The so-called republican Pledge is grounded in the same worn-out philosophy: cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires; cut the rules for Wall Street and the special interests; and cut the middle class loose to fend for itself," That's not a prescription for a better future. It's an echo of a disastrous decade we can't afford to relive."
One of the ideas that's drawn the most interest on their Web site is ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. When Obama recently closed one of the most egregious loopholes for companies creating jobs overseas, Republicans in Congress were almost unanimously opposed.
Republicans in Congress were oposed to the stimulus, saying that it would not stimulate the economy but later lined up to get stimulus mony saying it would stimulate the economy in their districts. What Hypocrites!
25 September, 2010
Republican "pledge" is a fraud
The Republican so-called "Pledge" contains no credible plan to reduce this debt. On the contrary, it would increase the debt by $4 trillion -- yes, trillion -- by extending all the expiring Bush tax cuts and adding new ones, including a poorly conceived deduction for small businesses. Talk about picking winners and losers; the tax code is already laden with special benefits for small business. This latest deduction would cost $25 billion over two years.
It shirks the politically sensitive task of explaining where the savings would come from. It tosses out a few, relatively small-dollar ideas -- "cutting Congress' budget" and "imposing a net hiring freeze on non-security federal employees," saving $35 billion over 10 years -- and then resorts to the old waste, fraud and abuse dodge.
The biggest dodge of all involves entitlement spending. The Republicans would repeal the Obama health-care plan, a plan that at least holds out the prospect of slowing the growth of health-care spending in general and Medicare in particular
It shirks the politically sensitive task of explaining where the savings would come from. It tosses out a few, relatively small-dollar ideas -- "cutting Congress' budget" and "imposing a net hiring freeze on non-security federal employees," saving $35 billion over 10 years -- and then resorts to the old waste, fraud and abuse dodge.
The biggest dodge of all involves entitlement spending. The Republicans would repeal the Obama health-care plan, a plan that at least holds out the prospect of slowing the growth of health-care spending in general and Medicare in particular
22 September, 2010
worth repeating
The republican PARTY OF NO rail against so called "legislating from the bench" and "over-turning precedent." but the Republicans on the Supreme Court do just that.
They recently cast off two precedents and struck decades-old prohibitions on the role of corporations in campaigns. They say one thing and do just the oposite and THAT MY FRIENDS IS HYPOCRISY.
Republicans are good at calling names, demonizing all who disagree, and LYING, as with death panels and all the rest.
We must remember that they brought us 1. the 9/11 atack on their watch, 2. the false war on Iraq, 3. dropping the ball on Afghanistan, and 4. the economic collapse. Lies don't change the facts.
They recently cast off two precedents and struck decades-old prohibitions on the role of corporations in campaigns. They say one thing and do just the oposite and THAT MY FRIENDS IS HYPOCRISY.
Republicans are good at calling names, demonizing all who disagree, and LYING, as with death panels and all the rest.
We must remember that they brought us 1. the 9/11 atack on their watch, 2. the false war on Iraq, 3. dropping the ball on Afghanistan, and 4. the economic collapse. Lies don't change the facts.
what republicans are going to abolish
Here's what the Patient's Bill of Rights means for you:
No more discrimination against kids with pre-existing conditions. Insurance companies can no longer bar families from purchasing coverage because of a child's pre-existing condition.
No more lifetime coverage limits. Insurance companies can no longer put a lifetime limit on the amount of coverage you can receive.
Young adults can now stay on their parent's plan. Young adults can stay on their parent's health insurance plan up to age 26 if their job doesn't provide health care benefits -- a huge relief for many parents and recent college graduates.
Free preventive care. If you join or purchase a new plan, the insurance company will be required to provide preventive care like mammograms, colonoscopies, immunizations, pre-natal and baby care without charging you any out of pocket costs.
Freedom to choose your own doctor. If you purchase or join a new plan, you have the right to choose your own doctor in your insurer network.
No more restrictions on emergency room care. Insurance companies will not be allowed to charge you more for out of network emergency services if you purchase or join a new a plan.
This is a long-overdue
victory for American consumers and patients. For years, millions of Americans have been at the mercy of their insurance companies as they jacked up rates, denied coverage or dropped patients all together.
Republicans are vowing to take the above away.
No more discrimination against kids with pre-existing conditions. Insurance companies can no longer bar families from purchasing coverage because of a child's pre-existing condition.
No more lifetime coverage limits. Insurance companies can no longer put a lifetime limit on the amount of coverage you can receive.
Young adults can now stay on their parent's plan. Young adults can stay on their parent's health insurance plan up to age 26 if their job doesn't provide health care benefits -- a huge relief for many parents and recent college graduates.
Free preventive care. If you join or purchase a new plan, the insurance company will be required to provide preventive care like mammograms, colonoscopies, immunizations, pre-natal and baby care without charging you any out of pocket costs.
Freedom to choose your own doctor. If you purchase or join a new plan, you have the right to choose your own doctor in your insurer network.
No more restrictions on emergency room care. Insurance companies will not be allowed to charge you more for out of network emergency services if you purchase or join a new a plan.
This is a long-overdue
victory for American consumers and patients. For years, millions of Americans have been at the mercy of their insurance companies as they jacked up rates, denied coverage or dropped patients all together.
Republicans are vowing to take the above away.
21 September, 2010
republicans,guns, 14th Amendment
Second Amendment as Written
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. When the NRA and like organizations refer to the amendment and discuss its application, they most often treat it as if it were written as follows:
The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
What happened to the first part, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,? What happened to that first phrase????
Why are those words in there (up front, at that)?
How does including the first part change the content of the Amendment?
What did they mean by including the first phrase?
I have not seen any even discussion of that.
It's as if those 13 out of 27 words are not even there. Why???
We could have a like discussion about the 14th Amendment with those who claim that
they revere the Constitution, "take our country back to the Constitution."
I hear and read that only the radicals that claim devotion to our Constitution want to change it, throw parts of it out.
How ironic. More phony political republican rhetoric, seems to me.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. When the NRA and like organizations refer to the amendment and discuss its application, they most often treat it as if it were written as follows:
The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
What happened to the first part, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,? What happened to that first phrase????
Why are those words in there (up front, at that)?
How does including the first part change the content of the Amendment?
What did they mean by including the first phrase?
I have not seen any even discussion of that.
It's as if those 13 out of 27 words are not even there. Why???
We could have a like discussion about the 14th Amendment with those who claim that
they revere the Constitution, "take our country back to the Constitution."
I hear and read that only the radicals that claim devotion to our Constitution want to change it, throw parts of it out.
How ironic. More phony political republican rhetoric, seems to me.
07 September, 2010
another Republican liar
In a recent interview with Human Events, a conservative magazine and Web site, Barbour gave his version of how the South, once a Democratic stronghold, became a Republican bastion. The 62-year-old Barbour claimed that it was "my generation" that led the switch: "my generation, who went to integrated schools.
I went to integrated college -- never thought twice about it." The "old Democrats" fought integration tooth and nail, Barbour said, but "by my time, people realized that was the past, it was indefensible, it wasn't gonna be that way anymore. And so the people who really changed the South from Democrat to Republican was a different generation from those who fought integration."
Barbour did not attend "integrated schools," if he's referring to his primary and secondary education. Mississippi ignored the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that was meant to end separate-but-unequal school systems. Eventually, officials implemented a "freedom of choice" desegregation plan -- but black parents who tried to send their children to white schools were threatened and intimidated, including by cross-burnings.
Finally, in 1969, the Supreme Court ordered Mississippi to integrate its schools immediately. The long-stalled change took place in 1970. That was long after Barbour had graduated from high school.
That was long after Barbour had graduated from high school in Yazoo City and gone on to attend the University of Mississippi -- the "integrated college" he mentioned in the interview. The federal government had forced Ole Miss to admit its first black student, James Meredith, in 1962; he had to be escorted onto the campus by U.S. marshals as white students rioted in protest.
The following year, a second black student was admitted. In the mid-1960s, when Barbour was attending Ole Miss, it's no wonder that he "never thought twice" about integration. There were only a handful of black students, and by all accounts -- except Barbour's -- they were isolated and ostracized by their white peers.
The governor's assertion that segregation was a relic of the past "by my time" is ludicrous. He was 16, certainly old enough to pay attention, during the Freedom Summer of 1964, when civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan near Philadelphia, Miss.
He was a young adult, on his way to becoming a lawyer, when the public schools were forced to integrate. I'll bet Barbour could remember those days if he tried a little harder.
Equally wrong -- and perhaps deliberately disingenuous -- is his made-up narrative of how the South turned Republican. Barbour's fairy tale(LIE) doesn't remotely resemble what really happened.
As he signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law, Lyndon Johnson is supposed to have said that the Democratic Party had "lost the South for a generation." Among those who voted against the landmark legislation was Sen. Barry Goldwater, who became Johnson's opponent in the presidential race that fall.
Johnson scored a landslide victory. Goldwater took his home state of Arizona and just five others: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. It was the first time those Deep South states had voted for a Republican presidential candidate since Reconstruction -- and marked the moment when, for many Southern voters, the GOP became the party of white racial grievance. It wasn't "a different generation from those who fought integration" that made the switch. Integration was the whole reason for the switch.
Now, Haley Barbour is not stupid. Why is he telling this ridiculous story? Maybe this is the way he wishes things had been. You'll recall that earlier this year, when asked about a Confederate history month proclamation in Virginia that didn't mention the detail known as slavery, Barbour said the whole thing "doesn't amount to diddly." Most charitably, all this might be called denial.
It's much more likely, however, that Barbour has a political purpose. The Republican Party is trying to shake its image as hostile to African Americans and other minorities. It would be consistent with this attempted makeover to pretend that the party never sought, and won, the votes of die-hard segregationists. One problem, though: It did.
I went to integrated college -- never thought twice about it." The "old Democrats" fought integration tooth and nail, Barbour said, but "by my time, people realized that was the past, it was indefensible, it wasn't gonna be that way anymore. And so the people who really changed the South from Democrat to Republican was a different generation from those who fought integration."
Barbour did not attend "integrated schools," if he's referring to his primary and secondary education. Mississippi ignored the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that was meant to end separate-but-unequal school systems. Eventually, officials implemented a "freedom of choice" desegregation plan -- but black parents who tried to send their children to white schools were threatened and intimidated, including by cross-burnings.
Finally, in 1969, the Supreme Court ordered Mississippi to integrate its schools immediately. The long-stalled change took place in 1970. That was long after Barbour had graduated from high school.
That was long after Barbour had graduated from high school in Yazoo City and gone on to attend the University of Mississippi -- the "integrated college" he mentioned in the interview. The federal government had forced Ole Miss to admit its first black student, James Meredith, in 1962; he had to be escorted onto the campus by U.S. marshals as white students rioted in protest.
The following year, a second black student was admitted. In the mid-1960s, when Barbour was attending Ole Miss, it's no wonder that he "never thought twice" about integration. There were only a handful of black students, and by all accounts -- except Barbour's -- they were isolated and ostracized by their white peers.
The governor's assertion that segregation was a relic of the past "by my time" is ludicrous. He was 16, certainly old enough to pay attention, during the Freedom Summer of 1964, when civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan near Philadelphia, Miss.
He was a young adult, on his way to becoming a lawyer, when the public schools were forced to integrate. I'll bet Barbour could remember those days if he tried a little harder.
Equally wrong -- and perhaps deliberately disingenuous -- is his made-up narrative of how the South turned Republican. Barbour's fairy tale(LIE) doesn't remotely resemble what really happened.
As he signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law, Lyndon Johnson is supposed to have said that the Democratic Party had "lost the South for a generation." Among those who voted against the landmark legislation was Sen. Barry Goldwater, who became Johnson's opponent in the presidential race that fall.
Johnson scored a landslide victory. Goldwater took his home state of Arizona and just five others: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. It was the first time those Deep South states had voted for a Republican presidential candidate since Reconstruction -- and marked the moment when, for many Southern voters, the GOP became the party of white racial grievance. It wasn't "a different generation from those who fought integration" that made the switch. Integration was the whole reason for the switch.
Now, Haley Barbour is not stupid. Why is he telling this ridiculous story? Maybe this is the way he wishes things had been. You'll recall that earlier this year, when asked about a Confederate history month proclamation in Virginia that didn't mention the detail known as slavery, Barbour said the whole thing "doesn't amount to diddly." Most charitably, all this might be called denial.
It's much more likely, however, that Barbour has a political purpose. The Republican Party is trying to shake its image as hostile to African Americans and other minorities. It would be consistent with this attempted makeover to pretend that the party never sought, and won, the votes of die-hard segregationists. One problem, though: It did.
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