Friday, June 29, 2012

The hypocrisy of Mitt Romney & Jim DeMint on health-care reform

The following is from an article by Andrew Romano writing at The Daily Beast.


Back in 2004, 2005, and 2006 a very intelligent, very meticulous man spent a lot of time studying health-care reform. Eventually, he concluded that universal private coverage would only be possible if people were required to pay a fee when they refused to buy insurance. “It’s a kind of mandate,” he explained. “Help everybody get in the pool. That brings down the cost, and at the same time [it] makes sure that people don’t have to worry about losing their coverage... We want everybody in the system. No more free riders.” His name was Mitt Romney. A year or two later, one of Romney’s fellow Republicans praised his Massachusetts reforms, saying “well, that’s something that I think we should do for the whole country.” His name was Jim DeMint.

Fast & Furious another name for Republican chicanery!

[Photo from lifestyleterrorists.blogspot.com]


Mother Jones says:

The "Fast and Furious" imbroglio may have just gone sideways on House Republicans. Just prior to them leading a House vote for contempt against Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday, a far-reaching investigation published by Fortune magazine poked major holes in the conservative storyline about the alleged gun operation. Claims that law enforcement engaged in a deadly plot to let Mexican outlaws smuggle US guns, the magazine reports, are based on allegations by a lone whistleblower who may in fact be the only person who did any illegal gun-smuggling. The real cause of violence and crime south of the border, it reports, is lax gun laws in Arizona and elsewhere pushed by Republicans and their friends at the National Rifle Association.

Read the rest of this enlightening article from Mother Jones here.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Monday, June 25, 2012

Giving millionaires one more tax break...the Ryan Plan

The following is from Crooks & Liars "Video Cafe" -


A conservative radio host says that the Catholic nuns who have embarked on a nine-state bus tour to protest the injustice of Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) proposed budget deserve to be beaten with a handgun because they "threw the first punch."

"There's a bus full of nuns headed towards Washington to lobby against the Ryan plan" radio host Jan Mickelson told Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA) last week.  "Do you guys, do you have any power to pull the nuns on the bus over and pistol whip them>"

[Note the lack of civility, decency, common sense, or understanding of the freedoms guaranteed to the people by the U.S. Constitution.  This seems to be representative of GOPers and their sharks in the media waters these days!]


C & L notes:  "The non-partisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities found that nearly two-thirds of the cuts proposed in Ryan's budget would be to programs serving low-income Americans, while ... [his] tax cuts would largely benefit millionaires.  People making more than $1 million a year would see a 12.5 percent increase in after-tax income but those making less than $20,000 would see ... [a] decrease of 0.2 percent or less."

The Corporate Oligarchy rules. Heil to the Corporate Oligarchy!

The Corporate Oligarchy rules in these 50 states and thanks is largely due to the United States Supremes who made a decision not so long ago called "Citizens United" which basically gave away the political power in this country to those who have all the money...the corporate oligarchs!


Today, the Supremes went further:


The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down Montana's century-old limits on corporate political spending, putting an end to the state's resistance to Citizens United and effectively expanding that controversial ruling to the state and local elections."


The State of Montana had a law in place to counter unlimited corporate spending on elections in that state.  No more.



A dictatorship may arise from several different sources and for different reasons.  A dictatorship run by oligarchs is just as bad as a dictatorship run by any other person or group.  Money and power is what it's all about and money and power are the twin goals, fueled by greed, of the corporate oligarchs.  

Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent in this 2012 election by ultra-rich, right-wing persons who, in cahoots with the corporate oligarchs, are committed to do whatever is necessary to bring President Obama down.  The GOP nominee-to-be, Willard Romney, is or soon will be, meeting secretly with a number of the richest people/corporate representatives in the country to devise further strategies to elect persons who will destroy Obama and fulfill their dreams of total control.

This cabal of nogoodniks have very successfully convinced millions of Americans that the president is working against their best interests when, in reality, the reverse is true.  Although it is hard to believe, a majority of Republican voters, still insist that Obama is a Muslim.  Much of the credit for that must be laid at the feet of FAUX News and other sources funded by the Corporate Oligarchs.

Last evening our local NBC outlet aired an interview with Marco Rubio, the Republican nogoodnik from Miami (who once infamously claimed he and his family were part of those "poor" Cubans who snuck out of Cuba by the skin of their teeth, when in fact he came from a very well-to-do clan that had no problem bringing their wealth into the United States and who also seems to be a prime candidate for Mr. Romney's second-in-command) in which Rubio told lie after lie about President Obama with complete impunity!  NBC, you see, is one of the Corporate Oligarchies!

Read the entire sad story as to how the majority of the U.S. Supremes (at least the ones appointed by G.W. Bush and his father) have sold out and are now controlled by the Corporate Oligarchy in this country and around the world.  I say, "around the world," for we are not an isolated country in any sense of the word; we are tied tightly to most, if not all, of the countries, and the Corporate Oligarchs' reach extends through their business and financial holdings into the world of every Tom, Dick, and Mary in the United States and everywhere.  U.S. Corporate Oligarchs are wedded to the Corporate Oligarchs in every other country!

What the Supremes have done is open a floodgate of secret funding of elections in the United States.  U.S. Corporate Oligarchs are now able to buy any election they so desire.  Corporate Oligarchs from, say Saudi Arabia, or perhaps Iran, are now able, through secret financial donations, to influence and perhaps control our voting booths.  


The end result of this chicanery, set in motion by a majority of the U.S. Supremes, is yet to be discovered.  You can, however, bet your last dollar (and it may well be your last dollar unless you're one of the 2% in this country) that you're not going to like it.  

This may sound melodramatic - as did resistance to Hitler in the 1920s and early 1930s - but the American democratic experience is over.  Our country is no longer "of the people, by the people, for the people," or however you want to express the fact that our Constitution invests the power of self-government in the nation's citizenry.  Our country has been fundamentally changed from government by the people to government by the Corporate Oligarchy.  As we write these words, representatives of the Corporate Oligarchy are writing laws for members of Congress to pass which provide them with the benefits they most desire.  As we write these words, representatives of the Corporate Oligarchy are spending millions upon millions of secretly-donated dollars to promote the destruction of President Obama and more importantly, the country that we know and love.d



Lest you think the American corporate Oligarchy would never stoop so low, remember that during our war with the Nazis, known as World War II, the Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and IBM were among the American companies that provided technology, machines, and support for the Nazi war effort!  The Holocaust as we know it would not have been possible without the assistance of International Business Machines!  Remember that the head of the General Motors corporation devised several secret efforts to bring down the president of the United States during those war years!

The decision of the Supremes to strike down the Montana law is the latest example of how the Corporate Oligarchy rules.

Heil to the Corporate Oligarchy!

[Read all about the Montana decision here.]