House Republicans just voted to defund our only protection against E-Coli – a disease that is contracted by eating contaminated foods like fruits and vegetables. The Microbiological Data Program was responsible for the screening and testing of these food products, but Republicans have voted to shut it down.
The House last month approved a bill that would end funding for the 10-year-old Microbiological Data Program, which tests about 15,000 annual samples of vulnerable produce such as sprouts, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, cantaloupe and cilantro for pathogens including salmonella and E. coli
Defunding this agency makes it more possible for Corporations to cut corners in the food preparations industries, thus, increasing the likelihood that more contaminated produce will be served on our tables.
At a time when “48 million foodborne illness cases occur in the United States every year,” and “at least 128,000 Americans are hospitalized, and 3,000 die after eating contaminated food,” the Republican controlled House of Representatives’ decision to defund this important food screening agency is just another example of the Republican motto: “Corporations Over The American People”.
Tim Pawlenty showed his punkass side again. Last Sunday, Pawlenty went on Fox News and criticized his fellow Republican Mitt Romney and the health care bill Romney approved in Massachusetts. Funny thing is, when Pawlenty was given the opportunity to confront Romney at the CNN debate one day later, he punked out and showed the nation that he has no backbone.
Well that was then and this is now. Realizing that he crumbled while Romney was on stage with him, Pawlenty is trying to regain the ‘tough-guy’ front he never really had. So today, in the comforting confine of his own living room, and in front of his big bad computer, little Timmy went online and became ballsy tweeting to all who cared to listen, that he is once again willing to take on Romney.
After looking around the room and making sure Romney wasn’t there, Pawlenty took to twitter and tweeted the following;
But on CNN, and with Mitt Romney standing just a few feet away from him, Little Timmy emerged and the tough-guy persona he exhibited on Fox was gone.
And so, the inevitable happened. Scott Walker and his Republican goons in Wisconsin have now turned their union busting efforts against Wisconsin’s police and firefighters.
Local firefighters and police officers are vowing to fight legislation proposed last week that would limit their ability to collectively bargain and negotiate contracts.
Rep. Bob Ziegelbauer, I-Manitowoc, introduced the bill that would eliminate collective bargaining for public safety employees on health care and pension contributions. Ziegelbauer’s bill does not require an employee to contribute to health care and pension funds, but would allow municipalities to mandate contributions.
Walker’s bill curtails collective bargaining for most public employees, including municipal workers and teachers, but exempts police and firefighters. A Dane County judge has blocked the law from taking effect after opponents allege that a meeting where the bill was approved violated the state’s open meetings law.
Jeremy Kopp, a Wausau firefighter and the department’s union president, said he will urge firefighters to email and call legislators to express their opposition to Ziegelbauer’s bill
In his original union busting bill, Scott Walker stated that there were no reasons to include the police and firefighter unions. The politics of this decision was obvious. These unions supported the governor in his run for office.
But that was then and this is now.
The Republican governor watched, as the very same union members he excluded from his bill, turned against him and joined the hundreds of thousands of other union members who were under attack. Consider this new bill as his chance to get even.
Mitt Romney recently made a statement that caused his opponents to question whether the Republican presidential wanna-be is ready for the demands of the office. Mr. Romney, questioned the spending of President Obama in an editorial he wrote for the Manchester Union Leader, saying “Barack Obama is facing a financial emergency…yet his approach has been to engage in one of the biggest peacetime spending binges in history.”
“Peacetime spending binges?” Who would have thought we were living in peaceful times? And this coming from the man Republicans want to take over the job as President Of The United States.
Steven Colbert gives his views on this. A must see…
And why should he? He’s The Donald for crying out loud! He don’t need to vote in no stinkin’ primary! That’s a waste of his time, and quite frankly, his money. We are talking about the Trump here… There’s casinos to bankrupt, there’s hairspray to buy. Why waste time voting in a primary?!?
According to th New York Board of Elections, the last vote The Donald had cast in a primary election was back in 1989, some 22 years ago. But now, the Republican Presidential wanna-be candidate would like for you, all of you, to drive, walk, or push your ride to the polls in 2012 and cast your ballots for him.
The report originally appeared on NY1, a television station in New York. After it aired, The Donald did what The Donald does best – lied again.
“You’re going to pay a big price because you’re wrong,” he told the NY1. “I have records that I voted and so does the Board of Elections … I signed in at every election.”
I don’t know about you, but I may have my own casinos to bankrupt on the day The Donald’s name appears on a ballot.
Jan Brewer, the governor of Arizona who fought tooth and nail to make her racial profiling bill become law, took yet another blow on Monday when the United States of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit called the law “unconstitutional”:
PHOENIX — The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled against the State of Arizona on Monday and let stand a lower court decision blocking the most contentious parts of the state’simmigration law from going into effect.
The decision calling the provisions unconstitutional was a victory for the Obama administration, which argued that the law interfered with the federal government’s authority over immigration. Two judges ruled against Arizona, and one dissented in part from them.
Last July, just days before the law was to take effect, Judge Susan Bolton of Federal District Court issued an injunction blocking parts of it. Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican who supports the crackdown on immigrants, filed an appeal seeking to have the injunction lifted.
After the appeals court rejected the state’s request on Monday and issued a lengthy decision indicating that it believed the state had overstepped its authority, State Senator Russell K. Pearce, a Republican who is the principal sponsor of the law, remained defiant, saying the issue would ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.
Although she’s been wrong on just about every decision she’s made for her state, you’ve got to hand it to this Republican Governor. She is persistent, even if it means her persistence is in direct opposition to the Constitution. But then again, today’s Republican haven’t shown much respect for the Constitution anyways.
The Daily Kos features a graph showing industry growth under the last three presidents – Clinton, Bush and Obama. And according to their figures, Obama seems to be the most ‘pro-business-growth’ president among the three. But don’t tell this to Koch Brothers, who earlier this week called the president, the most anti-corporate president ever. Charles Koch went on to say;
“He’s the most radical president we’ve ever had as a nation, and has done more damage to the free enterprise system and long-term prosperity than any president we’ve ever had. His father was a hard-core economic socialist in Kenya, Obama didn’t really interact with his father face-to-face very much, but was apparently from what I read a great admirer of his father’s points of view. So he had sort of antibusiness, anti-free enterprise influences affecting him almost all his life. It just shows you what a person with a silver tongue can achieve.”
Well if President Obama is doing so much damage to America’s free enterprise system, then why are U.S. businesses showing more profit than ever? The Huffington Post had this report;
U.S. corporate profits hit an all-time high at the end of 2010, with financial firms showing some of the biggest gains, data from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis show. Corporations reported an annualized $1.68 trillion in profit in the fourth quarter. The previous record, without being adjusted for inflation, was $1.65 trillion in the third quarter of 2006.
Michele Bachmann, a potential Republican presidential candidate chimed in with this piece of wisdom;
I think that the agenda that we have seen – we know that sixty-three percent of all households have seen a major decline in their personal wealth, a decline in their personal income, and an increase in their debt level. That’s all attributable directly to Barack Obama’s principles. I don’t think it’s by accident we’re seeing people struggling and we’re seeing redistribution of wealth. I think Barack Obama is getting exactly the outcome that he hoped for.
If you listen to these billionaire cry-babies, you’ll realize the magnitude of their greed. For no matter how many profit records are broken because of the economic policies of this administration, the Koch brothers and the Republican party will continue calling President Obama a marxist, socialist, communist, who hates corporations and is actively redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor. The facts however, says otherwise.
You want your government small and non-intrusive? Well try this one on for size! Jan Brewer, the same Republican governor who tried to make racial profiling legal in her state of Arizona, just signed another racially motivated bill into law. This time, Mrs. Brewer is targeting minority women electing to get a legal abortion in her state.
According to House bill 2443, it will now be a crime for abortion providers to provide the service base on the race or sex of the fetus. The explanation for the law, as stated by its supporters, is that abortion facilities are disproportionately setting up their operations in minority neighborhoods, so in an effort to curb these clinics from setting up shops, Jan Brewer’s law will allow for doctors to be sued legally for performing the procedure.
The law allows the father of an aborted fetus – or, if the mother is a minor, the mother’s parents – to take legal action against the doctor or other health-care provider who performed the abortion. If convicted of the felony, physicians would face up to seven years in jail and the loss of their medical license.
The ruling would be totally ridiculed and frankly called racists if the law made the language more direct, like saying any physicians performing abortions for minorities can face up to seven years in jail if convicted, so the wisdom at play here, is to put these physicians on notice – having them second-guessing any decision to offer the service to those minorities women requesting it. A physician knowing they can end up in jail or fined if a case is brought against them, will reconsider performing this service to minorities.
Conservatives place great emphasis on their love for small government. Yet, not small enough that it won’t dictate what you can or cannot do with your own productive organs.
While outraged Americans were transfixed on the happenings in Wisconsin, where a Republican governor was busy inventing reasons to silence the public employees of his state, another governor was floating along, doing the very same thing in his state, with little media attention.
Rick Snyder, Republican governor in Michigan got his union busting bill approved by his fellow Republican in the state’s senate and the state’s assembly, and any day now, Mr. Snyder is expected to sign the bill into law.
And this bill will give “over reaching” a whole new meaning. It will have the power to determine whether any district in Michigan is failing, terminate the positions of the elected officials of that particular district, and allows Snyder to assign anyone he sees fit to run that district. So the voters are left cut out of the process when it comes to who’ll run their district.
These new appointed officials will have the authority from Mr. Snyder to void any contracts the districts or municipalities may have entered into. Included, will be contracts with unions and their collective bargaining and school programs.
The bill also creates additional taxes for the middle class and the poorer sections of Michigan. The revenues gained from this new tax, figures quoted at $1.8 billion, will be given to the rich in the form of a tax cut.
“Michigan politicians have capitalized on our state’s budgetary woes in order to ram through legislation that rather than create jobs, takes away even more rights and resources from Michiganders and instead gives an unprecedented amount of power into those connected to the governor. As hundreds of thousands have chanted in Wisconsin, ‘This is not what democracy looks like.”
Early Friday morning, after three days of a Democratic filibusterer, Wisconsin State Assembly voted and passed the bill stripping union public workers of their collective bargaining rights. The bill still has to be approved in the state’s Senate, where Senate Democrats have been missing in action for over a week now.
State Assembly Democrats are not happy with how the vote was held. According to reporting from Huffington Post, many Democratic members did not even know the vote was being called. The report states;
After more than 60 hours in which Democrats threw out dozens of amendments and delivered rambling speeches, Republicans halted debate early Friday. In a matter of seconds, they had approved the bill. Only a few Democrats realized what was going on and managed to vote before the roll was closed.
The Democrats rose from their seats and rushed at the Republicans shouting, “Shame!” as the Republicans exited the chamber.
“I’m incensed. I’m shocked,” said Rep. John Richards, D-Milwaukee. “What a terrible, terrible day for Wisconsin.”
Republicans refused to speak to reporters, though Majority Leader Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, did issue a written statement.
“The vote we took wasn’t the easy thing to do, but it was the right thing to do,” Suder said.
We are witnessing the dismantling of the constitutionally protected first amendment for Wisconsin public employees, where simply having their union representative sit at a negotiating table and speak on their behalf is slowly being taken away.
More Republican foolishness. This time, the people in South Carolina are definitely not getting their money’s worth. The fool? State Sen. Lee Bright (R-Roebuck). His idea? Give South Carolina its own currency!
Senator Lee Bright is not so bright at all. He thinks he has his finger on the pulse of this economy and the United States dollar, and as far as he can tell, the dollar will be worthless because, “many widely recognized experts predict the inevitable destruction of the Federal Reserve System’s currency through hyperinflation in the foreseeable future.”
So Mr. Bright has introduced legislature in South Carolina, the purpose of which was to create a group of experts who will provide a study detailing the benefits and the best way of implementing the new currency. According to the legislation;
South Carolina can avoid or at least mitigate many of the economic, social, and political shocks to be expected to arise from hyperinflation, depression, or other economic calamity related to the breakdown of the Federal Reserve System only through the timely adoption of an alternative sound currency that the state’s government and citizens may employ without delay in the event of the destruction of the Federal Reserve System’s currency;
Director of South Carolina’s Democratic Caucus Phil Bailey calls the legislation a waste of time;
“It’s a waste of resources. I mean who’s paying for this study? Will they be paid in actual dollars or gold doubloons?”
John McCain, the 2008 Republican Presidential nominee has found himself on the wrong side of the political fence. He’s pissing off some conservatives for what is to me a very shocking reason…doing his job!;
The president has become more centrist, which makes him easier to work with, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Thursday.
Speaking with Bloomberg Television a day after a private meeting with President Obama, McCain said he could picture working with Obama on several issues going forward.
“I think there’s a number of issues we could work on together, and I think it’s pretty clear that the president has really pivoted to a much more centrist position, which I think makes it much more for us easier to work with him,” McCain said.
A United States Senator, simply saying that there may be a number of issues where he can work together with the President of The United States, has become a means for attack from the right. Doug Powers, a writer at Michelle Malkin’s blog says that McCain;
…often reminds me of a trout that just got hooked and is thrilled that the fisherman has agreed to meet him halfway.
John McCain hasn’t said yet what these issues would be, so why would this loony be mad?
It just shows that issues don’t matter with the GOP. All that matters to these people are congressmen and women who will consistently say no to everything this president offers – regardless of the issues, regardless of the policies, regardless of the positive outcome for the American people.
To those on the right, the branches of our government and the President of the United States will not work together if the president’s name happens to be Barack Obama.
We use cookies to improve your experience on our site. By agreeing to this, we can analyze browsing behavior and unique IDs on this site. Declining or revoking consent may affect certain features.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
