Snowy Saturday Reading List and Week in Review

I guess the media believes if they regurgitate republican talking points over and over again the American people will believe it's the truth instead of a media-driven narrative.  Here's the deal, in a nutshell, Republicans refuse to budge on tax breaks for the rich, President Obama refuses to cut Social Security and Medicare.  And that my friends is all you really need to know.

 Don't forget this is the same media who enabled Bush and Dick to take our troops to war based on DEAD WRONG INTELLIGENCE, and who told us the 2012 presidential election was going to be close.  As a matter of fact, what has the media been right (no pun) about lately? 

There is one thing I will agree with the Talking TeeVee Pundit Heads on, President Obama has no one to blame but himself for this sad, sorry, state of affairs.  Why he didn't believe republicans when they said they wanted him to fail I don't know.  Did he honestly believe the Sequester would be so awful republicans would compromise?  Everybody knows you can't compromise with a Suicide Bomber.  Their mission is to blow you up if they have to blow themselves up in the process...... so be it.

The Republican war on black voters, I mean entitlements, was in full force last week.  Everyone is expecting the Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II Supreme Court to overturn Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 since it was the only thing that prevented Republicans from stealing the election...again.

Republican hubris mushroomed into Republican arrogance as Alabama republicans invited Alabamians to kiss it this week under the guise they helping poor children flee failing schools.

By using this twilight legerdemain to pass a complex, watershed piece of legislation, Republicans avoided any input from our state's educators, from our state's financial experts and, most important, from we the people.
What an open display of contempt for the public: No need to bother writing your state senator or representative about your thoughts on tax credits to raise money for private schools. They don't need to hear from the likes of you.
Republican legislators disappeared into a cloakroom and practically had their way with us while we didn't even know it.

If Republicans are having their way with us, shouldn't we at least enjoy it?  I mean, really?

“Republicans heralded it as a historic day for education and life-altering for children stuck in poorly performing schools. But tempers boiled over as Democrats called the maneuver “sleaziness” and a “bait and switch.”"
On the other side of the aisle:
Rep. Mary Moore, D-Birmingham, as she was leaving the House chamber threw her hands over her head and shouted, “Welcome to the new confederacy where a bunch of white men are now going to take over black schools.”

Blast from the past re-post.

  I've noticed a renewed interest in WTF did Joe Reed to do you?, which gave me the opportunity to correct some typo's and update some links. The original content is unchanged. Looking back I have to wonder how Left in Alabama feels about Joe Reed now. Their candidate, Artur Davis ,was anti AEA and pro privatizing  public education in Alabama, and he was backed by the business community in and outside of the state.  That's a group with little love for entitlements, I mean,  social programs such as access to quality, affordable health care, equal access to a quality public education, a poor woman's right to choose to have a safe, legal abortion, access to birth control, LBGT rights, and the right to vote, and have that vote count.

 All roads lead to Selma mobilizing to Free Don Siegelman! H/T Sharron via Pam's List

LAST MINUTE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR SELMA TOMORROW!

We just found out some different procedures for tomorrow due to Secret Service for the Vice-President.

We will still be distributing shirts and signs, but we will not know for certain exactly where we can set up until we get there in the morning.

So just look for this banner of Gov. Siegelman and that is where we will be.

Some other things to note is EVERYONE will have to go through metal detectors.

The Bridge Crossing will still begin at 1:30. The march from Brown Chapel AME Church to the bridge will begin at 11:00am.

If we understood it correctly, Vice-President will speak at the bridge prior to the crossing at 1:30.

We'll figure it all out, but we will make sure we get these signs and t-shirts distributed to you before 1:30.

 Happy reading!

About that "massive intelligence failure"....

Coffin Photo Stirs Debate ~ Fist Dap Galesburg.com

The first question out of  Vice Presidential debate moderator Martha Raddatz's mouth last night was about the so called failure of the Obama administration to call the attack on the Libyan Consulate an act of terrorism right after it happened.  

Congress Critter Paul Ryan (r.  WI), his side kick, I mean running mate, Mitt Romney (r.MA), enabled by Congress Critter Darrell Issa (r. CA) are are quick to use this tragedy for partisan, political gain, but they must have forgotten about the *cough cough* massive intelligence failure that took our troops to war based on DEAD WRONG INTELLIGENCE, to look for Weapons of Mass Destruction, that were NOT there, without body armor or an exit plan.  Talk about a conspiracy.

Vice President Joe Biden made me proud to be a Democrat last night because he proved all the republicans want is all war all the time with other people's sons and daughters, poor women not to have access to a safe legal abortion, gut Medicare,  privatize Social Security, and raise taxes on the middle class.

Psst President Obama...nice guys finish last.

Today's Must Read

Joe Biden throws Paul Ryan off his yard (warning rude)

It's a Tax On Deadbeats, Stoopid!

H/T Christian Science Monitor

TeaPublicans, enabled by the media,(who have access to quality, affordable, health care), know all they have to say is ObamaCare (instead of calling it the Affordable Health Care Act) raises taxes on the middle class, and the poor suckers (who don't have access to quality, affordable, health care) will get their ropes and start lighting their torches. Nothing riles patriotic (snark) TeaPublicans  up like telling them they have to pay their fair share of taxes.

Remember that when the republican Congress Critters and Governors who have access to quality affordable health care vote to deny you access to quality, affordable, health care  if you or someone you love gets sick.

Another TeaPublican, media enabled L-I-E is that ACA will cut Medicare spending.  That's meant to skeer the sense out of Seniors.  But in reality it makes the case for Single Payer Insurance. 

I'm so sick of free loaders, aren't you?

Sometimes I wonder if the TeaPublicans have ObamaCare (ACA) confused with the Bush Tax cut for the rich, which in reality was a tax shift from the rich (who can afford to pay more) to the middle class (who are barely making ends meet) but I digress.


Congress has the authority to levy taxes on it's citizens. In this case Congress has the authority to levy a tax on the Deadbeats who can afford to purchase insurance, but refuse to, use the emergency room as their primary care giver, and charge it to we the people.

Again

If you are middle class and have health insurance you won't be taxed.

If you are low income and can't afford to buy health insurance, it will be subsidized, and you won't be taxed.

If you are middle class and refuse to purchase health insurance YOU WILL BE PENALIZED AS WELL YOU SHOULD BE.

It's called personal responsibility.

Ask Mitt Romney.


It's a tax on Deadbeats.

Own it.

I HOPE the Supreme Court overturns the individual mandate

Pick your teeth up off the floor and read on.

According to the all knowing, Talking TeeVee Pundit Heads, The Supreme Court will overturn the individual mandate portion of the Affordable Health Care Act on Thursday.

Sometimes a loss is a victory, we now have the opportunity to put the health back into health care reform.

Ever since health reformers opted to put lobbyists before people, partisan brawls over "Obamacare" and "Hillarycare" have dominated public debates. In dragging federal health reform before the Supreme Court, however, conservatives not only succeeded in shining a critical spotlight on this flawed law. Inadvertently, they have also given us another chance for envisioning a health care system that actually meets our health needs.

This is an opportunity to give the people what we want; Real Universal Health Care 

As the nation awaits a Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the Obama health care approach, a new Associated Press-GfK poll suggests that the vast majority of Americans want Congress to come up with a better plan. They know that the current system is unsustainable. Only a third of those polled favored the law President Barack Obama signed, but according to the AP, “... Whatever people think of the law, they don’t want a Supreme Court ruling against it to be the last word on health care reform.” The article continued, “More than three-fourths of Americans want their political leaders to undertake a new effort, rather than leave the health care system alone if the court rules against the law, according to the poll.”

Americans need and want real health care reform.

Republicans say that Americans don't want top-down government control of their health care. But what we have now is top-down corporate control of health care. Insurers, drugmakers, sellers of expensive equipment, hospital executives, labs, home-health-care services and others unnamed prosper by exploiting the chaos in our health care system.

 NO COMPROMISE this time.

This opens the way to a political bargain. Insurers might be let off the hook, for example, only if they support allowing every American, including those with pre-existing conditions, to choose Medicare, or something very much like Medicare. In effect, what was known during the debate over the bill as the “public option.”
So in striking down the least popular part of Obamacare - the individual mandate - the Court will inevitably bring into question one of its most popular parts - coverage of pre-existing conditions. And in so doing, open alternative ways to maintain that coverage - including ideas, like the public option, that were rejected in favor of the mandate.

We want Medicare for All! 

Will the TeaPublicans say NO to a Jobs bill?

Like Hell Yes they will because that is just who they are.

You say you want 466 billion? Dollars?Really ? Please!! We will give you 1.99 and a bucket of chicken..Take it or leave it..Boy

I'm going to admit being HOPEFUL when I first heard the President's address to Congress, but in the cold light of day, I realize it's just more of doing the same old thing over and over again HOPING for a different result.

"I am sending this Congress a plan that you should pass right away. It's called the American Jobs Act. There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation. Everything in here is the kind of proposal that's been supported by both Democrats and Republicans – including many who sit here tonight. And everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything."

"This isn't political grandstanding. This isn't class warfare. This is simple math. These are real choices that we have to make."Okay, this all sounds great, but here is the reality: we are just a few months away from a national election, and the folks who are trying to get the White House back are going to do nothing to help you turn the economy around. They want you to fail, Mr. President. Which part of that don't you understand? It's not in their best interest to turn this economy around.

There are some who say the President's Job Bill is better than nothing, but I disagree. Nothing from nothing leaves nothing.

"But how will we pay for all of this without further raising the deficit Mr. President?" Close tax loopholes, restructuring certain entitlement programs like Medicare, and raising personal income taxes for those who can afford it in our country. (Memo to O, next time put someone else in the box next to the wonderful first lady besides the CEO of the main culprit for sending A-merry-can money and jobs oversees.)

In the cold light of day, The speech was a weak and desperate call for Congress to get behind a mishmash of failed Republican policies.

O.K., about the Obama plan: It calls for about $200 billion in new spending — much of it on things we need in any case, like school repair, transportation networks, and avoiding teacher layoffs — and $240 billion in tax cuts. That may sound like a lot, but it actually isn’t. The lingering effects of the housing bust and the overhang of household debt from the bubble years are creating a roughly $1 trillion per year hole in the U.S. economy, and this plan — which wouldn’t deliver all its benefits in the first year — would fill only part of that hole. And it’s unclear, in particular, how effective the tax cuts would be at boosting spending.

So maybe it's just as well the obstructionist, do nothing, republican controlled Congress tells the American people they can go straight to hell. Maybe that will motivate voters to go to the polls and take the Son's of Bitches out in 2012. That is if we are allowed to vote in 2012.

Last week, right-wing pundit Matthew Vadum created a stir when he argued that -- as his piece at American Thinker is titled -- "Registering the Poor to Vote is Un-American." Here's how the piece starts:
Why are left-wing activist groups so keen on registering the poor to vote?

Because they know the poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits by electing redistributionist politicians. Welfare recipients are particularly open to demagoguery and bribery.

Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country -- which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote.

Glynn Wilson at the Locust Fork News-Journal ask the one question the polling pollsters won't, debunks the Republicans’ New Extreme ‘Voodoo Economics’ Exposes Religious Bigotry and Hypocrisy

It appears to me that is the real political divide we have in this country. It is not just liberal versus conservative, Republican versus Democrat. It is also the religious faithful against those who look to science instead of myth as the basis for knowledge and the source of solutions.

During the Bush Years, this came to be known as the “reality-based” community versus the “faith-based” community.

Since religion is easier to understand for those with an average IQ of 100, myth still tends to trump science in this country much of the time.

That’s how Rush Limbaugh on talk radio and Fox News made fortunes pandering to the lowest common denominator crowd, and why smarter and more progressive publications have been less financially successful historically. The mass audience can’t read or comprehend complicated arguments, or they won’t take the time to try to understand them. They tend to go for simple, black and white ideas that appeal to their preconceived notions and prejudices

Lord help us.

RedEye'sTuesday Talking Points and Rant

For the record I am NOT one of those Americans who want a compromise on the debt ceiling. For one thing, compromising with the republicans is like a rape victim compromising with their attacker. For another thing, how come President Obama is the only President who has to jump through hoops to get the debt ceiling extended? Never mind. We know why. The republicans want to keep President Obama from doing anything. Strike that. republicans want to keep President Obama from doing anything for black/brown/poor people so we can be accused of standing around wanting a hand out. Snark

That's right (pun intended). Whites are getting richer while black and brown folks are getting the shaft, but it's not racism. Snark Before you start whinning about this being RedEye hollering racism again, you might want to check out the findings of a recent Pew Research study

From “Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics”, a study released on July 26 by the Pew Research Center

The median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from 2009.

These lopsided wealth ratios are the largest since the government began publishing such data a quarter century ago and roughly twice the size of the ratios that had prevailed between these three groups for the two decades prior to the Great Recession that ended in 2009.

The Pew Research analysis finds that, in percentage terms, the bursting of the housing market bubble in 2006 and the recession that followed from late 2007 to mid-2009 took a far greater toll on the wealth of minorities than whites. From 2005 to 2009, inflation-adjusted median wealth fell by 66% among Hispanic households and 53% among black households, compared with just 16% among white households.

As a result of these declines, the typical black household had just $5,677 in wealth (assets minus debts) in 2009; the typical Hispanic household had $6,325 in wealth; and the typical white household had $113,149.

And NO. An African American, democratic President cutting social programs does not make it more palatable for blacks because when white America get a cold, non white America gets pneumonia....and die because you know, we are the ones without access to quality affordable health care. I guess the plan is for us to die quickly.

The black middle class is on the verge of extinction. So don't think it's not your problem. If you are black in America it is your problem too.

As has been the case for more than half a century, the black unemployment rate, which is understated, has been running at twice the rate of white Americans. Black teenage unemployment rates are particularly dismal. They have been hovering around 40 percent, and the rate for both teenage males and females is currently more than 35 percent. High teenage unemployment, as well as a dismal job market for new college graduates, suggest that attaining or maintaining middle-class status is increasingly difficult for black youth, and the three paths that earlier generations of African-Americans took — work in the unionized manufacturing sector, public sector employment and more recently college and graduate education — either no longer functionally exist, or are much less reliable conduits to social mobility than they were even a decade ago.

We can't depend on the media we have to tell us what we need to know, because they are too busy telling us what they want us to know. That's why we don't know what we don't know. I sure do miss the good old days when the media kept our government from misleading us to enabling our government to mislead us.

It's been said many times. But it's never enough: the conventions of journalistic 'objectivity', as currently defined, frequently make journalists violate their biggest duty, which is honesty with readers. The top headline running now on CNN reads: "They're all talking, but no one is compromising, at least publicly. Democratic and GOP leaders appear unwilling to bend on proposals to raise the debt ceiling."

By any reasonable measure, this is simply false, even painfully so. It might be right to say they are not agreeing, that's demonstrable. But I don't think any observer -- one who has actually watched the specifics of the debate -- honestly believes that neither side is compromising. Indeed, even the firebreathers on the Republican side aren't suggesting this. Their argument is that the nature of the 'crisis' is so great that there can be no compromise on their basic demands. That is what it means when they say they will not support any new taxes as part of a global deal.

Compromising with the TeaPublicans is like a chicken compromising with Colonel Sanders.

House Speaker John Boehner often attacks the spendthrift ways of Washington.

“In Washington, more spending and more debt is business as usual,” the Republican leader from Ohio said in a televised address yesterday amid debate over the U.S. debt. “I’ve got news for Washington - those days are over.”

Yet the speaker, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell all voted for major drivers of the nation’s debt during the past decade: Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and Medicare prescription drug benefits. They also voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that rescued financial institutions and the auto industry.

Enough!

You didn’t create Social Security and Medicare, the American People did – working their will through the efforts of Democratic Party leadership over the course of a 40 year struggle. You were not there. The blood and tears and courage it took to create these programs were not yours.

Americans who have paid their dues and paid their taxes for a lifetime expect it to be there when they need it. That was the promise. That is the cornerstone of our social contract as a nation.

Stop what you’re doing, now. You have no right. You have no mandate. Social Security and Medicare do not belong to you.

RedEye Rant over and out.

I say give the Hateful Haters the keys to car so they can drive the country into the ditch again.

Para quoting my Daddy, the TeaPublicans don't believe fat meat is greasy. We've tried to tell them so let's show them. Let's let the Hateful Haters drive the country into a ditch like drunk frat boys and see if their loyal followers hate President Obama/democrats more than they love themselves and their country.

Let's see how they feel when the republicans say screw you to Tornado victims.

Congressional Republicans are, amazingly, saying that spending to help the victims of the Joplin, Missouri tornadoes has to be accompanied with a spending cut.

Let me repeat: Republicans say that the gods of spending cuts must be appeased before we assist our fellow Americans in a time of disaster. What. The Hell?

Republicans are looking at these people – and saying, well, feed our ideology first.

The Republican party has so far gone around the bend, it’s beginning to resemble an actual monster.

Let's see how they feel when the republicans tell those on Medicare to suck it up and take care of yourself.

At a town hall meeting, Rep. Rob Woodall lectured a constituent about Medicare, saying she should simply take care of herself.

A Woodall constituent raised a practical obstacle to obtaining coverage in the private market within the confines of an employer-based health insurance system: What happens when you retire?

"The private corporation that I retired from does not give medical benefits to retirees," the woman told the congressman in video captured a local Patch reporter in Dacula, Ga.

"Hear yourself, ma'am. Hear yourself," Woodall told the woman. "You want the government to take care of you, because your employer decided not to take care of you. My question is, 'When do I decide I'm going to take care of me?'"

Let's see how they feel as their gop Congress Critter gets richer while they get the shaft.

AP reports that despite banning earmarks, tea party-backed Republicans are planning to quietly funnel millions of dollars to pet projects in their home districts using a mechanism they call "member requests." The difference between member requests and earmarks?
Each addition carries a disclaimer that says a decision to spend these budgetary requests must be based on competition or merit.
Of course, given that Congress controls the purse strings, the Pentagon won't ignore their requests, and Republicans, who are eagerly touting their "member requests" in their home districts, know it.

Let's see how they feel when schools are privatized and unions are defunct.

Let's see how they feel with these clowns in charge.

The Republican Party has changed... drastically, and not just in terms of women's issues. They're no longer even a mainstream party, not even a mainstream conservative party.

Chris_I_Am says VOTE THEM ALL OUT;

Why does the GOP insist on taking from the neediest while refusing to look at increasing revenue by taxing the wealthiest a tiny bit more? I have never disliked a group of people so much as I now do the Republican party. They officially make me sick. Everytime I see these snake oil salesmen and store front preachers it makes me want to destroy the computer. It's not enough that they have our money. It's not enough they have our pride. They now want our souls. And those not willing to give it up, they can starve. These people are would be tyrants and they need the boot. VOTE THEM ALL OUT!!!!!! Send them the message they so rudely sent us. Anybody can get got!

RedEye says VOTE THEM ALL IN and show the American people they are biting off their noses to spite their faces. If we can survive 12 years of Regan/Bush and 8 years of Bush/Dick we can survive the Clowns being in charge for 2 years. I guarantee republicans will be glad to VOTE THEM OUT then.

Monday Talking Points

Psst TeaPublicans, cut spending on all war all the time! I am sick and tired of TeaPublican after TeaPublican, all over the public airways talking about cutting spending on social programs (code word for we the people), but you don't hear them saying a mumbling word about the monetary cost, nor the human cost of all war all time.

Don't you wish some enterprising Talking TeeVee Pundit Head would ask them how much we are spending on the wars, and how many of our sons and daughters have lost life and limb fighting them? Don't you wish they would ask them about cutting spending on all war all the time?

Will Obama Throw a Grenade to Blow-Up Hidden Campaign Donations? I sure HOPE so.:)

Frustrated by limited, near-term legislative or regulatory options to increase disclosure of hidden federal election expenditures, President Obama is considering an executive order aimed at government contractors which would partially achieve that goal. If issued, this order will cause a political uproar--and stimulate immediate litigation to stay its effect.

The president is responding to the 2010 political cycle, when groups allegedly independent of candidate campaigns spent $300 billion in attempts to influence the outcome of federal elections. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, almost 50 percent of that total was spent by organizations which did not disclose their donors, up from 25 percent spent by entities with no disclosure in 2008.

Georgia on my mind...Lawsuit seeks dissolution of Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, Milton, Chattahoochee Hills because 'super-majority white neighborhoods' were created. Meanwhile the Feds allow Sandy Springs out of Voting Rights Act. Hmmm. I wonder why the Feds would do something like that? Never mind. WE know.

Congress passed the act in 1965 to stamp out illegal efforts to deny minorities access to the ballot box. It applies to all or part of 16 states, including Georgia.

In 2006, Congress renewed the act for 25 years.

Then in 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that jurisdictions could seek relief from the act’s Section 5, which requires them to gain federal clearance to change any election procedure, including small items such as moving polling sites.

For Alabama to be 2nd in the nation in Religiosity (Is reglisiousity a word?), they sure don't practice what they preach.

Alabama is second to Mississippi in the nation in the percentage of residents who say that religion is very important in their lives (74%) according to the Pew Research Center (though the state is fifth in the percentage of residents who say they attend religious services at least once a week at 52%).

I guess it depends on what the definition of Religiousity IS in Alabama and Mississippi. :)

Jesus of Nazareth, or Jesus Christ, continues to intrigue all sectors of society, all peoples, all races, both rich, not so rich and, most particularly, the underclass and poor. In an age that has come to emphasize money, materialism, outright greed, and admiration for the rich and powerful, he offers an alternative.

Yet Jesus is in an enigmatic and troubling figure. For many people in the world, he is seen as a kind of general love figure, the ultimate nice guy. After all, that is what the world wants to see in other people - niceness, tolerance, humanity, and kindness in others. Far from being solely concerned with being loving and nice to people, however, he is the ultimate litigator. One might see Jesus as an advocate of the underclass. Perhaps one could see Jesus as a socialist or communist, since in the Gospels, he seems to make a point of associating with and advocating for, the poor and working class.

Jesus, save us from your followers. :)