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My goal is to post liberal talking points to combat those from the right.

Monday, March 29, 2010

What Do We Call The Tea-Baggers?

At one point, in their ignorant stupor, they proudly called themselves “teabaggers”. Then when the left continued to laugh at them for not recognizing the irony, they decided to change to “tea-partiers”* and that those calling them teabaggers were being gross and disgusting. Funny how that’s exactly the feeling of the left when the ‘baggers first called themselves teabaggers. Glen Beck is still gross and disgusting.
Recently, I was warned of being banned from commenting on a newspaper forum for using the term teabaggers. Seems my free speech isn’t as important as CorpAmerica. But it’s cool, there are so many names that can be used. Morans is one of my favorites but it’s so last year. I coined “gullibles” but it hasn’t caught on. I have seen “hatriotic’s” but I think I am going with one I first saw on DU, “Foxholes”.

* Of course the Foxholes don’t recognize that the original tea-partiers were rebelling against the tyrannical capitalism of the largest corporation in the world at the time, The East India Company. Idiots, er I mean Foxholes.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Ten Immediate Benefits of HCR

From crooksandliars.com

By karoli Sunday Mar 21, 2010 5:45pm

Here are ten benefits which come online within six months of the President's signature on the health care bill:

1. Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until their 27th birthday

2. Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions

3. No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage

4. Free preventative care for all

5. Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds.

6. Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.

7. The “donut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors.

8. Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.

9. Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.

10. AND no more rescissions. Effective immediately, you can't lose your insurance because you get sick.

Dont ever forget that the Republicans to a person did not want these benefits. They totally to the person support the predatory health insurers.

Friday, March 19, 2010

HCR Will Reduce Deficit to the Chagrin of Repubs

One major Republican talking point against health care reform is that it is too expensive. Well now the Congressional Business Office (CBO) has evaluated the Senate Health Care Reform bill and found to no ones surprise that the Republicans are full of crap. The CBO estimates that the new Senate passed HCR bill will REDUCE the deficit by $138 billions of dollars. But when shown the facts the Republicans still don’t want to vote for the bill. They are too heavily in debt to the predatory health INSURANCE industry.

Now it should be pointed out that these same Republicans voted for Medicare Part D when they were in power which the CBO estimates will INCREASE the deficit by $394 billions of dollars. And they voted for Bush’s 2003 tax breaks for the wealthy which the CBO estimates will INCREASE the deficit by $348 billions of dollars. And of course they voted in favor of the 2001 Bush tax breaks for the wealthy which the CBO estimates will INCREASE the deficit by $1.3 TRILLIONS of dollars, yes that’s trillions with a T. When the Republicans were in power they voted these bills thru with no provision to pay for them. They borrowed the money from Communist China and your children will pay off the debt via new TAXES.

But when we get a bill that will not only save lives (never a big deal for the Republicans) but will REDUCE the deficit, the Republicans are against it. When are the gullible T-baggers ever going to catch on to this theft? (rhetorical)

Friday, March 12, 2010

Danziger Bridge Killings

Jeffrey Lehrmann, a former police detective for the New Orleans Police Dept pleaded guilty in federal court to a charge that he failed to report a cover-up in the investigation of the Danziger Bridge shootings in New Orleans, the Department of Justice said in a statement Thursday, March 11, 2010.
Lehrmann also admitted he helped compile a false report on the incidents, and was with others when they planted a gun as part of the cover-up, according to court documents.
Last month, former police Lt. Michael Lohman pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in connection with the cover-up.
Two civilians were killed and four others wounded in the shootings on September 4, 2005, six days after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast.
The incident on the morning of Sept. 4, 2005, occurred on the Danziger Bridge, which crosses the Industrial Canal in eastern New Orleans. Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old mentally disabled man, was shot to death outside a motel on the Gentilly side of the bridge.
James Brissette, 19, was killed on the eastern side of the bridge, while four people walking with him with were seriously wounded. Susan Bartholomew lost part of her arm in the shooting and her husband, Leonard Bartholomew III, was shot in the head. Their daughter, Leisha Bartholomew and a nephew, Jose Holmes, suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Leonard Bartholomew IV, a teenage son, was uninjured.
The police claim they were being shot at, although there was no evidence to prove that claim except a gun that was later determined to be planted by the police.
One of the suspects, Lance Madison, was arrested and charged with eight counts of attempted murder against police officers.
"I didn't do anything wrong, and I had no reason to be arrested. I was up here trying to seek help for me and my little brother, trying to evacuate from the devastation going on down here," says Madison, a 49-year-old former college wide receiver, standing at the foot of the bridge where the incident occurred.
Madison, a 25-year employee of Federal Express, has no criminal record and is a member of a respected New Orleans family.
The man he was with -- referred to by the police as "the unidentified gunman" -- was his brother, 40-year-old Ronald, who had mental retardation. His family describes him as a childlike soul who loved the family's two dachshunds and watched Three Stooges videos.
Lance says that on that Sunday morning, he and Ronald -- their homes flooded -- were crossing the bridge on their way to another brother's dental office where they were staying after the storm.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6063982
Not only did the police fail to help citizens in need, they brutalized them. They terrorized them, shooting and killing without cause and without warning.
It should not go unnoticed that the police were white and the victims were black. Nor should it go unnoticed that the victims were poor and fleeing for safety to a higher class neighborhood.
It should also not go unnoticed that there was little corporate media coverage of this story. I guess there were already too many stories of white police killing innocent black citizens. Damn liberal media.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

You Cant Have Democracy Without Free Elections and a Free Press

Mark Crispin Miller wrote an article for The Free Press on July 24, 2005, summarized by Mary Anne Saucier. The article is at: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1383

None dare call it stolen - Ohio, the election, and America's servile press

In the article Mr. Miller lists the copious evidence pointing to a stolen election, easily available on the web or in paperback, from Michigan Representative John Conyers’ report, Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio. More than dirty tricks, it covers “the run-up to the election, the election itself, and the post-election cover-up,” listing “specific violations of the U.S. and Ohio constitutions, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Help America Vote Act.”

The Conyers report details the disenfranchisement of Democrats through “intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.”

* There was unequal placement of voting machines [apparently to favor Republican districts].

* County boards of elections were ordered to reject all Ohio voter-registration forms not printed on white, uncoated paper of not less than 80 lb. text weight. [Making it easier to pick and choose which registrations to reject]

* “Caging”was used to challenge 35,000 individuals who did not sign for registered letters sent to new voters.

* There was restriction of media from covering the election and conducting exit polls.

* There was a prearranged FBI terrorist attack warning in Warren County which kept reporters from observing a post-election ballot-counting.

* In Cuyahoga and Franklin Counties, “the arrows on the absentee ballots were not properly aligned with their respective punch holes, so that countless votes were miscast.”

* In Mercer County, 4000 votes were mysteriously not in the final count.

* In Lucas County a polling place never opened because no one had the key.

* In Hamilton County, many absentee voters could not vote for Kerry because his name was not on the ballot.

* In Mahoning County 25 electronic machines were found to change Kerry votes to Bush.

* Dirty tricks included:
Telling voters to go to false polling places;
Telling Democrats were to vote on November 3;
Volunteers offered to take absentee ballots to the election office;
Voters were challenged to prove eligibility to vote.
The “Texas Strike Force” (25 people registered at a Franklin County Holiday Inn, paid by the Republican Party) threatened targeted people from a pay phone, if they voted.

* On December 13, 2004, it was reported by Deputy Director of Hocking County Elections Sherole Eaton, that a Triad GSI employee had changed the computer that operated the tabulating machine, and had “advised election officials how to manipulate voting machinery to ensure that preliminary hand recount matched the machine count.” This same Triad employee said he worked on machines in Lorain, Muskingum, Clark, Harrison, and Guernsey counties.

[Not only does it appear the election was stolen, our corporate media totally ignored the discrepancies. mo]

Monday, March 8, 2010

For-profit prisons, the new growth industry in America

A Tyler, Texas man gets 35 years in prison for possession of marijuana.

http://www.dfwnorml.org/forum/here-home/tyler-texas-man-gets-35-years-46-ounces-marijuana-852.html

Interesting that Tyler, Texas is the home of a for-profit prison, T. Don Hutto. Hutto is famous for detaining suspected illegal immigrants for “processing” which seems to take an extraordinarily long time, making them bigger profits. Innocent children, many American citizens, are held there behind bars costing the taxpayers a bundle, more than housing them in a first class hotel.

The for-profit prison system is the newest growth industry in America. It’s a win-win for everyone. The investors, like Dick, son of Satan, Cheney, and the prison-corp CEO’s make millions from the prisons profits. And Nancy Grace is in hog heaven (really no pun intended) over the tough sentencing. “No sentence is too tough”, for Nancy.

The prison’s even have lobbyists that pay legislators money to pass harsh penalties. The tougher the sentences, the more profits. Everybody happy?

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Government Insurance is OK for the Rich

Dick Cheney has had five heart attacks and he is still plugging along. Some say he made a pact with the devil but that’s a discussion for another day. But Dick Cheney gets excellent health care. Yes he does. Mr. Cheney is very wealthy and really doesn’t need insurance but he has great insurance. He has the government run insurance that all the republicans in Congress have. They love it while telling the gullibles among us that such insurance is SOCIALISTIC and will kill America and Democracy and Mickey Mouse. The gullibles haven’t figured out that the rich republicans are happy with their government run insurance but won’t allow the less fortunate among us the same opportunity.

We need Medicare because the for-profit insurance companies would never insure our elderly. Why cant we allow others that cant get insurance access to Medicare?

Dear gullibles: “It isn’t that they want you to die, they just don’t care if you live.”