The Glenn Beck Farewell Roast

  Since this raving lunatic is finally leaving the American Taliban News Network FoxNews Channel, some of us on the Internet have given to publish a few of his past rants and raves, and so on.

  But, you and I shall go for those famous Beck Qoutes as provided by Daniel Kurtzman at PoliticalHumor.com.

"I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it." –Glenn Beck, May 2005

"You know, we all have our inner demons. I, for one – I can't speak for you, but I'm on the verge of moral collapse at any time. It can happen by the end of the show." –Glenn Beck, Nov. 2006

''There are a lot of universities that are as dangerous with the indoctrination of the children as terrorists are in Iran or North Korea. ... We have been setting up reeducation camps. We call them universities.'' —Glenn Beck, Glenn Beck show on FOX News Channel, Sept. 1, 2010

'If you log onto this (Cars.gov) at your home, everything in your home is now theirs.''—Glenn Beck, arguing that the Cash for Clunkers program was nothing more than a secret government plot to gain access over your computer, July 2009

'I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today.''

—Glenn Beck, on why people who lost their homes in forest fires in California had it coming, 'The Glenn Beck Program,' Oct. 22, 2007

''Roosevelt...Am I wrong by saying there was a good portion of people that thought, 'Holy cow, I'm glad he's dead. He was turning into a dictator.'''

—Glenn Beck, on FDR, who was wildly popular after being elected four times, bringing America back from economic collapse, and leading the Allied powers to victory in World War II (May 21, 2010)

Technorati Tags: Glenn Beck,FoxNews,Politics,Political Humor,Current Events

The Obama Dream is Over: He Praises Damaging Cuts as "Historic" Victory

barbwire     Mon Apr 11, 2011     Original Article

This weekend we saw a President give away the store -- succumb to the blackmail and threats of politicos completely outside the mainstream of political thought -- just as we saw in the "compromise" he made to extend the Bush tax cuts at the end of last year. He then bragged about it smugly as a victory for bipartisan, oh-so-American cooperation. He even boasted about last year's tax cut deal in commenting on the deal.

In no other era would this be considered acceptable behavior by someone with a D next to their name. In fact, I have no doubt that in eras past Obama would be seen by most Democrats and even the press as more than a little delusional in claiming victory during a smashing defeat to Democratic values and policy. The only other view is that he is now one somehow with the right-wing bullies and tea party whack jobs in seeing government spending as the problem, and drastic cuts in spending and more tax cuts as the only "solutions," even while the same thing is going on at the state and local levels.

Robert Reich: The Prez and Ds caved in, endangering the recovery and strengthening the right-wing bullies. A tactical win for Prez and strategic loss.

Think Progress: The spending cuts agreed to tonight totaled $38.5 billion. Total cost of extending Bush tax cuts to the richest 2% of Americans over the next 10 years: $690 billion.

Robert Reich: The right held the U.S. govt hostage, and O paid most of the ransom -- inviting more hostage-taking. Next is raising debt ceiling.

Ezra Klein: The substance of this deal is bad. But the way Democrats are selling it makes it much, much worse.

Comment on Daily Kos: We don't really have two parties. Republicans = insane corporatists. Democrats = polite corporatists. In the end, they both work for the plutocracy.

The alleged deal: Keep the federal government open through next Thursday with a cut of about $2.5 billion to cover the extension. Then, pass the FY 2011 budget sometime next week with $38 billion more in cuts on top of $40 billion in cuts to date to Obama's original budget plan.

The rumor is that it took about $5 billion in cuts to important programs to get the atrocious $330 million defunding of Planned Parenthood rider out of the agreement (which nobody has seen yet).

Bullied relentlessly by the right wing nuts who are somehow seen in Obama's twisted fantasy world as intelligent, respectable, fair-minded players, he did what he has done before and what it is now clear he will do again -- "compromise" to benefit the interests of wealthy global financial, corporate and banking interests to the detriment of ordinary Americans. He then came out and blustered on about how this will be good for us all, that it's an "historic" victory to cut about $40 to 80 billion dollars (depending how you measure) out of spending on our domestic programs smack dab in the middle of a deep and continuing workers' depression.

What Obama Said
You can read Obama's remarks here (pdf). Some of what he said:

"... today Americans of different beliefs came together again ... This agreement between Democrats and Republicans, on behalf of all Americans, is on a budget that invests in our future while making the largest annual spending cut in our history. Like any worthwhile compromise, both sides had to make tough decisions and give ground on issues that were important to them. And I certainly did that."

Yeah, you certainly did. And the Republicans gave up ... on cutting Planned Parenthood funding.

"But beginning to live within our means is the only way to protect those investments that will help America compete for new jobs -- investments in our kids’ education and student loans; in clean energy and life-saving medical research. We protected the investments we need to win the future."

I wonder what "new jobs" Obama thinks we'll be competing for in a world economy dominated by a race to the bottom overseas, and now right here in America -- a place of escalating privatization and dramatic defunding of almost everything, including our schools. He has achieved almost nothing in the realm of clean energy, but we are now supposed to believe we'll be experiencing a huge boom in clean energy jobs. He points to medical research that will save and extend lives, but where will these people be working and how will they be able to survive on the decimated pensions, Social Security and Medicare that will be available to ordinary people?

"At the same time, we also made sure that at the end of the day, this was a debate about spending cuts, not social issues."

As I type this, almost nothing has been discussed publicly about where and how the massive cuts will be applied and, in fact, almost the entire "debate" in the media leading up to this debacle was about a "social issue" -- Planned Parenthood funding.

"A few months ago, I was able to sign a tax cut for American families because both parties worked through their differences and found common ground. Now the same cooperation will make possible the biggest annual spending cut in history".

In other words, he thinks he did working people proud -- did us a big favor -- by caving totally to the right-wing demand to keep the incredibly damaging Bush tax cuts for the rich in place. And he thinks huge spending cuts in discretionary programs and our already meagre social safety net will bring us to the Promised Land. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. must be rolling in his grave.

Big Bad Biden
Did you dig the fairy tale spin story about Big Bad Biden who, we're to believe, raised his voice during the "negotiations" last week and drew a line in the sand? Why it's said he even threatened to go to the American people to make a case against the Repub line! Imagine that!

What did he actually draw a line in the sand about? Some 330 million dollars in funding for women's health care services provided by Planned Parenthood -- which owes much of its existence to the Bush family. However, before Big Bad Biden put his foot down (because Barack didn't feel like stepping down off his self-made Big Compromiser pedestal), we were treated to several days of media headlines and public "debate" about the wisdom of funding abortion services via Planned Parenthood. Except that not one dollar of federal funding goes to abortion services at Planned Parenthood or anywhere else. It's illegal, thanks to earlier Dem cave ins.

Obama's Victory
We don't really know much about what is in the back room deal to be sealed this week, except that the budget bill for the rest of FY 2011 won't destroy the powers of the EPA. That's for later, in a separate vote. We know that Washington DC will no longer get to decide on their own how to spend the District's own money in terms of women's reproductive choice. Those folks were thrown under the bus by Obama along with whatever else he gave away. We know that defense will actually get a $5 billion increase above the 2010 baseline -- about the amount spent in two weeks in Afghanistan.

And yet Obama stepped before the microphones and said it was a victory. I guess it is if you think the battle is over whether or not Obama gets to continue to portray himself as Mr. Middle-of-the Road Centrist Compromiser Bipartisan Adult-in-the Room Daddy Supreme.

But if you have even a smidgeon of respect and value for progressive measures designed to help ordinary people cope during an era of massive upward displacements of money and power, flat or falling wages, skyrocketing energy, food and health care costs and what is daintily and inaccurately called a "jobless recovery," then you, like me, will probably see it as just another Obama refusal to be a strong, assertive Democrat. You'll see it as another painful loss for working people in the long and winding road to corporatist rule here and around the globe.

Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train
Progressive sage Howard Zinn once said you can't be neutral on a moving train. In this case, Obama can't be neutral and nonpartisan on a train that's speeding so far to the right, to the crazy and ridiculous tea party way of seeing government, that there is no Democratic turf left to fight on. By clinging to his pose of wise man in the middle -- a feint that is no doubt much beloved by his corporate and Wall Street donors -- he has been dragged into territory that only a few years ago was considered corrupt, anti-Democratic and bordering on fascism.

A Frightening Blueprint
What we have now is a clear blueprint of what Obama will be doing from this point forward to the 2012 election. He caved to the bullies and refused to use his own bully pulpit to take the fight to the American people -- to his supposedly fellow Democrats -- when he allowed himself to be maneuvered into a corner (purposefully or not) on the extension of the Bush tax cut banquet for the rich. He then did the same thing in this "fight," ceding to the demands of right wingers on almost everything and doing it with an odd form of smug enthusiasm.

Obama will no doubt do it again when the "negotiations" begin on raising the debt ceiling, and when the 2012 "budget talks" happen, centered around Rep. Paul Ryan's insane (but, you know, courageous in the eyes of the pundits) attacks on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and everything else that the Democratic Party has been known for. The conversation will now take place entirely within the right-wing frame of deficit reduction, cutting the role of government (except in the case of "security" and immigration enforcement) and cementing the power of corporations and banks on the world stage.

There will not be any serious battles that take place on the left side of the playing field -- taxing the rich and corporations is now officially and permanently off the table as a top priority as long as Obama is President even if he claims otherwise. There will be no "negotiations" that center on why we need to raise revenues, except as lip service. Congress will be 100% involved in debasing "entitlements" and keeping the playing field tilting away from working people and towards the entities that became citizens under the Citizens United decision. We will increasingly be hearing how the Catfood Commission recommendations represent the middle ground. Count on it.

In other words, Mr. Change You Can Believe In has now come out publicly and obviously against everything Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Baines Johnson and other genuine liberals fought for since the Great Depression. Obama has been pivotal in moving the dialogue into right-wing territory as the primary frame, as the place where the pseudo-battles take place, as the turf where the two corporate-funded  parties will now conduct their kabuki.

Win the Future!
Now Obama can proceed on with his Win the Future campaign spin campaign -- he did say he managed to protect those elements he considers part of his future winning strategy -- and play the role he and his handlers have created for him. He is the adult in the room where children fight. He doesn't enter the fray but plays wise man referee. He has no real connection or passion for any outcome except "bipartisan" compromise. And all this is supposed to bring back the "independent" voters who deserted him during the 2010 midterm election.

What he doesn't see -- or thinks is irrelevant -- is that he and many Dems were thrown under the bus in 2010 by significant numbers of the Democratic base, by former Change We Can Believe In fans, by those who once saw him as capable of firing up the people to take back the country and our jobs from the global-military-industrial-security-financial-banking-corporate conglomerate of plutocrats and oligarchs who are now calling the shots on behalf of the narrow but powerful investor class. Obama now seems to be firmly on the side of the forces that are pushing almost every government and nation in the developed world into bankruptcy, austerity and a march to the ultimate destruction of any safety net that still exists, anywhere.

Obama has now come out -- at least to observers willing to emerge from denial -- as One of Them. He is now firmly in the privatizer-deficit hawk-eternal war-Wall Street pinball machine pusher camp, and there is no going back. And he has the perfect reptilian-brain scare tactic excuse to convince people he's out to snooker to vote for him again. After all, he's not as crazy as those other candidates, is he?

I sometimes wonder if the nuts are being marched out on purpose to make Obama seem like the only sane choice in 2012, because he has been such a good soldier for the corporatist cause. There are still so many who can't quite admit to themselves that an African-American of obvious intelligence who ran on hope and change is really nothing more than a shill for the global moneyed classes. Take off your blinders, people. I have.

What Now?
More and more, I have to admit that I agree with a lot of what Chris Hedges has to say. As in,

"We must view the corporate capitalists who have seized control of our money, our food, our energy, our education, our press, our health care system and our governance as mortal enemies to be vanquished ... Only a revolution can save us now."

Being a lifelong Democrat, and having been heavily involved in the Democratic Party ever since the Howard Dean for president days, I never thought I'd ever feel this way at this point in my life. I've been elected to county and state party offices. I've worked hard for Dem candidates, including Obama. I've helped run a local DFA group since 2004. I've blogged on a daily basis in support of progressive and Democratic candidates, issues and causes. But I now don't see how I can continue to put party politics above conscience and support this president or what he is doing. I believe it is more important to be loyal to my principles -- long-time core Democratic principles -- that to be loyal to our president.

I don't know what I will do in 2012 as far as voting goes, but I know that I will concentrate on doing what I can until then to help expose the realities of the Obama agenda and urge others to pressure the president instead of falling into line as an Obama/OFA cheerleader. It doesn't feel good, but it feels right.

Technorati Tags: Batack Obama,The Economy,Democrats,Budget Cuts,Current Events

There Is NO Debt-Deficit "Crisis"

Tasini      Mon Apr 11, 2011    Original Article

  We keep repeating the same mistake--no matter how many times good progressive leaders, writers, thinkers and activists use the word "framing". And we are at it again--offering "better proposals" to address the debt-deficit "crisis". But, we should be saying something much different: there simply is NO debt or deficit "crisis".

  As I write in the "It's Not Raining, We're Getting Peed On: the Scam of the Deficit Crisis", we have plenty of money, or access to money, and any money issues we have are all quite manageable. This is still the richest nation in the history of the planet. One day, the debt/deficit “crisis” will assume its ranks among fairy tales such as Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and trickle-down economics.

   The question before us is simple: what are our priorities as a country, how should we spend our great wealth and who should pay to advance those priorities?

   But, that gets obscured by foolish statements made about the phony “crisis." Example: in 1946, the country’s debt-to-gross domestic product ratio—meaning, how much we owed compared to how much we produced—was 108.6 percent. In other words, the adults living right after World War II were handed the greatest debt the country had ever had, but that generation experienced the greatest prosperity in the country’s history—and maybe even in the history of humans. Today, the debt-to-GDP ratio isn’t even close to that.

   If you want to wring your hands about the bigger government deficit, don’t go pointing the finger at the president or Congress. Instead, you can thank Goldman Sachs, Angelo Mozilo, Robert Rubin and the rest of the smart boys who built a financial system that was a mix of a floating casino, Ponzi scheme and Fool’s Gold paradise—all patched together by lies, deceit and a healthy dose of massive public indoctrination of the wonders of the “free market."

   What’s the connection? The collapse of the financial system—thanks to the greed and incompetence of the people running it—is the principle reason today for a larger deficit, not typical government spending. The deficit and debt “crisis” is a huge distraction from the real crisis in our country: declining wages, no decent jobs for one in five Americans, and the siphoning of the great wealth of the country into the hands of a few.

   There are are four easy ways to bring in more money—not to deal with the phony “crisis” but simply because we can do better: stop funding immoral wars, significantly raise taxes on the very rich (an Eisenhower-era proposal that goes far beyond anything even Democrats are suggesting), ask Wall Street to pay a fair share in taxes and, finally, truly deal with our health care costs by getting rid of the insurance industry that kills Americans and enact a “Medicare for All” system. Presto: trillions of dollars appear.

   We should stop using the word "crisis" when we talk about the debt and deficit. THERE IS NO CRISIS. We should use the word "crisis" only when we talk about the class warfare underway in the country.

Technorati Tags: Class Warfare,Budget Cuts,Deficits,Obama,Republicans.Taxes,American Taliban,Current Events,Social Security

Planning to sit out 2012? Come see your future in Florida

ObamOcala         Tue Apr 05, 2011       Original Article

( The following is brought to you by another  Florida resident who gets to watch the state get turned into shit by Rick Scott and his Florida Taliban cartel. This could happen to you if you let your states residents continue to stay in the “ low information voter “ class of people. )

I am becoming increasingly disturbed - strike that, downright angry - at the number of people here at Daily Kos who learned nothing from the "enthusiasm gap"-related disaster we suffered in 2010, when "principled" Democrats stayed home and allowed Republicans to win back the U.S. House of Representatives, and handed the keys to several state houses not just to Republicans, but Tea Party Republicans.

It was this comment which finally set me off and made me decide to write this diary. The pertinent part follows:

Obama lied his way into power and if I support him irregardless of his lies and his Repub-lite governance, then I have walked away from my principles.  That isn't going to happen.  

If Obama governs like a progressive until the next election, I'll reconsider.  Otherwise, I'm prepared to have batshit insane in the WH.

May[be] batshit insane is the only way the American people wake up.

My response to that comment was so angry I mispelled "principles" (I wrote "principals") - then mispelled it again (leaving out an "i") in a correction. I've calmed down a bit since, but if you want to know why this attitude angers, disgusts and frightens me, follow below the fold.

I was born in Ocala, Florida in 1960, and though I've lived in other parts of the state for a few years at a time, I'm now back in Ocala, living in the house I grew up in. I've seen a lot of changes here, few for the better. But I've never been as frightened for the future of my state as I am now. All because a bunch of "principled" progressives decided to stay home in November, 2010.

Okay, it wasn't all progressives. There were a lot of frustrated, disenchanted Democrats and Independents who stayed home nationwide, and a lot of motivated Tea Party voters who turned out. But the numbers are stark:

Population of Florida (2009 Estimate): 18,537,969

Registered Voters (2010 General Election): 11,217,384
(60.5% of Population)

Votes Cast in 2010 Gubernatorial Election: 5,359,735
(47.8% of Registered Voters, 28.9% of Population)

Votes Cast for Rick Scott: 2,619,335
(48.9% of Votes Cast, 23.4% of Registered Voters, 14.1% of Population)

Bottom line: Rick Scott was elected by less than 50% of those who voted in Florida in 2010, by less than 25% of all registered voters, and less than 15% of the total population of Florida.

Scott's margin of victory was a mere 61,550 votes out of more than 5 million cast.

And there is no doubt a lot of Democrats stayed home. I'm not laying the blame on the Daily Kos community - support for Alex Sink was strong here, and on those occasions when an anti-Sink diary or comment was posted, the writer got smacked down.

But there was anti-Sink sentiment expressed, most centering around her stint as an executive with Bank of America in Florida and what at least one Kossack saw as her dismissive attitude towards the black community. And again, there's no question a lot of Democrats stayed home in Florida last November, giving Rick Scott just enough of a margin - a bit over 1% of votes cast - to win the election.

The result is a developing nightmare for Floridians. The right-wingers had already taken over the legislature before Rick Scott was elected, but had been held in check by the moderate stances of our previous Republican governor, Charlie Crist. Now. with a criminal corporatist hack in the executive branch, all their Tea Party fetishes are coming to pass:

• They're working on wholesale de-regulation of numerous business sectors in Florida, including auto mechanics and moving companies, just to name two... auto mechanics, for example, will no longer have to give customers a written estimate, contact customers for permission to perform extra work or turn over the replaced parts to customers. Moving companies will no longer be forbidden from raising their rates in the middle of a move, or holding your possessions hostage until you pay.

• They're preparing to dismantle the Department of Community Affairs, the angency which coordinated growth management in our state. Builders will no longer be restrained from destroying wetlands, and local communities will not be allowed to pass growth management, anti-pollution or environmental protection laws which are tougher than the state's (and the at the state level, those laws are being eviscerated).

• As Rachel Maddow reported last night, there are no fewer than 18 anti-abortion laws proceeding through the legislature.

• As in Wisconsin, Ohio, Maine and New Jersey, anti-union measures are moving through the legislature, including one which would end the practice of public workers having union dues deducted directly from their paychecks, requiring the union to collect those dues directly from the members.

• A bill removing teacher tenure and evaluating teachers solely on the basis of standardized test results has already passed the legislature and been signed by Scott. Plans are also in the works to expand the state's voucher program to funnel more taxpayer dollars away from public schools and towards private religious and for-profit charter schools.

• The legislature has already established "Leadership Funds," essentially legalized bribery, in which corporate special interests will be able to donate cash directly to legislative leaders, who will be able to disburse those funds to individual campaigns as they see fit.

• Rick Scott claimed a mandate after receiving less than 50% of the vote. Yet he's stalling implementation of two "fair districts" constitutional amendments which would take re-districting out of the hands of the governor and legislature and make it more non-partisan. Those amendments were both approved by well over 60% of those voting in 2010.

• A move is on to pack the courts with political appointees. Currently, a judicial nominating commission chooses nominees for the Supreme Court and state courts. Under the new plan, the JNC would be disbanded, and the governor would have sole authority to nominate state judges and Supreme Court justices. Further, the current seven-member Supreme Court would be split into two five-member courts, one overseeing civil cases and the other overseeing criminal cases. This would give Scott three immediate Supreme Court picks, meaning he could pack both courts - especially the criminal one - with judges sympathetic to views and willing to look the other way when faced with his looting of the state treasury for his own private gain.

Many of these actions tear at the very fabric of democracy itself. Florida already had a severe problem with voting districts so badly gerrymandered that a large majority of our legislature - mostly Republican - had no challengers in their races, and thus never had to face voters. Several of the policies documented above will make that situation even worse. The voters have little enough say as it is. In four years, it's likely that Florida voters - especially those in traditionally Democratic constituency groups such as women, the LGBT community, blacks, hispanics, union members, college students and the poor will have no say. Florida is well and truly screwed.

And the above is by no means a complete list of the horrors about to be visited upon my state by our so-called "leaders."

There are many diaries and comments being posted claiming Obama is no better than Republicans. To be sure, Obama has been a disappointment to progressives who were hoping for significant, transformative change. Many fantasize about primarying Obama, or believe that, as one diarist wrote in a diary published overnight:

If Obama loses, so be it. Maybe the American people need to suffer at the hands of the Corporate Republican hatchet-men to wake up and put an end to the corrupt corporate-funded two-party system we now have.

That might well be what was going through the minds of more than 61,550 Florida voters last November. Now Florida is suffering, and is about to suffer much more, at the hands of the Corporate Republican hatchet-men. Yeah, we woke up: a recent PPP poll showed that if we had it to do over, Florida voters would elect Alex Sink by a 62-37% margin. But we don't get to do it over, and by the time 2014 rolls around, much of Florida's environmentally-sensitive land will be destroyed, many more Floridians will be unemployed or underemployed, many more Floridians will be out on the street, and yes, some Floridians will actually die as a direct result of Tea Party-approved Republican policies. All because just 62,000 Floridians - less than one-half of one percent of our population - decided Alex Sink was no different than Rick Scott.

I've droned on long enough. Perhaps in another diary I'll have space to document, despite all the ways Obama has disappointed us, that his administration has been better for the country than a McCain/Palin administration and a Republican Congress would have been (for now, just four words: Justices Kagan and Sotomayor).

The bottom line is, we've got to wake up. We can't allow our disappointment in Obama to lull us into allowing a truly dangerous strain of conservative philosophy to gain any more traction than it already has.

The choice is Obama or a Tea Party Republican. There is no other alternative. Neither Alan Grayson or Dennis Kucinich or any other progressive Democrat, nor any Green Party or Socialist Party candidate, is going to be the knight in shining armor on a white horse who will save us from another lackluster four years of Obama. Obama or the Tea Party - it's a crappy choice, but it's the only choice we've got. And we'd better get it right.

Because if you honsetly believe it can't get any worse, you need to talk to someone in Florida, or Wisconsin, or Michigan, or Ohio, or New Jersey, or Maine. It can get worse. If Republicans hold the House, regain the Senate and re-take the White House, it will get much, much worse. You will feel "buyer's remorse" almost instantly. But you will not be able to do anything about it. And in four years, you may no longer have the right to do anything about it.

No, I'm not crazy about Obama. But I'm in. Because there's no other choice.

Technorati Tags: 2012 Elections,Florida,Rick Scott,American Taliban,Republican Governors,Tea Party,Current Events

So let me get this straight

by firenze       Sun Apr 10, 2011             Original Article

We can't afford universal health care for our people. We can't afford to provide the basic level health care for our poor and our elderly that we've been doing until now. We can't afford to guarantee decent retirement benefits for our elderly. But it's imperative to continue cutting taxes for our wealthiest citizens. Because it would ruin economic incentives if we returned to the top marginal tax rates in place during most of the Clinton administration -- even though during that time we turned a budget deficit into a surplus.

We weren't worried about the deficit through 8 years of the Bush administration turning that small budget surplus into a mountain of debt, thanks to launching a needless war of choice in Iraq. But now we all really really need to worry about the deficit -- at a time when stimulus spending has been critical to maintain the fragile signs of a possible economic recovery.

It is too expensive for either governments or corporations to provide full retirement benefits to their workers -- despite the  immense resources available to governments and companies, as well as their ability to spread risk over a large population size. However, individuals would be able to do so with their own resources as long as they get tax incentives, despite the enormous actuarial risks of doing so for a population size of one or two (married couple).

It is too expensive for the US government to provide basic health care for all -- or even continue providing basic health care for the elderly, despite the government's immense resources and ability to spread risk over a huge population. However, it would work out just fine for us to figure out how to do so ourselves, despite the enormous actuarial risks of doing so for a population size of nucelar family. Even though the new plan adds in corporate profits by shifting insurance to the for-profit sector.

Union workers' pensions have apparently gotten "too expensive" now that the financial meltdown has reduced the value of pension funds. But we don't want to blame those who oversaw the pension funds, those who caused the financial meltdowns, or executives making multi-million-dollar salaries at for-profit healthcare and insurance firms. No, we'll blame workers earning 50 grand a year for needing health services and hoping to retire when they're old. Because even though governments and corporations haven't been able to figure out how to afford their retirement and health insurance, middle-class and blue-collar workers clearly should be able to do so on their own.

How exactly does this make sense to anyone?

Technorati Tags: Taxes,The Economy,Medicare,Social Security,Current Events,America

Tea Party Gone Banana’s Over “ Boehner Cave”

   The following post echoes my sentiments exactly, that is why I posted it. If you have ever been to RedState or HotAir, they are a riot.

Posted at DKos

Tea Party in Full Meltdown over "Boehner's Cave"

by joelgp             Sat Apr 09, 2011

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness.  There is a crisis in the Tea Party!  I took a late night scroll around Foxnation, Redstate and Hotair and people, these conservatives are going nuts over what is now affectionately called "Boehner's Cave." 

These people were seriously expecting 100 billion in cuts, the defunding of Planned Parenthood, Obamacare and the EPA or a complete shutdown. Now in full disclosure, I contributed just a little to their meltdown with several "well timely" posts like these:

1. "breaking news: the gop caved on planned parenthood, caved on destroying the EPA, and fully funded obamacare. okay? what's next?"

2. "i cannot believe the tea party is rolling over and fully funding obamacare and planned parenthood. dang, we should have thrown in the dream act and cap-n-trade if we knew they would wimp out so easily. oh well...governing is hard."

Okay, okay, I'm sorry--people, it was fun.

Needless to say, the screaming was loud, sustained and furious. Check out the whaling and gnashing of teeth over on Hotair:

1. "The Republicans LOST a warmup game – and lost it big. There is NO reason to believe they’ll show any better in the upcoming fights on the debt ceiling and the 2012 budget. Sorry – if they couldn’t cut $100B as they promised – which is only two weeks worth of deficit out of this budget – they don’t have the nuts to win any bigger fight."

2. "If anyone thinks that the Ryan plan has any chance of seeing the light of day, I want some of what you’re smoking. If you can’t win in this small battle how are you going to win in the bigger war. Major, epic, fail."

3. "$39 B in cuts? If that buys more than 4 days of “business as usual,” it is an incredibly bad deal: so bad, that Boehner MUST GO!!!"

4. "Well, first I heard defunding NPR was a minor battle, the BIG battle was the cuts in the CR! Then I heard the CR was a minor battle, the BIG battle was the budget for the year! Now it’s the Ryan budget? Give me a break…when you practice over and over how to cave, the only thing you are good at is caving." http://hotair.com/...

And then there's the "special people" at Foxnation:

1. "As Speaker of the House, John Boehner is acting like a junior member of congress. Speaker Boehner, haven't you heard the latest news? Obama and George Soros want to push the new Tea Party members out of congress and replace them with radical leftwing members. The tax dollars you just surrendered to Obama's campaign chest last night will help he do just that. Why are you helping Obama elect liberals to replace conservatives???"

2. "Bohner quite the negotiator for the dems He was asked to cut 100 billion and agreed to that, then it became 61 billion. final product 38.5 billion the dems # with funding for planned parenthood still in place, We need change folks." http://nation.foxnews.com/...

And then there's the "friends of CNN" at Redstate:

1. "So they hold a vote about PP funding and Obamacare on the Senate floor and it goes down to defeat, and the GOP claims that it has kept its agreement with the voters. I guess they really do think we’re idiots."

2. "Now they can’t hide from their votes and will have to defend their votes for supporting a baby-killing machine and the fiscal nightmare known as Obamacare." http://www.redstate.com/...

And, check out what election guru Charlie Cook wrote about their plan to end Medicare:

The Cook Report: Death Wish?

"Republicans pushing to revamp Medicare could find themselves voted out of office in the next election." http://nationaljournal.com/...

Simply put, I'm glad 800,000 federally workers didn't receive a work interruption.  I'm disappointed that our side gave up 38.5 billion. I'm thrilled that Planned Parenthood, the EPA and Obamacare is intact.

But most of all, I'm absolutely giddy, with totally irrational exuberance and chest-thumping duggies because the teacons have gone completely nuts!!

Technorati Tags: Education Spending,Elections,HealthCare,John Noehner,Tea Party,American Taliban,Current Events

Maher Pitches For Class Warfare

  It is about time that someone has suggest that the middle class and the poorer people in the United States begin their own “ class warfare “ against the American Taliban and their corporate leaders. They have been doing it  to you and I for a long time now.

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Technorati Tags: Bill Maher,American Taliban,Wall Street,Republicans,Current Events

50 Years Later, Republicans Still Trying to Kill Medicare

Avenging Angel      Wed Apr 06, 2011     (  Original Article  )

Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirmed the obvious about Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare as we know it.  The GOP plan to "voucherize" and inevitably ration Medicare would lead to future seniors paying more - much more - for health insurance.  Of course, killing the wildly popular program which helped dramatically reduce poverty among the elderly is no problem for the Republicans.  After all, they've been at it for 50 years.

When Rep. Ryan first introduced his Roadmap for America's Future, analysts were quick to point out that his plan to convert the single-payer insurance program for 46 million Americans into a voucher system would quickly lead to rationing.  By slashing $3 trillion in funding, leaving beneficiaries at the whim of private insurers whose policies cost more and are padded by substantially higher overhead, and capping the value of their vouchers, Ryan's budget proposal unveiled this week would produce dire consequences.

On Wednesday, the CBO agreed, concluding, "A typical beneficiary would spend more for health care under the proposal."  Make that, as Director Douglas Elmendorf explained, a lot more. 

Under the proposal, most elderly people who would be entitled to premium support payments would pay more for their health care than they would pay under the current Medicare system. For a typical 65-year-old with average health spending enrolled in a plan with benefits similar to those currently provided by Medicare, CBO estimated the beneficiary's spending on premiums and out-of-pocket expenditures as a share of a benchmark amount: what total health care spending would be if a private insurer covered the beneficiary. By 2030, the beneficiary's share would be 68 percent of that benchmark under the proposal, 25 percent under the extended-baseline scenario, and 30 percent under the alternative fiscal scenario.

Of course, the Ryan scenario of an America without Medicare is one Republicans have been pushing since the program's inception in the 1960's.

As ThinkProgress noted two years, Republican demagoguery on Medicare has a long and sordid past. While George H.W. Bush in 1964 used the now-eternal sound bite to describe it simply as "socialized medicine," Ronald Reagan warned three years earlier that failure to stop Medicare meant " you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free."

But even as they savaged Democrats with charges of "death panels" which would "pull the plug on grandma" and see seniors "put to death," a long and growing list of Republicans had been lining up for months behind Congressman Ryan's plan to ration Medicare.  They just waited until after the 2010 midterm elections were safely won to make it the official platform of the Republican Party.

As Steve Benen detailed in the Washington Monthly in the fall of 2009:

In April, 137 Republicans voted in support of a GOP alternative budget. It didn't generate a lot of attention, but the plan, drafted by the House Budget Committee's Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) called for "replacing the traditional Medicare program with subsidies to help retirees enroll in private health care plans."

The AP noted at the time that Republican leaders were "clearly nervous that votes in favor of the GOP alternative have exposed their members to political danger."

Nevertheless, calls from leading Republicans to euthanize the wildly popular Medicare program came fast and furious.  In September, death panel inventor Sarah Palin penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed which similarly called for "providing Medicare recipients with vouchers that allow them to purchase their own coverage."  The next month, Georgia Rep. Paul Broun proposed legislation that would roll back the Medicare system and replace it with a system of vouchers that seniors could use to purchase private insurance or put into tax-free medical savings accounts.

Palin and Broun had plenty of company.  Within a span of a few days in 2010, Michele Bachmann (R-MN) echoed Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) by insisting "what we have to do is wean everybody" off Medicare and Social Security.  Then, Missouri Senator Kit Bond similarly argued that Medicare enrollees should be given a voucher to buy health insurance on their own.  And days later, Broun's Georgia GOP colleague Jack Kingston told Fox Business:

"We need to go in, and we need to cut duplicate programs, programs that are inefficient, programs that are expanding the entitlement mentality. I think we should go back to Social Security, take it off budget, dedicate the funds, put personal accounts on it. On Medicare, I think something like vouchers, where people actually have an incentive to save money."

Of course, as Ezra Klein, Matthew Yglesias and TPM (among others) noted, this new Republican deficit reduction gambit would inevitably lead to the rationing of Medicare.

Because the value of Ryan's vouchers fails to keep up with the out-of-control rise in premiums in the private health insurance market, America's elderly would be forced to pay more out of pocket or accept less coverage. The Washington Post's Klein described the inexorable Republican rationing of Medicare which would then ensue:

The proposal would shift risk from the federal government to seniors themselves. The money seniors would get to buy their own policies would grow more slowly than their health-care costs, and more slowly than their expected Medicare benefits, which means that they'd need to either cut back on how comprehensive their insurance is or how much health-care they purchase. Exacerbating the situation -- and this is important -- Medicare currently pays providers less and works more efficiently than private insurers, so seniors trying to purchase a plan equivalent to Medicare would pay more for it on the private market.

It's hard, given the constraints of our current debate, to call something "rationing" without being accused of slurring it. But this is rationing, and that's not a slur. This is the government capping its payments and moderating their growth in such a way that many seniors will not get the care they need.

Last year, Ryan acknowledged as much. Sadly for the Republican brain trust, he failed to follow the GOP script that only Democratic reforms lead to "health care denied, delayed and rationed."

"Rationing happens today! The question is who will do it? The government? Or you, your doctor and your family?"

Of course, Ryan left out the real culprit - the private insurance market. But with 50 million uninsured, another 25 million underinsured, one in five American postponing needed care and medical costs driving over 60% of personal bankruptcies, Congressman Ryan is surely right that "rationing happens today."

If this all sound familiar, it should.  The Republican Party which tried to abort Medicare in the 1960's is now simply trying to smother it to death.

The words of Republicans past and present tell the tale. Before his later canonization by the GOP faithful, Ronald Reagan announced in 1961 that the failure to stop Medicare meant "you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free." Three years later, his future successor George H.W. Bush decried it as "socialized Medicine."  Last July, Missouri's Roy Blunt argued that "government should have never gotten into the health care business."  That same month, Georgia Rep. Tom Price, a one-time orthopedic surgeon and current chairman of the Republican Study Group, proclaimed:

"Going down the path of more government will only compound the problem. While the stated goal remains noble, as a physician, I can attest that nothing has had a greater negative effect on the delivery of health care than the federal government's intrusion into medicine through Medicare."

When asked at a rally last month, Rep. Price refused to defend Medicare after stating "we will not rest until we make certain that government-run health care is ended."

Throughout the 1990's, Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell and their Republican colleagues continued the GOP war on Medicare.  Hoping to slowly but surely undermine the program by shifting its beneficiaries to managed care and private insurance, in 1995 McConnell was among the Republican revolutionaries backing Gingrich's call to slash Medicare spending by $270 billion (14%) over seven years. As Gingrich put it then:

"We don't want to get rid of it in round one because we don't think it's politically smart," he said. "But we believe that it's going to wither on the vine because we think [seniors] are going to leave it voluntarily."

When President Clinton and his Democratic allies in Congress rushed to defend Medicare from the Republican onslaught, Gingrich launched a blistering assault:

"Think about a party whose last stand is to frighten 85-year-olds, and you'll understand how totally morally bankrupt the modern Democratic Party is."

Of course, when it comes to Medicare, moral bankruptcy is the sin of Republicans alone.  As Paul Krugman lamented last year:

"Don't cut Medicare. The reform bills passed by the House and Senate cut Medicare by approximately $500 billion. This is wrong." So declared Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, in a recent op-ed article written with John Goodman, the president of the National Center for Policy Analysis.

And irony died.

That irony is all the more painful because today's senior citizens, the only age group to back John McCain in the 2008 election, paved the way for the new Republican House majority.  Terrified by a relentless GOP campaign about supposed Democratic cuts to Medicare, the elderly by a 59% to 38% margin chose Republicans to kill the program instead.

* Crossposted at Perrspective *

Technorati Tags: Medicare,Republicans.Taxes,American Taliban,Paul Ryan,# Congressional Budget Office,CBO,Health Care,GOP,The Budget,Newt Gingrich,Sarah Palin,Ronald Reagan,Current Events

Government Shutdown Averted, For Now…

But wait! There’s more!

Some eye-roll inducing details:

Source

Technorati Tags: CNN,Politics,Current Events,Breaking News,Planned Parenthood

Friday Funnies: Government Shutdown Edition

    Once again I am off to do some serious boating out on the ocean. If Boehner and the rest of the American Taliban close down the government over Planned Parenthood funding, then they will have some hell to pay the next time that they are up for re-election.

   Have a great weekend!!

  As the possible government shutdown nears, Obama has said that he will veto the current bill as it is at this time. 

Jimmy Fallon: "The White House may have to lay off all nonessential workers if the government shuts down. You know: interns, pages, Biden..."

"Fox News announced today that Glenn Beck will leave his show later this year. It's nothing personal. He just wants to spend more time with the voices in his head."

Jay Leno: "We're heading for a government shutdown. This is serious. Without the government who will fail to inspect our airplanes? Who will fail to secure our borders? Who will put us 14 trillion dollars in debt?"

"Members of Congress will still get paid if there's a shutdown. So it will be just like it is now. We'll be paying them to do nothing."

Conan O'Brien : "Due to the budget impasse, the federal government may shut down next week. There will be another season of 'Jersey Shore,' but the U.S. government is still up in the air."

Jimmy Kimmel: "If Congress can't agree on a budget by midnight Friday, the government will shut down. Democrats are demanding to tax all of the people's money and use it to fund abortions, while the Republicans want to sell the country to Exxon Mobil and relocate gays to Puerto Rico."

"All government services may be shut down next week, which could really make the DMV inconvenient."

Technorati Tags: Politics,Political Humor,Late Night Talk,Jay Leno,Conan O'Brian,Current Events,Budget Cuts

Fund The Troops?

                                Edited

[T]he House Democrats tried three times to pass a measure that would ensure the troops received pay. The Republicans overwhelmingly opposed every single “troop-funding” opportunity....

What’s more, the Obama administration announced today that it “would support a short-term, clean Continuing Resolution” like the alternative Democrats offered. Thus, by voting against these measures, House Republicans are flatly refusing to support any “troop funding bill” unless their anti-abortion and anti-environmental riders get passed. Incidentally, Republicans have ensured that, unlike the troops, Members of Congress will still get paid.

Interestingly enough, not all teahadist Republicans are on board. "Sens. Pat Toomey (R-PA), Tom Coburn (R-OK) and — surprisingly — Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) have signaled a willingness drop the policy rider to reach an agreement and avoid a shutdown." Even more shockingly, Rep. Allen West says he is "disgusted at the perception that Leaders in my own Party...are now using the men and women in uniform" to pass a short-term budget bill.           DKos  

    So we may have a government shutdown because the Tea Party/Republicans/Taliban do not want Planned Parenthood to be funded? Even without the funding, this does next to nothing to lessen the deficit.

   Here is even more on just how much government cash goes into those evil Planned Parenthood clinics, and for what they pay for.

From Planned Parenthood's annual report for 208-09 [pdf].

Ninety percent of the health care provided by Planned Parenthood health centers is designed to:

• prevent unintended pregnancies through contraception
• reduce the spread of sexually transmitted infections through testing and treatment
• prevent cervical and other cancers through lifesaving screenings.

For those who are pregnant, Planned Parenthood provides

• pregnancy testing
• prenatal care
• abortion
• referral for adoption (select affiliates)
• midlife care helping women manage the effects of menopause (select affiliates)

That's a pretty radical agenda, there, keeping women, including pregnant women and their unborn children, healthy. Too icky for Republicans since it all involves women parts.

By the way, the Republicans aren't just defunding Planned Parenthood, they're taking federal funding away from all reproductive health services—including family planning—for all women's clinics. And none of that funding—none—pays for abortion. Only about a quarter of federal funds for family planning and women's healthcare goes to Planned Parenthood, three-quarters goes to clinics in communities all over the country. And for many American women, those clinics are the only healthcare they have access to.    Source

Technorati Tags: U.S.Troops,Budget Cuts,Abortion,Planned Parenthood,American Taliban,Tea Party,Republicans,Barack Obama,Current Events

The Government Shutdown: American Taliban Unknown To The General American Public So Who Will Be Blamed?

MSNBC

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

Technorati Tags: Politics,Government Shutdown,John Boehner,American Taliban,Current Events,Rachel Maddow,Budget Cuts

Shutdown Hinges On Planned Parenthood Cuts?

So the Democrats and the American Taliban Party cannot reach a budget agreement only because Chief Boehner and the hoods want P.P. to no longer exist, basically?

Democratic officials familiar with the negotiations said that proposed restrictions on money for Planned Parenthood remained the chief sticking point, and that attempts to resolve the disagreement through alternatives like allowing a separate floor vote on the issue had not been successful. Democrats said they were told by the Republicans that the votes of anti-abortion social conservatives would be needed to move any budget measure through the House. John Boehner's PR flack told the New York Times that spending was still the primary issue, but no Republicans that are involved in the negotiations have actually backed that up. And Politico's David Rogers, who has some of the best sources inside negotiating rooms, described the negotiations as having "moved beyond spending toward social policy." As Dick Durbin says, "This is no longer about the budget deficit, it’s about bumper stickers." And the question is: will the GOP shut the government down over a bumper sticker? My bet: no. But if they do, there will be hell to pay.

Source:http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/08/964755/-Shutdown-showdown-comes-down-to-Planned-Parenthood-funding

Businesses Speak About Tax Cuts Creating Jobs…

   ….which anyone with an I.Q. over 1 knows does not happen no matter how many drugs the Republicans take in order to see that illusion.

Tax Cuts do not create Jobs. Why Do Republicans push this myth?
by Blue Creekwater, Yahoo! Answers?

I'm a small business owner here in Atlanta Ga. We have a clothing store, and have an online clothing website. Both do very well, I can tell you right now, as a business owner, as a person who comes from a family of small business owners. Tax Cuts do not create jobs. Tax cuts adds profits into business owners pockets. If I get another 10% Tax cut, as the republicans are planning to push, lets say it moves and wins. If my current staff is can handle the volume, there is no incentive for me to hire new employees. That is the way it works.  [...]

Tax cuts for rich don't trickle down
By Lew Prince, politico.com -- 12/3/10

I’ve run a small business for more than 30 years, and the claim that more tax cuts for the rich can generate jobs at small businesses is ridiculous. Expecting high-end tax cuts to trickle down as job creation is about as reasonable as pouring gasoline on your hood and expecting it to run your engine.

My company’s success or failure is tied to the economic health of our 24 employees, our customers, our community, our state and our country.   [...]

Extending the Bush Tax Cuts: Would They Create More Jobs? Or Just Comfort The Comfortable?
John Keefe, The Macro View, moneywatch.com -- Jul 28, 2010

It’s about the top-line success of the business, and whether the Subway sandwich shop owner is selling more sandwiches, or the software consulting firm is adding new customers. Having been a small business owner, I know that taxes are very low on the priority list.

  One more for you to take a look at.

The Bush Tax Cuts and the Economy
Congressional Research Service -- CRS Report for Congress
Thomas L. Hungerford, Specialist in Public Finance -- Dec 10, 2010

[pg 8]

Revenue Loss from the Bush Tax Cut Provisions

Over five years, extending the provisions are estimated to reduce tax revenues by $869 billion. The 10-year revenue loss is estimated to be $2,023 billion. Debt service costs associated with permanently extending the Bush tax cuts are [...] estimated to be $450 billion.    Sources

   The American Taliban continue to push this lie and it has worked pretty damned well over the past 3 or so decades. They have to be taking in a pretty good off-the-books income from these corporations who got them into office in the first place.

Technorati Tags: Bush Tax Cuts,Taxes,Jobs,American Taliban,Ronald Reagan,Republicans,Current Events

  

Boehner Breaks Out The Tissue

American Taliban House leader John Boehner decided to break out into tears on Thursday as the talks over the federal budget went no-where. Perhaps this piece of crap should seek the attention of a medical specialist.

All of the lying and bullshit that he and his ilk have been presenting to the American public must be getting to him.

At an afternoon news conference today, Boehner announced the House GOP will press forward with a short-term government funding bill in hopes of averting a shutdown this Friday. But President Obama said Tuesday he wouldn't support a measure.

Source:http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20110406/pl_yblog_theticket/boehner-gets-teary-amid-threat-of-a-government-shutdown

Rep. Ryan's Budget Cost? 2 Million Jobs

So much for job creation under any Republican proposals.

Over the next five years (during which time CBO projects that the economy will still be below potential), Chairman Ryan's Medicaid proposal would cut the program by $207 billion, which includes both eliminating the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act and even deeper cuts to the Medicaid program. Using a standard macroeconomic model that is consistent with private- and public-sector forecasters, we find that a $207 billion cut would result in a loss of 2.1 million jobs over the next five years, or 2.9 million full-time equivalent jobs.... These figures are in job-years, which refer to a job held for a single year, meaning that five jobs lost in a single year is the equivalent to one job lost over five years. Furthermore, the job loss would overwhelmingly be in the private economy. Medicaid has very low overhead, as about 96% of the program’s funds go toward benefits which are spent in the private sector. Assuming the 96% ratio is relatively constant across states (or at least not systematically biased in one direction), Medicaid cuts of this magnitude would result in the loss of just under 2 million private-sector jobs, or 2.8 million full-time equivalent jobs. This estimate is conservative for two reasons. First, because Medicaid is a program that generally benefits low-income households—who out of necessity are much more likely to consume rather than save—a larger-than-normal share of these cuts will undermine demand in the private sector. This suggests that the cut to Medicaid would have an even larger impact on the economy than we estimate here. Second, it is likely that an even larger share of the job loss would fall on the private sector because overhead includes not only labor but equipment and supplies as well, which are provided by private companies.

Info comes from: http://www.epi.org/analysis_and_opinion

On Those Little Pills That Americans Love To Take

   Gail Collins with a thought or two on those prescription pills that are pushed on television ads all day long.

Americans should know by now that you can’t put a pill in your mouth without risk. Television is full of commercials for wonder drugs that will perk up your spirits, soothe your allergies or lower your cholesterol, improving life altogether except in the cases where they lead to vivid dreams, suicidal thoughts, hair loss, stabbing pains or sudden death.

Technorati Tags: Gail Collins,Prescription Drugs,Health Care,Current Events

Feds Seize Over $6 Million In Medical Supplies…

   … on Wednesday after the Food and Drug Administration made the request to U.S. Marshals.

U.S. Marshals, acting at the request of the federal Food and Drug Administration, seized a wide range of intimate care products manufactured and distributed by H&P Industries Inc. and the Triad Group of Hartland, Wis., FDA officials said.

  Seized items included cough medicines, cold medicines, medicated wipes, povidone iodine and benzalkonium chloride antiseptic products, as well as other products.

FDA officials said the seizure follows the firm's continued failure to comply with current good manufacturing practice or cGMP, regulations. The agency last week asked H&P Industries to voluntarily cease making and distributing drug products, but the firm did not heed the request.

FDA inspections at the plant led to three voluntarily recalls of Triad Group products since December 2010, including massive recalls of alcohol prep pads, povidone iodine prep pads and lubricating jelly because of problems with microbial contamination.

Investigators also found systemic problems that included issues with sterility and contamination and situations in which firm officials knew products were possibly tainted and sent them for public distribution anyway.

An inspection that concluded March 28 found problems with the firm's air handling and water systems and "failure to take proper measures to ensure the quality of incoming components," the FDA said.    MSNBC

   This is our government agencies doing what they are paid to do. Yet, if you ask the Republican Party, you and I do not need this kind of government regulation because most corporations/businesses will monitor themselves.   What a freakin joke.

Technorati Tags: F.D.A.,U.S.Marshals,Tainted Products,H&P Industries Inc.,Triad Group of Hartland,Wisconsin,Current Events