There was an interesting comment in Paul Krugmans piece yesterday.

Unemployment benefits were not extended because the political elite does not depend on the well-being of masses any longer; political donations by the economic elite are sufficient to secure re-election and the well-being of those donors. This latest stunt out of Washington should be a wake-up call to demand campaign reform.

The Krugman piece was on unemployment and the heartless,clueless and confused who simply do not, or will not give understanding to the people on it. In an era where there is 10%+ unemployment  across the board some have actually decided that there really are jobs, it’s just that those lazy unemployment people don’t want them. I think this ‘blame the unemployed’ is just their coping mechanism because as long as they can ignore the poverty of their neighbors,friends,church mates they can sleep a night with never having to address just how badly the new version of the American Motto, coined by Gordon Gecko “Greed is Good”, really isn’t working out for 95% of this country. But hey, they may one day be in that 5%, so they don’t want anything changing before they get there.

I know what it’s like to try and live off of Florida unemployment for months at a a time. I’ve read where some states give $500+ a week compensation, here we get $275.. unless you chose to have taxes removed which most don’t for obvious reasons, but we did so they average compensation my husband received was about $212 a week. Sure, a man who has worked every day in the Florida sun since he was 14 would rather lounge around the house for a mighty $212 a week because everyone knows that when you lose your job the utility companies, stop asking for payment, mortgage companies give you automatic stays,gas and food are delivered each night by fairies on unicorns and clothes and shoes are made by those cute little cobbling leprechauns.

What people like  Krugmans ‘clueless’  forget is that unemployment benefits aren’t going to uneducated, welfare mom’s and immigrants… ya know ‘those’ people. It’s going to people who were employed! Who, through no fault of their own went to work one day and were told they didn’t have a job any longer. It’s not going to people who were fired for being incompetent or lazy, it’s going to roofers,painters,CPA’s, teachers,electricians,plumbers, people who worked their asses off every day of their life.  These are the people we want in society, the job-doers. These are not the shiftless and lazy and fuck you to those making them out to be!

Clueless is a good word for them and Krugman is correct to name them such. Just as he is correct that Republicans are heartless for their part in this never ending story.  Republicans know that if they can just get the economy to sink a little more,  if they can just hamper any recovery then maybe they can regain power. That is their goal right now, not to govern in cooperation with the majority who was elected by a country  based on the idea of majority wins, but to obstruct everything that might just enhance recovery and hopefully this stalemate  will turn the average Joe  against the current majority. They hope  the people will forget it was the Republicans and their deficit spending wars,tax cuts, de-regulation and social programs that got us here in the 1st place. Most of all they hope they can get back in power because those unpaid for tax-breaks for the richest of the rich expire soon and they want to re-up them. You can understand atleast the heartless, just remove your soul and care for nothing but yourself and you get them perfectly. But it’s the clueless that keep me going back to them. They are the ones I can’t understand even when I try. They are the ones on unemployment and using medicaid who rail against.. yep, Obama socialists agenda in paying people to stay out of work and giving them all health care at tax-payers expense. In them are the tea-party members who chant “Say No to Socialism” in one breath and “Don’t touch my medicare” in the other. I actually saw a crowd of signs the other day that made me laugh out, one woman was holding a sign that said “Stay out of our bedrooms” and the man she was holding hands with had a sign that read “Stop Abortion”, those kinds of ‘clueless’ are too far gone to even try and educate. They are mad and just can’t quit put a finger on the reason. (Well, personally I think they can put a finger on the reason but are too afraid to be called ‘racists’ for saying exactly what their problem with this administration is.)

While Krugman writes a great article it was the comment above that struck a chord in me because I don’t think a recent ruling of the supreme court has sunk in yet.

But it will.

When the supreme court ruled that corporations are really people and as people are entitled to donate to the official they’d like elected, that forever ended the ‘voice of the people’. Until that time candidates had to at least pretend to be on the side of the little guy in order to be able to fundraiser off him, but now? There isn’t a little guy around who can match donation funds with corporation giants. You only have to look at recent events to see just exactly how shitty things will get for the working, soon-to-be-serf class.

After the supreme court ruling, GOP leaders made a bee-line to wall street. They wanted the big bankers who crumbled the world’s economy to know that the Democrats were planning ‘reform’ and if they’d just come over to the GOP way, well that reform would die where is started..Last week’s Financial Reform Bill vote pretty much tells you how that offer was received.

In conjunction  with this,  was another shocking  revelation. Just after the SEC charged Goldman Sachs with fraud the headlines  were “Obama to keep money Goldman donated to campaign” . TV heads could talk of nothing else, the audacity of this president keeping the donations from this company while his SEC was investigating them . The subtext of course was missed by these Mensa members , but that wasn’t so shocking, some of those people think sitting on a couch for a couple hours a day talking to their co-hosts is the same job as President of United States. No, what was shocking was that it rippled through the conservative world unchecked until it was repeated by talking head and ‘man on the street’ alike. Obama is thief and he is untrustworthy because he kept the donation while still allowing an investigation of the company.

Do you see where this is going yet? I’m sure some of you do, but unfortunately.. some (well a lot)  don’t. For those that don’t here goes what you seem to be advocating with extreme vigor. By saying the President had the audacity to charge Goldman for fraud after he used their donations, is akin to saying he should have taken the money and said nothing about their crime.  You’ve decided that the leader you want will take money from anyone, any corporation and if that donor breaks the law… he’ll ignore it and protect their right to break the law by dissolving any investigation into their misdeeds. If it is true that it is untrustworthy and unbecoming of an elected official to prosecute his own corporate donors when they break the law, then  it must also be true that the politician you value  is the one who is bought and paid for by the corporations who donate to them.The politician you want isn’t the one who can take a donation from a corporation in good faith and still not be beholden to them, but instead you want the one who takes the bribes and hides the crimes.

Well, fear not heartless,clueless, and confused.. you might just get the government of you chose. One that looks at 14% unemployment and blames the laziness of the workers.  The kind of government who will destroy what is left of the country for their own political gain. The government who will advocate for more power being taken from the citizens of the country and given to the corporations who elect them and finally the government who takes the donations from the massive corporations, and sit back, allowing them free-reign without fear of prosecution. In other words, the country you wish to live in is not one where the worker is cared for but where the corporation is deemed the more valuable entity, where the megacorporation is the more valuable voice and the one who no law should bind. To you I say, welcome to public servitude, welcome to corporatocracy, welcome to Soylent Green.

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While some people were celebrating a long-awaited and hard fought victory last week, another long-awaited and small victory hardly even made the news.

Pentagon releases new ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ rules

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced today that the Pentagon will make it more difficult to discharge openly gay or lesbian members of the military.

I know this isn’t complete repeal, but it’s close… really close.

Unfortunately “Don’t ask Don’t Tell’ is a law and not just a policy. Being an actual law means to repeal it you need Congress and after the battle we just saw for allowing sick children a chance to see a doctor, could you imagine the viscous and vileness of a fight to fully repeal DADT ? So, to save us a massive influx of spontaneous combustion victims,apoplectic seizures, and generally a Heaven’s Gate Cult-like reaction that would be sure to swap our health care facilities thus causing the rationing Republican’s feary-tales warned us about, President Obama and Defense Secretary Gates  did everything they could do to repeal the arcane law without having to involved Congressional leaders who have vowed to sit on their hands and no longer work for the American people who elected them. Of course,  those Congressmen will still take the pay-check the American people pay them, they will just refuse to work for it now.

McCain: Don’t expect GOP cooperation

on legislation for the rest of this year

…warning of little work between parties the rest of this year.

For those who yell at sick people and tell them “You want something in this country, you work for it!” and “There are no free-ride or free hand-outs here!” tell me, what do you call it when you pay someone to do a job and they refuse  but still take your payment for that job? Is that theft or welfare? I really don’t know  but I love how you support it when it’s your leaders getting the free ride. Who by the way, could afford not to work AND not take their paycheck, as opposed to a man in a wheelchair with Parkinson. Oh and they get free health-care to boot on your dollar. So, not only are you paying a man who has so many houses that he can’t count them to do a job that he has vowed not to do any longer, but you’re paying for his healthcare also.

yippeeeeeeee…. and here’s your sign.

Back to the homos.

I know this isn’t the total victory that they wanted but I hope they see this is as good as a repeal as they can get in this political climate.The new rules make it almost, not totally but almost impossible for someone who is gay to be kicked out of the military. Of course they can’t be as open as they would like to be but lets face it, hetero’s  aren’t allowed to be as open as some of them would want to be either. No matter who you are attracted to, there just aren’t couples holding hands and cooing in each others ear all over this or that base. Open displays of affection are just not allowed in the military.  Before the new standards though, just the hint and rumor of ones sexual proclivity would get them booted from the military. The sad part was that many of those who worked with person in question , lived with them, fought and bled with them knew of their sexual orientation but said nothing because it never effected that persons ability to do their job and serve their country. But when they made an enemy of someone, whether valid or not, the scorned person could pretty much say what they wanted and end the career of those who had nothing but serve their country with honor, but were born being attracted to the same sex.

While many of us agree that this is a stupid law, I can only hope the new standards are enough for right now to soothe some of the anger of  those who are or have been unjustly affected. Under the new guidelines hearsay and rumor will not be allowed, those who are making the accusation must swear so under oath, and anonymous accusations will no longer be accepted (not that ever should have been).

Another change is who can approve the discharge. In all cases the discharge must be approved by a one-star general or higher.

The new regulations, he said, require that an officer determine

the reliability of the informant and whether that person

might have an ulterior motive in making a report.

Opponents are of course against any change, some high ranking (very high ranking)   individuals have said it was because of the Dutch allowing gays to serve that the Bosnia genocide happened. The gays were just unable to stop fornicating long enough to fight, not that all that high-pitch screaming and slapping is a danger to the ‘real men’  they were fighting anyway, but you know it looked bad..What with all those sweaty,writhing  bodies fornicating out in the open like the gays are prone to do while a section of the popular was slaughtered.

I wonder if the people who believe this also believe that most of the world was  gay in the 1940’s since Hitler’s genocide wasn’t  stopped before millions were murdered either. I’d love to point out to them that with all the genocide going on in Africa today,  by their argument, the whole world must be protected by homos.

Genocide, it’s the  gays fault!

Ha! It would be funny if 1/2 the population wasn’t stupid enough to believe  it.

These  ‘feary-tale’ are on par with Palin’s ‘death panel’.  There is no basis in reality for the fear or the people who promote it, but  the ones who believe it are who President Obama is fighting to change. Like  the idiots who believe whatever Palins vomits out on twitter, they will believe that allowing gays to fight will cause the next genocide to go unchecked.  They are adamant and unchanging in their beliefs, to them  gays should be housed separately from ‘normal’ soldiers because it’s the only way to keep unit cohesion tight and moral high. Maybe we should issue them a pink triangle to wear on their uniform like another military leader did. I guess it’s never occurred to these generals who think this way, that gays are and have been sleeping next to their ‘normal’ boys for a long long time now without uncontrollably humping them in their sleep and ruining moral.

The Spartans or Alexander the Great are just two examples just how non-unified and ’sissy-like’ the homos can make an army. What general would want people like that fight for them?  I mean.. duh!

We can’t save these people from their beliefs and we shouldn’t try because it’s a losing battle. Unfortunately there is enough of them in power to fail in an attempt to completely repeal DADT at this time. PresidentObama and Defense Secretary Gates know this so they’ve done as much as they can to change things anyway.

Even with these new guidelines, will there still be those who are outed and banned from service because of fear,jealousy and spite? Yes, but just like  the new health reform is not perfect  but a step in the right direction, these new regulations are also a major step forward in the right direction. It may take another generation before we see universal acceptance and/or universal health insurance, but one thing cannot be denied. President Obama ran on a platform of Change, a platform to bring us all, even those who will fight every dirty and nasty way they know how, into a future we can all be a part of and proud of and he’s doing everything he can to live up to his promises.

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Well, it was nice while it lasted.

Now that the Supreme Court has made ‘whoring’ legal, we can all look around at the last time our Government wasn’t bought and paid for by big business.  Sure, there have always been politicians in the pockets of these groups  but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the politician that is specifically sponsored by some interest group like a  NASCAR driver or what can now be called, the “Future of politics in this country”.

Imagine, Big Tobacco gets tired of the FDA restrictions and bad publicity they’ve gotten.. what to do- what to do.. Now they have the answer, they hire X amount of politicians and pay for all the attacks ads and smearing propagandist movies  that they can and then run them 24/7 on every channel and in every paper they can find in the politicians area all the way up to election.. and on election day.. Viola! Instant game changer, now they have X amount of paid senators who will work to change the laws against tobacco so they can start to rehabilitation their selves with the new “Pro-Smoking” TV spots they will be allowed to run after their candidates trim a few laws in their favor.  If that doesn’t work? Hell, they’ll just buy  more candidates in the next election.

The 1st thing we’ll see to go are the Unions. That of course makes the GOP happy! In fact this decision has them squirming for joy right now, they are salivating and as we speak placing “For Sale” signs on their office doors. This is a republicans wet-dream and at 1st they will be extremely happy with their new toy. Eventually though they will come to find out what all whores find out, it’s not always easy fucking for money… sometimes you’re forced to do things with that creepy guy who smells bad and afterward you just feel dirty and used inside. But guess what? By that time it’s too late, even the GOP will be disillusioned when they realize Pandora’s box is opened and looking them in the eye, it’s just a shame they won’t be able to do anything about it.

We all know there are some people out there who can be bought for any price so what happens when that person is given unlimited funds to win an election? I’ll give you a hint: Sarah Palin Wins Presidential Election.  As Alan Grayson said it will no longer be the senator from Iowa, it will now be the Senator from Exxon-Mobile.

So what can we look forward to and why is this a bad thing? Well for starters, after the Unions go then any Wall Street reform will be out the door as well and if we thought Wall Street was getting away with murder before… you ain’t seen nothing yet.  Think about it, before… groups like AIG or Bank of America were barred from spending too much money to directly influence an election.. but now the money we gave them to get back on their feet can go towards electing a Congressman who doesn’t believe Wall Street should have to pay anything back, or start loaning any money again, or  have any restrictions,checks or balances in any way..What’s that you say? You don’t like that idea? Well sorry my friend, you are just a single voter with limited funds.. AIG and BOA are now more important voters with billions to spend electing their chosen candidate. C’mon, do you really think your $25 dollar donation can compete with their $25 million? Of course  it can’t  so that means candidates will no longer listen to their constituents, they won’t have to.. they only have to listen to and help the interests of the big corporation who funded their campaign.

How does this change things? Ohh count the ways..

EPA? HA! Corporation can now buy candidates to lessens dumping restrictions.. the money they save from the loosened restriction can go towards buying more politicians.

FDA? Hey, hormone infused animals, irradiated produce and weeding out the ‘downer cows’ from the healthy ones all effect the bottom line.. In the ‘New world’  paid-for politicians can change FDA guidelines to help these companies and their bottom line. Not that their bottom line and our health go hand in hand and in fact they are mostly on opposite sides of the room, but look.. your $25 donation just doesn’t go as far as it used to.

New and untested drugs going on the market whenever the Big Pharma wants is another gift that’s been bestowed upon us by the infinite wisdom of John Roberts, Antonin Scalia,Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Anthony Kennedy.

Global warming Out! Pollution control out! Toxic dumping Out! Bad meat recall Out! Dangerous toy recall Out! Bad tires out!  Low cost housing Out! All social programs Out! Abortion and divorce Out! Reducing age limits on cigarettes and alcohol In! Reinstating the draft In! Drilling and strip mining In! Anti-trust laws Out! Monopolies In! Separation of Church and State Out! No prayers in school Out! Evolution in class rooms Out! Creationism In! Mom and Pop small town stores Out! Wal-mart on every corner In! Untested drugs In! Lawsuits against drug companies for knowingly testing unsafe material on the population Out! Reduction or banishment of minimum wage In! Low to no taxes on the rich and business In! Taxation without representation In! The middle class Out!

The list is endless, anything..anything any big corporation or special interest wants is now up for sale. The insurance conglomerates admitted to spending millions on ads to disprove the need for health reform. $20 million from 6 of the largest health insurers  was quietly being pumped  into third-party television ads aimed at killing or significantly modifying the major health reform bills moving through Congress. Now add another $100 million to buy a few politicians and what do you think the health debate will look like then? I see it as a war, a war over which Congressman can give the most to whichever insurance company pays the best. We the people? I laugh.. We don’t exit anymore.. how can we, we are single entities with limited funds going against massive blocks whose primary goal is not the best interest of the common man, but the best interest of the share-holder, and if buying a few dozen school board superintendents,mayors,governors,Congressmen, Judges  and a President increases the bottom line..then the CEO and Board members are required by law to do it. Now they have the pathway to accomplish it.

Hyperbolic fiction? Does it really matter now? You can’t do anything to change it even if this isn’t dooms-day, conspiracy, fiction.. do you get that part yet? It doesn’t matter anymore, the country can be bought and paid for by big business and interest groups and they have more money than you so there’s no stopping it now.  Think about this, Presidents select Supreme Court Justices, if Big Tobacco gets their paid-for President and Congress in.. they also get their Supreme Court Justice nominated.

According to the New York Times, during the last election cycled, the Fortune 100 companies alone had combined revenues of $13 trillion and profits of $605 billion. A third of the Senate is up for reelection every two years. Let’s say the largest corporations give an average of $10 million to each Senatorial Candidate. (Of course, to sway an election, it would be more in big states like New York, Texas and California, and less in small states Wyoming, Montana and Rhode Island.) That would be $3.3-$3.4 billion every two years. Let’s say they spent another $4 billion on the Presidential election every 4 years or an average of another $1 billion a year.

For less than 1% of their profits, the 100 largest corporations would likely be able to control the Senate and the Presidency, and through that, the Supreme Court. (This doesn’t even count contributions from the next 400 companies in the Fortune 500, or from slightly smaller corporations.) Good luck passing legislation to limit greenhouse gases, regulate insurance companies, or to reign in the power of the big banks.

So you see, it doesn’t matter if this is fictional bullshit or the reality waiting for us… nothing can be done to stop it from happening. It’s now trust we are to give companies like Big Tobacco,Big Oil, Big Pharma,Wall Street, Big Insurance and we all know they would never do a thing to harm us, they would never screw the public to better their bottom line and bonus’, would they…

We had a good run while it lasted.. But now? Well, corporatist dystopia here we come.

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This was brought up on the MucheDumbre forum today in regards to a government involvement in healthcare..

Essentially, that is my problem with all of this. I already have a problem with the FDA and AMA being owned by drug companies, why make the problem bigger?

If this is how you feel, that private companies already have too many fingers in the political arena and are turning policy in their favor, then the only option for you is the public option.

As it stands now all healthcare options are  owned,regulated,price marked and everything else relating to  them by the for-profit health insurance companies. Your doctor doesn’t decide his fee, Cigna,Aetna,BCBS decide what and if they will pay him.It is the insurance company who decides what they will pay, who they will pay, where they will pay.. who can get their product and  who can keep their product even after paying for it for decades. Without a public option, the way it is now will look like the ‘better’ way in 5 years..

Think about it for  second… A not-for-profit public option that would be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects, going from the Government to the healthcare provider(i.e.. doctor,clinic,hospital)  is  a direct line to the ones doing the service. Yet, this has been deemed evil,socialistic,freedom robbing and bad because it is the government who is collecting the money and giving it out to the providers…

The other alternative is that we subsidized[pay for] not just the >5% who would chose a public option but all 45 million uninsured American with a credit that comes from private and public funds{i.e. taxpayers} . The difference is  that the money goes directly to the insurance company where they take their 30% cut and then decide whether to pay the doctors/hospitals the rest. It is a mainline from your wallet into the wallets of the same types you say you are against, the private companies- NOT the doctors and hospitals proving your care.

Somehow the government  paying the insurance company with taxpayer’s money instead of the provider being paid with the fees that those in the option have paid for is the better option for some. How it’s  better or less socialist for the government to subsidize the insurance companies is something I haven’t had explained to me even though I keep asking,but let’s keep moving.

Not only will the government subsidize the insurance company, but without regulation or something in the market competing with them, the insurance companies can get their ‘asking price’ for any policy they offer, meaning they can start charging the government whatever they want for the healthcare the government is buying from them..while still retaining the right to decide how much they will reimburse the doctors,hospitals or if they even will reimburse them.

What is being asked for here to control this is the choice of a public option, for  less than 5% of the uninsured in the United States .   Less than 5% of those uninsured now, not 20% of the entire population, 50% all of the United States of America, but >5% of the 18% who are without insurance..

I’m not being a smart-ass.. but read that again before moving on…

“Let me be clear — it would only be an option for those who don’t have insurance,” he said.

“No one would be forced to choose it, and it would not impact those of you who already have insurance. In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates,

we believe that less than 5 percent of Americans would

sign up.”-Obama health speech before congress

we’re talking millions of people yes,  but single digit millions.

The not-for-profit public  option will force these unregulated companies to atleast keep their fees reasonable. It won’t put them out of business, the creation of any reform will ensure 45 million more people buy their product. That’s not taking money away from them… that is a windfall of fat cash coming their direction.

The not-for-profit public option will force these companies to own up to their contracts and actually pay out more claims, because to deny someone coverage because of a preexisting condition will become illegal.  It will force them to become a better product than they are right now, because  right now the ‘free market’ is allowing them to have all the marbles whether those be taxpayers marbles or private marbles. It is allowing them to collect whatever amount of money they want while choosing when and who to pay it out to. You purchased your insurance plan to cover your medical costs, you didn’t  purchase it so they company you chose could have complete autonomy to do with your money as they saw fit and thus leaving you responsible for the doctor bill at the same time.

Again, read this again. You pay the insurance company to cover your health care costs.. if they deem your claim unworthy, you are still responsible for the payment  to the doctor/clinic or hospital who treated you. So now you have paid the insurance company to keep your money and the doctor to treat you. Seriously people, if you just want to send your money to someone while still being responsible for your bills, I’ll be glad to accept it instead.

To put it simply, there are only two choices here.. .We either pay the insurance companies to insure the uninsured and thus, paying their fee for doing this  or we pay the doctors directly to treat the uninsured. If you don’t like big Pharma being involved in the politics and decision making, then you can’t be against something that  takes big insurance out of the politics and decision making on people lives.

What is wrong with giving the overwhelming majority of the people a choice of what is out there?  That’s all, a choice.

I found a quote from Bill Moyers on another blog that said

“we should be treating health as a condition, not a commodity.”

I can’t imagine it being put into simpler terms.

If you are wondering just how much around the fingers of the insurance CEO’s the politicians have wrapped themselves, there are calls for ‘tort reform’.  This will in essence regulate how much money a lawyer can be paid for his services. Why are we so against providers of the actual services being reimbursed for their product and so much in favor of the companies who offer no other service than to hold our money and decide who or if they will pay with it. If the doctors and lawyers charge too much, isn’t one of the tenents of ‘free market capitalism’ that they will be weeded out as their competitors  offered the same for less?  Isn’t government imposing the will of   a select few companies, who service is solely to pay these doctors and lawyers the money you gave them, isn’t imposing those companies will over the will of the ones doing  the service you hired them for,  more detrimental to  the idea of Capitalism?

****UPDATE****

sometimes a good video says it all…

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In another discussion with Lil Mike, I’ve come to realize that I just talk to freaking much-LOL.. But seriously, it struck me that if he doesn’t understand.. then maybe others don’t see the big deal either, and that scares me. If we could for once.. just once take the political party out of the equation and base our verdict on the facts, I don’t think any of us would see things differently..  But we can’t take the (R) and the (D) out of the equation because then our entire world crumbles when we find out we’ve been duped and in the end supported a lie. Where we should be angry at the one who made us into the fool, we are angry at ourselves and not many of us like the idea that we were taken for a ride. It’s why ponzie schemes work so well.. Who wants to admit that they really believed the 40% return they were promised was real and legal..

I wrote a blog the other day

The special powers an (R) next to your name gives you…

In it, I talk about the mess we find ourselves in today, the news that the Investigators General found that the White House inserted it’s own wording into a threat assessment from the CIA and then used that paragraph to enact an unconstitutional doctrine..

To explain it more would take to much space and this reply isn’t about the paragraph as much as it’s about how that deceitful act is more detrimental to the principals this country was build on.. Life,Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness then anything we’ve seen so far.

Once again, my reply to Mike..

“That[inserting of the paragraph] opens a whole can of worms, but the actual paragraph, I don’t find a lie or contraversal. Do you? How would that change anything?”

The easiest 1st.. How does it change anything? If the White House is allowed to make up what they want, to get what they want.. how does that NOT change anything?  Please explain how you support any President doing this? Because I think you are slowly realizing that just because we had an (R) President for awhile, doesn’t mean we will always have an (R) president, we will eventually get a (D) and you can’t be ok with allowing this to continue when a (D) has the precedent..

But more than that… where do you draw the line?  The President can make up what he wants for security reasons that hamper constitutional rights… he can hold false PC hearings that tell us the ‘news’ he wants us to hear… he can use ‘plants’ to steer the topics of real PC’s to the direction he wants..   where do you draw the line? You don’t like the MSM being liberal, but you’re ok with the complete fabrication coming from your oval office?

Now the other part of your justification…that you don’t find it a lie… How do you know this paragraph is true? Because  it fits in with your opinion?

Had it been true (or a true threat) the CIA would have put it in there right? But they didn’t find anything like that so, the White House made it up.. at that time atleast, you were made to believe a falsehood that the Oval office told you.. and worse than that.. that falsehood was then used to convince you the NSA program (and so many others just because of the butterfly effect-) was needed, because that statement saying it was needed, was also inserted falsely..

In this instant, I won’t make your head swim at how much of a can of worms it is because I don’t think you would ever acknowledge it.. but in this instant, you..we were hoodwinked.

Bush/Cheney wanted the NSA program.. we’ll leave off the ulterior motives for that right now and just stick to that.. They wanted it and asked the CIA to give them a reason.. The CIA did what it was supposed to do, it investigated and put together a threat assessment.But, it wasn’t threatening enough to get Bush/Cheney what they wanted so they made up their own assessment and then used what they made up to bring to Congress and the American ppl to get that NSA program..

I really can’t believe you don’t see the implications of this. I don’t care whats going on in the world.. a President of the United States cannot make up a story, attach the CIA’s name to that story… and then steal rights from the citizens of the country because of that story.. That’s not what this country is build upon!

I won’t get into the problems this creates for the CIA… but take a minute and think about that…

Let’s look at the broad implications.. If, as you say, the paragraph was true then how can anything from the CIA ever be useful again? If they can’t get the threat right,  and it takes someone from the White House..(and we both know there might be 2 people in the White House who would know as much as the CIA on any given intelligence assessments)..but if it takes someone from the White House to see the real threats and tell people about it, then how do we believe anything from our intelligence division again? How can we trust their competence?

Ask yourself this, if it was so true, why didn’t they(the White House) put that paragraph out there themselves? Why did they attach it to  the CIA’s briefing. They had to have some intelligence from somewhere saying these things right? So why did they have to put it in a CIA memo? Why didn’t they make the intelligence division who gave them  the information, put out their own memo? Who was that intelligence division anyway and why are they to be believed over the CIA?

Or did the White House just make it up?

You can’t ignore those scenarios because they are the only two that exist.

Let’s go farther..
You will admit that the NSA program is a massive invasion of privacy.. one that, in your opinion is needed though..-yes?  Well, now you’ve just been told that the CIA did not find  reason enough for it and  the President made up a reason on his own and stole privacy from the American people.. your reason for it was made up! You may have felt there was a good reason, you may have been happy that the CIA report backed you up.. but the truth is, it didn’t!  I may love the idea that a chocolate diet helps me lose weight, but I can’t write my own little paragraph and insert it into Jenny Craig’s website saying it..

Bring this down to an easier level. You’ve been accused of killing someone. The local PD gets involved and investigates you, sure you look guilty and you probably did do it, but while everything looks bad against you, there really isn’t much to report. At an internal briefing on the status of your case the DA says.. Ok, well I want this guy wire-tapped.. The cops say, “well..we do too, but we can’t find a reason for it” .. So the DA decides to write a paragraph that does implicate you, it’s not  based on anyting he’s been told-he just makes it up on the spot and he hands it to the cops and says.. “Now go get your wire-tap“. The cops go to a judge and say “Judge, read this paragraph right here, that’s why we need this wire-tap” and the judge says “Ok”..

Is this legal? and more than that..is that what you are saying you are happy to go along with in this country..

Is this what you want your President to do and will you ignore it now that you know what he did?

Is this the level of power you wish to give to the already most power office in the world?

If you want to allow a President and Vice President to arbitrarily make up their own reasons to do things that are unconstitutional…then why are you fighting government run health care.. why are you fighting government   run anything?

You didn’t’ serve this country for the last 25 years to allow your president to make up a fantasy to get something he wanted..did you?

I know this is difficult.. because to admit this opens a can of worms that could devour a country. You wouldn’t believe a liar who lied to you, or a thief who stole from you in your personal life.. but to believe this?  Wouldn’t this alone make you question.. What else did they do this on?

and I think that is why you will ignore this as a problem, because the  answer to that.. is something you don’t want to know..

Let’s face it, larger picture is extremely  frightening.How many other times did this happen? Besides just the NSA program, what other things did the White House insert it’s own wording into and then use that wording to get their way on… Is it possible it’s all been a lie or based on a lie? and what do we do about it? To investigate further might tell us the scariest truth we’ve ever dreamed up.. but to ignore it–well, that blesses every President from now until we resemble Russia Circa Stalin, which on that path, would be in our lifetime.

This can’t be what you and thousands of others like you served their country for..your oath didn’t say to protect the President when he lies to get his way-even if you agree with that way… did it?

It always seems like there is something in an (R) and (D) psyche that is almost like they feel if they acknowledge this.. like a house of cards, the whole thing will crumble. But if that house of cards is an illusion built on a lie, why would you want it to stand in the 1st place?

Where is your anger over what was done in your name?

Where is the line? Would it be OK for the Oval Office to make up a threat assessment with the intelligence community’s name on it, that says we must nuke a rival country and then go out on every “Meet the Press” tv show that will have them and promote this insertion?

Where does your tolerance end?

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I’m sitting here refreshing Drudge and Cnn while simultaneously flipping through all the headline news shows… and no hoopla!

You’d think with months of screaming, ranting,crying, and those  tea-parties, someone would have mentioned that we are now  ‘less Socialistic’ …

If I could stomach listening to Boss Limbaugh, I would see if he was sweating and dancing to the tune of Beck’s  “Loser”. Since President Obama has most certainly failed in his attempt to turn the USA into the county of the New National Socialist Party,  with his ingenious take over of the banks and car companies.. whilst driving the rest of the country into the shittier by stealing our wealth and spreading it amongst the elites…

but nope, nothing.. instead I get the news from my favorite ‘Mo…

Chrysler Financial repays $1.5

bln US gov’t loans

DETROIT, July 14 (Reuters) – Chrysler Financial said on Tuesday it has paid off $1.5 billion in loans it had received from the U.S. Department of Treasury in January to fund vehicle loans and incentive programs for Chrysler consumers…

BB&T repays TARP money

Seven months after it accepted $3.1 billion from the federal government, BB&T Corp. – a longtime opponent of big government – repaid the money with interest Wednesday.

$93 million in profit was made off that investment.. Not too shabby in my opinion.

FirstMerit repaying TARP

loan this month

An Ohio bank with more than a dozen branches in the region announced plans this week to repay the federal government’s more than $125 million investment under the Capital Purchase Program.

In fact, if it had not been for the ‘mo..and the 2nd story I never would have known that American Express, Bank of New York Mellon, Capital One, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Northern Trust, State Street and U.S. Bancorp also announced that they had repaid their loans from TARP, or the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

I should be surprised that I haven’t heard anything from the biased and untrue liberal MSM.. right?

Then again, if the media really was a ‘liberal slanted monster’ this would be on every headline news crawler and program just to rub it in to the faces of the Chicken Littles who were screaming that we were being taken over by our government…ironically while ignoring that were already  ‘taken over’ by our government..

I guess they are moving on to make more accusation about the Democrats evil attempt to bring socialism to the shores of the country by giving every baby born, house cleaner working, and any one else who likes to choose things for themselves instead of having someone else choose for them, that deplorable option of…. Health Care. So like everything else we’ve seen ignored in the last week.. Chrysler’s repayment will go unnoticed because it’s easier to keep throwing the kitchen sink of accusations than it is to actually give it a minute to see if it just might work.. It’s more patriotic to wish failure for the Government attempt to stop the slide into another depression era than it is to say “OK, that was my bad.. Carry on”.

Anyway, thank you for the $93 million in profit BB&T.. it was a pleasure doing business with you.. Come again soon.

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There has been a lot in the news about torture over the last few months. Did the US torture? If so, who authorized it? Do we punish the persons who actually did the torture? Do we punish the ones who authorized it? These are all questions that in all likelihood will piss people on both sides off when they are answered.

The “Jack Bauer” scenario is the most prominent reason given for torture.

A  bomb is about to detonate in a heavily populated metropolitan area, a person who knows the whereabouts of this bomb and other details of the plan is captured and he is not talking.

Pop-quiz asshole! What do you do?

Both sides answering this question have valid opinions.  One side screams to torture them until they spill every ounce of information they have. The other side points to this and says “But you don’t know if the information  is real. They could just be telling you anything and while you are out on that Easter egg hunt trying to confirm the information, valuable time will be wasted.” They are the ones who want to use tried and true interrogation tactics in this scenario because they believe those tactics work and they also believe that a time of stress and crisis is when it’s most important to stick to our values.

I agree with both sides.

I guess I’m in the ‘if all else fails‘ camp.

Obviously ‘normal’ police method interrogation works. We’ve seen it’s success across the country on a daily, if not hourly basis. When people are caught for their crimes they want to talk, they want to explain,  they want you to understand why they did what they did but they need to be nudged into it.  That’s where a seasoned detective comes in.  If this type of ‘non-enhanced’ technique did not work, no one would ever confess… but they do.

But does torture work? Dick Cheney says it does. In fact he says that we actually faced a ‘Jack Bauer’ scenario and torture is what stopped this ’second wave’ from happening.  The Head of the FBI says this is untrue, The CIA says this is untrue, and others who have seen the memo’s Cheney is quoting  say this is untrue.  Dick Cheney has also heralded the capture of KSM as proof of tortures value. That has  also been called into  question by the actual interrogator.

Look, it’s not that you won’t get someone to talk by torturing them, I don’t think anyone is debating that point. It’s just that you will get them to talk about everything they think you want them to talk about, whether true or not.

Every example that Dick Cheney uses as his proof has since been found to be lacking in the ‘proof’ arena, and just like he now says Saddam didn’t have anything to do with 9/11.. maybe sometime in the future he’ll change this ‘torture worked’ storyline. Since it looks like he could be tried as a war criminal though, I doubt he’ll ever say that. What he will do is make sure everyone and anyone is aware that this was George W. Bush’s plan.  That’s also  turning out to be just another of Cheney’s fantasies though.

SCHIEFFER: … somewhere down the line. Did President Bush know everything you knew?

CHENEY: I certainly, yes,have every reason to believe he knew — he knew a great deal about the program. He basically authorized it.I mean,this was a presidential-level decision. And the decision went to the president. He signed off on it.

The problem I have with any of this “torture question”, is the hypocrisy of it. The,

“We don’t torture because we changed the definition of torture so we could torture legally”…

…is where I call foul. What made it ok for Jack Bauer to torture the terrorists in 24(besides the whole “it’s a TV show”), was the fact that he was willing to stand up to Congress and lay it all out on the table and take whatever punishment they doled out. That’s when, in my opinion, it’s ok to torture someone for information in the “ticking time-bomb scenario”.If you feel that what you are doing is not only right, but your duty as an American and you are so sure of this that you are willing to face the consequences afterward, then have at it and get all the information you can.

But just like lying about a blow job got a president impeached, lying about torture and your role in it should at least get you a public hearing.

It’s not the acts themselves that bother people, I would wager that if a “Jack Bauer” situation was being played out in real life an overwhelming majority of Americans would either turn a blind eye or slap the interroagtor on the wrist for their actions. But when you lie about, mislead others into believing your lie and then try and cover up your lie.. then the jury isn’t the only one who knows you were committing a crime.

Of course I will be ask …

“What if someone had your child, wouldn’t you torture them to find them?”

Yes… yes I would and if they harmed a hair on my child I would follow them home and cut them up into little pieces….slowly. But, when the police came to arrest me it would only take that seasoned detective about a minute to get me to talk. I would want tell him why did what I did. I would explain what I did to him and my subsequent jury. I would make them live through the horror  I and my missing/harmed child lived through and I would hope for  jury nullification.

Torture for the use of  gaining information, in my opinion is a crap shoot. It might work and it might not. The worst part about this ironically is the ‘ticking time-bomb scenario’. In that scenario there is no time for proper interrogations to be used, no time because the bomb is set to go off at any minute. Yet, there is time to investigate the false confessions which all agree are a part of the torture process? I don’t think so. If there is no time for mistakes then why chose the path which will ensure the most mistakes? It’s for this reason I am going more and more to the side of a “No Torture” policy for information gathering purposes.

That is not to say I am against torturing for punishment..

I will have to turn in my ‘liberal’ card for a month by saying this, but I think there are actual justifications to torture people, but in my world those reasons have to do with their crimes and not to get information out of them. Don’t believe there is a crime that the deserved punishment is some form of exquisite  pain upon the person guilty of the crime?

NEW ORLEANS —  Authorities say a 17-year-old teenager was charged with aggravated rape and first-degree murder of an 8-month-old child.

This is not a ‘redeemable’ child, this animal (because he is most definitely not a man or a human) who at the ripe old age of 17, already has convictions for  “drug possession charges; obscenity; battery on a correctional officer; three counts of battery on a school teacher; theft; weapons charges; and assault” in my opinion is worthy of a life of exquisite pain upon his conviction.

Not ‘torture-worthy’ enough?

CASSVILLE, Mo. —  The two men charged in rape and murder of 9-year-old Rowan Ford had their first brief court appearance Tuesday.

These men, one the child’s step-father, have been charged with ” first degree murder, sodomy and rape charges in connection to the death of Rowan Ford of Stella.” Whose body they just dumped in cave like a piece of garbage that they were done with using.

I  think they could to with a little ‘waterboarding’ just for the fun of it.

Torture for investigative purposes won’t give us the real-time intelligence we need in a ‘ticking time-bomb’ scenario.. but it will damn well make us feel better when we use it for the sole purpose of… ‘pay backs are  motherfucking bitch!’

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President Obama, you were not given the Oval office and the Congress solely for the purpose of trying to appease or make friends with the party that shut out an entire political section of the country for 8 years. It’s time to start acting like the majority elected you to act.

Yes we can!

You were elected and given the keys to your success because you promised us change during your campaign. You were given a friendly congress because we knew the losing party would do everything in their power to discredit and demonize you. To prevent the loss of any political capital, you were given massive support, money, votes and Congress… so what are you waiting for? Use the tools you’ve been given already! You have tried and failed at extending your hand across the aisle and now it is time to give them the finger. This failure, like the disastrous condition of every aspect of the government, foreign and domestic, is not your fault. You were given a ‘Handy-man’s special’ and while you’ve made some improvement just by being there, you have a long way to go before this country is back up to ‘code’

Mr. Obama, you expected to come into Washington and work with adults, only to find nothing but spoiled children running through the aisles.  Every day you spend trying to bring your opponents into your circle, they are spending theirs  eating your political capital  like a fat girl eating chocolate flavored bacon-bits.

Change you can believe in!

Had the Holocaust Museum shooter been Muslim, your presidency would have been over. You would have not only been the country’s 1st black president, but after weeks of allowing Dick Cheney to call you every form of dangerous and venting about  your lack in the ability to keep us safe, you would have become the country’s fastest Lame Duck President ever.You have let this kind of abuse go on for too long and now you are seeing a drop in your poll numbers.

I understand your strategy of letting them become the party of “NO”. I understand that the more ‘right’ they go the more ‘centered’  you look and the more Independent voters you pick up.  But what I don’t understand is this need for all ‘political correctness’( so to speak) in the face of such outrageousness.

“It may include groups and individuals

that are dedicated to a single-issue,

such as opposition to abortion or immigration,”

the warning says.”

A few weeks ago your Head of Homeland Security had to  apologize for a report that said ‘right-wing extremists’ were on the rise and their chatter was reaching higher levels.   The GOP went apoplectic in its anger over such extreme “Liberal MSM-type” spin and accusations. Even some Democrats screamed about being ‘dumbfounded’ by this report. Michael Steele of the R.N.C told Fox news

“This is the height of insult here,I mean to segment out Americans who dissent from this administration, to segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration, and labeling them as terrorists and then to call into question the service of the men and women who are right now standing on that wall defending our freedom and linking them to terrorism while you refuse to call the terrorists — the real terrorists — terrorists, to me it’s the height of insult.”

In the height of irony, not “insults” as Mr. Steele put it, this report that the GOP went into seizures over, warned  that

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in “rightwing extremist activity,” saying the economic recession, the election of America’s first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.

A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines “rightwing extremism in the United States” as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority

Since that report and the GOP’s temper tantrum over it, we’ve seen not one, but  two atrocious acts that we were warned about. While the party of “NO” has a record in ignoring threats and warnings when given to them,  that doesn’t mean you, Mr. President, should have your people apologize to them for being right.

Doctor Tiller was murdered in a sanctuary, his place of worship by exactly the person the report warned against. A week later, James Von Brunn, who was a Navy officer during World War II and after leaving his notebook with a list of places he planned to hit and a statement saying “You want my weapons – this is how you’ll get them. The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by Jews,” decided to shoot anyone in his way.

I know saying “We told you so” is not the politically savy thing to do, but had Mr. Brunn been of Arab decent, how fast do  you think Dick Cheney would have been on Fox news saying exactly that?

Misters Brunn and Roeder, Dr. Tiller’s murderer, are not the first extremists to meltdown since you took took office. As I’ve blogged about before, another unstable radical believed in the same insane,violent and dangerous rhetoric of the Right when they said you were going take  away his guns. So he went out and murdered 3 police officers.

“Friends said 23 year-old Richard Poplawski feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.”

Mr. President, it’s time to put an end to this trying to reach across the aisle.  As PAUL KRUGMAN of the New York times says; There is an ‘upsurge of right-wing extremism’ that is being “fed by the conservative media and political establishment.” Your ideal world in which Republican and Democrats can live in harmony is a wishful Utopia that will not exist until a generation has passed from the extreme partisanship the Bush Administration spread throughout this country.

There are some of course, like Shep Smith on the FNC channel, who see this hate and are fearful of the level in which it is being amped up to.

But just as fast as he can bring attention to this hate and anger, others paint over it by saying Smith is ‘”whining and moaning and complaining about emails”, while making it about themself and in then  justifing  the hate they and others  spread throughout this country. You cannot reach out to these types of people. Their motives are clear, with blood on their hands from their ‘hate speech’ they only speak louder,harder, angrier. They put their hands up and say “Wasn’t me” like they haven’t been the one rattling the cages of most extreme of their extremists. They are spoiled and dangerous children who cannot be appeased by rational thought and/or actions. These are not the moderate GOP persons you want in your circle. Even those people see what is being done and are appalled by it, but they cannot stop it because they understand this ‘hate’ will spread to them next.

“If I had to choose in terms of being a Republican,

I’d go with Rush Limbaugh.

I admire your tenacity in continuously  trying  to bridge the partisan gap in the face of such mounting and dangerous rhetoric, but there comes a time when it’s OK to use the popularity you’ve been given. You promised change, you have been given all the tools necessary to bring about this change, you do not need 100% cooperation when 51% wins the race. We who you convinced to  stand behind you, who believed in you and voted for you are still standing here waiting to support you. We are waiting for you to remember what you promised us…. Yes we can Mr. President… Yes we can.

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