Republicans Are Communists, Period!

  Corporate Communists, that is.

  Do you dumb Republican supporters need any more proof than this that the Republican>Conservative>Tea Party is only out to help their corporate masters on Wall Street to fuck you over once again?

WASHINGTON (AP) — As the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau officially opened its doors Thursday, the House was considering legislation that could restrict its authority to act against abuses of the financial system.

Republican sponsors of the bill say they are simply trying to promote transparency and accountability in the agency that was created a year ago as part of President Barack Obama's overhaul of the rules governing financial markets.

But the White House has threatened to veto the legislation, saying it would expose consumers to the same risks that led to the 2008 financial meltdown. The Democratic-controlled Senate is unlikely to take it up.

"The Republican majority," said Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., at the opening of the debate, would like the American people to believe that a near-financial collapse never happened."

  The Republicans want to create a 5 member bipartisan panel and the bill would basically make it easier for other financial regulators to block the agency from issuing new regulations which would help you from getting screwed over by the titans of Wall Street and the big banks.

   Maybe I should consider a switch over to Republicanism as it seems to pay very well while you screw over your next door neighbor.

Technorati Tags: Republicans,Tea Party,Politics,Wall Street,Big Banks,Consumer Protections,Financial Regulation,Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

 

Friday Funnies: Murdoch Edition

  The hell with the debt ceiling debates. Obama is going to end up screwing us just like his Republican friends and he have been doing since 2008. One more time: EraseYourDebt.com  Problem solved!

Conan O'Brien: "While testifying in parliament, Rupert Murdoch was attacked by a man who threw a pie and yelled insulting names. Murdoch immediately gave the man a show on Fox News."

Jay Leno: "Rupert Murdoch said yesterday at the House of Commons that he was shocked, appalled, and ashamed. So apparently he watches Fox News, too."

"Rupert Murdoch testified today before the House of Commons. He said he was not responsible for the phone hacking scandal. Did you hear his defense? He said he's got AT&T so he can barely listen to anybody."

"A Harvard University ethics student was caught hacking into MIT's computer network. When he heard about it, Rupert Murdoch said, 'Hire that kid on the spot.'"

Craig Ferguson: "The Murdochs testified before parliament and did something that not many powerful people would have the courage to do: They blamed others."

"I think it's cowardly to attack an 80–year–old man with a pie. If the attacker had any courage, he'd go after Murdoch like I do: in the middle of the night from 5,000 miles away."

Jimmy Fallon: Rupert Murdoch was testifying in his phone hacking case today, and a man attacked him with a pie. Fortunately, Murdoch knew to move out of the way, because he heard about the plan on the guy's voicemail."

Jimmy Kimmel:"I don't think Rupert Murdoch's guilty of phone hacking. He paid $580 million for Myspace. Obviously he knows nothing about technology."

Technorati Tags: Political Humor,Humor,Late Night Talk,Jay Leno,Conan O'Brian,Jokes,Rupert Murdoch,Current Events

Forget The Debt Ceiling, ALEC Is What You Should Worry About

  ALEC is the enemy within, make no mistake about that. Go Here to see why this group should be prosecuted in the United States.

   ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. We agree. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door.    Source

Technorati Tags: ALEC,Republicans,Corporationa,ExxonMobile,ATT,Current Events,Bribery

America The Beautiful, NEW LOW PRICE!

by Fed up Fed          Wed Jul 20, 2011

Some time back, in the early aughts, I worked as a shelf stocker for Safeway.  Scintillating work that it was, my mind yet wandered to other things as my hands repeated the same motions thousands of times a night, open box, grip can, stack can, grip and stack, grip and stack, open the next box, on through the dark.  As I worked, an observation struck me that seemed at once profound and profoundly pernicious.  And it seems, as we grow ever more entombed in partisan rhetoric and entitlement cut kabuki, the thing I learned about people in my ten years in the grocery business seems particulalry relevant to me now.

As a matter of pragmatism, shelf stockers and tag girls -- for some reason every file maintenance clerk, tag changer, I ever worked with was a woman -- worked the same shifts on ad change night.  It occurred to me, after some time, that whenever the girls changed the shelf tags, they left behind a flurry of special promotional tags that proclaimed "NEW LOW PRICE!"

Of course, promotional tags being hyperbolic by nature, I took no particular offense at their tone, but something about them did bother me a bit, and after a while, my minimal cognitive abilities kicked out an answer: the prices were higher.  They were charging more for those items, not less.  The tags advertised a new price, that much was true, and the term "low" is certainly subjective enough that it's open to interpretation.  But it seemed then, as now, that declaiming the price you just raised a "NEW LOW PRICE," well, that's just dishonest.  But it works in marketing, mainly because it turns out that people will, with only a little encouragement, make economic decisions that don't really make any sense, but that can only charitably be described as, "Good enough."

Marketers know a lot about this concept.  They even have a word for it: satisficing.  It's the idea that rational decisions are hard, while seeking a sense of adequacy minimizes the anxiety of risk and the pain of loss (satisfaction + suffice = satisfice).  It's the reason why a simple little sticker can ease the pain of a price increase by reassuring the customer that it's still low, despite their lying eyes.  And it works quite well at boosting sales for off-sale items, as customers satisfice themselves with mediocrity rather than do the hard math of maximizing their purchasing power and shopping for actual, rather than perceived, value.

Seeking customer satisficing rather than providing value now dominates retail because it works really, really well.  As a matter of fact, as a matter of record, it works just as well in politics.

The American Dream is a Promotional Sticker

In America, we used to do big things.  In my grandfather's day, no challenge daunted us, no height impressed us, and no depth ever sunk us.  We did big things in big ways, and we did them because great strength requires constant tests.  So we sought out the feats no sane nation could tackle, and that's the thing we did.  It's why we cut a sea lane across 50 miles of jungle, losing 30,000 men along the way.  It's why we corked the Colorado River with the largest dam in human history while simultaneously flailing our way through the greatest economic disaster of all time.  And of course, of course, it's why we went to the moon and did that other thing, not because it was easy, but because it was hard.  We were hard, and no test of our mettle could break us because we would not relent and the world would bend to our will.

We used to do things only because they were hard and because we were tough.  I say used to because, though that blood still pumps in our veins and the potential still plays about our heads in our wilder moments, we've grown timid and soft, complacent in our wealth, callous in our fortunate height.  We used to do the hard thing, but some time ago we discovered a fondness for easy and cheap wins.  We don't do the hard thing, the big thing.  We go out of our way not to.

September 1, 2001, 9/11, was a unifying moment of national outrage at an audacious slaughter of fantastic proportions.  It was followed by a time of deep pride and unstinting admiration for those implausible souls who died running into the smoke, and the rescue workers, an unlikely mix of cops and steelworkers and soldiers, whose faces on every magazine cover bore a dark patina of the dust that would later turn their lungs into rock.  In our greater days, when we did those big things, this would have been the moment when all our eyes turned from the empty machinations of soulless men who saw only opportunity in our tragedy.

But that would have been hard, and so we sat complacent while our leaders plotted the greatest heist in human history while distracting us all by bombarding a nation of goatherding religious zealots.  And because the money was so sweet, the pickings so plump, they put another fireworks display on our teevees and stole more and more from our treasury and thinned the herd at the same time, and all in the name of doing the easy thing endorsed by almost all of us.

And still those wars rage on while our kids die for whatever, and now most of us are clamoring once again to do the easy thing and pull away from commitments we made the day the first bomb dropped.  And meanwhile our country is wealthier than ever, but only at the top, and the debate somehow centers on how much to harm the poor and the old and the very young, because asking those very few who have benefitted from a lost decade to help put our nation back upright is some concoction of every sin imagined or invented by men whose grasp on our nation's greatness can be summed up in a Lee Greenwood song, and no deeds of any sort.

We used to do the big things.  We fed the poor, cared for the sick.  We built grand monuments to our greatness, but we also put profound energy into the least of us.  There were days when we knew that a great nation is measured by how well its poorest citizens lived.  And so we did the big things and we fought poverty where it lived and we spread wealth around to all who would work for it, and we finally realized Herbert Hoover's dream of a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage, and that was the biggest of all the big things we ever did, bar none.

But we don't do the big things anymore.  Now we say we're broke, we have other things we need to do, we can't help every poor soul not blessed to have emerged into the world with the correct family and the best of circumstances.  We do the small things, the least of things.  In today's America, we eschew the grand, shoot for the petty.  We don't plant the flag on the moon, we fly it from our car antenna.  We don't build grand structures, we let them crumble and fall.  We don't do the big thing, or the hard thing, we do the thing that comes first and easiest.

And that is the great tragedy of a great nation whose better days are only behind it by sheer force of will and a little known thing called satisficing.  Jesus wept.

Originally posted to Fed up Fed on Wed Jul 20, 2011

Also republished by Community Spotlight.

 

Technorati Tags: America,Social Security,Medicare,Medicaid,Politics,The conomy,Current Events

U.S. Debt Ceiling Problem Solved

   It has been quite awhile now that the Republicans and the White House have been going at each others throats over the debt ceiling with the GOP wanting to add cuts to a few of the “ entitlement programs “ before they will pass any deal. At the same time, Obama and the Democrats are trying to get some of those tax cuts for the wealthy off of the books. I believe that Obama will somewhat cave in once again since he has gotten use to being at the Wall Street/Corporate trough.

   I have a simple solution that would not only help with the governments debt problem, but it would also make both the Democrats and the Republicans issues moot.

  My solution?    EraseYourDebt.com   Problem solved!

  Now where is my finders fee?

Technorati Tags: EraseYourDebt,Barack Obama,Republicans,Democrats,Debt Ceiling,Budget Cuts,Politics,Snark,Current Events

Debt Negotiations

 

Copyright © 2011 Creators Syndicate

Copyright © 2011 Creators Syndicate

Technorati Tags: Debt Ceiling,Deficit,Republicans,Politics,Political Humor,Current Events,The Economy

Voter Fraud? Are The Republicans The Fraudsters?

  Republicans are always harping about having tougher voting laws in place in order to curb their non-existent voter fraud issues.

   Let’s go back to the year 2004 and the Busch election.

New Evidence in 2004 Election Theft

by 1Watt Hermit     Wed Jul 20, 2011

A new filing in the King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell shows how the RNC transferred the votes from Ohio to RNC servers in Tennessee.

Via:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/...

A new filing in the King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell case includes a copy of the Ohio Secretary of State election production system configuration that was in use in Ohio's 2004 presidential election when there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush.

The filing also includes the revealing deposition of the late Michael Connell. Connell served as the IT guru for the Bush family and Karl Rove. Connell ran the private IT firm GovTech that created the controversial system that transferred Ohio's vote count late on election night 2004 to a partisan Republican server site in Chattanooga, Tennessee owned by SmarTech. That is when the vote shift happened, not predicted by the exit polls, that led to Bush's unexpected victory. Connell died a month and a half after giving this deposition in a suspicious small plane crash

.

Via:
http://www.freepress.org/...

Prior to the filing, Cliff Arnebeck, lead attorney in the King Lincoln case, exchanged emails with IT security expert Stephen Spoonamore. Arnebeck asked Spoonamore whether or not SmarTech had the capability to "input data" and thus alter the results of Ohio's 2004 election. Spoonamore responded: "Yes. They would have had data input capacities. The system might have been set up to log which source generated the data but probably did not."

Spoonamore explained that "they [SmarTech] have full access and could change things when and if they want."

Arnebeck specifically asked "Could this be done using whatever bypass techniques Connell developed for the web hosting function." Spoonamore replied "Yes."

Spoonamore concluded from the architectural maps of the Ohio 2004 election reporting system that, "SmarTech was a man in the middle. In my opinion they were not designed as a mirror, they were designed specifically to be a man in the middle."

A "man in the middle" is a deliberate computer hacking setup, which allows a third party to sit in between computer transmissions and illegally alter the data. A mirror site, by contrast, is designed as a backup site in case the main computer configuration fails.

Via:
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/...

The last entry dated 7/15/11 links to a 259 page PDF for the complete filing.

This needs to be shouted from the roof tops to every MSM/blog/Politician in the country.

Hoping this is the nail in Rove's coffin.

Also republished by Three Star Kossacks.

Technorati Tags: 2004 Elections,George Busch,Carl Rove,Election Fraud,Current Events

Media Assault- Taxes and Budget Cuts

  The following post comes by way of the activist over at Daily Kos, who wish to have this idea for raising revenue to curb the deficit passed around to all of the news outlets possible. You may wish to also spread the word to you congress-critters while you are at it.

  This idea of taxing stock trades and such with something similar to a sales tax could go a long way towards cutting the deficit as well as stopping the assault on Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare.

This morning we have the usual conservative politics with a new wave.  We have had the Tea Party /Right wing effort to stop an extension of the debt ceiling.
Now we have "moderate" proposal from the Gang of Six, which is essentially the Simpson-Bowles plan. That is another conservative, not so crazy, right wing assault on benefits and working people.  And, since it is not the crazy Tea Party, the press is picking up on it.

Our task.  Today.
Get as many posts up as you can, letters to the editor, responses on web news stories.  In each case argue for the opposite- a financial transaction tax.  The information you need is on the DSA site;  here. http://www.dsausa.org/...

intro;
Despite what conservatives often say, there are several potential sources of money to pay for the needs of our country.  Perhaps the most promising is a tax on the trading of financial assets, a financial transaction tax, often called an FTT or a “Tax on Wall Street Speculators.”
Q:  How would an FTT work?
A: An FTT would be a small tax on all trading in stocks, currencies, and debt products such as treasury bills and bonds (and futures and options contracts on all of these). Think of it as a very small sales tax. It could be a tax of $1 on every $400 of stocks traded (0.25%); one-quarter of one percent, and $1 on every $800 dollars of currency or debt traded (0.125%), one-eighth of one percent.

Q: How much money could it raise?

A: This tax would have raised between $750 billion and $1.2 trillion during each of the past five years (2005 – 2009).  With that amount of revenue we could put a large number of people back to work on the projects that are needed to rebuild our economy.

We should be as creative as possible.  And, certainly among the people here on line there are some additional good ideas on how to penetrate the main stream media.  Even church newsletters and labor papers have value. ( because they are friend to friend).

We should be as creative as possible.  And, certainly among the people here on line there are some additional good ideas on how to penetrate the main stream media.  Even church newsletters and labor papers have value. ( because they are friend to friend).

Certainly Facebook and other social media.  The idea is focus.  for just 3 days, repeat and repeat. Financial transaction tax. Not cuts to social security and Medicare. It also helps if you can link to similar pieces, that raises the Google counting.
See the good essay on this by Dean Baker yesterday. http://www.cepr.net/...

 

Technorati Tags: Debt Ceiling,Deficit,Budget Cuts,Conservatives,Wall Street,Social Security,Taxes,Financial Transaction Tax,Current Events

More Washington Doublespeak on Social Security

   By  Congressman Dennis Kucinich    Tue Jul 19, 2011

Today the so-called 'Gang of Six' published a draft report that acknowledges the solvency of Social Security, but incorporates it into a deficit reduction plan anyway.

This latest bipartisan plan to reduce the deficit says on one hand that it will 'reform Social Security on a separate track, isolated from deficit reduction.' On the other hand if 'Social Security reform' gets sixty votes in the Senate, then it would be combined into a single bill with the deficit reduction plan. If the Social Security bill does not get 60 votes the deficit reduction bill is 'vitiated' or made invalid.

So an undefined Social Security 'reform' starts out on a separate track, joins the track of the deficit reduction bill, which lacking 60 votes becomes a train wreck.

Why are members of Congress and the Administration continuing to mix the '75 year solvency' of Social Security with the deficit, when Social Security, by the report of its own trustees, has enough resources to pay 100% of benefits through 2036, without any changes whatsoever? Who or what is driving this effort to simultaneously insist that Social Security reform is 'isolated from deficit reduction' and that deficit reduction depends upon Social Security reform?

Technorati Tags: Dennis Kucinich,Debt Ceiling,Social Security,The Deficit,Current Events

Debt Ceiling: No Party Scores Good With Public

   Though President Obama and the Democrats have unfavorable ratings with the public, it is the American Taliban ( Republicans ) who are at the top of the publics dislike according to a new CBS News Poll, with the GOP getting a 71% disapproval rating from the public.

Americans are unimpressed with their political leaders' handling of the debt ceiling crisis, with a new CBS News poll showing a majority disapprove of all the involved parties' conduct, but Republicans in Congress fare the worst, with just 21 percent backing their intransigent resistance to raising taxes.

President Obama earned the most generous approval ratings for his handling of the weeks-old negotiations, but still more people said they disapproved (48 percent) than approved (43 percent) of what he has done and said.

    Maybe the Republicans should just stick to the things at which they are pros at, like job creation and hollering for more tax cuts for corporate America.. Okay, so they are pros at one of them.

  Even GOP party supporters do not care for they way in which their peters leaders are handling things, as noted by Brendan Nyhan:

Even half of the Republican respondents (51 percent) voiced disapproval of how members of their own party in Congress are handling the talks. Far fewer Democrats expressed disapproval of their own party's handling (32 percent) or President Obama's (22 percent) of the urgent quest to raise the nation's debt limit ahead of a looming default on Aug. 2 if action isn't taken.

Technorati Tags: CBS Poll,Polling,Debt Ceiling,Republicans,Democrats,Barack Obama,Current Events,Budget Cuts

Those Republicans Are Toast

 Here is a look at the Republican Party  by a paper based in Germany. As is usual, they are dead-on with their views.

die Tageszeitung, Germany
The Republicans Will Lose

By Ulrike Herrmann
Their stubbornness means future tactical problems for the conservatives.
Translated By Ron Argentati
15 July 2011

Edited by Gillian Palmee

Germany - die Tageszeitung - Original Article (German)
Is America going broke? Of course not. The sound-effects thunder in Washington is loud, to be sure, but it’s already certain that Republicans and Democrats will compromise on further borrowing. Neither party can risk bankruptcy for the United States because it would be Americans who suffer. By far, the largest portion of America’s debt lies not in China, but in domestic pension funds and insurance companies.
The losers in this political showdown have also been decided already: Republicans who had assumed they could fall back on a strategy of permanent boycott because of their House of Representatives majority. This intransigence assured them only tactical problems. First, President Obama has already made huge concessions to the opposition and comes off looking like a reasonable statesman. Second, the business community and investors have begun having doubts about the Republican strategy and are turning to the Democrats. Third, moderate Republicans recognize these dangers, but the radical tea partiers do not.
The “Grand Old Party” is now so terribly divided that it is unrecognizable even to voters who want to defeat Obama in the next election. Conservative media outlets like the Wall Street Journal are expressing outrage at how stupidly Republicans are acting.
But the Republicans have not only lost tactically. The demands they’ve made in negotiating future budgets may also result in an election disaster for them. They insist on making reductions in Medicare. Many Americans don’t appreciate that idea in the least, as evidenced by the recent congressional election in New York. The Republicans suffered a surprise defeat there principally because their candidate also supported cutting Medicare.
That pattern may well repeat itself.

CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL VERSION

 

Technorati Tags: Watching America,Republican Party,Tea Party,2012 Elections,Medicare,Current Events,Politics

Friday Funnies:What A Week

  Not sure about you, but this past week has been hell for me. When it comes right down to it, the month of July has been bad all the way around. I do not have much of a sense of humor, but I will give it a shot anyway.

Jay Leno: Scientists say life on Earth is wiped out every 27 million years, and we have 16 million years left. So we’re all going to die just when we finally get our debt paid off."

"Michele Bachmann and her husband run this institution where they try to 'pray away the gay.' They want gay guys to think outside the bun."

A report says that a growing number of Americans are worth $1 million. The bad news: last year they were worth $5 million."

David Letterman: "Congress is pledging to work around the clock until they're absolutely certain they will get nothing done."

It's so hot that instead of tapping phones, Rupert Murdoch has been tapping kegs.

"Michele Bachmann says that if she's elected, she'll ban pornography. We have multiple wars, skyrocketing debts, a recession, unemployment . . . Yeah, let's ban pornography."

 

Technorati Tags: Political Humor,Late Night Talk,Jay Leno,David Letterman,Michele Bachman,Current Events,Humor

Republican Candidates,Cartoon Style

  Some of the better cartoons with the GOP fools who wish to occupy the White House.

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: Politics,Political Humor,GOP,Elections,2012,Republicans,Sarah Palin,Michele Bachman,Newt Gingrich,Current Events,Political Cartoons

 

Major Doc Drop: All ALEC Model Legislation Leaked

  Between the Koch brothers and ALEC, you and I are getting well f—ked.

Original Post by ManfromMiddletown for Exposing ALEC

Wed Jul 13, 2011

Major news is breaking today out of Wisconsin. And it's not (directly) about the recall elections. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has gone live with a web site containing leaked copies of all ALEC's model legislation.   For those of you who aren't aware what the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is, a bit of background is helpful.  I particularly enjoy the "definition" that CMD has come up with.

ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have full membership standing in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board, which has a second, final vote on all legislation. They fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. We agree. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door.

ALEC Wants Us Peasants Quiet

ALEC was founded in 1973 by conservative activist Paul Weyrich. A brief clip of a Weyrich speech from 1980 explains a lot about the group's anti-democratic (note the little d) beliefs

 

"Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome — good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

As we all know voting rights have been under attack recently.  Whether it's voter id requirements or attempts to purge valid voters from the rolls, ALEC has led the charge.

On July 17, 2009, ALEC's Public Safety and Elections Task Force approved a piece of model legislation called the "Voter ID Act."  The act calls for ID's required of voters to have both a photo and an expiration date, meaning that most college ids will not fit the bill.  Understand, this isn't about the vague (and utterly baseless) possibility that someone might attempt to commit in person voter fraud.  It's about disenfranchising people of color and lower income folks who move far more often (and often have no car, thus no drivers license) and students.

In case we ever seriously questioned not only the effect, and intent, of these laws, a quick look at Section 4 of the Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, adopted May 17, 2008, really seals the bill. This bill enshrines the discredited practice of voter caging into state law. As a 1986 memo between GOP officials in Louisiana demonstrates, they know precisely who this tactic would catch, as evidenced by this choice quote:

I know this race is really important to you. I would guess that this program will eliminate at least 60-80,000 folks from the rolls. . . . If it’s a close race, which I’m assuming it is, this could keep the black vote down considerably

The RNC is actually under a federal consent decree prohibiting the use of this tactic, requiring that any "ballot security" program be pre-approved.

As a Brennan Center report (the quoted memorandum above comes from the same source) outlines, there are multiple reasons why mail sent to newly registered voters may be returned to sender:

1. Voter rolls suffer from typos and other clerical errors
2. A voter may not be listed on the mailbox of her residential voting address
3. A voter may live at a non-traditional residence
4. A voter may be temporarily away from her permanent residence
5. A voters permanent mailing address may differ from her residential voting address
6. Mail may not be properly delivered
7. A voters street name may have changed
8. A voter may refuse to accept certain mail

Why ALEC Wants Us Peasants Quiet

All this effort to disenfranchise voters has to be for some reason.  And it is.  ALEC's claim that it is a non-partisan organization is accurate on at least one count. If they could serve their corporate masters by reeling in Democratic state legislators to do their work, they would. Whether it's privatization, i.e. getting state assets at dimes on the dollar, pushing tax cuts, or deregulation, ALEC's model legislation is all about big money donors getting a leg up on you and I. And as every good dog knows there's only one reason to get a leg up, something's going to get wet.

I've chosen to narrow in on labor issues here. Believe me, if you dig through the files at ALEC Exposed, you'll find that there's all sorts of of other ways they are trying to get a leg up on you and I. But, to keep things short, I'm going to hammer home on my favorite ALEC model bill.  It's Orwellian the shit that's wrapped up in an innocuous enough title: The Full Employment Act.

Sounds good, right?  Think again, it's about eliminating the unemployment insurance safety net while continuing to collect money from workers that will later be used to subsidize business.

As many of you know, unemployment remains high, and long term unemployment (greater than 26 weeks) is at historically high levels as a percentage of the total. As it stands now the BLS reports 14 million Americans as unemployed (reported rate), while only around  4 million of those are receiving unemployment insurance.  Yes, most unemployed folks don't currently receive benefits for one reason or another, even though they paid into the system.

The Full Employment Act would shred what's left of this safety net, and use the scraps to subsidize businesses.

From Section 1 of the bill:

It is the purpose of this Act to reduce the need for welfare and the dependence welfare induces, and to that end, there is hereby created a demonstration
program to be known as the Full Employment Program, hereinafter referred to as the "Program." The Program shall be a three-year test in [insert number of counties] counties of the effects of replacing certain welfare and unemployment insurance benefits with guaranteed paid employment. During the test, normal Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), unemployment compensation, and Food Stamp benefits shall be suspended in [insert name of counties] counties. Persons otherwise eligible for those benefits, and others in need of work, shall be eligible for the Program. The Program shall assign them to wage-paying public and private sector jobs designed to increase their self-sufficiency and improve their competitive position in the work force.

Yes, they want to eliminate unemployment insurance.  Instead, you will be assigned to an employer, and made to work if you want benefits. Think about it, if you are trying to work full time at a job assigned to you, do you really think that you are going to be able to actively look for a position that actually matches your skills?  No, you'll be trapped.  It's not only the unemployed that this impacts, the idea is to disempower workers, using their own taxes against them.

Section 6 of the bill diverts the unemployment insurance revenue into a "Program Special Fund." Section 7 both sets the rate of pay at 90% of the minimum wage, or the federal rate if higher, and uses the funds gathered in the "Program Special Fund" to pay the employer portion of worker's comp and Social Security taxes.

Now let me ask you.  Do you think that employers are going to hire a machine operator at $14.50/hr if they can get someone in from this state program and pay them $7.25/hr, and get the extra 8-9% that normally goes to the employer portion of FICA paid for them.  That alone saves the employer $1100-$1200 a year, at taxpayer expense.

This is what the ALEC agenda looks like,  it's part of a broader agenda of repealing the 20th century.

What's a Peasant to do?

It's not hopeless.  The release of ALEC's model legislation exposes this people for what they are.  And it's just the beginning.

ALEC will be holding it's annual meeting on August 1-6 in New Orleans.  After the success of our protest at their Cincinnati event this spring, we plan to carry the fight forward to New Orleans.

Please join us, and/or, make a donation.

We will not be silent.  Will you stand with us?

Originally posted to Exposing ALEC on Wed Jul 13, 2011 at 10:01 AM PDT.

Also republished by Frustrati, Class Warfare Newsletter: The Plutocracy VS the Working Class, and Earthship Koch.

Technorati Tags: Koch Brothers,ALEC,Voters Rights,American Taliban,Unemployment,Current Events,Politics

Fun with The Bachman Clinic

  It has been reported that the clinic which the Bachman’s own, Bachman and Associates, has been using an un-scientific therapy method to turn gays away from their lifestyle. In that regard The Daily Show host Jon Stewart decided to get some comedic therapy along the lines that the Bachman clinic has used. The  “ cure “ is hilarious.

The Daily Show - Comedy Repression Therapy
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

 

Technorati Tags: Michele Bachman,Jon Stewart,The Daily Show,Current Events,Bachman and Associates

I Almost Feel Bad for the Teabaggers

Original Post    by BooMan23 at DKos    Tue Jul 12, 2011

It's kind of interesting to wade into the fetid waters of Lunaticville to see how they're reacting to the news that real Republicans represent Wall Street, and Tea Baggers are merely their (mostly) useful idiots.  Look, this isn't complicated.  There are a few very wealthy people in this country and there are hundreds of millions of...well...everyone else.  Very wealthy people have a particular set of concerns.  They would like to keep the money they have and they'd like to set the optimal conditions for them to make much more money.  In this, they're not really much different than the rest of us, but their behavior can have an outsized impact on all kinds of things, like the integrity of investments or the quality and safety of products or the healthiness of the air and water or the kind of compensation we receive as their employees.

Very frequently, our interests conflict with their interests.  They're badly outnumbered, so they should expect to lose political arguments pretty much all the time.  But they have money.  Lots and lots of money.  And they use that money to create political speech and political outcomes.  But speech isn't enough.  They need votes.  And the only way for them to get enough votes to have their interests reach parity with ours is to align themselves with some other large segment of the population.  In our recent history, this has been religious conservatives and, especially, Southerners who still retain an unhealthy contempt for the Federal government that beat them in the Civil War.  There's also another group of people, usually called libertarians, who are basically cheerleaders for rich fat cats not out of any particular self-interest but probably as a result of some quirky protein produced by their DNA in utero.  Who knows what is wrong with these people?  Most of them were born on third base, think they hit a triple, and are really pissed that they haven't yet scored.   They blame empathy.  And Al Sharpton.

Now, you can believe political rhetoric or you can believe your lying eyes.  Republicans run up huge deficits whenever they have the power to do so, and they loot the treasury to enrich themselves and their political donors.  That is literally what real Republicans live to do.  That's the party's entire purpose.  The deficits are not really the primary goal.  They're a byproduct of their desire to pay the lowest possible taxes while steering the maximum amount of the government's money to their rich pals.  The deficits do serve a purpose however. Once bounced from power, the Republicans behave as though it was the Democrats who produced those deficits.  And they pound the Democrats to cut social programs that steer government money away from their rich pals to people who are in need of some assistance. 

This is how American politics work in our two-party system.  Anyone who rallied to the Republican Party because they wanted to see them fix the deficit problem is not paying attention to how our system operates.  Mitch McConnell doesn't want to do away with earmarks.  He doesn't want a balanced budget amendment.  Those things would interfere with his ability to steer our tax money where he wants it to go.  A Republican Party that couldn't run up massive deficits would have no real reason to exist anymore. 

If you joined the Tea Party because you want to see lower taxes on millionaires and less regulation of business, then good; you're on solid ground.  But if you joined because you want smaller government and a balanced budget, you made a grave mistake.  The thing about greedheads is that they have no moral qualms about ripping you off and selling you out.  They're almost sociopathic by definition.  I mean, who attacks empathy?  That should be your first clue that you're on your own. 

If you are getting well paid to be an idiot, more power to you.  This is America.  But if you actually believed that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell want to transform the government into some Galtian paradise, you're just a sucker.  Plain and simple. 

Technorati Tags: GOP,Republicans,American Taliban,Mitch McConnell,John Boehner,The Economy,Tea Party,Politics,Current Events

Hey John Boehner

  You continue to tell Americans, and the Obama administration that you and the House will not raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy because to do so would hurt those “ job creators “ that you love so much. Then you say that Americans do not want higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations? What polls are you reading, sir. Can you even read?

HEY MISTER SPEAKER

....profits are up, where are THE JOBS?

Show us the jobs! Where are those jobs?

Technorati Tags: John Boehner,Budget Cuts,Debt Ceiling,Jobs,Current Events,Taxes

10 Years Of Bush Tax Cuts: What Have They Done For You?

  Not a whole lot, I can tell you that right now. You did not get much of a tax break if you are among the poorest 60%, but the richest 1% most assuredly did, as is pointed out by Citizens for Tax Justice, a group which is highly accurate in its studies. 

  Click here and then place your pointer over your state to see how much the average tax cuts was for you compared to that 1%.

Technorati Tags: Tax Cuts,Bush Tax Cuts,Citizens For Tax Justice,Budget Cuts,Current Events

Breaking News

  The Murdoch empire still going to have some major problems with their on-going scandal

Breaking: Murdoch Paid Police for hacking details of Royals, 9/11 Victims and British PM: UPDATED

by Brit    Mon Jul 11, 2011    Original

Yes, the scandal that is shaking the Murdoch Empire is expanding to the US, implicating not only the publisher of the WSJ in hacking the Royal Family with details bought from the police, but also - just as they hacked the victims and relatives of the London 7/7 bombings - there are reports that News International tried to suborn US police officers for hacking details of victims the 9/11 attacks.

According to today's Daily Mirror:

a former New York cop made the 9/11 hacking claim. He alleged he was contacted by News of the World journalists who said they would pay him to retrieve the private phone records of the dead.

Now working as a private ­investigator, the ex-officer claimed reporters wanted the victim’s phone numbers and details of the calls they had made and received in the days leading up to the atrocity.

A source said: “This investigator is used by a lot of journalists in America and he recently told me that he was asked to hack into the 9/11 victims’ private phone data. He said that the journalists asked him to access records showing the calls that had been made to and from the mobile phones belonging to the victims and their ­relatives.

“His presumption was that they wanted the information so they could hack into the ­relevant voicemails, just like it has been shown they have done in the UK. The PI said he had to turn the job down. He knew how insensitive such research would be, and how bad it would look.

“The investigator said the ­journalists seemed particularly interested in getting the phone records belonging to the British victims of the attacks.”

This comes hard on the heels of revelations from Robert Peston at the BBC that emails, seen by senior NI executives in 2007, but only handed to the police a few weeks ago, show that the News of the World paid police domestic protection officers, looking after the Royal Family, for private phone numbers and personal details...

Regarding the emails that were found in 2007 but only passed to the police on July. At least some of them provided evidence that the NOTW was buying the contact details of the Royal family and their friends from a Royal protection officer. This suggests that the security of the head of state was being compromised. It's a remarkable story. As soon as the newer management of the NOTW became aware of what was in the emails, they were told them that they had to give them immediately to the police. But here is evidence that the private details of the Royal family were sold, by a protection officer, to the News of the World.

So many laws, suborning a police officer, lying to Parliament, court perjury are exposed by this revelation, let alone the security risk to our nominal head of state. I don't like Monarchy, but the idea that News International could break the law to bribe, distort and blackmail with impunity for so long staggers me.

And this has ramifications for his US operations too. Thanks to BDA in VA for the link to Huffington Post which alerted me to the Mirror story

As other Kossacks have pointed out, Les Hinton, who oversaw the internal 2007 News International internal  inquiry into the hacking of phones in 2007, said that the journalist and investigator involved were one-offs:

Hinton, who then ran NI which is owned by News Corp, spoke to the Commons culture committee looking into the Goodman affair on 6 March 2007. He was asked whether the News of the World had "carried out a full, rigorous internal inquiry" into phone hacking and whether he was "absolutely convinced" the practice was limited to a single reporter.

The Guardian understands that Hinton was among five NI executives who had access to the report. The then News of the World editor, Colin Myler, and legal counsel, Tom Crone, are also understood to have seen it.

Having met with the family of the murdered schoolgirl whose phone was hacked, the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has now come out against the News International bid for BSkyB - an amazing turnaround - and making Murdoch's complete acquisition of Britain's largest broadcaster potentially dead in the water.

But Murdoch still has a largely intact media empire, both here and in the US. As it stands Les Hinton could be in defiance of various British laws, and therefore not a person of standing to be publisher of the WSJ, either under simple corporate governance rules, or the FCP act.

NB: For the best live feeds on this, try the Guardian here, the Daily Telegraph, and videos and Tweets from the BBC

UPDATE: Just to underline that it's not just NOTW nor just celebrities, victims or royals, Michael Crick, a well respected BBC reporter, is tweeting that the former PM, Gordon Brown, is going to make a statement this afternoon about The Sunday Times.

The news is now in thanks to the stellar reporter at the Guardian, Nick Davies: News International papers targeted Gordon Brown

Journalists from across News International repeatedly targeted the former prime minister Gordon Brown, attempting to access his voicemail and obtaining information from his bank account, his legal file as well as his family's medical records.

There is also evidence that a private investigator used a serving police officer to trawl the police national computer for information about him.

It gets more disgusting still - Brown's children were a victim. According to a BBC reporter

BBC told medical records of Gordon Browns son with cystic fibrosis illegally obtained + info then published by the Sun when Brooks in charge

UPDATEX2: Is US pressure now working? According to the Guardian via Reuters:

It appears that lawyers from a group of News Corporation institutional shareholders have filed a complaint at the chancery court in Delaware – the famously business-friendly state where News Corp and thousands of other companies are incorporated – saying the company's board should have taken action against phone hacking years before.

I've just heard  Michael Wolff, Murdoch's biographer, say it's "headless chicken" time at Newscorp and:

I think Rupert Murdoch for one of the first times in his life has absolutely no idea what he should do.

As of 16.33 BST Newscorp stock is down 6%

Is this potentially an ENRON moment for Newscorp. As Virginisland Guy says on the Moose:

Ruperts empire is a classic "Grow or Die" model. Cut off his expansion plans and shine the spotlight on the unprofitability of many of his holdings, and the whole will crumble under the leveraged debt load.

Originally posted to Brit on Mon Jul 11, 2011 at 03:25 AM PDT.

Also republished by Moose On The Loose.

Technorati Tags: News International,911 Victims,Rupert Murdoch,News Of The World,Wall Street Journal,Current Events

A Brief Break From My “ Stupid People “ Postings

UPDATE:

  I did manage to file complaints with the Department of Labor. Had to go federal on this because the state of Florida does not handle this sort of problem. No wonder workers get screwed so bad down here.

  As you all know through my previous postings, I’ve a few complications with a couple of very, truly stupid people. On top of dealing with them, which should not have been necessary in the first place with  situations that they have put me in, I have been in the process of relocating to a much nicer and better residence.

  So, because of the distractions, I will not be posting to much over the next week, maybe longer. in order to get myself back on track I am having to pretty much put myself in exile until I get these idiots corrected in the manner in which they need to be corrected.

   I’ll be back to tell you all about it whenever time permits.

  Have a great week!!

 

Technorati Tags: Current Events,An American Gothic,Stupid People,Thomas Jones,Fraud,Bloggers

Stupid People, Part 2

  This continues from my rant July 9,2011 about an idiot who I worked for and who is now trying to rip me off. The fact that this scum thinks that he is going to get away with this is what makes him on of the “ Stupid People.”

  Florida residents be warned about this wannabe somebody who is actually a nobody. The only thing that this chump ( Thomas Jones ) has going for him is a felony criminal record, which includes prison time. What really pisses me off with this bum is that he passes himself off as a Christian, a Messianic Jew, to be exact. He can spout off what he believes the bible says, which much he is wrong about, and make you believe that he means what he is telling you. He can half-assed talk the talk, but he is woefully inadequate when it comes time to walk the walk. Thomas is a FRAUD in his life, in his business, and the punk has no morals. There is a lot of that down in Florida.

   Break time is over for me right now, so I have to continue this at a later time. If you get bored, check out other complaints against this man and his company, Electra Tech Industries, Inc.

  The start of this entire fiasco is coming up next. I may get violent if I feel the need to be that way.

Technorati Tags: Electra Tech Industries,Thomas Jones,Scammers,Labor Violations,Labor,Florida,Current Events

Maher Calls Republican Voters Stupid Idiots…

    ….and he isn’t wrong in making that observation.

 

Transcript:

And finally, New Rule.  If you can look at a crime where everything points to one answer and not see it, you're a dumbass.  And if you can look at the deficit and not see that the problem is that the rich stopped paying taxes, you're a Republican.  And before you accuse me of equating the Casey Anthony verdict with Republican thinking, save your breath.  I am.  I am.  I'm equating them.

I'm saying if you're a working-class American who still votes Republican, then you don't get to bitch about that verdict.

....

Now here's Obama's thinking, and it's a little counter-intuitive, but try to follow it. When Clinton was President, the rich paid a little more taxes, and the government had money.  Then Bush cut all those taxes, and now we don't.  I know it's hard to grasp, it involves subtracting.  But in suggesting that in these desperate times, we slightly raise the tax on private jets, Obama was baiting the Republicans to look like extremists by defending private jets.

But the gambit failed, because half the people are not outraged.  Half of them say, I'm with the party that cuts all these programs for real people, for the 99%: Planned Parenthood, environmental protection, college, health care, infrastructure; but holds the line on private jets.  Voting for them is as stupid as voting not guilty for the mom who lost her baby for a month, and went looking at a wet t-shirt contest.

(wild audience applause)

New Rule.  Someone must explain to me, what is the holdup with the Casey Anthony sex tape?

New Rule.  You can't be a country that celebrates its birthday with a gluttonous hot dog binge and pyrotechnics, and then not offer universal health care.  On the Fourth of July, a man named Joey Chestnut gobbled down 62 wieners, just beating the old record set by George Michael.  And at least 8,000 people that day went to the emergency room with fireworks-related injuries.  Holding the Fourth of July and not providing the inevitably needed health care, is like holding Oktoberfest and not providing Porta-Potties.

New Rule.  If you're a motorcyclist riding helmetless in a rally to protest your state's helmet law, and you crash and die of head injuries that could have been prevented by wearing a helmet, oh well.  You wanna have the argument over whether motorcycle helmets are necessary?

(shows picture of Gary Busey)

There.  I win.

New Rule.  If your dad was on O.J.'s legal dream team, you can't tweet your disappointment over the Casey Anthony verdict.  It's like Trisha Nixon bitching about presidential corruption.  And remember, your father started a proud Kardashian tradition: getting black men off.

(wild audience applause)  Thank you.  You're welcome.

New Rule.  The Mexican woman who got busted trying to smuggle her common law husband in a suitcase must blame the whole idea on drunkenness.  I mean, look at this guy, he's half in the bag!  And, sorry for that one.

And finally, New Rule.  If you can look at a crime where everything points to one answer and not see it, you're a dumbass.  And if you can look at the deficit and not see that the problem is that the rich stopped paying taxes, you're a Republican.  And before you accuse me of equating the Casey Anthony verdict with Republican thinking, save your breath.  I am.  I am.  I'm equating them.

I'm saying if you're a working-class American who still votes Republican, then you don't get to bitch about that verdict.

(at this point, Ann Coulter rudely interrupted Bill's closing New Rule)

ANN COULTER: They were all Democrats.  I bet they were!

BILL MAHER: You bet they were?  I'm doing something here!

ANN COULTER: I don't care!  The entire O.J. jury were Democrats!  The entire O.J. jury!

BILL MAHER: I'll see you in court!  My lawyer....

(back to the closing New Rule)

In his press conference last week, President Obama said maybe, just maybe, the problem with the budget is that the billionaires were "enjoying the lowest tax rates since before I was born".  Yeah, like we believe Obama was "born".

Now here's Obama's thinking, and it's a little counter-intuitive, but try to follow it. When Clinton was President, the rich paid a little more taxes, and the government had money.  Then Bush cut all those taxes, and now we don't.  I know it's hard to grasp, it involves subtracting.  But in suggesting that in these desperate times, we slightly raise the tax on private jets, Obama was baiting the Republicans to look like extremists by defending private jets.

But the gambit failed, because half the people are not outraged.  Half of them say, I'm with the party that cuts all these programs for real people, for the 99%: Planned Parenthood, environmental protection, college, health care, infrastructure; but holds the line on private jets.  Voting for them is as stupid as voting not guilty for the mom who lost her baby for a month, and went looking at a wet t-shirt contest.

(wild audience applause)

Every election, roughly half the population votes Democrat, and the other half votes Republican.  Now I understand why the Republicans get 1% of the vote.  The richest 1%.  That other 49%?  Someone will have to explain to me.

The facts about what the Republicans have done to the middle class are beyond reasonable doubt.  And yet their base refuses to see it.  The moneyed elite in America are dragging a bag filled with your future down the steps, and your reaction is, "Hold on there, that looks heavy.  Let me give you a hand getting it into your trunk."

Is it really that radical to suggest slightly trimming the tax break on corporate jets?  It seems like a reasonable idea, given that (a) people who buy corporate jets are filthy rich, and (b) I DON'T NEED A (B)!  This is a country of the rich, by the rich, for the rich, where every day, it sees our laws and culture cater more to wealthy people: tax breaks, industry-written laws, bailouts, deregulation.  All of it goes to making the lives of the rich just a little bit cushier.  Oh, I'm sorry.  Did I say rich?  I meant job creators.

Yes.  That's actually a prevailing theory on the right, that Obama's rhetoric towards Wall Street has been so hostile, it has created an uncertainty in the business community, because he called them "fat cats" once, and they're still suffering from some sort of jobs creating disorder.  Like he burst into the bathroom on them while they were trying to pee, and now they can't go at all.

When did the business community in America become so sensitive that we have to treat them like some sort of rare exotic animal?  Don't startle them, or they'll fly away.  We need to soothe them, so they can nest here and lay their magic eggs full of jobs.  Which never hatch, by the way.  Bush said his tax cuts for the rich would create jobs, they didn't.  We're now being told if multinational corporations bring home their current overseas profits of $1.4 trillion, they'll only be taxed 5% on it, because we're told it will create jobs.  It won't, just like it didn't the last time we tried it in 2004.  Companies took the savings, and paid it out to themselves in dividends.

Yes, Republican base, you are just like that jury.  It is pathetically clear who's killing the middle class, but you keep letting them get away with murder.

That's our show.  I'm glad I got that off my chest.

Technorati Tags: Bill Maher,Casey Anthony,The Deficit,Real Time With Bill Maher,Republicans,Politics,Current Events,Taxes

Topic Of The Day: Stupid People, Part 1

   First off, I do not mean those people who we have all called stupid at one time or another because of some brief lack of judgment in something that they have done. You and I have both been called stupid on more than a few occasions during our lifetimes.

  I am going into that group of people who do not have the slightest bit of common sense to come out of the rain during a lightening strike, and who continue to do the same   “stupid “  things while expecting to get a different result. I am also going to touch on a major problem in the state of Florida, which is people who hire you to work and then have the nerve to avoid trying to pay you. I am having that issue at the present time. The thing is that this person, named Thomas Jones, has gotten away with this previously because those that he ripped off did not do anything about it. It seems that he thinks that the result will be the same with me and a friend who did the work for him. He is very, very, sadly mistaken. That makes him  “ stupid.” Before you say anything. No, we did not know that he had ripped off others before. If we had, we wouldn’t have worked for the bum. The really sad thing is that we had worked for him in the past without any problems at all, so there was no need to background check him. After this crap that he is pulling, I have done more than a background check.  Research and info is a hobby with me and one that I am very great at. Poor old Tom doesn’t understand that I can now tell him when he went to the restroom the last time. Anyway, we’ll get to him later. I have more info that I am waiting on before I delve to deep into this. I am posting everything that I receive on this piece of shit. He is an electrical contractor and he may wish to just go ahead and juice himself before I get my stride. He’ll wish he had.

   Two things that I do not tolerate at any extent, thieves and cheats. No forgiveness, but tons of punishment to dish out.

   Did I mention that Mr. Jones is a Christian? Need I say more?

    I’ll be back!!!

Technorati Tags: Current Events,Florida,Thomas Jones,Employment Laws,Scammers