Tweet of the Day

REPUBLICAN official position: Democracy failed. Plantation Life was much better. So let's go back.
— Donn Cole (@DemsChgTheTalk) October 16, 2013

America held hostage by Sore Losers Day 14

Would someone please tell the TeaPublicans and the white, male dominated Talking TeeVee Pundit Heads that President Obama won twice?  It's not just political districts.  Our news is gerrymandered too.

It isn’t just politicians that are feeding their bases, it is the media outlets, as well. The village common — you know, that place where we all meet to discuss our problems, relying on the same set of facts — has shrunk to the size of a postage stamp, surrounded by the huge gated communities of like minds who never venture into the great beyond.

 Case in point

 There is no such law, I am aware who would need to indict Showers but a little MSM media attention would go a long way…

Tweet of the Day

So it upsets you when a poor person buys some Mountain Dew with their #EBT card, but not when a rich person buys your congressman?
— Grand Old Parody (@GrandOldParody1) October 13, 2013

Today's Must Read

Fox Recruited Mob Call For Reversal Of Policy Demanded By Previous Fox-Recruited Mob

H/T Rachael Maddow Fan Page

Psst Senator John McCain! Republicans are humiliating themselves.

'Economic Treason" Day 10

 

Angry Black Men are destroying our lives?????

 No matter your take on the debate over the shutdown and the debt ceiling, there’s one irrefutable fact: All of the major players in the negotiations are white men. On the right, you’ve got Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), and House Majority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA).

This shutdown isn't about ObamaCare, it's about Obama

I’ve said something for a long time and I will open this piece with it:
The Republican Party DECIDED to commit ECONOMIC TREASON against this country beginning January 20, 2009.
The very night of Barack Obama’s inauguration, a group of GOP leaders met, and decided, in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression that they only would not work with this President to try and fix the economy, but that they would actively work against ANYTHING that he brought forth.

Tell the truth and shame the Devil.

FreeDon Siegelman Sunday

Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman is arguably America’s most high-profile  political prisoner

 

Why is former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman in jail?  I mean, really? Why is it OK for republicans to shut down the government (except for the military industrial complex) unless President Obama delays and defunds a law that was passed by congress, signed into to law, and upheld by the United States Supreme Court, but it is against the law for former Governor Don Siegelman to appoint a campaign contributor to a board?

In 2009, a bipartisan amicus brief by 91 former state attorneys general urged the Supreme Court to use Siegelman’s case to enunciate a clear standard for establishing quid pro quo bribery. Today’s confusion and the resulting prosecutorial discretion chill the exercise of constitutional rights of political participation and can imprison people unjustly.~George Will

You think?

Today's Must Read
Dana Siegelman Interview:  A Glimpse into American Injustice

Tryanny by the TeaPublicans Day 4

H/T Baby Boomers and Senior Citizens Against Republicans & the Tea Party

America's Working Poor and People of Color Held Hostage Day 3

The white, male dominated, republican congress is holding America's working poor and people of color hostage, but  let's not talk about it and pretend this whole media enabled government shut down isn't about putting President Obama in his place, and making those who voted for him suffer.

 The partial shutdown of the federal government has entered its third day. More than 800,000 federal workers are furloughed, and numerous governmental programs have been forced to stop running. For example, the government shutdown has already caused as many as 19,000 children to lose access to Head Start. Many recipients of Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, more commonly known as WIC, will lose assistance.

Our Congress Critters try to get the poop off their shoes by claiming they are not going to accept (key word) their pay check(s) as long as the government is shut down.  They must think we are stoopid.  How are we going to know if they accept (key word) their pay check(s) or not?  How are we going to know if they deposit their check(s) in the bank or not?  And even if they don't accept (key word) their check(s), it's not going to hurt them one bit.

Mo Brooks, the incoming congressman from north Alabama's 5th District, filed in May and listed a $229,000 salary last year from his Huntsville law firm of Leo and Brooks. As a Madison County commissioner, he also was paid $63,617. He did not disclose his spouse's salary with Huntsville city schools.
He and his wife jointly own accounts worth between $100,000 and $250,000 with the Redstone Federal Credit Union, plus multiple bond and stock accounts, most of them valued at between $1,000 and $15,000. He and has wife each also have several IRAs, and he did not list any liabilities.
Brooks' filing said compensation he received in excess of $5,000 from any one source is confidential because of a privileged relationship, so he did not disclose his legal clients.

Black Agenda Report's Glenn Ford calls it the Shut Down Game.

The government shutdown battle is more like a Civil War reenactment than the real thing. A face-saving bargain will soon be struck, returning 825,000 furloughed federal employees to their jobs at wages that have been frozen for the past two years – not by the Republicans, but on President Obama’s orders. The clock has been stuck with both hands on “austerity” since Obama came fully out of the closet as a GOP fellow-traveler following the 2010 midterm elections. From that moment on, Republican-imposed gridlock has been the only barrier to Obama’s long-sought Grand Bargain to eviscerate entitlement programs. When the current theatrics are over, Obamacare will remain intact and the president will be back on his ever-rightward stride. The GOP will take Obama up on his offer, earlier this year, to cut Social Security and will probably be offered other bits and pieces of the social safety net in the interest of “shared sacrifice” and domestic peace.

 Either way, We the Little People are screwed.

Ever since Barack Obama appeared onstage in Chicago's Grant Park on Nov. 4, 2008, to claim his place as president-elect, many Americans, including a majority of current House Republicans, have fixated on his political destruction at the expense of their own basic functionality.

Playing Politics with Suckers Lives Day 2

I understand that Teapublitarian voters are a bunch of mindless rubes, but does Eric Cantor think the rest of America is just as stupid?


Mission Accomplished:  The Tea Party Shutdown of the government continues.

WASHINGTON — The Tea Party Republicans should hang a “Mission Accomplished” banner across the House of Representatives. They could flank it with large portraits of Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who has in fact, if not in name, replaced John Boehner as Speaker of the House. The right-wing extremists got exactly what they wanted. Now, what will the country do about it?

The Real Story of the GOP Shutdown:  50 Years of GOP Race Baiting:

On the day the Affordable Care Act takes effect, the U.S. government is shut down, and it may be permanently broken. You’ll read lots of explanations for the dysfunction, but the simple truth is this: It’s the culmination of 50 years of evolving yet consistent Republican strategy to depict government as the enemy, an oppressor that works primarily as the protector of and provider for African-Americans, to the detriment of everyone else. The fact that everything came apart under our first African-American president wasn’t an accident, it was probably inevitable.

Hostage Taking is All They Have

"In a democracy, hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can’t otherwise win their fights through elections, can’t win their fights in Congress, can’t win their fights for the Presidency, and can’t win their fights in Courts," Warren said. "For this right-wing minority, hostage-taking is all they have left – a last gasp of those who cannot cope with the realities of our democracy."

The GOP Takes It's Clothes Off in Public:  It's Not a Pretty Sight, Even For Some Republicans

And so, the "moderate" (ho, ho, ho) House Republicans tell us that what they are afraid of is primary challenges from the "Tea Party" should they vote for rationality on the continuing resolution matter and then on the perhaps more important debt ceiling increase that is just around the corner. Well yes, many of them would face such challenges, but the overall national leadership of the GOP is just as afraid of them as any individual House member is. For in the highly gerrymandered districts inhabited by so many Republicans in the House, many of those challenges would be effective. But then, in the general election, given decent Democratic candidates with some money from the DNC, even in gerrymandered districts, as happened in a few elections in 2010 and 2012, the far-rightists might be so far-right, that Democrats might be able to take over the House. To say nothing of what it might do to GOP chances in the state–wide elections for Governor and Senator. Then there's Ted Cruz and 2016. A big OY! on that one.

 That Thing about Congress Being "Exempted from ObamaCare?  A Huge Whopper

You might’ve heard just about every Republican member of Congress, along with Fox News and AM talk radio, shrieking about how President Obama has “exempted” Congress from Obamacare. The point they’re trying to make is that Obamacare is so awful and so ridiculous that the Obama administration has offered Congress a Get-Out-Of-Obamacare-Free card. Taking it one step further, they’re insisting that if Obamacare isn’t good enough for Congress, why should the American people be forced to endure its awfulness? The people should be exempted, too, which means the elimination of the individual mandate, and, without the mandate (a Republican idea by the way), premiums would skyrocket and the law would explode. Political sabotage, pure and simple.

Radical GOP House Made Safe by Gerrymandering:  

Bad politicians were sent to Washington by Citizens United, Gerrymandering, and Voter Suppression.

But let’s not forget who draws the lines for redistricting—state lawmakers (and in a few states, commissions appointed by the states). These legislators are often chosen in midterm and off-year elections in which the composition of the electorate has tended to be older and whiter than in presidential election years. That helps explain why the Democrats took a beating in 2010. The lesson is that midterm elections can have big consequences. If Democrats ever want to win back the House, they have to get their people to the polls in the off years. And if the Supreme Court guts the Voting Rights Act, it will be more important than ever.

Field Negro ~ I know that most of you reading this haven't felt it yet, but my fear is that we will feel it in unspeakable ways down the line. Our national security is at stake. The safety of our air travel will be jeopardized and the lives of poor children will be disrupted.

You can think the goverment shut down is about health care if you want to

It's about race and class.  It's about wanting the first African American President to fail.  It's the media.



  All gloves should be off now.

 "There is a mean spirit on the lose, not only in Alabama, but in America and that's what makes this election so important." Alabama State Senator Hank Sanders (D. Selma)

Stand Your Ground President Obama, We the People Have Your Back!

 

 Don't you wish democrats had shut down Washington to keep Bush and Dick from sending us to war based on DEAD WRONG INTELLIGENCE?

Lets get one thing straight,  republicans are not making some kind of principled stand by marching our country off the cliff and into financial disaster, demanding delaying the implementation of the Affordable Health Care Act.

This is about keeping poor/black/brown/folks from having access, strike that, from having the same access to quality affordable health care they have.

This is about  a party who can't get over the fact they lost the Presidential election not once, but twice, and hurting the people who voted for, and elected, Barack Hussein Obama.

 The Ted Cruz’s and Eric Cantor’s of the world are the modern day Daniel Shay.  The difference is Shay led a populist movement of citizen’s who’s way of life was being threatened by the government.  Cruz, Cantor, and their band of Tea Party political terrorists are holding Americans hostage and using the American government against the American people; making the United States of America, un-united and ungovernable.~

This is about a party that has been hijacked by zealots.

Delay and defund.  And default.

That is the House Republicans’ brilliant plan in their last-ditch effort to block implementation of the Affordable Care Act. It is a plan that threatens to grind the government to a halt and wreak havoc on the economy.

If they can’t take over Washington, they’ll shut it down. It’s their way or no way. All or nothing.

It's time for President Obama to Stand His Ground

I believe it is time for President Obama to read up on the 14th Amendment (particularly the part about the full faith and credit of the federal government) and unilaterally raise the ceiling when the Republicans try to drive the economy over the cliff. In the event that President Obama must use the constitutional option to not default I am about 90% certain the house will move articles of impeachment. To which I say ‘GOOD!’ Bring it on. I just hope and fervently pray that if these dominoes fall as I suspect this all happens before the next midterm. Can you imagine the landslide if Republicans follow a government shutdown with impeachment?! Red state gerrymandering would not matter…

Would someone tell the Talking TeeVee Pundits what piggieheart said?
 Screw the poor, punish our troops, impoverish more of our seniors, but don't harm a hair on the head of our donors. This is not a principled stand on governing philosophy. This is an attempted blackmail of the majority by a tiny fraction of our leadership. The President and Harry Reid are correct in standing firm. They must show the same courage and determination that President Clinton show the last time the extreme right wing tried this gambit. Just as we did then, the American people will punish those responsible.

"There are times when you have to call people's bluff"


If people cannot trust government to do the job for which it exists -to protect and to promote their common welfare, all else is lost.~President Barack Hussein Obama