Month: April 2011

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Politics United States young

The Young, The Poor, The Blacks And The Stupid

As we near the time for the gathering of soothe sayers, spin doctors and corporate-made shills to throw their hats in the ring for the circus of illusions that the 2012 presidential elections promises to be, I’m reminded of a technique commonly used in marketing. The target consumer’s tendencies, mood and environment are studied and well-known by those merchants whose livelihood depends upon consumers viewing their products favorably. Careful consideration of wording, colors, slogans and exterior design of packaging is taken to ensure that the product is not only noticed, but that the product and its insignia or logo is remembered.

There will be jingles, there will be catchy phrases and celebrities who speak on behalf of a product that may or may not be beneficial to the consumer. If our favorite reality show star is the spokesperson for a brightly packaged processed meat product, it may just slip past us as to how much unhealthy sodium and fat content is inside the beautifully designed package.

And so it is with our political leaders. Not a hair out-of-place. Teeth freshly installed for the occasion. Talking points memorized and ready…or for one poor soul copied onto the palm of her hands. Every couple of years locally and every four years nationally, we are presented with the same warmed over, refurbished campaign rhetoric in a different suit.

Fellow Americans, we have been studied well.

The architects of this illusion we have of participation in the direction of this great nation, know us better than we know ourselves. Figuratively speaking, the political saturated fats and artificial ingredients will be disguised as organically grown, sun-kissed health food, just as sure as the marionettes of the super wealthy disguised as public servants, will be packaged to appear as if they actually have answers. The sincere and well-meaning political leaders who serve faithfully their duties are like a faint background noise in comparison to the cartoonish officials that get media play.

So as the political circus of campaign 2012 begins be careful what you consume, the contents may not be as beautiful as its wrapping.

In the words of  an R.J. Reynolds tobacco company executive “WE DONT SMOKE THAT SHIT, WE JUST SELL IT. WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO SMOKE TO THE YOUNG, THE POOR THE BLACK AND STUPID”. You do the math.

Son of Man

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Barack Obama Birthers Birthers Republican Party (United States) presidential candidates 2008 shooting United States

President Clinton – Birthers Shooting Themselves In The Foot

President Bill Clinton, one of the 43 previous men who carried the banner of President of the United States, who was never accused of being born anywhere else other than the US during his tenure, expressed his displeasure of criticism, by some, of the 44th man to carry the torch – President Barack Obama. One criticism that Mr. Clinton referred to, was the suggestion that Mr. Obama was born in Kenya. Mr. Clinton calls this “ludicrous.”

“If I were them, I’d be really careful riding that birther horse too much. Everyone knows it’s ludicrous.”

Appearing on ABC’s Good Morning America, the ex President then suggests to Bianna Golodgrya the reason why President Obama is not giving in to the wishes of the Birthers, by putting out a version of his birth certificate to satisfy their needs, instead of the version his native Hawaii government allows:

“I think one of the elementary rules of combat is you don’t want to get in your opponent’s way if he’s shooting himself in the foot.”

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Barack Obama Politics Republican

Shutting Down The Government For Teaparty Bragging Rights

John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives had this to say at a news conference last week;

“Let’s all be honest, if you shut the government down, it’ll end up costing more than you save because you interrupt contracts. There are a lot of problems with the idea of shutting the government down. It is not the goal. The goal is to cut spending.”

His Democratic counterpart in the Senate, Leader Harry Reid chimed in with this;

“I’m happy to say that negotiations toward a compromise are moving forward. Not as fast as I would like, but they are moving forward.”

And even the President himself, Barack Obama made his opinion known, when he said;

“We know that a compromise is within reach. And we also know that if these budget negotiations break down, it could shut down the government and jeopardize our economic recovery.”

So if everyone is saying the same thing and the need to continue funding the government is evident, why are we facing a potential government shutdown on Friday of this week? The answer is simple… The Teaparty.

One of the self-appointed leaders of the Teaparty, Congressman Mike Pence had this to say;

“If liberals in the Senate want to play games and shut down government rather than make a down payment on fiscal discipline, I say shut it down.”

The problem is one of compromise, or lack thereof. When campaigning for the 2011 mid-term election, Republicans promised the Teaparty the moon, the stars, and even a small section of the galaxy they can rename Teabaggers-ville. Another promise was to cut the federal budget by $100 billion – another far-fetched promise, but one that fell within the teaparty’s requirement to reign in federal spending at all cost. Given these promises from Congressional Republicans, the teaparty voted in masses, putting the Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives, and gaining seats in the Senate.

Now, four months after Republicans have gained power, the teaparty is looking for Teabaggers-ville. They want what was promised to them and thus far, the Republicans haven’t paid up. Not because they don’t want to, but because they simply can’t.

When President Obama came out with his budget, it included additional spending of $41 billion. John Boehner and his fellow Republicans in congress cried foul, demanding that the president review his proposal. He did, and came back with $33 billion in cuts. But this wasn’t enough for the Boehner and the Teaparty, who voted for, and approved a House budget with at lease $61 billion in cuts.

The adults in the room couldn’t agree on a final budget, so two separate CRs (continued resolutions – temporary spending agreements) were put into place. We are now just five days before the second CR expires, and everyone involved is saying the right thing. Everyone, that is, except the Teaparty.

What happens in the event of a government shutdown? Slate reports;

Certain necessary activities would continue—anything related to defense, inpatient or emergency medical care, air traffic control, securing prisoners, or disaster assistance, for instance. But legally, federal agencies would have to wind down nonessential business. That means hundreds of thousands of employees would go on furloughs, from the Treasury to Health and Human Services to the Department of Education, to be paid whenever a continuing resolution passes. Thousands more contractors would just lose their gigs. Parks would shut down. Offices would clear out. Phones would go unanswered.

Nobody knows exactly how it would shake out, not just yet. The president has broad discretion to decide what counts as necessary and what does not, says Stan Collender, a longtime budget expert and a partner at Qorvis, a D.C. communications firm.

But everyone dreads the prospect. The last time the government shut down was during the Clinton administration. For five days in November 1995 and 21 days between December 1995 and January 1996, the lights went off. In the first shutdown, 800,000 workers stopped heading into the office. In the second, about 284,000 stayed at home, with an additional 475,000 working on “non-pay status.” These were not just pencil-pushers either. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave up on monitoring the outbreak of diseases. Workers at 609 Superfund toxic-waste sites stopped cleaning up.

Another promise the Congressional Republicans made to Americans was job creation. Based on the information presented above, it seems that shutting down the government is not the best way to create these jobs. If the Teaparty is truly for fiscal responsibility like they would haver us believe, they will ask their congressional representatives to do what’s right for the economic longevity of this nation, not shutting down the government to fulfill some empty campaign promise.

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Abortion Featured Indiana Politics Rape

Republican Said Women Would Fake Rape To Get Abortions

Apparently, Republicans think women will lie about being raped or being the victim of incest, in order to get a “free abortion.” This claim is coming from a Republican in the Indiana Congress. His name is Eric Turner.

Mr. Turner introduced what is being considered the most restrictive abortion bill in the nation. The bill will make it illegal to have most abortions after 20 weeks. Present law makes certain abortions illegal after 24 weeks, or when the fetus is visible.

Realizing the implications of this bill, a Democratic congresswoman Mrs. Gail Dickens tried to introduce an amendment to the bill exempting “women who became pregnant due to rape or incest, or women for whom pregnancy threatens their life or could cause serious and irreversible physical harm.” But Mr. Turner would have none of it. He stepped to the podium and had this to say;

With all do respect to Rep. Riecken, I understand what she’s trying to do. But as you know that when the federal health care bill was going through Congress there was a lot of discussion whether this would allow for abortion coverage and of course we were all told it would not. And the bill, my house bill 1210, would prevent that for any insurance company to provide abortion coverage under federal health care bill. This [amendment] would open that window and I would ask you to oppose this amendment.

I just want you to think about this, in my view, giant loophole that could be created where someone who could — now i want to be careful, I don’t want to disparage in any way someone who has gone through the experience of a rape or incest — but someone who is desirous of an abortion could simply say that they’ve been raped or there’s incest.

Leave it up to a Republican male, to determine what’s right for the women of this country.

Categories
House of Representatives Politics Republican

Republicans Say Boehner Created 216,000 Jobs In March

The recent employment figures show 216,000 jobs were created in March, allowing the unemployment rate to fall from 8.9% to 8.8%. And according to David Dreier, Republican Chairman of the House Rules Committee, John Boehner is the one responsible for these newly created jobs.

Contain your laughter!!!

Mr. David Dreier praised John Boehner, saying;

Speaker Boehner has consistently been saying not only, “where are the jobs,” and we’re all gratified that the positive signs of getting our fiscal house in order played a big role in creating 216,000 non-farm, payroll jobs last month and brought the unemployment rate from 8.9 down to 8.8%.

So what exactly is Mr. Dreier talking about when he says “getting our fiscal house in order?” Well, to answer that question, we have to look at what House Republicans have concentrated on in the last 2 months since they took control of the House of Representatives.

  1. House Republicans have voted to repeal President Obama’s health care law. According to a report by David M. Cutler, repealing healthcare would “slow job growth by 250,000 to 400,000 annually.” The report also show an increase in medical spending by $125 billion by the end of this decade, and another $2,000 increase in yearly insurance premiums for families.
  2. Republicans in the House have also voted to defund NPR. Exactly how many jobs will this create? Zero. But it will take away $22 million dollars from the organization. Sigh!
  3. Repealing Planned Parenthood…. Jobs created? Another big ZERO, as per The Huffington Post
  4. House Republicans are intent on cutting $61 billion from the budget. This must be where the 216,000 jobs came from! Well, let’s take a look. The Senate hasn’t agreed on this $61 billion cut, so in essence, this budget cut, called H.R 1 is not law. Jobs created? Zero. In fact, many economists agreed, that if the Republican’s budget cuts detailed in H.R. 1 go into effect, hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost.

And so the confusion continues. If the bills that House Republicans have voted on haven’t created any jobs, then how exactly is Mr. Dreier crediting John Boehner with creating 216,000 of them last month?

Well, Dreier knows he is lying. But its something Republicans have been doing for some time now. It’s called the power of persuasion – you say something often enough, eventually, although it may be a lie, it will be accepted as truth by many.

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Barack Obama Featured Republican United States

Republican’s Next Target – American Association of Retired Persons

Since gaining power in the House of Representatives, Republicans have attacked just about every major group of middle class Americans it could classify. So there should be no surprise that the American Association of Retired Persons also known as the AARP is next in line for the GOP’s crosshairs.

Republicans are now asking the IRS to investigate the AARP, in an effort to cut off funding to the organization. Their reasoning is that because of AARP’s support for President Obama’s Health Care reform, the group is than bound to profit from the reform and thus, should be stripped of its federal funding. The Boston Globe reports;

Three veteran GOP representatives released a report that estimates the seniors lobby could make an additional $1 billion over 10 years on health insurance plans whose sales are expected to pick up under the new law. They also questioned seven-figure compensation for some AARP executives.

“Based on the available evidence, substantial questions remain about whether AARP should maintain its tax-exempt status,” said the report, released by Reps. Wally Herger of California, Charles Boustany of Louisiana and Dave Reichert of Washington.

AARP said profit had nothing to do with its support for President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, which expands coverage to nearly all Americans, a longstanding goal of the organization.

“We are very disappointed in the report and reject its conclusions,” said AARP President Lee Hammond. “AARP is no more an insurance company than we are an online travel company … the royalties we receive allow us to keep member dues low.”

Can we expect to see massive protests from the seniors in the Teaparty? After all, this organization represents them and provides benefits for their well-being in their golden years. When will the first march on Washington take place?

Don’t hold your breath. Defunding AARP, although it will eventually hurt TP seniors currently under the program, has  absolutely no effect on the millionaires and billionaires who fund the Teaparty. In fact, taking away from AARP works in favor of the wealthy. Republicans lackeys will make certain that this money get’s to them in the form of another well deserved tax-cut.

 

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