implement a rule that blocks short sales without an up-tick in the market. On September 19, 2008, the SEC approved a temporary pause of short selling in financial companies “to protect the integrity and quality of the securities market and strengthen investor confidence.” This rule prevents market crashes brought on by irrational short term market behavior.

4) “Net Worth Certificate Program”

This bill will require FDIC to implement a net worth certificate program. The FDIC would determine banks with short-term capital needs and the ability to financially recover in the foreseeable future. For those entities that qualify, the FDIC should purchase net worth certificates in these institutions. In exchange, these institutions issue promissory notes to repay the FDIC, counting the amount “borrowed” as capital on their balance sheets. This exchange provides short term capital, with not cash outlay. Interest rates on the certificates and the FDIC notes should be identical so no subsidy is necessary.

Participating banks must be subject to strict oversight by the FDIC including oversight of top executive compensation and if necessary the removal of poor management. Financial records and business plans should be subject to scrutiny while participating in the program.

In 1982, Congress approved a program, known as the Net Worth Certificate Program, that allowed banks and thrifts to apply for immediate capital assistance. From 1982 to 1993, banks with total assets of $40 billion participated in the program. The majority of these banks, 75%, required no further assistance beyond the certificate program.

5) Increase the FDIC Insurance limit from $100,000 to $250,000.

The bill will require the FDIC raise its limit to provide depositors confidence that their money is safe and help eliminate runs on banks which are destabilizing to the industry.

Peter DeFazio - Member of Congress

COUNTRY FIRST: PLAYING POLITICS WITH A FINANCIAL CRISIS

2008-09-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

In a disgusting partisan display yesterday, when Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans and President Bush had all gone on the record in the media as saying they were close to an accord on how the financial crisis could be managed, John McCain flew into town and injected himself and his campaign hopes into the mix, blowing up whatever agreements had been reached. Democrats were once again left on the hook when, while trying to fix a mess that was created by Republican policies, previous Republican control of the congress and a Republican administration, the Republicans first made it look like they would agree to a plan and then bailed out and pretended they never agreed in the first place. And their next step will surely be to label the Democrats as big spenders on the hook to Wall Street and make it look like they had the interests of the little guy at heart the whole time.

It became fairly obvious what the campaign was up to when Sarah Palin charged that Barack Obama was checking the political winds before taking action, but John McCain was supposedly taking the bull by the horn. The McCain campaign has set a pattern of transmitting the tact they they are about take by first accusing Obama of doing the exact same thing. So, McCain flew in to what was by most accounts a close-to-done deal to make it look like he was taking matters firmly in hand, so that he can take measure of the political winds. After polling showed the Americans had serious doubts and concerns about he bailout, he decided to pander to those fears (Hey, it worked before!). He carefully did not show support for any plan, or publicly propose his own plan. He poses for a smiling but fidgety photo op and the next thing we know, the whole thing suddenly blows up.

Since Democrats were begged not to disclose what happened when the cameras were turned off, the Republican party gets to spin the whole thing any way they want. And, since Obama had been summoned to witness this pathetic political theatre, the blame game will start today and he will somehow be in the thick of why things blew up. Look for the smears to be coming from Sarah Palin. If she deigns to make any kind of statement to the media today, watch what she says because it will tell you what new spin the campaign is trying to use to make it look like they are doing something and Obama is either not doing anything or is not doing the right thing.

From MSNBC this morning:

“..leading Democrats on Capitol Hill were shocked by the level of divisiveness that surfaced at Thursday’s extraordinary White House meeting, leaving six days of intensive efforts to agree on a bailout plan in tatters only hours after key congressional players of both parties had declared they were in accord on the outlines of a $700 billion bill.”

Then this morning Lindsey Graham sits on a morning show and pretends that he knew nothing about any agreement and found out only at lunchtime. He was busy meeting with Republican congress members. What the hell was he doing there if there was no deal yet? Let me guess; figuring out how to derail the whole thing so that they could use this financial crisis to McCain’s advantage somehow.

This also from MSNBC this morning:

“

Schumer said…’Before Sen. McCain made his announcement, we were making progress.’ Schumer was referring to McCain’s announcement earlier in the week that he was suspending his campaign to return to Washington for the negotiations on the financial industry crisis.

McCain met briefly Friday morning with House Republican Leader John Boehner.”

How strange that Boehner meets with McCain, while Lindsey Graham is busy meeting with Republican House Members then all of a sudden the whole plan is derailed. They pretend it was derailed by the House Republicans so that the Senate Republicans don’t appear to be going back on their word or as though they had anything to do with the shenanigans. And suddenly, McCain has his own ideas for how to solve the mess, which he supposedly put forth in the meeting at the White House, though NOBODY has reported on any details of that plan.

The new plan being advanced by Republicans this morning is RIFE with problems. I am no Wall Street insider, but anyone with a small amount of knowledge about the current problems there will tell you that part of the problem now is that those who are holding a lot of this bad debt are hesitant to step up and be known because their stock value and credit rating will drop immediately, to their possible ruin. This is part of what is freezing the market. The Republican plan put forth this morning would force these firms to show their hands, as it were, in the highest-stakes poker game in the world. That is no answer, but a recipe for disaster if you are really trying to constructively fix the problem. Yet, that does not seem to be the aim of the McCain campaign or the Republican party right now. Obviously, Party is coming before the needs of country.

This also from MSNBC this morning:

“The White House summit meeting had been called for the purpose of sealing the deal that Bush has argued is indispensable to stabilizing frenzied markets and reassuring the nervous American public. But it quickly revealed that Bush’s proposal had been suddenly sidetracked by fellow Republicans in the House, who refused to embrace a plan that appeared close to acceptance by the Senate and most House Democrats.

Paulson begged Democratic participants not to disclose how badly the meeting had gone, dropping to one knee in a teasing way to make his point according to witnesses.
And when Paulson hastily tried to revive talks in a nighttime meeting near the Senate chamber, the House’s top Republican refused to send a negotiator.”

Watch today for Sarah Palin to make the claim that it is the Democrats playing politics with the financial crisis. The spin will most likely be that she and John are the ones that are keeping the small-town people’s needs first, but the evil liberal Democrats are just trying to throw their money at Wall Street in a desperate bid for the White House. It is as predictable as it could possibly be.

Unfortunately, it is quite possible that an uninformed electorate will not see it coming and perhaps may even fall for it.

McCain’s new slogan should read:

JOHN MCCAIN: PARTY AND PRESIDENTIAL AMBITIONS FIRST LAST AND ALWAYS

The Truth About Republicans

2008-09-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

For most of my life I have heard the term “Tax and Spend Liberals” hurled about by conservative republicans. They have convinced the populace that all Democrats are liberals and that all liberals want to do is take money out of your pockets and spend it on unnecessary things.

The problem with this myth is that, in my lifetime, I have seen that when Democrats spend, they invest in our country and its people. They invest in education, healthcare and technologies that help to create jobs. They invest in infrastructure and support family farms. They invest money in the people of this country in order to give them the opportunity to lift themselves up and experience the American Dream.

For most of my life I have witnessed how republicans manage the federal budget. They gin up some phony or semi-plausible threat, then spend the budget and borrow more to buy weapons. Every republican administration in my lifetime has run up ever larger budget deficits. They mortgage the financial futures of our children and grandchildren to enrich their friends in the military-industrial complex. Yet they have anointed themselves the “fiscally responsible” party.

Occasionally, in order to justify their massive military spending, they send the military into war in some small nation, or, as is the case with the current administration, embroil us in unending occupations in hostile places fueling hatred of foreign people towards our country. They never advocate for better veterans benefits, but they have anointed themselves the party that “supports” the troops.

They support and advocate policies that aid multinational corporations in making virtual slaves out of the people in poor countries and advocate and abet the destruction of labor unions that protect worker’s rights in this country. They wink and look the other way as companies hire illegal immigrants at low wages, effectively lowering wages for all citizens and then demonize the immigrants who have come here to take those jobs and do nothing to punish the companies that hire them. Then they claim to be the only party with answers to our immigration problems.

There has been a drumbeat of deregulation coming from the conservative republican branch for decades and when they were able to achieve power, they sold out the taxpayers to special interests for power and prestige, neglected the populace and infrastructure and pulled apart the framework of laws that kept our economy balanced. This has resulted in the current financial crisis that threatens to destroy our banking industry, taking businesses, jobs, savings and homes down with it. They got what they wanted, did what they told us was best, reaped the financial rewards and now the bill has come due. They say they believe in personal accountability and small government. Then why are they now expecting the taxpayer to pay the price for their mistakes and failures?

One of the republican party’s most favorite lines has been, “whenever there’s a problem, liberals think you can just throw money at it and it will go away.” Liberals and Democrats want to “throw money” at things like the rising cost of a college education, the rising cost of healthcare, environmental concerns, alternative energy sources, aging roads and bridges, feeding the hungry, housing the poor, keeping jobs in America, daycare for working parents, and funding social security for the aged and disabled. How ironic now that the republicans are so eager to throw $700 Billion in taxpayer money at Wall Street, with little to no discernable oversight as to how it will be spent. Kind of the same way that the Bush administration sent millions of dollars in cash over to Iraq at the beginning of the occupation, supposedly to help rebuild the country and cannot account for where the money went. They sell themselves as the only party that can be trusted with our money, but they act like money grows on trees and everything is free.

Over the course of my life, conservatives have successfully demonized lawyers, teachers, the poor, patriotic Americans, journalists, whistle-blowers, and the American worker. They demonized lawyers and journalists so that when they started deregulating business, breaking laws, marginalizing minority populations, caging votes, destabilizing the middle class economy, waging unilateral wars, taking away our constitutional rights and freedoms and undermining the constitution with their notion of the “unitary executive,” there would be no credible way to fight them. If you are a lawyer and you don’t like what they are doing, you are communist, anti-American, weak, liberal. If you are a journalist that tries to report what they are doing; same smear tactic. If you are a concerned citizen that feels a duty to object to these tactics, you are a subversive, or perhaps even a terrorist and are spied on, threatened and intimidated. Republicans have brought a new level of secrecy and insidious vindictiveness to government while they systematically did away with democratic practices. But the republican party has anointed itself as the “real patriots.”

The republican party has claimed to be the party of law and order. They support mandatory sentencing and the death penalty. They have enacted increased sentencing guidelines for drug crimes and when the prisons were full to overflowing, supported the privatization of the correctional system. Now private companies are profiting off of taxpayer dollars and the more criminals they have, the more money they make. Yet the “war on drugs” and mandatory sentencing have done nothing to curb drug use or deter drug crimes and violence. The republican party has only served to make prison companies richer.

And if republicans are the party of law and order, why do they hold themselves above the law by trying to wiggle out of convictions, refusing to cooperate in investigations, and ignoring legally issued subpoenas? Why do they insist on secrecy and why have they politicized the federal justice system by firing impartial judges and appointing cronies and party operatives? That’s not equal justice, that is double-standard and despotic rule.

Republicans reached out to Christian groups, convinced them that they were being oppressed in a majority-Christian society and promised to institute Christian-based laws and programs. As soon as they achieved office, they forgot about all of these promises and engaged in behavior most unChristian. They have used Christianity as a wedge to divide us. Their only success was in the funneling of taxpayer funds to favored non-profit and presumably faith-based organizations with no oversight as to where and how it was used and causing resentment and division among people of differing faiths and denominations.

It is PAST TIME for this nonsense to end. It is time for every citizen in this nation to examine the facts, the evidence, the record and the recent history of the republican party and to question their claims. It is time for us to see the realities of our situation and to stop living in denial. This particular “conservative” movement has proven itself a failure in every possible way. This is NOT your parents’ Republican Party; we can’t trust these people.

These republicans are not tax and spend, but they ARE borrow and spend. Which is worse?

These republicans create programs ONLY to funnel taxpayer money to enrich their friends and gain power. They do nothing to invest in the American people. Would you rather have your money used to make the enrich the wealthy or to fund education and create jobs for working people?

These republicans DO NOT have the answers to solve our current problems because their policies have CAUSED the current crises. They deregulated the banking and financial services industry and now they refuse to take responsibility, but point the finger of blame at the working poor. John McCain wants to deregulate the health insurance industry next. Are you willing to take that gamble?

These republicans have had their way for the past twelve years in Congress. They made a promise to all of us in 1994 that, if elected, they would clean up the government, restore accountability, cut wasteful spending, eliminate pork, and create jobs and opportunity for working people. They did the EXACT opposite.

These republicans have presided over a new version of the Do-Nothing Congress, convening only two days per week, involving themselves in bribery scandals, handing out government money to special interests, taking gifts and free trips from lobbyists and removing rules and regulations to further enrich bankers and Wall Street CEOs. These republicans expanded presidential powers in unconstitutional ways, neglected their duties of oversight, and drove our nation into massive debt to Communist China.

Who has suffered? Our military men and women and their families, working class people, children, small businesses, homeowners, future generations of taxpayers and now it has started to affect our whole society. Rising prices, lower wage jobs, war, rising education and healthcare costs, limits on lending, a housing market crash, a banking crisis and a stockmarket crash along with failure to respond properly to two natural disasters, a global environmental crisis and global terrorism are the legacy of these republicans.

It is time to vote these republicans out of every office at both state and federal levels and reject their failed policies and philosophies. These republicans are not the “values” party; they have no values.

The American people still have values. We are patriotic, spiritual, hard-working, intelligent, willing to fight and ready for change. Let's tell these republicans to hit the road and never come back.

McCain’t Nothing Gonna Change Under This Supposed Maverick’s Watch

2008-09-22T11:24:00.000-07:00

The NY Times has a great editorial by Frank Rich today. If you click on the title of this blog, you can read it for yourself. Along with everything I saw and heard over the weekend, it made me think and thinking made me despise the Republican party all over again. It also lessened my opinion of John McCain AGAIN. (It's like a Limbo refrain; How low can it go?)

Check out this article that traces more of the revolving door type political and financial ties that have completely corrupted our government and turned it into nothing more than a power and money trough for corporate special interests. And John McCain is the star.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080929/berman_ames

McCain's campaign continually tries to sell us on the idea that he is not a part of the corruption in Washington and never has been. But, those who don't remember, or are too young to remember, McCain started out his career embroiled in scandal and allegations of corruption. The media hasn’t seen fit to bring up John McCain’s questionable past regarding the Savings and Loan fiasco. That may be changing now that this country is dealing with the fruits of McCain and Co’s deregulation labors. If you haven’t ever heard about his involvement in the Savings & Loan scandal, back when he was a Washington nubie, there is a story at this link:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/mccain/articles/0301mccainbio-chapter7.html

The Sunday morning political shows this weekend were all about the Market Meltdown and how each candidate handled themselves. It was shocking to hear the conservative pundits on the Sunday morning shows openly question whether McCain possesses the leadership qualities that are necessary for the Presidency. And equally shocking to hear them commend Barack Obama on his leadership skills.

But I do wonder if talking heads are too late to undo the disgusting falsehoods that conservatives and Republican operatives have been planting in the fertile minds of the fearful, racist, wantonly ignorant portion of our society that is wholesale behind a Palin/McCain presidency. Check out this editorial which I believe smacks the nail on the head:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21kristof.html?em

It is frighteningly familiar and disgustingly believable that bigoted people who refuse to claim their racism would go to such great lengths to try to demonize Obama so they have an excuse (besides “the black thing”) not to vote for him and to publicly encourage others to vote against him as well. When I first heard the claim that Obama could be the anti-christ coming from a co-worker who is not politically savvy, but is educated and intelligent, I could NOT believe my ears. It is beyond repulsive to admit that I live in a society where the following article appeared in TIME magazine.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1830590,00.html

That a major news magazine felt the need to address this notion is absolutely unbelievable in our modern world. And now, because I would not want to inadvertently add to this ridiculous slur, I must publish the Snopes website’s debunking of this pathetic myth: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/antichrist.asp

And John McCain may not have come right out and said, Obama could be the anti-Christ, but this "message" that he approved was intended to speak to those true believers in a coded language that they understood only too well.

No wonder even the conservative pundits are turning away from him. What a disgusting individual. What slimy immoral lows will McCain not stoop to in order to attain the power of the Presidency? And he charges that Obama has only personal ambitions at heart. I know this much is true: Whenever a Republican makes an accusation against an opponent, he is actually talking about himself.