trooothseeeker

Jenn L
"Kentucky just passed the best law ever. To be on food stamps, Medicaid,or Cash Assistance on your Children or yourself You have to pass a DRUG Test. Now every other state should do the same!!"

William B
"Which one's? Is it fair that someone will be denied food stamps if they test a false positive? Some ant-pyschotic & depression meds (people who are schizophrenic for example) work in the same way as some "illegal" drugs and can give a false positive. Wouldn't it be easier to just make everything legal and tax it like alcohol and cigarettes? Other countries have and the end of the world still hasn't occurred.

Are we really winning the War on Drugs, the war on terrorism, the war on poor people? Man we sure like to use that "war" word.

Larry L.
"If the government can send a man to the moon they can come up with a system for someone who fails a drug test for physche drugs, were not not talking about splitting the atom here. Why is that liberals always have faith in goverment to give out free money but never when it try's to come up with a fair system?"

"Why is that liberals always have faith in goverment to give out free money but never when it try's to come up with a fair system?"

Wm B
"So if you want to go after labels, I have to get in my shot.

So Republicans don't give out free money?? You are kidding right?? We just had a major debate in this country, about extending Bush tax cuts (35% is the highest rate) for the top 2% earners in a DEFICIT ECONOMY. If that is not giving out "FREE MONEY" I don't know what is.

We borrow trillions of dollars from the Arabs and Chinese and put our grandkids in debt, so people with 7, 8, 9, 10- digit salaries can create all those jobs we've had all these last 30 years, when the size of the economy has DOUBLED since Reagan, but no one has a job. That is where your free money is going. We have done it your way now for the last 30 years. When is enough enough??

I will tell you though why Liberals have faith in government. Because the Preamble of the United States says so. The Preamble is a promise to the People that the government has your back. But we have been so wrapped in labels and partisan bickering we forget ultimately that we are ALL Americans."


Larry L
"I don't take it as a shot Billy but rather you are expressing your opinion as we all have on this topic, I used the word liberal to explain that they seem to confuse a great idea with a great system. Helping people who really need it is great but the system is not and both parties are responsible for fixing it. As far as the bush tax cuts I felt the same way as you but I read that it is supposed to help create jobs, I am not a business owner or an economist so I will not debate that with you as I also have no proof. Unlike you though I have no faith in Government right or left."

William B
"I am not an economist either. However, supply-side economics as opposed to demand-side economics just does not work. We have been doing it this way since Reagan. How much longer do we have to keep doing this to realize it's just not working? Tht is not my opinion. That is a fact. Regardless of Democrats and Republicans, but we live in a culture that infantilizes everyone into believing that we are all one lotto game away from being millionaires, so don't touch my [future] taxes. That is just not reality based. Wen Eisenhower was president, the highest tax rate was 91%. Reagan comes in and now it's at 35%! You try and work a budget with your income being slashed that much. We were a great country before and we can do it again. The recipe is there, the willingness is not.

I can REALLY understand why you are so disenchanted with the government because for most of our lives NOTHING goes our way. The rich with there tax breaks haven't created squat except for there own personal bank accounts and the economy is a testament to that. If supply-side economics works, why is everyone broke in a time when corporate profits are at an all time high??

This has all happened before and as the saying goes, those who fail to ignore history are only doomed to repeat it. Charles Dickens, in a "Christmas Carol" and "Tale of Two Cities" (It was the best of times. It was the worst of times) wrote about this almost 200 years ago and still people don't get it. Why? Because we have made the horrible, horrible mistake of corporatizing and consolidating media. What business does News Corproration (a company I personally worked for) have in telling you that unionized labor is good because it keeps out illegal aliens (who drive down the cost of labor) and pays a real living wage.

If you have no faith in govt is because you gave up before you even started to fight. Keeping a true Democracy is pro-active and doesn't mean, so long as you watch Fox News, you are informed. The economy has doubled in size since Reagan and the only one's benefitting are the rich. You have to realize how far to the Right this country has been pulled. We think torture is ok, we think throwing people in jail without charges is OK. Civil Liberties do not grow on trees and the sooner we all realize this, the sooner we can go back to the business of having a truly representative govt, for and by the People."

William B
“We can have democracy . . . or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few. We cannot have both.”
-Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

The 2 worst economies in the history of the US (this recession, now called the Great Recession and the Great Depression) have ONE thing in common. Concentrated wealth. 5% of the population, owning 95% of the wealth.

It was FDR's mission to change this. It was called the New Deal and at it's foundation, it was created to PREVENT the next Great Depression. Enter Reagan and the Revolution of Deregulation and Supp Side Economix is on. This was THEE purpose of the Reagan Revolution. Not to move slowly as Lincoln would put it, but to move backwards back to the Gilded Age. If you were wealthy, isn't that what you would want?

'Eggs in one basket???'

Jim G
"Great idea, Jenn. But groups like ACORN will tell them how to circumvent the process."

William B
"ACORN? Care to hit me with some more right-wing talking points? A community organization for reform is a bad thing because EVERYTHING is going swimmingly, right?

If you're self-proclamation of apathety towards politics is correct, I hardly think your opinion matters. Can you at least stand for something besides erroneous and cynical comments?


A majority of those on Food Stamps are single mothers. Single mothers who have already had drug-screening if they have received pre-natal care. So you want to spend 3 more billion dollars to re-screen the majority as you try and catch the vast minority of those who try to rig the system? Is that cost effective? But you want to cynically portray those who are on FS as nothing more then a bunch of drug addicts. I think that is so sad."

Larry L
How FDR's New Deal Harmed Millions of Poor People
by Jim Powell
Cato Institute

William B
"RE: Cato Institute. Sorry Larry. That dog don't hunt. Before the New Deal the elderly live at a 50% poverty rate. For many years that was America's dirty little secret. Fast-foward to present day USA and because of Social Security that rate is now 10%. Is this a bad thing??

THIS is the Cato Institute.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/maps.php

I think we all have to start to realize who and what we believe in.

"There comes a time in everyone's life that they must determine the truth for themselves." -Mark Twain

Larry if you think i am full shit, please let me know and I will stop wasting everyone's time. But if what I just told you intrigues you in any way, let me know. Like I said before, 'we need you, bro.' But can you really trust ANYTHING that was founded and is financed by Big Oil??

I will go a step further. The Cato Inst. is run by Big Oil. Big Oil is run predominantly by the Koch (pronounced koke) brothers. The Koch brothers bank-rolled a little political movement called the Tea Party. The TP populous movement is financed by billionaires. Is it me or does that sound a little fucked up??

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html

Jim G
"Right wing talking points? You've been doing nothing but spewing left wing garb. As for ACORN, a community orginization for reform? HA. The video doesn't lie."

William B
"Again. Since Politics isn't your thing, you don't know the difference between Right wing garbage and Left wing garbage. If you watch corporate newsmedia and think Fox, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS is your herald, please don't waste my time. ACORN was one incident and because you saw it on the TV, you would rather prejudicially paint everyone with a very broad brush and throw the baby out with the bath water. That is a very narrow way of looking at one incident, that was blown way out of proportion by the media. The same media who carried Bush's water in his quest for weapons of mass destruction. Doesn't it bother you that the media, who is supposed to look out for our best interests as Americans, did nothing to find out if Bush's war proclaimations were true?? Here we are 2 wars and 10 years later, no one has job and those that do hardly have a cent. All the while we shit out our civil liberties without a thought. Phone tapping is OK. Torture is OK. . Throw somebody in jail with no charges are OK. Do away with the minimum wage, social security, medicare and the VA. OK That DOES sound like a lot of useless garbage."

Jim G
"You are correct. Politics isn't my "thing". Politicians as well as the news media are nothing but puppets for the highest bidder.

I go to work to pay my bills and live my life not to pay someone else's to live theirs.
How did this get from not giving food stamps to drug abusers to Bush's f*ck ups and weapons of mass destruction?"

William B
"My point is if you believe the media lied to you about Iraq and WMDs, then how can you trust them to tell you the truth about ACORN, drug-testing or anything else? I just don't believe that the corporate media makes it is business to tell us the truth. That's all. I said this without making any affiliation to Party until Larry brought up the 'problems with Liberals' and you threw out the part about 'spewing Left wing garbage.' I don't follow politicians, I follow policies. Those politicians who most closely reflect the policies I believe in. I don't root for one side over the other. I want them to root for me.

You are correct when you say "the news media are nothing but puppets for the highest bidder." That's what corporate news is all about. Ratings. You know it's tainted. So why believe anything they say like 'your civil liberties' aren't all that important in the name of corporate power? Drug-testing on it's face is unconstitutional. It's called unlawful Search and Seizure. And if you don't believe in that, you obviously don't believe, in Probable Cause or Due Process.

We can pull anybody over for any reason, throw them in jail without charges, we can listen in on there phone conversations, read there emails, texts and drug test all in the name of Liberty. What I wanted to illustrate to Jenn is she naively thinks it will cost only $18 per person more to drug test these people. Does that account for the cost of the test itself or the cost of testing, the cost of paying someone to perform the test, the cost of processing more paperwork. I mean that's govt today. But my issue is how we are all so willing to give up our civil liberties so quickly, all in the name of security and fiscal sanity."

"Those who are willing to give up a little Liberty, for the sake of security, deserve neither."
-Benjamin Franklin

Larry L
"Billy what I copied and posted was not my words, I googled and found it. I just wanted to hear your opion on it. I don't agree to FDR taking peoples money or property, thats about all I heard from that era."

William B
"I understand. Google giveth and Google taketh away. You have my opinion. I don't think FDR is Robin Hood. I just feel that the old stories of wealth and greed still apply and staying in power is still the name of the game. That's the struggle. There is no law that says rich people have to take there money and create jobs with it, but who is to stop them from just putting the money in off shore accounts, where all it does is accumalate interest. Doesn't sound very jobs creationy to me.

But aside from getting to keep all your wealth, (because your country has had nothing to do with creating it, so why should I have to pay dues) this boils down to a pretty fundamental thing. When you here about Free Markets, this is nothing more then anti-government speak. Why? Because Free Marketers don't believe in government, they want to privatize EVERYTHING in the name of profit. Look up what happened to Chile when they privatized there social security.

I just happen to think that in some things profit-motives are Ok, but when it comes down to things like health insurance (NAME ME WHAT PURPOSE DO INSURANCE COMPANIES SERVE??) there is definitely a conflict of interest. "Should we pay for Johnny's chemo or should we make sure our profit-margin meets the monthly quota.' Those are your "Death Panels" that Sarah Palin deceptively trumpeted, but the Death Panels are here and now and have been going on for quite some time. The wealthiest nation on the face of the Earth and they can't figure out how to insure there own people, as the rest of the industrialized world laughs at us.

It is not about stealing from the rich to give to the poor, it's about paying your fair share. Pres Eisenhower the Republican, had a top tax rate of 91%. Now were down to 35% and wondering what went wrong. A Free Democracy is not free and the line is long for those waiting to tell you otherwise. Keep reading. Keep reading everything and you'll see too."

They ran on 'cutting government spending,' yet they can't name one program they will touch. How long before the Teabaggers go ape-shit and see there's nothing fiscal about crazy people??



http://thinkprogress.org/2011/01/06/boehner-cuts/


“We need to cut spending. That’s what the American people want. That’s what the economy needs.” [12/17/10]

“Let’s be clear, if we actually want to help our economy get back on track and to begin creating jobs, we need to end the job-killing spending binge. We need to cut spending significantly.” [12/17/10]

“Our new majority will prepare to do things differently, to take a new approach that hasn’t been tried in Washington before by either party. It starts with cutting spending instead of increasing it.” [11/3/10]

“We will not solve our fiscal challenges until we cut spending.” [8/25/10]

“If we want to solve the budget problem, we’ve got to have a healthy economy and we have to get our arms around the runaway spending that’s going on in Washington, D.C.” [8/9/10]

“And if in fact we’re elected to the majority you’re going to see us cut spending. You’re going to see us revive the economy and reform the way Congress does it job.” [10/5/10]

“If the lame-duck Congress is unwilling to cut spending and permanently stop all the tax hikes, the new House majority will act in January.” [12/1/10]

“Republicans have been consistently focused on offering better solutions to cut spending now.” [6/21/10]

“We will never get our economy out of the ditch until we cut spending and have real economic growth.” [8/30/10]

"Well let's see. obama is a military hawk like reagan. he is in the pocket of the defense industry, wall street, big oil, and big pharma like reagan. he is for tax cuts for the rich (reaganomics) like reagan. he allows the cia to bomb sovereign nations like reagan. he adds to the national debt worse than reagan... the question is, how is he any different from his republican predecessors?... really... is there ANY difference?"
-Ray Stewart

"Globalization has caught up to us. I can't remember buying anything made in this country besides some food products in recent years. Even apple juice is coming from China rather than Washington State.

Thanks to the governments at every level mortaging our futures with unsustainable debt. If you ever wonder what it was like to live in

post war Eastern Block countries -

soon you'll have a chance. Electing cookie monsters with insatiable appities for my money - can't do a damn thing right. Amtrak, Post Office and all the other money pits subsidized by government. And, all those liberal minded grads who defaulted on student loans. Yep, feudal times are a comin'. I'm sure the progressives will bask in their achievement. 300 million puppets.

That line was kind of funny. Because Obummer just got done saying that

"the Republicans view tax cuts as their Holy Grail and won’t budge on it"

so… he moved to them.

The Republicans, then, don’t get the brunt of that broadside about the essential importance of compromise,
because THEY DIDN’T COMPROMISE TO GET THE MAIN THING THAT THEY WANTED.

Democrats, however, are excoriated because they don’t look enough at the big picture. What the President
doesn’t understand, or doesn’t want to understand, is that the Bush tax cuts are as foundational an issue for
the left as he understands they are for the right. Or perhaps, he knows that he has leverage over the left that
he doesn’t have over the right, and so he uses different standards for each.

Obama says that this wasn’t a road map to how to beat him politically, and that things will be different when
this comes up again in 2012. Also, on the debt limit, he expects John Boehner to be very responsible and not
extract concessions from him in exchange for that vote??

Hilarious!

Neither liberal nor conservative. As a member of the new Minion class, I'm just sitting around waiting for the powers that be to get the screwing over with and the shooting to start, makes little difference which group is in power. Luckily I live in a State that still upholds the Constitution and I exercise my 2nd amendment rights every chance I get... "...I'm locked in tight, I'm outta range, I used to care, but things have changed."

My Mom basically told them what to do and they just jumped to it. So now they don't have a clue what it means to be a free agent. They make their lives so difficult for themselves. Definitely locked into patterns of thinking, as are we all, though some patterns are more healthy then others.
Yea, so what's up with the months going by like days and the years going by like months? Unless you attempt to ignore it completely, it makes you dizzy.

Though Universe always has a lesson you need to learn, and it's all part of life's rich tapestry... So, not hippie, but probably a bit new age. Vegetarian, heavily armed, definitely in harmony, preparing for the coming of the new world
order.
Ed




I learned a long time ago that rooting for a political party is NOT like rooting for your favorite sports team. On the contrary. The Parties should be ROOTING FOR YOU. But as Jerry Seinfeld once eloquently said: 'we don't really root for teams, we root for their laundry instead.'

So whether you root for a donkey, an elephant or a tea bag, it's the devil that wins at the point where he manages to convince the world that he doesn’t exist. Today’s financial elites will win the class war at the point where voters believe it doesn’t exist – and believe that Obama is trying to help them rather than shepherd them into debt peonage as the economy settles into debt deflation.

I voted for Hillary in the primary. She was a good Senator here and also I felt that we needed someone experienced to thwart the same Republicans. I mean, when they go after your then 12 year-old child, especially when she is in that ugly-duckling phase... Clinton was battle-tested and had the scars to prove it. Obama was too Pro-war and even though he also came from the same corporate vein of the Party, (Democratic Leadership Council) I to came to believe the hopey/changey thing and that maybe he might be a "Kennedy-Lberal' after all. Hardly. So I find it funny when the media starts bleating and gets into a full collective froth over the "Socialist Kenyan." The same socialist who has:

• Opened up offshore drilling
• Passed Mitt Romney’s health care plan
• Passed pro-bank finance reform
• Appointed a deficit commission for the SOLE purpose of curtailing socialism entitlements
• Doubled down in Afghanistan
• Continued and amplified the Bush/Cheney national security policies
• Expanded the War on Terror into Pakistan
• Retained a huge footprint in Iraq (can anyone say South Korea?)
• Increased the defense budget (see Iraqi footprint)

Would a socialist flush the Public Option down the public toilet on the heels of a political mandate? 70% of us wanted some form of a universal single payer healthcare system. Why didn't Obama say from the beginning that starting now everyone from birth to death is eligible for Medicare? Done. Then negotiate down from there. What's the point of having the Bully Pulpit?? Welcome to the plutocracy.

When we were born, the highest tax bracket, on the highest income earners (2%) was at 91%! 91%!!! And they were instituted by Eisenhower. A Republican! It's how we built all that infrastructure in the 50s. Sadly, by the time the deregulating-happy Reagan came into power, a few highly questionable supreme court rulings along the way, and an unpopular war, made the soil ripe for his "Voo-Doo" economix. The 28% tax rate was the reward for the upper 2%, while Reagan took down the solar panels on the White House. 28%!! The Great Unravel of the New Deal had begun. All our fail safe mechanisms that were employed to prevent another Great Depression were systematically removed over the next 30 years. Clinton didn't help either, even though the highest tax bracket under his admin was 39%. Still a pittance and after another Bush tax cut later, everyone wonders why we're broke now. We are all broke now because the extra money that the wealthy has garnered from
these deregulations (see Housing Bubble)and tax breaks, (tax breaks that are paid for by borrowing money from the Chinese) that have been main-lined right back to the Republican party. Quid pro quo. Does it take a genius to figure that out? Does it take a genius to figure out that corporate businesses finally figured out that the best return on any investment is to completely take over a political party? Does it take a genius to figure out the rest of this money is in Swiss bank accounts? Look up the 'too big to fail' UBS. It's disgusting.

The uber-welthy who were still pissed at FDR for turning his back on his class, finally got there stooge. A pussy-whipped B-list actor who schilled for the corporate mega hulk that is GE, as he railed against Medicare and education in the 60s as Governor of California. The man that successfully started the defunding of state colleges, after declaring, 'why should I fund those that will ultimately protest my policies.?' Is it any wonder that our world ranking in education is at 12th place now?

I can't vote for the politics of fear and hate. 'Better hate the Gays or they'll take your guns' is not a political philosophy. I can't vote for a Party that ultimately says 'I don't believe in govt' and when they get elected into office, they just sit back and prove it. Isn't the Preamble a promise to the People, that THIS govt unlike others, will have your back? After the Bill of Rights what ratified someone asked Benjamin Franklin what kind of govt do we have? He answered "a democratic Republic. If we can keep it.'" So why do we continually vote a Party into power that is immersed in special interests and whose sole ideology is the ultimate privatization of EVERYTHING in the name of corporate profit? Cover.

Sarah Palin would like you to believe in death panels, that she is not a quitter and that the wholly corporately-owned media (Thanx Bubba) is Liberal. If you're in the information industry, what business sense does it make to give an electorate, political cannon-fodder to fight against your own pro-corporate policies? I worked for Rupert Murdoch too. After 9 years of working at the largest local newspaper group in the City (15 papers) my position was ultimately "right-sized" when Murdoch bought the group and proclaimed the rising cost of newsprint prevented him from purchasing his seventh villa in France. However, ask me how many "right-sizers" were let go at the NY Post, Murdoch's other rag?? 0.

So here we are 30 years later. The country is broke, nobody has a job, while the Fox News-fueled Public still waits for that collective trickle from all those jobs Republicans created in India and China. Not to mention how does a Party go into power in the middle of an economic horror show without any platforms regarding the creation of jobs?? Cover. How is just saying NO to everything a political philosophy? Cover. Now all we hear about is how Obama the Socialist needs to move to the Center (to the Center of what??) and start negotiating with the Republicans on extending more tax cuts for the insanely wealthy. The path to fiscal sanity or feudalism? I'll say it again:

Welcome to the plutocracy. Take cover!

PS. Can't do the Vegan. I'm Argentinean. It's in my DNA.

In the Spring of 2009, when everyone was sharpening their knives for the now infamous healthcare debate, I kept thinking that once it passed, the mid-terms would be a shoe-in.

However, without the debate even starting, Universal Single Payer Healthcare was being flushed down the Backroom Special Interest Lobbying Toilet, (that same toilet that would soon see the likes of other floaters like Finance Reform) I knew that this was not going to be pretty. What should of been a boon to the Party went bust after the bill was hollowed out like a Halloween pumpkin. Scary too. So scary that every Dem in this year's cycle ran from it like scared rabbits. But ironically how something that was so 'hollowed out' still bore enough weight to become an albatross around each House Democrats neck.

Throw in Rahm-Butt and his 'FN Retards' comment regarding the Left and Palin/Grassely's boldface lies about 'Death Panels' and 'Pulling Plugs on Granny', it's nothing short of a miracle that ANYTHING passed through such a dysfunctional process. Calling it the "sausage making process" is an affront to the Pork Industry. If this was a poker game, why would you start off by throwing away your best hand?? Aren't you supposed to negotiate from strengths, rather then undermine your own shot at success??

Combine all these elements, not to mention that the Dems message kept sounding like one of those teachers on Charlie Brown, and that Obama was a day late and a dollar short in his efforts as a campaigner, we are now back to 2004 and all the strides we made in '06 & '08 have all but vanished into the the ether. So much for hoping that we would get it right yesterday. So much for the new Obama Redrawn Electorate Map (that lasted for 730 days), the new information age, and internet. It would have been nice though, for once, that we as an electorate, would wake up out of our collective voting stupor and have the strenghth to pull ourselves away from "Dancin with the Stars" and have more then a 40% voter turn out in a non-pres year. Disturbing to say the least, considering the horrible economy. Very disturbing. And only two paltry years removed from the Bush nightmare. Perhaps we are not as Progressive as we think. How do we explain laid-back Calif and Prop
19? There second blunder in 2 years. Yes it would've provided another tax revenue stream to the 5th largest economy in the world (that is somehow broke) but think of all the brown people that would've been spared by the infinite War on Terror, I mean Poverty, no no no I mean Taxes. I'll get it right someday.

Now all we are going to hear is how Obummer should move to the middle if he wants to save his presidency. Given that Obama has:

• Cut Taxes
• Opened up offshore drilling
• Passed Mitt Romney’s health care plan
• Passed pro-bank finance reform
• Appointed a deficit commission for the SOLE purpose of curtailing socialism entitlements
• Doubled down in Afghanistan
• Continued and amplified the Bush/Cheney national security policies (a real biggie that gets virtually NO PRESS)
• Expanded the War on Terror into Pakistan (stories anyone?)
• Retained a huge footprint in Iraq (can anyone say South Korea?)
• Increased the defense budget (see Iraqi footprint)

Geez, the only true progressive thing he has done was the auto bailout and even there he tried to make examples of them by showing how tough he was by firing the CEO of GM and saving 1 million deadbeat middle-class jobs. I mean, what the fuck? Where exactly is this Center now??!! Where is the Center while Obama negotiates his Free Trade pact with South Korea?? What's there too negotiate in a free trade agreement? How far up my ass this thing goes? With or without lubrication? Yesterday the middle class bent over far enough to kiss our asses good-bye and say hello to:

• More stagnant govt which means the continual deathspiral of the American economy
• The beginning of the dismantlement of a healthcare policy that doesn't go into effect for another 4 years!

The beginnings of debates such as:
• Privatizing Social Security (again)
• Eliminating the minimum wage!! (Like that was so great)
• Eliminating Medicare/Medicaid and the VA.

Do any of these people who voted Republican have any idea what these candidates stand for?? How are they gonna create jobs? Sharron Angle wanted to talk issues to the media AFTER she was elected?? Does the word INSANE even begin to define this type of behavior? So where exactly is this “center” he’s supposed to move to? Between Cheney and Jim DeMint?

The other shitball making it's way down the pike is how 'Republicans will now be more sensible and work with Obama to get things done.' I think I just hurt myself from laughing so hard. In the Senate, you’ve got Mitch McConnell saying his goal for the next two years is to 'destroy' Obama, while in the House, you’ve got a Boner saying “we will not compromise.” Of course you won't compromise! Why should anything change?? You didn't compromise for the last 2 years after running the country into a ditch the last 8. You make the mess and won't even help in cleaning it up. But somehow the Republicans and a few Blue Dogs (who took a bloodbath last night. Why vote Republican Lite when you can have the real thing??) managed to put ALL the blame on a feckless president (and Senate Leader), who was too busy trying to figure out why he can't get Republicans to melt like others, when he flashes that 50,000 watt smile. How does a Party go into power in the
middle of an economic horror show without any platforms regarding the creation of jobs, that don't include/extend MORE tax breaks for a broke government, for the INSANELY wealthy!! All this and the Dems expect to regain power in 2012?? On what merit? Guess who is going to be framed as the Party of Opposition now?? They had 24 months to make hay and all they wanted to do was play paddy-cakes with a bunch of criminals. 2012 will be the new 2000. One party rule. And who knows what shape we'll all be by then. How hard is it to speak Danish or Finnish??

So what happens next? Nothing I'm afraid except a few hundred impeachment hearings. Cue the crickets and toads.

It's pretty simple: They repeat the same thing over and over until everyone gets tired of correcting them. Couple this with the mythical 'lamestream' media and it is not too difficult at all.

by Gene Lyons
Salon.com
http://www.salon.com/print.html?URL=/opinion/feature/2010/04/28/how_gop_gets_away_with_it


Excerpt:
Consider Mitch the Bitch. For weeks, McConnell has been trying to prevent action on pending
financial-reform legislation by claiming that it would lead to "endless taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street banks."

In reality, the proposed law would do exactly the opposite: liquidating failed investment firms' assets through
a process like the one used by the FDIC to shut down insolvent savings banks. Management would be fired
and shareholders given nothing until creditors had been paid. Wall Street firms would be required to pay into
a fund underwriting the arrangement. Taxpayer dollars wouldn't be used.

Even Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who helped draft the legislation, has pointedly contradicted McConnell's
mischaracterization. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has characterized it as "possibly the most d
ishonest argument ever made in the history of politics."

(Really, professor? More dishonest than Hitler's "stab in the back" charge that Jews and Socialists conspired
to make Germany lose World War I? More dishonest than the Tonkin Gulf resolution that dragged us into Vietnam?)

Even so, Krugman's hyperbole is understandable. Say what you will about academia, in professorial debate
so blatant a misrepresentation would be seen as a shameful confession of weakness. Somebody who can't win
an argument without resorting to a simple "black is white" lie gets as little respect as he deserves.

Elsewhere, Krugman puts the question in an appropriately Orwellian context: "Has there ever been a time in
U.S. political history," he asks, "when one of the two major political parties was so addicted to doublethink,
so committed to pretending that it's advocating the opposite of its actual agenda?"

Specifically, McConnell came up with the "bailout" fiction immediately after meeting with Wall Street high-rollers who
a) want to keep placing risk-free bets with other people's money; and
b) certainly don't want to pay for what amounts to bankruptcy insurance.

Sympathetic to the McDuck point of view, McConnell evidently figures that if he can stall the bill for a while,
he can get Uncle Scrooge (and eventually himself) a better deal.



'Today a have 2 lies for you.'

AN OPEN LETTER TO SEAN PENN
By Maria Conchita Alonso
(or: Sean baby, you couldn't be anymore wronger about Hugo Chavez)

Dear Sean, WHY?
Even though I have great respect for your artistic talent, I was appalled by a recent television interview where you vigorously showed support for the regime of Hugo Chavez. Therefore, I've decided to set the record straight for you regarding the Chavez regime, supporting my case based not only on my political ideologies, but on proven facts you choose to ignore. Otherwise, I believe your position would be different.

Being born in Cuba, a country where freedom of speech is non-existent, it's startling to observe how Venezuela, where I was happily raised, is fast becoming Cuba's mirror image: Dismantling of fundamental democratic rights deserved by its people and citizens of the world.

For example, you said that all Chavez-winning elections in Venezuela were "transparent."

Then WHY didn't the government allow a manual recount of the votes and computer information when doubt set in? After all, how do you explain how these votes that were strongly favoring the opposition mysteriously reflected the opposite results the morning after, thus permitting Chavez to continue on? On what are you basing your conclusions? I strongly recommend that you read a report by the U.S. State Department written in 2009 entitled "The Fraudulent Elections in Venezuela".


Read more:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/maria-conchita-alonso/2010/03/25/open-letter-sean-penn#ixzz0jgUHdhZJ


MY RESPONSE:
It doesn't surprise me how there still is a certain disconnect when it comes to news of Latin America. Saturation is the least of my worries, when it comes to news of the South, as it troubles me when I hear that someone as politically-charged as Sean Penn can be so wrong about dear Hugo.

But you understand how upset I get because of the corporate-owned media and how it dispenses information, carefully and with great censorship. Even the likes of such a stalwart General in the cause of human suffering; someone who is one of the most favorite targets that is constantly demonized by the Right, can still be so wrong. Even when a colleague is passionately appealing to his better judgement, it shows how we can be easily lose our bearings by the constant fog of mis and disinformation.

This is how the most industrialized nation on Earth can keep it's citizens thinking that FOR-PROFIT HEALTHCARE is a benefit, not an entitlement and illegal employers have nothing to do with illegal immigration. JFK was once asked what his opinion was regarding the Republican primaries for the upcoming election year for 1964. He was asked in particular about one of Barry Goldwater's challengers. JFK said of one particular candidate: "I'd be concerned about anyone who was (idealogically) to the Right of Barry Goldwater." The person that JFK was talking about was Ronald Reagan!!

I think the world has a better idea of how far Right the country shifted when we heralded in the great former governor of California, who was against the Medicare & Civil Rights Bill and did away with State-paid college for all it's tax-paying residents!

Ah yes... the grate Reagan. We stand now in the position we are in because of Reagan. It was the corporately-trained (GE) Reagan who swore it was his duty to undo the work of the great Socialist FDR. We stand on the edge of disaster today because of the bullshit Free Market, Supply-Side Voodoo Reaganomics of the uber-wealthy, who saw it fit to go after the media first, deregulate all the ownership laws and start the business of focusing one message into one voice.

If we want to be informed, done are the days when you can walk into your living room, sit on your sofa, turn on the TV and watch the news. Now if we want to be informed, we have to be MORE pro-active. We have to do our due diligence to make sure we are being told the truth. In this age of partisan politics, there are those who still believe in getting to the truth. The sad thing about Sean Penn is not so much that he is wrong, it is that here we have a person whose heart is in the right place, but can sometimes be a little intellectually lazy.

Hush up now and know your place boy!

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