Software Test

  I have been gone for the past month taking care of life and things.

   Now I am back and using some new blogging software that i feel will rival Windows Live Writer any day of the week.

  We shall see, I guess.

Technorati Tags: Politics,Blogging,Current Events

Saturday Satire: State of the Union

We’ll give Chris Christie a break today. He has enough problems already.

Conan O'Brien: "At last night's State of the Union address, President Obama renewed his call for a path to citizenship for illegal aliens. Yeah, that was popular. Even more popular, though, was his roadblock to citizenship for Justin Bieber. That went over huge."

"President Obama’s chief speechwriter said the president started working on his State of the Union address around Thanksgiving. In a related story today, Joe Biden finished GIVING a speech he started around Thanksgiving."

David Letterman: "How many of you folks watched the State of the Union speech last night? How many of you watched just for the commercials?"

Jimmy Kimmel: "Justin Bieber was booked for assault for an incident that happened in December. Boy, this kid is on a real crime spree. He's become a menace to society. I liked him better when he was just a menace to music."

A petition on the WhiteHouse.gov website asks the U.S. to deport Justin Bieber. If they get 100,000 signatures, the White House has to respond. They already have 87,000. The Canadian military is scrambling jets and mobilizing troops along the border to make sure this doesn’t happen."

Jay Leno: "In his speech tonight, President Obama urged Congress to raise the minimum wage. Now don’t confuse that with congressional minimum wage. See, that’s doing the minimum for your wage. That’s completely different."

"The Pope announced that he is coming to the United States. How about that? The purpose of this visit is to perform an exorcism on Justin Bieber."

Technorati Tags: State ofthe Union,Barack Obama,Justin Bieber,Jay Leno,Conan O'Brian,Politics,Political Humor,Congress

What's more important: Millions of hungry Americans or 0.04% of the federal budget?

As news broke of a farm bill compromise involving $8 billion in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program cuts and $23 billion in cuts overall, the New York Times mentioned that it would "reduce spending." Politico described the SNAP cuts as "savings from food stamps." The Washington Post went with "slashes about $23 billion in federal spending." Sounds big, right?

It is and it isn't. $8 billion in cuts over 10 years is huge in the lives of people who will suffer directly from the cuts. But Dean Baker points out that, framed as cuts to federal spending without broader budget context, these numbers are meaningless to readers—and a lot smaller than most people would think:

It is not hard to express these numbers in ways that would convey information to the vast majority of readers. A quick trip to CEPR's Responsible Budget Reporting Calculator would tell readers that the $23 billion cut amounts to 0.11 percent of projected federal spending while the $8 billion cut in food stamps would reduce federal spending by 0.04 percent.

In other words, the food stamp cuts are huge in terms of human misery, but tiny in terms of the federal budget—even if they didn't lead to increased costs for years to come. Yet you won't hear that from most reporters.

Originally posted to Daily Kos Labor on Tue Jan 28, 2014

Technorati Tags: Budget Cuts,Food Stamps,Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,Paul Ryan Budget,Current Events

New Report; Billions In Fossil Fuel Handouts

From last year.

By dturnbull 

   Today Oil Change International has released a new report with Earth Track that exposes some $4 billion per year in new fossil fuel subsidies which have gone unaccounted for in previous estimates. And what’s worse? It’s growing.

Our new analysis dives into a shady corporate structure called “Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs)” and seeks to do a more thorough job of quantifying the value of tax avoidance the fossil fuel industry is able to enjoy by utilizing these structures. MLPs were largely ruled out by the IRS for most US industries some 25 years ago, but special rules continue to provide eligibility for fossil fuels, and have allowed a growing range of oil and gas activities to escape corporate income taxes entirely.

(cross-posted from Oil Change International)

The report, entitled “Too Big to Ignore: Subsidies to Fossil Fuel Master Limited Partnerships,” finds that the oil, gas, and coal sectors have increasingly dominated the MLP universe, now comprising well over three-quarters of the total. Existing estimates of the taxpayer costs associated with fossil fuel MLPs are deceptively low, reducing the pressure to end this tax break once and for all.

Whose benefiting from MLPs? Many oil, gas and pipeline companies you’ve likely heard of, including Enbridge, Sunoco, and TransCanada.  These MLPs not only enable firms to escape corporate income taxes on profits, but they allow their partners to delay most tax payments on distributions for many years – a huge benefit.

Forbes magazine – not the most liberal of outlets – has called MLPs an “income and a tax shelter rolled into one investment.” And we continue to provide this double benefit to fossil fuels more and more each year.

According to the new report, MLPs cost the US treasury as much as $13 billion in lost tax revenue between 2009 and 2012. Previous estimates put this figure six times lower. And this number, in the absence of any action otherwise, is only expected to grow.  Fossil fuel interests continue to convert to MLPs at an alarming rate through asset spin-offs, mergers, and by seeking expanded eligibility granted not only by Congress, but also through rather secretive IRS rulings.

Fossil fuel subsidies like the benefits received by the use of MLPs continue to help these companies dig up the fuels that are burning our climate. Not only does the U.S. oil boom imperil our communities and climate, but the increasing use of Master Limited Partnerships allows the industry to pay even less of its share of the taxes needed to support those same communities. The fossil fuel industry is busy destroying our air, water, land, and climate, all the while finding new ways to avoid taxes.

And as report author, Doug Koplow of Earth Track said:

“Tax subsidies to fossil fuels through Master Limited Partnerships go against both the fiscal and environmental interests of our country, yet are repeatedly overlooked in most federal oversight reports on subsidies. Though recent efforts have looked to expand Master Limited Partnership subsidies to some renewable energy resources, the evidence suggests that the fossil fuel sector will continue to capture the vast majority of the MLP subsidies even with an expansion.  In the context of the climate crisis we face, the continuation of this subsidy to fossil fuels is inappropriate regardless of any potential benefits to new industries."

For more information…

The report can be found here.

Our press release announcing the report can be found here.

Originally posted to dturnbull on Mon Jul 22, 2013

Technorati Tags: Climate Change,Congress,Environment,Oil Subsidies,Politics,Taxes,“Master Limited Partnerships",Current Events

Saterday Satire:Chris Christie

Jay Leno : "President Obama is giving the NSA new guidelines on gathering data on American citizens. He says the NSA can no longer violate anyone's constitutionally protected right to privacy. That, of course, will be Target's job."
"We are so lucky to live here in California with a huge snowstorm back east. Actually, Governor Chris Christie is very happy about this weather. He's got something else to blame the road closures on."
Jimmy Fallon: "Target just announced that it is dropping health insurance for part-time employees and they're blaming it on Obamacare. I guess now if Target employees need to pay for healthcare, they'll just have to use their customers' credit cards."
Conan O'Brien: "We need rain. Governor Jerry Brown has declared California to be in a state of drought emergency. So ladies, when I ask you to take a shower with me, I'm just trying to conserve water."
"Chris Christie is getting a lot of support from New Jersey's Hispanic community. Some Hispanics like his moderate conservatism while others believe if you hit him he'll break open and spill out candy."
"Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis says Governor Chris Christie canceled a position for him when he did something Christie didn't like. When asked what he did, Lewis said 'a sit-up.'"
David Letterman: "Earlier today Governor Chris Christie was re-inaugurated. It was a beautiful ceremony. They even had that phony sign language guy. When Governor Christie was sworn in, he put his right hand on a menu. Immediately following the ceremony, Christie closed the Holland Tunnel."

Technorati Tags: Chris Christie,NSA,Target,Jay Leno,Conan O'Brian,Political Humor,Jokes

People who are homeless

By iampunha

I think it is good to be this cold. I think that the majority of us in this country are too comfortable for empathy and although an apartment with walls can never be as cold as outdoors, it gives me a little bit of an idea of what that must be like. It also makes me aware of how quickly ones hands and feet can actually start to hurt due to being cold.

I got in my car this morning, turned it on, grabbed the ice/snow scraper, equipped it with my left hand still in my pullover sleeve, ran over to my wife's van and hurriedly shoveled five-inch-deep snow off it for several minutes.

She could do the rest a few hours later. My hands were already stinging from the cold, even though my body was blocking the wind. Plus, the rest was ice, which meant removing the scraper from my sleeve, grabbing plastic that had just been not suffering in 7-degree cold (with wind chill subtracting however many cruel ticks on the thermometer), and having snow warm in my sleeve and collect as a cold, wet punishment for a good deed.

Then I got in my well-running car, drove on mostly clear roads to my office job, which supports my family of three well enough, and sat working, checking things here and occasionally watching the wind play with snow and trees and cars.

The wind out there.

Not in here, where I was warmer and undisturbed by poverty, verifying information about two-thousand-dollar technology and leadership classes.

Articles about the recent cold focus mostly on the people likely to read the articles. Here's an example, translated for privilege:

Allison Pennell said not having a [day off from taxpayer-funded public education, heat, safety and food] was "a hard pill to swallow" for her two children, [who don't have to panhandle]. "They [had the energy to complain about where they would be educated, warm, safe and fed], but they had to [stay somewhere else for all of those free-to-them benefits]," she said.

The article then goes on at length about how much snow is falling all over the place, how cold the outside is and how public officials are dealing.

But people who are homeless don't have tablets to read the news as they warm themselves over coffee, so who cares?

We are not expected to care about people we don't know -- people we rarely look at.

People we avoid looking at because we do have money, but we don't trust strangers, or we are afraid of being assaulted, or we desperately do not want to care about a need with a face a foot away from us because then there goes saving for that television.

We do not want to confront, or look in the eyes, people who are homeless.

We do not want to even walk past them because then we will hear them asking for money we all know we have. I spent a summer walking past the same people who were homeless every day, and I did my utter best to avoid looking at a single pair of eyes.

They are unwanted by most, unimportant to most, and so uncovered in most news reports. Instead, the news reports on the people who have money for houses and cars and the like.

I wonder if any reporter for a metropolitan newspaper or national news service called a homeless shelter from Virginia to Maine asking about deaths due to exposure, which is code for lack of empathy.

The people who write and assign and edit these stories are assuming two things:

1) You too have more empathy for that guy shoveling his walkway than for the homeless.

2) You actually don't realize the homeless are ignored (government services notwithstanding) at their most vulnerable. When you read weather stories, you're thinking about flights, cancellations, road and traffic conditions, and pictures of people walking amid whatever natural hijinx. Has someone snapped a picture of a squirrel busily doing whatever on ice that's normally water?

So confident is the news team behind weather coverage that you don't care about the homeless that you won't find a homeless reference in the first third of a weather story. Second third? Maybe. Third third, usually. And even then, it's the director of a local homeless shelter, not an actual homeless person. See?

Even a story about helping people who are homeless quotes none through the first four pages. This story is one of two in the top ten Google News hits for "who is homeless" that actually names a person who is homeless, and the other one names a crime suspect who is homeless.

That linked top ten search result includes tonight's funniest concept: Merchants want the city to just get the homeless to skedaddle so they can have their pretty gem show and pretend homelessness doesn't exist. So delightfully pretentious, no?

"This isn't quite as ... artistic as last night's," you're thinking. "I was hoping for something as ... anti-inspirational as your line about lumps of human."

I'm hoping for a country that doesn't spend a billion dollars on an Air Force information technology project that doesn't work while also cutting spending on people who really do need that "extra" ten dollars a week.

At 600,000 people who are homeless, ten dollars per person per week would take more than three years to spend (thanks to kck for alerting me to the error).

A couponer could come damn close to feeding a person for ten dollars a week.

I have never liked or respected the concept that the problem of evil makes us that much more thankful for the good in this world.

But I have a hard time arguing against it. So when I read rubyr's comment about the good of cold, I understood it immediately and agreed as quickly.

But it goes much further than cold. It goes much further than weather. It speaks to a general level of empathy I'm convinced we're losing in this click-to-interact world.

This online world allows us to choose very specifically what kind of information we want and what kind we want to ignore. And just as you can ignore news about the cold by removing or hiding weather stories from your online media sources, you can ignore any other thing you plain don't like.

We are increasingly teaching ourselves that if we don't like something, like a two-year-old fighting asparagus (mistakenly; that stuff's amazing), we can just throw it on the floor and ignore it.

Things we did not like as children -- vegetables, homework, cleaning where light rarely goes -- we had to deal with. Now we can click to hide that political garbage that relative posted. In doing so, we are not only atrophying our ability to tolerate things we dislike, but also discarding our opportunity to educate that relative -- and, crucially, that relative's friends. Even a polite disagreement with facts is a better situation than the philosophical purity, the echo chamber, we're encouraging.

Whether it's the weather or the opinion we dislike, sometimes the protection is worse than the attacker.

Throughout this diary is this phrase:

people who are homeless

Used it for a reason. In Introduction to Special Education, I learned about people-first language.

Say a person uses a wheelchair; people-first language would say "a person who uses a wheelchair" rather than "a wheelchair-bound person." The first wording emphasizes the person first and the other element second.

Our phrasing when talking about people who are homeless tells us some terrible if unintended things about ourselves. The worst is that when we discuss homelessness, we often do not even denote that we are talking about people. We discuss "the homeless." We discuss homelessness and joblessness and poverty without ever using personal pronouns ("they" is vague and general) or even person-based nouns, like "people who do not have jobs."

Rhetoric changes opinions. Same-sex marriage is a controversial issue, but far more people are getting behind marriage equality.

And "died from exposure" is much less saddening and action-inspiring than "died because she was frigid and alone outside because her relatives gave up on her after she got hepatitis C from a guy she had sex with so she could pay rent for one last month because her job was outsourced to Mexico, and the shelter wouldn't let her in again because she's a troublemaker because she got in a fight because someone tried to steal her boots, so she had nowhere."

I used to end my diaries with a call to action to donate or write a letter or whatever. This call to action is different.

From this moment on, don't ever talk about people who are homeless without using the phrase people who are homeless. Invite your audience to think of people first and anything else about them second. Once you get them thinking about people -- a perfectly safe concept -- you are well on the way to getting people who are homeless the help they deserve.

And here is help for people who are homeless and for people who are homeful but who need other kinds of help.

Originally posted to iampunha on Wed Jan 22, 2014

Technorati Tags: The Homeless,Winter,The Economy,Labor,Current Events

White House Selling "Free Trade" Deal, But Who's Buying?

  From Common Dreams Jon Queally, staff writer

  TPP is a very bad deal for American workers, period.

(Photo: Friends of the Earth)Though progressives

Though progressives both inside Congress and out have come out strongly against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and a bill introduced last week that would give President Obama "fast track" authority to sign the "free trade" pact without legislative wrangling, the White House appears to be redoubling its efforts to get what it wants.

As The Hill reports Tuesday:

The White House is making a major push to convince Congress to give the president trade promotion authority, which would make it easier for President Obama to negotiate pacts with other countries.

A flurry of meetings has taken place in recent days since legislation was introduced to give the president the authority, with U.S. Trade Representative Mike Froman meeting with approximately 70 lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate.

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough has also been placing calls and meeting with key Democratic lawmakers in recent days to discuss trade and other issues.

The "fast track" bill in question was introduced in the Democrat-controlled Senate last week by the reliable friend of big business Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and co-sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). The companion bill in the House was introduced by Republican Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, though it has so far received no Democratic co-sponsors with only his fellow GOP caucus members lining up in support.

Earlier this month, more than 150 Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to Obama describing their concerns about the TPP and the fast track legislation under consideration.

“For too long, bad trade deals have allowed corporations to ship good American jobs overseas, and wages, benefits, workplace protections and quality of life have all declined as a result,” said Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and George Miller (D-CA) in a joint statement alongside the letter. “That is why there is strong bipartisan opposition to enabling the Executive Branch to ram through far-reaching, secretly negotiated trade deals like the TPP that extend well beyond traditional trade matters. At the core of the Baucus-Camp bill is the same Fast Track mechanism that failed us from 2002-2007.

“Our constituents did not send us to Washington to ship their jobs overseas, and Congress will not be a rubber stamp for another flawed trade deal that will hang the middle class out to dry. Instead of pursuing the same failed trade policies we should support American workers by making the necessary investments to compete in today’s global economy.”

Outside opponents of the deal itself—unwavering in their critique—have used the fight over "fast track" to exhibit what they see as the undemocratic nature of globalized trade deals like the TPP. And as the implementation of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary, many of those opponents argue that NAFTA's terrible economic, social, and environmental legacies should be all the warning needed to put the brakes on such deals.

"Like NAFTA, the TPP will handcuff our ability to set regulations in key areas like finance, industry, the environment, public procurement and fostering programs to create jobs at home," argued Manuel Pérez Rocha, an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, in a recent essay. "Free trade offers corporate subsidies for the rich and cut-throat competition for everyone else. So it should come as no surprise that communities across the continent and the Western Hemisphere are mobilizing in what can be expected as the battle against the TPP."

And Dave Johnson, writing for the Campaign for America's Future, explains how "fast track authority" is used to undermine congressional oversight and cut out the American people from the conversation over trade policy:

If passed, [fast track] means trade bills that come before Congress will have limited debate, will have to be voted on in a short period, and can’t be amended or filibustered.

This rigged process gives the big corporations an opportunity to set up a crisis atmosphere around trade agreement votes; by saturating the country with ads, the airwaves with TV and radio talkers, the newspapers with op-eds, and generally creating a fog of PR and spin promising jobs and prosperity-for-all if it passed, and the death of the economy and all children under the age of 5 if it does not. Meanwhile behind the scenes they will be handing out the cash and job offers to get the required votes.

Obama is expected to make a large public push for the TPP in his upcoming State of the Union address. Whether he can sell the idea to the American people or receive so far absent support from most Democratic lawmakers in Congress remains to be seen.

According to The Hill:

No House Democrats are co-sponsoring the bill, however, and Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.), the Ways and Means ranking member, and Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), the panel’s former chairman, have both criticized it. They said the legislation doesn’t give enough leverage and power to Congress during trade negotiations.

Getting TPA passed would be a major victory for the administration and one that would please business groups, but the White House will first have to convince Democrats to go along with it.

One senior administration official said the White House has been in dialogue with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle “with a real focus on Democrats” to explain TPA and take into account their concerns.

“Any trade matter presents challenges,” the senior administration official said, adding that the White House officials are “devoted” to working with members on the issue.

The Democratic opposition makes it highly unlikely that the trade promotion authority bill, in its current form at least, will go anywhere.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Technorati Tags: TPP,Jobs,Barack Obama,Democrats,Fast-Track,Congress,American Workers,Current Events,Politics,Trans-Pacific Partnership

Welfare: Good for the Economy

  With all of the bullshit coming from the Republican side of the isle about how food stamps and unemployment checks make people ‘ lazy,’ I’d thought that I would post an article about how these government programs are good for our economy.

   This article comes from liberaldad2.

The Republicans are demanding that the government cut back spending on social welfare programs like unemployment insurance, food stamps, aid to poor families and other welfare programs.  I have always believed that a wealthy nation has an obligation to care for its least fortunate members on ethical and moral grounds, but clearly we have a disagreement with our more conservative brethren on that issue.  However, there is a purely economic argument that shows investing in our poorest individuals will pay benefits for the American economy, including America’s businesses.  Here is how it works – Economics 101.

If the government gives one dollar to a poor individual, he is going to spend it.  Maybe not all of it, but some fraction, let’s say 90 percent (10 percent goes into a savings account or some other investment).  Maybe on food or clothing or a vacation trip to Las Vegas, maybe on alcohol or drugs – from an economics perspective, it doesn’t matter.  Then the recipients of the 90 cents will also have more money to spend.  They in turn will spend 81 cents of that money in much the same way, injecting even more money into the economy.  Some fraction will go into labor and goods from their suppliers to meet the increased demand, and some will be discretionary for personal luxury items.  Then 72 cents of that 81 cents will also get respent, and so on, over and over again.

And let’s not forget taxes.  When the first recipient spends his 90 cents, he will pay sales tax.  And the recipient will pay income tax on the extra profit he makes.  That means that a substantial fraction of the one dollar that was originally spent by the government will come back in additional taxes.  Of course taxes will reduce the amount available for discretionary spending, but that can be easily accounted for.

This is called the multiplier effect.  Let’s assume that everyone in the supply chain would spend 90 percent of the money they receive and save the other 10 percent, and we also assume that the sales tax rate is 8 percent, that gross income generates taxable profit at an average of 5 percent, and that the marginal income tax rate is 28 percent.  Then the numbers show that for the $1 in government spending, $4.87 is injected into the economy, $0.54 goes into savings and tax revenues increase by $0.46.

Take a good look at those numbers.  Remarkably, the one dollar gets multiplied, increasing spending across the entire economy, mostly going directly into the private sector.  Plus the banks see a significant increase in investments, and the government gets almost half of its money back.  Note that the sum of the money saved and the money returned in taxes equals the entire original investment.  This has to be true, because the money keeps getting passed on.  In fact, if the savings rate is lower, say 5 percent instead of 10, then the multiplier is even larger.  Money injected goes to $6.82, savings drops to $0.36 and taxes increase to $0.64.  Again the sum of the savings and taxes equals the original investment.  No, this is not voodoo economics, a healthy economy really works that way.  This is how wealth is created.  Not to mention jobs.

Conversely, when the government cuts those programs and doesn’t put that money into people's hands, the same multiplier effect punishes the economy many times over.

Ironically, and sadly, the poorest people in the supply chain save the least (that's why they are poor).  If you give the same dollar to a billionaire (for example, by reducing his taxes), he won't spend much of it - it will mostly go into savings - so the multiplier gets reduced.  Giving the money to the poorest, who are most likely to go out and spend it, actually generates the greatest amount of wealth.

Of course the government has to raise the $1.00 in the first place, either through taxes or borrowing, and therein lies another tale.  But based on this example, the government really only needs to raise $0.54 (or $0.36, depending on the savings rate) in order to spend that $1.00.  There will of course be a redistribution from federal to state and local revenues, but state and local welfare programs also inject money back into federal taxes, so there is some balance.  This seems like a bargain to me.

So this looks like a no brainer – government spending on social welfare programs directly benefits businesses and banks in the private sector with a big multiplier – how could anyone who favors business object to that?  Every time a social welfare program gets cut, American businesses get another kick in the teeth because their customers have less money to spend.  And that is not voodoo, that is real.

Originally posted to liberaldad2 on Fri Jan 17, 2014

Technorati Tags: SNAP,Food Stamps,Unemployed,Benifits,Politics,Current Events,The Economy,Republicans,Budget Cuts

Health Insurers: Whining About Socialism All The Way to the Bank

By cskendrick on January 7,2013

Not one of the major publicly-traded health insurers' stocks underperforms the S&P500 market index and hasn't since summer 2009 when we all started this very interesting conversation about how Obamacare would destroy private insurance.

The insurers are whining about how socialism is killing them all the way to the bank. Aetna, perhaps the most publicly opposed to the ACA based on its close association with one Joe Lieberman (h/t NYCeve),  bought Coventry Health in a bold move to expose itself even more to socialism. HCA went public again in 2010 an odd play for a corporation fearing market exposure in the aftermath of PASSAGE of the Affordable Care Act.  (In another bold risk management move, HCS fobbed off former chair Rick Scott onto the state of Florida.)

So that means not only the voters, not only common decency but ruthless pursuit of returns isn't on the side of 'repeal and replace'. My theory on why: Once ACA is in place, companies will no longer have to manage in-house health packages for employees. The large companies, exempt in theory from Obamacare, will voluntarily phase out their benefits on the premise that, like in every other developed country on Earth, health insurance is a conversation between the people and their public servants.

(more below the squiggleract.)

We're an increasingly multinational corporate world. Big multinationals don't like coming to America and finding out they have to pay expensive health care packages for employees that they don't have to pay for anywhere else. It won't happen fast, but it will happen faster than the 30 years it took American workers to lose their defined benefit pensions.

Now, with pensions, this was something Republicans couldn't get enough of back in the day, because it started up when 'the day' and all future ones were quite bright and rosy in GOPers' eye. The golden age of the Reagan Empire. We wear de-risking now. De-risking is cool. Which makes it all the more amusing that now it's happening under Obama's watch the same thing is evil. For how it was Cool When Republicans Did It But Socialism Now, Michael Baroneone only has to peek at the prose of Michael Barone on the topic.

Perhaps this isn't the health care world as it should be in anyone's eyes. Liberals object to setting up a system that compensates institutions and individuals that will
never stop contributing to a party that wants to deconstruct the public space. Tactically speaking, centrists/pragmatists/whatever the most awesome label is this week might want to revisit the merits as well. (And thanks for the cash in the meantime, Democrats, while we continue to hate you lots and plot your complete destruction. Love, the insurance industry.)

On the other side of the aisle I am quite sure Republicans don't like government assuming the risk, ever, and they've long since moved on to hating on the miniscule tax increases to passive investor income (a dip in after tax returns that is more than made up for by the reduced volatility in those reduced, because less risk AND over time the reduced long term liabilities to private corporations who will now be off the hook for health packages for their staff.) But... taxes. But... socialism. But... Obama gets credit if this works (but not from us). But... Duck Dynasty Sarah Palin something.

Thing is, the cray-cray crew don't have any strategy but stamping their feet and (see: October shutdown) threatening to tall OUR ball and going home. Not because of triumph of liberalism. Not because Tea People are suddenly feeling, okay, yeah, my kids have health issues and I am diabetic and my work health plan is getting ridiculously expensive and this website's not ALL that bad so I'm enrolling.

ACA is going to work because it makes a lot of already rich people and corporations even richer. Companies getting to dump trillions more of long term liabilities as they volunteer their associates into Obamacare (because freedom) is why no one's coming to the rescue of the 'Repeal and Replace' set, any more than anyone came to the rescue of first private workers' then public servants' pensions since the 1980s.

ACA is better than no ACA by far: We're not replacing socialized medicine with ACA, so this isn't quite the same as swapping out pensions with 401Ks. (So, perhaps there's a point for Barone there...if one accepts that Doing More For The American Worker Is Always Bad And Really Bad If It Makes Democrats Look Good). This is something new...and the irony is that corporations (same as with the 401K conquest of private retirement funding) are liking what they're seeing....even if they have no intention by and large of funding Democrats. (They'd rather just have less crazy Republicans, good luck with that Corporate America. Keep us posted.)

So in a nutshell: Giving the risk and expense of keeping you, the working stiff, healthy and alive back to you (with a little help from your government) is what ACA is all about. Oh, and it makes some serious coin for insurers in the meantime (see: Stock performance since 2009).

For that reason - it makes some serious loot for people who don't necessarily have a problem with socialism, only sharing it with the little people - ACA is here to stay, because it takes a LOT of risk off Corporate America's books in the long run and saves shareholders trillions, perhaps many trillions, in the bargain.

If fewer people get sick and die and bankrupt their families in the process, that's nice, but the insurers who are doing so well financially, because socialism, won't ever thank Democrats for the solid.

They'll continue whining all the way to the bank...and that, ironically, is why ACA's here to stay.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

Technorati Tags: ACA,Obamacare,Health Insurance,Insurance Companies,S&P500,Current Events,AETNA,HCA

See Who The ‘Small Government’ GOP Wants The IRS To Audit Now

From Addicting Info under Creative Commons License

   This is the real IRS scandal.

Author: Stephen D. Foster Jr. January 16, 2014

Remember when House Republicans threw a temper tantrum over the IRS investigating the tax-exempt status of Tea Party groups? Even though it was later revealed that liberal groups were also under scrutiny, the GOP rage over what they called a government overreach just got a lot more outrageous considering what Republicans want to use the IRS for now.

House Republicans want to force the IRS to persecute, intimidate, and audit rape victims.

H.R. 7 (‘No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act‘)  is a piece of legislation being pushed by House Republicans in an effort to further restrict abortion rights. If the bill were to become law, all state healthcare markets created via Obamacare would be banned from including abortion coverage in health insurance plans. Even private insurance companies would be affected by this. Furthermore, the bill would level an additional tax against business owners if their employee plans cover abortion. Basically, the GOP is trying to force businesses to drop abortion coverage. And perhaps the most dangerous part of this bill is how Republicans want to use the IRS in their plan to harass women who want an abortion.

According to H.R. 7, women would be banned from deducting the cost of an abortion on their taxes, even though the procedure is a valid medical service. The only exceptions to this rule are if a woman is a rape victim, an incest victim, or if the pregnancy is life-threatening. So, how would the IRS be able to sort out who qualifies for the exemption and who doesn’t? Well, that’s the scary part that makes Republicans look like hypocrites and persecutors.

The IRS, which conservatives have always hated, would basically become the GOP’s own personal hit squad against women. Any woman who attempts to claim abortion costs on their taxes would be audited. In other words, House Republicans are using the IRS to harass and bully women.

The IRS would be forced to seek out rape victims to ascertain if they were really raped or not. This process would allow the IRS to invade the personal lives of women across the country. Instead of police, medical professional, and the judicial system determining if a rape has occurred, the IRS would have the final say. That means victims would be interrogated by IRS agents about their ordeal.

According to NARAL Pro-Choice America, it could happen and it would be devastating to victims.

“Imagine having to recount a sexual assault — a horrifyingly painful, personal experience — to a tax collector,” a NARAL action alert says. “An anti-choice bill in Congress would do just that. It could force sexual assault survivors who access abortion care to prove the assault occurred.”

This bill could harm rape victims and the criminal justice system that is supposed to protect them.

It only gets worse from there. If the IRS decided that a rape victim wasn’t raped, she could face tax fraud charges that could result in prison time, fines, and a federal trial. This is a pure attack on victims by the Republican Party. They want to put victims through an investigation by an unqualified organization to determine if women were raped or not. Victims who the IRS decides weren’t raped would then face a federal trial which would result in further persecution. Then these women could end up behind bars, even though they’re supposed to be the victims. All because the IRS makes the final call. It would totally undermine the criminal justice system. One also has to wonder how such witch hunts would affect prosecutions and convictions in rape cases. IRS agents are number crunchers, not sex crimes unit detectives. They are completely unqualified to determine whether a woman has been raped or not. And if they wrongly decide a woman has not been raped, it could result in the eventual release of the rapist. It will not only do harm to cases that are both open and closed, but also cause less women to report rape out of fear of being persecuted by the IRS.

This is yet another part of the Republican war on women.

This is yet another shot being fired by Republicans in their war on women. When the GOP took control of the House in 2011, one of the first things they tried to do is redefine rape. In fact, that bill was also called the ‘No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act.’ Of course, tax dollars are already prohibited from being used for abortions via the Hyde Amendment. The House GOP has been obsessed with banning abortion in any way possible. Dozens of bills have been introduced every year. Just last June, House Republicans approved a bill to ban abortion after 20 weeks. The GOP war on women isn’t just taking place at the federal level either. Just about every state under Republican control has pursued dangerous anti-abortion legislation since 2010. In addition to frivolous bills designed to strip women of their rights, members of the GOP have also made many incredibly offensive statements about rape. This bill is just the latest effort by the GOP to humiliate and intimidate women who exercise their constitutional right to choose.

This is a real scandal involving the IRS.

Women who are raped deserve to be protected. Allowing the IRS to audit rape victims is a serious violation of privacy that Republicans are using as a sleazy way to keep women from having an abortion. This bill is coming from a political group that has railed against the IRS for decades. Now they want to abuse the IRS and use it to torment women. This isn’t just a bad bill, it’s a real scandal that the American people should be aware of.

Technorati Tags: Republican Party,IRS,Abortion,Rape Victims,Small Government,Current Events,Politics

Saturday Satire:Chris Christie’s Greatest Hits

  But first, a word from our sponsors:

Copyright © 2013 Creators Syndicate

 

Cagle Cartoons

Jay Leno: "Governor Christie said he wants to do all he can to keep people from leaving New Jersey. That's why he closed the bridge. He was trying to do some good."

Copyright © 2013 Universal Press Syndicate

Conan O'Brien: "Some New Jersey Democrats have started an investigation to get Chris Christie out of the governor's mansion. And by governor's mansion they mean the White Castle at exit 8."

Cagle Cartoons

Cagle Cartoons

Technorati Tags: Chris Christie,Bridgegate,Colorado,Marijuana,Politics,Current Events

Wisdom From Rush Limbaugh: If Christie was a true conservative, whether he lied 'wouldn't matter'

  By Hunter on Wednesday, January 15, 2014

That Rush Limbaugh thinks this way really isn't news, but it's a perfect description of the ideology-over-substance obsession that has turned conservatism into a movement with no actual ideology at all.

"It's just every Republican who has entered the fray defending Christie has to put a caveat out there 'if he's telling the truth.' Now, if there were a fervent ideological foundation, if there was a substantive reason of believing in Governor Christie, then whether he lied wouldn't matter. They'd be out there defending him left and right just to make sure the Democrats don't get away with this."

At the risk of needing to douse myself in a tub of holy water after this: Rush Limbaugh ain't wrong. If Chris Christie was seen as a true part of the movement, an ideological conservative of the required purity, then whether he lied about orchestrating and subsequently covering up an intentionally-created threat to public safety as payback for some real or imagined partisan slight wouldn't matter. The conservative movement would be backing him up, damn the truth, rather than letting the media and the Demmycrats "get away with" exposing the corruption.

It's not just rapidly decaying blowhards like Rush Limbaugh who think this way; it's a staple of Fox News programming, and you can see the same dynamic at work in most of the Republican primaries, and in Congress. Climate change is not seriously argued against from a scientific standpoint, but is declared to be a hoax by a congressional platoon that simply don't like the policy implications. From internet conservatives to actual conservative election gurus like Karl Rove, the movement was convinced Mitt Romney would win the election apparently even on the night of the election, convinced that all previous polling was somehow biased against them, intentionally or accidentally, on a conspiratorial scale. Benghazi! has received more attention than all other attacks on American embassies in the last ten years combined, almost entirely due to the devolution of the Darrell Issa-led House Oversight Committee into a conspiracy theory breeding farm. (Note, for example, the sheer number of times the committee has "leaked" or "reported" discoveries that (1) were based on the apparently-intentional burying of contrary evidence or (2) had been proven wrong weeks or months before a committee report breathlessly asserted them. Under recent leadership, the committee has proven itself to have the "investigative" chops of a Regenry or World Net Daily.)

It's not just whether or not a "lie" matters; to this new brand of "true" conservatism, outcomes don't matter either. Non-insane House and Senate Republicans were pilloried for pointing out that a federal government shutdown would cause damage, or would not benefit the party; the point before, during and after was not whether or not the shutdown "worked", but who was willing to commit themselves to the ideological purity of doing the thing, regardless of outcome, and who wasn't. A true conservative believes welfare programs do not reduce poverty, regardless of the last 100 years of evidence to the contrary—showing the correct religious commitment to a belief matters far more than whether that belief has been proven imbecilic. Freedom is sacrosanct for a man, but can be far more narrowly defined for a woman. Wars are good or bad depending on who started them. There really is no end to it.

When you get to the point where you cannot reliably predict movement beliefs according to their own supposed ideology, but you can predict them to near-perfection simply by looking at what the supposed enemies of the movement are for and reversing it, you don't really have an ideology anymore, do you? What the Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Ted Cruz, Darrell Issa, tea party wing of the party reliably act upon is not things like whether he lied or whether he did cocaine or whether shutting the government down was a boondoggle; it is a religious movement, or a faux-nationalist one, or perhaps an outright Confederate one. My enemy is my enemy; my morals, my ethics, and my very beliefs are dependent upon what would separate me from my enemy the most.

Technorati Tags: Chris Christie,Rush Limbaugh,Republicans,Bridgegate,Politics,Current Events,An American Gothic

Republican’s

  I’m kind of busy with other things for most of the week, so there will not be much put up on this blog unless some of my friends at other political sites wish to share something with you. 

   That being said, all that you really need to know is that Republican voters are  “ stuck on stupid,” and that Republican politicians are stupid assholes.

Technorati Tags: Republican,Republican Party,Voters,Politics,Current Events

How TPP & TTIP free-trade agreements could threaten sovereignty.

By  Mark Lippman 

This diary is detailed and technical. It's intended to provide an illustration of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), a feature of the TPP and TTIP free-trade agreements.
This information is for the people who have concerns about ISDS, and I've noticed a few of you here, because more knowledge and information is always better. Please read carefully. I would be glad to answer questions if there are any.

With Congress getting ready to decide fast-track authority for three new free-trade agreements, TPP, TTIP, & TISA, a reminder comes about the need for protection from the destructive greed of  powerful business corporations.  

Three years have passed since Ecuador’s Supreme Court awarded an $18 billion settlement to the villagers of Lago Agrio.  The court found Chevron liable for dumping toxic waste near a rainforest community with devastating consequences for the villagers who lived there.  However, there has been no remediation because Chevron refuses to pay. 

The European delegation was invited to inspect the area, which still hasn’t been cleaned up, as Chevron sued to overturn the judgment of Ecuador’s court by obtaining a judgment in its favor in US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The company admitted long ago that it dumped toxic waste into the waterways of the Amazon rainforest and abandoned huge open pits of the stuff as well, but it refuses to accept responsibility for its own actions.

After the Ecuadorean court’s decision, Chevron sold all of its assets in the country, and it left without paying a dime.  Legal convolutions followed, with Chevron claiming that the Ecuadorean villagers fabricated their story and won in court with bribery and fraud. The case being heard by Judge Lewis Kaplan in the New York District Court is a countersuit to invalidate the decision of Ecuador’s court.

Whether a US District Court has jurisdiction to overturn the decision of a court in another country isn’t clear. Judge Kaplan’s opinionated remarks disparaging Ecuador and its judicial system indicate that its decisions don’t hold as much weight as those of a London court would, in his estimation. 

Lurking in the background is the issue of Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS) which are now a regular element in free-trade agreements like TPP and TTIP. 

When a country’s judicial system is unresponsive in a suit arising from a trade-related issue, an ISDS is supposed to offer another means for settling disputes through arbitration.  Following that process, an international tribunal cleared Chevron of any wrong-doing last October.  For anyone wondering why there are suspicions about the inclusion of ISDS in free-trade agreements, there’s your answer.

Meanwhile, Chevron’s countersuit creeps slowly to its conclusion in New York’s District Court where Judge Lewis Kaplan doesn’t appear to be very sympathetic to the Ecuadorean villagers either.  Recent reporting said that Judge Kaplan has insulted and disparaged the Ecuadorians by referring to them as the “so-called plaintiffs.”

Particularly perplexing is the story of a witness who travelled from Ecuador to testify:

“Another Ecuadorian, Donald Moncayo, who organizes tours of the contaminated areas in the rainforest, traveled for two days from the rainforest to New York's concrete jungle to testify. While on the stand, he mentioned his laptop. Judge Kaplan asked Moncayo if the laptop had with him in New York. When he answered, yes, Kaplan turned to Chevron's lawyer, Randy Mastro, and said, "Take it from here, Mr. Mastro." Mastro then motioned to seize the laptop, and Kaplan ordered it turned over to Chevron within two hours. Since Moncayo was not one of the named defendants in Chevron's RICO case, he had no legal representation. Kaplan denied motions to allow him time to find an attorney.

Afterwards, standing on a noisy New York City street, Moncayo had no idea why three men in expensive black suits in a Lincoln town car were driving away with his laptop, which they kept for 14 hours. On the laptop were photos of his children and wife. This high-drama tactic produced nothing for Chevron, except a story that Moncayo will never forget and will repeat over and over again. His parting words at the airport were, "I will never step foot in this country again."

If there’s no justice for the Ecuadorean villagers in New York, they may have found it in Toronto, Canada, instead.  The plaintiffs traveled there to target Chevron's $15 billion worth of assets in Canada.

Dec 17 2013 (Reuters) - An Ontario appeals court ruled on Tuesday that a group of Ecuadoreans can seek enforcement in Canada of a $9.5 billion judgment against U.S. oil company Chevron Corp, overturning a lower court decision from earlier in the year.

In the latest turn of a two-decade conflict between Chevron and residents of Ecuador's Lago Agrio region in the Amazon jungle, a three-judge panel said the case should proceed, which means the Ecuadoreans can seek damages in Canada that were originally awarded to them in a South American court two years ago.

"After all these years, the plaintiffs deserve to have the recognition and enforcement of the (Ecuadorean) judgment heard on the merits in an appropriate jurisdiction. At this juncture, Ontario is that jurisdiction," the panel wrote in a 29-page decision.

Free-trade agreements with ISDS provisions are supposed to provide resolution in disputes like the one between Chevron and Ecuador.  The tribunal ruled in favor of Chevron based on the trade agreement in effect at the time between the US and Ecuador.  

But the most important lesson to be learned from the case is this:

The tribunal didn’t issue the initial ruling on the matter.  It's decision came after the decision of Ecuador’s Supreme Court.  The tribunal knew that a decision had already been made by the sovereign court of Ecuador and it inserted itself into the decision and overruled it.  By doing so, it pushed the boundaries of the ISDS process beyond the established definition.

The EU provides a list of FAQs for its citizens with questions about TTIP. The same information would apply in the US, too, in a reciprocal agreement.

• Q: Will the TTIP automatically trump EU laws?
  A: "The TTIP will not automatically overrule, repeal or amend EU laws and regulations."
• Q: Why is the EU including Investor to State Dispute Settlement in the TTIP?
  A: " . . . Including measures to protect investors does not prevent governments from passing laws, nor does it lead to laws being repealed."

Yet, the tribunal did overrule Ecuador's court. The EU language and the organization that authorizes the tribunals refers to them as a resource available to investors. It seems that they're available to commercial business enterprises but not ordinary individuals.  Yet, the tribunal's decision for the dispute between Chevron and Ecuador had a very definite effect on ordinary Ecuadoreans.

For more information about the ISDS tribunals, authorized by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), an arbitration court of the World Bank, follow the link.

When there are important questions without answers, and there’s talk in the US Congress of putting these free-trade agreements on fast-track, it seems like pressure to pass a measure without the proper scrutiny.

For more information about the story of the Ecuadorean villagers, this is a good resource.

For more information about the Chevron vs. Ecuador ISDS decision, this is a knowledgable analysis.

Originally posted to Mark Lippman on Sun Jan 12, 2014

Technorati Tags: Congress,Free Trade,Barack Obama,NAFTA,TPP,Investor-State Dispute Settlements,ISDS,Trans-Pacific Partnership,Current Events

 

A Very Sad Person, Also A Vindictive Petty Lying Thug

  By by Abby Zimet  on January 10,2014

With today's release of a trove of newly incriminating documents, the gaudy, grubby spectacle of Chris Christie's bridge debacle just keeps getting worse. And while it's a dispiriting reflection of the state of our political landscape, it's also been a ripe incubator for what's come in its messy wake: entertainingly merciless put-downs from the likes of the New York Daily News, which concludes Christie is either a petty hack who surrrounded himself with lying vindictive thugs or is himself a lying vindictive thug (we vote for both); video compilations showing that actually, yes, he is a bully; Twitter compilations of the most hilariously skeptical responses to his marathon presser; a raft of brutal cartoons; and one lonesome, defiant, WTF expression of support from the New York Sun, which wonders why everyone's being so mean to Christie when sheesh Obama shut down the whole country and even White House tours, not just a dumb bridge, "for the sole purpose of political payback," so howcum nobody's calling him a bully, huh? The argument that “we get the political leaders we deserve” has been variously attributed to Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexis de Tocqueville and George Bernard Shaw. It's alot to ask, but let's hope they're all wrong.  Common Dreams

Technorati Tags: Chris Christie,Bullying,Republican Party,Bridgeghazi,Bridge-Gate,Current Events,Politics

Friday Funnies: Chris Christie Edition

  Stephen Colbert: "The president of the United States of New Jersey Chris Christie is in hot water. Ok, hold on, I just pictured him in a hot tub. Shake it off."

"New emails link top aides in the Christie administration to a shutdown on the George Washington bridge back in September. It was traffic on a biblical scale, with New Jersey highways backed up  for days, which is slightly longer than normal."

Conan O'Brien: "Chris Christie is being accused of getting back at a political rival by blocking access to the George Washington Bridge. Christie said, 'I never blocked access to the GWB, I blocked access to a KFC.'"

Jimmy Fallon : "Chris Christie is dealing with a scandal after it was revealed that a top aide shut down access to the George Washington Bridge to get back at a Democratic mayor for not endorsing him. Christie was furious when they blocked the bridge because he thought they said they were blocking the fridge."

Jay Leno : "Apparently somebody in Governor Christie's office was involved in that traffic lane closure at the George Washington Bridge that clogged up a major artery and caused a huge traffic jam. But Christie is denying any personal involvement. He said he was too busy clogging his own artery at the time."

"Pundits are saying this could hurt Christie's 2016 presidential campaign. The ironic thing is that now Christie is denying everything, he sounds even more presidential."

Technorati Tags: Chris Christie,New Jersey,Politics,Current Events,Jay Leno,Conan O'Brian,Political Humor

Former Christie aide takes the Fifth before New Jersey Assembly

by Laura Clawson     on Thursday, January  09, 2014
 As New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wrapped up his epic, nearly two-hour press conference asserting that he knew absolutely nothing about his top aides' closing of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, one of them was getting set to testify before a state Assembly committee. Or not. David Wildstein, the former Port Authority executive from whom Christie so energetically distanced himself during the press conference, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights. Which is not exactly adhering to the Christie message:

Wildstein invoking the 5th here might not be surprising, but it sure contradicts Christie saying earlier there should be nothing to hide — @mmurraypolitics

Good thing Christie barely knows high school classmate he put in charge of Port Authority who’s now pleading 5th, or this would look bad. — @jamisonfoser

It sure will be interesting to see the results of a real, extensive investigation into who knew what when. 11:23 AM PT:

Committee holds New Jersey transportation official in contempt for refusing to answer questions on bridge scandal http://t.co/...
— @ReutersUS

Couldn’t Pass This One up: White guys are an endangered species, and everyone else votes wrong

Daily Kos   Wednesday Jan 8, 2014

Welcome to 2014, yet another critical election year, in a long line of critical election years. Has there ever been a year that wasn't a critical election year? These things matter. Elections have real consequences.

This is an off-year election, so it will be a base election. That also means we have to contend with decreased base Democratic performance. In short, our core constituencies don't vote in non-presidential years—Latinos, Asians, single women, and young voters. African Americans used to be on that list, but their off-year voting patterns have held up over the last several cycles. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe says thanks to that. (Voters aged 18-29 went from 19 percent of the Virginia vote in 2012, to 13 percent in 2013. African Americans amazingly held steady at 20 percent.)

That's not to say that all's well in the black community. Mitt Romney won Georgia by about 370,000 votes. There are 600,000 unregistered African Americans who would be eligible to vote in Georgia, about 400,000 in them in metro Atlanta alone. (There are also 200,000 unregistered Latinos, for good measure.) You can do the math.

Bottom line, if our people turn out, we win. It really is that simple. There are more of us than there are of them. Register our people and get them to the polls, and all the Republican intensity in the world will mean little. But that's the only way we win, because Republicans will have no problems getting their people to the polls.

Indeed, Republicans are seeing their entire worldview crumble. Even though Obamacare was invented at Heritage and implemented by their 2012 presidential nominee, they've convinced themselves that it is worse than Hitler. And yet it is the law and won't be going anywhere.

Getting rid of the filibuster will now allow Democrats to "pack" the courts and agencies by, you know, filling vacancies.

There are married gay people in UTAH! Their innermost stronghold has been breached, and even though the Supreme Court stayed that decision, 17 states now allow unfettered love and commitment, and more will soon follow suit. And what's more, if the courts were to strike down marriage bans, Americans would approve!

Colorado and Washington have legalized pot. More states, from Alaska to Maine to Montana, will soon follow. Getting drunk on Bud Light is totally butch and awesome, even if you kill people or start a pub brawl or get liver cirrhosis. Mellowing out to a joint, however, means the fall of civilization.

White guys are an endangered species, and everyone else votes wrong.

Elizabeth Warren. First she starts that Consumer Finance Protection Board that is holding banks accountable for stuff. Then she gets elected to the Senate despite something something about Native Americans! And people take her seriously!

There's a black guy in the White House. Twice. And if that's not bad enough, the Clintons (the Clintons!) are the most likely successors. How could that be? Don't the American sheeple understand that Benghazi?

Fewer people are buying guns, and fewer people yet are tolerant of dead children as a result of said guns.

We can mock conservative neurosis, and we will, but it's actually very real. They really do believe that the "Leave it to Beaver" America of their fantasies is all but lost. And given how terrible the 2016 Senate map looks to Republicans, not to mention presidential year turnout, 2014 is really a last-gasp opportunity for the retrogrades.

If they lose this year and 2016, they'll have zero choice but to rebrand. They don't want to do that. They want to cling to every last one of their bigotries and hatreds. If they fail this year, they are done, and they know it. They are a rabid animal, backed into a corner, and everyone knows how dangerous those can be.

There's really nothing we can do about that. They're revved up and ready to go. We have to answer in kind. 2014 will come down to one thing: Can we register and motivate base Democrats to hit the polls in November? That's my job, your job, and that of your like-minded friends. Little else will matter.

There are more of us than them. If our people vote, we win.

Technorati Tags: Mitch McConnell,2014,Elections,The Senate,The House,Current Events,An American Gothic

Stoned State of Colorado

   Once again, we are taking a short trip overseas to see what one foreign country thinks about the legalization of weed in the state of Colorado. That country would be Poland.

From Watching America comes the article in the Polish Gazeta Wyborcza - Original Article (Polish)

By Mariusz Zawadzki
Translated By Natalia Suta
30 December 2013   Edited by Bora Mici
From Jan. 1, in the state of Colorado, it will be possible to go to a store and buy weed in various forms, ranging from dried marijuana leaves for rolling a joint to marijuana cookies and drinks. There will be no need for a phony prescription, as is the case with so-called medical marijuana, which was legalized in 20 states. Colorado is entering the highest level of cannabis debauchery — it is sufficient that you have money in your pocket and that you are over 21. Residents will be able to buy 28 grams (1 ounce) in one go, and incomers from outside the state, 7 grams.
Local media are full of enthusiastic reports about marijuana tourists, who are arriving in Colorado from other states in order to start the New Year stoned or replenish their stock. “We are expecting lines just like those for Pink Floyd tickets,” a shop owner in Denver said joyfully during an interview with Reuters. He was among the first to obtain a license.
However, on their way back home, cannabis tourists have to take extra precautions.
They should avoid Kansas, bordering Colorado to the east, where being caught with 25 grams of marijuana results in a four-year prison term, or even eight years, if one has the bad luck of being arrested within 300 meters of a school. The county sheriff in Kansas will turn a deaf ear to explanations that weed was bought legally, and he will not care about a receipt form the shop in Denver.
To make it even funnier, formally speaking, Colorado's cannabis bonanza that begins on New Year's Day will be completely illegal. U.S. federal law, which theoretically affects all 50 states and Washington, D.C., forbids the manufacturing, sale or possession of marijuana.
If Obama's government treated the law seriously, it would send FBI agents to each shop in Denver to arrest sellers and buyers on a daily basis. According to federal law, possession of marijuana is punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of $1,000. The penalty for selling less than 50 kilograms is five years in jail and a fine of $250,000. Wholesalers who distribute marijuana to shops in Colorado fall within the strictest paragraph — selling a ton or more of the drug is punishable by a minimum of 10 years in jail to life imprisonment, plus a fine of $1 million.
Formally speaking, a state referendum held in November 2012, when the Colorado residents decided to abolish marijuana bans, was also illegal. States have no right to overrule federal law, but Obama's government announced that it will not go after marijuana-related crimes in the states that rebelled — apart from Colorado, there is also Washington, where legal sales will start in a few months.
This way — as marijuana legalization supporters argue — prisons will not be filled with a host of random young people who would only get demoralized behind bars and then set free as dangerous degenerates. The state of Colorado will earn a pile of money — marijuana is taxed at 25 percent — that will be used for building schools and other noble goals. Additional savings will come from the police not going after weed dealers.
Rebels from Colorado boast that they are trendsetters in this parade of humanity. They are even ahead of Amsterdam, where, in spite of common belief, marijuana is not legal at all but merely tolerated by the government and law enforcement agencies. They predict that in a few months or years other states will follow in Colorado's footsteps.
Maybe in 20 years, hardly anybody will remember that marijuana used to be banned in the United States. Just like nowadays, hardly anyone remembers that oral sex was illegal in the 1990s in the state of Maryland, for example; in general, all practices considered perverse and against nature were illegal. Such practices included "touching with one's lips somebody else's genitals," as precisely and graphically illustrated by the state law. Formally speaking, this sexual behavior was seen as an offense even among married couples enjoying intimacy in their own home.
We are mentioning the forgotten regulations from Maryland not in order to praise oral sex. On the contrary, we consider it a sin, and we strongly advise you against it, just as we advise against smoking marijuana and other ignominies of this type. However, we also discourage outlawing them entirely, as it has turned out to be very impractical in both cases.

Technorati Tags: Colorado,Marijuana,Legalization,Poland,Stoners,Current Events